Luna's Release CiU

[Luna Melrose]

Character Name: Luna Melrose

Previous Real Age: 931

Current/New Real Age: 932

Previous Age of Appearance: 26

Current/New Age of Appearance: 26

New Powers: This is a full rework of Luna's release, appended as a second post.

What kind of update: Release rework.

Current Rank: Academy Student

New Rank: Squad 12 Unseated

Thread Justification For Rank Change: Rank remains Rank 1.

[Luna Melrose]

Vocabulary

The following vocabulary provides a clear definition of the terminology used throughout Luna’s ability; please refer to it while reading to aid with your understanding of the mechanics involved in this release, particularly regarding the interactions between each of its various components. These are generalized definitions and may also be used to determine how another ability should interact with her own; every keyword will be highlighted whenever employed in the subsequent paragraphs, to facilitate this process.

Action
An action corresponds to anything, instigated or not, which afflicts, has afflicted or may afflict any victim with an outcome; they are the common denominator of this ability and can refer to acts occurring in the past, present or future. As a rule, actions are always associated with a medium and they may be enacted by an instigator as well, or might simply manifest because of natural circumstances.

Event
Events refer to former actions which have successfully afflicted a victim with their outcome; they are established as factual on the timeline and should typically be considered immutable. Whenever events are mentioned within the context of this ability, they always allude to a single victim; if an action led to an outcome for multiple victims, each outcome is separated into its distinct event.

Medium
Mediums are the means by which an action is undertaken; it is effectively the delivery method, whether that be through a weapon, technique or some other methodology. When the medium only temporarily exists in the world or lacks a consistent presence, such as a projectile or technique, a different instance of equivalent nature should be considered the same medium; drawbacks and costs associated with the manifestation of a medium should never be considered as part of its outcome.

If a medium has any physical form whatsoever, it mustn’t be subdivided; for instance, the blade and the pommel of a sword belong to the same medium, despite their fundamental differences. Some mediums may also continuously afflict their victims with an outcome, such as area-of-effects; in this scenario, the corresponding event should only be considered distinct once an interruption has occurred.

Instigator
An instigator correlates with the identity of a sentient being, capable of free will, who has chosen to take action; free will is the determining factor distinctive to instigators, since they are independent agents of their own fate. Could this entity turn against its user of its own free will? If so, it should be considered a distinct instigator; if not, the user is instigating, and the entity should be considered a medium.

The temporary removal of their free will, such as when being mind controlled, doesn’t change how this ability interacts with an instigator; if they ever permanently lose their free will, however, the instigator is henceforth a medium of its user.

Victim
The victim is what’s being afflicted with an outcome, and therefore subjected to an action; they coincide with the role of receiver in this web of relationships and are meticulously intertwined with events. Albeit every instigator could inversely become a victim in the right circumstances, the designation can apply to a broad range of other entities as well; to qualify, they only require a physical body or any other tangible expression of their presence in the world.

Victims have what’s called a dominion; these are other victims in its possession or otherwise influenced directly by outcomes afflicting it. For example, weapons and clothes might fall under this category for a person, while logs of one’s entry in a computer could be within a doorway’s dominion; if an event is so intrinsically tied with another such that they couldn’t exist on their own, a dominion is formed between them.

Outcome
The outcome includes everything that has been left behind as a result of the action, and may take many different forms; an outcome only becomes distinct when either the event, medium, instigator or victim has shifted from its origin. Since they are remnants of an action, each outcome could be interpreted as evidence of what has transpired in the surroundings as well; a person can infer former events or deduce useful information through their presence or characteristics.

The nature of an outcome relates to its general disposition; for instance, both creating and summoning an object may look similar and thus could be mistaken for each other, but they are inherently the result of completely distinct outcomes and should be treated as differing in their nature.

Overall Ability

As a Shinigami, the powers bestowed upon Luna Melrose are very far from what could be considered the norm among her peers, as the very nature of her Zanpakuto materialized from the guilt and regrets of its user, the many mistakes she made in her lifetime; such woes ultimately imbued the blade with a rather unique ability, one with the potential to make this lady a particularly fearsome opponent. If it were to be described simply, Luna wields the power to change the past, both figuratively and literally; Mukiryoku grants its owner sovereignty over the timeline on which herself and others operate, allowing her to perform feats such as reverting someone’s wounds or overwriting events to her advantage. This strange, exceptional property provides her with an opportunity to reach entirely new heights as both a scientist and medical practitioner, redefining the customarily static essence of times past by offering a gateway with which history can be rewritten.

When attempting to visualize her powers, it may be tempting to simplify them as a form of time control, but that wouldn’t be strictly accurate; her ability should rather be seen as a dominion over causality, the intrinsic relationship that exists between events and outcomes. While it is true that a timeline portrays the flow of time over a given period, it is also conceptually a chronology of events, a linear indication of actions taken over such an interval; Luna’s ability interacts with such actions by creating a path through which they can be used to revert the outcome of former events, all in accordance with the rules defined by her Shikai and Bankai. In response, it’s as if the initial course of actions never existed in the first place, the past rearranging itself to accommodate such a phenomenon; whenever this occurs, what seemingly appears impossible might have now become reality, since no care is given by this ability to maintain the feasibility typically associated with a linear timeline.

Once released, silky translucent strands called the threads of fate embody this peculiar property, acting as the conduit through which her powers are manifested; these threads are an occurrence exclusively affiliated with her release and should be interpreted as the expression of its use. Upon physical contact with a victim Luna believes to be afflicted with the outcome of an event, she can expose the threads of fate corresponding to this event and extract them into their corporeal form, giving both herself and her opponents the opportunity to interact with them; after doing so, the thread may be separated from its former host telepathically and henceforth begin roaming freely within the world, their great buoyancy generally leading them to float aimlessly in the air once left undisturbed. Threads of fate are in essence the link between an event and the timeline; by using them, the underlying event can be made to match whichever vision of the future Luna desires for herself.

Of course, these strands have a unique characteristic befitting of their status as the core of her release, a special trait reflecting what they truly represent; this innate ability is what makes it worthwhile for Luna to attempt manipulating them, and why her foe might want to be careful in their presence. Whenever a clash with them occurs, the threads of fate do not follow established rules and instead must be, in most circumstances, considered a classless form of defense, without offensive strength nor durability; strictly speaking, they are therefore extremely brittle and will always break apart following the slightest hint of resistance. However, there is one notable exception; when an action gets in contact with the threads of fate, if its medium and instigator both match those of the event from which this thread originated, then a distinct phenomenon known as severing fate occurs. Once fate has been severed, the associated event is effectively erased from the timeline, reverting its outcome for the concerned victim alongside each of those under its dominion; they are instantly freed of the woes this event might’ve been causing them, as if it had never happened to begin with.

Unfortunately, Luna’s ability is highly susceptible to misinformation, and may be hindered by the lack of intel at her disposal; in practice, the limitless potential of this power can only be ascertained in full by an omniscient being, since its user must accurately predict which events have occurred in the surroundings to truly benefit from it. Whenever threads of fate are extracted from a victim, Luna’s perception of what took place is crucial and determines whether the desired outcome can be correctly reverted; if she were to have drawn an incorrect conclusion, severing fate through them would therefore allow the associated event to remain perfectly intact. While the medium and instigator dictate when severing fate occurs, the outcome governs a thread’s validity; understanding the nature of this aftermath or correctly deducing it, during the separation of a thread from its host, will ensure that her ability functions properly. As a result of this, diagnosis methods and other means of identification often prove particularly valuable while used in tandem with her release; knowledge is pivotal to the accomplishment of her goals, and restrains what she may bring about while weaving the threads of fate.

Shikai Ability

“Set your sight on Jörmungandr, Mukiryoku!”

Once Shikai is active, a dark mist first appears to reform Mukiryoku’s blade into its new shape, wrapping around it and twisting its way along the user’s forearm, before vanishing without leaving any trace of its presence; this signals the beginning of Luna’s dominion over fate, and unlocks her innate ability. Threads of fate may henceforth be exposed according to her whims, interacting with the world as defined by her Overall Ability; however, Shikai also dictates several mechanisms regarding how they must be employed by its user. While at this stage of release, extracting the threads of fate requires explicit physical contact with their victim, and each of them has an individual length of five meters; this limit can be extended by fusing it with another thread corresponding to the same event, or by weaving multiple threads together. Luna Melrose may also telepathically maneuver threads in her vicinity within a sphere of twenty meters, albeit with her dexterity influenced by both distance, speed and how many she wants to control at once; she may manipulate them at a maximum of 600 speed, when focusing on a single thread and discarding this dexterity. Furthermore, severing fate cannot return a victim from the dead; simply put, her Shikai is incapable of such a feat.

These constraints outline how the threads of fate can be utilized by this Shikai’s wielder, but do not fully depict the true scope of its ability; Mukiryoku is a Zanpakuto first and foremost, one meant to synergize with this interpretation of fate and its inner workings. As such, the power granted by its Shikai could be characterized as one molding the Zanpakuto’s blade itself, converting Mukiryoku into a tool specialized toward severing fate; once released, its blade becomes intangible to anything other than the threads of fate, making this weapon utterly inept at inflicting wounds. In exchange, passing through a medium has very interesting implications; when this occurs, the blade imprints on this medium and becomes a copy of it toward the threads of fate, allowing her Shikai to sever fate through somewhat unorthodox means. On top of that, Mukiryoku can exclusively ignore the need for a matching instigator when severing fate, which means that its wielder can sidestep any involvement from them; alongside each other, these two properties allow for the reversal of nearly any event when the right conditions are met.

Of course, her Zanpakuto must adhere to specific norms and procedures when attempting to emulate a medium; at first, its blade begins in an inert state devoid of any ties with them, a husk ready to be filled with their own essence. While it lacks this bond, Mukiryoku will independently and systematically copy the first medium touched by it, without offering its user any control over that fact whatsoever; beyond that point, physical contact with a different medium allows Luna to choose whether she wants to swap them around or not. Either way, it is impossible for Mukiryoku to ever be imbued with two mediums at once, since the former is always overwritten by the next; its current medium can be willingly discarded, but this process requires one post of delay to complete and may be stopped if contact is initiated again. Please note that only mediums employed by an instigator will spontaneously imprint on the Zanpakuto; those which correspond to a natural occurrence are only ever copied if Luna Melrose is actively wishing for it, regardless of whether the blade is currently without one.

Because of their close relationship with Mukiryoku, the threads of fate provide unique interactions with this property as well, a synergy born out of their respective versatility; this coexistence can often create innovative solutions and thrilling possibilities when employed on the field of battle, mainly as a result of their differing attributes and the leverage they each offer. While the blade remains devoid of a medium, the threads of fate may act as an extension by wrapping around her Zanpakuto, making them intangible and relaying any medium back upon contact; furthermore, a thread can be absorbed by the blade while in this state and steadily synchronize over a duration of three posts, after which the medium associated with this thread’s event has been copied over. Since neither of these characteristics are accessible once Mukiryoku imprints on a medium, Luna must compromise between hoarding or acquiring them, forcing her to choose what’s most beneficial at the moment; moreover, an opponent can counterplay by trying to forcefully synchronize the blade with a medium, thereby instantly nullifying such combined efforts.

