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

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redzonejoe said:
Edit: Darklight liked your post and not mine? What am I doing wrong?!? *Panics in Kyoufu*
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Half-asleep me thought your post had room for improvement but no energy to articulate what they were properly. Fortunately that was done for me, and now there are likes for everyone.

Genial Precis said:
In future (and I admit my own culpability) we should probably use smaller votes most of the time to keep the discussion more accessible, though. For myself I want to adopt a 200-word target, or thereabouts.
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I find this goal deeply suspicious and possibly inherently at odds with our "build a vote by repeatedly cannibalizing all good suggestions" methodology, which I like. There's something to be said for brevity and relying on the GM and PC to fill in gaps in the vote with sensible actions, but usually the megavotes here are not "remember to breathe" sorts of things. They provide things Yui would actually not do, or spin the actions in ways that the default might not which do actually make a difference in results (ex., the subvote to leaving a note as compared to the GM description of what the resulting note from no subvote would be).

Ultimately this is a quest where Yui needs to juggle a LOT of balls and rapidly move her attention between many, many topics. If we want the game to be able to move at a decent pace then our votes have to be able to address several significant topics each in some detail, at any time we're not in a combat or diplomacy slowdown due to hostile actors present. That takes a lot of words.
 
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Echo said:
I mean, you're always welcome to go completely off the rails. Or at least suggest going off the rails and not get voted for, that's an option too.
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... Will world or Yui survive if we tried going Old Man Lady Henderson? :confused:
Edit: might be said Homura tried and look how that ended...

Kyubey: I feel... Disturbance in Force... And I still haven't extracted Earth's quota.



On makeup to mask face... Go full carnival or cosplay, been at friends, forgot to wash up paint...
... nah... Better go learning and hope she learns fast enough to not need backup plans.

We have raw power and topic of wishing to help others should help in learning, right?
 
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And for people like me whose eyes glaze over when I try to read the Frankensteined manifestos masquerading as votes, the update comes out anyway, and things are usually moved in a satisfactory way toward our nebulous goal of Friendship and Overwhelming Firepower.

So this is also a fine thing.
 
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Guile said:
And for people like me whose eyes glaze over when I try to read the Frankensteined manifestos masquerading as votes
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I'm right with you on this, except I'm too tied up in this self-image of being a 'planmaker' that I force myself to focus anyways. It hurts. I do it for you.

 
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DarkLight140 said:
I find this goal deeply suspicious and possibly inherently at odds with our "build a vote by repeatedly cannibalizing all good suggestions" methodology, which I like. There's something to be said for brevity and relying on the GM and PC to fill in gaps in the vote with sensible actions, but usually the megavotes here are not "remember to breathe" sorts of things. They provide things Yui would actually not do, or spin the actions in ways that the default might not which do actually make a difference in results (ex., the subvote to leaving a note as compared to the GM description of what the resulting note from no subvote would be).

Ultimately this is a quest where Yui needs to juggle a LOT of balls and rapidly move her attention between many, many topics. If we want the game to be able to move at a decent pace then our votes have to be able to address several significant topics each in some detail, at any time we're not in a combat or diplomacy slowdown due to hostile actors present. That takes a lot of words.
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Perhaps goal is too strong a word. Liberally cannibalizing peoples' votes has good effects. People can make anything from suggestions to half-thought plans, which become valuable contributions because they're scrutinizing a particular aspect of Yui's possible actions more closely. I am conscious of this.

Mostly I want to not be inadvertently exclusive. As long as people are engaged and at least one person is available and willing to make plans on any given update, I think we're in good shape. And I can't actually wrangle a vote like that more than once or twice a week, not sustainably.

That said, it's clear that delegation is essential. Yui did a pretty good job of that today (in-character time). Let's keep it up.
Guile said:
Frankensteined manifestos masquerading as votes
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[Q] The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of magical girls...
 
redzonejoe said:
Updated vote gets its own post, changes in red because that's my colour, fam. Updated healing section should satisfy everybody, Tomo note removed as it's now redundant. Thank Genial for the suggestions, lemme know if there's anything objectionable.
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Basically fixes my problems with the healing option, and that was my objection in the first place.

[X] Plan: Eyes on the prize
 
Guile said:
And for people like me whose eyes glaze over when I try to read the Frankensteined manifestos masquerading as votes, the update comes out anyway, and things are usually moved in a satisfactory way toward our nebulous goal of Friendship and Overwhelming Firepower.

