#Art does not do the lancer quests

[ofdragonsdeep]

5: Stamp

To provide with a distinctive character

Riennaut takes up the lance.

(mentions of general Gridanian racism)

Moving through Gridania was, in a word, exhausting.

Not that Riennaut was a stranger to moving through Gridania. Indeed, he had lived most of his life within the embrace of the Shroud, even if he claimed Gelmorra as his heritage before he would Gridania. He was more than used to the typical attitude.

This was different.

It had been some days since he had last heard from any of his Adventurer's Guild contacts, and longer still since they had heard from him. He had not anticipated becoming an honest-to-gods White Mage, complete with the capital letters, when he had last spoken to them, but he did not imagine they would be all that concerned so long as his healing still functioned fine enough. But Gridania at large did not approve.

He was a duskwight. Even the padjal were only tolerated as users of white magic, the idea that a duskwight might take up the staff was nonsensical. He had been accused of a great many crimes, since he had walked among the public. Theft, primarily. Blasphemy against the Elementals, which included theft. Lying, although that one wasn't new. Typical duskwight behaviour.

What was not typical was the assurances of the Padjal. Your average thief was not protected by all three Seedseers, and certainly not tolerated by the Elementals. E-Sumi-Yan had also spoken out on his behalf, though that, at least, did not surprise Riennaut.

It irked him that it was necessary at all. But it was more effort to hide the horns, and he was tired of humouring the thoughts of terrified reactionaries.

Life moved on, no matter what they thought.

---

His newfound position, as it turned out, was far from the least of his problems.

It had been a distressingly long time since he had last heard word from Ar'telan. He had, of course, heard the news of Titan's defeat, and had thus assumed that he was fine - it would have been at least mentioned if their hero had died in the act. But there was nothing. Not a word.

He was not concerned that he would need to stop adventuring, or whatever passed for helping Ar'telan with the many chores a variety of ungrateful heads of state threw at his feet, despite his status as a newly-minted padjal. A-Towa-Cant had been famous as the only travelling Padjal, and while he could not quite understand the whispers of the Elementals, they did not seem to be binding him to forest service like the more regular Padjali. What he did know, however, was that Ar'telan had been involved in research that had led to the healing arts of Nym. Indeed, Ar'telan had spoken to Riennaut a great deal about conjury, and even learned from E-Sumi-Yan in the hopes of deepening his arts. It was not, therefore, a poor plan for Riennaut to diversify his own portfolio.

As tempting as it was to leave the city to learn another trade, he did not much fancy the idea of being stranded somewhere like Thanalan should there be a development, either with his own powers or the situation that had led him to having them. The archer's guild did not much interest him, and that left him with but one option: the lance.

He received no fewer than ten suspicious glances on his walk from Stillglade Fen to the Lancer's Guild, and upon his arrival, a group of lancers were shouting down a harrowed-looking duskwight. It was not a good omen, but he doubted the archers would fare any better, so he strode past behind them and into the building.

---

He was greeted at the door by an incredibly puzzled receptionist, who was clearly unsure if he should even have been there, and was only saved from having to leave with naught for his efforts by the timely arrival of the Guildmaster.

"Ah, I've heard the stories. An adventurer, aren't you?" he greeted. "I'm Ywain, the guildmaster here."

"Charmed," Riennaut responded, and did not reach out to shake his hand. To his credit, the man seemed unperturbed by the snub. "I am an adventurer by trade, yes. You may call me Riennaut."

"An adventurer? But…" the receptionist began, but stopped when Ywain held up a hand.

"That's all the credentials he needs. Sign him up," he said. "If that is, in fact, what you're here for?"

"Yes," Riennaut replied, keeping 'against my better judgement' behind his teeth. They both heard it, though, and the receptionist looked nervous as she took his details.

An auspicious beginning, and not of the fortuitous kind, but he had weathered worse.

---

The first clash was, perhaps, inevitable.

It had been but a sennight at the guild when it happened. He was doing the same drills as all the others, despite the glances they shot his way, and the same trials that many of them undertook. It was on one such trial, a fairly by the books test of nerve in the central Shroud, that they first met.

Foulques was an angry man. Many duskwights were, if they spent too long near the heart of Gridania, but Foulques had turned it into an art form. Not a particularly engaging one, but there were points to be had for intensity.

"They'll sell you out," he growled. "Those horns don't make you special. They'll have done with you, and the Elementals-" He spat as he said the name "-will use you up and hang you to dry."

"A fascinating theory," Riennaut remarked. "I have some critiques." Foulques growled.

"You can critique the end of my lance," he snarled, lips turning up like a riled dog. "Keep your staff when I can see it and use a real weapon." Riennaut raised an eyebrow at the tirade, and drew his lance as requested.

"If you insist."

---

Foulques was dogged. He dragged recruits into helpless situations, and Riennaut dragged them out. It was clear there was something driving the man - some source to his rage beyond the background tarring brush all duskwights dealt with, something that led to him baiting Riennaut over and over again. Riennaut did not have time for childish shouting matches, and even less for endangering the lives of others, no matter how distasteful he found the other recruits.

Foulques was many things, but he was not, Riennaut thought, a murderer. Certainly his reckless behaviour could make one of him, but it would not be him that dealt the blow. He ranted about the treatment of their people, and acted just like everyone expected him to.

Wild. Uncivilised. Brutish. A danger to the good folks of Gridania.

He did not see the irony.

Trying to get the man to sit still for long enough did not produce results, however. Riennaut played by his rules only enough to make sure he didn't do anything stupid, but even outwardly respecting the rules o fhis ridiculous engagement did not give him opportunities for anything other than listening to a lecture. He had enough of those from the Padjals, and more coherant besides.

He went to Ywain. Stated his thoughts, and his case. That Foulques was a danger, and mostly to himself. That he wanted to prevent the inecitable self-destruction his path was taking him down. Ywain listened, to his credit. It was more than most of those at the guild did.

"…Foulques is angry, yes," he said, which was quite the understatement, but it made the point fine enough. "It is not… entirely without reason, however." Riennaut folded his arms and waited. There was a story, and Ywain knew it - Foulques was clearly a lancer with guild training. He was not leaving until he heard it. "Though you may not like the history."

"With respect, Guildmaster, every time I walk into this hall I have stepped past at least three people convinced I stole the crystal that gave me these horns, and one other convinced the Elementals are but days from striking me down for my heresy. There is little you could say that would surprise me."

Ywain sighed at that, his face falling. He was a tired man at the best of times, but the lines in his face seemed haggard now.

"There was a theft from the Guild," he said. Riennaut thought he did not need to hear the rest of the story. "Foulques was involved, aye, but so too were some other men. Not that I learned that until too late." He folded his arms. "They'd made an agreement to confess to the crime. Foulques was first. The others did not follow."

"I'm surprised he was fool enough to give them the chance," Riennaut remarked. Ywain shook his head.

"Before the incident, things were… not good, but they were better. In the wake of it, it feels like the recruits have only doubled down on the blame, despite my best efforts." There was a saddened look on his face at that, though Riennaut doubted it had ever been good enough to be notable. "I only found out after Foulques had been disciplined and ejected from the Guild, and the Wood Wailers considered the matter closed. If I'd known it would lead to this…"

"No man is perfect," Riennaut replied. "While I understand the… concern this must have caused him, and the hurt, it does not excuse his actions now." He shrugged. "I will attempt to talk him down, though I think him deaf to most reason. We shall see."

"I can only hope you are successful," Ywain said, and his tone did not bespeak confidence.

---

Their final encounter, too, seemed inevitable.

It was a foggy day in the North Shroud as Riennaut answered his challenge - his walk through the woods to the location of what Foulques doubtless intended to be a final challenge blessedly unmolested. The Elementals whispered in his mind, as they always did, and though the words were incomprehensible, there was a notable undercurrent of concern.

Foulques was angry. Seething. More rage than man, like the beasts driven to madness by the spirits. Riennaut would not have been surprised if he began frothing at the mouth.

"What makes you so special?" he demanded. "Why do you get to-"

"Get to?" Riennaut cut him off. "Do you not have eyes in your skull?" That made Foulques pause.

"They wouldn't just let-"

"I did not ask for this," Riennaut snapped. "Indeed, when I got it none where more surprised than I was. E-Sumi-Yan had to assure me three times that I would not be executed on the spot for providing the assistance he requested of me, and he has had to earn that promise since. Do you think they trust me?" He scoffed at the idea. "I am a blasphemer. A heretic. A thief and a blemish. I cannot walk two steps in the city without some slur being screamed after me, and I am chosen by the Elementals. It changes nothing, Foulques. I am not specieal."

"Then why the hell are you allowed to-"

"Because I am not stupid enough to keep friends," Riennaut said, curling his nose in distaste. "Because I have been taught the hard way that the only one I can rely on is myself. And your desperate grasping for revenge has not helped with that, by the way."

Foulques paused. Put his lance up. Scowled like the devil had crawled out of a void fissure in front of him.

"They deserve it."

"Yes, I'm sure those helpless recruits you tried to feed to raptors were personally involved in your struggles."

"They were all complicit. All of them! Even the Guildmaster teaches of courage, and he didn't even have the stones to-"

"Foulques." Riennaut held up his hand. "You have treated me with nothing less than disdain, but I will offer you this regardless. Gridania is a poor fit for you - yes, you were guilty of the crime, but not alone. There is no work for you here, and no redemption, and so you have flung yourself into this mess in some vain hope of feeling… what, fulfilment? Reparation? It matters not." He shrugged. "I may have a Padjal's horns, but I am an adventurer by trade. For reasons that may be obvious to you, I prefer to spend my time outside of Gridania. So. My terms. I will duel you, and I will win, and you will join my adventuring party."

"And what if I win, you arrogant sack of bird shite?" Foulques replied, which was incredibly rich coming from him. Another shrug.

"Then you can do whatever it is you were planning to doKill me, and add murder to your growing list of felonies? Stage a righteous assault on the lancer's guild?" He took his lance from his back. "I do not intend to lose, so I had not paid it much thought." Foulques growled.

"Then you can shove it up your elemental-blessed backside," he said. Riennaut rolled his eyes.

"I'm sure."

It was not a quick fight, and it was not pretty.

Rage made of Foulques a man far stronger than most would be. He was rash, and reckless, and threw everything he had into the fray - and he would pay for it in the aftermath, though Riennaut had no time to think of it. The fog had made the ground slippery, and it soon churned into mud under their feet. But Riennaut had not spent the month training to lose to an angry whelp of a man.

Foulques hit the floor, lance clattering from his hands. He slid through the mud, up against the face of the cliff, and spat out a tooth.

"I will remind you of my terms," Riennaut said, the tip of his lance against Foulques' throat. "Come with me, or prove them right. The choice is yours."

"Fuck your choices," Foulques said, and kicked him in the shins. Riennaut saw him stagger backwards, scrabbling in the dirt for his lance - and the cliff rise to meet him.

"No!" he exclaimed, lurching forward, but he was but a second too late.

He would not even be given a grave. Marked a remorseless criminal, vilified by the Gridanians with nothing to stand against it, another notch on the tally chart of useless, criminal duskwights.

The earth moved.

There was a sound like cracking, snapping twigs, and the trees bent to meet Foulques' fall. The edge he had fallen from collapsed beneath him, and the earth reformed to shield him from the chasm below. With a yelp, the duskwight found himself enmeshed - a leafy net to catch him, and not the cold, unfeeling ground.

"What in the hells?" he managed. There was terror on his face, a hypocritical mask of the bravado-led villain he had tried so hard to play. He knew he had made a mistake. He knew death would have, should have been the answer. But it was not.

There were whispers in Riennaut's head. Soft, insensible, gentle. The spirit of A-Towa, resting inside the crystal that hung from his staff, seemed to chuckle.

Your worry. They felt it. Sometimes they answer.

Riennaut huffed, walking fowards towards his downed opponent.

"My terms," he repeated, holding out a hand. "Though if you wish to traipse home through the mud on your own, you are welcome to refuse me a third time."

"Fuck you," Foulques spat. "I thought you didn't have friends?" Riennaut shrugged.

"I have associates," he responded, "and acquaintances. You are welcome to pick which."

Foulques hesitated just long enough to hear the branch of the tree crack beneath his weight. He threw out his hand, not in thoughtful acceptance but in desperation, and let Riennaut pull him back onto solid ground.

"I shall consider that a yes," Riennaut remarked. Foulques glowered in response. "Now, if you don't mind, I've an appointment in Coerthas. You are welcome to come along."

Surely he couldn't meet worse, after all.

[weightoftomorrow]

prompts: job mentors / soul crystal

Qahs'a and job states:

GLA/PLD oh this one is a hard one. He was probably willing to help Mylla out with Aldis, but clearly did not want to be a gladiator Gladiator. Taking down Alacrans is a thing in both GLA and PGL so that totally happened. Jenlyns though? Qahs'a turned and walked away from that guy when he started being intensely weird about Solkzagyl's job stone being "polluted" and how UNFORTUNATE he is to stuck being captain, and even if he stuck around to help save Jenlyns from himself, around 45 he'd have to walk away to not stab him in the head over the stupid ambush. Honestly, I assume he did some training with the Fortempses, but then Haurchefant died and traumatized him and now he has serious issues doing any Paladinny stuff without thinking about the Vault. If he has a job stone, it's from Ishgard, not Ul'dah.

MRD/WAR MRD is such a forgettable questline. There's no reason why Qahs'a wouldn't have helped Wyrnzoen and Sighard out, minus the having to wield an axe thing, but he'd probably be fine with it. Kujata's not really a threat at all. Warrior though? Qahs'a would probably be offended by Curious Gorge talking about "inner beast" to a Keeper of the Moon. He absolutely does not have the WAR job stone. I'm sure Ardbert is very annoyed about it, but he can't do much about it. Sorry Curious Gorge, I hope you resolved your rage issues solo.

DRK Oh boy. Look. I'm possibly the only one who plays XIV who really dislikes the 30-50 DRK quests. The English translation is like designed to make me, specifically, angry. Qahs'a wouldn't have gotten past level 40, let alone get to any other quests. I can easily see him having picked up DRK, but the story would've not been about "ohoho you're being EXPLOITED and you need to think only of yourself" but more about…. him being wildly depressed? He totally should do a DRK storyline about taking care of yourself when you're wildly depressed, but I am not good enough at writing to rewrite Esteem into that. And I really want him to have done 60-70 and plausibly the 80 quest. So he probably has a job stone, and gets along with Sidurgu and Rielle, and finds her being annoyed about needing to grow up faster so Sid stops treating her as babby is great, and he supports her, but 30 to probably 60 was wildly different in an unknown way.

GNB I play GNB. I think GNB is wildly out of character for Qahs'a. Going around with Radovan and Sophie and helping them out? Yes, he'd love to do it. Saving Cato Mammula? Yes definitely. But he's already supporting one nearly extinct art, and I think Radovan would appreciate that. Being able to understand Thancred's new job would be great. Radovan probably even gave Qahs'a the job crystal to practice with, but the explosions make him flinch hard.

CNJ/WHM Although he started as Lancer, he branched into Conjurer very early, as the only vaguely close thing he could do to follow in his mother's path. But it's really not, and I'm sure that the Padjals are continually rather… distant towards him, because Gridania still does have that prejudice, and he's very much a traditionally-raised Keeper. But he hasn't even tried to cast White Magic since the First turned all his spells to permanently Light-based. He's pretty freaked out about that. Definitely has a job stone, but he might leave it somewhere else nowadays, in case it's Light-poisoned and can spread to his other job stones. He's not sure if it's the job stone or him that's permanently Light-skewed (he's pretty sure it's him though).

SCH Sorry Alka Zolka. I desperately want him to have saved the Tonberries and done the Scholar questline, but uh. see ACN for details.

AST He picked up AST because he never got to see the stars much, growing up, and finds them fascinating. He kind of hates how intensely fate-based Leveva is, but keeps quiet rather than contradict her. He also doesn't get along well with Jannequinard, but, again, keeps quiet. I'm sure Janne likes Qahs'a significantly more than Qahs'a likes Janne, because Qahs'a almost looks Janne look good to Ishgardian society, comparatively speaking. Kyokuho makes Qahs'a feel quite uneasy, and he's not sure if it's jealousy or just Kyokuho's manner is what bothers him. After WHM got all Lighty, Qahs'a swapped to being AST more. He doesn't heal-focus much though, but he likes staring at the stars. That job stone is a tigerseye and you can't convince me otherwise, and I love tigerseye so Qahs'a probably does too. Seems the most likely job stone that someone would pull out and stare at (and turn to watch the chatoyancy). I feel like Urianger has tried to bond with Qahs'a over being a fellow Astrologian but Qahs'a keeps getting overwhelmed by Urianger's vocabulary.

look at this this is an ast job stone. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Tigers_eye_chatometry.gif won't turn into an image because it's too big but go look to see the chatoyancy gif. i am off topic

SGE The major strike against Sage, besides the uh… intense academia vibes that Alphinaud constantly gives off is the intro. Qahs'a has experience with Sharlayan's attitude towards "fugitives who stole things". He does not condone Sharlayan's weird penchant for assassinations. Also, Lalah is kinda amazingly naive, and just gives some random guy this job crystal. On the other hand, Qahs'a probably went "yeah sure I'll help," and failed to tell Lalah he was aiming to help Loifa more than her. It all worked out in the end at least. So yeah, Qahs'a probably has the Sage job stone and just never uses it.

