Something About Death Flags (those Quickly Approaching And Those Already Passed)

Artoria Caster X Reader

Requested by Sharnout on Ao3

Artoria Caster, first and foremost, will always tell you and only exactly what she wants and needs.

She doesn’t put on a brave face with you.

She doesn’t lie about what she feels like knowing what her future is going to be.

With you the mask she wears is placed to the side, and her truest feelings and fears are laid bare.

Her fear of failing the people who truly need her.

Her fear of what will happen after she fulfills her purpose.

Her fear of the responsibility that will inevitably come to her.

And because of this, you are the only person in the world, including Artoria herself, who truly knows what makes Artoria, Artoria.

Her ability to continue onward, no matter how much she stumbles, now matter how much she falls.

That being said.

This girl needs adult supervision at all times so she doesn’t burn the house or world down trying to make something for you, and no Oberon doesn’t count.

She’s very affectionate in private, however PDA isn’t something she really knows how to do nor is it something she’s entirely comfortable with aside from a side hug or linking fingers briefly.

Not to mention that physical affection, while a big part of how she shows her love, isn’t her main way of doing it.

That, for better or for worse, goes to acts of service and gifts.

I say for better or for worse because she will go to the literal ends of time and space for you.

For example if you offhandedly mentioned something that would be nice to have that’s old or an artifact of some sort, Artoria will activate her british skills, and just *Yoink* that bitch to give it to you, regardless of what happened to get it.

Luckily, you know Oberon.

Unluckily, you know Oberon.

But time to get back on track.

Artoria might be a bit pessimistic at times but that’s something to be expected considering her life, but if you manage to pull her away to somewhere for a moment and give her a little peck it’ll for one, completely shut her down even if it was only on the cheek, and two give her a ton of energy that will cancel out her pessimism, even if only for the day.

Because of this you are the first person Artoria turns to whenever she wants to “Plan” something, which she only ever does when she’s nervous and scared.

That means you and her “Plan” things out a lot.

In summary, you are a guidepost and rock for Artoria, a haven where she can be herself without fear or concern for who might see her, and because of that she will go to extremes to try and pay you back for simply existing and being with her, and no matter what you say to her this is unlikely to change, so keep her close so you can keep an eye on her, keep her loved so you can try and fix the pain her life has caused her, and most importantly, tell her the truth, tell her your honest opinion, tell her that no matter what happens you’ll always be in her corner.

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Sorry for how short it is, while in the middle of finishing this up a gas leak decided to happen, everything's fine I just have a massive headache and couldn't find the force of will to make it any longer, if any of you need me I'm going to be taking a nap.

especially after the events of olympus it is paramount that fgo players understand that they are not above the narrative, and the story’s antagonists will never be as cartoonish and one-dimensional as they might think they are. their motivations, their thoughts, and their goals will always be more complex than the most surface level reading, and often you will not know what they are right away. passing judgment upon them is stupid, the decisions they’ve made come from far more gray and far less lenient circumstances. it’s always been that way. you are not immune to making those same choices. that’s the point. from the earliest days of the fate series, way back during the original vn era, one of the most compelling and prevalent ideas within the story was you might have something in common with your worst enemy. you might have also walked down their path had your roles been reversed. you cannot say you could have objectively done better or worse simply because you have the benefit of hindsight and because your experiences were different. shit, ubw smacks you on the head with this by making its main protagonist and main antagonist the same fucking person.

this is especially evident with the crypters. everyone wants to brand them as insecure, jealous, holier-than-thou mass murderers. this is disproven as early as lostbelt 1. kadoc didn’t take part in the bleaching of the earth’s surface. he says explicitly that when he woke up from cryostasis, the world had already been bleached. he wasn’t truly jealous of you, he was taking out the trauma of being denied a purpose and then dying out on someone like him. had guda been in his position, they would’ve reacted the same. he cools off in lostbelt 2, which is why he is kinder and happy to see your gaze has regained some measure of resolve.

ophelia, akuta, and pepe also reinforce this. none of them took part of the bleaching, and they killed no one. the bleaching was all the alien god. the lostbelts were all the work of the alien god. the only thing here that matters is that the alien god chose wodime as their emissary, and the other crypters were expendable. kirschtaria did not accept this. he would not abandon his friends, his comrades, his family. the choice was to cooperate with the alien god or die. could you have seriously, in all honesty, chosen differently? could you, knowing the entire earth was doomed by a product of its history, honestly have decided to keel over and taken your loved ones down with you? could you look me in the eye with zero bullshit and zero hesitation and tell me to my face you wouldn’t have chosen to cooperate if it meant you had an opportunity to turn things around so none of those billions of deaths were for nothing and the world wouldn’t belong to the being behind that destruction?

the lostbelt competition was a foregone conclusion. everyone knew kirschtaria was going to win, because the contest was designed that way. the alien god only intended for kirschtaria to win, and kirschtaria knew this. which is why he used his connection to the crypters as leverage. the other lostbelts were never meant to survive, they were kirschtaria’s way of keeping the crypters out of the alien god’s watch. that’s why kadoc, pepe, and beryl weren’t killed by kirschtaria when their lostbelts went SNAFU. it is an immensely cruel thing to do to all those worlds and all those lives, yet would you have done differently? if the lives of your loved ones were at stake, if you were being surveilled at all times with a gun to your head ready to pull the trigger at the slightest disobedience, would you have been so reckless as to put the people you cared about in harm’s way? because that’s what kirschtaria’s position was. the alien god was ready to crush kirschtaria’s heart if he broke their contract, and tipping off the crypters that he intended to do so would’ve gotten them all killed.

