Got done catching up a few days ago, and while it is off of the current topic, does anyone know if we should deliver a clear seed to Tsubaki Mikoto and tell her about Walmartnight?
I'm 100% on board with this - it's something I've wanted to do for ages, and indeed was planning to do this in-character weekend before things got reshuffled by Tokyo wanting to meet on Sunday.
Even if Tsubaki isn't willing to help fight Walpurgis directly (which I wouldn't begrudge her, she has dependants that rely on her staying safe), just getting Sayaka a copy of her power would be incredibly useful.
We've already laid the groundwork for this, luckily - we contacted her and got along pretty well, and received an open invite to come by sometime.
"I could drop by Hozuki some time?" you say. "I'd be happy to meet you in person, and I'd definitely provide a Clear Seed."
"You're welcome to!" Tsubaki says. Her voice darkens into something deadly serious. "But be warned that I will not tolerate violence against me or mine, Miss Sabrina. I'm sure you have the best of intentions, but I've had to deal with my share of troublemakers."
I'm 100% on board with this - it's something I've wanted to do for ages, and indeed was planning to do this in-character weekend before things got reshuffled by Tokyo wanting to meet on Sunday.
Even if Tsubaki isn't willing to help fight Walpurgis directly (which I wouldn't begrudge her, she has dependants that rely on her staying safe), just getting Sayaka a copy of her power would be incredibly useful.
We've already laid the groundwork for this, luckily - we contacted her and got along pretty well, and received an open invite to come by sometime.
From Suzune Magica: Suzune's mentor as a magical girl and prior to that the nanny/caretaker to Hinata Matsuri and Hinata Kagari. Both times Mom-in-all-but-name.
[] Say something to Sayaka/Homura
- [] What about? (write-in)
[] Head home
[] Talk to Mami
- [] Fill Mami in about Kyouko's story
- [] Ask her what she thinks about this whole thing
- [] Something else (write-in)
[] Prepare something for Kyouko?
[] Write-in (word count limit: 150 words)
That has to be addressed. We -need- to draw a direct contrast between *that time*, *back then*, when Mami didn't manage... Exactly what she had just managed, and *now*, when she *has* managed that. Not because Mami won't draw that contrast herself, but because we can use this success to completely recontextualize Mami's traumas and... I just, I just don't have a sentence to describe how important this is except "At least as important as this." I have no idea where it will leave us except that that place will be inestimably better than where we are now. It would be *everything*. It is a means by which to change *everything* for her.
I'll explain.
See, Mami spent the two years immediately following her parents' deaths losing friend after friend, and -- this is the key part -- *failing to understand why, or what she could do differently to not be left alone again.*
It's written all *over* her character, in every little moment, in every facet of her being. "Mami Tomoe doesn't understand what she can do to get people to stay her friend when an interpersonal problem arises" is practically engraved into her *soul* at this point. We see it in virtually every personal moment of her character in PMAS. We see it with Masami:
"Hm... Peppy would be the best word to describe her. Always cheerful and happy, always listening to music of some kind of another," Mami replies. "Really quite powerful, though!"
"Huh. How'd you meet her, anyway?" you query, making a particularly tricky hop across a building- you're forced to tuck and roll to avoid an inconveniently placed antenna.
Mami shrugs. "Oh, I met her about... half a year ago, I think? I... well, I saved her from a Barrier, and told her a little about magical girls. She became one a while later, but since she lived so far away, we sort of... never kept in touch."
You can tell there's a little more to that story, and decide to risk pushing a little. "I get the feeling there's more to it than that?"
Mami laughs. "Can't hide anything from you, can I?" She tries for nonchalant. "She... stopped answering my calls. When I went to check on her, she told me she needed her space," she finishes evenly, but the slight stumble as she lands on a roof gives lie to that.