LNC/DRG Qahs'a walked into Gridania with not much more than a pitchfork and the clothes on his back (and a ring the guy in the carriage gave him), so he's definitely interacted a lot with Ywain. Foulques showing up to kill lancers for the crime of uh. not… being…. cool enough in his books…… sure did make Qahs'a unhappy. So he parted on good terms with Ywain, just in time to get flung into Alberic and Estinien's kinda fucked-up relationship. At least he gets to hold being an Azure Dragoon over Estinien forever. He also turned DRG into a tank-class during HW, but he's tapered off on it over time as he ramped up magicking.

RPR Drusilla is a little… brusque which would be a turn-off for Qahs'a. Making fun of some rich guy is a plus. The aesthetic, and letting someThing else from another reflection possess him is absolutely a dealbreaker. This makes him a hypocrite but I'm sure Ardbert doesn't need competition. So he doesn't have a job stone, and probably got rebuffed when trying to help anyway. Sorry Drusilla?

PGL/MNK Well. Hamon is…. a bit of a dick. Qahs'a probably doesn't like him. He likes Chuchuto tho, and helping Rururkuta get out is also a good thing. And I doubt he likes punching. So he's probably going to not really be interested in continuing. And then Erik is very condescending to anyone who isn't as "educated" as him (read: everyone. Qahs'a knows he's uneducated, Erik doesn't need to be a dick about it) and Widargelt is a mess in ARR so uh. yeah. Qahs'a does not become a monk. No jobstone for him.

SAM Oh SAM. Qahs'a is totally willing to go along with Musosai's thing and along to help out and help Momozigo. Some of the bits are a little odd but, I mean, he does worse things for random people in tiny settlements. The 60 quest though? Oh fuck no. Qahs'a hates everything about that quest. There is a very good chance he does not actually complete the 60 quest, and refuses to kill Musosai because suicide-by-Warrior-of-Light is pretty cruel to said warrior of light. So I guess he has the jobstone. Hates it though now. And Zenos also made it worse. Yeah.

ARC/BRD So Qahs'a is a traditional Keeper of the Moon. He absolutely knows how to shoot a bow (but does not have one because his older sister sucks). He gets along great with Leih. They probably stand in a corner and make fun of Silvarre and his claiming no one else can shoot a bow ever unless they are a giraffe. Luciane is amazingly not involved in the Archer questline, I don't know how they get along. I presume Pawah is more hostile to Leih considering that she's hanging out with some guy. Whatever, that questline ends. Qahs'a gets sent to Jehantel, stares at him going "yeah i'll teach you poetry" and probably walks away because like. Sorry, he's got a lot of other things on his mind besides poetry and song. Well. If he realized that he'd be able to retrieve the stolen job stone for him, he'd do that at least, but I still cannot picture him keeping it after. Jehantel wants an apprentice and Qahs'a cannot be that apprentice (especially later when he goes mute).

MCH This is the #1 questline I assume Qahs'a did as a different job. Stephanivien needs help, Qahs'a likes the Haillenartes (or at least Francel, and Laniaitte and Stephanivien are pretty nice too. Baurendouin is…. not), but Qahs'a flinches at loud noises and gun recoil so Steph probably gave him the job stone, watched him be unable to hit the broad side of a barn and gave up on teaching Qahs'a to gun-fight. Qahs'a is all for showing up dicks, especially Dzemael dicks, tho, so… somehow he helps out? Maybe he helps Joye out. Maybe just having The Saviour Of Ishgard on his side helps him out vs Tedalgrinche. No idea. I guess Qahs'a has the job stone in his pouch, but like… at the bottom, with GNB, mostly ignored.

DNC Considering the quest opener is "hey, you wanna perform?", Nashmeira lost him 5 seconds in. I wrote a drabble about just convincing him to Help and not Perform but…. I think convincing him to dance at all is kinda ooc. But you kinda need to dance to root out the dynamis so… I guess he has the job stone? At the bottom of the pouch tho. Also Ranaa is weird because she's a non-traditional, non-forest Keeper. He has no idea how to act around her.

NIN NIN is the job he tries at and fails, completely. He's very bad at hiding, for all that he doesn't talk. He fumbles mudras, even with a job stone to help him shape his hands. Yugiri thinks he's hilarious. He's glad he's funny at least. Karasu probably also finds him hilarious. Tsubame probably sees the humour in the situation, and Oboro tears his hair out about how bad this guy is at this. Very ridiculous dynamic.

THM/BLM Qahs'a was very happy to help Cocobuki et al. with Cocobusi. Cocobuki probably likes having Qahs'a around. But Qahs'a probably only wandered into the THM guild after picking up RDM, and I can't help but imagine they're a little snobby about things and this guy thinks he can cast thaumaturgy while a completely different job. Hmph. I think he likes the tribal black mages better than Lalai, and he really doesn't like Shatotto. Ququruka is just kinda. okay. idk what's up with that guy i don't really wanna learn more either. If he has a BLM job stone, it's more because he's a master Red Mage which automatically means he's good at Black Mage rather than any particular interest.

ACN/SMN ok so. Qahs'a is only partially literate. He can read. He cannot write, and he definitely doesn't do math. And he even more definitely doesn't do complex equations. He is not an arcanist, unless he casts entirely through instinct / just shoving aether through random equations on the page and hoping he doesn't set the book on fire. Thybyrgeim is probably very empathetic, K'lyhia probably is extremly unempathetic, and K'rhid, not that he's ever going to meet K'rhid, would probably just be very mocking. This guy is never casting math magic. So he's definitely never unlocking Scholar (he also would not do it just from the name) or Summoner (isn't that what you do to call primals? that sounds evil). He should be the best Summoner around and instead he cannot do the prerequisite. Sorry Y'mhitra and Rammbroes and Dancing Wolf an--

RDM Oh look it's his main. Um i mean. Qahs'a can't turn down a chance to help people. Especially can't stop helping children. X'rhun loves him. Arya loves him. These three are very close. Qahs'a adores that he shares a job with Alisaie, and has specifically chosen a rapier to match hers. Qahs'a never lets go of his RDM job stone.

BLU Oh no, Qahs'a really doesn't like Martyn. Every time Martyn does something to try to recover his reputation, he immediately tanks it again. Qahs'a is only here because the two Mamool Ja think Martyn is ridiculous. If Martyn hadn't actively shoved a job crystal into Qahs'a's hand to "prove" it's a real job, Qahs'a never would've picked it up. He likes to pretend BLU doesn't exist. I am permanently stuck on Blue Cheese though, so I'm never going to find out what 60-80 and beyond quests are about.

VPR and PCT are waiting on dawntrail. I'm pretty sure I can't play VPR from Yoshi-P's description tho.

In summary: job stones he actually owns and uses: RDM, DRG, AST. job stones he owns but ignores: PLD, DRK, GNB, WHM, SGE, SAM, MCH, DNC, NIN, BLM, BLU job mentors he gets along with: MRD DRK GNB AST SGE LNC DRG half of PGL NIN half of ARC MCH sorta DNC THM RDM neutral job mentors: GLA WAR RPR BRD ACN job mentors he does not: PLD CNJ WHM the other half of PGL and ARC MNK SAM BLM BLU job mentors he would like if he could meet them: SCH SMN

[300iqprower]

Summer Melusine’s third skill maxing out at 80% NP charge felt like Lasengle admitting that she really didn’t need to have a 100% NP charge in the first place, especially when the Append Skill system exists. Not that I’m complaining. While I spent her Servant coins on her Anti-Lancer append, when I get a second copy, I plan to unlock and max out her second Append Skill so I can use her ST NP comfortably with her 30% NP charge on her first skill. It’ll make challenge quests far easier.

oh it was 10000% them admitting that. I think we absolutely need more servants with instant NP batteries but unless there's a MASSIVE drawback to it, they shouldnt also have every kind of offense buff as well. To say nothing of having all that AND both hard and soft defense.

Like you said the fact it's arbitrarily split up into 2 skills, but both of them are self-battery effects.

Lore wise I think she SHOULD have a 100% battery, what's stupid is that she can do all the other stuff she does.

And yet despite all that she's somehow still fundamentally badly designed too - she doesnt have a third skill if you want to use her ST Arts NP, because her form change is one way, which kills most of the point of having a "flexible" NP based on what form she's in.

...ALSO FUCK MAKING IT SO YOU LITERALLY HAVE TO USE HER PEDOBAIT OUTFIT ASCENCION

[fangedjustice]

Through the hazy darkness, he can hear muffled voices. None are particularly familiar, but that thought it sluggish and diluted enough that it simply fades away almost as soon as it crops up.

Coming back from the brink is never a smooth thing, in his experience. But it hurts quite a bit less this time around than some previous. A jolt back to the waking world, getting air back into his lungs and his bearings about him once more.

Same place, less active combat. That was good.

"Mister...are you all right? Please be all right!" A rather teary voice pleads, and the world comes back into focus more solidly.

"My apologies for...the concern. That wasn't quite the plan I'd had in mind." That's what happens when you take a sword you haven't familiarized yourself with yet. Lloyd gets back to his feet, dusts himself off a bit. "Thank you for bringing me back around, and you two...you handled things exceptionally." Really, they had it more than handled it seemed like. At the very least, he'd provided a bit of distraction but not too much else that they could not have accomplished on their own.

"I'm sorry to be asking such things after this...experience, but our group is in need of a bit of help ourselves. You wouldn't happen to know of a town nearby, would you, miss...?"

The young woman, dressed in rather fine clothes -- once pristine, but now sullied with dirt and drying blood -- smiles in relief. She seems a bit wary of Caeda and Larcei, but answers his question with little hesitation otherwise. "There's a town to the southeast, yes, but I wouldn't bother...Everyone there's packed up their things and sought refuge in Aquleia. Oh! But there is one southwest as well; just around the mountains, following the coast! The villagers there are very kind," she hums out.

"You've an impressive gift with the healing arts." And an interesting staff, now that he gets a proper look at it. He's no expert by any means, but it was certainly no common healing staff.

Aquleia? So they were in Etruria. Not...ideal, but better than if they'd been washed ashore further south. Lloyd knew the general layout of the country, some of the more common knowledge connections and what not. But he'd never had a reason to cross into its realm.

He also notices the look of hesitancy she gives Caeda and Larcei. "As unsavory as it was, miss, if it had not been for their quick actions to intervene, things might not have ended as well as they did." She didn't need to praise the violence, but they did rush in to save her when they themselves had just suffered a terrible experience.

They go back and forth for a moment, and while she doesn't give a wealth of detailed information, she does mention some very interesting things. She says that people are afraid of the dragons, but shouldn't be. That the Church gave her the staff she carries. Her name is Ellie, and she is currently on a quest to Nabata for...reasons she cannot disclose when she knows so little about them.

Which was fair enough, though it went against his instinct to offer up information so easily. Still, the swordswoman had not been on their boat, and so did not know their goals here in Elibe, and a quick glance at the lancer told him everything he needed to know about her stance.

For most people, there was little else out in Nabata but sand and heat. For the more eccentric or daring, there might be treasure.

But there was...another possibility, he supposed.

"If your goal is Nabata, we may be walking a similar path," Lloyd spoke, careful of his words. "We'd gotten word that dragons had been seen, and that the people were concerned. We...want to avoid any sort of conflict between the two."

He leaves out the again.

"What we're lacking right now in our purpose is information. You seem to know something about the dragons. I do not think our goals are at odds."

@swiftscion

✢⁎. rearranging "caeda" to spell "camus"

[megashadowdragon]

fgo theory is caster cu really odin 

comments : 

There is also the 10 bond CE for him being the Yggdrasil Tree, which is very Norse. (the fact he needs a bunch of Yggdrasil seeds may also be a bit of a hint.) Interestingly, the Wickerman festivals were held throughout Europe (Areas such as England and Scotland) and were regarded as a neo-pagan festivity. Chances are, if CasCu really is Odin, it is highly likely he will take action in the English Lostbelt second part. I think itd be really cool, but if that was the case itd be more likely Cu caster was a Cu-Odin fusion similar to Scathach-Skadi. We know its within Odin's ability to do a fusion like this due to how he did the same for Skadi. It also explains how caster cu retains the protection from arrows and disengage skills. It also makes more sense how he's kept his identity a secret, because it's not false that he is Cu.

www . reddit . com/r/grandorder/comments/lkw9xm/summary_of_the_caster_cu_chulainnodin_theory/

At absolutely no point does he ever give his name or makes any mention to it.

Other Servants who initially don't give their names say that they'll give it to you later. Caster does not even bring up the subject.

In the Garden of Sinners crossover event, he says "there's no Cú Chulainn here". It's treated as a gag, but...

In the Singularity F Memorial Quest, he's the only Servant referred to by his Class name instead of his True name.

In Lostbelt 6 he finally introduces himself... as Grimnir. This is an alias that Odin uses in the Grímnism��l.

He's not supposed to be the Caster of the Fuyuki Grail War in the first place. In the original reality, it's Medea, while in FGO reality it's Solomon. Material states that Singularity F is the result of data colliding, and Caster resulted from that. However, in that case it should be either Solomon or Medea who appear in Singularity F, not Cú Chulainn.

One of his lines goes as following: "Isn't bit boring to play a game that never ends? For better or for worse, it's like you can't move the pieces forward, yeah?" Is he talking about Singularity F? At any rate, this sounds weird.

His Final Ascension art and animation update features two white wolves. Odin is stated to have two wolves named Geri and Freki.

His second Noble Phantasm, which he mentions in one of his My Room lines, is called "Ochd Deug Odin - Seal of the Great God". It's an exceedingly powerful Rank A Anti-Fortress Noble Phantasm with potentially Game Breaking effects, but what's interesting is its description: it activates by chanting its True Name and using all 18 primordial runes granted by Scáthach at once (keep in mind she taught him the Norse ones) and it "temporarily unleashes the power of the rune possessed by the Great Odin". Aside from the weirdness of him even having that Noble Phantasm in the first place (he's not supposed to have Wickerman either, but at least we get an explanation for that), why can't he use it? (Potential Game-Breaker status not withstanding).

In the North America version of the game, his Bond Craft Essense is called "Yggdrasil Tree". That's taken from Norse Mythology, so why would a Celt have it?

In addition, the Yggdrasil tree has a particularly strong tie to Odin. The Ygg bit is another name for him, and according to legend at some point he hanged himself from one of its branches to gain wisdom.

For some reason, he's in the Nordic Fields during Boudica's 3rd Strengthening Quest.

During Valentine's Day in the return gift scene, he talks about the Human Order Incineration and the Human Order Reorganization - a.k.a. the Lostbelts. Somehow he knew about the Lostbelts before the game even got to that point.

In the 2019 Valentine's event, he's seen reading the book "Scandinavia's Beautiful Mountains".

In the FGO mats, Sigurd takes special notice of him and then has a Double Take. He also seems confused about him in his material profile. The fact that Sigurd noticed Caster is odd, but it should also be noted that Sigurd encountered Odin a number of times in his legend, thus making him one of the most likely people to recognize him.

Scáthach's Interlude brings up a LOT of questions. The regular Lancer Cú Chulainn says that his power is reduced because half his Saint Graph is missing. Mash suggests that the reduction in power may be because he was separated in numerous classes, but Lancer Cú is surprised that he can be summoned as a Caster. In addition, there are several Servants summonable in numerous classes, and none of them has this problem. There's a possibility that the other half of the Saint Graph went to Caster, and he's using an external source to stabilize it.

According to the Arcade version of FGO, it's impossible for any version of Cú Chulainn to be summoned without Gáe Bolg or the skill "Martial Arts Disciplining in the Shadow Country". Yet Caster has neither, thus making him an impossible summoning.

Not very noticeable in the English version, but he occasionally slips into using the "washi" pronoun during dialogue. For those who might not know, "washi" is actually pretty formal, and contrasts Cú Chulainn's much more casual "ore".

A lot of his official art has him looking subtly different that the other versions of Cú Chulainn.

He has lighter-coloured hair in all of his artwork, and Fate/Grand Carnival gives him wrinkles under the eyes. This trait is usually used in anime to show a character around 40-50 years old; an age that Cú Chulainn never reached.

In his card art and formal outfit card, his eyes are almost orange rather than red. In addition, one eye is always at least partially hidden.

In his April Fool's card, he has different facial features than the rest of the Cú Chulainns.

Tying to the above, Odin is known for disguising himself as an older man, usually a wizard, in a hood, and he's missing an eye. Missing eye aside, Caster fits most of that criteria, and as pointed out above, most his art hides his eye anyway. Odin gave said eye in exchange for wisdom, and there are a few remarks that Caster is getting smarter.

In the original Fate/stay night, Emiya draws a connection between Gáe Bolg and Odin's spear, Gungnir. Considering that he has picked up things like Rho Aias and Caladbolg, we can probably take him at his word. In his animation update, Caster throws his staff above the enemies heads, and then it changes tragectory to attack them from behind. While this could easily be a reference to Gáe Bolg's actual method of killing in the myth (it entered the victim through the asshole), it could also be a reference to how Odin would throw Gungnir above the heads of his enemies to declare a war.

Another detail from his animation upgrade is that his Instant Runes often take the form of a Valknut; this symbol according to some scholars is associated with Odin.

There are overall several indications that Caster will play a significant role later in the story: he's featured in the trailer of Lostbelt 6 and received his animation update during the Lostbelt 6 livestream, and Word of God has implied several times that we will be returning to Singularity F at some point.

Tying to the above, in one of My Room conversations, he say's he'll teach you how to use Runes later. Maybe it's not Blatant Lies after all.

Caster and Odin share several personality traits. Both of them are known as "the raging one", are strongly tied with the concept of war, magic, and wisdom, and both of them are The Gadfly - as Caster displays in Singularity F when he tries to get Mash to activate her Noble Phantasm. In addition, in various events Caster seems to have a gambling problem, which is also one of Odin's traits. Not to mention "summon me as a Lancer" works for Odin too.

