#{ Ask Sylvain }

[egretful]

pushing up daisies

[moeblob]

Did I want more from their supports than a C/B about girl troubles? Yes.

Does that mean I hate their supports being boys and their girl troubles? No.

[xenonsdoodles]

B1 dimivain :)

Disaster at Ailell

if there is one thing I love to do it's putting feralmitri in situations where he's forced to care about something other than vengeance. maybe it's just heat exhaustion though, maybe he's fine

[prwlnglthr]

over on my fe twitter, I'd share wips and one-night doodles-sketches-what-will-yous with my circle. circles died :( so here's the highlight reel!!

[randomnameless]

Why do the FEH devs insist on ignoring Nabatean lore so much?

I recently had a surprisingly cordial discussion on redshit with someone about the "nabateans = colonisers" take, and one of the main points raised was that the game was purposedly foggy around Nabateans/Sothis/their story because it would obviously favor a certain narrative (and thus make another narrative look, uh, not that marketable anymore).

To be honest, we still ended up with a product that had a lead go "this race and its blood* is the reason why the world sucks" and yet that lead is still marketable enough to have raunchy cipher cards and 5 FEH alts, so I actually wonder if, while pissing on that lore had that purpose, it was ultimately pointless since Supreme Leader can still sell goodies despite her incarnation in FE16.

And not only Supreme Leader - but the entirety of WC where we basically have 70% of the cast crying/complaining about their "mixed blood" or lack of and basically adding their 10 cents to the "this race and its blood is the reason why the world sucks".

I mean, can you imagine Sylvain selling any goodies and alts if Flayn replied to his "wah wah people only are kind to me and want to fuck me because I have Nabatean blood :(" by some uncharacteristic "good for you, I have to hide my ears, had to dye my hair, have to lie about my family because if the truth is found out about my identity, I will be hunted and vivisected like an animal and harvested for parts by people who call my kin abominations - just like what happens in the game where the same people who call my kin "abominations" ally with a classmate who calls me a creature and pretends I am incapable of human feelings based on my race".

FE Fodlan's main selling point is its cast of students, for various reasons, but even if I tried to kid myself, Nopes and FEH made it clears : students are the main selling point.

If you spare more time and attention to the Nabatean plot/lore, the students either grow from "likeable" to "despicable" or worse, you won't gaf about them because yeah sure, Hilda might be upset because people expect things from her due to her crust, but it would feel like a "peanut" compared to Seteth's irrational (granted, it's not so irrational since GW exists) fear that Flayn's newest friends would dissect her if they learnt she was a Nabatean, and being conflicted by finally letting her have human friends and form bonds she crave, or protect her due to the trauma from the genocide of their species.

Don't get me wrong, I love peanuts, I mean, not everyone can have a tragik of loaded backstory!

And yet, given how this verse's DNA is "can you fight against the red emperor who uwus about you", they had to add copious amounts of Earl Grey to their games so there's no clear-cut factions :

The "Your alien blood and its influence on the world corrupted it, so I want to reform it under my command" vs "I don't want to die and you oppose me due to my race and side with the people who genocided my kin"

is turned to :

"Your alien blood Crests and its your church's influence on the world corrupted it, so I want to reform it under my command"

"I don't want to die and you oppose me due to my race and side with the people who genocided my kin"

Sprinkle with the cast's hammering here and there that the "reforms" might be needed - but never develop on what they are - and add a few baseless and groundless takes as a toping (basically everything Claude says about tolerance and the general "isolationism/foreign policy" stuff) and you get FE Fodlan where the Red Emperor's war isn't seen as the catastrophe it is in the other entries from the series!

Now, for FEH...

FWIW, the F!F!Billy's trailer had them try to explain that Sothis was a bit pissed about her slaughtered/massacred children when Nopes never gave any reason about why she was pissed - maybe on Billy's behalf bcs Jerry's dead, but come on, she would indeed deserve the medal of the worst parent in the franchise if that was the case, since Billy can murder her daughter without Sothis taking over ! - but given that they cannot write/go against the source game those characters are from.

