Magick Chicks 26-08-11 The student body

[GuyInWhite]

Geez, you can't go anywhere on the internet without seeing a My Little Pony reference these days.

Also, fanservice ahoy!

[Artemisia]

You know, there is something that everyone seems to ignore- cliques. Girls form particular cliques, and a particular girl may 'collect' certain other girls to her 'collection' or clique. This can be accomplished by finding the right leverage to bring the right girls into the 'inner circle' while creating an aura of desirability to make others want to join and desperate to please the 'alpha'. Melissa is an alpha, and so is Faith. Faith is a stronger alpha than Melissa, but the reactions are pretty much the same.

I offer this as a bit of evidence:

http://www.eeriecuties.com/strips-ec/fi ... s_straight

I also offered something of an explanation of it here:

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=1269&start=240#p262449

Odds on are that Faith hasn't had to do a blasted thing to alter anyone's mind. She is just popular, and that popularity means that she can have any girl there she wants. I mean, if she could alter people's minds, why not just get into Tiffany's mind and alter it?

[Random Wanderer]

I mean, if she could alter people's minds, why not just get into Tiffany's mind and alter it?

You think Tiffany screamed and resorted to pulling power from the school just because a popular girl was looking her in the eyes? Faith was influencing Tiffany. Tiff just knew her own mind well enough to realize that what she was feeling wasn't coming from herself, and managed to snap out of it.

[Artemisia]

Or, at some level, Tiffany is attracted to Faith and was fighting that. There are mundane explanations that can be offered for why Faith has so much power. I'm not saying that you are wrong, I'm just saying that there are alternative explanations. This is especially true given that Faith was flirting heavily with Tiffany at that point.

http://www.magickchicks.com/strips-mc/eat_you_up

I would not be surprised if there was some form of glamour going on here and Faith was making herself seem more attractive than she is, but I'm not sure that she's going in and taking over people's minds. If that was the case, it would be pretty close to impossible to stop her from taking over the world.

[Random Wanderer]

If that was the case, it would be pretty close to impossible to stop her from taking over the world.

No, just difficult. Like any good challenge should be.

I'm not saying that you are wrong, I'm just saying that there are alternative explanations.

Sure sure, that's why I try to preface most of my theories with "I believe" or "I think." It seems very clear to me that Faith was influencing Tiffany psychically in that staredown, and the dramatic cues are set up to make us see that as the most likely possibility (Tiff having JUST that moment said Faith was a crazy-powerful esper with all sorts of abilities who freaks Tiff out and may be evil, Faith's hand-gesture as she approached Tiff (I have actually seen similar such gestures used by people to place mind-affecting magic on others in other pieces of fiction), Tiff's confused and stuttered reaction as Faith stares at her while touching her face (also fairly common in fiction for someone who is being mentally influenced but is resisting it), and Tiff's panicked "NO!" and summoning of the school's power (a desparation maneuver invoking a power she was hesitant to use before and the use of which she is likely not very skilled with) essentially starting a fight with Faith, which she had already said before she was certain she could not win). It has not been explicitly stated, however, so it is indeed possible that Faith was doing nothing. However, I absolutely will say that the readers were meant to believe that Faith was using her powers to try to manipulate Tiff, and by extension has been using them to manipulate everyone. There are too many clues out there: I am certain we are meant to reach that conclusion. Only time (or the author) can tell us if that conclusion is true, though.

[Kamino Neko]

Given that she's in a school that has as part of its mission training espers, the idea that she could be influencing the teachers is absurd.

For a child barely begun her training to be able to influence the people who are charged with training her - people who would, by necessity, know, and have mastered, defensive techniques - would make her a once-in-a-lifetime natural talent. (And, no, influencing the teachers can't be removed - preventing illegal use of powers would be part of the teachers' jobs, especially when it's influencing the workings of the school.)

