#btz!wilhelm

[sufferu]

BTZ Idea.

Subaru returns to Irlam after a few months because he asked and said that he missed the people there and nobody can say no to him, even though the idea of seeing him anywhere near that place makes Wilhelm want to lock him in his room. He shows up with an entire Royal Guard ready to murder anything even remotely dangerous that crosses their path. At one point a branch falls or something and the entire guard springs into a wild panic, desperately trying to shove Subaru out of harms way as the shout desperately and swing their swords at random, and long story short they end up injuring each other/getting everyone there absolutely covered in mud before Wilhelm finally manages to restore order. Subaru is the only one there who is behaving even remotely like a sane person and it’s a little humiliating for everyone else that he’s seeing them like this.

From Subaru’s perspective these guards are. Well, he knows he’s bad, but at least they’re letting him visit Irlam again. Even if they’re practically frog-marching him there, and nobody’s laughing at his jokes, and— Whatever. He’ll see the people of Irlam again soon. They still like him, right? They…

Except they all finally get there, and it quickly becomes apparent that the entire village of Irlam also went back in time.

Subaru is so excited to play with the children again, but Lucas takes one look at him and immediately bursts into tears and the others aren’t far behind him. Now Subaru frantically trying to calm them down before their parents hurry to try and take them away, assuring Subaru that it’s not his fault but— Well, they’ll deal with this— And anyway, what’s he doing back here, of all places? (Why is he back in the Wolgarm-infested forest that nearly killed him three times, and succeeded on four separate occasions???)

Anyway they’re way less happy to see Subaru than he was hoping they would be, and while from their perspective it’s out of a very strong sense of concern and “WHY is he not currently in the most heavily-guarded city of Lugunica??” he doesn’t actually know WHAT’s going on, and assumes the worst: that they somehow heard about everything and now they realized what a fraud he is. The children come back later with drier eyes to play with him again and he’s excited and hopeful for that, except none of them want to roughhouse with him anymore and instead insist on more gentle sorts of play, and if he gets too rowdy they all get upset with him and—

Subaru does not know what’s going on and nobody is explaining it well. Ow.

[sufferu]

The BTZ Rabbit Situation, summarized:

Subaru: These people all want to kill my pet. I can’t lose this rabbit. I know I’m not— I don’t have the right to have a pet, but I really don’t think I’ll be able to take it if I lose my rabbit, too…! I’ll guard it carefully, and stay up all night if I have to, just to make sure this sweet, sweet, innocent angel is safe—!

Otto: That rabbit just called me a faggot.

Crusch: That rabbit got into our storage and chewed on half our military rations, completely ruining them without even having the decency to finish any of it.

Ferris: That rabbit purposefully scratched up all of our best furniture. It completely igynored the cheaper stuff. I swear, it knyew what it was doing.

Julius: That rabbit angrily peed on the carpet while staring me directly in the eye.

Wilhelm: That rabbit knows that I fear it and is taking advantage of the situation.

Everyone, individually: Unfortunately, Subaru really likes this fucking rabbit for some reason, so now I have to cover up for it’s bad behavior so that the others don’t make him sad by throwing it out of the house.

(Joshua: I wonder if I can teach the rabbit to open doors…?)

[sufferu]

Can you give a top 5 ranking of who hates Subaru’s bunny the most? Also PLZ have it nibble on Crusch’s hair at some point, that be hilarious

5) Crusch. As Subaru’s host, Crusch is partially responsible for this rabbit. This causes problems, especially when the rabbit starts acting like a spoiled brat. At one point it sneaks into a warehouse and starts chomping. Crusch is putting up with it, but she really wishes Subaru had gotten some other pet. ANY other pet.

4) Emilia. Emilia really wants to like the bunny rabbit, but the bunny rabbit is just an awful personality. She’s trying to put up with it for Subaru’s sake but she really doesn’t like this rabbit. Why did it have to be THIS rabbit…?

3) Otto. Otto can communicate with animals. This means he constantly overhears Subaru’s rabbit calling everyone slurs all the time. He has never met a meaner rabbit in his life. And then the rabbit will go and cry to Subaru in a pathetic fake blubbery tone whenever it wants to get him mad at someone else and it ALWAYS works.

