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Puella Magi Adfligo Systema

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mCooperative said:
So I'm still trying to cite for a related point, but for now, my one big concern about your vote, if we're getting into all this: Are we absolutely sure we want to be approaching this from this "so Madoka is literally god, who I pray to, and here's why" angle? I don't know, it concerns me. Assuming we do, though- can we have a slightly better segue from the end of the last update?

Because I feel like "and suddenly Madoka was religion" doesn't flow particularly naturally from



Given that you're cleared to go over wordcount, a more explicit plan to handle leading into all this would feel a bit better, in my mind at least.
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It flows from it because we keep running into things where the world has been changed from what it ought to be, in a way that allows us to actually fix things. Madoka's wish has had far more wide-ranging impact than simply creating Sabrina.
 
Godwinson said:
It flows from it because we keep running into things where the world has been changed from what it ought to be, in a way that allows us to actually fix things. Madoka's wish has had far more wide-ranging impact than simply creating Sabrina.
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Mwargh, it might just be I'm not seeing how it would be written- I don't mean it doesn't flow topically, that makes perfect sense from our perspective, I just mean- verbally, how are we planning to segue into this? It says lead in with Asunaro being too convenient- but that's not really- I dunno. Even like a sentence that directly responds to what Homura said last, about "It works because I've got some pretty big advantages" or "It does. And that's a bit too convenient to be just me- because" and continue on.

I dunno, I might just be tired. I trust Firn to write it well, I'm just not quite seeing how it'd be bridged. Meh.
 
@Vebyast , @mCooperative , Do I have your missing link.... ?

Sabrina has lots of metaknowledge. How is that delivered? It's pretty much all in the third person, visual. As if someone were always watching over these people....
 
HeroCycle said:
@Vebyast , @mCooperative , Do I have your missing link.... ?

Sabrina has lots of metaknowledge. How is that delivered? It's pretty much all in the third person, visual. As if someone were always watching over these people....
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... well that's certainly an option. As someone waiting to be convinced by this plan, I'm not sure how I evaluate it as an option. Not necessarily poorly, though. @Vebyast what do you think?
 
I have been thinking, there is a further loose fastener in Homura's downer worldview. This is to say that just because Magical Girl wishes are unsafe, doesn't mean that all wishes are bad. For all we know, human natural magic has been granting bespoke wishes forever. Incubators came here and industrialized to process for their own purposes, but it never went away. Perhaps the effective wish for this loop is under a very different setting than one we know? Madoka might have finally gained enough potential to move her wish forward without the Incubators.
 
"Why does it work for you?"

"Well... I was actually asking myself that. Around Asunaro. It's too convenient."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean it's too convenient. Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, thrice is... not the enemy, but there's something Going On."
HeroCycle said:
@Vebyast , @mCooperative , Do I have your missing link.... ?

Sabrina has lots of metaknowledge. How is that delivered? It's pretty much all in the third person, visual. As if someone were always watching over these people....
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Vebyast said:
[x] Conversation goal: Attempt to help Homura believe in herself and her future by telling her to have faith in Madokami who has faith in her and Wished to fix everything.
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Vebyast said:
[x] Conversation goal:
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That entire block is a directive to Brinapilot. You will notice that throughout the body of the vote I use "Madoka". I use religious verbiage (have faith, etc) because it is useful and it resonates with Homura. Even if we don't literally tell her to "pray to Madokami", that is still exactly what we are telling her to do. You will also not that that bit is embedded in a Gurren Lagann quote. It is not literal. The other place I use it is in a block that is explicitly silent and directed at Madokami herself, which is just as much not something that Homura will see.

And past that? I'm handing the vote over to Sabrina. If she thinks that it would help, she'll use it, if she thinks it's a bad idea, she won't use it, and if she chooses wrong we'll show up at Firn's door with torches and pitchforks.
 
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Vebyast said:
"Why does it work for you?"

"Well... I was actually asking myself that. Around Asunaro. It's too convenient."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean it's too convenient. Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, thrice is... not the enemy, but there's something Going On."



That entire block is a directive to Brinapilot. You will notice that throughout the body of the vote I use "Madoka". I use religious verbiage (have faith, etc) because it is useful and it resonates with Homura. Even if we don't literally tell her to "pray to Madokami", that is still exactly what we are telling her to do. You will also not that that bit is embedded in a Gurren Lagann quote. It is not literal. The other place I use it is in a block that is explicitly silent and directed at Madokami herself, which is just as much not something that Homura will see.

And past that? I'm handing the vote over to Sabrina. If she thinks that it would help, she'll use it, if she thinks it's a bad idea, she won't use it, and if she chooses wrong we'll show up at Firn's door with torches and pitchforks.
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Here is another form of lead-in concept. What do you think?

As a principle of good conversation, I think we should get her to "say it" before we go into countermeasures. Her negative feelings are things she doesn't want to verbalize, even though she wants to tell us. This is a festering wound. If we want to treat it, lance the boil, then clean before we bandage? If she can tell us, see us not fall into horror even though we understand, then maybe she will be emphatically supported to hear us at the next stage.
 
