No Balls no Glory. Feed it all upon the Fires.

This is dangerous, but it's also the most narratively interesting one to me.

Y'realize this is all but explicitly exchanging our many and interesting familiars and shit for the sake of boosting Pyre yeah? I mean I won't say it's necessarily an uninteresting option altogether but it's certainly not one that particularly interests me. It's Shadow pouring himself fully into the model of Jaune and burning away all the Grimm-bits and eaten stories, potentially forgetting that it's a monster, almost definitely forgetting Important Shit like Jaune's memories or the detectives or whatever.

Like ngl taking the choice of "Stop Being a Grimmfiltrator" in a quest that has the strong hook of "You Are A Grimmfiltrator" is a pretty big blueball.

Parasite is, if anything, the opposite of that. It's about assimilating, merging, and possessing. It's the more monstery out of all the options, keys off of the fact that we are fundamentally a composite of shit which is new and cool and not something I've really seem much of before. And I'm a lot more inclined to it than the kinda cliched "go full Shirou, turn your mind to steel" option.
 
Y'realize this is all but explicitly exchanging our many and interesting familiars and shit for the sake of boosting Pyre yeah? I mean I won't say it's necessarily an uninteresting option altogether but it's certainly not one that particularly interests me. It's Shadow pouring himself fully into the model of Jaune and burning away all the Grimm-bits and eaten stories, potentially forgetting that it's a monster, almost definitely forgetting Important Shit like Jaune's memories or the detectives or whatever.

Like ngl taking the choice of "Stop Being a Grimmfiltrator" in a quest that has the strong hook of "You Are A Grimmfiltrator" is a pretty big blueball.

Parasite is, if anything, the opposite of that. It's about assimilating, merging, and possessing. It's the more monstery out of all the options, keys off of the fact that we are fundamentally a composite of shit which is new and cool and not something I've really seem much of before. And I'm a lot more inclined to it than the kinda cliched "go full Shirou, turn your mind to steel" option.
Why would we burn the important stories? Jaune could choose, so should we.

I think you're also overlooking that this option lets us trim things we don't like from our own story.

[X] Pyre burns things away to fuel itself. Tuned it, whether consciously or unconsciously, to lick at the fat until it bubbled and hissed and melted away so that his comfort-eating would leave no more shameful marks than it already had. Why should you be any different? You have countless meals stewing within you, countless fragments of story in the well. Burn those as fuel.

Let's burn some books!
 
[X] You're a parasite riding in Jaune's hollowed-out body. Hijacking what was once second-nature to him. His Semblance is just another function, right? No different than his muscles or his lungs.
 
[X] You're a parasite riding in Jaune's hollowed-out body. Hijacking what was once second-nature to him. His Semblance is just another function, right? No different than his muscles or his lungs.
 
I think you're also overlooking that this option lets us trim things we don't like from our own story.

yeah uh i'm just gonna say that i flat out don't trust a quest to not shoot itself in the face trying to do psychic surgery on a character to "improve" him

like as a bleak fucked up tragedy that is 100% great but it's a. not what i'm interested in for this quest and b. not what a lot of the people voting for it would be hoping to get out of it :V
 
Y'realize this is all but explicitly exchanging our many and interesting familiars and shit for the sake of boosting Pyre yeah? I mean I won't say it's necessarily an uninteresting option altogether but it's certainly not one that particularly interests me. It's Shadow pouring himself fully into the model of Jaune and burning away all the Grimm-bits and eaten stories, potentially forgetting that it's a monster, almost definitely forgetting Important Shit like Jaune's memories or the detectives or whatever.

Like ngl taking the choice of "Stop Being a Grimmfiltrator" in a quest that has the strong hook of "You Are A Grimmfiltrator" is a pretty big blueball.

Parasite is, if anything, the opposite of that. It's about assimilating, merging, and possessing. It's the more monstery out of all the options, keys off of the fact that we are fundamentally a composite of shit which is new and cool and not something I've really seem much of before. And I'm a lot more inclined to it than the kinda cliched "go full Shirou, turn your mind to steel" option.
Well personally I dont think that this choice is a "Stop Being a Grimmfiltrator" route. That is a core conceit of this game it's not going to stop being it just because of one measly choice.

And ultimately I think you are doing this choice and Zerban a disservice by comparing this choice to the cliched full shonen full Shirou route.

I like this world, I like the concepts being thrown around, the hints of a puzzle hidden in a pile of hay. And ultimately I find this to be an interesting route because I think it's the one that more focuses on what is the difference between Grim and Human? What is the relationship? If Semblance, the power of humans are based on Archetypes, the basis of stories, and Grims, especially powerful ones are Stories incarnate, then what exactly is the story there? What is the relationship?

