And also there are supposedly a few good het couples and LB1 raised the bar for good hets so I'm expecting good things.

So we're headed from All Ice to Ice But Also Fire. Can't wait for LB3: The Floor Is Lava.

Man, those were some polite aliens, not disturbing the atmospheric contents at all while levelling the planet and destroying all life.

hey after last time did we check the temperature

"The Atlas Institute's ironclad rule is that the technology created there must never leave..." (looks at the Paper Moon) (looks at Sherlock)

Oh we got it legally.

Time to head to the Balderdashers.

meanwhile sherlock

Literally and figuratively.

There are unexpected long periods of silence from the background music and it's really weird to me. I keep thinking my speakers broke.

The island doesn't move but the sea around it does...that sounds like it should be circling the globe daily.

I MEAN I GUESS NO ONE ELSE IS USING THE MATERIALS RIGHT NOW, DA VINCI, SO MAYBE WE CAN.

Oh boy more snow.

Out of the Russia and into the Scandinavia.

Oh boy. Goredolf wants to be the one to interrogate Kadoc. I think that’s a worse option than Ritsuka even with the inferiority complex.

At least Sherlock is there.

I bet this isn’t the fun kind of RPG. I could use something to play on my phone while we’re driving through snow for two days.

Koyanskaya please

........is Kirei following after us on foot shooting magical rockets at us?

YEP

He’s a fast runner.

The hets are alright.

fun fact he's the only one with a special note on his materials profile

Complicated feeling for the rest of his life: Tsarina.

kadoana rights...........

Complicated feeling for the rest of his life uwaaaaaah

That was not a fun fact but I appreciate knowing anyway.

Dislikes: Talented mages. here's a funny one

lmao accurate

also fun random fact he's polish

Hey Goredolf let’s not get cocky when we still have a servant running at us at 90 miles an hour with an NFF rocket launcher

At least Kadoc is used to the cold.

ophelia is german, hinako is japanese, pepe is ?? (there's an answer but spoilers), kirsch is english, beryl is british, daybit is american

The Crypters seem to be gay or European.

the common american name, daybit sem void

I can scarcely believe that Goredolf went charging out after Kadoc and didn’t just tell me to.

Daybit just doesn’t like anything to be understandable by mere mortals, I guess.

WOW DON’T KILL OFF KADOC

Oh, good, he’s alive for now. .................THIS IS WHAT ANYA ASKED HIM WITH LIP READING ISN’T IT HOLY FUCK

Oh, maybe not.

Hmm, pleasant.

On that cheerful note, to the shower!

When they say that da Vinci smiled a cherubic smile, I can see it being true in either the sense they likely intended, of bright and sweet, or the sense of how cherubim are described, of unsettling and strange. Depends on her mood.

The picture of the buildings in the bleached Earth is a really neat visual.

The scale of the exploration, especially tied to characters we know, made a much more effective scene than the one I was laughing at at the beginning of LB1. Smaller scale seems less "I can't picture this."

One thing I'll say for Goredolf: he took less time than I expected to be able to ape something approaching a mission statement at the start of a Lostbelt.

I even seconded his motion that the out of body experience is unnerving, which Ritsuka probably said in the middle of getting strapped in for it anyway.

LB2, as narrated by Garfield the Cat’s Lostbelt AU self:

Pretty sure you had parental issues and just didn't allow yourself to recognize them.

The dangers of losing things after you get complacent in the idea of victory sounds pretty real from Goredolf. I think he's speaking from experience.

I gotta admit, I did not expect Sherlock to bother so much with keeping Goredolf from flipping out over everything. Glad he does, though, because I don't think anyone else would have done it.

MASH DON'T GIVE HIM CREDIT FOR ADDRESSING YOU LIKE A HUMAN BEING FOR ONCE.

(I know she specifically means the Ms. Mash, but seriously it's barely a step up from that.)

Goredolf, realizing that he would probably have regretted his investment even if Chaldea hadn’t been smashed.

....ARE WE REALLY GOING TO LISTEN TO A PANICKING GOREDOLF??? -- Oh, it's just that da Vinci is considering the options.

NO WAIT WE'RE JUST LISTENING TO A PANICKING GOREDOLF WHY DON'T WE LOCK HIM IN A ROOM.

