Remove ads

Puella Magi Adfligo Systema

Reader mode
Vebyast said:
You know what? Fuck this.

[] Tell Sayaka she's awesome. Part one: In the future. Part two: Now. Refer to thread for details re: role in party is god not beatstick, current task is training to become god, helping us manipulate kyouko for her own mental health.

If the thread is still full of shit when I get out of bed tomorrow morning I'm switching my vote to that.

Go ahead, try to fight me on the wording. I would love to copy and paste my last fifteen posts.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Vebyast, calm down. Being hostile to everyone isn't going to get your points across any better, and it isn't going to help this thread stay civil.
 
Onmur said:
[X] Wishing is not everything, is it? We've got to work for our Wishes.
[X] Sayaka's power gave her endless possibilities. She'll be stronger than any of us some day...
-[X] But what does she want to be right now?
[X] Talk with her. Try to give her what she needs: Reassurances; perspective; her possible roles and things she can do that none else can; give her ideas (Clone police, quick response once she gets teleporting, etc.).
-[X] If it's about Kyouko, Kyouko's harsh, and a little tsundere. She was also nervous because this her first day having a job. Which we paid for with stolen Yakuza money.
[X] Don't be overbearing. Let Sayaka end the conversation when she wants.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I like it parts of it, but it needs more direct reference to the the points Kyoko brought up from VeByast's vote...
I'm also worried it's kinda getting a bit too much into painting Kyoko as unreliable.

[X] Wishing is not everything, is it? We've got to work for our Wishes.
[x] If she's worried about the over-focus thing, reassure her - that's also something that can be practiced. Why else would Kyouko have her practicing it? And focus can be a good thing if used right, same way that lack of focus can be useful.
[X] As far as broader usefulness... Sayaka's power gave her endless possibilities. She'll be stronger than any of us some day...
-[X] But what does she want to be right now?
[X] Talk with her. Try to give her what she needs: Reassurances; perspective; her possible roles and things she can do that none else can; give her ideas (Clone police, quick response once she gets teleporting, etc.).
-[X] If it's about Kyouko, Kyouko's harsh, and a little tsundere. She was also nervous because this her first day having a job. Which we paid for with stolen Yakuza money.
[x] If appropriate, do the supportive-listener thing: ask if there's anything else bothering her, if we missed the point entirely, etc.
 
-Fights are stressful. Under the stress hormones you may not feel pain, but you may not feel your fingers either, or be able to find the safety on your weapon. You might not be able to hear anything, even gunfire or words of warning. Tunnel vision is common. So is remembering everything in slow motion. Basically, if you have not been exposed to enough fights to get some control of the adrenaline, you will be clumsy (fine and complex motor skills are hampered) partially deaf and blind, and not thinking very well.

Miller, Rory. Violence: A Writer's Guide Second Edition (p. 33).

Maybe something about how she's not alone in her experiences would be a good idea for the overfocus thing?


[] If she's worried about the over-focus thing, reassure her - that's also something that can be practiced. Why else would Kyouko have her practicing it? And focus can be a good thing if used right, same way that lack of focus can be useful. She isn't alone either. Tunnelvision is a very normal part of the human psychological response to violence. Looking through your adversary, cultivating a thousand yard stare can help with that. Also she could fix that with a biology manipulation power if she finds one.
 
The Phoenixian said:
I like it parts of it, but it needs more direct reference to the the points Kyoko brought up from VeByast's vote...
I'm also worried it's kinda getting a bit too much into painting Kyoko as unreliable.

[X] Wishing is not everything, is it? We've got to work for our Wishes.
[x] If she's worried about the over-focus thing, reassure her - that's also something that can be practiced. Why else would Kyouko have her practicing it? And focus can be a good thing if used right, same way that lack of focus can be useful.
[X] As far as broader usefulness... Sayaka's power gave her endless possibilities. She'll be stronger than any of us some day...
-[X] But what does she want to be right now?
[X] Talk with her. Try to give her what she needs: Reassurances; perspective; her possible roles and things she can do that none else can; give her ideas (Clone police, quick response once she gets teleporting, etc.).
-[X] If it's about Kyouko, Kyouko's harsh, and a little tsundere. She was also nervous because this her first day having a job. Which we paid for with stolen Yakuza money.
[x] If appropriate, do the supportive-listener thing: ask if there's anything else bothering her, if we missed the point entirely, etc.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I think those two points can summed up as 'talk with her' and 'give... reassurances'?

