17hols | 2025 Round: Quotes

2025 Round: Quotes

Status: Open

Prompting is currently open. Prompting is open from 28 December 2024 to 19 January 2025.

Seventeen Holidays

2025 Round: Quotes

About

"the poem begins not where the knife enters, but where the blade twists"

"beauty is terror"

"you'll just have to taste me, when he's kissing you"

Calling all readers, lovers of poetry and music, screen and stage. Quote collecters and lyric hoarders, unleash your archive. For this round, every prompt must contain a quote - you can combine them, add commentary, link to articles, do whatever. Steal from a literary classic, or copy a hit tweet.

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Fills have a minimum of 400 words for prose, haiku-length for poetry (3 lines), and 400px by 400px for art (memes are also art). Other mediums are fine too!
There is no maximum cap.
Tag and provide content warnings at your discretion, but a good guide are the Ao3 four (Graphic Depictions of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage) and this list of common CWs (cr: SportsFest).
NSFW/Explicit content should be tagged
NSFW art should not be visible, please provide a link and a warning. You may crop the artwork and embed a SFW preview.

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Prompting

Click on [Post a New Comment] at the bottom of this post;
Change the subject;
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Need ideas? Check out our 2021 and 2022 Quote rounds.

Ship/Member: Any Major Tags: N/A Additional Tags: N/A Do Not Wants: None Prompt: <blockquote>[QUOTE GOES HERE] </blockquote>

Filling

Reply to the original prompt;
You must change the subject to [FILL] - this is to help the mods track. Feel free to add a title
Copy+Paste the following HTML into your comment, edit the sections, and add your text.
You may also upload your fill to the AO3 Collection.

Ship/Member: Any Major Tags: N/A Additional Tags: N/A Permission to remix: Yes/No/Please ask ***

Remixing

Post as a reply to the fill you are remixing, using the same HTML as above;
Change the subject to [REMIX].

Art/media

Upload your work to any platform (twitter, imgur, youtube, soundcloud, google maps, etc.)
Using the same HTML code as above, copy the link into your fill or remix. That's it!
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(To explain, the HTML resizes your picture to 400x400px so that it fits on most screens. Users can view the full size if they click on it. You can also add a link to your work on twitter so that others can share it, or to any other website you want)

Ship/Member: Any Major Tags: N/A Additional Tags: N/A Permission to remix: Yes/No/Please ask *** <img src="INSERT IMAGE URL" width="400px"> <a href="INSERT ANY URL YOU WANT">TEXT THAT DESCRIBES THE LINK</a>

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✧ 2025 ROUND: QUOTES ✧

2025 FILLS MASTERLIST

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

i'm so glad you enjoyed this! "light and delicate" is a lovely way to put it & i was really hoping to strike this type of tone (hurt/comfort without being too heavy-handed). thank so much for reading & taking the time to let me know what you thought!! ♡

Ship/Member: Minghao/Wonwoo
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: the animal comfort in dark corners, pre-debut, the anxiety of new spaces where you don’t quite belong (yet)
Permission to remix: Yes

***

Minghao haven’t heard the sound of silence since Anshan, sitting in his father’s car at the parking lot. His mother had talked the whole drive to the station, she went through his packing list three times over, from front to back and up to down and back all around again. She told him to call weekly, to not drink the tap water unless he sees someone else drink from it first, to eat his vegetables but especially the leafy ones, to stretch before practice — Minghao surely remembers the uncle (third oldest, father’s side) who cramped up during a tennis competition and couldn’t walk straight at his own wedding. Minghao spent the first five minutes putting up resistance and defending his independence, and then, realising his mother had an unlimited dispensary of saliva, sat back with his pounding heart and the rising reality that he was flying to Korea.

When they arrived at the parking lot, the security guard was missing from his box, instead squatting a few ways off and smoking with the cleaner. Minghao’s mother had rolled down the window to yell for the fare, and then, taking her purse, exited the car and waved at Minghao’s father to proceed through.

There was silence then, sudden and total. His father’s hands were soft as he spun the car through the narrow spaces, the engine quiet enough to be forgotten, and the absence of any spoken voice so absolute, that Minghao felt stricken to preserve it. When the car stopped, his father lingered for a moment, face bent towards the wheel.

“I’ll get your bags,” his father said, before turning off the engine and cranking the hand brake in one motion.

After that moment, everything was loud, everything was movement, energy, noise. They pushed through the station for the westward platform to Beijing, his father hugging him goodbye as his mother tugged his arm and the overhead speakers repeated their warnings in tinny tones. And then it was the sound of sunflower seeds being cracked open by teeth, classical opera on handheld radios, attendants punching tickets. And then it was a bus from Beijing East Railway Station to Beijing Airport, his mother patting him down for his passport and nagging one last time about contacting his father’s colleague’s brother that lived in Seoul. And then the demands — passport, visa, boarding pass, departure form, passport, boarding pass, seat number, would you like beef noodles or chicken rice?

But at least with transit, Minghao always knew where he was supposed to be, that he was going somewhere, and nothing was expected of him except to exist.

Unlike now, where he was pushed into a room with three bunk beds and hand waved in the direction of an empty space and left alone with nothing but questions and no where to go. Where do I put my stuff? Can I shower now? Is there a shower order? I need to buy toothpaste, am I allowed to leave the apartment? Where is the other Chinese trainee? Can I drink the tap water?

Minghao takes a step back and bumps into a body. He whirls around to face a smiling boy, heavy fringe swept over his forehead. The boy says annyeong. Minghao knows his eyes are blown wide open. He tries to relax, he says annyeong too. He bows. Jerkily. And then points in a direction which he hopes is the bathroom. Bows again. Sidesteps away.

There’s an ajar door with a fluorescent gap that Minghao guesses is the bathroom. He steps in and almost steps back out because the shower is on, someone is showering but there’s another smiling boy washing his hands at the sink, heavy fringe swept over his forehead. This time the hair is brown. Annyeong, the boy says, and something else flows out which Minghao couldn’t catch.Annyeong, Minghao replies. Annyeong, says the shower. Minghao bows to every corner of the room and runs out.

There are people in the kitchen and Minghao hopes that he moves fast enough that they don’t catch his face, don’t realise that it’s a new boy, that they have to say hello and introduce themselves and explain the house rules to him in a language he doesn’t understand.

There’s a boy back in the bedroom, staring at Minghao’s suitcase with a frown. He has a swept fringe and smiles when he notices Minghao. Minghao is bald and has forgotten how to smile. He bows to hide his face and gestures at his suitcase, makes a motion for opening up and putting away. The boy cocks his head for a few seconds and then as clarity hits, he is nodding and pushing Minghao’s suitcase out of the room. The boy triumphantly opens another door and Minghao is faced with a tiny room with rows upon rows of coat hangers and cardboard boxes and plastic drawers. With an oomph, the boy shoves a row of shirts and gestures at the empty space he has free up.

Minghao nods in a way that he hopes convey gratefulness. Both of them look at each other for an awkward span of time that leaves Minghao curling his toes, and then the boy ducks back outside, leaving the door ajar.

Minghao reaches out with two fingers, and nudges the door closed.

Silence.

Darkness.

The child inside him wants to rush for the light switch. An animal part of him pushes it down. Relishes the emptiness, the hollow, quiet space that he hasn’t felt since Anshan, more than 24 hours ago. He can feel his thoughts again in a way that was impossible when there was so much noise, both in sound and sight.

Minghao turns around, letting his arm sweep into the dim light as his eyes adjust. Soft jackets brush his arm, a stout box bumps his feet. He shuffles in a little further and slides into a pile of clothes.

His mind tugs like a dog on a leash. Something in his heart breaks, his knees buckle, and he’s sinking down into that little makeshift pile, knees pulling up and arms curling around his legs. He plants his cheek on the inside of his elbow and tries not to cry.

Was he rude earlier? Do they like him? Think he’s weird for having hair out of fashion or unlikeable for not learning Korean?

He needs to know what time to wake up. He needs to call his mum. He needs to ask about the water.

There are voices outside. Voices belonging to boys with cool fashionable fringes and kind smiles that will want to know him and ask impossible questions that he cannot answer. He will have to meet them soon. He wants to go straight to a practice room and dance. Minghao squeezes his eyes shut and wishes that he could fast forward to a day when he was fluent in Korean and already famous and grown up and friends with everyone.

