#if he does ...... then he's definitely in the fgo fandom then

[banqanas]

I think its impossible for the 中の人 themselves to go to events like comiket or comitia but there's online events now 🤔🤔 sekai san can definitely publish his own doujin even without revealing himself............

Sekai said before (dont remember where but this story circulates among fantaro) that he wants to make a doujinshi and publish it with sawanatsu (??? why)

i want them to invite kazuma in their circle. Kazuma definitely draws fanart of Lupus. He's a self insert artist too i know. I can feel it in my heart.

Pls make a BOT doujinshi onegaishimasu 🙏

[hasarjunadoneanythingwrong]

heaven's feel is definitely one of nasu's best works, and yeah i don't like it when people dismiss sakushirou as "traumatized damsel in distress who needs to be rescued by the male hero" bc like first of all, just because it has a trope doesn't automatically make it bad. then there's the other fact that shirou saves anyone anyway, regardless of whether they are a romantic interest to him or not. the reason he's able to choose sakura over saving the rest of the world is that he does truly love her, and he rejects his entire self for that. he sacrificed his whole identity for her. also, i think it's very important to mention that (heaven's feel spoilers i guess since you said you haven't played/watched it feel free to not read this part or delete the ask), ultimately shirou isn't the one who breaks through to sakura. rin is. it's her sisterly love that gets sakura to snap out of it. shirou only comes in after to finish the job.

i think also, yeah while nasu uses the trope of "traumatized woman turns evil" a lot, i think, more important than anything, is that they (almost) always overcome their trauma and get happy endings. fsn and CCC are not fate zero. they're not misery porn. not that i'm fully defending nasu here bc he's still very sexist but. yeah

You can spoil me tbh I already spoiled myself before I even entered the fate fandom proper

yeah and that’s exactly the reason I think heavens feel specifically works as well as it does- it ISNT ‘boy rescues girl’ so much as it is a combination of both shirou actually abandoning the ideals that drove him in the previous two routes AND rin finally coming forwards and reuniting with the sister she lost. Ubw was shirou doubling down on his dream despite archer telling him it would fuck him up, but in heaven’s feel he willingly lets go to help one person that he cares for. That’s one of the reasons it’s at the end of the game-it’s a culmination of all three of their arcs as characters.

But more importantly there’s a large focus on the fact Sakura and Rin are sisters, and that’s the final thing that actually ‘saves’ her. Sakura’s torment started when she was removed from her real family so it only makes sense to have it end and her healing begin by her real family reach out to her again. Shirou is really only an accessory to Rin helping Sakura (and it doesn’t come out of nowhere as he was a close friend/her closest friend for several years)

From what I’ve heard heavens feel is less about ‘man saving crazy woman’ so much as it is ‘two people who very dearly love someone who is in pain reach out and help her.’ The major issue is when they try to reuse a concept like dark Sakura and her general deal in something like fgo, but they only have one event, no shirou OR Rin, and she’s been given to a writer who isn’t….known….for their delicacy or basic human decency

it’s the hot evil woman with none of the background and none of the supporting cast that made the original work the way it did, and it certainly doesn’t have the same resolution.

[beafocal]

Would love to hear about fgo’s David, Merlin and Romani for the character bingo!

oh boy oh boy rubs hands together

putting a cut here tho because Lonk

Okay so for all of the below, please take into account that there’s not an option for “they got done dirty by at least one writer” so I’ve subbed the ‘done dirty by fans’ square in

I don’t dip my toes too too deep so could not speak to fandom done-dirtiness or not.

so: David.

he’s got an incredible design and his position in Oceania was gr8 especially because you can taste the crisis coming off Romani at high speed but like... where is he. where has he gone. like there’s so much room there to use David and we’re just... not?

like I know we have a giantass cast of characters and people gonna do what they want, but I really feel like given his, uh, familial relations, David should have gotten a lot more air time.

also mmm. hm. doesn’t feel great that he gets reduced to the surface-level characterization of Business Man Wants Money a lot of the time when he shows up in side shit. I love that he and Sheba get along but I kind of hate this reason.

It’s twice as annoying because there’s some really choice stuff floating around in his interludes, like the one about building temples. There’s so much potential that’s just like... not only not used, but then winds up being a disappointment half the time after all.

Okay now to talk about Romani a bit.

...your honor, I love him. also the whole arc about like, being human. that’s great. he’s a sweetheart.

Wasted potential is a question mark because I straight do not know what is happening. I’m current to NA and I know some scattered bits about the future, but not enough to know whatever the fuck. 

I appreciate that his presence always stays felt. I just want more. This may be bias because he’s one of my faves -- it may be that the themes of tragedy and martyrdom and because it was you, this never could have happened differently are more FGO’s speed. given how heroes and kings are treated in many Fate narratives, this is probably a thing. it’s just not what I personally want out of the narrative right now, because the world is a Lot right now and I want my faves to experience happiness. ( “Makari go read something else” “yeah but... my blorbo is in this one” etc. I know. I make these choices myself.)

Also there’s definitely some interludes where he comes off as just, Stock Womanizing Anime Man and I have so much trouble reconciling those as anything other than early-story rockiness and/or ‘a different writer than usual went briefly apeshit’. Are there ways he’s fucked up? 100%. but those don’t feel like they’re the natural ways inherent in his character and are tbh not interesting to me.

