#few:3h spoilers

[nikibogwater]

Niki Thoughtdumps about Claude in Three Hopes:

Claude’s arc in Three Hopes is a perfect inverse of who he became in Three Houses. Rather than growing into a thoughtful and benevolent leader who achieves everything he set out to do, Claude’s journey in Three Hopes is, ironically enough, a story about losing hope. And the catalyst for it is the execution of Prince Shahid. Which, if I really think about it, is the only way you could break a guy like Claude.

Right out of the gate, Three Hopes Claude is shown to be anxious and uncertain about his standing as the leader of the Alliance. He acts confidant and self-assured because he knows how dangerous it is to show any weakness at this time, especially considering the fact that he’s already on thin ice due to his Almyran heritage. But despite all of this pressure and anxiety, he’s still trying to achieve his goals of a new and better Fódlan with as little bloodshed as possible.

But then comes the fight with Prince Shahid.

Claude being forced to kill his  brother is a major turning point in his character for Three Hopes. Prior to the battle with Shahid, Claude still sounded a lot like his Three Houses self--maybe a little more vulnerable, but still hopeful and idealistic, with a sincere desire to save every life possible. Killing his brother was a severe blow to his ideals. For all his dreams of saving and protecting people, he can’t do anything to save Shahid--and worse still, ending Shahid’s life is his responsibility. He risks appearing weak as a leader if he doesn’t do it himself. Claude is essentially forced to uphold the tradition of war and intolerance that he has so desperately wanted to dismantle, because despite all his hopes and efforts, he couldn’t get through to Shahid.

I think it’s extremely telling that the chapter after this reveals a massive shift in Claude’s priorities. He’s stopped placing infinite value on every given life, stopped trying to be a savior. Instead, he looks out only for his own best interests, prioritizing the safety of his own people above all others. He no longer seems quite as concerned with the fate of Fódlan at large. Rather, he dedicates himself to ensuring, through any means possible, that his lands and people will be kept free and safe. It felt very....eerie to me, to hear Claude say that his new goal was to kill Rhea and dismantle the entire Central Church. While Three Houses Claude was always rightfully critical of the Central Church and fought for reform, he was never this blatantly antagonistic towards the Archbishop. In Three Hopes though, Claude gives Rhea the same treatment he had to dole out to his brother. And it makes sense, if you think about it from his perspective. What’s the point in reaching out and trying to understand, trying to make connections and working together to fix what’s broken, if he’s just going to be shot down for it? 

What’s the point of hoping for something better when this is the reality you live in? A reality where peace cannot be bought with anything less than bloodshed, a reality where love and good intentions are wasted on those who refuse to hear you out. 

It’s a really sad story, and one that left me feeling very conflicted. But it’s a well-told one all the same. And I don’t think they could have told this story as effectively if it had happened to anyone other than Claude von Riegan. 

#fire emblem #fire emblem warriors: three hopes #few:3h #few:3h spoilers #claude von riegan #niki rambles #the author in me is going YES. GOOD WRITING. EXCELLENT USE OF TRAGEDY TO BREAK DOWN A CHARACTER #but the fangirl in me is going NOOOO MY POOR BABY BOI LEAVE HIM ALONE!!!!

[olliezangg]

The demo is finally out and I’m really enjoying it, so there are some doodles 

#fire emblem #fire emblem warriors three hopes #few 3h #dimitri alexandre blaiddyd #dedue molinaro #ashe ubert #blue lions #shez #few3h spoilers

[asperrusual]

some lingering 3H questions:

how the fuck did thales disrupt byleth’s divine pulse when jeralt was being killed and why did he never attempt to do it again?

how exactly does monica have macuil’s crest when it’s implied he hated humans too much to ever share his blood with them?

what is the deal with the crest of ernest? no one with it was among the saints, the elites, or the apostles. there’s neither a sacred or relic weapon associated with it and was apparently “lost to history”. is that nabatean still alive? if so, where the hell are they? and why is anna the only one to have their crest? are they secretly the progenitor of all the annas across the series and that’s the reason they all have that weird nurse joy thing going on?

how the hell do all the wolves just happen to have major crests? yuri got his directly through aubin sure, and balthus might be in a similar boat, but what about hapi and constance? like, among everyone born with an inherited crest at the time of the game, less than 10% of them have major ones. did cornelia’s experimenting turn hapi’s crest into a major one?

seriously, what the hell happened to patricia after duscur?

