s i hope i'm not being presumptuous here but. i would like to hear your sylvain/seteth brainworms
Okay okay okay. Hear me out: (un)stoppable force v. immovable object, Sylvain being the former. Which isn't to say Seteth is a rigid stick in the mud--he can't be for this to work. Only that living for so long means his constant state (i.e. the thing he can't be moved from) is one of at least some adaptability. In other words: we have a volatile force who can (and does) at one point change for the better, and an object that's essentially a stalk of bamboo in the breeze.
The potentials here are endless.
I have another post somewhere in my blog about Setvain, but that's mainly pertaining to a blurb I had about them in Princes (in which they will not, unfortunately, be getting together). But I think Crests would invite a very interesting friction between them. Sylvain has a disdain for Crests that never really goes away. Seteth is one of the few people left in this world who understands what Crests are. And, as far as I'm concerned, Sylvain's attitude reminds him of how he felt when his people were first brutalized. To see the remnants of your family paraded around like trophies and lauded as blessings--I don't think the hurt that comes from that ever truly goes away. But once it's been done, it's done. You cannot strip Crests away from Fódlani society in one fell swoop without being utterly and indisputably morally bankrupt (read: dabbling in eugenics or creating a new social system wherein the Crested are on the bottom).
ANYWAY. Tangent over. Seteth has had time to come to this conclusion. Even if it'll never be true peace of mind, it's peaceful. The truth of the matter is that Sylvain has a Crest, and it is of value. I think Seteth is the perfect person to help him come to terms with that, given that Sylvain has a very nasty habit of objectifying himself, either as a son or potential spouse.
On the other hand, Sylvain has a very interesting and, dare I say healthy, relationship with duty. At least by the end of the game.
We're introduced to Sylvain as someone who's acting diametrically oppositional to how he knows he'll need to act in the future--but he never lets it affect him long-term. He enjoys himself (even if this enjoyment is debatably a method of emotional self-harm, given it feeds into his self-objectification), but when shit gets real he's one of the first to be on top of it. He's emotionally intelligent, even if it takes a while for him to become emotionally mature, and that informs a lot of his more level-headed beliefs. In this instance, when it comes to accepting the reality of the situation ("I'm gonna be margrave one day, might as well party-hardy while I can"), he's swapped places with Seteth.
Because Seteth has his own unrealistic ways about walking through the world, and they all boil down to Flayn.
Though not informed by nothing (see: that oft-forgotten genocide before the start of the game), he is incredibly, unhealthily protective of Flayn. I would argue he is unrealistically protective, the same way Sylvain has unrealistic expectations of women. Yes, some people are going to act the way you fear they will, but to let that inform every single decision you make in this one area of your life--flirting with someone or raising your daughter, for example--is to take the long route of shooting yourself in the foot. You become a self-fulfilling prophecy. You act as though women will treat you like meat, and so you're likely to attract those same women; you have been proven right. In Seteth's case it's more like confirmation bias, where he feared the worst and close to the worst happened, so all of his previous behaviours have been justified--though credit where credit is due, he does send Flayn to school in the interest of self-defence. (Emotional growth and human interaction being bonuses, I guess.)
Seteth does not need advice on how to raise his daughter, per se, but I think the input of someone who was raised with more weighty expectations placed upon him than he has fingers and toes would mean something. And depending on WHEN in canon we're talking about, this can take on different tones. Pre- any sort of relationship, before the kidnapping, and Seteth has actually managed to corner Sylvain and foist advice onto him? Sylvain would passive-aggressively offer advice he genuinely believed in pertaining to how Seteth managed his younger sister. Post-kidnapping, and perhaps a one- or two-night stand for stress relief on either end? Sylvain would be more earnest and serious in reminding Seteth he is not the goddess and couldn't have possibly done anything differently--not without making her hate him indefinitely for keeping her cooped up in a tower a la Rapunzel like he very clearly has the urge to at times. If he worded it specifically that way, I think Seteth would have perhaps a more volatile reaction--because while he isn't the goddess, he is her kin, and if the world were different he would have been able to use that truth of him to protect her more thoroughly.
So we now have two men who have been irreversibly altered by the world, in a way that allows them to offer a different, calmer perspective on the facts at hand, while at the same time giving them emotional blindspots that are perfectly in the field of vision of the other. We have the basis of what so profoundly intrigues me about them. Which leads me to my next and final statement:
I just think DDILF (dragon dad i'd like to fuck) dick would fix him <3 or at least calm him down a bit.
