#every bad thing that's ever happened to Frederick his HIS fault somehow

[imaginefeawakening]

if robin did succumb to grima, which male shepherds would stay with her in hopes of robin breaking free of the dragon's control (cause robin's a strong girl and there'd be no way that his control wouldn't falter at times) and who would take her life, knowing that it'd be what she wanted? (waah, imagine her dying in their arms)

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In the end, the outcome will always remain the same.

There is a dreadful thud—and a sickening crunch. With a jerk of your spine, you crumple to the ground, your eyes rolling to the back of their sockets. A dark sickly aura envelops your body, and faintly, so very faintly, do you hear your husband’s screams, beseeching you to return to the mortal coil from which you’ve been banished from.

Gerome: It is a choice he did not wish to make, but there are no other alternatives offered to him. He knows what would happen next. He lived and breathed in the darkness that was the world when you became Grima in another life. He saw, smelled, felt, and tasted blood every damned day, helpless to do a thing about it. And now, too helpless to save you. Perhaps his heart wasn’t strong enough to keep you from Grima. His heart beats weakly, and barely resolves enough to do this.

But gods, would it shatter him to do this. The one light he’d seen a flicker of hope in was you...and even you faltered in the end. “Traitor…” he whispers. “You said it’ll be okay…”

He raises his axe, knowing that this must be it. He doesn’t truly fault you, of course but whether intentional or not….you must be stopped at all costs. Just as he swings his axe down on your chest, a bolt of lightning stabs him through his heart and out his back. He falls backward, and you on to him, both your life forces weakening rapidly. Your son runs over to the both of you, crying. You and Gerome lie together limp and breathing shallowly.

“Gerome...forgive me…”

“I won’t. Not at all,” he flicks your nose weakly, and briefly smiles when you pout at him. “I’ll be a little less mad at you...for taking my life too…” He laughs one last time, and his breathing stills.

“Don’t say that...you should have lived...Gerome?” You call his name a few more times and realize that he’s already gone. “No...no please…” you sniffle and cry into his shoulder. You promised to save him. To be the one steady presence in his life. To grow old and gray together. To show him that life can be good. But you cursed and crushed his hopes in a moment. And that life he worked so hard to keep...you took it with your own hands. “Gerome….Morgan…” you utter the names of the people that you’ve loved the most...and the ones you’ve failed the most too, in the end.

Inigo: Somehow, somehow, he gets you to calm down. There is nothing but somber silence as the entire army waits for you wake up. You’re in a deep sleep, and it is unclear if you’ve regained your old self or not. Inigo spends this time lying in a horrible and painful wait. Is there redemption for you? Will you cut down all that is in your path? The dragon lies dormant with your rest...but your terrible power is not yet vanquished.

He knows the consequences very, very well. To let you be..to create that kind of world again...not even love could be an argument against doing the unthinkable. He prays that when you open your eyes, his beloved will return once more, untainted and pure once more.

“Inigo..” your lips barely move beyond a quiver, and the hand that lies in his twitch towards the pulse in his wrist.

“______! is it really you?” he asks, with such pitiful hope that you wish that you would just die to spare him any more grief.

You open your eyes and let him make his own judgement. Glowing red and purple irises glare up at him, and your attempt to smile is a smirk instead. “Well?”

“You’re not…”

“Come on...not smiling anymore?” you sit up and touch his jaw, then run your finger down over his neck. His skin flares with goosebumps, and his jaw is taut with tension. “Won’t you be brave?”

“You’re...you’re not ______…”

“No? I have the same body. Would you like to see?” You slip your robes down in a mock seductive manner, and he looks scandalized.

“No...I…” he gasps as you straddle him, nails pressed to his neck.

“Let’s play...I’m getting fairly tired of all this resistance.” A quick scratch, and his skin bleeds. “Nngh..I'm sorry Inigo...please….kill me.” Your sly voice changes briefly to the warmth he’s always used to, and it breaks his heart when he grabs his blade. “Please…”

“I’ve never turned down a favor from you yet my love...and I’m afraid...today won’t be a first.” He moves in a flash, his swordsmanship at its usual best. It takes all that he has and more to end you and your suffering. He’s in pain but...you must be hurting even more. To not have any control over

The demon inside you is fully awake at this threat, and rolls out of the way in time. “Some lover you are,” you snarl at him, quick to form deadly magic in your palms. The dark power exhilarates you and pushes back your consciousness. Your eyes are feral, without a trace of the tactician he grew to love.

It’s a fight to the death, a fight between an incredibly powerful demon and a boy who just wanted to save his love. With a bold and risky move, he pierces your throat with all his force.

And it’s enough. Grima flees from your body, but so does your true spirit, though you try to hold on ti your body long enough to say goodbye. “Inigo…” You reach out to him, still impaled. He puts pressures to the wound, afraid that taking the blade back out will send you away for good. “I love you...take care of Morgan alright? He needs his father…”

“R-right..but we...I need you. I need you, don’t go please don’t go…” He’s trying to smile for you one last time but he can no longer hold it in. Too weak to be strong for others, at least this one last time, he sobs into your chest. His face is stained red with your blood when he tilts his head back up to look into your warm eyes.

“I’m sorry...may we meet in a better life, my love. Give everyone my love...I’m sorry I hurt you…” you gently caress the injury on his neck, and kiss it with blood red lips. “Live well, dear.”

“Not without you...please...don’t say goodbye…” He pleads with you, begs with you to stay somehow while cursing himself. You’ve not any strength left for words. You simply hold onto his sleeve until you’re back to the darkness...one that’s comfortable this time.

Lon’qu: A cold dread swept over his stomach and brings him to his knees. To cut you down...is the only way to do this. Cut...you...down...He dry heaves into his hands. The reason he was afraid to ever love...was because he would lose his love. Never has it crossed his mind that the reason he would lose his beloved is by his own hands. He is a practical man and at times, has been a bad man. No matter how selfish and greedy he wants to be, there is no living in this world with the knowledge that letting you live is letting the world fall into ruin...while torturing your soul that lives inside.

“I’m...so sorry,” he says in the softest voice. He takes slow steps towards towards you, barely registering the heavyweight in his hands. The blade with which he’ll execute you with.

“Lon….qu?” you stagger forward as though drunk, and you smell the leather of his shoulder pads.

“Shh...it’ll be over soon…” You look up at him so innocently that he can’t bear to do it. Perhaps you’re back..perhaps he can save you…

No..there’s only one way to save you...He launches the sword up through your back and into his chest, smearing you both on the same sword.

“Lon’qu..but why...why?!” You grab his collar, glaring at him. “Why would you...what about Morgan..You were supposed to live!” You screeched at him, damned if dying would stop you from one last tantrum. “You were supposed to live! It wasn’t supposed to end this way.”

“I couldn’t bear to be without you...He’s still fighting over there...I pray he doesn’t see us.”

“I...what will he do when he finds out when we’re gone..why would you leave him...Lon’qu…” You wail and sob, to no avail. All the tears in the world won’t stop Lon’qu from drawing his last breath.

“He’ll be fine. He’ll learn...I...I could no longer imagine life without you. Allow me this.”

“How can I!”

He chuckles, and kisses your lips to stop your lecturing, though your burst of energy was your final one. You kiss him back though you’re no longer able to see his face. His tears “Always...so loud…” His complaints are weak, and he kisses you a few more times until he too, falls silent.

Chrom: “______!” he’s desperately fighting against the tight grips of Frederick and Lissa as he watches you fall. His voice hoarsely cries out for you, and he’s reaching for your hand, a hand that lays limp at your side.

