kradeelav | (no subject)

... that said, crossposting this post about reading the fates manga and how excellent it's been for getting a real sense of the worldbuilding.

so i started reading the Fates manga late last night after learning it exists, and this was the best decision ever for characterization/meta learning, omg.

tl;dr of the manga is it's a take on Revelations' story, but from Leo's perspective, so a lot of the early material is much-needed worldbuilding on Nohr social life.
leo is genuinely cool. dude. i want to write that guy now. literal only shota protagonist i like, since his guile is refreshing, and so so much less annoying than corrin's naivety. he's got his heart in the right place but boy does that guy know crystal clear what it takes to survive. seeing how he works with niles is so refreshing.
it's so pretty. i'm shallow enough as an artist i need some top-tier art to reel me into manga. i love how it communicates so much of the body language and the harshness of Nohr life without even needing many words (the cold dark spires in the gloom, empty corridors with many hostile eyes, jumping to orders b/c there's an executioners axe right behind it )-- the contrast between the scarcity (physical and emotional) versus everyone trying to be upbeat and chipper is upsettingly well done here.
also seeing how like - cloistered? dystopian? Nohr life is with class differences. you only see the caretakers (jakob/felicia/fiora/gunter) once or twice and always on the margins. (man, no wonder gunter is genuinely shocked if/when femui hits on him. so much of this manga is retroactively making me go 'ooooooooh..... that's why (random character) was like That.' there's a heavy militaristic/authoritarian tone/contrast that i cannot wait to start really weaving into these fics. especially with gunter being an embodiment of that old order.)
~~jokingly, i'm not saying nohr is fashkink coded,~~ ~~but~~ -
i've been talking with @damoselcastel about Marx and how he reads so different than the EN Xander in the base Fates script itself, and i LOVE how the Fates manga clearly takes after the JP characterizations, and how shell-shocked he still is from the concubine wars. you definitely get the sense the other nohr sibs don't quite trust him because everyone knows he will be their executioner if they step out of line.
See, after rereading all of gunter's fates (conquest) scripts + support last night a bunch of times before picking this up, it always felt so disjointed. the JP<>EN difference didn't help but it felt like he was several characters in one, from the strict disciplinarian of femui's upbringing, to what i'm calling "off the clock" relaxed gunter with her supports. i couldn't bridge the tonal clash those two, but now -
(this is helping me write that d~~ecidedly tasteless nsfw spanking~~ fic with him and young!femui - because now i understand that streak of barely hidden resentment he has towards her between the class angle and his backstory with Garon, and how it'd be ripe for some nasty sexual undertones (t~~hat i am totally taking advantage of b/c i m trashy l m a o~~ )
and yet, yet - i'm building a headcanon that when he fell down into the bottomless canyon he had a.... not a change of heart, per se, but after talking to azura, something close to like the only honest conversation he's had given his near death experience. about what he's fighting (and living for) and comes back with priorities rearranged.
also this is really hammering home how uncomfortably naive corrin is. i thought a few of her quirks in the EN fates script was just, classic cringy JRPG 'i fwight for mah fwiendsss' writing, but, sheesh, i don't even have to age her down for that sort of jarringly 'wow, damn you have no life experience with social politics and this is going to hit in some interesting ways w/this ship' vibe.
like the only scene gunter has in the manga he briskly approaches Marx while escorting femui back to krakengard, and starts talking (logistics of oncoming famines etc), and everyone else shushes both of them because "it isn't appropriate to mention such nasty things in front of femui! ^w^;;;" like, whew, there's a lot of emotional mileage for playing with neglect, how lack of transparency can lead to all kinds of abuse, how, almost, cripplingly reliant the nohr sibs are on their underclass of retainers/servants..... and on and on....

aaaa this is so tasty