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Puella Magi Adfligo Systema

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Aris Katsaris said:
Too bad. If the supplementary material other people have mentioned indeed indicate it to be that way, I feel it cheapens the original story then, because Homura very clearly wished to protect the Madoka she knew, not just some random other girl that just happened to share the same name.

So the way I felt the original anime's wish mechanics worked, it should have been the same Madoka according to *Homura's* opinion, even if it's not the same Madoka according to Kaizuki's opinion.

If the intent of the wish is not respected, this kinda weakens the original anime for me.
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I mean, I can respect that opinion? But it's not particularly relevant to PMAS, which as a general rule attempts to follow PMMM metaphysics as described by the sum total of published PMMM materials.

And Homura being a slider has been pushed by the official materials for a very long time. First there's Kyousuke being a guitarist in that one timeline, which showed up in the actual original airing of PMMM. (And no, it's not an animation error, you don't animate Oktavia's barrier as a rock concert hall by accident.)

Then in Oriko Magika, Homura explicitly confirms that anomalous timelines are a thing, and that Oriko contracting is one of them. PMAS, fairly obviously, treats Oriko Magica as a reference.

Firnagzen said:
Here's the thing. Homura explicitly calls it an irregular/anomalous timeline (depending on translation, chapter 6, page 17), and anomalous timelines exist, as evidenced by the whole guitarist thing, which is implied to happen not-very-often.
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Anomalous timelines don't make a ton of sense unless Homura is a slider - how would going back in time a month change what instrument Kyousuke's been practicing for years, otherwise?

Then Homura's Revenge expounds a ton on Homura's time travel mechanics, and one of the key points is Homura entrusting the timeline to Kyouko and a contracted Madoka as she loops out. But hey, it's a somewhat silly sidestory, you click still argue that it's not "real", although Firn chose to treat those mechanics as canon to PMAS.

But then Wraith arc comes out, and one of the key plot points is that Homura can return to timelines she abandoned. And the Rebellion manga confirms that there's multiple simultaneous timelines. And in Magia Record Word of Fucking Madokami confirms that she's observing multiple timelines and that Homura passed between them.

So... whether or not the interpretation of Homura's power as sliding cheapens the original show, it's very clearly something that the PMMM production staff have had in mind since very near the start, and it's something that Firn's explicitly following.
 
Ughhhh, fuck.

At first, I was a little excited, as Riona expressing (part of) her motivations gave us something to work with. Then, rereading the post, and the arguments afterwards, made I realize I have no fucking clue what to do.

I like the look of

[X] Kaizuki

,though.
 
Redshirt Army said:
And Homura being a slider has been pushed by the official materials for a very long time. First there's Kyousuke being a guitarist in that one timeline, which showed up in the actual original airing of PMMM. (And no, it's not an animation error, you don't animate Oktavia's barrier as a rock concert hall by accident.)
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Anomalous timelines, including Kyousuke's guitar thing, doesn't force the idea that all the different timelines *coexist*. It would still be a perfectly reasonable idea to think that only one timeline is 'valid' each time, even if they divert at some point earlier to Homura's return (Madoka's birth would be a possible diversion point, since her potential grows with each iteration, and butterfly effect could have caused Kyusuke to have picked a different instrument for whatever reason).

More to the point, my complaint focused on Homura *believing* (if she had full knowledge) the new Madoka as being a different Madoka than the one she wanted to save. Even in a 'sliders' universe where all the timelines coexist at the same time, why wouldn't she believe that Madoka's soul (even without its memories) wouldn't have made the same trip as her across universes? Madoka kinda-sorta remembering Homura would have implied to Homura (as it implied to me when I first saw the show) that Madoka's soul also kinda travelled back and across timelines, so that she could be protected by Homura, as Homura wanted.

But anyway, either way, this isn't directly relevant to the thread. If the quest's author says that Homura's characterization is such-and-such and that the soul-and-timeline mechanics are such-and-such, I won't argue further the factuality of it, even if I preferred it were different.

