Puella Magi Adfligo Systema
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Karnewarrior
Leastmost of the Hanged Man Arcana
Done.
The thing is, if she's read in on Meguca, she'll understand that there's a masquerade. It'd be one hell of a flimsy masquerade if the only thing stopping people from knowing "there are real life vampires" was that nobody had asked a vampire "Hey are you a vampire?"
Even treating the question seriously is respecting her intelligence. It shows that while we're maintaining the masquerade, we can accept that she might have it figured out. All we have to do is ask her to clarify if she's being serious or not, and this way implies we think she's being serious.
- Location
- Actually pretty lost
It is a sufficiently big deal that asking her to clarify what exactly she means is perfectly reasonable. If she is read in on magical girls why would she be offended? Literally just saying "to avoid misunderstandings, could you clarify what exactly you mean by 'magical girls'" would avoid so much potential drama, and I don't see it as being condescending at all. That we think she might be talking about video games doesn't mean we have to bring them up. We don't actually know that she recognised the rings and fingernails - it's a likely hypothesis, but certainly not a guarantee, and it's been pointed out we were holding hands. She could think "magical girls" is an odd euphemism for "lesbians" that she's overheard Hitomi use talking to Madoka. She could have overheard some people talking about magical girls when she was a teenager, and thinks it's a common game. She could think all kinds of things, and I'm not sure where your point about secret teenage LARPing tattoos has come from. Why would you think I was advocating for that?
Overall, you seem very fired up about what should be a fairly minor point of due diligence, and I'm not sure why.
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Godwinson
"Well, I've got nothing."
Because it's worse than worthless, it's actively detrimental.
I'm having difficulty seeing how it's worse than three lines of ???!, but eh.
- Location
- Actually pretty lost
It's really not, because if asking "to avoid misunderstandings, could you clarify what exactly you mean by 'magical girls'" is enough to seriously impact our relationship with the woman when she knows about magic and the masquerade, she's... so easily offended as to not be a realistic character, and not someone we want read in on our situation anyway?
Jonen C
F.M.D.G.
- Location
- Lincopense, Ostrogothia, Suecia
I would actively caution against using language that may be construed (with or without incubator editing) as a drug dealer talking about using their new superior product to corner the market and take over the other gangs.
So let us not talk of clear seeds.
So let us not talk of clear seeds.
- Location
- United Kingdom
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Do you think she loved a girl and then the girl died of Being A Magical Girl and that's why she told Hitomi not to fall in love with other girls?
Vebyast
Nascent Transhuman
[] Be compassionate, respectful, and supportive throughout. She likely has first-hand experience about meguca being suffering.
[] Gently reassure her. She's worried for her daughter and her daughter's friends.
[] Find out if she's hooked up to telepathy and if she's still in contact with kyubey.
[] Figure out what she knows, taking particular care to feel out and control infohazards. Remember that Mami is sitting next to you.
[] Read her in on your ideals, goals, and general plans, particularly as they relate to helping the people around you: You have the power to make it so that being meguca is not suffering and you intend to make it happen.
[] Let her know that you'd already been thinking of reading her in and asking her for assistance.
[] Gently reassure her. She's worried for her daughter and her daughter's friends.
[] Find out if she's hooked up to telepathy and if she's still in contact with kyubey.
[] Figure out what she knows, taking particular care to feel out and control infohazards. Remember that Mami is sitting next to you.
[] Read her in on your ideals, goals, and general plans, particularly as they relate to helping the people around you: You have the power to make it so that being meguca is not suffering and you intend to make it happen.
[] Let her know that you'd already been thinking of reading her in and asking her for assistance.
She just gave us the "don't try to feed me any bullshit" line. Trying to feed her a line of bullshit, especially one that's that transparent and obviously wrong, is arrogant, insulting, condescending, and stupid. Our entire goal here is to convince her that we can protect her daughter and that she should be working with us. "Arrogant, condescending, and stupid" is going to do the exact opposite of helping with that.
Godwinson
"Well, I've got nothing."
Because it's something that could actively insult the person we're talking to.
Plus, that was a joke vote. I mean, I know you don't like humor, but I thought you at least understood when something was humor.
- Location
- Actually pretty lost
That example is an edge case, but the point is that there's no reasonable characterisation that could be offended by us asking her to clarify she is, in fact, talking about real magic in a world with a pervasive masquerade, and as such we should ask for such clarification to avoid getting tripped up by edge cases.
Why is asking her to clarify exactly what she's referring to feeding her a line of bullshit? That a masquerade exists is clearly established. If she's read in on magic it's basically saying "I'm pretty sure I know what you're talking about, but I'd like to make sure to avoid screwing up majorly". You seem to be reading all sorts of negative connotations from doing so simply aren't there. The only way I could see her getting offended is if she isn't read in on magic, doesn't know about the masquerade, and thinks "magical girl" means something else in this context - like a game or a euphemisim - and thinks we're trying to dodge the accusation. If she knows about the masquerade, she can't be seriously offended by asking her to clarify just to make sure.
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The Narrator
Disembodied Voice
- Location
- Somewhere Offscreen
Well, that's a development I would never have expected.
If she knows about magical girls, then she knows that it's something usually kept secret. She should expect us to be a bit wary.
It's really not. Confirming that we're on the same page not only demonstrates that we have enough discretion to not just blurt out secrets the first time someone hints at them, it's also a good way to find out how much she actually knows so we know what we do and don't need to explain.
