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Puella Magi Adfligo Systema

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Firnagzen said:
"And your hair," you say. "I... Homura, I know I've commented on your hair before, but your hair."

"It is very nice hair," Mami says with a smile.

Homura absorbs that, raising her hand to her hair and fidget with a lock of the silken strands, rubbing them between two fingers.

"How..." Homura licks her lips. "How does it all... work?"
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"Wait, you mean you don't know how your hair works either?!"
"?!"
"NOOOOOOOOO!! Now I'll never be able to dazzle my opponents with a flip of some gorgeous locks!!"
"U-Uhhh..."
"Sabrina..."
 
Thought - actually tell Homura what her advantages are? I know its somewhat direct but this is a girl that deep down thinks she is *useless*... just tell her what her good points are, and then tell her how those have come together to make it so she can be friends with Sayaka, and Mami, and Hitomi and how those can work in the future.

I'm sure HOW to write such a vote but I am reminded of a dicussion of leadership styles - I am, for various reasons, very bad at the very directive 'do this' style of leadership (outside of like time critical situations) but am much better as the more diplomatic style where I get input from everyone and choose courses of actions.

Likewise Homura in the future will have apporaches and tones that work best for her because other apporaches won't be genuine. She will be putting on an act beyond whats expected for formalized social interactions.
 
We are absolutely never even entertaining the idea of Madoka wishing, even to assure Homura about future loops. It bears repeating: Madoka contracting is such an immense PTSD trigger to Homura that she cannot, at all, consider it rationally or tolerate it happening. It's OVER A DECADE of nonstop trauma.

You'd be less of an asshole telling someone they need to let their rapist have visitation rights of their child every weekend and "make nice" for the good of the child, it's THAT bad for Homura's mental state.
 
"Empathy."

Homura has always had a surplus. The issue is in not knowing the steps to enact empathy under the circumstances of any given group and situation.

The issue is Not in how good Homura is. Homura can communicate her positive nature in regard to a group. Just as she did during the roll up to the Iowa raid. We can make that go from hit-or-miss to a more certain thing she can rely on.

There are steps to empathy.


AuraTwilight, What plan will let us "immunize" Homura from the Incubator's attack? It will surely hammer her triggers when it decides to. Please put out the rest of your thinking? I have been concerned with a more specific cure for the short term, since "build up her self-worth" would not really be ready in time.
 
My first post on SV, this quest is amazing. I've just recently (last week) caught up to the current chapter and I must say it has been an experience.

Firbagzen is an amazing QM and an even better writer, bringing not only the winning votes but also others together in an outstanding amalgamation that truly reflects what I feel to be the personality and character of the collective group of people who vote.

Speaking of which; the Questers themselves.
I can honestly say that in my couple months of lurking, reading over 40 quests and an unknown amount of User Fiction, that I have not seen such an active and truly thoughtful community. (There are only 35 Staff Posts, the majority of which are for people going off topic. That makes it an average of one per 200 pages, which is a lot less then most quests I've seen. If this doesn't indicate a healthy and respectful readerbase, I don't know what would.)

From the few votes and discussions that I've read between chapters, it is obvious to see the amount if planning and effort put into this quest. My favourite part was when people were voting for the strategy in combatting the Warship Raiding Group (can't currently remember their name), as it is a prime example of this. You were all set up in an extremely difficult scenario; You and your allies, which were all collected by votes you made, where against a highly experienced group that had a terrain advantage, powerful personal magica and hostages. And not a SINGLE ally died, the hostages where all saved and not one enemy escaped.
 
Welcome, Fresh Meat!

"Truth" vs. "Facts and Context." We can understand the method our alien overlord will use. It truly isn't possessing of (all?) the emotions we humans circulate. It sure does master the notion of Cognitive Bias, though. It can read that almost perfectly in others (but not itself!)

We all have some. The question is what strategy we each choose at the times when it comes back to bite us. This is in addition to the issue of the other personality components, like how do we deal with (insert negative issue here) and maintain homeostasis.

So how to jam up that "trigger" in the now-term? When Homura has had some years to process her history, grow her self and experience self-worth... she will not be vulnerable.
That is more than a couple of weeks work.
We also have to provide a complimentary protection for Madoka. Keeping in mind that the Incubator is "only" trying to kill Homura on general principal.
Madoka, it has a concrete goal in her case. And it is a pain-in-the-butt Optimizer. Despite the fact that things "can" be fixed, it will go for Madoka some other way, no matter how much information it has from the past. It is just getting its game on, in the face of Sabrina stirring the pot.
 
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Torgamous said:
"There's still an infohazard you're vulnerable to. If Kyubey starts explaining something to you, don't let it. Immediately stop time and find me."
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If you see Kyuubey just shoot him! Or punt him into somthing... or have a sword...or an axe.... golf clubs are good in a pinch... or a heavy bookbag
 
Yeah. I think that Homura trusts us enough to get that the incubator would do the closest equivalent to making shit up to mess with her, and so that she should consider this a ready threat it can bring up. This will prepare her against it.
 
