#fatamoru whg

[paulimiel]

The witch and the saint (updated version)

Prints coming soon ❤️

[orlinellora]

Day 3 - Door 3 (Pig Iron Manor) Picture Perfect

[altimysart]

door 3 sketches

[reverstellarium]

@fata10thanni

A Fleeting Fata Morgana

⏳Day 6 - Door 6, Four Seasons

[artoile]

May our souls never cross paths again in the boundless sphere of fate 🦋

[portraitofwhite]

fatamoru spoilers (up to final door)

i want to talk about… the unexpected dynamics! (or interpretation) and also characters relationship with hope. I NEED TO RANT!!

the last door

very obviously, pauline/maria first as childhood friends strikes first. i also appreciated pauline teasing mell (maybe on the meta level that’s why javi from door 2 isn’t here—or on the story level his soul possibly wasn’t bound to the mansion but rather circumstances, being here at the right time or something or the sort). and the discussion between michel/yukimasa, bonding over their ‘unusual’ appearance and resulting weird looks or rejection.

michel and morgana

it makes me wanna bawl when i think about the possible innuendo that michel eventually views morgana as a friend but also an extension of his family. i didn’t catch this at first read but the fact that he is willing to depict her along him and his brothers on georges’ painting… fatamoru hits very strongly even in its details. i’m such a sucker for the ‘found family’ trope—kindred spirits where blood isn’t what ties them together in the first place.

i won’t go back on morgana’s admiration (or should i say idolization? adoration?) for michel, as her severed soul is modeled after him and her saintly persona, that is something the og game describes well. i just want to point out one thing: morgana’s christian upbringing and beliefs from her time prevent her from cursing her birth mother and other stuff (e.g. the WHG reminding God’s teaching about killing oneself). she does not only project her ideal self on michel, but also her desires by proxy—part of why she’s so insistent on him deserving revenge on the Bollingers and not understanding why he wouldn’t find joy in it.

giselle and witch morgana

the cocoon concept from hayden (hiding your true self and risking to lose yourself to your persona) and morgana’s gaslighting to the maid weren’t ultimately good and broke her spirit, but at the same time i don’t think they were ill-intentioned—that’s what i really like about this novel. morgana’s natural way of viewing the world, as a bleak and painful place where smiles are filled with betrayal, is very pessimistic, but that’s how she copes and somehow appears as the best way of thinking. she tries to convey those beliefs into the maid, out of annoyance (bc giselle is very lighthearted and optimistic as it gets) at first. however, she takes a liking to her. it is a way to ‘protect’ giselle’s heart, just like the cocoon.

morgana does not act in giselle’s best interest, she trusts that what worked for her will also do the job for her attendant, but that’s what breaks giselle in the end. because the latter grows in hope, in light, in truth ; not in illusions and dissociation (e.g. morgana’s fractured soul resulting in the WHG’s creation, and convincing herself she doesn’t belong in the realm of humans—both as a saint and witch). morgana is being self-conceited, to the point that her idea of ‘helping’ is twisting giselle’s core into the maid and discarding humanity.

despair truly results in tunnel vision and losing sight of what you are in essence, even accepting the horrors. that is something that is very well explored by all the characters in fata morgana.

i do find morgana/giselle’s relationship very interesting. the witch tries to mold giselle into her puppet, the conductor of the mansion’s tragedies, and ultimately as an observer to distance herself from the horrors (hence the famous ‘you were able to bear them because they weren’t your tragedies’). morgana calls giselle foolish a few memorable times, and while i think she means it, there’s also a tinge of affection? plus the door 4 aka illusion door to make everyone feel better, was also made for giselle… it’s complicated.

resistance

morgana is still very firmly opposed to michel and giselle’s reunion at first: what place does happiness have in this mansion? what do they have that she does not and makes it okay? the moment she’d reach the answer, it would mean that she is wrong for not casting aside her spitefulness. that is why she doesn’t want it.

the witch ultimately longs for companionship, she even makes a deal to both of them to curse the three men alongside her. she wants to partake in despair. she believes that is what is right.

