It’s a cute quirk, but it’s also deeply, deeply tragic in a very subtle way that's hard to piece together unless you know about japanese sweets or Kiara’s personal history.
So let’s learn a little bit about ohagi, and why Kiara loves it so much!
Ohagi, and the very similar sweet botamochi, are traditional japanese sweets made from glutinous rice with a coating of sweet red bean paste and, optionally, a dusting of something else, often ground black sesame or soybean flower.
Here’s some that I made for Kiara’s birthday last year! They’re very doable and pretty tasty.
Higan is a Japanese buddhist festival celebrated around the spring and autumn equinoxes, and ohagi or botamochi is eaten as a ritual food during that equinox. Sources I found indicated that the difference between ohagi vs botamochi is not easy to pin down, but some say that the sweet is called ohagi when eaten for the autumn equinox. (This is beside the point, but the red spider lily, with which Kiara is strongly associated, also blooms around that time.) If you want to know more, check out this article I found on the history of ohagi and its ritual connection.
Kiara was born as the heir and savior to a mountaintop Buddhist cult. Her upbringing was deeply abusive, and despite the fatal illness she suffered from, for which her community and her father gave her no treatment, she was denied any semblance of a normal childhood while she was molded to be their perfect savior.
Nothing that inspires attachment was allowed to her. The book of fairy tales she ended up with was deemed inappropriate and taken from her because she spent too much time reading it, liked it too much.
It’s hard to imagine her being allowed sweets like a normal kid, since they’re designed for stimulating flavor.
But, of course, ohagi isn’t just a sweet. It’s a ritual food. So they couldn’t deny her that, could they?.
As a child, those 7 days surrounding the equinox twice a year were probably the only time she ever got to have sweets.
And of course, she probably learned to be very careful about not letting on that she was enjoying herself. Not overindulging.
Like fairy tales, it was a tiny piece of happiness that accidentally slipped through the cracks and gave her something to latch onto. And, like fairy tales, she carries it with her into adulthood.
It’s not coincidence that she makes ohagi and tea instead of chocolates for Valentine’s. In this new place where she can heal a little bit from her past and grow, she takes the chance to make ohagi herself, instead of waiting for the proper holiday; and to share them with someone else as a thing she loves, instead of hiding them away.
The more I think about it, the more it feels like I was truly possessed by... something or someone when I wrote that Renheng fic...
Each time I go back and read it, I just:
"I know I wrote this. I remember writing it all. All 5800 words.
... But this still feels like someone else wrote it, actually."
Why?
Why?
And the circumstances feel so strange??
Like... I know I saw that funny video of Stelle pulling Luocha, Blade and Kafka and whatever ensues...
And the face Blade made in that video, as he popped in and immediately looked towards Dan Heng, and poor boy running for his life made me go "Wish it started like that, but ended up sweet, y'know".
And then... I didn’t even LOOK for any Renheng content.
I started writing the first chapter right off, no questions asked.
And I could feel the urge very literally.
It was coming from my soul.
And so I wrote those 1700 words.
And when I posted it, I thought:
"Okay. This is done. Now I can move on, back to the stuff I was-"
Nope, demanded something beyond me. Write the rest, now.
"The... the rest?"
Yes.
And then 4100 words fucking happened.
TL;DR:
Something possessed me during three days to write Renheng fluff and smut out of nowhere, and I still haven't recovered.
Howdy! So I got a lot of inspiration last night for a potential Kiara fic that I wanna start outlining. I remember you offered any materials that may be helpful, and I could use your expertise specifically on Kiara's golden "realm" that we face her in after ascending to her Demon form. It appears in the SERAPH event in FGO as well
I may have misread something or am forgetting things, but I can't quite figure out what it's supposed to be or represent. It's the core of the Moon Cell or a part of her authority, possibly? I could be missing something
I really appreciate you friend, and I look forward to sharing it with you once I have a rough draft ready!
Ooh, of course!
So on the most basic level, canonically, according to her Materials, the thing you see in SERAPH is the result of falling victim to her Charm: it transports you, mentally, to that sort of heavenly paradise, and the change in background is supposed to be a representation of what you see when you’re dazzled by the experience.
That background itself is based on the setting for her boss fight in CCC, and it uses iconography related to her and her ascension, hence the presence of the Moon Cell in the sky—though if you wanted to, you could probably argue it’s a reflection of the origin of SE.RA.PH.’s digitized space structure coming from her at the moment she was fused with the Moon Cell.
Thematically it’s a reference to the idea of a Pure Land, essentially a plane of greater perfections that you can be reborn into through some combination of faith, merit, and practice, based on the denomination. The idea being, you’ve been transported to her kind of Pure Land, a Pleasure Heaven that revolves around herself.
