Wulfenbach had to go full madboy because people were always rebelling against him even after he'd already beaten them. They could do this because the regions were self-sufficient, if someone breaks our peace treaty we can just stop cleansing them and they're suddenly at a massive disadvantage.
That sounds logical, but the same argument should have prevented the war from starting in the first place. Straightforward discussion and cleansing (in and of itself) wasn't enough to prevent the conflict from happening in the first place and it won't be enough to keep the peace in the long term. Note that it has only been two days and Akiko is presumably still broken. In the long run (whether in Sendai or elsewhere in the world when we start expanding our operations), people will make trouble unless we are willing to respond with sufficient force. The lesson from Gil Wulfenbach is this: when we do respond to such things, we should be scary enough to reduce the number of times we have to respond to trouble in the future. Whether this strategy actually worked out for Gil after his epiphany is, of course, up to debate (and still on-going).
Ender's game you might have taken the wrong lesson from, seeing as the two times he went over the top to crush his opponent it wasn't more merciful in the long run, because he straight up killed them. It might have slipped your mind because it was only revealed near the end.
There are a lot of lessons that are taught in Ender's Game. And a number of them aren't complete unless you also read Speaker For the Dead and Xenocide. Ender's ruthlessness was necessary (or so it seemed) to save humanity from the Buggers, but it also ended up causing the Xenocide, so it's difficult to say if it really was justified. The Buggers themselves thought that it was necessary (and inevitable), but Ender himself disagreed (once he learned all of the information that he had lacked when he first destroyed them).
Dune is a good pattern for attacking an empire, but a terrible one for holding one. The second book might have been worse written but the whole point was he became a tyrant much like the one he had originally destroyed and brought war to countless worlds which lead to dozens of attempts to assassinate him.
Dune isn't really about attacking an empire or holding one. Those things happen, but they were never really the goal. Paul Muad'dib never had any illusions that he would be a better Emperor than the tyrant he was deposing. He merely intended to use that position as a tool to try to limit the destruction that the inevitable wars would bring.
All in all, I don't recommend using any of these stories as an example for how we ought to behave. I mention them merely as influences that have expanded my horizons so that I am willing to consider alternative solutions to problems.
That sounds logical, but the same argument should have prevented the war from starting in the first place. Straightforward discussion and cleansing (in and of itself) wasn't enough to prevent the conflict from happening in the first place and it won't be enough to keep the peace in the long term. Note that it has only been two days and Akiko is presumably still broken. In the long run (whether in Sendai or elsewhere in the world when we start expanding our operations), people will make trouble unless we are willing to respond with sufficient force. The lesson from Gil Wulfenbach is this: when we do respond to such things, we should be scary enough to reduce the number of times we have to respond to trouble in the future. Whether this strategy actually worked out for Gil after his epiphany is, of course, up to debate (and still on-going).
There are a lot of lessons that are taught in Ender's Game. And a number of them aren't complete unless you also read Speaker For the Dead and Xenocide. Ender's ruthlessness was necessary (or so it seemed) to save humanity from the Buggers, but it also ended up causing the Xenocide, so it's difficult to say if it really was justified. The Buggers themselves thought that it was necessary (and inevitable), but Ender himself disagreed (once he learned all of the information that he had lacked when he first destroyed them).
Dune isn't really about attacking an empire or holding one. Those things happen, but they were never really the goal. Paul Muad'dib never had any illusions that he would be a better Emperor than the tyrant he was deposing. He merely intended to use that position as a tool to try to limit the destruction that the inevitable wars would bring.
All in all, I don't recommend using any of these stories as an example for how we ought to behave. I mention them merely as influences that have expanded my horizons so that I am willing to consider alternative solutions to problems.
Hm. Either way, it'd be sort of out of character for Sabrina. She doesn't like to scare people. The whole "Empress Sabrina" think is sort of a running self deprication, since she feels bad about the way she has to treat people to help them. She curbstomps people because she no longer had a choice other than to fight, and she'd rather it be over and done with as quickly as possible.
