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Magical Girl Escalation Taylor (Worm/Nanoha)

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You know that feeling when you decide that you're DEFINITELY going to get a particular thing done, and then RL comes up and starts beating you to death with a frozen tuna? And then it pulls out MORE fishy bludgeons and really starts going to town? Yeah, that's kind of where I am right now. There is pretty much no chance that I'm going to be able to write ANYTHING new until July at the very earliest. As such, I'm going to put the PHO interlude on the backburner for now. I'll get the AAR uploaded as soon as I can – hopefully in the next couple of days? – and 15.1 will come… sometime. It's going to be the first thing I write once I have time unless my muse wallops me with stuff for PHO.
 
Silently Watches said:
You know that feeling when you decide that you're DEFINITELY going to get a particular thing done, and then RL comes up and starts beating you to death with a frozen tuna? And then it pulls out MORE fishy bludgeons and really starts going to town? Yeah, that's kind of where I am right now. There is pretty much no chance that I'm going to be able to write ANYTHING new until July at the very earliest. As such, I'm going to put the PHO interlude on the backburner for now. I'll get the AAR uploaded as soon as I can – hopefully in the next couple of days? – and 15.1 will come… sometime. It's going to be the first thing I write once I have time unless my muse wallops me with stuff for PHO.
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Oh, that is just the worst feeling. Well, aside from touching boiling oil... or getting electrocuted... or getting shot in the nuts... look, you know what I mean.

But in all seriousness, yeah, it sucks when that happens. Good luck on getting through it, I'll be waiting until then.
 
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Silently Watches said:
You know that feeling when you decide that you're DEFINITELY going to get a particular thing done, and then RL comes up and starts beating you to death with a frozen tuna? And then it pulls out MORE fishy bludgeons and really starts going to town? Yeah, that's kind of where I am right now. There is pretty much no chance that I'm going to be able to write ANYTHING new until July at the very earliest. As such, I'm going to put the PHO interlude on the backburner for now. I'll get the AAR uploaded as soon as I can – hopefully in the next couple of days? – and 15.1 will come… sometime. It's going to be the first thing I write once I have time unless my muse wallops me with stuff for PHO.
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Self care is important. Take care of yourself. We'll still be here.

sonicyoash said:
Oh, that is just the worst feeling. Well, aside from touching boiling oil... or getting electrocuted... or getting shot in the nuts... look, you know what I mean.
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Self care. Is. Important.
 
Silently Watches said:
As such, I'm going to put the PHO interlude on the backburner for now. I'll get the AAR uploaded as soon as I can – hopefully in the next couple of days? – and 15.1 will come… sometime. It's going to be the first thing I write once I have time unless my muse wallops me with stuff for PHO.
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I wish you best of luck in your life issues resolving in a rapid and conclusive manner. Quick question, did the April 29th update to the character sheets include the weekly XP for the device mages or will that occur when you post the AAR?
 
Silently Watches said:
You know that feeling when you decide that you're DEFINITELY going to get a particular thing done, and then RL comes up and starts beating you to death with a frozen tuna? And then it pulls out MORE fishy bludgeons and really starts going to town? Yeah, that's kind of where I am right now. There is pretty much no chance that I'm going to be able to write ANYTHING new until July at the very earliest. As such, I'm going to put the PHO interlude on the backburner for now. I'll get the AAR uploaded as soon as I can – hopefully in the next couple of days? – and 15.1 will come… sometime. It's going to be the first thing I write once I have time unless my muse wallops me with stuff for PHO.
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That stinks. I hope life lets up on you soon. For some comedic relief, I know of a game where one of the characters actually uses a frozen tuna as a weapon, Shadow Hearts: Covenant - Wikipedia




Be well, and may you get the chance to exercise your creativity again, if not for this story, then another. Creation can soothe the soul and nurture the psyche.
 
kamkong said:
I wish you best of luck in your life issues resolving in a rapid and conclusive manner. Quick question, did the April 29th update to the character sheets include the weekly XP for the device mages or will that occur when you post the AAR?
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I double checked just now, and the current XP count DOES include the weekly passive growth.
 
