#[Nasus has done a lot of things]

[derekscorner]

Fated Rantings: El motherf**kin Melloi

I'm back! I don't even know how many this makes but by hell welcome back to my trip through Fate! I've been looking forward to this one for a while now. Ever since I finished Fate Zero (click here <-) in fact. (-> here's part two)

The "why done it" in this case being due to Waver Velvet and Iskandar. When I sat through Fate Zero I absolutely loved their arc and dynamic as the story progressed. Iskandar is one of the best bros I've seen written within Fate which is a praise I also give to Astolfo from Apocrypha.

Of course, with Astolfo I was also shocked by the sheer dissonance between the meme and the actual character. In Iskandar's case, I was shocked by the sheer misinterpretation of the Banquet of Kings scene.

I'll fight any of you on that scene and his character. It left me questioning the critical thinking skills of many given what I had heard vs what I actually saw.

But that's for another post, I linked the part two of the fate zero post if you're curious about my feelings of that scene.

What's most important for this post is just how much Waver changed after Fate Zero or more specifically the 4th Holy Grail War.

Multiple Histories, One World

Now, as with nearly every post these days, I do feel the need to preface the multiverse nature of Fate and it's Type-Moon cousins. This multiverse has fed a lot of the complicated reputation for these stories and many movies are adapting a specific route or ending from a novel.

Fate Stay Night, Fate Hollow Ataraxia, Tsukihime, so many have multiple routes and endings. FSN in particular has had two anime and three movies depicting each main route.

This is relevant because the El Melloi Case files are based on actual light novels rather than visual novels. The anime is only 13 episodes long and it by no means has the time to truly adapt every novel in that series.

This should also be kept in mind because events and terms are shared among the various stories but that does not mean each story is connected.

For example, in most stories where Waver Velvet exists usually depict him as a participant in the 4th Holy Grail War but this does not mean that every Waver you see lived through Fate Zero.

Fate Zero is a specific retelling of the 4th Grail War but not the universal depiction. A good example of what I mean is with Saber (Artoria) from Fate Stay Night.

In the original visual novel as well as the UBW anime (and others) Saber references the 4th Grail War and Kiritsugu. Even though servants aren't supposed to remember previous summons she does but the war she remembers in those stories is not the same story from Fate Zero.

Fate Zero is just one alternative version of the 4th Grail War. The war itself happens in several alternate worlds but none of them are exactly the same series of events.

In other words, you'll see Waver cameo in many stories but never assume they all had the same history. They probably had similar histories.

With that out of the way let us focus on the version of Waver we did see, the boy from Fate Zero that's grown into a lord of the Clocktower.

What a true life changing experience just meeting someone can be

l've said it before but it's entirely possible to see the anime from the 2010s as their own pocket continuity. I won't claim that as 100% accurate since even 'ol Nasu said Fate Zero is it's own timeline but I do fully believe it can apply here.

El Melloi calls back to Fate Zero often and while the anime leaves out a lot that the novel covers it's still worth seeing. It focuses well on what became of Waver after Fate Zero and how Iskandar changed him.

It's even a plot point that he's obsessed with Iskandar and that war. Waver wishes to see Iskandar again and aims for the 5th Grail War. This obsession is often seen as a dangerous thing as well by those around Waver and for good reason.

Iskandar is a heroic spirit, he is dead and within Type-Moon it is the livings job to move forward not the dead.

What I mean is that Waver is seemingly chasing the dead, running towards an end to prove himself to his king. Waver is not suicidal or the like but he's missed a bit of Iskandar's message.

In Fate Zero Iskandar does his damnedest to get the, then impatient and temperamental, Waver to enjoy the journey. Iskandar loves life and new things and pushes Waver to experience new things.

But as El Melloi Waver has come to a stand still. I saw this as sad but not unbelievable for it is very human to find yourself stuck as an adult.

l see this as Waver "missing the forest for the trees" in a sense because;

A) He knows that servants typically do not recall previous summons. His desire to see if Iskandar remembers or approves of him is moot from the get go. He is effectively chasing shadows. B) Waver's entire personality as the tired teacher El Melloi was shaped by Iskandar. Waver has already changed in a positive way but does not reflect on that. He remembers their time together fondly but doesn't think of his present much.

Waver only regrets or remembers a past, he's not living life to the fullest like Iskandar would push him to do. It is a very believable fault to have and a very real rut that many of you will experience once as you age.

The beauty of Waver's time as El Melloi is seeing him learn to let go and live life with an attitude more akin to what Iskandar spouted.

The man vs the Boy

Even then, even with that focus on Waver's obsession with the past, the story also shows just how much Waver changed after the 4th Grail War. They're not things Waver speaks up about himself but they are things both the viewer and cast take note of.

The first big change is seen in the flashback of how Waver became the lord El Melloi II. It is a few years before the first episode but a year or two after Fate Zero. After borrowing money (beginning his perpetual debt) Waver bought the nearly defunct classroom of his mentor Kayneth, the previous lord el Melloi.

The very man that Waver stole his relic from, the same man that was dealt a death so shameful by Kiritsugu that I found him more disgusting than Saber in that moment.

This not only took mage society by surprise but he shocked everyone still by making the class successful. Waver moans his lack of talent but he's proving Iskandar right by putting his head to use.

Within Fate Zero Iskandar pointed out Waver's problem solving skills and how solving something simpler than others is a talent to be proud of.

It's obvious that others recognize this talent as well since he's often called to solve cases. He uses the money to pay off debts but the very fact that a society as prideful and traitorous as the Clocktower would even call him for help is a feat that I do not think Waver even considers.

The fact that he'd even buy Kayneth's class to keep it alive also shows a sharp change. As a boy he was irresponsible and was partly the cause of Kayneth's death but as a man he accepts that responsibility.

He's not making excuses as he did when you saw him in Fate Zero. I do not feel that my words are doing this trait justice because so many people grow up and never learn to accept the responsibility of their actions.

Let alone go out of their way to amend the issues they cause.

By hell his acceptance of responsibility even takes the characters in story by surprise. The whole reason Waver is 'lord el melloi' is because the family was put on the cusp of ruin by Waver's actions and Kayneth's death.

They chose Reines as the next head out of political logic and necessity. When she kidnaps him (as a small child mind you) she fully expected Waver to throw a fit and go into denial because that's the personality he had prior to the war.

She was joking in earnest (probably plotting something bad too) but no. Waver accept all her demands and only asked they add the "II" to his title.

Both because Waver does not think he's worthy of the el melloi title and because his station is temporary.

It may seem like minor rambling to you but I found this shift rather interesting and praise worthy.

Waver's mage family is new, he essentially had no father, so when I see this change I see a boy that learned a sense of responsibility from Iskandar. Perhaps not a father-figure in the truest sense but he was an example Waver needed.

Iskandar was a king and accepted all that it brought and from his words you see that he did consider his men and their view of him.

Even if by a fraction Waver emulated that and I consider that beautiful in hindsight of Fate Zero to here.

As a teacher

To the shock of the Clocktower (and me tbh) Waver is a damn good teacher. He may lack power and potential as a mage himself but his problem solving mindset and his experiences have made him damn near prodigal as an instructor.

By the end of the anime he had at least 3 students of "pride" rank. I won't go into the whole detail but the best way to sum that up for you is by saying mages have ranks.

To have students who achieved a "pride" rank at such young ages is basically like a teacher in our world having three kids skip their way to college.

All of Waver's students have more talent than him but his class tends to draw the unwanted or odd so few of them have the actual mentality to put that power to use.

The Clocktower essentially throws problem children at him and he turns them into respectable mages much to the higher ups annoyance.

Sadly the anime only showed a few of his class but I loved it when I got to see him being a teacher. The cases he solves are fun as well but the class draws out the easily annoyed aspect of Waver.

The parts of him that is still the young Waver which becomes a funny contrast in a way. I'd even argue that Waver draws annoying people to him unconsciously.

His "best friend" Melvin, the overly fond Flat, or actually talented/respectable mages like Luvia who wants him to be her tutor.

Hell, he's even on a list of people that female students wish to sleep with. No, I am not joking. One of them is even in his class. Her name is Yvette and I am certain that she's unhinged.

His social circle is endearing and it draws out a bit of young Waver and I love it.

Sorry, I lost my own plot there. I don't really have a structure to my rambles since my brain just does not work that way but I hope that I got across how much I love what this story has done with Waver.

He was one of the best parts of Fate Zero and I loved seeing how Iskandar changed him. I see it almost like a man adopting an unruly kid and making them into a better person.

Only for that same person to do the same for his students. Of course, I also just genuinely love to see the Fate world in motion outside a Grail War.

You hear a lot about Clocktowers, mage society, and so on but this is a story in which you see it. You're getting the backdrop of the Type-Moon universe and I'm sad this anime didn't get more seasons to explore it.

However, before I finish up what has become a part one I have to mention a foil to Waver. Not another mage or case but his foil as a subject to Iskandar.

I found you, FAKER

Hephaestion was an interesting character to me. I was interested in her prior due to lore but actually seeing her in action made me more interested in her dichotomy to Waver.

Both are heavily shaped by Iskandar himself but while Waver is a subject of the king Hephaestion was a body double. It's a bit more complex than that of course but she's essentially a body double he had in life.

Due to the magecraft used that let her play such a role she had no name of her own and her mark on history is odd compared to actual heroic spirits.

Thanks to this and the way in which she was summoned she manifested as a new class "pretender". Or as this anime called it "Faker".

However, all things in Fate have a grain of truth. No matter how fantastical the spirit or spell there was something real it was based on.

This "faker" was a real woman and her hatred for Waver is a foil since he sees himself as a subject to Iskandar. She respects her king as much, if not more, than Waver but she hated his army.

For Waver to call himself a subject, for him to mention the Ionioi Hetairoi and her absence in it, these things anger her.

She saw that army as a detriment that lead to Iskandar's death. She even counts among the Ionioi Hetairoi by technicality but refuses to appear when Iskandar uses it due to her hatred of the army.

There's likely more there as well but I sadly lack knowledge on her as of typing this. I do know the basic gist of Dr. Heartless' plan and her role in it but her personal history I know little.

But her foil to Waver I do find interesting because both were shown Iskandar's kindness yet she views herself apart as special confidant while Waver wishes to be a subject.

It is like they gained two opposite lessons from the same man. She even rejected Iskandar's numerous attempts to name her due to her respect for him. She was fine being his double while Iskandar saw it as horribly inhumane.

She hates the army, Waver would happily join it. She is a warrior and strong, Waver is weak. Yet Waver is the only one that can say things to get under her skin. On some level she knows he's right, on some level he understands her thanks to their shared experiences with Iskandar.

To be honest the anime doesn't explore them as much as I wish it did. I'm rambling, hoping to stretch it, but in truth the anime ended before I got to see this truly explored. It's a neat parallel to see but an incomplete one.

Thanks to lore videos I watch I do have a grander scope than most whole watch the anime. A very similar situation to when I watched the 2006 Fate anime, I have context.

I won't spoil it but do know that Hephaestion and Dr Heartless' plot does lead to a proper build up and resolution to Waver's lingering feelings of Iskandar and the war.

I do think the anime did a good job, I truly wish it had more, but knowing what I do about these novels I wish they had gave it another season.

