"Wait..wait..wait... Wh..WHAT IS THIS?", Madoka continued yelling toward the mirror as she walked forward, extending a hand and touching the window. Truth was, you weren't Madoka, Madoka was an anime character. You were now Madoka.
—Magia Revolution, episode 1.
Magia Revolution
(aka Puella Magi /a/nonymous Magica) is a series of Puella Magi Madoka Magica Choose Your Own Adventure games which started with one basic premise: Handing control of Madoka Kaname's body to the anonymous folks at 4chan's /a/ board. The same anonymous folks who may be aware of the horrors the show brings.
Once Madoka's mind is swapped with that of /a/'s collective consciousness, her physical form is turned into a Genre Savvy crusader, naming themselves Faust, who seeks to set things right in the Madokaverse. Uncontrollable plot points from the show remain present, but the actual plot diverges drastically as a result of game breaking decision making and abilities courtesy of Anonymous. There are many complications; meddling of the timeline has led to, among others, the appearance of Oriko, Kirika and Yuma as well as Kazumi, increasingly unforeseeable events, and the consciousness of the real Madoka needing to be jettisoned...somewhere...whenever Anonymous takes control of her body. The series started out very lightheartedly (by lighthearted, we mean Anonymous-controlled Madoka being hilariously Out of Character on the first day) before drifting in and out of Serious Business territory, albeit with a steady turn for the Darker and Edgier. It doesn't hold back with the Shipping either.
Magia Revolution ran a total of 23 episodes posted over the course of over a week in both the /a/ board and, towards the end, the /tg/ board. Like other imageboard-based CYOA, part of the fun is reading the choices and reactions made by Anonymous as they grew increasingly paranoid of the fate of the characters as the story progressed. Very NSFW frequently due to the nature of Anonymous, the author's impressively deranged mind, and, after the halfway point, a very persistent spammer at /a/ who was the primary reason threads were alternately posted between /a/ and /tg/.
Revolution is followed by four CYOAs:
- Magia Covenant, an interquel that takes place between Revolution and Sketch, in which Anonymous is given the helm of an Incubator named Anonbey/Anbey. As you would expect, this CYOA can be rather grim, even by Revolution standards.
- Magia Sketch, which picks up from where Revolution left off following a two-week time skip with a seemingly Lighter and Softer Slice of Life plot; only time will tell if it stays this way (it didn't). Finished at 12 episodes, but was then Ret Conned when Magia Rebuild started.
- Magia Rebuild, the true sequel to Revolution.
- Magia: Price of Justice, A sub-series that takes place after Rebuild, though they are not directly connected.
- Magia Resonance, the first part of Price of Justice. Instead of controlling Faust, the audience takes the place of Sayaka instead.
- The author have planned four more CYOA: Requiem, Radiant, Radical and Rainfall.
Heavy spoilers for both Puella Magi Madoka Magica, both spinoffs and the entirety of this story below.
The entirety of the work can be found here, organized by series.
This work provides examples of:
- All There in the Manual: Bits of trivia, such as
Poorfag's involvement in the plot of both Revolution and Sketch, can be found in scattered Q&As with the author as well as Revolution's afterword. - All Your Powers Combined: Faust eventually gains the ability to use the other main Puellae's magical weaponry and powers.
- Alternate Timeline: As in canon, although exploited here to save Timeline 3's characters and bring them into the fight.
- The "barriers" between timelines begin breaking down over the course of the story.
- Faust and Anbey fight in Ep.9 of Sketch, accidently warping themselves to the canon timeline of the anime.
- Balance Between Good and Evil: Or hope and despair, as in the series. All the positive changes Faust makes are counterbalanced by negative ones in the universe.
- Both Faust and Anbey, respectively.
- Backup Twin: Or Backup alternate, with Mami and Kyouko.
- Big Bad: The entity that brought both Faust and Anbey into the Madokaverse is known as Ouroboros.
- Body Surf: One of Faust's abilities, although he remains in Madoka's body for the most part.
- Butt-Monkey: Kyubey becomes this later on in Revolution.
- This ranges from "firing Kyubey at the familiar at mach speed" to the Kyubey "Rocket-Jump".
- This ranges from
- Casual Danger Dialogue: Anbey fighting Ouroboros in Sketch episode 6.Anbey: Oh, laser duel? I win, sorry.
- Enemy Without: Of a sort. Due to the Time Crash, a super-powered Oktavia von Seckendorff appears from an Alternate Timeline and confronts the magical girls and Sayaka, who didn't even contract. Made even better by the reaction of Anonymous outside the story, which was to link to the Persona 4 boss theme.
- Event Flag: Used by the author, and theorized about by the Anonymous collective, to the point of eventually considering virtually everything a possible Death Flag.
- Fix Fic: Or at least Faust is consciously trying for this to happen. It's hardly that simple.
- Gamebooks
- Good Thing You Can Heal: Exploited endlessly thanks to the Soul Gem.
- Half the Man He Used to Be: Homura gets cut in half by a witch. She gets better.
- Hope Spot: After Kyouko's death, she has been seemingly influencing the world again, and appears to Mami and Yuma for a heartwarming scene...Only to be revealed as a witch in disguise.
- Incest Subtext: Anbey and Faust are siblings who, no matter how many times they battle each other in different worlds, always fall in love with one another.
- Literal Split Personality: Faust and Madoka near the end of Revolution. Madoka retains her original appearance, but Faust takes the form of a Muggle version of Madoka's "goddess" alter ego.
- Ludicrous Gibs: The state of Kyouko's corpse in the beginning of Revolution episode 7 after confronting the blood witch.
