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Puella Magi Adfligo Systema

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Onmur said:
[ ] Be normal NiceBrina.
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Critically important.
Onmur said:
[ ] Idle chat. Ask the Tohoku girls how they're doing, and whether there's been any further problems.
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I like the generalization; Sabrina will handle any necessary detail on her own.
Onmur said:
[ ] Offer the Tohoku group a Clear Seed. Explain. Tell them you're also offering one to Rin, and every group you can reach. Hopefully, it'll be the end of Grief Seed scarcity.

We should tell them straight up that we're offering a Clear Seed to Rin's group, and hopefully they *coughHarucough* won't take that badly, specially if put in context of avoiding any future extortion rackets.
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Agreed. "Everybody will have one" is a pretty solid reason why nobody would be coming after them for it.

One change:
[] Do cleansing before anything else.

Same situation as last time, we want to get that out of the way early so nobody's worrying about it while we're talking. Also because everybody will be happier with no Grief on their gems, which is important if we want to be happybrina with people:
Firnagzen said:
You pull your hands back slowly, drawing Grief from their Soul Gems and Grief Seeds with the gesture - and you take the time to cleanse your own Soul Gem, too, and Mami's. The worry and the trepidation melts away from their expressions in that familiar way that comes with the lifting of very tangible negative emotions from their shoulders, drifting through the air to fall under your control.
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I'd actually like to do cleansing before we offer the clear seed, just so they're not as paranoid and worried about it.

Hmm. Other couple tweaks, generally move things in more general and positive directions.

Overall vote would be:

[] Be normal NiceBrina.
[] Do cleansing before anything else.
[] Introduce everybody.
[] Idle chat. Ask the Tohoku girls how they're doing, and whether there's been any further problems. Is there anything you could do to help?
[] Cuddle the Mami whenever appropriate.
[] Offer a Clear Seed. Explain. Tell them you're also offering one to every group you can reach. Hopefully it'll be the end of Grief Seed scarcity.
[] As with the Ishinomaki group, ask if everyone would like to hang out some time, for fun. Challenge Chouko to a flying race.

Are there any independents that should be here?
 
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Onmur said:
As I said, I'm on the fence on whether we should ask at all, at least until we actually see the girls. It's probably OK, though.
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I think that, if they feel indebted to us, it just gives us an opportunity to speechify at them about idealism and wanting to make a world where can just help each other without having to worry about debts and stuff. Or, depending on the tone, apologize and move on.
 
We didn't bring up Walpurgisnacht when we were talking to the Ishinomaki crew, so I assume we aren't talking to the Sendai groups about it yet, either?
 
PSA: For vote crafting/discussion purposes, you can check Cannongerbil's unofficial cast list. It has a roster of the meguca groups and known abilities of its' members.

(It's also linked at the first page, but tucked under "Useful information" so it's quite miss-able.)
 
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I'm not too proud to admit I lol'd. Like, only a liiittle? But there was totes chuckling. Anywho, should prolly keep our story straight regarding Walpurgisnacht.
 
In re: Legacy.

Working solution first.
Preferably one that doesn't depend on 'Brina becuz if it depends on 'Brina it'll be limited by 'Brina and whether or not 'Brina plans to live forever, 'Brina plans to retire at some point.

Legacy we can worry about once we start looking at our retirement plan.
I hear good things about Tahiti.
 
I definitely agree that we need to learn to walk before we can learn to run here, so yeah, grief cleaning that doesn't depend on us is an admirable goal, but it's one we need to work our way up to. We're still at the "throw ideas at the wall and see what sticks" phase of the enterprise
 
Vebyast said:
Even if it wasn't a complete waste of time, this was absolutely the wrong time to do it. We didn't talk to Nadia or Sayaka at all and I find that inexcusable. Nadia going in the same direction as us was about as direct a message as Firn could give us that he wanted us to talk to her more. If we're around other people, we should be doing social things with them. Save things we can do on our own - particular things that involve trancing out - for when we aren't doing it at the cost of talking to friends.
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I was kind of wondering about that. I mean, the vote specifically called for something quick to be done: that is, using a Grief-based meta-enhancer to make the enchantment, which is called out in the update as only taking five minutes to form. We did that, despite knowing it made the task less likely to work, in order to have more time to chat with Nadia both before and after, and yet somehow that five minute task stretched to take up the entire hour-long flight, which meant we didn't really get to any of the Social stuff that we called out as being more important. @Firnagzen is there a reason that happened?
 
TheEyes said:
We did that, despite knowing it made the task less likely to work, in order to have more time to chat with Nadia both before and after, and yet somehow that five minute task stretched to take up the entire hour-long flight, which meant we didn't really get to any of the Social stuff that we called out as being more important. @Firnagzen is there a reason that happened?
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Some chatter happened but was glossed over as Sabrina was mostly focused on trying different approaches.

Also, pacing.