Okay so Merlin:

...Yeah.

Anyway I’ve been going “hey where’s Merlin” for approximately five lost belts now (I know. I know where he’s about to be. THIS I know.)

This is a man I looked at and went “i’ll take that one.” He made such a point of telling everyone he couldn’t feel things and we shouldn’t expect him to care like humans do that I have no choice but to assume he’s a, lying, and b, an incredibly bad liar. Who does that. If you don’t care, you don’t care if people get attached to you, because you don’t care.

So every approach I take to Merlin is heavily rooted in “actually this man cares so much, especially about Artoria, but he’s not human and has spent 1500 years repressing anything that’s more emotional than a dick joke”.

though on that note god damn but the ‘awful bastard dick wizard’ running ... thing does kind of get old after a while. even if it’s true. y’know?

[thefinalcinderella]

Honestly the more I think about it, ep 5 was kind of a letdown (warning: long ass paragraphs, this is all just my personal opinion)

I still enjoy this game a lot but there’s some questionable writing decisions which I’m not entirely sure are intentional or not

A lot of this is due to the fact that there were so many unexplained delays

It has more chapters than any other ep so far, but a lot of it feels very pointless (did the middle part need to be all about touring the the festival?) and even though it's supposed to be the pom chapter, i still don't really feel like we don’t really get all that close to them, particularly rook and vil to a lesser extent. Even Epel’s relevance kinda disappears from the story after the middle part. Compare this to ep 1 which has 28 chapters and 5 main characters yet you get a good sense of who they all are and they have tangible roles to play. Part of this is due to the fact that there are more characters that are getting involved with each ep. I know people always go on about how twst is not an otome game to explain why mc has weak presence/influence but considering they're our only way to directly interact with the characters i think they should be utilized more

It also feels like a lot of points that were brought up before and during the ep that were never addressed. E.g. the dwarf mine monster (actual dwarfs show up in the ep so why was there no mention of it?), the fact that Pomefiore is the oldest dorm, Kalim mentioning that he enrolled in nrc late, Jamil hearing our conversation with Kalim, Epel being a poison apple, and so on. I don't want to think the writers forgot but...

Also this is sort of a personal opinion but I don't really like the fact that we're supposed to be on Vil's side? Like personally I myself don't really care about beauty, I think everyone has their own standards of beauty and that sometimes I just wanna look like a swamp witch lol. There's a lot of talk about social media influencers and body image and how it has a negative effect on self esteem and such, and I thought maybe we'd get a moral where we'd tell Vil that “hey you don't have to be so hard on yourself and base your self worth on what other people say.” Now obviously this isn't going to solve Vil's issues since he's a child actor and it's sort of engrained in him at this point due to the nature of the industry, but solving deep personal issues isn't the point of twst anyways, it's more about making a breakthrough I guess? I think it should be addressed that just because Vil puts a high standard on himself it doesn’t mean others have to follow it? And that the high standards themselves might not be something that should be met especially if they’re created to please other people (”please” might be the wrong word for Vil but I hope you get what I mean)

Like don't get me wrong I think it's cool that the game makes a good point about how striving to be beautiful isn't limited to one gender and that it's also strength and Epel's definitely working through some issues with toxic masculinity and his own self image, but on the other hand why should he go along with an ideal . I don't really like it when someone arbitrarily imposes their own will on others with no one questioning it, even if they do have good points. Guess I just feel there should be at least a small revelation similar to Epel's on Vil's part.

And now for the infamous ending... I personally expected rsa to win and I thought Rook being an idol otaku was pretty funny and it does fit with Rook’s M.O for him to do what he did, but the way it played out was really...it leaves a bad taste in your mouth. I’ve seen some twitter posts speculating that the light element characters like Rook and Neige were meant to be portrayed as insensitive and callous since it’s a story from the villains’ point of view and what not, but I’ve also seen other posts speculating that it might be Yana Toboso’s bias to make the “good” characters look bad to make the “villain” characters more sympathetic. Kalim in ep 4 also inspired similar reaction but I think people sided with him more at that time. Now I don’t want to assume anything and I really hope that isn’t the case, but that kind of thing just invites controversy, which the fandom has a lot of already

Now this is all before we really understand what the game “Twisted Wonderland” is really about. The fact that there’s an unsatisfied feeling after each episode ends seems to be intentional considering the nature of the game. Maybe there will be some big revelation later in game that will make all of this seem silly and everything will make sense. Most games have these kinds of growing pains when starting out (FGO Rome anyone?) and writing for a mobile game is different than writing for a manga or novel, so hopefully the staff can learn something from this and maybe be more transparent about the game’s development. I’m sure this will all be forgotten by the time ep 6 or a new event comes, but until then...I’m going to be just a little disappointed.

