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[Fencedude]

Sexuality is fluid bro

And if she were bi I'd totally be onboard with that.

But in this case its literally "She seems to be lesbian but actually isn't!" which...like...do you get how thats not really useful or good representation of "fluid sexuality", even if that was what was intended?

 

[YoYo Switch]

Uhh...thats horrible?

Like, its just as bad as this? Only predicated on the idea that...

wow this is just as bad as the Soleil thing and its sorta scary you don't understand why

Can you please explain to me what I am missing so we can discuss this. I am not your enemy, we're fellow gaffers and this is a discussion board, you feel me?

 

[Pai Pai Master]

Fire emblem has some dumb shit writing sometimes, apparently

 

[Breads]

that is not accurate tho!

It's actually like this: You're a guy on the battlefield. You see a bunch of strong shirtless men, sweating and fighting just being dudes. You're like "holy shit, these guys are so ripped and sweaty and bro-y. i'm so intimidated by them. i cannot stop thinking about these guys"

your bro slips you a potion. all of a sudden, everything is reversed etc. you finally get over it cuz you're not intimidated by girls and at the end you're not gay married because your sexuality had nothing to do with this.

I was with you until that last part. Was it that the character in FE was intimidated by males and that they, the Male MC and the character in question, didn't eventually marry? I was lead to believe otherwise in this scenario.

e:

God damn esl getting to me again. Turning the bros into women worked out for him because they stopped distracting him - gotcha. Still not sure about the not marrying part - this was a major role in contextualizing the outrage.

 

[Fencedude]

I was with you until that last part. Was it that the character in FE was intimidated by males and that they didn't eventually marry? I was lead to believe otherwise.

Its literally the opposite. She is only interested in cute girls, to the point where she gets so overwhelmed by them that she can't function (which is dumb, but whatever). MC then slips her a potion that make MC look like a girl. Girl then falls in love with MC. Potion wears off. Girl is 100% ok with what just happened. Girl is still in love with MC and cute girl problem has been solved (somehow).

Also you can't do this if the MC is a girl. For some reason.

?????

its really bad and dumb.

 

[Ponn]

No, its a problem with how a lot of people in game production (on BOTH sides of the ocean) don't even think about non-straight stuff. At all.

Like, here we finally get characters who can romance the same gender. But only 2. both of which are kinda shitty stereotypes, and they can also romance the oppposite gender.

And then we have Soleil, who comes across as gross queerbaiting and then can only marry men anyway, so why even fucking bother?

Like really, why even make this character like this, what does it add?

Do people actually think "Oh hey you thought she was lesbian? She's actually straight! Isn't that hilarious!?" is actually good? Like, do you think this is at all something that needed to ever be written by anyone? Do you enjoy that kind of character?

Soleil falls into all sorts of gross "gay conversion" stereotypes, most specifically the "oh she's a lesbian but only until she finds the 'right' man", which is one of the most prevalent and still very often encountered ones. You see this all the time and seeing it here isn't any better

Do you guys not understand why this upsets people? Particularly gay people and especially lesbians? This isn't just a "cute cartoon character quirk", its actively harmful to an already marginalized group.

Its really depressing how many people in this thread don't understand the problem.

I understand the problem fine, i wasnt being snarky or sarcastic. The main problem is NO they didnt put a lot of thought into the dating sim parts because its not a dating sim game. Its about expectations and some people, including you, want them to put more into the dating sim aspect then they are obviously willing to do. To me it seems as unrealistic as those that wanted so much more out of the Mass Effect romances. These are side mini game type afterthoughts that are not taking up the bulk of developers time. Im really not sure why developers still keep doing them because people either dont like them and feel they are a waste of resources and distract or in your case not as robust as they want. The developer is just better served to not bother because they are just irritating two groups of people and the buyers need to remember they are buying a srpg and not a dating sim game.

All of that mind you isnt even touching on the the topics controversy, which again would have been avoided by the developer not bothering with dating sim lite mechanic.

 

[Jarate]

And if she were bi I'd totally be onboard with that.

But in this case its literally "She seems to be lesbian but actually isn't!" which...like...do you get how thats not really useful or good representation of "fluid sexuality", even if that was what was intended?

