Subsumption (PMMM Faux-Quest) (Witch MC)

Flairina · May 21, 2019

beth2 said:
For some reason, I had misremembered Tearful Storm as coming out of Novella.

That was how I was originally going to do it actually, but I didn't want to set a precedent of every "gained" attack having to come out of Novella, so as to avoid confusion down the road.

beth2 said:
…enticing names, those. Also worrying, because those things are easy to get wrong. Not that, say, "Monika SI" is easy to get right, so history is in your favor here.

I appreciate the vote of confidence.

One of the upcoming witches is actually- nah, I shouldn't say.

hillo315 said:
They aren't that destructive, unless you have really soft walls. They can cause property damage by knocking things over, but I think that's about it.

Well, mice also tend to shred through soft things if they come across them. You know, tissues, cardboard, plastic lids. Even if they're not that destructive, they're certainly annoying.

SoaringJe said:
Kyousuke feels like an angsty teenager, so gj on that. Looking forward to what comes next!

Kyousuke is, according to the nurses in canon, a "difficult" patient. Makes sense- from his point of view, he's lost everything- but my guess is that seeing this sort of mood from him is not an altogether uncommon one.

hillo315 said:
The lawn is beautified at last!

A little early to say that. That's like painting one wall of your house and calling it done. There's a lot more work to do if we truly intend to "beautify" this barrier.

hillo315 said:
Kyousuke should have a more favorable opinion of Sayaka from now on, and he probably feels bad for being harsh with her. Sayaka now has a much better chance of a successful love life if she gets over her hurt feelings.

Well, Sayaka didn't break down crying just because Kyousuke was in a mood. It's more because... well, you'll see after the interlude.

Nottheunmaker said:
Huh, Sayaka using magic does recharge Ashtaroth. I did not expect that.

I can understand why. Rest assured, I did weigh over whether or not this made sense based on current plans and/or was even feasible from a story perspective. More on that below.

Nottheunmaker said:
Hmm, so they didn't try to 'fix' the grass, just trimmed it neat and planted flowers over them? Sounds lovely, always good to see competent landscapers at work, and it's within their understood nature. Very proactive familiars. Makes me somewhat disappointed in the Ummashtart though. Having a duty to 'set the scene' is already vague, but outside that Drider catching Hitomi they haven't done anything.

Well, all "being a backdrop" entails when nothing is happening is wandering around, really. They're scenery, not meant to be particularly focused on... unless something comes along that would require the scenery to take an active role, at least.

Xexilf said:
Since with her grief being taken away there should be nothing stopping Sayaka from just spamming magic endlessly, she probably could provide enough for a hundred witches, if we even need it.

Nottheunmaker said:
I'm not sure on the amount, but if this was a real quest I'd be given the QM some funny looks right now. Having your characters form a perpetual energy generator just by existing together seems like it's make fights way to easy, just keep spamming your strongest attacks until you win. This could be mitigated by enemies having the same power or just being much stronger, but with what I know of PMMM, eh... We'll see.

Yeah, that was a major concern of mine, since I definitely want to retain tension in any potential upcoming conflicts. That said, it eventually occurred to me that, realistically, such a setup probably wouldn't be quite so "unlimited" as what you might be thinking. The process shown here is super slow for a reason, and it's not just to make sure every battle doesn't end up boiling down to "throw endless magic at thing until dead". It shouldn't be too hard to intuit why it would be so gradual actually, since one example of a similar phenomenon has already been seen in story.

Pangram said:
I've seen this 'grief powered magic' stuff before in pmmm fanfiction and I can never wrap my head around it in context.

It's been my head canon for the longest time that magical girls fuel their power with positive emotion, create grief as a byproduct because magic is zero sum, grief gets purged from the magical girl and concentrated in grief seeds, and the only reason witches can do any magic at all is because they inflict grief on humans, harvest the positive emotion and use that.

It would be dreadfully inefficient after all if the witch was using whatever resource coobs is capturing them for to do their magic with.

Has there been word of god on how this stuff works? There's been a lot of spin off works that I haven't read maybe they go into it idk

E: Like, there's got to be a reason that QB's ultimate entropy defeating device isn't witches and magical girls feeding off of each other and telekinetucally cranking a turbine shaft, right?!

Magia Record would probably be the best resource on the subject. If you don't know anything about it, and don't want to be spoiled for the upcoming english release and/or anime, don't read:

In Kamihama City, a lot of magical girls are basically capable of using infinite magic. This is because whenever they get too high on grief, they can release a "doppel"- quite literally their witch- which will then perform a sort of ultimate attack, expending ALL of the grief/corruption that the girl has accumulated up to that point. The witch then vanishes. The reason for this? The villains have a giant "half-hatched" witch under their control, which is being used to suck up all the grief released into the city. Granted, its only kind-of sort-of hatched status probably has something to do with why this is possible, but it grows over time as a result of all the energy it's accumulated, and so when it's inevitably freed, it's freaking huge and enormously powerful. Thus, we can conclude that grief can indeed be absorbed from magical girls by witches, and witches do in fact use said grief as a power source.

