#i only read Learn FGO chapter if it has them in it

[empty-dream]

Damn do I love Riyo for being a KadoAna fan

[ac-liveblogs]

Lostbelt 7.2 - The ORT Experience

I have this real problem with Kinoko Nasu’s writing, and it’s that whenever he lets loose and gets real indulgent in his work it’s genuinely one of the best things I’ve ever read.

I had my reservations about some of the choices he made in 7.1, but oh man do they pay off here.

The plot of this Lostbelt is as follows; there’s a giant fuckoff scary alien spider that’s been sleeping in South America since the dinosaurs went extinct. This thing is so powerful humanity hasn’t even evolved to a point where they’re able to comprehend how strong it is but, again, luckily enough, it’s asleep.

So... the Alien God that wiped out humanity wants to fuse with it, our last remaining enemy on the Crypter side wants to wake it up and make it destroy the world, and we would very much like it to just... stay. Please.

With the Alien God rendered amnesiac and our tentative on-off ally, most of the chapter is spent trying to beat Daybit and Tezcatlipoca to ORT’s location in the 9th Underworld. Last chapter went into a lot of detail introducing the two species currently dominating the Lostbelt; the Deinos and the Ocelemoh, while this time we learn a lot more about how this Lostbelt came to be in the state it’s in.

This trip is a lot of fun, though I did admittedly drift off in Ixquic (our AU Archetype Earth, sorry Arcuied fans) and Da Vinci’s history lesson, and while Ereshkigal Alter’s inclusion felt like blatant fanservice that honestly missed for me (she’s by far the weakest of the Underworld Goddesses - most of her schtick was comic relief), Camazotz and Nitocris (Alter)’s subplot was genuinely moving.

Not sure what it is about Nasu, but he’s been knocking it out of the park with the monsterboys lately. Playable Camazotz when, he’s the only bitch I respect in this whole Lostbelt. Camazotz is the best BEAST we’ve seen since Goetia.

This isn’t to say that Tezcatlipoca, Tenochtitlan and Kukulkan dropped the ball in terms of their writing, though. Nasu made me care about all of them - I cried during Tenochtitlan’s last stand, got chills when Kukulkan resolved to fight ORT and Tez and Daybit are by far my favourite Crypter-Servant duo by a literal landslide, but their designs... god, the designs for these characters really do let them down.

Setting aside how shockingly white they all are, I have a lot of difficulty taking any of Kukulkan’s scenes seriously when her design keeps drawing me to look at her ass, and something went seriously wrong during every part of Tez’ design phase. His stage 3 looks seriously off, which sucks given how great his voice actor is, how good his animations are and how fun his rapport with Daybit is. Stage 1 gets off best by far.

I even kinda liked Ixcalli by the end of things.

I got a bit less from Daybit than I was expecting - he’s an OP badass and a fun rival to Ritsuka, but he was always a bit out of focus until their showdown in Tezcatlipoca’s afterlife. It’s actually during Daybit’s final showing that I felt I got to understand him the best, which is why I’m very glad his boyfriend partner is going to pull some strings and revive him as our ally later.

Tez just outright says he’s gonna do that. “Can’t recruit allies” smh Daybit, you seduced a neutral god so hard he’s bending reality and breaking the world in your favour.

It was also great getting some more context as to Wodime and Daybit’s motivations, though we’re obviously still missing the final pieces as to what Marisbury is actually up to. I’m excited for Ordeal Call. It’s filler, but I don’t care. It’s more main quest FGO. I love this game. It has its rough spots, but when it hits, it hits.    

Over at Team Chaldea, Nasu delivered some really strong interpersonal dynamics this time around. Kadoc is melding into the team wonderfully, Nemo is still growing as Best Rider (dude’s just got it all, y’know?), Gordolf continues to trend upwards in my heart and Mash made me cry twice over her friendships with dinosaurs. Sion and Habetrot are still the weak links here, honestly.

And then there’s Ritsuka.

He had a strong showing in Lostbelt 6 with Oberon, but Nasu has again raised the bar on this kid. Ritsuka was the hero of this Lostbelt in a big way - in a way, honestly, he’s never been before. We spent a LONG TIME fighting ORT, and almost all of that time Mash, Kadoc and Gordolf were reduced to supporting Ritsuka long enough for him to summon another Servant - another friend - and send them out for ORT to devour because there was literally nothing else they could do.

The fight against ORT is a draining, challenging slog. Watching my Servants get replaced with DATA LOST was an indescribably empty feeling. The sheer panic that I wasn’t going to make it. The genuine joy when another ally showed up to slow ORT down, even if only for a minute. It was a lot. The atmosphere in the ORT raids is wonderfully constructed, even if the raids themselves are painful in a bad way. (I guess that’s immersive story=gameplay integration for you)

And throughout it all, it’s made very clear that no matter how much Ritsuka is suffering, he is not going to stop fighting, and he’s going to keep a smile on his face the whole time. He is the only one that can.

Kadoc is yelling at you to take breaks. Mash refuses to leave you behind when you try to save her. Despite everything, we still get to have a comedic moment here or there, because Ritsuka wants his friends to keep hope. His good nature won him allies that helped us at the last second, that we would not have survived without. Ritsuka is a kind, selfless hero, and it’s been absolutely wonderful watching him grow from a bland self-insert to a very distinct character, separate from me, that I’ve come to care about very much.

This Lostbelt started with Ritsuka selling his Command Seals to Tezcatlipoca to save his friends’ lives, and it’s fitting that same selfless, dangerous compassion stays with him the entire time. I really care about Ritsuka. I’m going to be sad if he dies.

Also, ORT is TERRIFYING? goddamn like. WHAT DO YOU MEAN THE ORT IN PANHUMAN HISTORY IS STRONGER-

Nasu is the kind of writer that... you can really tell when he’s enjoying himself, and that enjoyment becomes infectious. There were moments I laughed out loud, there were moments I got genuine chills, I cried sometimes. I cried over goddamn dinosaur soccer, man, it’s stupid but genuine.

When I think about a game like Genshin Impact, where it feels like the writers only deal with half the characters out of obligation and shortcut to the easiest way to resolve any given plot, it staggers me. Are any of the writers enthusiastic about their work? Did any of that enthusiasm survive HYV sanding off the edges to make things as marketable as possible? Is anyone really passionate about Genshin Impact for Genshin Impact? It doesn’t feel like it. It seriously doesn’t.

I’m a negative person and I’m often really critical about the media I consume. FGO is certainly not immune to that, but I always end up forgiving it’s missteps more than I do any other franchise’s - and that’s because when it hits it hits. Nasu’s writing really works for me. I always end up feeling really emotional about a chapter he’s written, even days afterwards, and that’s actually really rare for me. I’ll often like media, but very few works really resonate with me the way Nasu’s do.

I dunno. I listened to ORT’s theme music earlier and I got chills just thinking about the fight again. I can’t really say that about many other works I’ve experienced. With him, I don’t even care to theorise about what’s going to happen too much, because if he’s writing a chapter I know it’s gonna be insanely good, and I just have to wait.

I can’t wait to experience Lostbelt 6 again, and in two years time I’ll have a blast replaying this one. That’s about it, I think.

also, my fgo rareship is mash/ritsuka/kadoc. i’m not alone here, right? i think it’s really cute. kadoc is super growing on me and he had a cute rapport with mash in traum and i swear to god i think some of the dialogue choices with him are going to matter later and-

[therenlover]

Therenlover’s Official Fanfic Glossary!

Hey hey hey! This is the place where you can find all my up-to-date fanfics linked nicely, read about what projects I have upcoming, and learn what requests I’m taking at the moment! Cheers!

