#btz!meili

[sufferu]

Btw how exactly does Elsa participate in the btz story considering you said before that she is just kinda there? Like does that mean they employed her, that she is at large or smth else? Personally i just dont really see them leaving her live tbh, subarus reaction would be funny to Elsa just being around tho

Elsa is still around solely because of Meili, who begged Emilia to protect her big sister because she didn’t want to lose her again. Emilia is exactly the sort of person who would agree to stand up for someone’s loved ones even when everyone else is (understandably) calling to just get rid of her already. It helps that Emilia and Meili both remember each other. Elsa gets a job as a guard as a kind of parole gig, where she can prove that she can be of use to the kingdom and therefore not get the death penalty.

Elsa has no idea what the fuck just happened or how she got this job or why she’s doing this. The world just went mad one day apparently. But Meili went and put her own name on the line for her so now she’s got to do her best for her little sister’s sake, apparently. And at least they get food and shelter out of this deal, because apparently these people think that feeding and sheltering known assassins is an amazing idea. She openly tried to murder the person who just announced herself as her main benefactor like two months ago, what the Hell is happening—

Subaru watches as Emilia declares that the assassin he bled out three times in his efforts to save her from is now under her protection as a member of her camp and dies a little inside.

Wilhelm is pissed that Elsa is still alive. He was one of the main voices calling for her head in that meeting room.

[sufferu]

Wait, they leave the "Apocalypse Demon" but they keep Elsa 🤨? Don't get me wrong I think it's fun to have her on board but considering the history...

Yeah that’s like over half the cast’s reaction to that decision lmao. Emilia cashed in basically everything she could to save her because she knew how sad Meili had been about her death in the past timeline. Even Elsa thinks that she is crazy for this.

[sufferu]

Sup! I had a question for you. I was wondering if you'd be opposed if I ever got down to writing an alternate version of BTZ. Mind you it be whenever you completed this wonderful master piece with full credit going toward you.

The basic premise would be Subaru running away from the cast believing that they hate/want to hurt him and accidentally joining the Witch Cult. (Probably by running into a mabeast infested forest or into some bandits and getting saved by some hooded guys who seem pretty chill. Oddly they won't stop bowing to him. Eh, whatever they're offering him a place to stay for free so Subaru is cool with it.)

Subaru then meets the Archbishop of Sloth and the man seems weird but he doesn't exactly appear dangerous. (This will be a running theme with Subaru where none of the Archbishop adheres to his idea of a Final Boss. Petelgeuse is a looney tunes character, the Gluttony siblings are weird kids, but harmless and Sirus is a silly Yandere who's trying to get with Geuse. So a bunch of Saturday morning cartoon characters XD)

Anyways Subaru and Geuse get along well. Like really well (Which fits the Pride If in which the two did become friends) And this chance meeting inadvertently changes his gospel. In fact, all the Archbishops futures change and the attack on Arlam and the White Whale are called off. (The Cast is so fucking confused right now)

Sloth takes Subaru to meet Pandora (a little girl in Subaru's mind) and she makes him the New Archbishop of Pride and promises to help him find a way back home. Subaru is ecstatic. So far joining the dark side rules! And they have cookies!

Meanwhile Subaru's friends are losing their collective fucking minds. They lost their time traveling corpse and the Archbishop's seem to have known about their plans and avoided them (Did they travel back in time to...fuck'n fuck!)

The Witch Cult Elimination forces decide to divide into two teams. One to track Subaru down and bring him back by whatever means and the other will try to salvage the situation and try to bring the Witch Cult Down once and for all!

Only Subaru likes his new friends, he likes them a lot and several misunderstandings with the cast leads Subaru into believing they want to hurt and kill him. It doesn't help that they have Julius leading the retrieval team and Elsa and Meili have joined the Cast and...yeah it doesn't go well. In contrast the Witch Cult are kind and caring and seem like genuinely good people! (Because everyone tried to hide any information about the Cult from Subaru in an attempt to protect him, the dude is totally clueless about the war crimes the Cult has committed...oops?

So yeah, anytime the Cast gets close to landing a decisive blow on the Cult something changes or the group has back up waiting to ambush them. It's almost like they knew about all their plans ahead of time...no it couldn't be...right?

Yeah, Subaru is hundred percent using RBD to save the Witch Cult lol!

No, lol, I would not be opposed to you writing this if you wish to do so.

My suggestion, though, would be to heavily lean into the misunderstanding that Subaru is having about the Cult. Have him keep totally missing the war crimes as a running gag, have Petelgeuse doing crazy shit off in the corner while Subaru thinks he’s just making cookies for when the guy comes back from “shopping at the market.” Have him totally out of the loop regarding EVERYTHING surrounding what the Cult is really about. I will say that I personally am not a fan of plotlines where Subaru is genuinely on board with becoming a witch cultist and murdering thousands of innocents, or of ones where the Witch Cult is…sanewashed(?) instead of being portrayed as the nutcases that they are in canon lmao — though if that’s YOUR cup of tea you can safely disregard my note there, lol.