The door opens. Minghao jerks and tenses as light sweeps in over his shape. But the door slams shut again.

Minghao can see that the person hasn’t left, the shadow of feet in the sliver of light at the bottom of the door. They take one step away, and then step back. Stops. Then they walk away.

Minghao is just about to relax when the the door creaks open to a small gap and someone slides in so quickly Minghao was unable to catch their face. The door is gently closed and the tiny room is again washed in quiet darkness. Except this time there were two boys inside.

Minghao is tense as a cat, shoulders raised and mouth hard. He hears the both their breathing, surely soft but sounding laborious and heavy in the muffled silence.

The other boy takes a small step forward into the darkness, and then another, making small uncertain movements towards Minghao. The boy descends into a squat and then shifts onto his knees, one arm reaching out. Minghao hears the crinkle of plastic, and then feels the small bump of it against his forearm. The object bumps into his arm again, but stays put, just a light press of plastic against skin. Minghao curls his hand arounds it and realises that it was a bottle of water.

The boy pushes the bottle into his hand. Minghao takes it. He remembers that he’s thirsty, that he hasn’t drank any water since the tiny paper cup in the Pledis office that afternoon. He twists the cap and gulps it down. It’s deliciously cool and glides down his dry throat like a river. It tastes exactly like the purified water that comes in red bottles back in China. He drinks more and takes in the relief that water brings.

Minghao gasps when he’s done. Full on it. He opens his mouth to say thank you, and then his tongue moves around nothing because he has forgotten the words. He wants to bow but it’s too dark to see. The boy is still there, waiting, breathing.

Instead, Minghao reaches out his empty hand, brushes it against the other’s boy’s shoulder, skims down to his wrist, rests his fingers on the soft flesh on the side of their palm, right under their pinky finger. The boy raises his hand slightly and Minghao slides his hand in, grasping it. Minghao squeezes.

“谢谢,” Minghao says, because he would rather say something than nothing at all. He wants to offer what he has, even if is not quite perfect, but at least it is his.

“A • ni • e • yo,” the boy whispers back, each syllable a separate offering. Minghao pieces it together in his mind. Anieyo. You’re welcome.

The pile of clothes that he’s sitting on feels soft in a way that means worn and unwashed. But it smells like his high school dormitory back in Anshan, the one that he packed up only last week. Where he shared a dorm room with thirteen other boys, all waking up and sleeping at the same time, sharing the same communal shower and toilets. Going to the same classes, living the same routines. He supposes his situation now is not so different, only that there was a different language. But one that he can learn. He will learn. For his dream of becoming a star. A dream that the boy before him also shares.

Minghao squeezes his hand again and lets go. But the boy hangs on and turns around slightly, towards the door. He tugs Minghao towards him, enough to be a signal, but not enough to make Minghao move.

Minghao stands up. The boy stands up too, still holding Minghao’s hand as he opens the door.

Together, they step into the light.

The boy has a heavy fringe swept to the side. But he also has foxy eyes and thin lips that don’t say words that Minghao can’t understand. The boy holds onto Minghao silently and talks with his other hand. He points to the bathroom and the gas heater, takes Minghao to the kitchen and opens each cupboard and drawer. At the shelf full with stainless steel cups, he points to the tap and the kettle (oh, oh). At some point the boy tenses and urgently tugs him towards a piece of paper taped to the front door with numbers, pushing it towards Minghao insistently. When Minghao squints, the boy drags him towards the fridge again, pointing at the plastic apparatus on top of it. Minghao realises it is the wifi router (oh, oh). The boy beams when Minghao takes out his phone.

The boy holds onto Minghao until Wen Junhui arrives and then Minghao is flooded with new noise. Words and sounds and saliva but at least these are words he can understand. Schedules he can work with. Rules he can follow.

He turns around when Junhui stops to catch a breath. But the boy has already slipped away.

Bonus Scene

“Are you sure?” Mingyu asked, quite possibly for the third time, “It’s not a lot of space for two people.”

“I don’t mind, not if you don’t mind me moving in too,” Minghao lightly spun around on his socked feet. He was tired of living in a room with five other people, four of which were the messiest, dirtiest hoarders in all of Seventeen. He was sick of quietly cleaning up after them only for the mess to reappear that same day. Even though he was moving into a storage closet, at least he knew that this space would remain pristine between Mingyu and him.

“I used to sit in here, did you know? When I first came to Korea?” Minghao nudged a pile of clothes with his feet. He was pretty sure that one of the shirts in that pile was one Jihoon and Soonyoung wore on rotation three years ago.

“Why here?”

“It was quiet,” Minghao looked around, “You guys were so loud.”

Mingyu hummed as he bent down and poked through the contents of a cardboard box.

“I found it comforting. The silence, the darkness. And one of the hyungdeul used to sit with me.”

Mingyu’s head bobbed up, eyes curious “Which one?”

Minghao smiled, “that’s a secret.”

Edited 2025-01-26 08:08 (UTC)

Ship/Member: Jihoon/Jun
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: his dark materials au (based loosely off Lyra’s Jordan), behold my wonwoozi underrated besties agenda, ok google: what is cola made of
Permission to remix: Yes

This universe is inspired by His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman, but no knowledge of the series is needed (and no spoilers either)! The main thing to know is that humans have daemons, which are a manifestation of the soul in the shape of an animal. More info in the ao3 notes.

Jun reappears without warning one night in late-spring. Not even the sky senses the change. Nightfall keeps the same muggy haze that will drag right through to the end of summer, even indoors.

A whisper of air passes like fine gauze over Jihoon’s cheek and neck as Seonyul lands before him and says, “Someone’s coming.” Jihoon twists to look over his shoulder and there he is. Leaning back against the ornate double doors as they close behind him, looking as much ghost as he does man.

“Why’d you stop playing?” he asks. He looks genuinely put out. No hello. Not even a wave.

Jihoon lifts his foot from the pedal and the note he’d let linger cuts off. He states, “You’re back,” and Jun laughs like Jihoon has said something genuinely witty. The acoustics of the now-silent concert hall pick up the sound and throw it high into the air.

“Uh-huh.” He’s cradling something in one arm. “Airship landed an hour ago. Didn’t want to wake anyone, so.”

He seems taller than when Jihoon last saw him—is it possible to keep growing well into your twenties?—and his hair is down to his neck. He looks pale too. There are places in the north where the sun doesn’t even rise.

Jihoon looks around. “Where’s–”

Seonyul hoots in panic as a large golden cat leaps at her from the shadows below the piano. The cat gets in one or two good swipes before she hurriedly takes flight. She disappears into the shadows above the balcony seating, leaving Jihoon alone at the piano bench with his hair shivering in the remnants of her breeze.

The cat daemon circles around to where Jun stands, looking smug. “Here.”

She must’ve snuck in through another door while Jihoon was still playing. Seonyul would’ve heard her otherwise. Yue loved nothing more than a prank pulled off perfectly. The bigger the challenge the better.

“Satisfied?” Jun asks her. Yue doesn’t answer but settles onto her haunches and begins to lick at her side. Seonyul could easily get back at her like this. Yue is facing away. Her wings can slice through the air without a single sound. She could do it, and she is up there right now thinking about doing it.

Jun walks up the stairs to the stage. There is nothing on it but Jihoon and the grand piano he’s sitting behind. The stained glass windows behind the stage let moonlight enter in a bright blue flood. Jun hands the cloth-wrapped bundle he’s carrying to Jihoon.

“Remember those hard sweets the merchants from the east brought one year?” he asks. “The brown ones that tasted like vanilla and spices.” The package is heavy and hard, and vaguely cylindrical.

“That was ten years ago,” Jihoon says. More, probably. He had rationed the one small bag he had, allowing himself one every several weeks and forcing himself to let the hard sugar dissolve slowly on his tongue, to let it last. “You were east? I thought you went to the north again.”

Jun waves a hand. “I did, but there was– we circled around.” He leans forward to unfold the cloth in Jihoon’s hands, revealing a glass bottle full of liquid so black it looks solid. “They call it cola. It tastes just like those sweets but you drink it instead.”

The bottle seems fragile, and it is certainly heavy. “You brought this back from the eastern highlands?” The terrain was particularly unforgiving; there were many parts of that continent that could only be hiked through on foot.