Something happened that convinced Masami that being a magical girl was a very bad thing, which resulted in her having a problem with Mami. Mami, subsequently, was just... brushed off, dropped, sent away, and has never displayed any hint of knowing that something happened to Masami. When Mami went to check in on Masami, she came away with the response that Masami "needed her space." Not "something terrible happened and I don't want you around anymore because I don't want to be a Magical Girl", no, Mami came away with "Masami decided she didn't like me". Why? What could Mami have done differently? Apparently, according to the message she got from Masami, Mami should have tried less hard to stay in contact with her.
The message stuck -- it being similar to what had happened with Kyouko. In both cases, trying to get people to stay with her had only made things worse. So, what Mami learned was that when people leave her, she shouldn't try to stay in contact with them or get them to come back, even if it hurt, because it would only make things worse if she tried. Only, that's not right. It's not right at all, as we literally saw just this most recent chapter where if Mami had just let Kyouko push her away, we... would not be celebrating right now.
And then there was Kazumi. We see the same sort of issue with Kazumi, too: Mami just not knowing how to work with interpersonal issues. Kazumi was arguably the least directly traumatic departure, as Mami notes that they "parted on good terms," and yet that was where Mami left things. After Kazumi left Mitakihara, Mami just gave up on her. Mami didn't try to call, didn't try to visit. The instant that we put Mami and Kazumi back in contact with each other, they started visiting each other and talking. Literally the first thing out of Kazumi's mouth after "Mami?" was "Never mind that, how are you?I haven't heard from you in forever!" and in the next couple days we had Pleiades in Mitakihara to visit her.
It's clear that Mami wanted correspondence with Kazumi: after all, she went for it the instant it was offered! So why the hell didn't she go for it in the first place? Why did she just, just let Kazumi go?
Well, there's a simple answer to that, and if you're reading any of this post you've probably twigged to it already. To Mami, Kazumi leaving Mitakihara constituted Kazumi leaving her (Mami's use of "we parted" in her description of Kazumi leaving Mitakihara makes this quite clear), and by that point, Mami believed that *anything* she tried to do to keep up with someone who was leaving her would inevitably fail and only hurt her more. It worked that way with Kyouko, it worked that way with Masami, why should it be different with Kazumi? So, she gave up, and thus was born her surprise-- yes,surprise-- when someone she had "parted with on good terms" was excited to hear from her again. Because Mami had been taught that pushing for contact is bad.
And, well, then there was the whole incident with Kyouko, who Mami "wasn't good enough to help back then", and Kyouko was by far the worst. With Kyouko, Mami found out that power doesn't help you retain friends. Found out that she couldn't force someone to stay with her. It left her so, so *hollow* inside, after. She tried *everything she knew how to* to hold on to Kyouko, *everything*, she literally even tried to *force* Kyouko to stay, and it just didn't *work.* Not only did it not work, but when it failed, it just made things even *worse*: now she had to live with having done something Kyouko wouldn't have liked at the time when/after Kyouko left her. In trying to get Kyouko to stay, she had only pushed her further away.
This procession of traumas *marked* her, you have to understand. Nothing she tried to get people to stay her friend worked. She concluded, based on that, that she was somehow "broken", because "normal" people didn't have this problem. "Normal" people didn't push others away by trying to stay in contact with them. "Normal" people didn't have all their friends leave them. "Normal" people didn't make things worse by trying to stay in contact with friends who lived away from them. Something was *wrong* with her, and whatever that was, it was why nobody would stay with her. And she had no idea *what* it was, and she had no idea how to even start to *investigate* how she might fix it, except to ask people why they were leaving her, and yet trying to adjust her behavior around the answers they gave never worked, (because those answers were often BS and she didn't understand that, much less how to respond to it) and so she just kept *going*, just *hoping* that this time her friend/s wouldn't want to leave her because *she had no idea how to get people to not want to leave her.* *She had no idea how to respond to any form of interpersonal trouble, except to beg for it to be okay, to promise that she'd do whatever she had to, because she has never had any understanding of what it looks like to properly handle interpersonal problems.* The "cool senpai" deal seemed like maybe it helped, and so she clung to it as the only lifeline she knew of.
