Remove ads

Puella Magi Adfligo Systema

Reader mode
Hmm, I'm thinking about Homura and social skills, and I keep circling back to an idea.

A large part of socialising is emotional vulnerability. In order to get people to like you, you have to let them in so they can understand you. So they can find a reason to care about you. It's about trusting people with your... I'm not sure what expression to use here. Sense of self? Whatever it is that's underneath your mask of polite fictions that you wear in public and around strangers. The sincere freedom of yourself. That thing you're scared others will find out. And that goes two ways—you have to be willing to accept emotional vulnerability from others as well.

But Homura isn't good at emotional vulnerability. Before wish, she was physically vulnerable, and that became a weakness that others attacked. After wish... well, her wish was to be strong enough to protect and no longer need protecting. It's the very opposite of vulnerability.

Look at how she presents herself—cold, distant, aloof. That's not arrogance or superiority, no matter what pre-Sabrina Sayaka says. It's a defence, a fortification against harm.

And she's being suffocated by it, like a hermit crab in a too-small shell.

And I can understand why she acts like that—emotional vulnerability is often expressed as anxiety and a fear of uncertainty.

But it's often through that vulnerability that things like empathy and understanding can be felt. It can be the fuel for the courage to connect with others.

Allowing oneself to be emotionally vulnerable isn't a weakness. It's a strength.

Homura has been keeping everyone—even Madoka—at arms length. In a previous comment, I said something about how Homura treats Madoka as an object to be protected, not as a friend to be cared for. And that ties into Homura's fear of opening up.

And in order to be emotionally vulnerable, one must be willing to believe themselves to be worthy of connection. They need to be the first to give, the first to surrender, the first to say "I love you".

The first to say "I'm from the future."

It's... ugh, I'm the wrong person to talk about this, because I myself fear emotional vulnerability. I've been hurt by it before. But I know my fear is wrong, I know my fear is weakening me, I know my life is improved when I let down those barriers and let people in.

I know I'm hurting myself by never letting my guard down.

Homura... doesn't.

But she's getting there, and I strongly believe the road to Homura's recovery begins with her telling her story to Madoka, Sayaka and Hitomi, of her own will and violation. I think the catharsis of lifting the tension she holds is the key she needs, and without it she'll be stuck, endlessly agonising, never advancing.

And I'm not sure how Sabrina can help her do that without feeling like we're forcing or commanding Homura to speak. It has to be her choice, her decision. At least she's already started with Mami, and she never needed to let Sabrina in because we just pole-vaulted over her defences anyway.
 
"You have to learn to trust in people again Homura. Even if Madoka does not know and may never know all you have been through. You can be so much more than the trauma you have survived. You can be there for her after all this..."
*waves hands around at the absurdity of three young women standing on a skyscraper to have a private chat*
"But you're going to have to try out different ways to try and connect with others; to find something you are comfortable with. Maybe it won't always work out; maybe you won't have the safety net of knowledge from another timeline. But that is where we have to trust others to interpret our words and deeds in a way that makes our intentions clear."

Just my two cents thanks for continuing this wonderful quest. I dont really follow the comments too much so sorry if I'm rehashing.
 
Raiseth said:
Whew.
I should pretend I haven't seen this post for my own good, but doing things for my own good isn't a skill I'm quite proficient at.

Kaizuki, there are 500 words that come after the sentence you quoted, elaborating on what I meant. I actually put a lot of thought and effort on that post. You don't have to read it or like it or agree with it, but, like, can you please not say that the answer isn't a "two-liner" when my own answer clearly isn't?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Ok.

Raiseth said:
Okay, so like.

The actual answer here is "through practice and consideration".

You talk to people a lot and try to think about how they feel and what they want. Obviously, you make mistakes. Obviously, you often hurt. Any kind of growth is achieved only by going out of your zone of comfort.

The problem here is, misery and loneliness are what Homura's zone of comfort consists of now. She is used to being alone and having no one to talk to, understand her or help her. She expects to suffer, because that's basically her life until now.

Back in the first loop, when Madoka became her first friend, this wasn't set in stone. She was still trying to have friends, but, well, Puebla Magi Madoka Magica, Episode 10 specifically.