Mind, I haven't played the game proper myself, so I might be wrong, and I'm almost certainly leaving out a lot of the various details that went into that setup. That said, I looked into this particular aspect of things pretty thoroughly, specifically because I needed to know how a similar concept might work in this fic. I'm fairly sure I'm not misconstruing anything- anyone who has played it, feel free to correct me if I am.

SatelliteSlicker · May 21, 2019

the thing about being able to cleanse, and therefore have infinite magic. is that yes it is gamebreakingly powerful
but in the context of the larger world of pmmm, it isn't that helpful in the long run. you don't have to worry about running out of magic or turning into a witch but that's about it, it doesn't make your life any easier or less sucky, you still sold your soul, you still fight horrible monsters from outside reality. you can still die. and you still get into disputes with other magical girls
the thing about pmmm is that gaining the ability to spam magic will not fix your problems, it won't really fix a single one of your problems. just ask kyouko or Sabrina
overwhelming firepower isn't a solution for problems in this setting. at most it lessens the blow of the worst part of the system

ThoughtMaster · May 21, 2019

Flairina said:
Yeah, that was definitely a major concern of mine, since I definitely want to retain tension in any potential upcoming conflicts. That said, it eventually occurred to me that, realistically, such a setup probably wouldn't be quite so "unlimited" as what you might be thinking. The process shown here is super slow for a reason, and it's not just to make sure every battle doesn't end up boiling down to "throw endless magic at thing until dead". It shouldn't be too hard to intuit why it would be so gradual actually, since one example of a similar phenomenon has already been seen in story.

You could have it so that witches require a set amount of grief to maintain themselves, so that we are unable to gain too great a power boost from our magical girl that we have subsumed. As for limiting the magical girl to avoid an issue with limitless magic, maybe set it up so that we can only siphon so much grief at once from her gem. A set amount of drainage or outflow from the gem, but a variable inflow from the magical girl, based on the amount of grief they produce. Any excess grief above our ability to absorb gets stored up in her soul gem. If said storage becomes too great, she witches out inside ourselves, acting as something akin to a chestburster from Alien. This should balance both individuals, and make sure that we care for the emotional state of the magical girls we subsume.

SatelliteSlicker · May 21, 2019

ThoughtMaster said:
You could have it so that witches require a set amount of grief to maintain themselves, so that we are unable to gain too great a power boost from our magical girl that we have subsumed. As for limiting the magical girl to avoid an issue with limitless magic, maybe set it up so that we can only siphon so much grief at once from her gem. A set amount of drainage or outflow from the gem, but a variable inflow from the magical girl, based on the amount of grief they produce. Any excess grief above our ability to absorb gets stored up in her soul gem. If said storage becomes too great, she witches out inside ourselves, acting as something akin to a chestburster from Alien. This should balance both individuals, and make sure that we care for the emotional state of the magical girls we subsume.

hopefully we don't subsumed everyone else. subsumin sayaka was a mistake to begins with
and I think that people are sort of over thinking it
being able to spam magic won't render every conflict moot, there's a lot more going into a fight than just being able to hit them harder than they hit you. in a fair fight kyouko would wreck oktavia, mami would wipe the floor with charlotte, and pretty much any witch would one hit KO homura, but sheer power isn't that important when fighting witches isn't actually the biggest part of conflict of this quest or even pmmm, so even if we end up being able to homura over every witch we come across there won't actually be that much tension lost

TacitSoliloquy · May 21, 2019

Curious. Who's perspective shall we see? Mami? Kyubey? Perhaps Harpoon Girl from a while back? I wonder what Homura will think of this, should she learn. Potential alarm over deviation from the norm aside, a Sayaka as she is now could be an intriguing asset. Sayaka is effectively exempt from resource concerns for her magic, and even if that weren't something to consider, simply being as she is now instead of how she normally is might well be worth investigation to try to bring it about again in future loops. Sayaka causes a lot of problems for Homura. Now, though, she might be a net positive as far as Homura is concerned.

