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Fate/Desiderantes Affectibus (Fate/Zero & PMMM Cross)

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OverReactionGuy said:
Actually, there are many ways to save Sakura in this story that could happen. But this argument may be getting off topic honestly.
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I am significantly more interested in discussing how Sayaka might save Sakura than the ensuing murder-fest on Caster.

justinkal said:
Except that unlike Shirou, Kariya knows that the worms exist, and thus would make sure to prepare a way to get rid of them while Zouken is still offline.
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can he do that before he comes online, though? IIRC, he's not actually a skilled magus, and mostly made do with what Zouken taught him. Which was basically "kill yourself with these flesh eating parasites in futile effort for a nigh-impossible goal, so that I might be amused", and not much else.
 
LostDeviljho said:
can he do that before he comes online, though? IIRC, he's not actually a skilled magus, and mostly made do with what Zouken taught him. Which was basically "kill yourself with these flesh eating parasites in futile effort for a nigh-impossible goal, so that I might be amused", and not much else.
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If Iskandar is helping, then Waver is too. At the very least, Waver is a very resourceful mage who knows how to compensate for lack of skill with ingenuity. They might also be able to convince Risei to help out, since killing Zouken is completely unrelated to the Grail War itself.
 
justinkal said:
If Iskandar is helping, then Waver is too. At the very least, Waver is a very resourceful mage who knows how to compensate for lack of skill with ingenuity.
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good point.
justinkal said:
They might also be able to convince Risei to help out, since killing Zouken is completely unrelated to the Grail War itself.
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...how? if it has nothing to do with the grail war, why would he be interested in helping? It's not like Zouken is a legitimately massive threat like he is by the time F/SN rolls around.
 
LostDeviljho said:
...how? if it has nothing to do with the grail war, why would he be interested in helping? It's not like Zouken is a legitimately massive threat like he is by the time F/SN rolls around.
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Because unlike his son, he's a legit priest and would want to get rid of someone as vile as Zouken. Not being related to the grail war means that his role as the impartial observer isn't tying his hands on the issue.
 
justinkal said:
impartial observer
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...riiiight.

justinkal said:
Because unlike his son, he's a legit priest and would want to get rid of someone as vile as Zouken.
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Well, I don't deny he's more moral than Kirei, but it's not like he's squeaky clean either. What with the conspiring with Tokiomi and all.

justinkal said:
Not being related to the grail war means that his role as the impartial observer isn't tying his hands on the issue.
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with two master's and their Servants actively involved, I'm not sure you could convince him it's not related to the war.
 
My guess: Madoka knows the Grail is corrupt. If Sayaka "wins" the Grail War it will somehow call Madoka to fix everything.

Though I vaguely recall the author saying Angra Mainyu can kill Madoka?
 
AM is up there with Primate Murder when it comes to "ability to kill humans". Madoka might not strictly be human anymore but she is still connected to humanity and was human at one point. I don't know about straight up killing her but messing her up in one form or another I could definitely see. Don't forget that AM is also "All the Evils in the World" as well, considering Madoka's status as "Hope" that puts them at odds pretty severely. Course that goes both way and while AM could mess Madoka up Madoka could also mess AM up.
 
nitewind said:
AM is up there with Primate Murder when it comes to "ability to kill humans". Madoka might not strictly be human anymore but she is still connected to humanity and was human at one point. I don't know about straight up killing her but messing her up in one form or another I could definitely see. Don't forget that AM is also "All the Evils in the World" as well, considering Madoka's status as "Hope" that puts them at odds pretty severely. Course that goes both way and while AM could mess Madoka up Madoka could also mess AM up.
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It depends on how one interpret things, but if Madoka is indeed a physical law of nature, I'm not sure how a concept could hope to do much to her.
 
Silvan Eldar said:
I'll be honest. For a second, I thought Caster had summoned The Fonz.
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Heh. Trust me, it could've been far worse. I put serious thought into writing an omake where Caster accidentally summons Nyaruko instead. It didn't end well for anyone. :rofl:

On a more serious note, though, if you know of any alternative onomatopoeia for agonized screams please go ahead and share. It's not spoiling much to say that they could come in handy for this story.

Draggon73 said:
Hansel and Gretchen? Black Lagoon cameo?
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I forgot to respond to this earlier, but any resemblance to a pair of Black Lagoon characters is purely coincidental...unless I change my mind. ;)

Kinematics said:
One minor error:
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SaltyWaffles said:
Also, don't place __ around for emphasis. That's both wrong and jarring. Just un-italicize the emphasized words, if the surrounding sentence/dialogue is in all-italics. If you don't want to do that, bolding those words is still preferable over sticking in incorrect punctuation.
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Thanks for catching my mistakes and for the suggestions. I'll go back and make changes in the master copy and try to edit the forum version in the next couple of days. Based on the feedback I've received, there are a few other minor revisions I'm thinking about making.

