Great idea or horrible idea, a rule 63 seasonal

[Jotari]

So it's just a given that some characters in the Fire Emblem multiverse come in gender variations. The reason for this is obviously because of Avatars and modern protagonist design and that's cool and all...but putting myself in their shoes, isn't it sort of random which characters are gendered and which aren't? Like in universe you ever wonder if someone in the Heroes castle is hoping a female Ike will be summoned some day? If male and female Corrins and Shezs are possible why wouldn't they expect a female Ike or Male Eirika. Surely every character in the Fire Emblem multiverse has an opposite gender counterpart?

So...what if they ran with that idea and gave us opposite gendered variations of characters that aren't avatars? It seems like it'd be a fun way to redesign characters around a theme that isn't simply putting them in formal attire or stripping off their clothes.

That being said, maybe people just wouldn't like it? Idk, it seems like a bit of a radical step beyond the "canon".

Edited May 10, 2023 by Jotari

[Othin]

I've been wanting this for years.

[indigoasis]

Definitely an interesting idea. I'm not sure how much they would be set apart from their "canon" counterpart besides being the opposite sex, but I'd be down to see it happen. As far as I know, there isn't any precedent for it, but there wasn't any for Fallen Ike or the child banners, so I don't see why it couldn't happen.

[SoulWeaver]

This would be an extremely divisive Banner, to say the least.

That said, they do have Loki as a character, so it's not like they couldn't do something like that in the future.

[Humanoid]

Generally speaking I'm all for the weirdest, wildest, most non-canonical banners possible. But then as a canon-hater I've been banging that drum for years now.

[Jotari]

11 minutes ago, SoulWeaver said:

This would be an extremely divisive Banner, to say the least.

That said, they do have Loki as a character, so it's not like they couldn't do something like that in the future.

I don't see what relevance Loki has to the idea.

[Punished Dayni]

Hoo boy.

There are fans who'd take this news and run with it. Others who'd be infuriated that such a thing even got discussed, much less be implemented. I'm not all that fond of the idea, but let's explore it anyway.

I suspect if they'd go for it, they'd make a justification for it like "shapeshifters doing it for a lark", so we'd get something like Xane playing up Martha, Kronya as Huberta or M!Edelgard to fuck with them, Zola botching a disguise (as Izana or Xander? If the former I think that's GHB), Loki pretending to be one of the OCs but the other gender, I don't have any opinions there or Validar doing so with any of the options in his setting (This comes from Warriors, where he pretended to be Caeda.). Making a list of 5 is trickier than I anticipated, but surprisingly possible.

Course, counting those who use illusions (e.g. Nuibaba using an illusion of Celica) or just disguises (e.g. Samto), we'd have some more opportunities.

[Ice Dragon]

7 hours ago, indigoasis said:

As far as I know, there isn't any precedent for it, but there wasn't any for Fallen Ike or the child banners, so I don't see why it couldn't happen.

Fallen Ike appeared as a Cipher card before he was released in Heroes.

Child versions of characters necessarily exist in-universe, even if we never see them.

Genderswapped versions of characters don't yet exist for any character other than the playable characters.

 

5 hours ago, Jotari said:

I don't see what relevance Loki has to the idea.

Thorr is canonically the one that makes the child alts into what they are. Loki can surely pull her own shenanigans to make alts, and she's known to pull shenanigans.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

Thorr is canonically the one that makes the child alts into what they are. Loki can surely pull her own shenanigans to make alts, and she's known to pull shenanigans.

Well I could see them doing that to make an event of it, but I was more just thinking of gender swapped versions of characters being summoned as just regular heroes, the same way a male and female Byleth just happen to exist. The seeming (in universe) randomness of certain character just having alternate counterparts while the majority don't is what got me thinking in the first place. So I wouldn't want or need Loki to be pulling shenanigans when the whole point is that it's just justified already. I suppose you could say the same thing for younger versions just being pulled from younger periods of their life as perfectly normal, but the Thorr thing seems to be to justify giving them weapons that can power creep their adult counterparts.

