@Cae Lumis
MagiReco is not canon to PMAS.

It was meant to be more of an aside if anything, and that in the grand scheme of things it wouldn't affect our voting all that much. However, I thought @Firnagzen said he was gonna be selective about what elements make it into PMAS from Magi Reco (i.e., on the whole, its not-canon, but certain elements might find their way in kinda deal)... course it's early in the morning for me and my memory might be playing tricks on me @_@. Apologies if I caught temporary madness and being forgetful.
 
Though anyway, yes - I'm calling Kamihama off-canon in the same way Homura Tamura is. The events didn't happen as I can't square them up, the characterizations are mostly canon (I reserve the rights to veto parts, as I see it. Like Nagisa's backstory in MagiReco; what the hell is up with that?) and the abilities/reveals about magic are... well, ask me before assuming anything from MagiReco counts.

Relevant quote by Firn.
 
Hypothesis: Past Madokas contributing potential means that they must still be able to affect the future. Homura realizes that she hasn't been going back and has in fact just been getting and endless train of Madokas killed.
I feel like a crossover fic with "The One" makes a lot more sense now?

I like your idea to engage Homura in Madoka's underlying condition - Inadequacy. Namely, for all her good attributes, Madoka is feeling deprived on the interpersonal front. This is a thing Homura can shine in resolving, and as Homura KNOWS, Madoka will absolutely do things she should not to act on her inadequacy. "Being the one to protect Madoka," from her issues, is a job Homura will have to stick around for - just like we can't help Homura in just a few weeks, it will take a lifetime friendship for Homura's wish to play out.
 
clearly when we elevate Madoka to Madokami we need to elevate Homura to be co-equal to provide a counter-balanced opinion to Madoka.

I mean she's horribly vulnerable to bribes of hugs but *shrugs*

Wait bettet idea make everyone a deity! MEGUCA PANTHEON.

ALL HAIL CHURCH OF KYOK- *killed for hersay*

:V
*Blowing gun smoke* Foolish heritic, you spat on the fundamental tennent of Yurism, all Goddesses must be worshiped as shipping pairs.

PRIASE THE CHURCH OF HOMOMADO
PRIASE THE CHURCH OF SAYAKYOU
PRIASE THE CHURCH OF WHITE RIBBON
 
Sooo
Longpost incoming
Skip if you're here for Mumihugs and not random peeps on the Internet discussing the cosmological balance of PMMM and metanarrative nature of the setting hard girls making hard decisions and Incubators helping them

First.
Incubators, their goals, how we figure into it.
Right now, there are two possible scenarios for what Kyubey would like to do with Sabrina:
1) Kill her
2) Witch her out
Second is pretty much obvious, considering it's his long term goal for nearly any Meguca. That's his job, more or less.
Things get interesting here if we assume the first. Why should we?
Three reasons, one of them hypothetical. We'll start with it
1) The Incubator is able to see the Potential. For our purposes, it means it's able to see how powerful a Witch would result from hatching the Meguca in question. He has a lot of circumstantial evidence to extrapolate that Sabrina's Witch is an ontological threat, same as we were told by Firn. The evidence is as follows:
Our Wish and it's result is unprecedented
He isn't able to gauge our Potential precisely, but he knows it was enough to wish for controlling Giref and succeed, something that hasn't happened ever by his admission and by our knowledge of the setting.
He knows that the Witch gets abilities connected with the Meguca's Wish and their nature.
If he extrapolated from the following, he would be at least a little wary to Witch us out... I'd say, but nah, he knew Madoka would destroy the world in seven days and actively encouraged the outcome.
So here's the second reason
2) Sabrina is too emotionally stable at the moment. The only signifant lever he has on her psychological condition is Mami, who is already less emotionally compromised than she was by the start of the anime. Basically, to Witch Sabrina, he would have to Witch Mami first. While Sabrina is alive and Unwitched, it's practically impossible if not for the support she provides to the group, then for reason
3) Sabrina controls Grief. She's able to suck the Grief out of her Soul Gem, your Soul Gem, their Soul Gems, everyone's Soul Gems! Give me your Grief, bitchez! :V
Grief spiral loses its meaning near to Sabrina. It's unpleasant. It's absolutely horrifying to live through. It also doesn't accomplish the Incubator's goal.