Vebyast said:
You will also not that that bit is embedded in a Gurren Lagann quote. It is not literal. Nothing in that block could possibly be literal.
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As one may be able to surmise from several of my previous posts, I am extremely bad at discerning this. Consistently extremely bad. I take things entirely literally far too often, and as a result like to err on the side of excessive clarification when I myself try to communicate something should not be taken literally. I'll take your word that it does come across as clearly non-literal, since everyone else seems to have picked that up. Apologies.

Vebyast said:
The other place I use it is in a block that is explicitly silent and directed at Madokami herself.
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I did indeed notice this part, which is why it wasn't part of what I quoted.

... I have at least one more thought that I need to finish sourcing...
 
I have also considered the exit conditions. What are your long term projection after we do this?

One of them should be to mention Sabrina has #relationshipgolas for Homura, and as such wants to get her to be able to connect to original!Homura. Because Madoka likes her. Are we trying to make this so theological in Homura's mind that we would blow the 100% route completion goal?
 
Vebyast said:
It feels overfocused because I'm digging past all of the cruft to get at the root cause. Homura's insecurity stems from her conclusion that she must do everything herself, which is rooted in Madoka's final request in the third loop. Her lack of progress is because she's reached the peak of her abilities and needs to accept help to get further, which reduces to the same chain. We can't simply explain that it's Madoka's Wish, because that would imply that the Right Way Forward was to let Madoka try to help, which Homura can't do because of the final request from the third loop. It all comes back to that promise. And since it all gets there eventually, that's where we need to be focusing our attention. We can dress it up, go through whatever points we want to make in the meantime, but ultimately speaking that is what we need to do right now.
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This post deserves the insightful I've given it, but I think it's almost completely wrong.

I don't think Homura's insecurity is rooted in her conclusion that she must do everything herself, because she has pretty clearly completely accepted our help at this point. If anything I think it goes much deeper than that.

How to put this... Ah. Remember that Homura, in canon, has essentially despaired by this point and isn't allowing herself to recognize that because some part of her knows that if she does, she'll witch. She is / was an inch from giving up. Ignoring the text of her wish, her desire was to save Madoka, and as far as she can tell she has tried absolutely everything possible and all of it has failed -- note that if there was something she could think of that might work beyond what she has tried, she wouldn't be despairing. But she's down to the bones and past them -- she doesn't really believe that exploding WPN with a stadium's worth of bombs will work, she just can't see anything else to try.

Enter Sabrina.

For all that we ascribe all sorts of things to the actions of others, from Homura's perspective it basically looks like we've swept in and more or less single handedly made everything just work. The only thing she has really helped us with has been Oriko. Absolutely everything else we almost certainly could have done on our own or did do on our own. And then things get worse, because with a little thought it's pretty "obvious" that everything we've done is... stuff she could have done. We haven't generated a ton of grief, she could have matched our total cleansings thus far by being a badass and snagging seeds. And, of course, Oriko is a damned anomaly that only happened in one timeline. The implication is that there was a way to make things work, solo, without Madoka's help because when has Madoka really helped us this loop as far as Homura can tell -- and it could have been executed in any random timeline.

With that put together -- and I think she has put together something along those lines, because it makes a lot of sense given what she's saying in the last post, that "it works for [us]" -- the number of ways it could cause her grief is... large. My immediate conjecture is that it's some combination of three factors, those being "I (almost) despaired and I obviously shouldn't have and it's my fault," "if this is working, then how many times did I fail Madoka doing stupid shit," and just straight up "what the FUCK, I do NOT understand how the hell this is working, I thought I tried fucking EVERYTHING on this general trajectory," blending into something along the lines of "frustration helplessness guilt MADOKA fear." And the fear... the fear is that because she doesn't understand how this worked / is working, if anything goes wrong (this is what the "it doesn't have to be her" line is about) she has absolutely no idea of how to replicate this. She believes, rightly, that she should be essentially able to replicate what we've done if she just understood how the fuck we did it. But without the knowledge of how, if some random thing were to go wrong in this timeline, everything would just be shot to pieces and -- and it'd be done. Over. Gone. Fucked. She'd never be able to put it together because she already tried to put together what we've done, and she failed even after a hundred tries.

That's what this is about.

That's what this:

Firnagzen said:
"I've- this never worked," she whispers, and there's stark, raw pain in her voice, her shoulders hunched against a blow she's endured over and over and over again. "It never worked before."

"I won't let Oriko interfere-"

"It doesn't have to be her," Homura whispers, shaking her head. "It- all this works. For you."
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Is about.

And this?

Firnagzen said:
Homura doesn't meet your eyes, either, her gaze skittering off to look past you. At Sayaka, at Mami, and you can feel her hand trembling ever so slightly under yours. It's not a thousand-yard stare, not really, but that's all you can liken it to. You're just about to speak again when she beats you to it.

"You're getting results," she says. "I don't-"

She bites the sentence off, jaw working silently.

