#grailing others can wait until lottery

[homeinchaldea]

Currently going through the Tower event in the TW server, and the inventory is stuffing with embers.

Since I don’t want to waste it, I decide to grail 2 servants I like.

[demialwrites]

A Servant, In Every Sense of the Word

You hopped in place, grinning and clapping your hands like you won the lottery. You had summoned the powerful servant, Gilgamesh. The fog had cleared only halfway but there was no mistaking the spiked hair and proud, broad shoulders from his gold armour. His eyes will equally fogged, having just gained form and had information about this point in time downloaded into his brain.

Once the fog cleared, he lifted his red-eyed gaze to you and grinned. He thought because he had been summoned, he was in for some entertainment.

"You may be my master in title," Gilgamesh began, "but let me set one thing straight. I am the one true king. None stand above me. Only below-"

His impressively, gaudy, gold armour clinked as he stepped forward. Before he could place his foot down, or even before he could finish his sentence, two pairs of thick chains encircled his body and embedded themselves in the concrete floor. The mild frown and open mouth remained for a split second before he snarled and struggled against the restraints. The metal scraped against metal, but the chains held. In fact, they pulled tighter.

"How dare you!" he yelled.

The shock and rage were beautiful on his face. The naked rage in his wide eyes and the shock stretching his mouth open as he yelled at you further. Ranting about who he was and how well below him you were, you might as well be a bug underfoot. Not that he could raise his foot right now.

You stepped closer and his warm breath blasted you in the face. You bathed yourself in his deep, commanding voice, knowing that it had inspired his people and kept them in line while he was truly alive.

Just how does a man with this cute of a pug nose have that much power? you thought to yourself, booping it.

He gasped in horror.

"How dare you touch me...! Just who do you think you are?"

"My family name is Emiya." You beamed.

His eyebrows rose. You proudly explained that you had improved on your grandfather's replication magic. Gilgamesh was being held by a perfect replica of his own Chains of Heaven.

He did not appreciate that.

Gilgamesh kept ranting as you observed him. Such passion. Incredibly sexy. The chains rattled as he shook them, commanding you to immediately release him. He was even prevented from dematerializing.

You checked your phone. He actually ranted for half an hour before demanding you answer for your crimes. Which were restraining him against his will, ignoring his commands, staring at him for too long, and daring lay a finger on his royal face.

"As your master--and hear me out before you bark at me again--I thought you should actually be the servant in this relationship. And," you closed in until your nose was two inches from his, "I can convince you."

His opened his mouth to retort. Then stopped. He squinted at you for a moment.

He smirked.

"No one can bend my will. No one. Not since I was born. Mongrel."

His nose rose, total confidence in everything he just said.

"Is that a dare...?"

"Do your worst, Weak Little Mage."

You smiled back.

"I love your voice. But you talk too much."

Gilgamesh did you a favour by opening his mouth to reply. You promptly stuffed a rag in his mouth. A permanently-greyed rag normally used to wipe your toilet seat and kitchen counter. It was as clean as you could get it, but obviously worn and obviously not fit for a king. You grinned.

His shining pauldrons bobbed with chest breaths as he steamed. He was glaring murder at you, his red eyes darkening to the hue of blood. Your smile was the reply. You disappeared downward, crouching in front of his stomach area. He deigned to dip his chin and lower his proud nose to look down at what you were doing.

It took some fiddling, but you removed the plate covering his crotch. You glanced up to find him, of course, glaring at you as if his pupils could be his Gate of Babylon and weapons could fly out and pin you to the floor.

You flashed him a grin. He could not harm you one bit. His rage faded and he attempted a sneer, flashing his teeth sunken in the rag.

You snorted at the white loincloth covering his majesty's junk. It was lined with a thick stripe of gold and intricately wrapped, but still a loincloth. He let his gaze wander the room, feigning boredom while you slipped something bullet-shaped into the front of the cloth. You're not the first one to try to seduce him.

"Nope." You booped his nose again to stop him from ignoring you.

His red eyes flicked to yours with the annoyance one gives a fly. Locking gazes with him, you leaned close enough to reach around to his tush and squeezed a firm cheek. He jolted, lifting a corner of his mouth to bare a canine.