Since then, she's seen the people closest to her from very unflattering angles and got a little/lot disillusioned with them, but that's neither here nor there.

Time and again, experience taught her that when it comes to social interactions, she is a failure. She can't get Madoka away from Contracting. She can't befriend Mami. Sayaka thinks she's a creep. Things like that. Unlearning these lessons, these experiences, will be a lot of hard and lengthy work.

Firstly, she needs to learn how to express her own feelings. You don't get a fruitful social interaction without being able to convey what you want as well as also getting the other party to do it. She stopped attempting this, because: feelings in general are counterproductive to surviving as a magical girl, and she honestly didn't believe that anyone except for Madoka cared for a long time. If she doesn't want to use facial expressions, that's fine. Words work, too, and vice versa.

Secondly, she has to learn to ask and answer questions about people, like: "What does this person want? Why are they doing what they are doing? Why do they want the things they do?" Answering incorrectly is fine, as long as you continue asking these questions and learn. Better yet is asking the people in question and listening to their answers.


However, this all doesn't have a lot to do with how to be a happy person, or even how to want to be one. I think I'll have a shameless cop out with a side dish of fries, please.

Well, okay, in my experience, happiness is a constant struggle. Most people don't get to be happy "just because". There are people like that, I think, but they are the lucky ones. For the rest of us, happiness isn't a quantifiable state of being, it's a continuous process, it's a skill you have to learn like the rest of them, it gets better with time and rusty with disuse. You have to fight for it, mostly with yourself, sometimes with other people. You just need to ask for help from people close to you when it gets too hard and believe that it's worth it, that you're worth it. Hearing it from other people helps, too.

Okay, now it's time to sleep.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Here's the problem. Now that Homura has straight up told us she's tried to become better at social skills in the past via literature, we can conclude she's also tried a bunch of different things. Clearly they weren't the right ones, but she did try them.

Her conclusion is, as we hear here -- "It's not that easy."

Which, bluntly: that is also my response to everything you said here.

You said "Talk with other people a lot and try to think about what they want and feel." But that's, like, a tier three action for Homura, who hasn't teched past tier one's "figure out the full list of things people can want and feel." It's not like she hasn't been asking why Sayaka does the things she does every day for a hundred loops by now, it's not like when we explained Sayaka to her she was practically slavering over what we were telling her. She asks why Sayaka threw a fire extinguisher at her, but she doesn't achieve any answer to that.

The "comfort zone" stuff... I mean, you actually said "growth is only achieved by leaving your comfort zone" and "Homura's comfort zone is misery and sadness." I don't want to know what you meant by that, frankly, but the way it came out was, uhhhhm... "Homura doesn't want to grow because she doesn't want to be happy." Which is exactly the thing I had to fight against to get here, more or less, the idea that Homura just irrationally doesn't feel like doing the things that would lead to her getting what she wants.

It's pretty canon that Homura's "comfort zone" is, if it exists, the parts of loops where she at least can make plans. Not... Being sad. If being miserable was her comfort zone she'd be a witch already.

You've got a firstly and a secondly in there, that Homura "Needs to learn to express her feelings" and "needs to learn to ask why people do what they do." Neither of those is a particularly high priority, bluntly (1). Even the part where you say "Homura needs to learn to ask people why they do what they do" I don't even agree with that.

Homura's problem isn't that she needs to learn to ask. Oh no no no she has done that I guarantee it.

Nobody is willing to give her an answer when she asks and she doesn't know how to change that.



The people she needs to learn about don't trust her, or they don't take her seriously, or her mannerisms screw her out of getting them to respond to her questions seriously and in a civil manner. QB further incites it to screw her over as much as possible, and... That's about that. They're also the people she'd be able to practice social with, as far as her ability goes -- socialing people she doesn't know is... Well. She doesn't know how to make more friends and most certainly never has.

I'll be honest Raiseth, the more I think about it, the more I agree with the two sentences I posted in response to you in the first place. The problem isn't practice and contemplation, it's access to those things in the first place. Can't practice without someone to practice with, can't contemplate usefully when you don't have enough of the data points to work with.



