Post by Hazuki Tsukimiya on Jan 1, 2017 13:21:08 GMT -5
hello again
I’d like to request Prestige in the Prestige Shinigami flavor for my character Hazuki who currently has 6,500 Base GP. I’d also like to request a mastery in Zanpakutō Resonance (which will be my third mastery), as well as an increase in Base GP of 500 to 7,000 Base GP.
buckle up, this may be a wild ride
Hazuki, to me, has always been sort of an experimental testbed for various things I’ve wanted to try out. I wanted to try a Prestige Shinigami and the extended relationship with the Zanpakutō spirit that accompanies it, just as I wanted to attempt to play a Shinigami where I stripped out the “head voices” which I seem to recall playing a large role in popularizing on BG. It was my aim, instead, to limit communication between Shinigami and Zanpakutō to the nonverbal outside the Inner World.
I also wanted to try playing a character that adhered to and made the laws rather than breaking and bending them as Kyousuke was so good at. I wanted to try my hand at long-term unreliable narration via omission, always alluding to but never outright stating who exactly Hazuki was and where she came from, fully intent on making sure that every single post she was in would make sense both before and after her identity was exposed. More on that later.
Most importantly, however—at least as far as her current situation goes—I wanted to avoid the common pitfall on BG and indeed the very medium we use:
The over-reliance on other characters—and by extension, other players—in order to effectively tell a consistent, cohesive story. This may sound counterproductive on a site such as ours, so allow me to explain:
We, as contributors to BG, constantly find ourselves at the mercy of others in our efforts to develop our characters. In many cases, this is the whole point of the exercise: to see how our characters would react to different situations. However, there are certain cases where this isn’t really desirable, as it interferes with the personal aspect of a character’s development. Players come and go, and many times people will see all their efforts wasted. Most of the time, this is perfectly acceptable, but when it comes to something like Prestige, where a character’s fundamental drive is challenged and changed, it becomes unwieldy and awkward.
Therefore, I had Hazuki’s goal in mind from the outset. She had a clearly defined origin and a clearly defined destination, both of which drew heavily from what is arguably one of BG’s most influential characters. I wanted to anchor her to our setting and simultaneously ensure that I had a constant to fall back on: whenever Hazuki has been active, so too has Knowledge. This meant that with both beginning and end set, I was free to explore Hazuki and the world she finds herself in with unlimited freedom, because I was beholden to no-one but myself.
I had no artificial agendas to adhere to, no grand plans to work toward other than those that made the most sense at the time. I started out, as one must, with a basic plan, but that was so long ago I barely even remember what it was. Needless to say, I didn’t follow it, and what I had envisioned for Hazuki and what Hazuki actually accomplished differed greatly (for example, I seem to recall swearing off all future captaincies, and we see how that went). I take a certain pride in being able to state with complete honesty that the relationships Hazuki has forged and the events she has had a hand in have all been almost entirely organic in nature.
It’s this very quality, the organic, that I find most interesting about the potential BG has, and it’s one of the reasons I feel the way I do about Prestige. It’s no secret that I feel using existing Prestige and Post-Prestige characters as artificial boosts to get ahead is both lazy and in poor taste—it strikes me as a way to get around poor storytelling and lazy character development by introducing a deus ex machina that with a wave of a hand can make whatever is necessary happen precisely when it needs to. Some of my favorite (and certainly what I would call best) Prestige moments on BG have happened via the use of an existing character relationship to push a character over the edge. Conversely, the worst have been sudden, coincidental visits to the Garden or the appearance of your character’s Next Big Bad. The difference, to me, is distinct: a steady buildup toward the inevitable in the former, and the sudden, lackadaisical appearance of a white or desaturated name because the player has realized all the prerequisite boxes have been checked.
It is for that reason I feel Kiriko’s Prestige was so good way back when—and more recently, Shun’s. In both cases, they constantly built momentum that was finally let loose by the direct involvement of a character important to them and them alone. Kiriko’s captain returned to her (if only briefly), just as Shun’s brother bent him just past his breaking point. Both situations involved characters with well-established relationships.
