Haruhi's story - ask me anything!

[Kakita Haruhi]

Hello! Thank you for letting me join the Banner universe, and thank you to everyone who RP'd with me! Thank you to the amazing storytellers.

I had in mind who Haruhi was when the story began - shy, old-fashioned, perfectionist always practicing her arts, very much a nerd, fond of birds, there with her personal goals related to her avi-drone catalog.

And it was fun to see how the characters that she interacted with encouraged her to be more out-going and bold, more enjoying the moment and recreation and vibe of Nakahama.

I hope I'll get to play her again.

Happy to answer questions and otherwise chat about the game!

[Miya Kisha]

I enjoyed playing alongside you and wish we could've gotten more!

So, what's next for Haruhi?

[Kakita Haruhi]

I enjoyed playing alongside you and wish we could've gotten more!

So, what's next for Haruhi?

I very much enjoyed our scenes.

Haruhi is going to remain on Nakahama for likely a year or two, doing her commission for Yasuki Reina-sama. So, cataloging all the native birds and making avi-drone schematics for each one.

She will be glad to spend time with the folks who will remain. I see more drone dueling and the rebel vampire LARP carrying on. Perhaps a joint project with Yasuki Taraka on parasol drones.

And she will eagerly explore a new romance - just beginning end of day 12 - with Kitsune Kiyoshi. In my head, they are very happy. Perhaps a story that can carry forward into a future game (if that player would like!)

[Hatoful GM]

It's always great to see new people in Banner, and I think you fit in quite well!

How did Haruhi come to be? Ideas, inspirations, and such?

[Kakita Haruhi]

It's always great to see new people in Banner, and I think you fit in quite well!

How did Haruhi come to be? Ideas, inspirations, and such?

Oh good question! I think there were a couple threads. I hit on the idea of a Crane artisan pretty quickly. And I was trying to get into the head space of far future L5R, so I actually started mentally with the idea of a planet-based art form, something discovered, like a planet of sentient silk worms that produced neon thread, half Dune, half cyberpunk. As I was toying around with art for that, I hit upon the idea of mechanical animal toys (which is just so much easier to depict and much much cuter). And that evolved into animal drones.

And whenever I play a Crane, I tend to think 'what if you got ridiculously narrowly obsessed and perfectionist about it and only used it aesthetically' and that turned into avi-drones. Replica bird drones for replica bird song.

And that bridged her into half maker / half performer, and she really started to take shape.

And then I read all the setting lore and mechanics and tried to bring all of that in.

A huge part of her personality clicked when I saw that the Kakita Academy let its artisans pick computer use or courtier. I could instantly see these two cliques. The kids who picked computer use were shy nerds. The kids who picked courtier were the bold extroverts, sometimes mean girls.

And I saw that the Daimyo, the Blue Skylark, also had the voice advantage, and was relentlessly harsh about train train train to perfection and also jealous of any younger performers, so that led me into this idea of her niece who feels unbelievable pressure to always be on task and perfecting herself, but also has been taught to hide herself in these quirky songs with a trio of birds, rather than ever singing a solo.

And like, what if your life had been relentlessly 'on task' and then you got sent to 'do recreational stuff' to make a good impression planet? How fun it would be, but also scary and life-changing.

And I thought about the avi-drones as a product - who would buy them, who would commission them, and I imagined they were popular in pairs at weddings - particularly cross-clan weddings (a bird from each homeworld, each clan's worlds) and the song blended together into a love song. And I found a recent Crab-Crane wedding in the lore and tied her into that. Her first big gift. And then I could imagine a Crab guest liking the concept and becoming her patron, and that gave her a reason to be on the island and exploring, and I liked that she had her own purpose beyond the 12-day event.

[Tamori Kanna]

I am so sorry I dropped the ball on our scene, at that point I had a hard time staying focused and in-character.

I enjoyed reading about Haruhi, and wow that work in the character paid off a lot and showed how much investment you made for the game in reading up on all that. I liked her work on the Promised Birb Land-plot, and her making drones to help guide the jimen tori there.

Did this game inspire more character ideas for you in Space Rokugan now that we're at the end?

[Kitsuki Ichitaiyo]

I'm so very glad to have RPd with you! It was a mighty interesting dynamic to be friends in chatting, and yet, having this kind of very independent life of each other. It helped a ton to also give Nakahama a sensation that there was so much going on in places so far away that really sold the bustling activity of the setting!