I do trust da Vinci regardless, though. It's probably for the best that Ritsuka can't volunteer to try to help out. Mash is better suited for this.

Hmm, this map looks familiar. By which I mean it's mountains and snow.

WHAT A COOL SKY, THOUGH.

AND LIVEABLE TEMPERATURES THIS IS THE LIFE

I burst out in startled laughter when I saw that Ritsuka can say the scenery is romantic.

Holy fudge the views. Screw tourism, I wanna live in a place that looks like this and has 3 degree celsius weather.

Don't look directly into the sun, Ritsuka!!

Of COURSE we emergency exited so we have to walk.

"A land of fire and ice, hm?" I think the translators are going to be very deliberate about this order.

I keep forgetting that Mash is the hugest Sherlock novel fan.

"We've just discovered an enormous...humanoid creature...!"
Quick, Mash, check to see if they're wearing any rings!!!

is Mash having a buster crit skill in place of her best skill a punishment for us complaining that she steals all the crit stars unnecessarily

Learning how to fight with Mash but no Honorable Shield of Snowflakes is going to take some work.

This Jotun....HATES support casters.

Mash has gotten hit, like, three or fourt times when she didn't have her target focus up? Everything else has hit Tamamo.

Giant Rings: 1/10.

In fiction, when people say, it's nothing, I'm fine, it's ALWAYS fine, right Mash?

SHERLOCK HAS FIRM OPINIONS ON PROPER RPG BATTLE DIFFICULTY PROGRESSION

Poor da Vinci has to keep complaining fruitlessly about being plugged into the tube, but we gotta have someone do it.

and they're too cowardly to put sherlock naked in a tube

da Vinci: DAMMIT SHERLOCK YOU CAN WAIT UNTIL THEY GET BACK.

I did not get the impression that Goredolf worried about the people sent to the frontlines to that extent, but I'll take your opinion under advisement, da Vinci.

How many times can Sherlock be stopped from answering the question about the fire? Let's find out...next time!

[ ra ra rasputin, russia's greatest love machine growing louder in the distance ]

You killed me dead.

The image was good and the description made it better.

Goredolf is doing better, but I still don’t get why we treat him as though buying Chaldea means anything in a post-apocalyptic scenario.

I’m not going to blame him for the Border getting flipped, though. The decision fell within what da Vinci considered reasonable, even if plausibly just by chance.

Oh, that’s what they mean by the Spirit Origin being similar to one in Chaldea’s records. Sumanai, Bryn’s Beloved.

I NEED TO STOP PLAYING STORY AROUND MIDNIGHT

Why do we even have that lever

lmao yeah

THERE'S... A LOT OF TEXT NOW...

There sure be that, which can be summed up “hey Sigurd don’t be an ass.” I wanna keep going and find out why, but I shouldn’t still be up.

(I had to fight twice, due to both underestimating his damage and not knowing to bring Archers. Okita Alter...was unprepared, and the backline was a mix of AOE Saber and low rarity Assassin, sooooo I just had Archuria take the field.)

Well, that’s rough, Holmes.

(I didn’t realize the cutscene would keep going, but MANY TEXT.

)

“Conceit. Overconfidence. Arrogance. Pride.” Like, he has more reason to be confident than us since the first fight proved us to be outmatched, so it’s not an unreasonable thing to say about us, but also this guy has been talking about how much stronger he is all this time and so this line makes me laugh.

They made it a pretty tough battle, I’ll admit it. I missed old Mash skills.

Not that my Servants ever got below half HP at any point outside the cutscenes, but I did go basically full force outside of my Mystic Code choice.

I feel like Skadi does not mean a particularly nice peace here.

“Everyone except Mash” THE TEA PARTY TRIO SURVIVES

Anyway, I really liked Ophelia’s first big scene and how she bounced off all the Norse folk, but I just didn’t think of anything to say.

And then...section 3 (two hundred subsections) there truly is much text.

ya lb2 is REALLY story heavy

Well, of the story continues to be good, I’m fine with that.

THIS POST-SIGURD MEETING IS WEIRDLY RELAXED, EVEN 20 HOURS LATER.

