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Puella Magi Adfligo Systema

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So on the retired PMAS discord there was some discussion about the prospects of a PMAS/Girl Genius crossover. One of the potential ideas there was that Sabrina could be inserted into the world, not as magical girl, but as another spark with her modern knowledge being the wedge she uses to improve the world. I've been listening to the Girl Genius audiobooks a bit and naturally my mind turned to this a bit more.

Sabrina was never alive and healthy as a normal girl. She came into the world dying. Wouldn't it be an interesting wrinkle to make Spark!Sabrina utterly dependant on sparky life support at all times? This obviously presents a weakness for enemies to exploit but I imagine it could also be harder to convince people that we're really a nice and not *that* mad spark from the inside of an encounter suit. Done right it could give her some interesting limitations and weaknesses without fundamentally crippling the potential for her to change the setting.

Plus
the new stuff we've heard about the Queens like Albia being sparks who have undergone a "second breakthrough" has further increased by interest in a Sabrina in Girl Genius crossover.
 
I like the Kirika insight, but could we separate it out from the wish rejection psychology? The way the order is now, we'd be going off on a tangent in the middle of our explanation.
 
Shadowhisker said:
I like the Kirika insight, but could we separate it out from the wish rejection psychology? The way the order is now, we'd be going off on a tangent in the middle of our explanation.
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Edited in: "Adjust order of topics as needed to fit best flow." because this update is going to be huge, and giving a strict order will make it harder for Firn to write without being stilted anyway.
 
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SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Oh my god. It's so simple.

You know how we couldn't make a device to analyze soul gems, because it was just out of reach?

Okay, so one of the leading the leading theories around our range limit is that that our grief control is based off our bodily control. (The soul gem can only control the body within 100 meters, our grief acts like our body, so our grief control acts within 100 meters.)

In that case, the reason soul gem analysis would be just out of reach for us because the soul gem we're analyzing is another person. We're trying to apply an effect based on will --- which is used for controlling our own "body"--- on their soul.

...

Okay, there is a problem here (and I'm getting a bit stream-of-consciousness-y): We have a very significant and obvious exception to the proposed restriction: Taking grief from magical girls and witches is kinda interacting with their souls. At the same time, it provides a basis for reasoning about what went wrong there and the primary issue with it is a matter of seeing if there's an reasonable hypothesis to explain the discrepancy.

Off the top of my head, it could be that our intent there was using our will on someone else's soul --- and so running into a boundary of our range based on the souls of others --- or of using our will on matters of the soul --- meaning willed effects should be limited in it's ability to manifest changes within the soul as a rule.

The first is just iffy as hell, doesn't solve the problem, and I can already see from here that it requires a lot of other restrictions to mean anything so I'm just going to drop it.

The second one sounds more reasonable, it basically means that and our grief control is a very small, slightly more puissant exception (that we did specifically wish for) that enables the rest of our magic: We take control of emotions and make it something like our body, just as witches do. Or another way, we take the grief of ourselves and magical girls and turn it into the grief of witches.

Essentially, this would mean our magic is fundamentally Incarnation just as much as Control. We first take the idea and then make it real. Which... is a rabbit hole in its own right.

(Which, it strikes me, is kinda similar to Kyubey, if different in details. He realizes the soul, we realize its parts.)

It fits with the phases of grief from gas to solid: As we crush it down with more will, we infuse it with more of our power and magic, and so it becomes both less witchy and more real. Our gas flows through matter, and even weirdly enchants it in a way we've never explored, while our solid grief just pushes it.

This also fits with our enchanted grief engulfing Aurora instead of being absorbed. It plubbed over her clear seed instead of being absorbed like a marble would have because while the soul is a barrier to our will that keeps the marble real, the enchantment that kept it physical was physically part of it, and then it grew a nascent magic network because our, and a witch's, basic frame for these things is as a body part to be used.

That could be the divide that we hit: The power derived from our will deals in physical things, not souls. We might do better to create something into which another's will can be poured, instead of our own and it might mean that other attempts to will devices into existence to influence souls will have similar problems. (so, mind-reading and -control might be similarly beyond us, for instance)

The results of our experiments trying to poke witches and familiars provide a possible exception that's conversant with the above: We can interact with their souls because they are already incarnate souls, and by poking their cores with our magic, we basically make them part of our body for a bit. Which sort of pokes us in the brain with a bit of being them. (In other words, I think we may have conglomerated ourselves with the witches for an instant.... Whoops?) Once their cores collapse into seeds they move beyond our will again, just as soul gems are.

