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.
"This girl seemed powerful...we don't have good information..." There's murmurings to your side. An errant whisper. You hear something about no frame of reference and notorious.
Notorious? Probably. You might be notorious to certain people.
You shrug it all off. "Okay, then what about 'brought me here'?" You loom over her. You're tall, abnormally tall for a Japanese teenager. You suppose that's from your father's side. "Is there a story behind that?"
"The catch is that the magical girl cannot be alive in our world. Two of the same souls cannot exist at the same time. It's an ironclad rule of our universe; one soul at a time. Only one of each person, only one of each magical girl. And each has a near-infinite variation, as unique and different as the human experience."
Finally, if we ascribe to this clearly superior theory , we can discard the information about guns and such as a red herring, as there's no way for us to know how Tatsuya would fight.
...And you still alive? Not going mad, not grief spiraling, not killing other megucas to save them from such a horrible fate?
Could it be a Mami from Oriko timeline, saved by Yuma's adorableness?
There's at least one sidemanga in which Mami survives the Witchbomb... for all of two days, before commiting suicide.
In this situation, she had asked Madoka to Wish to turn her back into a normal human, but Madoka Wished to revive Sayaka instead. Maybe that Mami would have been able to live a normal life, if given another chance.
At any rate, a point against this magi being Mami!
Being able to pluck people from other timelines is probably like, a really wide selection, if you think about it? Homura alone must have seen hundreds of Mamis, and who's to say this Magi doesn't have more?
So I'm imagining a Mami who got the full SQ treatment, and died anyway. Don't expect her to be limited to her combat from Rebellion, eh?
Being able to pluck people from other timelines is probably like, a really wide selection, if you think about it? Homura alone must have seen hundreds of Mamis, and who's to say this Magi doesn't have more?
So I'm imagining a Mami who got the full SQ treatment, and died anyway. Don't expect her to be limited to her combat from Rebellion, eh?
Wild guess: It's not Mami, it's... Tatsuya! Or... an alternate version of Madoka's canon little brother!
Why?
First, different timelines! Why not?
The glow girls would refer to any magi as a she, and there would be people who would consider an nb magi notorious.
But Onmaaaarrrrrrrrrb, you say:
ONE SOUL AT A TIME!
Are you taking Rin's word for it?!
Finally, if we ascribe to this clearly superior theory , we can discard the information about guns and such as a red herring, as there's no way for us to know how Tatsuya would fight.
There's at least one sidemanga in which Mami survives the Witchbomb... for all of two days, before commiting suicide.
In this situation, she had asked Madoka to Wish to turn her back into a normal human, but Madoka Wished to revive Sayaka instead. Maybe that Mami would have been able to live a normal life, if given another chance.
At any rate, a point against this magi being Mami!
[X] If you have that many girls, what do you need me for?
[X] What do your "guests" get in return for helping you?
You watch Rin walk away. She didn't stop even though she heard you stop moving. A second passes. Then two. Then you start to walk right after her. You don't want to be left behind.
"If you have that many girls, what do you need me for?"
"Because Mitakihara has nearly sixty girls at its disposal, and every single one counts. I do not wish for a war, but tensions are rising. Especially with the women in charge over there."
"So you want us to be your shock troopers."
"I want you to be our assistance. Scouting, deterrence, and should it come to it, combat."
"Do you expect me to kill?"
"No. But I hope for you to be prepared to."
You grimace.
"Ah, you've killed before?"
You don't answer her. Your fingers feel warm and wet, and it takes you a second to realize that you clenched your hand so tightly that you opened the skin on your palm. You loosen your grip, and your natural healing starts to close the wound. Hopefully she hasn't noticed.
"We can clean your hand when we get to the beach house, alright?"
Of course she noticed. Of course she did. You might as well ask another question. You don't want to think about how you had to kill a magical girl who tried to forcibly witch out her friend. Or how you had to...
"What do your 'guests' get in return?" Your voice shakes as the words leave your mouth.
"A return home, and a paused gem. I can prevent grief accumulation near-permanently. It's how we have so many magical girls in this city. We don't have the same...advantages that Mitakihara has."
