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Puella Magi Adfligo Systema

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Anomalous Materials pt. 13
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    • You shrug, searching your memories. You... remember them ready to face Walpurgisnacht, but... You don't remember the outcome of that fight. "Maybe they did, maybe they didn't," you say. "I honestly don't know. My.. clairvoyance, weird alternate timeline knowledge, whatever, doesn't tell me what happened after that."

    Oriko nods, expression tired, shoulders set. Not all that different from before. Simple, fatalistic acceptance that you're... unfortunately familiar with, from her.

    "That's not the point, though," you say. "Really, it isn't."

    "I know the point you're trying to make," Oriko says, meeting your eyes. "That if I can simply try to, to think like that other me, I'd be fine. That's... that's not how people work."

    You sigh. "Not quite," you say. "The point is that that version of Oriko had better odds against Walpurgisnacht than you do. She could shoot frigging lasers, and she wasn't crippled by her own magic. She used her visions - they didn't use her. And whatever happened, if you died, you died together, with no regrets."

    "Sabrina..." Kirika sits up a little, frowning at you.

    Oriko's jaw sets. "I'm sorry I'm not as 'awesome' as my other self," she growls.

    You frown. "Oriko," you say. "You know me. You know me. That's not what I'm trying to say at all."

    "It sounds like you are," Oriko snaps.

    You press your lips together. "Oriko," you say. "I wouldn't do that. My point is-"

    Oriko interrupts you, slapping her hand to the table and half rising. Kirika starts to stand by her side. "That I'm not good enough, I'm not determined enough-"

    You remain seating - but you interrupt her. "No," you say, cutting across her speech. "You are. You are, Oriko. That is the point I want to make. You were happy then - you can be happy now."

    Oriko opens her mouth to say something, but you cut her off with a sharp, slicing motion of your hand. "Listen to me, Oriko," you snap, voice rising just a hair. Kirika bristles, her mouth pulling into an unhappy jag - but you have a point to make.

    You power into the silence, staring them down. "Fate isn't written in stone", you snarl. "We're magical girls, for goodness' sake - we make the impossible possible. You know that!"

    When the seer glances up at you, something dark and sullen blazes in her eyes and the twist of her lips. "Are you going to let me talk?"

    You sigh. "Go ahead, Oriko," you say. "Look, I'm not trying to demoralise you. Quite the opposite. So... Go on."

    "I am not her. I am not my other self," Oriko says, her voice a low, bitter thing. "Perhaps you are right; the potential exists. I will grant that." She meets your gaze steadily. "But it is hard to be optimistic when I can see the future and all I see is death. Maybe you're correct. This... isn't the meaning of my life."

    She takes a breath, jaw tightening. "Perhaps. But it's hard to see what it is when all I see is death and failure. And soon I won't even see that."

    "That's not true in the slightest," you counter. "Oriko, what were the odds? After you burned down Sayaka's house, that we'd just... drop out of thin air and stop you, right there? Just because you don't see a way to survive doesn't mean that we can't make one."

    Oriko's nostrils flare. "There isn't one," she hisses. "For all your pretty speeches, you don't have a solution."

    "I have one," you counter. "But the solution needs to come from you, as trite as it sounds. You need to realise-"

    "-the meaning of my life, yes, I've heard it already," Oriko cuts you off, glaring at you.

    "I've proven your visions wrong," you say, folding your arms. The fabric of your sleeves pull uncomfortably at your elbows. "I've proven your visions wrong, and you've proven your visions wrong. You see possible outcomes. You of all people should know how many people 'should' have died by now. You've fought fate-"

    "I fight it where it isn't inevitable," Oriko hisses. "When every path I might tread doesn't lead to an end."

    "And they don't," you insist, frustration bleeding into your tone. "I've proven your visions wrong, and you've countered your own visions. They're not infallible, and they're leading you down a dead end. We've already stacked the deck against Walpurgisnacht -and whatever more is to come- to a degree greater than it already has."

    You jab your finger at Oriko. "Do you want to talk about visions, Oriko?" you demand. "I've seen it destroyed. I've seen Walpurgisnacht destroyed, and no one had to die for it."

    Oriko's expression sets hard. "Then so be it," she says. "I think I've heard everything you have to say. And I think you can leave."

    Kirika's orange eyes go wide, shocked, as her head snaps around to stare at her girlfriend. "Oriko..." she says.

    "Kirika, we're just going in circles," the seer says, raising her hand to cover Kirika's.

    "No," Kirika says, shaking her head. "No. No, Oriko, I t-think... this is a mistake."

    Oriko groans, her head lolling back with eyes closed. "Sabrina. Please," she whispers. "Just... leave me alone for a while. We can talk more later. If that's alright, Kirika?"

    "I-" Kirika shakes her head. "I don't... I... it feels like that's a mistake, Oriko."

    [] Write-in

    =====​

    Oh dear.
     
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    • Well. Time for damage control.

