#nightfoot doesn't write this thing

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Here's an idea for a Yuri/Sodia buddy fic: Sodia gets framed for an assassination attempt on Flynn's life (the culprit could either be someone who has a grudge against her. What if Sodia unintentionally did something bad in her early years as a knight and that it got swept under the rug because she's a noble?). With Flynn out of commission, it's up to Yuri and Sodia to figure out who the real culprit before they decide to target Sodia themselves since Plan A failed. The time spent together would make Yuri and Sodia see that not everything is black and white between them, thus forming a newfound respect for each other.

Oh that's fun! And it can start off with Yuri being very annoyed at having to defend Sodia. Like, "Damn, I know she's not the killer so for Flynn's sake I have to exonerate her so we can figure out who he's really in danger from."

They're just like, "Ugh, can't believe I have to help you" and "Ugh, can't believe I need help from you," but over the course of saving each other's lives a few times and having to grudgingly rely on each other, they accidentally become friends.

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Because it’s Halloween season: How would you do a vampire story in a post game setting? And who would you be the vampire until they are somehow cured?

Ooo fun idea. And honestly this is probably what a majority of people were hoping for when I said I was writing a vampire fic and instead wrote a meticulously detailed medieval AU about 14th century politics in Ireland lmao.

Ok, so, who should be the vampire? I think tonally it depends on if you want to go "sexy tragic vampire" or "horror vampire." Is the vampire one of our heroes, who is tragically condemned to drink blood and lose their humanity? Or is it one of their enemies, thought defeated but returned as the undead and more dangerous than ever?

Yuri is such an obvious pick for a vampire. He's got the looks (pale, dresses in black, moon aesthetic) and the story themes are already there (are you really willing to bloody your hands? have you become a monster?). So I feel like if I were to write a vampire fic, I would not make Yuri the vampire simply because half the work is already done for me.

And let's be honest, the only other choices for me are Estelle or Flynn, because all of my fics focus on Yuri, Estelle, or Flynn.

I did already write about Flynn as a vampire, but in a very different setting. Considering Flynn is thematically associated with light and the sun, there's an extra layer of tragedy if he's cursed to burn in sunlight and unable to set foot in the sun again.

You could get some of that same inversion-of-aesthetic with Estelle, who's generally bright and flowery. Estelle also has some narrative themes that could blend well with vampirism, in the way using her magic hurts the world. Having to literally feed on the life of others makes her CotFM powers even more immediate.

Hm... what if Estelle did die from what Alexei did to her, and unbeknownst to the rest of the cast (and even Estelle herself) the version they get back at the Sword Stair is undead. The more she uses her magic, the more her energy drains, and the only way to restore herself is to drink human blood.

OR we go with the type of vampire in which the human personality is no more, and either a wholly new evil soul has possessed the corpse, or their old self is corrupted and monstrous, so you get "Estelle" who is now a ruthless villain. One of my earliest ToV fics was about "What if Estelle was secretly evil?" so I've always been fond of that idea.

If we're looking at villain vampires, I think Yeager is an obvious choice. I mean. Look at him. He's got fangs. He also has done that vampire thing of disguising his identity by turning his name backward Alucard style (Yeager/Regaey). Plus you could count him as undead given the blastia heart. So maybe post-game, he comes back as extra undead.

Alexei coming back as a vampire could also be fun. I could see him as a Dracula-esque vampire manipulating his way into power and treating his victims has play things before draining them. And I imagine he would especially want to get revenge on the pesky kids who killed him the first time.

Ok, so maybe combine some of these ideas. If this is how I would do a vampire fic, I'm generally more interested in vampires in a horror plot than a tragic love interest plot, so I would lean into Alexei coming back from the dead. Bodies drained of blood start showing up around Zaphias as he grows in strength.

His primary targets for revenge would be Flynn and Raven, because they didn't just fight him, they betrayed him. And especially Flynn, who betrayed him, killed him, and then took his job. Rude. So maybe he can turn Estelle into a vampire as an extra fuck-you to Flynn - taunting him with the girl he swore to protect and now has to fight, but desperately doesn't want to kill.

