#in which madoka rambles about her friends and family

[priestess-of-yuri]

Pmmm x alnst anon here. This is what I thought about who would be who LOLLL. Sorry if this seems long and stupid as you can see I'm deeply hyperfixated lmao

Ok sooo obviously mizisua is madohomu but it's a little hard to decide who would be madoka and who would be homura for a number of reasons. Apon first looks you might think that sua would be madoka and mizi would be homura because of the whole sacrificing thing+ that one piece of angel sua devil mizi official art buuuuuuut if you look deeper you'll realize that it doesn't really fit: the most noticable part is that mizi has pink hair and sua has black hair+ purple eyes . Mizis whole thing is that she was unaware of her worlds dark nature until her gf died which kindaaaaa defeats the whole thing about homura as opposed to sua who was generally always kinda sad because she knew what was gonna happen if she lost which isn't really something like madoka??? (Also. Mizi is shown to have a generally supportive alien family while sua is shown to have a neglectful one which kinda contracts the thing about homura basically being a Catholic orphan and madoka being the only character in the show to have a supportive AND alive family. Idk if you get it but yeah) anyways I still decided that mizi would be homura and sua would be madoka because of some other reasons but. Yeah. You kinda understand

Next up is ivantill kyosaya. I think that they fit ivantill perfectly (sorta) because it's kinda obvious (at least for me) that who would be who here: kyoko would be Till because of her overall aggressive nature BUUUUUT also because till crushing on mizi would kinda also fit homuras and kyokos relationship since kyoko is basically the only person that homura can always trust. sayaka would be Ivan because of the whole "longing for someone who doesn't love you back" thing+ some other reasons (thought Ivan sayaka having beef with sua madoka while being close friends with mizi homura doesn't. Rlly make sense so) Ivan being fated to death could also kinda add up the fact that sayaka witched out every time she became a magical girl. I think you kinda understand why

Sooo Mami is Luka for a number of reasons: both have a reasonable amount of yellow in their designs, both are (physically) the eldest of their groups both are kindaaaaa insane ect ect. It's also fitting because Luka being the "king" of the stage could also add up the thing about Mami being an experienced magical girl and being WAYYY too much in the whole thing. R5 could also be a parallel to the Mami vs homura gun fight (specifically the part where mizi beats the tar out of Luka) . The ONE difference between these 2 is that Mami genuinely feels remorse lol

Anddddd last but not least (drumrolllllllll).... Hitomi as Hyuna. YES I know this seems strange but I actually have multiple reasons to believe why this sorta fits??? First of all Hitomi never becomes a magical girl no matter what which kinda fits hyunas rebel thing. Also iirc Hitomi had a crush on homura in one of the timelines???? Which could kinda add up to the thing about Hyuna rescuing mizi In r5. I guess Issac and Dewey could be those 2 friends of madoka from the first episode but idk. Mayyyyyybe kyosuke could be hyunwoo but idk LOLLLLLLL.

I LOVE YOUR RAMBLINGS GO OFF ANON. i love the discussion and details you put into your crossover...

my interpretation of your au was that mizi would be homura, sua would be madoka, till would be kyouko, and ivan would be sayaka. i hadn't got as far as thinking about mami, nevermind hitomi, but i would probably put mami down as hyuna for my own self-indulgence (i love shipping mizi/hyuna), and therefore hitomi as luka.

my reasoning, which is not to say it's superior to yours or anything, but like instead just building off your ideas...

just btw, when you do crossovers, it doesn't have to be 1:1! that's the whole point, you can make your own self-indulgent story! if you enjoy it, then that's mission accomplished! so this is my self-indulgence that i wanted to share with you too :3

homura as mizi: the themes are what i would like to focus on here! in homura's original timeline, homura was saved by madoka. not to mention, homura deifies madoka, just as mizi deifies sua.

madoka as sua: madoka isn't all sunshine and rainbows! she has been known to turn into a witch, so i think her taking on sua's "role" so to speak of understanding the larger picture of the alien society could fit! and like i said, her dying/becoming deified by homura also fits.

sayaka as ivan: their vibes are similar 🤔 and sayaka having an unrequited crush that drives her to sacrifice herself is pretty much right up her alley.

kyouko as till: their vibes are SO similar. i also think kyouko reads as anti-establishment! and this would be perfect for her to take on till's "role". it would mean that her values/attitudes/rebellion of hating the aliens would get painted as part of the show by the aliens, and again this is fitting. plus i like your points. kyouko DOES have some kind of homoerotic thing going on with homura 😳

mami as hyuna: mami might be less of a wildcard than hyuna, but i think being older and more experienced still lends credibility to her taking on hyuna's "role" of a rebel. i also just like mizi/hyuna and homura/mami is a fascinating ship to me.

hitomi as luka: look, i'll be the first to say luka is fascinating as a character and i want to put him under a microscope, and in the same breath i'll say i dislike him (yet i understand his actions and do not blame him). and yet i love hitomi. which makes it all the more interesting to list hitomi as luka, actually, because i think i would adore hitomi in luka's shoes. hitomi is shown to be quite mature in the pmmm universe, but put her in the high-stakes alien stage scenario in luka's shoes and i think she would actually get driven to the extremes luka did. especially when you consider that it's theorised luka's skin condition is the result of what can be interpreted as extreme abuse at the hands of his alien owner. one thing that i want to note is luka (and therefore hitomi in his shoes) could very likely feel remorse! remember, he's performing to Literally Save His Own Life. we need to humanize them, we need to humanize ALL the contestants, because the real monsters are the aliens running the show. that's the whole point of alien stage's commentary on idols performing under capitalism: idols irl are dangled around as if they are puppets, and you as the audience eat it up, but the people behind the scenes making them sing for scraps are the real scum.

thank you so much for reading if you got this far!!! and thank you for sending me your thoughts and hearing out mine too. i love Thinking Thoughts about my fave media... 💖

[2000semocat]

I never made a pin or even an introduction, so here it is!

My name is Scourge or Aster, and I'm a silly artist who is trying to make a living off of art as of now. I am a 19 year old college student who has been drawing ever since I was in elementary school. I'm still finding my style, so my art quality may change drastically.

I usually ramble about things I love or things that somehow anger me (which is rare, as I don't usually rant about things in public). I also am the creator of an upcoming Marble Hornets AU where mostly everyone lives, and a test subjects AU where I compiled the characters I have been recently brainrotting about! I also have a small universe I'm working on for my persona, Scourge, and her whole family. I only have a few designs down, and it'll probably be up and going in 5 years.

Current brainrot: marble hornets/Slenderverse, creepypasta, OC's (mine and my friend's) puella magi madoka magica, MLP, hello kitty/Sanrio, ARG's, anything horror related (this also includes body horror), religious themes in art, bug/flower symbolism, early 2000's aesthetics, IT 1 and 2

My other socials can be found here:

I also have some commissions slots open (6/6), so dm me here (or via my discord, scourgethecat67) for faster responses.

And here are my TOS and rules:

[autisticempathydaemon]

Take all the time you need hun! I don’t wanna make you feel rushed or anything, life is always busy 💞💞💞

What song are you fixated on at the moment? What lyric or verse, and why?

Both Over & Over by Rio Romeo and Again&Again by The Bird and the Bee, those two songs have been stuck in my head recently, it fits this fear I have in my mind that I’m never truly growing or I’m never actually gonna leave where I am, that I’ll always fall victim to habit and paranoia 💃🏽 also I just ADORE my meloncholy depressing songs lol but that’s not very heehee haha of me soooo Spider Web by Melanie Martinez bc it has the sound of a Coqui in it (I’m Puerto Rican) or River is a Vampire by Bear Ghost and Dan ET bc it’s just the vampiric version of that one meme “How you do my fellow kids” and it kills me

• What is your Enneagram type?

I think I’m a type 4? but I do know I’m an ENFP!

• Do you love gargantuan Youtube video essays, and if so, which is your favorite and why?

God I haven’t watched a video essay in AGES but I used to love them, but idk what gargantuan is </3 but I typically like video essays about internet history or crime cases, or of shows I enjoy (like MLP)

• Tell me about your childhood imaginary friend.

SHE WAS A CHEETAH WHO WAS ALWAYS THERE FOR ME NO MATTER WHAT!!! I would pet her, talk to her, and she’d keep me company when everyone would isolate me/avoid me bc I was ‘too weird’. She was just a big ass cat that would keep me company and run by the cars side to make sure I and my family was safe. She protected me 💞 (thank you for making me remember her 🥹)

• What is your go-to way to fall asleep?

Getting on call with my partner, I’m rather clingy and just wanna spend time with them even if it’s just silence or sleepy rambling, it also keeps me from doom scrolling. If not on call with them I’ll put on RSlash or Gavin’s/Davids sleep aid and hope that knocks me out (and if not that a ba LMFAO-) also if I have Lavender, I put it under/rub it all over my pillow and plushies

• If you had to change your name, what would it be, and why? (In tandem, if you have changed your name, why did you pick that one?)

Im genderfluid/gendervoid so I’ve tried many names, I do like my birth name, it means Loyal Protector/Pledge, so I wanted to find names that mean loyalty or music related names, but one name I’ve been using recently is Quincy, it feels nice sometimes, my partner suggested it to me.

• What is your favorite of Redacted's audios, and why?

Sam’s cuddles and confessions, it’s nice and comforting. That or Cataclysm in general, I fucking LOVE Cataclysm, I love relistening to it. Also any audio that involves Caelum I love that boy dearly

• What Redacted boy holds no appeal to you, and why? Like, not the one you hate but the one who you don't get the hype for. (I won't judge, I promise.)

Aaron and Vincent. Despite me being a huge vampire lover, Vincent just did not catch my attention at all, Aaron just doesn’t peak my fancy aside from one of his BA’s. Also same thing for Porter, he kinda bores me 😔

• Tell me about that one book/movie/tv show you know all the words to.

When I was a little kid, it was the live action 102 Dalmatians, I KNEW THAT MOVIE LIKE THE BACK OF MY HAND!!! I FUCKING LOVED WATCHING CRUELLA BEING BAKED INTO A CAKE BY ALL THOSE DOGS. Also Oddball my beloved 💞💞💞 the sweet baby puppy, I just understood the pup for feeling like and odd one out as a grew up, I haven’t seen the movie in years now but it still holds such a special place in my heart. Now as an adult my two favorite shows are The Promised Neverland(only season 1, I’m reading the manga) and Madoka Magica. I love rewatching TPN, but Madoka I have to mentally prepare myself for cause good lord does it make me feel like I never took anti-depressants/pos and then a movie I love now, A Silent Voice. I think I do know that one scene for scene. As a kid who grew up being bullied for being different or just not doing things right, I felt strongly for the main characters. I’ve cried almost every single time I’ve watched the movie. The part where one of the characters jumped off the balcony kills me every time because it reminds me how that could’ve been me from the fresh ages of 9-16 and almost was. It just holds a special spot in my heart and helps me keep going. (I adore my sad heart wrenching shit lmfao)

• Which Redacted boy are you platonically attracted to? Like- forget dating, which dude do you want to be your best friend?

Asher and Guy, those two would be so much fun to be friends with, also with the fact I’m so similar to them, especially Asher, bro is just like me fr 💀💀💀 collars and all. Like I just wanna be that man’s friend he is so silly

• Do you have a go-to thing you ramble about when you're tired, and if so, what is it? (For example, my boyfriend knows I'm ready to sleep when | start talking about space.)

As cheesy as it is, the fact I just want everyone in the world to be okay and happy, I want us all to hold hands, hug, and not hurt. I cry during these rambles sometimes, I genuinely just want everyone to be safe and happy and it tears me up inside and out bc that’s just not possible with the world we live in. That or I just start rambling nonsense lmfao (bonus is if I start rambling about how much I love and care about the person I’m talking to)

• Tell me your go-to gas station and drink combo.

Root beer and either Hot Cheetos/Cheesy Ruffles, or spicy chicken cheese sticks, meow I’m eating the shit out of that. (But if we have the money for it, Icys specifically cherry cause it’s objectively the best flavor next to Pinacolada)

• Tell me about your favorite playlist at the moment.

Like music playlist? Currently my fave has to be either my Alexis, Quinn, or my Darlin and Quinn playlists, I love my evil people playlists and songs that represent fucked up mindsets and relationships. That or my Melancholy Comfort playlist, I enjoy my meloncholy songs.

Redacted playlist tho? Either Sam, Vega, or Caelum, Sam holds a very special place in my heart, he’s incredibly comforting and ngl I miss the less sexual audios from his earlier era. Vega just drives me feral with every new piece of info we learn, GOD I FUCKING LOVE THAT ANCIENT MAN AND THE LORE HE DROPS!!! And then Caelum’s playlist holds a special place in my heart since that was the only playlist I could listen to after finding out I was cheated on/the other woman. Helped me out a lot for about 2 months 💞

• What's your guilty pleasure media, and why?

Those shitty werewolf romance things you see on tiktok, GOD I get so fucking invested in those they’re so needlessly interesting LMFAO idc they’re cringe, I’m cringe too stfu

• And whatever else you think tells me about who you are!

I’m a huge performer! I love singing, dancing, acting, especially singing and dancing. I LIVE for the stage and positive attention, I just wanna make people smile or make people feel scene when I preform. Hopefully one day I can be famous and truly fulfill that dream of mine. I also feel emotions strongly and spent my entire childhood from middle school and up studying psychology and human behavior. Also I absolutely HATE fake people, I can’t stand when people are fake, I try to be a safe person for everyone to truly be themselves cause lord knows I always hated having to put on a mask growing up/being isolated because I didn’t fit in lmfao.

