Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Ooh, neato.

Another KR post Found a theme that I feel describes Sayaka during and post Rebellion:

Homucifer becomes the original member of The Watchers.

Haven't played that game, so can't comment. I do know that Yoko Taro did cite this show as an inspiration when making the third game though. I'm not surprised that he's a fan either.

I got to listen to a panel on Madoka by the author of The Very Soil at Anime Boston last weekend. I haven't read the book but the stuff linking the hidden Christians to Madoka was really interesting.

Overzealous pruning alert, someone's been removing entries from the Les Yay subpage.

And with at least 3 different accounts, looks like. Apparently someone doesn't understand the concept of YMMV...

If it's who I think it is, you don't know the fucking half of it. There's this one person who's spent years dedicating themselves to stamping out all PMMM ships other than Homura/Madoka and Sayaka/Kyouko, in the face of near-universal opinion that that's a really stupid crusade and they shouldn't be such a jackass about it. Behold their tumblr, which has been putting out weekly reminders for the past two years that anyone who ships something different is a terrible person and should be ashamed of themselves. I'm just surprised they didn't spice up the edits with some insults.

edited 6th Apr '17 4:18:00 AM by rikalous

I guess that would have made it too obvious and gotten them (skull-button)'d too easily by the mods.

Said account is deleting all non-Homura x Madoka and Kyoko x Sayaka again. I've already sent a PM about deleting YMMV, but in the interests of avoiding an Edit War I'm wondering what else should be done.

EDIT: Ohp, nvm, system admin restored.

edited 6th Apr '17 6:08:21 AM by megarockman

Good news, Fighteer dropped the banhammer on the vandal.

...It's been about 6 years since I got this nice avatar of my true self here :D Was considering going as a Grief Seed for Halloween but eh I'm lazy.

edited 6th Apr '17 6:13:55 AM by AceOfScarabs

I daresay that's quite a ways beyond your actuarial tables.

Wait so Crack-kun actually is more than just a group of shitposters on /a/? He's been infesting threads on any popular modern magical girl anime for years, although mostly Madoka threads.

Hmmm. I think I may have seen him in old Nanoha /a/ threads long ago.

TV Tropes is no stranger to this but it still sucks that this stuff happens.

They actually claim that Homura/Madoka and Sayaka/Kyouko are canon! Wow, they're deluded.

Now, I have to admit that I have extremely uncomplemetary views on Sayaka/Kyouko shipping, but I feel like the height of reasonableness after seeing that.

The first edit replaced the entire page with something like "get a life you creepy nerds." Apparently that account got banned and they switched to a new one for the next round. And the one after that...

Well, in... some sense, they are. Sakaya/Kyouko is basically in Hide Your Lesbians territory at this point; Madoka/Homura is an infinitely controversial cosmic yin/yang purity vs. proactiveness... thing. And Mami got Nagisa as a daughter/sister/pet/whatever so she wouldn't be a fifth wheel. But part of the reason for the ongoing vagueness is because the creators know that the fans want to have their own interpretations of the relationships (and everything else).

I found the "get a life" message amusing because clearly going around vandalizing random pages on tvtropes is the very pinnacle of a fulfilling and productive life.

On canonicity, Homura's got a spot on the Word of Gay page.

Interviewer: Why did you choose to portray a homosexual love?
Urobuchi: I don't think it is that special - a really strong friendship turns into a love-like relationship without the sexual attraction, in their case.

So far as I know there's no official comment on whether Madoka reciprocates, though.

Cute older versions of Nagisa, Momo and Yuma.

None of them have kissed, dated or confessed on screen. We haven't even had inner monologues from them. As such, they canot be cannon. That said, I agree that Homura is in love with Madoka and Madoka might reciprocate. Also, Kyouko lusts after Sayaka.