This post is massive so, for the sake of your dash, everything is under the cut

A NOTE ABOUT REQUESTS!

I will do my best to fulfill any requests I get while my ask box/requests are open! That being said, I cannot promise every request will get done, and that if they do, they’ll be done in a timely manner. I’m currently working on a long-form project that needs a lot of time and energy to come out consistently, so unless I’m doing a writing event most of my writing juice will be focused on that. That being said, if you want something ask! The worst I can possibly do is direct you towards someone else who might be able to write what you want if I cant.

If I choose not to do your request based on personal preference (it makes me uncomfy/I don’t write for the character at that time/I don’t feel I can write what you want/etc.) I will do my best to contact you and let you know! That being said, if you think your ask got buried/forgotten, feel free to message me again and let me know, but please tell me when you message me if I should be looking for a prior request.

Characters/Fandoms I will write for currently

 💙 = I’m Currently Super Inspired To Write For This Character

Marvel/X-Men

Bucky Barnes

Loki

Peter Maximoff 💙

Pietro Maximoff

Helmut Zemo 💙

Hank McCoy

Ralph Bohner 💙

Vision

American Horror Story

Tate Langdon

Kit Walker 💙

Kyle Spencer (Pre- and Post- Death)

Jimmy Darling 💙

James Patrick March 💙

Kai Anderson

Fallout 4

Nick Valentine

Hancock

Star Wars

Poe Dameron

Armitage Hux 💙

Kylo Ren/Ben Solo

Finn

Han Solo

Assorted/Random

Diarmuid Ua Duibhne - FGO

Cu Chulainn/Cu Alter - FGO

Warren Lipka - American Animals 💙

Enjolras - Les Miserables

Grantaire - Les Miserables

Gabriel - Supernatural

Imagines - REQUESTS CLOSED

Songs From Musicals Y/N Would Sing To The Evans

Characters: Tate Langdon, Kit Walker, Kyle Spencer, Jimmy Darling, James Patrick March, Kai Anderson, Peter Maximoff

Rating: T

How The Evans (+ Quicksilver) Would React To Yoplait’s New Gushers Yogurt

Characters: Tate Langdon, Kit Walker, Kyle Spencer, Jimmy Darling, James Patrick March, Rory Monahan, Kai Anderson, Peter Maximoff

Rating: T

Would The Danny Bunch Survive A Holiday With My Family?

Characters: Laszlo Kreizler, Alex Kerner, Niki Lauda, Andrea Marowski, Ernst Schmidt, Helmut Zemo

Rating: T

Headcanons - REQUESTS CLOSED

Modern! AU Armitage Hux Boyfriend Headcanons

Zemo With A Well Dress S/O Headcanons

Zemo Getting Jealous Headcanons

Oneshots - REQUESTS CLOSED

Marvel/X-Men

Helmut Zemo

One Last Night In Madripoor

Synopsis: Baron Helmut Zemo is a lonely, wanted man looking for some fun, you’re a piss-poor bounty hunter in search of a connection before leaving your life of crime behind, and fate has brought you together at a party the likes of which has never been seen before. You only have one night left in Madripoor, so why not take a chance?

Rating: 18+

Word Count: 4200~

Still Some Catching Up To Do

Synopsis: As a member of the criminal underworld, people walk out of your life all the time. Some are killed, others kill themselves, most get caught and only a couple get out of the life unscathed, disappearing into the world never to be seen again. Very few walk back in. So when your supposedly incarcerated ex-lover, the Winter Soldier, and the Falcon waltzed through your door and made you murder your boss, needless to say, you were surprised and more than a little bit pissed.

Rating: 16+

Word Count: 6800~

Nine Years Starved

Synopsis: It had been a little over nine years since Helmut Zemo lost his family, his country, and his sanity. Nine years since his last kiss. Nine years since he felt like a human man. Finally, he was ready to start over again, but first, he had to pay his penance back where it all began; Novi Grad. That’s when, by the grace of the fates, he met you.

Rating: G

Word Count: 7000~

Daddy Dearest

Synopsis: Not everyone gets lucky enough to go from being a broke college student in New York to being the sugar baby to literal royalty, but not everyone is you. Most people would be worried about messing things up or losing him to someone else, but you knew he would never find another baby just like you. Besides, you knew exactly what to do to keep him wrapped around your little finger. He may have been the daddy, but you pulled the reins.

Rating: 18+

Word Count: 8000~

In Fleeting Touches & Airy Sighs

Part One   Part Two   Part Three   Part Four

Synopsis: As a wanted man, Helmut Zemo spends most of his time jumping from place to place in the hopes of avoiding a trip back to prison. Unfortunately, that means he can’t always be home in your arms. When he is, though, in the rare moments of calm, you’re reminded of just how worth it it’s been to wait, even if that wait was only shortened by the arrival of your enemies.

Rating: 18+

Word Count: 35,700~

Two Bodies In The Rain

Synopsis: It was raining the day you finally had to admit your feelings to Helmut. You hated to tell him the way you did, under the grey skies as your blood pooled below you, but at least you knew, in the end, he had seen the real you, even just once. That was enough.

Rating: T

Word Count: 5600~

Rest

Synopsis: Living life on the lam with your escaped super-villain lover means things rarely slow down enough for a real rest. When the exhaustion starts to take its toll on you, though, he knows exactly what to do to ease the pain. He may not be a good man, but he’s a good husband when it counts.

Rating: T

Word Count: 3200~

American Horror Story

Jimmy Darling

Red Nights In Jupiter

Synopsis: At the end of another long day, you fall into bed with Jimmy Darling. The men you served throughout the day don’t matter then, nor do the coins in the mason jar by the door, or the women scheduled to attend Jimmy’s next Tupperware party. No, in that quiet darkness it’s just you and the man you love, bone-tired and happy to be home. Who could ask for more?

Rating: 16+

Word Count: 3000~

James Patrick March

Heartsick

Synopsis: When you fall ill, James is given a forceful awakening about how he’s been neglecting your needs and what he must do to prevent harm from befalling you again.

Rating: 16+

Word Count: 3700~

In Sickness And In Health

Synopsis: Normally people don’t have their wedding and funeral on the same day, but you and James don’t quite have a normal relationship, do you? Besides, you wouldn’t wanna go any other way.

Rating: 18+

Word Count: 5500~

Fallout 4

Currently Empty

Star Wars

Currently Empty

Assorted/Random

Currently Empty

Long Form Works/Series

Young Artist!Zemo AU

Chapter One: The Boy With The Easel

Synopsis: About a month into your first semester at Novi Grad’s top university, you finally meet the strange young man that you’ve taken to calling “easel boy” in the back of a bookshop. From a distance, he always seemed cold and aloof. As you get to know him, though, you realize things aren’t always what they seem.

Rating: T

Word Count: 7000~

Till Forever Falls Apart (A Peter Maximoff/Reader Series)

Chapter One: Welcome Home

Synopsis: As if getting thrown through the multiverse, trapped in an attic (albeit a cool one), mind-controlled to manipulate his grieving sister, and subsequently dragged out of Westview “for his own safety” by the FBI wasn’t enough, Peter Maximoff has now been shipped off to New York to live with a glorified baby sitter like some tragic orphan in a comic book until they find a way to get him back home. Things are not always as they seem, though, and this change might just be for the better.

Rating: T

Word Count: 2400~

Chapter Two: The Doctor Is In

Synopsis: Peter’s first few days in his new home are mostly uneventful, so he decides it’s the perfect time to dust off his running goggles and steal some shit. The building with the massive circular stained glass window seems like a great place to start! People with buildings that lavish are usually rich and weak, so what could possibly go wrong?

