Sleep is one of the most important things in resetting emotional balance. I have serious doubts that mere rest will do it.
Puella Magi Imperatrix Mundi, or: Wherein Half Of Japan Tries To Kill You
Sleep is one of the most important things in resetting emotional balance. I have serious doubts that mere rest will do it.
Noumero
Omit Needless Words
Distancing: she already doesn't spend all her waking hours with her every friend. Rather than distancing her, it would give her more opportunities to socialize, either with other active-at-night people such as Maiko, or by moving doing her homework to night and using the freed daylight-time for socializing.
Slippery slope: she would stop as soon as the "adjustments" start doing more harm than good, which could be determined by us, her self, or her friends.
Presumably magic takes care of that.
As a matter of fact, Maiko would probably cover that in her exposition.
- Location
- St. Petersburg
They tend to lose connections with anyone except their teams, if I had to guess by watching Yumi, Rio's & Kaede's teams, and now Chizuka's. Figures, if they get forced out of their homes and have to flee to some other region. Being in control of the territory you lived in before contracting seems to be a luxury in these parts.
And now that I look back, even connections within the team are somewhat tenuous. A teammate backstabbed Yumi's, she backstabbed Rio/Kaede, Rio backstabbed Kaede, and we suspect Nerima leader girl played foul with Chizuka and now another teammate is doing things behind her back.
Most of them seem to live absolutely miserable lives.
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somewhatLazy
Serial Procrastinator
- Location
- lurking
We may get some exposition on not sleeping, but that's about as far as I'm willing to go. Yui, as our adorable magical girl empress, needs her mental health.
redzonejoe
Vaguely Pastafarian
- Location
- Canada
Let me correct myself in that part you quoted then.
Sleep in not necessary to maintain our facade around our parents and natsuki at night and in the mornings. Presence is, because barring some freaky 'watching you sleep' style parenting, knowing we're safe at home and expecting us to be asleep is all that is necessary for them to be at ease regarding us in this particular circumstance.
I was responding to very specific claims there in that quote you replied to. To answer more broadly, read below.
Because the thread told her to, for one. Because the slippery slope is easily avoided if you see it coming and place limits ahead of time.
As for all the other 'artificial needs', doing those things are still necessary to maintain happiness, relationships, mental and emotional health. That's why she'd keep doing it even without forum intervention.
Yui wants to impress her parents, imagine how disappointed they'd be if she dropped out.
Yui wants to protect Natsuki, imagine how distraught she'd be if Yui went missing, how betrayed if Yui merely ignored her.
These are reasons to go to school, and talk to people, and have a life. Sleep isn't actually part of any of that. You're not pursuing any dreams but the literal ones when you're asleep. You're not deepening relationships or even selling a lie when you're asleep.
You're proposing that removing this one limit will lead to removing every possible limit when the answer is as simple as me telling you no.
It really is that simple, because VOTES. They really, really matter.
In regular humans who literally drop dead without sleep, yes. It has all sorts of benefits. In a being who doesn't need to sleep?
More importantly, if Yui's emotions seem to be running out of control, we vote to sleep. That'd count as a negative side effect that we keep mentioning, and we'd vote in ways that'd help remove or minimize negative consequences.
There are enough people who are against staying awake all night without evidence of any harm whatsoever that I believe it'll be rather easy to garner support for a vote to put Yui to sleep if it ever turns out she needs it.
UbeOne
Daydreaming CPU
- Location
- Philippines
- Pronouns
- She/Her
*reads the quoted poster's title*
You really embraced the Elly image, didn't you?
Oh, and I agree with the quote regarding sleep.
redzonejoe
Vaguely Pastafarian
- Location
- Canada
Ube, come back to the morally grey side. We have all the ingredients necessary for a healthy, nutritional breakfast!
No, no cookies, it simply isn't practical to eat cookies all the time.
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somewhatLazy
Serial Procrastinator
- Location
- lurking
Yeah, I did.You really embraced the Elly image, didn't you?
I found this hilarious......That moment when you realize thatyour cute kohaithe newbie who caught up to the quest the day before you did has the girl who would be H. N. Elly, the witch who hunts through forums, as her avatar...
