#she who become corrupted by love and become a demon | homura.

[felixcloud6288]

PMMM ep 5-8 recap

So now I'm two-thirds through the main series and there's a whole lot to unpack.

First off, @sailor-arashi clued me into this so if I'm wrong, please direct all your hate to her. I'm also getting my info from jisho.org.

The kanji for "witch" and "magical girl" both use the same kanji 魔 which means things such as "demon" or "evil spirit". The full kanji for witch is 魔女 which adds the kanji for woman to the name. Magical girl meanwhile is 魔法少女. It has the same kanji as witch but includes 法少 in the middle. 法 means "law" or principle, while 少 means "little". The word for witch is pronounced "majo" while magical girl is "mahou shoujo".

So essentially, the big twist is something that a Japanese viewer could realize if they pay attention to the word play, but it's harder to notice for non-Japanese viewers.

Most of these last four episodes have been focused on Sayaka. Back in episode 3, Mami strongly recommended against making a selfless wish and we're seeing the reason why. @sailor-arashi told me there's a prequel manga where Mami mentored Kyouko until the fallout from Kyouko's wish happened. So Mami would be speaking from experience.

Sayaka holds herself to too high a standard. She wants to be a hero who protects the weak and a selfless, caring soul. She doesn't like admitting to her selfish desires. She spent her wish on something that didn't benefit her at all and she was upset that she regretted saving Hitomi because Hitomi likes Kyousuke.

She hates Homura and Kyouko because they exude an absolutely selfish aura. They do not hide that they don't care about saving the world and are only interested in their own selfish goals. But being selfish lets them deal with what they are. Being a Magical Girl is just a job they do while they pursue their own interests. Meanwhile Sayaka insists on carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders and finds no joy in anything she does.

It's kind of like devoting your life to a corporate job where the boss will fire you in an instant.

Now some parallels between Sayaka and Kyouko. Both of them made a selfless wish to help someone they loved. And both of their wishes ultimately got them nothing. Sayaka wished for Kyousuke's hand to be healed, but he ended up getting with Hitomi. Kyouko wished that people would listen to her father's sermons but when he found out the truth, he killed himself and his family.

Both of them made a surface-level selfless wish with an underlying selfish motive (Sayaka wanted Kyousuke to love her; Kyouko wanted a happy family life) but the wish ultimately led to their true desire being completely unattainable and giving their soul for nothing.

Kyouko's response was to take her powers and decide to do whatever she wants. Sayaka however opted to double down and be a magical girl who acts selflessly.

And I have to say, I love how Kyubey is ultimately an amazing mix of the benevolent, jerkass, and literal genie trope. When he's not forcibly coercing girls into becoming magical girls, he adheres to the spirit of what the person's wish was. He doesn't twist their words or make it true in a way that makes them wish they didn't have it. He grants exactly what you asked for, nothing more and nothing less.

And based on Sayaka and Kyouko's story, the problem is the wishes are disingenuous. Sayaka really just wanted Kyousuke to love her, and she could have wished for that. But instead she wished for something that she thought would give her what she wanted instead. So Kyubey makes them regret their wish without actually having to do anything. They are the victims of their own despair.

And at first, I figured that witches were magical girls who got corrupted by negativity or something like that. And that is true, but it seems to be intentional. Kyubey is intentionally turning girls into witches for some reason. So girls with the "aptitude" to be magical girls are likely girls who aren't willing to be honest with themselves and think they have to be caring and selfless.

So now I just need to find out his intentions. His true name is Incubator. Is that referring to how he incubates witches?

Finally, Homura. Her magic is related to time travel. Sayaka has healing magic because she made a wish to heal someone. So I assume Homura's wish was to either restart something or undo something.

And with that emotional breakdown she had in front of Madoka, it obviously has something to do with her. My guess is she wished to save Madoka from becoming a magical girl. Madoka would be just as much of a selfless person as a magical girl. She'd be driven by love rather than justice, but she would try to carry the world on her shoulders as well. So in one timeline, she probably was crushed by the world and became a witch.

Homura has stepped in four times now to stop Madoka from becoming a magical girl: She tried to kill Kyubey on their first contact, saved her when Mami was killed, stepped in when Sayaka and Kyouko were trying to kill each other, and killed Kyubey when he suggested wishing Sayaka wasn't a magical girl.

I'm not going to say Homura has freedom to travel back in time when she wants, but she does have excellent timing. She's definitely gone back at least once.

And the nature of her powers seems to be somewhat stronger than Kyubey since he wasn't aware of what her powers were and he doesn't remember making a contract with her.

Maybe that opening thing from episode 1 was the previous timeline.

And does Homura's magic or wish make it so she can't tell anyone what's happened in a previous timeline and that's why Madoka seemed to forget her when Homura opened up to her?

At this point, I'm most interested in finding out why Kyubey is making witches. He's interested in the grief seeds since he took the one Sayaka had. But there definitely has to be more to it. This process seems a bit too complex if the goal is to collect concentrated grief.

back

[morally-grey-girlbosses]

Homura Akemi Propaganda Post

she fucked with time itself and shot a weird little immortal evil aminal for her gf what else could you need

A thousand thinkpieces debating the morality of Homura already exist, you don’t have to look far to find them. She’s obsessive, she’s toxic, she’s brutal, she’s doomed to a downward spiral of tragedy. She’s literally the devil. She’s god’s specialist solider. She’s an optimist, holding onto hope with her teeth. She’s driven by love and grief. She’s radical change in the face of suffering. She perseveres in search of a better future even though it costs her everything. She’s a teenage girl. She’s an asian catholic lesbian. She’s got a gun.

