fandomfanaticalgremlin

[fandomfanaticalgremlin]

And so Verso is done, and we're still feeling Feelings(™���).

(Finished Piece Under Cut)

So we maaaaaaaaay have finished Clair Obscur a couple of days ago, watched Maelle's ending on YouTube, and then had a mini panic attack a few minutes later where we saw ourself as Verso in that situation and have since begun to realize just how similar and how much we relate to him and now Feel Some Kinda Way(™️).

(WIP Under Cut)

[fandomfanaticalgremlin]

see things as they are

[fandomfanaticalgremlin]

So we maaaaaaaaay have finished Clair Obscur a couple of days ago, watched Maelle's ending on YouTube, and then had a mini panic attack a few minutes later where we saw ourself as Verso in that situation and have since begun to realize just how similar and how much we relate to him and now Feel Some Kinda Way(™️).

(WIP Under Cut)

[fandomfanaticalgremlin]

We're sorry, Maelle, but it was what he wanted. He was tired of painting a canvas he never wanted to paint in the first place. There was a reason you had to physically get between both Versos.

You needed to let him go.

We did what we had to.

[fandomfanaticalgremlin]

Been playing Clair Obscur and have almost gotten to the ending- just need to level up and fight Renoir for the 3rd time -but had a realization we felt we needed to put down before we do: Verso is like a more subdued Dante Sparda and we’ve got Thoughts(tm) just how Verso has Feelings(tm).

Verso can be super cocky and smug and even admits to being vain about his looks to the point he keeps getting his hair dyed now that it’s been turned grey but his skill tree has moves that lead him to do damage to himself or take on the burdens (status effects) of the others in the party. Not to mention when the going gets tough- when things get serious -Verso does as well. The man has a buttfuckton of self loathing and Feelings(tm) about being what we think he perceives- or at least what we, personally, think he perceives -as a “lesser” existence. He’s more than willing to die if it means the “real” Dessendre family gets at least some sort of closure. He may have the original Verso’s memories but he also doesn’t see himself as the Verso that painted Lumiére. Because that Verso died in the fire and for as much as he loves Aline, as much as he calls her “mother”, he’s also acutely aware that the canvas isn’t where Aline belongs. She may have spent time with the painted Verso and Renoir and Alicia and Clea but Aline needs to move on and she refuses. Verso very clearly blames himself and his entire existence for keeping her there and he probably feels like dying for real would be some sort of recompense for the harm he feels he’s caused by simply being there. He (poorly) hides this self-loathing behind his goading of enemies and talking about how he’s oh so handsome and it’s clear from his skill tree alone. And that’s not even getting into the whole “Perfection” aspect of his gameplay style.

And speaking of characters who gain gameplay bonuses by being consistently good at what he does but also has a lot of family trauma he hides behind a sense of bravado: Dante Sparda.

Not enough people give Dante credit for pretending to be well-adjusted when he’s only just really good at deflection and subterfuge when it comes to his past.

For all of his silly little dances, for all of his enemy taunting, and for all of his love of pizza and strawberry sundaes Dante is very very much full of the trauma of being orphaned at a young age. The man grew up constantly being hunted by demons and being the inadvertent cause of so much death and suffering that he blames himself to the point he sends most of the money he earns on the jobs he completes to various different charity organizations and the families of people who also lost loved ones thanks to him. Dante isn’t much better at hiding his inner turmoil as Verso is; it just seems like it because he’s more deceptively outgoing. And we do mean deceptively. Dante is the kind of guy who at first appears to be friendly and chill to everyone but the moment you dig deeper into the man himself he will shut you down. He’ll make excuses about how nobody wants to hear sob stories about his past or he’ll lie by omission; talking up certain more sensationalized events and dismissing other things as unimportant. If he even talks about himself in the first place. Dante doesn’t talk about his past with anyone except maybe Vergil and even then they both tend to be too busy fighting each other to actually talk about their real feelings (hello again sparda sibling communication issues. how do you do?). But the only time you really get much of anything about their pasts other than the legend of Papa Sparda it’s to do with Dante and Vergil as twins and what happened in relation to each other before they got separated.

Dante getting super salty at Vergil in the DMC5 ending credits stuff for not saying “Jackpot” is both funny because for real? That’s the thing you get genuinely upset over? The fact your brother refused to say your shared childhood catchphrase? But also helps you realize just how stuck in the past Dante actually, truly is. He can’t let it go because it’s all he thinks he has. Even with all of the friends and colleagues he’s made over the years- including the ones who have died just for being around him and/or while they were in the process of helping him fight demons (you know, like how Verso lost a lot of people while trying to get Aline out of the canvas) -Dante still keeps all of them at an arms length. Even his nephew. Although we’d argue that it’s because he doesn’t want to be reminded of the fact that his brother spent a night with someone who wasn’t him even though Dante has been trying since he was fucking eight to find and keep Vergil with him for longer than a fleeting moment but that’s besides the point.

