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Fate/Hollow Order

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Chapter Sixty-One: The Whole Truth
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    • Omegahugger said:
    [X] Write-in
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    In a war, there are certain elements that are just preferable to target. Supply chains, enemy leadership, troops caught out of position, those sort of things. You want to hit weaker targets where you can still inflict critical damage.

    In a Holy Grail War, these targets are all found in the Master. Take out the Master, and you cut off the Servant's mana source and remove their support magic, most importantly the Command Seals. This only goes double when said Master has a Noble Phantasm that summons infinite scores of demons.

    "Go after Gilles!" you shout. "We'll be overwhelmed by sheer numbers if we leave him alone!"

    Thankfully, this Gilles isn't a Servant. He's only human, and no human can stand up to a Servant. Not even with a Noble Phanta- a brief image of Luvia blowing up Arthur flashes through your mind.

    ... Okay, so maybe you shouldn't underestimate the madman who legitimately entered the Throne of Heroes. Still, even discounting the Assassins and yourself, you have four Servants and a first class magus on your side. Even Prelati's spellwork shouldn't be able to stand up to that.

    The gathered heroes (and Luvia) turn towards the demonic host, swords and gems at the ready. That is to say, all except two. One is Jeanne, who doesn't seem able to tear her eyes away from the giant pyre in front of the. The other is Rider, who does what he always does.

    "Not to question your innovative tactic of charging the enemy head-on, but shouldn't we do something about the burning saint?"

    You stop dead in your tracks. Much as you want to punch him, the Servant has a point. Someone needs to handle the Avenger, make sure she doesn't blindside your Servants mid-combat. Or worse, blacken them. La Sorcière might only be able to do it to Jeanne Alter's Servants, but in between the unknown Shared Soul and the fact that Jeanne is still Jeanne, assuming anything could be fatal.

    You should be the one to take her. Your weapon isn't that useful against Gilles' demons, your shield has held off flames far greater than Jeanne's Pyromancy and, as a demi-Servant, your purity has to be negligible. "I'll do i-"

    "I'll hold her off." Jeanne says in one breath. It seems she came to a decision at the same time you did. "I'm the one she's after. If she's facing me, she won't be going after you or anyone else."

    As Rider nods and charges off, you worry. Jeanne is quite possibly the purest Heroic Spirit there is, the best possible target for the Vengeance of the Unhallowed Woman.

    "Go now!" The Holy Maiden commands. "Defeat Gilles quickly and return here. I can last long enough for now."

    There's no time to second-guess. You'll just have to trust her. You turn to catch up with the faster Servants. Siegfried is already in the thick of it, cleaving three demonspawn just to see them replaced by five new ones.

    ... Why? Just tell me why, Gilles.

    Right. Jeanne has already been forced to kill her companion once. For someone like her, even walking into the pyre must seem easy by comparison. The best you can do now is-

    Have some knightly pride.

    You stop. It's like a memory you've forgotten you forgot. What on Earth are you doing right now?

    Then why are you afraid of fire?

    Once again you turn around, with a speed that almost makes you dizzy despite your Servant constitution. As you dash towards them, you see Jeanne face to face with her alter ego. Banner raised against a flaming sword.

    When I struck her with my sword, it shattered. Hers did not.

    She's standing so resolute, you could almost believe she was on equal footing with the Beast Servant. But you know a brave facade when you see one. You have experience in making them, after all.

    You cannot let Jeanne face Alter. Not alone. La Sorcière was literally made out of the flames that killed her, the ultimate Anti-Jeanne D'arc Noble Phantasm. The Fallen Maiden says something you can't hear. Something meant for one person only. Her blazing sword lashes out, flames bursting towards the Jeanne.

    Too slow. There's no way you can reach her in time. Just another failure to your lis-

    With a speed you didn't know you had, you jump shield-first towards Avenger.

    Hitting her is like trying to shoulder-check a brick wall. With nothing but thin air to brace yourself against, you bounce right back off her. Nearly lose your footing as you touch back down again. But she did feel it, in some small way. You see her stagger, a blow ruined. A crucial gap in her stance allowing Jeanne to recover and dart back out of range. Avenger rises, cricking her neck irritably.

