#up there with shinjuku salter

[xbuster]

YEAH!! It’s cool!!!!!!!

[whoneedsapublisher]

Asking For a Favour

The penultimate @nasuversepromptweeks Nasuverse Femslash Week fic. This time it's Salter x Jalter, because, holy shit, I still can't believe this bit in Shinjuku is real.

Anyway, not explicit, but some sexual situations. Prompt was "fake dating/wedding".

Words: ~1100

Summary: Jalter finds herself stuck between a rock and a hard place. Either she has to suffer through a truly insufferable fate… or ask someone for help that she really doesn't want to.

Also on Ao3

*************************

“I need a favour.”

Jeanne D’Arc Alter. A dark side that didn’t exist, a fantasy of resentment and revenge dreamed up by a distraught follower who wished on a grail that his idol shared the bitterness he felt. The Dragon Witch. The Devil of Orleans. The Anti-Saint.

Or, as she was referred to by Ritsuka, “Jalter”. A slightly infuriating portmanteau, but one that she had to admit, was somewhat alluring in its distinctiveness. It was definitely better than putting “Jeanne” in her name directly.

And today, Jalter found herself asking for a favour from someone who she very much didn’t want to owe a favour to.

Artoria Pendragon Alter. Unlike Jalter, she was a true dark side. A corruption of Artoria Pendragon by the evils of the grail, but one that reflected a truth of Artoria. The crystallisation of her devotion to duty over emotion, that added “morals” to the pile of things she’d sacrificed in pursuit of being an ideal king. A hero would others would never call by that name, but one who, like any hero, defeated her enemies and claimed victories for her nation. A cruel manifestation of the tyrant that her people had shaped her into and come to fear at the end of her reign.

Ritsuka called her “Salter”, which, frankly, Jalter thought sounded like a bizarre name for a salt shaker more than a dark king of knights, but it seemed to have stuck nonetheless.

“No.”

Salter didn’t even look up from her book as she flatly rejected Jalter.

“Wha- you haven’t even heard what I was going to ask!” Jalter snapped.

“I don’t care,” Salter said. “Why should I do you any favours?”

Jalter grit her teeth.

“Look,” she said. “You know that the other me is getting married to that ditzy french princess, right?”

“Yes,” Salter said. Of course she knew. How could she have missed it, with how much of a big deal was being made of it? It was all over Chaldea. Apparently Da Vinci had programmed a chapel in the simulator just for this occasion. 

“Master is making me go to the wedding,” Jalter said. “And I am not going alone.”

“You won’t be alone. There’s plenty of other people going.”

Ugh. That was true too. All sorts of servants were being appointed flower girls or bridesmaids or whatever. 

“That isn’t what I meant,” Jalter said.

“So get to what you do mean and stop beating around the bush,” Salter said, finally looking up from her book. “Since apparently you still haven’t learned to take no for an answer.”

“I mean that if I go there single, my other self is going to be unbearable. Being all sympathetic and encouraging me to find someone and all that crap. I’m not putting up with it.”

“Unfortunately, you don’t have any choice. Stop yowling like a wet kitten and deal with it.”

“I do have a choice. Ask someone to pretend to my girlfriend, so Jeanne will leave me alone.”

Salter stared contemptuously at her.

“As usual, you haven’t thought this out at all,” she said. “You can’t possibly expect me to go along with this. I don’t get a single thing out of it.”

Jalter grimaced. This was the part of the conversation she’d hoped she might be able to weasel out of…

“Look,” she said. “You only have to pretend for like, one day. Once the wedding is over, I don’t have to give the other me a chance to lecture me about my love life, so you can say you broke up with me or whatever.”

“I don’t care. I still don’t have any reason to do it.”

“Ahh, jeez, fine! I’ll do anything you ask, okay?!”

Salter paused, a dangerous looking smile on her face.

“Anything?” she said.

Jalter sighed.

“Anything,” she grumbled.

*************************

“What the hell is this?”

Jalter held up the strip of fabric that she’d been handed skeptically.

She’d followed Salter back to her room, and then Salter had left for a short while and returned with a small box.

“It’s a costume,” Salter said, handing her a hairband. A hairband with… cat ears? “The castle shut-in made it. Now put it on and beg me to help you.”

“What?” Jalter growled.

“I said, put on the costume and beg. On your knees.” Salter smirked. ”If you can’t, that’s fine with me. I just won’t go along with your little farce.”

Jatler ground her teeth, her fists clenched 

“Fine!” she snapped. “I’ll do it. But at least look the other way while I’m changing.”

