Entry tags:
How FE13 could have had same-sex pairings.
Now that I've played this game (a couple of times...) I better understand the objections of those who claim that same-sex pairings would have been hard to code in. So, here ways I think Kakusei could have handled same-sex pairings, mechanically, with inheritance and the like taken into account.
At the development level
Granted, allowing anyone to get with all characters of both sexes would have been incredibly unwieldy. I think the most efficient proposal is this:
1. Instead of locking children to their mothers, lock 6 children to certain fathers, 6 children to certain mothers. (Let Lucina and Morgan stay as-is.) The "breeder" characters can then choose from the non-breeder characters as potential spouses, meaning (with our present cast, and excluding Robin and Chrom) 7 male options and 5 female options. (If forced gayness perturbs anyone, you can just make fewer characters breeders.) This is essentially the exact same as the current system except that whether a character is a breeder or not is no longer determined by gender.
Characters would refer to a same-sex other-parent by their appropriate gendered parent-word. You could drop hints (for example, in Owain's remark about his heroes' blood in A support with "daddy") as to whether the situation was surrogacy or adoption or what (eg, Owain's other-mother only saying "I didn't know Lissa had such turbulent fluids").
Admittedly this kind of full bisexuality is pretty radical in this day and age. Maybe if Fire Emblem were a Bioware game. :P
2. If we're going for a marginal inclusion, which is unfortunately much more likely, give all characters an "A+" option with any other character they can support with. Characters can S support one character as their babydaddy, and A+ another as a lifelong True "Bromance". Outside of keeping with at least the series's level of winking and nudging until now, I think this would say something nice about friendship and put it at least on a comparable level to romantic relationships.
At the localization level
I really doubt mainstream Japan cares enough about this issue -- but NoA clearly did, and I thank them for that. I have no expectations that the localizers would go and recode a game to a substantive level, but here are some simple hax that could theoretically have been implemented (and could be done by amateur coders once the 3DS is emulated :P).
1. Allow characters (with the exception of Chrom) to S support with their current Bromance options.
This would involve a fair amount of unofficial writing, but it isn't like that hasn't been done before, and personally I'd argue that half of FE13 has already been more or less rewritten.
For ease of coding, male/male ships would not produce children, while female/female ships would produce both children, with the mechanical "father" being the other lady.
If NoA is worried about UNPLEASANT SURPRISES!!1 or something (since it's not immediately obvious what S support means) it could potentially be an option to toggle in extras.
2. Allow childless characters to S support with some of their current support options.
This would involve less writing, no worries about mechanical exploitationa, and give![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rosage her Say'ri/Tiki. *shot* Additionally, pairings would not potentially deprive breeding characters of mates, nor force lesbian pair-the-spares. In terms of marketing/mass appeal, it would be also fairly out of the way (except for gay children characters I guess?) and less likely to piss off casual (and homophobic) players, while still looking reasonably progressive.
a For example, yuri pairings would allow every single second-gen child to get Galeforce, whereas in the current game, Laurent, Gerome, and Yarne can never get Galeforce, while one of Kjelle, Noire, and Nah must miss out unless Robin is male and paired with their mother.
So those are my proposals, and after the 3DS is hacked I just wanna say I'd be behind any same-sex patching project 100%.
At the development level
Granted, allowing anyone to get with all characters of both sexes would have been incredibly unwieldy. I think the most efficient proposal is this:
1. Instead of locking children to their mothers, lock 6 children to certain fathers, 6 children to certain mothers. (Let Lucina and Morgan stay as-is.) The "breeder" characters can then choose from the non-breeder characters as potential spouses, meaning (with our present cast, and excluding Robin and Chrom) 7 male options and 5 female options. (If forced gayness perturbs anyone, you can just make fewer characters breeders.) This is essentially the exact same as the current system except that whether a character is a breeder or not is no longer determined by gender.
Characters would refer to a same-sex other-parent by their appropriate gendered parent-word. You could drop hints (for example, in Owain's remark about his heroes' blood in A support with "daddy") as to whether the situation was surrogacy or adoption or what (eg, Owain's other-mother only saying "I didn't know Lissa had such turbulent fluids").
Admittedly this kind of full bisexuality is pretty radical in this day and age. Maybe if Fire Emblem were a Bioware game. :P
2. If we're going for a marginal inclusion, which is unfortunately much more likely, give all characters an "A+" option with any other character they can support with. Characters can S support one character as their babydaddy, and A+ another as a lifelong True "Bromance". Outside of keeping with at least the series's level of winking and nudging until now, I think this would say something nice about friendship and put it at least on a comparable level to romantic relationships.
At the localization level
I really doubt mainstream Japan cares enough about this issue -- but NoA clearly did, and I thank them for that. I have no expectations that the localizers would go and recode a game to a substantive level, but here are some simple hax that could theoretically have been implemented (and could be done by amateur coders once the 3DS is emulated :P).
1. Allow characters (with the exception of Chrom) to S support with their current Bromance options.
This would involve a fair amount of unofficial writing, but it isn't like that hasn't been done before, and personally I'd argue that half of FE13 has already been more or less rewritten.
For ease of coding, male/male ships would not produce children, while female/female ships would produce both children, with the mechanical "father" being the other lady.
If NoA is worried about UNPLEASANT SURPRISES!!1 or something (since it's not immediately obvious what S support means) it could potentially be an option to toggle in extras.
2. Allow childless characters to S support with some of their current support options.
This would involve less writing, no worries about mechanical exploitationa, and give
rosage her Say'ri/Tiki. *shot* Additionally, pairings would not potentially deprive breeding characters of mates, nor force lesbian pair-the-spares. In terms of marketing/mass appeal, it would be also fairly out of the way (except for gay children characters I guess?) and less likely to piss off casual (and homophobic) players, while still looking reasonably progressive.a For example, yuri pairings would allow every single second-gen child to get Galeforce, whereas in the current game, Laurent, Gerome, and Yarne can never get Galeforce, while one of Kjelle, Noire, and Nah must miss out unless Robin is male and paired with their mother.
So those are my proposals, and after the 3DS is hacked I just wanna say I'd be behind any same-sex patching project 100%.
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The only way to do away with that would be getting rid of the S supports entirely, I guess. And that has the problem of... so many supports not having any hint of romance outside them. (Though there are cases where the same is true of an ending text.)
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I guess the text as is keeps it from seeming like all the characters are flirting with people they're not going to get with, but it's still weird.
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galeforce
(Anonymous) 2013-05-01 07:17 pm (UTC)(link)Re: galeforce
Hence the language "one of" the three. Donnel and Gaius are two characters, while Kjelle, Noire, and Nah are three. Therefore it takes M!Robin to cover them all.
Re: galeforce
(Anonymous) 2013-05-01 11:06 pm (UTC)(link)Re: galeforce
Aw man, it's not that bad. Without the explanation it takes a moment to work out.