“We need to fall back!” Frederick’s voice and shook the prince. He knew reason was the last thing that Chrom had and for the first time in his life did he lose to Chrom in strength. Chrom broke free and ran to Robin’s side. Without an ounce of fear he enveloped you in his arms, and buries his face in your hair.

“______...Are you alright?” His deep voice sends your emotions into a lurch. No longer yourself, and yet, remnants of you remain even yet. Your hands reach up to stroke his cheek...but instead, they wrap around his neck, your thumb jutting in harshly to his jugular. His whispers of concern turn into coughs and choked hushes of your name, but he doesn’t allow anyone to come. Instead, he holds your wrists with a gentle touch. To the disgust of the villain inside you, he kisses you softly and tenderly, until you let go.

“Disgusting…” you say, but the tears falling down your cheeks are from the true you that lies buried deep. With a surge of strength you beg him for the favor that he’s yet to follow through on. “Kill me...please…”

“You know I can't, you know I absolutely can’t…”

“You’re...a fool….” thunder forms in your hands and just before you strike chrom, you will it to plunge into your own stomach instead. You stagger back one step, two, then fall backwards off the mountain peak.

“______!!!!” He bellows your name with all his might and runs in a blind dash to catch you. Frederick holds him back so all he can do is see you fall to your death.

Or so he thinks.

Months pass as the Plegian army falls into a quiet lull. The Ylissean army rebuilds, and though Chrom is silent, he endeavors to restore the peace you gave your life for. When things begin looking up for the better, is when he hears reports of a dragon taking out entire towns at the time, with incredibly powerful armies that are ravaging the region at an alarming rate.

It could mean only one thing. But why, why does he feel relief?

He volunteers to be on the frontlines.

“Milord...you’re not stable enough for this,” Frederick holds his shoulder, his own self empty inside, working only for the sake of the realm and the dead man walking before him

“I have to go,” Chrom says, his voice still hoarse. “I must.”

And Frederick holds no argument against it.

Chrom indeed was at the front of the Ylissean army, and who did he see but the love of his life, ruthlessly and viciously cutting down civilians and soldiers alike.

“______….” he whispers, and though across the entire battlefield, you hear it and look at him.

“Chrom…” you’re back to your senses but for a brief moment, and smile sadly. It’s all it takes for him to run recklessly to you. You motion for him to stay away but he once again hugs you close.

“You’re okay...you’re okay…” he sniffles and kisses your head, and the Grima in you weakens.

“Chrom..you have to kill me...you have to kill me…” you repeat it over and over but he shakes his head, ever defiant. “Chrom I’ve killed so many people...thousands and thousands…”

“You’ll come back to us. I know it.”

“You don’t understand I—nngh!” You clutch your head as Grima regain controls over you. In your mind Grima tells you that they’ll use your kindness against you. And resumes acting as though nothing has happened. Plegian troops are withdrawn, and for months, everything goes back to normal. The rowdy Ylissean army go back to healing the earth, though few still trust you.

The court asks Chrom to reconsider, but he insists that you’re fine. That you’re back. Deep within you you beg him to let you go. But he doesn’t.

Soon you are with child for the second time in your life, and after a long nine months, you give birth. A child with hair black as coal, perfect to inherit your power. You name him Morgan, and he’s a bright child with a dark future ahead of him.

“He looks just like you,” Chrom says with such fatherly pride that a sharp pang of pain pierces through even Grima. He kisses your cheek and cards through your hair. “You recovered much faster this time.”

You smile innocently at him. “Indeed...perhaps battle has hardened me.”

He strokes your hair a few more times until an interruption. “Milord...several of our advisors have fallen—it is advised we relocate at once.”

“Wh-what?” He flashes you a worried look, and stands protectively over Morgan. “How is that possible? It shouldn’t be…”

“We don’t know. But for the children’s sake and yours...we must move, now.”

Chrom nods once. “Understood.”

You two move from fortress to fortress, yet murders continue happening over weeks to come. They’re quiets enough that no investigation turns up results. Your prior friends start becoming victims, and you play the innocent as always.

Chrom’s distress forces him to leave your side and investigate, yet never does he think once that you’re pulling the strings. He’s warned time and time again by Frederick and his closest friends...and even Lissa. But he won’t listen

Frederick is left to guard you. He’s distant from you once more, and it is after many moons that he asks you the question you know has been on his mind since your reappearance. “Who is it...that lives inside you?”

“You should already know,” you say in a chilling voice that gives him only a few moments of earning. You plunge lightning into his chest but he’s able to avoid the fatal blow.

He considers retaliating but he runs, no doubt to look after the children. “Lissa!” you hear a faint cry and smirk, ear to ear. You hear your name being called from behind and smirk wider. The jig is up.

“______...no...Grima. You’ve…”

“Your ______ had never returned. It was me, all along.”

“I—I can’t deny it.”

“This place will crumble soon, Chrom. Your trust will be the end of you.” With a sneer, it goes as predicted. The entire fortress starts shaking with the infiltration of Risen.

“The...the children!”

“Yes?” The children...The you that’s been buried deep forces itself out and you gasp—unfamiliar with your own body after all this time. “We have to get them out! We have to hurry!” You run to the door when Chrom stops you.

“You’re...you’re not…”

“I’m...you’re right. Im pretending again….” you say, in hopes that he’ll kill you and end it all. He can save your children...your children...your darlings that you’ve been unable to love even though they’ve been in front of your eyes this whole time. “Take them and run while you can..”

“I...this...this time it’s really you...right?” for the first time, does he look at you with mistrust.

“There’s no time...you should run.”

He closes his eyes and does as you say...you remain standing there alone. You start rummaging around immediately for a dagger to put an end to it. “Blast…” you curse, unable to find anything. You venture down into the halls where you see the Risen are currently weak and being slain down. Good...good…

Chrom has the children escorted to safety, and Lissa and Frederick to medical attention. The Risen are powerless without Grima and are dead in an instant. All that’s left is to…

Your thoughts are interrupted when you see a pillar come crumbling towards you. Just as you step towards it, a force like a moving mountain hurls into you.

It’s not soon enough. You and Chrom lie under heavy rubble together, his body shielding yours to the end. Metal pierces his chest and yours...in the end this is your fate isn’t it. “Chrom...you idiot. Why would you save me?”

“You’re my love to the end. No matter if you betrayed me...no matter what you do...Your body is still the one I love...and the one I love in your body. I wouldn’t choose to die any other way…”

“Even if all I’ve done is cause death...and destruction?” You wipe his tears away, realizing that you’re sobbing yourself. “Even if all I’ve done is cause you pain?”

“No matter what...my biggest regret will always be that I couldn’t save you. Will you forgive me, ______?” 

“Shh...I’m mad that you kept me alive but...kiss me one last time…”

“If that’s the price of forgiveness,” he jokes and kisses you with all the warmth that he has. Your hands find each other, and your fingers intertwine together until you both go limp, putting an end to this tragedy once and for all.

[qqueenofhades]

I know you've professed your love for Richard I and I've clicked on your tags of past postings but many of the links back are now broken. I always think of the line from the '95 Sense & Sensibility movie - Margaret is reeling of the kings of England "Good King Richard, Bad King John" While I know he led crusades and performed admirably in battle; considering how little time he spent there before and during his reign, was he, in fact a "good king" for England and its people?

(If you want to find my old Richard posts. my tag is here. Heh.)

