Look, when I say drop the topic, I also implicitly meant that the sniping is supposed to stop. Maybe I didn't explicitly say it, but I'm saying it now.
Puella Magi Adfligo Systema
- Thread starter Firnagzen
- Start date
-
- Tags
- 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?
Hello there, beautiful people~!
Just found this quest and have a couple of questions before I dive in:
1. I have next to no knowledge about PMMM, other than those cat things have an Evil Plan or something and that being a Magical Girl != Super Happy Fun Times
Is cannon knowledge a must or is diving in okay too?
2. (Apologies in advance) That tag about Rionna, is it there because of some derail or because it's just something poorly handled/not written very well and should just be skimmed through?
Feel free to RTFM @ me or something (do tell me where to start if you do, please)
Thanks in advance.
EDIT: first impression - pretty happy I just jumped in, the characters feel alive and are a delight to read. I know I'm most likely missing a lot, but I can already see a Chekhov Armory building slowly.
Just found this quest and have a couple of questions before I dive in:
1. I have next to no knowledge about PMMM, other than those cat things have an Evil Plan or something and that being a Magical Girl != Super Happy Fun Times
Is cannon knowledge a must or is diving in okay too?
2. (Apologies in advance) That tag about Rionna, is it there because of some derail or because it's just something poorly handled/not written very well and should just be skimmed through?
Feel free to RTFM @ me or something (do tell me where to start if you do, please)
Thanks in advance.
EDIT: first impression - pretty happy I just jumped in, the characters feel alive and are a delight to read. I know I'm most likely missing a lot, but I can already see a Chekhov Armory building slowly.
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Dantalion
Insight: 367
- Location
- A Guest Room at the Brass Embassy, dying of Frenzy
- Pronouns
- Any
1. Canon knowledge is not a must, but do watch it - it'll give context to why we do as we do. Cannon knowledge is also unnecessary - we have Mumi for that.
2. Rion^na was a character that caused the thread to erupt into a couple-week-long flamewar, due to running the thread's stated intent of saving everyone against someone who was explicitly and unrepentantly making things worse, and aggravated by the one source of information we had on her saying that she was, as far as said character knew, a decent enough person. We do not talk of Rion^na in depth because, even today, mention of her can reignite the flamewar.
Believe there's a story-only thread somewhere that's a good place to start - if a particular choice seems odd to you or if you want to see what the posters were thinking at a particular time, use the threadmarks to find the corresponding part in this thread. Do not skip Rion^na's parts solely due to the flamewar - knowing your history aids in avoiding repetition of it.
Welcome to Sabrina's head, fresh meat.
Edit: Ah, here it is.
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- Location
- Laniakea
Sort of yes, sort of no.
Sort of yes, because our main character explicitly starts with full advanced knowledge of everything in canon. So things get predicted and referenced that you won't get without knowing what original canon was. And votes do often get made based on knowledge from canon. I can say for certain that if you jump into this without knowing the canon, you will get completely spoiled on the entire series.
Sort of no, since of course this quest isn't canon and there's differences between them, plus there's a lot of stuff is original to the story - for instance, many of the characters we have met are original. Some differences have been confirmed offscreen by the QM (for example parts of Madoka's backstory and Nagisa's backstory) and others are there but not revealed because finding those out is part of the quest. For example, Kirika Kure's magic is different from the canon and nobody knew that until getting to that part of the plot.
We still don't know all the differences, so even though votes do tend to get influenced by canon knowledge, there's always still the risk that things could turn out to be different than expected. In that sense, there's probably going to be at least a few times when voting un-influenced by canon could turn out better than if you did know the canon.
Rionna is a character who was written out of the story by the QM. She didn't appear for very long and the section involving her was autopiloted through by the QM who says he didn't write it well and prefers that it gets avoided being referenced as much as possible (I also assume the character basically got retired and is never going to appear again).
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- Location
- Norway
Fresh meat!
