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Puella Magi Adfligo Systema

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Andmeuths said:
Then, there's Kyouko, and Yuma, who have fallen off from our radar over the past few days it seems.
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We just met with them yesterday morning. It just seems like longer than that since each day takes so long IRL. And I think the plan is to meet them again tomorrow.

Andmeuths said:
A dreadful idea has just come to me. Inspired by discussions of Dedolere (and after watching a reaction video series to Rebellion on youtube), there's a possible way to break the system and still keep Madoka around. Essentially, what we do, is to make it so that Puella Magis can fully assert their sanity and humanity after Witching out, and control their Witch form, much as Sayaka Miki demonstrated in Rebellion with her control and ability to dismiss and summon Oktavia at will to aid her in battle. Openly transcending and going beyond both Witch and Puella Magi for all Puella Magis. Judging by the Sendai Group arc though, this would almost certainly up the ante of Puella Magi warfare.... although it may remove much of the normal incentives.
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I had wondered if this might be possible a while back. I thought of the ways that we might try to witchout and still maintain control. Bur Firnagzen stepped in and declared that Sabrina witching out would only happen as a Bad End, so this is not an option. It might be possible to use some of Dedolere's powers (by tapping into our Soul Gem, for instance). But not by witching out.

BeaconHill said:
Not only does Oriko not seem to think things changed retroactively, she actually thinks this effect is exactly the same as the one that we ourselves have, making it entirely consistent with (for instance) Kyubey deciding to act after observing us doing something.
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I read that section differently. Like Random832, I understood Oriko to be contrasting Sabrina to "Feathers". Sabrina makes decisions which Oriko was unable to predict, thereby changing things, but "Feathers" acts by truncating/splicing things. Later she clarifies that she wasn't necessarily talking about actual discontinuities in the timeline, but rather the way it looks to her vision:
Firnagzen said:
"Oriko, what do you mean by 'truncate' and 'splice', anyway?" you ask.

The seer shakes her head, looking irritated. "It's a figure of speech," she says. "The futures that I see, the threads, scenarios, they-" she breaks off, a flash of pain crossing her face. Kirika slips around Oriko, and begins massaging her shoulders with a concerned look on her face. "Aaahhh, thank you, dear- they, change, abruptly. I see Miki Sayaka at home, and then... at the warehouse. Any futures where she's at home are gone. Similarly, the Witch."
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-----

BeaconHill said:
incidentally, I treat this odd delay as evidence in favor of the idea that Oriko is up to something.
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That is a bit odd. But it could just be that Oriko tried to contact us, but we were unavailable for half an hour. Or she looked into her visions and contacted us the very first moment that we would be amenable to any sort of conversation. If she had tried contacting us earlier - just after we had exited the Barrier while Mami was still near catatonic, for instance - that would have been bad.

Gadjo said:
Doesn't have to bomb us. Just get information from what we say and ask and feed us half-truths to trick us into doing dumb things. Kyubey is good at what he does. Talking to him is very very dangerous.
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Of course it's dangerous. But not talking to him is also dangerous. Based on our interaction with him earlier, Kyuubey still appears to be trying to be friendly with us so that we will influence Madoka to become a Magical girl. That's never going to happen, of course, but talking to Kyuubey and hearing him out may at least postpone the point where he starts acting against us in earnest. I'm more worried about that than I am about Kyuubey being so good that he will trick us into doing something stupid. With all of SV looking at Kyuubey's words with a metric ton of salt, it's going to be extremely difficult for him to trick us.
 
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Any paranoia regarding Kyubey is completely justified.
When weird things happen, always blame bunnycat. At least until further information :)

Rather than there being a danger of being manipulated by him, I'd say the danger is accidentally revealing too much information; he can work with very little. Avoiding that, there shouldn't be a problem.
 
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SaltyWaffles said:
And so far, Feathers has yet to do anything related to Madoka in this world. If it had, then Homura--who spends most of her time hanging around Madoka, keeping an eye out for any kind of threat or anything suspicious--would be the first to notice something was off, right? Yet she hasn't noticed anything amiss until now (shortly after we did).