“It was no trouble,” Jun says, waving his hand again. He’s smiling widely.

“He’s lying,” Yue says, primly licking one paw. “It was quite a bit of trouble.”

“Hey!” Jun yells, wheeling around. “What would you say that for?”

While Jihoon and Seonyul rarely need to exchange words to be on the same page, Jun and Yue disagree fiercely and often. Jun’s daemon betrays his restless spirit and the stubborn flame of his ambition in a way the man himself never does.

She had settled well before the daemons of any of the other boys in their class, just shy of Jun’s thirteenth birthday. Some of the girls had been earlier: Minatozaki Sana’s hummingbird daemon, Park Sooyoung’s water deer. Yue preferred to take the shape of a simple house cat and rarely shifted so her unusually early settling might’ve gone unnoticed if it weren’t for the piercing blue eyes, and that she doubled in size overnight.

Jihoon glances up at the rafters, to where he knows Seonyul perches amongst the shadows. Well? Now is your chance. Are you going to do it or not?

The shadows remain still. He can’t see her but he can imagine her: her deep black eyes that see everything, even when it's dark. Those eyes staring back, asking him the same question.

Jihoon tucks the bottle safely into the crook of one arm, closes the lid of the piano and stands.

“Come on,” he says to Jun, “let’s go up to the roof. She wants to fly.”

Swore I wouldn't hit character limit this time. rip

Continued on ao3

Ship/Member: Seungcheol/Jeonghan/Joshua
Major Tags: Major Character Death
Additional Tags: fire emblem three houses au, joshua-centric, moral and romantic ambiguity
Permission to remix: Yes

***

Here was where he and Jeonghan had gotten reprimanded by the archbishop after the incident with the cats. That was a close call, hehehe. Here was where the three of them had wolf-whistled as Soonyoung and Junhui practiced for the White Heron Cup. Here, where Jisoo had dozed on Jeonghan’s shoulder, watching a boy heave an axe twice his size over his head. Hey Joshuji, are you listening to me?

For years afterwards Jisoo told himself variations on the same story.

[3k on ao3]

A/N: hwa i didn’t want to read your fe3h au before i finished this one (sliding home just shy of the deadline) but When I Get You!!!!

jess I am WRETCHED, I am torn asunder and sprawled across the couch trying to eat my own fist!! I read this on pastebin (thank you!!) and then had to go out for a long walk with some coffee so I can stare at the middling distance and just STEW about it all. 2025 fe3hteen is so real and it can hurt you!!

hand on heart when I submitted the english patient prompt I wasn’t thinking of fe3h at all, but now you have joined those dots and I am keening — dimitri’s ghosts, the ghost of glenn, and now to jeonghan and the lives of all survivors after a continental war — I don’t think I can even turn to talking about the text yet it’s like I’m looking into the sun. I burn!!

As someone who very recently was still doing the monastery grinds, I loved the little locatility before every scene. It took me right back to those scenes which I have run through and played for oh so many hours, I can imagine jisoo and seungcheol and jeonghan so clearly /there/, it’s almost like a memory. (And the call to all those in game activities! Stable duty, saunas, proficiency exams, gardening! Fishing!) It’s a game I have so much fondness for and I can feel it coming from the words of this fill as well!!

(btw - are the classes Seungcheol/Fortress Knight, Jisoo/Bow Knight, Jeonghan/Holy Knight?)

um the story??!! I’m bleeding out at the jugular you actually went for the unrequited love triangle and gave it flesh and blood and a knife! Seungcheol looking at Jeonghan looking at Jisoo looking at Seungcheol! The history behind Jeonghan and Seungcheol that Jisoo is so jealous of, yet Jeonghan showing Jisoo how to take care of horses only for Jisoo to use it 15 years later on Seungcheol’s new horse (which he named Angel (??!! — you DARE start with THAT). And of course that ugly choice - but why do I feel like Jeonghan is the one who has won, Jisoo has Seungcheol but he also has his guilt and the knowledge that Seungcheol never chose him, and now Jisoo is the one remaining in a world which is more purgatory than peace ( You can’t fool me though, Joshuji, I know the real reason you’re still here.)(again, fist in my throat)!!

Thank you so much for writing this - I love it so much, right down to the dissociative feeling when all the dialogue is indirect, like Jisoo is remembering it all through a fog, at a distance. It’s like there’s a feeling of denial about everything (and I’m choosing to put on my jihan glasses and believe that it’s a denial about how perfectly happy jihan could have been, if jisoo loved jeonghan back). You brought in my favourite part of fe3h so beautifully, which is the turn from youth to war and everyone has to grow up os quickly and kill your classmates. How even in the carnage there’s a tone of sentimentality which makes it all so bittersweet.

I’m trying to convey how much this story has infected me. I know the deadline is not real but my fingers are twitching to remix this oh I will GET YOU BACK DW USER KUMQUAT

(hope it's ok that i'm replying here because i want to hold fe3hteen seminar across the great firewall)

hwa you are absolutely insane for this!!!!!!!!! HOW DID YOU DO THIS!!!!! i finally got to sit down and read this over dinner today because i didn't want to be overly influenced while i was still writing my last fill and it honest to god felt like i was playing the game again for the very first time, even though OF COURSE i knew what was coming and how it was going to end. like i was so locked in. you've designed such a powerful narrative as you always do, such smart and meaningful decisions about who to cast and how to make their character arcs intersect. the genius of the meanie foilery on so many levels and the potency of the background jeongcheol, "background" as if it's not the political context that shapes the entire world and story lol – which is so richly imagined and adapted!! reading thru the comments i really hope we get some new carats to cross over... your power.

like structurally i'm sooo floored by the elegance of this story esp after reading klav's comment and your reply: the reversals! the foilery!! the fact that jww would have been yjh's ideal knight and kmg csc's, but how the fact that they ended up on different sides of that conflict meant that they were doomed from the beginning?? and the way that wonwoo and mingyu's parting scene as children haunts wonwoo's character arc because it encapsulates the social contradiction at the heart of the story, that they live in a broken world that can only be transformed through incredible violence and upheaval, a choice that wonwoo is ultimately too passive to make – and the irony that violence is only necessary because of people like wonwoo and seungcheol who mean well but don't have the courage to break free from the familiar system. and wonwoo asking seungcheol to swear the oath because he needs to surrender agency to something larger than himself is such a powerful scene, because he's accepted already how he's going to die, but to the very end he's determined to fit it into the framework of his ideals – that his final act of resistance is a narrative/interpretive one instead of the material one he's unwilling to make. what an absolutely great universe to put our poor boy in and watch him wriggle in the name of character study and i'm not just saying this because i spent the last year sliding deliriously back down the fe3h rabbithole!

and on a more granular level i love how the first half of the fic has so many wonderful moments of levity even as the tension builds and you can tell things are getting serious:

from the very beginning i was so tickled by wonwoo's fantasies of bureaucracy/public works/research sponsorship, like baby noble wonu WOULD be exactly like this (in another universe he's an ipad baby cutting his teeth on New Urbanist Memes for Transit Oriented Teens).

mingyu doing a pirouette in pantaloons

seungcheol asking wonwoo to be his cyrano de bergerac!!!!! (putting on my delulu goggles) how i need the (won)jeongcheol romcom version of this where they just spend the whole time talking radical politics until jeonghan falls in love but by that time seungcheol is on board too and Yay Continental War Averted

when jeonghan appeared as the imperial prince i actually screamed.

the interhouse card game under the table was so cute now i want to think about garreg mach wwjnisms. feeding the stray cats.... i loved all the house assignments/backgrounds for the other sebongs too!!! i want to hear more about them!