Rating: T

Word Count: 2800~

Chapter Three: It’s Always Been You

Synopsis: After a month of adapting to his new universe, Peter Maximoff can confidently say that he likes his new life more than his old one. Sure, he misses home sometimes, but he’s been far too busy flirting with his new roommate to spend time crying over the things he’s lost. Everything is smooth sailing until a strange journal in his roommate’s study leaves him with more questions than he knows what to do with. Now he’s on a mission to discover who he’s really living with before she has the chance to turn against him.

Rating: T

Word Count: 8600~

Chapter Four: Before You Go

Synopsis: Peter, after days of contemplation, has realized that part of him loves Y/N no matter what she is or what she’s been through. Unfortunately, he can’t find her anywhere. When she finally returns home with the intention of leaving again, Peter realizes it’s his last chance to tell her how he really feels. Will he succeed, or will he fail to be fast enough once again?

Rating: T

Word Count: 4000~

Chapter Four And A Half: Gimme Swayze

Synopsis: Now that the issue of Y/N leaving is out of the way, and Peter has finally kissed her, he falls into the motions of learning how to love someone for the first time. It’s easier than he thought it would be.

Rating: T

Word Count; 2600~

Cakes For The Evans: A Blogging And Baking Adventure!

Kai Anderson’s Disaster Cake

Hey you! If you’ve made it this far down the list, thanks for supporting me as an author! I’ll be linking my AO3 here. I post everything there shortly before I post it here, and there are some older fics there you might enjoy along the way! It’s also easier to drop comments over there and I keep them open for non-members, so give me a shout if you liked what I wrote!

I love you all, you make me so happy, and without you support I would never be motivated to write! Cheers!

[hydrachea]

Apparantly Fate Grand Order is finally available in most european play stores since august! You have been playing that game since a while before, do you have some tips for new players?

IT IS INDEED! The NA server has gone global, they extended the number of supported countries - probably because of Google's new payment policy.

I have been playing for two years now, so I can hopefully give you tips to help you get started. As a disclaimer, I don't play other gacha games outside of FGO aside from a few short past experiences, so I'm not too sure how it compares to games like Arknights or Genshin in terms of unit management and such, but I'll do my best. It'll also probably definitely get long, so I'll stuff it under a Read More.

Here goes:

Follow your heart (or dick, or whatever else leads you), not tier lists. FGO is specifically designed so it can be cleared with f2p servants, and every single servant is viable. Source: I have a grailed Demon King Nobunaga, who always ends up at the very bottom of every tier list, and I've wrecked several bosses using her. Tier lists mean nothing, roll for your favorites.

On global, we're two years behind the JP server, meaning you can predict with decent accuracy (minus surprise banners) when you'll be able to roll for your favorite next. Exploit the hell out of this. The r/grandorder subreddit has a lot of useful resources that I encourage you to check out, like an event compendium and a list of upcoming banners for every servant in the game.

I mentioned it already, but low rarity servants (1* to 3*) are worth the investment and should be leveled. I believe low rarity units are often useless in other gacha games and only 4/5/6* (if applicable) units are really used - this isn't the case for FGO, and ignoring low rarities is a mistake a lot of people who are used to other gachas make. This is both because low rarities all have their own niche and use, and because FGO uses a party cost mechanic, meaning you can't have a full party of gold servants.

Similarly, there are no "must roll" servants, no matter how much hype you might see around them. FGO is single player: there's no PVP, no ranking system, and the only way you'll interact with others is through getting help from them by borrowing their servants.

Learn how class advantage works and exploit it. This is what will determine whether you win a fight or lose it, more than the rarity of your servants. It's fairly easy to learn and memorize, and you can check it in several spots on the game UI.

Don't neglect your servants' skills. I did back when I started, because I had no idea what the fuck I was doing, but these can also make or break a fight. Obviously don't stress yourself over them, but take the time to learn what they do.

Prioritize events, and catch up on the story when there's no event you can play. Most of them are only locked behind Fuyuki, the tutorial chapter, or Orléans, the first chapter. Events will reward you with grails, materials, and in some cases an entire free 4* servant, so they're really worth playing! Gamepress has walkthroughs for most of them as well. On that note, those free servants can only be max leveled using special materials that you can only obtain through their event, so make sure to grab these. There will always be 4, and they'll either be mission rewards or in the event shop.

Don't burn your dupes... Immediately. In FGO, duplicate copies of a servant are used to upgrade their noble phantasm, up to NP5 (one base copy and 4 dupes). Once they're NP5, you can start burning the new dupes, but try to avoid doing it before that.

Grail for love. Holy Grails are a rare resource you get for completing chapters or events, and they can be used to raise a servant's level cap up to 100, or up to 120 if you have the necessary servant coins. Because they're rare, it's best to use them on your favorites!

I don't know if it's a common practice in other gachas, but don't reroll. It's a waste of time, and you can make do with your tutorial roll and Friend Points rolls since as I mentioned earlier, lower rarities can and will get you through the game.

Supports can, and will carry you, so make sure to Follow or send Friend requests to other players! Following allows you to use their servants without them needing to do anything, and being friends means they can use yours in return. You have to use a support servant in your party no matter what, so make the most of it!

Set up your own support list, and split it (as in, make a separate set for normal and event support. people really appreciate that). Yes, even if the only servants you can set up for now are the one 4* you got from your tutorial roll, Mash, and a bunch of 1-3*. No, really, it won't annoy people that you have a baby lineup, because you are a baby. You can update it with stronger servants as you roll them.

The sooner you learn how Craft Essences work, the better. They're added bonuses you can equip to each servant in your party, and they also increase their stats (either attack, hp, or both). They can be a huge help in battle if you learn the synergy between them and your servants.

Look things up! FGO is a massive game, it's popular, and it's been running since 2015. There's a huge amount of resources available (though some a bit out of date) and they can help you set your party up for a difficult fight, learn how a specific servant works, and so on. My account is arguably late game by now, and I still regularly look up stuff when I roll a new servant or get stuck on a particularly frustrating boss.

Ask for help! You know the reputation reddit has? Well it's not exactly unwarranted, but the subreddit I mentioned earlier has a weekly help thread where anyone can come and ask for advice, and the people there are really just there to help and do their best to. Or you're free to DM me, turns out I love helping!

That was... A lot, but I think this is all stuff I wish I'd been told when I started myself because the game has a lot going on and it can be very confusing. Most of all though, have fun! And feel free to DM me if you want to send me a friend request, my support list is aimed towards helping new accounts ~

[madillhethen]

AoT/SnK Spoilers for final chapter!!! 

I’ve read AoT since anime debut and I finally finished the manga a week ago (I literally had 5 chapters left, but couldn’t find a source to read it on 💦).

Anyways, I’m not really sure what direction AoT was going. I feel the themes hopped around a lot, though ignoring thematic elements, story wise, the conclusion felt fitting for the series.

Some manga I’ve read and thoroughly enjoyed only to be immensely disappointed at their ends (Pandora Hearts, 07 Ghost…) but AoT I didn’t get that. Maybe because at this point I wasn’t as invested as I used to be or it really blended well. Who knows.

I’m not going to give a thorough review of the series because over the span of 2013 until now, I never compiled anything on my thoughts and I am certain I forgot quite a bit.

I do like the manga—the story itself is interesting. The overarching plots, the characters, the movement, exploring not just a character’s story but the world’s story is what I really loved of AoT. Isayama does this well. From the first few chapters, we’re introduced to Eren, and it follows his journey up until a certain point which frankly, threw me off before. But I realized, AoT is not the story of Eren. It’s the story of humanity—the world, how it changes, and the closures from those changes, how individuals and groups deal with the world’s change, and that’s what I really love of AoT.

