Renascence: A Homura Quest

[Spi.Guyver]

that something happened to draw you here away from Misaka.

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As Macros said, or Misaka is already here. Maybe to get Kuroko's teleport skill she did something that would guarantee that Kuroko could have Misaka.

I'm assuming this stacks with the other Madness Of traits.

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It does.

Madness traits stack with Love.

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100+40*2-5*8=140 Bloodheat

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Now this...I'm unsure of. You have the subtracts from Actions without Madness active coming out of the Bloodheat total before the total is adjusted by cap. It's entirely possible that the adjustment for cap comes first, then we subtract. Doing it your way, it becomes nearly impossible to get Bloodheat to go down without spending entire turns avoiding the use of AM. To me, that screams of bad game design, or at least bad ability design. If it goes the way I would have designed it, with adjusting to cap before calculating in the subtractions, then we come out of that with only 60 Bloodheat, which brings the Sanity total from your plan up to 302. That...is out of my comfort zone for Sanity levels by 48 points. And it does not even take into account any unforeseen changes that could push it even lower.

@Higure, when does the adjustment for cap on Bloodheat come into play? Before or after you calculate the subtractions from Actions without Akemi Madness?

 

[catDreaming]

Now this...I'm unsure of. You have the subtracts from Actions without Madness active coming out of the Bloodheat total before the total is adjusted by cap. It's entirely possible that the adjustment for cap comes first, then we subtract. Doing it your way, it becomes nearly impossible to get Bloodheat to go down without spending entire turns avoiding the use of AM. To me, that screams of bad game design, or at least bad ability design. If it goes the way I would have designed it, with adjusting to cap before calculating in the subtractions, then we come out of that with only 60 Bloodheat, which brings the Sanity total from your plan up to 302. That...is out of my comfort zone for Sanity levels by 48 points. And it does not even take into account any unforeseen changes that could push it even lower.

@Higure, when does the adjustment for cap on Bloodheat come into play? Before or after you calculate the subtractions from Actions without Akemi Madness?

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We had this question come up last vote, and Higure mentioned then that I had been doing the calculations the same way he did.

Finally, this plan has 6 instances of Akemi Madness and 6 actions without. That leads to a net 120-30=90, out of 100 Bloodheat. On the actual Sanity front, we'll be getting 20+20+20-20-20=+20 Sanity on the actual Sanity Meter, leading to an effective Sanity shift of -70.

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Hm...with Bloodheat topping out at 100, I'm unsure if that -30 applies to 120 or 100. If we presume that because Bloodheat tops out at 100, that the extra activation of Bloodheat that brings us to 120 with your plan doesn't actually count because you cannot go above 100 Bloodheat, then we'd have 70 Bloodheat for that +20 Sanity to Sanity you're calculating that would be a -50 Sanity. And...I'm not sure your math works out right. You have three +20s and two -20s, but one of plus 20 and the two minus 20s have no real source that I can see. There are only two Sleep Actions used to actually sleep in your plan to give us predictable positive Sanity. Add that to the 50 or 70 negative Sanity from Bloodheat and we get... -10 or -30 predictable Sanity changes.

@Higure, how is final Bloodheat calculated when the number of Akemi Madness uses should bring us to over the max 100 Bloodeheat? Is it calculated as catDreaming predicts? Or is the last +20 Bloodheat from that sixth activation of Akemi Madness lost to the ether since it goes past the max?

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CatDreaming has it right, based on how I run the calcs at the end. It's just simpler to handle the math that way.

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[Spi.Guyver]

Hm...somehow missed that. Okay, recalculating. So Macros' plan has us at 332 Sanity. 100 Bloodheat + (3 * 40) - (5 * 9) = 100 + 120 - 45 = 220 - 45 = 175, rounded down to 100 Bloodheat. That's -100 Sanity - another 50 Sanity from being over 400 at calculation start and we get -150 Sanity from Bloodheat and Madness mechanics.

