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Shards of a Broken Sun [Megaten/Shugo Chara/Exalted]

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Ok, this has gone on long enough.

[X] Tell the full truth to mom.

I'm sorry, but keeping this as a sercret does no one good, if Kane&co is in danger, and not getting the help they need.
Yes, I know Amu will lose trust with Kane&co, but their lifes is more importing than any sercret.
 
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Simon. Andersen said:
I'm sorry, but keeping this as a sercret does no one good, if Kane&co is in danger, and not getting the help they need.
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At this point, I don't actually see much possible way to keep Midori from finding out. It's going to happen with or without a direct vote for it.

It's clear this woman is just going to keep drilling and drilling until she cracks Amu - or more likely, Miki first, since our blue beret twin has already expressed a desire to confess. So even if Amu refuses to talk, she'll likely corner Miki somewhere separately and extract the truth from her.

My voteplan was essentially damage control, first by trying to gauge the risk of Midori coming to see the Scavengers and also to mitigate the fallout with the Scavengers by letting them have the first say to Midori, without Amu technically telling her anything in advance. Or alternatively, hoping that Nobuko could scare Midori off trying to get involved if the prediction was bad.

She certainly isn't going to be swayed by Amu at this point.

I don't see anything short of a vote for applying Mind Control on Midori being able to avoid it at this point. And I'm not voting to Mind Control her mother.
 
PistachioCookies said:
[X] Plan - Seeing Is Believing
-[X] Call in help:
--[X] Saeki Nobuko.
---[X] Your own mother apparently isn't willing to unconditionally trust her own daughter (which is a bit sad). But there IS one person you know Midori seemingly holds an irrational level of faith in - that old fortune teller, Saeki Nobuko, who writes a column for the magazine your mother is the editor of. Given they worked together, your mother almost certainly has Nobuko's phone number.
---[X] Saeki Nobuko may sound like a hack on TV, but her powers are very real. Way back from the very beginning, before you ever joined the Guardians, hearing her words was what led you to give birth to Ran, Miki and Su. Later on, when Ikuto disappeared, it was Saeki's powers of foresight which allowed the Guardians to find him again.
---[X] Ask your mother to call Saeki Nobuko and request a reading on what she foresees if police were to be called the Scavengers' property.
---[X] Then ask what she foresees if Midori Hinamori were to go to the property.
---[X] And then ask what she foresees when Amu goes there.
--[X] Midori Hinamori.
---[X] Seeing is believing. If your mother insists in having a reliable adult accompanying Amu, she surely wouldn't object to it being herself. Your mother can draw her own conclusions when she gets there, rather than relying on anything Amu has to say.
---[X] You made a promise not to ask anybody for help or disclose the Scavengers' circumstances without first running it by them. So if your mother is that eager to help, even without your asking - she can go and ask them for the details herself and run herself by them. If the Scavengers want to lie to her face and convince her everything is fine... they are welcome to try.
---[X] When Kana was there at your birthday, there were few adults present. Your mother was one of the few - that freshly-baked cake didn't bake itself, after all. Kana will recognize her, perhaps Naomi too, if she was able to glimpse her before leaving. Whatever may be waiting there, your mother should be safe from the Scavengers at least.
--[X] Miki.
---[X] In the case there's someone at the house who aren't the Scavengers, Miki can invisibly scout the property and help to protect everyone in the event that it should be needed.
---[X] Though, obviously, not by using herself as a bulletproof vest.
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I don't think Midori is going to trust a fortune reading at this point, and bringing in Saeki means bringing in a new person to ask even more awkward questions.

Winged One said:
How does "they might think I've betrayed them to the psychic cops" not explain a risk of getting shot? :confused: Isn't it common sense that snitches get buried in ditches?
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This isn't the danger Amu really has in mind. She's worried about it, but the real danger is that Manticore might be there, or might be monitoring the property. Portraying it as the real danger puts the Scavengers in a very bad light, and is also a deception that Midori will probably see through.