SaltyWaffles said:
Because, yes, there is no conceivable way for Sayaka to beat Iskandar in a fight; she could still "win" if someone else kills him, but considering that she's pretty heavily outclassed by her competition (Saber, Lancer, Rider, and Archer all have her thoroughly beat in terms of skill, experience, power, and Noble Phantasms), it's hardly reassuring. Combined with the fact that Sayaka can't even go all out without killing her Master (let alone herself...), the only way she's going to be useful for her strength/power is by virtue of being one of the last Servants standing whilst all the others kill each other off.
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That is actually one of the fun challenges of writing this story. Sayaka is an above-average servant (or at least she was before the craziness that is Fate/Grand Order's servant design *mutter mutter*), but she's terribly mismatched against the servants of the Fourth Holy Grail War and partially handicapped by her master's fragile health. For her to survive (let alone win) against any of the other servants, I have to get creative, determine what conditions would enable her to beat the odds, and then figure out how to make those conditions happen. To a significant extent, this challenge is one of the major driving forces behind the directions the plot goes in.

universalperson said:
Though I vaguely recall the author saying Angra Mainyu can kill Madoka?
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Close, but not quite. If I remember the details correctly, someone awhile back made a joke about Angra Mainyu eating Madoka that I liked and, this being a Fate/Zero crossover, the person hilariously assumed the worst in terms of what that might indicate about the ending.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback and for the interesting discussions! Reading the commentary does wonders for my muse.
 
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Gotta admit, the Cthulu chanting threw me off by a lot. I've seen it used so many times as a joke that it kind of lost impact. Perhaps just leave the chanting up to the reader's imagination?
 
I think it's actually canon that caster's book as a lovecraftian artifact. (as in literally tied to the creatures lovecraft wrote about)
 
SaltyWaffles said:
...you aren't familiar with F/SN, are you?

Iskandar can't kill Zouken. It's literally impossible. And even if he could, he wouldn't be able to save Sakura in the process.

I would explain further, but I have a feeling that it'd be kind of serious spoilers for stuff you should really go watch/read/etc yourself.

EDIT: And even Gilgamesh would have to pull out some really esoteric bullshit item to have any hope of saving Sakura, too. Plus, killing Zouken is not easy, even for a Servant. Otherwise, Kirei and Gilgamesh would have done it themselves years before the start of F/SN.
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justinkal said:
I'm quite familiar with the franchise.

If I remember correctly, it wasn't until AFTER the 5th grail war that Zouken put the main crest worm inside Sakura, so saving her should be possible.

Pretty sure the VN itself says that Kirei could kill Zouken pretty easily (using his exorcism skills as an Executor) if he knew the location of the main Crest Worm, but he never really had a reason to go after Zouken. Gilgamesh is just too lazy to do it himself.

I highly doubt that Crest Worms react well to Reality Marbles, since the Marble would either make the main worm be incapable of retreating OR would sever the connection between the majority of the Worms and the main Worm (which would harm Zouken greatly).

But seriously, Iskandar activating his Reality Marble inside the Crest Worm room would at the very least disable Zouken long enough for Sakura to be rescued.
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Actually putting his soul in a worm inside of Sakura is what gets Zouken crushed like a worm in several endings, it didn't make him safer! If he'd kept his soul in his body, in his house, behind a set of wards, with a servant or pseudo servants to protect him, no one could've killed him.

He already had replaced Sakura's nervous system with worms. He could use those to threaten her from across the city! There was no point to putting a worm containing his soul in her. He really grabbed the idiot ball thinking he was safer inside of a girl that every other Master would kill!

Any Servant can suck Zoukens Soul right out of that worm inside of Sakura, leaving his familiars to choose a new master from a Magus qualified enough.

Its actually one of the ways he dies in FSN.

Also cutting Sakura in two, like Shade did, and grabbing Zoukens worm and crushing it would work too. Sakura has even survived being cut into pieces!
 
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Matou Sutegobana said:
Any Servant can suck Zoukens Soul right out of that worm inside of Sakura, leaving his familiars to choose a new master from a Magus qualified enough.Its actually one of the ways he dies in FSN.
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Really? I'd wondered if that was possible given that Servants can augment their power by eating souls, but assumed that kind of thing was harder to do to a centuries old magus than a muggle, given their usual choice of target for feeding that way.
 
SolipsistSerpent said:
Really? I'd wondered if that was possible given that Servants can augment their power by eating souls, but assumed that kind of thing was harder to do to a centuries old magus than a muggle, given their usual choice of target for feeding that way.
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It would be if he hadn't been given an idiot ball, so that the Heroes could kill him.

If he'd kept his soul in his body, with the appropriate protections against Servants and Masters, he would have been near impossible to kill!

Examples I recall of Zouken Dying:

Dying when Sakura was stabbed by Rin with a mystic code.

Same with Shirou taking it upon himself.

Crushed under Illya's heel.

Soul Consumed by Dark Sakura.
 
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Matou Sutegobana said:
Any Servant can suck Zoukens Soul right out of that worm inside of Sakura, leaving his familiars to choose a new master from a Magus qualified enough.
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...that's just blatantly wrong.

First off, if it were true, Rider would have just done it herself.

