>>41889632
But regardless, this place- no, this specific time, this particular scene, with the orange hues of the setting sun tinting the clear sky, this distant memory of happier days - has more to it than the nostalgic memories of your bold feats as a 14 year old hero of justice.

This is where you first met Aiko.

She decided to take a shortcut on her way home and ended up going through here, passing by you on her way, looking like a terrified kitten that completely failed to understand the shady streets and neighborhoods she'd be going through when she took that unfamiliar and unusual turn, eyes locked on the asphalt underneath her hurrying feet. She stumbled over completely flat ground and fell over. You helped her up, talked to her a bit and ended up walking her home instead of taking part in what would have been your very first confrontation with a bunch of delinquents harassing a friend.

A mutual 'keeping each other safe' was the excuse you came up with.

The girl who looks just like the one you ended up loving so dearly is present in this scene, quietly standing in front of you, but she is not frightened or nervous. She isn't hurrying anywhere because there is nowhere to go - beyond this street, the world cuts off and ceases to exist. The girl wears her usual nightgown and keeps her hands hidden underneath the sleeves. As you were getting used to your surroundings, she did nothing but stare.

(2/3)

>>41889653
"This scene should have probably been first, but I thought that you might get the wrong idea without knowing the previous part." The girl explains.

"...Honestly, I can't say I get this part or the other part, still." You sigh and smirk, scratching the back of your head. She seems saddened by that and looks away. "Well, I mean... I'll keep trying to-"

"It's alright." She cuts you off. The conversation halts. After a slight pause, she looks at you expectantly, as if waiting for you to say or do something.

...

>"So why did you choose this scene?"
>"I spoke with goldie about you. He really hates you, you know."
>"Why can't you just tell me clearly?
>Other. (Write-in).

>>41889663
>"I spoke with goldie about you. He really hates you, you know."

>>41889663
"Seriously though I'm kind of lost here. The closest thing to an idea I have is to try fighting you, since you told me that you don't think you're Aiko, and Naoko told me to stop punishing myself, and I figure that a good start would be to at least try to stop you from murdering me. Only problem is, well, you weren't really much of a match for the other guy, so it doesn't seem like that's how you're designed or even want to be handled."

>>41889663
>"So why did you choose this scene?"
Buriichi time!

>>41889764
Also I'm not sure she'd give us this scene if she wanted to fight, maybe. Expected a return to violence if that was the idea.

>>41889764
Maybe I should have read through the archives and searched for something...oh well, I'm sure it'll be fun this way as well.

>>41889789
I don't know, she's invoking a memory of when we used to fight or at least intimidate a lot of people, which is why I'm getting mixed signals.

>>41889907
The memory isn't really connected to Clarissa's delinquency beyond the fact it coincidentally happened at the same time, is it?

>>41889926
That's not Clarissa's impression, but regardless of her power, she's still human enough that sleep deprivation impairs cognitive function. Which I feel like this dream girl doesn't get.

>>41889663
Voting over, writing!

>>41890101
Dropped my trip again! It keeps happening!

>>41890118
Trips are treacherous things! Make sure you don't trip on stairs!

>>41889764
>>41889774
"So why did you choose this scene?" You decide to ask. The girl tilts her head a bit, crosses her hands behind her back and looks at you intently, as if wordlessly asking you the same question in return. "It's not like I 'just' met Aiko in this place, you know that, right? I hung out here to cool off a bit before I had to go fight someone. If I start thinking into this too deeply, it's almost like you're telling me to fight you or something."

"Do you want to fight me?" She asks. Her eyes dart over towards your side, where an iron pipe lies leaning against the wall. The improvisational weapon looks bloody and eerie.

"...Do I have to?" The girl doesn't answer and hangs her head. You think she's trying to hide a bit of a smile. Like that one guess of yours is particularly amusing, for whatever reason.

Just as you stopped expecting a response, she shakes her head. "If that was what I wanted you to do, why would I use this scene? Why would I be 'here'?"

There are probably more distinct memories related to 'fighting' inside your head than this one. And besides, you don't fight in this particular spot, this is where you muster courage before actually going somewhere. At most, you'd be preparing to fight 'someone else'. Other than that, you remember this scene because this is where you met Aiko, not because you were about to take part in a scuffle. If she wanted to emphasize the latter, she'd probably use something else.

"Well... okay, I met Aiko here. But... you're not Aiko. So... am I supposed to meet you?" As you say this, the girl... doesn't look disappointed. Maybe you're on the right track. You sigh and put up a smile. "I'm Clarissa, then. Nice to meet you, uh..?"