Your fingers wandered over to the clenched hole to give it a testing caress. Gilgamesh growled.

"I thought you could handle it."

He pouted stubbornly. Next, you lubed your fingers and massaged the tight ring of muscle open. You prepped him slowly, him switching between trying to ignore you and staring you down.

What he didn't know was that a remote-controlled vibrator was inserted into the dildo to match the one you had put in the front of his loincloth earlier. Gilgamesh glared at the remote when you pulled it out and held it up for him to see. His eyes followed your thumb as you moved it over to press the + button to turn the vibrators on to the first setting, starting a buzz in his ass and against his cock.

His jaw tensed.

You pushed his limit, pressing the + button to increase the intensity. His limit was a surprise, with him maintaining composure until his mouth suddenly stretched wide with a severely muffled moan.

He actually trembled, rattling the chains. You put your finger to your chin thoughtfully, watching him rage anew over being affected so much. All the energy he was putting into resisting made you tingle with delight over leaving him here to suffer alone.

You left him chained up in your basement for two days and two nights. Servants don't require anything to exist besides the mana you were supplying and plus, you were certain he would have bragged about his longevity had you given him the chance.

When you checked on him, the vibrators' batteries had run out hours ago. Gilgamesh had finally stopped twitching. His cheeks were two red blotches. Sweat dripped from his chin at regular intervals onto his chest plate.

Gilgamesh's eyes were back to the fogged state they arrived in. His blonde hair was plastered to his head and sticking out in various directions. He took one deep sigh, then sagged, vaguely acknowledging your presence. Before you made the chains retract, you carefully removed his other pieces of armour, letting them fall to the floor with tinny clacks.

"I didn't expect such a strong servant to be such a twig." You ran your palm down his stomach and gently pinched his thigh. His leg jumped. "Such lean meat."

"It's over, Poor Baby," you told him.

The chains pulled away from the floor and disappeared, leaving behind dry, crumbled holes. Gilgamesh landed on his feet, swaying and using his remaining scraps of energy and pride to stay upright.

You put your open palm under his chin to help steady him. He groaned quietly and settled this head there. His eyes closed.

"Good boy," you gently praised. With your other hand, you wrapped a smartly red leather collar around his neck. "Only the softest for my new baby."

You let go of his chin and he let his forehead drop to your shoulder. You sniffed.

"Wow, let's get you a bath."

Holding the back of his head in place, you hooked a matching red leash to the O ring of the collar. You led him upstairs to where a hot bath was waiting, with a lavender bath bomb thrown in. It was slow going up the stairs but he never slipped, still clinging his stubborn pride.

You took good care of your new servant, giving him a bath, combing his hair, and putting him into a pair of warm pajamas. Showing him it was okay to rely on you and take your direction in the current Holy Grail War. To your surprise, he leaned into being submissive and even enjoyed it. Pretty soon, he was your loyal pet.

"Keep your eyes to yourself," he would tell the other servants. "No one is worthy of gazing upon my master except me."

[thepurpleblossom]

I went to watch the HF movie earlier! So I’ll be posting my thoughts. I’ve already read many reviews prior so I sort of already found out how some things are different, so the changes didn’t quite surprise / disappoint me, and overall, I really really enjoyed it. If possible, I’ll probably go and watch it at least two more times!

I actually wrote a brief summary of the movie on the way back, but I just remembered there’s a post that pretty much talked about what I wanted to, but!! I’ll do it again in any case!

I really enjoy the first few scenes because they were anime original. Since I read the post linked above, I did know that they were animating those pre!story scenes. But what I didn’t expect was how long it was. There was perhaps a good 10 minutes devoted to these scenes. 

Starting off with a beautiful scene in the archery club depicting Shirou’s mastery of archery, Ayako and Shinji looking from behind, and a stranger praising his skills to Taiga. And then immediately juxtaposed with a short scene of Shinji reprimanding Shirou’s carelessness in getting injured during work. And then Sakura’s visits. We get his original insistence that he can’t make his friend’s sister help him like this...! and snapshots of Sakura’s stubbornness, visiting everyday until Taiga warms up to her, and Shirou gives up, giving her a key. And then he wakes up in the shed, with Sakura’s prompting.

