I think you're completely misreading that. Yukari wasn't pouting she wasn't allowed to come. She was sandbagging training because she doesn't want to be considered good enough to be thrown into combat, and she was worried about Kanon who might be.
Meguca Micro Empire Quest (PMMM)
- Thread starter inverted_helix
- Start date
Personally I expect Kyouko is going to have some major concerns about all this.
"Mami, you're playing hero again!"
Also on this part: Those were very, very personal perspectives, heavily influenced by her training under each of them as she tries to prove herself worthy of the expected 'elite' qualification. Her perspective of Kyouko is tainted by Kyouko's 'enthusiastic' training methods. She knows Mami believes in her, and feels horribly guilty about not living up to those expectations. With Taya, it feels like Taya's fast rise into the ranks of the elites corresponded with some innate ability to see much farther and clearer than Kaoru herself could.
She's constantly comparing herself to each of them, trying to make herself be one or another of them, because those are her only examples of what an elite is. Yet her standards of them are so high, she can't see that she herself has already blended a great deal of their strengths into her own self, in a way that is uniquely her.
Always strange when you roll low on things that had really low DC to begin with.
Avalanche
Atypical Netizen
- Location
- Australia
Whew lad. Don't tease us like that Helix.
Omake: Amélie Poulain
Amélie Poulain
Amélie stretched out in her chair, ignoring the grumbling complaints of the taller blonde girl next to her. In one of the rows ahead of her, a taller gentleman desperately tried to find a position where his knees weren't rammed up against the back of the seat ahead of him. At her height, airline seats actually weren't too troublesome — a minor blessing owing to her smaller stature.
How long had it been since she had ridden in an aeroplane? Two years was it, now? Or three? It was a bit troublesome to keep track of. Long enough to let her mind drift into the memory of when she had first arrived here.
Her grandfather was retiring, but in a fit of pique refused to stay anywhere near his relatives. Any time a phone call from an aunt or cousin or in-law came in, she could be certain that the rest of the evening would be colored by obscenities and rants about them trying to steal all his money before his corpse was even in the ground.
At one point, though, he had an idea, an inspiration — Amélie wasn't sure from where such inspiration sprung, though it did remind her of some books she had been reading for a school project — to retire in a country where his small fortune would become a large fortune, while far from the grubby hands of his greedy relatives. Thus began the planning for the Great Retirement Trip.
Questions about her schooling were brushed off, so in the end she just accepted it as some new, strange adventure.
And strange it was. For all that her grandfather was an ornery, stubborn, bitter old man, it seemed that he had more friends that she might ever have imagined. Every stop of the trip, from Paris, to London, to New York, to Atlanta, to Houston, to San Diego, was not merely a stopover as they changed from one plane to another, but an entire vacation unto itself, with several days visiting and carousing with men and women as old as he and his wife. In a world of rapid travel and instantaneous communication, it had taken over two weeks to travel from Paris to Tijuana.
From there, they traveled by car to a small coastal town, where her grandfather had been able to outright purchase a house that could better be described as a mansion, rather than the two story flat they'd had in the outskirts of Paris. And the things that she had found there.... Ah, but her mind was drifting again. This was about the airplane, wasn't it?
Her name, Amélie, was in honor of her mother, who died in childbirth. That tragedy had in turn led to her being raised by her grandparents, doted over to her great shame and embarrassment. Though she never met her mother, there were many bits of memorabilia, including a few aborted attempts at diaries, that let her feel that she had come to understand the woman better than the relatives who had raised her. It gave her a small bit of pride, even as her mind tried to adapt to the strange, twisty pathways that led her mother from one strange thought to another.
And one of those twisty thoughts was an airplane. Hopping and skipping around the world, with brief, or not-so-brief stops in cities where she met people that she barely knew, but who somehow had a destiny tied to her own, however tenuously. What secrets had they buried, and what hopes had they forgotten?
