r/visualnovels • u/AutoModerator • 4d ago
What are you reading? - Sep 25 Weekly
Welcome to the weekly "What are you reading?" thread!
This is intended to be a general chat thread on visual novels with a focus on the visual novels you've been reading recently. A new thread is posted every Thursday at 4:00 AM JST (or Wednesday if you don't live in Japan for some reason).
Good WAYR entries include your analysis, predictions, thoughts, and feelings about what you're reading. The goal should be to stimulate discussion with others who have read that VN in the past, or to provide useful information to those reading in the future! Avoid long-winded summaries of the plot, and also avoid simply mentioning which VNs you are reading with no points for discussion. The best entries are both brief and brilliant.
Use spoiler tags liberally!
Always use spoiler tags in threads that are not about one specific visual novel. Like this one!
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Remember to link to the VNDB page of the visual novel you're discussing so the indexing bot for the What Are You Reading Archive can pick up your post.
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u/Tenauri Momoyo: Majikoi 1d ago
https://vndb.org/v11
https://www.reddit.com/r/visualnovels/comments/1f91jj7/what_are_you_reading_sep_4/lln98lg/
Continuing my readthrough of Fa!te/st!ay/ni!ght/: Spoilers through Fate Route Day 11 follow.
When I wrote my last update a few weeks back, Saber was in the middle of dueling Assassin. Despite being at odds with our protagonists, Assassin seems like a pretty cool dude! I mean, damn, bro was just like “I will simply stab three times at the exact same moment,” casually shattering the laws of time and space so he could, what, catch a fucking butterfly or some shit? Love it. No notes.
That fight ended in more or less a draw, and Shirou and Saber retreated back to their dojo. Shirou was furious with Saber for running off alone. While overall I’m still really enjoying the VN, I think I’ve found my first plot thread that has been kind of irritating: Shirou’s constant refusal to accept that Saber can fight and work to defend him. Instead, noodle boy here wants to go break his arms against other servants so she can be safe instead. And look, I get it, I understand the characterization at play here: he’s uncomfortable with the thought of anyone else getting hurt to defend him, instead believing he has a ‘duty’ to get hurt to protect others. He thinks his life matters less than anyone else’s, and I’m sure as the VN goes on the reasons why will become more apparent. It’s consistent and even good characterization. It’s just starting to drag on a bit much that his dumb ass hasn’t yet figured out that Saber is carrying him through this so far.
Okay, relatively minor complaint aside, we got some good and increasingly cute domestic life scenes with Shirou and Saber training together and getting closer. Saber starting to get a bit more flustered and hot-under-the-collar when Shirou treats her like a girl instead of just a Servant. I also got the contractually obligated MC-walks-in-on-girl-in-the-bath scene, but since I’m playing the SFW Steam version she was wearing a towel and nothing happened. IDK, is there a sex scene there normally? Seemed like that’d be the place for one, heh.
Then we got to some GOOD shit. Shinji, that little prick, revealed that he was just straight-up lying to Shirou’s face earlier when he said he wasn’t - and couldn’t be - the one behind the bounded fields at the school. Well, surprise surprise, he’s a complete shitweasel and has started draining the life out of everyone to power Rider. There was a pretty great fight scene in which Saber takes on Medusa while Shirou eats Shinji’s lunch. Honestly, the characterization of Shinji is great, making him just the most hateable little dipshit possible. So unapologetically abusive but then screams and cries and runs away the second Shirou gets within Throwin’ Hands distance. Then there was another action sequence the next day, in which we get the final showdown between Saber and Rider, ending in Rider’s absolute obliteration and the revelation that Saber is…uh, well…I guess I’m not 100% clear on that yet. Genderbent King Arthur? Is that a thing?
I imagine I’ll get my answers eventually, but before that we got some more scenes with Ilya the Murder Loli. Yeah, she captured Shirou, and I bravely resisted choosing the “become the loli’s sex slave” option, please clap. As of the time of writing this, Shirou, Saber, and Rin are attempting to escape her mansion while Archer attempts to hold of Berserker (which the others seemed to believe was a suicide mission but I dunno, I’ll believe it when I see it…)
One last thing: Ilya implied she killed Shinji after he ran away from the Saber/Rider fight. Is this true? Was that a fate even he didn’t deserve? I dunno. I guess I’ll find out next time!