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umbralstars · 3 years

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Fódlan Ideas Time

While I'm writing this fic, I want to talk about the various Fódlan worldbuilding ideas that I've had for years. They are likely not supported by canon, but I don't really care since they're all either expansions on things or stuff that I made up for my own enjoyment.

Under the cut cause this got long.

Fódlan was actually split into many different human ethnic groups in pre-Calamity times each with their own cultures and religions. These religions were largely polytheistic and animist who did incorporate Sothis as one of their many Gods, and aspects of these old faiths survive in the Church of Seiros

After the Calamity and the devastation of Fódlan many ethnic groups, along with their cities and nations, were utterly destroyed. The human population dropped enough that many groups merged into the precursor Fódlanic culture that would spin off into the ethnic groups of modern Fódlan

The post-Calamity period saw a sharp increase in Sothis worship and the beginnings are the current henotheistic faith of Fódlan

Old beliefs and practices of these people have survived and evolved in modern Fódlan as folklore, folk practice, and names of many places in Fódlan

Some in Fódlan live apart from the rest of the continent in isolated villages to better preserve their heritage or simply do not have much contact with wider Fódlan on a regular basis

Agartha was only one nation among many, but the most powerful at the time due to their advanced technology and a once close relationship with the Nabateans. They fought with many Human groups even before their relations with Nabatea grew sour

Agartha itself was a very multi-faceted empire, and those who would go on to become Those Who Slither in the Dark were a minority of Agarthan superiority extremists even before the Calamity

Zanado was a muli-ethnic city state who was home to Humans and Nabateans alike pre and post-Calamity. The entirety of the Oghma Mountains, including the sections underground which is now Abyss, was the main center of Nabatea's culture and civilization

The Nabateans lived alongside Humans in Fódland for thousands of years and aided many Human groups as they built up prosperous nations. Outside of the few Nabateans who left on Sothis' direction to aid Human nations most stayed in Zanado with the only others leaving being merchants or travellers

The Nabateans were not as heavily decimated as Humans during the Calamity, but they were already far less numerous than Humans. Their population in Zanado at the time of the Massacre was roughly 30,000 Nabateans with Humans making up roughly another 100,000

CW For Death and Genocide:

Some Nabateans and humans from Zanado were able to flee during the Massacre and the Nabateans who lived outside of Zanado left the continent all together going to live in other lands. Overall, their population only numbers in the few hundreds at the very most with only four left in Fódlan proper

The vast majority of Nabateans were not able to be turned into weapons or have their blood used to give Crests to Humans. All the senseless violence and slaughter was to find the few exceptionally powerful Nabateans

Those in the Holy Tomb were all that Rhea could find and not many have their full bodies intact. Not all are Nabateans with some being Humans who died trying to protect their friends, family, and neighbors

Leicester is the area in Fódland who best preserves pre-Empire Fódlandic culture and religions. It's also the most diverse area of Fódland ethnicity wise

The Alliance has always been ambivalent towards the Church and does have many practitioners of Old Fódlandic Faiths who incorporate the Goddess into their pantheon. These faiths have had contact with Almyran religious practices for millenia so there are syncretic beliefs and practices. They are unrecognized by the Church, but mostly left to their own devices

The Alliance has plenty who are devoted to the Church and the Goddess, but is the most diverse part of Fodlan overall

The Noble Houses all follow the Church of Seiros officially, and many truthfully, but any given noble's true religious leanings are personal and largely private in the Alliance

Almyrans, and other ethnic groups in Almyra, have immigrated to the region for years between different conflicts and some of Alliance territory was once under previous nations connected to modern Almyra.

Leicester, the Golden Deer, is emblematic of the Alliance's difference from the rest of Fodlan as, even though he is the Alliance's symbol, the Deer is recognized by many Leicesteran faiths as a deity of the forest, the hunt, cleverness, fertility, kingship, and even a creator deity among a few

The Eastern Church and its adherents plays down the deity aspect of Leicester and has spent much time trying to redefine the Golden Deer as a servant of Sothis

Faerghus also preserved much of its own cultural identity from pre-Empire times, but due to how much influence the Church has had on their culture and politics these beliefs manifest more as folk beliefs than indicative of other religions

The Kingdom has a major ethnic split between the north and south parts of the country because of differing climates (warmer in the south and far more frigid in the north) and how they relate to the former empire. This split manifests in different folk beliefs and cultural practices and has been there even before the Empire was founded

Adrestia, despite the title of "Empire," is actually more ethnically homogenous than either Faerghus or Leicester especially. They've had a long culture of enforcing a pan-Adrestian identity to strengthen the Empire and that practice was one of the many things that lead to Faerghus and Leicester rebelling

As the region had their own ethnic groups their folk beliefs differ wildly from Leicester and Faerghus, but their beliefs did influence and cross ethnic lines extensively during the Empire's unified period

#fe3h #fe3h headcanons #fodland #nabateans #agartha #leicester #faerghus #fe adrestia #fire emblem #i think that's all the tags #i do have more headcanons #but these are the ones that are coming to me rn #i just think they're neat #i also worldbuild for literally everything i get my hands on #so fodland is not an exception

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burr-ell · 3 years

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God I'll never not be salty about how WASTED the lore/worldbuilding is in 3H.