From a design perspective, CYL Eirika looks like she absolutely could have just been a female design for Ephraim.

Edited May 10, 2023 by Jotari

[Ice Dragon]

12 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Well I could see them doing that to make an event of it, but I was more just thinking of gender swapped versions of characters being summoned as just regular heroes, the same way a male and female Byleth just happen to exist. The seeming (in universe) randomness of certain character just having alternate counterparts while the majority don't is what got me thinking in the first place. So I wouldn't want or need Loki to be pulling shenanigans when the whole point is that it's just justified already. I suppose you could say the same thing for younger versions just being pulled from younger periods of their life as perfectly normal, but the Thorr thing seems to be to justify giving them weapons that can power creep their adult counterparts.

From a design perspective, CYL Eirika looks like she absolutely could have just been a female design for Ephraim.

The reason why shenanigans are required is the fact that these genderswapped characters don't canonically exist in any known alternate universe.

The child characters do canonically exist, but aren't canonically stronger than their grown-up versions and need Thorr to patch that up.

 

Also, there is an in-universe justification for these specific characters to canonically have genderswapped versions. The fact that they are the avatar of the player and therefore have the ability to see the map from above is at a minimum semi-canon in-universe (it's at least mentioned in Warriors, and I don't remember if it's mentioned in Blazing's tutorial due to how long it's been since I've played the game). Even if they are unaware that they are the player's avatar, they are aware that they have that ability, and it seems like this would be more than a coincidence in-universe for these two traits to consistently appear on the same character. (And the non-avatar characters that can be genderswapped are all children of the avatar character and are just a downstream consequence of the avatar character being able to be genderswapped.)

[Jotari]

7 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

The reason why shenanigans are required is the fact that these genderswapped characters don't canonically exist in any known alternate universe.

The child characters do canonically exist, but aren't canonically stronger than their grown-up versions and need Thorr to patch that up.

 

Also, there is an in-universe justification for these specific characters to canonically have genderswapped versions. The fact that they are the avatar of the player and therefore have the ability to see the map from above is at a minimum semi-canon in-universe (it's at least mentioned in Warriors, and I don't remember if it's mentioned in Blazing's tutorial due to how long it's been since I've played the game). Even if they are unaware that they are the player's avatar, they are aware that they have that ability, and it seems like this would be more than a coincidence in-universe for these two traits to consistently appear on the same character. (And the non-avatar characters that can be genderswapped are all children of the avatar character and are just a downstream consequence of the avatar character being able to be genderswapped.)

So...? I don't know that your tenor is and how much you care about this, you seem to be really grasping for an argument when this isn't that sort of thing that has any value in arguing. Could they just release a set of gender swapped characters with no explanation? Yes. They absolutely could. No one would call bullshit on it. Some might not like the concept, but no one is going to nerd up and go "Well actually support between X and Y and in Warriors says Z". Because even if that's the case...so what? Maybe Roy is an avatar with that special status and we only ever saw the universe where he was male.

[Ice Dragon]

2 hours ago, Jotari said:

So...? I don't know that your tenor is and how much you care about this, you seem to be really grasping for an argument when this isn't that sort of thing that has any value in arguing. Could they just release a set of gender swapped characters with no explanation? Yes. They absolutely could. No one would call bullshit on it. Some might not like the concept, but no one is going to nerd up and go "Well actually support between X and Y and in Warriors says Z". Because even if that's the case...so what? Maybe Roy is an avatar with that special status and we only ever saw the universe where he was male.

And I'm not sure why you're so opposed to "shenanigans happened" as a justification for this to happen.

You asked what Loki had to do with any of this. And I'm telling you that Loki is their best option to justify making this happen.

[indigoasis]

4 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

Fallen Ike appeared as a Cipher card before he was released in Heroes.

Child versions of characters necessarily exist in-universe, even if we never see them.

