I will become God-Harem King of the World! [Highschool DxD/Exalted] (CLOSED)

[BobTheNinja]

Even controlled limit breaks can screw things up really, really badly. Just not quite as badly as when controlled.

We can't see to it. We have no IC idea that there is anything wrong, and the Great Curse is, contrary to what everyone thinks, very subtle. It is not some external force that is imposed on you. It is your own traits, taken to extremes. When we are limit breaking, people are not going to go "holy shit, Issei is being controlled to act abnormal" they are going to go "wow, issei is being even more of a hormonal pervert than normal." It isn't some alien disconnected behavior that you would never do on your own. Just you. Taken up to 11. Even figuring out that there is something wrong is going to be hard as fuck. Because we have self examination charms that are pretty much perfect, and they can't detect the Curse. They can detect just about anything else that exists. Jumping into "ok, it's a curse I cannot detect that makes me do this" is metagaming of the most absurd degree possible.

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What about Bright? Doesn't she know anything about the Curse? Unless it's not common knowledge among Solars?

 

[Robotninja]

Nobody knows about it. Nobody.

 

[BobTheNinja]

Nobody knows about it. Nobody.

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They don't even have a recorded history of Celestial/Dragon-Blooded exalts occassionally going off-kilter? Someone should have at least been able to identify a consistent pattern of abberant behavior, even if they couldn't identify the source.

 

[Smuthunter]

:

How does 'nowhere near as hard as you're making it out to be' translate to easy, when other people are talking about it taking centuries?

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I was talking about it taking centuries because of the elder essence requirements of 4 and 5 dot artifacts. If the pieces don't qualify as artifacts then that limitation goes away. You were addressing Pipeman, and he was saying we couldn't start on it before essence 5, which is some years of work away from us but probably less than a decade. "Less than a year with help" is far too optimistic unless "with help" means getting Beelzebub himself to do all the work for us.

You mean the guy who we're likely to meet soon, if things go in this direction?

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The events of volume 8 do not constitute "soon." And that's only if we go out of our way to get involved in the Rating Games, mind you. Remember, the only reason canon Issei came into contact with Beelzebub was because he was Rias's pawn, was participating in the Rating Games, and then had his pawns warped by the power of Juggernaut Drive. We have no pawns and Beelzebub has no reason to want to speak with us.

Someone who'd likely be thrilled at a magician affiliated to Devils trying to develop his work further, once he realizes we actually have an advantage in these matters?

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Ajuka Beelzebub is one of the oldest living devils and the most brilliant scientist in the underworld so far as we know. We are only just learning how to throw fireballs and somehow still have Occult 0 on our character sheet. We don't have an "advantage," we have a handful of cheat codes that let us pretend to be half as smart as he is. Get us up to 5 dots in all the skills we need, then we'll talk about how awesome we are compared to people who actually know what they're doing.

Also, they would be perfectly fine with it, so long as they could use it for themselves as well and could look for our alliance.

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Again with the baseless assumptions. What proof do you have of this?

My first thought was: "How is that different from canon Issei?"

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Canon Issei actually doesn't go around trying to seduce people, he just gets really enthusiastic when fanservice starts happening around him instead of getting flustered like other harem protagonists.

Nobody knows about it. Nobody.

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Lytek and Jupiter, off the top of my head. The neverborn too, presumably. None of which helps us but people do know about it.

 

[Silversun17]

They don't even have a recorded history of Celestial/Dragon-Blooded exalts occassionally going off-kilter? Someone should have at least been able to identify a consistent pattern of abberant behavior, even if they couldn't identify the source.

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The people who have good enough records are all infected with their own version of the great curse.

 

[Robotninja]

They don't even have a recorded history of Celestial/Dragon-Blooded exalts occassionally going off-kilter? Someone should have at least been able to identify a consistent pattern of abberant behavior, even if they couldn't identify the source.

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They do have a history of that. But the source is easy. The person was under stress, and acted unusually like a dick on that day. Because they have Charms and whatnot to sense things that control you, and Charms to cure insanity, and charms to do a bunch of other stuff. None of them work on the Great curse, and they work on literally all of the most potent and subtle things in existence known about. So it does not exist. Solars have extreme personalities. Sometimes they do extreme things under stress. Really, what do you expect from handing a mortal vast cosmic power?