Sothis is literally an interdimensional draco-god of unknown origins who can bend time to her will and create (the Nabateans) and restore life, which is what made her comatose after the war with the Agarthans

The setting of Fodlan is a vaguely "medieval" country built upon the bones of an advanced magi-tech civilization (Shambahla and the Holy Tomb being nuclear bunkers with the Holy Tomb also maybe having missile EMP???), this is a Fantasy Post-Apocalypse.

Said previous civilization (Agartha) literally nuked the world back to the Dark Ages and had a nuclear winter (the Flood aptly named Despair) because they were a bunch of teched out super-racists

The Heroes Relics twitch implying some form of horrific sentience

The Slitherers being revealed to just be ancient humans and how humanity's hatred & greed is the root of Fodlan's problems, both old and new

And that's just the tip of the iceberg! 3H really went and said "hey NEVERMIND all that you should only care about [checks notes] Edelgard's War" The absolute. Buffoonery...

gods i knooOOOOWWWWWWWW

I've actually yelled before about how interested I am in Agarthan and Nabatean lore. Like, "Romance of the World's Perdition" was a good start, but I need MORE from you Intsys:

In the land of Thinis, where the old gods are said to live, the False God has awakened. Its looming, heteromorphic vessel was resurrected to sink the world to the depths of the ocean. It will bring extinction to all children of men, and salvation to all beasts of the land, sky, and sea. For the children of men who spilled too much of the blood of life, it promises only cruel retribution.

The False God must be defeated before the world sinks into a watery grave. To this end, the children of men have erected pillars of light upon the land. Thinis, Malum, Septen, and Llium were utterly destroyed. Those lands have vanished from this world. Yet even still, the False God stands. And soon, a flood aptly named Despair will drown this world.

The children of men fled to the depths of the earth, beyond the sight of the False God, beyond the embrace of the sacred sun, and beyond the reach of the waters of Despair. They swore a fervent oath of revenge against the surface world, ruled by beasts, and against their tormentor, the False God.

Like. What's the deal with Thinis? Was that the original name of Zanado/Garreg Mach? What are Malum, Septen, and Llium? I did once do some research and find these name origins on a forum somewhere:

Septen: Septentrional means "of the north", also used for stars of the Big Dipper Thinis: Capital of the first Egyptian Dynasties Malum: Latin for "bad" Llium: Could be Illium/Ilion, the old name for the City of Troy i.e. the Trojans

All the Greek/Egyptian names, plus "Sothis" being the Hellenization of "Sopdet", which we know they know is Sirius because the theme that plays during conversations about Sothis is called "Gazing at Sirius". Is Sirius the Blue Sea Star? WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN.

Like you said, they really took all that and went "we will not elaborate but here have gap moe crab waifu war instead". Claude is too hot to avoid this lore, Intsys. And he hungers.

#fe3h meta #fe3h #asks #hhhhhhhhhhh the missed opportunity....the wasted potential.....we could have had it AAAAAALLLLL #it's like how in awakening you can see grima's skeleton making up parts of the plegian landscape #and in echoes sov you learn about thabes and the ancient civilization that predates even archanea #like this kind of ancient lore stuff is like catnip and intsys just dangled it in front of my face before just. casually dropping it #what am i supposed to hunt for now?? where's the thrill?? the chase???#gods. the p a i n

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elysianfiction · 3 years

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sooo what would Ronan's king/queen consort's crown look like?? also how would they dress? 👀 im thinking of Margaery Tyrell's type of dresses for my MC, Julian can't be the only one with his tiddies out, (t)it's equality! 😌

(T)it's equality killed me sjdks, but WHERE'S THE LIE? Go for it, anony! 😌

And to answer your question, mostly it's up to you! I will have to describe clothes at some point, but everything that's related to the MC is completely up to your imagination. Puffy gowns, tiddies out, whatever you desire is fine by me... Although Ronan might get a stroke if his beloved decided to show their assets. 😳

As for a crown, I'm very partial to simpler designs (for Agartha) such as this one:

Or maybe something more spicy like this:

Each kingdom does have its colors, I believe you will find a post under the worldbuilding tag, but I'm also not going to push it too much because forcing the player to dress a certain way doesn't sit right!

#answers #I'm not super big on fashion irl cause I'm the equivalent of a potato #but for my ocs? you've unlocked my trap card #worldbuilding #not really but in case I need to find this again 🏃🏃🏃

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ato-matsuri · 3 years

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On Agartha

Been a while since I’ve written a long text post, most of all one about Fate. It honestly inspires a lot of rambling in me, after all. But I don’t think, this time, it’s due to its good writing, the emotions it makes me feel, or anything good. This, my friend, is about Agartha. I should probably prelude that this contains a metric shit ton of Agartha spoilers. If you haven’t seen Agartha, and you’re actually wanting to see the story -- scroll past. But, having played through Agartha completely and rested on the story for a bit, I think I want to repeat what everyone else has for ages lol.

