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Puella Magi Adfligo Systema

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The Phoenixian said:
Okay so, my chief goal in interacting with her right now is to get her to stop and, if possible, reverse the damage, and to figure out what's necessary to do that. I don't think outright making demands will succeed at that, but we'll see what's necessary.

Before that, there's an important tactical consideration here though: It's also what I suspect will be her first argument if we ask her to release these souls:

I will stress that it is not a reason to stop, but we will need an answer to it.

These enslaved souls are frequently murderers, and those who aren't are likely guilty of crimes of a similar magnitude. If they are simply freed or restored, what happens next?

Again, this is not a reason to stop. It is a reason to plan.

If we're setting them free, it's not unlikely we'll need a check upon them too. If we're lucky it could be just as simple as mass antimagic enchantments, but we'll likely need something.

...It looks like we're going to need a meguca justice system sooner than we thought.
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Yeah, you're totally right here.

Ask how well Riona remembers each of the enslaved meguca, so we can approach the issue on a case-by-case basis?

Also, something we should probable make very clear in the current vote is that we're not expecting the release of enslaved souls to be an easy thing to do, and that we understand that she captured these souls for a reason.

I also think it's entirely plausible that there's some souls that might have to stay enslaved, or alternatively be killed. Magical Girl Ted Bundy might not be someone we can realistically redeem.
 
[ ] Take a moment to calm down.
-[ ] Tell Rionna you appreciate her being frank and upfront. You'll try to do the same.

[ ] You find her actions horrifying. Death would be a kinder fate.
-[ ] You understand that it may have seemed necessary or justified... but you want to make a better world then that.

[ ] You can share nigh-unlimited cleansing - doing so is in large part your goal.
-[ ] You want to work with her. (Pull out Aurora and Hildegarde.) You believe together you can do great things. Provide the means for girls to cleanse their gems without having to fight. An alternative to grief seeds. Maybe even one day reverse witchification.
-[ ] But chaining souls to her service is wrong, regardless of the crimes of her targets. Everyone deserves the chance to change, to grow past their mistakes.

[ ] Plead for her to not enslave any more souls. Ask if she can, in time, release the ones she already has. Ask her to give you a chance to show her that it's not necessary.
 
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I can get behind that. @Redshirt Army


[x] Take a moment to calm down.
-[x] Tell Rionna you appreciate her being frank and upfront. You'll try to do the same.

[x] You find her actions horrifying. Death would be a kinder fate.
-[x] You understand that it may have seemed necessary or justified... but you want to make a better world then that.

[x] You can share nigh-unlimited cleansing - doing so is in large part your goal.
-[x] You want to work with her. (Pull out Aurora and Hildegarde.) You believe together you can do great things. Provide the means for girls to cleanse their gems without having to fight. An alternative to grief seeds. Maybe even one day reverse witchification.
-[x] But chaining souls to her service is wrong, regardless of the crimes of her targets. Everyone deserves the chance to change, to grow past their mistakes.

[x] Plead for her to not enslave any more souls. Ask if she can, in time, release the ones she already has. Ask her to give you a chance to show her that it's not necessary.
 
Redshirt Army said:
[ ] Take a moment to calm down.
-[ ] Tell Rionna you appreciate her being frank and upfront. You'll try to do the same.

[ ] You find her actions horrifying. Death would be a kinder fate.
-[ ] You understand that it may have seemed necessary or justified... but you want to make a better world then that.

[ ] You can share nigh-unlimited cleansing - doing so is in large part your goal.
-[ ] You want to work with her. (Pull out Aurora and Hildegarde.) You believe together you can do great things. Provide the means for girls to cleanse their gems without having to fight. An alternative to grief seeds. Maybe even one day reverse witchification.
-[ ] But chaining souls to her service is wrong, regardless of the crimes of her targets. Everyone deserves the chance to change, to grow past their mistakes.

[ ] Plead for her to not enslave any more souls. Ask if she can, in time, release the ones she already has. Ask her to give you a chance to show her that it's not necessary.
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I'm liking this so far... need to calm down a bit, all these energies filling up my body, I need them to go away, so I can think. :p

Gonna try and dissect some votes for their intentions.
 
