To make people actually remember, here's it once for posterity: Minako is nonbinary and uses they/them. This message will be pinned so you people stop getting it wrong and pissing me off. If you get it wrong in the future I'm going to be much less nice, considering you have to scroll past it just to read the quest.
Or... she redid that not date and chance meeting in the bar hundreds of times and is just better at covering it up.
What are the chances that some one as superhumanly athletic as a Magi accidentally bumps someone?
[X] Explain to Minako that it's a broken system. It's hard to survive for any length of time without doing questionable things, and easy to go wrong somewhere. Nasty, Brutish, and Short. That this seems to be the Incubators' intent. All anyone's been able to do is to try to be better than that.
-[x] It's a system that you've done your best to counteract it in Mitakihara, and that the lives of Magi here are better than they are in many places, and that it seems as if the Incubators disapprove of this.
Combining both the earlier suggestions. They work in conjunction so Imma conjoin them.
Edit: You're welcome, person who posted simultaneously as I.
Or... she redid that not date and chance meeting in the bar hundreds of times and is just better at covering it up.
What are the chances that some one as superhumanly athletic as a Magi accidentally bumps someone?
Notice I never stated that Homura had no freakishly unhealthy coping mechanisms. I expect she's constantly running little micro-loops, and hating herself for it.
That said, Homura's admitted to herself that what was before was toxic. She can't have lied about that. Homura knows it, Madoka knows it, and Homura's shit at manipulation anyway. (If she wasn't, Time Loop Walpurgisnacht Hell wouldn't have lasted nearly as long.) Therefore, Homura, knowing that what was before was toxic, wouldn't use any micro loops with Madoka. Not with that reminder staring her straight in the face.
This is all a long winded way of saying I'm taking this at face value. Part of me is still wary, but... I want things to get better for MadoHomu. They deserve it.
It's that Rin crossed a line. She's not just some crazy cult leader out for territory. She made it personal.
And so I can imagine a scenario where Sayaka, gripped in a cold rage, decides to call in her unstable nuke. Because if this is how Rin wants to play? Then it's time to blow up the board.
I'm not sure it's Mami who needs countering as much as Rin's influence on her?
And the people most likely to deal with that are Sayaka and especially Kyouko. Although we don't know what happened with Homu in this Mami's timeline, I guess.
I'm not sure it's Mami who needs countering as much as Rin's influence on her?
And the people most likely to deal with that are Sayaka and especially Kyouko. Although we don't know what happened with Homu in this Mami's timeline, I guess.
Again, it's less Mami and more what Rin's use of Mami represents: That she's willing to attack Sayaka and Kyoko on a personal level to achieve her goals.
Smashing votes together isn't always the best policy at all? But at this point, people have to vote for something.
[X] Explain to Minako that it's a broken system. It's hard to survive for any length of time without doing questionable things, and easy to go wrong somewhere. Nasty, Brutish, and Short. That this seems to be the Incubators' intent. All anyone's been able to do is to try to be better than that.
-[x] It's a system that you've done your best to counteract it in Mitakihara, and that the lives of Magi here are better than they are in many places, and that it seems as if the Incubators disapprove of this.
Well, you're not wrong, but we just got a snippet a lot of us have been really pumped to get for a while, so of course people are talking about it.
Let people be happy for a bit, man. It's all gonna come crashing down as soon as Koko sees Mumi anyway.
[X] Explain to Minako that it's a broken system. It's hard to survive for any length of time without doing questionable things, and easy to go wrong somewhere. Nasty, Brutish, and Short. That this seems to be the Incubators' intent. All anyone's been able to do is to try to be better than that.
-[x] It's a system that you've done your best to counteract it in Mitakihara, and that the lives of Magi here are better than they are in many places, and that it seems as if the Incubators disapprove of this.
[X] Explain to Minako that it's a broken system. It's hard to survive for any length of time without doing questionable things, and easy to go wrong somewhere. Nasty, Brutish, and Short. That this seems to be the Incubators' intent. All anyone's been able to do is to try to be better than that.
-[x] It's a system that you've done your best to counteract it in Mitakihara, and that the lives of Magi here are better than they are in many places, and that it seems as if the Incubators disapprove of this.
Well, you're not wrong, but we just got a snippet a lot of us have been really pumped to get for a while, so of course people are talking about it.
Let people be happy for a bit, man. It's all gonna come crashing down as soon as Koko sees Mumi anyway.
[X] Explain to Minako that it's a broken system. It's hard to survive for any length of time without doing questionable things, and easy to go wrong somewhere. Nasty, Brutish, and Short. That this seems to be the Incubators' intent. All anyone's been able to do is to try to be better than that.
-[x] It's a system that you've done your best to counteract it in Mitakihara, and that the lives of Magi here are better than they are in many places, and that it seems as if the Incubators disapprove of this.
