recently ive been filling up the select button discord with the finer parts of my attempted playthrough of fire emblem: birghtright that I got for my birthday this last weekend
if you played Fire Emblem: Awakening you’ll probably understand that the series has recently taken a huge turn into incorporated some kind of limited dating sim elements. in previous fire emblems (since path of radiance I think) putting two dudes on the field next to eachother in combat would leave them gaining support levels that increased how much they could participate in combat and would give them an interesting conversation after each mission
awakening (im pretty sure don’t quote me) introduced character marriage which meant you could make your army one big cesspool of sex & filth that would sometimes result in your characters having children. due to Time Fuckery you could later go and get these children and indoctrinate them in to your vicious War Army and then marry them off again right after
Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright (fire emblem If in japan, thanks smt) pushes this level further: no longer can you simply rally support and marry off your soldiers, now your main character has the option of inviting every soldier in their army back to their casa. I mean the game has some cheesy dialogue that always implies more happens than wut u see. you get a close up of the 3D model used in the pre-rendered cutscenes usually bobbing or swaying and blushing and occasionally jiggling.
the fact that you can equip every soldier in your army to be wearing nothing but bath towels is even better. you can turn Submissive Maid Girl (whos level up quote asks of you: “Does this please you? 
” into Submissive Maid Girl in Glasses. you can pair her with Really Nice Ninja Boy and they might have a child.
child bearing is an essential part of the game: only when maxing out relationships can characters be Betrothed and then soon pop out a Young 1. Young 1’s are immediately available fully-grown due to Nonsense Time Fuckery/The Astral Plane to be incorporated into your forces. it is then possible to marry them off and have them have kids with your other soldiers
Fire Emblem: Awakening marked the slide into Anime Territory, then fates is like full on dating sim. all of the characters in this game are pure Dating Sim Archetypes like Precocious Schoolgirl and Muscle Sports Girl.
this is Energetic, if Dumb Youth. I matched him with Dour Dark Girl because Anime Shipping is something I take Very Seriously. even when someone is betrothed, you can still invite them back to your pad for some good old face staring. in the Japanese version its face rubbing. the us version cut out the Rub Times but you still get the animations to play on each successful heart level you gain.
as the Invisible Eugenecist Hand of Fate in ym armys love lives I had a glorious task laid at my feet. not only does it become the players job to match these people, but only some pairings will result in children. to make matters worse: the stats of your Idiot Child are determined by the stats of the parent. in order to get the best possible outcome you have to play the Eugenics Lottery and only match parents with good stat growth in relation to the class of the child. it can quickly turn into a Wiki Wednesday.
I decided to go another route: if it is my job (duty actually) to match these Lost Souls to find out if Love Can Bloom on the Battlefield then I would ride my horse into the relationship sunset. I had to create couples worth Actual Love.
I had to turn Fire Emblem: Birthright into a shipping fanfic.
it means even knowing that Nice Ninja Boy and Submissive Incompetent Maid Girl will not have a fertile relationship that I shouldn’t weigh relationships by whether or not they have kids. Some couples aren’t meant for children and that’s true even in the world of Fire Emblem. She deserved to be matched with someone with the skills to make up in the areas she lacked and was frustrated by.
this means that I had to match Shrine Maiden Miko Girl who is uhh, kind of vaguely turned on by death with Ninja Daddy. this means that I had to match my main character, a red headed youth I named like Kenneth or something with the only match that made logical sense:
His sister.
(that’s his sister: the red hair was a coincidence)
I mean it makes sense: in the infinite realm of anime, do I not have the ability to live out my Oreimo fantasies? isn’t it my solemn duty that if available my main character deserves to fall in love with the one person who will uh, fuck wow I should really end this here huh haha
anyway I actually decided his sister was Anime Hotter and I had to find out if the game would let me marry a blood relative: spoilers: it totally does
when you get Crom (the canon name for your dude) and Hinoka to the highest level of support they have a conversation where Hinoka reveals her True Feelings. Crom is pretty freaked out by this and tells her that these feelings need to be buried forever.
this is when she pulls out Your Dead Mom’s Incest Letter where your dead mom reveals that your dad isn’t really your dad, making Hinoka only your half sister: which is totally okay. Crom decides this is the best course of action
you can still invite other women back to the house:
next up: can my sister wifes child marry and have another kid in my army: an experiment.
