The Type-Moon Miscellaneous Thoughts Thread

[TomPen94]

I was reminiscing on the days where, trapped in the many years of almost exclusively FGO content I became nigh convinced that it would be impossible for Nasu to write something like Tsukihime again and I know this was far from an uncommon sentiment especially over here. Now that (half of) Tsuki RE has been out for a while how're people feeling? Is Tsuki RE sufficiently "like Tsukihime" or not? I personally do feel like that's the case (otherwise I don't think I'd be back here) but am curious how others feel as well.

TsukiRe brought me back too. And the feeling is similar. I liked it a lot. Maybe my favorite TM thing ever? Certainly Top 3 at the very least.

Tsukifans stop being bitter in incredibly corny ways challenge

We'll stop dooming when we know for sure the doom times are behind us.
We'll have to wait for what comes after RG and FGO Part 2 finale to do that.
Come talk to us when your dead period lasts 13 years.

[Reign]

I also didn't care for the original near side, so the remake improved them on literally every conceivable front. Ciel's especially. The Noel flashback and fight is my favorite part of all of Blue Glass Moon. Though I'm still way more interested in future far side developments than any future DA stuff, especially with the teases we have regarding the Saikis and hospital.

[UnlimitedBladeWorks]

I can't answer this one yet because my personal image of "like Tsukihime" is almost entirely shaped by the Far routes, and those are facing big changes. I do consider A Piece of Blue Glass Moon a complete improvement, by my opinion of the Near routes wasn't high enough that I could be disappointed at the plot being changed.

It is very true that so much of Hisui and Kohaku's routes especially are defined by basically being 5 people with all authority figures cleared out just reenacting cycles of abuse on each other. I do wonder how characters like Gotou and Arach are going to shake that up just by being Tohno House Adults. I wonder how Nasu will try to preserve that spirit or even if he will but I do have faith that he'll pull something out that's good and hopefully still feels "Tsukihime."

[Dullahan]

Many years ago, before I played the visual novel, I had only a vague idea of Fate/Stay Night. My knowledge of FSN extended to about a one-paragraph description. You had a main character, a boy who learned from his father that he is a "magus," and then he grew up and became involved in a war between magi in a city where he lived, and that was about it; I don't even recall if the concept of Servants entered into my awareness at that stage. But from that short description—which I got (emphasis added) prior to any contact with the VN or with any of the art or the character designs or, indeed, anything else about Type-Moon—I imagined in an overall poorly-defined but in some areas vivid way, what F/SN was like. I imagined, fever-dreamed, the setting as characterised by a highly specific sense of interior design, which I would crudely summarise as 'subtropical vintage.' Wood-paneled walls, brass fittings, rattan furniture, ceiling fans with blades hollowed with woven bamboo lattice lazily endorsing a sultry evening heat, and inamongst all this a lot of fresh foliage, a lot of ferns, palms, aloe to occupy the visual field. The dominant colour palette was mixed goldbrown-nearing-bloodred hardwood and virulent green leaves. Very 'organic' all told. Of the characters I had no real anticipation, but I definitely imagined the background art, so to speak, of F/SN as a city that was, while densely urbanised and thoroughly modern, somehow more reminiscent of the lingering colonial footprint in South-East Asia rather than anywhere you'd find in Japan.

Then of course I played the VN and found out that F/SN was actually nothing like this, neither visually nor (insofar as this had entered into my imagination) tonally. Fuyuki is Anywhere, Japan (the anonymous megalopolis all anime takes place in, a product of countless walks home from school and unusually flexible municipal zoning law) plus fragments of a disjointed European stratum strewn around like broken pottery plus a few altogether fantastic locations for good measure. This was in its own way interesting, peculiar, characteristically 'Nasu' in a way which only became clear much later on. But in some and other ways I remain interested in the vague idea I had of F/SN before I knew what it was. Nasu settings have, up to a point, a homeopathic effect. More interesting the less you know, and the most feather-light touch of knowledge can well be the most interesting of all. But then again, the other interesting parts appear only once you know far too much. There's no hope for moderation here, knowing just enough—enough for what? To get the memes? Worthless. Nasu is worth appreciating only at the extremities.

