wobblinpenguins

[wobblinpenguins]

A few notes about Ch. 6

The fic: https://archiveofourown.org/works/49875277

The chapter I’m referencing isn’t currently done, but I’ve just finished the first part and I want to give a quick rundown on how I feel about it and why I’ve made Corrin a bit more emotional. I’ll try to keep this more focused on the work rather than bashing Fates’ writing. 

But I do have to bash the game’s character writing first. A lot of the characterization is botched thanks to the absolute hell that was the game’s development, but I think it really had potential (which is one of the reasons why I’m even able to write this fic in the first place). Not to mention, it also had a different purpose: as a part of a whole (a script for a game) instead of an entire work on its own. Obviously, it could’ve been better, but for the most part, it allows the chapters to flow (kinda, if you don’t take time to think about the plot). 

The tone of this work is entirely different, evidenced by the tag “Psychological Drama,” which I do plan to stick to. Perhaps it might not be a psychological drama at the level of Crime and Punishment, but I do want to craft characters with more realistic depictions — even in fantasy. Since the visual realism is mostly left up to the imagination (with vivid descriptions), most of the realism from the characters comes from emotional & psychological depictions that check out. But, of course, that takes a lot of time to think through and double check, which is totally NOT a copout of why these are taking so long. 

Honestly, when playing through the original game my first time (when I was like 14 or something), it didn’t strike me as odd when Corrin only barely reacted to the beginning of the story, but when playing again later, it struck me as incredibly weird. Their birth mother dies in their arms (shocking enough to make them transform into a fucking dragon) and then, with no time to grieve, they march to a field in the middle of Hoshido and proceed to alienate themselves from one of their families — both, in Revelation. 

In a sense, I also made Corrin more emotionally fragile, based on her context. She grew up tethered solely to her family: her only childhood friend was almost executed because she went on a picnic with him outside the grounds and the only people she had left to interact with were her adoptive siblings and her servants (loyal to Nohr). The person she thought of as a father then tells her to kill people before sending her on a death mission when she refuses. Then, her entire world shatters as she is told that she’s actually a princess of Hoshido instead! So the only deep connections she’s had in her life have been entirely based on family, and it’s all ripped away from her.

If someone like that suddenly loses all familial relationships, I’d be surprised if they didn’t melt into a pile of emotionally destroyed goo. And, in the games, it’s supposed to happen much sooner than the timeframe I gave in the story! I suppose you could make the case that they were deluding themselves that the rejection from Xander and Ryoma could easily be fixed and using that as a coping mechanism to prevent from entirely breaking, or maybe they were just sigma-pilled stoics or something. But even that makes no sense: they obviously feel grief and remorse at other points in the plotlines (see any sibling death, Mikoto), and they are emotionally expressive too, so how were they unaffected by that shit?

It’s a case of “I’m looking too much into this,” probably.

This incarnation of Corrin is not so fortunate, I’m afraid. When she gets hit with this, especially since she’s just beginning to grow emotionally, it’s a rather hard and long lasting sucker punch. She will eventually crawl out of this hole (real crazy spoilers). Her influences growing up (Xander & the Nohrian siblings) show in how she tries to bottle her emotions up but the total weight is too much after she has those around her to connect to. I’m trying not to have Corrin cry too much (having her come across as OoC), but the first few chapters of the game would be rather brutal to a girl who is seeing the world for the first time. I promise she won’t sob at a hat’s drop when she recovers from this.

I also wanted to talk about Elise, because she’s in a similar state of emotional distress. From my experience with Fates, Elise also seems to derive a lot of her emotional wellbeing from her family, so she would probably be sensitive to conflict between the siblings. Being at the beginning of teenagehood (no way she’s older than fifteen at most) brings its fair share of emotional instability just from growing up, and then when she’s hit with Corrin disappearing, reappearing, and then Xander shutting down any chance of reconnection! Rough. Honestly, until I was writing it, I felt a depressive episode was a little extreme for Elise, but after, I think it fits and gives her a bit more depth. 

Also, it feels like I’ve struck gold with a lot of the dynamics that’re building in the story (even if I might be trying to refine that gold with a janky set up in my backyard). Elise and Lissa being best friends was a shoe-in, but I’m surprised other crossover stories haven’t really touched on how perfect a friendship they would have. Unfortunately, since I don’t want the story to be 8 million words long and as focused as someone’s 20/200 vision, I wasn’t able to show much of Lissa’s stay in Nohr and interactions with the Nohrian royals. If it strikes my inspiration, I might write a few side-stories detailing that time — same for Robin’s month-long stay in Hoshido. 

Speaking of word-length, I feel like this story will easily break a million words and I’d rather not bore you guys with a rewrite of a plot you’ve no doubt played or read or seen a dozen times over, so I’ll be leaning more into plot divergence from this point forward. Also, I may disappear for a while before coming back and posting some chapters, like I just did for this chapter…. lol…… 

Well, I’ve spent too long with this story idea stuck in my head, so I’m putting it in words and doing it till the end, so don’t worry if I go no-communication for a while. I will still be working on it. And I’ll definitely try to get it to more than one burst of updates a year too. This thousand word brain dump likely rambles too much to get a consistent point across, but if you read it, thank you for reading. Chapter 7 is fully planned (ch. 8 is ~85-90% planned), but I’ve barely started writing it, so it’ll probably be a little bit until then. Who knows, though — I could have another burst of creativity before I go back to college in the fall. 

…

Okay, I’ve finished the chapter now, and I only have a few more thoughts to add: chapter seven is like 1% written and chapter eight is fully planned, so I’ll start working on those soon. It was super satisfying to click post on chapter six, so that’ll fuel me for the next few days or few thousand words. Also, Fates is over eight years old (internationally) at this point, which is kind of messed up, so I feel like I’m just constantly aging and then decaying into dirt at this point. Oh well… 

Wish they would announce a new Fire Emblem 4: Genealogy of the Holy War remake before I die… hmm, looks like I’ll just keep this clown makeup on, then…