- Lacy dress goes from chest to calves.
- Flares out and ruffles at the bottom.
- Sleeves flare out and ruffle.
- Buttons on the chest.
- Soul gem at the base of her neck, on the front.
- Weapon that shoots arrows.
- Confirmed - Hieronym's tumblr for the fanfic reveals that Ryoko's outfit is very similar to Madoka's. Whether or not there is any thematic significance to this is still up in the air.
- Word of God is that costumes probably follow through bloodlines and that Nana and Nakase's uniform design is most influenced by their still unnamed mother's family. This, along with Hieronym's insistence to keep in mind that sometimes the paternal family has more influence on costumes, seems to imply that Ryouko could also be somehow related to Madoka and descended from Tatsuya's line.
Also, Ryouko mentions in chapter 9, during her vision, that the Goddess looks familiar. Perhaps regular Madoka is familiar to her as well, and Ryouko is subconsciously mimicking her? Or perhaps any similarity to Madoka is a coincidence and Ryouko only resembles the purple magical girl, due to hero worship or a family connection or something.
- Not exactly. Ryouko is descended from Hitomi, but from an estranged branch of the family tree.
- That's a bit hasty. Ryouko is already known to be a descendant of both the Kuroi and Shizuki families. Another ancestor from the Kaname line remains a distinct possibility.
- Confirmed as of Chapter 32 : Ryouko is Tatsuya Kaname's great-great-granddaughter, and thus Madoka's great-great-grandniece
Hitomi or Kyosuke's descendents wouldn't flag high on Mami's radar and while Ryouko has the same last name as Hitomi any of Hitomi's children would have the father's last name, Kyouko's still around, and Homura disappeared without descendents. If she had any, the Cult of Hope would have incorporated their entire line into the church already. This leaves Sayaka, who may have cousins or the like or her parents had another child, or Madoka, who Mami does not know but who did have a living brother. Homura may have mentioned Madoka's family at one point and dragged Mami and Kyouko to see them on occasion.
The mention in-fic about the ability to become a magical girl running in families also helps to support this idea. The aching feeling of familiarity Ryouko felt could have either been a feeling all magical girls have for Madoka or the feeling of meeting a long-lost relative who was dearly close before vanishing.
- Close, but not quite. As noted in the previous WMG, Ryouko is descended from Hitomi.
- Hold on there. That Ryouko is descended from the Kuroi and Shizuki families does not rule out a Kaname ancestor as well.
- Confirmed in Chapter 32 : Ryouko is a descendant of Tatsuya Kaname, Madoka's little brother and acquaintance of Homura.
- So close! But not really. The story implies that Hitomi herself doesn't contract. But her daughter Sayaka did. Indeed, she appears in Chapter 14 as one of the Ancients, who also happens to be the matriarch of Ryouko's father's side of the family tree.
This explains why Madoka is getting personally involved. Her wish has helped behind the scenes, but this affront to her nature needs direct intervention. Resolving it requires someone who believes in her and can understand why forcing girls to stay alive with corrupt soul gems is a bad idea. Poison Oak Epileptic Trees bonus: Yuma is involved in this but is keeping it a secret because she knows Kyouko would flip shit.
- Rereading Ch. 8 (Kyouko and Yuma's conversation), it seems pretty likely that Oriko discovered some kind of method to create super-saturated grief cubes, which create especially powerful and/or numerous demons if something goes wrong (or right, depending on what you're using them for) - Yuma specifically asks whether the group that attacked Ryouko and Simona was 'unusually hard to fight'. This explains why Oriko's group was unexpectedly wiped out by a horde of demons they (according to Mami) really should have been able to handle. Their habit of going after more emotionally unstable girls from other teams also fits with the above theory - go after them, induce corruption on the more vulnerable member in some way, use grief cube to store for later use. (The other method of summoning a similarly massive horde apparently involves stockpiling grief cubes for about a decade, and was likely impossible before the MSY's teamwork created a surplus.)
- An alternative theory : the Incubators found a way to create super-saturated Grief Cubes, and used them to get rid of the Southern Group. After all, they dispose of all the fulled Grief Cubes, so dumping massive excess of corruption in some of them or stocking a small amount of them during a decade or more for an occasion where they need to more directly intervene shouldn't be too difficult for them.