I love these scenes so much, but I also love the bits where they slowly depict the changes happening in Sakura. When she first arrives, her eyes are completely dead, and she hardly talks. And then she talks, her eyes remaining dull. And by the end of the flashback (where Sakura gets accepted to Homurahara Academy), her eyes are brightened and as seen in this pv, she smiles so brightly. 

These are so important in establishing the effect Sakura has on Shirou, as well as Shirou’s on Sakura that now, I’m almost surprised that they aren’t in the original material.

Incidentally, there was two separate instances where Sakura touches her ribbon, (oh my god, i can’t believe my hc of her touching her ribbon is actually canon now). The most important one being when they were discussing Kiritsugu being Shirou’s hero, and when faced with the same question, Sakura simply repeats the words while touching the ribbon. 

Originally I was worried how they are going to deal with the repeats from UBW. But they really did just compress them into a few images, serving as a reminder to jolt our memory rather than a full scene. Which is actually a direction that I really liked that they took, because it would be taking time away from content that we have already seen -- there is no point in animating the same scenes again as well.

There are other scenes in which they were longer but the movie cut them short. Such as Sakura noticing the mark on Shirou’s hand, but it skips the following breakfast scene, and changes scene to Sakura leaving and asking Shirou to come home quick. I also really like these cuts, whilst the scenes are lost, its usually done without much consequences and the viewers can fill in the gaps. To borrow @fishofthelake’s words, it really fits the movie’s format.

Also, Saber in Shirou’s yukata.  👌👀👌👀👌👀👌👀👌👀

About the dream that Shirou had. I think the movie is my favourite rendition. Whilst the original is just Rin H scene. And Realta Nua a scene between Rin and Ayako, this was Rin putting the moves on Shirou at first and then turning to Sakura. The first was awkward given how Rin is not the heroine of the series. And RN’s verison makes me imagine that Shirou... ships Rin and Ayako. And HF’s felt the most natural? Shirou’s crush on Rin can’t be separated from the narrative, and they also showed it during a scene where Shirou chances upon Rin helping Sakura pick up the papers fallen on the floor ( “Oh... The person who helped me is--” “Tohsaka Rin, right?” “... You know her?” “Oh aaah, *flustered* she’s beautiful and everyone knows her.” ). But the change to Sakura felt more natural given that it is her route, and also highlights that Shirou is gradually gaining an romantic interest in Sakura. ( Important as they cut out the bit where Shirou walks Sakura to the Matou’s mansion, as well as the morning scenes including the monologue where Shirou is like “ah this is problematic. Sakura is becoming more beautiful by the day” )

Actually, there are actually a number of scenes that effectively portrayed Shirou’s attraction to Sakura, and vice versa. Whilst the added scenes at the beginning of the movie showed how important they are to each other, the scenes scattered throughout the rest of the movie showed how their feelings for each other are decidedly romantic. With Sakura’s silent jealousy when Sakura finds out that Shirou knows Rin, Taiga’s joking comments that Shirou asked Sakura to stay over so that she won’t be jealous of Saber... And of course, the scene where Sakura first collapses, and Shirou is there, looking after her, and their hands are held together almost tenderly. I teared up.

Speaking of a tender scene, Sakura visited the shed with Shirou. And one of the topics was that Shirou is an adopted child, and Sakura mentions briefly that he had good people around him, and that made my heart break a little. Because Sakura is also adopted and she didn’t have good people around her. While the scene broke my heart a little, the overall atmosphere was really soft and tender, and Sakura seems so glad that his experience is different from hers ( of course, it might be just me assuming that she’s drawing a parallel between his experience and hers since she didn’t talk about herself being adopted, but it’s highly likely that she is. )

The fight scenes were super cool. I was holding my breath the entire time during the Cu and Hassan fight, on the expressway before they moved to the lake. I’m so glad Cu got some scenes before he was gone. Though, I felt like the scene where Medu showed up in the temple could be done better? The scene in the VN felt more creepy in comparison, and I could sense the danger and how she’s so much more powerful compared to her earlier appearance (the scene where Saber absolutely destroyed Medusa was beautiful by the way). I can’t quite recall if the dangerous aspect in the VN was due to Shirou’s monologue, but I feel that they could have done better, perhaps through a new, creepier OST? I don’t think they changed the OST from Shirou’s fight with Zouken. But that’s probably just me nitpicking. My friend thought she seems powerful anyway.