Sleep Actions give us + 20 for the first sleep, and three actions of +20, and one action of -20 from not sleeping. 20 + (3 * 20) - 20 = 3 * 20 = 60. Alternate way of looking at the calculation is 20 + (3 * 20) - 20 = 20 + 60 - 20 = 80 - 20 = 60.

60 Sanity from Sleeping - 150 Sanity from Madness mechanics = -90 Sanity.

Current Sanity is 422. 422-90=332 Sanity. A bit lower than I'm comfortable with. But we should be able to make it up if we only do one Akemi Madness action next turn.

EDIT: I just realized that all my calculations are based on the assumption that the decision on whether or not to apply Madness of Love's penalty to Sanity for being over 400 was made before doing calculations, ie based on starting Sanity. The calculations change significantly if the penalty is applied at the end of the calculations. Ie, that above calculations changes from 60 - 150 = -90 to 60 - 100 = -40. 422 - 40 = 382. If Love is applied at the end, because the total is not above 400 we do not get a -50 penalty and our Sanity is safe at 382 instead of 332.

@Higure, am I right in presuming that to keep things simple, you apply Madness of Love's -50 Sanity penalty when above 400 at the beginning of your calculations? Or are you applying them at the end and the penalty only applies if we haven't dipped below 400 already that turn?

 

[kinigget]

Reading this update while listening to power metal was an experience

i have zero thoughts about plans

 

[Dark_River49]

[X] Plan "Books, Friends and Madness"
[Investigative Actions: 2]
[ ] Galahad (110/150)
-[ ] with Kyouko
[ ] Big Ben (50/100)
-[ ] with Kallen
-[ ] using Akemi Madness
[Social Actions: 1]
[ ] Kyouko (400/400) (Breakthrough Ready!)
[Home Actions: 2]
[ ] Study Emrys' Tome
-[ ] using Akemi Madness
[ ] Investigation: Buckingham Palace (217/300)
-[ ] with Kallen
[Mission Actions: 1]
[ ] Go Shopping
-[ ] Souvenirs for all our friends in Mitakihara
--[ ] with Kyouko
[Creative Actions: 1]
-[ ] Research a Theoretical Spell
--[ ] A more efficient Time Stop
--[ ] Ambition 10
[Training Actions: 1]
[ ] Train a Skill
-[ ] Investigation with Sherlock
--[ ] using Akemi Madness
[Sleep Actions: 4]
[ ] Sleep (Gain 20 + Modifiers Sanity)
[ ] Sleep (Gain 20 + Modifiers Sanity)
[ ] Sleep (Gain 20 + Modifiers Sanity)
[ ] Train a Skill
-[ ] Magical Theory [General]

 

[Higure]

@Higure, am I right in presuming that to keep things simple, you apply Madness of Love's -50 Sanity penalty when above 400 at the beginning of your calculations? Or are you applying them at the end and the penalty only applies if we haven't dipped below 400 already that turn?

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Hmm...I'll apply it at end of calcs.

What did you mean about the bloodheat cap before? Sorry, may be obvious, but I'm sleep deprived right now.

Edit: Oh, I see. Yes, bloodheat is indeed pretty hard to lower without largely abstaining from AM--there's a reason so many Akemis are always in the depths of it.

 

[Spi.Guyver]

Oh. That's good. So currently the plan has us around 382 Sanity before calculating in any changes from events during our Actions. That's well inside my comfort zone, though I obviously cannot speak for anyone else. Though will have to start carefully planning how many uses of Akemi Madness, or if we use it at all, we do each turn from here on out.

 

[catDreaming]

Yeah, this plan is probably the last where I put Akemi Madness on more than one action for a while. It's a potent tool to be sure, but with it now requiring 8 actions without to balance the bloodheat from 1 action with, it'll be a much finer line to walk.

 

[Macros]

Yeah, given the calcs, I'm all for going easier on that front to from now on. In fact, would people be okay if I remove one occurence of it in my plan? For instance, I did use it on Big Ben because I found it funny/thematically appropriate, but it's not exactly an obligation.

