The Day of Thunder

[Ryoshun Yukara]

Any questions for the catty monk - what her deal was, how she hit things with a stick, etc.

[Jiyo Sora]

I LOVED Sora's threads with Yukara, so... not a question, but there's that!


BEWARE THE DREADED FORM QUESTIONS!

1. Biggest curveball Yukara threw you?
2. Biggest curveball the game threw you?- Probably the leg getting fixed, let's be honest.
3. Favorite moment?
4. Biggest missed opportunity?
5. Any secrets Yukara has that never came up?

Less-formy-

What's next for our 1/4 bakeneko badass?

[Nozomi]

Ooooh, so I was curious about one thing specifically. Who was the voice whispering in Yukara's head in the Thunder selection scene. Did she have a haunting or something?

[Ryoshun Yukara]

Ooooh, so I was curious about one thing specifically. Who was the voice whispering in Yukara's head in the Thunder selection scene. Did she have a haunting or something?

A remnant of her dream, prompted by the presence of Tengoku. A possible future, basically.

I LOVED Sora's threads with Yukara, so... not a question, but there's that!


BEWARE THE DREADED FORM QUESTIONS!

1. Biggest curveball Yukara threw you?
2. Biggest curveball the game threw you?- Probably the leg getting fixed, let's be honest.
3. Favorite moment?
4. Biggest missed opportunity?
5. Any secrets Yukara has that never came up?

Less-formy-

What's next for our 1/4 bakeneko badass?

1. In some sense her entire voice was a surprise. I wrote her to be very cold and jaded from her background, but people thawed her out quickly and revealed a very lonely and curious woman that I enjoyed a lot.

2. The arm, I presume, but that was unexpected both going and coming. I just was writing the injuries descriptively and the GMs were like 'sounds like that's a missing arm' and I agreed that it would be cool and dramatic. I actually *didn't* want it to be fixed, I joined the event to give the GMs room to do something weird if they wanted. Her self-image in that healing thread was not accurate to her prior self - and it was the catalyst for her spirit blood to make itself known. I wrote an entire scene in my PF for her talking to the fragment of Sakkaku that entered this pocket dimension, carried inside her.

3. I think her getting to 1v1 her backstory demon, purely out of desperation, was pretty neat. I also think her awkward 'date' and injury scenes were all interesting and a lot of fun to walk through. I also really enjoyed some of her totally clueless moments thanks to her narrow life experience.

4. Not being in combat/active D7, she was built to be a combat monster and didn't get to help in the hardest finale showdowns. That said, she got to do what she started to do and have a really fun arc, so not really that upset at all about that. I think the biggest missed opportunites were IRL no oni stopping me following up on a few threads with Kumori/Naraku.

Also I really wanted her to meet Ranmaru and do tons of unintended innuendo with him.

5. Nothing totally secret - I do think nobody noticed that in character, she never used contractions (I'm pretty sure I pulled it off) and she had an antiquated vocabulary to represent her unusual education. Also, I assume people figured out that she was inspired by Captain Ahab, though I didn't anticipate her White Whale showing up so early - it worked out well though.

The bakeneko thing was initially intended to be small, but when I saw a chance to make it further upend her understanding of the universe, I took it.

Nobody ever really delved into her backstory, which was fine. It just would've explained how cold and isolated she was at game start, as she had a very violent and traumatic past, and then had spent years basically butchering tiny hamlets that had been lost to Yume-Jigoku madness. She was a fairly grimdark concept - not a gardener, but a reaper clearing the field of weeds so the crops can grow.

[Ryoshun Yukara]

And the non-form question:

What's next? Up to Birb, but preliminary plan is make catgirls and catboys playable because this is a Rokugan of Culture.

And more seriously, to found an order of monks who are basically spirit cops who try to help spirits live alongside humans without either side being harmed - so monster hunters but also monster negotiators. If the local mountain spirit can be negotiated with, wonderful.

If not, well... there's always the claws.

[Bayushi Norikage]

First, thanks for everything!

I know I wasn't the only one making her day, but I was glad for our scenes.

Interesting plans for the future, i like the idea.

Did she learn from her romance? In this same game did she find another avenue? Or is it something she'll take time with?

[Ryoshun Yukara]

First, thanks for everything!

I know I wasn't the only one making her day, but I was glad for our scenes.

Interesting plans for the future, i like the idea.

Did she learn from her romance? In this same game did she find another avenue? Or is it something she'll take time with?

She learned not to trust men ever again.

Naw, just kidding. It was something of a puppy love in that she was suddenly dealing with a rapidly expanding world and life experience, and she's a little naive and lonely, so his interest sort of prompted immediate reciprocity. It still actually opened her eyes to her existence as a woman being something that isn't bad, her prior experience with it being a bandit who tried to take her by force and she accidentally drowned him (but did not feel bad about doing so).

So in that regard, this puppy love and youthful heartbreak from a crush rejecting her was a great growth opportunity for her, so she is thankful to Norikage for it. She didn't find another avenue in game - but down the road she may go meet a nice lad, maybe a spirit, maybe a human, and further complicate her childrens' futures.

[Ryoshun Nao]

And the non-form question:

What's next? Up to Birb, but preliminary plan is make catgirls and catboys playable because this is a Rokugan of Culture.

And more seriously, to found an order of monks who are basically spirit cops who try to help spirits live alongside humans without either side being harmed - so monster hunters but also monster negotiators. If the local mountain spirit can be negotiated with, wonderful.

If not, well... there's always the claws.

I want all of this.

I really enjoyed Yukara and meeting her helped Nao accept some responsibility to her clan.

[Nanzi Ai]

Off screen as it's end game and my juice runs low, but Ai will be leaving her shamisen with Yukara after showing her more strings.

It is now your burden to bear.

[Saru Shang]

Just out of curiosity, why did you choose to bring a cat girl into Dawn? Were there any RP challenges you found when it came to writing or playing the character? Were there aspects of hengeyokai from folklore or fiction that you incorporated into the character or background? What were your influences?

[Ryoshun Yukara]

Just out of curiosity, why did you choose to bring a cat girl into Dawn? Were there any RP challenges you found when it came to writing or playing the character? Were there aspects of hengeyokai from folklore or fiction that you incorporated into the character or background? What were your influences?

Originally it wasn't really a defining part of her character - that said, it did grow in impact over time with the 'spirit healing' and my interest in that having unexpected side effects.

She became more of a cat girl over time after her first arc was complete. I am definitely inspired by modern Japanese takes on youkai folklore where they are more complicated creatures than simply monsters, but rather just unusual individuals with not entirely human motivations and values.

The influences began with the mountain warrior monk archetype and then expanded as I found art that I found interesting, and the idea of a somewhat monstrous monster hunter seemed very fun, and then I started writing the backstory and found out she was basically captain Ahab chasing her own white whale. It resolved quickly in this game, so maybe it didn't come across as much as it otherwise would, but she was absolutely fixated on finding and killing Shimizu at any cost. It dominated the last 5 years of her life.

After that, the cat element seemed to fit her somewhat clueless and awkward personality, but it was not originally envisioned as her main trait - it was something that popped up later as she got a heavy dose of dream magic and changed her perspective about herself which began the game very negatively - her arc was heavily bound in reconsidering her own self-image and how she related to her own identity - starting with not even viewing herself as a full person, but eventually coming to embrace all the varied elements of her past.