Apologies about this, but requesting advice on my Omake plans. I've got writer's block.
Meguca Micro Empire Quest (PMMM)
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If I'm being a pain in the ass with some of these requests, I apologise. Things have been rather stressful at university for me- normally I find it far too impolite to try and ask for help with Omakes.
I'm not that good at characterisation of this sort, especially young children. Toshiko needs to balance a lot of traits in the same person, and I need to get all of them across.
-She needs to be meek or she would have spoken up for herself
-She needs to be smart because by a fourteen year old's standards her writing is very good (in fact possibly I made her too good).
-She needs to be so embarassed that she would passionately argue against herself because she's so afraid of being caught
-She needs to show self-hatred for being a coward, because I later on plan to have her summon the courage to take a more active role but I've already established she's a mystery for the moment
-She needs to be acting like a child, not like an adult, because she's young
I can see how to do some of these, but not others. I particularly suck at the last one.
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In the long run, my primary goal was: Generate a perpetual subplot in the story that could be a source of persistent Omakes. My generalised strategy was to use Expansionist movements in the group for such a subplot, but it could be something else.
If I got permission, I would go for the following (tenatively):
-Characters talk about the Expansionist ideas. After some time, there is enough of a lobby for it to emotionally worry Mami Tomoe about the matter.
-Eventually, a 'Dark Expansionist' Group emerges, which we do not have to listen to. These characters are never explicitly, but are implicitly Utilitarian in their logic. Toshiko is logical enough of a person that she in turn is haunted by the idea that they could be doing even more good if not for their scruples against the use of force.
The idea is to generate effective Drama and add emotional intensity to the story.
I'm not that good at characterisation of this sort, especially young children. Toshiko needs to balance a lot of traits in the same person, and I need to get all of them across.
-She needs to be meek or she would have spoken up for herself
-She needs to be smart because by a fourteen year old's standards her writing is very good (in fact possibly I made her too good).
-She needs to be so embarassed that she would passionately argue against herself because she's so afraid of being caught
-She needs to show self-hatred for being a coward, because I later on plan to have her summon the courage to take a more active role but I've already established she's a mystery for the moment
-She needs to be acting like a child, not like an adult, because she's young
I can see how to do some of these, but not others. I particularly suck at the last one.
---------------------------------------------------------------
In the long run, my primary goal was: Generate a perpetual subplot in the story that could be a source of persistent Omakes. My generalised strategy was to use Expansionist movements in the group for such a subplot, but it could be something else.
If I got permission, I would go for the following (tenatively):
-Characters talk about the Expansionist ideas. After some time, there is enough of a lobby for it to emotionally worry Mami Tomoe about the matter.
-Eventually, a 'Dark Expansionist' Group emerges, which we do not have to listen to. These characters are never explicitly, but are implicitly Utilitarian in their logic. Toshiko is logical enough of a person that she in turn is haunted by the idea that they could be doing even more good if not for their scruples against the use of force.
The idea is to generate effective Drama and add emotional intensity to the story.
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Omake: Sharing The Same Tears
Omake: Sharing The Same Tears
Mami worried as she hurried over to the house. She wasn't sure what was going on this time. Taya had not been very coherent on the phone. Near as she could follow, after saying goodbye to Kaori, Kaoru had locked herself in her room and was singing the same song over and over while everyone else was outside her door crying.
Kaoru was so stable, this wasn't like her at all. Mami was used to counting on Kaoru as one of the more mature girls. Not surprising, as Kaoru was the only other girl as old as Mami. Although, when Mami thought about it, the one time Kaoru had grief spiraled it had taken 4 cubes to break her out of it. Maybe when Kaoru broke, she broke hard.
On her way, Mami reviewed what she knew about Kaoru Gima. While Kaoru was in the same grade as Mami, she had far less time as a magical girl, since she had contracted at an older age then usual. She didn't get to see her parents much. Her father was in Tokyo working as a producer or something. Mami wasn't sure on the details, but had picked up that she better not ask. Her mother worked as a hostess at a night club in Kasimono. Not doing anything sleazy, Kaoru had hastened to assure her, just signing for the customers. Still Kaoru had preferred not to let the other girls know much about her home life, and Mami had understood. As it was, Kaoru only got to see her mother regularly for a few minutes after school when she got home and her mother was leaving for work. With her mother not getting home until early in the morning, Kaoru was pretty much on her own, and had to make her own breakfast. Though her mother usually prepared a lunch for her before going to bed.
Kaoru had been a magical girl for less then a week before Kuybey brought her into the first meeting Mami had for setting up the group that would eventually become the Serenissima Imperium Magicum Puella. (Mami insisted on using the full and correct name, even if everyone else didn't!) Mami remembered her as having been a rather shy and reserved girl, who was usually quiet, but when she did say something it was always something important to think about. Kaoru had gained a lot of confidence since those days.
Some of the other girls had teased Kaoru about her costume when they had their first training session. Her outfit was basically a white leotard with a short skirt, big bows, and a sailor uniform collar. About as stereotypical a magical girl outfit you could get... from the nineties. It was unusual for a magical girl to be so... old fashioned in her uniform choice. When she summoned her weapon and a large harp appeared, the other girls had down right laughed. Mami had felt a strong sense of kinship, remembering when she only had ribbons as weapons. She had even told the story of how she once only had ribbons to the group as a way of reminding them that you never knew how powerful a girl could be.
Despite the amusement, Kaoru had actually turned out to be something of a prodigy. In addition to being able to fire energy spears with the pluck of a harp string, it turned out that Kaoru had a very useful ability to disable and confuse demons over a large area by playing cords on her harp. It was perfect for pack hunting, and had really helped increase the harvest of her groups in those early days. With the added maturity of her age, it wasn't a surprise that Kaoru had soon become a leader among the girls who spent their time hunting.
There had only been two incidents with Kaoru while hunting. Once she had been injured rather badly when she froze up after seeing Hitomi killed right in front of her. That was perfectly understandable. The two of them had been pretty close despite Hitomi being a year younger, and several months more experienced at being a magical girl. In many ways Hitomi had been Kaoru's hunting mentor. The other incident had occurred when Kaoru was uncharacteristically sloppy, and while hunting stabbed Sayaka through the throat with an energy spear. Even though Sayaka had laughed it off, it had taken 4 grief cubes to stop Kaoru from grief spiraling in guilt over the incident.
Mami's eyes narrow in thought. Actually... Kaori had come home all bloodied and injured just a couple days before the hunting accident. Mami had never considered the two incidents connected before, but maybe there was a reason Kaoru was distracted, and perhaps other reasons for guilt besides just the hunting accident.
Kaoru had taken a large interest in the youngest of the girls. She had given both Yuma and Kaori special attention, including some extra combat training, just the three of them. Kaoru would often come by the apartments late at night since she didn't have to worry about a curfew. On a few occasions when Mami had checked in, she had heard Kaoru singing Yuma to sleep with lullabies.
