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Puella Magi Adfligo Systema

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Would anybody consider the idea of doing this 1on1? It would put less presure on Ono, so she might lash out less.

Mind, we might want to put that extra pressure of superior numbers on her... and the 1 on our side would have to be Sabrina, since Homu won't, and Mami... won't, due to limpet.

SynchronizedWritersBlock said:
Tearing into her will not work. It will be a spectacular failure of her not listening to us and poisoning further attempts at communication. That doesn't mean we can't be direct and clear, but any facts we tell her must be done with gravitas.


E: I seriously doubt she will react well to scolding. In fact, she'll probably react worse than your average.
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Makes sense.

I feel striking the right amount of 'this is important', 'this is more important' will be difficult, to say the least.

Muramasa said:
[X] Are you sure, Mami? If you're not up to it, I'll do it.
[X] If Mami's up to it, nod. Suggest perhaps that we shouldn't just appear in her room.
[X] If Mami's not up to it, suggest leaving the apartment. Re lock all doors.
[X] Fly to Megane's window. Grief carpet. Maintain some distance.
[X] Telepathy Megane:
-[x] Your magic expenditure is a severe problem. If we don't address it tonight, it will kill you.
-[x] Tell her to look out the window.
-[x] It is this important Miss Ono. Please come out. I'll wait on you all night long if that is what it takes.
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(I don't actually speak english) Is this better, gramatically?

'Will', instead of 'can', to make it more ultimatum-like?

Perseverance.
 
Begin rambling/
Okay, so based on what we've seen so far, if there was a 'sin' or a character motivation of a sort to describe Ono, it would be Pride.

She's really under no apparent familial or societal obligation to act as the Most Oujo Of Them All, so why make a wish that's based on appearance?
Continuing with the theme of shitty wishes (of wishing for a means to get what they want, and not wishing for what they really want) I was thinking that what Ono truly desires was to have something that she can be Proud of.

She wasn't smart (apparent with her failing test scores) so brains was out.

Fortune? They're squarely in the middle class. Not rich enough to flaunt it, yet not poor enough to get that "hardworking schoolgirl who wants carry her family's burden" image/stereotype.

Family? Her mom's an alcoholic slob. Her dad's left them, or it's a very rocky marriage.

Beauty? I might be recalling this incorrectly, but yeah she's a pretty girl but not 'Miss Teen Japan'-tier, otherwise the gang might've gotten a much stronger reaction on her looks alone.

What little she has is pride for her Alma Mater, what with bringing up the school rivalry. But that isn't much, that's just pride by association.

But instead of wishing for something to solve any of those gaps... she wished for something she might have not tried yet. Namely her Appearance, or rather her Aura. Like she watched one those anime with the generic 'Frosty Queen'/'Bitch with a heart of Ice' attitude, saw them as something really cool (*groan*) and famous. So she wished that she could be proud of her personality, or something like that.

The clue here was her witch: A Glass witch. I presume that it took something like a statue completely made of glass. For whatever beauty, posturing and bluster her witch may show, see can never hide that fact that it's a hollow and brittle thing. Her 'emptiness' is laid bare to the world.

So where am I going with this?

We need to give her an 'out'. Some way we can help her that will let her pride kept intact. Like instead of offering to help her learn 'Killing Witches 101", phrase it as Sabrina asking 'if Ono could help her hunt a witch since Homura and Mami are busy today'. Instead of giving her a seed, help her fight a witch then give the resulting seed as payment for assistance.
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/end ramble

TLDR: Ono is a very proud girl. If we're gonna help her, we need to phrase it in a way that will let her keep her pride intact, or help recover it.

Side thoughts
If she gets a good handle on her power set, and its toggle switch is not permanently fixed to 'Oujo', Ono could possibly fill the role of an exceptional Diplomat/Representative for our group.
 
Onmur said:
No, we can't do that. We can take on the World's problems, but that's done through constructing a support network that's bigger than ourselves. Not by tackling every problem personally.
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And when is this support network going to magically appear? Who's going to do all the work for us, if we don't show we're willing to do the work to help them?