You make a meaningful pause specifically for her. Instead of introducing herself, she simply affirms it. "Nice to meet you."

(1/2)

>>41890920
You're really getting the feeling that she's just messing around right now instead of, well, having a hard time getting some kind of point across. You sigh again. "So. Last time, you gave me the hint with Naoko and Aiko. Are you going to give me another hint today?"

"This is it." She looks around at the bleak scenery and takes a step forwards.

"I don't think I get it. What am I supposed to learn from this?" You try to continue thinking, but her approach worries you a little.

"What happened here?"

"...I met a new person, I guess. It was Aiko back then, but it's you now. Right? Is that it?" You mumble, at which the girl smiles.

'I met a girl that isn't Aiko'. 'I met a girl'. 'I met a new person'. Those conclusions don't seem to provoke her disappointment.

...Is that really it?

"The dream will end soon, so..." As she comes closer, you spot a silver glint beneath her sleeve. Realizing that you've noticed her weapon, the girl lunges forwards, baring the knife and thrusting it at your midsection.

...

>Fight back.
>Let her do it.

>>41890961
She shouldn't be that strong, right? When you get down to it, Clarissa should be able to overpower her in close-combat. Sure she can theoretically be as weak or strong as she wants since this isn't the real world, but so can we, right? And we should have a decent chance of controlling our own dream.
>Subdue her

>>41890961
>>41891014
Taking this further, might as well experiment with this place.
>-Take- her knife away

>>41890961
Voting over, writing!

>>41891223
I guess they work together.
I doubt this will actually SOLVE anything, but hopefully it won't make things worse at least!

>>41891223
Whoops, took too long. it looks like she's probably not for fighting, but it might not hurt to try. I feel like the best case scenario is hoping that the less Clarissa associates this girl with Aiko, the more desensitized she'd be with being murdered.

>>41891288
Best case is even if she doesn't go away (which I doubt she would), Clarissa can keep her from actually doing much damage and thus rather than terrible nightmares she'll just have vivid dreams. Doesn't solve the problem but does mitigate the main symptom!

>>41891014
>>41891088
It takes just one movement for you to stop the attack, and one more to prevent it from repeating itself. It all ends in the blink of an eye. You slam the girl into the wall behind you, the impact of which makes her drop the intimidatingly sized and intricately decorated knife in her frail hand. Both of her arms are pinned against that same wall. She attempts to struggle out of your grasp, but it's not even a competition. Her weak arms don't stand a chance against yours.

"What are you doing?! I told you not to fight! Let go of me!" Her calm and almost playful demeanor immediately changes into a panic. "I'm not joking! Let go! You don't understand what you're doing! Stop it!"

"It's true. I don't understand. So explain it to me." As you ask her to do that, she, on the contrary, grits her teeth and only struggles harder. She tries to use her legs to kick you and force you away, but you cut those attempts short by moving closer to her, so that she doesn't even have the room to move them. "Just tell me!"

Your yell saps away her strength. Her limbs lose the traces of force she was capable of mustering, and the resistance ends. She looks away, her lower lip quivering. "It's all pointless now..." The girl hisses.

"What's pointless?"

"Everything is pointless! Everything I've done here! Everything you figured out! Everything we talked about! Everything!" She breaks out into miserable screams, tears streaming from her eyes. "Unless I do this, you'll just forget this dream! And if you don't let me do this now, if you forget what we went through tonight, then these exact events will repeat over and over again! You'll never remember this! You'll keep fighting back and you'll keep forgetting because of that!"

(1/2)

>>41891993
"Calm down! What are you talking about? Why would I forget something like this? Why would I forget you? That's nonsense!"

"THEN WHY DID YOU?" Her desperate scream almost makes you forget to maintain the strength in your arms. "You came here every night not remembering anything we've talked about the night before! You always did that, so I had to tell you everything all over again. Every time, you promised that you won't forget it, and then you still came back without remembering anything! It hurt. It really hurt me to repeat myself every time and explain to you that I'm not Aiko or Kimiko!"

"But I remembered everything! Ever since that night, I-"

"That's right! Ever since that night! Ever since I started hurting you, you remembered me! You remembered everything we've talked about! My wish was finally granted. But before that, it was terrible! I hated you! I still hate you!"

It's... true that you don't remember having any dreams until the one from that awful night, a few days after Kimiko came back to Soul Society. Is this girl trying to say that you were actually having dreams and simply forgot them? But that's ridiculous. Right? There's no way you'd just forget about her, not like this. ...Right?

