#the very first fanservant I ever made

[agnerd-bot]

Fate Fanservant: Judas Iscariot, The Traitorous Disciple(Avenger)

Ascension Stages:

First Stage: Judas is clad in tattered clothes, an a large red scar is cut across her stomach, in the shape of a demonic toothy maw. A mask covers her mouth, and her hair is blood-red with white streaks. She is hunched over, with a hangman’s noose around her neck, and a string of silver coins wrapped around her hand.

Second Stage: Judas’s robes have become even more torn and ratted, and the markings on her stomach have shifted and morphed, revealing a massive, demonic mouth lined with rows of teeth and dripping blood.

Final Stage: Judas is now clad in more kept-together cloth, covering the mouth on her stomach. The pieces of silver hang around her neck, and she stands up much straighter. She has a small smile on her face.

Theme:

SCORN RAP by JT Music - "Sick of Myself"

Hell's Comin' with Me

Traits:

Class: Avenger Alternate Class: Assassin, Caster, Ruler, Alter Ego, Beast True Name: Judas Iscariot Source: The Bible Region: Israel Alignment: Lawful Evil Attribute: Star

Known as: Yehûdâh Ish-Kerayot, The Traitor, The Liar, The Woman from Kerioth, The Thirteenth Disciple, The Woman of Pollution, the Thirteenth Seat

Voice Actress: Asakawa Yuu

Deck: QAAAB

Parameters: Strength: C- Endurance: A+++ Agility: B Mana: A+ Luck: E- NP: EX

Passive Skills:

Magic Resistance EX:

As one of the original Thirteen Disciples, Judas Iscariot’s Magic Resistance is at the highest rank, on par with that of Saints. It is nigh-impossible for Magecraft to seriously affect Judas, even those from the Age of Gods.

Even for a fallen prophet, the psalms song still ring true in her heart of hearts:

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me.”

(FGO Effect:)-Increases own Debuff Resistance by 25%.

Avenger A+:

Judas Iscariot is defined by hatred and resentment. In the New Testament, the Thirteenth Disciple was known as a callous misanthrope, always willing to accuse others of heresy and wickedness, even when the prophet from Kerioth performed the same sinful acts she shunned others for. So great was her hatred that it is said that the Devil was able to enter her heart, influencing her to betray the person she believed in more than anything.

In return, upon her treacherous actions and death, Judas Iscariot became one of the most despised figures within the biblical canon, seen by many as the incarnation of betrayal itself. Those who wrote of the Twelve Disciples have all remembered Judas as the Traitor, the Betrayer, and the Sinful One. The very name of Judas Iscariot has become synonymous with evil and treachery.

Hatred of others and hatred unto oneself. Perhaps more than any other Servant, Judas Iscariot embodies the defining attribute of the Avenger Class.

(FGO Effect:)-Increases own NP generation rate when taking damage by 22%.-Reduces party's (including sub members) debuff resistance by 12% except themselves. [Demerit]

Oblivion Correction C:

As a penitent, Judas Iscariot cannot and will not forget the reason for her self-inflicted damnation. The betrayal of the one man who showed her such unconditional love. The kiss that betrayed Him to his enemies. The failure to redeem herself of her sins. Her hatred will never subside, even in death. Where so many found their salvation from their sins, she alone remained behind, unwilling to accept her Teacher's hand. She has chosen the path of her own Hell, alone, painful, and cold. And yet, it is one she will never waver from.

"O Lord... May you never forgive me for my sins... And may I never forgive myself for my treachery..."

(FGO Effect:)-Increases own critical damage by 6%.

Self-Replenishment(Magic) A:

As a Servant of God and embodiment of the Gates of Hell, Judas Iscariot's magical power is near-limitless. Her rage is unyielding, pushing her through even the most horrific types of pain without even flinching. It doesn't matter how badly or how many times her body is broken. It doesn't matter what kind of opponent she stands against. The answer is always the same: an unyielding march forward, until all who stand in her path are left to face the consequences of their actions.

It is the memory of her treachery that drives her, the fuels her every waking moment. Her sins call out to her each and every day, haunting her, screaming at her. Blood must be repaid with blood. Pain must be repaid with pain. Grief must be met with grief.

So long as the hatred pulses through her veins, the lashing, the torment, the sorrow, it will all drive her forward.

(FGO Effect:)-Charges own NP gauge by 4% every turn.

Pieces of Silver EX:

According to scripture, the price Judas Iscariot received for selling out Jesus of Nazareth to the chief priests was thirty pieces of silver. Upon realizing what she had done by betraying her teacher and friend, she attempted to return the pieces of silver to save him, only to be coldly rebuffed, with the priests scolding her for daring to bring blood money to the temple. Ultimately, these very same silver coins were used to pay for Akeldama, the Field of Blood where she hung herself in despair over her greatest sins.

Even in death, these damned coins follow Judas, strung around her neck as a reminder of her gravest sin. Each coin holds incredible amounts of magical power, and they can be offered up in order to boost Judas's own power, at the cost of the demon within gaining more influence over her. If she offers all thirty at once, she can activate her personal Noble Phantasm, Akeldama, the very same field that she bought with these thirty pieces of silver.

"I hear them... Always. Their clattering reminds me of what I've done... And why I can never accept forgiveness..."

(FGO Effect:)  -Whenever Judas Iscariot attacks, apply 'Pieces of Silver' buff to self, one time per turn(Can stack with other 'Pieces of Silver' buffs). 'Pieces of Silver' Buff: -Gain crit stars equal to half the amount of ‘Pieces of Silver’ buffs -At 30 Pieces of Silver, fill NP Gauge to 300%, and boost NP Damage by 30%. -After NP is used, clear all 'Pieces of Silver' buffs[Demerit].

Active Skills:

Damned for All Time B:

For her role in the death of the Messiah, for her treachery and sin, Judas Iscariot is believed by many to have been subject to eternal damnation, cast within the deepest pits of Hell for eternal torment. Judas herself believes very much the same. Believing herself to be irredeemable, she willingly accepts any and all punishment given to her without complaint, fully awaiting her return to Hell.

However, thanks to the blessings imparted as a Disciple of Jesus, the Thirteenth Disciple recovers quickly from any and all enemy attacks, shrugging off grievous injuries such as limbs being removed, bones being broken, and even her heart being crushed. As a result, her body goes through a constant vicious cycle of being reborn, put back together, and being destroyed once more.

Judas herself claims that this is further proof of how God despises her, refusing to let her die to punish her for her wickedness and faults. A sign that she can never be redeemed or forgiven, and will suffer until the end of time for her evil actions.

And yet... Can this really be the truth?

(FGO Effect:) -500% Chance to draw attention of all enemies to self by 300% for three turns. -Recover 1500 HP at the end of each turn for three turns.

Protection of the Faith EX:

While infamous as 'The Traitorous Disciple', Judas Iscariot has among the highest levels of Protection of the Faith. Unlike many prophets, zealots, saints, and kings who praised their gods from a distance, Judas walked alongside her Messiah day to day. From the day she was cured of her own illnesses, she walked with him, broke bread with him, and preached alongside him. She knew of his dreams and aspirations, as well as his faults and imperfections. She loved and was loved in equal measure.

Even now, in her state of agony and pain, her thoughts are always centered around the man she called Teacher and Friend. While Judas Iscariot does not believe that she can ever be forgiven for her sins, nor does she believe she will ever reach the Heaven that was promised to her all those years ago, she still holds faith in the power and goodness of the King of Men. As a Servant, Judas uses the holy knowledge she was imparted, even when she proclaims herself a vile sinner, all because of the faith she keeps.

More than any Disciple, more than any follower, more than any person who ever lived, Judas Iscariot believed in her Messiah.

(FGO Effect:) -Increases own debuff resistance for three turns. -Recovers own HP. -Increases own defense for one turn. -Increases own attack for three turns. -Apply Guts to self, two times, five turns.

Kiss of Judas A:

It is said that the thirteenth disciple betrayed her Master with a single kiss upon His cheek, signaling to the crowd that came to arrest Him. It is this single act that damned Judas Iscariot for all eternity, fully cementing her as the traitor to God and setting in motion the events of the Crucifixion as well as Judas's own death by hanging.

This moment manifests as a powerful ability, allowing Judas to gain every last fragment of knowledge of an enemy once she kisses them, seeing everything they've done, everything they've seen, and everything they will be. In a Holy Grail War, this ability is especially powerful, granting Judas knowledge to be used against enemy Servants. If used against a divine figure such as a god or demigod, this ability is even more powerful, cursing anything divine and holy with her very existence.

"Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?"

(FGO Effect:) -Lower one enemy's defense for three turns. -Decrease one enemy's charge. -Increase own NP Gauge by 30%. -500% Chance to draw attention of all allies to one enemy by 300% for three turns[Demerit]. -If used against a ‘Heaven’ Enemy: --Remove all Buffs(activates first). --Decrease one enemy's charge. --Increase own NP Gauge by 30%. --Inflict Curse on an enemy for five turns. --Inflict Evil Curse on an enemy for five turns. --Increase damage against 'Divine' enemies for all allies(five turns).

Noble Phantasms:

Noble Phantasm: Judas Iscariot - It Would Have Been Better If I Was Never Born

Rank: A+ Maximum Targets: 1 Range: 10m Classification: Anti-Unit(Self)

The very noose the twelfth Disciple hung herself with on that fateful day. This symbol of her eternal shame manifests as a snapped noose tied around her neck. This rope is taut as ever, but even though its rope seems severed, it can extend to impossible lengths to reach whatever target she aims for. Judas can use this noose as a grapple, allowing her to clear vast distances in a single leap or to grab onto a fleeing opponent. However, its most dangerous feature lies in a hidden property of the rope.

If she wraps the rope around an enemy, it forms a knot around the opponent’s limb, and their lives become ‘bound’ in a sense to Judas. Any damage that her opponent strikes her with is mirrored upon her foe, and vice versa. Even if one tries to cut this rope, the strikes will merely be reflected back onto both Yehûdâh and her opponent. Combined with Judas’s Protection of God skill, the battle becomes one of endurance that the victim is likely not to live through. The only way to possibly escape this deadly Noble Phantasm is to cut off one’s own limb that is attached to the rope, or inflict a wound that one can survive but their enemy cannot.

Noble Phantasm: Gateway to the Inferno - Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here

Rank: A++ Maximum Targets: ??? Range: 2000m Classification: Anti-World

A powerful Noble Phantasm that manifests as the wound Judas incurred upon her failed hanging. A jagged scar is displayed prominently on Judas's stomach, sharpened into a wicked grin. In reality, Judas Iscariot’s stomach functions as a passageway into Hell itself, and by activating it, the scar morphs into a monstrous maw of a creature, who drags victims into its jaws with its tongue. 

Alongside the innate threat of the Beast's maw, this Noble Phantasm also serves as a pseudo-Marble Phantasm. Due to the mouth on her stomach serving as a gateway to Hell itself, Judas can impose parts of Hell onto the world, creating rivers of boiling blood and towers of fire and bone. With a mere thought, she can change her body's attributes and access a different section of Hell to match the sins of her adversary.

Limbo: Reserved for the unbaptized, the lustful, the greedy, and the gluttonous, that which is known as Limbo is nothing but pure darkness that encompasses an area. A monstrous wind blows strongly in the darkness, and unseen monsters can be heard snarling and growling in the shadows.

Styx: Reserved for the wrathful, the putrid waters of the River Styx flow from the monster's jaws. The waves choke the victims on their own rage, dragging them further into its depths as the damned souls of the wrathful reach out to pull those above them down with them into eternal torment.

Dis: Reserved for the heretical and the violent is the City of Dis. Massive, red-hot spires pierce the earth, forming gnarled and wicked trees made of iron. A boiling river of blood courses through this forest, incinerating those who step too close. Some say this is where the Harpies make their home, clawing and scratching at those foolish enough to enter the forests of Dis.

Malbolge: Reserved for the fraudulent and liars, the Malboge manifests as several pools filled with flaming tar. Those who are caught within the pits of the Malboge are engulfed with flames that will never extinguish. Even those who escape from the pits of the Malboge leave twisted and deformed, inside and out, before they are inevitably dragged back into the depths.

Cocytus: Reserved for the treacherous is the frozen well of Cocytus, the ninth and most fearsome Circle of Hell and the resting place of Judas Iscariot. When invoked, a white mist slowly flows from the devil's maw, and the surrounding area slowly crawls to a temperature beneath absolute zero. Those who are caught within the mist find that their bodies rapidly begin to freeze over, locked in eternal suffering and agony. For some, if they are caught in Cocytus's chill, they will eventually be shattered into dust, with not even their souls remaining. This is the final circle, where even the Devil weeps and mourns in eternal torment, never to be freed.

Whatever punishment the demon's maw wishes to mete out, whatever evil stands before the Thirteenth Disciple, the message is always the same.

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

Noble Phantasm: Akeldama - The Field of Blood

Rank: EX Maximum Targets: 1 Range: 18m Classification: Anti-Evil

In the Bible, it is said that after Jesus’s death, Yehûdâh Ish-Kerayot, in a mix of remorse for her betrayal and fear that after Jesus rose, he would take his vengeance upon her, she bought a field with the thirty pieces of silver and tied a noose around her neck, aiming to hang herself. Unexpectedly, the rope snapped underneath her weight, and her stomach tore open on a sharp rock, spilling her innards and blood throughout the field, leaving the traitor to die in agony. And so, the field was known from that point on as Akeldama, the Field of Blood.

This very same Field manifests as Judas’s Reality Marble, a graveyard with a single massive tree hanging up in the middle, towering over all. Nooses hang all around the tree’s branches, swaying in nonexistent wind. A noose drops down, wrapping around the victim's neck. As the foe writhes in agony, they slip and fall, snapping their neck before the branch their noose is tied around snaps, sending their body plummeting into an open grave.

Due to Yehûdâh’s infamy as a traitor amongst traitors, this Noble Phantasm can be positively deadly in the right situations. The area of effect covers a wide range, allowing Judas to entrap multiple targets simultaneously and subject them to their judgement.

Akeldama has a unique property that few other Noble Phantasms share. The resultant damage dealt is different upon each person it is used upon. The Field of Blood harms foes not through the physical realm, but the spiritual, inflicting wounds on opponents based on the lives they have lived. If one has lived a virtuous and relatively clean life, such as Jeanne d’Arc or Xuanzang Sanzang, the Field will only feel like slight pinpricks across the body. But if one has lived a life filled with slaughter, debauchery, and evil like Nobunaga Oda or Nero Claudius? Akeldama will show no mercy to its victim, inflicting the same pain that the sinner has inflicted upon others tenfold.

All Servants, no matter their defenses or Authority, are equal beneath Akeldama’s judgement. No one, god, devil, or man is without sin, and so everyone can and will be judged within the Field of Blood.

(FGO Effect:) -Deals heavy damage to all enemies. -Do increased damage toBeast, Saver, Star, and Demonic Servants. -Do reduced damage against 'Saint' enemies[Demerit]. -Apply Curse to all enemies. -Apply Disastrous Curse to all enemies. -Inflicts Penitent status on all enemies for one turn(effect increases with overcharge). -Apply Penitent status to self for one turn[Demerit]. -Penitent: Grants these effects: --Decrease Noble Phantasm Gauge each turn. --Increase damage taken each turn. --Decrease damage dealt each turn. --Apply Active Skill Seal one time for one turn. --Apply Passive Skill Seal for one turn.

Voice Lines:

Summoned: You… wanted to summon me? I… no, despite my summons, my penitence remains the same. I am Yehûdâh Ish-Kerayot of the Avenger Class. You may know me better as Judas Iscariot. I know not why you have called upon me for aid... But if this is what my penance decrees, then I shall be your monster.

Level Up 1: …why?

Level Up 2: I see you felt I was lacking. Understood, I’ll try not to be as much of a disappointment.

1st Ascension: Ghhh...! S-so... now you see me for what I truly am... A monster. My own transgressions turned me into this creature... A beast borne of sin and evil. Hahahahaha. What a fool you are. Do you understand now? You have opened the gates of Hell... and nothing you do can ever seal them. 

2nd Ascension: I see the way you look at me. I'm horrifying, aren't I? But I don't need your pity. This is simply what I deserve for my wickedness. Through suffering, I grow stronger. Through agony, I grow more resolute. The pain from each battle drives me to move forward, and by my soul, I swear I will not fail you.

3rd Ascension: …what is this? Why... Why do I not feel the pain anymore? Why am I dressed like... like I was back then? I don't understand... Is this meant to mock me? To remind me what I cast away? Or... maybe it means I can... ...no. Never mind me. This is just the rambling of a fool.

4th Ascension: *sigh* ...you truly are a pain, Chaldean. I will never understand people like you, who extend your hands to sinners like myself. You do know who I am, correct? I am the Thirteenth Seat at the table, the Traitorous Disciple. I sold the person that showed me nothing but kindness for thirty worthless pieces of silver, killing a man loved by all for nothing but spite and greed. And yet... here we are. I will never understand someone like you... But I suppose it doesn't matter if I do. I renew the vow I made before: I am Judas Iscariot, and for the sake of Humanity's survival, I will be your monster.

Fight Start 1: Some say that it is through pain that we learn the greatest lessons. Allow me to make you very wise.

Fight Start 2: Repent, ye sinners… Your judgement has arrived.

Fight Start 3: Have you come to join me in penitence?

Skill 1: *clinking of coins*

Skill 2: O Lord, this unholy pilgrim invokes thy name…

Skill 3: If that is what you wish.

Command Card Select 1: Thy kingdom come.

Command Card Select 2: Thy will be done.

Command Card Select 3: On Earth as it is in Heaven.

Noble Phantasm Select 1: O, Lord… Turn your head as I do what must be done.

Noble Phantasm Select 2: You hear them, don’t you…? They’re asking you to join them.

Attack 1: Repent. Or perish.

Attack 2: Hmph. Trying to run?

Attack 3: Your judgement has been passed. Guilty.

Attack 4: There you are. Your time has come.

Attack 5: There is no true escape from your sins.

Attack 6: Scared? I would be too.

Attack 7: You cannot escape your final judgement.

Extra Attack 1: Go. To. Hell.

Extra Attack 2: AMEN!

Noble Phantasm 1:

I am The One Who Sold the World…

There is none whose sin is greater than I…

Now… the time has come for judgement!

Suffer as I have suffered! Come forth, Akeldama!

Noble Phantasm 2:

Can you hear them? The people you have hurt…?

You can’t turn away from your transgressions.

You can’t ignore your sins.

They’re calling you… asking you to join them in this pain…

Now… embrace them.

Noble Phantasm 3:

I am the Heroic Spirit of God’s Vengeance.

While I have long abandoned the right to act on God's will…

Tonight, I will happily reclaim it.

AKELDAMA!

Damage from Noble Phantasm: This pain… is nothing…!

Regular Damage: Nnn.

Defeated 1: N-ngh… I guess this is what a traitor like me deserves.

Defeated 2: *sigh* I should have known this was going to happen.

Defeated 3: So… back to Cocytus, is it…?

Victory 1: Thus. Ends. The lesson.

Victory 2: Be you Man or God, Devil or Angel… You answer to me.

Victory 3: It’s not enough… Never enough.

Bond Level 1: You wish to talk? With me of all people? You truly are a fool... It would be better for your time to speak with someone worthy of your kindness. I am nothing more than a bitter misanthrope waiting for a forgiveness that I don't deserve.

Bond Level 2: *sigh* I appreciate your kindness, I truly do. But all the same, I think you have the wrong image of me. You seem convinced that I am some wayward soul who holds some good in their heart. That I can be 'fixed' with genuine words of friendship. Allow me to make things clear between us, then, as friends often do. I hate humanity. With all my heart. With all my being. I despise the human race. And in turn, humanity despises me. Is that understood?

Bond Level 3: Heh. Back for more? I can’t help but respect that. … When I was young, I was born sick and blinded. They called me cursed by God, punished for my sinfulness. Only one man chose to approach me back then. They called Him the Messiah, God Incarnate, the Savior of the Jews. ...I was just happy to call Him my friend.

Bond Level 4: You have no idea how happy I was to know that the first people to lay eyes on me were so kind, so understanding… But I could never understand what people like them thought. How could He look at this world and think it deserved redemption? How could He see the ugliness of the people around Him and think they deserved to be saved? I'll be honest… I still don't understand, not even now. But it's not my place to understand Him, is it? I simply need to have faith.

Bond Level 5: …it's funny, isn't it? Despite every reason I have to hate humanity... I'm fighting for them. Not because of any obligation to Proper Human History. Not because it's my job as a Heroic Spirit. Not even because I believe it deserves to live. The only reason I'm bothering to fight for this wretched thing called humanity… Is because I know He would want me to.

Dialogue 1: You called upon me to help save Humanity. I answered, and will hunt down all who seek to do mankind harm. That is the extent of our relationship.

Dialogue 2: Whether you be a person of faith or a person of secular manner does not matter to me. I will protect you all the same, as He would.

Dialogue 3(Clear Lostbelt 1): Your sins weigh heavy on you, don’t they? The bodies that you’ve amassed, the lives you can never bring back? Good. That penitence means you haven’t lost your humanity.

Dialogue 4(Unlocked at Bond Level 5): “Does it hurt?” That’s a foolish question. Of course it hurts. Every day, every moment, my life is defined by pain and anguish. …but I simply choose to endure. Because what does my pain matter with the knowledge that I hurt the ones I love a thousandfold?

Dialogue 5 (If you have Martha): So, Martha is here as well… She was one of the kindest of the disciples, always concerning herself with our well-being, keeping the peace among ourselves. Even now, I suppose she’d scold me for not taking care of myself. …but I won’t let her burden herself with my problems.

Dialogue 6 (If you have Martha(Unlocked at Bond Level 5)): Martha… I… Why do you bother with someone like me? Me, the traitor who killed the Savior? Me, the sinner who is bound to damnation? Why…? Why won’t you let me rot in Hell?! I… I don’t understand you.

Dialogue 7 (If you have Martha(Summer)): Martha…?! W-what are you wearing?! I-I should go… I’m sorry, but-ACK! W-wait, don’t put me in a headlock-! Damnit all, why do you always have to be such a bullheaded punk?! … *sighs* Hehehe. Never change, Martha.

Dialogue 8 (If you have Martha(Santa)): …who did this to you? Tell me, Martha, so I may introduce myself. Eh? No, no I’m not angry. Why would I be angry? I’m… perfectly… calm…!

Dialogue 9 (If you have Yù Tù): YOU-?! How…? How the Hell did you escape? …tch. Seems like the Chaldeans have you under control for now. But I swear, if you try and pull another one of your ‘games’ again, I will make your last fate seem like a mercy.

Dialogue 10 (If you have Hernán Cortés): Cortés… You haven’t changed a bit since then, have you? No, I suppose you have. Judging from the look in your eyes… You know your place.

Dialogue 11 (If you have the Harpy Sisters): The trio of torturers… They were in the last Holy Grail War I had entered. Celaeno in particular and I had a contract with each other. …hm? Friendship? No, it wasn’t like that. We simply had a desire to see the same person die.

Dialogue 12 (If you have Awilix): The Goddess of the Moon… I didn’t interact with her much before, but even back then, her power was terrifying. Now? It feels like she’s on an entirely different level than before. What happened?

Dialogue 13 (If you have Baron Samedi): The good Baron. It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Hm? No… No, I don’t think I’m in the mood for drinking now. Perhaps another day.

Dialogue 14 (If you have The Golem of Prague): Tch… So the Guardian of the Lowi Family is here as well… I’d suggest keeping an eye on that one. That monster… Even if they claim to care for you, they won’t be satisfied until they’ve controlled every aspect of your life. Don’t give them an inch.

Dialogue 15 (If you have any other Fate/Undead Crusader Servants): That rowdy bunch from the battles in Jerusalem is here as well… How annoying. If nothing else, I suppose I’m grateful that we don’t have to fight this time around.

Dialogue 16 (If you have Jochebed/Samael): …thank you. Genuinely.

Dialogue 17 (If you have any Angel Servants): So the envoys of Heaven are here as well? I suppose I’d better make myself scarce then. Nothing good can come of one such as myself being in the same space of angels.

Dialogue 18 (If you have Nero or Sodom’s Beast): You… I’ve heard tales of the mad Roman Empress before, but I never thought I’d meet you in the flesh. I may be a lowly traitor, but I still hold the faith. If it wasn’t for the Master, I would not have hesitated to pay you back a thousandfold.

Dialogue 19 (If you have Mordred or Mordred Alter): The Knight of Treachery, is it? Heh, to think the Chaldean would take in not one, but two traitors… I’m glad you’ve found your true family, Sir Mordred. Treasure them.

Dialogue 20 (If you have any ‘Blessed Conqueror’ Servants): Such arrogance… Such pride… You truly think yourself an agent of His will, don’t you? That your life’s work has all been in His service? Allow me to correct you on that… All the suffering? All the war! All the pain you’ve meted out in His name? Your life’s work… makes Him puke.

Dialogue 21 (If you have Lancelot): Heed my words, sir knight… please… find it in your heart to forgive yourself. My soul is damned for all eternity, and it is a burden I will accept. But you? You deserve your happiness. Take it.

Dialogue 22 (If you have Medusa): Such a terrible fate… forced to live blind and alone, hiding such a beautiful face from the world. The Greek ‘gods’ are such cruel and vile beings.

Dialogue 23 (If you have Hassan of the Serenity): Death by a kiss? How fitting that the two of us should cross paths, Assassin. Though which is worse? A kiss of poison? Or a kiss of betrayal?

Dialogue 24 (If you have David): I… It is an honor to make your acquaintance, King of Israel. An honor I do not deserve. I betrayed your descendant, led him to his execution. So why… Why are you so openly kind to me?

