Fanfic / The Soulmate Timeline

When Homura Akemi starts a new timeline, the idea that things can change every so slightly is something she always knows, but she rarely thinks about much. What sort of musical instrument Kyosuke plays or what drink Mami prefers doesn't usually affect her mission to save Madoka after all. She had no reason to expect this timeline to be any different, until she's falls on the floor in pain seconds after arriving and gets marks on her hand that mean she's magically bonded to Madoka and Mami now. Who are now essentially just an official ceremony away from being her wives. And she has two more she really, really, really hopes aren't Sayaka and Kyoko.

The Soulmate Timeline is a Puella Magi Madoka Magica and Magia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story fic by Crossoverpairinglover, and co-written by Chimeraguard starting with Chapter 3, is set in a Soulmate AU Fic version of the universe and following, in part, a Homura Akemi who is not native to such a story genre. A side story for joke stories of a sillier nature, both canonical and not, based on The Soulmate Timeline called Soulmate Sidestories was released alongside Chapter 9.

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This fanfic contains examples of

• 13 Is Unlucky: Day 13 (chapter 12) is the chapter where the cast realizes that Hitomi has been kidnapped by The Griefer and the story takes a dark, dramatic curve as a result, which continues into Day 14 (or chapter '13').
• Abusive Parent:
  • Nagisa's mother is this, yelling at her and not feeding her if she does things "wrong". It's to the point Nagisa prefers when she's in the hospital, as at least there the abuse tapers off and she can keep her stomach full on hospital food thanks to special privileges. There's also the fact that Nagisa knows enough about delinquents that if they break into a house, they're probably searching for drug money. Her father meanwhile is apparently always on a "business trip".
  • As in canon, Yuma's mother (who, unlike in canon, was slammed into a wall by Kyoko and arrested).
• Accidental Murder: Pastor Sakura and his wife only intended to kill themselves when they set their church on fire, believing it the only way to free all those under the thrall of his Compelling Voice and having done so when their daughters were away from the church. Unfortunately, their younger daughter Momo, who returned from a friend's birthday party much earlier than expected, ran in to try to find them and perished as well.
• Adaptational Badass: Magical Girls, initially noted in a 'probably' by the author in a post chapter note and later hinted very strongly by the existence of long-lived Magical Girls, do not suffer from any sort of power loss with age that some media hints they can suffer from. Mifuyu is specifically noted to not have it as a problem. This is mostly as Crossoverpairinglover (as the note predates Chimeraguard's co-writer status) hates that trope.
• Adaptational Early Appearance: The Kamihama Magical Union, as Iroha wants to name it, formed during the events of Act 1 instead of between Act 1 and Act 2.
• Adaptation Expansion:
  • In Magia Record, the Witch Drought was a major part of Promised Blood's backstory and came up in bits outside of their stories, but how it affected other cities wasn't addressed. In Soulmate meanwhile the effects are evident, with Mitakihara being affected both directly with fewer Witches appearing in it, and indirectly as the decline everywhere brings more Magical Girls into the city in search of any Grief Seeds as other cities have either run dry of Witches or are being violently protected by their local Magical Girls on pain of death for outsiders when they aren't fighting each other over the remaining pickings.
  • Mitakihara's history as a city is explored in bits and bobs, noting how it started off as an industrial city that has successfully transitioned past the post industrial phase of its existence. Its tendency to have buildings based on other structures from throughout the world is also explained as being inspired by the first building to do so, the St. Jeanne Anglican Church.
• Adaptational Heroism:
  • Due to dying before the formation of The Wings of The Magius, Mifuyu remained Yachiyo's supportive friend until the end.
  • Pastor Sakura never meant any ill will toward his daughters and did not intend to kill either of them.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul:
  • While Homura's starting actions usually tend to rub Mami the wrong way in canon, she is much more inclined to give Homura the benefit of the doubt here when it comes to her dislike of Kyubey. While Mami doesn't immediately side with Homura against her old friend, she comes up with a (incorrect) assumption of why Homura doesn't want Kyubey around that she can at least understand and their relationship begins a lot more civilly, if not without disagreement about if Madoka should contract. This quickly warms up to a point the two start to fully develop close, romantic feelings for the other in about a week.
