Hey guys I think I'm lucid again because I actually managed to vocalize all of this and I actually have a degree of confidence in it.
Again, this is regarding not this vote but how to deal with the Oriko convo, authored on an "if/when" basis. A lot of this stuff actually applies whether or not we talk to her now.
...
All of it applies whether we talk to her now or not.
This has to be a 270-degree turn from what we've been doing. We've gotten Oriko used to emotional, "rage against the dying of the light, dammit" Sabrina, who won't even contemplate the idea that Oriko could really be destined to die. We're loud, we're brash, we trample on politeness when we feel the need to. And we're so obviously a good person that it works out.
Ugolino and others have raised points about the possibility that, at this point, basically nothing we can say will matter because she'll just shrug it off or ignore it or etc. And I can't help but feel that they're kind of
right, because everything we've done and said has looked and sounded like the same stuff we've done so much. What's the precog spiral at this point but another thing we're saying? We'll end up using the same tone, and the same everything, etcetera. And we won't accept that we could be wrong, because that would mean not being able to save Oriko.
And
doing that is going to torpedo this. Like, completely.
Being like that isn't wrong. In-setting it's, uh, actually kind of fucking
right. But we need something totally different if we want to make a further impact here.
So I'm going to address a couple things here.
First, what the fuck are we hoping for? Well, there's three big points. We want Oriko to not go back to being a terrorist. We want Oriko to stop believing she has to die. We want
Kirika to stop believing Oriko when Oriko says that Oriko has to die.
Getting Oriko to stop believing she has to die is frankly unlikely as an immediate result of this conversation.
Getting Oriko to not go back to being a terrorist is... it's hard to tell, but we
have to achieve that. Because otherwise we've lost her.
Getting
Kirika to stop believing Oriko about this, though, actually seems
pretty reasonable.
"I am going to die," Oriko snaps, earning her a worried look from Kirika. "And I've told you. I've accepted that."
This line has stuck with me pretty heavily. And other stuff Kirika has done. I think some part of Kirika recognizes that going along with this isn't the right thing for her -- for
them, rather -- to be doing. And I think we can
really heavily affect that.
But we have to frame it as talking to Oriko. And if we want to maximize the chance of
her taking things seriously, then we need another tack from what we've been taking. Something out of line with our normal behavior, but something we can fit into just as well.
But in fact, we have something that is
exactly that. We don't use it much, because we don't need to in this quest, because it's weird and not the average person's way of talking things over.
But SV has a certain duality behind it: the fiery hope of overcoming all obstacles, and the cold science that we trust to enable that.
I am personally fucking
sick of this mangled intercourse between us and Oriko. It's like two ideologues scratching each others' eyes out instead of an exchange between rational humans. And it's done a right good job of pissing her off.
So let's
be fucking rational. Let's sit down, apologize for being rude, and then start positing theories, asking questions, gathering data, and questioning our own damn hypothesis.
Be the scientist. We have a
theory, she has a
theory. We don't like her theory but we
actually don't have the hard evidence to disprove it, merely a lot of logical arguments against it, so let's stop treating it like dirt because that
pisses her off. Let's
take her into account, and shape a discussion where, instead of having a situation where we plan questions like "is this about saving the world or killing yourself" as lead-ins and capstones, we consider what her emotional response to things is likely to be and we take steps to account for that in order to maintain as rational a discourse as we can -- if we have to say she's depressed, we say "I know this is un-Japanese, but bear with me" or some such.
And most of all, at every step of the course, let's actually
maintain our own fallibility. Make this something we're not pushing on her. Not because we don't believe it, but
because it will make her more willing to listen to us. I don't know that we ever could have successfully done this from a "this is truth, accept it" point of things -- from
any angle where we hope to get her to accept what we're saying as we say it. But right now, we have two more achievable goals: we want to affect Kirika, and we want to
deescalate Oriko. More than anything else, I think that what's
really lit the fuse on Oriko has been our seeming unwillingness to compromise on
anything in the conversations we've had with her. People have observed that Oriko seems to be doing better "now that she's in conflict with us again," I don't know how many people put stake in that, but
that conflict is there because we try to push our ideas on her and don't make any apparent effort to consider hers -- that
is that conflict.
