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.
[X] Talk her down. [DIFFICULTY: ???. Your arguments could either improve or worsen the situation]
-[X] "No, you're not ready to die. Wanna know how I know that? You aren't pulling the trigger. You're grandstanding, going on about how ready and willing you are, how it's all in the service of the grand plan, and you're putting it off. People who're ready to die, really ready, don't have to hype themselves up for it. They just do it, and leave everyone else behind to try'n pick up the pieces. I know the type."
—[X] "Y'know what I think? I think you're scared. I think you've got something or someone here who ya don't wanna leave behind, summat that you care about more than your precious Lady Rin's scheme - even if you don't wanna admit that to yourself. You're just tryin' to convince yourself that this is more important, that you have to die even though you don't want to. But that's the trick, isn't it? You don't have to. You can make that choice, right here and now. Hell, even if the plan was the most important thing, you think your death'll really help? There's no guarantee that she'll grab a new you that doesn't hate her guts or somethin'."
[X] Talk her down. [DIFFICULTY: ???. Your arguments could either improve or worsen the situation]
"Yeah. I am watching you." Your spears plunge into the ground. You let them go, just for the time being. "And I can tell. You ain't ready to die."
"Stay the fuck back!" She waves that soul gem around. It turns black for a second before that grief is sucked away. There's a kaleidoscope of color inside the gem, followed by a hot purple shimmer.
"If you were, you would've just done it. You aren't pulling the trigger. The gun's loaded, but you have the safety on. Because I've seen people who are ready to die. I've killed people who were ready to die."
"Then you fucking know-!"
"Then I know that you're grandstanding. All this talk about how it's in service of a great fucking plan and how you're so ready to do it but here you are, stalling me. You're not trying to convince me at all, are you?"
Your myriad arms flex and bend as you cease moving forwards. The moonlight frames your body and your ten arms perfectly. Your hands clasp together, some pressing their fingers in a loop. You take a long, deep breath and keep yourself still as she takes a bewildered step backwards.
"Fuck you, you don't fucking know me!"
Your eyes gleam red in the night. "You're trying to convince yourself. The ones who truly don't care have nothing to lose. Nothing to fear. They believe wholeheartedly and they cut that thread. End their lives and leave broken people and shattered dreams in their wake.
"But you? You're scared."
Her hand trembles as she tries to grip tighter. Her expression is a far cry from the defiance she showed when she faced Minako just days ago. She looks like a cornered animal.
"Bluntly, I do know you. Of course I know you. You're like how I was. Terrified and alone. Maybe you have someone you don't want to leave behind. Someone that matters more than your precious Lady Fucking Rin. Someone that you don't want to admit that you care more about than some false prophet. That you've convinced yourself isn't as important as this grand fucking plan.
"That you have to die even though every nerve and every muscle and your soul all scream out in defiance as you have your gem in your hand. Your finger is there. You have the knife to your carotid and you just can't cut that thread."
Her grip loosens just a little. "I-I don't...I don't have anyone. I don't have anyone left," she spits. "There's nobody-"
"Then why are you so terrified? There's nothing selfish about not wanting to die."
She's trembling. Her voice shakes as she squeezes her eyes shut. "I-I...I need to...there's nothing left. You're wrong. There's nobody left for me to stay behind for. You fucking-"
"But am I wrong about you wanting to die?" you ask. "I ain't a therapist. But I can tell you that even at my lowest, I was terrified of death. Even when I told myself I didn't care if I died, I never, ever let the void take me. And it wasn't because I was strong.
"It was because I was scared."
She sniffles in front of you. Her hand's shaking with her soul gem in her grip, but she still can't squeeze. It's visibly loose now. "I'm...I am scared. I'm scared as fuck."
"Yeah. And that's okay. You don't have to end it. Rin's fucking scheme isn't worth killing yourself over. And no matter how she painted herself, no matter what she said? You're worth more than that."
She stares at you. Finally...
