Random aside about voting: I'm not sure how well the whole "Red Team" thing works anymore, because we seem to have misplaced all of our Kyoukos.
Actual meaningful point about voting: Given my schedule, I'll probably be leaving votes open for another day or day regardless; plan "Hold my sanity" is comfortably in the lead right now but if you guys want to fiddle with details there should be plenty of time.
So, coming back to this quest after the hiatus, I had no idea who Muhou might be, so when an elementary-schooler-looking girl started beating up Kyoufu my first guess was untransformed Tomo. It was fairly eye-popping, until I understood what was going on.
It looks like discussion has wound down, so unless that changes in the meantime I'll be closing the votes whenever I have time to start writing. Probably tomorrow evening, so in about 20 hours or so?
[X] The anger seems less insidious than the fear, and easier to think through. Just focus on your goal; letting yourself feel the anger might make Muhou less antagonistic, as well.
[X] Stand your ground. You wanted to talk, and Muhou seems a bit more lucid than Kyoufu, shouty rudeness aside.
- [X] Maiko seems way better at coping with anger than fear, so she can probably help out.
-- [X] Ask her to keep an eye on the unconscious Kyoufu.
- [X] Just start shouting questions at her. Muhou seems more than willing to talk about things that piss her off.
[X] Where did they come from?
[X] What are their goals?
[X] What happens when an unfamiliar is destroyed?
[X] Are there any others, or just the two of them?
[X] Why do they create the unfamiliars?
[X] What is their connection to each other?
[X] If you brought a still-unconscious Kyoufu with you when leaving, do something with her:
- [X] Take her to an isolated location, like where you had your chat with Kaede, and leave a note for when she wakes up
[X] The anger seems less insidious than the fear, and easier to think through. Just focus on your goal; letting yourself feel the anger might make Muhou less antagonistic, as well.
[X] Stand your ground. You wanted to talk, and Muhou seems a bit more lucid than Kyoufu, shouty rudeness aside.
- [X] Maiko seems way better at coping with anger than fear, so she can probably help out.
-- [X] Ask her to keep an eye on the unconscious Kyoufu.
- [X] Just start shouting questions at her. Muhou seems more than willing to talk about things that piss her off.
[X] Where did they come from?
[X] Why do they create the unfamiliars?
[X] What is their connection to each other?
[X] If you brought a still-unconscious Kyoufu with you when leaving, do something with her:
- [X] Take her to an isolated location, like where you had your chat with Kaede, and leave a note for when she wakes up
[X] She wants you to be angry? Fine. You can do that, with or without her. You're not usually an angry person, but it's not like you don't have stuff to be upset about. Time to channel your inner Asami, push through the aura, and get angry on your own terms.
-[X] Get angry at how people won't just TALK to you, they run away, attack you, or just keep screaming. Talk dammit!
[X] Plan Friendship, Effort, Victory
-[X] All right, fine. This is more of a boys genre, but you can punch her until you're all friends. This has worked for you before, by the generous definition of you becoming friends with Chizuka. And Kaede, sorta. This is definitely a tactic to encourage friendship, and not that you're angry that she's beating up someone who might be literally incapable of fighting back.
-- [X] You're stronger, faster, and--shockingly enough--taller than Muhou. Time for some good old-fashioned fisticuffs. Try to restrain her for interrogation.
-- [X] Channel your inner Asami, and shout hot-blooded things during the fight. Hope that works, somehow.
- [X] Bring Kyoufu and Muhou with you to isolated location, for the interrogation, and get Maiko to get to work on the emotional projection defense ASAP. They don't get to leave until you understand what they're doing, what meguca they came from, or you can find (/beg Maiko to make) some way to keep them in line. One way or another. They can't just go around terrifying/enraging people and pulling Unfamiliars out of people, that's not safe.
[X] Where/who did they come from?
[X] Are there any others, or just the two of them?
[X] What are their goals?
[X] Plan: Hold my Sanity (rev b)
-[X] You're not really sure if the other magical girls have really seen you angry before. They've seen you pout adorably, of course. They've seen you frustrated, annoyed, even desperate when fighting Naoko, and you got by on bravado and borrowed authority when you first met Yumi and Koharu. Now though, now you're pissed.