The dynamic of Iskandar to his two subjects also plays a greater role and one day I hope we get to see it.

For now I think I'll stop this here and make that part two. I know I rambled a lot with no direction and it fell thin toward the end there so I appreciate you reading regardless.

Hopefully you'll enjoy part two more where I can talk about other things aside my obsession with Waver and his character.

I'll leave my other better written Fate posts linked below as well. Bye~

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El Motherf**Kin Melloi pt2: https://www.tumblr.com/derekscorner/757996566277701632/fated-rantings-clocktowers-business-hours

For my other experiences with Fate click here: https://derekscorner.tumblr.com/tagged/fated-rantings

[kaibutsushidousha]

To be honest, your discussion of Minase's positive and negative qualities piqued my interest. What do you think are the main recurring fgo writers' strong and weak points? Also where would you rank the lilim harlot event?

For the sake of brevity, I'll stick to one per writer. Picking apart everyone to the extent I did with Minase would take forever and would be better done after their respective Ordeal Calls.

I hesitate to call Higashide's comedy his strong point because his huge hits are about as frequent as his huge misses. I suppose I'll go with clarity for Higashide's main strong point. Even when I think he sucked at delivering his point, I can always tell what he's trying to say, which is not something I can say about Sakurai's most compressed scripts. His weak point is his lack of ambition. It's nice to have at least one person in FGO's team who will never try to escalate things, but I can't see it doesn't make his stories more forgettable in the long run.

Minase was already detailed in his own post.

Meteo’s best quality is a tone setter. Requiem, Salem, and all his events come with an atmosphere that feels very tangibly different from what FGO usually does. Often his events are bad, but never they lack a unique identity. Which segues into his weak point, being that many of his events are comedy events and the man is simply not funny. Bullying Erice is his only consistently good joke, and when he tries other things, the results are more miss than hit. See Las Vegas and Wandjina World Tour for major examples of comedy events that failed hard at the comedy side.

Nasu is a master recycler. I don't know how he does it but the man is constantly reusing the same structures, the same themes, or the same dynamics and somehow it never feels repetitive. There is always something that makes the whole recipe feel fresh and unique despite being so easy to recognize the same usual ingredients there. And what I dislike about Nasu in FGO is how he's still stuck at the concept of selling waifus from the girls with routes days. Everyone has their list of characters who get ship tease with Fujimaru but only in Nasu's case it feels like an overwhelming majority and that some of the choices create too large of a difference between the summoned character and the character in the main story. Was it really necessary to do this with, say, Morgan? Melusine? Tenochtitlan?

And Sakurai I saved for last because one major reason this post took this long is that I was struggling to sort out what is characteristically good and bad about her. Well, even now I don’t have a simple and satisfying answer. Things can’t be simple with Sakurai, unfortunately. One friend of mine described the experience of reading Sakurai scripts as “playing chess against an opponent that doesn’t tell that you are in a game of chess” and that’s honestly a fascinating way to phrase it.

Sakurai is an intriguing combination of inflexibly ambitious and inflexibly professional. She has grand ideas for her characters and she will include them in the script without fail. But she's also strictly adherent to script size limitations. While Nasu is making Camelot and Avalon le Fae with total disregard to every possible limit, Sakurai is cramming so much into Septem's and London's microscopic file space that it becomes utterly incomprehensible. Nasu wrote Last Encore's plot as a whole ass novel and hired Sakurai to convert that into anime scripts because Sakurai is his expert in fitting a lot of stuff into tiny spaces. Tunguska was tossed at Sakurai because probably no one else could fit into its raid event constraints. And because she doesn't compromise on what goes in, her alternative is not revealing the mysteries about her characters but laying out all the hints so the players can figure it out themselves, which is a really fun thing once you're used to it (read: aware that you're playing chess against her).

And the answer to "Where would I rank the Lilim Harlot event" is 1st place.

[lordelmelloi2]

Sakura Matou for the blorbo bingo

When you have lived Sakura's life, or a life with similar bullshit as Sakura, you realize how immensely boring the act of suffering is. That in of itself will make you crazy.

Her passive aggression makes me crazy. The fact that it's not considered by many to be an open aspect of her character like a rotting wood also makes me crazy, because to me, it's Right There and it's going to eat her and her relationships alive.

It drives me fucking crazy that after Heaven's Feel they basically said "Sakura is normal now". I hate the take that Sakura is totally innocent. That's just simply not what I think HF was trying to communicate, that's not what the scene between her and Kirei was trying to express. Sakura retaking her agency over her abuse also came at the cost of her realizing she now had the power to commit atrocities, and she did. When you're ritually abused like that you're whole life you can easily adopt a mindset that makes you believe it's all justified to lash out and hurt others because you suffered. I do believe Sakura was heavy in that mindset.

But what drives me crazy the most is this idea that she'll walk away from it all not still carrying the aspects of the sort of emotional and psychological trauma she endured with her. To me that's not gratifying or like... accurate. You do not endure the complex traumatic circumstances that Sakura endured and walk out the other way a perfectly functional person. I wish we could've seen an actual after-story where Sakura experiences a sort of perspective shift -- even though she's with Shirou and he's given up everything to stay with her, something's not right. Shirou is not healed of his trauma and neither is she and she is still just as passive aggressive and borderline as she was years ago, albeit less so since she's no longer literally in the Torture Chamber. There are still so many things she is going to have to reconcile with. The lifelong sexual assault by her grandfather. The lifelong sexual assault by her brother. The fact she's been incestuously abused at all! Does anyone understand what that does to your brain??? Your very being, your entire soul??? Just being with Shirou is not going to be enough to fix you, I have always been frustrated by the idea that Shirou just "fixes" Sakura as if that's a realistic expectation of him at all.

I so desperately wanted that to be reflected in the story. But, well. Given that there aren't a lot of Abuse Rescue stories that focus on how you can ruin your own life after escaping trauma, or really any that acknowledge you still have heavy effects of trauma after escaping as a whole... it frustrates me. It frustrates me immensely. I wanted it so badly. I wanted to see someone who was also tortured her entire life to see how she dealt with the aftereffects.

I just think it's truly, truly, absolutely rare to walk away from that and say "Well, I'm happy now" in the unique position that she's in. Fate is not a real story, no, but it has a lot of realism in the character's emotional processes and how that works, and I really wanted Nasu to follow through. Seeing what he's done with Sakura's character so far, I will always be unsatisfied...

[mozillavulpix]

wrote out a bunch of traum thoughts on reddit but it became too long so let's do it here:

Okay, now I'm done. Might as well list out a bunch of stray thoughts.

On a meta point of view, this has helped me figure out what parts of FGO have been Higashide. Really, this whole thing is about as so obviously Higashide as Heian-Kyo was for Sakurai. It ends up being a sequel to Orleans, Shinjuku, Anastasia, Atlantis Fate/Apocrypha and Fate/Extella Link all at the same time. It's like when a Nasu chapter randomly brings up something from Hollow Ataraxia. They all have their favourites and comfort zones so it becomes pretty obvious when you see what character stories they choose to continue.

Seriously though, "we're sorry we did everyone dirty in Fate/Apocypha" keeps happening and keeps being kind of hilarious. Astolfo gets to show off more of his insane side while also doing cool stuff instead of being reduced to Sieg's cheer squad, and Siegfried gets to do Feats that show he really is strong instead of just...giving his power to Sieg and not everything bad in Apocrypha is Sieg's fault but still-

Don Quixote was great. Expected, but great. Genderbending Sancho is a bit boring but gacha be gacha and fate be fate. I liked the twist in the end of them being summoned to Atlantis this whole time and just ran away. There's a whole bunch of stuff there that implies there were a lot of stories that happened off-screen.

Wish Roland could have done more. If he's really the strongest of the Paladins, it's kind of wild all he ended up doing was opening a door. And the sacrifice at the end almost felt artificially tragic. It's messed up, but it happened so fast that it didn't really get me.

Charlie is cool. And if anything, the whole "I'm not the standard version of Charles the Great so I generally don't get to stay summoned for long" makes him even cooler. Like he's just so powerful he can only appear for a limited time. Except for gacha.

Didn't really feel for Salome, her story just felt like the typical female Berserker story where they'll always try and kill the person they love and I swear we've seen this a lot in Fate so it just kinda blended in to me

I like how instead of playing up Xu Fu's Disaster Lesbian energy, her personality here is Being a Slacker. That's such a mood.

The weird thing is despite there being so much Holmes here, his death felt a bit rushed? Like the reveal of him being a Foreign God Disciple is almost so obvious is feels like a joke. (You showed up out of nowhere with weird abilities and no one knows who summoned you. of course it'd be the villain. what else could it possibly be). But also he just tries to fight Moriarty for 2 turns and then bam. he's dead. It would have hit harder if it happened after the final Moriarty fight instead of before. It doesn't make it feel like a climax.The most interesting thing was the implication that the 'real' Sherlock Holmes wouldn't have been an ally to Chaldea because he'd be too impartial, so the Ruler Holmes we know is a creation he made. Like a literal Alter Ego. Or even a Phantom Spirit. Which is a cool parallel with Archer of Shinjuku. Hopefully we'll get a new Holmes version one day.

Kadoc was fun. Honestly, not too much to talk about him, his role was kind of what I expected. He had some great lines.

Konstantinos was done dirty. Not only did he get the worst kit and his banner had no SRs on rate-up, but he got taken out really quickly and anticlimactically. He deserved more.

There was a part where Johanna and Bradamante were talking where I was like "I see, this is Traum's version of passing the Beschdel test" and then the next time they had a girl-to-girl talk it was about a man lol. It's fine, but it's funny when writers try to have the women speak and it ends up falling into a trope without them meaning to.

I do think Johanna would have been better without Konstantinos. The whole thing about the pope is that he has no romantic partner, right? Why not have her actually committed to that instead of keeping her waifu material. because gacha.

I can't believe they ended it on a cliffhanger, the balls on them. I applaud it and also hate it because now I'm just gonna be wondering what this means for the next 6 months.

The chapter was fine. It was definitely no lostbelt, but going from Lostbelt 6 to this did give me a bit of whiplash when I had to remember that no they don't always spend so much time on the lore implications of everything. Sometimes they're just gonna make a chapter that showcases the Servants that'll get drip-fed over the next 2 years.

[kyogre-blue]

Act 3 of Inazuma is finally done. I'm so glad it's short. I miss the days when archon quests were short.

Looking back on the entirety of Inazuma, I think it had some very cool concepts, but unfortunately the execution fell completely short. The first two acts are mostly passable though not particularly good, but act three really falls apart.

I would say there's three main problems:

One, the Genshin writers just aren't very good at writing characters and emotions. It's not something concrete that I can point to, and it's not immediately obvious, but if you compare it to a genuinely good writer, you can really feel the difference. I recently got through LB6 in FGO and, tbh, I didn't really care for it. But man, Nasu absolutely nails the emotions and the characters. You can't help feeling for them. By contrast, Thoma in Ritou still comes across as annoying at best, and Ayaka is too lowkey to leave a real impression. Teppei, Kazuha, etc, they all have similar issues, which really lowers the possible emotional stakes of the story.

Two, Genshin writers are also bad at any kind of theme or deeper message. It's not even an issue of not having a message, or it being too simple. They try to have a deeper narrative, but they seem to just be aping what they've seen in other works without actually understanding anything, so what you get is a confused mess that doesn't convey anything at all and is actually at odds with what we actually see in the story itself.