From another angle, our magic being Incarnation also fits with our magical constructs we just learned how to make. What were we doing with those hope wings? We were taking an idea, and giving it physical form as part of our body.

This also means just how if other magical girls have a difficult time forming the kind of raw magical construct we just did, that could be a point in the hypothesis's favor. And if it's difficult but possible for them that provides a path for them learning for them to mimic our own work in the form of enchantments. (Incarnating Hope --> Incarnating Grief.)
... You know, if this is all correct, it occurs to me that we actually know and pray to a certain non-physical concept of making things better, I wonder if it might be possible to incarnate her, or if I'm just getting ahead of myself.
Okay yeah, that was a bit wild and didn't go quite where I thought it would, but I hope it's comprehensible, given I may be a bit sleep deprived from how long this took....Could Dedolere incarnate Madokami... and then grief-rip UKG?
Godwinson said:
Don't just feed a grief-seed random emotions. Feed her emotionally-imbued magic that's directed at the girl who is the grief seed, the twisted, pained, depressed, grief-stricken echo of the magical girl. Convey the following via emotions:

"You're not alone any more."
"I'm here, I'll help."
"Things can get better."
"I care about you, and I want to help."

and similar things.
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This is a good idea. I'll note that part of the reason I'm feeding Aurora random things is give her as broad a range of experiences, and what I think may be her responsiveness to our feelings about IRCs makes me want to do that more: So we can find more things that resonate with her, but actively trying to communicate our intentions regarding her is a valuable addition.

So combining this with that, I'm thinking next time we feed her we start with our IRC stuff specifically, since it seems like that's what she responded to last time, while also giving her our curiosity if she's interested in that specifically, and the hope she enjoys it. There's (a lot) more to say, but showing specific interest in her preferences is strikes me as a good piece of larger things.
 
... Something in that tripped a switch and once again a revisit...

I am the Grief of my Soul
Gem is my Body and Shade is my Blood
I have saved over a Thousand Girls
Not seeing Loss
Nor lost the Game
Wielding Pain to rescue the Morning, waiting for the Fall of Night
I have no Regrets. This is the only Path
My whole life is Unlimited Grief Works
 
The Phoenixian said:
Okay, there is a problem here (and I'm getting a bit stream-of-consciousness-y): We have a very significant and obvious exception to the proposed restriction: Taking grief from magical girls and witches is kinda interacting with their souls.
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Not really? Our wish was to control grief, not to control souls. Souls contain grief, so we can do some slight interaction with souls by proxy, but that's similar to the way that, say, Magneto can control the iron in someone's blood but not the blood itself.

The grief of magical girls is already the same thing as the grief of witches. And grief can naturally be transferred from one soul to another. A witches barrier is the inside of their soul, the same way that the inside of a soul gem or grief seed is.

What Sabrina's magic is doing is claiming her entire 100 meter range (plus whatever we extend our magic to with ribbons or other means) as "her soul" for the purposes of containing grief.
 
Firnagzen said:
The others have disappeared into the stairwell already, and you can hear the echo of their voices fading away as they descend. Mami takes a step back, golden eyes still fixed on you, and you smile at her, internally fretting about her. You... maybe if she had someone else to be a mentor to? Maybe?
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Okay, yeah, Feathers is definitely Dedolere. She wasn't working off of any grand, long-term plan -- she was trying to arrange for Mami to have another kouhai, because she wanted to make Mami happy.
 
I also remember there being something recently about people having wanted to experiment about whether we can bring people into timestop with us by way of grief control?
Firnagzen said:
One last bound, and you land on the same roof, your friends a step behind. An effort of will tugs at the Grief, pulling the corruption free in a billowing torrent. Brief colour washes over the girl, her dress revealed to be a sparkling sky blue to match her eyes, though those are currently red and puffy from crying.

The timestop reclaims her as the last of the Grief comes free, drifting over to you in a cloud you shape into marbles as you eye the girl carefully, considering what you want to do.
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Yes, we absolutely can. Even if it's not material grief, just the energy/gas form. It counts as contact.
 
Godwinson said:
Okay, yeah, Feathers is definitely Dedolere. She wasn't working off of any grand, long-term plan -- she was trying to arrange for Mami to have another kouhai, because she wanted to make Mami happy.
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"I'M HALPING!"

Okay, more seriously, that makes me even more convinced that diplomacy is going to be biggest part of the solution to Feathers.
 
