As much as I’d like to start fanboying in earnest over FE13, the Fire Emblem tag continues to disappoint

I suppose it’s to be expected of a video game fandom (and how condescending that statement is!), but most of the tag is comprised of fanart, normative ships, and maybe some mild gameplay discussion. It’s almost as though the hardcore tier list creators and number-crunchers at Serenes Forest and similar sites represent the only efforts at in-depth analytical fanwork. That’s all very good for them, had I any serious interest in statistics and maximizing efficiency and the like.

*sighs* Maybe when the game actually comes out I’ll independently stumble upon something worth commenting upon.

kazeninja17:

You know, I’m still torn on whether I should choose Vaike, Lon’qu, or Gaius to try to court. Since the game only allows you to marry the opposite gender, I’ll have to choose the female Avatar. XD

Yes, damned heteronormativity-in-the-name-of-wacky-time-travel-second-generation-plotlines…

Though I’ll be min-maxing my pairings with no thought to romance as retribution, if I paid attention to that aspect it would be either Vaike or Frederick for my female Avatar. Frederick is just so adorably stuffy…

Starting a complete fandom shift by…gushing over a translation

I just love it when translators are clever about their work. The ones for FE13 took a character named Tiamo, a fictional name derived from the Italian for “I love you,” and renamed her Cordelia, which both includes an etymological connection to the heart and references a tragic Shakespeare character. Both of these are appropriate given her particular character arc. I’m still a little unsure about some of the other translation choices, though I’m still glad to note that, in general, they’re sticking to the FE tradition of using names drawn from – often fairly obscure – Western culture. Playing “spot the reference” with regard to names, plotlines, and themes is one of the reasons I always look forward to new FEs.

I’ll save the number crunching and shameless eugenics for later, lest I scare off all my followers right away.

Not to detract from the non-stop Les Mis, but…

…the date upon which I shall be stolen away by the Fire Emblem fandom has been moved up considerably – North America gets a free demo of the English release of FE13 on the 17th, yay. Though I am grieved by the marginalization of the incestuous and homoerotic subtext that is practically a series staple (and what there is will undoubtedly be toned down in translation because it might offend the children, or something), the shameless employment of eugenics is hilariously wrong enough to make it worth playing and pairing everyone up into “neat little heterosexual rows.”

It always bothered me that I mentally use that description all the time to lampoon heteronormativity even though I’ve read neither the article from which it was originally taken nor the novel the article was criticizing (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows). For the theoretical follower wondering how I can write about Harry Potter at length on my blog without having read the last book, I should note that my OTP for the series only really appears in books 1-3 and 4-5 to a lesser extent, and fandom osmosis made me aware of the only scene of any relevance to either character in book 7.

Back on topic, I was going to mention that I’ll have to delay the final post of my Slashing Amis series by one more day, though as noted I can’t afford to put anything Les Mis-related off much longer.

…Wow. How am I ever going to tag such a scatterbrained post? Here goes nothing!