#i'm not sure how it would merge with tma's plot

[my-name-is-mine-to-know]

I rewatched Madoka Magica, and now I've been ruminating on the similarities between the Incubators and TMA's dread powers. Fundamentally, both are sustained via emotion, granting some individuals inhuman abilities, eventually resulting in manifestations of negative emotion.

Now I'm trying to think of an AU and perhaps how to make that into a fic...

Kyubey doesn't usually go for boys or those below their preteens, but a child who has already suffered so much despair from the death of both parents to the neglect of their caregiver to a supernatural encounter that no one believes them about would certainly sacrifice a lot for even a little bit of hope or protection in the form of a wish, and would certainly fall to despair soon after, considering his lack of support system.

All Martin wants is the love of his mother: he wishes for her to be healthy because it would be awful to just magically change a person's emotions so this is the next best thing. Of course, now she can take care of herself, and is even more resentful of his presence. He doesn't need to be there anymore, so why does he insist upon terrorizing her still? Luckily, he's not home much anymore. He works two minimum wage jobs, and when he's not at work, he's hunting witches. The small bit of hope he feels when cleansing his soul gem is the only thing he has that resembles happiness nowadays, and the seeds seem to take away less of the darkness each time, as his depression begins to dirty his soul as much as his magic expenditure does.

What entity do you think the incubators would be? I feel like it would be the End, considering so much as interacting with one dooms a person; but it could also be the lonely, given how terribly isolating it is to be fighting a battle that no one else could understand except for those who find you an enemy, even though you've technically on the same side; or perhaps Hunt, forcing so many into an endless search for the grief seeds that will prolong their life, but every time you find one, you lose even more of what it would restore in an endless cycle of hunt and kill.

Or perhaps it's too simplifying to try to fit in a single category. That's likely the case.