Well yeah, I know that. I meant that before they existed in any form, they were never seen in their game of origin. I guess I probably should've worded it a bit better, that's my fault.

[Xenomata]

My concerns with such a banner would be twofold:

1. We only get genderbent lords or other major character
2. We only get genderbent males, ergo all-females banner.

Another concern would be picking the wrong characters: someone like Eirika or Marth would have siblings or lookalikes, so how much would genderbending them just make them Ephraim but a little girly, or Lucina but more legitimately masculine?

And as much as it would be a fun idea, I feel like it doesn't allow for much freedom of unit type: say Ryoma were genderbent, they're still likely to be a Sword Infantry unit, maybe Sword Flier if you want to look at all of his alts.

[Punished Dayni]

1 hour ago, Xenomata said:

And as much as it would be a fun idea, I feel like it doesn't allow for much freedom of unit type: say Ryoma were genderbent, they're still likely to be a Sword Infantry unit, maybe Sword Flier if you want to look at all of his alts.

Eh, if you double down on the shapeshifters messing around they could be using weapons they're more used to. Could be an excuse for Xane to have a dragonstone for once?

That is still a fair point though, a probable consequence of how they've handled things generally.

1 hour ago, Xenomata said:

My concerns with such a banner would be twofold:

1. We only get genderbent lords or other major character
2. We only get genderbent males, ergo all-females banner.

This is FEH. I would expect that.

so then I'd get a twist of F!Ralph, M!Sonya, F!Ymir, M!Echidna and F!Deghinsea

1 hour ago, Xenomata said:

Another concern would be picking the wrong characters: someone like Eirika or Marth would have siblings or lookalikes, so how much would genderbending them just make them Ephraim but a little girly, or Lucina but more legitimately masculine?

Also something to expect.

Marth finally gets his pantsless alt.

[SoulWeaver]

17 hours ago, Jotari said:

I don't see what relevance Loki has to the idea.

Even if we don't give a legitimate explanation beyond "Oh hey this is a thing now," somebody is going to have to answer the question of "ok but why" eventually. Heroes has always made at least a token effort at explaining every Banner concept(except Fallens if I remember right, that just kind of happened), generally using the same "uhhhhhhh they have a festival for that here" option, but there is no way anyone is going to believe Askr has a "Rule 63" festival, that's going to be a laughably bad explanation. Loki in Norse mythology has a history of swapping genders and this Loki would absolutely think up the idea of popping open a dimensional hole to a Rule 63 world, so you start your R63 seasonals with a Tempest event since that really works with the original function of the Tempest, have it be Loki's fault because she's literally said to Merth in a prior Tempest that she does these things because why the frick not, and there you go, you've fulfilled your basic FEH quota of pretending to explain why this is happening and only started happening now, even people who are like this is stupid have to acknowledge that at least they used the one source in the game that it could feasibly be explained by to attempt to explain it.

[Ice Dragon]

30 minutes ago, SoulWeaver said:

Heroes has always made at least a token effort at explaining every Banner concept(except Fallens if I remember right, that just kind of happened),

Most Fallen heroes don't need an explanation because they are already canon.

I believe the rest can all be explained as "post-game over" states summoned from a world after the player failed a chapter.

[Jotari]

6 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

And I'm not sure why you're so opposed to "shenanigans happened" as a justification for this to happen.

You asked what Loki had to do with any of this. And I'm telling you that Loki is their best option to justify making this happen.

Because I don't feel a justification is required. And, in fact, a justification goes against the very reason I want it.

 

2 hours ago, Xenomata said:

My concerns with such a banner would be twofold:

1. We only get genderbent lords or other major character
2. We only get genderbent males, ergo all-females banner.

Another concern would be picking the wrong characters: someone like Eirika or Marth would have siblings or lookalikes, so how much would genderbending them just make them Ephraim but a little girly, or Lucina but more legitimately masculine?

