Eating Mami's corpse won't do shit. Forget about it. Also, run from Mami's witch because we will die from that regardless of what you say. We had a massive streak of good luck during that fight and I don't want to bet on it again. Also, the witch's kiss choice was fucking stupid.
Subsumption (PMMM Faux-Quest) (Witch MC)
- Location
- Europe
And still it would have come to a fight. The situation wouldn't have been better, because this wasn't a choice of who makes the best impression of everyone this was a decision how to at least survive the situation.
Not saying anything or just leaving would have led to the same outcome, a fight. So why not give it a chance as incredibly unlikely as it is to work? I'm not saying it was somehow some brilliant idea, but it hardly worsened the situation anymore than a lot of the suggested smart choices would have.
Maybe it was not a good option but in context of there being no good options you wouldn't have to be stupid to at least try it.
- Location
- Voidbetweenstars
…
It also made everyone in universe react... poorly to it.
.
- Location
- St. Petersburg
Let's review what we've seen of Magical Girl Decisions in the story.
* Sayaka went frothing at the mouth in murderous rage ignoring any and all attempts at communication (and Ashy's attempts to shoo her out of the barrier with the very person she was supposed to save)
* Tira swept her rational thinking under the rug and decided to follow her senpai's judgement despite heavy suspicion that things were not quite as clear cut as Mami tried to make it. Of them all, she was the least foolish and just prone to peer pressure, but hey, she chose Mami's way over her own, and got rewarded accordingly.
* Mami... I think everyone that needs to be said was said last update. She held on to the Idiot Ball fit for two.
But of course it is Ashy who gets dissed.
By the way, doesn't inability to understand the position of another go both ways? And if Ashy may be guilty of saying the wrong thing without considering how it'd be perceived, what about Mami's inability to consider that she may not have meant anything by it? It was bad, but not "you'll feel better without a Soul Gem, Sayaka" double-murder-worth bad. I've seen posts laying the responsibility for this mess entirely on Ashy's head, and I am stumped. How does Mami get a pass for anything she did, starting with the night hunt which breaks the spirit of the agreement to try peace talks first? Is it that her being incapable of seeing things differently is implicitly accepted as a character trait, and she escapes blame for exactly the same thing people demand of Ashy? Is it that she is a beloved heroine of the series and is therefore held to a different standard?
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- Location
- Europe
You mean Sayaka, who didn't react badly to it just mentioned how stupid she thought it was? Or Tira who would have fought us anyway, because she wouldn't let Mami die to us, while Mami wouldn't stop trying to kill us until she's dead?
That's only two people.
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In retrospect, agreeing to be in the same place a Mami was definitely a bad choice, but all the stuff after that was more-or-less inevitable
Welp, glad to know you have a lack of sympathy for a someone manipulated to be a child-soldier who has then been socially isolated by both circumstance and the actions of the original manipulator. Glad to know you have a lack of sympathy for someone who just lost her mind and transformed into a monster.
Seriously, one can recognize that Mami made bad choices and also recognize that she was pre-set up in a system to lead her to those bad choices. Frankly, everyone but the Incubator's is deserving of sympathy.
Retsof
I will keep you safe.
- Location
- Voidbetweenstars
I mean I could start with the fact that Mami is a 2 year veteran child soldier who is a stupid girl that is 5 cm's from total mental break down, or how sayaka is nothing better then a blood knight in canon.
But I think I'll just end with that Witches are known as nothing more then the direct cause of a lot of suicide which Japan has enough problems that all school roofs have fences... And as such most children would love to know that their making less likely of one of their friends deciding to take their shoes off and never coming back.
But you know I'm more aiming to call out the voter base for basically ensuring our lovely viewpoint character basically acts as stupid as these characters and then seemingly unable to except that they are.
- Location
- St. Petersburg
And that's the jist of it, isn't it? Noone in the series knows squat about how any of it works.
Lichbomb? Shock! Witchbomb? Total surprise!
But everyone assumes they know enough, which is how we get the fabled Magical Girl Decisions.
At least Ashy was talking about Witch Kisses out of experience. But it just didn't sound credible enough to a bunch of complete amateurs.
You see a walking, talking, sentient Witch that seemingly contradicts what you thought you knew - and the first thing you do is try and silence it.
Where are Mitakihara's scientific minds? If only there were a Magical Girl who would let us indiscriminately plant kisses on civilians in order to establish their properties.
