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One Bullet Guaranteed Death Who are you shooting?
Griffith (Berserk)
Shou Tucker (Full Metal Alchemist)
Precia Testarossa (Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha)
Ragyo Kiryuin (Kill La Kill)
Shadow Weaver (She-Ra and the Princesses of Power)
Trigon (Teen Titans)
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha AU: MAXIMUM YURI
So with a new Lyrical Nanoha anime coming out soon, I had a rather… interesting idea for a hypothetical AU for the series, the original first season, A’s, StrikerS, etc.
Presenting; the Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha MAXIMUM YURI AU
Where all of the yuri subtext has been turned into simple TEXT.
Which is then dialed up to eleven.
And also trying to come up with as many NEW yuri ships as possible.
Basically, I am setting out to make Lyrical Nanoha as WLW as possible.
As I think we can all agree, it deserves to be.
Fair warning: this is probably going to get all rather unhinged XD
One thing I did want to mention before we start; at the beginning of the series Nanoha, Fate and the rest of her peers are aged up a few years to 14, with Yuuno and Chrono aged up a bit further still to 16. Simply because Nanoha and her peers being nine at the start of the series has always felt rather incomprehensible to me.
With all that out of the way, let’s start with Season 1:
First off, the NanoFate romance is ENTIRELY blatant and obvious. As in, even moreso then in canon, Nanoha just cannot stop thinking and talking about just how beautiful Fate is and is clearly crushing on her from the get-go. Even in-spite of, or maybe because of, Fate giving her a brutal ass-kicking in their first meeting. Like even moreso than in canon, Yuuno is quite flummoxed/concerned/annoyed that Nanoha insists on gushing about how pretty the other magical girl is as opposed to, you know, actually being worried or something.
Basically, NanoFate gets to be the outright Rivals/Enemies-to-Lovers story it always deserved to be XD Like Nanoha spends basically all of her encounters and fights with Fate alternating between super earnest attempts to befriend and get to know her, and super dorky/awkward flirting once it (fairly quickly) dawns on her that this is a MASSIVE crush. Fate meanwhile, for all her stoicism and conditioned emotional repression, is surprisingly (most of all to herself) rather receptive to Nanoha’s flirting. Like this is all the first time she’s been complimented by a pretty girl and she likes it? (though admittedly this does get all the more tragic once the full context of Fate’s backstory with Precia is revealed) Basically it quickly becomes clear that Fate is falling for Nanoha just as hard XD
And of course, the ‘call my name’ scene at the end of Season 1 ABSOLUTELY culminates with Nanoha and Fate having their first Big Damn Kiss.
Next, let’s talk about Nanoha’s friends Alisa and Suzuka. Because just like with NanoFate, here all of the original yuri subtext has been upgraded to full ‘text’. Namely in the form of the three friends being in what TvTropes would probably term a ‘Type 9 Love Triangle’.
Specifically, Alisa and Suzuka start the series already super close and at first seem to be a case of two friends who really should be dating but are too oblivious to it as well as being further hampered by Alisa’s very thinly-veiled crush on Nanoha. However, it later turns out that there is a further complication in that Suzuka is ALSO crushing on Nanoha just as hard as Alisa. Basically, Alisa and Suzuka are in a rather awkward position in that they both have feelings for each other and are largely aware of that fact, but also BOTH have an even harder crush on NANOHA. And they both have no idea how to deal with that.
And things get even more awkward (and funnier) after Fate properly enters the picture after Season 1, because once again building off the subtext in canon, Alisa finds herself crushing just as much if not even HARDER on FATE. Like there’s a running gag in this AUs version of A’s with Alisa lamenting that she wants to be jealous of Fate for being with Nanoha, but she CAN’T because Fate is just so pretty!
Basically, Alisa and Suzuka are a hilarious gay mess and their issues aren’t really fully resolved until years later when they get to have a super kinky four-way with Nanoha and Fate XD
Oh, and in the event that Nanoha and Fate have a ‘rough patch’, then Alisa and Suzuka are ALL too happy to be Nanoha’s (temporary) rebound lol
Touching on Aruf for a moment, as you can probably guess her feelings for Fate are much more explicitly romantic in this version, though still ultimately one-sided. Basically, it all plays into a rather tragic, lightly-doomed yuri dynamic between the two. But don’t worry, I have plans for Aruf to get her own GF later on XD
Moving on to Lindy Harlaown, well it turns out she’s got some connections with Fate’s mom Precia Testarossa in a nod to the INNOCENT spin-off manga. As in, they actually dated in collage, things did not end well, and there is a fair bit of BAGGAGE. Which in turn leads to them having a major confrontation during the assault on Precia’s base at the end of the season which ends up getting quite SPICY in very toxic/doomed-yuri fashion. It does all still end effectively the same as in canon with Precia falling into the abyss with the soulless husk of her daughter Alicia, but the journey getting there is more interesting and fun. As well as giving Lindy more concrete and narratively resonate reasoning to adopt Fate at the end of the season.