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AAR: Realign
  • Threadmarks
    • After Action Report for Arc 14: Realign

    Not much to say. Chaos reigned, particularly because this last year (year and a half?) has been just hell on earth.

    Final Frontier
    • This was an adventure of the week format quest, more for fun than anything else.
    • Part 1 you took as a social option and went exploring on Earth Gimel with Alexandria and Legend to look for more Cauldron vials. Not only did you find some, Alexandria also came clean on some aspects of Cauldron's activities such as why they sold to villains. You had the opportunity to collect a couple of vials for yourself, and you chose to keep one and trade the other for a favor, much like Cauldron itself did.
    • Part 2 was heading off to Earth Aleph to do a little exploring. Strictly speaking you did this, though not alongside the Triumvirate so Legend didn't get the social bonus.
    • Part 3 was checking on the Iron Age Earth Vav and arranging the transfer of Standstill/Thirteenth Hour to the Arcana. Technically it's a liaison position, but everyone involves pretty much knows what's going to happen eventually.
    • Part 4 was set on one of the "possible" worlds the Enforcers found so you could hear my musings on the origins of MGLN's multiverse. I don't get enough opportunities to lore dump, damn it!

    Bone of the Father
    • Ah, stomping Nazis. If there's a better application of violence, I've never heard of it.
    • You started this the first week. That event had you follow Lacey to where Jujak was standing around with some of the Wolfheads' victims. During the conversation that followed, you discovered that he was an ex-Privateer who was just trying to do some good in the neighborhood.
    • The next week, you and Jujak did a little exploring of Wolfhead territory and ran into a powerful but terrified new cape with powers that look awful familiar.
    • Week 3, the whole team went on patrol and ran into Operation Pentagram. You got to really bloody the Wolfheads, though only Gestalt and Blue Valkyrie escaped thanks to Gestalt's teleportation power. The 10 on a d10 definitely helped, as did the 9 on saving the unpowered gang members from the collapsing building.
      • Ironically, a bad roll would have meant the Wolfheads "surrendered" only for the capes to teleport out of a PRT transport on the way to their cells.
    • The last week you crushed the Nazis once and for all, again by assisting (with the assistance of?) Operation Pentagram. You also decided to flip Gestalt/Theo to the side of good. Because you were hands off about exactly where he should go and left it up to the Protectorate/PRT at large, he is getting shipped to New Orleans with Kayden, Aster, and Crusader. Probably the best ending he could get, all things considered.
      • Killing or arresting him would have taken him out of the game completely.
      • Flipping him but keeping him in Philly would have given you the chance of seeing more of him and his wicked cool power in the future.
      • Claiming him would have been the most narratively interesting option because his power set is unusually flexible (and had the potential to get even WEIRDER depending on whether you let him touch objects from other dimensions in the future). You also would have had to figure out what to do since he's breaking the all-girls nature of the Arcana. I was partial to mutating him into a Theresa…

    Daddy's Little Girl
    • This quest was a headache to plan. I figured it was time to bring Danny back in, but how? My first thought was to have him second trigger (re-trigger?) and have part 1 be going to the nursing home to find him missing. That idea became… unnecessarily dark, particularly since you got no say in it whatsoever.
    • Instead we got a two-path quest. Start it early, it was a search for a cure for Danny's problem. You finally started that when I dropped the third part of Burn the Sinners, even if you didn't do anything but see him for the first time in months. You guys would make terrible daughters. :lol:
    • What would have happened had you ignored it entirely? My initial plan was for Danny to somehow re-Trigger and get a related but different power and run from the nursing home one morning before he had a chance to look at his notes and videos to find out what was going on. He would have been captured by the Protectorate in Boston and sent to an asylum.
      • But like I said, that was my initial plan. With how vehement the argument over whether to do this quest or an extra social was when I scrapped BtS part 3, I was considering opening another vote should the social vote have won about how much interest there was in keeping the possibility of trying to do this in the future.

