[fate/apocrypha] Maybe if I make a commentary plurk, I can shame myself into finally actually properly canon reviewing for a character I've been RPing for months instead of just flipping through her scenes and calling it good.
(I'm kidding. I've mostly been having the trouble of finding it, since I don't have Netflix. I was almost going to ask for advice on what to watch on Netflix during my one free trial month, but I tracked down what I'd watched the first time finally.)
Between the rewatch and skimming the novel, I'm finally starting to get what Fran's deal was with being angry about Astolfo calling her Fran-chan and insisting Caules call her Berserker when she seems happy with being called Fran in FGO.
If she doesn't want her identity revealed so easily for the purposes of, well, it's a Holy Grail War, that makes sense.
I do wonder if she mistook Astolfo's cheer for making fun of her, though, what with the novel noting that she's been ignoring Astolfo whenever he tries to talk to her.
Then again, some of the ways the novel writes Fran seems strange to me? Like when they go harder on her as robotic (not having to worry about wear, experiencing pain as an outputted value, etc.) doesn't really seem to mesh with how she seems elsewhere.
But that's a whole other thing when I finally read the novel. Back to the anime, where Fiore is blushing over saying she thought he'd be half horse. I can't tell if she's supposed to be embarrassed over her assumption or just going "oh no, he's hot."
Which. Fair, Fiore.
Ah, Astolfo's master is onscreen. Time to mute my computer.
fair. also shame
Which of the many reasons I could be getting shamed am I getting shamed for right now.
Astolfo’s master... blech 
I don’t know what makes me madder about her: that she is that gross or that she’s more or less a nonentity outside of grossness
I imagine Apocrypha would have been improved by swapping any of the Red Masters we never get to see anything of with her and letting her just have the five seconds of screentime.
Maybe I'll change my mind once I see any more information out of them but I doubt it.
I...hmm. My first thought is that she's a nonentity outside of grossness is worse, because it's clear that's her sole purpose as a character, but her grossness alone is awful and do I really want her to have more screentime?
Anyway, pausing to screenshot the picture of Fran's birth in my eternal struggle to try to guess why she has the metal sticking out of her head.
I get that the bolt in her head is probably a reference to movie Frankenstein, but why did Victor do that? I keep assuming the answer must be in how she was animated/how she keeps herself powered, but I have yet to dig up anything that gives a reason.
It leaves me nervously headcanoning (nervous because I know I know almost nothing about Fate and thus there could be an answer out there that I don't know about) that it has something to do with passing electricity into her.
Cultural osmosis makes me think that a bolt of lightning is involved in her animating, but the anime's only drawing tubes (of wire? of that blue liquid shown in one of her flashbacks?) going into her back.
Back to the drawing board.....
Vlad, I'm sorry to say this, but the more you swish around that wine glass, the more I expect you to throw it and yell "WHAT IS A MAN??"
Petition to let Jack wear any of the clothes she wears outside of her current FGO outfit in FGO. Please.
I caught a few glimpses of Jack scenes in my first "LET'S SPEED WATCH FRAN'S SCENES SO I CAN POST TO THIS OPEN POST SOMEONE MADE" watch and I do enjoy the way those scenes use the cute interactions between Jack and her Master to make a disturbing contrast to the horrible stuff they're doing. Really gets to me.
I keep forgetting how short Mordred is until she stands next to pretty much anyone.
"But not too glad. Medium glad." You dork, Mordred.
(She was following up casually saying that she was glad that her Master wasn't a boot-licking sucker and then she realized that she almost gave someone a compliment.)
mordred is perfect and i love that child
Mordred is perfectly imperfect, like my therapist says. She's the one who I am most excited about watching the rest of this anime for.
Though Shakespeare just entered the scene and I grinned immediately.
"What do you want?" didn't you hear? he wants a horse. he'll give a kingdom for one.
Well, if I were that hunter and I came across Spartacus out in the woods, I'd probably just watch nature videos for my outdoor needs from then on.
I should be used to this by now as a longtime watcher of anime, but was that zoom in on mordred's boobs and butt really necessary to show off her terrible outfit
MORDRED YOU'RE SUCH A SHOW-OFF IN BATTLE I'm so charmed because I have bad taste.
Sisigou is, by contrast, gross but effective. Necromancy! I'd probably be less grossed out if I didn't just feel bad for the homunculi all the time.
Me: Ugh, I hate watching innocent deaths.
Also me, like a fool: I think I'm going to watch a Fate/ anime.
Also me, like a fool: I think I'm going to watch a Fate/ anime.
Sisigou and Mordred are always good.
delete mordred
i'm like 95% sure fran's metal bits never get an explanation but it's a good assumption that it's something to do with electricity yeah
shame for not watching it sooner. canon review constantly. though I rarely do either
Apo23
tm are cowards for not giving her nasty stitching all over her body
Intercession: Okay, yeah, fair. In my defence, I did at least watch all of the Fran parts and I've kept up with the FGO stuff, but my watching of Fate anime has been painfully slow, it's true.
Same. I need to finish Apocrypha. but I do want to play Doc Ock sometime. she's too sweet
palkia: No I refuse. I don't care that I have bad taste.
I'm glad to know that even someone who knows Fate as well as you do doesn't know. ...I mean, I'd rather to have an actual answer, but at least I won't be getting contradicted if I assume the horn is what lets her absorb the electricity from her mace and the bolt was used to hook up wires or something when being created. Or something like that.
Man, the art of that scene in the manga is intense. Goodness. I've only really known where to find where someone was uploading translated bits of the manga, which is several chapters behind and also not really good quality scans.
i have it all here but the tls haven't caught up yet... also i need to add the latest two chapters
TM ARE SUPER COWARDS I WOULD HAVE LOVED TO BE ABLE TO GO WITH HER HAVING STITCHING EVERYWHERE but it wouldn't really make sense if it was just in the places under her clothes. It would have made it a lot more reasonable to have absolutely everyone think she was a monster, even with the weird metal in her head.
i mean tm also say saber is jacked in the text and then takeuchi doesn't draw her with muscles
so follow your dreams
It took me a while to figure out who you meant by Doc Ock, Ax. She seems like she'd be an interesting character from the little I've seen of her. But, alas, you actually have to finish watching it unlike my excuse that Fran kicks it early.
doc ock wants horse cock
(sorry)
When I saw Fiore blush talking about thinking of Chiron being half horse, all I could think of in the moment was your horse cock jokes.
horsedick - Profile never forget
Ah, these scans are pretty good quality. I should probably think about replacing the low quality anime screenshots that I tossed together in a rush for Fran and make a new set. Though...colour without having to pay anyone.......
I can't believe that username was open.
it was meant for me
I'll have to think about whether my dreams of being braver than TM is worth having to mention the stitches in every single thread from now on since none of her icons indicate it.
horsedick was your destiny
well i'm always here for it
... stitching
not horsedick
I burst out laughing.
Next time that we thread, I'll give it a try.
Stitching, not horsedick.
I had forgotten about that beautiful emote's existence.
Anyway, with episode 2 done, I'm going to get some work done. I probably won't be able to fit in another episode before my therapy appointment this evening, but it'll make a nice post-therapy "I don't wanna do any work" thing.
Apo24
and i'm back off to sleep
You are too good to me. Sleep well.
Man, Fran is so cool. Too bad she’s like 27 types of outclassed by Mordred in terms of battle strength, and really by 90% of other Servants.
You’re number one in my heart, Fran, even if I’m waiting on your summer version to actually be able to use you in tough battles.
The metal bits get used in the anime I think
She draws in magical power through them to just... never stop.........
... no explanation for the horn though
That sure seems to be “Frankenstein had some weird kinks”
he did research about what people thought the perfect woman should be and misunderstood everyone who said "horny"
Pfffffft.
As much as I see the horn and think “lightning rod,” I am highly amused by both the kink and misunderstood horny options.
I’ll have to keep an eye on her power-drawing as I continue to watch the anime.
So my intent to watch episode 3 last night didn't work out. And then it didn't work out this morning. BUT NOW I RETURN.
YOU AGAIN
(astolfo's master)
I NEED MORE WARNING BEFORE PORNO SOUNDS START
Well, everything to do with the homunculi remains awful and heartbreaking.
Astolfo is a good.
"Have you seen anything suspicious, like that passed out man over your shoulder?" "Nope." "Okay."
Chiron is also a good.
Whoops, so much for her suitcase (read: Karna vs Jeanne starts now)
Jeanne takes her neutrality SERIOUSLY.
Sieg...fried....... you perhaps could have an opinion on the wishes people had.........
Siegfried, you're cool and all and a good person and all....but you're pretty boring sometimes.......
Sorry.
This day is not going the way Gordes expected it to be going when he got up this morning.
YUP, SO MUCH FOR HER LUGGAGE.
(I'm taking a pause to start up Nerofest. Reading the opening is slowing down finally getting my AP down, but I'm enjoying the groups. Especially when Jekyll, Mordred, and Fran are running around together, because I'm predictable.)
(OH SO THAT'S WHY FRAN WAS CHARGING UP. reading a blackbeard section for once paid off)
All right, I've got my set up for farming 10 AP to get the first copy of the petals CE. I can return to Apocrypha while I click on through.
I heard you were bothering our Fran, Blackbeard.
Okay, okay, enough FGO nonsense in the wrong plurk.
Quoting self: "Well, everything to do with the homunculi remains awful and heartbreaking." It makes me look sideways at all of the people in the Black Faction, including the ones I really like (and there's a lot).
War is hell, I guess.
Chiron you're pretty intense at a newborn.....
I mean I guess he can't know how long he has in a war to say these things.
AH YES THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF EPISODE 3. FRAN AND CAULES BONDING.
Cute.
Chiron understands Fiore's desire to stand on her two feet because he's normally got like twice the number he has now.
Mordred you child (I could be referring to anything)
Ah, Sisigou is such a good dad (I could also be referring to anything)
(to be more specific Mordred is rolling around in the mausoleum while Sisigou calls her my king)
Ah, Mordred, you secret softy.
she's not soft
"Don't use my Noble Phantasm where it could hit my subjects, no using civilians for energy."
Also the way she is (semi-)secretly eating up every time Sisigou praises her even slightly.
......is that a bone fax machine
it sure is
I'm not surprised but I also am.
Sometimes, Sisigou and Mordred seem so in sync, and then there's the reactions to Berserker going on a rampage towards the castle as the corners of their mouths move in opposite directions.
When Darnic calls HIS Servant "my king," it sure isn't the same touching thing.
....wow when did it get this late. I'm going to take a moment to do a couple of my tags and if it's not too late I might fit in episode 4 this evening, too.
Brain is melting. Episode 4 tomorrow.
The contrast between the berserkers in this show is kind of incredible (I'm onto episode 4 now).
Achilles calling Atalanta "ane-san" is cute, but a little less so when she explicitly tells him not to. Oh well, it keeps their identities secret.
Astolfo wants to be dramatic, but he's really having a rough time doing so.
Welp, Spartacus didn't last long (I know he'll be back, but I read about this fight and it took longer to describe what was going on than for the fight to play out).
WOW ACHILLES STOP INSULTING MY CHILD (except I know that he's not incorrect about the difference in strength)
"Is the joy of battle the only thing he seeks?" Gordes does it LOOK like Siegfried is enjoying anything ever
Atalanta is so cool!! ...Too bad as far as I know she keeps on getting beaten whenever she fights but she's cool!!!
FRAN YOU'RE ALSO COOL
everything in this episode is happening quickly
I know you're trying to help him defend himself, Astolfo, but Sieg can barely walk at this point. A sword is just going to weigh him down right now.
As much as I understand where Chiron was coming from, Astolfo's lesson to Sieg is a lot more at the level of what you can expect out of a newborn - even if he's got less time to figure out the rest.
Detective Jeanne is on the case!!
Ah, so the homunculi were Gordes's idea, huh? Another point against him as he is right now.
Siegfried, I still say you're kind of boring, but you're also metal as hell and a cool dude. See ya around.
All right. Excercise first, episode 5 second.
In the dub they translated that as “missy”...
Achilles and atalante are cute.
Now that's a clever way to get the idea across given we don't have the idea of calling unrelated people "big sis" too much!
Alas that I don't have access to the dub.
I tried to find my favourite Achilles and Atalante comics (the ones where we get tiny Achilles and Atalante goes WAIT NOW IT'S SO CUTE TO BE CALLED ANE-SAN), but it seems I didn't bookmark them. I do have this, though: 
Calming presence
Calming presence
Exercise and shower done! I was going to eat first, but there's something in English coming up on my schedule, so I can prepare food better while watching that. Episode 5, coming up.
Man, Sieg had a rough start to his life.
Ah, and now it's time to see if Sieg and Jeanne can overcome my innate anti-main-boy-main-girl-ship inclination.
Such ships start at a -20 penalty out of my suspicion that it was forced for the sake of het romance subplots and have to work hard to overcome that to even be neutral for me.
But it happens sometimes.
Jeanne gets things done (astolfo flies across the field when he won't stop cuddling Sieg)
Sieg, how do you know who Siegfried is? What information are these homunculi starting with? Clearly, how to talk.
