[1526] That kind of love

[iffy]

Certainly an author doesn't need to have a fully developed background or even any answers at all before something happens, regardless if the characters are guiding it to some extent or not.

The Horde seems scary, but so far hasn't as far as we've seen killed anyone. Maybe at the school that was luck and timing combined with the proactive steps taken by Yuki and Yutaka. Or not. Their actions were of course based upon information ultimately provided by and in situations stemming from our source of everything. But we've already discussed how it isn't (and from what we've been told and seen of what she is, shouldn't be) possible to tell what she's actually doing or feeling based merely upon her words or behavior. Are Hordes actually dangerous. Based upon experienced mass casualties and potential mass fatalities, yes. Have they been harmful, indeed; are they to be worried about as able to pull the game world into the void, who knows. Probably. Maybe.

None of that multisided 'make all the arguments because it could all be at least somewhat true' is anything new tho Just like it's obvious Miho (whatever we call it, whatever it is, whatever it wants) isn't just some helpless waif or immature inexperienced kid. And seems to have whatever powers and abilities she wants or is expected to, so in at least one way she's apparently not needing to be worried about. But we don't know the whole story, so maybe she's not an eternal immortal force of nature or something. So we're still at where we have been in the figuring it all out department.

Yes, a lot of what's going on seems to some extent to revolve around about growing in understanding and capacity and wisdom etc.

[Invisigoth]

People die in MT, we just haven't gotten to see anyone but Ed and Miho so far

[iffy]

Which they both turned out less dead (or less inclined to remain that way) than one might expect.

Although one never really knows what exactly goes on behind the scenes, most of the time. At least with Ed though there was a view of or a notion of the tech that undeaded him.

Then there's Largo, who showed a propensity to not be much affected by large amounts of electricity. Perhaps also Dom not as crushed as could have been, whatever the blocks and so on might have done to Ibara, things the CoE rickroll caused to those in the CoE who weren't seen or reported upon later, Miho in the grip of The Horde before they were distracted by Yuki, and of course Yutaka as fairly resilient in some ways to many sorts of things.

For sure, how many non players and others might have died (in the various riots or TPCD activities, or in day-to-day) is just one of the many details there is not much insight for.

[Roamer]

I suppose that for many Miho-haters it's more like, they had a lot more time for their opinions of Miho crystalize and settle... whereas it's different for e.g. me who re-read the entire comic somewhere in December only I see this change in Miho going a lot faster than you guys who have been at it for years and years ... but at the same time I can see it may not be permanent.
After all it is her who wants to go to see /him/ again, after all, without having thoroughly thought it through.
Does she have an ulterior motive here? Maybe. Does it mean she's T3H blacker than black 3\/1|_ 0|\|3 ? not necessarily. or not forever. or both ?

Apart from Megatokyo being the Game played by the unMod universe inhabitants, i subscribe to the theory that Miho did fall in love with Piro back then, and pushed him away to protect him from her Bad Ending (by horde or otherwise) (well let's imagine what'll happen if he went to see her, all hopeful and ready to see /that girl he never saw/ and next thing, she'd 'die' in his arms... or somewhere in the street... or in the bathroom... oh look at the scars he'd get from that - maybe that's what she was thinking ? Obviously she did not know he knew how to do EMT...)

I just think, even if Miho goes to see him now, and exclaims her feelings, there is really not much she can affect any more in his stance. He may be compassionate and caring and understanding all he wants, but I think, falling in love with her again is not really an option here. Not without some serious sacrifice from /her/ end (and him also, making a sacrifice he may not be ready for... even if she explains her motives, whatever they were.).

(mandatory comic relief)
In unMod we don't see all the 'real' cast (haven't seen Moh there, but he exists in FMP) - maybe actually FMP is the real world ? There are no magical people in the 'real world', so no inspector Sonoda nor his family, but Miho plays a (dark, magical, Ill) girl in Megatokyo... and uses Moh as avatar in Endgames; Piroko plays Piro and uses (a version of) herself as avatar in Endgames.