"This isn't-" she tries again, before cutting herself off.
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This is where she desperately wants to murder Oriko Mikuni to ensure our safety, Madoka's safety, this timeline's safety, but whatever the fuck we're doing that she doesn't understand is working and we want Oriko alive. If she goes against us on Oriko, is she endangering our ability to make things work? If she doesn't understand how what we're doing is working, then how can she risk making a decision like that?

The big thing the Vebyast post I quoted at the top gets right is that bringing up Madoka's wish from last loop clashes with Homura's belief that she has to keep Madoka "out of this." But I'm not so sure that it's really that big a deal -- Homura seems to have just kind of been OK with us being the result of a Madowish. I dunno about that angle, it probably deserves more thought but my impression is that it's a secondary concern rather than a primary.

So, going over this, I feel this analysis basically renders my original vote into trash. And... I don't like it's interaction with Vebyast's vote either, because this analysis just goes completely orthogonal to that vote's entire body. The fear, the frustration, all of it? It just... The Vebyast vote is anchored in the assumption that all of Homura's current issues stem from her belief that she must do everything alone, an assumption which I believe is demonstrably off-target. Honestly? I do have a strong preference for what we should be saying here, though.

[X] "Homura."
-[X] Hug the stuffing out of her.
[X] You don't have sufficient details of her early loops to truly compare and contrast, so you don't know if you can really give her a perfect answer as to why.
-[X] But you'll damn well try if she asks. Any time, any where, for any topic, even if it takes you napping in timestop.

I think that is what we should be saying. And I think we should be saying this in anticipation of getting her to ask us about how we've done some of the things she's previously been left in disbelief by.

We've done a number of them. Take Mami for instance:

Firnagzen said:
"Uhhh... right," you respond. Timestop, you figure. You finally locate the mop and begin mopping up the bathroom. "I uh, told Mami about the nature of Soul Gems."

"You did what." Flat disbelief colours Homura's usually emotionless voice.

"I told Mami about Soul Gems... and Kyuubey," you say.

Telepathy conveys a weary sigh to you. "Understood. You... can stay over at my house."

"Uh, that won't be necessary," you reply. Where did you toss that towel earlier? You find it in the sink, and wring it out, before dropping it into the wash basket.

"... explain?" Homura asks, tone utterly befuddled.

"I'm still staying with Mami," you tell her. "She's fine. Ish. I'm still, uh, helping her deal with it."

"... OK...?"

"So... yeah. That's what I wanted to tell you," you say.

"... OK?" Homura replies.

"Yeah," you say. "Um, bye. See you tomorrow, maybe? We might be going shopping."

"... Right... Bye," the time traveller agrees.
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Anyway, uh, it's really friggin late now and I need to get off. Looking forward to responses and stuff!
 
Vebyast said:
Unfortunately, Homura is of the opinion that Madoka's Wish is the reason for our existence, including our grief-cleansing ability that we depend on so heavily to make cooperation possible.
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Please continue reading carefully, I think you'll note that I addressed that concern.

Kaizuki said:
We haven't generated a ton of grief, she could have matched our total cleansings thus far by being a badass and snagging seeds.
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We absolutely rely on it for our dealings outside Mitakihara, but... she never even managed to keep Mitakihara group alive for WPN.
 
Kaizuki said:
The Vebyast vote is anchored in the assumption that all of Homura's current issues stem from her belief that she must do everything alone
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Not really. Homura would be fine accepting help from Sayaka or Mami. The problem is that this help is from Madoka, and in fact is Madoka's Wish. Homura's Wish was "I want to be the one protecting her this time", and then in Loop 3 Madoka made Homura promise to keep her from being "tricked into Wishing", which precipitated her transformation into the Homura we know today. The problem is not that Homura can't accept help. The problem is that Homura can't accept Madoka's Wish as help. Specifically Madoka, specifically her Wish, specifically helping Homura. It goes against Homura's Wish, it goes against the promise she made to Madoka.
 
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Kaizuki said:
Please continue reading carefully, I think you'll note that I addressed that concern.

We absolutely rely on it for our dealings outside Mitakihara, but... she never even managed to keep Mitakihara group alive for WPN.
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The cleansing is only one part of it. Our metaknowledge, our showing up right in front of Madoka and disrupting Kyubey's interactions with her, our ability to talk to people, our drive to Want to Help, all of it is, in Homura's mind, already linked to Madoka's Wish.
 
Not much time for contributions when I'm working 12 hour shifts, but I feel like we've been provided a straightforward reason for Homura's reaction:

Firnagzen said:
"We have allies," Homura whispers with a convulsive swallow. "It's early, but we have allies. They know about Walpurgisnacht."

"Yeah," you say, grinning at Homura.

"I've- this never worked," she whispers, and there's stark, raw pain in her voice, her shoulders hunched against a blow she's endured over and over and over again. "It never worked before."

"I won't let Oriko interfere-"

"It doesn't have to be her," Homura whispers, shaking her head. "It- all this works. For you."
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We are succeeding where Homura has always failed, and that's making her feel inadequate.