The gem drops. It slips out of her hands and bounces across the ground. She keeps her eyes on you, glancing between her gem and you. "I-If you-"
"I ain't going to," you say. Your two front hands drop by your side as the rest flex behind you. You lower yourself and softly grip her soul between your fingers.
She hyperventilates, almost as though you're about to crush it between your fists, but then you press it into her chest. And in that moment, she stops looking like a young woman in her mid-twenties.
She looks like a young girl in the dead of night after breaking open an ATM in an attempt to keep her hotel room and nice bed and shower.
She looks like a young girl with a stolen apple in her teeth, peeling off some skin before munching down some red bean paste fish.
She looks like a young girl playing DDR with her friend that she is crushing on.
She looks like a young girl with a knife in her chest, escaping a burning house.
You smirk. "Y'know, even if you did die, there's no guarantee your other you would even cooperate with Rin. Who's to say that she wouldn't hate her as much as we do?"
She shakes her head. "Don't push it." She wipes her eyes. "Fine. Take me to the fucking apartment. Just..."
"We're going to have to get you new groceries," you say. "You look starving."
"How did you..."
"I was homeless for years and a childhood friend practically starved herself after contracting. I know the signs." You glance at her face. "I can see your cheekbones."
She looks away. "Don't patronize me."
"Sorry. It's just my mama instincts."
[=]
In another part of town, Sayaka Miki is still hunched over. Her armor, usually a sparkling blue, is coated in dried blood, and her sabatons are covered in vomit. She rubs her face and swallows hard as she begins to walk back to where her kid and their girlfriend are.
From the screams, she can tell that the shock has started to wear off. She manages to reach Minako just as their voice begins to grow coarse and their girlfriend clutches them in an attempt to calm them down.
She squeezes her eyes shut as she quickly gets to work.
The healing process is mercifully quick. Their hands are reformed, their arms put back in place, and whatever little injuries remain quickly taken care of.
Takane is a similar story; it's an awful sight, but magi have suffered worse. They've suffered far worse.
Akane lands by the corpse of Emiko. The process of cremation is fast, and the efficiency with which she works should be more horrific than it really feels.
But Sayaka can't linger on this. With the death of Emiko, word will get back to Kasamino quickly.
She only has two more days before Lady Rin retaliates in full.
[=]
Your name is Minako, and you're in Oriko's room. Your shoulders still hurt. Your girlfriend is sitting next to you, hands pressed against her face. The room itself is torn to pieces, and one of the adult magi is currently running her hand over the walls, slowly repairing the rooms and fixing up ruined furniture.
You didn't think you were going to fight tonight. You definitely didn't think your mom was going to kill anyone tonight. You just wanted to be with your girlfriend and talk.
But you both know the chances of that are slim to none.
Right now, Oriko's hands are clasped together. She's breathing in through her nose as she stares at both of your moms, who are on their own bench. Up against the wall is a hostile magi, but she doesn't seem to be doing anything right now. Nothing, well, hostile.
You wonder what your mama said to her to get her to stop, but...it seems to be working.
Your mama is the first to speak. "So Iruka's gem acted weird. And what I heard from you was something apocalyptic."
"Correct," Oriko says. It's terse and fast, as though she wants this conversation to be over with.
Kyouko narrows her eyes. "Well, here's the thing. Is that what got Rin so interested in Mina? You gotta start coming clean."
"Well, it is a part of why Mina was of interest to the Lady. Only a part." Oriko inhales through her nose. "Your power allows you to steal witches, yes?"
You shake your head. "Not really? It's more that uh...I take a piece of the witch into myself. I feel what the witch felt, the reasons for its despair, and I take that piece and use it."
"There's more to it," Oriko says.
"Well, you gonna fucking spill it?" Your mama bares her fang and you can tell that she's starting to get truly annoyed.