"Do they farm witches?"
"No. But that would not be out of the question for them." She turns to face you, with a faint frown and a grimace. "They have the seed of Walpurgisnacht."
"Wal...wait, what?"
"Twenty years ago, one of their strongest magi, the current leader of Mitakihara's magical girls, managed to kill the worst witch that history had yet seen. And afterwards, over the course of two decades, she took over the city. She rules over Mitakihara with an iron fist and her wife by her side."
"Do you have a name?"
"Of course." She turns to face you; the moonlight frames her face as she gives you an ice-cold stare. You can feel shivers run down your spine as she finally tells you.
"Her name is Sayaka Miki-Sakura. And her wife is Kyouko."
[=]
Your name is Minako, and you're currently in school. Your parents came home late last night, which was fine by you. You were out late with your girlfriend, and that was enough to give you a focus.
School was a little bit hazardous at first; you had to stop feeling the emotions of every repressed, angry teenager around, and it took the help of your girlfriend to finally get a handle on it.
And truthfully you still need it. Class today is particularly boring; you've never really had to pay attention in school, because usually class is kind of a cakewalk for you. So your mind wanders.
And when your mind wanders, you start to sense how much the girl behind you is thinking about the boy she likes (and how she doesn't actually know him that well), or Hiro, who is worrying about Reika, who is...well...
Well, she's still thinking about what happened two days ago. You can tell, because you see a golden crown and a kettle-like breastplate. You really, really hope she doesn't contract.
Finally, though, you lock right back onto Takane. Your world turns green once more, with a flash of purple. You take a deep breath. Takane is calm. You're calm. You're in the middle of a massive plain with that beautiful scaffold. Wind blows across, the world is...well, it's everything you need it to be right now.
"Minako Miki-Sakura."
You freeze in place. In front of you the teacher stares you down, one hand on the board, the other on a book. The other students look mortified, and the teacher, a man who's shorter than both your parents, balding, half Filipino and half Okinawan, presses his hand onto the board.
"Mind giving us an explanation of the themes that the late Le Guin was trying to explore in this short story?"
You cough. "Yes, sir." You quickly look over the board. You were in the middle of a literature lesson...a lesson about...uh...fuck, what was the reading? Another quick glance. It's about the short story you were assigned. It was pretty shockingly depressing...right, right.
"Ultimately, she's trying to bring up a point about cost and benefit...well, no, maybe not that, but I mean, how the suffering of one can be weighed against the needs of many. One person suffers but everyone else benefits. One person experiences perpetual, horrible, unjust, uh, fuckin'-"
"Language, Miki-Sakura, but continue."
You blush"-frickin' torment. The child has done nothing to deserve his treatment, nothing to deserve abuse or perpetual pain. Nothing but being unlucky enough to be the victim of Omelas. But when people see the child, they're faced with the dilemma of uh, 'is it okay for this child to suffer so we can all benefit?'"
There's a long, long pause as the man nods, considering what you just said. He draws it out agonizingly slowly, one headbob, then two, then three, then he finally presses his hand against the board. "Excellent job, Miki-Sakura. However, there is also another point that Ursula may have wanted to bring up. Does anyone else have a theme that they believe the story is trying to..."
You close your eyes. That was kind of a welcome distraction. You take a side glance towards Takane.
'You're doing great.' She gives you a broad grin.
You nod back. 'Doesn't feel it.'
'I mean, you did your homework, so that helped, but you're doing really, really well. Better than last night.'
'My brain feels like jelly.'
She audibly sighs. 'Okay, let's talk a little bit on the roof, okay? But I do mean it. You're doing a great job, Mina.'
[=]
You're lying on your back on the rooftop, your head in Takane's lap as she strokes your hair. On the ground are two empty bento boxes. It's a pleasant day, not too hot, not so cold as to need a jacket.
It's perfect, so that means something's going to fuck it up. And you don't know if it's going to be you or a witch. Maybe a combination of the two. It'll be fucking great.
You raise your arms and weakly bat at Takane's face. She sighs. "I did mean it. You're doing great, especially for someone who just started two days ago."
"Is that 'cause most magi would be dead in two days or because I'm good?"