[tainbocuailnge]

this is probably a bit of a ridiculous question but like. as much as from a fandom understanding i understand guda and monte christos relationship is close, where did it come from? i love monte christo but i have no idea where his love comes from either and it's smthn ive always wondered and never been able to find a good answer to...

that’s not ridiculous don’t worry. a lot of fgo story content originates in events so the longer we go the further that info gets buried, it’s kind of a problem.

it started in prison tower which is the event where dantes officially debuted (though he had a cameo in the kara no kyoukai collab event before). goetia had employed dantes (summoned as a literal shadow of himself in order to be goetia’s tool) to imprison guda to stop them from meddling with the incineration of humanity. in response dantes had set up the apartment complex of knk event to be a black hole of grudges to simultaneously trap guda and forcibly jog his own memory of being the count of monte cristo by recreating an environment similar to chateau d’if, and while it fails to imprison guda it does succeed at letting dantes pull the demon pillar out of his brain. 

for prison tower they up the ante by drawing your soul into the nightmare chateau d’if where dantes’ own soul is still imprisoned, with dantes as your prison guard because by definition “there is only one person who has ever escaped chateau d’if” and as long as dantes is there that person cannot be guda. dantes, with his memories restored after knk event, knows full well what it means for an innocent person to be cast into this hell however, so rather than immediately take his chance to repeat his escape through abbe faria’s death and finally free himself at the low cost of a stranger’s life he instead decides to test your resolve first, and step over your corpse if he finds you lacking. 

over the span of a week you basically speedrun dantes’ own 14 years of imprisonment by facing off against avatars of humanity’s deepest ugliness, but you overcome each of them in turn and remain steadfast through it all. dantes considers himself doomed beyond salvation because of the way his existence as servant is twisted by public perception into “a man who forever burns with revenge” instead of “a man who was saved from being consumed by vengeance”, but even so you show him it is possible to overcome this hell without being twisted. you grant him the chance to save someone rather than just avenge them. by the end of the event he tells you to fight and kill him so that he is pushed into the role of abbe faria and you can escape the prison tower in his stead. 

tldr; dantes is madly in love with you because you showed him hope where he thought there was none and he’s going to hold on to that hope with everything he’s got

[gunnerpalace]

Sorry to burst your bubble sweet heart but Bleach just got bought by Aniplex which means any new project will probably get a new studio/staff/TV Station. Guess there are people in Japan who gives shit about bleach despite the delusional claims from IR fandom .WDKALY was a best seller and so were the LN that came later on so I'm not surprised that we are getting an anime season after all ;).

Sure is interesting how none of y’all can cite or reference any actual industry information that’s actually in, you know, Japanese, and all of this keeps going back to a handful of random-ass English tweets. I mostly follow Star Wars production drama for fun, but at least the “Fandom Menace” on YouTube actually gets leaks from inside Lucasfilm and Disney.

You have what, exactly, MY UNCLE AT NINTENDO TOLD ME…? Yeah, but y’all have totally got it all figured it out way ahead of the “Lamestream Media,” right?

Here is an actual video on the subject created within the last day. Here is the industry news article it links to. Here is an actual quote from that article:

The staff for the AnimeJapan 2020 event announced on Monday that the event will host a stage presentation titled “Bleach 20th Anniversary Project & Tite Kubo New Work Presentation” on March 21.

What Tite Kubo is working on isn’t Bleach. It literally says “New Work.” As to what that Anniversary Project is? Who knows. You’ve literally got a splash image to work off of. That’s the grand total of what’s on the website. And every year, like clockwork, the Western fandom screams “It’s the anime coming back!” and every year, like clockwork, it doesn’t happen. But sure, maybe this time is different.

Maybe. But probably not.

I’ll tell you what is definitely bullshit though: your claim that "Aniplex bought Bleach.” According to whom? You got a source for that, cupcake? Beyond Jaymes Hanson’s fuckin’ Twitter account and fanboys, that is? 

It’s hilarious because the sum of Aniplex’s involvement with Bleach was distributing DVDs and music CDs.The major rights holders and producers of Bleach were TV Tokyo, Dentsu and Studio Pierrot, so Aniplex would’ve had to have bought out all three for a property it was barely involved with (and someone else already pointed this out on Twitter). Here’s what Aniplex has actually been up to (note that they are most often credited as “production” and “music production” on Bleach). Here is Aniplex’s actual website on Bleach, where the last news entry is from 2012. 

Interesting how there is nothing at all on either about them say, buying dead franchises and restarting them. Which is intriguing, because they did set up a Chinese studio, but it’s focused on properties that actually make money and aren’t financial suicide like FGO. (If any entity has actually been aggressive about trying to monetize Bleach in the past few years, it’s Viz Media.)

Like I implied above, literally the only source for this shit on the entire internet is Jaymes Hanson’s Twitter and the assorted toadies in his echo chamber who regurgitate the shit he says without thinking. Gee, I wonder what possible interest he might have in stirring the pot every single year about the anime coming back. It’s almost like he’s in dire straits after his YouTube channel got hacked and he’s desperate for attention or something.

So yeah, THE SUPER SECRET BLEACH ANIME RETURN THAT ONLY A RANDOM WESTERN WEEABOO AND NOT ANYONE IN THE ACTUAL INDUSTRY KNOWS ABOUT is definitely, 100%, absolutely and totally happening. I’m sure Jaymes found out about it while Naruto-running around Area 51, where Aniplex is animating and recording it in cooperation with the Grays and the Illuminati, to be distributed by FEMA and the Trilateral Commission.

