Just like the franchise itself, me and Sparkle's playthrough of Madoka Portable returns from (what feels like) a thirteen year hiatus, with part nineteen!!
Read part 18 here!
In this thrilling installment, we take a focus on the worst day of everyone's lives as the game kindapped us for like 40 full minutes for a single scene you can't back out of or save halfway through!
Featuring: kyousaya, kyoumamisaya, sayaka's crippling depression and self worth issues, and trauma!
Lmao wouldn't you like to know, Weasel
Miserably cheering: She said the line, everyone...
Girl I know you missed a lot of school but there were 3 of them - you can count, right?
-----
I swear to god every single scene starts with this exact image but a different background I'm gonna SCREAM
It really breaks my heart that Sayaka knows that she's doing things wrong, that she's pushing people away and isolating herself, but she just can't help it...
Girl you didn't convey SHIT
And just in the nick of time, when Sayaka sees Hitomi and considers following her, who should turn up but Kyouko!!
Really interesting that Kyouko is constantly used as a contrast to Kyousuke here, that Kyousuke seems so indifferent to Sayaka while Kyouko is obsessively seeking her out... parallels...
God there's so much delicious shit to unpack here. Kyouko keeps saying that she's here to "pick off" the girls one by one, and she's all about using as little magic as possible and minimising personal risk, AND YET
She refuses to just ambush Sayaka and beat her senseless. It has to be a fight. It has to be a duel, between Magical Girls.
Also I love her perspective of "before anyone intrudes" she really, really wants Sayaka all to herself she's so needy omg
I think we're alone now, there doesn't seem to be anyone around...
GOD SHE'S SO FUCKING JEALOUS I LOVE IT
"stop looking at that boyyyy look at me, handsome girl I keep saying I want to kill but I just can't help talking to"
AGHH THE KYOUMAMI TORMENTTTTTT
She really feels so betrayed by Mami goddddd
Kyouko's so strong for pursuing her crush like this even though her crush wants to kill her and is obsessed with her ex
lmao I just put an unspeakable amount of effort into such a childish joke with such bad results
clingy gf mad that she got interrupteeddddd
Also Mami's here, yay!!! Keeping true to her promise to back Sayaka up if she needed it!
God I just get so happy when all 3 of them are on the screen like thisss
"I can't let Mami know I'm trying to date her mentee"
Also it's really funny that Mami's diplomacy tactic is to just shoot them every time they start getting too riled up and then sigh like "oh I wish we could just have a civilised conversation...."
Fixed it for you Kyouko <3
OKAY LORE???
I think what she means here is that there was a dormant Grief Seed, kinda like Charlotte's, nearby (that's why mami was actually here) and just like in ep 3, we learn that Witches respond to the presence of Magical Girls kinda aggressively so their fighting triggered a defensive instinct of some kind
The Grief Seed was not mentioned at all prior to this moment btw
Same girl
Also shit it's actually Charlotte
Ah Kyouko already has a petname for her <3
Playing this with the KyouSaya goggles WELDED to my face btw
ouughhhhh as soon as Sayaka asks her to say her name she does ittt
It's incredible that ten minutes ago they were genuinely fighting to the death, then as soon as the Witch turns up Kyouko leaps on the opportunity to call a truce and starts acting like an old married couple with Sayaka
idk this just really presents Sayaka as someone who does all this for Kyousuke out of societal obligation, even though she's sure she loves him she can't for a single moment imagine a happy married life with him
idk it's so sad, this reveal that even before she became a Magical Girl she felt like she had no future
idk this just hits me so hard in the comphet feels
oh god
oh god oh fuck
in the second timeline, Kyouko, Sayaka and Mami face Charlotte together, and when they find themselves in trouble, Mami demands Kyouko and Sayaka retreat to find Madoka and Homura... When Sayaka refuses and gets attacked, Mami... takes the fall
God it's so sad Kyouko and Sayaka have to be there for that, and it's so sad that Sayaka's going to immediately blame herself for getting Mami killed, but!! I understand her!!
