Fanfic / L'Amour Detruit

L'Amour Detruit, by SousChefSean, is a Fire Emblem Heroes fanfiction that explores the potential consequences of summoning heroes that are, on some level, forced to like and trust their summoner. To be more specific, it shows what happens when that not entirely willing affection is unintentionally taken to Yandere levels. Each chapter features a different Fire Emblem girl becoming closer to the Summoner...and taking their love way too far.

The fic can be found here on FF.net and here on Archive of Our Own and is still in-progress.

Tropes associated with L'Amour Detruit:

• Ax-Crazy: What most of the 'heroines' become when they think someone is going to get in the way of their love.
• Children Are Innocent: ZigZagged - On the one hand, 9-year-old Larcei wants to kill another girl her age for being close to the boy she likes. On the other hand, she has enough of a moral compass to recognize how evil her desires are. At least, until Ayra finds out about them and is all too happy to make sure her daughter follows in her footsteps…
• Cruel and Unusual Death: While nobody ever dies a clean death, Sakura's is especially painful: she's burned alive by L'Arachel, who thinks she's a monster pretending to be a priestess and wants to punish her for 'making a mockery of all that is just'. Lucina's death is notably cruel on an emotional level, because Ayra decides to sadistically mock her for failing to save Ylisse and dying with all of her goals unfulfilled.
• Daddy's Little Villain: Larcei, who inherits Ayra’s murderous contempt for romantic rivals and will be taught by her mother how to deal with competition.
• Dark Fic: Normally sweet, heroic characters are reduced to unhinged, psychotic killers whose actions result in anything from death to mutilation and psychological trauma.
• Domestic Abuse: Caeda's emotional treatment of Kiran is disturbingly similar to this. Like an abusive spouse, she tries to tell him his injuries are his own fault because he 'forced' her to maim him.
  Caeda (After twisting Kiran's foot 180 degrees so he can't run away): I only hurt you because you made me, you know.
• Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Averted - Catria tries to force herself onto Kiran when it becomes clear he was always going to pick Eirika over her and only gives up halfway because she finds it no fun if he doesn't reciprocate. The attempt is still portrayed as disgusting and vile, with Kiran pointing out how sick Catria is for thinking it would actually work.
• Driven to Suicide:
  • Catria once she snaps out of her jealousy driven craze. Her decision is motivated by both guilt over her crimes and fear of reprisal from the other Heroes.
  • After she cuts his hands off, Kiran is reduced to begging for Caeda to just get it over with and kill him already. Much to his despair, she refuses and dismisses his pleading as blood-loss induced hysteria.
• Enfant Terrible: 9-year-old Larcei is set to become this thanks to Ayra, who encourages her to follow her homicidal urges and murder any romantic rivals that arise.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: For all their despicable crimes, the yandere do at least always profess an unwavering love for Kiran. That said, some seem more genuine about it than others.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Caeda can't begin to fathom that the Order rescued Kiran because they were worried about him or that they've imprisoned her for being a dangerous murderer. In her mind, everyone else is jealous of her and Kiran's 'love' and is only trying to keep them apart out of spite.
• Foreign Language Title: The fic's title is French and translates to "Love Destroyed" and was taken from a My Dying Bride song.
• Heel Realization: Catria comes to her senses after fatally stabbing Kiran and immediately becomes wracked with guilt for what she did. When she's Driven to Suicide, she even has the conscience to apologize to Eirika as well.
• If I Can't Have You…: Said word for word by Catria when Kiran declares that he'll never love her. Unlike most examples, she realizes what a bad idea it was after all is said and done.
• In the Blood: Larcei is well on her way to becoming just as much of a yandere as Ayra. When the latter finds out, she’s delighted and promises to teach her daughter everything she knows.
• Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: Julia does this by killing Seliph. While she was far from a hero by that point (having begun to see other people as ‘things’ and been magically twisting Kiran’s mind to make him love her), that act of murder is what sees her devolve into a fit of insane giggling and begin deciding to indulge in sadism for nothing but the sheer spiteful pleasure of it.
