#mines called Dimitri :)

[moeblob]

I am not taking any corrections on any of this. Felix just wants to play fighting games on stream and give his opinions when not streaming.

(I have ideas for Caspar, Annette, Leonie, and Yuri as well but that will have to wait. but now you know why I couldn't JUST post two of the Faerghus Four yesterday. They are a complete set.)

[basilflumph]

Im nearing the end of my main bg3 playthrough and am having Big Fucking Feelings about it so ive decide to draw my durge hanging out with all the companions!

to start, gale cause theyre both wizards and these boys love to research <3

[bisexualdimitri-archived]

assorted cipher icons

like/reblog if you use and credit me

[vallytines]

i feel bad talking about dimitri like hes just another fictional character but i also dont want people to think im fucking crazy. idk. like no i dont headcanon anything about him thats just how he is. like you wouldnt headcanon just some guy. thats weird.

[lovemeonlytilthespring]

GUYS DRAGONSOUL IS SO BUSTED AND LOOKS SO GODDAMN COOL WTF

(Original upload date: October 17, 2022)

[devilfic]

❝right place, right time❞

vignette. strawberry candies.

parts: previously / next plot: while at your place, you discover that someone has hurt judith. you turn to the only person who can help. pairing: battinson!bruce wayne x gn!reader. cw: surgeon!reader, secret identities, slow burn, mostly bruce-centric, fluff, a bit of angst, bruce dealing with kids, mention of guns (no shooting), mentions of alcohol and smoking, bruce will get on this old lady's good side if it kills him. words: 3.2k. a/n: while outlining the next chapter, I thought up a sweet little filler chapter that takes place all in one day before and during the events of chapter 9. warning for the POV change after the first scene.

"Judith, what happened to you?"

The old lady feels your thumb brush the bandage above her eye and closes her fingers around your wrist, dragging it away, "It's nothing. It's nothing."

"Hell if it is," you rush her inside your apartment, shutting the two cops out with a kick to the door. You lead Judith to your couch, sitting her down as you kneel before her. Other than the bandage on her eye, she looks the same except for something small. You've noticed her nervous shakes before, never peculiar, but they were hard to ignore today. They rock in her lap as she keeps them folded, "Did you fall?"

She looks insulted at that, kisses her teeth at you for it. She'd had very few falls in the past, as sturdy and stubborn as a bull. But even as you examine her demeanor, you know it isn't that. Uneasiness sets in your chest. "No, I... I ran into some boys on my way home from church. That's all."

Your uneasiness begins to bubble into wrath, "Who?"

"It doesn't matter, child."

"Judith, I'm serious." Her eyes bore into yours, trying to show herself immovable, but you can feel yourself begin to tremble at the thought that Dimitri might have-

"It was some kids on the corner." She finally relents, looking away from you. "They wanted my purse, that's all."

"The corner where? By the liquor store?" Her eyes cut away from yours, guiltily, "Judith, what were you doing walking that far? You never get off the bus that early."

It was why she started taking the bus in the first place. People lingered on the streets that late, waiting for any easy target to snatch from or snatch up. With the rise in dropheads, people would take whatever money they could get, however they could get it.

The men on the corner usually kept to themselves though, nursing paper bag bottles and hiding out from the rain underneath the overpass. They usually cast a sneer and let you keep on walking if you ever found yourself around their side of town. You'd never gotten close enough for them to want to attack.

Judith frowns, "I missed it. I thought I'd walk."

"What did I tell you about walking home alone? If you have to, you call me, or you call one of the deacons, or a cab-"

"I did call you," Judith snaps, making your blood run cold, "and you didn't answer. So I called again. And then I figured you were busy or working late, so I walked on home. I'm old but I'm not senile."

Your frown deepens, "I didn't mean it that way."

"I even came to your door and you weren't there. So I handled it myself."

"You were right. I was working late." Your fingers brush your pocket where your phone lies dead, "I'm sorry I wasn't there."

Proud as she is, she doesn't look you in the eye, but you feel some of her anger melt away over time. Her hand finds yours and squeezes it, "It's not your fault. It's mine. I should've known better."

You want to bite your lip until it floods your mouth with blood. You couldn't imagine what might have happened if she'd been hurt worse, left to fend for herself in the dark. If they'd been angry, looking for someone to take it out on, and she'd been in the wrong place...

And Judith with all her pride. You can tell she barely wanted to talk about it, had hoped you might not notice. "Listen, Judith," you begin, feeling her watching you from her peripheral, "I'm not gonna be around for a while. I won't be far, I'll still be in the city, but I won't be... here."

"You're finally getting a real place?"

You laugh, "Sort of. It's temporary. Look, I won't be right here anymore so I need you to take care of yourself. I'll come running if you need me but-"

You're silenced by her two, chilly hands cupping your cheeks in between them. Stern as ever, Judith fixes you with a strong look, "I'll be okay. Don't you worry."

"You sure? I don't wanna have to call the nursing home on you."

One of Judith's hands takes your cheek into a pinch and pulls, hard, "I said I'll be fine." Despite the pain, you smile all lopsided at her and she eventually releases you.

You make her tea, but all the while your eyes keep finding the white gauze above her eye, itching and itching at you until you think you might scratch yourself raw. You couldn't let this one go.

This feels decidedly more sinister, posing on an old lady's fire escape instead of yours. Bruce can see through the lace covering the window that Judith is still up, putting on a pot of tea, and he hesitates in knocking on the glass. He couldn't exactly walk through the front door, and if he came in through the rooftop, he'd risk being seen by neighbors in the hall. This was the only way, and it just might scare the living shit out of this woman.

Gently, he curls his fingers in and knocks.

Judith does not move from the stove. He knocks again, a little louder this time. Still, no reaction. He's seconds from asking you to call Judith to get her attention, looking away for just a second, when his eyes drift back to the window and there she is.

She's got a cast-iron skillet up above her head and the meanest mug he's seen this side of the east coast. It could put Penguin to shame.

They both stare at each other for a while.

When Bruce makes no move to leave, Judith yells through the window, "Go away, demon!"

Bruce had never gotten to know his grandparents on account of them all being dead. There was no old woman at Christmastime to spoil him with gifts and candies, no lovingly crafted wrinkles and sweet smelling perfume to remember a grandmother by. He had never been the type of person to walk old ladies across the street, either. He knew his place.

There was no way to make himself small enough for her to not see as a threat, and so they each watch the other, waiting for them to make a move. He certainly wouldn't be first.

After a good few (painstaking) minutes, she points the pan at the window and asks, "What do you want?"

"A friend sent me."

Her brows furrow, and then an even deeper frown overtakes her face (if that was even possible). "I don't want your help."

"Our friend is worried about you. And worried about anyone else those guys on the corner might hurt."

"Leave or I'll call the police!"

Bruce considers his options. On the one hand, she might call and they might show and think that he'd just scared the woman creeping by her window. He'd get a slap on the wrist and a reminder to take the roofs next time. On the other, he might get a trigger-happy recruit who'd need disarming and a detective who'd need explaining.

He figures he might take his chances with this one, if only to be a true glutton for punishment, "What did it look like?" Her eyes narrow in confusion, "Your purse. What did it look like?"

"I said I don't want your help."

Bruce hides a grumble in his throat. He has half the mind to just leave. He'd take the verbal lashing from you if it meant ending this conversation sooner.

But there would be a million more grumpy old ladies, and he'd be no better at talking to them then. "You used to keep a lighter in there. It was your husband's." Judith stills. Bruce feels himself getting a bit more confident, recalling what you'd told him, "He always kept it on him. I can get it back for you."

She doesn't say anything for a while, still holding her pan at arm's length. He feels a bit silly talking at her through the window, curtains still partially drawn, and he doesn't suppose he looks any cuddlier shrouded in shadow. But all she does is stare at him.

Bruce feels more elated than he expects to when the pan lowers.

"I doubt you'll find it," she starts, and he can almost barely hear the next part through the glass, "it was silver with our initials engraved on it. C and J."

Judith is looking away when she says it. It feels as good a time as any to get going, but he lingers there until she's looking at him before making his escape. He'd like her to know he heard.

It's not hard to find them.

A group of about five men are standing on the corner, all of them just as you'd described. They look inebriated enough to not even stand straight, and Bruce wonders how they'd had the brainpower to handle a woman like Judith just walking by.

Bruce hangs in the shadows, perched on a ledge above them as a train rumbles by above his head. One of the men flicks open a light to light his cigarette, and Bruce's eyes zero in on it. He can't see initials from this far, but its silver glints under the streetlight just so. It's enough to go off on.

Bruce drops from his ledge, catching only one of the men's attention as he lazily turns his head over his shoulder at the sound. He's slow to recognize him, but quick to gather close to his friends on the brick wall, "Fuck!" He shouts, slurring a bit, "Let's get out of here!"

The one furthest from him starts to run, but Bruce's grapple gun wraps around his legs and yanks him onto his back, dragging him further into the alley and closer to him. The others look loyal enough not to run off without him, but their fighting stances are weakened by their stumbling.

"Fuck you man, we didn't do anything." One argues, raised fists wobbling in front of his face.

"Yeah!" The others chime in.

The one held captive at Bruce's feet is whimpering and clawing at the wire digging into his ankles, pulling at it to no avail. Bruce places a boot on his chest and forces him back down, "I hear you've been stealing from old ladies."

"What? No way, man. We don't do that shit."

Bruce digs the heel of his boot into the space between his ribs, feeling him squirm in anguish, "Last night you did. You took her purse. Where is it?"

"I'm telling you, we didn't do that shit. We... we weren't even here last night." The man under his boot is pushing at it, desperate to get away. Bruce has the sinking feeling as he watches him, like a rat with his tail caught in a trap, that he's telling the truth.

"We're not the only ones who hang out on this corner, we swear," one of the bigger members of the group pipes up, looking worried for his friend, "some assholes beat us here yesterday. We hung out by the docks instead. Honest."

Another chimes in, "Yeah. Ask boss inside. He lets us hang all the time. He knows we weren't here last night." He gestures toward the liquor store and Bruce watches them for a moment longer, eyes probing. They had every reason to lie: they were all drunk off their asses, and his reputation preceded him. Even with the five of them, he'd have it handled.

But that sinking feeling comes back.

