#her Majesty lives | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

softquietsteadylove · 1 year

Note

Hello Dear! I had a dream last night that gave me so much Thenamesh vibes, so i have to share this.

It's an AU where Thena is a Princess, daughter of King Arishem and, against her will, promised to the Prince Eternal Eros himself. Thena fled from the wedding, running through the woods for days until she's not able to walk anymore and hides under a big tree in the rainy night. And Gilgamesh, sweet Gilgamesh, finding her when the sun rises. He's a lumberjack, living in the woods. He doesn't know who she is, but he wants to help her anyway. But we're talking about Thena, so she's holding a knife to defend herself, telling him not to touch her, to leave her alone. But she ends up in his cabin, eating some delicious soup he prepared. So eventually she's hiding there for days and weeks until some Royal Guards knock on Gils door, asking him if he had seen the Princess. And after the Guards are gone, he has a talk with our beautiful Thena.

I would like to ask you to write the talk that followed, if you have time and this AU speaks to you, because my alarm clock wouldn't let me finish the dream.

Much love to you!! 🖤✨

The morning of the wedding she ran.

She didn't care which direction, she didn't care that she was on foot, or that the wedding dress she hated was trailing behind her as she ran. She took off in the direction of the woods and didn't look back until her knees were numb and she couldn't breathe.

She didn't know how long she ran for. But she kept going, and going, sleeping under massive trees and within the protective shelter of caves. She ran until her feet were raw, both from the shoes and then from abandoning them and running with her feet in the dirt.

She had never been allowed to run at the castle. She hadn't been allowed to do anything under her father's oppressive watch. Except get engaged, of course. Her hand had been promised to Prince Eros long ago--so long ago that it was far too distant in her mind to be real. It was just a distant mirage of a future.

Then she met him. And he was just like every other prince and noble who saw an extension of her father - the throne - in her, wanted her crown, wanted her body--anything but her. Anything but the real Thena.

It was raining, and a few times the tree offering her shelter moaned and even snapped so loudly she wondered if it would collapse on her. It was just her and her regrets, until he appeared. He leaned down to her, tilting his head under the hood of his coat.

"Are you okay?"

She held out a knife, ordering him to stay away from her, pushing her back against the inner wall of the tree stump. "Stay back!"

He held his hands up to her, the cut up logs on his back shifting as he moved. "Hey, hey, it's okay. I'm not here to hurt you, I promise."

Thena kept her eye on him, though. She had only known two men in her life: her father, all her life, and her fiance, for a single day. She didn't trust either of them. And the men she had met however briefly, she didn't think she would be quick to ally herself with either.

"Look, I'm just gonna leave this here," he spoke softly, barely audible over the rain around them. He pulled a bundle of cloth out of the bag on his hip and slid it her way, even poking it towards her the last of the way and backing up. "My cabin is just a little further from here. I'll be making some soup when I get home...I'll be there, I mean."

And with that, he stood and left, walking in the direction he had pointed. Thena watched him as long as she was able from within her alcove. She picked up the bundle warily, but as soon as she smelled what it was her stomach growled.

And so she ended up knocking on his door, in the rain, in a sodden wedding dress, trying her best to have some dignity about her and not start crying as he led her inside.

But he was sweet, this strange lumberjack. He brought her towels and blankets, draping them over her but careful not to encroach on her space for too long or too close. He did have soup, as promised, and it smelled just as good as the sandwich he'd left her--better, even. He even let her serve herself, handing her a bowl and drifting to the other side of the room with his own.

She took a tentative sip of the soup, then a second. Then she wolfed down the whole bowl, ravenous after her days of solitude.

"You can have as much as you want," he said, easily able to tell she wanted more and didn't know how to ask for it. He walked over to the pot, ladling out more for himself and then nodding to her bowl. "You're hungry, right?"

She really did cry that time--just a few tears, which she was quick to wipe away. She held out her bowl to him, immeasurably grateful for his kindness. "Thank you."

