Is there a reason it shouldn't be? It would be more of a post-quest Epilogue event if it had been done.
It's one I didn't think about until I was actually writing the update - and more important than whether it is actually possible, Flandre thinks its possible. In a similar vein, just because I don't put something in as an option doesn't mean it can't be done - that's one of the reasons I'm usually explicit about including an [ ] Other? option, in case someone comes up with something I hadn't thought about.
And, because I'm going to keep fussing over the details forever and never actually add this into an update like I keep planning, I'll just toss this in now. Assume that it appears in Flandre's headspace.
Flandre: I found your request most intriguing. In all the time I have known you, that single desire demonstrated the most forethought I have ever witnessed or heard of coming from you. In deference to your request, and also in the hopes that you return to your sister, I shall accede:
One portal leads to a dark underground area with a large number of thickly-constructed buildings, ruined by damage and age. This is an abandoned city on a world called Krieg, a world dedicated to the raising and training of soldiers for an empire of galactic scale. While the soldiers there pose little threat to you, they are numerous, and your continued presence may draw the attention of mortals and youkai that are capable of harming you.
One portal leads to an elevator. Truthfully, there is little of consequence on this Earth unless you wish to live among humans, being poked and prodded by their scientists. There are entities that I find interesting, and your sister has an interest in the world itself; those entities are, generally, quite massive and powerful, and are capable of resisting most of your efforts.
One portal leads to a long street with a shadow cast over it. This leads to another Earth, much like the Earths of Mitakihara and Mid-Childa, where magic hides away from the mass of humanity due to its own rules. At the instant of the portal's entrance, there is a shadow war between Magi - not Magicians - to achieve their desires. … Should you enter here, the greater threat is behind you.
One portal leads to a bowl-like structure surrounding a small house of odd design. This world merges magic and technology, with a preference for the latter, although a magician of some power is instigating a great war. The people of that particular settlement are pacifists; you would be doing that world a favor by removing them from existence.
One portal leads to a great city, sprawling and unbroken. This world-city is called Ravnica, and is host to a vast number of youkai and humans. Many are of little threat to you, but the situation would be much the same as the mansion's entrance to Gensokyo - you could cause much destruction if you so chose, but you would be unable to achieve a real victory, and your destruction would be a real possibility.
One portal leads to a small tunnel, dark but leading to the day and an ocean. Yet another Earth, this one is home to a great number of individuals who have gained access to a bewildering variety of powers. Some are capable of threatening you; a small number are capable of fighting you outright. Much like Gensokyo, however, much of the planet has accepted a set of rules designed to minimize damage and reduce fatalities.
Try to avoid unnecessary complications, and keep in mind your sister's health.
In order:
Krieg, Warhammer 40K
Tokyo-3, Neon Genesis Evangelion
Fuyuki City, Fate/Stay Night
Fisherman's Horizon, Final Fantasy VIII
Ravnica, Magic: The Gathering
Brockton Bay, Worm
... And that Flan is rather grumpy at Pache's condescending attitude.
It's totally fine that you thought of it after the fact though. I understand that stuff like that happens, I was just worried that we'd missed some really vital context clues is all.
Incidentally, aside from Ravnica, NGE could be really neat to meander into, too. Flan VS Angels would be an... interesting thing to see. Fuyuki and Fisherman's Horizon are also really neat to me for various reasons.
Never got into Worm. I'm more of a City of Heroes guy. Played on Virtue for yeaaaars.
>go to Ravnica
>hitch a ride with a planeswalker to Mirrodin
>get infected with Glistening Oil
>bring Phyrexia to Gensokyo
>???
>Apocalypse
Might be fun.
One thing to note though, Jace Beleren, AKA Speshul Snowflake of MtG, resides primarily on Ravnica. He even has a house and library there.
He's a pretty powerful mind mage, and might be able to help 'fix' Flandre's head, either by making more stable 'sisters' or by removing them. Could go either way.
>go to Ravnica
>hitch a ride with a planeswalker to Mirrodin
>get infected with Glistening Oil
>bring Phyrexia to Gensokyo
>???
>Apocalypse
Might be fun.
One thing to note though, Jace Beleren, AKA Speshul Snowflake of MtG, resides primarily on Ravnica. He even has a house and library there.
He's a pretty powerful mind mage, and might be able to help 'fix' Flandre's head, either by making more stable 'sisters' or by removing them. Could go either way.