 

[Larekko12]

OI. I understand the mass production of artifacts is stupid. I know the first age was still agrarian because of it.


I was talking about making an artifact to mass produce magical. Like making an object to does the Mahou Shoujo Magica Madoka thing with less lichiness that make magical girls instead of making each transformation object.

 

[P_D]

They don't even have a recorded history of Celestial/Dragon-Blooded exalts occassionally going off-kilter? Someone should have at least been able to identify a consistent pattern of abberant behavior, even if they couldn't identify the source.

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The thing is, Limit Breaks are not something out of character. It is what happens when a character's virtue reaches its limit and overcomes their senses.
The simplest example i can think of would be Compassion flaw "Red rage of compassion" which has the condition of seeing suffering of innocents and not being able to effectively do anything about it. It causes the character to enter a fit of rage, attacking the cause of suffering for the innocent and breaking stuff.
In this case the condition is very much something that would anger the character in question, it's just that when he Limit Breaks his anger get the better of him.

 

[Smuthunter]

OI. I understand the mass production of artifacts is stupid. I know the first age was still agrarian because of it.

I was talking about making an artifact to mass produce magical. Like making an object to does the Mahou Shoujo Magica Madoka thing with less lichiness that make magical girls instead of making each transformation object.

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Rather than an artifact it might be better to make it a spell. We're the only ones in existence with access to Exalted Sorcery; if we make this process into a spell rather than an artifact, then we become the only people in existence who can use it. It can never be stolen and used against us, not even by the gods or Big Red himself. And it can be used multiple times -- if we make this ritual into an artifact like an evil piece then we might need to manufacture a set of them to empower our harem, and depending on the resources needed that might be really expensive. If we turn it into a spell, the only resource we need is our mote pool.

 

[BobTheNinja]

They do have a history of that. But the source is easy. The person was under stress, and acted unusually like a dick on that day. Because they have Charms and whatnot to sense things that control you, and Charms to cure insanity, and charms to do a bunch of other stuff. None of them work on the Great curse, and they work on literally all of the most potent and subtle things in existence known about. So it does not exist. Solars have extreme personalities. Sometimes they do extreme things under stress. Really, what do you expect from handing a mortal vast cosmic power?

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The thing is, Limit Breaks are not something out of character. It is what happens when a character's virtue reaches its limit and overcomes their senses.
The simplest example i can think of would be Compassion flaw "Red rage of compassion" which has the condition of seeing suffering of innocents and not being able to effectively do anything about it. It causes the character to enter a fit of rage, attacking the cause of suffering for the innocent and breaking stuff.
The condition is very much something that would anger the character in question, it's just that when he Limit Breaks his anger get the better of him.

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Then how do you explain what happened to Solar!Taylor? Before she was a plucky but good-natured kid who would never willingly kill or maim anyone, at least in the first part of Worm. Then, when her limit broke, she became a cold, merciless, and utterly efficient killer, completely devoid of all but the barest emotion. She had no qualms about killing ABB members in horrific ways, and even killed those who tried to run away, simply because she wanted them to stay put, and she thought herself a good teacher for doing so, as if she were actually teaching a class and not being the Terminator.

I'm aware that even in the early story, Taylor had kept a lot of anger bottled up inside from all the bullying she suffered, and had become very good at keeping it contained so that she didn't escalate and do something that she'd regret. That, and she always wanted to avoid seriously injuring people. So her limit break was a complete 180 from her previous behavior and desires.

Perhaps this is more of a critique of the Quest rather than the Great Curse, seeing as it WAS the players who chose her limit break response. The way she acted during the break, and her seeming lack of remorse or horror afterward (apparently due to mental rationalization of the whole thing) seemed highly out of character.

 

[mishie]

So uh, how exactly is our Limit Break NOT the bestest thing ever? From what I can see, it just means that we're more likely to go balls deep man mode to rescue somebody, and well, considering the events that will be happening, this can only end well for us. Hell, you make it sound like ignoring his own safety and doing whatever it takes to save somebody (who 99% of the time is a hot chick) is out of character for Issei, so I really can't see anybody noticing it happening simply because of the fact that it really isn't all that big of a change. It's not even all that bad really, I'm sure there will be more than a few times where the fact that it's impossible to give up on saving somebody will be useful for us

Plus there's the fact that apparently in DxD, chicks dig guys that do stupid shit to save them.

