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Puella Magi Adfligo Systema

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[X] Kaizuki

Karne Warrior is a close second at the moment, and @Hypervene and the proxy they hold probably should check to see if they want to change it (not that I'm sure Firn uses the votes strictly so much as a guideline anyway) since i'm not sure theres any difference other than the Hypervene Intervene bit.

I am worried with all of these really that Niko slapping Hijiri is.... basically the best possible thing that could have happened for Villain!Hijiri , to the point mind control to cause it would've been a sound tactic. Obviously for Innocent!Hijiri its bad and should be reprimanded etc. But the thread seems to have largely forgotten all of the shadowrunny "lets play off Prisoners Dilemma and question her three dimensionally" plans from the previous vote the moment it happened, to the point that most of the votes don't even seem to fully reassure the Pleaides that yes we are still on their side and cautious about the one who /attacked us all/. Prisoners certainly have rights, it just looks at a glance to IC observers like we're almost forgetting she is a prisoner.

It also raises an interesting philosophy question thats a pet topic of mine :V . Basically..."Is Immortal Life Cheap?" Do the social mores (and legal rules) of aggressive or violent action shift when its undisputed that the consequences will be less? There's no question Niko knows that Hijiri is a magical girl, I have no actual idea if the Pleiades are Lich-bombed yet though. Obviously our RL law covers a difference between Assault and Attempted Murder, and its somewhat the same point. Would angrily stabbing Wolverine be less significant than stabbing Professor Xavier, to the point of being equivalent to a "reprimand and move on" light slap? Do we instead abhor violence enough in any circumstance that no level of aggression is forgivable (at least socially) , or is it the added circumstances of the parent/child vibe or the restrained-prisoner issue that make the slap worse than if say Sayaka had slapped us for not telling her the Meta-bomb yet.

In short, people seem to be judging the slap based on "hard enough to send her spinning to the ground", commenting how that would hurt a normal person and how that provokes more response. But should it, when targeted at a super-humanly resilient magical girl?
 
Your vote proposes dumping a lake of grief on top of a fight in full view of several people that are on hair triggers. You want a fight? That's how you get a fight. That's how you get Niko defending herself from an apparent attack by Hijiri, Hijiri defending herself from an apparent attack by Hijiri, Saki doing something that'll certainly not help us, Kazumi - who, if you'll recall, can't hear what Niko and Hijiri are saying - obliterating Hijiri from orbit, and probably Sayaka blasting everything and everyone with antimagic just to be sure. I thought that letting this continue was the worst possible course of action, but apparently I was wrong - that would be false-flagging a casus belli and getting Niko and Hijiri into a knife-fight right in front of everyone with added audience participation. And that's the first thing in your entire vote - dump a lake of grief on the place. You're explicitly doing that before you start talking - you're using it to distract Saki so you can get away. That's what I mean when I say that you're doing nothing to deal with Kazumi. Kazumi is going to see a lake of black shit attacking everyone and is going to go fucking ballistic.

Or do you plan to wait until Kazumi is in range and then physically restrain everyone? I guess that, if you're concluding that a fight is inevitable, you might as well win it up front? But, uh, fuck that idea with a rusty fork.

Hell, you think that this is going to work even if you do get Kazumi? Attacking the Pleiades is what set her off in the first place, and you're going to do it again to more of them?

On Saki, I invite you to consider the details of the vote that you're criticizing, as well as the current geometry in the update. Use grief to slip past Saki. Avoid physical escalation. Saki is behind us and pulling us away, holding on to our shoulder. There's a different between "pushing past" someone and "slipping out of their grip as they try to drag you away". Any confrontation with Saki is too much, but we also can't just let her hold on to us. So we don't do either; we simply vanish out from underneath her grip. Utility fog lets us do that.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/excoriate said:
(transitive) To strongly denounce or censure.
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We disapprove. Thoroughly and completely. And as specified by the words immediately preceding that, we do so coldly. That's not calm, but it's also not heated. Tones of voice are many and varied and there are options outside the false choice of "calm" or "screaming". It is entirely possible to disapprove of something without causing a fight. If that weren't possible the leading cause of ER visits in the developed world would be children stealing from cookie jars and escalating in response to parental disapproval. Rather, all you have to do is not get heated and not give them any opportunity to go on the defensive.
 
