#its 3am and this is probably terribly unedited and full of mistakes

[thirdmagic]

n-nasu thoughts...?!?! boy we’re on a roll with this sorta discussion tonight

So this is a really fantastic piece of writing that articulates really really well what I've been frustratingly saying for YEARS since I first played F/sn about what makes it so unique an experience and as a visual novel, and simply as a piece of media and a work of art-- like trying to express how much I agree with this will probably make me sound a sycophant but it really does articulate very well what F/sn as a story is all about, the value in it, and how its structure and characters and every element of its design is a means to an end to explore the many, many themes and concepts it centers on. How it uses the structure of a three-route visual novel to carry across a story in a way that all wraps up together in the end in a really excellent way, by making three entirely separate routes actually the three chapters of a linear story that examines a bunch of concept from all different possible angles, and why I love it for all these things.

Like I keep wanting to write like... a 20k meta on this very topic like I've been wanting to do since I read it when I was 14 because I'm still not over how much symbolism this game runs on and how much thought was put into the thematic elements of it and in making them come together, and how that shows EVERYWHERE, from major characters like the Shirou/Rin/Sakura trio, to characters like Sasaki and Medea and even the shitty Matous, to how the symbolism is everywhere, from the Emiya house to the Matou and Tohsaka mansions to the whole goddamn city to Shirou's shed being a reflection of himself and... honestly there's so much to write about there.

But what I wanted to add to this specifically is on the topic of Nasu and his writing, because I've been thinking about it a lot for the past few good years and came to some conclusions and I both agree with what Lance says here on what makes him so unique and also want to add my own reasons... specifically what I feel that really makes and defines him as a writer and why I still really love and enjoy a lot of his work despite that there's no few reasons I shouldn't.

Now, first off, let me be upfront: when it comes to straight male priveleged writers, I tend to define them into three categories: those who think with their dicks when they write, those who think with their heads and occasionally dicks (sometimes subconcious) but with no feeling or heart or emotional sincerity, and those who write entirely with their hearts/emotions. The first two are pretty much classic fuckboy writers, tho the second comes in many varieties (I'd put early Urobuchi, at least in F/Z, in this category but I really think he's improved a fair bit in this sense over time!), but the third is like... writers who are artists and creators beyond all things, whose writing and creation comes straight from the heart, and they come in many varieties too, good ones and bad ones! And the point is: it's where I'd put Nasu.

What makes me come back to his writing time and time again, what really, really makes F/SN for me? Is that I feel like his are stories written with love. This may sound like, terribly cheesy and saccharine but I really do think that he is a guy who writes from the heart. I read F/sn and it's just... so obvious to me that this was made and created by someone who loves and cares for these characters. It's why everyone feels so alive and rich in character, it's why there's something to love in even the most undeveloped characters or the most messily written ones. Like... he cares about these people. He cares about them, he wants us to care about them and love them, and he goes out of his way to not just stick us in Shirou's head through the whole thing, despite how much of the VN is indeed in first person POV from him?

Because look: there are so many interludes from so many different points of views, there's the First Person POV sections for Rin, there's interludes which are in third person but still very clearly in the heads of a specific character- Sakura and Saber have many such scenes, and I remember Sakura getting a brief first person scene too. Anyway, the point and the reason I emphasize this is what this tells me is that not only does Nasu love and care about these characters, and really wants to deeply explore them and their heads and thought processes- he wants us to see into their heads too. He doesn't stick them into the story as plot devices, or for them to just be There and revolve around the main characters. No, he makes sure that they all feel alive and human, that we see into their heads and the way they think, reason, feel, and experience the world. Every character gets a chance at this-- with a few exceptions, and some get only one chance and not much more, but none of these people are cardboard cartouts. He wants us to get to know them and understand them. He wants them to feel alive and human because these are the characters he created.

But what he lacks, I think, as a writer? Is simple technique. I'm also absolutely 100% on board with him being a good thematic writer, because when it comes to the symbolism and themes and how they all work and come together he really shines and he KNOWS how to make it work. But I think it's less that he's not a good character writer than just... he doesn't have the skill in writing technique you need to be a good character writer. I get the sense that the characters in his head are truly really rich and deep ones, but when he puts it down on paper, tries to actually write them as they are in his head as concepts, it just doesn't work out, and not for a lack of trying, but because writing is just about technique and knowing how to create and make the character on paper the same person you see in your head. That takes skill, in writing, in plotting, in knowing how exactly to make the plot and story elements come together. Here is where he's on shakier ground because while I feel he really tries he just... doesn't have what it takes to recreate those characters in paper.