"But now, I... I got carried away and said too much. You can't remember this now or it'll be all over for me. There's no point in anything anymore. It's over. I'll... I'll try to figure something out. I'll..." She tries to say something else, but can't force out anything more coherent than whimpers.

Time is running out for this world. When the sun sets, the dream will end. Only seconds remain.

...

>"Why would it be over for you? Tell me. I promise that I won't forget it."
>"...If you're sure that this is the only way, then do it, if that's what it takes."
>"We just have to do something I wouldn't forget about, is that it? Let's think of something else. You don't have to do hurt me for that."
>Other. (Write-in).

>>41892057
>"...If you're sure that this is the only way, then do it, if that's what it takes."

>>41892057
You can't get lewd options past me that easily mister!
Anyway, I feel this could get a bit metagame-y...since there's little chance of us PLAYERS forgetting, but if Clarissa was forced to, then...ugh, better not to think about it that hard.
>"Look, I don't want to forget you. I want to figure you out. Did you try anything other than hurting me, to make me remember? I won't wake up yet, so calm down. We have time to talk about it."

>>41892057
>"...If you're sure that this is the only way, then do it, if that's what it takes."
We can think and talk about it for next time his way.

>>41892057
Take her knife and hold it to our throat.
"Or we could try this."

>>41892155
I guess since we don't have much time I might as well switch to
>"...If you're sure that this is the only way, then do it, if that's what it takes."

>>41892208
I don't get the difference, well except actively helping her vs just letting her. What's the purpose?

>>41892090
>>41892180
The problem is that she thinks now she's said something we shouldn't be allowed to remember.

Also I'd like to say fuck you to >>41891014
and
>>41891088

>>41892232
Gee anon, looks like hindsight is 20/20!

>>41892230
Because she might not want to kill us because she's afraid she said too much and doesn't want us to remember, which means if we don't want to forget, we'd have to take matters into our own hands. So you know, voting to fight her literally ruined everything.

>>41892254
I was about to write in not to resist, but the vote was closed faster than I expected.

>>41892283
Like I don't really know what to do with this whole thing, because having the MC forget things the audience remembers is always really annoying to deal with.

>>41892057
Voting over, writing!

>>41892283
Well it's pretty pointless anyway, even with all the stuff she dropped I still have no clue who she is nor any idea if anything Naoko's said ties up into it, so in practical terms I dunno how either result (forget/remember) matters. Especially since as players we still remember.

>>41892366
Now she won't bother talking to us at all, or she might be quarantined/removed somehow. Like even if we remember the dream we had last night, she won't be this friendly again. So literally everything is ruined.

>>41892366
I dunno if we're dumb as rocks or wasting all our time with something we can't solve at this point, haha. Would be nice with a few more anons to bounce stuff off too, but...

>>41892406
That's why we were supposed to be patient with this girl, but anons wanted to be tough.

>>41892427
Hey, it could just as easily have been the path to solving this as anything, especially given how blase and indifferent she acted about the idea when we brought it up. Unless you remember some great argument against it at a previous point of the quest. Our initial purpose to this chat was keeping her from attacking us after all.

>>41892470
That's why I wish there was more time/people to talk it out more, instead of being so slow that only two people max voting is seen as normal.

>>41892585
Wednesday was decent, I guess anons aren't around on the weekend or something. 'course, there might be lurkers or something since there were more posters around before.

>>41892180
>>41892215
>>41892090
You let go of her. The girl drops limply, like a doll, her teary eyes widening in surprise.

"If that's the only way, then do it," You tell her. She glances over to the weapon besides her, and then back towards you, as if looking for confirmation. You gesture towards the knife. "I can handle it, so don't worry. If that's what it takes to remember... no, if that's ALL it takes to remember, then it's nothing."

With a shaking hand, she reaches out and grasps it. Shoddily and slowly, she stands up, the weight of the bladed weapon forcefully guiding her frail limbs into a tilting arc. Once the blade is held steadily, she speaks. "I'm really sorry. It might not seem like it, but I really hate doing this," A quivering, melancholic smile rises to her lips. "Since this is probably the last time, there's no reason to hide that from you anymore."

You want to protest and assure her of the contrary, that this isn't the last time, but she springs at you with a bloodcurdling shriek and sinks the thick blade into your abdomen. You fall down with the girl still on top of you, and she lifts and lowers the weapon again and again, crying with every thrust. The sensation of the knife entering and leaving your flesh repeats until you faint.

"But by doing this, you'll remember me even when you wake up, and even after I'm gone. I should have told you everything from the start and just disappeared. It would have been easier for you that way. I'm sorry for being selfish. Goodbye."

...