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Vebyast said:
Your vote proposes dumping a lake of grief on top of a fight in full view of several people that are on hair triggers. You want a fight? That's how you get a fight. That's how you get Niko defending herself from an apparent attack by Hijiri, Hijiri defending herself from an apparent attack by Hijiri, Saki doing something that'll certainly not help us, Kazumi - who, if you'll recall, can't hear what Niko and Hijiri are saying - obliterating Hijiri from orbit, and probably Sayaka blasting everything and everyone with antimagic just to be sure. I thought that letting this continue was the worst possible course of action, but apparently I was wrong - that would be false-flagging a casus belli and getting Niko and Hijiri into a knife-fight right in front of everyone with added audience participation. And that's the first thing in your entire vote - dump a lake of grief on the place. You're explicitly doing that before you start talking - you're using it to distract Saki so you can get away. That's what I mean when I say that you're doing nothing to deal with Kazumi. Kazumi is going to see a lake of black shit attacking everyone and is going to go fucking ballistic.

Or do you plan to wait until Kazumi is in range and then physically restrain everyone? I guess that, if you're concluding that a fight is inevitable, you might as well win it up front? But, uh, fuck that idea with a rusty fork.

Hell, you think that this is going to work even if you do get Kazumi? Attacking the Pleiades is what set her off in the first place, and you're going to do it again to more of them?

On Saki, I invite you to consider the details of the vote that you're criticizing, as well as the current geometry in the update. Use grief to slip past Saki. Avoid physical escalation. Saki is behind us and pulling us away, holding on to our shoulder. There's a different between "pushing past" someone and "slipping out of their grip as they try to drag you away". Any confrontation with Saki is too much, but we also can't just let her hold on to us. So we don't do either; we simply vanish out from underneath her grip. Utility fog lets us do that.

We disapprove. Thoroughly and completely. And as specified by the words immediately preceding that, we do so coldly. That's not calm, but it's also not heated. Tones of voice are many and varied and there are options outside the false choice of "calm" or "screaming". It is entirely possible to disapprove of something without causing a fight. If that weren't possible the leading cause of ER visits in the developed world would be children stealing from cookie jars and escalating in response to parental disapproval. Rather, all you have to do is not get heated and not give them any opportunity to go on the defensive.
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If you'd rather generate a grief-based sound cannon we could use that instead of a grief lake. We have a number of plausible nonviolent tools with which to simply... not allow Niko/Hijiri to shut us out of this via volume. I simply chose one.

Your preference for assuming that Kazumi will view our actions as somehow hostile despite us contacting her on telepathy and informing her that we are stepping into the argument to deescalate it is very much out of line with how I envision doing this. If you believe that we can't time our own actions to coincide properly with a brief moment bought by the surprise of deploying something to put a stop to the shouting so as to give everyone a very clear idea of what is going on, I disagree with you. If you believe that by now there are still people present who don't associate "grief witchy wtf" with "sabrina" then I believe you are significantly underestimating the capacities of those present to categorize phenomena.

On Saki, I don't see your new argument any differently at all. The existing bandwagon has us, 1) move past Saki, 2) say negative things to Niko, immediately after Saki has started trying to physically remove us while stating that Niko can handle herself. If you think Saki won't act against that in some way, you're deceiving yourself.
 
