To make people actually remember, here's it once for posterity: Minako is nonbinary and uses they/them. This message will be pinned so you people stop getting it wrong and pissing me off. If you get it wrong in the future I'm going to be much less nice, considering you have to scroll past it just to read the quest.
Also people are not the same in every timeline, Sayaka Miki here is proof of that, how many times have preemptive murder potentially cost her allies that could have led to an end to her looping earlier?
Well, okay, but Homura spent decades in the loops under the assumption that they ARE. And... she's not entirely wrong. Sayaka Miki is still Sayaka Miki. That doesn't really change just because this one made different choices.
Hell, Homura probably can't psychologically accept that people are different in the timelines because then she has to accept that Madoka, Her Madoka, died forever and she can never actually save the person who first showed her kindness and brought color to her world.
That possibility might completely destroy her mentally during the loops. Maybe she could cope with it now after like 20 years of being Madoka's wife, but probably not before then.
It's been a minute, so you go ahead and pull your phone up. "I'mma talk to her."
"Mina? With your phone?"
You snort. "No, Madoka."
Kyouko laughs. "Good thing I have a shirt on this time."
You glance up at her, then sigh. "It ain't nothing she hasn't seen before."
"Yeah, but that's different from just calling her. Christ, watch as she's working at home again."
You click her icon and move the phone in front of you. The camera lens flickers into existence on the screen as you shimmy your way into just the right position so that you and Kyouko are in the same shot. The ringtone echoes for a few minutes, the icon rotates, before finally, she picks up.
Her hair is in a lopsided bob; probably one of the most bi of bi hairstyles, and it's one that you helped her pick out. She's not wearing makeup today, and in front of her is a drink mixer and a single glass with an enormous, transparent ice cube, a curled orange peel, and what looks like fine, expensive whiskey.
She's in a white shirt and a dark vest, blazer draped over her chair in a house that overlooks a gigantic, gaping ocean. "It's been a while." Madoka says. Her voice barely resembles her younger self; deeper, more full of meaning. At its core, it's the same girl you knew your entire life, but it's buried under years of gravel and exhaustion.
"A few months, yeah?" You look down at the drink.
She chuckles. "Oh, I made a couple of drinks. I had a visitor tonight and I made us a pair of Old Fashioneds."
"...was it Homura?"
Madoka swirls her cup in her hand. "No."
You wince a little. Maybe they're not on speaking terms. "I was just, uh..."
"Does your child date a magi?" Madoka asks. "I'm not exactly the best person to go to for advice about dating superhumans."
"Yeah, they are." You sigh. "I was honestly calling to see how you dealt with it. You know, back when you and Homura were together."
Madoka shrugs. "Again, not the best person to ask about that." She sips her drink. Her phone jitters a little when she puts it back down; it's probably propped up on some cheap stand. "But I can tell you that they're going to miss their partner and it'll eat at them whenever they're too far out. The guilt was unbearable. It's borderline choking and when I split with her it was a relief.
"It was especially relieving when she stopped threatening me with witching out. When she stopped telling me that she couldn't live without me. When she stopped telling me she couldn't live without what she thought was me."
She scratches her cheek. "I still miss that, though. Not going to lie, I still miss her a lot." She sighs. "The only thing that kept me from contracting on Walpurgisnacht, and every single other night she came back injured, was the fact that my contracting would literally end the world. On that note, I'm thankful my potential diminished. And by the time I could get a contract, I didn't need it."
She shakes her head. "I'm sorry. I get ramble-y when I'm boozy. Took the month off because I overworked myself again. Maybe a 90-hour work week was a bad idea? I'm lucky my boss actually understands ethical work stuff. I don't know. I don't know much of anything. Eh."
"You've barely touched that drink," you say. "And you're not a lightweight."
"Heh. Okay, maybe I'm not as liquored up as I said I was. S'only been a drink." She sighs. "I really need to try some different cocktail recipes. Did you know that Sangria popsicles are actually pretty good?"
"Oh, they're great." Kyouko puts her head on your shoulder. "I put one in a margarita and it was delicious."