    "I was hoping not to be disturbed!" She whirls, her blade scorching the air and searing a burning trail in your eyes. You have to dig in your heels to keep from sliding back as you take the blow on your shield. Jeanne thrusts, Avenger dodges, the spiked tip of the banner nearly hits you. Avenger keeps her blade low, swings it up in a grand circular arc that diverts Jeanne's banner skywards. You rush forward to attack her exposed back - an expected move. Her boot collides with your shield, smashes it into your unsuspecting gut. You stagger back a step, rattled. Avenger drives forward, bringing her extended boot around and stomping it into the ground hard enough to crack the cobblestone. Slapping her free hand onto the hilt of La Sorcière and cleaving down at Jeanne's chest. She throws herself back, an ungainly excuse for a dodge, sending her sprawling on the floor of the market square. But she's alive.

    "So tell me, Jeanne. Do you still think I'm a demon. Do you still think I'm nothing but an insane fantasy our mutual friend Gilles concocted in his own diseased mind?" Avenger turns to you. A forehand horizontal chop sizzles towards you. You bash against it with your shield, open up Avenger's left side. You ball your right hand into a fist, draw back and let fly. She frees her left arm and sweeps it across her body, diverting your punch with wrist-numbing force. Opening up your centre. She steps forward and drives her forehead into your face. You go blind, see nothing but stars, and land flat on your back.

    "You are a demon!" Jeanne's getting up, planting her banner for support. "Nothing but English lies given form!"

    Avenger laughs. "Let's run through these lies, shall we?"

    She brings her boot down on you. You just barely roll aside as she leaves a scorched crater where your torso used to be. A momentary setback. She turns to follow you, jabbing and thrusting, constant searing impacts against your shield as you desperately scramble away for some semblance of breathing room. Before you know it the heat is suffocating, your back's to the pyre. It's all you can do to thrust against Avenger's descending boot as she threatens to kick you into the flames. You're saved at last by an attack from behind, Jeanne rejoining the fray. You gratefully claw away from the fire, regaining your feet.

    "They say you consorted with demons, that your God-given visions were from quite the opposite. Which you confessed to, of course."

    "He said it would save me from the fire!" Jeanne cries out, wildly swinging her banner. Avenger smashes it away one-handed, raising the other. A torrent of flame pours forth without a word of incantation, a raging inferno spraying from her palm. Jeanne screams, flinching back, covering her face. The fire splashes over her, turned by her Magic Resistance. But the heat of those flames is all too real for her.

    "And you burned anyway," Avenger replies with a cruel smirk. "So much for your precious quest."

    "It was a noble quest, ordained by God!" Jeanne thrusts forward, driving Avenger's blade down and pinning it to the ground. "If you claim to be me, then why would you abandon it?"

    "Because I know the truth! Because your 'visions' were lies!" Avenger drives her blade back up again, overpowering Jeanne. Disengaging the lock with a brutal kick to the stomach, sending her twin staggering back, winded. "As much a lie as this visage I wear, a construct stolen from your insipid legends!"

    "They weren't lies!" Jeanne coughs, forcing herself back into the fight. You spare her yet more pressure, darting in from the right to slash at Avenger's side with the rim of your shield. She grunts in pain, the angle of retaliation awkward. She settles for launching her left hand across her body and blasting you backward with a fireball. It's all you can do to stay participating in the fight, much less turn it in Jeanne's favour.

    "They were convenient half-truths. Facts distorted by your own deluded wishes and memory. You didn't see angels and saints! You weren't even chosen by God!" Avenger drives forward, pushing Jeanne back step by step. Closer to the ring of fire that encloses the marketplace.

    "If not God or the Devil then who!?"

    "Alaya."

    Jeanne's gaze is uncomprehending. Yours isn't. You get in close by Jeanne's side, diverting the slash coming in from her left. She steadies her banner by her hip and goes for a swift wallop to the cheek. Avenger catches it by the shaft, holds it in place. Holds you in place with the pressure of her sparking blade on your shield. More than happy to take a moment and explain, the two of you with your backs to the flaming wall.

    "A demon born of mankind's wishes to continue existing, whatever the cost." She savours every word like wine, relishing this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. "When it acts, it acts through men. Women. They receive its support almost invisibly. In a way that could be explained as anything, really. Visions of saints. Victories ordained by God. The self-aggrandizing delusions of a stupid peasant girl."