Honestly, one of the things I love best about Richard is that he was so complicated. It is very, very rare to find a historical figure conveyed to us so vividly through the limited and biased nature of primary sources, and when you read them, you can understand why his contemporaries found him so striking and controversial (as he still is today, obviously) and generally larger than life. As I said in my answer to the John ask, the Plantagenets were almost all incredibly talented, dynamic, colorful, driven people, and they were likewise almost always just as flawed as they were gifted. That is rich stuff for both a historian and a novelist to explore (hence why they’ve become such popular subject) and yet it often gets flattened and used to paint a simplistic black-and-white portrait. I love Richard because there is so much depth and interest and complexity that comes through just in terms of what people wrote about him, and which must have been so much more in what he was like in real life (if definitely not pleasant at times, especially if you were on his bad side).

As for the basic question of whether Richard was a good king for England, it is inextricably tied up with his status as a crusader. In the nineteenth century, when the British Empire was at its height and going overseas and colonizing the “savages” was cool, Richard was treated as the perfect idealized king, pinnacle of chivalry and nineteenth-century Victorian values, etc. It was not an accurate picture of him, and nor was the twentieth-century reaction to that image, which became about pointing at the crusades as the epitome of fanatical religious violence (which we supposedly don’t do anymore, to which I say HA and also LOL) and in turn framing Richard as the embodiment of that mindset, he was unworthy of his heroic status, Look How Bad He Actually Was, we are smarter than ye olde dumb people now, etc etc. I have never seen any medieval figure attract the same kind of lightning-rod controversy that Richard does, and so much made of his personal flaws – which were not terribly different from that of any king of the period, and in some places much more admirable. It is also absolutely tied to the debate around his sexuality, and good old-fashioned Straight Historian homophobia. So you have this project of people trying to deconstruct Richard’s heroic image, while insisting that our violence against Muslims is super different from the crusading era’s violence against Muslims, while also insisting (as I’ve written about) that either Richard was a good king because he was straight, or a bad king because he was gay. So yes.

The comparison is especially interesting because the fall of Jerusalem to Saladin and his forces in October 1187 was twelfth century Western Europe’s 9/11. It was that shocking and marked that much of an upheaval of/violation of the homeland. The Christian kingdom of Jerusalem had been established after the successful (and extremely bloody) capture of the city in 1099, at the end of the First Crusade. To have it fall back to the Muslims (especially after the West had ignored the Frankish settlers’ calls for help for decades, and then were shocked when the kingdom was conquered, kind of like how we repeatedly ignored intelligence warnings about 9/11 and then were shocked when it happened) was a watershed moment for medieval Christendom. George W. Bush had something like 90%-95% public support for bombing Afghanistan after 9/11; support for the Third Crusade, which was called as a direct result of Jerusalem’s fall, was at similar levels. 

Richard going on crusade soon after he was crowned is framed as him haring off on some personal religious vendetta and leaving England behind (often from English-nationalist historians whose view on Richard’s success or failure focus very myopically on England), but the fact was, the entire leadership of Western Europe was going on crusade – Richard, Philip II of France, most of the French territorial lords, the Italian city-states, Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, etc. Richard’s father, Henry II, had sworn a crusade vow before his death (although it was doubtful he ever intended to go). This was not a thing which anyone was opting out of, and was part of the entire accepted paradigm of political leadership (similarly, one might remark, to the Western world banding together for the “war on terror.”) England WANTED Richard to go on crusade, and they remained, on the whole, incredibly supportive of him while he was away, especially while John and Philip II (who came in for all kinds of criticism for leaving the crusade early) were making trouble. Richard was doing the right thing, in their view, by going on this expedition, and that was what they wanted their king to be doing.

Of course, Richard’s capture by Henry Hohenstaufen on the way home from the Holy Land, and subsequent very expensive ransom, is pointed to as another example of Richard “costing England.” (Funnily, the people who gripe about this don’t often discuss that Louis IX of France was captured TWICE on his crusades and cost his kingdom even more money to free him – again, this becomes something that somehow only Richard did wrong.) Richard also had to recapture the territory that Philip II had pilfered while he was away, and since those two had an extremely personal rivalry, this became an ongoing war. Again – all medieval kings, including literally every king of England through the Hanovers, were engaged in various land maneuvering and attempts to defend or expand their territory, but this again becomes only Richard’s fault. 

It is true that Richard does not seem to have been terribly personally fond of England (and likewise, the English nationalist historians clutch their pearls over this, because not liking England is a terrible crime in their eyes) but there is no indication that he treated it differently or ignored it altogether. He was very lucky to have his mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, who was an incredibly shrewd political operator, and played a major role in governance especially while he was away. But the fact is, Richard wasn’t in England during the latter half of his reign because England didn’t need him there. He had set up the advisory council that more or less managed to run the place, and mostly counted on England to provide him money to fund his defense of his French lands against Philip. England did this fairly well, if not without several inventive stunts on Richard’s part, so that was its overall use. Richard’s premier title was obviously king of England; all his French territories were technically subordinate to Philip, which was a constant sticking point, so England was the association and the rank that was the most important to be emphasized. And since the one constant throughout all of English history has been hating the French, if Richard was sitting on his ass at home while the French were trying to steal his stuff, this would not have made him at all popular. Indeed, one of the major criticisms of John was that he could not defend the English crown’s incredibly important, wealthy, and prestigious French territories as well as Richard had, and ended up losing nearly all of them to Philip. 

This ties into the fact that successful medieval kingship had something of a recognizable political/diplomatic/statecraft element to it, especially in the later medieval era, but was still first and foremost about being a soldier, defending territory, and defeating enemies. You could disqualify someone from the throne by blinding them so they couldn’t fight or lead armies, as in fact happened fairly often (especially among the Byzantines). Richard, whatever else he was, was a hella good soldier and strategist who beat nearly everyone who tried to match wits with him, and this was what made John and Jane Q. Medieval Public think, hey this guy is a good king. Richard remained popular in his own day, by and large, because of his prestige as a crusader and his talent on the battlefield. His financial exactions, to be sure, were not as popular, but no tax, ever, in the history of anywhere has been appreciated by the public. So regardless of whether we look at his rule and say that he was a good or bad king, England at the time did not view him any more unfavorably than any of their other rulers, and oftentimes much more favorably (and certainly more than John).

Frankly, I love Richard because of that color and vibrance and talent and controversy and strengths and flaws that are so easily visible around him. He was a crusader who approached the project from a thoroughly pragmatic, rather than religious, perspective (which ended up biting him in the ass). He consistently punished those responsible for riots against the Jews, which were a major and unfortunate part of crusading fever, and in 1194 made a law protecting them, which literally nobody else in Europe was doing. He went to the Holy Land as part of the twelfth-century War on Terror and then announced he liked the Muslims better than his scheming and self-serving Christian allies. He and Saladin admired the hell out of each other, he called Saladin’s brother al-Adil (known as Saif al-Din or Saphadin) “my brother and my friend,” he cultivated numerous high-level Muslim diplomatic contacts, including al-Mashtuq, a commander of Saladin’s whom he had once held as a prisoner, and which ended up with al-Mashtuq arguing on Richard’s behalf during treaty negotiations. He was a six-foot-four (or thereabouts) redhead who swore like a sailor; he would have been literally larger than life when the average guy was five-foot-eight. He had an absolutely wicked sense of black humor. He was queer (gay or bisexual, and you can fight me on this.) He was clever and flawed and violent and educated (he spoke at least three languages and probably more, and wrote songs and poetry) and nobody who met him EVER forgot the experience. As I said, he comes through in the primary sources in a way that very few figures ever do, and we get such a clear and compelling picture of him as a result.

I have actually applied to give a paper at next year’s International Medieval Congress about Richard, and how modern treatments of him and his personal character (especially said queerness) is directly tied to our memory of the crusades, our institutionalized homophobia and view of crusading masculinities, our discomfort with the project of a “war on terror” against the Muslims in various ways, and our determination to insist that We’re Not Like Those There Fanatics Back Then In Ye Olde Dark Ages. The Straight Historians and the academy in general have done all kinds of things with him that they haven’t with other kings, and while in one sense it’s to be expected with someone whose legend has acquired such stature, in another it really needs to be looked at and challenged, and that is what I have become so interested in doing.

