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Renascence: A Homura Quest

Honorifics or Western-style Titles? I've used both before, which is bothersomely inconsistent

  • Japanese Honorifics (-san, -sama, -dono, -chan, -kun, -senpai, etcetera)

    Votes: 12 33.3%

  • Western Titles (Mister, Miss, job titles, Lord, Lady, etcetera)

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Use whichever works better for a given sentence.

    Votes: 24 66.7%
  • Total voters
    36
  • Poll closed .
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Reminder to @Higure to add threadmarks to this update, the previous update, and the omake.


Entropy Judge said:
Do you really want to count on cultural norms to keep on-edge Magical Girls from freaking out when they find out that aliens have been systematically manipulating humans for centuries-to-millennia? Or, worse, driving the emotions down in public, then freaking out later (which Mami has done, in The Different Story). It's something I'd be a bit worried about - and if we tell them later, in a more comfortable and private location, they can have the reaction that will let them relieve some stress instead of having to bottle it up.
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One minor counterargument: Having Homura tell them helps reduce the sanity hit from the reveals, compared to potentially letting Kyuubey provide details, particularly to Mami.

Entropy Judge said:
If Mami or Nanoha notice the phrasing, they might be smart enough to ask what we think about it. This information isn't really part of the 'official propaganda' - you have to look for it, ask Kyubey about it.
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Sort of. Since Kyouko has already provided an example of the info being provided, at least to an extent, and we can view Kyuubey's comments about the Incubator's part in human history as a definite attempt at propaganda, it's not entirely out of line.

Of course, there's also several ways to answer that, that each affect how the answer is received.

For thousands of years.
Since the dawn of human history.
For as long as there have been humans.
Since humans were living in caves (or trees).
A very long time.

But then the immediate question is, "Should there be magical girl stories of such things if this has been going on for that long?"

Entropy Judge said:
No one here is stupid. They're probably going to pick up on the oddity of Incubators having manipulated people from the shadow for millennia instead of allowing the knowledge to become more widespread; Nanoha especially is going to question this, given that she's had contact with the Bureau by now. Why children? Where are the 'adult' Magi?
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"We're going for the dinner-sized explanation, not the documentary."


Personally, I'm against going too deep into the Incubator explanation simply because it's not the main topic right now. We're talking about witches and magical girls, not Incubators.

An answer of something like, "A long time. A very long time. As for why there aren't magical girl stories? Well, there are probably are quite a few stories; they just weren't told with the same sort of perspective as we have for magical girls, so we don't recognize them for what they are. What would the average medieval farmer think of a girl who could do what we can? An angel? A devil? A fae? A spirit? A witch?"

That actually gives a better answer than just providing a timeline. It lets the others recognize that there are innumerable stories throughout human history that "could" be referring to magical girls, giving them an understanding of not only how long it's been going on, but how deeply pervasive it was throughout all cultures.

I'm not sure how to fit it into either side of the vote, though. It's not refusing to answer, but it's not diverting the answer into a discussion about Incubators, either.
 
Kinematics said:
An answer of something like, "A long time. A very long time. As for why there aren't magical girl stories? Well, there are probably are quite a few stories; they just weren't told with the same sort of perspective as we have for magical girls, so we don't recognize them for what they are. What would the average medieval farmer think of a girl who could do what we can? An angel? A devil? A fae? A spirit? A witch?"

That actually gives a better answer than just providing a timeline. It lets the others recognize that there are innumerable stories throughout human history that "could" be referring to magical girls, giving them an understanding of not only how long it's been going on, but how deeply pervasive it was throughout all cultures.

I'm not sure how to fit it into either side of the vote, though. It's not refusing to answer, but it's not diverting the answer into a discussion about Incubators, either.
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I'd say, that it probably can fit into

[]Share Incubator History
-[]History with Humans

as greatly simplified "version". It's not a main theme for the current discussion, after all. Briefly mentioning the entropy-goal to conclude the distration also seems as a correct thing to do.
 
Kinematics said:
Reminder to @Higure to add threadmarks to this update, the previous update, and the omake.