You know what else is bullshit? Your assertion that WDKALY sold well. Here’s the light novel rankings from December 25, 2016 and from January 7, 2017. WDKALY came in at 14th with 9,176 unit sales in the former and 6th with 8,627 unit sales in the latter. Hey, 6th isn’t so bad, right? Look over at total unit sales. 36,366. A week later, as of January 15th, 2017, WDKALY had fallen back to 13th and sold a total of 41,654 copies, gaining 5,288 more. A week after that, as of January 22nd, 2017, WDKALY had completely fallen off the chart. So it was on the chart for 3 weeks.

Something like 50,000 copies of this book were sold on release, which is when the majority of sales happen. Try looking at 1st on January 7, 2017, which was the light novel of Kimi no Na wa with 1,350,349 sales. Suddenly, 50,000 copies doesn’t look very impressive, does it? In terms of total volume, WDKALY sold for fucking dogshit (because it is dogshit).

“Best seller,” huh? Interesting description! By that metric, I really am a Hugo Award winner and Time’s Person of the Year 2006.

So, in my capacity as a Hugo Award winner and Time’s Person of the Year 2006, allow me to summarize: you’re a fucking clown who’s about as informed on this topic as the average Midwestern Trump voter is about… well, anything. Kindly take this as an invitation to fuck right off out of my inbox.

[unwiltingblossom]

Sigurd and Brynhildr are really the most stark and obvious illustration of the difference in the way Fate/Grand Order handles male fanservice and female fanservice, and how they deal with their male and female audience. Until we get Nefertari, or maybe someone like Actually Fate Shirou, they’re probably going to be the best comparison there is with the least wiggle room of ‘but there’s this’. They’re a couple who were released with a large gap of time between them (unlike Ryouma and Oryou or even Aster/Euryale Teach/Drake), and so exist as their own characters. It’s not a case of unrequited or uneven love, and neither had a harem.

Anyway. Sigurd and Bryn. Let’s talk about how they differ. (there are pictures)

Bryn is an unimportant bonus character introduced early in FGO for a special download campaign because she was popular in a different Fate work. She had very little presence in the early game, and only one rate up for two years. Sigurd is a significant character from one chapter in part 2, and for at least a year I think he’s only had just one rate up. Both of their designs are meant to be fanservice and cool.

This is Bryn’s FA -

This is the famous Valkyrie warrior, cursed to kill who she loves. She’s wearing a Japanese school girl outfit and armor that conveniently shows off her breasts, short skirt, thighs, long neck and one of her shoulders. She’s also in heels. Her ascensions are fairly weak, as this was an early game character, so they just put the armor on her that you see here. She’s posing in an alluring and girly way, blushing at the viewer, as the camera is angled upward to look at her goods.

This is Sigurd, the warrior king/prince’s final ascension. He’s in full mecha armor, with only his face exposed. He’s standing sturdily, looking cool and with his weapons at the ready, prepared for battle. The camera is from above, so that you won’t see much below his shoulders, almost completely obscuring his chest and abs, even  covered by armor as they are. His ascension path - despite being new - is similarly boring, starting with a full fask mask to top off his armor, then showing off his glasses, then finally ending up like this, maskless. The tone and mood of this is completely the opposite of Bryn’s tranquil scene.

Their valentines and white day CEs are deliberately similar, so I’ll show those, too.

Brynhildr’s frozen chocolate (not meant to be eaten)

Sigurd’s return gift (meant to be worn)

As you can see, they are intentionally meant to be similar. Their bond CEs are also intentionally referencing each other, as Brynhildr’s is named after him, and Sigurd’s is named after her valentine’s CE. Thus, the ways that they’re different are deliberate and significant.

Right out from the gate, we can see that Brynhildr is designed to look feminine and sexy. Her final art is clearly geared toward making her appealing to waifu. Sigurd is designed to look cool. There’s no sex appeal in his design or in his final art. The only part of him that is designed to make a husband lover swoon is that he wears glasses and is voiced by a person who usually voices heart throb characters.

But it goes deeper.

Their My Room lines differ significantly.

As you talk with Brynhildr, she’ll mention that she is intentionally avoiding falling for anyone, because if she loves them, she’s cursed to be driven to try to kill them. As you build bond with her, she inevitably fails to resist Guda, and ends up in love by the end, now determined to hold herself off from harming this person she loves.

As you talk with Sigurd, he’ll mention that he doesn’t believe there’s any room for even friendship between master and servant. He’s cold and abrupt. As  you build bond with him, he’ll slowly warm up and realize that despite himself he’s become friends and then very tightly attached to the master - to the point where he’ll compromise his own sense of morality and look the other way if necessary. Love, however, is not mentioned at all.

When Sigurd debuted, he debuted with a line for Brynhildr, and she was given a line for him. Sigurd’s line is him saying that he will prove his everlasting love for Brynhildr. Brynhildr mentions how long it’s been without him, and waffles about whether or not she can now continue to be the master’s servant, but ultimately decides that no matter what, she’ll never hurt the master.

S: “ Brynhildr, is it... She tries to prove her love with that murderous impulse. That makes me happy, but, unfortunately, I will be unable to prove the love I feel towards her if I die. I must survive and also let that love be proven. A difficult thing to accomplish, don't you think... “

B: “Oh, finally ... That person finally came here ... ... .... I understand ...... I just can not understand it. Master, I would like to be your servant if possible. But, if, if ... .... No, nothing. No matter what, Sigurd or I will not hurt you.”