:p
 
So, it's not directly pertinent to the argument that just happened, but this "argument from narrative" thing that's been going on for a while has been really bothering me on a fundamental level. Like "I've actually lost some sleep thinking about this shit" bothering me. Whether it's about fighting WPN, grief cleansing experiments, or just about anything else lately-- I don't want to spend a whole bunch of time disinterring and dismantling quotes, nor do I want to single out @Vebyast-- but I'm seeing a lot of use of the word 'narrative' when it comes to justifying actions, and 'this is the kind of story we're in'/'Firn is telling us to do/not do X/Y'.

You could easily be absolutely correct, and probably even are correct to a large extent, but as someone who has a lot of fun trying to understand the metaphysics of the world and create hypotheses to apply them/scientific principles to the world/our experiments (I unironically enjoyed PMKM because it explores the mechanics of the setting in an interesting way, even if it wasn't particularly well-written) it seriously rubs me the wrong way. I get that metagaming is explicitly a thing that is actively encouraged here, but it strikes me as... not irrational, but anti-rational.

Like the argument that Ugolino and I had a long time ago about trying to create a certain item; "This won't work and is a waste of time because it would break the story and Firn won't let us" is a perfectly valid and probably correct analysis, but it's not actually a reason within the context of the story itself, and I like things to have some kind of internally consistent justification to them. As much as I like Discworld (it's been far too long since I've read any, so my memory is failing me on that front), the implication that we should base our actual decision-making process on tropes and the vagaries of authorial fiat is something I'm not and probably never will be okay with doing.

It's like that one Banjo-Kazooie game that straight up told it's players to their face "We're going to make you collect random bullshit because this is a video game and collecting random bullshit is what you do in video games." I may be totally off the mark and rambling incoherently at this point, but it's... insipid might be the right word? It also strikes me as kind of insulting to Firnagzen's ability as an author and a world builder.

Tangentally related, on the subject of the grief-cleansing enchantment: I'm inclined to go with Sabrina and Mami's gut instinct here, the gauntlet is probably what's fucking things up/creating a feedback loop, because we're trying to use our grief manipulation to create an object that manipulates grief (if in a very specific manner). I originally disagreed with @Muramasa that speckled enchantment was "doing it wrong" per se due to its sheer utility, but then I realized that we're doing the exact same shit we called Oriko on by trying to use our powers to cheat at enchanting.

This is a skill that we need to build up manually by actually trying and failing at it a bunch of times, which means we need to get over our time dilation-induced ADHD, knuckle down, and actually put in the work. It wouldn't surprise me at all if Oriko would get a similar migraine from trying to use her future sight to help her enchant a crystal ball that could see the future.
 
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OK, so, on the subject of narrative analysis as a way of guiding your votes:

Look. I have a certain worldview, and more importantly, I have themes that I want to write about. I designed PMAS to work with those themes, and I've woven those themes into reasonable extrapolations of worldbuilding from the original material.

The dichotomy of a narrative vs. in-universe decision here is a false one, because the narrative works hand in hand with in-universe metaphysics. Justifying one with the other traces out parallel paths in logic. There are absolutely in-universe reasons that X won't work but Y will. The in-universe reasons will tend to align with out-of-story reasons. You can guess at one from the other, and you can experiment in universe or hypothesize from narrative reasons as to what is and what isn't a good idea. They're not exclusive.
 
[X] Do cleansing before anything else.
[X] Introduce everybody.
[X] Idle chat. Ask the Tohoku girls how they're doing, and whether there's been any further problems. Is there anything you could do to help?
[X] Offer a Clear Seed. Explain. Tell them you're also offering one to every group you can reach. Hopefully it'll be the end of Grief Seed scarcity.

[X] As with the Ishinomaki group, ask if everyone would like to hang out some time, for fun. Challenge Chouko to a flying race.

Is this line alright, at the right place?
EDIT: out
[] If nothing has gone badwrong, tell them about Walpurgisnacht. No pressure.
 
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If you actually find yourself in a world that exactly mimics that of fiction, even down to future events being predictible based on the plot, then the rational conclusions of many seperate thought experiments would support that the world operates on narrative conventions.

Edit: And if you are capable of observing this, that would indicate some familiarity with the fiction. Given the enormous amount of fiction that is written, some of which is lost to time or not yet conceived of, this astronomically improbable coincidence is likely not a coincidence at all.

It would be a strong indicator you were brought to that world because you knew about it.
 
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"... And then he said it out loud, he said it out loud! He had to say it out loud!"

"BWAHAHAHAAHAHAHA! Tell it again, tell it again!"
 
Onmur said:
[X] Do cleansing before anything else.
[X] Introduce everybody.
[X] Idle chat. Ask the Tohoku girls how they're doing, and whether there's been any further problems. Is there anything you could do to help?
[X] Offer a Clear Seed. Explain. Tell them you're also offering one to every group you can reach. Hopefully it'll be the end of Grief Seed scarcity.
[X] If nothing has gone badwrong, tell them about Walpurgisnacht. No pressure.
[X] As with the Ishinomaki group, ask if everyone would like to hang out some time, for fun. Challenge Chouko to a flying race.

Is this line alright, at the right place?
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I would rather have this week be a cleansing trip with no strings or alleged strings attached. We actually still have almost a month left until walpurgis. We have time.
 
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