Bruce gives it a little bit before he finally takes his foot off the man's chest, and he watches him scramble to his feet, running back to his pack. Before they can run to safety, Bruce grabs the one with the lighter and snatches it from his grip, checking the sides. All silver, no initials. He tosses it back with just as much kindness.

"You know who they are?" Bruce asks, holding him by the scruff.

"You gotta promise not to rat boss out," he stutters, looking back at the store, "he knows the guys. One of 'em's his nephew."

A flash of irritation rushes down Bruce's spine. These things were never easy.

Bruce catches the store owner on his smoke break, seconds from lighting a cigarette before he makes himself known. The store owner shrinks back, and before Bruce can even ask, his voice comes out in a tremble, "Where is he?"

Bruce gets the feeling it would be better to say nothing.

When he doesn't answer, the store owner starts to beg, inching closer to him even as his expression contorts in fear, "You didn't hurt him, did you? He's just a kid!"

"Your nephew is the one hurting people."

The owner winces, but doesn't refute it. "Please tell me you didn't hurt him."

"Not yet," Bruce sidesteps the man, circling him in the low light, "and I won't if he stops robbing old ladies."

"He'll stop. I promise. I'll handle it."

"You knew what he was doing and you didn't stop him before."

"I... I've tried, okay? He doesn't listen-"

Bruce grabs the man's shirt and shoves into the side of a dumpster, the sound reverberating through the near-midnight air as he stares down at him. His name tag reads "Brian", and the sweat that slicks his brow is starting to coat the collar of his shirt. "Where is he now?"

A click sounds from behind his head. Bruce doesn't turn at first, but he already knows what's pointing at him from behind.

There's a kid there, no older than 17, holding a gun to the back of Bruce's head. He trembles like his uncle, "Let him go."

Being held at gunpoint doesn't get any less frightening, even if it happens to you every night.

There's still this primal urge clawing under Bruce's skin to duck and hide, something he shakes off the second he grabs the gun and forces it out of the kid's hand. The thing clatters to the ground and he kicks it away not a moment later, taking the teenager and shoving him into his uncle's arms. Bruce almost feels sick at the scared look on his face. As if he hadn't been the one about to pull the trigger.

Bruce leans down to pick up the gun and goes to unload the chamber, but there's nothing. His gaze coasts back up to the kid's and he feels his stomach churn at the sight, the thought. This kid had seen Bruce and still thought, even if it was a long shot...

Bruce holds the thing by the barrel, "You know how to use that thing?"

"Yes!" But Bruce doesn't believe him.

"Not loaded, but it's enough to scare old ladies, isn't it?"

The kid forces himself to look tough and mean, falling flat to Bruce regardless, "How the fuck would you know?"

"Her purse. Where is it?"

"What? What are you talking-"

"If you don't have it, your friends do. Do you want me to look for them too?"

A flash of fear. The kid hardens his expression but he's too late, "There wasn't even anything in it."

Bruce glances at Brian. He hasn't taken his eyes off him. He looks as if he'll jump between any blow he might throw at the kid. His eyes glide back to the kid's and he forces his voice to soften, "There was a lighter in it. Engraved. She wants it back."

Recognition replaces the fear. The kid is hesitant to move or say anything at first, but when his uncle places a hand on his shoulder, it's enough to push him forward. He swallows down his pride for just a moment, "It's in the store. Upstairs in my room. I... we spent the cash already but all the other stuff's in there."

Bruce stares at him, and without another word, the kid runs back into the store. Bruce listens for the sound of feet pounding against the staircase to make sure he wouldn't try to book it, but he returns just as quickly as he'd left, shoving the purse into Bruce's hands as if he couldn't wait to be rid of it.

A quick ruffle around in it reveals the lighter and a pocket Bible, among strawberry candies and pens. True to his word, the wallet looks and feels empty.

He wants to leave it at that.

But one more look at the kid and Brian and he's shoving the empty gun into Brian's chest, gritting through his teeth, "You clearly love him. Don't let him do something he'll regret."

Brian goes rigid. Fixes his jaw tight. He says nothing in response, but it's enough.

He'd meant to leave it at the window, but Bruce is surprised to find Judith still awake in her recliner, fingers twiddling with another copy of the Bible. No wonder she only mentioned the lighter.

Bruce knocks and Judith does jump this time, genuinely surprised. He holds the purse up and she moves as quickly as she can, prying open the window a crack. Just enough for him to slip it in.

He's careful as he slides it through and she snatches it from his grasp, digging through it until her fingers grasp the lighter. Bruce takes advantage of the opening to speak to her, quieter this time, "The cash is gone, but they didn't touch anything else."

She says nothing. She holds the lighter in her hands and it shakes, her lip trembling just so. Bruce feels his chest swell with nervous feeling. Three years of this and he was as if a novice all over again.

He's about to leave when he feels a hand tugging on the bottom of his cape and when he turns, he sees the window propped wide open and Judith's hand fixed into the material of it. She isn't crying but she's misty-eyed, holding onto him with all her strength. He forces himself still. He awaits a "thank you" or even a firm nod of approval, but in her other hand, she holds out a candy. One of the strawberry candies. His brows furrow. He can't make out where it's from, but he knows he can't refuse.

He plucks the candy from her palm and tucks it into his utility belt. Judith releases him, saying nothing more, but as he begins his descent down the fire escape, he feels her eyes watch him all the way down.

You stare at the candy in wonder, eyes twinkling. Bruce cannot understand why you're so excited, "This familiar to you?"

"You've been given the Judith seal of approval, just one step down from getting invited over for tea." Bruce frowns. "Oh, come on. Don't tell me you've never had one of these before. Everyone's grandma has 'em."

"I didn't know my grandmother."

Your eyes soften, chuckling nervously, "Ah, well. To be fair, your grandmother was in another tax bracket. She probably would've given you... I don't know, gold-flaked truffles."

Bruce narrows his eyes at you, though a smile creeps up not far behind, "Colorful imagination. Is that what you want for dessert tomorrow night?"

"Don't you fucking dare."

[crash-bump-bring-the-whump]

Whumperless Whump Event - Day 7

Have some war mage emotional whump c:

TWs: drowning, CPR, broken bones, hypothermia

Falling through a frozen lake / Hypothermia / “Hey, c'mon, you gotta stay awake.”

"Dimitri--Dimitri, you need to sit down." Laredo hissed, hands wrapped firmly around Dimitri's soaking-wet shoulders. He knew Dimitri couldn't hear him.

He was too busy watching Izan force his overlapping palms down against the center of Mariano's bared chest. Laredo couldn't entirely blame him. It was too quiet, with only Dimitri's harsh, shivering breathing and Manuel's muttering breaking the silence as Mariano lay on the snowy shore, unmoving and pale with his winter clothes heavy with water.

Laredo was only able to tear his eyes away because Dimitri was shivering like he'd just come out of the training room freezer. "Here--Dimitri, babe, look at me." Dimitri didn't see him when Laredo carefully blocked his view of Manuel giving Mariano rescue breaths.

"I need to help you out of those clothes. You can put mine on." Laredo had a good amount of body fat so it didn't feel terribly cold to him, but Dimitri had complained about only being able to put on three layers that morning. Dimitri nodded, though, wordlessly cooperating as Laredo unzipped his winter coat and peeled it away from him.

Neither one acknowledged the pop of one of Mariano's ribs, or the huff each compression forced from him.

"Sweater, Dimitri." That went next, then his undershirt, and then Laredo shed his own thick coat and wrapped Dimitri up in it. His own sweater came off next, and he started using it to squeeze water from Dimitri's hair. "C'mon, jeans next, you know the drill."

Dimitri's shivering hands slowly started to unbutton his pants, fumbling when Mariano started to choke and Manuel let out a sob. Laredo only just caught Dimitri by his arms, keeping him from scrambling over. "Hey, hey, no, pants first, you dove into that water so we need to get you warm. They have him."

Laredo didn't need to look to know that Manuel was helping Mariano onto his side, and that Izan was brushing away the hair plastered to Mariano's face. He slid his hands up to Dimitri's face, hating how ashen his lips were. "They have him. Let me take care of you, now. Sit back."

It was easy to pull the skates from Dimitri's feet and slide his pants and boxers off when he sat back, and even easier to slip Laredo's sweatpants onto him. "There, there, that should be way warmer." Dimitri still shivered and shook, but everything felt less urgent now that he was wrapped in Laredo's warm, dry clothes.

Laredo, in his long-sleeved shirt and athletic winter leggings, pulled Dimitri close and tucked his head under his chin.

"He's breathing, guys! We're getting him stripped and dried off now." Manuel called, voice thick with emotion. "How's Dimitri?"

"Got him changed. We ready to get back to the car?" Laredo asked, letting Dimitri bury his head in his chest and start to shudder and sob through his own emotions.

"Ready in sixty--maybe next time we can just go skating at the ice rink downtown." Izan suggested, and Laredo heard Mariano let out a waterlogged laugh-cry into another coughing fit. "I just think it'll be cheaper overall."

"I think Izan's right." Laredo said, gathering Dimitri up into his arms as Manuel scooped Dimitri's freezing clothes up. "This lake sucks anyway. Plus the skating rink has a hibachi place next door."

"Hib-bach-chi's b-bett-ter 'n this-s-s." Mariano croaked out in agreement, making Dimitri cry even harder.

Those sobs didn't die down until Dimitri was able to get his arms around Mariano in the back of the car, held on each side by Izan and Laredo.

@whump-captain @whumpr @whumperofworlds @lektricwhump @cyberwhumper

@bxtterflystxtches @inscrutable-shadow @honeybees-125

[harveybwabbit92]

[Hobie and his neighbor R/n accidently get thrown into jail (their just in Holding) after an incident, R/n was going over to Hobie’s flat to yell at him to turn down the music, while they’re arguing a woman comes rushing down the hall almost knocking R/n down.

the woman drops her bag in the process and R/n picks up the bag (Despite Hobie telling her not to touch it.) And calls out to the woman only for a scary amount of drugs & money to fall out of the bag, Next thing they knew, R/n and a facepalming Hobie were surrounded by Bobbies and hauled to jail for suspicion of robbery and drug smuggling.

the police chief believes that they’re innocent, R/n knowing how Hobie acts around the police, made sure he kept his mouth shut while they were questioned. but until they can get the footage from the building crappy cameras the two are stuck there. While they’re moping about it the chief’s wife comes in and while hugging her husband the wife looks at the guard standing in front of Hobie and R/n’s cell with bedroom eyes she blows him a kiss and winks.

