Clarisse Quest [now in Part II, Revolutionary Girl Clarisse] (a PMMM/TTS quest)
UrsaTempest
Don't Panic!
Yeah, the problem is we don't know how much time we got. The only certain things is it's limited.
Due to fractured population of magical girls, some might died first; some other could survive longer than average because, say, they let Familiar grow to be proper Witches, thus letting them goes on longer even without additional contractee (and might be beneficial, in their case). Or other policies and circumstances that let 'em survive longer.
Some other could move out of Japan, of course. No contract freeze abroad, presumably. Lots of possibilities.
Due to fractured population of magical girls, some might died first; some other could survive longer than average because, say, they let Familiar grow to be proper Witches, thus letting them goes on longer even without additional contractee (and might be beneficial, in their case). Or other policies and circumstances that let 'em survive longer.
Some other could move out of Japan, of course. No contract freeze abroad, presumably. Lots of possibilities.
I mean I'm probably off in my worst case scenario that still has a likely chance of occurring.
Like I forgot some girls might purposefully farm Familiars. Very true.
And, as I said before, it also depends on what Kyuuby decides to do, which can be any number of things without him really caring which cause they all work for him in the end.
Ultimately that's all just being built off of my primary point though, and the one that actually matters (which I also lost sight of), that we're facing a mass Witch depopulation and the subsequent response of the Magical Girl population of Japan.
If I'm wrong, fine, but then what do you plan to do about that? (Aimed at the thread in general) What evidence do you have backing up that its going to work? How likely do you think it'll work beyond that? What are the costs to it failing? To it succeeding?
I gave the three solutions I could think of on the issue, one of them I declared as a non-option because what Kyuuby wants we will not give.
And I gave my reasoning for the option I prefer as well, tomoyo even pointed out evidence for it, as little as it might be with how I cut into it with things we haven't investigated yet (but easily could right this second).
*Shrug*
Like I forgot some girls might purposefully farm Familiars. Very true.
And, as I said before, it also depends on what Kyuuby decides to do, which can be any number of things without him really caring which cause they all work for him in the end.
Ultimately that's all just being built off of my primary point though, and the one that actually matters (which I also lost sight of), that we're facing a mass Witch depopulation and the subsequent response of the Magical Girl population of Japan.
If I'm wrong, fine, but then what do you plan to do about that? (Aimed at the thread in general) What evidence do you have backing up that its going to work? How likely do you think it'll work beyond that? What are the costs to it failing? To it succeeding?
I gave the three solutions I could think of on the issue, one of them I declared as a non-option because what Kyuuby wants we will not give.
And I gave my reasoning for the option I prefer as well, tomoyo even pointed out evidence for it, as little as it might be with how I cut into it with things we haven't investigated yet (but easily could right this second).
*Shrug*
The Narrator
Disembodied Voice
- Location
- Somewhere Offscreen
Magical girls were the mongooses. Witches were the cobras. Humans were still humans; the concern for increased cobra bites is the concern for increased Witch attacks. Feeding baby mongooses to cobras was allowing inexperienced magical girls to witch out to swell the Witch population; do not forget that the only way that contracting leads to increased Witch population is if girls are dying.
Contracting is sacrificing souls. Never forget that.
Magical girls don't circulate because they're defending their hunting grounds. When the food supply dries up, they're going to go looking for new ones. And when girls Witch out, they get hunted by other magical girls in the same geographic area--otherwise no hunting would happen at all--so I think we're more likely to see the population of both Witches and magical girls in each region dwindle until there's only one left of the latter... and then one left of the former unless that last girl relocates.
Remember that most magical girls don't hunt familiars since there's no payoff for doing so, so the population growth rate might not increase substantially.
There's no way to know for certain how many people Witches kill, but let's aim high and assume that every suicide in Japan is actually a Witch killing. That would be approximately 30,000 per year. That's tragic, but it's not exactly going to reduce Japan to a lifeless wasteland. By comparison, Oriko is expecting each Witch she seeded with grief cubes to kill thousands, so that doesn't really seem like a reduction in casualties, short term.
If you're doing that then you also need to add on missing persons and probably unsolved murders. Some of them anyway.
And then adjust for a completely unknown amount that Kyuuby might be suppressing/hiding.
And that's not even touching PMMM!Japan versus Actual!Japan and the differences that could make amongst such things.
I'm not sure what this point has to do with anything? Its a thing, yes, but seems off-beat to the current point/discussion to the point of jarring dissonance.