Kaizuki said:
That is *not* the same thing as all the Madokas being the same person.
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I'm not saying she is the same person, I'm saying (a) there's no binary meaning to the words 'same person' at all, and (b) I had no reason to believe Homura would have seen her as not-the-same-person, until people here told me about this being a major plot point in the supplementary material.
 
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PlanckConstant said:
[X] Muramasa
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For a second there, I had to do a double take since I thought @Muramasa was voting for himself. :V

Aris Katsaris said:
I had no reason to believe Homura would have seen her as not-the-same-person, until people here told me about this being a major plot point in the supplementary material.
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I mean... Homura does treat Madoka like the same person. In the supplementary materials, and in PMAS, where it was a major point of contention when we were discussing Oriko with her.

She's just, uh, kinda sorta wrong? There is some memory bleed across Madokas, and souls are multiversal and all that, so it's not entirely incorrect to say that all the Madokas are the same even though they're in parallel universes.
 
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[X] Ask Rionna if you may cleanse her.
[X] If that's so, then when and why did she go from securing justice for her sister to taking away the sisters of others? When did she give up, and start spending her time inflicting pain instead of trying to get her sister back?
[X] Don't allow her to leave. Don't allow her to harm you. Don't allow her to harm herself. Use all means necessary, but start with minimal force. What can be accomplished with words instead of force should be.
[X] Talk to her:
-[X] There are/were options. Just as an example, she could have cut a deal with a potential, that she would fulfill their wish and some in exchange for them using their wish to bring back her sister. Somebody somewhere would go for it. Healing is a common enough wish, and not difficult to provide.
-[X] Argue that the only thing she's accomplished with her current track has been to inflict pain on others and deny herself any hope of getting what she actually wants.
-[X] Argue that the incubator tries to provoke isolation and infighting for a reason: less cooperation means less chance of people getting what they want, and thus better rates of witching.

Still thinking about antimagic.

Filraen said:
Mami's parents: :Citation Needed: what's Kyubey's wording exactly? Because the line between implying and saying when talking about Kyubey is very important.
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TDS and PSP game, is my understanding. Somebody would have to look that up.
 
I kinda just want to restrain and gag her, inform her that she is to banned from the city, that if she needs to contact us to use Nadia as an intermediary and then toss her out ballistically.

But that probably isn't the right option.
 
mCooperative said:
Thoughts!



... Rionna, did your name change spellings again while I wasn't looking?

Also, the first thing that comes to mind reading over this section is Heterodyning at someone spark-wise.

The description of what happens to the magic she's trying to throw at us implies some kind of imperviousness or incompatibility- Rionna's 'annoyance' seems to imply that this is either not unheard of, or she's given up being surprised by our bullshit. Not enough information to tell which. If our immunity isn't unheard of, I'd be interested in knowing about previous cases.

Also notable:



She wasn't trying to shade us. She can't access her shades or their powers from inside our Sphere.

That means the mind trick she was trying to pull on us is her magic, some of her intrinsic magic. She failed even setting off her first attempt at a thing, which may have been something related to her shades that our Sphere blocked, but the second thing started to work, was an effect we could feel. It just didn't work on us.

She's got some unknown brainjacker-y power, is what I'm saying. Power or constraints are unknown, though it appears to be either not instantaneous, or she knew well enough to try and gather up all her strength to throw at us particularly. Still didn't work, but even if we assume she's limited to short, focused commands, she officially cannot go anywhere near Homura at minimum, and preferably anyone else, for any length of time that would give her time to gather up her power in this regard. If it's not limited to short commands, that makes it worse. Until we know she can't just command people, this is a Big Issue and can we call in our anti-brainjacking-measures? Didn't, uh, Umika, of Asunaro, have something like that with her book, or whatever, which we used because of Hijiri and Anri?

I appreciate that the #milesgloriousus player chat was actually on the dot about screeching about brainjackers and shit. Just, it's not us who's a brainjacker, it's Rionna, and vetting by Nadia don't prove nothing. Clearly we keep shitpost speculating in the IRC as though we're random ass meguca hearing about this shit- we might unintentionally hit on all sorts of secrets ahead of time!