Homura is a 14 year old girl stuck in a time loop of her own choosing in order to save her best friend from becoming a magical girl after having watched her succumb to becoming a witch over and over again. She uses time stopping and time traveling powers and also straight up weapons that she's stolen from shady organizations. In fandom she's usually headcanoned as being catholic due to her intense devotion to Madoka as well as having a lot of guilt and hatred towards herself. In the 3rd movie Rebellion she literally creates her own ideal world where madoka and their other magical girl friends are happy and alive but Homura still ends up spiralling after discovering that she was the one who made this too perfect world and she ends up succumbing to her own despair by becoming a witch. She's isolated herself from the other girls since she's the only one who knows the truth about the magical girl system and is committed to working by herself so she seems untrustworthy to some people but Madoka still chooses to see the good in her, so much so that she becomes basically god so that she can protect all magical girls. And then homura kinda becomes a demon in rebellion after madoka saves her from her witch form and she rewrites the whole world again. But yeah uh Homura ... she's got A Lot going on and is in desperate need of therapy but at least she has a gun and a goal.

Literally so in love with another girl that she unconsciously created a false reality where they were happy together, then discovered she was the one who created the false reality when the other girl broke her out of it. Proceeded to become the actual devil, kidnap the girl (who was also god), and make another false reality again. Queen of trying so hard and making everything worse

Efficient girlboss who cares so much. She restructed timelines and rewrote the universe(morally dubiously, not to spoil anyone) for her very best and only friend

In the movie Rebellion, Homura betrays and dethrones God, taking her place, claiming herself to be the Devil and bending reality to her will in order to create her ideal world, without Madoka’s consent on taking her godhood. Therefore trapping her and the quintet quartet into yet another false reality, something nobody but Homura wanted.

Both the narrative and Homura herself view this action as corrupt, and the narrative considers it wrong. However, it is not evil, because her intentions were to be able to save her best friend, Madoka, from the cruel fate she saw her in. Homura doesn’t base her actions in the greater good, only in what would give Madoka happiness, even if said choice would go against Madoka’s own wishes, (for example, in the series, there is a supposed murder attempt against Sayaka due to her choices “making Kaname suffer”) said mindset being created due to the mindfuck timeloop that Homura stuck herself in attempting to save her first friend.

And even if she doesn’t care as much about the other members of quintet (and basically tried to kill Sayaka lol) she still gives them a happy life in her creates reality. So while stripping Madoka of her godhood and, depending on how the world building develops, *possibly* dooming the world to continuing to have witches, it was done with good intentions and the fact that there are multiple debates on fandom about whether that was a good decision or not shows that this was something with complicated morals.

If I messed this up sorry, it’s been a while since I watched the movie, haha!

[butchford]

on one hand everything Homura did in Rebellion is justifiable and on the other the ending just didn’t feel like something she’d do

[hiraethidity-m]

I’ll live on so that I can atone for my sins

[hiraethidity]

image tags

kyoko - she who was declared to be the same as a witch | kyoko.

sayaka - she who fights for a selfish justice | sayaka.

madoka - she who saved the broken and become a god | madoka.

homura - she who become corrupted by love and become a demon | homura.

nagisa - she who ate the cheese for her mother’s love | nagisa

mami - she who wore the cracked bravado mask | mami.

kyubey - the creature who comes with a price | kyubey.

[muffinrecord]

Hot take? But I feel like it’s kind of unfair to blame Homura for anything that happened in Rebellion.

To my limited understanding, she’s basically a witch for all of it, and then becomes something even worse than a witch at the end.

I’m not going to blame Sayaka for stuff she did as a witch, like for hurting Madoka or Kyoko. It’s Sayaka still, but it’s also not Sayaka at all: it’s more like the combination of all the worst Sayaka has to offer with none of her positive traits.

Even though Homura can talk as Homucifer, I feel like that doesn’t make her any different from an actual witch in terms of culpability. This is a the Homura with all of her worst possible traits-- a worst possible interpretation of her where even love itself has become twisted into a bad thing. So like... of course ultra-cursed, ultra-corrupted Homura is going to do selfish and horrible things. That’s what witches do.

TBH, “demon” forms of magical girls who are more corrupt than witches are really interesting as a concept to me. I’m curious as to what other characters would be warped into-- I feel like they’d be witches in human form, with all those same negative traits. It’s actually kind of pity-inducing: what if you start to realize that you’re evil, but you can’t actually change what you’re doing? Or maybe you’re kept from ever changing it due to the nature of the semi-lucid nightmare your soul has turned into?

It kind of makes me curious as to how other characters would act and become if they became “demons.” Like Sayaka-- we’ve seen her as a witch before.