The Narrator
Disembodied Voice
- Location
- Somewhere Offscreen
I consider it extremely relevant. People are talking about contracting starting up again as if it would save the magical girls, but it would at best be sacrificing a great many girls to save a few.
No worse than the current system. Which, yes, we're trying to do away with one way or another, but those things ultimately need time.
Especially if we need to, or decide to, focus on or get distracted by other things.
*Points to all my previous posts* Like with what I'm trying to do right now. We're on an unknown timelimit, we need to get this done.
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UrsaTempest
Don't Panic!
We'll have a lot more time learning ballet, for one
Now, apocalypse likely won't happen tomorrow. But we should keep in mind we are on time clock, now.
Do we know that? Kyoko does it and speaks for it but most magical girls that haven't gone well off the crazy train from the other materials don't seem quite ruthless enough to do that. Quite a few magical girls are motivated by justice or vengance against witches, but I can't remember not hunting familiars coming up outside of Kyoko scolding Sayaka.
I think this is a quirk of Kyoko rather than normal magical girl behavior.
- Location
- Your imagination
I think when Kyubey compared our magic to Walpurgisnacht, that she was referring to the Promise Network. Walpurgis is formed from a gathering of many witches, while our Promise Network lets us access the magic of multiple girls in our group.
I still see contracting as an option, but only as a last resort Big Red Button that immediately ends the quest and could turn out favourably with the right wish. The problem is deciding what wish would do what we want, which is especially hard since we don't entirely know what we want. As for potential wishes, The Magius had some interesting ones that we could take a look at.
The reason to pursue Soul Science is a better understanding of the cause of the current problems, which would allow for them to be addressed more effectively.
I still see contracting as an option, but only as a last resort Big Red Button that immediately ends the quest and could turn out favourably with the right wish. The problem is deciding what wish would do what we want, which is especially hard since we don't entirely know what we want. As for potential wishes, The Magius had some interesting ones that we could take a look at.
The reason to pursue Soul Science is a better understanding of the cause of the current problems, which would allow for them to be addressed more effectively.
UrsaTempest
Don't Panic!
I don't think we need to fiddle much about wishes. I think it's better to consider what our intention to be, wishing-wise. What do we want the most? What is it that we want? That sort of thing.
Back to Oriko, though...
Back to Oriko, though...
- Location
- Oooooooh emotional roller coaster
That may be useful. The dance that you did before was mostly cheating.We'll have a lot more time learning ballet, for one
Oh, right, I should have proposed that we evacuate her soul to shut down a grief spiral. That's Governance procedure so its omission is silly. Won't solve the problem entirely forever, mind you, but I do prefer you to have the idea available to you while planning.
I am willing to say that most of your most acute problems around grief accumulation probably stem from souls being used as an energy source to stave off entropy. That said, I am happy to welcome specific soul-science focus topics as write-ins.
- Location
- The infinite well of fanfics
Yes, oriko.
We need to deal with what might be a spiral, so how? The backup is moving the soul away but I feel like we should handle this soon, as we can't leave her body dead for long. Therefore I'm thinking we go with the cleancing option. But to do that we need hope, and thats where I can't think of anything. Would involving Kirika be a good idea? What could we say? Having a look back at when we de-witched Simona, we had a scene where people talked about their true feelings, then hit Simona with the staff. So I think including Kirika might be needed here, but we should probably be honest as well.
We need to deal with what might be a spiral, so how? The backup is moving the soul away but I feel like we should handle this soon, as we can't leave her body dead for long. Therefore I'm thinking we go with the cleancing option. But to do that we need hope, and thats where I can't think of anything. Would involving Kirika be a good idea? What could we say? Having a look back at when we de-witched Simona, we had a scene where people talked about their true feelings, then hit Simona with the staff. So I think including Kirika might be needed here, but we should probably be honest as well.
Honest about what? Oriko doesn't have any faith in the future, she knows what's coming. Not to the degree we do because we also know about Gretchen and the Empire and how all those pieces are looking to topple into each other, but she also is doing everything she can think of to try and save as many as she can as well.
And we just undercut that entire plan.
We didn't consult her or talk to her or even tell her anything, we just cut her plan down without so much as a "How do you do?"
Oriko doesn't believe in the future because she can see the future. She sees too much of how the pieces she can account for are going to fall apart and everything can so easily turn to dust and ash. So she put her hope, as little as she had, into a solid plan to try and save what she could.
And we crushed that.
She's betrayed, angry, hurt, and scared. By Clarrise' own hand.
And I know what that does to people. Faith is for Fools and Hope Hurts.