I'm leaning toward "[X] Fuck it, full disclosure." at this point. I've tried to come up with a plan for partial disclosure, but anything I think would actually satisfy Midori is almost full disclosure anyway. If we try to clam up and sneak out instead, what Midori does out of worry in the resulting situation is likely to be worse for both Amu and the Scavengers than if we explained things.
 
Quine said:
I don't think Midori is going to trust a fortune reading at this point, and bringing in Saeki means bringing in a new person to ask even more awkward questions.
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I dare you to try and name any other character that Midori has a chance to actually listen to at this point, if they were to advise her to back off from the issue. She's also the only Precog aside from Tsukasa that Amu knows/can reach at this point and Midori is known to defintely have -some- level of trust with her. More trust than she evidently has with Amu right now. Saeki also doesn't have to be told anything other than the location of the house, certainly not anything to do with the circumstances of the visit and occupants - which is actually what we want to find out.

If Saeki can tell us the house will be completely empty to anyone who gets there - all the better. We won't even need to visit, Midori won't have to ask more questions.

(Such an outcome will probably result in us further asking Saeki where we can locate them and hope she can find them like she did Ikuto, but if you think about it, if we went there and the house was empty - we'd probably have ended up doing something like that anyway, not like Amu could track them herself with her non-existent levels in Investigation.)
Quine said:
I'm leaning toward "[X] Fuck it, full disclosure." at this point. I've tried to come up with a plan for partial disclosure, but anything I think would actually satisfy Midori is almost full disclosure anyway. If we try to clam up and sneak out instead, what Midori does out of worry in the resulting situation is likely to be worse for both Amu and the Scavengers than if we explained things.
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Unless somehow a vote to use psychic powers on Midori manages to win, I'm expecting that her finding out everything is an inevitability.

Especially now we know it's part of the Bane we chose.
 
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Quine said:
This isn't the danger Amu really has in mind. She's worried about it, but the real danger is that Manticore might be there, or might be monitoring the property. Portraying it as the real danger puts the Scavengers in a very bad light, and is also a deception that Midori will probably see through.
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Oh. Since I've misread that badly, I must adjust. Maybe this?

[] The most important part of the truth: they don't trust anyone but you and each other. And they're not that sure about you.
-[] The danger is the same one you're worried might have happened to them. They seem to think the police are more likely to believe lies than the truth. If you told the details they would definitely consider it a betrayal.
 
Midori, at this point, has been privy to the following snatches of conversation:
Baughn said:
"She- um. She- she was- I mean, she might not want me to say this? But Kana's- um. They're- she's- they have some- issues," Amu mumbled, looking everywhere except her mother's eyes.
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Baughn said:
"And- and- I promised not to say anything. It's their story. They'd be- they'd be so angry if I- um. And- and I- I really don't think it's demons. Probably. Aoi would have- warned me." Amu stared down at her hands.
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Baughn said:
"I- yes. Kana's my friend, and- I think I'm the only one. Anyone else who came visiting might get shot at. Or, or, um. Turned around and made to go home."
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Baughn said:
"It's not really my secret," Miki told their mother. "But I think, whatever you're guessing, you're not far off. Kana's a good person, I can tell you that much; a girl not that different from us, except that she's had it harder than Amu ever has, and she's been through a lot. So please, trust me when I say she trusts Amu with her life. Her friends might not be quite as accepting, but Kana likes us, and they like Kana. One of them's already adopted Amu as an honorary older sister.

"So trust us, Mom. We're not in danger from Kana's friends, and we're not going to go rushing into a dangerous situation if there's someone else there. Amu's got enough experience with that."
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Baughn said:
"I know what you're thinking," she said, voice rising, "Because I'm Ran and Su and Dia, too, not just Amu. I remember everything, the way you do. You- you're not a burden, or an illusion, or anything like that, Miki. And you're not going to go away, ever. So stop trying to- to- do stupid things. Like getting yourself shot at. That's- it's- dumb."
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So she's aware that Amu believes, even though demons will not be involved, that mundane guns could be and that there might be "someone else there" that might make the situation dangerous. And that the police "can't" be called, even though that's what you normally do when you think guns and dangerous men are going to be involved. The obvious guess given these snippets is that Kana and her friends are involved in criminal activity somehow - and she's also been told by Miki her guesses are likely close to the mark.

