Reaction Shot: Fate/Apocrypha episode 14 (or, this is STILL not the boss battle!)

[not_cynical]

Okay, it's been approximately four million years since I wrote anything about Fate/Apocrypha, but Lex just showed me some of the Waver Velvet spin-off with all of the explanation for who any of the characters who showed up in the Clocktower in THIS series are, so I'm desperate to get back on my bullshit. ... Apparently this involves diving back into all of the Fate stuff I haven't finished, I don't know what to tell you.

• WHEN LAST WE LEFT OUR INTREPID HEROES: everything was on fire. Both Beserkers exploded, Vlad the Impaler non-consensually became both Dracula and a meat-puppet, Jeanne D'Arc called a temporary truce to kill Dracula, Avicebron has decided that science has no factions and this is going to go BADLY for his human, and it turns out that Shiro Kotomine is not actually Shirou Emiya raised by a different person, it's just that the Type-Moon people decided to really lean in on this bait and switch. Does that sound right to everyone? Because that's what I remember.
• I am somewhat interested in how Avicebron went from "Fairly normal looking dude" to "giant purple suit of armour." Like, I have SEVERAL questions about the character designs in Fate ("why is every female spellcasting heroic spirit an elf" and "why are so many characters allergic to covering their underwear" among them), but the purple armour is probably the most confused I've been about a male character's outfit.
• Necrodaaaaaaaaaaad! Necrodad and Saber, my two favourite characters in this series, which means that a) they're not going to win, and b) they're probably going to get written out in the third-to-last episode so that I don't have any emotional investment in the ending anymore!
• (Look, I'm not saying that happens with every Grail War, but I have a PRETTY SOLID STRIKE RATE.)
• Saber being "Yeah, yeah, I should have killed Rider when I had the chance, but their Master was PISSING ME OFF" like he's expecting Necrodad to give him a lecture about it, and Necrodad just being like "Yeah, no, that seems legit" - THIS RELATIONSHIP IS THE MOST CHILL AND UNDERSTANDING ONE IN THE ENTIRETY OF THE FATE UNIVERSE AND I AM VERKLEMPT.
• ... Yes I am emotionally overcome by how understanding they both are about murdering someone, but in my defence: IT'S THE FATE UNIVERSE, IT'S KINDA LIKE THAT.
• UGH, CAULES, I HATE HIM. I forgot how much I hated him and then he popped back up in another series and I started swearing at the screen, so, uh, that's a lot. YOU WERE A WAY BETTER CHARACTER WHEN I THOUGHT YOUR SISTER WAS GOING TO MURDER YOU IN COLD BLOOD OR YOU WERE ACCIDENTALLY GONNA DIE WHEN BERSERKER DID.
• I will allow that it's helpful that he just does what the homunculi tell him to do without arguing, but that just means that he's one step up from Murder Mustache Dickhead.
• Oh boy, Jeanne is NOT happy with this turn of events.
• Jeanne pinning Sieg to a wall is my sexuality.
• (I am very much okay with Jeanne being the angry one wall-slamming people and Sieg being the gentle one who just wants everyone to be safe. Yay, flipping conventional gender-roles!)
• ... Man, remembering that Jeanne D'Arc was a teenager when she went into war makes this speech Jeanne's giving even worse. But look! Some of the Homunculi survived! I worried about a lot of them, okay, even though they've got four faces (and Sieg's) between them.
• Okay but riddle me this, Batman, why is Sieg the only one with a distinct face? By the logic of how they're made, there should be other Siegs in the tanks. His design should be repeated somewhere else. Unless you're telling me that they killed every homunculus that looked like Sieg in the initial hunt for a heart?
• He is doing his best! He's doing what he thinks is right, even though he's only been able to conceive of right and wrong for like four days! BE PROUD OF HIM JEANNE.
• SHUT UP MURDER MUSTACHE, YOU DON'T GET TO HAVE OPINIONS.
• ... You know what, I honestly would have been okay with Murder Mustache being cannibalised for spare parts to power a golem. That would have been fine. And I'm EXCEPTIONALLY glad that Archer told him that was the plan.
• I can't believe it took them that long to go "Oh shit, the kid is going to be the reactor core." ... Also Archer, if you knew this was going to happen, WHY DID YOU NOT STOP MENTION IT SOONER SO THAT THEY COULD STOP THE KID GOING TO SEE HIM.
• Bless this trusting little kid, he didn't even consider that it was a trap. ... Which Avicebron seems to be very confused by.
• "The feelings you felt towards me were pleasant," he says, before listing off all the reasons why he doesn't give a fuck.
• ... Roche never actually mentioned hating humans at any point. MAYBE that should have come up earlier rather than being a thing we were supposed to infer from his being a golemist.
• "Yet why is he trying to create a human?"
• WHY DOES IT HAVE TEETH. WHY DOES ADAM HAVE TEETH!
• I like the little sidestep he does to get out of Adam's way.
• Like, making a golem who brings life with every step is cool! Why does it need to murder everyone as well!
• I was well expecting this to be the mid-season boss by the way. "Here is the thing that unites everyone and takes multiple episodes to deal with!" Like Dracula, y'know? AND YET.
• Astolfo and Sieg are cute, okay. They're so determined to protect each other!
• (I am PRETTY sure that the sheer amount of sexy saint fanart in actual churches means I'm not going to hell for shipping Jeanne D'Arc with anyone. Although considering that this ship has four people, three bodies, and one person who can only communicate via someone else, MAYBE I should be less confident in that opinion.)
• "You can count on me to be your knight in dingy armour!"
  "I think you mean knight in shining armour."
  "Oh no, I didn't want to brag or anything!"
• ... I've just realised that this means that they're programming homunculi with knowledge of idioms, presumably for ease of command later. WHAT THE HELL FACTION OF BLACK.
• SERIOUSLY that golem is huge!
• LEAVE THE HOMUNCULI ALONE, THEY DESERVE BETTER THAN BEING STUCK IN YOUR MEAT SUIT AS FUEL!
• Fiores is so good. I love her. Just straight up gets into her gun octopus and goes to protect the castle.
• And that homunculi dragging Caules out of there is MORE THAN HE DESERVES.
• "It seems that talk of you losing all rationale was correct."
  "Yep, it's true! Therefore I'm not afraid of you!"
  I love Astolfo, they're so proud of themself.
• (Can you tell that I've completely forgotten which pronouns go with which character? I'm he/himing Saber because he seems pretty confident on the whole not being referred to as a woman thing, and I'm they/theming Astolfo because I'm pretty sure that according to Fate/Grand Order their gender is canonically "Secret&heart;!" so...)
• ... So it's not even armour. WHY IS HE WEARING SO MUCH PURPLE.
• Wait, you can't turn his noble phantasm off by killing him?! CHEATING!
• (Really distracting observation: Avicebron's dub voice sounds like Yami from Yu-Gi-Oh! and the purple guy from FFXIII-2, and yet somehow the voice actor is neither of those people! Is this just an accent people get taught in voice acting school?!)
• HOW ARE YOU STILL TALKING WITH AN ARROW LITERALLY HALFWAY THROUGH YOUR HEAD.
• GOOD SAVE ASTOLFO, YOU ARE THE HERO WE DESERVE.
• Hippogriff: *wants nothing to do with this madness*
• STOP SAVING CAULES HE DOESN'T DESERVE IT. AND STOP LETTING MURDER MUSTACHE PRETEND TO BE CONCERNED, BUT MAINLY THE CAULES THING.
• Holy shit, Jeanne just tanking Adam like it's not an elemental force of change! Chiron backing her up! Jeanne running up the golem! I love herrrrrrr.
• ... Not gonna lie, the eye-spinning effect IS creepy!
• I love how all of the mystical and religious explanations for what the golem is doing can be summed up as "An autonomous reality marble?!" Thank you Astolfo!
• ... The thing about being unable to shed blood in paradise sounds like a bible thing, so now I am seriously wondering how much information is downloaded into each servant that a mythological being can make Biblical references.
• Apparently Eden is full of weird nightmare plants! GOOD TO KNOW.
• Astolfo is so cheerful about not having anything useful on them, I love them.
• Wait, Jeanne can just fucking summon Saber out of nowhere? I love them. I LOVE THEM. Especially because Saber's just here like "Cool, giant monster trying to kill you. Did you want anything?"
• "What if I miss? Do you have another plan?"
  "No."