And I wouldn't call him a bad writer for that, exactly? I know that it sounds like I'm saying this bc I'm saying that he lacks writing technique, but I mean that more in the sense that the /technical/ aspect of writing is where he's weaker. Honestly what it all comes down to is that he's fantastic in creating really good concepts, and genuienly tries really hard to carry them across on paper but just doesn't have the skills to. That's not, like... some sort of moral failing or fault of his. Different people are good at different things! His talents lie in thematic elements and creating those characters and knowing how to input them into the story, in creating a story centered around themes and how to make them work and examining these themes in very thorough ways! He excels when it comes to the bigger picture, is what I’m saying. The best way to describe it, really, I think... is that his true talent lies in being a storyteller. Hell maybe even a director- he knows how to create and tell a story, but the technical aspect of writing down the script is where he tries really hard but just isn't where his skills lie.

What I mean about the technical aspect is things like- pacing, plotting, working out what character x should do in situation y and how to figure that into the plot and how concept x should carry across in terms of the plots and events happening. Things like that. It's a fair bit more technical and requires a different sort of imagination-- a sort of ability to temper your creativity into something more practical and grounded, in taking a concept and figuring out how you'll carry it across. It's like someone who's excellent in composition and ideas and concepts and may even have fantastic taste in color and wants to create really colorful stuff... but just doesn't have the talent for, you know, the actual technique of drawing/painting.

Going on with this pretentious analogy, I think Nasu knows this but he has so much fun with drawing and painting anyway despite this that he goes through with it. And here's where I also agree that everything he creates is just.. so much fun and easy to be swept into because you can tell that he's having a blast making it. It gives his work a sort of unexpected charm? I can say for myself that all of the Nasuisms like endless unnecessary exposition often put and phrased awkwardly and characters reusing phrases over and over and all those expositions being endless and repetitive, and the often awkward/weird dialogue and speech patterns... what I once saw as a flaw has just become a trademark of his at this point. I mean, sure, objectively it is a writing flaw but I look at it and I don't get irritated. I just sort of sigh fondly at Nasu's love of writing Too Many Words and putting Too Many Metaphors and his flowery language and excessive symbolism and just go, Oh, Nasu, You And Your Nasuisms in this sort of fond way. It's just so endearingly him at this point.

And all this comes down to the fact that he writes from the heart. Everything he writes he pours a lot of sincerity and love in it- sincerity about the story, about what he wants to carry across, about how much he wants us to love it too. It's extremely self-indulgent but that too is the way his love and sincerity comes across in his work. And a lot of his self indulgence comes into things like, overly long cooking scenes and super Extra fight scenes and flowery prose and these don't make for classical literature but I can't really hate it because it's just really harmlessly self indulgent. I look at it and go, oh Nasu, you go on having fun, you. And when I gripe about how he uses Too Many Words and doesn't know how to put together a scene without it going on forever I do this with a sort of... fondness I can't descibe, like I can't be angry because it's just another super Nasu trademark of his.

Now obviously it doesn't end and begin there. Sometimes his self indlugence goes into really weird fucky areas, and yeah, sometimes it goes into directions that make even me, a Self Proclaimed Problematique, raise some eyebrows. There's a fair bit of stuff in all the games he wrote that makes me groan and eyeroll and sometimes I want to walk up to him and shake him a bit and go please stop doing these things!! And we can talk forever about his writing with regards to sj topics and feminism because there's so many different and mixed factors going on there that he's like, found some weird perfect middle where he's not either a Feminist Male Writer Icon but also not a Thinking With The Dick Straight Dude Fuckboy Writer but has aspects of both that mixed together in this weird indescribable result that's very distinctly him that I still adore.

But just... for all these things he's still someone I'm very fond of as a writer and he really does have a way of drawing you into his world in a very unique way, and I always enjoy the experience. So to me it's hard to describe him as a bad or good writer. He's just sort of in a league on his own because everything he writes and makes and his attitude towards so many things is very distinctly him and you can't really define him as a writer with either such terms. Even as there are no small amount of things I hate, and even as they are just as many if not more things I adore... it's for reasons that are distinct to his style of creation and writing, and more about categories or classifications such as good or bad. He is what he is, and what he is can't be defined!

... Anyway, that's basically all I wanted to say, I think. I would like to apologize for how corny and unnecessarily cheesy a lot of this sounds but I've been stewing over those thoughts for like, years, and I felt this is a perfect opportunity, in relation to this post, to finally put them down in writing.