Chapter 9 ABD Commentary

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Current Rotation: Caeldori, Kanaki, Ignatius, Kanny, Kanaze

Ignatius: Ugh, it's not a pleasure to be back here.

Caeldori: Same here, but our parents said we're sporking this chapter, no ifs or buts about it. They saw the next chapter and immediately decided on parental controls.

Kanaze: Well, there's no direction to go but down, so shall we?

"A fair question, with a sadly complicated answer," she spoke evenly and calmly, Corrin would even call her stoic,

Keaton: And I would call Corrin’s continuing redundancy and stating of the obvious over the course of this fic since the beginning to be massively annoying. *pause* … That was painful to get out…

Kanny: Careful! You might get the Bad Dialogue Flu from Bring Me All Your Elderly! In which the Avatar: The Last Airbender animated cast try to fix the crappy Shyamalan movie and get so afflicted with the redundancy of the script that they get sick.

"Azura...I think I heard Sakura mention that name at some point. Who are you exactly?"

Wanderer2691: Narratively speaking, the proper main character. While any Corrin has a lot of characterization, it’s Azura who is the driver of the plot a lot of the time.

Leliel: The problem is, she’s distinctly linked to Anankos, being his niece. Since he, and Valla in general, are gone, she’s kind of up shit creek without a paddle - unless she’s been given a new narrative role.

Charlotte: Given how lazy this fic is about deviating from canon? I’m tempted to replace her with a scarecrow, it’d have as much agency.

Kanaki: Generally, some fics that scrap the whole Valla plot are smart enough to scrap Azura's (and Corrin for that matter) existence, which at least works better than crowbarring in a less relevant character.

"Yes, roughly that. Though I suppose nobody ever lied to me about it. That's the only significant difference I can think of at the moment."

Leliel: Two hours of conversation later, a very pale Azura returned to her room, sobbed in terror for about ten minutes, and decided she could think of several more.

Charlotte: Two hours? That’s a big damn overshoot if I ever heard one.

Kanny: Yeah, you'd think that the joke of an introduction, the miserable excuse of a dinner, and the dangerous incident in the Nohrian slums would have clued Aunt Azura in. She's withdrawn, not ignorantly sheltered!

Leliel: *slowly removes pillow* … There are two potential reasons for this. One, the more uncharitable, states that this is because Azura is hot, and her being realistically melatonin-deficient would ruin the author’s image of her. However, I think the more likely is that, as we’ll see, the author is pathologically afraid of rewrites.

Azalin: I be thinking of the last chapter’s note. There was a great deal of justification involved there, and that was the first time we noticed that Nohrians be pale folk…

Leliel: Precisely. I think this author has a similar bad habit to mine, where they notice flaws in previous work, but don’t want to change them - so they make a contrivance that allows them to keep the previous chapter, but somehow account for the critique.

Wanderer2691: Big difference you have, though? You actually read what you wrote before to avoid breaking your own rules.

Kanaze: To be fair, DDI admits to not having read from front to back so this gets a "dumb teenager" pass.

"Calm, serene, joyful, generous. A child without care for the world's darker side, without any maliciousness in her being or pride in her step."

*everyone winces*

Wanderer2691: As Leliel likes to point out, this makes me sad - both for Kamui for growing up into this screaming berserk, and for the fic of Corrin coming to terms with how she’s been abused we could have had.

"Going to be honest, the kid you're describing sounds like a real tool. What did she do for fun when she wasn't being a saint?"

Azalin: Well, that was a quick before and after comparison…

Charlotte: *Azura* “Being more tolerable than you, that’s for sure.”

GODS SAVE US FROM THE PRINCESS: 91

"I believe she would typically draw, and...I'm not certain what else. Details are vague."

"You don't think they might have been idealizing a bit? This kid sounds way too boring to actually exist."

Kana: *Corringula* “Everybody knows the place of real kids is in the corner and crying!”

GODS SAVE US FROM THE PRINCESS: 92

A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE… EMBLEM: 32 (Literally mocking the idea of a happy childhood or sweet kids.)

Kanaki: Yeah, how dare kids be nice and normal in the beginning!

