Tag: Python

agoddamn:

I’m hardly unhappy about Python’s flamboyance in the Echoes localization, but I’m still confused by it as a writing choice. From the poking I’ve done at the Japanese script it’s just…not there? How and why did they come to this conclusion? Just for comedy? To slyly highlight his Good Buddy relationship with Forsyth? I have so many questions…

I’ve considered a few potential explanations:

1) His flamboyance and Forsyth’s exuberance allow them to stand out more even though they have no plot relevance or impactful relationships with anyone other than themselves (DLC excepted). 

2) It distinguishes them from other Christmas knight duos. All the localized pairs (other than FE11′s Cain and Abel, who barely had personalities that I can recall) consist of a responsible one and a laid-back one, usually with one of them taking that role to a comedic extreme: Sain who has to be taught the weapon triangle because he’s perpetually horny and insecure about the size of his dick, Forde the narcoleptic painter, Kieran who gets axes embedded in his head while training, Saizo who takes his job so seriously that it ruins his relationship with his son. Python is the self-aware one who takes the archetype’s history of homoerotic subtext and runs with it, and Forsyth’s hero worship accomplishes much of the same thing.

3) Though they’re both DLC supports, his conversation with Clive and Lukas are probably the most revealing of the serious ramifications of Python’s character and as such I’d imagine the best places to look when comparing scripts. He’s critical of the political status quo but cynical about changing it, and he finds traditional romance revolting and supports Lukas’s self-discovery which leaves him even more primed for queer readings. How much any of that exists in the Japanese script I don’t know, but his localized characterization does seem like a natural fit. He’s lazy and flirts with everyone, but he’s a better observer than people think.

4) The Deliverance is full of gay. This is what the emotional climax of their shared character arc looks like:

image

I have no idea how that would come across to a Japanese audience, but to a Western one it’s just begging for snark and innuendo, especially because this is still the universe in which Leon exists (also the Fernand x Clair memory prism). Someone on Alm’s side had to go there at some point.

agoddamn:

I still don’t know how I feel about Clive. I thought his support with Python was absolutely great but it felt like it ended on “let’s agree to disagree” and I couldn’t tell how much I’m supposed to dislike that. Of course not every support has to end in sunshine and roses but I didn’t feel like the writing goal there was to make him purposely hateable. But “let’s agree to disagree [that you’re a person]” isn’t something you can just leave at that, you know? Clive saying he’s still classist at heart is something that seems like it ought to be at the forefront of his development, not shuffled away into a non-conclusion.

Clive and SoV in general offered a much more nuanced take on classism rather than a certain other setting where all the prejudiced nobles are mustache-twirling villains. *coughs* You can throw Clive in the shallow end of what could be called the anti-Camus group: prejudiced, immoral, or downright evil people who are for whatever reason allied with the good guys. In his case his worldview is even reinforced in the end with Alm being revealed as the son of an emperor and then becoming king himself. The only sour note for Clive (assuming no one dies) is that his sister marries one of Alm’s peasant buddies, but we’re meant to chalk that up to her wild and carefree nature or something like that. Python’s cynicism is proven right in the end too, because there will always be people privileged by wealth and status (and, in the world of FE, dragon blood) and even in victory over evil the world will continue to uphold that privilege.

I think the really engaging question is why Clive and Clair’s classism is allowed to slide and yet Fernand’s requires an apology and his death to merit (possible) redemption. When it comes down to it Fernand was just louder and more aggressive with his bigotry, and he (unknowingly) bet on the wrong Rigelian heir. I can’t even call his classism straightforward villainy either, because he’s the only character who has a personal reason to hate peasants, irrational though it may be, and isn’t just upholding the status quo.

markoftheasphodel said

Fernand probably caught Python jerking off in the woods when he was out trying to have some ‘me time’ of his own. As for Leon, I kind of see the “no femmes” thing as being an issue with Leon invading the Deliverance. Or at least a reason I don’t ship it.

That headcanon re: Fernand also works. He probably enjoyed the image quite a bit and then felt filthy afterward. 

Worldbuilding centered around Leon under the cut.