    Burn the Sinners
    • This quest was the one where you didn't think you had so much time to waste!
    • You started this the first week by talking to Legend and getting the necessary information to plan your next move. Plus you got to social him as mentioned below.
    • Next week, you went after the Simurgh branch. Because you decided to just burn everything from high above, you were able to claim only a few of the possible bounties. Then you really made a splash when you dropped off the severed heads of the Fallen capes you didn't immediately turn into ash. There's, uh, worse ways to make a debut?
    • The week 3 entry was yellow because once the Simurgh branch fell, there was no way the Behemoth branch wasn't going to retaliate. It was supposed to be an A-class multipart fight in Kansas City alongside other members of the Protectorate, but, uh, my muse decided at the last minute not to cooperate with that.
    • Ditto on the Leviathan family. :oops: I was thinking of bringing Haven into it, but you know what? I'm perfectly happy with just bombing the Mathers into nothingness and moving on.

    Social events
    • The pre-subquest week gave you two social events to bridge the gap between fighting the Fallen and going back to school.
      • You went to New York City to chat with Standstill and hear about her issues with her new team. Since she has to rebrand anyway, she asked for a Device of some kind but preferably a template.
      • It wasn't strictly speaking a social event, but Missy found out Linker Core mutations were possible and demanded one. You then had a conversation with her about parental consent and her own misgivings about Miss Militia's reliability and trustworthiness as a legal guardian. Oh, and also that Missy was quitting the Wards because that was a surprise. :rolleyes:
      • At the end of the week, you went on a gun range date with Kayleigh and Laura. You wound up scanning them in the process and found out both of them had Linker Cores, and Laura's is strong.
    • The first real week, you spent your social time with law enforcement.
      • First up was the Law and Order special activity. Taylor was worried that the PRT was actually about to reveal the existence of magic, but it turns out it was just to warn the city that if they saw a bunch of robocops running around, it wasn't a villain attack. Director Paulson wanted to wait until mages are the only people in the skies before showing off Operation Pentagram.
      • After that you spent time with Legend since you were already in his office talking about the Fallen. Standstill isn't in a good place, obviously, and Legend isn't any happier about it than Taylor is. The idea to have her serve as a liaison is a decent one, but she would by definition be serving two masters.
    • Second week you spent off on other worlds.
      • You took the yellow option to do Final Frontier part 1 as a social activity.
      • At the end of the week, you chilled out on Earth Aleph in Japan with the rest of your magical girl team. So, in a way, you did two parts of Final Frontier this week.
      • Okay, there was also that chapter where you helped Lacey create her own Guardian Beast, even if that wasn't strictly speaking a social activity.
    • Week three was once again about the Protectorate.
      • You socialed Legend again with Final Frontier part 3.
      • A couple of days later, you brought Standstill into the fold.
    • On the fourth week of this arc, my players got from me…
      • Taylor's a babysitter?! No, not really, but you finally got a look from my end at Alpha's daughter. Turns out giving an eleven-year-old magic can cause problems.
      • Alexandria and the entire Arcana all got to tour another world with you and Legend in Final Frontier part 4.
    Wondering when the next chapter will be out? I don't know either. I can say that I'll work on 15.1 as the next thing I write, but beyond that? *shrug* I will remind everyone that Arc 15 will be a social arc, so if anybody has any ideas that want to get out of their system now, go right ahead.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • Probably should look into how the Missy Militia situation is progressing.

    Get our new team member better situated. And work on the Philly PRT.

    Deal with a magical child.

    I really want to deal with our Pantheon thing!!!

    Laura's home life.

    Look into Epoch again? Danny?

    We could look into Theo and Kaden eventually?

    Just normal school stuff? Party at Missy's?^-^

    Lot of options really.
     