That's one reason why I try to reread an ongoing comic every so often, at least the high points. Opinions can change, and seeing what the future holds can shed light on the past.

She would need to push away anyone who would try to help her with the horde around; anyone would be torn apart who tried to help and didn't have sufficient protection. *Can* they fall in love? I dunno, I certainly don't think it's impossible, but you never know. Showing up while he's busy probably won't help...

Of all the Omakes, I have to think that FMP is the least likely to be the 'real' world. So, yeah, maybe it is.

[Roamer]

Certainly an author doesn't need to have a fully developed background or even any answers at all before something happens, regardless if the characters are guiding it to some extent or not.

The Horde seems scary, but so far hasn't as far as we've seen killed anyone. Maybe at the school that was luck and timing combined with the proactive steps taken by Yuki and Yutaka. Or not. Their actions were of course based upon information ultimately provided by and in situations stemming from our source of everything. But we've already discussed how it isn't (and from what we've been told and seen of what she is, shouldn't be) possible to tell what she's actually doing or feeling based merely upon her words or behavior. Are Hordes actually dangerous. Based upon experienced mass casualties and potential mass fatalities, yes. Have they been harmful, indeed; are they to be worried about as able to pull the game world into the void, who knows. Probably. Maybe.

None of that multisided 'make all the arguments because it could all be at least somewhat true' is anything new tho Just like it's obvious Miho (whatever we call it, whatever it is, whatever it wants) isn't just some helpless waif or immature inexperienced kid. And seems to have whatever powers and abilities she wants or is expected to, so in at least one way she's apparently not needing to be worried about. But we don't know the whole story, so maybe she's not an eternal immortal force of nature or something. So we're still at where we have been in the figuring it all out department.

Yes, a lot of what's going on seems to some extent to revolve around about growing in understanding and capacity and wisdom etc.

===

Which they both turned out less dead (or less inclined to remain that way) than one might expect.

Although one never really knows what exactly goes on behind the scenes, most of the time. At least with Ed though there was a view of or a notion of the tech that undeaded him.

Then there's Largo, who showed a propensity to not be much affected by large amounts of electricity. Perhaps also Dom not as crushed as could have been, whatever the blocks and so on might have done to Ibara, things the CoE rickroll caused to those in the CoE who weren't seen or reported upon later, Miho in the grip of The Horde before they were distracted by Yuki, and of course Yutaka as fairly resilient in some ways to many sorts of things.

For sure, how many non players and others might have died (in the various riots or TPCD activities, or in day-to-day) is just one of the many details there is not much insight for.

-More fun if they aren't fully developed, really, more room to play with...

-Interesting point. We haven't seen the Horde actually kill anyone to this point. And that's actually pretty difficult to pull off, during an uncontrolled crowd scene. So...maybe they are not uncontrolled? Maybe they are in fact very carefully controlled, at all times?

-Miho, the once and eternal puzzle.

-Essential parts of any good story. Growth and change are the keys to any story, it's just a matter of discovering what change lies in store for each of them. (For example, after reading 1528, I'm pretty sure that much of Nabiki's character growth will revolve around regrowing her spine, once Junpei gets done with her..)

-Well, it is a game. Permanent death is for NPCs.

-I'm increasingly thinking that the tech we see has little to do with Ed's showing up over and over. It would be easier to simply rebuild him from source code than to fix what's left after his latest toy blows up on his back. Yeah, we see a lot of big impressive machines, but how important are they, really? Are they there because they need to be...or because Ed thinks they need to?

-More of the same. They appear to be as resilient as they think they are. If that can be harnessed it would be enormously useful, and dangerous.

-And again, death. Simply doesn't appear to be a permanent factor for PCs, regardless of power. The more power you have - real or possible - the greater the support structure you need, but that appears to be the only observed limits in place. Makes you wonder what the actual limits are...