"Ahhh, see, I think that's a little too much, but I can see why you'd do that." Madoka swirls her drink around before taking another sip. "But a good margarita is amazing. I actually managed to have one while I was in Texas to close a licensing agreement. They wanted to do the meeting in person and I mean, they were okay. Lot of men, though. Didn't expect me to play hardball and I think they were expecting my accent to be thicker." She smirks.
<"They were weak sharks and I felt secondhand embarrassment watching them.">
<"Putting my lessons to good use."> Kyouko taps her chest proudly.
Madoka points a fingergun at the camera and finishes up her drink. "Darn right."
You're not even going to try; you're only at the point where you can understand them. Your own English ability is...lacking. You can speak Mandarin just fine, though. "Oh, on a different note, there's another gang in Kasamino. We somehow missed it until they started trying to go overt."
"Oh, shit." Madoka pushes the glass off-screen before grabbing a new glass and dropping a sugar cube in. "Did they hurt anyone this time?"
"They got close, but no deaths so far. They're a bit strange. Leader supposedly has some kind of influencing power."
"I thought mind control didn't work." She gets a bottle of bitters and taps it a few times, a couple of drops splashing right on the sugar cube. She takes a little thimble of water and pours it in.
"Well, that's the thing. It doesn't." Kyouko rolls her shoulder on yours. "So we were thinking that it works off of suggestion...well, not suggestion. More like she has to convince people first?"
"So like a cult leader." She smashes the sugar with a wooden pestle, and she initially moves for the whiskey before she stops herself. She sighs, pushes it away, and pulls out a bottle of rye instead. She mixes it quickly with a spoon.
"Exactly." Kyouko sighs. "I know too much about this."
"Huh." She drops a single, perfectly-shaped ice cube into the cup from off-screen and mixes it some more. "So you have a cult? Is she young?"
"I met with her. She seems like she's in her twenties." You say. "Doesn't seem to understand that Kyubey doesn't only target girls."
"Oh, so she's exhausting, too." She twists a pre-sliced orange peel just over the drink before dropping the spiraling slice right into the cup. "I bet she doesn't know what 'bi' means."
"You have way too much experience making that drink," you say.
"I have fifty-three cocktails committed to memory and I am going to use that knowledge."
Kyouko snickers. "When we do meet up, we'll have to go out for drinks. See if your stuff's up to snuff."
"Go out? I can just make them right here!" Madoka laughs. "Or maybe we can meet with Homu," she says.
You blink. "Oh, so you are on speaking terms?"
"Oh, yeah, we met again a month ago. Nothing too serious; just talking. Like friends." Madoka swirls her drink. "Okay, you were on the money. I met with her this night, actually."
Kyouko clicks her tongue. "Is she...better?"
"I've never seen her smile as wide as I did when I met her again. Hair in a bun, glasses, and we actually had a real conversation. An actual, honest-to-god conversation." Madoka sighs. "Her lips looked soft."
"Hey, don't-"
"I wasn't gonna kiss her there. She wasn't comfortable with that, and she said she wasn't going for anything monogamous this time."
You sigh in relief. "I'm just glad she's okay."
"Yeah. Same." Madoka swirls her glass. "How's Minako doing, since I mean, you said they found a magi S.O."
"I'm actually gonna check on them right now." Kyouko wriggles a little bit. "Make sure they're safe and all that." She slides out from under you, and before she heads out of the room, she gives you a quick kiss on the lips.
"Safe? You think they got a visit from Incubator?"
"I know so. That thing is an opportunist." You scratch your chin. "Their girlfriend was horribly injured. I'm just worried that-"
You hear footsteps immediately. Kyouko rounds the corner, stops right in front of the bedroom door. And Madoka can see your expression change from pensive, to worried, to terrified.
You know what Kyouko's about to say before she even says it.
Her hair is in a lopsided bob; probably one of the most bi of bi hairstyles, and it's one that you helped her pick out. She's not wearing makeup today, and in front of her is a drink mixer and a single glass with an enormous, transparent ice cube, a curled orange peel, and what looks like fine, expensive whiskey.