Hobie snorts trying stifle a laugh while R/n’s jaw drops at boldness of the wife. Their guard smirks gives the wife a little nod than stands up a bit straighter when the Chief, completely unaware, turns to look at the stunned detainees and assures them they’ll be out soon.

Cut to an hour later Hobie and R/n are watching their guard and the chief’s wife vigorously making out in full view of their cell.]

Chief’s Wife: *breathless* Aron stop!

Guard *aka Aron*: Melissa you’re trembling, what’s wrong?

Melissa: Ian’s getting getting suspicious! You know he’s been asking questions at the gentlemen’s club! We have to get out of here!

*Hobie rolls his eyes as R/n follow them completely enthralled.*

Aron: … And say goodbye to all that money? I don’t think so.

*grabs Melissa’s hands*

Aron: We just need to bide our time.

Melissa: *slaps Aron hands away* How can I trust you Aron? when you haven’t even told Charlene about us yet?!

Aron: *appalled* have a heart Mellissa, the woman’s still in a coma!

*Melissa scoffs and looks away, R/n’s jaw drops, Hobie couldn’t care less.*

R/n, whispering in disbelief: a coma?

{Cue Ian walking in, Aron runs to the break room.}

Ian: Hi Honey! *Melissa smiles innocently at him*

Ian: *dropping the nice act* I just got back from the ambassador’s office, he thinks he going to kill our little real estate deal...

Melissa: We can’t let him do that, what about those pictures of him and that male escort?

Ian: There on their way to the news papers right now... We’re gonna destroy the old bastard!

Melissa: Perfect, Now all we have to worry about is Old man Jenkins... Maybe we should send your friend Eric to pay him a visit?

[They giggle to each other as another officer brings in a man who looked homeless, the man hurries into the cell and stands next to R/n excited.]

Vagabond: What did I miss? 

*Hobie shakes his head*

[later, R/n and her new friend are enticed listening to Ian tell Melissa a tragic story of his past, while Hobie stares at cell wall seemingly in his own little world.]

Ian:... And as I pulled her from the wreckage, She was so..*chokes up* d-disfigured, that I didn’t even know... It was my own sister! *breaks down crying*

Melissa: Don’t worry, Dimitri is the finest reconstructive surgeon in the world!

R/n: *whisper* Who’s Dimitri?

Vagabond: *whisper* He’s the head doctor at central Medical, him and Melissa had an affair last year then he-

Ian” SHUT UP IN THERE!

*R/n and the vagabond jump away from the bars startled, as Ian breaks down crying again.*

[later.]

Melissa, to Aron and Ian: We can still pull this off!

Aron: You’ll never get passed the DNA test Melissa, Even you’re lies aren’t going to be enough this time!

Ian: But Aron If you didn’t buy the mining rights, Than who did?

Aron: Don’t either of you see what’s going on? the perpetrator who bought the mining rights, is the same person who stole Ms. Margret’s diamond brooch, 

*R/n and the vagabond look at each other slack-jawed, Hobie pretending to nap cocks a brow.* 

Aron:...They're also the same person who framed Nathan for Andre's murder that horrid night! And that person’s name is...

Prison Guard: Okay Missy you and Your buddy are free to go.

R/n: Awww...

Hobie: *jumps off the cot outraged*What?!

Prison Guard: Move it.

[R/n complies while dragging a protesting and struggling Hobie behind her.]

Hobie: No! Five more minutes, You can’t just do this to me now! dammit!

R/n: C’mon... Brown, Don’t make this harder than it has to be.

Hobie: It was the Ambassador right? or Thurston?! No no The janitor...Wait no he’s Ian’s amnesic brother! Ekk! 

*He gets yanked out the office by one of the guards, while Ian, Melissa and Aron look at him like he's insane.*

[tastywormfood]

Currently going feral over Jensen calling Misha Mit. Not only cause it’s from his birth name Dimitri, but also cause in Danish it translates to “Mine”

[diaphin93]

Thank you for pointing out the Dimidue vs Dimilix thing. I get loving angst and why people ship the latter. But what really grinds my gears is the fact that Dimidue has less fanfiction than Dimiclaude. Dimitri and Claude barely even interact together in game. They interact more in Hopes. Meanwhile Dedue and Dimitri are practically inseparable. Their paired ending has Dedue being the royal consort. I can't help but wonder if it's because Claude is lighter skinned and more "conventionally" attractive.

The Edelcrit crowd keeps trying to pain her as racist, but it's hard not to say the pot's calling the kettle when you look at how often they forget about Dedue when discussing Black Eagles vs Blue Lions.

Honestly? I think Dimidue has alot more high quality angst potential than Dimilix in my opinion. It makes me think of the impression a friend of mine had when first playing Azure Moon. During her first playthrough, she speculated that Dedues attitude was some act and it would be revealed that he wanted to get close to Dimitri to get revenge for his people, because he seemed to be just too calm and subservient for what was done to his people by Faerghus, while also keeping a distance from Dimitri during their supports. And I totally get this, I personally also would have initially assumed that Dedue hides more anger than he shows, because why set up the dynamic of him being a survivor of genocide by Dimitris people, if not for some pay off, especially considering Azure Moons themes of revenge and being haunted by the dead? Alas, it didn't came to be because the game instead has Dimitri just play Faerghus police by squashing the Duscur Rebellion without another genocide, instead of turning against the nobles who commit it to begin with, and Dedue is effectively written out of the story in Part 2, due to being an optional re-recruit you can easily miss and so that Dimitri can have his loner boar arc.

Also I'm not really saying that I want Dedue to ultimately turn against Dimitri and become his enemy, but some messy complicated feelings and resentment would have added much needed depth to both the plot and Dedues character. Usually you would expect it to be like Dedue claiming to actually hate Dimitri for what Faerghus people did to his, while having conflicting feelings because over the years he grew to genuinly love and care for him, while it would have been a good growing experience for Dimitri, becoming much more aware of the pain and resentment others feel, similar to his own hatred against Edelgard, and how he as the King ultimately shares his own responsibility for Faerghus bloody history. Sadly the game never challenged Dimitri to this extent and makes his entire character development purely centered around Byleth and Rodrigue, but I think the set up has alot of potential for some introspection and alot of Angst when shipping those two.

But alas it shows the Fandoms strong racial bias against men of color, especially those who present as very masc. Instead they go for your typical two light-skinned Bishonen options for the most part. When it comes to Dimitri and Claude, I have my own problems with the ship. It is for all intends and purposes basically just Dimigard in Yaoi, the ship centers usually purely Dimitris values and validates his feelings and perspective over Claudes, enforcing this very white savior-esque perspective on themes of racism. I would say Hopes even made this much more clear, considering how their interactions are fairly awkward and Claude practically promises Dimitri to turn on him when it comes to taking out the church, something strongly hinted at in AG's ending. Alas, I also think they lack alot of chemistry and I have a problem with how Claude inside Blue Lions routes is always marginalized and turned into either a sidekick or PoC in Distress for Dimitri to act as a white savior towards, with little agency and respect for his own perspectives and ambitions. It is different in the case of Edelgard and Claude, where superficially people claim that he just follows everything Edelgard says, ignoring the larger context of him acting the entire time to push forward his own ambitions and that there differences are much more nuanced, them agreeing in their opposition against the Church and Crests but otherwise having distinct goals.

But back to the topic, I would say, yes, Claude being a more conventionally attractive in anime terms, which means bishonen, and lighter skinned PoC plays strongly into it. Claude being smaller and presented as physically weaker than Dimitri also usually pushes him into the position of the Bottom or Uke in that ship, which is another problem in the way PoC's are often represented, namely that Brown Men are usually only validated when they can be contextualized as emasculated and the more effeminate part of a ship compared to the stronger and more dominent white partner. We see this Dynamic play out in one of the most notorious Edelcrit ships, which also features DimiClaude. It generally reveals a strong racist element inside Fandom by erasing Claudes culturally middle eastern inspired heritage by recontextualizing Almyra as Japanese, a culture that white supremacy often contextualizes as the Model Minority, and presents him as the submissive to Dimitris dominant, while also being used to elavate Dimitris status as a white savior to further glorify him. I think this happening in one of the most popular FE3H Fanfics, that goes into alot of religious apologetics as well and involves strong misogynistic themes both surrounding Byleth and Edelgard, reveals a strong anti-MENAT (an extended acronym to also include turkey) bias inside the community.

As I said, FE3H is a true microcosm of fandom and its typical biases, bigotries and problems, which is thanks to its diverse cast. The top list of AO3 ships also showed so much, it was predominantly white and light-skinned asians and alot of Harry Potter.

[fireemblems24]

Azure Gleam Ch 13

Alright guys, we're getting close to finishing this thing - like 10 years later, but still here.

MAIN STORY

Ok, guys, the hard battle is over. Dimitri stomping everything is all I have left to do, I hope.

I wonder if I dislike Claude now. He's here and on our side, but I think "ew" and "ugh" when I see him now.

Claude suspects stuff.

Seteth is lecturing Hilda for whining lamo.

Seeing Claude, Rhea, and Dimitri all fight on the same side is cool, even if I find Claude annoying as fuck right now.

I wish Rhea would lead the knights herself, but instead she just gets sidelines so hard in AG. Hopes as a whole tgh.

Oh! No side battles! Not all that mad. Bc that means this'll speed things up a bit lol.

MAP/SIDE BATTLE

Sylvain is admiring Dimitri and Felix and how good of leaders they are. He's hoping he gets his act together soon too lol.

It's cool seeing Byleth and Jeralt around. Rhea's here too. The camp is packed with little blue and yellow dots.

There's a letter from Glenn on the table :(

Seems a bit cheap that Byleth only supports Jeralt and Shez, but can reach A with everyone. Like a cop out.

Honestly, neither of them have a ton of supports (Jeralt or Byleth). A bit bummed, but I guess you get them kind of late. Too bad this game never got a DLC. Byleth/lord supports would've sold that.