There is also another interesting bit going on with Lindy, but I’ll have to come back to that later…
Also, touching on Precia herself a bit; flashbacks in the backhalf of the season will show that she had a very dysfunctional, codependent romance going on with her familiar and Fate’s mentor Linith. Which also happens to parallel Fate’s dynamic with Aruf in a rather ‘like mother, like daughter’ sense.
Basically, Precia is something of a magnet for toxic/doomed-yuri in this AU lol
The next bit I’d like to touch on is the Takamachi family, who have actually been tweaked a fair bit in this AU.
Also, this is where the yuri shipping starts getting a tad more… unhinged XD
You see, the revamped Takamachi family background here is essentially a mix of canon, as well as their ‘proto’ versions back in the Triangle Heart 3 visual novel. Particularly when it comes to the status of Nanoha’s father, Shiro.
Namely, like in Triangle Heart; Shiro isn’t around anymore, but like in MGLN canon; he’s not dead either. Instead, in this version after the bomb attack that killed him in TH3 and forced his retirement in MGLN, here he pulled a classic ‘gotta disappear to find and kill the bad guys who did this and to keep my family safe’ deadbeat dad schtik.
Now there are a few fun ripple effects of all this. For one, it means that there is basically a version of the plot of Triangle Heart 3 playing out in the background of the early MGLN plots, with Nanoha’s older brother Kyouya (the original protag of that game) getting roped into his father’s various supernatural spy-thriller shenanigans and getting secretly trained by said father to fight in this whole secret war.
And where things get REALLY fun is the fact that Shiro’s fixation on staying away from his family and keeping them in the dark to ‘keep them safe’ has left him, as well as literally everyone else involved in his whole story thread COMPLETELY OBLIVIOUS to all the fun ‘alien magical girl’ adventures that NANOHA has been getting up to. Like how even Nanoha’s mother Momoko and sister (technically cousin) Miyuki know about it, but Shiro has been absent (ergo; being a deadbeat) so much that he hasn’t even gotten a chance to hear about it.
Basically, by the time these two plotlines actually intersect, say around the events of Nanoha A’s, Shiro and ALL of his associated allies and enemies are in for one HELL of a surprise when his assumed-to-be normal, helpless daughter turns out to have become an insanely powerful extraterrestrial magical girl, along with her surprise similarly-powerful girlfriend, and their new friends. Who also all happen to pretty cleanly outscale everyone in the TH3 plotline in power XD
Oh, and all this backporting of Triangle Heart 3 plot-points means that Suzuka’s family are secretly vampires again. Also that Alisa is some kind of revenant/ghost (haven’t fully figured that part out yet lol)
Now as to how this setup leads to more yuri, well Shiro’s whole ‘gotta be a total deadbeat husband and dad to keep my family safe’ shtick has led to a… shall we say amicable estrangement between Momoko and Shiro, which includes an agreement between them to have a fairly open relationship. Basically, Momoko is an effective single-mom who is, shall we say, very close with SEVERAL other women.
As in, she’s sleeping with both Jodie Bannings and Haruna Tsukimura, ie; Alisa’s and Suzuka’s moms. Oh, and Jodie and Haruna are also sleeping together as well.
Heck, going back to a previous point, Momoko even has a fling with Lindy starting during their first meeting.
It turns out that Nanoha’s ‘befriending’ skills are something she absolutely inherited from her mother :D
Which means that yes, by the end of the first season, Nanoha’s, Fate’s, Suzuka’s and Alisa’s moms have ALL slept together/are sleeping together.
Like I said, this is the MAXIMUM Yuri AU XD
Basically, when he eventually comes home, Shiro Takamachi is going to find himself in the rather awkward position of now essentially being a second-tier (at best) member of his wife’s harem.
Oh, and you know how in MGLN canon, Nanoha’s older brother Kyouya was dating, and eventually married Suzuka’s older sister Shinobu?