[cidjen]

On Perma Death, maybe... it isn't a thing for any of the characters in the game...?

So look, there is the TPCD. Do they schedule disasters, so that civilian casualties and destruction of urban area are kept to a minimum? Even at the start of things when we 'see' it for the first time (recap'd by Largo) they don't seem to be doing a very good job at that. I mean, insane respawn powers and insane rebuilding capabilities are one thing, but in any country, such a disaster area as portrayed even there (during the Beer Garden Pushout) would clearly be cordoned off by outside-of-police-force for a lot longer than until evening, even after rebuild is completed. Rebuilding in real life can be fast, but only starts when rubble is cleared AFTER (most of) the bodies are found. Here rebuilding started straight away, ergo - no bodies?

Also during the Megagamers siege by fans of Erika, there were NPC casualties (hey, my head hurts - cause you've glass in your head) and the RR was... measly. Even the Zilla did not die from a head-on impact from the plasma cannon. But Inspector Sonoda, he was sitting on its head - and then, he's on the ground unscathed all of a sudden.

Or the not-shiny impact on the NPC beside Megumi. The Horde started respawning in place almost straight away and Megumi respawned a few tens of meters away. tattered and distraught at what she thought Kimiko's death was, but otherwise, pretty intact.

Even Piro... after giving his train card to Kimiko... when walking over the train line - was he only close to jumping off the bridge, or he really DID, and respawned back on the bridge straight away? Largo's electric shock resistance now makes much more sense. And the insane healing (being bumped into forehead like Piro was, would clearly leave a mark... not a mark on him; Kimiko's invisible broken nose; Largo's being able to stand up from the wheelchair and launch anti-tank missiles not long after arriving to the scene and not THAT long after having m3d wobblez, that had him use the wheelchair in the first place...).
The muffin cart driver after being hit by a pole - I mean his cabin was smack bang in the middle of the crumple zone, he could not have survived if this was normal physics environment. But there he is on the pavement lamenting the state of his scooter instead.

Miho's heart surgery, she's up no more than 12h after? OK i know keyhole surgery exists and all, and it's probably less blood loss than from a broken nose... she may feel weak and not have all her powers back, but still the recovery rate is insane.

So i think in this game, NPC or not, you can not /really/ die from physical injuries. I mean it's a game, and a comic, normal physics don't apply to bodies (maybe apart from Yutaka, but he's healing his ribs, arms and internal organs also insanely fast - he may be bandaged stiff now but he's able to stand already!).

Yuki may have fallen off the wires on top of Yutaka, but this is still something - with normal humans, both would die from such impact (there are rl examples of window jumpers dying and taking random individuals below with them...). While the magical girl did not even suffer a bruise, Chewtoy 'only' landed in hospital. But maybe they actually did die, and respawned in place, and Yutaka's injuries come from being too close to Yuki's spawn point... or he really respawned on the road straight in the face of a dark blue sedan...?

The difference between other players, NPC's and Miho may be that - they don't remember or don't feel their Deaths as a particularly painful experience. Injuries are more painful than death is. It's something that happens, and then you're continuing after respawn. Not so for Miho - to her, dying hurts. Even if the heart surgery hurts more, 'more than it used to'.

Is she playing by Neuralink ? while everybody else plays with game controllers or keyboards ?

[iffy]

Sure this could be something inside something else, story-wise. Aside from the true virtuality in a mundane sense; as we probably know, the causes exist inside the pathways of the authors, which then become effects to the observers. The whole process of creating and consuming, a frequent subject inside Megatokyo as well. There's also a notion of what-if the plots and characters had physical manifestations behind them, story that is willful and sentient. Yet if normally figuring out what is actually going on in MT is difficult, mixing the what's happening inside with what we logically know of its true nature, that's more like impossible to figure out. What is meta and what's not, might be best left unanswered - not because it's good to have no answer, but because it's more fun just riding along with it all. And that's another frequent topic in MT too. It's easier to dismiss things wholesale as just working differently inside worlds such as this, not as being worlds within others within others even if they really are. It isn't what happened, it's how it makes you feel. That doesn't make the answer being that it's all virtual, even though it kind of actually is that way, from a certain point of view.