“The master of this emotion suffered from young love and chose a fate so harsh that she could not bear it alone. As such, the Doppel dreams of love while it swims effortlessly through the air, playing a song for its master from its vast hollow body. It can control several swords to attack its enemies with the soundwaves that emanate from its body, but as long as the master uses it, she cannot flee from the discontent that troubles her heart.”

This is the official NA description of her Doppel. If Sayaka went beyond a witch and become a demon, how would she act? Or Mami? Or Kyoko? Or even Madoka?

[magireco]

out of curiosity what do you think of the characterization of homura in rebellion? i hugely dislike it but get the impression you enjoy it which i think is interesting cuz we seem to have very similar thoughts on homura pre-rebellion (CORRECT ME IF I AM WRONG)

THIS IS INTERESTING BECAUSE IT DEPENDS ON WHAT FLAVOR OF REBELLION HOMURA YOU MEAN. i really really like the way she was done in the first half of the movie but as for the twist at the end...? mmm...

...okay, so... i've been thinking about saying this at some point but i keep avoiding it in fear of causing discourse and such bc... this is a really unpopular opinion apparently, but I really do not think devil homura was done properly. read under the cut if you wanna know why i feel this way!

the first issue i'm going to address is that there wasn't NEARLY enough buildup for it. i'm going to explain this from the perspective of a first-time viewer: what would you have thought would happen after the very last scene of rebellion leading up to them breaking homura out of her soul gem? when homulilly got purified and the flowers on her head turned to sakura flowers (y'know, the flowers that symbolize life and rebirth, homura being reborn from her witch)? did you think homura was suddenly gonna undermine madoka's godliness? because, uh, first-view me did not think that at all. and neither did almost anyone i know who watched it for the first time. not only is that poor setup but it's just so sudden and it feels so out of character compared to what we'd seen in the entire series as a whole, especially considering that the entire last part of the movie leading up until that was about purifying her... and saving her... there wasn't enough buildup. most people are like "but the flower scene happened!" but that's still way too vague...? it's hard to tell what conclusion homura comes to at the end, because we don't get to see any of her internal monologue... there is no other buildup after the flower scene... it just skips to homura realizing she's a witch. wouldn't that bring the viewer to think the flower scene was something that made homura realize she was a witch rather than her suddenly starting to form her plan? it always felt like to me the conclusion homura came to at the end of the flower scene was that she was validating madoka's bravery and telling her that if it ever came to that, she'd have the ability to make that hard decision. which is... so... weird? because i always interpreted that as homura coming to terms with what happened? i could just be interpreting it wrong though, but isn't that supposed to be our proof scene? our buildup scene? why would they make it so hard to understand? we need to know such important buildup points just as blatantly as the natural buildup to homura becoming a witch was. that's just from a moviemaking & writing perspective though.

secondly, i'm gonna discuss homura's motive. i actually ended up understanding were she was coming from after a while of being like "what the hell that makes zero sense!!!!". madoka is a 14-year-old girl who, in order to save the fate of every magical girl, literally had to sacrifice herself and erase herself from the world, and in the end, madoka just ended up saving homura again, and that must've made homura feel like her promise with madoka was never fulfilled. it's unfair what happened when you think about it and the law of cycles should not have been run by madoka herself because she, as any other 14 year old, deserves to be happy on earth. although it was said in magireco that madoka felt happy with what she was doing (and she felt like it truly gave her a purpose), she did admit to feeling lonely and homura probably made that assumption big time. but the way the writers went about it just made her seem so sinister... so out-of-character-ly sinister. what with the evil smirking and the deepened, almost... uh, sensual-seeming voice, and homura completely ignoring madoka's fear. it feels like they twisted her character extremely suddenly and it throws the viewer on a loop. they could've gone with that ending without making such drastic and sudden changes to homura's character, and if they were planning on doing that, why did they not give us more buildup? buildup that wasn't extremely cryptic that you have to scan and search every detail to get a clue? something i love about rebellion is that every time you watch you find something new, but how come some of the only clues illuding to devil homura's existence are in the op? it's odd. why didn't they go with something like making the incubators run the law of cycles? they were the ones at fault for causing it to be created. but honestly, the incubators cannot be trusted with anything, which is why it'd make sense for a magical girl to run the law of cycles, but if homura and madoka had the combined power to do so, what if they just remade the law of cycles so it was less unfair to madoka...? i don't know. either of those possibilites would make more sense than what happened.

something else that kind of irks me about it is that they demonized(literally, lol) homura's love for madoka. homura is very much a canon lesbian, and it's incredibly discomforting to me that they made her seem, outwardly to the viewer, so selfish...? please don't get me wrong, i'm not ACTUALLY calling homura selfish -- i know the entire akumura facade is a mask she put on, but like, it's so much more blatantly sinister than she is in the series when she's putting on the coolmura facade. it's going to really confuse the viewer and see every single one of her actions from the entire series in a completely different light, INCLUDING stuff that happened in rebellion itself. like the genuine sadness homura felt, the way we saw into her soul and felt her pain, that genuinely made a lot of people i've seen think that it was ingenuine upon first inspection... they made homura turn "evil" out of her love for madoka, as if it's a bad thing to fall in love, and as if love for another girl was what corrupted her soul gem... i understand that gen urobuchi probably wanted to explore that kind of path where love leads to obsession or whatever, but homura was selfless to a fault, constantly trying to force herself away from the others in order to not get attached, and deeply afraid of seeming creepy and predatory and scaring(she said this herself), which is exactly what she ends up doing at the end, and i feel so awful that they did that to her... how is the viewer supposed to know what her true motives are at that point? it gets all scrambled up after they did that huge plot twist. i'm going to address another thing super quick before people jump in my ask box over this, i understand also that it would make sense for homura to be obsessed with madoka, but in the series, it was never shown in this light, and like i said, if they were going to do this, why'd they even have the purification scene at the end at all? the buildup is all wrong . it also just made me upset that this ending caused SO many people to start literally believing homura is evil because of her actions at the end, and it made people become even more vehement on their beliefs that homura is obsessive and ps*cho...

