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Puella Magi Adfligo Systema

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Idle comments:
  • There is nothing inherently wrong with a wall of text vote if the text is relevant.
  • This can still end without murders.
  • Oriko does have a consistent motivation.
 
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Muramasa said:
No to the wall of text/SHEER PANIC vote. Heal up and continue as normal.

[x] Ugolino
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A bomb blew up, a few feet from us.
A bomb blew up, a few feet from us.
A bomb blew up

We have been reckless. Mami has called us out on it. Then what do we do? We set off a ruddy IED.
Damage control.

The rest is vital. Yes, it's not immediately, life-or-death stuff. It is, however, initiative. The exact thing Fir has been screaming at us to do from the get-go, if we want to avoid Precog-stomp.

Maybe the wording needs some tweaking. I'd agree that it's a touch too panic-mode about rattling out every idea at once. However, the actual topics need to be addressed. Could you, perchance, throw some word-fu my way? Take what I have, and instead of axing things, spit-shine them for tone?

QM has made it fairly clear that if the thread's mindset is "All the things at once." then that's how we'll handle this. That, honestly, could be only a few steps better than 'heal and go forth'.
 
[x] Ugolino

The best part of this whole thing is that depending on our choice, the note would probably change. If we had bent over to read it, it would have been a griefbomb or something similar. If we pick it up, explosion. Ignore it? It was blank, because it didn't matter, and Oriko saw that.

Also I'm calling Firn's vote counting program Oriko from now on. Because it's watching you vote.
 
Eh, Firn has said repeatedly he's trying to fiat Oriko as little as possible. If we didn't pick the note up, we probably would've been able to continue as normal.
 
Mecrazyfang said:
A bomb blew up, a few feet from us.
A bomb blew up, a few feet from us.
A bomb blew up

We have been reckless. Mami has called us out on it. Then what do we do? We set off a ruddy IED.
Damage control.

The rest is vital. Yes, it's not immediately, life-or-death stuff. It is, however, initiative. The exact thing Fir has been screaming at us to do from the get-go, if we want to avoid Precog-stomp.

Maybe the wording needs some tweaking. I'd agree that it's a touch too panic-mode about rattling out every idea at once. However, the actual topics need to be addressed. Could you, perchance, throw some word-fu my way? Take what I have, and instead of axing things, spit-shine them for tone?

QM has made it fairly clear that if the thread's mindset is "All the things at once." then that's how we'll handle this. That, honestly, could be only a few steps better than 'heal and go forth'.
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Fine. I'll nitpick your vote some.


The first problem I see is there's no specification to remain in timestop.

[]Heal up. Ask Mami and Homura for help. Degriefs along the way.
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Fine with this.

[]Express disbelief that she cobbled together a goddamn landmine, and then deployed it in a residential area. This is important, we can't have Mami too mad about us being impulsive. Need to stress that we didn't think Oriko was so hell-bent on killing, that her actions so far had been threatening, dangerous, but never so out and out malicious.
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I would argue, this was more being blindsided then a bout of recklessness (really how could we have known Oriko had mundane explosives on hand?) but If Mami wants to say that we weren't being careful enough... well, I can't really argue with that.

[]While patching up, plan out specific search areas; Madoka's, Mami's, Homura's, each being personally significant to us, both schools by nature of their size and ease of access, Kirika's and Oriko's for their even more obvious ease of access, then Witch Barriers, especially those Homura has no foreknowledge of, because we can't actually pinpoint individuals within, and Kirika can shut down the Witch's ability to do more than swipe at them.
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We were just at Madoka's. Oriko isn't there.

As for searching Oriko and Kirika's houses, I thought we were already planning on doing that? Also I'd add the hospital to the list since it seems Oriko is sending everyone there lately... >_>

Sayaka called for help at 2am. It took some measure of time for Mami and Sabrina to arrive and help. Orika was seen in the area at that point. It was roughly 3am when Homu initiated timestop. That doesn't give Oriko a lot of time to hide. Yes, we should eventually search these areas but places that were closer to the fire should take priority. Homura already seems to be doing this.