The recent Lostbelt 6 update also adds fuel to the fire. In My Room dialogues, Scáthach tells him that his Rune magic is slightly different from what she taught him. He asks Sigurd not to look at him with the glasses, when he sees Brynhildr he muses that this must be fate/karma and specifically refers to Scáthach-Skadi as "Lostbelt Skadi."

His new battle lines from the same update are just as interesting.

"Witness the essence of the Rune magecraft taught by Scáthach... Sure, let's go with that." Along with Scáthach accusing him of his Rune magic being different, this could easily imply that he didn't learn them from her.

Another line is that "he doesn't have the noose of his neck anymore". As an above point states, this Odin did this to learn his runes. The noose bit also never happened to Cú Chulainn.

One of his victory lines references "wolves and crows" and that he has "no idea what they're talking about". The crows part could be a reference to the story of Cú Chulainn's death, which features a crow sitting on his corpse, but the whole quote seems to better reference Odin and his pets; the wolves Geri and Freki, and the crows Huginn and Muninn.

Lostbelt 6 also gives his a buff to his Disengage skill. More specifically, it's actually two buffs that activate back-to-back, with the first called "At the Fountain" and the second called "Sacrifice to the World Tree". Very specific, game.

In Lostbelt 2, it is outright stated that it was Odin who fused Skadi and Scáthach together. Who says he never did it before?

[mystech-master]

F/GO High School/Modern AU BS

Me and @rex101111 have been talking about a modern/HS AU ft. as many Chaldean servants as possible. Here are the ideas we came up with (I am pretty much cut and pasting our message convo, so this is a mixture of both me and Rex's ideas):

Gil is the douchbag Senior everyone hates but his dad owns the school or whatever so he can do whatever he wants. The only decent person who willingly hangs out with him is his childhood friend Enkidu who's hoping he can un-douch his bro. He has kid Gil as his little brother and Caster Gil as his older bro who both agree that he sucks (Gil is the loser middle child of the family), Caster Gil wonders what Enkidu sees in his shit head brother. "He's too good for you." "Blow it out your ass." "One day he's going to wise up, see how much of a shit you are, and when you're all alone don't come crying to me." Caster Gil is in college studying political science, Kid Gil goes to a fancy boarding school. Archer Gil goofs off and throws parties

Scathach is a swimming class teacher, mainly b/c I recall underwater training being a part of Cu's regiment under her tutelage. People were jealous of the Cus for like two seconds when they find out the swim teacher is their mom, then they see her having them do an extra twenty laps and ignoring when OG Cu starts floating in the water. "CU DIED!" "YOU'RE NOT HUMAN!" while Scathach is like "you have two seconds to stop playing around before I ACTUALLY drown you" and he's back to doing laps.

Yeah with 4-5 Cus (if you count Setanta from Arcade) that is like 5 brothers.

Nightingale as school nurse, she is friends with Asclepius who works at a hospital associated with the school (strictly professional, but the students think otherwise).

Side note, keep in mind you can have multiple servants be the same type of teacher, just for different classes/grades.

King Hassan is the old Religious History teacher. Every one thinks he's older then the rock is the school is made out of. He has a scary face and a scarier voice but most students consider him the most fair and patient teacher in the whole school. He always gets a lot of food gifts before Ramadan form the students. (A few students, such as the Guda twins and Mash, call him gramps.) The other Hassans are his grandkids, like actual grandkids. He's super strict with them because he expects a lot from them. He always praises them when they do well though. He made sure they ALL got into his class and they've been living in fear ever since. They love their grandpa but by Allah they know not to disappoint him. The only one to ever get out of anything is kid Hassan (one of the hundred face). Cursed Arm is oldest, then Asako (the main hundred face), then Serenity.

"I am very disappointed in ALL of you, have you all lost your heads? I swear I-*to kid Hassan*-ah no Habibi not you you're fine here have a candy-*back to the rest*-I KNOW you're better than this!"

VERY traditional guy, Cursed Arm mutters "Oh for God's sake" while doing a pop quiz and King Hassan looms over him and growls, "No Blaspheming In This Class Room"

For the various Artoria/Arturias, I imagined Lancer and Lancer Alter being sisters, so Saber Alter is a cousin. That leaves everyone else to just be sisters with one brother. Mother Lartoria owns a casino and gas her own yacht in reference to the summer event where she became a Ruler. If you want MHX could be a part of the family as a massive fucking Star Wars nerd. MHXX and MHX Alter are her mom and sister (so MHXX is a third sister for the two Lancer Artorias)

For Irisviel, I remember in one of the Nero Fest things that she was called Therapist Iri. Maybe she starts to get into that b/c she wants to help her adoptive son Shirou (instead of a big fire like in Zero it can be an orphanage fire thing, similar situation but a much smaller scale) , so she is the school therapist/psychiatrist. Like Maruki in P5 Royal.

Iskandar died in his 30s, Waver is around his 30s as Lord El Melloi II. The two are old college friends who still hang out and Alexander is Iskandar’s kid.

If you guys want you can see this as the two being gay dads since I know that ship is popular.

Fran had an abusive father before Babbage and Moriarty got involved. In the og story, Frankenstien has a scientific mindset like his creator, here Fran has a talent in the field, but she also hates it b/c it reminds her of him. Like imagine being talented at the thing your abusive parent was good at/known for. Moriarty tried to get it into her that SHE'S the one with the talent, not her college dropout bum of a father, "From you tell me of him Victor couldn't engineer his way out of an argument with a cat, you have a magnificent mind my dear, not letting it flourish to spite him would be a horrible waste...it's your talent, your skill. Not his." He smiles that smile she loves that scares every one but she knows he only smiles like that when he is absolutely convinced of something, "and you can out perform him without breaking a sweat."

Moriarty teaches Fran sign language while Babbage teaches her some engineering.

Jekyll is going for a major in medicine with a minor in law (in the actual irl story Dr. Jekyll was a doctor in medicine and law).

For science associated servants, you got da Vinci, Babbage, Edison, and Tesla as possible science teachers.

The Jeanne sisters. Without the Avenger BS, the reason Jalter (or Joan as one series of fics calls her) could hate her here is just inferiority complex and being compared to her perfect saint big sister all her life. Joan does have her talents, based on the summer event an, but again she doesn't acknowledge her own talent b/c of her always being compared to her older sister., in the 7 counterfeit events she is a really good artist. And it is the typical thing of Jeanne actually being scared out of her wits of being less than perfect because of all the expectations thrust on her. She gets one A- and runs to the bathroom crying and Joan has to swallow her pride and actually have a conversation with her sister for the first time in years. Jeanne Alter lily puts up Christmas decorations super early, much to Jeanne Alter/Joan's displeasure.

"IT JUST TURNED NOVEMBER CHILL TF OUT!"

"CHRISTMAS!"

Martha is Jeanne's BF since middle school and has this HUGE dog that scares everyone and growls at anyone expect Martha and Jeanne. She calls him Terry.

Rex loves Penthesilea. and we talked at length about the situation between her and Achilles. Can you not tell that he likes a woman who can kick his ass *gestures to all of his Baiken posts*

Rex's idea: I think they had a fight when they were little and Achilles, being a little shit back then, made fun of her for being a girl, and Penth has been sore about it ever since. She keeps running into big misogynistic meatheads that reminded her of that and she just got angrier over the years. She's a wrestler and can knock out just about every dude in school by herself. Achilles is very regretful about back then and wants to apologize but Penth ain't having any of it.

My idea: I thought they were on opposing HS sports teams and when Achilles handed her ass to her he forgot to drink his respect women juice and then Penth got all pissed.

In this AU, Penth and Hippolyta's dad was a general who taught them how to kick the ass of men twice their size since they were seven or something.

Penth surprises everyone when a festival comes up and she gets picked to be the one to organize everything...and does a spectacular job. Another surprise is that she plans on being a business major when she goes to college (Obligatory Amazoness CEO jokes)

Bedivere is the Arturia Pendragon family butler with a prosthetic arm. He's also the security guard, last guy that tried to steal something or cause trouble got slapped right out of the window he sneaked in from.

Francis Drake and Artoria Alter Lancer are work friends (referencing them both being associated with the Wild Hunt in F/GO's lore).

Beni-Enma is the short and shorter tempered lunch lady, last kid who mouthed off at her during lunch got smacked upside the head with her spoon. She's sweet, but if you're in detention and have to help her in the kitchen she's a mini Gorden Ramsey, "IT'S RAW DECHI!!!" She can also come into the home EC class where Shirou is her best student. Also her roasting of the other girls like in her quest. Getting Fs in Beni's class is the worst, because it isn't just an F, it's a meticulous dressing down of exactly why letting into a kitchen should be considered a war crime, dechi.

The three Avenger Nobus are three different people. 1st Ascension is basically Archer Nobu, then you got Oda Kipposhi, and then the mom is Ascension 3 with Demon King Nobunaga. The youngest Ascension 1 Nobu is a musician. Demon King Nobu is one of those "super scary but also super polite people that only makes them scarier" type, basically a female koei Nobunaga from samurai warriors (check out some cutscenes form the games with him, he's a treat).

Imagine Demon King Nobu mom in a business suit.

Suzuka Gozen and Sei Shonagon are the textaholics who always talk in slang to the point of it sounding like they speak a different language. Murasaki is the librarian but Sei is like that ONE student who just makes her job so much harder.

Every week it's "No phones in the library Miss Shonagon." while Sei rolls her eyes and types out twitter post like "fugly ol librarian at my school needs a life lol"

Oui Katsushika is a gifted art student, and her dad (not a floating little octopus), is just a normal dude with a squid/octopus like beard. She's the teacher's pet in De Vinci's art class.

Eresh and Ishtar come from a rich family, Ereshkigal is the older sister so she had a shit load of responsibility to take over the family business while Ishtar basically gets to party her life away. Rin is the cousin they each try and swing their way. Eresh wants Rin to keep up her studies and get into a good university, Ishtar wants Rin to loosen the fuck up and admit that she likes that scrawny Emiya kid already.

BB is the host of a talk show downtown so she is kind of an absentee mom. Meltryllis has prosthetic legs that she specifically asked to be made into stilts b/c she wanted to be taller, and Passonlip has a massive rack that makes life difficult (either people staring, people assuming she's gonna be a home wrecker b/c said staring must be intentional, etc.), and of course he also has prosthetic arms to match her canon claws, obviously not as massive.

Hijikata is a very serious police officer but his wife Carmilla just uses this to have fun in the bedroom. They have two Dobermans. Hijikata's route has him patrolling near the school so most of the kids know as that scary police dude that has a picture of his wife in his pocket. One day a famous Idol called Eli-chan~ (yes spelled with the ~) is about to perform in the town and the kids can't stop talking about her, so Hijikata overhears. But, being the serious dude he is he shrugs it off until he sees a picture of this "Eli-chan~" and realizes it's his sister-in-law that came to visit and suddenly the influx of parasitic paparazzi near his house start making sense.

Carmilla: "Now you see why I hate them?", Hijikata: "No you cannot send the dogs after them honey."

She almost ran one of them over in her, very expensive, car and when that reporter says she should be locked up Hijikata corrects that would only happen if she had hit him...and she would be fined. For littering.

Okita Alter being Hijikata's partner, while Okita is her younger sister who's looked up to Hijikata since she was a little kid but she has asthma and such so she's afraid she might not get accepted.

Sigurd owns a metalworks shop (referencing his myth where he was raised by the dwarf Reginn), he met his wife Brynhildr when she was disowned by her overly controlling father.

Ozymandias, Nitocris, and Cleopatra are all the high board members of a company. Nitocris specifically got wind of Scheherazade's abusive husband situation and after getting said husband arrested, she offered Scheherazade a job.

Atalanta is a college student/TA who worked with Achilles' dad who ends up at their HS for a program or something, Achilles' dad has told him a lot about her.

Amakusa Shirou is an uncle married to the CEO of Babylon Gardens Pharmaceuticals, Semiramis. Semiramis herself is kinda chill if REALLY scary. She had to be pretty cutthroat to get to her position in the company, but Amakusa Shirou helped her mellow out, but she is still a massive tsundere.

"You know you COULD poison their lunch." "Semi, dear, I'm not going to poison my coworker's sandwich for being an ass." "It wouldn't kill them! Just a bit in their peanut better and they'll be stuck on the toilet for a week, no harm no foul."

Rex initially said Taiga would be an overly enthusiastic gym teacher but then I remembered that she was a homeroom/English teacher in Fate canon, but either or can do if you wanna be unique.

For Quetzalcoatl, Wrestling club supervisor when she isn't the senior year gym teacher. Some of the male students laughed that they didn't think a woman would know anything about wrestling. Two piledrives later, the students have earned a new appreciation for the importance on how not to be two pieces of shit. She's big on Lucha as in canon and during Halloween she gets JAGUARMAN to have an exhibition fight with her. They make a show of it but later on Taiga admits that Quatz could have CRUSHED her if they were actually fighting. She takes the wrestling club out for homemade Mexican food after tournaments

For Siduri, there's a bunch of rumors she's dating Caster Gil but it's strictly professional, Caster respects her too much to consider that. Archer Gil hits on her relentlessly, she manages to wound his ego more severely then anyone else simply by being unfailingly polite in her rejections and treating him like what he is, a teenage punk jumping higher than he can handle to land.

Ibaraki is Shuten's adoptive little sister after she was taken from an abusive mother, hence why Ibaraki looks up to her. Ibuki is either Shuten's big sister who had to take on a guardian role, or just her mom. Shuten and Ibuki have a bit of a strained relationship because Shuten saw the way Ibuki acted as they grew up, taking more and more responsibilities onto herself and refusing any distractions. And she decided that her biggest nightmare is to wake up one morning and realize she's turned into Ibuki so she tries to do everything to avoid that, hence their relationship not being the best. Ibaraki is kinda stuck in the middle because she wants to side with Shuten but she sees where Ibuki is coming from. Messy.

Caren is still Kotomine’s daughter, but he isn’t a good dad and in rebellion she sleeps around despite being a woman of god. Including sleeping with local punk Angra Mainyu. Angra Mainyu seems like a bad guy but he has a shit load of issues due to being blamed for everything going wrong in his old town, eventually coming to believe them and thinking he will cause nothing but problems. Caren banging him gives him a type of closeness he’s never felt, but under very warped circumstances.

For the Tamamo family, Vitch totally fucked her way up a corporate ladder or something, imagined Tamamo Cat working at a Cat Cafe if she were a Student. Tamamo no Mae accidentally fed her prev BF a food he was allergic too, and that kind of haunted her and scared her rep. IDK basically she seriously fucked up a previous relationship, either on purpose or accidentally, and that kind of hurts her deeply so she wants to start over with Hakuno.

Nero and Tamamo no Mae are rivals over this one guy.

Kiichi Hougen is the adoptive mom, Benkei is the family friend/uncle, Taira is Ushiwaka's older sister. Taira isn't on the best of terms with her family, some drama way back caused a rift and nowadays Ushi is the only one who's willing to talk to her and visit. Benkei never lets her go alone because he doesn't trust Taira one bit. Taira and Ushiwaka are Kintoki and Tomoe's cousins (I say Tomoe b/c apparently her husband and Ushiwaka were half cousins, with their grandpa having kids with their grandmas. I tried to make a whole family tree out of a few servants).

These are the ideas we had the most to talk about, if you guys have any suggestions for your fav servants in this AU, let either me or Rex know. Or just reblog and say them here. Who knows maybe you have a much better idea for a Servant we already mentioned.

[waifoucards]

It’s time for Autumn Lottery Fest; this time featuring Gilgamesh in New York.

First up the one that gave me anxiety because I hate doing solo runs. If there’s no backup or supports behind me, what’s the point?

The guides said solo run. I haven’t done enough boxes for the battle CE so I borrowed the same NP. 5 TamaLancer I did the Angra Mainyu rank up quest. Easier than it looks. Might use Scathach and Enkidu later just to see how they fare and their damage output. Ideally you use a Lancer with some defensive option when you need it.

EDIT: I didn’t need an MLB event damage CE for Scathach but Enkidu does.

The 300 Spartans on the second day were annoying. I gave up the secondary backup Saber to put in another support since Shiki (also borrowed) had no problems doing damage. This after four or so tries. I really wanted to use Casko but compared to the np charge of Waver and the previous failed tries I had to use something else.

In the end both Mash and Georgios fell. I didn’t even need to use Skadi. The guide I read said to get to 280 Spartans left but it didn’t seem necessary since Shiki had enough of Leonidas and his men.

Insta death of the soldiers is really high so if you have a Nitocris feel free to spam her while killing off soldiers. Her Arts cards will be nice for Shiki. I’m debating trying this again but with Shiki and Gramps.

EDIT: it’s not so high of a death rate that Gramps can stomp on them sadly. That would have been hilarious.

[atopearth]

Fate/hollow ataraxia Part 2 - Food is Bliss (Phase 2)

What?! So, Bazett dying is something normal? She dies, he takes her home and she starts breathing again eventually?? Or does it just restart back in this house after they both die? Wow, they can practically never die since they’ll always revive back at the house, unfairrr! Anyway, Avenger huh? I guess he’s Angra Mainyu? Since he sounds like just a culmination of all the hatred and violence, whilst also being someone that’s weak enough that he can’t physically fight and win against other Servants? I guess it’s good that Bazett is his Master then since she’s so great at hand to hand combat~ Did Bazett actually summon two Servants? And the other one was Lancer and that’s why he’s able to stay in this world even though Kotomine is gone? Actually maybe she just made a contract with Lancer? I’m not sure how I feel about Bazett as a character, in a way she’s interesting in that she fights to protect the “correct” way of life, but at the same time, it doesn’t feel like she really cares since she seems to just feel like she needs to do this rather than this is what she wants to do? On the other hand, Avenger definitely has more thoughts and feelings towards things than he lets out with his superficial personality that he shows to kinda hide what’s inside.