#not including literally everything about shez bc i imagine that's gonna be covered in the dlc #(... there's gotta be dlc in the works. right? they'd be stupid not to) #fire emblem #fire emblem three houses #fe:3h #fire emblem warriors three hopes #few:3h #spoilers

[saeraas]

Sylvain Jose Gautier, whose intrigal character trait is that he developed a deep hatred and distrust of women because he believed they only desired him for his crest and being a future margrave thus leading him to be a careless womanizer, when asked on a date by Yuri and Yuri musing that being with a "margrave-to-be" would be able to secure his future and Sylvain immediately folded. it's like he finally realized he liked men because that sentence is no different than what he thought women were interested in him for lol

#fe3h #fire emblem three hopes #few:3h #i need to play this game #heard the localization team is the same as awakening and echoes so it's gotta be better that 3h's localization #spoilers #diversity win! the local misogynist found out he's bi!

[butwhatifidothis]

three hopes confirms the teachers theory ( basically that edelgqard didnt hire the bandits to actually kill any of the students but to get rid of the professor and replace him/her with jeritza edelgard was literally taking the other 2 to safety. ) at the time people theorized the goal would be espionage but now its revealed thep lan was to save monica by using jeritza positon ( jeritza would be the one to break protocol and go into fortress (further than the other 1/2

if there's a 2/2 then it got ate, sorry!

3Hopes is, um. Very contentious when it comes to "proving" any one thing or the other. In just the demo it's already outright retconned hard-canon facts. For example:

Caspar not understanding why Petra would be... awkward around his father in 3Hopes directly goes against his first support with her in 3H, where he knows out the gate that his dad murdered hers. He knows this "recently" - recently, and this support chain is available immediately, meaning well before the time period 3Hopes is set in.

Rufus being a politically savvy, tormented kinslayer is certainly interesting, but literally everything we learn about him details him as a useless womanizer with no talent for politics, so him "being known" for the former is... not exactly congruent with what we knew of him before.

Monica being someone that was oh so loyal to Edelgard and was one of her most loyal servants and Edelgard knowing her personally either means that 1) this relationship is completely 3Hopes fanfiction, as Edelgard literally never mentions the real Monica once, ever, to anyone, and doesn't even pretend to be saddened at the heavy implication of her death by Kronya's hand in 3H, or 2) Monica was close with Edelgard, and Edelgard only didn't rescue her in 3H because it wasn't convenient enough for her and didn't care for Monica on a personal level despite knowing her personally, going so far as to willingly work with Monica's murderers without telling Monica's father any of this and letting him stew in despair. Which drives him to steal a Relic for leverage to save the dead Monica, which leads to his death. Cool!

And besides, this... doesn't even change anything? Like, alright, let's accept that part of Edelgard's plan was to install Jeritza as professor in 3H. So, you're saying that her OG plan, in the OG game, was to:

Hire bandits to scare off one singular professor

Not get ANYONE ELSE either frightened off or hurt in any way

Hope that Jeritza gets assigned to any class despite clearly being unqualified to straight up lead a classroom and not just be a weapons instructor, which 3Hopes explicitly shows to be the case (randomly leaving in the middle of class, never speaking with the students, not caring for safety, openly talking about shit like "blood scents") - else why wouldn't he just be a professor already, he's been there for ~2 years by the start of 3H.

Hope that her class - or the one Jeritza is leading - is the one assigned with chasing down the bandits, and not the Knight of Seiros who don't know about Monica being a captive

Somehow know that Monica is still alive - after months of being in captivity, which has no reason for anyone to think would happen because it makes no sense to keep her alive that long if they were just going to kill her and nothing else between the time she was captured to the time she's rescued in 3Hopes, which is at minimum multiple months.

And all of this, to save Monica... who, again, Edelgard literally never mentions caring about whatsoever at any point in all of 3H.