If Fuyuki is not very dangerous to Flan, does that refer to either the fact it's unlikely she'll get involved? Or is Flan much faster than I thought she was?
If Fuyuki is not very dangerous to Flan, does that refer to either the fact it's unlikely she'll get involved? Or is Flan much faster than I thought she was?
The message seems to indicate that the dangers in Fuyuki aren't what she's fighting directly, but the things lurking in the shadows and the backdoor plots and politics that can hit her in places where she can't see it coming. Basically, Patchy said to watch her back, because that's where the knives'll be going.
Ravnica is easily the place I'm most interested of going on the list, not least because it provides a ready-made loophole on our dimensional travel limitations.
Ravnica is easily the place I'm most interested of going on the list, not least because it provides a ready-made loophole on our dimensional travel limitations.
Planeswalkers are pretty set in their power being unique, restricted to affecting oneself, and unable to be stolen. Besides, as much as I love this quest I don't think we should put off the epilogue for too long otherwise it'll detract from the work as a whole. The author can always make sequels, side stories, or brand new works.
That said, I'm also quite interested in Ravnica supposing Flan is feeling calm enough to appreciate all the wonders it has when/if we go for it.
Ugh. Honestly that's the kind of thought I wish you'd updated the choices for, because being on the run with a regenerating Elina from the Empire sounds like a fantastic plot to go with Flandre versus the world. It would have given us a stake in more than just killing people for funsies, and a source of drama in trying to defend Elina or keep her alive.
Frankly, Elina's death was one of the biggest tear-jerker moments in the source material, and the game was not shy about punching you in the feels. It would have been nice to avert it, or at least explore other options.
At least we killed Yuna. I was honestly worried that he'd successfully teleport away despite our precautions, so I'm happy that fucker is dead.
Ugh. Honestly that's the kind of thought I wish you'd updated the choices for, because being on the run with a regenerating Elina from the Empire sounds like a fantastic plot to go with Flandre versus the world. It would have given us a stake in more than just killing people for funsies, and a source of drama in trying to defend Elina or keep her alive.
Frankly, Elina's death was one of the biggest tear-jerker moments in the source material, and the game was not shy about punching you in the feels. It would have been nice to avert it, or at least explore other options.
At least we killed Yuna. I was honestly worried that he'd successfully teleport away despite our precautions, so I'm happy that fucker is dead.
It went quite well overall but if that was thought up after the last update, this update should have been delayed in favour of making us aware of this new option.
I thought about that, but the fact that she was getting larger/etc seemed to indicate that wasn't possible here.
Was almost certain Yuna was telling us all this to gauge our reaction and plan for how he was going to deal with us.
Flan=Speed hax so....
...Wait, where did the lower half of his body get teleported to?
If Fuyuki is not very dangerous to Flan, does that refer to either the fact it's unlikely she'll get involved? Or is Flan much faster than I thought she was?
I don't know, I mean, no one seemed interested in trying to save her or otherwise keep her alive, they all seemed intent on feeding her to the insane sword of god-killing. Like, leave her alive was an actual vote that could have been used - or talking to her - and then the possibility of saving her would have been on the table.
It would have given us a stake in more than just killing people for funsies, and a source of drama in trying to defend Elina or keep her alive.
I don't know, I mean, no one seemed interested in trying to save her or otherwise keep her alive, they all seemed intent on feeding her to the insane sword of god-killing. Like, leave her alive was an actual vote that could have been used - or talking to her - and then the possibility of saving her would have been on the table.
Because saving her wasn't on the table. Being a living nightmare that canonically committed assisted suicide? Without a solid way to save her in front of us, a mercy kill was the next best thing we could give her. Anything after that was a distant runner up at best cause of what she'd been and was going through.
I don't know, I mean, no one seemed interested in trying to save her or otherwise keep her alive, they all seemed intent on feeding her to the insane sword of god-killing.
I know I wasn't interested because I didn't think she could be saved. Elina was pretty thoroughly fucked over, turned into an Endless complete with aura, and frankly the sword of god-killing seemed more merciful that getting annihilated from existence.
Not to mention you depicted Elina was in complete agony last update; frankly I didn't think she'd even manage last words, and I know at least one other person shared that sentiment.
Like, leave her alive was an actual vote that could have been used - or talking to her - and then the possibility of saving her would have been on the table.
This right here? Is why leaving her alive seems unwise because we have no reason to think she won't grow without limit. In fact it sounds like she grew a hell of a lot in a few short weeks, even with Yuna trimming her, and as she gets stronger she births way stronger monsters. See first visit to Elina, and then the second visit to Elina.