They tried a bit, with B!Supreme Leader and Hegemongard's FB, but then it stopped (because she had no "new unit" released since then lol) and I can understand why : Hegemongard came out before the Supreme Emblem, and Hegemongard hates dragons who are seen/perceived as gods by some of their human followers. Come FE17, and now Supreme Emblem accepts Alear because they are "one of the good ones". We can come up with HCs and details and talk about what are emblems or if Hegemongard's views were only hers at the end of AM all day long... But imo, Doylist wise, it still feels it's a retcon because the devs from the main games tried to scrap and remove the most "controversial" traits she had.

For the other characters... Well, you see what Marianne is in FEH (but even in her base games), she's one of the few characters who reacts - in a way - to the partial history about relics and demonic beasts and all... only to give sad uwus to Maurice.

FE16 (and Nopes) refused to have any "student" character react to the Nabatean lore/reveal, about what are relics and all. There are no lines, Claude shared some knowledge in the explore section of VW's last chapter, but we don't have anyone muse or think or even talk about what are relics, what are crests, and what kind of fuckery their ancestors or the ancient humans of Fodlan did.

With that in mind, FEH can't do much : either they write Marianne in a retcon-y way like what happened for Hegemongard (and they're not afraid to piss on characterisation, look at Lyon!), or they flanderise her "character" and develop her around 3 lines she had in the game in her paralogue, and continue to give sad uwus about Momo when he was at best a guy who slaughtered and murdered so much that he abused the Nabatean turned into a relic to the point where he turned in a demonic beast even if he had a matching crest, or at worst, had been part of Nemesis's piñata party in Zanado and was something of a genocider.

Tldr :

Why FE Fodlan never gaf about Nabateans : earl grey + the marketable cast has to stay marketable and you can't sell peanuts at the same price you'd sell swordfish

Why FEH dgaf about Nabatean lore : they can't afford to retcon characters + they have to sell peanut alts with the same seasoning they had in their base game.

For what it's worth though, I think FEH is more daring than the base game(s) given how they gave more lines and screentime to Rhea - through her different alts - than GW. And they even designed her Halloween!alt's lines to piss on some of Claude's assertions, while the various FB involving members of the church also - indirectly - reply to some accusations thrown their way in FE16 when, FE16, never gave them an opportunity or lines to explain that those takes were full of dung.

*"but random, maybe she doesn't know that the crests she often decries is "dragon blood"!"

It's highly debatable, especially given what she and Hubert throw to Billy in CF - but even if she doesn't, Doylist wise we still have a character who, knowingly or not, says "this race and its blood* is the reason why the world sucks" and who is never called out on her prejudice. That's more of an issue regarding the general writing though, she has to be a red emperor and took pages from Ashnard's book, and yet, the player must still feel bad and want to romance her, so her mindest/goal cannot be looked at too closely, because, I guess, even the devs thought it would be difficult to romance her (thus sell goodies!) if more light was shed on the "blood from this race corrupts our people" schtick -> which in turn would also make characters whose backstory and gimmick rely on "crying about crests" be way less likeable, thus marketable and able to sell goodies.

[butwhatifidothis]

Regarding the isolationism post‚ I looked at the hopes datamine to double check‚ and 2 out of 3 countries trade outside Fodlan. Aegir to the east (e.g. Morfis)‚ and Dominic with Albinea. Leicester is a bit iffy since Edmund has islands and is a hub for merchants (but I'll give the benefit of the doubt and say that it's trade with the other countries). Unless this is a different type of isolationism that I'm not familiar with.

Even without that, Almyra, the place that keeps trying to fuck over Fodlan for literal shits and giggles, has some form of trade be done with it because Fodlan manages to get shit from eastern Almyra (Almyran Tea Blend). And that's without mentioning all of the other foods and teas and shit they get from foreign countries! Plus the entire existence of a set of traveler's journals that detail someone's personal experiences with foreign countries that is readily available in the biggest religious center of Fodlan also swerves Fodlan away from being this isolationist nightmare some folks claim it to be.