"The thing is that the specifics are unclear and I am-"
Your mom shakes her head. "I don't want to have to bury more bodies." She looks to Oriko. "And this is absolutely a matter of life or death. Please, Mikumi. Just...how specific can you be about it?"
"We need to fucking know." Your mama glances to the woman that's leaning against the wall (her name is Iruka, as far as you know). "Because that gem is cleaning itself. I saw it get real dark, then it just flashed back like it was nothing."
Oriko looks uncomfortable. She takes a breath. "Please. I can't...directly interfering with the past can drastically alter the future as I see it. My power is..." She squeezes her eyes shut. "Trying to directly warn Kirika is what got her-"
She fidgets, looking unlike herself as your moms both wince. "-killed. The future will happen no matter what. But I can guide Minako to that revelation of their power. I just..."
As she trails off, you ask, "You can't just tell us?"
The eggshell in Oriko's mind cracks, the sphere warbling and shaking before it regains control. She presses her hands against her face once again, before she clasps them together. "Do...do we have a grief seed that's almost ready to rehatch?"
Your parents glance at one another. Your mom reaches behind an end table, pulls up her fanny pack (you still can't believe she has one) and tosses you a grief seed. "This one's a relatively weak witch. Rehatched seeds are always awful to fight but..."
"If you really need to do that, then do."
You glance to Oriko, then at Takane, who just squeezes your hand. Outside, you see Mami with her gatling gun, sitting atop a ruined apartment wall. She notices the three of you and stands upright. "Is everything alright?"
"Kinda." You shrug in an attempt to look flippant, but given everything that happened this night, it fails spectacularly.
Oriko blinks. "Actually, Mami, do you mind taking Minako to fight a rehatched witch?"
"Why would you want to rehatch a witch?" Mami grimaces. "There is no reason to do so. Any benefit is-"
"Quickly ruined by diminishing returns, yes. But the issue is of Minako's power. And your abilities are better suited to combat than mine. That, and," Oriko turns back to your moms, "I must discuss the future a little more."
Oriko looks a bit uncomfortable. She takes a breath. "Please. I can't...directly interfering with the past can drastically alter the future as I see it. My power is..." She squeezes her eyes shut. "Trying to directly warn Kirika is what got her-"
She fidgets, looking unlike herself as your moms both wince. "-killed. The future will happen no matter what. But I can guide Minako to that revelation of their power. I just..."
Squeeze Oriko until we get something useful out of her. Self-fulfilling prophecies are for lazy people without imagination, because binary outcomes exist only in textbooks about statistics.
The real answer is, and always was, multitrack drifting.
You know, if we had failed that roll, thaaaaat looks like it could have gone baaaaaad for Kyouko. Not only does Iruka's Soul Gem look a lot like Sayaka's, but if Kyouko had that moment of empathy while watching her die?
Thank RNGsus because Sayaka's gonna need a shoulder later. A bad roll could have meant both Sayaka and Kyouko down in the emotional dumps. One broken meguca at a time, please!
You know, if we had failed that roll, thaaaaat looks like it could have gone baaaaaad for Kyouko. Not only does Iruka's Soul Gem look a lot like Sayaka's, but if Kyouko had that moment of empathy while watching her die?
Thank RNGsus because Sayaka's gonna need a shoulder later. A bad roll could have meant both Sayaka and Kyouko down in the emotional dumps. One broken meguca at a time, please!
I think that the moment of empathy happened because of the good roll. Basically, it was a prerequisite for Kyouko to get it and stop Iruka. But maybe not.
Okay, so. I have Problems with how Oriko's powers work, from multiple standpoints, I don't think I can wait until the next post by someone else, and the usual mantra "it's magic, stop thinking about it" doesn't cut it either, because Oriko's powers as is don't make sense from the setting's standpoint either. And yes, I'm saying this while remembering casual dimension-hopping and Madokami Paradox. So here is my Midnight Analysis of Oriko's Powers Because I Can't Fall Asleep.
