In the spirit of the ship, you should channel your feelings into cooking and make a beautiful themed meal.
Am spoilering the below less because spoilers and more because this is kind of a mini-after-the-fact-liveblog? Spoiler I have reached Episode 11. Thoughts so far: Emiya "Leeroy Jenkins" Shirou makes me incredibly anxious and the only thing that reassures me is that Archer's existence and his place as the main character mean that somehow, against all odds, he and his reinforced sticks survive I have so many feelings about the dynamic between Shirou and Archer, it's amazing, I may have to fic eventually. I'm working on a fic for another fandom that involves a character's past and future selves meeting but this is so different and it's just fascinating as heck. They're at once revolted and fascinated by each other. Shirou wants to punch his future in the face. Archer alternates between wanting to literally kill his past and just wanting to talk some gorram sense into him. I'm so glad I have this spoiler; it makes everything 100% more painful and therefore better. Tohsaka Rin is better than everyone. The scene when Shirou made Issei take off his clothes was...well...I just imagined the producers in a room, and one of them saying, "Well, we need some kind of female fanservice and this is as good a time as any." "But is it...really...in character?" "None of the male fanservice is either; be quiet if you aren't going to contribute anything useful." And meanwhile in the corner one of them's just thinking So Archer and Assassin aren't enough fanservice, huh? How confused, exactly, must Saber be? Is the Kiritsugu who raised Shirou really the same one she knew? I mean, if I was her, I'd be trying to borrow a computer and googling things like How common is the name Emiya Kiritsugu and How many Kiritsugu Emiyas live in Fuyuki City Gilgamesh needs to chill, for once in his entirely too long life. If Gilgamesh and Seaweed-Head Matou (whose name I forget but who looks like Gil from Pandora Hearts, thus borrowed nickname) hurt Sakura, I will be sorely displeased. In all seriousness, Shirou's a mite screwed up, isn't he? He talks a good game of being normal and cheerful but he's clearly got some issues and the show's actually doing a much better job with slowly building that then it is with realistically developing his abilities. On that note, watching him try to hide his injuries from trying projection was painful, like I had to pause the video. Uuugh, the problem with this fandom is that the chances of me finding platonic h/c fic for the main character are incredibly low, but that's what I want, here.
I think the Issei thing was actually in the VN, maybe? And yes Shirou is MAJORLY messed up in the brainmeat.
On top of his self-sacrifice issues, @keltena pointed out to me that his "GIRLS?!?! WHAT DO?!?!?!" reactions are so excessive it really makes the most sense to assume he's got a gender-linked anxiety problem. :::PPP
Yeeeeah, Shirou has Problems. As does literally everyone else in this series, but he's kind of a standout case. Why do you think I'm so attached to the fact that Waver essentially grew up to be the mentor for most of the next few generations of magical kids? These poor bastards need some kind of decent role model/non-abusive authority figure in their lives, and they need them like a decade ago.
Okay, does that mean the VN had an Issei route? Like, was it one of the ones where you could give up on all the plot-relevant characters and just romance your best friend instead? Or was it just a random thing they dropped into Rin's route? I'm having trouble parsing this...do you mean he's got anxiety about girls, specifically, or anxiety about his own gender? Either way, elaborate, if you can do it without spoiling me. (I'm now finished with episode 12; everything is on fire and nothing is okay)
It was one of the more hilarious choices you could make- when trying to find out who the Master at Ryudo Temple was, the natural answer was to try and get information from Issei, and one of the options was to throw the idea of subtle interrogation to the wind and just strip him to try and see if he had command seals on him. Sadly, this did not lead to an actual route of his own.
I don't know how much of this made it into the various anime adaptations, but in the VN he keeps freaking the hell out at the idea that [Saber/Rin/Sakura] IS A GIRL. And getting super scared and nervous and flustered and unable to coherently respond whenever he's reminded of it. e.g. at one point early on he shakes Rin's hand and then goes "WAIT I JUST REMEMBERED SHE'S A GIRL" and BSODs (Rin makes fun of him for it, because it's Rin, so of course she does). So, anxiety at the thought of Interacting With Girls. Re: Issei: "Issei is gay and has a thing for Shirou which Shirou has totally failed to notice" is apparently a very popular fanon/headcanon, and has more in support of it than just Shirou tearing his clothes off. But no route, alas. :::PPP
I kinda figured there must be an Issei/Shirou fandom, even if there wasn't any more support than that one scene. I've seen ships based on less. I dunno about the earlier anime, but UBW (the one I'm in the middle of) doesn't seem to have a lot of the panicking about people being girls in particular. He freaks out about the girls staying at his house overnight (which is understandable), and he's a little idiotic about them fighting, but nothing to the degree you're describing. Which is a little sad...clumsily done, it could be terrible, but I think written well it could be an interesting thing to have in.
(Incidentally, I'm at the Saber-Assassin fight near the beginning of the Fate route, and I am so amused both that Assassin gives Saber his real name and she's basically like this, and that he taught himself to shatter reality because he "had nothing better to do.")
Hah yeah. The Savior of France is pretty ridiculous. And that kind of reality shattering is technically only achievable by one other guy, who is a centuries old vampire wizard who has made some of the most OP weapons in the setting. And Assassin is just a dude. And he STILL managed to work at it so long reality gave up.
And then he went on to, in one iteration of canon, save France from a plague of dragons, be a Roman gladiatorial legend, and date Saint Martha.
So Assassin finally becomes the Memetic Badass he was born to be? :::PPP Some of my other helpful observations so far have included "Archer finds Rin's carefully-hidden hentai doujinshi while putting the living room back together," "So if the Church has to investigate anything called 'The Holy Grail' even if they know it isn't the actual cup, is there a team of Church investigators that has to go around looking into every irrelevant thing that shares a name with a holy artifact and how much do they hate their josb," and "AU where any time Shirou says something sexist, Rin slaps him across space and time."
(Incidentally, I just hit the first of Shirou's really bad Fate/Stay in the Kitchen speeches and I'm really feeling this one right now.) (And doubly frustrated because there are a ton of actually valid arguments and criticisms he could have made instead of "BUT YOU'RE A GIRL AND GIRLS SHOULDN'T FIGHT.") (I can't wait to get to the routes where he's less... *gestures to all of him*) Another one from my shitpost pile: "Would Shirou himself count as a catalyst for summoning Archer? AU where everyone accidentally summons alternate future versions of themselves as Servants."
OHMIGOSH. On one hand, yes. Future!Rin, please and thank you. Also the pure tension of Shirou and Archer in the same room alll the time. On the other hand, what about the people who are definitely gonna die before this is over (haven't hit a master death yet but I know they're coming). Do they see that everyone else has their future selves and just think, Oh no. Also, I find the Fate/Stay in the Kitchen nickname for his sexist tendencies terribly ironic given how much the boy cooks.