Sayaka won't—can't—witch out
- She seems to have—if not actually gotten over—at least come to cope with most of the psychological issues that typically cause trouble anyway
  - Knowing all those dark details, she's also more likely to actually help keep Madoka from contracting
  - The weird wich that "ate" Sayaka is capable of and conveniently seemingly invested in overriding Sayaka's free will to prevent problematic behaviour in any case
Sayaka has infinite magic, and while not really a good healer this time, her lack of limits might make any injury treatable, actually, which could certainly be useful
- Her atypical wish might be worth observation to see if it is more helpful for Madoka, given that it's supposed to do just that
The situation with Charlotte seems defused, so Mami may well survive
Kyouko isn't going to die to Sayaka's witch as often happens
A fatal fight between Kyouko and Sayaka as also often happens is less likely for Sayaka not being so naive and idealistic
- Kyouko and Sayaka might not even meet at all if Mami stays alive, which is a reasonable possibility now
Hitomi in this loop is aware of a lot of important details, so she's less likely to cause undue strife out of ignorance and may actually be outright supportive of her friend(s)
If Homura thinks that this Ashtaroth witch is odd, then Kyubey might find her quite the curiosity as well and perhaps distract attention from Madoka

The situation may change, but at present there's an awful lot of incentive for Homura to at least investigate. Who knows, it might actually be worthwhile. Maybe she can dare to hope that it will help.

SatelliteSlicker · May 21, 2019

wait. I just had a thought as to how to get sayakas soul gem out of us.
we could just kill ourselves?
like. when witches die they turn back into grief seeds, if we die and turn into a grief seed then sayakas gem will likely disentangle from us
then we can just get someone to overload our grief seed and we're back in business

SatelliteSlicker · May 21, 2019

TacitSoliloquy said:
Curious. Who's perspective shall we see? Mami? Kyubey? Perhaps Harpoon Girl from a while back? I wonder what Homura will think of this, should she learn. Potential alarm over deviation from the norm aside, a Sayaka as she is now could be an intriguing asset. Sayaka is effectively exempt from resource concerns for her magic, and even if that weren't something to consider, simply being as she is now instead of how she normally is might well be worth investigation to try to bring it about again in future loops. Sayaka causes a lot of problems for Homura. Now, though, she might be a net positive as far as Homura is concerned.

Sayaka won't—can't—witch out

She seems to have—if not actually gotten over—at least come to cope with most of the psychological issues that typically cause trouble anyway

Knowing all those dark details, she's also more likely to actually help keep Madoka from contracting

The weird wich that "ate" Sayaka is capable of and conveniently seemingly invested in overriding Sayaka's free will to prevent problematic behaviour in any case

Sayaka has infinite magic, and while not really a good healer this time, her lack of limits might make any injury treatable, actually, which could certainly be useful

Her atypical wish might be worth observation to see if it is more helpful for Madoka, given that it's supposed to do just that

The situation with Charlotte seems defused, so Mami may well survive

Kyouko isn't going to die to Sayaka's witch as often happens

A fatal fight between Kyouko and Sayaka as also often happens is less likely for Sayaka not being so naive and idealistic

Kyouko and Sayaka might not even meet at all if Mami stays alive, which is a reasonable possibility now

Hitomi in this loop is aware of a lot of important details, so she's less likely to cause undue strife out of ignorance and may actually be outright supportive of her friend(s)

If Homura thinks that this Ashtaroth witch is odd, then Kyubey might find her quite the curiosity as well and perhaps distract attention from Madoka

The situation may change, but at present there's an awful lot of incentive for Homura to at least investigate. Who knows, it might actually be worthwhile. Maybe she can dare to hope that it will help.

you know due to the litchbomb, sayakas soul gem not being on her person, and her being unable to witch out (for superpowers). I don't think she can die, no matter what happens to her she will survive, even when there is no way she possibly could, she can just heal back from anything that isn't full body destruction, like, decapitation, being blown up, being turned into a moid protagonist, being dropped into a pool of piranhas.
she can bounce back from all of that
so really the fight against kyouko will just end up continuing until they either reconsile, or one of them gets bored and walks away

also sayakas wish was that she'd be able to help her friends
that is a scarily similar wish to kirika's. that doesn't seem good

ThoughtMaster · May 21, 2019

soulsguardian said:
wait. I just had a thought as to how to get sayakas soul gem out of us.
we could just kill ourselves?
like. when witches die they turn back into grief seeds, if we die and turn into a grief seed then sayakas gem will likely disentangle from us
then we can just get someone to overload our grief seed and we're back in business

You think the solution to our problem is to be solved by committing suicide? Without any guarantee that we would either remain sane, or that anyone would ensure our reemergence? I believe you need to lie down and take a nap, and then see if you feel the same.

SatelliteSlicker · May 22, 2019

ThoughtMaster said:
You think the solution to our problem is to be solved by committing suicide? Without any guarantee that we would either remain sane, or that anyone would ensure our reemergence? I believe you need to lie down and take a nap, and then see if you feel the same.

never said it was a good idea

but yeah your right there is a comedic number of things that could wrong.
sayakas soul gem might not come out, we might not be quite the same after rehatching, we have no guarantee that sayaka won't just skedadle. just to name a few

Nevill · May 22, 2019

Flairina said:
Well, Sayaka didn't break down crying just because Kyousuke was in a mood. It's more because... well, you'll see after the interlude.