“Let him stew,” Jeonghan smiled knowingly, “It’s a good for him.” jeonghan you are so jeonghan.

every jeongcheol appearance killed me i'm so down bad for them...... i can't believe i never even thought to make them dimigard because it really works for their characters (i think i was too busy considering how to shoehorn josh into the triangulation lol) but i'm so upset! CAN I BE HAPPY? CAN I LIVE???? PLEASE

CRIMSON FLOWER. THE MOON IS BEAUTIFUL TONIGHT. SEUNGCHEOL LION. SOONYOUNG'S TIGER CREST ACTIVATION. HELLO??????

one of my profs always loves to use the phrase "muscular prose" and even tho it makes me giggle it kept popping into my head during so many scenes – so powerful in moving the plot along/explaining lore while also being thoroughly enjoyable. jeonghan confronting wonwoo about his essay for one! so many delightful jeonghanisms there, but also the not-joke about mingyu becoming emperor which comes back around with SUCH force later. and the descriptions of combat, both interspersed with the deaths of their classmates but also leading up to the final scene... wow.

and so many scenes i'll be haunted by, especially jeonghan's face turned up as if in prayer. wonwoo's exchange with the jeonghan inside his head. wonwoo with his brother's lance (the implication being that if he's crestless he's also taking damage every time he's using it – wonu sentimental to a fault T___T)

just so much to study and learn from and chew on!!!! i'll be thinking about this for a long time.... thank u for this crazy 15k fill truly what a gift.

(and also i'm so glad i waited to read this bc if i hadn't i don't think i would have been able to finish my own without it turning into something completely derivative, which is all to say that the plot bunnies are already spawning in my brain..... if not a proper remix then at least fanart because the image of jeongcheol in their regalia at the white heron cup!!!!!!!!)

(a fe3hteen seminar we SHALL HAVE. a firewall will not stop the flow of intellectual exchange!!)

is this how the victorians felt?? receiving letters at the door and then, already joyous at the weight of it, running to their writing desk to slice it upon and reply. I must’ve reread your comment five times in the span of a day, just relishing the words and forming a response in my head!!

I’m always worried about the audience when I write, especially for something so heavily based on a lore-heavy work, but then I remember i just need to write for the one person who Gets It and YOU GOT IT. YOU GET IT!! I’m so glad this fic found you and we found each other! what are the chances!! grateful to the universe.

thank you so much for this comment, and for describing the fic in such eloquent words - I was planning on writing an author’s note but now I just want to [ctrl-c] [ctrl-v] because it will be difficult to do it better than you! the thing about constructing a thematic work is that the thesis is so clearly in my head, yet I have to write out the scenes which evidence that thesis without acknowledging it directly. Yet you’ve pinpointed the scenes which I’ve set up to hit those notes and the character choices I’ve designed to expose those weakness !! thank you!! I am buzzing in satisfaction. (‘Muscular Prose’ - I will giggle about this as well. again, because of the density of the law, keeping the narrative moving was on the forefront of my mind!)

so much of this fic is imbued with the fe3hisms that have infected me for year. I’ve thought about writing for 3h before but it felt too much like the same story to make the effort of writing worth it. So [kingmaker] became an outpouring of those thoughts.

[spoilers ahead for the three routes and the paired endings!]

blue lions house is mostly nobles in shades of blue but golden deer is an eclectic RAINBOW. meeting golden deer and looking back at all the sylvain/ingrid/mercedes interactions made me realise how messed up the crest system was yet the kingdom kids talk about it like it’s unavoidable. they are resigned to their fates. meeting marianne/lysithea drives it home that crests are a curse, and uncovering all the lore about seiros/10 elites/hero’s relics is another knife stab (i.e. that seiro’s corpse was exhumed, her bones broken to make the relics and her blood stolen to bestow crests i.e. very far from the blessing that the church preaches it to be). this detail feels like subtext in fe3h because edelgard is also indoctrinated (unreliable narrator) and the truth comes late in the gd route and you are immediately distracted by nemesis (alexa play god shattering star)

meeting the commoners like leonie/dorothea/raphael also throws a light on how much privilege the nobles have. sure crest baby machine objectification but do they know the taste of hunger?? fought with their teeth to survive another dawn? fodlan is such a cruel world.

so with [kingmaker] I wanted to draw out that social inequality and for wonwoo to realise, through mingyu, how unfair the status quo is.

some of wonwoo’s thoughts is coloured by the chinese intellectual guilt complex - which describes the guilt of the scholar class towards the working class, a historical theme in chinese literature

in Crimson Flower, right before edelgard kills dimitri she says “If only we were born in a time of peace, you might have lived a joyful life as a benevolent ruler.” <<<< this shot me through like lightning and it’s been on heavy rotation inside my brain!! It defines dimitri for me and flows through to wonwoo and (a jeonghan-less) seungcheol in [kingmaker]. dimitri is the most traditional lord, a blond-hair blue-eyed princeling with impeccable, pristine, manners. he would have been the faultless king in a time of peace — if his parents weren’t assassinated, if Edelgard did not start the war, if the lies of the church were never exposed. all dimitri ever wanted to be is /good/ and he would have excelled at being /good/. but outside of those perfect conditions, he is literally a broken man. very hamlet of him. very dog.

similarly I see csc as a loyal dog, someone who needs a owner to point at prey but then he will bound off wholeheartedly. he is someone defined by the roles and relationships of his life which in our universe is endearing but in this fe3h au, becomes his harmatia (the virtue which leads to his downfall)

I feel like wonwoo is the kind of person who needs a leader, who needs someone to tell him what to do and make those Big Moral Decisions, he finds security in established systems and can never be the first one to break — he needs to surrender agency to something larger than himself — EXACTLY! he needs the oath before he face mingyu. same in the ball scene with jeonghan, he can’t accept the dance out of his own volition, but only as a mechanism to return a favour.

in contrast yjh (in every poorly planed gose game) never accepts the circumstances as they are prescribed, he’s always thinking about loopholes, about entertainment value, about breaking the wall. in so many respects he is different to edelgard because he does not have her rage, but he does have that drive to change the status quo which seungcheol and wonwoo are complacent in (as beneficiaries)

playing the different routes and trying the different paired endings made fe3h super bittersweet for me because you can’t help but compare the different outcomes and look at the ‘what ifs’.

someone on reddit compiled all of Felix’s paired endings across the different routes and it absolutely SHATTERS me how his A+ endings in the non-Blue Lions Route is never quite as happy as his Blue Lion endings. he tends to disappear and/or give up his dukedom — there’s a pervasive theme of listlessness, as if he has lost his life’s purpose without dimitri. it comes through into wonwoo here, how he /must/ be a knight of csc and can only die as a knight, rather than live a traitor

I alr mentioned this in this in the reply to klav - when the game files were datamined, people found evidence that annette and felix were meant to defect in the blue lions route (when you chose to chase edelgard rather than reconquer fhirdiad)

the dialogue there, of annette vs mercedes, and felix vs dimitri/sylvain/ingrid … let me astral project into the death star and scream. the pain when you must fight your friends even though you chose the right path!

if you don’t recruit marianne she is the only student that doesn’t appear after the timeskip…

yes wonwoo was definitely taking damage every time he used his brother’s lance! (it was the lance of ruin) — I also thought it was poetic how he could not use a crest weapon, a hero’s relic, to strike down the crestless mingyu (truly sentimental to a fault)

seungcheol sparing minghao mirrors byleth sparing characters when you play the CF route (e.g. claude, lysithea)

arianrhod features so much because i spent hours killing horses there around the time I started writing [kingmaker]

wonwoo defeating the cursed beast in the forbidden forest is a reference to marianne’s paralogue, defending garreg mach from bandits is the first mission after the timeskip and driving out bandits from villages is the first mission of the game!

mingyu joining the opera in embarr is ofc, inspired by dorothea. for a long time I thought about dancer!mingyu and the ferdihubert videos where one of them is a dancer shaking their ass and bending over asdsmakz that animation is cursed

card game under the table is inspired by a fancomic!! I will find it on twitter when I return to the West, maybe if you search establishment day ball fan dub on youtube it might come up?

wonwoo <-> bohyuk relations ofc inspired by combining sylvain/mikail & felix/glenn

petra coded junhui: Junhui was from the Alliance but he was a foreigner even amongst them

you can probably tell the ball animation of dimitri and eldegard dancing past each other Does Things to me (esp knowing that they danced together as kids!) - another big What If

post-ball pre-betrayal conversation between wonwoo and jeonghan was originally a seungcheol/jeonghan conversation with wonwoo/mingyu observing because it was based off the pre-battle conversation between edelgard and dimitri about their ideals. for arc reasons that was not the best allocation for /this/ narrative but you best believe jeonghan and seungcheol Talked!

wonwoo-seungcheolisms ironically is based of some meta talks about edelgard-hubert, about how hubert had been groomed to always be edelgard’s servant, and it was impossible for him to live any other way. jeonghan-mingyu feels more like the chaotic claude-hilda dynamic haha.

