at some point i will figure out how to write the post-canon, post-empire edelgard autonomy fic of my dreams. it just feels like a very big task and maybe like with playing the dane, i’m simply not old and traumatized enough to manage it yet.
but my vision is thus: it’s set years (realistically, decades) after the end of crimson flower, when everything has gone as right as it can possibly go. fódlan is thriving. the social reforms have taken effect. the nobility system is nearly eliminated, if not entirely so, with titles made merely symbolic. social mobility, welfare, and prosperity are high. there’s an explosion in arts and culture and technology. brigid and duscur have gained independence; relations with sreng and almyra are much improved; heck, maybe they've even figured it out with dagda. in my most idealistic version, leicester and faerghus would eventually be ceded back to become autonomous regions, essentially disbanding the adrestian empire. rule is no longer hereditary, but merit-based. there's a roadmap for the future, and everything is on track—and more than that, people at all points on the power spectrum have already seen it bear fruit. with or without edelgard, it will be pursued. there's buy-in. they believe.
of course, it's not perfect—nothing can be—but edelgard's vision has been fulfilled. the people are empowered. humanity is free. fódlan has healed.
and somehow, she's had enough time to resolve her goals outside of politics, too. those who slither in the dark have been eradicated. edelgard and lysithea's second crests have been successfully removed, allowing them to live if not full lives, then substantially longer ones than they would have with their twin crests intact. who knows—maybe she finally gets around to having that wedding.
point for point, every item listed in edelgard's manifesto has been checked off. the ghosts of her past have been laid to rest. she can finally take off her crown. she can finally pursue the quiet, humble life she's wanted for so long. she can finally breathe.
... but can she?
edelgard is nothing if not driven. her intelligence, vision, and sheer willpower allowed her to plan and execute a revolution against two countries and the most powerful institution on the continent, all while she was still a teenager. as royalty, her life was never truly hers even before she became heir to the adrestian throne, with all the additional baggage of survivor's guilt and the desire for vengeance and her need to ensure nothing that happened to her can ever happen to anyone else, ever again.
so what happens when that drive has no outlet? what happens when someone who has been constantly in motion, constantly working and planning and preparing every spare second of every day since she was fourteen years old, suddenly has to stand still? what happens when someone whose hands have been bound for so long—first literally in the dungeons of enbarr, then by the weight and responsibilities of her crown—is set free?
being edelgard, she would step away from the throne, no matter how hard it was for her to give up control. she's always been focused on the endgame, and she knows that if she doesn't let go, she'll be setting the wrong tone for fódlan's future. she's too devoted to that endgame to cling to power much longer than she needs to, though i could see her making some excuses and trying to iron out just a few more things to buy herself some more time to mentally prepare before she's done for good.
but who would she be then? who is the woman without the crown? what becomes of a machine once it is no longer needed, when it has made itself obsolete? what about when that machine is a person with legs and arms and an innate unwillingness to gather dust on a shelf?
what happens when you get everything you want? what happens when all your wanting has been for others to thrive, and now you have to want only for yourself? how do you discover who you are when you've spent decades being everything for everyone else? how do you find meaning again? how do you find purpose?
after a lifetime of devotion and passion and movement, how do you learn to sit with yourself, and be quiet, and be still?
gosh, i would love to meet her. i would love to pick her brain. but boy, i do not envy the work that girl has to do.
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Hirano to Kagiura light novel translation 4-1
Chapter 4: Fall.
Part 1
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It might be September by now, but the sun’s rays know no bounds.
Heat from the weather aside, the schoolhouse on the coattails of summer break is permeated with the fervor of the students.
Among all those in the athletic clubs who have undergone away games and training camps, there are many who have deepened both their tans and their virility. The sense of achievement characteristic of those who kept up with their exercise lives within their growth spurts.
Hirano’s roommate is, once again, one of them.
Kagiura, who’s gotten a bit taller, has gotten used to high school, completely devoid of the anxiety he’d seemed to have around the time he’d started school.