"Gil," he supplied easily, as if they hadn't been stood in silence until now. He looked over his shoulder curiously, but he didn't ask her.

She shifted on her feet, feeling the sting of their wounds all the way up her spine. Her eyes shifted; she could tell him who she was, and maybe the name would mean nothing to him. Or she could tell him, and he would immediately know that she was the royal princess, obviously missing. They would probably reward him handsomely for her return.

"Here."

He held out her bowl for her, filled with his amazing soup again. His smile had nothing to hide, nor did it ask anything of her. It was just a smile, from a nice man with delicious soup.

She asked him questions instead, and he answered them honestly and openly. His name was Gilgamesh, he was a lumberjack who lived off the land, he had no family. And he was a great cook.

"Thena," she admitted quietly, stirring around the last few chunks of potato and herbs in her bowl. She couldn't remember ever being better fed, or more satisfied after a meal. Maybe it was the sleeping in a tree in the cold and starving, but she could swear that none of the feasts at the castle were ever this good.

"Thena," he smiled at her as he finished his own bowl. He leaned off his far shelf, reaching out to take hers to his washbasin. She handed it over gently, like a deer eating out of his palm. "That's a pretty name."

She stayed. He wasn't about to send her out in the rain, of course. And first and foremost, she was injured. He sat her in front of his fire, washing her feet in carefully heated water with medicinal herbs floating in it. It stung at first, but he handled her with such gentility that she nearly cried again. There was something almost reverent about the way he held the delicate bone of her ankle as he pressed a clean cloth to her raw skin.

She stated she would be fine on the floor, close to the fire, with a blanket. He refused. She refused his refusal. Then he picked her up, not giving her much of a choice as he placed her onto his bed and crossed his monstrously thick arms at her. "But-"

"Sleep," he ordered with his lips pursed.

She could have balked at the audacity to order her to do anything. Instead, she found herself laughing. "I'm afraid you're not as frightening as you think you are."

But he knew that. Because she had left her sad little knife in his kitchen, next to her bowl of soup.

He didn't send her away the next day, and she found herself without the desire to continue on in her loneliness. She let him check her feet, wash them again and press clean torn fabric to them. He kept doing that until she was healed, and even then, neither of them asked where she was headed.

She started helping him around the house. Just little things, at first. She was even worse than useless at cooking, having never seen a skillet - let alone handled a kettle - in her life. But she could wash and cut up the vegetables from his garden, sweep out the dirt he tended to track in after a long day, pull up the blankets on the bed he still wasn't inhabiting.

It wasn't until a particularly hard day of hauling wood that Thena managed to tempt him just to sit down on the bed while she massaged his aching shoulders.

It had taken nothing at all for him to drift to sleep like that. He even snored a little, he was so out of it. She laid him down next to her, pulling the blankets over him and everything. She still wasn't sure what to make of this sweet, kind man, but she had to admit that his snoring was almost a little bit cute.

He freaked out in the morning, discovering that he had not only fallen asleep, but wrapped his arms around her in the night. But Thena said that it was a perfectly natural thing to happen (as if she would know). And since his soreness was even more evident the next day, she used the same technique on him.

They never did end up sleeping separately again, just by...coincidence.

It was weeks over which it all took place. Thena hadn't even registered the passing of time in her little paradise. It wasn't until she saw a hint of the seasons changing that she realised how long it had been.

Then the thunder of hoof beats.

Gil opened the door, blinking at the royal guard standing there. He took in the man's shining silver armour and the scroll in his hand. "What can I do for you?"

"Sir, I have been sent by his Majesty King Arishem, and his Highness, Prince Eros," the guard declared, unfurling the scroll with the royal decree. "We have been searching for her Highness, Princess Thena, escaped from the palace."

"Escaped, huh?" Gil questioned, completely unfazed by the royal forces at his door and the urgency of their statement. "Did it suck to live there?--in the castle?"

The guard sputtered at the suggestion.

"What'd she run away for?" Gil asked, although he didn't exactly wait around for an answer. He pressed the potato he had been peeling into the hand of the guard 'for his trouble'.

