Puella Magi Adfligo Systema

[RagnorakTres]

I'm not a fan of Onmur's wording regarding Mami, because it's ambiguous. It could mean the Lichbomb as easily as the Witchbomb, and I don't think Riona would appreciate the lack of clarity.

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I would rather Riona be slightly irritated and more careful than perfectly content and careless with regards to every infohazard, including the ones that we've already defused. This is a question of reinforcing Mami's agency not only where she can see it, but where she can't, and that is Capital-I Important, in my mind.

I'm also not sold on agreeing to a privacy sphere this early on.

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Neither am I, but what other options do we have for conversations that we don't want The Incubator overhearing that we are confident in? I agree that it's going to stress Mami out; we can't avoid that. I don't trust Riona implicitly, and locking myself in a small room with someone I don't trust implicitly is not something I make a habit of, but short of blowing Homura's cover wide open, I don't see another option that's safe enough with regards to The Incubator and its manipulations.

I think that planning that far ahead is a bit premature, and would really like to sound Riona out more instead of extending the vote into an uncertain future.

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This, however, is silly. Riona will not appreciate being "sounded out." She came here to do business; let's do business. Pussyfooting around will only irritate her more, she will interpret it as us giving her the runaround.

 

[Redshirt Army]

This, however, is silly. Riona will not appreciate being "sounded out." She came here to do business; let's do business. Pussyfooting around will only irritate her more, she will interpret it as us giving her the runaround.

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Hardly. Firn has been perfectly willing to have updates that span less time before, in difficult social scenarios. This vote does not need to cover the rest of the discussion with Riona, and in fact almost certainly shouldn't.

We'll just break to vote sooner.

Neither am I, but what other options do we have for conversations that we don't want The Incubator overhearing that we are confident in? I agree that it's going to stress Mami out; we can't avoid that.

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We, in fact, have an easy option. Just don't make a privacy sphere until Rionna is more vetted.

Putting the privacy sphere off until a extended SCIENCE session with Rionna tomorrow, while Mami is in class, would neatly sidestep a huge amount of issues.

 

[mCooperative]

Um, I, uh, agree with @Redshirt Army about the privacy sphere issue, uh, particularly because the things we seem to want to ask Riona (her powers and intents, her opinion of Kyubey) are literally all things we can and have previously talked about in public air before, aside from the stuff about Witches. Um, it's also pretty likely that asking about the first two things would take us up to a break to vote anyway? Since we kind of want to take into account the next few moments as we decide wtf we're doing... And they're questions that serve as supporting the whole "we'd like to have this conversation as an exchange with you and not just answering all your questions" thing. We can maybe leave the Witch stuff as the only thing in privacy after we've sounded her out more in general, I think? This, is still, kind of, a threat assessment, isn't it? Um, I still kind of like Onmur's phrasing better for the Mami line, though.

@Onmur I'm also not sure about the "promise to answer her questions" line, because it implies we have answers to her questions, and, um, I'm still not sure we do? Not beyond "our soul is weird, Kyubey told us, we don't know why but we have a few hypotheses. not sure about how much evidence we have for them, though" anyway. If we promise to answer her questions and then say well we don't, uh, really have answers so much as speculations, I feel like that's more wasting time than anything really else....?

Um. Regarding the privacy sphere and also

but what other options do we have for conversations that we don't want The Incubator overhearing that we are confident in? I agree that it's going to stress Mami out; we can't avoid that. I don't trust Riona implicitly, and locking myself in a small room with someone I don't trust implicitly is not something I make a habit of, but short of blowing Homura's cover wide open, I don't see another option that's safe enough with regards to The Incubator and its manipulations.

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Aside from maybe possibly having most of the discussion, about the stuff that's not Witches, outside of privacy, um, someone brought up we still have the bracelets? Then we're not in a metaphorical locked room, or, anything like that... So, uh, that's an option? Or, did we discard those for a reason in this context? I don't fully recall.

 

[Redshirt Army]

If we must do privacy with Rionna in front of Mami right now (which I strongly dispute), it had better be the privacy bracelet and not the sphere, yeah. Way less stressful for Mami if she knows we're not in immediate danger, although the general issues of telling a stranger a bunch of secrets she doesn't know herself remain.