Both Dante and Verso are way more broken up inside thanks to the things that have happened to them and the things they’ve done than they’d ever care to admit and the fact that they both refuse to talk about their pasts with anyone other than their family- or what’s left of them at least -is very much proof of that. They’re much less well-adjusted than they want others to think they are and the more you watch them in their natural habitat the more it shows.

guess it makes sense now why we’re so attached to Verso as a character when we’ve been a Devil May Cry fan since middle school lololololololololol

[fandomfanaticalgremlin]

Dante casually just telling Trish that the bathroom was in the back when she showed up on that motorcycle in DMC1 is so funny; especially in hindsight. And not just because she broke down the fucking door and he was unaffected by it, either. But also because until she took off her sunglasses and he saw how much she looked like his mother all Dante saw was some hot blonde wrecking shit and exposition-dumping about his own past to him. While we know that DMC3 came out later and a lot of plot points in there only came up after DMC1 was a thing, it’s still a prequel which would lead people to recontextualize things from DMC1. The devs would still have to keep things in mind. Like, say, the fact that this younger Dante flirted with Lady and then complained to Vergil when she “left the party”, but the older Dante gives zero fucks when Trish shows up the way she does. Idk or c about anybody else, but to us it’s giving “man’s still beaten up about losing his brother, who he’s been pining over for who knows how long and can’t even be bothered to care about a pretty lady even if she breaks down his door”. Oh Dante, it’ll be okay. One of these days you and Vergil will have your happily-ever-after.

[fandomfanaticalgremlin]

UPDATE:

GUES WHO STARTED WRITING THIS STUPID THING AND HAD TO GIVE OVER FOUR. HUNDRED. WORDS OF PREAMBLE FOR IT TO MAKE A BIT MORE SENSE 😭 😭 😭 THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A JOKE FIC

we knew we shouldn’t have sat on this long enough to get real ideas. >_>

every time our fiancée sees archer in hsr she jokes that he looks like a vergil/dante lovechild thanks to the red coat and slicked-back hair and while we know she just does it to tease us about shipping verdan we're kind of tempted to write a crackfic where lancer has to meet the in-laws because of it.

this is what we get for associating red and blue with dante and vergil since childhood ig lolololololol

[fandomfanaticalgremlin]

Lancer tops Archer Confirmed

we giggled about this, and we're an adult we swear

[fandomfanaticalgremlin]

This blog is primarily for fandom-related stuff, but we're proud enough of how this turned out to share this art of our (possible*)OC based on a picture- that we'll put under a cut -of former Russian Empress Maria Feodorovna. (*Possible depending on whether the story she's a part of comes together or not.)

[fandomfanaticalgremlin]

It feels weird to like our own post in appreciation for what you told us, so we'll just say thanks like this. lol

As someone who only watched Unlimited Blade Works because of the collab with Honkai: Star Rail, we gotta ask the actual fans: Is it widely accepted that the Grail itself is as much a MacGuffin as it is the overarching antagonist of the entire series or nah?

Sure, the thing is a MacGuffin in that it's the main thing everyone is desperately trying to get their hands on, but it's also sapient as far as we understand it? At the very least, it's sapient enough to roll up to Shirou and be like "hey, you wanna help people, right? let me do you a solid." which is how we ended up with this version of Archer.

Not to mention it's a wish-granting chalice that can apparently be like "I don't want to grant this specific wish" or "You aren't worthy of having your wish granted, fuck off" and just start a new Grail War. Which is does. Multiple times.

We don't think it's actively malicious, but it sure as shit ain't "good" by any means. At this point, we don't remember if it was stated or not in UBW, but is the Grail powered by the magic expended in the fighting the mages do? Or just by the use of magic in general? Because we think it would make sense if so, as that would incentivize the thing to keep these wars going. To keep its existence from fading into nothing.

Whatever the case is for any of this: fuck the Grail and fuck the mages who participate because most of them seem to fucking suck as people.

[fandomfanaticalgremlin]

As someone who would consider themself more of a casual fan we actually really appreciate the lore dumping haha. We’re already bad at focusing on the stuff we’re hyperfixated on without also trying to make time for stuff like going over multiple years of an established IP across multiple different storytelling mediums. Haha

So, if we’re reading your explanation correctly and remembering actual info we learned while watching the anime, then the specific grail that’s in play in the same world/verse as UBW is corrupted- not sentient or sapient -and that’s why it appears to be like “i don’t wanna grant this wish”/“you’re not worthy, imma ignore your wish” but is still a creation of the mages. The mages know what the actual deal with the Grail is (at least insofar that it’s not real and is just being charged up and used to grant a wish, even if they don’t know it’s been corrupted) and keep this up every 60 years because (at least as far as we see it because a majority of them- or at least the major ones that we’ve seen like Kotomine, technically Shinji, the Einzberns (poor Ilya. ):), and even that guy who initially summoned Medea -are assholes) they’re selfish pricks who want a wish granted and are willing to kill and backstab others to do it. Including civilians. We may think Rin is self-absorbed and arrogant as all hell but at least she’s doing her best to make sure nobody gets killed even if she’s also taking part in this bs.