She wants to believe and have hope still though, otherwise she would already be a Witch. Getting her to accept anything though is difficult, delicate, and on a time limit to an unreasonable degree.
Apologize to her first and foremost, call off the hunt, giver her a Feather, and share with her/remind her that we purified and freed a Witch. We can do the same for all of them with a little time.
And then actually follow through on that promise unless you want her to spiral again.
Again, I went into a worst case, but as I also pointed out above there is a bottom line ultimately. We're on a time limit for the MG population of Japan as a whole spiraling down the drain.
And we just undercut that entire plan.
We didn't consult her or talk to her or even tell her anything, we just cut her plan down without so much as a "How do you do?"
Oriko doesn't believe in the future because she can see the future. She sees too much of how the pieces she can account for are going to fall apart and everything can so easily turn to dust and ash. So she put her hope, as little as she had, into a solid plan to try and save what she could.
And we crushed that.
She's betrayed, angry, hurt, and scared. By Clarrise' own hand.
And I know what that does to people. Faith is for Fools and Hope Hurts.
She wants to believe and have hope still though, otherwise she would already be a Witch. Getting her to accept anything though is difficult, delicate, and on a time limit to an unreasonable degree.
Apologize to her first and foremost, call off the hunt, giver her a Feather, and share with her/remind her that we purified and freed a Witch. We can do the same for all of them with a little time.
And then actually follow through on that promise unless you want her to spiral again.
Again, I went into a worst case, but as I also pointed out above there is a bottom line ultimately. We're on a time limit for the MG population of Japan as a whole spiraling down the drain.
UrsaTempest
Don't Panic!
How to interpret those into votes, tho
[] Apologize to Oriko, give feather, etc?
[] Apologize to Oriko, give feather, etc?
- Location
- Oooooooh emotional roller coaster
It sounds like this conversation advocates both a new approach to Oriko (involving her more in the team) and some specific steps to take. The ideal vote would help me to understand what you have in mind for both of these, so I can get started with your suggestions but also adapt them as necessary.
- Location
- Oooooooh emotional roller coaster
Okay, let's give these proposals a try. Feel free to rework these to your liking, of course.
[] Rethink our current attitude towards Oriko
- [] Apologize to her for ruining the future but we think we can make this one even better
- [] Discuss freeing and purifying a witch
- [] End her house arrest, return her soul gem
- [] Extend her a feather as a measure of trust
A feather! That is quite the measure of trust.
(A Simona feather, I presume.)
[] Seek to appease Oriko within your current framework of house arrest
- [] Agree that grief seed hunting is a bad idea; it was a stopgap anyway
- [] Thank her for the insights and allow the latest witch to help spread cubes despite violence
- [] Identify that cubes are a stopgap too, and that grief farming approaches must be off the table
- [] Discuss further plans in depth, including dance and feathers
[] Dance with Oriko
- [] Discuss longing for a better future, and fighting unfair obstacles
- [] Offer hope that this future can yet be found
- [] Work around the fact that you can't actually dance by (write-in, very important)
[] Rethink our current attitude towards Oriko
- [] Apologize to her for ruining the future but we think we can make this one even better
- [] Discuss freeing and purifying a witch
- [] End her house arrest, return her soul gem
- [] Extend her a feather as a measure of trust
A feather! That is quite the measure of trust.
(A Simona feather, I presume.)
[] Seek to appease Oriko within your current framework of house arrest
- [] Agree that grief seed hunting is a bad idea; it was a stopgap anyway
- [] Thank her for the insights and allow the latest witch to help spread cubes despite violence
- [] Identify that cubes are a stopgap too, and that grief farming approaches must be off the table
- [] Discuss further plans in depth, including dance and feathers
[] Dance with Oriko
- [] Discuss longing for a better future, and fighting unfair obstacles
- [] Offer hope that this future can yet be found
- [] Work around the fact that you can't actually dance by (write-in, very important)
Hmm... I'd offer her the choice of ending the house arrest or receiving a Feather after discussing the first two points.
Cover the inherent nature of both other methods being stopgaps under the conditions we now face.
I think Dance and Feather would both be covered tangentially when talking about purifying the Witch, more the latter than the former.
A dance... might not be out of place to prove our point and show her something solid. And she probably knows how to dance, so we could ask her to lead us through something simple that she would probably know?
All of the options have their places in a single conversation honestly. Though Dancing with her, if we are able to touch that, might actually be dangerous to her since we're both still unskilled at it ourself and don't know what it actually does yet.