And... And at the end of it all, at the bottom of the rope, she found us.
The usual "honeymoon" phase happened. She had a friend. We fought by her side. She got along with us. She was happy. It was enough.
Then we started making noises about "needing to talk."
She deflected, as best she could. We didn't have to tell her anything, things could just, just stay as they were. It didn't have to happen again. There didn't need to be any discussion of any interpersonal issues outside maybe something she could respond to with "Okay, I'll do that." Because real interpersonal problems were *bad*, they always ended in her friend/s leaving her, she couldn't do anything about it, nothing she ever did ever did anything but make things worse.
Mami Tomoe didn't know how to retain friends. She only knew how to be happy when she had a friend, not what to do to get them to keep liking her -- and most especially not what to do to keep them from leaving her over whatever problem would inevitably crop up.
And, of course -- it was inevitable, it always happened -- pretty soon we stood up to leave her.
Mami watches, silent and curled up on your shoulder as the silence stretches out.
When you can't take it any more, you begin. "I... I'm sure you've noticed already, Mami, but... the things I know aren't normal. I know about magical girls in general, and the system, and all the languages I can speak. Amnesia doesn't work like that."
"M-maybe it's just magic or something, maybe you- I- a magical girl attacked you?" Mami says, shaking her head. "I- I don't care a-about that, Sabrina."
You exhale. "I know," you murmur. "I don't know, either. I can't tell you how I know, because I don't know." And it's true. You... don't know. "But it's more than that. I know more than that."
Mami's grip tightens on your arm. She doesn't say anything.
Neither do you look at her. Instead, you forge on. "When I woke up in that alley, I knew things." You lick your lips. "About a small number of people. Homura, Madoka, Sayaka. And other things. Other people." Mami's fingers tighten, digging into your arm. "All of whom, all of which matter and are. Worth talking about."
Why is it so hard to spit it out?
You steel yourself. "I knew about you," you whisper.
Mami makes a tiny, choked noise. Her white-knuckled grip on your arm doesn't slacken.
"I, I-" you stutter. "I knew about you, I- I didn't know you. And not everything, I, I-"
"Y-you-" Mami shakes her head, tears squeezing from the corner of her eyes. "N-no, no, n-not you too-"
"No," you whisper. "No, I-" You reach up, closing your hand around hers.
She's shivering. Her hand is icy cold, fingers biting into your forearm.
"I'm not," you whisper. "I'm not. I- I didn't know you. I didn't- I'm not like it. I had no idea about you, I had no idea you could cook everything under the sun I didn't know you were in the archery club I didn't know you liked to play video games." You're babbling at this point. You force yourself to take a shaky breath. "I didn't know we'd get along so well. I- I didn't know we could be friends."
"F-friends," Mami whispers. Tears streak down her face, her breath stuttering gasps in her throat. "I-I- S-sabrina- you- K-kyub- I-"
Her Soul Gem. You can feel it, throbbing as it fills. Grief surges, closing on the halfway mark.
Way too close for comfort.
You raise your hand, cupping it gently over Mami's. She flinches, hand shaking.
You pull your hand free, dragging a river of Grief free.
Mami makes another choked, terrified noise.
Golden light blossoms. You flinch, and something slams into your side and then you're falling-
By the time you hit the floor, you're bound securely in a cocoon of golden ribbons. Your arms are clamped to your side, and Mami-
Mami stumbles to her feet. She's transformed and swaying, eyes wide enough to show the whites all around. Manic and staring and terrified.
Her hands are empty.
She manages a step away. Toward the window. Her eyes don't leave yours.
And she stops, rocking in place. She falls.
A wailing sob. On her hands and knees, she scrabbles back to you, grabbing you roughly with shivering hands. She pulls you close, hugging you like a giant bolster.
