Since I apparently need to be more explicit in expressing my proposals, allow me to break down the general sets of issues I'm trying to work on.
The question that we must inevitably expect from Kyouko: Why are we here? What do we really want from her? And the unasked question in the background: Did Mami put us up to this, or is it in some way related to her?
This must be given an answer. It's been deflected before, but eventually it will go beyond Kyouko's tolerance levels. If we don't actually have a
reason to be constantly bugging her, offering her things "just because", then we need to get the hell off her lawn.
cutting to the chase and just asking her as a favor to let us know if she hears anything strange or if someone's causing trouble
We can ask, however approaching it this way fails on many counts because it refuses to address multiple underlying issues.
Why are we asking Kyouko specifically for this information? What's so special about her (that
somehow isn't related to Mami) that you keep coming over here?
Why should Kyouko bother doing something like this for you? Is the cleansing offer just blackmail? Or is this a manipulation based on our relationship with Mami?
Why should she trust us? She's willing to give the benefit of the doubt at the moment, but it's very clear that the level of trust she's giving us is razor thin.
Why are you expecting Kyouko to find strange goings on, or people causing trouble, in Kasamino in the first place? You don't even live here. If you're expecting trouble to show up here, what are you doing to cause that? (Back to the trust issue.)
The second point of order is what we actually expect to gain in this conversation. Telling her about the current status of things could be done over telepathy. What is so important that we need to speak to her
in person about?
Like many others, Kyouko has a very particular world view: The food chain, watching out for #1, etc. If we're not doing this to gain something, we're either stupid, or trying to scam her. If we can't actually express what we're after, we haven't really moved out of one of those two categories. And always, always, in the back of her head: What is Mami's connection to all this?
And the third point is the same as the second: What
do we expect to gain from this? How does this relate to our long-term goals? How can we make use of these connections and deals to move forward on our eventual path to breaking the system? This ties back to my post a few pages back, regarding actually acting to create our own safety and better environment, instead of reacting to whatever the crisis-of-the-day is.
In this case, it's politics (with hopeful trend towards comrades) and intelligence. Learning the art of give-and-take, offering favors and developing trust and loyalty. Creating an opening to find out what Kyouko herself really wants, so that we can help her with that. And, if we're lucky, maybe some SCIENCE and training tossed in later.
So, given all of the above, how do you approach the situation? What information do you offer? What vulnerabilities do you expose? Where do you press forward, and where do you give way? Do you flatter and appease? Or push and demand? What sort of person
are we? Are we even the type of person Kyouko
can be friends with? We want to construct an understanding of ourselves for Kyouko that she is both able and willing to accept.