Anyway, is that ghost house Shirou went to the place where Bazett and Avenger revive? Omgg hahaha, I love how when Sakura and Shirou had to cook dinner for heaps of people on the weekend, they started early on the brainstorming as to what they should cook, and when they were doing it, Shirou would refer to her as Chef Matou and Sakura would call him Chief Emiya hahahaa, they’re so cute! I think it’s one of the few times you actually get to see Sakura get full on cooking guidance from Shirou rather than the usual where they kinda just help each other out cooking their own thing. I wish we got to see the reactions of everyone eating the persimmon dinner! It would have been fun! I wanted to see the fruits of their efforts~ Oh well. It’s kinda saddening to think but it’s true that above all else, Rider is a monster that can and will eat humans if it comes to it, I mean, in the Fate route etc, it was apparent that she was unnerved over killing and devouring humans after all. As she said, she’s never been a noble spirit like Saber. LOL at Shirou wondering how it could be possible that young Gilgamesh is a nice little boy hahahah. I love their after dinner antics, lmao at Taiga losing her after dinner snacks to Saber through blackjack, she really gambles everything away haha. It was cute how Shirou scolded them🤣

Lmaoo, trust Illya to tease Saber for having a stuffed lion toy and then forcing Shirou to go buy her one too lol. HAHAHA, I love how Shirou teased Mitsuzuri’s little brother (Minori) about liking Sakura and tried to dig why he likes her🤣 Gotta love how much of a spoiled brat Taiga is to knee drop Shirou to play with her when he’s trying to sleep lmao. Honestly though, with the relationship Shirou and Taiga have, I can’t deny that I kinda wanted a Taiga route in FSN haha. Omg, I nearly died laughing at Shinji sulking at the harbour port for appearing only 3 times in the game when Sakura’s appeared so many times hahahahah. It feels like Shirou is the most smitten with Saber after all~ It was so cute when she discussed with him why bras and underwear had to have so many designs lmao. LOL, so it was Rin the troublemaker that told Saber to consult Shirou about it just because she thought it would be funny hahahahha. It was pretty hilarious when she insisted on Shirou accompanying her to the lingerie shop and Shirou ran away, but the icing on the cake was when Sakura and Rider overheard their conversation and Sakura wished her good luck on this quest lmaoo. Btw, I love how Shirou experiments making different snacks and he gets Saber the glutton to try them hahaha, so cute. Omgg Saber’s face enjoying Shirou’s baked sweet potatoes was so precious, she looked so happy🥺🥰 Lmao at Lancer picking up Makidera and them, and even saying his speciality is the javelin throw, I guess he’s not exactly wrong or lying hahahaha. Lancer being a part time florist is definitely a win win situation for him, he gets to pick up girls and earn some money haha!

I quite enjoyed Mitsuzuri’s meeting with Lancer, they got along pretty well due to their interest in martial arts etc, Mitsuzuri was so cuteee! I love how Shirou ended up bringing the party of Saber, Sakura and Rider to help clean Rin’s house hahaha, it’s true that with all her antiques and carpets etc it can be rather difficult by himself, not to mention how large the place is too! HAHAHA when Saber changed into her armour to clean Rin’s house. Lmaooo at Saber thinking all the gym equipment in the basement was what Rin tried to use as a catalyst to summon her but failed, it was so adorable when she started playing around with them all instead of cleaning hahahah, didn’t think Saber would be a bludger!🤣 It was really sweet to see Sakura’s reactions to things around the house, it was so adorable how she talked about Rin giving her the precious handmade ribbon (that’s on her hair) as a parting gift and saying Sakura has to repay it with a compounding interest rate lmao. It’s cute how she wanted Sakura to always feel connected to her through this “debt ”. Awww how cute of Saber to play with the lion plushie and even sleep with it at night!! She’s so cute!! Shirou totally deserved Saber’s wrath for teasing her about it so ruthlessly hahahah. Sakura is so mischievous! She literally just wrote down everything Shirou said in the letter to Rin hahaha, I love Sakura in this, she’s so cute but cunning at the same time hahaha. Omggg how embarrassing for Sakura that Shirou caught her hugging his jacket so lovingly hahahah! So cute though when she got all flustered. It was really thoughtful of her to notice that his button fell off and sewed it back for him.

Aww Rider going to school just to give Sakura and Shirou their lunches (that Sakura forgot) was cute, I also really enjoyed how Shirou ended up buying her food for them to enjoy together on the rooftop, it was really sweet of him. I don’t know, but Saber welcoming Shirou home and thanking him for his hard work at his job was so heartwarming, it really made me think she was such a great girl. I can’t believe this but my love for Rin is going to be at the same level as Saber if this goes on hahaha, Rin come back soon pls. I found it hilarious that Rider is so dissatisfied with bike number two that is mainly used for casual shopping, and really wants to use bike number one which is a racing bike, but Shirou is scared that she’ll be zooming around the neighbourhood like a rocket and refuses, which is very logical!! Lmao, just imagining Rider at her superhuman speed riding on that bike is killing me hahaha. Omg hahahah, that silly drawing of him imagining Rider being chased by the police on the bike and her escaping happily was so funny and cute LOL. Hahahaha, I loved how Rider tried to use her seductive skills to make Shirou bend to her will so she can use the bike, but then Sakura appears overhearing them, so she immediately runs away and leaves Shirou to deal with the misunderstanding hahahah. Honestly though, seeing Saber and Sakura co-operate happily making pie and enjoying the fruits of their efforts was so cute. They used to be rather awkward even though they got along relatively okay, so it’s pretty nice and refreshing to see that if they had the time to bond more, they could actually be so friendly.

I think I’m starting to see how and why some people might like Fate/hollow ataraxia more than the original game, because wow, seeing Sakura grow so much and become the captain of the archery club was so cool. I absolutely loved how resolute and strong she was, and I loved how she scolded Taiga for being a nuisance hahaha. It was so funny yet so cool to see that. And it’s not something sudden too, because Mitsuzuri stayed, supported and guided her into establishing more self confidence in herself into being a worthy captain so I’m glad it all worked out. Although it’s obvious Sakura would be a great captain seeing how she carries herself at the Emiya household haha. I also absolutely loved how she fed Shirou the obanyaki when they went shopping after, and it was honestly so beautiful and heartwarming to see how truly happy Sakura was. Not only is she now able to have a proper life where she’s spending time with people in the club and making friends with others whilst actually playing around doing other activities, she is also able to truly live for herself and not live in fear of anything in the Matou household. It’s so wonderful to see how nothing is holding her back anymore, and honestly this is the best ending for Sakura, or I guess, it’s more like a new beginning for her! I’m so glad they showed all this. Sakura used to think she didn’t have the right to play around and stuff, so seeing her enjoy all that made me feel really satisfied haha.

Confused Caster walking around the shopping district wondering what she should buy to make for dinner was cute haha. HAHAHA, I love how Caster and Sakura became friends because Lancer was trying to pick up Sakura and Caster hates his flippy attitude so she taught him a lesson lol. It was even more hilarious when Sakura subtly kept badmouthing Rin for using Shirou like a servant and Shirou not minding it hahaha, I think it was pretty funny how Shirou didn’t even realise or he ignored the fact that Sakura was talking about him and Rin haha. Omgg snake wine with a snake in it?! Reminds me of the crazy Chinese concoctions hahaha. Anyway, I really loved how persistent but considerate Shirou was into finding out what Rider likes to eat and what she doesn’t eat. I think it was really cool that rather than giving up after she said she doesn’t particularly mind whatever he and Sakura cooks, he instead asked her to come to the kitchen and get her to choose what she would prefer to eat from the ingredients they have. I really love how thoughtful Shirou is in changing his approach several times in order to get Rider to enjoy her food rather than just feel apathetic about it all. Lmao at Saber getting jealous that she doesn’t get to choose even though Shirou asks her what she wants to eat all the time hahaha. LMAO at Saber’s reaction to octopus and not realising she’s been gobbling it up all this time when she ate takoyaki hahahah. I love how through their “fight” about the weird things they eat, Shirou gets to understand a bit more about what Rider actually prefers to eat. Rin is hilarious for making Saber wear the fancy clothes Caster sent to them hahahah, it was so cute how traumatised Saber was hahaha. Shirou imagining Issei in a frilly dress was LOL, that cursed image hahaha. Hahahaha, I love how Saber didn’t give up on eating high class food when Shirou told her they were poor, and instead said that they should raise/make the ingredients themselves so that they could cook it in the future. It was so cute when she started talking about raising ducks and pigs hahhaha. Issei being fond of sweets is cute haha.

I don’t know why but I never thought about Kiritsugu’s grave at all lol! I never thought it would be in the forest at the Ryuudou Temple graveyard though! I wonder if Illya and Saber would ever go visit…but then again, Shirou doesn’t even go so I think it’ll be harder for them. Wow, I didn’t think I needed it, but hearing Kuzuki call Caster his wife and leave her in Shirou’s hands (to learn cooking lmao) was so..amusing LOL. On the other hand, Reikan (Issei’s brother) is a pretty cool guy! He’s chill, full of confidence but also a strict serious guy, I can see why Issei would admire him. He gets along nicely with Taiga since they were classmates so it’s pretty cute. I…feel so sorry for Shirou that he was caught between Otoko/Neko (his part time job boss) and Taiga, they’re monsters… Hmmm, the actual story part is quite short as usual. It was expected that the white hair girl was the one who restarted the holy grail war, but why does she become possessed and have claws come out of her? Poor Shirou dieddd! Is she hiding a monster inside that comes out when it meets Shirou at the wrong time? Hahaha. Anyway, I’m curious about her so I hope we’ll get more story stuff in phase 3.

[prettycottonmouthlamia]

F/GO 1-Star Tier List

I’ve decided to make a tier list, because...I’m bored. :)

Feel free to ask any questions or open a discussion of any of my rankings, Tier Lists are pretty subjective and I like seeing what other people’s opinions are. I’ve given my opinions here as well, so the post is fairly lengthy. 

Of special note, my 1-3 Star Tier Lists will be also factoring in Grails. Grails aren’t super important for 4 or 5 stars, but budget units greatly appreciate the extra stats due to their lower bases. 

1-star Tier List

This tier list will look at the 1-star Servants in the game and rank them based on overall usefulness. This includes both general content, farming, and Challenge quests. This list will also not look at these units in just budget teams, but also in teams will higher rarity units. There will also be a separate ranking for certain units if they are given grails, as stats are the overall limiter to the general usability to using 1-stars.

S-Rank: Top tier units that are very useful overall. Often have specific niches that are not seen in other units, or do what they do so well that they outclass almost every other unit.

A-Rank: Units who are very good at what they do. They are not at the pinnacle of usefulness as other Servants and may face some competition, but they will do their jobs well.

B-Rank: Units who are good, but may not be usable in every team or may be outclassed by other units. Do their jobs generally decently, but often have viable alternatives.

C-Rank: Units who are mediocre. They generally don't have a useful niche or have a lot of Servants who outclass them. Usually require support to be good.

D-Rank: Servants who are simply not good. They may have some usability, but are nonviable the majority of the time.

S-Rank Mozart: Mozart is by far and away the best 1 star. His 44% Arts card boost is very good, but it is his 50 critical star bomb that solidifies his niche, enabling a very large number of Servants to do a lot more damage than they normally will, especially Arts-based critical Servants. His second skill is total bunk and his NP is mediocre, but his other two skills really help hold him together and make him incredible. Mozart is not particularly boosted by Grails, since he's a support and support Servants don't rely on HP or ATK all too much.

A-Rank Mata Hari: Mata Hari is a very overlooked Servant, but she is one of the only 1-stars that truly shines regardless of stats. Her main niche is in simply damage boosting, with her skills providing a 40% Defense down to the opponent and her NP potentially providing an additional 20-30%. She can also potentially Charm, although its inconsistent, and inflicts Skill Seal, a decent debuff. Mata Hari can benefit from Grails if you want to use her for more overall damage, since her NP gain is good and she can rather easily get off multiple NPs, but it doesn't change her rank.

Spartacus: Spartacus is more of a low-A rank, but he's a very good unit for farming. He's an easily accessible Berserker with an AoE NP and a NP charge skill, making him very good for farming. He can be useful in general content and some Challenge Quest because his NP also ignores defense buffs. His myriad number of heals and his Guts do provide him some survivability. Grails do help Spartacus with survivability especially, but he doesn't get a large enough bonus in his damage to raise him up a rank.

Arash: Arash is the premier farming Servant since his release. He has a good NP charge on his 3rd skill and a very powerful NP that gets even stronger with Overcharge. Even better, however, is that Arash's NP will kill Arash, allowing another Servant to come in without requiring the use of Plugsuit. This can be used as strategic times or to simply make farming easier. The main thing holding Arash back from being S-rank is that without any buffs, Arash's damage may not be enough, but Grails boost his damage enough to put him in S-rank if you decide to Grail him.

B-Rank Asterios: Asterios is quite possibly one of the most lop-sided units usability wise. Many newer Masters will probably find him to be overall very weak and have difficulties using him effectively, but with the right set-ups and certain enemies, Asterios may be a complete game-winner on his own. All three of his skills are good, but his NP is where he truly shines, massively reducing opponent's ATK and DEF. Asterios, however, relies on outside support or an enemy that has a high number of hit counters in order to be effective, which hampers his overall usefulness.

Grails boost Asterios' bulk and power, which not only makes him easier to use against more enemies but also allows him to do a lot of potential critical damage with his three skills. A grailed Asterios hence is low-A rank with Grails.

Sasaki Kojirou: Sasaki is an Assassin with a pretty decent power output. His NP will hit decently hard with its good damage numbers and a 20% Quick performance up, and he can do a fair amount of crit damage as well. Due to being a launch Quick servant however, and his low overall stats, he doesn't overly excel at this role compared to other Assassins. His most notable trait is his ability to ignore Evasion for 3 turns because of this. Grails, however, will massively boost his damage and make him a solid A-rank Servant, with both some survivability and damage.

Paul Bunyan: Bunyan was a little difficult to really pin down a ranking for. Bunyan isn't a particularly unique Servant in what she does, providing support and some damage potentially, but she doesn't really excel in either of those areas. Her potential with Buster crit Servants, providing three 20% buffs to their damage in Def down, Buster up, and Critical damage up, is rather notable, but it limits her ability to be used in different team comps. In addition, her very poor survivability makes her very difficult to use as actual damage. She's a high B-rank because of her support potential. Grails giving her extra HP and ATK pushes her into a low A-rank because it makes it more likely she can be used for farming and deal good enough damage.

Bartholomew Roberts: Bartholomew is similar to Bunyan in that he performs two roles: support, and damage dealing. Support wise he has a number of good tools, including Voyager of the Storm, a 40% crit buff for the entire party, and a crit rate down + 20 stars skill. His crit buff also reduces his crit star weight, meaning he can make Berserkers getting crits more consistent too. His support is a little scattered, however, which limits his usefulness there. He can do decent damage to Caster enemies and Bronze enemies thanks to his effective damage on his NP, which makes him a potentially useful farmer, but in specific scenarios.

Grails don't boost him enough to raise him into A-rank because of how specific Bartholomew is. This would change if he got an NP upgrade, however, since it would boost his damage to the point where he could consistently farm Bronze enemies of any class.

C-Rank Jason: Jason is pretty much the epitome of C-rank. He can either be used as a support Servant, and while his 3rd skill is very good, it only works on a very select group of Servants, and to adequately do any farming he'll need support and probably a team in which to enable 3-turn looping. His skillset is decent otherwise but nothing extraordinary. He does very mediocre damage on his own, only doing decent damage to Lancers.

Grails will boost Jason to a low B-rank. His damage will still not be very good, but he'll require less support to be usable and the Arts AoE Saber niche is very underfilled. An NP upgrade would help solidify Jason as a B-rank with Grails.

Charlotte Corday: This one really hurts me, but its the best place to rank her. She's better than Jason because she's at least capable of doing things on her own, but the problem isn't her own usability and more that her niche is oversaturated and she is outclassed by other Servants, more severely than Sasaki. She has a good survival skill with a 2 hit evasion, has the coveted combo of Pierce Invul and Ignore Def for 1 turn, can remove evasion buffs, and has the potential for high crit or NP damage. Corday's 3rd buff is very inconsistent, however, and because of this she benefits having a team built around any three of her buffs procing instead of just one. Her Atk up also has bad downtime which limits her face card damage. It wouldn't take much to make Charlotte B-rank, but she still faces stiff competition regardless.

Grails will boost Corday to B-rank, stabilizing her damage and giving her more HP to tank with. She can be a good boss killer, especially with support, but she still isn't noteworthy enough to compete with the other good Arts Assassins.

[tengoku-lovers]

He's a weird case. He has the BBAQQ deck of a lancer, and no Presence Concealment because he never bothers to hide himself or his intentions. He does have Independent Action though, and his NP is Buster, though the only other passive he has is Territory Creation at a moderate B rank, and a lotta good that'll do him with just one Arts card. 

All in all, good for easier content, but no good for Challenge Quests unless it's one with Female bosses. He's a good anti-female nuke, but he completes with Jack for the same role. He still awaits Rank Ups to bolster his skills.