• "Hey Ruler!"
  "I'm a little busy at the moment!"
• SABER IS SO HAPPY ABOUT THIS, I LOVE HIM.
• So wait, his command seals work on HIMSELF?!
• Avicebron? GET OUT OF THE GOLEM.
• Oh, I forgot about Saber, I guess it's a fourway ship involving five people and three bodies. My bad.
• I'd like to say that I can't believe Saber is haggling over whether he's going to help save the literal planet or not, but I 100% can, because Necrodad is raising the son he deserves.
• Astolfo being described as "That hero does not fear god" is fantastic, although I'm kinda like "?????" at the specific "Well, I mean, I GUESS you could have led your people to the Promised Land, but..."
• LOOK AT THEIR TEAMWORK AND SABER FINALLY ACKNOWLEDGING SIEG AS SOMETHING OTHER THAN AN IMITATION! LOOK AT IT!
• OF COURSE Jeanne hustles straight to Sieg. OF COURSE.
• Not gonna lie, I don't remember if I knew that there was
  Lancer (Black): Vlad the Impaler. Lancer (Red): Karna
  Saber (Black): Siegfried. Saber (Red): Mordred.
  Archer (Black): Chiron. Archer (Red): Atalanta.
  Berserker (Black): Frankenstein. Berserker (Red):
  Spartacus.
  Caster (Red): Shakespeare / Avicebron.
  Rider (Black): Astolfo. Rider (Red): Achilles.
  Assassin (Black): Jack the Ripper. Assassin (Red): Semiramis
  Ruler: Jeanne D'Arc / Amakusa Shiro
  Tokisada
  

(Reaction shot master post)an