Post by Knowledge on Nov 1, 2015 10:48:18 GMT -5
Name: *´¯`*.¸¸.*´¯`* кησωℓε∂gε *´¯`*.¸¸.*´¯`*
if you look at it right it kinda seems like my name is shrugging, cute huh?
also uuhhhhh
uuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhh
what exactly am I requesting here? A while ago, I was at 4,000 Base GP. Apparently, post-prestige bonuses now get sent to Base GP for some reason, so I’m now at 5,000 GP. Which would, I suppose, mean that I’m requesting 6,000 Base GP or thereabout. But am I really? If my Base GP has been artificially raised by a Transcendency bonus, am I actually requesting 5,000 Base GP, a raise from 4,000? Is my request graded on the shift from 4k to 5k, or 5k to 6k? Who knows? There doesn’t seem to be any kind of rhyme or reason to why any of this works the way it does, other than to make the order I make my requests in matter, which strikes me as a rather peculiar decision, but perhaps one of you lot on staff would care to elaborate because I’m certain whoever decided to implement something as seemingly pointless as this had a good reason in mind (this is irony, by the way: I think I know whose idea it was and it just screams “arbitrary hoop” to me). In any case, get back to me on the matter before you evaluate this, because I’d like to know what it is I’m requesting before I request it, as I’m sure you understand.
Moving on: I don’t do a lot of requests but I guess this (two and a half years ago, kek) is the last relevant one (besides transcendence). As usual (you’ll no doubt be quite used to this from me by now), I’ll be more or less completely ignoring the standard template because as usual I get the feeling I can think of a somewhat better way to present the information you’re looking for with that particular brand of Tsukimiya humor which you all know and love so here we go
Application: truth is a nerd hahahaha
motivation/“let’s get up to speed, yo”
It should be no surprise for anyone to hear that I’m not a big fan of milestones. I don’t like writing them, I don’t like requesting them, and I think the entire process is a little weird. This may, however, be a result of still having one foot in a very different kind of system, and the other lodged somewhere between Mitsutaka’s old habits and the modern BG way. I initially reactivated Kyousuke at 3.4k Base GP with very little information as to why that was the case—I was simply given my numbers (because I wasn’t around for the switch to Base/Earned GP as a thing at all) and told to make the best of them.
It occurs to me now that the only milestones I’ve ever actually requested are two halves of what I considered a single milestone to take me from that 3.4k Base to 4k: a total of 600 GP which, looking back, I definitely undersold myself on. Back then, Mitsutaka gave you what you asked for or he gave nothing at all, and most people who know me well will tell you that when I ask for things, I err on the conservative side, as I feel everyone should. However, times change and here we are, requesting not so much a change from then to now but a free-floating sort of look at “this is more or less where the character stands on the scale of things”
The milestone requests I ended up making spanned from The Fall to Ask no Questions, Hear no Lies, i.e. from Kyousuke Tsukimiya’s intentional capture (WAS GETTING CAUGHT PART OF YOUR PLAN?), incarceration, and appointment as Captain of the Second Division after a long stint in the Maggot’s Nest (yeah, I did the Nest thing before it was cool, sorry kids) to the introduction of Alter Tova Diabló as the post-Invasion dust settled. Kyousuke underwent some pretty significant changes during this period, and it served as a foundation for what was to come later. Much of it was introducing the concept of family and wholeness and after reading the old requests I’m reminded by just how big the divide between “what tova and I tricked everyone into believing” and “what tova and I were actually doing” was, gosh we’re fucking nerds. In any case, near the end of it, Kyousuke was starting to see himself as “multifaceted rather than fractured” and oh my god I’ve even got references to subjectivity and perspective in there
what the fuck
I’m fairly certain I hated the idea of royals when I wrote all of that and had no intention of ever becoming one
I’ve literally been outfoxed by myself from the past