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I can think of two reasons:
1. Mami's hardheadness was well introduced for several chapters and thus it was en expected reaction, while Ashtaroth's was horribly introduced in the story, making her look like she had the idiot ball
2. Ashtarorh is the main character of this faux-quest fic; and this fic being shaped like a quest can give readers an illusion of agency towards Ashtaroth's actions while making Mami look like an obstacle for the "players" to overcome.
[X] Run! Run NOW!!!
Huh, that happened. There was some weird mood whiplash with Charlotte's impression of a toothpaste tube but it already looked like things will go wrong, and they did so shrug.
I'm kind of curious though how witch!Mami is going to react to Tira, once she gets out of Novella anyway.
Huh, that happened. There was some weird mood whiplash with Charlotte's impression of a toothpaste tube but it already looked like things will go wrong, and they did so shrug.
I'm kind of curious though how witch!Mami is going to react to Tira, once she gets out of Novella anyway.
Ashy could actually do that with Sayaka. She could even pretend the city is claimed by a group if Tira recovers fast enough. Charlotte would be a great mascot, especially with kyubey as the alternative.
- Location
- St. Petersburg
Exactly! Hence why I called it a witch-girl team! It's a shame I didn't think about an alternate mascot - do you think other meguca would believe us if Ashy tells them we are from different anime series?
Better yet, officially taking care of city Witches means that Madoka doesn't have to! We should get Homura on board of this train too, one way or the other.
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- Location
- Australia
Persephone's Waltz by ErinPtah. Now that captures the mood of despair and darkness of the original show in a way I can appreciate! And for sure, I'll definitely give this a few more chapters.
Nottheunmaker
Altman be praised
- Location
- USG Ishimura
More narratively. A big fight that had been building up half the chapter just finished, and Ash doesn't even know Homura. Starting a fresh fight would awkward.
Artistic and creative at heart (Canvas) but also outdoorsy (The grass) prone to wandering and dreamed of travel (the winding roads that lead to star scapes)?
@Renu is good. She can do fancy, simple, and is pretty great to work with.
I wouldn't be sure about the body. Could be soaked in enough magic to be subsumable, and even as just an empty shell it has value. A human body Ash could control without shoving it's proper owner aside would help a lot with future diplomacing. And if Charlotte is anything to go by, Cadelor might still be in grief seed from. Which would mean it's safe to explore her part of the barrier, so long as we don't touch her seed.
Are you... blaming the readerbase for Ash's actions? Have you perchance seen which subforum this thread is under? Spoiler, it isn't 'Quests', so maybe get off your high horse about lambasting SV's "actions".
Alphaleph
The Firstiest of First
But it will give Ashy a free mouth piece that won't get pissy when used as a mouth piece.
Appletank
Acquire Cheese
I wonder if Ashy can flip Tome upside down and smoosh Ashy inside herself by closing it.
Sayaka can do a pose and have shatterwords blasting out from behind her.
Of course; it's a criticism of Ashtaroth's decisions, not yours.
I should probably note that, while the reasoning I offered for using a different excuse requires some consideration of others' perspectives, that was entirely a post hoc justification; my actual thought process was more like "mild inconvenience is a weak excuse; we have better ones".
It parses more smoothly, and this is probably the best you can get. The basic difficulty is that of the three things contained in each phrase—the act of subsumption, its target, and a connotation of forcefulness—the one most emphasized (the act) is not contiguous ("make _ one with you").
They're both good fight music, but I can't say that either feels particularly appropriate for this battle? Battle B2 sounds like exactly what the video title says it is—boss fight music. Protagonists who have challenged a strong enemy, with an uncertain outcome. 11 Stars 5 Flowers feels more appropriate to a larger battle, something with at least dozens of opponents. There's also a sense of movement to it—it seems like it would fit a scene involving a charge, possibly by a protagonist army, possibly defending against an enemy charge. But in both cases, it seems like an aggressive battle, a confrontation which the viewpoint character(s) have sought out and deliberately engaged in (not necessarily by attacking, but they're actively choosing to participate). Which this battle kind of isn't. They also feel more like direct confrontations with solid hits than this battle of dodging, scratch damage, and disposable minions.
The witch usually exaggerates it, though.
I'll note Ashtaroth's views on souls and soul gems as an example here—it didn't seem like she could understand why other people were upset about it even before witchhood.
It's probably also good to remember how young they are. I might expect someone who's used to not understanding others to have developed workarounds, but Ashtaroth is, what, fourteen? Can't expect too much from her.
There's a reason I described Madoka and Hitomi as "unsupervised", and then immediately mentioned that Kyubey no longer had reason to stay away.