[UnlimitedBladeWorks]

In a way what you're describing almost feels evocative of the Shirley flashback section in Fate/Zero. Maybe a little less urban and modern but I feel like especially in the anime it carries that same sense of "subtropical vintage."

[Kamera]

Manila Holy Grail War AU by Meteo coming to you in December 2029

[Random]

There is definitely something of an almost dismissive quality to the interactions that I see people have with this setting when they're in the moderate depths.

[Formless Creature]

That's interesting.

Imagine the life of an FGO-only, if you will, should such a thing exist. Their only standard for quality is what happens in that game's story. Presumably they enjoy it to some extent, because if they were only interested in gambling, there are lots of other gacha games out there. However, they'll never know what the other stories are like or whether or not they're good, and in a sense, this could be seen as a good thing, because if by any chance they end up enjoying the other stuff way more, FGO might end up seeming lesser by comparison. The only standard for them by which FGO could ever be judged is FGO itself. And FGO has plenty of - and I think even its detractors can agree on this - perfectly competent stories, even if they don't outnumber the bad or, worse, boring ones.

But you also exist, perpetually, within the periphery of something greater. You'll see something get mentioned that feels like it's just there to build up the world, when in reality it's a reference to some light novel that actually turns out to be a big reveal. You'll see characters and ideas get referenced that might turn out to be relevant to the story later, when they're elaborated on further in some other installment. You'd know Tamamo because she's in the game, but something like Koyanskaya looking like her wouldn't have the same level of build up as someone who's known about her since Extra. Your entire understanding of the setting and its characters would be limited only to what's revealed within FGO, without any of the context, from a literal standpoint, or from an emotional standpoint. Not just knowing about something, but also having a vested, emotional interest in it - making theories, making fanfiction, arguing with people about pointless powerlevels on a forum, and getting super invested in your anime waifu. Those things all change how pretty much any installment of a long running franchise is perceived, but especially something like FGO, which often deliberately takes advantage of pre-existing attachment and knowledge.

And so I wonder, does FGO become more or less intriguing if this is all you have? I don't know, because I'm not an FGO-only. But I can somewhat guess at what it might feel like, because while I'm not that, my engagement with TYPE-MOON as a whole has always been rather minimal. I read Tsukihime when I was in my very early teens - not only was my brain physically and chemically different from what it was then, I was so disinterested in it back then, and it was so long ago, that my memory of it has all but faded completely. And then, I didn't even touch Kagetsu Tohya or Melty. I was most engaged with Fate, but even then I haven't read everything. However, I've always been active in the fanbase. I lurked here, I lurked there, and I saw people talking about things in a way almost entirely devoid of context. I'd recognize a character, or a scenario, but I'd also always get blindsided by something else entirely. As I saw these things get mentioned, direct quotations being given and seeming all the more mysterious due to Nasu's distinctive writing style (or even the translator's own problems) - which I've always had trouble parsing - I'd build my own idea of what those things were in my head. Come up with my own scenarios, my own progression of events, and my own ideas of what the characters were like, based upon nothing but small glimpses from the pinhole given to me. Sometimes, I'd find a summary, or a character analysis, or an argument that would make me go "oh, so it wasn't like that at all!" and I'd have to re-adjust my "plot summary"

For example, for a while my only knowledge of Flat Escardos is that he was some guy who was the Master of a version of Jack the Ripper in Fate/strange fake, and I knew what he looked like. And so I thought, what kind of person would have a Servant like that? I thought, maybe he was some sort of conniving mastermind, friendly and harmless on the surface but dangerous and deeply disturbed on the inside, and that made for a good partnership with a shapeshifting, capricious serial killer. The sort of character who, I figured, would be very popular with a certain crowd. Nothing I knew about conflicted with that yet, so I just added it to my own idea of what strange fake's plot was like. Imagine my surprise when it turned out he wasn't anything like I'd thought.

