Edison_Trent
Freelancer
Do we think this might be a moment we can get away with a proper Kyouko hug, or would the overwhelming amount of sappiness cause her to stab us and leave us for Yuma to heal with...🤔
Puella Magi Adfligo Systema
- Thread starter Firnagzen
- Start date
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- 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?
- Location
- Most likely California
Update was worth the wait. It had a badass witch fight that was more than a curbstomp, bonding with Kyouko and Yuma, and Sabrina going character development. Good Job Firn!
- Location
- America
Gotta say, it's wonderful to see Sabrina learning to be human. We've already had her admit to Mami about how Mami is the one who made her a feel like a person beyond her purpose. Now here she is experiencing the other side of the coin, that is in this case, irrational jealousy. It's bitter but also sweet, because it means she is growing as a person.
We can probably include this detail about jealousy and its nature as being the other side of personhood when Sabrina talks with Mami later.
On a related topic, I kinda wonder what Kyouko is thinking right now. I don't remember how much Sabrina has been able to step off of the Goodie Two Shoes pillar that Kyouko had her on in the past. This conversation could potentially have been one of the most humanizing things we could have done with Kyouko in order to get her to see Sabrina as more than just Mami's Perfect Girlfriend.
We can probably include this detail about jealousy and its nature as being the other side of personhood when Sabrina talks with Mami later.
On a related topic, I kinda wonder what Kyouko is thinking right now. I don't remember how much Sabrina has been able to step off of the Goodie Two Shoes pillar that Kyouko had her on in the past. This conversation could potentially have been one of the most humanizing things we could have done with Kyouko in order to get her to see Sabrina as more than just Mami's Perfect Girlfriend.
- Location
- Georgia
If I didn't know they were going for a flame, I'd likely interpret that as a foamy head on a mug of beer in a stiff wind or with the mug being waved about. "Flame" would never have occurred to me, though I understand why some might see it as poop.
We need to see if some of our ideas for extremely rapid travel pan out, then take Kyouko to buffets all around the world. Shoney's does a wonderful breakfast bar, or did back when this is set. I'm not sure whether the chain as a whole died to the covid lockdown, but all of the ones near me closed, sadly.
To be fair, it's not like we lack knowledge. We know absurd amounts about a plethora of subjects. We simply lack experience, and in that one respect, Kyouko is right to call us empty headed. Even an amnesiac generally has a developed grasp of themselves despite not being able to pull anything specific to the forefront of their mind, but we didn't even exist a month ago. There's nothing there to draw on.
One of the things I think should be taught in school is positive coping mechanisms, and with them, the difference between emotion and deed. Fear doesn't become cowardice except in action. Anger does not need to become violence, and envy/jealousy don't have to be petty, not until you take petty actions.
Regardless of whether that burning feeling was magic related, I still think we need to do that Grief release experiment. The hint that there may be something really dangerous has been there every time we've released or seen Grief be released, and that is it attempting to coalesce into something. I don't want to see this technique get shared out and a few years later have spontaneous Familiars forming, leading to a future like RWBY, with monsters everywhere drawn by negative emotions, monsters that dissolve when destroyed, only to precipitate again later as that Grief coalesces again.
I'd also like us to have a full Constellation enchantment training session go down, in addition to the much needed Science!. I wonder what effect Kirika enchanting that katana we stole with her anti-magic and then giving that to somebody who is experienced with sword usage for fighting Walpurgisnacht. If nothing else, I think that cooperation is the key to dealing with it, the many coming together to take on the one super-Witch. We don't have to have everybody join in on that lesson, but having a training session should help reinforce our bonds of community.
We've been making some progress on that front with Mami. This is the first time we've really had introspection on the negative side of being more than just a purpose.
Seeing how bad we are at handling emotion likely has helped her see beyond out constant desire to help to the fact that we, in a very literal sense, can't help it. It is our nature, and would have been no matter what Wish we made and what votes passed, as we were created for the very specific, though simultaneously vague, task of making it so everything can be fixed.
It has to be remarked how mininal that progress has been: Sabrina has internalized her relationship with Mami as part of her "Purpose".
Exploring her own humanity only comes in fits and starts between massive periods of "Directive: Make Mami Happy".