Likes: I’ve long forsaken any chance to be happy.

Likes(Unlocked at Bond Level 5): Interests? You wish to ask about the hobbies of such a loathsome creature like me? Well… I guess I’d have to say fishing. I was never as skilled as Peter or his brother, but just being out on the sea, watching the waves go by… it reminds me of better times.

Dislikes: Do I even need to say it?

About the Holy Grail: …pfft. *visibly holding back laughter*

During an Event: A festival? No, I shouldn’t be there. I’d just bring down the mood. I-hey, quit pulling!

Birthday: It’s your birthday. Hmph. What does it matter to me? I told you already, our relationship is merely that between coworkers. Go enjoy yourself with your friends.

Profile:

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Back when the Son of God walked the earth, He took on twelve Apostles. Among the Twelve, perhaps none are more known the world over as Simon Peter, His right hand, and Yehûdâh Ish-Kerayot, known nowadays as Judas Iscariot, the Betrayer. A selfish misanthrope to her very core, Judas was nonetheless one of the Original Twelve chosen to preach the Word of God to the masses. Her motivations and history with her Master have largely been lost to time, save for one moment.

She is the one who betrayed Jesus Christ to the Sanhedrin for a mere thirty pieces of silver, leading to her Master's execution upon a cross To this end, she led the officers of the law into the Garden of Gethsemane where her Master lay praying, identifying Him with a kiss on the cheek. Since then, the name ‘Judas’ has been synonymous with the word ‘traitor’, and Judas herself has been marked as damned by God, a soul who will forever rot in the coldest depths of Hell, furthest away from Heaven.

"Son of God… Son of Man…! Take pity on me! Save me…!"

… 

"Please… someone save me…”

Bond Level 1:

Height/Weight: 166cm • 51.3kg

Source: Historical Fact, New Testament

Region: Israel

Alignment: Lawful • Evil Gender: Female

Judas is a servant of a constant dour mood, rarely if ever allowing herself to feel any happiness. She constantly puts herself down, even when attaining the greatest victories, believing that, after her betrayal, she does not deserve praise or adulation. It’s for this very reason she keeps the noose she hung herself with around her neck, and carries around the thirty pieces of silver that she betrayed her Master for.

The sound follows her with every step. An echo that rings to her very soul, reminding her of her sins, of her greatest mistake. A song of mourning that will never end.

CLINK... CLINK... CLINK...

Bond Level 2:

For years, Judas followed her Rabbi as He preached to the masses, witnessing as He saved many like her through the power of his miracles. Though He was God made manifest, He chose the life of a mere man, taking solace in the little things. Many a night, when the stars were out, Judas found herself nestled in the comforting presence of her fellow Disciples and her Rabbi, happiness found in her heart.

However, life was not perfect as a Disciple. Nothing ever truly is. For many nights, they found themselves having to go to bed hungry, having to resort to sleeping in the harsh streets. This ended up being the source of many an argument between Judas and her Rabbi. As a former beggar, Yehûdâh tried to convince her master to let them keep any of the monetary offerings that they received for their miracles, while her teacher refused to allow any of his disciples to receive payment for what they did.

It was after one of these very same arguments that Yehûdâh made her most grievous mistake. In a fit of passion and temptation, she chose to sell out the very man who saved her life, in exchange for a handsome sum of money. That evening, whilst Jesus lay in the Garden of Gethsemane, Yehûdâh made her move. Whilst the chief priests and their guards waited within the forest, the traitorous disciple made her way to her Rabbi, and planted a gentle kiss upon his cheek. The signal had been given. But her teacher’s next words would haunt her until the day she died.

“Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?”

Bond Level 3:

While still haunted over her teacher’s words to her before he was taken away, a new revelation had come to Yehûdâh later that week. Jesus was not going to merely be tortured at the hands of the Romans. He was to be put to death, executed via crucifixion.

Overcome with grief and horror at the realization of her mistake, Judas ran back to the temple where the high priests lay in wait. She desperately tried to bargain for her master’s life, offering the same thirty pieces of silver she received from them days before. But there was nothing to be done. Jesus had already been taken away to face his execution. Even if he wasn’t, the Sanhedren refused Judas's money on account that it was ‘blood money’, money that was now forever tainted with sin.

Fearing for her life’s end at the hands of her fellow disciples and utterly distraught at the knowledge that she had knowingly sentenced her beloved Rabbi to death, Judas made her decision. Buying the area known as the Potter’s Field, the traitor Apostle chose to end her own life, tying a noose around a tree and hanging herself.

And in that moment... Judas Iscariot's fate was sealed.

Bond Level 4:

A scar runs over Judas Iscariot's stomach. A jagged, red line on her torso, symbolizing not one, but two wounds.

The first was the scar from her death at the Potter's Field. It is said that upon the death of the Messiah, Judas Iscariot hung herself by a noose, only for her hanging to fail as the rope snapped beneath her weight. Her body hit the sharpened rocks below, before splitting in two along the stones. Her death was slow and painful, and she died that day alone and afraid.

The second comes from her eternal torment within the deepest pits of Hell itself. Bound to the icy pits of Cocytus for all eternity, her fate is to be eaten alive by the Devil, constantly bitten and crushed beneath the fallen angel's teeth until the time comes when even Hell will be no more. An eternal reminder of her sins and her treachery.

For many who see this scar, it is a symbol of suffering and pain. A horror to shy away from and flee. To Judas, it is merely a reminder. A reminder of the life of sin and the mistakes she has made throughout her life. Some claim that she can be seen tracing her finger along the scars. Musing. Wondering. Mourning.

Bond Level 5:

In many Christian works such as Dante’s Divine Comedy, Judas Iscariot's final fate is to be damned to Hell for all eternity, her body being ripped apart by Satan alongside Brutus and Cassius as penance for her betrayal. But perhaps this isn’t the case. What if the true torture comes not from without, but from within? After her betrayal, the Traitor Saint sees herself as unworthy, putting herself through agony and pain without complaint in a feeble attempt at reconciliation.

But despite how much she thinks herself irredeemable, Judas was and still is a chosen Apostle of Jesus. Like the rest of her brothers and sisters, she wandered the lands, choosing to help the needy, curing ailments and preaching the word of God. She genuinely loved the Rabbi, following him to the ends of the earth and hanging onto his every word. Signs of that same Judas still live on as a Servant, dutifully helping her Master in any way she feasibly can, no matter how much doubt she has within herself.

Perhaps even for the most wicked of sinners, a spark of goodness can be found deep within. All it takes is the right person to reveal it.

Extra (Clear Interlude “Reunion of Apostles”):

“Yehûdâh…?”

“Yes, my Lord?”

“Come now. I thought I told you to refer to me by my real name.”

“Right… Apologies, Rabbi Yeshua.”

“I have something to tell you. It concerns the both of us. Together.”

“M-my Lo-I mean… Yeshua?”

“Our lives are connected, Yehûdâh. Our fates are destined to be forever intertwined with one another, in life and in death. My Father has told me this in his messages to me, and I felt you needed to know this.”

“What are you saying?”

“Yehûdâh… Yehûdâh, I want you to promise me one thing above all else.”

“Anything for you, Yeshua.”

“Promise me… promise me that when the time comes, you won’t lose sight of who you are. Promise me that your faith, in me, in the world, and above all yourself, will remain true.”

“I promise.”

Spiritron Dress:

Avenger of Jerusalem: Judas Iscariot is clad in a leather jacket that goes down to the small of her back and a pair of jean shorts. The noose around her neck has vanished, revealing a set of scars around her neck where the noose once was.

Theme:

Judas Priest - Hell Bent for Leather (Official Audio)

Description:

A punkish outfit from a Grail War only a few know of. A gift bought my Avenger’s previous contractor, as a means of helping her blend in more within society. While more often than not, Judas Iscariot is a bitter, angry woman, she finds herself far more amenable in this state, even if only a little. She lets her barriers down, allowing herself to smile more often and relax her rage. Perhaps it is because even now, the voice of her Master pushes her onwards, encouraging her.

“Avenger… Selfishness is not a sin. To have your own desires. To want to take things for yourself. To want to achieve your own happiness! That is not evil! That is simply what makes us human!”

Voice Lines:

Unlock Spiritron Dress 'Avenger of Jerusalem': …hah. Well what do you know...? To think I'd wear this outfit again. A dear friend of mine took me shopping once, he told me it'd help me 'blend in'. I didn't really care to argue with him, so I just threw on what I felt suited me. It's... nice, getting to be able to dress like this again.. That being said, I can't help but wonder how he's doing now, without me? Did he ever find that peace of mind he so wanted? ...huh? 'I'm smiling for once'? ...I suppose I am, aren't I?

Level Up 1: I suppose I should thank you for this.

Level Up 2: How very… rock ‘n roll.

Fight Start 1: Alright then… Let’s rock.

Fight Start 2: Sorry that I have to get in your way.

Fight Start 3: The time for judgement’s here.

Skill 1: I would start praying. A lot.

Skill 2: You’ll get no mercy from me.

Skill 3: Hmph. Guess we’re doing this now.

Command Card Select 1: If you think this is best.

Command Card Select 2: No choice, huh?

Command Card Select 3: *cracks knuckles* As Martha always said…

Noble Phantasm Select 1: This place is no longer a House of God. Now… it’s merely a tomb.

Noble Phantasm Select 2: I am no redeemer of souls… I am merely the angel of retribution.

Attack 1: Hah!

Attack 2: Sei!

Attack 3: C’MERE!

Attack 4: GET OVER HERE!

Attack 5: Stop. Running.

Attack 6: Hragh!

Attack 7: You’ll get no pity from me!

Extra Attack 1: Guilty.

Extra Attack 2: You’re mine!

Damage from Noble Phantasm: Damnit…!

Regular Damage: Hands off the jacket.

Defeated 1: Not… the jacket…!

Defeated 2: Ngh… Sorry…

Defeated 3: I can still…!

Victory 1: Well then. Are we done here?

Victory 2: I want to let you know I took no pleasure in this. …well maybe a little.

Victory 3: Understand now? This is why I didn’t want to fight.

Dialogue 1: Hmm~ Hmm~ Hmm~

Dialogue 2: Impressed? My Master has quite the taste in clothing, if I must say. Perhaps you might like trying this for a change.

Dialogue 3: Apparently a band has chosen to take upon my name. ‘Judas Priest’ as it were… Call it vanity, but… I quite like the idea of having a band named after myself.

Dialogue 4: You remind me of him, you know that? Not in appearance, nor mannerisms, but how you choose to live your life. You make your own path, independent of what others say you can or should do, but what you believe is right. That’s a good way to live, Chaldean. Never forget that.

Dialogue 5 (If you have Martha): *sigh* I still don’t understand you, or how you can still show kindness to me after all I’ve done… but thank you. It’s… it’s nice, knowing that I can still be loved after all this time.

Dialogue 6 (If you have Martha(Summer)): I have to admit… that look suits you Martha. Those gauntlets that can crush a man’s skull in a single blow. That jacket that screams ‘omen of death’. That piercing gaze. Yes it suits you quite well-ow! Hah! Hey, quit it! Can’t you take a joke?!

Dialogue 7 (If you have Yù Tù): I recommend keeping an eye on that one… The Lunar Rabbit is cruel, duplicitous, and will do anything to get her way. She trapped an entire city in an endless loop for her own amusement. I shudder to think what she can do now that she seems to have become stronger.

Dialogue 8 (If you have Furbaide Ferbend): Oh it’s you. I suppose you’re wanting a rematch for the last time we met, aren’t you? I hope you have more than cheese to throw at me this time.

Dialogue 9 (If you have Baron Samedi): If it isn’t the good Baron himself. Hm? A drink? …I suppose it wouldn’t be too bad. Why are you smiling at me? I don’t plan on making this a habit.

Dialogue 10 (If you have The Golem of Prague): Adama Lowi… Or do you prefer Yoselle? Either way, don’t think your usual schemes can get past me. I know what you did to your own grandchildren, and I won’t let you do the same to the Chaldean.

Dialogue 11 (If you have the Harpy Sisters): Celaeno… It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I’m glad to see you’ve reunited with your sisters. Would you care to introduce me to them?

Dialogue 12 (If you have any other Fate/Undead Crusader Servants): …why are you looking at me like that? Is there something on my face?

Dialogue 13 (If you have Mordred(Memories of Trifas) or Caeneus(Summer)): …*silent nod of affirmation towards a fellow punk*

Likes: …back in a Holy Grail War, my Master and I bonded over music. He said ‘if you’re going to dress like a metalhead, might as well listen to some of their music’. I admit, I’ve grown fond of rock music since then. It reminds me of him.

Dislikes: …chickens. Poultry of any kind unnerves me, but above all else, keep chickens away from me. Is that understood?

About the Holy Grail: The Holy Grail… Pfft… Ahahahahaha! Ahhh… I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t make fun of your efforts, but the thought of a ‘Holy Grail’ is just… ridiculous. If the Holy Grail truly was a cup that the Master drank from… Well it certainly wouldn’t be a Grail. And they certainly wouldn’t be rare.

During an Event: Hehe. You want to bring me to a party? I believe that there’s entire scriptures dedicated to how bad an idea that would be. That said, if you insist… what else can I do?

Birthday: Happy Birthday, Master. I can’t thank you enough for letting me in. Someone like me… I don’t deserve everything you’ve done for me. … But hey. It’s your birthday. Let’s not focus on the sad stuff for once. I got something to perform for you. Lemme just get that guitar I borrowed…

[podfeels]

Podfeels Season 1 Retrospective

4/13/2024 marked the two year anniversary of Podfeels’ first airing, and in August, we will celebrate the three year anniversary of its inception as a project. It feels so strange, looking back on it all. To me, it feels simultaneously like its always been in my life, and also like it just started yesterday.

I’ve spent nearly three years now spearheading this project, and we’ve expanded from a team of ten to a team of thirty in that time, and have put out roughly four hours of highly produced, full cast, full sound effect audio drama.

That may not sound like much, but for a team composed almost exclusively of first timers at its inception, and with two big hiatuses out of everyone’s control, I’m pretty damn proud.

With Season 1 ending back in January, us currently in the exact two month midpoint between anniversaries, and Season 2 being worked on behind the scenes, I thought now would be a good time to release a bit of a retrospective on our first season. Talk about the process, what went wrong, what went right, and also release our assets for the public.

I’m splitting this into three sections so you can skip around based on what you give a shit about. 

Looking 8ack

Reminiscence about how I got into godfeels through a series of insane coincidences that make my heart feel warm.

2. Adapt8ion

Discussing the process of adapting the work into our medium.

3. Portr8s, 8ackgrounds, and Sound8ites

A release of Season 1’s art and sound assets for your perusal outside of the videos, use as desktop wallpapers, or what have you. 

Looking 8ack

In March 2020, I got covid for the first time. My workplace had no protections for it yet, so I lost my job. And while bedridden with covid, subsisting off a diet of lukewarm broth, saltines, and nyquil, I set my youtube Watch Later (ok, thats a lie, it was my Likes, which i used ((still use)) as a watch later instead of using the actual watch later function, BUT-) playlist to shuffle. And in this fugue state, I stumbled on the video that would completely change the trajectory of my life.

“What I Learned Writing 50,000 Words of Homestuck Fanfiction”, by Sarah Zedig. I vaguely remembered her from some video about the McElroys and from Hbomberguy’s stream, and I had put off watching this because at the time of its release, I hadn’t yet finished Homestuck. So I shuffled it away for later, and it found its way back into my lap at the perfect time. Having now finished the comic, read the Epilogues, actively reading Homestuck ^2: Beyond Canon, and five months in to my first ever real creative outlet in my semi-abandoned video essay channel, I was interested to hear what this goat had to say.

In the video Sarah went into detail about a ton of wider context about the Homestuck Renaissance that I was fully unaware of, and made a very strong case for her own postcanon work, godfeels. Her passion bled through and I figured, sure, why not, I’ve got nothing better going on, I’ll read the story of Spiderjeggings’ No Good Very Bad Transition. Why not!

55,660 words later, crying alone in bed, I was now a girl. Reading the scene of June making her list of wants the morning after Terezi’s return, I said out loud to myself, hoarse as can be, “I can’t put it off any longer.” 

After reading to current I ended up joining the godfeels fanserver, and from getting settled in these circles I’ve met so many people I wouldn’t have otherwise, and come into myself in ways I can’t begin to fully quantify. I went from one relationship to fourteen to now a stable four, the other person in my head shook back loose after a decade of suppression by me (sorry again, Aegis), I’ve become more cultured, I’ve gained more friends, I’ve gained more hobbies, and most relevant of all… I’ve gained Podfeels.

Podfeels proper actually started in a really funny and impromptu way. In Sarah’s video she mentions wanting to start a podfic adaptation of it, but with that being two years past with no more word, a conversation about it cropped up in the server, and it was revealed that it had been canceled for various reasons. Everyone immediately understood why that had to happen. It was an insane amount of work, especially now that Godfeels was entering the territory of a space opera. But the demand was there among all of us, and after almost a dozen loops of us all going “drat, would be cool. I wish someone would take the helm on that!”, I just went ALRIGHT I GET IT and opened up casting. Podfeels was actually originally a joke name made by someone in the server before I even entered the conversation, but we used it for so long during development that by the time we came to release day it just felt wrong to call the project anything else. The name just stuck.

After a few hours of people daydreaming about it happening, and me encouraging other people to take the helm, I finally gave in and opened up casting. Now, it’s important to understand, I had never directed ANYTHING like this before in my life. I made a really terrible sketch in high school theater class and that’s about it. I’ve always been a bit of a natural leader but never anything with the kind of scale this would require, and it showed. I crowdfunded almost all ideas for what to do and how to handle it, and my best idea for how to do auditions was “just send in a few lines of you doing whatever character you want”. And my language was… insufferably fawning. I was hedging my bets at every opportunity. Every development in the project was “tentative”, I was the “director” until someone else took charge, etc. Looking back its actually kind of adorable? 

Look at that sweetheart. She’s so scared. She has no idea the beautiful changes she is in for.

The casting process was an unmitigated DISASTER. Nobody there knew how to audition, and I didn’t know how to wrangle. We were an unstructured gaggle of doofasses stumbling into each other. And due to the limited pool, I was stretched kind of thin on where to put people. Obviously I stand by all our decisions and love our cast, but because I was pulling entirely from the fanserver, options were very limited. I wanted to get everyone who wanted one into a role, but having to do the math of “this person is 40% good at Character A and 60% good at Character B, but this OTHER person is 80% good at Character B and the closest runner up for Character A is only 35% good” was agonizing.

We ended up deciding to make a few demos first, to test our chops as actors and mine as editor. We had four planned. But after we fully produced our first two demos and had recorded the third… I decided we should immediately start chronological production.

Why did I make this decision, you ask? Well. We had a few months until 4/13/2022. If we immediately all went overdrive, me especially, we had the chance to get our first episode out on the 13th 4/13 anniversary of Homestuck, and like HELL was I about to let us pass that up. 

This was the right call, I think, but it did bring us into a BUNCH of complications. First off, it meant we never really tested our violence and drama chops on the houseraid. Second, if I had waited, we would have been able to dodge our first big hiatus, where I put us on pause for a couple months while we waited to see if our Terezi wanted to leave after she floated the idea, which she ended up doing. If we had stayed in prepro, we would have skipped a huge hiatus and not replaced a key character between episode one and two. It also meant that we didn’t fully solidify an editing pipeline, and I was handling practically all editing until around episode 3. Additional prepro time would have helped us iron that out, as well, rather than me breaking myself on the first couple episodes before bringing in help out of desperation. This rush ALSO led to us having to release episode 1’s video around a week after the audio’s release, and with a fucked up background because I was crunching so hard I didn’t notice I’d accidentally completely butchered John’s bedroom somehow! I think I somehow content aware filled the wall? Fucked if I know why!

This is an abridged version because I want to get us to the meat of the matter today and I feel a lot of the longer story is best saved for a video I plan on making down the line, when we’ve reached 50 hours of runtime. For now, let’s move on.

Adapt8ion

A few folks have asked for indepth adaptation notes for what we change in an episode and why. As a general rule, we make changes with three primary motivations. First, adjusting text-based ideas to sound-based. Godfeels plays with its medium in countless compelling ways that, when shifted to a different medium, are either clunky or incomprehensible. So our first job is to translate those into sound. Second, turning narration into sound effects. We don’t need to discuss sounds in the scene, or a character’s tone, when we can just hear it all ourselves now. This then expands into further issues, however, as some things DO need to stay as narration. There’s a lot of pathos in the narration, and often there’s details that can’t be conveyed through audio alone. But by removing just the audio cues, we are left with very clunky phrasing that does our source material no justice. So we have to rephrase entire sections to give them the same resonance, meaning, and clarity while also getting rid of all the things that are now extraneous in our medium. The third main type of edit is bringing it more in line with what comes later. Godfeels has been running a long time and has become a very different beast from where it began. I love this about it, but some ideas have ended up with insufficient preparation, and some thematic resonances are easy to see looking back but may be partially unintentional. We can take advantage of hindsight and bring certain things more in line with the work’s modern philosophies, such as putting an additional focus on the citizens of Earth C, introducing X as its own entity, playing with Dirk more as a villain, and introducing the question of “what happens to the leftover Junes in a retcon?”, all during Episode 6. 

I’ll be releasing a few other posts soon with detailed adaptation notes for every episode in the coming days, but I’ll leave it here for now and bring us to our final section-

Portr8s, 8ackgrounds, and Sound8ites

While the idea for video versions was a relatively late addition to our process, I’m very proud of the work everyone has put into making them what they are. Our art team and video editor do wonders. First up, we’ve got the talkpogs.

The talkpogs were my own invention, but I can hardly claim they’re an original idea. I’m sure something almost identical has been done before. What directly inspired me, though, was the old Polygon podcasts, where they’d have the hosts faces made out of polygons, with one loose and separated, synced to that host’s audio track. It was the first time I’d seen something like that and I knew I wanted something similar to indicate who was talking. From there it all fell into place pretty easily. The outer ring and the waveform is the character’s text color, and the background is their name color. If those two are the same (as they usually are), I apply a slight darkening to the background just for differentiation. The sprites, though, were all the art team. Unfortunately we didn’t have a base early on, so different artists drew to different scales. 

For the art style I told the artists to try to strike a middleground between Homestuck classic and girlpillz’s style which had just been shown in GF3.1.8.E, where godfeels got its first spritework. Otherwise, designs were largely up to the artists but we had conversations about them as a project. Overall I’m very satisfied with the work everyone turned in.

Backgrounds were a more complicated beast, but paradoxically also have less to talk about. We started out with one background per episode, which was pretty doable, but with the season 1 finale, and our expanded art team, we opted to expand out into a background per setting. The first two are just Pesterquest backgrounds I edited by hand, but after that we started having custom art. That was largely due to restraints lifting as the team grew, but it also turned out pretty good thematically, as the first episode with custom art was Episode 3, where June’s egg cracks. We left official art behind as June left the officially plotted course. I think it’s resonant.

Now we come to our latest introduction. KEY ART. We started doing this in Episode 6 and it’s so sick. Don’t expect these inclusions to be TOO common, but… we have some cool things in store here, and I think you’ll all be really excited to see ‘em. For now, here’s our first and so far only public piece of key art, Dirk menacing June against the tree. The final piece of art of Season 1, and the final piece of art of Season 1’s retrospective. It only seems fair.

Which now brings us to my own inclusion: sound assets. I’m very proud of the work I’ve put in to giving each character and concept their own unique aural profile. From the magical girl burning radiation of Jade’s magic, to the shattering static of June’s retcon, to threading the needle of Hammer, Sword, Plastic Toy, Dice, And Doomsday Device in June’s vrillyhoo. 

That’s all for today. In the coming week or so I’ll put together a few more posts, going over each episode in more detail, from point by point script edit notes, to specific art discussions. I also plan to bring in a few people who have been around since day one to talk about our experience setting up the project.

But for now, look forward to seeing more from us soon. Both in the upcoming devposts, and in Season 2. We've been on a hiatus to get our preproduction pipeline settled, and because we wanted to get a few episodes prepped so we can try to maintain a monthly schedule. But we're getting to the end of this phase now, and will be announcing Episode 7's release date very soon.

