Rashil Deserves More Of Everything

Noah: (humming)

Noah: Seagulls, give it a break with all that squawking～♪

Noah: Goats, can’t you at least wait until it's the afternoon before ramming your horns against each other～♪

Noah: Even the sound of the rain is too loud, it’s piercing through this heavy head of mine～♪

Noah: O’ lions, please do not roar, today it shakes my very soul in this hungover body of mine～♪

Noah: The sound of the waves alone is enough～♪

Guda: You look like you’re… in a good mood huh, Noah?

Guda: Then if it’s fine with you, please take this!

Noah: Why, hello there, Master! Oh, is this a gift for me?

Noah: Aah, this is… Valentine chocolat, right?!

Noah: Thank you Master! I’m so happy… I’m so grateful!

Noah: Whoa! And there’s two in here too! Then this means that this is a pairー...

Guda: The other one is for the adult Nemo!

Noah: Right!

Noah: Oh, I knew that was the case, truly, I really knew it. Seriously.

Noah: I’ve heard about Valentine from everyone, so I’ve been looking forward to it a lot

Noah: And even Nemo who’s in here with me is kind of feeling restless, see?

Noah: The truth is, I’ve actually prepared a return gift.

Noah: And of course, it has to be a pair, right?!

Noah: I wasn’t sure about your preferences, so I prepared a variety of them. First is… this, I guess? 

Guda: A bottle of wine…?

Guda: And there’s two, no there’s a lot of them?

Noah: That’s right! When it comes to pairing wines, the Left and Right banks of Bordeaux are quite famous, but…

Noah: There’s also this as an example, the proud red and white wines of Burgundy, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay!

Noah: This is Barolo and Barbaresco from Piedmont! Called as the “king” and “queen” of wines respectively!

Noah: And then, and then, there’s the Rioja and Ribera too! Oh, if you want we can even do a taste testー

Nemo Nurse: Unfortunately, I don’t think that those are a suitable present for the Master, Noah.

Nemo Nurse: The adult Noah instructed us to keep an eye on you, to prevent things from going out of control.

Noah: Whaaaaaat?!

Nemo Marine: And so, with that said, all of these are confiscated～♪

Noah: Aaah! My precious wine collection! Even though I’ve carefully taste-tested them bottle per bottle along with Taigong Wang!

Nemo Engine: You just wanted an excuse to drink, didn’t you?

Guda: I’m really grateful for the thought behind the gifts, but…

Guda: I don’t really know when I’ll be able to relax and enjoy them, so…

Noah: Is that so…

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Noah: Sigh… I messed up.

Nemo Bakery: How pitiful… So is that why you’ve holed up in this simulator?

Noah: Mmm… It’s embarrassing but that is the case.

Noah: Now that I think about it, it’s really all my fault. I just charged into it directly while drunk.

Noah: I don’t even have any face left to show my other half, Nemo…

Nemo Professor: I believe it’s alright, yes. The Captain usually makes mistakes too~

Nemo: And I’m grateful for times like this for the opportunity to improve the accuracy of the Ark’s reproduction.

Nemo Bakery: Opportunity… Opportunity, huh…

Nemo Baker: Valentine’s is a special, one a year season after all, so one doesn’t want to have any regrets about it, right?

Noah: Uwaaah…

Nemo Bakery: Noah? Please cheer up!

Nemo Bakery: Even I mess up sometimes and end up baking something outrageous like a kaiju bread!

Nemo Bakery: So it’s fine if the delivery of our return gift is a little late.

Nemo Baker: How about thinking of a suitable gift for the Master again? 

Nemo Professor: Yes~ I agree with that too~

Nemo Professor: Aren’t there more items that would showcase Noah’s appeal other than grape wine?

Noah: Ummm…

Noah: That’s… right. Thank you, Bakery, Professor

Noah: I’ve also troubled Nurse and the others, huh?

Noah: A gift that suits my image, huh… Hmm. I guess I’ll think about it once the alcohol evaporates from my head…

Noah: I’ll think… snooze…

Nemo Professor: He really fell asleep just like that on the bench, huh, hehe… Now I feel an even more sense of closeness with him.

Nemo Bakery: Oh dear, to think that he’d fall asleep in such a place…

Nemo: Huh?! Just when did your clothes become so disheveled?! Eek! No-Noaaah…?!

Nemo Professor: Let me fix that~ Also cancel that sense of closeness from earlier~ This is way beyond having just a bad sleeping posture!

Noah: (mumbling)

Noah: I can’t drink anymore… Anymore than this is… Seriously… Aah! Can’t be helped, you’re not giving me a choice~! (Sleep talking)

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Nemo: Phew…!