"You got it! A gold star for you, Mash!
I have no idea what you're saying, Fou!"
Cute.

"I'm sorry you had to try to heal him with your Mystic Codes so many times." Given the length of cooldown of skills on Mystic Codes, I'm pretty sure this means that Ritsuka had to change her clothes repeatedly on the roof of the Shadow Border between all the Mystic Codes with a heal involved.

The most powerful skill of a Master who is terrible at magecraft: quick change performances.

I take it that the reaction suggests Big da Vinci did not giggle much.

.......So in Fate's universe, Ragnarök is a past event.

Okay, interesting.

LMAO because I assumed that Ragnarök would be something that happened during or after the Vikings with whom I associate it, I didn’t even notice it was 1000 BCE instead of 1000 CE.

Not until they said it was about 3000 years ago.

da Vinci claiming that she put up Bounded Fields around her paintings.....

LMAO I promise nothing.

Rocket skis.....

Don’t worry, da Vinci. I don’t blame you for us being in this position. I blame Goredolf. (I’m kidding, I probably don’t even blame him.)

Ah, Okita Alger hangs in the air with sword at jötun crotch level before her NP. Ouch....

Dr. Roman added a part of the Personel Code to more or less "be careful out there."

What a good man.

I loved that little aside...

Dr. Romani... I miss you...

He's so good....

It makes me sad whenever we get reruns where he's around and I remember we can't see him anymore.

I told you I promised nothing, though she is very cute.

I feel like her dialogue could have been summed up with "FUCK."

This is a consistent thought, but while I know that we needed something to call the player in voice lines if we're going to let the player choose their name, but I really wish that Fate was not stuck with "Master."

This came to mind here because I used Mash's name in the dialogue and was like "well, this counts as an introduction, I guess," and then I realized that Ritsuka was only introduced as "Master."

why did they give Mash a one time buster strength up if it only makes her do 5k damage with it on

"I wonder why she calls them bergrisi instead of jotuns --" (enemy bergrisi appears) "Oh."

My note earlier that Okita Alter's NP aiming at the jotun crotch is not helped when they get stuck in the damaged animation in the middle of the NP, which involves their skirt flipping up slightly.

3/10 giant rings, I think.

Jötnar, that was the plural.

"the Goddess must have saved you" is this perhaps the goddess who is the queen of this lostbelt and thus will be nearly the final boss?

Gerda seems to have a mental list of "things to do in x situation" that she keeps glancing at and forgetting to check further on.

Ah yes, the reminder that our quest involves, as a side effect, Gerda disappearing from existence. Good to remember.

Not that it exactly changes things unless the Crypters found a way to remove the Theoretical Pruning Phenomenon that only worked if Proper Human History were removed instead of the multiple Lostbelts. Then that'd be a debate.

Gerda is certainly designed to be so cute you feel extra bad when you erase her Lostbelt from existence.

Unless they kill her off before then to make you feel strong emotion in the story like Patsy.

I laughed. This Lostbelt gives a lot of opportunities for Ritsuka to flirt with Mash.

I laughed. I’m sure that Ophelia is thrilled to be greeted by Koyanskaya.

We keep arriving near the tail end ( haha ) of Koyanskaya’s visits.

“Can’t you take a hint....” please leave

Koyanskaya sure did a good job reading up on Ophelia. I highly doubt she ever told anyone about it out loud.

Are we ever going to get a close relationship between a man and a woman in these Lostbelts where someone doesn’t comment on either sex or romance presumed to be happening between them?

We’re now 2/2 on “the first interaction between a Crypter and one of the foreign god’s followers includes suggesting that they’re a couple with the person they are closest to of a different sex.”

Then again, if the foreign god were a god of heterosexuality, it would provide the kind of dread and fear I think the foreign god is meant to evoke.

“Village 23” This is fine. This doesn’t imply bad things about the governance of this Lostbelt.

This is in response to:
Mash’s buster skill
Village 23
Straightvision

Now that you’re moving along in the lostbelt I think the biggest surprise for me was how eerie Skadi is within it

In a lot of ways, I think she’s much scarier than Ivan, and you see basically none of that in fandom works about her.