She's maybe hoping it's just Amu being paranoid, but in this case it's not just mere paranoia and Midori obviously won't stop pressing until she finds out the reasons. At this point, she's not just asking for mere insight into the situation, she's heard enough of that to make her guesses.
Baughn said:
"Then tell me why you want to put yourself in danger!" Mom's voice had risen. "I've had enough of this! I want a real explanation, or else neither of you is allowed out of the house until next year. And if Kana's in trouble, we can call the police. That's what they're there for."
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She's demanding full nitty-gritty details.

Nothing less will satisfy her.

She just won't leave it alone. Or at least, Amu won't be able to convince her to leave it alone without some serious social combat (which she is not good at) or else brute-force application of psychic power or both.

The way I see it, we can either fully cave to her, push the problem onto someone else (i.e. Saeki and/or by taking her to speak with Kana/Naomi directly, as in my vote) or actually try the combat, which I personally refuse to vote for.
 
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The reason this needs to be done by Amu is that, as far as we know, the Scavengers won't trust anyone else to check on them. How exactly that would manifest is uncertain, but even if they just ghost the place it still defeats the purpose of checking on them.
 
I think that before this, it was possible that we could have sent Utau and it would have worked since Kana knows her - but now that Midori has personally been alerted to the danger, she wouldn't agree to having Utau go either.

Midori is a bigger problem at this current point in time than the Scavengers. She's acting like a dog with a bone - bitten down hard and refuses to let go.
 
[X] The most important part of the truth: they don't trust anyone but you and each other. And they're not that sure about you.
-[X] The danger is that they especially don't trust people like JPs, and the entire country knows you've been talking to JPs. They don't know for sure that you didn't tell JPs anything about them.
 
An alternate approach I guess is just saying that you'll be going and that there is only so much you can say. Actually keeping Amu pinned down isn't actually that easy and I imagine her mother knows that.

Still this would leave her some what worried.
 
......Looks like we're gonna be watching Amu's mother crack open and peel apart her daughter like so much bits of shell off a hardboiled egg.

This sure ain't gonna be pretty.

My next vote for after this mess goes down is probably going to be for bringing Utau along on the visit. Since once Midori knows the situation, she'll probably concede about having Utau being there for the extra protection, given other adults would be more of a liability than an asset. Might still force herself onto the trip though.
Quickshot0 said:
An alternate approach I guess is just saying that you'll be going and that there is only so much you can say. Actually keeping Amu pinned down isn't actually that easy and I imagine her mother knows that.
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Amu's mother wants answers. Her threat to ground Amu isn't so much functional as it is indicative of how much effort the woman plans to devote to digging out the truth. Amu herself saying "no" and somehow withstanding her mother's ire is just going to make her switch targets and try to crack Miki instead.

And the downside of Miki being her own independent person is that we can't actually stop Miki from spilling if she decides their mother has a point and deserves to know. Which she definitely seems to be leaning towards. She might spill just to try and keep Amu's relationship with their mother from deteriorating.
 
PistachioCookies said:
And the downside of Miki being her own independent person is that we can't actually stop Miki from spilling if she decides their mother has a point and deserves to know. Which she definitely seems to be leaning towards. She might spill just to try and keep Amu's relationship with their mother from deteriorating.
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It would be hard to keep it away from her permanently. But with in this kind of idea it's more about first getting in to contact and reassessing how things are going for Akane and her friends.

Depending on the situation there one might be able to renegotiate what's secret or not afterwards then on practicality grounds.


In any case, I'm not claiming to have some kind of perfect solution. I just felt the discussion had got a bit to caught up in the idea of it's either this or that as option. So I brought up a third option that one could actually do, with its own trade offs.
 