As you can see: just in these lines, Brynhildr’s line is still directly romantic toward Sigurd, but also keeps the master in the situation. And this is worth noting, because a common argument could be ‘oh, Brynhildr  was early on, they didn’t know what they were doing, so of course she was made waifu’. Her line for Sigurd is modern (not counting other stuff she appears in), and it remains in the same tone as she’s always had. Sigurd’s is nothing but gushing love for Bryinhildr.

Let’s talk briefly about their roles so far in the story, now.

Bryn’s first *story* appearance is in LB2, same as Sigurd. However, before that she appeared in a few other events, most significantly JAlter’s event. This is relevant, because in this story Brynhildr is yandere dedicated to JAlter, fostering JAlter/Bryn yuri in fandom for years. In this event, it’s not ‘technically’ Brynhildr who loves JAlter, but a copy of her. She appears in other limited capacities after this point, but they’re not that significant.

Sigurd’s is similar. When he appears in LB2, he’s romantically attached in a yandere level to Ophelia (not important who this is, it’s a girl). Technically, it’s not him, as he’s actually possessed by another being while he’s behaving this way. However, unlike Bryn, who remains yandere for JAlter all event long until she dies, Sigurd is able to escape this and has a romantic time with Brynhildr, which people who like Sigurd x Bryn will be happy to go into detail talking about, as it gets plenty of focus.

Now, finally, their Valentines scenes. The scenes are generally accepted to be at least some level of fanservice between the master and the chosen servant. It may be romantic, sexual, platonic, or familial, but the relationship is still the focus of it.

Brynhildr’s scene is from the original round of valentines, so her scene is shorter than later scenes, and it’s straightforward. She says that she wants to express her love for the master, and so in the process of expressing her love for her hero, the master, she created glasses that looked similar to the ones Sigurd wears. She determines that the glasses will definitely suit the master (the chocolate is not meant to be eaten, it’s magically frozen), because the master is her hero, much like Sigurd was. She does mention that Sigurd is the person ‘she loved’, but it’s clear her feelings for the master are both separate and also romantic.

Sigurd’s scene just got released this round. It’s a nice, thoughtful gift where Sigurd gives the master special glasses that will protect the master’s eyes from strain, damage from light, or attacks by beasts or enemies less powerful than servants. And they’re stylish. However, it’s strictly a friendship gesture, as aside from the master getting flustered by him leaning in close to compute the proper measurements for the glasses, there’s not any kind of flirtation or indication of any kind of romantic or sexual feelings for the master. And even worse, one of the times that Sigurd blushes is not when Guda gives him chocolate - he considers that a matter of course - but when he mentions Brynhildr. How does he mention her? By hinting that they did something romantic or sexual for valentines day.

Yeah, that’s right. During a white day/valentine’s scene with Sigurd, the only romantic context involved is hinting that Sigurd did the nasty with someone else that day.This is the same problem that Paracelsus and Saber Diarmuid have (and what Arthur had, until they retconned it as a half-hearted attempt to make up for having nothing for White Day last year), where instead of talking about themselves or the master during their bond lines, they talk about someone else. Except it’s even worse, because at least bond lines can be excused with the idea that sharing thoughts about an important person can be a sign of closeness (though these lines really don’t work like that). Valentines/White Day has only one purpose. It’s fluff fanservice. The only reason for including Bryn is to say that  the reason people like Sigurd is for his relationship with Brynhildr.

Now, remember that between these two, Brynhildr is the one who is more hung up on Sigurd in lore. She’s cursed to kill all who she loves due to her misery over killing Sigurd, who she loved. She’s further cursed to try to kill Sigurd because of this, making her character naturally Sigurd-focused. Sigurd, on the other hand, died because he was unfaithful to Brynhildr (in a passive way, but it still amounts to this) and has no associated fixations or curses with this. He’s just a normal person. If anyone should be leaking their love for the other into everything and hard-blocking romance with the master or anyone else, it should be Brynhildr, not Sigurd.

Just a quick note - yes, Brynhildr’s master used a command seal on her to get her to believe her enemies were Sigurd so that she’d kill them, but Rin used a command seal to prevent Archer from harming Shirou, too. Command Seals don’t stay in effect when they’ve been summoned again by a different master in a different timeline. The closest that we have is that she’s drawn to love heroic figures, and because of her love for them she hearkens it back to Sigurd. It’s not a berserker Kiyohime or Phantom thing  (which is another kind of unpleasant comparison to make) where they think the master is someone that the master isn’t. The master merely reminds Bryn of Sigurd *because* she loves them, she doesn’t love them because they remind her of Sigurd.

So.

That was rather lengthy, but I wanted to go over all the differences, because on their own, people like to try to pick it apart and downplay it. It’s worth noting that in Bryn’s bond CE it’s more about her love for Sigurd and in Sigurd’s bond CE there’s some indication of romance/sexual behavior with the master, but this is the only time it’s swapped like that.