And which like... isn't mutually exclusive with the idea that she wanted to also assassinate Dimitri and Claude. Because, and I bring up the big 'ol question again, why would Claude run away from a completely safe situation? He himself says that he, Edelgard, and Dimitri were separated from everyone else, with no objection from Edelgard or Dimitri in describing their situation that way - and in that situation, it would make more sense for him to run, because it'd be just three people against an entire band of bandits. Edelgard takes them "to safety" because Claude ran away, which she didn't plan for and must now work around. And with her knowing about the bandits beforehand, she would have known not let to them be separated from everyone else in the first place if she really wanted Dimitri and Claude safe.

Which she doesn't. Because Edelgard wants them dead. Because she wants to conquer Fodlan - which we now double know for a fact, if we take 3Hopes as canon, is something she wanted independent of TWS "forcing" her, because she boots Arundel out of Enbarr, cuts ties with TWS, and still declares war on the Church and still plans to conquer the neutral Alliance. Which in 3Hopes we know she did with no attempts at negotiations with Claude, meaning she always planned on doing so and nothing Claude could say would change that. And with her declaring war on the Church after her "reforms" were implemented - meaning, the Church didn't do anything to prevent her from changing Adrestia, and in fact actively helped her in clearing out the Imperial palace, and she still declares war on it. So her nonsensical plan to save this girl she suddenly cares about does not erase her actions, nor does it say that she wasn't trying to kill people she planned on killing anyway regardless

#ask #anon #anti edelgard #anti-edelgard #edelgard critical #edelgard discourse #just to be safe #fire emblem warriors three hopes spoilers #fire emblem warrior: three hopes spoilers #fire emblem warriors: three hopes #fire emblem warriors three hopes #few3h #fewth #few3h spoilers #fewth spoilers #few: th spoilers #few: 3h spoilers #few: 3h #like if ANYTHING 3Hopes proves just how completely asinine an idea Teach Theory is #because Jeritza acting as a professor would ONLY work in literally the most contrived and force situation possible #*forced #which is what 3Hopes presents #because Jertiza IS NOT fit to lead a classroom in ANY capacity which the game blatantly shows off #3Hopes shows that making 3H's prologue anymore complicated than ''Edelgard tried and failed to assassinate Dimitri and Claude'' #bends the plot around far too much to be believable as something she could have actually planned for #and not something that literally just so happened to line up completely perfectly outside of her control - which is what happens

[claire-lyindecisive]

Adrestian Nobility, circa. 1185

Depicted in the portrait above are Edelgard von Hresvelg (right) and Ferdinand von Aegir (left). It is the only known post-war portrait of the two to survive the fall of the Empire.

#fire emblem #few3h #few:3h #fire emblem warriors three hopes #fire emblem warriors 3 hopes #fire emblem warriors three hopes spoilers #(somewhat) #azure gleam #ferdinand von aegir #fe3h ferdinand #edelgard von hresvelg #fe3h edelgard #my art #cross posted on twitter #I think Hubert’s super dead tbh #but Ferdie’s crest of Cichol… #anyways someone pls talk to me about their fate it’s been eating me up for MONTHS

[cobwebinthecorner]

THEY ARE ALL GREAT

Yeah, about half of them just look like an in-between or a kinda lesser version of their time skip designs but just to comment on them in no particular order

I love that Hilda's hairstyle is different for each of her designs. The cloak is also great too. She's just trying a bunch of things out and all of them work. I love it.

Ignatz really looks like he's in the process of coming into his own with this design. He looks more confident in general and I love his paint splatter bow attack thingy.

Leonie... idk, she just kinda looks like one of those in-betweens; gameplay-wise she looks fucking FIERCE though. You can tell she's definitely gone through some character development in-between the School Arc and this game.

Raphael is just... there's no fucking doubt at this point that they just designed him with pro wrestlers in mind this entire time. I was already feeling hints of Andre the Giant from him in Three Houses, but this time they didn't even try to hide it. He's literally just Hulk Hogan for this one.