(1/2)

>>41893284
You wake up in your bed, covered in cold sweat and gasping for air. Worse yet, you're crying. It's not because of the way you died - it's that she couldn't hide her regret while she was doing it. It's that she couldn't stop crying and wailing as she cut you over and over. Why is that girl so sure that everything is over for her? Just reason could there be for her to disappear?

Damn it! You don't even have the time to think about this today, either. You have to handle the mess with Paul, which means that you can't let yourself get distracted. But... what the hell, even if you were to spend the whole day thinking it over, you doubt you'd get anywhere on your own! Just what did she want? Why didn't she spend the seconds that were supposedly her last explaining it to you? Why force you to leave on such a miserable note?!

So what if you remember it? What's the point if you can't piece it together the way she wants you to?! Dreams last for mere seconds. Just how are you supposed to figure it out in that time? How is she supposed to explain it to you in that time? That girl isn't a machine, she's a person as real as any other, so she has her own feelings and fears that she no doubt wants to talk about, so it's selfish of you to expect her to forget about all of that during her last moments, but... damn it!

...

>Skip out on today. Get back to sleep as soon as you can.
>The issue with Paul needs to be taken care of before it gets worse.

>>41893284
>"But by doing this, you'll remember me even when you wake up, and even after I'm gone. I should have told you everything from the start and just disappeared. It would have been easier for you that way. I'm sorry for being selfish. Goodbye."
Goddamnit, now she's leaving without explaining what her deal is?

>>41893302
>Skip out on today. Get back to sleep as soon as you can.
I don't know, I feel like this really does need resolving, and it seems unlikely that Paul will go on a murderous rampage today. Like she's important to us somehow, and we need to figure out how before it's too late. God this is annoying.

>>41893302
Aaaah, it's tempting to go back to sleep...when was Ren planning to be ready anyway, I thought she was gonna prepare today?

>>41893302
>Skip out on today. Get back to sleep as soon as you can.

>>41893284
She has been repeating the idea that we've got a limited time left with her before, not clear whether it's because she plans to do something or if she just knows eventually she'll disappear. It's interesting that she'd rather Clarissa remember her for torturing her in the dream rather than let her forget.

Still, no fucking clue what her deal is so I'll just hope she doesn't disappear. I'm sure even if we figure it out eventually we'll have missed the chance for good end or whatever though.

>>41893426
That's why I'm really frustrated the vote closed when it did. I mean I think the Hougyoku might be involved, since he's the only one I could see stopping her. This seems really important to Clarissa on a personal level, and now the whole thing is shattered.

>>41893426
Don't lose hope!

>>41893449
Yeah, it feels like something related to plotrock. Either her existence, or just her current condition.

>>41893450
Of course not! We'll keep trying.

>>41893302
>Skip out on today. Get back to sleep as soon as you can.

>>41893302
Voting over, writing!

>>41893644
Sorry we're so thick Mushroom! I'm sure you're just missing the smarter half of your playerbase this weekend!

>>41893688
Everything is okay, don't worry about it!

>>41893738
I think i got it....She's our Zanpakuto isn't she?

>>41894475
The idea's been brought up before, nothing came of it so I dunno. Of course I don't think we brought it up in-story, but still. We don't even know if we have one, since apparently there's little reason to think Clarissa's a 'real' Shinigami and would therefore have one.

>>41893363
>>41893389
>>41893636
You spring up from your bed and give Naoko and Ren a call. You tell them that the op is off for today, as there is something you have to take care of. You can't come up with any good excuse for your reason, so you just yell at them not to worry. You're not calling them to give a thorough explanation of your actions, just to announce your absence, so you just hang up when they inevitably get too bothersome with their questions. When they start calling back persistently, you turn the phone off.

You pretend that you're sick, and that's how you weasel your way out of going to school. Paul probably realized that you're only faking it, at least judging by the sour expression he covertly gives you, but he think whatever the hell he wants as long as he doesn't give it away. While in the kitchen, pretending to be struggling with eating your omelet due to poor health, you stealthily grab a bottle of what (you are pretty certain) must be sleeping pills. Your mom cancels her plans to stay at home and take care of you, so this is the best opportunity you have for taking the medicine.

When you finally get to be alone in your room, you swallow a couple of pills, shut your eyes and try to sleep. There's no way you'd fall asleep normally, as tense as you are right now. You're not even going to waste your time on trying that.

Maybe you should take a few more pills to fall asleep faster. This is taking too long. This is taking too damn long!

...

(1/2)

>>41894508
I'm thinking goldie replaced her, And since he has the power to change memories and stuff... You get it?

>>41894532
Yeah, it's definitely possible. No harm bringing it up.