The main reason why I haven't read everything is laziness and lack of time. But in the back of my head, I've always wondered if experiencing them in full would be more or less interesting than the impression I have of them in my head.

[Random]

I think yours is actually a fairly common way of processing this series. I've encountered a lot of people who start summarising swathes of works like Strange Fake, Kagetsu Tohya, Rakkyo and so forth while clearly never having actually read these themselves. And this isn't much of a surprise, accessibility of these works in English is low and probably always will be. In many ways, FGO is the most accessible Type-Moon work overseas.

So then, based on this, your hypothetical FGO-only might not directly exist - it's impossible to go into a Type-Moon community without finding someone foaming at the mouth to call themselves a "loremaster" - but you can get pretty damn close considering many FGO fans have only really played that and seen the ufotable adaptations. I recall once trying to explain something about Aoko to a guy who vehemently refused to read Mahoyo because "the whole point of Fate is the animation", which is an opinion that permanently altered my neurology on multiple levels just trying to parse.

You can observe some evidence of the hypothesis that they enjoy FGO more for lack of things to compare it to. Sometimes FGO even gets called "peak". This sort of specimen is typically observed in greatest numbers in comments sections of Youtube videos about FGO, most frequently soundtracks, so feel free to go on a safari if you're up to it.

[Kirishima]

Ironic because Mahoyo has better animation than the Fate anime

[Kamera]

Idk what you're talking about. Fate Strange Fake is literally one of the most accessible in English of all TM works.

[Random]

Ironic because Mahoyo has better animation than the Fate anime

i fucking know right

its such a bizarre thing to say for more reasons i can even hold in my head at once

[tsugumi]

It's embarrassing to admit, but I do enjoy things much more the less I know about them and the more abstract the information is. It is enjoyable to cook for oneself. I called 1 on the Type Moon Dunning-Kruger effect chart paradise for a reason. Since obtaining catastrophic brain damage isn't an option, I have to keep going and loop right back around to it. I must return to Eden. I must reach the root.

[Formless Creature]

I love TM because it's the only franchise in the world where people confidently claim to know everything based on some summary they read. Hell, even me, the only difference between someone like that and myself is that I'm too afraid of making a fool of myself, so I just stay in my lane.

[Random]

It's embarrassing to admit, but I do enjoy things much more the less I know about them and the more abstract the information is. It is enjoyable to cook for oneself

I actually agree with this. Using your own imagination is fun, easy and free.

[You]

That's interesting.

Imagine the life of an FGO-only, if you will, should such a thing exist.

I have a college friend who loves the Peter Jackson LOTR movies, re-watches them once every year. That's the extent of his relationship with LOTR.
Doesn't need anything else out of Tolkein, doesn't want anything else out of Tolkein.

[Petrikow]

Knowing more shouldn't restrict your imagination.

[Random]

Respectable. The more I learn about Tolkien, the more I wish I hadn't.

[Formless Creature]

I have a college friend who loves the Peter Jackson LOTR movies, re-watches them once every year. That's the extent of his relationship with LOTR.
Doesn't need anything else out of Tolkein, doesn't want anything else out of Tolkein.

Ignorance is bliss. I guess what I was trying to get at is that someone who's just satisfied with their FGO waifus might counterintuitively be happier than someone who's been with the franchise for 20 years and followed it closely every step of the way.

[Random]

Knowing more shouldn't restrict your imagination.

welllllllllllllllllllllll

I mean, it does and it doesn't. On the one hand, you have more to work with in terms of Concrete Details. On the other hand, I can see how it would be easy to lose interest in matters of tone and execution. Then there's also the fact of how authentic you want to be to the spirit of the work, and how much you empathise with the perspectives of the authors.

Personally, I find it much more insufferable to defy or reject a story's worldview in spite of knowing more about it.