Frankly, I find the idea of Feathers already being directly and physically in our world to be ludicrous, especially since there'd be absolutely nothing Sabrina could do to stop Feathers from doing whatever it wants--from a game design/meta perspective, that's stupid and pointless.
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There are a number of different possibilities about "Feathers". My suggestion about "Feathers" hanging around Madoka only applies if "Feathers" is actually Homucifer, and if Homucifer is fairly similar to the version we know about from Rebellion.

Madokami is a concept, so her physical existence is a bit complicated, but Homucifer is a lot more straightforward. She is a person (specifically, she is Homura), she simply has access to a different set of experiences and powers than the Homura we know. The presence of a Feather in our Barrier indicates that she is physically present in this universe already. The fact that none of us have noticed her merely means that she doesn't want us to see her and that her goddess tier powers include some highly effective stealth techniques.

The primary support for me saying that Homucifer is hanging around Madoka is here:
Firnagzen said:
"And..." you glance at Homura, trying to convey an apology. "What about Kaname Madoka?"

"It tends to blank her out," Oriko says. "She... doesn't seem to die, under... most circumstances."
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This is circumstantial evidence, to be sure, but if Homucifer is physically present, where do you think she would spend most of her time? Homucifer cares about Madoka's safety and happiness. I wouldn't expected Homura to have noticed anything amiss (even though they're both hanging around Madoka) because Homucifer would be hanging around Madoka specifically in order to prevent anything from going amiss. Just like Homura is.

Homucifer's goals are presumably the same as the goals of the Homura we know: keep Madoka happy and safe. Some of the implementations of those goals might bring her into conflict with us, but it's difficult to say for sure how that would work without knowing what those plans are. We might not be able to physically stop Homucifer from doing what she wants, but from a meta-perspective it still works because diplomacy is definitely an option.

Again, all of this reasoning only applies if "Feathers" is Homucifer.
 
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What if this Homura is already subconsciously Homucifer (dormant much as Madokami was in Rebellion's Madoka), and Madoka's wish has retroactively brought us in not only to fix the immediate problems of the Puella Magi system, but also Rebellion?
 
BeaconHill said:
Witches don't seem to mind distance, built-up areas, or being in a building with other people. Hitomi is evidence of this; she was abducted from far across the city (Madoka seemed to think she should have been at some sort of study function, which would have had other people) and marched across a very dense downtown area, meeting Madoka in the process.
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This only happened when a large group of people were kissed.


We have canonical evidence that both of these statements aren't always true. The first Witch Kiss victim we ever saw, the one Mami saved, was not part of a group.
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Yes. She was alone. Sayaka wasn't. This is easily explained by that woman being the only person nearby.

It would be just as astronomically unlikely for Hitomi to get attacked by a witch, and yet she canonically was. True randomness is therefore implausible.
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Hitomi was attacked along with a massive group of people, once, in a city known to have a massive witch infestation. It's really not that unlikely. The point is that you're ignoring Mami and Homura who know a lot more about how this works than you do.


There's clearly something going on regarding range and barriers, because we made Mitakihara. I guarantee you that the city is more than 100m in diameter. I'd say it's already pretty much confirmed that we have unlimited range within our barriers. This gives rise to two questions: one, can we learn something within the barrier that will translate into increased range outside of it (probably not, but you never know) and two, can the barrier interact with the outside world at multiple points more than 100m distant from each other (we have no strong indication either way).
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If the 100 meter range limit is only surpassed within our barrier and not outside f it, it's usefulness is limited. Just grief up Mary Poppins's bag if you want that effect.



I think that us questers are more than well-equipped to ignore Kyubey's mind games should he try them, so *-bombs aren't much of a risk.
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We can't even handle conversations with teenagers. Never mind a master manipulator like Kyuubey.


I am pointing out that there are many answers beside the most obvious one. None of those are especially plausible, but the most obvious answer isn't particularly likely itself.
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There being alternative answers to the most likely answer doesn't men that we should pretend that the most likely answer is impossible or that we should treat any risks revealed by the most likely answer as not real.


I'm not going to respond to all the instances of this happening, but I'll make an exception for this one because it's really blatant. I covered that point in another post. In fact, I explicitly acknowledged that this was a possibility. You quoted the very line. Please read what I wrote before trying to argue against it.
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I read that. I was reminding you of it as you seemed to have dismissed it.


