Puella Magi Adfligo Systema
- Thread starter Firnagzen
- Start date
-
- Tags
- puella magi adfligo systema puella magi madoka magica be gay do crimes (gay) female protagonist bad decisions dating mami tomoe (tomoe mami) diabolical laughter friendship is the best ship handholding identity crises microwaving tea gets you put in the bad place names are important the body is the fursona of the soul this is not the baked goods thread we don't talk about rionna what could possibly go wrong? who in the world is azure sanfrancisco?
- Location
- Illinois
Sayaka will BEFRIEND naturally. She's social and friendly like that, she'll diplomacy as fast as she can. If she gets pushback then we may need to step in, otherwise she'll do her thing.
Onmur
Archangel of Nutella.
I forgot about that... probably should have a line for it, just in case.
[X] Do cleansing before anything else.
[X] Introduce everybody.
[X] Idle chat. Ask the Tohoku girls how they're doing, and whether there's been any further problems. Is there anything you could do to help?
-[X] If Sayaka doesn't, nudge her, or ask the Tohokus if she can copy their powers.
[X] Offer a Clear Seed. Explain. Tell them you're also offering one to every group you can reach. Hopefully it'll be the end of Grief Seed scarcity.
[X] As with the Ishinomaki group, ask if everyone would like to hang out some time, for fun. Challenge Chouko to a flying race.
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Karnewarrior
Leastmost of the Hanged Man Arcana
[X] Onmur
If we do end up telling the girls about Walmart Night, I say we tell them not to answer us for a minimum of a week, to try to keep the pressure off them, and to make sure they know that we want them to make the decision themselves, rather than out of a sense of indebtment.
If we do end up telling the girls about Walmart Night, I say we tell them not to answer us for a minimum of a week, to try to keep the pressure off them, and to make sure they know that we want them to make the decision themselves, rather than out of a sense of indebtment.
- Location
- Rockford, USA
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I can't stop giggling. It's not even the funniest joke I've seen today, but it caught me just right and now I can't stop laughing. :lol
Jonen C
F.M.D.G.
- Location
- Lincopense, Ostrogothia, Suecia
It's almost as if Watson was Doyle's self-insert.
Vebyast
Nascent Transhuman
There's a reason that I bring up Discworld. In that case, stories are literally the way the universe works. They don't have electromagnetism or the strong nuclear force. They don't have supply-and-demand curves. In some cases even math is so deeply buried that the shortest route to it goes through basic epistemological philosophy and the simulation hypothesis. What they do have is the Theory of Narrative Causality. In the same way that some settings have laws of physics that let you build easy FTL drives and over-unity devices, and others have laws of physics where the world is built out of various combinations of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water, some settings have laws of physics that tell stories. I think that we're in one. Not just arguing from Canon, wraiths and the balance of hope and despair and walpy's hypothesized power set, but from evidence from PMAS itself and a couple Words of God.
This is actually one of the things that bugs me most about the public perception of "rational" fiction. A lot of people think that it means hard science fiction, or science fiction that strips away the existing setting's specialness and re-explains it in a real-world context. People think that rationality is about the world we live in and that it must always be about the world we live in. This is wrong. It appears true on the surface, but fails to capture the general case. Rationality is about consistency. Specifically, consistency between your model of the world and the world itself. The Map and the Territory, and making the map represent the territory accurately. A lot of people forget the core point: we don't know what the territory is.
There is no privileged "real world" that we bias our hypotheses toward because "it's the real world". Instead, we're gathering evidence. That evidence comes from some real world, but we don't know which real world it comes from! And rationality is designed to operate in any possible real world. Rationality is precisely as functional in Discworld as it is in the Culture as it is in Game of Thrones. It just looks different because it's building a different map of a different territory. Granny Weatherwax is one of the strongest rationalists in fiction. She knows exactly how the world around her works and applies her knowledge with nearly flawless grace. She doesn't go flapping on about quantum physics because those things don't exist in the territory she's building a map of. Instead, she talks about stories and narratives, headology, myths and legends, and she plays them like a fiddle. If she was dropped into the real world, what do you think she'd do? How long do you think it'd take her to adjust to the fact that physics no longer works the way she's used to? Do you think that she'd be stuck in the Discworld mindset forever? Or do you think that she'd adapt, build a new map of the new territory? We should learn from her example: When dropped into a new setting, one that has different physics, we should not be trying to bludgeon it to fit into our own physics. Why would we? It's a different territory! We should be building a new map of it!