She's having such an identity crisis, she's trying so hard to find her place in the world right now and the ONE THING she can do is get hurt in place of other people. And when Mami insists Sayaka abandon her instead of doing that one thing... in her position I would have disobeyed too
And to say nothing of Kyouko's immediate obedience, the way that despite everything she trusts Mami so implicitly that she knows to back off when Mami says, she knows that Mami can hold off the Witch... oh my heart
hhhhhh I'm gonna die
This is such a fascinating glimpse into Kyouko's mind, she really just wanted to prove Mami wrong, after all this time... Justify everything she'd done, gain the acceptance of her senpai again...
WAIT NO SAYAKA NOT YOUR SOUL GEM NOT HERE
SHE THREW IT INTO THE LABYRINTH AS IT CLOSED OH GOD OH FUCK
"I quit being a Magical Girl" SAYAKA NOOOOO
WHEERRE THE FUCK WERE YOU TWO
I've, uhh... reached the image limit for a tungle post, but immediately when Madoka sees what's happened to Sayaka she blames Kyouko and my heart broke, but Kyouko was able to explain the situation and Kyubey smugly strolls on by to deliver horrific exposition about the Soul Gems and gives them two days to hunt down the Witch and recover Sayaka's Soul Gem.
Kyouko offers to take in Sayaka's body and keep it fresh... They also bring up the really interesting facts that Kyouko's not really very good at this kind of Magic, and that Madoka and Homura (presumably due to inexperience) probably can't do it at all even though it is possible for them, and that Mami was much better at this kind of thing... Perhaps a rare mention of her Wish Magic??
God tho what an experience
Tune in next time as madohomu search for Sayaka’s soul gem!
This one... this one was such a wild ride. I cannot believe we got treated to some light-hearted kyoumamisaya, her keeping the kouhais in line while they bicker, only for her to end up having her "accident" (as they call it in this game lmao).
I was also extremely surprised by Kyouko's sheer obsession with Sayaka, like she clearly has no idea how to communicate her infatuation and keeps picking fights, but the moment she actually has a chance to kill Sayaka she chooses to protect and take care of her instead. How much she cares about what Mami thinks of her too is heartbreaking.
I also really feel I'm going insane trying to follow Sayaka's logic about why she (thinks she) loves Kyosuke. More ramblings about comphet and how Sayaka sees herself as worthless unless she can serve others under the cut:
In the anime I thought Sayaka actually did have a proper relationship with Kyosuke (even if you want to view it as just platonic / puppy love) and I was expecting some more chemistry here... but nope, combined with this conversation about her seeing a conventional married life with children and a job as a half-hearted attempt to fit in and to fulfill the expectations of others, to be useful, to give her body up in service of bearing children or hunting witches... She's always gushing about Kyosuke playing the violin, but she never ever finds a single thing about the boy himself attractive or appealing. This truly feels like peak comphet concussion to me and unfortunately I speak from experience here. I wanted to be careful and not project my own baggage onto this too much, but the evidence is just there; this is what it looks like. Sayaka's not in love with Kyosuke, she's not even in love with the idea of him, she's in love with the idea of being in love. And her inoffensive childhood friend is just kind of there, convenient and unthreatening. When she says Kyuosuke means everything to her, what she actually means is clinging on to the hope that she can somehow "fulfill her duty" and still find happiness, even when serving the needs of others as a magical girl, means everything to her.
