The Grail Works Mission Dossier (Discussion & Ideas)

[Kieran]

I recognized the former fairly easily (I also like Ilya just referring to Godafrid as "you").

Given how often he goes through identities, it's just easier for her - also saves time in identifying the weird ones.

I had never heard of the latter. That is one trope-overdosed story, but considering it's both parody and from the 80s, I can... understand it, even if I can't actually stand reading it much.

Yeah, while it does improve, the early stuff is rough; I came into the series much later, and going back to fill in the gaps rattled me. I can't imagine what it's like going into it cold . . . But with my recent discovery of both an official RPG (under two systems!), and the (semi-)related Warrior Nun Areala series having trailers for a Netflix production (under "Warrior Nun"), it's been on my mind this week.

Godafrid's apprehension is warranted.

Isn't it, though?

. . . As a side note, this isn't the first time I've looked into this possibility, just in case you're curious. There's even a related joke; that iteration of my SI was imagined as a Scion with access to the Frost Purview; hence the remark about "chills." The Lunar iteration has an environmental Charm with the same effect, so it would still be accurate.

[Xamusel]

Hey, Kieran, hope you're having a Happy Canada Day.

[Kieran]

Hey, Kieran, hope you're having a Happy Canada Day.

Thank you. I had a nice, quiet day - at least until some idiot started setting off fireworks . . .

[Xamusel]

I feel ya, man, I really feel ya.

[Kieran]

Quagmire, U.S.A.
Date unknown








The diner was called “Mel Roll’s Place.” It was done in the style of a ‘50s malt shop, and in other circumstances, Frid might’ve been forgiven for thinking he’d wandered into the world of Archie Comics, rather than Antarctic Press.

At the time, he’d just been grateful that A), the owner had been willing to accept foreign currency, and B), he’d developed the habit of having all his stuff on him in case of emergency. It cut down on accidental cross-contamination, and meant that he wasn’t cut off in case of unexpected ejection from a particular universe—which, given his record to date, was becoming a pattern. It wasn’t until he was halfway through his chocolate milkshake that the pun had hit him.

But then, that was Quagmire in a nutshell: all the stereotypical charms of an idealised small Midwestern town, with a mix of blatant parodies and more subtle references. As well as some odd outliers that were surprisingly blatant—characters watching “South Park” and “Transformers,” for example, but having “Battle Chef” instead of “Iron Chef” . . .?

It was also a place that, as the setting of Ninja High School, had (in rough order of appearance) ninjas, aliens, love quadrangles, mad scientists, Nazi mad scientists, cyborgs, witches, curses, demons, time travellers, genocidal (alien and/or time-travelling) robots, vampires, more aliens (of varied appearances and origins), giant monsters, sentai heroes, giant mecha, dimensional travel, superheroes, mutants . . .

Basically, Quagmire had everything plus the kitchen sink, if you either waited long enough or knew where to look. It was probably a pastiche of something else entirely, but it was around at some point to find.

As such, while the local magic system would probably let Frid do it, summoning a Servant to catch Ilya’s attention was almost certainly a bad idea; it would likely kick off a parody of the events of the Holy Grail War in the process, because why not . . .? Plus, he was virtually guaranteed to end up with a Mysterious Heroine X variant (or similarly ridiculous Servant, like another Servant Universe native, or the Redline version of Nobunaga or Okita) if he did.

Dealing with the local brand of shenanigans was going to be bad enough; he’d rather not make it worse.

Speaking of the locals, it was possible that Professor Steamhead could get him back—or Mimi Masters, if he wanted to go the magical route—but while Frid (mostly) trusted those individuals, the potential for them to spied upon at work was higher than he’d like. And there were SO MANY individuals and organisations he did not want poking around alternate universes: the Rival Ninja Corporation, the Other Rival Ninja Corporation, the Interstellar Comglomerate, the Zardon Empire, various villains from Fred Perry’s Gold Digger series (which was also a thing here; so, more nightmare fuel), whatever the name of those warlocks that opposed Mimi’s coven was . . .

Hey, collecting the series had been an exercise in frustration a lot of the time, and they’d been sitting in a box in the crawlspace for the last fifteen years—he thought he was doing damned well to remember all that he did!

(Which was not to say that Frid wasn’t regretting not reading those issues more recently, since it was now important to know.)