And as much as it would be a fun idea, I feel like it doesn't allow for much freedom of unit type: say Ryoma were genderbent, they're still likely to be a Sword Infantry unit, maybe Sword Flier if you want to look at all of his alts.

They already give different weapons to different gender variations...well, at least sometimes. But, on the other side of the coin we have seasonals, legendaries and ascended and the like that have already fully exhausted most canon alternate weapon types the major characters have. Like Ryoma has already been a sword flier as you suggest (though that's not something he can be in game, right? Isn't Kinshi lance bow?).

36 minutes ago, SoulWeaver said:

Even if we don't give a legitimate explanation beyond "Oh hey this is a thing now," somebody is going to have to answer the question of "ok but why" eventually. Heroes has always made at least a token effort at explaining every Banner concept(except Fallens if I remember right, that just kind of happened), generally using the same "uhhhhhhh they have a festival for that here" option, but there is no way anyone is going to believe Askr has a "Rule 63" festival, that's going to be a laughably bad explanation. Loki in Norse mythology has a history of swapping genders and this Loki would absolutely think up the idea of popping open a dimensional hole to a Rule 63 world, so you start your R63 seasonals with a Tempest event since that really works with the original function of the Tempest, have it be Loki's fault because she's literally said to Merth in a prior Tempest that she does these things because why the frick not, and there you go, you've fulfilled your basic FEH quota of pretending to explain why this is happening and only started happening now, even people who are like this is stupid have to acknowledge that at least they used the one source in the game that it could feasibly be explained by to attempt to explain it.

I've already mostly gone over this with ice dragon, but I feel like the question of why is this happening is the wrong question from an inuniverse perspective. Why not makes more sense as to the people of Askr it's just random distribution of heroes that exhibit sexual dimorphism. If you're also taking people who are already one gender and forcing them into another gender then that's going to inevitably result in different characterisation. As that's actually a really fucked up thing to do to a person and I doubt they'd treat it as such. We'd be just seeing a bunch of characters talking about what it's like to be in a different body rather than actually seeing a gender inversed equivalent.

[Ice Dragon]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Because I don't feel a justification is required. And, in fact, a justification goes against the very reason I want it.

Yeah, that's not happening. The developers go out of their way to give a justification to every banner that isn't just normal characters, no matter how flimsy the justification is. A banner with no in-universe justification isn't happening.

I personally would rather not have a banner like this and would rather just get characters as they are in different costumes, but I'm here giving you some way it could be done. Just take it.

[Jotari]

54 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Yeah, that's not happening. The developers go out of their way to give a justification to every banner that isn't just normal characters, no matter how flimsy the justification is. A banner with no in-universe justification isn't happening.

I personally would rather not have a banner like this and would rather just get characters as they are in different costumes, but I'm here giving you some way it could be done. Just take it.

It's not going to happen either your way or my way. I'm not sure what you mean by take it. It's not like I can do anything with your idea other than point out reasons I don't like it.

Edited May 10, 2023 by Jotari

[Fire Emblem Fan]

This would be the only banner I don't even use my free summon on, or tickets, or reruns, or ever summon on it in any way, even if they had busted skills.

[Jotari]

1 minute ago, Fire Emblem Fan said:

This would be the only banner I don't even use my free summon on, or tickets, or reruns, or ever summon on it in any way, even if they had busted skills.

Do you think you could articulate why you feel that way (not being snarky, I expect some people to just not like the idea, hence the title, I'm just not sure why even if I kind of get it).

[Armchair General]

This sounds like an great idea for some DLC to one of the recent games. But otherwise, it's kind of cringe if it's mainly done for fanservice

[Othin]

A banner where the characters are rule-63'd through being transformed and a banner where the characters are rule-63'd because they're taken from a new alternate world where they were always like that are fundamentally very different things, even if they might result in characters who look the same.

[Sunwoo]

No.

In the current climate of Heroes, this just sounds like an excuse to turn a bunch of unreleased dudes female and never release their actual canonical male selves.