The "longing for the gods' gaze" aspect was the worst. It's fundamentally nonsensical. Teppei wanted power, and he didn't care where it came from. He didn't care about Ei's gaze or whatever. The people of Watatsumi sure as hell don't care about her gaze, given that they don't acknowledge her as their god to begin with. At most, this becomes a purely mechanical thing, where they want Visions, that come from "the gods' gaze" but then it's just saying "humans want power" and that doesn't sound very good, does it? Similar issues withe regard to stuff like Ei's entire backstory and desire for "eternity" which is so ambiguous as to become meaningless, and because the writers don't really understand it, they also can't address her grief or the meaning of Makoto's stance on grasping the current moment. Contrast to the current Case Files event rerun in FGO and just FGO's themes in general, which have a lot to say about how suffering and death are inevitable, so is there a purpose in living (yes), and is there meaning in actions that no one will remember (yes). It's the difference between writers who know how to think through their story on a deeper level and those who don't.

Third, the writers don't seem to understand how to construct a full sequence of setup, development and payoff. They end up off-screening things that really need to be onscreen, and this massively undercuts all the character arcs.

Sara has a fairly direct arc (though, notably, I don't think she ever reaches the point of genuinely questioning her loyalty to Ei, only runs off to inform her about the situation), but her confrontation with Ei is entirely cut out, so her arc seems to just go nowhere, since she remains the exact same person afterwards. It's like she didn't even have a storyline. Kazuha is stated in the prelude to not understand why his friend put his life on the line, aka doesn't understand his friend's ambition. Then in the climax, he is able to light his friend's vision, implicitly now understanding his ambition, and the ending cutscene even focuses on that same vision with the statement that some ambitions outlive their holders and pass on to others. But Kazuha has only on cameo appearance in between those two points, so we have no idea how he came to have this change of heart. Heck, we don't even know what his friend's ambition was! The only way to read what we're actually given is that Kazuha started simping for the Traveler and this fixed all his problems, like Shenhe. But since his friend's ambition doesn't seem to have been about protecting anyone, this also doesn't make sense as a narrative. They really murdered Kazuha, it's still amazing.

Teppei has a similar issue, where what should be big moments in his story are entirely offscreen. This ties into the Watatsumi portion's bad pacing, where the supposed passage of time is hard to really feel because they just didn't bother with coming up with scenes to properly support their stated storyline. Teppei really needed to have the effects of him using the Delusion, the combat victory he achieved with it, be shown on screen. This should have been condensed into one major moment of power, rather than a bunch of offscreen battles somewhere else. (Also, Teppei's ghost appearing in the final battle makes no sense, since you're implied to be channeling the visions set in the statue, and he didn't have one. Would have been funny to give him a Vision when he's already too old to use it, so he gives it to the Traveler, and you can look at it after the final battle and realize, bittersweet, that it's gone out... this is fanfic tho.)

In a minor way, this even hits Ei. They never so much as vaguely suggest the existence of her sister. No one ever goes "yeah, the Shogun changed so much 500 years ago" or "the Shogun always seemed to have two sides to her, but after the Cataclysm, she became only the warrior" or anything, and this means her sudden monologue about her losses comes out of nowhere and is hard to really care about.

If they managed to fix one, maybe two of these, Inazuma would honestly be a passable story. But that would require the genshin writers to gain like twenty levels of skill overnight, and that ain't happening.

Still, I have to say that Inazuma's concept is good, and up until the final sections, they seemed to have actually done the step by step aspect of the plot better than I remember. The events follow more coherently that I remembered, and they at least mention a lot of later plot points fairly early in. It's just that those passing mentions are often too weak to support the later story...

Anyway, I still stand by this being leagues better than Sumeru. It's shorter, for one, and it had an interesting premise. Sumeru is just wasting your time the entire way through.

Now, I just need to do Ei's two quests to remove the storm... pray for me. They're both so stupid, albeit in different ways.

[animehouse-moe]

Fate Japanese Art Book Haul

So, a big old order of Fate material. But still, even with this much being added to my collection I've scratched the surface of Fate/Type-Moon material. This (alongside my other Heaven's Feel stuff) represents the majority of anime art book works, but still I'd say I'm only getting to about 50, maybe 60, percent of the anime art books currently. So yeah, still loads to go on all fronts, but good progress! Anyways, let me dive into the art books from top to bottom in the above image.

Fate/Prototype Animation Material

This one is really interesting to me. The vast majority of the art book is just the storyboards for a single 10 minute OVA. The amount of projected and potential work in this art book comfortably outweighs the information we get in the OVA, making it a super cool look into the original concepts that Nasu had for the Stay Night route.

Of course, the book has more than just storyboards to it, as it starts off with character and prop design pages in full color. Super cool to see so I sort of wish they included more extraneous production aspects alongside it, but I won't really complain given how much material there already is, and the fact that I got it for dirt cheap (a little over 5CAD at auction).

Fate/Zero Openings and Endings Key Animations

Another sorta extra purchase, but for how much it was (10.50CAD and it's Hardcover), I wasn't going to pass it up in the moment. Have to fill out that roster somehow, right? Anyways, it's a relatively small art book, just a bit bigger in trim than the Prototype one, but it's really cool to have the openings and endings in keyframe format. Lots of pretty stuff in there.

There is a proper item set for this though. It originally comes in a box with a pair of extra material books including storyboards for the openings and endings. The whole set itself is a bit of a challenge to find at times, but the individual items are very abundant, so I'll probably be picking them up in the next haul or two if I can find them for cheap. Or maybe I'll double dip and get the box if I can, it does seem pretty cool (also comes with bonus full sheets from the OPs/EDs).

Image from this art book blog, which you should definitely check out

Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Blade Works First Season Key Animations

This was really cool. I'm a big cheapskate (despite how much I buy), so I was incredibly happy to have won the auction for this pair of books at only around 20CAD each. What's not cool, but rather confusing, is how different the second season key animations set is. It's a colored and metallic dust jacket. Very weird, right? Anyways, it's super cool fate stuff and the key animation is as incredible as you might expect.

Fate/Stay Night Heaven's Feel AD Correction Collection Volumes 1 & 2

I feel like a fraud, only having things for Heaven's Feel 1&2, but Spring Song stuff is so expensive. I could get the first two storyboard collections for both Heaven's Feel and Unlimited Blade Works for less than I can typically find the Spring Songs Key Animations for. It's so rough. Anyways, these are a collection of the correction done by the Art Director for Heaven's Feel. You could say it already overlaps with the Keyframe Collections of their namesakes, but I think it's interesting to see the changes and overall process of the work.

Fate/Zero Key Animations Collection

I really appreciate that Zero kept the dust jackets consistent for itself. UBW Season 2 really is just the odd one out of Ufotable's Fate collection. Regardless, it's pretty much the same story as the UBW keyframe collections, plenty of cool and very pretty keyframe art that provides a window into the production and work of Ufotable on the series.

Fate/Grand Order Trailer's Trail Volume 1

Now hear me out, I don't play FGO, but I do enjoy the quality of the trailers, and when an A4 book comprised of over 400 pages of key animation is 10CAD it's hard to look the other way. In general though, it's pretty cool, and well organized into chapters so you don't get pieces mixed up with each other. Definitely worth it for any fans of the game, or just like some really well animated Fate stuff.

Ufotable 15th Anniversary Exhibition Pictorial Record

This was a pretty cool pickup. Special art stuff for studios as a whole isn't something that greatly interests me, but Ufotable is definitely a studio I'd be interested in having a history of, even if I'm not a fan of everything they work on. Overall it's a very pretty and well constructed hardcover art book, with a nice helping of works from all across their years (which they did an excellent job of selecting the best moments from).

And that about does it with this haul. As you can tell, there's a lot here, but also a great deal that I'm still missing. The more you come to understand and have, the deeper the abyss seems to grow. At the end of the day though, it's incredible fun and something I've grown to be incredibly passionate about. There's so much history to all of these art books, so many memories and so much passion behind it all. Having a record of all of my favorite series and titles and animators just feels right. I'm able to be in control of what I remember of them and it's a really great feeling.

[27jj-fics]

herba nasus vexo (SPN, Sam)

Title: herba nasus vexo

Word count: 2,150

Summary: Sam is very allergic to a very specific herb– one that he and Dean just so happen to need for hex bags to ward off a demon. 

A/N: This is one of my deleted fics from LJ (originally written for a prompt); it has been edited/expanded for tumblr. I made up a lot of stuff for this fic, like plant names and Latin words and such, all for the sake of allergic Sam. 

“It’s pretty simple,” Sam’s saying, and Dean has to sit down because he knows it’s going to be way the hell far away from simple.

They’re in the library and Sam’s curled around a book, sitting on the floor with his knees drawn up because he’s always complaining about how the library chairs are too tiny for him. Dean’s pacing the space in front of him, tracing his fingers along the rows of books, but he has to sit down because he’s tired and Sam’s about to lay some complicated shit on him. It’s way too early. No one should even be in the library this early in the morning except old ladies and homeschooled kids anyway.

“Somehow, I doubt that,” he tells Sam before reaching over and smoothing his fingers over Sam’s stupid hair that’s sticking out above his ear. 

Sam ducks away and shoves his book into Dean’s lap.

“A couple of hex bags should make us invisible to the demon.” He points with his long finger to a list on the right side of the page. “We just have to track down this stuff.”

“I need my coffee first,” Dean yawns. “Go make a photocopy.”

They stand up and walk over to the photocopier, and Dean ends up making the copy because Sam gets sidetracked by a shelf of books on dolphins or something equally ridiculous.

When he’s done, he starts for the door, but Sam huffs his name and gives him his bitchiest frown.

“Put it back on the shelf.”  

Dean rolls his eyes and crosses his arms. “That’s what the librarians are for, Sam.”

Sam just breathes through his nose and brushes past Dean. “Fine, I’ll do it.”

Sam grabs the book off the photocopier and stomps back toward the shelf to put the damn book in exactly the right spot because that’s the kind of person he is.

Except as soon as Sam’s out of sight that’s not what Dean is thinking about anymore. He’s reading the list of ingredients that they’ll need to make the supposedly simple hex bags, and it’s all the same shit they always work with.

All of it except for one item.

He reads the line again, just to be sure, but where the hell else are you going to see an ingredient like that? Dean couldn’t forget the words if he tried.

Herba nasus vexo.

Oh shit.

“Oh shit.”

“What?” Sam’s back. He takes the paper from Dean. “Something wrong?”

“Yeah.” Dean pats Sam on the shoulder. “My little brother thinks he’s a librarian.”

“You honestly don’t remember?

It’s Waffle Wednesday at Pig ‘N Pancake, so naturally Dean is scarfing his way through a stack of waffles covered in maple syrup. Sam, on the other hand, is barely touching his pancakes that he ordered because It’s a pancake house, Dean. Pancakes. 

They’ve got the list between them and Dean’s a little baffled at the fact that Sam doesn’t remember the summer of ’92, because Dean sure as hell does.

“Nope, don’t remember a thing,” Sam shakes his head. “So, Dad had to carry this herb around, and, what? I was allergic to it?”

“Dude. You were so allergic to it. You were sneezing so much we thought you were cursed.”