 

[P_D]

So uh, how exactly is our Limit Break NOT the bestest thing ever? From what I can see, it just means that we're more likely to go balls deep man mode to rescue somebody, and well, considering the events that will be happening, this can only end well for us. Hell, you make it sound like ignoring his own safety and doing whatever it takes to save somebody (who 99% of the time is a hot chick) is out of character for Issei, so I really can't see anybody noticing it happening simply because of the fact that it really isn't all that big of a change. It's not even all that bad really, I'm sure there will be more than a few times where the fact that it's impossible to give up on saving somebody will be useful for us

Plus there's the fact that apparently in DxD, chicks dig guys that do stupid shit to save them.

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The flaw is not that we must save damsels in distress, it's that we will fall head over heels obsessively in love with whoever happens to trigger the Limit Break and stay that way for a week or so, rendering us useless and easily manipulated for that period of time.

 

[Dimensionist]

I was talking about it taking centuries because of the elder essence requirements of 4 and 5 dot artifacts. If the pieces don't qualify as artifacts then that limitation goes away. You were addressing Pipeman, and he was saying we couldn't start on it before essence 5, which is some years of work away from us but probably less than a decade. "Less than a year with help" is far too optimistic unless "with help" means getting Beelzebub himself to do all the work for us.

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Not really. You're overestimating the difficulty, and not taking into account Beelzebub's own knowledge and existing info on the subject. Also, Essence 5 will only come this early if we actually focus on raising Essence at the expense of our skills.

The events of volume 8 do not constitute "soon."

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Er, yes they do. It's not that far away.

And that's only if we go out of our way to get involved in the Rating Games, mind you.

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Why wouldn't we? More plot.

Remember, the only reason canon Issei came into contact with Beelzebub was because he was Rias's pawn, was participating in the Rating Games, and then had his pawns warped by the power of Juggernaut Drive. We have no pawns and Beelzebub has no reason to want to speak with us.

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*cough*uniquelonginussacredgear*cough*.

Ajuka Beelzebub is one of the oldest living devils and the most brilliant scientist in the underworld so far as we know. We are only just learning how to throw fireballs and somehow still have Occult 0 on our character sheet. We don't have an "advantage," we have a handful of cheat codes that let us pretend to be half as smart as he is. Get us up to 5 dots in all the skills we need, then we'll talk about how awesome we are compared to people who actually know what they're doing.

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Those cheat codes are what I'm talking about and what he'd be interested in. Plus, getting a higher Occult is something we'd be doing soon anyway.

Again with the baseless assumptions. What proof do you have of this?

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Because that's how they'd react, canonically? It's got more base than your assumptions anyway, which were proven wrong by Word of God.

 

[Smuthunter]

Then how do you explain what happened to Solar!Taylor? Before she was a plucky but good-natured kid who would never willingly kill or maim anyone, at least in the first part of Worm. Then, when her limit broke, she became a cold, merciless, and utterly efficient killer, completely devoid of all but the barest emotion. She had no qualms about killing ABB members in horrific ways, and even killed those who tried to run away, simply because she wanted them to stay put, and she thought herself a good teacher for doing so, as if she were actually teaching a class and not being the Terminator.

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That's the result of a limit break being chosen poorly from the sound of things. It has to be based off your highest virtue, so this Taylor girl would most likely have a compassion-based limit break like Red Rage of Compassion.

Not really. You're overestimating the difficulty, and not taking into account Beelzebub's own knowledge and existing info on the subject. Also, Essence 5 will only come this early if we actually focus on raising Essence at the expense of our skills.

Er, yes they do. It's not that far away.

Why wouldn't we? More plot.

*cough*uniquelonginussacredgear*cough*.

Those cheat codes are what I'm talking about and what he'd be interested in. Plus, getting a higher Occult is something we'd be doing soon anyway.

Because that's how they'd react, canonically? It's got more base than your assumptions anyway, which were proven wrong by Word of God.

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1) You're underestimating it. Being a Solar does not mean that nothing within our area of specialty can possibly challenge us. There are questions even high-essence Twilights struggle to answer.

2) It's months away. We're still on day 3 if you haven't noticed.

3) You do remember when we were deciding whether to join Rias's peerage or not and Alexander said all our choices would have consequences, right?

4) The sacred gear fanboy is Azazel, not Ajuka.

