blast flame
How far will we go if it means lighting the way?
- Location
- Perth, Australia
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I'm trying to work out what I did wrong, how I could better phrase these things in the future to reduce disagreement.
Puella Magi Adfligo Systema
- Thread starter Firnagzen
- Start date
-
- Tags
- puella magi adfligo systema puella magi madoka magica be gay do crimes (gay) female protagonist bad decisions dating mami tomoe (tomoe mami) diabolical laughter friendship is the best ship handholding identity crises microwaving tea gets you put in the bad place names are important the body is the fursona of the soul this is not the baked goods thread we don't talk about rionna what could possibly go wrong? who in the world is azure sanfrancisco?
I'm trying to work out what I did wrong, how I could better phrase these things in the future to reduce disagreement.
Jonen C
F.M.D.G.
- Location
- Lincopense, Ostrogothia, Suecia
See I thought that and decided not to.
This is why we can have nice things.
(PUN is not a nice thing. Puns are.)
Always Happening
We could have prevented this.
- Location
- On a train with no brakes
Given that Umika's magic is specifically memory magic (not just mind magic), can read/write memories (ex fille), and is symbolized by a book, could Sayaka use it to straight up make back-up hard copies of everyone's memories?
AuraTwilight
The Sorcerer of Smiles
- Location
- The Silver City
"For the last fucking time, I am NOT making grief heroin. How do you even know about that, anyway?"
"...There was a Magical Girl who huffed powdered Familiars. Her magic would be useful for Walpurgisnacht."
Raiseth
I Find Your Lack of Memes Disturbing
- Location
- Russia
But I thought we were a grief heroine already?
Also, I can totally see Homura creating an overview of Meguca's powers using only one frame of reference- whether they would be useful against Walpurgisnacht- and it terrifies me.
Torgamous
Aspiring Gynoid
- Pronouns
- She/Her
We don't really know that's not already the case, hence my suggestion to have Sayaka try to hypnotize us both normally and after we've voted to not be hypnotized.
- Location
- Illinois
Fucking fuck okay so I was going to just give up on this until I had time to reread but then fucking firn dropped this in my lap.
Argh.
Okay uh...
So fun fact: Mami explicitly has a strong sense for "seeing connections between people." Thats not even mystical bs, or "canon," it's literally word of Firn.
So, this presents some very interesting things.
First, there's probably been a giant blazing connection between Homura and Madoka this entire time, and I strongly doubt there was ever a time Mami hadn't noticed it -- but, it's up to her to interpret the meaning of that. I've talked with some people on this, one comment was that this probably caused Mami to think "psycho stalker" or something at first -- I'm not going to comment on that possibility but it's a decent example of what things could have looked like.
So, now, there's like a couple critical questions everybody here needs to recognize.
#1, why isn't Mami more involved with trying to help Homura feel better?
That's not a comment on anything we're doing -- it's me asking you to ask yourself that exact question with no subtext. Mami sees Homura as a friend, cares about her, has some degree of admiration for her (see timestop hunt, section @ Mami's apartment), is fully aware that Homura is in a terrible place emotionally, but we don't see the kind of reaching out we should expect from someone like Mami who cares so much about her friends -- the kind of reaching out I'd really like to see because Mami is pretty fucking good at social! We just don't.
Why?
#2, Sayaka is the one figuring out Homura is a time traveler, not Mami. Why?
Mami's only had, you know, more time, far more exposure, clear evidence of the connection between Homura and Madoka the entire time, knowledge of Homura's magic, years of experience, deeply intelligent, extended personal interaction with Homura (again, timestop hunt @ Mami's apartment), in that same vein but more explicitly she's been aware of Homura's fears and traumas, if only generally, the entire time. She has had, as it was put, "all the puzzle pieces," for weeks, and at much greater fidelity than Sayaka.
So why not her?
Now, the obvious response to both of these things is "but her trauma," and that's a big part of it -- but it's only about half of the whole.
There's another half to it, see -- a simpler problem and a bigger problem.
Mami's faith in Sabrina is absolute...
And we told her that we were working on it.
