Remove ads

Puella Magi Adfligo Systema

Reader mode
SaltyWaffles said:
Guys, gushing about Mami is not the right way to go here. Masami is asking a serious question. Notice how Firn wrote how her expression changed to a carefully neutral one? Masami is actually broaching a serious topic here, and she knows it. She wants to know how Mami has been doing--in the sense that she has no idea what Mami has been through or what she thinks of the current situation. Now is absolutely the time to reveal to Masami that Mami is not some god on a pedestal who is happy and awesome. Now is the time to reveal that Mami has been through some rough shit, that she was used and deceived by Kyubey to do his bidding and was absolutely devastated when she found out. If we're going to reconcile them, we need to hammer home how Mami was suffering the whole time, just like Masami was. That she yearns to reconnect with her old friends/students, but is terrified of doing so because she thinks they hate her.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
No shit?

I thought it was kinda obvious from the way I changed my vote three times in a row that I don't consider just gushing about Mami a viable choice. Sorry if I started a trend with it.

But. I also don't consider not gushing about Mami at all a viable choice, because, well, she's making progress, she's dealing with her abandonment issues, and I think it bears to say that Sabrina is proud of her for it.

Like, it shouldn't be only about how Sabrina is helping Mami to get better, it should also be about how Mami helps herself get better, if that makes sense.

Also,
[] "Too swag for you to handle it, sister."
-[] "But not for me." Put on the Grief Shades.

Is a masterpiece, and I refuse to part with it. :V

( what I'm saying is it shouldn't be too heavy and serious, imo. There are several people with us who didn't ask for a psychological analysis of Mami's issues, and two of them didn't even ask for it at all, they are here meeting another team in town, so hitting them with heavy stuff is well. Not good for them and not good for Mami. )

Also, yeah, not really productive, but I feel a need to jab at Masami in some friendly, but not too friendly way, kinda like a current girlfriend of someone with abandonment issues would do to an ex-girlfriend who didn't listen to anything she had to say and left in a huff.

And Mami being too swag for Masami to handle it has an advantage of being completely true. :V
 
Raiseth said:
Also, yeah, not really productive, but I feel a need to jab at Masami in some friendly, but not too friendly way, kinda like a current girlfriend of someone with abandonment issues would do to an ex-girlfriend who didn't listen to anything she had to say and left in a huff.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I don't think we can or should blame Masami for anything. Her ghosting Mami probably saved at least one, maybe both, of their lives, and it's not like we don't know that the image Mami thought she had to present made for an excellent first impression and a horrible last one. It's part of why she was such a great recruiter for Kyuubey.
 
Torgamous said:
I don't think we can or should blame Masami for anything. Her ghosting Mami probably saved at least one, maybe both, of their lives, and it's not like we don't know that the image Mami thought she had to present made for an excellent first impression and a horrible last one. It's part of why she was such a great recruiter for Kyuubey.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Yeah, that's why I don't propose to blame her.

It's more in vein of "Mami is awesome, why did you le-"

Oh, I see.
Well. Yeah, I'm not being super-rational about it, and I don't think I can? Despite them all being characters in a quest?
I'll just quote this once again to feel better, if you don't mind.

Raiseth said:
And Mami being too swag for Masami to handle it has an advantage of being completely true. :V
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
 
SaltyWaffles said:
[X] Answer her:
-[X] Be real with her. Explain how Kyubey used her and deceived her, and how it devastated Mami when she found out the truth about soul gems and Kyubey's betrayal. How Mami feels terrified about reaching out to her former trainees/friends, but longs to reconnect with them all the same. But explain that she's doing a lot better now than she was, and you intend to keep that trend going.

I know this is supposed to be a jovial atmosphere, but Masami pretty blatantly brought up the subject, and we owe it to Mami to give an honest answer here. Plus, it will probably help Akemi and Noriko to learn that even magical girls like Mami have problems, regrets, and fears, and that they can still overcome and recover from them.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I'm not sold on going deep into Mami's issues with three people she barely knows when we can just say that's not a topic we're comfortable discussing with three people Mami barely knows, but if we're going to do that we should do it right. Learning about Kyuubey broke her, but the damage started accumulating way before that, and following that with how she's terrified of reconnecting with her friends without any other explanation makes it seem like she's just guilty about the whole recruitment thing.

I don't think reading the Mind of Tomoe Mami omake verbatim would go over well, but it's a good example of the ground we should be covering if we want to have a real conversation about Mami. Kyuubey doesn't define Mami, her loneliness does. The Ultra-Senpai Battle Ojou is an act, because she doesn't think people would want to know her if she were less than perfect. We're helping her with her abandonment issues, but therapy is a slow process and we're not even really a therapist. That kind of stuff.
 
