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Magical Girl Phantom Ascension

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[X] The Auroras (They're the most straightforward, but perhaps if you're more consistent with the basics, the rest will come easier later)
 
[x] The Symbols (You're still not entirely sure what you'd done that night, but if you can figure it out, your options may expand dramatically)
 
[X] The Symbols (You're still not entirely sure what you'd done that night, but if you can figure it out, your options may expand dramatically)
 
[X] The Auroras (They're the most straightforward, but perhaps if you're more consistent with the basics, the rest will come easier later)
 
[X] The Auroras (They're the most straightforward, but perhaps if you're more consistent with the basics, the rest will come easier later)

The basics are the ground on which everything is built. So master them, and remaster them with every breath.
 
[X] The Snow (Power over ice seems useful to get a better grasp of, not too simple but not too complex… hopefully, anyway.)

Normally I'm in favor of getting the basics down, but I really like the idea of icebending...
 
The symbols I suspect are going to be the bread and butter of our skill set. We have versatility as our best asset after all.
We also have defense as our worst asset.

And while symbols are neat... We are going to be making said symbols with Auroras going by how we discovered the trick by accident. As much as I'd love to get down to the business of starting to write...

Let's make sure we know how to hold our calligraphy brush first.

Though I really want to eventually get to the point where we can bring the snow into play. I like the ghost trappings with this character okay?

[x] The Auroras (They're the most straightforward, but perhaps if you're more consistent with the basics, the rest will come easier later)
 
Storyteller said:
We also have defense as our worst asset.
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This is somewhat complicated by the "how to kill the dead" conundrum. It has been noted that there are types of damage that are very real to us, but I am given to understand that (for example) no amount of pure kinetic energy can 'kill' us. I do not know how this would be expressed. We manifest as a physical object that is subject to physical forces, so I am guessing that it is not as simple as complete inviolability. Possibilities I can think of include: reforming back to our mental image to restore any missing pieces; having no healing such that all damage is permanent and just accruing more and more over time; all our parts remain attached no matter what but can be deformed like putty; the previous with a handy "restore to prior form" function so that we are kind-of like a rubber doll; and: we really can't be damaged in any way but thus absorb the full force of any otherwise penetrating or destructive events are instead converted wholly into motion and fling us around in potentially humorous ways. I find myself liking the idea of being a squishy wizard, and largely suffering the consequences, but being literally immune to the final "squish" part of the equation so that we can recover later.
 
Aunty Shi Ping said:
This is somewhat complicated by the "how to kill the dead" conundrum. It has been noted that there are types of damage that are very real to us, but I am given to understand that (for example) no amount of pure kinetic energy can 'kill' us. I do not know how this would be expressed. We manifest as a physical object that is subject to physical forces, so I am guessing that it is not as simple as complete inviolability. Possibilities I can think of include: reforming back to our mental image to restore any missing pieces; having no healing such that all damage is permanent and just accruing more and more over time; all our parts remain attached no matter what but can be deformed like putty; the previous with a handy "restore to prior form" function so that we are kind-of like a rubber doll; and: we really can't be damaged in any way but thus absorb the full force of any otherwise penetrating or destructive events are instead converted wholly into motion and fling us around in potentially humorous ways. I find myself liking the idea of being a squishy wizard, and largely suffering the consequences, but being literally immune to the final "squish" part of the equation so that we can recover later.
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We definitely feel pain.

SpoopyGhost said:
From there you spend a good while trying to walk through the wall again, but no matter how much you strain or focus, you can't get through. The door's locked, too. It's only when you're leaning against the window, wondering if one of the handful of still-lit windows in the neighborhood is Midori's, that you suddenly find yourself plunging through and to the sidewalk far below.

Owwwww.

It hurts just as much as you'd expect a fourth-story drop to, (a lot) but you stand up to find yourself visibly undamaged. This is going to take some getting used to… though maybe it's better that you don't; even if it doesn't affect you the same way anymore, pain is still painful.
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That was a four story fall. Got up and walked away from it.


SpoopyGhost said:
There's another bank of lifts up ahead, with one already open and waiting; she quickly dashes in and hurriedly smashes a button to close the doors on you. You don't even bother stopping, running straight for the doors in hopes of wedging through, focused solely on catching her without any higher thought. The opening is already shut as you close in, but you don't even care, slamming full-tilt into them -

And so you're caught off guard when you rush right through and into the open elevator shaft. Sickening vertigo pushes away your singlemindedness as you fall down, clipping painfully again a beam on the opposite wall, and in the moment of pain, fall through the ceiling of the elevator itself and land face-first on the floor, making the lift judder a tad - though that may just be dizziness from the blow.