Bankai Ability

“Avert Ragnarök, Fukyuu'No Meisaku Mukiryoku!”

Once her Bankai has been unleashed, the true form of Mukiryoku’s blade is revealed to its foes, glowing brightly in bursts of a radiant white light and emitting an ominous aura befitting of its user; Luna herself is also affected by this change of state and will henceforth appear slightly transparent, her essence now distinct from this physical body. In this form, several of her former restraints are lifted, no longer acting as an obstruction against her goals; the spherical area inside which she can control her threads has now been extended to two hundred meters, she may now extract any new threads through indirect physical contact by using another to fill the gap, and they can now be manipulated accurately regardless of how they are being used. Although Fukyuu'No Meisaku provides many liberties, her Bankai is fundamentally meant to alter the crux of Luna’s relationship with both fate and the timeline; while under its influence, her existence is ripped away from the timeline and forced to temporarily inhabit a space devoid of fate, separating her from the usual chronology of events and allowing her to dictate where it shall lead.

As a result of this transition, the threads of fate are impacted in various ways, a change reflected in the new coloration they’ve now adopted; notably, any thread originating from events whose victim is Luna herself will turn pitch-black while under its effect, a metamorphosis associated with the fact that she is now disconnected from the timeline. These threads comply with special requirements toward severing fate and may trigger this property using a slightly more permissive methodology, offering distinct ways to safeguard their wielder’s safety; to be specific, when a black thread is affected by an action from the same instigator as its original event, fate is automatically severed regardless of the associated medium. Since these threads are all related to events affecting Luna, she can employ them defensively and force an opponent to think twice before going on the offensive against her; forming a plan of action has now become the paradigm of choice to overcome this ability, if one wish to avoid fighting an uphill battle.

Acting as their counterpart, the threads of fate originating from events whose victim isn’t Luna are also subjected to a transformation, shifting toward a highly saturated white hue; unlike its predecessor, her Bankai creates a rupture against fate, paving the way for a newfound leniency in its ability to affect the outcomes in her vicinity. These threads are an embodiment of this schism and can therefore have their fate severed by any action performed using Mukiryoku, ignoring both the initial medium and instigator associated with the emergence of their outcome; as such, ivory threads can easily be employed to turn the direction of an ongoing conflict in Luna’s favor, compelling her opponent to safeguard the victim of any event favorable to them from her influence. Fundamentally, the governing principles dictating who should take the initiative are swapped in this scenario, encouraging her foes to actively struggle against the status quo; they must fight to not only accomplish their objectives, but also maintain their progress from being unexpectedly reverted.

The final component afforded by Fukyuu'No Meisaku’s ability is a brand-new category of threads, their color corresponding to the one associated with the spiritual signature of the victim they originate from; these vibrant threads can exclusively be extracted from victims who are also a valid instigator, and who have suffered from an event which has proven fatal. While her Shikai was incapable of rescinding one’s death, this Bankai is another matter altogether; under its influence, these strands can recover the spirit of deceased individuals from the soul cycle within a day of their demise and, if their fate is severed, can return life wherever it has been extinguished. Unlike the aforementioned black and white threads, they lack any special exemptions toward severing fate and are treated as normal for the most part, although one peculiar quirk does apply when doing so; severing fate for a fatal event won’t only revert itself and will rather have a cascading effect, returning this victim to its original state at the cost of also knocking them unconscious for a day.

Zanpakuto Techniques

SPOILER: Click to show

{Mirai Jiken (未来事件 - Future Incident)}

Release Level: Shikai & Bankai

Description

The threads of fate are an excellent tool, but this technique takes them a step even further; Mirai Jiken can be employed to create threads for an event that has yet to happen, counteracting actions from the future itself. If it is activated while in contact with a victim, the technique allows Luna to extract a thread for any known combination of medium and instigator without yet having it tied with a specific event; the thread of fate will instead fill in the gaps when the next outcome from this combination afflicts its victim and will henceforth become a regular thread of fate toward that event. This effectively means that fate can be severed before any outcome afflicts them, which is when this technique truly shines; should that happen, the next outcome will be fully ignored as if the associated event had never happened, since fate has already been severed. Another noteworthy property of these threads is how they behave in relation to Mukiryoku’s ability to synchronize with mediums; because each of them represent the future, getting in contact with a medium allows these threads to relay it once to Mukiryoku at some point in the future, acting almost like a form of storage for them.

Drawbacks

The distinctive factors between a thread generated with Mirai Jiken and a normal one can be perceived with either 50 ES or Focused Eye 1; the next event that occurs from the correct combination of instigator and medium will also force such a thread to return to normal, regardless of whether fate was severed or any medium is still stored within. The severity of such events doesn’t matter, even trivial outcomes will trigger that phenomenon; it therefore provides a counterplay opportunity against any plans established around using them.

If fate is severed prematurely and the release comes to an end, the effect is lost; the future which Mirai Jiken represents cannot extend beyond the bounds of its duration.

Cost:
25 when a thread is extracted.
50 when fate is severed prematurely.
50 when the next event is ignored.
25 when storing a medium.
50 when relaying a stored medium.

SPOILER: Click to show

{Jidai Kawari (時代変わり - Return of an Era)}

Release Level: Bankai only

Description

Jidai Kawari is the staple, signature technique associated with Fukyuu’No Meisaku, an instrument to be used for the sake of her ambitions; this ability emerged as a side-effect of how her Bankai works, namely a result of the separation occurring between herself and the timeline while it is active. During this split, Luna must nonetheless meld into the timeline and even though she should usually remain fused with its current juncture, this technique allows her to redirect the present and instead reside somewhere else across its temporal length; putting it differently, Jidai Kawari provides a simplistic and very restrictive form of time travel. To activate it, she simply needs to wrap a thread of fate around Mukiryoku’s blade, inserting her presence inside the timeline at precisely the moment this corresponding event occurred; sadly, events that generate black threads will accompany her through this temporal trip, meaning that outcomes afflicting her will persist despite her best efforts to the contrary.

This time travel works slightly differently depending on whether a conflict filled with one’s killing intent, or another circumstance forcing someone to be on high alert, were to occur in the vicinity of either Luna or her destination; this tug-of-war between spiritual energies act as a temporal lock of sorts, preventing various interactions with the timeline. Most notably, there cannot be multiple instances of Luna when she inhabits such a locked space, with each occurrence instead replacing the former one; furthermore, one’s memories of the events involving her use of Jidai Kawari won’t rewind if they were inside such an area during its activation, keeping them on even footing with Luna if she were to attempt using it while fighting. These additional safeguards do not apply when the technique is used outside of such temporal locks, allowing its user to interact with herself across the timeline and do so unbeknownst to her peers; this is perhaps what makes it such a valuable tool in her arsenal, suitable for the scheming and curiosity she so desperately likes to satiate on a regular basis.

If Jidai Kawari is used from within a temporal lock in order to escape, the events unfold as normal in her absence; avoiding conflict comes at a cost and will never shield the user from its consequences.

Drawbacks

The event associated with the thread used to activate Jidai Kawari always occurs moments before she appears, preventing Luna from trying to interact with it directly upon her return; she also has no control over which events are reverted by this leap in the timeline, all those that occurred after that point are equally undone, which means an opponent might very easily benefit from it as well. Stamina and reiatsu reserves return to their former levels except solely for the technique’s user, who must instead contend with a limited resource pool; furthermore, Jidai Kawari will require 8 hours of cooldown before the same user can employ it again, whenever activated.

This technique may interfere with particularly important plot hooks or narrative elements pertaining to the forward progression of a story; should this happen, staff and the relevant GMs may veto Jidai Kawari in favor of storytelling, in which case attempting to use the technique will simply fail.

Cost: 200 base cost & 8 hours cooldown period

SPOILER: Click to show

{Mira-Hensoku (ミラー変則 - Mirrored Anomaly)}

Release Level: Bankai only

Description

Mira-Hensoku is the ultimate technique in this Zanpakuto’s arsenal and can be considered the greatest weapon its Bankai has at its disposal. When a timeline exists, several actions may be taken on its interval but, if free will is to be believed, we are all capable of making choices along its course; if so, then where do the actions we have foregone end up going? Mira-Hensoku provides an answer; for every timeline, there is an equivalent one where the causality of outcomes is completely reversed, a host to the events that could’ve been. If someone were to harm another in our timeline, then they themselves would have been harmed in the equivalent one; all such outcomes can be mirrored, which is a fact Mira-Hensoku is weaponizing to its advantage. Since Luna’s Bankai separates its user from the timeline, this technique grants her a new capability; she can pull the alternate version of a victim from this equivalent timeline and bring it into our own, an otherworldly entity bound only by the rules of fate.

This technique may have two slightly different results, depending on the victim used for its activation; should this victim also be a valid instigator, then a copy of them will be brought into our timeline, while a victim who cannot instigate will be swapped and replaced by its alternate version entirely. Either way, these anomalous entities have the same properties, regardless of which category they belong in; when any action tries to afflict them with an outcome, the victim and instigator of this new event are swapped and the one who instigated will instead suffer the consequences of that action. Furthermore, the action itself is also nullified, meaning that any other event inflicted on another victim is severed immediately, preventing collateral damage altogether; this makes it a particularly effective shield against all sorts of attacks, allowing Luna to de-escalate conflicts very effectively.

Drawbacks

To begin with, it should first be mentioned that Mira-Hensoku’s entities are visibly different from their originals, and it is extremely easy to tell them apart; they have the same overall appearance but with every color inverted, black turning to white, white to black, and so on. Furthermore, the spiritual energy signature they emit can be distinguished, requiring only 100 ES to spot the differences; victims which normally wouldn’t emit spiritual energy now would as well, which is another discrepancy between them. The technique’s user is also not immune to its effect, any action of theirs which afflicts the anomalous entity would revert back toward them just like anyone else; lastly, the entity puts a severe strain on this Bankai, which means its post consumption is doubled while it is active and no more than one entity can be manifested at once.

For victims which are also instigators, this copy follows the general mindset of the original and should be considered an ally of theirs; the clone’s usage of reiatsu and stamina is shared with the original, meaning these resources could be exhausted faster than usual if they are both wasteful with them. The copy can instigate actions, but any outcome they afflict will be reverted on them as if everything around were an anomalous entity from their perspective; they therefore cannot harm others while inhabiting our world.

Cost: 400 base cost & doubles Bankai post consumption

[Leon Strife]

Greetings, I'll be the First Senior Grader for this, so let us be on our way:


Overall Theme


The closest understanding, after taking this much detail in, that I can summarize the overall theme into is Rewinding Events in regards to specific circustances occurring; being that involving Luna, the opponent, or third-party individual.

