Well, I've finally had to read TDS.
A few quotes and other bits from it.
"Ever since I decided to protect the people as a magical girl, somewhere inside of me I wanted the perfect partner." Mami, via narration (by the narrator who is Mami), TDS.
Circa 1 year after contracting, Mami is taking notes on witches she has fought, researching how to use magic -- TDS canon
"If someone is killed by a witch or familiar, I'm sure someone else will feel the same way I did. And as a result of my life being saved, I received the power to fight witches. If, through my efforts fighting witches, even one person is spared my sorrow, it's worth it. So I thought... it was best for me to keep fighting. It's that thought that probably keeps me doing what I'm doing now." -- Mami
Anyway.
Kyouko Sakura...
Her primary characteristic... it's
self-loathing. Her secondary characteristic is
pride.
She believes... "Fighting for others won't do you any good!"
She wished that everyone would come and listen to her father: just listen, not necessarily believe. She comments on that wish...
"I wanted happiness for everyone, myself included. And the first step to that was to make sure my father was happy." -- Kyouko, TDS.
That's the kicker. The subtext of the wish was for her Father to be happy by the mechanism of having people listen to him -- for everyone around Kyouko to be happy (as e.g. she saw her family being unhappy because no-one would listen to her father, and she felt that if people would listen to her father, they'd also be happier...). But the result of having made the wish ended up being her Father being
extremely unhappy, and as a result everyone
else suffered, including her. Kyouko believes that the action of making the wish she made was a terrible one which caused nothing but suffering, and that that suffering is her fault --
she made the wish that caused it all, after all. It's not that she rejects the demands of her wish -- it's not that she rejects "people should listen to my Father." It's that she rejects the
entire thing, "I should never have made this wish; it made the world a worse place for those I care about, for everyone else,
and for myself." And in the same vein, "
I have made the world a worse place."
She loathes herself for her actions which tore apart the family that she treasured and desperately wanted happiness for, and believes that she herself can only cause others pain.
If she was going to make a wish, she believes, it should've been made for herself and have had nothing to do with her family, because by making a wish that interacted with her family she would be acting on their fate, which necessarily means she would be making it worse.
There's a giant discussion between Mami and Kyouko right after the "Episode 3" page in TDS, wherein Kyouko and Mami talk hypotheticals about whether it could be possible that saving someone from a witch would curse that person to a worse fate than letting them die. "If it's just gonna cause pain for everyone, would it be better not to save someone to begin with?" Kyouko asks.
Kyouko disdains saving others because she believes that she if she tries to save someone, she will only make their life worse. She fights Mami at the end of episode four in TDS, refusing to let Mami hold on to her and combatting her to force the matter, then says aloud to herself after she's alone, "You (that is, Mami) can find better friends than me."
However, in spite of this, Kyouko doesn't exactly act in accordance with how she talks. For example, she tries to convince Sayaka to look out for herself, even though she personally gains nothing from doing so. She never attacks Mami except to push her away, despite Mitakihara's abundant hunting grounds. She doesn't engage in familiar farming so much as she
does engage in
not killing familiars: "If it's just gonna cause pain for everyone, would it be better not to save someone to begin with?"
As much as she preaches selfishness, she flinches away from actively harming others, or at least those she doesn't dislike. She doesn't like others suffering, and so she preaches about selfishness to them so that they won't be hurt like she was, but she cannot bring herself to truly practice her own doctrine -- whether this is because she doesn't believe she deserves to be happy or because she still doesn't want to hurt others is an open question, but my suspicion is that both play a part in it. This is why she says the things she does as she goads Sayaka over Kyousuke, but does not simply kill Sayaka in the interest of taking Mitakihara as her own territory.
She is neither dead nor a witch because she believes she can still be happy, and wishes to pursue such. Whether or not she feels guilt for doing so is an open question. Based on her actions in canon after talking with Sayaka, I suspect that she does, but that she tries to shrug it off. Because she fights for herself, she is relatively resilient compared to Mami or Sayaka. However, she pushes away those who try to help her both because she feels that their contact with her will bring them pain and out of undertones of pride held over from her youth.