Eventually he sighed, forcing himself to face the truth: no matter how much he didn’t want to, he was going to have to go to Quagmire High, A.K.A. “Ground Zero for All the Weirdness.” Whether he spoke to Steamhead or not, it was the only way he was going to find out where in the NHS timeline he was; right now, it was only certain that this wasn’t the world of Furry Ninja High School, because the counterman wasn’t one. Aside from that, Frid had no idea which alien invasions or monster attacks were inbound right now, and if he was going to be stuck here a while (as seemed likely), then it would be a nice thing to know. He wouldn’t be picky; just knowing which Feeple boy was in school right now would be a guideline—Jeremy meant one series of events, Ricky meant another. The rest, he could extrapolate from there . . .

Laying money on the counter, Frid got up and went to the washroom to clean up. It was only there that he realised he didn’t actually have the school’s address, and wandering around town trying to find the place sounded like a terrible idea . . .

Hang on—the Feeples’ address was mentioned a few times . . . “123 Maple Street,” wasn’t it? Yeah—123 Marble Street was Jesibell’s place; that was the whole reason behind the mix-up with Count Boscoe, if he recalled. Except that one package had it listed as Main Street, didn’t it . . . ?

Damn it, he needed a phone book. And a map, or at least direct—

Looking up from washing his hands, Ilya’s smirking face was abruptly staring back at him from the mirror.

“GAAAAH!”

“Hello to you, too,” the Grail spirit said dryly. “And here I thought you’d be happy to see me.”

“Once I got over the heart attack, sure,” Frid retorted. “How—?”

“New trick I worked out, using the same principle as the Doors,” Ilya answered. “It’s a lot less energy-intensive and more subtle than the holograms. Neat, huh?”

“It is,” he acknowledged, “but I was going to ask, ‘How did you find me?’”

“Oh, that? Well, I actually didn’t . . .?” she replied airily. “I just happened to spot your signature when I was scanning the area—we have a client from here!”

“What?” Frid said dumbly. He could think of a few people who might qualify; not all of them good, and many, many ways this could go horribly wrong.

“Her name’s ‘Mi-ta Ce-lan-de,’” Ilya pronounced slowly. “And I don’t quite get it, but she’d ‘kind of like to exist,’ she said?”

“She’s a time traveller,” Frid replied immediately, as the name jogged bits of recollection loose. “A descendant, as it happens, of the series protagonist and his ninja love interest; her timeline is somehow erased because reasons, and she somehow ends up a living paradox, because reasons; when existing in ‘realspace,’ she needs to wear protection kind of like we use, only it’s a physical device.” He shrugged. “While events in the series eventually bore out the fact that it wasn’t her timeline, Mita’s ability to sidestep the fact that she didn’t exist—to the point where she presumably had a daughter—never really made a lot of sense to me. Nor was she the only one . . .”

After all, her professor in time travel-slash-boyfriend should have fallen under the same restrictions, coming from the same timeline—and that wasn’t even going into their cyborg assistant, who came from an entirely different timeline again—and neither of them had shown that issue. When they had been under threat of being erased from existence, it had been for completely different reasons, and Mita’s protection had proved completely ineffectual against it.

. . . It was, Frid admitted, entirely possible that he was misunderstanding things, and he almost certainly had incomplete information—he’d started the series at Issue No. 78, after all, and back-issues weren’t easy to come by—but it was something that had always bothered him.

The mission, if nothing else, gave him a good idea of when he was—and the opportunity to deal with a pet peeve was enticing . . .

Except—

“In the normal series continuity, Jeremy and Asrial have at least two children,” Frid pointed out. TVTropes had claimed the existence of a third, but he didn’t know if it was correct. “I’m not entirely comfortable with wiping them out of existence, either—and I know that Shirou won’t be.”

“. . . It’s a problem,” Ilya admitted, “but not an immediate one, I’m guessing?”

He shook his head—Asrial didn’t get pregnant until Jeremy’s senior year, which was at least a year and a half away, if he had his timelines straight.

“Then we have time to work on it,” the Grail spirit decided. “And it’s not unheard of for families to gain members in less-than-polite ways, after all.”

Frid thought she was being too optimistic; that kind of behaviour went against everything Jeremy Feeple was, and he didn’t remember Asrial being nearly that underhanded—honestly, it’d be more believable coming from Ichi . . .