Lorenz looks good, I actually kinda prefer this to his full timeskip design. You can tell he hasn't been introduced to Hot Topic/Spencer's or MCR/P!ATD yet, but he's clearly gotten to that point by the War Arc in Three Houses.

Claude is another one of those in-betweens, but he looks way more like a leader than he ever did in the School Arc, and it obviously only gets better after the events of this game.

I don't have all that much to say about Lysithea except that I like the longer hair and the pretty dress. She probably hits like a truck in this game too.

Saved the best for last. Best girl Marianne. My 3H waifu. What can I say, she's just perfect. I'm also starting to think I just have a thing for characters voiced by Xanthe Huynh. Or maybe it's just Xanthe herself that I have a crush on. Anyways, I absolutely love her semiskip design. Her outfit is beautiful, her long hair is beautiful, and I absolutely love that she gets Dorte as part of her moveset.

Edit: also @yusuke-of-valla and @lyteupthenyte thank you so much for being generally awesome and super into this too, it's really nice to have other people who I'm sorta close with on Tumblr that are as enthusiastic and excited about this stuff as i am. it just feels good to be able to share something with others since irl I've never really had that

#posts fully endorsed by cobweb #few:3h #few3h #few:th #few3h spoilers #fire emblem #fire emblem three hopes spoilers #fire emblem three hopes #fire emblem three houses #fe3h #fe:3h #fe claude #claude von riegan #fe lorenz #lorenz hellman gloucester #fe hilda #hilda valentine goneril #fe marianne #marianne von edmund #best girl marianne #fe ignatz #ignatz victor #fe lysithea #lysithea von ordelia #fe raphael #raphael kirsten #fe leonie #leonie pinelli #golden deer #i love my wacky book club/theater kids so much

[iturbide]

Optimistic Anon here: perhaps the true terror is that FEW3H Claude is going to be just as *divisive* as FE3H Edelgard was. ._.

I

mmmn

optimistic!anon I may have some dire news from the front regarding the prospects for your continued playthrough

(major spoilers for FEW3H Golden Wildfire below you have been warned)

so to start with yes I am 100% okay with spoilers (I just make sure to tag for the sake of other people who want to go spoiler free because I Understand and Respect That and want to make sure their experiences are as easy to curate as possible) -- and honestly with how I've been on the fence about this game, I appreciate the advance info since it's helping me to temper some of my expectations before I inevitably go in. You are frankly a hero and I applaud you for your service relaying this information.

But you have to understand the emotions I went through reading all that

Duscur 2.0:

"The Church is to blame because it forces obligations on people with Crests" (based on no digging)?:

Eager to kill someone an move on/endorsing murder as a first resort??:

KILLING RHEA??? TO END THE WAR FOR???? REASONS?????:

Is it. Is it because he's the least popular of the three Lords? Is that why they decided to do this? Because they figured most people wouldn't notice or care if they did so long as the Edelgard's and Dimitri's routes were handled better?? Is that why they did this???

Again, I have not played and I'm still keeping an ear (and inbox!) open for more input as people play, but this is. This is more dire than I think I'd been expecting. I need to lay down.

#answered #anonymous #fire emblem warriors: three hopes #fewth spoilers #will this be what revives spite project #or any of my 3h projects #the need to set things right after the murder of my boy #i follow a few claude fans so i'm keeping an eye on their blogs #to see their reactions as they play #one who i know has the game has been very quiet #i hope they're doing okay

[krshush]

Playing more FE:3 Hopes and MAN. You FULLY interrupt the story as it was, huh. I don't know what else I expected or why I expected else, but I'm finding it fun/interesting to see roll out

#K.R. shush #K.R. can't play FEW:3H #FE:3Hopes Spoilers /

[v5hadow]

Flayn? Why you so enamored with archers? Or at least I'm going to assume that with MC, Ashe, Dorothea, and your dad being the only available and I distinctly remembering you seemed to have the most defined scenes with Ignatz...

Also why so few support convos for some of these characters? Like Hapi has none with original Blue Lions in this game. Bernadetta has one with a single person from each house outside her original apparently? Is it bad that's my minimum expectation on the fluffy part of the game?

