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Post by Hageshi Rekka on Aug 21, 2022 21:36:03 GMT -5
"Why have you returned, my student? Your training is complete and I have next to nothing more to teach you, unless you want to learn how to run an establishment like this or something. But you're an officer of the Gotei 13; surely your current job pays enough, no?" Without turning around as she folded bath towels, the midget retired Shinigami, Hoshinomiya Suzume, addressed the young man she trained to be her successor.
"I may be satisfied with my job, Sensei, but not with my life," Rekka replied. The young Third Seat had his sleeves rolled up, and his red uniform unbuttoned to reveal a white T-shirt featuring a gold bow and arrow against a gold-bordered black diamond. As usual, he was wearing the ornate military-style hat he'd been wearing for the past few decades. "Do you remember when I unlocked my Bankai? When you dropped me into the hot springs?"
"Is that so. And yes, I am aware of it. Are those two related in any way?" Hoshinomiya placed a stack of towels in a nearby shelf.
"You see, along with my Bankai, I gained the ability to obtain hidden knowledge beyond what I've ever dreamt of. I can ask, I can look, and I will find what I want to know." While a half-truth in that Rekka's new ability did not originate from his Bankai, this was basically the gist of it. But Hoshinomiya understood anyway.
"And you, being the fundamentally good-hearted, but impulsive person that you are, couldn't help wanting to share your new gift to everyone, and they now think you a dangerous loon at worst, and an annoyance who reveals the endings of novels to people who have just begun reading them at best."
"Well...yes." Rekka looked rather bashful now for a fire attribute. "But what matters is the journey to the end, not the end itself. What's so wrong if I tell them the ending so long as they have no idea how they'll end up there? It's like telling people they'll die knowing everyone will die eventually anyway."
"I swear, you can be so odd sometimes." Hoshinomiya sighed. "That may be true in a way, but for a lot of people, they're more comfortable discovering things for themselves than having someone else tell them. And what's more, a lot of things are better off unknown."
"Like whether the Captain-Commander heats his bathwater with his Shikai?"
"I happen to know exactly how the Captain-Commander prefers his baths, but no. Something like, what his Bankai is. Nobody living has seen it, except for himself. The implication is that nobody has seen it and lived to tell the tale."
"I see what you mean."
"You wanted to use the Phoenix Hall, right? Now go. Your friends are already there waiting for you. And by friends, I mean like a whole lot of them. They clearly care about you a lot." Hoshinomiya prepared to snap her fingers, which would take Rekka to the Inner World Projection Hall.
(501 words)
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Post by Hageshi Rekka on Aug 22, 2022 0:23:12 GMT -5
Sure enough, Rekka reappeared at the entrance of the massive wooden hall on the upper floors of the building. A long time ago, the Shinigami had built the structure as an alternative training and healing facility that had seen use during the Quincy War as a mobile base. In particular, this room had the technology to materialize a Shinigami's Inner World to achieve their Shikai and Bankai faster. This was where Rekka received his training in order to succeed Hoshinomiya as Third Seat of the Ninth Division, and now this was where most of his friends had gathered to discuss the situation at hand.
"You guys, you're all here...!"
And they were. Not only were Ran, Osaka, and Sora there, but also the entire Amanto Kujaku Gang, and even Satsuki Kiyohara, Kaoru Kosaka, and Yukina, the three women who had joined the marriage meeting misadventure some time ago.
"Well of course we'd all come," said Gojou. "If your ratings continue to drop it would affect all of us too, and we have no intention of letting that happen!"
"Yabai," added Yabai.
"Now, let's proceed to brainstorm how to save Senpai's ratings," announced Ran. "Begin!"
A large folding table was set up in the middle of the hall, with everyone sitting around it save for Hiki Ohno, who remained standing as usual. Ran sat at the head, with Rekka and Gojou on either side of her. It wasn't long before Yukina raised her hand and proposed a motion.
"What if I became the focal character instead of Rekka? We could move Leonina to his sheet and give me Leonina's sheet. I'm pretty sure I could be at least as interesting as him."
"Denied." Satsuki, fortunately dressed in a more decent nun's habit, stated coldly. "You'd be infringing on faceclaim territory for looking too much like Yukari, who has a legacy here even after being banned. The best you could do is be a potential love interest for the Vice-Captain, who's busy all the time. Furthermore, your Shikai is boring."
"Whaaa...! How dare you insult my Makoto?!" Yukina exclaimed, but Sora held her back.
"However, your suggestion is not without merit," continued Satsuki. "Replacing Rekka as the focal character would be an acceptable, if desperate, measure to keep our ratings up. But it wouldn't work with most of us."
"For one, I myself am an undesirable character to roleplay in a PG setting as this. Ran is too closely tied to Rekka, Osaka is far too taxing to write dialogue for, and Sora simply doesn't have faceclaim art. The Amanto Kujaku Gang must stay together as equals and that would be impossible if one of them were to become the focus. So that leaves Kaoru, whose build would potentially infringe on Yoshinori's, or..."
"Or?" The whole table asked, except for Kaoru, who asked "Me?!" instead.
"I get it now," Myourenji said. 'You're planning to replace Rekka with a completely new character."
"EHH??" The table exclaimed.
"Quiet. I wanna see where this goes, so start suggesting people to replace me," said Rekka.
"..."
"..."
"Rekka-san, back when you were about to get engaged your mother said your clan had two more heirs. What about either of them?" suggested Osaka in a surprisingly normal manner.
