Fate/Stay Winter: Let the Pain Train Continue!

Synopsis

Fate/Zero eps 9 – 12:

Ep. 9: Half an episode on Lancer/Kayneth, half an episode on Rider/Waver. Turns out Assassin isn’t dead yet…and apparently there’s 4 of them?

Ep. 10: Rin’s Adventure, just like the title says.

Ep. 11: Archer, Saber and Rider get together to talk as “kings” of stuff.

Ep. 12: Talking heads ensure between Kirei and Archer as the former tries to figure out what “joy” is.

Impressions

• Number of Times Waver Velvet Appears in These Eps: 2.
• I wonder…just what is Lancer’s motivtion for the Grail? Surely, Servants have their own motives…
• I literally covered my eyes when Sola-Ui bent Kayneth’s finger back…it was almost as bad as seeing Nozomi get tortured (Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka)…*gulp*
• I had to google how old Waver was in this Grail War…he’s 19, apparently, so right in my strike zone right here, so to speak~. Update: If you’re not paying attention to my (admittedly weird) taste in husbandos, the joke is that I draw the line at 15 year olds…but seriously, he looks 16… 
• Beleaguered Waver is what you cool kids would call the 2020 Mood…and yes, I’m watching this on the 1st of January, 2020 (but you’re reading this after I put it up later in the month), so I’m keeping the comment.
• “What kind of moron would go busting in?” – *facepalm* It seems Rider would.
• What the heck is Rider riding his chariot over on the floor, anyway? What’s up with these sewer creatures ? They’ve got tentacles…!
• Rin reminds me of Asuka (NGE)…*gulp* That can only mean bad things for her.
• Zenjo? I’ll make a note of that name.
• That one glowing sign says “Fuyuki Station”.
• Rin no Bouken = Rin’s Adventure. I don’t see why the subbers included “Big” in there, tbh.
• Uh-oh. Why do I get the feeling Saber’s going to get very, very drunk…?
• Gee whiz, the great b*stard is a narcissist…
•  Well, sometimes I forget I had “Archer = Gilgamesh” spoilt for me ages ago…probably because he’s all over Babylonia, not to mention he seems to be one of the more popular characters precisely because he is the great b*stard.
• “I wish for my homeland’s salvation.” – An interesting thing to say, considering Brexit. (snorts through nose with half-disguised laughter)
• What the f*** is a Gordius…*googles* oh, okay. So that’s Rider’s chariot.
• How many Assassins are there??? I thought there was just the one, but there were 4 last time.
• This discussion is interesting…no wonder Saber got mistaken for Joan of Arc back in the day.
• Welp, Assassins gotta assassinate…*shrugs*
• Eyyyyyy…there’s this one guy who looks basically like an older Waver Velvet! That explains a few things, I think.
• “Ramasonic” (sic).
•  I still think Gil-I mean, Archer’s snakeskin pants are hilarious.
• I feel like last episode was a lot better in regards to how good Fate/ could be. This episode is just Ufotable animating talking Gilgamesh and Kirei heads. Update: Well, I exaggerate, but that’s basically what most of the episode was.
• Why do I get a bad feeling something bad’s going to happen to Maiya…again?
• Kirei trying to look bada*s while leaning against a wall…it looks sort of funny, to be honest with you…because he bends his neck at a funny angle. Update: When I say “funny” here, I mean “Kirei tries his hardest to do that one Detective Conan (or alternatively, Sailor Moon) pose where there’s a character against a mirror and the alter ego’s on the other side”.

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Characters who Haven’t Appeared So Far, but Definitely Will Appear Later (?) in the Franchise (Non-definitive List)

• Sakura Matou (older)
• Rin Tohsaka (older)
• Ilya (older)
• Medea – I remember hearing Medea was in the Fate/ franchise when I was studying the play and after double-checking, she appears in Fate/Stay Night, although I didn’t specifically check if she’s in UBW or the Deen anime in case I ran into spoilers.
• Merlin and Karna – I always have to go on a huge Google image search for the latter, because these are the two I have images of (aside from a dark Saber wearing some kind of visor, found from a YouTube video). It kind of hurts that the image search says Karna appears in Apocrypha. One of the reasons I’m bothering with Fate/ right now could arguably be Merlin (since I discovered he looks a lot like zaShunina from Kado when Kado was still running).
• Shirou Emiya – I don’t quite know how we go from Kiritsugu to Shirou, but…welp, I know Shirou exists because he has his own spinoff.
• Ritsuka Fujimaru and Mash Kyrielight – These are two of the big names from Babylonia, so I’ve ended up memorising them through repeated exposure.
• Hokusai + Shuten Douji – Watashi of AniList is a Hokusai nut (and to a lesser extent a Shuten Douji nut, IIRC).
• [I think there might’ve been some evil version of Shirou floating about in this twisted universe as well…which just goes to show you exactly how much I’ve learnt of this series second-hand…]
• …and can I just hope that Ilya will depict Kariya in a better world than this? I’d like to see him living without 90% of his suffering under Zouken, please.