    "I will not listen to any more of this!" Jeanne snarls, wrenching at her banner, trying to tear it from Avenger's grip. She just swings around and lets go, hurling Jeanne to the floor in an armoured heap. She disengages the lock with your shield just as savagely, dealing it such an almighty two-handed blow that you stagger, nearly fall. Leaving you wide open for an armoured boot to the kidneys, sending you flying. When you hit the ground you skate on your breastplate, skittering and rolling to a stop, dazed. The whole world is spinning and you can't really tell whether your eyes are open or shut at the moment. You groan, blinking rapidly to clear your vision, and force yourself to sit up.

    What you glimpse of the 'true' battlefield is a chaotic mess. You can't even see Gilles any more in the press. It's just this mass of tentacles and teeth, endlessly replenishing from every blow dealt to it. Reynard and Corday may down one every thirty seconds or so, Siegfried may cleave through five each swing, Luvia may be hacking and scything through them with her stolen sword as ferociously as the rest of them, but they just keep coming. Trying to kill them all is as futile as trying to kill everyone on Earth, one swing of a sword at a time.

    The skies of the alien world through the breach shift. Something moves. A great tide of dark, foul-smelling, brackish water gushes through like a dam beginning to break. A breaking wave, crashing down upon the combatants, spreading rapidly across the market square. It sizzles and hisses against Avenger's unquenchable flames, sending up a thousand plumes of acrid grey steam. A hand reaches through the breach. It's only a hand because the hand is tall that will fit. At least... you think it's a hand. You can only guess from the vague shape. What it looks like... looking at it makes images flash in your mind, makes pins and needles of white-hot pain spear your brain. It's everything and nothing at once. It's made of stars. A hand made of starlight reaches through the breach, curls around the edge, and begins to pull. You scramble to your feet.

    "When someone accepts Alaya's help they enter a contract!" Avenger continues to hack away at Jeanne's guard, unknowing or uncaring of the goings-on behind her. "Their signature is the deeds they accomplish with it! You signed away your life to the will of humanity the moment you left Domrémy!"

    "What are you saying? Speak sense or nothing at all!" Jeanne tries to hook the butt of her banner around to strike Avenger's temple. She catches it again. The two women struggle and fight over control of the banner, the shuddering and jerking length of wood held at eye-level as they push against each other.

    "The terms of the contract are to become a Counter Guardian," Avenger hisses. "To exist outside of time and serve Alaya, to be summoned and sent to cleanse humanity for its own good. Burning out the cancer so the rest of the body may live. Humanity, the festering pile of paranoia and self-justification and arrogance that it is, condemned me to die. To burn. And then I returned. I had to kill for them. Again. And again. And again. And again until that beautiful clean sword you took so much pride in was drowned in the blood of the innocent and the guilty alike. I served Alaya for eternity to pay for your mistakes."

    Her face twists into a mocking smile, tainted by the burning fury straining to burst free. "And then you became a hero. The church's sentence was overturned. You became La Pucelle. You became France's noble saviour. You became a hero. The aeons I spent suffering for humanity's weakness were just wiped away. And now you strut around in front of me, bold as brass, thinking you have the right to speak about your holy mission or the purity of your quest? I'd spit on you if I thought you were worthy of that. You're nothing but the half of us that humanity wants now that it's done with me. The dirty, ugly, hateful parts that you can't stand to think about."

    Jeanne stares. Pale. Wide-eyed. She can't respond. What could she possibly say in response to that? Now, when she knows the words can be nothing but the truth?

    "You say I'm no more than a demon?" Avenger goes on. "Maybe. But you are nothing but a wraith of France's idolatry."

    She takes a step back and raises her hand. "Now burn with me."

    Just in time. You get there just in time. It's a useless gesture, Jeanne's Magic Resistance would turn it aside easily. But that's not the point. You know it's not. You know that if you and Jeanne are going to overcome Avenger, you need to take the fire for her. You have to work together. But how can you work together, when you know so little about her?

    "I've had about enough-"

    Her boot connects with your temple and the next thing you know you're on the ground tasting blood.

    "-of your interruptions you stubborn little cockroach."

