Remove ads

Puella Magi Adfligo Systema

Reader mode
[] You do believe that she was being sincere, and that she was telling truth about what she saw. But you can't be 100% certain and there are no guarantees, especially with someone like Oriko.
-[] If what she says is true, that doesn't make her completely trustworthy. She isn't above lies, manipulations... or worse, if she believes it's necessary. Whether she's truly on our side or not, she's dangerous.
-[] Despite the risks, she and her visions are too valuable. There would probably be a lot of people dead if not for her visions. And you aren't willing to take the chance that she's lying. Especially after some of the thing she's told you. Either way, it'd be best to continue being wary and careful of her.
 
Gadjo said:
It... I feel like it would make Homura feel better, to show some of our doubt in Oriko. That we know it would be foolish to trust her would be what she wants to hear, I think.

Besides, dodging the question will only annoy her more.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Muramasa said:
We should answer the question. There's no point in dodging it.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...


I don't mean dodging her question, though. I mean we talk about what happened today, Oriko's actions included, without proclaiming a full judgment on Oriko's overall trustworthiness.

But more than that, go back and read the update and consider what exactly each person here is asking of us.

Firnagzen said:
Homura nods slowly. Her jaw works silently as if she's working up the nerve to say something, her eyes flickering back to the closed door. After a moment, she glances at Mami and turns away.

"Hey," you say softly, exchanging a mystified look with Mami. You slip an arm around Mami's waist, pulling her into a quick, sideways hug, and hesitate for a moment, before reaching out and touching Homura lightly on the shoulder. "Is there something wrong, Homura?"

Another long pause.

"Yes," Homura says, still facing away. "That shouldn't have happened." She glances back over her shoulder at you, tilting her head to do so.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

This is before Mami even mentions Oriko. Homura wants to talk about the situation with us, but doesn't because Mami is there. She's worried that the timeline is slipping out of control for reasons that she can't explain by what she and others have done so far.


Firnagzen said:
Mami frowns unhappily. "It's... strange. Especially if Miss Mikuni is telling the truth."

Homura's eyes narrow.

Mami catches the expression. "I don't trust her either, but... she gave us good information. Um, Sabrina?" She looks up from your shoulder.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Mami, on the other hand, wants Sabrina to mediate the positions on Oriko here, but she doesn't have the full picture. She doesn't know about other timelines or Homura's motivations, and she doesn't know that we already talked about Oriko to Homura and all that conversation entailed (other than that we fucked up).


So we can't mediate the way Mami wants us to, and frankly, Oriko is not entirely related to what Homura was originally speaking about. What we should do is talk about the things that happened today, Oriko included. If we do address her overall trustworthiness, it shouldn't be our main point, and we can't give an opinion that implies action contrary to Homura's extreme wariness.

Going on a spiel about how we feel and should feel about Oriko will repeat some of the mistakes we made in the earlier conversation, even if the contents of that spiel are more moderate. It's just not the right thing to say at the moment.
 
SynchronizedWritersBlock said:
Going on a spiel about how we feel and should feel about Oriko will repeat some of the mistakes we made in the earlier conversation, even if the contents of that spiel are more moderate. It's just not the right thing to say at the moment.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
While I agree that Homura probably does have some things that she wants to talk about without Mami around and some of those are about Oriko, there is still a very definite opportunity here to explain to both Mami and Homura what we think about Oriko and why:
Firnagzen said:
Mami's giving you an expectant look, and Homura's turned to face you fully, amethyst eyes wary and tired. There's a hint of expectation in her eyes, too.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
One of the things that I really want to discuss is Oriko's motivation. We could include a line something like:
[] One of Oriko's motivations is to counter the upcoming threat that is worse than Walpurgisnacht. She seems pretty scared of it, so I was inclined to believe her about the threat even before, but this [show Feather] is physical evidence that Oriko is not lying about the Feathers, at the very least.
 
Last edited:
[] Yes, that shouldn't have happened. It concerns me as well.
-[] Luckily, we had Oriko to warn us. Who knows what would have happened if we didn't?
--[] I do not believe that Oriko has the resources or the motive to have organised that herself, but I acknowledge that she can be dangerous. I want to keep her on our side as she's useful. Especially when things that shouldn't happen are happening.
-[] It's possible that the reason this is happening is because of the threat Oriko mentioned, in which case, we need her insight. She might be lying, but I don't think she is and I don't know of another explanation for why such things are happening.
[] If Mami asks why it shouldn't have happened and Homura doesn't want to explain, say that one of the things you've been wanting to tell her is that some of the things you know about without an obvious reason for knowing is information about certain witches. You knew that one and it's behavior baffles you when compared to your knowledge.