i was really confused when i watched it for the first time (and also sobbing hysterically, literally, my funniest rebellion story as someone who has genuinely watched the movie 40-ish times, i remember vividly the first time i watched it i started sobbing on my hands and knees on a yoga mat in my mom's room). also like, just to prove my point a teensy bit more, the ending was so ambiguous and out of nowhere that one of the first google results to "madoka magica rebellion" is "madoka magica rebellion ending explained" because it shocked people so much that that was the first thing they needed to google. also, the fact they left us on such a vague cliffhanger and then abandoned the movie series for a total of 8 whole years only to make a sudden comeback in god's holy year of 2021 was almost cruel. LIKE GUYS I JUST FINISHED UP MY DEVIL HOMURA HEADCANONS IT TOOK YOU LONG ENOUGH!!!

...anyways, um, i really have to address the sexualization. madoka magica, previously, was a series that avoided fanservice in the show, at least, but why did they make akumura's design look like that...? it shows an unsettling amount of skin and like, every three seconds in the end they're focusing intensely on her lips and her eyes and... it's almost like the writers forgot she was 14, but they never seemed to forget that in the series? what happened????? in the transformation scene, we get closeup views of homura's thighs and back and stuff and it's all open everywhere... they made her tights into thigh-highs... in the whole series, even when she went to school, she always wore tights, and she was wearing tights in her magical girl outfit too... they absolutely deliberately did that to sexualize her further so they could make official art with her thighs out. speaking of official art that unsettles me, why does so much of the official art make the whole outfit just glued to her body and you can see all the shading on her features... it's just. ugh. anyways.

i went off a LITTLE too much on this and i know this is probably gonna get me some weird glances in the fandom and i am open to hearing other people's opinions but i don't think i'll ever stop disliking the effect this plot twist had on the fandom's interpretation of homura and although i'm like UNDENIABLY incredibly hyper excited for the next movie, i'm kind of...nervous for what this is going to bring? i don't want this next movie to cause the same amount of discourse the ending of rebellion did and i legit just want to see homura happy. another one of my main issues with the ending is just that homura is SO unhappy when she literally deserves to be happy SOOOOOOO BAD and just take a break from all the loops ... i'm Praying to madokami out there that that's what happens.

i know this is all really funny coming from someone who draws devil homura on a regular basis and literally writes her, but like... i'm a lesbian i'm allowed to<3

ANYWAYS thanks for listening this was a fun ask!!!

[kyu-bri]

PMMM Medieval AU

Ok I've been Checked Out of the Meduka Meguca fandom recently but last night during a 11hr post-work week sleep I dreamed up a balls to the wall insanely intricate AU, because my subconcious is ever more creative than my waking self.

A TLDR role list and under the cut I will ramble and speculate in detail:

SAYAKA: An ex squire Knight trainee whose new mission is to overthrow the fucking monarchy after its corrupt rule led to the deaths of her friends. Now seducing an established Knight woman to help her on the inside while she recruits peasants for her rebellion.

MAMI: A rich snobbish merchant, rolling in wealth from inheriting both her dead parents businesses. She too is looking to overthrow the monarchy but is at odds with Sayakas faction because her plan is to become ruler herself.

KYOKO: a thief with brooding backstory. Mami recruits her to do her dirty work behind the scenes to keep her social standing clean.

MADOKA: A young training Goddess of Hope who fell from the moon. She has come to enthusiastically stop all the warring drama and devious plotting. She is in way over her head.

HOMURA: when Madoka fell she brought with her only a magical talisman that would bring one corpse to life to be her right hand. While looking for a noble muscular soldier Madoka tripped and dropped it into an open grave resurrecting a sickly peasant girl. Homura now worships Madoka and they are best friends who are in way over their heads.

Now me screaming trying to decipher my own subconscious:

GOD this AU is so ME. Sayaka going feral and living her best life kicking ass and a catty mean girl Mami countering her specifically. Kyoko poised to compliment, counter and even them out. Oh and MadoHomu are Cute and In Love. If that isnt the core of all of my AUs-

Sayaka was absolutely nuts in this though. My brain didn't spare Kyosuke or Hitomi so much as a cameo but so they're free to be the only reasonable cause for this. Im thinking Kyosuke was ailing as per usual and all that canon drama was the Same but Medieval.