“I didn’t know I was allergic to anything,” Sam frowns, taking a sip of his coffee. “Weird.”

“Yeah. Kinda sucks.”

They’re both thinking the same thing. Without the hex bags, they’re demon bait. And without the herb, they don’t have hex bags. Sam absently rubs his hand under his nose and looks at Dean.

“Yeah. Kinda does.”

Dean downs the rest of his coffee, then pulls out his wallet.

“Why don’t I go grab this stuff,” he says, tapping the piece of paper with his finger. “I’ll drop you back by the room, and you can call Bobby and see where he’s at with this demon thing.”

“Bobby and Rufus are tracking the demon in Iowa,” Sam tells Dean, who’s dumping a grocery bag full of shit onto the table. “Said it might take a while.” He walks over, carefully sifts through the ingredients, then looks over at Dean. “Where’s the, uh--”

“Still in the car,” Dean answers. “So you’re telling me that we could be carrying these around for more than a few days?”

“I guess.”

“Awesome.”

They start to assemble the hex bags, and Dean puts off getting the herb from the Impala as long as he can, which isn’t very long because they don’t have much time, not with a demon that could potentially be after them.

“Should I like, take some Benadryl or something?” Sam says suddenly, sounding nervous.

“Way ahead of you,” Dean answers, digging in his bag until he comes up with a box. He tosses it to Sam. “Claritin. Worked better than anything else when you were nine.”

Sam doesn’t look any less worried as he opens the box.

Dean goes out to the car, brings the bag into the room while Sam waits on the bed farthest from the table. The herba nasus vexo is some funky-looking little plant, a purple-green color. He puts exactly three of the dried leaves into each bag before ditching the rest in the dumpster behind the motel.

Sam holds out his hand, palm up, and Dean gives him the hex bag carefully, like it’s a bomb or something. Sam, curious little shit he is, brings it closer to his face and smells it, then immediately snorts and covers his face with his other hand.

“Oh God, that’s strong,” Sam blinks, his eyes watering.

“Moron.” Dean rolls his eyes, then gives his own bag a testing sniff, but it just kind of smells bad, nothing distinct. Sam raises his eyebrows, then twists to the side with a sudden sneeze that he stifles by pinching his nose.

“Hh-hngxt!”

“Bless you. Already, huh?”

Sam stuffs the bag in his pocket with a shrug, nostrils flaring, and Dean can see that he’s losing control. Fast.

“HPTSH’chuh!” Sam shoves a fist under his nose, stifles the next sneeze. “Hh’HTCHsh! Oh my God.” He wipes his eyes, presses his fingers against his sinuses.

“Wow. Bless you.”

“It’s n-not…so bad…hihh…” Sam’s breath hitches, chest moving in and out without his permission. “Nose itches really bad th-though’hhh…”

“The Claritin will kick in soon,” Dean says hopefully.

Sam nods, drops his hands to his sides. He’s holding his breath. He blinks a few tears away, wiggles his nose back and forth. They both wait.

And then he’s sneezing. Nonstop. He tries to stifle them at first, his face flushing, but it’s a lost cause. Sam sneezes and sneezes until he’s a mess, snotting all over his sleeve, his eyes and nose red. Dean goes into the bathroom, grabs a wad of toilet paper because there are no tissues, and presses it into Sam’s hands while successfully avoiding the spray. Then he goes back into the bathroom to get the rest of the roll.

When Sam finally gets a breath in, he takes the length of toilet paper that Dean offers and blows his nose.  

“Holy shit, this is insane,” he pants, but he’s looking kind of impressed and Dean wants to smack him upside the head for it. “Three tiny leaves.”

“Six.”

“Huh?”

“Three in yours, three in mine.”

“Huh-HSH’SHOO!”

Dean sighs.

“Bless you.”

“This is worse than when you were a kid. Way worse.”

“Huh-hutch’SHUH! Really?” Sam asks absently, sniffling.

Dean drags a hand down his face. Sam’s on his laptop, one knuckle pressed under his nose, an attempt to keep the sneezing to a minimum. Which is about one sneeze every five seconds. With his other hand, he pulls a tissue out of the box next to his leg, holds it up to his face to catch the next sneeze, then crumples it up and tosses it into the wastebasket, his gaze on the laptop screen for the entire process. His eyes are watering so badly Dean’s not sure how he’s even able to read anything.

“Maybe we should try some different meds.”

Sam looks over, opening his mouth to speak, but he inhales sharply instead, eyelashes fluttering. His breath hitches for a torturous moment, nostrils quivering as a single tear leaks down his face, and then his head snaps forward.

“HPSH’SHUH! Heh-HTCH’choo! Hhhh…uh-KTCH!” He half-stifles the last one, crushing his tissue against his red nose. “Whoa.”

“Shit. Bless you. Maybe Benadryl.”

Sam massages the sides of his nose with his fingertips, pulls out another tissue and blows his nose. “HTCH’choo!”

“Zyrtec. We haven’t tried Zyrtec.”  

“Stob worryigg.” Sam sniffs and hides a smile.

“I’m not worrying.”

“You are.”

“Bitch.”

“Hhh-HRCHSHch!”

Sam’s lying face down, arms and legs spread out like he doesn’t already take up the entire bed with his giant torso.

Dean drops his keys on the table and holds up a plastic sack even though Sam’s not looking at him.

“Got some more Kleenex.” The rate Sam’s moving through tissues, they’re going to be broke. 

Well, if it was their own real money they were spending, they’d be broke.

Sam doesn’t move, just sneezes where he is, face buried in the pillow. Dean opens the box and sets it next to his head, and Sam immediately curls his arm around it and sneezes again.

“HTCH-shuh!”

“Bless you. How are you doing?”

Sam takes a tissue and blows his nose, then flops over onto his back, revealing red, watery eyes narrowed in annoyance. His breath hitches like he’s going to sneeze again, but instead he says, “Itchy.”

He’s completely stuffed up at this point, and he looks pathetic. Dean’s glad that Bobby and Rufus are taking care of this thing, because no way is Sam going to be able to recite an exorcism in this condition.

Sam’s drifting off, hand still holding the tissue box. Dean goes into the bathroom, fills a glass with water to set on the nightstand, for when Sam has to take his antihistamines again. He goes back into the room, pulls the covers over Sam. Sam’s breath whistles in and out, and he stirs slightly, snuffling against the back of his hand.

“Thanks,” he says softly, and then he’s snoring.

Dean’s quietly trying to sneak out the door when Sam stirs on the bed, then sneezes himself awake. He pauses in the doorway, and Sam sneezes again and slowly sits up, rubbing his eyes.

“Ugh.” He looks up, spots Dean. “Hey.” His voice is hoarse.

“Hey,” Dean says, coming back inside and shutting the door. “Sorry, I was trying not to wake you.” He looks at his watch and Sam sneezes.

“You got like, four hours that time.”

“It’s the meds,” Sam replies stuffily. “They’re making me sleepy.” He then dissolves into a sneezing fit, burying his face into a handful of the covers.

“HPTSH’chuh! Hhhh…HTSH’chuh! uh-HTCHSH! HSH’SHOO! Hhpt’chuh! HPHH’SHOO!” 

“Bless you,” Dean says when he’s done. “I was just going to go grab some coffee.”

Sam digs his fist into his eyes and sneezes again. He stands, stretches his arms above his head and sniffles a little.

“Hihh’CHOO! Ugh. I’ll come with you. Hhh’HPSHCH!” He puts a hand to his chest, winded.

“You sure?” Dean asks, because damn Sam looks miserable, sneezing all over the place like he’s trying to set a record. Dean’s surprised, not to mention proud, that he’s still standing on his feet. Or that he’s even alive.

“Let me get dressed.” Sam pinches the bridge of his nose and starts gathering his clothes.

“You might want to brush your teeth too, if we’re going out in public,” Dean says, then ducks to avoid the tissue box that’s aimed at him.

“Son. Of. A. Bitch.”

Dean’s voice echoes throughout the room. Sam finishes brushing his teeth, goes out into the room to see Dean hanging up his cell phone.

“Just got off the phone with Bobby,” he says, walking over to Sam. Without warning he reaches forward and puts his hand into Sam’s pocket, pulling out the hex bag. “Apparently, they exorcised the thing. Yesterday.”

“Oh– HKSHSH!” Sam sneezes in reply. “Yesterday?”

“God, sorry. I should have told Bobby.” He looks down at the hex bag in his hands. “I’m going to go get rid of these.”

Dean disappears out the door, and Sam rubs his nose, which still itches like crazy. Thinking about it makes him sneeze, and sneezing once makes him sneeze more. By the time he makes it to the box of tissues, Dean’s back.

“Wow. Bless you.” 

Sam sucks in a breath, blows his nose. 

“We should move to another room, it probably reeks of that shit in here.”

“I wandt a shower,” Sam agrees congestedly, “ad cleed clothes.”  

“Fresh, herb free clothes,” Dean nods. “You got it, bitch.”

Dean pulls his duffle bag onto the bed and begins to gather up his clothes, grinning. Sam sneezes, rolls his eyes, and starts packing up his stuff.

“Jerk.”

[quietbluejay]

what’s a fic you want to read but not one you’d write? (Could be an idea that hasn’t been done or has been done but not in a way that satisfied you.)

ohhh boy there's a LOT of stuff I want but can't find and isn't my thing to write, i'm not going to write everything but just some examples (oops i made the idw1 list pretty long and I'm making myself stop there now haha)

okay, by fandom:

Fate Stay Night: - so some of this was done by ONE fic, but it wasn't the main thrust, I want to see post UBW Shinji and Sakura, and what happens to Sakura in that timeline. I want to see them both as adults grappling with everything (but esp Sakura) - the one where Sakura summoned Asterios instead of Medusa (since Nasu is on record for saying he was an alternate option for her)

Transformers IDW1: - please someone write some Prowl whump I am begging you. Though, okay, I wrote the Guilliman fic, I could probably give this one a shot someday maybe, of him inside his head while he's being mind controlled - time travel/Peggy Sue focused on the exrid or taao side - Pyra Magna focused plotty fic - AUs where Hunter survives! - just anything in general involving the early idw1 plots and characters - AU where Prowl (and Getaway) (and the Constructicons) hang around on Cybertron (RIP Windblade she doesn't deserve having to deal with both Starscream and Prowl) - switcheroo of the Caminus ladies - cityspeaker nautica stays on cybertron, engineer windblade either on the lost light OR in AU, heading off to earth with the exrid guys - The dark psychological AU idea I had where Starscream gets Airachnid to shadowplay Prowl (No Dawn Fades) that would have gotten a lot into doubting your own perceptions of things, gaslighting, etc that I came up with at a dark time in my life - the AU I might actually dust off someday that goes AU in the Shadowplay arc and involves Shockwave and Prowl going on the run together (while Chromedome ends up also on the run but with Optimus), it'd also have Drift as a major character (Transmission AU) (yes I did name these all after Joy Division songs to fit the Shadowplay theme) - Flamewar from IDW2 as part of the Scavengers! - Arcee peggy sue fic (blaming my friends for this one) - I have so many, bug me about this later and I'll pull up more

Transformers IDW2: - crossover between idw1 and idw2 involving characters swapping places - Jumpstream/Skywarp enemies to lovers this is like one of the only transformers ships i actually ship and it doesn't exist at all lmao