The part about Kyouko's 'new job' I expanded to introduce some levity. Similar to earlier vote lines about Homura's Barrel Boss Fight.
 
SaltyWaffles said:
Vebyast, calm down. Being hostile to everyone isn't going to get your points across any better, and it isn't going to help this thread stay civil.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I no longer care about remaining civil. Presenting my argument from other directions only led you to double down and make even more spectacular errors. You are missing my points so thoroughly that I am about to conclude that logical debate is unworkable and not worth wasting my time on. I will give you one more chance.

Sayaka already comprehends the power of friendship. She concluded that it was not enough. That conclusion led her to wish. Attempting to apply the power of friendship argument to Sayaka will make her feel like her Wish did not satisfy the intent she made it with because she will believe that it did not provide her with the tools she needs to contribute.

Sayaka is suffering from a failure of imagination almost as great as that being perpetrated by some of the members of this very thread. She does not comprehend that there are ways to be useful that don't involve beating people up. The team needs no more ability to beat people up so Sayaka has concluded that her Wish is not satisfying the intent she made it with because it did not provide her with the tools she needs to contribute.

Sayaka has already received the simple arguments about her power being bullshit. She completely failed to apply them partially due to the spectacular lack of creativity mentioned above. She needs examples that set her on the same level as us. These examples need to not involve beating people up.

Sayaka is extremely vulnerable to concluding that she fucked up and is unrecoverable. "I'm such a fool". Every argument must be carefully chosen to avoid making her think that she fucked up. In particular, her Wish must always be useful and she must always think of her Wish as having given her tools that she can use to be useful.

Sayaka needs to be made to understand that there are ways to contribute that involve neither beating people up (correctly evaluated as useless) nor the power of friendship (damaging to her mental health and already discarded as an option) and that make use of her power (to avoid making her feel like she was "such a fool"). Sayaka needs to be made to understand that she can make those contributions. Sayaka needs to be made to understand that she is currently making those contributions.
 
Last edited:
I should really fucking be sleeping right now, because I have a ton of shit to do tomorrow, but I couldn't help but think of this as I lied down and god damn it I need to write it down before I forget.

[]Well, kind of yes and no.
[]You actually just had a bit of a revelation about her powers.
-[]Your powers are actually really similar in a way, and because of that, we're thinking about 'fighting' the wrong way
[]The reason you're so bad at fighting in melee is because while you have a hammer, using it would be completely missing the point of your powers
-[]If you actually wanted to hurt someone, you wouldn't hit them with the hammer; you'd sheathe yourself in an arbitrarily strong grief-shell and then liquify then with an ambulatory cloud of mono-molecular razors
--[]Point being, the hammer is more of an accessory than a weapon
[]Think of the training as if you suddenly got jumped by an enemy meguca on the street-- the goal isn't to hit them with your sword, the goal is the use the sword to create enough space that you can tie them up with plants and blast them with lightning while invisible, like you did to Kyouko earlier-- that's where you shine
[]Being able to Rockman girls' magic is stupid strong; your magic has a bunch of arbitrary limitations you can't work around, but Sayaka's doesn't; being able to quickly and fluidly swap powers is basically the only thing preventing her from achieving REAL ULTIMATE POWER
[]It's not a question of what you can do; with enough powers, practice, and creativity, there isn't a lot you can't do, to a degree that's actually kind of terrifying-- you could unironically be the most powerful magical girl in history
-[]We have ambitions to help people well beyond Mitakihara, and to reform meguca society; there is absolutely nobody we would rather have by our side for that purpose... except Mami, of course

HA HA DISORGANIZED THOUGHTS AND INCONSISTENT PRONOUNS COS I'M TIRED
DISCLAIMER: LAST TIME I DID A BANDWAGON, THINGS ENDED TERRIBLY
'NIGHT

EDIT: NEEDS MORE REFERENCE TO VERSATILITY RE: NON-COMBAT
'NIGHT FOR REAL
CAPS LOCK
 
Last edited:
Tweaked your earlier vote a bit @Vebyast. Dropped the Sayapolice because she's concerned about her prospects as a combatant. She didn't complain about us not trusting her to solve problems so I dropped that too.


