The Apocryphal One, greetings! Anon discovered you because of your Fire Emblem Fates: Aftermath fanfic. I noticed that you played as different genders in different Fire Emblem games: you played as male Corrin in Fates and married Azura, hence the Aftermath fanfic. And you played as female Byleth in Three Houses and married Dimitri, hence you reblogging Dimileth fanart. What influenced your decision on which gender protagonist to pick in each game?
Hi there!
A few things, I guess. One is I've never seen the Avatars as self-inserts--actually, I tend not to self-insert at all. I just see whatever characters I create/play as, as protagonists of a particular story I'm interested in telling/reading. And naturally, I tend to gravitate towards stories that appeal to me.
Which leads to my second point--Fates didn't have any guys that really did appeal to me. Silas was nice enough, I guess, but childhood friend romances usually aren't my thing. Kaze had potential, but for whatever reason I didn't feel 'gripped'. Some of the male royals (Leo and Takumi) did, but were either Corrin's raised-together adopted siblings or thought they were biological siblings. I could identify with Azura, and I thought m!Corrin's romance with her would get some additional weight because of her plot relevance to make it more gripping and/or believable (because let's face it, the support quality in the 3DS FE era was varied).
And point three: Dimitri hit just about all my favorite otome buttons. Blonde and blue-eyed. Gravelly voice. A proclaimed character arc dripping with potential--I, like probably the entire fanbase, was stunned when the E3 trailer showed the noble prince acting like a bloodthirsty monster. And he had a fantastic post-timeskip design, I mean the fur cape? The long hair? The eyepatch? I swooned and I'm not ashamed to admit it. Add in the plot-relevance point I mentioned earlier and I was sold before the trailer was done.
