hikayunas

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Posting a picture of Konomi every day until she gets released in Exedra: Day 908!

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[hikayunas]

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team nose propaganda

Artwork for team nose made by mochi. art for team mouth made by me.

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Σκύλλα

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magia archive giveth and magia archive taketh away

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🏍️📺

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my last few posts have gained this blog quite a bit of new attention and new followers. while i appreciate it, i would like to make one thing clear; if you regularly engage in discourse about "unhealthy" or "illegal" ships, this is not the blog for you. fiction is fiction and i advise that you find a new hobby.

[hikayunas]

Please reblog for larger sample size :)

Propaganda : Both wield a cudgel and lost people important to them, leading to a blind rage

[hikayunas]

kirsten ('elly') isn't a witch that tends to get a lot of theorizing about her, but from what i have seen, there's been a lot of emphasis on the idea that, in life, she was an idol, and that idol culture and the hell that comes with it is what led to her downfall and ultimate fate as a witch. while i can see where that comes from, i think that's a rather surface-level reading of her themes and what's used to represent her --

judging by the other anime witches, their natures seem to represent and tie into the original magical girl more than their physical representations or anything else about them. oktavia -- who has heavy musical, symphonic imagery despite sayaka not having been the musical one in life -- is described as falling in love [恋慕], while gretchen's nature is described as mercy or compassion [慈悲]. and kirsten, with everything about her clearly screaming about how she must have been an idol, is described with nothing but 憧憬; the wiki translated it as 'covetous', but jisho's dictionary paints a better, more vivid picture -- aspiration; longing, yearning.

that is, i think it's safer to say that kirsten was never an idol. it was never something she was able to achieve or accomplish and the idol industry sinking its teeth into her is not what tore her down. the rest of her witch card seems to offer more insight into who kirsten was before she was kirsten -- she's described very bluntly as a hikikomori; that is, somebody who's completely cut themself off from wider society, family, and friends, never leaving the house unless absolutely necessary. anything she longs for is shut away behind glass -- that is, a tv screen or computer monitor.

but her witch card isn't the only thing that feeds us more about her. the designs of kirsten herself and her familiars (and how they operate) quickly make more sense when viewed from this angle -- kirsten is not the whole witch. kirsten is just the doll -- the witch's true body. and kirsten spends most of her time locked away behind a computer monitor; shut away behind glass. 'elly' -- the name scribbled on the monitor and the name of the idol figure that flashes and performs on the monitor -- is who kirsten presents herself as and is trapped within. kirsten need not be herself when she can be 'elly' instead.

but it goes deeper than that. it's not exactly visible in the anime, but when you look at kirsten's design sheets, it quickly becomes obvious that the doll body -- 'kirsten' -- only goes down to an empty, carved-out torso, trailing thick grime meant to resemble an idol's skirt behind her. she is, quite literally, only half a person. and this is a theme that continues into her familiars, too -- daniyyel and jennifer are angels, but each only has one wing; daniyyel a right wing, jennifer a left. they're each only half of a pair -- if they want to fly, as their job requires, they must work together. and speaking of their job, it's to carry things around the labyrinth, including 'elly' herself. 'elly' has wings -- a whole pair -- and looks like she flies around her labyrinth in the anime, but she's actually immobile and needs her familiars to move her around if she wants to get anywhere. and she can't attack intruding magical girls on her own, either -- all she can do is summon more and more familiars to do the attacking for her. immobile, helpless, reclusive. only half a person dreaming she was more.

and all of this even ties together nicely (or, rather tragically) with how kirsten is even introduced in the anime at all. we meet kirsten when she preys on hitomi and a crowd of others and has them attempt to kill themselves, many of them bemoaning how useless and worthless to society they are, while hitomi rants and raves about how this will bring them all to a better place. and the way they go about their attempted suicide? by mixing together two chemicals -- chemicals easily found in the house or to get your hands on, if madoka's flashback is anything to go by; harmless apart but deadly when combined.

immobile, helpless, reclusive. half a person dreaming she was more.

she can be more in a better place.

[hikayunas]

[hikayunas]

☁︎ ZINE ANNOUNCEMENT ☁︎

Welcome to Connect, a free, digital zine celebrating our favorite magical girl pairs from across the Madoka Magica franchise! Follow us for updates soon!

Check out our Carrd for more info!

@zine-scene

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shan-shama

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counting bodies like sheep to the rhythm of the war drums

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love you

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shadows of the past

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The Bat of Monzenbashi 🦇