[x] Reassure Sayaka. She is standing with you.
[x] Put things in perspective. She's comparing herself to a lot of outliers. And whatever she thinks, it's only a matter of practice for her to match them.
-[x] Elaborate as appropriate, Sayapolice, weather control and clones+teleport+healing for disaster response, plant control for chemistry and fabrication, etc.
-[x] The utility, logistics, and research value of her powers are insane. She's impressed Mami. And Kyouko is 110% tsundere.
[x] If she's worried about over-focusing, reassure her - working around that is something that can be practiced. Why else would Kyouko have her practicing it? Tunnelvision is a normal part of the human response to violence. and if she finds a biology manipulation power, she may not even need to work around it.
[x] If appropriate, do the supportive-listener thing: ask if there's anything else bothering her, if we missed the point entirely, etc.
 
Last edited:
Conjured Blade said:
Tweaked your earlier vote a bit @Vebyast. Dropped the Sayapolice because she's concerned about her prospects as a combatant. She didn't complain about us not trusting her to solve problems so I dropped that too.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Sayapolice is not a beating-people-up role. It is a social order, intelligence, detective, and justice role. It argues that we trust her implicitly to ensure the moral and ethical character of our government. It is a comprehensible application of a single power on what we believe to be her ultimate scale. It is excellent meme fodder in-universe just as much as it is out of universe. The mention of a meguca government even as a joke will lead Sayaka to a better understanding of the kinds of help that she could provide to us. It lends itself to a high-emotional-impact expression - "How would you like to be the police?" followed by allowing her to comprehend it herself instead of having it explained to her. All of these features combine to make it I believe the most important of the examples.
 
Last edited:
If we can't find a Power Amplifier for Sayaka to copy, or she fails to copy one, do you think she could copy a Power Inverter?

Couldn't she bootleg Power Amplification by Inverting the effect of Anti-Magic?
 
justinkal said:
If we can't find a Power Amplifier for Sayaka to copy, or she fails to copy one, do you think she could copy a Power Inverter?

Couldn't she bootleg Power Amplification by Inverting the effect of Anti-Magic?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Yes. This is exactly the kind of insane "literally anything" shit that Sayaka could pull. Any attempt to claim that Sayaka can't do something runs into exactly this kind of off-the-wall wackiness.
 
justinkal said:
If we can't find a Power Amplifier for Sayaka to copy, or she fails to copy one, do you think she could copy a Power Inverter?

Couldn't she bootleg Power Amplification by Inverting the effect of Anti-Magic?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I think Sayaka's got a problem holding more than one power at once. See how she's trying to change powers midbattle, when holding more than one power at once didn't seem to increase her Grief upkeep; and see how she failed the first time she tried to make lightning, creating a clone instead.

Perhaps with time she might be able to mix powers well, hopefully!

It's something we should encourage next time we talk about training.
 
Onmur said:
I think those two points can summed up as 'talk with her' and 'give... reassurances'?

The part about Kyouko's 'new job' I expanded to introduce some levity. Similar to earlier vote lines about Homura's Barrel Boss Fight.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Aha.

To the first part I get the feeling that it lost a bit of that in translation. The talk with her and give reassurances don't really mention Kyoko's points and "don't be overbearing; stop when she wants to" doesn't seem like a natural swap for "ask if we missed the point". (Part of it was also that I wanted to put addressing Kyouko's point first since I think it flows better as far addressing concerns and resolving things but your judgement there.)

As far as the latter it might be that it's an off night for my reading comprehension but I think the tone we're trying for in that segment could be made explicit. Even just something on the order of:
-[ ] Joking tone: If it's about Kyouko, Kyouko's harsh, and a little tsundere. She was also nervous because this her first day having a job. Which we paid for with stolen Yakuza money.

AuraTwilight said:
So, on one hand, Sayaka probably wouldn't like that we hid it from her. Hiding it for LONGER will make things worse, but...

Sayaka isn't a hypocrite. To a FAULT. If she gets significantly upset over Sabrina keeping this secret she might not be able to keep it herself. Even if she tries, it might slip out on accident. More worringly, we have literally NO FUCKING DATA on how Sayaka happens to the Witchbomb. It literally never happens. The only Sayaka that ever learns the truth of Witches is a fucking ascended angel.

This is a major fucking minefield. I'm more worried about witchbombing Sayaka than fucking Mami. We atleast know what could defuse it in her case.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
As far as keeping the matter of keeping the secret from Sayaka vs her having to keep the secret from everyone else, My advice is simply to ask first. Say we have an important secret that affects her, but if she knew, she'd have to keep it from everyone, including the people she cares about.

Don't go too deep into the specifics, (and risk revealing so much she catches on before deciding) but give her the choice.

