So... I Found This And Now It Keeps Coming To Mind. You Hear About "life-changing Writing Advice" All

avengers must give what is possibly the most powerful second hand embarrasment in existance considering that unlike most servants they're completely unironic about how they love guda and dont keep the "im a weapon" mentality for too long. I walk into the chaldea mess hall and edmond literally morphs out of the table i sat at to be by my side and cuddle me while i eat breakfast. I do farming dailies and gorgon cant stop coiling herself around me and keeps saying its to more efficiently conserve mana. I bump into salieri in the hallway and he starts sobbing and thanking me for loving him. nobu for all their shits and giggles still feels the pain that comes hand in hand with avenger classing so they just like to have a book read to them quietly. angra beats me in a video game and starts apologizing about daring to try and ruin me. I walk into my room ready to enjoy my government sanctioned McChaldea Mcflurry and find jalter sobbing on my bed about how she doesnt matter. I give her the flurry. She cries into that too. Shes hugging me and crying but also spilling the flurry everywhere. All the other servants look at these displays and turn their heads bc emotional openness is the servant equivalent of being a loud shameless couple making out in public. Mash cant make eye contact with me anymore bc she thinks im banging all of them. it may be true

can we take a moment to just think about how incredibly scary magical healing is in-context?

You get your insides ripped open but your friend waves his hands and your flesh just pulls back together, agony and evisceration pulling back to a ‘kinda hurts’ level of pain and you’re physically whole, with the 100% expectation that you’ll get back up and keep fighting whatever it was that struck you down the first time.

You break your arm after falling somewhere and after you’re healed instead of looking for ‘another way around’ everybody just looks at you and goes “okay try again”.

You’ve been fighting for hours, you’re hungry, thirsty, bleeding, crying from exhaustion, and a hand-wave happens and only two of those things go away. you’re still hungry, you’re still weak from thirst, but the handwave means you have ‘no excuse’ to stop.

You act out aggressively maybe punch a wall or gnash your teeth or hit your head on something and it’s hand-waved because it’s ‘such a small injury you probably can’t even feel it anymore’ but the point was that you felt it at all?

Your pain literally means nothing because as long as you’re not bleeding you’re not injured, right? Here drink this potion and who cares about the emotional exhaustion of that butchered village, why are you so reserved in camp don’t you think it’s fun retelling that time you fell through a burning building and with a hand-wave you got back up again and ran out with those two kids and their dog? 

Older warriors who get a shiver around magic-users not because of the whole ‘fireball’ thing but the ‘I don’t know what a normal pain tolerance is anymore’ effect of too much healing. Permanent paralysis and loss of sensation in limbs is pretty much a given in the later years of any fighter’s life. Did I have a stroke or did the mage just heal too hard and now this side of my face doesn’t work? No i’m not dead from the dragon’s claws but I can’t even bend my torso anymore because of how the scar tissue grew out of me like a vine.

Magical healing is great and keeps casualties down.

But man.

That stuff is scary.

“In nature, there’s no glory without sacrifice. Loss and gain are always balanced. Much is lost and much is gained. The people of the era will weigh the scales of good and evil themselves, and their value will be judged by future generations.”

Orleans | Septem | Okeanos | London | E Pluribus Unum | Camelot | Babylonia

Hans Christian Anderson Bonds

Totally forgot I’ve been farming bond on this guy for a long-ass time. At this rate Heracles will be at 10 soon, and how the actual hell am I supposed to interpret bond 10 for him? I barely got through this. Jesus cheeseballs I’ve fucked myself.  

Quatre

Hans Christian Anderson Bonds

Bond 1. “I’d rather not get involved in this Grand Order ordeal. I’m worthless in battle, I assure you.”

Bond 2. “I consider ’Mini-Waver’ is an insult. Being bronze in rarity does not make me unworthy of my True Name.”

Bond 3. “If you are going to force me to participate, I would prefer being allowed to make my own decisions.”

Bond 4. “I estimate that you are missing a number of brain cells. I wonder how you manage to tie your shoes without falling over yourself… But your dedication and reckless stupidity make you a worthy protagonist.”

Bond 5. “You aren’t as ill-equipped to work with me as I thought. Perhaps this partnership can be mutually-beneficial in the future.”

Bond 6. “Do you think I would have become a Heroic Spirit if I had succeeded as an actor or a poet instead of a weaver of children’s tales…? I said weaver not Waver! I still refuse to acknowledge that obnoxious title Chaldea has given me.”