 

[AuraTwilight]

[x] Redshirt Army

 

[Onmur]

I don't like cutting the vote so short, but I guess it doesn't hurt.

Also, tentaive re-shuffling of lines?

[X] Be efficient, blunt, firm. Give Riona a chance.

[X] Answer:
-[X] You don't know. You've got conjectures, but you can't share those without taking privacy measures, first.
--[X] Telepathy: Mami chose to not know the real purpose of Magical Girls. Tell Riona to be discrete.
-[X] Offer to help sort out her accomodations. You can talk on the way.

[X] Get moving.
-[X] Give her the commonly known details about you: Amnesia, odd Potential, Wish.
-[X] Offer cleansing.
-[X] Show curiosity about her and her powers.
--[X] Ask after the purpose of her visit.
--[X] Share your hopes she may shed some light on your existence, and for you two to work together.
-[X] Show her Hildegarde.

Though.

Maybe we should hold off on showing Hildegarde, for now? Or is that necessary to entice Riona about this working together thing, right now? Maybe it'd be better to show off Clear Seeds once we can talk in private, about de-Witching.

Not that Clear Seeds are a secret...

 

[mCooperative]

... uh. Huh. I guess the question of "what does Sabrina know about herself" did come up in this voteblock after all. If, uh, not quite with regard to being a quest protag yet. Whiiiiiiiich does give me the feeling that whether Sabrina knows she's a quest protag will come up in the question of which of our hypotheses and various information with regard to our soul we're going to want to speak about, if, or, uh, when, we have sufficiently vetted Riona such that we decide to discuss, all that stuff, with her?

So, uh. I guess everyone decide for yourself whether you think Sabrina should know that she's a Quest Protag? Because I suspect it, uh, will be coming to question soon, and we'll have another, um, disagreement? on our hands about "whether we're lying if we say Sabrina doesn't know this thing the thread knows but not everyone in the thread says Sabrina knows", and, uh, those disagreements are always kind of actually just awful. And, um. I'm not sure if there's a way to make them not awful without just straight up taking an, um, strawpoll every so often about whether we think Sabrina knows? And, um, it's probably better than the thread getting really angry about it and then having it leak into the vote when we're not even angry at Riona at that point, um, if we're not, that is.

Edit: **endorses current Onmur vote** It addresses my concerns.

 

[Onmur]

I'm kind of pulling my hair at the telepathy bit, still.

I really don't want to actually hint at any information a meguca could theoretically follow up on and witchbomb themselves, in case they weren't witchbombed. The fact Riona's 99.99% witchbombed for sure helps a lot, but short of some zany word game some japanese fiction are so fond of, I can't think of a way to do this.

"Mami chose to not know the real purpose of Magical Girls" - "THERE'S A REAL PURPOSE?!"

"... the secret/truth about Soul Gems" - "BUT KB SAID IT WAS MY TRANSFORMATION GADGET!"

Etc., etc...

Also, short votes (┛◉Д◉)┛彡┻━┻

Now is the time to put our Friendship Powers to the test, I guess! I'm super OK doing short votes to help Homu, but doing this for Riona... it's a test, a test!

(Even if we probably won't become friends, anyway. Shoot for friendship, maybe we'll hit a work-related partnership.)

 

[AuraTwilight]

... uh. Huh. I guess the question of "what does Sabrina know about herself" did come up in this voteblock after all. If, uh, not quite with regard to being a quest protag yet. Whiiiiiiiich does give me the feeling that whether Sabrina knows she's a quest protag will come up in the question of which of our hypotheses and various information with regard to our soul we're going to want to speak about, if, or, uh, when, we have sufficiently vetted Riona such that we decide to discuss, all that stuff, with her?

So, uh. I guess everyone decide for yourself whether you think Sabrina should know that she's a Quest Protag? Because I suspect it, uh, will be coming to question soon, and we'll have another, um, disagreement? on our hands about "whether we're lying if we say Sabrina doesn't know this thing the thread knows but not everyone in the thread says Sabrina knows", and, uh, those disagreements are always kind of actually just awful. And, um. I'm not sure if there's a way to make them not awful without just straight up taking an, um, strawpoll every so often about whether we think Sabrina knows? And, um, it's probably better than the thread getting really angry about it and then having it leak into the vote when we're not even angry at Riona at that point, um, if we're not, that is.