- Location
- Florida
[X] Continue hanging out with Kyouko (this will be Witch hunting)
[X] Continue hanging out with Kyouko (this will be Witch hunting)
Not necessarily for the day but it has been on the docket for a while to privately talk with Homura about the Madoka was the one to rewind time/there might be a missing timeline cause of which side the gears of her shield are on theory, confirming that the incubators can teleport as they did when one suddenly appeared in the middle of the grief fog when Mami and Kyouko met and to reinforce the whole words are their weapons thing.
For the last I'd consider using examples such as with the Kazumi spin off how they basically misleadingly phrased things to set people against the Pleiades or even things like how it helped with Kagari's scheme in the Suzune one which is also notable for how it was willing to go along with it despite the aim to shatter multiple soul gems because it would be outweighed by 2 strong witches. It can also can serve as an excuse to know about the whole show people visions ability as it did when showing Suzune's past.
It would probably also help to point out how despite basically knowing it's likely to lose bodies it does still do the soul gems are your souls and they turn into witches explanations when relevant probably because it speeds up them becoming witches which it does push along when they are on the brink of becoming witches or of developing a bad habit that will push them towards it.
Examples for that could be from PMMM itself telling Sayaka about the whole turn off your pain thing plus the made her feel pain from touching the soul gem is something else to warn about, blaming Sayaka becoming a witch on Homura, Kyouko and Mami herself depriving her of grief seeds in The Different Story or even just the how horrible you are Madoka throwing Sayaka away like that again from PMMM itself.
When she's not being tsundere like in The different story (the spin off about a timeline where Sayaka contracts earlier and saves Mami from Charlotte).
Wouldn't Wraiths be more likely?
Not necessarily for the day but it has been on the docket for a while to privately talk with Homura about the Madoka was the one to rewind time/there might be a missing timeline cause of which side the gears of her shield are on theory, confirming that the incubators can teleport as they did when one suddenly appeared in the middle of the grief fog when Mami and Kyouko met and to reinforce the whole words are their weapons thing.
For the last I'd consider using examples such as with the Kazumi spin off how they basically misleadingly phrased things to set people against the Pleiades or even things like how it helped with Kagari's scheme in the Suzune one which is also notable for how it was willing to go along with it despite the aim to shatter multiple soul gems because it would be outweighed by 2 strong witches. It can also can serve as an excuse to know about the whole show people visions ability as it did when showing Suzune's past.
It would probably also help to point out how despite basically knowing it's likely to lose bodies it does still do the soul gems are your souls and they turn into witches explanations when relevant probably because it speeds up them becoming witches which it does push along when they are on the brink of becoming witches or of developing a bad habit that will push them towards it.
Examples for that could be from PMMM itself telling Sayaka about the whole turn off your pain thing plus the made her feel pain from touching the soul gem is something else to warn about, blaming Sayaka becoming a witch on Homura, Kyouko and Mami herself depriving her of grief seeds in The Different Story or even just the how horrible you are Madoka throwing Sayaka away like that again from PMMM itself.
When she's not being tsundere like in The different story (the spin off about a timeline where Sayaka contracts earlier and saves Mami from Charlotte).
Wouldn't Wraiths be more likely?
[X] Continue hanging out with Kyouko (this will be Witch hunting)
- Location
- The Surface Of A Hostile Planet
Well, if Kyouko approves, who am I to disagree?
[X] Continue hanging out with Kyouko (this will be Witch hunting)
- Location
- Georgia
In the short term, while there are more meguca being contracted, sure, but if we cut out the incubators entirely, a world whose backstory is: A girl(Salem) wished for her love to be returned to life. The Brother of Darkness granted her wish, then killed him again in front of her. After this, she threw herself into the pools of despair, and emerged a twisted, immortal mockery with the power to create monsters from that despair.
It's just a comparison that has made increasing amounts of sense for what could happen if we remove Kyuubey without something to replace it, and if we stop them from collecting any Grief, they'll either act directly to destroy our system or just leave Earth to deal with monsters, whether familiar, wraiths, or something else, on its own. Kyuubey is a very transactional being, after all.
