#fg!subaru

[sufferu]

Julius and Subaru’s relationship in Fool’s Gold is actually way less tumultuous than their relationship in canon. At first Julius is just pleasantly surprised that Heinkel appears to finally be doing his job, albeit somewhat uneasy about whether the Vice Captain will KEEP doing his job for long. Then he runs into some issues when it becomes clear that Heinkel is VERY rusty, but the man is surprisingly receptive to criticism and even openly grateful for Julius’ assistance with tasks he seems to have completely forgotten how to do. The two of them actually seem to become pretty good colleagues, and Julius’ main concern ends up being his growing alarm at how Heinkel — apparently can’t read?? And has these massive gaps in common sense??? At a certain point he’s really just concerned more than anything else.

Then Subaru’s situation gets revealed, Julius meets Subaru properly, and WOW that explains a lot. Also Subaru being his junior puts so much into perspective lmao, everything makes so much more sense now. Subaru is just happy that someone as reliable as Julius is around.

(He tries to get Julius to help with the Astrea Family Circus once. He very quickly realizes that Julius is only reliable when it comes to his actual job in the Order, because holy fuck what was that—)

[sufferu]

Horrible fact about Fool’s Gold: Rem still gets a crush on Subaru.

Long story short, Heinkelbaru manages to help Rem like Subaru does in canon around the time Arc 3 happens. But while Heinkelbaru is incapable of seeing Rem as anything but a child he’s grown fond of (because 1) Rem is a year younger than his son, Reinhard, 2) Heinkel is married and 3) Subaru is still wildly underestimating people’s ages and thus thinks that Rem is somewhere around 9 years old), Rem has absolutely no qualms about falling head over heels for that 40-year-old man.

Heinkelbaru doesn’t even notice. He still gives her headpats when they meet and largely treats her like canon!Subaru treats Petra. Everyone else very much notices, because Rem is not even trying to be subtle. Not like she’d be very good at it anyway but she’s Not.

Also Heinkelbaru is still kind of flirting with Roswaal (Rem’s boss) just to blow off steam and Rem is totally responding to that like a normal person. (“Just like Nee-sama, I see! Heinkel-san truly has superb taste!”)

[sufferu]

Things that happen in [Fool’s Gold] out of context:

Julius learns that his boss is illiterate and that’s why he’s been stuck doing all the paperwork.

Cecilus shows up on their doorstep randomly one day while Reinhard is out, and Heinkelbaru sends him to go play with Reinhard while he makes dinner. Cecilus takes this as an order to attack Reinhard randomly in the street before leading him on a massive three-hour battle through the countryside. It almost causes an international incident.

Sometime after Wilhelm finally figures out the truth about Heinkelbaru, Subaru manages to wrestle him into agreeing that he owes him a big favor, just like he does with Roswaal in Arc 2 — and then immediately calls in that favor by handing this man a bunch of flash cards he wrote for him in order to help him reconnect with his son.

They aren’t even alone when he does this. Several people just watched this guy possessing Heinkel’s body press a bunch of flashcards into Wilhelm’s hands with things like “Encouragement and praise is more important than criticism” and “Talk about the less murder-y parts of your day over tea” and “Say the words ‘I love you, son’ at least once” written on the backs.

Heinkelbaru keeps coming across was waaay fruitier than people remember. This raises a lot of questions.

Having no idea what he actually looks like, several people suspect that Subaru is actually a woman.

TonChinKan now have a father figure ordering them around whether they want it or not. They do not.

Grimm and Carol are among the first to realize that Heinkel’s been possessed, and it turns out they really don’t like the idea of something happening to the man they helped raise from infancy.

Crusch’s [Divine Protection of Wind-Reading] lands her in one of the most ridiculous situations imaginable post-Whale.

Subaru thinks Priscilla is, like, twelve. He looks at Aldebaran (clearly his age) with such an insanely disgusted expression that the two of them almost end up dueling over this.

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN SHE LOOKS LIKE A CHILD???”

The entire Royal Selection Ceremony is an absolute disaster.

Heinkelbaru casually mentions that he’s been stargazing all the time lately without realizing the connotations of that word in this new world.

Heinkelbaru brags about his sewing ability. Nobody remembers Heinkel knowing how to sew, but clearly he can.

Heinkelbaru has no idea how to use a sword. He is trying very hard to not let anyone know about this.

[sufferu]

fg!Subaru somehow manages to Not crossdress as Heinkelbaru due to wanting to preserve that guy’s reputation at least a little bit, but he still has a habit of flirting with every guy his age so people still Notice. After Subaru and Heinkel split, Subaru ends up crossdressing within about a week in order to sneak into an important event that Heinkel doesn’t want him going to. The knights — who are actively facilitating Subaru sneaking into that event, by the by — basically respond by going “I was wondering when that was gonna happen.” Absolutely nobody is surprised by this development, though a couple of people are having a bit of a heart attack about Subaru doing this NOW.

[sufferu]

Wait so is fg!Subaru like a person after he separates? Is he a see-through ghost? A spirit like Beatrice?

Spoiler:

Normal ass seventeen-year-old boy. But like. There isn’t exactly a precedent for “you possessed me for a year and have been actively working to improve my life and also are now attached to my hip for some reason,” so a lot of people have kind of settled on “contracted spirit” because that’s Closest to what their relationship is like. Even though Subaru is not actually a spirit.

(Though a couple characters kind of do suspect that he’s a spirit due to being an Otherworlder/having insanely high spirit affinity/being kind of a freak tbh.)

[sufferu]

Is fg!Subaru fg!Heinkel’s son post-reveal? Is he Heinkel’s brother (Wilhelm’s son)? Wrong! He’s Heinkel’s contracted spirit—

[sufferu]

Fuck it. It’s gonna be a while before I can return to Fool’s Gold, so I’m gonna go ahead and reveal the worst bit about Wilhelm and Heinkelbaru’s early dynamic:

Subaru has absolutely no idea that Wilhelm is Heinkel’s father.

[sufferu]

Things people learn about fg!Subaru after they learn about the Heinkelbaru situation and before it gets Resolved:

“—! Of course I didn’t have any kids back home, I wasn’t even old enough to get married or drink alcohol yet!”

“I know quite a bit about making dresses, actually. I could definitely make you something super cute, if you want: all girls your age deserve to wear things that show off their cuteness, loveliness, and inherent good looks!”

“Yeah, I used to go stargazing all the time. It was nice.”

“My mommy and daddy are the greatest in the world, so obviously I’ve gotta live up to them both, right?”

“I don’t care what you people call them. They’re lemons. Not lemumus.”

“I, uh. I really don’t mean any offense, but— I didn’t actually get to say goodbye to my mom before I left, so I’m kind of hoping I get sent back once this is all settled…?”