 

[Spi.Guyver]

In fact, would people be okay if I remove one occurence of it in my plan? For instance, I did use it on Big Ben because I found it funny/thematically appropriate, but it's not exactly an obligation.

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It depends on what you're trying to do by removing it. Because of how big an increase in Bloodheat each use of Akemi Madness is, removing one isn't really going to change the plan's results at all. Likewise, adding more won't have any change either. We will still be at 382 Sanity.

Here's my math. We are already at 100 Bloodheat, which will increase by 40 for each activation of Madness. At 2 activations, we get 10 Actions without it activating, giving us this bit of math: 100 + (2*40) - (10*5) = 100 + 80 - 50 = 180 - 50 = 130 which gets capped at 100

From there, we have three actions where we sleep, which gives us +20 to Sanity for each sleep action. We also gain a bonus +20 to Sanity for our first Sleep Action spent sleeping and a penalty of -20 to Sanity for the one action we do not spend sleeping. Which means we get +60 to Sanity from sleeping. Again, here's the math: 20 + (3*20) - 20 = 20 + 60 - 20 = 80 - 20 = 60

So, to get our complete Sanity modifiers we have to subtract our Bloodheat from our sleep Sanity which gives us -40. Math: 60 - 100 = -40

We then apply that Modifier to our Sanity and see what the results are. If above 400 we then have to add Madness of Love's -50 to Sanity, if below we leave it alone. Math: 422 - 40 = 382

Lowering our Akemi Madness use to only one Action will give us our second smallest cut to Sanity and is the minimum we need to do to impact Bloodheat. Not using Akemi Madness puts our Sanity just under MoL's activation at 392 and our Bloodheat lowers to 40. Math:
100 - (12*5) = 100 - 60 = 40

60 - 40 = 20

422 + 20 = 442 - 50 = 392

So...I kinda don't want to see Akemi Madness taken from Big Ben. If we are to take Akemi Madness away, we need to take it from at least two Actions to have an impact on anything, and completely remove it to maximize our changes.

 

[Macros]

Alright, I'll leave it as is.

 

[Crow]

Cackles in the knowing I

Ah "Emrys". As ever able to do anything given enough time and motivation. Even in the long game.

Homu got a bit drunk from the emotions cocktail and got all the way back to sobriety to wake up from her...shall we say stupor.

I do want to take advantage of Sherlock. And also Im not sure how possible it is but researching Palmedes magic may be quite useful. Space and Time and ever entwined after all.

Next loop we come around we can go through "Ultra-great-grandpa left word. Im on top of things hi all gonnaborrowhistudyforacoupledaysseeya"

 

[Higure]

Votes Locked!

Adhoc vote count started by Higure on Sep 10, 2022 at 11:13 PM, finished with 27 posts and 4 votes.

• ---

  3 people have voted

  [X] Plan "Books, Friends and Madness"

  • Macros
  • Spi.Guyver
  • Dark_River49

  1 people have voted

  [X] Plan: Investigation and Tourism with Friends, plus a Magical Book.

  • catDreaming

 

[Higure]

@Spi.Guyver and everyone else interested in meta-commentary on Homura:
Meta Commentary on Homura's character follows. While there are no direct spoilers, if you wish to try to understand Homura organically, or want to leave room for personal interpretation, I do not recommend opening this spoiler.

Spoiler: Metacommentary

Homura is a very strange character to write, as we really only get a clear definition of where she begins (Moemura) and ends (Homucifer). Loopmura is mostly seen from an outside perspective, with little information on her character at that point. How does she actually spend her time? What are her interests? Does she have any family? How does she actually feel about people besides Madoka? What is the origin of her drive?

Now, some of these have answers, or at least reasonable guesses. Homura's probably an orphan in the canon timeline, for example. Her feelings for Madoka are very selfish and obsessive in nature, as highlighted in Rebellion. Etcetera.

