Puella Magi Adfligo Systema
- Thread starter Firnagzen
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- 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?
Thanks, I hadn't caught all of that. I guess I shouldn't get my back up over what felt like a morality instruction when it was more of a plot explanation.
Though reading it did lead me to a new controversial opinion. Railroading is awesome and more QMs should do it.
You had this bit in your post about how Firn is too good to need to railroad. I think railroading is a really useful tool for running quests and QMs should stop being hesitant or afraid to pull the tool out of their toolbelt.
SaltyWaffles
I am dissapoint, son
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Yeah, I think being blindsided by the horror of what Rionna has done--and is utterly uncaring about continuing to do--made things a lot worse. Nadia gave no hint whatsoever that Rionna was someone to be wary of or disgusted by--quite the opposite, in fact. People were expecting a grumpy soul mage with terrible social skills and a lot of quirkiness. They weren't expecting a goddamn soul-stealing necromancer with no remorse whatsoever and no willingness to even entertain the idea of cooperation.
Then there was her implicit threat to Sabrina, which made things even worse. Sure, she didn't really make a threat, but when you combine "you can only help me by letting me take your soul", "I could easily kill you", and the general impression she's giving that the only reason she came here at all was in the hope that Sabrina was evil enough for Rionna to justify killing Sabrina and taking her soul for her own purposes, you get a very clear impression that she's almost goading Sabrina into starting something, despite her words to the contrary.
Lastly, Rionna's combination of stubborn unwillingness to even entertain the idea that Sabrina could actually work with her to solve her personal problem (while also being insistent on the idea that having Sabrina's soul--and thus, her powers--would be helpful for her personal problem) and her refusal to give any explanation as to what her problem is makes finding any kind of compromise an exercise in frustration and blind luck. Couple that with her unlikeability, arrogance, and disdain for communication in general, and this whole mess seems to have been tailor-made to bring this quest to a grinding halt.
Quite frankly, I can't see any reason at all for Rionna to have made the trip out to Mitakihara other than the hope that Sabrina's powers were legit, but her actions/intentions were heinous enough (or she managed to goad Sabrina into a fight, somehow) that she could justify to herself stealing Sabrina's soul (and powers) for herself. What's truly baffling to me is that she isn't even willing to entertain the idea of Sabrina being able to help with her personal problem--it makes no sense, because no one who wants a problem solved badly should be so casually insistent on not even considering a solution that presents itself to you when you have had no success ever.
And that's the dumb thing: if Rionna isn't willing to cooperate, then there's not much point in letting her leave Mitakihara alive. You can't even go with the "sacred diplomacy" reasoning, because Rionna showed up without warning and totally uninvited, without the excuse of desperation or ignorance. It may be that Rionna is possible to reform and even be helpful, but unlike Oriko, she's gone out of her way at every turn to destroy any sympathy any of us might have otherwise had for her. She's not even really trying to reassure us that her powers are not as heinous or horrific as they sound like they might be, because she feels like she doesn't have to justify herself at all to anyone. It's an attitude that was bound to get her killed as soon as she entered a situation like this one--a tense confrontation with someone on her power level or higher, with moral boundaries that won't stomach her bullshit if she won't even attempt to dissuade those impressions.
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Gadjo
Doka
It might make sense if she wants something she knows is so morally grey/black that Sabrina would never agree, I think.
- Location
- USA, Midworld world line
Just so, let me introduce two measure to this. First, we must try the "willingly" technique, and we will be at that process presently. Second, there are all sorts of ways to make her stop. Would you like to inventory those for us, meaning force that doesn't kill, but would cause Rionna to stop killing? Being complete and putting in the effort is helpful towards finding morality.
In fact, once we start to overturn scarcity, Rionna is done. EVERYONE will be climbing to higher power levels, and we will be spoon-feeding them Kindness and Salvation. She needs to make a course correction soon-like, if she wants to survive the transition.
SaltyWaffles
I am dissapoint, son
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I think it wouldn't hurt her to at least try to feel out such a possibility. After all, Sabrina's abilities might mean that you wouldn't have to resort to morally gray/black measures for the sake of your goal. Not being willing to even entertain such a possibility is a sure sign of When All You Have Is A Hammer Syndrome--she's so insistent on justifying her deeds, needs, and views to only herself that she's lost touch with the possibility of working around a problem with other people (rather than just taking what you want and using it how you see fit). For her, solving a problem is always something she's insisted on doing herself, with her own abilities (or those she's taken from those whose souls she's enslaved).