"W-why," she whispers, shaking you roughly. "Why? W-why- y-you- why?"
You fumble for the words. "N-not mine to share, I, I'd want to ask other people to share. But. That was my secret, I, it's the one about me. I don't- the rest of it isn't about me. Isn't about you. None of it changes how I feel about you."
"Y-you don't have to," Mami whispers, shaking her head. "S-sabrina, I, I- a-as l-long as you're h-here, I, I don't care."
"I want to," you respond, quiet and firm. "I, I want to be honest and open with you, Mami. You mean too much to me for me not to."
Mami shakes her head in mute disagreement.
You hug her.
Interminable minutes pass.
You could look at the clock, but you don't want to. You don't want to take your attention off Mami right now.
You just keep holding her, stroking her back in the same slow, steady rhythm.
"Mami?" You break the silence eventually. You're... not really sure how long it's been. Half an hour? An hour?
She stirs a little.
"Do you want to clean up a bit?" you ask. "Maybe make some tea?"
She shakes her head. "N-no," she whispers. "Stay."
"You've given me everything, Sabrina," Mami murmurs quietly. Her breath disturbs the hair over your shoulder. "I... I know I said that already, but you have. I never thought I'd be here today, with friends all around me, talking to my old student again... I never thought I'd have someone like you with me. And it's everything."
It's always been there, if you've known to look for it, but the last two posts have put a floodlight on it.
It's simple, and awful, and terrible:
Tomoe Mami doesn't know what to do when confronted with interpersonal trouble.
She doesn't know how to go past "I needed my space" and get to "I distanced myself from you after I decided you were at fault for having gotten me into a life that I didn't want to be in."
She doesn't know how to go past "We can't do this any more" and get to "I hurt my family and don't want to be around anyone because I think I'll cause them pain too."
She doesn't know how to handle people she views as friends lying to her, honestly, and she certainly doesn't know how to handle the broader scenarios in which that occurs at all. And it's killing her, has been killing her for YEARS.
It's there in every one of the events I've listed in this post, and it's there, painted over the pages, in TDS, where she responds to Kyouko saying that "I'm sorry, Mami-san... But I don't think we can do this anymore--" by just... pushing past it. Literally her "reply" to that is "I'm sorry! I'll bet it was so hard on you all alone... I guess I fail as a senpai. I should have gone to be with you much sooner! I know that now! But I'm so happy that you're still alive!" and when, immediately after that, Kyouko says "... It's all... all of it is my fault! I'm the reason... that everybody else died!", the scene cuts to Mami serving Kyouko tea. Mami doesn't say anything in response to that. She just moves past it.
We saw Mami pull out a very different reaction to basically that same exchange in the last two chapters here. Why didn't she do so last time? Well, I can directly explain the divergence and it's nothing to do with Mami changing and everything to do with external factors.
"I-" Mami swallows, taking another step forward. "Kyouko, I... whatever you've done, it's alright. We can- we can work something out. I-" Mami's voice cracks, and you can see her trying to blink back tears. "I'm sorry, Kyouko. I'm sorry I- I wasn't enough to help, back then. Please- please. I just want my friend back."
You shoot Mami a quick look, taking in the way her head is still high despite the way her hands are shaking a bit, and you can't help the surge of pride. Maybe some of it shows on your face when she glances over at you, because she manages to straighten a little before refocusing on Kyouko, seeming to find strength anew.
---[] You aren't usually this direct with your advice, but she should meet with Kyouko and approach the entire thing with complete honesty, emotionally as well as verbally. If it makes her want to cry, she should cry. If it makes her want to scream, she should scream.