On shortcuts: I'll admit that "Firnagzen wanted this to happen" is a shortcut, but I violently disagree with the characterization of it as anti-rational. Shortcuts and approximations are key to rationality, absolutely necessary for anything you ever do with it IRL. There are formalisms that describe thought without shortcuts. AIXI, Solomonoff Induction, naive Bayes, and similar topics all describe the world as it really is without any convenient approximations. They're also utterly unusable because they'd take forever, in some cases literally. We don't have infinite computational power and as such must always approximate. But this is fine, because we also don't need infinite precision! We just need something that's good enough that we can actually do.
For example, I will often say things like "electron orbitals". Electrons don't orbit. Electrons don't exist, and they can't orbit. Rather, there are structured local peaks in the electron probability density field that are stable and coherent over time under the differential equations governing the evolution of that field with respect to time. The same way that a wave on the ocean is stable and coherent and just rolls along the surface, "electron orbitals" are standing waves in the electron density field. Electron orbits are a shortcut, a great big fat one on multiple levels. But they're close enough that, 99.9% of the time, the inaccuracies are swamped by measurement error and all of the other approximations we're making. The expected value of getting the job done in a few seconds or minutes instead of hours or days (or never!) is greater than the expected value of having that last little bit of near-useless precision.
This is a general principal that we see across reality, all the way down to algorithms theory and the mathematics of computation. Approximations, randomized algorithms, heuristics and relaxations and iterative refinement, limits and convergences, and we still haven't gotten into the parts of machine learning and artificial intelligence that deal with uncertainty and systems where refining your guesses is expensive. PAC learning, sample complexity, q-learning, multi-armed bandit problems, optimal stopping, the list just goes on.
In this case, yes, the real rules of PMAS are something like "X is encouraged by the setting because it tells this story and it means these characters talk to each other and demonstrate that virtue of communication and idealism". That's the settings physics. Any map we build of its territory must represent those. But it's much easier to say that "Firn wanted it to be that way because Firn's writing a story and wants this to happen", and that explanation is often good enough. Not always - like Firn said, they only tend to align - but then again, they tend to align, and that's good enough in most situations.
And that took me an hour to type and I should really be getting back to what I should be doing. /rant.
[X] Do cleansing before anything else.
[X] Introduce everybody.
[X] Idle chat. Ask the Tohoku girls how they're doing, and whether there's been any further problems. Is there anything you could do to help?
-[X] If Sayaka doesn't, nudge her, or ask the Tohokus if she can copy their powers.
[X] Offer a Clear Seed. Explain. Tell them you're also offering one to every group you can reach. Hopefully it'll be the end of Grief Seed scarcity.
[X] As with the Ishinomaki group, ask if everyone would like to hang out some time, for fun. Challenge Chouko to a flying race.
This is actually one of the things that bugs me most about the public perception of "rational" fiction. A lot of people think that it means hard science fiction, or science fiction that strips away the existing setting's specialness and re-explains it in a real-world context. People think that rationality is about the world we live in and that it must always be about the world we live in. This is wrong. It appears true on the surface, but fails to capture the general case. Rationality is about consistency. Specifically, consistency between your model of the world and the world itself. The Map and the Territory, and making the map represent the territory accurately. A lot of people forget the core point: we don't know what the territory is.
There is no privileged "real world" that we bias our hypotheses toward because "it's the real world". Instead, we're gathering evidence. That evidence comes from some real world, but we don't know which real world it comes from! And rationality is designed to operate in any possible real world. Rationality is precisely as functional in Discworld as it is in the Culture as it is in Game of Thrones. It just looks different because it's building a different map of a different territory. Granny Weatherwax is one of the strongest rationalists in fiction. She knows exactly how the world around her works and applies her knowledge with nearly flawless grace. She doesn't go flapping on about quantum physics because those things don't exist in the territory she's building a map of. Instead, she talks about stories and narratives, headology, myths and legends, and she plays them like a fiddle. If she was dropped into the real world, what do you think she'd do? How long do you think it'd take her to adjust to the fact that physics no longer works the way she's used to? Do you think that she'd be stuck in the Discworld mindset forever? Or do you think that she'd adapt, build a new map of the new territory? We should learn from her example: When dropped into a new setting, one that has different physics, we should not be trying to bludgeon it to fit into our own physics. Why would we? It's a different territory! We should be building a new map of it!
