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Puella Magi Adfligo Systema

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Andres said:
Kyoko is uninterested, Homura is conservative to a fault (and the devil besides), and Mami lacks the confidence to be useful or wise.
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I think you're underestimating them - Homura and Mami have both given useful input quite a few times. It's true that Homura is very conservative, but that doesn't mean what she has to say isn't valuable - it just means that's something we have to account for when listening to her.

And Mami has frequently given useful input even when far less informed and in a far worse mental state than she is now.

Kyoko... honestly, I think the main problem with getting input from her is that she's just not very in the loop at the moment?

Kyoko has been getting more interested and involved lately, though - so that might change in the near future.
 
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[] Neither girl has any motive that matches what we see from Feathers. You think that what's happening is more mechanistic than we'd see with very powerful people. The letter of the Law acting in the absence of the spirit, or something similarly fucky happening with the other one.
-[] Probe gently around the edges to figure out what the rules are, and then work from there.
[] Past that, the basic idea behind both the Law and the other was the idea that the universe couldn't be fixed without throwing it out and starting over. Pushing back against that will probably be important no matter what the specific rules of Feathers are.
-[] So just your basic Magic of Friendship. Prove to everyone, including but not limited to those two, that we can build a better world. Get everyone invested in the building. Pretty much what we've been doing.
 
LadyLynn said:
At any rate, I think this is going well so far - I'm quite relieved that we didn't wind up exposing Madoka or Homura. Not even Oriko has a clue, which surprised me, but is a good sign for it being harder to figure out than I feared it might be.

Though-

Setting aside for a moment that Mami is very cute...

Maybe what Mami is thinking about here is the possibility of the Law of Cycles being Madoka?

Mami is very smart, and she does have more clues to put it all together than anyone else here.
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Mami is definitely thinking of those two. She already knows that Homura is a time traveller trying to save Madoka, and that Madoka has enormous potential. Putting it together that Sabrina is talking about those two is a natural conclusion from there. Oriko also knows enough to guess this. She's probably just confused about the part where Sabrina said telling Madoka and Homura could draw the attention of their alternate selves.
 
Andres said:
The heck's a Grief Cube?
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You know those things that Homura was using to purify her Soul Gem at the end of Episode 12?

They're those. Wraiths drop them upon death. (Some translations, particularly before the official one, called them Demons- so some older fanfics label them as such. Most notably TtS, but they don't particularly matter there)

Wraiths are basically the witch replacements.

On the Mami note, I think we're interpreting her as "pretty smart", or at least not stupid. Sure she ends up dying a pretty stupid death in episode 3, but she was kinda distracted and had mentoritis.

She also figured out how to turn ribbons into guns. To be honest, she's probably the one who has the most experience with using magic in creative ways out of all of us. I wouldn't say that she has the most power ability, not by a long shot. That'd go to PMAS Sayaka, Kazumi, and us. (Copy powers are insane!)

On her magic, her main holes are the Witch and Soul Gem stuff, but once we get her up to speed on the former she'll be good.
 
Andres said:
We shouldn't have stopped simply because the first time was questionably bad. Way too many years have gone by ignoring the most interesting magic in the story because of the same overcautious fear that has slowed down so much of the rest of it.

We try it again, get Oriko on overwatch, and move on. If Feathers shows up again, then we get confirmation that our labyrinth powers are linked to it, and then we interfere with its machinations like we did last time. If it doesn't, hooray, labyrinth powers. Either way, we move the story forward in an interesting way.
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I don't find myself convinced that just putting Oriko on overwatch is an adequate countermeasure, given that she's no longer a precog, but I do like the idea of bringing up Barrier experimentation as a topic with our friends now that they're more in the loop about Feathers.

It's definitely not something I'd want to do without their consent, though, especially considering that we explicitly promised Mami to not make Barriers anymore.

Torgamous said:
[] Neither girl has any motive that matches what we see from Feathers. You think that what's happening is more mechanistic than we'd see with very powerful people. The letter of the Law acting in the absence of the spirit, or something similarly fucky happening with the other one.
-[] Probe gently around the edges to figure out what the rules are, and then work from there.
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I like the thrust of your vote, but does this part make sense with the spooky Feathers invisitext? Would a 'Mechanistic Feathers' have a voice?

Romka said:
Mami is definitely thinking of those two. She already knows that Homura is a time traveller trying to save Madoka, and that Madoka has enormous potential. Putting it together that Sabrina is talking about those two is a natural conclusion from there. Oriko also knows enough to guess this. She's probably just confused about the part where Sabrina said telling Madoka and Homura could draw the attention of their alternate selves.
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I don't think Oriko has caught on yet - I think we'd have spotted some kind of reaction from her on it if that was the case, rather than just confusion.

Though I think there's a good chance Oriko might catch on when we bring up the "Sabrina might be connected, and has wings" thing, given that iirc her new karma-sense is seeing a link between Sabrina, Homura, and Madoka?

I reckon I'm fine with that, though.
 
LadyLynn said:
I think you're underestimating them - Homura and Mami have both given useful input quite a few times. It's true that Homura is very conservative, but that doesn't mean she doesn't what she has to say isn't valuable - it just means that's something we have to account for when listening to her.