Agartha, on paper, is incredible. A subterranean world built off fantastical story off fantastical story, made by a woman known for her ability to weave story after story, within stories, on the fly, and from a database of every possible Arabian Nights tale. Where the fear Scheherazade has due to Shahryar's endless abuse and fearmongering has stretched even to men as a whole due to literal years of having to survive Shahryar. Where the only leaders were queens, where the only rebellion force was a man so horrifically corrupt that he'd easily fall for the tricks she played. Her intent -- to reveal magecraft forever, removing any power magecraft has, saving her from ever having to fight and face kings -- and die -- ever again. That... sounds pretty good when I describe it that way, huh? Now if only it were executed with any modicum of sense.

From the beginning, Agartha's writing struck me as remarkably odd. It was like I was watching someone desperately try to emulate Nasu's writing style -- but had absolutely no idea what made Nasu's writing so good. Its exposition dumps, rather than being interesting, ended up being thoroughly boring -- as they focused on the mundane, like the fact that moss glows to light up the landscape -- instead of the magical implications of a world like Agartha even existing to begin with. Albeit, with the mystery of Agartha at that time, we can safely assume that there wasn't much to focus on, but then why spend so damned long talking about this stuff?

The worldbuilding, while passable, feels fairly flawed in execution. The idea of a world made the way Agartha was could've made for some interesting commentary about the way men treated (and still do treat) women in modern society, but Agartha not only misses the point, but tumbles head-over-ass into the uncanny valley and makes the whole thing sound like a continent-wide BDSM session. There's barely any actual subtle or well-done symbolism to showcase misogyny in this way -- and while hyperbole can serve a good point at times, the hyperbole combined with the strangely sexual writing of these segments makes it feel less like commentary and more like a badly-done doujin.

For example -- El Dorado was as simple as it gets. Men are slaves/breeding machines/whatever. The whole 'breeding machine' thing is played off extensively, even with Penth -- a minor at this stage, mind you -- comments on using the protagonists as such breeding machines. I'll come back to this later, because this serves as another point.

Ys was a fucking cool concept -- a world ruled entirely by rampant consumerism and chaos. Men, in this world, are still second-class citizens, pretty much the playthings of the women around them. I say that Ys is the best kingdom comparatively, as it was at least more bearable than its other kingdoms, but it still felt weirdly sexual in its writing tone. Of course, following tone, Dahut (who I'll get back to later) smashes men constantly, and is very keen on fucking Guda as well, following a trend. It's played for comedy, mostly, but it's still uncomfortable as all hell. Even so, I note it's more bearable because it's a very slightly more subtle take on the whole 'misogyny' allegory -- these people are using men for basically whatever they want, and tossing them away after. I'd compare it to a few true crime cases of people who murdered, or assaulted women for no good reason at all, purely out of a want that was either denied (for good reason), or that the want itself was to inflict harm. While the allegory still does feel unintentional here, it's at least slightly less unintentional. It was probably mostly just by accident due to Agartha's generally uncomfortable writing style, but the allegory here feels a little more potent when it's not so blatantly a BDSM fic.

I hate the Nightless City, despite it again being a cool concept. A 'utopia' where speaking out at all means death -- where men are in concept free citizens, but in practice fall victim to the law if they look at someone funny. Again, in concept, great allegory. The law does not treat men and women the same -- and while it differs depending on the case which is preferred, the vast majority of the time, women are pretty much shafted by the legal system (see Brock Turner), especially in very conservative areas. Cases can be made for both genders being shafted, of course -- but for the purpose of this allegory, picking out the prejudices of the legal system against gender is a fair critique. But, like everything else Agartha does, these neat ideas fall flat in practice.

They barely touch at all on the allegory, and nobody seems to even realize it in the cast, making me further believe the allegories aren't intentional at all. In due fact, it's as if the writer didn't even realize that this could be read as an allegory. The men's plights make some sense, as they were yoinked out of nowhere into a world that hates them. But the Servants and Guda don't think about it at all past the 'wow men are slaves that sucks' -- barely even considering that this could be an allegory the world's creator made due to their own horrific circumstances. They do point this out, but to my knowledge, it's very late -- when Scheherazade's called on her bluff, only then is it ever mentioned, and only in passing at that. If anything, the fact they point this out so close to the ending makes the ending itself that much more insulting. But before I get to the ending, I think there's something else about Agartha that sets the scene for just how awful it is -- and that's the way the characters are written, and the dialogue that comes of it. For this, I'll split it up into the characters who portray this the most. I'll even describe their personalities in Agartha's context.