    You half-roll, half-throw yourself over and into position. Down on one knee, head down, shield up. Operating on pure instinct. Saving your life. The next moment you're consumed by flames, flickering tongues of fire pouring endlessly from Avenger's blackened gauntlet. Sucking the oxygen out of the air to feed the greedy flames, licking around the edges of your shield to sear your bare flesh. You aren't defending yourself so much as cowering behind the shield. There's no escape like this. Nothing to do but sit there and endure it as Avenger derives far too much enjoyment from seeing you engulfed.

    "Do you want to save him?" you hear her ask. "Save him like you saved everyone in your precious France? It's easy. All you have to do is come over here and stop me."

    You hear more crackling flame flaring to life, drowning out the sounds of battle with its glee at being born.

    "What's wrong? It's only a little fire. Your Magic Resistance will deal with it, no problem."

    She won't. She can't. Avenger knows it.

    The stream of fire intensifies. You can't breathe any more. You're going to suffocate. She's going burn out all the air and leave you with nothing, leave you to choke and die slowly. Your head's already swimming. Your thoughts are racing. You're trying to sweat but every errant bead just turns to steam on your skin. You have the energy for one burst. You can get out from under the stream of fire long enough to do... something. For a short time. But what?

    You have to give Jeanne the will to fight. You have to make her see that Avengers words... while true they're not everything. Jeanne is a hero for a reason, she's in the Throne for a reason. You can find that reason. Galahad, however much of him there is inside you, can find that reason. He was the purest of King Arthur's knights. You know your legacy now. If you can't do this now, you don't deserve to be called Shielder.

    Jeanne Alter would have summoned all her Servants by affinity. That must be the key...

    [ ] Remind Jeanne of Brynhildr. She was devoted to doing the right thing, even if it went against the orders of her king and allfather. Everything she did, she did with true passion. Jeanne can still hold pride in her actions no matter how her story ended.
    [ ] Remind Jeanne of Carmilla. She was a creature invented by man, a distorted version of reality that doesn't reflect the true thing in the slightest. But the lies of history will never stain the truth.
    [ ] Remind Jeanne of Bathory. She was a woman whose harsh policies and tactics didn't make her friends, and though her legend was smeared with blood, she could still hold her head high to fight. Understanding set her free.
    [ ] Remind Jeanne of Marie. She was an innocent who did her best for her people, even if she wasn't properly equipped to do so. But those demonizing things faded away with time to let the true woman shine in history. A woman who at least one man never forgot.
    [ ] Remind Jeanne of Erik. His devotion to his ideal may have led him away from most, and he may have been mocked for things he couldn't control, but he resolved to live life in the way that he saw fit.
    [ ] Remind Jeanne of Lungkata. He chased an ideal to the ends of the earth, sacrificing what he thought he had to in order to reach enlightenment. But her quest never put her loved ones in harms way.
    [ ] Remind Jeanne of Lancelot. He was both a proud knight and father as well as a mad black knight. These were both true. One need not diminish the other.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • [X] Remind Jeanne of Bathory. She was a woman whose harsh policies and tactics didn't make her friends, and though her legend was smeared with blood, she could still hold her head high to fight. Understanding set her free.

    Bathory and Carmilla are the clearest parallel between Jeanne and Avenger. However, I'm torn between this and Lancelot. But between those two, I think the answer is there.
     
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    I see Zerban decided to make the 'which Servant of Ash is the greatest' poll official.

    [X] Remind Jeanne of Erik. His devotion to his ideal may have led him away from most, and he may have been mocked for things he couldn't control, but he resolved to live life in the way that he saw fit.

    And we shall reignite her will with a song!
     
    [X] Remind Jeanne of Bathory. She was a woman whose harsh policies and tactics didn't make her friends, and though her legend was smeared with blood, she could still hold her head high to fight. Understanding set her free.
    I was gonna vote to remind her of Marie but then I realized that the 'one man' would've probably been Gilles so uh...no, a thousand times no.

    Like no disrepect but when trying to appeal to Jeanne Salty I don't think the best guy to remember her 'as she was' is the man currently trying to summon Cthulhu.
     
    [X] Remind Jeanne of Bathory. She was a woman whose harsh policies and tactics didn't make her friends, and though her legend was smeared with blood, she could still hold her head high to fight. Understanding set her free.
     
