Fragment 95 Insight

Fresh from Medea’s entry filled with paranoia and second guessing comes… Scheherazade with even more paranoia and crippling fear. Starting Season 5 on a somewhat gloomy, yet uplifting, note.

There was less foreshadowing this time around because I needed to focus a lot more on Scheherazade’s issue. Mainly because the Cancelled Supplement VI meant most of the defining had to be done in her fragment, which is roughly what the Epilogue was supposed to be. I think I did a fairly good job squeezing it all in there, even if it went over a bit.

So the key issue was obviously getting around Scheherazade’s crippling fear. Getting around, not destroying. As proven by Agartha canon, it’s so embedded into her saint graph you can’t exactly just wipe it away. But FGO Summer Event Part II and other information about her gave way to an obvious solution. Add in Agartha’s clear character development for her and the fragment’s path was obvious: Give Scheherazade reasons to want to see tomorrow besides simply ‘not dying.’

With that in mind, I hit most of the basics, and capitalized on Anishka’s closer bond with the caster. I tied up the lose ends from the Cancelled Supplement, then made sure to hit most of the referenced people in her materials log reasonably well. I think I did a fair job starting up a few key connections while also showing that, even though Chaldea is friendly, some won’t hold their tongue at something they can’t agree with. Fergus, Medb, Hans, and Blackbeard would be key points for this.

As a note with Arash, the Material Line certainly made a possibility obvious, but it’s not one I’m going to pursue. Obviously I mean Scheherazade’s ambiguous idolization to crush on her childhood hero. Without any doubt, that couple/ship has unbelievably high potential. A heroic man who would gladly lay down his life to protect those he cares about helping the woman who looked up to him growing up, who is crippled by the fear of death? Add in they both really appreciate children and that could’ve been something beautiful.

But, as usual, I laid my foundations heavy for Fragments, and I don’t shift them. Mata Hari and Paul got him instead, but that doesn’t mean I can’t make a profound idol/fan friendship more than possible to accomplish something similar. Again: paths, branches, possibilities, and more are cut, pruned, and made available based on the infinite web of choices going forward. I’m just trying to keep building something unique that works.

Starting in the latter half of next fragment, though, get ready for the ride to get pretty bumpy. Or really bumpy.

Teaser: That Memorial Essence was still the greatest gift she could have ever gotten. Before, she was just a tool for a cause. Now she was a mother… a wife… a kindred soul with so many friends, and not just a homunculus. Her memories of another life were colored more by the new ones she made everyday in Chaldea. It was a dream she never knew she needed, yet it made her a bit greedy. In a good way, of course.