On top of her armor full ego Xiao has massive wings, horns and scales covering the edges of her face.
“Human Resources” Shouldn’t Be This Literal: A PMMM/ProjectMoon Quest
- Thread starter Lepidoptera
- Start date
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- Tags
- library of ruina lobotomy corporation project moon puella magi madoka magica eldritch horror magical girl crossover eldritch protagonist female protagonist gore non-human protagonist suffering violence discussion is always good civ good decisions identity crises nuclear moth detected parenting powers activate
On top of her armor full ego Xiao has massive wings, horns and scales covering the edges of her face.
Sinsystems
Patron Librarian
So I am just happy that the magical girls found something to do, I still can't help but wonder how they are finding being in the library. I mean they have so many...interesting books to read and we know you can get things out of the books. So someone must have a number of cartoons in their book, which we know exists thanks to Kat from Wonderlab watching that in her free time.
Also I briefly thought you were talking about the Magical Girl abnormalities for a moment before I realized that was silly.
Also I briefly thought you were talking about the Magical Girl abnormalities for a moment before I realized that was silly.
Twei
I have a face!
- Location
- the land where they write things
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Not sure anyone pointed this out, maybe someone did, but "There are precious few at ease with moral ambiguities" is a verse from the Wicked musical. It fits!!!
Apocryphal Chapter - Sir Not Appearing In This Story
Lepidoptera
Mother of Monsters, Unverified Impuritas Civitatis
- Location
- Indeterminate Unknown
Apocryphal Chapter - Sir Not Appearing In This Story
Charlie Roswell sat at a desk that did not belong to him, looking out across a large garden through the third-story window which took up most of the office wall, having just finished draining most of said office's owner's bank account. The man in question was lying on his couch on the floor below, surrounded by the various narcotics Laura had cooked up earlier that morning. When he came to, he would find a long list of transactions to various unscrupulous contacts, and the unfortunate fellow would draw his own conclusions as to what had happened. After that, he would do most of the legwork in covering up Charlie's tampering.
The cover-up wasn't technically necessary. Charlie's Magic only left traces if he allowed it to. But people could still draw their own conclusions, and one of France's most influential land developers suddenly having a good chunk of their liquid assets vanish would draw some attention. Charlie could've provided the funds himself, licensing was rather lucrative, but company finances were tracked very actively and he didn't keep much in the way of private funds. Besides, while not strictly necessary, it was a sort of public service to give the elitists a little scare every once in a while.
Laura had just wanted to spend the night in a mansion, which was fair. She was currently downstairs, probably turning the plants into a jungle or something else very visible and hard to explain. Normally that sort of behavior would earn her some scolding from the boss, but the other Paladins had left Charlie and Laura to do this job alone. They were out exploring the city, since their actual job had been cancelled.
That had been quite the surprise. Kyubey always made sure that the right team dealt with the right issue, and the Paladins had been pulled off of missions a few times before, but it tended to be the other way around. They were some of the oldest, most well-established of Kyubey's assistants, after all. The two times Charlie could remember Kyubey canceling a mission for them, it was because the situation was going to resolve itself. Funnily enough, both were right around the same place. First that, and now everything that was going on now. Was Japan secretly some sort of extradimensional madness beacon?
…
Actually, now that Charlie thought about it, that would explain some things.
Secretly, Charlie was glad to have the previous mission cancelled. He's long since grown used to financial acquisition runs. There was a certain comfort in doing something you had done for years, that you knew well enough to do with your eyes closed. He could be confident in every step of the plan, then be gone in the morning before any trouble came. That definitely beat hunting down an unregistered magic-user who decided to steal the bodies of a bunch of French royalty.
Ugh. Charlie shivered, reminded for a moment of the last time they had hunted an anomaly like that. He never liked getting his hands dirty directly, and the things had seemed to take that as a personal challenge. If it hadn't been for the others, well…
Charlie was the worst fighter on the team by a large margin. That was obvious to anyone who had functioning eyes. He didn't mind too much, he had other things to offer the group, but still…
"Are you moping again? You've been staring at nothing for like a solid minute."