So I'm thinking Sayakas all set to cope with Hitomi financing some lifesaving Medieval leech centric surgery or something before the Evil King whose color scheme is White And Maroon decides to execute Hitomis family for something petty. Hitomi is tragically killed right before Sayaka. Leaving Kyosuke to go shortly after and Sayaka to swear off the monarchy and all traditional law. Withdrawing from her training to be a knight to Be Gay And Do Crime.

Mamis role is both hilarious and perfect. In the dream she didn't do much besides bribe Kyoko and Anime Princess Laugh, but then Madoka was lore dumping (because yes, I DREAMED Madoka explaining LORE to Homura for the audiences (my) benefit.) And she said that Mami was possessed by a Demon of Greed. I'm thinking we could also say a desperate grieving Mami made some sort of deal with it asking for the ability to manage her parents legacy and it's resulted in her becoming the Onceler instead.

Madoka also mentions Kyoko has been scared away from her God bc of humans' actions. Ie she was the holy dutiful priests daughter and then Shit Hit The Fan but Medieval Flavored. The dream legit shows her God was Jesus so I'm declaring the dude God of Redemption, which is a very Kyoko Thing to boot.

While my brain didn't give me any KyoSaya Content tm they're in the perfect position for their epic Rivalry Turned Eternal Companions. Kyoko would be who Mami sends to fuck w Sayaka. Sayaka having probably trying to recruit Mami to her cause before realizing Mamis The Fucking Onceler and inspiring her to create a Rival Gang Of King Hating Rebels.

I'm picturing Sayakas plan fucking up in just the way Kyoko once mocked her that it would and all of Sayakas fight leaving her. As epic as her role is seducing the enemy to benefit her is very Unlike Her, so while the dream poised her as a power couple with the random blond knight lady I'm saying nnnno. And that the arrangement is fitfully miserable and dangerous. Sayaka used to be a loyal hopeless romantic and the Evil that's been committed against her and and those she loves has forced her to harden herself into someone else to be able to fight it.

But while Sayakas in Inevitable Peril and lamenting all of her mistakes and tragedy Kyokos there, fully able to escape but instead of course is like "no fuck that fuck this take my hand dreams come true lets give this nightmare a happily ever after." And its gay.

This would probably pit them both against Mami now but knowing me it would absolutely solve it with gay. And probably a bit of exorcism from Madoka. I theorized briefly if Mami would be a singular tragic death bc she cant be freed bc i liked the idea of tiny baby trumpet blower Nagisa slitting the Evil rich ladies throat and that being the only way to free her from the demon was cool but unless I can give Madoka a second resurrection clause then i would just exorcise her with Homosexuality and Friendship and a bit of Fairy Dust.

Meanwhile with Madoka and Homura they were just off still being cute and oblivious in the dream. I think the dream wanted her to be The One True God but she then shows all the personality traits of Naïve Angel In Training, so bc of the mythology already surrounding her I'm saying thinks a society where Literal Concepts Are Still Being Born and Madoka is the first inkling of Hope that Homosexuality and Friendship can fight Medieval Capitalism on its own.

She's just this bright white and pink pastel glowing entity skipping through a dark dreary forest graveyard looking for soldiers graves to ressurect somebody noble and powerful, gathering twigs in her long Repuntzel hair, when she trips and drops her talisman on a homeless orphan who died of the plague or some shit.

Bonus points to the idea that Madokas supposed to be able to reuse it but bc Homura died of sickness she just dies again right away and Madoka doesn't wanna be mean.

So Homura worships this glowing self positioned manic pixie dream girl bc shes definitely never felt hopeful in her life and so this glowing pastel goddess and drab zombie girl begin a road trip to where the actual plot of the story is happening. Because the moon dropped Madoka like inconveniently far away ig.

And so is the skeleton of a fabulous AU that I will probably not develop further but might make art for because my subconscious brain Also has AMAZING cinematography like when Madoka comes out of her moon all her hair flows out first so from earth it looks like a long pink gunshot through the moon which I suppose all the other characters would see and thus foreshadow their inevitable downfall to the powers of Homosexuality and Friendship and HOPE.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

[carnoshin]

Slashers With A Magical Girl S/O

Prompt(s) provided by @galaxy-of-pastels, based off of Puella Magi Madoka Magica. I was in the fandom when I was younger, so excuse the length!!! 

((I know the cut won’t work on mobile, yet again, so I’m also gonna tag this as “long post.” soz))

(Also. Side-note that I think is funny: technically, all you need to become a magical “””girl””” is human emotions, so. Technically. These boys could make a wish. Too bad I can’t draw men, this seems like it would be fun to do;;;)

Jason

You probably assume that the famous “Jason Voorhees of Camp Blood” is a witch, so that’s how you end up there. Maybe you still have some hope left in you, maybe you’re trying to claim the territory.

Obviously, you’re surprised when the infamous Jason is... Well, he’s just himself. And he’s surprised when you walk off being gored. It does some serious corruption to your soul gem, but you’ve been through worse-- that’s what being a magical girl is, simple enough: not fun and seriously harming.

((As for the general relationship and the specific questions, lol))

Usually, in the Madoka universe, magical girls do not age unless spurned by their transformation (Godoka seems to be a few years older than usual Madoka, for example. Also, there’s a wish that basically splits someone into two people in the manga: it’s transformative, is what I’m getting at). If you are chronologically an adult and pass for an adult, you probably turned later in your teen years. 

