Puella Magi Adfligo Systema

[AuraTwilight]

Fair, but I'm not sure it's safe or ethical to create a Sabrina-aura for the same reason that witch-effects are problematic.

 

[Ugolino]

Yeah, no, an aura is never going to be a good use of time. Even if it wasn't doomed to failure.

Can we please consider how we're going to handle the next few votes?

 

[Skelm]

Fair, but I'm not sure it's safe or ethical to create a Sabrina-aura for the same reason that witch-effects are problematic.

Click to shrink...

As far as ethics goes, "all Grief controlled by Sabrina is immediately recognised as such whenever anyone senses it through any means" is basically the same idea as putting signs on things.

You have a point about safety, since we still don't know what actually happens when we let Grief disperse and affecting things with Grief seems to require some amount of Grief to enter the object. We should ask Oriko if our shitty healing stick was actually dangerous or if it just didn't work, it should be at least as bad.

On the up side, this is evidence that we can just fiat Grief into existence, since out healing stick could just make a limb out of Grief (presumably) without getting any smaller. Despair may not need a mind to feed on itself!

Can we please consider how we're going to handle the next few votes?

Click to shrink...

What would you like us to consider, exactly? We seem pretty decided on the rest of our conversation with Ono, Masami and Hiroko, unless something we can't plan for happens and the Kyouko visit shouldn't be complicated.

 

[defenestrator]

Could someone give me the TLDR why we're discussing if we should or should not modify the 'witch-feel' of our transmuted grief?

 

[Muramasa]

Yeah, no, an aura is never going to be a good use of time. Even if it wasn't doomed to failure.

Can we please consider how we're going to handle the next few votes?

Click to shrink...

We're kinda up shits creek regarding Mami. Weather the dinner plans hold or not, we're probably not going to be able to make it.

We can't make Kirika wait that long.

 

[Firnagzen]

"... Well, thanks!" you say, beaming at them. That went well. That went really well.

You kind of sort of want to just launch yourself at them and give them a hug for being reasonable, but they probably won't take it very well.

Hiroko giggles abruptly, and passes her hand over her face. You can feel the illusion weaving into place, delicate, fiery strands of magic twisting to alter her appearance. It's a subtle effect - deepening of the shadows, her eyes a little sunken, her face a little more gaunt.

She coughs, and speaks in a far deeper voice than usual. "This is your magical girl on Grief." Even her voice is slurred. Exhausted.

"Or you could always illusion me back into the skeleton state," Masami offers.

"... Don't scare her too badly," you say, shaking your head with a smile. "I mean, the idea is to train her. I mean, scaring her straight has its place, but still."

"... I'll rein her in" Hiroko asks, giving her girlfriend a look.

"Aw, don't be like that," the redhead says. "Remember back when you were my cute little kohai?"

"Yes," Hiroko says. If her voice were any drier, you could market her as industrial grade dessicant. "Yes, I do."

"Doesn't look like you managed to scare her straight," you say, jabbing a thumb at the black haired girl.

The couple roll their eyes in unison. "Har har," Masami says.

"Anyway," you say. "What shall I tell Megane? Or... do you want me to just patch you through by telepathy?"

Hiroko clicks her tongue, cutting off Masami. "She doesn't like you, right?" she asks.

"Yeah," you admit. "Through no fault of my own! I just... made a bad impression."

"Mmmhm." Masami injects a certain amount of scepticism into the noise.

"I think it would be best if we were to contact her on our own," Hiroko says slowly. "So that we can make our own impression. Do you know where she lives? Where she goes to school?"

"Yes, and yes. Yokosuka Middle School," you say, nodding. Are you that bad at making first impressions? You absently rattle off her address. "... Do you think business cards would help?"

"... Business cards?" Hiroko asks, thrown by the sudden change of topic.

"Uh, sorry. Was just thinking that I'm awful at making first impressions," you explain, shaking the thoughts away. "So I was thinking, like, making a business card? White Ribbon Corporations, with a picture of a Grief Seed on the back, but uh, never mind."

"... Right," Masami says, exchanging a look with Hiroko. The black haired girl shrugs, looking just as confused.

"Anyway," you say, waving your hand at them. "I mentioned a project too, didn't I?"

"Yes, you did," Hiroko confirms with a nod. "Uh, do you want the gold bar back, by the way?"

"Hm? Yeah, pass it back? And right, so..." You root around in your pocket, and produce Hildegarde's Grief Seed. "Right, see this?" You pass it over to Hiroko, exchanging it for the gold bar.

"... is this a Grief Seed?" she asks, holding it so that both her and Masami can examine it.

"Kind of?" you say. "I call it a clear Seed, and uh. Well, I basically just take a Grief Seed and keep pulling Grief out until there's almost nothing left."

"Sooo..." Masami asks, raising an eyebrow. "It can be used more?"

"Yeah," you say. "Exactly. A couple hundred times, if I'm calculating it correctly? Or was it a couple thousand?"

Masami's eyes widen. "Holy shit."

Hiroko nods in silent agreement. "That's... amazing," she whispers. "If we'd had these..."