If we overdo our 'intimidation' tactics and go full Eldritch abomination (like a meguca risks grief-spriraling by even just seeing the shit we do), no one's gonna take whatever we offer. Probably even push away any allies we already made.
Let's come up with a hypothetical example. Let's say that an immoral magical girl (let's call her Betty) attacks Ono Megane, and takes the grief seed that we gave her, breaking her legs in the process. How are some ways that we could respond to this situation, and what would the long term results be?
1. Ignore Betty, just heal Ono and give her another seed. This isn't workable because Betty will just beat up Ono again the next time she wants a seed.
2. Go talk to Betty, try to convince her to give the seed back. Since she's already willing to resort to violence and theft, we're not going to be able to convince her just by talking to her.
3. Bribe Betty by offering her money/cleanses/whatever. She gives back the seed, but the next time she needs something, she will consider stealing again, since it was so profitable last time.
4. Make Betty to give the seed back. She refuses, and the situation devolves into a fight. It's a short fight because we're powerful, it ends with us yanking her soul gem away and taking the seed by force while she's unconscious. Betty may very well resent us for this and try to figure out how she can attack us and get away with it.
5. After Betty refuses to give back the seed, ramp up the intimidation. Grief armor, wings, ominous orchestral music. Ask Betty to give back the seed again. Say please. If she still refuses, break her legs like she broke Ono's. Heal her and tell her that we won't be so kind the next time it happens. If we sufficiently scare Betty, then she will be reluctant to cause trouble again.
Note that there are very few people like Betty (the only person we've met so far who has been this unreasonable is Akiko). But it does happen and we need to be able to respond to this type of thing with sufficient force (and not too much force).
We get her side of the story, why she needs the seed, oh she needs cleaning? Done, don't steal seeds, come see us because we're meguca jesus or something.
We hang with Tomoe effing Mami. Her name gets around in meguca circles and honestly so would Sabrina's by this point. Yeah don't fuck with the white haired one, she's stupid strong. She also only wants to help so just let her help.
That's an extremely contrived situation...and one that still doesn't make escalation to crippling someone necessary at all or helpful in the slightest. You're talking about trying to scare someone, brutalizing them, and basically being a thug when there are countless alternatives that won't alienate everyone and have us pointlessly sink to the usual meguca level. The scenario 5 you're shilling is not helpful in the slightest and is one I don't think anyone else would vote for if it came up- and for good reason! You're talking going through with torture as a deterrent. I mean, what?
We have a mouth. Talking is an option, and it's not as though we have a limit beyond how lazy we feel on how much we can cleanse seeds and gems, which short circuits the "oh no she wants seeds and cleanses" problem.
That doesn't make playing thug any more advisable: if anything, it means we shouldn't throw our weight around blindly and try and brutalize people. Quite apart from all of the many, many reasons that makes no sense for Sabrina, it's a great way for karma to bite us.
Mami goes into a cold rage, grabs any clear seeds we had at our meat puppet at the time, grabs mom, eternal time stop, sweep every single corner in a 20 km radius, find our soul gem, dispense Righteous Vengeance, revive Sabrina, acquire hugs.
Oh, she could also call in any favor we gained at that point to make the search faster.
That is, if she didn't make a beeline for Oriko and/or any other 'Thinker'-type/Clairvoyant meguca we befriended since then.
Let's come up with a hypothetical example. Let's say that an immoral magical girl (let's call her Betty) attacks Ono Megane, and takes the grief seed that we gave her, breaking her legs in the process. How are some ways that we could respond to this situation, and what would the long term results be?
1. Ignore Betty, just heal Ono and give her another seed. This isn't workable because Betty will just beat up Ono again the next time she wants a seed.
2. Go talk to Betty, try to convince her to give the seed back. Since she's already willing to resort to violence and theft, we're not going to be able to convince her just by talking to her.
3. Bribe Betty by offering her money/cleanses/whatever. She gives back the seed, but the next time she needs something, she will consider stealing again, since it was so profitable last time.