Caeldori: Mocking childhood innocence aside, saying that a little artist is "way too boring to actually exist" seems like another "grrrr manly Nohrian no care for girly art" moment. *muttering to self* (How does Mother do that?)

Ignatius: Yeah, in the omegaverse setting? Corrin is mostly still the same, being an introvert who loves books, but was more outdoorsy and adventurous as a child in Hoshido. Then as a result of growing up isolated and having her memories forcibly erased, she became more withdrawn, which creates enough change that there's dissonance between who she is now and what her birth family still thinks of her to be.

"Look little girl, I've seen enough blood to know that it all looks the same. It's all red, and you only ever see it when things have gone horribly wrong for the person holding it. It keeps the body pumping and makes a big mess when it gets spilled, and beyond that I don't see any reason to attach any sentimental value to it. True family is the people who have been there with you through thick and thin. They're the ones who make you feel warm when the world seems cold; the people you grow with, train with, eat with, you fight with and laugh with over the stupidest little things. That's family to me."

Kanaze: First of all, calling Aunt Azura "little girl" is an incredibly patronizing way of talking to her. Second, really graphic way of talking about blood, I'd be really freaked out if someone talked about it like Corringula does. Third, does peer pressuring murder count on the family list?

"Those memories are barely even mine. I have them, but I don't see myself in them. I see...that kid that we were talking about, a kid that I don't know. She's a complete stranger to me. Who she considered family has no impact on me. Tell me, you consider all these people here family, right? Would that change if you suddenly were dropped back in Nohr with the people you supposedly share blood with?"

Theresia: *poking her head in* This is all logic I have gone through, but the difference is that unlike this Corrin, I felt I could trust my siblings farther than I could throw them - and given how little Garon interacted with me or her, Mikoto has more of a claim to family under her logic.

Kanny: See, there are genuinely good, canon-compliant ways to approach Mama's decision. Unfortunately, it's lost in all the edge.

"Oh, well, that explains why you weren't at dinner, with the rest of your family."

Wanderer2691: … This isn’t, though!

A DIMMER LIGHT: 31

Leliel: Seriously. While Azura is introduced separately from the Hoshidan royals, it’s noted that she’s mostly a loner by nature, and more importantly, that particular dinner was introducing Corrin to her blood family. Here, Azura would have confused matters, and while logically speaking, a Nohrian being present would have helped calm her down, Mikoto was not being rational. She wants a return to her Kamui, and Azura is living proof she can’t, and Azura probably knows that! If that wouldn’t cause a loner to withdraw further, nothing would!

Kanaki: Which is why Aunt Azura was actually present during Clover's version of the dinner, even if she didn't say much. That's because she felt like she was intruding on the family bonding and chose to remain quiet to let Corrin be the centre of attention, as much as Corrin hates it, Aunt Azura doesn't know about that.

Shirasagi Castle

Sakura

Keaton: While back with the moeblob…

Caeldori: On one hand, I'm glad that Father doesn't have to see this. On the other, I'm not pleased that I do.

She always knew that her life was easier than others, but had always assumed everyone else still had reasonable lives mainly because she couldn't envision an unhappy one.

Azalin: Because, as all right-thinking folk know, a doctor has never experienced suffering in others. *disbelieving skull tilt*

Charlotte: … I see where this is going, and I don’t like it. They are going to make it so that Hoshido stunted her development emotionally for… various reasons. To once again contrast them with Nohr, which really kinda makes me like Hoshido more - spoiling children is done by better people than brainwashing children.

Wanderer2691: Not according to this author, though!

A DIMMER LIGHT: 32

Ignatius: Back to counterspite characterization, Aunt Sakura is actually one of the first of pick up that Corrin is unhappy living in Hoshido. That's actually what connects the two of them and is also why Aunt Sakura calls out her family for throwing Corrin out because she was one of the few people who understood that just because Corrin was "home" didn't mean she was happy.

"Five Hoshidans are dead, Sakura, sons of noble families. Murder is a capital crime, that can't be changed." Yukimura had explained the situation to her. After the guards had arrived, they began arresting every Nohrian within sight and accusing them all of cold-blooded murder. The three of them had been safely escorted to the castle, while the rest were captured and locked away, pending trial. A trial that, as Yukimura explained, would likely end in execution hours after they began.

