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Hereafter [Worm x Fate/Grand Order]

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"Afraid of a Knife" — by Wolfkiller
  • Apocrypha
    • Stheno voice trailed of as she looked towards Arash, not Arash but the knife he held in his hand.
    "Why.....why do you have a weapon like that?" Stheno almost wimped, as she visiably shrunk away. Every one looked at the knife and then over to the owner and then back to the little goddess. "How do you have an anti-divine weapon!"
    Eyes shifted towards Taylor.
    "I've never killed a God with that knife." A couple of seconds of thinking as a look crossed her face.
    "Tho I did take some jabs at a God-like being, but I was trying not to be killed so I can't remember if I ever hit him." A thoughtful look crossed Taylors face as she thought about it. "Would that have even been enough to give it anti-divine traits." Taylors voice trailed off as she started mumbling to herself.
    Looks were shared as there was yet another interesting story there. Only the two archers noticed the little goddess slipping away like a little rabbit, not that they would belittle her for it.

    - - - - -

    Just somthing that popped up in my head, can't remember if Taylor ever used the blade against scion. Still want to know what Emiya thinks of it.
     
  • Apocrypha
    • It's a common conception among the Taylor Hype Squad, but there's some idea about how her dagger killed Scion/should be anti-divine. She didn't kill Scion with it, and it in fact did basically no damage to him (aside from burning through a microscopic fraction of his true mass, the equivalent of him getting a mild splinter).
     
    Impstar said:
    It's a common conception among the Taylor Hype Squad, but there's some idea about how her dagger killed Scion/should be anti-divine. She didn't kill Scion with it, and it in fact did basically no damage to him (aside from burning through a microscopic fraction of his true mass, the equivalent of him getting a mild splinter).
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    She still used it to "Harm" a divine being. If it were an NP and I wanted to give her that dagger as an Anti Divine weapon, I'd give it the ability to "Unfold" into The Tinker Project that actually killed Zion as a sort of Black Barrel adjacent Anti-Reality arm cannon that she technically has, but uses so much mana that in practice she can only use it if someone like Zelretch is her master unless she wants to run out of mana setting the damn thing up. Also only has it in her theoretically strongest classes, Saver and Grand Berserker (I doubt she qualifies as the latter, despite losing her sanity to save the multiverse from destruction). [It would make an awesome counter to have as a Grand, but makes me worry about what sort of BEAST would require such a counter]
     
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    TheHappyDwagon said:
    She still used it to "Harm" a divine being. If it were an NP and I wanted to give her that dagger as an Anti Divine weapon, I'd give it the ability to "Unfold" into The Tinker Project that actually killed Zion as a sort of Black Barrel adjacent Anti-Reality arm cannon that she technically has, but uses so much mana that in practice she can only use it if someone like Zelretch is her master unless she wants to run out of mana setting the damn thing up. Also only has it in her theoretically strongest classes, Saver and Grand Berserker (I doubt she qualifies as the latter, despite losing her sanity to save the multiverse from destruction). [It would make an awesome counter to have as a Grand, but makes me worry about what sort of BEAST would require such a counter]
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    Yes but there's no legend about it. Even for those who were literally there in Gold Morning, the dagger wasn't even a footnote in the story. Noble Phantasms are born from legend. To give a Noble Phantasm a power it did not have when it actually existed, there needs to be legends about it having those properties or that power. That Taylor has an anti-divine noble phantasm is not completely out of the question (though I personally feel anti-threat-to-humanity is much more likely) but I highly doubt it would be her dagger in any way, shape, or form.
     
    Impstar said:
    Yes but there's no legend about it. Even for those who were literally there in Gold Morning, the dagger wasn't even a footnote in the story. Noble Phantasms are born from legend. To give a Noble Phantasm a power it did not have when it actually existed, there needs to be legends about it having those properties or that power. That Taylor has an anti-divine noble phantasm is not completely out of the question (though I personally feel anti-threat-to-humanity is much more likely) but I highly doubt it would be her dagger in any way, shape, or form.
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    More than a NP, I can see a skill like Charisma, Demonic power of Oni, or Field Tactics that makes her much more capable to fight Threats to Humanity.
     