Sayaka however rightful;y hates everything everything Kyouko stands for and rightfully attempts to kill her on screen repeatedly. Anyone who says Sayaka is in love with Kyouko is clearly wrong based on the events of the show. Not even Word of God would change that. Besides, I consider shopping Kyouko/Sayaka to inherently be rape apology. Kind of like shipping Jessica Jones with Kilgrave.

ok first of all where were you for literally all of kyokos character development

I believe that infinite character development wouldn't be enough.

You can't unburn a bridge.

If someone abused you, it is actively wrong to ever be in a romantic relationship with them ever again, no matter what they do.

I'll quote what I've said about Kyouko elsewhere:

I don't want to bog down the thread, but as you do not know what I've previously stated about Kyouko, I'll tell you.

Firstly, I do not consider circumstances to be an excuse. They do not make you evil, they reveal that you already are evil. I agree with Sirius Black from Harry Potter. If you had to choose between evil and dying, you should have died.

https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/the-homu-home.26368/page-86#post-5425947

Kyouko is practically anathema to me.

She's a rude bully who kills people for the crime of being decent individuals because she deliberately wants to ensure that more innocent people die, mocks people for the purpose of getting an excuse to kill them and advocates kidnap, physical abuse and rape.

https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/the-homu-home.26368/page-683#post-6161163

I have a very different reading of Kyouko. I consider her to be nothing remotely close to being decent. I do consider her a sadist, a serial, mass-murderer, as torturer, a bully, a coward, abusive, rude and a rape-apologist. She is like a cancer that makes every situation and the world around her worse with her mere presence. And she tries to turn others into something as revolting as she is. She's practically a monument to all I hate.

https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/the-homu-home.26368/page-683#post-6161330

I'll quote myself from elsewhere where I explained why I believed that Kyouko would abuse Sayaka if they got together as its easier.

Okay, as people were questioning my statement in the WIW and the mods told me to take it to the spoiler thread, I'll clarify. Kyouko told Sayaka to break all of Kyousuke's limbs and "make him yours". That's advocating maiming someone to the point of helplessness and sexually forcing yourself on them. That's what "make him yours" means. She then offered to do it for her. So yes, she just threatened to torture and rape someone Sayaka loves.

What's more, Kyouko not only ntended to beat Sayaka to the point that she'd be paralised for "three months", she deliberately tried to kill her and had clearly killed other magical girls before (explaining her confidence in her ability to maim and kill her opponents). She also deliberatley used violence to stop magical girls from killing familiars, because, as she said herself, she wanted the familiars to kill civilians so they'd become witches. That's the same as murdering cops because you don't want them to catch serial killers, because you want the serial killers to kill more people so you can loot the bodies.

Kyouko's interactions with Sayaka were continual violence, insults and provocation until discovering Kyuubey's deception and even after that, she wasn't even apologetic for her behaviour, while instead suggesting that her behaviour was superior and should be emulated. She insisted that taking what you want and refusing to regard others was the right thing to do. Someone who takes what they want and disregards the wants of others does not have loving relationships. They are inherenly abusive, and yes, that means sexually as well, because she takes what she wants even if her partner doesn't want to give it.

The fact that she sees nothing wrong with how she has physically and emotionally hurt Sayaka at that point just highlights this further. If she has done it before and sees nothing wrong with it, that means she's going to do it again and still consider those actions fine. The fact that she's trying to make Sayaka like herself is not okay. To stop hitting the abusee and start to mould them into another abuser is still abuse. Sayaka gaining absolutely any quality of kyouko's is sickening to me. It's like seeing a work of pure beauty desecrated.

Even in their supposed make-up session, Kyouko strangled Sayaka, falling back into abuse. It's so easy for her. It's a habit. One she'll continue.

Sayaka even points out that Kyouko hasn't changed "where did you get the apples?" Kyouko continues to reject Sayaka's disaproval and refuses to accept Sayaka's "No"s. That isnot anything remotely resembling a healthy relationship. That's one deviod of respect or real caring. It's an abusive relationship where one of the "partners" has no say.