That Tiffany, also a child at the beginning of her training - with a magical focus, not psionic, to boot - would be able to fight her off - at all, let alone as easily as she does - would, thus, make her a once-in-a-lifetime natural esper, as well.

Two once-in-a-lifetime talents in one school is stretching Willing Suspension of Disbelief to the breaking point, especially when neither of them is the protagonist. (Also, it's crap plotting as it means either Tiff's once-in-a-lifetime status is rendered pointless, or the protagonists are going to be rendered secondary characters in their own story since Tiff is going to be the heroine.)

Making them NOT once-in-a-lifetime talents, and STILL assuming that Faith has the teachers under her mental domination, makes the faculty so bloody incompetent, the school would have been destroyed - from inside, if not without - long ago.

[Artemisia]

Random,

This is just one of those situations where it could fall either way, but only Giz, Dave and Shouri know in the end. I would like to think that Faith is not so evil to the core that she would alter people's minds just to gain power. Rather, I'd like to believe that she's evil enough to manipulate people into doing her bidding the old fashioned way.

But, yeah, I just wanted to throw that out there and show that there are alternatives to the 'Faith is evil and immensely powerful', and that she may be projecting that through a glamour.

[Random Wanderer]

Given that she's in a school that has as part of its mission training espers, the idea that she could be influencing the teachers is absurd.

I don't think she is influencing the teachers. I just don't think the teachers have realized what she's doing with the students. I believe the teachers see things as what Artemissa has been saying: highschool cliques forming around a powerful personality. They haven't looked deeper to discover it's more sinister than that.

(And, no, influencing the teachers can't be removed - preventing illegal use of powers would be part of the teachers' jobs, especially when it's influencing the workings of the school.)

And yet they let their students get into fights in the halls, throw potentially deadly spells and attacks around unrestrained, and advocate crippling students from the school across the street (with threats of actual punishment for not doing so). The teachers, faculty, staff, all of them do not seem to be doing a damned thing to keep the students' powers under control. In fact, it could even be argued that they're encouraging misuse. Even if you don't go that far, it appears that, at the very least, they simply do not care what the students may be doing to each other, so long as it doesn't interfere with classes.

As your other arguments are predicated upon the idea that Faith is controlling the teachers, which I do not think it happening, I shall ignore them.

But, yeah, I just wanted to throw that out there and show that there are alternatives to the 'Faith is evil and immensely powerful', and that she may be projecting that through a glamour.

It could happen. It seems unlikely to me, and I will be surprised if it turns out that way, but stranger things have happened in fiction.

[Kamino Neko]

Random Wanderer - go read some stories set in schools, particularly boarding schools, especially girls' schools, and double-especially Girls' Love stories.

The stuff you're claiming is 'unlikely' is a staple of those stories - few of which have any supernatural elements at all, and when they do, it's typically ghosts and stuff of that sort. In fact, any story of any length will almost inevitably hit it. (The Girls' Love genre is where sexuality is most likely to play into the cliquey games, although it's common in mixed-sex settings, and not-unknown in all-male settings, or all-female settings that aren't specifically GL.)

And whether there's supernatural stuff or not, the kids get up to all sorts of shenanigans - but attempts to actually subvert the workings of the school, the rare times that they do happen, do not go unnoticed. Look, for instance, at Harry Potter - there are regular fights between the Griffindors and Slytherins, which generally merit only minor punishments. But even with a sympathetic faculty member, the Slytherins were never able to successfully subvert the workings of the school - it took outside 'help' to send Hogwarts down the tubes (the Griffindors, arguably, came with it pre-subverted in their favour, but even they could only push so far). Adults are only useless when they're not specifically being undermined.

(As Artemesia points out, the cliques also happen in real life, so you don't even need plot-necessary narrative contrivance for them.)