I forgot to click on anon sorry-

I adore this entry- not only did you give me so much information to work with but you’ve given me an opportunity to pair you with Lasko which I love to do.

He’s such a character in need of love, and I think you’re a perfect person to love him and be loved in return for so many reasons. He’d be an introvert to your extrovert which is always an adorable couple dynamic. You’ve mentioned a past characterized by isolation and feeling other; Lasko is uniquely situated to understand and empathize with that. You prefer true, genuine people, and Lasko is so incredibly (albeit apologetically) himself and probably incapable of being anything else.

One of the most fun activities I think you and Lasko would do together is watch anime. I like to think he’s already a fan, mostly of adventure and isekai, with some cheesy shoujo faves he’s so bashful about liking. You show him A Silent Voice, which isn’t his usual genre, and you two cry together. Another fun thing is how you’ll perform and Lasko will be in the front row every time, cheering you on. He brings you a mismatched bouquet and rambles about how he couldn’t pick a dozen of one flower, so he got a little of them all.

Song:

Cause lately it's been hard/ They're sellin' me for parts/ And I don't wanna be modern art/ But I only got half a heart to give to you/ How can you miss someone you've never seen?/ Oh, tell me, are your eyes brown, blue, or green?/ And do you like it with sugar and cream?/ Or do you take it straight, oh, just like me?

You like melancholy songs; I can provide. This is one of my favorite pining songs, and it makes me think of a young Lasko (and maybe a young you) longing for connection, love, understanding, that one person who will make the love songs finally make sense. It makes me picture Lasko just waiting for you, you know?

Runner-ups:

On the total opposite of the pairing spectrum, Hudson is one of your runner-ups because he’d be such a good match to you as a performer. I personally can’t imagine a better hype man than Hudson. I’m also picking David as a runner-up for you, because I think you two would contrast each other really cutely, in a maybe golden retriever/german shepherd way.

Read this post and send me an ask if you’d like a match-up of your own! 💌

[thewhitefluffyhat]

All Magia Record Madoka Voice Lines Translation

And yes, this includes the unused ones from the wiki!

New edit: Thank you to Madokalove on reddit for several corrections!

Introductions

Self-Introduction:  I still don't understand what I'm doing, but I'm making various things easier for Mami-san.  If I can become a magical girl who helps everyone, I intend to work harder myself, or something like that. 

Wait, intending's no good!  I am working hard! Ah, right, Mami-san did praise me recently. Ehehe.

Gacha Introduction:  I'm Kaname Madoka.  You can call me Madoka.  After becoming a magical girl, I still can't help much yet, but anyway, I'll do my best!

 Training

Level Up:  Maybe I got a little stronger? That's the feeling I have.

Level Max:  With this, more people may be saved.

Episode Level Up:  Mami-san told me that I still have a ways to go for my magic to become stronger.

[Probably a reference to Ch 3 of Madoka's Chara Story.]

Magia Level Up:  I wonder, what kind of feeling is this?  Have I changed in some way?

Magical Release (1):  Even now, I don't have anything more than a bow and arrows.  When I first went out I wasn't sure how to use it, but now, I'm fine.  I can use it perfectly.

Magical Release (2): Homura-chan's time stop magic is amazing!  I wish I could use it too...  If I stopped lightning, I could hit it with arrows as much as I'd like!

Magical Release (3): Sayaka-chan is also partners with someone called Kyouko-chan.  Those two get into quarrels easily, but they're very close!

Magical Girl Awakening (1):  What's this insight in front of my eyes?  I feel like I can see it very clearly.

Magical Girl Awakening (2):  In my family, Mama works outside, and in response, Papa is doing things. That's why Papa is a full-time housewife, you see.  But it's good they have a very close relationship.

Magical Girl Awakening (3): Family, friends, fellow magical girls - I think everyone is important.  That's why, if something happens, I want to help.  And if it's the fault of a witch, I have to try even harder than I do now!

Home

Login (1) (When logging in for the first time):  Great!  We were able to meet~ Everyone else is waiting.  After all, being busy is fun!   Well, shall we go?

Login (2) (Morning):  Rise and shine! Good morning, it's morning already. Me?  Yeah, I slept soundly. That's why right now, I'm already feeling clear-headed. Sleep is important!

[The first part is how Madoka wakes up her mom in ep 1 of the anime.]

Login (3) (Midday):  Let's eat lunch together!  Today is fried chicken in a rolled omelet and... vegetables!  Mm-mmm, delicious!   Oh, hey, want some chicken?

Login (4) (Night):  Kazuko-sensei was gushing about him again today... This time, it seems like her new relationship is going well.  It'd be good if this affair could become very long and happy, but...

[Another bit from episode 1. Madoka's phrasing here is almost exactly the same as when she’s talking with Junko in the TV series.]

Login (5) (Late night):  Now, I have to do the class prep for tomorrow.  If it's left unfinished, aww, I'm in trouble.  But... there's a show I want to watch, you see.  I wonder, is it okay to use the TV just a little longer?

Login (6) (Other):   Since becoming a magical girl, until today, somehow so many things have happened in the blink of an eye...  I've been constantly surprised!

Login (7) (Max AP):  After becoming friends with Homura-chan the first day she transferred here, I think of her as a very precious friend to me. Right, Homura-chan?

Login (8) (Max BP):   Even though I know they're fakes, fighting my fellow magical girls is a little...umm... Ah! Is that so?  I should think of it as practice before fighting the witch!

[I'm not sure if this is meant to be painfully ironic or if Madoka already knows what happens to magical girls...]

Tap Magical Girl (1):  How about this ribbon?  Mama chose it for me although...  I was told a woman's appearance is the one thing she can't afford to get looked down at, and yet, isn't it flashy?

[A summary of Madoka and Junko's conversation from ep 1.  In fact, the phrasing of "a woman's appearance... etc." is exactly the same as the episode, so I'm reprinting Crunchyroll's subs for it here.]

Tap Magical Girl (2):  How about a quiz? When frying an egg, should it be fried sunny-side up, or over hard? Sensei was saying it, but the answer is... Either way is fine.

[Yet another line taken directly from epsiode 1, this time it's Kazuko-sensei's question at the start of class.]

Tap Magical Girl (3):   I wonder what kind of woman I'll become in the future.  Maybe I'll become a hard worker like Mama?  Pffhaha, I can't imagine it at all.

Tap Magical Girl (4):  My friend Hitomi-chan gets sent so many love letters.  But, what kinds of things are written in them, I wonder...  I am a little curious...

Tap Magical Girl (5):  As I expected a little, I get scared when fighting witches.   I can't stay calm.  But, I think I can do my best if I'm fighting for the sake of someone else.

Tap Magical Girl (6):  I don't have anything like a school subject I'm proud of, or a talent I can brag about.  But, hey, it would make me happy if I could be useful to someone like Mami-san...I thought.

[This line is almost exactly the same as one of Madoka's lines in Ch1 of her Chara Story.]

Tap Magical Girl (7):  After she healed Kamijou-kun's hand, Sayaka-chan's been acting really bright and cheerful. She's in a little bit of a self-congratulatory mood, you see.

Tap Magical Girl (8):  Homura-chan's bombs are handmade, you know.  Besides that, she also has guns, but... What's that? I wonder how she's obtaining them?

Tap Magical Girl (9):   But... that's too much!  This can't be right!  That was the cake I received from Mami-san...  How could I have done something so foolish...?  Even though I wanted to eat it.

[This one isn't in the in-game archive, but it seems to trigger if you tap Madoka on the home screen several times. She has her crying portrait while saying the line, and the first two lines are directly from when she's watching Homura fight Walpurgisnacht (ep 1 & 10), so for a while I thought she was talking about *Mami* here. But thankfully, it was just a cake, haha... ]

Quest

Quest Start:  I've got to protect everyone!

Quest Win (1): Thank goodness... we seem to have won!

Quest Win (2): We did it~! Amazing!

Quest Win (3):  Mmhm! It feels good!

Chara Story

Select Chara Story 1:  Hm~m... which ribbon should I wear~?

[From ep 1, when talking to Junko. Although the TV series doesn't have the "u~n" part.]

Select Chara Story 2:  I don't really understand, but... the city's changed, hasn't it?

[Possibly inspired by what Madoka says to Sayaka in ep 4?]

Select Chara Story 3:  I'm a magical girl... that's why I've got to do it...!

[Possibly inspired by what Madoka says before she leaves Homura to fight Walpurgisnacht in ep 10?]

Select Chara Story 4:  Is this truly reality...?

[Possibly from Madoka's conversation with QB in ep 8? Or maybe the end of episode 1?]

Select Chara Story 5:  Were you the one who was calling me?

[From the very end of ep 1, when Madoka talks to Kyuubey]

Select Chara Story 6:  Don't tell anyone else in class, okay?

[From the beginning of ep 10, when Madoka saves Homura from a witch. "ni wa" instead of "de wa" in this version.]

 [I don’t think these next lines are actually used?  I don't remember them, they're not in my story archive, and they don’t actually fit the context of the corresponding chapters.]

End of Chara Story 1: I have to get stronger so that I don't become a burden to Mami-san!

End of Chara Story 2:  To be able to do this...  as I thought, it's the work of a witch!

End of Chara Story 3:  Even though I already have it, my heart's still pounding...

[No idea what the implied "it" is.  Perhaps a grief seed, after she fought a witch?]

In Battle

Disc Select 1:  Okay~

Disc Select 2:  Errr...

Disc Select 3:   Maybe this will do the trick?

Disc Select 4:  This one? / Here?

Select Receive Connect:  Me, right?

Select Give Connect:  Together! / At the same time!

Attack 1:  I've got to stop you!

Attack 2:  Well, here I go!

Attack 3:  Believe in hope!

Attack 4:  There!

Attack 5:  Hah!

Attack 6:  Strike!

Attack 7:  Listen!

Attack 8:  And this!

Attack 9:  One more! / Another one!

Attack 10:  And even this!

Attack Receive Connect:  Yeah, now!

Attack Give Connect:  You're not alone!

Defeated:  This is as far as I go...

Magia:  I'll absolutely defeat you!  My heart is riding on this... don't lose!

Doppel:  Come out from inside me!

Unused

Magia unused line 1:  I have something... I want to protect!

Magia unused line 4:  In order for everyone... to be able to live meaningful lives!

Unused 1:  You should finish the song!

Unused 2:  Perhaps it's only a story, but if, someday, there ends up being a very strong witch, I wonder if I'll seriously be able to fight it.  However, no matter how strong it is, I won't give up on protecting everyone. There is always hope!

[Perhaps this was meant as an alternate introduction?  I think I actually like it better than the one that is used in-game.]

Unused 3: I wonder if it's okay for a magical girl that's like me to be here.  Umm... no, no, no!  It's fine... it's surely fine...  I'll do my best!

Unused 4:  Ahh, how I've changed.

[Possibly alternate level up dialogue?]

And that’s it!  That’s everything Madoka in this game!  (Outside the main / another story, anyway, and those are being translated by someone else.)

These past months have been my first time translating something for real, and it was way more work than I expected, but also super cool!  I hope you all enjoy!

[lady-lazagna]

Family Headcanons: The Amanos

Ay, she's back! And she brings more insane ramblings about people that live in her head! :)

These are Madoka's parents, Daisuke and Lisa!

Daisuke is a very innovative and creative man. He loves experimenting with his Beyblade inventions and finding new ways to make them fun and exciting to battle with. His childish idealism does tend to go overboard, forcing himself to complete almost impossible projects. When he focuses on something, he won't lose that focus until the job is done- which isn't great when that job isn't technically possible.

As we know from the show, he is the owner of the B-Pit, the go-to shop for any blader in need. He was able to turn this shop into a chain, opening a few extra shops around Japan. Though a lot of his work is driven by his desire to make kids happy, the amount of work he puts himself through gives him less time to spend with his own kid. Granted, he is extra careful not to miss important events like birthdays, Christmas, or tournaments that Madoka helps out with, but missing the little things and casual time still takes it toll on their relationship. The time they do spend together is usually spent bouncing new ideas off of each other and repairing beys together.

Lisa was a relaxed, optimistic, go-with-the-flow kind of woman. Originally from France, she met Daisuke while travelling through Japan. He saw her competing in a Beyblade tournament (I think her bey would be some kind of Gasher, since that was the one that Madoka had) and was instantly smitten, so he approached her after the fact and offered to repair her bey for her. Lisa admired his determination and creativity, while Daisuke loved her optimistic yet level-headed approach to life. She often grounded him when his head got too high up into the clouds, while he inspired her to dream bigger and reach for greater heights in life.

At first, when they had their daughter, they were a very tight-knit family. They loved watching Beyblade matches, cooking, and hanging out in Daisuke's study together.

It wasn't until Madoka was seven, when Lisa tragically died of illness, did things change for the worse. Though Daisuke loves his daughter, he was unsure of how to raise her on his own. He didn't really understand much of the "girly" aspects of Madoka's personality and didn't know how to relate to her (other than through Beyblade) because of that. Without his wife to ground him, he regained unrealistic expectations for his work, which only pushed him further away from his daughter.