(1) -- a much higher priority than helping Homura express her emotions is improving said emotions.
 
Last edited:
Kaizuki said:
Ok.



Here's the problem. Now that Homura has straight up told us she's tried to become better at social skills in the past via literature, we can conclude she's also tried a bunch of different things. Clearly they weren't the right ones, but she did try them.

Her conclusion is, as we hear here -- "It's not that easy."

Which, bluntly: that is also my response to everything you said here.

You said "Talk with other people a lot and try to think about what they want and feel." But that's, like, a tier three action for Homura, who hasn't teched past tier one's "figure out the full list of things people can want and feel." It's not like she hasn't been asking why Sayaka does the things she does every day for a hundred loops by now, it's not like when we explained Sayaka to her she was practically slavering over what we were telling her. She asks why Sayaka threw a fire extinguisher at her, but she doesn't achieve any answer to that.

The "comfort zone" stuff... I mean, you actually said "growth is only achieved by leaving your comfort zone" and "Homura's comfort zone is misery and sadness." I don't want to know what you meant by that, frankly, but the way it came out was, uhhhhm... "Homura doesn't want to grow because she doesn't want to be happy." Which is exactly the thing I had to fight against to get here, more or less, the idea that Homura just irrationally doesn't feel like doing the things that would lead to her getting what she wants.

It's pretty canon that Homura's "comfort zone" is, if it exists, the parts of loops where she at least can make plans. Not... Being sad. If being miserable was her comfort zone she'd be a witch already.

You've got a firstly and a secondly in there, that Homura "Needs to learn to express her feelings" and "needs to learn to ask why people do what they do." Neither of those is a particularly high priority, bluntly (1). Even the part where you say "Homura needs to learn to ask people why they do what they do" I don't even agree with that.

Homura's problem isn't that she needs to learn to ask. Oh no no no she has done that I guarantee it.

Nobody is willing to give her an answer when she asks and she doesn't know how to change that.



The people she needs to learn about don't trust her, or they don't take her seriously, or her mannerisms screw her out of getting them to respond to her questions seriously and in a civil manner. QB further incites it to screw her over as much as possible, and... That's about that. They're also the people she'd be able to practice social with, as far as her ability goes -- socialing people she doesn't know is... Well. She doesn't know how to make more friends and most certainly never has.

I'll be honest Raiseth, the more I think about it, the more I agree with the two sentences I posted in response to you in the first place. The problem isn't practice and contemplation, it's access to those things in the first place. Can't practice without someone to practice with, can't contemplate usefully when you don't have enough of the data points to work with.



(1) -- a much higher priority than helping Homura express her emotions is improving said emotions.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

And this is fine. Disagreeing with what I'm saying is what the Internet is for. Ignoring the effort wholesale is much more difficult to parse, because I actually agree with you, and you, uh, haven't noticed?

For what it's worth I don't think Homura seriously tried the things I offered. Like, maybe one, two times. She lives in a loop of endless repetition, her strategy isn't something unified, her strategy is: try something, if it doesn't work, try something else next. How else do you think she arrived to guilt-tripping Madoka into not taking up a Contract if she loves her family?

She lives in a nightmare where anything she says has drastic consequences, up to and including people dying. That's not an environment where you learn how to interact with people, at best that's an environment where you learn how to manipulate them.

Our job here among other things would be to provide a safe learning curve and positive reinforcements, to pull her back away from the deep end she'd been thrown into back in the kiddy pool. Pain shouldn't be the only teacher Homura has, because it usually leads to wrong lessons learned.

As for misery and sadness not being her comfort zone, well. What does Homura do at the end of the Rebellion? How much time in Sayakas did it take for her to start Witching out once the goal of her life was no longer there to complete? What were her plans once she defeated Walpurgisnacht? Why does she tell Madoka that she, like all Magical Girls, isn't human anymore?

Everyone wants happiness at least a little, it's just much easier to justify why you don't deserve it than to fight for it.