- Jossed, Oriko was the one who developed the super-saturating technique with the help of Yuma, who later used super-saturated Grief Cubes to kill the rest of the Southern Group.
Or even worse : maybe the alien invasion was always a part of the Incubator's standard process of harvesting energy : once the targeted civilization reaches a technological threshold where it could survive an alien invasion, they start the "intensive cultivation" phase of their plan by putting the civilization in an inescapable war for survival until the Incubators reach their energy quota.
Everything she did with the Southern Group was geared toward the objective of founding a MSY as strong and organized as possible in the mother of all Genghis Gambit : they trashed Mami's apartment to goad her into directly attacking them in a place that was withing Kyouko's reach, inciting her to help Mami and rekindle their friendship (and keep in mind that Oriko can see the future, so she would had know that Kyouko would go help Mami), and attacked various MG groups to give them a common enemy which later incited them into uniting into what would later become the MSY. Even the apparent random slaughter of magical girls could be explained as Oriko trying to kill the more unstable elements of every groups who would later go mad and threaten the unity of the alliance (their teammate would rather try to protect their sisters-in-arms rather than submit to a still new magical girl coalition). Even after the Southern Group destruction, their actions heavily influenced the MSY charter and the creation of the Soul Guard (and later the MHD) to take care of the criminals and insane magical girls, ensuring the security and stability of the MSY, especially in times of war.
That's why the Incubators were so cooperative with the other groups in the conflict against the Southern Group, breaking their usual absolute neutrality, (remember that they keep their neutrality even in a war for survival against aliens of incomprehensible advanced technology!) : they somehow discovered what Oriko foresaw, and want her dead before she can throw a spanner in their plans. They are also behind the mysterious disappearance of the precognitive class of magical girls and total absence of new ones contracted since then : they managed to have the remaining precogs hunted down, and didn't contracted with girls who could become precogs, or somehow found a way to prevent a magical girl to become one upon contracting, "vetoing" that power when their contract is made.All of this so no other magical girls would discover the truth.
For bonus points : Oriko put Yuma into the confidence of her vision and true motive, she foresaw the potential Yuma had and the vital part her skills would play in the MSY, and entrusted her with continuing her work on assuring the MSY's strength and stability. That would explain why she took Yuma under her wings, even though her profile was very different from the typical Southern Group member. Oriko's cadaver moving and directly looking at Ryouko during her vision of the Goddess in chapter 9 could mean two things :
- Oriko is still alive, continuing her secret fight against the Incubators, and managed to stay under detection thanks to Yuma's control over the government's surveillance systems.
- she died, but it symbolize her plan continuing long after her death via Yuma and all the butterfly effects she set in motion with her precognition powers.
- Hi there, Itzli.
- Somewhere there was a war going on. An alien wished for her scientists to develop a weapon, that could destroy their enemy. The alien got her wish, the scientists developed a biological weapon not unlike the xenomorphs from the Alien franchise, but it went about as well as it did for the creators of the xenomorphs: It did indeed destroy their enemy, but after that, it went on to destroy their creators and from there went on to roam the cosmos to destroy anyone in sight.
- But Sayaka didn't turn into a Witch. At the end of episode 12, Madoka vanishes her when her Soul Gem is corrupted. She's not talked about because, unlike the other members of the Four, not much is really known about her and she died before the Four did any of their famous actions (fighting the Southern Group, founding the MSY, the battle of New Athens, etc.)
- While the premise of this guess is incorrect, the guess itself is actually still possible. Homura being involved in an attempt to undo Madoka's wish is possible, because she's the only individual that remembers the Witches in the first place. Whether she would do so against her will is another matter, because it's hard to imagine anyone overpowering Homura, and if Madoka's Wish is undone, they might be able to see each other again.
, as Ryouko was getting fitted with implants:- “Her genetic profile is outside the five-sigma safe limit for using the customary procedure,” Patricia said airily, clearly not quite focusing on the conversation. "About six, to be more precise. Can't really get greater precision so far out."
- "she was screaming, and she was looking up at the impassive eyes of two men, immensely large, wearing the universal blue of hospital staff. They looked distorted, almost as if she were looking at them through glass.She raised her hand, and it was wet. She was in some sort of fluid, and when she pressed her hand forward, she contacted glass. It really was glass, or perhaps plastic. She was in some sort of tank. And her hand seemed strangely shaped, and difficult to move."