The Phoenixian said:
Okay so, my chief goal in interacting with her right now is to get her to stop and, if possible, reverse the damage, and to figure out what's necessary to do that. I don't think outright making demands will succeed at that, but we'll see what's necessary.

Before that, there's an important tactical consideration here though: It's also what I suspect will be her first argument if we ask her to release these souls:

I will stress that it is not a reason to stop, but we will need an answer to it.

These enslaved souls are frequently murderers, and those who aren't are likely guilty of crimes of a similar magnitude. If they are simply freed or restored, what happens next?

Again, this is not a reason to stop. It is a reason to plan.

If we're setting them free, it's not unlikely we'll need a check upon them too. If we're lucky it could be just as simple as mass antimagic enchantments, but we'll likely need something.

...It looks like we're going to need a meguca justice system sooner than we thought.
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We don't need to do anything right now. If she promises to release her slaves once we've arranged for a better solution, that's perfectly acceptable. Maybe we'll need to swallow our distaste and put them in a freezer until we're ready to give them the attention they need.

There are a lot of difficulties involved in setting up the justice system, corrections is just a part of it. It's not going to happen overnight, or even before the Walpy deadline.

At this point, it's all about declarations of intent. That's ultimately what our whole spiel about fixing things is.
 
Redshirt Army said:
[ ] Take a moment to calm down.
-[ ] Tell Rionna you appreciate her being frank and upfront. You'll try to do the same.

[ ] You find her actions horrifying. Death would be a kinder fate.
-[ ] You understand that it may have seemed necessary or justified... but you want to make a better world then that.

[ ] You can share nigh-unlimited cleansing - doing so is in large part your goal.
-[ ] You want to work with her. (Pull out Aurora and Hildegarde.) You believe together you can do great things. Provide the means for girls to cleanse their gems without having to fight. An alternative to grief seeds. Maybe even one day reverse witchification.
-[ ] But chaining souls to her service is wrong, regardless of the crimes of her targets. Everyone deserves the chance to change, to grow past their mistakes.

[ ] Plead for her to not enslave any more souls. Ask if she can, in time, release the ones she already has. Ask her to give you a chance to show her that it's not necessary.
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I don't think Riona will be convinced by an ethical argument that's missing a practical argument.
"Chaining souls is wrong, give people a chance to change."
"Ok, well, if I release this soul, she'll probably go on a rampage and kill a bunch of people. Should I give her another chance?"

I think a more realistic argument that she could agree to is this.

1: No more soul-enslaving.
2: Say that a justice system for magical girls is something we're working on, including jails and such. After we create this system, gradually move enslaved souls over to the justice system.

EDIT: Basically, what I'm trying to say is, she's not going to(and frankly, probably shouldn't) release the people she's enslaved unless we provide a realistic way to prevent them from doing horrible things as soon as they're released.
 
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To be honest, Kyubey traps souls in eternal torment.

Rionna... traps souls in '?'

Our end goal is to break Kyubey's system, forever. Until we have more information we really have to put the same expectations to Rionna's... whatever she's doing.

It's a better fate to be dead than to be in eternal hell.
 
Kaizuki said:
To be honest, Kyubey traps souls in eternal torment.

Rionna... traps souls in '?'

Our end goal is to break Kyubey's system, forever. Until we have more information we really have to put the same expectations to Rionna's... whatever she's doing.

It's a better fate to be dead than to be in eternal hell.
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I think everyone already agrees that the current state of things with Riona's slaves isn't okay.
 
Just want to put in my two cents here, but it's possible that Rionna's soul stealing shtick and using the souls as shades may be her only method of actual effective combat magic, much like how Homura's personal magic is really the only magical options she has outside of really minor stuff. It wouldn't be surprising that due to her powerful personal magic, that she's overspecialized in it to the point where it leaves her little to no other options.