Thus, the situation for her is binary: either she takes Sabrina's soul and is able to do whatever she wants with it, or she doesn't, and leaves Mitakihara for good. Sabrina helping out of her own free will is not an option because that would mean having to justify herself to Sabrina, lest Sabrina walk away. And since she's not willing to justify herself to anyone, it's not an option.
It's not we who are unable to work out the moral nuances--it's her who is unwilling to justify her actions to anyone in order to cooperate with someone.
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How does she know what Sabrina would agree to? They met 10 minutes ago. I guess maybe she could have read it in Sabrina's soul or something, but understanding someone else's morality system from a quick non-invasive look is some pretty spectacular soul reading.
Godwinson
"Well, I've got nothing."
Sabrina made it pretty clear she doesn't approve of murder and enslaving souls, so that's a solid indicator of her sense of morality.
Gadjo
Doka
We are already trying and have tried willingly. I'm thinking it's not going to work, so I'm more thinking about if (when) it fails and we have to incapacitate her. So far as how to stop her with force, the same thing we always do in a serious meguca fight? Gem snatch, only since she's so powerful we don't have a way to safely contain her, we'll need to keep her de-gemmed for the foreseeable future until we have enough friends to make waking her up safe, so that we may figure out what to do with her.
Also, don't imply I haven't been complete or put in effort, it's irritating and disingenuous. It was already well-known that a gem snatch was the preferred method of subduing anyone, and that includes her.
Higure
Witch of Faith
- Location
- The Golden Land
...I'd strongly recommend you don't use the term "railroading" for that opinion. It implies more than just limiting player agency--the idea conveyed is closer to eliminating player agency. Not simply restricting options, but forcing the players to simply play through a linear scenario without meaningful choices.
Admittedly, that's my understanding of it from my experience with the term in regards to tabletop, and it is sometimes used as a more mild term, but it's almost always derogatory for a reason.
That said? A lot of QMs DO need to know how to put their foot down when players are breaking character severely, or when players are heading in a direction that the QM isn't comfortable with or interested in writing about. It's a fine balance to maintain, but complete player liberty only works if you're very flexible, very prepared, and very skilled.
SaltyWaffles
I am dissapoint, son
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Frankly, I don't think we know enough about her capabilities to make gemming her in the current conversation/privacy bubble safe. I think there are two options:
1) Go for the instant kill shot on her gem while she's inside the privacy sphere. Since said sphere cuts her off from her thralls, she can't give them last-second orders (subconscious or otherwise) that results in them doing something we don't want. Gemming her in the privacy sphere would take far too long, and her power is to steal souls. She can probably do this with a touch (or even from a distance, we don't know), and we're sitting right in front of her. You do the math (also, we're inside of a building, and getting her gem 100 meters away from her through all of those walls would not be quick or easy).
2) Finish the conversation, let her have the impression that we're going to let her go her own way, and when she's outside (say, on the rooftop), yank her gem and get it outside of her control range as quickly as possible, while also keeping our own distance from Rionna and Rionna's soul gem. Then be prepared to deal with her thralls acting on last-second orders to come to her aid.
I'm down with either option, but it's worth noting that her thralls probably won't disappear unless she's killed. So yeah, either way, Rionna gets a thoroughly-deserved Bad End for being so stupid, arrogant, aggressive, unwilling to communicate or compromise, and refusal to even attempt to justify her actions to anyone.
EDIT: I'm being stupid. The easy solution is for us to signal to Mami for Homura to timestop and come to us. And then we get a gun and shoot Rionna in the head. Her gem will be intact, and if she shows any kind of awareness as a soul gem, she's inside the privacy sphere that cuts her off from her thralls.
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- Location
- USA, Midworld world line
Let me apologize, my intent is not distress for you or others.
Let me assert that I am not asking you a disingenuous question.
A third set of options might exist. Neither Willing acceptance, nor Defeat.
I am trying to imply that we could invent actions that compel Rionna, but don't turn her into a casualty. I was not insulting your effort at finding a combat resolution. My suggestion is to find other ways that you could invent to make her submit to our law, if it came to that. I maintain that Sabrina wants to have options. All of them, to the best of our ability.
DB_Explorer
Purveyor of alternate realities.
- Location
- San Diego, California
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Rionna quest must be a sight to behold.
And/or ran be evil Firn
And/or ran be evil Firn
Spectral Waltz
Scatterbrained Writer
- Location
- Walking the Endless Corridors
Let's all maybe stop the speculation on meanings until Firn gives us the next post? This feels uncomfortably close to us veering away from being excellent, and I would like to continue being excellent.