Also, if we left alive but broke or hide the Dragonslayer, which again were the only options presented, then there's pretty much nothing capable of slowing Elina down.
She asked to die in the original, so leaving her alive with no reasonable hope of saving her, or so we thought, is an even bigger dick move.
We thought we were making the best of a bad situation. Clearly this was not the case.
Hm? The Fuyuki warning just says that the more dangerous thing is behind her, not that Fuyuki isn't dangerous.
I don't know, I mean, no one seemed interested in trying to save her or otherwise keep her alive, they all seemed intent on feeding her to the insane sword of god-killing. Like, leave her alive was an actual vote that could have been used - or talking to her - and then the possibility of saving her would have been on the table.
She was a nigh-unkillable regenerating mass of organs and stuff.
His teleport was disrupted; his upper half flopped along the floor, the lower half hits the wall.
Because saving her wasn't on the table. Being a living nightmare that canonically committed assisted suicide? Without a solid way to save her in front of us, a mercy kill was the next best thing we could give her. Anything after that was a distant runner up at best cause of what she'd been and was going through.
I know I wasn't interested because I didn't think she could be saved. Elina was pretty thoroughly fucked over, turned into an Endless complete with aura, and frankly the sword of god-killing seemed more merciful that getting annihilated from existence.
Not to mention you depicted Elina was in complete agony last update; frankly I didn't think she'd even manage last words, and I know at least one other person shared that sentiment.
Uh.
This right here? Is why leaving her alive seems unwise because we have no reason to think she won't grow without limit. In fact it sounds like she grew a hell of a lot in a few short weeks, even with Yuna trimming her, and as she gets stronger she births way stronger monsters. See first visit to Elina, and then the second visit to Elina.
Also, if we left alive but broke or hide the Dragonslayer, which again were the only options presented, then there's pretty much nothing capable of slowing Elina down.
She asked to die in the original, so leaving her alive with no reasonable hope of saving her, or so we thought, is an even bigger dick move.
We thought we were making the best of a bad situation. Clearly this was not the case.
Seconding This, it felt like a mercy killing or leaving her in agony were the only option, we shouldn't have needed to choose 'talk but don't kill' to find out next update it was possible to save her when destroying the city completely was also an option in that update.
No one seemed interested because no one thought it was even remotely an option.
I didn't think she was capable of talking, let alone had enough of herself to be saved based on how she was described.
Kind of annoying and feels like railroading us into 'Lol, destruction is all Flandre cares about.'
I don't think it's railroading, I believe it's an honest mistake. It's definitely the kind of option I feel we should have been told existed though, especially since it's....kind of rubbed in our face that we could have saved her during the update, and right after killing her too.
Also we did try to come up with ideas to save her. At very least we came up with trying to turn Elina into a vampire to turn her into something besides a ever-growing abomination, but you said Flan didn't know how to do that and then the concept never got traction.
I'm not sure we came up with other ideas in thread, but there was at least some effort. I was enthused over the idea of vampire Elina, at least.
It's the people who cared about Elina yet failed to come up with a reasonable way to save her who are at fault here, not the QM.
They could've bounced more ideas than"turn Elina into a vampire" between each other and the QM but they gave up fairly quickly. It's not the QM's responsibility to come up with the ideal votes, just the basic ones and to reply on whether a write-in vote is valid.
It's the people who cared about Elina yet failed to come up with a reasonable way to save her who are at fault here, not the QM.
They could've bounced more ideas than"turn Elina into a vampire" between each other and the QM but they gave up fairly quickly. It's not the QM's responsibility to come up with the ideal votes, just the basic/IC ones and to reply on whether a write-in vote is valid.
Wow way to be a jerk. If Entropy had come up with the idea beforehand, he'd have included it, probably. Because as he says, the soul swapping is something Flandre would come up with and would know IC.
And if we had ideas besides turning Elina into a vampire, we would have pitched them. I am not taking shit for "Not trying hard enough and gave up too soon." Just because people don't share bad ideas online, doesn't mean they aren't trying.
Yeah, if I'd have figured or been aware that shoving Elina into a body that wasn't a horribly mutated, continuously regenerating Mother of Monsters was a thing that we could do, I'd have been all for it. Unfortunately, the options presented to us were basically either 'leave her to suffer until (x)' or 'kill her now to save her from that.'