By the time the pain clears enough for you to regain your feet, the nurse has already left and the doors are closing again. This time you're able to stop them, roughly slapping the trigger to make them reverse direction as you stagger through. You're in a sub-basement, the friendlier atmosphere of the floors above replaced by cold concrete and harsh fluorescents, but you barely process much more than that as you scan for any sign of your target. She's disappearing around a corner a little ways down to your left, and you rush to pursue again.
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Going by here, we don't take permanent damage but the pain can lay us low long enough for things to go against us. I don't know how far down the elevator was, but I think it wasn't at the bottom yet so we were out of it for a little bit at least.
 
With the Auroras, we get something to use in a fight, the non-lethal option, an in to Glyphs, which could also lead to an easier time getting the hang of the snow.

A good base. Then, we can start working on the crippling isolation problem, which has easy solutions, that will take time more than anything.
 
Heads-up that I will be locking votes in about twelve hours from now.

Aunty Shi Ping said:
This is still pretty close to being my favourite premise for a story. I am not sure what it is exactly, perhaps the well-defined and finite isolation, but I just love this story. My emphatic hopes that the new schedule works well and that the betas flow freely.
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SRLYWHYTHO said:
Also, Ghost, no one here's dissapointed. We understand, life has the inclination to be a bitch every single oportunity it gets, so there's no need to apologize.

We'll just wait like good readers interested in a good story. Simple.
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Thank you. I can't really express it well, but I really appreciate this, and I'm glad you like this story enough to stick around; it means a lot.

Aunty Shi Ping said:
we really can't be damaged in any way but thus absorb the full force of any otherwise penetrating or destructive events are instead converted wholly into motion and fling us around in potentially humorous ways. I find myself liking the idea of being a squishy wizard, and largely suffering the consequences, but being literally immune to the final "squish" part of the equation so that we can recover later.
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Storyteller said:
Going by here, we don't take permanent damage but the pain can lay us low long enough for things to go against us. I don't know how far down the elevator was, but I think it wasn't at the bottom yet so we were out of it for a little bit at least.
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These are correct, yes.
 
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[x] The Auroras (They're the most straightforward, but perhaps if you're more consistent with the basics, the rest will come easier later)
 
Aunty Shi Ping said:
I find myself liking the idea of being a squishy wizard, and largely suffering the consequences, but being literally immune to the final "squish" part of the equation so that we can recover later.
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To add onto this - there is significant humor in having a squishy wizard type character also be one of the group's tanks/rear guard for reasons of being the hardest person on the team to actually kill.

I'm am heavily considering trying to write a "Phantom Ascension but as an anime" type omake at least one time once we meet with our Pink MG character from a blind audience just for the humor I can have with Negaverse audience reactions to the squishy wizard acting overly aggressive/tankish. Bonus points if we go flying into a wall at some point during.
 
Voting is now locked. Update ETA for November 10 or so, but hopefully earlier.

Scheduled vote count started by SpoopyGhost on Oct 21, 2020 at 3:15 AM, finished with 27 posts and 20 votes.
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Mmm... just found this quest. I am interested to see how it goes in the future.

On that note...by the sound of it, ghost-stuff runs similarly to her ice magic-skills, our main character just hasn't put two and two together? Like, when she froze the river, she wasn't thinking about it, moreso just applying it in a way that felt natural. Similarly, with stuff like the elevator incident, by the looks of it she was too distracted by 'i need to follow the strange nurse' to consider the possibility of phasing through objects. She simply had a need, and didn't think about how to get from Point A to Point B... though the subsequent multiple-story drop was less than ideal. At the bookstore too, though the wording could be interpreted either way, sounded a lot like she accidentally no-clipped through the door following her brother out.

Of course, this does run into the caveat that 'interacting with objects' is what feels natural to her, since it hasn't been long since she was still alive. She has to be quite preoccupied to 'forget' to interact with things...
 
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Ryumancer said:
Mmm... just found this quest. I am interested to see how it goes in the future.

On that note...by the sound of it, ghost-stuff runs similarly to her ice magic-skills, our main character just hasn't put two and two together? Like, when she froze the river, she wasn't thinking about it, moreso just applying it in a way that felt natural. Similarly, with stuff like the elevator incident, by the looks of it she was too distracted by 'i need to follow the strange nurse' to consider the possibility of phasing through objects. She simply had a need, and didn't think about how to get from Point A to Point B... though the subsequent multiple-story drop was less than ideal. At the bookstore too, though the wording could be interpreted either way, sounded a lot like she accidentally no-clipped through the door following her brother out.
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Yep, one of the reasons why I'm voting for the most basic thing, in hope of her finding out how ghost stuff works.
 
