☀️☀️ sun hands ☀️☀️

Fandom: Fire Emblem Three Houses

Rating: G

Characters: Yuri/F!Byleth/Claude

Chapter Five: Travel to the Throat

Read it on AO3

Their visit to Derdriu felt a lot longer than it actually was. The forum took the better part of a day, which was to be expected, and thanks to Lorenz’s assistance it went more smoothly than Byleth could really have hoped.

That hadn’t been the issue. No, the issue was dealing with all the nobles. Former members of the Leicester roundtable alliance, except there was no longer a Leicester Alliance and thus no need for their roundtable meetings.

Keep reading

*Black Eagle route in the Holy Tomb*

Edelgard: I am the Flame Emperor! I have had a hand in all the recent tragedies in your life including the death of your father. I am complicit in the deaths of hundreds and I am willing to sacrifice thousands more to achieve my ends!

Rhea: I have rewritten and controlled Fodlan’s history for centuries and my narrow-minded zealotry is what has allowed these tragedies to occur! I created you and intended to use you as a human sacrifice to bring my mother back to life!

Rhea and Edelgard: NOW PICK A SIDE!

Byleth: …

Byleth: … *reloads save from the beginning of the game*

-

Claude: You, me, Golden Deer, we could be-

Dimitri: I would be honored to have you in my-

Byleth: *sobs and hugs them both* I’M SORRY I ABANDONED MY SWEET BOYS!

Family theme 💛, Claudeleth and Dimimari

Tbh until I played azure moon, I thought I totally agreed with edelgard’s meritocracy, if not her methods of achieving it. But then azure moon dropped the whole parley scene along with the line, “It is the path of the strong, and so, it could only benefit the strong.” And then claude said if people don’t band together to find a solution, any change will only be temporary. And then I married yuri in my verdant wind playthrough and the ending plate said yuri worked hard to establish supports and education for the impoverished instead of just expecting them to rise themselves. And it just… got me thinking about it all

On the broad strokes, I still see where edelgard is coming from and her system is still better than what’s currently in place. But, now that I’m revisiting crimson flower, I find that I do see the holes I didn’t before. Namely, that the merit-system edelgard speaks of accounts for equality…. but not equity. She would open the doors to allow everyone the same oppurtunity but fails to account for those without the strength to take it. It’s all well and good that now people like ferdinand or constance with their education and connections can contribute to society and rise by their own ability, but what about the poor farmer in a now-wartorn land? What can he contribute at this time? Can a society really be complete if it doesn’t give their most vulnerable populations a chance? And I think that’s where dimitri comes in. The story repeated in azure moon is that sometimes, people are gonna need help. The focus here is on people and changing things directly for them. Now, azure moon also isn’t a perfect ending. Something something the inherent eroticism of changing the structure of your government to mirror social change. You can’t just do one and not the other. It’s no good if you only give everyone an equal chance but put an unyielding focus on every man for themselves. But setting up social supports for the vulnerable without giving them an opening to rise and take power won’t work either

Claude has different focuses altogether so he doesn’t clash as directly with the other two. His way comes with its own set of problems though. Claude’s main focuses are promoting freedom and dismantling ignorance. In his own route, claude expresses belief in freedom of information, open borders, the freedom to live without unfair judgement, and a community focused way of living. He wants to dismantle ignorance in order to challenge social practices and norms. He’d open the borders, open trade, provide people the tools they need… and leave deciding what that looks like to the people. The problem? This plan puts almost all the power in the hands of the public. There is, of course, nothing wrong with letting people decide their own future,,, but there is something to be said about the benefits of having guiding principles and rules to refer back to even while attempting to promote open-mindedness. His plans ultimately do account for both social and political change, the issue here boils down to the rewards vs the classic pitfalls of freedom and idealism within society

To their credit, all of the lords are able to acknowledge the fallacies in their way of thinking. Edelgard addresses it the least, but even she admits that she’s always been aware that her path will crush people who need the current system for support—that people like manuela or catherine may end up crushed in the world she creates. Dimitri is much of the same, expressing contempt for the kingdom’s politics and strict class culture. He is well aware that it cannot stay as is forever. Claude openly admits to needing people like byleth and lorenz to pave the road and guide the people in the beginning so that change doesn’t become chaos and to ensure that greed doesn’t ruin everything. His A-support with balthus confirms that the possibility that he’ll lose control of the aftermath weighs on him and his C-support with cyril opens his eyes to a situation where a leader should have stepped in and taken control.

Basically, no matter what route you play through, the ending could be seen as just the beginning phases of social change and are not a perfect result. Hell, it’s not even the finished product any of them imagined yet. And who’s to say one is better than the other? Whose to say even authoritarian control could stem the chaos that follows drastic chamge? How can you be sure that releasing information will really encourage people to correct the crest system? Will correcting the crest system do anything to help a millenia of racism or will war just drive people inward? What if too much aid does make one class totally dependent on the other? What if failing to support the vulnerable just perpetuates the environment of the strong ruling over the weak but now under the guise of equality? How do you make people more open minded without forcing their hand? How are you sure that’s the direction it’ll go in? How do you account for the sudden lack of an organized religion which previously was the one thing tying three very different countries together? Especially when the only thing connecting them now is war? So, essentially, there is no golden route. It’s a feel good game so we can generally infer that these issues all get addressed eventually no matter what route you pick, but you can’t really say for sure that any one choice is all encompassing. We’ll all have that one route we think did more right than the other two, but there are holes in each one

Fandom: Fire Emblem Three Houses

Rating: G

Characters: Yuri/F!Byleth/Claude, feat. Judith, Lorenz/Leonie

Chapter Four: The Progress Begins

Read it on AO3

Claude had needed to return to Almyra, leaving Byleth and Yuri in Fódlan to keep on top of things there. He had only been gone a week and she missed him terribly; even Yuri seemed to be moping about a little bit. But, she had a country to run and a church to reform. Sitting idle was not something that she could afford.

