#sion eltnam sokaris

[solokabuto]

[seyyuuuuuuu2]

"My dear daughter Sion"

[fiannalover]

Sion downloads Doom directly into your hippotalamus ASMR

[theneonflower]

[fate au] wandering sea

[reignsan]

[kaibutsushidousha]

What are your thoughts on Papermoon? Did it change your expectations for the Ordeal Call arc?

I really liked most of PAPERMOON's cast. My unpopular opinion is that Minase can be a garbage writer but he's a great character creator. His characters are always built around one solid core and can feel one-note due to how they never shift too far from this core element, but the element is always chosen with one impactful scene or interaction in mind, and these goal scenes generally hit more often than they miss. Maybe. At least in PAPERMOON, they hit with Lainur, Bhima/Cerejeira, Medusa, Kama, and Duryodhana.

Another thing that Minase always knows how to do brilliantly, better than Nasu even, is to re-deliver the most memorable quotes of past Type-Moon content in new contexts. Bazett's growth marked by well-timed use of Angra quotes pretty much carries her event, and Yuga Kshetra's remixes of JinaKarna interactions ultimately deliver what's still the most powerful scene in FGO. Honestly, only Haganeya (Lilim Harlot event writer) competes with Minase when it comes to hard-hitting references. His good sense for this shows in his great choices for which otherwise minor aspects of Sakura and Rani should take the forefront in this new context and which shouldn't. And then his handling of Lainur is about as masterful as his handling of Bazett. When Lainur drops the "Because it might cause something to change"? That's exactly what I mean by clever recycling of old quotes.

But enough about his strong suits. Minase's storytelling sucks for a couple reasons and the most prominent of them is that he almost never knows what to do in the middle. His good conclusions suffer from how he struggles to lead up to them in exciting ways. And his number one crutch for this problem is reaffirming the character traits that will be relevant to the good conclusions ad nauseam.

PAPERMOON also introduces us to Minase's crutch number 2: plot recycling. Again, his inability to plan the midfield leads him to corrupt one of the things he's legitimately good at. Here we get sections 5 to 12, a whole 50% of the chapter, dedicated to the most uninspired and uncathartic rehashes of Gilles and Zouken's arcs in Fate/Zero and Heaven's Feels respectively. Genuinely garbage recycling. This cool cast really could be doing cool things instead.

Ultimately, I think Minase was a poor choice for the Alterego chapter because the setting and concepts involved play directly into his crutches. Alteregos being isolated facets removes the absolute need for Minase to flesh out the characters beyond their necessary core, and System Grail War being a simulation taken from real samples facilitates otherwise inorganic repetition. He's an uncreative man thrown into the smack middle of his comfort zone and this is the result.

Final verdict:

As for Ordeal Call expectations, yes, they did change. Before, I saw two routes for Ordeal Call.

A: pure Class mechanics-based filler that doesn't advance any of the plot points necessary for the finale.

B: final showdowns with each of the Apostles since Kotomine is Alterego, Dantes is Avenger, and Holmes is Ruler.

PAPERMOON was neither. It was completely unrelated to Kotomine, but it still changed the board for the finale by dooming Sion's plotline at the end.

Sion's arc in this chapter comments on how she's been always a sidelined cheerleader than a proper companion to Novum Chaldea, with her reasoning that she's not fit to be Fujimaru's friend because she predicted a role for herself in the finale that requires her not being a friend. This was already alluded to in Imaginary Scramble but mostly forgotten by the narrative otherwise.

Our main companion through this ordeal is an Alterego in the form of Sion's childish aspirations to be Fujimaru's friend despite knowing she can't, and the two of them are stuck in an unreal world where her actions wouldn't have consequences. So little Sion wholeheartedly indulges in this fun adventure.

However, even the most childish side of Sion knows that this cannot be. In the end, when she finally returns Fujimaru's Alterego to their complete self, she chooses to stay behind. The joyful memories of the child's adventure can't be allowed to return to the adult. Sion can't be Novum Chaldea's friend. This is essential to preventing mankind's demise.

The young Sion closes the door behind Fujimaru and leaves herself stuck in an isolated micro-world. It's the only option Sion Eltnam Sokaris is capable of taking. And then comes the epilogue revealing the fallout of it:

Sion remembers the adventure. Sion remembers being Fujimaru's friend. The bystander "unfortunately" became part of the team. The actress can no longer take the role in her script. It's over. She got attached to her sacrificial pawns. Sion had a chance to save the bleached Earth, but now she's suddenly faced with the greater challenge of saving both the world and the people she was planning to discard to save the world.

This is a big game changer for the final chapter, and honestly, in a route much more interesting than anything I had in mind. The Sion hype for FGO's finale is finally undeniably real. Took her long enough.

[lastencoregraphics]

A Holy Grail War held in the Paper Moon. The needle of this world points to endless emotion.

[lenofiga]

Fate/Grand Order From Lostbelt Chapter 25: Records of a Certain Detective

Index: Tumblr | MangaDex

[grandorderconfessions]

[cynthiaandsamus]

Playing Summer 6 having just finished Part 1.5 last night is like:

[shadouko]

from late 2021! i got time to draw them again and it was very nice!

[typemoonsmashorpass]

*She is pretty different in personality than her Melty Blood counterpart so I am putting them separate.

[seyyuuuuuuu2]

Double Sion chan

[nero-draco]

[solokabuto]

there’s only one thing I really want from ordeal call and that’s for sion to get her undead swedish lesbian knight gf back

[reignsan]

Fate/Grand Order: Ordeal Call

Imaginary Compass Inner World: Paper Moon