Being excellent is fun.
Being excellent is fun.
DB_Explorer
Purveyor of alternate realities.
- Location
- San Diego, California
- Pronouns
- He/Him
We still need to make a vote i think.
[Jk] state at Rionna and sip your tea.
-[jk] Realized she microwaved it
-[jk] MORTAL COMBAT
Higure
Witch of Faith
- Location
- The Golden Land
Eh, it may not be so odd, really. We can't know yet, but Rionna might very well have been as idealistic as us, at the start.
The difference is that she ended up with Soul Manipulation and didn't have a metaphysical guarantee that things could be fixed. So every win was tainted by her powers, all the attempts to do something right came back to bite them, and they started losing things they cared about.
Depair and failure will get to players eventually. They'll start reaching a bit more, doing things a bit more questionable, in order to get their wins. Eventually, you're all voting to commit atrocities because the alternative is quitting or losing, and you're all too bloody invested in the thing to actually stop.
So, yeah. Long running quest with none of the positives that help Sabrina stay sanish.
Vebyast
Nascent Transhuman
It doesn't sound like she ever regretted any of her actions, even for a moment. So I don't think that we can even give her the benefit of the doubt - I don't think she started out idealistic and was forced into evil. If she has no regrets, she was evil from the start and never even questioned it.
The Phoenixian
The Glacier Witch
- Location
- My own little world
As far as immediate responses go and the reasons for it, I think it's worth pointing out here that what pings one person's emotional responses will not ping another's, and vice versa.
There was definitely folks who were vocal about how their responses were in part because of how dismissive and detached Rionna was from what she'd done back then. By the same token, I feel like a significant amount lot of the response to that outcry, by which I mean myself and perhaps others, was precisely because of people being freaked out of their minds by just how extreme some of responses to Rionna were. I'm not sure just how much of that was true of others, but I get the impression at least some of it was.
At the heart of it, it feels like there's a mismatch here: One person sees calm as a sign of danger. Another sees strong displays of emotion and something bone deep knows their life is about to suddenly and drastically change for the worse.
I suppose that's yet one more reason to call myself the local witch.
Beyond that, I think it's important to say here that the thread is not, and has never been, a homogeneous mass, and I treating it like it is is a mistake. I don't have an accurate read on literally everyone here, but I it's clear to me that things between us very much work at a scale where the words and actions of individuals are the primary thing at play.
I think we sometimes have a problem of treating each other like an interchangeable fluid and we're really not.
I'm apologize if I'm not raising this stuff well. This, and a number of related issues, has been on my mind for a while --- some of it well before this arc started --- and while I think it needs to be said, I'm really not sure how to handle it respectfully or responsibly.
That is, in fact, your perogative. You're free to think what you will. But I'm going to ask you to drop this line of argument, because it's not productive to the thread - your declaration is inflammatory and results in people arguing at you rather than anything.
Similarly, I'm going to ask you to drop this, for the sake of the thread. In this case, because it runs counter to what I've already asked - stop trying to excuse Rionna's actions.
Both of you, consider this a QM warning - I will have you ejected from the thread if this behaviour continues. At that point, either you're unable or unwilling to understand what I intend for the thread and PMAS as a whole, and I'll threadban you for the sake of the thread.
Higure
Witch of Faith
- Location
- The Golden Land
Wait, where are we getting that from? I haven't been watching too close. Did I miss statements about her past?
Vebyast
Nascent Transhuman
Firn was forced to clarify even further on the last page:
Gadjo
Doka
I mean, I agree, we should, but he's accusing them of bad debate for trying to excuse her actions, and say she's not so bad. Could she be redeemed? Unlikely, but it's possible. But I think he means to say that make no mistake, she's not remorseful, and she has a hell of a lot to atone for if she ever becomes so.
Higure
Witch of Faith
- Location
- The Golden Land
Okay, yeah, I know about that one. That doesn't really say much, though, about early Rionna. First of all, this is her at her worst--her not regretting her actions isn't a shock. That doesn't mean she didn't feel guilt for them at one point, only that such feelings died as she grew more callous.
More importantly, even if she didn't ever regret them, it doesn't mean she was bad from the start--it could be that she always thought her actions were justified, because she simply grew too skilled at justifying them to herself.
One soul taken? "It would have been a massacre, and I saved everyone else." She gets a bit more comfortable with her power.