One minor counterargument: Having Homura tell them helps reduce the sanity hit from the reveals, compared to potentially letting Kyuubey provide details, particularly to Mami.


Sort of. Since Kyouko has already provided an example of the info being provided, at least to an extent, and we can view Kyuubey's comments about the Incubator's part in human history as a definite attempt at propaganda, it's not entirely out of line.

Of course, there's also several ways to answer that, that each affect how the answer is received.

For thousands of years.
Since the dawn of human history.
For as long as there have been humans.
Since humans were living in caves (or trees).
A very long time.

But then the immediate question is, "Should there be magical girl stories of such things if this has been going on for that long?"


"We're going for the dinner-sized explanation, not the documentary."


Personally, I'm against going too deep into the Incubator explanation simply because it's not the main topic right now. We're talking about witches and magical girls, not Incubators.

An answer of something like, "A long time. A very long time. As for why there aren't magical girl stories? Well, there are probably are quite a few stories; they just weren't told with the same sort of perspective as we have for magical girls, so we don't recognize them for what they are. What would the average medieval farmer think of a girl who could do what we can? An angel? A devil? A fae? A spirit? A witch?"

That actually gives a better answer than just providing a timeline. It lets the others recognize that there are innumerable stories throughout human history that "could" be referring to magical girls, giving them an understanding of not only how long it's been going on, but how deeply pervasive it was throughout all cultures.

I'm not sure how to fit it into either side of the vote, though. It's not refusing to answer, but it's not diverting the answer into a discussion about Incubators, either.
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You could just add an addendum like 'try to keep the explanation short', though honestly I think Homura will try to do so on her own.
 
The truth about the lack of magical girl stories is that the "magical girl" is a cultural construction. What would have been a magical girl in older times was perceived differently: miracle workers, saints, sorceresses, perhaps legends like nymphs or dryads, and witches although obviously the term meant something different then.

E: maybe I should put that in blue?
 
Gonna try something for the vote here. Mainly, the primary answer is something akin to either my earlier comment, or SWB's. It gives them scope without diverting the discussion onto other tangents.

The main issue is that even without directly moving onto the topic of Incubators, Nanoha is going to what to know, "Why?" Well, from the magical girl side, it's pretty easy to answer: The wish. It's then a matter of whether she can wrap her head around the meta-implications, and ask why the wishes are being offered in the first place.

I don't think we want to get into the question of entropy if we can help it, as that's a whole boatload of metaphysics and philosophy that we're not prepared to answer for. If internet forums are any indicator, we could spend the rest of the evening just arguing about that one point. It is possible to make the point without diving too deeply into it, though, so I'm not adamantly against it.

Given how little we know about the Incubator's origins, we likely want to stay away from that as well, though if we don't know very much it would be a pretty short answer, regardless.

[x] Answer Mami's question, providing context for the shift in terminology over time.
-[x] If they want to delve deeply into the history of magical girls in broader human culture (as interesting a topic as it may be), that's really more of a topic for the 'documentary' version of this discussion.

If anyone has a better way of phrasing it, let me know. If this isn't allowed due to no write-ins, let me know.


Aside: This could possibly have additional implications in how Nanoha and Sayaka view Puella Magi, and whether it may increase or decrease the risk that they may contract. That becomes verrrry speculative, though, so I don't want to get into it too much without the basic vote plan settling down.
 
[x] Answer Mami's question, providing context for the shift in terminology over time.
-[x] If they want to delve deeply into the history of magical girls in broader human culture (as interesting a topic as it may be), that's really more of a topic for the 'documentary' version of this discussion.
 
[x] Answer Mami's question, providing context for the shift in terminology over time.
-[x] If they want to delve deeply into the history of magical girls in broader human culture (as interesting a topic as it may be), that's really more of a topic for the 'documentary' version of this discussion.
 
[x] Answer Mami's question, providing context for the shift in terminology over time.
-[x] If they want to delve deeply into the history of magical girls in broader human culture (as interesting a topic as it may be), that's really more of a topic for the 'documentary' version of this discussion.
 