The fact that she's only used that power to try and shoulder her way out of the Sphere does give her some points. Some. Not that that's a high bar at this point. I'm concerned a bit about Nadia being compromised now. And if Rionna tries to push things using brainjack, then- Then we'll have to deal with that too, I guess.



I highly doubt that rezzing Riona's sister is a required component to fix things, the process of grieving and mourning and whatnot being a thing that we could eventually push for. That's fixing too, in its way. We need a foot in the door, though, and our intel about resurrection attempts may be part of it.



I'm not sure that Homura's wish (whether we take the time-travel-only, or the slider-only, or the complicated-time-slide-mess, interpretations of her powers) is the thing to be using to analyze resurrections with. The mechanical processes involved in either sliding or timecycling seem like they'd be wholly different than those involved in enacting a small local change of entropy and soul retrieval for a single organism.



Wait when was this? Supplementary material? I've never seen this one cited before- where from? That's a big thing evidence-wise that would be good to be able to point to, can I have a link for saving?



Wasn't that not a wish resurrection, though? I'm not sure about the others or their contexts, but Kazumi specifically was a Science! resurrection, wasn't it?
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Filraen said:
Thanks for pointing it out, I reworded that sentence.

My core point stands, however. We don't know if True Resurrection is possible, we can't in good faith go promising it.

No. Homura just moved to another timeline.

Amy could have revived as different as any other kitty (mentally speaking) and neither Madoka or the audience would have known better.

Mami's parents: :Citation Needed: what's Kyubey's wording exactly? Because the line between implying and saying when talking about Kyubey is very important.
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Kaizuki said:
Aura trivially answers open PMMM question, news at 11

But, yeah, can we get a cite on that? Less for me than to convince everyone else
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The PSP game explicitly has it come up as one of the major reasons she becomes Candeloro. Mami's parents were already dead from the initial impact. Kyubey says Mami could have wished to save them. Mami is horrified and, depending on her mental state, either A) smashes her Soul Gem sitting on a park bench with a suicide note, or B) Turns into Candeloro and becomes Homura's and Madoka's problem.

LendvaV said:
Is this canon? Was it confirmed in Wraith Arc or something? @AuraTwilight ?
Edit: actually, is it canon to the quest @Firnagzen ?
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Aris Katsaris said:
Too bad. If the supplementary material other people have mentioned indeed indicate it to be that way, I feel it cheapens the original story then, because Homura very clearly wished to protect the Madoka she knew, not just some random other girl that just happened to share the same name.

So the way I felt the original anime's wish mechanics worked, it should have been the same Madoka according to *Homura's* opinion, even if it's not the same Madoka according to Kaizuki's opinion.

If the intent of the wish is not respected, this kinda weakens the original anime for me.

EDIT: Ugh, and if Homura is returning in time to save some *different* Madoka that she can't actually save, why is the *new Madoka's* karmic weight strengthened by this? Ugh. The more I think of it, the less I like it. Again, too bad if it's canon, I wish it wasn't.
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Yeaaa, so it's undeniable canon that there's multiple co-existing timelines in PMMM-verse and that souls are multidimensional. There's memory bleed, and not just for Madoka. In PMMM Online, there's a scene between Kyouko and Sayaka where Sayaka remembers a comment Kyouko never said around her in this timeline, but would have. Kyouko asks her how she knows about it, and Sayaka just shrugs it off.

Moreover, as for Homura saving Madoka, well...

Look, it IS Madoka, as much as it reasonably can be. She's the same person who, living the exact same life circumstances, would make the same choices, and have the same feelings and inner life. She's the same Madoka Kaname, who merely develops differently due to experiencing a different month. This is true regardless of your model of timetravel metaphysics.

By the same virtue, regardless of your metaphysical model, Homura can never really have back the Madoka from Timeline 1. Their time has already devolved. The confident, radiant Madoka who called Homura cool and told her to be cool like her name only acted that way because of the emotional boost being a Magical Girl gave her, and by doing their first meeting differently and preventing the contract, that Madoka is erased forever.