Just gonna remind people that there are seveal other plans on offer than the ones currently being argued over

Y'know, in case that helps
 
Kaizuki said:
On Saki, I don't see your new argument any differently at all. The existing bandwagon has us, 1) move past Saki, 2) say negative things to Niko, immediately after Saki has started trying to physically remove us while stating that Niko can handle herself. If you think Saki won't act against that in some way, you're deceiving yourself.
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We're the local grief-mancer. "Cleanse your soul gem" is about as close as we get to "That man needs CPR, now stand aside". Additionally, the bit about Saki has a second part: "Don't let it escalate physically". And that's simple - just act quickly and confidently and don't let her catch up. Slipping out using the utility fog will buy us five feet of walking. She'll try again and we'll keep walking again. If we still haven't gotten the rest of the plan rolling by then, we let her slip on a rock or catch her toe on a bit of pavement. And you think that all of that is going to be less likely to cause a fight with Saki than inundating her with inky witchy blackness? Are you mad?

The issue with Kazumi is that you blow the place up before you start talking. Your vote is ordered that way and you have explicit dependencies between actions indicating that you go hot before you start talking. I recommend that you change your vote so that you are explicitly talking before acting instead of the other way around.
 
Might help mildly to clarify whether " Use utility fog to slip out of Saki's grasp " is closer to
1. Cause the kinetic and static friction of our shoulder to be functionally or truly Zero due to a layer of grief-lubricant (nearly impossible to hold on without say a looping grip around arm/torso)
2. Telekinetically remove or hold her hand by grasping it with Grief
 
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Vebyast said:
The issue with Kazumi is that you blow the place up before you start talking. Your vote is ordered that way and you have explicit dependencies between actions indicating that you go hot before you start talking. I recommend that you change your vote so that you are explicitly talking before acting instead of the other way around.
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Alright, that's a good point. Here's the changes based on that.

[X] Telepathy Saki, Umika, Kazumi, Mami, and Sayaka. Address Kazumi and convey your viewpoint -- these two are both in breakdowns and they're exploding at each other. You're going to deescalate this and get them started actually hearing what they're saying.
-[X] Drop grief on the roof (harmlessly, in a flood, leave everybody vision after you're done but inundate the place). This will get Niko and Hijiri to stop screaming for a little bit. Remove yourself from Saki.
-[X] Calmly step in and assert that as you understand things, both sides are telling the truth and expressing valid statements, but neither is understanding anything the other is saying in the way it's meant to be understood.
--[X] Your job is to get these two to actually explain their perspectives and knowledge to each other in a way that the other side can actually understand. Do your job.
---[X] Hijiri needs to know explicitly what Niko's wish was. Hijiri needs to provide Niko with a serious explanation of why she contracted, and you need to take that explanation and use it to give Niko a different target depending on what's in it. Both of them need to calm down and listen to each other.
-[X] If you get things to calm down enough see if you can get Niko to apologize for slapping Hijiri, because that was not okay.
 
Racoras said:
Might help mildly to clarify whether " Use utility fog to slip out of Saki's grasp " is closer to
1. Cause the kinetic and static friction of our shoulder to be functionally or truly Zero due to a layer of grief-lubricant (nearly impossible to hold out without say a looping grip around arm/torso)
2. Telekinetically remove or hold her hand by grasping it with Grief
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Little bit of both. Insert a tiny layer in between hand and shoulder, expand a hair to give room, casually walk out of shell. Or just make it super-slippery. Maybe add something like the juggernaut effect on top of the slipperyness or to get ourselves a straighter path out. Whatever it is, she doesn't have us in a headlock or anything, no positive lock, so we can just walk out from inside her grasp. Ideally we do it quickly enough and smoothly enough that we're intervening by the time she realizes what's happening.

Kaizuki said:
You're going to deescalate this
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Kaizuki said:
Drop grief on the roof (harmlessly, in a flood, leave everybody vision after you're done but inundate the place)
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I still think that this really doesn't feel like "de-escalating". Kazumi was only the biggest issue; you're still going to end with Hijiri and Niko trying to kill each other, and they're close enough together that they don't need to be able to see each other to make their attacks happen. And that's assuming they aren't so fast that they get their opening attacks off before the tide of grief reaches them.
 