5) Again, Azazel is the one who's interested in sacred gears. And we also need Lore and Craft for this, neither of which is conductive to our immediate goal of getting set for high-stakes combat with people much more powerful than us.

6) These factions don't exist in canon. I double-checked the wiki just to be sure it wasn't from one of the books I haven't read. You're making stuff up.

 

[Robotninja]

Then how do you explain what happened to Solar!Taylor? Before she was a plucky but good-natured kid who would never willingly kill or maim anyone, at least in the first part of Worm. Then, when her limit broke, she became a cold, merciless, and utterly efficient killer, completely devoid of all but the barest emotion. She had no qualms about killing ABB members in horrific ways, and even killed those who tried to run away, simply because she wanted them to stay put, and she thought herself a good teacher for doing so, as if she were actually teaching a class and not being the Terminator.

I'm aware that even in the early story, Taylor had kept a lot of anger bottled up inside from all the bullying she suffered, and had become very good at keeping it contained so that she didn't escalate and do something that she'd regret. That, and she always wanted to avoid seriously injuring people. So her limit break was a complete 180 from her previous behavior and desires.

Perhaps this is more of a critique of the Quest rather than the Great Curse, seeing as it WAS the players who chose her limit break response. The way she acted during the break, and her seeming lack of remorse or horror afterward (apparently due to mental rationalization of the whole thing) seemed highly out of character.

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Because if you read Worm, Taylor is in fact, an absurdly ruthless and pragmatic person deep down. She shot a child dead in cold blood. In canon. She is in fact, deep down, a very efficient, ruthless person. The great curse simply brought that part of her ought and amped it up to 11.

 

[BobTheNinja]

Because if you read Worm, Taylor is in fact, an absurdly ruthless and pragmatic person deep down. She shot a child dead in cold blood. In canon. She is in fact, deep down, a very efficient, ruthless person. The great curse simply brought that part of her ought and amped it up to 11.

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...I probably should have mentioned that I haven't gotten that far in Worm yet. So yeah, extremely unpleasant spoiler, although I was told that she gets a lot worse as the story progresses, so I guess I should have expected that.

Are you sure she was like that from the very beginning though? I was under the impression that, while she is brainy and likes planning and efficiency, the brutal and ruthless part wasn't part of her original personality, and instead developed as a result of her becoming warped by the circumstances she found herself in.

 

[Robotninja]

It depends on whether you view it as creating it or bring it it out. I view it as bringing it out. To be fair, considering what would have happened to the girl if she hadn't killed her, it was an act of mercy. Gray boy is horrible.

 

[Dimensionist]

That's the result of a limit break being chosen poorly from the sound of things. It has to be based off your highest virtue, so this Taylor girl would most likely have a compassion-based limit break like Red Rage of Compassion.
1) You're underestimating it. Being a Solar does not mean that nothing within our area of specialty can possibly challenge us. There are questions even high-essence Twilights struggle to answer.

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When did I claim that 'nothing can challenge us' or that 'we won't have to struggle to answer any questions'?

Stop misrepresenting my arguments, would you? It's getting annoying.

2) It's months away. We're still on day 3 if you haven't noticed.

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Of course. Because we totally didn't [just have a talk about how setting up an empowerment and shapeshifting artifact - which we'd need Beelzebub's help to do quickly - would take a year or so. What's a few months in that?

3) You do remember when we were deciding whether to join Rias's peerage or not and Alexander said all our choices would have consequences, right?

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Somehow I doubt he was referring to such a tangential and unmentioned point when he was talking about that. So, uh ... stop trying to shove your interpretation of what the consequences of such and such would be?

4) The sacred gear fanboy is Azazel, not Ajuka.

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So, Azazel totes doesn't know Ajuka, and will not be able to get his friend to talk with us? Not to mention it's not just a matter of it being a sacred gear so much as the mutations that have occurred within an artifact like that that might get his interest.

This isn't even counting Sirzechs himself - if we can prove ourselves to Rias in that matter, we can have Ajuka's help if Sirzechs vouches for us.

5) Again, Azazel is the one who's interested in sacred gears. And we also need Lore and Craft for this, neither of which is conductive to our immediate goal of getting set for high-stakes combat with people much more powerful than us.

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Craft is very much useful for that purpose. Enchanted weaponry/armor, augmentation items, etc.

That just leaves Lore ... which likely will not be that important when you consider we're approaching this task from the direction of a different setting and it's mechanics.