The more we collectively parse out FE15′s non-straight cast the more it strikes me that, though he’s a natural evolution of how Fates handled its queer characters, Leon the self-confident gay man really doesn’t suit the tone of Valentia. It’s not that I don’t believe there’s a place for a feminine gay man in the setting, even if the casual sexism on display would suggest that perceived femininity in men is less accepted than it might otherwise be. While I can’t think of any definite examples of pederasty in FE, i.e. the type of M/M relationship most visible in older martial societies, especially when it’s bundled with misogyny, there are a few like Jeorge/Gordin, Quan/Finn, and Shinon/Rolf that might hint at the possibility. Ancient Greece is supposed to be the loose analogue for Archanea-Valentia, right? 

In that case though Leon still doesn’t fit because he’s too old to fit the model of the beloved teenage boy. His base conversations where he complains about what the elements are doing to his body and the fleeting beauty of youth are very much complaints of a modern twink, of a boy who doesn’t really want to grow up and who is allowed to keep appealing to that image until he physically can’t look the part anymore.

(And hey, I’m a twenty-eight year old twink so I completely feel his pain.)

Even if Forsyth has come across odes to beautiful boys in his military readings and might be curious about getting a piece of that action it would be very difficult to square that away with Leon’s Peter Pan syndrome. Seeing as we’re meant to laugh at Forsyth’s over-the-top, er, “pedestaling” of Clive and Lukas, Python might actually be a lucky, perfect compromise of everything Forsyth could desire in a guy: a close childhood friend who happens to be a soldier (albeit an exceptionally lazy one) with sub tendencies. Leon may have also followed another guy into a military career, but he clearly has a strong sense of who he is and wants to be that does not play into that role at all.

On the plus side, Valbar’s past life as a happily married man might predispose him to take a liking to the idea of an adoring houseboy. Maybe.

A few more stray observations pertaining to the gay entourage, to distract me from how utterly dull farming for Astra in Thabes and the Inner Sanctum has been. I thought about reblogging Mark’s latest post on Lukas, but this turned out to be only somewhat about him.

  • Python might be functionally aromantic, but there’s no question that Forsyth is special to him in some nebulous way – look at how badly he takes Forsyth’s death. It’s probably something he’s admitted privately to himself because Python is extremely self-aware, but I doubt he’d ever articulate that feeling to Forsyth, much less anyone else. At least Forsyth’s idea of romance seems to be more in line with manly military camaraderie than the kind of sappy glurge that makes up Clive/Mathilda (or what Leon is looking for, for a gay example), which Python probably finds more palatable.
  • Speaking of Leon, even though Lukas/Leon has been brought up in a pair-the-spares fashion I actually see Forsyth as the Deliverance guy most likely to attract Leon’s attention on account of his passion and capacity for romance. But then there’s the problem of Python, and how Leon’s concept of an ideal love does not include having two boyfriends with one of them almost certainly preferring that their poly relationship be open, and that Forsyth might have a lowkey kind of “no femmes” reaction to Leon. You could sell me reciprocal Valbar/Leon or even Kamui/Leon (because one of Kamui’s defining character traits is that he doesn’t really know what he wants, also he ends up in the mercenary sex pile kingdom postgame) before I’d see Leon/any Deliverance guy working.
  • I am a little biased since I was sort of shipping poly Forsyth/Python/Lukas before the game even came out internationally, but the three of them play off each other so well that I still don’t have a problem seeing it as the happiest possible ending for all three of them. Lukas’s sex drive may be low to nonexistent, Python scoffs at romance and probably isn’t one for exclusivity, and Forsyth is stubborn and occasionally a little clueless, but together I think they could make it work even if it’s not a “standard” poly relationship where they all act like they’re married and have wild threeways every night. Perhaps it was Lukas’s comment about the Deliverance being his family now in the DLC or just FE’s usual bent, but I can see the three of them developing a brotherly kind of relationship…that also includes cuddles and sometimes sex. That is a thing that comes up during actual M/M relationships sometimes (and not just for kink purposes), and it’d satisfy Forsyth’s need for passionate masculine romance, Python’s horniness, and Lukas’s yearning for real emotional affirmation in place of what he never got from his awful biological family.
  • On the subject of overanalyzing suggestive individual lines, I remembered recently that Fernand is the only character who comments on Python’s unusual name. “True to his name, he is!” he says when he deserts the Deliverance. Now, Python doesn’t display any of usual traits one symbolically associates with snakes like deceit or cunning (he can be cunning, but I seriously doubt Fernand ever saw him as anything other than a lazy peasant constantly shirking his duties and possibly making innuendos), so I have to wonder: has Fernand laid eyes on Python’s…python? While that scenario sounds more plausible than some others – there’s already a fic on AO3 wherein Python sucks off the entire Deliverance (and Tobin) and it’s entirely reasonable – if that’s the case Fernand is just fantastically bad at concealing his preferences. No wonder Clair picked up on it so easily.