Until next time! :::;)

[fandommemequeen]

my 2023.

yearly retrospective time LETZ GO!!!

last year i said 2022 sucked but uh,, 2023 was definitely worse :'o)

with the rise in queerphobic legistlation, school getting progressively harder to stay on track with, my dad dying, and just everything else that ive had to endure this year, its been difficult. but.. i somehow made it.

and you might be wondering how i got through everything. did i touch grass and magically everything was sunshine and rainbows? buy some overpriced self help book or online course that changed my life? No <3

i just,, did what i normally do. i played video games, talked with my friends, watched youtube, brainrotted over fandoms, listened to music, came up with cool outfits, somehow made it through skool, drew, wrote, cosplayed, roleplayed, made kandi and crafts, and just overall found ways to find joy in the small things, which goes a long way when youre trans in a world where your joy is an act of rebellion.

i also had some cool fandom moments this year! season 7 of siivagunner has been AWESOME, return to dream land deluxe was great even if it fricked with the lore a little, THE TOH FINALE WAS SO FRICKIN GOOD, marios madness may be my new fave fnf mod, NPMD THREW ME BACK INTO MY HATCHETFIELD FIXATION, i FINALLY got the kirby planet robobot soundtrack cd and the limited edition quiznos training game physical edition, i found ways to actually enjoy WDY again and leave behind itz toxic fandom, i got into pokepasta, tintn, gogos crazy bones, playtime with percy, inside job, tadc, i started listening to mal blum and against me and chonny jash, im currently being dragged into eggotama as we speak and im getting back into mpdsap,,

but the fandom that had the most impact for me this year was the june archive and restoration project. getting into TJA led me to discover bowlbys other works and get into one of the best fandoms ive ever been in, thanks in part to the june archive and restoration project fanserver. ive met so many cool people through that server, and getting to chat and VC with them has always been a blast. [yknow what? shoutout to all my friends that ive loved talking with all throughout 2023 yall are awesome]

back to life stuff for a moment here, i got to do a lotta cool stuff this year! i FINALLY homebrewed my 3ds [with a bit of help from jaco xd], GOT TO SEE THE HAUNTING OF NIGHT VALE LIVE, put together some awesome cosplays for gencon and halloween, im getting better at rhythm games, i got SECOND PLACE in my skoolz national cybersecurity codebreakers competition, i had an awesome bday, i went to go see barbie [my first movie in theaters since lockdown] and fnaf and both were AWESOME!! all of this despite everything thats happened in 2023!

and as for my creative projectz,, DIGIVERSE REBOOT EPISODE 3 FINALLY RELEASED BACK IN MAY!!!!!! holy frick i was SO PROUD of that,, in addition, ive been doing character reveals for gamerz epic megamix take, i created the doomed timelines awoken au, and ive strengthened my artstyle into what it is today while learning how to use my drawing tablet :3

in addition, getting into TJA and watching bowlbys animation legacy made me think about my past as a creator, and i started work on giving my old book ocs from my days in the TWOW fandom the care and attention they deserve, even if it means some slight redesigns or rewrites. speaking of TWOW, EWOW IS OUT AND IM GETTING BACK INTO TWOW AFTER YEARS!! feelz good to be back, and im hoping i can maybe properly host a minitwow at some point in 2024!

overall 2023 wasnt great, but i stayed silly and had fun despite it and i think thatz very swag of me!

now, every time i do one of these things, if i do an overconfident "bring it on" type message at the end i almost always end up regretting it, AND i am absolutely terrified about 2024 so i am not taking my chances!

so i leave u with this sentiment towards 2024 instead:

i gotta survive The Horrors anyway, might as well stay silly and do what i like while im doing it :3

[four-loose-screws]

What would you rank all the fire emblem games that you have played.

Thank you for waiting, anon! This essay is finally finished! XD I don’t know if either of us ever intended for this to end up so long, but it did.

It’s interesting to see how each person experiences each game, so I hope everyone enjoys reading this. If anyone wants to ask questions for more details or just for conversation, please do!

I did a tier grouping ranking as well as ordering from bottom -> top, because that helped explain my feelings a little better. This isn’t really reflecting my nostalgia or personal feelings for the characters/world quite as much as “how much fun I had in my initial playthrough(s).” Because I think that’s what these sorts of lists are generally asking for.

First, I’d like to make a general statement about why I love FE games so much: Well, most simply it’s because I have more fun playing FE than any other series. That much is obvious though, right? I also love them because they all stand out in their own way, with their own unique combination of features, and because they are all super ambitious titles. It may lead to some rushing and half-baked ideas, but ambition is what excites me the most in any series. Even if the creators are not able to fully realize the ideas they had, the hard work still wows me as I play, and I can see hints of the full vision they had in every nook and cranny. Even the lowest games on this list are pretty high up there for me in fun level. The “fun but flawed” games just had glaring issues that interrupted the fun from time to time.

...FEs 1 & 3 are overall exceptions to the “unique and standing out rule,” being early games in the series; and FE6 set up post-Famicom FE, so it’s pretty basic, too - but they still get their own awards for setting a solid foundation for a fun video game series that withstands the test of time.

I can’t fully explain it, why I attached to FE the most over all other game series out there. But when I play FE, I usually don’t think about what’s not so great about the games. I just have fun. The gameplay always has me thinking, and I get engrossed in the stories and unlocking convos and supports.

Basic Tier

These games are really hard to judge properly in the ranking system, because they are just so basic for the series.

FE1 / FE11

When FE11 came out, I remember it getting so much flack for being really, really boring. But I didn’t get that. I like FE gameplay and storytelling at its core, so I don’t need the bells and whistles to have a good time. I knew this is where the series started, and was surprised with what content there was considering this is a remake of a game on the Famicom (NES).

FE1 set a very solid foundation for what the core of the series would be. Load it up next to a modern game, and it feels so the same and different all at once. I’ve only played a little bit of FE1 itself. I just can’t get through it because FE11 is SO similar to FE1, so you really only have to play one to get the whole experience. I didn’t feel like playing the same game over again at the time, so FE1 is still on my unfinished list.

Basic, solid foundation for the ages / 10

FE3 / FE12

After FE11 played it “safe” and took an “upgraded graphics with a few new ideas tacked on” approach, I was blown away by how much FE12 did, even if it was more for worse than better sometimes. It added so many conversations, was the first to tinker with the idea of a more fleshed out Avatar, added more story… and so on.

From what I’ve read recently, the new story stuff isn’t that great, but I don’t remember now. I’ve only played this game once. Overall, despite some clunk with the giant maps and so on, this game really challenged itself to improve from FE11, and it’s how I learned to love remakes that aren’t afraid to deviate from and add a lot to the original!

Set the stage for what kind of fun and ambition an FE remake could have / 10

FE3 is way more of a classic than any of us in the West can truly understand. It sold insanely well (the best in the series until Awakening I believe?), challenged the programmers to put FE1 on the cart as well, long before re-releases were a thing in the industry, and the game even made it to the Super Famicom Mini! I haven’t played it yet because again, it’s hard to get the motivation to play through the slow speed and clunkiness when I’ve already experienced the remake, but I’m looking forward to it some day.

The good ol’ days of the Super Famicom & SNES / 10

FE6

This was the first game without Kaga (the series original creator), so it set the stage for a future without him. The series might have strayed far from his plans for story and such, but this game, while it was pretty basic, firmly established a new foundation for the series on a new system, and gave a glimpse of what greatness the future had in store.

Overall though, this game is harder to commit to memory than others, except for classic characteristics like how terrible Roy is until, finally, BAM he gets his sword in the final stretches of the game; and running in circles from Douglas so you can avoid fighting him and successfully recruit him after the chapter.

Awkward, but sets a solid foundation for post-Kaga and post-Famicom FE / 10

Fun But Flaws Distracted From The Fun A Lot Tier

FE16

I really, really hate to say it, because this game tries to mix up the FE formula with the school setting and other new features and changes, and brought in a good mix of old and new, just like all the other FE games. But this game left very little impact on me for such a big experience. And I’m leaving out the fact that trying to play all four routes is dull as heck when I place the game this low. I’m basing it off of just how much I enjoyed the first playthrough.

Overall, I was most turned off by the class system. Which is funny, because I’ve seen others praise this as FE’s best class system. Everyone’s different. Classic classes like troubadours are just gone. The top tier classes are super limiting. Of course, you can just stop one tier down, but that’s not emotionally satisfying to me - I want my characters to reach the top! Despite having such free choice, I feel more limited than anything. If they’d just stopped at 4 tiers and not tried to go to 5, I think that would have been best. They had to stretch out the available classes too much to get to 5. ...Although being able to have an army of dragon riders is awesome, I’ll give it that. Dragons are too cool. 

I was also really disappointed by the story. Fire Emblem has established that it can write a really emotional plot, and not be afraid to pull punches, with games like 4 and 8. I was expecting a huge contrast between part 1, where everyone is friends and classmates, and part 2, where war rips them apart, transforms them into different people, and forces them to brutally slaughter each other.

But in reality…the hate between Dimitri and Edelgard has nothing to do with the school at all… That was jarring to me. Of course there is no one right direction to take a story in. But the worldbuilding and story writing… feels even less coherent than Fates. That’s an accomplishment.

This is the one time I say ambition was really just too much. The game didn’t get enough polish. A game about the seasons doesn’t even have seasonal differences...

While my friends who don’t usually play Fire Emblem have had a fantastic experience with this one, after all I’ve been through, I found that I liked other FE’s more.

I think the best part about this game is the characters and supports. After Fates had a ton of supports in it just because it had to have them, the creators of this game weren’t afraid to change up the support formula once more, so they could balance quality and quantity. ...And then, ironically, this game went for the (almost entirely) mute, personality-less avatar character. Funny how that works out. XD

Dragon Lord Army Go! / 10

FE14

I feel this game deserves way more credit than it gets, while also agreeing with the critiques. The ambition was as great as ever. But then it got stuck in development hell and we got what we got. (For those who don’t know, the team was divided in two - the team that wanted a more fanservic-y experience, and the one that wanted to make a standard FE.)

I think the gameplay is the best part of this game, Conquest is great, and the gimmicks are indeed gimmicks, but still fun. In offering three different experiences, the entire package will please few, but that was the point of the multiple routes, to give everyone one route they would like, not to please everyone with all three.

But beyond the gameplay, the story is all over the place, the multiple routes just create more questions than answers; and features like an increased number of support convos and children feel like they are there only because of a desire to bring back “popular” features. After multiple food/cooking supports in a row, I couldn’t take it any more. There was so little that the characters were actually talking about in their supports vs. Awakening. I generally feel that more supports = better, because character interaction through supports is of course a highlight of post-Famicom FE, but in this case, the numbers did not do any favors.

Bringing back weapons that don’t break didn’t feel well done, either. I just ended up using basic weapons the whole time because I didn’t want to deal with the drawbacks of the higher level weapons.

Back to a positive for me: The hub world was neat, though it needed some convoluted story writing to be included. I was amused by going through the different features and collecting the items. I agree with Nintendo of America taking out the “petting minigame,” but since I lived in Japan when Fates released, it was amusing to do on the train and weird out the bored Japanese people who peered over my shoulder.

Since all three routes were different, this game was fun enough until the end in comparison to Three Houses, of which I am STILL trying to slog through the last route one year after release. But Fates was made for every route to be different, whereas Three Houses was not, so it’s not surprising I feel like that.

But time for the real talk about this game… why is everyone’s HP so low??? What happened?????

Up and down and all around in quality from start to finish / 10

FE15

I really want to like this game more. Oh, do I. It’s absolutely GORGEOUS, the character art makes my heart skip a beat, the game proved that full voice acting does fit FE really well, it fleshed out things like the dungeon crawling & story, and added support conversations & skills, etc. while still staying kind of basic, retaining the feeling that the original was on the NES. The momentum for the fun and ambition that an FE remake could have transitioned well from FE12 to here and led to this being a stunningly presented game.

But the creators totally missed the point on what were the defining features of the game in my opinion, and that mismatch of vision ruined a lot for me. I loved the imbalance, struggling as I placed my units in corners of maps just to survive, until I obtained all those OP items, and my super soldiers marched into battle and did wild and amazing things. Valbar with +5 move and 40 speed with the Speed Ring is the one thing I remember the best of FE2 and oh man was it fun, and did I love it.

And I mean, I understand why the creators weren’t going to keep that imbalance, it doesn’t make the game good for everyone. It’s just something I found fun, and made the game stand out among the other FEs. But the developers really just replaced old imbalance with new imbalance, the dread fighters being the one thing I remember in particular.

And they defined FE2’s best defining features as “the maps and the terrain effects” and I just did not agree. That was the stuff I DISLIKED about FE2! And that’s what they wanted to keep most? The terrain that made battles one giant miss, and the gigantic maps where I’d spend half the time just getting to the enemies? No thanks.

Then the story only cranked up the horrible treatment of the women, with Faye… being Faye, and I hated the direction they went in with Celica’s story...  Ugh.

For every step or two forward, there’s one back / 10

FE10

FE games are always ambitious, but this one cranked the dial up to 10 and tripped over itself a lot. Still, it provided (even if it is info dumped) an intense and satisfying ending to the Tellius saga, and is another classic for the ages. I found the pacing boring and slow until then, though.

I think now that I’m older I can appreciate the story much, much more - and how it shows the story and aftermath of the Mad King’s War from multiple points of view -  but the lack of the support conversations, and too much going on for any aspect of this game to be properly refined, still make this one lower on my list.

If only I could have played it more than once, to really get a good memory of the events of the game. My Wii actually scratched up my disk (How this happened, I don’t know, and it’s the ONLY disk my Wii ever slaughtered). It only held out long enough for my sibling and I to enjoy one playthrough each. I’ll get to playing my Japanese copy eventually!

Part 4 = Laguz Royals Emblem / 10

Somewhere Inbetween Tier

FE5

The last of the Kaga games. Still clunky and difficult, but with it’s own super unique features in capturing, stamina, and stealing weapons.

The brokenness of staves is not at all a flaw, but a feature in my opinion. Encouraging bizarre thinking and finding new ways to plow through maps is fun. I would probably be critical if this was a modern game, but I think older games need these quirks to stand out among modern titles with better graphics and decades of gaming history behind them.

And you still can complete the maps in a more traditional manner if you are determined. I did even for Reinhardt’s map.

Also, I gotta say... I don’t agree that this is the most difficult FE overall… it just has the hardest individual maps. The difficulty spikes are all over the place. The game goes from bashing your head against a wall to snoozefest constantly.

Fog of war was a mistake though, if I was a time traveler, I’d go back and make sure the programmers never figured out how to include it. XD

Steal ALL the tomes! / 10

FE13

Experiencing this game and its release in real time was an experience. The fandom really, truly thought this game might not only be the last FE ever, but also that it might not get a localization. Thinking there would never be a localization, I spent a night of my first trip to Japan buying a Japanese 3DS and a copy of the game. I only had 2 weeks on that study tour, but I was so determined that I used some of my precious free time to go shopping for it. To afford it, I even used the money my college gave to me for food, then subsided off of cheap convenience store meals with what little I had left. I barely had any true understanding of Japanese at the time, but I wanted other fans to experience this game, so I worked as hard as I could to translate as many supports as I could. This game is why I got into translation, and was what I really thought might be the end, so it will always have a special place in my heart for that.

Now to actually talk about playing the game itself. I really enjoyed it the first couple of times. Who cares that pair-up and the kids were OP, you either blast through the game with them and have a good laugh, or ignore them, set some challenging rules, and enjoy having at least a little challenge. I didn’t care much that the supports were a little lower quality because of the sheer number of them, I eagerly awaited unlocking each one, and reading what the two characters would talk about. (We fans have fanfiction to turn to if we hunger for more development. :p) The bonus content was plentiful, and a great fanservice-y way to bring the series to a close.

After all is said and done though, the game left me feeling empty when I thought about replaying it any further. The maps and story felt empty in comparison to previous games. Now that it’s been 8 years since the initial release, I’d of course enjoy a replay or two, but after having played FEs7-9 5 or 6 times in a row before moving on to the next game… anything less than that level of excitement was surprising for me. I placed this game kinda high on the list because it’s fun when you play it. It’s just doesn’t have as much replay value, I feel.

Also, as a group, the children characters are my favorite in the series. They all come from deeply traumatic backgrounds, and the way they work through that trauma and navigate being given a second chance, but also not a true second chance because this timeline is different from their own, is endlessly fascinating for me. I don’t know if other fans give them enough credit, so I wanted to point them out in particular.

Would have been a fantastic way to send off the series, despite the flaws / 10

FE2

This game is flawed, imbalanced, makes me want to throw things, and it’s all, somehow, in a way that makes me LOVE IT. ...So long as I’m playing using an emulator with a speed up button.

This game is so hard, and the hit percentages are such garbage. But as I played, and unlocked more and more OP weapons and items, until I reached a point where the zombie dragons - what once took all my efforts - were an enemy that can easily be slaughtered in 1-on-1 combat... I felt so satisfied.

Old games need some kind of charm to make them still worth revisiting in a world of much better graphics and features that have now had decades to be refined. For me, this game has that perfect kind of quirky charm in spades.

The maps and terrain though… I have no words, just bash your head into the wall and you will understand how I feel.

Also, this game reminds me of Zelda 2 in it being a black sheep of its respective series… that’s a fun little nugget of info.

Duma’s sprite / 10

FE7

I don’t remember this game as well, despite it being one that I’ve played about 5 times? I don’t know why, it’s yet another fantastic Fire Emblem with its own ways that it stands out, managing not one, not two, but three lords, introducing the tactician, and so on. Guess time has just not been kind to my memory on this one.

I remember being really impressed with the length of this game back in the day, and Hector’s mode offering enough differences to make it totally fun to replay the main game again.

Lyn gets kind of pushed to the side (because that’s what generally happens to women main characters in Fire Emblem, if there’s a male lord around), but having the three lords was really fun. With three people, you get a great balance between all of their personalities, and they all play off of each other well.

Of course I loved Lyn and Hector, most everyone does, but I was always just as much of an Eliwood fan. His average stats pushed people away from liking him as much as the others, but I always looked up to his kindness. Eliwood / Ninian was an especially favorite pairing for my sappy teenage heart. Eliwood was just so romantic and sweet to me.

And though the game was made easier with international audiences in mind, the developers hadn’t invented all of the “easier/for convenience” features yet, so this is the last time we got to enjoy some “harder” features like needing to buy weapons during battles, and a convoy separate from the main lord. That’s cool if you like that stuff.

Unlocking the paralogues is hard though / 10

Favorites Tier

FE8

When it comes to FE8, while there’s plenty to like about the gameplay (despite the game being so easy, but again, like I said with Awakening, you can just set your own challenge rules), what I really love to ramble on about is the story and its emotional impact. Lyon is so precious and kind, but has so many inner conflicts stewing deep inside of him, leading him to elder magics, and… The Demon King is just ends up as a sideshow compared to Lyon coming face to face with his own demons. Both the characters - and many players, I’m sure - hope and hope to find a way to save him, but there just isn’t one. There are never any real leads. There’s nothing. Only the harrowing reality that some people cannot be saved, no, that some people do not want to be saved. The inevitability of Lyon’s demise, and seeing it all play out, packs a punch most plots can only dream of.

But it’s not like I won’t talk about the gameplay features either. Bringing back much of the best of FE2, the overworld map and everything to do really enhances the experience. I mean, yeah, I guess two side dungeons isn’t that much to get excited over, I can see that critique… but I didn’t care, it allowed me to easily chase support conversations, and (with some RNG abusing to obtain enough Boots and money to buy the stat-boosting items, but hey, whatever it takes) I could max out my characters’ stats and truly “complete” a Fire Emblem game.

Sacred Stones is so awesome.

Finally! A postgame! I sure hope the developers keep this up in all the future games… oh. / 10

FE9

This is the first FE game I ever played, so it will always occupy the most dear and special place in my heart, even if FE4 eventually won over as my favorite.

Do you believe in first sight? I do, and this is what taught me it’s real. From the first second of the first cutscene, I was enthralled. ...And that’s saying something, when the FE9 cutscenes are the kind of thing only a mother could love. But I just knew. I may have been a wee lass of 14, but I knew a love that would last a lifetime was being born. ...Or that would at least last 14 more years. I can’t predict the future. Maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow and hate Fire Emblem with a burning passion? 2020 has taught me that tomorrow is always a big fat question mark.

Fun fact: in case you are wondering exactly what inspired my very initial interest in this series, it was a TV commercial. Probably this one. I just remember Ike running, of all things. My sibling and I both thought FE9 looked interesting from this commercial, and sought out the game all on our own with zero private knowledge that anything FE even existed.

This is where obsessions are born. Or mine at least. / 10 

FE4

As I’ve established, this is my favorite of favorites. The bizarre way money, arenas, items, and more were handled, actually made the game more and more fun for me. Big maps are just so fun. Gen 1’s story is a tale for the ages, and Gen 2’s story is… well, classic FE, which never gets old for me. It will never cease to amaze me even today what the SNES/S Famicom could handle.

All I’d want added is a “warp between conquered castles” feature. I’m completely neutral on a remake otherwise. Of course a lot more could be added and detailed upon that I’d be happy for, but that’s my one specific wish.

Calvary Emblem Forever / 10

Bonus:

FEH

I played this game every day for around 2 ½ years before I finally felt I had to break the habit, so I’m not leaving it out! This title got a lot of flack for simplifying FE gameplay, but… looking at it that way completely disregards the niche app games fill, and the interesting ways developers view what type of games app games should be, and how the developers work hard to both innovate for the format yet stay faithful to the source. It is surprisingly deep, and the maps + higher focus on unit skills make you think entirely differently about how to win in what is, in essence, the same gameplay as the main series.

Plus, what fan couldn’t get suckered into the fanservice of it? My best moments include attaining a +10 Nephenee while only spending money to get 2 of her, the other 9 were all F2P orbs; and becoming a Narcian/Valter shipper after supporting them on impulse because they were both on my flier team, and realizing the sick, twisted chemistry afterwards. Discovering rare-pairs is fun.

Also, finally, this game dared to nerf magic users a bit by making them RNG 2 only. If only the main series could do something like that.

I really enjoyed Heroes a lot, I just quit solely because it was a time drain. It was time to move on and play other things. And I’m glad I got out when I did. Seeing the game stoop to over-the-top powercreep (above and beyond what it was always implementing) and add the monthly service to keep the $$$$$ raking in was hard to watch.

Perfect app-style game gameplay-wise and fanservice-wise, but why aren’t gacha illegal yet / 10

FE Warriors

Oh yeah, this game exists too! It’s a Warriors game. If you like the formula and it never gets old for you, you’ll have fun with this game. If you don’t mind the limited game representation too much, you’ll have fun with this game. For me, the answers to those questions were a yes, so I enjoyed FE Warriors. Yay for wailing on hordes of enemies / 10

[zeravmeta]

Hey so i was inspired by some of those fanservant posts and made one for Optimus Prime since im on a TF kick lmao

Servant: Optimus Prime / Servant Class: Ruler

Origin: Transformers Universe / Region: Cybertron, Earth

Alignment: Chaotic Good

Aliases: Leader of the Autobots, Orion Pax, Last of the Primes, The Thirteenth

Parameters: STR (A+++++) / END (EX) / AGL (B) / MP (E) / LUK (E) / NP (EX)

Class Skills: Magic Resistance (EX) / Rank of Prime (EX)

Character Info: In a far-off universe, on a far-off planet, a race of sentient machines were born from the planet’s own life, an ancient being named Primus who had transformed himself into the planet Cybertron. A Golden Age of peace had emerged, but eventually the corrupt politics that had developed over time ended up splitting the population between the Autobots and the Decepticons. The Great War was one so brutal that it had poisoned the planet itself, forcing both factions off-world in search of resources. In these dark times, a Prime would weild the Matrix of Leadership and ensure a peaceful future for all Cybertronians…

…Orion Pax was once just a clerk who worked in the Iacon Hall of Records, unaware of the great destiny that would await him.

Skills:

Matrix of Leadership A+: The very life of Primus shared with any bot who wields it, this skill works like a unique combination of Golden Rule, Imperial Privilege and Tactics. The Matrix chooses someone with natural leadership abilities and greatly boosts their parameters, and the affected bot can in turn inspire their allies even in their darkest hour. Such a connection to an ancient otherworldly being would mean that the chosen individual would qualify as Foreigner class (within the Fate Universe), but Optimus’ sheer willpower and belief in justice means he isn’t overtaken by Primus, not that the benevolent Primus would do so even if given the chance. Optimus’ own self-sacrifical nature, however, puts him in danger more often than not, having him take the blows intended for his allies.

[8->6 Turns][Increase NP Gain (20%-30%)(3 Turns), Increase Atk(20%-30%)(3 Turns) and Def(20%-30%)(3 Turns) and Restore HP(1500-2500), and Increase NP Strength (20%-30%)(3 Turns) for All Allies. After 3 turns, decreases Def(20%-30%)(3 Turns) and grants Taunt (1 Turn)(Demerit)]

Battle Continuation EX: Optimus is no stranger to death, unfortunately. His variable existence across the multiverse due to his status as Prime means he has died many times before, yet he always finds a way back to help his fellow Autobots.

[10->8 Turns][Grants Guts status (3 Times, 5 Turns, restores 1000-2000 HP)]

Cybertronian Warfare C+: Optimus has millions of years of military experience, and is equipped with an Ion Blaster and his trademark Energon Axe. However, his original status as a civilian bot lowers the rank. 

[7->5][(60%->90%) Chance to grant Evasion(1 Turn) and (60%->90%) Chance to Increase Atk(30%->50%)(1 Turn) for All Allies and (60%->90%) Change to decrease NP Strength(20%->30%)(3 Turns) for All Enemies]

Noble Phantasm:

Will Of the Primes - Optimus’ Resolve / Rank(EX)

Optimus Prime has an unyielding resolve that can never be shattered. With the Matrix of Leadership, Optimus can release an extremely powerful burst of Primus’ power that can eradicate any enemy. However, the true power of this pseudo Noble Phantasm is the large inspiration boost to his allies that can carry them through millions of years of warfare.

[Type: Arts][Increases Arts Card Effectiveness (40%->60%)(1 Turn) for All Allies and deals massive damage (800%->1200%) to All Enemies and (Overcharge Effect) Restores HP (1000->2000) for All Allies]

Bond Lines: 

Bond 1: ”Hmm…This world is certainly strange, however I do look forward to working with you.”

Bond 2: “I am…saddened. One as young as you working towards saving your universe, despite being so unprepared…Well, at your side you have many dependable allies. I can power down in peace knowing they have your back.”

Bond 3: “Hmm….’Master’ is such a weird thing to call you. How about I just call you by your name instead? [name]? A fine name. I’ve worked with humans before….What? No, my head doesn’t have a cockpit for you to ride.”

Bond 4: “…Did you know I used to work with Megatron? He and I used to be allies, before he succumbed to his own lust for power. We are arch enemies now…yet I can’t help but hope he changes for the better. Any living being has the capacity for change, even…even if they them self don’t believe it.”

Bond 5: “Ha! You can certainly hold your own. I can see I’m gonna be needed here for awhile, so I swear to you on my spark that I’ll stay as long as I’m needed. You are the hope for this universe, and trust me when I tell you I can understand the weight of that burden, especially on one so young. So…if you’re ever feel sad or lonely [name]…I’ll make sure to take you on a peaceful drive.”