She can never get back the Madoka who hugged her in triumph as they defeated Patricia. She can never get back the Madoka who heroically saved her after calling Homura's rescue the greatest accomplishment of her life. She can never get back the Madoka who named a black cat Amy. She can never get back any of that. She can only reclaim and rebuild with the current Madoka.

But that's fine, because it IS her. It's the same heart and soul. It's the same Madoka Kaname who WOULD have done all those things. The Madoka who Homura knows so well she can predict her every thought and action, and know the absolute deepest depths of her heart.

Homura knows her so well it made her break down and sob.
 
Redshirt Army said:
She's just, uh, kinda sorta wrong?
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Well, at this point, I'm confused about what the supplementary material are saying, because LendvaV and Kaizuki insisted that (as a matter of fact that can't be argued against), Homura would disagree with me about this being the same Madoka in a sense (if Homura was fully informed).

Now , unless I misunderstand you, you seem to me to be saying the opposite, that even a fully informed Homura in the supplementary material would treat Madoka as the same one?

I don't know which one of you is right. I'm gonna leave the debate to people who've read this supplementary material, because right now, I'm not equipped to argue either way. Apologies for the brief derail.
 
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Adhoc vote count started by Aranfan on Sep 10, 2018 at 6:01 PM, finished with 144686 posts and 28 votes.
  • [x] Fine. Release the isolation field.
    [x] Tell Riona you regret that she wasn't able to find what she was searching for here.
    [x] Given the circumstance, while it's regrettable, I agree it's best that you leave Mitakihara at your earliest convenience. Further I must insist that you don't create anymore shades in our city for any reason or I'm afraid conflict will be unavoidable. That said, wish her a good night.
    [x] Leave with Mami. You're done here.
    [x] When you're out a considerable range from Riona, contact Homura by phone for a timestop meeting. Update Homura and Mami of the situation. You weren't able to come to any agreement with Riona. Bring up Riona's intentions to leave in the morning and threat assessment. Avoid social bombs.
    [X] Ask Rionna if you may cleanse her.
    [X] If that's so, then when and why did she go from securing justice for her sister to taking away the sisters of others? When did she give up, and start spending her time inflicting pain instead of trying to get her sister back?
    [X] Don't allow her to leave. Don't allow her to harm you. Don't allow her to harm herself. Use all means necessary, but start with minimal force. What can be accomplished with words instead of force should be.
    [X] Talk to her:
    -[X] There are/were options. Just as an example, she could have cut a deal with a potential, that she would fulfill their wish and some in exchange for them using their wish to bring back her sister. Somebody somewhere would go for it. Healing is a common enough wish, and not difficult to provide.
    -[X] Argue that the only thing she's accomplished with her current track has been to inflict pain on others and deny herself any hope of getting what she actually wants.
    -[X] Argue that the incubator tries to provoke isolation and infighting for a reason: less cooperation means less chance of people getting what they want, and thus better rates of witching.
    [X] Agree to end the conversation, but not before calling Riona out on everything: she's crossed a lot of lines—showing up in your territory without warning, permission, or excuse, trying to mind control you without provocation, making demands in exchange for nothing...
    -[X] Meanwhile, call Mami via grief for an emergency timestop meeting.
    [X] On timestop, make sure the whole group (Homura, Mami and Sayaka) is in the meeting
    [X] Discuss the situation in timestop with Homura, Mami, and Sayaka.
    [X] Call Mami for an emergency timestop meeting.
    [X] On timestop, make sure the whole group (Homura, Mami and Sayaka) is in the meeting
    [X] Discuss the situation in timestop with Homura, Mami, and Sayaka.
    [X] Agree to end the meeting soon.
    -[X] Tell Riona you regret that she wasn't able to find what she was searching for here.
    [X] Release the Field.
    [X] Before letting her be, call her out and get concessions in exchange for her actions, without pissing her off too badly:
    -[X] Priority: Arrange a new meeting before she leaves.
    -[X] Priority: She does not attack nor use magic against anyone in Mitakihara.
    -[X] She'll answer all our questions next meeting.
    [X] Go. Once you're away:
    -[X] Timestop meeting.