See, from logical and philosophical standpoint, her powers don't make sense, because quantifiable free will exists in the setting. A crude description of free will is for a person to be split into infinite permutations of an empty room with identical infinite marbles, and in each reality to be able to pick any of them. Predictions work, because this situation is an idealized one, and all "marbles" have differences, while all people have preferences they'll use to choose from these marbles. Paint the marble a favorite color and the person is much more likely to pick it, to put it simply. Oriko receives visions from the future, but that presumes a concrete future that will happen, unless Oriko Acts, robbing other actors from their agency and free will. In other words, Yoda would say "always in motion, the future is" and bang Oriko's head with a cane for being an Anakin. That means she only sees a prediction of the future, which, while maybe damn accurate, isn't inevitable even without Oriko's interference ( which she accomplishes by simply viewing the future, because she's an observer of a macroscopic quantum system, which is indeed altered by the act of observing it, or so people smarter than me say )
But Raiseth, you'll say, magic is basically fuck you to the rules, and point me towards the PMMMness of PMMM. Okay, I'll answer. Oriko's Power doesn't make sense from narrative and magical standpoint, either. Magic might be arbitrary bullshit, but it generally follows rules, which, while stupid and nonsensical, do exist. Firstly, magic is born from a Wish. Wish has two components: wording and intent. Suffering begins when you don't think of your wording and don't make the intent clear to yourself. Homura's Wish was, in intent and wording, to "save Madoka". This is why she didn't hop to timelines where Walpurgisnacht wasn't a thing. She would be horrified by implications, but for Madoka to be saved, she'd first need to be in danger. Mami's Wish was to "connect with life", but in her traumatic shock she couldn't word her Wish so that it'd save her parents, too, which she obviously wanted. Madoka's End Wish was to destroy all the Witches, forever, with her own two hands, which necessitates for her to become a goddess, because she violated the natural order of the world, and for her to continue to destroy Witches before they are born, she'd need to be present at all times in all places. She's really damn content with it, though, so eh. Oriko's Wish was to know the meaning of her life. In wording it required for her to receive outside knowledge about something in the future she didn't know before, in intent, if she, for example, wanted to suffer, the intent will make the future in which she suffers and dies. The differences in wording and intent are what makes framework for the powers Magi has after Wishing, as evidenced by Sayaka and Mami having very different powers, despite the intent being roughly the same, to heal injuries of people they love.
So, from this, I stipulate that Oriko's powers are not to see the future, or even prophecize it, but to receive accurate predictions of the possible futures, according to the intent she has at the moment, which generally varies, but almost always has a caveat of making her choices seem very meaningful.
Item 1: Oriko Magica, where she gets to save the world and die a martyr. Not much to it.
Item 2: Kirika Kure. She says that telling her about the future is what killed ( probably Witched ) her, which robs agency from both her ( no matter what happens, Kirika suffers ) and Kirika ( she reacted to what Oriko's words in such a way as to cause her death, but she could've acted differently ). Either her powers showed her the future she'd cause by telling Kirika whatever it was in such a way as to make the future most likely to happen, in order to punish herself for something, or she misused her powers and didn't apply them in such a way as to view the future where Kirika survived out of honest unawareness of how her powers work, exactly. And this is if we take Kirika's free will away and make her a static object.
Item 3: Sakaquest 2. Oriko says she can't tell the future, because doing it will change it. Lol, she told the enemy Magi, in our earshot, that Rin's plans will end the world if she succeeds. Was that not future-changing enough? She tells Minako their powers have additional settings. Were they somehow fated to stumble into this revelation without her help? Was it inevitable for Minako to learn about it in time for Rin's scheme to Make Everything Totally Rad Forever?
TL;DR. Oriko doesn't know how her powers work, and they work on intent, show her likely outcomes she unconsciously sets parameters for, she's in bad headspace, so her powers will fuck with her until she either feels better about everything or dies.
Well. That makes it less than helpful to talk with her about future. Oh well.