Edit: **endorses current Onmur vote** It addresses my concerns.

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Sabrina will never know she's a Quest Protag because that's fucking stupid.

 

[mCooperative]

Zany word games in Japanese aside (mwargh, I worry sometimes how it comes across, with how friendly we've got to be sounding whenever we talk to the Kures...) I think the real purpose of Magical Girls works pretty well. Like. The real purpose could be some intergalactic war or some shit, and that would feel traditional. Like, someone hearing that might think "there's a big secret" if they don't know what's up, but, uh, it's... pretty unlikely, uh, that someone will guess "ah yes Kyubey is an alien experimentor that is using us for batteries and we actually all turn into Witches because we're combating entropy". That's... Unless someone is really fond of the Matrix- and there's not enough in common with that trope, really, to jump on that instead of one of the 'secret war' tropes. At the very least, it works in this specific context, though, yeah, we might want to put some time into thinking about other ways we could ask the question without hinting the answers, for speaking with meguca we're less certain about the knowledge of.

 

[Redshirt Army]

I will post a YouTube video of me eating any amount of any kind of hat any of you desire, if Rionna isn't already witchbombed.

The probability of PMAS suddenly becoming a Naruto crossover is probably higher then the odds of the veteran soul manipulator with a specific interest in grief manipulators strong enough to drag her to the literal opposite side of the earth not knowing a fundamental fact about how souls react to grief.

Personally, I don't see the point in playing the shitty word game at all. Are we doing it just to tick a box off a checklist?

 

[mCooperative]

I will post a YouTube video of me eating any amount of any kind of hat any of you desire, if Rionna isn't already witchbombed.

The probability of PMAS suddenly becoming a Naruto crossover is probably higher then the odds of the veteran soul manipulator with a specific interest in grief manipulators strong enough to drag her to the literal opposite side of the earth not knowing a fundamental fact about how souls react to grief.

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Quick, Firn, think of the hats!

But yeah- and that's pretty great, right? It means that we get more experience dancing around the question without there being a lava pit below us, even if we're only 99.9% sure there's no lava pit beneath the net we can see from above! The fall would still hurt a bit, though, so, motivation to get things right!

 

[Redshirt Army]

Quick, Firn, think of the hats!

But yeah- and that's pretty great, right? It means that we get more experience dancing around the question without there being a lava pit below us, even if we're only 99.9% sure there's no lava pit beneath the net we can see from above!

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Right, except that we've already established that Rionna doesn't like pointless dancing around a point. I don't think playing coy word games will endear us to her - just the opposite.

 

[Lord Chungus]

--[X] Telepathy: Mami chose to not know the real purpose of Magical Girls. Tell Riona to be discrete.

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Probably just paranoid BS on my part, but does QB know that Mami chose not to know about the WItchbomb, or was that all done in privacy spheres?
Becuase if he wants to hurt us, (and since Mami is no longer actively recruiting Meguca's, so he lacks any reason to keep her alive and healthy,) he's fully capable of witchbombing Mami.

If he wasn't sure if she knew or not, he may very well have not wanted to completely ruin his "relationship" with us. But if we explicitly confirm over telepathy that she doesn't know, then...

Again, there's a 99% chance this is just paranoia on my part, but I thought it might be worth mentioning.

 

[mCooperative]

Right, except that we've already established that Rionna doesn't like pointless dancing around a point. I don't think playing coy word games will endear us to her - just the opposite.

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Fair point is fair point, but as a policy, if we do one thing that we willfully know might be a bit frustrating, I would want it to be this. Ontological threat related concerns aside, this is the one big piece of information that I always want paranoia on, because it's always a clear and present danger. Being a bit frustrating is better than even possibly making bets on this information, in my book.

Probably just paranoid BS on my part, but does QB know that Mami chose not to know about the WItchbomb, or was that all done in privacy spheres?
Becuase if he wants to hurt us, (and since Mami is no longer actively recruiting Meguca's, so he lacks any reason to keep her alive and healthy,) he's fully capable of witchbombing Mami.

If he wasn't sure if she knew or not, he may very well have not wanted to completely ruin his "relationship" with us. But if we explicitly confirm over telepathy that she doesn't know, then...

Again, there's a 99% chance this is just paranoia on my part, but I thought it might be worth mentioning.