    So, activities. It's getting into fall in Philly, but it's 70 and Sunny somewhere, right? I'd like to propose a weekend trip to the beach some time. It could be either as Arcana or as Civilians, but with global range teleportation we could easily pop over to Cali for a Saturday and just chill on a beach for a while. Other ideas would be maybe Actually babysitting for Alpha once or twice (and maybe help Lizzie refine her magic a bit more). Help Dragon find some Mage Potentials for DragonTech to hire for the Engineering Track and accelerate the proliferation of MagiTech through Earth Bet by increasing our R&D resources. Help the PRT with expanding their own ranks of Mages in other cities, as well as give them the Familiar spell for their people who wouldn't mind a companion, but don't want a Guardian Beast. Also, since they have Gears, and presumably other rank and file PRT Personell, in Philly working on or learning how to build devices, strictly speaking they're past the point where it's "necessary" for Everyone to have a Guardian Beast. They could easily find candidates and bring them to Philly for a Magic 101 Crash Course for a week or month depending on how in-depth it is, before giving them the materials to build their skills further and following up with much shorter seminars that rotate through the cities given by the more experienced mages.
     
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    Just a minor curiosity, but what was Taylor's Linker Core rank before IAE upgraded it?
     
    I wonder.... How many more team members do we need before we can have multiple teams, so we handle one quest line, and assign the other team to handle another?

    That way we could do our current thing, while having some of the other stuff taken care of in the background; reducing our view of those events mostly to mission summaries and interludes (with maybe the occasional call for backup hijacking our main team's choice), but keeping those situations from running wild without our intervention?
     
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    MemAleph said:
    Just a minor curiosity, but what was Taylor's Linker Core rank before IAE upgraded it?
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    B-ranked.
    edale said:
    I wonder.... How many more team members do we need before we can have multiple teams, so we handle one quest line, and assign the other team to handle another?

    That way we could do our current thing, while having some of the other stuff taken care of in the background; reducing our view of those events mostly to mission summaries and interludes (with maybe the occasional call for backup hijacking our main team's choice), but keeping those situations from running wild without our intervention?
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    If it gets to the point that I'm just writing "mission summaries", I'm shutting the quest down. No offense, but that sounds EXCRUCIATINGLY boring.
     
    Silently Watches said:
    If it gets to the point that I'm just writing "mission summaries", I'm shutting the quest down. No offense, but that sounds EXCRUCIATINGLY boring.
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    Glances at the AARs...
    Erm... Yea, I'm not saying get everything into summaries, I'm saying something like we have a team specialized in exploring and cataloging the alternate Earths we have access to (imagine the SG1 style omakes! lol). The other team doesn't necessarily have to be a combat-oriented one.

    Or possibly a reconnaissance focused team we send to lower-risk situations for the earlier stages of questlines, giving us a summary of the situation (perhaps just tacked onto that week's voting choice for that questline) so we can jump in for combat when needed.
     
    I go to the movies for the first time in a year, and I come back to the end of Realign. Good way to end the week.
    Silently Watches said:
    I double checked just now, and the current XP count DOES include the weekly passive growth.
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    Cool, cool. I'd like to spend my 2 banked training points please. One to Laura to bring her up to 4 XP, and one to Taylor's Barrage to bring it to Mastery.

    Silently Watches said:
    Week 3, the whole team went on patrol and ran into Operation Pentagram. You got to really bloody the Wolfheads, though only Gestalt and Blue Valkyrie escaped thanks to Gestalt's teleportation power. The 10 on a d10 definitely helped, as did the 9 on saving the unpowered gang members from the collapsing building.
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    I was actually going to ask what the dice rolls on the first Wolfhead attack did for us, so thank you for pre-empting my question.

    Silently Watches said:
    Claiming him would have been the most narratively interesting option because his power set is unusually flexible (and had the potential to get even WEIRDER depending on whether you let him touch objects from other dimensions in the future). You also would have had to figure out what to do since he's breaking the all-girls nature of the Arcana. I was partial to mutating him into a Theresa…
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    This seems to be a trend, you making it so the main woobies of the E88 are potentially really beneficial for the team, and then we don't add them for whatever reason. I'm sorry, but you wrote Theo's Taylor-traumatization too well. I just couldn't bring myself to put the boy terrified to the point of tears by Taylor on the same team as her. I'm still hoping for a meetup in the future though, with some more powers being displayed.

