"Who are aware of the origins of Witches, not insane, nor desperate, and able to help?" Nadia blinks slowly. "No. I do not know right now. Perhaps Rionna. Perhaps not. Such a combination... It comes rarely. Kyuubey, he manipulates events, fimti? But I will ask around quietly."
Nadia thinks that Riona might be witchbombed, sane, calm, and interested, but isn't sure. Riona is certainly calm and at that point I think we already knew she was interested, so Nadia is uncertain about either Riona's sanity or knowledge. I think it's far less likely she thinks Riona is problematically insane than it is that she isn't sure if Riona knows.
Nadia thinks that Riona might be witchbombed, sane, calm, and interested, but isn't sure. Riona is certainly calm and at that point I think we already knew she was interested, so Nadia is uncertain about either Riona's sanity or knowledge. I think it's far less likely she thinks Riona is problematically insane than it is that she isn't sure if Riona knows.
We could ask Firn to clarify that, because I'm not certain it means Riona's witchbombed, but I still thinkg the WItchbomb merits protocol, formalities, assuring 100% whether the other party knows it, rather than assuming so.
And even if Nadia confirmed Riona knows, I don't thing she spoke with Riona and let her know about her chat with us. So us talking about Witch outs should make Riona flip about how carelessly we throw that knowledge around, even if we clarified afterwards that we knew she knew.
Witchbomb is not something to take lightly. If Riona takes offense that we don't drop a Witchbomb on her and expect her to already know about it and shrug it off, I'll think less of her, simply as that. The threat the Witchbomb represents should take precedence over any hurt feelings, every single time.
We could ask Firn to clarify that, because I'm not certain it means Riona's witchbombed, but I still thinkg the WItchbomb merits protocol, formalities, assuring 100% whether the other party knows it, rather than assuming so.
And even if Nadia confirmed Riona knows, I don't thing she spoke with Riona and let her know about her chat with us. So us talking about Witch outs should make Riona flip about how carelessly we throw that knowledge around, even if we clarified afterwards that we knew she knew.
Witchbomb is not something to take lightly. If Riona takes offense that we don't drop a Witchbomb on her and expect her to already know about it and shrug it off, I'll think less of her, simply as that. The threat the Witchbomb represents should take precedence over any hurt feelings, every single time.
We could ask Firn to clarify that, because I'm not certain it means Riona's witchbombed, but I still thinkg the WItchbomb merits protocol, formalities, assuring 100% whether the other party knows it, rather than assuming so.
And even if Nadia confirmed Riona knows, I don't thing she spoke with Riona and let her know about her chat with us. So us talking about Witch outs should make Riona flip about how carelessly we throw that knowledge around, even if we clarified afterwards that we knew she knew.
Witchbomb is not something to take lightly. If Riona takes offense that we don't drop a Witchbomb on her and expect her to already know about it and shrug it off, I'll think less of her, simply as that. The threat the Witchbomb represents should take precedence over any hurt feelings, every single time.
That said, for future reference, I think we need to track citations on who's bombed on what, I think. We got the chart in the planner, but links so we at least know when to argue what points would be good. It alright with everyone to add hyperlinks to the Y/N columns of the Witchbombed/Lichbombed/Metabombed chart?
That said, for future reference, I think we need to track citations on who's bombed on what, I think. We got the chart in the planner, but links so we at least know when to argue what points would be good. It alright with everyone to add hyperlinks to the Y/N columns of the Witchbombed/Lichbombed/Metabombed chart?
New tab in the planner is up with links to (and brief quotes for easy finding) moments in which we confirmed certain characters were Lich/Witch/Meta-bombed.
In the Dramatis Personae tab, all the Ishinomaki meguca, including Mika, are tagged as Lichbombed, but I cannot find quotes of that.
Thought:
Your eyes widen a little when you realize you're not sure what your name is, and it takes you a moment to recall. "My name is Sabrina," you realize.
Sabrina recalling her name being Sabrina... even though it was a made up name voted on by participants... that kind of makes sense under UKG theory, doesn't it?