  • Sayaka meets Homura in the circumstance of being her best friend's new mystically-declared wife, not a strange transfer student saying vague warnings and attacking a (seemingly) innocent animal, and while initially freaking out when it looks like she's flashing Kyosuke instead sees someone whose socially awkward and tactless but well meaning instead of a aloof jerk needlessly antagonizing them. She later gets to see Homura as being incredibly cool when she sees her win Madoka a stuffed animals in an arcade and defeat a Witch alongside Mami.
• Adaptational Villainy: Arisa was a heroic character in Puella Magi Suzune Magica, albeit one who started to take a darker turn to Anti-Hero before her death, but is mentioned to have joined the Wings of the Magius in this story due to it taking place after said darker turn but not dying yet.
• Adaptational Wimp:
  • Magical Girls with wishes unrelated to healing aren't as good at self healing as they are in most stories. While they can shake off a lot of damage, their healing factors don't keep them free of scars as well as most continuities show. They also can require more rest to recover from severe injuries, as is the case with Suzumebachi.
  • Because Kyubey usually doesn't contract Magical Girls with Soulbonds due to the difficulty in making them become Witches, and Airi not needing to wish to become Yuuri to avenge her, Airi lacks the powers she has in Kazumi.
• Adapted Out: Per the author, the Folkore of Zero don't exist in this universe because Soulbonds make magical things just that much more accepted, preventing the backstories that created the organization, though the individual members of the group still do exist.
• The Ageless: Magical Girls have the potential to live as long as they are able to sustain their magic, though Kyubey never bothers to tell most of them this since they rarely live long enough to start noticing. Suzumebachi has been active for decades, while Elisa and Melissa are still alive from the days of the Hundred Years War (and Pernelle is even older). Suzumebachi clarifies to Hitomi that Magical Girls can stop aging whenever they feel like it, and while she's not sure if they can age backwards, they can choose to let themselves age whenever they want.
• Alternate History: As Homura notes when looking at some history books, Soulbonds have caused history to deviate via changes to political marriages among other things, though as Homura's focus is mostly on the present and near future she doesn't dwell on the exacts much. Tidbits are hinted at here and there: its implied Scotland, Catalonia, and a Greek state centered around Constantinople exist in the present day, a few prefectures in Japan may have different names, that there were Mongol invasions of Germany, an attempted Byzantine reconquest of Gaul, and Caspian Tigers are not extinct. Other than the prefecture names, Homura notes Japan is still pretty similar to what she's familiar with, World War 2 still ended with a Japanese occupation, and the nations of Italy, Canada, and the United States exist in some form. Same sex and group marriages are considered socially acceptable in far more places than they are in the original timeline due to Soulbonds affecting how social orders developed.
• Amicable Exes: Ms. Saotome used to date Madoka's parents in college. Both of them, and could have easily married the both of them if she had taken them up on the offer. They are still friends however.
• Amnesia Missed a Spot: Despite Ui being erased from almost everyone's memories and records, Dr. Satomi still has the research he did into her heart condition, although he no longer remembers why he did that research, and Touka's memory of her math on how likely it is to meet your Soulmate in a hospital is not the correct figure for only one Soulmate.
• And Then John Was a Zombie:
  • The fate of Mifuyu at the hands of Suzumebachi and Kyubey in an attempt to get Yachiyo, and thus Mel and Kanae by extension, to turn into Witches.
  • This is how Takako discovered the awful truth when one of her friends turned.
  • After being chased off by Kyoko, Mayumi turned into the Swan Witch Svena fought by Akasuki and Hitomi.
• Armor-Piercing Question: During a tense converstaion between Candeloro and Homura about Homura's failures and how Homura nearly threw herself back into her self-pity until Madoka stopped her. When Homura says that she is taking responsibility for her mistakes, Candeloro stops Homura in her tracks with one simple question.
  Is that Homura talking, or is that the orphanage talking?
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • Homura's Hellzone Grenade is her most powerful attack, where she uses a combination of her time stopping powers and bombs set off around her target to inflict as much damage as possible, with any enemy that is failed to be destroyed in the first wave sent off into a second wave of bombs until its dead or she's out of bombs. The sheer amount of bombs this attack goes through, however, requires Homura to burn through so many bombs to use it that she only does so in emergencies.