"Sir, we-"

"Hope you find her!" Gil waved before closing the door on the entire royal procession. He leaned against the inside of the door, waiting until he heard their horses galloping off to push off of it.

Thena emerged from where she had rushed to hide herself among the woodpiles in the back. She poked her head out, guilt making her eyes drag along the ground. "They're gone?"

"They're gone," Gil promised, and she did bring herself to come back into the kitchen with him, hands fidgeting over the apron he had sewn for her out of scraps of the - lengthy - wedding dress train.

Thena squirmed as he took her hands in his, pulling her away from their vegetables and over to the table. He sat her down, choosing to lean against the table and look down at her.

"There something you wanna tell me, Sweetheart?"

Thena stared down at her hands on her lap. It seemed so strange to recognise the patterns of flowers on the apron that was once her wedding dress. "I didn't mean to lie to you."

Gil nodded, his arms still crossed, almost having to lean down to hear her. "I know."

Thena sighed. He was so sweet, even in the face of blatant deception. She peeked up at him, and it was almost even worse to see no trace of anger or betrayal on that handsome face of his. She bunched up the apron in her hands. "I was betrothed to Eros by my father's word. I was always intended to marry him so our kingdoms could combine forces."

"But the morning of the wedding, I...something happened. I-I don't know--I just...couldn't. The ladies helping me prepare were talking about life 'once I was married', and circling me, and pulling my hair and getting me into this dress and I-"

Thena looked up at Gil.

"I ran. I ran to the nearest door I could find and out the back of the castle into the woods. I ran until I thought I would meet my end, because I couldn't bear the thought of signing my life away to that man."

Thena looked down again but Gil reached out, tipping her chin back up to him with the gentlest of fingers.

"Is that why you stayed?" he asked gently, although there was plenty he needed to know within that one question. "All this time?"

Thena felt her cheeks flush with warmth. She wasn't entirely sure what had made her so resolute to stay. Surely she could have kept running--had she asked, Gil probably would have offered to help her. Given her shoes and some food, at the very least. She could have lied to him about why she was out there in the first place. She could have left at any time.

But she stayed. She stayed because her feet still hurt, and because by all that was good, the food he made was amazing. She stayed because she found his bed so much comfier than her plush monstrosity at the castle. She stayed because even once her feet felt better, she couldn't just run off with his kindness in hand.

She stayed because every time he came home and gave her that same smile, she convinced herself that she could stay just one more day, desperate to see it again.

Thena's eyes fluttered as his lips pressed between her furrowed brows. She hadn't even realised how tense she was all over until she relaxed. She had felt for herself how rough and calloused his hands were from the work he did. But his lips were soft.

"You can stay as long as you like, Thena," he promised her, and he meant it, because he was Gilgamesh. He smiled, "or should I be calling you Princess?"

She rolled her eyes; he would think this was just so funny. "Please, don't."

"Fine, but don't go out berry picking for the next few days?--just in case those guys are hanging around in the area." He said it so casually, the same way he had first suggested he teach her to peel the potatoes and carrots safely. He leaned off the table, returning to the kitchen with one less potato than when they started making dinner. "I'm sure they'll get tired of sniffing around here soon enough."

Thena turned in her seat, watching him start to peel onions with a simple little smile on his face. "Gil?"

"Hm?" he wasn't even looking at her, so comfortable with her presence and whatever she had to ask or say.

Thena gripped the back of her chair, letting it creak. "Why...?"

He looked up at her with a soft expression. He'd had this same look on his face when he was washing her cut and scraped feet, and when she had first welcomed him home with the worst kettle of tea he'd ever had, and when he first woke up with her in his arms. "Because you want to be here."

That was it. It was that easy for him--that simple. He returned to the onions, chopping them with flawless skill. She disliked them almost as much as peas, but he kept insisting that if he cut them up small enough and cooked them long enough that she wouldn't even taste them.

She could.

"And I want you here, too."

