A Bro's Life (AGG-ish Anime Bro Quest)

[LinkOnScepter]

Having someone who knows they're evil and owns it in this manner can be either really compelling or cliched and this seems to be leaning more towards the compelling.

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TBH, I am good with either or. I have never seen anything that is clichéd as necessarily bad. Heck, I feel that clichéd tropes can be really good as long as there's passion behind it.

 

[Icipall]

She idly glanced to the right to see what the sound was. She grimaced upon seeing the injured and bruised body of a man. She didn't know him but the state of his body was enough to rattle her. The bruises covered him from head to toe, and each one was accompanied by six holes as big as her index finger. His eyes had rolled into the back of his head while foam rose from his mouth. She saw his fingers twitch every now and then .

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That's gnarly.

Of those 5.6%, we should have 3.2% of that population under our control through Bonding with our agents."

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That's... worrying.

"And the remaining 10.7%?" her boss asked, his black leather chair squeaking as he moved again.

"That number encompasses both those who were either killed by their prospective partners, managed a Bond but were subsumed by the supernatural's personality and power, and those who have been noted to abuse their supernatural partners. Said abuse includes physical, emotional, and...intimate abuse in the case of weaker or more submissive supernaturals. As per your orders, the ones who are subsumed are eliminated as soon as possible, while those who abuse their partners are sent to you for judgment," she glanced behind her at the man's body. He had stopped twitching and now blood was leaking from his mouth. His skin was rapidly turning a sickly shade of brown. She swore she saw skin sloughing off his arms to the floor.

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So, they want to control the supernaturals in a way that doesn't abuse them. Probably to decrease the chance of them rebelling.

"I said you're wrong, Shi-Shi. In fact, if anything, your answer proves that you, yourself, are evil. Evil people are the ones who feel the need to justify their own actions by simply saying that there is no good and evil. After all, if you can convince people that there is no good or evil, then you can convince them to justify and allow any number of horrible actions," Mishima's jovial smile and tone didn't waver a single second as he spoke to Onishi.

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That... is not the stance I expected from him.

I love manipulating people into believing their is hope

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There.

Why would I be good when I love being evil so much? And if anyone's got a problem with it?"

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View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tn2FI-9v_zI

"Eh, leave those two alone," Mashima waved a hand dismissively, "If we take care of every possible threat to us the moment it pops up, someone's gonna figure out what we're doing. And besides, we want to let those guys stay as a threat. The longer they're out there, the more they scare the more peaceful and non-confrontational Yokai. Who we can then invite to our little neck of the woods. Ah, I can see it now. Hundreds of my agents in every corner of government, each with their own Yokai partner. All standing ready to do as I say...and collect all the money from people who want a Yokai companion."

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So, the Organization's final plan is basically world domination. While making filthy amounts of money.

"He is a certified good person. Which means he's a threat. And we need him gone."

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Oh boy, pure evil recognizes pure good.

Also, Terumi...

Punching this dick in the dick is going to feel so cathartic.

 

[Randino Treviani]

Nice. The willfully evil trickster has locked onto our Passionate hero who solves problems with his fists as the obvious good protagonist he needs to defeat and will be caught totally off guard by his genius brother while said passionate hero puts himself between mr bad guy and a hundred underlings he's called to save his bacon to make sure he can't escape.

 

[Sir Plusse]

Congratulations on proving his point

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On the one hand: I'm pretty sure society was founded on the values he called out not because of "good" or "evil" but because society fundamentally wouldn't've worked otherwise, and people only codified them as "morality" once it was proven to work, on the "prosperity = good" level.

On the other hand: This is an anime setting in which Good and Evil objectively exist.

On the third hand: This asshat's "reasoning" is roughly on the "if apples then oranges" level.

 

[CanYouMeme]

I dunno I just always found the idea of "good" and "evil" incredibly off. They are just labels, I still use them but in my mind it makes more sense to say they are a bad person rather than "evil".

It's not something I've ever thought deeply about so I doubt I'd be able to explain it properly. But to me calling yourself evil just stinks of self justification/delusions. He's honest in admitting he enjoys all the things he does but ascribes it to some nebulous label of evil like it's something to aspire too rather than just accepting he is an ass who gets his kicks by hurting others.

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On the one hand: I'm pretty sure society was founded on the values he called out not because of "good" or "evil" but because society fundamentally wouldn't've worked otherwise, and people only codified them as "morality" once it was proven to work, on the "prosperity = good" level.

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This kind of reasoning baffles me, and I'd like a further explanation. Why do you have such a vitriolic reaction to terminology that means...exactly what you're objecting to?