Me, a known fan of terrifying women: okay but more of that please

Laughing alone in Lostbelts.

The thing is that Skadi’s terror so far (in the one scene I’ve seen of her directly and what I’ve seen about the world) has been through reading between the lines about what she thinks is sensible. Ivan’s terror is that he’s a big fuckoff mammoth.

Based on what I’ve seen, Skadi is more chilling (pun unintended) than Ivan. The things that actually scared me about Ivan was listening to him mumble semi-coherently as the people around him kept him placated to avoid destruction, and also the times when the Oprichniki occasionally slipped into the uncanny valley. Once he was awake, he was awe-inspiring but

not especially creepy or terrifying.

no every single lostbelt remains very heterosexual so it's lucky that the hets are good

Skadi terrifies me because of how convinced she seems to be that she’s so reasonable, merciful, and courteous when it seems like Scandinavia and all it’s inhabitants are basically an art project where anything that is even slightly out of line with her vision gets tossed.

That unsettles me much more than simple brutality.

palkia: I’m still annoyed at the writers for not having at least once be platonic, but at least I don’t hate the actual hets since they’re too good to hate.

i'm not 100% on lb4 because it's the only one without a complete tl but if there IS the het i assume it's at least not between the crypter and someone, yet again based pepe saving us

oh and 5.1 ig since kirsch isn't really there for much of it so

but yeah 1, 2, 3, 5.2 all go that way

Pepe turning out to be a good queer character instead of a token stereotype has saved my heart.

in this house we stan pepperoni and cheese

at least ophelia has her crush on mash and 5.2 doesn't make things obvious for most of it instead of being STRAIGHTS

though i'm bias bc that one is my fav lmfao

My irritation at this mostly flared up since I'm already a little Unsure about Ophelia using devotion to the Crypters' leader to balance out what I assume to be some level of mental fragility in the face of, like, everything.

(Not in that it doesn't make sense but because it feels like the trope of "the serious one with a strong front who is actually fragile inside" is much more likely to be applied to women at least sympathetically than to men.)

she at least has good reason for being devoted more than the others rather than just "lol woman", bc i'm also very tired of that trope

And thus Koyanskaya calling Longhair McGee Ophelia's "beloved," there was a burst of "of course the only reason a woman would devote herself to following a man is romantic attraction, why did I ever think that a character would believe otherwise" to bring out my UGH STRAIGHTVISION for a bit.

it's actually not romance in a traditional sense... she's in "love" with him but her devotion is for a wholly different reason, it didn't start off that way

i'm being vague but,

With how much development Kadoc got, I'm sure there will be good reasons, but the authors still decided "ah yes, we will give this reason to make a character like this to one of the women, who are in a minority in the Crypters."

caenis' remarks to her are especially pointed in that regard even if she's also projecting like crazy... idr if that scene would have happened yet

I appreciate you being vague! I'm not even so much annoyed that I think that it's necessarily true as it is that it's being presented in this way.

I have not seen Caenis yet! So far, Ophelia has talked to Red Sigurd, shadow of obviously Skadi, shadow of obviously one of the Valkeries, and Koyanskaya.

oh yeah nah i fully understand the Tiresome Gender Roles thing, i definitely wish there was at least one more woman in the group bc while both of them are fine on their own it would have been nice to have at least one wholly removed from romance as a motive (at least initially)

Though I find myself unsurprised that Caenis is doing that again, given the whole "I'll come to steal your woman, Kadoc" during that scene in Russia.

like at least kadoc/ana's thing was over the course of the lb, it wasn't an established thing

lmao you'll be unsurprised to hear her and mordred get along in chaldea

The other characters were ready to assume they were boinking from minute one, but Kadoc/Ana's actual development was great because I Am Tired Of So Many Hets But These Ones I Love.

And I mean. They both are your "oh no I'm playing the same character again fuck" set.

The gender-ambiguous fighters with reason to be angry and are crass and don't wear clothes.

caenis is worse because she's female-leaning bi but i ship her with a dude... at least mordred has fran...

anyway i'll let you get back to the actually good characters

If it helps, bi characters in a relationship with straight characters still mean the relationship is queer, even if it doesn't give you the f/f you crave.