Once you make your wish, your body is essentially dead: you’re a ghost possessing your preserved corpse.

Jason relates to that on a certain level, but he’s also vaguely worried about the fact that he is rotting. It becomes a very “monstrous alien or beautiful corpse” situation, if you’re familiar with that saying-- both are psychologically terrifying, but the one people prefer says something about them. That monstrous aspect is part of what drew you two together.

He’s caught off-guard by the idea that you could just. Disappear forever? Only leaving behind destruction and despair? Given the fact that you’re with him, he’s vaguely terrified what your Labyrinth could be like. He wonders if you would hurt him-- he deeply wants you to be able to come back to him, if you ever reach that point of corruption. (And no, he doesn’t care about the consequences.)

You have to leave fairly often to find grief seeds and he insists you leave when he “has to” commit his occasional massacre, in case it corrupts your gem even more.

Technically, only magical girls or kyubey can enter the witch’s labirynth without assistance. Everyone else is affected by either suicidal thoughts or illness. At first, it doesn’t strike him as odd: it’s just a group of teens coming up in the middle of summer, it’s not rare at all. But he finds himself being a bit more reckless than usual-- he’s practically making himself known at this point, no doubt as to whether or not he’s an urban legend.

(I would sincerely hope you don’t bring him into the labirynth: are you trying to get your mans killed?)

Most magical girls can go beyond their fully corrupted gem. (It’s implied that Homura never uses a grief seed after she gets herself set “right,” simply by supressing her sadness.) So if you come back from a fight and you’re particularly quiet, it can be even more stressing on your end when he tries to comfort you-- that release of emotion is what forms a witch, after all. Giving a matter of fact “I almost died” and leaving it at that is your best bet.

 If you became a witch, he’d feel so... Guilty? He’d probably be there to watch the grief seed “hatch” and might get caught in the resulting chaos-- emotion is a very strong thing with magical girls, so if you have lots of emotions for him... He could get sucked in. Once you are slain he just. Sits there. In the same place you were when he last saw you. The quiet of the house, the fact that all your things are still there... It just wrecks him.

(Lmao, did you think a Madoka post was gonna be happy...? Nah.)

Bubba

Again, you are probably there in the assumption that a witch is in the area. Most magical girls ditch Kyubey after finding out what he did to them, so you’re left trying to find them on your own-- not impossible, but certainly harder than just following the little rabbit-puppy-cat bastard. Witches do spread around violence-prone areas, so it’s not a terrible stretch of the imagination.

There very well might be a witch in the area. Though witches can move around, if you catch one early it’s likely to be in an abandoned place-- where magical girls tend to hang around. And, sure enough, there are lots of abandoned places around the Sawyer property. It’s not the best place to set up a base camp, however.

You probably wouldn’t be terribly friendly with the Sawyer family altogether-- probably just Bubba: his secret friend who comes by at night to talk with him. His “imaginary” girlfriend, if you will-- his brothers certainly call you that, at least.

Bubba doesn’t quite get all of the stuff around witches and rumors and familiars and all that. He thinks the soul gem is quite pretty: he can sort of see the resemblance between you and it.

He’s the most likely to take off with your soul gem on accident. It’s really pretty and, since it’s yours, he very much sees it as something precious-- not in the fact that it’s literally your soul so much as “this belongs to my lover. I keep it on me to remind me of them.” So you can see why that would be an issue.

There are a few events where he finds a grief seed nearby his house-- witch’s gravitate towards violence and death, so the Sawyer house isn’t an unlikely place for them to go. You frequently tell him to make sure his family is healthy and he starts to be a bit more “doting” around his family than usual, though it makes them upset at him.

He knows what your soul gem looks like. So he recognizes your grief seed immediately. And then he just... Loses time. He “wakes up” thirty minutes later, dangerously close to the woodchipper in the backyard. He remembers that you told him if he ever lost time like that, he should make sure he’s safe-- that his family is safe and relatively health. And after he does, just like you told him to, he remembers where he saw the little silver and black trinket that looked like your soul gem. And it’s just gone.

It becomes a regular part of his daily schedule to check over by the place he would meet you-- you on the opposite side of the fence that denoted the Sawyer property. You never come back, but... He’s certainly keeping his hopes up.

:(

Brahms

The Heelshire mansion is a good place for a base. It’s only a twenty minute drive from a major city; being an older magical girl, you have a type of authority that the other girls succeed to, so there’s very few territorial issues; there’s a hospital ten minutes away; no one ever comes by, so you can do as much magical stuff as you like without worry of being exposed. Etcetera.

Since your magic is so very advanced, as an “adult” magical girl, you probably end up making a kind of... Temporal space to disappear into. This is the main thing that interests Brahms about you: you enter a room-- one that he can see into and enter, if he so pleases-- but you’re never in the room. For a while, he considers that he might be going insane. Or perhaps you’re a ghost-- things he never believed in, especially because most assume he is a ghost.

He becomes terribly interested with you-- not even in a romantic sense, because he does have a kind of fear towards you: he truly thinks you’re a demon or a spectre-- perhaps a ghost from the witch hunts way back when, as you occasionally mention witches when you have a visitor outside the house.

