u/Defiant-Treacle2425

Listen, I'm a Blue Lion fangirl, but is everyone going to forget that the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus committed genocide? The Tragedy of Duscur is called a tragedy because of the death of Faerghus' nobility, which is dealt with half of the Blue Lions (Felix and Ingrid for Glenn, Dimitri and his family, Annette for Gilbert's absence). And then there's the Duscur victims, which is only Dedue, who has to deal with his entire people getting wiped out. Like don't get me wrong, I'm not invalidating that Dimitri, Felix, Ingrid, and Annette had it pretty rough. But holy fucking shit, being at ground zero of a mass extermination seems too much to unpack for a single character. It doesn't help that Dedue's missing for half of the timeskip for the only route he's in. He even loses his retainer status in the narrative to fricking Gilbert. Not even all of Dedue's paired endings mention Duscur for some reason?

Maybe it's not that relevant to the story Azure Moon is trying to tell, which is Dimitri's character arc.

Except Crimson Flower deals with a very controversial invasion against Faerghus. You think someone from Duscur (not even necessarily Dedue, just someone from Duscur in general) would have a pretty damn good reason to invade the Kingdom. Edelgard's whole thing is dismantling corrupt systems, and a nation has to be morally corrupt to do something as drastic as mass murder. It seems like a good way to explore the cycle of violence, where the attack on the Royal Family led to a genocide, then led to a war that ended up hurting Dimitri and co, who weren't even directly at fault, but have to carry on that legacy anyways. Then deal with the fact that TWSITD started this entire thing in the first place.

Maybe make someone from Duscur go Silver Snow, so they could deal with TWSITD. Someone from Duscur would know the cost of war and would want to stop it by any means necessary. Plus, the main characters in this route (Seteth, Flayn, Rhea) are also genocide survivors!
It's kinda dumb that Flayn and Dedue actually have a support chain, but don't really deal with it. I know Flayn's hiding her identity as a Nabatean and all, but you think that she'd be the most empathetic to Dedue for being a genocide survivor considering she went through a similar situation.

Hard sell? Then what about Verdant Wind, the route that has a theme about overcoming prejudice and isolation, especially when people are so racist to Dedue for being from Duscur?

I don't know. Poor Dedue.

I say this as an avid lover of this tag.

It feels like a lot of authors are holding back by making fics that still follow the plot of the original. By that, I mean a character that dies still dies, someone evil still turns evil, a plot event rough goes the same, etc. Which is a shame, since the character literally time-travelled. Depending on the source material, the ramifications of this could be enormous. The potential of a fic like this lies in the changes a writer can make in the original plot to explore scenarios that could never be possible, whether the consequences are good, bad, or mixed.

For example: Character A in the source material died to give character development to Character B? Watch Character A live and watch B go downhill! Cause some unintended consequence and let the butterfly effect do its thing. Make an unexplored side character very important to the plot! Kill a character and watch the madness occur. There are so many possibilities, just go ham!

(And in my personal opinion, I’d rather have a somewhat shaky but ambitious story compared to a safe one, just because it’s different to the original.)

Finally, just think through who you’re going to Peggy Sue. Sure, you could send the heroic main character back in time, but how about sending someone less competent that needs to become clever to make this work, or someone who was evil? It makes for a pretty compelling character and story.

TLDR: Dont be afraid to write off-the-rails time travel fics

Let’s say Byleth doesn’t have their same charisma, and one student from each of their original house defects, whether you like it or not. Who would you personally pick? It keeps the sympathetic tragedy of the game intact, even when you go for a full recruit in each house.

For BL, I feel like either Ashe or Mercedes have good cases to defect. Ashe has a pretty good reason to go with or against Edelgard, given the circumstances of his adoptive father’s death. Mercedes, who’s suffered against crests so much, and has living family with the Black Eagles, has a good chance of siding with Edelgard. It’s also good story-wise for drama, since Ashe and Mercedes are such kind people. There has to be something horrible that happened to push them to betray their house.

I don’t know enough about the three other routes, so feel free to discuss!

Edit: I wanted to point out, it doesn’t necessarily have to be in character. After all, the game’s story wasn’t written with a traitor in mind. But if you had to adjust the story/characters and pick a traitor, who would you pick?

The retainers would never do betray their leaders, but in this hypothetical, I feel like it’d be fun if one of them turned from their own cause.

At the top of my head, I can think of three very memorable moments where this was used:

1. His first boss battle, where the entire castle‘s theme had been leading up to that music.

2. If you choose to fight him, especially with Frog 1v1. Despite all that talk of Lavos and the world ending, this fight was personal.

3. If you choose to spare Magus, and he’s in the party for Queen Zeal’s fight, his battle theme overrides his mom’s own boss theme.

This man’s aura is bonkers.

So much anime have Europe-based settings. Yet almost every time, we get the same standard American accent. Even anime that are explicitly set in the United Kingdom aren’t exempt from this (yes, I’m talking to you, Ancient Magus Bride).

It doesn’t have to apply to real-life settings either. So much fantasy anime are heavily inspired by European aesthetics and architecture, but have no accent to show for it. Which is a shame, cause there’s so much potential charm in that.

Hell, it doesn’t even have to be European. Give us more Southern American or Boston accents.

Shoutout to Metaphor: ReFantazio having different accents, from London, Scottish, Scouse, and more. And a special mention to the iconic Xenoblade Chronicles’ Welsh catgirl. I’m sure there’s more I didn’t bring up, so go ahead and mention it.

Edit: Shoutout to Cyberpunk: Edgerunners too. There are so many accents because it’s set in a California melting pot.

Yes, I’m aware the friendship is goated in canon. I’m aware the writers confirmed it. I’m aware that they’ve called each other “bro” or something that would be odd in a non-platonic way.

Sometimes, I don’t even want them to get together in canon! Sometimes, the plot is perfectly fine as it is. But, it’s just fun to read about them being together. And look at art shipping them, even if its not canon. Because it’s called FANFICTION and FANART.

It doesn’t need to be canon to be fun and cute. And canon is its own good thing. Reading about a ship in fanfic doesn’t mean that’s where I want it to go in the actual work, it’s just different on its own.

Let’s just have fun with our separate places in the fandom and ignore each other if we do/don’t like the shipping.