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Lostbelt Servants Often Don't Work as Chaldea Servants

I've reached a conclusion on why I dislike servant x Ritsuka pairings so much, and ended up spending a few hours thinking about some other thoughts.

When it comes to the gacha game format, you don't have enough time to develop every character equally, and certainly not the way fgo goes about it (Oh boy another lb6 centered event? You really shouldn't have Nasu...). As a result, oftentimes servants only ever get interludes (and sometimes events, but even those are shaky) to develop their bond with Ritsuka, and this is even worse for lostbelt/singularity villains, because they have to shed an entire dynamic and replace it with a new one. Sometimes this can work fine, or even improve the character, such as with characters like Cu Alter, Hessian Lobo, Jeanne Alter, Jason, and even arguably Avicebron, but oftentimes they can sort of... flounder.

Cu and Jeanne Alter succeeded because fundamentally there was that initial gap that comes from an enemy, not only because they were a villain but because we simply haven't developed a bond yet. So they showed us it, they showed Cu Alter learning to trust and rely on us in his interludes, we saw Jeanne do the same across multiple events. They didn't just abandon their old identity they had to built a new one off the corpses strewn by their old one.

Characters like Anastasia... don't get that, they get a facsimile of a bond developed because they don't want to restart from the very beginning of the relationship pole or be obligated to use all of their lostbelt characteristics.

So rather than showing Ritsuka and Anastasia growing a close bond and her developing a crush on him, we get one dream sequence where Anastasia confided in him that she kind of hates the people who killed her parents. Then it's just... "oh my master is utterly adorable" from her and then "Why don't you kiss her, master?" from Medea

None of this was earned or developed, at best it was implied because other people say similar stuff about Ritsuka, but notably, none of those scenes include Anastasia. They're writing this interlude like it's an alternate timeline where Anastasia was a main servant who watched you grow and develop similar to Mash (Thanks to @300iqprower for making me realize this). There is no unique relationship, there's no event where they were forced together, we just have to assume that at some point Anatasia and Ritsuka hungout a bunch and she got a crush on him.

It feels more like a filled in template for a servant-master relationship than anything actually developing. Why does Anastasia like Ritsuka? Because he's nice, trustworthy, and strong. Great, the same applies to Mash, Ushiwakamaru, Melusine and so so many other servants. There is nothing to me that says she would love Ritsuka for any reason unique to Anastasia, in the same way I can look at her and Kadoc and see why they love each other in the crypter manga. There's no Ritsuka discussing how he can relate to having his opportunity to grow into an adult ruined, there's no Ritsuka having to fight by her side for an extended period of time, there's no Ritsuka helping her come to terms with her family's death, it's just... nothing. It's Anastasia having a crush on Ritsuka because it's Ritsuka.

And like... we have to see this this with so many servants. As much as I love Barghest and find Melusine interesting, to a massive degree they were made worse after lb6. The desire to protect Fae Britain and Aurora respectively was an intrinsic part of their character, and when none of those exist, there's just a big hole in their motivations and relationships. But rather than write elaborate depictions of what changes in their personality there is, Melusine decides that Ritsuka is their lover and Barghest does... cooking? And also wants to fuck Master sometimes.

Worse than remaining stagnant a lot of lostbelt characters actively plateau. Stuck in a hell where all their characterization is dependent on the unique setting of a lostbelt, but also being physically unable to do anything with that setting because then they have to deal with the baggage associated with it.

This is to the point where the only characters who become better or remain well written after their lostbelts are overwhelming the ones who completely sideset this issue. Yu Mei-Ren and Qin? Popped into throne of spirits. Percival, Habetrot, Aesclepius, and Gareth? Literally completely different characters. William Tell, and Odysseus? Lostbelt fuckery. So they develop a new character from scratch and are forced to deal with that.

But a lot of servants don't get that. We know Melusine's past and generic character traits, the game implies (doesn't show) how they grow to like Ritsuka, so we don't get to see any more of that develop. Rather we get to see whatever they decide they would fit best for the present, which typically is uninteresting and repeated.

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ms niantenna's cc time!!

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what still fucks me up about babel is the way the doctor goes to the scene of the crime after everything's set in motion, and there's no turning back. they go to the woman they murdered, while she's still bleeding out, while she's cradling the child they rescued, and beg her—you understand, don't you? why I did it? please understand me. (please forgive me.)

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I think I've posted about this before but I think a lot of the dissonance that people feel about Maria/Bleminshine in her events is tied to Maria Nearl and perhaps maybe a slight misreading of the text of that event. Maria Nearl is all about Maria taking up the mantle of being a competition knight and taking part in the Kazimierz Major. I think a lot of people were looking at that event to have a happy ending to it, that Maria would be rewarded for her effort, and honestly I'm glad it didn't. It doesn't have a happy ending for Maria because the signs were always there that it wasn't going to have one.

The part that ultimately stands out about Maria during this event is that you don't get a particularly good idea for who Maria the Knight actually is. A lot of time is spent talking about the difference between the ideal knight and how the campaign knights are now, but Maria doesn't really have ideals she is following. She wasn't someone who wanted to be a competition knight previously. She goes to take up the mantle because she feels that she needs to in order to preserve their family's standing and reputation.