Thena leaned her chin on her hand, watching him work instead of leaping up to join him again. She would in a minute. They could talk about things--what was to come, what would need to happen if she was going to become a permanent resident of the cabin. Or they could talk about how the pumpkins were growing and the animals Gil saw while he was out working.

She just wanted to be with him.

18 notes · View notes

fluffypotatey · 2 years

Note

OMG, so Soft™, Merlin bby, ofc they like you.

I put my vote in for Roland being Merlin's unofficial squire, bc A) just as Extra as Merlin, and B) gets many more excuses to Stab. Like, "Yes, sir, I'll stay right back here while you fight sorcerous assassin du jour and if your magic doesn't work, this dagger will."

A child learning morals from the morally dubious would be A+ content.

Merlin: Agravaine is the traitor, I'm certain of it.

Roland, immediately: I can put a viper in his sheets.

Merlin: ........as much as it pains me to say, please do not do that.

Roland: Well, okay, but if you ever change your mind, I can get one in, like, an hour.

Merlin: *deep inhale*

Also, I don't know why, but I'm picturing Roland as a girl. Like, maybe she heard about Morgause challenging Arthur or even saw the duel happen herself and was like, "Huh," and when Arthur does away with the 'nobility only' rule, she's like "Huh," and immediately goes for it. But girls still can't apply for knighthood (yet, bc gotta take baby steps with social change like that) so maybe Roland is her family name or a brother/cousin, and she just lops her hair off, steals some trousers, and falls in with the lads. She's young enough when she joins that she can pass for a boy. When they get a little older, well, by then her bros have all twigged but also know she can and will kick their asses, so they just make sure she gets tunics that are always a little too big. Bonus if legit nobody else notices this, including Merlin, and the only person who does know is Gwen, and she ain't saying a damn thing. Double Bonus if the first person to notice is Arthur, and the Squires immediately and without hesitation straight up lie to the fucking KING.

Arthur: *squinty eyes*

Arthur: Is.....is Roland......a girl?

SotRT: What? No, of course not, sire, don't let him hear you say that, you'll hurt his feelings.

Arthur: ........uh-huh.

Cue Gwen cracking tf up in the background like, "JFC, I married the biggest himbo in the Five Kingdoms, Arthur, you're lucky you're pretty."

(Also, here are my tokens of returned affection in courtship: 🌹🌸🌼🌺💐💍👑💎)

same gwen lmao

*slams hand on table* ROLAND IS ONE OF CAMELOT'S BEST SQUIRES AND YES SHE WAS INSPIRED BY MORGAUSE

she didn't really ask merlin if she could be his squire. she just started hanging around him, helping him with chores, being his lookout until a couple knights asked and she said: "uh duh, i've been his squire for three months now" "your my WHAT?!"

roland had and will cut a bitch if they threaten merlin. oh, you're glaring menacingly at the king's manservant? roland is breathing inside your walls, have fun sleeping bitch. you told merlin to count his days?? count your seconds, bitch, roland is behind you, axe poised and ready to strike--

all of agravaine's inconveniences, that's roland. ok sure, merlin said no to the snakes, but he never said no to rats! he didn't say yes either but why would you question the method to the madness? his saddle never fits right. his food is always cold. his clothes are always dirty. agravaine knows something is up, but none of his spies are able to find out who is causing all of this???

the other squires help her plan the pranks and very illegal tampering with noble goods, but he called merlin "nothing more than a chair for the king" and they are out for blood.

agravaine complains to arthur about how unruly the squires are but arthur cannot believe it. because that meant that his knights couldn't handle them, but they could and that's a slight on his men which he cannot forgive. it's one of the only things agravaine couldn't trick arthur into believing. roland later soaked agravaine's sheets with spoiled mead, serves him right!