So, if we ask her to release all the souls that she has, it might be the same of us asking her to pretty much weaken herself to the point where she actually can't fight, which she definitely wouldn't want. Given the ruthlessness of the Magical Girl system, I would understand why she would do the stuff that she does in order to survive, and how she has grown callous enough to the point where it doesn't affect her anymore. It's still messed up, but I can see why she would do it.
 
SAVE.

Top of our goal tree? Yes.
Redshirt Army said:
[x] Madoka
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Amen, brother.

Edelhart said:
Magical Girls dont get a choice in their power.

Riona knows her power is monstrous, but she had to use it or she would have eventually been overwhelmed in Grief and face a fate worse than death.
As she is forced to use it more and more in order to maintain a supply of grief seeds, she became more and more desensitized to the horror of her actions. Still aware of the horror of her action, but used to discarding that in order to keep living. She tries to reduce the severity of her actions by hunting 'evil' people as opposed to those most powerful, but she knows that doesnt make it that much less monstrous.

She could have easily decided to obtain souls based on power, to make hunting for grief seeds as easy as possible, and ensuring none can oppose her. Instead she (from what she says) only took power from those who she viewed as 'evil'.

I would say that she hates her power and, judging by the fact she outright tells Sabrina what she can do without any lies or sugarcoating to soften the horror despite what the normal reaction to it would be, she probably hates herself too.


She has also apparently been searching extensively for a way to cleanse her gem without needing to find grief seeds. She tells us she has searched every rumor and story of a way to cleanse herself, despite all of them having been false or misleading. She continued searching despite all the failures when many others would have just discarded it as wishful thinking.

Sabrina is what she has been searching for. A way for her to no longer need to commit atrocities in order to survive. A way for her to stop being a monster and just live, no longer needing to use the power she despises in order to collect seeds to keep herself alive.

We present Riona salvation. That she can finally stop using her disgusting power and stop being the monster she feels she has become.
And it looks like we are too trigger happy over what she CAN do to save her.

PMMM is a not a story about good and evil, its about people and the extent that they are willing to go for their survival.
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Nicely done. Please be around here more often!

mastigos said:
But step 1 of negotiations is "Gather information and context".

Plus your forgetting the other issue with regards to negotiations: it's all about give and take and tradeoffs. Yes, she steals souls ... but that's also kind of why we wanted to talk to her in the first place. Because that means she can probably help with de-witching.

Plus, with the right modifications could easily become a form a life-extension
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::nod:: ::nods:: We should keep with the basics. No need to attack from her actions. In fact, not much has changed ATM. All senior Magical Girls are cannibals. Most are murderers. We are here to reform the system. PMMM is a horrific prison setting, the only reason Sabrina gets a pass is divine favor.

[X] continue discussion.
-[X] artificial Grief Seeds
She wants this more than we do.
-[X] spreading cleansing and our ability to everyone.
[X] Will she stay with us a while?

I'd like to have the chance to save her. She wants life. If she wants a more moral life, then we can totally prevail.

Her power may not include "soul surgery " ATM, but she is another one who likely hasn't tried to explore those parts of herself. Re: Homura has a barrier magic.

Let her become our "disciple," in some sense. Sensei will teach her how to live.

Keep in mind, her development level is screwed up. We might be able to grant her trust in people again, open her misanthropy / poor social skills, and give her a positive use for her powers. Kyuubey didn't tell her how to use her power for Good. We will.

Learn her actual wish. Set her feet on the road to granting her wish.

Giving her a Clear Seed does not fix her problems, gifting her with Sabrina will help.
 
I said:
[X] Ask Riona to hear you out. No interruptions.

- Get through the whole thing. Show of hands, what can we offer? Don't stop midway through.

[X] Explain your work and hopes to improve things.
-[X] To set standards, justice, good living conditions, spreading cleansing, all of it.
-[X] Your work towards de-Witching, and hopes that she could help with it.

- Why should she listen to us? The world is shit and her actions are justified inside their workframe. Give reasons for why her actions should stop.

[X] Even if Riona's actions could be justified in some ways, from some point of view before now, now that we're here, they are not. Not anymore.