Voice Lines:

(1): “A catchphrase? Well, I do have a battle cry…you wanna hear it? Well then, ahem: ‘Autobots! Transform and Roll Out!’…How was that?”

(2): “Is there any natural energon in this universe?…What? Magic? Well, wouldn’t be the first time I’ve dealt with it…”

(3): “You wish to know about my people? Well…Let’s just say the list goes on and on…Though I do hope you can meet the other Autobots I’ve worked with one day.”

Likes: “What I like? Easy. Peace. I would wish that this world enters it’s own Golden Age similar to my own.”

Dislikes: “…Violence. I’ve had far too much fighting for one spark, much less all the other times I’ve needed to come back.”

Event: “[name], I’m sensing a distress signal. Let’s go!”

About The Holy Grail: “A wish granting device? Be careful with those, they only lead to trouble.”

Summon Quote: “My name is Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots. I recieved a distress beacon….A human? Um, where am I, exactly? This doesn’t look like my Earth…”

Happy Birthday: “Happy birthday, [name]. Cybertronians live for a very long time, so we make sure to celebrate the lives of smaller organics.” 

(Mash Kyrielite(Pre-LB1)): “Hello there, young warrior. Do you wish to train today?…Haha, perfect! We’ll make sure you can leave a bigger dent in me than last time!”

(Mash Kyrielite(Post-LB1)): “Don’t lose heart, young one. I’m sure your powers will come back in time….Hm? A robot suit that lets you fight? You’re sounding more and more like an Autobot every day.”

(Babbage/Danzou/Mecha Eli-chan/Xiang Yu/Qin Shi Huang):”Ha! You’re Autobot material, all right!”

(Emiya/Emiya(Assasin)): “Sacrificing yourself for the cause is noble…but you’ve let yourself be consumed. I hope you can one day let yourself feel hope again. No matter the past, anyone can change.”

(Artoria Pendragon(Any Alt)): “I’m not sure why…but I feel a strange affinity with them….Hm? King Arthur? Excalibur? Wait, you can’t be serious…”

(Leonardo DaVinci/Nikola Tesla/Thomas Edison): “[name]…Please help me. They seem intent on…studying me.”

(Sherlock Holmes/James Moriarty): “[name], be careful. That shady individual has been following you for awhile now…Hm? A friend? If you say so…”

(Hijikata Toshizo): “…You are sick. I don’t think I’ve ever been as disgusted by an organic being as you.”

(Kiara Sessyoin/BB(Any Alt)): “[name], I advise caution. She feels…strange. I’m feeling a signature similar to Unicron from her.”

(Avenger Class Servants): “…You’ve been consumed by your righteous anger and grief…I just have this to say: Any living being has the capacity for change. I hope you can find peace with yourself.”

[joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

Season in Review - Summer 2019

One of these again. Bitch about the absence of a “read more” and I’ll just ignore it, fuck you.

Bem

I always start these off with the shows I dropped, so uh, let’s cover the first show I dropped. Which is obviously Bem, which I finished the first episode of and then never watched any more.

There wasn’t really anything about this first episode that was like, extremely terrible, it was just very, meh, and nothing really hooked me. The main cop girl is annoying, like I can enjoy very straight-laced cops in situations where their straight-lacedness is challenged but she’s just irritating in her pissyfits in every scene she’s in. Then you’ve got the titular Bem and his squad of youkai. Bem is very boring, Belo is obnoxious, Bela is girl. The first episode had no other characters worth remembering. The setting isn’t necessarily bad, but “city of crime and youkai” also isn’t especially interesting. I didn’t like this show’s soundtrack at all, it’s jazz but it isn’t jazzy, so like, there’s nothing there at all. Didn’t really like the visuals at all either, most everything looked either below average or just bad.

And that’s all I have to say about Bem. I didn’t like anything in the first episode and there was no single thing that looked to have enough potential for me to want to stick with it.

Fire Force

As I said earlier, I start these off with shows I dropped. Fire Force is included in the list of things I dropped. Unlike Bem though, I made it fairly far into this one, managing an entire 9 episodes before giving it the boot, which is literally the most episodes I’ve ever watched of a show I’ve dropped, and also is I think more than a fair enough shot.

Fire Force gets off to an interesting enough start, the idea of people just randomly turning into these fire monsters that we have a special service dedicated to combating is quite cool, and moreover, the first episode’s absolutely brilliant visuals, especially for the fire which looks genuinely beautiful, just kinda make the whole thing feel super exciting. After episode 1 though things just, start getting worse. The first episode suggests that things will feel a bit like a generic shounen, but the rest of the episodes I watched really just drilled into my head that this shounen will be so generic and uninteresting that I stopped caring about the plot or characters basically immediately. And when the visuals stopped being as impressive as well, I really had nothing left to care about. Also I kinda hate this show’s character designs, and its relationship with fanservice is really bad. I don’t usually care about fanservice in shows, and hell even if you’re only having fanservice of the girls I’m still willing to accept it, but this show has to go really far in sexualising the girls at every possible opportunity, with 2 girls’ outfits being burned off to near nudity in the only 9 episodes I watched, as well as a character who apparently in universe has a skill called “Lucky Lechery” that makes it so she’s accidentally fanserviced the fuck out of in the most contrived ways you can possibly imagine. Plus the dialogue is fucking garbage, particularly around when I dropped the show and we’re introduced to just a bunch of shitty minor characters whose entire characters are some obnoxious gimmick with their speech.

So like, I genuinely disliked those elements, and found myself extremely bored by everything else. That’s why I dropped it. I kinda get why people are really enjoying it, but I mean to me all you really need to do is go on sakugabooru, check out some episode 1 gifs, and then you’ve experienced everything this show has to offer. I don’t score things I drop because that’s dumb, and Fire Force specifically is 2 cours so any score I could muster would only represent a third of the show, but I’d guess that if I did finish this show, I’d give it like, a 3/10.

Cop Craft

Anyway, shows I finished, let’s start with Cop Craft. Cop Craft is a show I was pretty cautious about. I think buddy cop is a ridiculously fun genre, I could probably call Hot Fuzz my favourite live action film and stuff, and the idea of a buddy cop/isekai hybrid where fantasy creatures and concepts coexist with the real world does sound quite exciting. And of course I’ve seen literally that exact concept done before with Netflix’s Bright, which was fucking awful, but still, I thought this one could be good. What had me worried though is that it’s a light novel adaptation by a studio with a uh, not stellar track record, and the fact that for the two main characters we seem to have hardcore cop man and, typical fantasy light novel waifu girl. Concept still sounds cool but it’s also really easy to see why it could suck really really badly.

And suck it did, but not quite in the ways I expected!

The major thing holding back the writing in this show is the pacing, it feels like they tried to cram multiple chapters into single episodes which completely destroys all sense of flow and dramatic tension, but also sometimes they spend two episodes on Tilarna being in a cat’s body and spend less time than that focusing on Tilarna befriending someone she probably shouldn’t befriend and that person being assassinated. But like, the writing seems like it should be good. It gets off to a pretty decent start and has a lot of cool concepts, Zelada’s massive mind control nuke for example sounds sick as shit, and like there’s this dude in episode 2 maybe that wants the mind control nuke from Zelada and his introduction is sick as fuck. Both main characters kind of have a character arc that would be “let’s be less racist and also grow closer as partners and friends” and while the light novel waifu-ness of Tilarna shines through in a lot of scenes, she does come across as having more personality than she might have had, even if the way its paced can make her feel way too waifu-y way too quickly. Like, lots of that stuff’s cool, but again the pacing kills everything, and also the misplaced focus does too, so we get shit like Zelada disappearing for most of the show until he’s the main antagonist, but once he’s defeated we literally have narration that goes like “and now the city is peaceful” even though there was like an extremely fucked political situation between elections and racial tensions and other stuff that just, is forgotten about. The show doesn’t do a good job balancing more episodic conflicts with an overarching narrative and tries to do too much of everything in too little time and it makes the whole experience kinda depressing to watch, because you can see all the good that’s there, it’s not like Bright where the good only exists in theory and in execution there’s none, this has so much more than that, but they just don’t really do enough of it well.

What’s really bad about this show though is the visuals – it’s honestly one of the worst looking shows I’ve ever seen. The first like 2 episodes look fine enough, not like, standout good or anything, but not bad enough to damage the viewing experience. After that though, everything goes to complete fuck. Art gets lazy, animation gets even lazier, backgrounds are dull, actual direction is borderline nauseating, replacing action scenes with rapid panning stills that are kinda blurry and speedline-y to pretend it’s action, but it’s just an eyesore. There’s a lot of 3D in this show and it all looks really really terrible, and I mean, I’m not really good at talking about visuals so that’s all I can really say – it just looks kinda disgusting.

Cool concept, execution is at times decent, but between the disgusting visuals and the atrocious pacing, this whole show just feels ruined. Never have I felt more like I’m watching a botched adaptation without even reading the source material than I have with this show. 3/10.

Sounan Desu ka?

In the endless list of cute girls doing anything and everything they possibly can, we’ve got cute girls do island survival. And this one was pretty good!

The main reason it manages to be so entertaining is because of the main character – Homare – who is like, a survival expert and super nerd. As in, a nerd about survival. A lot of the comedy comes from how overeager she is to do all the weird shit and that being contrasted with the 3 comparatively normal girls with her being, less eager. As the show goes on though the other girls do actually start trying to actively help more and show some initiative, and that little bit of character development is honestly quite nice. Girls are cute, comedy’s funny, there’s enough yuri for fans of that, including kiss scenes and tongue-in-asshole scenes (not kidding) and also a bunch of fanservice which I think is appropriate honestly, we’re surviving on a deserted island so you may as well lay it all bare, even if I don’t think the art style’s like, super sexy or anything. Also above all else, while this show’s formula is something that could easily get tiring, the show’s episodes are actually only like 11 minutes long excluding OP and ED, both of which are quite pleasant anyway so.

So yeah this show’s just pretty fun. Not necessarily a lot to say about it other than it’s entertaining and the shorter run time keeps it from overstaying its welcome. I give it a nice strong 6/10.

Dumbbell Nan Kilo Moteru?

Next up in the “cute girls do everything under the sun” genre, we have Dumbbell, where cute girls do strength and body training at the gym, and it was really great!

Compared to Sounan Desu ka which really went all in on the survival element of it, Dumbbell is still largely just a normal cute girl show, like we still have some beach episodes and a new year’s episode, that sort of stuff, but to the show’s credit it goes pretty far with the bodybuilding stuff. The girls do some sort of exercise in every single episode and there are always cutaways to educational sections that tell you how to do exercises, how to not fuck up those exercises, and what muscles you’re training with those exercises, and if you think that sounds boring then you can still at least look at the uh, quite attractively drawn character designs Doga Kobo’s throwing your way. I mean, you know, I may as well say that, the show does have fanservice, and because it’s Doga Kobo, it’s quite hot. You know, whatever. I’m not complaining.

Nah that educational stuff is still quite fun, the attractive girls, nice voice acting and catchy background music really distracted me from all the guilt I felt about not doing any of the workouts that the show does actually want me to do. About all that audiovisual stuff, I’ve already said it’s Doga Kobo like twice, so you know the show looks cute as hell, but audio things are great too. Again, soundtrack’s catchy, and the OP is by far the best this season with the ED being easily the best this entire year. Also in the OP Hibiki’s seiyuu, Ai Fairouz, sounds so enthusiastic and emphatic and she’s having so much fun and it’s great. This show’s voice acting is top tier for a cute girl show, everyone just sounds great, and Hibiki being Ai Fairouz’ debut role is impressive as hell, looking forward to see her future works.

Now since it’s a cute girl show, I should probably talk about the cute girls already. Now, not that I didn’t like Sounan Desu ka’s cast, because I did, but that show was a real “Homare and the other 3 who are all equally less good than Homare”. Dumbbell’s cast blows them completely out of the water, hell it has maybe the best cast of any cute girl show this entire year so far. We’ve got the delightful gyaru foodie protagonist Hibiki, who just stinks of this infectiously charismatic personality. She’s legitimately hilarious and so quickly endearing, and at no point during the entire show does that charm ever waver. There’s the muscle fetishist Akemi, who’s always the most eager about everything relating to working out and is so unabashedly horny when it comes to all the muscle stuff that it’s impossible not to love her, also her design is maybe my favourite because long black hair is tight. We’ve got Uehara, movie buff alongside Hibiki, also a professional boxer and personality wise, she’s probably the weakest since outside of what I just mentioned she usually plays straight man, but she makes up for it in her design because tan girls in anime are great, and more over she’s the only girl with a sixpack which is hecking delightful. And there’s Gina, or Zina, who knows, a Russian girl that gets high on being a self-aware weeaboo, which surprisingly didn’t get old, also her design is sick because I also love white-haired anime girls. The whole group’s great and have delightful chemistry with each other.

But of course, I have yet to mention the best boy – Machio Naruzo. This absolute fucking unit is ridiculous, dude’s literally worshipped as a muscle god at some points he’s so colossal and buff and eager to work out and extremely happy to help everyone else work out, literally admiring any effort made regardless of skill level, the dude sings alongside Sakura in the OP and even does the entire ED himself, Kaito Ishikawa’s performance with this man is fucking bursting with personality, he’s the best. I believe the OP plays in the first episode which spoils the reveal that he’s shredded as hell, but it’s still funny seeing that tiny man in a tracksuit burst into this absolute titan with some of the most energetic animation this season.

Really the entire cast is just absolutely delightful. So is this show. It’s one of the strongest examples of a cute girl show with a specific gimmick really giving that gimmick proper focus, without overcommitting so as to be boring or tiresome or whatever. It’s just a great show all around. 7/10 because I mean I’ve seen other cute girl shows reach higher highs in years before this.

Granbelm

Next up in the list of hyperbolic descriptions of the abundance of cute girl shows, we have cute girls do Madoka, again, but shitty, again, and with mechs, which I believe is a first!

Evidently, I didn’t like this show. I’m just gonna get the pros out of the way first though because hey that’s at least nice. This show’s got pretty nice visuals, looks almost like a 3Hz show, fight scenes are pretty cool even if the sound design in them is shit, background art’s really good, character designs are also super cute sans Mangetsu’s dumb fuckin shitty ass ponytail and also I hate when they contort their faces and do weird fish eye lens camera bullshit and this show’s cinematography is quite unique I feel but it was ugly as sin. And the mech designs which are genuinely the worst I’ve ever seen, they’re somehow too chibi for the characters but also designed like serious mecha without a focus on cuteness or anything so they just look disgusting. I was supposed to be talking about the pros, sorry. The voice acting’s pretty great. This show seemed like the type that would just use a bunch of newbie seiyuu all of whom would do, just fine, and there’s nothing wrong with that approach, but surprisingly they actually got some pretty big names in here, most notably Aoi Yuuki who, very unsurprisingly, gives the best performance of any show this season. Seriously she’s that good. Also when this show does slice of life stuff, which isn’t that often but I mean, it happens, it’s all pretty good, and again with the girls being cute enough I can totally see myself watching a slice of life show that was like this except, you know, entirely slice of life. Oh, and there’s a yuri kiss scene. Which was my favourite moment in the whole show.

And uh, that’s it for the pros! And thankfully the cons are quite easily summarised – this show’s writing is a fucking mess. We’re told way more than we’re shown and events kind of just, feel like they’re happening with no rhyme or reason. Never mind whatever the fuck this show’s lore is supposed to be. Could not for the life of me understand what the fuck Kuon and her sister’s deal with Aoi Yuuki’s character was, some shit about eating each other for some reason? In episode 9 or whatever they find out that Mangetsu’s really powerful, and then they either confirm or very very very strongly suggest her imouto is too, and then they just, drop that. Shingetsu’s as strong as she is because Magiaconatus likes her I guess. That’s literally it. Magiaconatus just fucking exists because ??? and is an indifferent god thing that puts on these tests for the fuck of it. The theme of the show is that battle royales are bad and deadly, woah! Aoi Yuuki’s character just becomes the main antagonist because yeah. Sometimes if you lose in Granbelm you die and are erased from existence but only sometimes, because Nene is really cute so she’s exempt from the rule. In episode 12 Mangetsu says that the power to change the world with a single wish isn’t what hope is, and then the very next episode, Shingetsu changes the world with a single wish, which left me very fucking confused as to what hope is supposed to be in this show then and what the thematic conclusion is at all. Shingetsu actually very nearly dies against Anna, who is perhaps the worst most insufferable character in the show, and only wins because she repeats the mantra “you can’t beat me”, and then is evenly matched with Aoi Yuuki’s character who’s actually a doll who’s been at this for 1000 years with no foreshadowing, that is until she’s not evenly matched, but then fuses with Mangetsu because ????? and then suddenly she’s exactly as competent as she was before but now Aoi Yuuki’s character can’t keep up. This is just, stuff happens the show. Soundtrack’s not even good.

Tough choice between 2/10 and 3/10 because it’s true, stuff just happens, and there’s no thematic conclusion at all, but also it’s cute and looks good and can be interesting, and the slice of life is nice. Honestly I’m feeling 2/10. It’s one of the best Madoka likes in the technical elements with those stronger visuals I mentioned, but also it’s one of the most thematically braindead, and feels the most like a straight up ripoff of Madoka. So uh, yeah 2/10.

Machikado Mazoku

Running out of places to go with this “cute girls do x” thing. Cute girls do, well, one cute girl is a demon girl cursed to be poor who has to defeat a magical girl to be unpoor, and the other cute girl is a magical girl who starts hanging out with and training the demon girl and also constantly ends up doing things to make the demon girl more indebted to her.

And it’s pretty fun! I’m very unsubtly super into magical girls, and this show played off of that little interest of mine in a bunch of fun ways very often, which I super appreciated, and the main comedic duo of Shamiko and Momo are just pretty good. It’s a very unique dynamic where they’re both really stupid in completely different and entertaining ways, and the humour is derived from that but not really in that absurdist way where it’s all laugh out loud misunderstandings. It’s really funny and kinda hard to put into words, but it’s not really a dynamic I’ve seen anywhere else and I enjoy it a lot. Also the fact that basically everyone in the show kinda responds with equal like, I suppose flippancy, I enjoy that. Everyone in school’s just like “oh you’re a demon girl and have to kill a magical girl? That’s really cool! Do your best! Actually, there’s a magical girl at this school already” type thing, it’s funny I enjoy it.

That being said it’s like, got a surprisingly large amount of entire episodes that just aren’t great. Like, lots of cute girl shows have bits that aren’t really funny, but most bits in this show are pretty long and a lot of them just aren’t entertaining. Particularly everything relating to Shamiko’s family tends to be really lame and boring, and oddly expositive, also Mikan’s a character you can only do one gag with and that gag isn’t funny and doesn’t complement anything else well so. The show’s at its best when it’s Shamiko and Momo, and it’s not really that funny when you cut one of them out and only focus on the other. Except again some of the classmates are funny in how little they’re put off by stuff.

Visuals are about what you’d expect from any random cute girl show, I like the character designs, Momo looks like a very cute magical girl and if you just put her in a normal magical girl show I’d watch it, in fact I wish this show had more normal magical girl stuff. Shamiko’s cute, her crisis management form is, uh, appealing. Soundtrack’s pleasant enough, one of the midcard songs is really relaxing, Konomi Kohara is Shamiko and it’s great seeing her in a main role, everything else sounds cute, OP and ED are kinda lame, normal stuff.

6/10. Fine enough presentation and a funny premise that they do generally do well with, but fairly often lacklustre comedy. I’d watch a season 2, but like compared to something like Dumbbell, I don’t really want a season 2, you know?

Re:Stage! Dream Days

I’m out of cute girl jokes. Cute girls do middle school idol stuff.

Let’s just start off honestly and say this is very nearly my favourite show of the season. It’s not, we’ll find that out later, but I completely loved this show from start to finish. Well, kind of anyway. It starts out a bit slow, it’s got a fairly generic feeling first episode and then afterwards we’re on recruitment duty up until like episode 4, which had me feeling sceptical, but the general silliness that I love so much about the show and will talk about in a bit is introduced as early as episode 2, and that had me starting to properly have fun. If you go read my reviews for those episodes at the time I’m fairly cynical but in hindsight I hate that I was like that since the show so quickly grew to be such a delightfully fun experience and I should never have doubted it.

Anyway what actually makes this show so fun? Well it’s just, it’s just so ridiculously goofy and over the top at all times. For example, my best girl Kae is like this gamer hacker loli whose phone just can display like holograms and can wirelessly hack into laptops, allow her to type out entire word documents, and then print them out, in like 5 seconds flat for the entire process. We meet a few other idol groups than our main one in the show, including one where the gimmick is that one idol is the other’s aunt, even though they’re more or less the same age, and we meet another idol group that tries to get into an actual fight with ours. Also like the A-RISE equivalent of this series has a girl that talks like, mad shit at our girls all the time, not even Leah Kazuno “you’re not taking this seriously enough” shit nah I mean proper like “fuck you you suck and I’m better than you” type shit, it’s hilarious. And then Kae threatens to eviscerate her with this death beam ray type thing, it’s great. Also in episode 3 the group are trying to recruit Kasumi and Kae’s the only one who doesn’t immediately fuck up, but also she’s rigged the entire playfield with multiple extremely technically complex traps that she wirelessly activates to beat Kasumi who’s a survival game expert and stuff. Not all the goofy fun stuff relates to Kae either, in fact she’s actually got some of the least screentime in the show I feel, we’ve got delightful little shits like Minori, who’s like Dia, Eli, Nico and Hanayo fused into a single entity all at once and is the cutest and hottest character in the show and completely steals the show in every scene she’s in, or actually every other girl is likeable but those two are the best. Lots of this show’s dialogue is just funny, funny on purpose I feel but sometimes not funny on purpose but it also still feels like you’re laughing with it rather than at it. The character designs are goofy and great, everyone’s like this major hella loli and it’s adorable, they’re all super cute and Sayu’s hair looks like plastic tbh I don’t like it. But she has like a decent character arc and her convincing her parents she should be an idol is done surprisingly well, fuck they do it better than like the Sunshine movie for example. Oh, what else. Music’s pretty fun, all nice idol stuff with different styles between the different groups, also our group, who are called KiRaRe by the way I’ve not mentioned that, at one point they split into pairs and their pairs’ music’s fun, like if you don’t really like that type of J-poppy idol music this won’t change your mind but it’s all still pretty good, quite memorable as well. Visuals are good, character designs are cute, quality is consistent throughout the show, performances use 3D pretty well, it can actually look like the 2D except not worse and the animations are still cute. Surprisingly good vocal performances at times too, everyone crying in the last episode is kind of goofy but like they do a pretty good job at it, Minori especially.

Honestly it’s actually pretty hard for me to explain what it is about this show I like so much. My best description would probably be to say that this is the type of show that you’d really enjoy ironically, except since I’m not the type of person to enjoy things ironically, I just enjoy this show genuinely, in spite of and because of its flaws, but it’s also not like even flawed enough in any way for it to be a show I’d consider bad. Weird description? Maybe. This section of this post is a bit weird? Perhaps.

I gave this an 8/10, because I like to pretend I’m at least somewhat of a serious critic so I can’t give it any higher, but I loved this show a lot and tbh it’ll probably make my top 5 of the year. If you like idol shows check it out, if you like Love Live check it out, if you want to have something kinda goofy to enjoy with some pals check it out. I loved this show a lot and struggle to explain why. Desperately want a season 2. There are like 5 idol groups in the Re:Stage multimedia project and while all 5 of them are here, KiRaRe get the most focus and then other than Stella Maris being A-RISE, the rest are kinda just there. Give us more content and let us see what they’re like normally. Give me more of this show, you don’t need to try to increase the quality at all this is at the exact level where I could watch it literally forever, but also make it better if you want. I wish I understood why I enjoy things better.

Kanata no Astra

Anyway we’re done with cute girls. What’s next?

So Kanata no Astra (which is a way better title than Astra: Lost in Space because it has the protag’s name in it) is a show about a dude called Kanata getting lost in space with a bunch of strangers, or rather they’re launched into deep space via a wormhole, find a ship, and then have to journey across multiple planets to restock and survive the trip home.

Fun premise, and the execution’s quite interesting?

The show is obviously primarily an adventure narrative, but it has a lot of drama, suspense and mystery to it as well. Pretty much every single episode has some sort of new obstacle for the crew to overcome or a new reveal that reshapes the way they’re viewing their situation. This sort of approach did make the whole thing feel somewhat repetitive and predictable, but tbh it also meant my investment was pretty high week to week and I was always remembering what plot points were where and wanting to know the answers, also you can genuinely feel the group growing closer as they overcome these hurdles.

About that group, the show is very much more about them it is anything to do with the space travel. With a massive 10 characters on board, there’s a lot of ground to cover on the character development front, and the way the show goes about this is quite inconsistent. On one hand you’ve got characters like Aries who are gradually developed and our understanding of them grows throughout the entire show, but there are also characters like Yunhua who just get a single episode of character development and are just a “before-after” type case where once they’ve had their episode, that’s them. Now granted everyone’s reactions to all the various big plot mysteries is another source of development for and unique characterisation for everyone, like the entire cast are pretty distinct from one another and bounce off of each other well, but idk I feel like there was room for improvement. They’re all quite likeable, it’s a decent ensemble cast, Kanata especially is by far the best character, but idk they’re all kinda tropey on average. Zack’s the smart one, Quitterie’s the tsundere, Funi’s the imouto, Ulgar is edgy. I mean, I already mentioned loving Kanata though, and I can’t say I’ve ever seen any character in anime that’s quite like Luca, the intersex character, plus heckin, Charce’s deal is something very unique to this show what with all the clone and friendship stuff. I don’t know, the cast is like, it’s got some good ones, and thanks to the generally strong chemistry that the group developed, there aren’t really any bad ones by the end, but I did want a little bit more.