You acknowledge that there are consistent behaviors objectively better or worse than others, no matter the rhetoric and rationalizations used to support one choice or another. The villain who provoked this conversation is openly and honestly declaring his lack of redeeming qualities and desire to make others suffer just because it amuses him.

Alioth, there's no meaningful difference between calling me calling him "evil" and you calling him "asshole" - we're discussing the exact same behavior. Why is one better than the other? And when he honestly declares himself to knowingly and totally be aligned one way, on what grounds do you assume him to be a delusional liar?

Plusse, what are the criteria for invalidating how people describe certain concepts? If there's no meaningful difference in what is being described, why is one term suddenly invalid? And if, as you say, beneficial things like "society" are fundamentally impossible without certain behavioral prerequisites, then why is there an objection to labeling such prerequisites with objective terminology?

 

[Sir Plusse]

Plusse, what are the criteria for invalidating how people describe certain concepts? If there's no meaningful difference in what is being described, why is one term suddenly invalid? And if, as you say, beneficial things like "society" are fundamentally impossible without certain behavioral prerequisites, then why is there an objection to labeling such prerequisites with objective terminology?

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Practicality. People banded together in the first place because of strength in numbers, and developed social tendencies to encourage that behavior. People developed traits like "trustworthiness" and "diligence" because the ones who didn't were abandoned, cast out, or flat-out killed on the spot.

You say "objective," but it's only so because people literally invented the concept of "good" to describe people or things that do not screw the tribe over (and then moved the goalposts when religion got involved, but I digress). And at that level, it's more pragmatism than anything to help the guy who keeps the wolves from ripping your throat out in your sleep.

In other words, it's the reason they do things, not the things they do that differentiates it. Like, a villain who saves a village because that village paid him to do it is still a villain, because he saved them purely for the material benefits. Similarly, helping someone isn't "good" or "noble" or "altruistic" when the entire reason you do it is "I will die if I don't;" that's nothing but enlightened self-interest. That make it any clearer?

edit: To illustrate, I've thought of examples on both sides of the coin: Someone who does "evil" things while still being considered "good," and someone who does "good" things while still being considered "evil."

Good despite Evil: Robin Hood. A notorious thief who is nonetheless considered a hero because he targeted the people who were too rich to spend it all, and donated it to the people who were too poor to survive without it.

Evil despite Good: Poison Ivy, from Batman. An environmentalist attempting to preserve the biosphere, who is nevertheless an irredeemable villain because she does so by murdering everyone she can. (Admittedly the way I phrased this one might've undermined my point now that I reread it...)

 

[Alioth]

This kind of reasoning baffles me, and I'd like a further explanation. Why do you have such a vitriolic reaction to terminology that means...exactly what you're objecting to?

You acknowledge that there are consistent behaviors objectively better or worse than others, no matter the rhetoric and rationalizations used to support one choice or another. The villain who provoked this conversation is openly and honestly declaring his lack of redeeming qualities and desire to make others suffer just because it amuses him.

Alioth, there's no meaningful difference between calling me calling him "evil" and you calling him "asshole" - we're discussing the exact same behavior. Why is one better than the other? And when he honestly declares himself to knowingly and totally be aligned one way, on what grounds do you assume him to be a delusional liar?

Plusse, what are the criteria for invalidating how people describe certain concepts? If there's no meaningful difference in what is being described, why is one term suddenly invalid? And if, as you say, beneficial things like "society" are fundamentally impossible without certain behavioral prerequisites, then why is there an objection to labeling such prerequisites with objective terminology?

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I will agree that from most stand points there is very little difference between bad and evil. And my dislike of it is largely pointless.

My dislike primarily extends from two things.

The first is that Evil should be Evil no matter where, no matter when, no matter what. We as a modern society would say slavery is evil (and it is) but it was a common and accepted practice among societies. Some people likely actively believed it was a good thing. From a narrative stand point I tend to lean towards something I read from a story that good and evil are a product of civilization and age. A thousand years from now society may look back and some actions that we accept as normal and good may be viewed as evil to them. That's why I prefer to look at things in the terms of "good" and "bad". To me they share different connotations than "Good" and "Evil".

The second is thst from a nihilistic perspective, nothing truly matters since in the end nothing will be left. So "Good" and "Evil" as an absolute don't really exist. On the other hand we as humans don't exist at that scale so we apply actions on a scale we can understand and accept (or has meaning). Since they aren't absolute I simply think "good" and "bad" are better descriptors.

Not sure how well I conveyed what I meant. Words are hard and I've never been particularly good at conveying them how I want/mean them. But this is roughly what I believe.