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Witches are that helpful part of you that gives you absolutely terrible ideas, blown up and given superpower, just you wait

Candeloro: if you break their legs they can't leave you
 
Redshirt Army said:
Again, it's not clear to me how bringing up Hijiri is useful here. Could you expand this section, @Godwinson ?
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That was grabbed from @Vebyast but I believe the point is to look at the way that the wishes there affected both girls?

Sorry, for some reason I'd gotten things confused there and thought you'd made up the list.

I'm in a very weird state of mind right now, which is why I'm spotting all these oddball things in my PMAS reread.
 
Firnagzen said:
"I've found my range seems to be restricted to a hundred meters out."

Mami gives you a surprised look, avoiding a protruding duct without even looking. "That's... unusual."

"It is?" you ask in surprise, shelving the thoughts of what you'll call the Kyousuke problem for now.

"Um... there are magical girls with a hundred meter range," she says. "Not too many, though."
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We ought to ask Mami about these magical girls, so we can compare notes with them, figure out why their powers have that hundred meter range, because that should give us more information about why that happens.
 
Godwinson said:
That was grabbed from @Vebyast but I believe the point is to look at the way that the wishes there affected both girls?
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Sure, but Hijiri's wish in particular seems likely to put Homura more on-edge, not less. It'd be like bringing up Hinata's wish.

If we bring up that wishes can force people to pursue murder to an unreasonable extent, I think there's a significant chance that Homura will immediately go to "how do you know that the meaning of Oriko's life isn't killing Madoka"?
 
Vebyast said:
Example of the wish being an implementation of the wish's underlying intent. Low value because she hasn't yet rejected her wish, so is in trailing list rather than full example. If you promote one, prefer to promote Kyouko.
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Fair, though I can see Redshirt's point with this:
Redshirt Army said:
Sure, but Hijiri's wish in particular seems likely to put Homura more on-edge, not less. It'd be like bringing up Hinata's wish.

If we bring up that wishes can force people to pursue murder to an unreasonable extent, I think there's a significant chance that Homura will immediately go to "how do you know that the meaning of Oriko's life isn't killing Madoka"?
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Reasonable enough, yeah. Kyouko, Yuma, and Yuki, then?
 
Yeah, those three work.
Redshirt Army said:
If we bring up that wishes can force people to pursue murder to an unreasonable extent, I think there's a significant chance that Homura will immediately go to "how do you know that the meaning of Oriko's life isn't killing Madoka"?
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I think that we have already enqueued more than enough evidence to falsify that hypothesis. The big ones are how Oriko started getting her magic back when she apologized, how her new power supports a passive role (specifically, peeping on her waifu), and how Kirika's wish to be the best for Oriko yielded an argument that Oriko accepted that Oriko's original motive was totally wrong.
 
More evidence for this world being Madoka's fix-fic:
Firnagzen said:
The man nods, a smile deepening the crow's feet around his eyes, and he turns to Madoka as Sayaka joins in the impromptu game, chasing Nagisa around Mami. "Ah, Miss Kaname?"

"Oh! Um, call me Madoka, please?" Madoka says, looking up at the businessman. She's forced to tip her head back quite a bit.

"Please convey my congratulations to your mother on her promotion," Shin says gravely. You catch Nagisa in a tight hug, keeping one arm around her while you mess up her hair. She squeals in delight, laughter dancing in her eyes.

"Ah? My mum wasn't promoted?" the pinkette says, looking confused.

The businessman smiles. "Please convey my congratulations to your mother on her promotion," he repeats.

Madoka blinks. "Oh! Really?"

Shin lays a conspiratorial finger to his lips, straightening.

"I, ah, I'll be sure to do that," Madoka says, a smile breaking out on her face.

The businessman nods. "Thank you, Miss Madoka."

"Thank you, Mr. Momoe!" Madoka says.
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:V
 
Godwinson said:
Okay, I'm going to add that insight into the vote. Also, I've talked to @Firnagzen in private, and he's told me that the additional detail that's been added on this vote is preferable. So vote-bloat for details here is QM-approved.