And I have a debt of Ichitaiyo actually getting to interact with Haruhi's art, rather than just being told about it!

As always, I'm always up for Post RP scenes!

[Yasuki Taraka]

I am curious, it's a great character, it is very VERY Crane, without falling into the trap of "High Honor means joyless a-hole" so good job on that. I am curious if your character has Fascination: Birds. You seemed to become very hyper-focused when the topic was brought up in any form

[Kakita Haruhi]

When I made Haruhi mechanically, I didn't give her any mechanical disadvantages. I get nervous about forgetting the dice impact - though I thought this game did a beautiful job of calling out disads relevant as part of event descriptions.

I just had her in my head, and she had traits like fear of failure, perfectionist, people pleaser, shy, relationship inexperienced, obsessed with birds, somewhat out of touch with popular culture / modern ways because she's been on Golden Mirror, etc.

And I liked that ... because it was flavor only, she could grow out of some things, based on how people interacted with her.

[Kakita Haruhi]

I am so sorry I dropped the ball on our scene, at that point I had a hard time staying focused and in-character.

I enjoyed reading about Haruhi, and wow that work in the character paid off a lot and showed how much investment you made for the game in reading up on all that. I liked her work on the Promised Birb Land-plot, and her making drones to help guide the jimen tori there.

Did this game inspire more character ideas for you in Space Rokugan now that we're at the end?

I love making characters. I'm sure next time, I'll look at the premise, and be inspired in part by that. I might make a character a little more intentionally political so I have more reason to wade in with the NPCs.

[Kakita Haruhi]

I'm so very glad to have RPd with you! It was a mighty interesting dynamic to be friends in chatting, and yet, having this kind of very independent life of each other. It helped a ton to also give Nakahama a sensation that there was so much going on in places so far away that really sold the bustling activity of the setting!

And I have a debt of Ichitaiyo actually getting to interact with Haruhi's art, rather than just being told about it!

As always, I'm always up for Post RP scenes!

I felt the same way that we gave each other insight into other stuff going on, and it made the world more immersive. And the whole sequence of getting ready for the party and going to the party was one of my favorite scenes!

I'm open to post RP. Not sure how that will work, but open to it!

[Susumu Sumiko]

Haruhi was a delight, I really enjoyed watching her blossom as the game went on! Thank you for our threads! The invite to visit Longshore sanctuary (when it's finished) very much is there if Haruhi wants to see maybe less cute but still important creatures!

[Kitsune Kiyoshi]

Thank you, for everything. Running around with Haruhi to help the jimen tori was a lot of fun. And, Kiyoshi fell for her quickly.

[Kakita Haruhi]

Thank you, for everything. Running around with Haruhi to help the jimen tori was a lot of fun. And, Kiyoshi fell for her quickly.

Awww. Their romance came together so beautifully on the last day! It gives me hope for her life beyond the 12 days of game!

[Suzume Hitomi]

I enjoyed the bit of interaction we had, mostly around the silly Edge of Darkness game personas and getting a tabletop group together. It's somehow appropriate that the D12 scene kind of died due to scheduling conflicts--bane of all tabletop groups everywhere!

Hopefully the gang will work out scheduling in the future and they can get to know one another better.

Given that connection, what was the inspiration for her LARP character?

[Kakita Haruhi]

I enjoyed the bit of interaction we had, mostly around the silly Edge of Darkness game personas and getting a tabletop group together. It's somehow appropriate that the D12 scene kind of died due to scheduling conflicts--bane of all tabletop groups everywhere!

Hopefully the gang will work out scheduling in the future and they can get to know one another better.

Given that connection, what was the inspiration for her LARP character?

I started by looking for a picture. What picture / costume would feel like Haruhi in a costume. It's hard to find pictures that aren't AI, or even to tell, but I know that's important to this group.

So I went down the rabbit hole of illustrations of vampire stories about female vampires. I knew that would honor a real artist!

And I found this amazing picture from Snow Glass Apples by Neil Gaiman. It has a very strong Haruhi vibe to me, the white hair, the blue dress. It's vampire snow white. I liked the idea of her pushing herself to play a villain. (And not being very good at it.)

I ultimately used a different pic of the same story/character that I thought was an easier costume for Haruhi to have made herself. But the vibe was there.