Madoka greatly idealised her mother in pretty much every sense. She loved her persistence to thrive in a male-dominated field, her chilled-out attitude, her fashion sense, everything. Losing her was one of the hardest things she'd ever had to deal with, especially since she was the only real female friend Madoka had ever had. Being a part of the Beyblade community for most of her life made making friends with other girls near impossible, since female bladers were few and far between- especially any near Madoka's age. Though Madoka does love her dad, she really wishes she looked a lot more like her mum, just to keep her memory of her alive.

Madoka takes inspiration from both of her parents when repairing and experimenting with beys. She uses her dad's creativity and focus, and her mum's grounded yet optimistic outlook.

That's all I've got for now! Feel free to ask questions about them :D

[mikimagines]

within summer blooms. (which taunt you.)

nagito k. / fem ghost! reader.

tags: angst, no happy ending, right person wrong time, major character death, hurt no comfort (kinda).

writting is not checked: we die like ghost! reader.

(reader is the former ultimate gardener, yes…it’s important to the story.)

small inspirations from animes you might know! (or not.) ; tbhk (mitsuba/kou and…tsukasa) and madoka magica. …mostly tbhk.

this was requested by @adelia-chan ! ☆ thank you!

—

nagito always had horrible luck.

no matter where he went, it would end in ways that nobody has seen before. it was a shame to be unlucky, but with the ways of luck, things never change, not even for the victims of despair…

yet, trapped inside of hope’s peak academy was a strange yet non surprising way he got trapped. summer break was coming sooner than expected, so most students rush to do something to celebrate on their finale exams; college exams. leaving lesser students to do all of the cleaning, which nagito was one of them. . .

and when nagito was finishing up his duties it was only him left, and everyone always forgets about him so the school was left to close for the afternoon. it was stupidly his luck, that left him in this way and staying over night might get him in trouble, so finding a way to get out would be the most important.

and to his disappointment, every door was sealed shut. not even with any of his tricks it wouldn’t work. although he did remember when he did knock down a door accidentally, due to his luck. so the student council has to make all of the doors: “nagito-proof” it makes him a weridly thankful that they could name something out of something he did.

which during his entire rant, on how thankful he is to be part of such a delight indeed, a ghost, who was actually in the middle of going to her (old) garden saw the pale-haired boy infront of the door.

you weren’t really into the fact that he was rambling into something, you just had to make sure he was ok. yet, you forgot that people have known to be afraid of ghost…which you are.

“hey, are you ok?” you replied to the boys, thoughts of respect.

and yet, you were scared.

if he gets scared like the people, who you simply need to know if that they remember correctly that it was you, their friend.

…

and if they don’t, it wouldn’t end that much well for you. especially with the stupidly naive deal you made to see everyone again, family, friends. it was your only chance, so taking it would be a final way to say goodbye.

correct?

—

it was a silent pause into nagitos thoughts. it was extremely his bad luck knowing that he is stuck inside his school, know with a ghost who is in front of him, with concern in their eyes.

“hey…hey! are you ok? the more you stare at me the more my flowers are going to wilt!” you snarled at the boy, not knowing what to do.

it was only a few minutes anyways and he finally spoke even with all the questions his head.

seeing ghosts face to face are a thing that nobody has truly seen.

yet to him, he has seen one. not only is that “unlucky.” it is truly lucky. maybe he can learn more about death more. he’s not afraid of it, maybe.

you facepalm at the boy, currently you were going to get to your garden, and now your stuck with a person who isn’t even afraid of you.

he was just shocked. your smirked for a little, taking that way, since nagito has wasted 30 minutes of your time. it would be better to do the same, yes?

and to your shock as well, he agreed to you taking him to your “garden”, unlike any other average student, example: your very own friend, they think your “garden” is truly where you are going to drag them into the same fate as you.

so they leave…well run away from you, leaving you alone, once again. is this just your loneliness, maybe just a eternal curse you will have until you truly pass on.

and for nagito, he just…agrees like a lost puppy dog that wants to know everything about you. this is a rare time that nagito has now seen in his life. which was you, a finally seen not as a scary illusion from guilt. but as a new friend.

ah, you couldn’t think that much about him, it was only your first time seeing him, and you barely had any time.

being the anniversary of your death soon and soon enough the time you truly have to go, any finally rest for another life.

finally, you went to your small garden. it was blooming more than normal, as the suns blesses with its shine and “love.” it was a easy job. it was your garden obviously, a place full of memories, a place where you could be happy with everyone.

and with nagito with you and him listening to every word your saying, it gives you happy memories. the things you truly wanted to do one last time with everyone, wouldn’t it just be so great?

“hmm…are these roses?” nagito asked during your rambling while watering your bonsai.

you put down your watering can and got ready to ramble about the flowers and the meaning of them.

until you saw nagitos bleeding finger, and was getting on your precious daisy’s, which wasn’t exceptional to you as you scolded the laughing man like a mother.

time passed fastly after that, faster than you can imagine, also you promised to get him out of the school so he can get to his apartment before his classmates start a search party.

yes, even if the barely care for him. it was still needed. no matter what. you sighed, once more you took him to the opened door from a security’s guard (which you accidentally scared.)

and waved goodbye.

—

after that fateful afternoon it was a shock to see nagito stay a little more while at the school, most thought he was up to something big, while the class just took it off as him finally getting “a touch of grass” — hiyoko.

also you both actually introduced yourselves, although you were seemingly confused on how he’s the ultimate “luck” he didn’t seem that much lucky to you. and for you, introducing yourself as the (former) ultimate gardener was easy to figure out due to context clues.

it was slightly embarrassingly, only for you… yet nagito just clapped it off as you still being a symbol of hope.

ah, anyways…

—

it’s been about 2 weeks since the fateful day you meant with nagito. (and more importantly, the day you have to go soon.)

he was almost like a close friend, honestly. every time after-school he would come and visit you and your garden and even learned much about how plants have meanings.

yet, you were on the clock. you had been trying for months just to actually get your friends to remember you, yet it didn’t work. all you did was hurt your friends more and more with just being a ghost.

why?

because of guilt.

once someone goes, you can’t see them again, nor can’t say your true feelings or even be with them, not even a hug or a laugh.

they just, disappear. and so with you being a ghost, they think it’s their mind taunting them for not saying goodbye.

or the feeling of self guilt; like it’s their fault.

yet for nagito, he’s just so confusing never scared of anything and you know much about him even when he shows his true personality.

and yet, harm can come in many ways. horrible ways that you can’t say it. you can feel it. so why not just say your true feelings?

…

it’s that easy! right…?

—

exorcists are dangerous to ghosts.

they bring harm and fear to the ghosts and with no mercy in some ways. which brings terror and puts the ghost in ways that they are not ready to say goodbye yet;

or truly pass on,yet some are kind and want to help the ghosts. but flowers aren’t truly that perfect. no matter how kind they look.

take a example, roses. they look pretty, and yet so dangerous that it would harm the ones who dare to touch it.

it was actually the same with you and the ultimate exorcist. as she has had complaints about you in the past, an extremely confused ghost.

yet she gave you time to truly say goodbye to your friends, and of course you accepted the final days you can see everyone and try to talk to friends and family.

most would see this as a blessing, yet to your friends they truly thought you were just there to give them more grief to your death.

(they didn’t know it was truly you, so it gives them a point or two. but they are actually a little stupid..so take off a point.)

and that stupid exorcist, she knows. she knew that you were going to fail anyways and is a entire master at gaslighting you.

and today, you weren’t going to fail. one more time, just one more time!

but you failed.

again, and again.

no matter how hard or how kind you look. it never works. even when nagito tries to calm you down and even tried to talk to them, they would just find him even more scary to the experiences of seeing you.

and today.

the final day you can try to talk to them.

you failed.

you…failed.

like shattered glass, it was giving you more despair, and it gets more shattered everytime until the sunlight, the memories taunt you.

the car crash, the everything.

why…how.

it was just all over your mind, no one was their to be with you anymore, since nagito went home for the day, which will be the last day he will truly see you.

…

why?

I’ll recommend asking the exorcist.

—

note: this will be a little, uncomfortable(?) and it’s not that important to the story at least. so if it does, please skip.

it was truly a painful experience.

you couldn’t do anything about it, because she was just too fast.

all you could do was scream for no one, the exorcist had you by the heart. it was unavoidable. you couldn’t say your true feelings yet, you couldn’t say anything.

maybe, if you weren’t such a idiot and went to the flower shop that day. maybe this wouldn’t happened. maybe, you could of confessed your true feelings to nagito.

but it was way to late, way to late. like the day another person confessed to your crush the day you were going to confess and they accept the other persons confession.

they have a life together, and all you can do was sit back to watch, you could never have a happy life or do regular teenagers things anymore.

you were a ghost, after all. so maybe, it should be your turn to go. forever.

those were the words that came out of your head and the exorcists mouth while taunting you.

and yet,, soon enough.

you were finally going to rest. (not) peacefully.

the exorcist smirked at the work she has done, and left. hopefully you can finally rest.

it was only fate.

after all.

a fate, you can truly. never change, which will taunt you all the way to your final grave.

—

nagito was worried, he hasn’t seen you in a while. not in the garden or the koi pond. you just, left.

he thought for a second: we’re you truly sick of him? I mean, he does ramble a lot and he does say a lot of stupid things.

but you always listened, so why would you leave? he had so many questions that had to be answered. maybe it was his luck? or maybe just him? he has no clue.

his top priority is to find you, I mean who else is going to show him your garden and ramble about all of the flowers you have and their meaning.

he had to figure out quickly, although. maybe your old friends or maybe that exorcist you were scared of said has something to say.

he was just truly, worried. so he had to figure out, quickly. in the name of hope! (and flowers.)

—

one by one, your friends talked about you, how you were just, a sweetheart. even if you were so tough with them. you had your ways of making friends especially in that one garden you had.

the way you died was…messy to say the least, from nagitos research of you most of your friends looked near to crying.

it was a painful way to go, any you were just looking for something so innocent.

roses.

from the garden shop. but to your horrible luck, you got ran over badly by a speeding cars. (nearby people even said you looked both ways.)

and your death was something that they couldn’t change at all. it still gives them pain to that day, especially because you had a closed casket…

after the entire exchange was over, they were pretty worried out on how some random guy from a nearby class asked them such random questions.

yet nagito moved on. to that ultimate exorcist.

—

it was a small yet big talk for him, not only because the exorcist just said that they killed you, the exorcist just treated it like a simple case of a average ghost.

I would say it pissed him off, but he’s always just so calm, putting his true personality would lead to things like him being put out of school (again.)

but for you, you were truly just gone.

not a person nor a ghost.

just a concept they never existed. like, never existed, only the things you loved and liked were still their.

you truly just disappeared, you couldn’t even say anything yet for him, not even he could say anything for you as well.

—

all he can do is just stare at that one bonsai tree you have to him, it was actually your “confession” he was just too confused.

and once again, I think he would just feel deep, sadness. not that he could see you or hear you talk about plants and koi fish again.

but that you couldn’t say your true feelings.

—

nagito always has bad luck. it was something, he couldn’t stop and once again.

he has lost someone important again.

—

extra:

you gave nagito a small bonsai tree, it was truly your favorite in the entire world. you always had it with you and was your first priority. but, you gave it to nagito, it always gave you good luck when you were alive.

maybe it will give good luck to him, he deserves it more than you.

he did ask why it has roses with it.

you just laughed at him, maybe it could be something like to remember you by. if you ever go. of course.

—

authors note:

I apologize for things like not being accurate to the nagito’s character or maybe it being too boring??? I mean this took me about a hour or two.

you guys own me a reroll account/hj

- mod mikan.

[shiny-procrastinates]

(re)Watching Magia Record S1 - part 1

Hello and welcome everyone to the first post on this watch-along commentary of the first season of Magia Record! Whether you are just now watching it for the first time, or are re-watching in preparation for the second season, or have only played the game and are curious about the anime (in which case I'd be surprised you even exist) I hope you can have some fun reading these ramblings as I try to put my thoughts into words  (actually turned more into narrating the show) throughout all 12 13 episodes.

Before we can get to it, though, I have a few warnings to give:

1 - As much as I'd love to be able to memory swipe so I can watch this fresh all over again, such an ability is sadly still beyond my grasp. In other words, this isn't my first time watching (or second, for that matter; more like the sixth… or seventh…). That being the case I can't claim that these are my first impressions and it's very likely this commentary will be somewhat biased by my previous knowledge. However, I can guarantee one thing: I will do my best to keep this spoiler-free, so you don't have to worry if this is your first time watching.

(I will, however, be assuming that you have watched the OG series and Rebellion, so beware of that).

2 - Please don't come into this expecting it to be Madoka 2

Also no, this is not a continuation of the OG, it’s an alternate universe spin-off.

This one's for first-time viewers.

Well, ok, this sounds like vague tweeting and I'm kind of whining here, but I have seen a number of peeps on the internet saying that Magia Record is bad only for their argument to boil down to "because it isn't OG Madoka!"

Yeah it isn't. I'm pretty sure there's "Side Story" written somewhere in the title too.

Leaving aside the matter of nostalgia glasses and whether the original series was that much of a masterpiece or not (it's been over five years since I last watched it, so I can't say anything either way.) it seems kind of weird to me that someone would bash a spinoff on the grounds of how close it is to the original. Because here's the thing: to me, the whole point of spinoffs is taking an already existing scenario and putting a spin on it to make something new. That's exactly what makes them fun!