Witch Barriers, especially those Homura has no foreknowledge of
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Homura should have knowledge of all the witches. Didn't she hand us a list of all of them earlier? Also I dislike the way this line is worded because we'd likely be using meta in front of Mami.

and Kirika can shut down the Witch's ability to do more than swipe at them.
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That's just a stray theory. We don't know if Kirika is capable of that.

[]Stay together, go over everything before touching it. Stop to eat, drink, and pump selves full of caffeine as needed.
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Not sure how viable this is while we're in timestop.

[]While hunting down our nemesis, talk about possible motivations with Homura and Mami. We really need to figure out what her end-game is, because literally every action she's taken so far has been to advance towards it. That's how Precognition works.
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No problems.
 
Muramasa said:
The first problem I see is there's no specification to remain in timestop.
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Very, very significant point. Assumptions can be a bad thing. Will edit in.

Muramasa said:
We were just at Madoka's. Oriko isn't there.

As for searching Oriko and Kirika's houses, I thought we were already planning on doing that? Also I'd add the hospital to the list since it seems Oriko is sending everyone there lately... >_>

Sayaka called for help at 2am. It took some measure of time for Mami and Sabrina to arrive and help. Orika was seen in the area at that point. It was roughly 3am when Homu initiated timestop. That doesn't give Oriko a lot of time to hide. Yes, we should eventually search these areas but places that were closer to the fire should take priority. Homura already seems to be doing this.
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Editing out Madoka's, putting in hospital.
I listed off several locations we'd already planned on, to refocus the party back from 'ohmygodexplosions'. The recap might also prompt Homura or Mami to mention locations that were on their minds, but not their lips. Can take 'em out, but I think it serves a purpose.

Muramasa said:
Homura should have knowledge of all the witches. Didn't she hand us a list of all of them earlier? Also I dislike the way this line is worded because we'd likely be using meta in front of Mami.
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She handed us a list of all witches she's consistently dealt with. Given the anomalous nature of this loop, it's possible that new ones have popped up, or that familiars have grown up outside of schedule. Going to witch hot-spots that aren't supposed to have anything there, and finding something there is a lot easier than slipping in and out of each and every Barrier in the city. We might have to search those too, but shortcuts are nice, and knowing that someone is aware of our most likely steps makes going where we shouldn't go, a good idea.

Kirika's ability to negate targeted magic largely reduces a witch's arsenal to smashing things, throwing things, and biting things. There are exceptions - which Oriko should be able to forsee and steer them away from. A witch inclined to fling fireballs a la Mario? Targeted magic, nullified by Kirika, who can then tap-dance on its nose for the lulz. Yes, fighting an eldritch abomination of potentially Kaiju size is dangerous, but when you take away its juju, it's just a big lizard, and you still have super-strength.

It's not confirmed, per se, that Kirika can just shut down a witch, no. But it's an assumption that shouldn't really hurt us - betting on her not being able to use her magic on witches, and trying to use that against her, would end hilariously poorly, while assuming she can shut down witches, only to find Gertrude snacking on her rib cage, presents significantly fewer problems.

Muramasa said:
sustenance within timestop how?
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Raid a corner store. If moral objections arise, leave cash. Or go home. Things being touched work, and while this might not mean a stove of any variety will work, a knife to chop up some veggies, some magic to heat water for rice, doable. Hydration, meet water bottles, public fountains, and drinks high in electrolytes. I'd say that a few energy drinks are much more logistically feasible than a pot of java, at the moment. Given Homura's timestop, our shared infinite magic, and Mami's enhanced mobility by ribbons, making food and drink is a pain, but possible. And if we're searching for more than two, three hours, we will need to take breaks, physically, and for sanity.

Will finish edits fairly quickly. Tell me if I've missed anything - our first initiatives need good planning. Failure to plan properly means an even harder uphill struggle, and we're already dealing with a team that hard-counters basically every other MG.
 
Ah, something that was pointed out to me earlier but I missed it.