I saw you linked risa’s 2020 fe3hteen post and I am exploding!! you best believe I will also write up my class headcanons as well

“jeonghan's face turned up as if in prayer”

jeonghan’s face turned up to the sky, as if challenging the goddess

down

was

Edited 2025-01-29 09:15 (UTC)

thank you hwa for reading this so immediately and so generously, firewall be damned TT____TT the honor of sniping you was all mine... i was really excited to see that you'd been playing fe3h/bookmarking some of my fav authors on ao3 when i made my return to the rps sphere, and bc i wanted to edge one last fill in before the official close i was browsing the prompts on my commute when the dots connected!!

i spent a long time trying to wrangle the triangulation vis-a-vis political allegiances in my head and my google doc but it's funny that they all ended up on the same side, which is a total cop-out LOL. and also really funny that i never seriously considered mapping jeongcheol onto dimigard like you did, which seems like an obvious choice in retrospect!! i knew i wanted the direction of the triangulation to be csc > yjh > hjs because 1) it's hard for me to imagine any world where seungcheol isn't wrapped around jeonghan's little finger and 2) i wanted jeongcheol to have the childhood friends backstory, but from the beginning i also wanted part of jisoo's character arc to involve a disillusionment with the church especially as this outsider figure coming from a commoner background. so i went back and forth for ages on whether i could somehow map him onto edelgard and have jeonghan defect to join him..... (also i have to keep calling him jisoo in my head to maintain separation from Joshua Hong who i'm sure, despite his inscrutability, is just a nice boy from LA... SO SORRY FOR WHAT I'VE DONE TO YOU JOSH.)

as is obvious now i ended up shelving that idea too (though i think he could pull off flame emperor minus the charismatic leader part, cf your svt as antagonists post). but keeping them all within the political fold of what's essentially faerghus allowed me to contrast jeonghan as someone who understands jisoo too well vs. seungcheol as someone who remains blinded by the chivalric ideal and doesn't understand jisoo at all, hence thinking he still has faith magic, is unironically a member of the clergy, etc.

i'm really glad that the dissociative feeling came through! i wanted it to remain ambiguous who says the very last line... i also love how you phrased it, a world which is more purgatory than peace. jisoo can't bring himself to face or acknowledge his guilt, but he also can't leave this place that has become his only home, despite his total lack of faith, so i imagine him going through the motions of monastery life as his convoluted way of paying homage to jeonghan (and that tag in your prompt – acts of service as a love language but it's actually repentance). that's the price of survival...

for classes: i was definitely very influenced by risa's fe3hteen post. in my mind coups would eventually become a great knight with fortress knight as the advanced class step of the progression, since he's not a lord character here, and jisoo/jeonghan would have both have had early proficiency in faith and so would have trained together with the goal of becoming holy knights. but bow knight would be an easy switch to make mid-wartime especially if he had a magic bow since that would calculate damage based on his magic stat. and as risa says, he doesn't seem the type to want to get his hands dirty... as for jeonghan, i like to think that he was always pragmatic enough to see through the church's promises, but that his faith came from his belief in jisoo <3

one last thing before i write out my fe3hteen seminar response on the kingmaker thread!! when i was trying to figure out political allegiances and who kills who, i really wanted to find a way to incorporate claude's dialogue when hilda dies: hilda why didn't you retreat?! i counted on you retreating... not to mention the prior exchange that happens when you make marianne fight hilda, that's just so heartbreaking too, and hilda's own dying line – it's been fun claude, sorry to go so soon. so idk, if you're going to keep the jihan glasses on... i just wanted to share for no reason at all :)

i really must be channeling a victorian maiden bc why did i see your comment immediately after you posted it at 1 am my time and then spend the ensuing night + next several days walking around listening to edge of dawn and drafting my response in my head!!! i hope the love and adoration of the non-gaming masses have assuaged your worries about audience, but i'm so delighted to be able to fully Get and appreciate it, because i'm so serious when i say i dreamed of days like this... there's some ancient fe3hteen fanart i can dig up from 5 years ago that was basically made for risa's eyes only/never posted but i feel like you've entered the abandoned sandbox and built a beautiful castle and now i'm running back to play!!!

i really love that you used this story to explore how class stratifies and fractures the chivalric ideal across this childhood friendship, because that’s not actually something we get in canon – the commoner/working class characters in the game are mostly late arrivals who don’t have prior interpersonal attachments (ashe, leonie) or in the case of dedue his bond with dimitri is so rooted in their shared trauma. the relationships in game with the potential to explore this kind of dynamic are maybe ferdithea and yuridetta, in that both of them involve an early confrontation with class difference as children + meeting later on in the academy on more equal footing, but the fact that you went and added the additional layer of conflicting political allegiances to it is so delicious.

i really love how fe3h reveals the horror of the crest system in bits and pieces/from so many different angles depending on which route you play, but agree that the pacing is a bit off in verdant wind (and to some degree crimson flower too just due to how short/underdeveloped it is relative to other routes). and because the crest system is such a focal point of the narrative, i think that crests throw into particularly sharp relief heteropatriarchy as the internal system of organization that structures the nobility – even for characters like marianne and lysithea for whom gender doesn’t intuitively appear to be a central element of their backstories, because the anxiety around cursed crests or the desire to artificially engineer crested children is about controlling reproduction as a eugenic project. obviously crests also legitimate fodlan nobility as presiding over a class and imperial hierarchy, which we get glimpses into with characters like ashe/leonie/petra/dedue/claude, but these aren’t explored too extensively or satisfactorily in game because the focus is on the nobility crumbling under its own internal contradictions, via the figure of edelgard and her trauma.

so i love that you went a step further in kingmaker to consider what if mingyu became emperor?? what if a commoner not only gained the respect and ear of the nobility but actually came to occupy (and ostensibly abolish) its premier position of power? i guess in some ways byleth becoming archbishop or queen (sorry i only recognize f!byleth idk who that other guy is) is kind of the closest thing we get but they’re literally the vessel of god so that doesn’t count.

your reasoning behind the csc/yjh/jww casting rings so true to me. when i set out to write my fe3h au i instinctively slotted csc into the role of dimitri, like someone who would buy into the chivalric ideal and come to embody it/make it seem logical as breathing – but you’ve put why so well into words with actual evidence thank you!! being defined by roles and responsibilities and an eager puppy to step up to fill them even when they don’t come naturally, and jww is similar if less charismatic/extroverted haha… pouring one out for my poor faerghan boys oh no. on the other hand, yjh’s willingness to change the status quo absolutely tracks – and i love how his acknowledgment that he won’t be able to properly rule/willingness to give the title to mingyu are also gestures to jeonghan’s self-sacrificing nature irl and how he only ever leads out of necessity.

(not wonwoo being blind in both sight and empathy LOL but it really does work both narratively and poetically that he mistakes jeonghan’s pose for prayer! i also didnt pick up on petra junhui but that’s so cute… aw junnie)

i’m curious if you intended for jeonghan’s motivation for revolution here to be due to a similar traumatic backstory as edelgard’s or if it’s more externally influenced, like from becoming close to mingyu… i.e. does he see himself as a victim of the crest/nobility system personally? or largely as a beneficiary of it with a responsibility to destroy it as a result? i noticed he’s blond hehe…

i know that reddit analysis of felix’s endings – i read it somewhat recently too and it destroyed me. that’s also what gets me about sylvix, the fact that it can either be the absolute worst or absolute best of felix’s endings depending on whether dimitri/the kingdom are intact – like ugh that’s so crazy and potent, and just reinforces to me how great fe3h is at using the game medium to tell a story/develop such a compelling world. i did notice you putting aspects of both sylvain and felix into wonwoo’s character and that feels soooo targeted to me as a wwbias/sylvixthinker like damn i rly was right in the line of fire.

and woncheol as edelgard/hubert makes a lot of sense but they’re also so dimilix (minus felix’s whole whirlwind of grief/rage/resentment) bc of that very faerghan sense of needing the structure of hierarchy. it’s interesting that this sense of hierarchy is still so present in the empire in-game too, like hubert insisting on referring to her as lady edelgard, and getting pissy when he feels other people aren’t respecting her sufficiently. i guess it speaks to the idea that edelgard’s revolution still remains somewhat trapped in the social conventions of hierarchy and nobility though arguably this is what also allows her to become such an effective leader! on the other hand the alliance is much more egalitarian, plus claude is an outsider, but they have trouble getting things done as a result (and also my friend once called claude’s vision of the future neoliberal multiculturalism lol). but jeonghan WOULD be a claudelike lord even as leader of the empire, someone who’s deeply pragmatic about the failings of the status quo but who would also use a combination of charisma and subterfuge to smooth his path, down to an easier camaraderie with his subordinates… actually in the process of writing this ive just talked myself in one big edelclaude circle i guess. really an underrated dynamic to me!