ANNETTE & DEDUE B

Annette needs help using Crusher. It's too heavy for her.

Annette thinks she needs to gain weight, but Dedue says that's not everything and is willing to help her out.

He helps her train with a bag of rocks and credits him with the motivation to try.

Dedue hesitates a bit when replying to her though, making Annette curious.

Pretty much a set up for part 2.

ANNETTE & DIMITRI B

Their only support this game.

Annette creates a disaster in the kitchen (or training grounds, unclear). With Dimitri's help. So . . . they tried cooking together? Yeah. That was never going to end well.

Dimitri and Annette both blame themselves. Dimitri "wins" though.

Dimitri wishes he were better with magic, but it runs in the family. He wanted to be a mage when he was younger.

"An old friend of mine would give magic demonstrations." - probably Edelgard?

Annette is willing to help Dimitri learn magic. She wants to get better at teaching. Dimitri really wishes he could learn magic.

Annette really wants to be a teacher.

She encourages him not to hold back. I think he made another explosion. Poor Annette has her work cut out for her lol.

INGRID & MARIANNE B

Horse girls final support.

Ingrid's been trying to figure out what her horse is thinking/wants based on behavior but is struggling.

Unlike Marianne, but, you know, she has help lol.

Ingrid's horse doesn't want to move again, so Marianne comes to help.

The horse/pegasus doesn't want to go to the battlefield because she's worried about Ingrid (and remembering Scarlet Blaze, that sucks, Fuck SB for killing Ingrid)

Ingrid is getting better connecting with her horse, and now will go get to save her friend.

When Ingrid's leaving, Marianne starts wishing for something but doesn't say what, Ingrid guesses horseback riding together and guesses right.

Ingrid credits to spending time with Marianne and getting to know her.

So Ingrid and Marianne are friends now. Good for both of them.

SHEZ & RODRIGUE A

Rodrigue is looking for a book on mercenaries.

When Shez asks why, Rodrigue skirts around it and Shez calls him out.

After a tough battle with Jeralt and co, Rodrigue wants to read up on mercenaries to make sure he understands their tactics better and avoid potential disaster.

Shez is impressed with Rodrigue for still studying after so long.

Rodrigue says he's not as smart as Gautier or courageous as Lambert, so he has too.

Shez says Rodrigue and Felix are close alike than either would admit - they both always want to improve themselves.

(and that Dimitri and Sylvain are like their dad's too)

Rodrigue still feels he doesn't measure up to the other two though :( But I'm happy Shez had such nice things to say about Rodrigue.

MERCEDES & ASHE B

Ashe turned pale while training. He plays it off as nothing, but Mercedes calls him out.

He got a minor injury, which reminded him of seeing a ghost.

Oh, poor Ashe, Mercedes starts playing 100 questions with him - wanting to know what it was wearing lol.

Ashe tells the story - he went looking for herbs to help his sick brother and saw a ghost in the fog. While running away, he got a similar injury.

Mercedes isn't scared of his tale. She's heard it before. In her tale, it wasn't a ghost though, but a shadow. Making Ashe think he saw his own shadow too.

Now Ashe thinks he lived in fear of his own shadow, lamo.

Ashe is like, you should hear this guy's story, and there's no one there.

But this isn't Ashe pulling on Mercedes, but him thinking he found another ghost because there was never anyone else around, lol.

FELIX & RAPHAEL A

Raphael wants to work out. Felix yells at him for being loud and giving him away.

Felix is boar hunting lamo.

Raphael talks about how Petra taught him a special technique. So now we have a Deer and Lion training, talking about an Eagle.

The boar they're hunting is wounded, but Felix is still weary of it.

Felix failed to hunt a boar before.

Dimitri once hunted so many animals that they couldn't fit them all on the sled lol. Felix struggled to get one.

Raphael gets confused when Felix is talking about boar, if he means a real boar or Dimitri lol.

Raphael wants to help Felix get revenge for the boar that got away.

And he attacks head-on, much to Felix's dismay, but he got it. Felix is a bit stunned it went down so quickly.

Felix admits that maybe working with friends helps sometimes. And Raphael is happy Felix called him friend.

This was actually way more entertaining than I thought it would be (Raphael supports can be . . . you know . . . dull or amusing, this one was amusing)

Plus I love hearing the story of Dimitri being an apex hunter as a child and Felix grumbling off trying to bag his own boar and failing lamo.

RODRIGUE & FELIX A

Rodrigue wants to talk. Felix tried to brush him off. And Rodrigue's like shut up and sit down, boy. But nicely.

He wants to talk because neither know when they'll die and don't want lingering regrets. Which, knowing what happens in Azure Moon . . . :(

Rodrigue apologizes for what he said about Glenn. Which I find a bit stupid because he was a grieving father so . . .

Thankfully, Rodrigue gets to explain his thoughts behind it. Acknowledging Glenn's agency in his decisions too.

Felix denies Glenn's agency and can only get Dimitri to say he caused Glenn to die :(

Rodrigue acknowledges that, but asks Felix what he would've done. Let Dimitri die and run away to save himself or do what Glenn did.

Felix gets angry at the idea that saving your own life is cowardice and that, when the time actually comes with something like that, you don't think - only act. So . . . he walked into Rodrigue's trap lol, who'll say then Glenn acted and choose to act that way.

Felix is such a dunce, saying "we'd both survive." Rodrigue rightly accuses him of wanting it both ways lol.

Felix says he understands Rodrigue's way of thinking, but dislikes Glenn's death being glorified.

Felix apologizes too, for his own bad behavior. For hitting Rodrigue.

Felix can't stand dealing with feelings anymore and leaves lol.

I'm sooooo glad this game let Rodrigue have a voice. It was always obvious to anyone with a shred of media literacy what Rodrigue meant, but Hopes let him spell it out.

DIMITRI & YURI B

Yuri's staring at Dimitri. Same. Same.

Yuri's impressed/confused at how quickly Dimitri blended in.

Dimitri's now thinking about the best way to help the poorest (we stan a good king, guys). It's something he's thought a lot about.

He thought medical facilities or investing more in the church (who do more to help the poor than anyone else in this game) would be best, but being around them made him realize that they should get the chance to take charge of their own "destiny."

He wants rulers to actually listen to what the people need best and actually do it rather than what's best for himself.

Yuri says education for everyone is necessary. Dimitri agrees.

But then Yuri makes the point that people won't care about education if they're starving or homeless. (so really, his earlier goals of building medical facilities where people get free/cheap healthcare isn't too far off).

So Dimitri wants to improve quality of life, then build educational reform on top of that.

But of course Edelgard's warmongering is draining money, so Dimitri can't make lives for the common folk better and needs to end the war fast so he can focus on helping people and not keeping little miss imperialist away.

Yuri says if money's the problem, he can use Yuri who can connect Dimitri to merchants and hitman lol. Dimitri's like "no working evil in my name!" He's also cautious about working with Yuri because he's backstabbed people in the past.

Yuri says he promises to honestly work with Dimitri, even protect him, because working with Dimitri will help his dream come true too. So he believes in Dimitri's leadership and vision.

Dimitri says he's grown to trust Yuri too.

Man, I need a sequel game where Yuri and Dimitri work on improving Faerghus together.

SHEZ & FELIX B

So . . . I had no idea I hadn't seen this support yet. I have their A unlocked for a while now too, though, I'll wait to see it since I'm getting support fatigue at the moment.

They're training. Felix insults Shez's footwork. What a typical Felix support lol.

Shez says she has a lot on her mind. Felix calls her a worthless partner if she's training distracted.

And then explains how Shez can't afford to do that on the battlefield (like a mercenary needs telling that lol).

Shez is surprised how much Felix has a read on her.

Felix wants to know where Shez learned how to fight because it's not like a knife or a mercenary.

Shez had a lot of teachers and just picked up stuff here and there. She doesn't use the playbook that knights or mercs usually use.

Shez says she has her unique style which is to her benefit. Felix wants her to teach him. But Shez thinks it's too reliant on the sword Felix can't use. Felix is like try me.

I can agree or refuse to teach him. Obviously I'm agreeing. (I would totally be an ass if it was character I didn't like lol).

Shez comments on Felix's style too - reacting to the say things are playing out.

Shez thinks she'll get stronger too.

I seriously can't believe I let these two sit at B for so long.

ANNETTE & DEDUE A

Annette comes across Dedue training. She insists he takes a break, but he insists on training still because he's not strong enough.

He feels inadequate because he can't use a hero's relic.

He admits he's jealous that others can use such powerful weapons.

Annette's surprised that he opened up, and appreciates that he opened up around her after he tried to dial back and apologize.

Annette talks about how impressed she is with him - his ability to cook and sow where she can't, and his sheer strength despite not using a relic. She thinks he'd be too good if he could use one lol.

Dedue talks about her strengths too - her optimism and how that lifts everyone up around her. Annette is happy if she can help anyone even a little.

Annette made dinner. The bottom of the pot fell out, but she insists that dinner still tastes great.

Someone tell Annette she's not destined to work in marketing lol.

Dedue still goes to eat dinner after hearing that. Brave man.

BYLETH & JERALT B

Definitely one of the supports I was looking forward too.

Byleth has a lot of blood on his clothing and is trying to wash it out and is failing.

Jeralt says washing blood out is more work than it's worth. Proof that man's never had a period.

Jeralt says Byleth reminds him of Sitri when they first meant. She had the same quiet composure and would rather clean a handkerchief she was cleaning than throw it away.

She never laughed or cried either, like Byleth, not at first at least.

Byleth asks why Jeralt is talking about all this now. Jeralt says he's feeling guilty of the lifestyle he's given Byleth - no home, no friends, always battles.

He says life would be different if Sitri was still alive.

Byleth doesn't regret his life and likes having Jeralt around.

It's nice to learn more about Sitri.

JERALT & SHEZ C

Jeralt comes across Shez fishing. Shez is weary. Jeralt tells Shez to relax, but Shez isn't used to it.

Jeralt is like, we're mercs, life happens, it's not personal.

Shez brings up the beginning where Jeralt's Mercenaries wiped out Shez's old company. Glad they're addressing this.

Shez is still upset about it. Jeralt understands now.

He asks if Shez has a grudge. I can choose yes or no. I'm gonna choose yes. I think this Shez would admit to attachments to other people, plus the conflict is more interesting, I think.

