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Puella Magi Adfligo Systema

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jmcdavid said:
Hang on...I think I know what Kyouko's real problem is.

I think she's scared to get close to anyone ever again after what happened to her family.

@Firnagzen Would you say that sounds accurate?
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Does to me.

I just don't know how to address it, she isn't quite hugging kind of person Mami is, and trying to rationally explan that her father made a bad choice might not go over so well.

Thus my best argument, is to make Mami, Yuma, Sayaka or all above make the emotional argument for us.
 
Firnagzen said:
Your senses jangle. You feel displacement in the nanofog bank you never retracted, a slinking, cat-like form pushing into existence. The first time you've ever actually observed Kyuubey teleporting in, you think.

You freeze Grief around the rat, locking its body in place. It struggles for a moment before going limp and motionless - not motionless like someone lying still, but the stillness of death.

Good enough, as long as it doesn't come back.
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Did Sabrina get hold of Kyuubey's ear-rings? Did they disappear when it went limp?
 
Hmm, we probably don't want to leave Mami's side. Should we assign Homura or Sayaka to make sure Qubes isn't bothering Yuma?
 
Firnagzen said:
"I'm not good enough for you," Kyouko sneers, and her words burn hot, hot, hot with anger. Anger at Mami, anger at the world, anger at herself. "You know it, I know it. I never was. I could never live up to your ideals, Mami-senpai."
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"Oh it looks like Kyoko has played her ultimate social attack, unfortunately for her this leaves her open to a loving counteroffensive from Mami. It may be early to say this Sayaka, but unless a third-party intervenes Kyoko may very well fail to scare anyone away."
Firnagzen said:
Your senses jangle. You feel displacement in the nanofog bank you never retracted, a slinking, cat-like form pushing into existence. The first time you've ever actually observed Kyuubey teleporting in, you think.

You freeze Grief around the rat, locking its body in place. It struggles for a moment before going limp and motionless - not motionless like someone lying still, but the stillness of death.

Good enough, as long as it doesn't come back.
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"My god, the Incubator with the attempted intervention only for a RKO out of nowhere! God as my witness I do believe it is dead!"

Outwardly Homura displayed no sign of the running commentary going through her head. In the distance an Iowa magical-girl with mind-reading powers slinked away in failure, defeated by such a massive collection of brain damage.
 
[Q] "You're not fooling anyone, Kyouko. It's kind of obvious that behind all that bluster is someone who's scared to make any bonds ever again, so she's trying her hardest to push us away."
-[Q] "And honestly, that kind of treatment is a little insulting. Especially when you consider that one of us had to pull your fat out of the fire not that long ago."
 
LendvaV said:
Didn't we see it die several times in the anime? With no sign of the rings disappearing?
Or are you implying there might be a difference when it voluntarily leaves a functioning body?
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I think he meant that we can finally verify in-quest whether Kyubey values the rings.

Also, because I don't think you been properly initiated... Belated Hello, Slightly Salted Meat!
 
blast flame said:
Hmm, we probably don't want to leave Mami's side. Should we assign Homura or Sayaka to make sure Qubes isn't bothering Yuma?
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I expect Kyuubey is likely still watching, now from outside our grief control range, but I doubt Kyuubey is particularly likely to bug Yuma right now. That would require him to 1: want something both desirable and achievable out of her, 2: have good leverage to talk her into that. I can't see anything happening to her that doesn't end in "Kyouko and White Ribbon group join forces to save Yuma" (read: bad for stirring stuff up between us) or more likely "Yuma takes matters into her own hands and intervenes" (again, bad for stirring stuff up) and if she was in an emotionally susceptible moment I doubt she'd be watching in the way she is. Maybe right here, maybe entirely uninvolved, but not watching through an enchantment from several rooftops away.

Godwinson said:
My main reservation about making that pickaxe strike is that the obvious following response is a demand to know why Kyuubey would do that.
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For what it's worth, the direct answer here is that "if something happens to Kyouko, Mami goes back to training and recruiting new magical girls to deal with the loneliness."

Yes, the full underlying why of that is harrowing but even there the basic answer is "new contracts are a source of energy for Kyuubey." I'm... a bit too tired right now to give it the full analysis of whether that works while being honest and how to construct it as such, but honestly, I'm also kind of inclined to just... let her know that infobombs do tie into this. I'm starting to debate the merits of talking to her about the lichbomb.