Charlie jumped a solid foot into the air, tumbling out of the chair he had been sitting in and landing in a disorganized heap. Looking up, he saw Laura's concerned face looming over him, a hand outstretched.
Blushing rather heavily, Charlie accepted the hand up. "Sorry. Just didn't expect you to sneak up on me like that."
Laura smiled in a very unnecessarily smug manner. "I wasn't sneaking. You just weren't paying attention. Because you were moping again."
"I wasn't moping!" Charlie protested. "I'm just… reasonably concerned."
"Oh?" Laura raised an eyebrow. "About what, oh great reasonable one?"
"I'm just worried that I- that we aren't doing enough. It seems like so much is happening, and we're just here, practically on vacation!"
"Charlie…" Laura's smile softened. "Kyubey's already given their verdict. We need to stay out of the Mitakihara situation and anything involved with it. Besides, with the way things are, you're doing more than the rest of us are."
"Ah…" Charlie rubbed the back of his neck, embarrassed. "You're right, you're right. I just wish it felt more like it. I mean, this is the first otherworldly being to visit Earth since Kyubey, and we're supposed to leave things to a bunch of amateur Magical Girls who aren't even out of their teens yet?"
"You know Kyubey would probably want to handle that sort of thing himself anyways, right?" Laura reminded him, turning to leave the office and dragging Charlie with her by one hand. "It's not our place to interfere with the grand stage of things. We have our duty as Magical Girls, and that's all we need."
As the older Magical Girl dragged Charlie through the manor, he finally returned her smile. "Of course. We have enough purpose already, right?"
—————————
The Paladins are a team of Magical Girls who will probably not appear in the story given the escalation of things and the fact that you are not in active opposition with Kyubey. Still, I felt bad just letting them go almost completely unincluded, so here's a short technically-Canon story to fill space between actual updates.
I may or may not do this again for other characters that will be going unmet.
Charlie Roswell sat at a desk that did not belong to him, looking out across a large garden through the third-story window which took up most of the office wall, having just finished draining most of said office's owner's bank account. The man in question was lying on his couch on the floor below, surrounded by the various narcotics Laura had cooked up earlier that morning. When he came to, he would find a long list of transactions to various unscrupulous contacts, and the unfortunate fellow would draw his own conclusions as to what had happened. After that, he would do most of the legwork in covering up Charlie's tampering.
The cover-up wasn't technically necessary. Charlie's Magic only left traces if he allowed it to. But people could still draw their own conclusions, and one of France's most influential land developers suddenly having a good chunk of their liquid assets vanish would draw some attention. Charlie could've provided the funds himself, licensing was rather lucrative, but company finances were tracked very actively and he didn't keep much in the way of private funds. Besides, while not strictly necessary, it was a sort of public service to give the elitists a little scare every once in a while.
Laura had just wanted to spend the night in a mansion, which was fair. She was currently downstairs, probably turning the plants into a jungle or something else very visible and hard to explain. Normally that sort of behavior would earn her some scolding from the boss, but the other Paladins had left Charlie and Laura to do this job alone. They were out exploring the city, since their actual job had been cancelled.
That had been quite the surprise. Kyubey always made sure that the right team dealt with the right issue, and the Paladins had been pulled off of missions a few times before, but it tended to be the other way around. They were some of the oldest, most well-established of Kyubey's assistants, after all. The two times Charlie could remember Kyubey canceling a mission for them, it was because the situation was going to resolve itself. Funnily enough, both were right around the same place. First that, and now everything that was going on now. Was Japan secretly some sort of extradimensional madness beacon?
…
Actually, now that Charlie thought about it, that would explain some things.
Secretly, Charlie was glad to have the previous mission cancelled. He's long since grown used to financial acquisition runs. There was a certain comfort in doing something you had done for years, that you knew well enough to do with your eyes closed. He could be confident in every step of the plan, then be gone in the morning before any trouble came. That definitely beat hunting down an unregistered magic-user who decided to steal the bodies of a bunch of French royalty.