4. Make Betty to give the seed back. She refuses, and the situation devolves into a fight. It's a short fight because we're powerful, it ends with us yanking her soul gem away and taking the seed by force while she's unconscious. Betty may very well resent us for this and try to figure out how she can attack us and get away with it.
5. After Betty refuses to give back the seed, ramp up the intimidation. Grief armor, wings, ominous orchestral music. Ask Betty to give back the seed again. Say please. If she still refuses, break her legs like she broke Ono's. Heal her and tell her that we won't be so kind the next time it happens. If we sufficiently scare Betty, then she will be reluctant to cause trouble again.
Note that there are very few people like Betty (the only person we've met so far who has been this unreasonable is Akiko). But it does happen and we need to be able to respond to this type of thing with sufficient force (and not too much force).
You left out the latter part of situation 5: Betty resents us for breaking her legs instead of trying to understand her situation and remove the reason she stole the seed. She secretly plots against us and eventually hurts us or a close friend of ours, and spreads word that Sabrina is a tyrannical ass. As a result, saving people becomes more difficult because they may be too afraid to approach us when in need.
Honestly, with the sheer diversity magical girls' powersets (and, by extension, motivations and situations) can have, we honestly shouldn't really try planning for what do with hypotheticals, just what do in general; any outliers, we can go with as they come up.
I mean, really, we're Superman at the end of the day, not Batman; hypotheticals up the wazoo is Batman's job.
Besides, Homura's Batman and she's got our back, so we can afford to be Ms. Panties-on-the-outside Good-to-a-Fault if we want to -- we're here to do good, save lives, make the world a better place, and we just so happen to have the right powerset that not only are we incredibly capable of it, but when something or someone comes up that means we have to get serious, we CAN get serious. There's no real getting around the fact that Sabrina is capable of some scary shit if she/we want(s) to.
But we shouldn't really dwell on getting serious, because we're Superman -- we know we can crumple a gem, or throw the Daily Planet (in Grief form) at someone, but we don't really want to at the end of the day. Any time we have to resort to such means, it's either a victory that we survived or a defeat in that we ended up doing it.
All we want to do is help. Let's just do that by keeping strong, carrying on, and being that caped crusader that folks like Mami and Homura have put their faith in thus far, okay? 's'all I want to say on the matter.
"Hmm," you say. You kind of want to bring her into the telepathic loop. "Hitomi?" You reach out with your mind, pushing the message towards the green haired girl.
The girl's look of indecision remains, her mouth twisting unhappily. She's clearly tempted to be rid of the cast, but neither does she want the trouble... And she doesn't seem to have noticed the telepathic ping.
"Hitomi?" you try again, to no greater effect.
"Maybe... you could heal my arm slowly?" Hitomi says hesitantly. "If it's not too much trouble?"
Damn. Looks like it doesn't work. "Actually, I was thinking just that," you admit. "Maybe a little bit every day at lunch time? It'll be much faster, but still slow enough that nobody would question it?"
"No worries," you say. "I can help, and you're my friend, so I should help."
Hitomi nods, smiling slightly and nudging Sayaka with her elbow. The bluenette rolls her eyes. "Yes, yes, I get it, Hitomi. I still owe you. And... I owe Sabrina, too," she says, looking at you with clear, cerulean blue eyes.
You roll your eyes too, and repeat yourself, voice tart. "I can -could- help, and you're my friend, so I should help. And for goodness' sake, Sayaka, your house was on fire. What did you expect me to do? Ignore it?"
Mami straightens off your shoulder, smiling at Sayaka. "Sabrina's right. We're magical girls. It's... our duty to help people."
"Yeah, yeah..." Sayaka says, flapping a hand at you before stubbornly adding, "I still owe you. All of you."
Homura huffs out a quiet sigh.
"Sabrina, you said something about healing Kyousuke, too?" Hitomi asks, looking at you.
