#they're useless to the point where I'm genuinely curious what this fic would look like with all mentions of their existence being erased

[butwhatifidothis]

In Cap's fic, the word "love" appears about twice as often as "Bernadetta", "Linhardt", or "Caspar". He really doesn't care about the Black Eagles other than Edelgard and Hubert.

I'll do ya one better nonnie - compare that to the recruits, with particular attention given to Ingrid.

Combined, Caspar, Linhardt, and Bernadetta's total mentions of their names adds up to 793

Ingrid's total mentions, by herself, is 1,540

Three base BE students have a combined mention count that is literally barely over half of one recruit. And they barely beat out Sylvain's (746), Lysithea's (683) and Marianne's (620). Who all themselves at best barely reach half of Ingrid's mentions, with Sylvain likely only coming as close to half as he does simply because he's Ingrid's """""love interest""""" (cuz damn if he doesn't do ANYTHING in this fic except play meat shield lmao).

Hell, adding in Petra onto that first number, while raising it a good bit (up 532 mentions), that's still less than Ingrid's (1,540 vs 1,256).

And it's, like, it's one thing for someone like Woobiegard or Ficleth to have waaay more mentions than the rest - they're supposed to be the main characters of the story. But when half of your base roster can have a combined mention count that comes up to less than that of a singular recruited character's? When 3 base characters' combined counts can barely match that of all of the other recruits? Then at that point it... really, really doesn't feel like those characters are that important to the story, and that they're only there because the game has them be there.

Like, if you completely cut out Caspar and Linhardt from the story, you lose literally nothing. Like, genuinely. They only exist to Pair the Spares that are Kronya and Lysithea... who are shown having more "chemistry" (or whatever counts as that with this fic lmao) with each other than their boyfriends anyway. They contribute nothing to anything and are completely useless - they don't grow as characters, they don't aid in other characters' growth, they never progress the story, they add nothing to the theme or narrative, and they don't even show up enough to make up for all of that by at least being endearing. They are useless, in every way.

It's hard to remember that Linhardt fuckin' exists at all. Whohardt became a name for the notes for a reason - he rarely has speaking lines. 

If Caspar does anything, it's fuck up the themes of the fic - Woobiegard's meritocracy is good, but also Caspar is being given a position he is woefully unqualified for and didn't even ask for AND HADN'T EVEN KNOWN E X I S T E D all because a group of his friends came together and decided for him that he's best for the job. Choices??? Rising by one's own merits??? Why do that when your friends can make the choice for you to take up a position you are DAMN NEAR GUARANTEED TO BE SHIT AT?

Bernadetta, even when going by what the fic says, only ever did two things:

stand to the side and watch as Woobiegard tried to murder her friends, and she only did this because she saw Sylvain do it first and just followed his lead (or, as the fic likes to call it, "being brave")

pull Woobiegard, Ficleth, and Alois out of a fire... off screen. And while defying reality.

And once she does the latter thing she gets yeeted back into the void. 

And similar can be said for Petra, whose only purpose is to be ogled at for her strength and grace and beauty before she threatens her people with death for daring to fight for their freedom. 

And y'know, that kind of thing makes it really hard to believe that they're, like. As important as the fic wants us to think they are. Like, unironically, it'd be far more interesting if these characters were to die during one of Ficleth's many conveniently inconvenient times where she can't Divine Pulse it away - y'know, add some tension, let the reader at least possibly believe that these characters are actually risking their lives for something they believe in? But since CF has to be the bestest route ever in ever, that can't happen; they have to be happy and in love and totally living their best life, even as they do literally nothing. But once you notice how a character Cap'n actually cares for is written by him (see: Ingrid), you notice that these character, like... really are just decoration and nothing else.

And look at the tags for the fic:

Claude and Dimitri are listed as specifically important characters over Caspar, Bernadetta, Linhardt, and Petra - and Kronya too actually lmao. They’re just miscellaneous Black Eagle Students, as opposed to Hubert, Dorothea, and Ferdinand who get to actually be tagged (despite Ferdinand similarly being kinda useless). So much for being important to Woobiegard, I guess