We're outdoing Homura at the thing that Homura made a wish to do.

And you know what happens to magical girls who feel that they can't fulfill their wish.

We need to reinforce to her that she is still useful, that she is still important, that she is still the one saving Madoka, or she might go into wish rejection.

[x] (In the following, the use of first-person plural does not refer to Sabrina as usual, but to Sabrina and Homura and everyone as a group.)
[x] It's working for us. We did this together.
[x] Emphasize that we've accomplished as much as we have by being a team.
[x] Remind Homura of her contributions that made it possible for us to get this far.
-[x] All the times timestop was an epic force multiplier or let us get there in the nick of time.
-[x] Keeping Madoka safe this whole time.
-[x] Tracking down Oriko in timestop.
-[x] Letting us get to Sayaka in time to save her from the witch.
-[x] Watching over Sayaka when she stormed off and ran straight into Kyouko.
-[x] Even just giving us this safe space to talk without Kyubey listening.
[x] The only reason any of this is possible is because of Homura's strength, because Homura fought and persevered all alone for years to carve out a chance at victory.
[x] Make sure that Homura knows that she is incredible and the hero of this story, that she is the one who will save Madoka, and that we're just here to help her.
[x] Provide much comfort and reassurance.
 
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[] Tell her about what a magical girl potential is: their abtility to change the world.
-[] We believe Madoka made her whish with the intent of us helping every, or almost every, magical girl evah to fulfill their wishes the way they want to (and to convince them to change their intent a little if their intention when making it was a mean one, but still kepping their wishes intact enough to get what the need to be happy) most of them who want tomake the world a better place, at least for the ones they love.
-[] Ergo, we're being backed by the potential of every magical girl currently in existence that still believe in their wishes, we can't lose.
-[] How can she help us? By believing in her wish and by trusting us, our friends and everyone we represent, and especially by trusting in Madoka's wish, who made it because she trusted in Homura's wish.
[] We've made this far thanks to her an all our friends, as long as we have them, we cannot fail; and we trust and belive in them as much as we're sure they believe in each other, not a single one of us is alone.
 
Kaizuki said:
But I'm not so sure that it's really that big a deal -- Homura seems to have just kind of been OK with us being the result of a Madowish. I dunno about that angle, it probably deserves more thought but my impression is that it's a secondary concern rather than a primary.
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And that's my cue.

I have found my citations. After searching through several hundred pages because why do I do this to myself.

The Narrator said:
Haven't we already broached that subject with Homura previously? And even joked about how she and Homura were like our moms?
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Aranfan said:
Yes, and she was the one who came up with the idea in the first place.
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Okay, so this has been brought up a few times when discussing whether to talk frankly with Homura about how we were probably created by Madoka's wish. It was bugging me, because when I did my initial readthrough of PMAS earlier this year, I read through the entire thing. I skimmed some of the discussion when it started retreading ground, but I kept an eye on the conversation generally. And also, the points I was remembering happened early enough into the pagecount that I hadn't yet started skipping as much.

But basically, I could swear that Homura was not the one who came up with that idea, nor the one who brought it up to us. When we joked about it, there was the strong implication that she hadn't quite made the "mom" connection, at least not well enough for her to follow our train of thought until we spelled it out. It had been leaking into the thread discussion, and nearly the vote, for a long time beforehand.

Now, being as that I haven't been on this thread so long and thus can't just say "but I remember" as an acceptable rationale, and being as that the continued misattribution of the source of this idea both bugged my sense of accurate attribution, and also the idea we could be basing conclusions off of inaccurate assumptions, I decided I needed to go make absolutely sure I was remembering right.

... this was more time consuming than expected. Partially because I only realized how to work the in-thread search a few hours ago.

But I have found, tl;dr, that the thread came up with this idea long before Homura did, and we haven't really talked through it cleanly at all.

Basically, while Firn confirmed that Homura had come to the same conclusion as we did about Sabrina's origins, Firn confirmed it nearly 6 months after we made the connection, and earlier updates do not read like Homura was trying to imply anything about our presumed origins to us. The thread started considering the idea of Homura and Madoka as Sabrina's parents about 4 months before it starts leaking into Sabrina's inner narration, and about 2.5 years before it was ever explicitly brought up (as a half-joke) to Homura, who by all appearances had not considered it before. And as far as I could tell, we never actually brought it up again.

So yeah. Uh. That was really just bugging me, because there's been some "well Homura thought of the idea, so she can't complain if we run with it"-ish sentiment a few times, and as far as I can tell that's not what happened? And I just have a thing about saying someone started a thing they didn't. Uh, feel free to correct me if I missed a source, though, that would change this conclusion?

(Note that when I say "the first x", it should be taken to imply "the first x I could find", because I may in fact have missed earlier examples, if they had been worded sufficiently vaguely. The search terms I used to find these examples have been provided. The general timeline trends should still be applicable.)


