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Now You Feel Like Number None [Bleach Arrancar Quest]

Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
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Yes, that was an awesome update, and yes, it eventually internalized what we were consciously aiming for from the start, but unable to put into practice.

But it did so by rejecting it as thoroughly as we could, to force ourselves to acknowledge that doing so won't work. Which is what I was afraid Braid would be, and makes me wish I'd voted against it. I could have accepted this as an active choice on Nemo's part to do this rejection specifically for the reason it became a good thing, but that clearly isn't what happened.
 
...Okay soooo first off.
HOLY CRIPEBALLS THIS IS AWESOME!!!!
Obligatory WOOO!!! out of the way now...
Omicron said:
You fly. Stars dot the sky now. The last brightness of blue passes the horizon. A cloud shifts, and the moon appears in a velvet-and-silver tapestry.

The night has come. Your shadow howls. Your nails are porcelain now, sharp and cutting. Your reiatsu burns as it flows in your veins. You are shrouded in crackling darkness, static noise around you. You gather strength.

Yumichika emerges from the flow, the wave trailing behind him. He races you and you let him, the water spiraling up and up behind you, stretching like ribbons offered to the moon. Light again appears in your horns. Your fists fly and he swats them away like so many flies. You open your mouth in a silent scream, rear back your head, and his smile flashes bright -

"Do you never learn?" he shouts, and grabs your left horn in his hand, pulling on your neck. You yelp in pain and your horns discharge-

A Bala.

He stares at you for a fraction of second of surprise. You grin, open your right hand, and let your Cero flow out of it.

Grey-black light swallows the Reaper, a match for his robes, howling with pain and anger and betrayal and loss. It falls down like lightning, striking the heart of the spiraling watersprout, turning it to wide circles of steam around its baleful stroke. Then it hits the water, and the river surges, flooding its banks.

You stand in the air, panting. Your surgeon's touch prods your skin, judging the cuts and bruises and fractures, healing what is most vital, shutting down bleeding elsewhere, leaving other wounds untouched. The surface of the waters is completely shrouded in mists now, lazy banks curling together like so many dancers. You're wounded, and tired, but with such a clear hit…
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Weeeird thing happened to me as I was reading this-my first take was that Nemo and Yumichika dashed along the ground, Nemo goes for the Cero, He does the head twist to throw it off, but then the bala flies out because the Cero was actually in her hand and she shoots blasting him upward-
Into the River? What-Wait.
Rewind!
Nemo jumps into the sky, goes for the Cero, Yumi head-twists, Bala, Cero, down into the river-
Okay that's better.
But seriously that kind of makes me want to re-check and go through these fight scenes again because that was a bit trippy, and I'm betting my mental vision of what's going on isn't always right, doesn't always catch these things.
I'm thinking the problem is an excess of REALISM and I should probably do myself a favor and binge on Dragonball Z or something to knock that crap out!
 
Such a difficult choice here...I am so completely torn...

Fine.

I sure hope I don't regret this.

[X] Remember.

One of us is going to have to trip over the Elephant's Foot at some point and will forever afterwards trigger radiation alarms everywhere we go.
 
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beowolf said:
Yes, that was an awesome update, and yes, it eventually internalized what we were consciously aiming for from the start, but unable to put into practice.

But it did so by rejecting it as thoroughly as we could, to force ourselves to acknowledge that doing so won't work. Which is what I was afraid Braid would be, and makes me wish I'd voted against it. I could have accepted this as an active choice on Nemo's part to do this rejection specifically for the reason it became a good thing, but that clearly isn't what happened.
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Can sympathize. I voted against it for that reason myself. I'm a little confused why people thought it would go differently, it was spelled out pretty explicitly.
 
beowolf said:
Yes, that was an awesome update, and yes, it eventually internalized what we were consciously aiming for from the start, but unable to put into practice.

But it did so by rejecting it as thoroughly as we could, to force ourselves to acknowledge that doing so won't work. Which is what I was afraid Braid would be, and makes me wish I'd voted against it. I could have accepted this as an active choice on Nemo's part to do this rejection specifically for the reason it became a good thing, but that clearly isn't what happened.
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That's... specifically what Braid said. It was, literally, fighting our self as much as we fight Yumichika until we're forced into Res with no other choice.

I'm not sure what else you expected?
 
And to be fair, we got Polila to stop being tsundere and just admit that we're the best parts of it, and that it's just trying to protect us from ourselves.

Rather than constantly thinking we're weak and useless.
 