[Random Wanderer]

Students are still going to their classes, learning how to kill each other... I mean, fight monsters, and in general doing everything they'd normally come to school to do. The minor detail that they're (seemingly) being brainwashed to also be Faith's blindly-loyal love-slaves does not appear to be "subverting the workings of the school," assuming I understand you correctly. Everything the teachers care about is still going normally. Yet that still doesn't mean Faith hasn't brainwashed most of the students. It just means she hasn't interfered enough in how they live their lives to attract official attention.

[Ravenhull]

(And, no, influencing the teachers can't be removed - preventing illegal use of powers would be part of the teachers' jobs, especially when it's influencing the workings of the school.)

And yet they let their students get into fights in the halls, throw potentially deadly spells and attacks around unrestrained, and advocate crippling students from the school across the street (with threats of actual punishment for not doing so). The teachers, faculty, staff, all of them do not seem to be doing a damned thing to keep the students' powers under control. In fact, it could even be argued that they're encouraging misuse. Even if you don't go that far, it appears that, at the very least, they simply do not care what the students may be doing to each other, so long as it doesn't interfere with classes.

As your other arguments are predicated upon the idea that Faith is controlling the teachers, which I do not think it happening, I shall ignore them.

I'm guessing that this part has nothing to do with Faith's influence and everything to do with the way the school works. The school seems to be operating under what TVTropes calls 'The Spartan Way'. In their view, making the students fight and such only makes them stronger, especially given that they are training to be warriors in effect. There is the consequences of being caught on a raid (makes you wonder if they get a serious reward if they succeed, or just major bragging rights, either would fit the mindset), pitting students against each other in physical combat. Hell, it is probable that he faculty is promoting the friction between the various 'styles' of hunter in order to make them vie with each other for dominance.

With this in mind, a strong leader type rising amongst the student body would be seen as a good thing by them. Though, it's hard to say if they would approve if they find it was simple mental dominance. That said, I don't think Faith has simply mind raped the student body... ravished a few physically, but that's a different fantasy... but not simply broke them to her will. She does seem to have a significant amount of personal charisma and leadership skills. On the other hand, when somebody like Tiff resists her charms so well, she pushes back harder...

[Random Wanderer]

I'm guessing that this part has nothing to do with Faith's influence and everything to do with the way the school works. The school seems to be operating under what TVTropes calls 'The Spartan Way'. In their view, making the students fight and such only makes them stronger, especially given that they are training to be warriors in effect. There is the consequences of being caught on a raid (makes you wonder if they get a serious reward if they succeed, or just major bragging rights, either would fit the mindset), pitting students against each other in physical combat. Hell, it is probable that he faculty is promoting the friction between the various 'styles' of hunter in order to make them vie with each other for dominance.

Sure. I'm not trying to say Faith's causing those situations. I just think the attitude that allows all that to occur is also allowing (and probably concealing) what Faith's actually doing with the students.

Discussion on this topic seems to be getting a bit excessive, and I don't mean to argue with anyone. While I do believe Faith was using her powers on Tiff in their confrontation, my conclusion about her and the rest of the students is a theory built from that and from a few other pieces of evidence. Perhaps I should simplify: I believe Faith has used mentally-influencing powers to help build her harem. She may not have used them on everyone, and she may not have any sort of sinister plan for doing so beyond hedonism and inflating her own ego, but I say she is not above using those powers for that purpose, and that she has done so. That, I think, is the most simple and basic way to say what I believe is going on with Faith. Larger-scale ideas of mind-rape and so on are theories that I think may be true, and which I find interesting to contemplate and put forward to show Faith in a more evil light, but they are just theories that I am not certain of.

Faith is willing to unethically use her powers to add to her harem, and has done so in the past. Bottom line what I think.

[someone]

About the pony tangent: see today's Sinfest.

[Pinekone]

I don't think it Faith did much to get where she is now, I mean Cerise has a few fans for that story she made up.

[Azrael]

>.< Last name Palm.

Next thing you know, she's running a seamstress' boarding house, huh?

>.< >.< >.< And this would make Skye, Chastity, Sparky, AJ, and Rain her five sisters.