    -[X] Explain everything. Avoid social bombs. Don't take sides, be impartial.
    [X] null
    [X] Kill her
    [X] Promise agree to end the meeting. Because you're sick of it, not because she's asking.
    [X] But first:
    -[X] Call her out. On everything. Trying to use magic on you, threatening you, baiting you, everything.
    --[X] Use this.
    -[X] Get her to agree to concessions, as many as you can get without pissing her off too badly:
    --[X] Priority: Arrange another meeting before she leaves (morning?).
    --[X] She'll stay confined within a location of her choosing for the duration of her stay.
    --[X] She'll answer questions, now or at that later meeting, about:
    ---[X] Our Soul.
    ---[X] Clear Seeds.
    ---[X] Wish Rejection.
    ---[X] The Feather.
    ---[X] How the fuck is her name spelled.
    [X] Once Riona agrees to everything you can get her to, warn her to not try that again and dismiss the Privacy Field.
    -[X] Let Mami know before you dismiss the Field.
    -[X] Watch out in case she tries to pull something.
    [X] Get out. Timestop meeting. Mami hugs.
    -[X] Get Sayaka, Oriko and Kirika. This is important.
    -[X] Ask Kirika to make Anti Magic Enchantments for our group's use while you talk.
    -[X] Explain everything that can be explained about what just happened.
    -[X] Don't take a side. Be as impartial as possible, and do not support any course of action over another.
    [X] gem her
    [X] Try that shit again on anyone in your territory, or hurt anyone in Mitakihara, and her life is forfeit.
    [X] You'll let her go, but she's crossed a lot of lines—showing up in your territory without warning, permission, or excuse, trying to mind control you without provocation, making demands in exchange for nothing—so you'll be taking something in exchange. Your teammate is going to copy her power before she leaves this privacy sphere. It won't harm her or her power in any way, nor can it be used to track or monitor her. But you'll be getting SOMETHING out of all the trouble she's caused you.
    [x] Ensure she doesn't leave this bubble under her own power, either by calling a meeting and then alpha-striking her or by alpha-striking her right now.
    [X] Shrug casually
    -[X] Alright. Wasn't planning on keeping you trapped anyways, anti-spy zone is for spies like QB, not you.
    --[X] Release the field, hug Mami, telepathically request time-stop.
    ---[X] Discuss.
    [X] Cleansing offer.
    [X] If that's so, then when and why did she go from seeking justice to judging people without knowing their crimes, unjustly taking other people's sisters? When did she give up, and start spending her time inflicting pain instead of trying to get her sister back?
    [X] Don't allow her to leave. Don't allow her to harm you. Don't allow her to harm herself. Use all means necessary.
    [X] Talk to her:
    -[X] There are/were options. Just as an example, she could have cut a deal with a potential, that she would fulfill their wish and some in exchange for them using their wish to bring back her sister. Somebody somewhere would go for it. Healing is a common enough wish, and not difficult to provide.
    -[X] Argue that the only thing she's accomplished with her current track has been to inflict pain on others and deny herself any hope of getting what she actually wants.
    -[X] Argue that the incubator tries to provoke isolation and infighting for a reason: less cooperation means less chance of people getting what they want, and thus better rates of witching. She could always punish the architect if she's not satisfied yet. A shot at that, you can provide.
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Filraen said:
In that case there still isn't proof that True Resurrection is posible, meaning your vote is offering Riona a lie you propose to "bring back" her sister.
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I mean... Kyubey literally says "You could have saved your parents" and they were dead.

Aris Katsaris said:
Well, at this point, I'm confused about what the supplementary material are saying, because LendvaV and Kaizuki insisted that (as a matter of fact that can't be argued against), Homura would disagree with me about this being the same Madoka in a sense (if Homura was fully informed).

Now , unless I misunderstand you, you seem to me to be saying the opposite, that even a fully informed Homura in the supplementary material would treat Madoka as the same one?

I don't know which one of you is right. I'm gonna leave the debate to people who've read this supplementary material, because right now, I'm not equipped to argue either way. Apologies for the brief derail.
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Homura, as an emotional safety mechanism, NEEDS TO BELIEVE there's a continuity of selves between Madokas (and she's right).

