Really depressed and disappointed with the handling of the groom Robin unit. The moment I saw the theme of the banner I was nervous that there would be some sort of line somewhere in his dialogue, or the paralogue, or tempest trials that was going to explicitly pull some sort of "no homo" nonsense with Chrom. I was mildly comforted when I saw the meet the heroes text talking about the blue rose corsage that maybe I was worrying over nothing. But then sure enough, we get a throw away line where Robin comments on Chrom getting married to someone else.
It feels like a slap in the face after all the ship bait the last year. One of the most wonderful things about their DoD duo unit was that NO WHERE in any of the promotion or dialogue for that unit was there any sort of friend zoning. They were referred to as "partners" and while it was intentionally left ambiguous enough that people could still try and read it platonically if they wanted, there was DEFINITELY nothing de-confirming it as being romantic. And then with Robin's legendary unit too it really went out of its way to leave open the interpretation that L!Robin was married to a Chrom. And I'll admit, I think the fact that Engage had so many same sex pairing options made me cautiously optimistic that IS was starting to do better with how they handle this stuff.
So for them to then turn around and make a point of having Groom Robin comment that Chrom got married to someone else just...it makes me feel exploited honestly. It feels very much like they knew they could capitalize on shipper's money with those other units and so they allowed the potential reading of Chrom and m!Robin as being a romantic pairing for as long as it was convenient and profitable for them. And then as soon as it wasn't fitting the narrative they were trying to build in order to make money they immediately revert to discounting it.
Cause that's the other thing that gets me. They didn't HAVE to have Robin comment on Chrom's wedding at all. They could have very easily just not mentioned it and left it up to player interpretation. But no, they decided to expressly make a point of emphasizing that the Chrom from this Robin's world is married to someone else.
And I know for a lot of Chrobin fans this isn't necessarily even incompatible with their head canons. A lot of fans are happy to imagine that Chrom might initially marry someone else to have Lucina and then ultimately divorce them and marry Robin later in life. But personally, I have always found that idea tremendously depressing and I am not a fan of that narrative at all. I am not interested in the idea of Chrom making himself miserable in a marriage to someone he doesn't love and I do not like the idea of Lucina having anyone else as her parent except for Robin.
There are other workable explanations too--multiverses and different timelines means that some Chroms could be married to Robins and others aren't. Or Chrom and Robin could be poly, for example. I'm not saying there aren't any mental jumps you can make in order to force this dialogue line to be compatible with some version of Chrobin being together. But even if there are explanations that work, I think it's pretty transparent what IS was trying to do in including the line in the first place. The intention of it is still to wave a little banner in fan faces saying this Robin is not married to Chrom and that Chrom actively *is* in a relationship with someone else. And the fact of the matter is that line DOES shut down any and all versions of how *I* like to envision the pairing working. So of course I'm going to be disappointed.
I'm well aware that the nature of any head canon is that I shouldn't be surprised that canon isn't catering to my personal imagined story line. Especially when Chrom and M!Robin can't get married in original Awakening. I know that.
But again....engage and the DoD unit, and Robin's legendary and even 3H to a lesser extent all made me cautiously optimistic that they were starting to handle things differently. For the last *year* they have very expressly been making a point of allowing my little preferred headcanons to be viable, and actively feeding into them in a lot of cases. In point of that, there has been so much hopeful fan speculation that if they ever make an awakening remake years down the line, that they probably WOULD allow m!Robin and Chrom to S-support. And this feels like a very clear indication to me that no, they wouldn't do that actually, they are only interested in teasing m!Chrobin when they can profit from it in a gacha game, and are perfectly happy to turn around and try and invalidate it again after. And now I just feel stupid for getting my hopes up and thinking they wouldn't do this.
Frankly, it completely ruins any ability I would have had to enjoy this unit at all. Which sucks, because his art is lovely and getting new content of a character I love SHOULD be a wonderful positive thing. I can try and ignore the line and pretend I guess, but honestly it's going to be hard for me to divorce all these upset feelings from it. Maybe with a little more time and space. Idk.