Nemo: I barely made it this time… The curse… didn’t leak out, right?

Nemo Bakery: It’s the adult Captain!

Nemo Professor: So this is the adult Captain. Hello.

Nemo: I’ve been telling you, that I’m not you guys’ Captain… Anyway, leaving that aside for now.

Nemo: I apologize. It seems like my other half is regularly causing trouble. 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Nemo: That’s right.

Nemo: I also struggled on what gift to give to the Master, to show appreciation for all that they’ve done, and in the end, I couldn’t come up with anything.

Nemo: I wouldn’t say that I myself is good at socializing, and the other one Noah wanted to be grateful to is someone beyond the clouds.

Nemo: Though it might be highly unlikely, maybe if I were Santa Claus, then maybe I’ll come to understand that feeling too.

Nemo Bakery: A gift that’s Noah-like, huh… Hmm…

Nemo Bakery: Something that would also convey the adult Captain’s affection… Hmmm…

Nemo: Well that part… I wouldn’t say that it’s very important… 

Nemo Professor: Well, this is just a side note but…

Nemo Professor: Earlier, I received feedback on the accuracy of this Ark’s simulation from Noah. 

Nemo: And I received a positive review of “It’s almost perfect!”, but then he shook his head and said that he feels like there’s also something missing.

Nemo: Hmm? So, do you have any idea what that might be, Professor?

Nemo Professor: Yes, that’s right. I’m sure what he meant was the scent that used to drift throughout the ship. 

Nemo Professor: I’ve heard that the legendary Noah’s Ark was made with wood from a special tree called “gopher tree.”

Nemo Professor: So we used modern cypress and cedar woods from Lebanon as inspiration to recreate the aromatic compounds unique to conifers.

Nemo Professor: But Noah may have been able to detect subtle differences that we were unable to fully capture, yes.

Nemo: Hm, I see. That might be the case.

Nemo: As you both know, submarines too have their own scent… Well more like, hehe, there really is a scent to them, right?

Nemo: I used to try all kinds of different air fresheners before I got fed up with them. 

Nemo Bakery: Yes, yes! Scents are important after all. 

Nemo Bakery: Before unveiling a new type of bread, I go to Mashu and rely on her honest sense of smell!

Nemo: Smell… Scent… Fragrance, huh…

Nemo: In one way, Noah might be an expert in fragrances. After all, frankincense and myrrh are important elements of an altar.

Nemo: I see… Then that’s it… I think I’ve come up with a good return gift.

Nemo: That isー

Nemo Bakey: Yeah! I think that’s a good idea!

Nemo: Yes. I think I’d be able to help with the compounding as well.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Noah: Hey there, Master, do you have a bit of time? Don’t worry, I’m completely sober today.

Noah: This time, I’ve prepared a proper present. Even my other half has given me the go signal.

Noah: This is a return gift from both me, and Nemo. Won’t you accept it? 

Guda: Are these… Perfume bottles?

Guda: (As expected, they’re a pair.)

Noah: It’s a special perfume set.

Noah: They say that perfume bottles that can be used for decoration like this are called “coffret.”

Noah: Well, though I say special… I’ve only helped supervise the scent at the very last part of the production process. 

Noah: As for the crafting, Engine and the Marines all helped out, and did it all in just one night. Those guys are amazing, right?!

Guda: Thank you for the wonderful gift, Noah, Nemo.

Guda: (Sniff sniff) It’s quite an exotic scent… 

Noah: So what do you think about it?  I’d be happy if you liked it. 

Noah: I was thinking that it might be very different from the perfume that you usually wear. 

Noah: So I tried to create a fragrance that’s more subtle and gentle.

Noah: So that if you wanted to relax, or even change up your mood a little, please feel free to wear it. 

Guda: Yes, maybe I’ll use it right away!

Noah: Hehe, then that’s great!

Noah: Hmm? A suggestion from the Master?

Noah: Since there’s two bottles, why don’t we each keep one and swap scents every now and then…?

Noah: Aah, that is… So there’s that option too, huh? Hehe.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

PS: The confiscated wine was enjoyed by the staff and other Servants.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

A Soothing Fragrance

A return gift from Nemo/Noah.

A pair of perfume bottles.

It’s designed for storage, not portability. To be used gradually by transferring the fragrance bit by bit  to another container.

Each bottle features a design that reminds one of a “dove(?)” and an “ark.” 

The anchor ornament, an element that was not originally part of the ark, also gives a "Nemo" feel to it. Formulated under the supervision of Nemo/Noah and with the full support of the Nemo series, it also features exquisitely crafted crystal glass engraving.

Though each bottle has a distinct scent, in truth...

There is a hidden trick: they become most captivating when blended together.