Azalin: …as plausible as this is for a feudal society, I be seeing the emerging shape of illogic…

"But they were just defending themselves! They were defending me and Kamui! Surely that counts for something!"

"Not in the eyes of the noble houses," Yukimura sighed

Kana: *Sakura* “So… Mother’s going to tell them where they can stick their concerns?”

Leliel: *Yukimura* “If we lived in a fic with logic, we’d likely have our first Nohrian immigrant retainers in about two minutes, but sadly, the author wishes to demonstrate their deep half-remembered knowledge of medieval politics they read in A Song of Ice and Fire first.”

Kanaze: Today's law in Japan about self-defense states that Under Article 36 of the Japanese Penal Code, self-defense is narrowly defined:

Self-defense is permissible only to protect yourself or others from imminent and unlawful harm.
The response must be unavoidable and proportionate to the threat. Which I would imagine a bunch of young men casually swinging swords at the royalty counts as. And before one decides to get banal about how ancient times were different, this post addresses that self-defense was a valid justification even back then.

Kanny: But who cares when Encyclopedia Trustmebro exists!

Azalin: YOU ARE GIVING IMPLICIT APPROVAL FOR NOBLES TO ATTACK ROYAL FAMILY MEMBERS! THIS KIND OF PARDON RESTRICTION IS FORGIVING ATTEMPTS AT REGICIDE!

Wanderer2691: Actually, no, this is entirely an anti-totalitarian law! We all know how much the authority of bodyguards needs to be curbed!

Leliel: “Your Honor, the defendant, Sir McMeatshield, did throw himself in the way of the late Stabby von Evilstein, but you have to understand, it is Baron von Evilstein’s right to seek justice for the crime done to his son in the process of Stabby committing a worse one. It is the right of royal houses to commit treason, lest we collapse into autocratic tyranny.” Can anyone spot the issue with this?!

Charlotte: Honestly, the more I read this, the more I think that the author is a one-writer cargo cult of grimdark; mimicking its writing tropes without actually giving a moment’s thought worth to them. It’s not just depressing - it’s incoherent. Just because it happened in a book you liked does not mean putting it in another setting automatically keeps the good! “Great artists steal” means that really skilled writers are informed by tropes, not just regurgitating word vomit!

Ignatius: Given what we know about DDI now, an ill-informed edgy teenager sloppily replicating what he saw in other edgy fiction explains a lot about this mess.

"Postpone the trial then." A third voice entered the conversation that Sakura recognized immediately

"Subaki! I thought I had given you and Hana time off, what are you doing here?"

Charlotte: Down the hall, Orochi is stashing away poison with an evil grin.

"We came back as soon as we heard you had been in a scuffle. Hana is beside herself with worry. I am too, if we're being honest, but I figure you would appreciate my assistance more than my worry."

Kana: *Subaki* “Though given how the author hates my people doing things, worry is all I can do without it going wrong.”

Caeldori: Oh look, it's Father's brief moment of screentime before he gets brutally fridged to advance the stupid Hans "redemption arc." Also known as "DDI forgot about Aunt Sakura's retainers and awkwardly put in one cameo and awkward mention of the previous chapters' events. (While also not even bothering with Aunt Hana.)"

"Well, a trial can't legally go forward until all evidence has been accounted for, and witnesses count as evidence," explained Subaki, "So if we inform the magistrate that we have two witnesses right here, they wouldn't be able to lawfully go to trial until those two have given their statements. From there it would be simple to contrive reasons for why either of them can't leave the castle or receive visitors."

Kanaki: While I would consider it plausible that Papa knows about the (frankly flawed) court system, Aunt Sakura is the one that's usually guiding him on things, not the other way around. In fact, their entire support chain is her advising Papa not to overextend and push himself too hard.

"That's stupid," said Corrin, "You're cutting yourself off from an entire tree of magic. Why, because it looks scary? Clothes are pretty unnatural too but people seem just fine with those, outside the bedroom."