I do not believe she has recognized that being truly happy without anyone around her is functionally impossible. If she did recognize such, she would likely despair.
She takes in Yuma because she feels that she must: no matter how awful being with Kyouko is, she cannot conceive that it might be as horrible as Yuma's previous situation.
Shared trauma serves to reunite Kyouko with Mami by forcing Kyouko to recognize that her absence can inflict exactly as much damage as she believes her presence can.
Kyouko denies friendship with Sabrina because Sabrina's situation is good, and so a friendship with her would cause Sabrina pain. She insists that she "owes us one" for the act of saving the Sakura Church as a means of keeping us at arm's length.
Kyouko already knows about WPN. When she found out, she tried to accuse us of helping her in order to get her on board for it.
She remains unaware that we are in a relationship with Mami.
There's also just a lot more
pride involved with most of all of this than I've laid out. It is her secondary characteristic, and it doesn't exactly make attempts to get closer to her any simpler. She
really dislikes handouts, and a lot of that goes back to her younger years.
...
This character... she's not easy to handle, because getting close enough to her to help her results in pushback. Yuma is good for her, though.
Ah, I suppose I should address the extant votes, here.
[x] Meet with Kyouko and Yuma.
-[x] Aquire food, cleanse, just be friendly and chat.
--[x] Ask about how training went without us there. Any advice on how to help Sayaka grow?
-[x] Ask if they've got any future plans. Would Yuma be interested in going to school?
-[x] Find an excuse to have a private conversation with Kyouko to discuss some heavy stuff away from Yuma.
[x] Privately with Kyouko:
-[x] Discuss the situation with the Nakano Corporation.
-[x] Make it clear that we don't expect her to "owe" us for our help.
--[x] If she insists, ask if she'd be willing to consider a meeting with Mami at some point in the future.
---[x] Be up front about your motivations - you'd love it if they could put old conflicts behind them, but you know that that's not how emotions work - reconciliation comes from within, it doesn't work if it's pushed from outside. All you're asking for is just a meeting.
*shakes head*
Note the "Kyouko pushes people away because she thinks them getting involved with her is bad for them" parts above. Recall that Kyouko actively tried to push us away when we first met -- she only let us around because we'd helped save her bacon, weren't particularly offensive, didn't give her a good opportunity to push us away, were
amazingly stubborn about not letting her push us away... etcetera. Asking her to have anything to do with Mami... as long as Kyouko is still in push-away mode it isn't going to work out well, even if Kyouko agrees to it.
[X] Firnvote
[X] Meet Kyouko & Yuma and Acquire Food
[X] Offer cleanses for soul gems and seeds
[X] Ask what Kyouko wanted to talk to us about.
Ah... Not much to address here. Eheheh. No offense! Just... Firn did ask for... more.
If I was to suggest a course of action for engaging with her... It'd probably be to outline
to her exactly how and why getting close to her results in pushback, and then subsequently lean on the sense of purpose that's such a core feature of Sabrina. Develop a catch-22 scenario where pushing Sabrina away would mean harming her.
The metabomb cannot be dropped without additional structures alongside it. Alone, it would cause Kyouko to push Sabrina away.
... Not that she isn't
constantly trying anyway. That's what the entire "favor" thing is about -- it's about it being something that was done for repayment, rather than something that was done for
her. That, and her undercurrent of pride.
Recall where we left off:
"Fucking shit," Kyouko snarls at you. "The hell do I owe you?"
"Nothing at all," you say, propping your arm on the side of the bench. "I... take it Miss Nakano was able to pull some strings?"
"Fuck," Kyouko hisses. "Dammit. Dammit, I owe you. You and her, but she says you're footing her part on this."
"I..." you say, and trail off. Where did this come from? Kyouko's still prickly and proud and, well, her, but now she's insisting she owes you. After everything she's said and done.
... also, if Mika said that you're footing her part in this, does she mean that in the literal monetary sense? Because while you can raid the yakuza for more money, you're not sure you can make off with a few million to close an estate deal.