With all that said, it is very easy to attempt to paint me as a hypocrite, given that what I’ve done seems to be a very fortuitous meeting between Hazuki, a Shinigami, and Knowledge, a Transcendental. However, as with most things it’s a matter of perspective: for Hazuki, this isn’t just some chance encounter. This is something she’s worked towards for her entire lifespan as a character on BG, with a premise that stretches back even further than that (as seen in Unforeseen Consequences in October 2013!). Hazuki, in many ways, has been a lens through which I explore our setting and our characters, and just like any lens, she warps what passes through her. Her Prestige, therefore, is a change in the lens, allowing her (and me) to see things a little differently.
From her very first thread with Kenshou, where she “finds” her Academy records, to her (re-)introduction to Jasper and Kiriko, and her very first meeting with Shun, Hazuki has been dead-set on finding the man who killed her father and ending his life as retribution.
She earns herself a lieutenancy, enabling her to get to work building a massive tracking system which Shun and Shun alone later correctly identifies as a selfish method to track down her wrongdoer, and when that doesn’t turn up any results, she moves on to the Third, where she takes the captaincy with the sole intention of gaining access to the Forbidden Library, where she can look for clues pertaining to the man she is hunting.
Her relentless pursuit makes her more than her fair share of enemies, but she pays them no mind, because to her the only thing that matters is getting to the end of the road where her prey unwittingly awaits.
As Hazuki presses forward, her relationship with her Zanpakutō spirit, Sakurazuki, sours as she mistakes the sword’s cautionary words for an attempt to hold her back and sabotage her (REM I: Happenstance, Not a Definite Mistrust—Just Uneasiness, briefly at the beginning of Replacement). She’s become so caught up in her quest for revenge that she is incapable of stopping and pondering the gravity of what she is undertaking, unable to take a pause and doubt what she has been told by Kannaduki, her late father’s sword.
She presses on, her actions becoming more violent, more desperate and more reckless (Le Déjeuner, A Wish to Preserve Appearances, and On the Threshold of Great Things) a clear indication of the growing hold her not-quite-Zanpakutō has on her and the madness that entails, until at last she marches off from her conversation with Hanabi, finding herself at last (or?) in the Garden, face to face with the man who killed her father.
It is here she learns that all is not exactly what it seems. This is not her first time here, according to Kyousuke Tsukimiya, who is effortlessly able to list some of Hazuki’s less public achievements, and he reveals to her that she has been here many times, and each time he has wiped her memory and sent her back to Seireitei. Things are pushed to their breaking point and Kannaduki is forced to reveal that the story she had been telling Hazuki was not the entire truth, and that Hazuki’s entire crusade has been based on a lie. Faced with these new facts, along with the suspicion that the man she calls Kyousuke Tsukimiya is in fact telling the truth about what he does and doesn’t remember, she realizes that her efforts have been for naught: what is the point of exacting revenge on a man who does not remember his crime? For something as personal as this—not justice, but vengeance—the absolutes are not as important as the nuance. She realizes she’s been pretending to be someone she’s not, the realization “killing” the personification of bitterness and regret that has haunted her in the form of her father’s sword, and makes amends with her own sword, emerging from the ordeal subtly different.
That’s the idea of Bruised, anyway, and that’s the foundation of this request in all its parts:
For Prestige, Hazuki has left behind her senseless and all-encompassing quest for revenge, realizing at last that it has been a fool’s errand this entire time. She has let go of the bitterness, regret, and anguish that has haunted her and clamped down on her heart like a vise, and resolved to honor her parents’ memory rather than use their deaths as an excuse to close herself off from the world around her. This part of the request encompasses more or less all her threads to date up to and including Bruised.
For Zanpakutō Resonance Mastery, she has realized that her Zanpakutō has been supportive of her, wishing her the best but unwilling to interfere in what she knew was something very important to her. It is not Sakurazuki’s place to dictate Hazuki’s path, but to support her, which she has done and will continue to do. This part of the request encompasses a smattering of threads throughout but is particularly accentuated in the threads linked above.
For 7,000 Base GP, she has reached and overcome the fundamental change that has loomed on the horizon for quite some time, realized with renewed vigor the importance of those relationships she has forged, and decided to stop pretending to be something she’s not, namely captain of a division that is a poor fit for her, or indeed a captain at all. Her passions lie elsewhere, and she will now see them realized. This part of the request encompasses all new threads since my last milestone, including those beyond Bruised.
As you may recall, my “second power” request rewarded me not with Bankai, but with early access to the Zanpakutō Evolution skill. This means that for Hazuki’s Prestige, I’m aiming to unlock her Second and Third Powers simultaneously in the form of Bankai. Let’s talk about what I had in mind for that!