but neither michel nor giselle were fit for that role, for they are compassionate, for they were able to give each other a second chance and believe in a newfound love. they do not hold a grudge, they do not find solace in that, that is why it fails!

despite their failings, they’re able to communicate. they are far from being perfect (their misunderstandings stem from their insecurities and secrets), but they’re able to reassure each other, they’re willing to listen and accept the stories of other people. that’s how they’re able to save morgana and the souls.

that makes me think of the key difference between morgana and michel/giselle. the later, with their own share of suffering and traumas, are willing to cast aside their bitterness and focus on finding new ways to live, for different reasons.

michel is forgiving, as long as the people who wrong him expressed their will to repent. he will treasure the good memories, and not let traumas tarnish them: he will try to understand.

giselle does not hold a grudge because she wants to put that energy elsewhere—into reconstructing herself and enjoying life to the fullest. that is true to her character.

to conclude

i love how each person has a very legitimate, and sensible motivation and do not excuse everything. and how you cannot equate characters to their wrongs ; while also holding them accountable for what they’ve done. you can reason other people’s pain, while also respecting yourself. a simple message, yet, very difficult to deliver rightly. and fatamoru just does that, it trusts you to understand it.

[yasuda-yoshiya]

Hello, I would like to ask you a seemingly random FataMoru question. Who do you think is the most terrifying in the whole series so far? My personal pick is Giselle/the Maid in the short story "II. Pain". Michel reveals a hole in Morgana's PoV, with her hatred into something constructive for the three men in the original game. However, Pain is Giselle using that hole to seal everyone (or at least Morgana) in an irreversible emptiness that would have extinguishes everyone involved in that house.

oh i never actually got around to reading the ps4 short stories i feel like a fake fatamoru fan lol

i think michel’s mother struck a pretty horrifying spot to me, the juxtaposition of her total and utter rejection and disgust towards his true self in the end contrasted with him just uncomprehendingly repeating how much he loved her and drew comfort from her was incredibly sad, and i could totally buy that being the breaking point as far as michel’s soul finally shattering altogether

i also find the maid pretty frightening in some of the alternate endings where she sort of shows that ice-cold willingness to reject michel’s truth and force him to live in her story whether he wants it or not - part of my disappointment with the resolution their relationship is that i never quite felt like we really felt the weight of how horrifying that attitude would have been from michel’s perspective and with his particular hangups i think

morgana/WHG also scares me a lot in the ending where she expresses that desire to sort of merge with michel and erase him completely, that sense of needing someone so much that you try to completely subsume them into you sort of always hits a particular spot as being one of the most frightening human capacities to me, probably because i can sort of recognise it in myself in some ways

(geez i guess all of these are about people victimizing michel i guess i am just very protective of him huh)

idk i don’t have a strong opinion on this question but these are vague possible answers that spring to mind i guess!

[connan-l]

This is michellefatamoru again. I read your response and thank you! I wanted to leave you with one last dumbass comment bc I realized something yesterday that I thought was interesting and wanted to share. I don't know if you remember me mentioning that Keika Hanada listed the Italian miniseries/movie The Best of Youth (2003) as an influence for fatamoru but it's Italian title is La meglio gioventù, which is also the name of the song that plays during the Jacopo and WHG phenakistoscope scene.

Ohh, right, I remember that. I didn’t know about this detail though, that’s interesting. I’ll really need to check that Italian movie one day, huh...

Thanks for sharing!

[heavyonthecost]

fatamoru snippets dump #5: nsfw edition

Pardon me for these but someone’s gotta suffer these beside the anons. Only the first three are explicit, really, but the rest also contain (Reincarnation-setting) less vanilla kinky stuff so figured it’s safer to group them together. This one also has something that isn’t Yukipauline... just the first one, though.

