mCooperative
meanderingCephalopod
- Location
- Back in Mitakihara after like 1000 years.
Puella Magi Adfligo Systema
- Thread starter Firnagzen
- Start date
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- Tags
- puella magi adfligo systema puella magi madoka magica be gay do crimes (gay) female protagonist bad decisions dating mami tomoe (tomoe mami) diabolical laughter friendship is the best ship handholding identity crises microwaving tea gets you put in the bad place names are important the body is the fursona of the soul this is not the baked goods thread we don't talk about rionna what could possibly go wrong? who in the world is azure sanfrancisco?
Vebyast
Nascent Transhuman
Honestly, I feel like this isn't something that's worth thinking about. It's like asking someone if they're worried about not having enough canned food in their apartment's closet to survive their city getting nuked. Yes, that's a situation in which you'd need emergency supplies, but, uh, you're about fifty meters from ground zero and your city is big enough that it's likely been assigned multiple megaton-range weapons, canned food isn't the problem here.
mCooperative
meanderingCephalopod
- Location
- Back in Mitakihara after like 1000 years.
Okay, can we be clear, have we decided we're bringing up our origins from Madoka's wish after all? Because I'm still not- the winning vote doesn't really address the implications of doing this, despite bringing it up. And despite lots of talk there haven't been a lot of explicit alternatives dealing with it.
Can we explicitly decide if we really want to open that can of worms? Because while it's not too close to the Potentialbomb, it's still a big discussion. Do we all agree this is the right time, and if not, how do we want to proceed?
Can we explicitly decide if we really want to open that can of worms? Because while it's not too close to the Potentialbomb, it's still a big discussion. Do we all agree this is the right time, and if not, how do we want to proceed?
Onmur
Archangel of Nutella.
Ehhhhh... I'm more of a mind to include the fact the timeline's just working better on its own, and relevant to the loops, that lots of the things we make work, we make work thanks for the loops themselves, to the knowledge we derive from them.
Nothing about whether we're a product of Madoka's Wish, and would rather stay far away from the potentialbomb.
The Narrator
Disembodied Voice
- Location
- Somewhere Offscreen
Haven't we already broached that subject with Homura previously? And even joked about how she and Homura were like our moms?
Aranfan
Team Plasma Grunt
Yes, and she was the one who came up with the idea in the first place.
The Phoenixian
The Glacier Witch
- Location
- My own little world
You're looking at it wrong.
Imagine you're playing a videogame and trying to get as far as you can... but you're not really doing all that well. Even you're intermediate goals aren't going well and you've turned to sacrificing it all just to get to the end. And it still seems to accomplish nothing. Even on those times when the RNG is extremely favorable (Oriko's timeline) it all gets yanked away from you at the last minute... and that was a long long time ago.
Now imagine you've just gotten a godlike bit of RNG again. Everything is going extremely well... but... it's not really your doing. It's not something you can ever replicate. It's almost like a glitch, and you know that things this good have been yanked away from you before.
Now imagine your worries about what happens if you fail. Because if you lose this? You know, that you may never get a chance this good again.
If you lose... that's gonna be pretty demoralizing.
That's what I imagine Homura's feeling right now. Only instead of a videogame, it's all very, very real.
CHA
Yes, charisma. Sabrina is more of a people person than Homura even when she's trying her best. And the fact that through the loops the only way Homura had to not break herself was to take the cold facade (and it's a facade, because she clearly cares too).
Now, how to focus as a positive reinforcement to Homura? I can only imagine focusing on everybody (Homura included) as friends and allies.
Vebyast
Nascent Transhuman
Do we have any ideas for addressing Homura's promise to Madoka? That's what we need. We're not going to finish it today, but I feel like Homura's going to have trouble making it to our next conversation unless we make an attempt.
...In the Golden Ending of the PSP game, how exactly did Homura deal with Madoka's request from the third loop? Did Madoka stay sufficiently sheltered in that timeline that Homura felt successful?
I think that I'm going to bring up Homura Vacation Time again. Not with everyone, but I feel like the situation just keeps pushing on Homura and she needs time to absorb it and stabilize.