[X] Full disclosure to mum about the Scavangers circumstances.
- [X] Explain that they are a bit like Utau, though they suffered under a much worse group than Easter.
-- [X] Mention that Manticore are part of the government, unlike Easter, but like JPs, and so they don't trust any officials.
--- [X] And unlike JPs, they are evil. Like Easter.
- [X] If possible, avoid telling her that Kana is a murderer. That doesn't seem like it would go down well.

Yes, this means breaking the promise. Miki is going to break it anyway if Midori keeps pushing, so lets do it properly and while it's within our control.
Also, Amu is a psionic that is likely to go Solar. She is not a fae.
It was a really dumb promise to make to start with, and frankly was made under-duress since she was within range of someone she knows is willing to commit murder.

This is no longer a conversation Amu is going to be able to talk herself out of.
Once risk of death came up as something both Miki and Amu acknowledged as possible, that thread is closed.
The Publicity Bane has removed the trope that lets kids go risk their lives as magical girls/superheroes.
 
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[X] Full disclosure to mum about the Scavangers circumstances.
- [X] Explain that they are a bit like Utau, though they suffered under a much worse group than Easter.
-- [X] Mention that Manticore are part of the government, unlike Easter, but like JPs, and so they don't trust any officials.
--- [X] And unlike JPs, they are evil. Like Easter.
- [X] If possible, avoid telling her that Kana is a murderer. That doesn't seem like it would go down well.
 
[X] The most important part of the truth: they don't trust anyone but you and each other. And they're not that sure about you.
-[X] The danger is that they especially don't trust people like JPs, and the entire country knows you've been talking to JPs. They don't know for sure that you didn't tell JPs anything about them.
 
[X] Full disclosure to mum about the Scavangers circumstances.
- [X] Explain that they are a bit like Utau, though they suffered under a much worse group than Easter.
-- [X] Mention that Manticore are part of the government, unlike Easter, but like JPs, and so they don't trust any officials.
--- [X] And unlike JPs, they are evil. Like Easter.
- [X] If possible, avoid telling her that Kana is a murderer. That doesn't seem like it would go down well.

I think this is the best we can do, at this point. Like everyone else has said, we've already spilled enough that, short of full-out mind control, Midori isn't gonna let us go without the truth.

And I honestly think we can convince Midori here. Using the character sheet as guidance, Amu's Charisma is 4 while her Manipulation is 2, so Amu talking her mom into letting her go and potentially save Scavenger's lives (Charisma + Socialize) is much more likely than deceiving her (Manipulation + Socialize).
 
Better this bandwagon than the one I made. :(

[X] Full disclosure to mum about the Scavangers circumstances.
- [X] Explain that they are a bit like Utau, though they suffered under a much worse group than Easter.
-- [X] Mention that Manticore are part of the government, unlike Easter, but like JPs, and so they don't trust any officials.
--- [X] And unlike JPs, they are evil. Like Easter.
- [X] If possible, avoid telling her that Kana is a murderer. That doesn't seem like it would go down well.
 
[X] The most important part of the truth: they don't trust anyone but you and each other. And they're not that sure about you.
-[X] The danger is that they especially don't trust people like JPs, and the entire country knows you've been talking to JPs. They don't know for sure that you didn't tell JPs anything about them.

Even if Miki can't handle the pressure, I think it's most important that Amu doesn't say anything. After all, it was a promise, and for a group of people who value trust above all else, breaking a promise, even with the best of intentions, will end in absolutely no good.
 
Yu Narukaze said:
And I honestly think we can convince Midori here. Using the character sheet as guidance, Amu's Charisma is 4 while her Manipulation is 2, so Amu talking her mom into letting her go and potentially save Scavenger's lives (Charisma + Socialize) is much more likely than deceiving her (Manipulation + Socialize).
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It's a contested roll.

Even if you somehow were able to stunt it to use Charisma, you're getting the penalty from having no Socialize, so Amu gets 3 dice at base, 4 or 5 with the stunt. Meanwhile, Midori has at least a 2 in Socialize, as we know she is a valid teacher to Amu for Socialize.

