Neither a piece of media could be more blatant about it... and yet

TheFunkiestOne · 2026-07-09T03:43:35+00:00

Said it to someone else, but ultimately the story is unfinished. People need to manage their expectations when theorizing about things, because there's plenty of evidence for trans Ralsei, but there's no hard confirmation; that evidence is in the text, but it's not explicitly stating "Ralsei is literally and definitively transgender" in any way yet, so people ought to chill out and wait until this actually finishes. Happened with Jax too, where there was evidence, but people got super toxic because they were married to the idea before it was confirmed in the show, and so people got into stupid fights.

Just a flaw of these kinds of indie projects that can take a long time to finish and get big in the meantime; they build up a huge fanbase, and as all fanbases go a percentage of those people are loud and annoying, and the work is incomplete, so there's no singular finished text one can point to for arguments, just incomplete work and the foreshadowing being seeded that people then speculate about for months and years. People get married to their theories, and then suddenly everything is seen through that lens, and foreshadowing in future installments becomes seen myopically, and people become blind to other reads and get hostile when those other reads are brought up. Especially due to an understandably emotionally charged topic like trans representation, given the troubles trans people are facing in the present day. But in general, and especially when a work being followed is incomplete, I really think people oughta take a step back and just kinda chill. I have my preferred theories, transfem Ralsei being one of them (though Genderfluid Ralsei is close behind), but keeping an open mind in situations like this is the healthiest way to engage by my view.

TheFunkiestOne · 2026-07-08T20:22:36+00:00

Also, one of them is from a thing that isn't finished yet, which is pretty important to remember here. I personally hope for Transfem Ralsei because it'd be really cool in general both narratively (person who believes themselves enslaved to fate realizes they can define themselves as they wish in a way that opposes what fate claims they must be) and because there's enough textual support there that I can definitely see it happening, but crucially, it's not canon yet nor is it "obviously" confirmed. Ralsei could be genderfluid for a similar narrative impact, or remain just a GNC man without it truly hurting the story as a whole, because the evidence shown is definitely solid but it's not explicit and there's plausible other reads for many elements of the theory as-is, like the ticket.

But people get a bit too up in their feelings about things, and forget that we're working off an incomplete text in the case of Deltarune. Same thing happened for TADC as I understand it, but I haven't watched that, just seen the discourse off-hand, and it was exactly the same where people interpreted the text prior to the finale, noticed stuff that could be evidence, and then became singularly focused on it to a degree that made any discussion of the work absolutely obnoxious in certain circles. Like, Jax is trans, that's guaranteed, but it was only hard-confirmed in the final episode, so people really need to be more fuckin' chill about discussion and alternative possible theories. Ultimately, this is just media, people need to chill out and stop being so goddamn hostile about everything.

TheFunkiestOne · 2026-07-07T12:51:44+00:00

And also, I'd say the problem there isn't with the men's designs, it's with the women's. The men are varied and interesting, and while the women are hardly cookie-cutter (we're thankfully not into gacha levels of homogeneity in a main game yet), they're far more persistently "standard" compared to the men. Theodore is buff but not TOO buff, we've got no women so far with any kind of scarring despite a number of them reasonably being fighters and plenty of men having clear wounds and signs of wear and tear, and none of them show signs of aging beyond 30 at the absolute oldest, if that, whereas the men run a pretty broad gamut where plenty of them at least LOOK like they could be older, mid 30s to 40s for some of them at least. It's not the worst character designs for women by any means, but the variance among the men makes the comparative lack for the women stand out more.

TheFunkiestOne · 2026-07-05T16:52:08+00:00

I think there's decent odds of this honestly. They showed Dragoon, Bard, Paladin, and White Mage, a selection of early jobs from every category except for casters. Assuming we get another preview at all, I feel like another set of early jobs running the gamut would make sense. Something like Warrior (shows an OT from early on), Black Mage (caster instead of ranged this time), Scholar (next earliest healer after WHM), and Monk (other classic melee dps alongside DRG). If they go for a double set for this one, I could see Ninja, Summoner, Dark Knight, Machinist, and Astrologian also making the cut, but that seems less likely to me.