Warhammer 40k: - someone else please write my strange elaborate 11th legion AU for me - look I know it's unfair to expect people to read Ghost Warrior and most of us who did have scrubbed it from our brains but pleaseeeee someone else write Iyanna and Yvraine navigating Craftworld high society together - fix-it AU for Ashes of Prospero - to be honest, anything about Iobel, Iyanna, Malys, Andromeda-17... - more alternate heresies that don't rely on characters being OOC and having completely different backstories - the alt-heresy I might actually write in Highway which is 3 way civil war where the Space Wolf commissars manage to really mess things up especially with Guilliman - Lukas the Trickster fic - there is other stuff I want but I'm having trouble remembering it or putting it into words /o\

Warhammer Fantasy: - self-insert wayyy before canon (in like, pre-Aenarion era) where the SI fixes Morathi

[yakdeculture]

Witch On The Holy Night / Mahoutsukai no Yoru Review

[from when I hadn't finished this yet]

Haven't finished this yet but this is like at least halfway done? I think so I'll throw my thoughts on here real quick especially because of the FGO collab going on right now. I will say one frustrating thing about Type Moon / Nasu shit in general is how often he loves introducing characters concepts lore ideas whatever, he just loves establishing something and being like "and guess what, there's even more to this....ah,....but that is a story for another time" and then that story for another time never fucking comes out because he has the attention span of a fucking ant even before FGO they were just making shit up. I know the FGO collab is using ideas for Mahoyo 2 (also, while I am generally on the side of using whatever the english name is there is no good shortening of Witch on the Holy Night and I'm not saying all that every time I want to reference it so I like calling it Mahoyo) and its like dude it only exists in your head we have no idea what you are talking about. But the main example of this that annoys me is shit like the vampires and their whole deal in this universe. Like in Tsukihime they spend like an entire hour explaining the entire hierarchy of vampires and how they work and how the Dead Apostles work and who they are and then the next time they see Nero they immediately kill him in like 5 minutes and then Roa is the only other vampire that shows up. Like they don't really do anything with the concept and it took them 20 years to remake Tsukihime and they had to change shit because it sucked but also they had been making shit up for spinnoffs I haven't read because some of them are in the Fate universe and for whatever fucking reason Fate rules and Tsukihime rules are different so even though vampires show up in some Fate things apparently it doesn't really apply to Tsukihime lore. So like what's the fucking point. You fucking idiots said Arc has a sister and also her dad is the moon or something and you're just like nah lets just make some random shit up and put it in the Waver spinoff. Because that's what Waver should be doing.

Anyways rant aside this has been very good so far such a great cast I've talked a lot of about Sizuki (I hate how they spell his name but I'm writing this right before bed so I'm not gonna look up the way its suppose to be spelled. What it is with Type Moon and strange name spelling shit) and how funny he is. He's like the only good main guy in all of Nasu work, I mean I guess he's kind of comparable to the guy from Garden of Sinners but that guy is kind of fucking boring and nobody cares about him. Aoko is really just if Rin didn't have to constantly fucking babysit a misogynist. Alice is great too really good dynamic between all of them two lesbians and the weird guy they took in as a pet. So far there's only been like 2 fights I mean the amusement park scene was like 2 or 3 chapters long and it was really good, and the other one was like that one random optional thing with Alice and Tweedle or whatever and while this does definitely take a more slice of life approach (chapter 7 and 8 kind of take a "well what if they kill him" approach to conflict even though we all know they aren't going to kill him) I think it works for this game it's fun. It's fun its a good game Fraud/Stay Night and Shitkihime could never top Goatko Goatzaki.

[from when I did finish this]

You know what “Kino”ku Nasu strikes for the first time I’m afraid. Of all his visual novels, this is easily his best work (don’t need to play the Tsukihime remake to say this.) By far the best cast probably in any Type-Moon work, generally speaking they very clearly have troupes or just character outline in general that they like to go back to and iterate on. Shirou, Shiki, and Shizuki are all kind of like guys defined by a mixture of being normal but fucked up; Aoko is a bit of a mix of Rin, Akiha and Arc and Alice is a bit of a mix of like Hisui and Saber (based on that shit from the F/GO event apparently Sakura too but saving that rant for later). But unlike Fate and Tsukihime the main three and their dynamic is almost perfect. Granted the problem is usually the men Shirou and Shiki are so fucking bad even removing the crimes against women they commit at any given opportunity they still are like completely hollow characters and not in the cool and mysterious way Nasu wants them to be but in a vapid and boring way. Soujuurou is entirely believable in the way they portray him and he doesn’t have to be a completely weirdo asshole or a cardboard cutout to accomplish it. I think pretty much everyone sings his praises so I’ll cut it short there but Aoko and Alice are just as good. Mahoyo is 100% a game for people who were disappointed when they got past the prologue of Stay Night and learned Rin wasn’t really the protag of the game. Aoko is an absolute treat, and while it is easy to compare her to Rin, she really is an amazing character who stands on her own.  Her dynamic with Alice is perfect, they bounce off each other really well. Honestly having troubling finding the words to actually properly give this credit for being good, hopefully I can come back to this and find the words to give it justice. Basically, I think this is the most well rounded, likable cast in a story that while it definitely isn’t action packed has some awesome fight seasons and moments of tension. This is the only game where it really feels like there is more story to tell so I really hope Mahoyo 2 comes out eventually,

[povestotrischane]

basic mecha vn adaptation details:

- it'll be an eroge for a variety of long and complicated reasons which basically boil down to "the public perception of vn genre has been heavily sanitized in the west, western vns are notorious for being #notlikeothervns and the words "western vn" are mainly used derogatorily, by harkening back to the legacy of classic eroge such as f/sn, tsukihime, fmdm or fucking. i don't know. rance. i feel i'd better attract fans of the genre + combat the increasing sanitization of vns, seen in Every Mainstream VN Release In The West and in increasingly in the japanese market as well (i HATE f/sn realta nua. i'm not saying nasu is good at writing h-scenes or w/e (he's cartoonishly bad at it actually) but i am saying that it's A Choice to take hf, the route about sex and sexuality and the sex = death trope, and get rid of all the h-scenes) + weed out ppl who think ddlc is soooo messed up and genuinely. would not be able to handle 10 minutes of idk. higurashi or smthing" with a side of "ofc sex and sexuality are important thematically, tf do you think i am?"

- 4 routes. gawaine is the narrator. it goes priamus -> ysabelle -> lancelot -> ragnelle. sgatgk doesn't happen until route 4. route 1 is a bit expository and is ultimately about gawaine's political machinations/two-faced-ness, modred stabs the shit out of him a la the alliterative morte in the end. route 2 is basically about gawaine doing whatever the fuck he wants forever, do his actions have consequences? eh. does he want to fuck his mecha? probably. is it more complicated than that but takes a while to articulate? yeah lol. route 3 is about uhm. obsession. it's the remarkable route and gawaine is a total freak idk what to tell you he's so abnormal in this one. route 4 is a straight up horror route in which gawaine IS naturally the perfect chivalrous knight who would never do anything he's done throughout the rest of the vn and also galahad levels of repressed. something is deeply wrong. renard the fox is there. overarching themes surround desire, indulgence/repression, chivalry, idealism, sex and sexuality.

- ok time for actual lore stuff. gringolet and galatine are the same thing. and by that i mean gawaine's mecha is galatine, in the same way that lancelot's is secace and arthur's is excaliber, etc. but also. galatine is gringolet, because he stole gringolet from the saxons and quickly decided to officially rename it to that of the mecha he's Supposed to have bc he's not stupid. the thing is, gringolet is uhm. an organic lifeform! (think nge or darling in the franxx) and sentient! and gawaine and gringolet are thus able to share a much deeper bond than anyone else in the round table and their mechas. the og galatine probably ended up being renamed to clarent and given to modred, for a mix of reasons (tie up loose ends, a mecha is a lot harder to sneak around than a sword + why would there be a ceremonial mecha? things have to be rewritten here, leads to there only being one sister mecha to excaliber, makes an easily identifiable symbol of modred and gawaine's relationship for when the inevitable fratricide comes up).

- the ladies of the lake are ais, the du hautdeserts are either robots, humonculi, or one of each, magic and technology are kinda blended to the point where pointing out the difference is kinda pointless

- aggravaine beheads lamorak for thematic reasons which come down to "damn. there seems to be a pattern with his brothers and weird psychosexual issues regarding beheadings. how would that apply to him." and uhm. lamorvaine real.

- the current state of arthur's kingdom is uhm. kinda in a bit of disrepair. like even the richest of the rich don't have the best conditions available. the world is practically covered in a thin layer of rust.

- most countries are planets (occasionally they'll also include like. nearby asteroids / moons / w/e), the names + uniforms used/worn by the knights change based on what planet they're on, in writing and in international diplomacy, they always go back to their latin names though

- tristan pilots a dogfighter instead of a mecha bc 1. he's an archer and 2. mechas are reserved for round table knights

- knights are wayyyy more likely to getting into classic sword/lance/fist/bow fights than actual duels

- morale kinda sucks in the round table as a natural result of (thematic reasons)

- uhhhhm i can't think of anything else rn

[kiwikipedia]

Going forwards, this is solely based off of canon appearances and Clone Wars:

No Legends

No other Type/Moon franchises

No Lego Star Wars

While Carnival will be counted (as Gudako shows off no absurd, world ending power), Learning with Manga! will not be

The FGO manga adaptations of the singularities will be included as well as external notes from the Voice Actors and Nasu

External notes from SW will be included if I can find any

FGO Events are counted no matter how serious as they are or aren’t part of the game

The first thing to look at in terms of “Can Anakin Survive in the Grand Order/Epic of Remnants/Lostbelts” vs “Can Guda Survive in Star Wars: The Clone Wars” coming out in favor of Guda is their adaptability and flexibility to a given situation. This also feeds into their emotional responses to situations outside of their control.

We see time and time again that Guda is able to adapt to nearly any situation, even without help from Chaldea— we see this in the EoR and in several of the more Serious events where they’re entirely cut off from Chaldea. While true that in these cases Guda often has assistance from That Location’s Servants— Musashi in Shimousa, Reines and Gray in Casefiles London, Moriarty, Jalter, Salter, and Holmes in Shinjuku, Kintoki in Heian Kyo, etc.— it is ultimately Guda moving forwards with their own judgement.

Even when Chaldea is in contact with them, Guda is seen more than once as a figure who is able to stay calm— as seen almost right off the bat in Fuuyuki when being chased down by Shadow Servants and the Director and Mash panicked.

Outside of combat, we see that, even when angry, Guda swallows their emotions down and knows when to fold their cards— when Romani tells Guda about Mashu’s condition, for example. Certainly, they’re angry, to the point that they punched a wall, but they know they can’t do anything about it and have to swallow that anger down to continue on to the sixth singularity.