This is indeed a unique time based ability that has a lot of possibilities within its limited perspective, which proves to be very interesting and definitely fun to utilize. With that being said I can also see how this can be abused, even within its limited range as entire events within those moments being rewinded can make Luna very overpowered. As such, I will move on the pros of such thing:


1. This ability is limited to events have proceeded already, and does not affect future events as they have not happened yet.

2. This ability plays, I can only imagine, a heavy toll on someone's mental capabilities due the information needed process, as you mentioned with having to really play around with such information to cause and effect. This does play as a con against Luna as she would need to multi-task, juggling with what happened and needing to find a way to utilize when under fire, especially against tenacious individuals.

3. The ability itself can be manipulated by other individuals despite not knowing what it can do as "Fate" can be altered by a single action, or understanding as all time traveling does. Note being squishing a Butterfly etc ect. As a result, events may not play out as done before.




Now, for the cons that I see on how this can be abused:

1. Looking into the overall, I do not see a reiatsu cost in regards to utilizing this portion of the release. In this regard, I will point out when triggering the "altering of fate" process. If regarded in the techniques then do not mind this.

2. Rewinding an even immediately means that Luna can escape an initial hit or damage by utilizing this ability. And in doing so, Luna can recollect what has been done while others around her do not since it seems that only Luna's mind is sent back to be able to do such a thing, with being to escape a similar event without even having to consciously having to think about evading. This can be done even on an individual going against Luna, the instigator going against Luna. This will fall into manipulating someone entirely, or preventing an action from following through by using a third-party action. For example, and explosion/force causing the action to miss or deviate, or tripping over a rock.

In exchange, passing through a medium has very interesting implications; when this occurs, the blade imprints on this medium and becomes a copy of it toward the threads of fate, allowing her Shikai to sever fate through somewhat unorthodox means. On top of that, Mukiryoku can exclusively ignore the need for a matching instigator when severing fate, which means that its wielder can sidestep any involvement from them; alongside each other, these two properties allow for the reversal of nearly any event when the right conditions are met.

(In Shikai Section)


3. Does Luna keep what reiatsu does she spend to trigger the ability, or effect of altering? If mentioned in techniques then disregard this part.


I did see while in Shikai, Luna's blade can not do any harm onto individuals as it records, and stores whatever event(thread) makes contact with it. The effect changes when in Bankai, but still can not do harm if correct. The only section that I see which I believe would not hold much ground is the last portion of the Bankai involving as this would be similar to instigator sections regarding Luna's release. When looking over, Luna can alter the outcomes of what occurs to the instigator while this is section does similar, yet for a third party individual(victims). Not only that, but can revive someone and returning someone from the soul-cycle as though the event never took place. While this part of the ability does make sense as preventing events from happening, for someone to return once dead feels as though it is pushing a bit.

This part is merely a side note: while someone is still alive, the thread of fate would be intact until the moment of death. If Luna is only returning herself to the prior events before, then this would create an alternate timeline altogether, or a different dimension in other cases. This is where things can get dicey if not careful since Luna can pull events backwards to before they even occur, and if doing so then bringing someone back from the dead from a fatal event is rational. With that, the victim in this would be able to recollect as well as everyong involved, or unless the victim is the only one that remembers what had occurred, and everyone else is not aware. This part is where the details can make and break this section in my opinion. Food for thought.


Moving on towards the techniques.:

1. Mirai Jiken (未来事件 - Future Incident):

This looks to be a complicated technique to utilize. While the point is straight across when reading it and visualizing it the technique can mean that someone can be made immune to events pertaining to them. If someone were to be harmed and does not matter by whom, and this technique is utilized, essentially that individual can not be harmed in that particular way regardless of the circumstances. In such a case this technique would be considered to be overpowered, especially when it seems to not have a time duration or heavy setbacks on Luna. While the threads can be cut and percieved, what it can do is negate any damage at any time as it sounds like Mukiryoku can store this information for later use.

I can see there is a method in distrupting the use of this technique, but at the moment it is incredibely powerful to utilize given its perks. I would like to see restrictions to this technique, drawbacks to this technique as playing with such events will have tremendous side effects.




2. Jidai Kawari (時代変わり - Return of an Era)

I am going to be honest with this technique as it being a difficult technique to pass. Looking over the technique as simply being a time travel technique are ususally scruntized as is already known given what was written with the technique. While it does leave Luna open to being immediately KIA'd in this instance, but given the other techniques are capable of covering this gap, making it more difficult to even make contact with Luna in the first place. Aside from this note, Return of an Era seems to have a small reiatsu cost considering the amount of what can be done with it, even if other individuals involved or within close promixity won't have their memories rewinded. The technique itself can be done though given that does have a lot of variables, including multi-verse aspects, using Return of an Era in a thread will have complications, not only in playability but also in story writing I feel.



3. Mira-Hensoku (ミラー変則 - Mirrored Anomaly)

This technique is going to be wild and thrilling. While I do like the idea immensely, the issue revolves around the same issue that the previous technique has. Like with Return of an Era, this technique creates a lot of "What if" events that are going to need to be thought out thoroughly, and extensively. As this technique describes entering into different timelines to retrieve identical individuals and placing them in the current timeline makes for a lot of different concerns. These concerns being not limited to time distortions, multi-verse, conditions of each timeline, decisions in each timeline, stability of identical individual in a different timeline, the consequences of removing someone from their timeline, and what will happen to Luna while doing. Just like how this technique emphasizes, it is breaking a lot of rules of time rather than severing or hindering events to happen, making this immensely powerful.

There needs to be restrictions in place of using this technique, drawbacks further than what is being given as this technique can distort more than one timeline in more than one capacity if this is go through.



4. Jinsei'Sen (人生線 - Lifeline)

This technique does not feel like a technique but rather than part of the overall ability as it is constantly active. That aside, I can not see this technique being passed due to its overall nature. Looking over the drawbacks for the ability itself would be good for most techniques, with only a few of them making it acceptable. Yet, the issue with Lifeline is due to its nature of being able to cheat death itself, regardless of its scenario. I say this under two perspectives as being, first, it eliminates the threat of any Death Enabled thread, essentially making the thread itself moot due to result in being Luna survives regardless of the outcome. Death Enabled threads are what make them dangerous, and forces individuals to be cautious, hence the reward for surviving etc etc.

The second issue would be considering that the invidual who does manage to kill Luna would be resting after such a battle, meaning that they will linger within the area. When Luna returns as a new self, this individual would be within the area, and able to sense such reiatsu returning, especially high Sensory Individuals. This would make Luna herself an open target to be killed repeatedly, or lively imprisoned for eternity, which would boring and unproductive and make Luna unable an opportunity to fulfill the conditions within her drawbacks. For these main reasons I can not see how this technique would be able to be passed as it would fall to the extreme in one extent of being powerful, and the other making Luna unplayable.



I do enjoy the theme and the mechanics of how this Release works, and would love to see it put into action. As it stands there are a lot of "What If" scenarios revolved around this ability as it does involve time and fate, which are really tricky to work around. Regardless, this I see is doable, and would love to see it refined. Do let me know when the changes are made, and can get back to me by BloodAsp on discord. Can't wait.

[Luna Melrose]

Hello BloodAsp. First of all, thank you for the grading, much appreciated!

I think it'll be best if I begin by clarifying the overall vision and balance I've been aiming for, since I believe there might be some misunderstandings between how you view the release and what it’s truly meant to be, based on some of the points you’ve raised; I'll go over each point you've listed individually afterward.

Mar 9, 2023 1:22:32 GMT -5 Leon Strife said:

The closest understanding, after taking this much detail in, that I can summarize the overall theme into is Rewinding Events in regards to specific circustances occurring; being that involving Luna, the opponent, or third-party individual.

Your summary is close to the truth but resuming this power as rewinding events is technically incorrect, in a minor but extremely important way : Severing fate does not revert events directly, it rather does so to the outcomes of that event. This is significant because it means that the event itself still happened, even when all of its outcomes get reverted; you’ve implied a few times through the grading that Luna’s ability would affect memories and that’d be a wrong assessment for the reason I’ve just mentioned, the event itself still happened. At its core, this is a versatile healing-oriented ability, which uses the reversal of outcomes as its basis of operation; if I had to make a comparison, it’s close to Orihime’s healing aura (which is described in canon as the ability to “reject a phenomenon”; it’s not actually healing per say but the end-result is the same, just like Luna’s ability), and while it could be somewhat compared with Book of the End (Tsukishima’s fullbring), there’s a strong distinction between them in regards to what they’re actually changing (Book of the End is affecting one’s past directly, hence why their memories change, while Luna’s release is only affecting the outcomes of an event, which is why only the consequences of what happened are affected).

Balance-wise, the ability of this release (severing fate) is meant to be difficult to trigger once her foe is trying workarounds, it’s meant to become a mind-game between the opponent and herself; severing fate only happens when both the medium and instigator remain the same, which means if you switch any of them, the ability cannot naturally trigger (which is why the Shikai provides additional tools to try and make it happen). From an opponent’s perspective, this is actually super easy to do, you can simply change the medium you’re using and you’re instantly safe from it; if I take a baseline Shinigami as an example (ignoring type), they have 20 techniques, 2 release overalls, 6 release techniques, a sword and their physical body, that’s a minimum of 30 different mediums they can use. Different combinations of type and race will of course lead to different results, but even at worst a character pretty much always have a good dozen of them at their disposal; instigators are harder to switch like this, but they also offer an alternative for those who do have that option and it comes with different pros and cons compared to switching the medium.

Let’s look at a practical example of this ability; imagine for a moment that Luna is fighting an arrancar. Let’s presume the fight has been going on for a bit, and Luna has already shown what her release can do; she now gets stabbed in the shoulder by the arrancar, using his sword. What does she do? Well, she’s going to extract the threads of fate from that wound, and now the arrancar is at risk of reverting the wound if he ever hits those threads with his sword. What can the arrancar do? He can switch away to a different medium, even the most basic of arrancars has at the very least cero, bala or even his fists, to name a few other options. Okay, but what if that arrancar is only really good with his sword and he’s terrible with any of those? Even in that situation, you have to remember that the threads will instantly lose any clash if the attack doesn’t match their medium / instigator, that’s explicitly stated in the overall; you don’t have to stick to only one way of fighting, this hypothetical arrancar could very well use a weak Cero to clear the way of threads while their next attack is still performed using the sword, nonetheless.

We could look at a lot of other scenarios if you’d like, I’ve already gone very deep to ensure the ability would remain balanced in every circumstance I could think of (I’ve been pretty much preparing this CiU for a year now :p); the intention for this release is that it incentivizes an opponent to use their whole kit, and disincentivizes sticking to a single trick while fighting her.