Maria is constantly chasing after Margaret. The meteoric rise and sudden disappearance of her older sister essentially transforms Margaret into an almost deific figure. She follows Margaret's ideals as a knight, not because she's actually thought about them and chosen them to be her own, but because it's what her sister would do. Maria as a competition knight is a hollow version of Margaret, and a hollow version of Magaret is both a boon to many in Kazimierz (as seen by the incredible number of sponsorship offers she is given) but also a thread to those in power. Even a hollow version of Margaret can be followed, as evidenced by Zofia.

But the story repeatedly pokes holes in the fabric even as it holds the hope that maybe a tattered piece of cloth will be able to last against the brutal forces of Kazimierz. Mylnar points out, quite correctly, that the Nearl family losing their knighthood status wouldn't matter. He doesn't care about what the Kazimierz government thinks the Nearl's family claim to knighthood, and realistically, a lot of the people around the Nearl family don't either. Magaret almost surely wouldn't.

She's not prepared for the Major, and she doesn't really know anything about it either. She saw her sister do a once in a lifetime performance of beating the Major without a lot of experience and figured she could also do that, and it ultimately shows in what happens during each fight. Against Olmer Ingra she loses and only doesn't lose any points because he passes out immediately afterwards.

Against the Plastic Knight, she only wins when she uses her engineering knowledge and realizes that there is a major vulnerability in his armor; at that exact point her strategy changes to lasting as long as possible. She does not have the skill or experience to deal with the Plastic Knight in a direct fight of skill, and she was getting outflanked easily before hand, so she switches to surviving as long as possible.

Against Tytus, he tires himself out because he takes his time not to defeat Maria, but to drive home how much she is not like Margaret, and in part, because he is basically taking his revenge on losing to Margaret on Maria. Tytus is not just stronger than Maria, he is demonstrably so. There isn't a world where the amount of training that Maria did would allow her to be on the same level as Tytus. If Tytus had committed to simply beating her, he would have done so easily.

Maria doesn't win her fights cleanly, she doesn't win because she has a clear upper hand. She survives in two fights due to being incredibly stubborn and able to keep herself on the brink of collapse, and in one fight, she wins because of her engineering skills. This is actually important.

Maria is not a knight, she's an engineer. She's happier as an engineer. This is ultimately who Maria is, it's where her passion lies, it's why the first thing we see from Maria in her event is her fixing a car. Ultimately, Maria isn't a knight, at least not to the same extent as her sister is. She cannot be her sister, and maybe she could be like her sister if she put in the effort over years and gained the experience. It's something that she herself realizes towards the end of the event.

Maria's folly in this event is trying to be Margaret, chasing after Margaret for herself and to help her family. When Margaret actually does return, Maria knows that she isn't needed as a competition knight anymore and drops out of the Major. This is something that the story has been pointing us towards the entirety of the last event. Maria stops being herself and starts trying to be someone else because she feels that she needs to. Arknights as a story really cares about identity, and this is another one of those events which show it.

anyways enough yapping have fun i guess

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Okay, I'm gonna talk about it.

You see these two?

They're childhood friends to lovers--sorry, "partners-in-crime"--who literally promised each other their entire country. They've been together for twenty years. They're morally ambiguous businessmen who pull off a coup d'etat for the sake of their mutual childhood dream. They're asshole husbands who understand each other like nobody else to the point where they don't even need to communicate to pull off a plan, that's how well they know what the other will do.

They're a black/white, day/night couple, officially. Yes, I'm serious, they have official day/night artwork.

They're cat and bird. They're nice boss/mean boss. They have fancy matching official outfits. They're constantly drawn to mirror each other.

They're voiced by veteran JP VAs, one of whom is the "Empress of the BL world", and they were all but marketed as a couple for their drama CD. Said VA also started doing suggestive roleplay on-stream, too.

Their relationship literally begins with Enciodes inviting Gnosis to sneak out with him onto the country's first train ride, then Gnosis unwittingly getting him kidnapped and then breaking him out and then inciting a stampede and then promising each other that they'll make their home big enough for each other. And Enciodes is shameless enough to ask Gnosis to spoonfeed him while he's tied up.

Enciodes was literally the only person who stood by Gnosis's side, literally his only friend because Gnosis was and is a standoffish and prickly person. Enciodes was literally the only person who believed Gnosis was innocent when his family was framed for the murder of Enciodes's own parents--to the point where Enciodes says even if Gnosis was involved, he'd forgive him, even though Gnosis doubted his own innocence and internalized all the blame and abuse. When Gnosis is forced to leave the country, he still promises to come back to help Enciodes with their dream, and Enciodes promises to come find him as soon as he himself gets the chance to leave.

The whole time they're apart, they never stop thinking about each other, and even though they've changed, they still shake hands and choose each other again (and yes, they have a whole symbolic handshake going on) and co-found their company together. Yes, they're co-founders and co-owners, they're legally one entity.

