Countdown to 10th Anniversary
Okaayyy I'll try to do this too~
Unlike on Twitter I didn’t get to reply to those every day, so I’ll just post all of them at once!
So there's not actually any character I specifically disliked the first time around, but still if I had to choose then probably Jacopo ssdfgd Thing is, he’s usually the type of characters I’m very hard on, especially as he is introduced in Door 3; and tbh I wasn’t very fond of him by the end of the main game either cause I thought his backstory was super rushed and didn’t do a good job of making me invested and understand him. But then I played Requiem and it completely ruined me... Now he’s fighting with Morg as a spot for my fave character.
Okay so as a whole Requiem’s ending/The Revenant’s Dream has my heart forever <3 But speaking about the main game’s endings specifically thennnn to me it’s a mix between Ending 3: ‘Bonjour, Poupée’ and Ending 5: ‘Never Let Go.’
Ending 3’s perspective of having Michel stay in the mansion with the Maid is just endlessly fascinating and bittersweet to me, and also because I love the Maid so much and I wishwishwish she’d be more respected and we’d had more of her dynamic with Michel and everyone tbh. So having an ending where she gets to stay ‘herself’ instead of going back to Door 5!Giselle is just soooo :3 Ending 5 is pretty cool in itself but I admit I like it more because of its followup in Tir na nog, which is one of my fave Fata side stories. Here too the idea of giving WHG a sort of ‘happy’ end where she gets to live her life even at the expense of Giselle and Morgana is very sad but in a strange hopeful way.
(On that sense, I could give a special mention to Ending 4: 'A Moment of Hesitation' as well, just for its followup story ‘Pain’ where Giselle completely kick Morgana's ass and I always loves seeing Morgana having her ass kicked <3)
Day 3 - Favorite Character
I love her so much. She just hits a lot of stuff I dig in fiction; the way the main game slowly build up her character and introduce her, how even as just as a voice she has such a strong, charismatic presence; how genuinely fun she is as the main antagonist; I love her personality, her design, her backstory, all the complexities she has regarding her fractured identity, her relationship to religion and the way it prevent her from forming bonds and relating to others, the way she starts out as a genuinely very kind-hearted girl who still struggles with ugly emotions and self-loathing and self-righteousnss but end up getting so warped because of trauma, abuse and loneliness.
But to be honest, the thing I love the most about her is how absolutely awful she can be for most of the story. I don't like when people tries to argue that she’s Done Nothing Wrong because, yes obviously she has every right to wants revenge on the men who abused her, but also it kinds of gloss over that she’s... you know, she’s not a good person. She’s pretty horrible and caused so much harm towards people who've done nothing to her and never even apologize for any of this; and I love the way she weaponizes her own trauma and use her status as a victim to justify those things - but also, that even despite all of those things, the story is still adamant that her anger and her pain are valid and should be respected, that even with all the awfulness she deserves to be heard and understood and be given a second chance. That she can grows and move on without having to literally stay stuck in place.
One of the reason Fata has stayed with me more than 4 years after I’ve read it now, is because I genuinely think it is one of the best stories I’ve seen that was able to put forth that kind of message of ‘your pain and revenge is valid but you cannot hurt others to obtain it and if you keep staying so wrapped up in your own pain without moving on at the end of the day you are only going to hurt yourself’ in a way that felt so compassionate and non-judgemental.
Day 4 - Unforgettable Scene
Pheeww okay so the most stricking Fatamoru scene ever to me is actually in Requiem, when Mell lure Morgana to open her cabin’s door and Yukimasa cuts off her arm. Just… the entire mental breakdown she experiences right up until she meets Jacopo in the tower is so raw and effective and amazing, and her ‘I wasn’t born to spend my entire life suffering’ is also my favorite quote from the game.
(Another one that always get to me is in the first part when she experiences a whole meltdown after the festival and lashes out at Ceren, because again, it just feels so genuine & ugly and a culmination of her issues and messiness and identity crisis (and of course the following scene where Jacopo comfort her is just very sweet.)