A support network is created by dealing with these problems personally. If Sabrina is going to be selfish and turn her back on anyone who is even a bit difficult (aside from her own pre-selected set of friends), that's exactly the sort of network she'll create: people who are only willing to go as far as dealing with the "easy" problems, leaving the difficult ones to fall.
 
Kinematics said:
And when is this support network going to magically appear? Who's going to do all the work for us, if we don't show we're willing to do the work to help them?

A support network is created by dealing with these problems personally. If Sabrina is going to be selfish and turn her back on anyone who is even a bit difficult (aside from her own pre-selected set of friends), that's exactly the sort of network she'll create: people who are only willing to go as far as dealing with the "easy" problems, leaving the difficult ones to fall.
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I'm saying that doesn't mean giving people the 'Mami treatment'. We should do what we can, and right now that's taking care of things personally, just not to that extent.
 
Thinking about the big picture for a minute and I've realized just how horribly out of my depth I am. If we do this we will need people these girls can talk to and rely on to help them through emotional struggles that for meguca are life threatening but for normal people would just be a few days/weeks of melancholy that are eventually brushed aside. There's a whole shift in mindset that would have to occur for anyone brought in to counsel these girls. Never mind actually finding people to counsel them because we live in fucking Japan and Coobs is brainwashing people left and right. And barring a few exceptional girls we can't really trust the general meguca population to help with the counseling because they're usually picked because of their emotional instability. Where the fuck do we even begin here?!
 
defenestrator said:
She's really under no apparent familial or societal obligation to act as the Most Oujo Of Them All, so why make a wish that's based on appearance?
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She might feel she is, or her mother might be pushing her to get better grades and excel, as a [sarcasm]'brilliant'[/sarcasm] way to improve their family's situation.
 
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cmwatford said:
Thinking about the big picture for a minute and I've realized just how horribly out of my depth I am. If we do this we will need people these girls can talk to and rely on to help them through emotional struggles that for meguca are life threatening but for normal people would just be a few days/weeks of melancholy that are eventually brushed aside. There's a whole shift in mindset that would have to occur for anyone brought in to counsel these girls. Never mind actually finding people to counsel them because we live in fucking Japan and Coobs is brainwashing people left and right. And barring a few exceptional girls we can't really trust the general meguca population to help with the counseling because they're usually picked because of their emotional instability. Where the fuck do we even begin here?!
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Literally everyone is out of our depth if we want the situation you describe. The only real saving grace is our esteemed GM can't be much better off.
 
cmwatford said:
Thinking about the big picture for a minute and I've realized just how horribly out of my depth I am. If we do this we will need people these girls can talk to and rely on to help them through emotional struggles that for meguca are life threatening but for normal people would just be a few days/weeks of melancholy that are eventually brushed aside. There's a whole shift in mindset that would have to occur for anyone brought in to counsel these girls. Never mind actually finding people to counsel them because we live in fucking Japan and Coobs is brainwashing people left and right. And barring a few exceptional girls we can't really trust the general meguca population to help with the counseling because they're usually picked because of their emotional instability. Where the fuck do we even begin here?!
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Keep in mind we're almost literally taking a dead girl walking and trying to have her keep herself alive.
 
I hesitate to make assumptions about the family dynamics because we just don't really know. It could be a simple expectations thing, or it could be the mother pinning hopes on the daughter, or it could the child fails to measure up to some unreasonable comparison, or it could be that mom doesn't care and does the bare minimum and it's Ono who wants to climb upwards, or it could be that the family is fine and this is just normal bad marks.

So I'm not going to make specific speculation, from which assumptions might be made.
 
Ono: I made a wish that will make me look perfect, what could possibly go wrong?
 
Firnagzen said:
She looks calm.
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It looks like Ono is using her magic to maintain her appearance even when she is alone. This means that either she doesn't know/care about the magic expenditure or else she's lying even to herself.

the other woman looks half asleep. The house looks reasonably well maintained, if not exactly richly so.
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Ono's mother (or possibly older sister) does not appear to be in immediate distress, so what's bothering Ono is probably unique to her and not shared by her mother/sister. Sleepy would be the expected result for drinking 3-6 beers, and the number of drinks is relatively moderate (for an alcoholic). If she's a drunk, she's a high functioning one. This isn't an ideal situation for Ono, but it's not horrible.

