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Puella Magi Imperatrix Mundi, or: Wherein Half Of Japan Tries To Kill You

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Alright @DarkLight140, I changed my vote for your points. I don't want to pressure Maiko too much, so soul gem protection has been dropped for now until things are calmer and organized. Also, we're now going to brainmail Team Rio (we really need an up-to-date character sheet sometime, because I totally forgot the names of everyone in that team except Kiyomi) to meet us at their convenience.

Also, I read the rules. Does Maiko qualify as a Teammate yet?
 
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somewhatLazy said:
Alright @DarkLight140, I changed my vote for your points. I don't want to pressure Maiko too much, so soul gem protection has been dropped for now until things are calmer and organized. Also, we're now going to brainmail Team Rio (we really need an up-to-date character sheet sometime, because I totally forgot the names of everyone in that team except Kiyomi) to meet us at their convenience.

Also, I read the rules. Does Maiko qualify as a Teammate yet?
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Echo has said that Yui getting witchbombed is a prerequisite for getting Maiko's POV.
 
SolipsistSerpent said:
Weird. Is Echo worried Yui will read the POV update and spoiler herself, otherwise?
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No, he's worried that we'll metagame Maiko into witchbombing Yui, I think. The prerequisite for being a POV character is that neither we nor Yui would learn anything they didn't already know about the character in question, or that the character knows.
 
Crimson Doom said:
No, he's worried that we'll metagame Maiko into witchbombing Yui, I think.
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As if we couldn't do that from Yui's perspective, if we really tried.

The prerequisite for being a POV character is that neither we nor Yui would learn anything they didn't already know about the character in question, or that the character knows.
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On the other hand, I bet Maiko knows lots of other secrets that even the player base isn't entirely aware of yet, so this seems fair.
 
SolipsistSerpent said:
As if we couldn't do that from Yui's perspective, if we really tried.


On the other hand, I bet Maiko knows lots of other secrets that even the player base isn't entirely aware of yet, so this seems fair.
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On the gripping hand, if the requirement is for Yui to know everything Maiko knows, we're going to be waiting a long time for that to happen.
 
Crimson Doom said:
No, he's worried that we'll metagame Maiko into witchbombing Yui, I think. The prerequisite for being a POV character is that neither we nor Yui would learn anything they didn't already know about the character in question, or that the character knows.
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SolipsistSerpent said:
On the other hand, I bet Maiko knows lots of other secrets that even the player base isn't entirely aware of yet, so this seems fair.
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Nervos Belli said:
On the gripping hand, if the requirement is for Yui to know everything Maiko knows, we're going to be waiting a long time for that to happen.
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It's more "no major secrets, unresolved conflicts, lack of trust, etc." The whole "soylent witches is people!!" part is just the one big secret that the players and many characters know but Yui doesn't. Maiko is a fairly private, closed-off sort of person by nature with her history only exacerbating that, so getting her to open up to Yui is going to take some effort.

Think of it as avoiding any temptation to cheat your way through a social link by making "playable POV character" the reward for maxing out the social link. :V
 
[x] somewhatLazy

Based upon the latest edits, this does basically what I want. If I have a free four to six hours at some point before the vote closes I might go over it and rewrite everything to have an excruciatingly unnecessary level of detail, as is traditional, but if I don't this is adequate.
 
Okay, so it's Monday evening. Over this week we need to:
  • Meet up with Rio's team. Twice.
  • Finish investigating girls in our region. This means Asaka Ward where calliguca lives, Yoshikawa/Kawaguchi wards and Saitama historical distict.
  • Inquire into Nerima girls' business (meeting one of them tomorrow, i.e. Tuesday)
  • Do something about Shinobu.
  • Check on Adachi Ward situation with the assholes coming presumably from Chiba.
    • Check on Chou and enlist her aid?
  • Friday is booked with a visit from Koharu's parents.
Is there anything else we need to do? What does our schedule look like? What do we want to do tomorrow, besides the meeting?
Anything we want to fit into our schedule? Hang out with friends, something else?

We can probably resume our search for calligraphy girl tomorrow given that we have accepted the invitation to a park near Asaka Ward anyway.