    Impstar said:
    Yes but there's no legend about it. Even for those who were literally there in Gold Morning, the dagger wasn't even a footnote in the story. Noble Phantasms are born from legend. To give a Noble Phantasm a power it did not have when it actually existed, there needs to be legends about it having those properties or that power. That Taylor has an anti-divine noble phantasm is not completely out of the question (though I personally feel anti-threat-to-humanity is much more likely) but I highly doubt it would be her dagger in any way, shape, or form.
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    It was a very off the cuff explanation. I do like the Black Barrel idea, and agree that it would be Anti-Divine, Anti-Threat to Humanity, or my original Idea of Anti-Reality (because it hits all versions of that space simultaneously [because Sting is Bull])
     
    TheHappyDwagon said:
    She still used it to "Harm" a divine being. If it were an NP and I wanted to give her that dagger as an Anti Divine weapon, I'd give it the ability to "Unfold" into The Tinker Project that actually killed Zion as a sort of Black Barrel adjacent Anti-Reality arm cannon that she technically has, but uses so much mana that in practice she can only use it if someone like Zelretch is her master unless she wants to run out of mana setting the damn thing up.
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    Hmm, the concept of 'Unfolding' makes for a good way to represent how Taylor's NPs could work.
    In her basic form they'd be her insect control as her main; the dagger as a secondary, for uses in melee if needed; finally her flight pack as a weak-ish support NP, kinda like a weaker version of how Perseus's winged sandals function.
    After going Khepri (probably done via a sacrificial anti-unit NP) they'd 'Unfold' into respectively: the mastering she's known for (throwing in the GM cape army a la ionioi hetairoi would likely be stupidly overkill); the tinker mega-cannon; and her 'portal cloak' made from doormaker's overlapping portals that was used to extend her range (and by extent give her the ability to use said portals for travel).
     
    HeWhoLurks said:
    Hmm, the concept of 'Unfolding' makes for a good way to represent how Taylor's NPs could work.
    In her basic form they'd be her insect control as her main; the dagger as a secondary, for uses in melee if needed; finally her flight pack as a weak-ish support NP, kinda like a weaker version of how Perseus's winged sandals function.
    After going Khepri (probably done via a sacrificial anti-unit NP) they'd 'Unfold' into respectively: the mastering she's known for (throwing in the GM cape army a la ionioi hetairoi would likely be stupidly overkill); the tinker mega-cannon; and her 'portal cloak' made from doormaker's overlapping portals that was used to extend her range (and by extent give her the ability to use said portals for travel).
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    So in game terms, a hybrid of Jekyll, Nobukatsu, and Super Orion? Maybe with a time delayed Instant Death like Angry Mango's third skill? I could also see Melucine mixed into it!
     
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    James D. Fawkes said:
    "You know what, Arash? I'm gonna give that one to you. Godzilla was pretty scary."

    Ritsuka groaned. "Really? The actual name is shorter and easier to say."

    "Says you."

    Although I didn't say so, I was actually on Rika's side, this time. Maybe it was because it was such a prominent cultural icon, but "Godzilla" rolled off the tongue much easier than "Fafnir" did. It was even an appropriately apt cultural reference to make, considering Fafnir's size and power.
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    -Wouldn't she, as a Japanese native, know him by his actual name of Gojira rather than the American Godzilla?-
     
    Impstar said:
    It's a common conception among the Taylor Hype Squad, but there's some idea about how her dagger killed Scion/should be anti-divine.
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    Yer I know she didn't kill him with it.
    My thinking for it was that it's anti-divine ability is that it will cut a divine entity just as easily as it will cut everything else.
    In the end LR is just a very sharp knife, if it was anything else it wouldn't be a 'last resort's.

    James D. Fawkes said:
    A decisive weapon drawn only when no other option remains, to be wielded with a single, finishing blow! Your Last Resort!"
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    HeWhoLurks said:
    Hmm, the concept of 'Unfolding' makes for a good way to represent how Taylor's NPs could work.
    In her basic form they'd be her insect control as her main; the dagger as a secondary, for uses in melee if needed; finally her flight pack as a weak-ish support NP, kinda like a weaker version of how Perseus's winged sandals function.
    After going Khepri (probably done via a sacrificial anti-unit NP) they'd 'Unfold' into respectively: the mastering she's known for (throwing in the GM cape army a la ionioi hetairoi would likely be stupidly overkill); the tinker mega-cannon; and her 'portal cloak' made from doormaker's overlapping portals that was used to extend her range (and by extent give her the ability to use said portals for travel).
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    I don't think her equipment would count as NPs themselves. The NP would be the ability to transition to a different Class with different aspects of the legend of Taylor Hebert. Like Medusa's nail dagger things aren't a NP, but they're clearly magical because the length of chain on them changes to suit her needs. If at Khepri level she did get Da Big Gun even if it wasn't an NP it would be the kind of stupidly powerful weapon that can't be used by a normal Servant if it's powered by magical energy. It would be something limited to a Grand powered by the World or Taylor as a fully matured Beast. It's the kind of weapon that can beam-war with Solomon's ring of light (not saying it'll win, AAS is way more stable, sustainable, and versatile, but it's in the same magnitude of world ending bullshit biggatons while it is firing).
     
