Reclaiming What Was Lost 1

[adm]Currently, this upgrade is much too large in scope to be approvable with the currently presented progression of the character. Additionally, the mechanics of many of these abilities are simply more complex than players on Platinum Hearts are expected to keep track of. Please pare back this upgrade's scope significantly, and adjust the Energy Feeding, Loss Feeding, Propinquity, and Loss of Moments abilities to be more easily parsed by other players.[/adm]

Pared down all complex abilities to things much simpler.

Removed all Advanced progressions save Cero, which Cala has made frequent and effective use of, as well as fitting with the Racial Abilities added. Beginner progressions kept as they have most certainly moved on from and displayed sill beyond a Beginner in these regards.

Clarified that "Old Sealed Form" is not an upgrade in and of itself and is being replaced by Maskless Adaptation in a note under Maskless Adaptation. Additionally, Fade Unique Power addendum removed and combined with Small Fade Enhancement, as the addendum itself is more a clarification of an interaction between two Hax type abilities than a buff but it does enhance the interaction's clarity.

[adm]'Sup. I'll be handling this upgrade from here since Rawk has gone on a hiatus from his admin position. I'm going to tackle this bit by bit because frankly, there's a lot to unpack and go over. I will be very honest from the get go, we've got some changes and things to address in them so I would appreciate your understanding with this process and my decision to break it down into easier pieces.

Approved.

Initial Check:

Second Check:

Third Check:

Fourth Check:

Final Check:

[/adm]

Hey Gamma, cool beans, let's get down to it.

Imma start with the easiest bit. Removing "Burgeoning Swordshollow" as my Flu-ridden self missed removing it on subsequent reviews. Without the increase to Martial skill to need it as a demarcation of their growing skill, it's pointless. So removed.

As for the new energy shifting power it's still a guise and one that is more open to interaction being an OOC reliant ability. As it stands now I didn't, at my time of writing Cala, include any Skill defenses or stat comparisons to allow it's nullification and considering the point of the ability was largely an OOC one of letting Cala interact with people they normally could not I don't see any issue of that OOC allowance being the very line that determines if the ability works successfully, partially successfully, or some variation of not.

All the change was meant to highlight was the shifting of the onus from the other person trying to judge if their character could see through it and just make it a 'Hey, talk to me about it. It could be interesting either way.' type of thing. Definitely not have them change their race and skills to such an absolute, only with respect as being able to pass as a member of that race. But like I state in the new ability, it's not perfect outside of how it makes Cala feel to spiritual senses. If someone notices them regenerating when pretending to be a race that cannot do so normally, it'll raise some eyebrows.


As far as the Fade and Hollow Nucleus stuff I just don't see how the Fade is being changed as being GM level. I guess to cover the first thing that stood out with the Danava comparison, you're gonna get overlap when dealing with beings tied to concepts, like a Demon of Lust and a Danava of Pleasure, for instance. But even the Espada run the gamut as to how much their Aspects influence them, and how, irrespective of raw power level. Yammy is so unskilled as to not even be able to properly sense with Pesquisa, running off only his Aspect empowering him to (arguably) infinite heights. Starkk was so innately tied to his Aspect as to split his soul into pieces and require re-merging for his Ress, and Ulquiora (Who may or may not be the real strongest Espada) doesn't really feed off of or incorporate his Aspect beyond his attack names being 'edgy' and they themselves acting nihilistic. So like.... Arrancar go from empowering off their Aspects, fundamentally changing their souls off their Aspect, to just being emotionally colored by their Aspect. Which I'd call various levels of influence.

Cala is... not really emotionally colored, they can sense Loss in others and indirectly feed on it, at least that is the intent after the upgrade.

But I digress.

Realistically, the Fade change just boils down to clarifying a weird interaction of 'What happens if someone tries to polymorph or change the Fade Cala uses?' which I interpret as 'Well the Fade would absorb the energy powering the ability trying to change it until it couldn't drain any more, and then it would get changed. But if Cala then took the energy from their Fade, the Fade would resume draining until it dispelled the changing effect on itself.'

Seems reasonable to me.

As for the added explanation for where the Fade comes from I really don't see how it conflicts with what I had submitted. Quoting my own submission....