Gnosis has crane wife symbolism all over him, not just because he's a literal crane--the symbol of fidelity--but because of the way he sacrifices himself for Enciodes, embracing his own dark reputation to further their plans heedless of the cost to himself. He figuratively plucks out his own feathers regardless of the pain to bring fortune to Enciodes--he does so much for Enciodes, from being the one behind the product that gives them their first fortune, to publicly humiliating himself not just once but twice: once by acting fake drunk and casually setting some men on fire, the second in front of basically the entire population of their country by interrupting the ceremony to become a scapegoat for their coup so Enciodes could get off scot-free, because he's just that focused on their goals and doesn't care. He's the designer of all their factories, the train system, even their country's first warship.

But even though Gnosis is the crane wife, Enciodes doesn't let him fly away, no: he gives Gnosis anything he wants, to the point there's a canonical "sugar daddy" joke about them. There are hints Gnosis lives in Enciodes's mansion. They abolish the antiquated governing system of their country and install a modern parliament and Enciodes "recommends" Gnosis for the position of Speaker. Gnosis gets hungover after winning a drinking contest and Enciodes holds his arm over his shoulder and makes the most adoring face ever when Gnosis pukes right next to him.

So... with all of that...

Why is this ship so unpopular? I thought tumblr would eat this up but it's just crickets up and down. I thought this kind of ship was popular? Or is it just too "toxic" for current tastes? Or is everyone too busy shipping their self-insert with Enciodes to pay attention to his canonical almost-wife, particularly as said wife has an abrasive personality and treats the self-insert character rudely? I thought morally ambiguous childhood friends partners-in-crime who bicker all the time were popular here on the blorbo site?

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simp of all time.

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sexual abuse and control is such a core theme in Chainsaw Man and every like 4 chapters people start posting shit like "why would csm bring up that!!!" IT'S BEEN THERE THE ENTIRE MANGA!!!

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Something I forgot to mention in my Nezzsalem post is that this sentence is just straight up quoting the myth of Sisyphus, which further reinforces the idea that war is chaining him to an endless cycle he'd rather be broken but that he's also long since become accustomed to, even making pushing the bolder his whole purpose.

Expanding to the Sarkaz as a whole it also flows into how it's a "punishment" that was imposed on them, putting them a path where trying to "push the boulder" was the only thing they could do; even if it was a false hope, it's not like staying at the bottom and not doing anything would have freed them either. Kazdel being rebuilt so many times just to be invaded and destroyed again and again is also pretty much the definition of a Sisyphean task.

And just like Theresa twisted the story of Babel by being a "devil" who brought "god" down with her as the tower fell, and then actually reached the realm of the gods when she rebuilt it in the Assimilated Universe, the Sarkaz as a whole did the same to the story of Sisyphus by actually breaking the cycle - they stole the power of the gods and freed themselves from the chains that always ruined all their attempts at escaping their tragedy.

Despite all the bleakness, Arknights remains a deeply hopeful story at its core.

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I know everyone was complaining about Vulpisfoglia being reduced to her husbands wife but... that was kind of already happening to her with her daughter. Half the fandom doesn't even know her name they just call her Suzumom. A good majority of her fanart is her doting on Suzu or brushing her tails based on that one emote. I'VE HEARD PEOPLE PRAISE THEM FOR BEING THE FIRST MOTHER/DAUGHTER DUO WHICH IS DEFINITELY NOT TRUE.

And with her husband I'd argue that he's actually being the one who's character is flattened into being HER husband since she's the more well established character in Arknights but that's another part of the topic.

tldr Vulpipi is already the victim and you shouldn't let heterosexuality scare you from acknowledging the already existing problem here

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Lowkey Arknights is at its best when it takes something fucked up and shows it with tenderness.

IS5 Amiya bringing an end to all things almost being showcased as a comforting figure underneath the horror of her existence. Doctor trying to comfort her in turn. Theresa embracing the End of All Stories, joining her in her endless journey. Amaia patting the Endspeaker on the head as it consumes her. Dorothy's entire deal. The finale of Babel, the writers managing to make Theresa feel so kind and compassionate both while she was stabbing Amiya with a sword to pass the Crown of Eternal Suffering to her and while she was crushing Doctor's mind.

It works every damn time. INSANELY good.

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Lowkey Arknights is at its best when it takes something fucked up and shows it with tenderness.

IS5 Amiya bringing an end to all things almost being showcased as a comforting figure underneath the horror of her existence. Doctor trying to comfort her in turn. Theresa embracing the End of All Stories, joining her in her endless journey. Amaia patting the Endspeaker on the head as it consumes her. Dorothy's entire deal. The finale of Babel, the writers managing to make Theresa feel so kind and compassionate both while she was stabbing Amiya with a sword to pass the Crown of Eternal Suffering to her and while she was crushing Doctor's mind.

It works every damn time. INSANELY good.

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If I kept reminding myself I was a Candleholder of the Sui Regulator, I’m afraid I wouldn’t have stayed that long.

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see the thing with mio is. i make an npc-to-playable wishlist. arknights releases a new event (CN). theres a new awesome npc. i revise my npc-to-playable wishlist. arknights releases another event. theres another awesome npc. i revise my-

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ok he's funny

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