it’s funny because you guys thought I had been at the whole transcendency thing since way back when but I totally haven’t, it just ended up that way so I guess that’s pretty cool. I should also note that much of what goes into this milestone is stuff you’ll have encountered in my transcendency request, so maybe have that handy if you get lost
anyway, let’s talk threads
Threads
all of them
I don’t do filler
wait you want specifics, don’t you
oh, alright:
We’re actually going to start with Unbroken, a super-pendulum I did from back when Kyousuke was 16, alive and well, a subject of the Japanese Empire. I wanted to frame Kyousuke as a young man before his soul was fractured (hence the title), something I rather enjoyed doing. He suffers from the same kind of problems I imagine any healthy teenager in 1930’s Japan would have done: he thinks about his parents, and about his future, and about the very pretty transfer student from Tokyo a few desks down. Subtract well-honed instinct and the smugness that accompanies knowing everything and wielding cosmic power, add a past he can call his own and a little heartache, and I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to imagine they’re the same person. It was very nearly a hundred years ago, after all, and I can imagine going off to war changed him, just as dying did. In case you’re wondering—yes, she’s the woman from the hospital. Ironic, isn’t it? Unbroken was something I wanted to do in order to establish a point of origin for a Kyousuke Tsukimiya that no longer suffered a soul in three parts. I think I succeeded and managed, in a way, to stay true to his character both young and not-so-young—everything from his penchant for cooking, punching people, and reading books to his detachment, rather loose relationship with rules and strong sense of family. Too bad Japan told the League of Nations to fuck off as soon as he landed himself a waifu, though. What a bummer.
Snap back to reality, oh there goes gravit—no, sorry. Back to the “present”: Kyousuke promised to take care of Cho-Ah for Mitsutaka, and he starts to oversee her training, both physical and mental, in a really awfully titled thread. This is more family stuff, but there’s still a distinct Kyousuke air over the whole thing: yes, he’s helping Cho-Ah to deal with her own inner Hollow, but only part of it is because Mitsutaka asked him to. By keeping her under close watch and making sure she doesn’t misstep, he is keeping Vaizardism a secret and thereby protecting both Lessa and Mitsutaka as well as himself. This was a long, long time before Kiriko legalized Vaizards, after all, and back then it wasn’t quite okay to forego what many Shinigami viewed as your humanity in favor of dangerous power.
Family First boiled down to a long string of lies and threats directed at Junko as Kyousuke’s desire to make sure the Vaizards are kept a secret from everyone but himself came to a head. There’s a tiny bit of both Hazuki and Kannaduki leaking into Kyousuke here, just as it did when he apprehended her son, but unlike then, he seems more aware of what is happening, and instead chooses to run with it rather than get swept away and find himself worried afterwards. He gets a few names out of Junko—Mitsutaka’s, whose name he had been expecting, and Kenshou’s, whose name he had not—and everything is back to normal, with enough time left to further extoll the virtues of familial ties and ask (in a very polite manner) for access to the Forbidden Library. He is denied, thinks little of it, and goes to speak to Mitsutaka about Reiatsu Perception, a lesson in frustration as Emo Mitsutaka is in full force at this point and it grates on Kyousuke more than somewhat, but we eventually get to where we’re going, touching on the fact that Kiriko means a great deal more to Kyousuke than he’s admitted to anyone before. It’s not quite love, but it’s very clear he cares for her. This is also where we get a first glimpse into the disconnect between what Kyousuke sees in “Tova” and what the rest of the world sees in him. It doesn’t strike Kyousuke as particularly odd that the King of Hueco Mundo has reverted to Arrancar from a demigod, but Mitsutaka remembers Truth. Neither of them realize that the men they’re thinking of aren’t the same at all. And yeah, we get actual Kyousuke anger for the first time... Ever, I think? At his brother, no less! Those inner spirits, man. They’ll fuck you up!