Cover the inherent nature of both other methods being stopgaps under the conditions we now face.
I think Dance and Feather would both be covered tangentially when talking about purifying the Witch, more the latter than the former.
A dance... might not be out of place to prove our point and show her something solid. And she probably knows how to dance, so we could ask her to lead us through something simple that she would probably know?
All of the options have their places in a single conversation honestly. Though Dancing with her, if we are able to touch that, might actually be dangerous to her since we're both still unskilled at it ourself and don't know what it actually does yet.
Nolrai
weak to fangs
- Location
- Porltand
[X] "Look, I don't have easy or good answers. But you don't have the full picture, and neither do I. I ruined you plans because they weren't good enough, as far as I could tell. That future was... wrong.
"Let's forget about the future and just ...i don't know, get ice cream and watch a movie about normal people... like 'office space' and hold our date's hands, and spend money. Or make brownies.."
I don't necessarily want this to win... But i want it to be a thought we consciously have.
"Let's forget about the future and just ...i don't know, get ice cream and watch a movie about normal people... like 'office space' and hold our date's hands, and spend money. Or make brownies.."
I don't necessarily want this to win... But i want it to be a thought we consciously have.
- Location
- The infinite well of fanfics
I think this is the way to go., slightly edited of course (Do we want to do a double date with us, Kyouko, her and Kirika?). We have been messing up her plans and don't have much to show. We are asking her to help with things that go against her ideas and its all just falling apart.
[X] Explain that we have freed a witch from eternal suffering.
-[X] Extend her a (Simona) feather as a measure of trust and proff.
[X] Rethink our current attitude towards Oriko
-[X] Apologize to her for ruining the future but we think we can make this one even better
-[X] Discuss further plans in depth, including dance and feathers
-[X] Promise to discuss with the others to end her house arrest and return her soul gem
Nolrai
weak to fangs
- Location
- Porltand
A double date was the implicit plan there. I meant to actually say that.
Though it might just be a date to the living room, cause of house arrest.
Um. We should have someone keep ryouko busy. We don't want her brooding about Asami or Simona. Maybe she can hang with the girl who wished her to life?
Though it might just be a date to the living room, cause of house arrest.
Um. We should have someone keep ryouko busy. We don't want her brooding about Asami or Simona. Maybe she can hang with the girl who wished her to life?
The Narrator
Disembodied Voice
- Location
- Somewhere Offscreen
Guys, I'm rather dubious that dismissing Oriko's concerns to talk about frivolities is going to improve the situation.
Yes, Oriko is wrong and evil, but maybe we could try actually addressing her concerns instead of ignoring them? Even if it's only to say, "your plan wasn't going to work, I've been to the future, and the universe got destroyed because of your bad ideas," that would at least be a response.
Yes, Oriko is wrong and evil, but maybe we could try actually addressing her concerns instead of ignoring them? Even if it's only to say, "your plan wasn't going to work, I've been to the future, and the universe got destroyed because of your bad ideas," that would at least be a response.
- Location
- Wingmaiden's Reach, the Near Roofs, Town
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Hmmmmmmmbleah
Okay, so, as mentioned, my models of Oriko are really bad; I don't really get her, to be honest. And, like, that's partially because I haven't made the effort to actually, you know, sympathize and try to understand her; which is a bit of a chicken-egg issue because I'm not really invested in wanting to understand her, because she's in such an adversarial posture and is tied to the bigger-picture stuff I don't like dealing with.
(also I have literally zero first-hand experience with any of the Madoka spinoff stuff, so all of my working knowledge of Orikos comes from four or five conflicting fan interpretations of variable quality, so I have nothing to fall back on.)
But, like -
I guess...
And so I guess the best vote I can construct to meet these criteria is something like:
[X] Rethink our current attitude towards Oriko
- [X] Apologize to her for ruining the future but we think we can make this one even better
- [X] Discuss freeing and purifying a witch
- [X] Extend her a feather as a measure of trust
[X] Seek to appease Oriko within your current framework of house arrest
- [X] Agree that grief seed hunting is a bad idea; it was a stopgap anyway
- [X] Identify that cubes are a stopgap too, and that grief farming approaches must be off the table
- [X] Discuss further plans in depth, including dance and feathers
I would love to ask Oriko to dance, since it seems that our problems with her are largely premised on poor communication with her - on Clarisse and Oriko's mutually unclear understanding of each other and her goals, plans, methods, etc. To have some way to express what we're trying for to Oriko in a way that isn't just ... words.