Ugh. Charlie shivered, reminded for a moment of the last time they had hunted an anomaly like that. He never liked getting his hands dirty directly, and the things had seemed to take that as a personal challenge. If it hadn't been for the others, well…
Charlie was the worst fighter on the team by a large margin. That was obvious to anyone who had functioning eyes. He didn't mind too much, he had other things to offer the group, but still…
"Are you moping again? You've been staring at nothing for like a solid minute."
Charlie jumped a solid foot into the air, tumbling out of the chair he had been sitting in and landing in a disorganized heap. Looking up, he saw Laura's concerned face looming over him, a hand outstretched.
Blushing rather heavily, Charlie accepted the hand up. "Sorry. Just didn't expect you to sneak up on me like that."
Laura smiled in a very unnecessarily smug manner. "I wasn't sneaking. You just weren't paying attention. Because you were moping again."
"I wasn't moping!" Charlie protested. "I'm just… reasonably concerned."
"Oh?" Laura raised an eyebrow. "About what, oh great reasonable one?"
"I'm just worried that I- that we aren't doing enough. It seems like so much is happening, and we're just here, practically on vacation!"
"Charlie…" Laura's smile softened. "Kyubey's already given their verdict. We need to stay out of the Mitakihara situation and anything involved with it. Besides, with the way things are, you're doing more than the rest of us are."
"Ah…" Charlie rubbed the back of his neck, embarrassed. "You're right, you're right. I just wish it felt more like it. I mean, this is the first otherworldly being to visit Earth since Kyubey, and we're supposed to leave things to a bunch of amateur Magical Girls who aren't even out of their teens yet?"
"You know Kyubey would probably want to handle that sort of thing himself anyways, right?" Laura reminded him, turning to leave the office and dragging Charlie with her by one hand. "It's not our place to interfere with the grand stage of things. We have our duty as Magical Girls, and that's all we need."
As the older Magical Girl dragged Charlie through the manor, he finally returned her smile. "Of course. We have enough purpose already, right?"
—————————
The Paladins are a team of Magical Girls who will probably not appear in the story given the escalation of things and the fact that you are not in active opposition with Kyubey. Still, I felt bad just letting them go almost completely unincluded, so here's a short technically-Canon story to fill space between actual updates.
I may or may not do this again for other characters that will be going unmet.
questioningmeme
Just be yourself
- Location
- River of Light
Huh. So that name isn't just for show. We got an actual magical boy!
Wonder if his wish was to be a boy in body?
It's that or Lepi decided to be AU on that, which is fair, the *explanation* from canon is obvious bullshit made to explain why this particular genre convention is followed.
Though, now that I am thinking about said explanation, it is making me think that they could have gone for one that sounds less bullshit and absolutely made it so that only girls could be chosen: make up something about their ability to carry new life in them.
Of course, this is a show about young girls, so about as soon as this idea came, I also saw why it would never be chosen.
Though this line makes me think he's not a Magical boy and the magic is from somewhere else:
Also, this group is centuries old, quite the feat.
questioningmeme
Just be yourself
- Location
- River of Light
In the first place, magical boy is perfectly fine in Kyubey system no?
It's just that the theme of the show was meant for magical girls not "Evil contract with a plushie intensifies" so we never get any magical boy showcase. (The whole "Girls are more emotionally unstable than boys" reasoning if I remember right.)
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Gun and Powder
Tax Evader the Arknight Operator
- Location
- W.Corp Train
- Pronouns
- He/They
I think Kyubey said something about young girl being super emotional or something idk. It been a lot time since I've watched it but I remember tilting my head at the reason
- Location
- Italy
- Pronouns
- He/Them
I think I would've honestly preferred if it was never mentioned in the original story at all, and just left implicitly as a fact that the genre of the anime/manga is magical girls: which is perfectly fine and really cool. The mistake there was trying to give a logical justification for it, and having that justification be emotional sensitivity out of all things - which is rather inane.