My fave CG is probably this one just cause Im a basic bitch and she is very pretty ok <3
Now from the main game, it would probably be Morgana’s death scene in Door 8, when she dies in Michel’s arms and then he has to carry her outside... I think that moment of seeing Morgana completely dissociating and then her dying in Michel’s arms before he brings her outside the mansion is just a perfect encapsulation of the story’s climax and ending. And that’s also where my fave CG is too, of course.
(Now obviously there’s a lot of other scenes/CG I love wrt everything with Michel/Door 7/the Maid but... Yea I just love Morgana whump I guess sdsgsf)
Christ right I also feel obligated to give a special mention to the scene also in Door 8 where Michel has that conversation with Morgana's past self in a dream before his confrontation with Yukimasa. It's just... there's so much in this quiet scene on the way both of them connect with each other and Michel desperately trying to reach out to Morgana and it almost made me tear up the first time I read it lol.
Day 5 - Best Relationship
This is the part where I get cancelled lmaooo but Jacopo/Morgana and the entirety of their relationship throughout the two games and the tragedy of their story will always own my heart. I was very obssessed with them for like almost 3 years straight when I finished Requiem back in 2018 and while like most people they leave me super ConflictedTM they’re still very important to me. Like with Jacopo's character it's really Requiem that got me very invested in them, with the way it portray them as kind but traumatized people who manages to connect in quiet, simple ways, to their stupid but affectionate banters, to having an innate understanding and complicity and longing for each other; and then of course through the way it all ends up crumbling away and they just end up destroying each other. Fragment, and especially The Revenant's Dream, is also what really cemented their relationship to me because of how it works so well in concluding their story both in a very sad way but still leaving a vague optimistic note, and I like the ambiguity of it.
I'm so captivated by Morgana's complicated feelings of hating Jacopo and being unable to forgive him but also being unable to stop a small part of her of loving him (and hating herself for that) and Jacopo still loving her but feeling he needs to be punished and that he doesn't deserve to be by her side anymore and how at the of the day they'll still always care deeply for one another even while having hurt each other so much and it's just soooo. sooo angsty and compelling. I do believe that the most healthy outcome for both of them would be to cut ties even while acknowledging that they'll always be important for each other, but at the same time there's a part of me who find the idea of them being able to reconnect again even if they'll never be the people they used to be and will never be able to love each other the way they used to very meaningful.
(By the way, I absolutely recommend this fic by CONSUMER_ELECTRONICS on this topic because it's very beautifully written and manages to encapsulate all of this perfectly: https://archiveofourown.org/works/35846557)
Anyway, I'll always love them both in all their messiness and Problematic-nessTM glory.
Special mention to Michel/Giselle of course because they’re still the pair who MAKE the entire main game, as well as Morgana & Michel and Jacopo & Maria.
Pfff I’m gonna be honest, I always thought the comedic aspects are the weakest parts of Fata. I don’t really have any that specifically stood out to me, but every time Maria and Morgana roast Jacopo is beautiful. This one actually made me chuckle out loud:
Day 7 - What Fata Morgana is To You
So it took me a while to think about this one cause I admit I'm not sure I can really put it into words in a way... that makes sense lol. I can't say Fata is a work that like, fundamentally changed or saved my life or something like that (I played HiguUmi first and so Ryukishi took that honor before haha, although it probably would have been the case if I'd discovered Fata earlier when I was still a teen), but I think it basically kind of represents the type of story I love and that is instrinsically so... "me" on a core level.
I spoke a little during Day 3 about Morgana & what she means to me, but basically the story's themes of emphathy and forgiveness and tragedy and identity, the way the narrative's structured and how every scene and character and dialogue has a meaning and purpose is just exactly what I look for in fiction and what resonantes the most with me. If you ask me what is the most like "me" when it comes to stories, then Fata is just the first choice that comes to my mind. I also first read it when I was in the middle of a pretty low point in my life and I do think that it managed to help me a little to get out of that depressive state I was stuck in and, in a way, led me to get more proactive in what I wanted to do with my life. It's what motivated me to get more involved into fandom online spaces as well, whereas until now I used to be more of a quiet lurker, and thus thanks to that I met a lot of cool people I really enjoy talking with!
So yeah. Thanks a lot FataMoru and Novect. You mean a lot to me and I'll always be glad and grateful I got to discover you at the time I did ❤️🦋