Mar 9, 2023 1:22:32 GMT -5 Leon Strife said:

This is indeed a unique time based ability that has a lot of possibilities within its limited perspective, which proves to be very interesting and definitely fun to utilize. With that being said I can also see how this can be abused, even within its limited range as entire events within those moments being rewinded can make Luna very overpowered. As such, I will move on the pros of such thing:

Yep, and in fact, this potential for abuse is pretty much exactly why I’ve made this CiU in the first place; her old / current release is very similar to the one you’re currently reading, but over the year and while re-reading it I’ve found more and more flaws that made it overpowered in some areas, underwhelming in others and in general just bloated with mechanics that were added because I didn’t understand how combat worked over here yet. Now that the character has actually reached a point where I could use it, I’ve submitted this rework to essentially repair what I’ve found because I really don’t want to be using the old version, it’ll lead to problems extremely quickly; this is also why I’ve added a clear definition of the vocabulary which was previously absent, several of the addendums now written in the definitions are here to get rid of those kinds of edge-cases that could otherwise open a door for abuse.

Mar 9, 2023 1:22:32 GMT -5 Leon Strife said:

1. This ability is limited to events have proceeded already, and does not affect future events as they have not happened yet.

Notwithstanding the technique Mirai Jiken, which is built expressly for this, that’d be correct; the event needs to take place before it can be influenced by the release’s ability.

Mar 9, 2023 1:22:32 GMT -5 Leon Strife said:

2. This ability plays, I can only imagine, a heavy toll on someone's mental capabilities due the information needed process, as you mentioned with having to really play around with such information to cause and effect. This does play as a con against Luna as she would need to multi-task, juggling with what happened and needing to find a way to utilize when under fire, especially against tenacious individuals.

Indeed, there’s a lot of things the user needs to keep track about, and if someone attempts to pressure her during battle it’ll be difficult to form a coherent strategy; this release benefits heavily from periods of downtime during combat, it’s very mind-gamey and tactical-oriented which will make it hard to use if the pacing of their fight starts getting dictated by the opponent.

Mar 9, 2023 1:22:32 GMT -5 Leon Strife said:

3. The ability itself can be manipulated by other individuals despite not knowing what it can do as "Fate" can be altered by a single action, or understanding as all time traveling does. Note being squishing a Butterfly etc ect. As a result, events may not play out as done before.

The core balancing factor behind her release would be precisely this, that the rules involving the threads and their effect is something both Luna and her opponent can take advantage of, they have the means to circumvent her ability through their kit and/or clever thinking; I’d also point out that withholding the information about your own abilities will also circumvent her ability, which is another method one might use to gain the upper hand.

Mar 9, 2023 1:22:32 GMT -5 Leon Strife said:

Now, for the cons that I see on how this can be abused:

1. Looking into the overall, I do not see a reiatsu cost in regards to utilizing this portion of the release. In this regard, I will point out when triggering the "altering of fate" process. If regarded in the techniques then do not mind this.

There indeed isn’t, but that’s actually on purpose and by design; adding a reiatsu cost inside her overall would actually open a door for abuse against her. Luna isn’t fully in control of when severing fate will occur, that depends heavily on which actions her opponent would decide to take, and even though her foe would currently have every incentive to try and avoid that happening, if we were to add a reiatsu cost to it on Luna, this flips and an opponent could very well try to intentionally trigger her ability and burn her out of reiatsu; given how many threads would likely be flying around, even if we kept the cost extremely small, this could result in several thousands reiatsu lost in a single post if an opponent chose to use a particularly large attack, and to counteract that Luna would have no choice but to reel in her own release, which isn’t a really fun experience from a gameplay standpoint.

While this wouldn’t completely break the balance of her release, it’d be a very heavy nerf, much more than you’re likely anticipating; the other problem this would introduce is that her Bankai would also become worse than her Shikai in many situations, since the Bankai makes severing fate a more likely scenario.

Mar 9, 2023 1:22:32 GMT -5 Leon Strife said:

2. Rewinding an even immediately means that Luna can escape an initial hit or damage by utilizing this ability. And in doing so, Luna can recollect what has been done while others around her do not since it seems that only Luna's mind is sent back to be able to do such a thing, with being to escape a similar event without even having to consciously having to think about evading. This can be done even on an individual going against Luna, the instigator going against Luna. This will fall into manipulating someone entirely, or preventing an action from following through by using a third-party action. For example, and explosion/force causing the action to miss or deviate, or tripping over a rock.

I may be misunderstanding what you’re trying to bring up here, so apologies in advance if that does end up being the case.

However, I don’t believe what you’re describing here is correct; there’s no way for Luna to immediately sever fate when getting injured by an attack (sole exception is by using the technique Mirai Jiken, which we’ll go over a bit later), severing fate requires that she wait for the opponent to attempt another attack using that same medium. I guess if the Zanpakuto’s blade already has an imprint of the right medium, it could occur quickly but even then that wouldn’t be immediate, and this also assumes that she would still be in good enough condition to swing her Zanpakuto afterward; no matter how it occurs, she will need to endure the consequences at least momentarily when using the overalls of her release.

As for the part where you mention memories and Luna’s recollection of the events, as I’ve hopefully clarified well enough earlier, that’s just not something her release does; everybody keeps their memory, this ability won’t affect them.

Mar 9, 2023 1:22:32 GMT -5 Leon Strife said:

3. Does Luna keep what reiatsu does she spend to trigger the ability, or effect of altering? If mentioned in techniques then disregard this part.

I might need you to clarify what you meant, I’m not sure I understand the question; however, given that you mention reiatsu spent to trigger the ability, I’ll answer pre-emptively, as mentioned earlier, that the act of severing fate does not currently cost reiatsu (I’m assuming that’s in relation with what you meant / asked for?).

Mar 9, 2023 1:22:32 GMT -5 Leon Strife said:

I did see while in Shikai, Luna's blade can not do any harm onto individuals as it records, and stores whatever event(thread) makes contact with it. The effect changes when in Bankai, but still can not do harm if correct. The only section that I see which I believe would not hold much ground is the last portion of the Bankai involving as this would be similar to instigator sections regarding Luna's release. When looking over, Luna can alter the outcomes of what occurs to the instigator while this is section does similar, yet for a third party individual(victims). Not only that, but can revive someone and returning someone from the soul-cycle as though the event never took place. While this part of the ability does make sense as preventing events from happening, for someone to return once dead feels as though it is pushing a bit.

Regarding the Zanpakuto’s blade, this is correct; Luna’s release is meant to lean very heavily on healing so I’ve designed the Zanpakuto in a way would prevent it from harming another individual, there’s very little in her release that can actually hurt someone. What the blade copies, however, is mediums rather than events, the blade is meant to be a tool to help Luna with severing fate; the effect indeed remains the same in Bankai, the Bankai simply adds new rules on how the threads themselves interact and are severed.

As for the rest of this paragraph, I’m confused somewhat when you mention the instigators and victims as being sections of her release, these are simply keywords that help define and delineate the behavior of this system in correlation with other abilities; again, apologies if I’m just misunderstanding something. For the part where you mention the Bankai’s ability to revive someone though, I can maybe comment a bit on the balance intentions regarding that...

Although yes, I understand why you’d feel that returning a person from the dead is a very strong ability and rightfully so, there are three factors that were meant to balance this from being overpowered; the first was that this only occurs if fate is severed and therefore requires Luna to either put herself at risk against the killer or otherwise have time at her disposal if they aren’t around, and severing fate doesn’t benefit from the advantageous new rules of her Bankai in these circumstances so she needs to try using only what her Shikai provides to achieve that. The second was that this is time-bound (she can’t do so if it’s been more than a day), which means she must either be involved in the battle or otherwise be very close to have a chance at even using this ability; the third factor was that even when the right conditions are reunited, the revived person is stuck in a coma for a day, so it’s impossible for them to join back into the fight as if nothing had happened. My impression was that it wouldn’t be too insane for the Bankai of a Zanpakuto that leans so heavily on healing to have access to a way to revive someone under such strict conditions, especially when the rest of its Bankai is simply making the Overall Ability more lenient.

Mar 9, 2023 1:22:32 GMT -5 Leon Strife said:

This part is merely a side note: while someone is still alive, the thread of fate would be intact until the moment of death. If Luna is only returning herself to the prior events before, then this would create an alternate timeline altogether, or a different dimension in other cases. This is where things can get dicey if not careful since Luna can pull events backwards to before they even occur, and if doing so then bringing someone back from the dead from a fatal event is rational. With that, the victim in this would be able to recollect as well as everyong involved, or unless the victim is the only one that remembers what had occurred, and everyone else is not aware. This part is where the details can make and break this section in my opinion. Food for thought.

I’m again confused by this paragraph, but since you’ve mentioned memories / “being able to recollect” halfway through I assume this is tied to the misunderstanding regarding the fact that only outcomes are reverted, not the event itself? Except for the technique Jidai Kawari (which directly involves time travel), alternate timelines and dimensions aren’t involved in the three overalls of this release; the “timeline” is mentioned now and again throughout the ability, but this exclusively refers to our own timeline and it’s always in reference to the present, nothing should create branches or affect anything to such an extent.

If I’m off-course and this wasn’t from a misunderstanding, I’ll need you to clarify what you meant.

Mar 9, 2023 1:22:32 GMT -5 Leon Strife said:

Moving on towards the techniques.:

1. Mirai Jiken (未来事件 - Future Incident):

This looks to be a complicated technique to utilize. While the point is straight across when reading it and visualizing it the technique can mean that someone can be made immune to events pertaining to them. If someone were to be harmed and does not matter by whom, and this technique is utilized, essentially that individual can not be harmed in that particular way regardless of the circumstances. In such a case this technique would be considered to be overpowered, especially when it seems to not have a time duration or heavy setbacks on Luna. While the threads can be cut and percieved, what it can do is negate any damage at any time as it sounds like Mukiryoku can store this information for later use.

I can see there is a method in distrupting the use of this technique, but at the moment it is incredibely powerful to utilize given its perks. I would like to see restrictions to this technique, drawbacks to this technique as playing with such events will have tremendous side effects.

This technique isn’t nearly as strong as you think, it’s just a way to use what her ability could already do but slightly ahead of time; severing fate still needs to occur for the technique to have any use at all, and if she wants to use it defensively Luna needs to not only predict the exact medium that’ll be coming her way, but also actually parry it with the thread. Even if she does manage to do all that, the technique is countered extremely easily, by simply hitting her twice in quick succession; that’s an easy workaround, considering how hard it’ll already have been to get it to take effect to begin with. Mirai Jiken ultimately works similarly to any technique granting intangibility, but it does so under massive constraints; it only deals with a specified type of attack chosen during its activation, requires a very specific action to take place before it can come into effect, and only affects the very first occurrence of that attack, ignoring any subsequent ones.

This was designed to be a sink of reiatsu with a high likelihood of offering little in return, that’s how I’ve thought while balancing it; the thread itself is also no different from any other threads in her release, it’s still going to instantly lose any clash which doesn’t involve the right medium / instigator combination.

I’ll point out though, our discussion did make me think of a potential exploit with this technique I’ll nip in the bud right away; I’ve added an additional sentence in its drawbacks to prevent its effect from carrying over between threads.