I...guess the how to talk thing is important if you use some of them as soldiers and not just mana batteries, or else I'd be questioning why they know anything at all.
"oh no, they have to be conscious beings with a sense of self or else our plan to power our servants with their lives isn't cruel enough"
Of course, it's possible this will come up as he got some ideas out of Siegfried's heart.
Ah, the eternal puzzle of "person starting in non-baby form, what the heck do they know"?
A thing that I think about constantly with Fran. Maybe I'll get some better idea as I continue to read Frankenstein, though from what I have read, there's certainly differences in the personalities between book version and Fate version.
Though Fran doesn't have so much of the "what did she start with?" when the answer was obviously "not a lot" based on early flashbacks. More the problem of "how much is it reasonable to expect she's developed in the amount of time she's been alive (a couple of years or so?)."
But I'm getting off track again.
For all the novel says that Fran doesn't like being in spirit form, they sure make her do it a lot so far outside the castle. It's practical, though.
Jeanne's a badass.
This is nothing new.
But I'm saying it anyway since this is my plurk to just say anything that crosses my mind. If I didn't have it, I'd have a lot less to say but having it here is fun.
Part of me: this standoff is interesting with the different characters having different roles and approaches to this negotiation that says a lot about the characters.
Other part of me: rewinds to watch more closely when Fran walks by in the foreground to see if there's anything about how she walks that I should be picking up on.
Other part of me: rewinds to watch more closely when Fran walks by in the foreground to see if there's anything about how she walks that I should be picking up on.
Astolfo's a good kid.
Wow, look how much better Rider's Master has been as an antagonist when she's got all her clothes on and she didn't even have to actually say any full words!
Gosh, who decided to make her only character trait "is a sexual creep"
"By taking [Sieg] there, I'll fulfill my vow." I bet Jeanne thought that'd be the end of it and then back to her job.
I wonder if Sieg now walking a lot better has to do with Siegfried's heart giving him a super boost of being in shape?
"Wow, Shiro, how do you know that Saber of Black has fallen if you don't know how it happened? It's like you have a sense of every Servant in the war despite being a Master of just one of them."
Chrion's a good dude.
And also Astolfo realizes the love interest role has been stolen from him. "Though I'm slightly annoyed that she gets to steal the show right after showing up."
Sieg is getting like twelve different worldviews crammed in his head right now. But it's all good advice by people who think they won't see him again, so I guess that makes sense.
well that's a rather disquieting future vision
"I hope he lives peacefully WELP THERE'S HIM COLLAPSED ON A BATTLEFIELD SO MUCH FOR THAT."
I can't hear Sieg as anything other than Jig, which makes me expect him to start dancing. I know it's just a language thing but I'm enjoying it too much.
Anyway, coming up with names is hard, well done Sieg.
My tabletop RP character's backstory is so full of characters "to be named later."
"Sieg, allow me to teach you a vital part of staying alive." Between the delicate cough and the blush, I was kind of expecting her to tell him about making sure his fly was up. I'm guessing I missed her stomach rumbling or something given it was about food.
Oh, yeah, there's that sound that I must have missed. (I'm not an observant person.)
Vlad, you may be kind of harsh when you're in a war, but you're a good king.
Good ol' uncle Vlad.
Man, I just really like what they do with the scenes between Jack and her mom.
I really like they made sure to note that Jeanne's possession is set up in a way that Leticia will be safe throughout. That's an important part.
"Nothing is sadder than having someone rule over your life." An interesting view for Jeanne d'Arc.
"[The homunculi] would never try to leave unless they were ordered to." I wonder if they'll go more into why Sieg was different or if we're going to just have to accept him as an anomaly.
Wow it took me like three tries to spell anomaly.
wait did sieg go from barely being able to walk in the morning to anime jumping down a cliff ahead of Jeanne
Like I'm sure the heart helps with that but how did he even know he could do that? Did Jeanne just do that farther up the slope and then go OH CRAP I FORGOT SOMEONE WAS WITH ME and was just glad to see Sieg absent-mindedly imitating her?
Caules, you're a good master.
And in general just good.
(I'm not going to comment a whole lot on Gordes right now, because I've heard he develops a lot and I currently have no clue in what way.)
That's a lot of scribbles for what turns out to be like two sentences and a signature. I guess he just left the sheet in after the previous message.
Jeanne is good. Jeanne is cute!
OH RIGHT THAT VISION THAT HE'S GOING TO FIGHT I was wondering why Jeanne looked so upset when leaving Sieg behind.
AH. JEANNE IS GOOD.
okay now I've only had breakfast today and it's 5:30 I should...get to that.....
Thanks for reading, whoever might see this!
AH POST CREDITS
oh yeah, this scene where it's like "WELL GET READY TO NEVER SEE ANY OF THESE ASSHOLES AGAIN" (not that we really saw any of them outside that talk with signing up Sisigou and also a scene in the manga)
OKAY NOW I GO TO EAT.
thank god tbh imagine if the cast was even bigger
I am kind of sad they cut the cameos for Bram and Reines though because I’m a filthy Team Zero Lancer fan
Yeah, like, I noted they were moving quickly through a bunch of the scenes in the last episode and it STILL didn’t get to a lot of the cast.
An extra five characters would be...difficult.....
It is a shame they had to cut out as much as it sounds like they did, but yeah, many characters already. (I don’t know the ones you’re referring to, but googling them and seeing their last name makes me go “ah, yes, you’d like to see them animated for sure.”)
Oh man, Bram only would have appeared in Apocrypha? Double shame that he got cut. At least Reines shows up in a different series.
Yeah exactly... like, it seems like something happened to him in the Zero->Stay/Night timeline that didn’t in the Apocrypha timeline based on supplemental material
Huh. That's interesting in of itself.
But I guess "this character could have been interesting but was given insufficient time" is not a new idea for Apocrypha.
hot takes with yosie
It’s the sort of thing where i’m honestly not sure if they forgot a very minor character point from a character bio in Zero in Apocrypha or if it was intended...............
I don't know what happened in Zero, so I wouldn't be able to even hazard a guess. But in general, really hard to know given how much of an effect there would be without the further grail wars.
Basically it was before Zero I think?? Like i think one of Sola’s bios said she was under more pressure to marry and produce an heir to the Sophia-Ris because her brother who had inherited the crest was a failed mage, but he’s fine in Apocrypha
Huh. I wonder what happened there?
It could easily be something thought about in development but lost when they concentrated on other things, or it could be they overlooked the trivia.
apoc is in a separate timeline since the split happens way back in the third war (whether the einzberns summon an avenger or ruler) so a lot of things change later on because of it
if anything's weird i just shrug and chalk it up to that
It’s funny because Kayneth still eats shit and Waver gets his title somehow
I was kind of wondering how Waver ended up in the same position in the split.
Given how big of an effect the Grail War had on that in the usual timeline.
yeah that's never explained... presumably he participated in one of the offshoot wars with iskandar, god i hate trying to deal with fate timelines
fate zero didn't happen but something almost the same as it did
???? Fate is a weird mix of Every Detail Matters and "eh, this is cool, let's throw it in."
I've luckily not had to tangle much with Fate timelines, though I have to admit I am not sure whether Fran in FGO is supposed to remember anything about the London Singularity since she wasn't a Servant at the time and whether her getting locked away is supposed to be canon rather than her dying in a fire.
as far as i can figure london is an au because of the weird shit going on (so the fire is 'more' canon) and when she's summoned to chaldea she remembers london+apoc
like victor gets offed by mephisto in london which obviously didn't happen in fran's legend, it's a singularity
There was a fair amount of "wait, that's not how it's supposed to be for x character!" coming out, but they didn't come out and say for sure if it was because of the Singularity being messed up or information being messed up. That would make sense, though.
I'm pretty sure that the Victor in the singularity is supposed to be the original Victor's grandson, but, then again, AU again since Fran totally murdered Victor's wife before any kids could happen if it's anything like the book.
Yeah, Mordred said the note on Fran's coffin in London said "First artificial human created by Grandfather Victor Frankenstein, or something like that."
So yeah. SUPER WEIRD STUFF GOING ON IN THAT SINGULARITY but probably FGO Fran remembers since Servants tend to have better memories for previous stuff in Chaldea.
nice place to leave your daughter victor
ya dick
Victor is The Worst.
You'd think with how little I got done this week, I'd have had more time for this. Instead, I've been gone long enough I had to check what episode I'm on because it's been not quite a week and I went back to Episode 2 briefly to double check...oh right, Fran's reaction to getting told not to use her full power NP in Apocrypha for a Rate That Chest tag.
AH THE EPISODE I'M ON IS NAMED KNIGHT OF REBELLION EXCELLENT. Mordred and Kairi are a high point of the show, as far as I can tell so far.
Type Moon sure likes the visual of swords standing up from where they're shoved in the ground in low light (to be fair it's a good visual).
On one hand this death and destruction is Mordred's fault; on the other hand, would it have killed you to say those two sentences like maybe a couple of months earlier, Arturia?
(Okay, it wouldn't get solved that easily, because Mordred got given a +20 to her issues stat with her backstory, but it probably wouldn't have hurt.)
The worst part of watching this anime is I'm starting to grow used to that stupid outfit Mordred's cheap Master bought for her.
It is better than the outfit she came in, please just wear your stuffy armour, Mordred.
Little Mordred is cu - GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE MORGAN!!!!
watches Mordred's pre-rejection life with rolling in the deep playing in my head
we could have had it alllllllll
I mean, I also feel super bad for Arturia in this situation, because she got given a task too heavy for any one person and she carried it much farther than anyone could on her own. Poor Camelot in general.
...Boy though it would have helped if it was the Morgan who reformed in this version of the events, though apparently that one was never Mordred's mom. Mordred always had a terrible mother from what little I know of the development of Arthurian canon (I watched one video where the speaker drew cute little drawings in the background).
.......DAMMIT I PAUSED TO CHECK SOME MESSAGES I GOT ON DISCORD AND I COME BACK TO:
Picture: Mordred smiling, eyes shining, honestly happy.
Subtitle: "You won't recognize me as your son?" from the next scene.
Picture: Mordred smiling, eyes shining, honestly happy.
Subtitle: "You won't recognize me as your son?" from the next scene.
THIS COMBINATION IS HARD ON ME.
ARTURIA USE YOUR WORDS
........DID MORDRED SCREAM THAT SHE'S GOING TO DESTROY EVERYTHING ARTURIA EVER DID AND ARTURIA NEVER TURNED AROUND TO DEAL WITH THIS
like I assume she's supposed to have left already to the point of not being able to hear but the way it's framed makes it look like she was in the next room with an open doorway and was like "THAT'LL...PROBABLY SORT ITSELF OUT....."
I'll assume it's just for dramatic effect.
Restful sleep, Kairi?
OF COURSE MORDRED, THE ONE WHO TECHNICALLY DOESN'T NEED TO SLEEP, TOOK THE BED.
oh no her face as she plays with the cat is cute.
Mordred sure went from having a full plate to being gone fast.
there's playing with a cat and then there's being a weirdly shaped cat
GOD DAMMIT RIDER'S MASTER STOP APPEARING
Who thought that Rider's Master was a good idea
and why did no one stop them
I see Gordes is taking everything that happened super well.
"For that end, how many magi and Servants die matters little too me!" Caster's Master is going to regret this position.
..........how did I not remember that Caules has anime posters on his wall
I somehow don't have any recollection of noticing this the first time I watched this scene???
Quite the range, too.
I'd forgotten a lot of little details in this scene (it has been several months). Like Fran walking up to Caules when he said he was going to Sighisoara (I guess she was expecting to follow along behind him) and her dissatisfied sound when he left her behind in the room.
Also the singular Fran smile in existence.
It's probably a sign that I have Fran smile way too much in that every adaptation I've seen of Fran has maximum one smile (I mean, there's more than one in FGO but it's one sprite of it), but I keep tagging people who are super nice to her as she deserves.
Not to say that Caules isn't also really nice to her, but...I can't get over the fact that apparently the one happy moment in Fran's life in Apocrypha timeline is that she's surprised Caules actually cares that she's going to die.
That bar for how much she thinks anyone cares about her...is so low....
Though granted in her backstory everyone somehow managed to hit their head on that bar even though it's like halfway into the ground.
Yorokobe, Saber...you did that on purpose, didn't you, Apocrypha?
Good ol' Mordred "I hate humans but also I'm super restless because people are being killed."
Kairi just casually pointing at his own face for the food that Mordred missed and neither of them missing a beat in their serious conversation...nice.
"Saber, you should put your armour on" please do that permanently
I'm so bad at spelling permanently. I always think the a and the second e should be reversed, and then that they should both just be es, before finally spelling it right...every time I try.
ugh, Jack and her mom's scenes keep getting me
also addendum to who thought Rider's Master was a good idea: who designed Jack's Servant outfit and why did Type Moon hire an artist who doesn't know what pants are
"Let's open the curtains to this great show." when you say things like this, Semiramis, I wonder why you and Shakespeare don't get along better.
man, hypnotism is such a useful skill when you have to remain secretive at all times.
Man, it's sure good in London that Mash keeps sharing her resistances with Gudako or else the demon mist would have been SUPER BAD....