#few:3h #3 hopes spoilers #supports #i wasnt expecting a lot #just a minimum of at least one per house who isnt your main

[fireemblems24]

So now that you’ve had a good few chapters of playing Hopes any thoughts on the characters’ portrayals in Hopes so far compared to how you thought of them in 3H? For me I definitely have some Takes™️ on the way certain characters ended up being handled in Hopes vs 3H. For the sake of spoilers the only take I will mention at the moment is that Hopes!Caspar SUCKS.

Like they took everything I hated about CF!Caspar and then dialed that up to a hundred. I hate how much of a violent warmonger he is. I hate how much of a moron they make him! Like he has his dense moments in 3H but in Hopes it’s like he’s an actual dumbass (derogatory) with that whole “chapper” excuse of a joke or him somehow not understanding why the people his side are invading would not hold back against his side when they get the chance to strike back. Like what happened to the non-CF Caspar who would understand when other characters expressed negative feelings towards Adrestia because he was aware of the Empire’s past interactions with other countries? The Caspar who would even feel guilt and responsibility for such pain even though he personally didn’t take part in those conflicts, just because he’s his father’s son? The Caspar who had an extremely complex talk with Catherine about ideals in battle and trying to do the right thing?

Sorry for the rant when I just wanted to get your opinion, it’s just that Caspar’s characterization in Hopes is one of the ones I feel strongest about because of how mad I got with it. Turning the goofy and dense but surprisingly compelling and endearing Caspar into THAT was something.

Whoever you are OP, you are completely right about Hopes!Caspar.

Caspar was never a character I paid much attention too or felt strongly about, but I'm offended by his portrayal in Hopes. I can't imagine how upset people who followed him more feel.

I'm a bit lacking on my Caspar lore, so bear with me, but in Hopes his character revolves almost entirely around pleasing his father and smashing things. Other than that, there's nothing to him. Even someone who doesn't remember a whole lot of details about Caspar knows that's short-changing him.

Where's his friendship with Linhardt? Where's his fear-mixed-with-respect more complicated relationship he had with his father? Where's the guy who called Edelgard out for using him as a talking point for her own views rather than learning how he felt about anything first? Where's the guy who learned more empathy from Ashe and their discussion about thieves?

To be honest, I don't like CF!Caspar either. It seems only when he's forced to fight against the Empire (his people) that he takes war seriously and realizes that "real people" are dying rather than treating it like a jolly good time and chance to just smash things to death for fun. So maybe this is just further proof that Caspar is insufferable unless he fights against the Empire, because that's the only way for him to identify strongly enough with who's dying for him to grow some perspective. Hopes is made worse though, since he's regressed to just letting his dad decide everything and Shez doesn't call Caspar out like Byleth did in CF.

Alois is another one who was done dirty big time. He's nothing but a Jeralt simp with no mention ever of his kids or wife. It's like they took everything endearing about him and deleted it. It's criminal what they did to him.

Of course, there's also, I'm sure, lots of talk about Claude, but that's a whole other can of worms that I'll hold off on until I finish the game.

#fire emblem #fire emblem three hopes #three hopes #caspar von bergliez #caspar fire emblem

[nikibogwater]

Every single one of Felix’s supports in Three Hopes so far has just been someone going “Aww, Felix, you’re so sweet! I love you too, buddy!” and Felix, who has basically said nothing but insults for the duration of this conversation, being very upset that nobody will let him be a cold heartless bastard. 

#fire emblem #fire emblem warriors: three hopes #few:3h #few:3h spoilers #felix hugo fraldarius #ngl I do genuinely have a soft spot for this big failure of a jerk lol

[silent-partner-412]

I’m baffled by the S supports in Engage. (spoilers for a few of them below)

I save scummed to see six of them: Fogado, Diamant, Alcryst, Seadall, Pandreo, and Ivy as the token straight one to see the difference. The way these conversations were written were… bizarre, to say the least. I guess to start, of the ones I read that were reported to be blatantly romantic, the only ones that actually felt as romantic as the ones from 3H were Pandreo and Seadall, weirdly enough. I actually really enjoyed how both of those were written and were great moments for all characters involved. Shockingly, I thought the conversations for Diamant and Ivy were very tame (especially Diamant’s), which I was not expecting at all considering how popular those two characters are (and also the fact that gender doesn’t impact things basically at all). I was honestly a bit disappointed by both of them, I thought Ivy would go apeshit based on her C-A supports, and everybody seems to think Diamant is like the prime boyfriend of this game, but they were both just kinda whatever to me.

