(About Me:)

Chihuahua enthusiast. Wannabe writer and gamer extraordinaire.

My all-time favorite games are probably Crusader Kings II, the Dark Souls trilogy, the Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, the Mass Effect trilogy, and the Bioshock series. Also, most anything that incorporates strategy (the Age of Empires series, Cities: Skylines, Planet Zoo, Factory Town, et cetera). My current favorite is Fire Emblem: Three Houses because, in it, I get to live my Hogwarts professor fantasy and have tea time with my students when they're not murdering each other lol.

If you've read or are currently reading one of my stories, then thank you for reading! I truly appreciate it. If you're feeling generous, please consider leaving me a review! Reviews, even quick ones that say "This is great! I loved it!", are as good as gold to me as a writer. Seriously, they make my day. I love hearing from people. :)

And you know what they say in certain fantasy circles... Toss a coin to your writer! *wink, wink*

(About Four Letter Words:)

My goal with this fanfic is to basically challenge myself as a writer and write things I would normally avoid (a 100,000-plus words story, dialogue-heavy chapters, action scenes, etc). I'm basically writing what I want to read, and I'm writing this story in particular because I love Edelgard and her agency as a complex female character. But I also graduated with a minor in history, A Song of Ice and Fire is one of my favorite book series, and I love to play Crusader Kings II on "ironman" mode, if that tells you anything about me (read: I enjoy medieval history/fantasy, political intrigue, and realism). So, yes, my writing may swing that way.

This will NOT be a rewrite of FE:TH. (I have already read a few fanfics that explore the idea of rewriting the game or the “NewGamePlus” mechanic and do it well.) The second chapter will be starting during Chapter 18 of the Crimson Flower route. I am mostly using the "NewGamePlus" mechanic as a post-game plot device. It is my intention to give CF a more conclusive ending; explore Edelgard's relationship with Byleth, Edelgard's past, and character supports that weren't in-game; and resolve the war with the Agarthans. Maybe even delve beyond that if there is a demand or if I feel like it.

I will be taking some liberties and trying to tie together the game's weakest plot points (ex: why does Edelgard seem to have strong feelings for Byleth even in the Azure Moon and Verdant Wind routes? Why is Byleth sick throughout Chapter 8?) so don't be surprised if a few things are different than they were in-game. I might use flashbacks to show these divergences. That said, I will be trying to remain as faithful to the game and its characters as I can without diverging too much from each route. (If it helps, think of Byleth as a cautious player who is going through each route for the very first time; I know I didn't really use the recruitment mechanic or use it to its fullest ability the first few times I played so, yes, a lot of the students died. RIP, Ashe.)

Moving forward, I will be manually listing the "warnings" and "tags" for each individual chapter at the top of that chapter. So, please, read through those if you are sensitive to certain topics, ships, characters, spoilers, etc. For this reason, I will also be including a brief summary ("TL;DR") at the end of each chapter for anyone who would like to skip ahead.

When I read fanfiction, I know I sometimes skip chapters to get to the "good" parts. I am clearly tagging each chapter so you can do that too. That way, you should have an easier time skipping straight to the angst or fluff or hurt/comfort or whatever it is that you're in the mood to read.

Some things to keep in mind:

1. This is the first Fire Emblem game I have ever played. Lore-wise, I am not familiar with the rest of the series.

2. I lurk on the Fire Emblem subreddits on Reddit and may or may not have incorporated some of the interesting theories I've seen shared by users such as SigurdVII, bellarch19, esterve, Omegaxis1, and others. That said, I might not remember where I got every idea from so I'm using this as a catch-all disclaimer: If you recognize it, it's probably not mine.

3. I do not watch much anime or read any manga. I only watch the animes my sister forces me to lol.

4. I have already taken the liberty of cross-posting this story to Archive of Our Own.

5. In case it isn't clear: Byleth's route order is SS - AM - VW - CF

6. My fic "Ends” is an in-progress prequel of sorts to "Four Letter Words," intended to elaborate upon the divergences in SS, AM, and VW.

7. No, I do not have a beta reader. I do my own stunts editing.

8. For now, I am trying to post at least one chapter per month due to current life events. There is no set schedule at this time.

9. The naming convention I've chosen for the story and chapters is kind of weird (and arguably stupid), but I like it so I'm going to keep doing it.