Thinking about this loop failing is off the table. We are not doing it. We are not going to make it a possibility that Homura has to think about right now because thinking about it will destroy her. We will not fail. Doubt means defeat. We cannot fail. I will not allow us to contemplate the possibility.
We are not in some grimdark derp shit universe where we have to have a will written out and send letters home to our family with ominous valedictions and prepare for the worst. We are in the timeline where everything will be fixed. We are the magical girl classic. FUCK the negativity. FUCK the defeatist attitude. It has no place here. We ignore it. We refuse the possibility of failure. Failure is not an option.
We don't make plans for WHAT IF WE'RE ABOUT TO WITCH OUT AND WE HAVE TO COMMIT SUICIDE. We don't make plans for WHAT IF MADOKA WISHES AND WE HAVE TO KILL HER. We don't make plans for WHAT IF HOMURA AKUMAS. And we don't make plans for Homura having to make another loop.
...In the Golden Ending of the PSP game, how exactly did Homura deal with Madoka's request from the third loop? Did Madoka stay sufficiently sheltered in that timeline that Homura felt successful?
I think that I'm going to bring up Homura Vacation Time again. Not with everyone, but I feel like the situation just keeps pushing on Homura and she needs time to absorb it and stabilize.
It would be pretty demoralizing! So demoralizing, in fact, that I'm fairly sure that Homura would despair if this loop fails. That's what I mean when I say that this is like worrying about canned food when your block is slated to be ground zero. If even godlike RNG can't do it, if even a late-loops "everything could be fixed" Wish from Madokami Herself isn't enough... well, it's just hopeless, isn't it?
Thinking about this loop failing is off the table. We are not doing it. We are not going to make it a possibility that Homura has to think about right now because thinking about it will destroy her. We will not fail. Doubt means defeat. We cannot fail. I will not allow us to contemplate the possibility.
We are not in some grimdark derp shit universe where we have to have a will written out and send letters home to our family with ominous valedictions and prepare for the worst. We are in the timeline where everything will be fixed. We are the magical girl classic. FUCK the negativity. FUCK the defeatist attitude. It has no place here. We ignore it. We refuse the possibility of failure. Failure is not an option.
We don't make plans for WHAT IF WE'RE ABOUT TO WITCH OUT AND WE HAVE TO COMMIT SUICIDE. We don't make plans for WHAT IF MADOKA WISHES AND WE HAVE TO KILL HER. We don't make plans for WHAT IF HOMURA AKUMAS. And we don't make plans for Homura having to make another loop.
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The Phoenixian
The Glacier Witch
- Location
- My own little world
Okay, seriously, I'm going to speak in no uncertain terms here.
Failure happens. Defeatism isn't saying that it's possible, defeatism is saying that it's inevitable. Refusing to consider failure as a possibility and taking measures to alleviate that possibility? That isn't optimistic. It is ostrich-with-it's-head-in-the-sand stupid. Especially here, where we had an omake from Firn that was originally planned to be a canon update, about blowing ourselves up if we went to far, too incautiously.
For us, as questers? Yes, we can and should do everything in our power to win here and now and have no reason to plan to nor rely on looping.
But if Homura is worried that shit could go down and we manage to fuck things up to hell and back? Then I'm going to give her that hope that things could get better, permanently, with or without us.
OctarineShrike
Avatar of Mandos
@The Phoenixian
Which means... setting her up with a motherlode of clear seeds/a chance of replicating some measure of the soft power we can bring to bear perhaps?
Which means... setting her up with a motherlode of clear seeds/a chance of replicating some measure of the soft power we can bring to bear perhaps?
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- Location
- The Surface Of A Hostile Planet
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The Phoenixian
The Glacier Witch
- Location
- My own little world
Relevant line:
The way it's worded has me inferring that Firn that write up ready when before the wish vote was even called. Which would mean he was writing it up for the specific event of us pulling that and, as such, quite likely likely the game-over scene, or something similar.
EDIT:
I'd prefer something more systemic, but yes, that's one of many possibilities. For another similar example If we end up figuring out a teachable cleansing enchantment? That not only serves as something useful here, it's also something Homura can remember and carry with herself forever after.