Singing talent must run in her family. If her mother sung anything like her daughter, Mami wasn't surprised that she could make a living based on her voice. In fact, some of the few times Mami had taken some time off to just enjoy life she had spent going to karaoke with Kaoru. It was just nice sometimes to spend time with a girl who was her own age and didn't treat her as a mother figure.
Mami reminds herself to stay focused on the crisis at hand. Still, it might make sense that Kaoru was having some special difficulty handling Kaori moving away. Mami was having a hard time herself. Kaoru had just barely moved into the house, after having finally convinced her mother that it was safe for her to stay and that her mother should move to Kasimono, at least until the water contamination was solved. So maybe there was some homesickness involved as well.
Mami left her musings behind as she arrived and entered the house. Things did not seem as bad as Taya had made it sound over the phone. It looked like all the girls besides Kaoru were in the living room. There was some sniffling going on, and a quite a few hugs, but not the waterworks Taya had described. Mami could hear singing faintly from overhead and to the back of the room. It seemed to end for a few minutes before starting up again. Mami felt herself become a little melancholy listening to the melody, but she shook herself and focused on finding Taya.
Mami soon spied Taya, but she seemed to be the worst of everyone, sniffling so bad Mami wasn't sure it was worth trying to question her. Fortunately Aiko approached Mami on her own and filled Mami in on what was happening. "I managed to get everyone away from the door during one of those pauses. It doesn't seem to effect people as much down here." Aiko seemed cross, which was a strange mixture with her red and puffy eyes. "You need to get up there and tell her to stop. I'll be in the kitchen, I have a couple blueberry pies I have to finish cooking."
Mami decides to leave Aiko to the baking. Aiko has always been pretty good at handling others during grief spirals, though Mami hopes they won't be going through the "nothing but blueberry pies" stage again. Going up the stairs, Mami could feel the melancholy inside herself increasing. Approaching the door, she starts to sniffle. Strangely Mami seems to be remembering a lot of the good times she had with Kyouko, and just feels a sadness that those time are gone. Pulling herself together, Mami knocked on the door, "Gima-san?"
Kaoru stopped singing, and Mami realized now that Kauro had actually been singing along with a CD or something. Mami heard the music pause, and then Kaoru opened the door, looking for all the world as if nothing was more wrong then listening to a sad song for a little while. "Tomoe-san? What are you doing here?" She stepped back to let Mami enter the room.
Entering, Mami looked around the room. Kaoru didn't have much in the room. A bed, a dresser, an 30 year old portable TV with a battered VCR connected to it. A faded old idol poster above the bed. Mami realized that the music had been coming from the TV, on which was paused a very old and familiar magical girl anime. Kaoru sat down on the bed as if nothing was the matter, "What's up?"
"Uh... Gima-san, were you aware that everyone in the house has been crying?" Mami was a little confused as she had been half prepared for a grief spiraling girl, not the calm and collected girl in front of her.
Kaoru seems surprised before blushing and blurting out, "It's not supposed to be a sad song."
Mami raises an eyebrow. "You don't seem surprised that your singing is having an effect like this."
Kaoru shifts uncomfortably, "I never told you my wish did I?"
Mami nods before prompting: "I think everyone assumed it had something to do with music."
"You could say that," Kaoru pauses to collect herself before continuing. "I wished to have perfect pitch." Mami blinks. "Yeah, pretty stupid thing to waste a wish on. Well, ever since then my singing tends to, um... make people more emotional."
"It makes people sad?" clarifies Mami.
"Well, if the song is sad. Depends on the emotion of the song, you know." Kaoru pauses, "I'll be more careful in the future."
Well that solved the problem, but Mami decides she should probably stay awhile and see if Kaoru wanted to talk about what was bothering her. "I guess you wanted to be like your mother."
Kaoru sighs, "No, actually my mom never cared about me being tone deaf, it was more about my father." Kaoru stops long enough that Mami thought maybe she was done before suddenly continuing. "You, you know my father and mother aren't a.. you know, married, right?" The words spilled out of Kaoru like water breaking through a dam. She didn't even wait to hear Mami's response, "He's an idol manager for a record company. He, well, he's a.. a lot older then my mother."
Kaoru pauses to look at Mami who wasn't sure at all what she was supposed to say or do to that. "Well, I guess there's no real nice way to say it. He was my mom's manager when she was a teenage idol. I think you can figure out the rest." Mami's eyes suddenly shift to the poster above Kaoru's bed, "Naru Gima" was the faded name under the picture, which looked nothing like Kaoru. Maybe it was the heavy makeup and big hair.
Kaoru was smiling shyly when Mami looks back down at her. "She never made it big or anything, just local. Maybe she would have, expect, well, she had me. My father tried to get her to get rid of me, and my grandparents told her so too, but my mom insisted on keeping me. That's why we don't really have anyone else but each other."
Kaoru looks away, "I didn't really know all that until later. I just knew I had a father somewhere in Tokyo managing idols at a record company. I used to dream about entering an idol contest and then meeting him, and he would be so impressed with my voice that he would come back and live with my mom and me. Silly dreams really."
"Then I actually decided to try when I was 15 and old enough to enter an audition being held by my father's company." Mami wasn't sure what emotion the half grin on Kaoru's face was supposed to show. "I kept it a secret from my mom because I knew she wouldn't approve. I had to save up for the train fare. He was actually there at the audition. The look on his face when they called out my name wasn't anything like I thought it'd be. He went white, like he'd seen a ghost. And then I started to sing." Kaoru was back to looking at the wall. "Well that was that. Nobody had ever told me before how bad I was."
Mami tries to console her, "I'm sure you weren't that bad." This just got her a flat look from Kaoru.
"One of the judges suggested I have my throat checked by a doctor." Seeing Mami's horrified face Kaoru rushes to clarify, "I actually think he was trying to be nice." Mami just sighs at that. Kaoru continues, "My father took me to lunch afterwards. He tried to be nice, gave me all the money in his wallet, but I could tell he was really hoping I would leave and wouldn't come back. I think he was afraid of me."
Kaoru looks over at Mami with a knowing grin this time, "That's when Kuybey came to visit. You know, I didn't realize it then, but he likes to approach girls when they're vulnerable." Kaoru flops back on the bed. "Anyway, I wished to have perfect pitch, thinking I would go back and show my father what a big mistake he made writing me and mom off. Of course, then I was so busy just trying to survive being a magical girl I haven't had time to worry about anything else."
Kaoru lets out a long breath, "It's strange, a year and a half ago he seemed like the biggest thing in the world. Now he just seems small and unimportant." Kaoru lapses into a comfortable silence.
Mami was loath to interrupt the mood, but she felt that Kaoru still had some more she wanted to say. "You still haven't told me what brought on the song though."