He takes note of a type of creature outside the house that you seem to absolutely hate. He assumes it’s some strange toy, as he can just barely hear it speaking. One day, it mentions that someone else is in the house and before he knows how to react, you’re searching through the house with something shiny in hand. You never find him: he’s not a witch or a magical girl or anything of the sort, so he doesn’t show up on your radar.

When you go to sleep at night, he is so very careful about taking that lovely gem you seem to have. He takes it back to his room and leaves it there for further inspection. For the next two days, you don’t move even once. He even gets so bold as to check your pulse, shake your body to try to wake you. And then he hears that strange creature that you seem to hate speaking to him: he hasn’t the slightest clue how it got into the house, but he listens to it and returns your soul gem. He sits by your bedside waiting for you to wake up. Needless to say, you’re quite frightened when you do and see a man you’ve never seen before watching over you.

He listens very intently about your life as a magical girl. He’s seen you do such strange things. It only takes one single transformation-- to him it seems to only take a single blink, though you do go through the whole process-- to convince him. He’s not terribly afraid of you turning to a witch--- if you’re unhappy with him, it serves you right. (He... Sucks...)

The thing is, he won’t let you leave very often to get grief seeds. You’re always just on the verge of becoming a witch. If you’re lucky, you can convince some of the younger girls to give you “extra” grief seeds. They suggest you run from him-- plenty of them are homeless; it’s a norm for magical girls.

If you do become a witch, it probably happens in the manor. He accosts the girls who came to destroy your labirynth as soon as everything is over-- he’s awake and alert immediately after. The girls aren’t so kind as to give him your grief seed-- you were extremely difficult to beat, so they can’t just let the grief seed grow and destroy once again: you’d only get stronger and more dangerous.

He gets so lonely, so depressed. He doesn’t eat. He hardly sleeps. He becomes a husk of a man. He doesn’t die from grief, however, no. He has to go through the process of grief. All alone.

[entamewitchlulu]

Homura’s Flash Reviews [Winter Season - First Impressions Edition]

so for the first time in my life, I’m watching seasonal anime as they air.  Mostly it’s because TeamFourStar are doing a show called Anime FMK, where viewers vote on the shows they watch each season and they talk about them, with the opportunity to “fuck” or “kill” each anime each week.  Up to one anime per week can be killed permanently, or removed from the watchlist for the rest of the season, if it gets two or more kills from the three panelists (please check out FourStarBento, the show is honestly excellent and their discussions are amazing to listen to)

Anyway, I watched their first ever season in the fall and I hadn’t watched a single show and didn’t know what they were talking about despite still enjoying their discussions.  So this season, I’ve decided to at least get a taste of every anime they’re watching, though I will get to kill it immediately for myself if I don’t like it.

Without further ado, here’s my First Impressions of this season’s Anime FMK shows, along with my “Love At First Sight/Kill At First Sight” rating.

Ancient Magus Bride

Depressed and alone, Chise decides her only recourse is to sell herself into slavery, as she is a coveted entity known as a Sleigh Beggy, humans who produce endless amounts of magic.  She is bought by the strange mage Elias, who understands little of humanity and human emotions.  Despite their strange relationship, Chise finds a strange new home among Elias and the rest of his household, finding her own strength and will to live in the process.

With beautiful visuals, incredible world building, haunting soundtracks, endearing characters, and a marvelous examination of a less than ordinary (or even desirable) relationship, this show is probably easily one of the strongest from the fall season, and I am SO looking forward to continuing it after having caught up last season!!

Love At First Sight, will def watch this one to the end.

Hakyu Hoshin Engi

What is this one even about?  I guess some…demon slaying kid who got his family slayed by demons is going to go slay a whole list of demons so that he can defeat the demon empress.

Anyway I quit halfway into episode 1.  The character designs are DISGUSTING and have no sense of good, clean designs, opting instead to clutter everyone up with a billion things, the story was rushed and they had to spell everything out for you, and the only female apparent in the show is the Evil Seductress Demon, I guess.  Put this one back in the early 90s where it belongs.

Kill At First Sight

Junji Ito Collection

HAHAHAHAHA YEA RIGHT I’M NOT STUPID ENOUGH TO PUT MYSELF THROUGH THIS I WOULD NEVER SLEEP AGAIN

I DIDN’T EVEN WATCH A SINGLE EPISODE SORRY GENTS

Kill Before First Sight

Kokkoku

Juri is the only member of her family who’s really trying to make something of herself, with her brother being a NEET and her father recently laid off.  But when her brother and nephew are kidnapped, her grandfather activates a magical time stopping artifact to go save them, dragging them into the attention of some kind of occult cult.

have only gotten through one episode of this one, but I’m very intrigued; this is an eerie, creepy sort of anime with probably some good family stuff coming up later, so I’ll keep with it for now.

Tentative love

Hakata Tonkotsu Ramens

Set in a city where three percent of the population are professional hitmen, a private detective investigates a mayor’s corruption with the hitman who was hired to kill him, but instead decided to protect him.