    Step 1. Support Kirika.
    Step 2. Work with Oriko's concessions, go after her certainty that it's "inevitable".
    Step 3. When we say her other self...that's still her.

    Also, cleanses.

    I think that last line about Walpurgisnacht is where things went really badly. WHAT happened there?
     
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    [X] If Kirika doesn't want me to go then I won't go. But I'll sit quietly in the corner until you're feeling a bit less tense.

    With Oriko, we've crossed the line from "discussion" to "debate". One thing I've noticed about debates is that you never convince the other party during them, but they often come round to your PoV once they've cooled off and stopped feeling defensive.
     
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    Lol, just let her kill herself or something... She obviously doesn't want to live. Or would that actually violate our wish?
     
    Ugolino said:
    I think that last line about Walpurgisnacht is where things went really badly. WHAT happened there?
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    You started talking about Walpurgisnacht when that's not what she's worried about. She knows we can kick Walpurgisnacht's ass. She's told us we can kick Walpurgisnacht's ass. It's Feathers that is the issue. Mentioning Walpurgisnacht just shows that you weren't thinking about what she's actually saying.
     
    Beyogi said:
    Lol, just let her kill herself or something... She obviously doesn't want to live. Or would that actually violate our wish?
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    No. And that's the last we're discussing this lest terrible thoughts happen again.
    apeljohn said:
    [] If Kirika doesn't want me to go then I won't go. But I'll sit quietly in the corner until you're feeling a bit less tense.
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    Tempting. Everyone really needs to chill for a while here. We might take this as our chance to discuss things independently with Kirika.
     
    ...bloody hell, really tempted to make a Ring of Irrepressible Optimism or something. We probably shouldn't, but it's definitely tempting.
     
    Muramasa said:
    I think boone's theory may have some weight to it.
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    Was that the one where Oriko wanted to commit suicide by Homura?

    boonerunner said:
    Sabrina's actions that disrupt Oriko's visions may be annoying and painful, but when Oriko has visions that uniformly show possible outcomes of death and destruction; anything that shakes things up is good.


    Of course Oriko misinterpreted her wish (or else she's misinterpreting her current motivations). Otherwise she would already know why her wish magic is having problems. I'm sure that Kyouko (for instance) was quite aware of why that part of her magic failed. And here's why she's angry:

    Oriko is angry because she keeps seeing everyone die.


    The source of Oriko's fatalism is not Feathers. Feathers came later. Feathers causes genuine distress, but Oriko strives against it as well as she can. And there are plenty of other things (such as the "open conflict in Mitakihara") that also cause considerable distress. But to find out the root cause of Oriko's fatalism, you have to go back to the beginning and look at her father's suicide and the effects that had on her psyche.


    This line is crucial. Oriko did not say "I'm willing to give my life", she said "I will give my life". It is strong support for my earlier conjecture that Oriko was having thoughts about suicide and wished to commit suicide-by-proxy, so she wished to find a meaning for her life (i.e. "saving the world") that let her go out in a blaze of glory. Note that her visions themselves would not necessarily show this future. It could be much more insidious than that - perhaps her visions show her possible (horrible and perhaps unlikely) futures that seem to be solvable only by actions that put Oriko at risk in the process. This would do quite a bit to explain Oriko's stupid plans to "save" Sayaka by burning her house down and to "befriend" Hitomi by pushing her down a flight of stairs - the primary result of these actions was violent conflict with Homura. Oriko only survived due to Sabrina's intervention (which is unpredictable by her power).


    Here's the conflict. When Oriko made her wish, she wanted to die. Now she doesn't. This is not the only possible explanation for the conflict between Oriko's wish and her current desires, but it's the one with the most support that I've seen so far (the "agency" one and the "destiny" one didn't get any additional support in this update, at any rate).

    [] "Maybe I am naive, but if you can learn things from visions of potential futures, maybe you can also learn something from a story about an alternate timeline. But I do have a few questions for you before I begin:"
    -[x] After each question, wait patiently for Oriko to respond. Don't interrupt her and wait for her to completely finish:
    [x] "I know that you don't want to die, but when you made your wish did you assume that the wish would cost you your life?"
    [x] "Is it possible that your visions are more limited than they seem - that they only lead to situations where you have to die in order to accomplish some noble task?"
    [x] "You see visions of terrible things happening. How many times have these visions been prevented from happening in unexpected ways because of my actions and your actions?"
    [x] "We can prevent the horrible events that you see in your visions. With or without your precognition we can save the world. Together."
    [x] Tell Oriko about her actions and the consequences of those actions in Symmetry Diamond.

    Edit: updated wording to show the parallels between learning from visions of potential futures and learning from alternate histories.
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    welp, i think we should cleanse and let her think a little bit, and cooldown, before another debate, because clearly Oriko and Sabrina are not in a good state of mind to make good decisions right now, lets trust Kirika a little bit and let her talk to Oriko and calm her down for our next session with her.
     
    [x] Cleanse everyone's soul gems.
    [x] (What to do next? Ask Kirika for advice? Continue our discussion?)
     
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