There were threads that bound all people together, and all people to both their past and their future. Pain and sorrow, hopes and dreams, all was intertwined with a destiny that carried them through a jumbled whirl of cacophony and chaos. Amélie's past was shaped by a trip through the skies, and her future stood poised to change yet again.
Her grandparents would worry about her. They always did, and always would. But she couldn't go home, now. Once she truly understood her predicament with Serena, she had called them one last time. She couldn't return to them; she had a destiny, a future that called to her, that demanded she follow that path to the end. Their cries had hurt, but in the midst of it came words that somehow comforted: "You are so much like your mother."
Her mother was never bound to the past, nor anchored by the mundane world. She would step out into the unknown without hesitation.
Her hand clasped Rae's, on the armrest. The American girl gradually settled down and relaxed. There was a comfort there, between them, an unspoken understanding, and Amélie's touch always seemed to be able to calm her nerves. From island to island, they would cross half the world, as Amélie herself had done once before, and find a new home, with a new destiny.
Amélie stretched out in her chair, ignoring the grumbling complaints of the taller blonde girl next to her. In one of the rows ahead of her, a taller gentleman desperately tried to find a position where his knees weren't rammed up against the back of the seat ahead of him. At her height, airline seats actually weren't too troublesome — a minor blessing owing to her smaller stature.
How long had it been since she had ridden in an aeroplane? Two years was it, now? Or three? It was a bit troublesome to keep track of. Long enough to let her mind drift into the memory of when she had first arrived here.
Her grandfather was retiring, but in a fit of pique refused to stay anywhere near his relatives. Any time a phone call from an aunt or cousin or in-law came in, she could be certain that the rest of the evening would be colored by obscenities and rants about them trying to steal all his money before his corpse was even in the ground.
At one point, though, he had an idea, an inspiration — Amélie wasn't sure from where such inspiration sprung, though it did remind her of some books she had been reading for a school project — to retire in a country where his small fortune would become a large fortune, while far from the grubby hands of his greedy relatives. Thus began the planning for the Great Retirement Trip.
Questions about her schooling were brushed off, so in the end she just accepted it as some new, strange adventure.
And strange it was. For all that her grandfather was an ornery, stubborn, bitter old man, it seemed that he had more friends that she might ever have imagined. Every stop of the trip, from Paris, to London, to New York, to Atlanta, to Houston, to San Diego, was not merely a stopover as they changed from one plane to another, but an entire vacation unto itself, with several days visiting and carousing with men and women as old as he and his wife. In a world of rapid travel and instantaneous communication, it had taken over two weeks to travel from Paris to Tijuana.
From there, they traveled by car to a small coastal town, where her grandfather had been able to outright purchase a house that could better be described as a mansion, rather than the two story flat they'd had in the outskirts of Paris. And the things that she had found there.... Ah, but her mind was drifting again. This was about the airplane, wasn't it?
~~
Her name, Amélie, was in honor of her mother, who died in childbirth. That tragedy had in turn led to her being raised by her grandparents, doted over to her great shame and embarrassment. Though she never met her mother, there were many bits of memorabilia, including a few aborted attempts at diaries, that let her feel that she had come to understand the woman better than the relatives who had raised her. It gave her a small bit of pride, even as her mind tried to adapt to the strange, twisty pathways that led her mother from one strange thought to another.
And one of those twisty thoughts was an airplane. Hopping and skipping around the world, with brief, or not-so-brief stops in cities where she met people that she barely knew, but who somehow had a destiny tied to her own, however tenuously. What secrets had they buried, and what hopes had they forgotten?
There were threads that bound all people together, and all people to both their past and their future. Pain and sorrow, hopes and dreams, all was intertwined with a destiny that carried them through a jumbled whirl of cacophony and chaos. Amélie's past was shaped by a trip through the skies, and her future stood poised to change yet again.