I mean, I know it's not the same as Jack's mist since she disappeared in like five seconds, but I expect similar principles apply.
I need to also review London's Singularity again....
Nice reflexes, Mordred.
Bounded fields are such useful ideas for urban fantasy.
JACK DON'T SNIFF PEOPLE AND DECIDE THEIR SEX ON THAT
THAT'S RUDE
Doc Ock move out
(I am, of course, thinking about how this plays out in the AU Cassie and I set up in the Holy Grail War meme when it's not the ambush tactics employed here.)
Mordred and Kairi already trust each other - nice.
Chiron casually falling off a building....
Mordred sure is great at keeping her cool in battle when even one thing goes not according to her plan. (this is sarcasm)
"It's over, Sisigou! I have the high ground!" ~ Fiore, probably
Kairi, you started that car FAST....
Bye bye, Doc Ock (except I know how this ends because the next scene involves Fran's Master and my amount of knowledge of Apocrypha increases significantly when it comes to things related to Fran, even if it's not exactly high in either case).
All right, time to pack away - it's later than I meant to be up, but my sleep schedule has slipped significantly this week for reasons and I still had to finish eating.
It really feels to me like battles in Apocrypha happen REALLY FAST but also like on top of it making sense that things happen quickly in battle they have a LOT OF GROUND TO COVER WITH LIKE TWO DOZEN MAJOR CHARACTERS.
Episode 7, coming on up as I have breakfast at...noon....
I think Fiore's shirt must be several sizes too small for it to be shaped like that over her boobs.
"anime draws women badly sometimes" come back later for more hot takes from yosie
"as a master, you're supposed to fight fair and square!" "I don't want to, you muscle-head!" hahaha, good on you, Caules.
"Master, I'm at a disadvantage and I can't turn the situation around" Too bad the reinforcements didn't, say, bring a Servant along with him. (Not that this would have worked out well for anybody.)
MORDRED IS SO ANGRY ALL THE TIME
I ENJOYED THE YELL FROM CAULES AS HE GETS DOC OCK PICKED UP AND CARRIED OFF.
DID FIORE NOT TELL HIM THIS IS HOW THEY WERE GOING TO RETREAT OR DOES HE JUST DO THIS EVERY TIME
OH WOW MORDRED IS SO SULKY AFTER THE BATTLE
THAT'S INCREDIBLE
Kairi: grand theft auto protagonist
Fiore, that was the most tsundere thing of all time.
I do wonder: if Reika was able to supply Jack with the mana she needs without going to soul-devouring, what would they have done? Would they still have engaged in serial killing, or would they have just lived ordinary lives?
I could definitely see them killing people just because they can, but I don't really know. Maybe they'd have just been happy being mother and child. I don't know enough about Reika to guess, since I seem to recall that Jack is noted to be extra affected by her Master in terms of what she does.
I just really like the creepy cute.
If I were Sieg, my true wish would be to hide under the bed and pretend the war was not happening, but that's why I'm not the main character of Apocrypha.
Well. That was an unpleasant memory, Amakusa. Maybe one day we'll get a Servant dream that isn't full of corpses.
"[all the ruins and artifacts the red faction took in probably belongs to] their Caster's workshop" I doubt Shakespeare needs anything more than some paper and pens, but I can see where they'd assume it was a Caster.
WOW THAT THRONE IS SO OSTENTATIOUS MY GOSH SEMIRAMIS (I assume)
Semiramis's face when Shakespeare suddenly bursts in is priceless.
Semiramis can't believe what's before her eyes.
If she hadn't already killed whoever decided that the best Servant to summon for this war was William Shakespeare, I think she would have done so now.
SHAKESPEARE THAT BLUSH AS HE THINKS ABOUT EVERYONE COMING TO AN END.
Still, I hope that he gets to see things all the way through.
(Despite what he did to Fran.)
(Me, hold a grudge? Never.)
Even Amakusa can't entirely hold a straight face like how he didn't really show any reaction even as he told Semiramis that he was embarrassed.
Just a touch too late, Jeanne.
(Those poor trees.)
SOMEHOW I DON'T THINK THE HANGING GARDENS OF BABYLON LOOKED MUCH LIKE THIS.
HOW DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT IS JEANNE
I mean I guess it is Ruler.
The greek heroes: okay what the fuck
The farmer is really friendly to not be like "okay, so, no offence or anything, but what's up with the sword??"
So are we just...not going to get an explanation as to who is making the dragon tooth warriors? I don't think that's related to anyone's myth except as a friend of a friend thing with Atalante sometimes being depicted as one of the Argonauts.
I guess they're just supposed to be standard issue "things people could have on hand"?
(Magi specifically, I mean.)
I guess that's part of the artifacts being gathered to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon construction.
.....WHY WERE YOU ON THE ROOF DARNIC
DID YOU JUST WANT TO MAKE A SCENE WITH YOUR ENTRANCE?
I ALWAYS ADORE THE WAY FRAN GROWLS AND PRACTICALLY HANGS OVER THE LEDGE OF THE WALL IN THIS SCENE
One of the things that most endeared me to Fran early on (I mean, beyond a general "oh, she's cute") is the comparison that gets made occasionally of her acting like a large dog that is wary of humans.
(This will not surprise anyone looking at the username I came up with for her on the fly at the time.)
So I really like that this extends past just the cute actions that can go along with it, like the way she follows Caules around everywhere.
I like to think that she probably picked up some ideas about how to approach confrontations and danger from the reactions of the feral dogs she encountered when she was young.
Of course, the look she gives Caules like she's maybe one step short from whining when he forbids her to use her fully powered Noble Phantasm is also cute, but the growling is what really captures my heart.
Take 27 of "everything about the homunculi makes me feel bad and uncomfortable."
Please let them be happy.
Vlad: Berserker, just...fight things.
Fran: SNARLS LOUDER
Me, clasping my hands together: My baby child.
Fran: SNARLS LOUDER
Me, clasping my hands together: My baby child.
Vlad I know you're a Servant but the horse is not and you just jumped off a castle wall with it.
Sure hope it's like a golem horse or something.
(Also, cool speech, bro.)
FRAN IS KEEPING UP WITH A HORSE MY DARLING CHILD
wow I'm being a weirdo. it's probably a good thing this is coming later on when only the people who have already replied will see.
Would a soldier have a belt for a sword within that guy's lifetime? ...I guess they might have.
I know virtually nothing about the military.
Okay, episode 7 done. I should do things and maybe come back to this later (last time I said it I did nothing for 24 hours, but I guess that's a short pause between episodes at the rate I'm doing these.)
Wow I can’t believe Yosie is this cute about apocrypha
For someone who has no interest in having actual children and am not very good with them, I love my children very much.
I'm glad you think it's cute.
(I forgot I left this open in a tab, so it thought I'd already read it)
I loaded up episode 8 shortly after I got up yesterday, but after a case of "I need to get this done first" it was like nearly bedtime, so I sat down again...
...and got distracted by both 1) reading eight year old threads on my musebox when I was seeing which of the three of us who share it used it the most and 2) logging into pixiv and discovering that two thirds of the works recommended on the front page were Fran art.
And then today I spent grinding FGO (I fell behind schedule due to grinding only petals instead of medals) and picking at RP, but the tags I have currently require a lot of thinking about "how do I convey this complicated thought with grunts and hand gestures" (like canon Fran doesn't even use charades but if I didn't she'd be nearly impossible to tag).
So episode 8, which has been ready for like two days.
Okay stop myself before I get caught up in Fran fan art again
I'm still not sure why they have dragon teeth soldiers but hey, I guess those are now random mage things. Not like Jason needed any particular skills.
Just like in FGO, Atalante and Fran have such cool, huge Noble Phantasms that are great when farming, but in one-on-one fights that happen a lot in important battles they are not the best.
I'm delighted for Fran being able to fend off that cool barrage of arrows.
At least Fran gets to do...something.....
I didn't know Achilles was a knight of Skyloft.
As he dives off and whistles for his bird chariot.
I bet Amakusa having a revelation was a very SHIT moment for theorycrafter sorts who didn't know he was a Ruler already.
Also I don't know why you thought double double toil and trouble was the appropriate line here, Shakespeare.
WOW RUDE SKELETONS DON'T STEP ON THE FLOWERS
Did they really translate Karna's line "For reasons, I have come to defeat you." I mean. It's technically correct, I imagine, but I have a different idea of what "for reasons" signifies.
Will Atalante get lines in this fight between Vlad and Karna/Atalante that aren't "LANCER!! /SHOOTS ARROW"?
Gosh darn it, Achilles, I know it's your mythological character trait, but stop being OP.
Atalanate is right. Bitty Achilles is so much cuter. ( 
“What if Achilles met Atalanta when he’s a child?” b... )
“What if Achilles met Atalanta when he’s a child?” b... )
CHIRON IS GOING HARD ON ACHILLES
I WANT TO TAKE ALL THE HOMUNCULI AND GATHER THEM IN MY ARMS.
Amakusa: looks exactly the same as ever with the same blank smile
Semiramis: Not even you can hide your excitement when you're in front of the Greater Grail.
Semiramis: Not even you can hide your excitement when you're in front of the Greater Grail.
(This ship is a nice understated one. They haven't explained why it's happening, but it's currently just kind of there in the background so I'm fine with that.)
Does Semiramis not know Amakusa is a Servant when she says that a Master is supposed to provide back support, or is it a comment made even if he is technically a Servant? I guess I'll see.
Even Semiramis is like "UH I DIDN'T KNOW I SIGNED UP FOR THIS AMAKUSA YOU'RE A LITTLE INTENSE"
Semiramis: hoo boy I didn't realize the level to which this guy was a religious fanatic I guess I'll just have to roll with that.
No wonder Ritsuka is so doubtful about Mordred's claim of liking to drive.
I mean. She hasn't crashed on rough terrain. Suc...cess...?
Oh yes, just as Silvie pointed out, it's the bolt on Fran's sides that is absorbing the energy. SO MUCH FOR MY THEORY ABOUT THE HORN. BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD......
The only thread I can think of that I directly managed it I think is dead since the last comment I received was in the end of July (but I love that thread so I always hold out hope).
It was a neat theory to me since, by going with the first ascension art, I could have the horn be removable and thus the side-effect of being a little less obviously non-human in a regular Holy Grail War would be not being able to sustain herself.
Though...isn't the energy supposed to be gathered by the mace???
Though I suppose it was still open at the time.
Anyway, I do love that the artists weren't afraid to twist Fran's face when she was Berserkering instead of trying to hold back to retain cuteness.
I feel like the later part where she's freaking out post-Shakespeare's NP next episode ended up going to the point of looking...weird to me? But I'd rather they went too far than not far enough, generally.
Ah, the flower Fran gave Caules is on his desk. I wonder if it was there in the last scene in his room....
Fran: growling as she grinds a skeleton into the dirt and sees fleeing skeletons and screams as she chases them
Me: I love this child.
Me: I love this child.
Astolfo is a good guy. Not wanting to absorb up homunculi. What a good guy!!
Sieg: I thought I sensed one part of my OT3.
Caster of Black...you got some bravery in you....
I was wondering how they managed to get a hold of Spartacus given how uncontrollable he was. I thought they somehow entirely brainwashed him, but I guess they just were luckily able to redirect his uncontrollableness.
Everyone in Apocrypha wants to make Adam and Eve....
I had forgotten just how much Fran uses that green lighting when fighting in the anime. I got used to it only being in her NP in FGO.
Luckily I found this before I wrote even a bit of fighting with Fran. Not that I have any particular plans for it right now, but hey. Could always happen.
Fran honestly looks kind of scared to come across Amakusa. Even ignoring that initial worried expression, the way she holds her mace seems a lot more defensive.
Compared to initially facing Achilles and Atalante.
I wonder if she senses there's something wrong with Amakusa, or if her first battle really did hit her confidence like I headcanoned in a recent thread I did, or if she's just not feeling ready when she's ended up so far away from any allies.
I should...probably just check the novel and see if they have any suggestions.
I've been a little pick-and-choosey about the novel from what little I've read so far, haha, but it does help clarify for me.
(Like I'm still unsure about the whole "she only measures pain as an input value rather than actual pain," as she seems to react to it like she does feel pain in the anime, at least. And I feel like fighting through pain makes a more compelling story? Though playing up the inhuman part can also be interesting....)
(Though the main thing from when I've flipped through the novel that I'm Super Unsure about adopting is the whole thing they had in there about "Fran kidnapped a bunch of men trying to make them her spouse but it never worked." I mean. Maybe that'd be an interesting thing to have, but for some reason it feels off to me?)
(But it's important to sometimes examine the things that make me uncomfortable in case it's just a case of something that is new and interesting but is not something I'm used to, versus feeling uncomfortable because it's not a good idea LIKE SAY RIDER'S MASTER I restrained myself from harping on this during her five second clip in this episode.)
Anyway, that's 8 done. I should...probably not watch 9. I was going to, but the people I was talking with went to bed and I should restrain myself from eating more popcorn just because I feel a little hungry and don't feel like making anything that takes more work.)
