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

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Mossconfig said:
Are we and our friends aware of the origin of witches?
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NuclearConsensus said:
Some are, not all. Maiko and Minami know, I think.
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SolipsistSerpent said:
Yui isn't. Minami and Maiko are and Shinobu almost certainly is because she ordered Kyubey to tell her about being a magical girl.
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SolipsistSerpent is correct, yes. Maiko generally isn't going to tell already-contracted meguca about it unless she has a very good reason to do so.

Some of your other more experienced allies know as well; Yumi probably, Fuuka and Rio definitely, not sure about the others.
 
Echo said:
Kyubey cocks its head as if thinking, then looks over the rest of your group. "This Witch first appeared in the city of Kashiwa in Chiba prefecture. It has existed for 39 days, but has negatively affected the emotional state of only 214 people due to its habitual avoidance of human activity. It has never encountered a magical girl and has not been the primary cause of any serious injury or deaths."
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That's still 5 people per day on average. So it'll eventually give the final push to cause a suicide.

But yeah. This is definitely an oof moment.
 
[x] Leave it up to Maiko. She must have encountered Witches like this before, right?
[x] Come to think of it, if Witches are creatures defined by sorrow, who both experience and spread that feeling... doesn't that sound a bit like Kyoufu and Muhou? Is it possible to communicate with Witches, as well?

We should probably defer to experience on this. But I do kinda hope dewitching is possible in PMIM. And this is probably one of the ways to do it. Also, if Rochelle shows up we'll be able to communicate with her.

But I fully understand if one of the other "talk to team" options wins. I kinda want to do all of them, but there's only really the moment for one of them.
 
Aranfan said:
We should probably defer to experience on this. But I do kinda hope dewitching is possible in PMIM.
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Maiko has reason to believe it's not impossible, at least.

Some form of dewitching is obviously possible, if only because I've already said that Yui's witch would be capable of it, but that's more "shoving a Witch's soul into a human body and applying psychological duck tape to hold her together" and definitely doesn't result in a functional human that could continue living a normal life.

Aranfan said:
But I fully understand if one of the other "talk to team" options wins. I kinda want to do all of them, but there's only really the moment for one of them.
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Not necessarily? I mean, the Witch isn't going anywhere, and you could talk afterwards besides. I'd prefer a write-in that ties things together rather than just (x) All Of The Above, though.
 
eternaleye said:
Actually, holy shit, that sent me on a terrifying-slash-brilliant tangent.

First of all, Shinobu could sign a contract not to compel allies without their consent. For bonus points, one could use esoteric models such as Coherent Extrapolated Volition, because the computation of the contract runs by magic, and so may not actually be computationally bounded. CEV, for reference, is "would the hypothetical perfectly-informed version of you give consent." She would love being magically stopped short of issuing compulsions unintentionally.

Second, those who have been witchbombed/lichbombed could sign a contract that prevents them from disclosing it unless those they are disclosing it to could safely accept it. You wouldn't even need to explicitly name them in the contract; you could simply refer to "cognitohazards endemic to Puella Magi" and have everyone sign it, even before being informed. This would allow Reiko to draft it without getting bombed.
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Please let this be a thing.

Please let this be a thing.

Please let this be a thing.
 
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My gut response is for Yui to ask Maiko if she thinks witches are aware in their seeds, get the answer that they're essentially sleeping and then point out that the Witch doesn't appear happy, (we are talking about a despairing magical girl) and that not only do we have to worry about humans wandering in but the witch herself is under threat of more aggressive witches.

Or basically confirm that no we're not killing the witch and frame it as mercy and protection for everyone including the witch herself
 
[X] Let it be, and leave the barrier. If thia Witch doesn't do much harm you can take your time to come up with a better solution.
[X] You don't actually know much about Witches in general. Ask Maiko for details; why are some more dangerous than others?
SolipsistSerpent said:
Among other things she's got something she's doing really well at that's just hers and not something anyone else in her family is doing better, which is probably helping keep her motivated.

Remember her brother is a literal genius and she was always being compared to him at school, which is an easy way to get disheartened.
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Increasing the percentage of cute girls around her didn't hurt
Echo said:
...nobody else seems to have anything to say about your impromptu speech, and you're feeling kinda embarassed by the whole production, so you put it behind you and move on.

You do notice Maiko giving you some odd looks, though.
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Maiko:"Most of the time she acts really dumb until you forget she's actually pretty smart"
 
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So want to ask Kyubey what the witch's name was before she was a which?