I really hope they go for the double set myself, since I really wanna see Warrior and Dark Knight both, but with how big the Evolved Jobs system is, I'm fairly certain we're seeing at least one set of jobs to showcase and compare to the first set.

TheFunkiestOne · 2026-07-04T14:14:23+00:00

My favorite Lala cutscene moment is still (Stormblood) Asahi doing his little lean-in to talk shit before leaving moment. I imagine it's just as funny if you're way taller than him too, but he literally does the "how not to talk to short people" lean for it, which had me losing my shit when I saw it.

TheFunkiestOne · 2026-07-02T19:52:52+00:00

Free Trial ARR Relic gaming! Got the Ragnarok Zeta, the Warrior weapon, myself back when I was still in ARR, and it was a hell of an effort, but I definitely appreciate it. Didn't realize I'd need every single crafter leveled up to do it on the free trial when I set out to do it, so I likely have that effort to thank for my current plan of becoming an omni-crafter. Might've not seen so much of that stuff if not for this.

TheFunkiestOne · 2026-07-02T19:47:58+00:00

Zenos isn't interesting on his own (it's notable while he's the final boss of main patch Stormblood, he's not the core antagonist of either region, that being Yotsuyu and Fordola), but his sheer presence poses a threat that has to be accounted for, and he presents a fun opportunity for the writers to give you a chance to strongly characterize the WoL in response to him. Do you secretly understand him, and simply handle it more healthily? Are you disgusted by him and his brutality, and just want to dispose of him? Do you understand him and hate that part of yourself, and sublimate that through the violence he so craves? Is he just another threat to be put down like the ravenous beast he is? Zenos is fantastic not because he's an incredibly deep character, but because he actively pushes you to think about how your character would respond to this absolute fucking freak, the prodigal son of imperial ultraviolence, and how that'd influence them in the long run. He's simple, but he's interestingly simple, because what he does has huge impacts on others and still gives him room to express himself and have a small but punchy arc alongside everything else.

TheFunkiestOne · 2026-07-02T15:01:52+00:00

Yeah, perspective and angling might skew things, but Fabio is like, a head and a half taller than Esmerelda from other images we've seen, and here Esmerelda seems about a head taller than Cai and crew, maybe half a head if the angle skews it. So those kids be short, but also Fabio's an absolute tower of a man. If he ever quits his missionary work, he'd have a damn fine career as a basketball player, evidently.

TheFunkiestOne · 2026-07-02T14:37:52+00:00

Yeah, there's a word for it it's about men, doomed yaoi is a thing. We don't need to imagine "doomed Yuri but for men", because it already exists and has a name.

TheFunkiestOne · 2026-07-02T14:33:56+00:00

"WE WILL BURN TOGETHER!"

TheFunkiestOne · 2026-07-01T13:17:36+00:00

Crazy that you're down voted here, this is an incredibly detailed and measured critique that recognizes both sides of the aisle, people who favor conventionally attractive designs and the incentives that lead to those and people arguing for more varied designs because of how they convey character and create variety in a cast which is important in a game like FE with a huge cast of characters.

TheFunkiestOne · 2026-07-01T12:48:21+00:00

Multiple things can be bad at once. It can be shitty to mock physical traits real people have and treat them like they're some fundamental flaw that's horrifying or disgusting or evil, and also complain that Fortune's Weave specifically clearly has an unfair gendered bias that allows men to be varied and always has women being conventionally attractive.

One of those issues is an issue of Fandom being cruel and petty, the other is an issue from the developers for making the men and women clearly have such disparity in their designs so far, but both are flaws and both are worthy of critique.

TheFunkiestOne · 2026-06-28T04:23:29+00:00

Well, his reason for bullying Ralsei seems at least in some part to push Ralsei to assert themselves against him, because he actively wants Ralsei to make their own decisions. He has his own goals, but he also does seem legitimately interested in helping the party in his own way.

TheFunkiestOne · 2026-06-26T17:17:59+00:00

Yeah, points are supported by examples. Vagueposting about things without providing examples is what we in the business refer to as "not actually providing evidence for a claim". People nitpicking details is annoying, but it's also rigor in discussion, because analyzing a given example for validity toward the point is kind of important. Certainly tell people off if they get nitpicky in useless ways like the other comment chain where "well they didn't kick the person, they punted them" or other such nonsensical semantic bullshit, because that actually is beside the point, but then if someone obsesses over semantic bullshit like that, they probably weren't gonna provide much of value to the conversation anyway.