>>41894520
...Nothing.

She... wasn't there. Nothing was there. You slept through the whole day, but she wasn't there.

But... no, there must still be something you can do. There must be. Right? There is at least one person you can ask, but... he made it clear that he doesn't care, didn't he? Even if he knows something, he might not help. Damn it. Damn it!

You set out into your inner world. The Hogyoku may not be interested in helping you, but... if he knows something, anything, you'll get him to tell you. You'll force him to if you have to!

"She's gone?" He repeats what you've told him as a question. The 'king' seems surprised, but not overly so. "Well, shouldn't you be happy? If she has done nothing but kill or torture, then why do you grieve her absence? Even if she isn't Aiko, even if she is something of her own existence, a 'person' in a similar way that I could be considered one - so what of it? Even if what you've told me is true and she acted in the best interests of 'someone', I don't really understand how you intended to coexist. Rejoice, for your nights are no longer haunted by by a being like her."

"I'd have figured something out, goddammit! Don't you know what happened to her? Don't you know where she might be? How I can help her? Come on, give me something! Fucking anything!"

(2/3)

>>41894520
Don't abuse pills, Clarissa!

>>41894586
But he only shakes his head. "I do not know," He pauses as you let off a frustrated groan, the crimson eyes closed in thought. When he speaks up, he addresses you by your name; something you don't recall him ever doing before. "Clarissa... unless you want to drive yourself to gibbering madness, you need to rid yourself of this fixation on your loved one."

...

>"Oh, just fuck you! I knew you'd say something completely worthless like that! This was a waste of time, as usual. Thanks for fucking nothing!"
>"It's not a fucking fixation! She asked me for help. She needs my help! So I have to help her!"
>"This is all your fucking fault, isn't it! You're responsible for all of this, aren't you?!"
>"And how do you expect me to do that?! I refuse to commit fucking atrocities just because you claim that it's the only way!"
>Other. (Write-in).

>>41894621
>"Oh come on, we just had an annoyingly pointless talk about how she isn't Aiko at all! Whatever, I won't bother you with this and vise versa."
Welp, guess we can't ask her about Zanpakuto stuff then.

>>41894621
>Laugh, Just laugh then after settling our mad laughter
>"You know what? FUCK IT! You won't help me so i'll damn us both! I'll tell him fucking everything! EVERYTHING! Yes you know who i'm talking about, I will tell Urahara EVERYTHING!"

>>41894621
"I know she isn't Aiko damnit, and she isn't Kimiko either. But she's still someone to me, and that means I'm gonna help her."
with a side of
>"This is all your fucking fault, isn't it! You're responsible for all of this, aren't you?!"
"She seemed scared of saying too much, acting like she was in danger, and I don't know who else she'd be scared of but you!"

>>41894671
That's quite the nuclear option, anon. I dunno if we want to antagonize Gil quite yet.

>>41894671
I think Urahara already knows most of it, except for Paul, which could be the key to Urahara retrieving the Hougyoku.

>>41894704
Nothing else will work, We have to be direct or nothing will happen, We must push the button anon, ALL OR NOTHING!

>>41894724
Exactly, As i said, EVERYTHING!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45R-wbrRxig

>>41894621
>"It's not a fucking fixation! She asked me for help. She needs my help! So I have to help her!"

>>41894621
On one hand, Gil's fairly suspicious WRT this chick...on the other, not overly much so, since his attitude is in line with the haughty and self-absorbed persona he has, so accusing him would just let him turn it around on us and call Clarissa paranoid and obsessed.

Thinking back to the start of the thread, I really regret we didn't bring him up with her again. Her reaction might have clued us in on whether he's got something to do with this or not.

>>41894772
He obviously did have something to do with it, I stand by my DROP THE NUKE option, I'm telling you now we have to force his hand.

>>41894806
We don't know what the Hougyoku is fully capable of either.

>>41894845
As said, I know it's a risky option but really, What choice do we have left with Clarissa's dwindling sanity?

>>41894806
It's suspicious sure, but what makes you SO convinced? He shot swords at her, but given the situation it seems perfectly reasonable given his personality. His dislike of her CAN just be tied to our nightmares and the toll she takes on Clarissa. I can't honestly say that from the assumption he's innocent combined with his personality, I can think of anything suspicious he's said or done.

I'm not 100% convinced he's directly/knowingly got something to do with her situation. And if he happens not to, pushing the nuclear button is a terrible fucking idea. And if he is, you're right we might get nothing from him otherwise but it's still a huge risk.