Well, given that she can't go to school... or home, or anywhere, she thinks that her life is over. If she can't see her own parents, it's likely she believes she can no longer see Kousuke as well, and her parting words have a "farewell forever" feel to them, as overdramatic as it sounds.

TacitSoliloquy said:
The weird wich that "ate" Sayaka is capable of and conveniently seemingly invested in overriding Sayaka's free will to prevent problematic behaviour in any case

Yeah, good thing Ashy is there to give her life advice and moral support. With no privacy and no real free will, being ready to take over anytime.
This is the major factor contributing to her "problematic behavior", aka feeling she can't have any kind of life, ever, much less a personal one. It'll probably lessen with time as she learns Ashy isn't that bad of a roommate to have, but until we solve the autonomy problem I would not expect much in terms of improvement.

Xexilf · May 22, 2019

Even if this gives massive amounts of magic, this dosent have to mean that much.

Going over PMMM, running out of magic is rarely a threat in the middle of combat, and most who die to witches (like, infamously, Mami) dont do that because they run out, but because they simply die to attacks.

Gnarker · May 22, 2019

Nottheunmaker said:
This really just isn't a good idea. Even if she could use familiars as extension relays, the only familiar Ash has that listens to her is Semesh, and he's usually off doing his own thing. The rest simply do as they please. Any other familiar would just wonder around, so even if it worked Sayaka would have to keep tabs on it, so she'd just end up following it around, which is hardly an improvement.

Thought: Can Ash create custom new familiars?

SatelliteSlicker · May 22, 2019

Xexilf said:
Even if this gives massive amounts of magic, this dosent have to mean that much.

Going over PMMM, running out of magic is rarely a threat in the middle of combat, and most who die to witches (like, infamously, Mami) dont do that because they run out, but because they simply die to attacks.

yeah, the fact that sayaka
1) has a full on healing factor
2) doesn't have her soul gem on her person
is worlds more overpowered, because there is no wound you can inflict on her that will put her out of commission for more than a minute

TacitSoliloquy · May 22, 2019

Nevill said:
Yeah, good thing Ashy is there to give her life advice and moral support. With no privacy and no real free will, being ready to take over anytime.
This is the major factor contributing to her "problematic behavior", aka feeling she can't have any kind of life, ever, much less a personal one. It'll probably lessen with time as she learns Ashy isn't that bad of a roommate to have, but until we solve the autonomy problem I would not expect much in terms of improvement.

I have to wonder if Homura might actually help on that front. As has been mentioned, Sayaka might well be a damn potent combatant this loop. Homura prioritises Madoka above all else, but being able to throw a super-Sayaka at problems—like a certain witch who always ruins everything in the end—certainly sounds useful. If she can help Sayaka get the most out of her involuntary "powerup" and a wish that should be of benefit to Madoka, as well as a mindset to actually wield that power effectively, that might itself be motivation to invest in Sayaka's wellbeing. It would present some awkward circumstances, though: a witch and Homura playing supportive therapist to Sayaka sounds... odd.

SatelliteSlicker · May 22, 2019

TacitSoliloquy said:
I have to wonder if Homura might actually help on that front. As has been mentioned, Sayaka might well be a damn potent combatant this loop. Homura prioritises Madoka above all else, but being able to throw a super-Sayaka at problems—like a certain witch who always ruins everything in the end—certainly sounds useful. If she can help Sayaka get the most out of her involuntary "powerup" and a wish that should be of benefit to Madoka, as well as a mindset to actually wield that power effectively, that might itself be motivation to invest in Sayaka's wellbeing. It would present some awkward circumstances, though: a witch and Homura playing supportive therapist to Sayaka sounds... odd.

if anyone needs a therapist its homura

hillo315 · May 22, 2019

Flairina said:
A little early to say that. That's like painting one wall of your house and calling it done. There's a lot more work to do if we truly intend to "beautify" this barrier.

The lawn isn't a featureless rug anymore. It's plenty beautified.

Mind, I haven't played the game proper myself, so I might be wrong, and I'm almost certainly leaving out a lot of the various details that went into that setup.

Here's some more background info.

The original Magius wanted to get rid of witches. To that end, they wished for Kyubey's energy-collection powers so they could change the system themselves. (Nemu created the rumors, but that isn't as important. Alina joined later, but her power is very useful.)