Well, we're all doomed, but I have a couple things I want to mention before she Kisses me...
I don't know if it was because I was bored in Target, but it had me laughing for quite a bit.
UbeOne
Daydreaming CPU
- Location
- Philippines
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Ube, come back to the morally grey side. We have all the ingredients necessary for a healthy, nutritional breakfast!
No, no cookies, it simply isn't practical to eat cookies all the time.
*looks at what my avatar is doing*
Guile
Having a really great time right now
I would hope that if Yui is off-kilter enough for that to be a concern, that Yui would ignore our wishes on the matter.
"I don't need sleep I feel fine! Hey, I should talk to Asami, it's been ages helloooo Asami guess where I am right now! No silly, not asleep in bed, how would that even work haha no I went to get ice cream."
redzonejoe
Vaguely Pastafarian
- Location
- Canada
I can't tell if joke, so answering seriously. Sorry?
Yui respects Maiko, and often seeks out the opinions and advice of her peers before committing to a decision.
If Maiko, before or during teaching Yui those abilities, warned Yui of possible consequences and advised Yui on how to mitigate those effects, Yui would listen.
"This might make you emotionally unstable at times, you should consider sleeping every so often, especially if these symptoms appear."
"Hey Maiko, it's Asami. Yui's doing that thing again. Yeah. Make her shut up, some of us still need sleep. Good. Bye"
'Yui' you promised.'
'But-'
'You promised. Don't make me tell your parents.'
'Fiiiiine. Ugh.'
Echo
Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before
- Location
- "echolocation" dur hur hur
Add me to the pile of recent readers who've been enjoying the story (who knew that advertising is effective
You've got some really well done characters here @Echo, all a delight to read.
Thanks! Glad to have you around making my "rating received" notifications measurably more amusing.
Guile gets it.
Priorities!Maiko will indeed cover the basics, but for what it's worth I'll WoG this much: If Yui could instantly become able to go without sleep and started spending every night just reading manga and nothing else, the overall effect on the quest compared to her sleeping at night would be essentially nil.
redzonejoe
Vaguely Pastafarian
- Location
- Canada
Then:
Yui goes home, finishes her homework and goes to sleep. It is now morning.
Now:
Yui goes home, finishes her homework, and opens up the latest volume of her favorite manga. Several hours later, she resolves to expand her tastes in an effort to procure more valid reading material. It is now morning.
Yui goes home, finishes her homework and goes to sleep. It is now morning.
Now:
Yui goes home, finishes her homework, and opens up the latest volume of her favorite manga. Several hours later, she resolves to expand her tastes in an effort to procure more valid reading material. It is now morning.
Nervos Belli
Don't think this means you've won!
- Location
- Murica
Guess I missed the whole sleep argument, I was taking a nap.
- Location
- Earth, Milky Way
Hey this quest is great, I came here from the ad system as well. I had some thoughts I thought I might share:
1)
The breadth and depth of magical girl powers is very spooky, especially the possibility of mental effects, or ones that aid in stealth or the like (if you've read Worm I'm talking about Master/Stranger powers).
Anyone with very strong stealth/mastermind-type powers is going to go to great lengths to hide their presence and abilities. Just because we're not aware of anyone who's capable of messing with our minds or just generally ruining everything, doesn't mean such people don't exist. There could be super stealth invisible girls in our HQ right now! They'd know where our stash is, everyone's powers and schedules, the times Yui is isolated and most vulnerable to being alpha-striked into being a smear on the pavement, and any amount of other critical information. They could deduce the limits of Yui's magical sense, come up with countermeasures to our own abilities, and the like.
Tokyo sounds like a Darwinian survivial-of-the-fittest hellhole where you're constantly rerolling characters and having them fight it out until only the strong and totally ruthless remain. If I recall correctly, Minami's wish didn't focus entirely on stealth, and just think of the havoc she could wreak upon us if she turned against us. Now imagine an experienced and ruthless stealth-focused Tokyo girl trying to hurt us. It would be catastrophic. Right as we're scrambling to recover from attempted assassinations, and any number of other awful things they can do, their heavy hitters roll up on us. Game over.