    I think it's important to remember that this isn't an NP proper. This is an item enchanted to have the oomph of an np. That doesn't necessarily mean it gets any new gimmicks, just enough weight to damage supernatural things/cut through some resistances.
     
    I was actually about to type up a comment about how Scion isn't a divine spirit or related to such so he shouldn't actually give any anti-divine properties (especially since he wasn't really worshiped as a god either on an institutional level), but then I realized that in the typemoon verse he might qualify for Outer God which actually would qualify for anti-divine (a lot of foreigner servants have the divine trait).
     
    First time commenting on this story, after jumping here from Essence of Silver and Steel, AND completing Orleans and Rome in FGO just last week.

    Worm. Fate. Two of my favorite settings. I'm very happy to see these stories and fully fleshed out, rather than just tapering off or being a one-and-done. In Essence, Taylor being able to attach/include Servants was a perfect way to blend the two. This one, I was more iffy on, not being sure on how well Taylor will work as a Master, but to my surprise, it's working really well. Kudos. Also, after playing through Orleans and Rome, I'm also impressed with how you've taken the story and adapted it. I like how you've shown how deadly Archers should be, along with Arash turning out to be an incredible bro and Emiya being... well, Emiya. Without Shirou around, I was worried he'd seem kind of pointless,

    Now on to the hard part. Please bench or get rid of Aife. She was my main problem with Essence, and continues to be the one part of this story that grates on me, and I will explain why. There are hundreds (if not thousands) of Servants, and one of the fun parts of Fate fanfics (and FGO) is even if I hadn't seen or read the source material that the character came from, I can look them up on a wiki and see what they can do, where they fit in, canon relations to other characters, etc. And by doing so, I can appreciate them better and look forward to how they will react in stories.

    But I can't do that with Aife. She's an OC OP in a world of already OP characters. She's stronger, faster, prettier, fitter, and tougher than everyone else and wow, she also is a powerful caster and by gosh she did it all on her own too. And it makes her utterly boring and looks like some sort of "take THAT" towards the existing Irish Servants. If you don't like them, you don't have to use them, but here you've decided that Irish martial arts and Rune Magic* is the way to go so now we have this Mary Sue (and in the Nasuverse, which seems to be 90% Mary Sue's/Gary Stu's, that's saying something) that was mentioned in a few background lines from the existing servants.

    I was looking forward to Boudica (I don't know much about her) and Spartacus (I do know a lot about him, and loved Apocrypha), but they feel like they were just here in so they could get the crap kicked out of them to show how much of a threat Caligula was. If we needed an insanely powerful Rider class servant, there's always Quetzalcoatl, or just a not-so-powerful but a canny warrior type, there's Iskandar (and wouldn't THAT have been an interesting thing to see El-Melloi II's reaction to finally seeing the big man again, as opposed to young Alexander).

    So there you have it. I love the story, but not Aife, and I hope the reasons make sense.

    *I'm hoping it turns out Taylor can draw runes with her bugs. I don't mean having them scrape something on the ground, either, I mean literally have swarms shape themselves into runes. I think even Servants would learn to fear the bugs after that.
     
    Ayrsayle said:
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    Thank you for...well, the first part, at least. :D

    As for the rest, here's the thing: Aífe is basically Scáthach, in terms of their abilities. If she seems so much more powerful, it's only because she's actually living up to the hype and the implications of her abilities, none of which actually get used in canon because Scáthach's role in canon is solely to prove exactly how much of a threat Cú Alter is. Everything Aífe does is either directly from Scáthach or extrapolated from combining the actual myths with Nasuverse mechanics.

    I can get, "I don't like OCs, especially powerful ones." I can understand that. I can also understand, "She's basically a nobody, she's almost never mentioned," even though that really, really irks me, because, Doylist talk? Nasu's seems to love mythological heroes with strange, exotic, or "strong sounding" names, because two of the most powerful Servants in Fate are Scáthach and Gilgamesh, who both have names that are strange, exotic, and strong-sounding (or with a badass meaning). Nasu outright admitted that Gilgamesh having an unusual name was one of the things that made them decide to use him for the original FSN.