Regardless of the actual form the consequences of releasing Grief take, we need to know what that form is, and preferably in a controlled environment and backed by our Science! inclined allies.
DeusExCalamus
Zenryoku Zenkai!
I don't tend to read comments, so I dunno if these have been reported yet or not.
tread, boots
rough
I'd say 'fill and occupy your mouth'
JIMI94
Birdman with a cauldron on it's head
- Location
- The Garden of Earthly Delights
Actually thinking that this will iron itself out and waiting 10,000 years until a spacefaring meguca civilization begins colonizing the galaxy and pushing the Incubators out wherever they go sounds exactly like something Kyuubey would do because they are dumb as hell.
Not sure what messed up fics you've been reading but that's not Salem's backstory at all. She's really the girl in the tower a princess whose mother died birthing her so was kept locked up in a tower. Since her father refused to let her out for her 16th she instead asked for paper under the excuse of she loves books so much she wanted to try writing her own. However, in reality she wrote copies of the same story on each sheet and enchanted them so they'd fly off and find people.
The pack of lies she told was about a cruel tyrant who was keeping a beautiful princess locked up after using an artefact of great power to conquer her kingdom that would give said artefact and her hand in marriage to any who could free her. Naturally a bunch of greedy people started attacking them and while they were able to hold them off for a while their numbers kept dropping but Salem didn't care and kept sending out sheets until eventually they got worn down enough Ozma finished the last of them but was kind enough to have been doing it because it was the right thing to do instead of the rewards so let her go free which naturally made her start to fall in love with him and want to go travelling with him.
Once Ozma died she went to the brother of light about reviving him and got a refusal, so she went to the one of darkness with another pack of lies which got him to do it until the light one showed up and revealed the truth after a brief fight between them so the revival was cancelled and the light brother cursed her with immortality for it. Salem held a grudge over that and spent a long time getting everyone to form an army against them through more lies and tried to kill him which led to humanity getting wiped out and her falling into one of the dark brother's grimm spawning pits that had actually existed the first time she went there making her outside match her hideous inside.
- Location
- Georgia
Huh. The thing I find most interesting is that what I said is not just from one fic, it's been universal to every fic I've read that A: bothered to give a backstory at all for Salem, and B: said backstory wasn't directly linked to whatever IP is being used for a crossover. I really enjoyed the earlier seasons, but found later ones less enjoyable, so by the time they really got into the origins of Salem, Ozma, and the Maidens, I'd stopped watching.
- Location
- United States
Good advice, even if Kyōko isn't the best at following it herself.
We've definitely seen something like that before, just from the other side. In addition to the obvious case of Kyōko's feelings about Sabrina and Mami's relationship, Mami herself had similar issues early on:
And then there was the time Homura felt like we were succeeding where she had failed at a hundred times and making look easy:
And in Homura's case, there was even the same undercurrent of "I shouldn't feel this way because all that matters is the mission, not who accomplishes it." Like mother like daughter, I guess.
It's definitely a similarity I've noticed before. The big difference is that even after watching Madoka die over and over, drowning herself in despair, and coming back more powerful than ever, Homura doesn't really hate anyone except herself and Kyubey. I mean, she even made sure that Sayaka and Kwyjibo were both alive and healthy in the world she created, which is something even Madokami hadn't been able to pull off.
One thing that I'd like to say is that we seem to be behaving rather lackadaisically in witch fights. Like, we don't wear armor in, we rush along heedless of danger, we don't scout, we don't set up griefhax devices to block enemy hax, and we make no attempt to defend against anything but the most straightforward of attacks
Like, what if the witch was camping by the entrance of the barrier, ready to unleash a charged attack (like Tiro Finale or Limiti Esterni) when anyone enters? Magical attacks can pierce grief, and a charged attack may be sufficient to pierce whatever hasty defenses Sabrina puts up and kill her.
What if the witch has mind magic, and drops an AoE mind whammy on the party? Sabrina seems unusually resistant to such things, but if Kyoko and Yuma had been made to attack Sabrina alongside the witch and familiars, she would have quite the situation on her hands.