Edit: we have studies on ethics, entire philosophies (?) on morality. If we have entire diverse systems of thought that describe actions as "right" or "wrong" it is hard to accept "Good" and "Evil" as being a thing.

 

[Silvis]

The second is thst from a nihilistic perspective, nothing truly matters since in the end nothing will be left. So "Good" and "Evil" as an absolute don't really exist. On the other hand we as humans don't exist at that scale so we apply actions on a scale we can understand and accept (or has meaning).

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Not disagreeing with you but there are lot of people that agree that nothing we do here matters in the long term. But they do believe it matters in what comes after aka the afterlife. But that ties into the reason why religion exists so I'm not going to go into it.

 

[Sir Plusse]

But that ties into the reason why religion exists so I'm not going to go into it.

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Doing so would, to me, sound remarkably like arguing about what the afterlife is like to someone who doesn't believe there is an afterlife at all, so I'd encourage this decision.

 

[kinglugia]

All this thinkge makes my brain huuurrrrrttttttt.

 

[Walliseatscheese]

"He is a certified good person. Which means he's a threat. And we need him gone."

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I think it's time to push for Resistance All-100.

You know, just a feeling

More realistically, it's a damn shame we didn't get more XP from the tournament as that would make certain advances easier, but assuming we train with Yato and our Sensei is able to train us in Resistance (can we get Sensei's Teaching Bonuses in an Information Threadmark somewhere sometime?), the Resistance All-50 is only 4 AP away putting us at 50-56-56. After that we should really try to push one of them (Spirit maybe? It is our Tagged Skill.) to 100 so we can push UMT to its own cap with like 3AP (Martial Arts being a + Skill for us is really doing double duty in helping us just blast through the "training effectiveness reduction" thing).

Also in the wake of this I think we really should do the Yato Advanced Quest this coming weekend.

Well, Templars are just what he calls Elizabeth's people.

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Wait, are you saying that Elizabeth lied to us?!

She isn't an uninvolved rando who stumbled into video evidence of the supernatural and coincidentally is Very Good with Dual Wielding Swords!?

Gasp! Shock! Horror!

 

[PetroleumMedium!]

Oh boy, a new villain organization is revealed. Can't wait to see his defeat!

 

[LinkOnScepter]

Hey guys! Expect the next update either this weekend or next week...depending on if I have overtime this week or not.

 

[LinkOnScepter]

As the new day dawns, and the first rays of sunlight come through the window, the first thing you do is check on how your body is doing. You've been unable to do any serious training thanks to your wounds and that's really bothered you. Especially since it's meant you've been unable to go to your Martial Arts Club. You know Sensei Hazma means well, but you still want to get back to moving your body. Especially with your team now formed. Your bro's gonna need you in tip-top shape for whatever plans he's got.

Which is why the second you can feel your arms and legs, your lips curl into a wide smile. You pull up your legs and leap out of bed. Landing with a thud on the floor, you immediately tear the bandages and wrappings off your wounded arms, legs, and chest. You then flex a bit while shouting, "Oooohhh yeah! I'm back in business baby! Can't keep a good Nagai down! Yeah!"

Injuries have fully healed!

"It is good to see you fully healed, Lord Hayato," Yato chimes in while you do your morning stretches, "As expected, even the wounds inflicted by an oni cannot hurt you in anyway that matters."

"Don't sell yourself short, Yato," you say while popping the bones in your neck, "I doubt I would've done nearly as well without your help."

"You give me too much credit, my Lord," you roll your eyes at Yato's response while walking out of your room. After brushing your teeth and taking care of your other morning rituals. Once your uniform is on, you walk out and are met by Yamato. He's standing outside your door with two bottles of water in his hands.

"Good morning, Hayato," he holds one of the bottles to you, "It is good to see that you have recovered from your injuries. I would also like to inform you that you have visitors standing outside our dorm. I believe they are part of your club."

"Really? Thanks bro," you rush over to the door while drinking the water as quickly as you could. You made it halfway through the bottle when you finished getting on your shoes and opened the door to your dorm. Looking out, you heard a familiar voice calling to you from over the railing. You look over the edge and then smile at who you see. You wave your hand in greeting, "Hose! Sensei! What's up guys?!"

"Long time no see, Nagai!" Hose shouts back to you. He's smiling but has some bandages on his left and right cheeks. He notices you staring and points at one of them, "Oh, don't worry about these. Got into a bit of scrap with someone. I'm all good now though."

"Alright," you say though you're wondering what the full story there is. Your eyes go to Sensei Hazma. He's just standing there with his arms crossed and an indifferent expression on his face. You smile and hold up your arm, "Hey, Sensei! Check it out! I'm fully healed now! So that means I can get back to training, right?!"