Hating on every aspects of Noah is part of the experiences needed to love him, you see. Especially because he is really screwed over by external factors more than by the internal ones.

Hate Sega for putting him in Arcade in the first place

Hate Lasengle for not putting him in any of Arcade collab runs because men don't sell

Hate Nasu Kinoko for using him as deathflags for Nemo twice and nothing more

Hate Hoshizora Meteo for being a misandrist pedophile who refuse to write anything unless it involves cute girls

Hate Sakurai Hikaru for making him so weak in Arcade's main story to hype Draco, Taigong Wang, and Arthur, and for instructing Haganeya Jin to make everyone forget about him in Arcade collaboration event's story

For the sake of brevity, I'll stick to one per writer. Picking apart everyone to the extent I did with Minase would take forever and would be better done after their respective Ordeal Calls.

I hesitate to call Higashide's comedy his strong point because his huge hits are about as frequent as his huge misses. I suppose I'll go with clarity for Higashide's main strong point. Even when I think he sucked at delivering his point, I can always tell what he's trying to say, which is not something I can say about Sakurai's most compressed scripts. His weak point is his lack of ambition. It's nice to have at least one person in FGO's team who will never try to escalate things, but I can't see it doesn't make his stories more forgettable in the long run.

Minase was already detailed in his own post.

Meteo’s best quality is a tone setter. Requiem, Salem, and all his events come with an atmosphere that feels very tangibly different from what FGO usually does. Often his events are bad, but never they lack a unique identity. Which segues into his weak point, being that many of his events are comedy events and the man is simply not funny. Bullying Erice is his only consistently good joke, and when he tries other things, the results are more miss than hit. See Las Vegas and Wandjina World Tour for major examples of comedy events that failed hard at the comedy side.

Nasu is a master recycler. I don't know how he does it but the man is constantly reusing the same structures, the same themes, or the same dynamics and somehow it never feels repetitive. There is always something that makes the whole recipe feel fresh and unique despite being so easy to recognize the same usual ingredients there. And what I dislike about Nasu in FGO is how he's still stuck at the concept of selling waifus from the girls with routes days. Everyone has their list of characters who get ship tease with Fujimaru but only in Nasu's case it feels like an overwhelming majority and that some of the choices create too large of a difference between the summoned character and the character in the main story. Was it really necessary to do this with, say, Morgan? Melusine? Tenochtitlan?

And Sakurai I saved for last because one major reason this post took this long is that I was struggling to sort out what is characteristically good and bad about her. Well, even now I don’t have a simple and satisfying answer. Things can’t be simple with Sakurai, unfortunately. One friend of mine described the experience of reading Sakurai scripts as “playing chess against an opponent that doesn’t tell that you are in a game of chess” and that’s honestly a fascinating way to phrase it.

Sakurai is an intriguing combination of inflexibly ambitious and inflexibly professional. She has grand ideas for her characters and she will include them in the script without fail. But she's also strictly adherent to script size limitations. While Nasu is making Camelot and Avalon le Fae with total disregard to every possible limit, Sakurai is cramming so much into Septem's and London's microscopic file space that it becomes utterly incomprehensible. Nasu wrote Last Encore's plot as a whole ass novel and hired Sakurai to convert that into anime scripts because Sakurai is his expert in fitting a lot of stuff into tiny spaces. Tunguska was tossed at Sakurai because probably no one else could fit into its raid event constraints. And because she doesn't compromise on what goes in, her alternative is not revealing the mysteries about her characters but laying out all the hints so the players can figure it out themselves, which is a really fun thing once you're used to it (read: aware that you're playing chess against her).

By chapters:

Lost Jerusalem - Sakurai, with some inputs from Meteo and Kenkeichi. The clue is when Ozy randomly calling out to Nefertari when he was summoned for the first time. Kenkeichi writes everything relating to Medusa and Izou since they were also paired in KohaAce. As for Meteo’s contribution, well, let’s just say that there’s a reason why Foreigner Molay in mobile has a line that’s pretty much mocking Saber Molay….

Babylon - Nasu, with some inputs from Higashide and Sakurai. Even though Kintoki and Tamamo are together again, they have limited interactions (Kintoki interacts more with Zerkerlot than with Tamamo) and do things that they only do when Nasu writes them. Tiamat and “Captain”, the main companions of the chapter, are known Nasu characters. The 2.5世 gag is too clever for Sakurai to come up with and is more in line with Nasu’s sense of humor. On the other hand, all the power level talks and Nebuchadnezzar II’s relationship with Draco have obvious Sakurai cues. Higashide’s only contribution for the chapter is the section where we fight Jalter and Blackbeard.