“No deal,” Salter said, sitting down in an armchair and crossing her arms. “You don’t have any bargaining power here, dragon witch.”

Jalter ground her teeth hard enough that Salter could probably hear it, but she started to angrily pull her clothes off. “Fine!” she snapped. “Be that way, you stupid pervert!”

It wasn’t a big deal. She was just changing, that was all. Just like any other time changing. She was not doing a striptease for Salter.

Getting naked was humiliating enough. But somehow, putting the costume on after was actually even worse. It barely covered anything, and there was even a damn tail attached to the bottom… she was going to incinerate Osakabehime after this.

“Now beg,” Salter said, one leg crossed over the other as she rested the side of her head on a fist. Every inch the demanding king. Ugh.

“H-Help me out, please…” she mumbled.

“On your knees, little kitten,” Salter said. “And speak clearly.”

Ugh.

Jalter slowly lowered herself to her knees, bowing her head.

“Will you please help me already, you goddamn ice queen?”.

“Is that how they ask for a favour out in the sticks of France?” Salter said. “Please, try to translate your request to proper English manners for me, provincial maid of Orleans.”

Jalter growled.

“Look me in the eye and ask nicely.”

Jalter forced herself to look up at Salter. Towering over her, every inch a king on her throne. Jalter could practically see the crown on her head.

“...Please help me, king of knights,” she managed.

“There, you can do it if you try,” Salter said.

Jalter was utterly humiliated, and absolutely infuriated. 

And also kind of really turned on, which just made her more angry.

“Fine, I’ll help you,” Salter said. “You can leave now.”

“...Right,” Jalter mumbled.

Salter raised an eyebrow.

“What?” she said.

“Nothing!” Jalter said quickly.

Salter smirked. A smirk that said she could see right through Jalter.

“You could leave now,” Salter said, reaching down and gently cupping Jalter’s chin in her hand. “Or… I could start early on pretending to be your girlfriend.”

Jalter grit her teeth.

“Can I at least take the stupid costume off?” she said.

“Leave the ears on,” Salter said.

“God damn you.”

[lunarlagomorph]

Decided to rank the fgo arcs from most to least favorite

Atlantis - pretty much every character firing on all cylinders. Charlotte and Mandricardo are some od my favorite accompanying servants, and i did really enjoy the relatjonshio between artemis and orion. Ir also just established a really interesting setting lore wise, and added a lot to type-moon lore in general with the olypmians. Also caenis and goredolfs scene was one of my favorites ever.

India - most interesting settibg imo, and i love jinako and laskhimi and the skyboulder. This would be first place but i felt kind of disappointed how they both got over being in the skyboulder within like five seconds. Also pepe is best crypter.

Shinjuku - jalter x salter. Need i say more.

Olympus - this is pretty much like atlantis except it made me want to rip my hair out. Fuck you demeter fucj you demeter fuck you demeter. The gods are great though. And mushashi and caenis gave incredible chemistry.

Salem - great story up ubtil the end. It felt like it kind of flopped on the whole reveal vut i liked how different it felt from every previous (and future) singularity.

Russia - this gets a slightly unfair bonus bcuz im including the prologue with it. Anastasia and kadoc were a great pair of villains, and even if the allied servants were only okay, patxi was one of the best non-servant npcs. Ivan was dissapointingly boring though and even though kirei was present he didnt show up too much.

Shimousa - musashiii. One of my favorite fgo characters. This obe might be higher but i had gotten burnt out on fgo in the middle of it which kind of lessened my enjoyment

SIN - qin shi huang is a very interesting villain, and we got the first true ancestor on forever. Who was inlove with an ancient robot. Other than that there wasnt much going on though.

Camelot - first actually good arc. Love the hassans and its the first time that anything actually felt threatening. I also do like the additional pwrspective it adds onto fate route, in a way.

Babylonia - this ones story was pretty boring but all the characters were top notch. It was kind of just like a fun ttrpg campaign.

Heian-kyo - just kind of a disapointing end for douman. It also felt like auch a fake out because i was ready for a cool grail war and instead it just wasnt one. Best part was the onis.

America - cu alter

Scandinavia - it was juat so boring and uninteresting. Ophelia was the only thing i cared about. And sintonai i guess but she wasnt even in it. Its still betrer than the eaely singularities though

London - better than the bad singularities worse than everything else. Mordred is there at least.

Okeanos - i like orion.

Orleans - no duh its down here. It isnt even jeanne alters best arc despite being her intro.