So this is also a fine thing.
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Archeo Lumiere said:
Lol your Avatar is perfect for this statement
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Pictured below: @Guile reading and applying in-depth analysis to a bandwagon vote:


Anyway, vote closed!
Adhoc vote count started by Krika on Jan 15, 2020 at 9:15 PM, finished with 82 posts and 10 votes.
  • [X] Plan: Eyes on the prize
    [X] Take Kyoufu somewhere else
    - [x] Take her to an isolated location, like where you had your chat with Kaede
    -- [X] Leave a note for when she wakes up
    [X] Spend as long as necessary working on it to make sure you don't look injured tomorrow.
    - [x] If it gets too late, brainmail Asami and get her to help you pretend you're staying the night at her place
    - [x] talk with Maiko and Asami about getting martial arts lessons.
    [X] Hug Maiko and apologize for scaring her
    - [X] Impress upon her that you're serious about learning from your mistakes, talk through what happened and what you might've done differently a bit
    [X] Get a quick report from Minami and Yumi about the newbies they found.
    [X] Ask Maiko if she noticed damage and noise of fight attracting observers to worry about, like other magical girls
    [X] Assign Maiko some stuff to do overnight
    - [x] 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.
    -- [x] With two examples now, see if she can search for others like those two
    [X] Take Kyoufu somewhere else
    - [X] Try to leave her with her 'friends'--get Minami to look for unfamiliars that, uh, look fear-ish? Or at least not angry-ish?
    -- [X] Leave a note for when she wakes up
    [X] If Kyoufu wakes up while you're around...
    - [X] Think of scary things and try to talk with her (pls stop mind-raping people, don't fear aura us, tell us if you know anything about where you came from, here's our contact information if you need help)
    [X] Spend as long as necessary working on it to make sure you don't look injured tomorrow.
    - [x] If it gets too late, brainmail Asami and get her to help you pretend you're staying the night at her place
    - [x] talk with Maiko and Asami about getting martial arts lessons.
    [X] Get a quick report from Minami and Yumi about the newbies they found.
    [X] Ask Maiko if she noticed damage and noise of fight attracting observers to worry about, like other magical girls
    [X] Assign Maiko some stuff to do overnight
    - [x] 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.
    -- [x] With two examples now, see if she can search for others like those two
    [X] Take Kyoufu somewhere else
    - [X] Try to leave her with her 'friends'--get Minami to look for unfamiliars that, uh, look fear-ish? Or at least not angry-ish?
    -- [X] Leave a note for when she wakes up
    [X] If Kyoufu wakes up while you're around...
    - [X] Think of scary things and try to talk with her (pls stop mind-raping people, don't fear aura us, tell us if you know anything about where you came from, here's our contact information if you need help)
    [X] Spend as long as necessary working on it to make sure you don't look injured tomorrow.
    - [X] Brainmail Asami and get her to help you pretend you're staying the night at her place if it gets too late
    [X] Get a quick report from Minami and Yumi about the newbies they found.
    [X] Ask Maiko if she noticed damage and noise of fight attracting observers to worry about, like other magical girls
    [X] Hug Maiko and apologize for scaring her
    - [X] Impress upon her that you're serious about learning from your mistakes, talk through what happened and what you might've done differently a bit
    [X] Assign Maiko some stuff to do overnight
    - [x] 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.
    -- [x] With two examples now, see if she can search for others like those two
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redzonejoe said:
It's extra funny because of my plan name. It's totally something toph would mock.
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Toph is A:TLA best girl, trufax.

Anyway, end-of-in-quest-day means this update has lots of bits and pieces so it's looking like I won't have time to finish it tonight. Lots and lots of characters with dialogue, not to mention three (!) making their first actual "on-screen" appearance. Soooo depending on inspiration levels and how much free time I have, it could very well not be up until Friday or Saturday, we'll see.
 
So Muhou and Kyoufu cannot practise their predilections without excessive problems. Let us teach them the magic of Living Vicariously! Teach them the terrifying dual-art of collaborative puppy-dog-eyes with which to convince Maiko to teach them magical artisanship. Kyoufu could then run a consultancy where she analyses magical girls' souls and advises them on all their existential frailties and the unvarnished truth of their most sacred being, A.K.A. power advice. During her downtime she can make magical nick-nacks for sale, things like fear bombs or magical distorters or working voodoo dolls or what have you, to allow others to spread fear. Muhou could run a dojo/fight-club with a side of weapon and armour production, so that others may deliver justice in her name. It could be the start of Nagamioka's very own Little Meguca Town which will no doubt grow into the region's premiere centre of meguca commerce.
 