On shortcuts: I'll admit that "Firnagzen wanted this to happen" is a shortcut, but I violently disagree with the characterization of it as anti-rational. Shortcuts and approximations are key to rationality, absolutely necessary for anything you ever do with it IRL. There are formalisms that describe thought without shortcuts. AIXI, Solomonoff Induction, naive Bayes, and similar topics all describe the world as it really is without any convenient approximations. They're also utterly unusable because they'd take forever, in some cases literally. We don't have infinite computational power and as such must always approximate. But this is fine, because we also don't need infinite precision! We just need something that's good enough that we can actually do.
For example, I will often say things like "electron orbitals". Electrons don't orbit. Electrons don't exist, and they can't orbit. Rather, there are structured local peaks in the electron probability density field that are stable and coherent over time under the differential equations governing the evolution of that field with respect to time. The same way that a wave on the ocean is stable and coherent and just rolls along the surface, "electron orbitals" are standing waves in the electron density field. Electron orbits are a shortcut, a great big fat one on multiple levels. But they're close enough that, 99.9% of the time, the inaccuracies are swamped by measurement error and all of the other approximations we're making. The expected value of getting the job done in a few seconds or minutes instead of hours or days (or never!) is greater than the expected value of having that last little bit of near-useless precision.
This is a general principal that we see across reality, all the way down to algorithms theory and the mathematics of computation. Approximations, randomized algorithms, heuristics and relaxations and iterative refinement, limits and convergences, and we still haven't gotten into the parts of machine learning and artificial intelligence that deal with uncertainty and systems where refining your guesses is expensive. PAC learning, sample complexity, q-learning, multi-armed bandit problems, optimal stopping, the list just goes on.
In this case, yes, the real rules of PMAS are something like "X is encouraged by the setting because it tells this story and it means these characters talk to each other and demonstrate that virtue of communication and idealism". That's the settings physics. Any map we build of its territory must represent those. But it's much easier to say that "Firn wanted it to be that way because Firn's writing a story and wants this to happen", and that explanation is often good enough. Not always - like Firn said, they only tend to align - but then again, they tend to align, and that's good enough in most situations.
And that took me an hour to type and I should really be getting back to what I should be doing. /rant.
[X] Do cleansing before anything else.
[X] Introduce everybody.
[X] Idle chat. Ask the Tohoku girls how they're doing, and whether there's been any further problems. Is there anything you could do to help?
-[X] If Sayaka doesn't, nudge her, or ask the Tohokus if she can copy their powers.
[X] Offer a Clear Seed. Explain. Tell them you're also offering one to every group you can reach. Hopefully it'll be the end of Grief Seed scarcity.
[X] As with the Ishinomaki group, ask if everyone would like to hang out some time, for fun. Challenge Chouko to a flying race.
Last edited:
Lone Courier 6
Devilish Fool
- Location
- United States of Quests
[x] Onmur
SaltyWaffles
I am dissapoint, son
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Yeah. Sayaka isn't Kyouko of Kyoplomacy infamy. It also helps that she isn't tsundere.
Admittedly, in PMAS, Yuma is doing wonders for mellowing Kyouko out.
- Location
- Illinois
She's also physically capable of not being scary, unlike us >.<
SaltyWaffles
I am dissapoint, son
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Huh? We're totally capable of not being scary. I mean, our sheer power (and its nature) can make people uneasy when we flaunt it (willingly or otherwise), but Sabrina acts (sincerely) like a very nice, compassionate, and largely sane person.
With a Mami limpet.