The next, time? "The massacre already happened, but the girl deserved it. I can use her power better." She loosens her limits a bit more.
Eventually? "She'd have gone sour someday, probably. Best to deal with it now. Besides, this power seems a bit different."
She always thinks her actions are justified and reasonable, because she always gets a bit more heartless and cynical, not less.
Her younger self might be horrified at the stuff she does now, but that girl isn't around to see this anymore.
Of course, she could have always been a callous, cynical bitch, but we shouldn't assume that. PMMM is a setting of tragedies, and I generally assume that antagonists will be tragic, not just inherently foul.
She's extremely far gone, I doubt that's going to change any time soon, and there's no excusing her atrocities, but that doesn't mean she's inherently evil.
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SaltyWaffles
I am dissapoint, son
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Oh man, I can see it now...
Rionna Quest
"I thought you might say that, really," she says thoughtfully, meeting your eyes. "So... well, I know you're trying to work out renewable cleansing with all the Grief controller's shades. You said as much, and... hm. I think you're working on de-Witching in some capacity, or at the very least you've dabbled in it."
"It doesn't concern you," you snap. Let her guess all she wants—you already know she wouldn't help without imposing some kind of terms on you. And you'd never tolerate that. You've never had to tolerate that.
"I mean, if those are your goals, then frankly, you're shooting yourself in the foot trying to work alone," she says, folding her arms. "I mean, you said it yourself - everyone's tried it. More specifically, I am trying it, both of them. They're both high on my priority list."
"And that'd be bleeding fantastic, once that were what I was doing," you snort, and look away. "I've tried those things, so I have, and I want those things."
You cock your head, staring at her. She's not what you expected, and she's not typical in any sense, but you think you get her. Well enough, anyway. "Are ye not... no. You don't want to fight me, but you does be wanting me to stop."
"I... yeah," she says, shrugging. "I don't like what you're doing."
You reaches for her flask again, half-uncapping it before remembering that it's empty and setting it down, annoyed.
"And you're gonna keep me here, keep me talking, until I spill my guts?" you muse. "Probably smart of you."
You look thoughtfully at her.
"No," you say. "I'm not giving up what I have."
She looks at you for a long moment, waiting—hoping, perhaps—that you'll amend that declaration, somehow. That you'll reconsider. As if.
She sighs, long and slow, her shoulders slumped in defeat. You suppress a smirk—while quashing her useless feel-good idealism with a dose of reality feels good now, it doesn't really help your problems in the long term. And you know that you've got a long-ass flight back home to endure soon, with nothing to show for it.
You don't see it coming in the slightest. There's no warning whatsoever. Your soul gem shatters under the impact of a bullet that was fired at point-blank range, from within a world of stopped time. You knew Sabrina was dangerous enough to be careful around, and the blonde girl with her was clearly a magical girl herself, but you never picked up on the fact that Sabrina was not the most dangerous member of the Mitakihara team.
You'd gotten so used to being too scary and powerful to pick a fight with on a whim, to have to worry about anyone having a moral objection to your deeds and being willing to act on it. Too used to owning an entire city by yourself, having ample warning of any threat that could come at you. Too used the binary of taking a soul you wanted or not taking it because the person wasn't bad enough to justify it to yourself.
Of course, you hadn't even considered the fact that Sabrina was far more terrifying than you could ever hope to be, with her powers allowing her to easily flood your Soul Gem with Grief from the Grief Seeds you carried on you, dozens of meters away, flying in an imprenetrible fortress of Grief, turning you into a Witch while giving you just enough time to realize what was happening and being utterly helpless to stop it. Or, if she wanted to be quick about it, she could just take control of the Grief in your soul gem, and shatter it from within in an instant.
You walked into a lion's den, being a terrible and demanding guest, and with only your power and intimidation protecting you, explained how you do something horrifying and are utterly unrepentant about it, and unwilling to compromise or explain yourself further.
But the scariest members of the Mitakihara team are used to far, far more powerful beings than you, and far scarier, too.
With your shades fading in the wake of your death, Edinburg is open for the taking. Magical Girls, both new and veteran, will flock to the city in the coming days. Your project, unexplained to anyone else, will be forgotten—discarded, at best.
Sabrina was courteous enough to give your corpse a burial, at least.
Jake&Blake21 said:
NotSoAnon said:
Bob the Destroyer said:
NetSky-9000 said:
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DB_Explorer
Purveyor of alternate realities.
- Location
- San Diego, California
- Pronouns
- He/Him