Edit: Could we get someone to sign a contract before being witch bombed so that they don't kill them selves or other people with that information?
 
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Echo said:
At the far end of the "not dangerous" extreme, Maiko has encountered a Witch that actively prevents anyone in her barrier from coming to harm, ejects her visitors and runs away if things get dangerous, and considers meguca who've entered her barrier to be her friends and occasionally goes looking for people she remembers when she gets lonely.
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So on the Maiko has experienced other witches like this front there's this one
 
I almost feel like we should ask how we might go about making sure this witch doesn't kill anyone in the future, and if we might help make it less miserable somehow.

We don't really know the limits of lawyer girls magic, and maybe Maiko could magic something up, or at least get us more details/talk to it.

Plus, imagine the uses for a tame witch. Including but not limited to: semi-safe training area, a contract allowing people to hand over grief in exchange for it not attacking anyone, and more.

More likely, if we can't figure out a way to keep it safe, we have some justification for putting it to sleep.

It might also delay and deflect the possible witch bomb without having to force our team/self to kill a generally innocent creature.
 
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Storyteller said:
My gut response is for Yui to ask Maiko if she thinks witches are aware in their seeds, get the answer that they're essentially sleeping and then point out that the Witch doesn't appear happy, (we are talking about a despairing magical girl) and that not only do we have to worry about humans wandering in but the witch herself is under threat of more aggressive witches.

Or basically confirm that no we're not killing the witch and frame it as mercy and protection for everyone including the witch herself
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This sounds like a very reasonable plan, to me? I'd vote for this. Probably won't work, but maybe we could get Reiko to form a contract with the witch to have it willingly become a grief seed, if we can communicate with it in any way? Maybe it would prefer eternal slumber to this existence. QB could translate! :V
 
[X] Destroy it anyway.
[X] You don't actually know much about Witches in general. Ask Maiko for details; why are some more dangerous than others?

I'm not getting the references...
 
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As an aside, a few things to keep in mind:
  • Yui is aware Grief Seeds can rehatch, and thus that destroying a Witch probably doesn't actually kill it
  • Between her magic sight and the comparison to Kyoufu and Muhou, Yui has strong reason to believe that Witches are in some sense people, even if she has no reason yet to think they're formerly human. She has not, however, spent much time thinking about this.
  • Again based on the comparison to Kyoufu and Muhou, and by analogy to their auras and mindsets, Yui also has reason to believe that Witches are probably every bit as miserable and self-destructive as they induce other people to be
Storyteller said:
My gut response is for Yui to ask Maiko if she thinks witches are aware in their seeds, get the answer that they're essentially sleeping and then point out that the Witch doesn't appear happy, (we are talking about a despairing magical girl) and that not only do we have to worry about humans wandering in but the witch herself is under threat of more aggressive witches.

Or basically confirm that no we're not killing the witch and frame it as mercy and protection for everyone including the witch herself
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BunnyLord said:
This sounds like a very reasonable plan, to me? I'd vote for this.
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Strictly speaking, Maiko is not certain to what extent Witches are or are not aware in Grief Seed form under normal circumstances. The stasis field used in her corruption balancer isn't just to keep supersaturated seeds from rehatching; it also has the purpose of completely suppressing awareness, so that at least those seeds are definitely not continuing to suffer.

Regardless, that angle of discussion is pretty much guaranteed to make it clear to everyone that Maiko knows more about Witches than she's possibly let on. Might want to keep in mind how Reiko (and Sayuki) will react...

BunnyLord said:
if we can communicate with it in any way?
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Maiko can talk to Witches. Most are poor conversationalists, though. (As in, too unstable and maddened by grief to express coherent thoughts.)

Aranfan said:
I just want to say that I am getting major vibes that Maiko knew this girl, before.
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Nah. She's just annoyed at being attacked by video game references. :V

Nervos Belli said:
It's not a giant spider or a giant book or a giant dork named Sabrina, so it's probably safe to treat it as an enemy.
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FTFY :V
 
[X] Leave it up to Maiko. She must have encountered Witches like this before, right?
[X] Come to think of it, if Witches are creatures defined by sorrow, who both experience and spread that feeling... doesn't that sound a bit like Kyoufu and Muhou? Is it possible to communicate with Witches, as well?