May 19, 2014 (realtime), March 28, 2011 (Mitakihara time)
The Quest begins. We wake up in an alley. We think we see Madoka as Madokami for a moment. Everyone is too busy hashing out a wish to think much of this.

June 1, 2014 (realtime)
The first time that a proposed vote makes a potential connection between seeing Madoka as Madokami for a moment before Sabrina contracted, and Sabrina's 'Brina-ness.
Found using search term "madoka" and going through from earliest to latest posts.
Sightedjt said:
[x] Oh yeah, just before I contracted, for a moment Madoka's eyes looked golden. Don't know if it means anything or if it was just seeing things from bloodloss though.
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June 3, 2014 (realtime)
The first mention of us possibly being a wish-created meguca.
Found using search term "created" and going through from earliest to latest posts.
jacobplm said:
Magical Girls created via wish in a crapsack universe fighting undead magical girls so an evil alien race can fight heat death is the issue!
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July 2, 2014 (realtime)
The start of the idea that Madokami may be responsible for us being ROB'd into this timeline.
Found using search term "created"* and going through from earliest to latest posts.
*this may have been a 2am typo but I don't remember now. Search term may have been "madoka".
Retsof said:
Weren't there hints that the ROB in question may actually be Madokami?
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Aug 5, 2014 (realtime)
Firn writes a semi-canon Omake about What Could Have Been. It seems to carry the metaphysical implication that Madokami may well be out there, existing, doing her thing, possibly being pray-able-to, even if she doesn't come to be in our timeline.
Firnagzen said:
"Am I interrupting anything?" A new voice.

Sabrina turns. Still unchanged, after millenia, after eons, her blue eyes meet a pair of golden ones framed by long, flowing pink hair. She smiles.

"Huh. How are you here, anyway?"

Madoka shrugs sheepishly, a radiant smile lighting up her face. "I will once have erased my own Witch and myself from existence. I may will never have actually done it, but I did."

"Who are you?" Kyuubey asks.

"Kaname Madoka, I'm pleased to meet you," the goddess smiles.
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Aug 8, 2014 (realtime), March 31, 2011 (Mitakihara time)
Direct Intervention pt. 47
As of Oriko's capture, we did not know with certainty the events of last loop- either Madoka's wish, or that she'd wished at all, for that matter.

Aug 8, 2014 (realtime)
The first speculation that last loop ended with a Madokami wish.
Found using search term "madoka" and going through from earliest to latest posts.
Sightedjt said:
One thing I haven't seen brought up is the possibility that what happened last loop was when madoka contracted to become madokami. After all, we did see a flash of madoka with golden eyes in the very first post.
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Aug 8, 2014 (realtime)
Speculation building off the post immediately above, that Sabrina was made or brought to help Homura by the Madokami of last loop.
Found using search term "madoka" and going through from earliest to latest posts.
RazorBlaxe said:
Following on the Oriko trying to contact Madoka, and following up on what Sightedjt said about Madoka's golden eye, does that mean Sabrina was made/brought here by Madoka to help Homura?
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Aug 8, 2014 (realtime)
The first speculation that Madoka's wish may have created Sabrina, and that Homura may have some insight about such a thing.
Found going manually through the quest because I hadn't realized the search bar worked like that.
Agent Whiskers said:
Homura is probably more familiar with us then she is letting on. She did stutter when she said she never saw Sabrina before, which the hidden text pointed out. The first thing she asked when she pulled Sabrina aside to talk was "why are you here" which also kind of stood out to me. For all we know, maybe Madoka's wish in the previous timeline (whatever it was) somehow created Sabrina which is why she is an anomaly and Kyubey commented that she had a strange soul .
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Aug 17, 2014 (realtime), March 31, 2011 (Mitakihara time)
Direct Intervention pt. 58
Homura tells us about the events of last loop. This reveals that it was potentially identical to the canon last loop, except for the Wish Madoka made at the end. This wish, "that everything could be fixed", is revealed to us. The exact phrasing was clarified on July 4, 2017 (realtime), in "A Red Letter Day pt. 28" (see below). Note Homura's tone in this update; in my estimation, it does not appear that Homura is attempting to communicate to us the idea we were created by Madoka's wish; she seems too distressed with the whole conversation for that.

Aug 17, 2014 (realtime)
The first post immediately after Direct Intervention 58, takes the details of last loop and posits the connection explicitly between Sabrina and Madoka's wish. Also posits that Homura likely sees this connection; suggests it is why she is willing to put so much trust in us.
UberJJK said:
Madoka wishes everything could be fixed.

A new magical girl shows up out of nowhere in the next loop.

A magical girl promising and trying to fix everything.

I'm sure Homura can see the connection. Probably why she's trusting Sabrina so much.
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Aug 18, 2014 (realtime), March 31, 2011 (Mitakihara time)
Direct Intervention pt. 59
The first instance in-story where Sabrina speculates that Homura has made the connection between Madoka's wish last loop and Sabrina's appearance. Probably directly prompted by the line of conversation noted immediately above here.