Considering that Sabrina stabilizes the Mitakihara group with her presence, resolves ( some ) of their issues, is difficult to Witch out in the immediate future and has a real chance of winning against Walpurgisnacht together with Homura, something Kyubey wasn't willing to bet against even when Homura had only Kyouko as a party member, because Homura is a SSR support from another dimension, I would suggest that the Incubator's goal is to kill Sabrina, like he did away with Kyouko, for example.
The most likely scenario for this is an attack by a large hostile Meguca force who knows our strengths and weaknesses and has a clear counter to our abilities. That would be either the much advertised Iowa Battleship or a conglomeration of several groups from Tokyo.

I'm betting on Iowa for the immediate danger, considering I believe they are kinda on his payroll. Their existence is beneficial to him, because it invites chaos, promotes suffering, causes destruction and Wishes as a result, and is somewhat useful when he needs to manipulate someone to kill an uppity Guca with too much Potential and too little sense.

Now, there are several handles on other members of our group. A question was asked: why doesn't he use them?
I have a hypothesis.
I anime, Kyubey slowly introduced issues and tension to incite conflict almost at leisure, because frankly, PMMM cast consists of people who seem to compete in a marathon of death and Witchouts. His only goal was making Madoka contract and he accomplished it by preventing anyone from helping Homura. Now, the situation is a little more complicated, in his opinion. The new factor has outside knowledge, is here to help by her own words, prevents Grief Spirals and conflicts... almost like someone created her for this very purpose. His most likely effective strategy? Hit her with everything at once. Wait till she makes mistakes and enemies. Coordinate their attacks. And then introduce issues. Separate the group if possible. She cares about other groups? Attack them too. Use several platforms to Witchbomb everyone at once, if that's what it takes.

The nearest possible moment for that?
Soryuo Twins.
If he can somehow convince Iowa to arrive with them.

Discuss.
 
Sooo
Longpost incoming
Skip if you're here for Mumihugs and not random peeps on the Internet discussing the cosmological balance of PMMM and metanarrative nature of the setting hard girls making hard decisions and Incubators helping them

First.
Incubators, their goals, how we figure into it.
Right now, there are two possible scenarios for what Kyubey would like to do with Sabrina:
1) Kill her
2) Witch her out
Second is pretty much obvious, considering it's his long term goal for nearly any Meguca. That's his job, more or less.
Things get interesting here if we assume the first. Why should we?
Three reasons, one of them hypothetical. We'll start with it
1) The Incubator is able to see the Potential. For our purposes, it means it's able to see how powerful a Witch would result from hatching the Meguca in question. He has a lot of circumstantial evidence to extrapolate that Sabrina's Witch is an ontological threat, same as we were told by Firn. The evidence is as follows:
Our Wish and it's result is unprecedented
He isn't able to gauge our Potential precisely, but he knows it was enough to wish for controlling Giref and succeed, something that hasn't happened ever by his admission and by our knowledge of the setting.
He knows that the Witch gets abilities connected with the Meguca's Wish and their nature.
If he extrapolated from the following, he would be at least a little wary to Witch us out... I'd say, but nah, he knew Madoka would destroy the world in seven days and actively encouraged the outcome.
So here's the second reason
2) Sabrina is too emotionally stable at the moment. The only signifant lever he has on her psychological condition is Mami, who is already less emotionally compromised than she was by the start of the anime. Basically, to Witch Sabrina, he would have to Witch Mami first. While Sabrina is alive and Unwitched, it's practically impossible if not for the support she provides to the group, then for reason
3) Sabrina controls Grief. She's able to suck the Grief out of her Soul Gem, your Soul Gem, their Soul Gems, everyone's Soul Gems! Give me your Grief, bitchez! :V
Grief spiral loses its meaning near to Sabrina. It's unpleasant. It's absolutely horrifying to live through. It also doesn't accomplish the Incubator's goal.