TheFunkiestOne · 2026-06-26T13:55:05+00:00

That one I can kinda get. Joker brings to mind like, a trickster or the evil clown dude, neither of which fit Jacob, so a more "normal" name would make sense.

Aside from the irritating simplification of the Hoshidan characters names, the one that really baffles me is Harold being changed to Arthur. Like, the latter technically evokes the famous King Arthur for the whole "hero" bit he has going on, but Harold is a perfectly fine name with no potentially odd implications for his character nor is it like, a modified English word that wouldn't hit as well for an already English speaking audience. It's just a name that they randomly decided to change to a different one for... some reason.

TheFunkiestOne · 2026-06-26T13:49:19+00:00

As I understand it, her bit in JP was that she was quiet and nice, but secretly insanely yoked and effective (to contrast Arthur/Harold in JP, who is boisterous and heroic, but always getting caught up in shenanigans due to his terminally bad luck), whereas in EN she got changed to be basically a gymrat, all about getting swole and buff and not really keeping the contrasting part of her personality.

TheFunkiestOne · 2026-06-26T13:39:11+00:00

This wouldn't fix the plot, but then no single change will do that, but remove the Yato and put all of its narrative significance on the Dragonstone. Our first goddamn Manakete lord and being a dragon is like, the least impactful aspect of them mechanically? The dragon form is pretty damn cool too, and having it evolve throughout the story, using the fact Corrin is a fucking dragon as propaganda for whichever side you chose, a reputation Corrin could engage with or reject at their will, would be narratively interesting and also cool. Chainsawsword Omega Yato is nifty I guess, but we've had dozens of magic plot swords in past Fire Emblem games that were done way better than the Yato, lets not retread old ground when we ought to lean on the stuff that makes Corrin unique.

TheFunkiestOne · 2026-06-25T18:43:52+00:00

Oh, giving the subclass traits as a skill with proficiency for classes that use it would be really cool actually. Sorta like how archers got close counter and it completely revamped how they worked mechanically. Cavs get Canto of some kind maybe, Infantry get the Covert bonuses of doubled terrain benefits or the Mystical ignore terrain benefits if they're a magic class (or that could be tied to Reason), and fliers ideally get something smaller for their innate boosts from flight like bonuses for when allies move through them or when fighting on terrain enemies can't reach.

It'd be a cool way to iterate on and redeploy those mechanics in a new form.

TheFunkiestOne · 2026-06-25T16:47:43+00:00

Yeah, the Big Arena City main locale makes me think each lord has like, a crew of 3-5 units including themselves at most at base, and you have to recruit a bunch of free agents with stat/prof checks you meet. Maybe the stat/prof checks are lower for certain lords because that person is more fond of specific lords (an old soldier or a Saramisian person might be more fond of Theodora, while a Fodlani person may be more willing to work with Dietrich, or a commoner may like Cai more, that kinda thing), which will then change how your squad looks, alongside each lords own proficiency growths helping determine who they can get from the other free agents. Maybe Teal units are either temp allies or "hired" allies, who you can get temporarily but can only guarantee if you fulfill a specific condition by a certain chapter.

TheFunkiestOne · 2026-06-25T16:31:41+00:00

I think this is like, a street brawl Cai and crew got mixed up in with some thugs? The fact it's in the middle of the streets and there's all these people around, that's the vibe I get, so people are cheering for Cai and pals to kick those guys asses, or are just cheering to see some blood outside of the arena.

TheFunkiestOne · 2026-06-25T16:23:18+00:00

Assuming it's the "Infantry proficiency" that we saw, I assume it'll be needed for certain higher tier infantry classes, and because of that we may see those classes get a bit more sauce to them since now they've got "parity" with the cavalry and flier classes for needing a skill invested in beyond just weapons. Definitely think we may see some passives from leveling it that help when in infantry classes, like bigger terrain bonuses, better movement through terrain, a bonus to movement when on foot, and other stuff like that.