This is not the first time we've seen Tira tripped up by a lack of situational awareness. Not a severe lack—Charlotte was hardly obvious—but it's been contrasted with things like Mami easily noticing Ashtaroth's barrier or dodging her crushing attempt without even looking.
Semicolon should be a comma, as what follows is not an independent clause.
Not even pretending to make sense.
Good to have confirmation on that. Kinda wish we had more detail here, since ocular damage isn't the only issue with bright lights which might be mitigated by magical vision.
Not only did she get her (former?) friend killed, but she can't even get revenge. (I do wonder whether revenge would have helped.)
"Written" or "writ large" (yes, "writ" is just an old word for "written", but the meaning of "writ large" is idiomatic).
So Candeloro's section will share a border with Saar's, and likely also with Ashtaroth's. Does it border Charlotte's as well?
Note how, after watching, and being partially responsible for, Tira's demise and Mami's witching, Ashtaroth is frustrated because this messes up her plans.
Only you can prevent—no wait never mind the familiars have it.
Note that Ashtaroth has seen a magical girl die before. Was that the same time that she learned where witches come from?
I have no idea how it worked, either. Was Tira somehow never in the path of any of the attacks? And always somewhere in the path of Charlotte's new body, even when it came from an eyeball? Did she get teleported into each new body as it was made? Was she in "Charlotte's stomach", a place which can be reached from Charlotte's mouth but is not within the space encompassed by her body?
It hasn't come up before (I think), but does Ashtaroth have a native sense of smell, or is she perceiving this via Sayaka?
I wonder what would have happened if Tira had witched while still inside Charlotte. Would Charlotte have exploded? Would Tira's grief seed suck out Charlotte's grief like Charlotte's did to Ashtaroth? Would Tira's witch even be in a meaningful physical location (with respect to Ashtaroth's barrier, that is)?
Indicating that only Ashtaroth experienced that feeling.
Well, Madoka could make an ill-advised wish. Or another witch could wander by and get sucked into the barrier. Or one of Charlotte, Shemesh, and Candeloro could start a fight. Or Homura could—
—oh, speak of the devil.
That's interesting. We can sense all that?
I'd be very cautious about trying to subsume Homura, even if she were completely willing and cooperative. She's carrying around several orders of magnitude more power than Ashtaroth, and it's described as "overwhelming". Now, remind me, what did the wraiths think of Homura's power? I think "overwhelming" is a reasonably good description, don't you? If Ashtaroth tried to subsume her, I'm not at all confident that what came out would still be Ashtaroth.
Or we could just refer to the Evil Overlord List, rule number 22: "No matter how tempted I am by the prospect of unlimited power, I will not consume any energy field bigger than my head".
Wishing to be able to do what great artists did, and receiving the ability to do exactly what great artists did, is… kind of on the nose.
(Extraneous apostrophe in the wish, or else delete "that of".)
And then this bit of unsubtle wordplay. Did whatever agency determined Tira's powers think it was being funny?
It's interesting that this is the only description of her personality we get.
Ashtaroth meets a visitor to her barrier; one who has an untrustworthy nature and has done her harm, but displays no active malice. She treats her with caution and suspicion, but decides to let her stay. Later, the visitor saves her life.
Mami meets a visitor to her city; one who has an untrustworthy nature and has done her kouhai harm, but displays no active malice. She treats her with suspicion and hostility, and takes the first excuse she can to attack her. This results in her death.
I wasn't expecting a parable about hospitality and a host's duty to guests in a fic about a self-absorbed magic book monster, but here we are.
Tira was unresponsive prior to subsumption. This might just be physical symptoms, but considering how quickly her gem depleted, it's probably the trauma of being eaten alive. She probably will freak out if we bring her out, though for different reasons than Sayaka.
Ashtaroth often takes action based on her instincts, but she also tends to get control of herself quite quickly, and it's most problematic when she's surprised or distracted. I could make a guess as to what she'll do this time, but I'd rather give ambiguous advice:
[x] Trust your instincts.
Same thing.
In order:
-Hirako helped birth her, then tried to kill her, and was frustrated.
-Saar attacked, and was eaten.
-Tira left her alone, and was left alone.
-Hitomi was polite, and found out about the horrible magical world her friends were going to recklessly throw themselves into without ever talking to her about it. Also she missed her dance class.
-Sayaka attacked, and was eaten.
-Charlotte was cute, and got a bigger home.
-Kyosuke was a jerk, and was healed.
-Hitomi and Madoka did nothing, and had nothing done to them.
-Mami attacked, and was driven to despair.
-Tira attacked, and was eaten.