Mar 9, 2023 1:22:32 GMT -5 Leon Strife said:

2. Jidai Kawari (時代変わり - Return of an Era)

I am going to be honest with this technique as it being a difficult technique to pass. Looking over the technique as simply being a time travel technique are ususally scruntized as is already known given what was written with the technique. While it does leave Luna open to being immediately KIA'd in this instance, but given the other techniques are capable of covering this gap, making it more difficult to even make contact with Luna in the first place. Aside from this note, Return of an Era seems to have a small reiatsu cost considering the amount of what can be done with it, even if other individuals involved or within close promixity won't have their memories rewinded. The technique itself can be done though given that does have a lot of variables, including multi-verse aspects, using Return of an Era in a thread will have complications, not only in playability but also in story writing I feel.

If it can make you feel slightly better, this technique is actually part of the old version of Luna’s Bankai Overall, it has already gone through a pass of grading before and a lot of potential problems with this time travel should already have been dealt with. :p

Regarding the reiatsu cost, it indeed has a very small cost but that’s because there’s an inherent one to using the technique and this cost is added on top of it; when activating the technique, Luna recovers no reiatsu at all during the time travel (and this applies to her stamina as well) while her opponent does. In other words, if let’s say Luna had 2000/2000 on post #3 and her opponent had 4000/4000, they fight up to post #10 where Luna has 800/2000 and her opponent has 1800/4000, if Jidai Kawari is used to return to post #3, Luna will now have 600/2000 while her opponent is back to 4000/4000; the cost of 200 may seem low in theory, but in practice this technique’s cost is extremely high due to its effect in itself (this cost is also doubled compared to what it was before, it used to be 100).

I completely agree with you regarding your last point, that this technique can harm both the playability and story writing, which was another reason for this CiU; the huge issue I felt would make this technique unfun to play against was that, while it’s a nice novelty ability the first time it’s used, it could get really repetitive to have to write the same or similar reaction to it several times in a row if Luna were to loop around constantly. I’ve added a cooldown to it which doesn’t exist in the current version precisely as a way to tackle that issue, because frankly I feel the same; this is meant to be a trump card and open new and exciting roleplay opportunities with the character, it shouldn’t be something that’s repeatable.

Right now, the cooldown in question is set to 8 hours; this should prevent Jidai Kawari from being used more than once in a normal thread, the only exceptions most likely being adventures and quests which might cover a long enough period to be used more than once.

Mar 9, 2023 1:22:32 GMT -5 Leon Strife said:

3. Mira-Hensoku (ミラー変則 - Mirrored Anomaly)

This technique is going to be wild and thrilling. While I do like the idea immensely, the issue revolves around the same issue that the previous technique has. Like with Return of an Era, this technique creates a lot of "What if" events that are going to need to be thought out thoroughly, and extensively. As this technique describes entering into different timelines to retrieve identical individuals and placing them in the current timeline makes for a lot of different concerns. These concerns being not limited to time distortions, multi-verse, conditions of each timeline, decisions in each timeline, stability of identical individual in a different timeline, the consequences of removing someone from their timeline, and what will happen to Luna while doing. Just like how this technique emphasizes, it is breaking a lot of rules of time rather than severing or hindering events to happen, making this immensely powerful.

There needs to be restrictions in place of using this technique, drawbacks further than what is being given as this technique can distort more than one timeline in more than one capacity if this is go through.

I believe we have a misunderstanding here as well, since this technique doesn’t involve entering another timeline or anything like that; you can think of Mira-Hensoku as rather being a summoning technique of sorts, it’s just that what it actually summons is a strange thing that comes from a place where the rules of fate are applied differently. No need to think about what happens in the other timeline either, since both timelines are ultimately identical but with a reversed causality; whatever happens here, happened there as well. The first paragraph here mainly explains how it can achieve its result; when the technique says Luna “pulls” the alternate victim that’s not to be taken literally, she’s not actually moving there or anything of the sort it’s really just a summon.

This technique also already existed in the former version of her release, the only difference being that this new version was generalized to include any victim, since this is a new concept that arose with the rework.

Mar 9, 2023 1:22:32 GMT -5 Leon Strife said:

4. Jinsei'Sen (人生線 - Lifeline)

This technique does not feel like a technique but rather than part of the overall ability as it is constantly active. That aside, I can not see this technique being passed due to its overall nature. Looking over the drawbacks for the ability itself would be good for most techniques, with only a few of them making it acceptable. Yet, the issue with Lifeline is due to its nature of being able to cheat death itself, regardless of its scenario. I say this under two perspectives as being, first, it eliminates the threat of any Death Enabled thread, essentially making the thread itself moot due to result in being Luna survives regardless of the outcome. Death Enabled threads are what make them dangerous, and forces individuals to be cautious, hence the reward for surviving etc etc.

The second issue would be considering that the invidual who does manage to kill Luna would be resting after such a battle, meaning that they will linger within the area. When Luna returns as a new self, this individual would be within the area, and able to sense such reiatsu returning, especially high Sensory Individuals. This would make Luna herself an open target to be killed repeatedly, or lively imprisoned for eternity, which would boring and unproductive and make Luna unable an opportunity to fulfill the conditions within her drawbacks. For these main reasons I can not see how this technique would be able to be passed as it would fall to the extreme in one extent of being powerful, and the other making Luna unplayable.

Yeeeeeah, to be honest I knew it was very likely that this technique would hit a brick wall, I’ve thrown together a first iteration of what I would’ve liked the technique to look like but I expected this would be nearly impossible to get approved in its current state.

My goal and hope with a technique like this would be to eliminate the possibility of death itself, albeit without getting rid of the risk associated with death; what you’re describing in your second paragraph is exactly what I’d want to happen, it’s actually not something I see as an issue. Personally, I feel like death would be a very unsatisfying resolution to the character, especially considering some of her beliefs, so I wanted to at least suggest this alternative, a technique that’d prevent death itself but would still put an end to whichever fight is ongoing, would afflict Luna with consequences that could hopefully (with your help) be tuned to feel as impactful as dying, and would pave the way to additional consequences based on her opponent’s whims, be that imprisonment, a traumatic experience, or otherwise. That seems like a great and interesting opportunity for unique roleplay, both for Luna but also their opponent; this was more or less my thinking while submitting this technique as a potential release one, this wasn’t meant to be an asset during combat but rather would’ve been a character-defining trait.

I assume you’ll want me to remove this technique, which is fair enough, but if I may ask for feedback on this, how much do you think would need to be added as drawbacks before it’d even enter into the realm of possibilities? What would be the point where you’d feel that averting death could start to balance out with the drawbacks, in your opinion?

Mar 9, 2023 1:22:32 GMT -5 Leon Strife said:

I do enjoy the theme and the mechanics of how this Release works, and would love to see it put into action. As it stands there are a lot of "What If" scenarios revolved around this ability as it does involve time and fate, which are really tricky to work around. Regardless, this I see is doable, and would love to see it refined. Do let me know when the changes are made, and can get back to me by BloodAsp on discord. Can't wait.

Hopefully I’ll have alleviated slightly your worries regarding the “what if” scenarios by clarifying further how and what the release specifically does; I’ve worked really hard in the past year to find and get rid of as many of those as possible. For the changes, given how we had a lot of misunderstandings I’ve avoided making too many of them before hearing your feedback again, let me know, among what you had listed, which changes you feel should still be made regardless of this (admittedly very long, sorry :p) post; can’t wait to hear back from you!

[Leon Strife]

Alright, revision time:

Starting off with the notes of, yeah, I did misunderstood in a lot of the different areas revolving the abilities, and the techniques. With the responses that you gave helped to bring things into a much narrow perspective rather looping around some details. With that being said thanks, and let us continue onwards.

And apologies for quoting large sections as it does help to go back as references when speaking about the subject in question.

Leon Strife Avatar
Mar 8, 2023 at 10:22pm Leon Strife said:
The closest understanding, after taking this much detail in, that I can summarize the overall theme into is Rewinding Events in regards to specific circustances occurring; being that involving Luna, the opponent, or third-party individual.


Your summary is close to the truth but resuming this power as rewinding events is technically incorrect, in a minor but extremely important way : Severing fate does not revert events directly, it rather does so to the outcomes of that event. This is significant because it means that the event itself still happened, even when all of its outcomes get reverted; you’ve implied a few times through the grading that Luna’s ability would affect memories and that’d be a wrong assessment for the reason I’ve just mentioned, the event itself still happened. At its core, this is a versatile healing-oriented ability, which uses the reversal of outcomes as its basis of operation; if I had to make a comparison, it’s close to Orihime’s healing aura (which is described in canon as the ability to “reject a phenomenon”; it’s not actually healing per say but the end-result is the same, just like Luna’s ability), and while it could be somewhat compared with Book of the End (Tsukishima’s fullbring), there’s a strong distinction between them in regards to what they’re actually changing (Book of the End is affecting one’s past directly, hence why their memories change, while Luna’s release is only affecting the outcomes of an event, which is why only the consequences of what happened are affected).

Balance-wise, the ability of this release (severing fate) is meant to be difficult to trigger once her foe is trying workarounds, it’s meant to become a mind-game between the opponent and herself; severing fate only happens when both the medium and instigator remain the same, which means if you switch any of them, the ability cannot naturally trigger (which is why the Shikai provides additional tools to try and make it happen). From an opponent’s perspective, this is actually super easy to do, you can simply change the medium you’re using and you’re instantly safe from it; if I take a baseline Shinigami as an example (ignoring type), they have 20 techniques, 2 release overalls, 6 release techniques, a sword and their physical body, that’s a minimum of 30 different mediums they can use. Different combinations of type and race will of course lead to different results, but even at worst a character pretty much always have a good dozen of them at their disposal; instigators are harder to switch like this, but they also offer an alternative for those who do have that option and it comes with different pros and cons compared to switching the medium.

Let’s look at a practical example of this ability; imagine for a moment that Luna is fighting an arrancar. Let’s presume the fight has been going on for a bit, and Luna has already shown what her release can do; she now gets stabbed in the shoulder by the arrancar, using his sword. What does she do? Well, she’s going to extract the threads of fate from that wound, and now the arrancar is at risk of reverting the wound if he ever hits those threads with his sword. What can the arrancar do? He can switch away to a different medium, even the most basic of arrancars has at the very least cero, bala or even his fists, to name a few other options. Okay, but what if that arrancar is only really good with his sword and he’s terrible with any of those? Even in that situation, you have to remember that the threads will instantly lose any clash if the attack doesn’t match their medium / instigator, that’s explicitly stated in the overall; you don’t have to stick to only one way of fighting, this hypothetical arrancar could very well use a weak Cero to clear the way of threads while their next attack is still performed using the sword, nonetheless.

We could look at a lot of other scenarios if you’d like, I’ve already gone very deep to ensure the ability would remain balanced in every circumstance I could think of (I’ve been pretty much preparing this CiU for a year now ); the intention for this release is that it incentivizes an opponent to use their whole kit, and disincentivizes sticking to a single trick while fighting her.