Considering that Sabrina stabilizes the Mitakihara group with her presence, resolves ( some ) of their issues, is difficult to Witch out in the immediate future and has a real chance of winning against Walpurgisnacht together with Homura, something Kyubey wasn't willing to bet against even when Homura had only Kyouko as a party member, because Homura is a SSR support from another dimension, I would suggest that the Incubator's goal is to kill Sabrina, like he did away with Kyouko, for example.
The most likely scenario for this is an attack by a large hostile Meguca force who knows our strengths and weaknesses and has a clear counter to our abilities. That would be either the much advertised Iowa Battleship or a conglomeration of several groups from Tokyo.

I'm betting on Iowa for the immediate danger, considering I believe they are kinda on his payroll. Their existence is beneficial to him, because it invites chaos, promotes suffering, causes destruction and Wishes as a result, and is somewhat useful when he needs to manipulate someone to kill an uppity Guca with too much Potential and too little sense.

Now, there are several handles on other members of our group. A question was asked: why doesn't he use them?
I have a hypothesis.
I anime, Kyubey slowly introduced issues and tension to incite conflict almost at leisure, because frankly, PMMM cast consists of people who seem to compete in a marathon of death and Witchouts. His only goal was making Madoka contract and he accomplished it by preventing anyone from helping Homura. Now, the situation is a little more complicated, in his opinion. The new factor has outside knowledge, is here to help by her own words, prevents Grief Spirals and conflicts... almost like someone created her for this very purpose. His most likely effective strategy? Hit her with everything at once. Wait till she makes mistakes and enemies. Coordinate their attacks. And then introduce issues. Separate the group if possible. She cares about other groups? Attack them too. Use several platforms to Witchbomb everyone at once, if that's what it takes.

The nearest possible moment for that?
Soryuo Twins.
If he can somehow convince Iowa to arrive with them.

Discuss.

Kyubey was probably involved with Rionna who was probably a bigger threat than either of these groups. He'd also be stupid to spend ammunition before the potentialbomb. I don't buy any of it.
 
Kyubey was probably involved with Rionna who was probably a bigger threat than either of these groups. He'd also be stupid to spend ammunition before the potentialbomb. I don't buy any of it.

Kay.

On the danger of invoking the spirit of the girl who must not be named, how is Rionna more dangerous than a group whose specific modus operandi seems to be hitting up other groups for seeds and laughs? Like, yeah, if we ever met Rionna in a fight, she'd probably be haxx af. But what she clearly was not is several murderous Gucas at once.

As for the second, I have two problems with your reasoning:
1) Kyubey canonically spends all the ammunition before the Potentialbomb. Quite successfully.
2) What prevents him from using the Potentialbomb in tandem with all other things I mentioned? Why does Potentialbomb have to be first and why doesn't it work together with other factors?
 
Kyubey was probably involved with Rionna who was probably a bigger threat than either of these groups. He'd also be stupid to spend ammunition before the potentialbomb. I don't buy any of it.

I... don't buy Rionna being a bigger threat than Iowa.

On a narrative level, Iowa has been built up for ages - as the single worst group operating internationally by Nadia, and as a clear and present danger feared enough to push Fukushima into an alliance with us.

It would be a massive anticlimax if we just easily took them out - and I trust Firn as a writer more than that. There's going to be substance to back up the hype.
 
Kay.

On the danger of invoking the spirit of the girl who must not be named, how is Rionna more dangerous than a group whose specific modus operandi seems to be hitting up other groups for seeds and laughs? Like, yeah, if we ever met Rionna in a fight, she'd probably be haxx af. But what she clearly was not is several murderous Gucas at once.