Shez talks about how much she liked that group and shares her goals of defeating the Ashen Demon.

Jeralt's like, you just have to let that go now.

Shez admits she's partly relieved because she couldn't defeat Byleth. Jeralt is like, that means you think you could beat me? Shez is like, well, I'd have to try first.

Then Shez helps Jeralt untangle his fishing string and comments on his lack of dexterity.

Jeralt then apologizes about what happened to Shez's mercenary company, especially since it was just too minor lords spewing.

He says he didn't originally plan on killing them, but she (the old captain) came charging in trying to use Jeralt to make a name for herself.

Shez understands, but still seems regretful.

Def hope I can unlock their A in time to see how this resolved (they don't have a B support).

MAIN BATTLE

No side battles this chapter. Onto the showdown at Ailell. Which means fire ground. Ugh. Gonna make everyone a flier that it makes sense for.

They're run into the Black Eagles. The Emperor's personal force.

Claude is there. Man, I gotta play Three Houses again. Every time I see him I'm like "ugh." I did NOT used to think that way.

Wait, is Edelgard actually here? I thought she was some kind of zombie whatever.

TWSITD is there (or mysterious dark mages). Claude is like "you know these people?"

Man, why is Dimitri trusting Claude. Telling him "don't let your guard down." Dimitri wants Claude about the mages. I wouldn't count on Claude's support if he was the only person left.

Even though this IS the only route where Claude's actions make any sense lol. It's definitely in his best interest to put a stop to the Empire's warmongering.

Arval's like, maybe we can learn something this time!

Arval's not upset if they never learn the truth and promises to be with Shez always regardless.

I gotta defeat Duke Aegir and Edelgard. Interesting that she's actually there.

Ohh, persuade Death Knight. They were setting him up to be here, but I didn't know I could recruit him. Makes way more sense than in Houses where you can't. Not surprised you need Mercedes to do it. I always bring her anyways.

Dimitri took out Ladislava right away lol.

Death Knight showed up. I'm beyond seeing him as a scary opponent though lol.

Mercedes defeated the Death Knight as an NPC. Is that automatic or just funny coincidence?

Aegir and Edelgard ran away. Really wish I could've killed Aegir. Killing Edelgard would stop the war too.

I killed Caspar and Bergliez so fast the dialogue didn't even finish lol. Dimitri too strong. They both ran away. Honestly, couldn't care less about killing this version of Caspar.

Oh, cool cut scene. And, ok, it's cool to see Claude and Dimitri fighting back-to-back.

Claude tells Dimitri to run after Edelgard while he holds off the Empire here. Not sure I trust him at all, but like I said, this is the only route where his choices make any sense.

Dimitri has 74 strength lol. No wonder he kills everything so fast.

Cool to get Jeritza though.

xxx

[talesfromaurea]

Tales from Aurea - Session 15 Now Posted!

Hello! Session 15 - The Wizard in the Mine can be read right now on Royal Road (link here). Enjoy!

Chapter Summary: Sakrattars, Jo, and Kaja journey into the Grayspur mountains, searching for the wizard living in a ferix mine. But there's something very wrong with the wizard and figuring out what it is will only raise more questions than answers.

Taglist (ask to be +/-): @drippingmoon, @kainablue, @splashinkling, @space-writes, @aroyalpaininthecass

@thelaughingstag

Curious what this story is about? Check out the pinned post here

Chapter preview under the cut

The morning after Vyrkad briefed the companions on their missions, Sakrattars woke before the sun. He reviewed the map he’d been provided several times, committing all details to memory, then set to work flipping through his spellbook and the various notes he had taken during the brief. Although his information recall had always been second to none, Sakrattars still liked to have physical affirmations that his recollections were indeed correct.

Amale was the next to rise, then Jo, with the latter eventually rousing Kaja from her sleep. When Dimitri arrived at their doorstep, Leif was rushing around in a tired haze, clumsily gathering his equipment and complaining that no one woke him up. Waiting for them outside was Barzom and his scouting team, as well as Captain Tullius and Leo. While Tullius and Leo were staying behind, they still wanted to send the companions off properly.

When they reached the central plaza, Leif gave Jo’s hand a hearty shake. “See you on the other side,” he said cheerily. Sakrattars pursed his lips. Why provoke such an ill omen?

As Dimitri’s team continued west, Sakrattars, Jo, and Kaja turned down the north road. Reserved almost exclusively for miners and loggers, the north gate was positioned at the narrowest part of the valley, where the river terminated at a small lake. Loggers in the mountains would roll the trunks of great evergreen trees into the river, where they’d float downstream into the lake, get fished out, and then were used to power the forges.

The north gate, while called a “gate”, was more of an informal checkpoint with a guardpost on either side of the river. Unless the ferix found reason to fear an army of foxes or owlbears, there was no risk of an invasion through the north’s wild and inhospitable terrain, so security was thin and the soldiers bored. Sakrattars showed their pass, signed by Vyrkad, to the on-duty guard. The ferix’s eyes scanned the text lazily, then flicked up to each of them in turn. He settled on Kaja, who smiled brightly up at him. Grumbling a few words in ferish, the guard waved them through. Whatever Vyrkad was thinking, it was above his rank to care.

Sakrattars adjusted his pack and pulled his rhino-hair cloak closed against the biting wind. Their destination was on the west bank, around a day’s walk upstream: a mountain that the ferix called “Mount Blade”, not for its shape or mythology, but because that’s where they mined diamonds—a gem they valued primarily for its cutting properties. Sakrattars had been shocked to learn that they routinely discovered veins of other precious materials like ruby, sapphire, quartz, and amethyst in the Mount Blade mine, but these were either left alone or discarded. Back in the Empire, such treasures adorned the necks and hair of nobles, and were prized items in a wizard’s collection of spell components, though only the wealthy could reasonably purchase them. Sakrattars wondered whether the gems were what attracted the wizard in the first place.

There was one odd detail in Vyrkad’s briefing that concerned Sakrattars, however. According to the miners’ reports, the wizard kept to himself and rarely left his tower, though they could see his shadow roaming around the candle-lit windows. This fact they all agreed on but, bizarrely, the miners were conflicted on where the tower was located. One claimed he saw it just inside the cave mouth, another said it was tucked at the end of a little-used passageway. One even said he saw it outside the mine, built as if carved out from the mountainside itself. The simplest explanation was that it was an illusion spell, intended to deter curious ferix. Depending on the strength of the spell, Sakrattars thought that he might be able to counteract it but that contingency didn’t exactly fill him with confidence. He hoped that the wizard would be amenable to treating with one of his fellows and voluntarily make his presence known.

[throwaway-yandere]

Dear Signore,

Salutations! It has been a while since I sent you a letter.

My dearest apologies for how late it has been— recently, I've fallen ill and I've been try to deal with it but to no avail. I had to endure a few other matters that's taking toll of my health, so it's why I took so long to get back to you.

I hope you don't mind if you visit me— I'd rather not make you sick as well, and especially with how the weather has been changing. It's not doing so good to my body with how fast it has changed.

Speaking of, I've managed to make a portrait of you when I wasn't so bedridden. It's not finished yet, but it's halfway done. I just need some adjustments to it. What flower do you like, Signore? I might send it as well once it's done.

From the gardens,

Dimitri Pendragon

To My Dear Friend, Dimitri Pendragon,

I must express my concern upon learning of your illness. Please do not worry about the delay in your response, as your health and well-being are far more important. While it is always a pleasure to receive letters from you, I implore you to please prioritize your recovery. I cannot bear it in my conscience to drain your energy in times such as this. While your invitation is most tempting, I must insist that you focus on your health, I would not wish for any further harm to befall you.

If you can't hear my sighs in this letter, then I hope you will utilize your very vivid imagination. I am honored that you have chosen me as your subject since your talent in portraiture is truly remarkable, but please rest. Not that I have faith that such words will make you falter. I'm well aware of how stubborn you could be. Perhaps I should send a letter to Ms. Hatter so I can be assured that you do not forget to take breaks, hmm? 

However, I must offer a word of caution regarding the choice of flowers in your painting. Though I hold a fondness for Cecilias, they evoke memories of my cherished White Knight, (Y/n), and it would be ill-advised to send such tokens to her, or an "unfortunate incident" may arise. Surely a fellow man knows how possessiveness would linger in one's heart every other day? I cannot help myself. It is a wonderful feeling to call such a strong dame mine and mine alone.

Instead, I suggest considering the timeless beauty of Red Roses. These floral treasures shall convey your sentiment without any unwanted consequences. In closing, I beseech you once more to focus on your well-being, lest you'll have Ms. Hatter on your doorstep. May the wind lead.

Your dear friend,

Roslyn-Kruzchka Lohefalter 

[randomvarious]

1990s House Playlist

Alright, folks, this is the week where I add a bunch of sweet bangers to this slowly growing 90s house playlist of mine, almost all of which come from one of my favorite dance mixes of all time, Dimitri From Paris' Monsieur Dimitri's De-Luxe House of Funk, which was released back in 1997 by biblical electronic music monthly Mixmag as part of their own Mixmag Live series.

Now, you can't find most of the tracks from this mix on Spotify, but luckily there's still one that you can: Parisian Bob Sinclar's "Visions of Paradise," which predates his making of really annoying tracks, like his update on C&C Music Factory's "Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)," by a whole bunch of years 🤢. This one, though, is a pretty perfect track for the middle of any late 90s house mix. Bob sampled the vocal from a 1991 house track of the same name by a Long Island duo called Island Noyze Productions, and he imported a retro streak from a few-second portion of Brooklyn disco-funk band Brass Construction's scorchingly uptempo 1976 tune, "Sambo." But he also mixes those samples with some surging orchestral strings that sound like they were definitely sampled off of some other old record too. Great stuff that has over 193,000 plays on Spotify right now.

Bob Sinclar - "Visions of Paradise"

But while there's only one tune from that legendary Dimitri mix on Spotify, the rest of them can be found on YouTube. And a few of those happen to be remixes that were done by Dimitri himself, like his "Enchanted Forest" mix of Björk's "Isobel," which prior to its inclusion on his own mix, could only be found on a 12-inch single version of "Isobel" that had only been released in France in 1995. Currently, there's only one copy of that record up for sale on Discogs, going for over $300 🤑. But the version I included here, which comes directly from Dimitri's mix, has about 7,400 plays on YouTube.