The likely weird effects that burning away stories for Pyre would have could led to those answers and a deeper exploration into those aspects of the setting. Especially since Shadow might need those answers in order to be a better Grimmfiltrator

Parasite to me is the professional route. No point in going to look into those answers, we are here on a job. We'll have the tools to do our job and that will be plenty good, no point in wasting time considering philosophical questions of the world and life when the Queen will come and kill everyone soon enough. That's not an bad route either.
 
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[X] You're a parasite riding in Jaune's hollowed-out body. Hijacking what was once second-nature to him. His Semblance is just another function, right? No different than his muscles or his lungs.
 
And ultimately I think you are doing this choice and Zerban a disservice by comparing this choice to the cliched full shonen full Shirou route.

"FEED IT ALL TO THE FLAME" is, if not necessarily Shirou's neighbor then at least on his street and probably passes him on the way to work. Like I'd probably warm up (hue) to the choice eventually (a shonen antagonist can be a lot of fun), but it feels a bit disingenuous to deny that this would be re-contextualizing a lot of stuff to follow. Especially when IC "how you contextualize shit" is how this straight up works, framing isn't just garnish it's everything. Burning away stories means that we're constantly on the lookout for new shit to eat and we won't necessarily retain the skills or benefits of anything we do eat. We'll have to be a way more active hunter, put a lot of shit at risk, and I'm just not as invested in the potential payoff to go that hard that fast or as certain that it'll necessarily provide the in-setting answers you think it does.

Parasite definitely starts out weaker but I like the sorta potential for growth in the assimilation/amalgamation stuff.



gimme that dank nrvnqsr shit
 
Righto. Hmmm this is actually a really hard choice.

These choices have a clear pattern.

The First Choice has Shadow distancing himself almost entirely from Jaune. The body is just a pile of meat and the Semblance just another thing to be used. This will likely result in having a harder time using Pyre or getting a less powerful effect. Even if this works I suspect that Shadow would eventually be forced back to a similar question again as it becomes more involved.

The Third Choice does not talk of Shadow's relationship with Jaune directly, but it is the one with the clearest parallels. Just as Jaune's original use of the Pyre burned himself away for power, Shadow is talking about also essentially burning himself away. There's this resonance to this choice that feels like it should have the most thematic weight. With this Shadow both makes himself closer to Jaune, closer to a Human, but also stripping away at such things as he burns away the myriads of stories within him. Would that mean he would become more like Jaune? Or would it cause him to lose sight of Shadow?

The Second Choice feels like the compromise role. Jaune's soul, is still there. So there is more to this situation than just a horrible parasite riding around in the body of a murdered teen. Perhaps it would make Shadow consciously thinking and consider the issue of their situation and what it means for him in the long run? Or perhaps it will be the one that functions just well enough that he wont care.


Hmmm

[X] Pyre burns things away to fuel itself. Tuned it, whether consciously or unconsciously, to lick at the fat until it bubbled and hissed and melted away so that his comfort-eating would leave no more shameful marks than it already had. Why should you be any different? You have countless meals stewing within you, countless fragments of story in the well. Burn those as fuel.

No Balls no Glory. Feed it all upon the Fires.

This is dangerous, but it's also the most narratively interesting one to me.
See, I thought differently. Jaune's Semblance is Pyre - burning yourself for power - so what we're choosing is what we burn.

If we burn Jaune's physical reserves, we'll become physically tired - and perhaps risk exposure until he heals and our shadow stops poking through the holes.

If we burn our Grimm meals, we'll need to hunt more Grimm - and presumably lose access to whatever powers or shapes they offered.

If we burn Jaune's memories, we'll slowly lose access to his knowledge and emotion - and presumably have to work our way in the world.
 
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Or we lose oursleves entirely. Make no mistake the word Pyre is appropriate. Fire forges, but it also consumes. It's the High Risk and Potentially High Reward Option.

This will either make Shadow anew in the long run, or led him to the Glorious Burning Jaune was destined for.
I guess it really depends on us then, are we going to have the mental endurance to forge ourselves into a weapon? Or will we be consumed by our own power?

Either way it's going to be a hell of a ride.
 
[X] Tenfoldshields

I was leaning towards burning our meals but then y'all went all "we could be alex mercer/nrvnqsr" and my hand slipped, how dare you abuse my weaknesses like that.
 
[X] You're a parasite riding in Jaune's hollowed-out body. Hijacking what was once second-nature to him. His Semblance is just another function, right? No different than his muscles or his lungs.
 