ultimately, that’s what drives the conflict between chaldea and the crypters. the shared need to survive pitting them against each other. there is no guarantee chaldea can restore proper human history, and wodime could not take that chance when he had a plan of his own and the clear methods with which to accomplish it. a new world, a new humanity, free to make new mistakes and reach new heights, free from the grip of the gods, free from the grip of the systemic forces that plagued not just the lostbelts but proper human history itself.

and i need to stress that the story isn’t trying to justify the deaths (if we can even call them that, in all likelihood) of 7 billion people by trying to say “maybe wodime was right!” what the story is saying is that, if there was a staggering loss of life, what alternative would humanity have to even have hope of moving forward? through lostbelts 1 - 4, you may be helping these worlds die peacefully, but you are still letting them die over the chance that you might restore proper human history. your success is an uncertain inkling, yet you have no choice but to move forward and accrue suffering to make sure NONE of those deaths are in vain. you are not judged for it, because the story knows there is no right or wrong answer to this kind of conflict, and the same principle applies to the crypters.

need i remind you that olympus ends with people being crushed by buildings, abandoning all hope, quivering and perishing in absolute terror as the only world they’ve ever known crumbles around them and the only beings that could save them were killed by your hand and by your order because there was no other way out. it is a gruesome death, an unsightly death. and it is brought about by your actions, and it is a terrible burden. and it is the exact same burden carried by kirschtaria, because he was a member of team A tasked with safeguarding humanity, and he failed. he does not claim that proper human history is full of too many mistakes to salvage because he is above them. he claims so because he also made mistakes in his own limited existence and doesn’t want that for whatever humanity can still exist in the world he means to make.

and you know what? kirschtaria even understands what you’re doing. he is the only one who can. he cannot agree but he understands. which is why he never denies you the opportunity to prove yourself. he opposes you, challenges you, dares you. but he never denies you. he says “you think you can bring back proper human history? prove it. prove you have the conviction necessary to bear it and beat me with it.” and then you do. because he wanted you to, because he believed in you from the very start that you could do it if you set your mind to it because kirschtaria wodime for better or worse believes in mankind, and you do too.

so, tl;dr you and the crypters are the same do not be so arrogant as to pretend you are better than the story and you are the perfect blameless unbiased judge of everything ever because you look really stupid doing that

“In nature, there’s no glory without sacrifice. Loss and gain are always balanced. Much is lost and much is gained. The people of the era will weigh the scales of good and evil themselves, and their value will be judged by future generations.”

Orleans | Septem | Okeanos | London | E Pluribus Unum | Camelot | Babylonia

messy scribble because i slept through most of white day 

Just read @intrepid-fictioneer-7's analyis on the madness of Servants, and it's got me thinking about Fujimaru's mental state and some implications of the lore.

We do know that they were most definitely a regular human at the beginning of the story; however, lore and dialogue imply that this is no longer the case.

The event where Vritra debuts has her note that both Mash and you seem both human and not human at the same time. It makes sense for Mash, as she's a demi-Servant, but why Fujimaru?

And then there's a bit in Koyanskaya of Light's profile - "Koyanskaya had planned to incorporate the Foreign God into her eighth tail, and to use Chaldea's Master for the ninth." To become one of her tails, it has to be a "Monster not present in the history of humanity." I think that says it all, really.

Fujimaru has been in multiple situations very similar to the ones that gave rise to heroic legends, having faced down the absolute worst threats to Humanity several times over.

And not just that - the very nature of pruning Lostbelts means that Fujimaru has an incredible amount of blood on their hands; enough that Kali is intrigued.

They've gone through far more than any human should ever have to go through, and it's implied throughout the story and confirmed that by Ordeal Call that, even if they were to return home at the end of it all, they would never be able to return to a normal life ever again.

Hell, Ordeal Call II reveals that Fujimaru not only has the potential to become an Avenger, but the most powerful one of all.

What I'm getting at is that what if one of the reasons that Fujimaru is able to empathize and connect with Heroic Spirits to such a degree is because they think like one, having fought through many of the same circumstances and now afflicted by that same madness?

Sure, they may not be as broken as some of those that they have under their command; but, as some have said, it's likely at this point that Fujimaru is the quintessential human to an utterly inhuman degree.

The way I interpret that is that he does things that would seem normal for a human at a glance; but if one were to examine it, they'd realize that Fujimaru's ability to do that goes far, far beyond the limit of what any normal human should be capable of.

For example, Humanity may be known for the indomitable spirit in the face of overwhelming odds; but for Fujimaru, it's seems that it's ontologically impossible for them to give up no matter what they're facing when even the most determined of humans would have given up.

A human, no matter how righteous, may still fall into evil if the circumstances are extraneous enough - but we actually see Fujimaru put into such a circumstance - and refuse to do so.

They can't ever stop moving forward, because if they do, it means all the innumerable sacrifices that have been made during their journey would have been for nothing.

Sure, it may be more subtle, but the underlying madness that would make a heroic spirit's mind incomprehensible to a regular human is still there.

"Fujimaru Ritsuka" may still be there, but it's buried under the being that is "Humanity's Last Master."

would you like a nice glass of

Sketches from today… I’m so tired, lol

its been officially one year since i rolled enkidu!!!