As far as whether it's safe: It's worth noting that even if we haven't seen her exact reaction to learning we do know a bit of who Sayaka is and who she isn't.

We don't know her immediate reaction, but we know that she shows sympathy for Homura. (And notably she did volunteer to come to help Homura at the end of the day, even if Kyouko could be said to be the primary impetus.) Even beyond that with her sense of justice, I'd expect her to end up seeing witches as victims would extend as a general rule.

(Heh, honestly, I wonder if you might even be able to pose the general situation to her as an analogue without bringing up the reality. "So If an evil magical girl told somebody that they'd make it so that they could go out and do good, and they did help that to happen, but eventually she took advantage of those people become horrible and be unable to stop, what would you do about that? Even if you couldn't stop that girl, what would you about those people?" Or something along those lines.

But I digress...)

What's important about what Sayaka isn't is that unlike, say, Mami, she shouldn't have any reason to feel guilt. She hasn't done anything that put people in danger because she recommended a lifestyle that was secretly going to strip their humanity or turn them into monsters. She hasn't done anything as a monster herself.

Plus, and this is more a character of the fic than a character of the character argument, there is one other thing: Firn's mentioned that a lot of the time the right answers lie in being kind. More specifically to Sayaka, he's noted in the results of the wish IIRC that the results she got from that were very much a result of trusting her and telling her the truth.

Likewise, when it came to telling Sayaka about Oriko, telling her about the truth of the arson in time was also important.

From where I'm standing, it seems like telling Sayaka the truth in a timely manner has generally been an important matter that's gotten us better outcomes.

This isn't a logically argument built on hard data of course, it's a just softer general characterization argument, but I think there may be merit here.

If that's not enough and the decision is that hard data is required in the end, then the big question is going to be how to cheese our way into having it.
 
Vebyast said:
I no longer care about remaining civil. Presenting my argument from other directions only led you to double down and make even more spectacular errors. You are missing my points so thoroughly that I am about to conclude that logical debate is unworkable and not worth wasting my time on. I will give you one more chance.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
If you're past the point of caring, I'm concerned for you. I'm not debating with you in bad faith, so getting angry past the point of caring is not a healthy response. I'm also not ignoring your points. I've already edited my vote once in response to them, for starters.

Sayaka already comprehends the power of friendship. She concluded that it was not enough. That conclusion led her to wish. Attempting to apply the power of friendship argument to Sayaka will make her feel like her Wish did not satisfy the intent she made it with because she will believe that it did not provide her with the tools she needs to contribute.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
That seems like something easily rectified by emphasizing that her power ensures that she'll be one of the greats, in time. It doesn't mean that the rest of the vote is bad. I'll even go and edit it into the vote, just to be sure.

Besides, I don't think she truly does comprehend how important non-combat qualities are. Nor did I say that "friendship" is all that Sayaka needs. Homura needs Sayaka to be dependable, which means someone who can be relied upon. That is not "friendship", not necessarily. Likewise, Sabrina needs someone who can help meguca who need someone to be there for them when she can't be there herself. In other words, someone she can delegate the task of peacekeeper and amateur therapist to.

Still, it's a worthwhile point that you can never have too much power in the right hands, and Sayaka's power is a very welcome addition to the team. She just needs time to realize the enormous potential of her power.

Sayaka is suffering from a failure of imagination almost as great as that being perpetrated by some of the members of this very thread. She does not comprehend that there are ways to be useful that don't involve beating people up. The team needs no more ability to beat people up so Sayaka has concluded that her Wish is not satisfying the intent she made it with because it did not provide her with the tools she needs to contribute.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Again, this is easily addressed by modifying the existing vote, not leaving out all of the other important things.

Sayaka has already received the simple arguments about her power being bullshit. She completely failed to apply them partially due to the spectacular lack of creativity mentioned above. She needs examples that set her on the same level as us. These examples need to not involve beating people up.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
At the moment, there's not a whole lot of things she can do to contribute with her powers beyond fighting. She doesn't have a healing power, she doesn't have a teleportation power, she doesn't have technopath powers, she doesn't have antimagic or precognition, she doesn't have timestop, she doesn't have Grief control, etc.

Yes, she will get some of those powers in time, but at the moment, what she's working on is her fighting skills.

So saying that she'll be able to stop a hurricane one day will come across as weird, hard to wrap her head around, and perhaps exaggeration or insincere. Even if we believe it to be true, she won't believe it or take it seriously. Her insecurities won't allow her to. What she can wrap her head around and accept is that her power has enormous potential and her skills are already quite good for someone so new. I'll look into my vote and try to make that more clear if need be.