Not sure about the first one, though the reference to his body means it might burn away at his physical reserves - risking our exposure until he "heals"?

Oh shit yeah I didn't think of that even, yeah that makes a lot of sense actually. If the body's just a machine that the weird Shadow-pilot is inside and the Semblance is just another organ or bodily system we've usurped after scooping out Jaune's everything with a melon baller, it means that when we're activating it we're expending physical resources. We're pushing our meat-mech farther up into the red the longer it's on. And since us feeling pain isn't really much of a threat (the Shadow can get sensation and exhaustion and all that jazz but processes it so differently that it's almost second hand and seems to be significantly less impairing) it's likely that the trade-off there is, like, the Shadow having to do more work to keep everything running, thus being more obvious and vulnerable until it subsides.
 
I feel that if we choose the Parasite option, we will just end up blinding ourselves to truth. This quest has so far had themes of introspection and stories, and I don't really want to lose that in exchange for becoming Alucard or Nrvnqsr.
 
From Ozpin's monologue, I kinda wondered if there wasn't some link between Semblances and stories? Nice to see that confirmed.

[X] You're a parasite riding in Jaune's hollowed-out body. Hijacking what was once second-nature to him. His Semblance is just another function, right? No different than his muscles or his lungs.

Tenfold brought up Nrvnqsr and monster stuff, so y'know, he won me over.

It's not like this actually distances us from Jaune, actually. I mean, a Semblance is intrinsic to a person, right? Fundamental. Even if the Shadow thinks of it as a tool, he still using and learning that story, which is a part of Jaune. It'll just be developed more from his own perspective, rather than Jaune's. Which'll probably make it weird and kind of eldritch and set every Hunter who sees it on edge, even if they can't pin down why it suddenly feels like there's a Grimm right there.

But that's a pro in my book.
 



Damn, @TenfoldShields we should really make you wait for a few pages so the rest of us can form our own opinions. It's no fun if your the only protagonist. :V
Adhoc vote count started by Rowknan on Jan 6, 2018 at 2:41 PM, finished with 39 posts and 24 votes.
 
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[X] You're a parasite riding in Jaune's hollowed-out body. Hijacking what was once second-nature to him. His Semblance is just another function, right? No different than his muscles or his lungs.
 
"FEED IT ALL TO THE FLAME" is, if not necessarily Shirou's neighbor then at least on his street and probably passes him on the way to work. Like I'd probably warm up (hue) to the choice eventually (a shonen antagonist can be a lot of fun), but it feels a bit disingenuous to deny that this would be re-contextualizing a lot of stuff to follow. Especially when IC "how you contextualize shit" is how this straight up works, framing isn't just garnish it's everything. Burning away stories means that we're constantly on the lookout for new shit to eat and we won't necessarily retain the skills or benefits of anything we do eat. We'll have to be a way more active hunter, put a lot of shit at risk, and I'm just not as invested in the potential payoff to go that hard that fast or as certain that it'll necessarily provide the in-setting answers you think it does.

Parasite definitely starts out weaker but I like the sorta potential for growth in the assimilation/amalgamation stuff.



gimme that dank nrvnqsr shit
I mean to be fair a flaw in the Nrvnqsr plan is that we can prooooooooobably eventually get overwhelmed by whatever we eat since iirc a problem for Mr. Assimilation Fetish is that one day he'd lose his sense of self and turn into a shambling mass of crazed beasts.

Granted that can happen with the Pyre option and to a lesser extent with the utilizing Jaune's soul option since he could probably override us eventually if we keep tapping it so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[X] You're a parasite riding in Jaune's hollowed-out body. Hijacking what was once second-nature to him. His Semblance is just another function, right? No different than his muscles or his lungs.

That being said I'm still going for it.
 
[X] You're a parasite riding in Jaune's hollowed-out body. Hijacking what was once second-nature to him. His Semblance is just another function, right? No different than his muscles or his lungs.
 
[X] You're a parasite riding in Jaune's hollowed-out body. Hijacking what was once second-nature to him. His Semblance is just another function, right? No different than his muscles or his lungs.
 
[X] Pyre burns things away to fuel itself. Tuned it, whether consciously or unconsciously, to lick at the fat until it bubbled and hissed and melted away so that his comfort-eating would leave no more shameful marks than it already had. Why should you be any different? You have countless meals stewing within you, countless fragments of story in the well. Burn those as fuel.
 
[X] You're a parasite riding in Jaune's hollowed-out body. Hijacking what was once second-nature to him. His Semblance is just another function, right? No different than his muscles or his lungs.
 
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