    Silently Watches said:
    I will remind everyone that Arc 15 will be a social arc, so if anybody has any ideas that want to get out of their system now, go right ahead.
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    Already posted some ideas a few pages back, but I'll recap my top three.
    1. Scan the employees at Dragontech for Linker Cores. Dragon's asked Taylor to do this, and she's kinda our boss now, so getting it done promptly is ideal. It also will give us more tech slots to do all kinds of neat things, and if the RNG deities are kind to us, we might get some other nice gifts from it. Bring Tim along to give a preview of his work and offer the Linker Core mutation serum, see if anyone looks interested.
    2. Have Taylor and Samantha to Earth He, the volcano world, and use up some mana exploring before training Vampiric Ray. Maybe discover that combining it with Flare MCA means it can convert radiation into magic? Also get some lore from Perfect Storm by asking about Oriana Brevetti and her usage of Flare MCA/ Vampiric Ray.
    3. Track down Circus to get some intel on Phillie's villain scene that won't implicate Laura. Potentially gives us more targets for the future plus raises our social count with Circus.
     
    A social action I want is talking to Mac and Epoch and get them to join or be affiliated with Arcana. Which in turn would mean that they wouldn't have to worry about making ends meet and could go full Rogue or Hero.

    Epoch for one would be exceedingly useful in any plan to kill the remaining Endbringers.
     
    Orkus Majorkus said:
    :V
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    Tim hasn't really been a full member of ARCANA. He's been around, and very helpful to Taylor at first, then the other ARCANA girls, but he was a Privateer first and foremost (Even if his powers were sourced from Perfect Storm), and then when the Privateer's social exploded, he kind of drifted into Dragon's orbit.

    He's our friend, and glad to help us out, but he's primary/auxiliary support, not an actual full member. (which might be / might have been an interesting/inconvenient plot hook, once upon a time)

    In James bond terms, he's Q, not a 00.
     
    kamkong said:
    This seems to be a trend, you making it so the main woobies of the E88 are potentially really beneficial for the team
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    I believe that if people truly want to change their ways and become better then they were, they should be offered a hand. If it makes you feel any better, I've offered "redemption" hooks for several villains besides the Nazis. Laura you took me up on, but I also offered avenues for Tattletale and Circus. There's even an ABB member who is potentially recruitable, although I'm not offering them on a silver platter for a variety of reasons.
     
    Silently Watches said:
    I believe that if people truly want to change their ways and become better then they were, they should be offered a hand. If it makes you feel any better, I've offered "redemption" hooks for several villains besides the Nazis. Laura you took me up on, but I also offered avenues for Tattletale and Circus. There's even an ABB member who is potentially recruitable, although I'm not offering them on a silver platter for a variety of reasons.
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    You aren't talking about Lung-Butcher, are you? That would be quite a curveball. :whistle:
     
    Silently Watches said:
    I believe that if people truly want to change their ways and become better then they were, they should be offered a hand. If it makes you feel any better, I've offered "redemption" hooks for several villains besides the Nazis. Laura you took me up on, but I also offered avenues for Tattletale and Circus. There's even an ABB member who is potentially recruitable, although I'm not offering them on a silver platter for a variety of reasons.
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    Hmm. Lung isn't likely since he became Nidhogg, Oni Lee would need a lot of work to make him not a 'kill on sight' villain, even before you get into the way his powers have completely destroyed his mind, and the only other canon ABB cape is Bakuda, who we captured already, didn't we? With how much Tim learned from her bombs, getting a working relationship with her could be very profitable, but we'd definitely have to work for it. Getting her help shouldn't be easy or cheap. So, sounds like it's either Bakuda or some new person redeemable from the ABB.

    I love a good redemption story. That's why I like canon Purity. Sure, she wasn't very good at going good*, but she was at least trying. Laura is being a bit more successful on that front. The Tattletale debacle and missing out on recruiting Purity were long before I joined the quest, but I didn't really see Circus as a serious option at any point. I recall them being present at the end of the Cadejo and Typhon arc, but never realized they were up for anything more than that.

    *
     
    The last we saw of Bakuda was an ash outline on the wall of her Chicago lair, so she's out of the picture entirely. I think Lee is either still inside the Brockton Bay Quarantine, or he died before the breakout, because there was no mention of him during that, so that leaves Lung/Nidhog and finding some way to De-Butcherfy him.
     
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