I didnt read agartha and rome so i didnt put them on but theyd be down here anyways from what i can tell

[writerofchub]

I'm thinking about making a Proto Arthur Alter for Shinjuku. Salter's already a junk food lover, and appearantly Arthur's corrupted version would be something like Gilgamesh, aka an unrestrained jerk and hedonist.

(And I might make him a motorcycle-riding Lancer because I'd die for Rongo-Arthur.)

Just imagine him: an ice-cold bastard who calls himself the King of Shinjuku, stirs trouble wherever he goes, and his hand is always on his blackened lance, ready to blast with darkness anyone who dares cross him.

His idea of a home is going to fast food restaurants and taking them as his 'castle', keeping the cooks there to make food for him and leaving once he's sucked the place dry.

He's also having no idea why his leather jacket and black skinny jeans no longer fit him as well. (Yeah, he's cruising around Shinjuku with his belly on full display after stuffing himself because the King of Storms can't be bothered to deal with some clothes.)

And considering that Shinjuku is a dog-eat-dog world, and he's the top dog, he would absolutely threaten to devour those who try to get in his way. Probably he would be very apathetic about it, seeing it just as his natural role, too.

But if he catches someone he absolutely detests, he can play it up and make it a very ugly, horrific last experience.

All in all, he is a weird toss-up between the worst aspects of Gil, the most inhuman parts of Lalter and Salter, and those things that make Arthur unique. All wrapped up in a pitch black outfit and unrestrained greed.

[coe-lilium]

Damn, I’m so torn between gameplay and “DO WANT” for the pick up 4* :(

Penthi, SAlter (once I spent 90 quartz on her just to reunite her with JAlter after I read Shinjuku), Lancer Arturia Alter (to be kept in 2nd stage) are strongly in the DO WANT list, as with Herk NP2 Lv10 , way too many NP+ AoE Sabers (stop spooking me, Gawain!) and Jailter NP5 I don’t really need any of them for gameplay purposes.   

For gameplay it’s a draw between immortal Nero and Saberlot, but the more I read about Nero the less I like her and Saberlot... what even is his art, really :/ 

The others I either already have/multiple copies or aren’t interested at all. 

Dammit DW

[versegm]

Shinjuku highlights:

- the fact that guda is literally the moral backbone of the team

- evil people living as people

- THE WHOLE THING WITH MORIARTY he won. in every sense of the word he won. We fell exactly in his trap. we acted exactly as he planned. he won!! the one thing he didn't account for are his own feelings! because he's never loved anyone before!

- Salter "I am the perfect king. I feel nothing. I love nothing. But you. I respect you."

- Salter & Cavall ii

- Salter "Mash is one of MY knights so she's mine hands off"

- Salter "we can meet again but I prolly won't ever see the pupper again so you know where my priorities go"

- Jalter "I hate everything and everyone but YOU. I RESPECT YOU."

- Jalter "Mash killed me so she's mine hands off."

- Jalter & Salter banter

- Jalter's speech on avengers (but also avengers in general)

- "You didn't even ask me for a dance you jerk"

- Sherlock being unveiled by Guda in 0.2 seconds flat

- Guda bewildering people around them

- Yan Qing "I have 89 people downloaded on my hard drive and It Kinda Fucks Me Up"

- L O BO

- HESSIAN

- Dantes "Ride or DIE" Edmond

- the worldbuilding good tbh now I wish we had more modern/urban fantasy chapters

[insomniac-jay]

Wait, aha, I never told anyone, but I do have a reason for Sol being absent for the former half of Agartha, Sol, is really, really Mentally Torn up after Shinjuku, as Jalter and Salter disappearing disheartened her alot, so yea. Also In Canon for my fgo au, Tuso, also known as the Mage named after a Squid, summons Salter, Jalter comes Mid Salem I believe, But As such, Soleil has a big distaste for her fellow undead.

But she's not too agreeable about the circumstances of the Jalter Summoned, as it was The Ruler Jalter from Orleans, but she couldn't wine.

Later, during the Mathematics with Martha segment before Crystalisles, The Jalter Sol knew is Summoned. So she's happi now.