And Madoka reaching out to her in this time, wanting nothing but her companionship instead of servitude, feels like a slap in the face. Kyouko is there too, saying to give up on wanting to be useful, that it's better to say goodbye to the hope that a magical girl could ever live an "acceptable" life and to have an "acceptable" existence. Magical girls don't get married, they don't have children, they don't go on dates with boys; The only ones who can understand magical girls are other magical girls. And that thought... is so profoundly sad. But what's worse is that giving up on all that is freeing. A magical girl that follows Kyouko's advice is free to explore, to give the middle finger to all those expectations Sayaka already feels burdened by. In her own mind, even before she became a magical girl, Sayaka’s body was never her own. Accepting Kyouko here would of course mean upending this entire worldview, and that too is too much to bear. With freedom comes the pain of having to decide what your life will look like without the guidance of rules, the price is having to know who you are. And as highlighted by her clinging on to the idea that she gets to be in love with Kyosuke and that one day it would all make sense and be “normal”, Sayaka has no idea who she is or what she wants. Beyond her body that serves others, she’s dumb and cringe and an idiot. She doesn’t allow herself to want anything, and she dresses this insecurity up as her being a selfless defender of Kyosuke because dying for a cause is less frightening than figuring out who you are. And it is also true that Kyouko lost everything when she became a magical girl and started living “selfishly”, the evidence is right there. I truly feel sorry for them both, but yet they keep finding solace in each others company.
Suletta/Miorine, wholesome as it is, has soooo much dark ship potential. Suletta the devoted weapon, the well-trained war-hound on a leash, and Miorine succumbing to the temptation to grab that leash and wield that weapon. Suletta would thank Miorine for using her.
Oh abso-FUCKING-lutely XD
Really, the main reason SuleMio turned out ‘cute and wholesome’ is simply the fact that Miorine happens to be one of the most normal and SANE characters we’ve ever seen in Gundam. Girl is just constantly seeing through ALL of the bullshit around her and, like most sane people would, has long since lost all patience for it.
But of course, if Miorine wasn’t ‘normal’ or sane, and was perhaps a bit more unhinged like so many other Gundam characters…
I mean, say for instance Miorine was more of a Lelouch type character, then holy SHIT, her and Suletta would be UNSTOPPABLE. As well as beautifully fucked-up XD
One particularly relevant mental image/scene I’ve always had for in mind for this is someone, say Shaddiq, Guel or even Prospera, calls Suletta a ‘monster’. Only for Miorine to reply, with completely unhinged, slasher grin;
“Yes. She’s MY monster.”
And Suletta thinks it’s just the most romantic shit ever XD
💬 5 🔁 655 ❤️ 1585 · sulemio but they’re a bit freaky and covered in blood🫶
Really, I think this comic perfectly summarizes what Miorine matching Suletta’s freak looks like :D
Also, something-something, Suletta is basically the Fenrir to Miorine’s Odin, and they end up getting really kinky and freaky about the narrative concept that Suletta may one day ‘devour’ Miorine…
There are multiple parts to Marcy's appeal, some are surprisingly unintended but are very much there and some are absolutely intended.
And the intended core (ha pun) of Marcy's character is this one frame
"I just didn't want to be alone."
That's where the writers intentions and the audience's perception of her match perfectly. A girl willing to go to immense lengths to not lose her friends, both because she loves them dearly and because without them, she has no one.
And she's genuinely convinced that she cannot make more friends due to a lifetime of failures.
So tell me please, whose great idea it was for her character to end up alone and proven right at the end?
At the end of the show, Marcy faced three newts. Two who never cared for her and one who did but betrayed her in all the worst possible ways.
At the end of the show, she heard her friend telling her that them drifting apart is okay because they'll always have the memories of each other. (I know it got clearfied in the journal that they texted every day for a year after the show but we shouldn't have to read supplementary materials in order to know this crucial detail).
She leaves a world where she has no one, and goes back to a world where she's about to lose the only people she had.
So it doesn't matter that she led a team on a mission, or that she had a nice day where she really clicked with another girl, because what's going to stay with her is the end line.
And at the end she learned that even if it looks like there's someone who really loves her, they'd either leave or have an ulterior motive and want to use her.