“How are repairs to the township progressing?” she asked Seteth on their morning walk around the monastery. Yuri trailed along behind them, ever watchful.

Keep reading

Lysiclaude modern high school AU

Are people really out there saying claude and dimitri are wrong for not letting themselves be invaded by the empire? “They’re the ones dragging out the war” sjfhskkj. Yes, I do imagine that most wars would end faster if the other side would simply give it up without a fight and let themselves be taken over. That’s not incorrect. But that’s generally not how it works, you know that right? People generally resist takeovers from a foreign power, regardless of what their goals are?

It’s especially weird when directed towards claude? Who declared neutrality for five years?! The kingdom at least was actively at war with the empire, but claude would have kept his people out of it—did keep them out of it. If anything, my criticism would be that it’s stupid to hold out for that long without fighting back. A massive armed force is already taking out your neighbor and standing at your borders, you must know you’re next. Are you just gonna wait until there are no allies left? And criticism is tempered with the knowledge that it might’ve been all he could do to keep the alliance from civil war. Even with the argument that claude could understand edelgard’s views and backed down in the end anyways, that’s when he had no fight left?! If it’s either peace or senseless death with no hope of victory, then ofc choose peace! But you’re saying he should have just been like well that sounds ok… here’s my country. Without even trying to resist?

And it’d be one thing if edelgard had the support of the general public within the kingdom or the alliance and would win a popular vote. Then I’d say that they should listen to their people and give it up. But, from what I saw, that’s generally not the case. She had support from the lords we established to be the skeeviest ones in their respective countries. Which makes sense! We know her background and reasons but to the common folk? Farmers and merchants and villagers? This is a military takeover at best and a persecution of their faith at worst. And even if it doesn’t look like either of those, it still means war. It still means costing them their resources and, possibly, their lives. Why would they support it? And, in turn, why wouldn’t their leaders try to stop that from happening?

The funniest part is that edelgard literally warned you about this! From the very beginning she accepted that her actions could only result in war. Even banked on it! Somehow y'all took that to mean she thinks dimitri and claude are terrible people instead of her acknowledgement that, if she marches her army into other people’s borders, they miiight get upset. In moments of frustration, she can veer into wondering why they won’t just give in,,, but you never get the impression she’s deluded herself into believing that’s realistic. Because it isn’t! For incredibly obvious reasons! So. How the hell did we come to this conclusion? That people can actually be bad and wrong for not immediately submitting to sexy, sexy military incursion???

Do you ever think about claude and petra coming to fodlan from lands where presumably none of this shit is happening? Like imagine the first time claude saw failnaught?! He gets grounded because he kept insisting that’s definitely just bones. Retrieving the lance of ruin and seeing it twitch like “oh! Is… is that a feature?”

I encourage people to listen to the original japanese dub even if you don’t understand a lick of japanese. At least in VW, the tone of voice for certain lines is completely different. Mostly, I feel like the english dub makes claude feel a lot less emotional and far more flippant. For example (because I just got it) in his c-support with ignatz, he actually sounds a bit awkward when ignatz says no way the goddess looks like one of the cafeteria ladies and says something along the lines of “thats a little rude to the cafeteria ladies.” On the opposite end, claude is one of the select few who refers to rhea as rhea-san instead of a more respectful honorific or her title.

There are other examples. Bernadetta sounds more panicked all the time in the JPN dub. Cyril’s tone is more petulant and halting in his c-supports. And marianne’s japanese voice feels more hesitant as a teenager and changes a lot more post-timeskip imo. Same with claude, whose voice post-timeskip feels like it has a lot more gravitas in official settings only to then switch back to his casual speech patterns around friends

For the most part, it’s all minor changes in tone and wording every few lines. I imagine the same would be true for every character and I doubt it changes the story or the experience drastically. This happens when things get dubbed. But still, it’s fun to hear some of the characters with their original dub. I wouldn’t say one is better or worse, they both do a pretty good job. But give it a listen because it is definitely different in certain parts

Fandom: Fire Emblem Three Houses

Rating: G

Characters: Yuri/F!Byleth/Claude, feat. Seteth

Chapter Three: Rest & Relaxation

Read it on AO3

Seteth, ever the caring (doting) hard worker (over-worker, frankly) had very decidedly forced Byleth to take a day off. No paperwork. No church business. No cardinals’ meetings or construction planning or anything that resembled more than relaxing. He had very firmly told her that the bags under her eyes were unbecoming the Archbishop and that she should get some rest.

He was also a massive hypocrite, but she knew it was pointless to argue. They’d become good friends, despite such a rough start to their acquaintanceship, and she really did trust his judgment, especially in matters regarding the church. Deep down, she thought he would have made a much better Archbishop, but now certainly wasn’t the time to try and shift that authority around.

She’d give it a few years. Maybe.

Keep reading

every time i see claude ibn riegan i honestly cringe a little…unless you’re arab and projecting, you really should not be calling claude “ibn” when he’s persian like…how many times do you guys need to be told this? how do you guys research specific centuries of specific european countries for other characters but can’t get claude’s specific coding through your heads? like are you stupid?

Hilda: Washing your boobs is the most fun part of showering by far, because when they’re soapy they’re so slippery and soft and it’s the greatest form of entertainment.

Dimitri: Woah, what?

Sylvain: And with a single statement, you’ve given every straight man and gay woman a boner.

Claude: I like putting the soap bar between them and seeing how far I can launch it. I busted a light once that way, though.

Felix: That-that sounds pretty impressive, actually…

Claude for the 2 winner