Ooo

[tainbocuailnge]

ok i finished shinjuku my onion remains that cu alter should’ve been there but NOT as part of the main squad. he’s a third party who maintains his own territory near the shinjuku national garden and he’s got a few goons of his own maintaining the same rule of the strong as before but it actually makes him rather well liked and even influential because unlike many other mob boss types running around this shinjuku he actually protects his allies and keeps his word and he’s so fucked up strong you just end up dead if you try to abuse that. like you have to be dead strong already to get to join the club but once you’re in the club that’s basically the safest place to be because cu alter will stick to his principles if it fucking kills him even in this city of malice.

you meet him around the second lobo fight where you team up with jalter because he’s coming to kick your ass for causing a ruckus in his territory but he’s impressed with how you managed to chase off lobo cuz that one’d been making himself a real piece of work running around like he owns the place and chewing up his underlings. he refuses to join up initially cuz this phantom fiends nonsense is none of his business as long as they stay out of his fucking house but says he owes you a favor for kicking that mutt out so let him know if you need anything done and he’ll think about it. 

the part with phantom of the opera and yan qing kidnapping you then proceeds as normal but as sherlock goes shopping you conveniently run into cu alter again and the shopkeeper’s reaction reminds you that cu alter is A Big Fucking Deal here so rather than sherlock falsifying your invitations or whatever (they never explain so i just have to assume he did) you get to sneak into the party because cu alter was actually honestly invited. he gets to exchange a few real heavy lines with yan qing about pride and identity before that hell breaks loose but nothing so long that it’d slow the pacing just like 4-6 lines for me to go nuts over and there’s also some allusion to cu alter being former king of america during lobo’s final scenes maybe but i’m not gonna insert him there very strongly because that was a very good moment for jalter actually and i don’t want to take away from that. 

then when you try to regain your bearings and form your next game plan cu alter catches that Fucking Emiya is among your enemies so suddenly these phantom fuckers ARE his business, literally the only reason he was even around when you beat lobo the first time was because he’d received a tip that emiya alter was fighting jalter nearby. so even though you’re used up your one favor he’ll do you one up because this is one guy he absolutely has to kill. instead of salter it’s cu alter who gets to fly economy arash airlines and he basically explodes the battlefield into carnage because fighting off entire armies is his speciality. 

so we get a not very subtle parallel to the fight in front of the church in ubw because what would be the point of inserting cu alter otherwise. emiya alter curses that this was the one person he absolutely did not want to get involved. you sneak past emiya alter’s goons while he’s distracted bitching with cu alter about like ideals and principles and that kinda stuff and cu alter pinballs emiya alter around the street but as usual just can’t fully get the upper hand on him and as you’re climbing the tower emiya alter reveals he’s here on a certain mercenary job and cu alter’s like man you’re the same doublecrossing cunt as always huh. whatever. if you need someone to vibe check a meteor don’t ask me i’m gonna be busy beating up your goons some more and pretending they have your face. and during the final farewells scene he’s sitting on top of a mountain of hornet corpses smoking a cigarette and complaining about how meaningless all of this was even though he blatantly had a good time 

[prettycottonmouthlamia]

I have finished all of the Memorial Quests! Except for the Salter one. That one makes me tired so I’m not super keen on doing it. Don’t tell anyone. So I’m gonna discuss each one and give my thoughts and pointers. 

Orleans: This fight is really easy. Caster Gilles is not a real threat and this battle is easily handled with a Rider DPS and some supports. If your Rider is good enough, they can even solo this quest pretty easily, there’s just a lot of HP to chug through. 

Septum: As long as you remember your Demon Pillars, this one is also pretty easy. In fact you probably can just use the same team you used against Gilles, since Riders are generally the best DPS against Demon Pillars. 

Okeanos: Berserker hits a little hard but this is largely a simple fight. A good Foreigner DPS can make things easier, but as long as you can provide some sustain or limiting RNG through Taunt, this fight will be easy for any class of DPS. Special shout out to Avengers. 

London: Tesla is easily the hardest so far, having an NP gauge of 3 and two skills that can increase it, along with granting Pierce Invul. Summer Tamamo is the Lancer of choice here, but any Lancer with good DPS will do. A Cu solo of this fight is also probably doable with a grailed Cu. 

America: The first fight against multiple Servants. This is the Karna / Edison / Helena fight with I think a little more HP. It’s a good idea to focus on AoE here, and probably Berserkers like Fran or Raikou. Remember to keep your focus on the Casters, not Karna: they have less HP, and you gain more NP from attacking them. An alternative is to use a good flexible ST Saber DPS, like Okita and Musashi, to kill Karna quickly with NPs while dealing face card damage to the Casters. 

Camelot: This is the Rhongo fight. Saber DPS like Mordred or Okita/Musashi are recommended, and remember that you cannot use any sort of hard protection to stop the NP, since it comes with Pierce Invul. Speed is the name of the game here. 