Bond 7. “If I were to write the Tale of Chaldea, would I begin at the part where a mediocre magus is tasked with saving humanity? Or would I start where they show sympathy to devils and go weak in the knees for any pretty face?”

Bond 8. “Despite my eventual success in life, I suffered alone in poverty, never once reaching the dreams I held closest. I died clutching the undying light of hope that I desperately spread to others, wishing a better future for the children.”

Bond 9. “I never thought to publish my autobiography. The rest of the world would find no value in it. I found the exercise in writing it quite cathartic. It gave me the opportunity to explore my own values and assess them as I would another person. Since being summoned, I have thought about it more often.”

Bond 10. “I have been vilified as writer that thrived on sour endings, and you have accepted me. I have insulted you to your face in the name of brazen honesty, and you have encouraged me still. My uselessness and negativity have yet to drive you away. I could ask for no greater gift than the bond I am able to share with you. Thank you.”

Just read @intrepid-fictioneer-7's analyis on the madness of Servants, and it's got me thinking about Fujimaru's mental state and some implications of the lore.

We do know that they were most definitely a regular human at the beginning of the story; however, lore and dialogue imply that this is no longer the case.

The event where Vritra debuts has her note that both Mash and you seem both human and not human at the same time. It makes sense for Mash, as she's a demi-Servant, but why Fujimaru?

And then there's a bit in Koyanskaya of Light's profile - "Koyanskaya had planned to incorporate the Foreign God into her eighth tail, and to use Chaldea's Master for the ninth." To become one of her tails, it has to be a "Monster not present in the history of humanity." I think that says it all, really.

Fujimaru has been in multiple situations very similar to the ones that gave rise to heroic legends, having faced down the absolute worst threats to Humanity several times over.

And not just that - the very nature of pruning Lostbelts means that Fujimaru has an incredible amount of blood on their hands; enough that Kali is intrigued.

They've gone through far more than any human should ever have to go through, and it's implied throughout the story and confirmed that by Ordeal Call that, even if they were to return home at the end of it all, they would never be able to return to a normal life ever again.

Hell, Ordeal Call II reveals that Fujimaru not only has the potential to become an Avenger, but the most powerful one of all.

What I'm getting at is that what if one of the reasons that Fujimaru is able to empathize and connect with Heroic Spirits to such a degree is because they think like one, having fought through many of the same circumstances and now afflicted by that same madness?

Sure, they may not be as broken as some of those that they have under their command; but, as some have said, it's likely at this point that Fujimaru is the quintessential human to an utterly inhuman degree.

The way I interpret that is that he does things that would seem normal for a human at a glance; but if one were to examine it, they'd realize that Fujimaru's ability to do that goes far, far beyond the limit of what any normal human should be capable of.

For example, Humanity may be known for the indomitable spirit in the face of overwhelming odds; but for Fujimaru, it's seems that it's ontologically impossible for them to give up no matter what they're facing when even the most determined of humans would have given up.

A human, no matter how righteous, may still fall into evil if the circumstances are extraneous enough - but we actually see Fujimaru put into such a circumstance - and refuse to do so.

They can't ever stop moving forward, because if they do, it means all the innumerable sacrifices that have been made during their journey would have been for nothing.

Sure, it may be more subtle, but the underlying madness that would make a heroic spirit's mind incomprehensible to a regular human is still there.

"Fujimaru Ritsuka" may still be there, but it's buried under the being that is "Humanity's Last Master."

wELL I HAD TO DO A PART 2

Part 1

Sandrone, to someone that angered them: *Holds two middle fingers*

Arlecchino: Can’t say I’m surprised…

Tsaritsa: Yeah, flip em off, Sandrone!

Furina, confused: *Holds one middle finger*

Arlecchino and Tsaritsa, both very distressed: NOOOOOOOOOOOO!

especially after the events of olympus it is paramount that fgo players understand that they are not above the narrative, and the story’s antagonists will never be as cartoonish and one-dimensional as they might think they are. their motivations, their thoughts, and their goals will always be more complex than the most surface level reading, and often you will not know what they are right away. passing judgment upon them is stupid, the decisions they’ve made come from far more gray and far less lenient circumstances. it’s always been that way. you are not immune to making those same choices. that’s the point. from the earliest days of the fate series, way back during the original vn era, one of the most compelling and prevalent ideas within the story was you might have something in common with your worst enemy. you might have also walked down their path had your roles been reversed. you cannot say you could have objectively done better or worse simply because you have the benefit of hindsight and because your experiences were different. shit, ubw smacks you on the head with this by making its main protagonist and main antagonist the same fucking person.