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Vebyast said:
I still think that this really doesn't feel like "de-escalating". Kazumi was only the biggest issue; you're still going to end with Hijiri and Niko trying to kill each other, and they're close enough together that they don't need to be able to see each other to make their attacks happen. And that's assuming they aren't so fast that they get their opening attacks off before the tide of grief reaches them.
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Would you prefer that we calmly approach them without doing this and speak in a normal tone? Because I'm completely willing to vote for that.

Would you prefer we use some other means to interrupt them? Because we could use a sound cannon and be more violent about this.

I reiterate that everyone here recognizes that grief = Sabrina. Furthermore, we should be able to move our grief very, very rapidly.
 
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Normal tone of voice won't work at all, they'll just ignore it. We do need something that'll take higher priority than another round of screaming.

I'd say that yelling really loudly is actually the second-best idea so far. The issue is that it'll let them keep their train of thought, which means that our explanations will be a continuation of the argument and they'll default to opposing us - it'll be much easier for them to dig in further. Remember what I said earlier about the voice of authority failing when you try to use it in an ongoing argument, how all you do then is set the other party against your authority as well as your argument? It's the same principal here. Also, just yelling at them louder feels... ugh, like we're doing exactly the same things wrong that they're doing. I'm also not too happy about it potentially resulting in a round of mind-wipes in the surrounding areas depending on what we yell.

The bandwagon's current plan is still, I believe, the best option - Tell Niko to cleanse her gem. She can't ignore that and she knows it, and the change of context will give us the opening we need to start talking without her going on the defensive. Then we open by lecturing her about the attack, which is - I fucking hope - not something that she'll try to defend, and that'll both get Hijiri more on our side (which is necessary for getting her to listen to our message to her) and keep Niko more off balance when we suddenly swing back to the actual argument. And, of course, it has the added bonus that Niko probably actually does need to cleanse her gem, and that that's probably a contributing factor to the current shouting match.
 
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Vebyast said:
Then we open by lecturing her about the attack, which is - I fucking hope - not something that she'll try to defend, and that'll both get Hijiri more on our side (which is necessary for getting her to listen to our message to her) and keep Niko more off balance when we suddenly swing back to the actual argument. And, of course, it has the added bonus that Niko probably actually does need to cleanse her gem, and that that's probably a contributing factor to the current shouting match.
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The moment you get either of them "on our side" we have to bully the other one into cooperating. Our priority is to be neutral. You are not accomplishing that with that vote.

If you think we can get them to listen to us by walking up and calmly telling Niko to cleanse her gem I'm all for it.
 
To be honest, none of the plans to get Niko to listen to us seems... good.

Yell? They might ignore.

Intimidate? Flip out and start fights.

Cleansing? Niko's got her own Seeds.

What I'd like to do is describe what we're seeing to Kazumi and Saki, how horrible it is, and ask them to help us stop it.

That'll take a couple of seconds during which I expect the Kannas will keep yelling each other's heads off, but I don't think they're actually going to get into an actual (meguca) fight so soon.

If Saki and Kazumi don't help reign in Niko? Tell them we're so fucking disappointed in them and just... make a Grief wall between the Kannas.

Not an attack, a defense, an obstruction.

Or maybe ask Mami to ribbon up Niko.
 
Onmur said:
To be honest, none of the plans to get Niko to listen to us seems... good.

Yell? They might ignore.

Intimidate? Flip out and start fights.

Cleansing? Niko's got her own Seeds.

What I'd like to do is describe what we're seeing to Kazumi and Saki, how horrible it is, and ask them to help us stop it.

That'll take a couple of seconds during which I expect the Kannas will keep yelling each other's heads off, but I don't think they're actually going to get into an actual (meguca) fight so soon.

If Saki and Kazumi don't help reign in Niko? Tell them we're so fucking disappointed in them and just... make a Grief wall between the Kannas.

Not an attack, a defense, an obstruction.

Or maybe ask Mami to ribbon up Niko.
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I will support a vote which does something along these lines, provided it is done calmly and without directly condemning either Hijiri or Niko off the bat.
 