For an entirely different vein, telling her that she may be able to take people with her, which changes the fundamental calculus in it's own way.
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mCooperative
meanderingCephalopod
- Location
- Back in Mitakihara after like 1000 years.
Seems like a good start actually, yeah. Can we write out some of our non-potentialbomb knowledge about events that Homura might not have? Not necessarily suggesting that- though not necessarily not- but could we? Hn, and any of our out-of-context-insights. Even if it's literally just "we have a last will and a Brinabrain!AI if it comes to that- but it's not going to damn come to that". And any other things we could put together, to pass to Homura for a next loop, it if ever should come to that. I mean, not now, this isn't the time if we haven't prepared yet. But later.
I dunno, like, I'm the sort of excessively concerned/paranoid/whatever that even if in the event of a nuclear bomb, even if I'd me more likely dead, it's honestly rather reassuring to have all my ducks in order, and supplies/flashlights/useless but reassuring apocalypse knicknacks- just in case it does come to that after all. I can't imagine that Homura doesn't have at least some of that sort of mindset and paranoia.
Actually, being honest, the reason I was paying such attention to Homura keeping the rocks and the mops and the other clutter of inventory stuff, is because it's just really familiar. I wasn't joking when I said past-me did the same thing, even without hammerspace. I have a literal shovel in my backpack, most of the time, among other crap. Even if it's supremely unlikely, even if you're doing your damndest to never have to get there, being prepared for things going to absolute shit and having a plan, and just-in-case equipment, can be really reassuring, at the very least so you can stop thinking about it, because you know it's been planned for, and you can focus on never having to use those plans.
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Vebyast
Nascent Transhuman
There's a difference between "what if this conversation doesn't go right" and "what if the quest bad-ends". You think that Homura being forced to loop again is the former. It is not. It is the latter. If this loop fails, Homura despairs. It is that simple. There is nothing we can do about it. There is no way to build her up to it. There is no way to save her if we fail. She will look at us, look at herself, and not be able to continue. Not with all the clear seeds in the world duct-taped to her soul gem. That is what this conversation is about. That is what Homura is saying right now.Article: "Maybe, Vlad. Maybe the whole world."
"No," I said. "I know it wasn't the whole world."
"Oh?" she said. "How can you tell?"
"Because if they can do that, we don't have a chance against them."
She laughed. "Ah. I see. I'm not familiar with that logic."
I shrugged. "Actually, I'm not kidding. That's one thing I learned in the course of my long and checkered career. If your only chance of living through something is if your enemy isn't a sorcerer, or doesn't have a spare dagger, or can't jump an eleven-foot crevasse, then you assume your enemy isn't a sorcerer, or doesn't have a spare dagger, or can't jump an eleven-foot crevasse."
I see where you're coming from on "Build Homura up until she thinks that she could keep going if Sabrina fails". The problem is that that task is equivalent to solving Homura's trauma entirely. Or if it doesn't depend on that, then it is of equivalent difficulty. Which is to say, sure, it's a thing you could try to do. It's also all by itself a sufficient condition for fixing Homura and potentially good-ending the quest. And I think that there are more efficient ways to do that.
You're also forgetting our current hypothesis about Feathers, namely that Homura already Witched Out and this last timeline is the final battle between Madokami vs. Homura Akuma.
Not going to help. Homura's conflict right now isn't "Everything I did was useless". It's the tension between "Madoka's Request says do everything myself" and "Sabrina is succeeding by not doing everything herself". Our success, right now, is an attack on the part of her that makes her Homura instead of Moemura. Telling her this will strengthen the side of her that is in conflict with our success thereby worsening her internal conflict. We need another approach.
NO. If we start taking action on the possibility of our failure, Homura despairs. She's clinging desperately to us right now. We're her only hope. Look at her. If we start acting like we're going to fail, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. We need to have total and absolute confidence in ourselves right now, because we are the Captain in the Big Chair and our appearance of unshakable faith is the only thing keeping Homura going. Now is not the time for doubt.