Whatever physical stat she'd be combining with it (Wits, Perception, etc.) she's likely to have at least 2 in it as well as 2 is meant to be "human average" and Midori is unlikely to be below average in the relevant stat. So she'd have roughly the same number of dice as Amu would, meaning it would come down pretty much to pure gambling whether it would work.

You'd have to throw in psionics to give Amu an edge. And I personally regard that idea as highly distasteful.

You could potentially get more dice if the stunt used Presence instead to try and intimidate Midori. But something tells me you'd have trouble getting anyone to vote for that, on account of it making Amu into an out-of-character bully.
 
PistachioCookies said:
It's a contested roll.

Even if you somehow were able to stunt it to use Charisma, you're getting the penalty from having no Socialize, so Amu gets 3 dice at base, 4 or 5 with the stunt. Meanwhile, Midori has at least a 2 in Socialize, as we know she is a valid teacher to Amu for Socialize.

Whatever physical stat she'd be combining with it (Wits, Perception, etc.) she's likely to have at least 2 in it as well as 2 is meant to be "human average" and Midori is unlikely to be below average in the relevant stat. So she'd have roughly the same number of dice as Amu would, meaning it would come down pretty much to pure gambling whether it would work.

You'd have to throw in psionics to give Amu an edge. And I personally regard that idea as highly distasteful.

You could potentially get more dice if the stunt used Presence instead to try and intimidate Midori. But something tells me you'd have trouble getting anyone to vote for that, on account of it making Amu into an out-of-character bully.
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Intimidate would probably have to build on Midori's earlier worry that Amu would use UMI on her, as the basis of the intimidation.
Which, er. Very ethically questionable, to say the least.
 
[X] The most important part of the truth: they don't trust anyone but you and each other. And they're not that sure about you.
-[X] The danger is that they especially don't trust people like JPs, and the entire country knows you've been talking to JPs. They don't know for sure that you didn't tell JPs anything about them.

If Miki breaks under the pressure then we can at least say we tried our best not to say anything?
 
PistachioCookies said:
It's a contested roll.

Even if you somehow were able to stunt it to use Charisma, you're getting the penalty from having no Socialize, so Amu gets 3 dice at base, 4 or 5 with the stunt. Meanwhile, Midori has at least a 2 in Socialize, as we know she is a valid teacher to Amu for Socialize.

Whatever physical stat she'd be combining with it (Wits, Perception, etc.) she's likely to have at least 2 in it as well as 2 is meant to be "human average" and Midori is unlikely to be below average in the relevant stat. So she'd have roughly the same number of dice as Amu would, meaning it would come down pretty much to pure gambling whether it would work.

You'd have to throw in psionics to give Amu an edge. And I personally regard that idea as highly distasteful.
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Ok, I think I phrased that wrong. I meant our odds of convincing Midori are better if we try to honestly convince her, rather than trying to manipulate her, because our Charisma is higher than our Manipulation.

You could potentially get more dice if the stunt used Presence instead to try and intimidate Midori. But something tells me you'd have trouble getting anyone to vote for that, on account of it making Amu into an out-of-character bully.
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I think you're laboring under a misunderstanding about how Presence works. Presence isn't about intimidation, it's about leadership and long-term persuasion. In fact, Persuasion is explicitly a potential Presence Specialty. So if we're trying to convince Midori that Amu is mature and capable enough to handle this situation, and is likely to be better at handling it than the police (given Scavenger's understandable distrust of the authorities) or anyone else they could reasonably ask, Presence is a perfectly reasonable Ability to use. (There would probably be a higher success threshold, though, on account of how Amu is a child.)

So I do think we should stunt to use Presence instead of Socialize, but we should do so by being persuasive instead of intimidating.
 
[X] Full disclosure to mum about the Scavangers circumstances.
- [X] Explain that they are a bit like Utau, though they suffered under a much worse group than Easter.
-- [X] Mention that Manticore are part of the government, unlike Easter, but like JPs, and so they don't trust any officials.
--- [X] And unlike JPs, they are evil. Like Easter.
- [X] If possible, avoid telling her that Kana is a murderer. That doesn't seem like it would go down well.
 
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