AND, let’s talk about the music. I’m too much of Kajiura’s fan to not devote a section to talk about her to be honest. In summary, I... really like it??? I’m not sure how else I could say it. Other than that scene mentioned above, I really like the music direction. Sometimes the scenes are without music, but it doesn’t take it away. In UBW, the lack of music in some scenes made it rather boring for me to watch, and hard to grip my attention, but in the movie, I felt like it was used brilliantly. The first scene of Shirou’s archery had no music, but served to show Shirou’s hyperfocus and tranquility of archery. Some of the flashback scenes generally had soft, calming music, but other scenes are quiet, without music. It felt like it added to the peacefulness and the fondness in the memories.

The first heavy, dark music is used when Shirou notices the Lancer and Archer fight and he starts running for a safe space before the scene fades to a scene with Sakura somehow noticing this happening and then we get the compressed, repeated scenes from UBW. I really like how the first piece of dark music is used as a lead-in to the rest of the movie because the flashbacks are done now, and this is where the plot starts. It felt like a summary / warning as to what the rest of the movie has to offer, which is dark, dark, and dark. They also used one or two F/Z tracks btw. If I’m right, Back to Zero, during the scene in which Kirei reveals to Shirou Kiritsugu’s involvement in the 4th Holy Grail War. Most of the tracks in the rest of the movie were dark, and very, very different from UBW’s, which is understandable, given that they are done by different composers after all. But it really is a huge indication of how dark HF is compared to UBW’s and I love it.

Things that I’m not too happy about are nitpicks. The loss of the classroom scene, but the inclusion of the scene may have led the movie to feel draggy (since it takes place before the Lancer & Archer fight -- ie where the movie truly begins), so I will accept that choice begrudgingly. The other bit is the dream sequence involving Saber Alter talking to Saber. I liked the horror that Saber is truly gone, and then the resulting shock when Saber Alter showed up later in the story, and such a scene felt like it took away both of such elements. Still, at this point in time, Saber Alter is hardly a secret anymore, so perhaps these factors are gone ever since the popularity of FGO and the Fate franchise in general. So why not capitalise on their knowledge, instead of pretending that everyone watching are Fate noobs right.

Perhaps that’s why the Prize A for the Ichiban Kuji lottery for Heaven’s Feel is not Sakura, but actually a figure of Saber Alter. They’re just like, Saber Alter??? Keep her a secret??? I think /not/.

In summary though, I’m really happy with this movie. The director really seems to love the route and Sakura a lot. The movie was beautiful, and the scenes with Sakura felt so beautiful and wonderfully portrayed and her expressions. And the last scene where Shirou comes back to a worried Sakura waiting for him with her nose and cheeks red from standing too long in the snow... It’s beautiful.

Now, if you excuse me, I’ll just be looping Hana no Uta.

[benyms]

There is a good rule of thumb that whenever a headline is phrased as a question the answer is, “No.” This headline is no exception. You might not think this from reading a recent AP article titled: “A commuter’s dream: Entrepreneurs race to develop flying car.”

I am old enough now where I can say that I have been reading such headlines for literally decades. Since I was a nerdy teenage technophile I have been reading about, and dreaming about, flying cars. They are undeniably cool – one of the holy grails of future technology.  I still sometimes imagine myself rising above the congested roads during particularly bad traffic and flying to my destination unhindered.

The AP article, however, is an excellent example of the overhyped future technology trope. Often a dramatic new technology, like flying cars, requires that several different component technologies all work sufficiently so that the application is feasible. Skyscrapers could not be built until the elevator was invented. It didn’t matter if engineers had perfected ways of supporting really tall buildings if no one could get to the upper floors.