Torgamous said:
I'm not sold on going deep into Mami's issues with three people she barely knows when we can just say that's not a topic we're comfortable discussing with three people Mami barely knows, but if we're going to do that we should do it right. Learning about Kyuubey broke her, but the damage started accumulating way before that, and following that with how she's terrified of reconnecting with her friends without any other explanation makes it seem like she's just guilty about the whole recruitment thing.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
The solution to this is to re-arrange the order in which we explain things. So instead of this:
Be real with her. Explain how Kyubey used her and deceived her, and how it devastated Mami when she found out the truth about soul gems and Kyubey's betrayal. How Mami feels terrified about reaching out to her former trainees/friends, but longs to reconnect with them all the same. But explain that she's doing a lot better now than she was, and you intend to keep that trend going.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
We can do this:
Be real with her. Explain how Mami feels terrified about reaching out to her former trainees/friends, but longs to reconnect with them all the same. How Kyubey used her and deceived her, and how it devastated Mami when she found out the truth about soul gems and Kyubey's betrayal. But explain that she's doing a lot better now than she was, and you intend to keep that trend going.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Shuffling Mami's fear of abandonment up front presents Kyubey's betrayal as effect rather than cause and her being lonely as the primary focus rather than Kyubey just being an emotional abuser. Someone whose wish ended up being to connect to life and whose magic manifests as connecting ribbons clearly had human connection issues predating Kyubey and it isn't a stretch to conclude that it was what made her such an attractive candidate for Kyubey to contract in the first place.
 
SaltyWaffles said:
@Jiven , @Polenball , @R2Walker , @Raiseth , @Torgamous , @Jonen C

Guys, gushing about Mami is not the right way to go here. Masami is asking a serious question. Notice how Firn wrote how her expression changed to a carefully neutral one? Masami is actually broaching a serious topic here, and she knows it. She wants to know how Mami has been doing--in the sense that she has no idea what Mami has been through or what she thinks of the current situation. Now is absolutely the time to reveal to Masami that Mami is not some god on a pedestal who is happy and awesome. Now is the time to reveal that Mami has been through some rough shit, that she was used and deceived by Kyubey to do his bidding and was absolutely devastated when she found out. If we're going to reconcile them, we need to hammer home how Mami was suffering the whole time, just like Masami was. That she yearns to reconnect with her old friends/students, but is terrified of doing so because she thinks they hate her.

(*edit: restating my vote so you guys know what I actually put)

[X] Answer her:
-[X] Be real with her. Explain how Kyubey used her and deceived her to serve as a recruiter, and how it devastated Mami when she found out the truth about soul gems and Kyubey's betrayal. How Mami feels terrified about reaching out to her former trainees/friends, but longs to reconnect with them all the same. But explain that she's doing a lot better now than she was, and you intend to keep that trend going.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

(late response but I didn't come up with a coherent response until a few hours ago so w/e)

Like I get that, but I got some issues with this vote...
1. We shouldn't be giving out all of Mami's personal details. That's for her to do.
2. This comes off to me as apologizing for Mami, when we should be arranging things so that Mami can do that.
3. We can gush about Mami while being serious. If the lack of context is an issue, that can be fixed. For example...

[X] Gush about Mami
-[X] She's gotten much better about not putting on a strong facade around people
-[X] You've made each other better and you're glad you're getting to know the real her
-[X] Offer to set-up a double-date meeting between yourself, Mami, and the Animators if they want

I don't expect this vote to win (esp not as-is) but I wanted to put this out there for people to critique and/or modify
 
R2Walker said:
[X] Gush about Mami
-[X] She's gotten much better about not putting on a strong facade around people
-[X] You've made each other better and you're glad you're getting to know the real her
-[X] Offer to set-up a double-date meeting between yourself, Mami, and the Animators if they want

I don't expect this vote to win (esp not as-is) but I wanted to put this out there for people to critique and/or modify
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Can I point out the problem with gushing about Mami here?

Firnagzen said:
"Soo." Masami glances at you, expression flickering to neutral. "On the subject of girlfriends. How's she been?"
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Remember, this is Masami asking. A girl who notably blames Mami for what happened to her. She is not well inclined to Mami, and it should be taken into account that she's being careful and guarded in words here, when just a moment ago she was having fun and grinning.

This approach isn't that of someone who's looking for gushing or playing fun. This is her carefully fishing for something. Maybe she wants to know if she can reconsider her judgement of Mami, maybe it's something else, but everything here says she's likely to take the mooning girlfriend approach... poorly.
 
The Phoenixian said:
Can I point out the problem with gushing about Mami here?



Remember, this is Masami asking. A girl who notably blames Mami for what happened to her. She is not well inclined to Mami, and it should be taken into account that she's being careful and guarded in words here, when just a moment ago she was having fun and grinning.

This approach isn't that of someone who's looking for gushing or playing fun. This is her carefully fishing for something. Maybe she wants to know if she can reconsider her judgement of Mami, maybe it's something else, but everything here says she's likely to take the mooning girlfriend approach... poorly.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Fair enough.

I am still not interested in divulging Mami's deets without her present though.

I'm also clearly not interpreting this the same way you are. I took the neutrality as that - neutrality. And given that the last thing someone did before Masami asked that question was gush about their own girlfriend, it would be appropriate to do the same. I agree that showing her that Mami has changed for the better is a good way to go; I do not agree with the other proposed way to do it.
 
I'll note that a lot of the core points here are things we've told other people before. (telling Kyouko about Kyuubey using Mami, for instance) And much of the rest is directly relevant to Masami's situation and relationship with Mami.

That said, I do worry that being too in depth could break the delivery, so I'll present my own take.

For my own take on the matter.

[x] Mami has been... recovering.
-[x] Don't tax Masami's patience, but be evocative. And be real.
-[x] Mami took the truth of soul gems poorly. The fact that Kyuubey had been using her for years and only pretending to be her friend, worse.
-[x] Potential specific: Being there to help her through the loneliness isn't exactly a hard choice, but you do still make a specific point to spend as much time around her as possible.
-[x] Why did Masami ask?

The last part because its important to confirm what Masami wanted out of this question, and not just guess.
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top