Kaoru seems to come back from whatever peaceful contemplation she'd been having. "Oh that, well when I got to highschool one of the Glee Club members heard me singing and made me join. I told them I was too busy for club meetings, so I'm sort of a ghost member. They asked me to sing a song for the cultural festival though. I figured I ought to practice."
Mami tilts her head and looks at Kaoru. "Okay, well not really. I mean I did get asked to sing at the cultural festival and I picked this song awhile ago. I mean, you know this episode right? Ami was about to leave, but then decided to stay because..." Kaoru makes a vague hugging motion, "because being together is important, even if you're crying together, at least you're together." Kaoru rolls over onto her stomach, "My mom used to sing this song with me all the time. Then when Kaori left," Kaoru pauses for a moment, "Well the way it's supposed to work is she stays at the last minute, but she didn't." Kaoru hits the mattress in frustration, "She didn't." Kaoru sits up and glares at Mami, "What are we going to do sempai? We can't leave her alone!"
Mami sighs, "I don't know."
Kaoru hesitates before speaking, "I've been thinking maybe I could transfer to Itawa." Mami looks at Kaoru in surprise. "Or even drop out altogether." Kaoru cuts Mami off before she can interrupt, "It's not like I'm going to go to college anyway. Being a magical girl is basically my career now."
Noticing Mami's hesitation, Kaoru continues to press her point, "I'm not as useful here now that we aren't pack hunting all the time." Mami points out that Kaoru is actually good in Pairs and Solo Hunting too. "Well, not as much. If it weren't for Sayaka showing me how to summon those musical platforms, I wouldn't really have the mobility I need to Solo."
At this point a short digression occurred with Mami and Kaoru discussing Sayaka's power set, as Mami hadn't realized Sayaka's power was musically related. She had thought Sayaka was mainly healing with an apparent water theme. Kaoru blushes as they circled back to why she approached Sayaka in the first place, "Yeah, well, I was kind of hoping that with the water theme Sayaka had going and my harp that maybe I could figure out how to.. well you know..." Kaoru's voice drops to a mumble, "A..wa..Rah...s..dee," Mami asks her to repeat herself, and Kaoru turned bright red before speaking more loudly, "Aqua Rhapsody okay, I wanted to learn how to do Aqua Rhapsody."
Mami just starts laughing and laughing. Kaoru keeps saying "It's not that funny," but each time it only makes Mami laugh harder. Finally Kaoru just sat there sulking until Mami finally laughs herself out. Mami couldn't remember the last time she had laughed so hard.
"It's not fair," Kaoru grumps, "You got your ribbons to turn into muskets. I ought to be able to get my harp to shoot a blast of water." Mami fought the chuckles down as she pointed out that the physical differences between sound and water are more significant then the differences between magically hard ribbons and steel. Kaoru looks so put out that Mami promised to take some time to train with her a bit and see what they could make Kaoru's sound waves do. Kaoru became rather excited about getting "a real finishing move like Trio Finale." Together they came up with a few ideas to start with. About then Mami realized she had already spent an hour talking with Kaoru, and she had a lot of other things to do.
As she got up to excuse herself, Kaoru brought up moving to Itawa again, and asked Mami to at least consider it. "I will Gima-san," Mami promised.
As she reached the door, Kaoru spoke up again, "Sempai," Mami turned back to look at her, "you can call me Kaoru."
Mami blinks for a second and then replies, "Alright Kaoru, and you can call me Mami." As she left, Mami reflected how nice it was to have someone she could talk to who didn't see her as a mother. Meanwhile, the more calculating part of Mami's brain added 'idol singer' to the list of possible money makers for the Serene Imperium.
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Whew, that took forever. Now to proofread.
Mami worried as she hurried over to the house. She wasn't sure what was going on this time. Taya had not been very coherent on the phone. Near as she could follow, after saying goodbye to Kaori, Kaoru had locked herself in her room and was singing the same song over and over while everyone else was outside her door crying.
Kaoru was so stable, this wasn't like her at all. Mami was used to counting on Kaoru as one of the more mature girls. Not surprising, as Kaoru was the only other girl as old as Mami. Although, when Mami thought about it, the one time Kaoru had grief spiraled it had taken 4 cubes to break her out of it. Maybe when Kaoru broke, she broke hard.
On her way, Mami reviewed what she knew about Kaoru Gima. While Kaoru was in the same grade as Mami, she had far less time as a magical girl, since she had contracted at an older age then usual. She didn't get to see her parents much. Her father was in Tokyo working as a producer or something. Mami wasn't sure on the details, but had picked up that she better not ask. Her mother worked as a hostess at a night club in Kasimono. Not doing anything sleazy, Kaoru had hastened to assure her, just signing for the customers. Still Kaoru had preferred not to let the other girls know much about her home life, and Mami had understood. As it was, Kaoru only got to see her mother regularly for a few minutes after school when she got home and her mother was leaving for work. With her mother not getting home until early in the morning, Kaoru was pretty much on her own, and had to make her own breakfast. Though her mother usually prepared a lunch for her before going to bed.
Kaoru had been a magical girl for less then a week before Kuybey brought her into the first meeting Mami had for setting up the group that would eventually become the Serenissima Imperium Magicum Puella. (Mami insisted on using the full and correct name, even if everyone else didn't!) Mami remembered her as having been a rather shy and reserved girl, who was usually quiet, but when she did say something it was always something important to think about. Kaoru had gained a lot of confidence since those days.
Some of the other girls had teased Kaoru about her costume when they had their first training session. Her outfit was basically a white leotard with a short skirt, big bows, and a sailor uniform collar. About as stereotypical a magical girl outfit you could get... from the nineties. It was unusual for a magical girl to be so... old fashioned in her uniform choice. When she summoned her weapon and a large harp appeared, the other girls had down right laughed. Mami had felt a strong sense of kinship, remembering when she only had ribbons as weapons. She had even told the story of how she once only had ribbons to the group as a way of reminding them that you never knew how powerful a girl could be.
Despite the amusement, Kaoru had actually turned out to be something of a prodigy. In addition to being able to fire energy spears with the pluck of a harp string, it turned out that Kaoru had a very useful ability to disable and confuse demons over a large area by playing cords on her harp. It was perfect for pack hunting, and had really helped increase the harvest of her groups in those early days. With the added maturity of her age, it wasn't a surprise that Kaoru had soon become a leader among the girls who spent their time hunting.
There had only been two incidents with Kaoru while hunting. Once she had been injured rather badly when she froze up after seeing Hitomi killed right in front of her. That was perfectly understandable. The two of them had been pretty close despite Hitomi being a year younger, and several months more experienced at being a magical girl. In many ways Hitomi had been Kaoru's hunting mentor. The other incident had occurred when Kaoru was uncharacteristically sloppy, and while hunting stabbed Sayaka through the throat with an energy spear. Even though Sayaka had laughed it off, it had taken 4 grief cubes to stop Kaoru from grief spiraling in guilt over the incident.