As far as this damage and these wounds and how it works, same sort of thing. As we are likely aware of on some level, fiction is notoriously fast-paced, and viewers and readers expect that. More of the obvious, that they mostly prefer what they expect to the alternative, even though the alternative is more real or really real. Because it can be boring or would be tragic to have actual results or wait for actual healing. Besides, the audience can already directly watch scientifically accurate physics from the actions of fully consistent people and events that occur in real-time and have some amount of clarity as to the why of it all. So, the more non-sequitur gags like having the shoes blown off and the like, we ignore and continue, dismiss and move along. Months of recuperating from concussions or broken bones, weeks of cuts and tears and abrasions healing over, or the permanent issues arising from being blown up into specs of DNA; those are usually far from entertaining to most. The coyote falls a few hundred feet and has a boulder fall on him, he pushes aside the boulder and gets up, that's how it works. The story is over in an unsatisfying way sure to draw hordes if it ends there - boulder in ground, villain buried, hero safe. The End.

Yet even inside the worlds, there are expectations. In MT Ping, Ed, Yuki, Yanagisawa, Masamichi, we wouldn't expect they would all be as capable or squishy or resilient as each other. Like where Yutaka (who is seen as normal and so it takes him a day or two to recover from all his abuse) might not be out for weeks of intense physical therapy or Piro has cuts and scrapes heal in the course of (in-comic) minutes. And it still seems that having somebody like what we've been told Miho is, as being even only minorly inconvenienced by cardiac arrest, pacemaker insertion, and more, is her pretending. Especially given that minutes after waking up or arising from sedative or anesthetic, she tears herself out of bed, rips apart at least part of a few hospital floors, trounces superheroes etc, and beats up on a Ninja.

Even beyond that rapid recovery, or the clear power and capability somebody like that would have, there are the things not many would think odd about that list. The existence of superheros, ninja, somebody who could tear out of the hospital bed she was strapped to, that there was a contingency plan to neutralize for the sake of stability, that she is a person who can easily tear down floors of a building. No, that's not too odd. It's odd to think she is no average human of apparent age or does not have the same abilities and wants and goals as normal people do. It's odd that she healed more quickly than those notions would allow. But if she can walk on power lines or gap from there to here or laugh at what everyone else is terrorized by, what's so odd about waving goodbye at killballs before using the spectacle to silently travel to your nine day vacation, or being mostly fully operational a couple hours after some surgery. Yet one of the great things about MT is that could still all be the case.

So while we probably can't explain exactly how the magic works or how somebody gets a 'zilla out of tracking lock in .0445 seconds on an indeterminable exit vector, we probably don't need to explain them either.

[Roamer]

On Perma Death, maybe... it isn't a thing for any of the characters in the game...?

So look, there is the TPCD. Do they schedule disasters, so that civilian casualties and destruction of urban area are kept to a minimum? Even at the start of things when we 'see' it for the first time (recap'd by Largo) they don't seem to be doing a very good job at that. I mean, insane respawn powers and insane rebuilding capabilities are one thing, but in any country, such a disaster area as portrayed even there (during the Beer Garden Pushout) would clearly be cordoned off by outside-of-police-force for a lot longer than until evening, even after rebuild is completed. Rebuilding in real life can be fast, but only starts when rubble is cleared AFTER (most of) the bodies are found. Here rebuilding started straight away, ergo - no bodies?

Also during the Megagamers siege by fans of Erika, there were NPC casualties (hey, my head hurts - cause you've glass in your head) and the RR was... measly. Even the Zilla did not die from a head-on impact from the plasma cannon. But Inspector Sonoda, he was sitting on its head - and then, he's on the ground unscathed all of a sudden.