In practical terms, this is a release that traps Hazuki and a few others in a shared dream, splitting them off from their surroundings and allowing them to duke it out in peace and quiet. Escaping from the dream is impossible, however there are some ways of figuring out that the fire can’t burn you and the water can’t drown you (to use some examples):
Obviously, Hazuki can tell you you’re dreaming. Failing that, if a target’s Reiatsu Perception is below Hazuki’s Zanpakutō Resonance, they are unable to tell they are dreaming—it is wholly convincing. If the two skills are equal, they will be able to suspect and eventually deduce that it is a dream; I leave this in the hands of the players I engage. If a target’s Reiatsu Perception is above Hazuki’s Zanpakutō Resonance, then it is obvious that they are dreaming, but this does not free them from the dream itself. The dream can’t hurt them—only Hazuki can do that. Of note is that Hazuki’s Shikai power is constantly active inside the dream, though just as before I leave it up to my opponent to determine how they wish to interpret its effects. Her Bankai lasts just as long as her skill in Resonance would imply.
The Third Power is the only one with any actual effect on her opponent. Every rank in Zanpakutō Evolution Hazuki has lowers the effective rank of all her opponent’s release skills by one when determining the duration and magnitude of their releases and bonuses—but not the skill with which they wield their effects. In simple terms, what this means is she inhibits their ability to use their releases when inside the dream, their duration and effect lowered. Note that only the duration (and in some cases, availability!) of their releases and the size of their bonuses are affected—a Vaizard with Grandmaster Inner Hollow Resonance against Hazuki’s Expert Zanpakutō Evolution will be able to use their mask for a duration and release bonus equivalent of a Novice, though with the skill of a Grandmaster when it is actually used. A Mask that shoots fireballs will still shoot Grandmaster fireballs and require the appropriate effort to block or dodge, though it will not last as long nor will it confer the additional release bonus granted by the Master and Grandmaster ranks. This applies equally to all releases and release skills.
At the time of writing, there are two threads of nontrivial importance to this request that remain unfinished, though the basic premise and significant links to the request have been established: Le Déjeuner and A Wish to Preserve Appearances. Nagisa and I are trundling along just fine, getting to the bottom of things, and Shinpei is about to get some nasty words thrown his way but that’s nothing out of the ordinary for him, so I don’t consider either of these incomplete threads detrimental to what I’m asking for here.
If you’ve got questions, feel free to lay them on me!
I’d like to request Prestige in the Prestige Shinigami flavor for my character Hazuki who currently has 6,500 Base GP. I’d also like to request a mastery in Zanpakutō Resonance (which will be my third mastery), as well as an increase in Base GP of 500 to 7,000 Base GP.
buckle up, this may be a wild ride
Hazuki, to me, has always been sort of an experimental testbed for various things I’ve wanted to try out. I wanted to try a Prestige Shinigami and the extended relationship with the Zanpakutō spirit that accompanies it, just as I wanted to attempt to play a Shinigami where I stripped out the “head voices” which I seem to recall playing a large role in popularizing on BG. It was my aim, instead, to limit communication between Shinigami and Zanpakutō to the nonverbal outside the Inner World.
I also wanted to try playing a character that adhered to and made the laws rather than breaking and bending them as Kyousuke was so good at. I wanted to try my hand at long-term unreliable narration via omission, always alluding to but never outright stating who exactly Hazuki was and where she came from, fully intent on making sure that every single post she was in would make sense both before and after her identity was exposed. More on that later.
Most importantly, however—at least as far as her current situation goes—I wanted to avoid the common pitfall on BG and indeed the very medium we use:
The over-reliance on other characters—and by extension, other players—in order to effectively tell a consistent, cohesive story. This may sound counterproductive on a site such as ours, so allow me to explain:
We, as contributors to BG, constantly find ourselves at the mercy of others in our efforts to develop our characters. In many cases, this is the whole point of the exercise: to see how our characters would react to different situations. However, there are certain cases where this isn’t really desirable, as it interferes with the personal aspect of a character’s development. Players come and go, and many times people will see all their efforts wasted. Most of the time, this is perfectly acceptable, but when it comes to something like Prestige, where a character’s fundamental drive is challenged and changed, it becomes unwieldy and awkward.
