machinequeen4 - Tumblr blog

[machinequeen4]

The Noble, Thief & The Swan

A fic for the Ferdibert reverse bang in collaboration with @sugar-charlie

Enjoy, fairy tale lovers!

The Noble, The Thief and The Swan (4871 words) by MachineQueen Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Ferdinand von Aegir/Hubert von Vestra Characters: Ferdinand von Aegir, Hubert von Vestra Additional Tags: fairytale AU, Swan Maiden, Only One Bed Summary:

Ferdinand and Hubert fall victim to the same thief and set out to catch the crook together.

Fairytale AU very loosely based on The Swan Maiden.

[machinequeen4]

I haven't written anything in 3 weeks 😭

Please help me unfreeze, Fire Emblem 3 Houses/Hopes, Xenoblade, Xenoblade 3 prompts welcome!

[machinequeen4]

EUNIE BEST GIRL EUNIE BEST GIRL

[machinequeen4]

:D

[machinequeen4]

The definitive Blue Lions experience

[machinequeen4]

[ Reincarnation, hints of character death ]

[machinequeen4]

something for ferdinand week on twitter i made between doing commissions

[machinequeen4]

Platonic relationships question: which two characters do you want to see hug the most?

Thanks for your ask! 

Part of me wants to say Edelgard and Dimitri, but why they should Hug It Out is quite well-established. So, please also consider:

Edelgard and Ferdinand

Their supports play the rivalry for laughs a bit, but there’s honestly so much emotional substance/potential behind their relationship.

(under cut because this got slightly long)

When she introduces Ferdinand at the beginning of the game, Edelgard says:

For some reason, he thinks of me as a bitter rival and is always trying to challenge me. It's terribly irritating. His house is that of Duke Aegir, which produces Adrestia's Prime Ministers. That family is...perhaps too pleased with its own status.

I think it’s interesting that, despite the fact that she just singled out him as “irritating” the line before, she switches focus for the next sentence to say that his family is too pleased with his own status. Not him, his family.

...It’s almost like she’s always known that he’s not the arrogant person that his father is, that his fixation on his status pre-timeskip is more due to his upbringing than it his own character.

Because Ferdinand isn’t his power-hungry father at all. He truly believes that in order to be worthy of the power they hold, nobles have to set a good example and protect others. Pre-timeskip, being noble is his reason for trying so hard at everything.

And then, the impact Edelgard’s first actions as Emperor have on Ferdinand can’t be understated. When she strips Duke Aegir’s titles and puts him under house arrest, she also strips away the future he was so looking forward to up to that point. His entire motivation for trying so hard is gone. (This fic deals with this subject beautifully, by the way.)

...Or so he thinks. But he chooses to continue looking to the future, even when he realizes he can’t get ahead of Edelgard, even grappling with the worry that nobody will remember him. He’s not “too pleased with his own status” anymore. But he’s still trying his best.

And, to bring this full-circle, at the end of their A-support, even after he’s spent years trying to prove himself superior to her, this is their dialogue:

Ferdinand: Yes, exactly! Finally, Edelgard, you appreciate how important I am to your cause!

Edelgard: I've always thought of you as a valued friend, Ferdinand. That's nothing new.

She’s always thought of him as a valued friend. She’s always known that he’s nothing like his father, despite his fixation on noble status.

The other thing about this that makes me emotional is that he frames it as being useful to her cause. Because, after everything’s been taken from him, he’s still searching for his purpose.

But Edelgard, who is one of the more practical and utilitarian characters in the game, sees him not for what he could offer her as an advisor, but just as a person she values. As her friend. As a person who had the integrity to look at the legacy he had valued so much, see the cracks in it, and resolve to repair them by making up for his father’s mistakes (see: his paralogue ending). To realize that Edelgard hadn’t stolen his path, but had paved the way for him to walk his own. THAT’S solid material for a long, cathartic hug on its own.

And ANOTHER thing that makes me sad about them is that they have a bit of a “grass is greener” aspect to their relationship.

Ferdinand feels that he can’t escape Edelgard’s shadow, and worries that he won’t be remembered in the pages of history books (see: A-support with Byleth). He says:

I know that I will never be greater than Edelgard. She will always surpass me. I am what I am...I will do what I'm called to do, even if no mark of me remains in the history books.

And then one of his teatime quotes, which is one of my favourites in the whole game because it’s so simple and sad, is:

You will always remember me, will you not? 

He may have decided that he’ll do what he’s called to. But he can’t shake the sting of melancholy, the worry that nobody will remember him when he’s gone.

Edelgard, meanwhile, is the flame that throws her shadow over Ferdinand. She’s at the center of the war, the one who brought such upheaval to the continent. She knows that she’ll be remembered, she assumes it won’t be very positively, and she worries about that just like Ferdinand worries about being forgotten.

In her C-support with Dorothea (after Holy Tomb), she says:

If an opera is made about my life someday, I wonder how I'll be portrayed.  The revolutionary who guided the Empire to a new dawn...or the foolish ruler who took her revolution too far...

That’s a lot of pressure on the shoulders of a 17/18-year-old. 

And, like Ferdinand, she’s well aware of the obligations of her position. One of her teatime quotes is:

Would it be OK...if I just laze about for a few moments? You're the only one I can allow to see me like that.

She knows that she can’t afford to show weakness. But, unlike Ferdinand, she doesn’t want to be a noble. She’d rather cast off the burden of her lineage entirely. One of her other teatime quotes is:

If I hadn't been born to House Hresvelg, I imagine life would have been much simpler.

So, yeah. They have a conversation where they air this all out, his fear of being forgotten, her fear of being remembered. And how nobody can control or predict their legacy, but can only “do what they’re called to do” as best they can while they’re alive. Oh, and this isn’t even getting into the emotional upheaval Ferdinand would experience realizing what his father had done to Edelgard and her siblings. And how he was unintentionally rubbing salt in that wound every time he boasted of his family’s status.

So. They hug. And they both probably cry a bit. And Ferdinand makes a joke about how Edelgard’s hair might be soft and nice-smelling, but his is even softer and better-smelling. And then the mood breaks, and they laugh.

...And Hubert senses that the two most important people to him in the whole world have been crying and just manifests out of nowhere with a knife, ready to throw down with whoever hurt them. But neither of them are even remotely surprised. That’s Hubert, after all.

[machinequeen4]

She went straight for my heart. Just like that.

[machinequeen4]

I don’t actually know who I am…without Ren.

RWBY 8.03 | Strings

[machinequeen4]

Anyone else think about Ferdinand mid-skip and start hurting emotionally?

[machinequeen4]

star witch melia! 💫

[machinequeen4]

Inktober - day 26

@kalamaika ‘s gloomtober - “stars”. If you thought that those two won’t appear, you thought worng. They are chilling in the Goddess tower so they are kinda hidden from sight.

[machinequeen4]

Machina Facts

Basically just a lil list of fun things about Machina I picked up on while poring over the Fallen Arm (and some Colony 6) dialogue. Some of it may be a duh moment for some, while other things are really neat and hidden imo!

Keep reading

[machinequeen4]

Melia Chronicles!  A quick drawing to celebrate the best bird lady. 

[machinequeen4]

[machinequeen4]

a collection of dragons based on xenoblade areas!! i spent way too long on these hhaha

drawn in pencil and colored in sai (they’re also transparent!)