Babylonia: The Kingu fight wasn’t exactly what I was expecting, for some reason I thought it was the Tiamat fight. Anyways, BB is your friend here since Kingu is an Avenger. Worth noting that Mash and Merlin with Level 10 skills will guarantee that Kingu cannot do damage with his NP even with his periodic NP charges, since the cooldowns line up perfectly. BB / Mash / Merlin is an easy way to provide a pretty much brainless clear of this. 

Shinjuku: Moriarty is the same fight from the actual chapter, and this means that Lancer DPS like Tamamo or Vlad are very welcome here. The actual difficulty in the fight comes from the random Skill or NP seal, which can be disruptive. He’s got a lot less HP after his Break Bar, so take advantage of that to kill him quickly. 

Agartha: The second hardest Memorial Quest, and it’s the Megalos / Columbus fight. You might be tempted to bring an AoE for this fight, but don’t. If you break Columbus’ HP bar while Megalos is on the field, he’ll give Megalos 3 turns of Pierce Invul. Anti-Divine Servants are welcome here like Scathach. Abigail is useful here because Megalos tends to be buffed up a lot, and her ability to remove buffs is very welcome. This fight unfortunately is pretty RNG, since Megalos can randomly attack the entire party and can use his super strike on anyone. It’s a good idea to read up on the mechanics of this fight to re-familiarize yourself. 

Shimosa: This by far and away is the hardest Memorial Quest. Both enemy Servants can decimate you with AoE NPs, both have incredibly annoying skills, and their passives will drain your NP and stars. Shuten’s passive is particularly dangerous since it happens at the end of her turn, meaning she can troll Servants with 100% NP charge. Raikou can give herself Evasion and Shuten can not only give herself Guts, she can also Charm your entire party. She likes doing that after you break her bar too. If you have enough damage to take out Shuten quickly, its best to use your NPs on Shuten do face-card damage to Raikou. Hitting Raikou will generate more NP than hitting Shuten (1.1x compared to 0.9x) and it’s important to end this fight as soon as possible. Taunters and Poster Girl Servants are highly recommended, especially to keep Shuten from draining the NP of your important Servants. David in particular can pull quadruple duty: he can last a couple of turns with Poster Girl, can protect the party with an infinite duration 1 hit evade, can curse Shuten’s Charm, and boost the party’s damage. Don’t be afraid to use Command Seals to end the fight quickly either. 

Salem: This is a welcome breeze compared to the last fight. Mecha Eli in particular makes this easy, as with enough support her NP can easily go through one round is magic guts, and crit damage the next. Passionlip, Melt, and Kiara also work well here. It’s important to have Servants like St. George, Leonidas, Mash, and Poster Girls to tank her NP since it removes all buffs before dealing damage. As long as you keep that in mind this fight is easy. 

[xbuster]

I think for a lot of people (myself included) shimousa the story chapter was very much elevated by the spectacular art and direction of shimousa the manga, and people are getting excited about a potential adaptation of THAT (hence all the calls for gudako) rather than the original story chapter which I agree was pretty average all told

Oh yeah, definitely. I was keeping things brief in the tags but I know people like the Shimousa manga a lot, which is definitely understandable. The Shimousa manga did come out earlier in the year that we got Shimousa, but when the preudo-singularity dropped in NA I just saw a bunch of people hyping up the game's version of the story and I never really got that.

I haven't read the manga, but it does look really good. Love the art style, the humor, and the intense action. We all know they're not going to adapt that, though. They only put Gudao in the big adaptations, Gudako gets relegated to smaller things like manga and Fate/Grand Carnival. Shinjuku would at least not be as held back by having a boring protagonist because we have enough characters with Salter, Jalter, Moriarty, and Holmes to keep things fun.

[fgodestinyawakenings]

First Jason then Salter Shinjuku outfit now Free SSR . What’s next meme you gonna broke DW ? Muramasa ? The gods become playable without the host ? Jeanne outfits in FA ? Sita ? A male summer servants ? Agravain in LB6 ? Free limited SR ticket ? Please gave me an answer DW!!!

Chill anon, I’d like to not be so disappointed with DW during Covid-19 pandemic

Muramasa is already stated he’ll be in LB7 with Yorokobe Priest

Gods... Well DW, please make them like Artemis?

More costume dress will be nice

Dear God, please let Rama reunited with his wife

Male summer Servants.... AHAHAHA, nope, I don’t trust them ever giving us that

They already have Agravain as 3* Saber... I’m more hoping he’s our first divergence of Female-killing Servants that it’s extremely much needed with all the waifus here

Free Limited SR ticket... Maybe 30k Download?