And lmao I will be properly arriving in Village 23 with Scandinavian Girl Designed Only for Being Cute once I finish this marking.

true true

I thought for a moment that there was a church in the village backdrop, which would be odd since this place diverged at least 3000 years ago, but then I realized that the shape that made me think that is a bell tower and there are non-Christian reasons to have a bell tower despite growing up in a place where churches were everywhere.

I’m sure the magic is very kind but I’m pretty sure it’s USED to keep everyone in “their place.”

Mash: Come to think of it, you never did tell us your village’s name, did you, Gerda?
Gerda: (opens mouth)
Mash: (21 more sentences using lots of magecraft terms before Gerda can answer the question)

......oh no, Goredolf popping in suddenly in the middle of the village. I get that the Shadow Border has been trying to get in contact with us all this time through the snow interference and now we’re shielded from that, but also whatever Goredolf might be good at, diplomacy is definitely not one of them.

If he’s as rude to Gerda as he was to like 90% of the people we met in Russia, I’m going to throttle him.

THERE’S NO ONE TO KEEP GOREDOLF IN CHECK RED ALERT

Tiny, see-through... Oh no, this means that this whole time, all the holograms have been like “help me Obi-Won Kenobi”-sized....... I love this discovery.

caenis is........................ he's complicated

Look, I do agree that she was unintentionally rude and mocking people’s appearance is bad, but GOREDOLF I’M THROTTLING YOU WHEN I GET BACK JUST GIVE ME THE DIALOGUE TREE FOR IT GAME.

i hear he gets some pretty interesting stuff later in the lostbelt arc but that's WAYYYYY along in the timeline

When Goredolf insists he will remotely interrogate a local:
“(making krrrkt krrrkt noises behind hand) Oh no, Goredolf, we’re going through a tunnel, your connection is cutting out (krrrkt krrrkt). You’ll have to (krrrkt) hang up and get da Vinci before you try again.”

Right now, Caenis is here to be a brat so you remember such a Servant is waiting at a later Lostbelt.

[caenis voice] i think i will cause problems on purpose

as someone fully spoiled on upcoming stuff, caenis' deal is very complicated and it doesn't really justify her behaviour but there's a LOT more going on

both for her and kirsch, neither of them are remotely what they seem

Luckily, my way of referring to Kirsch since I haven’t bothered to remember the names of anyone who isn’t either 1) a part of the current Lostbelt or 2) a part of the girls’ tea circle relies on his hair which should be what it seems at least for now.

oh yeah his hair is real

lmao imagine if that was the spoiler

it's a wig

Anyway, this stuff about Gerda’s culture is fascinating (do the envoys act as storks for the humans Skadi has made somehow?), but Goredolf is back to full frustrating.

I LOVE GOREDOLF

but i also loved gordes by the end of apocrypha so... i'm bias...

LMAO I thought it was at lest possible that Longhair McGee is actually just an advanced holoprojection of, like, a brain in a jar or a horror creature, but *imagine if it was just a wig and he’s refusing to admit he’s balding.

I admit that my difficulty with Goredolf is at least partially not his fault. When the game drew explicit parallels between him and Olga Marie, my hackles raised twenty metres into the air and have yet to lower.

Silvie and I are basically permanently on the Justice For Director Olga Marie Animusphere wagon.

oh yeah justice for olga 100%

he can't compare in that regard

i 100% agree

marie was so good and trying to force sympathy for goredolf by drawing hamfisted parallels between the two is just fucking ridiculous

Yeah basically it’s hard for me to tell how much of my frustration is actual difference in opinion and how much is I Am Going To Be Spiteful About This Slight Forever being something I’m struggling to separate from the character.

i mean he's a buffoon but that's why i love him

He certainly plays the part of buffoon exquisitely.

If there was an option for Gerda to call him Mr. Tiny See-Through Buffoon instead, I’d click it in seconds.

And there we go. Welcome to Village 23. It’s safer here.

LMAO the way she is clearly designed to be cute made me think of Leslie and they’re exactly the same age. Leslie doesn’t get her own house, though.

Good luck, Mash. We’re in the land of “we drink mead forever” and the poison resistance has been known to make Mash absorb the alcohol for both of us in Rashoumon.