"Channeling their aspect of Loss, Cala is capable of summoning, and manipulating, a storm of ash capable of covering an area equal to twice the size of their own body. "

Granted I purposely left it vague way back when since, at the time, I didn't have a satisfactory answer I liked for where it came from. When I came back to Cala I had the character run with the misunderstanding that they just.... had it. They're naive about their own powers and it just fit as a a thematic discovery for them. All that really clarifies is that they summon the substance through a Garganta that they subconsciously generate.

With that said, I actually really disagree with the last bit though I do really appreciate the future-proofing in mind I think giving them access to an amount of the stuff equal to their raw limit of destructive power is actually too strong. Like I originally agreed with JJ, I am not gonna be abusing the stuff to that extent. MAYBE in Segunda, eventually, but Cala doesn't even have Ress right now. I'm keeping the increments at which they gain more to use, and how much that Fade can store, purposely very slow to hold to what JJ and I agreed on originally.

1. Fair enough, and no worries, I was aiming for the justification being more along the lines of "they've eaten that race's energy type enough to mimic it" but if the OOC clause is fine on the existing ability then I can just add that bit and be satisfied. I wasn't looking to really change the ability aside from the onus of effectiveness being moved to OOC consent and broadening it out to the signature of any race since Demons are virtually gone and it's just more tidy language.

2. My point about the Hollow Nucleus thing and the "irrespective of their raw power" in my above post was actually trying to keep it from being a focus on their rank as, if I wanted to abuse their ranks and be that technical I could point out that Base Yammy is still amped his anger while Rank 10. I was trying to avoid focusing on power as their raw power is a moot point, it's a level of personalization and affect to the Arrancar in question that just seems to vary. The same can be accomplished by pointing to Granz and Zomari. Granz is all but emotionally consumed by his aspect, while Zomari is almost antithetical in mannerism to his.

All my point was meant to be was that each Espada, being our most premier examples of Arrancar, deal with their Aspect in different ways regardless of how outright strong they are. Whether it colors their abilities entirely, results in an ability in and of itself, affects their base emotional state, or does not affect their base emotional state. In particular response to the point that since Barragan is stronk and is heavily defined by his Aspect Cala MUST be Barragan level to work within their Aspect so heavily.

I don't think Adept is too low for them to start figuring out where their ability actually comes from if they did not know previously and if they have another, higher skill like Cero, at Advanced I don't see it outside the realm of possibility they start weaving that Aspect into that more advanced skill in an effort to train their Aspect. (Or in this case Hollow Nucleus Skill)

3. I feel like there's a bit of bad faith being seen here where there honestly is none. Me adding this explanation for where the Fade comes from is only meant to provide more boundaries and something of an explanation behind it that I can use as a framework to weave into other abilities. Namely, the Garganta realm being a good excuse to do some fun stuff with Descorer later on. Not some way for me to "pull a fast one" of any sort. I'm not dancing around technicalities or trying to be confusing, I'm trying to provide a new explanation where I did not have one before. Ultimately, all the explanation really does is add an addendum to the app moving forward, an upgrade even, that rather than conjuring the Fade directly it's instead a more involved process Cala was not consciously aware they did.

IE it goes from...

Conjure -> Fade

To....

Conjure -> Small Garganta -> Fade

And with this new understanding comes the potential for Cala to improve, refine and experiment with that additional step.


4. As far as the JJ stuff, that is fair on all fronts, I just wanted it known that I said something about that scale of progression for the Fade being very generous and I was just trying to keep true to my word even if the staff team and site standards have changed. If that is seen as acceptable now, I won't look a gift horse in the mouth any further and I genuinely do appreciate the constructive feedback. Thank you. The edit will be made.

After some thought tweaked Fading Cero to avoid the Garganta inclusion, keeping with the theme of Cala's Fade spawning from them.

Unless I missed something I believe I got everything in the below Upgrade Resolution we discussed!

Cala Upgrade Resolution
— Tier to 4-4 rather than 4-2.
— Hollow nucleus makes more sense for advanced rather than cero.
— Keep old sealed ability to pretend to be other races. Not become them.
— Remove the Fade alter thing because it's redundant.
— Go over the cero and balas.
— Soulsong & To Know Their Loss to be removed, to develop towards it and apply for it in a later more focused upgrade.
— Loss of Moments (All Forms) will be removed.

Final changes made as were discussed