Gudako’s voice actress states that outside of Grand Carnival she is the “type of girl who learns from her mistakes and strives to do better next time after learning her lesson the first time” and we can assume that this also applies to Gudako to an extent. Mashu states in game that Guda is  “able to adapt to almost any situation regardless of how extreme or bizarre it might be”

The final note for Guda being able to adapt easily if dropped into Star Wars: Guda’s been dropped into much weirder situations. From a candy land-like Magical Girl dimension to comicon in Hawai’i and whatever the hell is happening in the Gudaguda verse, that’s a lot of weirdness everywhere. Even when events aren’t counted, that’s still at least twenty separate situations where Guda is put in a place where they have to adapt and be flexible to the situation around them— seven Singularities, the Temple of Time, the Remnant Singularities, seven Lostbelts, and all the extra Lostbelt sections.

In contrast to this, Anakin is rarely shown as a person who can adapt easily.

To put it entirely blunt, Anakin is far too headstrong and stubborn to flexibly adapt until it’s almost too late. And in certain cases, we see that he just straight up isn’t able to do so and almost costs obi-wan/padme/rex/ahsoka the mission.

(this got lengthy so more under the cut)

He arrogantly assumes that he can do anything if he puts enough effort into it and he has a very strong inability to let go of things he cares about. He is also the type who is unable to accept anything he’s done as wrong or unjustified.

Taking into account the entire Rush Clovis situation, Anakin almost lets his possessiveness get the better of him because he refuses to be flexible enough to let Padme do her own thing.

There are an insane amount of times when situations outside of his control lead him to resort to anger and violence— again, with Padme dying in childbirth, but also when Ahsoka was kidnapped, it was Plo Koon who forced him to calm down and think.

And like Guda, we have a very real situation of Anakin being dropped into another location out of his control with the entire Mortis Arc. While it is definitely true that the Father, Son, and Sister were influencing Anakin to an extent, it was Anakin who chose anger, violence, and darkness as the path to take. Even before he had been influenced entirely, he resorted to a lot of anger and violence.

But Adaptation and Flexibility isn’t the only thing that is necessary. It’s called Star Wars for a reason, and there is no Main Line Fate Series that doesn’t revolve around a bloodshed, so the next thing to look at are their Feats in Combat.

I’m not just talking about savior of xyz or whatever but at their physical strengths and tactical ability.

At a first glance, it seems absolutely stupid to think that Anakin “Chosen One” Skywalker could be out played and out survived by Guda “Backup Fodder” Fujimaru.

Where Anakin had enough raw talent to afford being lazy and skipping out on lightsaber duel training, Guda’s abilities with Magecraft mostly come from the aide of the Mystic Codes that can be worn— and while in them lies versatility, it’s safe to say that, yeah. Guda is just an average joe.

If you’re here, you’re likely also a star wars fan or know about it enough to know that, yes, Anakin has some insane skills. He’s the chosen one, he’s a skilled pilot and mechanic, he’s got lightsaber skills for days— he’s strong. I won’t go into much detail there, because we know Anakin. For all his faults and crimes, there’s no denying he’s pretty high up there in terms of skill.

But that’s not to say that Guda isn’t strong.

As stated before, it is true that they aren’t able to use magecraft due to how shit their magic circuits are from not training them— but they have raw strength. And this could be partially due to how Star Wars is formatted, but in terms of raw strength, Guda has Anakin beat. Gudao states in the Babylonia Anime that since he cant support by way of Magecraft, he needs to be buff— something that we do actually see results of in the Chaldea Summer mystic Code, where Gudao is shown to be decently muscular (the only reason why Gudako isn’t seen as muscular is because of the moe anime look, I guarantee you that Gudako is 100% just as ripped as Gudao)— and this is further backed up in the Saber Wars II event, of all things. Which, side note, means that yes Guda’s already been to fucking space.

Anyways. Not only is Guda running around in a space suit the entire time, but they easily pick up Ashtart in a Bridal Carry and runs with her to safety— Space Ishtar stating that they are much stronger than they look. Mind you, an average space suit weighs 280 pounds on earth. It’s not like Guda’s running about in the special little helmets and clone armor that are seen in Star Wars when someone needs to go out in space.

(As seen in the Abregado Arc where the Clones can just wear their helmets and are fine and Plo Koon fine because of being a Kel Dor so he just?? anyways.)

So yeah, Guda’s a lot stronger than they look based on that alone. It’s also implied that they have hand-to-hand combat training and experience— In the Timeless Temple, Guda arms themselves with Mashu’s shield and a single Command Spell on their own body before throwing themselves at Goetia alone.

In Li Shuwen Assassin’s Interlude, we’re told that Guda first started watching and then joined in his own personal training on top of his birthday line basically being “hey happy birthday, your gift is 100% more brutal”, so that’s solid confirmation that Guda at least has training from the Demon Fist No Second Strike himself.

On top of, you know, training under Scathach, Isshun, Leonidas, Kotarou and Danzou, and implications that both Kiichi and Chiron are in on that training hell too and its also implied the only reason Yagyuu won’t train us is because last time he crushed someone’s eye and he doesn’t want to repeat that.

It’s safe to say that Guda can hold their own in a fight.

In terms of Tactical Prowess and commanding ability Guda also beats Anakin. Again, looking back at the idea of adaptability, so many of Anakin’s choices result in the danger or deaths of clones or other Jedi because he refuses to assume that he’s in the wrong.

He is obsessive over victory, craving it so much that it makes him incredibly reckless and impatient in trying to achieve it.

The Clone Wars fandom loves to piss on Pong Krell (and like. valid) about Clone Deaths, but a good chunk of them also actively ignore the fact that Anakin has gotten just as many if not far more Clones Killed.

Within the first few episodes of the first season, Anakin looses nearly an entire squadron of fighter pilots because he refuses to listen to others and the concerns of Plo Koon about the plan he’s created— along with concerns about how much bravado he’s got. Arrogance leads to downfall, and while Anakin, Ahsoka, and Plo Koon got out alive, a number of clones didn’t, and that’s only taking into account the first few episodes. There’s multiple times where Anakin’s “planning” and arrogance gets thousands of killed, but its A-OK because they’re nameless Clones, right?

When it comes to Guda, though, we know full well that Guda is an insanely powerful tactician.

As stated, as a magus, they're average at best literally on the same level as the almost famously inept Waver Velvet. They are pretty much entirely reliant on their Servants to defend themselves as their physical prowess can’t beat a Servant, but their compatibility as a Master is second-to-none, possessing a tactical prowess that has lead their Servants to victory against ridiculous odds.

Hell, in France, after being defeated by Guda's servants, Vlad praised Guda's abilities as a commander and asked them to summon him in the future.

This get further highlighted in the Lostbelts where all the Crypters are superior mages compared to them but Guda is able to overcome them due to their experience stopping the incineration of humanity.

We see time and time again that Guda would do all that they can in order to keep their Servants alive (Arash and Chen Gong notwithstanding lol), so to get so far by keeping the sacrificing of any Servant to a minimum —even if the choice to do so is much more difficult—  shows off how skilled they are in terms of both tactical outmaneuvering and that emotional connection that Anakin seems to lack when it comes to the “canon fodder” Clones who aren’t Rex.

Both the Clone Wars and the Grand Order to the Lostblts spanned about 3 years with the Lostbelts still going— and this doesn’t account for the fact that FGO itself is 9 years old, so take whichever time frame that you will— there’s a fuck ton of events that are slotted into such a short amount of time. However, during these conflicts and battles, Anakin is usually backed by machinery and usually an entire battalion of men— and/or another Jedi, primarily Obi-Wan Kenobi, Ahsoka Tano, with Plo Koon or Mace Windu coming in the most often after those two.

Guda’s fights are on a much lesser scale in terms of total war and numbers, however they’re often fighting much more powerful enemies. Especially when we function under the very real idea that Servants trump the Jedi and Sith in terms of strength— with Jedi/Force Users being about the same skill as a high ranked Magus.

Guda’s got combat experience and discipline, and in a physical, no weapons, contest alone, they would trump Anakin. “But this isn’t about who would win in a fight, it’s about surviving in the other world!”

Correct. So lets look:

Anakin’s first fight in the Clone Wars is more or less against numbers of grunt-soldiers whose strength one-on-one isn’t that powerful. Guda’s first fight is against shadow servants who are only slightly weaker than Mashu at the time.

Anakin looses his first “boss fight”, gets knocked out cold, and looses an arm. Guda fights and wins against a Corrupted King Arthur who has an AOE attack that could wipe out an entire city block. It takes Anakin seven more attempts to finally kill the first boss at the end of the War.

Because of the power difference in enemies, should Anakin go up against a full-fledged Servant, his straight forwards and arrogance in thinking that he can handle it on his own and charge headlong into a fight, along with his lack of discipline and formal training where it mattered, would be his downfall.

Could Anakin fight the grunt-type enemies in Fate? Absolutely, but so can a Servant. And in the end, fighting a bunch of Celtic soldiers wont mean anything when faced down with Berserker Cu Chulainn who easily waltzed into a Reality Marble (which previously had been considered impenetrable) and just kills Nero— whose previous incarnation had once won a Holy Grail War and is considered to be one of the top Sabers of the game.

Anakin is used to fighting droids and the occasional darksider, while Guda is fully prepared and trained to fight common enemies while knowing how to survive against Servant Enemies. Anakin would not survive an encounter against a Servant with the mindset he has while Guda, if armed with a lightsaber, could cut swathes through the CIS armies with the Clones at their back— and cause much more damage if they had a Servant with them.

So taking all these into consideration we end up with this:

In the event that Guda is transported into the Star Wars Universe, they would be able to adapt very quickly and hold their own in a fight during the Clone Wars. They have fought through multiple wars and world-ending encounters, so getting involved in another war would be another day for them. Because of the fact that they have been trained in and have the discipline and mindset to learn combat, along with the knowledge and skills of a tactician and commander, they would slot in very well into the Star Wars universe. In the event that they can summon Servants because of their connection to them or whatever, the war would’ve probably ended much faster too. Holmes + El Melloi II would figure Palpatine’s ass out so fast.

In the Event that Anakin is dropped into the FGO universe, he would be unable to adapt to an extent that would be useful, often hindering because he keeps trying to do everything himself and shafting both Chaldea’s workers and the Servants in order to prove himself as the ‘hero’, along with not caring who got injured or killed as long as he got to the end goal— which ultimately would strain any relationship with any Servants in Chaldea, hindering their growth, ability, and the understanding between Master and Servant. Because the strength and power difference between the enemies in Star Wars and the enemies in Fate/Grand Order is so vastly different, when face to face with an enemy Servant, this lack of a bond between Master and Servant, and Anakin’s need to do and prove to everyone that he can do it by himself would severely injure if not outright kill him

Final Point:

The Guda’s are also hella cute and would get so many brownie points with the Jedi for being Their Special Selves and also the Clones for treating them like people. Anakin would get roasted by the Chaldean Servants so fast he would disintegrate on the spot the moment El Melloi II stepped up to bat. Any remains would be torn apart by Andersen.

I genuinely think that Guda could survive in the SW universe but Anakin would not be able to handle any of the shit that happened in Fgo

[shurima-demigod]

TAGGED BY: @herpleasvre 

1ST RULE: tag 9 muses you would like to know better.