This helped to bring the idea in as with the release. The only question, or concern, I would have now is regarding the "medium." The question is revolving around your example being that of the baseline Shinigami. You mentioned that the example having 30 techniques in their arsenal, the question is if the medium would be same despite the elemental nature of the technique, or would they be seen as a single category?

For example, shinigami/arrcanar have much of their techniques be made up of reiatsu. Kido spells may have the nature of lightning, fire, etc, yet are all still reiatsu in nature that came from that Shinigami. So, would the medium be that of the caster's reiatsu being the medium, or the specific elemental nature of the technique itself?

I ask this due to perhaps looking at how this release can be seen as overpowered if it was using mediums as broad categories in which the ability itself can record and severe. In this perspective, the medium can be separated into two categories being that of Physical and Spiritual. The release itself can tie the threads pertaining to either or, which can make future instigations between Luna, and that particular thread from the instigator nulled. Just wanted to clear that aspect as many of the battles that would be ongoing will usually be 1 vs 1, with at times during adventures where they will be multiple targets.

I may be misunderstanding what you’re trying to bring up here, so apologies in advance if that does end up being the case.

However, I don’t believe what you’re describing here is correct; there’s no way for Luna to immediately sever fate when getting injured by an attack (sole exception is by using the technique Mirai Jiken, which we’ll go over a bit later), severing fate requires that she wait for the opponent to attempt another attack using that same medium. I guess if the Zanpakuto’s blade already has an imprint of the right medium, it could occur quickly but even then that wouldn’t be immediate, and this also assumes that she would still be in good enough condition to swing her Zanpakuto afterward; no matter how it occurs, she will need to endure the consequences at least momentarily when using the overalls of her release.

As for the part where you mention memories and Luna’s recollection of the events, as I’ve hopefully clarified well enough earlier, that’s just not something her release does; everybody keeps their memory, this ability won’t affect them.

This part was along the thoughts of me having that the release was bringing Luna back into the past, rather than using what had injured her in the first place, and preventing the same means from occurring again. (That being if the next attempt at injury was made by the same object etc). I am still a bit iffy with negating a particular means of injuring someone as there are characters who are essentially locked into doing what they do, but still does give them a chance to think outside the box. That being said, the iffy-ness felt is due to how it works in conjunction with the techniques, due to creating an ever ending loop of negates.

Mar 8, 2023 at 10:22pm Leon Strife said:
3. Does Luna keep what reiatsu does she spend to trigger the ability, or effect of altering? If mentioned in techniques then disregard this part.


I might need you to clarify what you meant, I’m not sure I understand the question; however, given that you mention reiatsu spent to trigger the ability, I’ll answer pre-emptively, as mentioned earlier, that the act of severing fate does not currently cost reiatsu (I’m assuming that’s in relation with what you meant / asked for?).

This part was actually answered in one of your later answers, so no worries.

Regarding the Zanpakuto’s blade, this is correct; Luna’s release is meant to lean very heavily on healing so I’ve designed the Zanpakuto in a way would prevent it from harming another individual, there’s very little in her release that can actually hurt someone. What the blade copies, however, is mediums rather than events, the blade is meant to be a tool to help Luna with severing fate; the effect indeed remains the same in Bankai, the Bankai simply adds new rules on how the threads themselves interact and are severed.

As for the rest of this paragraph, I’m confused somewhat when you mention the instigators and victims as being sections of her release, these are simply keywords that help define and delineate the behavior of this system in correlation with other abilities; again, apologies if I’m just misunderstanding something. For the part where you mention the Bankai’s ability to revive someone though, I can maybe comment a bit on the balance intentions regarding that...

Although yes, I understand why you’d feel that returning a person from the dead is a very strong ability and rightfully so, there are three factors that were meant to balance this from being overpowered; the first was that this only occurs if fate is severed and therefore requires Luna to either put herself at risk against the killer or otherwise have time at her disposal if they aren’t around, and severing fate doesn’t benefit from the advantageous new rules of her Bankai in these circumstances so she needs to try using only what her Shikai provides to achieve that. The second was that this is time-bound (she can’t do so if it’s been more than a day), which means she must either be involved in the battle or otherwise be very close to have a chance at even using this ability; the third factor was that even when the right conditions are reunited, the revived person is stuck in a coma for a day, so it’s impossible for them to join back into the fight as if nothing had happened. My impression was that it wouldn’t be too insane for the Bankai of a Zanpakuto that leans so heavily on healing to have access to a way to revive someone under such strict conditions, especially when the rest of its Bankai is simply making the Overall Ability more lenient.

Much of this was due to the my confusion that has now been cleared up some, so will be moving on towards the last part of this segment in regards to reviving the dead.

Looking it over again I would consider it to be a very strong ability that still has that potential to be abused as it removes someone from kicking the bucket entirely. Even the best Doctors and Medics can not overcome someone who is at deaths door. Despite Luna placing herself in a high risk scenario, it can still potentially restore someone, as a mirroring function as Lifeline, which would fall into the same trap as that ability did. What I can see is if it casts someone into a pocket dimension, or severed from the current timeline into a pocket timeline in which it rewinds the persons condition. This function would only be able to be utilized if the person was near death, placing Luna into similar circumstances as well as the individual being used on.

I say this as an alternative means as this does sound like Lifeline, which the conversation for that passing on, no pun intended, is small at best. Other than that with some tweaks I can see this being passed.

I’m again confused by this paragraph, but since you’ve mentioned memories / “being able to recollect” halfway through I assume this is tied to the misunderstanding regarding the fact that only outcomes are reverted, not the event itself? Except for the technique Jidai Kawari (which directly involves time travel), alternate timelines and dimensions aren’t involved in the three overalls of this release; the “timeline” is mentioned now and again throughout the ability, but this exclusively refers to our own timeline and it’s always in reference to the present, nothing should create branches or affect anything to such an extent.

If I’m off-course and this wasn’t from a misunderstanding, I’ll need you to clarify what you meant.

Misunderstanding



1. Mirai Jiken

This technique isn’t nearly as strong as you think, it’s just a way to use what her ability could already do but slightly ahead of time; severing fate still needs to occur for the technique to have any use at all, and if she wants to use it defensively Luna needs to not only predict the exact medium that’ll be coming her way, but also actually parry it with the thread. Even if she does manage to do all that, the technique is countered extremely easily, by simply hitting her twice in quick succession; that’s an easy workaround, considering how hard it’ll already have been to get it to take effect to begin with. Mirai Jiken ultimately works similarly to any technique granting intangibility, but it does so under massive constraints; it only deals with a specified type of attack chosen during its activation, requires a very specific action to take place before it can come into effect, and only affects the very first occurrence of that attack, ignoring any subsequent ones.

This was designed to be a sink of reiatsu with a high likelihood of offering little in return, that’s how I’ve thought while balancing it; the thread itself is also no different from any other threads in her release, it’s still going to instantly lose any clash which doesn’t involve the right medium / instigator combination.

I’ll point out though, our discussion did make me think of a potential exploit with this technique I’ll nip in the bud right away; I’ve added an additional sentence in its drawbacks to prevent its effect from carrying over between threads.

I can see this technique passing, with the only concern being related to an earlier one. That earlier concern is in regards to the exampled provided with the Baseline Shinigami. Please refer to that, and if any confusion about the concern then do let me know.



2. Jidai Kiwari

If it can make you feel slightly better, this technique is actually part of the old version of Luna’s Bankai Overall, it has already gone through a pass of grading before and a lot of potential problems with this time travel should already have been dealt with.

Regarding the reiatsu cost, it indeed has a very small cost but that’s because there’s an inherent one to using the technique and this cost is added on top of it; when activating the technique, Luna recovers no reiatsu at all during the time travel (and this applies to her stamina as well) while her opponent does. In other words, if let’s say Luna had 2000/2000 on post #3 and her opponent had 4000/4000, they fight up to post #10 where Luna has 800/2000 and her opponent has 1800/4000, if Jidai Kawari is used to return to post #3, Luna will now have 600/2000 while her opponent is back to 4000/4000; the cost of 200 may seem low in theory, but in practice this technique’s cost is extremely high due to its effect in itself (this cost is also doubled compared to what it was before, it used to be 100).

I completely agree with you regarding your last point, that this technique can harm both the playability and story writing, which was another reason for this CiU; the huge issue I felt would make this technique unfun to play against was that, while it’s a nice novelty ability the first time it’s used, it could get really repetitive to have to write the same or similar reaction to it several times in a row if Luna were to loop around constantly. I’ve added a cooldown to it which doesn’t exist in the current version precisely as a way to tackle that issue, because frankly I feel the same; this is meant to be a trump card and open new and exciting roleplay opportunities with the character, it shouldn’t be something that’s repeatable.

Right now, the cooldown in question is set to 8 hours; this should prevent Jidai Kawari from being used more than once in a normal thread, the only exceptions most likely being adventures and quests which might cover a long enough period to be used more than once.

The question in regards to the reiatsu has been answered and would fit in as to pass the technique. The only issue that arises is having Luna travel back in time. As we came to the agreement that the technique itself is what would harm playability and the story writing, despite the drawbacks and limitations that it has. While I do like the technique itself the overall nature of it would still be unplayable as it would backtrack what has been done. I do see ways that this technique being altered that mirror what this technique can do, but its nature would be done differently. Leaning more to the idea of Overwatch's Tracer special ability in gameplay. Beyond that being one means, as how this technique is I can not see it moving on.




3. Mira Hensoku

I believe we have a misunderstanding here as well, since this technique doesn’t involve entering another timeline or anything like that; you can think of Mira-Hensoku as rather being a summoning technique of sorts, it’s just that what it actually summons is a strange thing that comes from a place where the rules of fate are applied differently. No need to think about what happens in the other timeline either, since both timelines are ultimately identical but with a reversed causality; whatever happens here, happened there as well. The first paragraph here mainly explains how it can achieve its result; when the technique says Luna “pulls” the alternate victim that’s not to be taken literally, she’s not actually moving there or anything of the sort it’s really just a summon.

This technique also already existed in the former version of her release, the only difference being that this new version was generalized to include any victim, since this is a new concept that arose with the rework.

My understanding of this technique may still be a bit hit or missed, but with summoning another Luna or instigater, in this case, into the current situation I can understand. Looking over it several times, from what I see is Luna bringing a mirrored image of either herself or her adversary revolving a particular event, and have them re-enact whatever the event was for the desired outcome. For example, if Luna's opponent slashes her, then Luna can summon that moment of her opponent slashing, and commit the same actions as it did to Luna. Essentially a shadow, or in your description a mirror image. Which means all they will be doing is slashing using the medium that committed the result onto Luna, if I am saying it correctly.




4. Lifeline

Yeeeeeah, to be honest I knew it was very likely that this technique would hit a brick wall, I’ve thrown together a first iteration of what I would’ve liked the technique to look like but I expected this would be nearly impossible to get approved in its current state.