The beginning of the end (as far as Seireitei was concerned, in any case) was supposed to be Broadway Undercover, wherein our MASTER PLAN was to be set into motion. It ended up being a little too ambitious and we ended up being a little too lax on who we let participate. The old mantra of pick and choose your RP partners carefully held true, and we were left with a dead thread. There are still some minor things you could take away from it, such as the growing distance between Kyousuke and Shinigami at large, as well as the whole slowly losing his mind thing that he was experiencing as part of Hazuki’s past contributions. I will, however, take this time to clue you all in on what exactly it was we had been doing from the start: why had Kyousuke let himself be captured in the first place? He had been on walkabout for a long time and when he came back he found himself a little on the lost side. He knew Tova was a resourceful man, and he figured rather than look for him in potentially hostile environments, news of his capture would somehow reach the former Espada and he’d come find him. So he waits. And waits. And instead of Tova, Goldie finds him. Fed up at this point, Kyousuke says “sure I’ll be captain” and almost the moment he’s out (same night, while Kyousuke’s looking for a suitable lieutenant), Tova shows up and asks Kyousuke to stay in Seireitei as a double agent (this is all revealed in later threads). The events of Broadway Undercover don’t strike Kyousuke as out of the ordinary at the time, because it fits right into the plan they made. Alter Tova’s a fucking cunt though, and is really good at twisting shit around. Kyousuke gets played and doesn’t even know it, letting his expectations blind his view of—ironically—the truth. We’ll get back to what they were really up to later, because now
it’s time for Kyousuke to get completely fucking rekt! We don’t learn it until late in the thread, but Alter Tova, pleased with his reconnaissance trip, has decided that Kyousuke has outlived his usefulness and attempts to kill the poor captain, leading to the events of Unforeseen Consequences. That was the Unveiling, and I think I’ve said enough about that both in the metathread Tova made for it and the transcendency request. Long story short: alterverses, trauma, uncomfortable realizations and guilt trips galore. All new, fresh and exciting for someone like Kyousuke, who was until recently a pretty heartless guy.
His return from the aforementioned trials and tribulations saw him speed directly to Kiriko’s side in Faith, Rewarded, where he displays exactly how important to him Kiriko has become and to what lengths he’s willing to go for her well-being. Still, it’s an oddly distant form of affection: he wants her to be safe, but he isn’t particularly willing to stick around for what comes after making sure she is. Guilt, perhaps, or maybe his egocentrism won out over his affection. In any case, Kiriko is the only Vaizard Kyousuke has seeded to date, and he had to improvise in order to do so. The thread was less important to Kyousuke than it was to Kiriko—for him, there was a certain feeling of tying up loose ends before he moved on to his next destination. Knowing that Mitsutaka had moved on and that Lessa remained safe, Kiriko was the only other person in Seireitei worth Kyousuke’s attention.
An Echoed Roar is also Kyousuke tying up loose knots, making sure that he leaves Seireitei in the best condition he can before disappearing off into Rukongai to nurse his depression. Things went to shit after he was attacked, after all, and the remaining captains’ inability to get a grip on the situation forced him into action. He shows up unannounced at a captaincy challenge, intent to lecture his colleagues on Seireitei law and does just that. He forces a vote between himself, Kenshou Ine and Junko Aizawa, and to his surprise, the other two captains vote him into the position of Captain-Commander. Kyousuke moves fast, enacting some changes and naming a successor, and then does the unexpected: resigns on the spot, taking the first step towards dissociating himself with his past by distancing himself from the Gotei. Confident that he can do no more, he departs, making it abundantly clear that he will never return.
Nothing Personal and Business As Usual deal with the aftermath of this as enterprising young Shinigami seek him out to learn the truth from Kyousuke’s own lips. The relationship between Jasper and Kyousuke has been extremely hostile since the former’s capture, but Kyousuke takes the liberty of explaining everything to the junior officer, hoping to clear the air and make him realize that in the grand scheme of things, it was nothing personal—Jasper had done nothing wrong other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time but should at least know that his suffering was in aid of the greater good, from his own perspective as much as any others’. Nagisa has her own questions, of course, many of them to do with the relationship between Kyousuke and Kiriko, and Kyousuke shares as much as he knows he needs to. Nagisa leaves with some of her questions answered, some not, and one or two new ones.