Tuesday - Nerima meeting, continue calliguca search (first contact?)
Wednesday - meet Rio Trio, check on Chou/Shinobu/both?
Thursday - investigate Adachi situation. Check one of the other meguca leads?
Friday - locked?
Saturday - meet Rio Trio. Check one of the other meguca leads?
Sunday - ?

Reposting the map for ease of understanding. Most of our troubles/concerns are currently concentrated on the southern border.
 
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Guile said:
"Okay Minami, now I'm going to want you to use your spy satellite together with your stalking them online to spy on these addresses. We're going to need good fidelity, too, if we want to get a look at their jewelry-"
"On it, Command!"
"... Remember when we thought Yui would SLOW DOWN Minami's descent into becoming a criminal?"
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Actually I think Minami is more trusted with the ability to peep at anyone anytime.

Yui would permanently attain a shade of pink
 
DarkLight140 said:
Looking into soul gem protection is a potentially important combat consideration, but I'm not sure whether it's the best use of Maiko's time and resources. She's wearing hats as a mentor, therapist, intelligence source, analyst, and advisor- do we want to give her a researcher hat as well? Aside from concerns about spreading her too thin we know that her shutting herself up in her apartment and not emerging for literally years at a time is a very real risk and I'm disinclined to give her an excuse to go full basement-dwelling maginerd when we desperately need her doing her five other jobs.
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Fair enough. I did, though, mean it in term of simply considering the idea as opposed to actually building prototypes: for all we know, Himari will be doing it on her lonesome, or there's a trinket from an old project that could be trivially re-purposed for this new goal. I don't think it would overtask Maiko all that much; in fact, given that she seems to enjoy research & development, such an open-ended project may serve as recreational activity for her.

Regarding her dropping everything else in favour of research, well, she is presumably an adult: I do hope she can prioritize. She shut herself in in very particular circumstances, when there were dozens of other magical girls working under her own mentor. She wouldn't do it now, when Yui needs her help, and even in the unlikely chance that she would, wouldn't we be able to intervene?

somewhatLazy said:
I don't want to pressure Maiko too much, so soul gem protection has been dropped for now until things are calmer and organized.
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But they will never be calmer.
Okay, maybe that was an overstatement, but @Echo mentioned that we will always have one issue more than what we can devote our attention to, and I'm pretty sure that what we're facing right now is just calm before the storm. There was no organized invasion by a team of magical girls with the intent to take Nagamioka yet, for one. We need to increase our defence before that start happening, and at least looking for low-effort ways of doing so is reasonable.

@DarkLight140, @somewhatLazy, would you agree on the following?

[X] Accept
-[X] Meet them after school tomorrow

[X] Head home, do homework, then go to bed
-[X] Ask Maiko to use her spookybook tonight to find info on the Nerima group.
--[X] Mention the possibility of Soul Gem protection. Between Maiko, Himari, magical objects left from other members of Momoko's team, and your potentially versatile magic, is it possible to accomplish at least one of the following: protective casing for Soul Gems, decoy Soul Gems, Soul Gem concealment, perception-blocking enchantments?
---[X] Stress that it's not a top priority right now, so Maiko shouldn't overwork herself because of it, but it's something to consider for long-term.
-[X] Have Minami locate the Yoshikawa and Kawaguchi girls via spy sat and knowing where they live. Determine magical girl status if possible.
--[X] If either is a magical girl, brainmail them (MinamiNet optional) and introduce yourself, arranging an in-person meeting at their convenience or "as fast as I can walk over there", whichever they'd like.
--[X] If you haven't given Yumi's old team their seeds yet, brainmail them to meet you sometime at their convenience for a handover.

[X] Just follow your usual routine for going to school
 
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Crimson Doom said:
...err, remind who these people are again?
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What the Witch said. To be precise, though:
Echo said:
Maiko sighs. "In any case, Minami and I have narrowed the possible magical girls down to four very likely candidates," she says. "Most worrying is a rash of unfortunate incidents near the temple in the historical district that don't seem to fit Witch activity. The most likely candidate involves multiple reports of everyday objects with, and I quote, 'unusual properties' occuring near the western end of the Nerima ward border. Both cases have a clear location, but no specific individual known to be involved." Maiko shrugs. "The other two cases are a girl out in Yoshikawa Ward and a girl in Kawaguchi Ward; both were identified through social media as having sudden, drastic changes in their behavior coincident with the time of your own wish."
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@redzonejoe voted for @DarkLight140; @DarkLight140 voted for @somewhatLazy; @somewhatLazy voted for @Noumero. Two levels of recursion, how neat.
What will happen if I vote for @redzonejoe now? Only one way to find out!
[х] redzonejoe
(I edited this vote to be invalid by replacing English "x" with Russian "х" not counted by the voting program.)

