#Thinking of Sayaka (my beloved) because I'm drawing her

[liridus]

It's actually really important to me that one of Sayaka's breaking points was her overhearing men being sexist and gross before absolutely losing it. Because it further emphasizes that Sayaka's main tragedy is not a boy not falling in love with her.

I think you can start applying this to Sayaka's character from when Mami first warns her to be cautious. What Mami tells her about think of why she's making her wish, I think it still applies, but not as her wanting Kyosuke to love her. I think Sayaka wanted to do good for others, but at the end of the day she wanted something out of that, primarily justice, change, a chance to make things better.

Her main tragedy is trying her absolute best to care for people, to be righteous, to use the powers given to her, to carve a better world; but to be given nothing in return. No reward, no foreseeable better future. Just suffering. And her eyes open to the suffering of others just for her to not be able to do anything about. Again and again and again.

And she tries to do this selflessly, like Mami indirectly told her to. To be fine with her efforts not being recognized, to be fine with people finding happiness without her, to be fine with people not respecting her right to make her own decisions. But at the end of the day that doesn't work and it tears her apart.

She wants to do something for the world, and risks her life to do it, the only thing she gets in return is her bodily autonomy being taken away. She's turned into a husk of a soldier without fully knowing what's going on. She's not even the best soldier (like her best friend could be), an average one. And she still tries to use that to keep fighting, because it has to be for a reason. It has to mean something. Because she's essentially given up everything, it has to mean something. It has to help her reach her goals in some way. Right?

It's not just a messed up way to cage her in a system that forces her to add onto the injustice she's fighting against. Right? Right?

(Maybe she calls herself stupid because she thinks she's stupid for trying to change things, for believing that things are capable of change)

[catgirltoofies]

okay now that I've slept on it (and rewatched the scenes i wanted to talk about to make sure i got my info right) i can elaborate a bit more! naturally I'm going to cover madoka magica because i think it's a good example of blood used narratively well

so the first scene I'll talk about is mami fighting charlotte in episode 3. as I'm sure many of my followers know already, mami is in a rush to finish the fight, so she very quickly demolishes the ragdoll, finishing her with a tiro finale, but doesn't notice the woerm within until it's too late. what follows is charlotte biting her head off, destroying her soul gem and killing her. mami's body falls to the floor, trailed by golden sparkles, and followed by charlotte, who enjoys the rest of her meal with horrible bone crunching sounds while kyubey begs madoka and sayaka to make a wish, only to be interrupted by homura.

now, the most striking this about this whole scene is that there's never a single drop of blood shown. no gushing spurts from having one's head bitten off, not even a streak down her outfit. we know it's not because magical girls can't bleed; the other scene includes a magical girl that bleeds. and i think this is a perfect example of when not to use blood.

you see, this is sort of a shocking moment, the moment when "everything changes" so to speak. middle schoolers have to come to terms with the fact that magical girls die, and die horribly. adding blood to the scene would have just made it overly gratuitous, adding unnecessary physical shock to the emotional shock (of having a beloved mentor die) and mental shock (of killing a main character).

the second scene I'm going to bring up is sayaka versus elsa maria, in episode 7. in this scene, sayaka is fighting a witch whose labyrinth is stark white, and everybody there is just a silhouette. the framing is actually beautiful and i think it's one of the better animated scenes in the show, but that's another topic - in this fight, sayaka does her usual business with her swords, charging in headfirst against the dragon shapes that rise up to protect the witch. a few of them clip her as she rushes for the witch, causing little scratches and bits of blood on her face. the fight goes back and forth until sayaka gets shoved back and gets rescued by kyoko, who puts her limp body by madoka, who is spectating. sayaka gets back up before kyoko can do anything, says "Don't get in my way. I can do it myself." before charging back into the fray. in one clean swipe, she severs the witch's head from her body with a swathe of blood and immediately gets assaulted by more of the dragons. the now-headless witch barrages sayaka with the dragons, many of which draw blood, but she fights back down to the witch, where she slams her sword down with a big pop of blood, and then continues beating on the lifeless body, spraying more blood into the air. finally the camera zooms on her face, and we see her grin, with multiple slashes on her face and arms, as she remarks that she doesn't have to feel pain anymore.

now, putting aside the masterful writing and framing and animation of the scene, we see another masterful narrative use of blood. being physically disconnected from the events of the show, we can't know how a character feels except through how they speak and act. the many, many times sayaka gets cut by these dragon familiars, the animators added a splash of blood to tell the audience "yes, she just got hit, but she cannot feel it". the witch also bleeds quite profusely - a stern reminder that the witches were once human as well. blood is used to double effectiveness here, because the witch blood isn't blue or purple or some alien color. it's red. it's human. sayaka's blood and the witch's blood are indistinguishable. it truly shows just how far sayaka had fallen at this point, that she would simply allow herself to be wounded and that she could simply turn off the pain. of course, an episode later it was proven that hiding your pain doesn't make it go away.

blood is such a powerful tool. it's the closest thing a body has to an essence of life. it carries one's breath through their body to their muscles and organs and without it, nothing works right. how it gets used in media tells a TON about both the characters and the writer/artist.