Oriko and Kirika had survived several days of house arrest by that point. Though Homura has never trusted them, and likely never will, it does not make sense that she was immediately itching to bury an axe in their heads at that very moment. Her concerns were about us.
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Her concerns were about our relationship with them. So, her concerns about them massively jumped in immediacy.


Are you unaware of the concept of "canon"? There are things that we already know Barriers can do. They have a long-established track record, and are the only powerful Grief magic we've yet tried that has other known users.
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There's things we know that witches can do with barriers. We are not guaranteed the same abilities,

:Citation Needed:
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We actually did this stuff in Sendai.


I did not. I said that we can, risk-free, know that Barriers have certain capabilities, because we've already seen them used in canon or Adfligo Systema.
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Again, not our Barriers. We also risk free know that our grief manipulation has certain capabilities.

Really? Let me cite...

Yours is not an implausible reading of the chapter, but not nearly the only possible one. "Where the Barrier was" would seem to exactly describe something falling from on top of the Barrier, for example.
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It still looks like you're fishing to me. Many things are possible. That doesn't make them likely enough to spend a lot of time worrying about.



Not really. Homura uses strong words about it, but she seems to be quoting Oriko, not making an independent assessment. When they're just discussing the implausibility of Sayaka getting kissed, they're relatively restrained. As I said before, canonically Witches do Kiss single victims. And it would be well within the powers of anyone who can influence Witches to arrange it; I wouldn't put it past Kyubey, for instance.
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I disagree with this interpretation of Homura's message.


SynchronizedWritersBlock said:
Hi friends.


I've noticed a lot of talk about what Feathers is or what it symbolizes. A lot of speculation, honestly. I just want to pop in and say something definite.

Feathers, or possibly Feathers's presence in this timeline, is almost certainly caused by the same sequence of events that caused Sabrina.

If you think that Feathers is a direct result of Sabrina's actions, those actions would never have been taken if Sabrina didn't exist.
If you think that Feathers is a result of Sabrina's existence (Dedolere, for example), then what caused Sabrina simultaneously caused Feathers.
If you think that Feathers is something that should have existed, but didn't because of what happened last timeline (Homucifier / Law of Cycles, for example), then the sequence of events that resulted in Sabrina's timeline and therefore Sabrina herself caused Feathers.
If you think that Feathers is something that exists because of Madoka's wish last timeline, then unless you're completely certain that Sabrina has nothing to do with that wish, they form from the same root cause. Plus, you know, the "hilarious bootstrap process" comment implies that the wish was involved.


No matter what your theory on what Feathers is or how Sabrina came about, this is very difficult to dispute. The same events that caused Sabrina and the PMAS timeline as a whole, also must result in Feathers. From a meta-perspective, this is also true; the forces opposing Sabrina were implied to be set before we made any wish. All the way back in the Original Post of this thread.

I don't have any definite conclusions to present, but what this implies about our powers' relationship or lack thereof to Feathers seems pretty clear. It seems more accurate to say that Feathers is involved in our existence rather than our powers.
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Or feathers was always there and we've just revealed her/convinced her to act.
 
Brief commentary follows:

Conversation with Kyubey is still a bad idea. This really shouldn't be coming up yet again. Bunnycat can and will outwit us, and just talking to it gives it further information and chances to act that we don't need to give it. Like, every single canon appearance is Exhibit A for why this is a terribad idea that we shouldn't even be considering.

Sayaka's kissing is considered suspicious-ie: should be physically impossible- by word of precog, time traveller, veteran, and our own instinct. So yeah, something's up with that.

Barriers are simply not worth the trouble and don't bring anything all that invaluable to the table given how hax our regular griefbending and assorted powers are. We can and should live without yet another gimmick for the time being. Griefhax is already discount reality warping. Pocket dimensions are vaguely interesting but absolutely not worth causing trouble for ourselves over via feathers, let alone the suspicions about witchiness from Mami and Homura of all people
 
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Mami seemed surprised that we were able to create a Barrier. She happy enough when we told her that we wanted to create it and show it to her, so the idea that she was fooling herself based on a paranoia of Barriers doesn't seem to be the case.
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Boone, I have to ask, do you chat with people normally, for fun? I can't fathom how you can see a relatively common conversational prompt and go AMNESIA!!!