That in turn is related to a lot of the language used to describe the consequence of being absorbed by her, whether through the Ten Thousand Colored Stagnation (in its codecast or Noble Phantasm form) or Amitābha Amidala. It’s typically described as a sort of transmigration into the realm of her body, or something that seems that way for the moment of bliss you experience before you’re gone. It’s unclear in different original CCC sources whether her body is in fact meant to be essentially its own plane of reality, but by the time of FGO Nasu seems to have decided that would be cool, and the descriptive material for her FGO Noble Phantasm makes that more explicit.
I think there’s plenty of room to extend beyond that within the bounds of theme and lore, but if you’re just talking canon, that’s what I’ve got for you. Hope that helps!
One of her voicelines mentions ohagi: also cute. They added a lot of cuteness in this animation update, which is important. You have to represent that part of her, I think.
Look! It's the mass of evil spirits from CCC!
Cool fancy new mudra skill animation! It looks a little bit less like her original boss fight animation now, and has some cool bells and whistles. However! It also now draws some of the original CCC sound effects from her Womb Realm self-buff skill, which the animation is based on. Awesome!
her quick animation, which is based on the Daizushichi yakan-po skill (aka Dakini Skull Ritual), now also looks less like its original version. It's more of a laser barrage now, whereas before was like a rain of homing particles emanating off an orb of energy.
On a similar note: She seems to incorporate that energy orb into more attacks! Very cool to see that get fleshed out more. Using it to summon her barrage of tentacles from her close Arts card is really interesting.
Speaking of which: more details on her tentacle attacks through this new close quick attack! Apparently they can fire beams. No wonder she uses saber materials.
And hey, this pose looks familiar.
There's some other changes as well: her Extra attack, based on Eitenryu: Mindful Circumambulation (aka 1000 Day Walk of Mindfulness) is a little slower and more weighty, and she teleports around in flames much like Kama does--and they even use a similar sound effect.
Overall, I really like a lot of the changes and new additions. It's cool to see that they're giving her a lot more of her own favor, rather than making her a super direct adaptation of her CCC animations with some tentacle attacks added on. Her NP in particular is a huge glowup.
However, I can't help but feel a little on the fence knowing this will replace her existing animations. Her updated far Quick card removes a lot of flavor IMO, and she seems to have a little bit less of that serene cruelty and using sacred techniques for evil ends vibe, and is a bit more mage-doing-cool attacks. Part of what makes her design cool is how different and unique it is, and I'd have liked to see new animation stick closely to the guiding philosophy behind her design. IDK how I feel about her expression work too--it's so great seeing new and different expressions on her, but some of them just seem too... normal and human to be regular parts of her animations. All in all, a lot of cool stuff, I just feel we're losing a little of that Kiara essence in the details.
Hey. This is my possibly favorite Noble Phantasm line in FGO.
But you can’t appreciate it if you don’t get the Buddhist reference, so come over here and let’s learn some Buddhism with the sexy nun:
What, you might ask, is an abhisecana (or abhisheka) rite?
As I understand it, it’s an initiation rite for a practitioner who is advancing in their study of the Dharma. In some Buddhist schools, including Shingon—the school from which Tachikawa-ryu, Kiara’s school, branches off (which we don’t know much about, because it’s long-dead IRL and was subject to political book burnings, but that’s another story—this rite involves a student being assigned to a bodhisattva, whose teachings and/or qualities they will study to guide their development and give them direction.
Rather than let a student choose a bodhisattva based on their preconceptions at the time of the ritual, they are blindfolded and cast a flower onto a mandala—like the womb realm mandala, shown below—and whoever it lands on, that’s who they go with.
But Kiara is, as always, encouraging living beings to give up their heavenly aspirations—to cast their flower instead on the mandala of the realm of desire. Let it fall where it may—chase whatever vice or illusion your whims take you to.
But make no mistake.
However it falls, there’s only one bodhisattva that will watch over you as you dance in the palm of her hand.
Starting to put together the new Kiara information I got, there's a lot of new info that kinda conflicts with what I have believed, and some stuff that comes down to translation, IMO.
CW: talking about abuse and CSA. Also suicide.
Off the top of my head: There's very little reference to Kiara experiencing abuse, and particularly sexual abuse, during her childhood. Besides the neglect of people giving lip service but not treating her--the exception being that her father clearly had some fucked up and inappropriate feelings toward her that he seemed not to realize until the end. My impression is that the Eiten-ryu village was a somewhat normal community before she turned it into a living Hell.
This is a departure from its depictions in FGO and even in the CCC manga as a cesspool of human evil where the worst impulses of humanity gathered at her bedside. Interesting to see--perhaps a change in direction over time?