I took some screenshots of my favorite panels. Zeke states to Armin in the Path of how everything is meaningless, and Armin’s response is the one above.

“Maybe I was born just so the three of us could race here today.”

I love this. As humans, I think it’s a common concept for us to try and find meaning and purpose in our lives, and that’s fine. Some of us though, get so bogged down when we feel that we have none. And this statement Armin says is great. The simple things in life matters too. We don’t need to always have a great destiny, a plan for the future, maybe just being able to get up and walk outside is what we’re here for. 

The things we love to do, the stuff we take for granted, maybe we’re all here just to do those things? I love this idea. His words shake even Zeke out of this who admits that perhaps yes, it’s meaningless, but still, still he would like to do the things he loved again (playing catch in his case.). 

This reminds me in FGO how Romani tells Mash that life is meaningless, but it is from our lives that we find meaning.

Another part in AoT that really gets me is since the beginning of the timeskip, Eren has had a monotone and villainous nature portrayed and even during Mikasa’s conversation, he gives off a somewhat distant response. But here when he speaks to Armin, we see his true feelings. We see that emotional, impulsive boy we got to know at the beginning. 

And the part that really got me is when Eren confesses that he did all this, killed so many people, became the villain of the world, was to not just bring peace to the world, but to make his friends the heroes of the world. It’s basically a given, we learned this when we saw him talking to the boy and crying. I think what really got to me though, was Armin, understanding this, and then thanking Eren for doing all of it.

It’s a crime. It’s horrible. Eren knows he has to accept the punishment for his crime. Armin understands this too. But the expression of gratitude and understanding of it, is really beautiful. It’s not something I’ve seen in media a lot. We always condemn the villains, regardless of reason but here for once as a final goodbye as a friend, he acknowledges not the act but the rationality and motivation behind the act, and the sacrifice Eren made for all of them.

Overall, I think the ending is fitting. I liked it. It felt a bit rushed but it was a nice conclusion to this story.

[bluepunkmon]

This is all very spur of the moment and scattered and bad but I wanted to get it out of the way before I start working soon soooo

(this is personal and what I personally would enjoy seeing, apologies if it diverges from canon too much)

Now, let’s talk about Guinevere. Can we talk about Guinevere, please? I’ve been dying to talk about Guinevere with you all day, okay.

Ok so Guin, I’ve got lots of thoughts about her. I’ve seen Lots of far interpretations, and they’re all very valid and extremely good, we need more of them.

My grand conclusion walking around one morning was; what if she’s a grumpy cynic?

This came from me thinking about Camelot in general. In most King Arthur media I’ve experienced/seen, the court is always wrapped in a sense of nostalgia. King Arthur’s court was uniquely good, a shining beacon on a hill, and England was worse off for its loss

(I haven’t played past Fate GO’s Camelot chapter bc I’m really stuck and I haven’t read all of fate so idk how off this is w fate, apologies)

A cursory glance at the Fate wiki describes Guin as pretty fucked up over marrying Arturia purely for ideals, and the pressure, and Lancelot, and like, everything

And that’s cool! She goes through a lot of tough shit.

In a few variations of the legend I’ve seen, Guin lives after the fall of Camelot and becomes a nun? Sometimes.

(again, I haven’t played past Fate GO’s Camelot chapter and I haven’t read all of fate so idk how off this is w fate)

 Idk I just think itd be neat if, after however long of being a nun/living in isolation/being away from it all, Guin goes, ‘hey wait what the fuck was all of that’

She’s got a lot of time for self reflection, and it makes some of the sadness (some, she’ll always be sad about what happened), starts to sour. Why did the fall happen? Why did she have to marry Arturia if she didn’t love her? Who put all of the pressure on Arturia and Camelot to be perfect?

She questions more and more, and is really truly, deep to her bones angry

Anger makes her wake up a bit more to what’s going on around her. Camelot just fell, so maybe things are chaotic, maybe they’re sliding back into the warring states Arturia unified, maybe they’re facing opportunistic neighbors pushing their limits now that a major governing body has imploded, Idk, im not an Arthurian scholar

Point is things are messed up and Guin doesn’t ever want to feel as helpless as she as before, so she starts doing stuff. First nursing the wounded who come to them at the nunnery (assuming there were nunneries then that did charity work I am not an Arthurian scholar as I said), but the itch doesn’t go away, and it doesn’t feel like enough

So she leaves, and does more stuff. More medicine, helping to farm, whatever needs to be done. She tells no one about who she was. Less questions that way. Less questioning about random wanderer who knows medicine and farming and goes so far as to defend others by wearing patchwork armor and fighting, because by this point she’s learned to do that too.

She never does this to be a hero. As she reflects more, she realizes that she doesn’t like the very concept of a hero. Camelot is a double-edged memory. It was bad that it fell, and that so many died, but she’s now realizing she was never happy there. The perfect system relied on her fulfilling a role she didn’t want. And, more time goes by, she even pities Arturia, from what little she could see it was a lot of pressure on one person. The perfect system was also built on serfdom, and after more time living alone she realizes that that isn’t all that great either

So shes disenchanted with Camelot, and heroes, and kings, and probably divinity too once she gets around to it.

Gion roves around, helping out when shes asked, laying low when she isn’t, and eventually she dies. Maybe plague, maybe fighting soldiers, maybe when she tries to fistfight whatever god or gods were in charge of camelots fate. Point is she dies, and shes left behind such an impression that some part of her starts to materialize as a heroic spirit. Maybe as a mysterious errant knight (which shed hate wow), maybe as some spirit of the people, idk

But! Guin really, really hates heroes! So much so that she actually subconsciously resists becoming summonable. Hence why she still isn’t in FGO.

If she ever is summoned, somehow, she’ll be summoned as she was living post-Camelot. And it works out, because even when face is uncovered, most wouldn’t immediately look and frowning, scarred, weathered woman and think queen of Camelot

I think shed prefer it like that, and only divulging who she is to others from her time. She’s had decades to grow with what happened, but she still doesn’t really want to get into it again, sooo shes putting that off as long as possible

TL;DR, I made my own version of Guinevere ‘heroes are overrated and so is feudalism’ Pendragon

[c0rpseductor]

Märchen von Friedhof (Avenger)

fgo fanservant info for märchen! i just did this for fun. thanks to @transjinako​ for your help! also thanks to this page for the resources i used to make the card! (the artwork is official sound horizon manga art by torikai yasuyuki and shina soga.)

everything else is under the cut!

Avenger: Eine Märchenbuch der Gebrüder Grimm Avenger: Das Märchen des Lichts & Dunkels [Stage 2+] Alt. Names: Märchen von Friedhof, Mär Traits: Male, Undead, Humanoid, Servant, Weak to Enuma Elish Attribute: Earth