MagiReco didn't need to be a Madoka clone or to try hard and beat the original. That would probably have made it bad, actually. What it did need to do was to create an interesting story using the world set up by the OG Madoka and the other spinoffs, and that, in my opinion, it did, so I hope people can give it a chance and judge it on its own merits rather than only compared to the original. I'm not saying you can't hate it, either, I myself have my own problems with it, it's just that I want to see more reasonable reasons than "it's not the OG so it's bad".

3 - As you can probably already tell from these warnings, these posts are bound to get looong, so I'd recommend setting aside a fair amount of time and getting real comfy if you're gonna read it all. I also don't mind if you just skip ahead and only read the interesting parts, I'm not the internet police.

3.5 - I don't want to use it as an excuse, but I think I should make it clear that English is not my native language, so I apologize in advance for any mistakes and awkward/stilted text. It's hard to tell by myself, so feel free to correct me if you find something.

SO, with that out of the way let’s get down to what’s really important:

Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story: Magia Record Episode 1

Whew, now that’s a mouthful.

You know, in my mind I always thought a “side story” was something that happened alongside a “main story”, like another POV, so I’m not sure that’s the most appropriate title, but who am I to judge?

So here we go, we’re off with some beautiful futuristic scenery already, that’s the Madoka series I know.

As the classic Sis Puella Magi plays in the background, two unseen narrators tell us the tale of the so called “magical girls” as we are shown the reality of being one, meeting our first witch for this series.

Risking your life to save a cat doesn’t seem like the smartest of things. Rather, witches eat cats? That’s mean.

No, you really, really don’t. This narration definitely seems made to make everyone who saw the original say this, particularly with how silly are the wishes these girls suggest. 

And hey, look, even this girl who supposedly had her wish granted doesn’t seem very happy.

Hang in there, this is only the first episode.

Man, this scenery really is pretty though.

After an exciting fight with a witch in the train, our girl here silently goes home to find

Whatever the heck this is.

So, our girl here seems to be having strange visions whenever she enters her room, that is very very suspiciously cut exactly in half. Protagonist, you sure have an unique sense of interior decoration.

She goes on with her day, makes two lunchboxes and… oh, it seems she’s all alone.

Is this something you should be telling your own daughter?

Long story short, Iroha’s parents are abroad right now (as is suspiciously the case with many a anime protagonist parents). I actually love the parallel this scene draws with OG Madoka: whereas Madoka’s parents seem responsible and Madoka even looks up to her mom and they’re a happy united family, Iroha comes off as being the responsible one in her family and her parents are gone from the get-go. This way, the lonely atmosphere of the previous scene also starts making sense.

So, it seems like there’s something Iroha wants to do here, and that’s why she decided to stay behind.

Perhaps. Did you wish to save a black cat?

Wow, this teacher is speaking fast. Calm down lady, we’re not here to speedrun the content, geez. Though I guess we should be happy she’s at least giving a proper class, unlike a certain other teacher…

Oh great, it's this guy.

Ok, Iroha doesn’t remember what she wished for and Kyuubei doesn’t know either, although he knows she used her wish for the sake of someone. Kyuubei theorizes that the reason she doesn’t remember might be that not remembering was part of her wish, but Iroha doesn’t think she’d wish for that. I don’t think you’d ever think to wish for something like that until you had to wish for something like that though.

She’s got a fair point. After all, wishing in this universe is basica— the heck is going on in the background there?! O-kaaay…

Iroha was having a weird think-spot mental conversation with Kyuubei there, and missed speedrun teacher’s lecture entirely. Being meguca is suffering.

We get some school motto propaganda, and now we’re on the roof. Oh? Where did all the friendship stuff from the propaganda go? Seems like Iroha’s not following the school spirit. Unless she considers the white weasel a friend, so that’s why she gave him her extra… wait, Kyuubei can EAT? I thought he was some alien machine-like being. H-Huh...

Classmate A: Tamaki-san, maji tenshi!

She’s probably just shy. According to her classmates, Iroha used to be busy doing something or the other, but no one can remember what that is.

Cute. 

But maybe don’t do that somewhere someone could easily walk in on you, Iroha.

Iroha gets a call by the girl from the combat scene from before, whose name is Kuroe. I couldn’t tell from their conversation if they’ve known each other for a while or if they just met each other for the first time in the fight before.

On the train, although she’s the one who called her over, Kuroe remains silent. Iroha, clearly uncomfortable, tries her best to make conversation. Poor Iroha, I know the feeling.

We learn from her that the number of witches around has been decreasing. She comments that being unable to get Grief Seeds is troubling, but it’s better than having witches causing trouble. Poor girl has no way to know just how much of a bad news it is running out of Grief Seeds.

What’s with pink-haired girls and lacking self-esteem? Iroha, are you sure you didn’t wish to save a black and forget that you did? You did save a white one just before.

Kuroe finally decides to talk, and she tells us this:

If you go to Kamihama, you’ll be saved. To anyone that saw the OG, the first thought that comes to mind is that they’ll be saved from their destiny of turning into witches, but it seems Kuroe doesn’t know the truth yet. She just doesn’t want to fight witches anymore. I think.

The train lights up, and…

...this is extremely unsettling considering the truth about witches and the conversation they’re having right now. There’s a lot of this, but this just hits different having watched the original.

Iroha’s not inclined to believe what Kuroe’s saying. Of course, despite not remembering her wish, she’s the type that’s happy with fighting witches if she can save someone, and Kuroe’s not being very convincing either. The whole thing is apparently a rumor spread by some girls who saw a dream that told them that.

Except that Kuroe actually had the dream too.

Like most magical girls, Kuroe made a short-sighted wish, and regrets it. She now wants to be saved, so she’s going to Kamihama.

...or she was, but before that, they’ll have to defeat the witch they let escape the other day, ‘cos she’s back for more.

I actually have so many questions about this scene. Weren’t Labyrinths pocket dimensions? How come this one’s moving in physical space? We know witches themselves move and their Labyrinth goes with that, but I thought it was more, like, the entrance to the Labyrinth moves. Then how come witches can escape if magical girls get carried with their Labyrinth when they move…? Just... just... what?

The answer to all of that is probably “magic”.

Like that, Express Witch Labyrinth crashes right into what seems to be a train station. Labyrinths don’t have brakes, confirmed.

Brutal.

Looks like it’s not only magical girls who have territorial disputes going on. Although it’s nice that they won’t have to fight two witches at the same time, this is not exactly a relief when you consider these two were already struggling with the previous one, and this one just ripped it apart like crab.

As expected, Iroha’s arrows do no damage at all. When all seems lost…

A wild singing mini Kyuubei appears! Is this a shiny?

The singing Kyuubei distracts the witch and jumps towards Iroha, who uses her pro white cat catching skills to grab it, and… something happens. Whatever this Kyuubei did, Iroha’s having some flashbacks now. Sadly, the middle of a battle isn’t the best time to be having a BSOD and, despite Kuroe’s attempts to snap her out of it, they’re sitting ducks right now, a black and a white one.

Thankfully for them, though, they’re not alone in this barrier. This mystery blue haired girl spams flying spears and makes short work of the witch Iroha’s arrows didn’t even scratch earlier. She’s clearly at a whole ‘nother level.

Also, chibi Kyuubei’s gone. Totally not suspicious. Nope. Not at all.

So, from this OP miss get-the-heck-out-of-my-territory, who didn’t even bother saying her name, we learn that not only there is no salvation in Kamihama, there are more, stronger witches, and there are currently no Kyuubei. She gives them the Grief Seeds from the two witches before, and passes on a warning to them. Not the friendliest of magical girls. Though if you consider what happens when you run out of Grief Seeds, one could understand why it’d be undesirable having too many magical girls in the same place.

With this, Iroha and Kuroe take the train back to their town and things are totally awkward again.

Welp, seems like Kuroe doesn’t want to chat anymore, so we’ll have a dream sequence instead.

Forgive my lack of words, but this scene doesn’t need them. This is just… you couldn’t ask for a better representation of what being a magical girl wishing for salvation is like. Everyone has their own reasons, but in the end, having known despair, these girls are desperately clinging to this last hope called Kamihama. It’s almost a pilgrimage.

“Let’s go to Kamihama. We’ll be saved there”

And in the midst of all that is the mysterious girl from Iroha’s dreams.

(the track here, Paradero de Memoria, is also great btw)

Now, with various wishes written all over in the background, we get Kyuubei’s spiel about magical girls. I think this is word-by-word the same from the original too.

We now get to finally know what our protagonist’s wish was.

So Iroha wished to cure her younger sister’s illness, but the sister in question is now nowhere to be found. Worse: everything related to her is gone. Even Iroha, who made a wish for her sake, didn’t remember her existence until now. Oh man, that’s no normal disappearance. What happened? Guess that’s what Iroha will have to find out now.

With that, we conclude the first episode of Magia Record(’s s1)!

This is a really strong first episode in my opinion. It decently introduces our protagonist, sets up the mysteries we will be dealing with from here on and also manages to trace connections with the original, while using the viewer’s previous knowledge to give a whole different impression to some scenes. You wouldn’t be like “hell no” at the rumor there at the start if you didn’t know the truth about magical girls, and I doubt that final scene would hit that hard either. It’s just really good at this and it’ll continue doing that from now on. I love it.

Speaking of the final scene, me having watched the original over five years ago might also be part of it but that is really my favorite scene in Madoka overall. I just really really love that scene. (Seriously, I’ve watched this scene so many times I know it by heart now. Help.)

Alas, I lied, the episode’s not over yet, we still have our classic anime first episode ending-opening to watch. So let’s listen, to Gomakashi:

This logo’s real pretty.

So yeah, pretty standard anime opening. If you pay attention, there are some references to Connect too, what with the selfcest and whatnot. Although I managed to mistake this when I first watched, this one’s actually sung by the trio TrySail rather than ClariS. That’s the VAs for Iroha, Asakura Momo; Yachiyo (the get-out-of-my-territory girl), Amamiya Sora and Natsukawa Shiina, whose character we’ve yet to meet. TrySail has a lot of cool songs, so do check them out if you haven’t already. (free ad)

This time, in fact, the episode is over! Whew, I did say this was going to be long, but not even I thought it’d be this long. By the time this is posted I should have a backlog of these, so my plan is to post one everyday until we are done. I hope you had fun reading this here rant and I’ll be looking forward to meeting you guys again tomorrow, same place, maybe same hour, so we can go on and watch episode 2 together!

(P.S.: I am considering doing a series of posts at a later date comparing the anime to the game, but we’ll see. The first few chapters are fine, but the game is stupidly long, so I feel it’d take a lot of motivation and stamina I’m not sure I have at the moment. There’s also the possibility watching the first arc again would bring back my yt copy-apocalipse grief back and that’d suck, definitely don’t wanna go through that again.)

[magireco]

ive never played/watched magireco but do you think the large cast is a part of iroha just being seen as “madoka 2” ?? ive never touched the thing because from what i know its much darker than the original anime, but i do know there’s like 20 thousand megucas in the game and each of them has their own story, so there’s plenty of characters that could be seen as more interesting. theres also the fact that a lot of people dont like gacha games (and magireco, other than being one, is sexualized quite a bit so that probably makes people steer away from it as well, but that’s another topic) and magireco NA no longer exists anyways so it’s harder to actually understand the new content, plus as far as i’m aware season 2 of the magireco anime has not been confirmed to be planned? correct me if i’m wrong on that though

hi!! i have a lot to cover with this ask, so i’m going to answer your questions as neatly as i can in a fun little numbered list. read under the cut!

1. what do you mean by large cast? if you’re talking about how there’s more characters in the game/anime than in the original series, then i don’t think that really has anything to do with iroha. it might just be to garner fans’ collective interest since the original anime hit it off so hard. also, it’s just really hard to please huge collectives of people, especially really critical anime fans... *shiver.*

2. i think iroha bearing a similar resemblance to madoka was used to draw old fans back in, as well as living up to the tradition of all “main character” magical girls having pink hair. iroha and yachiyo were probably meant to resemble madoka and homura at least design-wise, and also seeing iroha, madoka, and homura together in one image is visually appealing; the colors and the familiar faces next to a new face are nice to look at.

3. magia record is not nearly as dark as the original series! in the anime, there are no main-cast deaths. this does not inherently prove that a show isn’t dark, but literally, the only onscreen death is of yachiyo’s friend from her original team, and that was in a flashback... rather than slowly losing characters as the story goes on, it starts off with iroha alone, then she meets other magical girls and they form a team, etc. i go on about this on my blog bc, once again, in my opinion, magia record has much more hopeful undertones and actually gives the girls a chance to, well... live. it’s an alternate timeline(that madokami can’t interfere with, there’s lore to that) wherein glasses homura is the homura featured(she actually gets a lot of character growth in the game), the main quintet is all together, the mikazuki villa crew really are just the found family trope combined in a little package. 

4. there are a few reasons for there being a lot of characters in the game, one of them being that they literally adapted every spinoff into the game. oriko magica, tart magica, suzune magica, kazumi magica... all those characters are there. then they added a bunch of side characters, which, i dunno? there are some side characters i really like and others i just kind of don’t really care about. but they really grow on you! .... most of them. 

5. yeah, blegh. the game certainly has its flaws(the whole series does, but that’s another ask for another day). the anime is much, much less fanservicey though! i have my gripes about the designs and i certainly have my gripes about the way the characters are drawn sometimes (looking at you, swimsuit mami artist), but with me being an experienced gacha player (unfortunately) that was just something i decided to put up with in exchange for a fun story. i can see why people might get the misconception that the anime is just as sexualized, though. i don’t like the main characters’ designs that much, honestly... they all show too much skin, so i agree. weird.