Because it's pretty normal. I've done it; I've seen other people do it.
Anytime I'm like:
Friend: Hello.
Me: Have you tried creating a monstrous pocket dimens

Friend: Oh, I went to X.
Me: Cool.
[CONVERSATION INTERRUPTED]
[HOURS LATER]
Me: So, visited somewhere interesting lately?
Friend: Oh, I went to X. [CONVERSATION RESUMES, AND NO, I DIDN'T HAVE AMNESIA]

More ofted done when bringing up something awkward:
Friend: I broke up with my girlfriend, it sucked.
Me: That does suck.
[CONVERSATION INTERRUPTED]
[HOURS LATER]
Me: So... How's the girlfriend?
Friend: Oh, we broke up, it sucked. [CONVERSATION RESUMES. FRIEND VENTS]
Does this look 'happy enough' to you?
Mami shakes her head again, but she reluctantly continues, hesitance in her words. "Have you... tried making an actual Barrier?" She abruptly waves her hands frantically in a pacifying gesture. "It's just an idea!"

"I did, actually," you say. "It... well, it worked. I managed to make a Barrier."

"Oh," Mami says. "Oh." [Read: Oh, shit]

"Um, Mami?" you ask, directing a quizzical expression at her.

She doesn't respond immediately, before she slowly shakes her head again, eyes refocusing on you. She assays a little smile. "No... it makes sense," she murmurs. "Magic can be strange, and... wonderful, and I've never heard of anything like your powers, so it stands to reason, right?" She steps forward, arms spreading in an unspoken request for a hug.

You oblige, hugging Mami tightly. She wraps her arms around you, burying her head against the crook of your neck and holding you tightly. "Will you show me?" she asks softly.
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Seriously? Can't you see the fear? The denial through rationalization? The fact that she needs comfort after hearing this?

Mami practically lives in denial. That's all. Denial. Not 'paranoia of Barriers', just denial because she doesn't want her closest friends she's relying so much on to turn out to be a Witch.
boonerunner said:
I read the frown as Mami not remembering us telling her and the realization as her remembering it. Mami (temporarily) forgot that we had told her about the Barrier. It wasn't permanent amnesia, but it is a bit alarming that she had forgotten something so important that we had told her only a couple of hours previous. What the hell happened to Mami while we were gone?
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Why? She's just thinking and realizing we had a point. Mami was, is frantically looking for reasons why Sabrina's not the new Big Bad.
boonerunner said:
It's extremely odd that Sabrina herself would not have realized that she had gone into a fugue state the first time and that this was something that Mami should know about. In any case, the consequences of our not noticing one small detail were much more severe than the mistake should have warranted.
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No, it makes perfect sense.
SV is the as yet unnamed character, the unnamed character is SV.
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Sabrina did what we voted for. We didn't understand what the 30 lost minutes meant, so Sabrina didn't either. And really? A small detail?
boonerunner said:
We shouldn't have had to threaten anybody with witching out or death in order to convince Oriko that the best course of action was to work together to fight against the common threat.
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And I'm sure Feathers will turn out nice and good once we give her a hug. :)

Seriously, Oriko was the Main Antagonist. Of course it wasn't going to be easy.
 
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Our Benefactor pt. 35
  • Threadmarks
    • You watch Homura for a moment, waiting to see if she says anything. The cold silence of the timestop seems to press in, the oppressive deadness making you feel queasy. Your stomach's a worried ball of disquiet, your shoulders a tense mass of knots.

    Are you responsible for all this?

    Homura shifts a hair, her head swivelling just far enough to return her intense scrutiny to you. Her hands still hang loosely at her sides, and she makes no further moves, simply watching you.

    You force yourself to meet her eyes, searching her expression for any clue of what she might be thinking. The cold ball of fear sitting in your gut whispers that she's starting to doubt you. That she's starting to close herself off again. And some traitorous part of your mind wonders if she'd be wrong to.

    "Sabrina?" Mami asks again, voice trembling.