6) These factions don't exist in canon. I double-checked the wiki just to be sure it wasn't from one of the books I haven't read. You're making stuff up.

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Are you seriously unable to comprehend such basic stuff? I'm talking about the canon of their own settings you nitwit. Why are you checking High School DXD canon for it, and why are you accusing me of making it up when you're not even able to parse the statement in question? You realize this is a fusion universe, right? Something which should have been obvious when the History Compilation Committee and the various onmyoji groups came up in the earlier discussions.

 

[BobTheNinja]

It depends on whether you view it as creating it or bring it it out. I view it as bringing it out. To be fair, considering what would have happened to the girl if she hadn't killed her, it was an act of mercy. Gray boy is horrible.

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I suppose it would be fair to say that everyone has the potential for ruthlessness and cruelty, but it's just that, potential. I'm of the opinion that the personalities of most people are shaped by their environment. Submerge someone in a dog-eat-dog criminal environment long enough, and they'll probably start taking on ruthless characteristics, assuming they don't die or suffer a complete mental breakdown first.

That said, there are certainly people who have an inherently strong disposition to cruelty and violence, but those are the exception rather than the rule. I really believe that Taylor was a mostly normal person who got dealt a really fucking bad hand, and if she had entered the cape environment under healthier circumstances, she probably would have never become as warped as she did in the original story.

In any case, I don't think the cold and ruthless limit break was the correct one for her given that it was very early in the story when she just recently joined the Undersiders. Then again, I can't imagine that any of the other limit breaks would have been much better, so I suppose this whole argument is moot.

Fucking Great Curse.

 

[Robotninja]

At that point you basicly have an entirely different person if you completely change her circumstances. As she would not have even triggered if she had not had such crappy circumstances. There is a reason most people become villians. You need a screwed up life and mindset to get powers.

 

[BobTheNinja]

At that point you basicly have an entirely different person if you completely change her circumstances. As she would not have even triggered if she had not had such crappy circumstances. There is a reason most people become villians. You need a screwed up life and mindset to get powers.

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I agree that most Trigger Events are traumatic, and the circumstances that cause them often lead to villainy, but in spite of that, Taylor appeared to have a good head on her shoulder in the beginning. She wanted to be a hero, someone who wanted to make a difference for the better. Not all hardship and trauma leads to evil, and in Taylor's case, the events that led to her fall happened well after her Trigger Event. That's not to say they weren't connected, they were, but a simple change in luck probably would have significantly altered the course of her future. Say for example, if she had not encountered Lung, but some petty criminals instead, or if the Undersiders hadn't been in that part of the Docks that night.

EDIT: Anyway, I think we're getting off topic here. Wanna make a discussion thread in the General section?

 

[Adyen]

So uh, how exactly is our Limit Break NOT the bestest thing ever? From what I can see, it just means that we're more likely to go balls deep man mode to rescue somebody, and well, considering the events that will be happening, this can only end well for us. Hell, you make it sound like ignoring his own safety and doing whatever it takes to save somebody (who 99% of the time is a hot chick) is out of character for Issei, so I really can't see anybody noticing it happening simply because of the fact that it really isn't all that big of a change. It's not even all that bad really, I'm sure there will be more than a few times where the fact that it's impossible to give up on saving somebody will be useful for us

Plus there's the fact that apparently in DxD, chicks dig guys that do stupid shit to save them.

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See, you say this now. And then the next time we trigger that Limit Break, the first person we see is a Fallen Angel. And then the Devils try to attack her.

Welp.

 

[Smuthunter]

When did I claim that 'nothing can challenge us' or that 'we won't have to struggle to answer any questions'?

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When you assumed we would be able to do this before we hit essence 5.

Of course. Because we totally didn't [just have a talk about how setting up an empowerment and shapeshifting artifact - which we'd need Beelzebub's help to do quickly - would take a year or so. What's a few months in that?

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Probably more than half of it, given that there's a summer vacation timeskip in the middle of that period and we'll be spending most of it trying not to get killed by people who are vastly more powerful than us.

Somehow I doubt he was referring to such a tangential and unmentioned point when he was talking about that.

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Cutting off our access to plot lines connected to the rating games except through finding our own way there (which at this point will be difficult except through metagaming since we don't care about the games) is not "a tangential point."

So, Azazel totes doesn't know Ajuka, and will not be able to get his friend to talk with us?