And then is Yuri willing to kill Estelle? How long until he gives up on the idea of finding a cure and sees this as saving the real Estelle so she can rest in piece? How do the rest of the party like Rita and Judith divide and feud over whether to kill her?

Which is all, of course, playing right into Alexei's hands because while they're distracted with the horror and grief of what's happened to Estelle, he's plotting to retake his position and finish the coup he started.

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I learned some interesting history facts and it obviously gave me Vesperia thoughts, so here is one of the most Me fics ideas.

(Even more gratuitously Me than general Flynn whump, which is a much broader appeal).

SO ANYWAY, back in 1654, the ship Charity of London was en route from England to Maryland. During the journey, they suffered terrible storms and bad luck, and the passengers started to suspect that one among them was a witch. The finger was pointed at an older woman, Mary Lee. They conducted a trial onboard the ship, searched her body for Devil's Marks, and concluded she was definitely the witch. She was hanged onboard the ship and body dumped overboard.

What does this have to do with Vesperia? Absolutely nothing, but my brain immediately concluded that executing a supposed witch on a ship where everyone was already going stir crazy is absolutely how you get a ghost ship, and therefore, we can link this to the Atherum.

The game never really tells us why the Atherum never made it to port. Longchi's log simply says they have been adrift for 45 days and the men are giving in to thirst and starvation. He apparently died where he sat, which is, y'know... weird.

Only explanation? Ghost Witch Curse.

The Atherum endured harsh winds and dangerous currents on their way back to Yormgen. Tensions were high, blame started being passed around. It unfortunately landed on one specific sailor (or possibly a passenger) who was ultimate killed after a kangaroo court on the deck of the ship. They were killed, but their spirit lingered on and cursed the ship.

They wanted calmer seas? Fuck them, they'll get their calm seas. For week after week, the winds failed to blow and the Atherum was adrift, unable to make progress to Yormgen. Eventually, the sailors began to succumb to thirst as their supplies ran low, but the curse remained, and everyone who died remained trapped on board as a tormented spirit.

There is nothing in canon to dispute this, so I will choose to believe that Ghost Witches are involved in this part of the story because it's very cool.

...As an aside, it has become a bit of a pet peeve of mine how often ghost witches appear in horror media, but like... played straight? It's always the case that the haunting is due to an evil witch who remains evil and dangerous even in death. And that's so overdone in comparison to the very obvious and very workable idea of being haunted by the ghost of a "witch" who wants vengeance for her wrongful death. I mean a majority of people executed for witchcraft were completely innocent but had terrible things done to them and that's a perfect ghost origin story, but media always wants it to be a Real (and Evil) Witch.

But also when I say a majority were innocent I don't mean that some percentage of them were real witches. I mean like, some of them were actual murderers who killed people with normal methods but got accused of using witchcraft. like Peter Stummp who was tried for being a werewolf and then executed but he wasn't a werewolf he was just an ordinary serial killer.

anyway, this has been your 3am early modern European witchcraft history lesson with Nightfoot.

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Going anon because I'm embarrassed how I never got anywhere with the idea myself, but I'd love to see something where Yuri and Sodia have to team up to take out a corrupt Flynn. Like, they both hate it, both having to kill Flynn and having to work with the other, but they both know Flynn has to go down if they're gonna save the day/world/society/whatever, and they're only gonna manage it with the other's help. They don't have to like each other and can come out if the ordeal still disliking each other, or perhaps one or both of them can upgrade to tolerating the other. It rattled in my head for ages but I could never manage to start anything.

That is SUCH a cool idea. But I'm a softie and don't want Flynn to be corrupted/killed so maybe he's like.... brainwashed or being controlled or something. So they have to save him!

But before they realize what's really going on, they'd treat it as if they have to take down Flynn and they're both sooo messed up about it. I've had them work together for a scene or two at a time in a variety of fics but I've never dedicated a whole story to it.