It’s worth mentioning that the group are quite enhanced by the nice character designs, everyone’s distinct and to be blunt they’re all pretty attractive, Funi’s just cute of course but everyone else is like, kinda hot, Kanata, Quitterie and Aries especially, like their designs are pretty memorable, and while the show totally could have gone the lazy route and given everyone the same old spacesuit, everyone’s suits are actually really different, not even just colour wise nah they have like in universe brands and manufacturers so everyone’s suits can look different, that was neat. The visuals in general are pretty good, there’s not really any standout sakuga moments or anything but the artwork’s pretty consistently good and while I’ll talk more about the planets in a bit, the environments do look nice, only real issue with the visuals is the annoying letterboxing that doesn’t seem to serve much of a purpose and so every time they stop the letterboxing and return to a normal aspect ratio it only ends up being even more jarring somehow.

Sound stuff’s also great, I mean the soundtrack’s not really memorable but every song complements the scene well enough and the voice acting’s just actually really good, everyone emotes really well and when you’ve got Saori Hayami, Inori Minase and Tomoyo Kurosawa as 3 of your girls? That’s sick, that’s incredible, Moyo’s performance as Quitterie is good enough to make me want to call cryporn, because fuck if she can’t do that ridiculously well. Love it.

Anyway like I said though I’mma talk about the planets, and by extension the show’s biggest problems I guess. Being a show that’s only 12 episodes long (first and last are double length though so it’s closer to 14 episodes in terms of time) and that focuses almost entirely on the characters and mysteries, basically no time is really spent on any of the planets. Pretty much every planet can be boiled down to “seems like heaven, then character drama and planet danger happen at the same time, and then everyone is saved and we move on”. This sucks! We’re a space exploration show that’s gonna explore an entire 5 completely different planets from Earth! That sounds awesome! We’re literally on separate planets thousands of lightyears away from Earth there is so much you can do with that and literally the only criteria you need is that the planet needs to be hospitable enough for the gang to get food from there! But it’s all so, boring. With the exception of I believe the fourth planet which has a very small habitable belt and the rest is either way too hot or way too cold, every single planet is one entire ecosystem, there’s no variety on any of them. And those ecosystems are just “some of these plants are cool, oh look predators dangerous”. There’s no dramatic tension on any of the planets because you always know they’ll get away fine, they make a device that can test if food’s safe in like the second episode and then on literally every single planet they always find exactly as much food and water as they need, the one time the ship seems irreparably damaged it turns out there’s another copy of that same ship on this planet that they can take parts from and leave no problem! This is just so much potential completely chucked out the window, and with the focus instead being entirely on these characters and conspiracies that are all still fairly cliché, I didn’t really like this show’s pacing. It’s an adaptation of a manga I’ve not read so I don’t know how much they cut if anything and how much could be added, but I wish this show was 24 episodes or something, we could spread out certain character arcs a bit to just make things feel less cliché and develop everyone a bit better, but moreover we could actually explore planets properly in a show about space exploration! Our own Earth is so massively varied in its environments and survival in some of those places is extremely difficult, I wish this show had done so much more to really explore all the potential this concept had.

Anyway uh, I think that’s about it. You know, characters and plot are decent, planets aren’t, whole thing’s still quite enjoyable from start to finish, Kanata’s a delight. I think more so than any other show I’ve ever covered in any of these posts, you should check out my “Kanata no Astra” tag to hear my full thoughts on every episode if you care, because week by week I did have a lot to say about this show, like it’s obviously not my favourite of the season but even with all the wasted potential it was still one I was really interested in and really looked forward to every episode for. I can say I’d recommend it, and while I don’t think I’ll ever rewatch it just because I’m bad at rewatching stuff, I’m not opposed to rewatching this show. It’s fun enough, could be a lot better, I do get why some people are giving it like a 9 or even a 10, but for me, I’ve settled on 7/10.

Given

No more cute girls, but how about a show about cute boys?

Given is, a really really good show. It’s a BL show where we’ve got 4 band members together, 2 of them being in high school and the other 2 being in college, and there begins the first praise. It’s so awesome having college aged characters in this show. Maybe it’s because I’ve just started uni myself but I like when shows even bother to acknowledge that life continues outside of high school, but also they’re not gone quite into regular adult life which is good for me because I’ve not either. Personal thing, but it’s cool, just having these 2 more mature and experienced characters that aren’t necessarily too old that the high schoolers can’t have fun banter with them. See everyone in this show has fucking amazing chemistry, there’s a sense of genuine bandmate-ship amongst them, but since it’s also a BL show, there’s explicitly gay stuff too, and it’s all wonderful.

See I’m not really a romance guy in the first place, and most yaoi I’ve exposed myself to in the past isn’t great either, but this show handles male on male relationships really well. The gay stuff is genuinely cute and feels accurate to real life, stuff like Haruki thinking “his profile is so hot!” about Akihiko and the like, nervous blushing that envelopes him sometimes too, it’s nice. And, this is gonna be kinda hard to describe, but one trap I feel like a lot of BL shows or shows with BL hints fall into (like the next show we’ll talk about actually) is having characters kind of not really act like you’d expect men in love to act? Of course everyone’s different and gender stereotyping’s silly, but it’s irritating seeing, say, high school and college males acting like actual anime girls and then there being romantic subhints from there. Everyone in this show feels convincingly like, male, but they just so happen to be into other men. Still on the topic of gay stuff Uenoyama’s fuckin “is there something wrong with me?” line is so damn great, sure it hits super close to home for a lot of people, but I’m also happy that they resolve it without dwelling on it for too long.

On that note, despite being something of a drama, this show is, it’s comfy. Yes, there is drama, some of it quite heavy at points with mention of suicide and abuse, plus strong hints of depression, but they always spend just enough time on it to where it doesn’t feel glossed over, but it also doesn’t weigh down the mood so much. Largely it’s kind of just comfortable band shenanigans and dudes being gay but like, being chill about it. Honestly I’d call this show borderline iyashikei at some points, Mafuyu’s walk around city in episode 6 I believe was really relaxing for example, and for a lot of the runtime it feels a lot like a K-On with a bit more drama in it. Like with K-On the comedy’s good too, I had a good couple of chuckles throughout the show. It’s never laugh out loud funny, but it doesn’t try to be, it just wants you to giggle a bit and have fun with everyone. It’s nice.

Speaking of everyone, I should probably actually talk about the characters. They’re just, they’re just really good. Uenoyama and Mafuyu develop really well as individuals and as a relationship, their impact on one another is super notable and you can truly see how they grow from being in that band together, but in a nice twist for once if you take one away from the other they’re still really strong and likeable in their own right. Mafuyu especially has a lot of really good solo scenes where Uenoyama doesn’t need to be involved whatsoever and Mafuyu can still shine. Though of course a lot of their best moments still do come when they’re together, and the emotional climax of the show – their performance in episode 9 – takes place while everyone is together, so, yeah. Akihiko and Haruki don’t necessarily feel quite as developed as Uenoyama or Mafuyu, in fact these two are quite reactionary characters by comparison, but they’re still both super enjoyable as individuals and as a pair, and that praise I gave them for being college students rings true in the way they’re characterised, hell I’d say Haruki’s probably my favourite character, I guess as a long-haired gay man I’m kinda just, inherently attracted to other long-haired gay men.

This show’s visuals are pretty good, I’d say. Animation is honestly somewhat stiff for a lot of the show, and the 3D they use in performances does look pretty bad, even if there aren’t that many instances where it’s used. Despite that, the character artwork is still pretty good, and I mean the designs being as great as they are, especially for Akihiko and Haruki, helps a ton. Moreover, I think a lot of the background art is quite nice. The town feels lived in, highlights again to Mafuyu’s walk in episode 6, the school feels active, the music shops feel real, and quaint. Sure it’s not a KyoAni show, but it manages to feel similar to one in the way environments are used. I just liked looking at this show. Soundtrack, unsurprisingly, adds to the iyashikei feel, it’s very nice and makes it all feel comfy, but a lot of the songs also feel quite, I suppose band-ish? Digi called the OP “math rock” and while I don’t know what the fuck that means, the OP was great and the one true performance that we do actually see is a joy to the ears, voice acting in this show’s pretty good all around but special shoutouts to Mafuyu’s seiyuu who really does kill his role.

I feel like I don’t have much else to say about this show right now. It’s just really good and you should watch it. As an iyashikei, it’s really good, as a BL, it avoids a lot of annoying genre trappings, as a more broad romance it feels compellingly cute, as a drama it feels real but never leans into melodrama, and I guess other than wishing the visuals were a little better, all I really want from this show is, well, more of the show. And since a movie’s coming out, my wish has been granted! Dudes, I loved this show enough to rewatch it, like, before I even wrote this review for it. It’s the only show in the history of these little Season in Review posts that I’ve ever watched twice before posting the review, that’s gotta mean something, right? I’d give it a very very strong 8/10, and say it edges out Re:Stage as well, you know the only other 8/10 on the list so far. Given was extremely close to being Anime of the Season, but one show did edge it out just a tiny little bit. But before we get to that, we’ve still got more shows to go through first.

Ensemble Stars

Don’t worry this is the only other cute boy show on the list, I’m not repeating that cute girl show again. So David Productions of JoJo fame took their shot at an idol anime, more specifically, an idol boy anime. I decided I’d watch this for the meme, even though I think I am completely outside of the show’s target demographic, and so far, I’ve been enjoying it, I think?

Again, I’m very much outside of this show’s demographic. I’ve never really been “into” anime boys in the same way I think this show wants me to be, like if you look at anime of my favourites it’s obvious that I’m way more into girls, because despite what I said in my Given review I’m not even gay. But the way the gay boys are written in this show, it’s what I was alluding to in my Given review when I talked about appreciating how that show wrote the characters like actual human males that were just gay. Ensemble Stars’ various gay characters are kinda just written like anime girls, but are boys. Like there’s a lot of excitement and jumping all over and hugging each other and calling them cute nicknames and stuff, like maybe it’s because everyone’s acting like an idol all the time but they don’t really feel like actual gay men. Kind of a shame. It is kinda cute in a different way from Given though, I guess? Again, and I’m gonna reinforce this a lot – I’m completely outside of this show’s target demographic, and I think this is proven by the fact that this show actually has like a self-insert producer-san character, but one who’s actually a girl. Maybe this show’s for fujos? Or people that wanna project onto producer-san because they wanna be surrounded by hot anime boys? I don’t know.

Anyway wow that was an interesting paragraph. What do I actually like about this show though? Honestly ell, the plot’s just actually kinda fun. It’s not tremendously well paced, a lot of time is spent on flashbacks which makes cuts back to the present feel confusing, and I really got the feeling that this is adapting the bare essentials of the mobile game’s storyline and characters to just get you to go play that, but I still felt like I was having fun. It’s just bizarre seeing this school of so many idols that have these crazy competitive systems in place and they’re all fighting for revolutions and like group B using its reputation to help group A do a sneak attack on group C, like it all looks like normal idol stuff but the dialogue and direction somehow successfully sell me on it being something so much greater, even if I’m not entirely sure what that greater thing is. I said in my Re:Stage part that I don’t do ironic enjoyment, and very early on in this show I found that I wasn’t even watching it for the meme anymore, in fact I’d lost track of why I was watching it, but somehow, I was still having fun with it. Maybe it’s the visuals, which are actually pretty solid and the 3D especially looks really amazing. There are like 10 billion idol groups in the show too so musical variety is aplenty, shoutouts to UNDEAD and uh, the group with the puppeteer man and the name I forget. Though Hibiki Wataru is best boy in the show for sure.

Frankly this show’s got me confused because I really don’t think I should like it as much as I do, but I also don’t even like it that much, like this isn’t a Re:Stage thing where I’m gonna give an 8/10 to a show that many people might think doesn’t deserve it, but still. If I could predict a score I’d probably go, 5/10? But uh, not much use thinking about that yet, because this is a 2 cour show! And I promise I’m going to continue watching it into that second cour and up to completion. That’s all. I kinda like the DavPro idol boy show, somehow.

Vinland Saga

So we’re actually at the very end of the season and this is the 3rd and not even last section I’m writing in this one day so I’m just gonna try be brief.

Vinland Saga’s great. The first four episodes serve as a very strong origin story and justification for Thorfinn to be the way he is and establish Askeladd super well, which is great because Askeladd’s easily the show’s most standout character yet, dude’s an excellent example of the “glorious bastard” character which is one of the most fun types of characters you can have in a story if you do it well, which this show definitely does. Not only that but like these 4 episodes are really well paced too, they could have drastically trimmed it down and fit it into a single episode but that’d be lame and I’m so glad they avoided that.

From there the story’s taken kind of a slower pace effectively following Thorfinn into Askeladd’s ragtag group of bandits, growing up with a pretty shitty and fucked childhood and being the posterchild for edgy revenge-focused kids, sure that this show would have plenty of Linkin’ Park AMVs if it aired in the early 2000s. Nothing wrong with that though, Thorfinn’s fascinating, also ridiculously well-acted, and since the show’s got some interesting suggestions about freedom and what it means to fight and also pacifism as personified through characters like Thors, Thorfinn’s dad, and also Thorfinn being paired up with the likes of the seemingly weak but maybe loveable Canute, who knows where his character will go. Like will he kill Askeladd and be happy about vengeance, but later regret his actions, or will he kill Askeladd and immediately regret it, will he not kill Askeladd and be above that, will Askeladd die and Thorfinn will actually be upset since Askeladd really is a gather figure at this point, maybe Canute will have something to say, Thorkell is a character that loves to fight just because and how will that be contrasted with Thorfinn in future? Lots of potential for cool stuff, and I’m appreciating the slower pacing that’s giving this all time to bubble. Also show looks fucking brilliant except for the disgusting 3D crowd shots. Show sounds great, great acting, great soundtrack, Mukanjyo is the best Survive Said The Prophet song I’ve ever heard (it’s the 3rd one I’ve ever heard), etc. Bit of whiplash comes from the fact that there are like 3 different spoken languages used in-universe but for us they’re all speaking Japanese, so it’s weird when someone’s like “do you speak English” and the other’s like “I can’t understand you I’m speaking Norse” but they’re all speaking Japanese so. Also this just might be my own idiocy or me losing track of things week to week, but because this era of history has some complicated politics it can be hard to remember who’s with who, but like whatever I don’t mind. Predicted score of 8/10. Really good show, I’m tired of writing and at this point want to apologise for the quality of this section.

Anime of the Season – Dr Stone

Yeah, this shouldn’t come as a surprise. This show is fucking brilliant. If you’re not watching Dr Stone, do yourself a favour and, go do that. If for some reason you don’t like it, I’m extremely curious as to why, you’re entitled to your own opinions obviously I ain’t gonna judge but like, damn, this show’s one of the best this year.

Dr Stone’s very premise of using science to rapidly kickstart civilisation in a world where society has been destroyed is one that uh, is great. It lends itself well to lots of instant gratification but also long term gratification, like Senku giving a cute girl glasses is delightful, but also Senku gradually working towards building antibiotics several stages earlier than actually happened in human history, that’s also delightful. There’s so much genuine chemistry between every character and also compelling differences in ideologies between opposing characters to where literally every possible combination of characters leads to interactions that are delightful for so many reasons. This show starts out looking absolutely amazing, as of right now it kinda just looks fine tbh. Character designs are great though, super distinct and memorable. Soundtrack’s great, voice acting’s great. I wanna fawn about Senku but I’ll do that in a bit and you’ll see why. Everyone else is sick too though. I’m just gonna keep fawning over this series for every episode I cover, read my older posts about it if you care. This show’s pretty simple in the things it does so the me that’s in a lazy state and just wants to post this today so he doesn’t have to do anything tomorrow doesn’t feel like he needs to explain much else, or something. Predicted score of 8/10, I could totally see it becoming a 9 though. Most instances of me being really positive about a show’s first cour end with me not liking the second cour, but apparently this first arc of Dr Stone is the weakest arc and it only gets better, which is super exciting. Cool. We’re done.

Boy of the Season – Senku

Usually I do Girl of the Season first but hey this fits better. Senku is the best genius character I’ve ever seen. I think the main thing that makes Senku so incredible is how refreshing it is to see a genius character who’s just, like he’s nice and good, and also human. He doesn’t see Taiju as the brawn that’ll do all the bullshit for him, he sees Taiju as his best friend who also happens to be super strong and so his strength is essential for society because brain and brawn are equally valuable, Taiju’s not “below” him for no reason. And he’s nice in that like, take reviving Yuzuriha, or bringing Chrome with him to collect sulfuric acid, I think a lot of genius characters are pragmatists and operate on logic, so seeing Senku be governed by emotions, even the emotions of others, and not in a condescending way either, it’s delightful. Also there’s the fact that the dude’s charismatic and sociable, like it’s cool having this genius character who just really loves people. Digi’s “Otaku Hero’s Journey” feels fittingly applied here. When I said he’s also human it’s like, Senku’s not a big super genius for whom everything he says goes, he has to put genuine work into getting the things he wants, science isn’t this magic formula that can do anything and everything, it’s a long history of trial and error, hard work and results. Senku underestimates how much work needs to be done to do things, he says the wrong things and puts himself in bad situations, he can make careless mistakes. It’s nice seeing a genius who’s not a god. Only thing he does that’s a bit iffy is dying and coming back to life, but I’m kinda willing to give that a pass because it’s a plan he literally relied on his friends for, like he didn’t tell them anything and his hint was so fucking slight that they couldn’t be blamed for not noticing at all, I think the fact that his only feat is so dependent on his friends, and that he’s so genuinely grateful too, it’s not just “haha good job idiots you did the thing I needed you to do” and instead it’s more ���hey thanks so much friends, thanks to you I’m alive” but without necessary sacrificing his endearing confidence, it’s nice. Dude’s just great. Senku > Rick Sanchez

Girl of the Season – Kae Hiiragi

Lowkey deciding who to put here was the hardest thing I had to do in this whole post. It just seemed most appropriate to put my favourite girl from my 3rd favourite show, because like Given and Dr Stone I like more but Given has like 2 female characters and they’re eh and Dr Stone has a bunch but mostly they’re just all fine but Kae Hiiragi is funny meme gamer loli that does epic raves and is called Dark Shadow Princess or something goofy like that. Yeah.

Anyway that’s it, there’s your Season in Review. Sorry I got tired and lazy by the end, I just want to do some other things you see. Summer has definitely been the best season this year, so fucking stacked with so many fun shows, guarantee that like half of my Top 10 will be from this season. Fuckin’ miles better than last season for sure.

[crystalelemental]

homestuck-and-the-monomyth replied to your post: Well, the Voting Gauntlet has come down to the...

I gotta disagree that Camilla is loathed for stupid reasons. I think the degree to which she panders to the player is very, very dangerous for the series as a whole, because it is a symptom (like much of Fates is) of the series losing respect for itself. The fact that she’s popular, meaning that such pandering is working, scares me even more.

Believe me, I’m with you on Fates being a dumpster fire, but with the introduction of Three Houses and Echoes, I think it’s pretty safe to say the series hasn’t actually lost respect for itself.  Moreover, I think Fates was the logical conclusion to a game like Awakening.  If we’re being completely fair, Awakening was incredibly different from previous Fire Emblem games, and introduced a lot of the problems fans complain about in Fates.  Overly fanserviced character obsessed with MU?  Check.  Heavily simplified story with little in the way of complexity?  Check.  Awakening largely succeeded because it was way easier to access than previous titles thanks to Easy Mode, Casual Mode, the ability to grind levels, etc.  It drew in a whole new crowd.  But when you make a game you expect to be your last in the series as a kind of final fun-filled hurrah for the series, and you throw in a bunch of new stuff you’ve never really done before, and it succeeds?  You have no idea what worked.  So you turn up certain dials.  Now we have Phoenix Mode, to really trivialize difficulty.  Now the fanservice character goes even further into fanservice territory, and the camera will lock on to Camilla’s tits.  Questionable design choices like Tharja’s now become the norm because she’s one of the most popular, so everyone, even the heavy-armored units, now have stockings that expose the inner thigh for some godawful reason.  Fates was a dumpster fire, yes, but it was a fire ignited by the eccentricities of Awakening, and fueled by having a team that just didn’t seem to give a single fuck about characters and a narrative with emotional impact, which is honestly the selling point of this series.  “Complex” may not be the first thing that comes to mind with a lot of things in Fire Emblem, but emotional impact is, and that’s...really what Fates lacked and why it’s considered a failure by a lot of fans.  The individuals characters can be just fine, but nothing’s used appropriately, and we’re left with this awkward disaster of a game.

With that backdrop out of the way, I’m gonna level with you: I agree that Camilla is presented as a pretty fanservice-heavy character, and that her constant doting on Corrin is...really unfortunate.  It sucks.  A lot.  Because it constantly delves into the weird and creepy like Tharja did, and that is absolutely a problem.  Where I think the argument against Camilla feels stupid is when the focus is on asserting that she’s just the fanservice character, as if there’s nothing more to her than that.  She is a fanservice character, absolutely, and the series itself has a tendency to downplay her more interesting qualities in favor of unfortunate design choices, but I still think it’s somewhat unfair to hate on Camilla because of that.

Her doting role toward Corrin is heavily played up as the only thing she has to say half the time because Fates is just poorly written, but at her core, Camilla is just a doting, motherly figure.  She takes that role incredibly seriously, being pretty routinely a trusted confidant for others.  Her supports with Xander showcase how much she cares about pretty much everyone, and reinforces this idea that the thing she wants most is to cultivate that caring family.  Niles’ supports explain more of why, showcasing the difficult past she’s had as a child of the king’s mistress, how her mother would only show affection in show, and otherwise used her as nothing but a political pawn.  She grew up without knowing the love of family, and now that she has one in the Nohrian siblings, she’s fiercely protective of it, able to be nurturing and kind to those she considers family, and ruthlessly cruel to anyone who would threaten it.  She’s kind and carry, but possessive and petty in equal measure.  She’s an interesting character to follow, she just...keeps being relegated to talking about Corrin and made out as the fanservice character, continually to her detriment.

Honestly, she is a lot like Tharja.  Take Robin and Noire out of the picture, and Tharja’s...actually got a lot going for her.  I get why people would like her so much.  They’re not good people, necessarily, but they’re interesting characters with pretty dynamic backstories and personalities.  It’s just that the series itself relegates them to being fanservice and pandering more often than it’s able to focus on their intricacies, and so they get a lot of shit for that.  Which I also get.  Their status as highly divisive characters is justified.  But I do think that, ultimately, when we point to the fanservice and pandering aspects and say “They’re a bad character because of this,” and hate on their existence because of how the character is utilized, it glosses over the parts of their character that are done well.  And there are a lot of aspects for them that are done well.  They’re just...not presented or utilized in a way that lets them shine.  Like a lot of other characters in the series.  Many of whom are my favorites now.  I’m starting to think that if I ever wrote fanfiction, I’d be deep into the “fix fic” business...

[ultra-violet-heart]

top five: anime/manga

*anon why the tough questions what did I do to you please tell me I’m so sorry T.T *

OK as I’ve been in anime/manga fandoms for almost all of my life now I’ve kinda pegged around factors to judge anime/manga: plot + direction, animation, characters and how they were written and completion rate. I have separate lists for anime and manga [which I will not discuss as they can change easily depending upon the season and what is still available], so this list will only include franchises with anime + manga, and which have been completed one way or another.

OK, so here is my (current) top five take:

5. Gundam SEED series (includes Destiny, etc)

Gundam SEED is not my first mecha anime [the honor belongs to Daimos, thank you] nor will it be my last, but even after all this time it stayed on the list as it was the first series I discussed in depth with my friends back in elementary/high school [they are still my friends, and we all read the manga despite judging it as a stationary version of the anime]. My very first rival-to-lovers ship was there as well [Cagalli x Athrun scenes still make me swoon]. I’m just happy despite the Earth Forces getting busted, Durandal’s plans with ZAFT were foiled, and the Lacus faction + Orb Union saving the day, all my ships in this series GOT TO BE CANON [raising a glass or three to Lacus x Kira and Cagalli x Athrun YASSS!] and they are trying their best to have a better future.Also this ED introduced me to the genius that is Yuki Kajiura:

4. Assassination Classroom

I have a love-hate relationship with 暗殺教室, as THIS IS THE SERIES WHERE MY LOVE OF RAREPAIRS CAME FROM. Like I was the only one in Tumblr [along with a few peeps] who were on NagiKae/KaruMana/even AsaRio abyss [I’m still there send help]. I also fought the most intense shipping wars here to the point I needed to quit Tumblr for a while or else I might do illegal stuff due to plain anger lol. However, I can say Matsui’s writing and meticulous planning was one which made me love this series [like every chapter has a small hint one way or another], and it is also coherent and even consistent all throughout. Lerche’s animation and direction managed to capture that as well, and I still want to hit myself for not noticing even the smallest details on the second season’s OP:

3. Koe no Katachi

This is my top slice-of-life manga. As a journo who worked with people with disabilities, even they said that聲の形 has one, if not the only, of the most respectful and most honest portrayal of PWDs [even a deaf JP politician has invited people to watch the movie]. I agree, and the manga was nothing short of a genius, with all characters having A+++ character development. The animated movie in 2016 is something I consider as Kyoto Animation’s best work, with the voice acting top notch [I have nothing but praise for Saori Hayami for voicing Shouko], having a magnificent OST, and this is still the best directed scene I’ve ever seen in an anime movie [spoiler/trigger alert though]:

Whew, this scene still makes me shiver.