--[X] Part of it is the aura of course. Part of it is an intentional decision to get on the same wavelength, to 'speak their language', in a sense. But really, there's a lot to get angry about. These things stealing emotions from people, or forcing them on others. The way Muhou just savagely beat a defenseless Kyoufu as she tried to crawl away. The magical girl casting off these emotions, causing problems. Other magical girls fighting, witches, hiding things from friends, just EVERYTHING.
---[X] Okay, deep breath. Focus. You can't do anything about 'everything' right now, but you can fix what's right in front of you. To do that, you need to find the magical girl who created these... Living issues. To do that, you're going to interrogate Muhou.
-[X] First, explain all this to Maiko. Quickly. Ask her to hang back, stay lucid. Be your anchor. Bruised knuckles might be part of the plan, but she's gonna make sure you don't go to far. If Maiko says stop, you stop. --[X] Ask Maiko to find a couple of available allies and call them in to help contain the situation. Leave the specifics to her judgement, since yours is about to be impaired.
--[X] Finally, time to act. You're sure Muhou can feel your anger somehow, but you want to make it easy on her. Your eyes, your voice, your body language. You'll talk, anger to anger, and you'll get your answers one way or another.
-[X] Questions revolve around three subjects.
--[X] Their creator. The magical girl that cut them off and sent them away. Why? When? How? Who? Most importantly, for you to get to the bottom of this, where? (Or maybe who is more important, but you just want to act right now... Focus. Stay on plan.)
--[X] Muhou. Why is she beating down Kyoufu, what does she want, what will it take for her to stop? The violence right now, but also the general process of stripping emotions from people and creating those unfamiliars.
--[X] Kyoufu. Actually, you don't really have any questions about her. You'll ask her yourself, later. On that note, you're taking her. That wasn't a question either.
-[X] Later with Kyoufu, you'll try to talk to her again based on the results of your talk with Muhou. If it worked, you'll try to direct your fear and speak face to face in a language she understands. If it was rough, didn't work or perhaps just drained you entirely, then you'll take her someplace safe and leave a note. Or something like that, you'll deal with it later.
Oh yeah I never actually mentioned this but part of my inspiration when writing the vote, especially the first part about Yui not really getting angry before, was that one quote...
"There are three things all wise men fear: the sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man."
So yeah I wanted to make it clear that Yui actually being angry is supposed to be rare, unusual, and perhaps even frightening. Before taking into account her power.
Edit: it's probably something Natsuki is familiar with. Asumi might know about it in a more distant way, but none of the magical girls she knows (Including Minami) would have experienced it. You could probably make a connection to back to when Natsuki was having a hard time and Yui stood by her to the point of losing friends. Idk just my thoughts, you will of course have your own interpretation of Yui's character and history that you'll want to stick to @Echo.
IC, we don't know. We've found no proof of any others, all the known victims have lost their anger or their fear, which can likely be explained by just these two.
Some of the victims recovered, it's believed by anger letting it's unfamiliars fight, and upon losing are returned to the human they spawned from, making them whole once more. Fear's modus operandi seems to be to prevent fighting and have her unfamiliars hide away, possibly in groups.
We wouldn't be surprised if others existed, now or in the future, but again we've seen nothing to support that so far.
Yes. Kyoufu is possibly a bit too on-the-nose, but they're heavily inspired by Homulilly's Clara Dolls, who are mostly named for negative personality traits, give or take.
Familiars of the Nutcracker Witch. Their duty is mourning.
The children of the false city. They play the role of mourners. These dress-up dolls fake crying in order to liven up the funeral procession. The dolls present are Pride, Pessimism, Liar, Coldheartedness, Selfishness, Slander, Blockhead, Jealousy, Laziness, Vanity, Cowardice, Stupid-Looking, Inferiority, and Stubbornness, while the last one, Love, has yet to arrive. "The depths of this world, born of form and without void, are our stage," and their power is a match for Magical Girls.
