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Hereafter [Worm x Fate/Grand Order]

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Well ignoring LB 7, what the opinion in the Ritsuka character materials from the Solomon movie? And how it is affected by the fact that there are 2 Ritsukas?

View: https://www.reddit.com/r/grandorder/comments/s9373d/the_story_of_fujimaru_and_the_veteran_translated/
Truly ordinary.
Raised in a middle-class family and lived an adolescent life without much sufferings or any significant thing in return.
(By the way, he is not completely Neutral Flat (in other words, cold-hearted), but slightly leaning towards good. He cannot do good deeds or accomplish great things on his own, but he can honestly admire, and appreciate, the 'good' that happens before his eyes.)
A young boy in his late teens of the times, he was well-raised (not particularly wealthy, but received proper education from his parents), so his demeanor and way of thinking were very flexible. A person who can properly sense the feelings of others.

If there were such a thing as a 'characteristic' episode in this Fujimaru's character development, I would like to present the following scenario.

It was the March just before Fujimaru entered high school. Just before the beginning of his new life.
Next to the Fujimaru family lived a single old man. He had always lived alone. He had no relationship with the Fujimaru family.
In the very last week of the old man's life, Fujimaru just happened to spend some time with him every day.
(Maybe because the helper who often took care of the old man couldn't come, so he took his place. Something like that.)

The old man had lived through the Second World War.
After the war, he had had a family, but everyone had since moved away. He had been living alone for twenty years. If he had been resentful, it would not at all be surprising.
However, the old man had no resentments, and he was peaceful to his last moments.
As he watched the cherry blossoms on the porch, "It was a good life", or so the old man mused.
Fujimaru, who at that point had grown fond of the old man, found himself skeptical of those words. 'He was alone until the end, he wasn't rewarded at all!' He thought angrily, and asked, "Why?"

"Indeed there were many sad things, painful things.
But when I think back, the first thing that comes to mind is nothing at all."
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An old man who could say how much he cherished the peace of these passing days, without saying it.

"It was not a lonely life.
After all, I'm able to talk to you here, like this."
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An old man who could say that, at the end of his life, being able to talk to someone like this was already befitting a good end.
A few days later, the old man departed this world.
Fujimaru did not cry, but he understood the meaning of 'good' as it relates to a human being.
There are people who, though they were not rewarded, lived a wonderful life. I want to be able to live like that too, with my head held high. Something like that.

Fundamentally, humans are miserable beings.
The time they have sacrificed until now, the suffering they have endured, will never fully be rewarded.
The old man never received 'success' or 'spectacular praise' commensurate with his hard work and suffering.
What awaited him at the end was only a scant number of days being able to talk with a young boy from next door.
However, the profile of the old man as he spent the next few days looked wonderful to Fujimaru. He looked like a contented, accomplished man.
It's not that such a life is wonderful.
It is the way a human heart can face such a life head-on, no matter what kind of life it is, that is wonderful. The young Fujimaru in his late teens was able to understand that.

Also, Fujimaru did not know the old man, but the old man knew him well.

"I've known you since you were born."
"Isn't it obvious? It was the single most joyous occasion of my neighbor. It is human nature to care, isn't it?"
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This is confirmation of 'what is worth treasuring' and 'what is important' to Fujimaru. It is natural to hate evil deeds or murders, but what matters in the end is 'a good nature that can accept and celebrate the small accumulation of good events'.

Fujimaru Ritsuka is someone who can smile at the good things, get angry at the bad things, and admire the beautiful things.
Depending on his dialogue choices, he can have a bit of a delinquent way of speech. He himself is not a spirited person (someone with an assertive personality), but essentially is a person who can face forward and try just a little harder to head towards his goal, saying 'Well, it'll work out somehow'.
Fujimaru can get along with someone in any age and any race because he knows from experience that 'no matter who it is, they all have something that deserves (if not demands) respect'.
Even if it's someone who is incompatible with himself, that person's life, existence, is not something to be 'treated like it doesn't exist', or 'unacknowledged, without anyone knowing'.