All this discussion of the gay entourage, and it’s a little amazing that almost no one (myself included) either here or on other FE forums is really talking about the very definitely gay Leon. In some places *coughs*GameFAQs*coughs* that’s almost certainly a good thing, that everyone’s been quick to accept the existence of an openly gay character and move on. It probably helps there that he doesn’t clearly end up in a relationship with anyone.

In less homophobic circles though…I don’t know, I guess there’s just less to talk about? The Deliverance also got its own DLC, so Valbar and co. just have less content dedicated to them. A few people have floated the idea of Lukas/Leon – crack, but feasible crack – and I’ve jokingly thought of how Leon would react to an offer to join the gay entourage naked cuddle pile postgame. Probably not well, frankly; Leon is very monogamy-minded so I don’t know how he’d manage a poly relationship. Also, I’m not sure if he and Python would get along very well.

FE15 Liveblogging: Rise of the Gay Entourage…er, Deliverance

Because it really does warrant its own post. So. Much. Gay. (and also other things)

The actual maps:

Meh. I enjoyed having maps with fixed characters like some of Fates’s DLC for basically the same reason I liked it then (less RPG, more tactics – a good break from all the grinding I’ve been doing). Having all but one of the four be reused maps from the main game felt a little lazy though. Also, the NPCs in the first two are either idiots or so fatalistic that they’ll just stand in one place and get killed.

Clair and Mathilda:

No F/F vibes here I’m sorry to say. Most of Clair’s development centers around her role as Lachesis 4.0 or something like that. At least she displays genuine development in the Mathilda supports and elsewhere without needing to see her brother get tragically offed, but then you remember she ends by marrying Gray and it gets kind of stupid again.

Mathilda meanwhile is still being her usual lowkey Domme self. I would have appreciated more commentary on gender dynamics from the two of them or at least some hint that she wouldn’t really mind her stay-in-the-kitchen ending, but no luck. Incidentally, it’s so random that Clive and Mathilda are the only characters aside from the Ram kids and Conrad to get younger portraits for flashback scenes.

Fernard:

Even the memory of him and Mathilda can’t shake the strong romantic/erotic vibes I’m getting from his relationship with Clive. Actually that memory just makes my triangulation of desire even stronger since Mathilda herself admits (very strangely) that she almost thinks of Clive and Fernand as the same person. Then there’s the Fernand x Clair memory which outright proclaims that there’s something unusual about Fernard’s devotion – at least as unusual as Clair wanting to marry a man identical to her brother in every way. Also interesting is that we see the beginnings of the catfight fallout between Fernand and Lukas over the latter’s surprising display of pragmatism in the fourth map. Fernand actually sounds jealous that Lukas might have become Clive’s new “confidant” (ahem). There’s also another mention of ripping out tongues, so I suppose this is just a thing with these two.

Forsyth:

Is gay for Clive and probably more than a little gay for Lukas too, and Python seems fully aware of it and has the innuendo all ready to go. He compares Forsyth’s reaction to Lukas praising him to a maid who’d just been asked for her hand in marriage, for heaven’s sake. That said, Clive/Forsyth is clearly the more imbalanced relationship; his “I WANT to put you on my pedestal!” may deserve to replace Inigo’s “I want to be manhandled!” in the annals of memetic queerbait-y FE lines, but he doesn’t seem comfortable negotiating the class divide. The exchange does however offer the image of an amusing offscreen incident involving Forsyth trying and failing to treat Python as he does Clive and Lukas having to break up the resulting fight. Oh, and the ending to the Clive x Forsyth B support, wherein Forsyth stumbles over Clive asking him to treat him exactly as he does Python, is hilariously suggestive.

Lukas x Forsyth is less humorous overall but more revealing about both characters, and it’s easy to see the two of them finding common ground in reading and other pursuits and letting things develop from there.