Since they’d met up over the summer, he’s become more and more relaxed, and Hirano can’t help but think of him as a beloved younger brother.
Wait, but younger brothers don’t do things like give you earrings, do they?
Hirano isn’t really in a position to judge, with no siblings of his own.
He’d found his original earrings while organizing his luggage after returning from Kagiura’s countryside home. They’d fallen into his school bag and hidden themselves beneath the stiff bottom plate.
What should I do about it? he’d wondered, but figured well, whatever, and didn’t bother switching out his new ones. He’ll keep them in the dorm just in case, but ultimately plans to keep using the ones Kagiura gave him.
As soon as the new term starts, preparations for the Cultural Festival are full speed ahead. Even the first years, who aren’t used to running events without the guidance of a faculty member, are gradually gaining opportunities to build character. The Executive Committee members have so many responsibilities that it has become difficult to carry out their studies without the cooperation of their classmates.
Kagiura also has the situation of being part of the ‘Sports Recommendation Squad’, and his grades are not up to snuff. It would be good if they don’t take a hit from his extracurricular responsibilities, but that will come down to his own efforts.
It’s not just the Executive Committee members who are swamped. The students in the culture clubs are also at their busiest, and with the autumn tournament right around the corner, there’s no way the athletics clubs can cut back on practices.
The sweltering nights have yet to abate; yet despite these conditions which could even be called cruel, most of the students are eagerly awaiting the Cultural Festival. You might even get away with saying all of them.
Because, after all, girls come to visit the cultural festival.
And even without that element, a festival is still a festival.
This is a time when the whole student body is restless, so the Disciplinary Committee will be on top of keeping everyone in line—or such is their public stance, but they won’t be too strict about moderating uniforms and hair styles.
In any case, a high proportion of the students will be in costumes on the day of the festival.
There's also at least one class cross-dressing every year.
This year, that’s right, it's the class that Hirano is unfortunately a part of. More specifically, it's been decided that Hirano will be one of the ones in drag.
Oiwa-san—a famous spirit who makes an appearance in the Yotsuya Kaidan.¹
There are many variations of the famous ghost story, in which Oiwa, the deceased wife, holding a grudge over the betrayal of her husband, Iemon, slaughters every last person involved. Apparently, they will be basing the makeup off of Tōkaidō Yotsuya Kaidan², which is popular among Hirano’s classmates.
He’d been shown reference images of the ghost, her face half disfigured and inflamed by poison, but the picture was nightmare fuel when viewed in the dark.
Supposedly it’s a style of Halloween makeup that’s been popular in recent years, but the trial makeup that had been applied to his arm after school in order to match the shade to his face had been truly grotesque.
This information is to be kept top secret until the last possible minute on the day of, in the interests of building hype.
While Hirano is putting away his homework, the door opens with a click.
His roommate is home.
It’s still bright outside, but the dining hall is just about to open for dinner.
“Hirano-san, I’m home!”
“Welcome home, Kagi-kun.”
These days, Kagiura usually gets a bit bashful in reply to Hirano’s greeting, seemingly tickled. So naive and innocent he must be, making such an expression with no fear of being misunderstood.
There were days they’d spent together, but summer vacation had been long.
There’s an air of a different kind of newness from the one there’d been in the period before they’d gotten used to sharing a dorm—Kagiura probably feels it too. At least, Hirano thinks so.
He feels closer to Kagiura compared to before. After all, he’s met his immediate and extended family, so of course they’d feel more intimate. It’s as if the part of himself that had been on guard while thinking about how to act as a senpai in his second year in the dorms has been absolved.
After Hirano had filled out his print-outs as if in competition with Kagiura, who’d spread out his homework in a frenzy, they’d headed to the dining hall a little later than usual.
It always takes him about 3 or 4 days to get back into the swing of dorm life.
Speaking of which, he thinks.
Before Kagiura moved into the dorms, Hirano had been quite nervous.
He’d talked to Hanzawa about it one time when the Disciplinary Committee had a meeting, and they’d brainstormed strategies to avoid scaring Kagiura off.
