i write too little and gacha too much | someone once told me "what i read of magery's prose made me think of armani-branded bodice rippers" | extremely normal about inanna-ishtar | AO3 Page
if I had to guess, I'd predict that the FSF/FGO collab will have Zealot, Hippolyta, and Alcides as the summonable units, with Sigma as the welfare—probably Zealot and Alcides 5-star and Hippolyta 4-star.
so cool when i say hi to a cat and they do a big stretch like i dont think that has anything to do with the words i just said to you i said but i think its awesome that you got long
I think people who consider aromanticism as "basically straight" underestimate how noticeable absence can be to those around you.
Whether you're a kid in school with classmates who won't take "no one" as an answer to who you have a crush on or an adult whose coworkers have picked up on the fact that you've never mentioned a romantic partner; after enough time, a lack or insufficient amount of romantic interest will raise the antennae of friends, family, coworkers, etc... They will notice and they will speculate and they will ask.
It is impossible to meet the societal bar for straightness through inaction.
death at a funeral (where elegies are ashes spoilers)
“He’s going to die, you know,” Eblana observes. Her voice is cold with honesty. Not cruelty. A lot of people hear one as the other when she speaks, but Loughshinny, at least, should know better. Eblana is always trying to be honest. She never has to try to be cruel. “There’s no meaning in soothing a corpse.”
“He will,” Loughshinny agrees. Eblana hadn’t been sure if she would. Her sister has always had a habit of trying to deny reality, no matter how much Eblana has tried to shake it from her. First it was out of fear. Then it was out of hope. But it seems even hope is not enough to blind her here, in this nameless Ursus house over the body of this nameless Ursus man. “I want to help him anyway.”
(Years after the Red Dragon sacrifices herself for Tara, two Rhodes Island Operators who swore only to meet where death descends have a conversation over a corpse. How strange, then, that they end up talking about life instead.)
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
I was thinking last night about the concept of my Guda's "canon" party. That is, the party of Servants she would call on first for anything; the set of Servants she would choose to take with her to face a trial, no matter its shape or nature, out of nothing except the trust and faith and certainty she shared with them.
To mirror a FGO party, I decided to limit the number of Servants to 6. Naturally, this thought led to an immediate 'complication', so to speak: there is no universe where Mash does not occupy a slot. So I considered, briefly, if she should be excluded—if she should be assumed to be coming no matter what, and the canon party is who comes alongside her—but I decided against it, because if I'm choosing my Guda's canon party then I shouldn't be working around Mash, y'know?
From there, I came to my rules for the exercise (which I'm posting on tumblr because the idea got positive reception and participation on a couple of Discords, so I thought the three people who follow me on tumblr might be interested in trying it too):
I must specify six different Servants
Mash must be one of those Servants
Gameplay elements and mechanics do not exist
Once I'd settled on the rules, the exercise became quite interesting, because the first four choices I knew immediately... but the last two took quite some determining out of the pool of potential choices.
Regardless, withour further ado, here is my version of my Guda's canon party! Ramblings about the choices can be found under the cut.
My first pick was Arturia Caster because, well, frankly when I was debating whether or not Mash even counted I was also debating whether or not Caster even counted for basically the exact same set of reasons. I mean, c'mon. She's Arturia Caster. As her Noble Phantasm goes, "Yet the sword is in their hands." How could I ever go past her?
My second was, naturally, Ishtar. I don't really think I need to explain why—the only reason this tumblr even exists is because people were wrong about Ishtar on the internet.
Mash sneaks in at third place, largely because she spent too much time fucking nasty with Morgan and Lilith when she was meant to be setting up camp that one time and Guda still holds a grudge I forgot I hadn't already said her until after I said Ishtar. I don't really need to explain why she's here either. There's an entire, like, ten billion words of story to do it for me.
In fourth is Meltryllis. I'm not sure how many people know this, but I was actually writing a whole-ass story about Guda and Melt once upon a time, which you can read if you want to know why she's here. She was the last of the easy picks.
Fifth was Melusine. There were a few potential choices for this slot, but in the end it came down to this: if my Guda is going somewhere she doesn't recognise, to do something she doesn't yet know, for a purpose she doesn't yet understand, she is going to turn to the Strongest. Because Melusine can be a bit of an idiot, she can whine and sook with the best of them, and her ego is as fragile as glass—but. But. She's also invincible. And in that, my Guda has more faith than she does in anything except Ishtar.
Finally, sixth: Taira-no-Kagekiyo. It can't be a Guda's 'canon squad' without at least one potentially ill-advised decision which Guda nonetheless makes with total and complete surety in the trust she extends, and for my Guda, that's Taira and the prayer that no matter how far away their grudge might take their mind, their hand will always be there when she reaches for it.
So there you have it. That's my Guda's canon party. That's who she brings to the end of the word and the start of time. That's who she calls on when all she knows is that there is something that must be done. And I think that's Neat.
Up next: my Guda's canon party understudies cavalry!
When I was thinking about my Guda's canon party, and especially when I was trying to narrow down the final two slots, I realised something: there was another party. Not the one she would take with her into the bravest unknown, but the one she would have on speed-dial if something went so wrong that she needed backup—and, simultaneously, the one that would force their way to her side regardless if something did go wrong enough that she didn't have time to ask.
For various reasons they didn't make it to the canon party, but they are effectively the understudies to the canon party—the ones who were closest to making it and who maybe might have if things were just a little different.
Much as with the canon party, there's a Mash-analogue: Da Vinci. The only reason Da Vinci wouldn't force herself onto the canon party is because Mash is there and she trusts Mash to handle it—so, naturally, she's the first cab off the rank if, for whatever reason, it turns out Mash is no longer handling it.
With the exception of swapping Mash for Da Vinci, the cavalry follow the same rules as the canon, so here they are. My ramblings about the choices are once again under the cut.
I've already explained why Da Vinci is there, so all I'll do here is say that I don't have Caster Da Vinci, which is why I'm using Rider instead.
Kukulkan is a pretty obvious choice for my Guda when you consider why she chose Melusine. She's got a special place in her heart for the Strongest—and she remembers, always, that hope rises with the Sun. So if being invincible once wasn't enough, well, it's time to try twice.
A natural third is Oberon because, well, "Having once this juice/I'll watch Titania when she is asleep..." Now, while he would kill Guda for quoting Shakespearean Oberon at him, the fact remains that the only thing worse than the yakudo trio together is the yakudo trio apart. Of course he'd come running—if only to make sure there was someone there to laugh. It's what my Guda would want.
Coming in fourth is Okita Alter, who I have always had a soft spot for despite the fact her storytelling is just consistently kinda mid. I don't really know how to explain it. I just Think She's Neat. She does have some nice lines, at least: "I love you, Master, and this world that you live in." goes pretty hard. Reminds me of "I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness... I love only that which they defend." given how heavily she's coded as a sword (though one trying to learn how to live as a human). So here she stands as my Guda's sword too, because she loves what they defend.
Fifth is Aesc, which is a bit of cheating since she's also Morgan (did you notice the joke I played with the Bond craft essence?). I'm allowing this seeming exception to my rules because I used the word "different" and, fundamentally, Aesc is not a different Servant to Morgan; they are the same person, just displaced by a few thousand years. It's a fundamental element of their tragedy. (God I love Lostbelt 6 so fucking much holy shit.) There's a lot I could say about why she's here, but really I can summarise it simply with this: I, and I alone, understand what it would mean to save you. (Imagine it in a tumblr gifset captioned in two different fonts simultaneously under a broken mirror as Guda and Aesc stare at each other despite not knowing the other is there and then each turn from the mirror simultaneously to stare at the viewer and you get the kind of vibe I was thinking of.)
Last is Minamoto-no-Raikou, which I feel like only specifically @airgetlamhh would have been able to predict, since they were the one I posted, like, 2000 words of Raikou Lily and Ushi Gozen thoughts to all the way back in 2019 after including the latter in my quest. Anyway: Raikou was actually my first Ishtar, by which I mean that Raikou occupies a similar role where the narrative knows the actual potential and actual character it could be writing—if you've never read Raikou's out-of-game materials, they're extremely blatant about it—and occasionally winks back towards that... while simultaneously choosing to not actually ever write that character, and so much as I have with Ishtar I got quite invested in the Raikou they could have written but didn't, even if I haven't really thought about her in years since (arguably thankfully) FGO hasn't either. Nevertheless: here she is, with her sword at the ready to ensure that all these "insignificant insects" shall "be incinerated to ash".