One of my ideas that's rattled in my head for ages involves an assassination attempt on Flynn. He suspects it was a certain knight captain but he doesn't know who else in the knights is in on it or who he can trust, other than Sodia. So he asks Yuri and Sodia to go undercover in that captain's brigade to investigate so it's got Yuri and Sodia alone among the enemy together, and also Yuri having to play the role of knight again.

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Speaking of Discworld crossovers and with it being lilac season and all, I give a fic idea:

Due to a wrinkle in the trousers of time, Raven gets sent back to the time of the Great War. Nobody recognizes him, of course, but things work out such that he becomes the captain of Casey's platoon.

Now he's stationed in Temza, and he knows what's going to happen. Maybe, with foreknowledge and clever planning, he can prevent the massacre. At the very least, he can save his own platoon. If he does, though, he might be changing history. He might change history so radically that there isn't even a Raven-shaped hole for him to go back to, and who knows what the world will be like?

But... he's got to try, doesn't he? He's got to try every trick up his sleeve to save Casey, and Yeager, and even his younger self. Even if the weight of history is impossible to shake and sees their deaths coming all over again, he has to at least try.

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I think you could do a Nerdy Prudes Must Die AU with Vesperia, with Cumore coming back in the place of Jaegerman. Like perhaps if slacker Yuri tried to cheat off of nerd Flynn as the set-up. Estelle as Grace Chasity is very funny.

In conjunction with my previous Heathers posting though I think it's clear that I really just want Yuri to be literally haunted by the ghosts of the people he killed and then also sing about it.

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The reason I haven't written an Act 3 Rewrite of Vesperia despite talking about it for years is because every time I start planning, the starting point gets bumped back and back.

Like, ok, I'll start at the beginning of Act 3 when Yuri wakes up after Zaude.

Except... I really want to include my idea of Yuri reaching Zaphias alone pre-Sword Stair, so we can bump it back to starting with Yuri setting off from Halure and cover Zaphias and Zaude.

Except... I also want to re-do Raven's return after Baction, because that was really rushed, so I'll back up and start at Baction.

Oh, but, isn't it really awkwardly paced that Yuri's conversation with Judith happens immediately before his talk with Phaeroh? That needs to be reworked so there isn't such big whiplash. So I'll start at Temza.

Except....

Eventually I'm just going to rewrite the game from the beginning.

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Watching a Muppet Christmas Carol and once again thinking about giving Alexei the Christmas Carol treatment.

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What if scenario: If the world of Vesperia was hit with "The Blip", which characters do you see getting blipped and which ones surviving? And if they survive then what would they be like in those 5 years?

The Blip... that's the Avengers thing, right? When 50% of the population turned to dust? I have not kept up with the MCU in quite a while so my understanding of the specifics of the scenario is limited to pop culture osmosis so this may not be MCU canon compliant, but let's see....

First, Flynn should be poofed. So many people rely on him and look to him to change the world and lead the empire to prosperity, so I think it would be interesting if he suddenly vanished and people like Sodia suddenly had to face the future without him to lead the way. When he eventually comes back 5 years later, I think Flynn would either be relieved to suddenly find the world no longer relies on him as much and he's not under quite as much pressure, or else suddenly not know what to do with himself when it seems that the world has adjusted and moved on and no longer needs him.

As unlucky as Yuri is, I think he should not disappear, but that would really be just his luck. The one time in life fate works well for him, and it leaves him alone and lost and confused.

Generally, because I love to torment people, the characters who should stay should be the ones who already have a lot of angst and bad luck and will be the most fucked up by it. So, among the party, Flynn, Estelle, and Karol vanish. Yuri, Raven, Rita, and Judith are left to figure out what to do next. Rita's abandonment issues intensify, Judith starts to feel like making connections was a mistake so maybe she should go back to just flying around aimlessly and not caring about anything. (Unless Ba'ul also disappears? Does the Blip affect non-humans?)