They seem to be alone in the house.
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It looks like Ono is being raised by a single mother/sister, and the death/divorce was not recent. There might some cultural stigma related to that (it's harder for single mothers to find work, for instance), but it's probably not so bad that it would be the primary cause of her contract/distress.

cmwatford said:
Thinking about the big picture for a minute and I've realized just how horribly out of my depth I am. If we do this we will need people these girls can talk to and rely on to help them through emotional struggles that for meguca are life threatening but for normal people would just be a few days/weeks of melancholy that are eventually brushed aside. There's a whole shift in mindset that would have to occur for anyone brought in to counsel these girls. Never mind actually finding people to counsel them because we live in fucking Japan and Coobs is brainwashing people left and right. And barring a few exceptional girls we can't really trust the general meguca population to help with the counseling because they're usually picked because of their emotional instability. Where the fuck do we even begin here?!
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We can start by providing general cleansing. Magical girls might be emotionally unstable to begin with, but the grief in the soul gem and the stress of needing to fight reality warping abominations in order to keep it clean definitely makes it worse. We can eliminate that. Look at how much better off Kyouko was after meeting with us, for example.
 
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A thought: What if we, instead of telling her off, or going outside and demanding she comes out... we drop timestop, cleanse her and show her we're worrying?

We don't have to play the 'who Ojous harder' game.

boonerunner said:
It looks like Ono is using her magic to maintain her appearance even when she is alone. This means that either she doesn't know/care about the magic expenditure or else she's lying even to herself.


Ono's mother (or possibly older sister) does not appear to be in immediate distress, so what's bothering Ono is probably unique to her and not shared by her mother/sister. Sleepy would be the expected result for drinking 3-6 beers, and the number of drinks is relatively moderate (for an alcoholic). If she's a drunk, she's a high functioning one. This isn't an ideal situation for Ono, but it's not horrible.


It looks like Ono is being raised by a single mother/sister, and the death/divorce was not recent. There might some cultural stigma related to that (it's harder for single mothers to find work, for instance), but it's probably not so bad that it would be the primary cause of her contract/distress.


We can start by providing general cleansing. Magical girls might be emotionally unstable to begin with, but the grief in the soul gem and the stress of needing to fight reality warping abominations in order to keep it clean definitely makes it worse. We can eliminate that. Look at how much better off Kyouko was after meeting with us, for example.
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SWB just made a post explaining that we shouldn't make assumptions.
SWB said:
I hesitate to make assumptions about the family dynamics because we just don't really know. It could be a simple expectations thing, or it could be the mother pinning hopes on the daughter, or it could the child fails to measure up to some unreasonable comparison, or it could be that mom doesn't care and does the bare minimum and it's Ono who wants to climb upwards, or it could be that the family is fine and this is just normal bad marks.

So I'm not going to make specific speculation, from which assumptions might be made.
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chocolote12 said:
You fooled me. :V

Not that that's saying much. But still.
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:p
 
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Kinematics said:
And when is this support network going to magically appear? Who's going to do all the work for us, if we don't show we're willing to do the work to help them?

A support network is created by dealing with these problems personally. If Sabrina is going to be selfish and turn her back on anyone who is even a bit difficult (aside from her own pre-selected set of friends), that's exactly the sort of network she'll create: people who are only willing to go as far as dealing with the "easy" problems, leaving the difficult ones to fall.
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I think that if you're defining our remit that widely, we're screwed from the word go. Keeping her from imploding is our problem. That doesn't mean we need to be her friend, either by obligation or necessity.
 
Onmur said:
A thought: What if we, instead of telling her off, or going outside and demanding she comes out... we drop timestop, cleanse her and show her we're worrying?
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Showing that we care and are worrying about Ono and only are being so pushy for her sake, could work, but I don't know if suddenly appearing in her bedroom is the best way to do it.
 