"No, actually- back it up, Kyouko," you cut her off before she says anything further. "Slow down and explain what actually happened? Because all I told Miss Nakano was that she should talk to you. I didn't tell her to do anything, and she hasn't actually informed me of what she did for you."
Kyouko makes an inarticulate noise.
"I talked to her, because you told me she was in the company that wanted to demolish my- church. I even played nice," Kyouko says, voice wavering with sharp irritation, bar that little hitch. "She made lots of noise, and said she'd call me back."
"Yeah?" you say. About what you'd expected.
"And then the next fucking day she comes back and tells me project's in 'unexpected re-evaluation mode' and nothing's gonna happen for the next three years 'til I figure out what I want?" Kyouko snarls. "What the hell am I supposed to say to that?"
"Thank you?" you hazard.
"... die," Kyouko says. "Please and thank you."
"Well," you say, trying to swallow your giggles. "See? That wasn't so hard?"
"No, really," Kyouko says. "Eat shit and die."
You laugh, leaning back on the bench. You get a couple odd looks from the passers-by, but it's fairly quiet here in the shopping center at this time of the day, anyway.
"What do I... fuck, I don't know what to do," Kyouko says. "I got time, I guess. And I owe you."
"Honestly... look, don'tstabme, but I consider us friends," you say. "I'm not gonna hold this over your head. And I... I really didn't do anything. I just put you in touch with Miss Nakano."
"Bullshit," Kyouko says. "Fine, fuck, we're friends, what the hell. Meddlesome Westerners. So what? I owe you anyway."
"I... I can't stop you, if that's how you feel," you say, squishing the Grief in your hands together with a bit more force than necessary. "But I really don't and won't hold it against you."
"Fuck," Kyouko bites out. "Fine. You're gonna talk to Nakano, right? If you're paying her back, then let me help with that."
"That..." You trail off. You were going to say that it wouldn't be necessary, but you can accept that. "OK, fine. If she does want something from me for the help, then I'll let you know."
"We're talking about it next time you're here," Kyouko snaps, and cuts the connection, metaphorically slamming the door.
... well, she's belligerently grateful. That's good, you think, and apparently Mika managed to pull off something. You should probably find out how, at some point. And what, if anything, you owe her.
Do note how her refusal to accept that this was done without repayment being on the table clashes with her avowed selfishness.
So, the question is whether or not we want to push forward here. I can now write a vote that will act as the start of exactly that:
[X] Meet with Kyouko and Yuma.
-[X] Food, cleanse, chat.
--[X] Ask how yesterday's training went.
[X] Speak with Kyouko privately. Use a sphere. Try to be somewhere where there's nobody around in the first place -- the park Kyouko and Sayaka train in, e.g.
-[X] Let her air anything she wants to air.
--[X] Ask about what the exact problem with this being written off as between friends is. Comment that it's very selfless of her, as you'd not expected anything in return.
[X] Cut.
I'd like to go only so far before cutting to voting because I think there's going to be a lot to be said for precise reactions here. The idea...
The entire objective with Kyouko needs to be to establish that someone can want to be friends with her in spite of all of the things she perceives to be true about herself. In order to do that, however, first we have to get those things into the open. We have to get her out of I-am-a-selfish-bitch, you-should-be-selfish-like-me-because-it's-good-for-you mode before any of that can be done, because if she's still in that mode and we try to air any of her issues with herself she'll just play it off and probably try to make us leave. So... I think the start to that is to dig at the hypocrisy she engages in, how she doesn't
act like a selfish bitch no matter how much she claims she does.
After that... after that we probably have to defuse the temporary Kyoukyarados, which is what the cut is in there for, but...
It's not without any risk. It kind of can't be, because Kyouko is prone to angry outbursts, and we
have to poke at her in order to help her: these are going to go hand in hand. But... It's what we have.
Whew. I'm gonna go knock off for as long as I can persuade myself to. I've been at this for five hours lol.