If I recall I swapped to Spear because #ChampionQM but...yeah...
I'll admit that water wall thing? That surprised the heck out of me. Did not realize Nemo could do that.
Also-The Horns came down. I honestly somehow thought those would stay even through the mask-breaking what with using them as a foci for Ceroes. GUESS NOT!
Also amuses me to to imagine Nemo&Yumi in that bottom cabin looking almost like a girl looking at a boyfriend here only for a little while, sitting on her windowsill like the post-party scene of Romeo and Juliet-basically a set-up that'd be innocous if they weren't in a duel to the death.

As for the other options...I saw this and I still don't think I can regret any choice, if only because all of them were soooo goooo~~oood~*melts in seat*
*springs back up*
BUT ALSO I FORGOT TO VOTE!
[x] Remember.
 
Impstar said:
Can sympathize. I voted against it for that reason myself. I'm a little confused why people thought it would go differently, it was spelled out pretty explicitly.
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I blame the first line of the Braid vote - it starts with "The Braid ties together one who was and one who is" before elaborating that it actually means literally the opposite, that it means fighting who we were instead of binding ourselves to it.
 
Insectlover243 said:
[X] Remember.

That one just took a sledgehammer to my feels. Bravo good sir, bravo.
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Fun fact?

In my original plan this was a full flashback like all the previous ones with new material.

Then when I reached that point I was just too exhaused to write a full thing, so I put that in and took a break.

Then I came back, looked at it in the context of the last lines of the update, and realized, "uh, this really does work way better."
Yaga said:
[x] Remember.

Boy, this update sure makes me wish Kubo's fights hadn't all taken place in empty white rooms after the first few volumes. Nothing like a good over-the-top setpiece to make people look cool.
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I seriously have trouble writing environmental fight scenes. My instincts are always to look at each character's abilities, compare how they would fare in a vacuum, and write them in a vacuum.

Number None has been a hard exercise in actually doing environmental fighting where the surroundings matter. I'm still not doing it as well as I would like (this update has a lot of flying and random buildings blown up in he distance), but it's getting better.

I consider the moment where Nemo and Yumichika fight on top of the Chernobyl Ferris Wheel so hard it tears free of its frame and starts rolling away towards the river with the two foes hanging on for dear life and still trying to kill each other as they spin wildly out of control the peak of my combat writing. Nothing will ever top this. It's done. "Cirucci Ascendente" go home.
Solacen said:
Is anyone else just abit sad that Nemo seems to have lost her horns along with the rest of her mask? I am rather curious though how much of her mask is left and what it looks like. From the description is seems to only be near her eyes now.
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As of the end of the update, Nemo has no mask left whatsoever.

This is not meant to necessarily be a permanent change. It's just the things she's going through right now. Whatever happens next, her current full-face-reveal state is not set in stone.
 
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Omicron said:
Fun fact?

In my original plan this was a full flashback like all the previous ones with new material.

Then when I reached that point I was just too exhaused to write a full thing, so I put that in and took a break.

Then I came back, looked at it in the context of the last lines of the update, and realized, "uh, this really does work way better.
I seriously have trouble writing environmental fight scenes. My instincts are always to look at each character's abilities, compare how they would fare in a vacuum, and write them in a vacuum.

Number None has been a hard exercise in actually doing environmental fighting where the surroundings matter. I'm still not doing it as well as I would like (this update has a lot of flying and random buildings blown up in he distance), but it's getting better.

I consider the moment where Nemo and Yumichika fight on top of the Chernobyl Ferris Wheel so hard it tears free of its frame and starts rolling away towards the river with the two foes hanging on for dear life and still trying to kill each other as they spin wildly out of control the peak of my combat writing. Nothing will ever top this. It's done. "Cirucci Ascendente" go home.
As of the end of the update, Nemo has no mask left whatsoever.

This is not meant to necessarily be a permanent change. It's just the things she's going through right now. Whatever happens next, her current full-face-reveal state is not set in stone.
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we might get our mask back, but i kinda JUST want our horns back and nothing else? that would be fucking awesome, we are no longer hiding ourselves, no longer refusing to forget.
[x] Remember.

 
tzar1990 said:
I blame the first line of the Braid vote - it starts with "The Braid ties together one who was and one who is" before elaborating that it actually means literally the opposite, that it means fighting who we were instead of binding ourselves to it.
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I figured it meant holding off on Res and fighting Yumichika.
Spear, I think was more focused on fighting Yumichika without popping Res just like baldy didn't reveal his Bankai.
Feather would have been basically reaching for the might of Res with the idea to float out of reach until victory there was achieved, and then bust Yumichika up.
Braid is fighting both and honestly I WOULD have said failing except we just did that and did it pretty darn well. The whole 'throw away my sword outright' thing was a surprise but on the flipside it makes sense given Nemo's not really that hot at swording things, relatively speaking.
 
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