2) Patrasche. Patrasche is not a fan of sharing her old human’s affection. Especially not when that human still screams and runs whenever she tries to approach him.

1) Wilhelm. Wilhelm hates this fucking rabbit so, so much. It does not help that he only found the rabbit because one day he overheard Subaru shout in pain from within his room before saying, “Don’t BITE me, you stupid, fluffy animal!” and subsequentially had a heart attack and kicked down the door.

[sufferu]

Quick sidenote for BTZ.

There was actually a ceremony in canon for the defeat of the white whale to honor all those involved! in the operation/ To most people not in the know Subaru being invited to this major setting would be a bit odd seeing as he isn't in any of the camps.

Even stranger would be the number of BIG names crowding around this kid as if he was the one that single handedly killed the whale. Weird right? :)

Oh my god that could be funny. At the seats of honor are all the Big Name Heroes — and then right next to them is this average guy that they all obviously absolutely adore for some reason. Nobody knows who this is. Nobody knows what his role was in this whole thing, but clearly it had to be SOMETHING, right??? So many questions. Soooo many rumors.

(Exactly one person tries to start shit about Subaru not being “worthy” of his seat and Wilhelm’s immediate reaction makes everyone else shut the fuck up.)

[sufferu]

Hear me out, you NEED to have BTZ Subaru get a pet rabbit. He loves furry animals, loves rabbits, isn't traumatized... the rest of the cast is going to have a SEIZURE. Even just him playing with furry creature in the manor grounds, PLEASE

GENIUS. I played with the idea of giving this Subaru a pet before, but this? GENIUS.

Idea: this happens AFTER the Great Rabbit attack. This means that Subaru saw Wilhelm slice an innocent bunny rabbit in half in a blind rage. Subaru finds another innocent bunny rabbit around two weeks later. Subaru concludes that he MUST hide this bunny rabbit in his room away from everyone else so that they don’t fucking kill it on sight. Shenanigans ensue.

Eventually Subaru is allowed to keep his little bunny rabbit pet. Wilhelm has to physically restrain himself from lunging at the thing every time he sees his not-grandson playing with it. He is trying his best.

[sufferu]

Okay, so, here’s a list of what the characters in BTZ II are regularly doing. Like, just for reference:

Taking time out of their schedules to play with him literally every single morning. Like, Subaru sees it as training, but while Wilhelm, Ferris, and Julius aren’t skimping out on actually teaching him things they really do mainly see it as a way to get him to have a bit of fun.

They’re not the only ones, either. Other people don’t really make a habit on joining in on those lessons every day, but Ricardo keeps having to remind the entire Iron Fang to PLEASE not tell Subaru about any upcoming missions, because he keeps trying to sneak out with them and he’s kind of losing his mind a little. Or any other sensitive information that they keep fucking telling him because they want to impress this starry-eyes kid with tales of their awesome field missions.

The other mercenaries kind of want Subaru to sneak out with them. Just for fun. Ricardo will strangle them with his own two hands if he ever figures out who, exactly, keeps telling Subaru about their early-morning departures.

“AND STOP GIVING HIM IDEAS.”

Going out of their way to make his favorite meals whenever he seems sad. Kararagian food isn’t exactly cheap in Lugunica, either, and they’re not even waiting for him to ask for it. They just see that he might be getting homesick and silently decide to go ahead and make him something nice for dinner that night. Their budget can take the slight hit, it’s fine.

Painstakingly translating an entire series of trashy romance novels into I-script so that he’s got something actually fun that he can practice reading with. They’re not even good. Otto hates every minute of it but he does it anyway, and then sneaks them all into his room so that he doesn’t have to admit to it.

Putting up with that fucking rabbit.

On paper he can only keep the rabbit if Regulus remains on his best behavior, but in reality everyone keeps scrambling to cover up for all of his absolutely god-awful misdeeds because they don’t want to make Subaru sad. This ranges from rushing to find a replacement for the very expensive carpet he pissed on while staring Julius directly in the eye to coming up with some bogus reason as to why All Their Emergency Rations need to be replaced after that fucking rabbit chewed all of them up.

Allowing Subaru to keep a former Witch Cultist as a pet at all, frankly. That’s kind of insane behavior on their part.