Alcryst’s was actually great, mostly because I thought it was a great capstone for him as a character. I really loved seeing his character growth as I watched more of his B and A supports and this was probably his best moment for that yet. It wasn’t explicitly romantic by any means but it was certainly not hard to read it that way which I really liked. I wish they would’ve made it more explicit but either way this one wasn’t too bad.

Then we have Fogado, who… jesus. This support, the way it was voiced and the way it was written (mostly) came off romantically to me. The problem is… it was obviously censored. Somehow, this conversation was localized so that Fogado wants Alear to be his special “ally” for the rest of time, which… I think speaks for itself in terms of how awkward that sounds. If they were trying to censor it for whatever reason they did a really bad job because it still sounded like a confession of love, but the word they chose just made it sound stupid as hell lol. I have no idea why they did it this way, and it’s especially disappointing cuz he’s my favorite character and I was planning on going for him as my end game.

The whole thing is… weird. It’s been reported that a lot of them were censored/changed for one reason or another, and you can really tell that’s what they were going for with Fogado’s specifically. But even then, Diamant’s was reported to be explicitly romantic, which I definitely didn’t see it when I read through his. It seems like this was just a weirdly localized mechanic honestly, I wish they would’ve just bit the bullet and made all of them (minus the small children of course) explicitly romantic if only for the sake of consistency, cuz at it is it’s just weird.

#fire emblem #engage #fe engage #fire emblem engage #fe17 #diamant #alcryst #fogado #seadall #fe ivy #pandreo #probably still gonna pick fogado tho #he’s my boy and there was clearly something there with him and alear #they’re ally’s who happen to kiss each other to sleep gayly

[femblem-emblem]

FE3H lords as FE7 lords

(Spoilers for both games.) I've seen a few takes on this but mine is:

Claude takes Lyn's role. He's most separated from the main story, but he's still a leader. Sacae and Almyra have similar aesthetics and reputation. I would love to pit him against Marquis Araphen. Erk and Serra become Lorenz and Lysithea, and we can even keep our mediocre archer.

Hector and Dimitri would be the biggest bros anyway. Hector is very willing to murder, although he knows it's not his story so he manages to hold back most of the time. Hector "I don't know who's responsible, so I'm going to kill you all!" of Ostia and Dimitri "Kill every last one of them!" Blaiddyd. Oswin's role easily goes to Dedue. Uther? Rodrigue.

Eliwood is Seteth. Both of them are the more level and cautious protagonists. Seteth and Flayn as Ninian and Nils might be the more obvious pick, but Seteth is the de facto lord of Silver Snow, and he cares for Rhea just as valiantly as Eliwood cares for Ninian. Flayn takes the role of Nils - she joins early, after all.

So Edelgard? Brendan Reed.

The Black Fang Strike Force used to be a necessary force for good. Holding the nobility accountable, by whatever means necessary? Edelgard would be fully behind that mission. But then morphs (TWSITD) corrupt it from the top down. Instead of Sonia, we have Arundel. The morphs already replace people. Whether this becomes a good ending for the Black Fang where Edelgard achieves her goals, or whether it's left to the traditional lords to take them out, depends on where Byleth-Mark ends up.

(Bonus: Caspar would do exactly what Linus did.)

Yuri is basically young Legault already, so that accounts for the last 3H lord. Maybe he gets to steal a bit of Jaffar's role for story importance.

#hi to the friends who had to listen to this the first time #fe3h #fe7

[nadziejastar]

Absolutely love your akusai analysis stuff its so good omg.

Do you have any more thoughts on them?