To take that seriously, I'll discuss my several perspectives on the problem, since my normal approach to thinking about things is to articulate contradictory opinions that take into account the important aspects of the problem which I can see, and then either attack the contradictions or decide that only a subset of those opinions is correct or something.

I'd love to get our meguca into homes.

One aspect of this want is altruistic: Meguca are in a lot of ways less fragile than ordinary homeless people, in that they're not gonna get sick or die because of cold weather, they're nearly immune to police response, knocking over ATMs for cash is usually trivial (I wonder if ATMs in PMMM-verse keep less cash around compared to RL?), and they're not concerned about getting hired at some point in future. On the other hand, they have to get into somewhat dangerous fights on a regular basis, and feeling lonely or afraid or whatever will slowly or quickly kill them in a direct way, and they often have no social support network.

So I would suggest that a feeling of belonging is important to the long-term survival of meguca. Being on a non-toxic team is probably over half of that, and it seems like many meguca in short order procure themselves some place to live after moving into a territory. Rio's group has a house, somehow, and Chou is clearly going to make herself a hole under a hill at the end of Bagshot Row over the next few days. This is a good thing, and it illustrates the broader point that the solutions for getting our meguca into stable living (housing and social!) situations is to some extent a case by case process.

However, the other aspect is not so altruistic. People with homes have something to protect, and a reason to get along with their neighbors.

Except, I just realized I've been thinking about it all wrong. Homes are important to real people, because with a home and a job you have someplace to live and something to eat. A territory takes the role of both of those for a magical girl. They're always going to be paying attention to the question "where's my next grief seed coming from". It's not feudalism, despite the superficial similarities of territory-holding and owed service.

Holding a territory is a very low-trust way to be sure of your grief seed supply. If someone hunts in your territory, you'll know relatively quickly compared to the number seeds they can get that way. So magical girls and groups of them can operate sort of stably like that, although I'm sure betrayals are common. Any substitute system needs a similar level of feeling-trustworthy.

Maybe we ought to impose a tax and provide a safety net, like Momoko did. One of the ways to build trust is to have obligations and repeatedly meet them, after all. I dunno, I'mma think about this.

My not-so-serious take is that Muhou wants to shake the rotten foundations of corrupt society. Stripping the editorial, and since Yui's family is one of those entrenched-influential-wealthy families, shaking Yui probably counts for something. Not stripping the editorial... investigative journalism? Sounds like a good fit.

Wait, for real, she and Minami might get along like a house on fire. Let's arrange a meeting.
 
Soooo, I am in fact still working on the update. I have most of the stuff involving the newbieguca and the end-of-day bit written at this point, but I still need to finish the initial conversation with Maiko, waking up the next morning, any minor bits involving school, and some glue scenes stitching together all of the above.

I also may or may not have spent way too much time trying to write a haiku as part of the update before giving up and eliding the actual poem. It'll make sense in context, trust me. Well, it'll make as much sense as it's intended to make, rather.

Genial Precis said:
Rio's group has a house, somehow
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More like they have money 'somehow' and found someone willing to rent a house to a group of teenagers without asking where the money comes from. Fuuka at least acts like she comes from an upper-class background, so it's entirely possible she's a wealthy orphan or something and they're living off her slowly dwindling inheritance.

(I haven't actually decided what their financial situation is, incidentally, but that's one option under consideration. I've also considered "as above, except it's one of the other two who has loads of cash, because that's funnier", among other things.)

Genial Precis said:
since Yui's family is one of those entrenched-influential-wealthy families
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I'd dispute characterizing them as 'entrenched'. The Aikawa family were historically merchants, well-off but not truly 'rich', until her grandfather came into his inheritance at a young age and--through a combination of cleverness, luck, and cutthroat negotiating--grew his fortune through a series of extremely profitable investments to become one of the wealthiest men in Japan. Yui's parents both put a great deal of work into building both their wealth and influence, especially compared to e.g. Koharu's family, who have been independently wealthy for generations, or Shinobu's family, who are still somewhat entrenched despite having fallen on hard times both politically and financially.
 
Echo said:
More like they have money 'somehow' and found someone willing to rent a house to a group of teenagers without asking where the money comes from. Fuuka at least acts like she comes from an upper-class background, so it's entirely possible she's a wealthy orphan or something and they're living off her slowly dwindling inheritance.