"I did," you say, rising to your feet and stretching, vertebra popping as you arch your back. "Shall we get moving, by the way? We can walk and talk?"
Hitomi nods, rising awkwardly. "Sayaka?"
"Yes?" The bluenette glances curiously at her friend as she stands and picks up the two bags.
"Since you think you owe me, and by the same token I owe Sabrina, can I transfer your debt to her?" Hitomi says, face perfectly straight.
Sayaka blinks. "That's not how it works."
"Um... banks buy and sell mortgages," Madoka offers, a small smile on her face as she rises, Homura right behind her.
"That's different," Sayaka says.
"No it's not," Hitomi says.
Sayaka crosses her arms - or tries to, anyway, before the weight of the bags forces her to give up on that idea. "Hmph. Answer's no," she says.
Homura sighs inaudibly.
"Anyway, Hitomi," you say as you detransform, followed by Mami. You pull your mobile phone out and check the time briefly. "Yes, I'd like to heal Kyousuke's arm, as much as possible today, which, uh, looks like it'll be maybe forty five minutes. Mami, Homura, could you help?"
"Of course," Mami says, smiling at you. You return the smile, glancing at Homura.
Violet eyes flicker over you, and she nods silently.
"Thanks," you say, giving her a smile too, and turning to Hitomi and Sayaka. "So... if there's no objections or anything...?" you ask.
Hitomi smiles. "I don't have any," she says, starting down the path to the hospital.
Sayaka shakes her head. "Nah, I think that's fine," she agrees as you all start down the path, following Hitomi. A tug with your will has the masses of Grief trailing along in your wake, lurking low in the vegetation.
"Alright," you say. "One more thing, Sayaka, Hitomi?"
"Yes?" Hitomi slows a step to walk beside you, on the other side from Mami. Sayaka glances over.
"I..." you grimace, taking a moment to phrase your words carefully. Which is an interesting thought, you find. You're pretty good at it, aren't you? Carefully crafted sentences on the spot. And now you're thinking about thinking and you should probably be getting on with what you were thinking about before you started thinking about thinking about thinking.
You shake your head, forcibly trying to eject the thoughts. "Uh. I'm less comfortable with revealing magic to Kyousuke, since, well..." you waggle your hand. "I barely know him. I've barely met him at all, so... could you take care of that? Just... tell him magic's real, and we're helping him and all?"
Sayaka brightens. "Yeah, we can do that," she says. "Right, Hitomi?"
Hitomi nods. "Yes," she agrees. "It's the least we can do."
Madoka beams happily at Sayaka, and then you.
You continue walking to the hospital, musing about, well, musing. You're really good at working things out on the fly, which is kind of nice. Useful. On the other hand, you're also pretty prone to wandering off on random tangents of thought, like, say, this one.
Eventually, you find yourself at Kyousuke's ward room, the enormous tracts of Grief that you've been dragging around nestling on the roof. Hitomi knocks and waits politely for Kyousuke to call out a soft, "Come in."
"Hello, everyone," the gray haired boy says, blinking at the sudden proliferation of girls in his wardroom.
"Hello, Kyousuke," Hitomi says, smiling gently at him.
"Heya!" Sayaka says cheerfully, walking over to the chair beside his hospital bed, before pausing and offering it to Hitomi. The green haired girl -the verdette? still doesn't really roll off the tongue- frowns, and motions towards Sayaka, who shakes her head.
"Hello, Hitomi, Sayaka," Kyousuke says, smiling at them before looking at the rest of you - Mami, Madoka, Homura, and yourself. "And... hello, Madoka, Mami, Sabrina." He looks inquiringly at Homura.
"Ah, this is Homura," Sayaka says, abandoning the chair with one last insistent gesture at Hitomi, who rolls her eyes at her friend's back. Sayaka walks over to the time traveller. "She's a transfer student."
Homura nods, amethyst eyes hard.
"I'm pleased to meet you," Kyousuke says, quailing into his bed from Homura's icy stare.
"Homura?" Sayaka says.
