A Crow Story; Sonido Mastery Request // Through the Spaces Between

by **La Fuerza of the Flock** Wed Jul 15, 2020 2:31 pm

The Threads =========================

Baseline: Backstreets Back // With the Flock under the control of the consciousness and a tantalizing taste pulling them deeper into the city, they decide to take a detour in an attempt to feast on an unfortunate quincy in their path. This proves more difficult for the amalgamation of birds as they’re only just learning of their newfound abilities and the extent of their power. Even as they’re about to kill their prey, another quincy shows up to stop the Flock from getting anything more than a light snack from both mortal souls.

Growth: A Helping Hand [Closed] // Still on the path to the sparkling taste, the Flock’s taken aback when they become the target of a righteous shinigami. The fight forces the Flock to draw from birds across the city to regroup and overwhelm the shinigami, but a strange human forces their way between the two combatants. The wisdom of the consciousness continues to flourish, though, and the Flock flees after springing a trap set by the two singular souls.

Mastery: The Murder Trial [Private] // The Flock arrives to the park that the sparkling taste originated to find a familiar face waiting for them. The consciousness is barely able to hold themselves together as the shinigami wears the last pieces of the Flock down. In a desperate attempt to stay cogent, the consciousness draws from the complexity within their hunger. This unleashes the building energy in an explosive display of rapid evolution and the hollow begins to transform into a gillian.

The Story =========================

Hollow are creatures of instinct. The majority of them ebb and flow through the mixture of spiritual energies without a single rational thought. Thoughts and doubts are the death of life. They stagnate and stall the process, but they can be useful in measuring the effectiveness of the instinctual. It is this reflective process that leads the Flock to attaining mastery over their instinctual method of rapid movement.

The Flock begins as any hollow does with a basic instinctual understanding of themselves and their abilities. Nothing that has been trained or taught, but they’re able to effectively utilize their sonido without much effort during their first fight. Effort only enters the picture when they have a direct need for the skill. Before, they would dodge and jump out of the way without reflecting on the how or why, but when there’s a barrier that must be traversed, they put their prowess to the test. Still untrained, though, the technique they attempt is only half-successful and they never get a whole crow through a stationary metal door.

They aren’t given much more time to reflect on their instinctual skill, though. In their next fight, instead of a stationary metal door, they’re confronted with a caustic mystic spell from a shinigami. The expanding wall of energy is too great for them to go around and they refuse to retreat again. So the Flock uses their instinct and deliberate finesse to push themselves through the approaching wall of death. Not all of the birds make it through, but their masterful use of sonido allows them to get close to the shinigami and overwhelm them.

It should be noted that the Flock’s current sonido level is Basic. With mechanics still in flux, I opted to wait to finesse and nuance the stats and skills of the character until they were finalized and locked. But if not having the skill at Journeyman would take away from this request, I have the experience to update it accordingly.

[P.S. public]

by **Meridith** Wed Jul 15, 2020 8:12 pm

So! Our second mastery request. The Flock of crows is a shared intelligence that makes advancement, even that of an instinct pretty interesting conceptually, let's take a look. As I had on the prior request, I will be grading it on three areas, baseline, work and triumph as pass/fail which for a first mastery and most importantly, a second sitewide request, be treating with a light hand. Let's dig in.

Baseline - Pass - Solid intro here in Backstreets Back. The use of Sonido is initially messy and forceful just like the rest of the Hollow skills. There is nothing beautiful here, the Flock reacts with instinct and causes a sudden pulsing explosion of force with static movement. It's great, it's clumsy, it's perfect Baseline.

Work - Pass - Development continues even in Backstreets back. I think it's important to go from the basic up to journeyman, as best as possible, and in this case, it's a little rushed due to the length at which the Crow develops but being mindful of where your EXP had been spent I don't think it's too much. Especially not for a first request. The Crow Senbonzakura is fun in A Helping Hand and does a lot to highlight not only the ability of Sonido but the aspect of the tactical movement that comes up as a part 2 of this request. If only your thread partner had sold it a little better.

<_<

>_>

Triumph - Pass - As I said when I reviewed the wrong request, this reads more like an evolution mastery than Sonido. I think you lean on instinct appropriately but you're telling a story of the inherent struggle to your character and that struggle isn't really much related Sonido. But, this is a first request, not a second or third. I don't expect a deep amount of storytelling for the skill inherent to the character at this stage, I expect a story of growth-related at least to the skill in question and I have that here. Revisiting the fight with Shimazu might have been worth including in the request more explicitly with a little aside link, I might not have otherwise known the great bit of callback, especially given how much growth the Flock shows as a result. At any rate, as a singular moment, the sudden evasion and awareness is written well, and it's wrapped up in a well-established conflict with someone to whom there is some stakes.

Congratulations! You have been approved for mastery in Sonido!

A Crow Story; Sonido Mastery Request // Through the Spaces Between