Wanderer2691: Ugh, this kind of logical fallacy. Clothes are artificial, swords are artificial - but the entire purpose of a shirt is not to stab people. When people are talking about an inanimate object being unnatural, they’re usually pointing at the harmful effects. If Dark Magic could only be used for torturing people to death, I’m not going to quibble with the legal description is technically shared with a concrete block. This is Corringula trying to be superior, pure and simple.

Kanny: Dumb teenager logic is really the only thing DDI- I mean Corringula can run on.

And now, that hypothetical child was no longer hypothetical nor a child. She was a grown woman standing right in front of her. She was now a person in her mind, not just an ideal. She was a person who was a contradiction in so many ways. She was loud and boisterous, yet concealed her thoughts under impenetrable layers. She cared for those beneath her, yet was vengeful and violent. She was confrontational and hateful, yet treated her with more intimacy and kindness than her family had in all the years she had known them.

She had been given everything Azura had been longing for her entire life, and was willing to give it all up so she wouldn't be left behind.

Caeldori: *shaking in her seat*

Kanaki: Uhhhh... Sis? You ok?

Caeldori: *shifts to a smaller dragon form than Yoona's*

Ignatius: EEP! EVERY MAN FOR THEMSELVES! *ducks under table*

Caeldori: WHAT KIND OF AUDACITY DO YOU HAVE, DDI, TO SHILL YOUR VILLAINOUS LEAD CHARACTER THIS MUCH?! YOU'VE ALREADY DEMONSTRATED HOW CASUAL SHE IS ABOUT MURDER! YOU'VE SHOWN HER TO HAVE NO SENSE OF RESPECT TO ANOTHER CULTURE! WHEN HAS SHE EVER CARED ABOUT ANYONE, MUCH LESS THOSE BENEATH HER?! WHEN HAS SHE EVER SHOWN INTIMACY OR KINDNESS TO ANYONE, ESPECIALLY TO AUNT AZURA?! WE KNOW NOW YOU DIDN'T CONSIDER ANYONE THE HERO BUT WHAT IS THIS SUPPOSED TO BE?! *collapses back into her human form* Oh gods, I hardly ever do that...

Kanaze: Okay, moving on...

Keaton: As a recap, Garon, let’s point out a short list of all the things that had to go right for this to even have a chance to go right:

20. That all this, and whatever we didn’t cover, remains stable over 15 fucking years and change, with no unforeseen changes in the situation complicating matters even more.

Kanny: Ooh this list! We three Kanas actually thought up of even more just based on the content of this story alone! Kanaze, you got the list?

Kanaze: Right here! *Ahem*
21. Corrin not being murdered by any desperate, vengeful prisoners she "practices" with.
22. Or dying from STDs as a result of her sleeping around.
23. Or dying from alcohol poisoning, OR the withdrawal while in Hoshido.
24. Hans not being even more opportunistic and offing Corrin "accidentally" when he broke command.
25. Uncle Saizo not figuring out Papa's fate and quietly offing her in vengeance.

Ignatius: Of course, there's probably even more holes even we didn't account for.

Our chief writer (myself) would like to inform you that no employee in DeathDealer Inc. have ever played the Hoshido path or the Revelation path. While Hoshido will still be represented though the point of view of their characters, we ask our readers to forgive some misrepresentation as most of our information comes from TV Tropes.

Kanaki: *eye twitches*

Caeldori: Oh no... I don't have enough energy to rage about this, but my little brother... everyone retreat!

Kanaki: *shifts into his own dragon form* THAT'S NO EXCUSE TO NOT WATCH YOUTUBE LIKE WANDERER SAID, AND EVEN IF YOU USED TVTROPES, AUNT SAKURA HAS SILK HIDING STEEL AS A TROPE AND A LONG LIST OF EXAMPLES SHOWING HER STRENGTH! EVEN IF THAT DIDN'T EXIST BACK WHEN YOU WROTE A BRIGHTER DARK, THAT'S STILL NO EXCUSE TO TURN HER INTO A MOEBLOB!!

Kanny: Well, the room is a total flooded wreck now... um... any help with repairs for when our parents have a turn?