I’m guessing it’s a desperate pull on their end with Japan’s state right now. So they, along with many other games, are trying to make up to players in knowing more content will be inevitably delayed

I only hope they are Ok after that livestream and not get screwed for gathering together

[tariah23]

Also, whenever I see ppl say that they don’t like Musashi, it always confuses me but I’d just figure that they probably didn’t enjoy Shimosa? Which is strange to me because it was really good! It had a really cool, nostalgic vibe to me? Similar to Fate Zero or something...? I can say that the parts where the elder Musashi was talking felt kinda long-winded? But it wasn’t bad. Just a little much. But I can’t say such a thing when the big draw for Fate works are usually the big brained stories after the characters anyway. So I couldn’t complain. It was Musashi’s first official appearance into the main story, too. It was really nice to meet her seriously and I was instantly all like 🥺. She’s like a big sister type, too orz. So cool and goofy. Shimosa was just more interesting than Shinjuku (I guess this is a hot take but Shinjuku was boring af to me and Jalter and Salter were pretty annoying throughout the singularity :/...) to me. The only parts I enjoyed from the singularity were the Lobo and Yan Qing encounters... even though I wished that more was done with Yan Qing. Lobo’s moments just made me tear up tho. And when Moriarty caught the protage from falling to their death out of the sky. But I only mentioned Shinjuku because I noticed that most people who talk badly about Shimosa always go on about how great Shinjuku was and I just do not see it but to each their own. Salem was still really great, too. For me, the EOR’s were more of a 2 out of 4 deal for me. Ahh... How can you not like Musashijsjsjsjaj.

[tackypies]

Do any of these things tickle ur fancy?:

Catholic guilt over ur dark and tormented past

Good ol’ body horror thanks to Demon Pillars being demons!

Good ol’ dysmorphia bc of body horror!

Slow burn with a Large Heaping of Pining

Someone suffering thru timeloops to protect someone dear to them

Jalter & Salter being goth girlfriends

Moriarty being up to no good while passive-aggressively inviting Dantes to dinners he won’t even eat

Big Sad Dogs

Then read my new Andersen/Dantes fic, What the Moon Saw 👌 Here’s a summary! Check it out here! Thanks for ur time!!!

Set in an alternate timeline of Pseuo-Singularity Shinjuku. Made aware of Baal's intentions, Dantes willingly infiltrates 1999 Shinjuku to prevent Ritsuka's arrival. He experiences the end of the world countless times and, with each disastrous end, begins to understand the game board and its players. What he doesn't expect is the arrival of a new piece: Andersen.

[kyogre-blue]

FGO, part 1

I should probably put down my thoughts about FGO so far. Let’s start with story (since I am a very bad gamer and my opinions of the gameplay shouldn’t really count). 

I’ve only started Epic of Remnant, but for part 1, I would broadly split it into thirds, in terms of overall quality. First third (Fuyuki, Orleans and Septem) is... bland at best, a confused mess at worst. Second third (Okeanos, London and America) is aggressively okay in terms of actual quality, and your favorite chapter is determined pretty much by which characters you find personally appealing. I like Okeanos best because I like Drake and the Euryale/Asterios thing. Last third (Camelot, Babylonia, and Solomon) is actually good, like holy shit. 

One of the biggest problems early (“early” first two thirds) FGO has is that the writing just... assumes you know characters from their previous appearances and that you inherently care about them, so it doesn’t bother doing any of the heavy lifting in actually making you care. Camelot and Babylonia are where it actually takes the time to slow down and give you downtime scenes to make you care (at the hidden villages and at Uruk). It really makes the difference. 

In detail: 

Fuyuki: It’s basically an extended info dump interrupted hamfistedly by tutorial fights. It’s also a wholesale FSN reference, so I actually can’t imagine how this would look to someone who doesn’t know FSN to begin with. It’s just a prologue and I think it’s fine for what it is, though Olga Marie is presented much better in various adaptations. Fun fact: My favorite take on Fuyuki is Stella Mortalis. 

Orleans: Honestly, Orleans is structured similarly to The Good Singularities, but the pacing and overall writing is just too unrefined. There are also just way too many characters, so none of them get used well. Nonetheless, I will stand by Orleans having good parts, like Marie and “flat of your shield.” Also, I found the Dark Jeanne reveal to actually be quite good on the whole? 

Septem: This one is worse. Honestly, Septem is pretty much the worst singularity, since there are still lots of characters, but they are even less fleshed out and utilized than Orleans, and Nero is... not written well. 