Alas, one could go wild with headcanons, it could always be someone made a Madoka-level wish to wipe magical boys out of existence or something. After all, it's not like anyone would remember it - not even the Incubators themselves.
Alas, one could go wild with headcanons, it could always be someone made a Madoka-level wish to wipe magical boys out of existence or something. After all, it's not like anyone would remember it - not even the Incubators themselves.
- Location
- Earth
I personally like the workaround I used for In The Name of Love and Hatred: the Incubators focus on pubescent girls because their emotional strength is the highest on average. Which easily offers loopholes for all the mythological figures to have also been approached for contracts and magical boys to exist if they are outliers. One can even argue that Kyubey left the underlined bit out on purpose when explaining to Madoka and have it be canon-compliant
- Location
- Italy
- Pronouns
- He/Them
I personally like the workaround I used for In The Name of Love and Hatred: the Incubators focus on pubescent girls because their emotional strength is the highest on average. Which easily offers loopholes for all the mythological figures to have also been approached for contracts and magical boys to exist if they are outliers. One can even argue that Kyubey left the underlined bit out on purpose when explaining to Madoka and have it be canon-compliant
That's understandable. I think my argument goes for the fact that it opens up the wealth of debates that have been had over the years regarding whether one is more emotional than the other, even on average. It's a subject scientists have studied, and keep studying, and keep going mad and frenetic over, for quite a lot of time - to the point I'm wary of making any statements about it.
It's not inherently that I think it's wrong, it's just that I recognize I'm ill-equipped to make any statements of the sort and thus I default to the safe option of not mentioning it at all.
No, when Kyubey talks about the system, he makes sure to precise that they only contract girls, and not just *on average*, at all, the explanation is not true to real life, but for all we know it's true in their world.
He doesn't do magical boys in any way shape of form in canon, if he did, we would have seen one at this time given how characters the side materials covers, and the fact that they even included magical women in Magia Record.
Edit:
Hell, Tart Magica included a perfect candidate in the Dauphin, who could have been contracted due to having the potential of a future king and was emotional and the correct age... yet there isn't even a thought given to that, nada, not sure Kyubey even talks to him.
Edit2:
Even the Alien witch uses female pronouns:
"She has shown herself now in order to forget about all the magical girls from this universe." ~ Witch Card
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questioningmeme
Just be yourself
- Location
- River of Light
Wait, hold on.
Why does Kyubey exclusively target females only again? I know that there was a reason, but maybe my memories are faulty so I'll need a refresher on why Kyubey only gives out contracts to magical girls.
Why does Kyubey exclusively target females only again? I know that there was a reason, but maybe my memories are faulty so I'll need a refresher on why Kyubey only gives out contracts to magical girls.
kaillll
Judgment Upon You
Efficiency.
questioningmeme
Just be yourself
- Location
- River of Light
I know that. They said something about how Little Girls are more liable for breakdowns right?
Something about them being more emotional, particularly in their teens, and once again, not on average, always.
This explanation suffer from the same problem as the pokemon Arceus explanation on how pokeball works: it goes into too much details and create weaknesses in the suspension of disbelief as a result, in pokemon, because the pokemon becoming minuscule due to an allergy strongly clash with the existence of the PC, and in PMMM, because that is completely false IRL.
They should just have gone with a *there is an inherent property in female organisms that makes contracting only them worthwhile*, that way, the fans will make the explanation for you and you never have to do the work, plus it cannot strain disbelief.
- Location
- Italy
- Pronouns
- He/Them
Something like that, yes. It's safe to assume in general that magical boys are not a thing in the Madoka universe, period. Whether the reasons behind it are valid or not is arguable, but probably wouldn't be very productive as a discussion and prone to fast derailing.
Case in point: one stray comment and we are there, not yet in derail, and still very polite, but getting closer.