Willingly sleeping with him when he’s sick, and then not letting anyone tease him about dragging them into his bed. Julius still gets shit for that one.

He’s not the only person who’s ended up acting as Subaru’s pillow for a period of time. Wilhelm thinks back on it fondly now, but at the time he had no idea wtf he was supposed to do and nearly had a heart attack.

Blatantly attempting to get Subaru to call them some variant of Big Brother/Sister. This applies to Garfiel, Mimi, Reinhard, and several others. It’s as pathetic as it sounds.

Getting Subaru souvenirs whenever they go on missions. Dolls, fancy clothes, fabric, fun-looking fairytales, new toys, sweets, all sorts of things.

Dragging Subaru out to operas, parties, theater performances, etc. He’s getting popular!

Like I can’t stress this enough: all these people ARE making an active effort to show Subaru genuine affection. The fact that it keeps going so catastrophically wrong is really only like…70% their fault.

[sufferu]

BTZ just got so much funnier oh my god

Subaru, hugging his beloved pet alone in his room: They’re gonna kill my rabbit. I messed up, they found my pet, they’re gonna kill my pet. Stupid, stupid, stupid, why do I always mess things up, I don’t want to lose my—!

Meanwhile—

Wilhelm: I can’t believe I’m arguing to keep the Sin Archbishop of Greed alive right now, but Subaru already named that fucking rabbit and I don’t have the heart to take it away from him

Julius: Subaru named that horrible rabbit Mister Fluffermittens, I can’t tell him that we have to kill Mister Fluffermittens

Olbart: Look, the Sin Archbishop is functionally harmless now, so surely we can let Subaru keep Mister Fluffermittens, right?

Anastasia: Can’t we get him any other pet??

Wilhelm: He already named it. He’s attached. It’s too late.

Rem: How did this even happen??

Vincent, to his own useless Generals: How the FUCK did you guys mess up this badly, you had ONE JOB—!

[sufferu]

Funny thing you just brought up for BTZ, I like the idea that there are some in the cast struggling to adjust to the new timeline. Otto making an ass of himself and Beatrice floundering to get Subaru to make a contract with her again only for it to blow up in her face sounds like comedy cold lmao.

PS: Would you ever consider having Zarestia appear in the story and take a liking to Subaru? Perhaps she's or other Sprits are tempted to make a contract with him only for Beatrice to act like a complete nutjob each time Subaru tries to make a contract with any Spirit other then her and tries to prevent it - making Subaru even more terrified of this apparently 400 year old Eldritch loli

I’m pretty sure that damn near every single one of these characters is gonna have their dignity completely trashed by the time BTZ is over lmao. The only reason it looks like Subaru’s getting the brunt of the bad fortune in BTZ I is because it’s from his POV. In BTZ II — especially the later chapters — it actually starts to come off like Subaru’s the only person here who even remotely has his shit together. I keep saying that BTZ II is a comedy, but maybe I haven’t emphasized yet just how much that EVERYONE ELSE is the punchline, with Subaru being the straight man to everyone else constantly ramming themselves into walls.

Otto is near-constantly making himself look like a fucking lunatic, Wilhelm refuses to stop bullying Julius at every opportunity, none of the Astreas know what “healthy communication” looks like and that keeps leading to both undersharing AND oversharing while they keep encouraging each other like “yeah that seems like normal behavior :)” and nobody knows how to correct them, Emilia is flying by the seat of her pants and trying to do everything at once like the world’s most pathetic wet cat, Rem keeps on ending up in situations that are actively going against her goal of being less impulsive, Vincent is an utter mess desperately trying to maintain his “imposing Emperor” facade, Cecilus is everyone’s worst nightmare at once, and Aldebaran is currently the world’s angriest ten-year-old intent on committing as many felonies as he can out of pure spite.

Then there is Subaru, who is dutifully sticking to a routine in swordsmanship (and slowly getting better, too), teaching Mimi how to sew, making dolls for Meili, showing what looks like an extraordinary amount of patience even when everyone around him feels like they keep making absolute fools of themselves, and just generally seeming like the most sane person in the room at all times. Despite how often they seem to have to save him from certain death, it often feels like he is the one thing in their lives that is not currently on fire.