Arc 1: Coming of Age - XP Request

Arc 1: Coming of Age - XP Request

Threads:

Something From The Otherside

Strangers In a Coffee Shop

The Solitary Light

Your Story:

In ’Something From The Otherside’, Aine is newly arrived in Karakura Town having accompanied her O’Donovan cousins to Japan from Ireland. The seriousness of the assignment has escaped the young woman as she has dedicated a lot of effort to maintaining her cover story as a photojournalist fallen on hard times rather than patrolling the city in pairs to maintain safety. Her response to Michael’s distress call, and her approach to the scene of the Hollow incident, is less than efficient and basically slipshod in nature. It is a wonder she was not killed during the incident. While she relies upon her training, that of keeping the existence of Quincy from the Shinigami at all costs, her inability to sacrifice a few human lives to maintain this outdated strategy fails to register as to its most basic flaw. As it happened, only luck prevented her use of Reishi from calling the Shinigami down on her location.

In this thread her secrecy is maintained; the only ‘interaction’ she has with the other’s in the area is with Michael and Vance, the latter who only spies on her and thinks she has a Leiden Hant when I clearly wrote that she had not progressed to that level. The whole mention of a glove in her internal monologue just exemplifies how scattered her thoughts are while approaching a combat situation for which she is wholly unprepared.

The seriousness of the situation begins to sink in as she realizes the numbers of Hollow and Shinigami present as well as detecting some strange Quincy resonance that she later learns is Hollow Bait. Joining up with her cousin Michael, he identifies the potent Quincy aura for what it is and advises a retreat for the sake of safety. She obeys and disengages from the scene in order to maintain their racial secrecy despite her journalistic curiosity over who is responsible for baiting hollows in the center of the city.

In ’Strangers In A Coffee Shop’, not much has changed in Aine’s role as part of the O’Donovan forces deployed to Karakura Town. Although she is attempting to discover more about the Hollow Bait incident, this day sees her in no rush to pursue such investigations and she behaves largely like a woman on vacation. She gives way to indulging in a little home sickness by some friendly banter with a fellow Irishman, but doesn’t really question the serendipity involved until she catches sight of his Quincy Cross.

To her credit she is a bit more wary about using her power in public since we last saw her in action, so she doesn’t perform a sensing on the man and instead relies on her instincts to suss out if he is one of her race. The two continue their dialogue walking about the city to Diarmaid’s hotel so he may check on his room and put his guitar away. During a mix up at the front desk, Aine receives a distress call from Michael in which he is being attacked by a Shinigami. He speaks of war, orders her to get back to Ireland, and warn the clans that the Death Gods are coming.

Diarmaid ceases his teasing and reveals his identity as Quincy and accompanies her to the scene of Michael’s kidnapping. A note is there waiting for Aine leaving no doubt that her cousin has been taken alive. Clearly by the presence of his spiritual essence within the blast radius of his detonated ginto tubes, Diarmaid deduces that Michael tried to kill himself in order to keep the Shinigami from getting their hands on a Quincy to put to the question.  While the deadly seriousness of the situation has finally been driven home for Aine, she is still unable to face the situation on her own and opts to spend the night at the Motel with Diarmaid rather than in her empty house alone.

Finally in ’The Solitary Light’, Aine continues to follow orders and be a good little soldier by attending the meeting of the Quincy for the sole purpose of promoting a non-confrontational approach to the Shinigami. This is done at the behest of her Clann Leader, Rónán O’Donovan, her cousin Michael’s father. Despite the kidnapping of his son, he advocates caution in order to protect the greatest number of Quincy possible.

As the meeting progresses Aine is forced to choose between obedience and what is best for her cousin Michael’s safety. She bites off much more than she can chew by blurting out that any rescue attempts will be led by the Irish. It is the first time she shows initiative in making her own  decisions rather than simply relying on the direction of her superiors. Although she is assured of support on all sides as well as a viable way to enter Soul Society where Michael is now captive, she feels her own inadequacy to the task and knows that she will have to proceed with cooperation of others and strategy rather than impulsivity.

Give me the works! Public is Fine by Me. I enjoy learning how to make things better.

You have stumbled at last into my domain! Wahaha! Let's dig into this and get you on your way.

We begin at five stars and add or remove based on notable additions or glaring omissions.
+1 - Writing - Your first post in Something is a wonderful introduction to the mundanity of Aine a thing which feels central to the conflict of her character. The dialogue with Diarmaid is playful and excellent and transitions right at the point where the thread might drag into a too prolonged back and forth. The fact this is a concise arc really helped this writing shine, there wasn't a bad or lazy post in the bunch.
+1 - Story - A solid story arc, from intro to driving action, this is concise and impactful and deeply Bleachy while remaining relatable.
+0 - Growth - If there was more for establishing Aine before the madness it would be much cleaner to demonstrate the growth, but I think you have a solid baseline here to build off of as she steps further into this conflict.
+1 - Impact - You throw yourself into big threads, and you line your personal conflict along the lines of the site and use it to pull others along for the ride. Solid stuff.

Congrats! This is a solid 8 STAR request! Go ahead and link this post to your profile and redeem for

3 Threads x 8 Star Rating = 600 EXP!