I was going to add other aspects to this, such as the ending of Hazbin and the Lostbelts from the same game I'll be discussing, but then I realized I wrote a ton about just this one section.

So, the one aside I'll note is: I switched over to Quobuz some months ago, but Spotify still made a wrapped for me and it said my "listening age" is 82. I don't know if what is an average, because none of my top 5 artists were even from 80 years ago, but if you average out Holst and Nightwish... perhaps?

As Fate/Extella Link did get me to go back to Fate/Grand Order:

The final part of the first plot arc I had was a bit underwhelming, but everything after that? Some of these plot lines deserve far more than to be locked behind the first whole arc of a gatcha game.

First off: Salem. Yes, that Salem. Likely the most famous material about Salem, Massachusetts is The Crucible, a play from the McCarthy Era meant to connect the hysteria of the witch hunts to McCarthyism. It is effective at that, but it also focuses more on personal drama. For example, it makes Abigail, who was a child historically, into a fully grown adulteress. It also avoids focusing on some of the major underlying factors behind the witch hunts, many of which were inherently misogynistic.

To that end, this gatcha game with an ample amount of fanservice actually does... a better job at portraying the overall picture?? Sure, a fair amount of Fate material already proved their merit in writing, particularly Fate/Zero, but try to explain this being an optional chapter of a gatcha game.

Which starts out with an anomaly of unknown proportions originating in Salem that could nonetheless impact the future of the world. Da Vinci and Sherlock Holmes coming up with the brilliant idea to send a group of servants into the village. These servants are given instructions to be pretend to be traveling theatre trope. The plays are written directly by Shakespeare and Hans Christian Anderson while they were drunk the night before.

... and the servants (translation: effectively familiars who take on the forms of historical/mythic figures) they send are: Mata Hari, Charles-Henri Sanson, Robin Hood, and Nezha. Circe accidentally shows up.

And, if that doesn't sound like the beginning of some truly unhinged crackfic that could be either phenomenally shitty or brilliant, then I don't know what does.

Yet, there is some logic behind it as most servants would be incapable of keeping a low profile. Hell, many are divine or monarchs with 0 concern with any such things. They directly call out how puritans would be fundamentally opposed to plays to begin with - and they are at first, so the first one they pick is a biblical story - and starting out as obvious outsiders is less of a hurdle than attempting to blend in more.

The puritans are also, accurately, offended by: the servants showing skin, their outfits having color, and Sanson being French.


( A ton of spoilers follow )

Sometime in the future (possibly? likely?): why the Lostbelt where Ivan the Terrible is a giant mammoth and Anastasia (the famous Romanov girl, not Ivan's wife who is also confusingly named Anastasia) is running around with ice magic is actually a realistic tale of survival and the lengths humans will go to for it.

Even though

if I were to make an impromptu soundtrack for it, inspired by the random songs I kept on getting stuck in my head it during it would be:

Ice Ice Baby - Vanilla Ice
Mother Russia - Iron Maiden
The Ballad of Billy the Kid - Billy Joel
Rock Me Amadeus - Falco
Let it Go - Frozen, but pretend it's sung by Anastasia (I'm sorry yet not sorry)
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (although this one is... in the actual game)

Although perhaps that insane combination of things doesn't seem quite so random after everything else I just wrote.