Well here they were briefly dating, but then Kyouya let himself get dragged into his father’s supernatural spy-thriller BS which tanked their relationship and Shinobu ended up hooking up with Nanoha’s older sister (actually cousin) Miyuki instead XD
There’s a bit of a recurring theme here lol
Finally, just to make these family relationships even more unhinged and confusing; Amy Limietta-Harlawon in this version is not Chrono’s handler and future wife, but instead adopted sister. And she ends up in a love-triangle with Miyuki and Shinobu, and possibly an eventual polycule.
Simply put, by the time this AU gets to StrikerS, the in-law overlap between the Takamachi, Harlaown, Tsukimura and Bannings families is going to be rather nuts XD
(and don’t worry about Chrono. In this AU, he’s gay and eventually hooks up with Yuuno)
Now with that, we have reached the end of Season 1 of this AU. So let’s tally up the ships. We have:
Nanoha/Fate
Alisa/Suzuka
Nanoha/Alisa/Suzuka (semi-one-sided)
Nanoha/Fate/Alisa/Suzuka (eventual casual)
Fate/Aruf (one-sided/unrequited)
Lindy/Precia (past-doomed/toxic)
Precia/Linith (past-doomed/toxic-one-sided)
Momoko/Lindy (casual)
Jodie/Haruna (casual)
Momoko/Jodie/Haruna (casual)
Momoko/Lindy/Jodie/Haruna (casual)
Miyuki/Shinobu
Amy/Miyuki/Shinobu (casual?)
That’s a total of Thirteen ships.
And we haven’t even hit A’s yet… XD
So that’s part one of this weird, unhinged little AU idea.
There will hopefully be more :D
Most Hated Mahou Shoujo Character - Round 2
Choose
Presea Testarossa
Francois
the handling of moving on from terrible things without ever forgetting them in the Nanoha-verse is something that will always get to me.
Fate, as the longest running and most visible example of that, gets to me.
Seeing her as a kid asking herself- after being thrown away by the mother she loves- wondering, maybe things haven’t really started for her yet?
To see that again after you’ve watched the later seasons and seen her in StrikerS, with a whole new life and sense of purpose, but with both her birth and adopted mother’s pictures framed and set out for Vivio to see.
Listening to her explain to curious little Vivio that both of these women raised her (like Nanoha and her will be raising Vivio from now on) and rewatching the memories Fate inherited from dead Alicia, the girl she was cloned from, the daughter she was meant to be, memories of her mother being so kind and loving… just never actually to HER…
rewatching Lindy so carefully reaching out to this little girl who’s lost so much, an adoption entirely at Fate’s speed and on her terms, as she flinches from a caring touch from a mother figure and apologizes for it and Lindy tells her no, it’s okay, she’s doing great- remembering Precia answering all of Fate’s desperate help and hopeful affection with harsh words and a whip’s snap-
and now Fate, nineteen and still so young, already the legal guardian of two other kids who had lost so much. Kids she reached out to, calm on the surface, reading through parenting books in the background, asking Lindy for advice
this Fate slipping past Nanoha to go pick up tiny little Vivio after she trips and falls and looks up with tears in her eyes.
Fate lifting Vivio up, holding her close, cheerfully telling her to be careful. If she gets hurt, her mothers would be sad.
(child Fate strung up and bleeding from Precia's lessons)
The playfulness in her and Nanoha’s first little tiff as young parents together “Fate-mama, you’re spoiling her” but Nanoha is smiling, and Fate’s exaggerated and teasing “Nanoha-mama’s just too strict” rings out lightly as Vivio clings to Fate’s neck and watches them with big, wide eyes, soaking in her first ever family.
Going back to the sound stages when child Fate found a dying wolf pup and had to do something, anything, to answer it’s cries for help. How she made Arf as a magical familiar not to serve her or even to keep her company in her lonely life of training training training-
she makes an open contract with Arf in the end, promising her magic to Arf with no strings attached, telling to go where she wants and live as she wishes-
seeing this, knowing how scared she’ll be over a decade later, about her adopted kids Erio and Caro.
How they both followed her into a military career and ended up being trained by her- old enough to decide what they want, but Fate doesn’t know how to be sure of that yet, and the villain tells her she’s just like her own mother- using her children as weapons just like Precia-
it comes so close to breaking her, before Erio and Caro butt into say no. No. It’s not like that at all. She gave them the safety to choose what they wanted to be. And they want to help people, just like she does.
Fate.