Sayaka is extremely vulnerable to concluding that she fucked up and is unrecoverable. "I'm such a fool". Every argument must be carefully chosen to avoid making her think that she fucked up. In particular, her Wish must always be useful and she must always think of her Wish as having given her tools that she can use to be useful.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
In canon, she fell apart despite believing to the end that her Wish wasn't a mistake. And my vote already says to tell her that her wish was damn good.

Furthermore, we've been telling her since we first found out she contracted that she's a welcome addition to the team and that she's going to succeed. Her insecurity makes making that stick in her mind very difficult. One of the best ways to deal with that is to point out that her insecurities are already wrong, not that they will be wrong someday.

Sayaka needs to be made to understand that there are ways to contribute that involve neither beating people up (correctly evaluated as useless) nor the power of friendship (damaging to her mental health and already discarded as an option) and that make use of her power (to avoid making her feel like she was "such a fool"). Sayaka needs to be made to understand that she can make those contributions. Sayaka needs to be made to understand that she is currently making those contributions.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
You're kind of contradicting yourself, here. My vote is all about making her understand that she is already being what the team needs her to be, and that she shouldn't stake her worth as a person solely on the value of her powers.

Because, ultimately, what does she bring to the team that we don't already have? One day, she'll provide teleportation and healing, and maybe things like technopathy or magic amplification. But that's not her real value. Her real value is redundancy and versatility, oddly enough. She's never going to be the best at anything--her power is pretty clear about that. She can copy powers, but she doesn't get the instinctive skill and intuition that the original wielder gets from the start. She can use lightning, sure, but nowhere near as well as the girl she originally copied it from, and with so many other powers to practice with and the original girl having just the one (on top of immense starting advantages), she's always going to be worse with the lightning power than the other girl.

So why is she still immensely valuable? Because, once she gets enough experience/training, there won't be any power-related situation in which she can't be helpful in some way. The more powers she copies and trains with, the fewer situations she can encounter in which she finds herself helpless or useless. Her wish wasn't just about powerlessness, it was about uselessness.

Yes, we can hammer the point home that she'll eventually be useful in almost every situation, but that won't really address her insecurities regarding how she is now. I feel like dealing with the now is what's important in this vote; we can impress upon her just how useful she'll be in the future another time.

I've made some changes to my vote to take the points of yours that I agree with into account. Ultimately, I don't think it's possible for any approach to be perfect here. Sayaka was also really vague about what she's hung up over, and we haven't really had the chance to have a proper talk with her in some time.
 
Last edited:
Holy shit y'all need to calm the hell down.

Make your votes and let them fall where they may. This argument is getting repetitive and pointless.
 
Onmur said:
I think Sayaka's got a problem holding more than one power at once. See how she's trying to change powers midbattle, when holding more than one power at once didn't seem to increase her Grief upkeep; and see how she failed the first time she tried to make lightning, creating a clone instead.

Perhaps with time she might be able to mix powers well, hopefully!

It's something we should encourage next time we talk about training.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Part of the beauty of that method though is that it doesn't technically require Sayaka to be able to effectively use multiple powers simultaneously. She just needs to Invert Kirika's powers to turn Kirika into an Amplifier.
 
justinkal said:
Part of the beauty of that method though is that it doesn't technically require Sayaka to be able to effectively use multiple powers simultaneously. She just needs to Invert Kirika's powers to turn Kirika into an Amplifier.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Power Inverting Power + Anti Magic Power.

Looks like two powers to me. :p

Even if she could mix them into a new power, then there'd be:

Magic Amplifier Power + Power to be Amplified.
 
Whut da fuk

You know what? We're overcomplicating matters. We've given firn pages of material, so why don't we just do this and let him sort out the rest?

[X] Reassure Sayaka about the following in no particular order, as appropriate. Refer to Kyouko as "That Tsundere" at least once.
-[X] Training
-[X] Potential (not the wishing kind)
-[X] Usefulness in general
-[X] Anything else that comes to mind or arises in conversation
[X] Ask about what she cut off when she was asking if "Kyouko was right"
-[X] Respond appropriately if needed
[X] Physically pat her on the back and do something to lighten the mood, like cheerily calling her blueberry to her face.
[X] Go back to Mami, be happi.
 
Last edited:
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top