#adachiame

[lapithae]

I think I can somewhat answer the Kama and Parvati bit, I think it's likely the resentment about her sealing away Sakura's darker side away, while I get the idea behind it, it's essentially "sweeping the problem under the rug" type of action while not accepting both the pretty AND ugly side of someone. Yes her being the wife of Shiva is a factor, it's more so Kama being the god of love, requires them to understand humanity more, BOTH good AND bad, not a personal level but more like a desk job type of deal. So the fact that Parvati just "shut away the unsightly side of host" Kama took it as a chance to show her up and point out her own flaws seeing as she was so quick to hide away that side of her, which is something that only Parvati has done out of all the pseudo servants. Not one has done what Parvati has done, at least not so overtly. Kama chose Dark Sakura, because she was "REJECTED" by the "GOOD GUYS"

I don’t entirely agree.

I feel like that'd be a legitimate factor if Kama seemed to care about Sakura or that part of her, but she doesn't. In all actuality, her treatment of Sakura is far shallower than Parvati's, considering the way that she switches around Sakura's body to fall into some line of 'appeal' like some scuffed doll. Even reducing Sakura's trauma-infused childhood body into something 'cute'. Kama doesn't care about Sakura in the slightest, if anything Sakura's influence is what's giving her a smidgen of humanity that Kama is consistently baffled at rather than accepting towards. There are moments where Sakura's latent influence seems to stir a sense of empathy, but Kama herself quickly ignores them as fast as they come.

Parvati focuses on Sakura's 'good aspects', sure, but she also takes the time to promise to Medusa that she'd take care of Sakura's body as long as she's using it. It'd be one thing if Parvati was especially callous towards Sakura in her own way, but that's not how it is. Parvati draws out Sakura's good, but also cares about Sakura. Kama draws out Sakura's bad, but is only doing it because that's what Parvati left and she wants to shame her without really knowing what she's shaming Parvati for. It makes Kama seem the most shallow out of the two.

Muramasa and Shirou have an unspoken connection because of who they are and what they're obsessed with, and so Shirou giving his body to a Servant to the sake of the Human Order follows. Ishtar and Rin have an unspoken agreement that allows Ishtar to use the majority of their shared body, as Rin commonly accepts they're one and the same. Parvati and Sakura seem to have a similar agreement, as Parvati is willing to let herself be openly influenced by Sakura's feelings and memories, yet desires to take care of the girl that lent herself to her. Astraea and Luvia, Zhuge Liang and Waver, Mannanan and Bazett- there's always a degree of input that the Servant defers to the host in order to properly manifest as a pseudo. Kama and Sakura also have parallels, but Kama is the least open to those parallels.

Kama doesn't understand humanity. She doesn't even really understand love in any sense. She barely understands the random teenager that summoned her. Which is what makes her a Beast, because she has a gross misunderstanding of human nature derived from a sense of misplaced love and compassion. Compared to Parvati, who acts with focused, if sometimes overly intense compassion towards those she cares about, be it Ashwatthama, Ganesha, or her Master, when it comes to which one of them 'understands love the most', Parvati is a much more competent 'god of love' than Kama, because Parvati understands that there's much more to 'love' than the surface aspects of it that Kama focuses far too much on.

While Parvati is the only one who is stated to pick multiple aspects from their hosts, that seems to fall in line with who she is as a goddess. Parvati herself is a goddess that exists as a 'benevolent form with darker manifestations', and so it only makes sense that Parvati would do the same. If anything, a 'Dark Sakura' Servant would be someone like Durga or Kali, a goddess that represents the darker, more violent sides of Parvati, yet aren't entirely evil either.

[twinxmasters-archived]

adachiame said: Illya probably: Basaka!(The adorable image of Basaka doing farmwork with Illya)

“Haha, this will definitely work! Berserker, plow the fields!”

“GRAAAAAHHHH!!”

*BOOM*

The oversized hoe slams into the ground, creating an eruption of earth that dots the landscape in scattered soil. A two-foot hole sinks into the ground in front of the gargantuan Servant.

“Huh... Raguna won’t be too bothered by this, I hope.”

[cantillat-moved]

Is he being judged?

On a second thought maybe he is in danger....

[shieldofsteel-blog]

theunluckyheroicspirit: Toll Nerd headpats smoll nerd just cause. Even he can't explain why, perhaps it was the call of nerds and Mashu's cuteness, that rewarded her with headpats. Hopefully this time would not end up in a fight with a dark apparition, Mashu looked more so from the stories he has heard, so it did cause for a brief moment of pause before he continued the action.

Mashu was unsure why the man hesitated or why, for the briefest of moments, his face hardened like someone ready to stick their hand into a rabid dog’s cage. Nonetheless, she gave him a smile, headpats were always appreciated.

“Thank you, sir! Um... do you plan to introduce yourself too?” She hoped the question didn’t come off as too rude.