I'm hoping to get to 9 tomorrow, but Mondays are usually not very successful at that because I have two tiring things stretched out across the day and then there's a group thing right after tiring thing number 2.
Episode 9, here we go.
..............why are there giant golden women statues in a cave and why is Darnic here
Is that Fionn? Someone was able to use Fionn successfully?? okay that's a mean joke
eat shit worm man
...okay so that's the greater grail. If it was so big it required a couple of helicopters to move...how did he manage to get it here after he killed the other soldiers?
(Magic, I guess...)
I wasn't really sure what I felt about the opening theme at first, but it's growing on me.
OH RIGHT THIS IS WHERE WE START POST-OP
RIGHT INTO THE LEADUP TO FRAN HAVING A BAD TIME
BUT RIGHT NOW YOU'RE DOING GREAT SWEETIE
Last time, I was noting that Fran was using the lighting more than I expected, but now she's back to the sort of slamming the ground of FGO. Good to keep in mind if I ever RP her in a situation where fighting happens.
scream and launch a mace at him the only proper response to Amakusa (he sure doesn't look as muscled as the opening shot of (what I assume were) his Ruler Command Seals suggests.
I forgot that Amakusa was trying to recruit Fran, though he didn't exactly...put much effort into it....
"Wanna join us? For...some reason? I dunno if you feel like it I guess."
since when can shakespeare make swords
STOP HURTING FRAN okay I know it's a war but anyway STOP HURTING FRAN
LIGHTNING CRASHES THROUGH THE WHOLE FOREST AND THIS IS A MEDIOCRE SERVANT
SERVANTS ARE OP
"There must be at least one Master in those Hanging Gardens" you'd be surprised
Man, that horn sure compacts well.
Mordred stole Spartacus's role of rebelling (I was about to say the reverse, but their historical order is this way around).
Atalante is just being completely ignored today.
Finally she gets to actually fight someone.
Oh. Because they needed a punching bag.
why were you that close you're an archer
and now she's walking up to him again.
ATALANTE DON'T TRY THE "THERE'S NO WAY THEY SURVIVED THAT" TROPE IT NEVER ENDS WELL
Wow, Chiron kicks like a horse (I didn't want to resist)
How is that spike attached to Semiramis's hand? (I ask while listening to Astolfo scream in agony in the background)
This lady helping Sieg is a good person.
(insert statement about feeling awful for the homunculi here)
Mordred maybe the car would be in better shape if you hadn't, say, kicked the door out when exiting.
I wonder if the person who drew Jeanne being constrained by those chains was into rope bondage. It really seemed to emphasize her chest a lot, but that could be just me.
"To think you would follow me, Frankenstein." To think a Berserker would single-mindedly follow an objective....
I do tend to characterize Fran as being relatively obedient and pointing out that she is better about listening to her Master's directions in battle than the average Berserker, but she does here ignore Caules when she thinks that it's too important to take out Amakusa.
OH NO IT'S THIS PART.
THIS PART THAT HURTS BUT IS REALLY USEFUL TO SOMEONE WANTING TO PLAY OUT FRAN'S ISSUES
TIME TO GET SOME WATER AND TISSUES AND WHATNOT
Obligatory Victor is an Asshole.
The way she's not even reacting to his punches and is instead just looking at the flower is really effective at getting to me.
NO HONEY YOU'RE NOT A FAILURE VICTOR IS AN ASSHOLE
I do love that Fran thinks the dog's intestines are pretty. One of the only lines with words that Fran gets in FGO is that she likes pretty things and she is easily associated with flowers, but she also thought, at least at one time, that viscera were one of those pretty things.
Though the line as translated in this fan translation is one of those things that drives me up the wall. "Since I don't have this inside of me, it must be pretty."
WHAT DOES FRAN HAVE AND WHAT DOES SHE NOT???
She bleeds, so she must have a heart. She was made to give birth to her "Adam," so she must have a womb, which is not at all a creepy thing to include if Victor did indeed overlook a digestive system?
Can Fran eat? Or is her digestive system at least partially missing, like this suggests?
How does she know she doesn't have it inside of her? This is before when the novel says she got torn to pieces and put herself back together (?????? though the anime doesn't say that part), so how does she know what's inside of her? Maybe Victor had a chart??
But, like, I also wonder what the lung situation is for her. In London, Mordred points out that she isn't breathing, so it sounds like she doesn't need to breathe. But the sounds she makes clearly would need air, especially things like when she makes a huffing sound after insisting to be called Berserker.
Is it that she doesn't need to breathe, but can breathe in to speak?
But if she doesn't breathe...and her digestive system is missing important parts...why does she have blood? Do I have to check cells at work to see whether there's another reason she'd have blood??
Or is this just a mistake from either the translator or an in-character mistake from Fran?
Well in the context of fate shit, the blood she has could be her method of circulating the mana keeping her alive
because she is more crude than a homunculus in that regard.
I mean, that is possible. I got the impression that Victor wasn't a mage and that Fran was made entirely from some form of science, but 1) I could see him accidentally stumbling across just enough magic to make it work and 2) I could easily be wrong about that impression.
I haven't read a lot of the novels, and the translations I was reading before were just scattered ones through the internet.
Well even if he wasn't a mage, science and magic sort of intermingle in that world give that the magic mages use is "magecraft" which is basically science-magic
and if a dude is animating a non-living body with several organs missing, it kinda reeks of accidental magecraft to me
So, like. The translation I read before said that Fran only perceived pain as an input, like I mentioned above, but I was going to reference that again, so I went to look it up in the pdf I downloaded and there they translate it as being able to control her own pain receptors, which makes more sense to me.
So I can't be exactly a reliable source in half-remembered, half-read stuff.
And yeah, especially if it is that Fran is missing some organs, magic definitely seems appropriate.
I'm actually entirely down with the idea of Fran missing organs like a digestive system. The way that she thinks something must be pretty because she lacks it is a really powerful statement to me!
I just wish that Caules would publish Victor's blueprints online so that I could know what she has and does not have.
"Please make someone who will love me. Please make someone who will look at me." THE WAY THAT SHE'S GOING DOWN FROM LOVE TO JUST SOMEONE WHO WILL LOOK AT HER TEARS AT MY HEART.
I mean the other thing to remember here is that it is fate, so even if there is likely a precise answer somewhere, that answer will be contradicted somewhere else and then that precise answer will ultimately usually be less correct than some imprecise answer later.
... so basically go with what feels right
Hahaha.
That's fair.
Sob, why is Fate both inclined toward minutae but also doesn't care to keep it straight?
..............gosh, though. How does having no intestines interact with being a Servant, who convert food into spiritual energy anyway?
Even if Fran in that case probably couldn't/didn't need to eat in life...what happens if she tries it as a Servant??
I bet there's some event in the future where Fran is shown either eating something or not eating something......
spiritual body supercedes physical I'd say 9 times out of ten
Servants are primarily ghosts given a physical form, but they are still spirits
Yeah. And to be able to speak at all, she's got a mouth and a throat...does she have a stomach???? Gosh, this is complicated.
anyway re
etails Mostly because what fate's actually good at is a combination of larger themes usually related to the human condition and cool action shit and/or normal mutations of historical things, but at the same time it began as a doujin game from a detail oriented weirdo with a knack for turning a phrase which set the mood
etails Mostly because what fate's actually good at is a combination of larger themes usually related to the human condition and cool action shit and/or normal mutations of historical things, but at the same time it began as a doujin game from a detail oriented weirdo with a knack for turning a phrase which set the mood
for what's now dozens of authors to mutate on that style
and Nasu because he's more high minded tends to operate on this idea of "everything is canon somewhere"
which set the mood for the series having inherent contradictions
That’s fair. Frustrating, but fair.
.. this is like tripple true of Apocrypha for better or worse just given its history
going from a game to a novel (which is barely translated) to an anime
I’m not saying it’s generally bad. I don’t care about small details usually. But RPing it gets a little frustrating.
and at least the anime I'd call one of the least well written fate things on a technical level
( even if I actually liked it a lot )
( err that I've seen )
( I should clarify ()
I probably won't be able to judge quality very well, as I'm not the most analytical about media, but I do understand the general sense of "it wasn't done well, but I enjoyed it anyway."
I really shouldn't complain too much, though. I always play fast-and-loose with canon.
The fact that there are so many details and that there are people out there who take knowledge of those details so seriously has left me kind of paranoid about being called out for doing it wrong.
yeah but like
the fate fandom is shit and the shittest ones run the wikia
... I hate the type moon wikia so much but I shouldn't go off on that again
I should just go with my normal "as long as I get the general outline of the character correct, they can be supplemented with what makes a better story" attitude which left me with playing lots of minor characters.
Hahaha, I recall, and it's useful to know that because I would have taken it at face value.
Ah right, bathroom break over, it's back to being torn to pieces by Fran's reaction to the illusion of a non-dick Victor.
That's fine.
To me, Fran's really deformed face in her freak-out scene looks really...silly. But like I think I mentioned earlier, I'd prefer they erred on this side than being afraid to ruin her looking cute and not going far enough.
She should look ugly and terrifying when she's like this, because these are huge emotions that aren't going to look cute on anyone's face.
...But it looks kind of silly to me. I'll just take the intended impression from it and carry on.
.....UGH THESE SOBS AS SHE CLUTCHES HERSELF ARE WRECKING ME.
OH OF COURSE THERE'S A PINK FLOWER HERE LIKE IN THE GRAVEYARD BUT THIS ONE IS WILTED THANKS
AND THEN THE SOUNDS AS SHE HOLDS HER FACE LIKE SHE'S TRYING TO HOLD IT IN AS SHE KEEPS FLASHING BACK NO I'M OKAY THIS IS FINE
yeah no this whole scene is fine as she screams and such i'm cool don't touch me
Still don't know what to think about the calming down via command spell. It's a little unsettling, but so is a lot here.
I hope that when I know someone else gets to go through Shakespeare's NP, that we get to see what it looks like from the outside.
The suggestion behind the wooden doll Victor interests me. I wonder if it just looked from the outside like she was stumbling around with a wooden doll walking about and then she just went ham on the wood.
Huh. The doll looks intact despite the beating she did. Hmm.
Anyway, even with the whole "not sure what to think about using a command seal on emotional issues," Caules is a good dude. I like this man.
(I return to where I paused and Mordred is clearly Into This Fight Hell Yeah.)
Mordred is an asshole but I love her anyway.
Their Assassin has magic from the Age of Gods, their actual Caster doesn't do magecraft...what a motley crew red is.
Jeanne the badass.
(I realize this could refer to 90% of her scenes but I mean where she just holds off a giant laser and no big deal.)
welp, spartacus sure has some body horror
And there ends episode 9. My poor baby.
Only one episode left and then there will be no Fran, if I recall correctly.
This is fine.
Thanks for the insight, by the way, Charles. I'm very much a Fate novice and, as I noted above, I'm not good at being analytical about media. So I appreciate the insights.
- oh, post credits scene (ending song also followed a trajectory of "not sure" to "okay I'm warming up to this" but faster).
Very gallant, Sieg.
Apocrypha has a lot of structural issues to its writing from pacing to how it juggles characters to the individual writing of certain peoples' arcs. It also has a lot of shit I love - Jeanne and Sieg are pure and I love them (even if they are subject to some writing wonk), Mordred is amazing as is Kairi they're just the best duo
Fiore's arc fascinates me especially in a big franchise-spanning sense.
Vlad's great, Shakespeare's a riot, Semiramis appeals to me personally big surprise
Astolfo is a scene stealer
... I don't know how much of this is spoilers or not I have some more ganular stuff to say but I both don't want to hijack your plurk and I don't want to just talk over your watching experience haha
I both know and don’t know a lot about the show after Fran dies.
Like I know a few details of how the conflict shifts into more of a Ruler v. Ruler thing, I know there’s a segment in the middle where Sieg, Astolfo, and Jeanne live together, I know a few things about some details about Jeanne/Sieg/Mordred especially’s final battles, and I know Sieg turns into a dragon.
But that leaves a bunch of blank spots, so you might be right that some of it would turn into spoilers. It may be best for us to have that conversation after I’ve finished watching it, or at least watched as much as you have (since you said “that I’ve seen”).
Thanks for the consideration! I will totes be interested in your thoughts when I get to such a point, though.
Oh and I know just enough about Fiore’s and Caules’s end positions that I think I might know why she’d fascinate you, but also the information that I got is so vague that I could be wrong.
The FGO Apocrypha event was going on before I realized that the information and links in the comments of the subreddit weren’t personally worth it for the times when the comments section is an Internet comments section, so I accidentally picked up a few scattered spoilers.
I also got to pick up on a lot of people’s dislike for the Sieg/Jeanne romance, which I can’t tell how many really did feel it was forced and how many are just salty that their anime wife is no longer virginal. Either seems possible.
I’ll be doing my best to make my own judgment, which is less in danger from that fandom salt and more in danger from my own salt about how often male and female leads get given a romance subplot whether it makes sense or not.
They are well written imo just kinda boring
err, "well written" - they make sense as a pair
Fair enough! That’s better than some stories, at least.
Episode 10! ...I wonder if I should make a new plurk at the halfway point given I'm well over 500 comments in right now....