Therefore, I had Hazuki’s goal in mind from the outset. She had a clearly defined origin and a clearly defined destination, both of which drew heavily from what is arguably one of BG’s most influential characters. I wanted to anchor her to our setting and simultaneously ensure that I had a constant to fall back on: whenever Hazuki has been active, so too has Knowledge. This meant that with both beginning and end set, I was free to explore Hazuki and the world she finds herself in with unlimited freedom, because I was beholden to no-one but myself.
I had no artificial agendas to adhere to, no grand plans to work toward other than those that made the most sense at the time. I started out, as one must, with a basic plan, but that was so long ago I barely even remember what it was. Needless to say, I didn’t follow it, and what I had envisioned for Hazuki and what Hazuki actually accomplished differed greatly (for example, I seem to recall swearing off all future captaincies, and we see how that went). I take a certain pride in being able to state with complete honesty that the relationships Hazuki has forged and the events she has had a hand in have all been almost entirely organic in nature.
It’s this very quality, the organic, that I find most interesting about the potential BG has, and it’s one of the reasons I feel the way I do about Prestige. It’s no secret that I feel using existing Prestige and Post-Prestige characters as artificial boosts to get ahead is both lazy and in poor taste—it strikes me as a way to get around poor storytelling and lazy character development by introducing a deus ex machina that with a wave of a hand can make whatever is necessary happen precisely when it needs to. Some of my favorite (and certainly what I would call best) Prestige moments on BG have happened via the use of an existing character relationship to push a character over the edge. Conversely, the worst have been sudden, coincidental visits to the Garden or the appearance of your character’s Next Big Bad. The difference, to me, is distinct: a steady buildup toward the inevitable in the former, and the sudden, lackadaisical appearance of a white or desaturated name because the player has realized all the prerequisite boxes have been checked.
It is for that reason I feel Kiriko’s Prestige was so good way back when—and more recently, Shun’s. In both cases, they constantly built momentum that was finally let loose by the direct involvement of a character important to them and them alone. Kiriko’s captain returned to her (if only briefly), just as Shun’s brother bent him just past his breaking point. Both situations involved characters with well-established relationships.
With all that said, it is very easy to attempt to paint me as a hypocrite, given that what I’ve done seems to be a very fortuitous meeting between Hazuki, a Shinigami, and Knowledge, a Transcendental. However, as with most things it’s a matter of perspective: for Hazuki, this isn’t just some chance encounter. This is something she’s worked towards for her entire lifespan as a character on BG, with a premise that stretches back even further than that (as seen in Unforeseen Consequences in October 2013!). Hazuki, in many ways, has been a lens through which I explore our setting and our characters, and just like any lens, she warps what passes through her. Her Prestige, therefore, is a change in the lens, allowing her (and me) to see things a little differently.
From her very first thread with Kenshou, where she “finds” her Academy records, to her (re-)introduction to Jasper and Kiriko, and her very first meeting with Shun, Hazuki has been dead-set on finding the man who killed her father and ending his life as retribution.
She earns herself a lieutenancy, enabling her to get to work building a massive tracking system which Shun and Shun alone later correctly identifies as a selfish method to track down her wrongdoer, and when that doesn’t turn up any results, she moves on to the Third, where she takes the captaincy with the sole intention of gaining access to the Forbidden Library, where she can look for clues pertaining to the man she is hunting.
Her relentless pursuit makes her more than her fair share of enemies, but she pays them no mind, because to her the only thing that matters is getting to the end of the road where her prey unwittingly awaits.
As Hazuki presses forward, her relationship with her Zanpakutō spirit, Sakurazuki, sours as she mistakes the sword’s cautionary words for an attempt to hold her back and sabotage her (REM I: Happenstance, Not a Definite Mistrust—Just Uneasiness, briefly at the beginning of Replacement). She’s become so caught up in her quest for revenge that she is incapable of stopping and pondering the gravity of what she is undertaking, unable to take a pause and doubt what she has been told by Kannaduki, her late father’s sword.
She presses on, her actions becoming more violent, more desperate and more reckless (Le Déjeuner, A Wish to Preserve Appearances, and On the Threshold of Great Things) a clear indication of the growing hold her not-quite-Zanpakutō has on her and the madness that entails, until at last she marches off from her conversation with Hanabi, finding herself at last (or?) in the Garden, face to face with the man who killed her father.