From the prologue onwards, even if he did not have the ability as a mage, he properly trains 'in order to survive'. Servants are those who can't exist without their Master. Therefore, Fujimaru considers 'survival' his greatest weapon, and also his responsibility.
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I find myself suddenly wondering if it was ever explained why Taytay calls Olga with her middle name Marie. I don't exactly remember if it was ever mentioned, but i had the vague impression that it was?

Anyway, go Rika. Keep sassing her. Maybe she'll get so angry that she forgets to be embarrassed or sad.

Also, who wants to bet that was Waver at the very end for the preview? It would certainly fits his character.
Dark as Silver said:
Mash is surprisingly mean when she runs out of patience.
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Galahad would. Mash is still too uncertain at this stage.
 
That preview statement is almost certainly Marie berating herself, probably while she struggles with what would normally be a simple task, as motivation to complete it properly.
 
Not Stale Bread said:
So, I feel like this stuff with Fou vs. Taylor has been popping up a bit too much lately. It was fun at the beginning as a little hint of something, but it keeps coming up and, IMO, that's building an expectation that the problem between the two will be explored in-depth. If I remember rightly, the early comments the author made about the tension between the two stated that Taylor's status as a failed Beast candidate wouldn't get much attention, save having it click in Taylor's head far down the line. Maybe the author's plan has changed and the issue is going to get more attention, but if not, then this thing between Taylor and Fou is building expectations that won't be met.
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I totally agree with this. If the whole thing with Fou is supposed to mostly be a bit of background fluff you need to stop bringing it up. Every time Taylor is in the room with Fou or even vaguely nearby we get a little blurb about how they don't get along, and every time you do it's ratcheting up the expectation for something to actually happen.

Frankly? Shit or get off the pot.
 
synnero said:
I find myself suddenly wondering if it was ever explained why Taytay calls Olga with her middle name Marie. I don't exactly remember if it was ever mentioned, but i had the vague impression that it was?
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It's not complicated. In canon, Ritsuka refers to her as "Director Marie." I thought something like, "it sounds like the way a friend might address her," and I made a very deliberate choice that she always refers to herself as, "Olga Marie" in her narration during her interludes, as though she addresses herself with such completeness and formality as a reminder that she has to fill the shoes she's wearing.
 
synnero said:
I find myself suddenly wondering if it was ever explained why Taytay calls Olga with her middle name Marie. I don't exactly remember if it was ever mentioned, but i had the vague impression that it was?
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Olga's old nanny Trisha also called her Marie, so maybe Olga told Taylor to call her that.

Galahad would. Mash is still too uncertain at this stage.
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Looking forward to confident Mash. Girl is a downright savage.
 
I find it just a bit funny that Emiya tried making a Greek dish right before Okeanos which features a bunch of Greek servants as major players. I suppose you could call it Fate.

Otherwise not too much is happening, Marie is doing PT, the twins are getting mentored, the servants are servanting, and Taylor gets a little time to relax. Well, relax as in focus on the small, more easily managed problems in her life. It does also look like Fou and Taylor's nature as Beast/Beast Candidate is going to start being hinted at in-story, which would serve well as foreshadowing to the events of the future.

I also had the idea of making an informal list of Taylor's proposed Beast Sins. My "Survival" got a bit of traction and I recently saw one that proposed "Control" which caught a lot of attention, and there was one that suggested "Arrogation" (to claim or seize things without justification) so I was wondering if there were any others passed around in discussions.

In the meanwhile...I think I'm going to rework "Survival" and propose a more...refined Love that Taylor might represent.
 
Zedman7054 said:
It does also look like Fou and Taylor's nature as Beast/Beast Candidate is going to start being hinted at in-story, which would serve well as foreshadowing to the events of the future.
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Honestly if it's not going to amount to anything it probably stands that it should be mentioned less. It feels like build-up to a plot if it keeps getting repeated.

Also a question - will they be summoning more Servants soon? I know that they did just get Aife and Waver to their roster, but an actual Caster would probably be a great help in helping out around in Chaldea as either a healer to make Romani's life less difficult, or a Magus to help Da Vinci get things done.
 
I really like how Taylor's relationship with Marie is such a perfect encapsulation of why she ultimately rejected becoming a Beast right on the cusp of achieving it.