TAGGING: Man... Okay, let me do some searching through my followers...  @fire-dancer-aurora, @proper-balance, @luxannae, @cynicskies, @shiftasthesands, @pretty-vi-olent, @herpotions, @frozen-sovereign, @theoneradiantdawn

2ND RULE: BOLD the statements that are true for our muse. ( italicized for verse dependant. )

APPEARANCE:

I am 5'7" or taller. I wear glasses. I have at least one tattoo. I have at least one piercing. I have blonde hair. I have brown eyes. I have short hair. My abs are at least somewhat defined. I have or have had braces. PERSONALITY:

I love meeting new people. People tell me that I’m funny. Helping others with their problems is a big priority for me. I enjoy physical challenges. I enjoy mental challenges. I’m rude with people. I started saying something ironically and now I can’t stop saying it. There is something I would change about my personality. ABILITY:

I can sing well. I can play an instrument. I can do over 30 pushups without stopping. I’m a fast runner. I can draw well. I have a good memory. I’m good at doing math in my head. I can hold my breath underwater for over a minute. I have beaten at least 2 people in arm wrestling. I know how to cook at least 3 meals from scratch. I know how to throw a proper punch. HOBBIES:

I enjoy playing sports. I’m on a sports team at my school or somewhere else. I’m in an orchestra or choir at my school or somewhere else. I have learned a new song in the past week. I work out at least once a week. I’ve gone for runs at least once a week. I have drawn something in the past month. I enjoy writing. I do or have done martial arts. EXPERIENCES:

I have had my first kiss. I have had alcohol. I have scored the winning goal in a sports game. I have watched an entire season of a TV show in one sitting. I have been at an overnight event. I have been in a taxi. I have been in the hospital or ER in the past year. I have beaten a video game in one day. I have visited another country. I have been to one of my favorite band’s concerts. RELATIONSHIPS:

I’m in a relationship. I have a crush on a celebrity. I have a crush on someone I know. I have been in at least 3 relationships. I have never been in a relationship. I have asked someone out or admitted my feelings to them. I get crushes easily. I have had a crush on someone for over a year. I have been in a relationship for at least a year. I have had feelings for a friend. MY LIFE:

I have at least one person I consider a “best friend”. I live close to my school. My parents are still together. I have at least one sibling. There is snow right now where I live. I have hung out with a friend in the past month. I have a smartphone. I have at least 15 CD’s. I share my room with someone. RANDOM SHIT:

I have break danced. I have had a teacher with a last name that’s hard to pronounce. I have dyed my hair. I’m listening to one song on repeat right now. I have punched someone in the past week. I know someone who has gone to jail I have broken a bone. I have eaten a waffle today. I know what I want to do with my life. I speak at least 2 languages.

[prettycottonmouthlamia]

Yeah there is just a lot that makes Agartha pretty bad, but I do recommend at least reading it because it will honestly help crystallize why people dislike it so much. It's one thing to see people complain about it and it's another to see "oh that's why people dislike it so much." If I were to have to level complaints at Agartha specifically, these would be my big ones:

The one of Agartha is wildly different from the rest of the game. Agartha is, for a lack of a better word, very horny. This isn't inherently a bad thing, but F/GO is a lot less horny than Agartha is. While it was toned down the NA release (there are scenes in the JP release where Penthesilea talks about kidnapping you and using you as a stud), its still present. Pretty early on, there's a scene where Dahut has sex with a man and then kills him. It's very weird for F/GO to just, have snuff in it.

Characters are wildly mischaracterized, both in the normal way and in the specific way the plot uses. Mash and Guda behave a lot differently in Agartha, and while there are some similarities, there's an entire scene where Guda and Mash borderline sexually harass Chevalier d'Eon for the sake of a transmisogynistic joke. Characters like Drake, Fergus Lily, and Heracles are altered as a plot point in the story, but they're done so in ways that either completely destroys their previous ties to the character or in the case of Fergus Lily, is the set-up for a lot of really uncomfortable humor and a tragically badly written monologue.

The base setting for the world, the world of Agartha, is very, very sexist. It's a world where not only are the roles flips, where women are the oppressors and men are the oppressed, but it's done in a really comically exaggerated way, where men are routinely tortured or killed, or held in sexual/non-sexual slavery. It's not only something that the writing fails to interrogate at all, but it also specifically places the blame for this setting on Scheherazade's trauma. The world doesn't just exist, it was created by Scheherazade as a world where men could no longer hurt her. It's fucked up actually.

Scheherazade herself is probably one of the worst written villains in the entire franchise, to the point where her plan makes remarkably little sense and kind of ignores a lot of the real world plot building of Nasu lore. It sounds clever enough until you remember there are two entire organizations who are extremely powerful and extremely adept at covering up evidence of magic. People are sending wasps on planes in this universe that turn you into zombies, Scheherazade's plan would not work.

There's only really one thing I give Agartha at all, and that is that its portrayal of Columbus is pretty good. He's a manipulative assholes who fakes having amnesia in order to get you onto his plan, which is to essentially have a never ending supply of asexually reproducing women slaves (?????????? as a side note. what.) He's a complete scumbag who regularly lies and withholds information even from the people he's trying to "save". It's great. He's the only good part.

5. WHICH LEADS INTO POINT NUMBER 5, WHICH IS THIS FUCKING STORY CHAPTER WAS WRITTEN AS IF YOU'VE READ SHINJUKU, WHICH IS REALLY ANNOYING ACTUALLY. This is petty but part of the gimmick of 1.5 is that you can play any of the 1.5 chapters in any order, and that works for three of them, but Agartha in particular is deliberately subverting something that happens in Shinjuku and holy christ I cannot fucking imagine how one reads Shinjuku AFTER Agartha without knowing the plot of either. Honestly I imagine it has to ruin the fucking experience. Fuck off Minase.

Overall, its a mess. Even if you want to stick it to people like me who don't like the themes of the Lostbelt, it's really poorly written for the most part, and what good moments even exist after often overshadowed by extremely bad writing (there's even a Deus Ex Machina moment at the very end just as a cherry on top).

What's wrong with agartha? I'm still in the London singularity. I aways hear everyone saying agartha is bad but im curious to know why.

So numerous people can and have gone more into depth of the nitty gritty on Agartha's issues, and have done so far better than I could, but I can give the abridged description as to what's wrong with Agartha.

Namely, Agartha is primarily misogynist, with moments that are also homophobic and/or transphobic. And even disregarding the offensive aspects of Agartha, it's also just poorly written, with shoddy plot twists and call backs that don't quite understand the themes or actual significance of what they're calling back to. Characters are mischaracterized (often wildly so), and even from a gameplay stand point it has an odd overreliance on single class nodes and other questionable enemy mechanics.

It's just bad all around.

[toskarin]

What aspects of the Fate franchise, other than the parts where you get to see breasts and buttholes, have been irrevocably lost over the course of the series' expansion into a mass-market multimedia mainstay? Is there any aspect of the early Fate that should be mourned? Again beside the buttholes.

[glazing over half of that] honestly, it's not what you'd expect to be lost. nasu's dreamteam, by all accounts, has retained its doujin spirit and remains a wonderful creative force at its core

something I do miss, however, is nasu's willingness to shamelessly rip things off

there are lots of characters in older nasu stories who are very clearly expies of characters nasu enjoyed in other media, along with entire plot elements and concepts being copied over into his setting. I know he's probably embarrassed by having done this now, but there's something really charming to an author seeing something he loves so much that he steals it

newer fate fans, at least those who are willing to experience it beyond grand order, are going to experience more definitive, more professional, cleaner versions of nasu's writing. the tradeoff is that they won't experience nasu doing this by making a collage

[300iqprower]

A character I mentioned getting screwed over by Fate due to wafiu-ism is Medb, but another that got completely screwed over is Penthesilea, and unlike Medb, I can't really identify why. She got given a bad deal in being introduced in Agatha but she is probably one of the easiest characters to drag out that dumpster fire, there is so many ways to take her character and so many relationships she has to other characters. She and Asclepius shared a writer, he must have seen that it was Penthesilea nephew, Hippolytus, that was raised from the dead, why doesn't she comment on that? In most versions of the story it is the Amazons, lead most likely by her, that accidently kill Hippolytus's mother, in this case most likely Antiope, shouldn't that be addressed? She must feel a lot of guilt over that. She is Romulus's half sister but they don't have voice lines for each other. Penthesilea is a character that had and still has a lot of ways to be explored, but they keep on focusing on this hatred of Achilles for what was a comment that doesn't really matter and it just annoys me, and TM can still do it, they can still expand on her character but it seems like they don't want to. I just wish more people would be able to appreciate who Penthesilea is as a character, the amazoness event was a good start, showing her leadership skills and also it was funny, but I just wish their was more. Also she doesn't have her iconic leopard skin cape, which is lame, give her the damn cape, it might be petty, but it shows how good of a fighter she is!

Sorry this took a while to get back to but I had to look into Penth's myths more. I knew a lot less about the Amazonians than I thought, like the fact they get their name from the belief they would cut off a breast so they could better use a longbow. Holy shit that is metal.

I feel like Penth is a character torn between Nasu's obvious adoration of greek mythology and FGO's priority of making sure there's not such thing as a strong independent female character who doesn't have some sort of caveat that makes it so they wont "Scare off" the (believed) target whale audience of insecure men. The end result is a character with a lot of qualifiers and self contradictions that are best resolved by sweeping her under the rug entirely.

I'm not against the idea of her being obsessively angry with Achilles; there's a ton of potential in that and if done right it wouldn't just boil down to "Oh this character is a badass bc we want to make sure you know this other character is an even better SUPER MEGA badass" unlike......actually I was gonna give a snarky "cough X cough" example but there's too many to pick from. Regardless, this post does a great job outlining what i mean and goes a step beyond by framing it in fate specific lore.

But they obviously didn't do that in the game. She never even had enough substance to commit to that level of deeper meaning (though the stuff that post talks about is very much hinted at in her dialogue) and that's because of the aforementioned "just pretend it doesn't exist" approach to an amazonian queen and how it's at odds with the gacha status quo. Not a real status quo, mind you, I think I speak for all of good taste when I say if Penth was a take no shit unflappable badass commander I would love her more for it not less. I'm talking about this ASSUMED belief on the part of those wringing money out of things that the only market is straight insecure men who want someone to be dependent on them. I'm sure you already know this and that it's exactly what you meant by "screwed over by waifuism" but I want to outline it because it makes clear just how at odds a character like Penth is. Her design, her mannerisms, her story relevance or rather lackthereof, all of it is them trying their damndest to skirt around the obvious. To restate what i've said time and again, these things aren't always inherently issues, but things that would normally be innocuous become problematic when you know there is a specific malicious intent.

In fact that's exactly why even though as I said her hatred for Achilles could be an incredible point of depth, it still ends up being on the list of problematic things with her.

Penth is obsessed with a man, and she specifically hates him, and even though she's clearly shown to not hate all men, her character is hyperfocused on that hatred of Achilles in order to make it "special" that she doesn't hate you (with the game as per usual being written with a clear assumption that the player is male); her 4th ascencion and bond 5 lines post name reveal are EXTREMELY on the nose about this, basically labeling you "the exception" to her not wanting to be seen as a women first and foremost, and portraying her desire for otherwise to be childish and naive.