Addressing Honmonogatari yet one more time would kill me. See the transcendency request and let’s move on to what’s happened since:
Threads with Knowledge thus far have taken two forms, full-on threads wherein he stops and has a real chat with somebody, and threads where he shows up, drops a bomb or two, and then moves on. My reasoning for this has been one of proportionality: not everybody needs a full thread with a Transcendental in order to get something meaningful out of it (and some, it seems, need a thread with all three in succession), and it’s through little posts like in Smile Again and Out with the Old that I’ve been able to do some fairly efficient world-building and frame what being a Transcendental is like. They find themselves in a rather unique position to do something about pretty much everything they need to, and while I could just as well have gone in all guns blazing, Knowledge is the kind of guy that prefers the right word in the right ear approach. I’ve had the privilege of being able to shape the nature of the race in ways that Truth and Wish have not done for a variety of reasons (although Wish has certainly made significant contributions since his Transcendence). Smile Again is literally just Knowledge being smug, but the way he does it and the manner in which he approaches one of Mitsutaka’s guests speaks volumes for what these guys are like and how they operate. Likewise, Out with the Old is a display of the kind of involvement you might see from them in larger matters of more importance. More of these types of appearances will follow. Someone has to warn Takua that Baldy and The Cuck are coming for him, for example.
The full-on threads, however, are a slightly different breed. Peerless Craftsmanship takes place after Knowledge leaves Shun’s office having imparted a nugget or two of wisdom (see Honmonogatari’s post-credits scene) and Munin and I are trying to set up a little conflict of interests in Munin’s programming, something that will hopefully spark some change in the character and lead to some further development for both him and possibly his creator. The thread is existential in nature by his request and while it’s not easy RPing with an android, it’s been quite fun all the same. We should be wrapping up quite soon.
Drenched was, to my understanding, supposed to be the start of some kind of arc for Seiryūko’s benefit but recent developments leave me skeptical if these plans will ever come to fruition. In any case, as with most of my threads, present or planned, this is Knowledge acting as a means to an end for someone else. What we’re doing here is adding a little depth to Seiryūko and putting the rest of her behavior in perspective. This required more action than a simple exchange of words, and the option to move on past Knowledge’s involvement is just as viable as letting it come to define the character moving forward.
The Wing Wherewith He Flies To Heaven was supposed to serve as a transformational thread for the not-quite-but-actually-a-Quincy, sadly things appear to have stalled and a perfectly good pair of shoes was ruined for nothing.
Tsundoku has just started, but I’ve enjoyed writing both posts immensely and this thread will probably serve as an indication that Kyousuke “Knowledge” Tsukimiya’s disdain for the established rules of the lesser races is alive and well. The only rules he thinks are worth following are the ones that govern the use of Concepts among his compatriots—everything else is fair game and if it means helping someone into one of the most safely guarded locations in Seireitei, so be it! Then, of course, there’s the way in which he goes about his business here: he could just as well have opened the path for Walkrenn, but it’s important that the Shinigami makes his own discoveries. Knowledge introduces himself as a guide, and he is just that: he’s not a piece on this board, he’s simply a well-informed bystander who has taken it upon himself to get involved, something I’d consider a hallmark of his.
So now what???
I won’t beat around the bush; the goal here is to bring Knowledge to a place where I feel comfortable retiring him and retire him. After I finish the threads I’m in and maybe one or two more, tally up my final GP, I’ll be stowing Knowledge and focusing on Hazuki. Knowledge’s development has reached its end, I feel, and I may as well move on.
As far as Knowledge’s availability goes, this doesn’t actually change anything from what I’ve got going on today. If you want me to make an appearance, get in touch and I’ll see if I can drop on by. If I see a thread that desperately needs to have the average level of style in it raised substantially, I’ll invite myself. I’ve a feeling you all know how these things go.