    [X] Remind Jeanne of Lancelot. He was both a proud knight and father as well as a mad black knight. These were both true. One need not diminish the other.
    ZerbanDaGreat said:
    "Just like you. Me. Just like us, is that it?"

    There is a house, a building. Calling it a home would be an insult. Calling it a hovel doesn't do it justice. It is an ugly place. Clay walls stained dark with blood and human filth. Light from the outside filters through the slit of a window; playing over a shivering, weak hand clutching a blanket. Tattoos whirl and jag over the bones, the nails are split and broken. It's cold in the midnight air. It's cold and the ruined hand tugs the blanket tighter. A thing caked in dirt and ash. The texture is sandpaper rough and it scrapes against raw skin. There are holes in the material, too many to really keep anything resembling warmth within but still the hand clings to it. Here even the smallest comforts hurt. But it's better than nothing. Than the idea of nothing. Wet, disease ridden lungs rattle. A shape hunches miserably beneath the blanket.

    It's not a memory. It's not yours. It's just an impression, a half-caught image-scent curling up through the back of your skull. From the mud. Avenger's got an eyebrow quirked, arms folded. Yuko's heavy in your arms.

    "Oh?"

    "Everyone's supposed to be just like us. As twisted and broken and wrong like us. Because we are everyone in a way, maybe in the only way that matters. The records of their sins. All the things they've done wrong. All the things they could ever do wrong. And we...we died alone. So everyone has to die alone. And you want that to be true don't you, because it means that they all had a taste of what it was like. Humans. People. The people who hurt you. Who were allowed to hurt you. The people you hated, the people who made you hate yourself. It feels good to think that they all felt like that at the end."

    Her smile's as wide as ever but there's something cold and alien behind her black eyes. A flicker of something obscene.

    The blankets rustle as the figure turns their head up, towards the light. Illumination plays over decimated features. A face swathed in crusted bandages. The eyes are glassy. Yellowed irises bathed by shattered blood vessels. Your eyes drop to Yuko.

    An arm brushing the blankets aside. Leathery skin scored by thick strands of keloid and endlessly coiling ink. Reaching out towards the sun. Reaching for...something. Anything. Fingers shaking.

    "You want people to suffer because you hate them, hate them for having everything you never had. You hate yourself for being the way you are. Because there had to have been something wrong with you for them to choose you . Toss up of which you want to see hurt more huh? Which deserves it more. And maybe you just want it to stop too. Want to make it all stop. Because it never really did stop did it? Even after you died. You weren't allowed to stop."

    The arm drops. The figure slumps. Forgotten.

    "You weren't ever allowed to stop."

    cut your heart out for the pleasure of it
    it makes things easier in the end    ​

    The world is burning around you. Chewing reality into so many embers. Blood into black carbon. Bones into ash. The skeletons of buildings crackle endlessly, metal running white-hot. Rivets popping off one by one. Clawed toes and bare feet crunch through the road's soot shell as you walk. Yuko held tightly. You stop. Level with Avenger. You look at her, she doesn't look at you, just watches the inferno. You look ahead at the staircase.

    "But not everyone dies like that. And not everyone's like us."
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    [X] Remind Jeanne of Lancelot. He was both a proud knight and father as well as a mad black knight. These were both true. One need not diminish the other.

    Best Dad 1431.
     
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    ZerbanDaGreat said:
    "You say I'm no more than a demon?" Avenger goes on. "Maybe. But you are nothing but a wraith of France's idolatry."
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    I have no idea what Alter!Jeanne's story is in Grand Order (I have no particular intention of playing it), but this here; this one line makes the Alter in this Quest instantly compelling. Not 'gonna burn the world because lol Giles'; this is vastly more interesting. Kudos!

    Servants and the Holy Grail War can be incredibly compelling when they're not being used for... well, creepy otaku waifu fodder. It's a pity only Fate/Zero seemed to get the memo on that one.

    (also on a darkly hilarious note this makes all of Caster!Giles's efforts to 'free Jeanne from God' in Fate/Zero actually on point save for the part where that wasn't Jeanne)

    As for votes, voting Bathory feels more like 'hey remember her she was way cool' which whilst true doesn't quite fit the scenario at hand. From an IC Rostam perspective, the only vote can really be-

    [X] Remind Jeanne of Lancelot. He was both a proud knight and father as well as a mad black knight. These were both true. One need not diminish the other.