Parameters Strength: E Agility: B Endurance: C Luck: D Mana: A NP: A

History: [Default][Stage 1]  Though the fairy tales themselves, personified by a copy of a book by the Grimm Brothers, are the true Servant, it's unclear who the man - or corpse - who carries it would be. It seems he calls himself by a name that would imply he is part of the tales, but a character of his description does not appear in the book's pages. [Default][Stage 2+]  The fairy tales themselves, personified by a copy of a book, are the true Servant. The book had been a collection of the Grimm brothers' tales, but it seems that was only because it could not remember itself when it was summoned. [Bond 1][All Stages]  Height/Weight: 172cm ・ 49kg    Source: ?    Region: Germany    Alignment: Lawful ・ Evil    It is difficult to discern much about the "man carrying the book." He has an unconcerned attitude and greatly enjoys bitter sarcasm. [Bond 2+][Stage 1]  "Märchen von Friedhof" is the name the "man carrying the book" has given himself. The meaning of the name in German can be translated as "Fairy-tale from the Graveyard." But there's no such fairy tale in this book. [Bond 2+][Stage 2+] The "corpseductor" who carries the volume is its central character, a man who did not exist to many of the maidens in its tales, and, indeed, had his own identity forgotten. As the book is something like his "memoir," the "book" and "man" are the same Servant. It seems he only became someone worthy of becoming a Servant due to the deeds he completed after his death. [Bond 3][Stage 1] There are many tales of petty comeuppance in this book, but nothing that would suggest this Servant's class of "Avenger." The "man carrying the book" only laughs if you question it. [Bond 3][Stage 2+] It seems the true nature of this volume was a dark nature. The seven dead maidens seeking revenge against their seven murderers turned to the "corpseductor" to settle their grudges in blood. The "corpseductor" embodied their wishes and seeks revenge against God and humans for his suffering - a true Avenger. [Bond 4][Stage 1] It's true the "man carrying the book" must have a connection to the stories inside. But if you read them to him, he only says, "that isn't how it happened." [Bond 4][Stage 2+] It seems if you read to the chapter of the "seventh maiden," just before the end, the "corpseductor" meets a woman he knew a long time ago. However, he will shut the cover before you can turn away from the first page of that chapter. It seems to make him unhappy. [Bond 5][Stage 1] It's impossible to learn anything about the "man carrying the book!" He seems too amused by your fruitless efforts. Don't laugh! Perhaps Ascending this Servant will make things clear? [Bond 5][Stage 2+] Reading that "secret" chapter, the truth is that Mär is not a cruel Avenger. [Extra] The final chapter reveals that the "corpseductor" who desired to take revenge on the world only did so because he hated its cruelty. Truly, he wanted the people in those "tales" to live in a "brilliant era" without pain. It was because he could not create that reality that he condemned the world and turned his back on God. Though the Mär within the page gave up on his revenge, when he was summoned as an Avenger into a world that never lost its cruelty, his grudge returned. Thus, the ending of the story only makes him sad.

Noble Phantasm(s): Das Lied des Abenddämmerung Rank: C+ Type: Anti-Mind, Anti-Unit Description: The enemy is trapped in a Reality Marble of Märchen's making. At the heed of his conductor's baton, his illusionary orchestra of the dead creates a song that forces the enemy to relive their cruelest sins against others, damaging their mind and soul with their own guilt and the grudges of those they wronged.

Gotteslästerer Rank: A Type: Anti-Divine, Anti-Self Description: His grudge against the cruel God who allowed his suffering extends to any divine being. The anger Märchen bears becomes a searing flame which burns the divine entity that stands before him, daring to mock his pain and suffering. However, Märchen is also burned by his own hatred, though to a lesser extent than the target.

[dailyarturia]

Instead of just rating servants, what about a rating of the different Fate storylines?

oh now THIS I can do

WHERE IT ALL BEGAN. often called the most boring route which, I guess yeah because it’s the first route of the first game so it ends up being exposition central. it has its moments and it’s not bad per se but it hasn’t aged that well and the rest of the series has caught up with it since it’s not the entry point for new fans anymore so like half the route’s content and plot twists end up being stuff that is already known from other installments. I still think it’d be nice if ufotable made an ova or something just to complete the set, and also because heaven’s feel actually mirrors fate route on a lot of points so I feel the hf movies aren’t going to be at their best if you haven’t gone over fate route beforehand. if you skip over the outdated exposition you can easily fit all of it in ~10 episodes cause it’s pretty short. 6.5/10 if looked at on its own, but its importance as the base on which later routes build can’t be underestimated 

my personal favourite route even tho its heroine is the worst part of it. with fate route getting the exposition out of the way ubw can go at a faster pace and is more action oriented. the shirou-archer and related archer-lancer conflict is one of my favourites in all of fate and “here I come, king of heroes- do you have enough weapons in stock?” is ICONIC. rin got massively gimped as heroine cause nasu didn’t seem to dare actually letting her be flawed and shirou ended up too focused on his own conflict to form like a real bond with her but that’s a horse I beat to death long ago. the examination of what makes a hero is in general one of my fav themes in fate and ubw obviously delivers there but what I especially love in ubw is the theme of “don’t ‘welcome to the real world’ me asshole, the real world shouldn’t be like this”. 9/10 would be a 10 if rin had like, any character development

this one is... so stressful to read, which is GOOD cause that’s the point but that also means my reread is going at a pace of 3 scenes per 4 months. heaven’s feel throws every convention that fate and ubw set up out the goddamn window by immediately killing off like half the cast including powerhouses like gilgamesh and turning an ideological conflict into a really viscerally personal one. the final conflict isn’t a hero versus a world ending calamity, it’s a bunch of traumatised kids with bad blood between them and the rest of the world caught in the crossfire. “the embodiment of all the world’s evils was a victim” is a really powerful statement to make and where fate and ubw only really asked “what makes a hero” hf hammers in the corresponding question of “what makes a villain”. 8.5/10 it’s an incredibly strong thematic ending to the game as a whole but it’s just, not my favourite

jesus christ look what you did, you got me started. here’s a readmore to save your dashboard and rip mobile users cause I got some opinions on fate alright

this one fucking sucks if you look at it on its own it only works if you know fsn follows it otherwise its just DEATH DESPAIR PAIN SUFFERING yeah yeah we get it urobuchi. apparently he was going through a real bad depressive episode when he was asked to write zero and it was really cathartic to him to be able to write it as dark as he wants knowing that he can’t possibly ruin the happy ending of fsn so, I’ll give him that I guess. I thought it was the greatest shit when I first watched it cause uro’s really good at leveraging shock value but the flaws become more obvious with every rewatch. not really my favourite it’s mostly just asshole central and people who stan zero are usually insufferable but it’s got some good shit among the usual uro stuff. 7/10 PROVIDED you look at it in the context of fsn otherwise it’s like, a 5

BIG favourite and origin of my wife for life bazett fraga mcremitz. I read this one at the exact right time in my life to be absolutely destroyed by it. the whole game is based on the premise of ‘a second chance’ so it goes out if its way to go into the characters who got kinda shafted in fsn while also being the canon ‘everyone lives’ au. fsn has always underlined how valuable an ordinary life is that’s why we call it family dinner simulator 2004 but fha really hammers that one in. less outright action than fsn but a really strong and tense atmosphere. 9/10 would be a 10 if it weren’t for the fucking caren scene

basically revisits the themes from zero and stay night from a different angle but the cast is too large to really go into it so its clunky and a lot of characters end up sidelined. still it’s home to a lot of my favs and some of the coolest action in the whole series. I have a lot of apocrypha opinions but most of them boil down to who i want to hold hands with each other and how much I love sieg(fried) so I’ll spare you those. 7/10 thanks to shaky execution but if you take a shovel and make it that deep yourself it easily jumps up to 8 or even 9. don’t watch the anime I’m begging you.

the storyline actually suffers a lot from how linear and rigid the game structure is so its main selling point is hakuno and their bond with each of the 3 playable servants but by god does it deliver there. hakuno is one of my favourite protagonists of all time and it’s all in how they’re not going to take this shit lying down. it’s a game about forging bonds in a system designed to drive people apart and holding stubborn hope for the future. 9.5/10 the half point is as much acknowledgement of the game’s flaws as I am willing to give because we have decided to stan forever

lol what was that about linear structure? its like, super horny on main so it’s a hard sell but it basically turns everything I liked about extra up to 14. fate/extra CCC is a game about reaching out to others, how people are stronger together, how the future can be changed for the better as long as you are alive to see it, forming your own identity in the wake of trauma and learning who you are in relation to others as well as to your own past, healthy love and unhealthy love and recognising the difference between the two, and big fat anime titties. 10/10 i am not fucking kidding you if you can handle the horny CCC will be the best ride of your goddamn life.