For Taylor, who has been betrayed so many times, who has been let down by such a disappointing and depressing world so many times, who doesn't even view humanity in especially positive terms, the handful of people she becomes close friends with and cherishes are so important to her, so precious and meaningful, she will absolutely go through hell and die to save them, and save humanity by extension because they are part of it and, logically, there are many such great people among humanity that she will never even meet (even if she thinks they're a small minority).

For those few people who gave her salvation, companionship, and guidance when she was at her lowest, Taylor will sacrifice herself and her happiness if need be. She will become a monster if necessary to kill the monster that will slaughter the ones she loves and cherishes, but only for just that long, and she'll off herself if that's what it takes.

And having struggled with the costs, responsibilities, and tragedies that come with making those hard decisions and sacrifices, of making mistakes and having regrets, she is in a natural position to sympathize with and connect with other beings who have similar struggles. EMIYA, for example: if Taylor knew his full story, I bet that she'd really want to connect with him and let him know that she greatly respects that he genuinely tried his absolute best to be a true hero--there are too many people who won't ever bother trying at all, or will just put up a front of heroism while being selfish and cowardly behind the facade. Sometimes, in the face of utter impossibility, defiantly striving to do the best you can to the very end is the most meaningful thing you can do. In Taylor's case, the only real difference was that she was lucky enough to have the impossibility surprisingly turn out to have a chink in its armor that was possible for her to exploit--but there was never any guarantee or logical reason to expect that such a chink even could exist.

In the case of Rider!Medusa and Medea, well, Taylor can fully understand and sympathize with the fact that sometimes the world just screws you over repeatedly and leaves you with no good options. In the end, everyone has their regrets, their mistakes, their musings at what might have been different had they chosen differently, but all they can do now is decide what to do and who they want to be going forward. Being forced into horrible acts, becoming a monster or having everyone turn on you because they simply don't understand you, coping with the deaths of the ones you loved and feel in some way responsible for--there is no grand karmic scale or objective arbiter of right and wrong. All you can do is try to learn from the past and make the best choices you can in the present to move towards a future you want.

In Marie, Taylor sees a bit of herself, but the most remarkable thing is that Taylor groks the sheer reality of how even people who save the world from impossibly powerful enemies can and sometimes do have the humblest and most pathetic of beginnings. Aife herself can attest to the fact that it is indeed possible for someone utterly ordinary and weak to become a force to be reckoned with.
 
Zedman7054 said:
I also had the idea of making an informal list of Taylor's proposed Beast Sins. My "Survival" got a bit of traction and I recently saw one that proposed "Control" which caught a lot of attention, and there was one that suggested "Arrogation" (to claim or seize things without justification) so I was wondering if there were any others passed around in discussions.

In the meanwhile...I think I'm going to rework "Survival" and propose a more...refined Love that Taylor might represent.
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I posited "Collectivism." Destroying what it means to be human for the sake of the human race.
I don't subscribe to the notion that the seven Sins of humanity are a static predetermined list. Any central theme backed by a being of sufficient power in opposition to the advancement of humanity and derived of humanity is capable of becoming a Sin of a Beast.
1: Pity. Condescension and judgement from on high that only breeds disgust and rejection.
2: Regression. Sloth and the unwillingness or inability to continue advancing toward a future.
3: Lust. Obsession. Seeking to please, and be pleased by, others to the detriment of the self and species.
4: Comparison. Competition. Aggression. Collection. Aggregation. Assigning value to people and doing whatever it takes to maximize one's relative value to others' even at the detriment of the whole.
5: ?
6: Depravity. Greed and Gluttony. The unfettered pursuit of satisfaction leading to self-destruction.
7: ?
I posited that Collectivism would be in opposition to Comparison as it reduces humanity to a singular eusocial macro-organism/colony state. This would put Taylor is a position of Beast 4/L (Collectivism), and go further to explaining why her and Fou just cannot get along. They are Beast 4 L/R candidates. She would also have a rivalry with Koyanskaya (Cherishment) as both possess a claim to Beast 4/L status (undesired by Taylor and coveted by Koyanskya). Additionally this works within Beast 4's theme of animals/nature as it reduces humanity to a eusocial macro-organism/colony inherently dispossessed of human characteristics and values.
 