Guda: Crouching pervert, hidden Mash stan. A few non-sequiturs of Guda complimenting Mash despite the mood being completely broken by it. Guda's incapable of taking a situation seriously in Agartha, even when the world's basically due to be changed forever. They keep cracking jokes, creeping on Astolfo/d'Eon, and other such things even when people are literally dying all around him. For that matter, I clearly recall the scene where -- for no real reason -- Guda just changes gears with Mash in tow, and starts trying to decipher d'Eon's gender. There's absolutely no real context to this, nor any reason for Guda to do this. Further noted is the fact Guda has worked with d'Eon before, and should've probably realized d'Eon's situation by this point. The Nasuverse has always been a bit, er, behind on gender norms and such, but it's so prevalent in any scene with d'Eon it hurts -- especially in that particular scene.

Astolfo: Oddly enough, the most tolerable person here (sans one other person). Agartha's refusal to take itself seriously works remarkably well for Astolfo. And while Astolfo isn't exactly written well here either, the fact that Astolfo's always been a bit loopy makes them seem, well, more in character. They're responsible for some of the funnier moments in Agartha, with their input composing approximately 3/4 of the, like, seven or eight funny moments in Agartha proper. Even so, Astolfo's appearance sometimes hurts Agartha as much as they help it, probably since Astolfo is a bit of the reason Agartha won't take itself seriously.

d'Eon: Deserved fucking better. The previously mentioned scene was the worst offender by far in my eyes, with it coming out of fucking nowhere. d'Eon's paired with Astolfo as a buddy and fighting partner, which itself could've made for good material -- instead, d'Eon is constantly dragged into Astolfo's fanservice-y gimmicks, and d'Eon themselves are pretty often creeped on by Guda. I'd go out on a limb to say that d'Eon's implied dislike of gendered clothing (see the maid outfit) made their scenes wearing such outfits far more uncomfortable, especially with how distinctly sexual the Agartha humour is. I just hated it.

Columbus: I can't fucking believe I'm saying this, but Columbus was the funniest character in Agartha. And I don't even think that was intentional. Something about how unabashedly horrible he was caught me completely off guard -- I thought he'd end up sort of like Napoleon at a glance, someone whose Spirit Origin was completely changed due to Europe's collective worship of the dude -- but holy FUCK was I wrong. Something about the hilariously cursed faces Columbus pulls, combined with his loud-and-proud irredeemable evilness, made him a blast to watch -- and an even bigger blast to beat the shit out of. His, uh, toothy grin still cracks me up even a few weeks after playing it.

Penthesilea: One of a very large amount of people who really deserved better. She barely ever shows up -- and when she does, she voices her desire to turn Guda and co. into a breeding machine/slave (recall she's like. 16?), and pretty much throws the whole 'reasonable-ish zerk' thing out the window instantly, because Agartha decided to forego decent writing in favour of 'funny berserker hates achilles haha brrrrrr,' therefore losing pretty much all the characterization they could've given her. The lack of 'alternate views' that show her in greater detail make this far worse, which I'll go into later.

Dahut: God, wasted potential out the asshole! A woman who made an entire world that fucked around and needlessly consumed stuff, she's the epitome of such a belief. But that's all she is. I'd be able to forgive this awful writing if Scheherazade, who 'implanted' Drake onto Dahut, was a bad writer -- but she's fucking Scheherazade! Dahut's a completely flat character, who constantly tries to bed (and kill) Guda, and generally likes the idea of needless consumption. That's literally it. Again, could be explained if Dahut had difficulty keeping control of Drake's body and conscience -- but this isn't explored either! She's just a walking, talking missed opportunity.

Wu: God, look at her design. Do I even need to say more?! She falls under the same problem that the other rulers do -- shallow characterization, no opportunities to flesh them out, etc.

Scheherazade: She could've been so fucking amazing. Scheherazade's story is one ripe with interpretations the Fate series so loves to utilize -- and on paper, her character is amazing. It'd only be natural for someone like Schez to be this deeply traumatized after so many days on death's door -- not many could really get through that okay. The incredible storyteller who fears death, kings, and unconsciously, men as a whole -- creating Agartha as a subtle way of ensuring none of them harm her while she prepares her ultimate plan of revealing magecraft to the entire world. However, as with the other Agartha characters, she becomes cripplingly one-note. Bringing her fear of death above all else, she comes off as an unreasonable asshole, constantly freaking out about death and preserving exclusively herself to a fault. While one could argue it's partially due to a Pillar's influence, Phenex doesn't seem to have a hold on her at all -- it's a basic alliance, and nothing more, as the ending shows us. It just leaves her as a one-note death avoider, with no other character traits at all. I'd go into further detail, but I'm saving that for later.

Fergus: God fucking damnit, man. A literal child version of Fergus, who the entire cast constantly expects to sexually harass every woman in sight. He's a one-note flanderization of Fergus, just without the one character trait Agartha gave Fergus. It just makes him... boring, a character whose only character trait is his refusal to hit a woman. Like... Come on. The fact the entire team is so sure this literal child will start trying to hit on women is just uncomfortable to witness, and the fact he slowly starts gaining these traits feels less like him 'meeting his fate' as Fergus, and more like Agartha wants an excuse to sexually harass more of the cast.

The Fucking Ending I'm giving this its own category, because of just how much of a punch to the face it was. In short -- the plan to reveal magecraft is revealed, more jokes are made, bla bla bla. Agartha can't keep a serious mood at all. ...But the final few scenes take it to a whole other extreme.