She might not be bi

you seem to think that sexuality is this very rigid thing. She can find women and very cute and flirt with them entirely because she wants to, with literal 0 sexual wants from the female. These arent inherent to being a lesbian or even being bi. She could even find women attractive but not want to be in a romantic relationship with them, which there are women out there who are like that.

She's a poorly written character, in fact i'd argue that she's a shitty character with a trope that makes fairly little sense, but you are giving her a very rigid sexuality based off your predisposition of wanting her to be a lesbian.

 

[Zeta Oni]

So you don't think that a character who is only interested in their gender, spends their time looking at, talking about and flirting with people of their gender, and who's entire character revolves around them finding their same gender attractive is not, actually, supposed to appear gay?

Really?

 

[also]

So you are a-ok with the idea of a character who appears to be gay, acts like she's gay and pretty much is gay...except oops actually she's straight and this was all because of her dad being a womanizer?

Do you not see the issues? Even putting aside the drugging (which I don't like to do because that is still gross and inexcusable)

Um, nowhere is it said that she hits on girls because her dad is a womanizer, which you would know if you watched the video. It's kind of hard to see her as a lesbian when she also hits on her mother.

In what way is the drugging scene gross? Was she taken advantage of? Was she tricked? No and no, she even used the opportunity to have some fun with it.

 

[LiK]

well, I'm glad they took that out.

 

[marmoka]

Good change. What the hell were the Japanese writers thinking?

 

[Griss]

I'll just note my (what seems to be very unpopular) opinion that they should have left it in (if it was even there in the first place). Yeah, it's ludicrously stupid. Yes, it's potentially offensive to gay people. But I don't care - if it's what the original product was I'd like to see both of those things retained and judge it for myself rather than having that done for me.

I'd rather have the original experience without the shitty parts sanded down, thanks. If I wanted all the crap parts of the new Fire Emblem story removed I'm pretty sure that would be over half of it.

 

[DrROBschiz]

I dunno

Its certainly a dumb plotline so its not a big loss that its gone

Doesnt seem overly controversial or offensive though

 

[Fencedude]

She might not be bi

you seem to think that sexuality is this very rigid thing. She can find women and very cute and flirt with them entirely because she wants to, with literal 0 sexual wants from the female. These arent inherent to being a lesbian or even being bi. She could even find women attractive but not want to be in a romantic relationship with them, which there are women out there who are like that.

She's a poorly written character, in fact i'd argue that she's a shitty character with a trope that makes fairly little sense, but you are giving her a very rigid sexuality based off your predisposition of wanting her to be a lesbian.

Do you really think any of that crossed their minds? Do you really think that "oh this is just an example of a bisexual is a-romantically interested in girls but romantically interested in guys" is at all something that was though of? Or something that anyone would even consider for other combinations of the above?

As I said, I'd be totally fine with her being bi (if they could eliminate the drugging bit), but as it stands she's literally an example of an apparent lesbian who gets "straighted" by falling for guys. Which is gross.

Maybe someday you can do a plot where this doesn't come off as grossly offensive, but we are not there now. This sort of story has been played "straight" (lol) for literally centuries and its incredibly harmful to lesbians in particular, but all LGBT people in general. It is explicitly about heterosexuality being the "norm" and other things being "deviant".

I'm sure this is not something they consciously thought of while writing her, but simply writing the character like that, and no one going "hold on a sec this is kinda fucked up" shows that they barely even put any thought into the non-heterosexual side of things.

Like, holy shit, this shouldn't be a hard thing to understand! I'm not sure why this is so hard for people to get.

 

[Kusagari]

Even for anime the character as a whole comes off as really stupid. There's a plethora of girls in anime that act infatuated with other cute girls. But that always entails girls who are or look young. It's obvious they're more just attracted to the cuteness in general. Here it seems like the character in question hits on every girl period, regardless of body type and there is never any indication she is actually attracted to guys until you get her relationship with one she can marry near the max.

It just comes off as a rather banal bait and switch and when combined with the fact she becomes attracted to one of the men she can marry after getting the love drug, just gets grosser.

 

[DNAbro]

Is the face touching and kind of incest still in?