That's the result of that. That's what's going on there. Mami quote does not know how to deal with equals close quote, word of Firn, and so when we told her we were working on it, she figured that since she didn't know for sure that anything she did would help, well, if Sabrina needed her to assist then Sabrina would tell her as much.
I would like to change this state of affairs, for about fifty different reasons. It can be done in a single two-line vote. I could write for hours about the ripple effects created by having Mami doing a lead-by-example "reach out to Homura" instead of the status quo being basically the direct opposite of that, but I won't do that here because words.
And tbh I think I can summarize it anyway:
Miss Sabrina, tear down this wall.
I don't know where the fuck the actual point of origin for the "I'm working on Homura" Sabrina to Mami thing is. If I knew I would've posted this sooner. I swear to God it's in there somewhere, but I was honestly going to put this off until I could reread except then Firn dropped that fucking quote, which frankly is as good as the quote I don't have, because it lays out the existence of the sentiment regardless of whether the origin I'm referring to even exists.
- Location
- Somewhere up the tree
yeah...
we should probably only give those to people we know for a fact can handle learning the full scope of the situation, so mami and kyouko are out, as well as oriko and kirika.
I think that madoka at least deserves to know, and I think she can handle the revelation, I'm not sure about Sayaka, but she seems to have a good head on her shoulders this time around. though I can't help but be worried about the very real possibility that they could remember what it was like being a witch, which I don't need to explain why its not a good thing
"funny, I know a possible timeline where a girl somehow befriend a witch and goes full vampire on witches"
homura has seen some SHIT
Vebyast
Nascent Transhuman
I will respond in PMs when I have time.
Putting something on the television sounds reasonable, but I suspect that most of the rest of our time with friends tonight will be occupied by enchanting practice and politics. Once it's just Sabrina and Mami... I want to try some more range extension stuff, and the "failure" case there is soul snuggles, and we might want to try some stuff with Mami's ability to see social connections. And @Kaizuki raises a good point about Mami's odd inaction wrt Homura that we might want to look into in more depth.
Torgamous
Aspiring Gynoid
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It's really nice that we can call someone else our best friend without triggering Mami's insecurities.
Mami is very used to Not Thinking About things. She spent years with the Incubator as her only "friend" without accidentally asking it enough right questions to learn even relatively innocuous stuff like it being an alien, and that was without knowing that it had secrets to keep. So when Mami hears that Homura has stuff she doesn't want anyone knowing, she's going to Not Think About It. I don't think that asking her to help with Homura is going to change much there, since between Kyuubey and Sabrina as well as how I can remember her treating her lesser friends off the top of my head, Mami's idea of friendship seems to be enjoying companionship and general adjacency while at best showing no particular interest in delving into the other's past.
Raiseth
I Find Your Lack of Memes Disturbing
- Location
- Russia
"You're my best friend, Mami!"
*cue Mami's tearful Homuesque expression a-la I got friendzoned by a daughter of a godddess*
Mami is... Japanese. No offense meant, but it's simply considered impolite to pry into people's personal circumstances, so it wouldn't even occur to many of them to think about it. There are, of course, exceptions and assigning hats to a nation isn't really productive, but the fact remains it's been a cultural norm for a long time not to ask too many questions if the answers may prove uncomfortable.
I mean, that's how this cultural aspect was explained to me by a Japanese person I've met on the Internets in relation to some other stuff we were discussing, more or less, so don't accept it as the universal truth.
moonstne
[x] Bandwagon
Hey guys, just real quick, can anyone tell me why Madoka is tinged by sadness in this bit? I can't really make sense of it.
- Location
- SomeWhereElse
It may just be because the situation of pretty much every magical girl is one where they are being denied basic necessities. That of the ability to simply live instead of being forced to hunt witches.
She's happy that we won't deny people something they need and sad that the world is that way in the first place
AuraTwilight
The Sorcerer of Smiles
- Location
- The Silver City
Here's the fucked up thing.
In canon, Mami basically assumes the worst of Homura, and assumes he's going to victimize/stomp down Madoka.
Mami can see people's relationships/connections.
Homura literally breaks down and sobs over the growing rift between her and Madoka.
To Mami's vision (in canon), Homura's attachment probably looks incredibly one-sided, unhealthy, and tattered, because it's only running one way.