6. season 2 was confirmed! 

7. NA was discontinued right after the first arc of the series. disappointing (oh, i could go on), but we got to see a lot of iroha’s character development in the story.

8. what i was really trying to get across with that post was really just to gripe about in-fandom stuff. there are plenty of other characters that could be seen as more interesting than iroha, especially considering the mikazuki villa girls are all so varied, but that’s kind of how it is with every series, honestly. there’s always going to be one character that seems less interesting compared to other ones. i just kind of realized that iroha gets the short end of the stick compared to the other girls. not only because of her resemblance to madoka, but because of her perceived blandness and the lack of people who care to analyze why she might act that way. her pink motif and gentle, kind demeanor translates as “madoka copy” in people’s heads, and, y’know, it translated like that in mine the first time i saw her, too. but, when you actually think about her arc aside from her resemblance to madoka in several different ways, you get a really interesting and special character; just as special as the others! there was a similar issue with madoka, honestly, with people brushing her off because she wasn’t as “emotionally deep” as the rest of the quintet, even though that’s not true at all. i think it’s unfair that people will brush off a character just because they’re nice; that they’ll reduce characters like iroha and madoka to their cuteness and kindness only and not analyze the rest of the details that they have intentionally(or sometimes unintentionally, y’know how anime writing can be) been written with! 

...but then again, i’m biased in my own way, admittedly. i relate to iroha (i really just made that post because i was thinking about how i’ve never seen someone touch on how her memory gaps affect her), and i just wasn’t seeing any coverage on it, so i thought, someone has to do this! i also just... don’t see people who coin themselves as “iroha fans” very often? she’s one of the characters who is there, but usually not deemed interesting enough for someone to be a superfan of. i’m probably hypocritical, considering homura akemi is my favorite character and she’s pretty popular in the fandom, but what i said is more of an observation than an accusation anyway. i had similar feelings with madoka, but i haven’t gone on a proper ramble about that yet. 

...these characters also aren’t real people, so i’d say i probably shouldn’t go on such long rambles about them, but i really do feel like they reflect a lot of real life experiences sometimes. like, me connecting to iroha’s struggles is something that connects her character to an actual experience. however, like i said in my original post, i am very much an overanalyzer, and i tend to take concepts and just run with them, especially when something stands out to me. this is also just a magical girl show, so i’m really not taking anything that personally. 

also, to clear anything up, the original post wasn’t meant to come across as me being angry, per se, at people who think iroha is boring, it just kind of ticks me off that she’s brushed off so quickly in the larger fandom because of her demeanor. this doesn’t really apply to people who aren’t into the series at all yet, because i’d literally also think “okay so we have madoka, and madoka with a hood” if i were in your shoes! also, people are allowed to dislike characters for no reason. i’m just silly and go on long defensive rants over the sad magical girls, and would probably be sad if people didn’t like iroha because of the reasons i mentioned. 

all in all, i do reccomend magia record very much if you can get past the sexualization of the gacha cards and the, um... poorly designed outfits. because the NA server has been shut down, there are channels on youtube that graciously upload videos of the in-game stories as well as side stories! in the game, there are sometimes entire side stories for characters’ outfits. because it’s a gacha game, there are events and such, and the event stories i’ve seen and/or read (most of the ones i’ve read have to do with homura though) are a lot of fun. i reccommend checking out muffinrecord’s channel if you’d like to read any of the stories (hopefully you’re the type of person who can sit and watch live2d models move around with boxes of text on the bottom for 25 minutes like me). they have everything sorted into playlists in that section of their youtube. of course, i also reccomend watching the anime, if you’re interested! the animation is polished and nice, even if the story is a little hard to follow at times. but if not, that’s okay too. 

thank you for the ask, and i hope i could clear some things up for you!

[icharchivist]

tmi about myself i guess but it’s in regard to my previous post 

I relate to quite a few a3 chara for very various and different reasons and while there are charas i relate to more than others it’s not a 1:1 thing

but also sometimes i just. Like. I didn’t think about why this story hit me as hard as it did until just now having to word it.

My eldest sister ran away from home when i was 6 (and she was 16) never to be seen again and this kinda shapped up a lot, if not most of my life, it’s like, my biggest trauma in a sea of trauma and i don’t think i can properly word how this sort of things affects young children and a whole family dynamic.

Madoka saying that, in substance, he thought Misumi was dead suddenly hit super hard because my whole life this whole topic was extremely taboo to even mention and me and my other sister had to pretend we never had an eldest sister. Like she never existed.

because our parents were so worried about their images and the rumors that came out around the reasons of her departs that she didn’t trust us, as kids, to talk about it, so we just had to never say a word and never bring it up except if my mom was having a mental breakdown about it in which case i had to listen to her (since the relationship with my other sister got, strained with time. Leaving it at that.)

I’ve always equated my feelings toward her to what it felt like to always have a lingering ghost around. I barely even remember her and if i dig things hurt more than they should. I have the stories my family used to say but none of this connects with me. But i know i loved her so dearly and her leaving left such a.. hole we were supposed to never address that it was haunting. I’ve only recently realized that probably a huge part of me was just grieving all that time because i could never properly word what it’s like to lose someone who’s still very much alive, and whom you have to think about regularly “wonders where she’s at now” while also feeling it’s not your business anymore.

The thing is that i was 6, but my parents didn’t actually tell me she ran off until the year after - before that i thought she was staying at my grandma’s place for an undefined amount of time. Then they started opening up more about it after they divorced when i was 12 and both parents had really conflicting version of events that i had a hard time puzzling together, but both blamed her for leaving anyway.

and it’s only when i was 23 or so that i managed to dig back the lawsuit files that ensued her running away (very long story) and found a lot of damning evidence of my parent’s lies and the reasons why she left and why she was 100% right for leaving. 

This was almost hysterical to me. I remember reading it with friends and spending the whole day laughing bitterly because my parents are goddamn liars who built her up as the bad guy for basically just escaping their abuse. (some of which are things they put on me too, reading some of the papers in that file was like reading my mails sometimes.). I can’t even tell how awful it was to read up all the ways they’ve hurt her while they spent years and years telling me she was all to blame all while i was suffering the consequences of her leaving. 

Not to mention i’ve spent my whole life, everytime i had a fight with my parents, hearing thrown at my face “what are you going to do, run away too? and hurt us like she did?” and so i ended up terrified of talking back hearing that all the time, so scared to cause the very hurt i had been unable to heal from all that time, and it kept me in this abusive family trying to fix their messes because of that lasting trauma.

I’ve cut ties with my dad about 6 years ago (though it’s not that easy and all, he’s still currently suing me after all lmao (next month should be the end of that lawsuit fucking finally)) so i know more than ever how my sister may have felt and it’s just. a lot. It’s a lot to have had spent your life having to think badly of her only for this.

And, (cw a//bleism) back to why it hit just now too is the fact that, I kinda read Misumi as a/utistic coded and it just sort of hit me in the face because a lot of the abuse my sister got was because she was a/utistic and my parents constantly threw it at her face and weaponized her to create a horrible environment. One of my most ancient yet vivid memory is me as a very very young child having my father using this word as an insult for stupid on me until i fought back going that i could never be something this awful /to my sister’s face/, making me /part/ of their twisted ways to hurt her. And i’ve remembered that *years* after with horror and the knowledge i will never be able to fix it.

I didn’t *think* about it in regard of that storyline until just now and now i’m shaking with anger and fury that i can’t possibly word properly. 

On the other hand man i liked Madoka just fine on my first read but the way i’m feeling right now is sure. wow. I’ll keep my eyes out on him in act 3 i guess. 

and i guess i have now specific headcanons about the way this fucking stupid family treated it all and i don’t think that’s a win actually. Kinda hating it here;

anyway i’m shaking with rage this awoke something very deep in me and this is. making me so so upset.

i’ve been dancing around this subject for a long while talking about a3 (because yeah there’s *reasons* why Azuma’s way to push people away because of his intense grief talks to me this hard. There’s reason Hisoka, the youngest of three siblings who’s eldest is gone and the second one had a strained relationship with him, and who can’t even remember what happened to lead to that, has affected me the way it did. Or why every characters who have been neglected by their parents are giving me a viseral reaction of wanting to take care of them.) because i really don’t know how much i can open up about those stuff now online.

I used to talk about my problems a bit more before but despite trying to not tag my a3 ramblings so i could talk more about it personally, i did end up getting people to follow my liveblog and suddenly it was awkward to bring that up again (even if i think most of my older followers know all of what i just said already)

so huh this is very awkward and it’s been a while i’ve been just shafting my tmi posts in my drafts but this one is the breaking point because i didn’t see coming the amount of rage the “clicking” of what made this storyline such a hard one to read would do to me.

i’m shaking with rage wow i didn’t see that one coming.

[detective-marshmallow]

So, I was watching one of Rea’s videos, specifically the one where she designs her magical girls oc’s as characters in other magical girl shows when an idea popped into my mind.

Madoka Magica RWBY au.

Aight so let me start this long post by saying I haven’t seen all of madoka magica and with the stuff I have seen I barely remember any of it. So if some of my ideas don’t line up with the cannon show, that’s why. And if y’all wanna send me a message to help me correct some of my flubs, please do :))

Now onto the Au!!

Starting off with some background stuff:

Summer isn’t dead at the start of this, however she is hospitalized. She’s doin okay for the most part, which is good, but her family is struggling financially. Tai has to work like three jobs just to keep them afloat. Yang also takes it upon herself to get a job just to help out with everything, which means she ends up dropping out of college. Ruby on the other hand is still in school mainly cause Yang told her that they’d be fine.

Yang’s the first out of the main cast to become a magical girl. She ends up getting caught up in a witch attack while working one night, and luckily get save by Pyrrha and Nora! Yang, upon realizing witches are a major threat and could hurt her precious sister, essentially interrogate the duo about how they did all those magical things. Nora immediately spill the beans cause she’s excited that someone wants to get in on the action. They take her to Ozpin, who isn’t a human man in this au and is like an owl creature cause it makes sense to me. He does a whole speech, then asks Yang what her wish is. Obviously Yang wishes for her family to be financially stable, and boom she’s a magical girl.

Next up would be Ruby who witness’s Yang being all badass with her magical girls stuff and is immediately enthralled with the idea of being a magical girl. Yang, however, tells her that it’s too dangerous and that she needs to focus on college. A few weeks after this interaction happens Summer dies in the hospital. That night, Ozpin visits a very hurt Ruby and explains the whole magical girl wish thing to Ruby, who instantly wishes for her mom to be alive and well. Ruby gets her soul gem and Summer wakes up the next morning, perfectly health. Yang and Ruby get into a fight about her making a contract and kinda stop talking to each other for a while. (I don’t remember if there is a rule against wish someone back to life, but if there is then Summer can just be very close to death at the time of Ruby’s wish.)

While the siblings aren’t talking, Ruby tries to convince her bestest friend Weiss to become a magical girl. Weiss isn’t interested until Ruby tells her about the wish and what it did for her. After hearing about the wish Weiss has Ruby bring her to Ozpin. She asks him if there is any limit to what she can wish for and he says no (again I dunno if this is true and is open to be changed if I found out there are rules). Weiss’s wish is pretty easy, she wishes Jacques Schnee would disappear forever. He get arrested the next day and sent to prison for life, with no hope of weaseling his way out of it thanks to it being a wish (alternatively he could literally just stop existing, but i’m not a huge fan of that so he gets arrested in this version of this au. Or if you wanna mess with Weiss’s timeline you could have it so he never existed in the first place or never met Willow). After that Willow, Winter or Weiss would probably get the company (Whitely would be too young). Weiss probably would hire a secretary to help whoever was in charge, and that secretary would be Glinda, who needs more love!

Finally there’s Blake, the hardest out of the four to think up a wish for. Blake would probably already be a magical girl and would meet Yang on the battlefield. Yang and her decide to team up since two is better than one, and become friends pretty quickly. For her wish I have two options, depending on when she became a magical girl. The first would be the easy equality for all people, and the other option would be for Adam to leave her alone. It really just depends on whether on not Adam was in the picture at the time she was making her wish. I think if it was the latter of the two she’d definitely would regret not wishing for her first wish.

Some final little ideas:

Pyrrha’s wish would 100% be to have the strength to protect the people weaker than her. While Nora wished for her and Ren to have families.

Pyrrha would be team RWBY as well as Nora’s first experience with a magical girl turning into a witch. Not sure what caused her to turn into a witch I just know she’s gotta be the first.

Cinder, Emerald and Neo are also magical girls, and Cinder gets her arm ripped off after Pyrrha goes full witch.

Neo probably wished to be taller.