Raven has reached a point of like, "You know how life is... this might as well happen to me." He's not ok. Definitely feeling that he should have disappeared instead of.... anyone else, really.

We could really cause turmoil by having Harry and Ioder also disappear, throwing the empire and the guilds into total disarray as they try to figure out who's in charge. The position was so unstable at the end of the game - they'd just barely resolved a years-long succession crisis, and the loss of the Don nearly through the Union into chaos, and they were trying to hold things together with losing blastia, that I think this might push things over the edge.

What if this happens not long after the game ends, and people wonder if the Blip is a result of whatever they did to get rid of blastia? That sucked up and disappeared all blastia, so maybe people got caught in it too, somehow? Suddenly the party, and every political leader who backed the move is being blamed for thousands of deaths. Not only that, the Yuri and the others have to wonder if that is true - did they accidentally kill their friends?

With power vacuums in both the Union and the Empire, I don't think the next five years are going to go well.

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AU scenario: What if Yuri succeeded in sneaking off from Halure and faced Alexei and Estelle alone? Would he succeed? And if he does then how would his friends respond? Trying to abandon them so that he could deliver "justice" is meant to be seen as jerk move.

I don't think Yuri would succeed. From a gameplay standpoint, I don't doubt that a skilled player could take down Alexei on Unknown difficulty without taking any damage, but in-world, and especially in-story, I don't think so.

After defeating Duke, Yuri says that the only reason he's strong is that he's not alone. So, if he was earlier able to sneak off on his own and save the day without any help, that squashes that character arc.

That's why narratively it wouldn't work, but even ignoring story beats, Alexei is established as powerful. Raven says he barely lasted five minutes against him in a duel, and the party was visibly exhausted after the fight. They also realized that he'd been working on the formula for Zaude the entire time, meaning Alexei's full attention wasn't even on the fight. If Yuri went up against him alone, in Zaphias when he isn't distracted by Zaude, I don't think he'd win.

Then again, in-canon, Alexei peaced out and left Estelle to fight the party, so it's possible the same would happen again. We know that Yuri can handle Estelle by himself, so if he managed to fight his way through Zaphias castle alone and make it up there, and if Alexei just left Estelle to deal with him, it would probably turn out similarly to the game. That's assuming that Alexei left because he was in a rush or specifically wanted to leave Estelle to kill them, and not because he didn't feel like battling the entire party if he didn't have to. He might feel differently if it's just one person.

I do like the premise of Yuri charging in to save the day all on his lonesome, soundly getting his ass kicked because he underestimated Alexei, and then being taken hostage because Alexei knows that Flynn will be organizing the opposition against him and knows from Raven's intel that Yuri is important to Flynn.

Assuming he does succeed, though, and his friends arrive in Zaphias to discover him with a rescued Estelle alive and well, I imagine there would be... arguments. A lot. His friends would want to yell at him about how stupid and reckless he'd been, but unlike in canon, Yuri could respond, "well it worked out, didn't it?" I think it would lead to a lot more involved arguments than the simple "Yuri you idiot!" that happened in the Quoi woods.

Now that I'm talking about it, I actually really want the version of the story where Yuri reaches Zaphias alone, gets his ass kicked, and then the rest of the party show up to bail him out. Not only do they get to yell at him about not taking on these burdens by himself, but also he's just got a very physical demonstration of why he needs friends.

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In the spirit of Halloween: How would you go about a story about witches? What could they do to antagonize Yuri or Flynn or Estelle?

You could say that I have already written a story about witches, because witchcraft prominently features in the final act of Danse Macabre. So, what would I do in a story about witches? Go really in-depth on early modern witch trials. Generally speaking, my favourite type of horror around witches focuses around false accusations, mistrust, mass hysteria, and the horrible things done to innocent people.

But since I have already written a story about that, let's think about antagonist witches!