Her grandparents would worry about her. They always did, and always would. But she couldn't go home, now. Once she truly understood her predicament with Serena, she had called them one last time. She couldn't return to them; she had a destiny, a future that called to her, that demanded she follow that path to the end. Their cries had hurt, but in the midst of it came words that somehow comforted: "You are so much like your mother."
Her mother was never bound to the past, nor anchored by the mundane world. She would step out into the unknown without hesitation.
~~
Her hand clasped Rae's, on the armrest. The American girl gradually settled down and relaxed. There was a comfort there, between them, an unspoken understanding, and Amélie's touch always seemed to be able to calm her nerves. From island to island, they would cross half the world, as Amélie herself had done once before, and find a new home, with a new destiny.
I would most likely call Amélie's power "Insight" — a mix of psychometry and fortune telling, helped by a penchant for poking her nose into other people's things. An instinctive sense of Destiny. But her mind tends to occasionally drift away from the real world into a more meandering view of meta-reality, drifting from one thought to another almost haphazardly. Outsiders might see her as a bit of a "space case". This was based on her wish for 'understanding' of her mother.
Her weapons in combat might best be described as "childhood memories" — treasured toys and dreams that have accumulated the power of hope and imagination. Anything from a rocking horse to a nutcracker doll to foreign currency to a jump rope to love letters, etc. The things you might hide away in a shoebox, to keep them away from prying eyes and hands. Note: they're not her memories, but memories on a more abstract scale.
Sat her next to Betty Rae, because of their pairing as teammates in FixerUpper's omake. There was a closeness in their interactions, however casual, that I felt worked well together (without having to be romantic). Betty Rae is always sort of "on edge", tending towards flame, while Amélie is more muted and cool. They just sort of naturally balance each other out.
Child Amélie:
Digging for secrets:
Her weapons in combat might best be described as "childhood memories" — treasured toys and dreams that have accumulated the power of hope and imagination. Anything from a rocking horse to a nutcracker doll to foreign currency to a jump rope to love letters, etc. The things you might hide away in a shoebox, to keep them away from prying eyes and hands. Note: they're not her memories, but memories on a more abstract scale.
Sat her next to Betty Rae, because of their pairing as teammates in FixerUpper's omake. There was a closeness in their interactions, however casual, that I felt worked well together (without having to be romantic). Betty Rae is always sort of "on edge", tending towards flame, while Amélie is more muted and cool. They just sort of naturally balance each other out.
Child Amélie:
Digging for secrets:
So working my way through you offer things to Nagoya but I'm not entirely clear on what you want in return. Beyond the money for the cubes, are you just trying to get their military support for your operation as the other side of the trade?
I say we ask for this:
-Discuss the situation in Tokyo, and that we are planning an action in the next month to begin a cleanup of Tokyo. The first action will be to kill the floating eyeball demon. Unfortunately our solution to allow this will require exposing girls in the strike force to side-effects that the Nagoya team is not trained to deal with, and often results in behavior that may be dangerous. Therefore we believe direct cooperation is not possible without Nagoya accepting significant risk.
-- After killing the eyeball demon, we expect that clearing of Tokyo of all class 3 demons will be possible using only Serene resources, but working together with Nagoya's would certainly speed things up, though we would have to work in different parts of the city. This process may take anywhere from a month to three months. One thing we are concerned about is that class 3 demons may flee Tokyo and attack other magical girl groups that are not strong enough to handle them. We don't have sufficient resources to handle this by ourselves. Ask if Nagoya would be willing to send forces to hunt down any fleeing demons that leave Tokyo on the western border. Since we are planning to begin our assault in Yokohama, we expect Kofu will be the most vulnerable location.
-- Ask for all information they have on the eyeball demon. Abilities, behavior, can it be lured into an ambush? Any information they think might help us kill it.
-- Ask for dossiers on the Elites still remaining in Tokyo. Particularly any on their "banned" list with details about their behavior.
-- Negotiate to purchase Kevlar vest and clothing.