(I haven't actually decided what their financial situation is, incidentally, but that's one option under consideration. I've also considered "as above, except it's one of the other two who has loads of cash, because that's funnier", among other things.)
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It is well known the truly wealthy do not bother to flaunt it!
Only those who are just barely rich feel the need to make sure everyone knows!
(Seriously, the only millionaire I've ever met in person goes around in T-shirt and shorts when not on business)
 
Echo said:
More like they have money 'somehow' and found someone willing to rent a house to a group of teenagers without asking where the money comes from. Fuuka at least acts like she comes from an upper-class background, so it's entirely possible she's a wealthy orphan or something and they're living off her slowly dwindling inheritance.
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So, since they've got a "face" that can probably convincingly act upper-class, I imagine it matters significantly less to prospective landlords where the money comes from.
Echo said:
grandfather came into his inheritance at a young age and--through a combination of cleverness, luck, and cutthroat negotiating--grew his fortune through a series of extremely profitable investments to become one of the wealthiest men in Japan. Yui's parents both put a great deal of work into building both their wealth and influence
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How interested is Kaoru in continuing that? He's at school, I think undergrad, but the narration made some noise about him being the youngest person in Japan to do XYZ, which seems like it would imply he's doing something in business already, perhaps?
 
Genial Precis said:
which seems like it would imply he's doing something in business already, perhaps?
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I think earlier it was said that he goes to a cutting edge tech school or something along those lines, people were joking about mech suits? I'm sure several of his ideas could be made profitable, especially given natural business education and contacts just from being born into this family.

i don't think he's inclined towards 'business' so much as business is a natural vehicle to drive forward the projects he's actually passionate about. I don't think he's gonna follow in his grandfather's steps, rather he's likely to pave his own path and be highly (financially, among other ways) successful in his own way.

with that in mind, Yui could be a natural heir to her father's business. She's got the cunning mind of her father, the winning charm of her mother, and while she fears she has no notable achievements... She's still young, and that very same lack of achievements could be a sign, in her parents eyes at least, that she'll be willing to follow in her parents footsteps instead of paving her own path elsewhere. Perfect heir material.

Hell, the deal with Chou is actually a perfect example of this. Trading favors, developing contacts, investing in projects (instead of funding more personal projects like Kaoru is no doubt doing), this is exactly the sort of 'business' that made the Aikawa name.

Edit: and Maiko too. Cutting a deal to get a discount on tutoring that lets her pay her own way while acknowledging and addressing one of her biggest flaws, and potentially making contacts with the other tutored children and Maiko herself, who might not amount to much but is at the very least highly intelligent.

And stepping in to stop a fight involving Koharu? How much of that is her grandmother, and how much of that was a calculated move to incur debt and a favorable opinion with another influential family heir (what with her elder sister and former heir having eloped and all) :V
 
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Well said! Man, the A+/full marks win condition is bourgeois/aristo as fork. Like, I feel like one of our ongoing issues, if we want to do things of that nature, will be that we're trying to organize a bunch of mostly-homeless girls who run the full spectrum of socioeconomic background (that they came from originally), who have since been various degrees of detached from society at large, and more focused on survival than a normal person.

I say issue, but I don't generally mean problem, just something to consider. I expect some of them to be reasonably enthusiastic, for example, about being able to have, like, ambitions beyond the next grief seed. Maybe that would be a good coping mechanism for Shinobu in particular, to have ambitions, if anyone can think of more concrete suggestions?
 
Genial Precis said:
Well said! Man, the A+/full marks win condition is bourgeois/aristo as fork. Like, I feel like one of our ongoing issues, if we want to do things of that nature, will be that we're trying to organize a bunch of mostly-homeless girls who run the full spectrum of socioeconomic background (that they came from originally), who have since been various degrees of detached from society at large, and more focused on survival than a normal person.

I say issue, but I don't generally mean problem, just something to consider. I expect some of them to be reasonably enthusiastic, for example, about being able to have, like, ambitions beyond the next grief seed. Maybe that would be a good coping mechanism for Shinobu in particular, to have ambitions, if anyone can think of more concrete suggestions?
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I suspect ambitions would be good for Shinobu as well, but the issue there is... well, I had overbearing and dictatorial parents too, and so I can state from experience that when your parents refuse to even let you consider other paths, a likely consequence is that any rebellion against that is likely to be "anything but that" rather than being a concrete ambition that stands on its own. Obviously Shinobu isn't me, so maybe she reacted differently, but I'd be willing to bet that we're going to have to push her to choose an ambition because right now, her only goals (as best I can tell) are "don't mind-control people", "don't fight Witches", and "watch anime". None of which are particularly sustainable as a driving force. That being said, before we start planning which ambitions she might take to, I think we need to learn more about her. At the very least, we need to know which anime she likes best so that we can deduce from there what qualities she values in a character. It shouldn't be too much of a leap from there to figure out what she might like to cultivate in herself.