"Yeah," you say. "That's the idea. I... I haven't entirely perfected these, but I'm passing them around for testing."

Both Masami and Hiroko look at you with eager anticipation in their eyes, an identical smile spread across two faces.

"... Look, ease off on the puppy dog eyes and let me lay out the downsides first?" you say, rubbing at your forehead.

"I'm not making puppy dog eyes," Masami protests.

... She totally is. Quite effectively, too, with her devastatingly large, soft brown eyes.

"Sabrina?" Mami's voice sounds inside your head.

"Hi, Mami!" you respond cheerfully while raising an unimpressed eyebrow at Masami. "OK, the first problem is that if you put it together with a normal Grief Seed, the normal one will pull as much Grief as it can from the clear one, which, uh, can bring it pretty close to hatching."

"So... Keep it away from normal Grief Seeds?" Masami asks.

Mami's mental voice brightens. "Hi, Sabrina. How are you?"

"I'm doing fine. How are you?" you respond to Mami, giving Masami a judicious nod. "Just so. And the other thing is... I'm... not quite sure they're absolutely safe yet, I have to admit."

"Feh. Knew it was too good to be true," Masami mutters.

"I'm doing well, too," Mami says. "It's math class now!"

"Yeah... They're definitely safe for a few days, a week at least," you say. "I have a friend who's a seer, and she's been using them for a few days. She hasn't forseen any particular consequences with them."

... hm. Friend? Is that what Oriko is to you? You're... not really sure. You muse on that as you reply to Mami. "Ah, how's that going?"

"... of course you know a seer," Masami mutters. Hiroko shakes her head, swatting Masami lightly.

"It's going well!" Mami responds. "I- ah! Miss Sakaguchi's calling on me, I need to present. I'll... I'll talk to you soon?"

"Soon," you promise Mami. You shrug at Masami. "Well. Yeah, I do," you say. "But yeah, that's the current state of affairs with the clear Seeds. They're functional. And... the one I have there's a... prototype of sorts, but I can make one for you girls if you want? I'd just need to go fight a Witch."

Hiroko leans forward. "Would any Grief Seed do?" She reaches inside her skirt pocket and pulls out a Grief Seed. You check it - about half full.

[] Write-in

=====​

Well, yeah.

 

[rikalous]

Could someone give me the TLDR why we're discussing if we should or should not modify the 'witch-feel' of our transmuted grief?

Click to shrink...

The goal is to be able to use witch-grief in battle without making our buddies wig out because there's something that feels like a witch next to them (q.v. Mami and Homura starting to pull guns on us the first time we tried it). Some folks consider it impossible and/or think that if it is possible it's not worth the effort.

 

[defenestrator]

The goal is to be able to use witch-grief in battle without making our buddies wig out because there's something that feels like a witch next to them (q.v. Mami and Homura starting to pull guns on us the first time we tried it). Some folks consider it impossible and/or think that if it is possible it's not worth the effort.

Click to shrink...

Thanks

So if it's mostly combat-oriented, then why not just a visual cue instead? If we're fighting a fuckstrong witch, it won't matter much if we telegraph our attack, so long as we get the message across, our allies get out of the firing lane, and we don't eat friendly fire in the face.

If it's PvP, then being subtle about it means jackshit, since practically everyone in the battlefield would feel it if we start using Griefhax shenanigans.

 

[UbeOne]

Initial vote: [x] Make a clear seed out of the grief seed.

Anything else to add?

 

[Ugolino]

It's a mind-whammy effect, the whole thing works off grief anyway making "not reading of grief" an exercise in futility, and we generally have better things- read: anything else- to do.

On the story: these two are adorable.

[x]...Yep, that'll do!
[x]Take it outside. Make a clear seed.
[x]Thank them again. If they ever need a cleanse, or us to take her off their hands or something, or even something going wrong or Ono acting up...we'd be happy to drop by.
[x]Talk to Kirika again. Make sure she's doing okay.
[x]Ping Kyoko. Ask if we can drop by. There are a few things we'd like to ask her about...
-[x]Chat with Mami on the way if so. Ask her about our plans for today after school. Gently bring up Oriko if necessary.

 

[UbeOne]

[x] Ugolino

 

[defenestrator]

I dunno if it'll be an automatic action, but if we are giving them a clear seed, then we could tell them that if anything strange happens when using it, then they should contact us ASAP, and to always keep a few 'normal' seeds as backup.

 

[Guilop]

Maybe add a warning that there'll be a shitload of grief, when we're making the clear seed?

 

[Muramasa]

We probably want to take this outside. There's going to be a lot of grief.

 

[Gadjo]

Again, it gives us time.

Click to shrink...

What? You're talking about a weird aura thing. I fail to see how it gives us time. Is it also timestop?

[X] Ugolino

 

[Sereg]

Yeah, no, an aura is never going to be a good use of time. Even if it wasn't doomed to failure.

Click to shrink...

It creates time. There's little that could be a better use of time. And again, there's no evidence it'll fail. If taking a few seconds to test it is going to be problematic, we were never going to win in the first place and if it does work, we suddenly have weeks of time available.