Mami's eyes narrow in thought. Actually... Kaori had come home all bloodied and injured just a couple days before the hunting accident. Mami had never considered the two incidents connected before, but maybe there was a reason Kaoru was distracted, and perhaps other reasons for guilt besides just the hunting accident.
Kaoru had taken a large interest in the youngest of the girls. She had given both Yuma and Kaori special attention, including some extra combat training, just the three of them. Kaoru would often come by the apartments late at night since she didn't have to worry about a curfew. On a few occasions when Mami had checked in, she had heard Kaoru singing Yuma to sleep with lullabies.
Singing talent must run in her family. If her mother sung anything like her daughter, Mami wasn't surprised that she could make a living based on her voice. In fact, some of the few times Mami had taken some time off to just enjoy life she had spent going to karaoke with Kaoru. It was just nice sometimes to spend time with a girl who was her own age and didn't treat her as a mother figure.
Mami reminds herself to stay focused on the crisis at hand. Still, it might make sense that Kaoru was having some special difficulty handling Kaori moving away. Mami was having a hard time herself. Kaoru had just barely moved into the house, after having finally convinced her mother that it was safe for her to stay and that her mother should move to Kasimono, at least until the water contamination was solved. So maybe there was some homesickness involved as well.
Mami left her musings behind as she arrived and entered the house. Things did not seem as bad as Taya had made it sound over the phone. It looked like all the girls besides Kaoru were in the living room. There was some sniffling going on, and a quite a few hugs, but not the waterworks Taya had described. Mami could hear singing faintly from overhead and to the back of the room. It seemed to end for a few minutes before starting up again. Mami felt herself become a little melancholy listening to the melody, but she shook herself and focused on finding Taya.
Mami soon spied Taya, but she seemed to be the worst of everyone, sniffling so bad Mami wasn't sure it was worth trying to question her. Fortunately Aiko approached Mami on her own and filled Mami in on what was happening. "I managed to get everyone away from the door during one of those pauses. It doesn't seem to effect people as much down here." Aiko seemed cross, which was a strange mixture with her red and puffy eyes. "You need to get up there and tell her to stop. I'll be in the kitchen, I have a couple blueberry pies I have to finish cooking."
Mami decides to leave Aiko to the baking. Aiko has always been pretty good at handling others during grief spirals, though Mami hopes they won't be going through the "nothing but blueberry pies" stage again. Going up the stairs, Mami could feel the melancholy inside herself increasing. Approaching the door, she starts to sniffle. Strangely Mami seems to be remembering a lot of the good times she had with Kyouko, and just feels a sadness that those time are gone. Pulling herself together, Mami knocked on the door, "Gima-san?"
Kaoru stopped singing, and Mami realized now that Kauro had actually been singing along with a CD or something. Mami heard the music pause, and then Kaoru opened the door, looking for all the world as if nothing was more wrong then listening to a sad song for a little while. "Tomoe-san? What are you doing here?" She stepped back to let Mami enter the room.
Entering, Mami looked around the room. Kaoru didn't have much in the room. A bed, a dresser, an 30 year old portable TV with a battered VCR connected to it. A faded old idol poster above the bed. Mami realized that the music had been coming from the TV, on which was paused a very old and familiar magical girl anime. Kaoru sat down on the bed as if nothing was the matter, "What's up?"
"Uh... Gima-san, were you aware that everyone in the house has been crying?" Mami was a little confused as she had been half prepared for a grief spiraling girl, not the calm and collected girl in front of her.
Kaoru seems surprised before blushing and blurting out, "It's not supposed to be a sad song."
Mami raises an eyebrow. "You don't seem surprised that your singing is having an effect like this."
Kaoru shifts uncomfortably, "I never told you my wish did I?"
Mami nods before prompting: "I think everyone assumed it had something to do with music."
"You could say that," Kaoru pauses to collect herself before continuing. "I wished to have perfect pitch." Mami blinks. "Yeah, pretty stupid thing to waste a wish on. Well, ever since then my singing tends to, um... make people more emotional."
"It makes people sad?" clarifies Mami.
"Well, if the song is sad. Depends on the emotion of the song, you know." Kaoru pauses, "I'll be more careful in the future."
Well that solved the problem, but Mami decides she should probably stay awhile and see if Kaoru wanted to talk about what was bothering her. "I guess you wanted to be like your mother."
Kaoru sighs, "No, actually my mom never cared about me being tone deaf, it was more about my father." Kaoru stops long enough that Mami thought maybe she was done before suddenly continuing. "You, you know my father and mother aren't a.. you know, married, right?" The words spilled out of Kaoru like water breaking through a dam. She didn't even wait to hear Mami's response, "He's an idol manager for a record company. He, well, he's a.. a lot older then my mother."
Kaoru pauses to look at Mami who wasn't sure at all what she was supposed to say or do to that. "Well, I guess there's no real nice way to say it. He was my mom's manager when she was a teenage idol. I think you can figure out the rest." Mami's eyes suddenly shift to the poster above Kaoru's bed, "Naru Gima" was the faded name under the picture, which looked nothing like Kaoru. Maybe it was the heavy makeup and big hair.
Kaoru was smiling shyly when Mami looks back down at her. "She never made it big or anything, just local. Maybe she would have, expect, well, she had me. My father tried to get her to get rid of me, and my grandparents told her so too, but my mom insisted on keeping me. That's why we don't really have anyone else but each other."
Kaoru looks away, "I didn't really know all that until later. I just knew I had a father somewhere in Tokyo managing idols at a record company. I used to dream about entering an idol contest and then meeting him, and he would be so impressed with my voice that he would come back and live with my mom and me. Silly dreams really."
"Then I actually decided to try when I was 15 and old enough to enter an audition being held by my father's company." Mami wasn't sure what emotion the half grin on Kaoru's face was supposed to show. "I kept it a secret from my mom because I knew she wouldn't approve. I had to save up for the train fare. He was actually there at the audition. The look on his face when they called out my name wasn't anything like I thought it'd be. He went white, like he'd seen a ghost. And then I started to sing." Kaoru was back to looking at the wall. "Well that was that. Nobody had ever told me before how bad I was."
Mami tries to console her, "I'm sure you weren't that bad." This just got her a flat look from Kaoru.
"One of the judges suggested I have my throat checked by a doctor." Seeing Mami's horrified face Kaoru rushes to clarify, "I actually think he was trying to be nice." Mami just sighs at that. Kaoru continues, "My father took me to lunch afterwards. He tried to be nice, gave me all the money in his wallet, but I could tell he was really hoping I would leave and wouldn't come back. I think he was afraid of me."