...Oh yeah, we closed on Sieg making A Mistake.
Astolfo has the right expression for this.
ASTOLFO IS A GOOD GUY
There it is. There's my...ship...? As Fran comes out of nowhere to ambush Mordred.
No wonder Charles is so confused about the ship in FGO.
H...i..Jack....
I'm not sure how Jack even managed to reach to dice up the golem, but hey, it's just showing off there.
This phone call continues the great tradition of Jack and her mom (one day I'll look up her name) being really cute while also being really creepy.
Boy does Mordred ever outclass Fran in terms of raw strength.....
Mordred is kinda op in this and I really dig it
She really is.
There's no call for her to be so rude to Fran, though (except it's basically her defining character trait to be rude).
...............okay back to "???? what is Fran made out of" it didn't occur to me last time that, like. There is blood on the wound when Mordred cuts her arm off, but it's also not, like. Actively bleeding?
why does she seem to have blood only at skin level
On this rewatch I'm starting to doubt how many internal organs Fran has at all.
"Clearly not a homunculus. I guess you're just a messy work." (one summon later) "We have a special connection."
Also while I'm doubting on her internal organs - for all she supposedly doesn't have to breathe, her grunting sure sounds like she's struggling to breathe. Maybe it's the limitations of having a voice actor who, you know, has to breathe.
Fran you're a mystery
Clever on Fran to play dead there - or else she's just in shock which is extremely possible.
...brave, sieg. not smart, but brave.
Mordred did not appreciate that wound.
welp, so much for siegfried's heart (I know this isn't the end for him but)
Mordred's so nonchalant about this.
Though remembering his name is about as respectful as Mordred gets.
Ah, yes, Fran's most hardcore moment.
You're doing great, sweetie!!
Ah. wrong time for the stream to buffer.
Okay, reloading on a lower quality, here we go GO FRAN GO
UGH CAULES YOU'RE ALSO A GOOD GUY
I CAN'T BELIEVE (at least from what I recall reading up on which I know isn't super accurate given that I've already found things that turned out to be translation errors in what I was reading) THAT FRAN APPARENTLY FOUND THAT HE WAS SAD THAT SHE WAS GOING TO DIE AS HER HAPPIEST MOMENT.
THAT'S SUCH A LOW BAR FOR PEOPLE ACTUALLY CARING ABOUT YOU
Oh Caules is flashbacking and crying this is fine
At least she revived Sieg.
and this is a b-rank noble phantasms SERVANTS ARE OP
Given how OP Mordred is getting her this damaged is pretty good, Fran, don't worry, I love you.
CAULES NO
Oh, we're getting more Siegfried backstory. That's nice. I felt they had kind of shortchanged the dude significantly.
Though this seems to be mostly retreading the same stuff, except that Sieg is hearing about it this time.
"I realized my wish was already granted." ........which was? (I mean, I guess it was saving someone but.)
Mordred is so casual about all of this. Like, understandably given who she is, but it's kind of amazing as well.
Astolfo's having a no good bad day.
Mordred's getting to experience the villain lifestyle in a fantasy series: you get to be super overpowered but then the heroes come one by one and get power ups for no apparent reason to you.
Also, aww, Astolfo. A good rider.
Shakespeare is eating this up with a spoon.
Man, my hands would get tired if I had to hold them like Semiramis does.
"Then we can ignore this." A Semiramis quote that can be played over top of the final battle in the anime.
ARE THOSE LIKE OPERA GLASSES SHAKESPEARE
semiramis's ability to read amakusa like a book is so useful since I can't read him at all.
Kairi you're so useful. "Do your best!"
For a clone, you're really caught up on "faker," Mordred.
ASTOLFO PLEASE BACK UP
well we know they're sabers. after all, they can shoot beams.
......ah right. I'm reminded by the image chosen for the thanking of the sponsors...bye Fran.
Ah. I'm actually sad despite knowing this was upcoming.
..................like actually a lot sadder than I would ever have guessed.
But anyway. I'm now...partially not sure what comes up?
I know the following:
1) Vlad: Hey Master don't make me do the Dracula thing. That's the only thing that I ask of you.
Darnic: I'm gonna do the thing.
Vlad: NO.
Darnic: And now I'm going to like fuse with you or something.
Vlad: ...wait what
1) Vlad: Hey Master don't make me do the Dracula thing. That's the only thing that I ask of you.
Darnic: I'm gonna do the thing.
Vlad: NO.
Darnic: And now I'm going to like fuse with you or something.
Vlad: ...wait what
2) Jeanne realizes something is up with Amakusa! The alliances shift to Ruler v. Ruler.
3) At some point Jeanne, Sieg, and Astolfo all live together in a romantic comedy segue (I don't know if it's actually romantic comedy).
4) A bunch of Servants come to deal with Jack. Atalante really doesn't like how it ends.
3) At some point Jeanne, Sieg, and Astolfo all live together in a romantic comedy segue (I don't know if it's actually romantic comedy).
4) A bunch of Servants come to deal with Jack. Atalante really doesn't like how it ends.
5) Mordred fights Semiramis. Jeanne uses a super OP sword. Sieg uses Fran's Galvanism in order to fight...someone I'm guessing Amakusa???
6) Sieg turns into a dragon or something.
I think that's everything I know. I'm not sure how this fits into the remaining episodes and how much I'm missing.
Her name's Ai by the way
Oh, that shouldn't be too hard to remember.
I can stop just calling her "Jack's mom" like how I do with Astolfo's Master who I would do that to even if I knew her name.
Or should I say: "Ai see."
I tabbed back to close the Apocrypha fullscreen and I saw the picture of Fran fighting again and I got sad again. I really didn't expect to feel so sad about not getting any more Fran scenes. I guess that's what happens when you RP someone for months.
Anyway, I should get some stuff done, like a tag I've left hanging for a few days because Monday was busy and Tuesday was...I don't have an excuse for Tuesday.
Thanks for joining me, people who were reading this. I intend to watch another episode soon, but those intentions keep going all over the place.
It’s the ONE THING he doesn’t want to happen darnic 
oh wait no it;s Reika
I mixed her name up with someone else sorry
Reika is Jack's mom
But yeah this is why I was so surprised FGO went so shippy with them
Darnic, you had ONE JOB and you BLEW IT. 
And, well, Reika is also an easy name to remember! So long as I don’t end up thinking of Ai instead.
I knew this was all their interactions in Apocrypha, since I watched all of Fran’s scenes before. They certainly don’t get the shippy bits in this canon.
I do kind of wonder how Fran would have reacted to seeing Mordred again if the Fran in the Singularity was a Servant who remembered Apocrypha instead of a living version of her.
In Chaldea, she has both the Apocrypha memories and the Singularity memories, but if she just had the Apocrypha memories, would she have still been angry about it or suspicious of Mordred? Who knows. Maybe it’d also be a “well, we’re not enemies right now so it’s fine.”
tbh grand order is weird about that in general because (again, going back to Fate lord constantly contradicting itself) Servants should not be able to remember previous summons. Because technically, Servants aren't the spirits of those heros per se, but rather a copy made of the Heroic Spirit from the Throne of Heroes
so once the Servant dies or is unsummoned or whatever, all the new memories they made should just die with the clone ghost
but grand order treats everyone as remembering everything at least vaguely unless said otherwise.
Which to be fair is more fun and you get stuff like how the Extra crew remembers each other and can make in jokes or like Emiya and Cu's rivalry
but it's still a little weird going by the old conception of the lore
I think the prevailing theory is that they remember more because Grand Order’s summoning method is different. I’ve heard that supposedly the memories in wars do get recorded, even if just as the heroic spirit being aware of what happened rather than as memories, but I don’t remember the source and as we’ve seen that means it’s about 50-50 on whether
I’m wrong.
And that the normal war summoning just doesn’t copy over that material.
Though the real reason is the meta “it’s fun to have those references.”
maybe. I imagine where people are drawing that from is fate stat nights archer
The impression I have is that if someone is doing something Servants shouldn’t be doing, it’s probably Stay Night Archer or Saber, the weirdos.
Jeanne too tbh
Oh, does she? I guess she did have kind of a weird summoning....
yeah admittedly she kinda functions mostly normally but like she's apparently also a Counter Guardian
and those people are just weird
Ah yes, that crowd definitely throws a wrench into the works all the time.
If anyone starts to have trouble loading this plurk, let me know and I'll start a new one. But in the meantime...episode 11!
You'd think that after feeling sad looking at the reminder that there's no more Fran in Apocrypha a few times, I would have changed it over so the last image on episode 10 of Fran would not be still there, but you'd be wrong.
Spa...rt...a...cus.....
r u ok
Goodness, Sabers are OP. Mordred got boosted by a Command Seal and Sieg(fried) still managed to do more damage with his NP than Fran.
"Discount Saber" is that a step up from fake Saber
Speaking of overpowered Servants, let's return to the lancer battle
Karna throwing shade.
.......uh, uncle vlad, r u ok
Man, Fate powers are all a bunch of bs, but they're cool so I don't mind.
"My Noble Phantasm isn't just the stakes it's the concept of being pierced by stakes" if you could just pierce at any time why didn't you start with that oh well it was cool
Spartacus calling the skeletons climbing all over him poking him with their spears great and asks for more. Am I watching a BDSM scene
Semiramis doesn't want to ever admit that Shakespeare was maybe helpful once.
Ah. Hmm. That may be the wrong direction, Spartacus.
(P.S. No offence but you're a bit disturbing....)
Mordred does not take being matched well.
MORDRED JUST CAN'T HAVE A ONE-ON-ONE FIGHT EVER
I mean, like, if she did, then we'd be losing two of the main protagonists already (INSTEAD OF JUST FRAN).
Good thing Kairi is on top of noticing when things are about to go super bad.
JEANNE IS A BADASS COUNT: MANY (this time: luminosité eternelle)
WELP so much for that castle
.............HOW DID NO ONE NOTICE THE GIANT SKY CASTLE MANEUVERING OVER TOP OF THEIR BASE
I KNOW THEY WERE PRETTY PREOCCUPIED BUT YOU'D THINK THEY'D HAVE SOMEONE ON "GIANT LASER FIRING FLYING ATTACK SHIP WATCHING DUTY"
The Servants riding rocks up looking as calm as if they were riding an elevator is both cool and hilarious to me. Mostly the latter.
Not just a scolding, a sermon.
That's a useful trick, Avicebron, since your powers aren't exactly portable usually.
Just plop a jewel into the closest stone and make do.
Welp, this fight is not exactly in the Black Faction's favour, since their archer is having to fight at short range and they don't have an equivalent short range person to get up in Atalante's face.
THOUGH OF COURSE AS I SAY THAT THERE'S THE HORSE WRESTLING
But yeah, Vlad could certainly use being on Romanian soil right now.
He's not taking the drop in power well.
Or it could just be "so our mana batteries just got heisted."
Nah, I guess it's more the former.
darnic u had 1 job
darnic: vampire now blease
Vlad: DID I STUTTER
Okay, I disappeared for a moment, because I forgot about FGO for a moment. I fell off from my usual amount of grinding this event, which is to say I didn't clear out all the gold skill gems and I was just slightly under 30 boxes.
And I had forgotten it ended at midnight until Silvie started her wrap up in her plurk - thank you, Silvie!!
Anyway even though I should go to bed soon, I'm going to watch another episode of Apocrypha because it makes me happy. So, episode 12: Damn It, Darnic!! is a go.
Thanks, Semiramis, for including a church on the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. You're a true bro.
......hi Einsbern.
Well, Past Darnic's none too pleased to see Amakusa.
Also get fucked again worm dude.
.....oh. bye Einsbern.
I can't tell if she's crying or Amakusa's crying. I'm guessing it's the latter??
Especially since she looks too dead to be crying right now.
It makes me sympathize with Amakusa for, like, the first time ever.
............come to think of it, does it really matter who is sitting on the grail? They still have to fight it out between the two sides first. Why is it important to send like most of your remaining Servants to fight the enemy on home turf?
I mean, it's a very pretty statue, Darnic, but priorities, man.
Is...is the red faction taking the Greater Grail counted as a defeat of the black faction? ONE OF THE FACTIONS ALREADY HAD THE GREATER GRAIL AND THE WAR WASN'T OVER WHY DO THEY CARE WHO'S HOLDING IT FOR NOW??
Though I guess Vlad wouldn't be so good in a non-defensive war. But still.
I mean. I guess since the black faction were the ones to start off the war, losing the grail COULD count as such. But idk.
HE WARNED YOU, DARNIC. HE TOLD YOU DUDE.
I guess I see why he fused with Vlad now, though.
I'm going to make sure to buy uncle vlad some nice thread for his embroidery after this.
"YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS, DARNIC" how
I laughed at Achilles getting owned. But Chiron's a good dad.
UGH I HATE HOW NOTHING GOOD EVER HAPPENS TO THE HOMUNCULI okay maybe some of them will be fine with that whole rescue thing Sieg did but there sure is a lot of pain in between.
Man, and we get Legend of Dracula as a slight buff to his defence skill???