  • Mami's Tiro Forze Finale is a charged up version of Tiro Finale that fires an even more powerful version of the aforementioned Tiro Finale with enough power to shake an entire Labyrinth and is as blinding as the sun. However it takes a long time to charge up to the point she doesn't like using it even on a target she's ensnared with ribbons and it uses up a lot of magic.
  • Sute Kaneko wished to become a Shonen Protagonist, which granted her the ability to use magic to replicate the powers of her favorite manga, giving her incredible power. Even holding back, she can move and react so fast she can match Homura stopping time. However, she burns through so much magic even using lighter techniques that both Kanagi and Homura question how she's even still alive (for reference, Homura states that Sayaka going full-on berserker mode and abusing her Feel No Pain ability while fighting Witches in a downward spiral doesn't drain magic as rapidly as Sute does holding back).
  • One of the first things Sayaka manages to figure out is how to cover her sword in magic, mimicking a lightsaber and increasing its cutting power. However, as even she admits when Mami asks her, she really doesn't 'need' to make her sword any stronger in most situations and it that magic is constantly drained from her, making it cool but rarely necessary.
• Badass Army: The Wings of the Magius have by Kyoko's own count have around a hundred Magical Girls in their ranks, and while most of them likely don't even come close to the Mitakihara gang in terms of power or experience, it's still enough of an eye-opener to make them wary of trying to get on the cult's bad side (and in Homura's case, going on a one-woman trip to Kamihara to assassinate Oriko and Kirika out of paranoia for Madoka's safety only to get a vengeful army after them).
• Bait-and-Switch: Sayaka makes a joke that Madoka is going to be married to a lonely upperclassmate with huge...ringlets, Hitomi interjects.
• Been There, Shaped History: Magical Girls and Witches have been involved in many events throughout history, including several of humanity's greatest calamities.
• Better Off with the Bad Guys: The girls Kyoko saves from the Griefer are sent to the Wings of the Magius, who will induct them into their cult and treat them like other members. Much better than being murdered by a serial killer.
• Big Eater:
  • As always, Yachiyo eats far more than one expects of a famous model.
  • Also as always, Kyoko. Especially when affected by Mayumi's hunger powers, at which point she resorts to eating Mami's produce and cheeses raw.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Akasuki Suzumebachi has mastered this, as her magic is more effective the more her target trusts her. As shown in her interactions with Nagisa and Hitomi, she comes off as a helpful and smart girl with good advice and a sarcastic sense of humor to those she's manipulating, even to the point of acting as an Evil Mentor to the latter, but this is all in service of setting Magical Girls up to be her puppets that she'll control and torture into Witches.
• Blessed with Suck:
  • Yachiyo is one of the few Magical Girls who can increase their raw magical power on her own, allowing her power to increase over time to a point she's one of two known Magical Girls to be stronger than Touka in raw power (the other being Madoka). However she does this by absorbing the magical power of those around her when they die, including her best friend and dear grandmother. The implications, and the fact it would be easy to accuse her of letting people die to get stronger, weighs heavily on her.
  • Kanae and Iroha thinks of Sute's power like this, as she has so much raw power but has historically had the problem of being unable to easily train it because of just how quickly it drains her magic reserves and how she can't really harvest like most Magical Girls because any Grief Seeds she gets have to be immediately used up, which also makes it very hard for her to work with others.
• Boring, but Practical: What's the first thing that Mami and Homura teach Nagisa as a Magical Girl? To use her legs first to avoid taking hits, and her magic second to block attacks. It's more efficient to use their enhanced physical attributes to avoid attacks where possible than to use their powers if they don't have to.
• Break Them by Talking:
  • Kyubey is so good at this he can actually calculate how long it would take to directly induce a magical girl to Witch out that way, having mentioned both Mami's and Mifuyu's 'times' at various points (twenty-two minutes and seven seconds and forty-three minutes and twelve seconds respectively). This is how Mifuyu's witchout was induced. He later attempts to do so to Kyoko, foiled only by intervention by Mami and a few hundred magical muskets.
  • Suzumebachi has learned some of this skill herself, but when she tries to do this to Mami, the girl senses Homura's terror and blows out her own eardrums to avoid hearing it. By the time Suzumebachi realizes what's happened and attempts to continue her speech via telepathy, Mami has already bound her and is in the process of executing her.