#*gasp!* beloved anon do not feel the need to gift me things in this courtly love of ours tis my part to play #truly i appreciate your tokens and will wear them with pride the next tournament don't you fear #i tap anon's shoulder causing them to look right but it was a trick & so i smooch their left cheek & run away giggling like a lovesick fool #obviously none of the squires prank her majesty #they'd never dare because she is notorious for being the best prankster ever (elyan and leon have the stories)#ok ok so baseline we have roland who was once squire to elyan and later switched to merlin #lucan i'm on the fence with him being squire to percival or leon #nathan is squired to elyan #bors is squired to lancelot #galahad is squired to lancelot #bedivere is squired to gwaine (he now knows the taste of illegality and craves more)#dagonet is squired to leon (and would TOTALLY kick nathan's ass if he were a man with less self control but he's gentleman so nate lives)#fierefitz is squired to percival and lucan TOTALLY isn't jealous or anything definitely #squires of the round table #knights of the round table #bbc merlin #headcanons

28 notes · View notes

miss-mollys-ballet-blog · 2 years

Photo

Forever one of my favorite moments of the Queen!

#COWS!#the queen #queen elizabeth ii #her majesty queen elizabeth ii #long live the queen #British royal family

59 notes · View notes

theycallmekaibara · 2 years

Photo

Beach Bee coming thru with the Summertime Slay

#mun arts #her majesty #saw the cutest shoes and one piece on her instagram feed so i had to draw her in it ofc #drawing while black #black girl magic #artists on tumblr #its so fckn hot ya'll im actually melting #rip to my girls with big thighs who also live in the south....i know we suffering ladies 😭

27 notes · View notes

butwhatifidothis · 2 years

Text

I think the thing that's getting me the most about TEatG's take on "fighting against fate" is that is the fate it's fighting against is like... the good ending.

got long lol under the cut it goes

Like - take Awakening for a second, another story that's about fighting fate. What exactly is Lucina fighting against? What's her fate? Well, her fate is to have her father be murdered by the one person he trusted most due to that person succumbing to their fate of being a vessel for the harbinger of the apocalypse, ushering in unfathomable loss for the entire world that Lucina has quite literally no hope to win against, to the point where her genuine only hope of rescuing anyone is to travel to a different timeline set before everything went to ruin to save everyone there instead.

Lucina, as well as pretty much everyone involved, of course did nothing to ever deserve such a horrific fate to befall them, and so it makes the audience sympathetic to her plight and understanding of what she is almost/full-on willing to resort to, even though that includes murdering someone who could potentially be her own mother and thus preventing the birth of her own brother. We feel the larger scale suffering Lucina is trying to prevent for others while also seeing the smaller scale personal suffering Lucina is trying to stop for her own personal peace of mind through the death of her father and how it affects her. The stakes are extremely high for her and the audience can thus feel the pressure she as a character is going through, and we're able to see that yes, despite what Lucina is willing to do she is genuinely only doing this because she feels she must.

In contrast, what is Woobiegard fighting against? What's her fate? Well, her fate is to... be defeated. After being the cause of immense suffering and torment of, in her own admission, thousands of people, and after working with people she knows are hurting even more innocents, and for reasons that are never properly shown to be justified. Even when her enemies do her work for her and say that they are totally evil, nothing is ever shown in the story to actually show off why or how that is.

Unlike with Lucina, where we as the audience can very visibly see what it is she is fighting against, nothing of the Church's supposed oppression is truly on screen. We are told all the time that it’s the Church’s teachings that is the cause of suffering, but nothing in the story of the fic ever proves that to be true; even without the game, it seems more like bad apples opportunistically and deliberately misinterpreting the intention behind the Church’s teachings to do nefarious deeds more so than it ever feels like actual indorsement from the Church to commit these acts - this indorsement which would be an essential key in making Woobiegard’s methods in toppling the Church as violently as she does at least understandable. This is not the case with Grima, whom we see is the direct and nearly sole cause for the horror and destruction Lucina’s world falls into.