There are fifteen Clara Dolls, each of which has a distinct design, name, and description. They're also also implied to represent fragments of Homura's personality. They also don't seem to like Homu very much. Here's what each looks like along with their name and a description:
Note that "Good-for-nothing" is their name for Homulilly.
Better yet, narratively it is completely up in the air as well. Fight/Flight is core enough that just the two makes perfect narrative sense, but just them existing incarnated opens the door for other less fundamental emotions to be incarnated. It could stay at two, or expand, and there is no way we can find out if we don't ask them or run into others.
Urgh, sorry about the delay, everyone. Between multiple parts of this update fighting me and having stuff to do in the evenings I'm still working on it. Ideally I'd finish it tonight but more likely it'll be some time tomorrow.
I wanted to try to get the next part of my PMAS crossover omake series done soon, but real life is interfering. Still, I'll share a teaser of it, since I put a bunch of work in and don't want to wait for the rest of the omake to be done before getting my brain a hit of the good chemicals:
I wanted to try to get the next part of my PMAS crossover omake series done soon, but real life is interfering. Still, I'll share a teaser of it, since I put a bunch of work in and don't want to wait for the rest of the omake to be done before getting my brain a hit of the good chemicals:
It is! @Redshirt Army messaged me directly for input on style and tone &c. so you can consider that "basically canon for what Sabrina's hypothetical grimoire entry would be" but the specifics of the entry (and all the actual work making the image, ha ha) were his.
It is! @Redshirt Army messaged me directly for input on style and tone &c. so you can consider that "basically canon for what Sabrina's hypothetical grimoire entry would be" but the specifics of the entry (and all the actual work making the image, ha ha) were his.
The tragedy of the meguca: Dedicating yourself to fighting Witches only to discover in the end that the real Witches were the friends you made along the way.
...
In other news, I'm still working on the update. Ugh. Sorry. Had some stuff to do today, and while I finally pushed through most of the more fight-y bits I just can't get the conversation with Muhou to work the way I want it to. Update will be posted Sunday one way or another even if I have to suck it up and deal with not being satisfied with it, blargh. :|
Now that I'm using a vote tally program I can start adding the full tally or winning vote to the actual updates if people would prefer, but if it's all the same to you I'd rather keep the clutter to a minimum. I guess I could spoiler it or something...
-[] You're not really sure if the other magical girls have really seen you angry before. They've seen you pout adorably, of course. They've seen you frustrated, annoyed, even desperate when fighting Naoko, and you got by on bravado and borrowed authority when you first met Yumi and Koharu. Now though, now you're pissed.
--[] Part of it is the aura of course. Part of it is an intentional decision to get on the same wavelength, to 'speak their language', in a sense. But really, there's a lot to get angry about. These things stealing emotions from people, or forcing them on others. The way Muhou just savagely beat a defenseless Kyoufu as she tried to crawl away. The magical girl casting off these emotions, causing problems. Other magical girls fighting, witches, hiding things from friends, just EVERYTHING.
---[] Okay, deep breath. Focus. You can't do anything about 'everything' right now, but you can fix what's right in front of you. To do that, you need to find the magical girl who created these... Living issues. To do that, you're going to interrogate Muhou.
-[] First, explain all this to Maiko. Quickly. Ask her to hang back, stay lucid. Be your anchor. Bruised knuckles might be part of the plan, but she's gonna make sure you don't go too far. If Maiko says stop, you stop.
--[] Finally, time to act. You're sure Muhou can feel your anger somehow, but you want to make it easy on her. Your eyes, your voice, your body language. You'll talk, anger to anger, and you'll get your answers one way or another.
-[] Questions revolve around three subjects.
--[] Their creator. The magical girl that cut them off and sent them away. Why? When? How? Who? Most importantly, for you to get to the bottom of this, where? (Or maybe who is more important, but you just want to act right now... Focus. Stay on plan.)
--[] Muhou. Why is she beating down Kyoufu, what does she want, what will it take for her to stop? The violence right now, but also the general process of stripping emotions from people and creating those unfamiliars.
--[] Kyoufu. Actually, you don't really have any questions about her. You'll ask her yourself, later. On that note, you're taking her. That wasn't a question either.