Like I'm not going to sugarcoat it Claude was wrong. Incorrect. Not right. He himself directly alludes to his own incorrectness in 3H. It's not about lying it's not about being sneaky it's not about trickery and obfuscation and schemes the guy was wrong. Like oh my god can we please just let characters be wrong sometimes none of us are five we should be able to handle a character being wrong sometimes

[aces-sweetheart]

How about some headcanons where Sylvain Felix and Dimitri are feeling shy around a female reader?

aaaaa three of my fav boys💖 the hcs are a bit short so i did some drabbles with them. thank you for your patience, i hope you like them! i did a gn!reader since there was nothing in the scenarios that would specify them as a fem!reader.

cw: gn!reader, sfw

sylvain

i can't really imagine sylvain getting shy around anyone lol

but he will get flustered around you if he truly likes you (and isn’t just physically attracted to you)

if you compliment him he'll be a bit thrown off but will quickly recover and compliment you back/flirt back with you

rather than getting shy, he gets nervous and tries to hide it shows this by being overly enthusiastic 

((think his s-support scene with byleth where he says he’ll go blind if he doesn’t want him to look at other girls))

sometimes it can be too much but you know he means well

“I love your hair.” Sylvain paused at your words, leaving you to walk forward without him. You turned around in confusion to see him standing still for a moment before catching up with you. He tried to play off his reaction but you could tell he was flustered. 

“I love your hair and your eyes and your outfit and your-” You cut him off with a laugh that caused him to smile sheepishly. 

“Ok I get it!”

felix

it’s hard to tell when he’s shy around you since he can be very stand offish to begin with

he won’t make an effort to speak to you if he can avoid it

if he sees you, he may go as far as to turn the other way or hide at the training grounds or in his room

he’ll ignore you but you catch him very obviously staring at you a lot before he “casually” turns around like nothing happened

For once, Felix wasn’t focusing on his training. He should have been practicing the new move he learned from Byleth before the next battle but how could he when you were mere feet from him, practicing magic? Despite the fact that you two had only had a handful of conversations, he was smitten and seeing your body move and your eyes narrow in concentration as you cast spells certainly didn’t help. His brown eyes burned holes into your back. Knowing he was watching you so intensely made you so nervous your spell completely missed the target. You instinctively turned around to see if he saw the embarrassing moment but as soon as your eyes met his, he was suddenly very interested in his sword.

dimitri

dima is painfully shy around you

he really can’t hide it if he wanted too lmao

he'll be a bit awkward around you but it’s endearing 

as much as he wants to talk to you and get to know you, he becomes too timid to try

so he ends up talking about mundane topics like the weather

save yourself the pain and lead the conversation/take charge please

Dimitri silently pleaded with the rest of the war council to stay in the room so he wouldn’t have to be alone with you. It wasn’t that he didn’t like you; it was actually the complete opposite. He liked you so much that he seemed to forget how to act and every potentially interesting conversation topic exited his mind until he was only left with subjects like the weather or what the dining hall was serving. Sylvain was the last to leave the room, throwing the blonde a wink and knowing smile over his shoulder as he walked out.  Finally it was just the two of you alone in the meeting room. You shot him a grin and he returned it with a strained tight lipped smile. 

“I hear they’re serving onion gratin soup today.” He fought the urge to cringe at his own awkwardness. It was an extremely lame attempt at small talk but judging your interested expression, you didn’t mind. You answered him by lacing your fingers with his and you leading him out the door. Pink dusted his cheeks and his eyes were wide at the sudden contact and forwardness, especially when you finally spoke.

“Why don’t we go eat together?”

[luckydicekirby]

would love any director's commentary you may have on The Only True Thing if slightly older fics are on the table here bc lowkey it changed my brain chemistry forever. I read it on a whim like four years ago at 1 in the morning and ever since then I've been hooked on making all my fav pairings miserable for no reason. this sounds like sarcasm but I'm being completely sincere the schadenfreude is exquisite

okay first of all I’m SO glad to hear this because making your favs miserable is I think one of the most rewarding activities on this earth so I’m really glad I could help share that joy. thanks also to sylvain for just making it so easy. anyway, here’s some assorted thoughts, hopefully some of which are edifying!

(the only true thing for reference for anyone playing along at home.)

this fic affectionately named the darkling au due to this tweet which I feel like I should put in a hall of fame someday. anyway this entire thread showcases the origin of this fic which was me catie and lily bullying each other on twitter about sylvix, a pastime left behind in 2019 which i really miss.

the thing that really first made me Crazy Cuckoo about sylvain is his B support with Byleth--I'm obsessed with that moment where he very coldly threatens to kill you and then laughs it off, and that was pretty much the jumping off point for Sylvain's characterization in this au--what if he was like that all the time? answer: it would be bad, but also pretty sexy!