We were talking earlier about who leads the Mitakihara group, and here's my answer. We do. Not because we give the orders. Not because people listen to us. Not because we have the vision or the information. We are the leader because everyone else looks to us for strength. We can worry about if we're doing the right thing. We can ask people for advice. We can delegate to people that are better than us at particular tasks. But when people are stressed out and looking for direction in a crisis, they look to us, because we can give them that direction and strengthen them with our confidence so they can get through it.
edit: This is why I don't think that it is useful to reassure Homura that she'll be able to continue if we fail. We're up against the wall. If we're going with military analogies: Our failure modes cannot be mitigated. There aren't any reinforcements. There isn't any preserving strength for the next battle. We're in charge of the last squadron in the system and our opponent intends to bombard the planet. We don't send a ship away to get help. We don't retreat and try again later. We stop them. That's it. Our only options are success and failure, so our only option is to presume we will succeed and commit to it completely, otherwise we waver.
That or he was going to post it as an omake to tell us to not do stupid shit with the power we'd just voted for? Bad-ending the quest immediately after power acquisition, without even giving us a chance to vote for whether we'd do stupid shit with the new power, would be the stupidest, shittiest quest-mastering I'd have seen in a long time, and that's saying something.
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mCooperative
meanderingCephalopod
- Location
- Back in Mitakihara after like 1000 years.
I think I may have not communicated my point correctly. While you have the point that it is possibly Homura might not find this reassuring- and that is a point where the thread, and you and I particularly, may diverge on our interpretations of Homura- I was not saying anything to the affect of start doubting.
It doesn't take practical doubt for creeping worry to be nagging at your subconscious. To have the thought "but my house could burn down while I'm gone" even though it's statistically unlikely. (I choose this example because of the sheer number of fire alarm concerns happening lately for me, rather than as a reference to Sayaka's house, but the point stands.) On my part, to prepare for things going badly isn't an expression of beginning to doubt success, or even beginning to worry about the bad things. It's a way of fighting the anxiety and intrusive thoughts that come up even when it's completely goddamn unfounded. Everything can be going perfectly, everyone can be okay and in good health and not angry and you can be fiscally secure- and because shit has gone down before, part of you can always be expecting something to happen, even though logically you're perfectly able to tell those thoughts to fuck off. Having shit ready for in case you do falter, in case suddenly everyone is in the hospital or things are on fire or everyone is suddenly angry at eachother and you're in the middle of it- it's a way of being able to put down that concern, because you've already done all you can ahead of time for it, and you can focus on not getting there, instead of having to deal with the Five Hundred Ways This Could Go Wrong And How You're Not Prepared For Any Of Them every single hour of your day. It's a way to stop suffocating.
And that was probably monumental overshare, but I've a lot going on and err on the side of informative over not addressing things. Sorry. Don't mean to sound aggressive to you specifically. You may have points about how we should interpret how Homura might react to what we're doing, and what actions may prompt bad ends at what speed- but that's also a valid place where it looks like a lot of people have disagreements and different opinions.
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- Location
- Your Native Universe
It was pretty much cut and paste from the anime with slight divergences. Mami stayed alive if Homura doesn't attempt to warn her about Charlotte, leading to the latter saving the former from the Witch as she wasn't tied up. Sayaka stays alive if Kyouko is the one to attempt to help her when she goes missing when she undergoes her Grief Spiral. Since Sayaka doesn't turn into a Witch, there's no need for Kyouko to sacrifice herself. From there, they basically fight Walpurgis together and hit the Golden Ending.
Even then, Homura had to specifically warn Madoka that she and the other girls had the situation covered so that she wouldn't contract. That being said, just because it went one way in one timeline doesn't mean it'll go the same way in another. To my recollection, if one tries to go the anime route one-to-one in the video game, it leads to the Homura Route Bad Ending, and the Anime Ending is reached by essentially doing well enough, but not perfect.
- Location
- The Surface Of A Hostile Planet
I'm with Vebyast on this one. Homura looping is a Bad End, plain and simple. We need to succeed in this timeline.