- Point out the change in morally justified actions, thanks to our work. Give Riona a chance to accept her actions would be monstruous, without actually condemning herself. She can be better moving forward. Clean slate.

[X] Demand:
-[X] She stops taking Souls.
-[X] If possible, she restores the Souls she's taken, and if not, releases them.

- What we need in order to work with her.

[X] Every problem, doubt, dificulty she sees with this, she can forward it to us.
-[X] A magical girl turning other into witches? We'll catch and imprison her.
-[X] The bodies from the Souls she took have decomposed? We'll magic them new ones.
-[X] She can't restore the Souls she took? We'll get friends working on it.
-[X] Etcetera.
-[X] We'll take care of it. There's no need nor justification for taking people's souls.

- We'll fucking take care of it. We're here now. Whereas before the best solution she had was to do her thing, now that we're here, that's immoral, because we are here and we'll take care of it. She doesn't have to do anything, just take the minimal effort to let us know.

[X] If she's not convinced we can do all this, give us a chance:
-[X] She'll stay where we can see her, and help us work on de-Withcing.
-[X] She'll agree to stop taking Souls.
-[X] She'll agree to restore/release the ones she's taken, once she sees we're making progress, that we're actually making things better.

- She doesn't have reasons to believe us. Give us a chance, to show her we're not talking shit. Part of our 'demands' she needs to pay upfront (no taking anymore souls). The other part, she needs to be open to be convinced things can be done better.
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From here on it's all with tacit question marks.

Redshirt Army said:
[ ] Take a moment to calm down.
-[ ] Tell Rionna you appreciate her being frank and upfront. You'll try to do the same.

- Improve social.

[ ] You find her actions horrifying. Death would be a kinder fate.
-[ ] You understand that it may have seemed necessary or justified... but you want to make a better world then that.

- Since we're trying to be frank, be frank.
- Might be a little too frank, could use something to soften the blow?

[ ] You can share nigh-unlimited cleansing - doing so is in large part your goal.
-[ ] You want to work with her. (Pull out Aurora and Hildegarde.) You believe together you can do great things. Provide the means for girls to cleanse their gems without having to fight. An alternative to grief seeds. Maybe even one day reverse witchification.
-[ ] But chaining souls to her service is wrong, regardless of the crimes of her targets. Everyone deserves the chance to change, to grow past their mistakes.

- Let her know about cleansing, so she has a reason to keep listening. Talk about making things better. Object to her actions, based on moral grounds.

[ ] Plead for her to not enslave any more souls. Ask if she can, in time, release the ones she already has. Ask her to give you a chance to show her that it's not necessary.
- Plead, rather than demand, she does better. Provide alternatives.
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Muramasa said:
[] You appreciate her honesty. She could've lied about it.

- Improve social.

[] Tell her the reason you believe you're here, the reason you exist is to help fix everything. This broken system. Everything about it.

- Explain why she should listen to us. Why we're going to object to her actions.

[] Ask her if she's able to reverse her magic.

- Ask her if she's able to reverse her magic.

[] You want to work with her. You believe together we can do great things. Provide the means for girls to cleanse their gems without having to fight. Gain, independence from grief seeds. (Pull out one of your hope infused clear seeds), Maybe even one day reverse witchification.
[] I want a better world for all of us. That means giving everyone of us the chance to change. A chance to live in a world without fear of witching, without having to fight if you don't want to.

- Why our objections make sense. Why her actions become immoral from here on.

[] Please don't enslave anymore souls. And if you can, in time release the ones you do have.

- Ask her to do better, again, rather than demand.
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So my reading of each of these three votes so far:

I said:
- Show of hands, what can we offer? Don't stop midway through.

- Why should she listen to us?

- Point out the change in morally justified actions, thanks to our work. She can be better moving forward. Clean slate.

- What we need in order to work with her.

- We'll fucking take care of it. She doesn't have to do anything, just take the minimal effort to let us know.

- She doesn't have reasons to believe us. Give us a chance, to show her we're not talking shit. Part of our 'demands' she needs to pay upfront. The other part, she needs to be open to be convinced things can be done better.
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Redshirt Army said:
- Improve social.