-Kyubey is Kyubey.
Sure looks like attacking Ashtaroth is what causes bad outcomes, not dealing with her at all.
I think the suddenness is a good thing. It lets the audience feel some of the same shock as the characters.
There are several reasons I can think of, and more that I can't.
First, Ashtaroth is the protagonist. The readers have spent a lot of time in her head, they identify with her, they're rooting for her, and this is only exacerbated by the faux-quest format. They're invested in her. That makes her doing this more frustrating than Mami doing it—and Mami has been called out, if less vocally.
Second, Ashtaroth made a single, obvious error. Mami's problematic behavior is driven by a larger pattern of decision-making; her issue is her attitude, her assumptions, her self-righteousness, all of which are on continual display. Similarly for Sayaka. Ashtaroth's error was driven by a personality flaw which is often subtle, so it appeared as a singular mistake.
Third, Ashtaroth's mistake is harder to sympathize with. People know what it's like to do dumb things out of anger, or desperation, or hatred. That's easy to unerstand, to empathize with, to justify. People are less familiar with making stupid mistakes because they can't comprehend the basic principles of what they're attempting; can't even see that they're missing something fundamental. Well, okay, people are actually very familiar with that, but they don't tend to admit it to themselves—when they fail at doing something simple, they tell themselves it's hard, or they don't have the talent, or they understand what went wrong and will do better next time (they don't and won't)—and most of what they will admit and understand is too far in the past to really empathize with—Ashtaroth's blunder here is one which everyone reading this story has made, but mostly before the age of thirteen (for many, significantly before), so it's now a distant, poorly-understood memory.* And the same goes for other areas—by the time someone really understands how basic the mistakes they used to make were, they're unable to empathize with those who do make them. (This is, by the way, a large part of why people say kids are stupid—children are inexperienced, and they make mistakes which adults have long since forgotten that they had to learn to avoid, or fail to utilize cognitive tools which they can't recall lacking—it's so obvious, how could anyone miss it without being a moron? (Which is not to say that children aren't just outright missing certain cognitive faculties thanks to lack of brain development. But a lot of it is broad inexperience.) If your default assumption were that Ashtaroth had the social perceptiveness of a typical eight-year-old, you wouldn't find her mistakes strange at all—but she's not acting like an eight-year-old in other ways, so people don't make that assumption.)
Fourth, because the proximate cause for a significant plot development was a character doing something dumb. So it seems like it's forced, to push the plot in the desired direction. Even if a fight was perhaps inevitable, it being caused by an easily avoidable mistake is reminiscent of poorly-written plots where conflict is generated by characters being unaccountably stupid—exactly what the Idiot Ball trope is about.
*Ten commas, three em-dashes, and two parentheticals—far from the most complex sentence I've ever written, but I figure I'll call it out before someone else does.
Alternatively, Canvas could be her feeling empty inside—she can play pretend, make it look like there's something to her, but there's no substance to any of it. More likely, it's less that she was artistic and more that she was prone to fantasy, to filling her head with illusions to play with. The grass could just as easily indicate difficulty navigating the world outside her own head—it's tall grass, easy to get lost in. I'm not sure on travel, specifically, though a desire to explore and see new things seems likely—see her thoughts on wanting to explore witch barriers. Starscapes could easily be a dream of space, or space as representative of distant and mysterious places to explore, or a vast emptiness which she would lose herself in if she ever followed a road to its conclusion, or it could just as easily be success at the end of a windy road represented as reaching the stars. Or a dozen other things.
Her design can similarly be interpreted in a multitude of ways.
You can interpret the non-appearance of various things, such as people or people-substitutes, to indicate that they weren't important to her—but all you can really infer is that they probably weren't an overriding obsession.
These kinds of metaphors are really, really useless for actually conveying information, because there are too many possible interpretations. They're low on signal and high on noise.
Nottheunmaker
Altman be praised
- Location
- USG Ishimura
... I can't tell if that's really clever or really, really stupid. I'm going with stupid, but that's probably because one, it isn't true just going by this fight, though I suppose we could get her and Sayaka to spar and confirm it. And two, I'm annoyed I missed that until you pointed it out.
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- Location
- Madison, AL
[X] run cower, beg for mercy
Hmm, it occurs to me that the laser probably wasn't Mami's brightest idea. Her Muskets WORK because its based on real gun design, she just makes it temporarily real from her knowledge, and probably recoups most of the MP once she dissolves the gun and bullet into ribbons she can use for other things.
A pure magic laser should be expensive as fuck
A pure magic laser should be expensive as fuck