Wu Zetian comes out of nowhere despite being squashed by Megalos earlier, stuffing Phenex into a pit of her weird water shit, placing Phenex in a state of 'life and death.' Child Fergus then sac's his own Spirit Origin to summon Fergus inside himself(???), thus gaining the power of Caladbolg to weaken Phenex enough for the player to destroy. ...However, Child Fergus just summoned Fergus inside his own body. So, what happens when you put Agartha!Fergus, a one-note sexual harasser, into the body of a child? You get the final scene of Agartha. For some reason, I guess you need more help from others to take out Phenex. To this end, Fergus decides to convince Schez to join their side. I'd like you to recall that FGO!Scheherazade is implied to have the trauma of Shahryar's abuse, sexual and physical, burned into her memory -- not just the whole death thing. In every form of the story, Shahryar abuses her in such a fashion almost nightly. It's to the point where Schez' first line of defence, and much of her skills, are as much oriented around storytelling as they are charm and seduction (moreso the former than the latter, albeit), because her defence mechanism was that as much as it was storytelling, to keep her abuser happy. This is a part of why Agartha is the way it is -- to keep such men away from her. Hell, there's not a single King in sight, save technically Fergus, and Chaldea's d'Eon and Astolfo. Fergus knows this. Hell, he heard this being called out. He's well aware how terrified she is. So, what does he do?

SEXUALLY HARASS HER. He claims she has to live to have kids. That men and women have to live to have kids. He claims that she should live, because he'd smash her. ...Now, that's insulting enough -- moreso, that it's played dead serious. Nobody even as much as calls him on such a shitty persuasion tactic, and nobody even mentions how awful it is to sexually harass a woman who'd been sexually assaulted at best for the better part of almost three straight years. AND IT. FUCKING. WORKS.

SCHEHERAZADE. IS IMPLIED. TO BE INTO IT.

And because of this, she's swayed to join the heroes and seal Phenex away for good -- giggling about how Fergus' worldview was partially correct even as she fades away. The epilogue features Fergus, sexually harassing Scheherazade ON SIGHT -- calling out 'tits on my 12:00' or whatever, as Scheherazade darts off. However, Schez isn't avoiding him due to trauma. She's avoiding it because, while she's into it, she doesn't want to 'die' so fast. This fucking ending highlights among the biggest issues with this damned Singularity. Even Blavatsky coming out of fucking nowhere to Deus Ex Machina a grail and help into Guda's hands -- despite seemingly being slaughtered by Columbus in a (admittedly a bit funny) way to get the base of the Resistance -- means nothing to me compared to the blatant slaughter of two characters at once. Fergus is a total horndog even outside of Agartha's reach, but he even notes he respects his partners' consent, and doesn't overstep his bounds if he makes them uncomfortable. Scheherazade isn't exactly trusting in the slightest, least of all in Agartha - she barely even begins trusting Guda due to Guda treating her with actual respect. Even then, she isn't actively prostrating herself for Guda in that sense, very likely due to the fact that's more of a defence mechanism to her rather than something she'd enjoy, due to extreme trauma. Albeit, Fate writing does leave the possibility in the air for Guda specifically, but that's very likely just due to Guda being Guda and being careful to treat her properly and help her than anything else (and also the whole 'self insert harem' thing, I guess, but that's a hell of a lot easier to ignore esp in contrast to Agartha) And yet, we see that epilogue, that butchers both of them in one fell swoop so badly that I almost ended up hating both of them. Agartha's biggest problem is that it tried to be deep and intriguing, while having the writing quality of the goddamned Valentine's events. It picked all the right characters to have an incredibly intriguing storyline, and fell flat because the author decided that playing sexual harassment, d'Eon's everything, and even the most serious scenes for comedy was more important than telling a story even half as meaningful as the chapters before it. Lo and behold -- to my knowledge, Minase wrote it. Of course he did. He chose the best, the most interesting characters he could find, and made them so fucking one-note that the story lost all its charm in moments. He chose to emulate Nasu without understanding what made Nasu's writing so good. He chose to make Agartha a laugh fest despite simultaneously trying to make it 'deep.' He chose to fall head-over-ass over a possibly interesting allegory into misogyny and fall right into sexualizing it to the point of feeling like a femdom BDSM fic. And go figure the only character he did decently was Christopher fucking Columbus. I have a hatred for Agartha I can't reasonably place anywhere else. Prillya was just as shitty, but I ignored it, because Prillya itself wasn't great, so of course the crossover sucks too. Valentine's events written by him weren't great, but whatever, it's a Valentine's event. Septem, written by someone else, was similarly not great. But it wasn't insulting. It simply wasn't great, and had a lot of wasted potential. But its ending wasn't out of character to the point of being insulting. Its story didn't make incredible mythological and historical figures too infuriating to like anymore. It didn't almost ruin entire Fate characters for me. Not the way Agartha did. I should probably contextualize that Scheherazade is among my favourite mythological figures. I introduced myself to her through Magi (lmao) due to further research into the base stories -- as well as a favourite Magic: The Gathering card, Shahrazad, which forced you to play a game within your game, like how Arabian Nights featured stories within stories.

