Kidquest is an AU focusing on the gen2 units of Fire Emblem Fates.
In a world where Corrin was never kidnapped to Hoshido, but figured Nohr would kill her anyways, she chose to withdraw from both sides and try to find her own way through life.
Twenty years later, the home of siblings Dwyer and Kana are attacked by Nohrian assailants. With their father dead and mother missing, Kana decides the only thing left to do is track down the dragon that appeared the day she vanished.
And they meet many friends along the way <3
A lot of fics, content, and shitposts focus on AU worldbuilding. Where the plot of Fates never happened, what happened instead? And it has resulted in a lot of fun lore.
But why is kidquest?
Kidquest began as a Fates Revelation challenge run with the aim of actually using all of the kids to finally get to know them as characters. Hence the name "kidquest", based on the "Corrinquest" challenge run format.
The rules of it were simple: pair off everyone as fast as possible, recruit the kids, and only use them (barring a backpack Corrin), resulting in perhaps some off-beat pairings seen in the AU.
All AU pairings are true to the original run completed by Pix, excluding Ryoma/Scarlet (which was actually Ryoma/Setsuna), because those two not having supports is stupid.
And then came the thought of what the in-universe lore of such a run would be, so the kidquest AU was born...
Kidquest canon pairings
f!Corrin/Jakob
Subaki/Azura
Takumi/Oboro
Kaze/Mozu
Hinata/Rinkah
Hayato/Sakura
Kaden/Kagero
Keaton/Camilla
Arthur/Effie
Silas/Beruka
Saizo/Orochi
Benny/Charlotte
Ryoma/Scarlet
Niles/Felicia
Azama/Hana
Xander/Peri
Leo/Hinoka
Odin/Selena
Laslow/Nyx
Not all of these people are happily straight married. In fact at least one of these pairings is not married at all. And one of them is divorced.
Kidquest canon(ish?) kid pairings
Some of these are hypothetical post-canon, some of them are just fun to play with, and some of them are just canon in the background. Have fun.
Obsessed with ur guys au!!! I really love the way ur writing shiro, is there any more info on him (her? 👀) you'd like to share?
Just in case, I point to Pix's fic Wandering Lord for all the Shiro stuff
The trans Shiro concept came up because Pix specifically wanted to make this meme, but our main trans egg at this point was Nina, and she HAS to be The Fujoshi. So we turn our gazes. Who else is trans...
Bwah I ended up rambling more about Trans People In Fateslandia but there's also Shiro things in here I think!
The fun part about setting parent pairings in stone is thinking about how this affects the kids, which Pix had really taken advantage of for the fic! In a fit of teenage rebellion, Shiro cuts his hair to look more like Scarlet... He starts accessorising like her... Within our beautiful world the Scarlet/Ryoma relationship was drifting apart over parenting differences, meaning that Shiro, in hating his dad, just starts drifting much more into admiring his mom.
So, taking that to the logical extreme... Pix declares that Shiro can be a beautiful butch woman. And I say truthnuke. We already did funny name stuff where Shiro's full name is actually Shinonome (Shiro's jp name) but he's using an alias while traveling, which is simply inherently transgender as well.
The difficulty lies of course in "how much gender stuff is known to this setting and these characters?" My guess is "not a lot". Shiro & Nina would be trans in a modern setting where people are just trans and it's known you can do that, but here... Alas. At the very least we'd have to think more about how genderqueerness could fit into the Fateslandia setting. I still think regularly about a transfem Inigo fic I read once that said transing your gender is the only reason someone would willingly visit a dark mage, and Nohr already has shapeshifter illusion magic, so... Perhaps...
ANYWAY. More about Shiro.
My one thing I wanted, which I probably talked about already somewhere, is trying to recreate the canon dynamic. But it's so Deeprealms specific. And that's where Ryoma being a hands-off parent leaving Shiro to his tutors came from.
Nohr & Hoshido are in an uneasy truce, right. And Ryoma fundamentally believes that truce is one day going to end. That Nohr will return to attempting conquest. And that's how he's been raising Shiro. It ended up being essentially the inverse of canon: from Shiro having no clue about royalty, to Shiro having no clue about the common people.
