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Calibration (BAHHSCQ/Sanctioned)

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serapheus said:
After a bit of rereading and looking through comments, I think I'm headed towards a genuine dislike of Monica. Which is odd, because I think she's basically designed to be a kind of...quirky-cute reader bait, like some fanfic versions of Madison.

But she just comes across as...fake and unpleasant and just in general kind of a bitch. I mean, for some reason I'm actually starting to hope for some kind of confrontation scene in the future where she ends up trying to get QA and/or Anna to kick Koji and Setsuna to the curb only to end up getting kicked out herself.

And I don't know why I'm hoping for that? I'd honestly rather just read more quasi-fluff of QA recovering into a healthy and happy individual rather than the drama of a manipulative twat getting their comeuppance. -confusion-
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Monica is manipulative which may be what's off putting. personally the fact that her underlying motivation for her manipulative false personality is a fear of others helps my view of her.
 
Kai Merah said:
So I just went back through the story in reader mode searching "Monica" and I'm finding her sudden certainty of QA's royalty in this chapter strange. There is only a single reference to Monica thinking of QA as Hell royalty.



I feel like it's a bit of a stretch to go from "Taylor might be eldritch royalty" to apparently absolute certainty that Taylor is a princess of Hell.



I'm going to guess that intervening interaction has somehow persuaded Monica that her offhanded speculation is fact, but it's hard to say exactly what has made her so certain. Did QA start smelling of fire and brimstone? Does Monica find Pegacorns blatantly satanic? Does she think 'magic' = 'infernal pact with the devil'? QA's mentioned extensive memory modification and a general 'survival of the fittest' mindset, but I don't understand why Monica has arrived at such certainty of "Hell royalty" instead of "cult survivor", which seems like the more reasonable choice.

Anyway, apart from that, let's see if I can understand the rest of the chapter.



Going to guess Anna is busy exchanging high-band info with Silver, possibly regarding Taylor, Rose, or maybe just tech in general. Going to also guess that Anna is trying to figure out where is the most defensive place she can put Silver when carrying her into battle. Can't leave Silver on the ground of course, or Antagonists will get her. Having her near Anna's body is obvious the safest, but the question is, where can the pegacorn cling so it's not in the way, and Anna can defend it? Bet that Anna is remembering all the times an Antagonist shot off or shot at various parts of her body which is why she can't determine the safest part of her body to put Silver.



Nyx has been so encouraging to Monica, it's a shame she's not got the processing to understand Nyx's communications yet.



So... I think what happened here is that QA's Friends with their hat powers have kinda majorly twigged some Valkyries' PTSD buttons by being way too similar to Antagonists. There might have been some actual Antagonists with that kind of sensor-spoofing powers and the UN is apparently hoping they're not real? Either way, I think Kaiti is encouraging Taylor to go to therapy sooner not necessarily because Taylor needs therapy (though she does) but to get her out of a volatile situation before Valks can get itchy trigger fingers. Also to remind said Valks with itchy trigger fingers that Taylor is not an infiltrating Antagonist, but a regular human who needs help and therapy.

Not sure if I got all this correct, but it's my best guess anyway. I look forward to reading the speculation of others!
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During their lunch meeting Setsuna noted Monica was looking smug for some reason. I assume that is when she 'verified' Taylor was royalty.
TacitSoliloquy said:
The topic brings to mind another idea, too, come to think of it. Friends should get power armour, yes? Friends get hat powers. Power armour hats. Friends should be equipped with suits of power armour that incorporate hats as part of the hardened helmet design. Thus, fully-encased Pegacorn-class Friends with impact-resistant advanced composite sombreros and admiralty bicorns. Because reasons.


The phrasing still works. What if– Just what if– ...there is an Antagonist out there, and it wants to steal her Friend?! Diabolical... Why, that's something that only Antagonists would do! Like Antagonists! Dare she take her eyes off of her precious Friend? What's she supposed to do if that's precisely the problem? What if there's a Type Zero out there fucking with her head to kidnap Diedre?!
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Thinking about it, doomguy armor is actually friend-tech.
 
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serapheus said:
After a bit of rereading and looking through comments, I think I'm headed towards a genuine dislike of Monica. Which is odd, because I think she's basically designed to be a kind of...quirky-cute reader bait, like some fanfic versions of Madison.

But she just comes across as...fake and unpleasant and just in general kind of a bitch. I mean, for some reason I'm actually starting to hope for some kind of confrontation scene in the future where she ends up trying to get QA and/or Anna to kick Koji and Setsuna to the curb only to end up getting kicked out herself.

And I don't know why I'm hoping for that? I'd honestly rather just read more quasi-fluff of QA recovering into a healthy and happy individual rather than the drama of a manipulative twat getting their comeuppance. -confusion-
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I think that the problem is, Monica believes everyone else is wearing a mask, except for QA, because QA is mentally damaged. Monica believed she needed to project happiness to fit in, was scared silly when she heard her mask would get her targeted by bullies, and probably resents anyone does not wear a happy mask like her, assuming they have ulterior motives.

QA is safe though, because she's too mentally damaged for a mask, and seems to honestly mean Monica well. My guess is she's particularly vitriolic towards Setsuna and Kouji because they're 'normal', not much more skilled than her, and she's worried they'll steal her one trustworthy person from her.
 