RE: @Kaizuki's plan, it may be worth considering Kyoko's possible guilt towards orphaning Yuma here too, as without the lichbomb going "If you didn't do that, you would have died," Kyouko's familiar farming to stay a magical girl is probably more selfish to her own eyes than to literally everyone else here.

And she does seem trending towards caring about that a little. Could be a sign that that's still going to be a factor even after Kyubey's responsibility in the death of her family is brought up.
 
Godwinson said:
My main reservation about making that pickaxe strike is that the obvious following response is a demand to know why Kyuubey would do that.
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Gonna be honest, with Sayaka read in on the witchbomb I think we have the option of "You don't want to know. She literally just read me in on this, *you don't want to know.*"

Double check that for me tho.
 
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Chiming in as Apprentice of the Obvious. To my eye, Kyouko reads as ashamed, above all else. She doesn't think she deserves nice things. She will fight hard, in her current frame of mind, to avoid recovering her friendship with Mami, because that would be a nice thing. Her lashing out is driven from that motivation. That's what we need to break through, by whichever means, in order to make progress toward anything.

It's an attitude that she's held for a while. Checking up on Yuma can definitely be done without provoking her. Yuma is innocent and deserves nice things and better people than Kyouko, after all. :(

It is a decidedly self-flagellating mindset. With a contradiction that I don't completely understand of "I'm a bad person (sinner?) who doesn't deserve nice things" and "I'll look out for myself and take things, as long as they're not too nice". I worry a little about how much of the context is catholic, because I don't understand any religious doctrine very well, much less catholicism in particular. "there's a place for people like me" seems like an important mantra.

Anyway, the lever I'm tempted to use to prise open that shell of self-flagellation is Yuma. Kyouko is raising Yuma, and this doctrine of isolation is bad for her. Give Kyouko a rationalization to stop this. The best rationalizations are not lies or half-truths, but the pieces of the bigger picture that Kyouko might be prepared to accept right now.

That's not to say that Kaizuki's approach doesn't sound reasonable. In particular, something that provokes Kyouko to try to explain but cast doubt on her reasons for thinking herself such a horrible sinner, seems like a right approach.
 
People. I have just the thing:
Firnagzen said:
There's a place for people like me, Mami.
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[Q] "That place is social skills courses you goddamn tsundere!"
-[Q] "Seriously, has your dad never reached that chapter about redemption through repentance? For a Christian, your outlook is too close to someone who read Dante's fanfiction."

If we are going to interfere we need to be even worse than Kyouko so that even Kyouplomacy cracks under the weight of our tactlessness.
 
LendvaV said:
Didn't we see it die several times in the anime? With no sign of the rings disappearing?
Or are you implying there might be a difference when it voluntarily leaves a functioning body?
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Supplemental materials confirm that Kyubey's intelligence, or point of connection with a body, is in the rings. If they're gone, it implies that rather than a body simply being dead, he vacated it and moved his awareness somewhere else in the scene.
 
[X] Wait. Let Mami handle it.
[X] If Mami doesn't handle it or the conversation lingers around Kyoko's dad's actions, telepathy Mami
-[X] "Why didn't Kyuubey make her dad forget?"

Mami got past the "I hate you" stage just fine, and that's the one with the biggest chance of discouraging her. The "I hate myself" stage should be way less painful in comparison, she just might need a poke in the right direction. Or she might not, it's her call.
 
jmcdavid said:
Hang on...I think I know what Kyouko's real problem is.

I think she's scared to get close to anyone ever again after what happened to her family.
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If you read between the lines in canon, it's all but confirmed. Kyoko only helps herself because everything went wrong when she tried to help her family. She helps others when it weighs on her conscience and she develops close relationships as a result, but she otherwise tends to shy away from companionship.

Godwinson said:
Did Sabrina get hold of Kyuubey's ear-rings? Did they disappear when it went limp?
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Technically, those are halos. Sufficiently advanced aliens are indistinguishable from angels.

AuraTwilight said:
Supplemental materials confirm that Kyubey's intelligence, or point of connection with a body, is in the rings. If they're gone, it implies that rather than a body simply being dead, he vacated it and moved his awareness somewhere else in the scene.
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Come to think of it, this useful separation between soul and body may have inspired him to invent soul gems.
 
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