There was probably a meguca named Sabrina at some point, so Sabrina could recall having that name. And many others, too, but that's besides the point.
You hug Mami gently one last time, before stepping towards Riona, on the bed. You drag your chair with you in one hand, the privacy device in the other, and you settle Grief around Mami's shoulders in a ghostly hug.
Because it's a privacy device, something that interdicts every kind of external monitoring... everything, but for you yourself. It makes no sense, but then again, magic. A little less about physics and more about how much you can convince reality to let things slide.
You activate it, the world around you hazing to a muted, blurry grey. The sensation of Witch closes all around you, bubbling from the construct sitting on the bed, and you exhale. You feel Mami stiffen, through the Grief, but you tighten your remote hug around her gently. You haven't left her, and you won't leave her.
Rionna flinches. The first real negative reaction you've seen from her, and you're almost glad for it.
"Finally," Rionna snaps, stiffening and turning her eyes on you.
You let the rudeness roll off you. But if she wants to be rude, then you don't need to be polite.
"Yes," you say. "I care very, very deeply about the happiness and wellbeing of Mami and the rest of my friends. She has chosen to not know about certain facts that terrify many magical girls."
"Yerra, sure, protective o' your girl," Rionna says. "So tell me."
"Do you know what I mean when I refer to those facts?" you ask. You meet her eyes, and at the same time, you look within her Soul Gem.
Irkalla.
Rionna slaps irritably at the bed, crossing her legs. "Yes, I know," she snaps. "Where Witches come from and what our Soul Gems are. Be hard for me to not know. Why d'ye think I came here? It surely wasn't for your acquaintance."
"Alright, then," you say. "That makes things easier. I woke up half-dead in an alleyway with zero knowledge of my past before that. Nothing personal, but I knew about the magical girl system, as well as all sorts of random knowledge and specific knowledge. Kyuubey found me."
"And?" Rionna says, leaning forward.
"One of the things it told me was that my Soul was strange," you say. "I can't see my own Soul, so I don't know exactly how. But it's mentioned my potential and my experiences don't match up."
"And you don't remember any of those experiences," Rionna says, distractedly twirling a lock of hair around her finger. "Jesus, Mary and Joseph, that's a bit of a dose innit. Go on."
"I've got a few questions for you," you say, and hold her gaze again. "If you don't mind."
"Tch," Rionna says. She breaks the eye contact, taking a pull from her flask. "Ask."
"One. What do you think of Kyuubey?" you ask, leaning back on the chair and watching her.
"Desperate, dodgy dosser," Rionna says, letting the flask drop to the bed. "Have you already forgotten?" She taps her Soul Gem with the index finger of her other hand.
"... desperate?" you ask, blinking. That's not an adjective you'd have associated with the little white rat.
"Means 'bad' for the rest of you," Rionna says, sniffing. "Very bad. Next question."
"Ah," you say, tucking that persistently flyaway lock of hair of yours behind your ear. Honestly, you don't know whether you should trust Rionna with your secrets, speculative or otherwise. "What... no, well. Why did you come here? What do you want from me?"
And honestly, what would you tell her? As you'd told her: you have ideas. Do you want to share the notion that you might have been a Witch, de-Witched into human form? That you might have been Walpurgisnacht, the city-ending Witch, or Gretchen, the universe ending Witch? Or that you might have been straight-up created by a Wish? That you might have been sent back in time to undo the future?
"I want what everyone wants," Rionna says, and fixes an unblinking gaze on you. "I see people's Souls. I know what happens. I want what you have."
"Sure," you say. You can believe that. "You left your city behind and flew halfway across the world on a... rumour of my existence?"
"Not the first time," Rionna says. "Besides, my city is safe."
"Actually," you say. "A... side question, if you don't mind."
Rionna sighs, taking another long pull from her flask. "Yerra, y' can't help me at all, can you? Y' can't exactly give me your magic, I doubt you're willing to give me your Soul, and I wager I'd have a fight on m' hands if I tried to take it."