[grigori77]

2019 in Movies - My Top 30 Fave Movies (Part 2)

20.  FROZEN 2 – so, another year, then, and once again Disney doesn’t QUITE manage to net the animated feature top spot on my list, but it’s not for lack of trying – this long-awaited sequel to the studio’s runaway hit musical fantasy adventure is just what we’ve come to love from the House of Mouse, but more importantly it’s a most worthy sequel, easily on a par with the much beloved origin.  Not much of a surprise given the welcome return of all the key people, from directors Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee (who also once again wrote the screenplay) to composer Christophe Beck and songwriters Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, as well as all the key players in the cast.  It’s business as usual in the kingdom of Arendelle, where all is seemingly peaceful and tranquil, but Queen Elsa (Idina Menzel) is restless, haunted by a distant voice that only she can hear, calling to her from a mysterious past she just can’t place … and then she accidentally awakens the four elemental spirits, sending her homeland into mystical turmoil, prompting her to embark on a desperate search for answers with her sister Princess Anna (Kristen Bell), ice harvester Kristoff (Jonathan Groff), his faithful reindeer companion Sven, and, of course, living snowman Olaf (Josh Gad). Their quest leads them into the Enchanted Forest of Northuldra, a neighbouring kingdom, ruled by simple, elemental magic, that has remained cut off from Arendelle for decades, where they discover dark, hidden truths about their own family’s past and must make peace with the spirits if they’re to save their home and their people.  So, typical Disney family fantasy fare, then, right? Well, Frozen 2 certainly dots all the Is and crosses all the Ts, but, like the original, this is no jaded blockbuster money spinner, packed with the same kind of resonant power, skilful inventiveness and pure, show-stopping WOW-factor as its predecessor, but more importantly this is a sequel that effectively carves out a fresh identity for itself, brilliantly taking the world and characters in interesting new directions to create something fresh, rewarding and worthwhile on its own merit.  The returning cast are all as strong as ever, Menzel and Bell in particular ably powering the story, while it’s nice to see both Groff and Gad getting something new to do with their own characters too, even nabbing their own major musical numbers; there’s also a welcome slew of fresh new faces to this world, particular Sterling K. Brown (This is Us, Black Panther, The Predator) as lost Anrendelle soldier Mattias and former Brat Pack star Martha Plimpton as Yelena, leader of the lost tribe of Northuldra. Once again this is Disney escapism at its very best, a heart-warming, soul-nourishing powerhouse of winning humour, emotional power and child-like wonder, but like the first film the biggest selling point is, of course, that KILLER soundtrack, with every song here a total hit, not one dud among them, and there are even ear-worms here to put Let It Go to shame – Into the Unknown was touted as the major hit, and it is impressive, but I was particularly affected by Groff’s unashamedly full-bore rendition of Lost in the Woods, a bona fide classic rock power ballad crafted in the fashion of REO Speedwagon, while the undeniable highlight for me is the unstoppable Show Yourself, with Menzel once again proving that her incredible voice is a natural force all in itself.  Altogether, then, this is an absolute feast for the eyes, the ears AND the soul, every inch the winner that its predecessor was and also EASILY one of Disney’s premier animated features for the decade.  So it’s quite the runner-up, then …

19.  ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD – since his explosion onto the scene twenty-seven years ago with his runaway smash debut Reservoir Dogs, Quentin Tarantino has become one of the most important filmmakers of his generation, a true master of the cinematic art form who consistently delivers moving picture masterpieces that thrill, entertain, challenge and amuse audiences worldwide … at least those who can stomach his love of unswerving violence, naughty talk and morally bankrupt antiheroes and despicably brutal villains who are often little more than a shade different from one another.  Time has moved on, though, and while he’s undoubtedly been one of the biggest influences on the way cinema has changed over the past quarter century, there are times now that it’s starting to feel like the scene is moving on in favour of younger, fresher blood with their own ideas.   I think Tarantino can sense this himself, because he recently made a powerful statement – after he’s made his tenth film, he plans to retire.  Given that OUATIH is his NINTH film, that deadline is already looming, and we unashamed FANS of his films are understandably aghast over this turn of events.  Thankfully he remains as uncompromisingly awesome a writer-director as ever, delivering another gold standard five-star flick which is also most definitely his most PERSONAL work to date, quite simply down to the fact that it’s a film ABOUT film.  Sure, it has a plot (of sorts, anyway), revolving around the slow decline of the career of former TV star Rick Dalton (Leonardo Dicaprio), who languishes in increasing anonymity in Hollywood circa 1969 as his former western hero image is being slowly eroded by an increasingly hacky workload guest-starring on various syndicated shows as a succession of punching-bag heavies for the hero to wale on, while his only real friend is his one-time stunt double, Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), a former WW2 hero with a decidedly tarnished reputation of his own; meanwhile new neighbours have moved in next door to further distract him – hot-as-shit young director Roman Polanski (Rafal Zawierucha), riding high on the success of Rosemary’s Baby, and his new wife Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie).  Certainly this all drives the film, along with real-life events involving one of the darkest crimes in modern American history, but a lot of the time the plot is largely coincidental – Quentin uses it as a springboard to wax lyrical about his very favourite subject and pay loving (if sometimes irreverently satirical) tribute to the very business he’s been indulging in with such great success since 1992.  Sure, it’s also about “Helter Skelter” and the long shadow cast by Charles Manson and his band of murderous misfits, but this is largely incidental, as we’re treated to long, entertaining interludes as we follow Rick on a shoot as the bad guy in the pilot for the Lancer TV series, visit the notorious Spahn Ranch with Cliff as he’s unwittingly drawn into the lion’s den of the deadly Manson Family, join Robbie’s Tate as she watches “herself” in The Wrecking Crew, and enjoy a brilliant montage in which we follow Rick’s adventures in Spaghetti westerns (and Eurospy cinema) after he’s offered a chance to change his flagging fortunes, before the film finally builds to a seemingly inevitable, fateful conclusion that Tarantino then, in sneakily OTT Inglourious Basterds style, mischievously turns on its head with a devilish game of “What If”.  The results are a thoroughly engrossing and endlessly entertaining romp through the seedier side of Hollywood and a brilliant warts-and-all examination of the craft’s inner workings that, interestingly, reveals as much about the Business today as it does about how it was way back in the Golden Age the film portrays, all while delivering bucket-loads of QT’s trademark cool, swagger, idiosyncratic genius and to-die-for dialogue and character-work, and, of course, a typically exceptional all-star cast firing on all cylinders. Dicaprio and Pitt are both spectacular (Brad is endearingly taciturn, playing it wonderfully close to the vest throughout, while Leo is simply ON FIRE, delivering a mercurial performance EASILY on a par with his work on Shutter Island and The Wolf of Wall Street – could this be good enough to snag him a second Oscar?), while Robbie consistently endears us to Tate as she EFFORTLESSLY brings the fallen star back to life, and there’s an incredible string of amazing supporting turns from established talent and up-and-comers alike, from Kurt Russell, Al Pacino and a very spiky Bruce Dern to Mike Moh (in a FLAWLESS take on Bruce Lee), Margaret Qualley, Austin Butler and in particular Julia Butters as precocious child star Trudi Fraser.  Packed with winning references, homages, pastiches and ingenious little in-jokes, handled with UTMOST respect for the true life subjects at all times and shot all the way through with his characteristic flair and quirky, deliciously dark sense of humour, this is cinema very much of the Old School, and EVERY INCH a Tarantino flick.  With only one more film to go the implied end of his career seems much too close, but if he delivers one more like this he’ll leave behind a legacy that ANY filmmaker would be proud of.

18.  CRAWL – summer 2019’s runner-up horror offering marks a rousing return to form for a genre talent who’s FINALLY delivered on the impressive promise of his early work – Alexandre Aja made a startling debut with Switchblade Romance, which led to his big break helming the cracking remake of slasher stalwart The Hills Have Eyes, but then he went SPECTACULARLY off the rails when he made the truly abysmal Piranha 3D, which I wholeheartedly regard as one of THE VERY WORST FILMS EVER MADE IN ALL OF HUMAN HISTORY. He took a big step back in the right direction with the admittedly flawed but ultimately enjoyable and evocative Horns (based on the novel by Stephen King’s son Joe Hill), but it’s with this stripped back, super-tight man-against-nature survival horror that the Aja of old has TRULY returned to us. IN SPADES.  Seriously, I personally think this is his best film to date – there’s no fat on it at all, going from a simple set-up STRAIGHT into a precision-crafted exercise in sustained tension that relentlessly grips right up to the end credits.  The film is largely just a two-hander – Maze Runner star Kaya Scodelario plays Haley Keller, a Florida college student and star swimmer who ventures into the heart of a Category 5 hurricane to make sure her estranged father, Dave (Saving Private Ryan’s Barry Pepper), is okay after he drops off the grid. Finding their old family home in a state of disrepair and slowly flooding, she does a last minute check of the crawl-space underneath, only to discover her father badly wounded and a couple of hungry alligators stalking the dark, cramped, claustrophobic confines. With the flood waters rising and communications cut off, Haley and Dave must use every reserve of strength, ingenuity and survival instinct to keep each other alive in the face of increasingly daunting odds … even with a premise this simple, there was plenty of potential for this to become an overblown, clunky mess in the wrong hands (a la Snakes On a Plane), so it’s a genuinely great thing that Aja really is back at the height of his powers, milking every fraught and suspenseful set-piece to its last drop of exquisite piano-wire tension and putting his actors through hell without a reprieve in sight.  Thankfully it’s not JUST about scares and atmosphere – there’s a genuinely strong family drama at the heart of the story that helps us invest in these two, Scodelario delivering a phenomenally complex performance as she peels back Haley’s layers, from stubborn pedant, through vulnerable child of divorce, to ironclad born survivor, while reconnecting with her emotionally raw, repentantly open father, played with genuine naked intensity in a career best turn from Pepper. Their chemistry is INCREDIBLY strong, making every scene a joy even as it works your nerves and tugs on your heartstrings, and as a result you DESPERATELY want to see them make it out in one piece.  Not that Aja makes it easy for them – the gators are an impressively palpable threat, proper scary beasties even if they are largely (admittedly impressively executed) digital effects, while the storm is almost a third character in itself, becoming as much of an elemental nemesis as its scaly co-stars.  Blessedly brief (just 87 minutes!) and with every second wrung out for maximum impact, this is survival horror at its most brutally, simplistically effective, a deliciously vicious, primal chill-ride that thoroughly rewards from start to finish.  Welcome back, Mr Aja.  We’ve missed you.

17.  SHAZAM! – there were actually THREE movies featuring Captain Marvel out in 2019, but this offering from the hit-and-miss DCEU cinematic franchise is a very different beast from his MCU-based namesake, and besides, THIS Cap long ago ditched said monicker for the far more catchy (albeit rather more oddball) title that graces Warner Bros’ last step back on the right track for their superhero Universe following the equally enjoyable Aquaman and franchise high-point Wonder Woman.  Although he’s never actually referred to in the film by this name, Shazam (Chuck’s Eugene Levy) is the magically-powered alternate persona bestowed upon wayward fifteen year-old foster kid Billy Batson (Andi Mack’s Asher Angel) by an ancient wizard (Djimon Hounsou) seeking one pure soul to battle Dr. Thaddeus Sivana (Mark Strong), a morally corrupt physicist who turns into a monstrous supervillain after becoming the vessel for the spiritual essences of the Seven Deadly Sins (yup, that thoroughly batshit setup is just the tip of the iceberg of bonkersness on offer in this movie).  Yes, this IS set in the DC Extended Universe, Shazam sharing his world with Superman, Batman, the Flash et al, and there are numerous references (both overt and sly) to this fact throughout (especially in the cheeky animated closing title sequence), but it’s never laboured, and the film largely exists in its own comfortably enclosed narrative bubble, allowing us to focus on Billy, his alter ego and in particular his clunky (but oh so much fun) bonding experiences with his new foster family, headed by former foster kid couple Victor and Rosa Vazquez (The Walking Dead’s Cooper Andrews and Marta Milans) – the most enjoyably portions of the film, however, are when Billy explores the mechanics and limits of his newfound superpowers with his new foster brother Freddy Freeman (It Chapter 1’s Jack Dylan Glazer), a consistently hilarious riot of bad behaviour, wanton (often accidental) destruction and perfectly-observed character development, the blissful culmination of a gleefully anarchic sense of humour that, until recently, has been rather lacking in the DCEU but which is writ large in bright, wacky primary colours right through this film. Sure, there are darker moments, particularly when Sivana sets loose his fantastic icky brood of semi-corporeal monsters, and these scenes are handled with seasoned skill by director David F. Sandberg, who cut his teeth on ingenious little horror gem Lights Out (following up with Annabelle: Creation, but we don’t have to dwell on that), but for the most part the film is played for laughs, thrills and pure, unadulterated FUN, almost never taking itself too seriously, essentially intended to do for the DCEU what Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man did for the MCU, and a huge part of its resounding success must of course be attributed to the universally willing cast. Eugene Levy’s so ridiculously pumped-up he almost looks like a special effect all on his own, but he’s lost none of his razor-sharp comic ability, perfectly encapsulating a teenage boy in a grown man’s body, while his chemistry with genuine little comedic dynamo Glazer is simply exquisite, a flawless balance shared with Angel, who similarly excels at the humour but also delivers quality goods in some far more serious moments too, while the rest of Billy’s newfound family are all brilliant, particularly ridiculously adorable newcomer Faithe Herman as precocious little motor-mouth Darla; Djimon Hounsou, meanwhile, adds significant class and gravitas to what could have been a cartoonish Gandalf spoof, and Mark Strong, as usual, gives great bad guy as Sivana, providing just the right amount of malevolent swagger and self-important smirk to proceedings without ever losing sight of the deeper darkness within.  All round, this is EXACTLY the kind of expertly crafted superhero package we’ve come to appreciate in the genre, another definite shot in the arm for the DCEU that holds great hope for the future of the franchise, and some of the biggest fun I had at the cinema this past year.  Granted, it’s still not a patch on the MCU, but the quality gap finally seems to be closing …

16.  ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL – y’know, there was a time when James Cameron was quite a prolific director, who could be counted upon to provide THE big event pic of the blockbuster season. These days, we’re lucky to hear from him once a decade, and now we don’t even seem to be getting that – the dream project Cameron’s been trying to make since the end of the 90s, a big live action adaptation of one of my favourite mangas of all time, Gunnm (or Battle Angel Alita to use its more well-known sobriquet) by Yukito Kishiro, has FINALLY arrived, but it isn’t the big man behind the camera here since he’s still messing around with his intended FIVE MOVIE Avatar arc.  That said, he made a damn good choice of proxy to bring his vision to fruition – Robert Rodriguez is, of course, a fellow master of action cinema, albeit one with a much more quirky style, and this adap is child’s play to him, the creator of the El Mariachi trilogy and co-director of Frank Miller’s Sin City effortlessly capturing the dark, edgy life-and-death danger and brutal wonder of Kishiro’s world in moving pictures.  300 years after the Earth was decimated in a massive war with URM (the United Republics of Mars) known as “the Fall”, only one bastion of civilization remains – Iron City, a sprawling, makeshift community of scavengers that lies in the shadow of the floating city of Zalem, home of Earth’s remaining aristocracy.  Dr. Dyson Ido (Christoph Waltz) runs a clinic in Iron City customising and repairing the bodies of its cyborg citizens, from the mercenary “hunter killers” to the fast-living players of Motorball (a kind of supercharged mixture of Rollerball and Death Race), one day discovering the wrecked remains of a female ‘borg in the junkyard of scrap accumulated beneath Zalem.  Finding her human brain is still alive, he gives her a new chassis and christens her Alita, raising her as best he can as she attempts to piece together her mysterious, missing past, only for them both to discover that the truth of her origins has the potential to tear their fragile little world apart forever. The Maze Runner trilogy’s Rosa Salazar is the heart and soul of the film as Alita (originally Gally in the comics), perfectly bringing her (literal) wide-eyed innocence and irrepressible spirit to life, as well as proving every inch the diminutive badass fans have been expecting – while her overly anime-styled look might have seemed a potentially jarring distraction in the trailers, Salazar’s mocap performance is SO strong you’ve forgotten all about it within the first five minutes, convinced she’s a real, flesh-and-metal character – and she’s well supported by an exceptional ensemble cast both new and well-established.  Waltz is the most kind and sympathetic he’s been since Django Unchained, instilling Ido with a worldly warmth and gentility that makes him a perfect mentor/father-figure, while Spooksville star Keean Johnson makes a VERY impressive big screen breakthrough as Hugo, the streetwise young dreamer with a dark secret that Alita falls for in a big way, Jennifer Connelly is icily classy as Ido’s ex-wife Chiren, Mahershala Ali is enjoyably suave and mysterious as the film’s nominal villain, Vector, an influential but seriously shady local entrepreneur with a major hidden agenda, and a selection of actors shine through the CGI in various strong mocap performances, such as Deadpool’s Ed Skrein, Derek Mears, From Dusk Til Dawn’s Eiza Gonzalez and a thoroughly unrecognisable but typically awesome Jackie Earle Haley.  As you’d expect from Rodriguez, the film delivers BIG TIME on the action front, unleashing a series of spectacular set-pieces that peak with Alita’s pulse-pounding Motorball debut, but there’s a pleasingly robust story under all the thrills and wow-factor, riffing on BIG THEMES and providing plenty of emotional power, especially in the heartbreaking character-driven climax – Cameron, meanwhile, has clearly maintained strict control over the project throughout, his eye and voice writ large across every scene as we’re thrust headfirst into a fully-immersive post-apocalyptic, rusty cyberpunk world as thoroughly fleshed-out as Avatar’s Pandora, but most importantly he’s still done exactly what he set out to do, paying the utmost respect to a cracking character as he brings her to vital, vivid life on the big screen.  Don’t believe the detractors – this is a MAGNIFICENT piece of work that deserves all the recognition it can muster, perfectly set up for a sequel that I fear we may never get to see.  Oh well, at least it’s renewed my flagging hopes for a return to Pandora …