Kai Merah said:
I think that the problem is, Monica believes everyone else is wearing a mask, except for QA, because QA is mentally damaged. Monica believed she needed to project happiness to fit in, was scared silly when she heard her mask would get her targeted by bullies, and probably resents anyone does not wear a happy mask like her, assuming they have ulterior motives.

QA is safe though, because she's too mentally damaged for a mask, and seems to honestly mean Monica well.
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Alivaril liked Lili so much he smuggled her into the new setting.
 
Carrnage said:
What happens if someone wears their Friend as a hat tho?
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To quote the Sanctioned thread back when it was in quest format and people were trying to munchkin QA's powerset:
Alivaril said:
Living and robotic hats exist in the public consciousness; therefore, they are fair game. The powers given by them wouldn't be any stronger or weaker than those given by ordinary hats, though. In addition, anything you're wearing as a hat cannot wear a hat larger than it is. So you could have a pyramid of Friends using Friends as hats, but not a tower.

EDIT: You would not get powers from the hat of your hat.
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Alivaril said:
Just as a kaiju wearing a hat would get appropriately strong powers, a living mini-hat wearing a mini-hat would have appropriately weak powers. You'd probably be better off just making normal-sized Friends with appropriately-sized hats of their own. OOC: Also, no hats on my list so far give amplification powers to prevent exactly this sort of thing. Admittedly, I was thinking of Tinkering or Dauntless-esque powers instead at the time...

No, you cannot give yourself kaiju-appropriate powers by wearing a really big hat. Said hat would be its own type of hat by then and would thus provide a different power, not a stronger or weaker power(set).
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Dark as Silver said:
What does QA think happens in therapy session?
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Probably something like a report of one's mental structure, recent decisions, reasoning for said decisions, dissection of said reasonings, identification of poor mental habits and reasoning sources, followed by enforced mental alteration by the therapist in order to expunge said habits and sources.

...What? That's how all of QA's previous debriefings 'therapy sessions' with :MOTHER: went.
 
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Raiseth said:
And wow, dumb mc is dumb
Almost wanna check the original to see if it's exaggerated or not
Almost
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BAHHSCQ is actually quite good! It's a parody of the battle harem genre with Anna as the quest protagonist, and Koujirou as the alleged anime protagonist. There are a few parts which drive away a statistically significant number of readers, but we have plenty of enjoyable stuff before those gates show up.


Torgamous said:
I think that "might" is the kind in "we might fight sometimes, but we still love each other", not one meant to indicate actual uncertainty.
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English be whack, yo. And to be fair, she wasn't totally certain until she heard about the "Queen Administrator" name.
 
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To be fair for those who don't like how Kojirou/Male MC is portrayed here, the players in the original Quest had chosen him to be the complete dumbass new guy, and the author wrote him as having a unique unit with an arsenal that have shonen-style unlocking prerequisites, most likely as a parody to Ichika in the way that BAHHSCQ was a parody of Infinite Stratos/Mul-Luv/etc.

[N/A]Main Character (Main character)(NPC)
[]Clueless moron: Neophyte to the whole combat business. Extra moron included.
[]Already retired badass: Had previously had combat experience. Still a moron.
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BAHHSCQ is Infinite Stratos, except infnitely better.
Also lot less optimistic, what with the potentially extinction level war going on.
The harem also is, lot less.
Like, there is exactly one (1) person interested in Coke Zero in a romantic way, rest of the "harem" is just there, and largely more interested in Anna (again, not romantically), though we are seeing the setting through Anna, so there could be any amount of harem shenanigans going on screen while we are busy creating world changing super weapons.

It's great, i recommend peple to read it, you can pretty safely ignroe the technobabble (i do) and still keep up with stuff, though the technobabble is pretty great as well for people who enjoy that sort of thing.
 
Valmond said:
Like, there is exactly one (1) person interested in Coke Zero in a romantic way, rest of the "harem" is just there, and largely more interested in Anna (again, not romantically), though we are seeing the setting through Anna, so there could be any amount of harem shenanigans going on screen while we are busy creating world changing super weapons.
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Not to mention that the win condition is Anna becoming a (spin-off) MC in her own right, so the votes would push the quest in that direction as well.
 
GrayMarsh said:
I didn't come here to hear this Broadcast apologia and frankly I'm offended that I had to read that with my own eyes
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How one should read something with someone else's eyes is left as an exercise.
TacitSoliloquy said:
Yeah, that's what it sounds like. The exchange seems as though at least Stella really didn't take getting Stranger'd well, and that it involved a Friend may have made it even worse for multiple compounding reasons, between the Antagonist similarities and the fact that she was ostensibly supposed to trust and cherish her precious Diedre. I think the notion of Kaiti hurrying QA along may be quite accurate, especially with Tamara's perception taken into account.
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Just think - when Anna and Silver make the brain implant known and the crafting club are able to stick part of their Friends in their heads in order to aid communication, Stella will be able to receive a datastream from Diedre indicating her position at all times even if faulty organics are unable to detect her. Surely this will solve the Strangering problem and in no way provoke other trauma of any sort.
 
Alivaril said:
I'm pretty sure the text hasn't confirmed that last part
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as long as Christianity remains a prominent religion, there will always be fundamentalist communities that are cults-in-all-but-name. also, if the fundamentalists were a big enough problem in an arcology for them to be wiped out, i doubt Monica would be in the position she is. i also doubt that Monica's pov from chapter 8 would be so teenager in her thoughts if her cult/church got rko'd
 
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