Looks like we totally missed the mark on the Archer stuff, though Haha.

As for the Fate series as a whole we were vaguely aware of there being multiple authors and a multiverse type thing going on thanks to casually and slowly going through Grand Order, but wasn’t sure just how much.

Once again, thanks for the info. The time you took was appreciated. (:

As someone who only watched Unlimited Blade Works because of the collab with Honkai: Star Rail, we gotta ask the actual fans: Is it widely accepted that the Grail itself is as much a MacGuffin as it is the overarching antagonist of the entire series or nah?

Sure, the thing is a MacGuffin in that it's the main thing everyone is desperately trying to get their hands on, but it's also sapient as far as we understand it? At the very least, it's sapient enough to roll up to Shirou and be like "hey, you wanna help people, right? let me do you a solid." which is how we ended up with this version of Archer.

Not to mention it's a wish-granting chalice that can apparently be like "I don't want to grant this specific wish" or "You aren't worthy of having your wish granted, fuck off" and just start a new Grail War. Which is does. Multiple times.

We don't think it's actively malicious, but it sure as shit ain't "good" by any means. At this point, we don't remember if it was stated or not in UBW, but is the Grail powered by the magic expended in the fighting the mages do? Or just by the use of magic in general? Because we think it would make sense if so, as that would incentivize the thing to keep these wars going. To keep its existence from fading into nothing.

Whatever the case is for any of this: fuck the Grail and fuck the mages who participate because most of them seem to fucking suck as people.

[fandomfanaticalgremlin]

[fandomfanaticalgremlin]

That’s such a mood. *side-eyes all of our miscellaneous Star Rail, Tekken, and Fate fics*

So if Cu Chulainn is a "hound" and Emiya is pretty much always wearing red, then has anyone written the should-be-obligatory "Big Bad Wolf captures Red Riding Hood and does scandalous things to his captured prey" for them or nah?

[fandomfanaticalgremlin]

They doooooooo

Tfw the art too good tho.

Is the issue your adblocker or the region you’re in? Because we’re in the US and don’t have that issue but we know there’s a reason people use VPNs.

Always a sucker for Lancer/Archer stuff where “mana transfer” needs to happen and they do so by having sex. What can we say? It’s a classic and lord knows Emiya can’t just tell Cu Cuhlainn he wants to have sex without some sort of bs excuse he can use to deny his feelings.

(Lancer knows this and wishes Archer would just be upfront and honest about these things but he also knows Emiya is a stray cat who will spit and hiss at him unless allowed to do things on his own terms and on his own time. At least Cu Cuhlainn gets to hold Emiya in the meantime. Emiya is totally a cuddler whether he wants to admit it to anyone or not.)

[fandomfanaticalgremlin]

TIME TO TEKKEN IT UP LET'S FUCKING GOOOOOOO

[fandomfanaticalgremlin]

Deffo. It might take a while, but he will, and Lancer will tease him mercilessly for it. lol

The art was definitely gorgeous for sure, but realizing that it was Archer/Lancer instead of the other way around had us turning back. We know most people think it's weird/unimportant what order the names are when writing out a ship name but as someone who has very strict preferences for who tops and who bottoms in their ships we're always trying to look out for that kind of thing. (we know the usual arguement is "Oh but most real people irl switch at least a little," and like yeah, they do, but fictional characters are just that, fictional, and we can have them do whatever we want. lol)

The language barrier strikes once again. So many unreadable doujins due to the lack of translations. 🥲🥲

Always a sucker for Lancer/Archer stuff where “mana transfer” needs to happen and they do so by having sex. What can we say? It’s a classic and lord knows Emiya can’t just tell Cu Cuhlainn he wants to have sex without some sort of bs excuse he can use to deny his feelings.

(Lancer knows this and wishes Archer would just be upfront and honest about these things but he also knows Emiya is a stray cat who will spit and hiss at him unless allowed to do things on his own terms and on his own time. At least Cu Cuhlainn gets to hold Emiya in the meantime. Emiya is totally a cuddler whether he wants to admit it to anyone or not.)

[fandomfanaticalgremlin]

idk what Word of God is on Lancer and Archer's canonical heights, weights, and builds are but we actively choose to believe our own headcanons regardless of what the truth is.

As such, we say Lancer is at least a head taller than Archer and is much more slender (maybe think of like a professional runner or basketball player). But while Archer may be much shorter, he's also more obviously built. More visible muscles and a wider frame.

In terms of battle, Lancer would be faster overall, but as strong as the guy is, Archer would be able to tank more hits. He's slower to move, but he hits harder as well.

and no, this is not just an excuse to rehash our vergil/dante post about their builds. it's not our fault lancer and archer are also blue/red and have the right vibes to pull this difference in builds that we're such a sucker for off. besides, vergil and dante are the same height as each other, and the personalities aren't the same as lancer and archer. we just think it makes sense given their characters, and the fact anime is notoriously bad at representing multiple different body types. >_>