15.  AD ASTRA – last century, making a space exploration movie after 2001: A Space Odyssey was a pretty tall order. THIS century, looks like it’s trying to follow Chris Nolan’s Interstellar – love it or hate it, you can’t deny that particular epic space opera for the IMAX crowd is a REALLY tough act to follow.  At first glance, then, writer-director James Gray (The Yards, We Own the Night) is an interesting choice to try, at least until you consider his last feature – he may be best known for understated, gritty little crime thrillers, but I was most impressed by 2016’s ambitious period biopic The Lost City of Z, which focused on the groundbreaking career of pioneering explorer Percy Fawcett, and couldn’t have been MORE about the indomitable spirit of discovery if it tried.  His latest shares much of the same DNA, albeit presented in a VERY different package, as we’re introduced to a more expansive Solar System of the near future, in which humanity has begun to colonize our neighbouring worlds and is now pushing its reach beyond our own star’s light in order to discover what truly lies beyond the void of OUTER space.  Brad Pitt stars as Major Roy McBride, a career astronaut whose whole life has been defined by growing up in the shadow of his father, H. Clifford McBride (Tommy Lee Jones), a true pioneer who led an unprecedented expedition to the orbit of our furthest neighbour, Neptune, in order to search for signs of intelligent life beyond our solar system, only for the whole mission to go quiet for the past sixteen years.  Then a mysterious, interplanetary power surge throws the Earth into chaos, and Roy must travel farther than he’s ever gone before in order to discover the truth behind the source of the pulse – his father’s own ill-fated Lima Project … this is a very different beast from Interstellar, a much more introspective, stately affair, revelling in its glacial pacing and emphasis on character motivation over plot, but it’s no less impressive from a visual, visceral standpoint – Gray and cinematographer Hoyt van Hoytema (who, interestingly, ALSO shot Interstellar, along with Nolan’s Dunkirk and his upcoming feature Tenet) certainly make space look truly EPIC, crafting astonishing visuals that deserve to be seen on the big screen (or at the very least on the best quality HDTV you can find).  There’s also no denying the quality of the writing, Gray weaving an intricate story that reveals far greater depth and complexity than can be seen at first glance, while Roy’s palpable “thought-process” voiceover puts us right into the head of the character as we follow him across the endless void on a fateful journey into a cosmic Heart of Darkness.  There is, indeed, a strong sense of Apocalypse Now to proceedings, with the younger McBride definitely following a similar path to Martin Sheen’s ill-fated captain as he travels “up-river” to find his Colonel Kurtz-esque father, and the performances certainly match the heft of the material – there’s an impressive collection of talent on offer in a series of top-quality supporting turns, Jones being just the icing on the cake in the company of Donald Sutherland, Liv Tyler, John Ortiz and Preacher’s Ruth Negga, but the undeniable driving force of the film is Pitt, his cool, laconic control hiding uncharted depths of emotional turmoil as he’s forced to call every choice into question.  It’s EASILY one of the finest performances of his career to date, just one of the MANY great selling points in a film that definitely deserves to be remembered as one of the all-time sci-fi greats of the decade. An absolute masterpiece, then, but does it stand tall in comparison to Interstellar?  I should say so …

14.  BRIGHTBURN – torpedoing Crawl right out of the water in the summer, this refreshing, revisionist superhero movie takes one of the most classic mythologies in the genre and turns it on its head in true horror style.  The basic premise is an absolute blinder – what if, when he crashed in small-town America as a baby, Superman had turned out to be a bad seed?  Unsurprising, then, that it came from James Gunn, who here produces a screenplay by his brother and cousin Brian and Mark Gunn (best known for penning the likes of Journey 2: the Mysterious Island, but nobody’s perfect) and the directorial big break of his old mate David Yarovesky (whose only previous feature is obscure sci-fi horror The Hive) – Gunn is, of course, an old pro at taking classic comic book tropes and creating something completely new with them, having previously done so with HUGE success on cult indie black comedy Super and, in particular, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy movies, and his fingerprints are ALL OVER this one too.  The Hunger Games’ Elizabeth Banks (who starred in Gunn’s own directorial debut Slither) and David Denman (The Office) are Tori and Kyle Breyer, a farming couple living in Brightburn, Kansas, who are trying for a baby when a mysterious pod falls from the sky onto their land, containing an infant boy.  As you’d expect, they adopt him, determined to keep his origin a secret, and for the first twelve years of his life all seems perfectly fine – Brandon’s growing up into an intelligent, artistic child who loves his family. Then his powers manifest and he starts to change – not just physically (he’s impervious to harm, incredibly strong, has laser eyes and the ability to disrupt electronic devices … oh, and he can fly, too), but also in personality, as he becomes cold, distant, even cruel as he begins to demonstrate some seriously sociopathic tendencies.  As his parents begin to fear what he’s becoming, things begin to spiral out of control and people start to disappear or turn up brutally murdered, and it becomes clear that Brandon might actually be something out of a nightmare … needless to say this is superhero cinema as full-on horror, Brandon’s proclivities leading to some proper nasty moments once he really starts to cut loose, and there’s no mistaking this future super for one of the good guys – he pulverises bones, shatters faces and melts skulls with nary a twitch, just the tiniest hint of a smile.  It’s an astonishing performance from newcomer Jackson A. Dunn, who perfectly captures the nuanced subtleties as Brandon goes from happy child to lethal psychopath, clearly demonstrating that he’s gonna be an incredible talent in future; the two grown leads, meanwhile, are both excellent, Denman growing increasingly haunted and exasperated as he tries to prove his own son is a wrong ‘un, while Banks has rarely been better, perfectly embodying a mother desperately wanting to belief the best of her son no matter how compelling the evidence becomes, and there’s quality support from Breaking Bad’s Matt Jones and Search Party’s Meredith Hagner as Brandon’s aunt and uncle, Noah and Meredith, and Becky Wahlstrom as the mother of one of his school-friends, who seems to see him for what he really is right from the start.  Dark, suspenseful and genuinely nasty, this is definitely not your typical superhero movie, often playing like Kick-Ass’ deeply twisted cousin, and there are times when it displays some of the same edgy, black-hearted sense of humour, too.  In other words, it’s all very James Gunn. It’s one sweet piece of work, everyone involved showing real skill and devotion, and Yarovesky in particular proves he’ll definitely be one-to-watch in the future.  There are already plans for a potential sequel, and given where this particular little superhero universe seems to be heading I think it could be something pretty special, so fair to say I can’t wait.

13.  STAR WARS EPISODE IX: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER – wow, this one’s proven particularly divisive, hasn’t it? And I thought The Last Jedi caused a stir … say what you will about Rian Johnson’s previous entry in the juggernaut science fiction saga, while it certainly riled up the hardcore fanbase it was at least well-received by the critics, not to mention myself, who found it refreshing and absolutely ingenious after the crowd-pleasing simplicity of JJ Abrams’ admittedly still thoroughly brilliant The Force Awakens.  After such radical experimentation, Abrams’ return to the director’s chair can’t help feeling a bit like desperate backpedalling in order to sooth a whole lot of seriously ruffled feathers, and I’ll admit that, on initial viewing, I couldn’t help feeling just a touch cheated given what might have been if similarly offbeat, experimentally-minded filmmaker Colin Trevorrow (Safety Not Guaranteed, Jurassic World) had stayed on board to helm the picture.  Then I got home, thought about it for a bit and it started to grow on me, before a second viewing helped me to reconcile all everything that bugged me first time around, seemingly the same things that have, perversely, ruffled so many more feathers THIS TIME.  This doesn’t feel like a retcon job, no matter what some might think – new developments in the story that might feel like whitewash actually do make sense once you think about them, and the major twists actually work when viewed within the larger, overarching storyline.  Not that I’m willing to go into any kind of detail here, mind you – this is a spoiler-free zone, thank you very much.  Suffice to say, the honour of the saga has in no way been besmirched by Abrams and his co-writer Chris Terrio (sure, he worked on Batman V Superman and Justice League, but he also wrote Argo), the final film ultimately standing up very well indeed alongside its trilogy contemporaries, and still MILES ABOVE anything we got in George Lucas’ decidedly second-rate prequels.  The dangling plot strands from The Last Jedi certainly get tied up with great satisfaction, particularly the decidedly loaded drama of new Jedi Rey (Daisy Ridley) and troubled First Order Supreme Leader Kylo Ren/Ben Solo (Adam Driver), while the seemingly controversial choice of reintroducing Ian McDiarmid’s fantastically monstrous Emperor Palpatine as the ultimate big bad ultimately works out spectacularly well, a far cry from any perceived botched fan-service.  Everyone involved was clearly working at the height of their powers – Ridley and Driver are EXCEPTIONAL, both up-and-coming young leads truly growing into the their roles, while co-stars John Boyega and Oscar Isaac land a pleasingly meaty chunk of the story to finally get to really explore that fantastic chemistry they teased on The Last Jedi, and Carrie Fisher gets a truly MAGNIFICENT send off in the role that defined her as the incomparable General Leia Organa (one which it’s still heartbreaking she never quite got to complete); other old faces, meanwhile, return in fun ways, from Anthony Daniels’ C-3PO FINALLY getting to play a PROPER role in the action again to a brilliant supporting flourish from the mighty Billy Dee Williams as the Galaxy-Far-Far-Away’s own King of Cool, Lando Calrissian, while there’s a wealth of strong new faces here too, such as Lady Macbeth’s Naomie Ackie as rookie rebel Jannah, Richard E. Grant as suitably slimy former-Imperial First Order bigshot Allegiant General Pryde, The Americans’ Keri Russell as tough smuggler Zorii Bliss and Lord of the Rings star Dominic Monaghan as Resistance tech Beaumont Kin.  As fans have come to expect, Abrams certainly doesn’t skim on the spectacle, delivering bombastic thrill-ride set-pieces that yet again set the benchmark for the year’s action stakes (particularly in the blistering mid-picture showdown between Rey and Kylo among the wave-lashed remains of Return of the Jedi’s blasted Death Star) and awe-inspiring visuals that truly boggle the mind with their sheer beauty and complexity, but he also injects plenty of the raw emotion, inspired character work, knowing humour and pure, unadulterated geeky FUN he’s so well known for.  In conclusion, then, this is MILES AWAY from the clunky, compromised mess it’s been labelled as in some quarters, ultimately still very much in keeping with the high standards set by its trilogy predecessors and EVERY INCH a proper, full-blooded Star Wars movie.  Ultimately, Rogue One remains THE BEST of the big screen run since Lucas’ Original Trilogy, but this one still emerges as a Force to be reckoned with …

12.  JOKER – no-one was more wary than me when it was first announced that DC and Warner Bros. were going to make a standalone, live-action movie centred entirely around Batman’s ultimate nemesis, the Joker, especially with it coming hot on the heels of Jared Leto’s thoroughly polarizing portrayal in Suicide Squad.  More so once it was made clear that this WOULD NOT be part of the studio’s overarching DC Extended Universe cinematic franchise, which was FINALLY starting to find its feet – then what’s the point? I found myself asking.  I should have just sat back and gone with it, especially since the finished product would have made me eat a big slice of humble pie had I not already been won over once the trailers started making the rounds.  This is something new, different and completely original in the DC cinematic pantheon, even if it does draw major inspiration from Alan Moore’s game-changing DC comics mini-series The Killing Joke – a complete standalone origin story for one of our most enduring villains, re-imagined as a blistering, bruising psychological thriller examining what can happen to a man when he’s pushed far beyond the brink by terrible circumstance, societal neglect and crippling mental illness. Joaquin Phoenix delivers the performance of his career as Arthur Fleck, a down-at-heel clown-for-hire struggling to launch a career as a stand-up-comic (badly hampered by the fact that he’s just not funny) while suffering from an acute dissociative condition and terrible attacks of pathological laughter at moments of heightened stress – the actor lost 52 pounds of weight to become a horrifically emaciated scarecrow painfully reminiscent of Christian Bale’s similar preparation for his acclaimed turn in The Machinist, and frequently contorts himself into seemingly impossible positions that prominently accentuate the fact.  Fleck is a truly pathetic creature, thoroughly put-upon by a pitiless society that couldn’t care less about him, driven by inner demons and increasingly compelling dark thoughts to act out in increasingly desperate, destructive ways that ultimately lead him to cross lines he just can’t come back from, and Phoenix gives his all in every scene, utterly mesmerising even when his character commits some truly heinous acts.  Certainly he dominates the film, but then there are plenty of winning supporting turns from a universally excellent cast to bolster him along, from Zazie Beetz as an impoverished young mother Arthur bonds with and Frances Conroy (Six Feet Under, American Horror Story) as Arthur’s decidedly fragile mother Penny to Brett Cullen (The Thorn Birds, Lost) as a surprisingly unsympathetic Thomas Wayne (the philanthropic father of future Batman Bruce Wayne), while Robert De Niro himself casts a very long shadow indeed as Murray Franklin, a successful comedian and talk show host that Arthur idolizes, a character intentionally referential to his role in The King of Comedy.  Indeed, Martin Scorsese’s influence is writ large throughout the entire film, reinforced by the choice to set the film in a 1981-set Gotham City which feels very much like the crumbling New York of Mean Streets or Taxi Driver.  This is a dark, edgy, grim and unflinchingly BRUTAL film, frequently difficult to watch as Arthur is driven further into a blazing psychological hell by his increasingly stricken life, but addictively, devastatingly compelling all the same, impossible to turn away from even in the truly DEVASTATING final act.  Initially director Todd Phillips seemed like a decidedly odd choice for the project, hailing as he does from a predominantly comedy-based filmmaking background (most notably Due Date and The Hangover trilogy), but he’s actually a perfect fit here, finding a strangely twisted beauty in many of his compositions and a kind of almost uplifting transcendence in his subject’s darkest moments, while his screenwriting collaboration with Scott Silver (8 Mile, The Fighter) means that the script is as rich as it can be, almost overflowing with brilliant ideas and rife with biting social commentary which is even more relevant today than in the period in which it’s set.  Intense, gripping, powerful and utterly devastating, this truly is one of the best films of 2019.  If this was a purely critical Top 30 this would have placed in the Top 5, guaranteed …

11.  FAST & FURIOUS PRESENTS HOBBS & SHAW – summer 2019’s most OTT movie was some of THE MOST FUN I had at the cinema all year, a genuinely batshit crazy, pure bonkers rollercoaster ride of a film I just couldn’t get enough of, the perfect sum of all its baffling parts.  The Fast & Furious franchise has always revelled in its extremes, subtle as a brick and very much playing to the blockbuster, popcorn movie crowd right from the start, but it wasn’t until Fate of the Furious (yup, the ridiculous title says it all) that it really started to play to the inherent ridiculousness of its overall setup, paving the way for this first crack at a new spin-off series sans-Vin Diesel.  Needless to say this one fully embraces the ludicrousness, with director David Leitch the perfect choice to shepherd it into the future, having previously mastered OTT action through John Wick and Atomic Blonde before helming manic screwball comedy Deadpool 2, which certainly is the strongest comparison point here – Hobbs & Shaw is every bit as loud, violent, chaotic and thoroughly irreverent, definitely playing up the inherent comic potential at the core of the material as he cranks up the humour.  Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham take centre stage as, respectively, DSS agent Luke Hobbs and former SAS black operative Deckard Shaw, the ultimate action movie odd couple once again forced to work together to foil the bad guy and save the world from a potentially cataclysmic disaster.  Specifically Brixton Lore (Idris Elba), a self-proclaimed “black superman” enhanced with cybernetic implants and genetic manipulation to turn him into the ultimate warrior, who plans to use a lethal designer supervirus to eradicate half of humanity (as supervillains tend to do), but there’s one small flaw in his plan – the virus has been stolen by Hattie Shaw (Mission: Impossible – Fallout’s Vanessa Kirby), a rogue MI6 agent who also happens to be Deckard’s sister.  Got all that?  Yup, the movie really is as mad as it sounds, but that’s part of the charm – there’s an enormous amount of fun to be had in just giving in and going along with the madness as Hobbs and the two Shaws bounce from one overblown, ludicrously destructive set-piece to the next, kicking plenty of arse along the way when they’re not jumping out of tall buildings or driving fast cars at ludicrous speeds in heavy traffic, and when they’re not doing that they’re bickering with enthusiasm, each exchange crackling with exquisite hate-hate chemistry and liberally laced with hilarious dialogue delivered with gleeful, fervent venom (turns out there’s few things so enjoyable as watching Johnson and Statham verbally rip each other a new one), and the two action cinema heavyweights have never been better than they are here, each bringing the very best performances of their respective careers out of each other as they vacillate, while Kirby holds her own with consummate skill that goes to show she’s got a bright future of her own.  As for Idris Elba, the one-time potential future Bond deserves to be remembered as one of the all-time great screen villains ever, investing Brixton with the perfect combination of arrogant swagger and lethal menace to steal every scene he’s in while simultaneously proving he can be just as big a badass in the action stakes; Leitch also scatters a selection of familiar faces from his previous movies throughout a solid supporting cast which also includes the likes of Fear the Walking Dead’s Cliff Curtis, From Dusk Till Dawn’s Eiza Gonzalez and Helen Mirren (who returns as Deckard and Hattie’s mum Queenie Shaw), while there’s more than one genuinely brilliant surprise cameo to enjoy. As we’ve come to expect, the action sequences are MASSIVE, powered by nitrous oxide and high octane as property is demolished and vehicles are driven with reckless abandon when our protagonists aren’t engaged in bruising, bone-crunching fights choreographed with all the flawless skill you’d expect from a director who used to be a professional stuntman, but this time round the biggest fun comes from the downtime, as the aforementioned banter becomes king.  It’s an interesting makeover for the franchise, going from heavyweight action stalwart to comedy gold, and it’s a direction I hope they’ll maintain for the inevitable follow-up – barring Fast Five, this is THE BEST Fast & Furious to date, and a strong indicator of how it should go to keep conquering multiplexes in future.  Sign me up for more, please.