Kaoru looks over at Mami with a knowing grin this time, "That's when Kuybey came to visit. You know, I didn't realize it then, but he likes to approach girls when they're vulnerable." Kaoru flops back on the bed. "Anyway, I wished to have perfect pitch, thinking I would go back and show my father what a big mistake he made writing me and mom off. Of course, then I was so busy just trying to survive being a magical girl I haven't had time to worry about anything else."
Kaoru lets out a long breath, "It's strange, a year and a half ago he seemed like the biggest thing in the world. Now he just seems small and unimportant." Kaoru lapses into a comfortable silence.
Mami was loath to interrupt the mood, but she felt that Kaoru still had some more she wanted to say. "You still haven't told me what brought on the song though."
Kaoru seems to come back from whatever peaceful contemplation she'd been having. "Oh that, well when I got to highschool one of the Glee Club members heard me singing and made me join. I told them I was too busy for club meetings, so I'm sort of a ghost member. They asked me to sing a song for the cultural festival though. I figured I ought to practice."
Mami tilts her head and looks at Kaoru. "Okay, well not really. I mean I did get asked to sing at the cultural festival and I picked this song awhile ago. I mean, you know this episode right? Ami was about to leave, but then decided to stay because..." Kaoru makes a vague hugging motion, "because being together is important, even if you're crying together, at least you're together." Kaoru rolls over onto her stomach, "My mom used to sing this song with me all the time. Then when Kaori left," Kaoru pauses for a moment, "Well the way it's supposed to work is she stays at the last minute, but she didn't." Kaoru hits the mattress in frustration, "She didn't." Kaoru sits up and glares at Mami, "What are we going to do sempai? We can't leave her alone!"
Mami sighs, "I don't know."
Kaoru hesitates before speaking, "I've been thinking maybe I could transfer to Itawa." Mami looks at Kaoru in surprise. "Or even drop out altogether." Kaoru cuts Mami off before she can interrupt, "It's not like I'm going to go to college anyway. Being a magical girl is basically my career now."
Noticing Mami's hesitation, Kaoru continues to press her point, "I'm not as useful here now that we aren't pack hunting all the time." Mami points out that Kaoru is actually good in Pairs and Solo Hunting too. "Well, not as much. If it weren't for Sayaka showing me how to summon those musical platforms, I wouldn't really have the mobility I need to Solo."
At this point a short digression occurred with Mami and Kaoru discussing Sayaka's power set, as Mami hadn't realized Sayaka's power was musically related. She had thought Sayaka was mainly healing with an apparent water theme. Kaoru blushes as they circled back to why she approached Sayaka in the first place, "Yeah, well, I was kind of hoping that with the water theme Sayaka had going and my harp that maybe I could figure out how to.. well you know..." Kaoru's voice drops to a mumble, "A..wa..Rah...s..dee," Mami asks her to repeat herself, and Kaoru turned bright red before speaking more loudly, "Aqua Rhapsody okay, I wanted to learn how to do Aqua Rhapsody."
Mami just starts laughing and laughing. Kaoru keeps saying "It's not that funny," but each time it only makes Mami laugh harder. Finally Kaoru just sat there sulking until Mami finally laughs herself out. Mami couldn't remember the last time she had laughed so hard.
"It's not fair," Kaoru grumps, "You got your ribbons to turn into muskets. I ought to be able to get my harp to shoot a blast of water." Mami fought the chuckles down as she pointed out that the physical differences between sound and water are more significant then the differences between magically hard ribbons and steel. Kaoru looks so put out that Mami promised to take some time to train with her a bit and see what they could make Kaoru's sound waves do. Kaoru became rather excited about getting "a real finishing move like Trio Finale." Together they came up with a few ideas to start with. About then Mami realized she had already spent an hour talking with Kaoru, and she had a lot of other things to do.
As she got up to excuse herself, Kaoru brought up moving to Itawa again, and asked Mami to at least consider it. "I will Gima-san," Mami promised.
As she reached the door, Kaoru spoke up again, "Sempai," Mami turned back to look at her, "you can call me Kaoru."
Mami blinks for a second and then replies, "Alright Kaoru, and you can call me Mami." As she left, Mami reflected how nice it was to have someone she could talk to who didn't see her as a mother. Meanwhile, the more calculating part of Mami's brain added 'idol singer' to the list of possible money makers for the Serene Imperium.
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Whew, that took forever. Now to proofread.
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That was spectacular. Bravo. You incorporated so many details that have come up throughout that it's amazing.
Any bonus you had in mind for it?
Also turn options are up, though there isn't anything new besides the hunting modifier options. There weren't really any new suggestions this turn.
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[X] Upkeep 7 Veterans and 5 Greens (by the way, aren't our Ogawa sisters about ripe to become veterans? It's been 10 months, and they were 2 months on their own before joining).
[X] Upkeep: -$3,000 (house) -$3,000 (apart.) -$2,900 (stipend) -$400 (cable) -$580 (cells) = -$9,880
[X] Improved Dispatch: By exchanging physical cyclists patrolling your territory looking for demons for clairvoyants scanning the area from a afar you've managed to greatly improve the area each member can cover.
Cost: 1 clairvoyant per 20 territory (the original was 1 per 10 territory); Reward: -1% casualty rate, 30% increase grief cube gather(additive with demon finding same as before)
[X] Expand territory 8, by diplomacy: If you can convince them to join your group you may be able to safely incorporate others' territories. 1 Veteran, 1 Mami
Cost: 1 Green, 1 Veteran; Reward: Meguca from territory recruited, new territory; Chance of Success: 30% (Mami bonus applicable)
-[X] Addon, Bribery: Giving the girls some money might help them realize just how good for them cooperation could be.
Cost: $150 per girl in the territory; Reward: +1d10% success chance (-$1,500)
30% + 25% (scout bonus) + 10% (Mami) + Bribery = 70.5% chance of success.
[X] Repeat Basic General Combat Training: We have a lot of new members. Give them the same training our older members had (and maybe give a refresher course for our older members)
Cost: 1.5 Veterans; Reward: -2% casualty rate on all Hunting actions (From -1%)
[X] Demon Forecasting: It occurred to you that while the patterns seem random enough that you couldn't predict where demons would appear, that doesn't mean there aren't underlying patterns like the weather. Maybe someone with some more resources could make sense of them. Kyuubey admits that it is possible, but with only your girls' rather imprecise data results will be equally imprecise. Especially given just how many variables effect demon spawn rates due to their connection to human migratory patterns. He'd also charge you for use of the processing time.
Cost: 1 grief cube per turn; Reward: Additional 1.1x multiplier on grief cube gather rate. (Multiplicative rather than additive with others.)
