in an earlier post, you may have seen the fact just floated across that laslow used to be a womanizer before he got married. this is canon information about him of course we know this. but. for most people, this was just... he Stopped right when he got married.
but those closer to the situation know what really happened:
laslow got nervous about dating someone and carried on a relationship in secret and people thought he was still flirting with random ladies when it was the same lady (nyx). and this illusion was kept up until he suddenly rolled up to people like 'i'm inviting you to my wedding. yes i'm serious'.
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.
Kidquest Kana being genderfluid because of a whim and now it's like now hold on. we've established the queer gender things not being exactly known. Kana simply established it in his household as a Kana Thing where she switches up whenever asked.
Then it's like... wait... could this not be a catalyst for gender thoughts in a few particular characters.......
you know i always love to hear about whats going on with soleil over here if youve got anything <333 but if not… maybe like ignatius?? whats goin on with him
I honestly need to put more thought into Soleil. She's still happy and likes to spread cheer around with people, and likes women. A bit of a voracious reader thanks to her mom. Though she kinda... sucks... at magic, though she's a bit better at it than some of the other people around the group hi physical guys.
I'll definitely need to discuss this with my co-creator to flesh her out more, but as an enjoyer of soleil her impact on the group is still There it's just that her backstory is just. she was raised lovingly by her father and mother and makes jokes about things and is very, very oblivious to the girls with a crush on her. (she does still flirt it's just in a heirs of fate way and she's very oblivious to her own crush #autism)
now, IGNATIUS. I can talk about him a bit. :3
(got long. under cut.)
see, Ignatius is one of the three kids (with Sophie and Percy) that were sent out to try and bring Kana and Dwyer (and their group) back to Xander for some purpose. They do not actually know the real purpose. because percy ran off before Siegbert was able to fully inform him Oops. Ignatius is friends with Percy and Sophie! This is all fun and fine!
Ignatius, alongside Sophie, are immediately doubtful upon seeing the kids but are loyal to their parents and have to be swayed via chatter. He's also a bit easily scared so hearing that kana can turn into a dragon followed by it Happening does convince him. But he does his best anyway!!
... so then it's like... he's friends with... sophie, daughter of beruka (a retainer), and percy, son of elise's retainers.... and he's just the son of two border guards. how the hell did he end up at the castle.
Well, well well! when he was young, he and his parents were out in the town. He got a bit nervous about some of the crowds so he went off to hang out near the edge of the forest. This was where he met a VERY young percy, crying his eyes out. This was then also followed by Sophie, who was still super bad at expressing herself at the time, worried out of her mind because she was supposed to be babysitting percy.
The three of them have a fun time playing at the edge of the woods for a long time until their parents all come by looking for THEM, worried. And the three of them introduced themselves to each other and, due to really liking each other, promising they'll try to meet up again!!
It doesn't really happen. Not for a while. But Ignatius always goes out to the edge of town to stare at the castle, where he knows they are. And Charlotte is especially encouraging him to try and go ask about that knight's daughter, but he really doesn't like that pressure, so he resists... up until there's a tournament to be held!
People are getting antsy at the lack of war, and Xander thought a good way to let some of that energy out is to have a tournament. And those who impress him might get some type of reward.
Charlotte is like omgggg you should do this. Benny also agreed. And Ignatius just kind of wishes he had a chance to see his royal-adjacent friends again. So, he agrees, and he goes.
And he does very, very well. He's good at armored combat, and not many of the others participating are good against it. Not even Sophie.
Sophie, who sees him and goes IGGY???
So after that tournament is concluded, Sophie and Ignatius excitedly meet back up, and Percy is also there (he was forbidden from participating in the tournament.) Ignatius, even if he DIDN'T place well, is invited a spot on the knight's crew with Sophie. And Ignatius is hesitant because he LIKES being with the border guard crew, with his dad. But... well, some part of him also thinks of his mom, and the pressure that comes with wanting some more money. And he kinda hates that he's thinking about that!
But he also wants to be with these friends again. So he accepts.
And he has a very nice time being with them.
... skip forward some time later after the whole capturing kana and dwyer debacle, and suddenly they're a PART of that group, and Ignatius is nervous but trying his best not to be. And even more so when a group of thieves attack where they're trying to sleep for the night. Hi nina's crew. But after that situation is smoothed over, they have a whole lot more people traveling with them.
The one person other than Sophie who tries to comfort him about this... is the nina thief oc, Fenrir.
Hi. Yeah Fenrir is Ignatius' thief boyfriend, the type of guy Ignatius' needs: not concerned about royal life at all, able to comfort him in a way he understands... and also magically strong.
it turns out! when you're worldbuilding for an au focused on kids you kinda have to work out what the parents are doing. Sometimes in relation to each other.
in our decision to make camilla fly away to the mountains with her wolf husband it leaves beruka left back at the castle with no idea what to do. and then you have to extrapolate how silas came into the picture from there.
or you have hana who is a lesbian with an unrequited crush on sakura hooking up with azama who like agrees to do this for whatever reason. And it's not exactly the happiest thing. But hana throws herself into it and who would it be for azama to reject it? he knows hana is simply trying to make it seem like she's straight, just like he is!
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.)
