Archive of Our Own

Started on a whim on April 4th, 2021 as a bit of practice, this is a semi-retelling of the story of Re:Zero which does and will diverge within certain limits from the original story itself, incorporating a number of ideas which's disclosure for the most part would serve as nothing but spoiler.

The primary divergence present from the start, is what the whim was based on. A community cried out, as the writer of a "Fembaru" fanfic disappeared, and so was born this story to fill the void. If "Fembaru" is unclear, the initial divergence, is that in this world Natsuki Subaru is in fact a woman. However, one should neither expect the world to be fully switched when it comes to the sexes, nor that Subaru is the only one who is switched. Since again this fanfiction was started to fill a void in a community, said community got a vote on which major characters would switch and which wouldn't. In future, as the story progresses, similar votes may still be held.

This collection will house any extra series or individual works that may come in the future, such as Extra Chapters, that take places away from Subaru, or IFs that take place in worlds where events have transpired differently.

I'll use this as a temporary Q&A section, so to start things off:

Q: [Paraphrased since this didn't come as an official question, but as a request for a guessing contest] What winning requests have there been from contests before?
A:
First contest (Challenge was to spot the running gag, which is that every chapter title is a lyrics from a song):
1) A specific kind of interraction between Wilhelm and Subaru in the future.
2) Otto getting 'a bone tossed their way', as well as maybe Betty saying a specific line in the future, as a bonus since it's funny.
3) A specific interraction between Subaru and Reinhard that is such a fantastic idea, I'm not only including it, but fusing it with the first win of the second contest, as the moment from which things branch.

Second contest (Challenge was to guess what RbD's new name will be. No one directly guessed 'Back in Time' but I ruled that everyone who guessed that it will be a song title was 'close enough', especially since there were some fun guesses, and I didn't want to cheat someone out of a win just because they didn't list out every single song title that might apply):
1) They asked for three things, of which one I can't promise I'll do, since it might make things difficult going forward, however, the other two include a specific Reinhard scenario AND a certain type of IF.
2) Something vague about Ram that I'm afraid I haven't figured out yet the meaning of.
3) The request that made me write up this note to answer them.