Kori

You're probably right that they wouldn't do it (not without switching Deirdre and Julius's places, or replacing Julius by Ishtar and pretending that as his girlfriend she fits on the banner), but they should, even with FEH's terribly limited writing we'd be bound to get some interesting (in any of the "funny", "touching", or "tragically ironic" senses) interactions from this set-up. 😄

That would be hilarious. Which combination of (i assume) Sigurd, Deirdre and Arvis would be the Duo hero (or let's go big, a trio for maximum awkwardness)?

Tormod still not being in the game is ridiculous. 😔 Even as a seasonal-only, he would have slotted in the Hatari banner easily (and still counted as someone not from there, since it's what they like to go with for these themes - he and Nailah could have compared their respective deserts). I'm still waiting for Nasir to get in (and would give him a vote, and be tempted to give Tormod one too, if not for Soren's last year results showing there was a chance to win and not just to place well), so I feel you here. Gotcha, and you're right about that. Overall, the other three are more popular (for many reasons, one of which being their games' success), but in the context of FEH, Soren is certainly doing better, and even if I'm very happy with the Valentine banner, we're well overdue for a good M!Robin alt that is Robin. (He, too, could have fit on this banner, or could have been on the plegian one as a chance to get in touch with his country of origin. Missed opportunities, all around.) She SHOULD, and I wish she'd have been. Plus a tiny Jill, if relevant laguz would have been too old and Sanaki/Tormod/Sothe too young.

He got a good alt because it was Tellius's turn on the children banner, yes, and I didn't expect him to get another one in the same year (especially now, sigh), but i think for a lot of people the voting isn't "because they need alts", specifically, but to show popularity and, hopefully, get good treatment for their faves out of it. Getting alts is a sign of good treatment in FEH, yes, but personally, I'm voting less because i want "more alts", but because if he gets alts I don't want him to be saddled with the throwaway art or skills, and because getting the win does mean something (in terms of popularity/"the fanbase is here, we still care about this more than about the latest waifu"), and in hope that he will stay on the radar as a "liked character" and benefit for it (merch if they do merch that include more than the lords like that one tome pouch at that one expo, no less focus than in the original games if they remake Tellius, that kind of thing). CYL may be FEH-focused, but it's still the only popularity contest we have for the franchise. In the same way, I voted for Dorothea last year less to get her an alt, and more in the hope that when her base version would get in, there would be more thought put into it than just "boobs sell, we can draw her like her plegian alt and slap watever on her". Of course, we've seen with adult Tiki last year, and arguably we're seeing with the current banner that reads like a targeted reaction to two of last year's scores, that ultimately they do whatever they want, so... (Replying because this was prompted by reading your post, but this isn't me taking offense at it or really disagreeing, and I hope it doesn't come off aggressively; it just made me think "true, but it's not the same" and i felt the need to unpack that reaction a little.) Oh, true, another missed opportunity here. A Merric alt that isn't just due to "Archanea is doing the kids banner" would be nice, Wendell is still missing, and I like Yuliya.

So do I, and I hope that people realise by now that a seasonal doesn't replace what a brave alt (or, for units that aren't in a position to win, a good CYL score) can do for a character. There is no real reason for this to be an Eirika situation, except for the argument of giving other characters a chance to shine, but with Soren's presumed CYL competition being Byleth and Felix who are from most recent game and extremely popular 3H, well, that'd be a bit dishonest. (Yeah, Felix only exists in FEH as one meh alt, but again, i hope by now we know when they're intentionally sitting on potential banner-sellers... something something Lysithea in 2020 something.) It would be a good fit, and he should really be in by now. On the other hand, maybe it's too similar to what he would naturally have, and they will use him as one more unit with a movement-boosting gimmick but one that they can put on a regular banner, since he doesn't need the excuse of a seasonal to be able to do that. 🤞

Yes, yes, you live in the fantasy world where Dorothea is actively Hated-with-a-capital-H by so many other people who definitely exist, we know. How did you get internet there?

Another GronderWarrior posting solely to hate on Dorothea. Why don't you get a blog, write a big rant on the real reasons you hate her so much, and stop spewing your bile here? Might do you some good. Anyway, I'll be team Dorothea, and then Santa Knight if she loses to the power of moe being easy to like Annette's big fanbase.

And I wish them all to get better soon. ❤️

They had differences in the same-gender s-support options for Fates (Rhajat's is rather sweet, for Rhajat), but the localization went for the copy-paste route, and they're worse off for it. In general, I agree with the point that gender shouldn't have to radically change a support (we certainly don't need a rehash of the stupidity that were F!Robin's supports with Chrom and unrelated Lucina), but in practice, acting like it has zero impact to the point that you can copy-paste supports from one gender to the other doesn't always work.

Adorable! possibly my favorite spin on that theme so far, though some were very good. 10/10 would resubscribe for her.

I wasn't really thinking of it that way, but now that you mention it, yes. Here's hoping, Micaiah is there for the RD representation, after all.

Ike as well, though he's confirmed. Considering how they wrote him in Fates, and how the only recent example of them writing him again is Heroes which tends to be middling to boring, I don't trust them to do him well. And even if they did, he's not really interesting to have as a peripheral part of a big cast who will say two lines occasionally or when everyone else does it - he's serious, to the point, and not much of a talker, so there's a risk he's just going to end up sounding boring unless they let him get some sarcasm in.

Purple lady who may or may not be named Abby does look like a likely option. Maybe Alfred too. But to be honest, I'd rather see the characters have these with each other than with Alear. (And definitely not with the Emblems. Hopefully they'll be off-limits whether S supports are in the game or not.)

Having the in-house members speak out when something happens was a step in the right direction on paper, yes, but it did end up sounding somewhat generic in practice. The examples you propose for a Binding Blade remake would work, imo, precisely because they're a select choice of a small group of relevant characters, instead of 8 people of which half feels like they don't really have more relevance than "I'm in this class" (or at least that relevance isn't well used). Echoes, who tried its hand at making your party feel like a group too, chose a few characters to focus on even in your starting party, and that's part of why it works. (Could it have made the effort to at least include your entire starting party of 3/4 people plus the lord? Probably, and I wish it had, even if they had to drop some later and go from "Gray&Tobin&Kliff&Faye" to "Gray&Tobin and Clive&Lukas", for example, but I get why it didn't try to handle all of these at once.) Personally, I'd like to see more done with base conversations, they did a great job for Jill. This, though, would be good. I've read 3H did it for some supports, but I would love to see it have more of this kind of effect. Anyway, people who insist on hating on Dorothea are the real ones who don't develop or change or grow (she does change), get better soon.

Seiros should have been a brawler, and I wouldn't mind at all if they rereleased her to fix that.