[nezumasa]

For the free 4* summon I’m thinking of getting Altria lancer alter but NEROS THERE and gorgon and emiya alter too so I’m kinda stuck, any thoughts on who I should pick??

Are you summoning on the Merlin banner? If so, try that banner first to see if you get can get a Latoria Alter. Then choose.

If not, just pick who you like best. Nero’s a good “Last Stand” servant (against anyone who isnt an Archer ofc) b/c of her tremendous staying power w/ Imperial Privilege, 3 Guts, and heal.

Latoria Alter is a monster w/ her crit skills, and her NP has a seal which is a bonus. She isn’t very survival-oriented, however, so she needs support on that front + her deck doesn’t really let her gen stars by herself. She needs support from like Yan Qing, Jack, etc. or 2030s and so forth.

While Gorgon is a neat avenger, she needs her strengthening to work well + she’s competing against (I guess since it’s a small class), Lobo (Quick Jalter lite), Dantés (who’s underwhelming rn w/o Skadi tbh), Jalter (whose usability is directly inversely proportional to how big your roster is; the more variety you have, the less useful she becomes b/c she’s great for challenge quests but daily farming and such ehhh... still great tho...), and Angra (cool dude and I love Hollow/Atraxia but he sucks a lot even at lv. 100; have one of those madmen on my friends list). And Emiya Alter faces a lot of competition in his class b/c the 3 star archer pool is monstrously good w/ stuff like Billy, Kogil, Robin Hood, Euryale, etc. not to mention actual SSRs like OG Gil and Ishtar or freebie Kuro.

He does have a defense ignore though which is nice.

You do have good choices though since they’re all storylocked. :p

Personally, I’m going w/ Saberlot b/c I like him, his arts spam, and I want him on my NA account to match my JP.

Just pick who you like best. FGO’s a waifu/husbando collection game if I am to be honest, and it’s more fun to play with who you like over gameplay. Nero doesn’t get many solo rate ups either.

Though if you still can’t decide, put them into a random generator and let it pick.

@issei-todoroki

[anewfreind]

Hey so, you played DeltaRune right? What was your first impression on the main cast? i.e. raslei, lancer, Susie, Kris.

Oh fucketh yes thou kindeth basterd, let thine doith this.

Alright, so imma talk about the game and new characters, and if you would like, send asks on the undertale cast, and how they changed, because i would love to talk about that! I would also love to talk about theories for both Deltarune and Undertale! Do send asks! Now lets begin:

*ahem*

I was NOT expecting it to be this long for what I thought was a free demo

I loved ALL the characters this time. I didn't think I'd like Susie and Lancer much, but they grew to be my favourite characters of the story this time.

Also, I knew Deltarune was an anagram of Undertale, but I went through the entire goddamn game without realizing that Ralsei was an anagram for Asriel. Yes, I'm stupid.

I really like the new party battle mechanics! I didn't use the fight option, but still.

I wasn't able to find part B of the key that would unlock that mysterious cell in the prison. Did anyone else find it?

This was a very easy game to get a Pacifist run in, and I got the good ending straightaway! Seemingly.

SEEMINGLY.

WHAT WAS THAT ENDING?!?

Still here? Cool lets go

So, some interesting points and thoughts I had about the game and characters, and other things and tropes I noticed:

Ascended Meme: Toriel mentions that Kris and Asriel enjoy playing Super Smashing Fighters, a clear Shout-Out to the Super Smash Bros. franchise. At the time of the release of Deltarune Chapter 1, a popular meme was that Sans would be confirmed as a character for the then-upcoming Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

Anti-Frustration Features: Should you make at least three unsuccessful attempts to clear either timed-tile puzzle, Ralsei will offer a hint on how to solve them

Attack! Attack! Attack!: Susie's main method of fighting: She'll keep attacking enemies and won't listen to Kris. Fortunately, she gets better during the final dungeon. Perhaps this is how she was raised?

Awesome, but Impractical: The Top Cake heals your entire party for 160 HP, but your entire party only has 90, 110 and 70 HP anyway and can't be increased at all. Furthermore, giving the Top Cake back to the Top Chef makes him give you the Spin Cake, which, while only restoring 80 HP, is unlimited and any encounter that isn't a Boss fight will probably not shave off your entire HP.

One thing that annoys me with the game is that Lv can’t increase, but we will get back to that later

Bait-and-Switch: A lot of the plot details are set up in a similar fashion to the previous game, only to subvert expectations.

Susie threatens Kris early on and is a berserker who attacks monsters on sight and doesn't care about the quest she's nominally on, much like a No Mercy run from the previous game, but she refrains from killing anyone and ultimately makes a Heel–Face Turn.

Lancer is similar in both a recurring antagonist role and has a skeletal appearance with a blue color scheme, which might lead players to believe he has a connection with Sans and Papyrus from the previous game; he and his father turn out to just be Darkners who resemble skeletons and have no apparent connection with Sans and Papyrus at all.

A mysterious doorframe appears early on and savvy players (or fandom nerds) might expect them to tie into Gaster as they did in the previous game. They end up being a fast travel system (which is lame).

Lastly, there's Lancer's dad, the King, who might look like a Suspiciously Similar Substitute for Asgore, right down to one of the people close to him trying to persuade both you and him not to fight (Undyne for Asgore, Lancer for the King). However, when you actually encounter the King, not only does he threaten to throw Lancer off a roof if the Lighteners don't kneel before him, he also tricks Ralsei into bringing him to full health so he has them at their mercy again. He ends up being defeated by Ralsei putting him to sleep while Kris and Susie escape, or captured by Lancer when he turns his own troops on him.

Big Door: There's a large bunker-style door built into the landscape in the forest to the south of town. Locked, unfortunately.

One of the encounters can be resolved peacefully by getting Ralsei to sing a lullaby, which also puts Susie to sleep. This later turns out to be the key to peacefully resolving the fight with Susie and Lancer. It comes up again in the "bad" ending to the King fight, where Susie notes that while she can't take the King down, Ralsei can. Susie: “I'd never forget something I made fun of you for.”

Similarly, Susie attacks automatically during the first battle with Lancer (who can't be killed), which is an early hint to the player that Susie attacks on her own and you'll have to prevent her from doing damage if you want a pacifist run.

Cliffhanger: The chapter ends with Kris (most likely being controlled) pulling out their/the player's SOUL, shoving it in a cage, and drawing a knife, at which point Kris's eyes glow red like Frisk's do if Chara's permanently corrupted your save after a genocide playthrough back in Undertale. This ending felt like a punch to the gut, and gave me so many questions to ask. Also, in the final scene, you can control the SOUL while it's in the birdcage. It won't change the outcome.

Lancer appears to be this for most of the initially-bad guy cast of Undertale, possessing a Sans-like color scheme, Papyrus's kid-brother nature and general enthusiasm for "evil," and Alphys's emotional attachment to the Big Bad.

Kris seems to be a hybridization of Frisk and Chara: their face, skin color and silent nature lean more towards the former, while their clothes and relation to the Dreemurr family (especially Asriel) scream of the later. Of course, after what happens in the ending, who knows how the three are connected? But here is something people have forgotten about, since I haven’t seen anything on it, but Kris looks exactly like the unused Frisk sprite, besides the sweater

Even if you go out of your way to beat encounters by force, enemies just get knocked off-screen. Contrast with Undertale and its infamous Genocide/No Mercy route.

After you beat the game and it closes itself, restarting shows Ralsei's legend as the intro and provides a new background for the file select screen.

Susie's hair is wild and covers her eyes, symbolizing her wild and violent outcast vibe. After the fight with the King, it's cut to reveal her eyes, and she becomes a lot more expressive and open with her emotions from them on.

All main characters are this, or have a Face Framed in Shadow. Them revealing their faces is usually a big deal.

Kris and Susie's outfits change when they fall into the dark world. Kris also becomes more blue in appearance, while Susie becomes more pink.

On the walk home, talking to numerous characters heavily hints that something is up with Kris. Numerous people refer to them as "creepy", or "quiet", and Noelle notes that they're usually quite distant from others. The game implies that Kris was being possessed by the player ala the first game

Ralsei makes direct reference to interface elements and controls as part of his tutorial-giver role. This leads to an amusing moment in the first block puzzle, as this trope doesn't apply to Susie.

Susie: (Who the hell is "[Z]"?)

Susie's solo fight against Lancer parallels the first game's fight against Toriel in a number of ways. In both cases, the foe is a family member of the king that guards the protagonist's way back home, and they're trying to prevent the protagonist from meeting the king in order to avoid bloodshed. Once the fight goes on for long enough, the foe starts attacking exclusively by dropping projectiles from above that are guaranteed to miss, showing their reluctance to fight someone they'd started growing close to.

This chapter has a lighter tone than all of Undertale. The game mechanics are more focused on solving puzzles and befriending enemies than fighting, and no one can die, even if you DO decide to attack all your enemies.

After returning from the World of Darkness, talking to several of the NPCs imply that Kris isn't acting like themselves. Noelle comments on how Kris is really talkative compared to normal, Noelle's dad implies Kris has forgotten things that they should know, the hospital clerk comments on how Kris isn't normally so bad at playing piano, and Kris in general seems a lot less "creepy" to the townspeople.

After arriving at the fountain, Kris and Susie find themselves back at the school, in a room with a chess board, playing cards, and some toys that look like the characters they encountered. But both of them remember what happened, and it's left ambiguous as to whether it really was just a dream or not.

If you have the Spooky Sword equipped, your "weapon" upon leaving the dark world will be the Halloween Pencil, leading to more questions.

If you follow the Jevil sidequest plot to its conclusion, mentions of The Queen are made, as well as Seam describing the event that drove Jevil insane as "Dark yet Darker" adding even heavier implications to Gaster's presence in the future story.

If one talks to Rouxls Kaard after starting his first puzzle, he will verbatim quote I. M. Meen. (Also Rouxls Kaard, thou art must marrith me)

When Burgerpants talks about his fellow pizzeria employees, he mentions a "Purple Guy" and wonders if he even works there.

Ralsei removing his hat and hood at the end, revealing that he looks exactly like Asriel. Judging by Susie's reaction, this is one both in and out of universe.

Right at the end of Chapter 1. Kris is tossing and turning in the middle of the night, when they jump out of bed and start walking around very slowly. They then stop in the middle of the room and pull their own soul out of their body, before throwing it into the birdcage from earlier. They then turn their head around slowly, revealing Chara's trademark smile and glowing red eye, before materializing a knife out of nowhere. Anyone who's played Undertale (so most of people playing this game, as it was recommended to those who already played Undertale) should have some very horrific guesses about what this mean

The King grabs Lancer's throat when he finds out that they let the heroes get away

[radiantresplendence]

Servant Review: ＧＲＥＥＮＢＯＹＳ　ヵ音ぃ

As one of the most powerful characters in canon, Enkidu has a lot to live up to as an SSR unit. Enkidu's power levels in lore are on the level of Gilgamesh, Ozymandias, Karna and Heracles. Every one of those units in game are among the most useful members of their class. (Gil, Ozy and Karna boasting the top ratings of their respective classes on the Appmedia tier list.) So, how does Enkidu compare? Stats Under the hood, Enkidu's stats are effective enough. He has higher attack and HP than Summer Tamamo, his most comparable unit. His hitcounts tend to be very high, with his lone Arts card and Extra attack being especially exceptional. His deck contains three Quick cards with a buster NP which is... very strange for a Lancer. Especially with his NP gain being just over half of Summer Tamamo's. In terms of his deck performance, his star rate is around half of Jack the Ripper's. Though not exceptional, that's still very high when taking his deck composition into account. Even so, you may want your support units to have some form of star generation in order to ensure that you have a steady supply when using Enkidu in your team comps. Passive Skills Enkidu's lone Class Skill is Magic Resistance A. Though not a bad skill by any means, it's still a little underwhelming when it's the lone passive that he has. 20% debuff resistance can come in clutch sometimes, but it's nothing too performance boosting. Active Skills Enkidu's a weird boy. His kit is really REALLY weird but I think I see the role that he's meant to fill when looking closely at his unit design. Enkidu's meant to be extremely self-sufficient in a pinch, either as the lone SSR damage dealer (or SSR for that matter) on a team composition. He's going to perform the best when he's the last team member alive. Anyways, diving in... Transfiguration A The greenboy's body becomes weapons. This is a one turn Buster up scaling like a Prana Burst with the spicy potential to act as either an Arts or Quick up with the same scaling at random. With a full team, this is inconsistent, but still effective. As the lone survivor, it's quite good with Arts being generally preferred (because Enkidu's Arts card is awesome) but Quick not being bad, especially with a favorable star distribution. It's clearly meant for a Brave Chain with Enkidu's NP. Presence Detection A++ This skill is a weird one. It seems to be meant as a multipurpose skill with the effect of mitigating damage and dispelling enemy evades. It's on a pretty low cooldown, especially for it's versatility but it's not really exceptional. If the enemy unit has an evade, give dispelling that evade circumstantial priority. If not, use it as your own evade in a pinch. The 50% crit rate down on your targeted enemy for 3 turns is just an added bonus that may help keep you alive. Perfect Form A #Greenboys is a living Divine Construct. This skill is silly. Not bad, just silly. It's a 10,000 HP heal plus debuff removal on a 10 turn cooldown. This keeps you alive in a pinch, but it's really more like a reset button for Enkidu in battle. If you're bogged down by a Shuten Douji or something and nearly worn out, this returns Enkidu to full form. The skill is extremely powerful, but use it tactfully. The 10 turn CD is very heavy. Noble Phantasm Enuma Elish: Oh Humans, Let Us Restrain The Gods A++ Anti-Purge Noble Phantasm Enkidu evokes chains of golden light to pierce and disrupt those who interfere with The World (applying to both the forces of Gaia and Alaya as Enkidu walks among both mankind and nature). This is a full-scaling single target Buster NP that stuns divine enemies without fail and decreases the target's defense by 20-40% for 3 turns depending upon overcharge. Notably, the defense down procs before damage is dealt, which is always a favorable trait in NPs. It's a perfectly passable NP, but the guaranteed stun is circumstantially fantastic. Bond CE Huwawa's Flowers heals all allies by 500 HP per turn. It's okay. Bond CEs tend to be either nothing special, AoE effects or insanely broken. This is both AoE and nothing special. Recommendations I say to use the default Chaldea outfit with Enkidu. The relatively low CDs and general utility work very well with Enkidu's lone-survivor strangeness. You could maybe do some interesting things with Anniversary Blonde as well, but generally speaking it looks like a strict downgrade. As for CEs... Enkidu's a weird boy. That which immediately comes to mind are all 4* survivability CEs. Iron-Will Training and Golden Millennium Tree are good Necromancy is better, especially limit broken. Maid in Halloween could also be good if you want to see a 17500 HP heal happen. Before Awakening is also a good choice as Enkidu's kit is all over the place, so this boosts everything. Overall, I can see Enkidu doing great things on a support list as people with a small Servant roster could get tremendous use out of him. He also has specific niche applications for challenge quests. Even so, I really think that he shines in the back of a party as a last-ditch effort to take down an enemy that the rest of your team isn't capable of. Enkidu as a unit is good, but not really specialized enough to have the synergy required to be great. Disclaimer: I haven't really used Enkidu. The rest of my Servant reviews have been units that I've tested fairly extensively.

[fgodestinyawakenings]

EOR Agartha Singularity Chapter 14~END

With the power of insanity, regret, suffering and MORE SUFFERING... This entire singularity is just going to speed run, trying to complete without needing CS. Because of paranoia that the coming Christmas event requires LB3, especially the amount of new Servant and SOME in particular screams out LB3 requirement

DW seriously wants everyone to catch up to the latest story, which hence implying... Not all event are going to be Salomon-locked anymore

Before I start... The following chapters at this point, DO NOT GRIND FOR BOND POINTS. All the major bosses have finally showed up and that's where you need your sanity and strong team composition to beat them

Chapter 14

Both arrows in this chapter, you're fighting both Megalos and Christopher Columbus. Megalos has 2 HP layer while Christopher has only 1

In the first arrow, you're only required to either survive for 4 turns or break ONLY Megalos's first HP bar.

Second however, you're required to defeat both of them. 

For Megalos 

on his HP break, buffs himself with Critical Damage Up for 3 turns but debuffs himself with Quick Resistance Down for 3 turns (demerit).

Second HP Break, buffs himself Critical Rate Up for 3 turns but debuffs himself with Arts Resistance Down for 3 turns (demerit).

Columbus

on his HP break, buffs the enemy team with Pierce Invincibility for 3 turns.

Personally, kill Megalos first because as usual for Berserker class reason and you really don't want him to receive the invincibility pierce if you break Columbus's HP bar by accident

Chapter 15

A visual story mode, so nothing much to see here except googling up for the summary ^^;

Chapter 16

The final and longest fight for this Singularity, which I repeat, DO NOT GRIND FOR BOND POINTS UNLESS YOU'RE PREPARED!

First arrow... It's actually where Confucious doing confusion fu on you and your team. Not really confusing since you've got Scheherazade and 8 mob bosses of different classes with her

Her only gimmick at each HP break is giving taunt on those mobs for 10 turns, and, she reduced damage from Servants with King trait (*stares at AUO* Yeah people like AUO or Arthur, especially Ozzy). So, you're more or less required to bring either borrowed AOE Alter Ego/Berserker preferably without the King trait to kill them.

Finally the final boss, Demon God Pillar Phenex!