Kaizuki said:
If you think we can get them to listen to us by walking up and calmly telling Niko to cleanse her gem I'm all for it.
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Not calmly, but yes, I think that we can just go "Niko! Cleanse your gem now!" and get an opening.
Kaizuki said:
The moment you get either of them "on our side" we have to bully the other one into cooperating. Our priority is to be neutral. You are not accomplishing that with that vote.
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Our priority is not to be neutral. Our priority is to get a good outcome. We will have trouble achieving a good outcome if one of them sees us as siding with the other. You will note that this is not the same as actually being neutral.

There are two things we can do to avoid the appearance of favoritism and the bandwagon does both. First, act so that each person is feeling supported but the other doesn't realize that the other is feeling supported. This isn't a zero-sum game. Second, don't permit the perception of favoritism - allow each side to believe the other side is receiving no more support. This is what the bandwagon counts on with the opening, since the first action is the one with no previous history to weight it and is where the greatest potential for disturbance is present - choose something that one party cannot use to set themselves against you. In this case, that's condemning Niko's opening assault - If Niko can defend that action to herself we have far bigger problems to deal with than anything we're trying to address with the rest of the vote.
Onmur said:
Cleansing? Niko's got her own Seeds.
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I don't think so, actually. Remember that they were so short when we came that they had to go hunting to find one for us to turn into a Clear Seed. Even then it's far simpler for her to back out to let us do it. And, honestly, getting Niko to go rifling through her pockets for a bit is almost as good as getting her to stand back completely.


Onmur said:
To be honest, none of the plans to get Niko to listen to us seems... good.

Yell? They might ignore.

Intimidate? Flip out and start fights.

Cleansing? Niko's got her own Seeds.

What I'd like to do is describe what we're seeing to Kazumi and Saki, how horrible it is, and ask them to help us stop it.

That'll take a couple of seconds during which I expect the Kannas will keep yelling each other's heads off, but I don't think they're actually going to get into an actual (meguca) fight so soon.

If Saki and Kazumi don't help reign in Niko? Tell them we're so fucking disappointed in them and just... make a Grief wall between the Kannas.

Not an attack, a defense, an obstruction.

Or maybe ask Mami to ribbon up Niko.
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Saki's already make her position clear - "Niko can handle herself". Given how angry Kazumi's been this entire time, I'm honestly seriously worried that she's going to enter this situation with another fist to Hijiri's face. Again, the bandwagon gives several reasons along these lines for Kazumi to stay out of it. And, finally, we have word of Firnagzen that the Pleiades are not going to be calm and controlled about this.
 
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Vebyast said:
Our priority is not to be neutral. Our priority is to get a good outcome. We will have trouble achieving a good outcome if one of them sees us as siding with the other. Three things that address that. First act so that each person is feeling supported but the other doesn't realize that the other is feeling supported. This isn't a zero-sum game. Second, don't show favoritism. Allow each side to see the other side receiving no more support than they are. This is what the bandwagon counts on with the opening, since the first action is the one with no previous history to weight it and is where the greatest potential for disturbance is present - choose something that one party cannot use to set themselves against you. In this case, that's condemning Niko's opening assault - If Niko can defend that action to herself we have far bigger problems to deal with than anything we're trying to address with the rest of the vote.
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And if Niko deflects instead of trying to defend the slap? Why would she either defend that or apologize for it under the current situation? No, she'll dodge or deflect, and if we try to pin her on it she'll lash out at us as a matter of taking any direction except one which practically forces her to apologize to Hijiri in the middle of this argument.
 
Kaizuki said:
And if Niko deflects instead of trying to defend the slap? Why would she either defend that or apologize for it under the current situation? No, she'll dodge or deflect, and if we try to pin her on it she'll lash out at us as a matter of taking any direction except one which practically forces her to apologize to Hijiri in the middle of this argument.
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That's what "Coldly furious disapproval" and "excoriate" are for - we're can't let Niko try to deflect. Why would we want her to have time to apologize in the first place? Any opening we give her to speak would be taken by Hijiri or Saki just as quickly, and if anyone else starts talking we'd have to regain an opening after having spent our only good wedge. No, Niko can apologize when we're done. Until then we own the podium and we're not stopping to let anyone get a word in edgeways. And that's how we keep her from solidifying her opposition - we move on before she can, leaving behind nothing for her to engage with but Sabrina's disappointment and disapproval.