Secondly, you can't just "suck the soul out of the worm"--that's the opposite of how it works. Zouken's soul is spread throughout ALL of the crest worms. The one inside Sakura's heart is just the one that's the ultimate insurance--you can't kill Zouken without killing Sakura, as long as that crest worm is there. That is, of course, unless Sakura goes all Angra Mainyu/Black Grail, at which point the crest worm inside her heart is living on borrowed time.

Regardless, a Servant is only going to be a threat to Zouken's life if that Servant can somehow kill ALL of the crest worms or if that Servant has a very peculiar kind of Noble Phantasm (or really powerful Mystic Code--like the Origin Bullets, but even that one is dubious).
 
SaltyWaffles said:
Regardless, a Servant is only going to be a threat to Zouken's life if that Servant can somehow kill ALL of the crest worms or if that Servant has a very peculiar kind of Noble Phantasm (or really powerful Mystic Code--like the Origin Bullets, but even that one is dubious).
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Or if the Servant is a really good Caster. I'm sure that Medea could take down Zouken pretty easy if she actually tried (without needing to use Rule Breaker).
 
Matou Sutegobana said:
It would be if he hadn't been given an idiot ball, so that the 'Heroes' could kill him.

If he'd kept his soul in his body, with the appropriate protections against Servants and Masters, he would have been near impossible to kill!
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That makes no fucking sense at all.

First off, Zouken doesn't have a body. That's the point. He's literally the entire mass of crest worms. His soul resides in all of them. The "body" is just a facade. It's also really weak--easy to destroy.

He's kept himself alive far, far longer than any non-immortal should be able to by discarding his body and infusing his soul into his crest worms. However, his soul is deteriorating over time (because it is still aging and lacks a real body to reside in), so replacing the body will eventually result in it falling apart almost as soon as he makes it--hence why he's seeking immortality via the Holy Grail.
 
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SaltyWaffles said:
...that's just blatantly wrong.

First off, if it were true, Rider would have just done it herself.

Secondly, you can't just "suck the soul out of the worm"--that's the opposite of how it works. Zouken's soul is spread throughout ALL of the crest worms. The one inside Sakura's heart is just the one that's the ultimate insurance--you can't kill Zouken without killing Sakura, as long as that crest worm is there. That is, of course, unless Sakura goes all Angra Mainyu/Black Grail, at which point the crest worm inside her heart is living on borrowed time.

Regardless, a Servant is only going to be a threat to Zouken's life if that Servant can somehow kill ALL of the crest worms or if that Servant has a very peculiar kind of Noble Phantasm (or really powerful Mystic Code--like the Origin Bullets, but even that one is dubious).
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Dark Sakura promptly ate Zouken's soul and killed him, and he had plenty of worms that were elsewhere!

It Sakura can do it Rider and every other Servant can do it too! They didn't because no one commanded them to.

And there are Clocktower Magi far older than Zouken. The Director is over a Thousand years old. Zellretch was a legend before Zouken was notable.

Zouken being some sort of hypercompetant supermage is all fanwank!

Zouken is a moron that was too lazy to repair the wards on his house. He killed his decendant because the man had the gall to not be alright with Zouken targetting and torturing someone who his decendant cared about. Which Zouken obviously did on purpose, as he had no real need to have selected Sakura.

He planned for Sakura to either be his replacement body, or give birth to an heir. Then he thought it would be a good idea to make her a lesser grail as well, which would destroy his plans for a second body/heir.

His entire scheme consisted of "I'll do what I want as no one that cares to stop me is powerful enough to do so." then proceeds to make the girl he tortures into a monstrously powerful magic user.

He also ignores that the sister of the girl he tortures is a naturally gifted and massive potential Magus.

Also the fact that all it would take to sick clocktower on him is to reveal that he and the other Magi families that created the Heaven's Feel ritual opened a pathway to root!
 
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Matou Sutegobana said:
Dark Sakura promptly ate Zouken's soul and killed him, and he had plenty of worms that were elsewhere!

And there are Clocktower Magi far older than Zouken. The Director is over a Thousand years old. Zellretch was a legend before Zouken was notable.

Zouken being some sort of hypercompetant supermage is all fanwank!
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Yeah, its less that he's a hypercompetent supermage, and more that he's older than most mages (but nowhere close to the oldest) while simultaneously being far more morally unhinged than the majority of mages (who are pretty morally unhinged on average to begin with).
 
Matou Sutegobana said:
Dark Sakura promptly ate Zouken's soul and killed him, and he had plenty of worms that were elsewhere!
If Sakura can do it Rider and every other Servant can do it too! They didn't because no one commanded them to.
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I'm not actually sure that's true. Dark Sakura is pretty powerful. I'd certainly buy that some Servants could but I don't see that all of them can do everything she can.
 
SolipsistSerpent said:
I'm not actually sure that's true. Dark Sakura is pretty powerful. I'd certainly buy that some Servants could but I don't see that all of them can do everything she can.
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You are right that Dark Sakura is very powerful, and that my argument may be oversimplifying the situation.

However Masters have command seals that can explicitly empower a Servant to do the "Impossible"!

And Dark Sakura had no more trouble with Zouken than it takes to crush a bug.
 
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