I will, however say this much: I have one or two people on my dance card already who I’d say were pretty high-profile characters, but that’s far enough down the line for it not to factor in to this and completely out of my hands, so the less said about that, the better.
if you look at it right it kinda seems like my name is shrugging, cute huh?
also uuhhhhh
uuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhh
what exactly am I requesting here? A while ago, I was at 4,000 Base GP. Apparently, post-prestige bonuses now get sent to Base GP for some reason, so I’m now at 5,000 GP. Which would, I suppose, mean that I’m requesting 6,000 Base GP or thereabout. But am I really? If my Base GP has been artificially raised by a Transcendency bonus, am I actually requesting 5,000 Base GP, a raise from 4,000? Is my request graded on the shift from 4k to 5k, or 5k to 6k? Who knows? There doesn’t seem to be any kind of rhyme or reason to why any of this works the way it does, other than to make the order I make my requests in matter, which strikes me as a rather peculiar decision, but perhaps one of you lot on staff would care to elaborate because I’m certain whoever decided to implement something as seemingly pointless as this had a good reason in mind (this is irony, by the way: I think I know whose idea it was and it just screams “arbitrary hoop” to me). In any case, get back to me on the matter before you evaluate this, because I’d like to know what it is I’m requesting before I request it, as I’m sure you understand.
Moving on: I don’t do a lot of requests but I guess this (two and a half years ago, kek) is the last relevant one (besides transcendence). As usual (you’ll no doubt be quite used to this from me by now), I’ll be more or less completely ignoring the standard template because as usual I get the feeling I can think of a somewhat better way to present the information you’re looking for with that particular brand of Tsukimiya humor which you all know and love so here we go
Application: truth is a nerd hahahaha
motivation/“let’s get up to speed, yo”
It should be no surprise for anyone to hear that I’m not a big fan of milestones. I don’t like writing them, I don’t like requesting them, and I think the entire process is a little weird. This may, however, be a result of still having one foot in a very different kind of system, and the other lodged somewhere between Mitsutaka’s old habits and the modern BG way. I initially reactivated Kyousuke at 3.4k Base GP with very little information as to why that was the case—I was simply given my numbers (because I wasn’t around for the switch to Base/Earned GP as a thing at all) and told to make the best of them.
It occurs to me now that the only milestones I’ve ever actually requested are two halves of what I considered a single milestone to take me from that 3.4k Base to 4k: a total of 600 GP which, looking back, I definitely undersold myself on. Back then, Mitsutaka gave you what you asked for or he gave nothing at all, and most people who know me well will tell you that when I ask for things, I err on the conservative side, as I feel everyone should. However, times change and here we are, requesting not so much a change from then to now but a free-floating sort of look at “this is more or less where the character stands on the scale of things”
The milestone requests I ended up making spanned from The Fall to Ask no Questions, Hear no Lies, i.e. from Kyousuke Tsukimiya’s intentional capture (WAS GETTING CAUGHT PART OF YOUR PLAN?), incarceration, and appointment as Captain of the Second Division after a long stint in the Maggot’s Nest (yeah, I did the Nest thing before it was cool, sorry kids) to the introduction of Alter Tova Diabló as the post-Invasion dust settled. Kyousuke underwent some pretty significant changes during this period, and it served as a foundation for what was to come later. Much of it was introducing the concept of family and wholeness and after reading the old requests I’m reminded by just how big the divide between “what tova and I tricked everyone into believing” and “what tova and I were actually doing” was, gosh we’re fucking nerds. In any case, near the end of it, Kyousuke was starting to see himself as “multifaceted rather than fractured” and oh my god I’ve even got references to subjectivity and perspective in there
what the fuck
I’m fairly certain I hated the idea of royals when I wrote all of that and had no intention of ever becoming one