Even in Fate outside of Agartha, I liked her. Her design didn't make much sense to me considering her character, but whatever, I didn't need to think too hard of it. It's just a design, and despite my hatred of Penth's design, I still love Penth as a character, so I can handle Schez. But Agartha painted her in such a way that all the subtlety and interesting parts of Schez went completely out the window. No longer was there any hidden references to the aftereffects of her life beyond 'i dun wan die,' and there was hardly an ounce of sympathy or kindness in her bones at all. While her being an anti-hero made some sense, especially as she was only a normal person with far above-average storytelling prowess, there was a point when she stopped being a 'good, but terrified person' and started being a complete asshole. And Agartha was that time. If it weren't for her Interlude, which redeemed her considerably, and Ooku, which did wonders for her character despite being written by Minase (as I believe Nasu was overseeing him at that point), I very likely would've never gone for her at all, despite my love of the myth. In Conclusion This rant is just to say that Agartha is bad. Horrific. Insulting, even. At every step where it could've been good, it tumbled head-over-ass into the most insulting, uncomfortable shit you could imagine. It failed to take itself seriously, and paced itself like a comedy event, but simultaneously acted as if it expected its audience to take it seriously. Like a clown brigade deciding to take on Les Mis, it loses all of its punch when every few lines is interrupted by a jab at Fergus, sexual harassment, or something that comes close to being cool before suddenly turning into a badly-timed joke, or suddenly becoming laden with dialogue so sexual it feels straight out of a porno. It's aggravating, awful, and with only brief reprieves of bareable comedy in between long, long lengths of hellish text and awful characterization. The only good part was the gameplay -- which, laden with interesting mechanics not seen elsewhere, was legitimately fun. My take? Avoid all Agartha cutscenes and plot, and just play the gameplay. The gameplay's fun, and if enjoyed on its own, would probably make for a far better experience than observing the story surrounding it. But good gameplay doesn't make up for a horrible story, especially in a game where plot is as important as it is in F/GO. Agartha's a pile of shit in my eyes, but that's ultimately only my opinion, and nothing more. If others have an opinion counter to mine, that's completely fine -- and don't let this analysis ruin your fun with Agartha if you enjoyed its plot. To be frank, I'd be happy if you enjoyed it where I could not. And if you think my takes are misinformed, or if I missed a spot (or overreacted to a spot), that's what the reblogs and comments are for! I'm definitely not the kind of dude who has the final say in matters like this -- this is only what I picked up. Thank you for reading!

#fate grand order #fate #f/go #fate/grand order #mash kyrielight #agartha #agartha fgo #tldr i hated it lol #agartha spoilers #rape tw #rape cw

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anankos · 4 years

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desire to worldbuild for the oft-neglected parts of fe16 like Sothis and Agartha has once again grabbed me by the throat huh

#fe16 #fire emblem three houses #yes this is from the frankly massive professor sothis au outline #dildodragon speaks

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tackypies · 5 years

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cw and tw list for agartha

the next epic of remnant will be agartha. agartha is the black sheep even with the JPN fandom because of the questionable handling of its themes, its subject matter, and etc. this is a section-by-section list detailing the potentially upsetting and triggering content, to ensure that you have a safe experience

if you are uncomfortable with rape and transphobic themes, i strongly suggest you read this list beneath the cut.

what’s wrong with agartha? it’s a misogynistic “women enslave men/women take revenge on men” storyline written from a highly fetishistic perspective and has the most transphobic scenes in the game

what’s the deal with the sudden shift in tone? E.O.R was a chance for a single writer on the f/go writing team to handle an entire “singularity” by themselves. they were responsible for writing all the scenes, with the details run by nasu to ensure that nothing contradicted the worldbuilding. save for the CCC event, which was written by nasu, we don’t know the specific writer behind each E.O.R., so we can’t say for certain who was behind agartha’s. i, for one, don’t take any of the characterization of beginning-/mid-agartha as canon bc fuck that noise

i’ve received some information from @the-grand-order that indicates minase was likely involved in the writing. please see the note at the bottom of the cut for an updated version of this post to reblog.

does agartha’s writing predict fgo’s future handling of these issues? no. no other event or chapter focuses on gender and sex so heavily. (save for the ooku event, but that event handles the topic of sex WAY better than agartha.) in fact, the writers have been careful to try and redeem characterizations from agartha, as seen by caster of nightless city’s interlude. it wasn’t a very well-received storyline overall :/

how accurate is this list? i’m going off of detailed summaries of the story, so this may not be perfect. this is an overview of the most egregious parts of the story and things may be changed with the NA translation. i don’t have high hopes. consider this a general guideline and, if in doubt, please ask a capable friend to check for you

if i’ve made any mistakes or have left anything out, please let me know and i’ll update it accordingly!

cw and tw list beneath the cut. warning for rape, transphobia, sexual harrassment, misgendering, pedophilia, suicidal ideation