Only, a lot of this actually feels like backwards writing, particularly what comes from Rebellion--Urobuchi trying to build a compelling anti-villain by using a simple character as a foundation. This is even weirdly lampshaded a bit by Wraith Arc, in which Homura's character is twisted artificially by her interactions with Wraiths, resulting in her development towards Homucifer.

So, while I'm not ignoring Rebellion--I've actually drawn a lot of inspiration from Homura's Barrier, among other things--I don't think Homura's actual characterization there is very useful for understanding Loop Homura.

On top of that, because I wanted to depict the inevitable end of the loops, Homura could not be the same as she was during the series, either. So, how do you write a character who not only lacks defining known traits, but also is incredibly displaced from that version of herself?

With great difficulty, as it turns out. A big chunk of my work with characters in this Quest has been about fleshing them out--adding relationships, hobbies, interests, passions, and quirks that let them be used effectively for something less narrow than the PMMM franchise.

Homura has a special problem, though--she's been doing this for an incredibly long time. She should have optimal strategies and plans for everything, by now. Amnesia helps offset that, so she doesn't just have 100 in all of her skills, but that doesn't mean she's not learned how to handle things by habit.

Which is basically what I'm playing with here, and have hinted at previously (see the Friendship group conversation, where Homura's idea of a friend is basically "someone you know how to manipulate for their own good"), is that Homura knows how to manipulate the Quintet (as well as other common associates). She has masks pre-made for these people, and makes new ones as needed.

So, how does she handle strangers? She imitates them, or tries to become what's needed to establish a useful dynamic. Ruki needs a Senpai, so Homura becomes her Senpai. Snow needs a friend who understands politics and is there for her when she's lonely, so Homura tries to put herself in Snow's shoes and be the support she needs. Miho needs a voice of reason around so that she can relax and have fun, so Homura serves as the adult in the room as needed. This may not be strictly universal for every interaction, but it is the general pattern.

Sherlock's an investigator, so Homura tries to meet him on the common ground--what Kyouko recognizes as mirroring. This also happens with Agravain to some degree, with the Chess mentality, though there's more at work there. With Hououin, there's an element of this as well, though there's also an element of just being allowed to have fun with him--because he always acts crazy and may not be taken seriously by others if he behaves strangely, she feels comfortable messing with him and playing around a bit (admittedly, these two also just have genuine similarities they connect on). She even does this with Kyubey, though it's harder, actively disregarding and suppressing her emotions to get in his head and earn a measure of his respect.

It's just how she handles social, because she's forgotten how to be genuine, after all of these years of pressing the right buttons to get her friends where she needs them.

That doesn't mean she doesn't have genuine moments. This loop, her honesty with Madoka has brought some of that out in their interactions. Sayaka-as-friend is something she's got little to no experience with, and she's been at very low sanity with Sayaka, so she's prone to slipping up and just doing things sometimes. Arcana Kyouko sees more of the genuine Homura, but Homura also leans heavily into their old, snarky dynamic, because that's just their normal.

Of course, this raises the question of why she's good at it, which brings us to Akemi Madness, and how it allows her to absorb the feelings of others--it's not just manipulation, but also a natural ability that causes her to adopt similar mentalities to those around her, and it's been passively influencing her for her entire life.

This, then, brings us to an important question: Who is Homura Akemi? Without copying others, without constantly manipulating them to help them?

The full answer to that remains to be revealed, but there is one central trait for Homura: Love. What that means for this Homura, compared to others, is something we'll be exploring moving forward, as the newly awakened Homura begins to engage with the world more intensely.

In addition, this also means we'll be exploring her character with her, as she confronts who she has grown into, what she wants, and what that means for her place in the world.

Those answers will be very different from Canon Homura (presumably), and may not be expected (by you or by me, potentially), but it is my sincere hope they will be compelling.

Small thing, @Higure , the countdown to Buckingham Palace is at 217/300 in the Investigative Action category, but at 152/300 in the Home Action one. I assume the second number wasn't updated, and took the liberty of fixing it in my vote. Also added 110/150 for the Galahad investigation.