    You sigh, looking away from Homura with a grimace. "It's plausible," you allow. "But it's not something I can really test. If you're right..." Your mind eagerly supplies you with all the attendant implications, not a single one of them reassuring.

    "I..." You swipe at your face tiredly, closing your eyes and pressing your fingers against your eyelids for a long moment. Mami cuddles into your side, giving you a hug, and you force yourself to think.

    "OK," you say, eyes still closed. "OK. If you're right, that's... more than a little concerning. And it's difficult to prove without making the Barrier and risking it all over again."

    Mami nods against your side, still hugging you closely. You open your eyes, looking at Homura, but she doesn't seem to have reacted much to that, either. Violet eyes remain fixed on you, and you find it hard to meet that stare.

    Your eyes drop away from Homura's again, slipping to the spidery shadows scrawled across the ground by the gloom of the timestop. "I... OK," you say reluctantly. In case you're right, Mami, then... I simply won't make any more Barriers. No Barrier, no lightning rod, and no feathers. No Witches where they shouldn't be." You press your lips together, swallowing. You're not sure whether this will work, and whether you might've given up something crucial.

    Homura nods. The motion's barely perceptible, the barest dip of her head by a minuscule sliver of a centimetre, but... it's something.

    And you know what's important.

    Don't you?

    You press your lips together, and nod decisively. "Yeah. Until we know more, that's the best way to protect our friends," you say. "I'm not going to let this be my fault. I'm not. I'm going to keep my friends safe no matter what." You blow out a hard breath. "And if it's something else... well, I'll find it, and stop it."

    "I'll help," Mami says immediately, hugging you tightly. "I-I will."

    "Thanks, Mami," you say softly. You suppress a shiver, and raise your free hand to your Soul Gem. Touching a finger to the silvery-white Gem, you draw away a thick streamer of Grief, letting it pour away to form a sphere. "I... Mami? Homura? Do you need cleanses?"

    Mami shakes her head. "Not really," she demurs. For a wonder, her Soul Gem's fairly clean, so you let that pass.

    Homura watches you for a long moment, violet eyes remote, before her shoulders slump. Her gaze drops from yours, and she raises her right hand towards you to present the amethyst Soul Gem afixed there to you.

    You cleanse her Soul Gem with a thought and a small gesture, drawing away the frothing cloud of darkness. "Homura?" you ask. "I... what do you think?"

    She raises eyes to meet yours again, but not for long - her gaze slides off yours to rest somewhere on your nose. She looks uncertain, her jaw clenching and unclenching silently as she lowers her hand.

    She exhales slowly.

    "I..." she starts, before trailing off into silence, her eyes sliding away from your face. She looks around herself, one hand rising, and hesitating over the ribbon at her waist. "I don't know." Her eyes widen as the words pass her lips, almost surprised, and she flinches backwards.

    [] Write-in

    =====​

    Huh. How odd.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • Firnagzen said:
    "I... OK," you say reluctantly. "In case you're right, Mami, then... I simply won't make any more Barriers. No Barrier, no lightning rod, and no feathers. No Witches where they shouldn't be."
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    " missing.



    Uh-oh... Sympathy time?

    [] "I guess we're all in the same boat, then."

    Reassurance time?

    [] "You know what I think? I think somebody's messing with us. Something bigger than Walpurgisnacht, even. But whatever it is, we can take it together.
    [] Silently offer hug?

    Put away that feather already?
     
    Hannz said:
    If we're not an emotional wreck by then? Yeah, we should. We've put it off for far too long now.

    What time is it anyway? For all we know, it's past midnight in Mitikahara and Ono's asleep.
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    It's about 18-19 hs. 20 at most.

    Godwinson said:
    And? Sometimes people get overloaded. Continuing to push and push and push isn't exactly healthy.
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    We can take it. We need to reassure Homura.

    Notice how it was so difficult for us to meet Homura's eyes due to fear, until the end where it's Homura the one who can't. Now she's the scared one. We can't freak out right now.



    ... The fact that Mami hasn't accumulated all that much grief is so god damned reassuring.
     
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    [x]Agent whiskers
    Edit: Agent whiskers has the best vote right now, changed.
     
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