Torgamous
Aspiring Gynoid
- Pronouns
- She/Her
This seems like somewhere where it might be possible to just ask Homura whether or not it would make her feel better.
Yes, but that doesn't mean that having a How To Social booklet definitely won't make Homura feel better.
The Phoenixian
The Glacier Witch
- Location
- My own little world
Oh For...
I am not talking about this because I think we should be planning to loop. But the reality we face is not the world Homura lives in. She has been looping for the past ten years. From her perspective, she is still in the loops. This is a real and present state of affairs to her. Even if she's a self mindwiped Akuma Homura, and not, say, getting the same Echoes everyone else is in a strange way, that's not relevant to her state of mind here and now. It doesn't matter what we think, or how Firn writes the quest, or what the reality of the situation is. What matters is how Homura sees the world, and how that influences her.
Giving her the tools in case it all goes horribly wrong, to assuage her worries that perhaps Madoka might die due to her unwatchfulness, or even just get hit by a truck a week after Walpurgisnacht?
Will help her.
Planning to have it will help her here and now. Thus, if that is, indeed, what is concerning her, then we can ask, and we can talk. And we can give her emotional support of giving her a real, permanent tool that she can't just lose in some accident. Regardless of whether or not we plan to ever, really need to use it.
Because that's what this is really for when everything else is stripped away: Not us, not even the reality of our success or failure. This is for her. Emotional. State.
Is that clear enough?
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OctarineShrike
Avatar of Mandos
[]Do you think establishing an insurance policy, clear seeds, whatever knowledge I can provide that doesn't overlap with yours, etc may help?
So something like this?
So something like this?
mCooperative
meanderingCephalopod
- Location
- Back in Mitakihara after like 1000 years.
All of this. Ah, also, after taking a moment to stop spewing my emotional evaluation everywhere, the thing I forgot to write into that little moment of mine- some of the things we could hand Homura aren't just to reassure her mindset in regard to the loops. Some of the things we know would benefit from having her look at them before we deal with them this loop. Some of the things we know might be actively useful to her, in this loop. Our out-of-context-insights are already things we're communicating to Homura, in chunks, as they come up in conversations that are relevant. Collating all this, plus some emergency supplies like some Clear Seeds and a collection of Crap That Could Be Useful If You, Too, Homura, Become A Quest Protagonist What I Didn't Say Anything No It's Just General Supplies I Swear, would be useful in a general preparedness sense.
Again. If Homura is collecting rocks and mops, along with god knows what else, she's stocking up for the long haul, and to her, she's not out of the woods yet. Her quest will be a long road even after Walpurgisnacht and Feathers have come and gone, and that's even if we get her to think beyond those times, if she can bring herself to think beyond those times. Our meguca-empire goals are long, after all, and protecting Madoka isn't a task that ends, I think, to her. In the same principal as how we're giving Homura tools to reassure herself re: monitoring O&K, even though we're about 98.7% sure the Kures aren't plotting against us, so too is it not out of the question to give her tools to reassure herself about the larger picture, even though, as players, final failure isn't an option that's reasonable to plan for.
Again, of course, this is all subject to how we interpret Homura's character, and how she'd be best reassured. Asking indirectly, by asking if there are things we have that we could give her to reassure her, that would give her any more security in general, would probably be a good medium measure, at the very least, that doesn't bring up "what if we fail in the future" and instead leans toward "what will be useful for you now".
Also I've been reminded that I essentially banned myself from diving deeply into Homura interpretation/analysis/arguments, and even writing this is getting a bit close to comfort. If the conversation heads that way, I'mma need to recuse myself. So I'm going to write this, and then shut up and go back to whatever I was responding to before, which was presumably less fraught. Probably.
Highlighted for tl;dr
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Vebyast
Nascent Transhuman
I think that we're thinking of problems with a different scope.
You seem to be talking about fears that are fundamentally not unfounded or irrational. In fact, the examples you gave are of things that FEMA says you should do as a responsible homeowner, in case water utilities stop working or there's a multi-week power outage. The strategy you describe works for fears that are well founded but that recur after you've addressed them, fears where your brain can accept that it's done everything it could.