Ehhh from one episode, I’m not really feeling it?  I’ll watch a bit more, but idk.  They threw a FUCK ton of characters at you in episode one, and tbh the show feels a little like Durarara, which did the same thing, and I didn’t finish that one.  I was more interested when I thought that the main character was a woman, but no, turns out it’s a cross dressing man, which is...interesting, I guess.  So far they haven’t made a man in a dress joke so I’m tentatively on board with it.

But other than that, it’s a ridiculously bloated cast, a gritty setting, already quite a bit of violence against women, and I’m not really sure what the Point is.

Tentative continue

citrus

LOL YEA RIGHT LIKE I’M ABOUT TO WATCH THIS GARBAGE I CAN’T WAIT FOR TFS TO KILL THIS ONE

Kill Before First Sight

Hakumei to Mikochi: Tiny Life in the Woods

A charming slice of life about Mikochi and Hakumei, two young women who are only 3.5 inches tall, living in a tiny world with other tiny people and regular sized, talking animals, and a society populated with the most endearing and lovely magical elements.

This show!!!!! Is Pure and Wholesome!!!!!!!

Hakumei and Mikochi are like This Married, and even besides that, it’s literally just The Best show to kick back and relax to.  There’s barely any conflict, and any conflict that does arise is solved within half an episode, as each episode contains two short stories about the idyllic life of these two lovely young ladies in the woods.

Love At First Sight, will continue this one to the end!

Killing Bites

I guess this one is about a world where rich people bet on blood matches between animal people, which sounds fascinating in concept but in practice…..nah

I noped out halfway through episode one, despite some interesting animation and fight choreography, there’s was a graphic attempted sexual assault scene in the first two minutes (VERY graphic, even though the perps get murdered violently in the next couple of minutes it made me Very Uncomfortable).  Male animal people get full on animal transformations, but the girls only change enough to keep their faces cute and their boobs visible.  It’s very much straight up fap material, which if that floats your boat, whatever, i guess, but I’ll be skipping this one this season.

Kill At First Sight

Darling in the FranXX

A mech anime that’s sorta like Pacific Rim if Pacfic Rim was an ecchi.  That’s about all I’ve got to say on the summary.  There’s something about robot dinosaurs and a girl who has their blood in her who can’t keep a drift compatible partner before her very nature causes them to die in the cockpit, but I forget.

Honestly, this is the one that disappointed me the most.  The animation is fucking incredible, the character design is God Tier, and the presentation is literally one of the best I’ve ever seen in an anime.  The mood, tone, and atmosphere are all done amazingly, and every character, despite having very little on screen time, feels unique.  I found the girl with the robot dinosaur blood incredibly fascinating and endearing, and the main male character was actually a very soft boi that I was enjoying.  Something about this show was very, very entrancing and I kept finding myself becoming super engaged in it during episodes one and two.

But every time my engagement was high, I’d be knocked out of it violently by some ridiculous fanservice.  Main Boy picks up Main Girl’s underwear for some reason by accident, Main Girl is straight up naked in their first encounter (to be honest, I actually wasn’t too upset with this part, I thought it was done artistically if that makes sense? but what all comes after it kind of detracted from that).  And then the partner ship piloting?  The girl is standing in a bent over, very suggestive position with the boy right behind her, and the boy’s piloting handles protrude from the girls’ butts.  And not to mention all the off color jokes they made about such positioning in the show itself.

After that, I put it down, but I’m actually really disappointed, because what atmosphere and mood I did enjoy from the show was incredibly well done.  This could have been an excellent show.  I feel like it might be something I attempt again sometime, because I do like Studio Trigger’s works and there was some grain of goodness in it that made me want to keep watching, but for now, I’m leaving it to focus on the other shows on the list.

Kill, but it’s reluctant

Pop Team Epic

The only way to describe this show is meme culture incarnate; it’s based on a 4 panel manga and it’s just…..WEIRD.

But it’s a GOOD WEIRD and oh my god, this show is the fucking best; this show is going to save all of anime forever.  I love the kawaii artstyle, I love both Pipimi and Popuko (and their gay shit), I love the fucking OFF THE WALL shitpost humor.  

Honestly the only thing I don’t really like is the Bob Team Epic segments, mostly just cause I’m very sensitive about weird art styles and the art style makes me uncomfyyy haha.  Other than that!!! EXCELLENT show and I’m looking forward to continuing.

Love At First Sight

A Place Further Than the Universe

Mari Tamaki always chickens out when she tries to do something different with her life, but she’s determined to make her second year of high school different! When she meets Shirase, the daughter of an Antarctic scientist who went missing on an expedition, she ends up joining Shirase’s quest to get to Antarctica!

Oh god this show is literally the fucking cutest????  All of these kids are so sweet and determined and I’m super invested in their quest from just the first episode!  It’s super charming in both writing and animation, and I can’t wait to see what happens when they finally make it to Antarctica!!!

Love At First Sight

[hiraethidity-m]

sike / i forgot my image tags 

kyoko - she who was declared to be the same as a witch | kyoko. 

sayaka - she who fights for a selfish justice | sayaka.

madoka - she who saved the broken and become a god | madoka.

homura - she who become corrupted by love and become a demon | homura.

nagisa - she who ate the cheese for her mother’s love | nagisa

mami - she who wore the cracked bravado mask | mami.

kyubey - the creature who comes with a price | kyubey