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Some Good News
  • Informational
    • First of all, sorry for vanishing for so long.
    In hindsight, there was a really unfortunate confluence of burnout and irl difficulties that both contributed to the quest stalling out, even though at the time I thought it was only the latter, and that I could simply manage away the stuff that was happening. I couldn't and honestly probably shouldn't have tried to, but I suppose hindsight is 20/21. The tone of the last update is probably a pretty good indicator of where my head was at as a result. And on top of that there was a certain sort of burnout from metaphorically spinning my wheels without getting anywhere, overthinking everything and letting perfectionism get to me, without much if any real meaningful writing progress to show for it. I legitimately didn't intend to take over a year off, but that's how it turned out, for better or worse. Hopefully better, though.

    Which brings me to the good news - things have settled down IRL, and my mental health is much improved. I am rather busy, mind, but still in a place where I feel like I can make better use of the free time I do have.

    And well, yesterday I was contacted by my beta (more on that below) who was reminded of the quest and wanted to know if I had any plans of continuing it.

    To answer, yes I do.

    Like I said, I'm much busier these days, so finding the time to write will be a bit difficult; I don't expect updates will be especially frequent. However, I do feel like it can be done, and provided things go well, hope to at least maintain some measure of consistency.

    The other matter that slowed things down before the hiatus was scheduling and communication issues with me and my beta; that's why I put out that request for alternatives. My original beta, in addition to reminding me if this, is still interested in helping, so I will be keeping her on. However, starting a new job, still can't make any promises on consistency, so rather than relying solely on her, I'm also planning to work with one of the people who responded to my call for help before. Hopefully with both of them to help when they can, it should make this easier to maintain and less of a load on either individually.

    I will admit I still haven't actually sat down yet to resume writing, as I'm only coming back to this all in the past few days, but I'm feeling much more confident about how to approach it, so I plan to make good on that soon. In the meantime, I thought I should let everyone know that there will be something to look forward to from this again.

    Kikuko may be deceased, but her story is dead no longer.
     
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  • Informational
    • This is incredibly good news! I understand that there are few absolutes in such matters, but this has always felt to me like a really distinct quest, and one that is very good at doing that uniqueness justice.
     
    Ryumancer said:
    On that note...by the sound of it, ghost-stuff runs similarly to her ice magic-skills, our main character just hasn't put two and two together? Like, when she froze the river, she wasn't thinking about it, moreso just applying it in a way that felt natural. Similarly, with stuff like the elevator incident, by the looks of it she was too distracted by 'i need to follow the strange nurse' to consider the possibility of phasing through objects. She simply had a need, and didn't think about how to get from Point A to Point B... though the subsequent multiple-story drop was less than ideal. At the bookstore too, though the wording could be interpreted either way, sounded a lot like she accidentally no-clipped through the door following her brother out.

    Of course, this does run into the caveat that 'interacting with objects' is what feels natural to her, since it hasn't been long since she was still alive. She has to be quite preoccupied to 'forget' to interact with things...
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    So I think want to expand on this.

    So one of the things with Magical Girl stories is that at the heart of them they're coming of age stories.

    And that's true with our MC as well even with her being dead I think. There's essentially three ways for her story to end at the end of the quest, a more permanent undead life as a trouble shooter, moving on to the other side and a resurrection. All three fit for the end state of Kikuko's coming of age story.

    SpoopyGhost said:
    You were pretty good at living in the moment before, almost to a fault. You didn't really worry about the future much, and coasted through school, getting by without much effort while your real focus was on your ideas and artistic projects. In hindsight you probably should have given those matters more concern, given this was your third year…
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    With how Kikuko developed how the growing up to take place was well looking to the future. What to do upon growing up.

    There were no plans or anything.

    Now let's set up the strands of what will be occuring with the team. Kikuko is going to be involved with everyone's character development. A major thing is that she was the only one to step forward solo.

    A major irony given that we're talking about the girl who never had enough people to play board games.

    We also have a city to save and again Kikuko is going to be a major player in that because she's the one with the most time. The one spying, the one fighting.

    If the city isn't going down in flames Kikuko has to get her act together. Especially as Nel is a loveable airhead and Kikuko needs to put together the pieces or gather them to get the others to help piece stuff together.

    Moving on ending - the whole being a MG and what is needed to get to the end, well it's a bittersweet capstone. That Kikuko would have been a remarkable person that the world is lesser for losing so early. But high stress on what she accomplished as a MG. From helping her teammates become healthier and happier people, to making a difference in the city. Basically a legacy type ending with all the accomplishments standing in for a proper adulthood. Especially as things look like they'll get ugly. An adult will be needed to save the day. Works extremely well with self sacrifice type play, like grappling a not entirely dead Emperor and Death dragging both through the one way trip veil.