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Fixed these.

Someone teleported in maybe? Kallen knows what the Link Room is supposed to be, and based on what we see later, I can understand why having a room dedicated to receiving teleporters would be pretty dang handy.

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The Link Room links rooms in Big Ben--it's part of the IRL architecture.

 

[catDreaming]

Alright, after looking through the winning plan, I can put out some guesses as to what happens on the dice front.

Social Action with Kyouko: The Social Action with Kyouko should either unlock a Mission (which further Social progress would be locked behind), or get her up to Social Link 5.
-Should progress be made, Kyouko will also be getting two half Social Rolls from Requests, and we can expect between 27 and 126 Social Link progress towards the next threshold of 500.

Galahad: Between Homura (30 Investigation, 10 Madness Of Love) and Kyouko (10 Investigation), Galahad's Mystery should yield either a Clue, a Mission, or open up Galahad as a Social Action target. If it opens up Galahad as a Social Action target, and we get a half Social Action, we'll be looking at somewhere between 19 and 88 Social Link progress with them immediately.

Big Ben: Between Homura (30 Investigation, 10 Madness Of Love) and Kallen (15 Investigation), Big Ben's Mystery should yield either a Clue (not necessarily for it's own Mystery), Locations, Resource(s), Items, Character(s), or Mission(s). If it is a person up there, we'll be looking at somewhere between 37 and 95 Social Link progress with them immediately.

Buckingham Palace: Between Homura (30 Investigation, 10 Madness Of Love) and Kallen (15 Investigation), there is an 85.5% chance of making a Discovery. Should the Discovery be a target for a Social Link, we will be looking at somewhere between 26 and 85 Social Link progress with them immediately.

Study Emrys Tome: I suspect this will be a Magical Theory roll. With that in mind, Homura could be rolling with a couple of bonuses that I can find. Obviously, a +16 from Magical Theory [General] itself might apply. With Akemi Madness active, Madness Of Love will be providing a +20 on it's own. Should both apply for a total of +36, then Homura will be making between 37 and 136 progress on Emrys Tome.

Research Efficient Time Stop: Drawing information from previous Research attempts, we know that Time Stop has a base Research DC of 15, and is increased by roughly 5 per point of Ambition. This results in a final Research DC of 65. Homura only has a Research Skill of 12, along with a +10 Madness Of Love, for a total of +22. That is a 58% chance of producing another Theoretical Spell. In the case that it fails, it would also show us what happens when a Research attempt at prototyping a Spell fails as opposed to one that fails to actually Develop a spell.

Investigation Training With Sherlock: Homura currently has Investigation at Rank 30, which means she will need 150 progress to rank up. If Sherlock Holmes was an ordinary teacher for Investigation (and not a Legendary one), he could grant +100 progress. With Akemi Madness active, Madness Of Love grants an additional 20 progress. All together, this represents somewhere between 121 and 270 total progress (outside of any other benefits from having the Sherlock Holmes as a teacher).

Training Magical Theory[General]: Emrys Tome is going to be a massive boon here, both as a Library (providing it with many charges to be used for Training) and because of who it is written by. I would expect it to provide at least the standard +50 from a Training Book, aside from Madness Of Love granting an additional +10. With 61 to 160 progress expected, Homura is guaranteed to rank up at least once.

 

[Spi.Guyver]

Training Magical Theory[General]: Emrys Tome is going to be a massive boon here, both as a Library (providing it with many charges to be used for Training) and because of who it is written by. I would expect it to provide at least the standard +50 from a Training Book, aside from Madness Of Love granting an additional +10. With 61 to 160 progress expected, Homura is guaranteed to rank up at least once.