She doesn't trust us. She doesn't believe us. I'm not sure she can. I'm not sure that her worldview allows her to have the sort of faith we're asking of her.
And we are! We're asking a lot. We're asking her to trust that we can ... wing it, as it were. That we can save the universe with hope and hard work, even if we don't have a solid plan yet. That's a big ask.
Oriko, as far as I can tell, wants to be sure. She craves certainty, she needs to know that things are going to work out. If we want her to stop fighting us, we need to demonstrate to her that we can be relied on - that we can, absolutely, bring about a better world; and that said world will be one that Ophelia can live in.
She doesn't believe we can save the world; and she doesn't believe any such world that we saved would be one she would like to inhabit. Oriko doesn't trust us; has little or no faith in our capabilities or convictions; and frankly, is actively afraid of Clarisse.
And so dance - to try and reach across that chasm, to try and understand her, and help her understand us; to share our hopes and dreams for a brighter future with her, one that doesn't need to be built on the bodies of the innocent and the broken dreams of the fallen - I would love to do that, if only I could work out how.
Unfortunately, reality continues to conspire against our sequencing efforts.
I'm open to suggestions, if anyone's got any.
Okay, so, as mentioned, my models of Oriko are really bad; I don't really get her, to be honest. And, like, that's partially because I haven't made the effort to actually, you know, sympathize and try to understand her; which is a bit of a chicken-egg issue because I'm not really invested in wanting to understand her, because she's in such an adversarial posture and is tied to the bigger-picture stuff I don't like dealing with.
(also I have literally zero first-hand experience with any of the Madoka spinoff stuff, so all of my working knowledge of Orikos comes from four or five conflicting fan interpretations of variable quality, so I have nothing to fall back on.)
But, like -
I guess...
- I don't want people to get eaten by witches and slash or demons
- Which means I am forced to advocate against grief-farming strats
- I don't want Oriko to witch out
- Which means I am forced to advocate against blowing off her concerns and suggesting ice cream
- I would like, in general, for us to be able to come to terms with disparate parties and work together towards a common cause of making the universe not be a dumpster fire
- Which means I am forced to advocate for extending measures of trust towards potentially adversarial or otherwise untrustworthy parties
- And which further means - given my extant opposition to her methods and goals - that I am forced to advocate for attempting to demonstrate to Oriko why her methods and goals are worse than our proposed methods and goals.
- Which presumably means we should actually have some proposed methods and goals for her to believe in.
- At the same time, I would wish for Tomoe Mami notto become upset
- Which means that I am forced to advocate against extending too much trust to Oriko all at once.
And so I guess the best vote I can construct to meet these criteria is something like:
[X] Rethink our current attitude towards Oriko
- [X] Apologize to her for ruining the future but we think we can make this one even better
- [X] Discuss freeing and purifying a witch
- [X] Extend her a feather as a measure of trust
[X] Seek to appease Oriko within your current framework of house arrest
- [X] Agree that grief seed hunting is a bad idea; it was a stopgap anyway
- [X] Identify that cubes are a stopgap too, and that grief farming approaches must be off the table
- [X] Discuss further plans in depth, including dance and feathers
I would love to ask Oriko to dance, since it seems that our problems with her are largely premised on poor communication with her - on Clarisse and Oriko's mutually unclear understanding of each other and her goals, plans, methods, etc. To have some way to express what we're trying for to Oriko in a way that isn't just ... words.
She doesn't trust us. She doesn't believe us. I'm not sure she can. I'm not sure that her worldview allows her to have the sort of faith we're asking of her.
And we are! We're asking a lot. We're asking her to trust that we can ... wing it, as it were. That we can save the universe with hope and hard work, even if we don't have a solid plan yet. That's a big ask.
Oriko, as far as I can tell, wants to be sure. She craves certainty, she needs to know that things are going to work out. If we want her to stop fighting us, we need to demonstrate to her that we can be relied on - that we can, absolutely, bring about a better world; and that said world will be one that Ophelia can live in.
She doesn't believe we can save the world; and she doesn't believe any such world that we saved would be one she would like to inhabit. Oriko doesn't trust us; has little or no faith in our capabilities or convictions; and frankly, is actively afraid of Clarisse.
And so dance - to try and reach across that chasm, to try and understand her, and help her understand us; to share our hopes and dreams for a brighter future with her, one that doesn't need to be built on the bodies of the innocent and the broken dreams of the fallen - I would love to do that, if only I could work out how.
Unfortunately, reality continues to conspire against our sequencing efforts.
I'm open to suggestions, if anyone's got any.