The Golden Deer and Their Glorious Battle Against Professor Byleth, Who Started It

[waltzoid]

Remember that big list of popular Fire Emblem fanfics I gathered back in February? Well, I'm (very slowly) reading through most of the stories on that list to determine which ones I would recommend reading. I say "most" because there are a few crossovers where I'm not familiar with the non-Fire Emblem side, and I wouldn't feel comfortable providing reviews about source material about which I'm not fully informed. (That means An Awakening in Cold Steel, Outlaw Knight, and Professor Joker will be delayed until I find time to play any of the Trails of Cold Steel games, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Persona 5 Royal, respectively.)

At the start, my ratings will be simple "Pass" or "Fail" rulings, based solely on whether or not I enjoy reading a story. I'll worry about stacking them by tiers when I'm all done...or you can make your own based on the levels of excitement or disgust in my review posts if you want.

Now that the rules have been established, let's kick things off with a short fic with a very long title:

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The Golden Deer and Their Glorious Battle Against Professor Byleth, Who Started It

Author: fallencities

Series: Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Length: One-shot, about 8,000 words

Progress: Completed, obviously

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"Golden Deer's Glorious Battle" (damn, that title is a mouthful, so I'm only reciting part of it) was written a mere two weeks after the game's release in July 2019, long before fans had time to fully form their opinions about the game's characters or plot. It's about Byleth offering advice to her Golden Deer students, eventually switching over to them playing pranks on their teacher until they get one over on her.

Despite its short length and a lead time of just two weeks, the story seems to have a good grasp on each of the Deer's basic personality quirks (Claude is sneaky, Hilda is lazy but can get motivated under the right circumstances, Ignatz and Marianne are shy, Raphael is the muscle-bound "big softie", etc.), and Byleth, who is mostly defined by her stoicism in the game (aside from player-selected dialogue responses), takes her work seriously and strikes a good balance between wanting to bring the best out of the Deer and being aware of their plots against her.

My Rating: It's not a deep or serious story by any stretch, but it made me laugh a little, so it did what it set out to do. Good stuff.