The fears and anxieties that I think we're dealing with are not those fears. There is nothing you can do to convince these fears that you have done everything you could do. There is no FEMA guide for disaster preparedness, no recommendations from personal finance experts about your emergency fund, no Scouting organization to tell you what the Ten Essentials are. These fears cannot be appeased. They come back up no matter what you offer. And when they do, they come back stronger. Acting to satisfy them teaches your brain that it was right to have those fears, that they are rational. The next time it brings up its irrational anxiety or unfounded fear, you will be unable to argue it down by pointing at what you've done because it is unfounded and irrational and has already rejected what you've already done. And if you try to appease it again, you are in a downward spiral. These fears aren't "What if there's an earthquake and we lose power". These fears are "What if FEMA's guidelines are insufficient", or "What if I have an unknown medical condition that means I need twice as much water", or "What if my water gets polluted", or "I need to double-check the expiration dates again", or "What if it lasts four weeks instead of the two that FEMA plans for".
The techniques I know focus, first and foremost, on learning to identify and displace or reject unwanted thoughts. Coping strategies, things like making plans and becoming prepared, can help, but not when used directly. Using them directly is worse than useless for the reasons I described above. Instead, coping strategies are there to help me teach myself that I am able to reject unwanted thoughts. Once I have learned that, I can learn streamline the coping strategy until it's barely a strategy any more, just a mantra that dispels bad thoughts, or I can learn to reject the thoughts without needing the coping strategy at all. Sometimes coping strategies aren't even related to the unwanted thought in the slightest, and involve simply knowing how to force yourself to not think the unwanted thought, commit to a task that permits your undivided attention ("go play a video game") or engage in a behavior that replaces it with other thoughts ("go talk to someone") or adjusts your neurochemistry in a helpful manner ("go eat ice cream"). An irrational worry is by definition one you can't resolve rationally, after all.
If we're going to be helping Homura not worry about things, we don't need to be teaching her that she should be readying herself for this loop to end. We should be committing to making this loop work. I'm fine with her collecting rocks and mops and shit, because like you say, those will be useful even if we beat walpurgisnacht and continue onward with this loop. But I don't want to reinforce the idea that it's okay for her to worry about Sabrina failing. Our success is the only thing holding her together right now.
If we could convince her that she could handle our failure, I'd be on board with helping her learn to overcome her fears. But that's not what you're doing, and that's not something that I think would be a productive use of our time. You yourself pointed out that our failure would be catastrophically discouraging. Everything we've done this loop has driven Homura to believe that her current methods are wrong, that's the entire thing she's been demonstrating with this update, and she's been locked into her current methods so long that they are her. Helping her overcome that would be a monumental task. This isn't something where we help her overcome normal anxiety about an uncertain situation. We'd need to completely resolve all of her trauma, all the way back to the third fucking loop where Madoka demanded a promise and a merciful death.
I think that it's safe to ask her what would help. I think that it's safe to ask her what we could do to make her feel more secure. I think that those are reasonable first steps. But I also think that we must remember that the patient's current coping strategies are not necessarily good for them.
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mCooperative
meanderingCephalopod
- Location
- Back in Mitakihara after like 1000 years.
I believe that I, at least, may be talking at cross purposes to you. I apologize if this is the case. I am indeed speaking of the irrational fears, such as: "The house might burn down while I'm gone, well, guess I better make sure I'm carrying everything I'm not willing to live without. Everywhere. Forever." I may be incorrectly describing what I mean by reacting to those, however. Alternatively, it may not be a generally applicable strategy to successfully appease irrational fears with the same methods as appeasing rational recurring ones. That was merely how I have learned to bleed off irrational fears in order to pare them down to least intrusive coping mechanisms. Either way, this is the point where I need to step back for personal reasons. I apologize for not replying to your arguments in more detail.
That said, please note: I do not disagree that this is a hornets nest that we perhaps should not be touching now. We will, as you say, not resolve all of Homura's trauma in this conversation, nor her anxieties. It would be folly to try. This is part of why I have concerns with the votes that bring in mention of Madoka's last wish as reasoning for our success.
That's all I got.
Regards.