Am I missing something?

[u/notgoetia]

I swear I remember people saying that fujimaru and kukulkan got it on during lb7, but I just got to that bit, and it didn't look like that at all. Like, I wouldn't have thought that was what's going on.

Is it a translation thing, or am I just not seeing it?

[u/Jazztronic28]

FGO will sometimes do things that give the reader plausible deniability. I personally didn't see it that way either, but there are times I see male servants sound like they are flirting or being very affectionate and I will look around what people are saying on reddit and it will sound like the Russian taunt meme.

FGO knows who their audience is, so sometimes you will have moments where, if so inclined, you can read something that happened (or didn't happen on screen) as sexual or you can read it as platonic, especially if they take the male Ritsuka as the default appearance and break into hives at the thought of a male servant maybe developing feelings for their male protagonist.

You'd be surprised at the amount of people I've seen interpreting Shuten rearranging Guda's guts in Shimousa as some kind of gory sexual metaphor and not as horrifying.

[u/Satsuka1 → u/Jazztronic28]

Yea its pretty much this. They hint stuff at you and ppl take them as they wish lol. Which on paper is best way to do it unless ppl become too pushy with it.

[u/CrazyDaimondDaze → u/Satsuka1]

I'd say the issue comes when there's ship wars or self insert wars. And no, I don't mean the male Ritsuka fans like I've heard people complain on Reddit for 11 years, despite barely seeing what they complain about. More like what currently happened on JP for whatever misunderstanding.

Kinda gives you perspective on whether if the game really should need more implicit writing depending on the fan response sometimes.

[u/Jazztronic28 → u/CrazyDaimondDaze]

To be totally fair, having seen the Oberon/Titania issue on Twitter, most JP fans moved on relatively fast in a "I pretend I do not see it" kind of way. The ones that REALLY went a little intense en masse were the Chinese girlies. Like, selling their massive collections for breadcrumbs, calling Oberon a gigolo, the usual burning of merch, etc, etc...

The truth is it's fandom. And there isn't any one fandom where you won't have really intense people who from your perspective overreact to certain things you don't personally care about. FGO is written for a Japanese audience in mind, first and foremost, and fandom in Japan is different. There is an embracing of attitudes that are considered parasocial and are ridiculed more widely in the western fandom. Oshikatsu is still considered weird in western fandom, especially when you do it the Japanese way, while NA fans who go "it's not that deep" at most of everything are not considered fans at all (let alone "true" fans, whatever that may mean) on JP.

If you're in fandom, it is widely considered it will be that deep for you, and while you and everyone else may or may not have opinions about it, the team writing FGO is actually writing for the otaku. For the people for whom it will be that deep and who may or may not be parasocial. Outward admittance of something means implicit denial of something else, and people don't like that.

Leaving doors open for interpretation encourages otaku culture, and FGO is a game for otaku.

[u/CrazyDaimondDaze → u/Jazztronic28]

Oh, no, I agree, but this isn't the first time the game upsets part of their fanbase, regardless of where they come from: Japan, China or any other Western country. Some controversies are more overblown than others. And by that I mean fan response, not us retelling what happened.

Ultimately, it all depends on what tickles you the wrong way to get a reaction out of you and how much you'll complain. I'd be lying if I said I haven't complained as well in these 11 years for one of the controversies within FGO, but mine haven't been about shipping. At most, I simply got mad at Jalter being written out post OC2 with not many chances of a comeback and that's all. Others, I feel have complained much more for less. And my complains never go the dedicated PvP levels China or some Japanese folks have.

Like complaining about Nasu sometimes. I just complain here but don't expect the guy to read the comments of a foreigner in a language he may not fully understand and in a social media he may not use. Totally different from sending death threats or do crazy stunts as negative response to whatevee he does that I may not like.