“Well, unless you can hack an alien supercomputer, we’ll be starting from square one—error or not, she initially thinks Jeremy Feeple is her assigned target, and she’ll be on her way to him, if she’s not here already.”

Ilya looked dubious about the prospect.

“Although,” Frid mused, “if that demon was telling the truth about rigging the machine, we might be able to stop it—I probably have the Charms to kill him, if you can locate wherever the hell he’s working from.”

Which might literally be Hell, but it would solve a number of later problems if they could eliminate Stanley ahead of them.

Then a thought occurred to him, and he smirked.

“. . . So, when can I expect Shirou to show up?”

Ilya blinked. “Eh?!”

“Well,” Frid drawled, “this place has alien invasions, giant monster attacks, and the occasional monster of the week—if there are people more directly in need of saving than these, I can’t think of them off the top of my head . . .

“But more importantly,” he added firmly, “this Earth has The Toughest Contest in the World—a literal fight which determines whether Good or Evil guides it for the next five years. I dare you to tell me he won’t want to get involved.”

“. . . Damn it,” the albino grumbled—but she didn’t contradict him.

“Plus,” Frid said thoughtfully, “he might be a good buffer between Jeremy and Ichi; he’d pass for an aged-up, Japanese version of Jeremy’s little brother, providing a point of familiarity to both, as they get used to each other. And it certainly couldn’t hurt to give the kid some experience in dealing with navigating complex romantic entanglements, hmm . . . ?”

“I really hate your logic,” Ilya informed him—but again, she didn’t contradict him.

“Asrial’s tricky, though,” he mused out loud. “Unless we can catch that mess with the computer, she’s going to fall for Jeremy—and unlike Ichi, who has potential suitors crawling out of the woodwork, at points, her only potential one that I know of spends most of her time trying to kill her.”

“WHAT?”

“Bisexual alien princess whose empire Asrial’s own is at war with,” Frid replied offhandedly. “Her people hold conquest as a natural principle, and while Leeanna’s not quite as bad as most of them, not that you’d know it from a lot of her behaviour. . .” he trailed off under his breath.

He shrugged. “Amusingly, unlike Ichi, she’d probably share Jeremy with Asrial, if either of them would go for it; she’s certainly attracted to both.” Frid shook his head. “As a side bonus, if we could make it stick, we could probably end the war—but I have no idea where to even start.

Frid shook his head. “ . . . I certainly agree with the ideal of the mission, Ilya, but I’ll be damned if I can see how we can pull it off. Asrial’s got too many advantages, and no real other competition for her hand—without doing something unspeakable, I don’t know how we can make it work.”

“You’re a fan, I take it?” Ilya’s voice was soft, assessing.

“I might’ve bought my first two issues for the picture of Solora on the cover of the second one,” Frid said unapologetically, “because I liked blue hair and thought she was a cat girl rather than a skunk—but if I have a favourite in this universe, it’s Asrial.”

And because he liked seeing her happy, and her kids were adorable, this was not a mission he was really behind.

“ . . . ‘Skunk,’ you say?” Ilya said thoughtfully, her eyes going wide. “Well, that’s just perfect, then—I’m sure you’ll manage just fine.”

“What on ear—?”

“You hadn’t noticed your ears?”

Ilya’s image blinked out, showing Frid his own reflection once more—and with it, the rounded, furry ears that were the Tell of his Lunar nature, reflecting his spirit shape; no longer brown and bearlike, but distinctly black, with pink inner flesh. Like a skunk’s, or a Salusian’s—and given his present appearance, he particularly resembled a Salusian in human form . . .

Spirit shapes aren’t supposed to be changeable, ever! What the hell—?!

The answer came to him immediately.

“Oh, Ishtar, you tricky BI—!”










Writer's Notes: The Sidereal ending had along a line to the extent of, "Even if I tried to go for it, how am I supposed to woo someone who literally can't remember that I exist . . .?"

And while that has potential as a running gag, I thought this one was funnier.

[Xamusel]

Okay, Kieran, what did Ishtar do to him this time?

[RanmaBushiko]

Okay, Kieran, what did Ishtar do to him this time?

Unfortunately for you, he just went to bed about 20 minutes ago. Thankfully for you, however, he talked with me about it the other day.

Space Ishtar fucked with him so he'd look like a Salusian that's been transformed to look mostly human. Or, more specifically, instead of a NOT!-werewolf, he's now more of a NOT!-were-skunk...