 

[DrROBschiz]

Oh yeah

The druggin bit is the weird one

I mean... its not a date rape drug. Just makes you see people as the opposite sex?

Fuck it, Its so dumb Im glad they took it out lol

 

[Fencedude]

In what way is the drugging scene gross? Was she taken advantage of? Was she tricked? No and no, she even used the opportunity to have some fun with it.

So drugging someone against their will is perfectly fine?

 

[Breads]

I regret trying to contribute to this discussion. The story is actually much worse than I had originally thought. The leaps in logic required for this story to work and the fact that english is not my first language is making this situation very confusing. I don't even know what to make sense of it now that I know that the female MC can't romance this character.

I will say this though - in the LGBT community what you present as is extremely important in matters of the heart and if my understanding of the story is correct then the story itself is fucking stupid.

 

[spekkeh]

Sounds like a storm in a teacup. I'm very much in favor of social justice, but that doesn't mean that categorically every work of fiction needs to moralize into one direction. It's okay to me if some entertainment subverts, pokes fun at or simply stumbles ignorantly in this regard. As long as it's not oppressively so by all media I even welcome a bit of social nonjustice in fiction, if anything it keeps us sharp. It sounds like it should be a bigger deal in Japan, where there is actually a slightly oppressive culture of "it's fine to be gay, as long as you ultimately marry someone from the opposite sex and have a normal family". Over here? Meh.

That said it also sounds kind of tacky, so if it doesn't remove any significant content, again meh.

 

[DrROBschiz]

The story is so awkward and dumb im not even sure what they were trying to represent

 

[Little Mons†er]

Is the face touching and kind of incest still in?

Incest..?

 

[meltingparappa]

My fellow (cartoon) bisexuals are reminded that we don't exist again.

What a surprise.

 

[Jarate]

Do you really think any of that crossed their minds? Do you really think that "oh this is just an example of a bisexual is a-romantically interested in girls but romantically interested in guys" is at all something that was though of? Or something that anyone would even consider for other combinations of the above?

As I said, I'd be totally fine with her being bi (if they could eliminate the drugging bit), but as it stands she's literally an example of an apparent lesbian who gets "straighted" by falling for guys. Which is gross.

Maybe someday you can do a plot where this doesn't come off as grossly offensive, but we are not there now. This sort of story has been played "straight" (lol) for literally centuries and its incredibly harmful to lesbians in particular, but all LGBT people in general. It is explicitly about heterosexuality being the "norm" and other things being "deviant".

I'm sure this is not something they consciously thought of while writing her, but simply writing the character like that, and no one going "hold on a sec this is kinda fucked up" shows that they barely even put any thought into the non-heterosexual side of things.

Like, holy shit, this shouldn't be a hard thing to understand! I'm not sure why this is so hard for people to get.

Straighted out by falling for a guy

-Can romance 5 other male characters in completely different ways...

There is nothing that explicitly mentions that she is any type of sexuality so she can't really be a lesbian becoming straightened out because we don't know if she's a lesbian. Maybe it's a topic that wasn't good for such a miniscule amount of dialogue (we are talking about 4 scenes here) but you seem to think that she's a lesbian, which isnt the case at all which makes you upset, and even if she was a lesbian, you'd still be upset.

So drugging someone against their will is perfectly fine?

Drugging =/= magic

Would you be upset if the MC slid in a magic spell that made her see everyone as pigs instead. It's pretty harmless by the MC and the character does not care in the slightest

 

[Sephiroth_VII]

But we can keep the incest at least right? I need to be able to pet cute girls in my Fire Emblem games.

As they well should. This is ridiculous.

 

[Snakebee]

For the first time, I'm not upset with the localization bullshit NoA has been pulling. Go grab the English patch if you want to play the JP version with all the content intact.

 

[NathanS]

This was literally debunked and taken the incorrect way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iVFPheRegw

Here y'go. This is someone who can read japanese and explains it simply. Wherever this came from, someone got butt-hurt and took it the wrong, stupid way.

I'm shocked that people are actually so simple to get to jump on the bandwagon.

Nothing in that video changes that the main character drugged her without getting permission

Do you not see an issue with that? If so, HOW?