    I digress. I can understand that perspective, and it probably would have been better received to use Scáthach here instead of Aífe, but bringing Aífe in was a choice made because I wanted to play with her more directly than in Essence. Even if she seems kind of like a Mary Sue as a result, I don't think that's a fair analysis to make, because the thing to remember about Heroic Spirits is that they're all at the end of their stories already. Aífe, Cúchulainn, Artoria, Lancelot, Herakles, Caligula, Romulus, Jeanne — they can't get more powerful, unless they're summoned into a more fitting class, because their growth as heroes is already complete. The only thing they can do is pull out trump cards they're holding onto for the right moment.

    And she's not "stronger, fitter, prettier, tougher," than other Irish Servants. She's really not. Her character design is, in fact, supposed to show how much harder she had to push herself just to keep up. She's the Lee to Scáthach's Neji. In terms of ability? She, Cú, and Scáthach all scale with each other pretty evenly, to the point where Aífe's win rate against either of those other two at their best is pretty damn close to a flat 50%. I don't dislike those other two, either, although I am a little bitter about Nasu and the FGO narrative team ignoring her entirely throughout the entirety of FGO — but that's a complaint against the author, not the characters.

    EDIT: Also, Caligula manhandled everyone. Aífe only comes back to win the fight after he's already been worn down by one of Emiya's secret techniques and she pulls out a trick straight from Bazett that I credited as originating from Scáthach herself.

    Aífe is designed, in the end, as the sort of personality you don't really like, exactly, but who winds up sweeping you along in her wake just by the sheer force of her will.

    As for Boudica and Spartacus, they both have the misfortune of being very hard to use in higher end battles. Spartacus could very easily start to overwhelm just by how easily his Noble Phantasm can distort him into a Crawler-esque monstrosity, but once I start taking him down that route, I don't think I can bring him back, so I didn't. Boudica, on the other hand, has the problem that she isn't either a stat monster like Caligula or a warrior famed for her martial skill. She's famous, but famous for leading an army that slaughtered its way through Roman Britain, not for feats of extraordinary prowess. She's also intentionally hobbling herself by avoiding the Avenger class, for reasons already stated in the narrative and in the thread's discussion.

    A last thing to remember is that Septem is Aífe's introduction. She gets as much focus as she does in the narrative because it's her debut. If she sticks around, she will get her "Resolution of the Final Regret" storyline at some point, but she won't be as prominent a figure aside from that.

    I hope you at least liked Brutus? I don't know that Scaeva had enough screentime and development for anyone to get attached to him.
     
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    Stahor said:
    I'm not a lore master for Fate or even FGO specifically, but i'm under impression that Scáthach's role is more or less Da Vinci alter(native) - a plot device that can do whatever plot needs.
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    At times, yes. She'll pull out a new trick using her Primordial Runes, like in the first Summer Event, where she used them to change her class and don a swimsuit. But in terms of fighting? The story uses her as a measuring stick and nothing else, as far as I remember.
     
    James D. Fawkes said:
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    I can agree that it seems like Aife seems a bit too prominent, particularly given your use of her in your other Fate stories. I'm not the most thrilled by that I'll admit, especially given your not giving Mash much prominence in comparison in this story where it's just as much her journey as Taylor's or the Twins. I'll reiterate my hope she doesn't stick around (not that she can survive against Altera, and Altera's got a rather prominent and very fitting role in this Singularity she has to play) or that's she's relegated to becoming a Servant Shade used only in combat as Canon Ritsuka uses their Servants. I actually hope that is going to be a thing going forward for the Twins after this Singularity. But Aife isn't not too bad yet.


    Stahor said:
    I'm not a lore master for Fate or even FGO specifically, but i'm under impression that Scáthach's role is more or less Da Vinci alter(native) - a plot device that can do whatever plot needs.
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    That is true for every Servant, or even just any character in any story to be honest, if you really want to boil down to the basics.

    James D. Fawkes said:
    At times, yes. She'll pull out a new trick using her Primordial Runes, like in the first Summer Event, where she used them to change her class and don a swimsuit. But in terms of fighting? The story uses her as a measuring stick and nothing else, as far as I remember.
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    That's true of every Servant. Artoria in Fuyuki all the way to Enkidu and Gilgamesh in Babylonia. And that's just part 1, it gets even more prominent in part 2 (Altjuna and Karna).
     