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Hm, I'm not sure we'll actually get that Emrys Tome used during that training action. The plan did not specify using the book to train, so depending on how Higure interprets the vote, we could have Homura training her normal magic or reading through the tome to try and understand all magic in general. I know I didn't think to go looking at the first page to see if Magical Theory is broken down between general and specific subsets of magic such as Merlin's Magic, Sword Archer's Magic, Nanoha's Magic and Puella Magi's Magic so it's possible by specifying General we are looking at magic in general and would use the tome as reference. It's also possible we study specifically Emrys' Tome due to it being the most interesting and new type of magic we can study at the moment.

Spoiler: Metacommentary

snip

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Well, that's interesting and does explain a few things.

Personally I do not agree with your interpretation of canon Homura, but I'm not going to get into it here. I do not want to derail the thread. I'll just say that I do not believe that Homura is selfish in her interests towards Madoka, and I just dislike the idea that she's supposed to be an orphan and leave it at that.

That said, I can now sort of see what you're going with on the whole mirrors people thing. To me, I never really considered it manipulating people or mirroring them and just thought that was how she naturally ended up interacting with them.

I'll leave any further analysis and commentary to specific examples mentioned for another time as I do not feel like creating my own spoiler nor really want to further extent this post.

 

[Higure]

Personally I do not agree with your interpretation of canon Homura, but I'm not going to get into it here. I do not want to derail the thread. I'll just say that I do not believe that Homura is selfish in her interests towards Madoka, and I just dislike the idea that she's supposed to be an orphan and leave it at that.

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Yeah, it's the problem of the medium. Everyone walks away with their own view on the characters. Apologies if mine sits poorly with you.

For the record, I also dislike the orphan idea, but I've seen very strong arguments for it.

Edit: It's really hard not to discuss directly, lol. I am up for conversing or clarifying with you later if you want.

 

[Spi.Guyver]

For the record, I also dislike the orphan idea, but I've seen very strong arguments for it.

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The evidence I have seen and/or been told about I find to be at best no stronger than the theory that she's rich and has absentee parents. Anime in general likes to have parents be absent for their teenage main characters and major supporting characters with no actual explanation for said absence. Examples include Naru and Shinobu from Love Hina who are just living in the Hina Apartments/Dorm because their school happens to be in the nearby area with no indication one way or the other if their families even live in the same town. Up until Sayaka's funeral you can easily make a case that the girl has no parents as there is no real commentary on her having any. We never see the parents of most of the senshi in Sailor Moon, with not even lip service given to the existence of such for Minako, Haruka, or Michiru. We only know Minako has parents that are alive and well from reading the spin-off manga Codename: Sailor V, but there is nothing for the outer senshi save Hotaru who's mother is confirmed dead and father is one of the major villains of that story arc. So parents failing to appear means nothing in and of itself.

The comment to Homura having attended a catholic school in Tokyo prior to coming to Mitakihara is ambiguous as it can mean both "I'm an orphan let's not talk about my family" or "I'm rich, and I'm not really telling you about it." The fact that Homura has a laptop for classes would suggest the latter, but only when you take into account the existence of "Poor-chan." For those that don't know, if you pause on scenes that show the entire class, there's a girl in one of the desks that lacks the same computer that everyone else has instead using good old pen and notebook for taking down notes. She's the only one that has this distinction, but it shows that the school does not provide the computers for its students, simply the means to keep said computers charged and the permission to use them. Thus we know that Homura has at least the same amount of wealth as the rest of the class, which would be difficult (though not necessarily impossible) if she were from an orphanage.

And I went and ranted when I wanted to avoid derailing. Sorry, but I had to get that bit off my chest. If you have evidence that I am unaware of for Homura being an orphan beyond "her parents never show up" and "she went to a catholic school before the series" I'd love to hear it. But I seem to have gone on a rant when I wanted to avoid that, so it might be best to do so in DMs as I wish not to derail.

edit: Just some minor spelling errors fixed. Nothing to the overall content. Just for those that look at edit stamps.