2. Ouran High School Host Club

*Wait, I thought you said the anime was supposed to be completed to be on your list?, someone might ask*Well, that’s probably the only thing that made this number two on my list. That’s how good Ouran is. Ouran was probably the barrier-breaking manga of its time [another would be Furuba] with its twists on the reverse harem genre, its over-the-top-comedy, its portrayal of gender dynamics and family dynamics, as well as its gags. I DARE ANYONE WHO WATCH THE ANIME/READ THE MANGA NOT TO LOVE Tamaki, Haruhi, Kyouya, Hikaru, Kaoru, Hani-senpai and Mori-senpai. I PLAIN DARE YOU. 

Also everyone who has been an otaku at some point knows this OP by now:

1. Fullmetal Alchemist (manga) and FMA: Brotherhood (anime)

Alas, there is no such thing as perfection in anime, but Hiromu Arakawa’s manga and Studio Bones’ 2009 animation came pretty close. [I still hate the 2003 anime BTW] Female characters who are not sexualized for fanservice, not maternal but still on the side of good? Check! A well-planned, coherent and consistent plot? Check! THE MOST BADASS TEACHER EVER??? Check! Its grey portrayal of humanity at every point, with the villains and protagonists sometimes exchanging roles? Check! OTPs WHO ARE NOT SHOWY BUT TRULY LOVE, SUPPORT AND RESPECT EACH OTHER, and without kissing scenes at that? Check! Honestly I love all things in FMA!manga and FMAB I can’t even criticize it. Also, Winry is my most favorite character in the STEM sector, I tell you. 

This is my most favorite ED BTW:

Well I hope this list is all right. It’s kinda subject to change in the future though [except probably no 1 and no 2]

[houseofmad]

I forgot I wrote a Cu X fanservant of Emer (my sister’s OC) story, I never completed it, but I remember how much I had to Mary Sue Cu because the myths literally talked so much of him. Actually I have the Tain now so maybe I can make it more accurate lol but,

“Of course,” she hugged her older sister. “Father will marry you first though. You know this. It is only proper.”

“Father can try whatever he likes. No man has ever suited my taste. Oh, but Em, the Hound of Chulainn!” Her sister twirled in the room, sighing dreamily. “A hero of Ulster! He’s every lady’s dream. Any maiden would be a fool to turn him down.”

This made her feel guilty. As she began working on her hair, putting it in a halo braid over her crown. “Fi, I think I did something horrible.”

“Hm? Em, Godspeed, Father will be furious if we take our time.”

“He’ll be more furious if we arrive early.” Her sister didn’t seem to pay any heed to her. “Fi, I—I met the Hound of Chulainn in town just before now…”

Her sister spun around, tiptoeing over to her and gasped lightly when she looked her in the eye as if gauging something. “Gods, Em! Oh! Was he everything the stories say he is?”

“Yes, he really was, and much more to my surprise, he was a lot more than just that. I’m sure he’ll make you very happy, Fi.” It was against a maiden’s virtue to be outspoken, and she had never found herself being such like that until today. She wished she could tell her father not to marry Fi to the famed Hound of Chulainn, however as the second daughter and not even the true daughter of Lusk, she had no right to take away this from her sister.

I’ll have to get permission if I posted it, the entire thing that is, (it was maybe one chapter length? I don’t have a visual of her character either but I remember when I was telling her the myth of Cu, she had somehow mistook him for a Chinese lancer--maybe she confused him with Li Shuwen--rather than Irish so her fanservant was Chinese when she made Emery--it’s Emer in myths, her OC was Emery the variation of Emer in some translations I think? Anyways, I told her weirder things happened in Fate because Altera was both an alien and Atilla the Hun so why not.)

[somuchformegaspeed]

Okay so what the heck is up with this game and community anymore?

I’ve hadn’t played much TTR lately up until the day before the 2.0 update came out, and I’m... really confused and kind of disappointed in some of you guys.

First off... Toonupless is a thing. A COMMON thing.

Why though?

Toonup is an essential gag that you get the option to choose at the very start of the game. Toonup is the only gag that allows you to heal other Toons’ laff points. It is a necessity for teamwork and keeping your fellow Toons alive and well. Yet I’ve seen easily over 30 people who don’t have it.

What’s the excuse?

“Someone else in the party probably has Toonup.”

That doesn’t matter. What if it misses and the only other people that have Toonup go sad? What if the boarding group messes up or someone disconnects right before a boss battle and you’re left with only one other person on your side? What do you do then?

“SOS cards and unites exist for a reason.”

And that reason is for emergencies, not because you need both Trap and Drop so badly on your Toon. Unites are usually best used when Cogs are doing massive damage during their attack turn and you know that at least one Toon in your team isn’t going to survive in the space between Cog 1′s attack and Cog 3′s attack. Incredibly rough boss battles are also a really good place to use unites. SOS cards are good for when your team has genuinely run OUT of Toonup, has very weak Toonup, or Toonup keeps missing.

Plus, what are you going to do BEFORE you have access to either of those? Or when they run out?

“Well... I’m kind of a two/three/four-track uber...”

That is forgivable. As an uber, you don’t get many choices for your gag tracks. Heck, not even four track ubers can get Trap! I’m not going to be angry with you if you’re forced to choose Sound over Toonup in TTC, mainly because you’ll be blown off by people more than usual because...

Everyone. Uses. Sound.

Okay... don’t get me wrong. Sound can be a wonderful gag when used correctly. Sound is a gag that I’ve had on all my Toons that have been leveled up enough to have it as of writing this. But I’m honestly about ready to make at LEAST one of my lower Toons Soundless because it’s relied too heavily upon.

I understand; a lot of you want to get through things like Factories or Cashbot Mints faster. I especially understand for Factories; there are a lot of low Cogs that can be taken down easily and quickly with Aoogahs and Elephant Trunks.

But fighting a CFO almost entirely using Sound is not fun.

Games, especially Toontown, are supposed to be fun. Toontown is a game about strategy. About teamwork. There’s no real teamwork involved in figuring out who picks Fog and who picks Elephant Trunk.

Lure exists for a REASON. Lure allows Trap to work and gives knockback damage to Throw and Squirt. It also allows Cogs to not hit for as long as they’re lured, allowing for Toons to heal each other. Maxed Lure, though it may take a small bit longer, can be just as effective or even MORE effective than Sound at killing Cogs when Toons work together.

1-hit-kills on Cogs using Lure include (but are not limited to): Maxed Fire Hose on level 5 Maxed Whole Cream Pie on level 6 Maxed Storm Cloud on level 9 Maxed Birthday Cake (non-organic) on level 10 Maxed Birthday Cake (organic) on level 11 Maxed TNT on level 11 Train Tracks (organic) on level 12

And that’s without even going into detail about what two Toons can use on one Cog to defeat it while lured.

Now I’m not saying that I’m against Sound in boss battles altogether; Sound can be a great way to stun high Cogs for people to use Drop while also destroying the low-level Cogs in the same round. I’m more against repeatedly using Fog Horns over and over and over again when dealing with full lines of 11s and 12s.

I’d also like to point out that I’ve seen people get angry when others use Lure in boss battles while high level Cogs were in play. And I don’t mean Small Magnets. I mean FREAKING HYPNO GOGGLES. WHY? Just enjoy the Lure and use the knockback to your advantage; maybe even use a TNT if you’ve got Trap and depending on the Cog levels.

Okay, maxed Throw, maxed Squirt, maxed Sound... wait WHA?

Okay, so this one doesn’t really apply to Toons that have been here a while; I’ve only really ever seen this on Crocodile and Deer Toons.

Just... look at this.

This... is a thing I’ve seen a handful of people do. And it just kinda leaves me... a lot more confused and baffled than angry. I mean... I get you’re trying to go for 115 laff but... you’ve forgotten that pretty much all gags matter in the process...

You’ll do okay in boss fights and stuff for now I guess but... man you’ve got a loooooot of training ahead of you once the Laff-O-Lympics are over...

I’m... at a loss for words. I’m kind of amazed in a way... but still not overly fond of the idea... it’s almost like some kind of reverse uber...

All I can really say is... good luck on training o_o;

Throwless...? Squirtless...?

This is something else I’ve seen a decent number of times lately... a Toon with probably well over 100 laff that has either no Squirt gags with a highest of Squirt Gun, or no Throw gags with a highest of Cream Pie.

I don’t really have an explanation of this aside I heard one Toon say “squirtless.”

Now... I kind of have a love-hate relationship with this idea, and it’s probably my inner uber-lover speaking to me.

On one hand, it’s an interesting concept; not being able to play with one of two gags that are flat-out given to you at the start of the game except for when Toontasks force you to level up that particular gag (e.g. Squirt Gun in Donald’s Dock and the Whole Cream Pie in Melodyland) It could lead to a lot of thinking outside the box.

But on the other hand... that not only leaves you with 5 gag tracks to work with since you can’t actually get RID of Throw or Squirt, but it can mess with the team as a whole when you’re in buildings, Factories, boss battles, etc.. It handicaps not only you, but also the entire team. 

Yeah yeah I hear you all from here, “But you like ubers, you weirdo hypocrite.” I dunno... ubers seem more like testing the very limits of the game in seeing how far they can get with the smallest amount of laff; Toontown’s glass cannons, if you will. They can still use the main gags a lot of Toons already have. Throwless and Squirtless seems a bit more.. off. They have all the laff points that any other Toon does, but they don’t have a gag that almost everyone uses and only use 5 of their 6 gag tracks.

Toontown Rewritten is a mostly-vanilla Toontown fanserver; not a whole lot of the updates made are outside the box of what the original Toontown was like. I’d really, REALLY like to see an idea like this in a non-vanilla Toontown server where you can legitimately leave off Throw or Squirt and still have 6 usable gag tracks... 

...kind of like how some other fanservers have it so you can set a maximum laff for yourself so you can be an uber but still fish without... you know... accidentally managing to catch 3 laff boosts-worth of fish and becoming a 28-laff uber instead of a 25-laff uber... (true story)

If there is a server out there that does that already... that sounds absolutely freaking awesome.

tl;dr: Toonupless is pretty selfish and not a good idea, you guys really need to stop relying on sound when dealing with 11s and 12s in boss fights, good luck training your gags because dang o_o;, and it might be best to save Throwless/Squirtless for a different server but that’s a pretty rad idea

[agnerd-bot]

Fate Fanservant: Cinderella, Queen of All Fairy Tales(Ruler)

Ascension Stages:

First Stage: Cinderella is clad in an older, ragged cloak that covers most of her body. Faint hints of a scar can be seen on the left side of her face, but she has drawn her hood up to hide it from the world. Her clothes are older, ill-fitting and tearing in several places, but a faint aura of gold and white seems to surround her even in this state.

Second Stage: The cloak has been removed, and Cinderella is now dressed in a torn jacket and pants, parts of her body covered in bandages. On her body are several burn marks of black and red, covering a fair amount of her body. Her hair is pulled back, revealing a burn scar on the left side of her face. Most notably, her arms and legs have been burned almost completely black, akin to molten rock. Fire dances at her fingertips, and her face has taken a more downcast expression.

Final Stage: Cinderella’s ragged and torn clothes have been replaced with an ornate white and blue dress, and silver gloves and stockings with golden trim adorn her arms and legs. A pair of glass slippers gleam upon her feet, and a silver anklet shines on her leg. In her hands are a sword and shield made of the very same magical glass. Adorning her figure are various panes of glass, hovering around her to defend. Her scars are in full display now beneath the glass, but she bears her wounds with pride rather than shame.

Theme:

First Ascension: I Dreamed A Dream (From "Les Misérables")

Queen of Fairy Tales Theme: Florence + the Machine - Dog Days Are Over

Battle Theme: Love the Subhuman Self [With Lyrics] (Millia Theme) - Guilty Gear Strive OST

Grand Battle Theme(VS Fenrir Riding Hood): Death Battle: Fireborn (From the Rooster Teeth Series) 

Traits:

Class: Ruler

Alternate Class: Saber, Rider, Caster, Shielder

True Name: Cinderella/Rhodopis

Source: Fairy Tales

Region: Worldwide

Alignment: Lawful Good Attribute: Star

Known as: ATU 510A, Aschenputtel, Doricha, Le Fresne, Cenerentola, Cendrillon, Finette Cendron, Vasilisa, Ċiklemfusa, Katie Woodencloak, Ashey Pelt, Trembling, Nyasha, Settareh, Maha, Yè Xiàn, Tám, Chūjō-hime, Nagami, Damura, Bawang Putih, Jouanah, Pear Blossom, Maria, Oochigeaskw, The Cinder Maid, The Queen of All Fairy Tales, The Persecuted Heroine, Dream and Dreamer, Guardian of Happily Ever After

Voice Actress: Yuu Asakawa

Deck: QQABB

Parameters:

Strength: B- Endurance: A++ Agility: B+ Mana: A+ Luck: EX NP: EX

Passive Skills:

Blessing of True Magic EX:

As a Servant intrinsically tied to magical powers protecting and guiding her, Cinderella boasts a Magic Resistance surpassed only by deities and saints. Her Magic Resistance grants her the ability to nullify nearly any spell used against her, barring any extreme circumstances. As a Servant who embodies the concept of 'happily ever after', any attempts at trying to destroy said happy ending will be outright nullified completely.

Interestingly, Cinderella's Blessing of True Magic seems to be a hybrid of an innate resistance to magical powers afforded to her by her status as a Ruler-class, and an unknown outside source of magical energy protecting her at all times. It is through this combination of her abilities that her Magic Resistance is so unusually high in comparison to most Servants.

(FGO Effect:) -Increases own debuff resistance by 25%. -Increases own buff removal resistance by 25%. -Grants self Buff Block immunity. -Charges own NP gauge by 7.5% when attacking with Buster Cards.

Item Construction(Fairy Tale) B:

As much of Cinderella's tale involves the use of magic to produce fanciful dresses, slippers of gold and glass, wondrous carriages, and so much more, she has the Item Construction skill applied to her by default. Using her magic, she can create numerous items out of seemingly nothing but junk or vegetation lying around the area, and can even transmute living creatures into other entities, such as changing mice and dogs into humans, or woodland creatures into mighty stallions.

However, many of these items can only last for a limited time, vanishing in a matter of hours, or even less, depending on how much power she puts into creating these items. When these items are present, though, they are often of the highest quality materials and efficiency, even when they are made from actual garbage.

(FGO Effect:) -Increases own buff success rate by 8%. -Increases own critical star generation rate by 8%.

Riding A+:

Due to her nature as a woman who can capture the heart of any beast or animal she chooses, Cinderella has an incredibly high Riding skill, even when manifesting as a Ruler Class Servant. Even the most rowdy of Phantasmal Beasts or Dragon Kind are willing to lend her their aid for short periods of time, with only almighty Divine Beasts being able to stand outside of her influence. If no animals are available for her to ride, she can also temporarily create steeds in the form of pumpkins, vines, and other inanimate objects.

Despite her unmatched talents at taming animals and plants, she often struggles with managing more modern vehicles compared to other Servants, hence why she lacks an EX Rank. This has done nothing to discourage her from trying, however, and she often dreams of being able to use more modern vehicles by herself someday.

“A motorcycle... So cool...! Yes, I will definitely learn how to use one someday! ...I hope.”

(FGO Effect:) -Increases own Quick performance by 12%.

On the Border of Reality and Fantasy EX:

In contrast to her husband, Prince Charming, who is a Servant that is wholly fictional, or to a Servant such as Marie Curie, who is undoubtedly a real person, Cinderella stands in a unique position. While the character of Cinderella is undoubtedly one borne from fantasy and fairy tales, records do show that there was once a person who existed that inspired one of the first versions of Cinderella: Rhodopis, a hetaera from the Sixth Century BC who served as a slave to the storyteller Aesop, and eventually married the King of Egypt.

Reality and Fantasy, Truth and Lies, Fact and Fiction. Cinderella is both and neither, an anomaly that walks along their borders without faltering. As a consequence of this dual existence, Cinderella stands outside of the usual constraints of the Summoning System. Even in a Singularity where heroes and fantasies have all but died, and even in a reality where no traces of Mana can hope to exist, Cinderella will still be able to manifest in some form.

She is both dream and dreamer, a fantasy who holds fantasies of her own, and a persecuted maiden that will forever wish for better things to come. The greatest heroine of all Fairy Tales, the almighty queen of stories new and old, to which all others must inevitably bow their heads to.

(FGO Effect:)  -Increases NP by 5% each turn. -Gain 5 Critical Stars each turn.

Queen of All Fairy Tales EX:

Among all other Fairy Tales, Cinderella is the one that can be most argued to be the most well-known throughout the world, with there being five hundred different variations known in Europe alone, and roughly eight hundred versions told around the world. Nearly any culture can look upon Cinderella and recognize her in some type of form. As a result, she has an ability akin to that of a Divine Core, a power granted to her by her status as Queen of All Fairy Tales.

As a Servant, Cinderella exists as an embodiment of the hopes and dreams of those who have suffered, those who have been lost, or those who feel trapped in a cruel and merciless life with which there seems to be no escape from.  She is the very concept of 'a miracle', someone who was able to escape her own horrible life and lay claim to her own happily ever after in the end. While her combat ability in her own stories was essentially nonexistent, as a Servant, she stands among the strongest to ever live due to how her story resonates with nearly all people across the world.

However, it is not power that grants her the legendary title, but rather her heart. Even in the face of the cruelty she was subject to for ages, her will was never truly broken. Even after years of abuse and hardship, she never truly lost her kindness.

A story so beloved and so enduring that multiple cultures can come up with it simultaneously and tell it in different ways, a story where the good are rewarded and escape their suffering, and where the wicked are stopped and made powerless, and a story where an abused, innocent girl is allowed her happily ever after.

(FGO Effect:)  -Increases own damage by 300. -Decreases damage taken by 300.

Active Skills:

The Persecuted Heroine EX:

After the death of her mother, Cinderella's father remarried to a wicked and cruel stepmother, who brought in her evil but beautiful stepdaughters. They stripped her of her clothes, forced her to eat and live in the kitchen, and made a slave of her, forcing her to work day and night at impossible tasks and making her sleep by the hearth in order to stay warm. When she woke up covered in cinders, her family gave her the mocking name of 'Cinderella'.

However, despite the suffering she had to go through, she still had a safe refuge in both the hazel tree she had planted by her mother's grave and the animals that she had befriended with her good heart. Through them, she was able to accomplish the impossible tasks her stepmother gave her each and every day, and with their gifts, she was able to attain the happiness she was denied in the end.

This manifests as a skill akin to Animal Communication, where Cinderella can communicate with wildlife as easily as one can communicate with people. Unlike Animal Communication, where the animals gain no real increase in intellect, this skill enchants the animals with magic, granting them greater thinking comparable to that of humanity and empowering them with magical abilities on par with an Anti-Army Noble Phantasm, allowing Cinderella to properly direct them in combat or combine them with her own magic. Or simply ask them to help her with chores.

Among the closest connections Cinderella has with her animal companions is that of a lone eagle, the very same bird from the tale of Rhodopis that stole her sandal and dropped it into the lap of the king. Even if no one else would answer her call, this noble bird will always come to aid her, even at the end of days.

(FGO Effect:) -Increase critical damage for all allies. -Gains critical stars based on the number of Animal-Characteristic allies. -Reduces own critical star absorption for 1 turn[Demerit].

The Stroke of Midnight B:

As the fairy tale goes, the magical dress and coach that was granted to Cinderella were astonishingly miraculous. They outshone every other person at the ball, gaining the attention and catching the heart of the kingdom's prince. She shone as if she was a beautiful angel from Heaven, and at the ball, her grace and beauty that was constantly trod upon by her abusive family was allowed to truly shine for the world to see. That night, her heart was filled with a happiness she hadn't known in the years since her mother had passed away. However, the magic was not meant to last, with it all fading away at the stroke of midnight. And so, Cinderella had to run far away to her home before the magic faded completely, hiding in a tree until the prince had lost her trail.

This part of her legend manifests as the ability to boost her magical energy reserves to great heights, greatly ramping up both her offensive and defensive prowess and overclocking her parameters and skills so that they all jump up by several ranks. However, this skill is limited in that it only works during the night, and is destined to disappear once the clock strikes twelve at midnight. Furthermore, this skill can only be used once every day, meaning that after those three uses have passed, she can no longer activate this ability.

(FGO Effect:) -Charges own NP Gauge. -Grants party Invincibility for one turn. -If there is a 'Fae' Servant on the field, apply Debuff Immune to self(one time). -After three turns, apply Stun to self(one turn)[Demerit].

What Has Been Lost, Now Returned EX:

The embodiment of 'Happily Ever After', the most famous aspect of Cinderella was when the Prince reunited with her, returning the glass slipper that she had left behind. After the Prince and Cinderella wed, she was able to leave the life of pain and misery behind, and embrace her own happy ending, no longer bound by the cruelty and wickedness of her family, who were left exposed as the evil people they were.

As the Queen of All Fairy Tales, Cinderella's power is to ensure that the suffering and downtrodden are granted their happy endings, and that the evil and cruel get their just rewards. As a result, Cinderella has the ability to resist 'alterations' to her own story, akin to an Avenger’s Oblivion Correction. She can resist any attempts at temporal disruption such as Red Riding Hood's own plot to distort her own fairy tale, as well as see when alterations to the story have been made. However, this ability is limited in that she cannot immediately discern the source of these alterations, but merely see that something has been altered.

(FGO Effect:) -Increase attack of all Fairy Tale and Phantom Servants for three turns. -Increase defense of all Fairy Tale and Phantom Servants for three turns. -Apply Guts to all Fairy Tale Servants(two times, five turns).

Noble Phantasms:

Noble Phantasm: Truyện Bất Tử - The Story That Forever Calls You

Rank: B Maximum Targets: 1 Range: —

Classification: Anti-Unit(Self)

A passive Noble Phantasm borne from the Vietnamese fairy tale, "The Story of Tấm and Cám". It is said that after Tám's stepmother and stepsister murdered her out of jealousy for marrying the sovereign, the fair maiden reincarnated multiple times in many different forms to reunite with her betrothed, ranging from a lovely oriole, two gentle peach trees, a wooden loom, burning ashes, a golden apple, before finally being reborn as Tấm herself as she took vengeance upon her wicked stepmother and stepsister for their treachery.

This legend manifests itself as a unique ability. Much like how her husband, Prince Charming, embodies 'the hero that will always triumph over evil', Cinderella embodies 'the maiden who will always escape from her torment'. Cinderella's very existence is innately tied to that of mankind's own hopes and dreams for a better ending. So long as there are people that desire their wishes to come true, there will be a Cinderella to answer their call as their champion. As a Servant that embodies dreamers and fantasies, Cinderella will always be reborn, just as her stories are told again and again. Even when her enemies kill her again and again, Cinderella will find a way to return and reclaim what was stolen from her, outright forcing the World to allow her back in through sheer will.

This Noble Phantasm does have its limitations, however. It is not a 'true' immortality like that of the Monkey King Sun Wukong or the Lunar Rabbit Yù Tù. Rather, with this reincarnation ability, she lacks a 'concept of death', akin to the Primordial Mother, albeit on a lesser scale, so in theory, an attack akin to the First Hassan's Azrael could stop her reincarnation and render her mortal.

Nevertheless, even in the face of death and darkness, the Persecuted Heroine will continue to stand, the last line of defense for all who have looked up at the night sky and dreamed.

Noble Phantasm: La Colère de Cendrillon - The Hate That Forever Binds You

Rank: A Maximum Targets: 1 Range: —

Classification: Anti-Unit(Self)

In her tales told in Europe, Cinderella gained her name from the fact that her body was often covered by dust and ash from working so hard for her family without rest without any thanks or respite. She wasn’t even allowed to sleep in a bed like the rest of the family, instead being forced to sleep by the fireplace for warmth. The cruelty of her family weighed heavily on her soul, but not once could she ever let loose her sorrows or her frustrations, or else she would be turned out onto the streets. For years, Cinderella was forced to endure years of physical, emotional, and financial abuse, holding her tongue for fear of reprisal, only escaping thanks to the work of her mother's hazel tree.

But even the miraculous fortune granted to her could not rid her of her own bitterness and self-loathing. Even marrying a prince who loved her with all his heart could not erase her past or let her forget her suffering. The pain she had to live through followed her like a scourge all her life, even in her ‘Happily Ever After’. As a Servant, this anger manifests as the very cinders that gave her her name, with her arms and legs being burned pitch-black and crackling like flame. The fires she wields are the embodiment of the grief and rage she was never able to truly express under her family’s thumb. If Cinderella needs to take a stand and fight, she can unleash torrents of fire from her limbs that grow even stronger the more violent her emotions grow, and burn far longer and hotter than any normal fires ever would, and are intense enough to burn an enemy’s very existence to ash.

However, despite the sheer power of this Noble Phantasm, it comes at a great cost to her as well. If Cinderella were to let her own self-loathing and rage consume her utterly, she would risk losing herself completely to her own darkest parts, becoming a raging flame that would burn the World itself to ash and cinders, before ultimately burning herself away along with it.

Cinderella herself dislikes using this Noble Phantasm, as she believes it is emblematic of everything wrong about her, everything she hates about herself, and the ultimate proof that her family was right about her.

Noble Phantasm: Pantofola di Vetro - The Gift That Finally Frees You

Rank: A+ Maximum Targets: 1 Range: —

Classification: Anti-World(Self)

Cinderella’s second Noble Phantasm, the evolved version of La Colère de Cendrillon, manifesting as her main armaments as the Queen of All Fairy Tales. The resentful flames and ashes of her abusive past having been tempered and cooled. The toxic ashes and burning fires that surrounded her at all times when she was younger have been transformed into a beautiful armor spun from magical glass, the fabled gift that set her free from her abusive home life. No longer is she harmed by her own self-loathing or resentment, but rather shields herself with the dignity and grace of a queen.