Like Pistachio says, knowledge of the series isn't strictly required, but obviously it provides context for every vote that has to do with future prospects (since we already know what's going to happen, mostly), and the general fact that knowing characters more intimately usually makes you care more for them. Granted a lot of characters here have started diverging some from their canon counterparts due to Sabrina influencing them, but the core personality is of course still the same.
Like Pistachio says, knowledge of the series isn't strictly required, but obviously it provides context for every vote that has to do with future prospects (since we already know what's going to happen, mostly), and the general fact that knowing characters more intimately usually makes you care more for them. Granted a lot of characters here have started diverging some from their canon counterparts due to Sabrina influencing them, but the core personality is of course still the same.
While that's true, so far every new character is a new discovery for me. I do Google the images if the description seems not enough, but try to not look for details.
On the one hand, I know I'm missing stuff (like that invisitext which I just found). On the other, I have no preconceptions/biases, so I'm enjoying everything fresh
Also, the characters do a good job to make me care for them as is (poor Drill-chan and Timetravel-chan - they need all the hugs).
On the one hand, I know I'm missing stuff (like that invisitext which I just found). On the other, I have no preconceptions/biases, so I'm enjoying everything fresh
Also, the characters do a good job to make me care for them as is (poor Drill-chan and Timetravel-chan - they need all the hugs).
Madou Sutegobana
Autocorrupt has been disabled.
- Location
- Twin Realms Mandala
I'm going to level with you. No sniping, no passive aggression.
The two people in this thread in most need of heeding that banner are Firnagzen and Godwinson. Those two are very frequently not kind to posters that make suggestions that they do not like.
And in some cases posters have made abhorant suggestions, but that still does not excuse attacking the posters personally and in the same breath calling an end to discussion.
I would strongly advise taking PistachioCookies' reply with a healthy amount of skepticism.
IMO, the story updates are fine. That tag was referring to the months-long discussion that went highly toxic, but since you're sticking to the story-only thread then you should be all right.
BTW,
on Firn personally attacking posters, because that's a pretty strong claim to make in this thread.
Raiseth
I Find Your Lack of Memes Disturbing
- Location
- Russia
You've escalated this debate by mentioning "Taylor" and "escalation" in one sentence, for shame.
Not accepted.
Eh, we could just... drop it, you know? Like, not really talk about it anymore?
Why are we still talking about this? Whatever.
Gadjo
Doka
Dude, talking about other posters like that is already rude, but saying Firn has problems with passive aggression and sniping for moderating his own quest? Quite politely, I might add? The man has the patience of a saint to put up with this thread's flamewars, and you're kind of a dick for insulting him in his own thread to new people.
The Phoenixian
The Glacier Witch
- Location
- My own little world
Right, in the interest of giving the thread something to do other than spiral, I'm going to just step in here and make some finishing touches to Redshirt's vote.
[X] We're working on both ends of the problem: prevention and cure. Sayaka can help with both.
-[X] For prevention, we'll keep doing whatever we can to make sure that magical girls - all magical girls, everywhere - don't have to fight for resources or starve anymore.
--[X] Clear Seeds are a stopgap solution - they're much better than the status quo, but you still want to replace them with something better once you can.
-[X] For cure, we're working to try to reverse the witching process and rescue the fallen magical girls, or as close as possible.
--[X] It's been tried before, and usually ended badly, but you have good reason to think that you have a shot.
[X] In both cases, the Incubator will be your biggest obstacle. It intentionally poisons magical girl groups against each other, and a lot of girls believe in its plushy facade. We need to anticipate it spreading misinformation and pointing hostile groups towards us - it might have already done so with Iowa.
-[X] You... aren't in a position to directly fight it yet. It has unlimited bodies that it can instantly teleport anywhere in the world, and a bunch of subtle influence over media and the spread of information. But you don't intend to take this lying down - you *will* end this rotten system it's built, one day.
[X] Let Sayaka collect her thoughts, and don't overwhelm her. Be a good friend.