The evidence here should speak for itself. Short of Nefertari debuting and being into the master, we probably wouldn’t get any more direct and obvious an illustration of how FGO deals with female players vs male ones than this. In this, we see that the female side of the romance has two separate existences - one in the main story where she realizes her romantic subplot with Sigurd, and one in the side story stuff/my room fanservice lines where she’s into the master. It’s not treated as weird or inappropriate to waifu her or for her to have romantic interests in people other than Sigurd despite her love for him being so important to her character and lore.

In the male side, Sigurd only exists to be romanced with Brynhildr. He has a nice little friendship built up with the master, but his story is all about his romance with Brynhildr, his design and FA is actively avoiding having him made up as a husband/swooning material, and even his valentine only has romantic fanservice for Sigurd/Bryn. If you’re not into Sigurd/Brynhildr, you’ve still got plenty to get from Brynhildr, but you’re SoL with Sigurd. This extends into fandom, as you’ll find plenty of Bryn/JAlter yuri and a good amount of Bryn/Guda art and material, but if you look for anything with Sigurd other than Bryn (or sometimes Ophelia, related to him being possessed), there just isn’t any. And don’t even hope to find Sigurd/Guda stuff, because there’s nothing.

And this is just how it is. That’s why Saber Diarmuid pointlessly has his lines all cluttered with talk about Artoria for no reason - when he hates her by the end of F/Z - but Semiramis barely speaks about Amakusa and instead flirts with the master. There’s the odd outlier like the Prince of Lanling who is super dere for the master and Tomoe who friendzones the master, but for the most part, the women are almost entirely designed with the explicit intent of making them moe, waifu-able, and romanceable. The men...aren’t.

And this double standard is pretty vexing, as someone who is more interested in swoonable husbands than moe waifu.

If you somehow don’t believe me about all this, just wait for Nefertari and Haydee to debut. If they’re summonable, wait for their blushing my room lines and valentines scenes where they acknowledge their feelings for Dantes/Ozy, but confess anyway. And if they’re not, well...even Nobukatsu experiences this compared to Nobunaga (Nobunaga having a mostly naked FA, romantic content for the master, and a full fanservice alt character, and Nobukatsu again having 100% of his character entirely based on being moe toward Nobunaga, with zero room for the master in that).

[cyl2-moved]

alright so i didn’t really agree with what tier lists were saying about certain fgo servants so i made my own one ! you’re welcome to disagree, of course, but this is what i think should make up the fgo five star tier list

S: makes any team better, 100% desirable, meta breaking

A: well built and capable of carrying a team

B: good team addition and plays well/good for one specific purpose

C: ok tier, they’re just fine tbh, deservant of 5 star status but on thin ice

D: straight up should’ve been a 4 star

EX: servants that i’ve heard of only in legend

*note: this is for the na server as of january 2019, i could honestly give less of a shit about jp

**note: berserkers gain a bit of fluidity because their one purpose is to kill and any zerk that can do that is good (< that’s all zerks btw)

***note: all 5 stars are worth levelling up, they’re all really good. don’t burn them please

****note: i don’t claim to know everything about fgo, this list isn’t the gospel

S TIER:

MERLIN (caster): ok y’all saw this one coming but basically merlin is fucking amazing. he can really fit on any team set up he wants to and he’s a prime example of what a good caster should be. i don’t think i need to explain this entry. moving on.

JEANNE D’ARC ALTER (avenger): jalter is probably the best buster based servant you can summon in the na server right now and was a complete powerhouse until merlin showed up. if you want a reliable servant that can do just about anything without fail i suggest her if you ever get lucky enough to summon her

FIRST HASSAN (assassin): normally gramps isn’t listed with these two, but if you’ve ever used him chances are you can atleast somewhat see where i’m coming from here. this man is a BEAST, his singularity track record should be proof of that (y’know, because he stole the show in a whole ass two of them). he can’t fit into any team like the first two but he can destroy like nobody’s fucking business. summon him if you get the chance

A TIER:

MIYAMOTO MUSASHI (saber): musashi is a saber focused in single target buster damage, and her skills and np allow her to go above with this focus. at the moment i’d say she’s probably the best saber available because her np, skills, and deck match so well. \

NERO BRIDE (saber): i forgot her and i’m only just now adding her in so whoops but basically she’s one of the only arts sabers that’s actually good and has a good and spammable np.

GILGAMESH (archer): he’s an anti army buster focus who has a noble phantasm that only six servants in the game so far aren’t weak to. he’s kind of a lancer pincushion but just don’t send him out into battles with lancers. there you go.

ISHTAR (archer): ishtar doesn’t have the same np effect as gil but other than that she’s a fairly good replacement for him, not to mention she has a slightly higher hp value than him

BRYNHILDR (lancer): brynhildr would probably be lower on this list if it weren’t for her sparse availability and trait that affects most male and some female servants in the game. she’s probably the best lancer in the game because of those two reasons, but all lancers are safe bets tbh

OZYMANDIAS (rider): ozymandias is amazing at spamming buster cards and has a particularly great np, great for boss battles. also he’s hot

QUETZALCOATL (rider): basically the same as ozy here except with a more specifically buster deck. also she’s hot

ZHUGE LIANG (caster): a lot of people categorize him with merlin and to those people i have to ask: have you ever played this game? waver comes close, but don’t act like people didn’t throw him to the side the exact moment merlin came out. open your eyes you absolute fools

