#a lot about the characters' psychology and upbringing and the situations theyre in

[mummer]

one day we might all grasp that none of the roys are good ceos because it turns out logan roys strategy of swing your dick around and dump money on the problem is a bad solution when youre in a dying industry, no one likes you, and you're running out of money. Much less when youre his children trying to pull that stunt on people who aren't as afraid of you as your father

People take it so personally when you suggest their favorite isnt good at this like babes....its a good thing to be bad at being a billionaire CEO those things shouldnt exist

yeah like obviously genuinely trying to buy into the question of which one would make the "best ceo" is a total losing game just like sincerely trying to discourse about "who should win the iron throne" like thematically that is so beyond the point and has nothing to do with their moral virtue and perhaps it's even the inverse blah blah blah. but i do think as a viewer you cant really help but engage with it anyway if you turn off your feelings and themes brain and turn on your annoying strategy logic brain for fun and profit. like kendall has actual knowledge of how business shit actually works for real and ran a wing of the company for a decade. he just has no likeability and insanely bad luck and no integrity or coherent vision and also is mildly unstable. roman is very stupid and evil but has good luck and is willing to make wild moves and connects a bit better with people because of his low charm (sometimes backfires). poor shiv has bad luck and isnt very likeable and also doesnt know business (through little fault of her own of course). well at least she has principles. *puts hand to ear* okay i'm getting word that she also does not have principles

[varley-of-torment]

Favorite Merceleth headcanons?

Thank you for the ask!!!

Merceleth isn't really a ship I have headcanons for? it's more like I have reasons for liking them as a couple, but also those reasons are kind of grounded in hc?

I guess one headcanon is that they're very in tune, almost inherently. Shortly after getting to know each other, they know they can rely on the other as if they were their right hand. They balance each other out, yes, but they're also on the same page about a lot of things. Their backgrounds, personalities, behavior, they balance each other out, but like their nature is the same page. If that makes sense.

I love merceleth because of that mix of opposite (devil/angel, mercenary/nun, fighting/healing, deadpan/cheery, good with complex things* and bad with people/bad with complex things and good with people, etc) and of connection; It's what makes them such an entertaining pair to me. I love imagining everyone else in the monastery being baffled by their in tune-ness and how well they understand eachother.

My other headcanon is that part of why they connect is their childhoods; Byleth grew up in a mercenary band, and as well adjusted they may be, that's still a pretty disillusioning and violent upbringing. Mercedes grew up in an abusive family and lost her brother at a young age. This is hard to explain unless you've experienced it, but going through life having had a chaotic childhood can make you feel disconnected from your peers, like you can't be on their level because you've learned to navigate disfunction while they have known function, or the things that seem important to them seem irrelevant to you (or whatever! this is a nuanced thing). So when they meet, they find someone, like them, who "gets it", who they feel normal around.

(I have spent the better part of two years obsessing about Mercedes's psychology and childhood, which is where most of my headcanons lie. Probably my most important Mercedes hc is that she's a CSA survivor, and that definitely effects her relationship with Byleth, so that's a merceleth hc by association; it definitely ties into my point above about meeting someone who can understand your trauma.)

More traditional hcs because you got me going now: I think they'd try on each other's clothes and have a great time. I've said this before but I think prof au they mix up letters to each other and graded papers and accidentally hand back a letter to students. I think they stay up all night talking. I think they both admire the other's way of doing things, like Mercedes is very impressed with Byleth's sword skills and Byleth is so impressed by her sewing. I think they're both smart but when they together they become idiots (affectionate) I think individually they're good in a crisis but if they're together they will somehow make the situation worse. I think prof au they are always sneaking their relationship around seteth. I think they see the students as kids but the faculty sees THEM as kids. They are a sitcom duo to me <333 these characters are pure serotonin <333 theyre so silly <333

*I don't know how else to say this?? I mean Byleth is good at war strategy and teaching a lot of different subjects and is just super intelligent in specific ways that Mercedes is. not. she can't hold too many numbers in her head at once she is self diagnosed scatterbrained.