Lilim Harlot - Sakurai is the main writer, but every other writers returned to do their part in their respective Sin City nodes. The main story of the chapter is related to Prototype’s Beast VI subplot, which is by Sakurai. The first exchange between Proto Merlin and King Hassan references the “Grand buddies” gag first appeared in Tunguska. You can tell the different writers in Sin City nodes by observing who is more chatty between King Hassan, Proto Merlin, or the allies from previous Singularities.

By characters:

Purely by Nasu - Da Vinci Lily, Larva Tiamat, “Captain”/Noah

Higashide - Santa Helena, Sita, Santa Fran

Purely by Sakurai - Proto Merlin, Setanta

Meteo - Molay

Takenoko - Santa Suzuka

The hints:

- Noah is highly cautious, learns from his past mistakes, has edgy teenager vibes, but very carefree and friendly otherwise.

- While Servants being summoned in their physical prime is not a writer-specific quirk, Noah seems to really enjoy his pretty boy looks to the point of making a random Star Driver reference. Whether this is an escapism like how David prefers to be in his pre-Goliath shepherd self remain to be seen, but I won’t be surprised if that’s the case. Especially if you consider him calling Tiamat “Mommy” and the implication it brings to how his father Lamech might treated him in his childhood.

- Noah uttered random English twice in Babylon after his True Name reveal: フルに力 in Section 6 and 今回はタイムリミットだ in Section 7.

- Speaking of True Name reveal, Noah’s true appearance and True Name reveals have a special transition seen nowhere else in Arcade’s story cutscenes. Not even Lion King’s arrival and Beast VI/S get that kind of fanfare. The only other special effect in Arcade’s story cutscenes is Draco’s flooding of Babylon, which, surprise surprise, happens right after Noah reveal.

- Noah has ゾハールの輝き (Glimmer/Radiance of Zohar/Tzohar) as one of his potential Skills. Zohar being Hebrew for “radiance” and tzohar being Hebrew for…well, there were debates during the old times about what it truly means (by the Rabbis of Midrash, no less!), but it’s agreed upon that it’s something along the lines of “things that glow”. Why this is significant? Because the other two Old Testament Servants written by Meteo, David and Sheba, have abilities and armaments named in Hebrew (for David his NP and for Sheba her three djinns).

- Noah’s relationship with Babylonian figures (namely Tiamat, Enkidu, and Utnapishtim) is definitely Nasu’s ideas. However, how it connects with what we know about Noah’s stories is definitely Meteo’s.

- And speaking of source materials, Noah’s appearance being based on what’s told in Book of Enoch shows that whoever writes him is not afraid of taking references from other obscure interpretations of his story aside from the “canon” one. Wouldn’t be surprised if things that are exclusive to Book of the Jubilees get referenced too.

EDIT:

Fate/GrandOrder にて現在開催中の期間限定イベント 「雪原のメリー･クリスマス2023 ～7days / 8years Snow Carol～」 にて実装のイベント限定配布サーヴァント、ネモ〔サンタ〕のデザインとイラストを担当しました。 どうぞよろしくお願いいたします。

イベント特設サイト→ https://www.fate-go.jp/special/2023-christmas/

If I had to guess, him being busy with monitoring Sakurai’s usage of certain two Arcade Servants (which, I should note, are both males) and the Izo+Medusa duo in Lost Jerusalem on Keikenchi’s behalf might be the reasons of his absence through Lostbelt arc.

Which parts of LB7? My guesses are mostly based on Meteo’s Twitter activities and Summer Erice’s Valentine quiz, but…

- Tenochtitlan’s concept as a personification of a city is just a reporpused premise of Girls’ Work. For added bonus, her casual look second Ascension greatly resembles Erice.

- Izcalli being Moctezuma II, but not his role as the new Tezcatlipoca (that’s definitely Nasu’s idea). And by extension, everything about the Ocelomehs, including their language.

- He lends Anubis to Sakurai for Nitocris Alter.

- Daybit being in touch with cosmic horrors, his “angels” being the Eldritch-type Foreigners, and the Artifact being from Semitic tribe. Speaking of the Semite, the katakana used for the “Sem” in Daybit’s name is the same one used for Shem. Which would give Tezcatlipoca’s calling Daybit “Man of Sem” even more meaning to the myriads it have already.

- Related to above, if my another guess of a certain Arcade Servant being Meteo’s is actually true, then that would explain why Nemo Captain had very specific things happened to him during LB7’s first part. Those very specific things being Nemo Captain’s injured sprite having his hair untied, and him confronting Tezcatlipoca. Tezcatlipoca’s MyRoom line towards Nemo outright informing him about his adult version really doesn’t help matters.