As for people getting defensive... There are no words we can say that would be perfectly impartial. Hell, even if you try to explain that both people are telling the truth, they're just going to take that as favoring the other person over them rather than the other way around. Instead, we need to make sure that the first thing we say isn't the only thing we say, and like I said, we need to ensure that no party feels like we are favoring the other over them.

And, again, if Niko can't tolerate the possibility that slapping Hijiri was wrong, she has a far more fundamental problem than we're going to be able to deal with here.
 
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Vebyast said:
Until then we own the podium and we're not stopping to let anyone get a word in edgeways. And that's how we keep her from solidifying her opposition - we move on before she can leaving behind nothing but a Sabrina that is disappointed in her.
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=\ This seems rather unproductive to me, beyond just verbally beating people down. As for the spectre of a Disappointed Sabrina, why would an angry Niko care in the slightest about that?
 
Vebyast said:
That's what "Coldly furious disapproval" and "excoriate" are for - we're can't let Niko try to deflect. Why would we want her to have time to apologize in the first place? Any opening we give her to speak would be taken by Hijiri or Saki just as quickly, and if anyone else starts talking we'd have to regain an opening again after having spent our only good wedge. No, Niko can apologize when we're done. Until then we own the podium and we're not stopping to let anyone get a word in edgeways. And that's how we keep her from solidifying her opposition - we move on before she can leaving behind nothing but a Sabrina that is disappointed in her.
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Kaizuki said:
and if we try to pin her on it she'll lash out at us as a matter of taking any direction except one which practically forces her to apologize to Hijiri in the middle of this argument.
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Vebyast said:
As for people getting defensive... There are no words we can say that would be perfectly impartial. Hell, even if you try to explain that both people are telling the truth, they're just going to take that as favoring the other person over them rather than the other way around. Instead, we need to make sure that the first thing we say isn't the only thing we say, and like I said, we need to ensure that no party feels like we are favoring the other over them.
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Kaizuki said:
-[X] Calmly step in and assert that as you understand things, both sides are telling the truth and expressing valid statements, but neither is understanding anything the other is saying in the way it's meant to be understood.
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We appear to be at an impasse.

Good luck. I do not agree with this course of action.
 
E.g.

[X] Use multitasking as much as possible.

[X] Telepathy Kazumi, Saki, Mami, Sayaka.
-[X] Convey that no, Niko is not handling herself, how horrifying this situation is, and ask for help stopping it.
-[X] If the Pleiades don't reign Niko in, tell them you won't be complicit to abuse.

[X] Make yourself heard. Niko needs to back off, get Gem cleansing, and calm the hell down.
-[X] If necessary, make a Grief wall between the Kannas, or ask Mami to separate them.
-[X] To anyone who disagrees: Pointedly explain everything wrong with this picture.
--[X] Above all, Hijiri is our (collective) captive. We're the ones in control. We can't abuse that.

[X] Ask Niko to apologize for hitting Hijiri after she was already down.*
[X] After seeing this, we can't in good conscience let them deal with this alone.
-[X] We, or anyone neutral to both parties, will mediate this discussion.

[X] Both of them have points, and neither of them understand each other.
-[X] We want to help everyone.
-[X] To Hijiri: The Memory Device is preventing us from helping her more than it protects her from anyone. Ask her to drop it, and promise she'll be treated fairly.

*As in, captured. Not literally down.

I'm less sure about the later points of this, but, more or less...?
 
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Kaizuki said:
-[X] Calmly step in and assert that as you understand things, both sides are telling the truth and expressing valid statements, but neither is understanding anything the other is saying in the way it's meant to be understood.
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"I understand what she's saying perfectly well, she thinks X.". Back to screaming, zero progress made, opportunity lost. That's what the last three rounds have already been! Skip it and go straight to the explanations.
 
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