-[X] Provide more information as she asks questions:
[X] Re: Prevention
-[X] Almost all magical girls - even the most heinous ones - are ultimately victims of this system. And often the most ruthless and vicious ones are the ones who know the most: they'd do anything to avoid suffering that fate.
--[X] You strongly suspect this is why the Akiko of the Sendai group was so harsh with her "taxes" upon the University Girls.
--[X] With the recent outreach in Tokyo in particular, you think that the truth about witches was shared in that Council Meeting, and Chiyoda used memory magic to cover it up.
[X] Re: Cure
-[X] We're working with Niko Kanna and the Fukushima Group on this, and Nadia is carefully sounding out other potential recruits.
-[X] You're taking things slowly, since you don't want to hurt the souls you're trying to help, or yourselves for that matter, by assuming something was true when it wasn't. We're basically starting from complete ignorance and because of that setbacks, false assumptions, or even occasionally having to scrap our work and start from scratch aren't tragedies even but something to be expected here.
-[X] Explain your current theories regarding Clear Seeds and their absorption of Hope.
[X] Re: Sayaka's role
-[X] Sayaka wished to be helpful, and her power lets her scan peoples souls and create erzatz soul gems. You don't think that's a coincidence.
--[X] She shouldn't try using her power on Grief Seeds yet, though. You've tried tapping into the emotions of a witch before and... you experienced her suffering directly. Maybe once this news isn't so fresh, and she has a spotter and a reasonable set of precautions ready to help her.
-[X] More indirectly, Sayaka has access to an enormous number of powers, plus all the combination effects that opens up.
-[X] And, of course, she's already been a huge help when it comes to your outreach efforts.
Made a couple edits and X'd in Redshirts proposal.
First expanded the line on being careful into a bit on safety and expectations. I think this is very much in spirit with the original, but it could use expansion into the need for proper safety and expectation management.
And added a few words to red proposal since it likewise fits with the idea of experimental safety and cuts off a plausible line of action that could be troublesome.
[X] We're working on both ends of the problem: prevention and cure. Sayaka can help with both.
-[X] For prevention, we'll keep doing whatever we can to make sure that magical girls - all magical girls, everywhere - don't have to fight for resources or starve anymore.
--[X] Clear Seeds are a stopgap solution - they're much better than the status quo, but you still want to replace them with something better once you can.
-[X] For cure, we're working to try to reverse the witching process and rescue the fallen magical girls, or as close as possible.
--[X] It's been tried before, and usually ended badly, but you have good reason to think that you have a shot.
[X] In both cases, the Incubator will be your biggest obstacle. It intentionally poisons magical girl groups against each other, and a lot of girls believe in its plushy facade. We need to anticipate it spreading misinformation and pointing hostile groups towards us - it might have already done so with Iowa.
-[X] You... aren't in a position to directly fight it yet. It has unlimited bodies that it can instantly teleport anywhere in the world, and a bunch of subtle influence over media and the spread of information. But you don't intend to take this lying down - you *will* end this rotten system it's built, one day.
[X] Let Sayaka collect her thoughts, and don't overwhelm her. Be a good friend.
-[X] Provide more information as she asks questions:
[X] Re: Prevention
-[X] Almost all magical girls - even the most heinous ones - are ultimately victims of this system. And often the most ruthless and vicious ones are the ones who know the most: they'd do anything to avoid suffering that fate.
--[X] You strongly suspect this is why the Akiko of the Sendai group was so harsh with her "taxes" upon the University Girls.
--[X] With the recent outreach in Tokyo in particular, you think that the truth about witches was shared in that Council Meeting, and Chiyoda used memory magic to cover it up.
[X] Re: Cure
-[X] We're working with Niko Kanna and the Fukushima Group on this, and Nadia is carefully sounding out other potential recruits.
-[X] You're taking things slowly, since you don't want to hurt the souls you're trying to help, or yourselves for that matter, by assuming something was true when it wasn't. We're basically starting from complete ignorance and because of that setbacks, false assumptions, or even occasionally having to scrap our work and start from scratch aren't tragedies even but something to be expected here.