As for the second, I have two problems with your reasoning:
1) Kyubey canonically spends all the ammunition before the Potentialbomb. Quite successfully.
2) What prevents him from using the Potentialbomb in tandem with all other things I mentioned? Why does Potentialbomb have to be first and why doesn't it work together with other factors?

I... don't buy Rionna being a bigger threat than Iowa.

On a narrative level, Iowa has been built up for ages - as the single worst group operating internationally by Nadia, and as a clear and present danger feared enough to push Fukushima into an alliance with us.

It would be a massive anticlimax if we just easily took them out - and I trust Firn as a writer more than that. There's going to be substance to back up the hype.

Fair. Still not worrying, we gave Homura -- which btw this line of mine is going to go into whatever we eventually say to her lol.
 
While I don't disagree entirely (as the first step to helping yourself is wanting to get better and accepting help when offered), ultimately what Homura needs is professional therapy. She's undergone trauma that would make war veterans blush, very, very few people are able to work through that themselves and I really don't see insecure Homura as one of them. She needs the help of a professional who has experience with helping war veterans (which arguably all meguca are) overcome their PTSD and their psychological problems from the things they witnessed.

We've paid lip service to the idea in the topic before, but I have to admit I'm a bit disappointed we haven't really taken any concrete steps in that direction yet. It's been almost a year since we imprisoned she-who-must-not-be-named, and while that person is currently gemmed, we still have another prisoner who isn't and who needs a prison therapist, but we haven't done anything towards that yet. I know that Sabrina being us means she has a compulsive need to fix everything herself (a problem she should honestly look into getting professional help for :V ) and that off-screening these matters to "[insert girl] had a session with [insert therapist]" might feel hand-wavy or Deus Ex Machina-ish, but it's a simple fact that in-universe Sabrina simply doesn't have the qualifications for the job.

Don't get me wrong, what we are doing, being there for Homura, Mami, Kyoko, Sayaka and Madoka, listening to their problems and advising them best as we can definately helps and gives them much needed support. But Sabrina is not a professional. She hasn't studied for it, she has no medical degree in psychological therapy involving such heavy trauma as Homura and Mami and Kyoko and our two prisoners have suffered. If we really want to help Homura, want to break the potential bomb to her, want to get Kyoko to not think she deserves to suffer, we should stop winging things by attempting to play doctor ourselves, but find a trustworthy therapist asap and gently pursuade our friends to seek out said therapist's help.

As someone with mental health issues, just talking as Sabrina tries isn't going to fix everything. It can help, but we don't know the best way to tackle or approach these matters in a way that helps Homura (or any of the others) progress like a psychologist would. Heck, maybe Homura even needs anti-depressant medication, we don't know and we won't know until we stop dragging our feet and just admit we're a bit in over our heads and seek out help ourselves. Y'know, practice what we preach and all.

I'm not trying to be rude here, my apologies if it comes across as such. I'm simply worried that with us set to take on Tokyo on our already overloaded plate, we'll be pushing this therapist thing on the long road even further. Let's not, please. For Sabrina's sake and the sake of all our friends (and prisoners).
really we should be hitting it on two fronts, a lot of the time its important to have professional help AND emotional support from your friendgroup
Considering some of the things Magi Reco all but says about the Law of Cycles (Note: Not Madokami herself. Just the law of cycles... which incidentally the Clara Dolls of all things also make a clear distinction towards- Liking Madoka but hating the Law of Cycles.)... yeah... the Jury is still very much hung.



Now, unfortunately, the video where this side story was translated was taken down, so I had to scour around for at least an upload of the video itself. However, remembering the gist of what happened: Nagisa's side story basically reveals that she was picked to deal with Kamihama specifically because she would most likely ignore how the Law of Cycles would want her to handle the situation by Madoka. As in, even she herself views the laws as something that needs countermanding. In this side story, Mami has recovered after her stint with the Wings of Magius (long story) and isn't trusting herself or her judgment to help others because of it. Nagisa, despite the Law of Cycles (in the guise of Pink Kyubey) not wanting her to interfere with Mami due to how it creates a paradox (their lives are intertwined due to how often she's the one who kills her) or something to that effect, goes to Mami to help remind her of who she is and reinspire her. In the end though, after succeeding, the Law of Cycles countermands her and takes her back to Madokami for breaking causality like that.