XUANZANG SANZANG (caster): this one has a twinge of personal bias but seeing as she’s a caster but has the highest atk of all of my servants atm. also she’s hot, but she’s one of the only casters in the game right now that’s somewhat buster based and can make a buster brave chain which her np (which is kinda rare for casters). she can fit into really any team composition without too much issue and has a rather high survivability rate

JACK THE RIPPER (assassin): contrary to brynhildr, jack got higher on this list almost specifically because of her availability. she’s a really good assassin that’s rather easy to get (well, considering she’s a five star). the one bane i can think of is that she’s not very team compatible, but she’ll do just fine regardless. get her going with quick chains and she will absolutely obliterate

CU CHULAINN ALTER (berserker): just wanna start out by saying he’s still one of the most powerful berserkers in the jp server. AND he’s easily available. do i really fucking have to say anything else? (protection from arrows lol)

MINAMOTO NO RAIKOU (berserker): mom’s deck is set up a bit differently from other berserkers’, having more arts and quick card than most of them. does that stop her from utterly obliterating everything in her path? nope, not at all, in fact, it only helps. her quick and arts card charge her buster np, which is a wave clear that RAINS crit stars, that only help her kill more later. conclusion: she’s an absolute goddess

JEANNE D’ARC (ruler): jeanne d’arc only really made it to this part of the list because you can get her really easily and she’s absolutely amazing on arts stall teams. as well and good as this is, though, she only really reaches her good points in her final ascension and is kind of hard to use before this. i wouldn’t suggest using her if you’re a starter player, heads up

B TIER:

OKITA SOUJI (saber): okita was placed lower on this list than i’d like her to be but because of her quick based status i kinda had to. there’s going to be a lot of this going on especially later in the list, but quick servants don’t see the light of day until skadi comes around, which is going to be mid 2020 for us na players unless fgo gets destroyed before then. the only servant that really got away with the quick niche was jack because she’s self sustaining if she needs to be, but okita’s deck doesn’t really let her do that. despite this, okita’s still amazing, and i highly suggest rolling for her

ARTORIA ARCHER (archer): summer artoria serves as an amazing arts archer that does wonders with her single target arts np that brings up her np gauge up almost immediately after it’s done, meaning you can spam her np whenever. she’s pretty great for arts team and not very versatile elsewhere, but you’re in for a treat when you use her

SCATHACH (lancer): OF COURSE scathach was going to be fairly high on this list, she’s one of the best lancers to date. her quick deck brought her down a bit here, but she’s a reliable servant that can fit into any team composition with little issue and has a powerful np. what else could you want

ARTORIA LANCER (lancer): honestly lartoria is high on the list for flexing and little else, but she serves as a powerful buster servant that has a pretty good wave clear np. the rest of the reason she’s up here is personal bias and i’m not scared to admit that, also she’s on a horse

TAMAMO LANCER (lancer): lanmamo is a kinda surprising servant tbh, she doubles in buster and quick and does amazing in both and has an especially high hp stat, something i wouldn’t expect from a quick/buster decked servant. honestly, you really can’t go wrong with summer servants tbh, they’re all really good

QUEEN MEDB (rider): i’m SICK of people shitting on medb. she’s fucking great. she’s a buster main that’s a crit star sponge and has a fairly good single target np. bring her into a caster boss battle and she will fuck the life out of the opponent, i guarantee it

TAMAMO NO MAE (caster): mikon is an amazing caster who sadly doesn’t really hold up to those in the higher tiers, but has skills that work great for any team and is practically the god of any arts stall team you ever might think of making. also she’s hot

LEONARDO DA VINCI (caster): da vinci doesn’t really hold up to tamamo, but i still think she deserves a spot in this tier. she has a pretty varied deck that can fit in with really any team and has a pretty powerful wave clear np. she’s a great caster, no doubt, but in a point in time when this game is practically dominated by merlin, she really doesn’t hold up as much as the others

CLEOPATRA (assassin): cleo is an exceptionally good buster based assassin with an anti army np which is really effective. she makes for a fairly good farming servant and can hold out for a while in boss battles as well

SAKATA KINTOKI (berserker): sakata has gotten strangely a bad rep from the fandom but is overhyped by the game, which is weird to me, but whatever. he’s probably the most powerful berserker atk wise, but can only really survive for three turns before dying no matter what you do. as far as servants go, he’s not as good as the game hypes him up to be and he’s not as bad as the fanbase makes him out to be.

AMAKUSA SHIROU (ruler): amakusa really only got up here because he’s one of the only four extra class five stars in the game right now, and as a servant he’s okay. he’d be a lot worse if he were a normal unit that had a class disadvantage that was common, but since he’s practically untouchable as a ruler he gets a spot up here

C TIER:

ARTORIA (saber): artoria has a rather bad reputation among tier lists because of her basic deck, basic np, shit skills … but her blandness only makes her increasingly compatible with other team setups. you can really stick her anywhere and she’ll do fine, and if she’s set up right she can become a really good servant. y’all are just lazy and mean

MORDRED (saber): mordred got kind of the same treatment as her dad but with more buster and slightly better skills, so if this tier list had a lot more specific tiers mordred would probably be above her. however, this isn’t, i’m too lazy for that. mordred is really just a slightly more atk based artoria