, as they prepared to upgrade Ryouko's TacComp:- “Unusual genetics in her file,” one of the technicians commented, shaking a vial. “Your daughter is unique, Kuma-san. It just means more work for us.”It was said in the vein of a joke, and her father, who apparently knew the man, smiled and nodded, catching the intended humor.Not getting the reaction he had been expecting—namely, a question about the unusual genetics—the technician was briefly awkward, then turned back to his work.Ryouko watched the exchange, a little puzzled.
:- “But, it is easy to manipulate history, if you know how,” the girl said. “Even if you have very little direct influence. A suggestion here, a vision there, a well-timed demon spawn—you don’t know it, but this is one of the things you were born for. Your wish made sure of it.”
- Confirmed in Chapter 34: Ryouko was the subject of intense genetic engineering before her birth, although her mother wasn't aware of it.
- her disturbing Blood Knight tendencies - Kyouko even commenting, just after Ryouko's first fight against Wraiths, that she never saw a just-contracted girl exhibiting battlelust before - culminating into a fit of crazed blood lust in chapter 26 when she charges and punches to death an alien sniper in retaliation for the death of her teammate. Besides, Ryouko states that when in one of those episodes of extreme Blood Lust, she feels a sense of complete certainty and concentration that is completely at odds with her usual personality. She also shows at various occasions a fascination for blood and injuries, such as when she examined her grandfather's bloody leg stumps, or after the above beating of an alien sniper to death where she had to fight back the fascination she was feeling at what she did.
- her teleportation power works over displacing matter like a wormhole, which is a trademark technology of the aliens.
- it's mentioned in chapter 26 that the green of Ryouko's Magical Girl uniform is exactly the same than the aliens' blood.
- finally, the author posted a link to the real life genetic anomaly knows a "chimerism", explaining that it's relevant to the last chapters, heavily implying that one of the characters is a "chimera".
If the Cephs' complete ruthlessness and lack of doubts in exterminating mankind and extreme brutality are "hardcoded" in them via Genetic Memory, and also benefit from innate knowledge such as wormhole/black hole-based technology, it would explain Ryouko's unique powers and violent tendencies.
For bonus points, Ryouko shares a name with another female main character who's revealed to be an half-human hybrid!
- Either that or was intentionally vague about it to the point the Incubators dismissed it as nonsense. Thus Rebellion was Averted.
- Homura is the only person besides Madoka who remembers the old universe, and apparently never even told people Madoka's name, much less giving specifics about how the system worked (barring the possible conversation with kyubey mentioned above). The fact that she made no secret of it but never willingly revealed more than vuage hints implies there is some reason why she can't tell anyone. Not to mention the fact that Madoka herself has sworn anyone who saw her real face in vissions to secrecy. It certainly looks like between the two of them they've gone out of their way to make sure there are no hard facts or evidence to investigate.
- In the movie, Kyubey mentions that there are several people who don't exist in "the current reality". We are meant to assume this means Madoka, Sayaka, and Nagisa; however, this could include the other Kanames, Hitomi, Kyosuke, Nakazawa, and Miss. Saotome. The attempt on Kyouko's life could have been orchestrated by the incubators as a means of providing a cover-up for her disappearence. This also makes sense when you consider the fact that people in To the Stars have prehensile hair (i.e. they can control it), and in Rebellion, when Madoka and Homura are chatting on the hill of flowers the second time, Madoka tries to braid Homura's hair, who ends up un braiding it by either A) Magic, B) Labyrinth Powers, or C) Prehensile Hair.
- Except that everyone who aren't magical girls are long dead by the time of To The Stars, and the end of Rebellion, just before Homura recreates the universe, show them alive.
- The latest chapter (Chapter 53) suggests Homura is running about Earth in a duplicate body and under a different name and that she uses a dulicate body because her alternate person is public enough that leaving Earth to do things would be noticed. Given Valentin is one of the few important enough characters that we know nothing about it makes sense it might be her.
- There is no way somebody wouldn't trying to study the law of cycles and willing to use unethical means to do so. And they have a group saying an outside goddess of human origin does it. So they have use the missing girls to isolate their soul gem, similar to the Rebellion Movie and saw witches form and think they can harvest their power.]]