Another Note: i’ve removed the warnings stating that astolfo is misgendered as he/she due to the fact that astolfo uses he/she/they freely as his pronouns. please see this reblog for more information. thank you

Section One: -transphobic comment by guda, referring to d’eon as “male”

Section Three: -explicit discussion of sexual slavery and gangrape throughout the section

Section Four: -reference to sexual slavery throughout the section

Section Five: -sexual harassment and threats of rape throughout the section -explicit references of sexual slavery and rape throughout the section -extreme transphobia towards d’eon and astolfo, where the pirates fetishize their nb identities -astolfo makes a sexual comment towards young fergus

Section Six: -explicit rape scene at the beginning of the section -torture and physical abuse of slaves -discussion of raping a slave -reference to sexual slavery -astolfo makes a sexual comment towards young fergus -dahut threatens to rape guda -assassin of nightless city makes a sexual comment towards guda (”Oh, or perhaps you would prefer being called Onii-chan like before?“)

Section Eight: -guda makes a comment about not minding if astolfo and d’eon stripped in front of them (idk what category this falls under but it’s kinda ick) -transphobic scene where mash asks guda if they’ve checked for d’eon’s “real” gender, and the camera zooms in on d’eon’s chest -da vinci, guda, and mash make sexual jokes about fergus in front of young fergus -guda makes a pedophilia joke -reference to sexual slavery and rape

Section Nine: -da vinci makes a rape joke -caster of nightless city implies she would perform sex on young fergus to survive

Section Ten: -berserker of el dorado explicitly discusses sexual slavery and threatens to sexually enslave the men throughout the section Section Eleven: -mash implies that astolfo may sexually harass/molest guda

Section Twelve: -dahut makes sexual advances towards guda and co.

Section Fourteen: -long discussion of slavery, frequent references to slavery (not sexual this time, thank god) and of colonization

Section Fifteen: -reference to fergus raping women -reference to caster of nightless city’s sexual abuse

Section Sixteen: -suicidal ideation is expressed -mention of slavery/colonization -young fergus makes sexual comments/advances towards caster of nightless city throughout the section -this isn’t really a trigger warning, just a general warning that young fergus’ entire damn speech is full of cringy gender essentialist comments like “Fergus says that if [Caster of Nightless City] had a nice man whom she fell in love with by her side, along with a beloved child, perhaps she would have no time for fearing death at all. He thinks that she can’t deny it.”

UPDATE: i’ve been informed that it’s highly likely that minase, one of the writers of prisma illya, was the writer. his name is credited as the creator of four main characters in agartha. again, a big thank you to @the-grand-order for their help!

i strongly recommend that you separate the content from the author when it comes to berserker of el dorado, caster of nightless city, rider of resistance and assassin of nightless city. all of them have received interludes written by different authors since agartha’s release, and caster of nightless city as well as berserker of el dorado have been included in various events to be given better characterization. if you wind up loving the characters, go ahead and love them. they’re your children now. fuck minase :^)

please reblog the updated version here.

#long post #fate grand order #fgo #agartha

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kurozu501 · 5 years

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y’know what really pisses me off about agartha is how minase does all this nasty, gross stuff for shock value but also refuses to actually engage with any of it or actually like, deal with the stuff he brings up?

the pirate city is a great example because theres a bit where they are sneaking in, see some slaves being mistreated in a bar, and decide to bust in and save them. i instantly thought the bar was about to become home base to the group as their hideout they’d use while infiltrating further into the city. we’d get some interactions with the slaves and hear from them what its like living here under this oppressive system, get some worldbuilding.

nah.

we never speak to the slaves. we never hear anything of their perspective, their thoughts. we leave the bar, conveniently are given a way to go right to the pirate boss right away, go to her, listen to her ramble about her insane philosophy repetitively for way too long, fight her, the city’s destroyed, we move on.

its incredibly shallow. we learn nothing, we dont grow, we dont get to know anything or anyone in the city besides the pirate leader who is cartoonishly evil and boring. the slaves dont get to be people. they and those awful onscreen torture scenes we are forced to watch are just props in minase’s deranged little theater of “ooh look how evil women are! this is what happens when women have power, they’ll oppress and torture men, and they’ll become selfish evil monsters, and we need to stop them and make a world safe for men from the evil matriarchy!!11″

#Fate Grand Order #fate series #fgo #type moon #criticism #Fate is Bad #the agartha shitstorm #its just so shallow! in every other chapter every time we go somewhere we meet new characters and they contribute to the plot but here: ???#fucking we even visit rider's base where we should be able to meet former slaves and hear their stories #and instead we spend that whole bit beating the player over the head repeatedly with the idea that columbus is a cool respected dude #its such poorly written slop

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randomnumbers751650 · 5 years

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I’ve been thinking of the comparisons between Tolkien’s legendarium and Nasuverse. A bit of spoilers for FGO.

