Status: Open
Prompting is currently open. Prompting is open from 28 December 2024 to 19 January 2025.
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"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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Need ideas? Check out our 2021 and 2022 Quote rounds.
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Re: [FILL] kingmaker
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!!
Re: [FILL] kingmaker
(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:
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: