OKAY. EMOTIONS ASIDE (<- lying) (is going to be thinking about this all fucking day)
With that post I almost think Mozart CAN'T be the Caster. With the implications of Avenger gaining 'Protection of the Muses (Fake)' I think it's possible that Mozart can't be the Caster because he's part of Avenger. It'd be one thing if he'd patched Avenger together and left, just briefly interfered to keep him from collapsing under our mistake. But for one of his skills to show up on Avenger? That speaks of a deeper connection.
And wouldn't that be fitting? Avenger couldn't kill Mozart in Russia because Mozart was already one foot out the door. Avenger can't kill him in this War because Mozart is within him, holding him together, even if his presence alone could tear Avenger to pieces.
Salieri and Mozart were friends, after all.
The will of the masses demands Avenger kill Mozart, because that's what it has come to take as truth. But Avenger can never kill Mozart because Salieri never killed Mozart, and it's that truth that overrides all else.
JUST WHEN I THOUGHT I MADE THIS SIDEBLOG TOO EARLY!!!!
Oh my god. Okay. There’s so much going on here. I’ll lay out the big three points that got me then a bunch of ramblings under a read more.
1. We were addressed as wizards. That’s terminology specific to the Extra series, which makes sense, what with the digital nature of these Wars. Yet they’re Holy Grail Wars, not Moon Cell Wars; they’re two different things, and ‘Avenger’ established that veeery specifically with his April Fools joke (because as we all know, Jokes Are Deepest Lore). Then again, Moon Cancers are on the table this time around...
2. ‘A test run’. Across TRILLIONS of failed iterations. Jesus christ!!!! WHAT FOR!!!!!!
3. ‘You’ve already agreed to this contract long ago.’ Which makes sense, since the last War seemed to imply that throughout all those trillions of iterations, the Masters were... always us. Always. Because it was always ‘the first Tumblr Grail War’. So in the end, it’s not just the Servants and terminals caught in this cycle, it’s us too.
All of these points culminate in a question I’ve been wondering since the start: who started this, and why? And why have they chosen to continue it? (again, in the narrative sense, not the meta one)
It’s no surprise that our kind ‘host’ this time around is taking the face of Tamamo Vitch, considering how much of a devil’s bargain this is. The last time around, we got the best ending for the scenario we were presented with; with the Grail already corrupted and ‘Ruler’ glitching out hardcore, we couldn’t have begun to succeed at a true Grail War or wish. Yet in the end, it wasn’t enough to free us from the cycle. With that in mind, the core issue, and presumably what might ‘free’ all of us, hasn’t been fixed here: with a mass of Masters to contend with, is it possible to successfully make a wish upon the Grail?
The last time around, the Grail was also corrupt, and I really don’t think a wish was truly possible; I think it would have backfired hard on us, given just how much mana the Grail is meant to contain when full. Corruption, a whole crowd’s worth of wishes, and an omnipotent wish-fulfilling device full of mana spelled disaster to me. Theoretically, this Grail will be clean. That said, I still don’t know if the Grail would still be able to handle a horde of wishes without backfiring, because it’s so powerful but was created to handle only one wish.
Then again, this War is starting out on the conceit of all of us cooperating from the start. Maybe a lesson learned from the first run, meant to make it easier for us to get used to the idea of pushing for one path together. But it doesn’t present much of a War, so what’s going to be ahead of us? A ‘boss rush’ kind of gauntlet seems likely to me, especially if we end up summoning an Extra class Servant, with all the other Servants summoned by the Grail to face off against and cut down. At first, anyway - after all, that’d be way too easy if it stayed straightforward and ‘proper’.
Yet with all this in mind, even assuming we do everything perfectly and it’s all hunky dory, would finally making a wish actually fix things? Is it supposed to? Are we trapped by forces outside ourselves, or simply by our own ambition and desire for a wish?
So we've stumbled into an enemy alliance rather than just a single servant.
Alright, who do we know that feeds on light and/or electricity? Fran? Maxwell??
I gotta admit at this point I have no cohesive theories; I feel like with this development, I'd need more info before beginning to guess again. The one thought I had was 'we could be in a Caster's domain', but admittedly I don't have any specific guesses as to what Caster we'd be contending with in that case.
EDIT: OKAY GUESS I'M SOMEWHAT ON THE RIGHT TRACK THOUGH
Haha hello hi not to cause a panic but HELP AVENGER WHAT HELP OH GOD NO AAAAAAAAAAA
Do you happen to have any thoughts on what’s going on though B’) things are going so incredibly well right now aha this is Fine!!! Would love to hear thoughts other have about stuff, terrifying as it is! Hoping that Conductor might be able to do something about stuff currently but that’s about all I’ve got thoughts wise right now so :’)))
HAHAHA WELL. HMM. THINGS HAVE CERTAINLY GONE SIDEWAYS. It's okay anon!!! We'll get through this!!