... yeah, because that's reassuring.
"Leaving that entirely unsettling statement aside for now until I process it," you say. "How did you hear about me?"
Rionna shrugs, squinting at the inside of her flask. "Been in Tokyo before, know a couple o' girls there."
"Huh," you say. You lean forward a little and prop your chin on a fist, your elbow resting on your knee. "After another Grief-cleanser?"
"Fake," Rionna says with a shrug. "Made an example out of her."
"Were you going to make an example out of me, if I were a fake?" you ask, narrowing your eyes.
"Pr'bably," Rionna says, shrugging again. She gives her flask a faintly mournful look before taking another swig from it. "Y'know what I mean by fake?"
"That they can only transfer Grief, not actually cleanse it," you say.
"So you know what that does," Rionna says. "'s deserved."
[x] Ongoing: Keep in contact with Mami via Grief
[] Response for:
- [] Soul stealing?
- [] Making an example?
[] Do you consider her trustworthy enough to proceed with the explanations?
- [] Vote in abeyance
- [] If not, then what?
[] Write-in (word count limit: 150 words)
-[X] Ask what she sees in you (with her powers).
[X] If her motives make sense and she seems good and honest:
-[X] Share hypothesis about being created by magic.
--[X] Wholly.
--[X] As part of a larger concept.
---[X] Share how many times you coincidentally were able to help someone in the nick of time.
--[X] By de-Witching.
---[X] Explain Witch names, Witch runes, the name in your Ring.
=====
Shorter update today, breaking early for a decision.
I presume fake grief controllers usually cause problems, if not straight up witchouts, for other girls to keep themselves from having to hunt as much? In that case, making an example out of one is... understandable.
Before we ask her what she sees in our soul, we should ask her what her powers actually ARE. We only know that she "manipulates the soul", we don't know anything about her scope and limitations. That can segue into the question about us, explain what she means by soul stealing, and help start the discussion about dewitching, which we definitely need to have at some point.
Well, we can give her options. Clear Seed effectively does what she's asking for, without the Soul Stealing. If she wants a more direct assurance, she could be offered to stay.
Rionna sighs, taking another long pull from her flask. "Yerra, y' can't help me at all, can you? Y' can't exactly give me your magic, I doubt you're willing to give me your Soul, and I wager I'd have a fight on m' hands if I tried to take it."
"Huh," you say. You lean forward a little and prop your chin on a fist, your elbow resting on your knee. "After another Grief-cleanser?"
"Fake," Rionna says with a shrug. "Made an example out of her."
"Were you going to make an example out of me, if I were a fake?" you ask, narrowing your eyes.
"Pr'bably," Rionna says, shrugging again. She gives her flask a faintly mournful look before taking another swig from it. "Y'know what I mean by fake?"
"That they can only transfer Grief, not actually cleanse it," you say.
"So you know what that does," Rionna says. "'s deserved."
Now what? Does her questions count as answered already so we move to the important parts?
Wait, I find it curious. Rion+a dosn't seem to know about Clear Seeds, a way to take "what Sabrina has" (unlimited magic) without taking Sabrina herself.
Adhoc vote count started by Filraen on Jul 28, 2018 at 10:15 AM, finished with 141676 posts and 18 votes.
[X] Clarify: You can help.
[X] But first, ask Riona to explain 'Soul Stealing' and 'Making examples'.
-[X] Get details. You can't fault her actions past, but you'd like to make a world where it's possible to do better. Would she be willing to try?
[X] Talk about Clear Seeds. Explain that you're distributing them to groups you trust, as a stopgap measure. Show Hildegarde and Aurora.
-[X] Share your observations, explain your procedures. Ask Riona for her professional opinion.
--[X] Explain the need for a more moral solution, and your hopes for, eventually, after much study, de-Witching. Ask for her help.
[X] If she brings it up again: Share your theory of being created by magic: The unusual state of your soul, and having personal amnesia... but significant knowledge of the magical girl system, enough to know to make your wish.