Having the context of the game makes this even worse, as that shows that the fic is deliberately leaving out details of the Church’s tenets in order to make them appear worse; not once has the “Dare not abuse the power gifted to you by the goddess” tenet ever been referred to in any way, and it is coincidentally the only tenet that is never mentioned in some way in the fic. It criticizes the Church for involving itself in the affairs of the three nations without ever mentioning that it was the three nations that asked for the Church to intervene. It also - paradoxically, mind - accuses the Church of never stepping into the affairs of the three nations when they’re in trouble, without realizing that the Church doing so would actually be them trampling across the sovereignty of the three nations. It thus makes it seems as though the Church hasn’t actually done anything to deserve all of this hatred and degradation thrown at it and it’s just Woobiegard hating the Church for simply existing, despite the Church’s existence never actually negatively impacting Fodlan as a whole. Again, unlike Grima, who proves time and again that did they not exist, the world would be at peace; the Church doesn’t come across as a suitable threat to justify the actions taken to bring it down.

On top of that, Woobiegard’s personal suffering of the loss of her family, narratively speaking, isn’t to give her a grounded presence for the audience to better get a feel for her character and understand why she does what she does; it’s just another of a nearly endless slew of Tragic Sad Boo Hoo Wah Wah’s to make the audience overlook the horrible actions she’s performing because She Was Sad Once. With Lucina, her pain and trauma are an explanation for her morally dubious actions, but not an outright justification for them; she isn’t suddenly completely right to try to murder Robin in cold blood just because of her experiences, since Robin is still an innocent at the time Lucina decided to attempt to murder them. With Woobiegard, her pain and trauma are so integral in justifying her character it is interwoven throughout the entire prose of the entire fic. The reader is bombarded with how Sad and Lonely Woobiegard is, and how that is why she is right and just to do the things she does, and everyone who is deemed good (enough) is always convinced of Woobiegard’s righteousness once they hear how Sad and Lonely she is.

Or, to tie it back to the comparison: Chrom doesn’t give Lucina the thumbs up to murder Robin just because he knows how much trauma and horror Lucina has seen, whereas Ficleth would have murdered Robin herself with no hesitation or regret were she in the same position for Woobiegard.

Moving on from that: What did Grima do to have Lucina be so desperate to kill them? Literally end the world. How do they do this? Resurrecting the dead and forcing their bodies to attack and kill the living, as well as being a Holy-Fuck-sized dragon that will casually just destroy everything in their path, legit because Why Not Lol. Boom, Lucina's words about how awful her fate is has now been properly showcased to the audience, it is now an indisputable fact of the world, we can now properly understand her motivations, and the evil she is fighting against is solidly and decidedly evil.

What did Rhea do to have Woobiegard be so desperate to enact war with her? Well, uh, you see, some nobles hold Crests to be very important and used that to be assholes. Ignore all of the nobles that are nobles without Crests, or all of the Crested individuals that aren't nobles, or all of the nobles with Crests whose lives are just fine, some nobles are badly affected by Crests therefore Crest system therefore Bad. And how did Rhea do this? Nemesis and his Elites ruled over Fodlan with their newfound Crests for over a century before the Church was formed- *AHEM* sorry, tickle in my throat, it's actually totally strictly and only because the Church said that Crests were gifts from the goddess. Ignore that it also said not to abuse these gifts which means that anyone doing so is not doing so with backing from the Church and would thus just be selectively cherry-picking from the Church's tenets to thinly veil their shitty actions as righteous even though they know they're being shitty, Rhea made Crests bad because she totally directly made people think having a Crest made people better which means she totally needs to be gotten rid of for any change to happen even though she doesn't actually ever indorse the beliefs Woobiegard is fighting against and thus killing her will do literally nothing since the shitty nobles doing shitty things will just switch the reasons why they're doing shitty things since the actual root cause (basic human greed and cruelty that must be dealt with on an individual level and doesn't have Kill Rhea as a one-size-fit-all solution to it) has been fundamentally misidentified.

Hooray.