HEY JEANNE
OH nO THEY'RE GOING TO TALK ABOUT BERSERKER AND CAULES FEELING LIKE HE LET HER DIE i shouldn't have complained about no more fran
The Yggdrimellias (or however you spell that) are being all heartwarming about being glad everyone is okay while they try to sort out what happens and I'm like "WELL ONE OF YOU ISN'T GOING TO BE OKAY MUCH LONGER" (oh yeah that's another spoiler I know).
Fiore's a good leader.
Though I'm realizing as we change scenes to someplace in a stone hallway that there was one notable absence from the Masters of Black in here.....
it wasn't a hallway down in the labs, but hey, let's go, Jeanne! Much better character to be showing up!
Atalante: Archer of Black and I will back you up. Rider and Lancer, approach as you please. And Avicebron I guess we don't even care
I like that she got to take the leadership position in this grouping.
It's rare to see either Karna or Achilles pressured. I guess that's the benefit of raid battles.
Wait. .....Did Amakusa really wait until now to kill the Masters of Red??
...Well, I guess it seems like the Servants all felt it, so he wouldn't want to reveal his hand earlier.
I say things are OP so much in this anime but that's at least partially because things are OP a lot in this anime, but that mist stuff is OP.
Man, the grail has so many backups for people trying to cheat, thinking about the Ruler stuff.
Alongside the whole factions bit.
Oh. Amakusa may have let Darnicvlad through because he wanted some form of vengeance himself. Interesting.
I don't really have much to say about the meeting between Jeanne and Amakusa, but I liked it. Felt nice and tense.
Okay, I should start heading towards bed, as much as I'd just keep watching if it weren't so late.
I can't believe the vampire episode was one episode off from being episode 13. This must be the poor pacing decisions I've heard people complain about. Welcome back to lukewarm takes on Apocrypha with Yosie, featuring more sadness that Fran is dead.
I'm not singleminded. You're singleminded.
"Why do I have command seals now?" asks Sieg. Good question, Sieg.
I was going to make a joke about Astolfo being upset by referring to him as Sieg's Lover #n, but I couldn't decide what order to put Astolfo and Jeanne in. Do I go chronologically or who is more prominent in later episodes from what I hear?
As always, I ask the piercing, important questions.
Oh right, that's a hashtag symbol rather than a number symbol in most contexts these days.
God the vampire thing was disappointing to me on so many levels
I'm too early on to give proper judgment calls, but I'm thinking about the repeated jokes about Sieg being a cardboard protagonist as he talks about saving the other homunculi. It's probably because I repeatedly am going UGH THE HOMUNCULI DESERVE BETTER but this feels like a good thrust for a character arc.
The vampire thing was a rather quickly open and shut concern.
like that it was kinda the first cour boss, that it made Vlad less interesting, that it took him out of the show
like I do get it in the grand scheme of thing, it allows for a dramatic tone shift by way of killing Darnic right in the middle and allowing the black team to transition towards being far less ambiguously The Heroes because we got rid of the nazi collaberator
but still. I liked Vlad
Vlad is a good guy who deserved better.
Anyway Sieg isn't bad. he's a little boring (especially in comparison to Shirou and (this one might be more controversial) Kiritsugu who I can't help but compare him to because fate male leads and if you compare him to Rin for the co lead of UBW he's just nothing) but I liked him okay
he's got a fun if pretty over-telegraphed arc. It could use more show don't tell but it's logical and sympathetic
I also get that they kind of wanted to set aside Darnic rather than try to get the trio of Yggdmillennia group who aren't about to die (Caules, Fiore, and Gordes) to go against him suddenly when they were all happy to follow him along, since I doubt Darnic is about to set aside the Grail War for any reason.
But that could have been interesting if they gave them reason to actually do so.
It's a conflict they could have had.
I think the bigger issue, if you ask me, is that Kairi is basically the protagonist in practice for the first several episodes until Sieg actually exists (like maybe Astolfo or Jeanne but especially in the first episode it's kinda the Kairi and Mordred show) and Kairi and Mordred are just
the best and most fun servant pair in Apocrypha
by like a lot
so I know I at least kept being like "aww they aren't the real leads..."
I'm guessing they also didn't want to have to shift Vlad from fighting a defensive war on Romanian soil (extremely powerful) to an offensive war taking place elsewhere (which based on the previous scene is extremely powered down, though possibly is at least partially because he wasn't expecting it).
But yeah, I enjoyed Vlad.
I will agree that I'd be a lot more interested in following Kairi and Mordred. Maybe that's part of where the more legitimate complaints are coming from, but I suppose I shouldn't be surprised people blow it out of proportion.
Well Vlad's downfall is mostly to establish Darnic once and for all as a douche no one likes so he kinda dies by proxy of our arc for Darnic
Also fair.
which is fair tbh like in most fate series when considering a Servant character you need to consider their master as a key part of the characterization
(speaking of the pair I don't see talked about as much in apocrypha I like a lot would probably make my top 5 if not 3 is Fiore and Cairon they're fun )
I've really liked Fiore and Chiron so far!
And the second opening looks pretty fun. I feel like Fiore looking out the window as birds fly by is perhaps a little too on the nose, but I like it in general.
You know, it's occurring to me that the inescapable salt of the FGO subreddit towards Sieg (I don't read the comments anymore and just grab info/comics and I still can tell people are being salty about him) has done the opposite of poison the well for me.
Because I'm usually inclined to be easily bored by Generic Male Lead and Main Boy/Main Girl Romance, but after getting tired of people complaining about it I'm inclined to look for the positives.
Jeanne taking the position of "salvation for all humanity isn't something that exists" is an unexpected angle and I'm curious to see where it goes.
Also this is like the first time I've seen Amakusa emote as something beyond what Semiramis is able to pick up on. (I feel like for the most part I'm learning about Amakusa mainly through the lens of Semiramis.)
All of the Servants of Red BUT ONE.
For a moment I thought Karna was literally like "/SHRUGS WELL THEMS THE RULES I GUESS AMAKUSA IS THE NEW MASTER" but wanting to ask him about it makes sense.
YEAH I GUESS AVICEBRON AND CHIRON AREN'T EXACTLY IN A STRONG BARGAINING POSITION
oh boy rider's master is here I'm sure this scene will go splendidly (I do know that it ends strongly but every time Rider's Master is on screen, I expect to hate it).
oh yeah have her freak out that sure is a deep and interesting character development for someone whose entire character arc is that she's a creep
Can I find the person who designed Rider's Master and kick them in the shins
Thanks Mordred.
She's so casual about it, but she sounds way more serious than usual. I guess the one bit of good Rider's Master did was provide a moment to highlight Mordred's characterization a bit and let Astolfo tag along with Sieg easily, but it wasn't worth it.
The stutter on Astolfo sounds like an anime character getting proposed to suddenly.
Astolfo's a good dude (I wonder how many times I've said this so far).
...Avicebron I realize that I said before that you didn't have a strong position, but that's only because I have a vague idea of how these alliances shape up. At the moment, most of the people in this room are against Amakusa.
I'm not really sure why you need to join him to achieve your dream right now based on the information you have.
But I guess it's also not a completely silly decision??
MORDRED YOU SURE RUN FAST well I mean I guess these don't have to be happening simultaneously.
MORDRED YOU REALLY ARE SO OP
tbh everyone in this series kinda gets on the "salvation is stupid" bandwagon shockingly quick
I'd probably at least listen to him about what form he thinks that takes before calling it thus, but hey.
Also I wonder how Mordred found out about the plan to kill off the other Masters of Red. I assume that's the "attempt to betray my Master" thing she's talking about.
Gosh I love her cockiness in this scene, though.
To be fair to Jeanne, she has been a Counter Guardian for a while before this in the nebulous back screen
TURTLE BUG-WOMAN
so she's been killing threats to the existence of humanity for the last several dozen years if not centuries assuming that's a thing still
And yeah, that's reasonable. Like I said, I'm down to hearing about her thoughts on why she said what she did.
I haven't seen anyone else's opinions yet since no one was around to even hear it.
"Your abilities are useful to us" as the only caster who's actually a mage.
I still don't know why grabbing the grail is such a big deal, but I suppose the rules are different for the attacking vs defending sides of this battle.
YEAH A SERVANT LASTING SIXTY YEARS IS PROBABLY NOT DUE TO GOOD THINGS.
Okay, yeah, Jeanne is expanding reasonably on the idea of at least Amakusa being wrong to impose salvation in his position as a Heroic Spirit. Her choice of words was interesting, though.
The desire for salvation isn't wrong, but that this salvation doesn't exist...I look forward to seeing how this shakes out.
GOSH DARN IT STOP HITTING ME IN MY HOMUNCULUS WEAKSPOT.
I'M GLAD THIS SET OF MANA BATTERIES ARE NOT GETTING OVERLOOKED BUT BOY WAS WANTING THE SHOW TO TAKE THEM SERIOUSLY A MONKEY'S PAW.
Come on, let some possessing heroic spirit come along and help this homunculus mash (i.e. buried under a pile of rubble, clearly dying, has the protagonist comforting her in her final moments).
It was pretty naked emotional manipulation, but I was open to it so it worked I guess.
"YOU DON'T HAVE SUCH A THING AS FREE WILL, PEOPLE WHO ARE OBVIOUSLY GOING AGAINST ORDERS." sound logic gordes
Astolfo is a good dude part 27.
"Count to ten, Uncle Gordes." CAULES YOU'RE CUTE
Ah. I guess Caster, being welcome in the Hanging Gardens, would be able to get down faster than Archer. O O P S
THIS BLEEDING THING IS WHAT YOU ASKED FOR
OF COURSE WITH EVERYONE ELSE STARING SERIOUSLY OUT INTO THE RAIN ASTOLFO WOULD BE RUNNING AROUND WITH A BRIGHT BLUE UMBRELLA IN THE ED.
oh no jack is cute here
Semiramis doing her best Quiet from Metal Gear impression.
Jeanne sure looks like a sad puppy at the end there.
Step one to recovering my sleep schedule is to NOT load up episode 14.
Thanks for reading.
I'm later in getting my day started than I should be but I'm going to continue that train with a pre-errands episode!
I see Avicebron is remembering a day that wasn't the greatest.
OH HECK YES KAIRI AND MORDRED TALKING ABOUT SOMETHING BOTHERING HER THIS IS WHAT I WANT FROM THIS ANIME
Oh yeah, time for the Jeanne sermon she promised.
KABEDON I know that's not what's actually going on here but I laughed anyway.
That was a much less harsh sermon than I expected, but hey, he knows what he's getting into.
Chiron, calmly telling Gordes that Caster was going to just use him as the core.
So I have some sympathy for Roche insofar as he's a child and thus can be more easily forgiven being more easily misguided. But also he did kind of say that he didn't care who had to die to make the golem, right up until it was him.
...Oh yeah. That's why Avicebron would want to shift Masters. Now Roche can't command him with his command seals to stop this.
What a pleasant chap, that Avicebron.
This is one of the spoilers I knew ahead of time and Roche did kind of bring it on himself with his lackadaisical attitude towards people dying for the sake of his ambitions, but it wasn't comfortable watching this happen to a child.
(Speaking of the lackadaisical attitude, I'm actually a bit surprised that, when you want to make homunculi fighting for their freedom a central theme in your male lead's story arc, there is currently nothing being touched on about how everyone in the Black faction, outside of Astolfo, was similarly unconcerned about the loss of homunculus life.)
(Which includes characters who I like very much. Caules seemed unconcerned about it. Fran seemed unconcerned about it - which despite getting most of her own mana from her own abilities you might expect her to think more about as an artificial human herself. Chiron was willing to help Astolfo help one homunculus but showed no concern to the rest.)
Well I mean from any mage perspective, homunculi are not people. It would be more weird if more people did care earlier on
Oh, I know.
And I'm thinking that maybe the show will go more into it later.
Because, like, Fiore's reaction to Sieg's request suggests she might be changing her mind on her view on homunculi.
But if it doesn't get brought up later, I don't feel like it's something that should sit comfortably.
Like. Pre-Sieg escape, I imagine that it'd be like caring about AI-less robots, except they happen to be fleshy.
But when one of them escapes, that should be a red flag.
I'm not saying that it's a case of irrevocable evil or anything like that. A couple of my favourite characters in the anime are Servants with mass murder in their pasts.
But I hope they don't brush over it as nothing.
I haven't finished watching the series. Maybe they will go into it.
Granted, I remember a story about an AI-testing lab where the robot escaped the lab only to get run over in the street as it left. There were a lot of jokes around the internet, of course, about the rise of the robot overthrow of humanity starting here.
But the thought I took away from it is: shouldn't we be more worried that the intelligence we're trying to develop wants to escape the lab?
From a more ethical standpoint.
Now, granted, I expect that what happened there was not really a nascent AI. It probably was a programming glitch. But I found it worrying that this was the general public reaction.
I'm probably overthinking this, but then again, I'm watching Apocrypha for...actually I can probably just condense it down to "artificial humans" and cover most of what I like since Fran and Mordred and their Masters are some of my favourite characters.
There are some others who I'm quite fond of (Fiore, Jeanne, Astolfo, Chiron, etc.), of course.
Anyway.
That aside, back to the episode.