- Since we're trying to be frank, be frank.
- Might be a little too frank, could use something to soften the blow?

- Let her know about cleansing, so she has a reason to keep listening. Talk about making things better. Object to her actions, based on moral grounds.


- Plead, rather than demand, she does better. Provide alternatives.
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Muramasa said:
- Improve social.

- Explain why she should listen to us. Why we're going to object to her actions.

- Ask her if she's able to reverse her magic.

- Why our objections make sense. Why her actions become immoral from here on.

- Ask her to do better, again, rather than demand.
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LadyLynn said:
I think everyone already agrees that the current state of things with Riona's slaves isn't okay.
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The question is whether people will decide to accept it as being more okay than not having soulguca working with us.

I don't know rightly what to think about that. Some part of me argues that whatever is going on, if working with her reduces time to dewitching by even a few weeks then it's possible that total suffering would be reduced by working with her until we have that, and then insisting on this. Another part of me argues that even that would be out of character for Sabrina -- it certainly falls under the "this is simply wrong and should not be done" category present in like half of the world's systems of morality. I tend to hold to parts of both sorts, which has long been tenable for me by virtue of not needing to handle these sorts of issues.

What no part of me argues is that we can accept this.
 
Kaizuki said:
To be honest, Kyubey traps souls in eternal torment.

Rionna... traps souls in '?'

Our end goal is to break Kyubey's system, forever. Until we have more information we really have to put the same expectations to Rionna's... whatever she's doing.

It's a better fate to be dead than to be in eternal hell.
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In a way, I think Riona is basically a tiny version of our overall challenge.

KB condemns meguca to meguca hell to keep the universe working.

Riona condemns people to a lesser existence to keep helping wherever she can.

They're both morality problems, and if we're gonna solve the bigger one, we should be able to solve the smaller one first, yes?

LadyLynn said:
I don't think Riona will be convinced by an ethical argument that's missing a practical argument.
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I think the practical argument, for me, would be that by enslaving these souls, Riona... is making herself someone who slaves others. Give her time, she'll become a monster.

I'm not certain if this is something we can quite bring up without fucking up social, but it goes hand in hand with the moral argument that enslaving souls is bad because it's bad.
 
[x] Onmur

Everything else I could say has been said better by others - in particular, that "gem problematic magical girls indefinitely", something that's been floated before and that some people were arguing to do to Rionna right now, is not really all that different from what Rionna does.

This is a fork in the road. One path leads to "everything can be fixed". The other leads to "some can only be destroyed". I'm glad we won't be taking the other path today. I hope we won't be taking it tomorrow.
 
Just a question, not arguing for or against anyone; Have we confirmed that she's lying when she says that they're in a coma like state? Is their existence any different from being gemmed other than someone figuratively puppetting their body around in the meanwhile?

Also it says something that we're at the point where we're asking someone to "please release the souls." Magic is whack yo
 
-[] Continue vote in abeyance: Stay neutral, don't judge her. Give your spiel.
-[]One of my research holy grails is dewitchification. What you do is still better than witchification. The other is finding a means of replicating my power on a large enough scale to make grief seeds obsolete. Would you like to join me?

We are eternal optimists, so I think we should give socializing her a chance since she isn't being outright hostile. That said, she definitely has a power that we should be wary of and have countermeasures in place if she tries something stupid like soul capturing Mami to force us to follow her.
 
Onmur said:
I think the practical argument, for me, would be that by enslaving these souls, Riona... is making herself someone who slaves others. Give her time, she'll become a monster.

I'm not certain if this is something we can quite bring up without fucking up social, but it goes hand in hand with the moral argument that enslaving souls is bad because it's bad.
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I'll mention that Riona's soulslave thing is currently the closest thing to a jail for megucas in existence. A really fucked up jail, but right now, there aren't any alternatives. And I don't think we can convince Riona to release the people she's enslaved for what she thinks are good reasons, unless we can present her with a viable alternative: a jail of our own.
 