But she's also not fully informed as to how her magic really works and never had the luxury of really playing around and speculating with it because she's so immensely goal-focused. If you put the idea in her heart that Madoka is dead and she's just saving a clone, basically, she might be able to rationalize herself out of it later, as I just explained, but... well.

Magical Girls. Soul Gems. Grief Spirals. Homura is canonically borderline suicidal and depressive at all times and can't cope with the prospect of failure/increasing Madoka's suffering.

She might not survive the period of processing this information before she can neutralize it.
 
Aris Katsaris said:
I don't know which one of you is right. I'm gonna leave the debate to people who've read this supplementary material, because right now, I'm not equipped to argue either way.
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Okay, so. To try and quickly clear this up:
• Multiple different concurrent timelines exist, and Homura's power causes her to travel between them.
• There are metaphysical ties between instances of the same individual between timelines, which lead to memories or emotional reactions from other timeline "bleeding through", and which are indicative of a multiversal "oversoul".

Both of these things are true.

However, it's not clear how much Homura, as an individual who has limited setting knowledge and lacks our semi-omniscient outside observer viewpoint, knows about either of these things.
 
Homura's aware of differences between timelines, but as shown with how she treats Madoka and the rest of the Magical Girls, she considers them all the same people no matter how many times she loops. On the upside, this prevents her emotional stability from completely crumbling, as she believes that saving one Madoka will mean her past mistakes are gone, since Madoka is safe. On the downside, this prevents her from connecting with Mami and Sayaka, as the bad impressions of them from many timelines have completely soured her impression of them forever since she always considers them the same people.
 
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AuraTwilight said:
Yeaaa, so it's undeniable canon that there's multiple co-existing timelines in PMMM-verse and that souls are multidimensional. There's memory bleed, and not just for Madoka. In PMMM Online, there's a scene between Kyouko and Sayaka where Sayaka remembers a comment Kyouko never said around her in this timeline, but would have. Kyouko asks her how she knows about it, and Sayaka just shrugs it off.
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*Saves quote*

Out of curiosity, do you have a direct video, transcript, or screenshot I can cite? This is about as direct evidence as it gets for Echoes theory, and I'd like to have a citation on hand next time I have to argue for it.
 
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@Kaizuki I understand your reasoning in regards to the "classic magical girl" course of action. I don't know whether I believe that is our best shot. But, what I do know that if you want to put the following in your vote:

Kaizuki said:
[X] Don't allow her to leave. Don't allow her to harm you. Don't allow her to harm herself. Use all means necessary, but start with minimal force. What can be accomplished with words instead of force should be.
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Then said vote should absolutely include contacting Homura via Mami and getting ready for a fight. Even putting aside that it's overwhelmingly likely that Rionna's reaction to trying to keep her confined in the privacy sphere will be to attack, wouldn't this also fit neatly within "classical magical girl" tropes? That we need to beat her before we can get through to her?
 
The Phoenixian said:
*Saves quote*

Out of curiosity, do you have a direct video, transcript, or screenshot I can cite? This is about as direct evidence as it gets for Echoes theory, and I'd like to have a citation on hand next time I have to argue for it.

------

Not terribly likely to do anything else right now. The discussion of the last few weeks has worn on me to the point that I'm having trouble even reading the updates, let alone voting or cross referencing to a degree I'd need to be comfortable doing so.
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*Seeethes* Hooo boy, that's gonna be a bitch, considering PMMM Online is lost-forever. I believe it's transcripted on either Puella Wiki or Cranberry Witch's tumblr.

Ah, found it. I slightly misremembered the details but here, confirmation.

 
[x]Muramasa

It's annoying that we won't have access to her expertise, but she's on a short fuse, as are we. There's no way she'll share insights while both sides feel confrontational.

We had a telepathic conversation with Rionna, so at least we can contact her again when she's back home. Maybe in a situation where nobody feels threatened and both sides can take a break any time, she'll talk about soul science? Unlikely, I know, but one can hope...
 
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