 

[catDreaming]

Hm, I'm not sure we'll actually get that Emrys Tome used during that training action. The plan did not specify using the book to train, so depending on how Higure interprets the vote, we could have Homura training her normal magic or reading through the tome to try and understand all magic in general. I know I didn't think to go looking at the first page to see if Magical Theory is broken down between general and specific subsets of magic such as Merlin's Magic, Sword Archer's Magic, Nanoha's Magic and Puella Magi's Magic so it's possible by specifying General we are looking at magic in general and would use the tome as reference. It's also possible we study specifically Emrys' Tome due to it being the most interesting and new type of magic we can study at the moment.

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From Fleeting Time - The Renascence Turn System, we know that Homura will automatically use available training resources (Books/Libraries/the Internet), and from the last story post, we know that Emrys Tome is a Magical Theory Library. Ergo, it stands to reason that Homura could use Emrys Tome on the Magical Theory training action of her own accord. I suppose it is also possible that Homura uses the Magical Theory book from Miyazaki Books (A Beginner's Magic Primer. 1st Ed. Honya.), since it covers the Amatuer level of Magical Theory which Homura is still at (she is at Rank 16, and Amateur spans Rank 1 to Rank 24) instead, but even then, it's only five training actions at most until she isn't able to get more from it due to it only having five charges.

 

[Ace98]

Ok, I have finally managed to read, from the beginning of the Thread, to here, with only minimal skipping so I could view all story/lore discussion, Omakes, and mechanics/truths (That bit with multiple definitions defined with subscripts was a mindbender). Now, to finally make the comment I wanted to make.

The Insanity hallucinations reminds of this one Touhou quest where the gimmick was that the Main Character saw all except one touhou character as the monsters they supposedly are, With pictures drawn for each. For example, Nue Houjuu was seen as a shifting mass of Shadows and Smoke. Note, he could still shake their hand and know they aren't like that but it's something he lives with. I don't remember the name but I did enjoy it. And I do enjoy this, as I did read through the entire thread. Maybe I'll make a Omake with the premise of how that dude views magical girls, witch's, and Kyubey.

I wish you Restful sleep and days clear of headaches or other weaknesses of flesh.

EDIT: Also, is there a way to view all threadmarks in chronological order? I would have used reader mode but from what I know, that only covers threadmarks of a single category and I would miss out on stuff like sidestory, media, and apocrypha unless I was constantly switching between them

 

[catDreaming]

EDIT: Also, is there a way to view all threadmarks in chronological order? I would have used reader mode but from what I know, that only covers threadmarks of a single category and I would miss out on stuff like sidestory, media, and apocrypha unless I was constantly switching between them

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Higure has moved canon Omake under the Threadmarks heading, as far as I can tell, where they would be occurring chronologically. That's all that I can figure out though.

 

[Higure]

Huh. This is kinda painful to write. Working on the update, but there's some parts that are a real struggle to do justice.

EDIT: Also, is there a way to view all threadmarks in chronological order? I would have used reader mode but from what I know, that only covers threadmarks of a single category and I would miss out on stuff like sidestory, media, and apocrypha unless I was constantly switching between them

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Afraid not, no. Threadmarks category is everything in the main sequence it happened, with Canon Omakes distributed throughout.

Sidestory category is the Sayaka PoVs I released for a couple of scenes, interspersed with a couple of extra bonus scenes from other PoVs (these are in order chronologically now, though it doesn't look like everything's fully updated yet), followed by the ??? posts, which I'm not going to elucidate the order of.

Apocrypha is all old versions of chapters that have been replaced with updated versions for one reason or another.

Informational is mechanics, stat posts, info sharing, etc.

 

[shydylan46]

Wonder what will happen next

 

[Higure]

Yo! Update on the update! Still working on it--was kept busy this weekend--but it is progressing.

In the mean time, here's a preview snippet (going to reserve the rest of this Action for the finished product, though).

--------------------

You step out of your bedroom, and make your way to Kyouko's, mind whirling.

You've spent so many loops trying to keep them alive, but you can do so much more for them, and you've barely even thought about it.