"Why is Avicebron who hates humans trying to create a human" is a question in the back of my mind. What part of the world is he wanting to "save"? I guess we'll find out.
why does everyone in this show want to create adam and eve (well, that's a huge exaggeration. it's two men, one of whom is dead. but it's a pretty specific thing to repeat)
The growing of plants in Adam's footprints makes me wonder if he's trying to save the natural world when he talks about saving the world - but I wouldn't be confident in trying to guess at this point.
And, I guess, with the golem, the idea of an intelligent species.
Astolfo are you ever going to use Sieg's name ever again
I know Sieg and Jeanne are the canon couple, but Sieg and Astolfo are also hitting a lot of romantic beats. insert sieg has two hands pic
........okay so Avicebron is going to need to get dealt with A LOT FASTER THAN I EXPECTED
GOOD THING FIORE IS ON THE JOB WITH HOW STUNNED CAULES AND HAIRCLIP LADY WAS HERE. HE ALMOST GOT EATEN BECAUSE THEY WERE TOO SHOCKED (I MEAN I'D BE THE SAME BUT)
I'm going to need to review Fran's interlude soon. This talk of Adam is making me remember the question I have in the back of my mind about whether Fran even knows she was supposed to birth her own Adam.
A part of my continuing series on thinking about what Fran might know about the birds and the bees. Because she's smart and I don't want to just fall back on the complete innocence thing like I have done before such as in the rate that chest meme.
But mainly for the sake of knowing what she knows about her own origin.
you know I genuinely don't know, is the concept of Fran that she replaces the Frankenstein's monster and is a sexswap / retooling, or is she from the point in the original story Vic goes to make a bride and he just actually made it in fateland
... but then with her I also have the ??? of a lot of people in the London chapter on if they are meant to be in world fictional or not, we explicitly brought that up with Jekyl
So when it comes to the ??? in the London chapter, I finally got sort of my answer for it when I finally did Jekyll's interlude for his NP upgrade in the middle of my venture through making London Yard the champions of Nerofest.
For Jekyll explicitly, he is supposed to be a real person who was time-displaced into the London Singularity. In the Singularity, it's shown that the Jekyll from the Singularity was returned to his own time after the Singularity was resolved.
The impression I got, but less explicit, is that this is also what happened with Fran.
I think it's supposed to be that Jekyll and Fran were real events in Fate world and the novels were sort of..."based on a true story" kind of deals.
But that part I don't recall where any explicit mention was of it.
In terms of where in the "story" of Frankenstein she's from, she's absolutely the original in Fateland and is the one to request the bride herself (though she didn't specify bride - translations seem to vary significantly over whether she specified the gender of the partner she wanted).
I mean London plays a lot with what is even fiction and truth because so much of its cast is authors, and that's also a part of the great fate metafiction, where it kinda plays with the idea that Servants (or well, Heroic Spirits) are as much a personafication of the legends built up around people as much as the people themselves
Zero makes a pretty clever nod to this when it makes it ambiguous as to if original/real Iskander was actually short-ish (as history records) or the eight foot tall giant which is in zero
It just feels weirder with the London crew because the stories/legends were created so much more recently.
I think in Fran's case, she existed but may have been affected in her summoning by the works of fiction "based" on her, though that's something I'll have to actually check into to make sure that I'm correct about them being explicit about it rather than remaining ambiguous.
( I mean hell Jekyll straight up runs up against another bit of fate lore which because of fgo might not be canon anymore where it was stated that Heroic Spirits can't exist for things less than a hundred years old at least. Though fgo does tend to abide by the spirit of that because the more close to modern servants tend to either be much weaker
or have some excuse for why they have any power (hi Edison) or both )
... tHIS IS A LONG WINDED WAY TO SAY I WANT MARY SHELLEY AS A SERVANT
(Jekyll isn't actually a problem for that, since his book was written in 1886 and the actual human Jekyll is noted in his interlude to have been from before this time, since that's approximately when the singularity was?)
( oh I know I said run up against not violate )
I MEAN I'M IN TOTAL AGREEMENT I'm mainly discussing it and pausing between to look stuff up because, as much as I know I'm the opposite of an expert in Fate, I want to have at least Fran's stuff semi-straight in my head.
Even though I am constantly contradicting what is probably true about her in my threads as I try to figure out if, say, she could run short on breath when she doesn't have to breathe.
But if she was, say, laughing because she was getting tickled (something that happened in a thread), could she run short on breath because she presumably needs it to express laughter??
FRAN YOU'RE HARD TO FIGURE OUT BUT YOU'RE GREAT IT'S MY FAULT DON'T WORRY SWEETIE
(Ah, I misread.)
So insofar as the FGO bios are concerned, both Fran and Jekyll are real people. Jekyll is explicitly the person who the legend was "based on" and Fran is "the real Frankenstein" rather than "the one depicted in the novel." But it's pretty vague on how much they're affected by their fictional portrayals.
I'd love a Mary Shelley, though.
back in the episode CAULES STILL WAS TOO SHOCKED SO HE HAD TO GET BASICALLY FOOTBALL LINETACKLED OUT OF THE WAY.
Riders are super effective against Casters!! (Okay that's only FGO mechanics.)
..............okay I know you're trying for an anime fang but Astolfo's lip being in that shape implies something very different to me.
Chiron is ice cold. I love him.
"How irrational. I didn't expect you to act fueled by anger." (flashback to "if I don't wear a mask I can't live with the disgust of looking at humans in the eye" (paraphrased))
Chiron did NOT appreciate being called irrational.
Thinking about it, I'm not sure if I remember Avicebron being in the new opening. I guess this is why.
why do the Servants of Black have so many noble phantasms that when activated become threats to the entire world
red doesn't have to deal with this shit
Welp, there's the family resemblance between Fiore and Caules in action of "too shocked by unexpected developments to move in danger."
I knew Jeanne would be back to the "this is a threat to the world time to set aside neutrality" mode, but I love that it happened with Sieg telling the other Masters to retreat from the battle and then blocking the blow for him to say YEAH AND THAT INCLUDES YOU RIGHT NOW
I mean, he COULD go Servant mode but he's only got like two of those left right now.
granted this is a pretty big thing that could use an extra set of hands but it's hard to know when he might need it again.
JEANNE, YOU'RE SUCH A BADASS
CHIRON-APPROVED
Wow, that's basically a machine gun bow.
Does...the old testament...say that?? I don't remember, but I'm not a biblical scholar.
Re: the first humans turning their surroundings into Eden by just existing.
But, as always for Fate, Rule of Cool.
So much for Sieg listening to Jeanne telling him to get back.
"We need another nearby Servant' yup we're about to be down to one use Sieg stuff. Granted, world annihilation is a pretty good reason to use a limited trump card.
OR COMMAND SEAL SUMMONING HELLLLLLL YEAAAAAAHHHHH MORE MORDRED SCREENTIME
Chiron on Mordred being still annoyed at him: "I guess not much water went under that bridge" I LOVE THAT TRANSLATION???
Or both Sabers, I guess.
MORDRED IS SO HAPPY TO BE IN THIS LIFE OR DEATH SITUATION
EXCITEMENT!!
you adrenaline junkie
MORDRED YOUR PRESSURE BARGAINING WITH JEANNE WHILE SHE'S HOLDING BACK A NIGH-INVINCIBLE WORLD-DESTROYING GOLEM
WHAT A JERK BUT ALSO I LOVE YOU.
mordred do you have vampire fangs or something
nice to have siegfried on the phone while doing this fight
it's like sieg is playing Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes but with the world.
though the advice seems to have been "DON'T DROP THE SWORD"
OH YEAH ASTOLFO'S LANCE IS SUPER USEFUL WHEN THEY NEED TO GET ITS FEET OFF THE GROUND
EVEN WHEN MORDRED IS FIGHTING A (probably) MINDLESS CREATURE SHE CAN'T STOP HERSELF FROM TAUNTING IT
Okay, I found that battle pretty hype.
Mordred you're a dork.
okay I burst out laughing. Mordred was giving Jeanne and Sieg such side-eye at their touching moment and then when the camera came back from a close-up on their faces she was nowhere in the shot.
Which means either A] she was standing behind them but is TOO SHORT TO BE SEEN or B] she was like I AM OUT OF HERE BEFORE IT GETS MUSHY
ah, so this was the actual timing of the alliance between Kairi and the remnants of the Black faction. it really wasn't that long after the battle where Fran died, huh.
There was like zero space to breathe before this, at least.
All right, time for errands.
I think the sun went in in the meantime. OH WELL I GUESS I WON'T BURN AT LEAST.
I should be doing my dishes, but instead I'm going to watch Apocrypha episode...15? 15. Yes. And then maybe I'll do my dishes or I might do them in the morning because I pulled something in my back carrying around a sack of potatoes.
I know this is supposed to be dramatic, with Achilles making his ultimatum and saying it could be the last question Amakusa ever hears, but...it was night when they found out about their Masters being killed. And now it's day.
Have Atalante and Achilles been just...hanging around for hours before finally convincing Amakusa to tell them anything?
....why would anyone think that they'd be able to have a bunch of wishes on the grail? Doesn't it have to be filled up? Are they suggesting they only need six amongst the 14 even though that's definitely not how it's set up? Maybe they'll explain later.
Also harsh, Atalante.
I do enjoy how much Semiramis really can barely stand the other Red Servants.
Semiramis: that all children be loved is a pipe dream. I'm going to be over here on the winner's team that is wishing for everyone to be saved.
(I realize that there's more specifics to this wish in here somewhere. It just probably will be revealed like...episode 20 or something.)
...Wow, Siegfried, you sure left an impression on Karna.
Though it's pretty clear how strong Karna is in that he feels able to be 100% honest at every moment.
"Then let me detail my plan for the salvation of humankind." I KNEW A CUT WAS IMMINENT.
SEE YOU IN EPISODE 20 OR SOMETHING, EXPLANATION OF HIS PLAN.
Oh cute Kairi and Mordred are in the exact same pose. Dad and son are in alignment here.
Gordes really didn't get the memo on the whole wish thing, did he?
Caules: We could go after them in a plane.
Me: ...okay I know you're the techy mage but YOU HAVE A PLANE?? OR ARE YOU PLANNING TO CATCH A COMMERCIAL FLIGHT?
Me: ...okay I know you're the techy mage but YOU HAVE A PLANE?? OR ARE YOU PLANNING TO CATCH A COMMERCIAL FLIGHT?
Chiron: We need allies.
Mordred, elbowing Kairi: Master, I think they mean us.
Me: I know you're being sarcastic Mordred but you're like STANDING RIGHT HERE FOR THIS MEETING.
Mordred, elbowing Kairi: Master, I think they mean us.
Me: I know you're being sarcastic Mordred but you're like STANDING RIGHT HERE FOR THIS MEETING.
Mordred: After I chop off the head of Saber. And his babysitter.
Me: THEY'RE ALREADY TALKING ABOUT HOW LOW THEY ARE ON SERVANTPOWER
Mordred if she could hear me, probably: All they need is me.
Me: THEY'RE ALREADY TALKING ABOUT HOW LOW THEY ARE ON SERVANTPOWER
Mordred if she could hear me, probably: All they need is me.
Kairi: I agree to help because it makes logical and tactical sense, as long as Mordred's okay.
Mordred: I agree because FUCK SEMIRAMIS.
Mordred: I agree because FUCK SEMIRAMIS.
Oh, so that's what that 3-star CE from...F/Zero event was, I think?
I've got so many of them. I keep pulling them after the event.
Man, I wish I had a Servant like Chiron (re: everything he's done, but specifically the way he's worrying after Fiore).
Chiron: Can she really kill someone?
Me: And you're talking to Caules instead?
Me: And you're talking to Caules instead?
I mean, like. People have hidden depths, but still, not the most obvious choice in the world.
(It doesn't particularly sit well with me that it's looking like a "I don't know if the talented sister is fit to lead or be able to kill, let us turn to the younger brother with less magical talent" moment. I assume that the intent was not "because of her ladyparts" but it's...not an uncommon "coincidence.")
(I might be being too sensitive but who knows, let's see how this plays out.)
Hot take never before seen: mages are assholes. (Watching Caules's memory of Fiore and the dog.)
Chiron is a good dude.
Also I like that at least it wasn't going the direction I thought, as Chiron was approaching Caules to be her support, which is a role that is clearly suited for Caules.
...Chiron you're mostly smart but you take Caules very literally.
CHIRON YOU CAN'T JUST DROP FRAN MENTIONS ON ME OUT OF NOWHERE WHILE I'M ALREADY HAVING WARM FEELINGS ABOUT CAULES BEING A GOOD MAN.
AND THEN DISAPPEAR>
Caules are you pretending to be sleepy so you can rub your eyes without anyone know you're crying
Either way: CAULES YOU ARE A GOOD DUDE MY DUDE
THANKS FOR LOOKING AFTER FRAN
Meanwhile, here's Mordred to lighten the mood being ridiculous. "What, that's it?" she really expected something big about Command Seal transfer even though the command seals themselves are only flashy to the person getting buffed.
Mordred, you look like you're the bad kid in one of those videos about the dangers of smoking/drugs/peer pressure/etc. for schoolchildren trying to push the bad thing on the normal kid Jeanne when you try to get another command seal out of her.