Maybe we can talk about present instead? Like, how about Rin's powers?
Or, waaaay more simply, "Oriko's visions show her the most likely timelines based on what actions are the most in character for people's free decisions and emotions" which is what's basically PMMM canon anyway.
Or, waaaay more simply, "Oriko's visions show her the most likely timelines based on what actions are the most in character for people's free decisions and emotions" which is what's basically PMMM canon anyway.
That misses the point of me going all about how Oriko's powers specifically show her outcomes based on whatever her mood and intent is at the moment, as she is both able to view the future where Rin succeeds and the one where she doesn't, without in her own words doing anything significant to change it either way, but sure, let's go with that.
I've gotten it out of my system already anyway, after spending like an hour of lining my arguments up and writing them, so right now I'm in zen state.
Basically, me at the moment:
Oriko says that's how her powers work? Sure, sweetie, sure they do.
You know, I had never thought about it, but I could buy Oriko's power being useful only in guiding her actions, not being meant to give others knowledge of the future. Her Wish was all about herself, after all. Oriko's character is all about taking responsibility into herself, because her dad broke down crying in front of her she has to do what's necessary, else nobody will.
Now, Oriko's 'canon' power... reeks of powerwank to me. It's basically Path To Victory Plot, and I never felt the writers made all that much effort into making it believable. It's whole justification seems to be 'if you take the exact right actions, you win (with surviving Ultimate Gretchen as the only exception to this rule)', which I don't buy, or rather, they didn't sell very well, what with how KB seems to take a level in dumb just so Oriko can play him.
But powerwank aside, even there Oriko uses her powers to direct, not to give out information. That's cool as a detail on her character.
You know, I had never thought about it, but I could buy Oriko's power being useful only in guiding her actions, not being meant to give others knowledge of the future.
Maybe it's a psychological thing. Well, considering, well. All of Oriko, it's almost certainly a psychological thing, but what I mean is, her powers start malfunctioning and showing drastically changed futures out of spite each time she tries to tell someone about them directly.
"Oh, you tried to warn them about the fire? Too bad, now they drown!"
And it's mitigated only if Oriko acts in a convoluted way to prevent it, without telling anyone not to do the thing A. That's why she comes up with plots like, "For them not to end in a fire, I need to break their legs", so that the Wish continues to fulfill its purpose and grant her life meaning.
Maybe it's a psychological thing. Well, considering, well. All of Oriko, it's almost certainly a psychological thing, but what I mean is, her powers start malfunctioning and showing drastically changed futures out of spite each time she tries to tell someone about them directly.
"Oh, you tried to warn them about the fire? Too bad, now they drown!"
And it's mitigated only if Oriko acts in a convoluted way to prevent it, without telling anyone not to do the thing A. That's why she comes up with plots like, "For them not to end in a fire, I need to break their legs", so that the Wish continues to fulfill its purpose and grant her life meaning.
It might be that her revealing the future changes it, not necessarily in a bad way, but 'randomly'. In Kirika's case, she died, and now Oriko's scared to get a repeat of that?
TL;DR. Oriko doesn't know how her powers work, and they work on intent, show her likely outcomes she unconsciously sets parameters for, she's in bad headspace, so her powers will fuck with her until she either feels better about everything or dies.
I mean she's not an automaton, and interpreting the future for other people tends to lead to a lot more question marks than it does for herself. I'll get into it a bit more in the next few updates, but Oriko absolutely does not have a great grasp on her own powers anymore.
She's in the middle of experiencing the same thing that caused Kyouko to stop being able to use her powers; a rejection of her wish and a deep resentment of herself and incubator. It's why her emotionscape is as much of a disaster as it is.
What should be a clear photograph of the future is a fuzzy impressionist painting by an indecisive artist who's probably on a lethal amount of ketamine. run over magi in my 2003 honda civic, i must. lethal amounts of ketamine, i must consume