First, there's her misplaced guilt. You hope that looking into Kyrie and the Church will maybe offer some insight that will help alleviate that. If it doesn't, then you'll simply have to show her that she can be a hero anyway. You have proof, after all, even if you're wary of sharing that directly.

Then, there's her Magic. You could--no, you have someone you can ask about that.

"Kyouko, what broke your Magic? You must have figured that out by now, if you had time to figure me out."

"Rejecting my Wish, like anyone. That's not as simple as it might seem, though. It's not enough to reject a single aspect of the Wish--for example, my spoken intention to force people to blindly believe my father. You also have to reject the underlying foundation. In my case, it was my belief in my own wisdom. I came to believe that I was too foolish and evil to tell others what is good, or what they should do."

You consider this for a moment. Kyouko's Wish was, really, about getting people to listen to someone she thought could teach them. It benefited her family, but it sounds like she truly believed that was the best thing for everyone.

You recall her words to you yesterday. How she had forced you to confront yourself. How she's poked and prodded you, trying to get you to think things through, drawing your attention to things in need of it.

"Do you think you know better than everyone and should have the right to dictate their lives?" You ask, seeking clarity. If it's something that extreme, you will need more time to cultivate that, but if it's something less, you may be able to help more quickly.

There's a long pause, "Can't believe that wasn't an insult, Braids. No, I don't think I'm omniscient and omnibenevolent, not that I don't do my best." She chuckles slightly, "I just know I'm wise enough to be worth listening to. You don't need to know everything to guide people somewhere better, you know?"

So, it's just confidence in her own judgement? You can work with that.

You knock on the door of Kyouko's room.

"Come on in. Want to talk to you about something." She sounds not quite angry, but confrontational, for certain. You recall that she did say something about needing to talk about your secrets.

You suppose it was inevitable. You've slipped up too many times, and acted too strangely, this loop.

You open the door to find Kyouko sitting on her bed, legs folded as she reads from Friendship, then puts the book down to look you in the eye.

Her posture shifts slightly, as she does. A hint of fear. She realizes something's changed, or maybe she's simply noticed your family's Madness is in play.

It is fortunate there are no Clocks in this room. You wonder if she removed one.

She relaxes, seemingly forcibly, "C'mon, Ribbons, sit down."

You do so, sitting on the bed next to her--the chair might have seemed more oppositional, and smile slightly as she shuffles away slightly. She's still wary, but you'll prove her wrong to feel that way sooner or later.

"So, before you go full crazy on me, I'm going to jump to the point, Ribbons. You're a Time Traveler." Her eyes lock with yours, watching for any response.

Yesterday morning, you'd have gone rigid--this was not in your plans, and accommodating for it would make it harder to keep things on course. It's also the kind of information she could use to disrupt your social position.

Today, you realize that's irrelevant. This is an opportunity--convincing someone you're a Time Traveler can be hard, but having someone come to that conclusion naturally means you can bring them in on things, like you have with Madoka.

You're not sure you should share that much--the full weight of the truth is something you know Madoka can carry, but--actually, you should just ask.

"Can she handle it?"

"Nope. Not until she's gotten her head back on straight. Right now, I think she'd probably either bail to escape Walpurgisnacht--probably try to get everyone to come with her--or fall into despair, if she knew how bad things are."

Accepting your Kyouko's wisdom, you give the one in the room a steady look for a moment, before nodding, "Yes, I am."

"Because you started talking to someone named Koko, back with Sachiel, and you seem to just know things, and you're clearly a veteran but you've only been--" She launches into a furious explanation for a moment, before blinking, confused, "Wait, what? Just like that?"

You nod gravely, maintaining eye contact, "Yes, just like that. You've figured me out, and now this is your problem, too." You smile wanly at her, "Welcome to the Time Travel conspiracy. There's no escaping, until the clock turns back again."

 

[Macros]

Seems like a promising step, but better listen to Inner Kyouko and not push too fast. Hopefully soon.