-[X] Ask what Riona's powers see in you.
[X] Do you consider her trustworthy enough to proceed with the explanations?
-[x] Not yet. The details matter.
[x] Ask for details about "soul stealing" and "making examples of".
[x] Does she understand that such things stop now?
-[x] She doesn't need to be trustworthy to be told that you can, intend to, and will make those extremes unnecessary.
--[x] And if it's unnecessary, it becomes just another cruelty you intend to stamp out.
[x] I'd love to be able to give people my powers, but the best I've got so far is clear seeds, and since I'm also working on de-witching, that's a stopgap at best.
[X] Topic is artificial Grief seeds. Explain why.
-[X] We want her help.
[X] She gave us a generic answer before. Not enough. We need to know her.
-[X] Ask Rionna to list her goals. How old is Rionna? Personal history?
-[X] Don't follow up about sister
-[X] insist on talking about her self interest.
-[X] understand she might not be philanthropic, and still be good.
-[X] Observe if she is actually different than above, interview in that subject more.
[X] Talk about what she has to trade - how her powers work. What she does in her city.
[X] Rionna is speaking like she hasn't trusted anyone in a long time.
-[X] Explain our real magic is about working together. We will show her.
[X] Other points: we are the good person we want to be. Describe our soul. Meet our friends, and find out. How does her telepathy work?
[X] De-witching might come up now.
[X] Go over points of agreement again.
[X] Show off Aurora. Happy details. Ask for visual summary.
-[X] We should hunt together, make another, she can watch.
Adhoc vote count started by Filraen on Jul 28, 2018 at 9:39 PM, finished with 141678 posts and 18 votes.
[X] Clarify: You can help.
[X] But first, ask Riona to explain 'Soul Stealing' and 'Making examples'.
-[X] Get details. You can't fault her actions past, but you'd like to make a world where it's possible to do better. Would she be willing to try?
[X] Talk about Clear Seeds. Explain that you're distributing them to groups you trust, as a stopgap measure. Show Hildegarde and Aurora.
-[X] Share your observations, explain your procedures. Ask Riona for her professional opinion.
--[X] Explain the need for a more moral solution, and your hopes for, eventually, after much study, de-Witching. Ask for her help.
[X] If she brings it up again: Share your theory of being created by magic: The unusual state of your soul, and having personal amnesia... but significant knowledge of the magical girl system, enough to know to make your wish.
-[X] Ask what Riona's powers see in you.
[X] Do you consider her trustworthy enough to proceed with the explanations?
-[x] Not yet. The details matter.
[x] Ask for details about "soul stealing" and "making examples of".
[x] Does she understand that such things stop now?
-[x] She doesn't need to be trustworthy to be told that you can, intend to, and will make those extremes unnecessary.
--[x] And if it's unnecessary, it becomes just another cruelty you intend to stamp out.
[x] I'd love to be able to give people my powers, but the best I've got so far is clear seeds, and since I'm also working on de-witching, that's a stopgap at best.
[X] Topic is artificial Grief seeds. Explain why.
-[X] We want her help.
[X] She gave us a generic answer before. Not enough. We need to know her.
-[X] Ask Rionna to list her goals. How old is Rionna? Personal history?
-[X] Don't follow up about sister
-[X] insist on talking about her self interest.
-[X] understand she might not be philanthropic, and still be good.
-[X] Observe if she is actually different than above, interview in that subject more.
[X] Talk about what she has to trade - how her powers work. What she does in her city.
[X] Rionna is speaking like she hasn't trusted anyone in a long time.
-[X] Explain our real magic is about working together. We will show her.
[X] Other points: we are the good person we want to be. Describe our soul. Meet our friends, and find out. How does her telepathy work?
[X] De-witching might come up now.
[X] Go over points of agreement again.
[X] Show off Aurora. Happy details. Ask for visual summary.
-[X] We should hunt together, make another, she can watch.
Now what? Does her questions count as answered already so we move to the important parts?