Edit: Nothing. Voting program just dropped everyone involved in circular voting from consideration, how rude, I thought it would have the decency to go into recursion and crash.
 
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Didn't Echo tell us we have time for a couple witches before we have to go to bed?

Why is everybody so eager to head home immediately? Like, even if we don't want to hunt anything for some reason, I'm sure there's something we could do with our time.
 
It's late and Maiko suggests we go home because we have school. And homework. Presumably doing something magic-related may interfere with the other.

I mean, it's not the universal law, and we can adjust it to our needs, but I would prefer for our daily routine not to differ too much from the norm in absence of crises.

I am not opposing the vote, but rather explaining the reasoning. I suggested scheduling things in advance so that we know there is nothing too urgent that we are missing.
 
We probably should make time for Maiko to actually tutor us in English. We do need improvements to keep the parentals happy and giving Yui a long leash.
 
Nevill said:
Is there anything else we need to do? What does our schedule look like? What do we want to do tomorrow, besides the meeting?
Anything we want to fit into our schedule? Hang out with friends, something else?

We can probably resume our search for calligraphy girl tomorrow given that we have accepted the invitation to a park near Asaka Ward anyway.

Tuesday - Nerima meeting, continue calliguca search (first contact?)
Wednesday - meet Rio Trio, check on Chou/Shinobu/both?
Thursday - investigate Adachi situation. Check one of the other meguca leads?
Friday - locked?
Saturday - meet Rio Trio. Check one of the other meguca leads?
Sunday - ?
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Right. I agree that we should schedule, but I think we can cram a lot more into a single day. Take Saturday, for example. We had a discussion about Itabashi group's invasion, met Shinobu, had a war council, dealt with the Itabashi group and Rio Trio, had a debriefing, froze Kaede and Naoko, talked with Chou and Shinobu over telepathy, spent time with Natsuki, had a dinner, met Chou, and hunted Witches for a while.

Granted, Yui didn't have school this day. Hmm... School really cuts into our schedule.
Something to consider: revealing the truth of Yui's current situation to her parents would probably allow us to get an official permission to not attend school for two weeks or more. Any strong arguments for why we shouldn't do that?

Among other things, I think we should set up training for Minami and other newbie magical girls; they could either just train their abilities or spar with each other or Yui. I think we determined that Yui would find it easier to discover new applications of her magic if she is in a dangerous situation; perhaps a spar would be a good enough approximation of such to provide some benefits?
Additionally, I think we should visit Shinobu's home and try to break compulsions on her parents. It would be expensive, but would probably help a lot in improving her mental state.
 
There is a reason why all of them end with a '?'. I want us to fill in these blanks, but I don't think we'll be able to do much more than 2-3 full-fledged actions when it isn't a weekend. Just... let's try to figure out what we need to do, and cram it somewhere. Then we'd know when we need to step up our game.

Noumero said:
Any strong arguments for why we shouldn't do that?
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We are going to risk our life every time we partake in magical girl activities, and very few parents would be okay with that. Most would not support this foolishness and move to somewhere safer than Tokyo in an effort to protect their child.

I suppose being a magical girl is pretty far from what they envisioned for their daughter's future. And then there is a question of how much we tell them. It would not be too much of a leap for them to guess Maiko's role in all of that, and I do not think their conversation will lead to anything good if she tells them even half the truth.

However you look at it, our current occupation is very unhealthy. I don't think our circumstances make it easy for us to come out.

I forgot, did the question whether we would have contracted given full knowledge of what we currently know come up? I remember us feeling 'I did not sign up for this!' at the end of the first chapter. Of course we made peace with the idea later, but if we aren't entirely happy with the outcome, I don't think our parents would be either.
 
If it's soul gem protection for Yui you guys want, is even Himawari-made magical protection going to be any more defensible than Yui slapping a hand over her gem? We're at least as 'ard as steel, and much stronger.
 
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