[captaincolinodonoghue]

Don’t Fall Asleep, Jerk

Pairing - King George III x John Adams

Summary -  “A retelling of the day John Adams spoke with King George, with Georgie just trying to stay awake while listening to Adams talk.” from a lil old Nonny once more X3

Summary - Thinking that if he goes to the King, John would get some advice on what he should do, now being President. As he talks about his problems and such, George ends up falling asleep. John wakes him up only for George to fall off his seat. Because of this, the two started to chat instead.

“And so, that happens!!” John complained, pacing around the room. “Really, I don’t know what to do now!”

“Okay, yeah, sure, yes indeed…” George mumbled, his legs atop his desk, his arm supporting his head as he tried to stay awake. “…Yeah…”

“Come on, at least help me out, you’re the King!!”

“No, no, yeah… Wait, oh yeah, yes…”

“Any advice to give?”

“Hmm… Mm-hmm… Yes, no.”

“You’re not listening, aren’t you?”

“No, I am.”

He snored as his eyelids began to droop.

“I’m sorry about this, but I have too.” John groaned, shaking him awake. “HEY, KING GEORGE WILLIAM FREDERICK THE THIRD, WAKE UP, ITS AFTERNOON ALREADY!!!”

George yelped and fell off his seat, instantly waking up.

“Hey!!” He scoffed, his crown covering his eyes. “What was that for?!”

John snickered at George’s appearance and giggled in his hands.

George pushed his crown back up slowly, staring at John giggling.

He chuckled softly and smiled at this. “You idiot, it isn’t funny.”

“It kind of is, seeing you in such a position.” John replied with a soft giggle.

“Me on the floor with my clothes a mess, my crown and wig on the floor, and my hair being a complete mess isn’t funny.” He laughed.

“Well, it’s not every day you see the King of England like this, it’s worth it!”

“You’re welcome then, John Adams.”

George laughed and grabbed his crown as he stood up, dusting it slightly.

John stared at his shimmering, golden crown and gulped quietly.

The King smiled a bit and put it on John with a light chuckle.

“It actually looks good on you.” He smiled at the man, adjusting the crown.

“H-Hey…” John said shyly, taking it off. “I-I can’t wear such a thing, your Majesty…”

“Oh, yes you can!” He scoffed with a smile. “Because I let you.”

He put the crown back on John’s head and smiled, fixing that small fringe on his face.

“There we go.” He laughed softly, backing up a bit and bowed. “Your Majesty~”

John felt his cheeks heat up slightly as he looked away. “Sh-Shut up…!”

George laughed and shook his head. “No, I won’t! At least admire that badass crown on your head, Adams!”

“Its heavy!!” John huffed, finding an excuse to get it off.

Even though he wants it off, he actually likes it, having the crown on his head.

It somehow gives him hope or something, he wasn’t so sure why.

“Hey, I’m just curious,” he said, “but, have you ever snuck out the castle?”

“Of course, I have.” George scoffed with a proud smile plastered on his face. “All I do is just remove the wig and crown, mess up my hair, and get those dirty clothes I keep to blend in the crowd.”

“Wow.” John chuckled. “Does it work?”

“It actually does, I’m surprised!”

“No one recognizes you?”

“Through the dirty clothes and messed up hair? No one does!”

Forgetting about the past topic they were discussing about, the two began to chat, laughing every now and then.

John set the crown back down on George’s head, adjusting its position too. “There, my head hurts now. I’m surprised you’re not complaining.”

“Who said anything about not complaining?” George chuckled lightly. “I complain every now and then, though I don’t say anything.”

He sat back down on his seat and sighed a bit.

“Technically, I just want to get out and forget about being a King.” He sighed. “I just want to love someone and wish they love me back, I just want… Freedom from all this… Its tiring.”

“Well… Why can’t you just escape?” John asked.

“Even if I did, the guards would run after me. That’s why you’re lucky. You’re president now, and yet soon enough you won’t be one. Me? I’m a King, I’ll leave soon enough, if I have an heir. Yet I don’t.”

John nodded and sat on his desk. “But hey, you have lots of stuff that other people don’t have. That’s considered lucky!”

“Look, you don’t ask to be born, do you?” He continued, pointing at him. “No one asks to be born because they’re brought into this world by chance. You were born in a castle, others are born in a simple house. You’re lucky, your Majesty!”

George’s eyebrows rose slightly at the words he had said to his face, yet smiled softly.

“That-That’s true.” He chuckled. “I guess I am rather lucky…”

“You may not have enough freedom to make you happy, but you’re the King!” John grinned. “You can tell them you want to go out because you want to. The guards aren’t in charge of the King, are they?”

“That’s true too. Why didn’t I think of that?” George laughed in amusement. “Christ, you’re giving me better advice than I have ever given to anyone.”

John laughed at this, a soft blush on his face. “Well, I try every now and then~”

“Well, here’s my advice on what you should do because of those problems of yours in… America.” George coughed with a tiny smile.

“What is it?”

“First off, at least have some manners, I suppose. At this very moment you’re talking to me, the King of England, of course, you need respect to someone higher than you. However, in America, you’re the President—I think that’s what that is—and you’re higher than anyone else. But still, you should at least respect the people.”

“What’s with that sour tone in Ame—”

“Eh, shush, shush, shush! I’m not yet done!”

“Okay then.”

“Second, there are sometimes where you have to be yourself. People wouldn’t want a strict ruler with strict rules. Don’t listen to what some people say because its “for the best”. You’re the boss of them, it’s not the other way around.”

“Wow, this is really long…”

“You asked for advice a few minutes ago, shush your mouth.”

“Yes, your Majesty.”

“And third… Don’t let anything bad happen. The past two I said will either lead to something bad or good. It depends on what you do. But really? All of these advices I’m giving… It’s what I should’ve done way before instead of letting everyone pressure me and let whatever they what happen.”

“What do you mean? On that last part…”

“I could’ve been a good king if I didn’t listen to what people said and became vulnerable… The Revolutionary War happened because some said it’d be good to have it happen because of “reasons”, they said.”

“O-Oh… R-Really…?”

“I wouldn’t have this much hate and be feared so much if I wasn’t so damn vulnerable.”

He scowled and balled up his fists tightly.

John gulped nervously, afraid of George’s sudden change of attitude.

“A-Are you okay…?” He asked softly, moving a bit closer to him and placed a hand on the Brit’s shoulder.

George flinched at the sudden contact and turned to him, his stern expression surprising him.

He gasped and slightly jumped in surprise, gulping quietly.

George saw the slight fear in John’s eyes, his face softening, noticing he scared someone once more.

“N-No, I’m-I’m sorry…!” He gasped, backing away from him. “I-I didn’t mean too...”

“It’s fine!” John said softly. “Everything’s stressful, I understand… It’s not your fault.”

He looked up at George and smiled a bit. “Everyone has their stressful moments, It’s okay.”

The King gulped and nodded. “O-Okay, whatever you say…”

“But hey, those advices will sure come in handy.” John added with an even bigger smile.

George chuckled softly and shrugged. “You never know! Just don’t end up like me.”

“Y-Yeah, I’ll try.” John nodded.

George glanced at the grandfather clock near his desk and scoffed. “Hm.”

“What is it?” John asked, tilting his head to the side.

“Don’t you have a ship to get on in a while?”

“Uhh… Yeah?”

“Well, you might as well run out of this castle and get a ride to go to the docks.”