look. i don’t want to get started on extella so just take the ratings. 8/10 concept 4/10 execution.

it’s incomprehensible garbage but it’s MY incomprehensible garbage 9/10 and 3/10 simultaneously

now we got some real mixed feelings on this bad boy here so I’ll try to keep it short. basically all the chapters up to and including london were mediocre at best with septem as the absolute peak of garbage. they actually said in interviews that they didn’t make a shift towards heavier story content until between london and america so that makes sense but it painfully shows. america camelot babylon salomon then exponentially increased in quality and were the fucking bomb. epic of remnant was a massively mixed bag thanks to all the guest writers with minimal supervision to buy nasu time to write lostbelt. lostbelt is fun again. the main story nowadays is really good quality because nasu is just doing what he does best and writing incomprehensible lore with a story around it but because of the game’s nature as mobile game that wants to make everyone appealing somehow it misses a lot of the visceral emotion that fsn had. events are often too silly even if they do end on a serious note and there’s not enough actual serious story content to balance it out so everyone kinda suffers from character erosion and I’m not sure if there’s an easy way to fix that, cause sure you can say ‘make nasu supervise it more’ but nasu’s always writing like 5 different things at once and he can’t really Do That. I think ultimately fgo has been good for fate as a whole in the story department and I also think a different direction/feel from earlier stuff isn’t bad in itself but the scale at which fgo works does seem like it’s beyond what nasu and co really expected to ever have to handle and so while the amount of successes has increased, the amount of failures has also become more glaring. 5/10 on the first few chapters, 8/10 on the later half of arc one and onwards, ???/10 overall, oh fate how I wish I could quit you (i don’t wish that i’m having a good time)

no

[spidersmiceandeverythingnice]

Gonna write my scatterbrained Spicy Hot Takes on Agartha before the news is stale and I delete this annoying and boring chapter from my mental landscape, so bear with me:

I think Agartha’s main issue was just straight up poor writing. The Japanese direct translations being as downright offensive as they were is one thing - but overall, the chapter is just one plot contrivance after another. It tries so, so hard to go for a certain tone but can’t seem to stick to any one thing or idea. Disregarding themes about sexuality probably would have been the very best way to go about this chapter, since I think the most interesting part was the theme about storytelling and in-authenticity - we all know that That Line was annoying af in a game like FGO, but it CAN work in a series like Fate as a whole. I had a helluva long day at work so allow me to explain in the least scatter-brained way I can manage right now:

Here’s what I’m thinking: Scheherazade, whose name I guarantee I will spell wrong/differently every time I write it even though I’ve been able to pronounce it properly since I was thirteen (I was in a speaking competition and told some of the Thousand and One Nights using her framework as the opening monologue, long story short ANYWAY -) is traumatized by her ordeal with the king. This is a really good and interesting thing to explore! Fitting it in with the theme of storytelling - Scheherazade is deeply afraid of dying and will do whatever it takes to live, so she makes a fantasy world and fills it with legends, and feeds their energy to a Holy Grail. With this, and the power of a Demon God at her side, she plans to reveal magic to the human world in the most destructive fashion possible, allowing the fantastic to become ordinary, and destroying the Throne of Heroes itself in the process. Fate is a series were stories have power - but Scheherazade survived basically by telling the most fantastical, interesting tales she could and never finishing them. She always would pause in the middle, and say, “That’s all for tonight.” I think this is the kind of thing we can run with in terms of setting.

Dahut is the weirdest example because it’s the one story in the chapter that I know next to nothing about. At one point it’s mentioned that Dahut is impossible to summon as a Servant, and so Drake was “forced” into the role of the Pirate Princess. Ys is probably the weakest part of the chapter for that, but I did like the idea of her being “Drake Alter,” where Drake vibrantly pursues her goals and desires but takes nothing for granted; Dahut gives into her every whim and takes absolutely everything for granted. The conflict between “Drake” and “Dahut” should have been emphasized more instead of having the player/Da Vinci dismiss her as “Oh, it’s not Drake, except when she conveniently comes back to delivery us the MacGuffins Ex Machina in the eleventh hour.” Dahut has little connection to Drake - it’s not her story, but a role she was forced into because Scheherazade was building a very specific kind of world. Therefore it is inauthentic. Perhaps that’s all it needs to be in this context. 

This can also work with the Amazons. Scheherazade never told stories of the Amazons, but she has access to basically all stories in the world through her Noble Phantasm - she learns that they are a society of warrior women who live without men, and so decides that they will be a society which oppresses men due to her fear/bitterness towards men after the ordeal she suffered through. The “oppressing men” plotline was honestly dumb all around but using the Amazons as a mechanism to explore Scheherazade's trauma would’ve been more interesting than just having them be the Big Bad before the Big Bad Columbus Reveal: Scheherazade doesn’t like fighting, but wishes that she had been strong enough to protect herself. Because she views herself as a coward and her ordeal with the king has complicated her view of sexuality - “I’m better suited to a bedchamber than a battlefield” - she uses the Amazons of Agartha as a mechanism to cope. 

This brings us to Wu, whose design I’m still not happy about even though I think the in-story justification is somewhat fair. (Let Helena and Wu be gray-haired grannies together or so help me!) Wu was absolutely an authoritarian ruler who did, in fact, invade and conquer several nations and institute a terrifying network of secret police. In her later life, she was given to decadence - but her tenure on the throne showed her to be a highly competent administrator. Notably, she ruled over an era of religious tension and balanced matters quite well, and though she was accused of undoing meritocracy to put her supporters into power, many of the men she appointed held positions in government long after she’d died because they were actually good at their jobs. Wu has been heavily mythologized over the years - later Tang emperors and Neo-Confucian scholars wrote her off (Wu founded her own dynasty under her own name, so they kind of had to legitimize it somehow), she became associated the nine-tailed fox spirit thanks to a few popular novels and poems, etc., etc., etc. The crazy thing is that Wu actually left very few records of herself behind, apart from some poems. Even the inscription on her tomb is blank! People can say whatever they want about her - it’s extremely difficult to know the full truth of the matter without any objective observers in the field (and without Wu’s own words to give context/another story), especially if you don’t read any Chinese. 

BTW - the first thing I learned history class is that when you’re dealing with primary sources, you must always remember that translators have agendas. Every word is a deliberate choice, and it changes the meaning from the original text. When dealing with historical documents, this is not always a good thing. 

Scheherazade reads some, but not all of these stories, and integrates Wu into her world as the sadist empress with an iron grip on her decadent mythical city. 

Do you see what I’m getting at here? It’s a lot, but I’m not done. Now we have to deal with Columbus - there’s “In Defense of Columbus” video is floating around in the Agartha tag, but I haven’t watched it in full and haven’t done like, any intensive research on Columbus in particular, so I’m going to apologize right now for any historical inaccuracies/misconceptions that I’m about to write. The point I want to make here mainly is that Columbus, like Wu, has been heavily, heavily mythologized for both good and evil at various points. The thing about Columbus that is also interesting is that the authenticity of his journals is or was apparently a subject of debate. The man who published most of them actually happened to be Bartolomew de las Casas - one of the founders/first vocal supporters of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. The reason de la Casas supported this is because he believed that using African labor would be an improvement over enslaving the native populations of the New World. Soon after, he had a change of heart and devoted the rest of his life to fighting against slavery in all forms. De la Casas went on to be named a saint, and was possibly the first person in history to propose the idea of universal human rights - which is how I had heard of him until literally just this afternoon; I had no idea he’d ever supported the slave trade until I was looking up basic info about Columbus’s writings so I could write this long-ass post. History is full of complicated people. 