(#1, #2, #3, #4)

(Content notes: infidelity, menstrual sex, rape roleplay (setup), light D/s, knifeplay, (consensual) snuff)

(Prompt: fingering, 300 words, Maria/WHG. Contains infidelity)

“Poor Madam. Your husband can’t be bothered to visit you, let alone touch you like this…”

Maria inserted a third finger, causing the Madam to to arch her back, repeating the same words, “Darling… I’m sorry…”

“You really don’t have to be, Madam. It’s his fault for neglecting you this badly.” Maria made the most pained expression she could. “I’m sorry I can’t be a better replacement for him…”

“It’s - not your - fault…”

“Tell me, Madam,” Maria said, keeping her fingers moving. “How can I touch you like he did? How did he use to run his hands over your body?”

“That… I… don’t know…”

Maria paused. “Has it been so long that you forgot? Or… have you never…” When only heavy breathing came in answer, Maria let out a loud gasp - an exaggerated reaction, but on some level the surprise was genuine. “Oh, Madam, how pitiful!”

The sudden speed-up of Maria’s fingers jolted her eyes open. “Maria, wait -”

“Please leave this to me, Madam. You can just relax, you deserve as much after all you’ve been through.”

A few more thrusts, and Maria could feel a tightening around her fingers, the Madam’s body trembling against her own. Between her breathing, Maria could vaguely make out the name of the master of the house escaping from her lips.

Maria marvelled at the result of her handiwork - pale skin flushed with a colour almost as red as those eyes behind half-closed lids, long flowing white hair strewn across the bed, the wetness covering her own fingers - and tried her best not to smirk in satisfaction. Sure, what she just did wasn’t strictly required for her plans - the rift between them was growing beautifully already. But what was a little bit of fun to be had with such a lovely, unsuspecting lady?

(Prompt: weird fetishes, 300 words. Contains menstrual sex, written pre-Defectives so the characterisation might be kinda wonky)

Usually, sex was something he only partook to humour Pauline, as part of his “good lover” act. But sometimes, the times he would be in her town would overlap with those times for her, and it made things... different.

“...I mean, we’re already here now, but… are you sure you really want to do this again?”

“We don’t get to meet often as it is. It’d be a pity to let this ruin it.”

With his face between her legs, the scent of blood wafting from her filled him with - not arousal, perhaps, but a sort of excitement nonetheless. Not as much as smelling freshly drawn blood dripping from his sword, but still enough to get him breathing more heavily, his heart beating slightly faster.

“You don’t want to do it?”

She cast her gaze aside, and then back at him. “I… do. I want to make the most of our time together too…”

He stuck his tongue forward to catch a drop of blood that was about to drip down, and as soon as the metallic tang spread in his mouth, he instinctively pushed further, his tongue sliding into her, searching for more. He pushed back the urge to sink his teeth somewhere, drawing more blood and maybe even a scream - but the urgency in her moans, pleading for more, was a close enough substitute to push him onward.

Pulling out, he licked upwards, over all dried traces of blood, and he felt her fingers grasping onto his hair, heard her hitched breathing interspersed with his name. He repeated the motion some more, at which her legs locked around him, and he could feel her whole body trembling from where her thighs pushed against him.

He wondered if there was a good way to strategically time his next visit.

(Prompt: Blasphemy, 100 words)

The Archangel in the stained glass leered down as she violated her vows behind the pews.

He’s a stranger to this land, he couldn’t be expected to understand all of our customs and beliefs, she told herself, but of course he did - he had never shown any intention of laying his hands on her until she made it clear in everything but words that she wanted him to - and her guilt grew from trying to frame him for her transgressions.

Trembling under his touch, she wished that she wasn’t Marie, everyone’s beloved Saintess, but just Pauline, a normal town girl.

(Prompt: kink negotiation, 300 words. Contains rape roleplay (or the setup thereof, rather))

“Do I really have to tie you up?”

“It’s important to set the mood!”

Yukimasa still only frowned at the rope. “I’m still not convinced hurting -”

“Pretending to.”

“- you before it’s time is a good idea.”

“It’s only pretend. And who knows, maybe having an outlet for your tendencies like this can help you last longer.” Realising the possible double meaning of her words, Pauline quickly added, “I mean -”

“Before I kill you, right?”