Touka prevents soul gems from transforming into grief seeds by controlling the energy this process releases.
Alina created a barrier that applies this specific energy manipulation effect to all soul gems within its limits.
Ui collects the grief.

So the process probably goes like this:

The release of grief from the soul gem is slowed.
A portion of the grief is collected. (I'm not so sure about this step, but doppels never seem to be fully formed without transforming the magical girl to compensate.)
A doppel is produced.
The doppel fails to keep itself together after spending most of its grief, and the remainder is collected.

soulsguardian said:
wait. I just had a thought as to how to get sayakas soul gem out of us.
we could just kill ourselves?
like. when witches die they turn back into grief seeds, if we die and turn into a grief seed then sayakas gem will likely disentangle from us
then we can just get someone to overload our grief seed and we're back in business

To what extent is Sayaka subsumed, anyway? Is she dissolved into Ashy's grief seed, or is her soul gem just stuck to it?

Nottheunmaker · May 22, 2019

Flairina said:
A little early to say that. That's like painting one wall of your house and calling it done. There's a lot more work to be done if we intend to truly "beautify" this barrier.

Indeed! For starters there's not nearly enough variety in terrain and familiar types to build up an interesting diversity in the landscapes. And only one type does any kind of grounds work, and its all tulips! If Ash leaves them to run amok they'll just cover everything in flowers! Don't get me wrong, flowers are nice, but you need more then a single type of perennial to have a pleasing aesthetic. No, we need to spread that forest out a bit, get some trees going, and really work on lighting up the tunnel portion of Charlotte's barrier. And what's that witch with the light house, that'd be a good addition. Add an ocean and cityscape to give some contrast to all the vegetation and we'd really be in business.

Of course we can't forget about above and below. Charlotte's barrier is a good start for an underground, but it only covers candy and medicine. That's well and good, but Ashtaroth clearly needs a lava portion at the very least, maybe a glowing crystal ice cave for contrast. And the sky is very much lacking in random floating platforms and flying islands. Expanding the verticality around here can only be good. Not to mention the more nonsensical and non-space conforming types. I wonder how a barrier that only consists of interconnected rooms with no exterior would represent itself? Would the other barriers generate a type of building for them to be contained in, or would it just be a freestanding door that opens to it?

Can't forget other familiar types though, and possibly docile or even helpful witchs. Need other worker types, ones that can do roads and buildings, as well as other gardeners. Would be very interesting to cohabitate with a witch of the forest or garden, see how the Faas react to what's very much like a powerful version of themselves.

Gnarker said:
Thought: Can Ash create custom new familiars?

Familiar generation seems more like a function of the barrier rather then the witch, so I'd say no.

hillo315 said:
To what extent is Sayaka subsumed, anyway? Is she dissolved into Ashy's grief seed, or is her soul gem just stuck to it?

Either way it's a bad idea. To me it seems more likely she's fully part of Ashtaroth's soul, because her range limit is base on her distance from the barrier, rather then from Ashtaroth herself. Even if she wasn't, it then follows that you might need to kill Charlotte as well, because her barrier acts as a stabilizing element that would keep the other barriers from collapsing and forming grief seeds. Then it follows that, if Sayaka's gem was still intact, the other witches would also revert to grief seeds, and whoever you got to refill the seed wouldn't have any way of knowing which seed belongs to which witch. Add to this the nasty little problem that, if Kazumi Magia is to be believed, witches don't always drop grief seeds even if you know the witch used to be human.

hillo315 · May 22, 2019

Nottheunmaker said:
For starters there's not nearly enough variety in terrain and familiar types to build up an interesting diversity in the landscapes. And only one type does any kind of grounds work, and its all tulips! If Ash leaves them to run amok they'll just cover everything in flowers! Don't get me wrong, flowers are nice, but you need more then a single type of perennial to have a pleasing aesthetic.

So... When will Gertrud make an appearance?

Familiar generation seems more like a function of the barrier rather then the witch, so I'd say no.

Hypothesis: Witches that go past their upper grief limit have no choice but to let the excess grief fester in the barrier, which forms it into more familiars.

beth2 · May 22, 2019

hillo315 said:
But Ashy has an upper limit on grief, right? I wonder what will happen if Sayaka produces too much of it...

The obvious options are:
–Ashtaroth stops absorbing it; it stays with Sayaka and she either witches or just drowns in unhappiness until Ashtaroth uses up some grief.
–Ashtaroth continues absorbing, and vents excess grief to the environment, either passively or by involuntary, purposeless magic.
–It grows Ashtaroth's barrier or familiars.
–Ashtaroth gets a stomachache, and has to use magic to alleviate it.
–Ashtaroth's capacity grows, temporarily or permanently.
–The grief remains Sayaka's but can't turn her into a witch so she gets witch powers, a doppel, a grief aura, or something else.

hillo315 said:
The page lists at least 20 kinds of spirals. The list is also "incomplete". "Not all that many," my hat.