Thanks

So if it's mostly combat-oriented, then why not just a visual cue instead? If we're fighting a fuckstrong witch, it won't matter much if we telegraph our attack, so long as we get the message across, our allies get out of the firing lane, and we don't eat friendly fire in the face.

If it's PvP, then being subtle about it means jackshit, since practically everyone in the battlefield would feel it if we start using Griefhax shenanigans.

Click to shrink...

Firstly, because our teammates freak out even when we actively tell them that we're going to see grief. Secondly, it's so that we can use our grief items non-stop so we never have to start anything unprepared and can continue our attempts to fix everything while with our friends. At the moment, we can almost never use our powers It means that we'll be able to always use our powers.

It's a mind-whammy effect, the whole thing works off grief anyway making "not reading of grief" an exercise in futility, and we generally have better things- read: anything else- to do.

Click to shrink...

Again, you're not listening. We're not trying to stop it from reading as grief. We're trying to make it recognisable as our grief. These are completely different things. And anything that creates time is always a productive use of time.


But I agree with your vote

[x] Ugolino


EDIT:^ All right. I'll explain. Due to the fact that our allies freak out when we make grief constructs, we can basically never use grief-constructs in their presence. This means that our time spent trying to fix everything is reduced to ... let's be generous and say one hour per day. If we can use grief constructs in their presence, we can spend literally every single waking second trying to solve our problems. Let's be generous and give ourselves twelve hours a day on downtime for sleep and stuff. That means that making our grief identifiable as hours multiplies the time available for us to solve things by at least twelve times.

 

[Skelm]

So if it's mostly combat-oriented, then why not just a visual cue instead?

Click to shrink...

Witch sense isn't visually oriented, we ideally want something that works on the same sensory channel instead of requiring them to turn and look at it before deciding if they want to attack.

This is probably only relevant during witch fights though, and we shouldn't need Witch Grief for those. During PvP everyone already knows we're the only source of Grief.

[x] Ugolino

 

[Gadjo]

It creates time. There's little that could be a better use of time. And again, there's no evidence it'll fail. If taking a few seconds to test it is going to be problematic, we were never going to win in the first place and if it does work, we suddenly have weeks of time available.

Click to shrink...

I'm still extremely confused. How does it create time? We have timestop for that, if we absolutely need it.

 

[Sereg]

I'm still extremely confused. How does it create time? We have timestop for that, if we absolutely need it.

Click to shrink...

I edited in an explanation for that. And we don't have timestop. Homura does. We can't use it for whatever we want and freaking our Homura in timestop is not a good idea. If you think that time isn't a problem because of timestop, you don't have any reason to complain about experiments wasting time.

 

[Ugolino]

...Sereg? This idea won't do what you seem to think it does, it won't work in the first place, and even if it did it would be less useful than our existing tools.

 

[Gadjo]

EDIT:^ All right. I'll explain. Due to the fact that our allies freak out when we make grief constructs, we can basically never use grief-constructs in their presence. This means that our time spent trying to fix everything is reduced to ... let's be generous and say one hour per day. If we can use grief constructs in their presence, we can spend literally every single waking second trying to solve our problems. Let's be generous and give ourselves twelve hours a day on downtime for sleep and stuff. That means that making our grief identifiable as hours multiplies the time available for us to solve things by at least twelve times.

Click to shrink...

Bad idea. Not only will other meguca still feel "witch" on top of whatever else, but it'll also seem very rude. Imagine someone texting constantly as they spoke to you. Sure, they seem to be totally paying attention- it's actually kind of impressive- but you really don't feel they're giving you their full attention.

 

[defenestrator]

All right. I'll explain. Due to the fact that our allies freak out when we make grief constructs, we can basically never use grief-constructs in their presence. This means that our time spent trying to fix everything is reduced to ... let's be generous and say one hour per day. If we can use grief constructs in their presence, we can spend literally every single waking second trying to solve our problems. Let's be generous and give ourselves twelve hours a day on downtime for sleep and stuff. That means that making our grief identifiable as hours multiplies the time available for us to solve things by at least twelve times

Click to shrink...

...They're not? I mean we've been using grief constructs ever since we figured out how to use them. Yes, it makes them uncomfortable especially when used in large amounts, but it's not causing them any great annoyance or physical pain. The only time it was a serious problem (excepting the labyrinth trance incident) was when we used them in a witch fight. Otherwise, our other meguca friends are pretty much okay when we're experimenting with grief constructs.

The real problem with constantly making grief constructs is that Sabrina literally spaces out when making them, notbaly on the more complicated stuff. We just don't notice the time passing by.

 

[pantherasapiens]

I vote we just give it a shot regardless, and if it works, great, and if it doesn't, also great, because now we'll have other things to worry about.

 

[Slith10]

Grefe Sid is ho!
[X] The Lino formally known as Ugo.

 

[Ugolino]

I vote we just give it a shot regardless, and if it works, great, and if it doesn't, also great, because now we'll have other things to worry about.

Click to shrink...

We don't have unlimited time and even if we did, there really are better things to do- saving Oriko, enchantment, even something like combat practice.