[X] Hunting Pairs: Magical Girls will hunt in pairs reducing the danger, but because they are not covering as much area their efficiency is reduced. Death is less likely. 7.5 Veterans = approx 30 grief cubes, should be 0% casualty chance
Cost: Variable, specify number of Meguca dedicated; Reward 1.6 Grief Cubes per Meguca assigned; 16% base casualty chance
[X] Dispersed Hunting: Magical Girl will individually hunt demons throughout your territory and gather the grief cubes for the central supply. This can be dangerous. 1 Veteran assigned hunt the rural area = approx. 3 Grief cubes, should 0% chance of casualty
Cost: Variable, specify number of Meguca dedicated; Reward: 2 grief cubes per Meguca assigned. 20% base casualty (significant injury or death) chance.
-[X] Rural: Base modified to 1.5, dispatch bonus does not apply.
That leaves 3 Veterans unassigned. We could do a lot of things with this...
[X] Cultural Festival day: You'll take the time to organize a full group outing to go to Kaoru's high school Cultural Festival, watch her sing, and enjoy the food, booths, and enjoyment of doing something normal for girls your age.
Cost: 1 Veteran Meguca (representative of one day for everyone essentially, since you are now mostly vets); Reward: Increase to morale (group cohesion)
-[X] Invite Kyouko. Hey, she loves food and a party, right? Offer to pay for her tickets and food since she will be your guest. (-$50)
[X] Scout Area Itawa: You can deploy a veteran to scout out one of the territories around you stealthily. They should be able to gauge the demon strength there and the magical girls status there without tipping them off, hopefully.
Cost: 1 Veteran; Chance of success: 70%; Reward: information on demon strength, support capacity of the territory, and status of current magical girls in the territory, bonus to diplomatic efforts. Kaori scouts her new home and reports back on the territories, girls, and demon strength. Kaoru goes to join her, also looks into possible locations for apartments, etc. - 2 Veterans, since we are doubling up I'm hoping we get more information.
[] Scout Area 2: You can deploy a veteran to scout out one of the territories around you stealthily. They should be able to gauge the demon strength there and the magical girls status there without tipping them off, hopefully.
Cost: 1 Veteran; Chance of success: 70%; Reward: information on demon strength, support capacity of the territory, and status of current magical girls in the territory, bonus to diplomatic efforts.
-[] Send a different girl then last time.
Some additional actions that I hope do not require any manpower resources:
[X] Check up on Ayase. How is she doing with the water contamination? Is her family planning on moving anywhere? If so, be sure to exchange contact information, and warn her against contacting magical girls in her new area, as they might not know how to handle a mundane knowing their secret.
[X] Ask Kyouko if we can expand the courier service into her territory.
My thought is that we can get a decent amount of grief cubes still this turn, grab the 10 new girls before we refresh General Combat training. And then we'll have to focus on training and Pack Hunting while we arrange outlets for our higher population.
This is also pursuing two non-exclusive options for relieving the pressure.
Option 1: We recruit Kyouko and get her area. I figure we assign Mami to that again next month if that is looking good. Otherwise we try to negotiate sharecropping in her territory.
Option 2: We establish an Outpost in Itawa. If just 5 of our girls go that should drop us down to a sustainable level.
@notgreat One thing to understand is that Itawa is well beyond the map edge. There are seven additional cities in between us and Itawa besides just Yaizu. This outpost will need to grow and become self-sustaining for quite sometime. It will probably be at least two years before we can rejoin the groups with contiguous territory and that assumes we focus only on expansion during that time.
I still think it's worth doing. We can support one additional non-contiguous territory, especially if we add the 10 additional girls in area 8.
I also noticed that the 3 veterans in there can almost support the entire 10 girls with their hunting (8.4 cubes if pack hunting, 10.8 if Pair Hunting). That would be an additional 7 girls worth of manpower.
@inverted_helix I added a Cultural Festival option, modeled on the sports day option, I hope that's alright.
Other options that I am looking for is:
1: Scout Itawa (I hopeful that I can just assign two girls to do this). By the way, I noticed you did not reduce our group by 1 Vet to represent Kaori moving, is she really available for any action in Mitakihara?
2: Start a College Fund (no we won't do it this turn, but it's something to start thinking about).
3: Offer Kyouko a deal where we hunt her excess demons in exchange for 33% of our harvest.
[X] Upkeep: -$3,000 (house) -$3,000 (apart.) -$2,900 (stipend) -$400 (cable) -$580 (cells) = -$9,880
[X] Improved Dispatch: By exchanging physical cyclists patrolling your territory looking for demons for clairvoyants scanning the area from a afar you've managed to greatly improve the area each member can cover.
Cost: 1 clairvoyant per 20 territory (the original was 1 per 10 territory); Reward: -1% casualty rate, 30% increase grief cube gather(additive with demon finding same as before)
[X] Expand territory 8, by diplomacy: If you can convince them to join your group you may be able to safely incorporate others' territories. 1 Veteran, 1 Mami
Cost: 1 Green, 1 Veteran; Reward: Meguca from territory recruited, new territory; Chance of Success: 30% (Mami bonus applicable)
-[X] Addon, Bribery: Giving the girls some money might help them realize just how good for them cooperation could be.
Cost: $150 per girl in the territory; Reward: +1d10% success chance (-$1,500)
30% + 25% (scout bonus) + 10% (Mami) + Bribery = 70.5% chance of success.
[X] Repeat Basic General Combat Training: We have a lot of new members. Give them the same training our older members had (and maybe give a refresher course for our older members)
Cost: 1.5 Veterans; Reward: -2% casualty rate on all Hunting actions (From -1%)
[X] Demon Forecasting: It occurred to you that while the patterns seem random enough that you couldn't predict where demons would appear, that doesn't mean there aren't underlying patterns like the weather. Maybe someone with some more resources could make sense of them. Kyuubey admits that it is possible, but with only your girls' rather imprecise data results will be equally imprecise. Especially given just how many variables effect demon spawn rates due to their connection to human migratory patterns. He'd also charge you for use of the processing time.
Cost: 1 grief cube per turn; Reward: Additional 1.1x multiplier on grief cube gather rate. (Multiplicative rather than additive with others.)
[X] Hunting Pairs: Magical Girls will hunt in pairs reducing the danger, but because they are not covering as much area their efficiency is reduced. Death is less likely. 7.5 Veterans = approx 30 grief cubes, should be 0% casualty chance
Cost: Variable, specify number of Meguca dedicated; Reward 1.6 Grief Cubes per Meguca assigned; 16% base casualty chance
[X] Dispersed Hunting: Magical Girl will individually hunt demons throughout your territory and gather the grief cubes for the central supply. This can be dangerous. 1 Veteran assigned hunt the rural area = approx. 3 Grief cubes, should 0% chance of casualty
Cost: Variable, specify number of Meguca dedicated; Reward: 2 grief cubes per Meguca assigned. 20% base casualty (significant injury or death) chance.
-[X] Rural: Base modified to 1.5, dispatch bonus does not apply.