>>41894894
I don't know, I feel like we got into this mess by anons being hasty and forcing a conversation, even though the dream girl really didn't seem to want to fight.

I don't see how forcing a fresh confrontation is gonna fix things. But really I have no idea how we're supposed to deal with this new turn of afairs.

>>41894927
Well, fixing a rash fight by getting into an even more rash fight is sure to either fix everything or fuck everything up forever at least.

>>41894961
That's... not a good answer at all. Sure this is really really frustrating especially because of anons fucking up, but flipping the board isn't gonna help.

>>41895002
It's not just the anons, There really aren't enough coherent clues, I'm not even sure there ARE any clues tbh.

>>41895002
Yeah, I didn't vote for it. But all the options honestly look like 'be a big baby and throw a tantrum' or 'welp guess this plot-thread's gone!'

File: ghost town.png (319 KB, 817x817)

319 KB PNG

>>41894621
I'd actually like to end the thread here for tonight, it's getting really late and I don't think I can finish this scene in just one post! We'll continue next thread with the most voted for course of action!

Next thread will be announced on twitter, but we're likely going with the same schedule as this week (tuesday/wednesday, friday/saturday):
https://twitter.com/Mushroomgami

If you have any feedback or questions, send them my way!

Thanks for reading!

>>41895078
Thanks for running!

>>41895078
More coherent clues would be nice, We're running around like headless chickens because of no clues we can understand.

>>41895078
Wow, continuing 4 days a week? I'll try to make more threads next week then. I really enjoy the quest, especially the characters, even if the plot can be frustrating to navigate.

>>41895078
Thanks for running, but I feel like it wouldn't hurt for you to slow down a bit more, especially when votes can have such apparently disastrous consequences.

>>41895078
Was anon going anywhere with the Zanpakuto ideas? It was brought up in another thread too but I guess anons just ended up arguing about Clarissa's shinigami-status and never really bothered trying to bring it up with anyone in-story.

>>41895182
Well anon, while that vote was a bit short, for better or for worse the quest's only getting 4 - 5 voters right now. I'm not sure waiting longer when no discussion is taking place has meaning.

>>41895142
>>41895147
>>41895182
I'm sorry for all the frustrations! After we get through this, I'll try to do my best not to repeat blunders like that and think things through in more detail, especially the player perspective parts! There are plenty of things I could have done better for sure, and I don't really have an excuse other than lack of competence.

But thank you for reading despite all of that! I'll try my best at getting better so that you can all enjoy the quest more!

>>41895225
The problem is I don't know if we even know in-character that shinigami swords are supposed to be alive?

>>41895279
Honestly, we anons don't have a leg to stand on when it comes to saying who is or isn't competent.

>>41895291
You certainly have a point there anon. 'course, we never got a chance to bring it up anyway so no harm done, but that pretty much closes off that angle of approach for us.
I can't remember, did Ichigo find that out from Rukia before he had to rescue her, or from his allies once he started said rescue operation?

>>41895291
Kimiko explained something along those lines, I believe!

>>41895182
Also, on the matter of voting times, I try to keep the voting up for 15-20 minutes depending on the amount of votes and voters, except for the opening post, which I keep open for at least 30 minutes. If that's a bother, I can tweak the voting times somehow, but I'm unsure how!

>>41895225
And another thing: while the small number of players isn't something that bothers me personally, I can understand how it can be an issue to the players themselves, like for example when key decisions are decided by what may be considered too few votes or when decisions slow down to a grinding halt when a tie occurs with no chance of budging!

Do you think something like threadly recaps for new players would help increase the playerbase, or is it only a matter of incompatible timezones? What other ways are there?

>>41895432
The time zone is pretty tough for me, since usually I'd still be asleep when it starts. But yeah, I don't really know how you could get more players which sucks because I really like this quest.

>>41895432
>Kimiko explained something along those lines, I believe!
Huh, if she did, then maybe Clarissa can have a momentary burst of inspiration, combined with the mystery girl wielding a strangely elaborate knife instead of using her hands or a lead pipe like she did the other times she killed us. Might get a reaction out of the Hougyoku at least.

>>41895667
Well, she used a spear/lance to impale Clarissa on in one of the nightmares, and had to use a sharp blade of some kind for the other one!

>>41895432
I dunno, I'm not sure that's ever worked well. I'll give you my thoughts if you want.

I really enjoy the quest, I especially love your writing of the darker scenes and general character-interactions. I'll be here voting as long as you run, so I probably don't have the best perspective for analyzing why participation is low right now and how to get it up.