Fuuuuuuuuuuuck.
In canon, Mami basically assumes the worst of Homura, and assumes he's going to victimize/stomp down Madoka.
Mami can see people's relationships/connections.
Homura literally breaks down and sobs over the growing rift between her and Madoka.
To Mami's vision (in canon), Homura's attachment probably looks incredibly one-sided, unhealthy, and tattered, because it's only running one way.
Fuuuuuuuuuuuck.
- Location
- USA
Do you mean she literally sees connections between people, or just has a magical sense for it?
Does this apply to Mami's relationships too? Would she see/sense a connection between herself and her friends?
Would she 'sense' that connection weaken if someone leaves her, ex Kyoko, Masami? Is that part of why it affects her so much?
wait
Does this contribute to why she blames herself during the witchbomb?
Like she recognizes the witch as a person (her student, friend, etc) and her magic senses/shows her a connection between her and the witch?
- Location
- Illinois
I mean, it's questionable whether she sees it going one or two ways, but in either case when she compares it to the behavior of the two towards each other and to others there is no canon scenario where she concludes anything positive.
Where "it" is Homura's personal problems which Mami would otherwise be looking to try to help with.
Same usage of "it", "assist" also used wrt "it".
...
It's -- so this kind of plays into things here, yes, but.
It's not remotely in Mami's nature to refrain from doing things to or for someone -- especially a friend -- if she believes it would improve their well-being/happiness.
Accepting that as a postulate -- because it's true -- we're then left to ask why Mami is so relatively inactive towards Homura, and we come to two possibilities:
A, she doesn't know of something she could do which she would have good reason to believe would meaningfully help.
B, she knows of things which she could do that she believes could help, but for some reason is not doing them.
The third case, "there's nothing she could do to help", doesn't exist.
Given case A we have trivial ways to resolve that and dramatically improve the situation for Homura, which boil down mostly into "communicate to Mami in one way or another that Homura doesn't really understand a number of social subtleties and so clearly communicating positive feelings is very effective + helpful." That induces a ripple effect following from Mami's status as a role model for most of the group that goes all kinds of places we want to go.
Given case B we have to consider what reasons could possibly restrain Mami from trying things she believes are likely to help a friend whom she cares about. Thus far the only two possibilities I've identified are, as mentioned earlier, trauma and Sabrina. The trauma has, I think, demonstrably come far enough that it shouldn't be of sufficient weight in this question (Mami teasing friends). But, as mentioned, it seems to me that we've basically told Mami we're working on Homura's personal problems, and that being the case I can definitely see Mami essentially figuring that Sabrina knows best on this topic-- because, see...
That?
That remains an underlying issue.
The questions I asked were largely hypothetical -- partly not, because fresh perspectives are useful, but at the end of the day I'm about 99.9% certain that what's going on is that Mami either honestly doesn't know or honestly believes she doesn't know how to help Homura as well as Sabrina does. And to be honest, given the secrecy surrounding Homura, the attitude Sabrina has displayed towards other such secretive topics, the fact that before Sabrina showed up Mami and Homura almost came to blows despite Homura being (as Mami now understands) a good person...
I want to say a lot of things to Homura, sometimes. She... She's hurting, and I don't like that. I want to help. I want her to know that I'm here for her if she wants me to be. But... but there's too much I don't know, and Sabrina is working on it, and I could never live with myself if I tried to do something and it turned out it wasn't the right thing to do... Again. So I'll trust Sabrina. If she needs me to help, she'll tell me -- and if she doesn't, I'll support her.
That's my read on this, essentially. And there's a lot, a lot, of potential yield in this -- whether or not I'm right. It's just that every time I've tried to describe all of it I've failed horribly, because in my mind it's this giant interconnected web with all of these variables and results and these blasted words only read left to right and top to bottom. So I've basically resigned myself to dropping things piecemeal...
AuraTwilight
The Sorcerer of Smiles
- Location
- The Silver City
She sees them as literal strings between people, according to Battle Pentagram.
It shouldn't contribute to the Witchbomb; she never realizes Witches are people unless she directly sees the transformation happen, which implies that becoming a Witch severs all their connections due to their lack of lucidity.