[x] Answer Mami's question, providing context for the shift in terminology over time.
-[x] If they want to delve deeply into the history of magical girls in broader human culture (as interesting a topic as it may be), that's really more of a topic for the 'documentary' version of this discussion.
 
SynchronizedWritersBlock said:
The truth about the lack of magical girl stories is that the "magical girl" is a cultural construction. What would have been a magical girl in older times was perceived differently: miracle workers, saints, sorceresses, perhaps legends like nymphs or dryads, and witches although obviously the term meant something different then.

E: maybe I should put that in blue?
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Curse my human need for sleep, that's exactly the point I thought from the previous page. If we look at it from a different angle, there's a huge number of cultural stories that could be interpreted to actually be the work of a magical girl.
 
The truth about the lack of magical girl stories is that the "magical girl" is a cultural construction. What would have been a magical girl in older times was perceived differently: miracle workers, saints, sorceresses, perhaps legends like nymphs or dryads, and witches although obviously the term meant something different then.
 
SynchronizedWritersBlock said:
The truth about the lack of magical girl stories is that the "magical girl" is a cultural construction. What would have been a magical girl in older times was perceived differently: miracle workers, saints, sorceresses, perhaps legends like nymphs or dryads, and witches although obviously the term meant something different then.
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Might want to include things like angels and valkyries on that list.
 
I don't have to, because Higure doesn't confirm blues by repeating them verbatim in red unless he wants to. Other mythological depictions like Valkyries, Angels, Goddesses, etc, are implied, and if he wants to make them explicit he can do that, but I think it would be more likely we'd get a "such as" or "for example" in the response.
 
[fake-blue]The only reason that legends about male gods, sorcerers, incubi, etc. exist in humanity's cultural record is that men are all jealous over the awesome legends that meguca get, and make up things to compensate.[/fake-blue]
 
TheEyes said:
[fake-blue]The only reason that legends about male gods, sorcerers, incubi, etc. exist in humanity's cultural record is that men are all jealous over the awesome legends that meguca get, and make up things to compensate.[/fake-blue]
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In this broken world? really?
 
SynchronizedWritersBlock said:
The truth about the lack of magical girl stories is that the "magical girl" is a cultural construction. What would have been a magical girl in older times was perceived differently: miracle workers, saints, sorceresses, perhaps legends like nymphs or dryads, and witches although obviously the term meant something different then.
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Magical girls have been perceived as many things, historically...all of the above, and more.
 
justinkal said:
Exactly. There's a reason I said "angels" and not "Angels".
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...pretty sure he meant biblical angels. The ones which were likely partial inspiration for lovecraft?

Like Thrones, for example...



Note: The above artwork is presumably intended to make them as disturbing as possible...they are giant wheels covered in eyes, though.
 
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Higure said:
...pretty sure he meant biblical angels. The ones which were likely partial inspiration for lovecraft?

Like Thrones, for example...

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Ohhh those....

But still in the context of
justinkal said:
Might want to include things like angels and valkyries on that list.
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more like humanoid angels rather than the higher tiers like virtues and dominions.

...
Metatron is a giant robotic angel that shoots divine lasers from his eyes.
 
Crow said:
Ohhh those....

But still in the context of

more like humanoid angels rather than the higher tiers like virtues and dominions.
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Pretty sure he was being tongue-in-cheek there.

...
Metatron is a giant robotic angel that shoots divine lasers from his eyes.
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The actual Metatron, if such an entity exists, is beyond the purview of my board. That said, in regards to hypothetical fictional entities using that name...

Metatron is NOT a giant robotic angel that shoots divine lasers from his eyes.

If angels (in the traditional sense) are/were a thing in one of my settings, they would be very unlikely to utilize anything so worldly as lasers in combat.

You really wouldn't want to fight something on that tier, let's put it that way (at least, not any time soon). Traditional attack methods wouldn't be able to interact with them unless they chose to project a physical avatar...and blowing that up wouldn't mean anything.
 
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