It is here she learns that all is not exactly what it seems. This is not her first time here, according to Kyousuke Tsukimiya, who is effortlessly able to list some of Hazuki’s less public achievements, and he reveals to her that she has been here many times, and each time he has wiped her memory and sent her back to Seireitei. Things are pushed to their breaking point and Kannaduki is forced to reveal that the story she had been telling Hazuki was not the entire truth, and that Hazuki’s entire crusade has been based on a lie. Faced with these new facts, along with the suspicion that the man she calls Kyousuke Tsukimiya is in fact telling the truth about what he does and doesn’t remember, she realizes that her efforts have been for naught: what is the point of exacting revenge on a man who does not remember his crime? For something as personal as this—not justice, but vengeance—the absolutes are not as important as the nuance. She realizes she’s been pretending to be someone she’s not, the realization “killing” the personification of bitterness and regret that has haunted her in the form of her father’s sword, and makes amends with her own sword, emerging from the ordeal subtly different.
That’s the idea of Bruised, anyway, and that’s the foundation of this request in all its parts:
For Prestige, Hazuki has left behind her senseless and all-encompassing quest for revenge, realizing at last that it has been a fool’s errand this entire time. She has let go of the bitterness, regret, and anguish that has haunted her and clamped down on her heart like a vise, and resolved to honor her parents’ memory rather than use their deaths as an excuse to close herself off from the world around her. This part of the request encompasses more or less all her threads to date up to and including Bruised.
For Zanpakutō Resonance Mastery, she has realized that her Zanpakutō has been supportive of her, wishing her the best but unwilling to interfere in what she knew was something very important to her. It is not Sakurazuki’s place to dictate Hazuki’s path, but to support her, which she has done and will continue to do. This part of the request encompasses a smattering of threads throughout but is particularly accentuated in the threads linked above.
For 7,000 Base GP, she has reached and overcome the fundamental change that has loomed on the horizon for quite some time, realized with renewed vigor the importance of those relationships she has forged, and decided to stop pretending to be something she’s not, namely captain of a division that is a poor fit for her, or indeed a captain at all. Her passions lie elsewhere, and she will now see them realized. This part of the request encompasses all new threads since my last milestone, including those beyond Bruised.
As you may recall, my “second power” request rewarded me not with Bankai, but with early access to the Zanpakutō Evolution skill. This means that for Hazuki’s Prestige, I’m aiming to unlock her Second and Third Powers simultaneously in the form of Bankai. Let’s talk about what I had in mind for that!
Bankai Appearance
羞月閉花 Shuugetsu Heika (Abashed Moon, Wilting Flowers)
Sakurazuki’s Bankai form does not truly have a corporeal manifestation, and thus cannot quite be observed at all, provided one is not caught in it. For those caught in it, however, there is one telling sign: Sakurazuki’s blade no longer appears to be made of metal, but instead a solidified form of the narcotic—like semitransparent red glass, a shade lighter than blood. The rest of the Zanpakutō remains unchanged. To an outside observer, releasing Sakurazuki’s Bankai seems to be nearly instantaneous: the sword is held up, Bankai is called, and one of the combatants is suddenly, violently—and seemingly inexplicably—eviscerated.
Bankai Ability
What the outside observer does not see, however, is that Sakurazuki’s Bankai captures its wielder and a small number of targets—typically just the one—inside a shared dream. It is within this dreamscape that the combatants continue their fight, which to the outside observer seems instantaneous.
The shared dream operates on a simple set of rules:
1. Hazuki is in control of the dream.
2. The dream affects all dreamers equally.
3. The dreamscape itself cannot hurt the dreamers, only other dreamers can.
4. Dreamers wake up from the dream if they die within it, or are forcibly ejected by Hazuki.
5. The dream collapses if Hazuki is no longer in it.
What makes Shuugetsu Heika so lethal is two things: firstly, any wounds incurred during the dream are replicated on the dreamer upon waking up. This applies equally to all caught in the shared dream, and will stop just shy of outright killing them: dying in the dream will result in waking up with fatal wounds on the precipice of death. Secondly, the instantaneous nature of the dream makes it difficult for those trapped in it to use their own releases.
As with most dreams, it is not readily apparent to those in it (save for Hazuki herself, of course) that they are dreaming, nor do they remember what some would consider the beginning of the dream—to them it seems to start in what feels like the middle of everything. Hazuki knows this, and attempts to exploit it whenever she can.