Which brings me to the part that killed my interest in her as a character. She's retroactively de-aged which, on top of just being fucked up and so very very problematic for completely standalone reasons, means they can have their cake and eat it regarding her design. She's fixated on the events that happened at the end of her life how they define who she is, yet they don't have to actually portray her as that person. Supposedly she pulled a liz because she doesn't want to be seen as the same beautiful person Achilles fell in love with. She wants to be seen as a warrior first and foremost. Ok, if she's obsessed with being seen as a warrior then why doesnt she wear any armor? Why doesn't she have her golden belt, or her famous leopard pelt, or her crescent shield, or her helm? I'm fine with her not wielding a bow or lance, in fact IMO her (afaik completely original) ball and chain wielding along with the claws is easily her best aspect in terms of character design. But not even a mention of archery, the thing from which the amazons got their name? I'm not asking to show a mutilated chest or something, if she's younger and doesn't yet have to worry about that sort of thing that's a chance to have your cake and eat in a GOOD way! (and obviously ILR breasts are not going to be an issue with archery but baseless myths like that have affected character design before so...) But again, they don't do any of that. She's barely got anything on and nothing indicative of warrior status aside from the weapons themselves, which is such a blatant contradiction of their own in-universe reason for her appearance. If she's so obsessed with looking like a warrior, why is she wearing almost nothing and her FA is a stereotypical "undressing by waterside" portrait? Actually I know why, it's in addition to stupid eye candy garbage to the convey that this is an act, that she's obsessed with being this perfect warrior but at the end of the day under that nonexistent armor is a human being like anyone else. The mask has to come off eventually...

...even though what she aspires to doesn't have to be inherently wrong or something to live in denial of. Which brings me to the last, and arguably even more damning aspect. She's portrayed as childishly wrong. They emphasize her anger as something along the lines of denying reality and "going through a phase" even if they state otherwise. They try and dress it up with materials and such but there's a very clear tone of bullheaded recklessness she's written with, like someone who won't admit they're wrong and instead pushes back violently against being challenged. She's portrayed as arrogant, not proud. She's portrayed as brash, not determined. She's portrayed as in denial, rather than rightfully frustrated. She's portrayed as if she's a stubborn child who is in the wrong, and her one true story role having her be...THAT in agartha really makes that even more overt.

Penth COULD be an amazing character as you and that post point out. She COULD be an absolute badass with her own identity and expand on her in a dozen different ways without losing anything. But they won't, because that's not their intention. They don't WANT to write her as the best character she could be because that would go against the perceived market they're trying to cater. They would never admit it, but she's written condescendingly. Because in the context of a waifu obsessed gacha, she is patronized simply by existing.

[unit-zero-two]

The Jews of Fate Grand Order

So, as a Jew I’ve got a lot of thoughts on the Jewish Heroic Spirits featured in FGO. The first level is unconditional love for seeing actual Jewish representation and characters in a series I love. King David, King Solomon, the Queen of Sheba and Solomon ibn Gabirol, more commonly known as Avicebron (and not counting Moses despite him having art because he’s just a cameo in Fate/Prototype, although I’d love to see more with him in Fate proper). I love each and everyone of these characters, each for their own unique reasons. My second level of response is annoyance that 50% of the Jewish servants in FGO have an *obsession* with money. Both David and Sheba are dedicated to making and collecting money, with a lot of their appearances and voices lines having to do with this. It should be obvious to anyone who knows anything about anti-Semitism to know why this is an issue. In addition King Solomon is the main antagonist for Arc 1 and Avicebron betrays his master and murders a child in Apocrypha.

But then we get to the third level of thoughts, and things get a lot more complicated and personal. Starting with the easiest first, we have King Solomon. He’s got my favorite Takeuchi design, and every bit of it is fantastic. And of course, he’s not *really* the antagonist of Arc 1, it’s his demons wearing his skin like a suit and having stolen nine of his rings. And the real Solomon has reincarnated as one of, if not the, best characters in Fate Grand Order, Dr. Romani Archaman. A character with so much hidden depth that we get to see slowly revealed and unraveled not just through Arc 1, but through Epic of Remnant and into Arc 2 and the Lostbelts. Discussion on Solomon’s lack of “humanity” as a King and him gaining it as Romani is central to FGO. I’d also say it’s Nasu finally perfecting the story of what it means to be a King that he’s told over and over again starting with Saber back in Fate Stay Night. There is everything to love about FGO’s King Solomon.

Next, we get to Avicebron. A famous philosopher, poet, and teacher of the Kabbalistic arts. A man whose work resonates into the modern era. Whose death has been told in a hauntingly beautiful tale of a fig tree growing from where his body was buried after he was murdered. A story built into the name of his 3rd skill in the game. In Fate he’s rendered as a masked Golem maker who wants to create Adam and bring Eden back to the Earth. And he despises humanity for what it’s done to the planet and each other. To achieve this goal he betrays his Master Roche, a child who trusted and revered him, and uses him as the core of Adam. Misanthropic and a betrayer, it’s not hard to dislike Apocrypha's Avicebron. Although, for those traits I’ve always liked how interesting of an antagonist it made him. How while he was an “evil Jew” it wasn’t in any stereotypically anti-Semitic way. He could care less about money or power. He just wanted Eden on Earth. And then we get him in FGO in Lostbelt 1 and it was hard not to fall in love with him all over again. A soft-spoken man who was the first to answer our call for help when we could summon a servant. He just wants to build golems and help us. He’s a simple man, with simple wants and needs. But later, when offered the chance to betray us and do to us what he did to Roche in Apocrypha, he refuses. He apologizes for his vague memories of what he did to Roche and sacrifices himself to create Adam and give us a fighting chance against Ivan. Even in death, he created something beautiful and powerful.

And now we get to King David of Israel. A big early flaw of King David’s writing in FGO was them playing up his “interest” in Abishag. In the tales of him, she’s a young girl who laid *next* to him to warm up and reenergize the elderly King David. They did not have sex. FGO decided that he’d call any young woman he met Abishag and attempt to flirt with them. This is not a great trait, and understandably made a lot of fans dislike him. And it should. It’s not really a surprise that later appearances have toned back and even removed this trait of his. Which is good. It was a disgusting thing to do, even if it was meant as a joke. We don’t need David flirting with Atalante (who hates him doing so) or with Mash (a minor) and referring to them fondly as a child he knew. To me, this was always this biggest flaw in his characterization, one with no excuse. A flirty David I can see, but this? No thank you. The other complaint about David would be that he is *obsessed* with making and collecting money. He’s got a silver tongue and is always working on some money-making venture. He shares this with many other Servants like Caesar, bit with the added baggage of the anti-Semitic connotations behind it. It’s not a great look. But it works personally for me because of something that is mentioned and implied in all of his appearances but is explicit in his Interlude. He’s not collecting riches and treasures because he loves them, but to build another Temple. David’s dream when he was alive was to build a Grand Temple to the glory of God. He never did this and the deed was done by his son. And as a Servant, he is still as religiously faithful and pious, and that is what motivates his every movement. And by dedicating a glorious temple to God he would be proving himself as a king and cementing his nation as a powerful, rich nation. Because he does this for himself, his god *and* his people. All three are connected and they prosper together.

This brings us to the concept of masks. All of the Jewish Heroic Spirits wear masks. It’s common for many other servants as well, but each one of the four I’ve listed, are masters of wearing masks and concealing their true selves. For Avicebron, this is literal. For King Solomon this was keeping the face of the King, and later the “guise” of Romani. For David, his affect of a flirty, easy-going King is very much a mask. David brushes off his relationship with Solomon when asked because he has nothing he thinks is worth saying at the moment. Nothing that can help the fate that awaits. David flirts with Sanzang during their journey together, gathering all the treasure from the creatures she defeats, but in the end he reveals that he’s stored all of it in a fund for her to use in the future. And he acknowledges in his Valentine’s event the need to understand and adapt with other cultures in globalization to allow his nation and people to survive and flourish. David’s “Jewish greed” is a motivated front. He is quick witted and always planning for the future. In truth he is a King who sees far and is as inhuman in certain ways as his son Solomon is presented. FGO doesn’t always get this right in the moment as they use him to make a joke, but when they do, it’s so good.

The final mask wearer on our list is the fantastic Queen of Sheba. A woman portrayed as many things to many cultures and groups depending on what the political needs of the time were. She’s a mirror that reflects many things. A mystery woman, who matched wits with Solomon and in some tales earned his true love. A nice aspect of her FGO design is that they incorporated some beast designs, ears, and a tail, in a nod to certain depictions of her in myth but in a much more flattering way. Much better than the goat legs, horned head, etc. that have been attributed to her in myth. She’s also a dark-skinned Heroic Spirit, which is great because we need more of those, and I love to see Jews who aren’t just white. As it should be. The problem with her design is everything else. It’s skimpy and needlessly busy in places where it probably shouldn’t be. There was definitely a better design there that didn’t sexualize yet another dark-skinned woman.

The other big complaint about her is how much she loves money and get rich quick schemes. Which is a lot. She appears in several interludes and events trying to make it, arguably by scamming the other servants. She’s even formed an entrepreneur’s club in Chaldea (no Davids allowed). But much like King David, there’s more than on the surface. She wants to buy hundreds of camels with her riches. Because camels are a sign of wealth and a practical animal that can be used for the good of a nation. Because the Queen is also a Ruler, and her thoughts are shaped by that. She came to King Solomon to prove her Kingdom’s wealth and power. This is what drives her, a motivation for wealth because that’s how you show the dominance of your nation. How you prove your worth as a Ruler. And even now, she yearns to meet King Solomon once again, and stand tall before him as an equal as before. Many of Sheba’s voice lines and appearances are super goofy, but there are moments where we get glimpses that that is a mask and there is more beyond. In Salem we see it in how she deals with the crisis around her. In Abigail’s interlude she’s one of the Servants to approach the PC and advise on an incoming disaster they would need to prevent. And in her Bond 5 voice line, her VA’s voice drops the cuteness for a moment, and we get this, “Here’s a riddle: What can’t be bought with money? …The time we have spent together. Even looking into the future, what I see there will only be knowledge. The connection we have is something no one can steal from us… It is our true treasure.” I think about this line a lot. Because as much as she acts about liking the other things, the time and connection she spends with those important to her, that is the treasure she values most.

She also has another line, her 4th Ascension, that I want to bring up, “I am an illusion. I disappear like a mirage in a sea of sand. Even so, I hope that stories of me will be passed down along with your great deeds.” She does not tell you her true name, only titles. First, Caster of Midrash, then the Queen of Sheba. But neither are her name, and none know what her true name is. She is not a being stuck to a name, but one who belongs in glorious tales none the less. She stood beside King Solomon, and she will stand behind the Last Master of Chaldea as we save Humanity. Everything she tells us is tinged with riddles and secrets. But there is no doubt that in the end she stands with us, that we can trust her as we did in Salem. She is an enigma wrapped in a Riddle, and who has yet to truly reveal what is in her heart…

Which is of course why it’s tragic that *so many of her voice lines* are about money. So many of her appearances in events about goofy scams. All of what I said is true, but who has time to look past the layers of disgusting filth even if riches lay below? This also goes back to David as well, and to a degree how some fans who witnessed Avicebron in Apocrypha will always feel. Their first impressions set. And who can blame them? They wear these masks and that makes them fascinating as you learn more, but also obscures them. And it’s not a great look that Sheba and David are both so into money. That’s a fact, and no secret motivations will change that. The presentation was rough, and the lead buried too deep. I love them, but they could have been presented better than they were. These characters are deep, complex and messy. With revulsion and love, I invite them into my Chaldea and my heart.