finally speaking of horses how we both made stable duty/horse instruction one of the hallmarks of a cross-class friendship haha. because the game is so clear about the strong association between riding/knighthood and a very specific notion of chivalry (etymologically related to cavalry ofc)! i really love how worldbuilding and characterization are communicated in game through characters’ skills/stat blocks too, like edelgard and hubert’s weaknesses in faith, ashe’s budding talent in lances (also associated with the chivalric ideal), sylvain’s budding talent in reason… i think you might also appreciate this series of posts on worldbuilding in fe3h via fashion too if you haven’t already seen it!!

omg this is so cute.... wonwoo our quiet hard worker!! it being his solo schedule is so funny. him getting shy at the end and mingyu knowing exactly how much he means by it is so sweet

aw i'm really glad u liked this T___T hands/maneuvers was one of the first fics i read when i started getting into svt (courtesy of risa's influence on my carathood) and coming back around years later and catching up on all the inyyjh you've written since has been really lovely.... just reread dwindling mercurial high again and omg my heart. they're really so fun to think about together and the slow and bitter decay of a long long relationship here was so potent, and that last scene so striking (even tho i know nothing about f1) that i really wanted to illustrate! thank YOU!!!

thank you risa for inducting me into pristeen 95z tinhetting from nearly my very first day of carathood <3 pls consider this my meager contribution to the canon

Ship/Member: Jeonghan centric + Seungcheol/Jisoo/Jeonghan
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: fire emblem three houses AU, self-denial, pikachu meme if pikachu understood the human condition
Permission to remix: Yes

***

Jeonghan has always been easy to love.

He was his mother’s favourite, because he always paused in his path when she reached out to run her fingers through his hair. He was the servants’ favourite, because he rarely made requests, and only did so with a polite lilt to his voice and the most courteous of words. To the local lords, he was by far the favourite of the younger generation, for he sat quietly during church and listened to the sermon with a small smile.

It was easy to be loved, when one knew what people wanted. His mother wanted reassurance and attention, for his father was either absent from home or preoccupied by business. The servants wanted peace and gratitude, for they were kept busy by people who never looked them in the eye. And the local lords, they wanted to see obedience, to know that the next generation was devout to the same goddess, faithful to the same cause.

Jeonghan is young when his father takes him to the Choi estate, but not too young because he is able to think: this is my father’s friend. And when he meets Choi Seungcheol, the five year old snotty-nosed, cherry-lipped boy with heavy lashes and a heavier pout, Jeonghan thinks — and this is my friend.

And then later, as Seungcheol wrestles him into the grass in the Choi estate gardens, ruining Jeonghan’s braided hair and throwing one of his shoes into the fountain, Jeonghan thinks, I suppose we could be friends.

And then later, as they both learn to how to curry a horse, to polish a sword, to twist a lance into a straw man, Jeonghan thinks —

Here is a boy who needs to win.

Here is a boy who needs me to see him win.

And then later, as they learn to twist the neck of a hare so that it dies in an instant, when Jeonghan wipes the tears from Seungcheol’s eyes and the blood from his hand, Jeonghan thinks —

Here is a boy who contains no darkness.

Here is a boy who must defend the weak.

And then later, as Jeonghan talks him into running away from their governess, from the reason class which Seungcheol hates, as they hide together in the reading room which no one uses, as Seungcheol grasps his hand with both of his own and looks at Jeonghan with an earnestness so bright, it feels inconsolable.

You’re an angel, Seungcheol says.

And Jeonghan thinks —

Oh.

And then, oh no.

Jeonghan had always found it easy to see through people.

Seungcheol’s father sends him briefs on each student enrolled at Garreg Mach. Seungcheol brushes it aside in favour of shopping for new axe handles. Jeonghan picks up the pages from Seungcheol’s breakfast table.

Jeon Wonwoo. Empire noble, oldest son, but his father was the youngest of three. Jihoon had seen him at the harvest day feast, reading a book half hidden under the table. Jeonghan knows his type. Born into responsibility, but preferring to avoid it. He will be impressionable and eager to defer to authority.

Kwon Soonyoung. Alliance commoner, son of a steelworker, danced so well at the solstice festivities that even Kingdom peasants heard of his hips. But new money is fragile money, and Soonyoung will be pressured to succeed and cement his family’s fortunes. Being a commoner, he will not have the same education of the noble children, and will struggle in class. A weakness Jeonghan will exploit.

Wen Junhui. Stateless. Little was known of him, except that he is currently a guest in the Kim estate. The Kims had adopted Xu Minghao a decade prior, a war refugee who bore the crest of Indech. There was a motive there, but the grander ambition Jeonghan needs to sniff out, for the Kims was an old Empire family near the Kingdom border.

One month into the semester, Jeonghan overplays his hand in a fishing competition that leaves Xu Minghao teary-eyed, Kim Mingyu hard-pressed, and Wen Junhui turning on his heel and striding the other way.

Fine, Jeonghan thinks, espionage can wait a few more moons. He decides to forsake his duties entirely and indulge in the freedom of academy life, lounging in the sun by the fishing pond, reading books stolen from Professor Jeritza’s desk.

But curiosity maintains the habit of pilfering the reports from Seungcheol’s father. Reports of changing political winds, shifts in voting blocs in the Emperor’s cabinet, a new student enrolling abruptly.

Hong Jisoo. Bastard son of a margrave, raised as a commoner. Mother was a prominent figure in the western church but recently assassinated by separatists, Jisoo to be transferred to Garreg Mach as a ward of the church. Diplomatic hostage, Jeonghan reads between the lines. He knows how the cards fall when the greater powers wrestle.

Every sentence is a collection of troubled traits Jeonghan is gleeful to analyse. He expects Jisoo to be broody, resentful. Raised on the edges of privilege but never a beneficiary of it. It would sting, to be perennially aware of the much you can never have. Kids like Jisoo tend to be outcasts, fated to recreate the exile they were born into.

Jeonghan catches a glimpse of Jisoo when Mingyu takes him on a tour of the grounds. Jeonghan gives a light wave and his friendliest smile from his perch by the pond, but Mingyu purses his lips and hurries Jisoo along, face darkening as he whispers in Jisoo’s ear.

But Jisoo’s face does not change, he smiles back at Jeonghan, pleasant as the summer wind and shallow as an hour’s frost. The crinkle by his eye is impermeable, suggesting amicability and nothing further. The tilt of his head exactly enough to be kind but not inquiring. The perfect pilgrim, Jeonghan thinks. A face you could confess to.

They shared faith classes, Jisoo far more proficient than Jeonghan ever will be, spells practised into mantras. But Jeonghan has a habit of keeping his eyes open during the Archbishop’s prayers for he was neither devout nor conformist. And so he sees amidst the bowed heads, Hong Jisoo with his chin held high, mouth hard and eyes even harder, staring into the stained glass with a bitterness that could only belong to the unbelieving.

Jeonghan thinks — Here is a boy who hides his darkness.

Here is a boy I want to befriend.

It takes Jeonghan a few attempts to wriggle into Jisoo’s spheres. Jisoo is busy after their faith class, Minghao steers him away from Jeonghan’s table in the dining hall, and Jisoo is a stellar student who should be tutoring rather than tutored. It takes a fortuitous assignment of stable duty before Jeonghan is able to talk to Jisoo proper. Like most students born of the common class, Jisoo has never been taught to ride or groom. Jeonghan takes the curry brush from Jisoo’s hand and teaches him how to brush a horse, how to carry gentleness in a hand and home in a voice. And then later, Jeonghan teaches him how to sneak into the saunas without a teacher, which of the stray cats were the friendliest, and when the kitchen serves the best meals.

And then later, Jeonghan introduces Hong Jisoo to Choi Seungcheol, and sees the way Jisoo’s breath catches, how his eyes linger on Seungcheol’s face and hold a hurricane of longing beneath a practised smile. Jeonghan thinks —

Here is a boy who wants a boy who wants me.