Just having Maiko and Minami looking out for this kind of thing is an insufficient countermeasure. What kind of countermeasures would work? I don't know. I don't really have any suggestions besides being aware of the threat, using Minaminet, decentralizing everything, and avoiding meeting physically unless it's important (use dead drops and brainmail otherwise).
That being said, I haven't seen canon, and I doubt the QM will end the game with someone shattering our Soul Gem while we're asleep, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't take precautions.
2)
If we have a single grief seed stash, that's a single point of failure. Anyone who knows where it is could hand out the location (if they're coerced/bribed), or they themselves can just steal everything and run. Distributing stashes in the city, with nobody knowing the location of more than half of them, but with at least two (three?) people knowing of each location would resolve this vulnerability. Sure, we might lose track of seeds and people might forget, but there's no risk of losing everything at once. In addition, we probably shouldn't have just a singular HQ, because that can be raided and if I recall correctly, has no passive defenses. If we need to meet or need a staging area, we don't have to use the same location every time. Also associating ourselves with the previous controllers of the city sounds like a bad idea.
3)
An easy thing we could task out is the creation of bolt holes scattered throughout our territory. They should have money, clothes, phones, manga, possibly a grief seed, and anything else that may be useful. This task is pretty easily delegated out to girls we don't particularly trust, or ones that aren't too involved (like Chou or Koharu).
Sorry if some of these points have already been suggested and if they have obvious flaws. Again, thanks QM for the excellent quest!
1)
The breadth and depth of magical girl powers is very spooky, especially the possibility of mental effects, or ones that aid in stealth or the like (if you've read Worm I'm talking about Master/Stranger powers).
Anyone with very strong stealth/mastermind-type powers is going to go to great lengths to hide their presence and abilities. Just because we're not aware of anyone who's capable of messing with our minds or just generally ruining everything, doesn't mean such people don't exist. There could be super stealth invisible girls in our HQ right now! They'd know where our stash is, everyone's powers and schedules, the times Yui is isolated and most vulnerable to being alpha-striked into being a smear on the pavement, and any amount of other critical information. They could deduce the limits of Yui's magical sense, come up with countermeasures to our own abilities, and the like.
Tokyo sounds like a Darwinian survivial-of-the-fittest hellhole where you're constantly rerolling characters and having them fight it out until only the strong and totally ruthless remain. If I recall correctly, Minami's wish didn't focus entirely on stealth, and just think of the havoc she could wreak upon us if she turned against us. Now imagine an experienced and ruthless stealth-focused Tokyo girl trying to hurt us. It would be catastrophic. Right as we're scrambling to recover from attempted assassinations, and any number of other awful things they can do, their heavy hitters roll up on us. Game over.
Just having Maiko and Minami looking out for this kind of thing is an insufficient countermeasure. What kind of countermeasures would work? I don't know. I don't really have any suggestions besides being aware of the threat, using Minaminet, decentralizing everything, and avoiding meeting physically unless it's important (use dead drops and brainmail otherwise).
That being said, I haven't seen canon, and I doubt the QM will end the game with someone shattering our Soul Gem while we're asleep, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't take precautions.
2)
If we have a single grief seed stash, that's a single point of failure. Anyone who knows where it is could hand out the location (if they're coerced/bribed), or they themselves can just steal everything and run. Distributing stashes in the city, with nobody knowing the location of more than half of them, but with at least two (three?) people knowing of each location would resolve this vulnerability. Sure, we might lose track of seeds and people might forget, but there's no risk of losing everything at once. In addition, we probably shouldn't have just a singular HQ, because that can be raided and if I recall correctly, has no passive defenses. If we need to meet or need a staging area, we don't have to use the same location every time. Also associating ourselves with the previous controllers of the city sounds like a bad idea.
3)
An easy thing we could task out is the creation of bolt holes scattered throughout our territory. They should have money, clothes, phones, manga, possibly a grief seed, and anything else that may be useful. This task is pretty easily delegated out to girls we don't particularly trust, or ones that aren't too involved (like Chou or Koharu).