Kyouko deliberately stalked Syaaka after promising Homura to leave her alone and went out of her way to provoke her, grinning when she took the bait as she wanted an excuse to beat Sayaka to death. Anyone looking forward to beating someone to death, while having been told it's not necessary, shouldn't be in a relationship with the person they want to beat to death.

The fact that Kyouko started to lust after Sayaka due to her narcisistic comparison between Sayaka and her past self, doesn't make the relationship any better. A relationship with your past self is inherently an unequal pairing anyway, and Kyouko's desire to "develop" Sayaka into her "more mature" self revolts me.

As such, I'm completely serious in my language.

The circumstance at which you are at you worst is the circumstance which shows who you truly are. Perforing good when it is easy proves nothing.

https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/secret-all-the-ships-tunnel.30261/page-24#post-6749337

Firstly, being mean is plenty. I do not tolerate meanness. Secondly, Kyouko killed plenty of people. Delberately letting a familiar go off to kill people is the same as emptying a machine gun into a crowd of random civilians.

Gonna Sneeze said: ↑ She pretty much is. Yeah she fights Sayaka...one time.​ Twice. With intent to murder. On the second time, she deliberately went out of her way to murder her, simply because she wanted to, for no practical reason. She speaks about how she knows exactly how to disable or kill magical girls, showing her experience, which shows she has murdered many other magical girls before.

Kyouko stopping Sayaka from killing a familiar is an on-screen, premeditated, mass-murder.

If Sayaka followed Kyouko's advice, she wouldn't have been saved. She'd have been destroyed and replaced with something revolting. Another reason for my hatred of the ship.It takes away the good things about Sayaka.

This is ALWAYS brought up and it is astounding to me that, apparently, not one person who has ever watched this show realizes that Kyoko is just fucking with Sayaka when she says this? Everyone is 100% certain Kyoko meant this literally. I don't think there's a sane person on this planet that can legitimately recommend breaking someone's limbs to earn their affection, let alone a ~15 year old girl. Like, it's incredibly obvious she's just trying to piss Sayaka off. It's not nice, but she's not a fucking psychopath.​ Firstly, yes, she isn't sane. Secondly, yes, she was trying to piss her off. She wanted an excuse to murder her. This isn't a good thing.

Gonna Sneeze said: ↑ Right, silly me, how could I have forgotten that part of the twelve episode series where Kyoko went around murdering people and shattering lives with wanton violence; it was a huge plot point considering that Sayaka would never abide such senseless mayhem.​ Yup. You forgot it. It was when she violently stopped Sayaka from killing the famiiar, admitting she wanted the familiar to kill people. Using violence to kill people is called "murder".

See the joke there is that, as I said, that never happened. Nor is it, at any point, implied that something remotely like that has everhappened. In fact author's notes say directly that Kyoko never harms normal people. And if memory serves, Kyoko is never shown ever encountering any magical girls other than the main cast.​ I don't care how directly she murders people! If she kills someone herself or orders a hitman to do it, it's her murder! And the familiars are her hitmen!

She followed Sayaka home for the purpose of provoking Sayaka into giving her an excuse to murder Sayaka.

She admitted to fighting to kill herself, which Sayaka confirms.

Firstly, she doesn't just refuse to attack familiars. She attacks magical girls who try to attack familiars for the purpose of protecting familiars. That's the same as murdering cops for the purpose of protecting serial killers because you want the serial killers to murder more innocent people. And yes, I do engage in vigilantism. (And well, I'm known for my extreme judgements already)

https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/secret-all-the-ships-tunnel.30261/page-24#post-6749305

Again, Kyouko didn't "murder-by-way-of-not-saving-every-person-ever". She murdered by deliberately making sure that more people died.

On one hand, you have someone who doesn't cure a disease. On the other, you have someone who deliberately released the disease into a population center.

On the one hand, you have not protecting someone from an attack dog. On the other, you have someone training a dog to kill and ordering it to go kill people.

On the one hand, you have someone refusing to protect people from a monster. On the other hand, you have someone who releases the monster into a public area and murders anyone who tries to protect the civilians from it.