Oct 11, 2014 (realtime)
The first comment putting forth the idea of Madoka being our mom.
Found using search term "mom" and going through from earliest to latest posts.
query said:
Also if Sabrina was created from Madoka's wish... does that make Madoka our mom?
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Feb 20, 2015 (realtime), April 4, 2011 (Mitakihara time)
Under the Radar pt. 24
The first update where the idea that Homura and Madoka may be considered Sabrina's parents makes it into Sabrina's conscious thoughts.
Found using search term "mom" and going through from earliest to latest posts.

Feb 25, 2015 (realtime)
Firn confirms, with a mostly-canon omake, that Homura had made the connection between Sabrina's presence and Madoka's wish last loop, as of the time of our interrogation of Oriko. Note that this confirmation comes several months after the chapters containing the events in question.

April 4, 2015 (realtime), April 5, 2011 (Mitakihara time)
Interloper pt. 36
Update wherein Sabrina almost, but does not blurt out to Homura that she may be Sabrina's mother in a weird sort of way.

July 4, 2017 (realtime), April 10, 2011 (Mitakihara time)
A Red Letter Day pt. 28
The first time we explicitly mention/joke about the idea that Homura and Madoka may be considered Sabrina's parents. Note Homura's behaviour in this section; she does not appear to immediately follow along with our train of thought, which may imply that she had not previously considered our existence in that light before we brought it up. Homura also tells us the exact phrasing of Madoka's wish last loop: "'I Wish that everything could be fixed!'"
Adhoc vote count started by Firnagzen on Apr 14, 2018 at 5:13 AM, finished with 136293 posts and 32 votes.
  • [X] Permanent: Break to voting whenever Sabrina detects a change in course of action might be merited.
    [X] Ask for temporary full hugging privileges.
    -[X] And to sit down.
    -[X] And to cleanse.
    [X] You're going to do your level best to answer anything she wants to know to the best of your ability. She needs that. If she doesn't want to say anything right now you'll start with your thoughts on why this is working, because that was the most likely thing you made out, but if she wants you to start anywhere else or, or anything...
    -[X] Tone and subtext: push her to engage in this in some manner. It's not really good if she just bottles it back up, this conversation seems like it needs to happen.
    -[X] Absent reason otherwise as pursuant to the previous two lines, subsequently:
    --[X] Lead in with Asunaro being too blatantly better to be a convenient butterfly.
    ---[X] Lay out all your evidence. Kirika's antimagic for Oriko, Nagisa, Anri, timings, Sayaka's behavior.
    ----[X] Madoka's Wish is still helping.
    --[X] Convince Homura that Madoka's Wish guarantees she can find a Good End that satisfies both her and Madoka.
    [x] Godwinson
    [x] Conversation goal: Attempt to help Homura believe in herself, and a good future, by telling her to have faith in Madoka, who has faith in her, and whose Wish makes it now possible to succeed. Also deal with:
    -[x] The conflict between her promise to Madoka, and the fact that things are going well because of Madoka's Wish.
    -[x] Homura not liking herself, feeling that she specifically is why the loops have failed before.
    [x] Overall tone and subtext: Push her to engage with this in some manner. It's not really good if she just bottles it back up, this conversation seems like it needs to happen. Where possible, address all points such that we try and at least get an acknowledgement of each of them. Preferably actual conversation so we have a bit more to respond to than how we've been having to divine Homura's mental state from a truly impressive amount of subtext.
    [X] Permanent: Break to voting whenever Sabrina detects a change in course of action might be merited.
    [x] It wasn't just me, though. It's never been just me. I've been handed so much. Everything we've done- it's been all of us.
    [X] Ask:
    -[x] For temporary full hugging privileges. If given, hug as necessary.
    -[X] To sit down.
    -[X] To cleanse.
    [x] Tone: Quiet, gentle, explaining, reflecting, not lecturing.
    [x] I've been given so much.
    -[x] Knowledge
    --[x] Literally a guidebook.
    ---[x] Not just what people could do, who they could be, events, information. You've got that.
    ---[x] I was given narrative framing; the exact information that could change things; the certainty that it's the information that matters. And a decent suggestion on where to apply it. That's something you've had to figure out on your own, yeah?
    -[x] Power that specifically derails resource issues
    --[x] The single greatest tool that Homura hadn't been able to leverage before.
    -[x] Tone: Gentle levity, sincerity: And I have you. I get to start with all this information, plus an Akemi Homura.
    --[x] Tone: More serious: Don't sell yourself short. I've said it before, but I stand on the shoulders of giants.
    --[x] Remind Homura: her contributions let us get this far.
    ---[x] She's been the one keeping Madoka safe this whole time.
    ---[x] Holding down the fort while we rush off to deal with out-of-town crises
    ---[x] All the times timestop was an epic force multiplier or let us get there in the nick of time.
    ----[x] Tracking down Oriko
    ----[x] Saving Sayaka from the witch.
    ---[x] Watching over Sayaka when she stormed off and ran straight into Kyouko.
    ---[x] Even just giving us this safe space to talk without Kyubey listening.
    --[x] The only reason any of this is possible is because of Homura's strength, because Homura fought and persevered all alone for years to carve out a chance at victory.