- Mauve Shirt: What the /a/ thought about the Pleiades Saints except Kazumi, especially glaring in the battle against the first Walpurgisnacht. This became less so in Magia Rebuild as the plot shifts to Asunaro when Anbey's Puella Magi attacks Faust, Madoka, and Sayaka, teleports Faust to Asunaro to separate them and forces her to make a contract unknowingly.
- Meaningful Name: The protagonist names themselves Faust.
- Medium Awareness: Sort of. Faust knows that the world they're in was originally part of an anime, but is unaware of currently being in a game (although there is a mention of thousands of voices in his/her head).
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: So, you've got nifty Psychic Powers which you can use without even needing to contract, hmm? Too bad each use of them causes distortions in the universe...
- Which make the witches even stronger...
- But averted with some more helpful distortions that result, as well as the eventual ending.
- Not Quite Dead: Yuma at one point, due to her soul gem not being destroyed when her body was impaled repeatedly by a witch.
- Off with Her Head!: Fittingly, on Mami in episode 15 in Revolution. The decapitation itself doesn't kill her, but her head, along with her Soul Gem and the rest of her body, is then crushed thoroughly.
- Oh, Crap!: Almost anything can trigger this reaction from the collective, even if it's a calm gentle line like "All seemed well."
- Past-Life Memories: Or Alternate Timeline memories, but the same general concept, applying to all the main heroines as a result of the different timelines coalescing.
- Psychic Dreams for Everyone: Or at least Faust.
- Railroading: To some extent at certain points, although not nearly as bad as it could be.
- Rouge Angles of Satin: At times, somewhat justified due to the writer rushing to write and post each part on the threads.
- Shout-Out: Thousands. This is 4chan we're talking about, where people can upload images to go with their post. This results in people using pictures from random shows as reaction shots, reference points, or simply avatars. The spammer goes for Accelerator and Touma as their avatars, when he isn't breaking out the NSFW content.
- One of the most obvious is Faust's sudden contract to gain power to protect people, her memory loss as she uses her abilities, her Dead Pan Snarker attitude to Anbey, her PM outfit: a long, red longcoat, with black armor and a skirt. If that wasn't enough, you have her weapons of choice, which is a pair of black and white swords that have a Precision-Guided Boomerang effect when thrown. Add to this Faust gaining a literal Reality Marble and her activation chant/Badass Creed:
"This light is my own.No one can take it from us.No one can hide it.The pain we've endured.All for nothing...And all for everything!"- This is the chant that activates her Barrier, and will probably remind you of another Badass Creed/Reality Marble Aria. (All it's missing is the "And so, as I pray..." line, and you'd have the right line count!) Then you have her ability to use attacks and abilities of other Puella Magi, and you have to conclude that Faust is either related to Archer, or a female Expy.
- Most recently, her black and white twin blades can do a version of Crane Wing Three Chains, and she can summon a horde of blades out of thin air a la Unlimited Blade Works.
- Split-Personality Merge: Faust becomes aware of their gradual merge with Madoka, but allowed it to happen for a good cause during the first dream sequence. It doesn't last very long.
- Something We Forgot: So Oriko and Kirika have been defeated, with all the heroines surviving... Wait, didn't Kyouko go off to fight that witch?
- Switching P.O.V.: Although the audience only has control over the decisions when the story is being told from Faust's POV.
- The Unmasqued World: The finale seems to have headed in this direction.
- Take a Third Option: The "Other" story choice, which allows Anon to take their own decisions instead of following the railroad. While it can lead to some... odd plot turns, things would have gotten far worse if not for it (Yuma would have died early on, for starters).
- The Last Dance: Day 20.
- The Team Normal: Sayaka.
- Tempting Fate: By Revolution's episode 11 repeated requests by readers to have Madoka scissoring Homura were frequent. Homura is cut in half by a witch soon after.
- Time Crash
- Took a Level in Badass: Yuma, and she was already a Badass Adorable in her original series. Hitomi as well, once she contracts.
- In Resonance, Sayaka. To wit,she was the weakest magical girl in the source material. Resonance Sayaka? She gained several new techniques and manages to One-Hit Kill Superboss the Witch of Infinity via her new Limit Break.
- Trapped in TV Land
-
Trolling Creator: And an incredibly effective one, too. Urobuchi would be proud. - Villain Protagonist: Anbey in Covenant.
- Yuri Fan: Many, many of the audience participants.
Tropes pertaining to Magia Rebuild:
- Bittersweet Ending: Madoka ends up dying trying to save Faust. This however causes Faust's soul to manifest and take control of Madoka's body again. She forms The Spear of Destiny, destroys her witch, causing a paradox, recreating the world to be a happier place (?), but at the cost of Faust's existence trapped in the Starcrossed Place for hundreds of years. Only Homura remembers her. Remind you of something?
- Hope Spot: When it seems like Faust is about to lose all her magic and witch out in Episode 21, she makes use of her Anbey Relationship Value to restore her power. And she's not going anywhere for a while, right? Oh wait, no actually, she did go witch.
- Multiple Endings: In a sense. Faust hits a Bad End in episode 8, but they got to try again.
- No Name Given: The Witch of Infinity
- Relationship Values: Because Faust's power relates to the girls, her only thing that keep herself anchored to Madoka Magica universe, she has this as a gauge of how strong her powers manifest. That's including Sayaka's Healing Factor, even though she doesn't contract this time.
- Same with Madoka's arrows. Which gives Faust no small amount of worry when she discovers that these powers work by remotely grabbing power from the other person's magical reserves.