But as I mentioned in Wu’s bit, it’s very important to note that in many ways, Columbus is literally just whatever people decide he is. Like, he never even set foot in any land that would become the United States, and yet he’s a huge symbol here! Along these lines, his amnesia would fit the theme of inauthentic storytelling, choosing what to read and what to believe in. Columbus regaining his memories was an understated moment, which is actually fucking fantastic because it could be used to really emphasize the choice that is being made here. He’s a Heroic Spirit who can choose to be whatever he wants. He can choose to be the simple hero-explorer that schoolchildren sing about, or he can choose to be the Big Bad, the first and perhaps most infamous conquistador. And he chooses to be the bad guy. That is so fuckin’ fantastic, y’all! I honest to God love that not only did FGO portray Columbus as a villain of history but that the bad reputation is something he chooses to maintain! I can write a list of Servants who were less than stellar people and got a makeover for Fate. Nero is probably one of the worst examples but like - Ozymandias absolutely owned slaves in his life as a pharaoh. Hercules and Medea murdered their own children. Asterios literally ate humans as the Minotaur. Gilles de Rais exists as a playable character. Jack the Ripper is your daughter. Hell, Nobunaga burned temples with the monks still inside - but she feels bad about it now! Enough digressing but I a hundred percent get why Japanese fans found Columbus “refreshing” at his introduction. He owns his cruelty, his desire to exploit others - he challenges the narrative that everyone is redeemable because he doesn’t even want to be redeemed, he just wants to get rich and famous, and he doesn’t give a shit who he steps over in the process! Like, Columbus said, “I’m just doing what comes naturally,” at one point when he still had amnesia, so when he got his memory back and turned on the player, I really would’ve liked for him to say is something like, “You’ve already decided that I’m the bad guy, right? You know my story, and I’m nothing if not a man of my word.”

These kinds of questions/debates could have been used to emphasize the themes of Agartha. Legends are what people decide they are. People make choices and history decides whether they were good or evil or important retroactively. Can you know what someone is like by reading a translation of their poetry? Can you judge a king’s reign by the words of their successors or their rivals? Does the context of a story matter? This all could have been super interesting to explore!

Like I said, the main theme of Agartha being “inauthentic storytelling” could have been hella, hella good considering that this is a world created by Scheherazade’s fears and trauma feeding into her escapist desires. But Minase’s incompetence as a writer made everything so hamfisted and awkward that everything just suffered under his desire to insert his fetishes at every moment. It was so obvious that he didn’t read any material for old Fate characters - like Astolfo you poor sweet thing, you deserved so much better! - and even the new characters that he clearly did research on, like Columbus, fell flat because he couldn’t figure out what he was trying to say beyond mildly-to-extra offensive sex jokes.

[bainhardt]

Anyway, here is my collection of thin books (dunno why I get a kick out of calling them that). I finally stored them properly in comic bags with back boards, the works. Because it’s so funny to me that the rules on tumblr actually allow drawn nudity unless it depicts sex or a couple other arbitrary things, I’m gonna talk about some of them here and show as many covers as I can. No one gives a fuck about tumblr anymore anyway, so why not?

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Well, to begin with, these first three aren’t even porn. These ones are a non-H original manga I translated into english, 肉食JKマンティス秋山 / Carnivorous High School Mantis Akiyama. Unfortunately I haven’t translated everything in these books, as they contain exclusive content that was never posted online. I’m proud to own them, though, and it continues my mostly-consistent record of buying the manga I translate. It doesn’t hurt that I’ve always been such an avid collector, but it just feels right to pick up copies of the manga I enjoy enough to try to share with others.

Up next, some dicks. These are actually two of only maybe three or four books I own with hard dicks on the covers, and I happened to buy both of them in person at Anime Boston 2019 while attending with my friends. Turns out new regulations in place meant none of the vendors were allowed to give out bags, so I was stuck carrying these around loud and proud the whole day, lol. Good times. Back then I hadn’t even learned how easily (and not cheaply) I could order books online through a vendor service, so this was the first time I’d ever bought thin books in my life, and it was a lot of fun hunting for familiar treasures hidden among the boxes of comics.

The one on the left, 保健室のJKさん 2 / Hokenshitsu no JK-san 2, is actually the only crossdressing book I own, which is kind of a shame. Most of my favorite stories I’ve read in that genre are either original magazine chapters or anthology works that usually end up in larger compilation books, so finding thin books about crossdressing worth buying is a little rare. When you add that this was at a convention and most of the genres sorting the books were much more “mainstream,” I feel lucky I even found this one at all.

Speaking of mainstream, would you believe futa stuff is more popular than crossdressing? I hope your answer is yes, because it was certainly true at AB. But as far as the book on the right is concerned, I felt like Indiana Jones discovering an ancient artifact straight out of mythology, because it’s from 2009. ふたちゃん キャラクターブック / Futa-chan Character Book is one of five legendary books released by OZONE / Marumiya / Uno Makoto (idk why this one artist has so many names but they do) before dropping off the face of the earth in 2012. Finding it at an American con in 2019 was a miraculous twist of fate, and I knew instantly I had to snatch it up before anyone else could. It’s not even one of their better books, but it was still worth picking up for the history. Books like this had a large part in broadening my horizons when I was younger, if ya know what I mean. Their work is like a celebration of everything great about dicks, balls, and cum.

Moving on, I ended up with a lot more FGO books than I’d have expected considering I don’t even like the game (and this isn’t all of them, but some of their covers push the limits of what I can reasonably post). At least with porn you don’t need to know the story or really anything at all about the characters, and Fate has a lot of hot character designs, so why not let it fly. My favorite two characters I probably focused on a little too heavily are Shuten Douji and Wu Zetian, so almost every book I bought features them. And I can imagine what everyone’s thinking, but what, I can’t appreciate a small girl with a pompous attitude? I love cow tits and milfs as much as the next person, but I’m not gonna leave shorter, flatter girls out just because some artists take that as an excuse to lolify them (kinda like the partially obscured one at the top).

Speaking of, let’s start there for titles: なまいき!!メスガキ温泉 / Namaiki!! Mesugaki Onsen was a must-buy for having both Wu and Shuten in one book, even though it kind of overdoes the loli angle with the art (I got the artist’s preceding solo Wu book, ふやあな / Fuyaana, too). Next is the top row, ふーやーしんどろーむ / Fuya Syndrome and AssAssIN. Again, two Wu books, although AssAssIn has some Shuten thrown in for good measure, and it’s nothing but the two of them getting fucked in the ass from start to finish. That one’s pretty great, actually... The sequel, AssAssIN+M, focuses less on Wu and doesn’t even have Shuten, so I didn’t end up buying it.

Bottom row are two books from the Chaldea Mania series, カルデアマニア・鬼&魔 / Chaldea Mania - Oni & Devil and カルデアマニア・トリオブラウン / Chaldea Mania - Trio Brown. In most of the books I buy, I don’t really care who’s fucking who or why, but these ones are particularly nice for having the girls grow dicks and fuck each other, so it’s nothing but familiar faces. And speaking of familiar faces, they’re drawn by Hirame / Bear Hand, an artist immediately familiar to anyone who’s spent two seconds on the degenerate side of the internet. The Shuten one has Ibaraki and BB in there as well, and the Trio Brown one is exactly the three ladies seen on the cover. Both fantastic books, which I highly recommend.

And hell, hardly feels like I got going running my mouth but I guess I gotta call it here. I can’t show most of the other books because their covers are more explicit, not to mention they span many different flavors of degeneracy I don’t feel like getting into, lol.