That leaves 3 Veterans unassigned. We could do a lot of things with this...
[X] Cultural Festival day: You'll take the time to organize a full group outing to go to Kaoru's high school Cultural Festival, watch her sing, and enjoy the food, booths, and enjoyment of doing something normal for girls your age.
Cost: 1 Veteran Meguca (representative of one day for everyone essentially, since you are now mostly vets); Reward: Increase to morale (group cohesion)
-[X] Invite Kyouko. Hey, she loves food and a party, right? Offer to pay for her tickets and food since she will be your guest. (-$50)
[X] Scout Area Itawa: You can deploy a veteran to scout out one of the territories around you stealthily. They should be able to gauge the demon strength there and the magical girls status there without tipping them off, hopefully.
Cost: 1 Veteran; Chance of success: 70%; Reward: information on demon strength, support capacity of the territory, and status of current magical girls in the territory, bonus to diplomatic efforts. Kaori scouts her new home and reports back on the territories, girls, and demon strength. Kaoru goes to join her, also looks into possible locations for apartments, etc. - 2 Veterans, since we are doubling up I'm hoping we get more information.
[] Scout Area 2: You can deploy a veteran to scout out one of the territories around you stealthily. They should be able to gauge the demon strength there and the magical girls status there without tipping them off, hopefully.
Cost: 1 Veteran; Chance of success: 70%; Reward: information on demon strength, support capacity of the territory, and status of current magical girls in the territory, bonus to diplomatic efforts.
-[] Send a different girl then last time.
Some additional actions that I hope do not require any manpower resources:
[X] Check up on Ayase. How is she doing with the water contamination? Is her family planning on moving anywhere? If so, be sure to exchange contact information, and warn her against contacting magical girls in her new area, as they might not know how to handle a mundane knowing their secret.
[X] Ask Kyouko if we can expand the courier service into her territory.
My thought is that we can get a decent amount of grief cubes still this turn, grab the 10 new girls before we refresh General Combat training. And then we'll have to focus on training and Pack Hunting while we arrange outlets for our higher population.
This is also pursuing two non-exclusive options for relieving the pressure.
Option 1: We recruit Kyouko and get her area. I figure we assign Mami to that again next month if that is looking good. Otherwise we try to negotiate sharecropping in her territory.
Option 2: We establish an Outpost in Itawa. If just 5 of our girls go that should drop us down to a sustainable level.
@notgreat One thing to understand is that Itawa is well beyond the map edge. There are seven additional cities in between us and Itawa besides just Yaizu. This outpost will need to grow and become self-sustaining for quite sometime. It will probably be at least two years before we can rejoin the groups with contiguous territory and that assumes we focus only on expansion during that time.
I still think it's worth doing. We can support one additional non-contiguous territory, especially if we add the 10 additional girls in area 8.
I also noticed that the 3 veterans in there can almost support the entire 10 girls with their hunting (8.4 cubes if pack hunting, 10.8 if Pair Hunting). That would be an additional 7 girls worth of manpower.
@inverted_helix I added a Cultural Festival option, modeled on the sports day option, I hope that's alright.
Other options that I am looking for is:
1: Scout Itawa (I hopeful that I can just assign two girls to do this). By the way, I noticed you did not reduce our group by 1 Vet to represent Kaori moving, is she really available for any action in Mitakihara?
2: Start a College Fund (no we won't do it this turn, but it's something to start thinking about).
3: Offer Kyouko a deal where we hunt her excess demons in exchange for 33% of our harvest.
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ideas:
Well now that our boarding house has spoken with the parents we'd better worry/plan about what to do if something unfortunate happens to one of those girls.
Power development and evolution training (ribbons to rifles, music to water, cages of spears, etc)
We could try soft social pressure on some of the girls we're trying to recruit (including kyoko) by inviting them to Serene social events like the magical athletics thing.
OOOH ... since magical girls are apparently immune to food poisoning, that gives us a whole new range of ingredients to try cooking with. Like anti-freeze and bleach. We'd just have to be careful not to let any non-magical consume any of it.
For that matter it might be worthwhile to bribe Kyubey with a few grief cubes to go over all the ways magical girls deviate from baseline humans, like if a girl that has really internalized the fact that she is her Soul Gem and just wears her body can ignore brain damage. Or if MGs in general are resistant to electricity. Hell, are there any unusual weaknesses and vulnerabilities that MGs have other than soul gems and grief seeds?
Survivability training: how to protect your soul gem (and maybe specialized soul gem armor)
Related to the above, it'd be useful to find out if there's anything a girl can do when she's been seperated from her body. Like, can she learn to sense her surroundings and magically levitate her soul gem? What about swap or share MG bodies. This would have to be handled very carefully of course and with strict ethical guidelines established ahead of time
studying minor magical effects that can have large impact, such as a minor light distortion effect being used to make a giant magnifying glass to burn things
trying to spread the news far and wide among the magical girl community about how the Serenes work, possibly including offering seminars about how to set up your own chapter in your own city.
pointing out to @inverted_helix that the story has a habit of switching between third and second person when describing Mami.
warning the neighboring district about the dangerous levels of demon strength they have and why its happening
Well now that our boarding house has spoken with the parents we'd better worry/plan about what to do if something unfortunate happens to one of those girls.
Power development and evolution training (ribbons to rifles, music to water, cages of spears, etc)
We could try soft social pressure on some of the girls we're trying to recruit (including kyoko) by inviting them to Serene social events like the magical athletics thing.
OOOH ... since magical girls are apparently immune to food poisoning, that gives us a whole new range of ingredients to try cooking with. Like anti-freeze and bleach. We'd just have to be careful not to let any non-magical consume any of it.
For that matter it might be worthwhile to bribe Kyubey with a few grief cubes to go over all the ways magical girls deviate from baseline humans, like if a girl that has really internalized the fact that she is her Soul Gem and just wears her body can ignore brain damage. Or if MGs in general are resistant to electricity. Hell, are there any unusual weaknesses and vulnerabilities that MGs have other than soul gems and grief seeds?
Survivability training: how to protect your soul gem (and maybe specialized soul gem armor)
Related to the above, it'd be useful to find out if there's anything a girl can do when she's been seperated from her body. Like, can she learn to sense her surroundings and magically levitate her soul gem? What about swap or share MG bodies. This would have to be handled very carefully of course and with strict ethical guidelines established ahead of time
studying minor magical effects that can have large impact, such as a minor light distortion effect being used to make a giant magnifying glass to burn things
trying to spread the news far and wide among the magical girl community about how the Serenes work, possibly including offering seminars about how to set up your own chapter in your own city.
pointing out to @inverted_helix that the story has a habit of switching between third and second person when describing Mami.
warning the neighboring district about the dangerous levels of demon strength they have and why its happening
That's alright.