Restrict to 2D curves. Eliminate the duplicates/special cases. Eliminate almost-duplicates (the ones that say "approximate", which are not visually very distinct). Eliminate the ones which would not be described as spirals by a casual observer. You're left with about eight, which is not a terribly large number.

Don't stronger witches hold more grief, and vice versa? A weak witch should either only weaken a stronger witch before hatching, or become stronger than it should by mooching off the other witch.

Maybe. Maybe not. But I said an "easy" witch, i.e. one which that magical girl finds easy to defeat, which may have more to do with their particular powers than the witch's total magical strength. Or simply predictability—it's much easier to defeat the an enemy the sixth time than the first, when you have no idea what they can do (unless they're also learning, though even then I think it would be advantageous—unexpected powers are more dangerous than novel strategy).

Sayaka made her wish today, so she is a birthday girl.

You're right, I forgot! Sorry, Charlotte, your actions were correct.

As for intelligence... Well, she doesn't seem terribly bright by human standards, but she's at least smart enough to react to language appropriately, even if she can't understand everything or respond in kind.

Is she? She's reacted to gestures and possibly to tone, and may have reacted to specific words. That's not nothing, but it doesn't imply any comprehension of language.

I don't think Ashy has enough fine control to simply rip out some grief. If she's taking back her robbed grief, she's taking the rest of the witch with it.

If she used her subsumption ability, yes. I was proposing that she might retain some degree of control over her stolen grief and be able to yank it back, which might or might not pull Charlotte along for the ride. No need for fine control, because she would only have control of what was originally hers. I don't know how that would work, if it did work.

As far as I can tell, the compulsion gets stronger when tasty souls are very close. When no peaceful resolution is possible, Ashy can't stay far away enough not to subsume.

Hitomi isn't a magical girl. Ashy is not compelled to eat her.

"I have to stand twenty feet away from my enemies or be compelled to attack them" isn't that much of a handicap to diplomacy. I brought up Hitomi as an example of someone who knows what Ashtaroth is and what she does, and has been personally affected by it, without it ruining their relationship.

hillo315 said:
~~There are Pyotr variants, but I think we would have heard about abnormally large ones by now.~~ Rodents of Unusual Size? I don't think they exist.

FTFY

Nottheunmaker said:
That all falls apart once Sayaka goes to school and Mami or Homura pick up on the witch nearby—or worse, Sayaka reads as a witch. Not to mention how much it cuts into Ash's own autonomy.

The former is not a problem. Ashtaroth has already displayed the ability to move her barrier through solid objects; I'm pretty sure even Mami would give up if she hid underground. As to the latter—the confusion should last long enough for Sayaka to convince them, if not of her authenticity, then at least that something weird is going on and they shouldn't act rashly.

The loss of autonomy for Ashtaroth is the greater issue, at least in the longer term—she could probably handle a couple of days.

Confrontation 18: Healing Hands said:
...well, actually it kind of is, since you'll see whatever she does regardless, but you suppose you can let her pretend otherwise if she really wants to.

…I forgot to vote last time; had I remembered, it would have included asking if she wanted privacy for this.

The sigil has changed again—the book and the sapling at the center are still the same, but the tulips on the outer edge are now accompanied by several small, partially transparent purple symbols. Each one has an obvious silhouette of Charlotte at its center, and is encircled by embroidered-looking decals.

This is interesting information, and also reminds me that, if Ashtaroth gets regular visitors, they'll probably notice the symbol changing, too.

Not sure if "decal" is the right word.

You'd rather not have Sayaka suddenly passing out again, particularly in the hallway of a hospital, where it could be a pain getting her back out again if somebody notices.

Depends whether they noticed her passing out and getting back up, or noticed a corpse lying in the hallway.

Despite being large enough to comfortably fit what looks like at least half a dozen people, the room only has one occupant—a boy with light gray hair, sitting in a bed at the far end and staring out a large glass window.

What a waste of space. The room, too. </s>

"Why do you keep forcing me to listen to music?! Why do you keep tormenting me with something I'll never be able to play again?! There's no point! Not when I'm—!"

Skepticism is warranted. Anger is reasonable, if he thinks she's mocking him, though you'd expect him to know her better than that. This, though? She was clearly bringing him music because she thought he, you know, liked music. If he was unhappy with this, it was on him to say so. And if not, attacking her for it is unreasonable.

Regardless, you try your best not to watch, as you get the sense that this is intended to be rather personal.

And what came before wasn't?