He’d also felt it would be a waste of his efforts if he was only friendly at the beginning of their time spent living together; thus, they’d come to the conclusion that it wouldn’t be too far out of Hirano’s depths to give him a nickname and use “-kun”.
Oh yeah, that’s right. At the beginning I called him Kagiura-kun.
He’s been calling his name every day, enough that he’d ended up shortening it, thinking it’s too long and clunky.
Kagiura has morning practice tomorrow, too, so there's no way he can let him oversleep.
Hirano got that, but there was something on his mind that just wouldn’t go away, so he asked before shutting off the lights.
".....Hey, um. I know you're working hard, so I don't wanna rain on your parade, but are your studies going all right? I haven't heard how your proficiency test went yet."
As the words leave his mouth, he thinks, what am I, a private tutor? and laughs drily to himself.
For the results of the test held right after summer break, a list ranking every student in their grade and the standard score were passed out to each person, the same as for the periodic exams.
For first years, they can be used as nothing more than a reference, but due to the breadth of the material covered, in some cases they might be used to determine which schools to apply to when compared to results from previous cram schools.
“...I just barely passed.”
“What’s the damage?”
“The teacher said, ‘You didn’t do badly enough that I need to pull you aside, but keep working hard’...”
“I see.”
Which is bad in and of itself, really.
Kagiura hangs his head dejectedly, and Hirano’s tempted to comfort him all the more for having seen the extent of his efforts, but his lack of preparation is unmistakable.
“Kagi-kun, after the cultural festival is over, you gotta step it up. If you miss some of the notes, get someone to show you theirs before the next day. Don’t let them build up. If you end up with a backlog of notes to take, you’re not gonna be able to understand them.”
Hirano knows deep down he’s probably worrying too much, but he keeps the expression on his face stern. The beginning is the key to everything. Among his classmates in the ‘Sports Recommendation Squad’ who, like Kagiura, are bad students, there are many whose grades plummeted after going on to their second year.
Who knew he’d become this much of a worrywort after becoming someone’s senpai?
“Yeah…Hirano-san, will you teach me again?”
“Sure. But you better bring back good grades.”
“I will! …By the way, can I ask you something?”
He ducks his head as he asks the question, a gesture with all the charm one would expect from someone as cute as him.
“What’s up?”
“When you were a first year, did the senpai you roomed with teach you how to study, too?”
“Nah, no way.”
“Hm…did you not get along?”
“It’s not that we didn’t get along, we just weren’t really that close. I wasn’t nearly as friendly a kouhai as you are.”
This is usually the case for dorm students. Hanzawa, contemptuous of homosexual relations, has a reputation in certain circles for having a finely-tuned gaydar and showing up to cockblock any time he senses anyone getting a little too close.³
His distaste isn’t unwarranted; apparently it has to do with his family, so even Hirano feels bad for him.
“...Does that make me special, then?”
“Why are you so happy about that?”
At Hirano’s jests of what are you, a dog? Kagiura breaks into a grin.
“Yeah. You know, I’m glad I’m your roommate, Hirano-san.”
Hirano smiles wryly; Kagiura’s got him wrapped around his little finger without a hint of insincerity.
With Kagiura cozying up to him like this, he doesn’t stand a chance.
*****
T/N: (1) Not sure I need to add more info on this to the story, but it's pretty interesting, so you can read more about it here.
(2) A movie based on the story made in 1959.