“...yeah.” Even she surprised herself with that ‘come kill me’ deal, but they’d since established that they were both kinda weird, after all. Soon, she felt ropes rustling against her wrists, gradually tightening around them.

“Is this enough?”

She tried pulling her wrists apart - and found little resistance. “I could probably break out of this.”

“Good. So you can stop me if needed.”

“But we have the word for that! And you can’t say you’re pretending if you’re not even trying.”

“...all right.” Through a frown, he re-tightened the ropes. “Why are you going this far for me?”

“What if I say… it’s not just for your urges?”

“Huh?”

Throughout everything, this was the first thing to cause Pauline to blush. “The books I used to sneak from my mother’s collection were… inspirational.”

“...I see.” Times like these, she was thankful for Yukimasa’s stoic disposition. Finished with tightening the ropes, he stood upright. “And now I have to get out of the room?”

“Yep! Building the atmosphere is important.”

He took a step away, but quickly turned back. “You will stop me if needed, right?”

“...if you really feel like killing me in the middle, I don’t mind letting you?”

“Don’t.” The answer came firmly. “Stop me if I try to. I don’t want to kill you yet.”

She smiled. “If that’s what you want, then.”

(Prompt: submission, 100 words. Contains light D/s)

“Is this too tight for you?”

“No, just right.”

Done adjusting his collar, she straddled his kneeling form, one hand holding his leash.

She herself was his chain, his tether. But the collar, the leash served to emphasise that. She grabbed his jaw and pushed her thumb between his parted lips, running it across his teeth. “You’re not to bare these teeth against anyone else, okay?”

She smiled when he nodded, then tugged on the leash until her collarbone was right in front of his eyes. “Go ahead.”

He sunk his teeth into her skin, drawing blood and a moan.

(Prompt: your favourite kink, 200 words. Contains knife+bloodplay)

“Can I try it out too?”

Yukimasa stayed still, bloodied knife in hand. “Why?”

“I want to know what it’s like.” Pauline brushed a finger against the still-bleeding cuts on her chest, ones he just left. “What, you can deal it out but not take it?”

“That’s not it,” he said, glancing away. “Someone like you shouldn’t know about -”

She pushed a finger against his lips and pried the knife away with the other hand. “Weren’t you the one who called me not so normal after all?” She pressed the edge against his chest and blood flew out, bright red flowing onto his skin, onto the blade, spilling onto her hand. If she were to forget what it was, forget the slight hiss of pain she heard from him when the knife cut into his skin, and just focus on the vivid colour as she smeared it across his chest with her hand - perhaps she could see a part of what he enjoyed so much about this.

“Pauline…”

“I told you, right? I want to be the only one to understand you.”

She pulled him in for a kiss, the slick of their blood mingling together between their pressed bodies.

(Prompt: knife day, 200 words. Contains (consensual) snuff)

“You don’t look scared.”

Most people would with a knife pointed at them, but Pauline managed a smile, albeit a wistful one. “I knew this day would come. I proposed it, after all.”

“And you have no regrets about that?”

“...I did want to grow old with you.”

“You can run away now.. Find someone else to grow old with.”

She shook her head. “It won’t do if it’s not with you.”

She stood in front of him, unwavering, about to let him have what he’d always wanted - and so he did, plunging the knife into her gut. Her eyes shot wide open, mouth open in a voiceless scream as blood spread across her clothes; her hand brushed up against his face, neither pushing him away nor refusing him. He pulled out the knife and stabbed again, and again - to see her death sooner? To see more of her pain, or shorten it? - and before long, her hand fell down, her whole body going limp in his arm.

It was done, One of his wishes fulfilled, the other never to come true again. He ran his fingers across her face, closing her eyelids and lips.

She was beautiful in death.

[altimysart]

Girls' night out! I've always wanted them to have a dance party.

[reverstellarium]

Elysian Fields

[reverstellarium]

Elysian Fields

(twitter)

[reverstellarium]

Fatamoru 10th anniversary countdown

Day 3 - Which character is your favorite? Why are they your favorite?

