Fragment 28 Insight

Santa Alter gets a fairly rough Cameo here. Unfortunately, more details of the minor singularity will only be revealed later, with most remaining a Noodle Incident among anomalies. Let’s be honest though, there are some pretty absurd singularities in the mobile game too. I had originally planned on it being a little more, but it didn’t actually make sense at one point…

… to such  an extent, this is actually the first Fragment I scrapped the entire original premise of and re-wrote ¾ the way through. It simply felt too shoehorned and forced when my initial intention was to make it feel like the original 2016 event with different twists. The main issue with that involved circumstances and mechanics: Santa Lily was going to disappear in Fragments of Chaldea regardless of outcomes, so why would they be going through all the “prove you’re a good Santa” plans if it’s a fleeting moment?

So I shifted the premise. It made significantly more sense she was trying to give great memories for the real Avenger Joan to look back on, starting with the idea of being Santa and bringing joy where an Avenger can’t. It only escalates from there and she winds up realizing what it means to truly give and receive. While the avenger likely won’t outright admit it, that’s a priceless present to obtain.

I kept Amakusa as a mentor to the little Joan, as a small reference to the 2016 event. As with the original premise, I was going to have him do his whole Santa Island Christmas Masque spiel, but once more it didn’t feel right anymore. Worry not, it will appear sometime later in an unexpected way. The little mention about his mutiny over trying to activate a grail (and subsequently vowing to seal the desire for Gudao’s sake) is actually canon: It refers to his Interlude.

After the next Fragment, the child servants should be getting less screen time until Kuro’s fragment appears. They’ve been appearing a lot lately, but that was due to the nature of the holiday season; What’s Christmas without children?

Third time’s the charm for Gudao and Mashu. Presence Concealment cloth has so much utility when you think outside the box… and innocent little Joan has no idea what Gabrielle’s personal alteration to her blanket gift really did.

Overall, the Fragment was fairly straight forward, and meaningful in a different way, after the revision. See you next week for a rare follow-up Fragment…. sorta. It takes place Christmas Day, so it would feel like a connected story if it wasn’t for the switch in Character spotlight.