Watching the in-universe film version of her and Nanoha meeting as children. Watching a recreation of her child self being whipped by Precia, and saying, she never gave wounds magic couldn’t heal.
(she took the name Harlaown from Lindy, calls her mother)
(she keeps the name Testarossa from Precia too though. Reaching out to the very last minute, even after being thrown aside, a useless doll, a failed right-handed clone of a dead left-handed daughter- still dreaming of a happy life with Precia, but also letting it go for the sake of the friends and family she's found since then...)
There are so many things that never really heal. So many things that never go away.
even so, the rest of Fate has grown up around them. She was right all that time ago, things hadn’t even started for her yet back then.
She can’t leave them behind her but she still kept moving on with them anyway.
When you see the opening for the first season, before we even meet her, with kid Fate alone in a dark and empty apartment, tired, but still petting Arf softly…
…then she’s in her twenties in Vivid coming home to a house full of life. Smiling as she makes dinner with Nanoha and Vivio. The perspective of Vivio watching Fate and Nanoha sitting happily next to each other with Vivio musing on how Fate is Nanoha’s special person and that’s why she’s Vivio’s mama.
Fate, a few years before, sitting side by side with Nanoha in their shared apartment room, telling Vivio
“it’s my job to watch over you and your mother, Nanoha”
and this is the purpose she’s chosen for herself.
Passing down only the softest things she’s learned from Precia, through Alicia, with that determination to keep her children safe- doing with Vivio as her own adopted mother Lindy did with her, slowing down, but always reassuring and reaching out, never leaving any room to wonder if this new person in Vivio’s life would always want her happy, safe, would always run to Vivio when she cried.
And Vivio isn’t Fate.
She doesn’t end up living that painful childhood, she doesn’t carry that same weight with her.
She grows up more like Nanoha did, independent and steadied by knowing that her family- though not always with her, sometimes busy or far away- cares about her so much.
(Nanoha, who smiled and took care of herself from too small of an age, victim of everyday circumstance)
(little Nanoha knowing her family loved her, loved to see her smile, and her smiling for them, being strong for them while her dad was in hospital and her mother looked after him and her older siblings looked after the business and)
(she met a girl one day, with such beautiful, sad eyes. She saw Fate and couldn’t look away)
(Ten years later, she breaks down on Fate’s shoulder, alone on the roof top- she cries- like we’ve never seen her cry before- because Nanoha is strong, always, she’s full of hope and the power to push through… but Vivio is gone. And Fate throws her arms around Nanoha promising her, holding her as she shakes, they WILL get Vivio back)
(Nanoha has a person in her life now to stop smiling for. A sad, kind girl that knows loneliness and has done things she regrets as a child, so determined and so strong, seeking love)
(a woman with more happiness in her life now than sadness. Here, with Nanoha, in the life and pains they share)
But Vivio also knows something Nanoha didn't back then.
Something Nanoha's learned since then, with Fate failing her Enforcer exams over and over while Nanoha is hurt and recovering, more worried about Nanoha than anything else- and then passing those same exams with flying color in the end, not at all burdened down by her worry for Nanoha, those failures meaning nothing in the end, so easy to move past, once Nanoha was okay.
Vivio has the memory of a parent who slipped past Nanoha's lesson on learning to stand up on your own, lifted Vivio carefully off the ground, and said all that matters is Vivio being okay. She doesn't have to be strong.
(Nanoha doesn't have to be strong)
(she's the hero and she doesn't save Fate. She's only there to catch Fate when she falls, when Fate makes the choice and leaps into a new life)
(Nanoha, crying into Fate's chest as kids standing on a bridge right before saying goodbye, at the end of season one, the start of more things than they can imagine)
Fate’s name is so ironic and so apt.
She was named after the project that failed to decide who she would be.
And every child she meets who other people have already decided on- too troublesome, too dangerous, useful only as a weapon- even the ones who've shouldered a decision they think was already made- have to keep smiling, stay strong- she only sees them as someone for who things haven’t even started yet.
There is no fate binding the people she loves, only Fate, wanting to protect them. So that they can keep making choices for themselves.
Like she did.
if prospera reveals suletta’s true identity to her with this kind of “you’re just a defective clone of my real daughter” spiel i’ll jump through the screen and end her myself istg
This lady is such a fantastic Bad Mother villain that she's been on screen for like a minute and I already need therapy
I love joking that Jail and Precia are divorced
the four horseparents of the animepocalypse