Or the not-shiny impact on the NPC beside Megumi. The Horde started respawning in place almost straight away and Megumi respawned a few tens of meters away. tattered and distraught at what she thought Kimiko's death was, but otherwise, pretty intact.

Even Piro... after giving his train card to Kimiko... when walking over the train line - was he only close to jumping off the bridge, or he really DID, and respawned back on the bridge straight away? Largo's electric shock resistance now makes much more sense. And the insane healing (being bumped into forehead like Piro was, would clearly leave a mark... not a mark on him; Kimiko's invisible broken nose; Largo's being able to stand up from the wheelchair and launch anti-tank missiles not long after arriving to the scene and not THAT long after having m3d wobblez, that had him use the wheelchair in the first place...).
The muffin cart driver after being hit by a pole - I mean his cabin was smack bang in the middle of the crumple zone, he could not have survived if this was normal physics environment. But there he is on the pavement lamenting the state of his scooter instead.

Miho's heart surgery, she's up no more than 12h after? OK i know keyhole surgery exists and all, and it's probably less blood loss than from a broken nose... she may feel weak and not have all her powers back, but still the recovery rate is insane.

So i think in this game, NPC or not, you can not /really/ die from physical injuries. I mean it's a game, and a comic, normal physics don't apply to bodies (maybe apart from Yutaka, but he's healing his ribs, arms and internal organs also insanely fast - he may be bandaged stiff now but he's able to stand already!).

Yuki may have fallen off the wires on top of Yutaka, but this is still something - with normal humans, both would die from such impact (there are rl examples of window jumpers dying and taking random individuals below with them...). While the magical girl did not even suffer a bruise, Chewtoy 'only' landed in hospital. But maybe they actually did die, and respawned in place, and Yutaka's injuries come from being too close to Yuki's spawn point... or he really respawned on the road straight in the face of a dark blue sedan...?

The difference between other players, NPC's and Miho may be that - they don't remember or don't feel their Deaths as a particularly painful experience. Injuries are more painful than death is. It's something that happens, and then you're continuing after respawn. Not so for Miho - to her, dying hurts. Even if the heart surgery hurts more, 'more than it used to'.

Is she playing by Neuralink ? while everybody else plays with game controllers or keyboards ?

Permadeath appears to be strictly an NPC only affair normally - I would imagine they would make an exception for someone who they caught hacking the system or otherwise violating the games' TOS. Disasters are scheduled by those who want to have them (and some of them have a ten year waiting list) and I imagine the schedule is based around how much destruction the TCPD can clear up before the next morning, with probably some stiff penalties for excessive destruction. Rebuilding can be pretty quick when it's all VR, the limiting factor would be available system resources to get everything exactly as it was before the destruction, down to the last crack and graffiti scrawl.

Healing in general is greatly accelerated, nobody blinks at seeing somebody who had a broken leg a few days ago playing a dance video game. I don't think we can include the MGs as useful examples here; just their ability to manuver at speeds suitable for jets points to incredible resistance to damage of all types. Plus, you know, flying.

[Wild Speculation On] Miho, I begin to suspect, may not have a player. Possibly she had one and they died, and she was too useful to be allowed to disappear. Possibly she was always designed as an Avatar, and over the span of the game she's become more. Maybe the affinity Ping has for Miho is because they're using Miho's code to build the EDS units. Maybe she's become, over time, sophisticated that the freedom she seeks isn't freedom from her status as an Avatar, but in the game itself? If that's true, then the job that they have in the outside world may come into focus as critical here in the game - once they realize they have an actual damsel in distress to rescue? [/Wild Speculation Off]

[Roamer]