Doesn't happen, because Mami hasn't had Sabrina literally coach her to approach this with full honesty and doesn't have Sabrina there to lean on in order to overcome her issues and actually do it. Instead, what happens in TDS is that Mami doesn't challenge Kyouko there, which pretty much means that the conversation terminates with the last segment from a chapter ago, which was literally this:
"I-" Mami swallows, taking another step forward. "Kyouko, I... whatever you've done, it's alright. We can- we can work something out. I-" Mami's voice cracks, and you can see her trying to blink back tears. "I'm sorry, Kyouko. I'm sorry I- I wasn't enough to help, back then. Please- please. I just want my friend back."
Kyouko hunches her shoulders, mutely shaking her head. "There's a place for people like me, Mami. Go home."
... and, well, you don't get to walk away at that moment with an unbroken friendship.
But here's the kicker, which should seal any doubts anyone is having about any of this: Mami never fixates on her failure to stand up and challenge Kyouko's self-derision as the issue -- rather, in PMAS, it's visibly the case that in her mind the biggest issues with what occurred were that A)
Mami doesn't see that the primary issue was that she needed to contest Kyouko's assertion of her own fault. Whereas, I think everyone in this thread would have responded to Kyouko saying that sort of thing with an intense questioning slash denial -- I mean, we pretty much almost did, and we outright did earlier in the quest. Nobody here would have taken "There's a place for people like me" lying down.
But not only did Mami take that lying down, she also still doesn't see it as the primary issue literally a whole year later.
Which brings me around to the larger problem, that Mami hasn't had even the faintest idea where to start to change her inability to address interpersonal issues. I don't think she even knows that it's something that can be changed, else she'd be chomping at the bit against it. She has been desperate to free herself from her loneliness for basically two years now. If she thought there was an avenue towards that she'd have committed to it long ago.
"I know you will be," she whispers. "I- I can, I have started to believe it. And it, it's more than I thought I'd ever have, Sabrina. You can work miracles."
This is the font of all which has befallen Tomoe Mami:
She doesn't understand the knowledge or method behind how we handle interpersonal problems.
You will say to me, "Kai, we are bad at social", and I will reply: to know that you do not know is to be wise.
Where we see people putting up fronts, telling lies, hiding their problems, Mami sees only their words. Even when she disbelieves what they say, she doesn't grasp how to get past those words. She doesn't see that there is more beyond them.
To her, therefore, every time we crash through the facade or front or cold shoulder of anyone around us, it appears to her as a miracle: Sabrina causes socioemotional shifts in people Mami would have expected it to be impossible to reason with or befriend, by ways and means which Mami has no grasp of.
"Y- you weren't thinking," Mami echoes hollowly, slow tears beginning to make tracks down her face. "B-but you still- you can talk down Akemi. And Kyouko. And save people, better than I ever c-could. A-and your magic. Y-y-you don't need broken old Mami any more. You never did..."
Any sufficiently advanced technology is equivalent to magic in the eye of the unknowledgeable. Diplomatic technology is not an exception to this rule.
I think everyone probably recognizes why I'm posting something like this now:
Mami just performed one of those "miracles" herself.
We are in a position where we can jump on this, and try to explain some of this stuff to her, and communicate to her that this is something she can learn about. That she can become more skilled at doing this exact sort of thing.
We are in a position to take the very font of Mami's problems and send it rolling down the slope to its destruction. Because if this is something Mami can learn about, can fix, then THERE IS NOTHING ABOUT HER WHICH IS INHERENTLY BROKEN.
... that is why I have spent like nine hours sourcing and writing and editing this essay, against all the advice I've gotten from people to try to keep things short. Eheh. *rubs back of neck*
Because it is absofuckinglutely inestimably critical that we talk with Mami about what she just did and how she did it. This is more important than literally anything else we've ever done with or for her. It is the chance to irrevocably change her life, forever, for the better.
So uh lemme draw up a vote here.
[X] Sayaka:
-[X] Thank her for coming. Her being here helped. It was pretty visible, honestly -- none of the rest of you are really good at calling Kyouko out like that.