And of course, knowing Erik's luck, he'll be stuck getting summoned by tech there for a short period of time...

[Xamusel]

LOL!! XD Alright, that makes sense, then.

[Kieran]

Unfortunately for you, he just went to bed about 20 minutes ago. Thankfully for you, however, he talked with me about it the other day.

Space Ishtar fucked with him so he'd look like a Salusian that's been transformed to look mostly human. Or, more specifically, instead of a NOT!-werewolf, he's now more of a NOT!-were-skunk…

For comparative purposes, this is what Asrial looks like when she's been modified to look human (the blonde on the left), versus her natural form (though her tail is hidden by her cape). With a skunk as his spirit shape, Frid would look similar - I suspect Space Ishtar's primordial form was prescient, or one of her more normal aspects (relatively speaking) was making a point about him being a "dirty stinker."

. . . The more amusing aspect is that only female Salusians have tails - so if Frid's were-form does, that could be awkward . . .

And of course, knowing Erik's luck, he'll be stuck getting summoned by tech there for a short period of time...

Personally, I see him getting trapped into an argument with Professor Steamhead about the superiority of steamology, and bluescreening when he sees a demonstration. After all, Steamhead's not divine, so he can't just order the World to do what he wants using steam as a motif (much as Erik does with ice or pykrete) - and yet, it functions.

Erik: . . . But it doesn't WORK LIKE THAT . . .!

[Arbitrarity]

Hm. I haven't read far enough to encounter Mita or The Toughest Contest In the World, though everything else is recognizable from the first dozen issues. Planning out a harem ending seems like an appropriately difficult challenge, so I can see why he wants to enlist Shirou's Harem Protagonist skills.
I can also see STEEAAMM being a point of contention, but I suppose Quagmire is just so weird that steam-powered time machines are fine. I am reminded that Stanley is the only example of temporal paradox I've seen in the series thus far, though, and they actually dealt with that one by leaving things as they were. I guess I can't complain about inconsistencies that way though, given how... chaotic the setting is.

[Kieran]

Hm. I haven't read far enough to encounter Mita or The Toughest Contest In the World, though everything else is recognizable from the first dozen issues.

Actually, Mita first appears in Issue 4, but her backstory takes a while to get going. The plotting of Ninja High School can be a little haphazard - for example, over the course of three issues, Jeremy and Asrial are off to Salusia, and thus the comic focusses on those left behind. But the events of their trip aren't covered until nearly two dozen issues later . . . Though their experiences of the trip are put under a xenotech equivalent of a Fidelius Charm, so they literally can't talk about it; in fact, that leads to the punchline ("Let's see how far back this erasure goes . . . We left, we docked with the ship, you showed me around, gave me the legion - then there was that dinner . . . Afterwards, I invited you back to my room-- That can not be where it cuts off . . . I am so dead." )

Planning out a harem ending seems like an appropriately difficult challenge, so I can see why he wants to enlist Shirou's Harem Protagonist skills.

And it gets him experience in the possible ways (and potential pitfalls) of dealing with his own - which the ladies will no doubt be interested in.

I can also see STEEAAMM being a point of contention, but I suppose Quagmire is just so weird that steam-powered time machines are fine.

Actually, I think the time bubble is the only Earth-based hyper-technology not powered by steam, ironically.

I am reminded that Stanley is the only example of temporal paradox I've seen in the series thus far, though, and they actually dealt with that one by leaving things as they were.

Actually, it's more the case that in trying to change things, they created a closed loop - and it is later stated that you can only visit a given period once, which explains not trying again.

I guess I can't complain about inconsistencies that way though, given how... chaotic the setting is.

Don't be ridiculous - of course you can complain! It's part of what fanfiction is for; I spent ten years doing just that with the Harry Potter setting, after all.

[Kieran]

Continuing . . .




Mel Roll’s Place
Quagmire, U.S.A.
Date unknown








As he stepped through the Door, Shirou wasn’t entirely certain what to expect—and the diner he entered into was only an aspect of that fact.

Ilya had given him as much of a rundown as she could, but she didn’t really know anything about the situation that she hadn’t been told—which was almost sure to be far less than either their client or their other source of information knew. And even then, Shirou admitted privately, even if they had been told everything, there was no guarantee that he would understand it. After all, Tohsaka routinely had headaches from “trying to pound basic magecraft through that thick skull,” as she put it; when it came to dealing with more complicated stuff, like time travel, alien politics, and things like that?