羞月閉花 Shuugetsu Heika (Abashed Moon, Wilting Flowers)
Sakurazuki’s Bankai form does not truly have a corporeal manifestation, and thus cannot quite be observed at all, provided one is not caught in it. For those caught in it, however, there is one telling sign: Sakurazuki’s blade no longer appears to be made of metal, but instead a solidified form of the narcotic—like semitransparent red glass, a shade lighter than blood. The rest of the Zanpakutō remains unchanged. To an outside observer, releasing Sakurazuki’s Bankai seems to be nearly instantaneous: the sword is held up, Bankai is called, and one of the combatants is suddenly, violently—and seemingly inexplicably—eviscerated.
Bankai Ability
What the outside observer does not see, however, is that Sakurazuki’s Bankai captures its wielder and a small number of targets—typically just the one—inside a shared dream. It is within this dreamscape that the combatants continue their fight, which to the outside observer seems instantaneous.
The shared dream operates on a simple set of rules:
1. Hazuki is in control of the dream.
2. The dream affects all dreamers equally.
3. The dreamscape itself cannot hurt the dreamers, only other dreamers can.
4. Dreamers wake up from the dream if they die within it, or are forcibly ejected by Hazuki.
5. The dream collapses if Hazuki is no longer in it.
What makes Shuugetsu Heika so lethal is two things: firstly, any wounds incurred during the dream are replicated on the dreamer upon waking up. This applies equally to all caught in the shared dream, and will stop just shy of outright killing them: dying in the dream will result in waking up with fatal wounds on the precipice of death. Secondly, the instantaneous nature of the dream makes it difficult for those trapped in it to use their own releases.
As with most dreams, it is not readily apparent to those in it (save for Hazuki herself, of course) that they are dreaming, nor do they remember what some would consider the beginning of the dream—to them it seems to start in what feels like the middle of everything. Hazuki knows this, and attempts to exploit it whenever she can.
In practical terms, this is a release that traps Hazuki and a few others in a shared dream, splitting them off from their surroundings and allowing them to duke it out in peace and quiet. Escaping from the dream is impossible, however there are some ways of figuring out that the fire can’t burn you and the water can’t drown you (to use some examples):
Obviously, Hazuki can tell you you’re dreaming. Failing that, if a target’s Reiatsu Perception is below Hazuki’s Zanpakutō Resonance, they are unable to tell they are dreaming—it is wholly convincing. If the two skills are equal, they will be able to suspect and eventually deduce that it is a dream; I leave this in the hands of the players I engage. If a target’s Reiatsu Perception is above Hazuki’s Zanpakutō Resonance, then it is obvious that they are dreaming, but this does not free them from the dream itself. The dream can’t hurt them—only Hazuki can do that. Of note is that Hazuki’s Shikai power is constantly active inside the dream, though just as before I leave it up to my opponent to determine how they wish to interpret its effects. Her Bankai lasts just as long as her skill in Resonance would imply.
The Third Power is the only one with any actual effect on her opponent. Every rank in Zanpakutō Evolution Hazuki has lowers the effective rank of all her opponent’s release skills by one when determining the duration and magnitude of their releases and bonuses—but not the skill with which they wield their effects. In simple terms, what this means is she inhibits their ability to use their releases when inside the dream, their duration and effect lowered. Note that only the duration (and in some cases, availability!) of their releases and the size of their bonuses are affected—a Vaizard with Grandmaster Inner Hollow Resonance against Hazuki’s Expert Zanpakutō Evolution will be able to use their mask for a duration and release bonus equivalent of a Novice, though with the skill of a Grandmaster when it is actually used. A Mask that shoots fireballs will still shoot Grandmaster fireballs and require the appropriate effort to block or dodge, though it will not last as long nor will it confer the additional release bonus granted by the Master and Grandmaster ranks. This applies equally to all releases and release skills.
At the time of writing, there are two threads of nontrivial importance to this request that remain unfinished, though the basic premise and significant links to the request have been established: Le Déjeuner and A Wish to Preserve Appearances. Nagisa and I are trundling along just fine, getting to the bottom of things, and Shinpei is about to get some nasty words thrown his way but that’s nothing out of the ordinary for him, so I don’t consider either of these incomplete threads detrimental to what I’m asking for here.
If you’ve got questions, feel free to lay them on me!