One thing I miss about writing for fe3h is the hero’s relics were sooo nice as like. shortcut symbolism. the lance of ruin comes preloaded for you! It’s familial cycles of violence! Easy! and there's a mechanic for it breaking ALSO preloaded into the game mechanics! I wrote like three versions of the ending and the lance getting busted moved around a bit--it originally happened a little earlier.

For a while when I was still femblempilled I was idly thinking about two sequels to this—a sylvain pov sequel about the war, which would have been fun but also Yikes, and then epistolary dorothea/ingrid ideological divorce fic. sorry to dorothea and ingrid who really get the short end of the stick in this universe.

oh there's a playlist. I can’t claim to have put a ton of thought into it it’s just all my fav bad ya boyfriend songs <3 actually dead girl walking reprise is like. yeah that's the fic.

ANYWAY. I feel like a lot of my commentary on this has been washed away by the sea (the passage of time) so a few extras. I apparently wrote like 400 words of sylvain POV of the training yard scene also? Last edited September 26th 2019, here you go:

Felix has always been smaller him, ever since they were kids. Still is these days, to Sylvain’s delight. He wondered about it plenty, these past two years--maybe Felix had a growth spurt. Maybe he caught up to Dimitri. Maybe Sylvain would meet him at the monastery and they’d see eye to eye. Of course they don’t. Felix is a head shorter than him, and he’ll never see things the way Sylvain does. Still. Sylvain thought about it. He’s had a lot of time to think about Felix since the last time he saw him, since Felix ran away. Still a crybaby at heart, no matter how sure he was he’d grown out of it. Not much has changed, Sylvain figures. Felix might have everyone else fooled with that delightfully sharp-edged exterior of his--a pretty decent feint, Sylvian should know--but Felix can’t hide from him. Sylvain sees him down to the bone. The two of them are a matched set: liars at heart.  Like right now. Felix is trying so hard not to cry, his back to the wall of the training yard, his grip tight around the wood of his training sword like he’s actually going to use it. Sylvain hopes he will. He hasn’t gotten to see Felix fight yet, really fight. He bets he’s gotten better. He bets he’s elegant and controlled—maybe less so with Sylvain, and wouldn’t that be nice? That’s how it goes sometimes, when Sylvain dreams about their last day together. Felix’s sword at his throat, biting and cold, ending all this before it began. It would have saved everyone a lot of trouble. Sylvain wouldn’t have had to spend such an awfully long time missing him.  He bets Felix could make him hurt. Nothing seems to do that anymore, except for thoughts of Felix, the ones he can never stop worrying at like a bruise.  Sylvain doesn’t want much these days, and maybe that’s why it’s so hard: he wants Felix in a way that aches, delirious and unstoppable. It doesn’t matter so much how. Felix is welcome to cut him open or kiss him quiet or anything in between. As long as he never stops looking at Sylvain like he is now, hateful and just on the edge of tears, so clearly focused on nothing else. As long as Sylvain can have that, the rest doesn’t matter.  That’s love, Sylvain figures; the cheerful facade he gives the girls is nothing. He forgets about a new one every week. But Felix? He’ll be dead someday, and Felix will still have a grip on his heart, as tight as he’s holding his sword and just as dangerous.

and what exists of the sylvain POV sequel I never wrote:

Felix looks like shit. Of course he’s also beautiful. He’s radiant, for all that his hair’s a mess and his face is drawn and he’s got the kind of dark circles that only come from weeks and weeks of exhaustion. He’s Felix, right? He can’t be anything else. “You look like shit,” Sylvain tells him, because honesty is what Felix thinks he wants from him. He hasn’t seen Felix in six moons, but that probably hasn’t changed. “What are you doing here?” Felix asks. His horse stamps her feet and shakes her head, moving uneasily under him. Felix has never been a good rider. It’s clear he doesn’t appreciate his mare, and she doesn’t appreciate him. Sylvain wonders how long Felix has been making his way across Faerghus like this. He wonders if he stole the horse. It’s awful not to know. “Looking for you,” Sylvain says. ��They say you’re searching for the king.” Felix never could stop himself from chasing ghosts. Sylvain hates that about him. It’s just as unfair as everything else: it’s the only reason Sylvain is still here, after all.  “I am. And you should be defending Gautier territory.” “Got a message from your father,” Sylvain lies. He slides off his horse, patting her flank. Felix, clumsily, does the same. “He wants you to come home.” That part’s probably true.  Felix scoffs. “My old man can send all the messages he wants. I’m going to find the boar.” He means it. Sylvain can see that he means it, in the flinty look in his eyes, the fold of his arms, the jut of his chin as he looks up at Sylvain. It’s the saddest thing Sylvain’s ever seen, and he’s seen a lot of shit. “Felix,” he says. He reaches out. He can never help it, not when Felix is like this, not when he believes. Felix doesn’t flinch from Sylvain’s hand on his cheek anymore. “Sweetheart. You know he’s dead.” “Don’t call me that,” Felix says. But when he swings himself back in the saddle and Sylvain does the same, he doesn’t tell Sylvain not to follow. That’s more than good enough. 