There is a pretty appropriate moment to have Taylor realise her failed Beasthood, and it's way off, iirc. When they discuss Fou's potential, I mean. Earlier than that, and it wouldn't make sense, because Beasts are in-universe an esoteric topic not everyone will immediately jump into to explain something weird.

Anyway.
Olga is a pretty stressful character to have around. On the one hand, prickly as fuck, on the other, makes you want to do things like reply to Taylor's internal monologue about Mariesbury raising Marie with "He didn't do shit to raise her, please and thank you."

Not that I have experience, but she feels like a pissy younger sister your parents left in charge for some reason, and you have to listen to with exasperated fondness, like that.
 
Raiseth said:
There is a pretty appropriate moment to have Taylor realise her failed Beasthood, and it's way off, iirc. When they discuss Fou's potential, I mean. Earlier than that, and it wouldn't make sense, because Beasts are in-universe an esoteric topic not everyone will immediately jump into to explain something weird.

Anyway.
Olga is a pretty stressful character to have around. On the one hand, prickly as fuck, on the other, makes you want to do things like reply to Taylor's internal monologue about Mariesbury raising Marie with "He didn't do shit to raise her, please and thank you."

Not that I have experience, but she feels like a pissy younger sister your parents left in charge for some reason, and you have to listen to with exasperated fondness, like that.
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Pissy older sister with an inferiority complex driving her to prove herself competant and responsible to everyone in lieu of the father that had no interest in her.
 
James D. Fawkes said:
Everyone else was too far removed from her in the organization or too put off by her standoffish personality to have had the chance to get to know her the way I did.
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Oh right, her relationship with Mash is iffy. Do you think Hallmark makes a card for saying "Sorry my father conducted inhumane and invasive experiments on you that drastically reduced your lifespan and never even have you a name or legal identity"?

James D. Fawkes said:
but whatever else Marisbury had done — as a man, as a magus, and as a father — he hadn't raised a quitter
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In fairness Marisbully did not raise her period. :V

James D. Fawkes said:
"The concept is understandable enough," Marie waved it off, quite literally lifting one of her hands as though to swat away a fly buzzing about, "it's the person that makes so little sense! Of all people who could be the host of a Heroic Spirit, why him?"
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The Counterforce works in mysterious ways.

Read: Fanservice and merchandising opportunities.
 
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Rem said:
Oh right, her relationship with Mash is iffy. Do you think Hallmark makes a card for saying "Sorry my father conducted inhumane and invasive experiments on you that drastically reduced your lifespan and never even have you a name or legal identity"?
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It is ironic that at least half of that rings true for Olga as well, even if she can't remember it. Siblings in suffering, the two of them.
 
Taylor's sin as a beast could be a ton of things what I haven't seen mentioned would be something based on validation or achievements. While fanon ignores it Taylor has serious self worth issues beyond just body issues. She herself admits the reason she became a cape was escapism because she was chasing achieving things to make herself feel worth something.

This influences many things like her feelings of being lost once Coil is taken down and her then surrendering while dictating she'd be used against the nine. Most importantly is gold morning where she chases being able to contribute at all the Kephri thing itself was blind wild flailing that she had no idea would do anything while knowing it could kill her after she'd proven useless against scion, learned she couldn't second trigger and hadn't been the one Ziz chose to follow around and be directed by. That last one in particular is important as Taylor actually felt disappointed when Ziz followed Lisa instead of her despite expecting it because she would have been able to contribute through Ziz.

Something based on control or arrogance is pretty likely though because Kephri nearly going off the deep end after scion died was about not trusting others to not screw things again and so considering controlling everyone which is probably the advent rejection point when they decided against it.
 
Formerly said:
1: Pity. Condescension and judgement from on high that only breeds disgust and rejection.
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Mmm, the theme of the first slot is meaninglessness of life. It's the devastating nihilism of ultimate irrelevance of individual lives in the grand scheme of things. Goetia's whole shtick is that he decided to do what he did because he saw literally no purpose in overseeing and helping out a species that die at the drop of a hat and live a "measly" eighty years as a generous estimation.

It's pity, yes, but it's motivated by despair as much as sense of superiority.
 
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… Wait a fucking sec, I basically made Beast Taylor into an Excalibur in a girl suit, didn't I.

…That's not a bad idea for a Servant, you know.
 
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