Assigning two girls is probably wise. It's going to have all sorts of possible side effects.
The reason I didn't reduce your meguca-power by 1 was that I expected some sort of action to be done about that which she could be applied to and I saw no particular reason as yet to justify splitting your resource pools. I mean for the most part over the distances involved they're pretty transferable. I mean it's about an hour or two by bike, or a fairly small bit of magic by teleportation (only like 3-4 hops each way).
You can try this if you want.
Haruka will likely flip out on you. Also immunity to most poisons doesn't actually translate to being able to digest it.
Yeah, I'm trying to get better at it but I'm a bit indecisive which just compounds the issue. Quests traditionally are 2nd person, but 3rd person is what's more common in general writing. Trying to force myself more over to second person, but it's difficult.
lol. While telling them why they are strong might be helpful, you can be quite sure they know that the demon strength is dangerous. They're the ones fighting them everyday.
Also a shiny new action:
[] Rising Stars: In the time SIMP has been in existence you've noticed that you have a couple girls that stand out from the rest. With some personal training to hone their skills and push them to their limits and beyond they might be able to make it to Elite status. This can be run for up to two candidates at a time.
Cost: 1 Elite, 1-2 Veterans, 1 grief cubes per candidate; Reward: Elite promotion; Time: 3 months maximum; Chance of success: 30% per month on each girl, if they succeed they are immediately freed from the program for use, if they fail all 3 months they lose elite candidacy as they proved not strong enough.
Current Elite Candidates: Kaoru, Taya
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Diomedea
A piece of the continent
- Location
- The interblag
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Soooooo shiny. It calls us. Quick, someone do the pure math on this so I can have an actually informed opinion.
I'm guessing that we can get better odds if we improve the process. Let's test it once, and then do some research.
34.3% chance of failure to become an Elite after 3 months. It's a pretty good deal, only problem is that it's really expensive by taking Mami out of the count for the duration. Can't afford it right now when we need to talk to Kyouko.
@inverted_helix Question: Am I reading this right that we could have Mami train both of them at the same time? Does this increase the grief cube costs or change the percentages?
I more meant using them as flavorings rather than primary foods. But yeah, avoiding the stuff that would make Haruka flip is a good idea. Still, it does mean that Mami can feel free to experiment more than usual and not need to take normal precautions. Stuff like trying out fugu even though that normally can be lethal if not professionally prepared, trying out new mushrooms, and potato leaf tea
Sure they know that the demons are dangerously strong, I just wouldn't bet that they know that the demons are unusually strong with numerical data to back that up
Apologies if I've missed something, but since I'm failing on omakes I may as well go for tactics. Why is talking to Kyouko so soon so necessary? Why not delay it?
Because we want to add her territory which can probably support 9+ more girls besides her to our territory so that we have an easier time of it.
notgreat is leaning towards brute forcing it and going after her every single turn. I want to approach it a bit more obliquely by making gradual steps to involve her before making another pitch. Either way we need Mami free, not locked into 3 months worth of Elite training.
This is accurate.
Yes, she can train both. It doesn't affect percentages but does increase the grief cube cost. It's 1 grief cube per candidate per month (essentially representative of them spending a lot of extra magic on training). The roll will be done on each candidate individually.
Don't make too many assumptions on just what it covers. It covers a lot of things dangerous to humans but not everything, and the method it functions by is probably not what you're thinking.
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Hmm in that case best to do it when we can spare both.
Say, can Elites train other Elites, besides Mami?
I did actually specify Elite as the cost rather than Mami in this case, just as an aspect of future proofing.
If we do the Rising Stars action, does each Elite get a special bonus like Mami's +10% diplomacy? Elites aren't that much better than veterans in non-combat situations, but those special bonuses seem like they might be huge.
Definitely agree that we can't train this turn though, Mami is too important for Kyouko-recruiting and possible outpost-making.
@Elder Haman For the diplomacy action, is +5.5% really worth 1.5k? That's more than a whole meguca-month worth of money.
I'd recommend redoing the general combat training, 1.5 people for a 1% benefit is worth it (though it'll cost us an extra 1% to keep it when we grow from area 8)
Area 8 isn't even all that important. The 10 girls are nice, but I'm not sure we can handle the increased demon strength. If they're at +10 then our territory gets +3, which starts giving us significant casualties. While they're still useful enough to collect, I'd prefer to assign a normal veteran and use Mami on a second Kyouko meeting since then we might have enough cubes to spare for research or the casual magic-use action.
Also, I'd recommend retraining general combat. It's either 1.5 megucamonths now and 1.5 later or 3 megucamonths later, so we might as well keep it as high as possible to prevent casualties.
Definitely agree that we can't train this turn though, Mami is too important for Kyouko-recruiting and possible outpost-making.
@Elder Haman For the diplomacy action, is +5.5% really worth 1.5k? That's more than a whole meguca-month worth of money.
I'd recommend redoing the general combat training, 1.5 people for a 1% benefit is worth it (though it'll cost us an extra 1% to keep it when we grow from area 8)
Area 8 isn't even all that important. The 10 girls are nice, but I'm not sure we can handle the increased demon strength. If they're at +10 then our territory gets +3, which starts giving us significant casualties. While they're still useful enough to collect, I'd prefer to assign a normal veteran and use Mami on a second Kyouko meeting since then we might have enough cubes to spare for research or the casual magic-use action.
Also, I'd recommend retraining general combat. It's either 1.5 megucamonths now and 1.5 later or 3 megucamonths later, so we might as well keep it as high as possible to prevent casualties.
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Our odds of recruiting her are pretty low. Maybe we should give up on that and try to secure the Grief Cubes another way? We're going to have a short term grief problem either way.
The problem with that is: The only other way is to poach on her territory. Not the best of ideas.
Yes they do. Though I'm undecided how the bonus will be determined. Each Elite is supposed to be a valuable resource.
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I figured that since we don't need the 1% bonus this month because we are adding dispatch there was no point in spending 1.5 on it now just to need to do it again the following month. We still get 0% casualties on Pair Hunting without it. I was fully planning on doing it next month (when it will probably cost 2 Vets and 1 Green).
I think the +5.5% is worth it. I wasn't willing to 2x it, but territory and manpower are more important right now then money. We still don't go over our savings, even after adding in cellphone costs.
+3% shouldn't give use significant casualties. General Combat Training + Telepathic Communication would wipe that +3% out for Pair Hunting, and we can always use Pack Hunting which has a base of 10% casualties.
Actually that +3% increase is lower then what I ballparked, if that's the better estimate, then Area 8 is looking even better.
On Kyouko, I guess the difference is that I think we need to go slow, I don't think Kyouko will join us next month (unless we roll a 99 or something). So I'd rather not hit her turn after turn when we need Mami elsewhere for a more immediate return.
Apologies. Bad wording. I meant to secure Grief Cubes from some other territory.