I thought it was fairly good characterization. Saber's backstory has been mostly blank thus far, and the author here paints an interesting portrait of what it might have been.
Or do you dispute a certain development around which the latest chapters have been revolving? It's shocking, to be sure, but I'd also consider it plausible and a quite fascinating twist.
Turning her entire canon personality into a 'rape as trauma ' story is pretty fucking terrible. Even discounting the fact that I have zero faith in the Author to deal with such a delicate topic properly, it's a terrible badfic cliche and shows (as I've said) a rather fundamental misunderstanding of her Canon character.
There's also the fact that it's exactly the kinda shit that is almost guaranteed to become shitty fanon in short order.
And don't even get me started on Alaya being personified as some kind of 'evil Lawyer'. I literally closed the Tab on reflex the first time I read it because of that.
The Alaya bit was a misstep, but a minor one. None of Arturia's personality has been shown to be a result of her trauma; indeed, numerous times before that chapters she's shown to be exactly the Saber we know and love, with references even to supplemental materials and even untranslated side stories. Hell, even that one carved lion Kay made is in the story. In terms of FSN fics, this "cliche" is something I've never seen outside of crappy Sakura fics, and the Author's clearly doing her research, as shown by the accurate depiction of symptoms and pretty much including all of those shout-outs to canon. The fanon bit is quite literally your scaremongering, so I'll just ignore it. There's no misunderstanding. It's just that this shows a fan-made backstory you dislike, so you hate it, maybe because you don't want Saber turning into Sakura or something equally cliche. That's not happening.
So far it's been well written and characterized. Give it a chance here. I know I'm glad I did.
Good to see Contractual Obligations is still shit after I said it was shit.
Last edited by ksho; July 27th, 2015 at 02:59 AM.
Its pretty awful and I think I'm being generous in saying that.
You need bad writing... to counteract bad writing?
generally all fanfics are bad because they are fanfics. some are less bad than others and here we recommend that people give those a go, because as bad as those are, they are better than the shit that people often write, shit like contractual obligations for example which is really very shitty and i have no idea why that was recommended, but ya know, taste are diferrent for everyone and we have to accept that. its not like other people having taste unlike yours is gonna effect your life in any way tbh.
Last edited by DreamsRequiem; July 27th, 2015 at 11:18 AM.
It's well written, it's well researched, it's interesting. What's so terrible about it, other than the silly personification of Alaya and the Throne?
FGO Supports
it's hardly the most drastic reinterpretation of canon out there (compared to some of my ridiculous pet theories, hue)
I mean, I haven't read it and probably never will because Saber doesn't interest me in the slightest, but I don't have any problem with it existing
Anthropomorphised Alaya is almost always a cancer, though. Almost impossible to execute well.
Oh no, I have some reinterpretations myself, certainly, but literally sidelining Arturia's entire character to make her a confused rape victim is uh, really bad.
I mean I think Arturia is already an awful and boring character but thats literally like the only way you could make her more of a snore.
And yeah anthropomorphised protective force of mankind that is formless specifically because mankind can't envision it's own savior is really bad.
Last edited by Christemo; July 27th, 2015 at 12:04 PM.
Who the hell says it's her entire schtick? That's stupid, the author makes it clear she was all perfect emotionless king well before Morgan. Besides that, she actually was a rape victim in her own damn legend, and her shrugging it off would actually be bad writing. This isn't meant to be her before Fate, it's a timeline in which Archer goes around changing things.
Can't really argue with the dry writing, though.
FGO Supports
If doing the equivalent of magical artificial insemination is rape to you, I don't think you quite understand rape.Besides that, she actually was a rape victim in her own damn legend, and her shrugging it off would actually be bad writing.
Right, because a magical catheter or a magical absorptive bedsheet womb was in Nasu's version of the legend.
FGO Supports
You said "her own damn legend". I assume you don't refer to the mythical King Arthur as a female?
Even ignoring that I don't see why you should take the myth for granted when Nasu does what Nasu wants.
Last edited by Christemo; July 27th, 2015 at 12:21 PM.