-[] Later with Kyoufu, you'll try to talk to her again based on the results of your talk with Muhou. If it worked, you'll try to direct your fear and speak face to face in a language she understands. If it was rough, didn't work or perhaps just drained you emotionally, then you'll take her someplace safe and leave a note. Or something like that, you'll deal with it later.
Evening - Tuesday, January 18th, 2011
You grumble internally. This whole evening is starting to feel wasted, and while you know that's not really true you don't have a whole lot of information you can actually do anything with either. And your intended source of actionable information has fallen victim to a high-impact nap, thanks to Muhou. Not that you'd been having much luck getting Kyoufu to really talk to you, anyway. Maybe your idea about how her emotional focus works would let you get through to Kyoufu? ...maybe it would let you get through to Muhou instead?
Hmm.
In theory you'd love to have time to examine this plan properly from multiple angles and discuss it with Maiko before implementing it in a careful, measured, thoughtful manner, since that would give you plenty of time to waste being silly before acting impulsively anyhow.
Alas, that is not the case--time to wing it!
So yeah, I'mma get some answers out of Muhou now, you tell Maiko quickly. Trust me on this, but speak up if I go too far!
Wait, what?
You step between Muhou and Kyoufu, blocking her path, then cross your arms. Gotta speak her language first, y'know?
Maiko pauses for a moment, interpreting that, then stiffens. Yui, this sounds extremely reckless an--
It is, but trust me! You take a deep breath, and then consciously let the aura wash over you but not overwhelm you. Instead, you let it guide you as you reach for your own anger. It's... easier than you'd expected. Your immediate outrage at Muhou's savage and unprovoked attack on Kyoufu reminds you of your frustration over the whole situation with the two of them endangering people who don't even know magic exists, because apparently Kyubey thinks it's so much smarter than everyone else and hides things even as it leaves people vulnerable and isolates girls like Minami who see what's going on. All the pointless conflict between magical girls, grinding them down until they lose everything else, the girls who fight for survival and fall short, and--a memory flickers past of Hanako Ikeda staring at you wide-eyed on the bridge, then of Aya's angry tears two days later--the way you've been dragged into all of it when you just wanted to make things better for everyone and keep your home safe!
You grit your teeth, then exhale sharply. Sure, you're not an angry girl by nature, but that doesn't mean you don't have plenty to be angry about.
"...the fuck?" Muhou freezes in mid-step, staring at you. She looks... well, angry, of course, but also a bit perplexed.
...of course, you don't really have time to worry about that other stuff right now. You focus all that anger and frustration at Muhou.
She grins.
You tighten your fists, roll your shoulders, and stalk forwards. "So. I wanted answers from Kyoufu," you say through clenched teeth, "but you had to have your little temper tantrum. That means you'll answer my questions, instead."
"Oh?" Muhou stares at you through narrowed eyes, then cocks her head slightly and smirks. "Fuckin' make me."
You're lunging forward almost before you realize it. Muhou raises her arms to block your opening punch, but is flung backward by the force. She regains her footing and looks at you, teeth bared behind her crossed forearms. Jagged cracks run from wrist to elbow, bits of skin flaking off, but within a second the cracks have sealed up and been covered over by paper-like skin.
She lunges forward and this time you meet her halfway,
The two of you trade blows, dodging heavy blows and knocking quick jabs aside. Neither of you has any real skill, and while superhuman reflexes take you pretty far it quickly turns into a crude slugging match. After several seconds of rapid-fire blows, you overextend a bit too far and Muhou ducks underneath your arm, lands several quick punches on your stomach, then kicks you away as you reel.
You roll backward as you hit the ground, then catch yourself a moment later as Muhou leans forward. She lunges at you with a diving punch, but you pull yourself into a kneeling position in time to block her punch open-handed and grab her fist. You push yourself upright, dragging your opponent toward you, then before she can react you pivot on one foot, swing her physically over your head and slam her into the ground, shattering the pavement. You lose your grip in the impact, though, and Muhou twists in mid-air on the rebound to land in a crouch, then launches herself at you with her other hand pulled back to strike.