Sure this could be something inside something else, story-wise. Aside from the true virtuality in a mundane sense; as we probably know, the causes exist inside the pathways of the authors, which then become effects to the observers. The whole process of creating and consuming, a frequent subject inside Megatokyo as well. There's also a notion of what-if the plots and characters had physical manifestations behind them, story that is willful and sentient. Yet if normally figuring out what is actually going on in MT is difficult, mixing the what's happening inside with what we logically know of its true nature, that's more like impossible to figure out. What is meta and what's not, might be best left unanswered - not because it's good to have no answer, but because it's more fun just riding along with it all. And that's another frequent topic in MT too. It's easier to dismiss things wholesale as just working differently inside worlds such as this, not as being worlds within others within others even if they really are. It isn't what happened, it's how it makes you feel. That doesn't make the answer being that it's all virtual, even though it kind of actually is that way, from a certain point of view.

As far as this damage and these wounds and how it works, same sort of thing. As we are likely aware of on some level, fiction is notoriously fast-paced, and viewers and readers expect that. More of the obvious, that they mostly prefer what they expect to the alternative, even though the alternative is more real or really real. Because it can be boring or would be tragic to have actual results or wait for actual healing. Besides, the audience can already directly watch scientifically accurate physics from the actions of fully consistent people and events that occur in real-time and have some amount of clarity as to the why of it all. So, the more non-sequitur gags like having the shoes blown off and the like, we ignore and continue, dismiss and move along. Months of recuperating from concussions or broken bones, weeks of cuts and tears and abrasions healing over, or the permanent issues arising from being blown up into specs of DNA; those are usually far from entertaining to most. The coyote falls a few hundred feet and has a boulder fall on him, he pushes aside the boulder and gets up, that's how it works. The story is over in an unsatisfying way sure to draw hordes if it ends there - boulder in ground, villain buried, hero safe. The End.

Yet even inside the worlds, there are expectations. In MT Ping, Ed, Yuki, Yanagisawa, Masamichi, we wouldn't expect they would all be as capable or squishy or resilient as each other. Like where Yutaka (who is seen as normal and so it takes him a day or two to recover from all his abuse) might not be out for weeks of intense physical therapy or Piro has cuts and scrapes heal in the course of (in-comic) minutes. And it still seems that having somebody like what we've been told Miho is, as being even only minorly inconvenienced by cardiac arrest, pacemaker insertion, and more, is her pretending. Especially given that minutes after waking up or arising from sedative or anesthetic, she tears herself out of bed, rips apart at least part of a few hospital floors, trounces superheroes etc, and beats up on a Ninja.

Even beyond that rapid recovery, or the clear power and capability somebody like that would have, there are the things not many would think odd about that list. The existence of superheros, ninja, somebody who could tear out of the hospital bed she was strapped to, that there was a contingency plan to neutralize for the sake of stability, that she is a person who can easily tear down floors of a building. No, that's not too odd. It's odd to think she is no average human of apparent age or does not have the same abilities and wants and goals as normal people do. It's odd that she healed more quickly than those notions would allow. But if she can walk on power lines or gap from there to here or laugh at what everyone else is terrorized by, what's so odd about waving goodbye at killballs before using the spectacle to silently travel to your nine day vacation, or being mostly fully operational a couple hours after some surgery. Yet one of the great things about MT is that could still all be the case.

So while we probably can't explain exactly how the magic works or how somebody gets a 'zilla out of tracking lock in .0445 seconds on an indeterminable exit vector, we probably don't need to explain them either.

I think it's more useful - certainly more interesting - to try and make it work within the framework of of the real world, or at least, some real world where the things we see happen could be possible. Except where the discussing deliberately moves into discussion of world-as-VR-game, I try to stay within this paradigm. I don't buy 'It isn't what happend' - It did happen, and if that was only inside a VR sim, those happenings still have consequences. It's been demonstrated that what happens in a virtuality can impact it's viewers in spiritual, emotional, and even physical ways. As Kimiko pointed out, Miho and Piro's relationship was no less real for being virtual. Indeed, that probably made it more significant than it would have been if it were physical. It allowed them a shared intimacy that let them keep their secrets, and at that stage, I can't imagine either of them giving up their secrets.