    ...Which has the amusing implication ('one need not diminish the other') the two Jeannes might actually be able to come to terms, however that's going to work. Though it's more likely it's going to undo the Shared Soul debuffs, which isn't anything to sneeze at either.
     
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    [X] Write in
    Remind Jeanne of Lancelot. He was both a proud knight and father as well as a mad black knight. These were both true. One need not diminish the other.


    Your oxygen starved mind goes blank trying desperately to think of something anything to say to the saint. The heat and flames pressing down on you from all sides making it impossible to think clearly.


    Like water flushing down a drain your thoughts drift back to the past days, and what little you know about servant summoning. Maybe it's the flames but you think about how your back in Fuyuki, throwing the dice and trust in summoning a powerful servant through affinity.


    Though you had your fair share of disagreements with Rider, he has proven himself again and again against stronger servant.


    And hove on some base level he reminds you of yourself.


    Your mind goes forward, your whole body shivering in memory of being crushed by the black bulk of your father Berserker. How he protected you even at his worst, regained enough sanity to prevented you from dying to the false dragon Caster, before saying it and taking his own life.


    Memories of a Perfect Knight shining through the Ash.


    You try to call out to Jeanne but the fires surrounding you chokes out what you try to get out, but somehow, a miracle occurs.


    You call out, begging her to remember the madman that still was a noble knight, that nighter diminish the other. That though both are true doesn't make any part less real.

    *****

    Hope this is up to the standards of this thread, but I was struk by my muse as if it was lightning for a moment there.
     
    I just realised that Gilles managed to summon the actual Jeanne, quite possibly the only time in the history of everything where it'd happen.

    Meanwhile, Hero!Jeanne summoned the Gilles who was literally incapable of seeing her as anything other than perfect.
     
    [] Remind. Suffocate and choke on your words.
    [X] Remind Jeanne of Lancelot. He was both a proud knight and father as well as a mad black knight. These were both true. One need not diminish the other.

    Yeah. Family stuff hit closer to home for me.
     
    Omegahugger said:
    I just realised that Gilles managed to summon the actual Jeanne, quite possibly the only time in the history of everything where it'd happen.

    Meanwhile, Hero!Jeanne summoned the Gilles who was literally incapable of seeing her as anything other than perfect.
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    Well, I think that part of the point is that both of these Jeannes are real. We've been seeing one half of a coin, but neither of them are "Wrong" Jeannes. The "Wraith of Idoltry" is probably more bitterness than actual fact. But our Jeanne is a partial, summoned with her innocence and her passion intact. The other is Counter Guardian D'ARC.

    So saying one is "Actual" is like saying that Shirou is a fake compared to EMIYA. At least, thats how I'm reading it.
     
    [X] Remind Jeanne of Lancelot. He was both a proud knight and father as well as a mad black knight. These were both true. One need not diminish the other.

    On second thought, yeah.

    And now I'm gonna just walk away for a bit because I'm thinking of the stories about my old man before he passed and getting legit teary-eyed. :(
     
    [X] Remind Jeanne of Lancelot. He was both a proud knight and father as well as a mad black knight. These were both true. One need not diminish the other.

    Sorry Bryn. Sorry Bathory. But we care about our step-dad too much.
     
    [X] Remind Jeanne of Lancelot. He was both a proud knight and father as well as a mad black knight. These were both true. One need not diminish the other.

    This is the most recent example for Ros and one he actually has a connection too.

    Lancelot was summoned as Berserker. A mad dog. The black knight. Engulfed in maddess, anger, and self hatred. Wielding a holy blade that literally had been corrupted by his darkness.

    Yet when he saw a mere glimpse of his son, he was reminded of the person he once was and acted like the knight he used to be for his sake.

    Even in the throes of his madness, the Lancelot who was once hailed as the Perfect Knight still existed.


    LupineVolt said:
    Well, I think that part of the point is that both of these Jeannes are real. We've been seeing one half of a coin, but neither of them are "Wrong" Jeannes. The "Wraith of Idoltry" is probably more bitterness than actual fact. But our Jeanne is a partial, summoned with her innocence and her passion intact. The other is Counter Guardian D'ARC.