I don't understand why people don't get this.

Megathread - Mami's Maisonette: Madoka Magica Megathread | Page 11

This is due to the fact that she believed that helping others will lead to even greater evils taking place (aka her wish for her family ended in them committing suicide and kyoko being told by her father who was given brain washing powers that she is a witch/servent of the devil.) She chooses to give up on being good because it leads to greater wrongs taking place. until the events with Sayaka happens.​ And I consider that a completely unacceptable excuse. Even if she was right, not helping others is not the same as going out of your way to kil them, like Kyouko did.

Megathread - Mami's Maisonette: Madoka Magica Megathread | Page 11

Random 832 said: ↑ The real question is whether someone who doesn't train a dog, but follows it around watching it kill people (as it does naturally... really in this analogy it's more like a wolf) until it gets big enough and then kills and eats it, is more similar to the former or the latter.​ Kyouko doesn't do that. We see on screen that she murders anyone who tries to stop the familiar from killing people.

Kyouko admitted herself that she was trying to kill Sayaka. Sayaka herself confirms it.

Megathread - Mami's Maisonette: Madoka Magica Megathread | Page 11

Omegahugger said: ↑ Actually, Kyouko first tried to 'just' hospitalise Sayaka. She didn't try to kill Sayaka until she revealed the ability to heal whatever crippling damage Kyouko inflicted, and began fighting back in earnest as well.​ It still shows her willingness. Besides, crippling is bad enough. Even chasing off without hurting at all is mass murder of innocents.

Aura Twilight said: ↑ Can we just agree that Kyouko and Sayaka are both flawed characters who fail to live up to their own standards, but there's nobility in their trying, even though they take different roads to it? Sayaka tries to hold to her ideals to the point of self-destruction, and Kyouko loses faith in them and turns her back on them, but eventually dies in a blaze as she decides to throw her soul into doing what her heart believes in as a gesture of atonement?​ However, in between turning her back and her sacrifice, Kyouko doesn't try at all, puts in zero effort into being a good person, goes out of her way to commit atrocities, and deliberately targets people for being decent individuals. She has zero redeeming qualities.

Megathread - Mami's Maisonette: Madoka Magica Megathread | Page 11

Aura Twilight said: ↑ Eh, I wouldn't say that. She puts zero effort because she's been quite literally burned in the worst way (trauma like Kyouko's exists in real life, but isn't enabled by magical transhumanism),​ Again, I don't consider that relevant.

doesn't go out of her way to commit atrocities so much as passively benefit from negligence (which is still awful but her arm's twisted by Kyubey's system, here),​ It would still be awful if that was the case, and I'd still consider it mass murder, but it isn't the case. The fact that she stopped Sayaka from killing the familiar was not an act of negligence. She went out of her way to make sure that that familiar killed more people. That's committing an atrocity. Yeah, her arm's twisted by Kyuubey. It's another reason he sucks, but that isn't relevant. She caved into that twisting.

She targets moral behavior in other magical girls. I don't care that the reason is that she feels threatened by it. The point is that she deliberately reduces the number of magical girls out there who are decent human beings, and the world is thus better off with her dead.

She tries to get Sayaka to be like her, because she thinks Sayaka is doing things wrong and she is doing things right. That's unacceptable to me.She was trying to turn Sayaka into another Kyouko, which would have been terrible.

And admittedly, after their most recent fight, when they have their little church scene, Kyouko has a bit of a fit that Sayaka doesn't come around to her way of thinking, and she does get angry and whatnot, so their reconciliation attempt fails. I grant you that, but she's a hormonal, traumatized child soldier who just opened up a lot of old wounds to make herself vulnerable to Sayaka, so she's allowed to lash out a bit, verbally. She doesn't do so physically, which is already a sign of progress.​ Firstly, I say, no, she isn't allowed that. Secondly, she did lash out physically. She grabbed Sayaka by the neck.

If the options are hurting other people or dying the only valid option is dying.

Yeah. That's what I thin of Kyouko.