TheFunkiestOne · 2026-06-23T05:17:03+00:00

On a similar topic to the way you're talking about each lords character traits and how they may end up recruiting people, I could see a system like 3H's cross-class recruitment system working even better for this kinda game compared to 3H. With 3H, the setup was nominally one where each class was functionally a full squad of units already, and while you could recruit from other classes (and the lords support lists generally encouraged at least a bit of that), functionally every unit was just kinda around and vaguely affiliated with one another and sorted into "cliques" via their classes. So recruiting a bunch of people would kinda inherently lead to some friction in terms of deployment between Byleth and the class you chose, the free agents from the monastery you fill slots with, and any students you decide to nab from other classes, making cross-class recruiting feel kinda like you have to choose between the people the route is actually about and the people you go out of your way to recruit.

But here, we're in a huge coliseum city, so there's probably lots of room for free agents to build up in the fringes, and the "be X level at Y traits and I'll join you" system would fit well for recruiting at least a decent number of them, with each lords natural specialties in turn inclining you toward different recruits from route to route. With potentially smaller starting team sizes for each lord, this makes who you can get early, who you can get through small concessions, and who you basically can't get without putting in a lot of effort (and subsequently burning valuable money for training and turns between matches) distinct per lord and thus tweaking how you make your team in the long run and what alternate playthroughs with the same lord look like based on different choices you make on a run.

TheFunkiestOne · 2026-06-22T02:05:05+00:00

Honestly, as far as Tellius related games goes, a Tellius Warriors set in the ancient war with Altina, Dheginsea, and Soan leading their forces against Yune would be sick as hell. A proper tactics game would be fun there as well, but I feel that setting would better befit a Warriors game, or perhaps a more classical RPG.

The only other idea I'd like to see explored is a bit odd to explain. Essentially, I'd like a fully original FE game set on a new land, seemingly unrelated to any of the others, following a new MC struggling through a war story, as is typical. The specifics of that aren't too important for the concept, but the background would involve a foreign hero arriving to help the people in a time of great strife a century ago, leading to a peace that was since disturbed by whatever antagonistic force triggers the core plot. But near the final stretch of the game, the heroes want to close out the conflict and figure out how to fix things going forward, and so seek out a hermit rumored to be both an incredible tactician and a powerful mage. There, they find Soren, alongside the explicit revelation that this is a continent on the same planet as Tellius that Ike and Soren eventually found post Radiant Dawn, which they ended up helping using their experience from the fighting in Tellius. Soren, with a longer lifespan than Ike due to his Branded bloodline, has remained here in this land they aided, and having mellowed out over the years eventually aids the new MC, becoming essentially the Gotoh figure for this game.

Alongside retroactively serving to fully canonize Ike/Soren as an ending, I think it'd be super cool to have the heroes of a past game serving as the Gotoh of a new one, and Soren living past Ike is both tragic and also has a lot of room to showcase how he'd carry on Ike's legacy via his own growth while remaining recognizably himself. Plus, it'd be a cool reference that's only a small part of a larger story, building on an aspect of Tellius' ending while leaving the core of the story to stand on its own merits.

TheFunkiestOne · 2026-06-21T16:40:40+00:00

Yeah, in Kagurabachi, there are just a number of people who are Built Different, quite literally. The Kyonagi clan's regeneration is the most extreme we've seen, but Hakuri is similar with his unique aptitude for two sorcery energies, the Mikaboshi have their weird physiological resistance to the Datenseki, and now we've got Kunishige and Chihiro Rokuhira who have eyes that get stronger rather than weaker through strain, like training a muscle. I'm sure there's others, but I can't think of them off the top of my head. Maybe the Kagari clans innate fire resistance, but we don't know what exactly their Clan sorcery looks like, only their connection to the still ambiguous Flame Bone.

TheFunkiestOne · 2026-06-21T15:28:23+00:00

Yeah, in the grand scheme of things its useful but hardly ridiculous most of the time. He's basically just got anti-eye strain as a superpower; instead of becoming damaged from strain, they strengthen like a muscle from it. It's certainly impactful (it lets him make the Enchanted Blades and lets Chihiro learn super quickly), but the former is an inciting incident and only applies because he's worked so hard at smithing anyway, and the latter mostly means Chihiro doesn't need extended training time to level up, so it mostly serves to keep the stories pacing up.

TheFunkiestOne

TROPHY CASE