Collecting thin books is really fun, and I’ll undoubtedly end up buying more in the future. I was talking to my brother about it, but plenty of people spend a lot of money commissioning artists or, hell, if you wanna go really highball with it, some people collect actual works of art. So for me, I like to think of owning doujinshi as collecting art combined with my existing hobby of collecting manga. I got carried away and bought more than enough for 2020 though, so I’m probably gonna force myself to hold off for a good while.

[recentanimenews]

Anime NYC 2019, Day One

A very busy start to Anime NYC this year. First of all, the line management seemed to be much better this year, though I do wish they’d let people into panel rooms before the actual start of the panel. The first panel I attended was the Shonen Jump panel, with the creators of Dr. Stone as guests. Since I can’t make tomorrow’s much larger Dr. Stone panel, I thought this would be a good choice.

They started off with some giveaways, notably to those with good costumes. We then got some Shonen Jump announcements. Most of the new titles had already been announced at NYCC, but they did have some new things to promote. Naruto is 20 this year, and Hisashi Sasaki talks about how exciting they thought the original proposal was, and that green-lighting it was a no-brainer.

Jujutsu Kaisen is out soon, and there were early copies of the manga at the exhibit hall. They also announced that the suddenly super duper popular Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba will be getting a speeedup to catch up with Japan faster – monthly releases starting in the spring. They’re also adding chapters to the “Shonen Jump Vault” for members.

Speaking of that vault, there was a passel of digital-only license announcements, all rattled off at the speed of sound. Robot x Laserbeam, Red Sprite, Love Rush!, Hi-Fi Cluster, Yui Kamui Lets Loose (from the Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan creator), The Last Saiyuki, Ne0;lation, Hell Warden Higuma, and Stealth Symphony (from the Baccano! writer). Most of these are 2-3 volume series from the last four years or so of Jump, and they would not otherwise get releases here. It’s nice to see them.

Also mentioned, and previously revealed at NYCC, were the new Bleach, One Piece and Naruto light novels.

After that we got Riichiro Inagaki and Boichi, the creators of Dr. Stone, as well as their editor Honda-san. Riichiro seemed very extroverted, and tried out some English on us. Boichi was more soft-spoken and quiet. Most of he questions came from the Viz team, rather than the audience, which I felt worked very well.

When the editor wanted to team up Inagaki with an artist (he had previously written Eyeshield 21 as well), Boichi naturally came to mind. Inagaki starts with the storyboards, which he calls scribbles but Boichi says are quite detailed. (There was a lot of “you’re the best – no, you are” during the panel, which was very fun.) Both also insisted they had the easiest job.

They were both very interested in science as kids, with Boichi saying he did a high school physics competition. He noted Arthur C. Clarke as an influence. They also discussed favorite scientists, including (inevitably) Einstein, but also Newton, Dawkins, Hawking, Carl Sagan (singled out by Boichi for making science “warm”), as well as the Japanese scientist who discovered Gibberellin, the seedless grape chemical (who is also the grandfather of Inagaki’s wife!).

Honda was asked what the Japanese editor does, and explained it was a lot of support and logistics – tries to make things possible for the creators. They were asked, given the location of the con, if Senku and company would make it to New York, and it was pointed out they would need a very good reason. Pizza? Could be a good reason.

Boichi was also asked about his very detailed art, and discussed how backgrounds and real-life detailed things take a lot of time due to the research, while characters took him less time. Boichi then stunned the room by stating that it took him one to one and a half hours to finish a page. For those playing along at home, that’s VERY fast. Even with three assistants, all apparently excellent artists.

Inagaki was asked how this differs from Eyeshield 21’s writing, and he said that, being a sports manga, he was far more beholden to rules and regulations with Eyeshield – here he can go wild a lot more. The Dr. Stone characters don’t have special powers like a lot of Jump characters, so he has to rely on science – it needs to strike a balanced tone between scientifically valid and fun. (When asked if Eyeshield 21 and Dr. Stone were in the same universe, the answer was a big NO.)

Boichi was asked about Dr. Stone’s memorable “gag faces”. Again, Boichi states they all are drawn up in the storyboards, and he just touches them up – while Inagaki insists his art is horrible compared to Boichi’s. Favorite character to draw? Kohaku, not just in terms of gag faces but all faces. He jokingly says “I don’t care about Senku.”

Asked whether anime will be invented by Senku, “not with the level of tech they currently have” seems to be the answer. Back to Honda, who notes how much fun editing is, mostly as he gets to read everything first. Indeed, with the finished chapter, he reads it before Inagaki! They then talked about the process for the new spinoff, which Boichi is both writing and drawing. Boichi also talked about using the old French-Canadian film Quest for Fire as a reference for the prehistoric landscapes.

Both creators seemed happy to be there, and were very receptive to the American fans.

The next panel was Denpa, who had as special guest TAa, the artist behind Today’s Menu with the Emiya Family. But first we had panel announcements, which included some stuff they’d announced at the previous Anime NYC – this year has been a “learning experience” for Ed and Jacob, but the schedule seems to be firming up now. They did have a copy of the Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji omnibus, which looks highly impressive.

Much discussion of titles out already or out in the next few months followed, including “Fate/Stay for Dinner” and Heavenly Delusion, which had an animated promo. The Girl with the Fierce Eyes also appeals to me, and it will be interesting to look at Shino Can’t Say Her Name and see if it can avoid getting as dark as Flowers of Evil or Happiness.

After mentioning they were close to launching a new website, we did get some new licenses. Baby Bar’s Bakery (a tentative title) is from Shogakukan, and is about a baby bear that also happens to be a master baker. It’s sweet and cuddly, and really big in Japan, collaborating with sweet shops and stores.

Fate/Go Chaldea Scrapbook is another Fate license, a one-volume manga from Kadokawa. It seems to be amusing takes of the FGO franchise – I spotted Mysterious Heroine X among the heroines in the art.

The big license, at least in my opinion, was L’il Leo. This Moto Hagio title from Flower Comics is about a kitten who grows up with a child and then decides that it too can go to school, get a job etc. It’s one volume, and apparently plays to Hagio’s strengths at bending the concept of what is human.

Lastly, we got The Men Who Created Gundam a two-volume series being released as one omnibus here. Part biography, part comedy, this series from Hideki Owada will tell the story of Gundam as it’s never been told before.

After this we had a few minutes to meet TAa, who will also have a livedraw session tomorrow. She talked about how happy she was to walk around New York and admire the buildings, and how stunned she was at the huge poster for her work in the exhibit hall. When asked if American Fate fans were different from Japanese ones, she notes that “all Fate fans are lively”.

After walking about the Exhibit Hall a bit, my final panel for the evening was “?! vs !? – The Great Debate”. Here Zack Davisson and Erica Friedman debated each other on important issues such as Honorifics, romanization, translation notes, localization, and regional accents. The panel was quite fun, mostly as Zack and Erica were mock-attacking each other all the time.

The audience also seemed to be having fun, though when scanlation came up it got a bit grumpy. Needless to say, both Zack and Erica are very pro-official release and anti-scanlation, and almost all the audience quesitons at the end were about that, with most of them being variations on “yes, but this is an exception, so I have to keep reading scanlations”. It did not go over well. Despite that, it was a highly enjoyable panel. Oh yes, and ?! and !? are meant to convey two completely different things. Apparently. Also, when Zack argued that shounen is pronounced “ooo”, when it should be ‘oh’, my first thought was of Seanan McGuire, and I wondered what Seanan Jump would be like.

This was a busy day, but tomorrow is even busier. Hopefully I will be able to give you a lot of news – the lines may be murder.

By: Sean Gaffney