I personally dislike the canon explanation and would create my own if I ever made a fic, but the main thing is that there are only magical girls in canon.
questioningmeme
Just be yourself
- Location
- River of Light
Welp. I guess Lepid went with the IRL-adapted reasoning then.
"Kyubey mainly targets emotional teens [Male or Female], though girls are more common due to them being more convenient for Kyubey to give mental traumas to."
Outside of that, we got to know about Paladin in this chapter. Are they a real (I know they likely aren't real, given that Charles is a magical boy which doesn't exist) thing?
I mean as in an organization similar to them in Madoka proper, manipulating things behind the scene and helping Kyubey cover up magical incidents I mean.
"Kyubey mainly targets emotional teens [Male or Female], though girls are more common due to them being more convenient for Kyubey to give mental traumas to."
Outside of that, we got to know about Paladin in this chapter. Are they a real (I know they likely aren't real, given that Charles is a magical boy which doesn't exist) thing?
I mean as in an organization similar to them in Madoka proper, manipulating things behind the scene and helping Kyubey cover up magical incidents I mean.
No, very not canon, they are centuries old given that Charle reference working on french royalty, and the oldest magical girl we ever see is at most one century old (Flamel's wife in Tart magica), we also never see any trace of any shock troops working for Kyubey in canon, all girls that knows that sort of things works against him. The closest we see is in Tart, and they are explicitly due to a very exceptional thing, are recruited on the spot for that very purpose, and are expendables that are not expected to survive past the mission. If there was a group like Paladin that existed, they would have intervened at the time, no traces.
Kyubey works on hiding magical phenomenon alone.
Edit:
Ok, rechecked Flamel, apparently magia records made her far older (as in, born during the roman empire before it fell), more than a thousand years old during Tart, but she's also a very obvious exception, and don't work for Kyubey per se.
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- Location
- Italy
- Pronouns
- He/Them
Technically this is contested by Magia Record's existence of Puella Care, an organization that very much follows Kyubey's orders and plans.
I also bring up that in the history flashback that Kyubey gives, Cleopatra is a magical girl. (Mentioned this for fun, unrelated.) (Edited)
Fourth Edit: The thought returned to me why I mentioned it, the fact that by timeline there's a slim slim chance Flamel's wife was around the same time as Cleopatra.
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I appreciate that this exists, worldbuilding is always nice.
I assume Kyubey called the Paladins in during the Nothing There/DoSaM incident, but they simply didn't get there in time; I'm a little surprised he isn't being more active with the Adult situation, though.
Generally, he seems to have a very hands-off approach, both in canon and in this quest. Personally, I think it's because he's already seen thousands of seemingly intractable problems resolve themselves when the corresponding Magical Girl inevitably blows up, as Magical Girls tend to do. He's probably so used to this by now that he's biased towards non-interference quite strongly.
The image of an idealistic newbie Incubator being taught the ropes by grizzled old cop Kyubey, and calling him out on being an emotionally compromised loose cannon, amuses me greatly.
ObservadorCha
Watching from the stars
This makes me wonder what Puella Care, Tokime, Pernelle, and the magical girls of Asurano, Hohzuki, Takarazaki, and Futatsugi thought about the strange situation in Mitakihara.
These ones are busy either being dead or being in the library, we met Kazumi post wish, she was one of the girls who represented the others during our explanation when we woke them up.
Lepidoptera
Mother of Monsters, Unverified Impuritas Civitatis
- Location
- Indeterminate Unknown
The Paladins are an old OC group that I had made when I first got into PMMM, based on the premise that at least some of the people who heard Kyubey's full explanation about harvesting energy to avert the end of the universe would agree that it's worth it. The group as a whole are very old, though the two members featured here are "only" in their early thirties.
As for the whole Potential thing, I'm just going to mostly overlook it as a part of the genre. I could make some contrivance based on Potential being higher on average for girls than boys for some reason or another, but the specifics of it aren't really relevant to the story. In most PMMM Quests, a person Contracting at all is typically seen as a loss anyways. And considering the only viable Contractees left are Madoka and Yuma, that's especially true in this case.