• Karma Houdini:
  • Ayra successfully avoids getting caught murdering Lucina and in fact ends up using the incident to strengthen her relationship with Kiran, who doesn't have the faintest clue how unstable she really is.
  • L'Arachel sees nothing wrong with telling Kiran that she burned Sakura alive, but made sure to bind their lives together in a ritual beforehand. Meaning Kiran can't give her the punishment she deserves without forfeiting his own life in the process.
• Loves the Sound of Screaming: Ayra’s epilogue mentions that she sometimes fondly recalls the agonized screams of her victims as a way of cheering herself up.
• Murder the Hypotenuse: As the fic focuses on Yandere, this is to be expected.
  • Ayra thinks she's pre-emptively doing this by killing Lucina, but her only 'evidence' that Lucina would've tried anything was that she had a friendly chat with Kiran while they were in line for dinner.
  • Catria does this to Eirika when she walks in on her and Kiran sharing a kiss. She successfully offs her rival, but Kiran is understandably not very eager to reciprocate her affection.
• Sadist: Many of the yandere are killers, but only some of them get enjoyment purely out of inflicting pain. These include:
  • Ayra, who’s explicitly said in her epilogue to have taken great pleasure in making her victims suffer as much as possible.
  • Julia, who delights in inflicting emotional pain and revels in making Cecilia cry while she watches her make out with Kiran.
• Sanity Has Advantages: While it's a stretch to call her 'sane', Ayra is noticeably more controlled and rational than the other yandere, being able to hold her homicidal urges back if in the wrong time or place. This restraint is what enables her to not only kill off her supposed rival, but do it in a way that places her above suspicion and makes sure Kiran never wises up to what she's doing.
• Serial Killer: Ayra’s Epilogue confirms that she became this. Her exact body count is never explicitly said, but since she claims to have been responsible for every fatality the Order ever suffered and only stops paying attention to Alfonse’s memorial speech after “the first two-dozen names”, that means she murdered at least 25 Heroes in cold blood.
• The Sociopath: All of the girls have at least some shades of this, but Ayra in particular exhibits the most sociopathic traits.
  • She displays a Lack of Empathy when she murders Lucina and is baffled that the rest of the Order is reduced to tears by her death.
  • She acts like a Consummate Liar when, after stabbing Lucina in the back, she fakes distress and concern for her victim to put herself above suspicion in the eyes of the rest of her patrol.
  • She exhibits her overinflated sense of importance with her constant paranoia that other women are secretly out to steal Kiran from her and is unable to comprehend that a girl could be friendly with him while not being out to get her.
• Through the Eyes of Madness: Any chapter from the yandere's POV technically qualifies, but L'Arachel especially stands out. She starts remembering conversations with Kiran that never happened and ends seeing Sakura as an evil demon conspiring to destroy all that is good and righteous in the world.
• When All You Have Is a Hammer…: This acts as the chapter opener for Ayra. She's always solved her problems by killing whatever's in the way and deals with any perceived threats to her relationship with Kiran in the same manner.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: How Julia kills Seliph – she feigns remorse over her crimes to get him to lower his guard and then impales him with magic from the Book of Naga.
• Yandere: The whole premise of the fic. Each girl fits into a different 'type' that makes them distinct from one another:
  • Eliminating Type - Ayra is paranoid about other women trying to steal Kiran from her and meticulously plans to murder anyone and everyone she sees as a threat.
  • Attack Type - Catria can't handle rejection and is willing to murder both Eirika and Kiran himself when it becomes apparent that she'll never have his love.
  • Delusional Type - L'Arachel becomes convinced that she and Kiran are the holy reincarnations of legendary heroes and that the Order has been infested with shape-shifting demons trying to keep them from being with each other.
  • Monopolizing Type - Caeda believes that love is wanting to keep someone all to yourself and kidnaps Kiran when she can't stand the sight of him interacting with other people any more.