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Given that they're on opposite sides of a war that hasn't ended yet, no.

Craft is very much useful for that purpose. Enchanted weaponry/armor, augmentation items, etc.

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You know what those dots would be much better spent on? Actual combat ability. Gear doesn't mean anything if you can't use it skillfully and we already have a much more powerful weapon (and armor) than any we could ever create.

Are you seriously unable to comprehend such basic stuff? I'm talking about the canon of their own settings you nitwit.

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Now you've done it, you made me dig through the backlog. Taste my quote-fu!

Campione doesn't exist in this setting, the HCC here is a sort of umbrella organization that:
-Keep track of all existing supernatural societies, both legal and non-legal.
-Cover all supernatural incidents that can affect society as a large (like, cities being overrun by monsters).

At the head of the HCC there is the Shinto Pantheon, with gods like Amaterasu and Susanoo.

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That's what happens when you make assumptions. I wouldn't trust the other organizations that got name-dropped in that post to be whatever it is you think they are either.

 

[mishie]

See, you say this now. And then the next time we trigger that Limit Break, the first person we see is a Fallen Angel. And then the Devils try to attack her.

Welp.

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You make that sound like a bad thing

Seriously, how would us going crazy for Raynare not be the greatest of things?

 

[Robotninja]

You make that sound like a bad thing

Seriously, how would us going crazy for Raynare not be the greatest of things?

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It can be a bad thing if we fall for someone who is actually competent and evil enough to exploit it by asking us to kill people for her.

 

[Smuthunter]

You make that sound like a bad thing

Seriously, how would us going crazy for Raynare not be the greatest of things?

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"Hey, Issei... to prove how much you love me, will you kill Rias and all her little minions for me?"

That said this quest is on Easy mode so we probably get to maintain some control even when we're under the influence. So in the above case maybe instead of being forced to fight our teammates we could choose to grab the girl and run away or something?

Alexander, can we get a ruling on this? How much control will the readers maintain when Issei is limit breaking?

 

[BFldyq]

That's the result of a limit break being chosen poorly from the sound of things. It has to be based off your highest virtue, so this Taylor girl would most likely have a compassion-based limit break like Red Rage of Compassion.

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Her Valor is higher, actually. She just tries to inflict as little harm as possible.

 

[P_D]

After we get some social charms, can we just charm/brainwash the object of our affection to make her love us back and become our loyal follower when we're limit breaking?

 

[Adyen]

After we get some social charms, can we just charm/brainwash the object of our affection to make her love us back and become our loyal follower when we're limit breaking?

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I think the limit break will actually make us think that they love us as well regardless of what she actually does. So I don't think the idea of using charms/brainwashing will even occur.

 

[Dimensionist]

When you assumed we would be able to do this before we hit essence 5.

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Because Essence 5 is a prerequisite to this when you factor in non-Exalted mechanics and craft systems? ???

Probably more than half of it, given that there's a summer vacation timeskip in the middle of that period and we'll be spending most of it trying not to get killed by people who are vastly more powerful than us.

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We're both divorced from a good part of the plot threats, due to not being Devils ourselves, and also better off than Issei was. Developing Occult will only help us in battle, not hurt, same with Craft.

Cutting off our access to plot lines connected to the rating games except through finding our own way there (which at this point will be difficult except through metagaming since we don't care about the games) is not "a tangential point."

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Given that we're talking about Beelzebub, you realize we could meet him through other ways fairly easily, right, like the ones we've outlined.

Given that they're on opposite sides of a war that hasn't ended yet, no.

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The war's irrelevant - Azazel hasn't shown much problem getting chummy with other, former enemies, so ...

You know what those dots would be much better spent on? Actual combat ability. Gear doesn't mean anything if you can't use it skillfully and we already have a much more powerful weapon (and armor) than any we could ever create.

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Occult will help, and augmentation gear will improve out combat abilities even further and quicker.

Now you've done it, you made me dig through the backlog. Taste my quote-fu!That's what happens when you make assumptions. I wouldn't trust the other organizations that got name-dropped in that post to be whatever it is you think they are either.

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Er, Alexander is saying Campione - the God-slayers, the Rakshasa Raja - don't exist. The HCC, on the other hand, serves more or less the same purpose it does in Campione canon and exists. So ...

Plus, why on earth would you think I haven't read that? I actually referenced it!