Glinda is also probably a magical girl in this au, cause Weiss needs a cool mom figure and also I love Glinda too much to not have her be a magical girl! And I don’t care if there is an age cap in cannon, I’m pulling the it’s my au card just so Glinda can get some more love! (Again I have no idea if there is an age cap)

~~~~~~~~~~~

So those are my ideas for this au! I doubt I’m the only one whose come up with this but I thought it’d be fun to ramble about it for a little bit. This is a really long post, and I thank you if you’ve gotten this far! I would like to design all their outfits one day but I can’t deal with that rn! So enjoy!!

[mewmewchann]

I have no clue what to ask about the Madoka AU, but I am interested. So is there anything Madoka AU-related you’d like an excuse to talk about? Because this is basically a free pass to do so.

Okay I’m gonna use this as an excuse to infodump/expand on Rantaro’s backstory because I’ve been wanting to talk about it for a while now

(warning, this does get really, really, REALLY long because a LOT happens in his backstory and I couldn’t help myself Also I spoil at least half the plot twists in Madoka Magica so there’s that too)

So like in canon, he comes from a pretty rich family, as his father has a pretty upper-class job. For a long time he lived with him, his mother and his younger sister. (yes there’s only one this time, it’d be a lot more confusing if there was 12) His relationship with his mother was fine, but his relationship with his father was...Complicated, to say the least. (not to the extent in DFTH though, thankfully) However he really cared for his sister. Since his parents both worked a lot, he had to look after her most of the time and he really grew to care for her. She was practically his entire world. But one day, his sister went missing. Completely gone. Rantaro of course was worried sick, and his relationship with his father got even worse.

Then not too long after that, him and a few of his friends from school were approached by a certain alien cat. ...By which I mean he jumped through the window and scared the living daylights out of them. (Basically Kyubey noticed that someone with a high Karmic Destiny was nearby, and it also just so happened that he has something he might want to wish for. There were other people there too, so why not recruit them too? It’s a win-win!) So Kyubey introduced himself and went through the details of the contract. However, Rantaro’s not an idiot. His time with his father made him learn that every deal has a catch, and questioned Kyubey as to what the terms and conditions were. Kyubey of course obliged (as he says in the anime that the only reason he never told the girls about the darker stuff was because they never asked), but he purposely framed it in a way to still get them to make a contract anyway. To give them time to decide on their wishes, he said that he would approach each of them seperately that night and ask them then.

So cut to that night, Kyubey approaches Rantaro and asks him what his wish is, and Rantaro practically immediately wishes to be able to find his missing sister. (because of this, his power is the ability to track people’s locations) And it’s a good thing he did, because she got stuck in a Witch’s Labyrinth. Thankfully the Witch that captured her prefers to collect it’s victims instead of killing them, so Rantaro was able to save her. Him and his sister were reunited, his relationship with his family got better, all good times.

...For about a month.

Before I go into detail about what happens, I’mma just confirm one thing: Yes, Rantaro’s previous team was made up of members of the DFTH cast. Because the reason he had a previous team in the first place is symbolic of the Ultimate Survivor thing and I decided to go all the way with it and throw my OCs into the mix I’ve already confirmed that Kokoro, Haruto and Sachiko were part of his team, but Saiko was also an original member and Jasper and Miko were the people who joined later on. (a lot of this is for DFTH symbolism reasons btw but yeah)

Now that the explanation’s out of the way time for angst

At some point during a fight against a notably powerful witch, Saiko’s soul gem gets shattered at some point when he’s trying to protect Rantaro and he dies. The group of course is devastated and can barely fight anymore, but thankfully Miko and Jasper - who are both a LOT more experienced than them since they made their respective wishes before them - decide to join the team and get their spirits back up again. ...For about a week. This is when they run into the “main villain figure” of this AU- okay I’m not even hiding who it is anymore at this point, it’s Tsumugi. They run into Tsumugi. Basically when she made a contract with Kyubey she didn’t know about the Magicas = Witches thing and thought that whoever was making the Witches shouldn’t be having all the fun themselves, and wished to be able to create Witches of her own. This gave her the ability to fire an attack that severely corrupts a Magica's soul gem on a direct hit, but also corrupts her own a bit too. During the fight against them, she uses said attack on Haruto. Because she was finding him annoying. The group don’t realise what happened until she escapes. Rantaro panics because he doesn’t want to lose someone else like what happened with Saiko, and he is also really close to Haruto like he is in DFTH, so he rushes to get a grief seed before it’s too late. The Witch they find runs away before Rantaro can kill it, and the resulting stress was too taxing on Haru’s soul gem and he turns. (he ends up turning into the very same Witch that kills Maki later on in the timeline by the way) The group is too weakened from the fight with Tsumugi to actually fight him, and Sachiko also dies here. So the group have to run away.

It’s probably around this point that Kyubey tells Rantaro about the whole Karmic Destiny thing, specifically that he notably has more of it than the rest of his team. Because of that he assumes that everyone’s deaths was his fault, and reluctantly decides that the remaining group (him, Kokoro, Miko and Jasper) should split up, but Kokoro follows him anyway. He framed this to his family as him moving out and getting an apartment elsewhere and going to a different school, but promised he still would visit. (his sister was the reason he made his wish after all, would be a dick move to just leave her)

However, not long after they arrived in their new town, the stress and trauma of the situation got to Kokoro and she Witched out. She ran off to go on a rampage, so Rantaro chased after her to stop anyone from getting hurt. And it just so happened that the person that Witch attacked was Kaede. He was able to kill the Witch to protect her, but ran off before she could say anything. ...But it just so happens that the school he transferred to was the one that she, Kaito, Maki and Shuichi all went to.

And this all leads to the main timeline.

...Holy shit I wrote a lot more than I thought I would Sorry if I rambled for too long

[fearidescent]

Code Lyoko: Transistorized

I’ve made a post earlier about how a hypothetical Code Lyoko reboot could use some of Transistor’s elements, but the elements I mentioned (monsters and weapons) would likely cause copyright infringement if these concepts were straight up copied. So I’ve been thinking about what other elements of Transistor this reboot could use, and I’ve come up with the following.

Spoilers for Code Lyoko and Transistor under the cut, obviously. Also spoiler warning for Psycho-Pass and Puella Magi Madoka Magica.

So the first thing I came up with was what XANA’s master plan was. In canon it was a bit unclear; likely to take over the world or destroy humanity, but then what? This is the first thing I updated.

Reboot XANA’s master plan is to convert all of humanity into processing power for itself. It wants to do this via forcing humans into the scanners to Lyoko, then sapping away their consciousness via the Scyphozoa, then returning their soulless bodies to earth, take out their brains (which can still function, just not support a human consciousness anymore) and hook them up to itself. Think like the Sibyl system in Psycho-Pass.

Originally, this XANA was created by an organization which the Men in Black are enforcers of. This organization is either France-based or USA-based, and it intended XANA to be used as a (somewhat extreme and definitely unethical) kind of war machine. So originally, XANA had a limiter that it could only attack the people of a set country (or set of countries) once set loose. However, once Franz Hopper discovered that he was working on a program with this person, he removed this limiter and uploaded the limitless XANA to a drive, and fled with it to the city where Kadic Academy is located, which also housed a supercomputer, originally intended as a facility for people to be scanned. Without Lyoko, this would be enough for XANA to sap people’s consciousnesses.

So now there are two things for Franz to do: first, make sure that the Men in Black cannot access this particular site, and second, to ensure that XANA is left considerably less powerful.

For the first thing, he constructed a sort of terminal, which continuously scans the internet to find information on the current Men in Black, particularly their looks. This terminal also controls the elevator with a face scanner thingy, which scans the faces of the people who want to access the elevator. If a face is identical to the face of a Man in Black, the person with that face will be barred from the elevator. (Also, this means that only one person can enter the elevator at a time, before the doors are shut to the next person.)

For the second thing, Franz constructed Lyoko, as a sort of prison for XANA. He also created the Towers on Lyoko as a way for potential administrators to Lyoko to interact with the real world on a much larger scale than they normally could. However, there was a bug in this program, which allowed XANA to also access the Towers. Franz began to work on solving this bug, but it was at this point that the Men in Black discovered where he was hiding out.

He also discovered that the Men in Black had discovered a way to “posses” people (the Spectres), but these possessed people also had a very specific brain wave pattern. He then installed a brain scanner thingy to the terminal, which prevented the possessed people from being able to access the facility.

Soon after, the Men in Black managed to abduct Anthea. Now Franz was really starting to get nervous. His administrator function was still buggy, in that any being who became an administrator lost their memories and became unable to return to Earth (he found this out by experimenting on the pets the family had*. Classy action, Franz). So he decided that, while he himself would not become an administrator, Aelita would, so that she wouldn’t be completely helpless on Lyoko. He deemed that staying in the real world would be too dangerous for her.

(*Also, the earlier monsters are based on these pets. It’s only when XANA gets powerful enough to access the internet that the monsters become more monstrous.)

He also updated the terminal to scan the internet for information specifically related to the organization the Men in Black belonged to. He then virtualized himself and Aelita, and then the terminal shut the supercomputer down, only to activate it again when that organization was disbanded, or when an outsider (i.e. not a Man in Black) turned it on again.

Ten years later, enter Jeremy Belpois, who turned on the supercomputer, activating Lyoko and XANA again. However, due to another limiter Franz installed on XANA, the program was considerably less dangerous. It could still increase in power via the Return to the Past function, however, this function can also only be accessed via the terminal, by a non-possessed, non-MiB person.

(The way this power increase works is kinda like how Madoka from PMMM got more power potential any time Homura rewound time. The hypothetical power XANA had in the timeline that got cut short by the RttP got transferred to the new timeline (albeit with a not insignificant loss, so that XANA’s power doesn’t get doubled every time the RttP was used). This is at the cost of XANA being unable to use any power during the time the RttP rewound.)

So Jeremy discovers Aelita, without memories and with an inability to go to earth. He starts working on a way to recover at least Aelita’s ability to return to earth, so they can turn of the supercomputer and neutralize XANA again. With the help of his friends, Yumi, Ulrich and Odd, he battles against XANA’s activated Towers.

(As for why Franz Hopper didn’t rematerialize himself, he took a while to recover his consciousness after the ten years the supercomputer was turned off (administrators do not have this problem) and by the time he recovered, XANA had already messed with the rematerialization ability. Jeremy had no idea Franz was still around until the end of season 2.)

Also, due to XANA’s power loss engineered by Franz, it is unable to construct the Scyphozoa and use Spectres until season 2. After this, it starts to chase Aelita to reconstruct her ability to return to Earth without the Code Earth. Obviously this is not with the intent to let Aelita live a normal life on earth, so Jeremy and co try to protect her from the Scyphozoa until they find a way to reconstruct Aelita’s rematerialization ability without XANA immediately possessing her. So that is basically the plot of season 2.

Season 3: due to the administrator privileges it retrieved from Aelita’s mind, XANA is now considerably more powerful, though still only able to affect reality with the help of Lyoko’s Towers. It starts to construct Replica’s without the Lyoko Warriors’ knowledge, and starts to try to destroy Lyoko so that the Lyoko Warriors can’t interfere anymore. It’s towards the end of the season that the Lyoko Warriors decide to have William join them. Obviously this goes wrong, but XANA decides not to erase all of William’s consciousness, just enough to make him a puppet, but still enough left to make him able to more effectively manipulate the Lyoko Warriors. (Also, William’s also an administrator now.)

Season 4: due to figuring out how administrator privileges work, Jeremy has given Yumi, Ulrich and Odd these privileges as well (which also comes with an outfit upgrade). They start hunting for the Replica’s, but on the Replica’s they are unable to access the privileges and return to their normal forms.

Hope this didn’t turn out too rambly (oh, who am I kidding, it totally did) and that if you read it until this point, everything is at least clear enough. If you want to ask questions about this au, just send me an ask or reply to this point. Obviously if I want to really write this au, I need to sit down and think about it a lot more, but your questions may be able to help me flesh things out.

[littlepurinsesu]

V Watches MagiReco - Episode 8 Review

*Spoilers for Magia Record Anime Episode 8*

Okay, I was not expecting to enjoy this week’s episode as much as I did! :O From the anime’s pattern so far, I was fully expecting a slower episode with less action as they introduced the next main character (in this case Sana), but this episode had a lot of deviations from the game that did a lot of good, in my opinion!

Lots of positive things to say again for this review ^0^ And no, it’s not just because of that Kanagi “cameo” (even though there WILL be at least one paragraph of me screaming about that LOL you have been warned) xD

I think the slower pace of this episode gave us a really good chance to see how the main characters have adjusted and truly integrated themselves into their new lives. We see Iroha starting at her new school, Felicia starting her part-time job at Banbanzai, Tsuruno visiting to deliver bento boxes for Iroha and the two going to school together... so many small details that seem unimportant to the plot but really give us a good picture of the characters’ new lives and relationships. And that’s really important stuff. They seem to have taken a longer time and really drew out the introduction of this new Rumour rather than immediately rushing into the next one, and this gives the main cast some room to breathe and just be themselves, and also gives the audience a sense of some time having passed as well.

It was also really nice to see Rena back! Seems strange to me that Momoko wasn’t with her, but I was starting to worry that Momoko’s team would be forgotten and pushed to the background, so I was quite pleased to see them still popping up every now and then. The episode also gave us some quality Iroha and Rena bonding, which is kind of bittersweet when you consider that both of them either don’t have friends or always find themselves somehow isolated from the crowd. Rena is still a prickly little tsundere, but seeing her waiting for Iroha and giving her more information and talking with her really put a smile on my face :) I really want Rena and Iroha to be able to make more friends, and it’s super cute when the new friends are none other than each other ^^