It would have been neat to have her around, but unfortunately that doesn't seem to be an option, unless Flan accidentally picked up a fragment of the sword with her consciousness still inside it, or something, but she did kind of pop that thing's eye.
Unless she popped the god's eye and not Elina's soul's? Hm. The Metaphysics of Flandre Scarlet's Ability is a strange thing to contemplate.
Wow way to be a jerk. If Entropy had come up with the idea beforehand, he'd have included it, probably. Because as he says, the soul swapping is something Flandre would come up with and would know IC.
And if we had ideas besides turning Elina into a vampire, we would have pitched them. I am not taking shit for "Not trying hard enough and gave up too soon." Just because people don't share bad ideas online, doesn't mean they aren't trying.
The point of my post wasn't to attack you all for failing to come up with a good alternative, it was that it isn't the QM's responsibility to find said option for you and blaming them for your lack of ability to do so is disingenuous.
I apologize if I offended you by putting down the significant effort you must've put in that discussion to have gotten you to retort so fervently. I'll assume there's other likely options for the lack of ideas on how to save her including it just being difficult to realize. (hence Entropy not realizing the option until they were already writing the newest chapter)
I just reread the entirety of the story fairly recently so the PMMM arcs are still fresh in my memory, probably skews my perspective a bit.
The point of my post wasn't to attack you all for failing to come up with a good alternative, it was that it isn't the QM's responsibility to find said option for you and blaming them for your lack of ability to do so is disingenuous.
I apologize if I offended you by putting down the significant effort you must've put in that discussion to have gotten you to retort so fervently. I'll assume there's other likely options for the lack of ideas on how to save her including it just being difficult to realize. (hence Entropy not realizing until they were already writing the last of the chapter)
I just reread the entirety of the story fairly recently so the PMMM arcs are still fresh in my memory, probably skews my perspective a bit.
More than a bit. There was never even a hint we could move someone's soul around that wasn't already a rock... and the way the GM rubbed it in with how it was written doesn't help.
More than a bit. There was never even a hint we could move someone's soul around that wasn't already a rock... and the way the GM rubbed it in with how it was written doesn't help.
Apparently if we had chosen just talking to her, there would have been a hint towards that or something. Considering the way it was written made some people doubt she could even say 'kill me' I don't think anyone would have chosen it when 'destroy the town and leave' was also an option.
If there is an option like that, then there isn't much else to discover in the location, let alone starting a quest to free someone while their captor is in the same room.
The point of my post wasn't to attack you all for failing to come up with a good alternative, it was that it isn't the QM's responsibility to find said option for you and blaming them for your lack of ability to do so is disingenuous.
It's one I didn't think about until I was actually writing the update - and more important than whether it is actually possible, Flandre thinks its possible.
If Flan thinks soul-swapping is something that could be done, I think it's fair to say we should know it when we make the decision. The implication seems to be @Entropy Judge didn't consider this until after the update, but would have put it in if he had thought of it.
And if that is the case, well, we'd have rather he have alerted us to this possibility.
Barring a retcon it's too late now, but it's...kinda irritating to speculate how Elina might be saved, then have a solution shoved in our faces right after killing her that Flan can come up with on her own, and be told that no one seemed interested in saving Elina.
Doesn't help that Elina here apparently still had hope of being saved, unlike in canon.
I apologize if I offended you by putting down the significant effort you must've put in that discussion to have gotten you to retort so fervently. I'll assume there's other likely options for the lack of ideas on how to save her including it just being difficult to realize. (hence Entropy not realizing the option until they were already writing the newest chapter)
Considering how awful Elina's circumstances were, besides Entropy's idea pretty much the only thing that could have saved her is a Deus Ex Machina. This literally figuring out how to turn someone who is a god, into not being a god.
Options are very limited, and the canon solution to this is a mercy kill. And that's with them being aware of a much greater power, that's pretty much the only thing in the setting that might have a chance at fixing this. Mercy kill was still the solution of choice, and it was the solution Elina asked for.
I'm not sure Flan would have been all that interested in saving her personally. She's not one for long thinking like that, save when she 'adopted' Lutecia for a while.
I'm not sure Flan would have been all that interested in saving her personally. She's not one for long thinking like that, save when she 'adopted' Lutecia for a while.
It could be made fun; after all, this way Flan's kidnapping/rescuing a princess. Everyone comes for the princess.
And everyone would, too. Empire to deal with their dirty laundry, or to ransom Elina back, the Alliance to get her back, and Nina and Cray just charging head first into danger for Elina.