[X] "Okay, I... I really should have done this before now. I'm going to explain what I know and how that's informed my thinking, and more details on what I've done. I've asked you to trust me time and time again, and I've taken it for granted time and time again."
-[X] Grief chairs and table, this is going to take a while. Use grief to provide visuals where appropriate. Adjust order of topics as needed to fit best flow.
[X] Try to reassure Homura by explaining why we believe what we believe. Be thorough, be detailed, be professional, be patient, don't pressure, provide examples, logos not pathos, you're wanting her to see and check your reasoning. You're working together, so you need to work together. Whenever you got something through meta-knowledge say as much and explain the metaknowledge -- after all, it's knowledge Madoka gave you, so it's important.
-[X] Detail to Homura wish-magic psychology, particularly wish rejection, so she doesn't have to take your argument on faith and can apply the reasoning herself.
--[X] Case studies:
---[X] Mami's magic is based around ties to life, after she wished to live. As a result, she can't forget the pain caused by severed bonds.
---[X] Sayaka wished to be useful, so that she could be part of a team. Her powers are great given our support to build up, but would have been useless if she was solo. She wants to work together this time, and has even said to you earlier today that she considers Homura a friend whom she trusts.
---[X] Kyouko's literal disillusionment, Yuki's magic being "friendly", Yuma getting healing after her abused background, your own control issues. Homura's desire to go back and have more time with her friend.
---[X] Oriko started out wanting control and her own death, due to her family issues. She wished to know the meaning of her life, but the only meaning she could find was in suicidal martyrdom, which her power obliged.
----[X] She gave up those motives and lost that power. This power is driven by different motives, namely satisfaction with reality and a desire to enjoy it in the moment.
----[X] Oriko's wish rejection started shortly after you apologized for threatening to witch Kirika, and Oriko apologized for her own actions. Earnest regret for one's wish is the surest form of rejection. She lost her precognition, and suffered as she thought she must.
---[X] Normally Kirika wishes to be someone Oriko could love, and gets time-slowing powers to let her get all the time she can with Oriko. This time, Kirika wished to help Oriko, and received the power to turn off powers. That was what convinced Oriko that she didn't need to rely on her visions of the future.
----[X] Explain how the dynamic between Kirika and Oriko results in either Kirika enabling Oriko's recklessness, or Kirika holding it back. How it was only after Kirika's inevitable death in other timeline that Oriko went completely crazed. Explain how Kirika has been helping you talk Oriko around, to stop her from seeking "suicide-by-mage". There are reasons you call them the Kures, not the Mikunis, and one of them is because Oriko isn't calling the shots any more. Everyone always talks to Oriko, but you've also talked to Kirika. Kirika can be persuaded to sway Oriko, and Oriko is persuaded by Kirika and things involving Kirika. Explain spraybottle incident as an example.
-[X] You haven't been idle during your regular check-ins with the Kures either. You've been steadily working to reform Oriko. You're not simply trusting that she's changed, you've been actively working toward it, and you're not letting that blind you to the possible risks.
-[X] Work through the technical considerations. This power is not proactive. For defending Madoka you actually prefer actionable info about the real world rather than hypotheticals and vague warnings. Clairvoyance is less dangerous of a power even if she did mean to attack.
-[X] You're open to discussing additional safety measures too, but that discussion should happen with Sayaka and Hitomi's input.
-[X] You're here to help make sure things can be fixed, most of all to help Homura. Turning Oriko from an enemy into an ally, from a threat to an additional layer of protection, that seems like fixing things.
[X] Remain in timestop to continue conversation onto other topics.
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Mmm. See, there are stronger alternatives...

[X] ... The thing is, if Oriko was the only person in the equation here, she wouldn't have survived that alleyway meeting. She was unstable, suicidal, a threat... and on top of that, not only was she never going to stop being those things on her own, you really couldn't have done anything to help her change.
-[X] No, it's Kirika who is the reason Oriko isn't a problem. Kirika, who nobody notices or talks to, who is dismissed as ditzy at best and a lunatic at worst, but who only ever wanted one thing -- for Oriko to be happy.
--[X] Kirika never liked the idea of getting themselves killed, or even really having Oriko exposed to danger, but Oriko's magic was precognition. When Oriko told her that there was no way for her to save Oriko, she gave up, and decided that she would try to make Oriko as happy as possible in the time that they had. Figuring that arguing with Oriko was useless and wouldn't make her any happier, she went along with Oriko's plans, knowing full well that they would end in tears, hoping that she could at least make things a little happier before that happened.
---[X] You only did two things for the Kures -- you helped convince Oriko that her precognition wasn't absolutely guaranteed to be right... and you gave Kirika the slightest shred of hope that if she fought, she might actually be able to save the person she cared about.
[X] The chief reason, then, that you're so unworried about the Kures as-is is that making enemies of us -- endangering that future where the two of them get to be happy together with each other -- is the absolute last thing Kirika wants... and as long as she's convinced that that future is remotely possible, she's going to fight for it.

I might edit this a bit one way or another... I dunno. The parallels drawn between the people involved are really, really strong -- but for exactly that reason I'm slightly hesitant with them... Hm.
 
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