What if witchcraft emerged as a new type of magic that doesn't need blastia to work? The people who figured out how to use this type of magic might seek power, or to destabilize the empire. Perhaps they use magic to spoil the harvests, putting the Empire into a precarious food shortage.

Perhaps they want Estelle to join them, seeing her CotFM powers as the only force that could stand up to them, and try to indoctrinate her into their group.

Also I think someone should turn Flynn into a rat, and I think it would be very funny if Estelle carries him around in her pocket while he is very grumpy about this.

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I remember coming across a fic where Flynn travels to a dark future in which the Empire is a dictatorship and Yuri became evil and one of its enforcers (long story). Can you a imagine a scenario where post-game Yuri travels to a bad future where everything Brave Vesperia worked for ended up making things worse, his friends died or became shadows of themselves, and Flynn became like Alexei because Yuri "died" or that Yuri ended up doing something that pushed Flynn in that direction.

Oh, I know what fic you're talking about! I didn't finish because I got distracted, but it's a very entertaining premise.

I've also written something loosely similar to your idea in For Want of a Nail, which shows a bad-end version of the game in which Yuri died as a kid, Flynn was raised by Alexei and everything is terrible.

But I love the premise of time-travelling to a bad future! What if when Yuri takes out the Adephagos, something goes wrong. He's wielding a huge mass of energy all swirling around and changing the world, and somehow, it vaporizes him and sends him into the future. To everyone else, though, it appears that he's died. So they return home from Tarqaron having defeated the Adephagos but losing Yuri, making it very bittersweet.

And after that, it all sort of crumbles. Keeping Brave Vesperia going without Yuri is too sad, Karol and Judith drift apart. Rita throws herself into her work, blaming herself for the conversion going wrong and maybe if she'd planned better, Yuri would still be here. Flynn becomes even more of a workaholic than usual as a way to distract himself.

Maybe things get really rough after losing blastia. Suddenly, monster attacks on settlements skyrocket. Injuries and illnesses that were traditionally cured with healing artes have no cure. Farms that were protected by barriers are now hard to keep monsters out of, and way more expensive to hire guards for the farmers, leading to food prices shooting up. No more aque blastia means sources of clean water become less readily available, especially in poorer areas, and waterborne illnesses run rampant.

And the thing is, all of them knew this was what they were in for, at least partially, but after Yuri died it all just felt more overwhelming than they were ready for. The farther they get from the Adephagos, the harder it is to remember how dire the situation was when they're currently staring plague and famine in the face. The rest of the populace forgets too, especially those who didn't even understand the situation to begin with, and come to resent Brave Vesperia for bringing this upon them.

Flynn is, of course, determined to steer the Empire through the crisis. He feels extra responsible, because he agreed to the plan to destroy the Adephagos so it's his responsibility to fix it. He starts down the same path Alexei did - of wanting to save the Empire while growing increasingly disillusioned with the Council and every other civilian he has to work with. Yuri isn't there to pull him back, and every step toward authoritarianism he takes justifies the next so that it will all be worth it in the end.

Tensions are high all over the world, and war breaks out between the Union and the Empire for control of scarce resources. The party members are split even further apart, with Estelle, Rita, and Flynn living in the Empire while Karol, Judith, and Raven live in Dahngrest. Flynn declares martial law and assumes absolute control of the Empire, stating that he only intends to wield this power for the duration of the crisis, but crises keep piling up and it's been a few years now.

And this is the future Yuri shows up in. He wakes up in the ruins of Tarqaron, thinking he's been missing for a couple of hours - when it's actually been ten years. So he goes strolling to the nearest town and gets hit by this reality. His goal is get the hell out of here and go home, where he hopes that he can warn people like Flynn, Ioder, and Harry what to expect and avoid this future, but there's no readily apparent means of going home and in the meantime he wants to at least find and help his friends.

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I remember people bringing up 'werewolf Flynn' as an idea but what about a story about Yuri becoming werewolf? How would that go? How would Yuri respond to that?