The whole infohazard thing is a problem, but it doesn't really seem any worse than all the other problems you've already solved to me. Saying "don't worry, this is the last loop, we won't fail!" is unlikely to help.
"If Madoka's potential increases every loop, then she just has to make a wish for things to go better next time at the end and the chance of success should stay the same!" seems like it should work. I am worried about the delivery, though.
 
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Seriously guys, it doesn't matter how logical it is, bringing that up will hurt Homura.

We need to kick logic to the curb and help Homura do the impossible, we're ending things this loop, no maybes!

Also want to see Walpurgisnacht die before I die IRL, let's not make this a generational quest.
 
Fair enough. As it is, Even if Coobs brings that up, there is no reason for homura to do anything with that knowledge when we are fixing everything.
 
Torgamous said:
"There's still an infohazard you're vulnerable to. If Kyubey starts explaining something to you, don't let it. Immediately stop time and find me."
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I feel like pointing out that this does open a chink in the armor you're attempting to create. The infohazard is one that, even once Walpurgisnaught is dead, is still fairly dangerous to Homura. Being direct about it, going 'take this on faith, don't ask me about it, and don't let Kyubey talk' is kinda... I dunno. Feels somewhat abusive of Homura's trust, and she's smart enough to realize it even IF it's potentially for her own good. It's not quite the same as the Mami 'ask me when we're both mentally prepared' situations, i would think. Too much pent up trauma, and gives her something to worry about, to try to figure out on her own so the Incubator can't use it against her... but even if she figures it out herself, it's still dangerous (especially with the 'Sabrina is accomplishing everything i failed to' mindset).

I think, it would be better handled by gradually reinforcing 'Kyubey is a manipulative asshole' as the reason for 'shoot it, don't listen to it' instead of 'infohazard', because Homura already knows QB's a manipulative asshole.

Though, um, it does bring up the question. Have we seen hide or hair of QB lately? I'm almost more worried about what it's planning in the background that might cause us more shit on top of Walpurgisnaught to deal with. Though i suppose as long as Homura and Sabrina stay safe, if QB does try shit we can reenact the 'infinite timestop hunt' like with Oriko. Walpurgisnaught's not really a threat if it's stuck in timestop while we put out fires elsewhere, if it can even be considered a threat due to how easily Sabrina tears apart witches.
 
Ryumancer said:
Have we seen hide or hair of QB lately? I'm almost more worried about what it's planning in the background that might cause us more shit on top of Walpurgisnaught to deal with.
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As it has multiple parallel bodies, its presence or absence only matters in regards to its ability to manipulate those immediately present. Rest assured, if it wants to make trouble, trouble will be made.
 
Dantalion said:
As it has multiple parallel bodies, its presence or absence only matters in regards to its ability to manipulate those immediately present. Rest assured, if it wants to make trouble, trouble will be made.
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True, true, but it not being present means that we can't pump it for info either. We don't get any hints of what it's actual intent is regarding the situation. Though it DOES also reduce the chances of it actually figuring out the timetravel and Madoka potential infohazards, if it hasn't already found out.
 
Here's a question: In order for kyuubey to have told her about the potential bomb, he would have had to have knowledge of Homura's time loops in the first place. Exactly how did he find that out?
 
Angrygenius said:
Here's a question: In order for kyuubey to have told her about the potential bomb, he would have had to have knowledge of Homura's time loops in the first place. Exactly how did he find that out?
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It's not exactly hard. She's a magical girl with time powers who suddenly showed up despite Kyuubey never contracting her. Getting from there to "she's a time traveller" isn't exactly rocket science, and if you combine that with Homura being protective of Madoka and Madoka's potential suddenly skyrocketing the moment Homura showed up...
 
Redshirt Army said:
It's not exactly hard. She's a magical girl with time powers who suddenly showed up despite Kyuubey never contracting her. Getting from there to "she's a time traveller" isn't exactly rocket science, and if you combine that with Homura being protective of Madoka and Madoka's potential suddenly skyrocketing the moment Homura showed up...
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Well, there goes my thing about him maybe not knowing about it yet...
 
Ryumancer said:
because Homura already knows QB's a manipulative asshole.
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I'm still worried she might not actually know that. It's obvious to us, but that isn't the same as it being obvious to Homura. Remember, the key premis of this conversation we're having with Homura is that she's socially stunted. We're explaining really basic concepts to her because she's suffered neglect and trauma that add up to her never having had a chance to learn these things.

Kyubey's "technical truths" are an obvious manipulation tactic to us, but to someone underdeveloped socially, it's easy to see Homura believing his schtick about it being the other person's fault for not asking the right questions. Especially since she's already primed to blame herself for anything that goes wrong.