Because you're going to fight that fucking tentacle pillar 3 TIMES in different arrow in two separate classes.

In Arrow 2, you're first fighting it in their Caster class. It take reduced damage from Servants with King trait and, will Charm & inflict HP reduction every turn to a random party member.

Arrow 4, your first round to survive against it after it uses its permanent guts buff 2 times!

Demon God Phenex itself:

Single target Instant-Death combined with a Death Rate Down debuff.

Single Target Charm combined with a 1 turn delayed HP reduction debuff (the affected servant will have its HP reduced once the player's turn ends).

Self cleanse, one-turn incoming debuff negation, NP gauge single tick charge.

Demon God Phenex's NP:

It will first attempt to remove any buffs [CE buffs such as Volumen Hydrargyrum's one won't be affected].

Party wide AOE multiple hit damage.

All the party members will be inflicted with a 1,000 damage per turn Burn debuff.

Arrow 5, this in particular you’re to survive 10 turns when young Fergus from plot reason reduced its MAX HP to 1 and its guts buff completely gone to kill it.

Its skills and NP is the same as before... But it has now an insta-death skill to kill your Servant, so do beware of that.

Now that this first shit is done for main quest... I’ll start immediately for SIN Lostbelt tomorrow/later tonight right after I’m back from my trip to AFA :D

Because writing this with less than 6 hrs of sleep for 2 days is just me wanting to finish this ASAP

Observation:

Apparently this Singularity has a decent habit in throwing different classes together so that you can’t use a single class to deal with them. Yeah, not even Berserker unless you got a good setup to keep them alive

Dahut mini boss:

Or aka Drake Alter, where if she had Wild Golden Hunt with her for her NP... This entire boss fight with her is practically screaming chaos if she decided to buff it with pierce invincibility

Ideally Carmilla and Jack are best against her for Assasin class

But if you’re starting this way later like now, Okada Izou is subsitute to bring in for his anti-humanoid skill

Alternatively any assassin will do to kill her

But when dealing against her with Hydra, do bring a Lancer for main DPS with a good composition of a team to deal with them both

She isn’t that difficult so I considered her more of a mini Boss to deal with before the biggest fish

Wu Zetian:

If you have Scheherazade before starting this Singularity, she’s the ideal Caster against her. Wu Zetian possess the king trait with her so Scheherazade can deal more damage to her

She herself isn’t that much of a problem from her skillset wise other than her own healing and removable defense down debuff

Only problem you’ll need to be aware is her 3 tick NP gauge AND her increase of crit damage after using her NP

Her NP also has a removable poison debuff so Medea Lily can be brought along if needed

Otherwise general Caster should work, and preferably ST NP Caster to deal with her more efficiently

Penthesilea:

Basically where DW decided to kill anyone who brings Heracles-chan as a last resort due to her third skill targets to Greek Mythology Male Servant

Or actually specifically in lore wise, it’s more towards Achilles if you have him on your team

As her Berserker class, she definitely hits like a fucking truck with damage and crit

Her second skill is something to take note as not only with debuff immunity but also giving a charge in NP by 1 tick for sudden killing of your Servant

For her female trait, bring Carmilla or Jack ideally to with her

If you’re starting like now for this Singularity, Foreigner Servants and Izou are very recommended in dealing with her

The SSR Main Servant Scherherazade too as well for her NP and skill against King-trait Servants

Karna, Arjuna, Scathach, Enkidu, Oda Nobunaga & Ruler Martha, and AUO respectively for their NP/skills against Divine and Weak to Enuma Elish trait

Telsa & Raikou for her Earth & Sky trait

Siegfried-George combo is also recommended if you want Siegfried’s NP to deal higher damage against her

If you don’t have any of the above, bring more taunters and healers in both CE and Servant to keep the damage away from your main DPS Servant

Support like Jeanne and the Great 4 Casters are welcomed in supporting your main DPS

Overall until Chapter 13, majority of the fight requires you to survive until you break her first HP layer

Megalos & Christopher Columbus

In general of Megalos, his own taunt debuff to your Servant is stackable. Taunters like Leonidas and George are perfect to take in that debuff from your main dps

On my first post on Megalos, I’m completely wrong, he doesn’t have his Nine Lives NP for this NPC boss fight. His NP is a very high damage AOE NP that can be blocked by evasion or invincibility

But, he’s still same as Heracles with the same weakness as before

Euryale for usual being most recommended against him as a budget 3* due to her NP

Others such as:

Greek Mythology Males: Penthesila Her first gacha appearance practically screamed to raise her ASAP just to deal with him with further damage. Her own skill debuff immunity prevents her from being debuff with taunt. But, her weakness is also her own class as a Berserker that will kill her ASAP

Humanoid: Nightingale & Izou (Only available after 2018/2020(estimated if no changes in schedule))  Nightingale’s own skill does harder damage against him with humanoid trait. Also, her NP provides good healing when needed. But once again her downside as a Berserker class will kill her faster

Male: Orion, Tamamo Lancer, Stheno and Medb

For Stheno, you can pair her with Euryale for a charm-locked combo

Orion, Tamamo Lancer and Medb with their own ST NP will definitely kicks his butt big time!

CEs to pair with them generally is still Kiyohime CE for damage boost

Divine: Karna, Arjuna, Napoleon (only available after release of LB2), Oda Nobunaga, Ruler Martha, Scathach and Enkidu

Scathach and Enkidu for stalling if needed since their NP will stun him against his Divine Trait

Karna and Napoleon for higher damage against him

Oda Nobunaga both version are great in dealing with him for another alternative. But Oda Nobunaga Archer more recommended if you’re not able to get her Berserker version, as her Archer is a free welfare Servant

CE to bring:  Fondant au Chocolat or Versus for higher damage against Divine Servants 

Large: Arthur Pendragon

Once again after his limited appearance in Chaldea’s Boy Collection, his own third skill will give him great boost in damage against him for his large trait

AUO for Enuma Elish, Telsa and Raikou for Earth & Sky trait

Other CEs: Holy Shroud of Magdalene More for your taunters to keep them alive longer if needed when dealing with him

Christopher with Megalos

His own skillset and NP, except for a guts buff that charges his NP unexpectedly, isn’t really a problem

But because of his dangerous pierce invincibility that buffs his whole team when HP break is a big threat

Heck, his NP can actually be blocked with evasion!

Against him, I personally go for a stalling/total defense with Mash, borrowed Jeanne and MHXX + Kiritsugu for DPS

Or actually go for a setup that generates NP fast if you want Jeanne to be able to use invincibility against both of their NP at the same time

RNG plays a part which I’m thankful that by the time after Megalos is gone and Christopher’s HP break was at a good timing that he can’t do it with his NP

Otherwise, if he’s alone, he’s generally not a threat until you got a Berserker with him

Scheherazade & her mobs

Ozzy somehow becomes a not-really recommended Rider to bring because of his king-trait against her

Or actually any Servant with a King Trait isn’t recommended to bring against her

Male Servant will have a problem when dealing against her 2nd charm skill as it’s an AOE skill against all Male Servants

Has an AOE NP that deals extra damage to king/queen trait Servants

As this is after Fate/CC collab, borrow Alter Ego Kiara for AOE NP to deal with her and her mobs. Some of her mobs are under the weakness of Alter Ego

But you’ll need taunters here without a doubt because the neutral damage from the mobs will still hurt like a bitch

If you don’t have Kiara in your friend list or Servant Roster, find/borrow an AOE Berserker to kill them quickly

Phenex

General

Own skillset:

Voice of Allurement / Coming out from My Mouth: Inflict "Charm" Status and "HP Drain after 1 turn" on a target. (1 turn)

Droopy Eye: Inflict "Insta-Kill Resist Down" status to one target. (3 turns)

The Time For Rebirth is Here: Remove all debuffs from self and grants self debuff immunity. (1 turn) Charges own NP Gauge by 1 tick.

Own NP:

It will first attempt to remove any buffs [CE buffs such as Volumen Hydrargyrum's one won't be affected].

Incineration Ceremony : Phenex (NP) Deals damage to all targets and inflict "Burn" status to all targets. (5 turns)

For my fight with it in BOTH Caster and Ruler class, it’ll always use the skill on third bullet point before it uses his NP the following turn. That habit is one where if you do face, you’ll have a lot of problem to stall him if you don’t have buff remover in your team

I’ve been lucky for insta-kill for both fights since none of them got it from Phenex

The first bullet point of its skill can be RNG dependable. If it hits your Servant that about to use their NP, it’ll stun them for 1 turn before draining

Caster version

Your budget Riders who got King-trait like Boudica and Alexander are preferably not recommended to bring for this fight. It has a permanent buff to take lesser damage from those with king trait

Rider except the 2 and welfare like Santa Artoria are viable to bring, especially those with ST NP

Origin Bullet if you have to deal more damage against it

Vessel of the Saint if needed to have your main DPS not be debuff by charm

Ruler version

For its first round in arrow 4, you’re required to survive until you cleared 2 of its guts buff

All Guts buff revived it at 100% HP

Second round in arrow 5, you’re to survive at least for 10 turns until Young Fergus debuff activated + his own guts buff removed to kill it

Like first round, its Guts buff revived it at 100% HP per activation.

But Young Fergus’s own debuff against it will lowered its Max HP every time it triggers

Borrow/Use an ST NP Avenger like Jeanne Alter and Lobo to kill it as your main DPS

Or if you’re starting way later especially now, you can use budget Salieri to work with borrowed avenger to kill it more quickly

Taunters and healers are welcomed especially taunters to steer the charm debuff away from them

Healer like Hans or Merlin to keep them alive to deal and survive for those specific requirements

For Hans that I brought him, I had him with Demonic Bodhisattva CE so that his NP heals more for both Salieri and Jeanne

Apparently, Mash’s invincibility skill on your Servant isn’t removed when it’s about to use its NP

But his burn debuff can sting like heck if it does outdo your healing per turn on your Servant

Otherwise for both Ruler version, do setup a team to help surviving against the demon god

[jonathanraychapman]

My Thoughts on Current FGO

I’ve been playing Fate Grand Order (a mobile game) since a few months after it came out.  While I don’t want to throw out a monetary number, I’ve spent nearly as much money as Touhou or Shotgun Shogun on this game.  I’ve played every event except the first Nerofest - leveling up characters and skills along the way.  I’ve been following the anime series since it first came out and that’s first and foremost what got me into this game.  I play the game quite a bit.  It’s how I start my morning.  Sometimes it’s how I spend my lunch (jamming to music in my car and playing the game to get away from the office).  I often play the game while watching movies or videos or while hiking.  It’s something I can do with my mobile phone to pass the time.

Anyways, here’s some of my thoughts on the game.  This is partially to explain my position playing it to people that follow me and partially to give Shotgun Shogun some ideas for talking to the creators at anime conventions.

Things I like about the game:  

The Flexible Difficulty:  It’s as hard or as easy as you make it out to be.  If you’re in the farming mood you can either brute-force the game with your powerful servants or take your time and use the less-used characters in your roster (with more-casual characters that have fun interactions).  This customization of gameplay is extended - based on the class system and ability to use command seals.   If those archers are too easy, then fight them with a neutral class.  Really want a challenge?  Bring your sabers to fight the uphill battle.  This carries over to events with the different tiers and challenge quests.  I do wish the tiers had some niche or reason to play them for flavor or secondary advantage.

The Humor:  The translations are pretty good overall and some of the dialogs or in-jokes in the game are fun.  Sometimes I wish that - story-wise - FGO would dial things back to scary or dramatic or intense more.  You get a little taste of this sometimes (like Liz’s scenes during the Kara no Kyoukai event - where she realizes what she’s done in her lore).  While I enjoy my Tamamo/Kiyo memes or Blackbeard lolli humor, I want more balance.  The Camelot storyline was a pretty good example of how things should be while the London story was not great.  If you were just playing the game you might not get the dramatic story behind characters (it’s like FGO is just the meme version of the series).

The Art:  I think the game does a fantastic job on the details in the backgrounds.  And I like the different art on the characters and their noble phantasms.  The music is great too (especially some of the event music), but I mostly leave the sound turned off (since non-skippable NP animations get really repetitive).

The Lore:  The lore of the series is a huge part of the appeal of this game.  And it’s not necessarily even done by the game as much as the anime and visual novel games that precede it.  It’s fine for the game to ride on the coat-tails of the story as long hints to character lore are preserved out (and they are for the most part).  I do get the feeling that the mobile game is sort of a meme of Fate moreso than I would have expected.  That might be because half of the events are around holidays and those really are where the game breaks the fourth wall (it’s also mostly what I remember because of all the grinding).

Things I dislike about the game:

Lack of Player Interactions:  The only way we have to interact with other players in the game is through the friends list and guest system.  Unless you know people in real life, this make the game overall a pretty cold experience.  I know the can of worms that having chat would open up, but man it would be nice to let people know what you like and maybe don’t like about their servant lineup.  I’d also love to add different kinds of supports.  I want to share Tamamo for arts teams to use while having Waver for other teams.  I’d like to share my Nero Bride for her skills while letting people use my Okita for stars or for her NP damage (or my Saber Artoria for farming).  A friend can only bring one of your servants (and it’s mandatory) so why not give them more options?

Lack of Company/Community Communication:  So I have watched the convention events when I could to see what’s coming up, but those are far and few between (and there’s been a lot of problems with news being held back because of a convention).  That’s just not how to run things - especially online.  The communication just really isn’t there with the player base and it hasn’t gotten better.  Often the twitter account will post about events that started days ago so if I had relied on that for news, I would be in a bad spot (I’d be a couple of days behind on farming an event).  And the events are kind of odd (like last year’s Thanksgiving banner).  When seeing announcements through streams, It’s like watching the event in another country (maybe because there’s a lot of Japanese and a lot of translating and it’s not done very well).  I get the voice actors being Japanese and I get that the game is natively Japanese in origin, but this is the US market and a US port/translation of the game.  Please get a more-native PR spokesperson that’s also enthusiastic about the game and add more polish to these announcements.

Can’t Skip Noble Phantasm Animations:  I’ve read about this being a purposeful decision and I get that the company wants players to take time to watch the art for the experience (and likely psychological reasons), but after seeing the Arash explosion for the literal 1000th time, it’s not adding to my experience.  And that’s a quick animation.  There’s also the animations that seem to take forever (like the Lancer Artoria one).  I wish that tapping the screen would somehow shorten the NP.  Also, often when the animation finishes, I can barely see the numbers on the damage before the whole screen wipes.  Sometimes I’m trying to figure out if an enemy was demonic by testing it with a NP or skill and it’s just hard to with the NP animation obfuscating things.  It would also be great to be able to see the traits of enemies.  I’d like to know if a skeleton is a humanoid because my Florence gets a buff against that type.  Or I’d like to know if the Skeleton King is considered demonic to use my Rama against.  I know later in Japan we get to see the crit star distribution, but I’m not sure if we ever get to see attributes.

Gatcha System Too Greedy (And the Statistics Inaccurate):  FGO is a gambling game and I totally get that.  The company might not want to admit that too freely out of fear or regulation, but the players know it’s about getting players to spend money to roll for characters.  I absolutely enjoy spending money and gambling for characters and I’m fine with it being this way.  But the rates are just really bad and the side-rewards (i.e. CE/Character cards you burn) don’t justify the expenditure.  I don’t want to dwell on this too much because I’m sure others have called it out, but the game gives too little back while gambling.  When you do a 10-spin and get a minimum roll (meaning a 4-star junk CE), it really feels like you got cheated.  I also frequently have one five-star character on rate-up - meaning I have a 0.07% chance of rolling them, only to go through two or three other five-star servants before getting the one on rate-up (and the chance of that is extremely low).  I know it’s not just my bad luck.  There’s definitely something wrong with the rate-up statistics posted (I’ve just seen it happen too many times over thousands and thousands of quartz).   Also, the banners could be tweaked to let people have a good chance one one servant or the other.  When you put up a banner with two five-stars on rate-up (one of which I don’t exactly like or I already have a NP5 of), it’s not a banner I’m going to roll on.

Farming Materials Too Tedious:  I get that you need long-term goals to feel like you’re progressing as a player, but some of the materials requirements are just kind of ridiculous in regards to the amount of time needed.  When you grind a free node with a supposed 19% chance to drop crystals for 8 hours to maybe get 10 crystals (when you need 20 per skill), that’s just not fun.  It’s also ridiculous when an event drops and gives you easy access to crystals or the rate is now 60% or you can buy 10 from the shop for basically nothing.  It just doesn’t feel rewarding and it makes you have to grind the game when you don’t really want to (especially around holidays).  That’s just too much of a grind for most players and it takes a toll on me as well.  Take hearts for example.  Right now, you can spend a whole day and maybe get one heart from a caster daily node.  So you basically have to get these during events or from their shops.  And there’s a lot of servants requiring a lot of hearts.

I’ll be honest.  I’ve either burned or not rolled for characters after looking at their materials requirements (Tristran I’m looking at you).  I don’t want that character sitting in my roster with low skills and I don’t want to grind it out to increase their skills if they’re just not good.  So I just avoid the whole thing (especially if they’re not someone I exactly care for).  The same is true for characters that just have really weak kits but high-end requirements (like Stheno).

Can’t Really Customize Characters:  I know we get a few some skins/costumes later-on, but more of this would be a really welcome addition to the game.  Maybe just being able to change colors on the outfits or buy skins would do so much to make the game feel more personable.  If part of the appeal of this game is the waifu thing, then why not lean into this area more and make some money.  And if it was implemented, let it be a DLC type of purchase instead of a gatcha thing.  Or maybe it could be a secondary reward for excess servants or gold mana prisms - like something to do with the 11th copy of Fion you’ve picked up.  Every character in the game should have alternate costume/skin options.