And another superb tune is Glasgow native Paul Hunter's "May the Funk Be With You," which he released as Second Crusade in 1996. This is a track that samples from two different songs: 1976's "Intergalactic Love Song," by Charles Earland, which supplies the tune's delightfully whiny and full synth, and Denise LaSalle's own 1980 song, "May the Funk Be With You," which is responsible for its lovely vocals. Older sounds blended with a modern house beat. Really excellent track that's currently sitting at a little over 85,000 plays on YouTube 😌.

Cheb Khaled - "N'ssi N'ssi (Jamming The Casbah Mix)" Bjork - "Isobel (Dim's Enchanted Forest)" Second Crusade - "May the Funk Be With You" Morning Kids - "Free Lovin'" Teddy G - "Captain Dobbey" Brand New Heavies - "Sometimes (Monsieur D's Underground Behaviour Mix)"

Check out the YouTube playlist here, and check it out on YouTube Music here.

So this new update brings us to 15 songs that clock in at an hour and 42 minutes on Spotify, but on YouTube, we're now up to 35 songs that lasts for 4 hours and 8 minutes. So you know which of these is the better option, even if Spotify is the more convenient one.

Next week, New York!

Enjoy!

More to come, eventually. Stay tuned!

Like what you hear? Follow me on Spotify and YouTube for more cool playlists and uploads!

[randomnameless]

What are your top 5 Strawmitri arguments?

Mine would be, in no particular order:

Dimitri cares about the present, therefore he doesn't care at all about the future and would be a terrible leader because of it

He's so mentally ill he can never hope to recover, and as such Edelgard did him a favor by killing him in CF

He's more at fault for the war than Edelgard because he fought back after she attacked first and unprovoked, instead of letting her take Faerghus without a fight

The entire point of Dimitri's character and of AM in general is how royalty can get away with commiting crimes commoners would be executed for, since Fleche gets killed for trying to take revenge on him but he survives in spite of all the people he killed when he was at his most unhinged

Dimitri's hatred of Edelgard is rooted in his love for her back when they were kids, which is why him killing her in AM by stabbing her with his phallic-shaped lance is supposed to be symbolic of his desire to fuck her

Oh gods, I remember I wanted to make a "redshit takes awards" once upon a time, but then I gave up lol

I haven't browsed that much about Dimitri nor given too much thought about the discourse surrounding him because laughing at the Rhea takes took way too much time, but I think I really laughed at the :

Dimitri is racist because he cuts Claude when Claude is being an asshole about the Abyss

Even if I can't forgot the

Defensive invasion

Dimitri represents toxic masculinity (the guy who has traditional "feminine" coded hobbies like sewing, who cries, who blushes calling his friends by their first names, whose biggest default and the one that leads him to his downfall is his empathy, etc etc)

Dimitri stole Felix and Annette's dads :(

dimitri is a religious extremist because he shelters Rhea who is also a religious extremist. source : trust me bro I know i have a degree in advanced bullshit

the State of Quo - as Dimitri reforms his country like his dad wanted to do but never got the chance because his head rolled from his shoulders for some reason - this one was parroted in Nopes because how dare he want a progressive change rather than a radical one !!

and last but not the least, and it's less about Dimitri than about the poor redshiter who said something like "women love dimitri because they are controled by their ovaries and they prefer a violent man who would abuse them rather than real people like me :("

Oh and also, as a french person so far removed from american politics, the "Dimitri is a centrist" take always made me laugh (Dimitri chez Bayrou?)

From your takes though, I'd rank them like this :

peepee weapon thus stabbing Supreme Leader means he wanted to fuck her and this is why he goes "cray-cray" because she didn't reciprocate his affections (and totes not because he believes she killed his father, their mother, his friends and actually starts a war slaughtering thousands of randoms)

"too cray-cray to live"

caring about the present sucks because you don't care about the future (which is totally not built on the people living in the present!)

nobles bad because they kill commoners who try to kill them :(

victim blaming (this one is so mainstream!)

[raxistaicho]

Reyna’s not at the end of dealing with Edelgard yet! Edelgard in Thracia, chapter one

So who’s familiar with ReynaAtTheEnd? She (I remember reading Reyna’s a she from some of her mutuals, I’m going to assume that’s accurate, but if not I’ll swiftly correct it) wrote a fanfic called The Savior King, The Master Tactician and the Queen of Liberation, a sort of Azure Moon/Verdant Wind fusion fanfic that are all the craze with Dimiclaude shippers, in which they form a polycule with Byleth.

Oh and also Edelgard Takes a Level in Dumbass and Jerkass, and only generally makes appearances when it’s time for her to get her shit kicked in by the heroes.

Well, Reyna decided to try her hand at giving Edelgard a redemption story, and we all know how wonderful it is when Edelgard haters try to “redeem” her. And she did this by thrusting Edelgard into the plot of Thracia 776, so uhh...

But before we go any further:

DO NOT, I REPEAT: DO NOT, under any circumstances, harass Reyna! I don’t wanna hear about people leaving her insulting messages, folks! I mean it!

EMPEROR. IT’S EMPEROR. Edelgard is never called an empress, Reyna!

From the summary:

Edelgard lost everything - her country, her ideals, her life - to Agartha and to the choices she made.

No, she lost them to Reyna’s hatred for her. And also to Byleth, Dimitri, and Claude being the biggest god-mode incarnations of themselves I’ve ever seen and commanding a kickass army including both the Kingdom and Alliance unified against her, alongside basically all the Relics, and even Rhea and the Immovable. Yeah, Reyna wanted Indech to kaiju it up on Edelgard so bad she wrote him out of character and had him fight on Byleth’s side.

Queen of Liberation was also the story where Edelgard, after being beaten, was captured by Thales, subjected to her trauma again, beaten, tortured, turned into an enslaved monster, and subsequently dispatched like an enemy of the week with no fanfare.

Just so everyone’s aware of where Reyna stands.

Upon awakening in another world ruined by war, she despaired and began going through the motions; only for another cult of evil and a very different dragon god to force her hand - and, perhaps, truly turn her into the revolutionary leader she had wished to be. 

No, she was a revolutionary leader. I know Edelgard detractors don’t like it, but,

Her detractors have long tried to twist things do that Edelgard can’t be a revolutionary because she’s someone in power herself, but Rhea and Seteth don’t appear to have gotten the memo on that.

On to the first chapter proper:

So we open with Edelgard suddenly waking up and trying to work things out. Very sadly, at that.

Consciousness came to her one bit at a time. It was cool, wherever she was. The pain was gone – the spire of the Viskm ramming through her is the last fragmented memory that she has. 

Yeah she died when the Wandering Beast slammed her through a Viskam. Reyna has a weird habit of making her fight scenes grizzly affairs like something out of fucking Akame Ga Kill!, but still permitting Claude to get paragraphs-long breaking speeches in the middle of a fight because Claude is just so awesome~

It didn't make sense. She died, hadn't she? The miserable joke of her life, her broken ideals and woeful attempt to change the world had ended when the Wandering Beast did her a kindness and slammed both of them through the floor and impaled her demonic body. Wasn't that enough? Wasn't it enough, Sothis?! 

Sothis may forgive you, but Reyna never will, Edelgard. Bolding mine, btw, we gotta get Edelgard nice and miserable before everything else begins.

Myson had brute forced the procedure that she and her loyal mages had been looking into and the transformation had ripped her apart and reassembled her into a parody, a sick combination of the myths of the Crest of the Beast and those dragons. 

The word “dragon” doesn’t appear to exist in Fodlan. Demonic Beasts are always called Demonic Beasts, and Nabateans are always called Children of the Goddess. The only instance we see of the word “dragon” comes from the name of the Dragon Claw gauntlet weapons.

Edelgard soon realizes she’s alive and has her free will again, but her body’s too weak to move. She wonders at first if this is some punishment from Sothis, but no, it’s punishment from Reyna, Edelgard.

Thales's horror. The instinctive reminder felt like a joke, making her feel sick as soon as it rushed up. No, she had participated in that horror and turned her nose up at those who expressed their qualms about it. Horror had been too useful to reject.

Time for Edelgard to castigate herself, folks :)

Useful! Oh, it had been so useful in the end, it turned her people against her and reduced her to a monster, a pawn sacrificed to buy a little bit of time. 

Reyna wants to make damn sure Edelgard knows she was never in control.

The suffering had fuelled the machine of war, alright

That “alright” is taking me out, I can’t picture Edelgard talking that way.

– consuming all that she'd tried to build. Maximus Varley, Ladislava, Randolph... everything they had done had only made the Alliance and the Kingdom more determined to defeat them. Had only caused her own people harm; burning in wild fires in front of the monastery, 

Ahh, yes, that was one of the instances of Claude’s ~~brilliant scheming~~

So, see, he had Constance bolting the Imperial forces because Claude’s ~~brilliance~~ in Queen of Liberation generally came in the form of having access to knowledge the actual Claude didn’t have or telling people to do things they were already going to do and being given the credit by the narration, such as when Constance hit some “dry grass” and started a fire:

The problem with this?

This is at the tail end of the Winter. I know it’s Always Spring in Three Houses, but this is meant to be happening in Winter, as all the monthly narration cards show lots of snow. Further, Garreg Mach is always shown to be quite lush, indicating they get plenty of rain there. I’m from California, I know what dry grass looks like :p

Oh yeah, and the people with Crests doing awesome shit is a recurring theme of Reyna’s work, thus proving Edelgard right about Fodlan! 

Ironic.

starving in the fields as the spring seeds died without farmers to tend to them,

Because Edelgard Took a Level in Dumbass and levied farmers who needed to tend the fields.

 subjected to kidnapping and experimentation and stripping of their humanity.

Because Edelgard Took a Level in Dumbass and Jerkass and kidnapped rando citizens to turn into Demonic Beasts instead of using prisoners or something.

Hey, I’m not saying the latter would be any more moral, I’m just saying it would be the smarter move, meaning the kind of evil pragmatic Edelgard her detractors believe in would go for it.

Edelgard angsts some more:

She had presumed so much. You would think that an emperor would be immune to fanciful thinking. 