    Ghost Trouble Shooter - this is the one that doesn't jive so well with themes. It's a limbo state with the still a ghost thing. Yes it's a profession and that's adult but it's a shallow adult. But the same points of development with the others occur here and again actual job.

    Resurrection: Take the whole focus on helping others and stabilizing the city and make that the foundation for a second chance. The thing with a ghost is that it's actually really hard to return the favor for all the help. Kikuko is put in the position of just helping and the isolation because ghost does not help matters. I call it Resurrection but even more of a magical spirit type being that can still go through walls and is hard to kill would still fit, though ideally with enough aging to keep with the other girls. The point is that it ends the ghost limbo state for the ability to interact with the world again. A second chance.

    Now here's the part where @SpoopyGhost is killing it.

    As mentioned above, Kikuko's ability to focus on the present is actually a major portion of her ghost and ice powers.

    Actually by the experimentation all of her abilities have an artistic bent. But the ghost and ice are the force multipliers. Once Kikuko unlocks the ghost abilities fully ... It'll be end game time.

    Which is why they're locked behind the character development gates. Which works well as the other thing besides growing up and learning how to people Kikuko needs to learn to accept herself again.

    SpoopyGhost said:
    All told, it's an artistic but somewhat eclectic set of hobbies you've managed to waste your short life on, though you prefer to think of it as versatility. It's kept you occupied, at the very least, though your passion for your drawing and your sewing are very real.
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    Wasted. Kikuko isn't happy with herself at all right now. And being the most active MG is not going to help matters.

    Which is easy to set up. She's in an ongoing crisis because dead. And she's the team's backbone because everything's going to be coming apart and the team doesn't know it yet.

    Which fits back into the communication angle problem. Mysterious purple - learning to trust others is kinda required.

    But also, note the wording of how everyone else describes Kikuko getting run over.

    SpoopyGhost said:
    And then he slugs you, hard. "Are you an idiot!?" He demands, "Why'd you have to go and die just like that? I miss you! Mom and dad miss you! What did you think you were doing, not looking where you're going when you cross the street?
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    Her brother is mad and specifically says she didn't look both ways. IE - Wasn't paying attention and being an airhead killed her.

    SpoopyGhost said:
    She smiles bitterly, tears forming again. "Three days ago, she got run over by a car. She was leaving the city library with her head in the clouds, and some drunk skipped the corner and plowed right over her, from what I heard."
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    From Midori again implication that if she was paying more Kikuko could have escaped the car.

    SpoopyGhost said:
    You'd looked both ways before crossing the road, but a car screamed out of nowhere and mowed you down too fast to evade.
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    If you go to Kikuko's description... Just wrong place, wrong time and not quick enough to dodge.

    Being who she was wasn't a bad thing nor what got her killed. A secondary note with her hobbies, photography wasn't dropped out of lack of skill but preference for drawing. Guitar - still practicing just, out of earshot.

    Kikuko was never against working hard with what she was interested in. Just, that wasn't school. And she ran out of time.


    So yeah Kikuko's coming of age story includes friendship, learning how to plan ahead and consider the future. But also, self acceptance.
     
    It's really really good to see this back. Both for it, and that you're in a good enough place to be doing it again!

    Storyteller said:
    To add onto this - there is significant humor in having a squishy wizard type character also be one of the group's tanks/rear guard for reasons of being the hardest person on the team to actually kill.

    I'm am heavily considering trying to write a "Phantom Ascension but as an anime" type omake at least one time once we meet with our Pink MG character from a blind audience just for the humor I can have with Negaverse audience reactions to the squishy wizard acting overly aggressive/tankish. Bonus points if we go flying into a wall at some point during.
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    I would love to see this, heh.
    (Though, what does Negaverse mean?)
     
    ColdGoldLazarus said:
    It's really really good to see this back. Both for it, and that you're in a good enough place to be doing it again!


    I would love to see this, heh.
    (Though, what does Negaverse mean?)
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    catDreaming said:
    Negaverse refers to a world where things went differently. Such as choosing a different color, or the like.
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    In the case of quests, it's essentially 'what if the quest was being run with that other character being the one the questers have control over, and are commenting on?'. Not always one of the characters selectable during character creation, mind.
     
    Ryumancer said:
    In the case of quests, it's essentially 'what if the quest was being run with that other character being the one the questers have control over, and are commenting on?'. Not always one of the characters selectable during character creation, mind.
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    Yeah, the other format is and the one I was thinking of was

    "Okay in another universe where this quest is an anime [or in cases where it's an AU of an anime anime] the how would it go?"
     
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