this is especially evident with the crypters. everyone wants to brand them as insecure, jealous, holier-than-thou mass murderers. this is disproven as early as lostbelt 1. kadoc didn’t take part in the bleaching of the earth’s surface. he says explicitly that when he woke up from cryostasis, the world had already been bleached. he wasn’t truly jealous of you, he was taking out the trauma of being denied a purpose and then dying out on someone like him. had guda been in his position, they would’ve reacted the same. he cools off in lostbelt 2, which is why he is kinder and happy to see your gaze has regained some measure of resolve.

ophelia, akuta, and pepe also reinforce this. none of them took part of the bleaching, and they killed no one. the bleaching was all the alien god. the lostbelts were all the work of the alien god. the only thing here that matters is that the alien god chose wodime as their emissary, and the other crypters were expendable. kirschtaria did not accept this. he would not abandon his friends, his comrades, his family. the choice was to cooperate with the alien god or die. could you have seriously, in all honesty, chosen differently? could you, knowing the entire earth was doomed by a product of its history, honestly have decided to keel over and taken your loved ones down with you? could you look me in the eye with zero bullshit and zero hesitation and tell me to my face you wouldn’t have chosen to cooperate if it meant you had an opportunity to turn things around so none of those billions of deaths were for nothing and the world wouldn’t belong to the being behind that destruction?

the lostbelt competition was a foregone conclusion. everyone knew kirschtaria was going to win, because the contest was designed that way. the alien god only intended for kirschtaria to win, and kirschtaria knew this. which is why he used his connection to the crypters as leverage. the other lostbelts were never meant to survive, they were kirschtaria’s way of keeping the crypters out of the alien god’s watch. that’s why kadoc, pepe, and beryl weren’t killed by kirschtaria when their lostbelts went SNAFU. it is an immensely cruel thing to do to all those worlds and all those lives, yet would you have done differently? if the lives of your loved ones were at stake, if you were being surveilled at all times with a gun to your head ready to pull the trigger at the slightest disobedience, would you have been so reckless as to put the people you cared about in harm’s way? because that’s what kirschtaria’s position was. the alien god was ready to crush kirschtaria’s heart if he broke their contract, and tipping off the crypters that he intended to do so would’ve gotten them all killed.

ultimately, that’s what drives the conflict between chaldea and the crypters. the shared need to survive pitting them against each other. there is no guarantee chaldea can restore proper human history, and wodime could not take that chance when he had a plan of his own and the clear methods with which to accomplish it. a new world, a new humanity, free to make new mistakes and reach new heights, free from the grip of the gods, free from the grip of the systemic forces that plagued not just the lostbelts but proper human history itself.

and i need to stress that the story isn’t trying to justify the deaths (if we can even call them that, in all likelihood) of 7 billion people by trying to say “maybe wodime was right!” what the story is saying is that, if there was a staggering loss of life, what alternative would humanity have to even have hope of moving forward? through lostbelts 1 - 4, you may be helping these worlds die peacefully, but you are still letting them die over the chance that you might restore proper human history. your success is an uncertain inkling, yet you have no choice but to move forward and accrue suffering to make sure NONE of those deaths are in vain. you are not judged for it, because the story knows there is no right or wrong answer to this kind of conflict, and the same principle applies to the crypters.

need i remind you that olympus ends with people being crushed by buildings, abandoning all hope, quivering and perishing in absolute terror as the only world they’ve ever known crumbles around them and the only beings that could save them were killed by your hand and by your order because there was no other way out. it is a gruesome death, an unsightly death. and it is brought about by your actions, and it is a terrible burden. and it is the exact same burden carried by kirschtaria, because he was a member of team A tasked with safeguarding humanity, and he failed. he does not claim that proper human history is full of too many mistakes to salvage because he is above them. he claims so because he also made mistakes in his own limited existence and doesn’t want that for whatever humanity can still exist in the world he means to make.

and you know what? kirschtaria even understands what you’re doing. he is the only one who can. he cannot agree but he understands. which is why he never denies you the opportunity to prove yourself. he opposes you, challenges you, dares you. but he never denies you. he says “you think you can bring back proper human history? prove it. prove you have the conviction necessary to bear it and beat me with it.” and then you do. because he wanted you to, because he believed in you from the very start that you could do it if you set your mind to it because kirschtaria wodime for better or worse believes in mankind, and you do too.

so, tl;dr you and the crypters are the same do not be so arrogant as to pretend you are better than the story and you are the perfect blameless unbiased judge of everything ever because you look really stupid doing that