I'll tell you my own thoughts on things though. What I personally suspect but can't actually corroborate or anything since, well, I'm still here and the anons who aren't can't really be asked, is the quest is just too difficult. And I don't even mean in the frustrating mystery way, though it's a symptom, since that's really just a few threads old.

Frankly, Clarissa isn't getting anywhere. She hasn't gotten anywhere since Kimiko disappeared and strawhat forced us to get rid of the Menos. Rescuing Kimiko? Gone nowhere. Paul? Might be going somewhere, after many threads of talking and pondering and weighing options. But we still have no reason to be confident in our solution at all. Gil and the plotrock? We've made no progress in figuring him out, figuring our powers out, nothing. Not-Aiko, well, we stumbled around blindly picking random options (often as many different votes as there are voters) until we fucked things up now and got nowhere.

And I want to specify, the problem isn't that your pacing is too slow or whatever. I like the SoL scenes and everything. It's just, every issue has us thinking and plotting and maybe we come up with a decent plan, maybe we get nowhere. And we confront our problem, and it feels like every time it either gets worse, or is put off. Either we have no solution, or the one we have is too costly (dying to get to SS).

I find it likely anons were either just bored of that, or got frustrated or felt stupid or whatever. And just stopped participating. Maybe reading entirely, maybe just deciding they don't want to be the ones to fuck things up, so they'll read and not post.

>>41895755
Pretty much this.

>>41895755
I don't know, the quest never had a big audience. I will agree to the quest often making me feel stupid though I wouldn't place any blame on Mushroom for that.

>>41895755
Did Clarissa really get anywhere when Kimiko was there though? I mean I guess we made progess with Naoko, but that feels like about the extent of it in a whole sea of bumbling.

I do think that Clarissa being confused and overwhelmed is the point of the quest on some levels, but agree that it doesn't really make it better.

>>41895867
Well not HUGE big, but it's varied quite a bit. At its peak (barring thread 1/2 which is often more popular) it'd get 120 - 180 posts maybe, 15+ posters. For most of the quest we've had 9 - 10 posters at least, and while early/unimportant votes often only got a handful of voters, things tended to pick up halfway through and there'd be approaching 10 for the last ones.

This thread has a decent number of posts but it's just us chatting and discussing more than usual - there's still only four of us here. Wednesday had a good amount though.

>>41895906
We didn't get anywhere that much BUT there are a few big differences. First, far more SoL stuff than after she disappeared. Second, we didn't really HAVE anything to do other than help her - except for Naoko and Ren's situations, which I thought were dealt with great. Their predicaments didn't stall or get frustrating to deal with at all, and we finished dealing with them in a decent amount of time. Now, we have several things we need done yesterday and we're, well, not. We've spent two threads doing very little about Paul and nothing about Kimiko despite both being theoretically high-priority, in the end apparently for nothing (but decent sleep) with not-Aiko. And part of the reason we did nothing for those two is we're literally stuck and have nothing to do but wait for some kind of opportunity to fall in our laps - despite their situations being urgent. That's just frustrating.

>>41896044
Really, this thread in particular did the opposite of helping me have Clarissa be less passive, since taking a risk once seemed to blow up in our faces so spectacularly, and then kind of panicked and may have made things worse? Like I feel that if instead of making sure we remember, we could have made her promise to try again the next night, since it was a really impulsive decision to fight back on our part, and is unlikely to happen again.

I don't know if that would help or not, but the lack of knowing makes me not want to take more risks in the future, which leads to going nowhere.

>>41895755
Thank you for your thoughts! Things like this help, they really do. I do believe that those are the reason for it, and I'll try my best to solve all the problems that I can. Again, I have no one to blame but myself for letting it get like this, and I should have prevented such problems from occurring in the first place!

I'm glad that you enjoyed reading the quest so far! I'll do my best to make it better, or at the very least, not repeat my mistakes!

>>41896268
You shouldn't be that hard on yourself, like I can see glimpses of answers to the problems, but just can't put the pieces together. Even if it's frustrating, I don't really want all the answers handed to us, or the difficulty to be lowered to easy mode, since I feel like that'd be even more demoralizing. It's a really tricky issue.

>>41896332
I understand that, too, and I'm by no means offering or threatening to do that!

But there really is such a thing as "too difficult", and the worst thing about it may be that I didn't even realize that I've been going overboard until it was too late.

>>41896268
Bit of a tangent, I think generally, the MC failing is fine as long as the consequences are obvious and fairly quick, and players can learn from it and adjust. Often in this quest, both failures and even successes just feel like we learned nothing and now we have to deal with it again the next day when Paul's sleepwalking ghost-extermination returns or later in the week when we're bargaining with Urahara and not Hiyori this time after we bargained with Urahara before that, and we better come up with a new plan, but we don't really have any.