Thank you for the kind words, I really appreciate it! As for my thoughts on Akusai, well, after beating Fire Emblem Three Houses recently, I do have a few thoughts. I know, I'm late to the party on 3H. (I actually loved 3H and would love to write metas about those ships lol). But anyways, regarding Akusai. It's a bit of a rant and there's minor spoilers for FE3H, so I'll put it under the cut.

Okay, so Sylvix felt like it was everything Akusai was supposed to be. It touched on all the same themes, too. In 3H, you've got a childhood friend trio. The standard two males and a female. On the surface it seems like the girl and the outgoing redhead goofball are a thing. But they treat each other more like bros. He and the quiet blue-haired sword guy had a much more intimate bond with each other, complete with a special promise™ to always be together and redhead being protective of blue. The redhead never wants to grow up and change because he doesn't wanna fulfill the heteronormative life script of getting married and having kids.

He is longing to go back to his childhood days but is sad at how much blue has changed since they were kids and has apparently outgrown their closeness. He hides his angst behind a smile and womanizing. Blue was once a meek clingy crybaby but now he is surly and obsessed with growing stronger. Deep down he is still an uke who secretly longs to be redhead's waifu. But he has a lot of shame related to his sensitivity and gender nonconformity. He distances himself from others, but boy does he get irritated if redhead flirts with anyone else.

I do wish the game would have just come right out and tell you that they're gay for each other (and so does this gaming site). I get why it didn't. Still, it didn't really hide it too much. They have a paired ending where they spend their whole lives playfully teasing each other like just when they were kids, never get married, and die together in each other's arms. It's the most romantic ending in the whole game, if you ask me. And Sylvix is SUPER popular and well received by the fandom. Both in Japan and the West. They have soooo much fan content. There are still some dudes who say they're just friends because ew icky gay. But most people in the fandom are able to tell they're queer-coded and are fine with it. In fact, the fandom was so fine with it that they released an overtly queer dude in the DLC, strictly due to popular demand.

3H is not a slam dunk with gay romance since much of it (particularly MLM) relies on subtext. But it still had more balls than most JRPG series and it definitely was a step in the right direction. We all know that Soriku is the most popular ship. The end of KH2 was total fujoshi fuel. But Soriku never had any chance in hell of being canon. KH is a video game shonen anime. Sora/Riku bromance is "safe". They can capitalize on shipteasing them to their female fans, but they won't alienate their male fans because Kairi is still very obviously the love interest for Sora. I found Akusai to be a lot more compelling because it was legitimately queer-coded.

Axel was queer-coded from the very beginning. His close friendship with Roxas in KH2 made people question his sexuality all the way back in 2006 and Akuroku rivaled Soriku for a time. And I do think that Axel always meant to be queer. Although personally, I did not get the impression that he was in love with Roxas. I got the sense that he probably had a best friend back when he was a human. And it was this dead best friend that he truly yearned for. The sweet and innocent Roxas reminded Axel of his human best friend and he latched onto him to help him forget the memories of days long past. That was my headcanon back in 2006 when KH2 first came out.

So, I was really happy when Days/BBS came out and it basically confirmed my theory that Axel was truly hung up on his human best friend and saw Roxas as a kind of replacement for him. And Isa was also very queer-coded. BBS!Isa has a more distinctly feminine design than any other boy in the series. He had very girlsh eyes and lips, small hands, long hair. And Saix's Mystery Gear is very cutesy-looking. Traditionally, the moon is viewed as a feminine symbol. And Saix's weapons in 358/2 Days were named after moon goddesses. They could have easily picked male moon gods, but they chose female goddesses like Selene and Artemis. It signifies to the player that, "Hey, this character does not follow the conventional gender stereotypes."

When you play 358/2 Days, and you get to the part where Axel is talking about love, you realize he's talking about his most precious memories from his human life, just like with all the other stuff like summer vacation and the red sunset. Akusai was not just superficial fujobait. Even if it was all subtext, it was a genuine depiction of two queer male characters who loved each other romantically. Axel is not straight. That’s a big reason why I was so mad that KH3 pushed their relationship off to the side and treated saving Isa as so much less important compared to saving Roxas. And it was so annoying how Saix had to mention Subject X whenever he might have seemed a little too obsessed with Axel otherwise.