I’ve literally been outfoxed by myself from the past
it’s funny because you guys thought I had been at the whole transcendency thing since way back when but I totally haven’t, it just ended up that way so I guess that’s pretty cool. I should also note that much of what goes into this milestone is stuff you’ll have encountered in my transcendency request, so maybe have that handy if you get lost
anyway, let’s talk threads
Threads
all of them
I don’t do filler
wait you want specifics, don’t you
oh, alright:
We’re actually going to start with Unbroken, a super-pendulum I did from back when Kyousuke was 16, alive and well, a subject of the Japanese Empire. I wanted to frame Kyousuke as a young man before his soul was fractured (hence the title), something I rather enjoyed doing. He suffers from the same kind of problems I imagine any healthy teenager in 1930’s Japan would have done: he thinks about his parents, and about his future, and about the very pretty transfer student from Tokyo a few desks down. Subtract well-honed instinct and the smugness that accompanies knowing everything and wielding cosmic power, add a past he can call his own and a little heartache, and I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to imagine they’re the same person. It was very nearly a hundred years ago, after all, and I can imagine going off to war changed him, just as dying did. In case you’re wondering—yes, she’s the woman from the hospital. Ironic, isn’t it? Unbroken was something I wanted to do in order to establish a point of origin for a Kyousuke Tsukimiya that no longer suffered a soul in three parts. I think I succeeded and managed, in a way, to stay true to his character both young and not-so-young—everything from his penchant for cooking, punching people, and reading books to his detachment, rather loose relationship with rules and strong sense of family. Too bad Japan told the League of Nations to fuck off as soon as he landed himself a waifu, though. What a bummer.
Snap back to reality, oh there goes gravit—no, sorry. Back to the “present”: Kyousuke promised to take care of Cho-Ah for Mitsutaka, and he starts to oversee her training, both physical and mental, in a really awfully titled thread. This is more family stuff, but there’s still a distinct Kyousuke air over the whole thing: yes, he’s helping Cho-Ah to deal with her own inner Hollow, but only part of it is because Mitsutaka asked him to. By keeping her under close watch and making sure she doesn’t misstep, he is keeping Vaizardism a secret and thereby protecting both Lessa and Mitsutaka as well as himself. This was a long, long time before Kiriko legalized Vaizards, after all, and back then it wasn’t quite okay to forego what many Shinigami viewed as your humanity in favor of dangerous power.
Family First boiled down to a long string of lies and threats directed at Junko as Kyousuke’s desire to make sure the Vaizards are kept a secret from everyone but himself came to a head. There’s a tiny bit of both Hazuki and Kannaduki leaking into Kyousuke here, just as it did when he apprehended her son, but unlike then, he seems more aware of what is happening, and instead chooses to run with it rather than get swept away and find himself worried afterwards. He gets a few names out of Junko—Mitsutaka’s, whose name he had been expecting, and Kenshou’s, whose name he had not—and everything is back to normal, with enough time left to further extoll the virtues of familial ties and ask (in a very polite manner) for access to the Forbidden Library. He is denied, thinks little of it, and goes to speak to Mitsutaka about Reiatsu Perception, a lesson in frustration as Emo Mitsutaka is in full force at this point and it grates on Kyousuke more than somewhat, but we eventually get to where we’re going, touching on the fact that Kiriko means a great deal more to Kyousuke than he’s admitted to anyone before. It’s not quite love, but it’s very clear he cares for her. This is also where we get a first glimpse into the disconnect between what Kyousuke sees in “Tova” and what the rest of the world sees in him. It doesn’t strike Kyousuke as particularly odd that the King of Hueco Mundo has reverted to Arrancar from a demigod, but Mitsutaka remembers Truth. Neither of them realize that the men they’re thinking of aren’t the same at all. And yeah, we get actual Kyousuke anger for the first time... Ever, I think? At his brother, no less! Those inner spirits, man. They’ll fuck you up!