Sensei opens his eyes and looks at you with a kind soft smile, "Indeed, Nagai. It is good to see that you are looking forward to returning to our Dojo."

"He's not the only one, Sensei. Everybody's been missing the guy who got us the win in the Tournament," Hose waves his hand through the air at you, "If you're busy, don't worry too much about it. But, if you have a moment, come on over and give everyone a chance to really thank you for the Tournament win."

You get ready to say you'll be there but stop. Your mind goes to all the other stuff you've got going on right now. The team you've set up, the Organization, having to keep an eye for Hiroko when she finally shows up, needing to keep an ear out in case the team needs you, Ritsuko...there's a lot. So, while it hurts, you don't give Hose a full confirmation. You instead say, "I'll....I'll see what I can do. Sorry, buddy."

Hose waves you off while turning around, "Don't be. I get it. Life comes at ya fast. But I'd like to see you again when ya got a moment."

"I feel the same. I hope we will speak again, Nagai-san," Hazma-sensei bows then turns to walk away with Hose.

You wave goodbye to them then sigh. Man, you're life got really complicated.

Sensei Hazma SL now fully unlocked! Can now spend time with Sensei!

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Event Notice: Yamato's Chess Tournament will be held within 4 Weeks.

Current AP: 4
Pick Three Skills to Train.
Skills with (+) gain 15 a week.
Skills with (-) gain 5 a week,
Skills with neither gain 10 a week.

When Training with Someone Else:
Shared Skill Bonuses get a +10 to points gained.
Your Debuff of a Skill will get canceled out if your Training Partner has the Skill as a Bonus.
If both Skills are Normal, you both get a +1 Point Gain Bonus.
If you have a Skill at Normal, but your Partner has that same Skill at a Bonus, you get a +2 Bonus to the points gained.
If you have a Bonus to a Skill, but your Training Partner has a Debuff to that same Skill, then you don't get any extra points, but they do.

[] Train Alone
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[] Train with Yamato
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[] Train with Yato
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[] Train with Yameko
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[] Call up Hose and see if he wants to Train/Hang Out
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[] Call up Ritsuko and see if she wants to Train/Hang Out
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[] Check on Hiroko and see what's she's up to
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[] Meet up with Elizabeth
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[] See if you can contact Iji
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[] See if you can meet up with Estella
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[] Maybe Irina would be willing to talk?
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[] Go meet up with Keishi and Aina
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[] See if Kazama Yuki would be willing to talk
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[] Meet up with Sensei Hazma for some training. (Note: Sensei gives bonuses to Martial Arts, Resistance, Empathy, Speech, Education, Perception, and Melee Weapons)
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---

Here we are. Sorry it took so long for so little. Overtime + IRL stuff has been taking up my time.

 

[LinkOnScepter]

Also, sorry for the double post, but I just realized it's only been 3 Months in universe in this Quest.

Damn.

 

[Eternal_0bserver]

Marital Arts Club

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Did the club change its activities while our character was recovering from his wounds? Well, maybe he'll get some good advice.

Just not from sensei. We already know that in this particular skill tree, he put all his points into dodging, and Hayato is pretty good at it as well, as far as I remember.

 

[SaberFail]

[X] Plan: Talk to me bro!
-[X] Train Emphathy: Motives with Yamato.
-[X] train Emphathy: Feelings with Yamato.
-[X] train Emphathy: Interests with Yamato.

 

[RiyeLink]

If we do 2 Empathy Interest trainings, we will get the All-50. It also works out since it is Bros worst skill in that tree.

Edit: @LinkOnScepter shouldn't we have 4ap in total? It seems one is either missing or assigned already without being documented

EDIT2:

[X] Plan for Success
-[X] train Emphathy: Interests with Yamato.
-[X] train Emphathy: Interests with Yamato.
-[X] Call up Ritsuko and see if she wants to Train/Hang Out
--[X] Train Brawling

This helps patch up one of Yamato's biggest weaknesses, the Empathy skill tree, trains up one of our hand to hand skills, and even nets us the Empathy All-50, if I am understanding the math correctly.

 

[Alioth]

[X] Plan for Succeed v2

I am tottally fine with hanging with bro, but I am also fine with being a martial arts nut, so I say do both! For flavor!

The interactions with Yato made me think back to the oni fight where we fought with yato. I wonder what would've happened if we had solo'd it. Probaply nothing, but a human fist fighting an oni and winning without aid or weapon would've been pretty cool.