I've mentioned in an earlier thread but the other thing is, Clarissa has no support-system either. She can consult her friends but they're generally as clueless. And I'm not actually sure what to do here because I genuinely think this is part of the appeal of the quest, that Clarissa is fairly alone, contra Ichigo who had such a helpful Urahara and Yoruichi and co. But it adds to the atmosphere of hopelessness when we don't have any options of that sort either - we can't ask Urahara about half the problems we have, and to be brutally honest, waiting days for his letters DO kill the pacing anyway.

I dunno if that's something you should even fix, just my musings. I think it might be something that's to the quest's advantage when players and the characters are doing alright on their own, or even if we're just briefly stuck on something and it urges us to figure it out on our own, but in the current situation is more of a detriment. Probably better to approach solving things from a different angle.

>>41896369
I feel like it could be helped if there was anyone Clarissa could talk to about this, like Naoko and Ren without them thinking Clarissa was schizophrenic, or even going so far as to write to Urahara or try and browbeat Hiyori into making them explain how to deal with the strange people that live in their heads and make cryptic demands.

>>41896574
>Urahara
>helpful
I mean, maybe for a certain degree. But while Ichigo wasn't nearly as alone as Clarissa is, he was approximately as ignorant.

Part of me feels like it's our fault for selling out Mayuri, but the other 90% of me thinks that there's no fucking way telling him anything about us would end well. ...Maybe making Nemu stay around could have worked though, even if you'd think Mayuri would have programmed protocals in case of attempted mind control.

>>41896369
Well as said, we haven't actually solved any of the big problems that's been the focus of the past 20+ threads so far, so we can't really say if things are "too difficult" as such. Maybe the actual problems are fairly simple but you missed dropping a clue from your notes for example. That doesn't mean the actual mystery was bad, just the presentation had a flaw. Or maybe anons all had brain-freeze, or you assumed they knew things about Bleach canon but they haven't read/forgot that stuff. Lots of possibilities.

But to not spare any egos, if your anons are just stupid I dunno what your options are. Make it simple and keep going, keep it tough and believe in the players you have left, I guess.

>>41896737
>so we can't really say if things are "too difficult"
No it definitely is to difficult, We haven't been able to accomplish anything and even got set back quite severely.

>>41896700
Hey now, Urahara was an asshole and did keep Ichigo in the dark a lot, but he did as much as he needed to help Ichigo on his way. As did Yoru.

I agree with Mayuri being super-dangerous, and I don't think we could have convinced Nemu to stay, though it might be anons just assumed from her canon personality that it wouldn't be possible and just let her go after a bit of token trying.

>>41896785
I feel like part of it is we're scared to try. Though the other part is that there's good reason for that. Like not letting things go with Paul triggered him attempting to murder us, trying to spar with Hiyori meant that either she'd kill us or we'd kill the whole town, and then not wanting to get murdered in this thread blew it with whatsherface. I can't really think of any time Clarissa expended effort or even considered doing so, and it paid off for her since Kimiko left. Maybe that conversation with Naoko is helping Clarissa manage her guilt a bit mattered, but I feel like that got eclipsed by not!Aiko.

>>41896939
Anons hate getting burned!
But yeah, it's a consequence of, well, bad choices having consequences - which I like - combined with half the time having no idea what to do, and rarely being too confident when we do. Fucking up means bad things happen, so let's try and make ABSOLUTELY SURE before trying something. But we don't know how to become sure. So we just wait and hope or message Urahara and wait.

>>41897029
>so let's try and make ABSOLUTELY SURE
That will take 30 to 50 threads anon and you know it, For one single thing.

>>41897062
Well if we keep failing it'll take infinity threads!

>>41897029
The problem is that even hindsight we don't even know what the right thing was most of the time.

I don't know, maybe we should focus on bullying Paul into facing reality, since we might be able to get advice from him afterwards?

>>41897179
I dunno what advice he'd have to give, isn't he even further behind Clarissa on the whole 'dealing with plotrock (or whatever his issue is)' thing?

We're planning to deal with him soon anyway, but at this rate I predict shameful failure. I have no actual confidence in the plan at all to be honest, but am sick of doing nothing.

>>41897242
>but at this rate I predict shameful failure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFQwpvG_n-k

>>41897290
At least Naoko is competent so I'm hoping to get everyone out in one piece!
And since the plan wasn't ours it might even succeed. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens anyway.

>>41897329
That is a point, but I'm still pretty sure Ren doesn't know much more about how her power works than we do.