[ochitea]

How does Aurelius look with his hair tied up/back?

probably like this???

he has grass for hair so it looks like he taped a bunch of long grass on his head lmao

should've probably drawn his entire body to have a better view of this but i dont want to

such a shame bc the gang worked so hard to make this happen

[indigowallbreaker]

*gives you a tissue* what's your FAVORITE thing about sylvain

*blows into the tissue and about 40-50 index cards full of Sylvain traits/fun facts/great lines/support conversations spill out of my pockets*

Honestly the thing sticking out to me most right now is his hair. Every time I've commissioned post-skip Sylvain art, the artist has said something to me about how hard it is to get his hair right. I wanna run my fingers through it so bad and find small tangles and tell him his hair is frustrating.

Or, the more likely scenario, I wanna write a fic where Ignatz is commissioned to draw Sylvain and spends a ridiculous amount of time complaining about his hair.

[cherrypikkins]

fe3h music ask game playlist

Here is what the playlist looks like so far :3 thanks to everyone who contributed

The Hand That Feeds - Felix

Who Are You, Really? - Yuri

Change - Mercedes

Whatever It Takes - Leonie

Help I'm Alive - Bernadetta

Luck - Ashe

Allies or Enemies - Annette

Ship in a Bottle - Claude

It's Alright - Sylvain

Nothing Without You - Flayn

I Will Follow You Into The Dark - Hubert

The Lion's Roar - Rodrigue

The Scientist - Linhardt

Yesterday Must Die - Edelgard

Kid - Ferdinand

The Struggle - Cyril

The Garden - Jeritza

Run To You - Dedue

Blind Winter- Hapi

King and Lionheart - Ingrid

Inkpot Gods - Seteth

The Tower - Rhea

I Like The Way - Hilda

Sweet Hibiscus Tea - Marianne

Be Yourself - Dimitri

Grandmother Song - Dorothea

Oh No! - Constance

enjoy!

[moeblob]

Sometimes I get asks and I'm like "wow I have no idea how to reply" and then three days later I go "wait no I know how".

So here anon, take some acknowledgment of sorts? (Thank you for thinking of me with goarse physics but idk how to animal so)

[xenonsdoodles]

they were found like this the night after the first battle. this was also the night byleth learned that cracking open a few cold ones after a victory is not as acceptable at garreg mach as it was with jeralt's mercenaries

[teabagtoaster]

hey! anon from yesterday lol

im coming from twitter and wanted to say I really like how you draw sylvain and hopes you could compile all of your sylvain pieces in one place on here if you dont mind? dw if its too much work

anyways keep up all the great artwork have a great day

HI ANON i'm so sorry for the late response, there was a glitch preventing me from seeing anon asks that wasn't fixed until recently. hope you still want this lol

this also gives me a good place to put a bunch of my unposted sylvain doodles from over the years too :/ sometimes a blorbo is debilitating

i may be missing a few (such as traditional drawings) and i made the executive decision not to post any from like, pre-2021 (<- embarrassed). calling the majority of these "pieces" is maybe a bit of a stretch but hopefully this is kind of what you were looking for 👍 thanks for enjoying how i draw this little freak lmao

[cielenruine]

a gautier in training

[nerdnag]

My friend I know through Portia has started playing Three Houses, and said "there's a guy who looks like Arlo but acts like Albert" and I now can't unsee or unthink it so I'm inflicting it on you

AU in which absolutely everything in Portia is the same, except Arlo is now a ladies' man á la Sylvain Gautier

Literally no one in Portia would ever get anything done.