Accompanying this, we've got more on the nature vs. nurture front. I've always understood her to be somebody born with all the qualities and capabilities expected of a bodhisattva
In her SG profile, she mentions reading as one of her favorite activities, especially "recently," presumably now that she's in the moon cell and with Hans as her servant. This is interesting--it's been mentioned in the past she sort of forgot about fairy tales, so did he re-kindle her interest? Could it be that she's just interested in fairy tales, now? Much to consider here. Previously, I had come to the conclusion that she would not have read or consumed much media due to the description in FGO's A Dream from the Cradle CE that she gave up on the words of others. Someone who sees people as insects, insensate creatures, wouldn't be interested in their words, right? But perhaps she would--after all, she's described as addicted to human lives despite viewing them as trash.
Speaking of which, we've gotten in other media, especially by the time in FGO, descriptions of her attitude toward people, and how she uses them up. It seemed in FGO that she would mess with and stimulate people to get a kick out of them and see the depth of their desires and depravity, but then lose interest when it got stale, leading them to kill themselves. However, in the section that covers her past in CCC, it says that she orgasms when she crushes their lives. That's interesting to me. The concept of people with interesting internal lives as more delicious sexual food for her to enjoy in a consumptive way by ruining them gels with the implied storyline of her FGO bond lines. Very interesting.
Her perspective on love! Koi, and its relation to ai! Previously I thought she had just never really considered koi. But apparently she has considered it and thinks it's irrelevant to her and a bad thing! Will have to dig more into this. Does she think it's a bad thing because to her, "evil" means "something that isn't pleasing to Sessyoin Kiara?"
Speaking of which, her attitude toward good and evil was made a lot more clear here--good is what she likes, what pleases her. Evil is what she doesn't. IIRC during her pre-battle conversation in SERAPH she says something to the effect that humans generally take this perspective, and I've had this as a pillar of her perspective for a while. But it's even more clear, and we got some nuances. Will have to probe into those!
As far as her attitude toward mainstream buddhism, I got some interesting info here. Previously, I had come to the understanding that she essentially views traditional buddhist views as a mistake. Now, I'm not entirely sure. There was a lot of "no, but virtue means this [heinous and terrifying thing], right?" that is wholly earnest. And seeing people that she takes no interest in as "Evil"--boring, flavorless priests who have cleansed themselves of desires--wouldn't she just directly see them as evil because of that perspective, rather than an opinion on the doctrinal difference? On the other hand, she went out of her way to break the Eiten-ryu precepts, and she does have some lines that really show a disdain for concepts like no-inherent-self (even if I think the translation kinda butchered it). It's hard to call. Much to look into
And finally, of the things that stood out most to me, is her general attitude and bearing. Her plan is deeply calculated, that much is for sure, but it was hard to get a reading on her, like... level of self-awareness. It sort of seemed like she had a naive and simplistic quality to her deeply twisted worldview, in keeping with the Materials profile that describes her as being like a hungry ghost, thinking unwaveringly that everything she believes is right. Elsewhere, especially in an event like Ooku, she seems to have a wider view surrounding what comes across as a complex and considered but extremely dark perspective on things. She feels... not less intelligent, here, but perhaps less wise. Will have to think on it more.
I'm worried that change in attitude might come down to the translation. I did notice, for example, that the translation for her voice lines for Daizushichi: yakan-po were much more... airheaded and hedonist, possibly as a result of localization efforts, and that the line for Eitenry: Mindful Circumambulation seemed... expanded on? We'll see.
All in all, there's a daunting amount for me to dig into, and it's troublesome to have some of my understandings of her cast into doubt, but I've wanted some of this information translated for literally years and it's SO exciting to finally have all the material I need line up, and to have clarity on what has been presented as canon.
Hey! My name is Lany, and I'm putting together a comprehensive reference guide to Kiara Sessyoin from Fate/Extra CCC!
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Because the game was never released outside Japan, and translations or even just raw footage of some of her most important scenes is hard to track down, a lot of her depth has been inaccessible to a lot of the English speaking fanbase.
I aim to change that! I've spent three years researching the character, and I'm putting all my sources and thoughts together into this reference guide.
I will be splitting this guide into four sections, with the first dropping today.
Videos, transcripts, and translations of all her official appearances, with annotations and markers for the most important scenes for understanding her character.
Collected official materials and interviews that help piece together her lore, abilities, and place in the Nasuverse magic system, with commentary to draw important connections.
Additional references sources including buddhist texts, definitions, and symbols to place her philosophy and aesthetics in its religious context
and finally, my own advice, interpretations, and touchstones for writing and thinking about the character.
I'm really excited to share this project with everyone, and I hope it can be of use to people! It's a work in progress, so please give me any feedback you have.