As the story goes, among the items that Cinderella was gifted when she was dressed up to go to the ball, the most eye-catching and famous was the pair of glass slippers she wore, perfectly molded to fit her and her alone. When Cinderella fled the ball at the stroke of midnight, she ended up leaving one of her glass slippers behind in her flight home. It was through this same glass slipper that the prince was able to find her again, searching throughout the land to find the one girl in all the kingdom who would match the slipper. When the prince reunited with Cinderella, she was granted the one thing she was never gifted throughout her life: an escape from the hell that was her family’s abuse, mockery, and neglect, and she was given a chance to pursue her own happiness after years of torment and sadness, finally being able to smile again.

As a Servant, this part of her story manifests as enchanted glass armor, far more sturdy than its fragile appearance would suggest. This mystical glass repels evil, and automatically protects Cinderella from any attack ranked A+ or lower, much like Heracles's God Hand, ensuring that Cinderella is effectively immune to any attack not outright ranked at EX, and any attack that does manage to bypass these defenses are severely reduced in power. While Heracles's God Hand grants him 'a body that knows no death', Cinderella's Glass Slipper gifts her 'a shield that will push through the darkness', triumphing over every trial and tribulation the world seeks to throw at her in order to reach her own 'happily ever after'. Combined with her Blessing of True Magic skill, Cinderella’s incredible defenses allow her to outright nullify almost any attack thrown at her, allowing her to advance forward even in the face of the most terrifying monsters. So mighty is this armor that it can even withstand blows from Prince Charming’s almighty Marmyadose, though the chances of Cinderella and Prince Charming ever fighting one another in battle are well and truly impossible.

In conjunction with her powerful armor, Cinderella can also create constructs made out of this same enchanted glass, from a nigh-invulnerable shield that can halt even Divine Weapons, a powerful horse and carriage comparable to Dragonkind, pillars of spun glass that can rise past even the tallest mountains, to even an entire enchanted forest and castle to serve as a fortress against enemies as powerful as Fenrir Riding Hood. If Cinderella needs to enter combat directly, she can even focus the magic-negating properties of her glass armor into a gleaming blade that can carve through even enemies from the Age of Gods.

This Noble Phantasm is a near-perfect defense, a bulwark against all who would seek to give the story a wicked and unjust end. Just as La Colère de Cendrillon has the ability to reduce the World to ash and cinders, Pantofola di Vetro has the ability to shield the World from all villainy and dangers. The last and greatest line of defense for humanity’s dreamers.

Noble Phantasm: Once Upon a Time - The Stories That Are Carried With YouRank: E-A++Maximum Targets: —Range: —

Classification: Anti-Narrative

An almighty Noble Phantasm that serves as a record of human history itself, and the twin to Prince Charming’s own Ever After. This technique functions similar to that of Gilgamesh's Gate of Babylon and Menes' Imperial Privilege, being a manifestation of all of mankind’s accomplishments. While the King of Heroes has an armory of all the weapons mankind has made and will ever make, and Menes has the capability to replicate any and all physical attributes she has witnessed, Cinderella's Noble Phantasm allows her to reach directly into the Throne of Heroes, bypassing the typical Summoning Rituals or defenses placed upon it by the World to call upon a champion to fight in her name. Even heroes who have been long forgotten or anti-heroes abandoned and scorned by the world feel compelled to come to Cinderella's aid by this Noble Phantasm, and upon their arrival, their abilities are further enhanced even beyond a Servant's normal capabilities.

While Gilgamesh's Gate of Babylon is the embodiment of subjugation, and Menes' Imperial Privilege is the embodiment of domination, Cinderella's Once Upon a Time is the embodiment of human connection. It is not a forced summoning of a hero, like the Summoning System used by mages in the Grail Wars. Nor is it an emergency call to arms by the Counter Force in order to surmount an impossible foe. Rather, her charisma and honesty is enough to sway even the most steadfast and cruel of hearts, allowing her to call forth a champion who will fight to save the world without hesitation. Even in the face of impossible barriers to a Servant’s arrival such as Goetia’s Nega-Summon or Red Riding Hood’s Nega-Champion, a hero will be able to make their way through the darkness to hold the banner of humanity high. In summation, this Noble Phantasm is the very embodiment of the concept of 'Happily Ever After', a summoning of a great hero to save the day and vanquish evil.

"The world is cruel… The world is wicked… The world has produced much evil and sorrow… I should know. I have lived through it myself firsthand. But even then, I have faith in humanity. Faith that there is kindness even in the face of cruelty. Where there is good despite the wickedness. Where there can be happiness and joy even when hatred and sadness seems so insurmountable. Most of all… I believe you truly can save the world and give it a happy ending."

Noble Phantasm: Ewig Sanfter Haselnussbaum - The Love That Never Leaves YouRank: EXMaximum Targets: 1Range: —Classification: Anti-Narrative(Self)

In almost every version of the Cinderella story that has been told, there is one unifying factor between them all: a benefactor, sometimes magical, sometimes mundane, that nonetheless arrives in the heroine’s darkest hour in order to bless her with a miracle. In some stories, it is the heroine’s fairy godmother or an angel come to reward her for her piety and kindness. In other stories, it is an animal such as a divine eagle or golden fish. In other stories, it is a powerful witch or almighty god who seeks to test the heroine’s goodness and charity. Whatever the form or shape the mystical helper takes, they serve as the ultimate reward for the heroine’s pure soul and righteous heart.

In particular, this Noble Phantasm takes the form of the hazel tree that Cinderella planted by her mother's grave, where all her fortunes sprang from, and the only place she ever felt safe as a child upon her mother’s passing. In reality, this hazel tree is the very soul of her deceased mother possessing the hazel tree planted at her grave, continuing to provide for her long after her passing. While she passed away at a young age, her determination to bring her child happiness was strong enough to possess the tree that Cinderella had planted at her mother’s grave. This tree gave her the ability to commune with animals to serve as her protectors and helpers. It gave her her lovely dress with which she arrived at the ball, outshining any other beauty in the room. It gave her magical powers of her own when the time was needed to protect the world she loved, pushing her to be a shining light even in the darkest hours. Even now, she still watches over her daughter as her Noble Phantasm, serving as the source of all the incredible magic Cinderella has at her disposal, and a guardian who will answer her call when she is needed.

When called upon by Cinderella, her Noble Phantasm manifests as a massive tree in the shape of a woman towering over even the almighty wolf of Ragnarok, Fenrir. This treant will not hesitate to attack anything and everything that wishes to do Cinderella harm, fighting with the relentlessness and love of a true mother’s love and will, whether it be summoning animals to maul her enemies, or merely crushing her opponents with her mighty branches. The hazel tree is fully capable of acting without Cinderella's commands, and indeed has a mind of its very own, able to take action even when Cinderella herself has been incapacitated. Anything and everything that is even remotely a threat to Cinderella is an enemy, and all enemies of Cinderella must be destroyed without mercy.

However, despite the fearsome power of the hazel tree, it is not her physical abilities that make this Noble Phantasm such a terrifying one to face. Rather, it is the wishes that Cinderella holds. Much like how the hazel tree was able to create the impossible throughout the story, providing Cinderella a dress and shoes so she could find her true love, and helped her complete the impossible tasks set by her stepmother, so too will the hazel tree grant Cinderella's hopes when wished upon. So long as the wish made is selfless in nature, Cinderella's dreams will become reality. These wishes grow even more powerful the greater the impossibility of the act is, akin to Apollo 11’s own Noble Phantasm.

In essence, this Noble Phantasm is the very manifestation of the strongest magic to ever exist within a fairy tale: an act of true love

(FGO Effect:) -Increases own damage for every Fairy Tale Servant in the Party for three turns(includes back row). -Deal Heavy Anti-Evil damage to a single enemy(effect increases with Overcharge). -Increases own NP Gauge for every Fairy Tale Servant(includes back row). -Apply Anti-Purge Defense to self for three attacks, three turns.

Voice Lines(First and Second Ascension):

Summoned: Guten Tag, I am Aschenputtel, Ruler Class. Ah, sorry, you might be more used to my English name, Cinderella. I'm not that important of a Servant, and I don't really have anything that makes me special compared to other Servants, but I'll do my best to not let you down. Whatever you ask of me, I will accomplish to the best of my ability.

Level Up 1: Are you sure? I don't know if I'm the best one to be given this kind of power.

Level Up 2: Th... Thank you! I won't waste this opportunity!

1st Ascension: I'm sorry you have to look at me like this... My hands and feet, burned black due to tending the fires so much. It's hideous, I know... But thank you for keeping me around, all the same.

2nd Ascension: Will these ashes ever leave me be…? …no, I suppose I already know the answer to that, don’t I? Still… I’m glad that I can help you and your endeavors despite these terrible burns of mine.

Fight Start 1: *sigh* I suppose that I have no choice in the matter, do I?

Fight Start 2: I-I’m sorry to bother you, but can you help me out right now?

Fight Start 3: I admit that I’m not much of a partner… But can we dance all the same?

Skill 1: *whistles*

Skill 2: Just a moment, I’ll be right there!

Skill 3: If that is what is needed of me.

Command Card Select 1: I-I’m not really a fighter.

Command Card Select 2: My little friends, could you please help me?

Command Card Select 3: I’ll finish this task the best I can!

Noble Phantasm Select 1: Are you ready… To be consumed by the cinders…?!

Noble Phantasm Select 2: Ghhh… Haaaaaah… “That’s it… Feed the fires…”

Attack 1: U-um… Please don’t blind them this time.

Attack 2: Oh, thank you for your help!

Attack 3: Let’s go!

Attack 4: Eep!

Attack 5: I’m warning you… Please run!

Attack 6: BURN!

Attack 7: Haah… HAAAAAAH!

Attack 8: Let the cinders fall where they may.

Attack 9: Incinerate them…

Extra Attack 1: Sorry to disturb you, Sir Knight, but… (Lancelot: Think nothing of it, fair lady! Arondight OVERLOAD!!!)

Extra Attack 2: Pardon me, you two, but could you give me a lift? (Hessian Lobo: *howls*)

Extra Attack 3: I, um, hope you two don’t mind the sudden summons. (Miss Crane: A chance to work with the Cinderella?! EEEEEE! Habetrot: Nyahahaha! A tailor’s work is never done!)

Extra Attack 4: Time for a bit of cleaning, Lady Beni-Enma? (Beni-Enma: It can’t be helped, dechi.)

Extra Attack 5: Red Riding Hood… You’re helping me too? (Red Riding Hood: For now at the very least. *bang*)

Noble Phantasm 1:

P… Please…

Run away.

I… I can’t control it.

I don’t want to burn you… but I can’t hold back anymore.

La Colère de Cendrillon…!

Noble Phantasm 2:

Ngh… Ghh…

Get… AWAY…!

LA COLÉRE DE CENDRILLION!!!

Noble Phantasm 3:

“Don’t hold back anymore…”

“Hurt them. Hurt them just like they hurt you.”

“The pain… the misery… the sorrow… Let it all burn within you…”

“Let it consume every essence of your being… And let it consume them down to their very soul.”

“Let. It. Out.”

Damage from Noble Phantasm: I’m sorry…! I’m sorry!

Regular Damage: Kyah!

Defeated 1: I let… All of you down.

Defeated 2: I should’ve known better than to have come here…

Victory 1: I won?! I-I mean, I won!

Victory 2: I’m sorry… I hope your story has a better ending in the next life..

Bond Level 1: *fidget* *fidget* I'm sorry, am I bothering you? O-or perhaps you need me to help clean up around here? I couldn't help but notice that there was some cleaning that needed to be done. ...yes, I think I'll get right on that.

Bond Level 2: 'Why do I work so hard...?' Well, I thought something like that would be clear. After all... It's what I was raised to do. My... family, all they asked of me is to help satisfy their own needs. So... after a while, I learned to be quiet and serve. I don't particularly mind doing this work. After all, it means I get to accomplish something. It's certainly easier to stomach than being considered a queen of all things.

Bond Level 3: ...Master. Can I confess something to you? ...I'm scared. Scared of all this power I have at my fingertips. I'm truly nothing special, at the end of the day. I'm weak... I'm ugly... I've never really accomplished anything on my own. And yet... everyone looks at me, expecting me to be a grand hero or champion. But... I'm just me. Useless... weak... me.

Bond Level 4: I still don't understand... Why me? Why did my dear prince choose me of all people there? I didn't even come to the ball to meet him. I just wanted a night where I could be happy and not care about the weight of the world. And yet... he danced with me, made my heart feel like the weariness and heartache was all worth it for that fleeting moment. I wonder... What went through his head that night?

Bond Level 5: Master... Thank you for listening to me. I confess, I still don't know if I can bear the image of the 'Queen of All Fairy Tales', but I've been thrust into the role regardless. I may not live up to the expectations the world has of me… Perhaps I never will. Be that as it may, I still want to try. I don't believe in the 'Cinderella' that my mother and my prince saw in me... But I believe in them. And if they were able to find something in me worth loving... Then perhaps they're right.

Dialogue 1: You don’t have to act so amazed around me, you know. I’m nothing more than a simple servant girl who got lucky.

Dialogue 2: I’m your Servant… That means you tell me what to do, and I fulfill it to the best of my abilities.

Dialogue 3: It feels nice to be able to take a break every once in a while, don’t you think? Back home, I never really had a chance to sit down and rest.

Dialogue 4: *whistles* Hahahaha! It seems that even in Chaldea, there are little creatures that are willing to hear me sing to them. I rather like it. It’s so much nicer to be able to sing with an audience listening, don’t you think?

Dialogue 5 (If you have Prince Charming): Have I ever told you about the night my dear Prince Charming and I met? It feels like an impossible dream, yet an ever-enduring memory… He was the first to treat me with such genuine kindness after… Well, either way, I knew from the start that he was the man that I would marry. And you know what? I stand by that belief even to this day.

Dialogue 6 (If you have Red Riding Hood(Pre True-Name Narration)): Ah, Blanchette! It’s good to see you doing well! Hm? A hike in the woods? *sigh* I suppose that look you’re giving me means that I should go along with you, shouldn’t I? Heaven knows you tend to get yourself lost far too often…

Dialogue 7 (If you have Pinocchio): Oh, buongiorno, Maestro Pinnochio! I see you’re as active as usual today! Eh? N-no you can’t ask my mother for firewood! … O-oh. It was a joke, I see. Still, one shouldn’t make jokes like that so carelessly. Especially if you’re swinging around such a large axe…

Dialogue 8 (If you have Frau Trude Gothel): D-Dame Gothel?! She’s here as well?! I… To think the monster from my childhood would be here in the flesh… M-Master, are you sure it’s wise to have someone like this around Chaldea?!

Dialogue 9 (If you have The Fairy Godmother): The Fairy Godmother… I’ve heard that many believe our stories to be intertwined with one another. I must admit, though… I don’t think I’ve ever met her myself. At least, not in person. She seems to be very familiar with me though.

Dialogue 10 (If you have “Goldilocks”): Oh, hello Goldilocks! I’m glad we’re able to meet each other again… O-oh, you’re busy eating? I see… I’m sorry for interrupting you then…

Dialogue 11 (If you have Baba Yaga): Frau Yaga? I must say I didn’t expect you to be here. Um, not that I’m not happy to see you here! That is… Um… I’ll just leave now.

Dialogue 12 (If you have Elizabeth Bàthory (Cinderella)): Another me…? And she's an actual noble? She probably is much better than me… Maybe she deserves to be the heroine more than I do… 

Dialogue 13 (If you have Miss Crane): Miss Crane… Her weaving is the stuff of legends. To think that such a veteran artisan would be here in Chaldea… I… Do you think she would mind if I asked her for some advice for my own tailoring?

Dialogue 14 (If you have Beni-Enma): The Tongue-Cut Sparrow is here as well… Her story is familiar to me, as is her fearsome reputation. That being said, I can’t help but see her as a kindred spirit. Do you think she’d appreciate my help, or would I just get in the way? 

Dialogue 15 (If you have Merlin or Lady Avalon): You… You seem familiar to me. And yet, somehow, you feel completely different at the same time. Erm, that being said… Those pranks of yours are a bit much, don’t you think?

Dialogue 16 (If you have Hessian Lobo): You two… You’ve gone through so much, both separately and alone. I can’t even begin to understand what kind of hurt you carry… All the same, thank you for letting me sit with you. I know it means a lot.

Dialogue 17 (If you have Saint Barbara): Oh, Barbara! As active as ever, I see. … Wh-what?! Wait, what are you doing with that dynamite?! H-hey! Barbara! Wait up!

Dialogue 18 (If you have any other ‘Fairy Tale’ Servant): Everyone… Everyone looks at me, as if they expect some grand wisdom or great power of me… Those are expectations I fear I can never live up to.

Dialogue 19 (If you have Medusa): Ah, it’s that pink-haired woman! I really should thank her. She was so kind and welcoming to me when I first arrived in this place. She even helped me find some of the stories that were told of me in Chaldea’s library. For some reason, she seems to look at me as if I was familiar… Perhaps I met her in one of my tales? …could it be? Is she the incarnation of Godfather Snake? …no?

Dialogue 20 (If you have Barghest): Oh my! I’m sorry, miss, I didn’t mean to bump into you- H-huh?! …Master? Why did that woman look at me with tears in her eyes? …Habetrot said that, did she? I see.

Dialogue 21 (If you have Mata Hari): Margaretha… Yes, I know her. I know so many like her. Why wouldn’t I? After all, I know all too well what it’s like to be so alone…

Dialogue 22 (If you have Tiamat): The Mother of All Life… I heard that she was once a Beast of Humanity, driven to madness over the love she had for her children… And yet, I can’t help but feel happy around her. She reminds me of my own mother at times. Oh? A boxed lunch? Is this for me?

Likes: Something I like? Well… I suppose the only real answer I can give to that is my dear Prince Charming. He saved me after all… He took pity on someone like me and chose to marry me. …oh? ‘Pity had nothing to do with it’? Hmm… I suppose you’re right. He’d say the exact same thing to me if he heard my mumblings.

Dislikes: I’m not fond of bullies. Far too many people believe that just because they have money, or power, or… anything really, that they can hurt people. Hurt me. Ghhh…! E-excuse me, I’d rather not talk about this any longer.

About the Holy Grail: They say that the Holy Grail can grant any wish that your heart desires… If I wished on it, could I…? …no. No, someone like me doesn’t deserve to wish on the Grail. Give it to someone who’s more deserving of it.

During an Event: A celebration is going on…? I’d love to go, but… Oh, right, I suppose this situation is different, isn’t it? In that case, would you mind if I accompanied you to this? I-if it’s not too much trouble, I mean.

Birthday: Happy Birthday, Master. Have you made your wish? O-oh, you wish to spend the day with someone like me? … Yes, I’d quite like that. Thank you. Shall we be off, then?

Voice Lines(Final Ascension):

Level Up 1: This feeling… It reminds me of that midnight so long ago. I truly am blessed to have you as my Master.

Level Up 2: The night’s still young, let’s enjoy it while we can! Come, dance with me!

3rd Ascension: This dress... It's the same one I wore when I first met my prince... It's the same one given to me by my mother. I... I'm so glad that I get to dance in it again. Thank you, Master. I don't know if I can ever truly explain how much this means to me... But thank you all the same.

4th Ascension: Master... Thank you so much. Few people have ever treated me with this kindness... I always thought I didn't deserve the chance to be happy, but... Maybe I do. Maybe I deserve to have a happy ending all my own. And... I hope that someday, you too will get your happily ever after…

Fight Start 1: I do not wish to fight you… But I will not back down from this fight, either.

Fight Start 2: And so the story begins once more… With a Once Upon a Time.

Fight Start 3: Shall we dance? I must warn you though, I’m not the most graceful of partners to be had.

Skill 1: I know you’re watching over me, mother…

Skill 2: The midnight hour hasn’t arrived yet.

Skill 3: Allow me to help you with this!

Command Card Select 1: If I must.

Command Card Select 2: Get behind me!

Command Card Select 3: En garde!

Noble Phantasm Select 1: Mother… Allow me to make this simple wish.

Noble Phantasm Select 2: The time has come for the story’s climax…

Attack 1: Wing down, o eagle!

Attack 2: Arise, golden goby!

Attack 3: Help me, great crocodile!

Attack 4: Haaaah!

Attack 5: Come forth, di Vetro!

Attack 6: Glass spun of mystic arts… Protect me now!

Attack 7: My apologies… But you must stand down!

Attack 8: Get behind me!

Attack 9: Our time isn’t up yet!

Extra Attack 1: Please, help me now! (Frau Gothel: Don’t make this a habit, little girl…)

Extra Attack 2: I call upon you, great hero! (THJALFI: Very well then.)

Extra Attack 3: Thank you for your assistance! (William Tell: It’s my pleasure, your majesty.)

Extra Attack 4: Peter! Tinker Bell! (Peter Pan: Woohoo! Let’s do this! Tinker: Peter, wait up!)

Extra Attack 5: I pass this along to you, my love! (Prince Charming: Gladly, my darling! Unicorn: Let’s trample ‘em!)

Noble Phantasm 1:

Tree of Life…

Tree of Glory…

Tree of Salvation…

I come to pray at your roots once more…

Grant my wish, to save this world.

Ewig Sanfter Haselnussbaum.

Noble Phantasm 2:

Mother…

You may have passed long ago, but I still feel your presence with me.

Please, answer my prayers and help us win this day.

Ewig Sanfter Haselnussbaum.

Noble Phantasm 3:

“My dearest child… My beloved daughter…”

“The world has been unforgivably cruel to you.”

“It has hurt you more times than I can bear to count.”

“So I shall become your shield from the world’s evil.”

“And watch as you attain your own happily ever after.”

“Ewig Sanfter Haselnussbaum.”

Damage from Noble Phantasm: Mother… protect me…!

Regular Damage: Not yet!

Defeated 1: So this is how it ends…

Defeated 2: I suppose I wasn’t meant to be the hero of this story…

Victory 1: And so the story reaches its conclusion… Happily Ever After.

Victory 2: I’m sorry… I hope that someday, you will be able to find your own happy ending.

Bond Level 1: Oh? You seem surprised to see me. I guess this costume of mine is quite different from what you’ve seen before. I quite like it though. I may not be a true warrior like the other Servants you have here, but the feeling of my mother’s glass around me… it’s comforting.

Bond Level 2: It really is miraculous, isn’t it? To be in a place like this where so many different stories with so many different heroes are able to meet as one. I don’t think I ever would have expected to end up in a place like this.

Bond Level 3: The World has chosen me as the Queen of Fairy Tales, the Guardian of Happy Endings… And yet, I can’t help but feel useless at times. I’ve been blessed with these abilities, this power, but there’s still so much suffering and pain in the world. I know that my story has brought hope and light to people in despair, but all the same… I wish I could do more to help. Maybe then, Red Riding Hood… Blanchette… She wouldn’t have become a Beast.

Bond Level 4: …we’re alike, you and I. I can see it in your eyes. You want to help as many people as you can. You want to protect everyone from hurting like you have hurt. But it’s hard, isn’t it? Even when we want to save everyone, it seems impossible. But still… It’s our job to make the impossible possible, isn’t it?

Bond Level 5: Master… You’ve already gone through so much pain, and at such a young age, too. And yet, you still find it in you to smile and keep going on. You’re able to inspire so many people who have lost their hope for a better future, and you’re able to push on past your own sadness. But still… there will be times when your hope falters. I know this too. Master, when the day comes when all hope seems lost, and you can’t find it in you to smile… Allow me to be your knight in shining armor. I will defend your hopes and dreams when you can’t carry them anymore, and I promise you, you’ll find your own happy ending at the end of all this.

Dialogue 1: It really is amazing, becoming a queen like this. Some days, it doesn’t even feel real. But if this is merely a dream, a fleeting fantasy… Then even that is enough to bring my life happiness.

Dialogue 2: When I look at you… I can’t help but feel like we are one and the same. Perhaps our circumstances are a bit different, but still… You’ve been cast into a strange and frightening new reality. Alone, afraid, and… No, that’s not quite right. You’re not alone. You are never alone. This, I promise to you… Master.

Dialogue 3: The modern era has so many wonderful things to show me… Things have changed a lot since my time. Though, if you would ask me? The most exciting thing of all would be all the interesting forms of transportation? Hm? Oh, don’t you worry, my friends, I promise, I won’t replace you. …though I would like a chance to drive a motorcycle-

Dialogue 4(Clear Interlude “The Neverending Dance”): I don’t know if I’ll ever truly be able to let go of these thoughts of mine… My doubts, my anger, my anxiety… They’re something that I suppose I’ll have to live with, even as a Servant. Still… I feel like they’re bearable, so long as I can have friends like you by my side.

Dialogue 5 (If you have Prince Charming): My dear husband… My fair Prince… I’m glad you’re finally here with me. I never had the chance to say it earlier, but I truly have been blessed to have married a man such as you. A kind heart… a loving smile… an honesty that no other man could compare to. Yes, if I ever had the chance to marry any man of my dreams, I would always, always choose you. … Aha! Your face is as red as an apple, my dear husband. It’s little wonder why you enjoy speaking such sweet nothings into my ear if you get to see such cute expressions all day.

Dialogue 6 (If you have Red Riding Hood(Post True-Name Narration)): Blanchette… She’s suffered for so long, she’s been bitter and angry at the world all her life. …I suppose for her, the anger and hatred is all she has left now, isn’t it? For her, being a monster is far more preferable than being a victim. I suppose I can understand that line of thinking… Still, even Beasts of Humanity deserve to find their own happiness some day, and she’s no different. Maybe you can be the one to give her the happy ending I couldn’t, Master.