I do not want us ending this conversation without directly addressing this, whatever else we end up doing.
Angrygenius said:
Here's a question: In order for kyuubey to have told her about the potential bomb, he would have had to have knowledge of Homura's time loops in the first place. Exactly how did he find that out?
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We don't actually know how he figured it out. Our original theory was it was Oriko tipping him off in order to facilitate her grand plan, but now that we've befriended Oriko and gotten a better look at what she was trying to do, that doesn't seem to be the case. She warned us about Kyubey being aware of it, suggesting that wasn't a deliberate action on her part.

My thought is to tie it in to the mysterious orientation of Homura's shield and the temporal splicing we're seeing from Feathers. I believe it's likely that what happened was that events played out as in the series up until Madoka's differant wish. Then Madoka's wish restructured things to seemingly turn things back without Homura's powers actually triggering. Because there was no time travel, Kyubey retained his memories of that false loop and is sitting on the information he gleaned from it.

It isn't a comprehensive theory yet, but it seems to fit a lot of the evidence.
 
Sabrina could always lie.

Example lie: "Keep this a timestop only secret, but the truth is that Kyuubey can speak deliberate lies for real. There is an alternate timeline where he creates the perfect sentence formulated to force you to witchout. He normally avoids doing so for reasons I don't fully understand, but it is possible it has to do with the level of karmic agency required to speak whole-cloth bullshit where magical potentials can be affected by it, meaning it's a risk to the Incubator's harvest. Kyuubey considers you, Akemi Homura, enough of an obstacle to his profiteering that he is willing to risk the karmic consequences of breaking this rule. Whatever the case, if it ever gets a chance to speak to you, timestop away immediately. Tell no one of this outside of timestop or a privacy field, if it knows we know this rule breaking behavior it may decide to escalate beyond our ability to protect Madoka."
 
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Menthewarp said:
Sabrina could always lie.

Example lie: "Keep this a timestop only secret, but the truth is that Kyuubey can speak deliberate lies for real. There is an alternate timeline where he creates the perfect sentence formulated to force you to witchout. He normally avoids doing so for reasons I don't fully understand, but it is possible it has to do with the level of karmic agency required to speak whole-cloth bullshit where magical potentials can be affected by it, meaning it's a risk to the Incubator's harvest. Kyuubey considers you, Akemi Homura, enough of an obstacle to his profiteering that he is willing to risk the karmic consequences of breaking this rule. Whatever the case, if it ever gets a chance to speak to you, timestop away immediately. Tell no one of this outside of timestop or a privacy field, if it knows we know this rule breaking behavior it may decide to escalate beyond our ability to protect Madoka."
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One, would she lie? I don't think Sabrina would. Withhold information, yes, but lie about something like this...?

Two, that lie is complex, rambles somewhat, and is coming relatively out-of-nowhere, especially considering the chosen topic is something we would've warned Homura about a long time ago if it was something we knew as fact, and Sabrina is predictable enough that 'i forgot until now' would be strange coming from her.

It's... basically all the things a good lie shouldn't be. Keep-it-simple-stupid is a principal that very much applies to lies. The longer and more complicated you make it, the more likely you'll get caught on an inconsistency, and the more things you 'answer' that you weren't asked, the more obvious it is you're spinning a tale rather than telling the truth.
 
Angrygenius said:
Here's a question: In order for kyuubey to have told her about the potential bomb, he would have had to have knowledge of Homura's time loops in the first place. Exactly how did he find that out?
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Nerevar said:
We don't actually know how he figured it out.
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Redshirt Army said:
It's not exactly hard. She's a magical girl with time powers who suddenly showed up despite Kyuubey never contracting her. Getting from there to "she's a time traveller" isn't exactly rocket science, and if you combine that with Homura being protective of Madoka and Madoka's potential suddenly skyrocketing the moment Homura showed up...
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I mean, that's pretty much exactly how it goes in canon.

Kyubey was uncertain about what Homura's deal is right up until he gets timestop-ganked while trying to contract Madoka, at which point he realizes that her power is in fact timestop rather than some sort of weird teleportation or whatnot, and that "she's from the future" is therefore the most likely theory for why he doesn't remember contracting her. It's in episode 8 right after the "bunnycat noms his own corpse" scene if anyone wants to check.

The only question would be "at what point in PMAS did bunnycat discover that Homura could stop time" since everything beyond that is stuff he's demonstrably capable of working out on his own from that starting point.
 
Echo said:
The only question would be "at what point in PMAS did bunnycat discover that Homura could stop time" since everything beyond that is stuff he's demonstrably capable of working out on his own from that starting point.
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Oh I'm sure it was one of the first umpteen times Sabrina said "Hey Homura, a moment?" and then literally nothing happened and their side-talk instantly broke.

We never tried to hide Time Stop from him because there's no way to prevent him finding out.
 
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