-[X] We'll see her later, tell Madoka we said hi!
[X] Mami
-[X] Ask as serious, actual questions: Did that go better than the last time she spoke with Kyouko? How does she think it went differently? And why does she think it went differently?
--[X] After giving her time to think/respond: you pretty much didn't do anything there, except to confirm what Mami had already recognized and to act as moral support. Frankly, from your perspective, you'd say that things were were going roughly the same as last time for a while, and then Mami did something different from last time and suddenly things started going right.
---[X] You're not working miracles when you talk down people she doesn't see a way to talk down. There's not so much a science to it as an art, otherwise you wouldn't screw up so often, but it's a skill that can be learned. You'll help her, if she'd like.
-[X] Also? What she accomplished just now was spectacular and wonderful and will probably have a hugely positive impact on everyone close to her, you included. She's amazing.
This is super open to revision outside the stuff attached to the [] Mami block. That stuff has got to happen. Everywhere else isn't the stuff I wrote 3k words to argue for, lol.
Man I'm crying again but this time it's happy tears
(1) -- more like "I've often said"
(2) -- partly as a result of this not having happened:
---[] You aren't usually this direct with your advice, but she should meet with Kyouko and approach the entire thing with complete honesty, emotionally as well as verbally. If it makes her want to cry, she should cry. If it makes her want to scream, she should scream.
Because that was where the "I don't understand why you're doing this" line came from, which was the line she needed to drop, which was every bit the intention of that line of that vote -- to the point that I spent like 30m looking through last 40 pages to try to find "Where I had written we should tell Mami that she should tell Mami to say exactly this." I didn't actually find that, because what I was thinking of was the original draft that I rewrote into that line >_>
I think the main crux of your argument here is sound but there's a few things beside that that need addition to the vote as well.
We should, in fact, fill Mami in on what actually happened with Kyouko, or say enough to ensure that happens when they talk. Failing to do so before is what kept this at partial success instead of overwhelming success and not taking action to rectify that error would be... flawed.
With Sayaka, the point is good but I do think we should also note to her that actually helping and feeling like she's helping are different things. This isn't the first time impostor syndrome has reared its head for her, and if we have a moment we should address that directly.
In general, Sayaka deserves extra special headpats for coming out to help Mami and Kyouko reconcile, on short notice, less than an hour after being witchbombed. Girl deserves a rest.
In general, Sayaka deserves extra special headpats for coming out to help Mami and Kyouko reconcile, on short notice, less than an hour after being witchbombed. Girl deserves a rest.
Kaizuki is a fucking genius, as per usual. I'm a tad worried about the vote being... too blunt? I dunno. But between the inevitable revisions, the 3k wall of genius backing it up, and Firn's interpretations, it'll be fine.
We should, in fact, fill Mami in on what actually happened with Kyouko, or say enough to ensure that happens when they talk. Failing to do so before is what kept this at partial success instead of overwhelming success and not taking action to rectify that error would be... flawed.
With Sayaka, the point is good but I do think we should also note to her that actually helping and feeling like she's helping are different things. This isn't the first time impostor syndrome has reared its head for her, and if we have a moment we should address that directly.
I actually tried to look at doing this and didn't see a way to go about it not involving "[] Yo sayaka go look up imposter syndrome" which I mean might be a really good idea tbh.
My experience with this sort of thing is that you pretty much have to be exactly this blunt to get past issues people are having with social, and honestly, based on what I'm seeing throughout the quest--
Like, don't get me wrong: the presentation here is jarring and deliberately so. It's out of place in the context of normality, because it needs to be. "Normal" is, quite emphatically, not thinking about how you approach social situations, how you could go about it differently, and how you have a major deficiency a certain subarea of social situations and btw would you like some help with that. "Normal" is just, socialize and don't think about that stuff. "Normal" is what has kept Mami from recognizing that this was even an issue for literally a year.