I understand that. It's just, I'm a QM too, and I know that almost/literally nobody voting is just the most stressful thing ever. You can't update, you can't write, and you can, uh, react really badly to it.
[X] Explain to Minako that it's a broken system. It's hard to survive for any length of time without doing questionable things, and easy to go wrong somewhere. Nasty, Brutish, and Short. That this seems to be the Incubators' intent. All anyone's been able to do is to try to be better than that.
-[x] It's a system that you've done your best to counteract it in Mitakihara, and that the lives of Magi here are better than they are in many places, and that it seems as if the Incubators disapprove of this.
Just to clarify, the thing where voters just combine all the popular votes into one probably isn't actually a good way to craft policy, but this is shorter than some monstrosities I've seen, and I feel like it mostly hangs together well enough as to not be terrible? And since it's not specific words, Moid can, y'know, be as generous or not as they want to be with it, rather than having to go along with our exact (probably crud) wording. So yeah, feeling... B- on all of this?
Just to clarify, the thing where voters just combine all the popular votes into one probably isn't actually a good way to craft policy, but this is shorter than some monstrosities I've seen, and I feel like it mostly hangs together well enough as to not be terrible? And since it's not specific words, Moid can, y'know, be as generous or not as they want to be with it, rather than having to go along with our exact (probably crud) wording. So yeah, feeling... B- on all of this?
Just to clarify, the thing where voters just combine all the popular votes into one probably isn't actually a good way to craft policy, but this is shorter than some monstrosities I've seen, and I feel like it mostly hangs together well enough as to not be terrible? And since it's not specific words, Moid can, y'know, be as generous or not as they want to be with it, rather than having to go along with our exact (probably crud) wording. So yeah, feeling... B- on all of this?
Well I wasn't going to just smash them together until I realized that a latter one was already formatted to be a subvote to the first (it had a dash before the brackets, but didn't have a parent vote to hang from) so instead of just voting for the second one I put them together like I thought they were supposed to be. Then I saw one line from a third vote that bridged the two ideas and stuck it in because I thought it made the whole thing flow better.
And it seems that it wasn't as terrible an option as I worried it could be. Yay Accuracy.
EDIT: Wait, holdup, looking back I realize I just put Laurent's votes together. I did no mashing at all, just put the original vote and then his addendum together. I feel dumb now, I did nothing special
"I'd say the system's broken, but that's kind of a lie. It's workin'. It's workin' perfectly." You glance back. "It's hard to survive. Do you wanna know what I was like before I found your mom? I broke into ATMs because I was sick of sleepin' on the street and I wanted a bed and warm food. It's easy for things to go wrong.
"There's a quote about life being "nasty, brutish, and short," and I don't remember where it's from, but it fits the life of a magi perfectly. The average lifespan of a magi is two years, but that ain't really all that accurate. 90% of magi die in the first month, and very few last past the first few years. Your mom and I are the outlier-iest of outliers.
"What we try to do is be better than that. And sometimes it just doesn't work. The Tokyo 6 were monstrous. They slaughtered Akane's friends and turned eighty magi into witches. But at one point, they were just teenagers. They were kids, cut down before they could grow up.
"So trying to be better is the least we can do. Mitakihara is the result of a dumb, beautiful magi and her insane plan to do the impossible." You smile back. "Your parents are fuckin' awesome; it just takes us a little bit of time to remember that."
Minako tries to frown at you but all they manage is a little bit of a smile. They glance away all over again.
"The Incubators hate us 'cause of what we did here. Your mom thinks the Walpurgis seed is only gonna last a century but I think it might last a bit longer than that. We really stirred up the hive and they hate us. More than they normally do." You turn towards Minako.
They just look away. You sigh and walk closer. You ruffle their hair.
They whine at your touch.
"Mina, you made a mistake, but it ain't the end of the world. If there's any place you could have been a magi, you've chosen the safest one on the planet. And it's our job to keep it like that." You stand up straight and take a few steps back.
Minako just nods, and then they whip their arm out. A bat shoots out from their palm as they pull their hood over their head and a mask forms around their mouth.
"You're goddamn right." You smirk as your foot falls off the edge of the radio tower. Your armor materializes over your body as you fall through the sky, gauntlet first, then pauldron, then breastplate as your soul gem flashes inside your gorget. The air rushes past your head and sends your hair flying upwards as you lash your spear outwards. You hook onto a wire and let the momentum carry you forwards.
You hear a pop and turn your head. You see a flickering something on top of a nearby building, a tiny little fizzle and then another pop as the grief seed comes into existence.
Looks like you have an answer. 'I found a grief seed! It just popped in here!' You point with your spear.