Sorry if some of these points have already been suggested and if they have obvious flaws. Again, thanks QM for the excellent quest!
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Noumero
Omit Needless Words
Master/Stranger and esoteric powers: Yes, it's a problem. There's an argument to be made that neither Maiko nor Yumi nor anyone else was especially worried about them, even though they know our situation, and that since we're still alive, it's likely that no such people are around. That said, I'm still uncomfortable with it, since half of Japan would be trying to kill us. Thankfully, we have a solution: Asami. She is likely to make a wish along the following lines:
Which would give her a universal counter to all "unfair" powers, such as Homura's timestop hax or, presumably, mind-control.
Asami is the best. Once she makes a wish, we'll just have to never leave her vicinity.
Grief stashes: It's a good point; we've already seen what the consequences of being careless with grief seeds are, courtesy of Yumi. Counterargument, though: if the stash is not located in a secure building, any magical girl with magic-sense would be able to steal it. One secure stash is vulnerable to girls with strong theft-related powers, a large team, or a traitor, while several smaller stashes are vulnerable to both teams and individuals with sensory powers; I'm inclined to believe the latter is worse at the moment, since stealing stashes wouldn't even require a confrontation. Additionally, if I recall correctly, part of our grief seeds is in Maiko's apartment, which is probably somewhat secure.
That said, decentralization is in general a good idea, we just need to find a way to balance security and obscurity.
Bolt holes: I'm not seeing the obvious benefit here. In what kind of situation would they be useful? In a pinch, a magical girl could just steal money/clothes/etc., and break into hotels to sleep, immoral or not (grief seeds are a different topic, but see above). If our central base of operations gets hit, we could meet at our allies'. If all our allies' hideouts and homes are hit simultaneously, chances are we've already lost, and the limited effort is better spent on preventing that from happening than on making plans for recovery.
Regarding holding meetings in different places... I actually have no idea why we're not doing this. Probably because holding meetings in random alleyways doesn't look nearly as respectable/professional as having a stable base of operations.
- Location
- St. Petersburg
I assume the grief seeds stash is located in Momoko's house, which is currently protected by several barriers and used as a HQ.
Its basement contains a number of machines that can blow up the city if tampered with (Maiko's stasis device comes to mind), so if its defences are breached, theft would be the least of our problems.
Its basement contains a number of machines that can blow up the city if tampered with (Maiko's stasis device comes to mind), so if its defences are breached, theft would be the least of our problems.
Noumero
Omit Needless Words
@Nevill, I'm pretty sure the phylactery recharge station is located at Maiko's house. Also, according to this post, Maiko has all our grief seeds as well, which... doesn't actually tell us where they are at any given moment.
Regarding the barriers... I actually completely forgot about those. This update mentions that the house's surroundings have been vandalized, but that the front gates weren't breached, and a key is required to enter. Do you remember if we had been given information on the defenses' particulars? If no, we should ask.
Regarding the barriers... I actually completely forgot about those. This update mentions that the house's surroundings have been vandalized, but that the front gates weren't breached, and a key is required to enter. Do you remember if we had been given information on the defenses' particulars? If no, we should ask.
- Location
- Earth, Milky Way
@Noumero @Nevill I don't recall that we had any defences on our HQ. If they do exist, we should review them and possibly upgrade them. Our HQ is the seat of our power, it's pretty critical.
It's possible we could ask Maiko for an accounting of resources and things she can do, so we can brainstorm uses together, instead of hoping Maiko remembers she has a thing that solves the problem we currently have. However this would probably be a lot of :effort: for the QM.
How is Chou's thing coming along? Having her monitoring the city seems like it would be very critical. I don't know if possibly pushing up her timetable would be bad (could we just be really open about things so she doesn't do the whole paranoia thing?).
It's possible we could ask Maiko for an accounting of resources and things she can do, so we can brainstorm uses together, instead of hoping Maiko remembers she has a thing that solves the problem we currently have. However this would probably be a lot of :effort: for the QM.