The time traveller grunts, and stalks off to stand beside Madoka, pointedly ignoring Kyousuke.
"Um," Hitomi says, giving Homura a puzzled look. "How are you, Kyousuke?"
The boy sighs, looking downcast. "I had physiotherapy again," he says. "The doctors are hopeful, but they don't think..." The boy holds his hands up, obviously trying to flex them. His fingers quiver spasmodically, closing into a tight fist. "It would take a miracle."
Hitomi and Sayaka exchange looks. "Well, we've got good news..." Hitomi says.
Kyousuke sighs. "I'm happy for you, whatever it is," he says, staring down at his hand.
Mami shuffles to your side, close enough that you can feel her pressing against you. You give her a warm smile, hugging her tightly against you for a moment. Out of the corner of your eyes, you can see Madoka giving Homura a pleading look. The time traveller folds, relenting and lapsing into a more neutral expression.
"We... they can fix your hand, Kyousuke," Sayaka blurts.
"They haven't succeeded so far," the boy says bitterly, staring at Sayaka.
"No, not the doctors," Sayaka says. Babbles, really. "Magic. Mami and Sabrina and Homura. Magic is real, Kyousuke."
The boy stares at Sayaka. "That isn't funny, Sayaka," he says, his hands curling into fists in his lap. "I- I'll neve-"
"Kyousuke," Hitomi says, iron in her tone as she cuts Kyousuke off. "It's true."
"What are you talking about?" Kyousuke asks.
"Magic is real," Hitomi says with careful emphasis. "And they're willing to help you."
Taking that as your cue, you transform in a blaze of light that flood the room, followed by Mami. You step forward, watching the stunned boy carefully. "We're magical girls," you state, letting a smirk curl the side of your mouth.
Kyousuke's jaw works soundlessly, and finally, he delivers a flat "What."
You shrug. "Yep," you say, drawing a single marble of Grief from your ever-present sling bag and letting it circle your hand once before rocketing over to hang in front of his face. Hitomi watches there little sphere, eyes bright with interest, while Kyousuke hesitantly pokes it with his finger, waving his hand all around it to check for strings.
"OK..." the boy says, expression looking faintly poleaxed.
"And yes, we can heal you," you say, replacing the marble of Grief in your bag with a small mental effort.
"I, I..." the boy stutters. "You can really fix me? Is there a cost? Or..."
[] Write-in
=====
Seemed like a reasonable place to cut off for this update. Holding in abeyance:
[X]If he's awake, tell him there's just one condition for this. We're healing him largely because Sayaka and Hitomi are his friends, and him being stuck here's bringing them down, so don't just forget about what your friends did for you once you get out of the hospital, okay? Just talk to your friends. That's all we're asking.
[x]Just one thing. We're healing him largely because of Sayaka and Hitomi. They care about him, a lot, so he shouldn't just forget about what his friends were doing for him all this time once he gets out of the hospital, okay? Just be sure to talk to them and not to forget about them in all the excitement. That's all we're asking.
[x]Group healing. Ask Homura to timestop if necessary.
-[x]Thank her and Mami for helping out.
[x]Mention to Kyosuke that it might not be a good idea to talk too much about how it happened. Just treat it as a surprise you can't explain, okay?
[x]Talk to the others once it's done, after everyone's left Kyosuke's room.
[ ] Just to remind yourself that you're blessed with more than you think, and to try to not miss the fruit in the trees beside you for the forest around you. Okay?
AKA, 'you have two girls who love you right next to you, you oaf'.
Also, it looks like our 'avoid attachment' worries are unfounded -- Kyouko is Batman, and she's already got plan 'Bat-Gtare' 'Homu-Glare' ready to go.
I vote for German for the green hair phrase; French doesn't really seem to be working. Someone more fluent will have to verify, but my google-fu says grünen haaren and grünette are both possible (though the latter may be simply due to a derivative of a French loanword). Sounds at least as good as red head or brunette. Otherwise you're gonna end up with terms like 'mossy'..