(I also would personally avoid including Pandora since we REALLY don’t know anything about her yet, but that is again a very subjective suggestion, because I know that a lot of people do really like her already lol)

Anyway — could be a very funny crack fic, from my POV. Hope you enjoy writing it!

[sufferu]

So just to tickle my brain will there be any dark comedic moments with Elsa in BTZ II and BTZ III and in a roundabout way will Subaru have any kind of relationship with her in terms of forgiveness?

Elsa doesn’t get forgiveness because she just does not care. Elsa still has no fucking clue what’s going on, lmao. She couldn’t care less if Subaru never forgave her, and even if she could muster up some semblance of remorse she’s a little preoccupied because this whole situation is batshit insane from her POV.

Subaru is mostly just — kept safely away from her, for his own sake. Elsa isn’t allowed anywhere near him, by virtue of her being a guts-obsessed serial killer, even if she DOES have Meili and Emilia vouching for her to behave herself from now on. Elsa is fine with this, but she sure doesn’t understand the second half of that sentence.

[sufferu]

Meili remembers everything in BTZ btw. Elsa does not, but Meili does — and she’s fully convinced that Subaru will, too, on account of him being the original time traveler, and so she eventually manages to convince Elsa that the two of them should go to him for help escaping Capella.

Subaru does not remember anything — but he does recognize them both, because Meili was a little girl he saved from the Wolgarm and Elsa killed him twice. This leads to him trying to rescue her from Elsa, Elsa trying to kill him, a bunch of guards lunging in at the last second to keep her from doing just that, and eventually Meili revealing that actually she was working with Elsa the whole time but also now she really wants to switch sides please. Luckily for her, Emilia DOES remember her, and she and her end up with an arrangement where Meili vouches for Elsa’s good behavior and Elsa gets to work as her personal bodyguard.

To Subaru: not only is it revealed that this random girl he thought he was saving was actually never even in danger (and also was actively trying to kill him — maybe even making him indirectly responsible for putting the other kids in danger), but Emilia would apparently rather hang out with the woman who tried to assassinate her (and who SUCCEEDED, once, too) than with him.

[sufferu]

ngl emilia on btz feels very off, on her base morals rather than her panic. wouldn't the same logic applied to subaru for "it might hurt now but will be good for you in the long run" be applied to meili as well? elsa is a person that actually enjoys torturing people. there's no reason to keep her other than making meili happier right now, but having her around would not be any good, even for meili, in the long run. and we see she's willing to sacrifice that momentary happiness for the greater good with subaru.

my second point is that subaru very rarely begs for mercy when dying, and I think that makes it hit harder. I think that's why the whale death stuck so much with wilhelm, not just because yep whale, but because of subaru's desperate "I don't want to die". it's very jarring to see a loved one be so scared for their lives. so it feels really off when emilia gets on friendly terms with julius after the duel where subaru pretty much begs for mercy, desperately wants to tap out and surrenders, only to get further brutalized in return, even with ferris telling him to stop. it almost sounds like had ferris not been there subaru would have reset. and I don't think that's the kind of image that leaves your mind, for like years (taking into account that they're in re zero, because irl I don't think that would ever go away).

and it's not the sort of thing that can be rationalized either, telling yourself that their intentions were good does not make the knee-jerk reactions go away. (I'm sure this will be seen with subaru too, on btz3)

we see wilhelm get emotional/angry when he's reminded of that moment with the whale. i think emilia would have a similar reaction to say, seeing rem. and now to seeing julius as well, being reminded of subaru desperate to surrender.

specially after the fact, it probably gives the intrusive thought of "it's taking me everything I have to push subaru away right now, how can your panic almost make you kill him"

her getting together with the guy that almost killed him is not even just a misunderstanding from subaru's perspective, or something he's taking the wrong way, it's straight up what happens.

julius ain't beating the partner-beating allegations, that's twice now lmao 😭

thoughts?

A couple things:

1) Emilia’s decision about Subaru was not actually based in logic: it was based in panic. From her perspective, she had literally JUST watched him die thousands of times, gone back, watched him nearly get beaten to death AGAIN, and then listened as he basically confirmed that he was willing to do “whatever it takes” to make her happy. She is going to need a lot of time before she is able to revisit this train of thought with anything resembling a clear head.

2) Keeping Elsa alive isn’t necessarily a terrible idea, because she can still be useful and it is possible to keep her on a leash. Everyone else thinks it’s an awful idea at first, but Meili and Emilia vouching for her good behavior — especially Meili, who will openly take the fall for it if Elsa does anything to cross them — does ultimately mean that she’s going to behave herself. This gamble pays off.

3) Can’t spoil how their relationship develops without just giving everything away, but I’ll just say that how Julius is received post-duel is very dependent on how Subaru appears to react to him, how Julius appears to conduct himself around him, and how helpful he appears to be in the collective effort to keep Subaru safe and cared for. And like — it’s not like he did that and then showed zero remorse and threatened to do it again or something, he IS actually making a concerted and genuine effort to be a helpful and comforting presence in Subaru’s life. It’s not like he’s Elsa, who is not allowed anywhere NEAR Subaru precisely because she actually does not have any remorse for her previous actions (and would not have had any even if she DID remember violently murdering him two times in a row).