Here is a boy I can teach to be wanted.

And so, Jeonghan teaches Jisoo everything about Seungcheol and watches the adoration bloom in his eyes. How Seungcheol’s favourite meal were the meat skewers and least favourite was the peach sorbet. The tribulations of Seungcheol’s first hunt and first ride. How Seungcheol was driven to win at all costs yet refused to fight needlessly. How he was a boy who contained no darkness and could not see the darkness within people.

And later, Jeonghan teaches Jisoo when to watch Seungcheol’s practice, how to time his praise so that Seungcheol is the proudest, what to say and how to say it. Which classes Seungcheol detests, and would inevitably ask to copy homework. Which merchant sold Seungcheol’s favourite whetstone and when they restocked. All details which Jeonghan knew like the contours of his own hand, retelling with the familiarity of his own life. It was Jeonghan’s joy, to share his stories with Jisoo, to sit with him in the lazy sunlight on stolen afternoons, his own head resting on Jisoo’s lap and gazing upwards at the boy who was so beautiful it puts the heart in his chest on wings. Jeonghan thinks

I want you to be never lonely again. I want you to be safe. I want you to understand me as I understand you.

And Jeonghan thinks —

Oh.

And then, oh no.

HELLO!!!!!! i was delighted to see this in my inbox before i read it and became promptly devastated!! jeonghan pov is always such a sucker punch because of the clarity with which he understands the people around him + his self sacrificing nature and in this au it’s just too potent…. well also i guess i created the miserable source material in question so i’m to blame too…. but oh my god!!!!

well first the structural elegance of this fill, the parallelism! i think you are so strong at these kinds of big picture questions of structure/form (i want to use the language of composition/value/shape design as an artist) and i love how you set up the contrast between what is expected of jeonghan and what he himself wants. i love how jeonghan’s thoughts go from this is my friend > i suppose we could be friends regarding seungcheol, and the almost counterintuitive phrasing there is really effective in illustrating how even as a child he’s painfully aware of the slippage between expectations vs reality – but also the gulf between them.

you do a great job of drawing out the irony in that respect: jeonghan sees himself as easy to love, which is why seungcheol loves him; he's exactly what everyone expects and needs him to be. so not only is it unexpected that jeonghan comes to love jisoo, in terms of the expectations surrounding his social class/position as academy noble, but it's a breath of fresh air to find someone immune to his charm and opaque to his understanding! someone whose love and companionship he has to work for and even then never fully attain. and then, jeonghan’s realization at the end is suchhhh a great counterpoint to the first one: the lazy sunlight of his companionship with jisoo vs. seungcheol's inconsolably bright adoration.

and i SO love that you leaned into jeonghan as spymaster too and used that to sketch out some of the other seventeenies’ roles in this world. yes unwilling heir jww! new money alliance commoner ksy! obsessed with whatever is going on with gyujunhao here and the fishing competition!! i'm so looking forward to ur full writeup of fe3hteen profiles ^_^ thank u so much for remixing hwa, it's truly a gift to play in the space with u

HELLO. I just happened to be holding my phone when I heard the outlook notification and thought “I wonder if it’s jess” and IT WAS. The thoughts are rushing out rn so I’m going to capture it as fast as I can.

Thank you for being such a wonderful reader (and writer)! You’ve pinpointed the reasons why I’ve set up the fic this way ;____; I wanted to write something short before the flame of inspiration burned out, so I wanted the structure of the fic, and the comparison between the cs/js to set up the irony, and thereby the agony within jeonghan’s circumstances. This was a story that I probably spent thrice as much time thinking compared to writing. I also reread [the dust of our years] over and over again, scouring for the details, looking for the gaps where another story could fit. I wanted to be faithful to /your/ jihancheol, and most especially /your/ jeonghan (although in the scheme of things we both come back to his empathetic clarity and martyr tendencies!)

Right after reading, I knew the points I wanted to hit:

It was going to be a Jeonghan POV — reading your fill, I kept wondering about Jeonghan’s feelings, towards Seungcheol, towards Jisoo. Knowing that Jisoo loved Seungcheol, that he himself was loved by Seungcheol, yet choosing to take himself out of that equation.

It was going to take place before the war — the working title was [best laid plans], and I wanted Jeonghan’s schemes to be subverted. He’s famous for being a mastermind, but I’m always obsessed with the jihan dynamic of how jisoo is the one person that defeats jeonghan’s expectations. How every other sebong is a jeonghan simp but jeonghan would simp /for/ jisoo.

Funnily enough the profiles of wonwoo/soonyoung/junhui I wrote first because I’ve just been thinking /so much/ of fe3hsvt and in writing it didn’t quite fit the parallelisms nicely but I /needed/ to throw it in because it was so fun to think about, the wider universe where they exist (and suffer).

In writing and thinking, I lead myself into my own devastation:

in your scene where Jeonghan says “I know why you’re still here” — Jeonghan probably carried a lot of bitterness. Loving that Jisoo is by his side, but knowing that Jisoo is only here for Seungcheol. I wondered then, if Jeonghan was self aware that he loved Jisoo, and then going back, if Jeonghan was aware when he taught Jisoo all these things about Seungcheol. And if he was, he must have wanted to set himself on fire!! (I want to set myself on fire). But perhaps how it turned out was, Jeonghan’s heart outrunning his mind. Jisoo loves hearing about Seungcheol, and Jeonghan, buoyed by that effervescent joy, kept indulging him, not knowing that he is digging both their graves until it is too late.

Re Jeonghan and Seungcheol. In Jeonghan’s mind, he thinks Seungcheol loves him because of what Jeonghan does for Seungcheol. He thinks he doesn’t like Seungcheol, and Seungcheol deserves someone who loves him back, and Jisoo loves him back so he does the maths and cancels himself out of the equation and teaches Jisoo how to act like himself. Referring to your canon text, this will not work!! I think Jeonghan reaches a very late realisation that Seungcheol actually likes him for himself, and although that realisation frees him and allows him to love Seungcheol back, it’s too late and they are in the middle of a war and Jeonghan would have felt the guilt of setting Jisoo up and would not have pursued Seungcheol (AHHH). The remix scene where Jeonghan talks to Jisoo about Seungcheol, I think he is alr in love with Seungcheol then, but doesn’t realise it himself because of that assumption from his youth …

Thank you for reading and enjoying!! I love playing in this sandbox with you as well!!

omg thank you for sharing about the writing process and the decisions you made along the way!! It feels like I’m getting an exclusive scoop into the story and the excitement I got from reading your fill is getting stretched even further. edelgard!jisoo, traitor!jeonghan (revenger!seungcheol??!! a seungcheol vs jisoo confrontation over jeonghan?? I’m thinking about an angry jisoo but can’t help thinking about how joshua hong is hotter in america and superimposing onto jisoo).

AHH you referenced the antagonists posts ;____; glad it’s still of value after all these years, but I’m laughing @ pre-fe3h me typecasting edelgard onto minghao… if I had to cast now … (supersonically speedruns edelgard’s eugenics/torture arc onto all 13 members) … hilariously enough I think Soonyoung would be the closest to edelgard if he got put through something similar (thinking about the guy who confronts saesaengs + the guy who keeps dancing after dislocating his shoulder).

Can you tell which of your points I latched onto in my remix? so thankful for your comment re jisoo being a commoner and resentful to the church (it makes so much sense why he’s afraid of horses… I kept thinking about all the monastery advantages the noble children have!! Only advantage jisoo has is his faith magic and even that he abandons!! I’m still screaming about that btw, I couldn’t incorporate that decision bc I chose a jeonghan POV but!! to leave the thing you are the best at!! to let your friend become the healer!!)