And thus: that's that. These are the Servants who aren't my Guda's first, blind choice—but are her second, the ones she trusts to come when her first choices aren't enough, and the ones who will choose to come, even if it's impossible, and do it anyway.
I was thinking last night about the concept of my Guda's "canon" party. That is, the party of Servants she would call on first for anything; the set of Servants she would choose to take with her to face a trial, no matter its shape or nature, out of nothing except the trust and faith and certainty she shared with them.
To mirror a FGO party, I decided to limit the number of Servants to 6. Naturally, this thought led to an immediate 'complication', so to speak: there is no universe where Mash does not occupy a slot. So I considered, briefly, if she should be excluded—if she should be assumed to be coming no matter what, and the canon party is who comes alongside her—but I decided against it, because if I'm choosing my Guda's canon party then I shouldn't be working around Mash, y'know?
From there, I came to my rules for the exercise (which I'm posting on tumblr because the idea got positive reception and participation on a couple of Discords, so I thought the three people who follow me on tumblr might be interested in trying it too):
I must specify six different Servants
Mash must be one of those Servants
Gameplay elements and mechanics do not exist
Once I'd settled on the rules, the exercise became quite interesting, because the first four choices I knew immediately... but the last two took quite some determining out of the pool of potential choices.
Regardless, without further ado, here is my version of my Guda's canon party! Ramblings about the choices can be found under the cut.
My first pick was Arturia Caster because, well, frankly when I was debating whether or not Mash even counted I was also debating whether or not Caster even counted for basically the exact same set of reasons. I mean, c'mon. She's Arturia Caster. As her Noble Phantasm goes, "Yet the sword is in their hands." How could I ever go past her?
My second was, naturally, Ishtar. I don't really think I need to explain why—the only reason this tumblr even exists is because people were wrong about Ishtar on the internet.
Mash sneaks in at third place, largely because she spent too much time fucking nasty with Morgan and Lilith when she was meant to be setting up camp that one time and Guda still holds a grudge I forgot I hadn't already said her until after I said Ishtar. I don't really need to explain why she's here either. There's an entire, like, ten billion words of story to do it for me.
In fourth is Meltryllis. I'm not sure how many people know this, but I was actually writing a whole-ass story about Guda and Melt once upon a time, which you can read if you want to know why she's here. She was the last of the easy picks.
Fifth was Melusine. There were a few potential choices for this slot, but in the end it came down to this: if my Guda is going somewhere she doesn't recognise, to do something she doesn't yet know, for a purpose she doesn't yet understand, she is going to turn to the Strongest. Because Melusine can be a bit of an idiot, she can whine and sook with the best of them, and her ego is as fragile as glass—but. But. She's also invincible. And in that, my Guda has more faith than she does in anything except Ishtar.
Finally, sixth: Taira-no-Kagekiyo. It can't be a Guda's 'canon squad' without at least one potentially ill-advised decision which Guda nonetheless makes with total and complete surety in the trust she extends, and for my Guda, that's Taira and the prayer that no matter how far away their grudge might take their mind, their hand will always be there when she reaches for it.
So there you have it. That's my Guda's canon party. That's who she brings to the end of the word and the start of time. That's who she calls on when all she knows is that there is something that must be done. And I think that's Neat.
Up next: my Guda's canon party understudies cavalry!
There’s a bloodstain smeared on the corner of Nagao Kagetora’s lips.
It’s just. Sitting there. A bright splash of crimson against her god-pale skin. When she smiles at something Izo says, it cracks a little, stretched by the easy motion of her mouth. When she throws her head back—so expressive, so free, despite everything—and bursts into raucous laughter around her cup of sake, it glistens as the alcohol spills wetly across her jaw and trickles down her throat. And when she settles back into seiza, somehow making the way of correct sitting seem like a casual sprawl, it is bold in the firelight that licks the shadows from the room.
Yes. There’s a bloodstain smeared on the corner of Nagao Kagetora’s lips, and Ritsuka Fujimaru is feeling incredibly normal about it. Really. Super normal. So normal she’s practically at a right-angle!
(That’s how she knows she’s irreversibly fucked: she’s making math puns.)
Thoughts and prayers for Guda, she's absolutely going through it right now. Who let war gods be this hot? It's anti-Master discrimination.
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