Edit: like, my idea explicitly doesn't work if we leave Homura to fend for herself, because that's not teaching, that's sitting in the bleachers and doing nothing. I'm sorry if I wasn't clear on that front, that's a valid criticism.
 
Last edited:
Okay, going to try a vote:

[X] Plan Emotional Vulnerability
-[X] The desire to form a connection with someone is at the heart of socialising, and as I've mentioned that requires believing you are worthy of that connection.
--[X] And you are, Homura, never forget that.
-[X] But it's also about trust. You can't connect with someone if you fear being hurt or rejected by them. You have to make yourself, on some level, emotionally vulnerable to them.
--[X] And yeah, that's scary. You've been burned by that flame before. I've been burned, hell I even hurt Mami when she deserved so much better.
-[X] But without that trust, without that vulnerability, you can't get close to people. You can't connect.
-[X] And there are so many people worth trusting out there.
--[X] Mami, Sayaka, Hitomi and... Madoka.
-[X] They are all waiting for you.
--[X] Trust them, let them in, let yourself be vulnerable.
-[X] Because that vulnerability isn't a weakness.
-[X] It's a strength.

By my reckoning, that's 145 words. Not sure if I formatted that correctly.

I wanted to throw in something about "you've been strong for so long, but that strength has turned into a shell that protects you from those who care about you" but I couldn't reword it in a way that'll fit. I was also going to throw in a "what's the worst that can happen?" because a therapist said that to me once, but then I remembered the worst is "Madoka dying again" and so I cut it out. Also not happy with the weak ending—it just sort of ends abrubtly.

I hope I'm not stepping on anybody's toes with this. I know this is Kaizuki's project and I'm just the new kid on the block but I kinda wanted to throw my hat into the ring anyway. Besides, I'm like, 110% sure Kaizuki's vote will be better than mine anyway.
 
Hm, I think emotional vulnerability is part of it, but I feel as if it's missing advice about practice and confidents, as I think some people talked about that. It's also missing... substance?

Gah, or maybe I'm completely wrong cause my mental model of Homura is degraded from disuse, and I really would like to know what she tried before, so we can dissect them. Specific social situation seems doable but I come up with a blank for a general procedure.

Maybe we should just break down as many social situations as possible until we both get a feel for social patterns. Brute force learning by annotated examples, essentially. Madokami knows we need it.
 
[Q] Tell Homura you will share your secrets only if she explains what exactly happened during the Kwijibo incident.
 
Kaizuki said:
The people she needs to learn about don't trust her, or they don't take her seriously, or her mannerisms screw her out of getting them to respond to her questions seriously and in a civil manner. QB further incites it to screw her over as much as possible, and...
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I'll also point out Kyubey is the closest thing to a "safe" social partner she's had over the loops. Kyubey, for all his manipulative bullshit, superficially looks like social activity on tutorial mode. He won't judge you. He doesn't care what you think of him. He won't go off on you randomly over a misunderstanding. He gives you answers that are always technically true, giving the illusion that if you were just smart enough and thought hard enough about his words that you wouldn't be confused or decieved by him. That's incredibly seductive to someone for whom other people are this black box mystery you just push buttons and get responses out of with no clue as to why.

There's a reason that after the series ended, it wasn't Sayaka or Mami or Kyoko she told her story about Madoka to. It was Kyubey. And we all know how bad an idea that was, but again I don't think Homura does know how bad an idea that is.
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
I hope I'm not stepping on anybody's toes with this. I know this is Kaizuki's project and I'm just the new kid on the block but I kinda wanted to throw my hat into the ring anyway. Besides, I'm like, 110% sure Kaizuki's vote will be better than mine anyway.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
There is absolutely nothing wrong with making or offering up a vote for consideration. Even if there's someone else who's been working on a vote for this specific scenario for years. Even if the entire rest of the thread has been working on the same vote. Even if it's got 100% approval from the rest of the thread. You can always stumble on an idea the rest of us hadn't thought of, or put something in a way that does the job better. And even if your vote doesn't go anywhere, that doesn't mean there was anything wrong with you throwing it out. We're all working toward the same goal here.
BlueTwinkleToes said:
Gah, or maybe I'm completely wrong cause my mental model of Homura is degraded from disuse, and I really would like to know what she tried before, so we can dissect them.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
That is an important point I'm 100% on board with. Teaching Homura anything is, by necessity, going to have to involve the pulling teeth that is getting Homura to talk to us. To help us fill in the blanks we've got from watching the series. We need her to take us through a "typical" loop's activities. How much time does she spend gathering physical resources vs stalking Madoka versus intervening in events she knows are going to end badly if she doesn't nip them in the bud first versus training? Does she ever write a loop off in order to prepare for a future loop? What, if anything, does she do for entertainment and mental stimulation? We need to ask her these sorts of questions if we're going to see where she can improve.
 