The healing/toughness issue is explicity the kind of gaming fiat that has been going on since the first pen-and-paper RPG. The PCs are central to the plot, and that requires that they be able to act. The more combat oriented they are, the more likely to sustain damage, and therefore the more resilient they have to be. Thus you get a scale of toughness (Constitution) and recovery (Healing) that scales with the threat. Assuming you don't do something really dumb any damage you take is fixable within a short enough span that it won't impact the game. And if you are really dumb, but the game likes you or finds you necessary, the game will find a way to avoid permadeath. And once you realize this, you can exploit it mercilessly. Historically, your odds of getting away with this improve greatly if:
-You are good comic relief.
-One or more players of the opposite sex find you interesting.
-You occasionally do something EPIC.
Being a redhead doesn't hurt either.

Oh, totally agreed. As I just noted in my reply to cidjen, I'm sorta kinda beginning to wonder if Miho has a player at all, or if she was created as an Avatar and has become so much more that she's become sentient and desires a life outside the game - this despite having no direct idea of what that life could be. The capabilities that should be odd, or that we think should be odd - maybe they were all that way once, and repeated exposure has made people accepting of them. Given the world that created MT - if we assume that the metaplot about it being a game played by players living in UnMod is true - if that is the world that created the game, I'm perfectly willing to believe that the creators have ulterior motives. MT could be a team motivator, a tool of indoctrination, a propaganda engine, or even a tool of emotional or spiritual assassination. These could all be the case.

Nope, but it's fun to try, isn't it?

[cidjen]

Thus you get a scale of toughness (Constitution) and recovery (Healing) that scales with the threat. Assuming you don't do something really dumb any damage you take is fixable within a short enough span that it won't impact the game. And if you are really dumb, but the game likes you or finds you necessary, the game will find a way to avoid permadeath. And once you realize this, you can exploit it mercilessly. Historically, your odds of getting away with this improve greatly if:
-You are good comic relief.
-One or more players of the opposite sex find you interesting.
-You occasionally do something EPIC.
Being a redhead doesn't hurt either.

Apart from Largo being a redhead - i see Yutaka/Chewtoy fitting nicely into 2 out of 3 of these So that's the trope played here ? Heheh, well played,indeed.

[Roamer]

Thus you get a scale of toughness (Constitution) and recovery (Healing) that scales with the threat. Assuming you don't do something really dumb any damage you take is fixable within a short enough span that it won't impact the game. And if you are really dumb, but the game likes you or finds you necessary, the game will find a way to avoid permadeath. And once you realize this, you can exploit it mercilessly. Historically, your odds of getting away with this improve greatly if:
-You are good comic relief.
-One or more players of the opposite sex find you interesting.
-You occasionally do something EPIC.
Being a redhead doesn't hurt either.

Apart from Largo being a redhead - i see Yutaka/Chewtoy fitting nicely into 2 out of 3 of these So that's the trope played here ? Heheh, well played,indeed.

Well, that was written with Largo in mind, but anyone who aspires to date a MG is going to learn to game the system, simply to improve their godawful chance of survival. And you pretty much have to step into "Epic outcomes" territory to keep your MG alive once the story is done with them. They don't seem to have much in the way of a survival instinct - or even much common sense. Masamichi could use an assistant, Yukata could use an extracurricular activity he could actually put on a college application, and Yuki is so stupid powerful that she's going to need all the help she can get.

(What was that Zom-Zom? Even though you've been shrunk and physically transformed, you can still breathe fire and have the strength of a full size 'Zilla - you just need to relearn them?) Awesome! We'll hold you in reserve for when she needs backup, then airdrop you in the middle of the Zombie Hordes and you can feast away. Yukata can make the rescue and pull her out, and Zom-Zom can get a nice lunch out of the deal.