This lack of a proper showing as to how bad the situation actually is makes it nearly impossible for the audience to get a good grasp as to why the protagonist is fighting so hard and going to such desperate measures. With Lucina, it could not be more clear cut; her words, her actions, and what we the audience physically see with our own eyes all fall perfectly in line with each other. We can see that Lucina's fate is bad, and thus we root for her to fight against said fate, and thus we understand when that means taking actions we as the audience most likely wouldn't take ourselves. With Woobiegard, it's all over the place; nothing in the world - especially 3H's, but even the fic as a stand-alone entity - reflects why Woobiegard believes anything she does or takes the actions she does. It's just told to us, and nothing is ever grounded by physicality so that we the audience can get a feel as to the weight of everything going on - which is then made infinitely worse when Woobiegard herself performs the very actions she claims to be fighting against.

Lying to her allies when it benefits her, always - and I mean fuckin' always always - casting blame to others while trying to keep herself morally clean, manipulating those around her to follow her, performing blatant and repeated acts of hypocrisy - which includes being overly violent to those who stand against her and allowing Petra to force her people to bend to her whim under threat of death, two of the biggest things she lambasts the Church/Rhea for doing - utilizing her Crest(s) to better violently invade sovereign nations and assert her control over them. And the list goes on and on and on. Suffice to say that Lucina, uh, doesn't do this lmao.

So Woobiegard's goal in the fic - fighting her fate - isn't one that an audience that isn't already willing to overlook her actions can relate to. She is the one to directly cause immense suffering across all of Fodlan for half a decade; even by Woobiegard's own logic, Rhea is only at best an indirect cause, with the nobility that are willing to make others suffer being the true direct cause of Fodlan's current state. Meaning that going by Woobiegard's logic, she is the worse of the two of them. Commoner rebellions quelled by threat/use of lethal force, violently invading upon the sovereignty of other nations, blatantly disregarding morality whenever it doesn't let her get her way, all while justifying everything she does to herself as being for the greater good - her fate is her not being able to do this. That is what she is fighting against.

She wants to be allowed to do this - not necessarily that she actively wants to do these things, but that she is allowed to get away with doing all of these things. She wants to be the Hegemon while having the cute child-like lover, and the ever-loyal side-piece, and the mindless friends that always do what she wants and believes what she believes, and the nice peaceful life in the cottage with her art supplies, all without ever having to face a single consequence for her actions - because that'd be fate “undeservingly” making her life just oh so hard.

And the absolute kicker? Chapter 36.

It shows the results of what happens if Ficleth were to follow fate and kill Woobiegard... and it leads to peace. Sure, she’s not happy, and the Black Eagles aren’t happy - well, some of them at least, who knows maybe Caspar and Whohardt are just livin’ it the fuck up in the background - but Fodlan as a whole is at peace. The people are safe. The day is saved. And the direct thing that led to that is the defeat of Woobiegard. Even when Ficleth leaves her position and takes up that cottagecore life, Flayn takes up the mantle and then also goes on to lead Fodlan to peace. Again, directly because Woobiegard was defeated. Like I said, the fate that Woobiegard and everyone on her side is fighting so hard and so desperately to prevent from happening in the CF timelines... is the one where Fodlan is saved and freed from Woobiegard’s actions.

So like. Uh. Yeah. Not exactly as compelling as past examples have shown to be able to be

#exqueuese me princess #o captain my captain #using Lucina because she's a good example of genuinely fighting fate that's already in the FE series who is likely recognizable #but yeah like this fic is so weird to read? like with a serious critical lens #since so much of it is fundamentally wrong and yet it's being taken as seriously as it is in this fandom #like fuckin' like. imagine right #if in FEA there was a scene that showed what happened if Lucina did nothing and didn't fight her fate #and it shows everyone singin' Kumbaya holdin' hands and dancin' a jig #IT WOULD FUCK UP THE IDEA THAT HER FATE IS ONE THAT IS BAD ENOUGH TO FIGHT AGAINST WOULDN'T IT #if the results of not fighting fate are inarguably better than the results of fighting fate #then why should we as the audience root for the one fighting fate? why are we rooting for the bad end?#Chapter 36 outright shows that it's not actually about trying to make Fodlan better but about making sure Her Majesty gets her toes sucked #even at the expense of thousands of innocent lives

38 notes · View notes