If she knows about magical girls, then she knows that it's something usually kept secret. She should expect us to be a bit wary.
Agreed. This is pretty much a perfect setup for the classic "How did you know?" "I didn't. You just told me," bit.
Onmur
Archangel of Nutella.
She is an adult. I don't believe she needs this from us.
Mami tearfully ties up everyone, Sabrina included, and flees.
... Carrying Sabrina in her arms.
Oh hai i didn't see you there mami.
Torgamous
Aspiring Gynoid
- Pronouns
- She/Her
She, like Vebyast, might be one of those edge cases who feels that it is. We don't want to get tripped up by those.
Kinruush
Who?
- Location
- USA
- We want to read her in regardless. Walpy is coming to town, and she'll need to prepare at some point. Even if we didn't intend on letting her know yet, she'd find out some things eventually anyway.
- If she is familiar with magical girls, then she's just been presented with the idea that it could affect her daughter as well as confronted with whatever experiences she had with magical girls. Those experiences, if she was close enough to be safe from Kyubey's memory wipes, probably ended poorly.
I think the very small chance of that is insignificant compared to making assumptions and potentially having Sabrina looking like an idiot that can't keep her mouth shut.
Then you should have used Qs rather than Xs. Not my fault, there.
Oh, I do like humor when it's actually funny and the like. "Eeeeeeeehhhhh?!" is a crappy version of humor imo. *shrugs*
Exactly. And given how meta Sabrina is about everything, I'd feel absurdly foolish if we actually fell for something that cliche. An effective cliche that exists for a damn good reason, but still a cliche.
Diomedea
A piece of the continent
- Location
- The interblag
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I want to point out that Ms. Shizuki herself left room for her to be wrong about guessing we're magical girls, prefacing it with "this may sound strange." Us responding in kind shouldn't insult her, because she literally just did the exact same thing.
Onmur
Archangel of Nutella.
Liking this sort of voting...
[] Be happy an opportunity fell right into your lap.
-[Q] Pull Mami into your lap.
[] Confirm Mrs. Shizuki's suspicions: Everyone but Hitomi and Madoka in your group are Magical Girls.
-[] And you intend to keep it that way.
[] Send Mami an apologetic look; this is fortuitous, you've been planning to talk with your friends about telling the adults involved about magic.
-[] First, because Magical Girls are usually cut off from their support network, and that carries psychological problems.
-[] Second, to be blunt, we need help. Explain your unique Wish, and your plan improve Magical Girls' lives everywhere.
Exactly, tact, as in not pretending an adult woman needs comforting from a teenager. Respect, yes. Comfort, no.
Haruka is actively trying to take control of the situation, here.
We gave Kazumi the Seed twice! That means she's got an extra now, right?
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- Location
- Actually pretty lost
If she doesn't know about magic then I'd prefer to discuss Hitomi and get her permission/give her warning that we doing so, because - ironically, given the current discussion - I think not at least giving her a quick heads-up before potentially upending her family life is pretty rude.
Like, I'm not against telling adult Shizuki about magic. I'm not even against telling adult Shizuki about magic today. I'm against telling her right now, before we've had a chance to talk to Hitomi. If she does already know about magic, great! I can't imagine her being seriously offended that we ask her to make sure we're on the same page. Like, not even denying it, just not jumping into a conversation blindly with a set of assumptions that may or may not be true.
Seriously, say our initial response is "To avoid potential misunderstandings, before I respond could you clarify what exactly you mean by 'magical girls'?" If she's read in on magic, that's all but screaming "YES YOU'RE RIGHT IT'S TRUE JUST LET ME MAKE SURE I'M NOT ABOUT TO SCREW EVERYTHING UP", and if she's not it's kind of a weird answer but she doesn't know about magic so assuming she did would have been so much worse.
I just don't see the catastrophic offence some people are claiming this will cause.
Vebyast
Nascent Transhuman
Her reaction to "It's all magical girls" is misunderstood in a way that has Sabrina worrying that she's overtly homophobic.
The next line reinforces this; whatever Sabrina saw in that glance is enough to make Sabrina expect outright hostility. She is not fishing for information. She did not have a mysterious disappearance that she wondered about. Whatever it was, she knows enough about magical girls to react with visible, controlled near-hostility decades later. How do you explain that with anything other than actual magical girls?
We also have this description of her character to go on:
She is being direct with us and we need to be direct with her. She was sharp enough to notice it in Sayaka on her own, no social dynamics or lesbians to draw on. She told us that she knows and we need to respect that.
It further establishes that she knows about actual magic; why would she expect "I played D&D when I was a girl too" to sound strange? She knows that she's talking about something weird enough that it'd be incomprehensible to anyone but a contractee or associate.
I mean, I suppose it gives us a way to pretend to be stupid, but look at this:
One of Sabrina or Mami - probably both - reacted with visible surprise to the words "magical girl". Which means that she knows that we know, and she knows that there's a high-power masquerade up and that we really weren't expecting her to be in on it.
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Kinruush
Who?
- Location
- USA
I'm not sure exactly what you're arguing against here or why. I don't think anyone is proposing anything beyond a "I'm sorry for your loss" level of sympathy (I am not proposing that exact phrase), which is a pretty normal way of reacting when someone brings up that they've lost someone, no matter the age difference or how long it's been. Also, it may be somewhat manipulative of me to say this, but verbally recognizing that she's probably lost someone to the magical girl system gives a clear, immediate demonstration that we understand the inherent tragedy and are treating it accordingly.