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... uhhhh hellfuckshit, does anyone remember this? That's a really good point.

... we should maybe keep a shortlog about "infosec-related things Kyubey explicitly knows" so we can reference it at times like these...

 

[Onmur]

Probably just paranoid BS on my part, but does QB know that Mami chose not to know about the WItchbomb, or was that all done in privacy spheres?
Becuase if he wants to hurt us, (and since Mami is no longer actively recruiting Meguca's, so he lacks any reason to keep her alive and healthy,) he's fully capable of witchbombing Mami.

If he wasn't sure if she knew or not, he may very well have not wanted to completely ruin his "relationship" with us. But if we explicitly confirm over telepathy that she doesn't know, then...

Again, there's a 99% chance this is just paranoia on my part, but I thought it might be worth mentioning.

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Did you want me to scream internally? >_>

Now to think really hard about whether it's confirmed KB knows or doesn't know Mami's not witchbombed.

 

[mCooperative]

Did you want me to scream internally? >_>

Now to think really hard about whether it's confirmed KB knows or doesn't know Mami's not witchbombed.

Click to shrink...

... if nobody's dug it up before I get done with tonight's round of "job search and really get to that damn update I'm late on", then I'll go looking? Might be a few hours though.

 

[Redshirt Army]

What if we just ask Riona to do what we want her to do, without explicitly saying anything about Mami?

[x] Stay calm. Be efficient and to-the-point. Keep in mind that Riona just had a tiring flight.

[x] You explicitly wished to be able to control grief. You're aware that your soul is strange (the Incubator mentioned it), but aren't certain why.
-[x] Magic was obviously involved, but you don't have any personal memories prior to waking up half-dead in an alleyway a few weeks ago.

[x] Telepathy Riona: Don't discuss the ultimate fate of magical girls yet.

[x] Is she planning to stay? You can help find accommodations. Talk while you walk.
-[x] Express willingness to work together.
--[x] Indicate you can ensure privacy while working on sensitive projects.
-[x] Offer to demonstrate cleansing.
-[x] Show Hildegarde.

 

[Qwertystop]

Um. I'm having trouble seeing if it matters? Whether or not Kyubey thinks Mami knows the witchbomb, he knows it'd worsen his relationship with Sabrina to bring it up. In one case it might cause Mami to witch out, in the other it might not. Either way I don't see any actual benefit for the Incubators, as "spite" is not a motive for them.

 

[Onmur]

... if nobody's dug it up before I get done with tonight's round of "job search and really get to that damn update I'm late on", then I'll go looking? Might be a few hours though.

Click to shrink...

Unless KB needs a body within our range in order to hear us talk, I'd assume it already knows that Mami doesn't know about the Witchbomb:

Talking through telepathy:

"It's funny you should say that," you say, tilting your head to glance at her. "Because I was thinking about that exact subject. You sure you don't have any mind reading powers?"

"Hah!" Sayaka barks out a quiet laugh. "Not yet. But, like, I've got eyes, you know? I keep seeing you pull Homura aside to talk about something secretly or something, and I know you two are always on the same page about some stuff. Mami too, but you're always on Mami's side. Er, one moment."

Click to shrink...

We get down and sit down to talk, check for kbs, no privacy sphere:

"That serious, huh," Sayaka comments, raising her eyebrows at you.

"It is," you say, extending your Grief fog. You spread it a bit thin, but you can do enough to refract the light and fuzz out sound and check for pesky little aliens that might be lurking nearby.

Sayaka snorts, looking thoughtfully at the way the sun fractures, lensed through your Grief. "You're not even smiling."

"Yeah, well... I'd pull you into a privacy sphere for this talk, but I'm pretty sure that this you would just drop if I did that," you say, shrugging. "Clone and all, right?"

"So you're not telling me now?" Sayaka asks, making a face.

Click to shrink...

Mami doesn't know:

I'm putting Mami's life in your hands, and I want you to make an informed decision about it."

"So she doesn't know," Sayaka says, expression grave and just as serious as you imagine yours is.

"No," you say, shaking your head. "I told her... something similar to what I'm telling you now. I told her I was still keeping a secret, and it's a nasty, dangerous secret. And I asked her if she wanted to know, because I don't like lying to my friends, and... she said no." You grimace. "I honestly don't know what I'd have done if she'd said yes, but here we are."