They notice you on the ground, then follow you right towards the seed. It's a Walpurgisnacht, three grief seeds fused together, but from as close as you are it looks less like how Walpurgisnachts are supposed to look; the seeds look as though they're clipping into one another. Two are at bizarre angles, the third trying to subsume the others.
But all three look ready to burst. You twirl your spear. "Good thing we got transformed," you mutter, "these are real unstable."
Minako nods. "Did you see it pop?"
"I heard it. Didn't see it."
"It popped in with a silver burst. I saw shards flash into existence before they vanished." They pause. "D'ya think a magi...?"
You grimace. "Fucking hell," you sigh. "Yeah, I think it might be a magi."
The grief seed flickers, then the surface breaks. You and Minako ready your weapons as the labyrinth forms with the two of you inside of it.
There's a swirl of flame, a burst of heat that would singe your hair and ignite your clothes were they not magical. Minako closes their eyes in shock before they put the bat to their face to protect themself. The flames whirl around, them stop in their tracks. The wind howls in the other direction, and as they twist the flames around they turn ice-cold, then to snow.
The ground is covered in ice-cold snow that crunches under your foot. Minako shivers immediately; their thighs are exposed just above their kneecaps. You lean over. "Oi, just extend your pants a little."
"W-wait, that's a thing you can do?"
"Your mom and I didn't exactly start with fullplate armor."
Your kid blinks. Then the mouth on their mask opens wide in surprise.
"Ooooh..." They press their hands into the kneepads, and they push down. Their baggy shorts turn into baggy cargo pants with padding and fur. They press their hands into the sides of their hood and pull forward, and it's all lined with fur.
You just snap, and the same thing happens to your armor, complete with a helm that wraps around your head. Your wife doesn't like wearing a helmet; she claims it limits her vision.
You, however, just like the style. Besides, Rosso Fantasma can act as your eyes and ears.
There is a red light in the distance, bright as can be in the howling cold. Every so often, the wind turns and the snow turns back to flame, before it whips back around and turns back to ice.
With every step, you see the thing in the distance shudder and groan and crumble. It's truly enormous, a Walpurgisnacht of three witches in the shape of something that is apparently skyscraper-sized.
You take a step forward. "So you said the grief seed was ported in?"
"Yeah." Minako keeps pace with you as your boots crunch in the snow, which periodically turns to ash. It's a good thing this place is predominately cold, or the temperature change would be unbearable. "The grief seed was just there in a buncha silver pieces."
"Then it looks like Rin's not holding up her part of the bargain."
"Rin? Oh, the Kasamino person."
"Yeah, the leader of the Kasamino gang. Your mom and I have been looking at 'em for the past week. We told her to fuck off and stay the hell outta dodge but-"
"She didn't."
"No." You lower your spear. "She didn't."
"How rare are witches in Mitakihara?"
"Let's just say it used to be one every few months."
You drag the head of your spear through the snow. The wind swaps direction again. Unbearable cold turns to blistering heat. The second eye on Minako's chest opens wide, and they grimace.
"The witch is...confused?" They shake their head. "It's swapping between two extremes like it doesn't know what it wants. One second it's terrified, like the flame is gonna eat it alive, then it's passionless and cold, like it wants to freeze everything to death."
"Huh," you mutter. "Reminds me of something."
"What's that?"
"Nothing important." You flick the spear again. You and Minako keep on trudging your way towards the gigantic witch in the distance.
[] Attack the witch head-on. (DIFFICULTY 3: This thing is gigantic)
[] Watch its behavior. Understand what it does and see if it has familiars. (DIFFICULTY 2: If it notices you, it WILL attack)
[] Have Mina experiment with their powers. (???: Extremely Hazardous)
"The Incbuators hate us 'cause of what we did here. Your mom thinks the Walpurgis seed is only gonna last a century but I think it might last a bit longer than that. We really stirred up the hive and they hate us. More than they normally do." You turn towards Minako.
They notice you on the ground, before they follow you right towards the seed. It's a Walpurgisnacht; three grief seeds fused together, but from as close as you are it looks less like how Walpurgisnachts are supposed to look; the seeds look as though they're clipping into one another. Two are at bizarre angles, the third is trying to subsume the others.
"The witch is...confused?" They shake their head. "It's swapping between two extremes like it doesn't know what it wants. One second it's terrified, like the flame is gonna eat it alive, then it's passionless and cold, like it wants to freeze everything to death."
Two, but there's three seeds here...I wonder if Mina could target the artificial bonds holding it together somehow.
The description of it being three seeds superimposed over each other makes me think this is Yumi's power at work, maybe this is what happens when she tries to summon more than one version of someone?
On the one hand, Understanding is the best option, on the other, it is true that at some point, they are going to have to figure out just what their powers can do... yet the results would probably be pretty disastrous.