-- Negotiate to purchase research information on any of the combat tech we learn about from the Tokyo expedition
-- Ask if there is other combat tech we could purchase that may help us in the fight for Tokyo
-Discuss the situation in Tokyo, and that we are planning an action in the next month to begin a cleanup of Tokyo. The first action will be to kill the floating eyeball demon. Unfortunately our solution to allow this will require exposing girls in the strike force to side-effects that the Nagoya team is not trained to deal with, and often results in behavior that may be dangerous. Therefore we believe direct cooperation is not possible without Nagoya accepting significant risk.
-- After killing the eyeball demon, we expect that clearing of Tokyo of all class 3 demons will be possible using only Serene resources, but working together with Nagoya's would certainly speed things up, though we would have to work in different parts of the city. This process may take anywhere from a month to three months. One thing we are concerned about is that class 3 demons may flee Tokyo and attack other magical girl groups that are not strong enough to handle them. We don't have sufficient resources to handle this by ourselves. Ask if Nagoya would be willing to send forces to hunt down any fleeing demons that leave Tokyo on the western border. Since we are planning to begin our assault in Yokohama, we expect Kofu will be the most vulnerable location.
-- Ask for all information they have on the eyeball demon. Abilities, behavior, can it be lured into an ambush? Any information they think might help us kill it.
-- Ask for dossiers on the Elites still remaining in Tokyo. Particularly any on their "banned" list with details about their behavior.
-- Negotiate to purchase Kevlar vest and clothing.
-- Negotiate to purchase research information on any of the combat tech we learn about from the Tokyo expedition
-- Ask if there is other combat tech we could purchase that may help us in the fight for Tokyo
Is that... good... or bad?
Coordination and cooperation in the matter of dealing with Tokyo. There's military support, but not in an "add you to our army" way, but more in a UN peacekeeping mission, where multiple countries are each doing something, but still need to work together towards the end goals. This necessarily involves information sharing for the operation to be successful.
@Kinematics
I kept telling you, vague things like that are not helpful to a GM. We need to specifically list what we want.
I kept telling you, vague things like that are not helpful to a GM. We need to specifically list what we want.
Here's what I have so far for that action:
Your explanation once given gets you punted from what you've concluded is their business manager to Hino herself. For someone that's been casting such a long shadow she looks so normal you're vaguely disappointed. You expected ominous lighting and clasped hands and glasses at least. Instead the image is just a normal girl with long brown hair in a normal well-lit office. She doesn't even wear glasses.
The situation with Tokyo has been a long standing concern for her, and one she's thrown what manpower she could at, but she's never been able to afford to spare enough forces to do more than keep a lid on it. Border tensions are too high to have many of her girls off on an expedition at any given time. She's not too sure if you really have the ability to clean things up so quickly, but she could probably shake loose 15 or maybe 20 elites in 5 man squads for a month or two with another few squads of vets to support them.
Asking Kyuubey for options was an interesting move on your part. She tries to keep him as far away as possible and doesn't talk to him beyond conversations he forces on her.
If Tokyo is cleared though there will be a lot less need for her to have cubes though. The girls there will be much more able to hunt for themselves at that point. She'll buy the cubes anyways because you're doing something valuable if you succeed, and if you fail the cubes will still be useful. The armor is a trivial matter, they can easily fulfill that order. And it's not like she'd charge you for the military aid to do something she wants to do anyways.
From what you've said of your plans, their technology would hardly be useful to your efforts in this case and you certainly wouldn't have time to make use of them, and she's still not sure about you, in the case of your success you can speak again about more tech trades.
As to the elites left in Tokyo, they're less helpful than she expects you hope. Around half of them are the heroic type that stay to defend their homes, the other half are the ones that survive of those on top when everything fell apart, and she can assure you she's accurate about which ones were which. Somewhat less elites have actually died in Tokyo than you may have thought, certainly at the start a lot died, but as time passed some elites were able to find new homes. Either with her or recruited by the Junta who were perfectly willing to recruit those desperate to escape and powerful enough to be useful even if they wouldn't help to resolve the situation. She's kind of bitter about it.