You look down at yourself. That's... not just your grief naturally replenishing itself, you don't think? It is coming back—with how low you are on grief right now, you can actually feel it seeping into your stores, gradually trickling in as if from a slowly dripping IV line—but it doesn't feel like it's being directly created by you. It feels like it's coming from somewhere; like you're somehow pulling it away from its original source. But what could—

Not scientifically rigorous, but it's good to have that confirmed.

"Sayaka, wait—!"

And now he feels like a total jerk. Probably. He might be too distracted by WTF magic is real and Sayaka has healing powers to remember what he just said. But he will.

Sayaka begins to cry in earnest, while you sit off to the side feeling altogether rather useless. Somehow, Sayaka's "make Sayaka feel better" plan seems to have managed to miss the criteria even more than yours did.

I mean, that's kind of been the pattern with Sayaka's plans.

How are you supposed to handle this?

Step 1: Obtain cute thing.
Step 2: Give cute thing to crying girl.

I'd usually go for cats, but Charlotte might be easier to get right now. Or not; there are plenty of cats who would just walk into a mysterious glowing portal.

NemoMarx said:
So, let's wildly speculate on who the interlude could be!

I'm betting it's the other magical girls reacting to what's happened to Sayaka, maybe?

Previous interludes were people who had very recently been in the story, dealing with major events from the story and setting up further plot. If that continues—two instances does not a pattern make—it will be Kyousuke.

The other character who has recently experienced a major story event and would provide a useful or interesting perspective is Charlotte/Nagisa. However, I think an interlude from her would be more likely to have come after the previous update, although there are potential reasons for it to be now.

If we relax that rule, the next most likely candidates are Hitomi, Madoka (whom Hitomi is likely to contact or have contacted), and Mami, who are involved at increasing remove and are likely receiving information or beginning to (successfully) act on it around this time. Hitomi has hopefully done a better job of de-stressing from her witch encounter than Sayaka has and will be thinking about what to do about the situation; Madoka may have heard from Hitomi or Kyubey and be acting based on that; and Mami has (probably) heard from Tira and may have been informed of Sayaka's demise by Kyubey.

Kyubey is a possibility, but it doesn't feel like the right time for that.

The least involved person who is still somewhat involved is Homura; I doubt anyone's told her anything, but she may have overheard something.

Then there are people who are so far uninvolved but may be setting things in motion: Shemesh, Kyouko, Oriko, etc.

Then there are the left-field options: Hirako (harpoon girl), pre-Ashtaroth's parents (ha, no), Junko, Walpurgisnacht.

Given this hint in the SB thread, I'm going to guess Madoka or Hitomi.

Flairina said:
Well, mice also tend to shred through soft things if they come across them. You know, tissues, cardboard, plastic lids.

The flesh of children—wait, no, that's covered by "tissues".

The process shown here is super slow for a reason, and it's not just to make sure every battle doesn't end up boiling down to "throw endless magic at thing until dead". It shouldn't be too hard to intuit why it would be so gradual actually, since one example of a similar phenomenon has already been seen in story.

I note that nearly Ashtaroth's entire capacity was only enough to take Charlotte from "almost hatched" to "hatched". So… grief transfer is inefficient, and loses the majority of the power? Or it's a relative pressure sort of thing, and Ashtaroth's only absorbing grief as quickly as she is because she's nearly empty.

The other things which might qualify as a similar phenomenon are Ashtaroth's slow recharging from background grief, the subsumption of Pyotr, the corrupted aura Sayaka briefly possessed, and maybe the subsumption of Saar and Sayaka.

SatelliteSlicker · May 22, 2019

my guesses for who the interlude could follow, in terms of decending probability
nagisa/charlotte
kyouske
hitomi
madoka
mami
homura

hillo315 · May 22, 2019

beth2 said:
Ashtaroth has already displayed the ability to move her barrier through solid objects; I'm pretty sure even Mami would give up if she hid underground.

Would the outside world continue to automatically feed the barrier grief if it has no accessible entrance/exit point?

Step 1: Obtain cute thing.
Step 2: Give cute thing to crying girl.

I'd usually go for cats, but Charlotte might be easier to get right now. Or not; there are plenty of cats who would just walk into a mysterious glowing portal.

I found one of 'em cute cats!

Ooh... Maybe not that one...

The flesh of children—wait, no, that's covered by "tissues".

*insert joke about Polina's medical supplies*

veekie · May 23, 2019

beth2 said:
I note that nearly Ashtaroth's entire capacity was only enough to take Charlotte from "almost hatched" to "hatched". So… grief transfer is inefficient, and loses the majority of the power? Or it's a relative pressure sort of thing, and Ashtaroth's only absorbing grief as quickly as she is because she's nearly empty.