“Wait, what…?”

“You only have a few minutes until your ship leaves the docks, Adams. Look at the time, young man!”

John glanced at the grandfather clock and his jaw dropped.

“Oh, hell…!” He yelled, jumping in surprise. “Uhm, I-I-I gotta go!!”

“Go on ahead.” George laughed softly, waving his hand.

He nodded and ran to the doors, opening them.

Before running out, he glanced at George one last time.

“By the way,” he said. “The next time we talk or have a chat?”

“Yeah?” George asked, raising a brow.

“Don’t fall asleep, jerk.” He scoffed with a smile before running off.

George stared at the doorway with a confused expression before laughing loudly, his laugh echoing all around his room.

“Jesus Christ, this really is fun.” He laughed softly.

[reduxroyal]

What are you thoughts on fire emblem heroes so far? And who's on your team?

lol okay buckle the fuckle in kids this is gonna be a ride

(also thank you for this ask and I’m sorry you’re about to get way more info than you probably wanted)

We’ll start with the short answer, so people who aren’t really here for a fucking Fire Emblem history lesson can dip:

Heroes is a fun little game that is honestly a good test to see if you’d like proper titles because the mechanics are identical. They use smaller versions of the original maps, and even pull a lot of the classic music. It’s fun, it works, and there are some nice nods to the older games. My team is Lazlow, Tiki, Niles, and Frederick, all four star or below because the gotcha gods hate me.

Here’s the long answer. Like, really long answer.

Fire Emblem is, historically, not what we’d call a raging success in the US. The first six titles were Japan-exclusive. So from 1990 until 2003, nobody in the US really knew or cared about Fire Emblem because there were no fuckin games for them to play. So what happened to change that?

Melee. Melee happened.

Marth and Roy (for whatever fucking reason I still don’t know why) were on the roster of the 2001 fighter Super Smash Bros. Melee and boy howdy were they popular. You may remember that all of their voice lines were in Japanese, and that’s because they literally didn’t have English voice actors, because there were no English Fire Emblem titles. To be fair FE didn’t use cutscenes at that point so there were probably no voice actors period but like whatever.

So Roy and Marth become like, overnight sensations, and that coupled with the success of Intelligent System’s other tactical RPG, Advance Wars, prods Nintendo to give it a shot and release Blazing Blade internationally for the GBA in 2003. Blazing Blade is the story of Eliwood, Roy’s father, as well as Lyn and Hector, two other big names in FE lore.

But Blazing Blade only sells so-so. In fact, over the next eleven years, Fire Emblem hits a slump, both in Japan and abroad. Titles like Sacred Stones (the first video game I ever played) Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn (why would you put a tactical RPG on anything other than a handheld literally why why why it makes no sense omfg) and Shadow Dragon (which is a rehash of the first game, Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light) all do pretty mediocre.

So now the year is like 2010-ish and FE’s not picking up it’s lost revenue or interest, so Intelligent Systems starts planning what is essentially going to be the franchise’s finale, and that’s Fire Emblem Awakening. Intelligent Systems pulls out all the fuckin stops to make the best game they possibly can so it will be a proper last hurrah. If Awakening didn’t sell well, Fire Emblem was going to be shelved forever.

Awakening, of course, due to many things like good advertising, the right platform, a really fucking solid game with cool new mechanics, likeable characters, a decent plot, and fucking gorgeous cutscenes, becomes the best-selling game in Fire Emblem’s twenty-three year history. Which leads to the somewhat awkward question of what the fuck do you do when the thing that was supposed to be your franchise’s finale becomes the most popular installment of the whole goddamn series?

Well, if you’re Nintendo, you try to recreate it.

That’s what Fates is: a recreation. They (understandably) want to make that magic happen again. So they put together the same artists, a lot of the same voice actors, and everyone’s favorite marriage-to-child mechanic (that just does not make sense in Fates okay I’m sorry I love it and I’m here for it but we all need to agree that it just doesn’t make sense) and Fates does pretty well. Fire Emblem’s back in business.

But you’re left in this curious situation where more than half of your fanbase is only familiar with two out of fourteen titles, so it’s hard to decide where to go. Awakening and Fates are not traditional Fire Emblem games. They are so very, very different in so many ways. The pace of the games, the length of the games, the unit-recruiting process, roster size, the way Support works, even the buying and selling and acquisition of weapons like…there’s just this huge gap. How do you bridge it?

A…mobile game, I guess?

Which like don’t get me wrong, Heroes’ shortcomings have nothing to do with its platform. Like I said before: it’s cute and it’s competent. My issue lies more in the marketing of the game.

I’m sure we all remember the polls that went on to decide which Fire Emblem greats were going to be playable characters in the game, right? And you could pick anyone. Literally anyone. It didn’t matter if they were only apart of your roster for a map and a half. It didn’t matter if they were an enemy unit. It didn’t matter if they were some like, random archer you got in the third chapter so you could learn about ranged attacks. You could vote for any character from any Fire Emblem game, period.

Except, that means it’s essentially boiling down to a popularity contest between twelve practically unknown or rarely known Fire Emblem titles and the two newest, best-selling, fan favorites. Which isn’t upsetting so much as it is, like, dumb? Like of course the majority of people are gonna vote for Chrom and Camilla, that’s what they know. One of the best Fire Emblem characters (in my opinion) is Prince Innes, from Sacred Stones. He has a hilariously arrogant attitude, is bold and brash, and a sick fucking sniper who constantly insists he should be on the front lines and not in the back of the party with the rest of the ranged attackers.

Innes, of course, didn’t make the list. Because ten out of the chosen twenty male heroes were from Awakening or Fates (that ratio is 13:20 for the ladies if you were curious) So this game that was intended to like, I don’t even know, revive interest in old games or at least make them relevant, ends up not really doing that at all. Especially because out of the first eight chapters (that’s as far as I’ve gotten) four of ‘em explore the worlds of Awakening and Fates.

What about Path of Radiance? What about Sacred Stones? What about literally anything besides the last two games in the franchise because it’s not that I don’t like those games, it’s that you promised me a game that embraced all of Fire Emblem, and this ain’t it. Also you went to the trouble of giving Eirika official art and she’s not even a character you can draw what the actual fuck is she in this game or nah

BASICALLY (we’re almost done you almost made it) I think it will be interesting to see how Fire Emblem: Echoes plays out. Echoes is a remake of Fire Emblem Gaiden, a 1992 Japan-only exclusive that I, personally, know nothing about, but can tell you with relative confidence that it’s not like Awakening or Fates because nothing in FE is like Awakening or Fates. It’s coming out in May of this year and like…I’m really curious to see how the “newer” (and by the way newer does not mean in any way that you’re like less of a fan. I don’t care if the only Fire Emblem game you’ve played is Awakening, I’m just fucking glad you’re playing Fire Emblem, let’s be friends) fans will like it. The official description for it is: “Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia recreates classic Fire Emblem gameplay with a modern twist, mixing in exploration of dungeons crawling with enemies.”

I have never played a FE title that had a dungeon of any kind, unless you count the Tower of Valni from Sacred Stones. I don’t even know what that means in the terms of a tactical RPG but like, I guess we’ll see. 

tl;dr I like Fire Emblem a whole lot and will always be bitter over Eirika’s bullshit outfit in Awakening’s DLC

Thanks for reading!

BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE

Hi! I’m back again! And at this point lots of things have changed in regards to this post! Most notably: Heroes has added lots of older Fire Emblem characters to the game (including Innes which makes my earlier complaint look really dumb) and Echoes came out and it’s genuinely one of the best games I’ve ever played, and easily one of the best games in FE’s franchise.