[belliigerent]

@adachiame

Which was impressive seeing as she was probably only a little taller than the likes of Krillin.  “You waiting for an invitation or are you going to get in here?“  Genkai spoke in a slightly rough, elderly voice with a bit of sternness in her tone without turning away from what she was doing, sensing his presence even before he even came to the front.

   “Ah, right.” He followed her inside, leaving his boots by the front entrance. It seemed a traditional type place and he didn’t wish to disrespect her in any fashion. “I heard about you,” he commented. “I was just curious as to who you were and what they asked you to do around here. It’s not every day new buildings appear around these parts.”

[lapithae]

What if the mesoamerican deities are like the machine gods and white titan, in that they can divide themselves into separate entities of a whole? We see this most clearly with Olympus, in that Zeus forced a combiner type absorption of others in the pantheon

Here's the thing. The Greek Mecha Gods have an incredibly simple mythological evolutionary path. Greek to Roman. Easy. It's simplified for the Nasuverse, incredibly so, but he makes it work.

Zeus -> Jupiter. The machine that was Zeus became known as Jupiter as the Romans became more involved. Ta-da. This is because Greco-Roman cults and mythology bled into each other in a relatively (and I emphasize RELATIVELY) clean fashion. Zeus was the son of Cronus. Jupiter was the son of Saturn. Chaos is there either way.

Athena is colloquially believed to have come from Zeus' head? Then Fate Athena came from Zeus' fucking... brain-unit, or whatever. It's robots. It makes the Greek pantheon completely unique and not a natural evolution from spreading cults (I'm assuming they're cutting the Ishtar-Aphrodite connection), but that's how it is sometimes in these sorts of media/

Anyways.

Guess what doesn't have that? Mesoamerica.

While Greece is relatively clean, there's a lot going on in Mesoamerica. A lot of tribes. A lot of gods for those tribes. A lots of different interpretations of those different gods for those different tribes. Not like Greece and Rome didn't have that, but the broader 'canon' got cleaned up more.

Kukulkan to Quetzalcoatl is clear, right? Easy? 'Kukulkan is the Mayan Quetzalcoatl'? Eh, kind of. It's enough. You can follow how the cults that worshipped Kukulkan spread to worship Quetzalcoatl.

So, we reach the 'space parasite debacle'.

Unlike the Greco-Roman deities, that were sourced from 'Chaos' regardless, there is no explanation for what the source for the Mesoamerican gods were. This is mostly because trying to link Itzamna, Hunab Ku, and/or Ometeotl outside of 'Creator God' is tough. FGO also seems to slightly imply that Tezcatlipoca just... 'was', meaning that he may be the creator god on his own. Which... kind of works if you don't feel like acknowledging anything else.

Now, Nasu cleverly (and by 'cleverly' I mean 'deviously', and by 'deviously' I mean 'infuriatingly') does not explain the transition from Mayan to Aztec. He goes 'something something, and then Quetzalcoatl appeared in Aztec culture'. Which is quite literally nothing. Getting the Mesoamerican gods there in the first place is explained in the barest terms.

(ESSENTIALLY, THE SPACE PARASITE THING FALLS APART THE INSTANT YOU PUT AN OUNCE OF CONSIDERATION TOWARDS HOW THE MYTHOLOGY FUNCTIONS)

Anyways, I have a lot of thoughts about how the Nasuverse handles conflicting mythology as a whole, but... I don't want to write an entire book about something like this.

[lapithae]

I can possibly answer this, note Quetzalcoatl's Xiuhcoatl combined with Piedra del Sol, Ultimo Tope Patada. References an asteroid/meteorite/etc, that wiped out a ton of life in the area. This would also explain the Obsidian Sun aspect of Tez due to a number of Mayan/Aztec using obsidian tools that were created from said impact.

This is not just any old asteroid either, it was the one that wiped out the dinosaurs, Chicxulub Impactor.

Which impacted in the Yucatán Peninsula, which was 10 kilometers in size. This same asteroid in FGO, is the origin of the parasitic alien microbes that became the mesoamerican deities. Think of them similarly with the Machine Gods' Klironomia in how they could be absorbed/enter into bodies. Basically it's taking the asteroids/meteorites being the colony ships of microbial life transport to other planets

The issue isn't the meteorite. I get the meteorite. The meteorite is the one singular detail that they keep emphasizing. It's trying the meteorite into any aspect of Mesoamerican mythology that's the actual complication.

[lapithae]

Thoughts on Kuku's design? Now that we have it all. Without the spoiler details of course, if it's interesting or not?

I got Lum vibes from Kukulkan when she first appeared- mostly because of the hair- and she definitely didn't lose that feeling with her ascensions. As much as Tezcatlipoca's design is being compared to 80's-90's manga, Kukulkan seems reminiscent of 80's-90's anime. I think the design would be offputting if this was a 'PHH Kukulkan', but considering her origins, it works in a fun way.

I definitely like the first two more. The third is... a lot. Don't dislike it, just don't like it as much as the other two.