Last year, Nomura said that he intended to show more of Lea and Isa's backstory in the future, so I've just been waiting for more content. I hope that we can get their story without Subject X overshadowing them like she did in KH3. I'm...cautiously optimistic. I expect this subplot to be included in Missing Link, since it is quite literally a missing link of the story. Axel is super popular and a queer-coded backstory with his childhood best friend would be very well received by the modern KH fandom, IMO. People are a LOT more accepting of gay content than they were in 2006. We've come a long way. And personally, I just love the idea that the tough cold asshole Saix's human self was actually a super sweet cutie who was in love with Lea. I really think the KH fandom would love that idea, too, if the writers were ever allowed to actually explore it. And a niche mobile game is probably a safer medium for that type of content than a mainline console game overseen by Disney, I guess. At the very least, if they ever put an Isa figurine into ML, I will whale for it if I have to. 

#kh akusai #kh leaisa

[butwhatifidothis]

Opinion on Claude leaving shez without stable work for like 2 years ? I know the alliance is at peace compared to the empire and kingdom so theres not much work for mercs like Leonie Shez and Shamir but give them a job! Was pretty disappointed with our boy ngl lol

Am I a bad person for not caring that much? lmao

Cuz like, a mercenary not having much to do is, like... a good thing. It means no one needs to be fought off, things are peaceful. Like, yeah rip to the mercs, but hearing about a mercenary not having much to do is like, good news lol.

And I like that that causes conflict between them!! I actually really like that; Claude takes him having Shez stay in the Alliance as - what at least appears to be - a way to keep them safe until they're needed for the war. That can be taken one of two ways - Claude wanting to keep his friend safe until war has him make use of Shez's strength for the sake of the Alliance, or, as Arval and Shez take it, just keeping them around until they're useful to Claude's ambitions, their wants be damned. And you can see that makes Shez upset! And makes Claude feel bad! Which is especially hitting because Claude had already unintentionally messed with Shez's life in the prologue, something that also made him feel bad - to the point where he takes Shez to the side and personally apologizes to them. And specifically promise that he'll find a way to make it up to them. If this was that? And it backfired this hard? Mmmm, juice!

This bit of spice between then two of them is something that is such a breath of fresh air after the lack of any real similar conflict between a character and the player character in 3H, and shows off how much Claude can fumble trying to be sincere with others (or, alternatively, how his capability to use people can blow up in his face - depends on how this is played out in the full game). It's something I really hope the full game capitalizes on in some way and has Claude grow from either way.

It also says a good bit about Shez's character too! How being a mercenary is so ingrained in them that even when things are so peaceful that mercs aren't needed despite it being wartime, they aren't only not happy, they're outright annoyed because it gets in their way of becoming stronger - they clearly have their priorities, and they tie directly to their background as a life-long mercenary. But, they still stayed with Claude despite the two year drought of no work - if becoming stronger was all Shez cared about, they'd have dipped way earlier. But as annoyed and put off as they are about Claude not having any work for them, they still stay by his side until they literally can't scrap by anymore. It implies some level of bond between the two of them, and I'm interested in seeing how that bond will play out once the game drops in full!

#ask #anon #fire emblem warriors three hopes spoilers #fire emblem warrior: three hopes spoilers #fire emblem warriors: three hopes #fire emblem warriors three hopes #fewth #few3h #fewth spoilers #few3h spoilers #few: 3h #few: th #few: 3h spoilers #few: th spoilers #basically I like that Claude didn't behave perfectly and had his flaws showcased #and I hope the game will let him learn from this kind of flaw and essentially give him a more slid character arc in general #especially because this scene is almost right after the one where Claude shows his strengths - pragmatic strategy and politics #when it came to both strategizing how to take on Shahid and managing the restoration of the Locket with Edmund and co #Claude actually being really bad at showcasing his sincerity despite the charming personality he presents was always interesting #and you can see it in the base game too like in Marianne's supports with him where he uh. also fumbles until the A support lol #or again alternatively his using people to his later regret is also something in the base game wrt Byleth #either way I wanna see it explored more!!