had an interesting idea in the middle of the night last night- basically, "how different can i make the pmmm characters from their canon counterparts while still making it logical and justified by the events leading up to this point?" (also it's a non-magical au bc i could not for the life of me figure out a way to get everything up and running with kyubey around and shit) figured it was an interesting enough query, so i did my best
first off, kyoko personally watched her parents die in some sort of freak accident, and in an attempt to rationalize it, her young brain invented some sort of malevolent being she supposedly saw that was responsible for it- so now she's a shy, stammering, easily-spooked girl with a vested interest in the occult
and she takes care of momo on her own, who has grown into a sassy, sharp-tongued, prideful elementary schooler who's constantly complaining and nagging about how timid she is and how she can barely take care of herself, much less her little sister- but she always means well, and very much cares about kyoko in the end
madoka has become the teacher's pet, student council president, perfect-looks perfect-grades type, who everyone loves and hates in equal measure, because she ended up getting a perfect score on a difficult test at one point merely because she enjoyed the subject, and then ended up getting high off the praise and recognition from her classmates and craving more
hitomi ended up essentially having a breakdown, with the weight of her parents' expectations much too heavy and no support system- madoka's changed and grown apart, kyousuke never broke his hand and ended up going on tour, leaving them behind, and sayaka kind of retreated into herself over that- so she began pushing back as hard as possible, and now she's a full-on tanned gyaru.
mami, during her orphaning, couldn't help but notice the way everyone stopped and stared, nobody stepping in to try and help as her parents bled out in the wreckage, and became vengeful against the injustices of the world, so she's become a full-blown rebel punk who enjoys spray-painting graffiti, cursing loudly, and petty theft from corporations. she also has an odd friendship with kyoko as dead-parents buddies. hitomi has a thing for her, and regularly tries to flirt with her, but she's too brooding and oblivious to ever realize that's what it is
sayaka couldn't take the way everyone seemed to change around her- madoka drifted away, kyosuke left her behind, and hitomi's completely fucking unrecognizable, so she ended up running away from home and becoming a vaguely unhinged delinquent- now she sculks the alleys and grimy places of the city and causes trouble for anyone who doesn't fit her (constantly shifting, baffling, often petty) standards as a way to let out her overwhelming feelings. she's also obsessively fixated on kyoko (who's firmly convinced sayaka is a ghost haunting her) because she's got a justice boner over her timidity and wants to protect her
then we have homura- since everyone had already changed so much when she transferred in, no one was there to be her friend, so the moment she stopped being new and interesting, everyone completely ignored her and left her alone. naturally, she grew bitter and isolated, and eventually stopped coming to school altogether- so now she's a spiteful, sardonic femcel neet who hasn't showered in months and spends all her time in her room, playing eroge and watching magical girl anime. she just swaddles herself in her blanket with her laptop, nurses a boner all day, and wallows in her own filth. madoka, as the perfect responsible student, is asked by the teachers to repeatedly go check on homura and try and convince her to come back to school, and she ends up being inexplicably drawn to the girl's refusal to acknowledge her accolades and her pungent odor, much to homura's confusion and annoyance (she'll wear her down eventually)
finally, we have nagisa- shortly after her parents' divorce, she found an unscratched lottery ticket on the wind, and miraculously, they won the grand prize. her mother invested it properly, and therefore had enough both for her medical treatment and to ensure both she and her daughter could live in luxury for… well, the rest of their lives. so now nagisa's kind of a spoiled, posh, endlessly childish mama's girl brat, always taking everything for granted, wearing designer clothes from mother dearest and refusing to eat anything that costs less than 20 dollars (not sure what her relation to the rest of the cast would be- someone probably gets saddled with babysitting her or something? maybe she'd get paired with momo that'd be cute)
and that is my au! idfk what to call it- i probably won't write anything out of it, either, but it was a fun thought experiment idk. do what you want with it as long as you credit me lol
