Fragment 15 Insight (Revisited)

This entry was one of the last ones I made where focus was split between multiple groups, but wasn’t a holiday or special fragment by design. Its overall theme remained the same: Gudao has a day off now that Gabrielle is a fellow master and can tackle some awful paperwork. Mashu accompanies for him, and together they share a sampler platter of many different activities.

Of course, when you have Mashu being so close to Gudao, it was only bound to attract attention from those looking to be with him. At this point in the series, it’s still Kiyohime and Tamamo. As a mark of development, their little day together reminds them of how it used to be as penpals. They just happened to be fighting over the same master this time.

Like most other later fragments in Season 1, this one only needed to be revisited and not revised. The overall premise and design was comfortable and focused, but just needed tweaks to reach the raised standard. The trick is ensuring the original remains as is without knocking anything over.

A lot of scenes still remain where they have a bit of point of view, but I dialed it back a fair amount without jeopardizing the little sideshow. In its place, you got a bit more of Gudao’s perspective and thoughts and some additional dialogue/interactions with others. All of it was further refined to ensure Gudao gets portrayed as a different, calmer master who’d experienced a lot (and almsot opposite of Gabrielle), but remains another human who wants to enjoy his time accordingly.

As usual, it also introduces a bunch of new servants who had already been there. Character Bloat is best dealt with in minor increments.

While it didn’t do anything as direct as Anton’s fragment, I had more drops of inferred feelings for both Mashu and Gudao. I did it back then as a setup for the first supplement, which was already being planned and designed accordingly. Of course, it too got a revamp to its current state, but I’m glad many designs and decisions still remained great foundations despite showing their age.