"Oh, that would be Hiyori and Yugo, my cousins. If I had to describe them they'd be like Nagao Kagetora and Okada Izo from FGO, respectively. Both of them would be solid choices, actually. Any other suggestions?"
"Yabai," said Yabai. (Translator's note: "I've always wanted to have a Yato from Noragami faceclaim.")
"Not bad, Yabai. Someone like that is bound to exist somewhere, and he'd have an interesting personality not too far off from Rekka's," said Rina. "But have you considered matching Rekka's powers more closely, like a Muramasa faceclaim, or that guy from Rekka's rival clan who looks like Watanabe no Tsuna from FGO?"
"True," said Kaoru. "We can never have too many Fate faceclaims. It's practically a tradition at this point."
"Well," said Ran, feeling off for some reason. "Why don't we start casting votes?"
"Hold up," said Hiki, followed with a glasses sparkle. "Why are we even plotting to replace Rekka? The whole point of boosting his ratings was so we could continue to make appearances, right? But if we get a completely new character, there's no guarantee we'll be part of their story as well!"
"THAT'S TOTALLY RIGHT!!" The table erupted into shouts of realization. Even Rekka, who had been completely on board with the idea of replacing himself, suddenly realized it too.
"COME ON GUYS GET A GRIP ON YOURSELVES!" yelled Gojou, which was picked up by Ran also yelling. "We gathered here today because we wanted to help Senpai, right? So why would we even do such a thing as try to replace him??"
Eventually, the table quieted down.
"So what we have to do is resolve the issues I have with my portrayal," said Rekka, remembering the earlier conversation with his mentor. "Let's focus on that."
(832 words)
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Post by Hageshi Rekka on Aug 22, 2022 4:49:44 GMT -5
"Man, if we're gonna be on that topic, I remember how Rekka used to be," said Gojou. "A hotheaded slacker who only ever wanted to play games and read comic books."
"Thanks a lot, Byakko."
"Hey, if we're gonna be figuring out how to improve, might as well look back on your roots."
"Ugh, roots. Planty sure was annoying, hot as she may have been," quipped Myourenji. "But surely that was one of Rekka's finest moments."
"I know, right? That KILL THE TREES went over so well!" Sora added, laughing. "Honestly, that was one of the reasons I signed up for the squad."
"We even got a nice hospital thread with Yoshinori after where we got to see Rekka's deeper side," said Satsuki, clearly pleased with herself. "I was listening the whole time, if you should know."
Ran did not want to be outdone. "Yeah, but mine and Senpai's secret meeting with the Vice-Captain was even better, and we even went out for lunch the next day! Too bad it was cut short by-"
"Ah." Half the table said.
"Ah." The other half got it.
"It's the whole interdimensional shenanigans thing, isn't it?" Rekka asked. "Not to mention the Diviner powers and the meta knowledge and whatnot."
The whole table sighed.
"I'm really sorry, Senpai, but that does constitute most of the complaints," Ran said, holding up a list.
"Well for one, we're in the wrong genre to be so irreverently breaking the fourth wall while still maintaining and expecting a serious response," Osaka stated. "Especially when it's justified by an actual ability that's so inconsistently written."
Kaoru cleared her throat and continued from where her friend had left off. "In a typical shounen work such as this, generally characters wish to strive to overcome their struggles, whether by defeating antagonists, improving themselves, or seeking to achieve a goal or obtain something they didn't have before, and meta shenanigans such as what we've been doing until now have the potential to take both the fun and the seriousness out of it. Do you wish for a lengthier discussion?"
The whole table nodded, prompting Kaoru to continue.
(356 words)
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Post by Hageshi Rekka on Aug 22, 2022 5:08:11 GMT -5
"The root cause for the original outbreak of meta knowledge was, if I'm not mistaken, the author's unresolved stress manifesting as a midnight fever dream projecting on the portrayal of Rekka, This should've been resolved the moment Rekka achieved Bankai in the hot springs, but for some reason it continued despite being unnecessary for the plot. Rekka would still have made anime and literary references even without it, especially since these are well-received by fans. But ever since the OGA event kicked off, an executive decision was made to make it a controllable power, which was probably a bad idea in hindsight."
"I mean, who wouldn't want an Army and the ability to see through dimensions?" Sora asked. "I literally saw Master Rekka suffer by not being able to control it, and now that he can people are on his case for it?"
"Sora, part of a good story is when not everything is revealed at once," Osaka explained. "While working with full knowledge can produce great results in real life and is a good substitute if you lack the time or confidence to get into something, many people will still want to exert their own effort to achieve their goals. That's why spoiling everything all at once is generally a bad idea, even if it won't immediately achieve everything."
"Not only that," Ran added. "So far, this is the second time, third if you count our visit to Janus, that we've used the meta knowledge to try and railroad the plot. And as much as I love Senpai, it could always have been arranged through executive agreement instead of passive-aggressively projecting through the actual threads."
"I swear, whoever does that on a regular basis must be expecting to be denied so much that they use underhanded methods to achieve their goals even if it's simpler and more reasonable to communicate instead. Being sneaky like that is hurtful, y'know?" said Satsuki. "It expresses that one lacks trust in the people they're supposed to be getting along with."
"Noted on all points, everyone," said Rekka, now feeling quite guilty. "I guess I did misuse my powers after all, even if I just wanted to have fun and help people. Since I can control them now, I suppose the only thing left to do is never use them again."
(389 words)
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