Fight Reyna’s control, Edelgard! D: You’re better than thiiiiiiiiis.

After everything she'd experienced, she had thought that her perspective had changed enough that she was. After seeing the rot in the world, she should have been more clearheaded, not less. After seeing her siblings suffer and die, Justine holding on only to be a prisoner in her own body.

...It should have made her care more about the people who's lives she was responsible for, not less.

She does care, Reyna. Stay mad.

That was why she forced herself to use the Agarthans, threw her whole kingdom into the chance of changing that system for good -

Empire, Reyna, Edelgard’s not in charge of a Kingdom. Dimitri is.

...and became the reason her people suffered instead.

It’s funny how the actual Edelgard comes to terms with this before her war even starts, but because that doesn’t leave room for Edelgard being surprised by her ineptitude and castigating herself we need to just edit that out of her brain so she can feel bad, as Reyna wants her to.

This is true despair, isn't it?

Was this what Dimitri felt after the Tragedy? What Byleth felt, after Kronya and Thales were able to kill her father, because she had given the, them easy access to the monastery?

(weak laughter) Reyna, you really are on the Edelhater best hits collection.

Thales and Kronya would have gotten in even if Edelgard weren’t around, Solon already proved that.

Then, Edelgard starts thinking about Dimitri! Oh boy.

Her step brother. How had she forgotten...? 

...Trauma.

He...had remembered her, hadn't he? That's why he had hovered around her, had acted protective in a way she had found bizarre and patronizing coming from a stranger – because he hadn't been a stranger. 

Edelgard, honey, that didn’t happen. Dimitri in Queen of LIberation doesn’t think about you. It takes until the week after Flayn’s kidnapping - a full half a year around her - before he starts thinking about the time he shared with her. Everything before that? Dry and clinical, no thought for his time with you or any thought about you.

Even after his own pain, he'd remembered her and cared; her pain had taken all those memories away and left her feeling nothing. 

Even when Dimitri isn’t around, we have to be reminded how great he is.

We could have destroyed Agartha together, Edelgard thought in a shining moment of clarity, coming out of a sleeplike moment yet again. Him, I, Byleth. Even Riegan, infuriating as he would have been to deal with, we... together, we could have...

It’s a ~~moment of clarity~~ for her that she could have just talked things out worked with Byleth and Claude like a good girl.

Sad. Sad and pathetic. Why was she only realizing this now? 

Because defeating the Agarthans wasn’t your objective, Edelgard. Overthrowing Fodlan’s oppressive Crest-based aristocracy was.

Edelgard asks Reyna Sothis why things gotta be this way, then,

She doesn't expect a response. Edelgard expected less than nothing, really; the active goddess was with Byleth, after all. 

Oh yeah, Sothis doesn’t fuse with Byleth such that she can’t talk anymore in Queen of Liberation, because it’d be off-brand if she wasn’t around to convey her Nabatean wisdom against Edelgard’s cause, but she DOES grant Byleth her... life force or some shit to give Byleth a powerup.

Look, Reyna wanted Byleth to get her shounen mid-season powerup, and she also wants Sothis around as a mouthpiece for how great the Nabateans are. She gets things both ways and you can suck it!

Why would [Sothis] have any sympathy for her at all? Naming her children monsters and ordering their deaths, 

That thing Edelgard doesn’t do!

allying with the Agarthans who hated her.

I wonder how Reyna feels about Sothis having no problem with Byleth going CF?

It’s implied Sothis reaches out to Edelgard, and she falls into unconsciousness. Edelgard wakes up in what is described to be akin to a peasant house somewhere, then,

“...poor dear.” A woman murmured, her hand brushing along Edelgard's forehead again.

“I just found 'er on the side of the road...” A man – no, a boy. Maybe Ashe's age, his voice heavy with an unfamiliar country lilt. “Couldn't see any sign that anyone was comin' back for her, so I couldn't just leave her there...”

“Must have been running from bandits, or Lifis's pirates.” The woman decided. “Or even the army. She's not old enough to have been in one of the Hunts, do you think?”

OH NO, did Edelgard get saved by Ronan? Did she get saved by Mekkah’s favorite RNG meme unit? Probably-Ronan and his mom talk a bit, Ronan implied Lifis’s goons might’ve sexually assaulted her, but his mom assures him there was no sign of it when she bandaged Edelgard’s wound, then she namedrops Heim and the gods.

Heim? Gods, plural? The people of Fodlan would have prayed to the Goddess and her alone. Oh, Sothis had done something to her all right. Brought her back to life and dumped her in some strange place...?

I’m sure we’re gonna see Edelgard take umbrage with the Jugdral gods, but given they’re distant except in times of great peril she probably wouldn’t really care about them.

“I've just about got the tea ready, Ronan.

Oh no T_T

Imagine getting saved by a low-tier scrub unit whose only notable trait is he might move around and attack a lot or he might do nothing valuable on the turn.

Her body aches faintly, but otherwise the bed she's on – while rough and wollen – is comforting in a strange way. No hard operating table, no too-soft mattress that felt increasingly like an embodiment of hypocrisy.

This is some weird tense jumping, I have to say.

Also we’ve just gone full on, “Yet you participate in society. Curious!”

Edelgard mostly just pretends to be unconscious and wangsts while Ronan and his mom care for her.

Edelgard could count on two (three, three, Dimitri had-) 

Again, Edelgard didn’t remember Dimitri and Dimitri was too busy gushing about Claude to remember her.

people after her sibling's death and her father's crippling 

Crippling? Oh no, does Reyna believe in that nonsense “Ionius tried to give himself the Crest of Flames!” theory that’s supposed to “explain” why he looks so sickly?

who'd given her companionship and kindess. And where had that gotten them? Hubert died because of her 

No, he died as collateral damage to Reyna’s punishment of her.

and she spurned Byleth for the sake of her vision because how could she understand when she was hosting the goddess -

Byleth didn’t care about Edelgard either.

Edelgard gets up, Ronan and his mom mention she’s in in Iz, in Thracia, neither of which Edelgard knows, naturally, then asks her where she’s going:

“You wouldn't,” Ronan reassured her. “We're a small village; I doubt most Thracians could point us out on the map.” Thracians? A people who's name she'd never heard. But what else did she expect after dying? “We're right up on the ocean; most of us are fishers, and nobody important lives for miles. We're on the way to some important places, but you'd be in for a bit of a hike to get to them. Were you headed somewhere specific?”

Edelgard thinks briefly of some things she might tell them, and dumps them all immediately. She didn't have a life to go back to; she was a failed conqueror, a villain in a cautionary tale that would last in Fodlan for all time, a... a pawn of greater evil. She felt so numb when that thought circled her mind. Empty and hopeless.

“Not really.” She said with a slight shake of her head. “I had been captured by cultists, and in my efforts to get away from them, fled for as long as I could in a random direction. I lost any sense of where I was, only that I got away.”

This whole fic is going to be Edelgard lamenting her actions and coming to Jesus, isn’t it.

Also, this is some weird tense.

Also also, Edelgard describing the Agarthans as cultists is kinda contrived so we could bring up the Loptr Cult.

Ronan and his mom immediately assume the Loptyrians targeted her for their Child Hunts, thinking maybe they branched out in age, and I have to wonder how well common people knew the Loptyrians were involved? Obviously they’d know the Grannvale Empire was behind it, but the church? Idk.

Anyways, Ronan’s mom promises Edelgard is safe because,

“We aint got no Belhalla bootlickers or Travant's sycophants in Iz. They won't know you're here and none of us are gonna talk.”

First off, what medieval peasant would know the word “sycophant”? Also, considering both Grannvale and the people of the Manster District hate the Thracians, I seriously doubt Trevant has many fans at all in northern Thracia.

Edelgard asks why they’re helping her, and she’s gobsmacked to learn it’s just because they think it’s the right thing to do, because evidently Edelgard in this universe has never considered doing a kind thing for the sake of it, pleaseignorehersupportstheyruinReyna’spoint.

Edelgard offers to help Ronan and his mother around the house in repayment for their help and we get this,

“Oooh...” The mother's brow furrows, wanting to refuse but unable to resist the offer of an extra pair of hands. “You're a kind girl, Edelgard.” Edelgard nearly chokes on absolutely nothing, thankfully managing to pull up her solemn mask in time. It would be rude to laugh in this woman's face over her misplaced compliment.

After seeing how often butwhatifidothis got mad at how self-loathing Edelgard is in The Emperor and the Goddess, it’s ironic as hell that Reyna is doing the same thing in this fic. Just for wildly different reasons.

Anyways, Ronan and his mom just urge her to rest for now.

The twosome leave the room... allowing Edelgard to bury her face in her hands and tangle her fingers tightly in her hair, and wonder what all of this was supposed to mean. Why hadn't she just been allowed to die? Why did she have to live when her ideals had failed her and her empire? 

Your ideals didn’t fail Adrestia, Edelgard, the deck was just stacked inordinately against you because Reyna had a point to make in the previous fic.

Was this some kind of messed up trial?! 

Ahh, yes, I can totally see Edelgard calling something, “messed up”.

What is voice, Reyna? What is voice?

Then we end the chapter with a whopper:

She gritted her teeth and lifted her head out of her hands. And that's when she noticed that the strands between her fingers are a vibrant heather brown. Not white. Her heart almost stopped in shock. After a second, she reached inside herself and tried to pull power from her unwanted Crest, from the blood of the Goddess.

Nothing. It's gone. The Crest of Serios was still there, dormant and lethargic to her calls, but the Sword of Damocles that had hung above her...is gone.

Edelgard slowly ran her fingers through her hair, restored to its natural colour, and slumped back on the bed and stared at the ceiling with wide eyes.

 You are no one's pawn now. What will you do?

Edelgard never was anyone’s pawn outside Reyna’s fic.

I’m a bit curious why she left the Crest of Seiros intact. I could guess it’s better because it’s “natural”, or maybe Edelgard needs to turn to Jesus embrace her Nabatean origins, or something. Guess we’ll find out, huh?

Now that’s the end of the chapter, but before I let ya go, there’s the Author’s Notes:

So! ...I woke up today and wrote multiple pages of this after figuring that I disliked Edelgard too much to write it. 

Disliking her didn’t stop you dedicating entire chapters to Edelgard and her laser-guided karma in Queen of Liberation, Reyna.