You duck aside and lash out with a kick, but Muhou grabs your foot as the hit lands, pulling you off balance. Before you can recover she's leapt on top of you and begins hammering blows down. You block most with your arms, but a few land on your chest and shoulders. Muhou's punches hurt, and while they don't seem to actually cause visible injury you can feel the pavement fracture beneath you as each hit lands.
You eventually throw Muhou off and attempt to return the favor, burying your fist in the ground when she rolls out of the way.
Holy shit, Minami mutters quietly, but you don't really have time to pay attention to telepathy.
Muhou springs back to her feet while you free your hand from the pavement, coming at you with a wild haymaker that you duck away from. After that it's back to the slugging match, your superior strength and reach giving you a small but real advantage until you land a solid blow right into Muhou's face. Her eye cracks like glass and you freeze up, worried you might have actually hurt her
Muhou staggers back, one hand over her eye, as you stand there breathing heavily and watching.
Sparks of magic come from her eye, visible only to your magic sense, but eventually the magic dwindles and she moves her hand away. Her movements are even stiffer and jerkier than normal and you can hear her joints audibly creak as she raises her fists again... then, with a spray of reddish-pink magic, she lets her arms drop and reverts to her seemingly-human form.
After a moment of hesitation, you decide to detransform to keep things vaguely equal and approach Muhou warily. Her breath is ragged and her body language seems exhausted, and when you end up standing in front of her without being attacked you conclude the fight is over.
You tilt your head toward a bench nearby, then give her a little shove in that direction. She trudges over and sits down with a quiet sigh. You clap a hand on Muhou's shoulder in a gesture that's half-friendly, half-intimidation, and sit down next to her.
After a moment of silence she crosses her arms. "So. What you wanna know?"
"You and Kyoufu both were cut off from someone or something, right?" you ask. "Why? When? H--"
"Fuck if I know," Muhou says with a shrug, then winces and rolls her neck with a cracking sound.
"...you don't know? At all?" you ask in disbelief. After you went through all this? Seriously?
"The past is dead and fucking buried," Muhou says. "Wherever we came from, who cares? It's gone. Like last week's rotting garbage. Doesn't fucking matter, don't fucking care."
"...okay, just to be clear because talking to you and Kyoufu has been incredibly frustrating so far, but you literally do not remember where you came from and that's what you don't care about, right?" you say. "Not just that you don't care about the details and don't feel like telling me or whatever?"
"You fucking deaf or what?" she says. "Yeah."
You pause, thinking. Missing information seems to be a thing here. "Does that have anything to do with why Kyubey's all weird about you two?"
"Not sure what a 'Kyubey' is, but I already hate it," Muhou says, scowling.
"Um. Kyubey is a little alien thing that offers wishes so girls like me can get kickass magic powers while being super sketchy about some important details," you say. "Actually, I was thinking that maybe that's where you came from--a magical girl made a wish to--"
Muhou snorts dismissively. "Yeah, right," she says. "May not know where the fuck I came from, but I can tell you it's not from someone who wanted me around."
Hmm. "I saw Kyoufu pull some sorta creature out of some guy," you say. "You do that too, right?"
"Yeah. Your point?"
"Well, first of all, could you not? It's causing problems for a lot of people."
"Fuck off," Muhou snarls, hands clenching.
"Is that a no?" you ask. Before Muhou can reply you continue, "Because those creatures aren't wanted either, right?"
Muhou tenses up and for a moment you think she's about to punch you again, but you squeeze her shoulder forcefully and she settles back down.
"But really, though. Quit doing that."
"Fuck off," Muhou mutters.
"It doesn't actually help, does it?" you say, pressing harder.
Muhou just glares at you with a mulish expression.
"Don't just clam up," you say. "I mean it. Does it help? What do you want to accomplish? What are you actually getting from th--"
Muhou stands up, shrugging your hand off forcefully, and tries to kick you. In your current forms, though, the strength different is even greater and when you block the kick with an arm she stumbles and falls.
You stand up, scowling down at her. You really don't want to get into another fight with some other magic source approaching. "Well that was a dumb idea," you say, then offer her a hand up.
She takes your hand, wincing in pain as you pull her to her feet, glaring at you the entire time.