I don’t really think anyone can ever top J. R. R. Tolkien in building a fictional universe. When you start looking down the rabbit hole of his legendarium, it goes deep. From constructing not only a language, but a family of them, Tolkien managed to create such a sublime fictional universe. Even though his focus is primarily British - his objective was to write an epic of the British people and it evolved to, essentially, build the great part of the foundation of fantasy literature.

It was the project of a lifetime and he couldn’t complete. It had so many influences, from the stories from Beowulf, Nibelung, Kalevala, obscure lingustic references (I read Tom Shippey’s book Tolkien: Author of the Century, and he analyzes a lot of them, and show how important it is to worldbuilding, like the difference between speech of kings and elves), to the trauma endured in the First World War. Even after his death, we haven’t seen everything, Christopher Tolkien didn’t finish organizing everything yet.

The thing is that I don’t think it’ll ever exist another human being that can combine both creativity and passion to create worldbuilding, almost to the point of obssession. Tolkien was a product of his time, but he still managed create stories that still resonate with people from the entire world (even in spite of this Anglo-Saxon focus of his work - I wish there were more efforst like Tolkien’s one to other cultures).

“Good artists borrow, great artists steal.” This phrase was said by famous artists like Picasso (does it, though?), and it means to be aggressive when the issue is creativity and try to one-up previous artists (note that it doesn’t say “great artists plagiarize”). There are a lot of authors that borrow from Tolkien (the isekai bubble in anime uses the same pseudo-medieval D&D-inspired world, that also has influence from Tolkien), but the few that tried to do the same thing as him (in a lower intensity), but the ones that steal are few.

Among the ones that steal is Kinoko Nasu. Although I’m new to the Nasuverse, I’ve always knew who Saber and memes (”People die if they are killed”), but I never got into fandom until Fate/Grand Order. Although the gameplay is simple and intuitive, I really enjoyed the story. Sure, it’s a bit wonky in the beginning, but singularities like Camelot, Babylonia, and Temple of Solomon, besides Shimosa and Shinjuku made me wonder: this waifu-based gacha game shouldn’t have a story this good and yet it is that good - Temple of Solomon specially, with all the servants who fought against and for Guda join together to fight the demon pillars, Mash and Roman’s sacrifice, to punching Goetia in the face and the eucatastrophe that is Mash holding Guda‘s hand and escaping.

Thanks to a friend that is more well-versed in the Nasuverse and I think it shows how Nasu invested a lot of creativity and passion on it. While Tolkien had a focus on stories of epic times (what Nasu would call the Age of Gods), Nasu initially focused on urban fantasy (and I think it’s where his writing is more solid), to a complete world of magecraft, with its own rules and how they are in conflict with modern thought due to the concept of Mystery. But Nasuverse isn’t just about servants - what is a fundamental concept in one work, it might be a detail or not even mentioned in other (like Kara no Kyoukai).

The idea of Mystery in the Age of Gods is a really neat way to understand mythology, and it covers even the distant future like Notes. or attempts to meld magic and technology like in CCC. The rules are consistent (but quite bendable) and permeates Nasu’s work, even when they seem unfair, especially for the modern viewer who might think “why don’t they use magic to solve every problem” (the short answer is that popularization of magic would only leave to its extinction due to operating on Mystery).

And yet, the Nasuverse is held back by the amount of problems and editorial interferences. This is especially terrible in FGO because there is lots of evidence that the editors (Takeuchi) want to push for sexier designs (like Jack and her not pants, Raikou and her balloons, Boudica looking like a bad porno actress in the first ascension, and let’s not talk about Abby) just to selll to unsavory preferences. And this is present in early works, like why the twin maids exist in Tsukihime and the legendarily bad sex scenes of the VN. Also bad writing, such as from Agartha.

That made me thinking of another reason why we surely will never have another Tolkien: capitalism. Being closer to a Catholic traditionalist, Tolkien disdained capitalism (conservatives have a critique of capitalism, for example, Edmund Burke warned Adam Smith that he ignored the social costs of the industrial transformation, but Smith ignored him). Tolkien didn’t care about selling LotR merchandising, or writing characters to pander to certain people. It was a work of passion, not profit (so much that he only published a small part of his legendarium, that includes The Hobbit and LotR). But, today, capitalism is so pervasive that it’s nearly impossible to dedicate so much energy to this without thinking of merchandising and stuff.

The Nasuverse is a large and profitable franchise, but it makes me wonder what Nasu could make if he didn’t have such editorial issues (granted I heard he’s kind of a doormat and that is why there is so much of this pandering - I read that Nero was supposing to be a cruel dictator possessing the girl, but he liked so much the VA’s voice that he changed his mind and, although I hear she was good in CCC, in FGO she’s annoying and shilled and Septem was a waste of time), because I can see there’s a lot of dedication, “stealing” from Tolkien, in the sense of creating a unique world to tell stories of the triumphs and tragedies of mankind.

Still, both Tolkien and Nasu have lots of known and compelling works, and I applaud their dedication to worldbuilding, and I wish I could make a better analysis of the Nasuverse, because I find it fascinating.

#tolkien #nasuverse #fate series #lord of the rings #fate grand order

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