My goal and hope with a technique like this would be to eliminate the possibility of death itself, albeit without getting rid of the risk associated with death; what you’re describing in your second paragraph is exactly what I’d want to happen, it’s actually not something I see as an issue. Personally, I feel like death would be a very unsatisfying resolution to the character, especially considering some of her beliefs, so I wanted to at least suggest this alternative, a technique that’d prevent death itself but would still put an end to whichever fight is ongoing, would afflict Luna with consequences that could hopefully (with your help) be tuned to feel as impactful as dying, and would pave the way to additional consequences based on her opponent’s whims, be that imprisonment, a traumatic experience, or otherwise. That seems like a great and interesting opportunity for unique roleplay, both for Luna but also their opponent; this was more or less my thinking while submitting this technique as a potential release one, this wasn’t meant to be an asset during combat but rather would’ve been a character-defining trait.

I assume you’ll want me to remove this technique, which is fair enough, but if I may ask for feedback on this, how much do you think would need to be added as drawbacks before it’d even enter into the realm of possibilities? What would be the point where you’d feel that averting death could start to balance out with the drawbacks, in your opinion?

As much as I would like something like this to pass I will still have to decline it. With the idea of cheating death itself in this forum is sentially a no, being robbing the risk and development of what it does for those involved. Despite changes that would be made to the ability itself is something that would remain all for not, as the overall idea is what keeps it from being passed. The only means I can actually see an ability like this to pass, if it were to, then it would be along the grounds of actually going through with the death and rebirth process of the Soul Cycle. Becoming a new individual yet with the lesser Pros of the Saigo no Houmen, essentially being able to recall memories of a past life. In a lot of ways, Luna would remain to be Luna is most parts, yet some with the obvious differences due to being reborn as another person, and possibly not even as a Shinigami but of another race.

Another means would be implanting herself into that of another weaker individual than herself. Another means of reincarnation yet robbing someone else of their own life. Orochimaru reference yes.

The last thought was essentially separating Luna from the timeline altogether, suspending her in a somewhat Hyperbolic Time Chamber, or suspended animation to allow her body to naturally heal. Will take many years etc etc, but the thought is there for it.




Aside from the Lifeline ability, the changes, thoughts, and concerns that were spoken of have been made, and cleared up do to clarifying to me about the misunderstandings I had pertaining to parts of the release. Look them over, and if any concerns do let me know, and can't wait to see what comes up next.

[Luna Melrose]

Mar 14, 2023 0:11:21 GMT -5 Leon Strife said:

And apologies for quoting large sections as it does help to go back as references when speaking about the subject in question.

No worries at all! I’ll be doing the same thing.

Mar 14, 2023 0:11:21 GMT -5 Leon Strife said:

This helped to bring the idea in as with the release. The only question, or concern, I would have now is regarding the "medium." The question is revolving around your example being that of the baseline Shinigami. You mentioned that the example having 30 techniques in their arsenal, the question is if the medium would be same despite the elemental nature of the technique, or would they be seen as a single category?

For example, shinigami/arrcanar have much of their techniques be made up of reiatsu. Kido spells may have the nature of lightning, fire, etc, yet are all still reiatsu in nature that came from that Shinigami. So, would the medium be that of the caster's reiatsu being the medium, or the specific elemental nature of the technique itself?

I ask this due to perhaps looking at how this release can be seen as overpowered if it was using mediums as broad categories in which the ability itself can record and severe. In this perspective, the medium can be separated into two categories being that of Physical and Spiritual. The release itself can tie the threads pertaining to either or, which can make future instigations between Luna, and that particular thread from the instigator nulled. Just wanted to clear that aspect as many of the battles that would be ongoing will usually be 1 vs 1, with at times during adventures where they will be multiple targets.

Alright, so I’ll clarify mediums slightly; the medium is less so the attack itself, and rather the means with which it was achieved. This means that, regarding your concern, if two techniques could create the exact same fireball, they would still fall under two different mediums despite their similarities; the fact they’re both made of fire, or were created with reiatsu, is irrelevant in this case, the release is not grouping any mediums according to a category like that. A technique is always at least one medium (but may be more depending on what the technique does), a character should always have more than enough of them; the same could be said for physical forms of combat, if someone were to punch you normally, but also has 3 Hakuda techniques in his arsenal involving a punch, all four of these scenarios would count as a different medium.

The release is balanced around 1 v 1s, and around the opponent’s use of the mediums at their disposal; I don’t expect fights to include multiple instigators frequently, but the clauses regarding them will ensure the few battles she may have involving many individuals can also scale appropriately.

Mar 14, 2023 0:11:21 GMT -5 Leon Strife said:

This part was along the thoughts of me having that the release was bringing Luna back into the past, rather than using what had injured her in the first place, and preventing the same means from occurring again. (That being if the next attempt at injury was made by the same object etc). I am still a bit iffy with negating a particular means of injuring someone as there are characters who are essentially locked into doing what they do, but still does give them a chance to think outside the box. That being said, the iffy-ness felt is due to how it works in conjunction with the techniques, due to creating an ever ending loop of negates.

Hopefully the previous clarification will have also helped make you feel a bit more at ease here, as even those who only fight in a specific way (ex: Hakuda specialist) should have plenty of ways to counteract her release, through the myriad of tools and/or techniques at their disposal; let me know if this still feels worrying to you.

Mar 14, 2023 0:11:21 GMT -5 Leon Strife said:

Much of this was due to the my confusion that has now been cleared up some, so will be moving on towards the last part of this segment in regards to reviving the dead.

Looking it over again I would consider it to be a very strong ability that still has that potential to be abused as it removes someone from kicking the bucket entirely. Even the best Doctors and Medics can not overcome someone who is at deaths door. Despite Luna placing herself in a high risk scenario, it can still potentially restore someone, as a mirroring function as Lifeline, which would fall into the same trap as that ability did. What I can see is if it casts someone into a pocket dimension, or severed from the current timeline into a pocket timeline in which it rewinds the persons condition. This function would only be able to be utilized if the person was near death, placing Luna into similar circumstances as well as the individual being used on.

I say this as an alternative means as this does sound like Lifeline, which the conversation for that passing on, no pun intended, is small at best. Other than that with some tweaks I can see this being passed.

The goal of this is to get an opponent who has killed people to commit to fighting Luna when she’s in the surroundings; there shouldn’t be any “guaranteed kills” while Luna’s still around, the Bankai in general is meant to push her opponent to focus her down or drive her away. I’m open to rework this in a way that would still fulfill this vision while getting rid of the ways you foresee it could be abused, but your current suggestion falls short a bit in that regard; I also feel the theme of this release would be getting muddled somewhat if we went through with this, it’d be leaning too far away from the key concept tying together the various parts of this ability (aka. fate).

Given the situation, I’ll try and make a suggestion of my own to foster this side of its ability in a direction you might find a bit more acceptable; what if, instead of allowing her to resurrect a person who is dead according to the conditions I’ve previously listed, the release would rather prevent the fatal outcomes from fully taking effect while it is active if the victim is within a specified range from herself, but would only allow them to be healed if the instigator gets pushed out or flees away from where the event has occurred? This means death itself could not be overturned once it fully sets in anymore (so Luna would be unable to do anything when coming across an individual who has already died before her arrival) and saving someone would only be possible once the killer has left, but doing so would require Luna to stand her ground and win whichever fight they’re in; most importantly, it would no longer be a way to simply revive someone who died, it’d instead simply be a way to delay their inevitable demise long enough for Luna to intervene with normal treatment methods (in other words, it’d only stabilize them until they can be provided treatment). Thoughts?

Mar 14, 2023 0:11:21 GMT -5 Leon Strife said:

1. Mirai Jiken

I can see this technique passing, with the only concern being related to an earlier one. That earlier concern is in regards to the exampled provided with the Baseline Shinigami. Please refer to that, and if any confusion about the concern then do let me know.

Please let me know if the earlier discussion still left you with concerns.

Mar 14, 2023 0:11:21 GMT -5 Leon Strife said:

2. Jidai Kiwari

The question in regards to the reiatsu has been answered and would fit in as to pass the technique. The only issue that arises is having Luna travel back in time. As we came to the agreement that the technique itself is what would harm playability and the story writing, despite the drawbacks and limitations that it has. While I do like the technique itself the overall nature of it would still be unplayable as it would backtrack what has been done. I do see ways that this technique being altered that mirror what this technique can do, but its nature would be done differently. Leaning more to the idea of Overwatch's Tracer special ability in gameplay. Beyond that being one means, as how this technique is I can not see it moving on.

Well, no, I'll clarify that I don’t agree this technique harms playability and story writing in general, I was saying it would do so whenever it’d get used repeatedly multiple times; I was simply explaining what the changes were compared to the previous iteration and the reasoning for why I had added a cooldown to it. On the contrary, when it’s being used sparingly this technique would rather become a novelty for the roleplay and opens entirely new avenues of story writing.

The point of this technique is that things can be roleplayed differently once it rewinds time, and for this new roleplay to take advantage of that fact; just like with the Bankai Overall I can perhaps suggest ways to fix what makes you worried about this, but I’ll need you to first elaborate on which scenarios you feel would prove problematic, you didn’t give me much to work with in that regard. The way it currently is, it would be impossible for this technique to affect established forum events (veto clause), nor could it be abused to gain an advantage through combat (lock system), nor does it break the continuity of roleplay (memory persistence), nor could it stall the experience or prove repetitive (cooldown); it even includes a clause allowing staff and GMs to explicitly veto it and ensure unforeseen problems cannot be exploited, all these precautions are in place precisely to safeguard playability and avoid harming it.

Mar 14, 2023 0:11:21 GMT -5 Leon Strife said:

3. Mira Hensoku

My understanding of this technique may still be a bit hit or missed, but with summoning another Luna or instigater, in this case, into the current situation I can understand. Looking over it several times, from what I see is Luna bringing a mirrored image of either herself or her adversary revolving a particular event, and have them re-enact whatever the event was for the desired outcome. For example, if Luna's opponent slashes her, then Luna can summon that moment of her opponent slashing, and commit the same actions as it did to Luna. Essentially a shadow, or in your description a mirror image. Which means all they will be doing is slashing using the medium that committed the result onto Luna, if I am saying it correctly.

That’s not quite what the technique does, or at least not in the way you’re describing it.

This technique either creates a copy (for people, ex: Luna, her opponent, …) or replaces (for objects, ex: a weapon, a structure, a piece of furniture, …) the target with an equivalent one which follows different rules and is effectively inverted fate-wise; if you attack the thing it’s been replaced with, then the result of your action (whether that’s a wound or otherwise) will apply to you instead. This technique is meant to incentivize being careful with your attacks because they can now prove dangerous to you as well; the downside however is that Luna’s not immune to this, she needs to be careful with her attacks too since they can be reverted back at herself by her opponent through a clever use of them.

Describing this as a “ghost” of the moment isn’t really accurate, it feels like you might be thinking of this in terms of time manipulation a little too strongly again; balance-wise, Mira-Hensoku is simply meant to create an obstacle against attacks that are indiscriminate in the destruction they cause, its effect is only to swap the instigator and victim whenever an event occurs to it.