The other thing of course is that I don't find symbolism particularly trustworthy. It's kind of like the criticism people have for, for example, Twilight. Stephanie Meyer telling us that Edward and Bella are a good couple doesn't mean they are. They're only a good couple if they behave like a good couple towards each other, and no amount of symbolic will change that. It's kind of like Romeo and Juliet. They were a terrible couple who were so toxic to each other, they committed suicide. Which people keep missing. And then people keep throwing in Romeo and Juliet imagery to tell us that their couple is great, except Rome and Juliet imagery doesn't make the couple a good couple. In fact, if they're unfortunate enough to be like Romeo and Juliet, they're a terrible couple.

As such, symbolism or even word of god is not going to turn a couple that treat each other like Sayaka and Kyouko into a good couple. Because the way they treat each other is the only thing that matters, and it's terrible. It's lie defending an abusive boyfriend on the grounds that he met his girlfriend in a really romantic setting.

https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/puella-magi-restitutione-divinus-pmmm-post-rebellion.24530/page-151

I believe that if a romantic relationship is physically capable of starting off badly, it's proof that it isn't a very good relationship. In addition, I believe that the fact that Kyouko is capable of treating anyone that way proves that she's incompatible with Sayaka. Plus, see below:

Well, firstly, I didn't find Kyouko's character arc very believable. I've always seen it as by far the worst written thing about PMMM. I think it was due to rushing in order to fit the story into 12 episodes. But that's okay. Something had to take the hit. That said, I did find it believable that Kyouko lusted after Sayaka. But firstly, that says nothing about reciprocation. Secondly, lusting after someone you treat badly doesn't make it okay to treat them badly. Thirdly, she reacted by trying to change Sayaka into something more like herself. That's still abuse, still disrespect of what makes Sayaka Sayaka, still a sign of incompatibility (as she doesn't love her for who she is and wants to change her into something else), and still taking something great and trying to turn it into something horrible. And it's not like Kyouko stopped with the physical abuse after the lich bomb anyway.

Of course, it's difficult for me to be objective, admittedly, because me seeing Sayaka with Kyouko is kind of like Homura seeing Madoka with Oriko. Sayaka is really special to me and I blame Kyouko for her death (among other things), so I instinctually want to protect her from Kyouko.

What it says is that Kyouko has a personality capable of leading her to the point where she greets innocent people with spear to the face. Them meeting in different circumstances doesn't change the fact that that's part of her personality. I don't see Sayaka willingly being in a romantic relationship with such a person or being anything resembling happy in such a romantic relationship. At least, not while remaining the Sayaka I know. That's why I stopped reading Sayakaquest. The Kyoukoshipping made her increasingly unSayakish. And she went from my favourite character in fiction to a character I disliked.

And that's the thing. The very fact that Kyouko was capable of believing that Sayaka was wrong about something so important to her shows that they're incompatible. She didn't love Sayaka as she is. She wanted to change her into something else I happen to dislike. And I do not believe in getting into relationships with people with "correctable flaws". I consider that inherently unhealthy. I they have a flaw, love them with it or not at all. Don't love who they might possibly become in the future.

Random 832 said: ↑ How is your view better than alt!Sereg's belief that "if a romantic relationship is physically* capable of starting off well, it's proof that it isn't a bad relationship"? The fact that we're working in a setting that contains alternate universes obscures the fact that fundamentally we have to deal with what's actually true, not what's merely possible.

• Also what the heck do you mean "physically". Like, name whatever your favorite pairing is and either one of them is physically capable of immediately stabbing the other at first sight. There being no circumstances in which it will reasonably happen isn't a physical constraint.

1. Eliminating every relationship capable of starting badly from good relationships means that I have gotten rid of relationships with problems. The ones left are all ones which are guaranteed to at least start well, and as such, the percentage of wellness has increased. Alt!Sereg is less restrictive and thus increases the wellness less. In addition, he enforces all relationships that go bad by saying they have to be good as they may have started good (even if they were never good even from day one), meaning he actively causes more abuse and suffering. And generally forces people into horrible relationships of despair.