The beginning of the end (as far as Seireitei was concerned, in any case) was supposed to be Broadway Undercover, wherein our MASTER PLAN was to be set into motion. It ended up being a little too ambitious and we ended up being a little too lax on who we let participate. The old mantra of pick and choose your RP partners carefully held true, and we were left with a dead thread. There are still some minor things you could take away from it, such as the growing distance between Kyousuke and Shinigami at large, as well as the whole slowly losing his mind thing that he was experiencing as part of Hazuki’s past contributions. I will, however, take this time to clue you all in on what exactly it was we had been doing from the start: why had Kyousuke let himself be captured in the first place? He had been on walkabout for a long time and when he came back he found himself a little on the lost side. He knew Tova was a resourceful man, and he figured rather than look for him in potentially hostile environments, news of his capture would somehow reach the former Espada and he’d come find him. So he waits. And waits. And instead of Tova, Goldie finds him. Fed up at this point, Kyousuke says “sure I’ll be captain” and almost the moment he’s out (same night, while Kyousuke’s looking for a suitable lieutenant), Tova shows up and asks Kyousuke to stay in Seireitei as a double agent (this is all revealed in later threads). The events of Broadway Undercover don’t strike Kyousuke as out of the ordinary at the time, because it fits right into the plan they made. Alter Tova’s a fucking cunt though, and is really good at twisting shit around. Kyousuke gets played and doesn’t even know it, letting his expectations blind his view of—ironically—the truth. We’ll get back to what they were really up to later, because now
it’s time for Kyousuke to get completely fucking rekt! We don’t learn it until late in the thread, but Alter Tova, pleased with his reconnaissance trip, has decided that Kyousuke has outlived his usefulness and attempts to kill the poor captain, leading to the events of Unforeseen Consequences. That was the Unveiling, and I think I’ve said enough about that both in the metathread Tova made for it and the transcendency request. Long story short: alterverses, trauma, uncomfortable realizations and guilt trips galore. All new, fresh and exciting for someone like Kyousuke, who was until recently a pretty heartless guy.
His return from the aforementioned trials and tribulations saw him speed directly to Kiriko’s side in Faith, Rewarded, where he displays exactly how important to him Kiriko has become and to what lengths he’s willing to go for her well-being. Still, it’s an oddly distant form of affection: he wants her to be safe, but he isn’t particularly willing to stick around for what comes after making sure she is. Guilt, perhaps, or maybe his egocentrism won out over his affection. In any case, Kiriko is the only Vaizard Kyousuke has seeded to date, and he had to improvise in order to do so. The thread was less important to Kyousuke than it was to Kiriko—for him, there was a certain feeling of tying up loose ends before he moved on to his next destination. Knowing that Mitsutaka had moved on and that Lessa remained safe, Kiriko was the only other person in Seireitei worth Kyousuke’s attention.
An Echoed Roar is also Kyousuke tying up loose knots, making sure that he leaves Seireitei in the best condition he can before disappearing off into Rukongai to nurse his depression. Things went to shit after he was attacked, after all, and the remaining captains’ inability to get a grip on the situation forced him into action. He shows up unannounced at a captaincy challenge, intent to lecture his colleagues on Seireitei law and does just that. He forces a vote between himself, Kenshou Ine and Junko Aizawa, and to his surprise, the other two captains vote him into the position of Captain-Commander. Kyousuke moves fast, enacting some changes and naming a successor, and then does the unexpected: resigns on the spot, taking the first step towards dissociating himself with his past by distancing himself from the Gotei. Confident that he can do no more, he departs, making it abundantly clear that he will never return.
Nothing Personal and Business As Usual deal with the aftermath of this as enterprising young Shinigami seek him out to learn the truth from Kyousuke’s own lips. The relationship between Jasper and Kyousuke has been extremely hostile since the former’s capture, but Kyousuke takes the liberty of explaining everything to the junior officer, hoping to clear the air and make him realize that in the grand scheme of things, it was nothing personal—Jasper had done nothing wrong other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time but should at least know that his suffering was in aid of the greater good, from his own perspective as much as any others’. Nagisa has her own questions, of course, many of them to do with the relationship between Kyousuke and Kiriko, and Kyousuke shares as much as he knows he needs to. Nagisa leaves with some of her questions answered, some not, and one or two new ones.