The situation with Tokyo has been a long standing concern for her, and one she's thrown what manpower she could at, but she's never been able to afford to spare enough forces to do more than keep a lid on it. Border tensions are too high to have many of her girls off on an expedition at any given time. She's not too sure if you really have the ability to clean things up so quickly, but she could probably shake loose 15 or maybe 20 elites in 5 man squads for a month or two with another few squads of vets to support them.
Asking Kyuubey for options was an interesting move on your part. She tries to keep him as far away as possible and doesn't talk to him beyond conversations he forces on her.
If Tokyo is cleared though there will be a lot less need for her to have cubes though. The girls there will be much more able to hunt for themselves at that point. She'll buy the cubes anyways because you're doing something valuable if you succeed, and if you fail the cubes will still be useful. The armor is a trivial matter, they can easily fulfill that order. And it's not like she'd charge you for the military aid to do something she wants to do anyways.
From what you've said of your plans, their technology would hardly be useful to your efforts in this case and you certainly wouldn't have time to make use of them, and she's still not sure about you, in the case of your success you can speak again about more tech trades.
As to the elites left in Tokyo, they're less helpful than she expects you hope. Around half of them are the heroic type that stay to defend their homes, the other half are the ones that survive of those on top when everything fell apart, and she can assure you she's accurate about which ones were which. Somewhat less elites have actually died in Tokyo than you may have thought, certainly at the start a lot died, but as time passed some elites were able to find new homes. Either with her or recruited by the Junta who were perfectly willing to recruit those desperate to escape and powerful enough to be useful even if they wouldn't help to resolve the situation. She's kind of bitter about it.
Comma splices!
However for the negotiations, I think that mostly covers the info we'd been looking for. Set up a liaison to manage team coordination, and any tactical info (eg: the beholder) the experienced troops can provide can be asked when we work on finalizing the expedition plans.
However for the negotiations, I think that mostly covers the info we'd been looking for. Set up a liaison to manage team coordination, and any tactical info (eg: the beholder) the experienced troops can provide can be asked when we work on finalizing the expedition plans.
Many an English teacher have attempted to break me of this, but all have failed! Commas for the comma throne!
Ugh, yes. You can go with semicolons if you really like that particular cadence:
Powerofmind
In Madness Fallen
- Location
- United States
Semicolons are the differentiating factor between grammar Nazis and ordinary grammar fascists.
In fairness, they're also the only organisation bigger than us we've interacted with at all. There's not exactly a lot of competition for "best terms".
Aranfan
Team Plasma Grunt
I meant from the perspective of Nagoya.
Then you're completely right.
Well... Now we just have to deliver....
I hope we get enough tactical information on the floating eyeball from Kyubey/Scouting/Nagoya to make a viable plan.
I hope we get enough tactical information on the floating eyeball from Kyubey/Scouting/Nagoya to make a viable plan.
Mostly done, writing up last couple bits (though formatting these is it's own timesink). Contemplating if I should actually have bothered rolling on your propaganda print out actions, but then looking up cases of terrible print jobs it's not actually unreasonable for such a thing to go badly. But not sure it was fair to roll on a production action in the first place.
Eh.. usually something like that gets a sample set to verify, and then the full run is finished (certainly if we're getting a nice polished set of stuff printed). It shouldn't be possible to bork it, and if they did, there should be a reprint that the printer has to eat the cost on.
Edit: Terrible print jobs would be if you had a remote company do it, and then just had everything shipped to you. I know several webcomics have had this happen, but the ones that are serious about it have a sample printed and sent to them first (so everything always takes longer than planned). It's like: print sample; this is broken, redo; get new sample; possibly another redo; get sample that passes; finish print run.
But we should be dealing with a local shop, anyway.
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