Another sort of inverted aspect is in a scene that definitely needs more planning: Kana going dragon-mode for the first time. The "main plot" is something we kind of have hammered out the least (hah), but the idea for this scene is very much mirroring ch5 of the Fates prologue. And Shiro is... reverse Sumeragi?
Wanting to see the world n all, we have accidentally turned him into a wandering ronin, and he does not want to be recognized by his relatives (Kiragi. Rhajat already knows.), so he's throwing on a hood and being mysterious.
This means, during the parallel to ch5, we have a mysterious hooded figure showing up to help everybody. This is extremely funny to me.
He also sadly has to promote to Master of Arms in lategame (within the imaginary romhack of our dreams) so he can use the Raijinto, because they need the Omega Yato to defeat Anankos, and Ryoma is not trusting a 11yr old child enough to actually awaken the blade. (Since the awakening of the Yato seems to be very much based on trust. The Raijinto glowing during the Ryoma-chapter of Conquest gets me. It does.)
Perhaps this family can reconcile after there is official peace, what with Shiro becoming friends (...and perhaps something more?) with the Nohrian crown prince. And with the return of Corrin, the true reason for Ryoma's faith in a coming war is over.
Shiro should also 100% do the Knight of Cheve thing with the flower. Where rev Scarlet is like "when something momentous happens we pin a flower to our chests". Because it's cute. Now I'm imagining that Shiro pins a cherry blossom to his chest when he's about to return to Shirasagi alongside everyone...
(He does consider hiring Nina & Asugi to just steal the Raijinto from Ryoma. He really does.)
Not very messy at all. It's the same reason the Kagero/Saizo relationship fell apart in canon - they were both trying to change each other too much. For both of them, it was moreso about "taming" the other - the prickly Saizo or the trickster Orochi. And that wears out eventually. (Kagero/Orochi may have also been a factor)
So, after much waffling about it, the two split ways amicably and agree that they're better off as friends, which they do stay! (Maybe what Saizo really needs is being qpr to a throuple.)
An actual formal divorce only happens after Asugi hits the bricks, but it was a long time coming already, and it didn't really. Change anything between them.
The funniest part about this is that this means Asugi doesn't know his parents got divorced. Orochi & Kagero had their whole childhood friends to lovers thing, and depending on the status of poly marriage in Hoshido, Selkie is now Asugi's stepsister. (Selkie considers Orochi her second mom, either way). He just. Doesn't know. He doesn't fucking know!!! Selkie doesn't bring it up either when they first meet because to her knowledge her absentee stepbrother's name is "Saizo the Sixth". It takes until Selkie casually brings up her second mom Orochi for things to click into place. Asugi has a moment.
TLDR: sometimes people simply fall out of love or maybe weren't that in love in the first place and talk about it like adults 👍 leave it to some of the married people to be way worse off. (messiest relationship award definitely goes to hinoka/leo, though.)
wait hold on enlightened idea. setsuna makes out with izana and they have a beautiful little daughter who is also the most attention seeking diva ever and loves fame and attention. and also is really smart. and very very blunt and mean
inserting my oc into your au. be nicies to her and feel free to have her never show up outside of this ask
WAIT NO COME BACK. an izana daughter is actually the perfect side character and i do believe setsuna could just have had a casual thing with izana when a hoshidan delegation was in izumo. (she can be aroace still however #loveloses. doesnt want to take care of a kid really so izana can have her... izana i see absolutely being the type to spoil his kid rotten)
in fact since izana does have a side character plot role in kidquest, an izana kid would just slot right in.
like there is a plot point where izana gives the kids a prophecy. it could be an izana daugther who also has future vision being so excited to give her first prophecy. it could be
I'm seeing a vision here. she could be a one-off side character.
zola/izana is visionary however. every shapeshifter needs to have gender moments. either way izana is a single dad
pix asks if you have an appearance your oc in mind <3