So fuck normal. If normal is flow and dialogue and not hitting this kind of problem in the face with a warhammer, then fuck normal on a very temporary basis while we take a moment to hit this problem in the face with a warhammer. Normal can come back afterward. Mami will be okay with it, and it absofuckinglutely guarantees total clarity while talking about a very unclear subject.
My experience with this sort of thing is that you pretty much have to be exactly this blunt to get past issues people are having with social, and honestly, based on what I'm seeing throughout the quest--
Like, don't get me wrong: the presentation here is jarring and deliberately so. It's out of place in the context of normality, because it needs to be. "Normal" is, quite emphatically, not thinking about how you approach social situations, how you could go about it differently, and how you have a major deficiency a certain subarea of social situations and btw would you like some help with that. "Normal" is just, socialize and don't think about that stuff. "Normal" is what has kept Mami from recognizing that this was even an issue for literally a year.
So fuck normal. If normal is flow and dialogue and not hitting this kind of problem in the face with a warhammer, then fuck normal on a very temporary basis while we take a moment to hit this problem in the face with a warhammer. Normal can come back afterward. Mami will be okay with it, and it absofuckinglutely guarantees total clarity while talking about a very unclear subject.
I know I'm not a Big Voice here, but: seconded. Mami may or may not be being written intentionally as autistic (@Kaizuki 's analysis certainly rings more than a few bells), but I'm autistic, and quite frankly if I hadn't had something like this rubbed in my face repeatedly since elementary school I wouldn't know what it was I was missing either. Still missing it, but it's something to (slowly) work on. I'd be in that situation, except I'd probably have given up on trying a lot earlier than Mami, because she can at least make decent friendships for the short term.
Say it. Say it blunt. The entire point here is that Mami isn't reading between the lines, maybe doesn't even realize there's lines to read between, or at least knows-in-theory-but-can't-see. Either way is plenty for a self-image of "broken". If we try to be subtle, or indirect, or lead her there, maybe she gets it, maybe she misses it. Tell her outright.
I won't say the vote is perfect – "this is a thing that you can be better at" isn't the same as advice on how to do so*. And it's still not got any explanation to Mami of what happened with Kyouko. But it's good.
[x] Kaizuki
* This is only informational to Mami under the understanding that Mami doesn't know that "reading people" is a thing-that-exists. If Mami does know it's a thing but hasn't got a clue to do it, this could just be rubbing her face in that lack-of-ability. For comparison: I have, within the past month, been harangued for upwards of ten minutes by someone for being "abrasive". They seemed to feel virtuous for doing this. At no point did I receive an explanation of what I did or what I should have done instead. This isn't that bad, on account of the generally supportive tone, but it does have a pretty high potential to not actually be helping.
I won't say the vote is perfect – "this is a thing that you can be better at" isn't the same as advice on how to do so*. And it's still not got any explanation to Mami of what happened with Kyouko. But it's good.
[x] Kaizuki
* This is only informational to Mami under the understanding that Mami doesn't know that "reading people" is a thing-that-exists. If Mami does know it's a thing but hasn't got a clue to do it, this could just be rubbing her face in that lack-of-ability.
---[X] You're not working miracles when you talk down people she doesn't see a way to talk down. There's not so much a science to it as an art, otherwise you wouldn't screw up so often, but it's a skill that can be learned. You'll help her, if she'd like.
It's phrased as an offer because I don't want to start listing off every tiny idea without, well, putting it down as an offer first.
I'll note also: I don't read Mami as even remotely autistic. She's entirely too social and entirely too perceptive of what's going on in a social setting -- she recognized that what Kyouko was saying wasn't right, the last couple chapters, and she's simply reading Kyouko too well at the end of last chapter -- her comment about Kyouko coming by is, that's Mami reading the hell out of Kyouko. Fuck, I couldn't read Kyouko that well if I sat here for a month and analyzed the shit out of everything Kyouko has ever done or said. Not a damn chance.