Contrary to Tohsaka’s opinion, Shirou didn’t think of himself as stupid, nor was he convinced, as Sakura might be, that he was innately excellent; instead, he simply knew his limitations. These kinds of thing were not among his strong points, and he’d freely admit it . . . And yet, this wasn’t the kind of situation he could leave alone. In fact, it was exactly the kind of situation he’d envisioned the Works being for—even if, from what he’d been told, they’d have to be a lot more subtle than he’d imagined when dreaming this whole idea up.

(. . . Yes, he knew that small actions could help people; he did them every day for just that reason; but he was a hot-blooded teenaged male—and one who’d fought in a Holy Grail War, at that. The idea of dramatically fighting impossible odds to Save princesses, empires and planets was an appealing background to his internal concept of a “Hero of Justice.”)

The murmur of a semi-familiar voice, from out of his direct sight caught his attention, the audible musings distracting Shirou from his own even he made his way towards its source—specifically, a side booth.

“Lyra—that was the third kid’s name; a cute little thing, like Kassy at that age . . .” Shirou saw the movement of a head from behind, as the speaker’s back was towards him, even as the monologue continued, “Man, if I’m forgetting things like that, this is going to be even harder than I—”

Shirou’s nearness caused the other to instinctively shy away, before recognition hit and he visibly relaxed.

<Hey, boss,> came the casually irreverent greeting in Japanese. <Have a seat—if you’d like refreshments, the burgers here aren’t bad—though I can really recommend the chocolate milkshakes . . .>

The redhead followed through on the first suggestion, at least, looking over his companion as he did so.

Like his voice, the appearance of Shirou’s companion was only semi-recognisable; it was only now that he lacked them that Shirou realised that the dark skin and elven features the man had once sported had become expected when dealing with him. Likewise, he was visibly younger, now closer to Shirou’s own age than the decade older he had been, and lighter in mass as well as complexion; the redhead estimated he was down at least fifteen kilograms, possibly twenty—it made for a startling difference.

By comparison, the difference in colouring was almost familiar; from both his initial introduction, when he’d been shifting between his human and half-elf selves, and those occasions where taking a more human appearance had been advisable. The light chestnut hair, blue eyes Caucasian skin tone were things he was used to, at least—even the Japanese issuing from such an individual, thanks to exposure to Saber.

“Between you, Saber and Fuji-nee,” Shirou said with fond exasperation, “I’d hope that my English was good enough—but thanks for trying.”

He grimaced, but continued in English, “That bad, huh? That’ll make this harder—”

“No, yours is pretty good, actually,” Shirou backpedalled, having meant no offense. And it actually was—while not quite as natural-sounding as it had been before, he’d at least ditched the archaic dialect, now. “But as we’re in an American town . . .?”


“Fair,” he allowed.

“What do I call you now, by the way?” Shirou asked, as he’d abruptly realised that he didn’t know—save that “Kurai” didn’t seem all that appropriate, as the older male was neither dark-skinned nor had Asian-seeming features.

“. . . I’ve been using ‘Frid’ of late,” he answered, after a moment’s thought. “I may as well keep going with it until I need another identity.”

“OK,” Shirou nodded. At that point, they were interrupted by a server, and “Frid” took a refill on his chocolate milkshake; while not especially hungry, Shirou ordered one as well, and an order of “deep-fried pickles” on advisement.

After the server had left, Shirou took a moment, and then observed bluntly, “You look tired.”

“Yeah, well, dealing with closed temporal loops and the potential paradoxes associated with them is nerve-wracking,” Frid sighed, “and dealing with deities is exhausting, even when you’re theoretically friends. And when you aren’t, and said deity is THE primordial one . . .”

Shirou winced. Gilgamesh had been only two-thirds divine, according to what he’d found out later; that sounded so much worse.

“And is also a lunar goddess, when you have a piece of another one grafted to your soul,” he added, rubbing his chest unconsciously before muttering under his breath, “and who is also Rin—that didn’t help, either.”

Every cell in Shirou’s body abruptly froze in abject horror as his imagination conjured the possibility of Tohsaka having Gilgamesh’s power—and willingness to use it—at her disposal. He was simultaneously grateful at having completely missed out on the experience, and terrified that it might somehow be repeated . . .