Hard decision, so I'm throwing our mentor under the bus and making her deal with it. I think the communication question is hopefully going to give us a bit of knowledge (they're insane/mono-focused) but without actually touching on the witchbomb.

Also, what video game references were there aside from the obvious healthbars? While a bunch of games have giant lasers and dinosaurs, I can't figure out what the specific references are meant to be.
 
notgreat said:
Also, what video game references were there aside from the obvious healthbars? While a bunch of games have giant lasers and dinosaurs, I can't figure out what the specific references are meant to be.
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The reference Maiko tolerated was that the outer labyrinth looked very much like something out of an Etrian Odyssey game. The one she was annoyed by is the Witch blasting everyone with Hyper Beam, which she recognized by the sound effect; it was basically a feathery Rayquaza, apparently including the 4x weakness to Ice-type attacks. :V

The dinosaurs were just dinosaurs. They don't need a reason to be there.
 
notgreat said:
Hard decision, so I'm throwing our mentor under the bus and making her deal with it.
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Hey remember when we made the hard decision so that Maiko wouldn't have to?

Let's keep doing that.

Of course making decisions, hard or otherwise, doesn't mean we shouldn't seek additional information so we can make better choices.

And while Yui doesn't know witches were magical girls, there are things she does know or can infer by herself, so she's not totally ignorant either.



... Shit I tried writing a vote, and while the first part is good I can't help but end up getting to have a deep discussion about witch ethics and that's all kinds of scary.
 
Whatever we decide to ultimately do with the witch I think we should press Reiko a bit on this. Don't turn it into a huge argument but she does seem to appreciate having her ideas challenged. Just going ahead and blasting the thing without a discussion seems like the worst way to handle it though I doubt we're likely to do that anyway, I wouldn't prefer passing responsibility over to Maiko, but we should get her opinion and the outcome probably wouldn't be that terrible if we did leave it to her.

We could just leave the barrier for now and table the issue, grab some soup and have a cordial ethics discussion with Reiko over dinner. (possibly tomorrow I forget what time of night it is) Even if I'm skeptical of the safety of actually letting the witch roam free it's probably not an immediate danger. I'm more immediately worried about Sayuki. She recognized the word "incubator" and is putting something together between that and witches. Even if she's on completely the wrong track it's still probably not a very good track.

veekie said:
Maiko:"Most of the time she acts really dumb until you forget she's actually pretty smart"
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I think she's just wondering why Yui bought her philosophy at the soup store. Ramen anyone?
 
Ok so what I'm thinking is first thing we do is address Reiko. The update ended with her declaration, while everybody else seemed uncomfortable and/or uncertain. Including Maiko, so dumping responsibility on her is a bad idea.

We could barrel over her wishes. "If you won't, I will" but that's a shitty thing to do.

We could appease her without argument, "alright have it your way" but while that's not inherently shitty, (unlike the last two options), it's still showing weak leadership ability. (Just like the last two options)

So... We have to address her directly. That's how the next update should start.

Okay, hopefully you're all with me so far because I'm not posting that and waiting an hour for responses before continuing. But assuming you agree with the need to address Reiko, the problem becomes this; how the hell are we going to get into an argument with the lawyers daughter about witch ethics and innocence without turning that into a whole thing and probably getting everybody witchbombed in the process?!?

And if we're avoiding the witch bomb, how are we gonna do that without metagaming hard?

Sooo... Yeah rough vote. I've got ideas but that's where I'm at rn

Edit: aww shucks I kinda got ninja'd pretty hard there. Or should I say Minami'd?
 
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FelOnyx said:
possibly tomorrow I forget what time of night it is
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Late afternoon, early evening, somewhere thereabouts. A reasonable time for having dinner. In fact, if not for the current situation the update would probably have ended on a decision to either wrap things up, or break for dinner and then spend more time with the newbies.

FelOnyx said:
She recognized the word "incubator" and is putting something together between that and witches.
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FWIW, Sayuki's English is good enough to enjoy pop culture without needing a translation or even a dictionary on hand. So yes, she knows what the word "incubator" means. None of the others present (well, besides Maiko, obviously) would know the word without looking it up.
 
Possibly compare her (the witch) to a dangerous animal? If a bear had been loose in the city for 39 days and in that time had mildly hurt 200 people you wouldn't let it keep going because it hadn't yet killed anyone, even if it mostly just wanted to be left alone. If you had other options you wouldn't kill it but we don't really.
 
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