2. If there is something that could cause a relationship to start badly, it means that there is a part of these people that causes their relationship to go badly. They were just lucky enough to discover it right away. If they are unlucky, they don't discover it right away and alt!Sereg forces them to stick together and be miserable.

I don't see how "actual trueness" makes a difference here.

And I'm including brain makeup in the "physical" side here. They wouldn't do that because they don't have the brain that would do that. Kyouko does. EDIT:^ Well, yes. I said that we know they can become friends. And yes, shipping sells. Which was why they added that pandering scene in Rebellion, even though it did not make sense. But luckily, it can be interpreted as platonic, so I do so.

EDIT: Oh! And Sayaka hated Kyouko in Wraith Arc. She even beat her in a fight and declared that as her prize, the two of them would never speak to each other again.

Random 832 said: ↑ Are circumstances not physical? Yes, they are. But there are only a finite number of circumstances someone can get into, and the ones they can get into depends partially on their personality. Eg. a vegetarian isn't going to get into a circumstance where they are willingly eating meat and an extreme pacifist isn't going to get into a situation where they are stabbing a random person with a knife.

Basically, I think circumstances should not mater in the way you claim they do. For example, in the experiment that shows that people follow orders that are evil simply because they are ordered to, it was shown that some people still refuse to follow those orders. As such, how you respond to circumstances depends on your personality. A relationship should be able to survive any theoretical circumstance, so if there are circumstances where the relationship would be bad, that means it always was bad. That just hadn't been discovered beforehand.

As for Kyouko being blameworthy for Sayaka's death, firstly, she reinforced Sayaka's belief that no other magical girls are trustworthy and the belief she had to go it alone, isolate herself from all other magical girls and prove a point. Secondly, her existence in Kazamino prevented the spread of nicer magical girls throughout Kazamino and into Mitakihara for Mami and Sayaka to befriend. Thirdly, she provoked fights with Sayaka, wasting her magic and her withhunting time. Fourthly, she caused Sayaka emotional stress, eating away further at her magic reserves. Fifthly, she provided a template of what magical girls are like that Sayaka applied to Homura, making her even more reluctant to listen to Homura. Sixthly, she needled at the wound of her love problems with Kyousuke, making that cost more grief than it otherwise would have. Seventhly, she widened the rift between Sayaka and Madoka. Eighthly, she's the reason Sayaka was lichbombed. Ninthly, she was the one who provided Sayaka with the "hope and despair balance out to zero" idea and also got Sayaka onto the idea that the world wasn't worth saving, that eventually led to her witching. Tenthly, Kyouko was the first person to upset Sayaka after her contract, making her the start of Sayaka's spiral and the first domino in her collapse. Eleventhly, Kyouko was so actively repulsive to Sayaka, she completely rejected a grief seed Kyouko helped her acquire an applying that logic to Homura, she did the same to a grief seed Homura offered.

I hold romantic relationships to a far higher standard than other relationships.

Also, I consider the statement that people at differently in different circumstances to be missing the point. The real point is that different people in the same circumstances act differently. As such, I'll say that Sayaka would not be compatible with someone who acts like Kyouko even in Kyouko's circumstances.

Also, I'd say that if a relationship can start badly, that's knowledge of incompatibility.

https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/puella-magi-restitutione-divinus-pmmm-post-rebellion.24530/page-152

I had sent a "deleting YMMV" boilerplate PM to the previous just as the page was restored. Doesn't seem like the banhammer was total, as said person replied this morning.

I'm honestly debating how (or whether) I should respond.

edited 7th Apr '17 5:58:19 AM by megarockman

Don't.

Just, don't start with him.

I agree to disagree and leave it at that.

(Partly because if I go grief seed over an argument in these forums I swear I'll turn the entire Tropewiki into my Labyrinth and all of you into my Familiars. Don't worry, I will only trap people in wikiwalks rather than actually kill anyone.)