 

[Fencedude]

Drugging =/= magic

Would you be upset if the MC slid in a magic spell that made her see everyone as pigs instead. It's pretty harmless by the MC and the character does not care in the slightest

Uhh,...yes? Thats completely fucked up no matter what?

I don't see how this is at all controversial?

 

[WrenchNinja]

Incest..?

Don't worry. Just like you would expect, you're not actually related to your brother and sister so it's okay.

 

[Busaiku]

I'm ok with this.
But they better not have taken out face touching.

 

[Thud]

Is the face touching and kind of incest still in?

Of course they want to rub it in.

 

[also]

Take a guy who loves women. A womanizer if you will. He's always distracted by women on the battlefield and he needs help composing himself.

So a friend of his, a fellow dudebro, dopes his drink with a concoction that turns the appearance of men into women and by the end of the story arc they are suddenly gay married.

Do you think you might question the issue more then? I ask this because ,as someone in the LGBT community myself, this is how I view the story beats. Regardless of whether or not the character is "actually straight but just attracted to females" is irrelevant. They are presenting as being attracted to a thing, drugged, then marries something else as a direct cause and I think it's a stretch to say people are blowing this out of proportion. Accurate translation or not there are some very bizarre things going on with this story.

:edited multiples times due to esl/ not being sure if my point is adequately being conveyed:

Well, does he literally hit on every cute girl, including his mother? Does he want to overcome this weakness?

And you know, this would be even more relatable because people will, due to pressure from society, repress their homosexuality and act as straight as possible. Having a gender swap moment with a close friend could help him get out of the closet.

 

[sensui-tomo]

Is the face touching and kind of incest still in?

Face touching seems to be in and you shouldnt care about incest,... Thats a staple of Fire emblem from a loooooooong time back.

And to people saying this is censoring (if thats happened... i'm not bothered to check the other pages when i just woke up) This isnt that, you could call it shitty localization (like Zero from Drakengard 3) but not censorship. (Trying to remember the arguement someone had in the other thread that this doesnt seem odd for people who dont view love with gender but more of an essence/soul kinda thing) But if people want the original dialog, just get a hacked 3ds, import the games and download the translation patch, hell you'll get the japanese names too.

Don't worry. Just like you would expect, you're not actually related to your brother and sister so it's okay.

Spoiler

There is still incest, you must have not read the third route.

 

[Hellwarden]

I'm ok with this.
But they better not have taken out face touching.

Damn straight.

I need to be able to reach and touch the things I love.

 

[DrROBschiz]

Straighted out by falling for a guy

-Can romance 5 other male characters in completely different ways...

There is nothing that explicitly mentions that she is any type of sexuality so she can't really be a lesbian becoming straightened out because we don't know if she's a lesbian. Maybe it's a topic that wasn't good for such a miniscule amount of dialogue (we are talking about 4 scenes here) but you seem to think that she's a lesbian, which isnt the case at all which makes you upset, and even if she was a lesbian, you'd still be upset.



Drugging =/= magic

Would you be upset if the MC slid in a magic spell that made her see everyone as pigs instead. It's pretty harmless by the MC and the character does not care in the slightest

You get into weird territory when labeling people with sexual orientation

Unless its very explicit there is no reason to put chains on who and what someone should love. That goes both ways

Who is to say someone who identifies as a lesbian cant love a man. Does she have to argue with people afterwards about whether she is a real lesbian?

The real controversy is the drug but... its so stupid.

I would consider the removal more an editing "cutting room floor" decision at this point lol

 

[Chrom]

For the first time, I'm not upset with the localization bullshit NoA has been pulling. Go grab the English patch if you want to play the JP version with all the content intact.

Technically speaking, there's more cut content in the English translation patch!

 

[Enter The 36 Chambers]

God damn this hobby is dumb as fuck sometimes.

I'm not talking about censorship, I'm talking about this wackadoo shit being in a game at all.

Who seriously comes up with this garbage?

 

[Jarate]

Uhh,...yes? Thats completely fucked up no matter what?

I don't see how this is at all controversial?