I have discussed this idea with batteries many times. A useful battery has to simultaneously have multiple properties: good energy density and capacity, stability, sufficiently rapid charge and discharge rates, many charge-discharge cycles, and be made of material that is not too expensive, heavy, rare, or toxic. There also has to be a way to economically mass produce them. Missing even one property can be a deal-killer.

After reading score of news items on battery technology, there is a very common theme. The articles will discuss a new battery “breakthrough” in breathless terms, because one of the necessary features was significantly improved – a battery that can last for millions of cycles, or that can be recharged in seconds. They gloss over, however, the fact that one or more of the other features are deadly – oh, but they have to be made out of platinum, or their capacity is tiny. This is usually coupled with the notion that all the researchers have to do now is fix the fatal flaw, and we will soon have these wonderful batteries. That, of course, is always the rub, and we never hear about these technologies again.

For this reason I am usually more excited about incremental advances to existing working technologies. I would take a 10% increase in existing lithium-ion batteries over the possibility of a battery with 10 times the capacity but a fatal flaw that scientists are sure to work out in 5-10 years (because they probably won’t).

What About Flying Cars?

Flying cars are a compelling idea because they would be massively useful (and fun). Just like we were never going to have skyscrapers without elevators, there is at least one dependent technology we need before flying cars will be feasible – a high energy-density fuel or battery.

In the last decade engineers have cracked the problem of making flying vehicles safe and stable – sufficiently safe for an average person to fly like driving a car. Computers are powerful enough and software programs robust enough to stabilize a vehicle with multiple small rotors. This is why drones are now ubiquitous.

Many of the articles I have read in the last decade or so are about this kind of breakthrough, engineering a flying car that is safe and stable. But that was never the main problem preventing a viable flying car, it has always been the energy source.

Material science is also important, constructing a very sturdy but light-frame vehicle. That, however, is related to the deeper problem of energy, a light vehicle requires less energy to lift. Incremental advances over the decades in terms of construction material has certainly helped, but will not solve the problem on its own. Cars still need to lift people.

The big problem is that the flying car needs to lift its own fuel. This gets into the rocket problem – the more fuel you carry to extend your range, the more fuel you have to carry to carry the extra fuel, and so on. This has always placed a severe range limit on such vehicles. (The same, by the way, is true of jet packs, that other promise of future technology.)

The AP article acknowledges (but glosses over) this problem:

Key for many of the designs will be the development of longer-lasting lightweight batteries. Currently available batteries could probably keep an air taxi aloft about 15 to 30 minutes before it would have to land, experts said. Depending on how fast the aircraft flies, that probably isn’t quite enough to transport passengers between nearby cities or across metropolitan areas, experts said.

All we need is that massive battery technology breakthrough we have also been promised. In fact, for a flying car the requirements are even more stringent, as weight is a critical factor.

There are other options instead of batteries, such as supercapacitors. They currently do not have the storage capacity to be useful, however. Some kind of fuel cell might work, but again we do not yet have a sufficient working technology.

Essentially flying cars exist, but have a very short range, and so are not useful. We don’t really need any further flying car breakthroughs, and there is nothing an engineer can do to solve the fundamental underlying problem. What we need is advanced mobile energy technology.

Therefore, if you are waiting for your flying car, you should pay more attention to battery, supercapacitor, or fuel cell technology news. I certainly hope we do have a breakthrough in this area, but I have also learned not to hold my breath. We probably won’t win the lottery, but we are making solid investments that are paying off incremental dividends.

Battery technology will slowly improve. Maybe in 40-50 years we will be at the point that we have an energy source that is light and dense enough to make a flying vehicle practical. By that time, however, the same battery technology will make electric cars very practical, with impressive ranges, and easy recharge. Self-driving cars may also solve the traffic problem. There simply may never be a window where a flying car is a practical solution for the average commuter.

Still, I can see flying cars having a niche as a sport or luxury vehicle. There may also be locations where roads are not practical that would benefit from flying cars. There may also be military and other niche applications.

It is simply too much more energy efficient to roll around than to fly for flying cars to ever compete with conventional cars for most applications.

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