Here’s the thing that past me writing this post didn’t get: newer fans are just as invested as old fans, they just don’t have as much to be invested in yet. I can prattle on and on about Sacred Stones and Binding Blade and Shadow Dragon and all the titles I’ve played, but newer players (under-fucking-standably) aren’t going to go back and play games with bad graphics from the late 90′s and early 00′s, so they just hang out with the titles they have played, which for some people, is just Awakening, or just Fates.

Echoes was universally adored by the fanbase. There were a couple times I saw comments like “well, where’s the avatar unit?” or “why can’t I marry other units and have kids?” and like, I wanted to be mad, because those aren’t staples of Fire Emblem, but if anything it’s Nintendo’s fault for making two games back-to-back that promoted the hell out of those features. How could someone who only played Awakening and Fates (which is the majority of this game’s base) know any differently?

And Heroes has really done well with bringing in more characters from other games. Every single game in the franchise (even fucking Tharcia 776) is represented by at least two characters, and they’re always adding more. I think they’re genuinely doing the best they can to please everyone, and the only people throwing a fit are "older” fans who think they deserve more because, what? They’ve put more time in? They’ve somehow “earned” it?

Nintendo is a business, and businesses rely on popularity to fucking succeed. That’s just how it works. Like it or not, the realistic faces of this franchise are characters like Lucina, Ryoma, Corrin, Camilla, and Robin. That’s just how it works. Characters like Math and Lyn will always endue because they’ve been built up as legends, but now there’s so many new characters, and so many new fans, so of course things have to change and the attention has to shift.

And new fans are picking up the old characters just as much!! Characters that haven’t gotten fanart in a fuckin decade are suddenly getting a bunch of attention, because a new fan pulled them in Heroes, didn’t know who they were but liked their design, and went to town.

tl;dr - you aren’t more important just because you’ve “been a fan” longer, it makes complete sense that Nintendo would shift the focus to games like Awakening and Fates, and if you’re waiting for a certain character to show up in Heroes give it some time.

That’s all for real this time.

Also my new team (if anyone cares) is Innes, Leo, Azura, and Raven. I don’t want to talk about how much money I spent trying to gotcha twelve year-old video game characters.

I, uh, I just really like Fire Emblem.

also for all the Path of Raidance and Radiant Dawn fans who sent me asks saying those games were the highest-selling games for their consoles: you’re wrong, and here are the fucking receipts

[francohoe-blog]

Trust || Drabble

ooc ;; And here it is -- The drabble that inspired this drawing that I made on my art blog! I was literally on my way home from school when this conversation between them popped into my head lmao. I hope you guys enjoy my take on Wilhelmine and Hans~!

“I want you to stay away from him,”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Did you not hear me properly – I said that I wanted you to stay away from my brother!”

Furious blues go on to meet started gray ones ; hands curling into white knuckled fists at her sides. Wilhelmine didn’t fancy herself as the type to lose her temper so easily, especially not she was so often a victim of her father’s unstable temperament,  and there were very few things that could illicit the princess’ open display of frustration – Concern for her brother’s safety being one of the top things on that list. Truth be told, she never warmed up to the idea of Frederick being friends with the young lieutenant standing before her now, but she learned to tolerate Hans; if only to make her beloved sibling happy. But if her brother’s recent grumblings about attempting to flee the country were any indication of the bad influence his ‘friends’ were having on him, then her suspicions were right all along. And if he wasn’t going to cut them off ---

             --- Then for his own good, by hell or high water, she will.

“I… I am sorry, Your Highness, but I truly do not understand where this is coming from!” Hans interjected, confusion and surprise lacing his tone as he spoke. He had no idea what to expect when he was suddenly summoned to the princess’ quarters; but this kind of conversation was definitely not one of them, “Have I somehow stepped out of line? Did I do something to displease you--?”

“You know EXACTLY what you did, lieutenant – Do not play me for a fool!” Wilhelmine briskly turned around, taking quick steps until she was only a couple inches away from Hans; jabbing a finger at his chest for added emphasis, “I know of all the reckless ideas you’ve placed in my brother’s head! I love my little Fritz and I would give my life to make sure he’s nothing but happy, but he can be impulsive enough on his own – He certainly doesn’t need the likes of you to get his hopes up over nothing!”

Hans felt his heart lodge itself in his throat at the accusation and he was quite sure his face flushed a good two shades paler too. Was it really so obvious that he and the prince liked each other more than mere friends should? His brain was scrambling for any sort of an excuse – Something to reassure the princess that whatever she thought was going on between him and her brother wasn’t really so ( no matter how much of a lie that would be ).

“Your Highness I…” A pause, “Whatever you believe is happening between the Prince Royal and I… It’s – It’s not what you think—“

“You do not have the slightest idea what the implications of your actions will be, do you!?” Despite Katte’s pleas, Wilhelmine kept on with her tirade, furiously gesturing with her hands as she spoke, “If word of this gets passed on to the wrong ears, it could have dire consequences for my dearest brother! Father will be even more furious with him and it will be all YOUR FAULT!”

Surprise quickly turned into a frown on the soldier’s face, looking like he was ready to stand up for himself for the first time since he stepped into the room, “Forgive me if what I am to say is out of line, Your Highness – But I resent the implication that I would do anything to purposefully cause His Highness to come to any sort of harm,” Hans said firmly, folding his hands behind his back as he straightened his posture up, “I understand your concern and he is most fortunate to have a sister who looks out for his best interests, but please believe me when I say that I want nothing but the best for him as well. The prince – No, Frederic is the most charming and intelligent young man I’ve ever met; I consider him to be one of my dearest friends. I would NEVER dream of doing anything that would put him in harm’s way – I’d sooner give my own life before I let such an unthinkable thing happen!”

“Then why must you encourage him to run away!?” Wilhelmine’s voice rose, cracking near the end from the weight of emotion hidden in those words. Realizing that she may have spoken a bit too loud, the princess shot a cautious glance towards the closed door, lowering her tone when she spoke next, “If all that you say is true, then why would you entertain him with plans to run off and commit an act of treason!? Do you know what they punish traitors with, lieutenant? DEATH!”

A lull of silence fell over the room as soon as the final word left Wilhelmine’s lips – Making the air in the room much heavier to breathe. Just when Hans felt like he was getting the hang of the situation, he was thrown for a loop yet again, “T-Treason…?” he mouthed out, the damning word heavy on his lips.

“Yes, treason. That’s what they charge people who attempt to flee their country with!” Wilhelmine spat back, although the genuinely confused look on Katte’s face was making her stomach churn with unease, “What else did you think I was accusing you of!?”

“I... I thought...” Hans sputtered out, trying hard to swallow back the lump in his throat. On one hand, he was thankful that Wilhemine wasn’t going to confront him about his relationship with her brother; but on the other hand, he wasn’t so sure if being accused of treason was any better. “Mon Dieu, I did not think he was actually being serious…” He muttered, running a hand through his hair, his face the very picture of exasperation, “I just… I – I never encouraged him to run away, I swear on my life!” He shook his head, beginning to pace back and forth only to stop so he could address his princess once more, “He did mention it to me a couple of times and each time I tried to warn him to be careful about his words lest they fall on the wrong ears! I always thought that he was simply being sarcastic!”

The princess had taken to chewing on the inside of her lip now, picking at the delicate skin until she tasted blood on her tongue ; her fingers tying themselves into nervous knots from where they rested in front of her skirts. “You mean…” She gulped, “… You mean to say that that you played no part in this?”

“I did not know that he was being serious!” Katte shot back, “But I would never encourage Frederic to do something so reckless – Especially not when I am aware of what kind of punishment might await him should his attempt fail!”