Okeanos: I can’t in good conscience call this an actually good singularity. The plot is just a linear “we travel along, fighting whoever attacks us,” there’s Artemis and Orion, and the twist with Medea Lily really expects you to already know Medea from FSN. But Euryale and Asterios were cute, dammit, and Drake is just really fun. So it’s my top singularity outside the last three. 

London: Babylonia held out for six months, but London is gonna die in days, lmao. Anyway, jokes aside, London is... fine, mostly because the characters are endearing. Mordred is very cute, Andersen and Shakespeare are a great comedy pair. Tesla is far from the worst endboss. And then we get some actual main story progression with Solomon himself showing up. The whole mystery aspect though was not very well put together, Zolgen was a completely random cameo all of a sudden (I’m sorry, what?? you’re just dropping him in like that??), and Lancer Altria Alter was... wow, what. Plus, the ending dragged a lot. It wasn’t terrible, but it could have been much better with some more editing. 

America: I know a lot of people consider America one of the good singularities, but I didn’t find it an improvement over Okeanos and London, on the whole. Probably not helping things is that I didn’t care about Medb and Berserker Cu at all, but I think the character writing in general was pretty weak. Nightingale is cool, but she owns people so much and so constantly that it starts to look fake and you never really see anything from her except verbal smackdowns. The Karna and Arjuna thing doesn’t have enough setup to make the payoff matter. I was genuinely shocked to realize this is the first time Arjuna appears in the franchise? The way he’s treated, I assumed he was coming from some other spinoff. I don’t know what Nero and Elizabeth’s deal is and I don’t care. Etc. The only character I liked was Rama. Rama was cute. Where’s my side story about letting him meet his wife? 

Camelot: Camelot is a turning point. The writing changes quality and even style (that start scene), there’s special effects like the sand and the zoom, and the battles... well, the battles. Anyway, the dysfunctional relationships in the Round Table are actually interesting, the Hassans and the villagers are very charming, Sanzang is cute, Ozymandias and Nitocris were a good third side. The ending chain of sacrifices was... god, I was chanting “oh no, oh no” the entire vs Tristan scene because I looked up a guide and I knew he was immune to poison in battle, so... Anyway, there’s a few weak points, such as Sanzang insisting she knows you even though there’s no way to access whatever event she knows you from, and honestly they just never manage to write Altria as a convincing charismatic king. But those are all nitpicks. It is a good chapter. 

Babylonia: Another good, solid chapter. The good things are too many to list. In terms of bad things, there’s a strange turn toward pseudo harem dynamics with everyone being into Senpai. Also, the scenes of the goddesses changing sides to join us were rather miss at times. There’s some things like that, but this is still incredibly solid and good writing. 

Temple of Time: The scenes of the Heroic Spirits coming to help you were incredibly hype. I think they overdid it on making Senpai be ~so~ important to everyone, to the point of actual heroes being like “we’re not here to help humanity, we’re just here for Senpai” and villains who have exchanged maybe two sentences with you finding you so very motivational. Also, the wacky event characters was a horrible mood killer. But the premise was still very good, and I was honestly very moved, no matter how cliche it is. It was a good ending. 

Shinjuku: I’m only part of the way through, so I can’t give final judgement, but my general impression is that it’s about on the same level as the middle of part 1. The plot and overall writing is okay, but the character writing can be very fun. Salter and Jalter are a fun combo, and crime grandpa is great once he has Sherlock to play off of. Demiya’s design is terrible though. 

Agartha: :)))) I finished this one, actually. If you play it for a while, you get kind of numb to just how bad it really is. When I went back to do a bit more Shinjuku, it was just a huge reminder about what fun writing is actually like. I saw some posts ahead of time, so I more or less expected the... gender stuff... but the writing is just bad on every level. Btw shout out to that one person on my friend list with a lv100 Jalter. She murdered Phenex, as is deserved. 

[ac-liveblogs]

slides in. Did somebody say Fate. A bit late, but now that fate go 1.5 is over, what is your thoughts? Both on the two last chapter and all 4 as a whole? And maybe the prologue of cosmos if one can be greedy.

Seraphix (i say it’s canon to EoR so it’s canon) = Shinjuku > Salem > Shimousa > Agartha

Epic of Remnant was an extremely mixed bag, I tell you what. Excluding Seraphix, I don’t really think it got back to Shinjuku’s level in terms of my enjoyment, but Salem put in a damn strong effort. This year I generally preferred the events, so... there’s that, I guess. 