Click to shrink...

 

[Redshirt Army]

Mm, point.

[x] Stay calm. Be efficient and to-the-point. Keep in mind that Riona just had a tiring flight.

[x] You explicitly wished to be able to control grief. You're aware that your soul is strange (the Incubator mentioned it), but aren't certain why.
-[x] Magic was obviously involved, but you don't have any personal memories prior to waking up half-dead in an alleyway a few weeks ago.

[x] Telepathy Riona: Mami chose not to know the true purpose of magical girls.

[x] Is she planning to stay? You can help find accommodations. Talk while you walk.
-[x] Express willingness to work together.
--[x] Indicate you can ensure privacy while working on sensitive projects.
-[x] Offer to demonstrate cleansing.
-[x] Show Hildegarde.

 

[mCooperative]

Nnnngh, still not sure if that actually means that we should drop the "don't talk about it by telepathy" thought, if we're not sure-sure. We checked for Incubators for the same reason that we normally pull up privacy; we were presuming we wanted to be careful with infosec during that discussion. This goes back to assuming any infosec holds on anything that's not explicitly in privacy sphere. I kind of liked "Don't discuss the ultimate fate of magical girls yet" since we do have other non-Witchbombed meguca in the area, but then it goes back to coming closer to the Witchbomb in the asking than I'm comfortable with as a policy.

Mnnnnnnyyyyghhhh..... "Don't discuss the true purpose of magical girls yet" just sounds weird though.

 

[LendvaV]

... uh. Huh. I guess the question of "what does Sabrina know about herself" did come up in this voteblock after all. If, uh, not quite with regard to being a quest protag yet. Whiiiiiiiich does give me the feeling that whether Sabrina knows she's a quest protag will come up in the question of which of our hypotheses and various information with regard to our soul we're going to want to speak about, if, or, uh, when, we have sufficiently vetted Riona such that we decide to discuss, all that stuff, with her?

So, uh. I guess everyone decide for yourself whether you think Sabrina should know that she's a Quest Protag? Because I suspect it, uh, will be coming to question soon, and we'll have another, um, disagreement? on our hands about "whether we're lying if we say Sabrina doesn't know this thing the thread knows but not everyone in the thread says Sabrina knows", and, uh, those disagreements are always kind of actually just awful. And, um. I'm not sure if there's a way to make them not awful without just straight up taking an, um, strawpoll every so often about whether we think Sabrina knows? And, um, it's probably better than the thread getting really angry about it and then having it leak into the vote when we're not even angry at Riona at that point, um, if we're not, that is.

Edit: **endorses current Onmur vote** It addresses my concerns.

Click to shrink...

We've been over this long ago. Pretty much no one wants Sabrina to worry about such unnecessary meta stuff. Quest awareness doesn't help her fix things at all, so there's no point.

 

[DB_Explorer]

[JK] Demand better manners
-[JK] In Latin.

 

[mCooperative]

We've been over this long ago.

Click to shrink...

And people change, and people's opinions change, and which people are active quest participators change. New people turn up, others leave. "Long ago" is why I'm asking, and why I mentioned a "strawpoll every so often". Updated information. I'd like a better roll call before being certain about numbers like "Pretty much no one". That being said, although I asked a few pages ago, in the post you quoted note that it wasn't as though I was asking everyone again.

In this case, I mention it because if it turns out our soul looks like it's stitched together multitudes, or a network hub with connections leading off into hundreds of directions, then the question of whether Sabrina 'knows' she's a quest protag suddenly becomes very relevant to the question of whether she can honestly say "I don't know why it's like that", without stirring up another round of argument about what constitutes Sabrina being honest about what she knows, versus what the thread knows, versus what either us or Sabrina only has speculations about. There was already another one of those arguments on the Discord earlier today, and there've been more in the past. They're hard on everyone involved, and people in the thread having a clearer idea of what they think about the matter feels like something that could help.

Which isn't to say I'm saying definitely make Sabrina full 4th wall aware on herself. If it doesn't come up, we can put it off and not deal with it. I'm not pushing for or against it. But it increasingly feels to me like something that might come up, and when I realized that, I wanted to mention that, and wanted to at least put the question in people's minds so they could consider what they thought.

At present, that's all.