And Mami has frequently given useful input even when far less informed and in a far worse mental state than she is now.
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They're good for a few bits of help here and there, but for steering the car to a significant degree? Not really. Their role is the occasional minor edit and nothing more. Mami can theoretically do more, but won't for the rest of the story. Her agency is majorly handicapped by her trauma, Sabrina's internal monologue said it'd take a lot more than mere days for her to resolve her trauma, and there's only days until Walpurgisnacht.

LadyLynn said:
I don't find myself convinced that just putting Oriko on overwatch is an adequate countermeasure, given that she's no longer a precog
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It's because she's no longer a precog that I think it's an adequate countermeasure. The first thing we found out about Feathers is that it defeats her precognition. I expect her clairvoyance to be a different matter entirely, especially given how it's the strongest clairvoyance in the setting.

But in any case, Kirika's there too to help with overwatch. Neither of those two have anything better to do.
 
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Andres said:
It's because she's no longer a precog that I think it's an adequate countermeasure. The first thing we found out about Feathers is that it defeats her precognition. I expect her clairvoyance to be a different matter entirely, especially given how it's the strongest clairvoyance in the setting.
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Feathers can do things and create futures that Oriko didn't predict, yes, but that's also part of what made Oriko's precog a perfect way to detect that Feathers has done something, and what it is that they did.

Like, when Sayaka got yoinked over to Elsa Maria, Oriko's visions of the future immediately changed, and through her observing those new visions we knew what it was that changed very quickly, which enabled us to take swift action.

Oriko's clairvoyance, on the other hand, might not be "disrupted" by Feathers in the same way - and thus whatever Feathers might've done might be harder to find out.

It might still be adequate, but that's why we should talk it over with Mami, Homura, Oriko etc first, to see whether or not they like the risk-benefit analysis here, and what they could bring to the table to try and make it safer.

(EDIT: Also, I do want to mention - I'm personally only really inclined to do more Barrier experimentation unless we're at least decently confident we can prevent additional Feathers shenanigans from happening, because I fear that the consequences could be worse and less easily solved than just a Sayaka abduction. Maybe Feathers will take more extreme action next time, or perhaps every time Feathers goes active there's a risk of Feathers finding whoever it is that they're looking for and/or linking up with Homura or something, or perhaps Feathers will permanently become more active each time...

Part of the reason I'm insistent on talking the idea over with our friends is because I don't think we have enough data/sufficiently compelling theorycraft to be able to make that call yet. I wanna hear their input.)
Torgamous said:
Yes. Something rendered the invisitext unable to see us during the sleepover at Madoka's. That's a lot of where the thrust of my vote comes from.
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Hm. So if I'm understanding you right, you think the reason Feathers couldn't see us at Madoka's was because of some kind of "rule" or restriction on it?

I hadn't even considered that - I'd mostly just gone "eh, maybe Feathers lost track of us or something? or maybe Feathers hasn't found us yet in general, and something bad will happen when it does?", but I hadn't thought about it too deeply yet.

I'd be interested in hearing more of your thoughts on the matter, if you have them.
 
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LadyLynn said:
It might still be adequate, but that's why we should talk it over with Mami, Homura, Oriko etc first, to see whether or not they like the risk-benefit analysis here, and what they could bring to the table to try and make it safer.
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Yeah, going up against Feathers even like this should be a team effort. Plus we gotta tell Mami because it's as you said: we told Mami no more labyrinths. Gotta get her permission before we go about making more labyrinths.
 
Sabrina has hereby multiclassed from Wizard into Cleric!

[X] Torgamous

I too believe that friendship is Magic

Maybe a private thought for Sabrina later though at some point in to see if she can somehow interact with and/or communicate with the black feathered entity.
 
Oh, got a question about Rebellion I've been meaning to ask for a while now. Were Sayaka and Nagisa witches? From MagiReco we know that witches can't use their magic properly, so I'm thinking maybe if they could, they'd be able to use their old bodies and powers again? Maybe they were mature magical girls simply stripped of despair.
 
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Andres said:
They're good for a few bits of help here and there, but for steering the car to a significant degree? Not really. Their role is the occasional minor edit and nothing more. Mami can theoretically do more, but won't for the rest of the story. Her agency is majorly handicapped by her trauma, Sabrina's internal monologue said it'd take a lot more than mere days for her to resolve her trauma, and there's only days until Walpurgisnacht.
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Honestly, we're kinda the leader at the moment, with Mami being a trusted advisor.

We're the one organizing, or at least starting, most of the stuff . . .

Andres said:
Plus we gotta tell Mami because it's as you said: we told Mami no more labyrinths. Gotta get her permission before we go about making more labyrinths.
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Agreement- at this point, it's how we do it. And as long as we don't trance, using our enchanted grief supply, we should be fine. I think the problem was the trancing, after all . . .

As in, I don't think the labyrinth was the problem. It was the *trance*.

Andres said:
Oh, got a question about Rebellion I've been meaning to ask for a while now. Were Sayaka and Nagisa witches? From MagiReco we know that witches can't use their magic properly, so I'm thinking maybe if they could, they'd be able to use their old bodies and powers again? Maybe they were mature magical girls simply stripped of despair.
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Frankly, what they were exactly is something that we may never know.