The food arrived at that moment, and he was grateful for the distraction. When Shirou had regained enough of his self-possession to speak, he said, “It sounds like you’ve had it rough—is that why you called me here? Do you not want to continue?”

“. . . For the moment, I’ll assume that I just need a vacation,” Frid replied seriously, after a moment’s thought. “But no, I called you here for a few reasons.

“First,” he said, “because I think you need to know that a situation like this mission’s can arise: if we save Mita Celande’s timeline, the one I know won’t exist, and I can count at least three people who will never be born, versus the one that she represents. I know you don’t agree with Kiritsugu’s ‘you can’t save everyone’ doctrine, but that might literally be the case here—and at least if we fail here, we can try to ensure that canon is followed; in which case, Ms. Celande will be OK, in theory.”

Frid looked at Shirou steadily. “If you’re going to run into a situation where reality runs roughshod over your intentions, this is almost the ideal set of circumstances for it—where, in failing, we can still ensure that nothing is truly lost. If it’s going to happen, better here and now than some place or time where the consequences are much worse.

“Secondly,” he continued, “however we go about this mission, we’ll have to deal with the fact that both Princess Asrial and Ichi-kun Ichinohei are very proud young women—”

“‘-Kun?’” Shirou parroted. “I don’t think you have that honorific right.”

“You’d think so, but no,” Frid said dryly. “In any case, while Asrial’s superiority complex is partly naïveté, Ichi’s is almost pure arrogance, and biased against civilians and foreigners. As to the first, she’s almost as good as she thinks she is—most of the people who do beat her are the ‘ancient master’ type—but her grandfather sent her here to teach her humility for a reason . . .”

“You make it sound like we’re trying to marry someone off to a female Shinji,” Shirou remarked, frowning.

“She’s not that bad,” Frid said hastily, “and time in Quagmire will sand off a lot of her rough edges—particularly exposure to Jeremy—but it means that getting through to her takes some work. She won’t listen to me; I’m nowhere near a good enough fighter to equal her, never mind beat her. And, I’m a gaijin—whereas you are Japanese, and can at least fake ninja skills by Tracing the right weapons.”

Shirou nodded, admitting that he could see the logic in the other’s thinking. The feasibility, he had doubts about—dealing with girls, much less giving dating advice, was not something he was good at. But he understood where Frid was coming from.

“It also doesn’t hurt that, like Jeremy, you’re a nice guy,” the other continued. “Really, I think you’ll like him; you’ve got a lot in common.”

“. . . And what about the other girl?” Shirou asked.

“It’s tricky,” Frid admitted. “Without being able to access whatever system the Salusians use to ‘select’ Jeremy as a marriage candidate, ‘error’ or not, we can’t cut that problem off ahead of time—which means we’ll have to deal with her on Earth. And I don’t even know if she’s here yet; our client didn’t show up until the fourth issue, which means we might already have started the canon events, or even be well into them, since Mita didn’t even start suffering paradox effects until—”

Shirou lashed an arm out and around the other man, hauling him bodily down under the table with him as the object he’d spotted through the skylight chose to crash through it a split-second afterwards. Clouds of smoke and dust were thrown up by the debris, obscuring details from even his Reinforced sight, leaving him no wiser as to what, exactly, had just happened.

“What the hell . . .?” Frid started, before breaking off into coughs. He wiped furiously at his watering eyes—just a reaction to the clouds, Shirou hoped. Meanwhile, with his eyes Reinforced, Shirou had a clearer view of things much faster than the other—but still wasn’t certain what he was seeing.

“Frid . . .?” he asked tentatively, after a beat. “Is that a—?”

“Landing pod?” the other finished. “Yeah . . . But if it’s Asrial’s, then it’s way off course—”

Said pod chose that particular moment to open, revealing its contents to them both.

“I didn’t see this coming . . .” Frid hissed under his breath. “Crap.”

Given the possible scenarios going through his mind right now, Shirou could only agree.









Writer's Notes: And I got another two pages of Fate/Anarchy done - for an entirely different scene - bringing the total up to four.

. . . So, have more of this, instead. Sorry, hope you enjoy!

[Xamusel]

...okay, Kieran, what did I miss when it came to the comics?

[Kieran]

You'll have to be a bit more specific before I can answer you, I'm afraid.

[Arbitrarity]

The idea of dramatically fighting impossible odds to Save princesses, empires and planets was an appealing background to his internal concept of a “Hero of Justice.”