Addressing Honmonogatari yet one more time would kill me. See the transcendency request and let’s move on to what’s happened since:
Threads with Knowledge thus far have taken two forms, full-on threads wherein he stops and has a real chat with somebody, and threads where he shows up, drops a bomb or two, and then moves on. My reasoning for this has been one of proportionality: not everybody needs a full thread with a Transcendental in order to get something meaningful out of it (and some, it seems, need a thread with all three in succession), and it’s through little posts like in Smile Again and Out with the Old that I’ve been able to do some fairly efficient world-building and frame what being a Transcendental is like. They find themselves in a rather unique position to do something about pretty much everything they need to, and while I could just as well have gone in all guns blazing, Knowledge is the kind of guy that prefers the right word in the right ear approach. I’ve had the privilege of being able to shape the nature of the race in ways that Truth and Wish have not done for a variety of reasons (although Wish has certainly made significant contributions since his Transcendence). Smile Again is literally just Knowledge being smug, but the way he does it and the manner in which he approaches one of Mitsutaka’s guests speaks volumes for what these guys are like and how they operate. Likewise, Out with the Old is a display of the kind of involvement you might see from them in larger matters of more importance. More of these types of appearances will follow. Someone has to warn Takua that Baldy and The Cuck are coming for him, for example.
The full-on threads, however, are a slightly different breed. Peerless Craftsmanship takes place after Knowledge leaves Shun’s office having imparted a nugget or two of wisdom (see Honmonogatari’s post-credits scene) and Munin and I are trying to set up a little conflict of interests in Munin’s programming, something that will hopefully spark some change in the character and lead to some further development for both him and possibly his creator. The thread is existential in nature by his request and while it’s not easy RPing with an android, it’s been quite fun all the same. We should be wrapping up quite soon.
Drenched was, to my understanding, supposed to be the start of some kind of arc for Seiryūko’s benefit but recent developments leave me skeptical if these plans will ever come to fruition. In any case, as with most of my threads, present or planned, this is Knowledge acting as a means to an end for someone else. What we’re doing here is adding a little depth to Seiryūko and putting the rest of her behavior in perspective. This required more action than a simple exchange of words, and the option to move on past Knowledge’s involvement is just as viable as letting it come to define the character moving forward.
The Wing Wherewith He Flies To Heaven was supposed to serve as a transformational thread for the not-quite-but-actually-a-Quincy, sadly things appear to have stalled and a perfectly good pair of shoes was ruined for nothing.
Tsundoku has just started, but I’ve enjoyed writing both posts immensely and this thread will probably serve as an indication that Kyousuke “Knowledge” Tsukimiya’s disdain for the established rules of the lesser races is alive and well. The only rules he thinks are worth following are the ones that govern the use of Concepts among his compatriots—everything else is fair game and if it means helping someone into one of the most safely guarded locations in Seireitei, so be it! Then, of course, there’s the way in which he goes about his business here: he could just as well have opened the path for Walkrenn, but it’s important that the Shinigami makes his own discoveries. Knowledge introduces himself as a guide, and he is just that: he’s not a piece on this board, he’s simply a well-informed bystander who has taken it upon himself to get involved, something I’d consider a hallmark of his.
So now what???
I won’t beat around the bush; the goal here is to bring Knowledge to a place where I feel comfortable retiring him and retire him. After I finish the threads I’m in and maybe one or two more, tally up my final GP, I’ll be stowing Knowledge and focusing on Hazuki. Knowledge’s development has reached its end, I feel, and I may as well move on.
As far as Knowledge’s availability goes, this doesn’t actually change anything from what I’ve got going on today. If you want me to make an appearance, get in touch and I’ll see if I can drop on by. If I see a thread that desperately needs to have the average level of style in it raised substantially, I’ll invite myself. I’ve a feeling you all know how these things go.
I will, however say this much: I have one or two people on my dance card already who I’d say were pretty high-profile characters, but that’s far enough down the line for it not to factor in to this and completely out of my hands, so the less said about that, the better.