We want to answer both Homura and Mami and we've been planning to tel Mami more for a while now. Something like this?
 
Gadjo said:
That's, er, called dodging the question.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Well, he kind of does have a point. Maybe we should briefly touch on what Homura is talking about here?

[] Things are definitely strange here. Sayaka was the only one Kissed, and her parents probably should have gotten hit with one as well. There was also the matter of her appearing all the way away from her home. It could be that Sayaka was specifically targeted here.
-[] Oriko's distress and panic about her visions seemed real, and there was that feather that you found. Not exactly conclusive proofs, but there are a lot of concerning uncertainties here.
[] You do believe that she was being sincere, and that she was telling truth about what she saw. But you can't be 100% certain and there are no guarantees, especially with someone like Oriko.
-[] Even if what she says is true, that doesn't make her completely trustworthy. She isn't above lies, manipulations... or worse, if she believes it's necessary. Whether she's truly on our side or not, she's dangerous.
-[] Despite the risks, she and her visions are too valuable. There would probably be a lot of people if not for her visions. And you aren't willing to take the chance that she's lying. Especially after some of the thing she's told you. Either way, it'd be best to continue being wary and careful of her, and to keep a closer eye on your non-magical girl friends.

Not completely happy with this...
 
Agent Whiskers said:
[] Things are definitely strange here. Sayaka was the only one Kissed, and her parents probably should have gotten hit with one as well. There was also the matter of her appearing all the way away from her home. It could be that Sayaka was specifically targeted here.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I like this line.

-[] Oriko's distress and panic about her visions seemed real, and there was that feather that you found. Not exactly conclusive proofs, but there are a lot of concerning uncertainties here.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
If we're going to talk about the feather, we might as well show it. There's something about having a an actual physical object in front of you that makes it more real than just saying "Hey, I saw a feather earlier."

[] You do believe that she was being sincere, and that she was telling truth about what she saw. But you can't be 100% certain and there are no guarantees, especially with someone like Oriko.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
This line is fine.

-[] Even if what she says is true, that doesn't make her completely trustworthy. She isn't above lies, manipulations... or worse, if she believes it's necessary. Whether she's truly on our side or not, she's dangerous.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
This line is a bit too much, IMHO. Homura and Mami already know that Oriko isn't 100% trustworthy. Reminding them of Oriko's extreme tendencies is likely to trigger their paranoia (and we're hoping that Oriko has learned from those mistakes and won't do that type of thing in the future, anyway). If we want to reassure them that we are serious about taking Oriko's advice with a grain of salt, the best way would probably be to remind them that we checked Sayaka's house before looking for Sayaka in the Industrial District. That was an example of our "trust but verify" attitude towards Oriko and was also an example of Oriko being reliable.

-[] Despite the risks, she and her visions are too valuable. There would probably be a lot of people dead if not for her visions. And you aren't willing to take the chance that she's lying. Especially after some of the thing she's told you. Either way, it'd be best to continue being wary and careful of her, and to keep a closer eye on your non-magical girl friends.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Missing a word here. And this part could probably use some clarification. I'm not sure what "And you aren't willing to take the chance that she's lying" is supposed to mean here.
 
Edited Gadjo vote.

[x] I... I want to trust her. I want to believe anyone can be good, but...
[x] I know I shouldn't trust her. Manipulation has always been her game, and she has lied to me before...
[x] Even if we do have the same goals, she's always been willing to do... horrible things to get what she wants. Things she knows we'd never agree to.
-[x]But she does seem to be helping us and she's still under house arrest. We might not have found out about Sayaka until it was too late, and there were all the other times...And with whatever happened here, we might need her help even more.
-[x] Now? I'm caught in the uncomfortable position of wanting to be careful, but the information and advance warning she provides is just... too useful.
[x] I'll have to be more careful. And not just with Oriko. Something like this is just too out of the ordinary to ignore.
 
Last edited:
Ugolino said:
We already made this promise and its not one we would have trouble keeping. If Oriko is working against us, she and Kirika are pretty much going to need the gem routine to avoid Homu going murderface on them.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
The problem is that we can only react if Oriko tries something, and precog based attacks can be a bitch to spot even after the fact. Kill this butterfly, cause a tsunami or a bus crash or whatever. Tell somebody something so they go to the wrong place at the wrong place. Or run a thousand long term plans (each which eliminates a small proportion of the futures which keep us safe). The only good thing (if Oriko is our enemy) is that she doesn't appear to be very good at planning things ("protect Sayaka by personally burning down her home", "throw Hitomi down the stairs so that she becomes friends with Kirika"), but Oriko could still cause a lot of damage if she had a mind to do so. We could retaliate after the fact (if we realized she was behind it), but we probably couldn't stop her.