Shinjuku was just plain fun? THIS is what sold me on Salter and Jalter, who knew all I had to do was sit in on them sniping at each other for half a singularity. Moriarty speaks for himself, honestly... he’s been an absolute delight not just in Shinjuku but in every event he’s cropped up in since (as has Holmes). Yan Qing is just kinda there I guess, they didn’t really make great use of him. 

Agartha. Oh boy. Agartha. As I understand it, NA did some damage control regarding this singularity’s tone, but it couldn’t do much regarding the content, huh. Parts of it were just plain uncomfortable to read (...pirate asexual reproduction...), but honestly nothing takes the cake more than Fergus Lily’s dumb speech to Scherazade I wanted to brain myself the entire time. Agartha was just an exercise in misery.

I play as a male Guda so I didn’t even know Agartha is incapable of recognising if you have a female master. Incredible. 

Shimousa... I don’t dislike Musashi, but she’s definitely not my favourite dimension hopping Saber. I get the same feeling with Shimousa that I get with late stage Gintama - a lot of their talk about samurai and swords and the significance therein is lost on me as a Western reader, and it’s definitely appealing to a more Japanese crowd, so a lot of all that just came off as extremely preachy to me. 

Musashi too OP, please nerf. Somehow she handily beat the minibosses from the backline of my party, where she’d been banished after the game forced me to put her in the frontlines. (That mechanic was cooler in theory.)

As a disgusting Shirou Amakusa... something, I wish we’d gotten more out of him. Muramasa was kind of cool I guess. 

Meanwhile Salem did appeal to my aesthetic, Tituba’s hilariously unsuspicious character art aside. I’m not the hugest fan of Salem forcing you to bring “your” servants with you - it’s always uncomfortable when FGO pretends I keep some Servants longer than the 10 seconds it takes to feed them to someone else - and the plays felt like Salem was just trying to pad itself out. There’s not a huge amount of story in Salem, so I’m not surprised it timegated itself so heavily.

I think I preferred Salem’s tense atmosphere and build-up more than the actual reveal (I had to double check what happened to make sure I understood properly). I don’t dislike what was done, but I do think improvements could’ve been made. 

Overall, I wasn’t as impressed with EoR as I was the last stretch of part 1. EoR suffered especially because Seraphix blew the whole thing out of the water and Shinjuku’s strong start made it hard for any of the other Singularities to compare. It definitely feels like filler. As I understand it, Musashi, Holmes and Muramasa are the only relevant characters to make it out. Moriarty is by far the most memorable.

i luv crime grandpa

As for the Prologue - ohoho. I had a lot of fun, despite the info-dumping nature of both it and Lostroom. Thank god Chaldea staff finally got portraits. 

The long and short of it is that I am FAR more excited for the Lostbelts than I was for EoR. And I want to punch Goredolf in the nose. Tamamo... Gucci(?) is a fun villain. And... I mean, Kirei is Kirei.

They sure don’t give you long to mourn da Vinci, do they. 

paging mr galahad sir, please come back and explain your actions, sir. i want to love you, please let me. please let me make the 3 shielder stalling team of my dreams.

I’m super curious about the Crypters! I’ve been spoilt about some things due to osmosis and the general explosion when Atlantis dropped.

i’m really excited for camelot even though i’m not going to be able to play it for two years. my phone is already crying at the graphical upgrades. 

[versegm]

ok so i KNOW salter's personality is mostly the result of waifuism 

BUT 

here i am like a fool trying to figure out what her deal is 

anyway I'm thinking her situation may be similar to jalter's: jalter was made of gille's vision of jeanne (plus some extra hatred), salter was made of artoria's vision of herself a terrible, emotionless tyrant, the kind of person who'd naturally cause the fall of britain. "truly, the king does not understand the heart of men." (+ extra grail juice) neither of them actually existed; their major difference is that jeanne was born from gille's grudges, not jeanne's (bc jeanne doesn't have any of these feelings to grailify)

 jalter, through orleans, events, and generally living in chaldea, ended up growing  past this initial definition, like any human she's still made of hatred and all, but she grows to be able to feel other things (affection, annoyance, sadness, ect) 

 simularkly, salter starts off as someone who just throws herself completely in whatever role she wishes, without any emotions driving them. if she's a king, she protects the grail from evil. if she's a maid, she's, well, a maid. if she’s your servant, she's nothing but your tool. salter is a function, not a person. she likes strong people who fulfill whatever role they pick for themself. she says she'll kill you if you step out lf your role as "worthy of being her master." 

BUT shinjuku is the one time where she's just... herself. hence why she develops emotions, however muted they may be- love for cavall. affection for mash. for you. for junk food. THAT'S when the emotionless king became her own person.