Takane frowns. She frowns so hard you can feel the plain in her emotionscape make a convex curve. "Please don't be fatalistic."
"Sorry, sorry. But it's because I'm good, right?"
"It's because you're good, Mina."
"Yeh."
"But you still have a long road ahead."
"Fuck."
You then feel something. Not a good something, but a something nonetheless. You immediately shoot upright and dart your eyes around, looking for where that is coming from. You can't really describe it; it's like something is pulling on the soul gem around your finger, but not physically.
"Witch?" Takane asks.
So that's what the feeling is. "Yeah," you breathe out and pull yourself onto your feet, "that's a witch."
You flex your hands. You guess now is the time to figure this part out, too. You crack your neck and face your girlfriend and...
Oh. The scaffold is shuddering. Pieces are falling from it. Her plain is blowing and wind whips everything into a frenzy.
"You don't want me to go."
Takane is caught off-guard before she hisses under her breath. She probably thought she could hide that feeling even from you. And she said she was confident in you earlier.
Christ, everyone's still lying to you.
[] Go fight a witch. Tell Takane to keep it hands-off. (DIFFICULTY 1. Takane will not like doing that, but she knows it's important to you learning how 2 magi)
[] Don't fight the witch. Let Takane handle it alone. With no help. (DIFFICULTY 2. The memory of Takane being maimed is still fresh in your mind.)
[] Fight a witch with a safety net. Have Takane pull you out if things get hairy. (No Roll. Takane would be okay with that.)
Adhoc vote count started by TheOneMoiderah on Jul 8, 2019 at 5:28 PM, finished with 22 posts and 11 votes.
[X] Fight a witch with a safety net. Have Takane pull you out if things get hairy. (No Roll. Takane would be okay with that.)
Mad props for referencing LeGuin's "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas", Moid!
In my view, it's not just a fitting parallel to the Incubator's "Needs of the Many" viewpoint, but also a good reference to the Quest theme: can there be a happily ever after without some kind of catch?
Do you believe? Do you accept the festival, the city, the joy? No? Then let me
describe one more thing...
"Twenty years ago, one of their strongest magi, the current leader of Mitakihara's magical girls, managed to kill the worst witch that history had yet seen. And afterwards, over the course of two decades, she took over the city. She rules over Mitakihara with an iron fist and her wife by her side."
You blush"-frickin' torment. The child has done nothing to deserve his treatment, nothing to deserve abuse or perpetual pain. Nothing but being unlucky enough to be the victim of Omelas. But when people see the child, they're faced with the dilemma of uh, 'is it okay for this child to suffer so we can all benefit?'"
"A return home, and a paused gem. I can prevent grief accumulation near-permanently. It's how we have so many magical girls in this city. We don't have the same...advantages that Mitakihara has."
Still thinking she makes them witch out when she's done with them so she can harvest their grief seeds for use as weapons or emergency rations. It would explain why the Incubators aren't interfering with her too much if they're still getting a steady flow of witchings.
It probably is technically stealing from Incubators in the other timelines, but that's not the problem of this timelines Incubator so long as it can meet its quota.
In my view, it's not just a fitting parallel to the Incubator's "Needs of the Many" viewpoint, but also a good reference to the Quest theme: can there be a happily ever after without some kind of catch?
Yes, if the author wills it.
Yes, if the reader wills it too.
A "catch" is something a person searches for to be unhappy.
Mind, the reality obliges readily enough, but the fiction doesn't have to, since it's, you know, fiction.
Do Japanese teachers have lessons in how to bring up something that is thematically related to the life of their protagonist student? Between this and Persona it seems to happen way too often.
[x] Fight a witch with a safety net. Have Takane pull you out if things get hairy. (No Roll. Takane would be okay with that.)
You know, in a town with fifty-nine magi this is a surprising number of witches Takane has fought lately. Either Takane is handling disproportionately more than her share or the Kasamino crew has been planting tons of Grief Seeds. Possibly both. I wonder if we'll run into anyone else at the labyrinth?
, we can discard the information about guns and such as a red herring, as there's no way for us to know how Tatsuya would fight.