LadyLynn said:
I'll mention that Riona's soulslave thing is currently the closest thing to a jail for megucas in existence. A really fucked up jail, but right now, there aren't any alternatives. And I don't think we can convince Riona to release the people she's enslaved for what she thinks are good reasons, unless we can present her with a viable alternative: a jail of our own.
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I somehow doubt Yuki will like being a prison warden. :V But she would be our first option, if nothing else because she's got the power to make it happen.

We already put Anri in jail, and intend to talk with her, not just leave her there.

... We might need those therapists soon.

... Gah, Oriko could probably help, but I doubt Homu will like giving Oriko access to highly dangerous prisoners.
 
None of the votes feel satisfactory right now, even the diplo ones are either demanding too much up front, or relying too much on an emotional argument. I think we're close though, combining aspects of Onmur and Redshirt's proto votes would probably be good? Whipping up a combo vote.

[X] Take a moment to calm down.
-[X] Tell Rionna you appreciate her being frank and upfront. You'll try to do the same.
-[X] Ask Riona to hear you out.

[X] You find her actions horrifying. Enough said.
-[X] You understand that it may have been necessary or justified in the past... but you want to make a better world then that.
-[X] Explain your work and hopes to improve things. Standards, justice, hope.
-[X] Finally, clear seeds, and how they change everything.

[X] You can and will share nigh-unlimited cleansing - doing so is in large part your goal. As part of providing this, you ask that she ceases taking any more souls.
-[X] Additionally, move towards releasing or restoring all the souls she's taken, and if they need to be contained, to do so in a more humane way with our help.
-[X] Every problem, doubt, dificulty she sees with this, can be solved. The two of you alone powerful enough to manage that.
-[X] Offer unambiguous aid in whatever she needs (within reason) to begin releasing her captured souls.

[X] If she's not convinced, ask her to give you a chance:
-[X] She can stay here and and work with us, to see that we can keep our promises.
-[X] If necessary offer a probationary period where you provide her with cleansing, and she takes no more souls, as you work out a more permanent arrangement.


Thoughts?
 
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[X] argentorum

EDIT: Needs '[] Explain Clear Seeds', or something along those lines, though.
 
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Kaizuki said:
The question is whether people will decide to accept it as being more okay than not having soulguca working with us.

I don't know rightly what to think about that. Some part of me argues that whatever is going on, if working with her reduces time to dewitching by even a few weeks then it's possible that total suffering would be reduced by working with her until we have that, and then insisting on this. Another part of me argues that even that would be out of character for Sabrina -- it certainly falls under the "this is simply wrong and should not be done" category present in like half of the world's systems of morality. I tend to hold to parts of both sorts, which has long been tenable for me by virtue of not needing to handle these sorts of issues.

What no part of me argues is that we can accept this.
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For myself, I'm still deciding whether or not we can work with her.

Beyond the part of me screaming "Do not pay evil onto evil!" I'm... honestly not sure what choice to pick. Though I'm perfectly okay with forgoing her aid.

So I'm going to continue doing what I've been doing, and offer a bit of analysis.

------

Not only are we deciding here whether we can work with Rionna, but our teammates bear some consideration here too.

Sayaka's opinion is, of course, the 800 pound gorilla in the room, but Homura and Mami might also have something to say.

My honest personal opinion? If our teammates can't conscience working with her? Then that should be that.

[Q] Call Sayaka via Mami: Remember the other day's discussion about Oriko? Good news! We've found someone arguably worse to argue about.
 
Y'know what? No.

We've already got people trying to minimize the shit Rionna does, and that will get worse and worse as people start convincing themselves about how "useful" her power is to have available.

No.

[X] Use grief to generate quiet sound in Mami's ear.
-[X] "Timestop, now!"

[X] Rionna's soul gem is a ring on her finger right now. Gem her by cutting her hand off and obliterating her body.
-[x] Keep soul gem in privacy sphere, to isolate from enslaved souls.
-[x] Assume she can operate while gemmed. Avoid touching the gem or hand with grief so she can't take your soul through it or get pulled into time stop.
-[x] Be prepared for either time stop or a countermeasure.
 
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