Especially since the LoC is kinda broken.

Well, in canon. In PMAS, they also don't really matter.

If I were to guess? Probably some sort of subpart/affiliate of the LoC. But any further starts to get into speculation about the current situation involving the divinities . . .

And I don't think that we have enough information to get an accurate picture, but from what I can guess it has to do with two trans temporal entities attempting to tear each other apart. Or maybe I'm assuming so because I like cosmic horror.
 
LadyLynn said:
Hm. So if I'm understanding you right, you think the reason Feathers couldn't see us at Madoka's was because of some kind of "rule" or restriction on it?

I hadn't even considered that - I'd mostly just gone "eh, maybe Feathers lost track of us or something? or maybe Feathers hasn't found us yet in general, and something bad will happen when it does?", but I hadn't thought about it too deeply yet.

I'd be interested in hearing more of your thoughts on the matter, if you have them.
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Yes. Bear in mind that I'm using "rule" very broadly. I don't think we're going to end up in a place where we carry a bag of rice around so if Feathers shows up we can scatter it and Feathers will be forced to drop everything and count it, or anything like that.

One of the very first things we learned about Feathers is that it doesn't act in our presence. I doubt that's a complete and isolated rule in itself, because that would be stupid. It's an emergent result of some broader quality of Feathers and I want to know what that is.

Sayaka being put in Elsa Maria's barrier because destiny is itself a limitation that Madokami and Homucifer are not subject to. Neither of them give two shits about destiny except as that thing they're shoving into a woodchipper.

The method of the attack on Sayaka is also significant. The timeline splicing thing Oriko described is weird. Any being we know of with the ability to do that would've just put her there. Why the splicing? It's a formidable power, but it does raise the question of where Feathers is splicing from. Especially combined with the destiny thing, maybe it can't splice in events that didn't happen in some capacity in canon. Or maybe something else. I don't have an answer, just questions, but the idea that you never bothered to wonder why the "I can't see you" invisitext showed up when it did and you just assumed it was a constant condition with no relation to the events it appeared during and we just randomly got told then instead of any other time...that's bafflingly uninquisitive to me and I'm doing my best to give you the kind of questions most of us have been asking for fucking forever now.
LadyLynn said:
(EDIT: Also, I do want to mention - I'm personally only really inclined to do more Barrier experimentation unless we're at least decently confident we can prevent additional Feathers shenanigans from happening
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Using enchanted grief instead of a trance seems like an obvious safety measure. If staying conscious through the whole process keeps Feathers from acting, that's huge, but if it doesn't at least we won't be unable to respond until we're done trancing.
Andres said:
From MagiReco we know
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Don't you start.
Arum60 said:
We're the one organizing, or at least starting, most of the stuff . . .
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Most of the stuff that we see. We know that people are talking to each other and organizing things without us present. There's some selection bias there.

Anyway since people are namevoting me I'm gonna X in my draft.

[x] Neither girl has any motive that matches what we see from Feathers. You think that what's happening is more mechanistic than we'd see with very powerful people. The letter of the Law acting in the absence of the spirit, or something similarly fucky happening with the other one.
-[x] Probe gently around the edges to figure out what the rules are, and then work from there.
[x] Past that, the basic idea behind both the Law and the other was the idea that the universe couldn't be fixed without throwing it out and starting over. Pushing back against that will probably be important no matter what the specific rules of Feathers are.
-[x] So just your basic Magic of Friendship. Prove to everyone, including but not limited to those two, that we can build a better world. Get everyone invested in the building. Pretty much what we've been doing.
 
Torgamous said:
I don't have an answer, just questions, but the idea that you never bothered to wonder why the "I can't see you" invisitext showed up when it did and you just assumed it was a constant condition with no relation to the events it appeared during and we just randomly got told then instead of any other time...that's bafflingly uninquisitive to me and I'm doing my best to give you the kind of questions most of us have been asking for fucking forever now.
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It's less that I assumed or didn't wonder, and more that by the time I caught up, it was just one among many unanswered questions that I haven't been involved in the discussion of.

I couldn't possibly have kept them all on my mind all the way through - so it just sorta got the "Hmm, maybe it's x or y? I dunno, let's keep reading and think about it again once it comes up again and I have more data" treatment, and then it didn't come up again and I just sorta lost track of it between the many other things to think about.

So yeah, until I read your post all I had was a few half-remembered guesses at what it might be.

(Also, I'd appreciate not being called bafflingly uninquisitive when my first response to seeing thoughts on the topic amounted to "cool, tell me more?")

EDIT: At any rate...
[X] Torgamous
 
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Andres said:
Ah, thought it was just the plot of Magia Record that wasn't being used. Was hoping that magical girl therapist would exist.
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From my memory, some is being used and some isn't. Presumably because it's a gotcha game.

And since I have no interest in it, and I can say no more because I don't know.

I'd assume that if it can be shifted to make sense in our narrative then it'll be fine?

But I doubt that the specifics align properly.
 
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