Clearly I underestimated my desire to 

make her suffer more

write this plot and all the thematic parallels within. Some readers felt that I was too harsh on Edelgard in The Savior King, 

GEE, YA THINK?

Time to show you folks what Reyna thinks is a fair portrayal of Edelgard.

But as a warning, some of this shit gets pretty brutal and if you don’t want to see Edelgard’s in-depth, lovingly-described suffering, scroll down a bit.

That’s one of the Ten Elites calling her a fool. Yeah the Ten Elites are in Queen of Liberation btw, can’t have a Battle Shounen without a recurring miniboss squad!

Ditto.

Also none of the Ten Elites would call Seiros a hero. They didn’t even know why she was fighting them!

Here’s Edelgard getting bricks tossed at her by rioting citizens, and of course all she can do to restore order is scream “I’m your emperor >:(” at them.

With an added helping of the same rioting citizens telling Edelgard how fuckin’ amazing Claude and Dimitri are!

Here’s Edelgard getting a brick dropped on her by the citizens of Enbarr while she’s getting epically pwned by Byleth’s god mode army at Enbarr. Because medieval peasants will just trust that the invading army has their back :)

Here’s Edelgard getting PWNED by Failnaught so bad that metal bits get stuck in her eyes.

~~Bonus round~~ The metal shards get healed permanently into her eye :)

You know whenever I feel like maybe I don’t portray Dimitri or Rhea as fairly as I could in On Black Wings, I can just remind myself I stick to them losing arguments or losing battles they canonically do lose. I don’t fucking torture them physically while I’m at it.

We’re not done yet!

Of course Lysithea has to also pwn the fuck out of Edelgard, dropping an Abraxas bomb on her (who the fuck gets Lysithea to A faith?) and of course she had Thyrsus because this is a Battle Shounen fanfiction and as such the only way to make Lysithea look impressive is to have her use the Relic everyone staples onto her and have her drop TEH BIG MAGICZ.

And of course, even the Agarthans have to get in on saying Edelgard’s a gigantic fuck up and Thales should’ve totally went with Claudlouch vi Yagami-Britannia instead.

...”Just as planned” is a short-lived catch phrase of Claude’s. I told you Queen of Liberation reads like a shounen.

Anyways, we’re not done yet.

Here’s Myson planning to place Edelgard under mind-control once they take her back to Shambhala.

And here’s Edelgard again being subjected to her childhood trauma by being shackled underground once again.

Here’s random Agarthans insulting her as though she’s not around. One of the random Agarthans is named Matt.

MATT.

M A T T.

Oh but of course Thales has only praise for god-mode Claude:

“There were other factors involved, of course. That boy Riegan... Solon had spoken a number of times about inviting him into the truth, yet in the end he found it all by himself. From what I've learned from our spies that were able to get close to him from time to time, he created this Alliance, he planned the attacks and counterattacks...he knew about our partnership with her before he even knew it was her behind the mask; not by yet another act of stupidity on her part, but solely through guile and extrapolating from what little that deserter was able to tell him.”

Here’s Odesse beating Edelgard.

Here’s Odesse beating Edelgard again, and also calling her such lovely gender-charged insults: “Bitch, useless bitch, pig, inbred cretin”.

In German.

Yes, German is used for the Agarthan language in Queen of Liberation.

You see, the Agarthans may all have Greek-originated names, named their tools after Greek figures, and use Cyrillic, a script derived from Greek script, but eh, what’s the difference, when you get right down to it, they’re both from Europe!

This isn’t even the worst case of Reyna carelessly using one language or culture as a replacement for another: she has Japanese serve as the language of the very obviously middle-eastern inspired Almyra.

The fic that’s supposed to be about racism being bad has racist elements in its narrative, how ironic.

Anyways, back to Reyna’s treatment of Edelgard.

Here’s Edelgard realizing she was a foolish foolish girl and being told what by some rando Agarthan kid.

And to top it all off, Thales turns her into the Hegemon Husk and she’s summarily dispatched without much fanfare like a Monster of the Week.

And to finish it up (though there’s plenty more I could share), here’s Edelgard having a Villainous Breakdown because zomgCLAUDHLID!!! beat her:

As I (paraphrased) put it in a comment,

That’s not Edelgard. That’s Dimitri playing the role of Edelgard and constantly breaking character.

Content warning ends here!

and while I still feel her portrayal is grounded largely in canon

You had Edelgard behave like an idiot who derided Dimitri as a worthless madman and scorned Claude for being mixed race. The only semblance of Edelgard’s pre-existing character in the sad caricature you crafted for Queen of Liberation was that she waged war on the church.

But yeah, this creature isn’t Edelgard. At least not the Edelgard from Three Houses. It’s the one Reyna wanted to fight, a foolish would-be tyrant duped into war on behalf of the Agarthans who then folds and fails like all the red emperors to come before her. A fool who has a breakdown and is punished for the things she did so that Reyna could feel oh-so-superior for having bested her.

Edelgard is not the strawman you crafted for your fanfiction, Reyna. She’s a compassionate revolutionary who makes the hard decision nobody else is willing to make. Graceful and strong, capable of out-planning Claude (recall that in the actual Three Houses, the real Claude, who can lose things, admits that Edelgard was fooling everyone) and beating Dimitri in a fight. And in the end, she’s poised and accepting in defeat.

Reyna doesn’t want that Edelgard. Much like most of Edelgard’s detractors, Reyna doesn’t like the Edelgard that actually exists in Three Houses. She wanted the strawman she could beat and feel good about beating, so she crafted this sad creature for her fanfiction and tried to pass it off as the original. And then, for all that she said she felt bad for having put her through torture at the end, she still did it. With loving detail, with determined consistency, and with zero mercy she heaps just about every indignity and torment one can imagine upon this fictional character. And why? 

It’s fairly normal for a villain to undergo some suffering and breakdown once their karma houdini warranty expires, but I’ve never seen such karma run for so consistent a length, nor go so far, as to compare to what Reyna does to Edelgard. She could also have done it to express why she thinks Edelgard will fail in Crimson Flower - which would likely to be actual excuse if asked - except if that’s all she wanted she could have had Thales express how doomed Edelgard was to the heroes instead - as a way to puff himself up, for example. But no, Reyna wants it all expressed to Edelgard’s face, to punish her and put her in her place.

You don’t write torture in the vivid detail Reyna did out of obligation, folks.

This story will be quite different in that regard, as you can probably guess by the premise!

Really? So far it feels like much of the same, only instead of other people calling Edelgard a stupid failure, this time she’s doing it to herself.

I really wanted to like Edelgard. She makes me sad as much as angry because she's so close to being a really good complex character, but the writing really fell down on her parts. 

Might’ve helped if you actually understood anything about her and didn’t try to simplify her into a tyrannical racist who just wanted power.

I guess a part of me really wanted to give her a chance to be that character, and develop into something more.

Oh boy, can’t wait to see what Reyna’s ideal Edelgard is. It sure won’t involve cunning or guile, given her standard method of making a character look smart is to beam knowledge into their heads or provide them an OC to give them information they wouldn’t otherwise have, and she writes her fight scenes like something out of a Battle Shounen.

There will only be minimum references to The Savior King and the events thereof, and they'll be fairly spread out.

Please let that be true.

As a final note, here’s some choice excerpts from the comments:

I feel like I should reiterate that I think that Edelgard had immense potential to be a very complex and very interesting figure

“So I simplified her and made her a stupid villain.”

but that potential got lost in how selfish and self-serving she is in the games proper. 

As I put it in a tweet that surprisingly blew up:

Imagine taking Edelgard, who only wanted a normal life but instead dedicated the entire rest of it in painstaking  service to the people of Fodlan, who honestly believed her path would end with her alone and maybe even hated by all, and saying she's SELFISH. Good god.

Anyways,

Her backstory is very tragic, and with a little tweaking in regards to the Seven's role in it - emphasizing religious zealotry on their part, have the Agarthans step back to let the nobles seem like the instigators - would have made it perfect.

Reyna thinks Edelgard was unjustified to target the church, so that’s another thing she didn’t understand about Three Houses.

Edelgard targeted the church because the church upholds Fodlan’s obsession with Crests, which was the root of her and many others’ suffering.

I will go to my grave insisting that Edelgard could have been a great character. 

She is, stay mad.

I still dislike her portrayal in the games and very much dislike how Three Houses and especially Three Hopes coddle her and refuse to let anyone criticize her meaningfully

That’s because it’s never in doubt that she’s right about Fodlan’s broken status. The only thing that’s ever in question is her methods.

And here we go with the usual “nobody says she’s bad to her face enough times!”

They almost certainly were!; though I think Arvis was a better realized character than Edelgard in the games proper.

I swear, Edelgard haters insisting that Arvis was so great has made me like him less. I mean, in the end he was just a man with a complex over having lost his mother and really just killed Sigurd out of petty romantic jealousy. His big plan to reform the land has few details beyond, “I will be a better king than the past one” and, unlike Edelgard, he was genuinely being used by his dark mage allies. Also, there should be no situation that sees Arvis involved in any of these events as he never goes anywhere near Thracia.

Lastly, from someone who isn’t Reyna:

The bad thing about this (for Edelgard) is that she just literally ended up in fire emblem HELL. I've played every single FE game, and short of Fates: Lunatic Conquest, with no DLC to boost your exp. This world right here, is the absolutely most horrifyingly painful one to survive in.

Thracia is definitely gonna be a hell of a culture shock for her.

Does this person think Edelgard is unfamiliar with suffering?

Uhh, so yeah. That was bad! I’m just going to take this as a prelude to what the entire rest of the fic will be about: Edelgard hating her past actions, regarding herself as a failure and a pawn, and learning to embrace True Justice by basically learning she should have done things the Dimifan Headcanon way by embracing God and giving to the needy without disrupting anyone’s lives too much. We might even get to see some more abuse heading her way if Trevant, Manfroy, Veld, or Raydrik get their hands on her. I’ll consider it a home run if Reyna somehow fucks up Leif while she’s at it, and considering her earnest love for god mode protags that don’t screw up unless it’s dramatic and said screwing up doesn’t take too long to get undone, she probably will.

It’ll be terrible. And we’ll go through all of it :)