Another lull settled between the two, the gravity of the situation dawning on them. Both of them knew of the turbulent relationship between the current monarch and his errant heir ; and perhaps even worse was that they both knew that Prince Frederick was perfectly capable and desperate enough to attempt something that might cost him his very life if it meant having a shot at freedom. Guilt was chewing on Wilhelmine’s gut, ashamed that she was willing to pin the blame onto the lieutenant so quickly that for a moment she had no choice but to pin her gaze to the ground, unable to meet his eyes.

“Who else knows…?” She finally spoke again, “Who else has my brother spoken to about this?”

“I… I’m not too certain,” Hans admitted tentatively, wishing that he had a better answer to give the worried sister, “Although if it’s any comfort for you, Your Highness, I seldom hear him speak about it when we’re in the company of others. It is only in mine and Peter’s company that he dares to express such sentiments out loud,”

Wilhelmine nodded slowly to show her understanding ; her mind already busy conjuring up every single possible outcome of this situation – From the best case scenario right down to the absolute worst, “Then you must make certain that it stays that way,” The princess spoke firmly, finally lifting her gaze to meet the lieutenant’s once more, clasping her hands together tightly, “You must try to stop him from taking these thoughts of leaving the country too seriously before he goes too far and makes them a reality--!”

“Me? But I had thought you wanted me to---“

“That was before I knew that you were not behind my brother’s brash actions,” Wilhelmine said before taking in a deep breath and letting it out as a long sigh, “I will be frank with you, Lieutenant von Katte,” She continued, keeping her voice at a lower level than it was prior, “I was never fond of you growing close to Fritz,”

Gray eyes narrowed slightly at the admission, but Hans would remain silent, waiting for her to finish her thought, “I always thought you had no business being so intimate with the prince royal, but I am no fool – My brother trusts very few people and there are even fewer that he will readily take advice from and you are obviously one of them,”

There’s bitterness in Wilhelmine’s voice, but nearly all of it vanished in favour of adopting a more pleading tone of voice. She was a princess and she most certainly did not have to beg anyone for anything – But for her brother’s sake, she would learn to swallow her pride, no matter how hard that might be, “So I must ask... Can I trust you, lieutenant?” She asked directly, “Will you swear to do everything in your power to keep Fritz from attempting anything that might put him in danger? Can I trust you to keep my brother safe?”

There was silence yet again as the pair held each other’s gaze ; a flurry of thoughts and mixed emotions running rampant in Katte’s mind. Can he be trusted? Without a doubt, he knew that in his very heart, he wanted the same thing that Wilhelmine did – To ensure the happiness of the one person that they both held so dear. But while he understood her concern and knew that the risks of fleeing the country probably outweighed the benefits; could he really bear to stand idly by knowing that his beloved was being treated so horribly? Would he be able to deny Frederick should he ever ask him to help him with his attempt to escape?

Hans could feel uncertainty bubbling up his throat, but with a short huff, he forced it all back. This was for the best – He had to at least try to steer the prince away from something he might regret, “As long as I am with that beloved prince---” He finally spoke, hoping that the princess would hear the sincerity in his voice, “---I shall prevent him from executing his designs. You have my word, Your Highness,”

Lifting one hand to place over his heart, the soldier then bowed his head to seal his promise. Wilhelmine watched the noble gesture for a moment before she loosened the tight grip she had on her own hands, relief washing over her for the first time since this conversation started. Ever since that fateful night when she had a conversation with her brother after he brought up his musings about escaping, not a single day passed when she didn’t fear that he would put his plans into action and jeopardize his own safety in the process. She still didn’t trust Hans fully, but it felt better to know that there was at least one other person out there who genuinely cared for her brother’s well being.

“Good,” Her reply came with a short nod of the head, shoulders slumping as the rest of the nervous tension left her body, “That was… That was all I wanted to discuss with you, lieutenant,” She extended a hand towards him, “Thank you for your time,”

“You are most welcome, Your Highness,” Taking the hand offered to him, Hans bent down and planted a polite kiss on it; knowing that she was thanking him for more than just his time. Satisfied, Wilhelmine brought her hand back to herself before crossing over to the coffee table in the middle of the room and gingerly picked up the book that sat on top.

“You may be dismissed,” She said as she flicked through the pages, only to stop as soon as she caught a glimpse of him bowing to her before he took his leave, “Oh, and one more thing, lieutenant—“

“Yes?”

“We never had this conversation,” Wilhelmine said simply but firmly, fingers unfolding the dog-ear fold on the top of her chosen page, “Understood?”

There was a short pause before a hint of a smile tugged on the corner of Hans’ lips as he dipped his head in a respectful nod, “Understood, Your Highness,”

Nodding back in acknowledgement, the princess would watch as the young soldier made his way to the doors, giving one more bow before heading out into the hall. As soon as he was gone, Wilhelmine all but collapsed onto the chaise that was waiting to catch her; staring up at the ceiling blankly while mentally replaying the conversation she just had. Her list of worries was an extensive one but now she could cross at least one of her major concerns off of it, thanks to Lieutenant von Katte. Perhaps she really was mistaken for judging him so quickly. The princess pondered on that thought for a moment and then promptly shook her head, bringing herself back to reality as she turned her focus to the book she held. Only time will tell if the lieutenant will really hold up to his promise and she hoped that for all their sake, he would.

Hans, in the meantime, was striding through the palace halls; his face appearing more solemn that unusual as he remained lost in thought. He had every intention of living up to the promise he made to the princess, but at the same time, he knew that it was nothing short of useless to deny that at the end of the day, his true loyalty belonged the prince and the prince alone. And if the day came that his beloved would ask for his assistance to get away from this cruel life---

Then he would gladly follow him into hell itself.

[junker-town]

Ric Flair's 30 for 30 doesn’t tell the whole story, and it's Ric Flair's fault

13 thoughts on the big, messy life of one of wrestling’s greats.

1. The Ric Flair documentary Nature Boy features a story about Ric Flair surviving a plane crash. The plane was a Cessna 310 headed from Charlotte to Wilmington, North Carolina, and it overloaded at takeoff with beefy wrestlers and a promoter, David Crockett. The pilot dumped fuel to compensate for all the extra weight and tried to switch to the tanks in the wings—empty fuel tanks, it turns out—and the engine died. The plane fell rapidly, narrowly missed hitting the water tower of a prison, and hit the ground just short of the runway in a stall at around 100 miles per hour.

The crash cracked three vertebrae in Ric Flair’s back. When Flair healed and got out of the hospital, he became Ric Flair, the flamboyant, rhinestone robe-wearing, trash-talking, luxury brand wrestler completely. There is before the crash, when Flair would live as Richard Fliehr off camera, and there is after the crash. That’s all in the movie.

What isn’t in the movie: The time he was struck by lightning and lived while another man died, or the time a well-past-sixty Flair got pantsless onstage Myrtle Beach bar and ordered drinks on the house, or the time he went overseas for a tour where he desperately needed the money, but found a bar on arrival and bought drinks for the bar with money he didn’t have, or...oh god, the spaghetti incident. The spaghetti incident is not in the movie, and if the spaghetti incident isn’t in the movie, well, it has to make you wonder what other lunacy sits on a cutting room floor somewhere.

2. That is not the fault of Nature Boy as a documentary. Like almost everything in the documentary, that is Ric Flair’s fault. Ric Flair is at fault for so many things, according to the principal witnesses in Nature Boy. Ric Flair is to blame for losing the money, all of it, every night to bartenders, to attorneys, to the former Governor of North Carolina whom he bought a limo from after bragging about having a limo, and then realizing he didn’t have one. Ric Flair paid a random teenager in Charlotte $25 a night to drive him around and called him “his driver.” That’s not in the documentary either, by the way. Ric Flair told the audience that afterwards in the Q and A in Atlanta. Ric Flair can’t even tell all of Ric Flair’s stories at once.

Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images

3. The witnesses detailing this include a legendary roster of wrestlers and friends, sure, but the principal witness—and most damaging one—is Ric Flair himself. He is situated front and center, interviewed by director Rory Karpf sitting just off camera. Flair looks like someone who treated his body brutally, but honestly given what wrestling for forty years while drinking heavily could do to a person, Flair—on the outside, at least—looks great.

4. He starts to look even better when he talks about what being Ric Flair entailed: at least ten drinks a day, to start, along with wrestling two or three times a night for years on end, the aforementioned random plane crashes and other perks of constant travel, all while somehow staying in wrestling shape year-round. Despite attempting to destroy himself with prejudice in his prime (and well beyond it), the documentary brings in heavy hitters and bit players in wrestling to all acknowledge the same thing: for most of his career, Ric Flair was a brilliant technical wrestler who made everyone around him better.

5. That part might be the most comfortably compelling part of the entire documentary. A genuinely humble-seeming Hulk Hogan shows up just to admit he could only wrestle four kinds of short matches, while in comparison Flair could go full-bore for an hour in any scenario you liked. Ricky Steamboat talks about Flair’s unreal stamina and the brutal workouts they endured as rookie trainees in Verne Gagne’s wrestling camps. The Undertaker not only talks, but thoughtfully and approvingly breaks down Flair’s technique in the ring. That’s not surprising to anyone who knows Mark Calaway outside of the ring, but is still jarring for the casual viewer used to only seeing his face rise ominously out of a coffin or glowering from under a hat.

The file footage backs that up brilliantly, too. When Sting laughs and says Ric Flair was “the biggest whiner in the ring ever,” there’s a fantastic cut to scenes of Flair operatically flying to the mat, pleading to the referee, and taking a theatrical beating from Sting. There’s also the follow-up by Sting: That as a young wrestler, Sting wasn’t owed any of that. Yet Flair went out of his way to coach up-and-coming wrestlers in the ring, and sold their moves with complete commitment to the bit, all out of a real generosity he showed to his partners in the ring. If anything in a story about wrestling is real, it’s that. Flair, at least in the ring, appears as the most caring, charismatic, and giving man who ever eye-gouged someone in a Loser Leaves Town match.

6. The rest of his life is the expected disaster—maybe more so than expected, actually. There are all those interviews and file footage, but Most of Nature Boy is told by Flair himself, in his own words. Note: Not told by Richard Fleihr, but Ric Flair. According to Flair, the guy with his birth name was “some guy who couldn’t last one year at the University of Minnesota.” The interviews with his first wife, Leslie Goodman, are particularly haunting for that switch: At some point after the plane crash in North Carolina, the persona of Ric Flair took over, and Richard Fleihr ceased to exist.

7. It would be possible to watch the entire documentary and take it as a standard sports dramatic cycle of rise-excess-fall-tragedy-redemption. That could be done, if you wanted to watch it that way. There is a fantastic segment about Flair’s rivalry and in-the-ring creative partnership with Dusty Rhodes. There are all the stories of Flair’s drinking and profligacy and his distant relationship with his parents. (Who according to Flair saw him wrestle a total of three times in his life.) There is—with some careful editing—the redemption of Flair’s failure as a father with his son, Reid, through his daughter Charlotte’s entry into professional wrestling.

8. Nature Boy can go that way, if you want it to. It’s also possible to see Flair slowly sink into the horror of his later career and demolished personal life and see a person so devoured by his onstage persona he never recovered. Seeing Flair talk about his son Reid—who overdosed at the age of 25 trying to start a professional wrestling career like his father—is excruciating. It’s also made excruciatingly clear that Ric Flair had no ability whatsoever to parent his children, much less deal with their problems when they became adults and needed real help. The attention to detail and generosity in the ring translated to outright negligence outside it.

Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images

9. Worse: By the time all 90 minutes of Nature Boy rolls by, it’s clear that there really is no difference between the in-ring character and the man. It’s not that the tears aren’t sincere: It’s that at every point in the interviews with Flair—even the most emotional, vulnerable points—it feels like Ric Flair is selling. It’s genuine, but it’s the kind of genuine you get from someone with a overpracticed, stage-ready genuine. At the end Nature Boy has Flair holding his daughter’s hand up in triumph in the ring after Charlotte wins her first WWE title. The scene is heartrending: he’s clearly a proud father, but also Ric Flair basking in the role of being Ric Flair in the spotlight.

10. The most moving scene in the documentary, appropriately enough, involves his other family: Wrestlers. More specifically, it involves a wrestler, Shawn Michaels, chosen to retire Flair in a Career-Threatening Match at Wrestlemania XXIV. Present-day Michaels is interviewed for the segment. He sounds little like his in-ring persona, and openly mourns for what Flair had become: A wrestler who stayed too long, gave almost everything to the business, and let whatever was left leave with his alter ego. For Michaels, Ric Flair went from an idol to a warning.

Then Nature Boy lets the scene roll: The retirement match, after nearly thirty minutes of classic Flair struggle, ending with Flair eye-poking Michaels, nearly pulling off a pin out of nowhere, then taking a massive counter hit and staggering in the ring waiting to be finished. Michaels plays the role of remorseful finisher to the hilt, even pulling a move before it starts, too overcome to end a legend’s career.

Michaels then says “I’m sorry, I love you,” and ends the match with a pin, a post match kiss on the forehead, and a grief-stricken retreat from the ring.

It’s not real, and it’s also as real as anything else in Nature Boy.

11. That’s probably Ric Flair’s fault, too. With no separation between the ring and real life, Ric Flair in Nature Boy is never off duty. Everything is a sell, or a work. It’s bad enough when his ex-wife or his son says as much. It is much, much worse when the bulk of the evidence comes from the man himself through on-camera interviews. Flair happily admits to the excess of Ric Flair being completely real, but also shows no ability to introspect and consider why it all happened in the first place. Rory Karpf tries gamely and repeatedly to get Flair to talk about his chilly relationship with his parents. He gets nothing. The overwhelming sense is not that he’s stonewalling, but that after years of embracing the act there might not be anything back there anymore.

13. This wasn’t in the movie, either. After the screening I attended in Atlanta there was a Q and A with Flair, where he talked about the aforementioned spaghetti incident, how he got drunk after a match in Philadelphia, went to dinner, screamed “I GOT ELEVEN OF THESE” at the table and threw his $30,000 Rolex watch into a plate of spaghetti. The next morning, he had to go through the trash trying to find it. This is also when he told us about the time lightning struck his umbrella while he was getting off a plane in Charlotte in 1983, bounced to the man behind him in line, and killed that man. He explained neither of these, and then offered to buy everyone drinks next door.

12. TL; DR: It would be very hard to write a wrestling version of Sunset Boulevard and not cast Ric Flair as Norma Desmond. Nature Boy’s biggest fault is being too short to encompass the extravagant, rhinestone-dotted plane crash that Ric Flair’s life evidently was and still is. But after 90 minutes you get the point: Ric Flair was ready for his closeup, and after 90 sometimes hilarious minutes of looking at it, the face looking back after a lifetime of hard-lived wheelin’, dealin’, and kiss-stealin’ can be a terrifyingly empty one.

13. In conclusion, say it with me in a sad, low Ric Flair voice after considering the impermanence of humanity’s greatness, and and the hollowness of fame writ large on a single man rendered incapable of taking care of the ones he loves through ego-driven self-deletion and alcoholism: Woooooooooo.