I loved that about your fill, how it intertwines the past and the present just like the english patient. And in presenting both stories, one can see the impact of the past. Don’t think I didn’t realise that it takes him fifteen years to reach out to seungcheol!! the ghost of jeonghan will haunt him forever!

he doesn’t want to get his hands dirty SO TRUE. Just today I saw a clip of the Nana Tour, when seokmin mistakenly used soonyoung’s toothbrush and soonyoung was just like ‘ok I will use yours’ AND JOSHUA’S FACE. The shock, the disbelief, the horror!! top comment was: that night joshua hong slept cradling his toothbrush. My gentleman princess joshuji…

I would never make marianne fight hilda asdamkqas I’ve already made mercedes fight annie …. “It’s okay Marianne. These things happen in war.” Okay and what if I cease to exist instead!! That Claude->Hilda line!! 3 days until I’m back home and you bet I will be going through the sylvix tag and your ao3 fe3h bookmarks and the youtube compilations of all the death lines… for the transit I’m going to think about heteropatriachy and the elitism of horses and I can’t wait!!

oh wow this is so so devastating

"Wait," he says, the penny in his mind always dropping too slowly for this fucking industry, "are you serious?"

people will get over it, Seungkwan tries to tell him in the memory, but it isn’t true. And it comes for him next,
I’m amazed you’ve managed to paint such a vivid picture of the industry with just a few well-placed sentences, as well as of the relationship that was crushed beneath the weight of it and the splinters that vernon is still holding onto

How awful, the way Seungkwan doesn’t seem to think either of them has changed. How comforting, and how wonderful, and what a goddamn disappointment.
DEVASTATING. thank you for writing

hello from hwa on company time!! I’ve been stewing on your comment for at least a week, because your reply mentioned heteropatriachy and classism and I went OH – we doing it like THAT (puts on gloves) (god I love social commentary)

(PLEASE do send/link me all your fe3hteen fanart on twitter when you can!!)

I will start with the game as a medium to deliver a story, which was at the end of your reply:

i really love how worldbuilding and characterization are communicated in game through characters’ skills/stat blocks too, like edelgard and hubert’s weaknesses in faith, ashe’s budding talent in lances (also associated with the chivalric ideal), sylvain’s budding talent in reason

scream I’ve noticed some characters growth stats but I’ve never done a sweep to check the themes. I absolutely agree with your sentiment -- the gradual uncovering of details through character interactions was one my favourite part of fe3h. It makes the story more real because it is constructed piece by piece in our heads by ourselves, rather than told to us. And the fragmentation of an idea through different characters like you mentioned! especially when they go through a similar experience like edelgard cf lysithia, or hubert cf ferdinand (the shadow of the father…).

also, each player notices different things, recruit different characters, or may skip interactions entirely, resulting in a different ‘narrative’. I recently pushed dimitri/marianne A support after reading a fic where marianne was queen because the fic explores how they just happen to be the two people who understand what it’s like to live with a monster within you.

you've really taken the thoughts out of my own head about the inextricable influence of crests on characters and customs. I loved how some of the support conversations unravel assumptions and recondition learnt behaviour (Some Other Supports shall not be mentioned) - meeting hanneman on my first run gave off the impression that crests = cool power and knights = noble (thanks ashe), but as we discussed re the crest system + felix's bitterness about ingrid/rodrigue's treatment of glenn, that cornflower glory became tainted and I wanted [kingmaker] to just cut a cross-section into that side of fe3h and tease out that arc.

on your question on jeonghan’s motivation for the revolution and whether it was fuelled by personal or external influences. I did think about this! He IS blond but that’s just for the aesthetics; I didn’t want to put him through the edelgard sausage maker because I think it’s a disservice to jeonghan’s character that he would only be motivated by personal trauma – that he only cared about the crest system because something happened to /him/. I read him as more selfless and omniscient (and nosy), so decided the history on that basis (haha in retrospect this is also another point of contrast to wonwoo, who understood the ethics in theory but only practically through mingyu).

jeonghan is also a victim of his circumstances, in all timelines I think jeonghan would eventually uncover the true history of crests and see the unfairness of the established power systems. however, because he was born into power, he recognised that he was in the singular position to effect change and thus, /had/ to do so. unlike mingyu, I see jeonghan as someone who is unwilling to step into authority, but conversely cannot /step away/ from it if was necessary for him to lead (like how in talk shows, he lets someone take the spotlight but is actually always observing and, if the topic needs to be changed or awkwardness alleviated, he steps in - exactly as you mentioned).

how the cards fell in [kingmaker] was only because jeonghan met mingyu and because mingyu was mingyu (commoner, charismatic, talented, 120% perfect man but still bullyable). with mingyu, jeonghan saw the path to a complete reconstruction of society. without mingyu, jeonghan would have taken softer path of politicking, power erosions, and commoner empowerment (also the path if jww was yjh’s knight), but there wouldn’t have been a total abolition of crests, only a less unfair society.

going through to your comment on mingyu as emperor: yes!! I love that for him too, he will certainly Get the Job Done. both jeonghan and wonwoo realises that the eradication of crests = the eradication of themselves. and there is poetic justice in a commoner king after a revolt.

yes edelgard the conqueror blind to her own weaknesses – “edelgard’s revolution still remains somewhat trapped in the social conventions of hierarchy and nobility“ – as much as VW feels like an add-on to pokemon blue / red, I think it does a good job to give us that third, slightly more neutral perspective to the war and see how edelgard has been manipulated by certain groups to enact change which benefit those groups under the guise of a false crusade (wait this is accidentally too topical)

Other short points:

I also felt the pacing issues in verdant wind and crimson flower ;___; as you mentioned, the inequity of the crest system was prevalent throughout but not gathered neatly into a theme with a resolution, alas the commercial pipeline must persist.

I think I saw a fic recently that went wonwoo hamlet and that has been BUZZING in my head, surely there is a 17hols shakespeare prompt out there…(if not next year)

yes horses!! haha I noticed that as well. maybe you were also a horse girl denied horses due to the exorbitantly high cost of entry and now relieve your dreams by writing characters riding horses…

omg thank you so much for sending through that tumblr post. it was my first time reading it and I am blown away by the fidelity to life. The relationship between colour tones and the cost of dyes!! HOW THE ONLY TRUE BLUE IS ON DIMITRI. The extravagance of the adresian empire… I didn’t fully appreciate the economic differences between the three countries – I knew about the harshness of the north and the fhargaen winter, but to see it play out in the design choices to tell a story in subtext, that is delicious, thank you for sharing

btw this is the fandub of the comic I mentioned in my last reply! It shows yuri playing cards under the table with lindie & bernie

Ship/Member: Jungkook(BTS)/Minghao
Major Tags: minor character deaths
Additional Tags: interstellar au, space, grief
Permission to remix: Please ask

***
well, this got away from me fully so it's posted here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/63069166

hwa...oh my god. this is not my favourite thing you have written but its...close. it made me feel all to much on a very strange day, i need to go run off these feelings. or sit with them in a closet. i dont know. i loved this from the get-go, though. the silence vs noise, the fringes, the travel, the closet....wow. oh wow. i keep rereading and reeling. thank you, truly.

Ship/Member: Mingyu/Wonwoo, Seungcheol/Jeonghan
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: fe3hteen, be my mirror my sword my shield
Permission to remix: Yes

***

tweet

well you've seen these already but again for the dw archive :)

Ship/Member: Minghao-centric, Minghao/Soonyoung
Major Tags: MCD oops
Additional Tags: Fire Emblem: Three Houses AU from someone who has literally never touched the source material, dramatic irony, #doomed by the narrative
Permission to remix: Yes

***

dear hwa I return the question, are YOU proud of yourself?! this remix haunted me. I have not stopped thinking about [kingmaker] since the moment you posted it. I suspect I now know more about FE:3H than any non-player has any right to know, but forgive me for whatever lore does not fit the canon here. one day I will get to play the blue lions route!

posted to ao3~

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 21 of 21

2025 Round: Quotes

Re: [FILL] somewhere beautiful

[FILL] the wardrobe and the lion inside of it

Bonus Scene

[FILL] song for the wandering moon

[FILL] the dust of our years

Re: [FILL] the dust of our years

Re: [FILL] kingmaker

Re: [FILL] kingmaker

Re: [FILL] the dust of our years

Re: [FILL] kingmaker

Re: FILL: a hundred pitchers of honey

Re: [REMIX] road head

Re: [REMIX] road head

[REMIX] my will across the sky in stars

Re: [REMIX] my will across the sky in stars

Re: [REMIX] my will across the sky in stars

Re: [FILL] the dust of our years

Re: [FILL] you haven't changed

Re: [FILL] kingmaker

[FILL] it is not darkness that unites us

Re: [FILL] the wardrobe and the lion inside of it

[REMIX] seasons of warfare

[REMIX] kingbreaker