Onmur said:
SWB just made a post explaining that we shouldn't make assumptions.
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And I agree with SWB that we shouldn't make assumptions. But that isn't the same thing as ignoring the evidence and not making the deductions that can logically be deduced from it. And, at any rate, I didn't come up with any strong conclusions about Ono's relationship with her mother/sister nor about what might have caused her breakdown, just some general observations about the background that we find Ono in: namely that she appears to be the daughter/sister of a single woman who is moderately (but not severely) alcoholic.
 
Guilop said:
Showing that we care and are worrying about Ono and only are being so pushy for her sake, could work, but I don't know if suddenly appearing in her bedroom is the best way to do it.
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OK, but we probably should make it part of the vote, to try and push back on our annoyance/anger, so we can show Ono that we really are doing this because we care.

Something like what Kine is saying:
With the amount of anger at Ono permeating the thread, I don't know that I'd trust Sabrina to do a decent job of talking to her. It's possible, but it's also very easy for it to start going very badly. Body language and unspoken disdain (implicit effects from the state of the thread, and thus not easily overruled by a vote) could easily undermine any spoken words.

Any vote will have to compensate for her instinctive behavior, then.
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boonerunner said:
And I agree with SWB that we shouldn't make assumptions. But that isn't the same thing as ignoring the evidence and not making the deductions that can logically be deduced from it. And, at any rate, I didn't come up with any strong conclusions about Ono's relationship with her mother/sister nor about what might have caused her breakdown, just some general observations about the background that we find Ono in: namely that she appears to be the daughter/sister of a single woman who is moderately (but not severely) alcoholic.
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But this is precisely what might hurt our chances.

Observe. It's good to write down everything that might be important, and to point it out, to make sure everybody is on the same wavelenght (or not).

But don't try to deduce things until we have far, far more data than what we can surmise in a few hundred words.

By making deductions, you're guiding our thoughts towards a final idea. One that, being thought of with so little information, is likely wrong.

The problem being, that once we have an idea of 'what could be' in mind, it's harder to create more ideas. We fixate on what we've already guessed, where we've put our efforts, and try to make any new data point fit what we already deduced, whereas with a more clear mind we could easily realize much more likely possibilities.
 
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FlatlineAskari said:
I think that if you're defining our remit that widely, we're screwed from the word go. Keeping her from imploding is our problem. That doesn't mean we need to be her friend, either by obligation or necessity.
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If we don't define our remit that widely, we're violating the intent of our supposed long-term goals.

I also didn't say we needed to be her friend (though that in itself is a horribly ambiguous phrase that is largely a meaningless distraction in the current debate context). I'm saying that if we're not willing to do the work to help the people we can, then if/when those people are capable of standing on their own (and aren't literally left to die), they're not going to be inclined to help us help more people, or even help other people themselves. If the atmosphere we create is that troublesome people will be abandoned (or only given the bare minimum of support), then we're really just supporting the status quo for magical girls — look out for number one, because you can't trust anyone else to have your back.

Thus, the magical support network doesn't grow, and Sabrina is perpetually left with the same choices.

The highly antagonistic mood seems to have dropped off, but we're still struggling to convince ourselves to actually do anything. Granted, that's in large part because we've screwed up the social so well, so it's hard to figure out what to do, but if we give up because it's hard, we haven't really gotten anywhere.
 
Onmur said:
OK, but we probably should make it part of the vote, to try and push back on our annoyance/anger, so we can show Ono that we really are doing this because we care.
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Yeah, we should show her that we're concerned about her safety and want to help her. I am not really angry at Ono right now, since I can see where she's coming from. I don't her dismissive behaviour towards Sabrina, but I understand where she's coming from. I also think Sabrina was a tad too angry that Ono used the grief seed and gave it to Kyubey this update. No need to drag that kind of mood into our conversation with her.
 
Kinematics said:
if we give up because it's hard, we haven't really gotten anywhere.
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We're still trying. I don't think at any point anybody actually tried to give up on Ono, except a very random 'let her die' vote last voting round.

Still. There's always a point where things have become too difficult. We shouldn't give up because it's 'hard', but that doesn't mean we shouldn't ever give up, or that we should treat anybody with the same care we treat Mami.
 
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