 

[Sir Plusse]

...Is it wrong of me to attach Gouken's appearance to Sensei? Because I just started imagining Sensei as looking exactly like Gouken and it fits so well.

 

[Icipall]

Especially since it's meant you've been unable to go to your Marital Arts Club. You know Sensei Hazma means well, but you still want to get back to moving your body. Especially with your team now formed. Your bro's gonna need you in tip-top shape for whatever plans he's got.

Click to shrink...

Something to do during the weekend, with other socials.

"Long time no see, Nagai!" Hose shouts back to you. He's smiling but has some bandages on his left and right cheeks. He notices you staring and points at one of them, "Oh, don't worry about these. Got into a bit of scrap with someone. I'm all good now though."

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"But you should see the other guy."

Current AP: 3

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Shouldn't this be 4?

...Is it wrong of me to attach Gouken's appearance to Sensei? Because I just started imagining Sensei as looking exactly like Gouken and it fits so well.

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You're not the only one.


[X] Plan: On a Road To Heart of Victory
-[X] Go meet up with Keishi and Aina
--[X] Train Emphathy: Interests
--[X] Train Emphathy: Interests
-[X] See if you can meet up with Estella
--[X] Train Speech: Persuasion
--[X] Train Speech: Persuasion

So, we need to continue now pushing towards that Empathy All-100 and at least Speech All-50, so that we're actually good at what we're supposed to be best at, aside from fighting. This will net +50 points Empathy: Interests and +24 to Speech: Persuasion, getting us that Empathy All-50 perk and pushing Speech: Persuasion past 50 threshold. We can train our bros Empathy when we don't need such large amount of points to get that max 100 (which is our current cap, since there is no saving of overlap points). The debuff that Yamato has would slow down our own development too much, especially since we only have 1 Speech skill as +. And Empathy is not important skill atm for our bro, and we don't have the time right now for his personal quest to start.

Edit.
Updated plan now that we have 4 AP

 

[LinkOnScepter]

Did the club change its activities while our character was recovering from his wounds? Well, maybe he'll get some good advice.

Click to shrink...

Something to do during the weekend, with other socials.

"But you should see the other guy."

Shouldn't this be 4?

You're not the only one.


[X] Plan: On a Road To Heart of Victory
-[X] Go meet up with Keishi and Aina
--[X] Train Emphathy: Interests
--[X] Train Emphathy: Interests
-[X] See if you can meet up with Estella
--[X] Train Speech: Persuasion

So, we need to continue now pushing towards that Empathy All-100 and at least Speech All-50, so that we're actually good at what we're supposed to be best at, aside from fighting. This will net +50 points Empathy: Interests and +12 to Speech: Persuasion, getting us that Empathy All-50 perk. We can train our bros Empathy when we don't need such large amount of points to get that max 100 (which is our current cap, since there is no saving of overlap points). The debuff that Yamato has would slow down our own development too much, especially since we only have 1 Speech skill as +. And Empathy is not important skill atm for our bro, and we don't have the time right now for his personal quest to start.

Click to shrink...

The AP issue was fixed. Will fix the typo soon.

 

[Sir Plusse]

...I just noticed how absurdly good Sensei is for our training. I mean, he gives bonuses to basically everything relevant to us (and a few more on top of that); he might even be a more advanced version of our own build.

 

[RiyeLink]

[X] Plan: Talk to me bro!
-[X] Train Emphathy: Motives with Yamato.
-[X] train Emphathy: Feelings with Yamato.
-[X] train Emphathy: Interests with Yamato.

Click to shrink...

Heads up we have 4 AP again


Edit:

[X] Plan for Succeed v2
-[X] See if you can meet up with Estella
--[X] Train Speech: Persuasion.
-[X] Train Empathy: Interests with Yamato.
-[X] Train Empathy: Interests with Yamato.
-[X] Call up Ritsuko and see if she wants to Train/Hang Out
--[X] Train Brawling

With the additional AP, I am taking a page from the Road plan, but am keeping everything else the same. While it would be more beneficial if we didn't train Interest with Yamato, we need to ensure he is also up to snuff. It isn't the most optimal use of AP for our character, but this should help the group our.

Also, it should get the whole Hidden World chat out of the way with regards to Ritsuko.

Edit 2: @Alioth, @Eternal_0bserver , and @kinglugia I updated the plan. Please vote for plan, 'Plan for Succeed v2'

 

[Icipall]

Also, it should get the whole Hidden World chat out of the way with regards to Ritsuko.

Click to shrink...

We already had that when we told her of the supernatural. The one we promised to have a chat with is Elizabeth, and that should be done during the weekend, when we actually socialize instead of train.