She's in a white shirt and a dark vest, blazer draped over her chair in a house that overlooks a gigantic, gaping ocean. "It's been a while." Madoka says. Her voice barely resembles her younger self; deeper, more full of meaning. At its core, it's the same girl you knew your entire life, but it's buried under years of gravel and exhaustion.
... Ok, it was the gravel comment, but now I can't hear Madoka's voice in anything but a stereotypical noir detective voice. Like classic Humphrey Bogart noir detective. Or maybe a bit of Sin City.
Madoka shrugs. "Again, not the best person to ask about that." She sips her drink. Her phone jitters a little when she puts it back down; it's probably propped up on some cheap stand. "But I can tell you that they're going to miss their partner and it'll eat at them whenever they're too far out. The guilt was unbearable. It's borderline choking and when I split with her it was a relief.
On the one hand, this is less putting a gun at the wall and more the guy walking on stage and aiming at the audience. On the other, that's a nasty description of things to come and things that have.
"It was especially relieving when she stopped threatening me with witching out. When she stopped telling me that she couldn't live without me. When she stopped telling me she couldn't live without what she thought was me."
She shakes her head. "I'm sorry. I get ramble-y when I'm boozy. Took the month off because I overworked myself again. Maybe a 90-hour work week was a bad idea? I'm lucky my boss actually understands ethical work stuff. I don't know. I don't know much of anything. Eh."
I am immediately suspicious. Maybe I'm paranoid and nobody's out to get me. But after that description of how straight-up Yandere Homura went, I need alot more info to believe she's better.
. "Okay, you were on the money. I met with her this night, actually."
Kyouko clicks her tongue. "Is she...better?"
"I've never seen her smile as wide as I did when I met her again. Hair in a bun, glasses, and we actually had a real conversation. An actual, honest-to-god conversation." Madoka sighs. "Her lips looked soft."
Five bucks says she got picked up by the cult. I might not have to worry about an entire city block being leveled by IEDs, but a Homura that's compromised in any way is a threat I feel needs a constant watch on.
Or maybe I don't know something Sayaka and Madoka know. Probably that. Hell, for all we know Homura doesn't even give a shit about Coobs anymore.
You hear footsteps immediately. Kyouko rounds the corner, stops right in front of the bedroom door. And Madoka can see your expression change from pensive, to worried, to terrified.
You know what Kyouko's about to say before she even says it.
I mean, look at Junko? Madoka's really just grown into the Kaname family style and vice, I think. Even has her hair in a similar fashion, if a little bit fluffier and less business like.
She became precisely what you'd expect from a Chosen One who successfully avoided getting onto the Plot Train, and now has to spend that endless well of righteous heroine energy on things in the real world that don't actually go and change it into something better.
90 hour work week what the christ lady when do you sleep caffeine only goes so far!
That being said, this is still a better outcome than canon Madoka I suppose. Which just goes to show how awful her fate was.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Madokaaaaaaaaaaa, those eye bags. Plz work a normal schedule and sleep normally and when was the last time you visited a therapist.
I feel Doka's prooooobably not being fully honest on the Homu front. I would actually like to meet up with everyone, including Homura, just to check on-
Actually, if she's working 12 hours a day she does have eight hours of sleep, an ethical fifteen minute break every two hours, a 30 minute lunch every four, and then four hours for travel, other meals, or relaxation. It's something in practice entirely beyond most human limits of adequate performance and safe work standards, but can in theory be done. And if overtime pay is indeed honored over corporate's justified objections to what a rather noticeable budget drain those one-and-a-half shifts become, incredibly lucrative both monetarily and reputationally.
Madoka might not ever make it to CEO at this job. But her firm's clients almost certainly know she's responsible for the majority of her department's output, and when she hits out for her own startup will have a very large client list to draw from. And I'm not even starting on investments. Once retirement age rolls around, as Madoka will never accept an early retirement unless it's by men in white gowns, Madoka will probably one of the wealthiest women in Japan.