(3) Yall....idek what to say about this. I tried to keep the tone lighthearted but the original text literally says 'gay-hating Hanzawa' and describes his feelings as disgust. Idk why the writer put this but our boy is NOT like that 😭 I actually broke my vow of not looking at the official TL just to see how they handled this bit and they completely watered it down lmao. and tbh, yall know my dedication to accuracy but I WAS TEMPTED. While going back and forth about what I should do, I told my sister about it, and she suggested that Hanzawa doesn't actually hate gays, he just hates gay sex and will stand for none of it in his dorm so...we're going with that interpretation 💀🙃💀🙃
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in honour of this post, tags on another of mine i cannot remember that talked briefly about Rayla's issues, and that I've talked about Claudia and Callum's moments of being hypocritical, now I want to actually talk about Rayla's hypocritical tendencies cause it's something S4 and S5 made a fun little consistency - let's dive in
Rayla can sometimes ignore (or react indignantly to) other people possibly having their own reasons/justifications because she's tunnel visioned into only thinking about her own justifications as uniquely warranted
Let me explain
The first time I noticed this was in 2x03, mostly because it was one of those moments that made me laugh even though it's not trying to be funny because
Cause Rayla, honey, you know you lied to them too ("lying and hiding the truth aren't that different") - and Callum forgave you for that and is still your friend. Why would Claudia and Soren be any different to him? (And they are, but not the point of this point).
Now, unlike Soren (who is the person they're primarily discussing), Rayla didn't lie outright, but she did lie by omission - much the same way Claudia did. And Rayla has known her own motivations all along - probably worried they might give up on their mission if they knew (especially at the start), and she doesn't want them to hate her, and most of all by this point in the show, she didn't want to hurt them ("I'm afraid of hurting him" / "when you care about someone, it's hard to hurt them").
This made sense to me in terms of Rayla being good at being initially (often times rightfully, sometimes not so) indignant on her own behalf. She is able to justify herself and does so often, both angrily - as the next examples will show - and more neutrally ("How could I take his life?"). She defends herself both physically and personally to Corvus ("I didn't kill anyone"), she smarts at Callum when he (rightfully) tries to push at her ("I don't have to explain anything to you"), and is mad at Ethari when they initially talk ("Yeah, it's me. Surprised to see my face?"). This initial defense of herself doesn't usually persist and typically gives way to self loathing ("I can fix this" / "I don't deserve your trust, not yet" / "They're right to reject me") but it is there at first and is usually her first reaction, which is very fun.
However, this coupled together with the other two instances arc 2 brings up in terms of her being kind of a hypocrite makes it a pattern, beginning in early season four. (Callum also isn't at his best in early season four, saying he doesn't want to talk about stuff and then bringing it up the next episode to take a jab at her - but he's still dealing with the fallout of the problems she caused, so he absolutely gets more of a pass. As always, see my In Defense of Callum's Narrative Lens from way back in the day if you're interested in more of how his perspectives are portrayed.)
Because gee, Rayla, I wonder whose fault that is? And again, it does make sense that she's angry - she's spent two years just wanting to be with him with none of the messy complex heartbreak he had to go through because she was the one who made the choice to leave. She expected him to at least shout at her, not ice her out completely. And again, we see that initial indignant streak fade when he reiterates he wants to go, and she looks down disappointed, but accepting of it (and puts whether she'll stay or not in his hands, too).
Since she had a good reason for leaving, and it's what her parents did, while she expected anger, she also wants affection and love. Isn't her justification enough, in some ways? Shouldn't it be? And while Rayla wrestled back and forth with this, it's clear she does think that it should be (even if both seasons show she's starting to realize just why she was wrong).
But we do see this hypocritical tendency of hers perhaps pop up most prominently in S5 with Nyx
Again, in Rayla's head, lying and stealing the key wasn't perhaps the right thing to do, but the better thing to do than burden Callum with what she was going through / to be open and vulnerable. It makes sense why she'd do so - and her shot at Nyx gets a tiny pass cause she's technically sticking up for Ezran - but it still falls back on Rayla leaning too heavily on her logic / independent streak to justify actions that are actually counterproductive to having healthy, wilfully open relationships.
And this is something I love about TDP. Even when the characters are genuinely making the worst possible fucking decisions they ever could (hi arc 1 Viren, Claudia and Karim constantly in particular) you completely understand how and why they're justifying those decisions, and Rayla is no different. Doesn't mean they're right, doesn't mean it's not logically stupid or fair or whatever, but it's emotionally consistent, and that's what matters most in the end. And now we have a fun little consistency to add to the pile
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