Nagisa, while understanding, vows to eventually find a way to break it again so she can have tea and cheesecake with Mami.

Long story short, if an agent of Madoka and Madoka herself disagree with how the Law wants to approach things... I think the Jury is far from settled.

truly it really does give a lot of credence to akuma tearing madoka out of the law of cycles but leaving it relatively intact and undamaged
I mean, I could see Homura as a harem protag. Intent on everyone joining Madoharem, mind you, but...
it is a well known fact that the only way to escape a love triangle is polyamory. just do what I do and date everyone. tough choices are for losers
 
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I... don't buy Rionna being a bigger threat than Iowa.

On a narrative level, Iowa has been built up for ages - as the single worst group operating internationally by Nadia, and as a clear and present danger feared enough to push Fukushima into an alliance with us.

It would be a massive anticlimax if we just easily took them out - and I trust Firn as a writer more than that. There's going to be substance to back up the hype.
I'm more worried that Firn will err too heavily on the side of "why were they hyped so much?" considering the way that the thread reacts to any sort of opposition or setback by blowing up or going maximum apologist (or both at the same time).

As for Rionna being a bigger threat? You're right, we handled her easily -- because Sabrina didn't give her the chance to bring her army of the dead to bear against us at the time of her choosing.
 
I'm more worried that Firn will err too heavily on the side of "why were they hyped so much?" considering the way that the thread reacts to any sort of opposition or setback by blowing up or going maximum apologist (or both at the same time).

As for Rionna being a bigger threat? You're right, we handled her easily -- because Sabrina didn't give her the chance to bring her army of the dead to bear against us at the time of her choosing.

I mean, sure, it's possible that we'll just chump Iowa from timestop and call it a day. But just assuming it'll be that easy reeks to me of overconfidence.
 
I mean, sure, it's possible that we'll just chump Iowa from timestop and call it a day. But just assuming it'll be that easy reeks to me of overconfidence.

I mean what we're getting here is the classic "we should worry about this," "no, we shouldn't."

My stance on this is and remains that the best way to prepare for conflict is to get our friends in better places and make more friends. It's gotten us Mami, the Pleiades, and Yuki's team, and with effort, thought, and maybe a dash of luck it'll help us keep Homura well, too.

What would you have us do? Because if the answer is just "don't dismiss these people," then, well, okay, admittedly I've basically been doing that, but I'm doing it as a function of wanting to worry about other things instead (allies, mental health of allies), which I feel address this problem via knock-on effects, and which are more useful re Walpurgisnacht than other alternatives.

If your preference is to telefrag Iowa with Sayaka and Homura, I mean, I could definitely see it, but I think it would wait until after we have Oriko with clairvoyance to actually tell us who Iowa group is, yeah? Until then, what are we accomplishing?
 
I mean, we should probably try to be proactive regarding Iowa, just on principle of Firn hating "heroes react". But you're right that there isn't much we can do at this moment, other than general data collection - I want to contact #milesgloriosus again this evening for example, to follow up on our promise that we'd be back and to ask about what American groups know about Iowa.
 
I mean, sure, it's possible that we'll just chump Iowa from timestop and call it a day. But just assuming it'll be that easy reeks to me of overconfidence.
Nah, that's not me assuming we'll chump Iowa, that's me worrying that we'll chump Iowa because Firn decides to ratchet down the difficulty.

This is something that I have privileged knowledge about, and suffice to say, if the Iowa group isn't weakened then they're about as much of a threat to a city as Walpurgisnacht is -- which is to say, that if they wanted to, they could level a city.

My worry is that Firn will decide that the thread simply couldn't handle having anything like an actual challenge without breaking down into a saltstorm, and make them less of a challenge simply to avoid that.
 