What if the witch had Foil's power, and could shoot a highly accurate and unstoppable attack straight through any grief shields and into Sabrina's soul gem? What if it had shadow stalker's power and could phase right through Sabrina's grief to rip into her in melee?
What if the witch had antimagic, and could lock down Sabrina's grief control?
What if the witch was a two-stage boss fight like Charlotte, and could pretend to die and even maybe collapse the barrier before initiating a second round of combat by surprise (witches can move outside barriers. In Oriko Magica, Virginia attacked Oriko and Kirika in their garden, without needing a barrier).
Sure, most witches don't have an extreme gimmick like this, but if one comes up, then we would have an actual chance of dying. Kyoko and Mami may be experienced, but even they aren't infallible, and both have canonically lost fights against normal witches. While they did not have all the resources needed to prepare for every contingency, we have a lot of resources, and should not frivolously squander our life by behaving so carelessly in combat. Taking even a 0.1% chance of death in a trivial fight is intolerable when you are the keystone of a plan to revolutionize the world.
Like, what if the witch was camping by the entrance of the barrier, ready to unleash a charged attack (like Tiro Finale or Limiti Esterni) when anyone enters? Magical attacks can pierce grief, and a charged attack may be sufficient to pierce whatever hasty defenses Sabrina puts up and kill her.
What if the witch has mind magic, and drops an AoE mind whammy on the party? Sabrina seems unusually resistant to such things, but if Kyoko and Yuma had been made to attack Sabrina alongside the witch and familiars, she would have quite the situation on her hands.
What if the witch had Foil's power, and could shoot a highly accurate and unstoppable attack straight through any grief shields and into Sabrina's soul gem? What if it had shadow stalker's power and could phase right through Sabrina's grief to rip into her in melee?
What if the witch had antimagic, and could lock down Sabrina's grief control?
What if the witch was a two-stage boss fight like Charlotte, and could pretend to die and even maybe collapse the barrier before initiating a second round of combat by surprise (witches can move outside barriers. In Oriko Magica, Virginia attacked Oriko and Kirika in their garden, without needing a barrier).
Sure, most witches don't have an extreme gimmick like this, but if one comes up, then we would have an actual chance of dying. Kyoko and Mami may be experienced, but even they aren't infallible, and both have canonically lost fights against normal witches. While they did not have all the resources needed to prepare for every contingency, we have a lot of resources, and should not frivolously squander our life by behaving so carelessly in combat. Taking even a 0.1% chance of death in a trivial fight is intolerable when you are the keystone of a plan to revolutionize the world.
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Torgamous
Aspiring Gynoid
- Pronouns
- She/Her
We put our immovable object in the way, obviously.
Not at all, the witch this chapter was specifically called out as being unusually strong, and the party took appropriate precautions. Kyouko is an experienced meguca, and isn't going to get ganked by some random witch with us there, nor is that something Firm would write.
Also as an aside, this isn't Worm or a Worm crossover, powers from there are almost definitely not going to show up here.
JayTar
Idea briefcase
Probably the best contingency we can have is an ample supply of enchanted grief. For anything that isn't an anti-magic surprise attack we snap our fingers and say "No, stop that". Or just seize control and dissolve it directly, since we control grief. But if we did that every time we would be cheating ourselves of combat experience.
The other best contingency is not doing it alone. Where one team member is weak, another can be strong. Kyoko is well suited for countering anti-magic for example.
That said, more generally there was an enchantment project for soul-gem shields that came up a while ago that might be worth taking a swing at.
- Location
- United States
What if it and whatever it threw at us were, by definition, literally made out of Grief? It was pointed out in the Chapter:
If a fight between us and a Witch is more complicated than "Sabrina instantly wins," it's because we're holding back to give the others a chance to contribute, which we can and will stop doing the instant things actually get out of hand.
- Location
- Georgia
Well, and working with our other skills helps us be prepared for something such as the case of something inhibiting our Grief control, as in one scenario they posited. The more we work on having different ways to handle things, the lower the odds are of us running into something we can't handle at all. We're also trying to prepare for fighting Wal-mart, which we've already theorized, in character, is strong enough that we can't just yank apart its constituent Grief.
In short, we're not being careless. We're using lesser Witches to train for the bigger ones.