ARJUNA (archer): arjuna’s good, no doubt, but his competition out of the five star archer pool is hard to match up with. he’s definitely the best archer in the story mode gacha, but as an arts archer that can’t spam his np as artoria archer, he’s a bit dead in the water

ORION (archer): orion has the same problems as arjuna but with an added fuck you because of that extra quick card. if you have her i hope you have fun beating the absolute shit out of gawain

KARNA (lancer): karna’s an amazing buster servant, but the lancer pool is just really fucking good. he excels in buster but got that quick fuck you just like orion. i don’t really have much to say tbh, he’s good

ENKIDU (lancer): enkidu excels in quicks and didn’t pussy out like orion and karna, and if this were the non-merlin era he’d be higher on this list. sadly, since arts is dominating, he’ll have to wait a bit, but soon ...

FRANCIS DRAKE (rider): i really like francis, i do, but compared to the other riders she’s really just a farming servant. she can be a good main rider if you really want her to be but her np is almost made for farming. her np is the exact example of a farming np. next

ILLYA VON EINZBERN (caster): news flash but she’s not really as good as everyone hyped her up to be. she has a bit of a confusing deck (why does she have one buster card but a buster np!?!) and no clear niche so like … is her fame only because of that anime she’s in or what. chloe’s better

SHUTEN DOUJI (assassin): shuten has an arts based deck that doesn’t really fit her as an assassin and doesn’t have a very powerful np but otherwise is a good and reliable servant. She can just about survive anything and has been the cause of many of my clutches. thanks shuten

VLAD III (berserker): vlad excels in arts teams and is an amazing arts unit, but he would’ve shined if he was released later. because he was the first five star berserker released and non limited (unlike sakata) he defied a standard for berserkers before berserker standards were even set, and it didn’t come out well

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE (berserker): florence honestly would’ve been better if she wasn’t released at the same time as cu alter, who’s a goddamn beast, and if her concept wasn’t so mismatched. her deck and skillset is kinda weirdly put together and doesn’t flow as well as raikou’s. she’s wasted potential, really.

D TIER:

ALTERA (saber): honestly i think people hype up altera too much, she’s good but could easily be replaced by a four star imo. at her best she’s just an artoria remake sorry

NIKOLA TESLA (archer): his deck and skill set and np are fine? he just really doesn’t have a proper use. he fits into any team but in a way in which that team has to kinda carry him and he’s ugly. that’s all

MYSTERIOUS HEROINE X (assassin): mhx is a good assassin, especially since there are only a few you can really choose from, but she’s more of a trophy than anything. it’s cool to have her, and again, she’s fine, but she doesn’t really match up to the other assassins in the game, especially jack, who’s more easily accessible and self sufficient. also it doesn’t make sense why she’s an assassin if she’s a saber killer (just be an archer!!!!) but w/e

EDMOND DANTES (avenger): let me explain first. please. ok, so edmond is good by most standards, especially because he’s an extra class which means he’s basically untouchable by most everyone except for bb when she rears her ugly head in may. but what sucks about him is that he was released as sort of a avengers test before jalter? idk how to really explain it, but he’s significantly worse than jalter because they wanted to see how an avenger would hold up. not only does he not hold up to the only servant in his class by a long shot, he has the quick curse and looks exactly the fuck like komaeda. he really took that l

EX TIER:

RYOUJI SHIKI (saber): fgo seems to really like her but the fanbase seems to think she;s ok at best but i’ve never seen her ever in supports in my nine months of playing this game. does she even really exist? idk. her character desc says you’re likely to never see her and i’m starting to think that’s true

ISKANDER (rider): alright i KNOW you exist and everyone loves you but i’ve never seen you either. what the ufck. where are you

anyways that’s it this took way longer than it should’ve i’m going to bed

[hasarjunadoneanythingwrong]

I will say Karnas character info where it says Arjuna murders Karna in cold blood makes me taste blood every time. It just absolves Karna of EVERYTHING that lead up to his death whdhhdjsj (also I do like Karna. He is bond 10 and grailed to 100. I’m critical of him especially in regard to the fandom and how they treat Arjuna)

YEAH I definitely agree it’s like I do love karna as well but seeing how blatantly he’s favored over arjuna in terms of how fgo treats him is like…this isn’t it chief. Like karna is a great guy and a great character but he has also done some incredibly messed up shit, the difference did that he died first in a way that was considered dishonorable but. like. Depending on the text he was also armed at the time and also like it was a WAR ppl are going to do fucked up things it wasn’t like he was just minding his business and arjuna cain instincted him they were enemies on opposite sides who were in a one on one battle like… it happens. It’s good to criticize the bad things people do but if we’re going to call arjuna out on that then we better do the same for artoria stabbing mordred and morgan doing all that bs and literally anything shuten did except oh, wait, they’re cute girls so it’s ok??? Like dude. Bro. Cmon.

Also karna does respect arjuna…like one of the reasons he wanted to have a proper battle with Siegfried so badly was bc he reminded him of arjuna- he also outright says arjuna is better at being a hero than him. He may be a annoying older brother but if ur a bitch to arjuna he’s not going to like you and that’s just the facts that’s why he came to my Chaldea on the same roll as arjuna he had to make sure I’d treat arjuna right -_-