Didn’t expect this but it has to be Morgana… I greatly relate to her struggles, and a lot of her key moments and relationships (best and worst) have strong parallels in mine. Her character resonates a lot with me.

Seeing someone go through the same feelings, yet being understood and supported, is truly comforting. I can really appreciate what’s in front of me, and I want to heal as well.

Besides that, I really love Michel, Giselle, Maria and Imeon—they mean so much to me… I could really rant for hours…

— Spoilers below! —

I think what’s haunting me is that I relate not only in OG Fatamoru but also in Requiem and Reincarnation. Namely:

• our… complicated relationship with guilt (internal and external) and forgiveness

• opening up to the world (the prostitutes, Maria, Ceren and Jacopo) after being closed off and alienated for very long

• her strong wish to be useful in Requiem just… resembles a lot my adolescent self, and bodily scars that stay throughout the years.

• I can see very close parallels to people who hurt us and/or helped us, and yes sometimes it can be both.

The WHG/Morgana dichotomy also speaks a lot to me on a personal level…

[yasuda-yoshiya]

What do you think about the lyrics in FataMoru's music? I personally find it interesting in the original game that Ciao Carina plays to Jacopo rather than say, Maria or WHG (who seems to correspond to Dammi una Sigaretta instead) in-game. The lyrics are like, "be careful with this dangerous temptress" to Jacopo, but maybe it's possible to imply that the irresistible lady refers to Jacopo. After all, the one with money, power and influence (and temper) in the end of Door 3 is Jacopo, not Maria.

Hmm, I haven’t really looked particularly deeply into most of the lyrics, but I generally like them! I’ve always been really interested in the opening theme acting as Giselle’s counterpart to Michel’s speech at the start of the game in particular; I thought that was really cool and clever (Giselle’s speaking in the music while Michel is speaking in the text! They’re speaking to each other without quite reaching each other!). And yeah, a lot of the other song lyrics are obviously meant to tie into specific characters and relationships as well, like Dammi una Sigaretta for Jacopo/WHG.

I’m not really sure about applying a one-to-one connection between the songs and the places they play in general - some of them definitely fit that pattern, but there are also a lot that don’t particularly, like Cicio having some really dark/creepy lyrics despite being used for mostly peaceful and gentle scenes? So I could probably see Ciao Carina’s lyrics being used more to evoke a general atmosphere than applying to a particular character necessarily. Jacopo being the woman in the song is an interesting reading, though! I can see how you could read it in relation to him, or to Maria as well (since Jacopo and the WHG are both sort of “taken in” by her lies in that door). I wouldn’t be surprised if it was left deliberately ambiguous to lend itself to a variety of different interpretations.

[yasuda-yoshiya]

Are you going to buy a copy of Fatamoru Dreams of the Revenants Edition? I love Imeon primarily because she saved Michel and called Morgana out on her bullshit. As a counterpoint to the The Maid’s rather rushed and disappointing resolution and how to fix it, could you write down all of the positive things about her? What actually worked? The elaborate setup was definitely a factor! You seem very passionate about her, as am I. I hope I’m not annoying you with all these Maid thoughts!

Hmm, I’d really like to buy it, but I don’t own either of the systems it’s been announced for, unfortunately… I might still buy a copy just for the sake of showing support, though, especially since I’m sure I’ll end up looking at videos for the new content anyway. Novectacle definitely deserve it! I really appreciate their commitment to getting all of the games localised and brought over here, even when the sales apparently haven’t been that great. It can’t be easy to arrange such high-quality localisations for games as text-heavy as these, so I’m hugely grateful to them for managing it!

(And yes, Imeon is the best! Appreciate her!!)