Hah, love it. That is his thing.

and said is deity is THE primordial one . . . [...] And is also a lunar goddess, when you have a piece of another one grafted to your soul, [...] and who is also Rin—that didn’t help, either.

That's Space Ishtar/Astarte, since we previously mentioned the Servant-verse.

“I don’t think you have that honorific right.

Oh Shirou. This world may be hard on you.

“It also doesn’t hurt that, like Jeremy, you’re a nice guy,” the other continued. “Really, I think you’ll like him; you’ve got a lot in common.”

Frid having what is presumably Asrial landing near him after ALSO appearing to be like a disguised Salusian, AND their objective is to get Jeremy and Ichi together? The setup has obvious implications for future developments, and he's already cursed himself with ironic foreshadowing.

Asrial’s got too many advantages, and no real other competition for her hand

[Kieran]

Hah, love it. That is his thing.

Exactly. And while Shirou may be "distorted," he's also perfectly capable of reacting like a normal teenaged male at times - and really, who wouldn't want to be The Hero in some adventure saga . . .? (Really, that's how Frid got into this mess!)

. . . Though, as noted, he's well aware of the value of smaller acts, which is why he does them - I'm trying to be accurate (or at least, consistent) in my characterisation.

That's Space Ishtar/Astarte, since we previously mentioned the Servant-verse.

Yes - and also likely the one Frid mentioned as liable to show up just to castrate him. Or, given his track record, possibly MHX Alter.

Oh Shirou. This world may be hard on you.

Knowing what I do now about Japanese language, it can be a bit painful at times; though to be fair, Ben Dunn does correct himself somewhat, over time - "Rivalson" becomes "Rivalsan," for example. And when he does insert actual Japanese into someone's dialogue, that is always correct.

. . . But yes - Quagmire is going to be a rough ride for all involved, regardless of previous experience and standards.

Frid having what is presumably Asrial landing near him after ALSO appearing to be like a disguised Salusian, AND their objective is to get Jeremy and Ichi together? The setup has obvious implications for future developments, and he's already cursed himself with ironic foreshadowing.

Indeed - though the amusing thing is, given the number of alien visitors to Quagmire, it doesn't have to be Asrial . . .



. . . Honestly, the more I play with this idea, the more I think that it could actually work. It would be completely insane (hopefully, in a very different way than Fate/Anarchy turned out to be), but there's a fair bit of potential for fun and character growth.

On Shirou's part, as noted - trying to deal with saving people with consequences (since, going by the Works' timeline thus far, it's obvious that their Holy Grail War went much differently), even if he succeeds, plus conflicts on a larger scale that he'd normally have to be on EMIYA's path to see and deal with. And beyond even that, really - EMIYA only dealt with wars that occurred across one planet.

On Frid's part - the guy could use some fun, to be honest. He's been marathoning his way through some pretty grim settings; and by now, he's pretty close to burning out. As utterly mad as Quagmire is, the town itself and its inhabitants are (normally) pretty nice, laidback people. And the setting's metaphysics, dark as they can be, skew towards "go for laughs," so this may be as close as he gets to downtime . . . As sad as that is.

And the NHS cast. I love them dearly, but they are teenagers (mostly), in need of growing up - which they (again, mostly) do, over the course of the series . . . But maybe they can do so without some of the lessons they need to learn being quite so painful . . .?

Of course, then that begs the question of, "How long does this need to be . . .?" If I include all the reboots and spin-offs I'm aware of, the series traces a good sixteen-year path (which is still shorter than its 28-year runtime). As an Exalt, Frid has that time to spare (whether Lunar or Sidereal, the guy's got a potential lifespan measured in millennia), but Shirou might object to being away that long . . . Or at least, the girls might object to it.

*Shrugs* . . . In that regard, I suppose it depends on if anyone has a character from outside Version 1 (aside from me, at least) they'd like to see the Works' fingerprints on.

[Xamusel]

Um, Kieran, when are you going to update Fate/Anarchy next? I hope you don't have writer's block on it.

[Kieran]

Funny you should ask . . .

And you never did give me clarification on what, exactly, you had questions about.

[Xamusel]

Sorry about the lack of clarification, Kieran... I don't remember what I was going to ask. (/)_-)

[Kieran]

Well, in that case, I can only recommend that you read the snippet again - and see what occurs to you.