You sigh in frustration. "So, Kyoufu. What is she to you, anyway? An enemy? A sister? Both? Why did you attack her?"
Muhou just shrugs in a vaguely aggressive manner.
"Well, leave her alone from now on."
Another shrug. "Fine. Whatever."
All your instincts are telling you that Muhou is feeling hurt and unhappy, but you crush your instinctive sympathy and instead concentrate on just how infuriating trying to get information out of her and Kyoufu has been... Muhou huffs a bit, but seems to relax.
Still, she's practically radiating antisocial prickliness even by her standards, so you think you've probably exhausted her patience for now. Besides, the massive magical presence overhead is making you nervous. "Okay, I'm kinda sick of your attitude for today," you say. "We good?"
Muhou stares at you for a moment, eyes narrowed.
You meet her gaze, holding eye contact for a few seconds, then smirk and hold up a fist.
She nods, then fist-bumps you hard enough to make your knuckles crack. "We good," she says, then turns and walks away, raising one arm in a backhand wave. "Later."
You watch her leave, then saunter back to where Maiko is waiting next to the still-unconscious Kyoufu and give her your very bestest smugface.
Maiko frowns. "Yes?"
You smug harder.
Maiko frowns harder. "Okay, yes, fine," she says, voice tight. "You were right. Your plan was reckless and dangerous, yes, but you were right and it worked. Happy now?"
"Yep!" you say, then look down at Kyoufu. "So, uh... I'm really not comfortable with just leaving her here like this."
"Agreed," Maiko says. "Furthermore, we can't leave you like that, either."
You blink. "Eh?"
Maiko pulls a hand mirror out of her bag and holds it up. "You are visibly bruised from your altercation," she says. "Muhou's physical strength was considerable. You were extremely fortunate she was not actually attempting to harm you, Yui. On two occasions she visibly restrained herself from striking at your Soul Gem, leaving herself open in the process."
You swallow. "...oh."
"Yes, 'oh.'" Maiko shoots a glance at something in the sky, then leans down and picks up Kyoufu. "Let's figure out what to do with Kyoufu, then I will attempt to instruct you in using magic to hasten healing." Maiko sighs. "We really can't send you home looking like that, and I would very much prefer we not impose on Tomo at this hour. Furthermore, Minami and Yumi have finished talking with the girls they found, so I don't believe there's anything else we need to accomplish tonight."
Deal with Kyoufu:
[] Try to wake Kyoufu up somewhere out of the way nearby
[] Take Kyoufu somewhere else
- [] Try to leave her with her 'friends'--get Minami to look for unfamiliars that, uh, look fear-ish? Or at least not angry-ish?
- [] Take her to an isolated location, like where you had your chat with Kaede
-- [] Leave a note for when she wakes up
- [] Take her to Momoko's house and assign people to keep watch over her
- [] (write-in?)
[] If Kyoufu wakes up while you're around...
- [] Think of scary things and try to talk with her (write-in what to talk about?)
- [] Keep your distance in case she transforms(?) and the fear aura comes back
- [] Try to convince her to leave the aura off
- [] (write-in?)
[] (write-in?)
Healing up:
[] Spend as long as necessary working on it to make sure you don't look injured tomorrow.
- [] If it gets too late, brainmail Asami and get her to help you pretend you're staying the night at her place
[] Try brainmailing Tomo anyway and make it up to her somehow
[] (write-in?)
Other stuff for the night:
[] Get a quick report from Minami and Yumi about the newbies they found. [] Wait, wait, what was that thing overhead with lots of magic?Yui doesn't remember anything like that.
[] Assign Maiko some stuff to do overnight
- [] Ways to block emotion auras--even if makes them less cooperative, Kyoufu's aura is too debilitating and there might be others that are as bad.
- [] Research the current situation with her grimoire
-- [] Brainstorm some ideas for where Kyoufu and Muhou came from first (write-in theories for Maiko to consider; the fewer and more accurate the suggestions are, the better the chance she'll get results)
-- [] With two examples now, see if she can search for others like those two
-- [] Try for a deeper understanding of the unfamiliars, in particular how they can be reunited with the people they came from
-- [] (write-in?)
[] (write-in?)