Of course, she'll never be happy with that title. What good is money if you're not saving the world, right?
Mmm, kay. Let's see how it goes.
And Minako, you dummy, if you contract offscreen, I'll never forgive you, just so you know. I need my weekly quota of watching teenagers do weird and ill-advised shit, and I need it firsthand and wrapped in a nice package.
But let's be real, they just probably ran away because there's a circus in town their parents won't allow them to come see.
Edit:
And holy shit, Madoka looks like she could advertise something... something eh. Rocking that exhausted businesswoman look a little too much, imo.
So, uh, Moid, the whole "mind affecting magic doesn't work on magi"? That's not canon. At all.
There are numerous (canon) side stories that show that mind-altering magic does work on magi and magical beings. One of them has magical girl whose power is literally to alter, remove, and modify memories of others, very much including magical girls (she did it to the main character, no less). She can do it to the extent that she can alter the personality of a magi pretty drastically, too, turning a good girl into a serial killer of magi. In a different side story, there's a magical girl who can also mess with memories, to the point of affecting a magi's sanity (for better and for worse). And those are just the ones I know of off the top of my head.
It's odd, because this story also shows mind manipulation magic pretty strongly, too. It's not even soft persuasion magic, it's full blown "turn nice girls into stone-cold assassins who retain little memory of their past".
So, uh, Moid, the whole "mind affecting magic doesn't work on magi"? That's not canon. At all.
There are numerous (canon) side stories that show that mind-altering magic does work on magi and magical beings. One of them has magical girl whose power is literally to alter, remove, and modify memories of others, very much including magical girls (she did it to the main character, no less). She can do it to the extent that she can alter the personality of a magi pretty drastically, too, turning a good girl into a serial killer of magi. In a different side story, there's a magical girl who can also mess with memories, to the point of affecting a magi's sanity (for better and for worse). And those are just the ones I know of off the top of my head.
It's odd, because this story also shows mind manipulation magic pretty strongly, too. It's not even soft persuasion magic, it's full blown "turn nice girls into stone-cold assassins who retain little memory of their past".
So, uh, Moid, the whole "mind affecting magic doesn't work on magi"? That's not canon. At all.
There are numerous (canon) side stories that show that mind-altering magic does work on magi and magical beings. One of them has magical girl whose power is literally to alter, remove, and modify memories of others, very much including magical girls (she did it to the main character, no less). She can do it to the extent that she can alter the personality of a magi pretty drastically, too, turning a good girl into a serial killer of magi. In a different side story, there's a magical girl who can also mess with memories, to the point of affecting a magi's sanity (for better and for worse). And those are just the ones I know of off the top of my head.
It's odd, because this story also shows mind manipulation magic pretty strongly, too. It's not even soft persuasion magic, it's full blown "turn nice girls into stone-cold assassins who retain little memory of their past".
It's almost like I'm the writer, and am thus in control of the story being told. Did you know that I also have control over the interpretation of the text, how said text can be rewritten, and how different characters are explored and rules are reexamined?
Welcome to the "transformative" part of transformative fiction.
ok but can we appreciate the real miracle here is that madoka works japanese salarywoman hours, has little to no time to take care of her bisexual bob, and her hair still has VOLUME like???? what a queen
It's odd, because this story also shows mind manipulation magic pretty strongly, too. It's not even soft persuasion magic, it's full blown "turn nice girls into stone-cold assassins who retain little memory of their past".
Perhaps the fact that Rin is apparently doing the impossible and controlling the thoughts and actions of her underlings says something specific about the methods she's using, and/or informs the larger themes at work in this quest
Or maybe Moid is just being inconsistent for no reason. Truly, who can say?
ok but can we appreciate the real miracle here is that madoka works japanese salarywoman hours, has little to no time to take care of her bisexual bob, and her hair still has VOLUME like???? what a queen
*sees who gave an insightful rating*
... either I need to see my doctor about upping my meds again, I need to learn how to take a joke, or Sayaka has no clue her First Waifu lied about Contracting.