EDIT: Fixed some punctuation.
 
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Genial Precis said:
How interested is Kaoru in continuing that? He's at school, I think undergrad, but the narration made some noise about him being the youngest person in Japan to do XYZ, which seems like it would imply he's doing something in business already, perhaps?
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redzonejoe said:
I think earlier it was said that he goes to a cutting edge tech school
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Right, so, remember canon and the weird the-future-is-now bits of technological fanciness? That's because Mitakihara is the center of a technology boom driven in large part by both the research and graduates coming out of the school Kaoru attends, which is a bit south of Mitakihara in Yokosuka.

Kaoru himself is technically an undergrad but has already made a name for himself in terms of contributions to the field and does his undergrad work as mostly a formality while spending time out of class working with actual researchers. He's associated with a cross-department, multidisciplinary group whose stated goal is something about turning advanced science into practical concepts that can improve the world, but also (unknown to Kaoru) happens to contain a couple magical girls who are trying to find a scientific basis for magic. :V

What Kaoru himself does I'm not 100% but leaning towards something heavily math-oriented.

redzonejoe said:
Hell, the deal with Chou is actually a perfect example of this. Trading favors, developing contacts, investing in projects (instead of funding more personal projects like Kaoru is no doubt doing), this is exactly the sort of 'business' that made the Aikawa name.
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Yeah, you're pretty much on-target. While Kaoru does amazing things for the family's reputation, and takes after his grandfather in personality, he doesn't have the man's ambitions or interest in business dealings. Yui is--or at least was, prior to the whole 'magical girl' thing--far more likely to follow the same path as her father and grandfather.

Crimson Doom said:
Obviously Shinobu isn't me, so maybe she reacted differently
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Nah, you're pretty much on target with her.
 
@Crimson Doom I fully agree with the both the need to learn more about Shinobu and what she might want for herself, and I would underline (for myself if no one else) that her buy-in is the main factor in the success or failure of anything we might do. Maybe we should start by having a frank talk with her sometime soon, now that she's had a couple days to calm down since our last talk?
Echo said:
Kaoru himself is technically an undergrad but has already made a name for himself in terms of contributions to the field and does his undergrad work as mostly a formality while spending time out of class working with actual researchers. He's associated with a cross-department, multidisciplinary group whose stated goal is something about turning advanced science into practical concepts that can improve the world, but also (unknown to Kaoru) happens to contain a couple magical girls who are trying to find a scientific basis for magic. :V
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OK, so he's one of those nauseatingly talented and ambitious MIT engineering undergrads, nursed on red meat, caffeine and the fever dreams of industry. :V Not to dig too far into meta-knowledge, but I'm now extremely interested in reading him in on magic, in the medium-term hopes of connecting him, Maiko, and the magical girls who have somehow managed to get as far in their academic careers as actual research. He's smart, I guess once we read him in (and got him exempted from the SEP field!) he might notice certain incongruities.
 
Genial Precis said:
Maybe we should start by having a frank talk with her sometime soon, now that she's had a couple days to calm down since our last talk?
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I think that would work, but honestly, the main issue is finding the time for this. Yui isn't just a busy bee, she's a queen bee trying to rebuild a hive that bears kicked over and stole most of the honey from.

...that metaphor may have gotten away from me a little bit.
 
Crimson Doom said:
I think that would work, but honestly, the main issue is finding the time for this. Yui isn't just a busy bee, she's a queen bee trying to rebuild a hive that bears kicked over and stole most of the honey from.

...that metaphor may have gotten away from me a little bit.
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What is on Yui's schedule this week anyway? I need to do a reread at some point. I know there is some event with the upper crust on Friday that our parents are having us go to, and could potentially lead to Oriko and Hitomi interactions. And then there's a meeting with Chou whenever she comes back out for air where she officially agrees to do what she' s probably already doing. And then there's the meeting that Konno is setting up with Oshigiri....

Anything else I'm missing?

edit: oh there was maybe something about Naoko as well? But we can totally put that off forever with zero consequences just like we have been so it's fiiinnnneeee.
 
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Aunty Shi Ping said:
I would assume that these won't take up much time, given that they will all occur simultaneously. Or at least I am assuming that the Konno one will be on Friday evening because Yui can't reschedule either.
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I remember that getting brought up before and @Echo said something along the line of Konno being able to tell when Yui is busy and nudging Oshigiri to want a meeting some other time. Konno really wants this deal to go through IIRC.
 
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