Wait, I find it curious. Rion+a dosn't seem to know about Clear Seeds, a way to take "what Sabrina has" (unlimited magic) without taking Sabrina herself.
Yikes. There's a difficult decision in the near future: so far, when Sabrina's given out clear seeds, it's always been to girls or groups that she has the potential to aggressively befriend back into compliance if they misuse them. It's possible Rionna represents the first time we'd be giving out an extremely powerful weapon to someone beyond our influence - right now, we don't have reliable contacts in Europe to inform us of any wrongdoing, or a reliable way to get to Europe to intervene, and that's even assuming we could actually come out on top in a conflict with a soulguca.
Now, we don't know Rionna well enough yet; maybe she's gruff but perfectly well-intentioned, maybe she's just the sort of person who we should be entrusting that level of responsibility to...but golly gosh does all this talk of making examples of people not reassure me of that. Even if she was perfectly justified in whatever she did, that sort of thing...brr, hopefully I'm just over-thinking this, and she's been doing exactly the sort of unfortunate-but-necessary peacekeeping stuff that we have.
I have this vague, blurry vision of the endgame of this scenario - Sabrina as the wise, world-weary Cincinnatus who alternates her time between producing clear seeds en mass and hugging Mumi but otherwise avoids entanglement with an enormous and growing worldwide society of magical girls that she herself helped set up. Sayaka and her clone police force have kept an uneasy peace for many years, but after a long and decorated career even her famed commitment to justice has wearied her, and she's looking to retire. The magical girl news network is abuzz with debate about what the retirement of MikiPol means for society, and there are concerns about the dangers of both insufficient meguca policing reverting everything back to the lawless gang-warfare of the pre-Sabrina era, and overreach by the well-meaning but undoubtedly ambitious young Megucinister for Law Enforcement who's been campaigning for the right to temporarily separate the bodies and soul gems of particularly violent and powerful criminals.
So there's Sabrina and Mami, sitting together in a single rocking chair on their porch in rural Hokkaido - the two had become enamored with the snowy, starkly beautiful northern prefecture on an eventful and perilous mission many years before - talking softly with each other. Mami is cautiously optimistic: she hasn't met the young firebrand herself, but she has dozens of friends still in the MPS (Meguca Provisional Senate) who speak very highly of her. Sabrina is still worried, though, and as ever, Mami is the patient and insightful sounding board to which she voices all of her concerns. What happens after you allow temporary soul separation, she ponders. And it seems to her that she can still hear a dry, cynical voice finishing the thought for her. Sometimes it speaks with the voice of Oriko Mikuni, other times as Homura Akemi. What's the next step? What happens when someone starts arguing that repeat offenders or those with severe psychological issues should be permanently held in stasis? What happens when this beautiful, fragile unified society you've built falls apart over differences in culture or philosophy? Do you make that young firebrand, or someone like her, Megucinister of Defense? And if the splinter societies start to take a laxer stance on, say, shattering the soul gems of their own criminals, do you reunify them by force - risking lives now to save lives in the future? At what point does the purpose of society shift from the accomplishment of justice and good to mere continued existence? Isn't that exactly the sort of logic that might compel an Incubator?
Sabrina doesn't have any answers, but she does have Mami, and as a comfortably warm summer sunset falls behind the breathtaking mountains of the home they share, she wants to believe that will be enough.
I can almost envision that sort of ending, and it calls to me and frustrates me and worries me all at once. Sometimes I frantically try to trace back cause and effect, struggling to figure out how to get there from where we are now. And other times I feel like I'm being stupid, and that maybe I should be hoping for a more fantastical, magical denouement like in the anime. So long story short: PMAF is fantastic and I love it and I hope to enjoy many spirited discussions with you all from now on.
I don't mean our soul. Just the whole soul stealing in general. Combine that with her comment that her city is safe, and the paranoid parts of my brain conjure up an army of soulless slaves defending the city.
I don't mean our soul. Just the whole soul stealing in general. Combine that with her comment that her city is safe, and the paranoid parts of my brain conjure up an army of soulless slaves defending the city.