[]While hunting down our nemesis, talk about possible motivations with Homura and Mami. We really need to figure out what her end-game is, because literally every action she's taken so far has been to advance towards it. That's how Precognition works.
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As Oriko's endgame probably involves revelations that Mami can't handle, this vote isn't quite as harmless as I first thought.
 
Muramasa said:
Ah, something that was pointed out to me earlier but I missed it.
As Oriko's endgame probably involves revelations that Mami can't handle, this vote isn't quite as harmless as I first thought.
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Oh.

How the fuck did I miss that shit?!

Dropping a Griefbomb on her is not a good idea. Not until she's had at least a week to move towards mental stability, and actually seems like she's starting to be 'okay'. I mean, she's a Meguca, actually being okay isn't really a thing, but the appearance thereof is important, and Mami is having trouble maintaining that.

No Witchbomb. No Lichbomb. No Entropytalk. She especially shouldn't know exactly how high Madoka's potential really is, relating to these things. She's smart enough to do the math in more or less a heartbeat, once she gets on the line of thought, and realizing she'd been pushing for the birth of a world-eating murderbeast would be something I'm not sure she could ever forgive herself for.

Yeah, our ability to bypass Seeds is huge, and maybe we can give her hope enough to overcome the Witchbomb, by working out a way to empty out Grief Seeds. As for the Lich revelation, I have a feeling she'd take that a whole lot better. It's not so overtly and innately hostile, more discomforting. She can deal with discomfort - she acknowledges backhandedly that becoming a Magical Girl changed her life drastically, but notes it's a lot better than being dead. Lichbomb is probably going to sit heavily with her over time, and require a lot of reassurance that she's still her, but it won't immediately break her.

The moment she understands what happens to a fully Griefed Gem, she will immediately think of all the MGs that 'dissapeared', and then all the Witches she killed. Suddenly the satisfaction at removing them from the world is overturned by "I killed people.". She's smart, and has excellent reaction timing. She won't take the minutes others take, mulling it over. We'll have precisely one sentence to get through to her, get her listening, and start pulling her out of it. She won't spiral into a Witch. She'll simply go on a rampage, kill every MG within reasonable radius, and then suicide.

Unless we have a line in mind, one that calls back to, say, something significant between us, or something amazing she did, something that just stands out on its own, we don't have an effective way to shut down her Murder Spiral. Which means that even a vague reference, made by ourselves, Oriko, Kirika, a careless Homura...

Pow. Right in the Soul Gem.

Kay. Not sure how to approach this, though. Some help, brainstorming? If we don't get some insight into our enemy's mind, we can't play the game on her level, and we can't break the game down to ours.

We could pull Homura to the side to talk about Grief-related possibilities in private, but Mami is by and far more creative. Homura just has a huge knowledge base. Not to say she doesn't have a brain, but she's more or less stabilized halfway down a Grief Spiral, and is constantly fighting to stay there through sheer force of will.

I'll take that line out altogether, for now. It's a content-heavy vote anyways. But while votes accumulate, maybe talk about how to get some planning in, without getting shot?
 
Of course, we're uniquely capable of defusing the Lich and Witchbombs, quite simply because we can actually see how this stuff works thanks to Grief vision. We can confirm, "yes, you're still you just with magic going from the gem to your body" and "no, there really isn't anything left of the girls in the Witches. We checked.".

Granted, it's still going to be a mind-shatteringly horrifying pair of revelations but as long as Mami's Witch reveal isn't Sayaka or something and we manage to spin it correctly...
 
Unless we have a line in mind, one that calls back to, say, something significant between us, or something amazing she did, something that just stands out on its own, we don't have an effective way to shut down her Murder Spiral.
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If we get one sentence after the witchbomb...
How about "I contracted knowing that." Absolutely true, and might be enough of a shock to get through to her. Then talk her down.
 
This is how pretty much every Meguca relationship ever started. Not with a bang, but a whimper. Then a glomp, when it was most needed.

Magical Girls may not all be lesbians, initially. But what's more important, really. The cute boy two rows down who plays dreamy music, or the fellow Warrior of Justice who saves your life every afternoon, shares your darkest secrets, and stands by you in your darkest moments, making you smile even when you can tell they want to cry too.
 
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