But there's some, some disconnect between that idea of Mami being generally "good at social" and everything we've seen that I laid out. You could make a case for a lot of things. That's part of why I'm open-ending this so much, I know it needs to be talked about, I know the problem is there, I know that the problem's nature is that Mami has trouble with interpersonal conflict, we can read that out of the words she is saying. What I don't know for sure is exactly the details of why it's a problem. I think the biggest candidate is along the lines of "She has massive abandonment issues so she can't bring herself to challenge other people and doesn't recognize that sometimes it's the only way to have a successful relationship because QB / circumstances have prevented her from ever ending up in a scenario where challenging somebody over something would work", plus trauma... but Kyouko has just more/less told us Mami has had double-digits of students, where we've only met like three or four, plus two years of QB, plus however many years up to her parents' deaths, there is so much we don't know about her past.
It feels a little disingenuous to say that reading people is a skill Sabrina can help Mami learn, when there was basically no "reading of people" that we actually did to lead to this result - we had Mami and Kyouko's pasts shown to us, literally, in black and white words on a page.
And indeed, in situations where Sabrina has to read people without the benefit of metaknowledge... we get Ono. Or Akiko. Or Rionna.
Which isn't to say that Kaizuki doesn't make good points - just that my personal inclination would be to approach this from a "I know this is tough, we can figure it out together" angle, more than a "Let Sabrina-senpai teach you how to SOCIAL!" angle.
It feels a little disingenuous to say that reading people is a skill Sabrina can help Mami learn, when there was basically no "reading of people" that we actually did to lead to this result - we had Mami and Kyouko's pasts shown to us, literally, in black and white words on a page.
And indeed, in situations where Sabrina has to read people without the benefit of metaknowledge... we get Ono. Or Akiko. Or Rionna.
Which isn't to say that Kaizuki doesn't make good points - just that my personal inclination would be to approach this from a "I know this is tough, we can figure it out together" angle, more than a "Let Sabrina-senpai teach you how to SOCIAL!" angle.
Yeah, one thing I've been tossing around in my head is including some variant of "I get to cheat a lot", but... more importantly, I super massively like "I know this is tough, we can figure it out together" because that is the angle this needs to take and explains why I felt what I had was sort of iffy. THANK YOU.
@Kaizuki I agree with needing to talk to Mami about how she changed what she was doing.. But I also think we ought to address the Incubator presence. Can you incorporate that into your plan as well?
Also, I agree that it needs to be less an offer to teach her and more a discussion about it, and maybe a bit more concrete. Something like this?
-[] Ask as serious, actual questions: Did that go better than the last time she spoke with Kyouko? How does she think it went differently? And why does she think it went differently?
--[] After giving her time to think/respond: you pretty much didn't do anything there, except to confirm what Mami had already recognized and to act as moral support. Frankly, from your perspective, you'd say that things were were going roughly the same as last time for a while, and then Mami did something different from last time and suddenly things started going right.
---[] Talk about what she did different and why it worked.
For what it's worth, Autism, or more properly, Autism Spectrum Disorder, can manifest in many different ways. I was diagnosed in elementary school, and I can still recall how hard it was to understand my peers up until my second year of high school. Mami definitely has trouble with reading people, one of the six traits people on the spectrum can lack, and I can understand almost exactly how she feels. You can tell you're missing something, sometimes, but you can never tell what.
But Mami is getting better. Subconsciously, she's learning from Sabrina how to read Homura's moods, and from there, other people. Mami probably still doesn't understand why Kyouko is pushing her away so adamantly, but she can tell that Kyouko wants them to be friends again, though she can't understand why, despite the desire for reconciliation on both sides, Kyouko is fighting against the two of them making up.
It's a disheartening state to be in, since you can tell people aren't telling the truth, but you can't tell why. We need to help Mami get better at understanding the "why" of a statement, if we want her to stop being dependent on us.