-[X] Explain your current theories regarding Clear Seeds and their absorption of Hope.
[X] Re: Sayaka's role
-[X] Sayaka wished to be helpful, and her power lets her scan peoples souls and create erzatz soul gems. You don't think that's a coincidence.
--[X] She shouldn't try using her power on Grief Seeds yet, though. You've tried tapping into the emotions of a witch before and... you experienced her suffering directly. Maybe once this news isn't so fresh, and she has a spotter and a reasonable set of precautions ready to help her.
-[X] More indirectly, Sayaka has access to an enormous number of powers, plus all the combination effects that opens up.
-[X] And, of course, she's already been a huge help when it comes to your outreach efforts.
Made a couple edits and X'd in Redshirts proposal.
First expanded the line on being careful into a bit on safety and expectations. I think this is very much in spirit with the original, but it could use expansion into the need for proper safety and expectation management.
And added a few words to red proposal since it likewise fits with the idea of experimental safety and cuts off a plausible line of action that could be troublesome.
- Location
- The Surface Of A Hostile Planet
[X] The Phoenixian
Seems good to me!
Seems good to me!
- Location
- Florida
[X] The Phoenixian
Dragontrapper
Homeless Draconis
- Location
- A Tower in the middle of nowhere
[X] The Phoenixian
Madou Sutegobana
Autocorrupt has been disabled.
- Location
- Twin Realms Mandala
I could totally understand this interpretation of my post. I grouped Firnagzen and Godwinson together and criticised the end result.BTW,
My bad, They are two seperate individuals. However Firnagzen was condoning and supporting Godwinson's personal attacks on PistaccioCookies, in the same posts that he was calling for the argument to end.
But seriously, how Gadjo do you get that interpretation from "no sniping, no passive aggression in a paragraph where Firn has not even been mentioned yet?
PistaccioCookies could maybe have found a less salty way to state that his opinion was mischaracterized, but he has a point.
To characterize PistaccioCookies defensiveness as sniping is to support the claim of his attacker!
Godwinson frequently gets into flame wars on this thread.
Even when not starting an argument, he will still escalate to personal attacks.
If he were to act this way in a thread with a different OP, he would be called out by the OP.
It could be that there is some instance somewhere in this thread where Firnagzen has called out Godwinson, but I cannot recall such a time ever despite many occurrances of Godwinson starting and escalating arguments.
Firnagzen will instead single out whoever Godwinson argues with for a specific chewing out, time and again.
And as he takes a side, he will also ensure he gets the last word by declaring the argument over.
I actually agree with his stated intentions and goals here.
I don't believe it was neccessary to tear down PistaccioCookie as dark, depressing, and disenfranchising.
PistaccioCookies vote was not even in danger of winning. Even if it had Firn has a veto.
If Firnagzen's concern was to prevent a flamewar, he should single out the poster who was making the argument about attacks on personal character!
Not implicitly support the accusations!
I get real sick of the mantra of 'Be kind to each other' being used to mean 'Shut up and take your abuse!'
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Raiseth
I Find Your Lack of Memes Disturbing
- Location
- Russia
I'm pretty sure there was a time when we could've stopped this, like, maybe two months ago.
Eh.
Madou Sutegobana. Frankly, by raising your tone and accusing the QM of favoritism, you aren't helping your case. Yes, what Godwinson said was hurtful and possibly incorrect. What Pistaccio answered was salty and pointed. That doesn't matter here.
QM has taken a side in the issue, but not the argument.
There's an important difference here: he said he disagrees with the idea of decontracting on principle, not that he agrees with Godwinson assessment that the idea was sexist, even though it might seem so by implication. Then he asked to drop it.
Which we were continuously half-assing for the last few pages, those of us who tried, that is.
Look, I don't envy Firnagzen's task. Trying to write about teenage girls doing things to make the world better as a hobby, write it well, make it a Quest, and then come and listen to people shitting on each other or on him every two-three months.