Python:

Sure, Python talks about women for the first and only time ever, and while it may just be my bias talking it rang a little false for me. Since when has Python ever seemed like the kind of guy who’d want to be the center of attention? At any rate, he comes off as very queer-friendly with Lukas and an “outsider” by his own description. I also can’t help but hear the VA’s enunciation of “sir” as both sardonic and slightly erotic, so the sub headcanons just write themselves. The end of Lukas x Python also serves as a callback to the Shinon x Gatrie supports in FE9, which also end with an archer offering to take a knight out on the town to distract him from his issues with women. Past FE precedent*, yay.

Covering Clive x Python under Clive’s heading.

*And since FE15 is overall more open about discussing its queer issues in explicit terms than Tellius is, Lukas/Python feels both healthier and more self-aware than sexual Shinon/Gatrie.

Lukas:

Now the second-most explicitly queer character in FE15 after Leon, with only the nature of his queerness subject for debate. Is he gay or asexual? I’d say he’s definitely homoromantic since he’s clearly seeking emotional validation from Clive that he’s mostly not getting – to say nothing of his hatred of Fernand. Fortunately for him he does acknowledge at the end of their supports that Python would treat him well, and as mentioned earlier he bonds well with Forsyth too.

Perhaps more surprising though are his actions that secure the Deliverance’s escape from Zofia Castle. He displays a willingness to commit war crimes that is only selectively deployed among FE’s good guys (Micaiah, Robin, Conquest!Corrin indirectly), and while it does save them he gets called out for it by Fernand. Strangely this event is also germane to discussion of Lukas’s sexuality, because he states that Clive has a sense of “rightetousness” that he himself lacks. Between this, the lack of fire in the loins, and the “cold observer” business in his supports with Clive I think we’re to take it that Lukas doesn’t feel much of anything, or that if he does it’s severely repressed. And not for the same reason that Fernand is repressing his feelings for Clive – clearly a social thing – but possibly as a remnant of his father forcing him to abandon his interests in favor of military training and his brother forcing him to join the Deliverance and possibly die in it. He’s just sadder and more screwed up the more we learn about him.

There’s a silver lining, though; Lukas tells Clive that he doesn’t really have a home anymore, meaning he now considers the Deliverance his home and his family. Clive is just bound to disappoint him, but there’s always Forsyth and Python….

Clive:

Still has far too many people angling to get in his pants. His supports with Python continue FE15′s trend of presenting what may be the series’s most nuanced take on classism and the true value of the setting’s quasi-medieval political and social system. As a quasi-aristocrat myself I’m inclined to side more with Clive and sympathize with Fernand, but Python makes his case with substantially more grace (go figure) than a certain blue-haired commoner lord. It’s also nice to see this line of criticism picked up by someone who isn’t Alm, since some of the fanbase seems to think that his being secretly royalty invalidates his takedowns of classist nobles.

So yeah, great DLC content on the whole. It’s just a shame that we probably won’t be getting any more other than the Cipher characters. This stuff’s way more illuminating and entertaining than nostalgic rehashes of older games or AUs starring eugenics babies.

theunstablejester said

Straight as an arrow

If you’re referring to Python’s one line about women not paying attention to him in his Lukas support I don’t see it as evidence for much, especially given how he acts everywhere else in the DLC content (I haven’t played the fourth map or gotten its supports yet, but there’s plenty of subtext to go around from the second one). He could be bi or putting on more of his usual bravado; after all, this is still the support line that ends with him proclaiming heterosexual monogamy weird – and associating it with rainbows, heh – and inviting Lukas to go out on the town with him if he’s still bothered that he doesn’t feel much for his old girlfriend. Regardless of Python’s or Lukas’s sexual/romantic orientations, it’s quite a queer conversation.

There are two non-villager archers in FE15: Leon, who is canonically gay, and Python, who is subtextually gay (and yeah, a bunch of guys in this game have some kind of gay/bi subtext or other, but Python has pretty much the strongest case). It’s a shame that they probably never interact in-game, though more to the point I’m now wondering what IS is trying to say about archers.

Oh, the translated of the Forsyth/Python supports and their memory fragment are up.

Kind of bland overall, mostly playing off the serious vs. lazy schtick they have going on, but there’s no mention of getting girlfriends or anything like that so based on what we’ve seen of English Python so far the potential for gay is still very much there.