time marches on
Sep. 1st, 2024 12:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
royalistI am fully, fully behind the game's final reveal that Will and the prince are actually the same person...! However, early on in the game I must confess that I was braced for an eventual "Will is the prince's half-brother" reveal. I do still kind of like the idea of "Will and the prince are separate people," usually in a context where I'd like to explore Will's early-game lack of value for himself and being willing to die for the prince's safety. I'd love to play something out where one of Will's companions has to deal with the disturbing lack of faith he has in himself, and the seemingly infinite faith he has in a boy who hasn't been truly alive for years...
That being said, I can also take the other half of this: I can write the prince! I'm happy to write the prince as his own character against anyone else, even other Wills. (I, uh, have a special fondness for Louis/Prince too, I must admit.) My personal preference would be to have Will be named Will and the prince be named Wilhelm. Let me know if you'd like to hash this out and get more specific about how this prompt takes shape.
I am also a very big fan of taking advantage of the unexplored outside world as well as the game's background lore! This could involve sending Will and his thread partner to another country, of course, but I'm also interested in fleshing out the scenario where "What if another country actually did attack Euchronia at the beginning of the game when the king died like some NPCs were concerned about?" as well as "What if another country invaded Euchronia while Will was the king?" This could provide some interesting reasons for Will to lean on Louis's military expertise, or put the newly minted General Haliaetus to task, too...
Pretty straightforward. I was so hyped for the soiree when it was presented in-game, and... so disappointed that we didn't get to hang out in the ballroom a bit more! Give me dancing! Fancy party vibes! Will not knowing how to do anything etiquette-related! Happy to play this out with anyone, of course. Though, in the event of shipping... Sexually-charged conversations over wine where both parties know they each can't afford the risks of flirtation!
Other ideas that I'll clean up way later...
▮ i'm also here to explore will and strohl's intense sexual tension from the very beginning of the game... cute fluffy gauntlet runner cooking and shopping, etc. idk it's so funny that about 2 months in they were downright "i would die for you" about each other. like yeah you can wait to finish strohl's follower bond but they clearly wanted you to finish his and hulkenberg's fairly quickly lol
▮ mid-game strohl/will drunk on dragon fruit makeouts and fooling around on the beach would be very cute tbh
▮ the cow boyfriend strohl memes are getting to me, okay. what if strohl and will on a farm. just hang a little bell around strohl's neck and set him free in the halian pastures.
▮ also, cute post-game general strohl stuff. i feel like he got bigger??? maybe it's the cape??? but i want will to remark on how strohl's gotten ripped and get him all flustered okay. he used to bitch about stairs. he probably still bitches about stairs
▮ post-game courtly romance "is the king in love with general haliaetus?" type stuff would be really sweet... strohl trying to adhere to certain forms of public etiquette while will just has no qualms about smooching him whenever he wants...
▮ ohhh shoot i just remembered i loved the idea of like stretching out will's "turning into a human" arc a little longer? like i'd love him wrestling with it occasionally / being in pain / trying to suppress the transformation in the time period after louis messed with him but before they reached the eldan sanctum and he got his life figured out lmao. like this is catnip for strohl being the c in h/c (or spicy conflict where strohl is kind of repulsed by him but trying to work through it) but we could also have louis show up to gloat over him or whatever. honestly will was a cute human anyway. just big
▮ also very happy to do a louis joins the party and forden stays the main villain fix-it AU. i'm just open to a lot of AUs. imagine wtf louis would've cooked on the gauntlet runner. also we could do life in the elda village... life in the palace... we can mess with the timeline, change the ages they would've known each other, etc
▮ still other flavors of AU... louis as hythlodaeus's bastard child deeply interests me as i feel it's a very valid alternative explanation for his behavior early on in the story... this would also make him will's half-brother and i think there's a lot to explore there. the public perception of the "rightful" candidate for the throne not being crown prince... full-blooded clemar vs half-blooded clemar/elda tribal tension type shit... or it could be that they're both half clemar and half elda, but louis is fully clemar-presenting, which could give him some really interesting tribal tensions? i'm also here for half-brother incest in this scenario but it changes louis's motivations quite wildly so we'd probably have to plot a lot
▮ this reminds me that i genuinely and unironically enjoy will in animal crossing scenarios and sincerely like to think of the bad end with louis as them playing animal crossing with the world except all of the villagers are teeth. i am willing to play stupid animal crossing nonsense but also i can do the bad end seriously too
▮ generally open to darker themes: noncon/dubcon from louis at any point in the story, mutually insane bad end archdemon sex, will being sold as a slave (a rare elda!!) and either purchased/liberated by louis or rescued by strohl, etc. that being said i'm typically silly and not into whump for whump's sake, so darker plots should probably have a directive we're moving toward.
▮ i usually roll with louis being fine in a post-game scenario but i'm equally here to have him be heavily injured and scarred as is somewhat popular in the fandom... bonus points if he's so injured he has to rely on will throughout the recuperation period... bonus points if this turns into love...
▮ theoretically, i could also play this kind of dark where will is actively and intentionally keeping louis prisoner in this state, but he's not inherently sadistic so please be prepared to discuss ic boundaries with me lmao
▮ sometimes i think too much about the fact that the prince's initial conception of "will" — a young elda boy from the village who would have been his best friend and was strong, powerful, good with magic and a sword, etc... was just louis... i think we should do something with that. i have a lot of feelings
▮ i should probably stop here but i could keep going. pm me if you want to hear more of this madness