(She's used to be used, actually. Who did most of the work in school projects back home? Canonically Marcy. What was her to-go strategy with trying to befriend Newtopia and Wartwood after a straight forward attempt failed? Being useful. Why did Olivia and Yunnan try to get her out of the healing tank? So she could help them against Andrias.)
And not only that, she learned that she deserves it. Because look at what her efforts to avoid being alone brought.
So with that in mind, picture Marcy in an entirely new school aboard. What is she going to do?
Because I doubt that she's going to try to make friends.
I was never really a fan of TADC but the way this whole situation has played out is just really depressing. I don't like how people are talking about it (especially on twitter where the grey area goes to die) and I wanted to put my thoughts on paper. I'm also so curious to hear what other people are thinking without the veneer of extremism on both sides of the spectrum that twitter fosters.
Firstly and most important: Gooseworx is not a "horrible person" or "the worst indie dev ever" or anything like that. They are just a human being making human choices. Artistic burnout is real and the burden of having a largely underage, reactive fandom watching your every move is very difficult to reckon with. I don't blame her for the things she's said, they strike me as being rational answers to an unprecedented, terrible situation.
However, I take issue with the people who are placing the sole blame on the fandom for how the show turned out. Those people seem to forget that for a good amount of episodes, the majority of the content throughout the show was pandering FOR the fandom and their desires, rather than servicing the story that everybody involved knew had very little time to be told. Like the beach episode, the fucking maid dresses, and other filler episodes where it seems the main thing the creator had in mind was putting them in marketable situations. Allegedly the inspiration for this show was "I have no mouth and I must scream", but I don't see that influence anywhere but the first episode. Maybe it was because of how immensely popular the first episode was, but it seems that almost immediately the show began to egg on the fanbase's desires. Whether this was Gooseworx's choice or a decision from Glitch, I have no clue. I'm almost certain it was not Gooseworx's choice to have the finale be in theaters, at least. I would not be surprised if behind the scenes there was corporate meddling on behalf of Glitch in order to maximize the profit on their cash cow before it has to end. But Gooseworx has gone on record many times saying the show was exactly her vision the entire way through. So it seems the pandering was baked into the loaf.
It leaves a bad taste in my mouth to see people throw up their hands and say the show would have been better if not for the fanbase. One that yes, can be voracious, cruel, and over-the-top with their celebration. But also one that has been endorsed and justified BY the decisions made throughout the show, decisions that definitely do not exist to further the story. At the end of the day, the success of the show is a result of the fanbase-- people who chose, over every other fucking piece of media that exists today, to spend their valuable time watching this one. And a fanbase's collective behavior is informed by the show they are fans of. So to say it's all their fault is, in my opinion, disingenuous. To have something blow up like that is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that many creatives can only dream of.
And that's not even getting into my personal issues with how the show was marketed towards children. I think knowing your audience demographic is extremely important because it puts many things in context. I would guess the age range is primarily 12-20, famously a period of time where you make terrible, overkill, and embarrassing decisions because your brain is still growing in. Whether or not that was the fanbase the creator had in mind, that is the one they got. And creatives shouldn't have to be heavily involved in the business end of things, but they should at least have a vague awareness of the community they've fostered and adjust their work accordingly. Yes it does suck. It feels terrible to have a creative vision and see it get consumed and regurgitated for other people's enjoyment, especially when it comes at the cost of your personal creative aspirations. It can suck the soul and empathy out of even the most understanding people.
But I think it's absolutely wrong to sit here and blame a fanbase for the outcome of a show, especially one that is mostly minors. Plenty of other pieces of media have terrible fanbases but the blame still falls on the creators' shoulders if they put out a bad or divisive product. I've never heard anyone say, for example, that Hazbin Hotel or Secret of the Mimic would have been better if only their fandom wasn't so shit. And I don't think Gooseworx should get a pass just because she was open about her feelings-- feelings which, unfortunately, almost every creative will have to feel eventually.