Personally I consider it more likely that Charlotte didn't take that much grief objectively. Most of Ashtaroth's grief is used to keep sustaining her existence and barrier, thus not available for spending, same reason the energy content of your muscles and organs are mostly not relevant to avoiding starvation.

Also considering how Oktavia's barrier didn't spawn any wandering familiars, and despite Charlotte's CROWDED barrier you don't see any of her familiars wandering around outside either.

I'd theorize that witches start evicting their familiars when they reach maximum grief capacity, venting excess as stray familiars.
It also explains why stray familiars seem to occur in singles, when barriers are usually swarming with a sea of them.

Nottheunmaker · May 23, 2019

beth2 said:
The other things which might qualify as a similar phenomenon are Ashtaroth's slow recharging from background grief, the subsumption of Pyotr, the corrupted aura Sayaka briefly possessed, and maybe the subsumption of Saar and Sayaka.

One thing that's notably not on the list is Sayaka's own grief. She's been under some severe emotional distress all day, going from crying her eyes out to burning rage down into emotional burnout, back to despair and finally heavily seasoned with heartbreak, and that doesn't seem to have effected Ashtaroth's grief stores in the slightest. That's just down right odd now that I think about it. More so because earlier I was wondering if Sayaka was kinda feeding on Kyousuke's grief while she was healing him, and if that was how Ash's grief meter was filling, rather then Sayaka using her magic. But since Flairina kinda said it was just her magic so that's out the window, but it does leave the question of why Sayaka's negative feelings aren't feeding them, but using her magic does.

Maybe Sayaka's using it directly? Would rely on her using grief instead of magic, which given how Sayaka using her powers feeds Ash seems unlikely. Then again Ash getting depressed or sad also doesn't seem to fill her grief stores, so maybe it's like that, however that works.

hillo315 · May 23, 2019

Flairina said:
Well, all "being a backdrop" entails when nothing is happening is wandering around, really. They're scenery, not meant to be particularly focused on... unless something comes along that would require the scenery to take an active role, at least.

They ignore Ashy and lack faces because they're not people, kind of like the fish in Ophelia's labyrinth?

Or more likely, they just have no important identity, like movie extras. It sounds like they exist just to emphasize Ashy's protagonist status, possibly as an artificial ego-inflater. That's why they look like Ashy pre-witching, but cheaper. It also explains why they respond to disappointment but ignore attempts at social interaction.

I'm willing to bet that Ummashtart can take orders, but only indirectly. If Ashy changes the scenery, the Ummashtart should react accordingly.

Nottheunmaker said:
One thing that's notably not on the list is Sayaka's own grief. She's been under some severe emotional distress all day, going from crying her eyes out to burning rage down into emotional burnout, back to despair and finally heavily seasoned with heartbreak, and that doesn't seem to have effected Ashtaroth's grief stores in the slightest. That's just down right odd now that I think about it. More so because earlier I was wondering if Sayaka was kinda feeding on Kyousuke's grief while she was healing him, and if that was how Ash's grief meter was filling, rather then Sayaka using her magic. But since Flairina kinda said it was just her magic so that's out the window, but it does leave the question of why Sayaka's negative feelings aren't feeding them, but using her magic does.

I think Ashy normally isn't hungry enough to notice Sayaka's effect on her grief stores. It could even be the only reason Flairina decided that Ashy should be forcibly drained.

Nottheunmaker · May 23, 2019

hillo315 said:
So... When will Gertrud make an appearance?

The rose bush? Sayaka said she got got. Wouldn't have been good for cohabitation anyway, she seemed violent. Maybe her familiars would've been different, but I don't know anything about them.

beth2 said:
The former is not a problem. Ashtaroth has already displayed the ability to move her barrier through solid objects; I'm pretty sure even Mami would give up if she hid underground. As to the latter—the confusion should last long enough for Sayaka to convince them, if not of her authenticity, then at least that something weird is going on and they shouldn't act rashly.

I just remember Homura using a potent combination of pneumatic drill and time stop to try digging out Rochelle once. Granted that was Witch Quest, but this is kinda like that, albeit with a far less kill happy QM.

The loss of autonomy for Ashtaroth is the greater issue, at least in the longer term—she could probably handle a couple of days.

A few days isn't a big deal, true. It's not like Ashtaroth will even get that bored if her and Sayaka could get them to go along with it. School's usually a drag, but even a witch deserves a proper education. Though depending on what grade Ash was in she might already know the material. But hey, that just means Sayaka has the ultimate study aid; a voice in her head that has all the answers.

Subsumption (PMMM Faux-Quest) (Witch MC)

Least Omnipotent Goddess

Oblivion Sempiternum Daemonis

Intact but Tactless

Altman be praised

Intact but Tactless

Intact but Tactless

Altman be praised

Intact but Tactless

Altman be praised