Please, for fuck's sake, do it in private. Even if you disagree with Firnagzen's decision here, there's something to say about doing it in private, personally, in PMs, maybe using respectful tones as a bonus, not for everyone and their privy to see it here in this thread.
Like, does anyone miss the threadlocks for a month? I honestly don't. So, on this cheerful note, let's stop this, please? Or at least, take it to a PM convo, like Kaizuki has suggested.
Eh.
Madou Sutegobana. Frankly, by raising your tone and accusing the QM of favoritism, you aren't helping your case. Yes, what Godwinson said was hurtful and possibly incorrect. What Pistaccio answered was salty and pointed. That doesn't matter here.
QM has taken a side in the issue, but not the argument.
There's an important difference here: he said he disagrees with the idea of decontracting on principle, not that he agrees with Godwinson assessment that the idea was sexist, even though it might seem so by implication. Then he asked to drop it.
Which we were continuously half-assing for the last few pages, those of us who tried, that is.
Look, I don't envy Firnagzen's task. Trying to write about teenage girls doing things to make the world better as a hobby, write it well, make it a Quest, and then come and listen to people shitting on each other or on him every two-three months.
Please, for fuck's sake, do it in private. Even if you disagree with Firnagzen's decision here, there's something to say about doing it in private, personally, in PMs, maybe using respectful tones as a bonus, not for everyone and their privy to see it here in this thread.
Like, does anyone miss the threadlocks for a month? I honestly don't. So, on this cheerful note, let's stop this, please? Or at least, take it to a PM convo, like Kaizuki has suggested.
DB_Explorer
Purveyor of alternate realities.
- Location
- San Diego, California
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I think several things are at play here.
First, as a reminder -this thread started in 2014, it's been running for six years. With at times highly contentious votes spilling out into flame wars and personal attacks that have resulted in this thread being locked several times.
Such flamewars can be trying for a GM to deal with so Firn has, understandably decided to more often than not ere on the side of caution when it comes to possible flamewars.
Second, and this might be worse depending on how good (or bad) people are at social. The text format removes a huge swath of non-verbal cues and the instantaneous feedback they can provide. So people work entirely off wording and depending on peoples own experiences they can go and make their own assumptions.
Third, posting this all out in the open gets everyone to chime in and you get people inclined to side with one person or the other and it turns into a us vs them rather then a proper discussion.
Should we expect the GM to act fairly? If not impartially since this is a story they are trying to run? Yes. But I think it's best to handle these discussions, especially if they are about a specific person rather than a thread wide trend, via PM's with the person and perhaps a trusted mediator. That allows a deeper discussion without everyone piling on.
First, as a reminder -this thread started in 2014, it's been running for six years. With at times highly contentious votes spilling out into flame wars and personal attacks that have resulted in this thread being locked several times.
Such flamewars can be trying for a GM to deal with so Firn has, understandably decided to more often than not ere on the side of caution when it comes to possible flamewars.
Second, and this might be worse depending on how good (or bad) people are at social. The text format removes a huge swath of non-verbal cues and the instantaneous feedback they can provide. So people work entirely off wording and depending on peoples own experiences they can go and make their own assumptions.
Third, posting this all out in the open gets everyone to chime in and you get people inclined to side with one person or the other and it turns into a us vs them rather then a proper discussion.
Should we expect the GM to act fairly? If not impartially since this is a story they are trying to run? Yes. But I think it's best to handle these discussions, especially if they are about a specific person rather than a thread wide trend, via PM's with the person and perhaps a trusted mediator. That allows a deeper discussion without everyone piling on.
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Gadjo
Doka
You... openly referred to the previous paragraph in reference to firn showing favoritism. You were and are still saying that, and it's immensely disrespectful to continue to make these accusations in thread, aside from the fact that I believe you to simply be salty that he disagrees with you and will jump in to settle arguments with word of gm. Take this shit to PMs. It's off topic and rude.