Expanding what we know about Homura's past, pre-Loop would be a critical win. Exceed entropy canon to make our Wish come true!

For right now, adding to the hopper:

Repetition is the key. But not "formula repetition."
The phrase "beginners mind" does well to capture what Homura could do here.

How does an infant learn - most anything that isn't being pushed at them?
Answer - infants don't have the elaborate fears and preconceptions we grow into. They can't avoid, because they don't know how to do that either.Just do, and do again.


This is why "put them all in more contact" has merit for now. Archery Club is one way to do that. We can coach and study with Homura on the topic too.
But at the end of the day, social skills need to be trained. Over and over. I'm with Raiseth in that way.
Homura has a larger social world in PMAS that ever - let's cash in on that.

Further point - during this talk make sure to start disarming the potential bomb. Don't lose this chance to set that up!
Content to do this was mentioned in the past.
 
Alright, we've been talking about PMAS/Dresden Files crossover a few times, where Sabrina suddenly appears in Dresdenverse, which, okay, makes sense.
Maybe Sabrina got leased to the White God by Madokami or something.

But what about the other way around?
Magical Girl Harry Copperfield Blackstone Dresden when?
 
Angrygenius said:
I know you're being serious, but now all I can imagine is Homura with a deadpan expression in a kiddie pool with floaties on, slowly paddling with her feet, and I can't stop giggling like a school girl.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Does she know how to swim, tho? I can't imagine she had an occasion to learn. Unless some of the Witches like tropical settings or something.
 
Kaizuki said:
Here's the problem. Now that Homura has straight up told us she's tried to become better at social skills in the past via literature, we can conclude she's also tried a bunch of different things. Clearly they weren't the right ones, but she did try them.

Her conclusion is, as we hear here -- "It's not that easy."

-

You said "Talk with other people a lot and try to think about what they want and feel." But that's, like, a tier three action for Homura, who hasn't teched past tier one's "figure out the full list of things people can want and feel." It's not like she hasn't been asking why Sayaka does the things she does

Homura's problem isn't that she needs to learn to ask. Oh no no no she has done that I guarantee it.

Nobody is willing to give her an answer when she asks and she doesn't know how to change that.

-

The problem isn't practice and contemplation, it's access to those things in the first place. Can't practice without someone to practice with, can't contemplate usefully when you don't have enough of the data points to work with.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
wtf could she even begin to try to do to fix this part? I've got nothing.

Edit: at least she doesnt have the "everyone assumes the worst of you right off the bat because ur ugly" problem...
 
Last edited:
Kaizuki said:
Which is exactly the thing I had to fight against to get here, more or less, the idea that Homura just irrationally doesn't feel like doing the things that would lead to her getting what she wants.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I would just like to point out that "irrationally can't manage to do things you want to do/need to do/know would be helpful" is a legitimate problem under the category of "executive dysfunction". Though it doesn't sound like she's got that sort of problem, after the recent update.
 
Raiseth said:
[Q] Tell Homura you will share your secrets only if she explains what exactly happened during the Kwijibo incident.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
This, but serious.

Because that's a great example of people being an unknowable black box for Homura, and disecting that incident could help her. She tried healing him to eliminate the motivation for Sayaka to contract, a reasonable plan, but got a totally unpredictable result that led to massive complications. I want to hear what she did, what he did, and how she responded. I want to hear how it impacted things with Sayaka. What Madoka and Hitomi thought about the situation. Do a full post-mortem on the incident with her.
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top