Dialogue 7 (If you have Pinocchio): Ah, Maestro Pinocchio! And Maestro Cricket, as well! It’s good to see you gentlemen out and about. That is to say… You aren’t up to any mischief today, are you? Hahaha! I’m only joking, no need to look so afraid. …unless you are planning another of your pranks, young Maestro.

Dialogue 8 (If you have Frau Trude Gothel): Dame Gothel… The Witch of the Story’s End. … *sigh* It’s hard to say how I feel about someone like her. On the one hand, she is a monster, and one who gladly admits to it, no less. She’s killed and hurt too many children than I can bear to count. …and yet, Pinocchio has shown he truly believes that even she can be redeemed. Perhaps even a monster can find her happily ever after one day. Until then, however, I will be keeping an eye on her.

Dialogue 9 (If you have The Fairy Godmother): The Fairy Godmother… I never had a chance to meet her myself in life. Or… perhaps I did…? It’s strange. She has a very familiar aura to me, but at the same time, she seems so distant and alien. Still, she at least seems to be nicer than her sister at the very least, so I suppose it’s fine…

Dialogue 10 (If you have Sòl): Ah, Sòl, I’m glad to see you’re doing well for yourself! It’s rather nice, isn’t it, being in Chaldea. I’m glad that you’re able to finally rest your head without worry. Erm, that being said… The kitchen staff have asked me to tell you to stop raiding the fridge so often. I believe EMIYA’s words were ‘rivaling Artoria’s bottomless stomach’.

Dialogue 11 (If you have Saint Barbara): Ah, Barbara! You look well today. You have something to show me? …it’s not something explosive again is it? Alright, I suppose I can come with you to the hangar to look if that’s the case. Perhaps it’ll be a motorcycle or an aeroplane…

Dialogue 12 (If you have any other ‘Fairy Tale’ Servant): *sigh* Sometimes… I still fear that I won’t be enough. That even with the weight of everyone’s expectations of what I should be, I’ll end up failing. That being said… It’s for those very same reasons that we should keep fighting, no? To at least try to live up to those same expectations?

Dialogue 13 (If you have Medusa): Medusa… So even the greatest monsters in stories can hide kindness and a desire to be loved. You’ve been so gracious to me, so I do believe that it’s time I return the favor. Come with me, if you don’t mind. I’ll put on some tea for us.

Dialogue 14 (If you have Barghest): Ah… Cheer up, o great knight. The others may not have the same faith in you that I do, but I promise, one day, you’ll walk down the aisle, within your finest dress, and have the chance to have your own fairy tale wedding.

Dialogue 15 (If you have Mata Hari): I must say… It feels nice to watch someone dance so freely and happily, especially after a life of sadness and pain. Chaldea really is a place of miracles, isn’t it? To have the ability to grant people happy endings long after their own deaths.

Dialogue 16 (If you have Edmond Dantes): The Count of Monte Cristo… I know you believe yourself a monster, a demon who does not deserve a chance at his own happiness… But I also know that you are wrong. Your happiness will come, and your sins will be forgiven, if not in your life as a human, than as your life as a Servant. It is just as you say… Wait and hope.

Dialogue 17 (If you have Kiara Sessyoin): So even Beasts can find happiness in stories such as mine… That’s quite the comforting thought to me, I’ll have to admit. I’d love to go and talk with her, but I don’t know if she’d care to listen to what I’d have to say to her. It’s a shame, though… Whenever I look at her, all I see is a girl like me… Neglected, abandoned, and hurting, just hoping for something better to come one day. …maybe one day she’ll have a happy ending of her own.

Dialogue 18 (If you have Hans Christian Andersen): You know, Master, Herr Andersen is quite the strange one, wouldn’t you say? He’s so earnest and blunt, speaking truthfully but harshly about everyone… And yet, he’s a man who hides himself from the world. He’s so open about his faults and his own issues… And yet never once speaks about his own burning pain or bitter sadness. As an author of fairy tales, Herr Andersen provided so much joy and wonder to the world… Maybe it’s time he should go and reach out for his own.

Dialogue 19 (If you have Sigurd and Brynhildr): Those two… They remind me a lot of my dear Prince and I. …hee! Perhaps we should have a double date together. I’d love to hear of the romance between these two great heroes.

Dialogue 20 (If you have Arjuna): Arjuna… Please, hold your head up high. I know all too well what it’s like to have your own self-doubt and fear control you. But I also know just as well that you are far more than what those doubts think you to be. You are a hero, noble and kind, and let none tell you otherwise, especially yourself.

Dialogue 21 (If you have Gilgamesh): Oh? Even the Great King of All Heroes wishes to speak to me? You are too kind, your majesty. Though I must warn you, my heart belongs to my Prince Charming alone.

Likes: I don’t think anything has ever made me happier than that night with my Prince. Being able to escape the torment and suffering to simply dance and eat and laugh in such a beautiful castle… It truly was a dream come true…

Dislikes: If there is one thing that I will not forget… It is those who seek to hurt their own children. Whether it be through neglect, assault, blackmail, or any other means, people who hurt the children they have raised should not be easily forgiven. If one seeks to genuinely and seriously atone for what they have done, then I am all for them bettering themselves… But if they persist in their wickedness, then I will cut them down myself. After all… I know what it means to be a child such as that.

About the Holy Grail: The Holy Grail? …hahaha, why would I ever need to use something like that? I have all I need to make me happy. My dear husband, a loving home, and friends like you to be with. Yes, I don’t think there’s anything I could wish for right now, and I have you to thank for it.

During an Event: It appears that another ball has come to town. I think I would like to attend it, what say you, Master?Birthday: Happy Birthday, Master! Please, enjoy this gift I put together for you. I stitched this suit together with the help of some of my friends. It should fit you perfectly. …oh, you don’t have to be so bashful. I made this because I wanted to, not because of any obligation. After all… We’re friends now, aren’t we?

Birthday: Happy Birthday, Master! Please, enjoy this gift I put together for you. I stitched this suit together with the help of some of my friends. It should fit you perfectly. …oh, you don’t have to be so bashful. I made this because I wanted to, not because of any obligation. After all… We’re friends now, aren’t we?

Profile:

Default:

A girl made a slave.

A wish granted.

Something is lost.

And something is found.

Happily Ever After.

She has gone by many names throughout history, be they Rhodopis, Ye Xian, Tấm, Cenerentola, Cendrillion, or Aschenputtel. Her tale has been told countless times over, from nation to nation, her legend being carved into humanity's very soul alongside great heroes such as Heracles and King Arthur.

She is the Persecuted Heroine.

She is an embodiment of the hopes and dreams of all mankind.

She is Cinderella, the Queen of All Fairy Tales.

Bond Level 1:

Height/Weight: 172cm • 54kg 

Source: Global Fairy Tales

Region: The World

Alignment: Lawful • Good Gender: Female

"I don't understand... Why...? Why does she hate me?! I've done everything... Everything she's asked me to do. I do all the chores. I cook each and every meal, I clean every inch of this estate, I work until my fingers bleed and break without even taking a break to rest. But it's still not enough. I still don't even get to sit at the table. I still have to sleep on the floor. I still get called ugly, and stupid, and useless... I don't think anyone has ever called me by my real name since...

Am I really so awful? Am I really... Am I really as bad as they all say?

...

Maybe... Maybe if I do it right this time, they won't hate me anymore. Yes. It's my fault for messing it all up in the first place. I'll do better this time, and then they'll stop hurting me.

I can fix this.

I can fix this.

I can fix this.

Please... Let me fix this."

Bond Level 2:

She didn't even intend to meet her prince. All she wanted that night was a simple escape. A chance to leave her life of abuse and torment for a single night, and to grasp a chance at being happy, even for a moment. The means of escape was different with each telling. Some say it was an eagle that had snatched her sandal and dropped it into the lap of a great king. Others say it was a magic fish with golden eyes and scales who granted her wishes from its bones. Others still say it was a Fairy Godmother, who sought to grant her heart's true desire for her piety and grace.

Whatever the story, whatever the tale, the girl's wishes remain humble and simple: a wish for reprieve.

He had approached her gently, gingerly asking her for her hand to show her around the castle. His words were calming and loving. His steps were careful and true. As the night went on, the two grew more enamored with each other, finding solace in the other's company after a lifetime of loneliness.

And in the span of a single night, Cinderella and the Prince had fallen in love before the clock struck midnight.

Bond Level 3:

The wedding was wonderful, a joyous celebration even grander than the ball where she had met her Prince Charming. It was supposed to be the happiest day of Cinderella's life. A day where no pain, no anger, no misery would exist. A day where she would finally get the Happily Ever After she's craved all her life.

Of course... That would be the day that her family arrived to ruin everything.

They arrived like vultures, acting as if they hadn't been the ones to cause her suffering for years on end. As if they weren't the ones who treated her like a slave all her life. As if they hadn't disrespected her mother's grave time and again. And yet, here they were, acting as if they had loved and cherished Cinderella all her life.

What was meant to be a day of joyous celebration instead became a day of bitterness and anger. Before, Cinderella had kept her fury inside her. She had always tempered her frustration and hid it away. What else could she have done when she was weak and helpless? But this... this was different. Whether consciously or unconsciously, the wild animals Cinderella had befriended responded in kind in her outrage, with two ravens swooping down and plucking her stepsisters' eyes.

At the vicious sight, many of the guests recoiled in fear and shock, horrified at the macabre display before them.

But Cinderella?

She put a hand to her face at the sight... and let out a laugh. A brief, quiet laugh that went unheard by everyone at the wedding... but a laugh nonetheless.

Bond Level 4:

Cinderella married her Prince Charming, and became a queen hailed as a benevolent and kind ruler. She was hailed as fair and beautiful, and within her castle, she wanted for nothing nor feared for any harm.

And yet...

The doubts and fears from her childhood still lingered, festering like a diseased wound. Where many saw beauty, Cinderella could only see ugliness. Where they beheld kindness, Cinderella beheld cruelty. Where people saw diligence, Cinderella saw nothing but uselessness. While her dear husband was always at her side to reassure her doubts, these thoughts would never leave Cinderella alone.

Would a deserving princess have their happiness handed to her?

Would a just ruler allow themselves to stew in rage over the past?

Would a good person laugh at her sisters' suffering and pain?

The anger, the anxiety, the doubt. All of it haunted her throughout her life. It was as if she had never stopped being that young girl that slept by the cinders.

Bond Level 5:

The story of Cinderella is ultimately one about pain. The pain of losing a loved one and crying beneath a tree The pain of barbed insults and cruel abuse. The pain of a cold stone floor and burning black ashes.

The years of abuse, financial, physical, and mental, will never truly go away, and neither will the pain that came with it.

But even still…

With pain eventually comes healing. Where there was a grave, a tree blossomed and bloomed. Where there was venomous insults and violent assault there is now the whispering of sweet nothings and a gentle embrace. The chill of sleeping on stone and the burned agony from the ash and cinders are now replaced with the comforting feel of glass slippers and a golden dress.

Cinderella's life was filled with nothing but pain and sorrow, both external and internal, but it was also filled with great joy and triumph. It is the triumph of an abused young girl against a world that constantly treated her with cruelty, and in turn chose to respond by being kind and being more than just her circumstance. It is the tale of finally reaching a happily ever after.

For all those in the world who have yet to find their happy endings, and for all those who have long since passed that have been denied those very endings… Cinderella will forever stand as a symbol of hope, a figure who will light up even the darkest hours with gleaming fire and shining glass.

For the lovers, the dreamers, the hopeful who have not lost their hearts to despair… Cinderella, the Greatest of All Fairy Tales, will always fight as your champion.

Extra (Clear Interlude “The Neverending Dance”):

Cinderella was never her true name. Cenerentola, Cendrillon, Aschenputtel, the identities that the world knew her as were nothing but cruel nicknames meant to mock her for her low position and to torment her for her constant work. While for many, the name Cinderella was one that inspired hope and prosperity, for the young princess, all the name did was remind her of her suffering and torment, as well as an impossible standard that she could never live up to.

Cinderella the beloved heroine.

Cinderella the worthless mistake.

Cinderella the vengeful monster.

All these and more were not who the maiden was. They were merely projections of what mankind believed her to be. In truth, she has a name that was given to her by her beloved mother, and a name that was never once spoken in any of her stories.

Rhodopis.

[whitewolfofwinterfell]

I don't know how many tv shows you've watched that has ended? But what's your top 3 best vs worst series finales?

The answer  to your first question is a lot, haha. I’m always so terrible at answering my top faves or least faves, because I’m so indecisive but I will try my best. 

Best series finales: 

LOST - I can’t understand how anyone could not like this finale. It was so perfect. It felt like everything that had happened had been building to that finale. Every single one of them found exactly what they needed and they were happy. The idea of them finding each other in purgatory and reuniting in the afterlife was so beautiful, because it was perfectly fitting to the entire theme of the show of this idea of destiny and fate. All of the characters were connected, they were supposed to be together because they needed each other. As Jacob said, they were all broken, all searching for something and although it was different for all of them, I think that one overruling desire they all had was one of just belonging. Of having loyal friends and family, of loving someone and being loved in return and they all found that. It was such a poetic and lovely ending to the journey and I will always love it for everything it represents. 

Friends - This show was consistent from beginning to end - uplifting, sweet, funny, touching and warm. It ended at just the right time and didn’t drag too long, we got closure for all of the characters. We knew enough to know they had “made it” in the sense of they all had careers they loved, Monica and Chandler finally had the children they’d always wanted, Rachel and Ross were back together, Phoebe was married. All of them were there together at the end, they said goodbye to that chapter of their lives that we’d followed for 10 years. Seeing the apartment empty and them saying goodbye to it felt like closure for us as a viewer. Then that final line of, “Shall we go get some coffee?” and Chandler says, “Where?” It’s just so simple but so funny and heartwarming. The only criticism I’d really have is that in comparison Joey didn’t get the closure the others did, but the reason for that is because they did a spin-off with him called ‘Joey’, so I think it was deliberately left open for that purpose. 

Breaking Bad - How could I not pick Breaking Bad? Similarly to why I chose LOST and Friends, it was just well-rounded ending to what was a brilliant show from the beginning. There was drama, emotion and again, closure for all of the characters in some way. We got to see that conversation between Walt and Skyler where he finally admitted that he did it for him because it made him feel alive. That felt like such a well deserved moment that we’d all been waiting to see after having to listen to him claim over and over that he did it for his family. Walt was still a badass right until the very end and that stunt with the machine gun was just legendary. The fact that even after everything the bond he had with Jesse was enough for him to dive on him to save him was so beautiful. That relationship was really at the heart of the show and I think that it ended in a very beautiful yet tragic way. At the end they were standing there together, staring at each other, both of them completely different men than they were when they first decided to be partners and Walt has just saved Jesse’s life and asks him to kill him, but Jesse just won’t do it. Everything about it is poetic. That final scene with Jesse where he’s driving off and crying and hitting the steering wheel completely overcome with emotion and elation that after everything he was free…it was such a weirdly happy moment. Unlike Walt, Jesse was never a bad person, he didn’t enjoy the lifestyle and he was the one out of the two that always felt more moral to me and all I wanted was to see him get a chance to live, so the fact that he got that was so satisfying. As for Walt, he got the ending he deserved and wanted too. He was diagnosed with terminal cancer in the very first episode and from that moment on he was essentially a walking corpse, constantly suffering. He fell into the criminal life, because it was the only thing that made him feel alive, but ultimately all it did was bring him even more suffering and by the time we reached the end he was just done. He’d said goodbye to his wife, he’d gave her the explanation she deserved, he’d rescued Jesse and it was his time. That smile on his face as it zooms out on him at the end shows just how relieved he was that he was finally going to be at peace. It was such a great ending. 

Worst series finales: True Blood, The Vampire Diaries and Dexter. 

True Blood - To be honest, this show went down the shitter long before the finale, but even still it was so disappointing. I was never a big fan of the Bill and Sookie relationship anyway, I just found it so gross and after everything they went through I just felt like they should’ve ended a long time ago. Yet for some bizarre reason the writers still couldn’t let go of their relationship and brought them together again at the end. And to have Sookie sit in a grave and kill him at the end…I just didn’t get it. The idea was supposed to be that Bill is finally getting peace, but I didn’t even feel like he deserved it. I loved Hoyt and Jessica, but their wedding was completely forced. Hoyt didn’t even have any memories of her for Christ sakes. Did Hoyt even find out that the reason Jessica glamoured him was because she’d cheated on him with his best friend? Again the whole stunt was all for Bill, to give him the chance to walk Jess down the aisle before he died. But why should they have had to do that? The only good part of the finale was that Pam and Eric were endgame and the flash forward at the end that showed them all being happy and normal (which is what I expected from TVD tbh but we didn’t get that). That’s all that mattered to be to be honest. Everything else was a hot mess. 

The Vampire Diaries - I’ve tried so hard to see the positives of it, but no matter what it doesn’t change the fact that it was such a poor finale. Poor acting from Nina, OOC Katherine and Elena, complete lack of chemistry between the endgame couple, pointless and unnecessary death of the main protagonist, unsatisfying and pitiful ending for Bonnie, fanserviced letter from Klaus that was completely disrespectful to Stefan/Steroline, Katherine as the big bad was a flop and completely anti-climatic and although the final scenes with Elena and her family and Defan were sweet it really didn’t fit into what the show had been about for the last 8 years. It was essentially a complete rip off of the LOST finale but poorly executed and completely irrelevant to the theme of the show. Like I said, above LOST was always about the idea of fate and destiny of soul mates and people that are supposed to be together. All of the characters were brought together on the island by fate, but we learned they were all connected before, that they’d all met or had some connection through people they knew and so for them to end up together in the afterlife…it made complete sense and it was in keeping with what the entire show was about. TVD, on the other hand, it was never really about that. In fact, for a supernatural show there was never any real exploration of the idea of an afterlife besides “The Other Side” which was essentially a limbo for supernatural creatures and “peace”. I understand that peace was the overall message for the end, but it felt so forced and almost a cop out. A show such as TVD could never have a happy ending really. The fact that we’re supposed to believe Delena just magically had this happily ever after is stupid. They were hunted everyday of their life by some villain or enemy and suddenly overnight all of that disappeared and didn’t matter? How? That ending just didn’t match up to what the show had been about up until then and there were so many loose ends that weren’t tied up. You could just feel how rushed it was. 

Dexter - Once again, this is a finale I’ve always tried to be positive about because I never liked how much hatred it got from the fandom, because it really wasn’t that bad. The only reason it’s on this list is because Dexter is one of my favourite shows and the ending was pretty weak in comparison to what the rest of the show had been. I think it just wasn’t the epic ending I was expecting considering how great the writing was in previous seasons. Season 2 was amazing and I think the final season we should’ve got, whereby Miami Metro were finally putting the pieces together and starting to hunt Dexter down. As much as I love Deb, I think her death made sense because it was Dexter’s ultimate punishment, but the way it happened was pretty shitty and underwhelming. I wish Saxon wasn’t the final villain Dexter went up against, because who really cares about him? I hated that poor, sweet Harrison ended up with Hannah McKay of all bloody people and that Astor and Cody weren’t part of the finale. And the lumberjack ending which is so famous…it did just feel kind of blah. It was basically just an all round underwhelming and unsatisfying ending to what was a brilliant show. 

It was interesting thinking about this so thank you for asking!

[kalachand97-blog]

New Post has been published on Globeinfrom

New Post has been published on https://globeinform.com/phantasy-superstar-online-will-by-no-means-die-how-the-nicest-fans-in-gaming-keep/

Phantasy Superstar Online will by no means die: how the nicest fans in gaming keep

Nine years ago, Sega killed Phantasy Megastar On the line for accurate, shutting down its remaining servers for Windows and Xbox inside the United states. That turned into PSO’s 0.33 death. The yr earlier than, Sega unplugged the GameCube and Dreamcast PSO Ver.2 servers. Its first death turned into all of the way lower back in 2004, while the servers for the Dreamcast’s rickety version 1.zero—a groundbreaking Online console sport infested with hackers who found out the way to kill others players in a co-op Mmorpg—went dark.

But Phantasy Big name On line refused to die. In 2017 I’m able to nevertheless step onto the deck of the Pioneer II and beam down to the surface of Ragol, clumsily preventing the keyboard controls of a game designed 17 years and half of a global far from me. I will make a brand new HUnewearl, a lithe hunter with low HP However a penchant for knives and strong point abilties, and find a party of gamers happy to walk an amateur thru an opening task they have executed one thousand instances before. What is genuinely brilliant is that I’m able to do all of those things and feature alternatives. Wherein many of trendy derelict MMOs like the Matrix On line and Planetside warfare to preserve a single fan-emulated server, Nine years after its third dying Phantasy Celebrity On-line has a minimum 4 groups of energetic players, frequently with anywhere among 50 and one hundred human beings idling in a lobby or grinding a 16-12 months-old grind.

Phantasy Celebrity Online did not simply refuse to die. It’s alive and nicely, and absolutely everyone has a tale approximately how PSO suits into their lives. It is in particular authentic of the folks who run the servers retaining the Pioneer II in orbit.

“returned in 2008, my father passed away abruptly, and that I wished something to do. I determined I had desired to jot down my own Blue Burst server software program, [Phantasy Star’s server technology]. I had written some proxy software program within the beyond for the Gamecube model, But I, in reality, needed some thing to preserve my thoughts occupied after my dad died, so I determined to start writing Tethealla,” said Terry Chatman, who runs the PSO server Ephinea. Chatman, a systems administrator, goes by using the handle Sodaboy Online and has been inside the PSO scene nearly since its starting. Tethealla is the call of Sodaboy’s server emulator for Blue Burst, the 2003 Pc version of Phantasy Superstar On-line, which is now used by nearly each fan server. The exception is SCHTHack, the longest jogging fanserver, which Sodaboy also contributed to at one factor before starting his own assignment.

Scary Games hold You on Tenterhooks Video games whether or not they’re actual or whether they’re being played On-line may be categorized into warfare, amusing, youngsters and Frightening Video games. The Frightening ones aren’t supposed for folks who will scare without difficulty because these Video games can very regularly surprise you or make you experience simply jitter. So if you are making plans to play Scary Games make sure which you have numerous guts and grit. On-line Horrifying-Games are so actual that you are feeling so scared many a time. In reality, a pair of these Games is presupposed to be performed in the dark to make things extra powerful.

Horrifying Games can be performed by means of older kids, But parents need to be extremely cautious and ensure that the kids aren’t inspired in any way with the aid of these Games because they have lots of violence. There are quite a few Frightening Games that you may take your select from while you visit the sport web sites and you may pick Video games of your desire and on your flavor and feature an incredible time.

In almost some of these Horrifying Video games, there is lots of adventure and these Video games involve tales In which you’re searching out some thing or seeking to save someone who is in peril and you’re confronted with many sinister incidents that in reality scare the life out of you.

As you can believe, these Video games have super images and sound results due to the fact like inside the movies it is the images and the sound outcomes that are the heart and soul of scary scenes and episodes. A number of those Video games additionally painting torture and it’s miles up to you to try and reduce the intensity of the tortures thru various performs in the sport so that you do not go through too much. And with these Video games being supplied in the 3-D layout they pretty efficaciously make sure that all of them that it takes to preserve you at the edge of your seats.

The penchant for sinister On line-Video games is so first-rate that the stores and the online marketplace are flooded with such Video games and providers discover that this is one genre of Games that people avidly look for on the net. The thirst for the inexplicable fear and the exhilaration that accompanies it’s miles some thing that teens, women, and men sit up for and as you nicely recognize there are thousands of these Video games that generally tend to tickle tie human mind offer infinite shape of leisure to folks who can take it. But remember that whilst playing those Games you must have a sturdy mind and play carefully.

Dora Video games preserve Your youngsters Enthralled Normally the character referred to as Dora became extraordinarily famous through an animated television serial in which Dora the Explorer is one that circulates around undertaking a few assignment that she has set out to do. This system became so famous that now there are ever such a lot of On-line Video games that are churned out with Dora as the main person. In each the tv and the online Games, Dora is a seven yr antique female who takes it upon herself to do numerous tasks which might be extra frequently than now not complete of trials and travails that Dora continuously overcomes. In truth, her diverse missions are made into one of a kind Video games that kids fall over every other to play.

In most of the Dora Games Dora is faithfully followed through her maximum reliable cousin Deigo who’s believed to rescue all varieties of animals. different characters that seem within the Video games are Swiper who is the bad individual or the villain of the game, Dora’s 3 cheerleaders the Fiesta Trio made out of a grasshopper, a frog and a snail and Boots, a lively and ever so friendly monkey.

The kids who have as soon as tried out one of the Dora Games On-line will come lower back searching out more and more of Dora adventure. In Dora Games Dora receives to meeting new pals all through her quest and these are the characters that your children take on after they play these On line Games. those are interactive Video games In which the kids be part of and assist Dora and her pals of their quests. They experience excited about the fact that they come to be a part and parcel of the journey and make them feel that Dora should never have accomplished any of her quests and got via numerous hurdles without their assist.

Dora Games assist the kid to learn strategic making plans and he/she begins to learn a lot of things that assist him in actual existence too. these On-line assist to build up the self-assurance in a baby as he reports diverse demanding situations in these Video games.

it’s miles remarkable what a number of parents to experience playing Dora Games with their youngsters and they have such rave evaluations about it. The Games contain lots of language competencies and math abilities at the side of lots of music and active sports.

There are numerous websites that offer Dora Games totally free and your child enjoys gambling to his/ her hearts’ content material. The majority of the people playing Dora Games are the younger ones who have visible and loved Dora’s tv program. There are quite a few Video games that they could pick out from Some of the most famous ones being “Spooky Wooded area” and “Crocodile Lake” which can be in actual reality areas that Dora has to undergo in the course of her adventurous quests.