How is Chou's thing coming along? Having her monitoring the city seems like it would be very critical. I don't know if possibly pushing up her timetable would be bad (could we just be really open about things so she doesn't do the whole paranoia thing?).
- Location
- St. Petersburg
Chou is on our to do list.
We would do well to come up with at least a mock-up for a schedule to use as a reference point.
As an aside, I do not think we need to build some kind of super-defence with fifty levels of security. There is hardly a need to invent a system much better than Momoko's team had. She went undefeated for nine years, and it was not a vulnerability in her defences exploited by Invisible Magical Girl Spec Ops that did her in, but a treachery. And no system will protect you from an enemy within.
That's no reason to slouch and ignore relatively simple things that will make our job easier, like Chou's monitoring, but I have no faith in defences in a setting where magic can grant bullshit powers like Omniscience, Timestop or Mind Control.
Given her attitude, I do not expect her to come forward with it and volunteer for the job, so we'll have to ping her this week to know how she is doing.
We would do well to come up with at least a mock-up for a schedule to use as a reference point.
As an aside, I do not think we need to build some kind of super-defence with fifty levels of security. There is hardly a need to invent a system much better than Momoko's team had. She went undefeated for nine years, and it was not a vulnerability in her defences exploited by Invisible Magical Girl Spec Ops that did her in, but a treachery. And no system will protect you from an enemy within.
That's no reason to slouch and ignore relatively simple things that will make our job easier, like Chou's monitoring, but I have no faith in defences in a setting where magic can grant bullshit powers like Omniscience, Timestop or Mind Control.
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Noumero
Omit Needless Words
@edqu, I don't remember any direct confirmations of the defences' existence either, but there are indirect ones. Check this update: a magical key suspiciously similar to a grief seed is required to enter Momoko's house. There would have been no need to invest magic and resources into the security systems it deactivates if they didn't do anything useful.
@Nevill, Momoko was virtually undefeatable in magical girl combat, possibly conceptually undefeatable akin to Asami, and she had a large team with diverse magical powers working for her. It's no surprise she specifically wasn't offed by Invisible Magical Girl Spec Ops, but it doesn't tell us anything about the reliability of passive defence systems of her team. For all we explicitly know, they were robbed of grief seeds on a regular basis.
I agree, though, that we shouldn't waste time and effort on building passive defences, as we're unlikely to build anything better in a reasonable timeframe.
I disagree that reliable protection is impossible in this setting; I already mentioned Asami's anti-hax multiple times. Regarding passive defences... Well, it's a very long shot, but Maiko may theoretically be able to reverse-engineer a girl's wish magic. If so, an enchantment version of Asami's magic would most likely grant a similar conceptual protection to objects.
@Nevill, Momoko was virtually undefeatable in magical girl combat, possibly conceptually undefeatable akin to Asami, and she had a large team with diverse magical powers working for her. It's no surprise she specifically wasn't offed by Invisible Magical Girl Spec Ops, but it doesn't tell us anything about the reliability of passive defence systems of her team. For all we explicitly know, they were robbed of grief seeds on a regular basis.
I agree, though, that we shouldn't waste time and effort on building passive defences, as we're unlikely to build anything better in a reasonable timeframe.
I disagree that reliable protection is impossible in this setting; I already mentioned Asami's anti-hax multiple times. Regarding passive defences... Well, it's a very long shot, but Maiko may theoretically be able to reverse-engineer a girl's wish magic. If so, an enchantment version of Asami's magic would most likely grant a similar conceptual protection to objects.
- Location
- United Kingdom
- Pronouns
- She/Her
*Yui blushes furiously*
Mr_Evildoom
Terrifyingly New
- Location
- University of British Columbia
Hi, everyone, it looks like I'm finally caught up!
@Echo, I am absolutely loving this quest and can't wait to start participating. You have some really great characters and I'm already stressed from what's on Yui's plate, which implies you're doing something right.
Edit: Also, I guess I get to vote!
[X] Noumero
@Echo, I am absolutely loving this quest and can't wait to start participating. You have some really great characters and I'm already stressed from what's on Yui's plate, which implies you're doing something right.
Edit: Also, I guess I get to vote!
[X] Noumero
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