    James D. Fawkes said:
    EDIT: Also, Caligula manhandled everyone.
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    Yeah, that was one of the things i found kind of weird.
    I get that you have to make the opposition strong/menacing, a need for the enemy to be an actual danger.
    But Caligula managing to push everyone around? even if it was for a limited time?
    Personally, i decided to justify it with the fact that the location bonus is stronk

    James D. Fawkes said:
    I hope you at least liked Brutus? I don't know that Scaeva had enough screentime and development for anyone to get attached to him.
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    A great character, that definitely made an impression.
    That interlude was easily a worthy one-shot.
     
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    Personally I'm not a fan of Aife for the "Speshul OP OC" vibes already mentioned but also because her character is comparatively pretty boring.

    "Rude amoral baddass obsessed with being the strongest, who is bitter because that path never lead her to anything meaningful" is such a flat characterization because she doesn't actually regret anything about herself, she just regrets that she didn't get what she wanted. She doesn't even try to justify herself like other amoral warrior servants from fgo (Alexander, Medb, Napoleon, Musashi, Cu) even antiheroes like Medusa and SaberAlter all have consistent and sympathetic ideals that make them way more likeable than they otherwise would be.

    To Cu, combat was just one of things that was important to him. Above all else, he wanted to live his life without regrets, and he ultimately succeeded. Scáthach ultimately hated and regretted her path in life, and in the end defined herself by her students, and herself as a teacher above all else. But Aife has...? She likes to fight? To be strong? Why?

    It especially feels like Taylor should be a foil to her considering they had similar personality's and ideals, that Taylor now recognizes were wrong and is trying to be a better person. But no, they actually get along like a house on fire.

    I just don't see what the point of her character is besides "I'm angry and powerful", and her resolution would be... what? "I'm powerful... and content?" Even if there's something I'm missing and/or I just have piss poor reading comprehension, it still feels like she's way more boring compared to literally every other servant in the fic and yet she pulls so much more screentime.

    I liked Brutus way more, but a character who martyrs himself in a single chapter and presumably won't return is a lot easier to like because they have the vibe of "hey wasn't that cool, that was a cool thing that happened", rather than something we'll have to pull focus to over the course of the whole story, so idk.

    But yes, the fact that she keeps on one-upping all these characters I already really liked before I ever read the story probably has something to do with my dislike of her. I recognize that I'm being hypocritical, and that I don't have similar complaints with canon despite it being almost exactly the same. The feeling that you're giving a character cool moments just because you like them doesn't exist when I read about other characters, or when I read canon, despite it being something all authors do, and that's unfair to you.

    This is only the first half of Aife's arc, and you have impressed me as a writer nearly everywhere else in the story, so I'm cautiously optimistic on me growing to like her, once you've shown us the full extent of her character. Even if I don't, my frustration should abate considerably once she takes more of a backseat after this singularity. I don't want this to seem like I dislike the story, I actually like it a lot, and I do have faith in you as a writer.
     
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    alvus said:
    But Caligula managing to push everyone around? even if it was for a limited time?
    Personally, i decided to justify it with the fact that the location bonus is stronk
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    Caligula is as strong as Heracles Stat-wise. Him being able to overpower others wasn't unexpected. That said it was disappointing Taylor didn't have a plan for the second time they fought. It's not like he's the first Brute type enemy she's faced and dealt with successfully. Sure she can't use most of her Parahuman tricks since they don't work on Servants, but that's never stopped Taylor before.

    I think my biggest issue with the latest chapter @James D. Fawkes, is the now extra arbitrary time limit of 2 days. It seems unnecessary, and frankly makes me worried you're planning on skipping out on Altera showing up, I've covered other reasons why she's important before but thematically in Septem she's there to show Nero that nothing is permanent, and that everything has its time to pass on (even if she was defeated the threat was very real). Altera was one of the biggest threats to the Empire that ever lived, she's got a conceptual advantage on top of being the Earth-born avatar of Sefar which stacks it even higher. Her showing up and being defeated was important, particularly for Mash. Especially for Mash. It's almost as big a deal as her blocking Artoria's Excalibur Morgan in Fuyuki.
     
    Windborne said:
    I think my biggest issue with the latest chapter @James D. Fawkes, is the now extra arbitrary time limit of 2 days.
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    My take on that is that it's to get them moving, so that they don't faff about. Now it will be pointless if this is the only time it happen, it will fit better if it was used in conjunction with the enemy getting closer to winning, as a point of no return.
    Hopefully Fawkes will remember to have them keep an eye out for the early signs of it happening so that it gets them moving.
    As for the lore stuff with character development and that, I wouldn't know, never got pass Orleans.
     
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