Honestly, I love pretty much everything about the Maid’s characterisation prior to door 6! Indirectly characterising her through her background role as the “narrator” through the first four doors was such a unique and fascinating presentational choice; she has a really strong and simultaneously reassuring and unsettling presence as a character that grabbed me very quickly, and all the subtle ways in which she indirectly expresses things about herself through the ways she tells and presents her stories even as she positions herself as an impartial observer felt really exciting and rewarding to pick up on. I think it’s absolutely some of Fata’s best writing in terms of communicating so much through indirect implications and little cues in the ways she talks about herself, the WHG, the mansion etc, without having to resort to straightforward exposition or explicitly putting the focus on her PoV. The whole atmosphere around her is so powerful, too; her piano and affected themes evoke a really strong feeling of quiet tranquility with an underlying deep sadness behind it, which the writing also communicates really well through the descriptions of the lonely dark mansion as the Maid guides you through it. Fata really does do an incredibly good job with atmosphere, and those initial sequences with the Maid stand out as one of the strongest examples of that for me.

And in general, I just think her role in presenting the story and how it influences the way the reader takes it is really interesting and effective? I really remember how the game made me feel a sort of trust and comfort in her presence despite the obviously creepy aspects of her presentation; the game really does communicate a definite feeling of genuine warmth and concern for “you” even through the very formally detached way she expresses it, so it makes you sort of feel like you want to trust the framing of her stories and what she’s presenting to you, even with the ample avidence that’s something is wrong about it. And that’s generally the way you’d expect a game like Fata to be set up, I think; for each of the Maid’s stories to contain all the pieces to solve the mystery of “who you are”, and that then the final story will be about collecting all those pieces together and reaching the truth, even if there might be some obfuscation along the way. So I always found it really cool and impressive how Fata totally turns all those assumptions on their head in the end - most of the Maid’s stories have absolutely nothing to do with Michel, the final door that “gives all the answers” is actually the least real of them all, and the opening arc isn’t really about being helped to remember your story at all - it’s actually about the storyteller trying to push someone else’s story on to you instead, and getting to the heart of their emotional reasons for doing so. Realising that at the end of door 4 totally overturned my perception of the Maid and everything about the story up to that point in such an impactful and memorable way. I’m still sort of vaguely in awe when I think about it.

And what really gets me about that is that the Maid is so good at that role of the storyteller, too, you know? Her act as the all-knowing mentor and guide who knows and understands everything is so incredibly thorough and convincing; she really does narrate the stories and set up the mysteries about things like her unaging nature and the WHG’s reincarnations in a very deliberate and intriguing way, gradually dropping more and more hints to the “correct answers” until culminating with the fourth door that finally puts everything together. The Maid’s constructed narrative is completely and utterly airtight; the only things hinting at something being wrong are the things that you have to deliberately step out of the path the Maid sets out for you to find (the mirror scene, the talk with the painting, the door 4 backlog text), but if you cut those things out and just take the story as the Maid tells you, you could absolutely end the game at door 4 and the story would still make perfect sense. There aren’t any holes or unexplained mysteries; it really does all tie together neatly in isolation.

And letting the reader get so immersed in the Maid’s misleading presentation of that narrative and the meaning behind it just worked so well for me as a presentational choice, because it really makes clear without the game ever having to actually explicitly spell it out or say it why door 4 is so important to the Maid - it’s just so evident in the way that she frames so much of her telling of the first three doors as leading up to toward that ultimate “reveal”, that all-important part of the story that “gives all the answers” and gives a clear meaning and purpose to all that senseless and incomprehensible tragedy. The Maid needed the framework of that story because that’s the only way she could get the comfort and security of clear answers and purpose to her suffering. I really wish I could properly express just how much it shook me when I did first realise at the end of door 4 that her carefully crafted role as the “guide to the story” was a deliberate affectation; I get the impression that people mostly tend to react to the big reveal with confusion more than anything else at first, but I just remember feeling such a painfully piercing sense of clarity and understanding at how painstakingly she’d constructed that role of the storyteller around herself and why she needed it, why someone would choose to detach from themselves and push their own story on to someone else in that way. She really is such a good character with so many conscious and unconscious layers to her thought processes and her ways of expressing herself; I honestly do think she’s portrayed incredibly well in the first half of the story and that will always stick with me, however much the latter parts of the story do admittedly drop the ball on it!