...come to think of it, I think one of the major reasons why Mami is so...physically attached to Sabrina all the time is because she's still in a sort of cloud-nine about having someone sticking with her, fully accepting and caring about her, and fully willing to show physical affection (something she was probably deprived of since her parents died). Kind of like how Kyouko gorges herself on food whenever she's given the chance to eat to her heart's content, Mami takes every opportunity to bask in physical comfort/affection after years of being completely deprived of it.
Godwinson
"Well, I've got nothing."
[X] Do cleansing before anything else.
[X] Introduce everybody.
[X] Idle chat. Ask the Tohoku girls how they're doing, and whether there's been any further problems. Is there anything you could do to help?
-[X] If Sayaka doesn't, nudge her, or ask the Tohokus if she can copy their powers.
[X] Offer a Clear Seed. Explain. Tell them you're also offering one to every group you can reach. Hopefully it'll be the end of Grief Seed scarcity.
[X] As with the Ishinomaki group, ask if everyone would like to hang out some time, for fun. Challenge Chouko to a flying race.
[X] Introduce everybody.
[X] Idle chat. Ask the Tohoku girls how they're doing, and whether there's been any further problems. Is there anything you could do to help?
-[X] If Sayaka doesn't, nudge her, or ask the Tohokus if she can copy their powers.
[X] Offer a Clear Seed. Explain. Tell them you're also offering one to every group you can reach. Hopefully it'll be the end of Grief Seed scarcity.
[X] As with the Ishinomaki group, ask if everyone would like to hang out some time, for fun. Challenge Chouko to a flying race.
GiftOfLove
From the Heart
So what I'm hearing is that we should be drowning her in Chibis every night before bed.
- Location
- United Kingdom
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] Onmur
Onmur
Archangel of Nutella.
I'm pretty sure this is a matter that has been repeatedly discussed in this thread.
If I remember correctly, Maximum Hugs can be achieved by having Brina and three Brina clones hug Mami from each side, then adding a Chibi Brina hugging Mami's head.
But you know, when we get home today, Mami's got homework to do... and we've got Enchantment to practice... so why don't we make a Chibi Brina to cuddle Mami while we're both working?
Karnewarrior
Leastmost of the Hanged Man Arcana
Kittybrina?
It's just a white cat with blue eyes, but it's made of grief.
It's just a white cat with blue eyes, but it's made of grief.
The Narrator
Disembodied Voice
- Location
- Somewhere Offscreen
We only need one hand to enchant things. We can rub Mami's back with the other hand while she works on her homework.
Lone Courier 6
Devilish Fool
- Location
- United States of Quests
Starting to get a bit creepy with the mami obession guys...
EDIT : Like I get it Mami is the thread waifu...But you are all getting creepy with it.
EDIT : Like I get it Mami is the thread waifu...But you are all getting creepy with it.
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Onmur
Archangel of Nutella.
Last edited:
Torgamous
Aspiring Gynoid
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Nothing being said here is new, so we aren't starting anything.
Do we? I've been picturing two hands this whole time.
- Location
- Illinois
Oh sure, except around the gucas we traumatized during the war. We can act as nice as we want and they're like "WITCH GIRL SCARE" D:
And yeah, the "limpeting" has really kind of... changed nature over the past couple IC days. It's not a sign of trauma anymore, or at least not nearly as much, and more a sign of affection, a change which appears to be expressing itself in her increased willingness to take such actions in public. It's not really limpeting anymore, so much as it is cuddling. And Mami... isn't really a limpet so much as she is a, uh... dunno. Synonym without negative connotations? Anyway, I was really afraid for a while that -- well, I was honestly expecting to need to have a social about her going to school after the weekend tonight IC after we tell her that we're gonna go to Asunaro, but so much has changed since Saturday morning that I've come to expect something along the lines of
Brina: so I'm going to Asunaro and ill probably miss lunch but um... *shy*
Mami: *slightly sad, but can tell brina isnt done*
Brina: so uh I thought I could make it up to you ummmm dinnerwithme?
Mami: *thoroughly stops being sad*
It's just really incredible. Really, truly incredible.
*smiles warmly*
Now if we can just continue to successfully convince her of that fact then PMAS will be a happier and fluffier quest
Um, also, if it's 4PM maybe we should telepathy Kirika now?