So you're saying that something that is literally harmless, something the character is perfectly fine with, which literally only has the intention of helping the character out is completely fucked up no matter what

Man, you mustve hated it when your parents tried to slip a vegetable you didnt like into your food

 

[Dandy Crocodile]

Good. That was a stupid thing that would offend a lot of people (as it already has) and I'm sure it will be replaced with something much better (because it would be very difficult to make the conversation worse than the garbage it already was).

 

[Fencedude]

Who is to say someone who identifies as a lesbian cant love a man. Does she have to argue with people afterwards about whether she is a real lesbian?lol

Well no in that case she'd be bisexual. lesbian is fairly specific

As I said, if they dropped the drugging and made her bisexual it would fix most of the problems. Give her both males and females to romance and thats fine.

 

[also]

So drugging someone against their will is perfectly fine?

Context matters.
In this case, it's fine. In cases of date rape it's not. Sedating an out of control patient to prevent them from hurting themselves or others is fine. Sedating a patient so you don't have to deal with them is not.

 

[Fencedude]

So you're saying that something that is literally harmless, something the character is perfectly fine with, which literally only has the intention of helping the character out is completely fucked up no matter what

Man, you mustve hated it when your parents tried to slip a vegetable you didnt like into your food

Yes because it was done without her permission.

Like. Consent is a thing.

 

[Jarate]

God damn this hobby is dumb as fuck sometimes.

I'm not talking about censorship, I'm talking about this wackadoo shit being in a game at all.

Who seriously comes up with this garbage?

alright, so imagine that you make this niche japanese jrpg series, and basically everyone thinks it's about to die offr, and you have enough resources to release one more game

you release one more game, and it's a huge success!

and you're thinking man, this is great, I get to make more

and then nintendo shows up and says "Ok do what you did last time, include more supports and love, and literally double the amount of characters"

and that's how you got what we got

 

[Zeta Oni]

So you're saying that something that is literally harmless, something the character is perfectly fine with, which literally only has the intention of helping the character out is completely fucked up no matter what

Man, you mustve hated it when your parents tried to slip a vegetable you didnt like into your food

Chill.

While im all for a good discussion, the point still stands:

The drug was given without consent.

I understand arguing about wether or not it should be censored, but dont defend that type of stuff.

 

[NeonZ]

Yes ~one character~ who can ~also~ mary guys.

How nice of them to let the gays each have ~one character~ they can marry. This definitely solve all problems with homosexual representation in the game and is not at all condescending or anything.

I wasn't saying that at all though. The representation is basically token at best. What I'm saying is that in this case making a character gay (well, bi), clearly wasn't completely outside of the developer's reach, they just didn't chose to make Soleil that one character. Your previous post had the obvious implication that any gay representation at all was out of question from the beginning.

 

[Fencedude]

Context matters.
In this case, it's fine. In cases of date rape it's not. Sedating an out of control patient to prevent them from hurting themselves or others is fine. Sedating a patient so you don't have to deal with them is not.

yeah, sedate her from her terrible malady of finding girls cute.

 

[Mufti Nabiyu Erin]

I was pretty hyped for this game, seeing as I've never played an FE and the gameplay looked really intriguing; but just reading some of the loopy shit that's in this game -- not even the "drugging" or whatever you want to call it, just the fact that such a laughably bad character like Soleil even exists -- makes me not want to touch it with a ten foot pole.

On the plus side, it sounds like the older games are a little more grounded. Maybe I'll take the money I set aside for Fates and try to find these older games instead.

 

[DrROBschiz]

Well no in that case she'd be bisexual. lesbian is fairly specific

As I said, if they dropped the drugging and made her bisexual it would fix most of the problems. Give her both males and females to romance and thats fine.

Agreed

I think we can all say nothing of value was lost from this edit lol

 

[Jarate]

Chill.

While im all for a good discussion, the point still stands:

The drug was given without consent.

I understand arguing about wether or not it should be censored, but dont defend that type of stuff.

Drugs =/= Magic

 

[Solbringer]

So you're saying that something that is literally harmless, something the character is perfectly fine with, which literally only has the intention of helping the character out is completely fucked up no matter what

Man, you mustve hated it when your parents tried to slip a vegetable you didnt like into your food

You tend to forget this is after the fact. It still doesn't make it right.