    --[x] Make sure that Homura knows that she is incredible and the hero of this story, that she is the one who will save Madoka, and that we're -just here to help her.
    [x] If there's an indication during any of the above that this is not actually answering Homura's unspoken question, or if we get through the above and it looks like the conversation still has steam to keep going:
    -[x] But there's more than that, we both suspect, huh?
    -[x] I'm just going to say it- we've both got a pretty good idea where I come from. Why I'm here.
    --[x] Tone: Gently: It's pretty likely I'm a result of Madoka's wish last loop. Specially equipped to work on the fixing of everything.
    --[x] But... I don't think it's just me. And I have some thoughts about that, if you want me to try and explain them.
    [x] If we're given no reason to avoid this line of conversation:
    -[x] If you doesn't want to say anything, that's fine. But please- if you want me to start somewhere else, elaborate, go back to a point- anything...
    -[X] Do our best to answer anything she wants to know, explain everything, to the best of our ability. She needs that.
    --[X] Lead in with Asunaro being too blatantly better to be a convenient butterfly.
    --[X] Lay out all your evidence. The timings of events; Nagisa. Echoes of could-have-been-timelines; Sayaka's behaviour. Etc.
    --[X] Madoka's Wish is helping by more than just adding Sabrina
    ---[x] You know how much that must hurt Homura. But that's not the end of the story, because Madoka wished that everything could be fixed. And that includes Homura's story.
    ----[x] You know that Homura can only be happy if Madoka is safe and Homura is the one protecting her, and you know that Madoka can only be happy if Homura is happy.
    ---[x] You do mean that you know. Your metaknowledge focuses on some people. The two people it focuses on the most are Madoka and Homura. Madoka cares about Homura, and you're almost certain she Wished thinking of Homura.
    ---[x] Madoka wished that everything could be fixed. And that means Homura can be saved.
    ---[x] Silently pray to Madokami. She Wished to save Homura, but there's no way unless Homura can accept Her help, so there has to be something like this. Please let this work.
    ---[x] You don't believe that Madoka was tricked into that Wish. You think that she knew enough about Homura to know what she was doing.
    ----[x] Homura's last loop diverges from your metaknowledge, but you know what kinds of Wishes Madoka makes, and she wouldn't have made that one without a good reason.
    ----[x] And she decided to Wish that Homura could protect her and find happiness, among other things, and entrusted you and Homura with the future. You will see her will done.
    [X] Well, to be fair, I have a huge bargaining chip that you never had: free, unlimited cleansing, as well as a massively powerful ally. That sways people, and convinces them that you're worth fighting for in a way that no amount of Grief Seeds ever would.
    [X] "You never really had an opportunity to learn charisma and persuasion skills. And while you've had a lot of time to learn since your Wish, you've also been constantly subjected to immense emotional trauma, with no one who could help you deal with it. That makes charisma and persuasion far more difficult. You've been fighting against a massive handicap all along, with no one to help you and no way to figure out what to do about it. I'd say you've done remarkably well, under the circumstances."
    [X] "Do you have any idea how hard it is to start all over and try again, after losing everything? Most people struggle to do that kind of thing once. You've done it dozens of times, without anyone to even talk to, ever since you were--what? 13? The fact that you haven't given up is, by itself, utterly remarkable. Don't sell yourself short. Everyone needs a helping hand, myself included. I'd never have gotten this far without you, for instance. Sayaka would be dead. Oriko would be at large. Kyubey would probably know everything. And more."
    [X] "You're fucking amazing, Homura, and we've only gotten this far because we've done it together. Also, remember how I came about because of Madoka's Wish? Well, the only reason she ever had a chance to even make that Wish is because of all of your efforts."
    [X] How can we explain this to the strongest girl in the world?
    -[X] Have a very soft, ask-and-answer talk with Homura. Repeat her statements if they are sentence fragments, help her to express. Do not complete for her, unless she motions for that. Kinda let her drive. If she stalls, only move forward a bit, then repeat the cycle. Stay as long as it takes.
    [X] "Most people don't pop out of nowhere with a good idea as to how to fix the problems of a bunch of other people they never met but remember really well. I can't say for certain how I'm here, but we both probably have a good guess. If a wish is powerful... What about a wish that helps other wishes? "
    [x] Conversation goal: Attempt to help Homura believe in herself and her future by telling her to have faith in Madokami who has faith in her and Wished to fix everything.
    -[x] The conflict between the promise she made to Madoka and the fact that things are going well because of Madoka's Wish.
    -[x] Homura not liking herself.
    [x] Lead in with Asunaro being too blatantly better to be a convenient butterfly.
    [x] Lay out all your evidence. Kirika's antimagic for Oriko, Nagisa, Anri, timings, Sayaka's behavior.
    [x] Madoka's Wish is still helping.
    [x] You know how much that must hurt Homura. But that's not the end of the story, because Madoka wished that everything could be fixed. And that includes Homura's story.