(A pause to quickly run through my tlfns.)
(okay and we're back)
Right in time for Mordred whining.
Oh right, I guess it would have been the Makiri who did the Command Seals stuff. It sometimes slips my mind that this ritual was literally made by a small number of mages.
In part because it seems so mystical. In part because wow how did they mess up the ritual they themselves designed so badly??? (answer: mages are assholes, I expect)
I didn't entirely follow what's going on with Sieg's command seals. That they didn't disappear entirely? I mean, it looked like a small red stain was left behind by the other ones, too, but I may be misremembering. I'm good at doing that.
The thing that stands out more to me is that they're a different colour.
Okay, rewatching it is a lot less disappeared. Weird that it's just the second one he used.
Did he...not use enough of it up?
Mordred looking at Kairi: is she right? Kairi nods.
ah, so you've hit one of my biggest issues with fate/apocrypha
in that Oh No, Fiore Doesn't Want To Commit Murder
Mordred: Unfair!
Astolfo: SHE'S GOING TO CUT OFF HIS HEAD
(I mean, fair, Astolfo)
Astolfo: SHE'S GOING TO CUT OFF HIS HEAD
(I mean, fair, Astolfo)
Better Let Caules Be In Charge
Yeah, I can see where this is going from a mile off.
Like some of my farsight is knowing from hearing people talk that Caules ends up leading the family, but the rest of my farsight comes from I've seen this shit before.
what about Caules makes anyone think he's less softhearted than Fiore before this flashback no one knew about besides him (oh wait it's his testosterone)
Oh, it seems that Astolfo just really doesn't want to allow Mordred to form a precedent of being rude to Sieg (sorry Astolfo no one can stop Mordred from being rude unless you are a particular breed of cute girl like Fran or Mash and not even then sometimes see: Fran in Apocrypha)
Jeanne: Listen well. Do not use the third seal.
Revelation, probably: shows sieg going I'm using the third seal
Jeanne, probably: goddammit
Revelation, probably: shows sieg going I'm using the third seal
Jeanne, probably: goddammit
....Sieg, honey. I get that you have a raw deal as a homunculus. I get that there's like twenty-seven good reasons for you to be depressed. But saying "there's nothing to rob from me" like. You're alive. You've been given the ability to choose what you want to do. These things can be taken away from you.
I'm pretty sure Sieg understands that the freedom to choose his own path is an important thing. That's what his whole point is about saving the homunculi.
I'm not really criticizing him, because, again, raw deal. He's basically a kid. But Sieg sweetie think about this a bit better, especially when talking to one of the people who saved your life.
Astolfo, the most confidence-inducing babysitter with Evaporation of Reason.
*Jeanne: Astolfo, look after Sieg.
Astolfo: is Astolfo
Jeanne: sigh. Sieg, look after Astolfo.
Astolfo: is Astolfo
Jeanne: sigh. Sieg, look after Astolfo.
Poor Jeanne. She's surrounded by people she can't trust to do anything right.
She must cry in relief every time she talks to Chiron.
Ah, the good old fashioned "hears someone say something ominous like there being no free miracles, shadows eyes" featuring Kairi.
OH NO IS THIS A KAIRI FLASHBACK
I'M NOT READY
I SORT OF KNOW WHAT"S COMING?
BUT I'M NOT READY.
okay hitting play anyway because I should be getting to bed soon
OH IT'S A FLASHBACK TO HANGING OUT IN THE TOMB
THIS WILL STILL HURT BUT GETTING TO HAVE KAIRI AND MORDRED INTERACT ABOUT IT IS WORTH IT
Oh wait, this isn't a flashback. It's just the lighting of the mausoleum that makes it look sepia toned.
Kairi has a painful memory and shares it with Mordred instead of just hiding it. Nice.
(I'm laughing extra hard at Mordred complaining about not getting to sleep in a real bed at the castle because of the Holy Grail War thread meme I did where Mordred got her way.)
MORDRED IS SO SULKY ABOUT KAIRI SUGGESTING SHE'D SHOW WEAKNESS TO AN ENEMY
THEY'RE SO HAPPY ABOUT PLANNING TO SNEAK BEHIND EVERYONE'S BACK AND STEAL THE GRAIL FOR THEMSELVES
THEY"RE LIKE A COUPLE OF BIG KIDS IN SOME GOONIES-STYLE ADVENTURE MOVIE
OH NO THEY'RE CUTE
THEY'RE CUTE!!
"Do you remember your dead child?" AND THEN THAT GRIN MORDRED YOU SOFTY I LOVE YOU YOU DORK YOU ABSOLUTE JERK
the problems of being summoned in someone's body rather than a spiritual body: having to still brush your ridiculously long hair
Now that the shock of the castle getting blasted is through Gordes is back to being Upset At The World.
...........did. did the Yggdmillennia stock up on nurse hats for their homunculi
Like. The idea of the homunculi being expected to nurse each other just because they'd want to retain as much of their fighting force as possible isn't a strange idea.
But the fact that they have nowhere to treat them and Gordes is surprised to see them makes it a little strange, though I could see them using the hallway because the place intended for the treatment might have just been down in the dungeons.
But...which member of the Yggdmillennia family, in planning this out, decided: no. if the homunculi are going to look after the other homunculi medically they need the proper UNIFORMS
is You from Love Live Sunshine a member of the Yggdmillennia family
Maybe I'm overreacting to this hat. Maybe it makes sense if I think about it longer, to be able to tell the different homunculi jobs apart. Maybe that helps them organize more efficiently.
But I feel like it was probably going to be just other soldiers looking after each other and now it's like "okay, gotta change out of my asskicking clothes into my medical clothes. oh huh instead of a doctor uniform this is a nurse uniform did someone have a fetish is what I'd ask if I weren't newborn and understood humans."
Now the person I'm surprised DOESN'T have a nurse cap is Astolfo.
I do like that Sieg's first response to Gordes was "please don't stop us." Because based on Gordes's every action before this: YEAH THAT'S WHAT YOU'D EXPECT.
I ENJOY THAT GORDES ISN'T HAVING A CHANGE OF HEART BECAUSE HE SUDDENLY ACKNOWLEDGES THE WORTH OF THE HOMUNCULI, GIVEN HIS POSITIONS UP TO THIS POINT
HE'S JUST SO ANGRY THAT EVERYTHING IS GOING WRONG
I mean, I expect him to change his views and I look forward to it!
But I like that, given what we know about Gordes, his first step comes from GODDAMMIT THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO JUST BE COOL
other world Melloi would approve.
I was just about to say that it was good for him to admit that he was wrong and at least partially responsible for this, but before I could pause to come back here I got hairclip homunculus going "Yes. You were wrong." in the most matter-of-fact way possible and I burst out laughing.
You go, hairclip homunculus.
HAIRCLIP HOMUNCULUS DROPPING THE TRUTH BOMBS
Gordes is doing well with someone to keep him in line.
SHAKESPEARE IS SO POPULAR AMONG THE SERVANTS OF RED
HE JUST WALTZES IN AND DOESN'T CARE THAT EVERYONE OBVIOUSLY HATES HIM EXCEPT MAYBE AMAKUSA
Shakespeare: I'll spare no effort to make sure it comes true!
Me: Doing...what? (I'm kdding. He's done pretty darn well, what with somehow giving him a Noble Phantasm sword and being mean to Fran.
Me: Doing...what? (I'm kdding. He's done pretty darn well, what with somehow giving him a Noble Phantasm sword and being mean to Fran.
Shakespeare is it possible for you to be anything less than 120% dramatic? (The answer is no.)
Personally my magic would not be the last on my list of things I'd be willing to put into something when everything else is vital parts of the body, but hey, I'm not Amakusa Shirou.
And with that, I should head to bed, since the 24 minute episode took me...like an hour and a half??
Thanks for reading, those of you reading, and thanks for contributing, those who have responded. Love to you all. 
OH RIGHT I FORGOT TO MENTION THIS THOUGHT BECAUSE SOMEONE WAS MESSAGING ME WHEN I WAS GOING TO HAVE IT AND I GOT DISTRACTED:
Given that Fate/Zero makes a point that Jeanne is a Saberface, I wonder if Mordred notices that at all or if she's just like "clearly not father so I'm not interested in looking at her."
Probably will never know.
I mean, Jeanne isn't the super obvious Saberface. After all, we're going on Gilles's word.
Even Mordred isn't that weird about her obsessed figure.
I'm gonna take a break in the middle to have a shower, but while I'm eating breakfast: episode 16!
Starting off on an optimistic note of the sound of violence and a long, drawn out scream.
Jack is a child who needs a firm hand.
Jeanne is the strongest there is.
Jeanne doesn't encounter doubt very often.
Oops. Hope the stuff that Sieg kept carrying after Jeanne offered to help carry things were non-fragile.
"I'm fine" says Sieg, clearly not fine.
Today I learned a new medical term! ...That rarely is a good sign for the person being diagnosed!
"It's not our place to tell him what to do," says the teacher. I mean, granted, he might have been able to see the extent to which Jeanne and Astolfo were likely to term it in ways of "you can't," but let's at least DISCUSS it with the like five day old or however long this anime's taken place over.
(It's probably longer than that given a few cases of going between towns, but it SEEMS short.)
"What am I, a child?" asks the person who didn't exist a week ago.
artificial humans are hard to age, I think every time I play Fran, who seems to have approximately the intelligence of an adult and the emotional maturity of a child based on my own guesses (though with how little we get to see her thought processes there's a lot of room for interpretation).
I TOLD YOU YOU HAD THINGS TO LOSE I say as though Sieg can hear me.
I was going to just comment on how dreary Fiore's Council Tearoom is, but I also want to say I like the touches of the cracks on the wall. It's a nice detail.
I don't know if it's a sign of the castle's disrepair (I doubt Darnic was exactly focused on upkeep) or the recent attack, but either makes a crack behind a picture frame seem like a good detail.
Eight in a night.....
Also I see that I may have been mistaken about the nurse caps, since there's one in the background of this scene that makes me think it might have been a servant uniform.
There's something about making a person who will only live for three years and then thinking to make them wear a uniform and serve you tea that unsettles me. Like, in addition to everything about them making homunculi to use like they do.
90% of my commentary on this show could be condensed by just updating a counter on several categories, such as I FEEL BAD FOR THE HOMUNCULI, FRAN IS CUTE, MORDRED IS A DORK, JEANNE IS A BADASS, etc.
Okay, shower time.
I have returned and...welp, they're talking about their agents disappearing in Trifas, which makes me have a decent guess what Jack was getting information out for.
Punishing Servants who hurt unrelated people is part of Ruler's job I SURE WISH MORE HOLY GRAIL WARS HAD RULERS.
Based on what we know of Rulers, they're only supposed to be summoned if the war would get off the rails enough to threaten the integrity of the grail war and/or human history itself and they're kinda contracted by the greater grail. ... But then tbh if you wanna double fridge logic it, the grail itself was already evilified in Zero and Stray Night
so I doubt rulers could show up there
I just want to look after random people even if it doesn't affect history or integrity.
But yeah, I imagine a Ruler summoned by the evilled grail would be a little wonky.
INFORMATION ERASURE~~~~
Astolfo is like "I...guess we can't leave Jack alone....I don't wanna as a rider...."
everyone else's outfits didn't really leave an impression since I've seen them in them, either here or talked about in FGO for Astolfo, but CHIRON IN A SUIT
also you'd think with them trying to travel undercover, Caules might want to change out of the apparently Yggdrmillennia uniform.
Only...some of them...were tortured...??
Uh. Why is he surrounded by watches.....
Reports of the deceased have to be the worst paperwork, especially with such gigantic stacks of paper to go through.
C...caules that's quite the ritual.
Ow, that's an awful thing to have to do....
AND YOU BARELY GET ANYTHING OUT OF IT
Fiore is so scared by the phone ringing (same fiore)
GOOD THING HE GOT THROUGH IN THE LAST FIVE SECONDS BEFORE THE SIGNAL CUT
+1 to the i hate bad things happening to the homunculi counter
Fiore where did you put your giant mage arms
Those would help in this circumstance.
I guess she didn't expect to need them inside the castle.
Oh good, there they are.
I guess she doesn't want to carry them around on the back of her wheelchair (I wonder if she might after this).
YIKES okay that wasn't so bad to fall out of her wheelchair when it gets her in the room faster.
UH DOES THE DOOR JUST ANSWER TO ANYONE WITH THE PASSWORD
BECAUSE IF YOU HAVE TO SAY IT OUT LOUD IT'S NOT A GOOD LOCK.
NICE JOB FIORE
I was a little worried that Sieg was going to do way better than Fiore without having to even transform, but they both seem to have managed about equally even if the optics aren't quite the same.
Because after we started the plotline of "the girl shouldn't be the leader it should be the boy" (not explicitly but that's what I'm reading it as), I've become very protective of Fiore's reputation.
By the way, this is another time of mentioning I'd love to have a Chiron. He's such a good support to have.
Jeanne's "this kid is way too reckless" face.
Thereby ends episode 16. Time to have food.
Okay moving on to here to make less scrolling required.