Mar 14, 2023 0:11:21 GMT -5 Leon Strife said:

4. Lifeline

As much as I would like something like this to pass I will still have to decline it. With the idea of cheating death itself in this forum is sentially a no, being robbing the risk and development of what it does for those involved. Despite changes that would be made to the ability itself is something that would remain all for not, as the overall idea is what keeps it from being passed. The only means I can actually see an ability like this to pass, if it were to, then it would be along the grounds of actually going through with the death and rebirth process of the Soul Cycle. Becoming a new individual yet with the lesser Pros of the Saigo no Houmen, essentially being able to recall memories of a past life. In a lot of ways, Luna would remain to be Luna is most parts, yet some with the obvious differences due to being reborn as another person, and possibly not even as a Shinigami but of another race.

Another means would be implanting herself into that of another weaker individual than herself. Another means of reincarnation yet robbing someone else of their own life. Orochimaru reference yes.

The last thought was essentially separating Luna from the timeline altogether, suspending her in a somewhat Hyperbolic Time Chamber, or suspended animation to allow her body to naturally heal. Will take many years etc etc, but the thought is there for it.

Yep, perfectly fair; you’ve given me a lot of feedback I can think about if I want to try iterating further on the idea in the future, so thank you. Feel free to consider Lifeline as being denied; do you mind if I keep the technique in the CiU but label it as “removed” to ask for feedback from the second grader as well, to get their thoughts regarding the same questions?

I won’t replace the technique with any new one in the meantime; I’ll have to think what I’ll choose to do with this fourth slot before committing to an idea.

Mar 14, 2023 0:11:21 GMT -5 Leon Strife said:

Aside from the Lifeline ability, the changes, thoughts, and concerns that were spoken of have been made, and cleared up do to clarifying to me about the misunderstandings I had pertaining to parts of the release. Look them over, and if any concerns do let me know, and can't wait to see what comes up next.

Now awaiting further feedback.

[Leon Strife]

Alright. New round.

Alright, so I’ll clarify mediums slightly; the medium is less so the attack itself, and rather the means with which it was achieved. This means that, regarding your concern, if two techniques could create the exact same fireball, they would still fall under two different mediums despite their similarities; the fact they’re both made of fire, or were created with reiatsu, is irrelevant in this case, the release is not grouping any mediums according to a category like that. A technique is always at least one medium (but may be more depending on what the technique does), a character should always have more than enough of them; the same could be said for physical forms of combat, if someone were to punch you normally, but also has 3 Hakuda techniques in his arsenal involving a punch, all four of these scenarios would count as a different medium.

The release is balanced around 1 v 1s, and around the opponent’s use of the mediums at their disposal; I don’t expect fights to include multiple instigators frequently, but the clauses regarding them will ensure the few battles she may have involving many individuals can also scale appropriately.

Alright cool. Merely wanting to insure it is removing any minor speculations as to how it can be abused and not. So we are good on this.

Well, no, I'll clarify that I don’t agree this technique harms playability and story writing in general, I was saying it would do so whenever it’d get used repeatedly multiple times; I was simply explaining what the changes were compared to the previous iteration and the reasoning for why I had added a cooldown to it. On the contrary, when it’s being used sparingly this technique would rather become a novelty for the roleplay and opens entirely new avenues of story writing.

The point of this technique is that things can be roleplayed differently once it rewinds time, and for this new roleplay to take advantage of that fact; just like with the Bankai Overall I can perhaps suggest ways to fix what makes you worried about this, but I’ll need you to first elaborate on which scenarios you feel would prove problematic, you didn’t give me much to work with in that regard. The way it currently is, it would be impossible for this technique to affect established forum events (veto clause), nor could it be abused to gain an advantage through combat (lock system), nor does it break the continuity of roleplay (memory persistence), nor could it stall the experience or prove repetitive (cooldown); it even includes a clause allowing staff and GMs to explicitly veto it and ensure unforeseen problems cannot be exploited, all these precautions are in place precisely to safeguard playability and avoid harming it.

I still feel a bit concerned about this technique, but will pass it.

That’s not quite what the technique does, or at least not in the way you’re describing it.

This technique either creates a copy (for people, ex: Luna, her opponent, …) or replaces (for objects, ex: a weapon, a structure, a piece of furniture, …) the target with an equivalent one which follows different rules and is effectively inverted fate-wise; if you attack the thing it’s been replaced with, then the result of your action (whether that’s a wound or otherwise) will apply to you instead. This technique is meant to incentivize being careful with your attacks because they can now prove dangerous to you as well; the downside however is that Luna’s not immune to this, she needs to be careful with her attacks too since they can be reverted back at herself by her opponent through a clever use of them.

Describing this as a “ghost” of the moment isn’t really accurate, it feels like you might be thinking of this in terms of time manipulation a little too strongly again; balance-wise, Mira-Hensoku is simply meant to create an obstacle against attacks that are indiscriminate in the destruction they cause, its effect is only to swap the instigator and victim whenever an event occurs to it.

With the clarifications here, I can see this passing now.


Lifeline


I would say to set this technique as a separate thread altogether, as the next grader would not to have to run through it as part of Luna that is not going to be added to her list of playable techniques or abilities. Would be a good side project nonetheless.


With that said I can see this as a 1/2 officially.

[Luna Melrose]

Removed Jinsei'Sen (Lifeline) as requested. I have attempted to get in touch with BloodAsp over Discord to get further clarifications regarding the Bankai Overall (which wasn't mentioned in this last post) but, given it's been a week since then and the 1/2 was already given, I'm inclined to keep this moving forward while awaiting the reply and readjust afterward if necessary.

[Col Arana]

So before I get into things, I will note that as a general review of this ability, certain things will need to be adjusted. This is effectively an event rejection ability, and such abilities fall under extremely harsh scrutiny, as they have the potential to be gamebreakingly powerful. In a general sense, I would say that to get an ability of this nature passed, it either needs to have extremely strict and limiting restrictions, or equally massive drawbacks.

I will also note that I feel a lot of this ability is.... heavily overcomplicated, and written very confusingly. You've established a lot of general details about your abilities, especially with respect to how Mukiryoku interacts with the threads of fate, but the massive amount of terminology, and relatively limited mentions of limitations leaves me very hesitant to put a seal of approval on this when I feel like the current writeup does not adequately give me an idea of exactly what Luna can do with this ability.

In general I think that in its present state, Mukiryoku is a bit too versatile in what it can accomplish, the ease at which it can accomplish these event rejections, and does not, in its present state have drawbacks that fully encapsulate just how devastatingly powerful it is as an ability, particularly with the extremely limited framework provided for what constitutes an event. But we'll come back to that. For more specific points....

----

However, there is one notable exception; when an action gets in contact with the threads of fate, if its medium and instigator both match those of the event from which this thread originated, then a distinct phenomenon known as severing fate occurs. Once fate has been severed, the associated event is effectively erased from the timeline, reverting its outcome for the concerned victim alongside each of those under its dominion; they are instantly freed of the woes this event might’ve been causing them, as if it had never happened to begin with.

Can you provide an example of how this might work? Your comment about medium and instigator seem like a limitation, but I'm not 100% sure
how this would apply.

The way I'm reading this, if say... a fight between my character Kaen Youji and Luna happened, and Kaen wounded Luna with his Zanpakuto,
Kaen's Zanpakuto is the medium in this case, Kaen is the instigator? So under normal circumstances, Kaen (as the instigator) would
have to be the one to sever the thread of fate using his Zanpakuto (the medium)?

Is that accurate, or am I completely misunderstanding how this works?

"a thread can be absorbed by the blade while in this state and steadily synchronize over a duration of three posts, after which the medium associated with this thread’s event has been copied over. Since neither of these characteristics are accessible once Mukiryoku imprints on a medium, Luna must compromise between hoarding or acquiring them, forcing her to choose what’s most beneficial at the moment; moreover, an opponent can counterplay by trying to forcefully synchronize the blade with a medium, thereby instantly nullifying such combined efforts.

If I'm reading this correctly, would this in turn destroy the thread, rendering that particular event impossible to revert?

hese threads are an embodiment of this schism and can therefore have their fate severed by any action performed using Mukiryoku, ignoring both the initial medium and instigator associated with the emergence of their outcome; as such, ivory threads can easily be employed to turn the direction of an ongoing conflict in Luna’s favor, compelling her opponent to safeguard the victim of any event favorable to them from her influence. Fundamentally, the governing principles dictating who should take the initiative are swapped in this scenario, encouraging her foes to actively struggle against the status quo; they must fight to not only accomplish their objectives, but also maintain their progress from being unexpectedly reverted.

This section, I'm strongly against, unfortunately. This gives Luna a bit too much control over events, and while I understand the premise of this power, event rejection is the sort of power that requires extremely strict limitations and drawbacks. Given Luna also has
control of the threads of fate, this seems way too easy for her to freely manipulate the ones related to her opponent and sever them, since her ability also allows her to ignore the normally strict limitations of her ability.

this Bankai is another matter altogether; under its influence, these strands can recover the spirit of deceased individuals from the soul cycle within a day of their demise

While resurrection abilities aren't completely invalid (see Kitai Yoru), I will say, that this technique provides a greater concern-- the implication that Luna can access the threads of fate of something for up to at least 24 hours. That seems a tremendous timeframe to have access to, especially if she hadn't even released her ability at that point. Note that I'm fine with threads of fate existing this long cinematically (could make for some really cool scenes to be honest), but mechanically I think that threads need to have their window of "interaction" fade extremely quickly, to prevent Luna hoarding abilities from the beginning of the battle, and undoing key actions at the battle's outset.

Jidai Kawari (時代変わり - Return of an Era)

I'm sorry to say, but despite the work you put into this technique.... I have no idea what this technique does. You've explained how she activates it, but do not state what "inserting herself at this point in the timeline" actually means. You talk about how there can't be multiple instances of Luna, but why would there be? It says nothing about drawing Luna's from other timelines? What do you mean by "These threads act as a temporal lock?"

Unfortunately, I'm going to ask that you use layman's terms for this technique, specifically focusing on its mechanical effects. Seeing how you used the word "time travel" in this technique, that especially means that if I do not have a crystal clear idea of exactly what this technique does, or potential means by which it can be used, I cannot pass it, given time travel is probably one of the biggest abilities on the restricted list of powers, and would need incredibly steep limitations or drawbacks to even consider.



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Overall, as I may have hinted at in my opening review, I think that this ability, although having some things that seem interesting (I like the concept of the threads of fate, and your Zanpakuto's ability to copy mediums-- this is pretty cool), in its present state could do with some simplification, and some very steep limitations in the types of events Luna can undo, as well as introducing timeframes at the very least.

I can't say there won't be other changes I will propose, because unfortunately, as it stands before I can adequately provide input on any other changes, I will honestly need to know the actual scope of your abilities.

[Col Arana]

As it's been a little bit since my grading I'm going to be removing this from the grading queue for the moment, please let us know when you come back to this!