- This conversation, as is, is
shot in the foot and dead on arrival.
-- But we
really don't like where it's being left off.
--- Use a pause (Homu's interruption) followed by a major demeanor change to affect a change of context & direction, which will allow us to continue the conversation with a much-less-shot foot.
- We want to deescalate Oriko.
-- She is currently escalating because
we are pushing at her and not backing down.
--- Treat her with more respect, treat her theories as worth respect (not necessarily belief), point out our own breaches of politeness before we make them and ask forgiveness in advance, admit that we could be wrong, assert that our earlier actions had a return in order to slightly reduce how much they affect her judgement of us (currently she views the entire exchange up to this moment as pointless and offensive, saying that they had a point is at least one step up the ladder, and they
did
You know Oriko's listening. That admission was more than you'd ever gotten out of her.
She wants to die. She's admitted as much, implicitly.
- We want to get through to Kirika
-- This is easiest goal, we really just need to succeed in presenting to her a possible situation where cooperating with Oriko's pursuit of suicide might actually be
against Oriko's interests.
--- Involve Kirika in the discussion of the theory.
- We want to get the whole theory laid out and for O&K to actually consider it
-- Treat them with respect, same way you'd try to get another forumgoer to consider a theory
--- Ask them for input where possible, paint the situation as you having an unconfirmed but possible theory and you're looking for evidence that, conveniently, they might have.
[] Don't vocalize any of this. You're going to have to stay calm for the entire duration of this, because if you get emotional about it, it's going to look like it's supposition and hope speaking, not reason and logic. You've already done a wonderful job of making the impression on her that fireAndHope!Sabrina just argues at her and doesn't say anything of use. Be the scientist. Be the ice. The fire and the believer need to take a back seat for a bit. Also, you might have to cleanse her if any of this hits home well enough.
[] Tear down the privacy device, walk back over to the couch, and apologize to Oriko for, yes, the brusqueness, rudeness of your questions. But you did get what you were hoping to from them.
-[] If she asks what that was, ask if she'll give you a moment? Without any context it's quite useless and would probably just annoy her.
[] Tell her that you have a theory, and ask her to hear it out, because everything she's said jibes too well with it. But also note that, since it's a theory, it
is in the end not something you'd just ask her to accept.
[] Explain that there's two sides to the theory, and that both are meaningless without the other, but obviously you can only cover one at a time. This is relevant because, alone, each half seems meaningless or even insulting.
-[] Note that you're aware of the Japanese tendency to minimize and disregard such things, then explain your belief that Oriko had major preexisting issues with depression before she made her wish. This is not either half of the theory, but it is the starting point.
-[] Observe that magic, being derived from humans, is not particularly separate from us (humans) -- we control it with our minds, it's practically another limb. Tell her that while you can't make claim to certainty, the idea that her depression
wouldn't have contaminated her precognition is probably less reasonable than the opposite. Compare it to a meguca who can conjure up any sword, but who spent a year before contracting practicing with a katana. Even if it only happens on a subconscious level, that meguca
will lean towards blades that are more like katanas.
-[] The other half, then, what is the result of feeding precognitive visions tainted with depression into the mind of somebody already depressed? And equally, as the visions reinforce the depression, won't the taint in those visions get worse and worse?
-[] You realize that proof is sparse. But where's the evidence for the competing theory, either? Ask about the vision granted by her wish. Did it include her death? After that, is there any correlation between time and the negativity of her visions? Can she think of any other evidence to bolster or weaken the theory? How about Kirika?
Some of this is probably overdramatized or slightly off path, which is why I've tried to lay it out in a hypothetical vote, as a list of points,
and as an essay. But I hope that the overall point will carry through.