- Location
- Somewhere up the tree
mami doesn't recognize them, they don't recognize anyone, there is no connection, they might as well be strangers
AuraTwilight
The Sorcerer of Smiles
- Location
- The Silver City
My point is that Mami isn't stupid and if she sees connections between a Witch and any random humans, especially any that they aren't currently Kissing/hunting, she'd wonder about it. That's fucking weird.
The Phoenixian
The Glacier Witch
- Location
- My own little world
It's worth noting that PMAS explicitly works differently here:
Mami has a good feel for connections, but she can't actually see them according to what she told us.
- Location
- Illinois
Yes, which... It's hard to say how far that goes without asking her.
Is it "senses connection between Homura + Madoka circa meeting Homura, is weirded out" level?
Or is it "just" "a good sense for connections" plus seeing basically all of the same Madoka-Homura interaction that Sayaka does?
Either way, "All the puzzle pieces", as it were.
... If I got this wrong earlier I apologize -- today in particular seems to be screwy.
AuraTwilight
The Sorcerer of Smiles
- Location
- The Silver City
Sure. But I imagine it gives her similar information and it still raises the question of "Would Mami feel a connection between Octavia and Kyousuke?"
The Phoenixian
The Glacier Witch
- Location
- My own little world
I agree with your conclusion that Mami wouldn't see the connection, but my purpose here is to nip an erroneous citation and the logic that stems from it in the bud. Nothing more, nothing less.
For what it's worth, given that having a good feeling for the connections between people is still markedly different than seeing those connections as a physical thing. I would expect Mami might understand the connection between Octavia and Holger. Assuming she cared enough to think about it, that is.
As far as connections to people, I would presume it's not so much that she cannot comprehend the connections between witches and others, as her failure to realize what witches are that prevents her from feeling what those connections really represent, instead perhaps seeing them as merely the bond between witch and familiar.
- Location
- Illinois
So at any rate, what I want is:
[] Wait until MadoSaya leaving time (do things until then!)
-[] Ask Homura to stick around
[] Tell Mami you need a favor
And then do things about the stuff I just mentioned -- I have a specific format for that in mind (as usual...) but overall it looks/sounds like
[] Show & Tell with Mami and Homura -- if you tell Homura how you feel about her and why you feel that way, good things happen.
Liable to include some degree of sads and many degrees of happy.
But this is predicated on such things as homework e.g....
It's also not, per se, urgent. Done right it has an almost indescribable yield (net result: people figure out how to express themselves to Homura, Homura learns to stop walking on eggshells around everyone (much moreso than she already has), we secure a vastly better situation in which to work our way around the loopbomb/potentialbomb, etc), which is why I want to do it ASAP, but annoyingly I cannot in fact describe it as urgent. So it's possible it may not happen tonight, which is mega sad because this is genuinely going to alter the entire social structure of our group for the better -- it is literally on the list of everyone's biggest regrets (or, well, Mami + Homura at least, others to a lesser degree) that they don't know how to communicate with each other and this stands a real chance of fixing that.
[] Wait until MadoSaya leaving time (do things until then!)
-[] Ask Homura to stick around
[] Tell Mami you need a favor
And then do things about the stuff I just mentioned -- I have a specific format for that in mind (as usual...) but overall it looks/sounds like
[] Show & Tell with Mami and Homura -- if you tell Homura how you feel about her and why you feel that way, good things happen.
Liable to include some degree of sads and many degrees of happy.
But this is predicated on such things as homework e.g....
It's also not, per se, urgent. Done right it has an almost indescribable yield (net result: people figure out how to express themselves to Homura, Homura learns to stop walking on eggshells around everyone (much moreso than she already has), we secure a vastly better situation in which to work our way around the loopbomb/potentialbomb, etc), which is why I want to do it ASAP, but annoyingly I cannot in fact describe it as urgent. So it's possible it may not happen tonight, which is mega sad because this is genuinely going to alter the entire social structure of our group for the better -- it is literally on the list of everyone's biggest regrets (or, well, Mami + Homura at least, others to a lesser degree) that they don't know how to communicate with each other and this stands a real chance of fixing that.