Also, the thing about Kaede is really interesting. I’m sure this is an anime-original plot point, but I’m wondering how this is going to tie in with Sana’s arc, or any other part of the Main Story. Rena confirms that Kaede hasn’t actually disappeared; she still comes to school, but rushes home immediately after and doesn’t talk or reply to anyone. We also see her at home with all her plants at the beginning (cute!). I’m guessing she’s still traumatised from that Doppel experience and hasn’t figured out what’s going on, so is too afraid of getting close to her friends in fear of hurting them? Whatever they’re planning, I hope it has some relevance to that post-credits scene in episode 5 so we get some closure to what actually happened and the scene won’t seem so “cool but random” lmao.

Alright imma get this out of the way. (Feel free to skip this paragraph if you’re not interested in hearing me gush about my queen.) K A N A G I I Z U M I. If anyone reading this has been following my past MagiReco posts or knows anything about me at all, you’ll know that I’m absolute trash for Kanagi Izumi xD My best girl may be Iroha, but Kanagi is a character I really admire, respect, and adore. Anyway, I saw the official MagiReco Twitter account post about a Kanagi rate-up banner and was hella confused but excited because my queen was not supposed to appear until... at least until Tsuruno is captured by the Magius and Felicia and Sana have returned. So I guess it makes sense that it was in the form of a “mysterious person on the phone” rather than an actual debut, but gosh as soon as I heard her voice I almost lost it AHHHHHHHHHH （♥>ｏ<♥） This eases any fears I had of her being cut from the anime (I would have hunted down the studio if they made that decision LOL); not only is she not gonna be cut, but they gave her a surprise, mysterious, early introduction, too?!?!? YASSSSS (ᗒᗨᗕ)

Yachiyo’s phonecall with Kanagi is a surprising change to make because Kanagi’s presence is really “not very relevant” at this point, but I guess they really wanted to show how big the Wings of Magius' influence is. As Kanagi says, they’ve taken most of the girls from the East by now. I’m wondering what anime-onlys would feel about this scene, since they probably have no idea who Yachiyo is talking to. If anything, it would probably add to the mystery surrounding Yachiyo (which I hope the anime goes into soon). I was a little conflicted at first because I really wanted Yachiyo’s first contact with Kanagi to seem like a “we haven’t spoken in ages but desperate times call for desperate measures” kind of thing, because with this scene, the next time they "openly” contact her won’t have that same impact. But then the more I think about it, the more I think this might actually be for the better. Kanagi’s introduction into the cast won’t feel like such a “random” thing (like, “oh wait, who are you and since when were you so important?”); Yachiyo has been in some degree of contact with her and she was “there" all along. So yeah, a good change in retrospect, and I’m never gonna say no to seeing (or hearing) more of Kanagi so I’m all for this change either way LOL

Okay enough rambling about Kanagi (OTL I’m so sorry). Felicia working at Banbanzai is just SO CUTE!!! She’s like a cute little gangster omg those glares and “HUHHH?!?!?” (I’d be scared too, Iroha) xD I think the character that’s gotten the best portrayal in the anime so far really is Felicia. And also the reveal that the reason for her getting into a fight and being sent to the police station was because she was defending Yachiyo and Iroha? CUTEEE OMG I LOVE THIS CHILD!!! She also has a really good sense of fashion hehe :D

The little snippet in there with Ui, Touka, and Nemu may seem a little out of place, but I was actually quite relieved to see them. Every week the anime is throwing new characters at its viewers, so I was worried that anime-only viewers wouldn’t even remember who Touka and Nemu are when they’re eventually revealed to be the Magius. I think it’s good to keep drilling them into viewers’ minds so as not to lose that “OMGGG” factor when they make their proper debut. Also it’s adorable how Ui throws teddy bears in their faces to stop them from arguing LOLLL

The radio show was a really good way to not only sneak in tiny “cameos” of other girls (I think it was Rika and Kanoko this week), but also give a nice picture of life in Kamihama. There’s a sense that Iroha really is a part of this city now, and it’s such a nice feeling to see everything “falling into place;” we’re no longer in those inconsistent and uncertain “introductory” episodes anymore, even though we still have one more major character to bring in. And the laughter coming from the phone is super creepy--cute, but in a really creepy way. All the illustrations for when they were talking about the Rumours this week were also really, really well-done. I have nothing much to say about them except “sasuga Inucurry” haha xD

I really was expecting Madoka and Homura to appear this week, but I guess we may have to wait a little bit more for that >_< BUT Tsukuyo did appear again in her “civilian” form! Iroha chasing her into that building was also a really nice change the anime made; some things really need to be animated for full impact, and I’m loving these minor changes and how much more they add to the characters and atmosphere! Anyway, Tsukuyo seems a lot more menacing here compared to her dine-and-dash incident in the game lmaooo, and I wasn’t expecting a Witch battle!

Speaking of Witch battle, I think this might be one of my main letdowns with this episode: I just really want to see Iroha fight more. I appreciate that she’s proactive in seeking answers and brave enough to jump into these situations despite knowing that she’s weak, but she hasn’t really contributed much in battles so far except a few Connects and using her Doppel. I want to see my girl Iroha go all-out and kick ass with her arrows!!! But it was nice to see the rest of Team Mikazuki showing up so quickly; there’s a real sense of them being an actual team now, and they’ve always got each other’s backs! It would have been nice if the rest of the team got to fight as well rather than Yachiyo taking all the spotlight, but at least Yachiyo was super cool haha (as usual). But the battle clearly isn’t the point of this episode, so I won’t pick on it too much :)

By the way, that Mami appearance was super random. When I saw the ribbons and flowers, I almost thought she was going to appear as Holy Mami for a second. At least we know she hasn’t lost her head just yet ;) The appearance was random, but from what they offered, at least we know that Mami is still either in Kamihama or coming to Kamihama regularly to investigate, and while she was suspicious of Iroha in the past, she went out of her way to help her this time, which was a nice touch.

Anyway, now that Iroha has finally replied to the mysterious messages, we might really get to meet Sana (and Ai-chan) next time! Maybe Madoka and Homura, too! But yeah, this episode is a prime example of one where not much seems to happen, but a lot actually does happen and there’s plenty to pull apart and discuss when you really think back on it. Clearly Kanagi took half my attention and feels this week, but I’m definitely having lots of warm and fuzzies seeing Team Mikazuki doing normal, everyday things together. Seeing Felicia added to the OP was expected but still a treat (the way she bobs around on the spot is SO CUTE!), and I can’t wait for the family to finally be fully formed!

(Also, Yachiyo looks gorgeous in anything she wears, seriously.)

[raincoastgamer]

Anime Ramble: Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Magical Girl anime have this tendency to provoke a binary reaction. Either you see Magical Girls on the promo material and want to watch the show, or else you don’t. So, I’d like to preface this bout of gushing-about-a-show-that-I-watched by saying that your initial reaction to seeing the below poster should be discarded and you should just watch this show.

No, really, I think it’s safe to say that if you have an initial gut reaction of “I’m not interested” then you are probably going to appreciate this show quite a bit, while those who are avid fans of the Magical Girl genre might actually end up being put off by their expectations. Not because of what this show is, but rather by what this show isn’t.

In the same way that everyone knows that Darth Vader is Luke’s father or that a certain noble from the North loses their head, there are some story twists which percolate into the general cultural consciousness due to sheer popularity and end up becoming common knowledge. Puella Magi Madoka Magica is a series which blew up to such popularity in 2011 that you’ve probably seen the characters somewhere before even if you don’t watch a lot of anime. You’ve probably also seen this little guy

around, often in the context of memes in which either 1) he tries to get people to make a contract or 2) people inflict violence on him and his smug little face never changes.

So while I want to say that Madoka Magica will surprise you when it pulls a left turn into darkness and despair, not only have I just ruined that specific surprise for you but the internet at large more than likely already did that job for me. Not only was this show popular, which translates into a more widespread awareness of its overall tone and some of its twists, other more recent shows have pulled a similar deception. Only last year did we have Made in Abyss, which I haven’t seen yet but which I understand exists for the sole purpose of having cute kids set off on an exciting adventure only to be eaten alive by Uncle Lovecraft’s Happy Fun Time Cave. If you’ve been around the anime niches of the internet or, like me, have a former otaku for a sister then you know from the onset that this show is far more than meets the eye based on reputation alone.

To start with, take a good look at the promotional material for this show, such as the trailer. The production team did their damndest to ensure that from the outside the show would look like the most derivative Magical Girl show ever made, up to and including keeping Gen Urobuchi’s involvement in the production a secret. Gen Urobuchi (aka ButchGen aka The Urobutcher) is a writer who is known for being a bit of a downer, having been involved in projects such as Fate/Zero and Psycho-Pass. He’s very outspoken when it comes to his distaste for heroic archetypes played straight and his tendency to drag his characters through the mud, so his presence as the show’s writer was what you might call a dead giveaway.

So what happens when a writer like this tackles a genre known for being all about hope, courage, and the power of friendship and love? There are many people who argue that Madoka Magica deconstructs the Magical Girl anime (Magical Girl Warrior subgenre) as codified by Sailor Moon or Cardcaptor Sakura. Some even say it’s the Neon Genesis Evangelion of the Magical Girl genre. As NGE showed us just how psychologically messed up a Giant Robot show would be if populated by actual human beings, Madoka Magica is about how having child combatants fight monsters in an urban environment with no support network does not make a well-adjusted childhood.

The effects of this kind of pressure and isolation on a bunch of adolescents is one of the elements of Madoka Magica, but fighting monsters with magic isn’t the only thing that makes a Magical Girl story. They’re traditionally as much coming-of-age stories as they are stories about definitions of femininity and self-determination. Madoka Magica has the trappings of a MG show: an all-loving protagonist, a dark and aloof rival, a tomboy friend, a non-magical friend, transformation sequences, fighting against the manifestations of dark emotions, and a cute(?) mascot. It’s talking the talk, but at its heart this is not a story about Magical Girl stories in the same way NGE was about Giant Robot anime (that’s what Revolutionary Girl Utena is for). It certainly plays with many common elements of the Magical Girl anime, but at its heart Madoka Magica is about hope, despair, idealism and selfishness. It’s a psychological drama and grand tragedy. It just happens to be wearing a Magical Girl outfit.

Which is not to say that one is superior to the other, of course. Just set your expectations accordingly if you’re already a Magical Girl fan. If you’re not, well, you might be in luck...

Twelve episodes isn’t a whole lot of time and Madoka Magica does a lot in those twelve episodes, so while I’m willing to spoil the tone of the story discussing the plot itself is a bit trickier. Kaname Madoka is our pink-haired milquetoast protagonist who doesn’t think she’s anything special, and just wants to make friends with everyone. We’re introduced to her via dream sequence, where she witnesses a dark-haired girl fighting against an enemy ravaging the city. A strange white bunny-cat creature asks Madoka to make a contract and become a magical girl, and then she wakes up. It turns out that when not dreaming of plot foreshadowing, Madoka has a pretty good life; a cool mom, a loving dad and good friends. But today it turns out the new transfer student at school - Akemi Homura - is the same girl from her dream. Homura warns Madoka to never change, to stay exactly as she is if she doesn’t want to lose her friends, family, everything she has ever loved. We wouldn’t have much of a story if Madoka never changed, though, so it isn’t long before the bunny-cat creature from the dream crashes into the narrative as well and introduces himself as Kyubey.

Kyubey offers Madoka and her best friend Sayaka an opportunity: make a contract with him and he will grant a single wish, any wish. In return the wisher receives magic powers and must now fight Witches. Not the pointed-hat, broomstick-riding variety, but rather strange, eldritch beings which bring about despair, death and suicide among ordinary humans. It sounds like a good deal: get magic powers and a superhero job on top of a wish? Who wouldn’t want that? But the catch is that this job is for life. If you’re spending all your free time saving the world, you’re not spending time with friends, getting a boyfriend, even just having fun. Is your wish worth dedicating your life to?

This story has a lot to say about good intentions. Our characters are living pretty good lives, so is there really anything worth giving that up for? Perhaps the wish is better spent on someone who needs it. But, remember, make a wish and you’re essentially fighting on behalf of that wish for the rest of your life. Is what you wish for really what you want, or do you really want some other outcome? Say you wish for a dying friend to heal; do you actually want them healed, or do you really want their eternal gratitude? All the characters in this story have the best intentions, but there’s a gap between intention and execution. If you don’t know what you really want, all the idealism in the world isn’t going to save you from your own regrets.

The phrase “I just wanted what was best” is a damning one. It's key to remember that the characters are adolescent girls, with all the contradictory vulnerability and immovable self-righteousness which comes at that age. It's the age at which ideas of how the world should be collide rudely with how the world actually is, and a person can either deal with it by changing themselves and developing coping mechanisms - healthy or unhealthy - or else break themselves on the impossibility of making their ideals fit with the system. Then again, it might be possible to change the system itself... but that’s a long shot.

At one point Madoka’s mother gives her a piece of advice: if you see your friend hurting themselves while trying to to the right thing, maybe the best thing to do is to do the wrong thing for them to break them out of their self-destructive cycle. After all, they’re all still young, they’re at an age where recovering from mistakes is supposed to be easier than when you’re an adult. But this advice happens to come at the wrong time, because these kids are stuck in a situation where a mistake can cost one’s life.