I liked where we were going with this. What can we do to give Homura a purpose aside from her powers? I feel like it'll be integral to defusing (or at least lessening) the potiential-bomb.
 
Nah, that's not me assuming we'll chump Iowa, that's me worrying that we'll chump Iowa because Firn decides to ratchet down the difficulty.

This is something that I have privileged knowledge about, and suffice to say, if the Iowa group isn't weakened then they're about as much of a threat to a city as Walpurgisnacht is -- which is to say, that if they wanted to, they could level a city.

My worry is that Firn will decide that the thread simply couldn't handle having anything like an actual challenge without breaking down into a saltstorm, and make them less of a challenge simply to avoid that.

Huh. Well, that falls squarely in line with my own predictions for their level of danger - and I'd be disappointed if Firn did end up toning it down, since if we take them seriously they should be within our ability to handle.

"This will not be an easy quest" and all that.
 
This is something that I have privileged knowledge about, and suffice to say, if the Iowa group isn't weakened then they're about as much of a threat to a city as Walpurgisnacht is -- which is to say, that if they wanted to, they could level a city.
Sounds like we need to start gathering information on the Iowa group yesterday then.
 
I think that we'd be fine with a difficult fight. The salt-storms would start when one of them opens the fight by claiming that all of their murdering and extortion is actually morally just and saying we have no right to judge them.
 
Nah, that's not me assuming we'll chump Iowa, that's me worrying that we'll chump Iowa because Firn decides to ratchet down the difficulty.

This is something that I have privileged knowledge about, and suffice to say, if the Iowa group isn't weakened then they're about as much of a threat to a city as Walpurgisnacht is -- which is to say, that if they wanted to, they could level a city.

My worry is that Firn will decide that the thread simply couldn't handle having anything like an actual challenge without breaking down into a saltstorm, and make them less of a challenge simply to avoid that.
The problem with difficulty seems to be that even Walpurgisnacht will only be a threat because of arbitrary narrative-related durability meaning that even if we spend two subjective weeks shooting everything at it from time stop, it can't die without a fight.

So the Iowa girls need not just city busting firepower, but a way around that. They'll probably end up having some kind of super speed user, because magical girls don't do the arbitrary durability thing in general. Add some mental power to make it so we can't bury them in magical girls, a main front tank, some very long ranged shooter to wreck our prepared traps from beyond our effective range. And some degree of conceptual weirdness is always in the table here, of course.

But the real problem is none of this will actually achieve anything if we find out who is who and bring specific counters at a time of our choosing (and/or wait for them to be in a deserted road and start dropping shit from space), so they need to have precognition on top of that. I'm really not sure how sustainable this group is, grief-wise? Considering they spend a lot of time either traveling through areas with little in the way of Witches and magical girls or getting in expensive fights with large groups of magical girls. So they might need a particularly tricky grief manipulator just to keep up with supplies.

On the whole, i'd say they can't be nerfed and still be consistent at all. They'd basically become the Nine in the 'only kept alive by author fiat' sense.
 
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I think that we'd be fine with a difficult fight. The salt-storms would start when one of them opens the fight by claiming that all of their murdering and extortion is actually morally just and saying we have no right to judge them.

That's going to come off as a lot more disingenuous coming from a group we know raids and kills people, as opposed to someone who's motivations and actions were unknown and had Nadia and Oriko both vouch for them.
 
They're all carrying their baby siblings, who they've been on the road with ever since a curse left them orphaned and unable to stay in one place for too long without destroying it. Like Kyoko, they've convinced themselves they have no conscience out of economic necessity.

One of the babies has leukemia.
 
They're all carrying their baby siblings, who they've been on the road with ever since a curse left them orphaned and unable to stay in one place for too long without destroying it. Like Kyoko, they've convinced themselves they have no conscience out of economic necessity.

One of the babies has leukemia.

That's so sad. Kyubey, play Despacito.
 
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