    So saying one is "Actual" is like saying that Shirou is a fake compared to EMIYA. At least, thats how I'm reading it.
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    Avenger's even trying to break Ruler like how Emiya tried to break Shirou.
     
    Leaving it to the dice:
    1 - Bryn
    2 - Liz
    3 - Lancelot

    Wanted to add marie too, but that line 'at least one man never forgot'... I don't think reminding Jeane of Gilles would make her accept her shadow and gain her persona :V

    Edit: Bryn it is then.

    [X] Remind Jeanne of Brynhildr. She was devoted to doing the right thing, even if it went against the orders of her king and allfather. Everything she did, she did with true passion. Jeanne can still hold pride in her actions no matter how her story ended.
    defenestrator threw 1 3-faced dice. Reason: 1- Bryn 2- Liz 3 - Lance Total: 1
    1 1
     
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    [X] Remind Jeanne of Lancelot. He was both a proud knight and father as well as a mad black knight. These were both true. One need not diminish the other.
     
    [X] Remind Jeanne of Bathory. She was a woman whose harsh policies and tactics didn't make her friends, and though her legend was smeared with blood, she could still hold her head high to fight. Understanding set her free.

    Guessmyname said:
    As for votes, voting Bathory feels more like 'hey remember her she was way cool' which whilst true doesn't quite fit the scenario at hand. From an IC Rostam perspective, the only vote can really be-

    [X] Remind Jeanne of Lancelot. He was both a proud knight and father as well as a mad black knight. These were both true. One need not diminish the other.

    ...Which has the amusing implication ('one need not diminish the other') the two Jeannes might actually be able to come to terms, however that's going to work. Though it's more likely it's going to undo the Shared Soul debuffs, which isn't anything to sneeze at either.
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    Don't be disingenuous.

    There's more to the Bathory option than "hey remember her she was way cool" and honestly I'd make the argument that she's the key more than Lancelot is. Lancelot's a very personal example. A very applicable example. A very appropriate example. To Rostam. Less so to the Jeanne's. If the break between truth and legend is literally embodied on the enemy team by a pair of Servants and one of the main bones between the antagonist and the protagonist (and let's face it, Jeanne's basically the protag) is the difference between legend and truth the answer's sort of obvious.

    Plus, like I said, the Lancelot example is a very personal thing to Rostam and post his death Rostam explicitly goes

    ZerbanDaGreat said:
    No one really has an argument against that. Any that might aren't in the mood to voice them. You're so close to the end now. Whatever oh-so-vulnerable side of yourself that's threatening to come out, you can indulge it later. Back at Chaldea, in privacy. When the fate of the world isn't on the line. You grip your shield tighter for comfort, so hard the leather bites into your palm, and you walk the scorched road to Rouen.
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    He's burying those feelings deep and deadset on having his moment when nobody else is around. He's not going to dredge them up again fifteen minutes later as a moral point to someone else's story.

    Diller said:
    This is the most recent example for Ros and one he actually has a connection too.
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    This is sort of honestly what bugs me the most about the Lancelot votes. People going for what's most appropriate for Rostam and trying to paint the Jeanne conflict over with that brush. Like, the option itself is fine no disagreement there. But given how we haven't developed our relationship with Jeanne literally at all (and negatively developed it honestly by needling her post-Bathory) we have to be very, very, careful about what we go with.

    We need to pick what works best for her. Which really isn't Rostam talking about what he learned about himself today.
     
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    [X] Remind Jeanne of Bathory. She was a woman whose harsh policies and tactics didn't make her friends, and though her legend was smeared with blood, she could still hold her head high to fight. Understanding set her free.
     
    [] Remind Jeanne of Lancelot. He was both a proud knight and father as well as a mad black knight. These were both true. One need not diminish the other.


    [X] Remind Jeanne of Bathory. She was a woman whose harsh policies and tactics didn't make her friends, and though her legend was smeared with blood, she could still hold her head high to fight. Understanding set her free.
     
    [X] Remind Jeanne of Bathory. She was a woman whose harsh policies and tactics didn't make her friends, and though her legend was smeared with blood, she could still hold her head high to fight. Understanding set her free.
     
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