Ok so that's actually really interesting! I've been thinking about a werewolf fic for the future in which werewolfism is curse based rather than infection based (lycanthropy being spread by a bite is actually a pretty recent addition to the mythology!).

So perhaps Yuri's werewolfism arises from his feelings after killing Ragou and Cumore. He worries that he's becoming a monster, and it manifests in literally becoming one. Yuri being Yuri, he would do his best to hide this from his friends, refusing to let them worry about him, but imagine if that backfires and because he tried so hard to hide it, they're totally unprepared for an incident where he transforms near them and he ends up hurting one of them.

Maybe the transformation is triggered by feelings of anger and vengeance. He first transforms after killing Ragou, but then transforms again when he's gearing up to kill Cumore and rather than chase him into the sand, Cumore is mauled to death. And killing in werewolf form is easier, because he isn't consciously thinking about it, and it doesn't feel as real afterwards. But every time he transforms, it lasts longer, he can control himself less, and it's harder to change back.

He has to stop giving in to it. But he's so much more powerful in that form, and Alexei is staging a coup and kidnapped Estelle and needs to be taken down. If becoming a monster is what it will take to save his friends and the world, then he'll let himself become a monster.

Yuri's friends, of course, are not so keen on letting this go unchecked.

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Crazy idea: What if Raven and Yeager weren't the only ones with a Blastia Heart? Who knows how long or how many blastias that Alexei (did he create them? I don't think the game ever said it) had so one has to wonder if there were any 'rejects' that somehow survived and escape.

Oh! I've actually plotted a thing about this!

The gist of it is that Flynn discovers that his father in fact did not die, but was in fact an early recipient of a blastia heart when it was still in the testing phases. He finds a whole research facility of former prisoners with blastias in various levels of functionality. Following Alexei's defeat, the lab was abandoned and both the former subjects and researchers who were coerced into working there form a revolutionary sect threatening to overthrow the Knights and the monarchy entirely. I actually started writing it many years ago but it is in the "unlikely to ever finish" pile.

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Werewolf question: What if KAROL was the werewolf? Imagine a story where Brave Vesperia either has to work with or against the Hunting Blades to cure Karol. With Werewolves being technically human, it would raise an interesting conflict for the Hunting Blades (namely Clint and Nan) since the 'monster' is someone they know that and that they are not in control of themselves.

Oh no! Baby werewolf! I'm curious about how Yuri would react to this. It would be a continuation from his struggle in-game with what to do when someone you love is the infected part that needs to be cut off. He generally decided not to be so extreme when it came to Estelle, so I think Yuri would be on the side of defending Karol from the Hunting Blades. At the same time, though, if they reached a point where it looked like there was no cure and no way to stop Karol from attacking innocent people, Yuri would take it upon himself to be the one to kill him and making that decision would be really rough.

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I know you have zero plans for Vesperia fanfics but has there been a time were you wanted to do one (a multi-chapter) fic on werewolves? A lot of your fics have supernatural elements to them so I'm surprised that this never made it on the table (P.S. This is just my curiosity so please don't get the wrong idea of me wanting you to write more fanfics. Again, I know you have no plans and I respect your decision)

Oh yeah, I've thought about werewolves! I think my hazy idea involved a series of gristly murders showing up in Zaphias and Flynn investigating it and trying to figure out who the werewolf is. And possibly eventually realized that he himself is the werewolf?

Also one of my forever "I will write this one day" AU plans involves Estelle as a werewolf, and the idea that "Child of the Full Moon" is a werewolf thing. She's locked in the castle partly to hide her. Flynn is one of the first people outside the Council to discover this while they're both living in the castle pre-game.

Oh! And I wrote a whumptober fic based on that idea where Estelle turns into a werewolf and mauls a bunch of knights and nearly kills Flynn. Good times.

Werewolves are cool! I don't have time to write Vesperia fics right now (I'm 100k into my original novel and it's nowhere near finished let's goooo lmao) but I'm still always pumped to talk about potential fic ideas or AUs!