    -[x] You know that Homura can only be happy if Madoka is safe and Homura is the one protecting her, and you know that Madoka can only be happy if Homura is happy.
    [x] You do mean that you know. Your metaknowledge focuses on some people. The two people it focuses on the most are Madoka and Homura. Madoka cares about Homura, and you're almost certain she Wished thinking of Homura.
    [x] Madoka wished that everything could be fixed. And that means Homura can be saved.
    [x] Silently pray to Madokami. She Wished to save Homura, but there's no way unless Homura can accept Her help, so there has to be something like this. Please let this work.
    [x] You don't believe that Madoka was tricked into that Wish. You think that she knew enough about Homura to know what she was doing.
    -[x] Homura's last loop diverges from your metaknowledge, but you know what kinds of Wishes Madoka makes, and she wouldn't have made that one without a good reason.
    -[x] And she decided to Wish that Homura could protect her and find happiness, among other things, and entrusted you and Homura with the future. You will see her will done.
    [X] "Homura."
    -[X] Hug the stuffing out of her.
    [X] You don't have sufficient details of her early loops to truly compare and contrast, so you don't know if you can really give her a perfect answer as to why.
    -[X] But you'll damn well try if she asks. Any time, any where, for any topic, even if it takes you napping in timestop.
    [X] Null
    [x] Wait to see if Homura has more to say.
    -[x] If she doesn't, Vebyast's vote.
    [x]No matter how well things seem to go for me, my time is finite, as is the time of anybody else I've brought into this aspiring shadow government. I can't be everywhere at once.
    -[x]Example of force multiplier time stop provides that makes protecting Madoka possible.
    -[x]Break to listening/ soliciting further engagement with Brinapilot fear alleviation/explanation as needed.
    -[x](Response on Standby for concerns about her not being the one to do it personally)Governments are made of people. You know that picture from Hobbes' s Leviathan of a person made of people? You're part of the Leviathan too. The accomplishments of the Leviathan are the accomplishments of all the people it's made of.
    [X] Permanent: Break to voting whenever Sabrina detects a change in course of action might be merited.
    [x] Conversation goal: Attempt to help Homura believe in herself, and a good future. Prevent her from feeling that her wish isn't being fulfilled because she isn't the one saving Madoka.
    -[x] If further communication indicates that the above is not the cause of Homura's distress, attempt to get her to share what is. Don't continue to pursue the angle suggested below if it has been found to be irrelevant.
    [x] Overall tone and subtext: Push her to engage with this in some manner. It's not really good if she just bottles it back up, this conversation seems like it needs to happen. Where possible, address all points such that we try and at least get an acknowledgement of each of them. Preferably actual conversation so we have a bit more to respond to than how we've been having to divine Homura's mental state from a truly impressive amount of subtext.
    [x] Disambiguation: use of first person plural pronouns in the following is meant to indicate the entire team, not just Sabrina. Don't make Homura feel like a sidekick. Make her feel like The Hero in a Five Man Band.
    [x] It wasn't just me, though. It's never been just me. Everything we've done- it's been all of us.
    [x] We're succeeding as a team. Kyubey tries to keep magical girls at each other's throats because he knows that no one can make it alone. Only together can we do this.
    [X] Ask:
    -[x] For temporary full hugging privileges. If given, hug as necessary.
    -[X] To sit down.
    -[X] To cleanse.
    [x] Remind Homura: her contributions let us get this far.
    -[x] She's been the one keeping Madoka safe this whole time.
    -[x] Holding down the fort while we rush off to deal with out-of-town crises
    -[x] All the times timestop was an epic force multiplier or let us get there in the nick of time.
    -[x] Tracking down Oriko
    -[x] Saving Sayaka from the witch.
    -[x] Watching over Sayaka when she stormed off and ran straight into Kyouko.
    -[x] Even just giving us this safe space to talk without Kyubey listening.
    [x] The only reason any of this is possible is because of Homura's strength, because Homura fought and persevered all alone for years to carve out a chance at victory.
    [x] Make sure that Homura knows that she is incredible and the hero of this story, that she is the one who will save Madoka, and that we're just here to help her.
    -[x] We--the people around this table--are her friends and we care about her and Madoka and we will do whatever it takes to help them find their happy ending.
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Last edited:
mCooperative said:
July 4, 2017 (realtime), April 10, 2011 (Mitakihara time)
A Red Letter Day pt. 28
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This is the one I was referring to. I'm not sure why Aranfan thought that Homura gave us the idea; people have been joking about Momura and Momdoka since the thread was young.

Relevant snippet:
Firnagzen said:
"You know, if you hadn't looped, and Madoka hadn't made her Wish, I wouldn't be here?" you half-explain, half-ask.

"You're... welcome?" Homura says, head tilting in the other direction.

You giggle. "I suppose that makes you and Madoka my mothers. Mado-kaa-san has a certain ring to it, don't you think?"
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We definitely at least implied that Madoka's wish created us, even if we didn't discuss it in detail.
 
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