So they’re provided with a fishing pond that I bet the envoys restock for them.

Ah, cute bitties.

“Your boobies are so big” slipping in in between how cool she looks in the armour...ah, children.

“Everyone knows the elderly are just from legends.” Suddenly the unsettling factor of Skadi, which was already pretty high, shot up another few notches.

When she said the adults were too busy preparing for the envoy arriving tomorrow, I had a somewhat less dreadful idea in my head than I do right now.

25.......

I wonder what Skadi does with the adults when they are taken from the vill —

UMMMMM.

Suppose this system had been in place since the estimated beginning of the Lostbelt of 3000 years ago, which seems plausible since I am sure it is one put in place by Skadi after whatever happened (I assume an aborted Ragnarök), that’s 200 generations of “died at 25.”

What fun we shall have here.

This has its own layer of “unsettling” on top of the already established one.

Villages from 1 to 100.........is Skadi keeping the Jötnar pacified with human meat production lines?

Either the translation messed up or Goredolf came to a strange conclusion that there are 100 people in each village rather than 100 villages.

“Are you some kind of homunculus?” GOREDY IT’S NOT RIGHT WHEN HOMUNCULI ARE TREATED THAT WAY, EITHER. HOMUNCULUS RIGHTS!!!

he's big on those surprisingly...

Koyanskaya, to Ophelia: Making a castle completely out of ice is overkill.
Koyanskaya, to Skadi: Wow, I love what you’ve done with this place.

On homunculus rights?

“It makes me want to friend you on Magebook.” As though we needed another reason to think badly of Koyanskaya. (I’m kidding.)

yeah, gordes had toole raise him so he's terrified of them but also really fond

even if he tries to be above it all bc mage

That fondness is something I can appreciate about him even through my spit.

he's a jackass but then he does shit like take them on holiday before their bodies give out since their lifespans were already set...

“That is why they need the boundless love of a god to sustain them.” WELL THAT’S A FUN READ AFTER FINDING OUT THE SYSTEM.

So there are about a hundred in each and it just didn’t make it into Gerda’s speech.

Well, at least Medb would not find the terrifying creepiness of Skadi’s awkwardly tilted morality to be a distraction from “she’s cute” since Medb is a terrible person.

I wonder why Pepe having an Alter Ego Servant would mean he’d learn about the destruction of Russia first?

Oh, Nightbit is compared to a werewolf in-universe instead of a vampire. I guess he’s on Team Jacob.

I mean. Skadi’s intentions are benevolent, at least.

“That’s a woman’s face. I’ve seen faces like that before. Heh, heh.” Oh fuck off, Red Sigurd, and come back to let me fight you outside of a cutscene and spank you until you go back to normal.

I’m glad Ophelia ignored it like a pro.

......Oh, hi mysterious ice alien. How’s you.

It’s neat that Ophelia is trying to communicate with mysterious silent ice alien.

Maybe one day we’ll learn What Is Your Deal.

.....gosh, that was all one cutscene.

So it’s not that the village’s lack of snow makes it so we can communicate, huh.

da Vinci-chan!!!

I guess it makes sense, but I was unprepared for how tiny Gerda is without the fur cloak.

Please don’t bump anything and snap in half, Gerda. (More Leslie parallels.)

Yeah, scary stuff!!!

It’s suuuuuuper freaky.

Anyway, yeah, this stuff is what makes Skadi scarier for me. The level of control she has over her lostbelt...

Also go back to sleep Gordy, I want to actually have a helpful dialogue with Gerda.

“Between the two of us, it’s clear who’s the better negotiator.” YEAH, MASH.

From the fact that she can see/sense everything through the snow, the village setup, and (and this is the biggest one for me) the fact that all the humans love her to the point they can’t imagine living any way else

It’s very scary!!!! AND WE SEE NONE OF IT...

I wouldn’t be surprised if part of it is dw slamming that waifu buttoning by softening her character as a servant and in later appearances

But I can’t help but feel sour whenever I see someone call her “mommy skadi” on the subreddit

Yeah, I’m in the middle of Gerda not being able to even understand what we mean by wanting a future or freedom. It’s...creepy.

UH.