Overall, it's much safer just to put Oriko into a position where she wants to help us (like she is now) and to rely on her goodwill.

Edit: We also need to remember that we're discussing an extremely sensitive topic and Kyuubey is always watching and listening, so we ought to be having this conversation in Timestop or inside an Absolute Interdiction field.
 
Last edited:
boonerunner said:
The problem is that we can only react if Oriko tries something, and precog based attacks can be a bitch to spot even after the fact. Kill this butterfly, cause a tsunami or a bus crash or whatever. Tell somebody something so they go to the wrong place at the wrong place. Or run a thousand long term plans (each which eliminates a small proportion of the futures which keep us safe). The only good thing (if Oriko is our enemy) is that she doesn't appear to be very good at planning things ("protect Sayaka by personally burning down her home", "throw Hitomi down the stairs so that she becomes friends with Kirika"), but Oriko could still cause a lot of damage if she had a mind to do so. We could retaliate after the fact (if we realized she was behind it), but we probably couldn't stop her.

Overall, it's much safer just to put Oriko into a position where she wants to help us (like she is now) and to rely on her goodwill.

Edit: We also need to remember that we're discussing an extremely sensitive topic and Kyuubey is always watching and listening, so we ought to be having this conversation in Timestop or inside an Absolute Interdiction field.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Not relevant to the context of the conversation and not necessary given what we are discussing.
 
Ugolino said:
Not relevant to the context of the conversation and not necessary given what we are discussing.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
The relevance is that your vote says "If she is still planning something...I won't let it become a problem." Which is something that we cannot promise because Oriko's precognition allows her to do things that would be impossible for us to prevent ahead of time. The only thing that would prevent her from acting against us is if she has no motivation to act against us in the first place.
 
Ugolino said:
Edited Gadjo vote.

[x] I... I want to trust her. I want to believe anyone can be good, but...
[x] I know I shouldn't trust her. Manipulation has always been her game, and she has lied to me before...
[x] Even if we do have the same goals, she's always been willing to do... horrible things to get what she wants. Things she knows we'd never agree to.
-[x]But she does seem to be helping us and she's still under house arrest. We might not have found out about Sayaka until it was too late, and there were all the other times...
-[x] Now? I'm caught in the uncomfortable position of wanting to be careful, but the information and advance warning she provides is just... too useful. If she is still planning something...I won't let it become a problem.
[x] I'll have to be more careful. And not just with Oriko. Something like this is just too out of the ordinary to ignore.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...


After what happened in our last conversation, I don't think that us saying that we actually want to trust Oriko would go over well. Didn't she get annoyed the last time we said something like that? The same thing with our promise to stop her.

This topic of conversation is really difficult because Homura is almost incapable of trusting Oriko, and any attempts to convince her that she otherwise can or any positive feelings that we show towards her probably won't go over very well. Another problem is that, looking back, I think our earlier screw up in our conversation with Homura made things even worse between her and Oriko. She was certainly a lot more twitchier this time.
 
Agent Whiskers said:
After what happened in our last conversation, I don't think that us saying that we actually want to trust Oriko would go over well. Didn't she get annoyed the last time we said something like that? The same thing with our promise to stop her.

This topic of conversation is really difficult because Homura is almost incapable of trusting Oriko, and any attempts to convince her that she otherwise can or any positive feelings that we show towards her probably won't go over very well. Another problem is that, looking back, I think our earlier screw up in our conversation with Homura made things even worse between her and Oriko. She was certainly a lot more twitchier this time.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Considering Mami is looking to us for our opinion and keeping quiet means things are skewed towards needless distrust of Oriko...

Giving our honest opinion and following with that we know we cant trust her is the right answer here. The easy thing is to lie or hide our opinion out of fear of Homu reacting badly but I think that isnt the right call.

We should weigh in with a -yes- in response.
 
Last edited:
Ugolino said:
Considering Mami is looking to us for our opinion and keeping quiet means things are skewed towards needless distrust of Oriko...

Giving our honest opinion and following with that we know we cant trust her is the right answer here. The easy thing is to lie or hide our opinion out of fear of Homu reacting badly but I think that isnt the right call.

We should weigh in with a -yes- in response.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

We know that she's almost certainly telling the truth. But that doesn't necessarily mean that we know we can trust her. We shouldn't lie, yes, but that doesn't mean we can't be sensitive to Homura's feeling here. Unless you want to make the same mistake as last time.
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top