As it happens the relationship between Madoka and her mother is one of the highlights in the series. Mom is a career-chasing businesswoman who still takes the time to talk to her daughter, and though she may not be working her dream job she’s living life on her own terms and is obviously an inspiration for Madoka. Her relationship with Madoka plays a surprisingly important role in the story, which is a refreshing change since parents are usually a non-factor or killed off for backstory purposes. The rest of the characters fit much more neatly into standard archetypes. Madoka herself has a big heart and wants everyone to get along, while her much more outgoing friend Sayaka is the go-getter who will take on problems head-first. We’re introduced early on to a much more experienced magical girl named Tomoe Mami, and she ends up taking a sort of big sister mentor role. All three of these girls believe in helping and protecting others, though each has their own take on the best way of doing so. Homura on the other hand is the dark and mysterious loner who for some reason is fixated on Madoka. We feel like she’s an antagonist, but another character who enters the story later turns out to be even more hostile. The red to Sayaka’s idealistic blue, this new magical girl feels like the antithesis to the magical girl ideals we’re used to: selfish, violent and hedonistic.

As elemental as each of these characters is, by the end of the story each one ends up in a very different place than where they started - or else had their starting position shifted altogether. Not everyone is what they seem. Homura’s backstory in particular hits like a truck when it finally arrives and ends up being key to the resolution of the plot. That said, Madoka Magica is not a story that goes in for particularly complex characterization. Its twelve-episode runtime forces a fast buildup and resolution. Friendships and other relationships don’t really have the time to mature on screen, and a lot has to be left to subtext or inference. Each character’s arc takes them where they need to go for the story to progress, and it’s not necessarily a bad thing. Some of these character arcs are desperately tragic tales of misunderstandings and misplaced idealism, but in the end these are still archetypal characters, though perhaps not the archetype you expected. Ultimately, they serve more as conflicting views on the show’s central themes than as the driving force of the story itself. The short length of the show is a weakness, keeping the story from being able to develop the cast as much as would have been ideal.

On the other hand, the show’s compact twelve episode structure is also its strength, and the ‘realism’ of the characters is much less important than what each one represents in the story as a whole. It’s hard to say whether or not Puella Magi Madoka Magica would’ve been able to hit as hard as it does if was any longer. This is a story very much focused on building its plot and keeping a steady pace, layering the tone and atmosphere and absolutely killing it in the aesthetics department. It is a straightforward story when all’s said and done, but it is densely constructed and cohesive. Every element of the show works as part of a whole and builds on the others, the visuals, the cinematography, the music, and even in the way the plot is structured. It’s got no time for cheap fanservice, it makes full use of every moment, and it only gets better on repeat viewings. This isn’t a show that supports casual viewing, and it expects you to be paying as much attention to the way a character is being framed in a shot as to what’s being said (or not said) in the dialogue. This is ultimately a simple story, yes, but it’s dense and constantly being told on multiple layers.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica’s ace in the hole is its mixed-media action scenes. Whenever our characters are fighting a Witch the show pulls a Terry Gilliam and starts doing very strange things with the animation. The medium of the art itself changes, with our cel-animated characters fighting against and among stop-motion objects. Paper cutouts and cotton balls. Lace and embroidery. The effect is unnerving and psychedelic and sometimes overwhelming. It can be difficult to follow the action whenever this happens, but then again these are supposed to be things that aren’t quite in sync with reality, beings which practically run on magic. The fact that these unreal things and spaces are being represented with real-world objects intruding into the animation is a clever touch. It’s an effect that I’ve rarely seen used in anime, and never in an action-heavy context.

(Author’s addendum: I’m aware that director Akiyuki Shinbo’s thing is this mix of visual styles. I do think its usage in Madoka Magica is still notable, if only because it works really well here.)

Even when it’s being more conventional Madoka Magica is visually accomplished. Even though the wide-faced character designs threw me for a loop at first (so wide!) they did eventually grow on me. There’s something about how the eyes look almost penciled-in which keeps them from straying into overly-cutesy territory. The cinematography is likewise superb. Strong, stylized color work drives home tone and emotion. The setting often dwarfs people within vast, empty cityscapes, the background itself being a reflection of the characters’ emotions and the series’ tone. In dialogue-heavy scenes we get momentary flashes of expression and action illustrating what’s happening inside a character’s head, and the framing of characters in a scene tells you everything you need to know about their relationships without saying a word. Whatever else you might think about Madoka Magica, it looks beautiful and tells much of its story visually through color, framing, light and shadow.

Going further than that, the structure of the plot is beautifully constructed as well. You could divide the story into four arcs of three episodes, each following the development of a different character, or else three arcs of four episodes, each one ending with a new point of no return. The third and tenth episodes mirror each other as well, each one shifting the stakes and giving us new context for everything which came before. The reason why this show shines so much brighter on a rewatch is because things that seemed like inconsequential melodrama or lazy writing the first time around take on a whole new meaning once backstory and motivation are revealed. It’s for this reason that I’m not terribly concerned about revealing Puella Magi Madoka Magica’s swerve into darkness; high stakes and dark subject matter are not the only secrets that this series has got up its sleeve. By the end of the story we’re not only dissecting the intentions and desires of our characters, we’re asking hard questions about why this story had to happen the way it did at all, questions which lead to what might be one of the most satisfying conclusions to an anime I’ve ever seen.

That is perhaps what makes Madoka Magica the show that it is. Though the ultimate shape of the story is straightforward, we journey there through layers of twisting color and twisting plot. Though we have our perspective on the events of the story constantly re-contextualized about once an episode, it’s always building to a conclusion that both feels inevitable and yet less likely the closer we get. And when the end does arrive, it takes everything that has happened so far, every mistake, every hope, every good intention gone wrong and it makes them matter. Though the ending is theoretically open ended, it’s entirely self-contained. It has introduced us to a new world, revealed the lies underlying this world, and has shown us what these characters do about it. It raises questions, and in the end tells us what it’s been saying all along. Few shows, anime or otherwise, use such a cohesive combination of visuals, narrative, and music to deliver a message. Beautiful to look at, beautiful to listen to, and beautiful in how it unfolds.

As it turned out, a sequel movie was made anyways. I refuse to provide any comprehensive thoughts on Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Rebellion for now, because doing so runs the risk of being flayed alive by the fandom no matter your take. Suffice it to say that it’s incredibly self-indulgent, visually stunning, and it will make you regret wishing that the ending of the original series could have been happier.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica is beautiful, and you really should watch it.

- Taihus, the wish-granting @raincoastgamer​

(And I somehow manage to write all of this without actually discussing the soundtrack. The thing is, I don’t really know how to critique a soundtrack. It’s good, its use of leitmotifs is masterful and actually brought me to tears in episode 8, Magia represents the show’s true face behind the pleasant pink facade, and I’ve still got Sis Puella Magica stuck in my head.)

[nightmarewing]

One of the spots Madoka falls down for me (both as a deconstruction and for my general enjoyment) is the way it ultimately upholds the virtue of girls sacrificing themselves purely and beautifully, which are pretty mainstream cultural ideals, and definitely not ones that more traditional magical girl series (such as Sailor Moon) shy away from.

It’s complicated. I mean, I do get emotionally invested in narratives about people who take risks and go to great lengths because they love someone, or because something specific (a cause, a task, an ideal, anything) is very important to them, or maybe just because they want to do what they think is right. This is meaningful, and it has a place in a lot of narratives. But there are problems for me when I start looking at patterns about who should sacrifice, how much they should sacrifice, what the consequences are if they don’t, and what emotions they’re allowed to have about it.

(more rambles below, spoilers for both the Madoka anime and the final film)

Within the main series, you have Sayaka and Kyouko, whose downfall is not that they sacrificed their wishes for others but that they sacrificed their wishes for others selfishly. And, yes, they did, even putting aside the question of whether humans are capable of 100% selfless acts in the first place (given that feeling good for doing something for others or avoiding guilt for not doing it is a tangible reward in and of itself). They did do things for themselves while believing they were doing it for others, and I think to an extent you can question their motivations and methods. For me it falls down much more in what conclusions the series draws from that, and what punishments it deems fit.

For example, Kyouko made her wish because she wanted her father to be happy, but she did so without taking into account either her father’s feelings about the legitimacy of belief, nor those of the people forced to believe. In doing so (before the despair rolled around), she also elevated her family from poor to well-off, though whether she could have predicted this outcome is uncertain.

She was also, you know, a child, and one who was manipulated by Kyubey, and the narrative seems sympathetic to this. But it also seems clear that what she tries futilely to impress upon Sayaka -- that if you make a wish for someone else you’ll regret it -- is only half the answer. In the end, Kyouko’s tragic redemption comes in sacrificing herself for and with Sayaka.  She also clashes with Sayaka over stolen food, and this is Sayaka at her best: cleaving to the ideals of justice and truth. Not eating is favorable to eating stolen food. I... don’t think the narrative really questions the fact that Sayaka (one assumes) has a family that can provide for her, or anything of the sort, and Kyouko is a homeless orphan.

With Sayaka, too, although the narrative isn’t entirely unsympathetic, and although it’s fair to say that she was expecting things of Kyousuke that he didn’t owe her while telling herself she didn’t expect them... it is, again, only when she does penance through death and visibly lets go of her feelings for Kyousuke that she can be absolved. Combine it with her role in Madoka’s system in the final movie, and it’s even more clear: when she lets go of Kyousuke and sacrifices her own continued existence in the new universe, forgoing her friends (and family, one assumes) in order to assist Madoka, she is at peace, and she is good. This is the conclusion of her character development.

This is all contrasted with perfect, kind-hearted, literal goddess Madoka, the only one to make a wish the narrative deems truly selfless (after suffering the appropriate amount of despair required to obtain power, but remaining innocent and pure-hearted through Homura’s time resets). That is, she gives herself up and leaves her friends and family behind in order to help all magical girls for the rest of eternity, all with a smile on her face.

Further, it is when Homura questions and rejects the fairness and rightness of this decision in the final movie that she becomes magical girl Satan. Homura’s recognition that it isn’t fair for one girl to have to give up everything drives her to ruin everything Madoka has built. Homura’s love, unlike Madoka’s, is selfish, tainted particularly by the fact that Homura evidently isn’t strong enough to go on without her own beloved person, as Madoka is. As Sayaka is.

At the end of the day, this is really about how it’s ideal for girls to suffer and sacrifice innocently, unflinchingly, and without regrets. Only through this are you able to do good. Which is not a place Madoka is alone in going, but it’s hardly revolutionary.

[camper1435]

(Oh no I have fallen into the pithole that is the assclass oc makers. No reason to escape I have 3 ocs in my head.)

E-30 Meiji Hayate

"I think cats hate me."

Description •Meiji is a shy and timid kid for the first few weeks but overtime he becomes more social and outgoing. He is quite good at biology, especially when it comes to mammals. He is shown to have an undying love with dogs and cats.

•codename:"scratching post" given by Rio Nakamura

•He has a shiba inu named "Kuro Hayate" by Kaede which Meiji likes. Whenever Meiji forgots to bring his lunch Kuro Hayate arrives just in time with the lunch Hayate forgot. Most of Meiji's classmates were unknown to this fact (excluding Nagisa and Kimura) which lead to the "dog incident"

Birthday:June 20

Height:161 cm

Weight:57 kg

Blood type: B

Favorite subject:biology

Worst subject:Japanese

Interests and special skill:naturally good with animals, except for cats.

Past club:biology club

Treasure item(s):a replica of Kuro Hayate's collar

Favorite food:takoyaki

Bento or snacks:bento

[Karasuma's assassination aptitude]

Meiji is like Irina-drop their target's guard then strike when most vulnerable, through smooth talking no less. He is shown to be more comfortable with using pistols rather than rifles and knives.

•strategy/planning:4

•commanding/leadership:1

•execution:3

•technique:2

•scouting/intelligence gathering:5

•politics/negotiations:5

[B*tch sensei's fashion check]

Meiji is very concious about his clothing, rarely showing any skin. Though I'd like to ramble about his hair first, his hair is quite controlled and the only thing distinguishable about him is his ahoge which he says was born with rather than styled.

School uniform

Meiji shortened his pants to give the signal that he is quite an outgoing student and it is quite noticable because he realizes it doesn't cover past the socks so a bit of his legs are shown. (His family are bad tailors according to him.)

Outside clothing

He usually wears long pants and long sleeved t-shirt regardless of climate and weather. I found this odd until I saw him with scratches on his arms and legs on Okinawa. He claims it comes from scratches from cats which I believe because I see him get bitten and scratched by cats everyday after school.

[Relationships]

•Justice Kimura(addressed as Kimura-san)-they became friends back in elementary school. Kimura was involved in the dog incident where he caught Kuro Hayate and consequently gets peed on, Meiji still apologizes for Kuro Hayate's action. He tries to be close to Kimura.

•Yuzuki Fuwa(addressed as Fuwa)-He considers her as his best friend because they bond over anime and manga. It started when Fuwa pointed out Kuro Hayate means Black Hayate in english which doesn't surprise Meiji that Fuwa reads FMA but Fuwa was surprised that Meiji reads FMA.

•Nagisa Shiota(addressed as Nagisa-san)-They are neighbors but they don't live in the same apartment complex. It's awkward that they became schoolmates then classmates because of the whole neighbor situation but they talk about their situations at home on the way from school.

Some random Trivia:

•He became a veterinarian

•He has an older sister and younger brother but they joined their mother in France.

•The pet store Hayami was caught with her cold facade broken was Meiji's father's pet store.

•Before Korosensei could reveal it Meiji's embarassing picture was him reading a yaoi manga for the first time in a book store.

•Meiji was one of the poisoned students

•Meiji chose the Kill side during the division and (with Kuro Hayate) leads Kanzaki to Karma's trap.

•his favorite anime is Madoka Magica

(I night as well make an oc fic which is the "dog incident")