LIKE A VERY BAD MOTHER, MAYBE.

Ivan may have been a horror monster and life sure sucked in his lostbelt

But at least the yaga had the freedom to grow old

And weren’t forced to reproduce as adolescents

This Lostbelt suggests to me that I am going to like Skadi more than I expected, because what am I in this game but someone who wants all of the terrible people to be gathered to me. Except several of the men, because I’m so incredibly biased.

I admit that the “forced to reproduce as adolescents” makes my skin crawl in not-fun ways, unlike the “leave to be eaten by giants at 25.”

I would much rather if they just jacked both ages up by 5-10 years, but I guess in anime, a life expectancy of 30-35 is not unusual.........

Well done on pointing out non-nuclear-families, Goredolf. Gold star. You might be eligible for “Acting Assistant Director” in my mental Chaldea organizational chart.

Yeah, that was a note that was uncomfortable in the “anime blows” sort of way.

Gerda’s complete lack of understanding questions about thinking of living differently from this is the fun kind of horror, though. And the way she apologizes for not understanding is...oof. Oof oof oof.

(checks) Okay maybe I can finish this in time to power up Skadi for facing the Salter memorial quest if it’s 16 sections. I was worried/excited that it might be 20-odd sections with this many subsections.

Hmmm. Since Gerda is so accepting of the idea, I thought everyone was as upfront about “we’re off to be eaten by a giant!”, but around the littler kids, it seems like they’re talking about going somewhere.

A belief in an afterlife, maybe?

Oh, that’s a new one on Valhalla.

I wonder...do people younger than 25 who must leave get bouquets? Or have they been given a very specific definition of “having been loved”?

Out of love...Skadi, you’re messed up.

goddd i wish it was 20/30 for the two ages things

So they do have it for people who check out early, at least.

IT WOULD STILL BE UNCOMFORTABLE BUT IT WOULD BE LESS “CAN I SCRUB MY SKIN RAW TO BE CLEAN??”

idt it'd be any less effective

to show how the lb is fucked up i mean

It would be more effective for me, because the current setup makes me NOPE NOPE NOPE out of thinking about the lower one.

It’d just be the horror uncomfortable, which I am enjoying, and not the “ew” uncomfortable, which just makes me judge the writers.

I guess this is how Skadi treats it as love: that she found a way to bring people to Valhalla without the dying in battle requirement.

And I do actually believe that she probably takes their souls to Valhalla. After all, beyond the joys of Valhalla, the price is to be an army for Odin. I ended up seeing the TV commercial when I checked how many sections there are in Göttdamnthisisalongtitle, which included Ophelia at the head of a large group of white figures.

I don’t think it was wise to interrupt the ritual like this, but that’s Ritsuka. It would probably be taken as just as great of a crime to follow them out and save them from giants, so this just cuts out some of it.

The age choice is wrong and bad, but I did laugh a little that Valkyrie interpreted our reason for rebelling as “you should have been tossed out already.” Even the Valkyries don’t think outside the human box.

And despite the goddess’s “love,” they don’t think of a reason born from concern for others.

OH dear. I didn’t realize that Valkyrie’s attack/crit buff was for one attack and waited for it to stack a bit more before removing it, but they doubled up and then two-crit Okita Alter......

I don’t know how to play this game without Honorable Shield of Snowflakes.

Fortunately, Santa Altera did fine since Valkyrie was a Rider this time and the non-Mash support was Osakabehime (and I brought a Waver for the bond boost CE). I think there’s a connection between Altera and a valkyrie somewhere, so maybe I’ll have Altera take the wheel for a while. If we get a Lancer, I also have Saber Altera with...pitiful skill levels....

"I should level up the skills on some of these characters I'm usi -- oh no I'm finally poor."

Okay, that's a real cool entrance, Mr. Napoleon, sir.

The connection is through bryn! basically, there's a version of bryn's myth where she marries the (mythological) version of attila the hun

or her sister does...?? something like that

I thought it was something like that!

So when I can, I'm going to have Santa Altera fight.

I'm ready for you next time, Red Sigurd, who could honestly be just regular Sigurd for all I know. I only know how he acts around his lover, but the brief blue eyes make me think we have a Red Sigurd.