For the Avenger scenario specifically... I'm not sure. The poll for summoning Conductor sounds like it'd make the situation worse. After all, we can't go back from Avenger knowing about Conductor's presence, and we don't know if Conductor would be able to subdue Avenger at full fury. We're just going to have to ride this out. Switching to Rider right now is a bad idea, given how terribly precarious Avenger's position is, but as for the use of our Command Spells... hm.
Two Spells at once is a hefty cost, but if there were ever an emergency situation to use them, it'd be now. We've got two enemies bearing down on us, and Avenger's lost sight of FoF. At the same time, using those two Spells would only put us back at square one. On the other hand, if we heal him up with one and choose to 'kill' slowly... maybe our team can keep themselves safe while taking advantage of his blind rage. Like they were intending to do with Alter Ego before we calmed her. Either that or at least he'll be able to survive the restorative beatdown they need to give him, and his attacks could possibly force Caster and Lancer to retreat?
So I think the best idea might be Don't Summon Conductor - Stay With Avenger - Use 1 Spell To Heal - Kill Slowly.
Also absolutely do NOT bind Rider and Avenger together. We are in no good position to be lashing our Servants together in a game-breaking permanent fashion against their wills!
Now my other thoughts have nothing to do with Avenger, actually, and have been in the back of my mind for a while: I'm starting to think. That Tamamo. May not be Tamamo.
Honestly I had my doubts even before she started spouting off about our connections and options like that. From the start her behavior hasn't been very... Tamamo-like, you know? At the beginning of Extra, she was more subdued than she's seen in later installments and especially FGO, but even then she was never quite so aloof and regal as she's been so far. Maybe it's because we're not her Masters and she doesn't have a front to put up to us specifically... but that doesn't really explain it to me.
But seriously she's got way too much knowledge to not be suspicious as fuck. I could excuse her knowing we've got a Servant on each side, she could have possibly sensed it out somehow via her magic - we did immediately jump from Rider to Avenger while she was around to witness it, or maybe Rider ended up saying something after we left, we can't be sure. But implying she knows about our limited options each time? That's a whole different ballpark. And I can't imagine the choice of Miss Admin's appearance and having Tamamo around without some fuckery about the two of them being involved.
So how are we feeling about Kiara? I'm partly kinda sus of her. I think there's a real possibility that SHE is the Alter Ego and imprisoned/replaced the actual MoonCancer to take control (especially if said MoonCancer may have been BB). That said, it's just a feeling, and is muddied by the fact that she very much DOES qualify as one, with or without her Summer version.
I saw @vampirerite theorize this too (hope you don't mind the @!) and it's definitely an interesting and very much possible idea! Kiara IS a schemer. It's just a question of what the deception would offer her that she couldn't get from just acting as Alter Ego... If it's true and our Moon Cancer is meant to be BB, their general dislike of/rivalry with each other could be enough, but I wonder.
Plus, her magical energy was described as 'calm and cooling like a freshwater stream', which would fit with her Moon Cancer variant, given her leaning into the mermaid legend.
Btw I'd say we seriously lucked out with (likely) Hokusai as Foreigner. Imaginary Scramble aside they are still by far the most stable Foreigner servant out of the bunch.
If it IS Hokusai, yeah, definitely. She's still Weird(TM) but nowhere as off the cuff as any of the other candidates. But she's just my best guess at the Foreigner spot, and I'm not as knowledgeable on the JP Foreigners. I'd love to hear what others think for the possibilities tbh.
I can get on board with Mandricardo, or some really messed up version of him, showing up. There's no way his inclusion was an accident, and I have a feeling Miss Admin won't be deleting him so easily. But I don't think he'd necessarily carry a foil in the Servant ranks with him. In a way, wouldn't we be his foil, as the Masters who witnessed what happened to him?
That said I would fucking LOVE for Hektor to be the Lancer. I love Hektor and any chance for him to show off and Be Fucking Awesome is one I'll gladly take. I don't have a lvl 90 10/10/10 Bond 10 Oji-san on my support list for nothing!!!!
Ok so this is a simulated War. A simulated War that’s managed to run a trillion+ fuckin times, somehow, with a variety of Servants and a MASS of Masters. That would take a HUGE amount of computing power. But this isn’t the Moon Cell, because we’re on the Holy Grail system with the Lesser Grail and Greater Grail. So what in the FUCK could possibly have THAT kind of computing power outside of the Moon Cell, a literal supercomputer??? I feel like the next possible answer would be ‘some incredibly fucked up Atlas experiment gone wrong’ but I’m not deep enough in the Nasuverse to speak with knowledge on the matter of Atlas.
We still don’t even know what the POINT of this simulation is in the first place!! Why is Ruler stuck with running this until she gets ‘a proper Grail War’?? What is the point of all that computing power for something so asinine!!! WHERE did they get a mass of Masters from and for what??? It could never be a proper Grail War in the first place without 1 Master to 1 Servant!! WHAT IS GOING ONNNNN