• Bullet Catch: Sute pulls this off against Homura in their fight.
• Calling Your Attacks: Several Magical Girls have a variant of this one way or another.
  • Mami, naturally, has her finishing moves. The concept of which has spread around Japan to other Magical Girls.
  • Nagisa has her 'Urlos', which are variants of her standard bubble attacks that come in the form of candies and other sweets such as bubble gum, gobsmackers, and soda.
  • Ryoko shouts out the name of every dinosaur she summons.
  • In the style of her Shonen Manga obsession, Sute shouts out each move she uses.
• Canon Foreigner:
  • Candeloro now has a second type of Familiar called Familga Viscounti that represent Mami's separation from her maternal family in Italy.
  • Hitomi's Witch form, Coppelia, is not from any canon material.
• Can't Live Without You: One effect of having a Soulmate is that their lives are linked. If one of them dies, the other dies. This is one of several reasons Homura's initial reaction to being bound to Mami isn't positive.
• Cast Full of Gay: Homura implies she's never met a Magical Girl who wasn't at least partially interested in other girls, including Hitomi "girls can't love girls" Shizuki (with a caveat that Yuma's young age makes it hard for her to be sure with her), and little if anything in story seems to contradict her. Non-Magical Girls tend to show more clearly straight characters among their number.
• Celebrity Paradox: Sayaka and Hitomi directly think about Fate/Zero when mulling about wishes (Sayaka even stating one of her takeaways was that she wants to be Iskandar upon growing up), which was written by Gen Urobuchi, aka their own series' creator.
• Childhood Marriage Promise: Sayaka once made one to Madoka when they were little kids, but these days it's more of a in-joke between them, especially given Sayaka's current crush on Kyosuke and Madoka having two other Soulmates. When Sayaka awakens to the same Soulbond after contracting, Madoka with a laugh brings the promise back up by noting Sayaka will have to share.
• City of Adventure: While any city with Magical Girls is going to have elements of this, Kamihama takes the cake with its sheer volume of them, Witches, and the Wings of the Magius and the Uwasa making it even crazier on top of it.
• Close-Enough Timeline: Regardless if she goes to a different timeline or returns to the start of a single timeline, the act of going back creates minor changes constantly. Usually for Homura they are small things, like what denomination Kyoko's father was originally in or what musical instrument Kyosuke played. The current timeline with Soulmates is the first time it ever changed drastically enough to really impact her.
• Combo Platter Powers: Magical Girls come with a standard set of powers that all Magical Girls share to a greater or lesser extent: they are superhumanly strong and fast, able to leap multiple stories and are able to manipulate magic for a variety of purposes including enhancing objects with magic, creating barriers, creating from magic in general, and healing, sensory abilities to detect magic, the ability to reduce their bodies physical needs, telepathy, and immortality. On top of this Magical Girls have abilities unique to them based on their wish such as future sight, time travel, and controlling others. Magical Girls also have some level of elemental affinity, such as fire, while individual Magical Girls will be better at certain universal powers than others, as for example Mami, Sayaka, and Komaki are better at creating, healing, and creating barriers than others naturally.
• Composite Character: A variant: According to Word of God, Oriko's Magical Girl attire is halfway between her original Oriko appearance and her "Final Version" form from Record, which represents in part the shift in her dynamic with Kirika, who is now her Soulmate.
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: The mess that tends to involve Kyosuke having his injuries healed by a wish is something that can be avoided, but it takes communication. In most timelines, a combination of A: Sayaka not telling Mami who she wants to use her wish for, B: Madoka not revealing Sayaka's secrets to Mami, C: Mami not knowing Kyosuke and assuming any number of other possibilities for Sayaka to be asking about making a wish for someone else, and D: Homura's ability to get people to distrust her and ignore her advice means that Kyosuke is handled by a wish and everything goes wrong. Mami can actually heal Kyosuke on her own, it just takes a longer time, and timelines where the idea is addressed avoid that particular problem.
• Covered with Scars: Veteran Magical Girls are often covered in scars. Mami, Yachiyo, and Kyoko are shown or mentioned to carry several of them from many battles with Witches, and Mami has an additional few from her car accident. Homura lacks any due to her time travel, though she retains her surgical scars.
• Curse Cut Short: When Sayaka learns that Mami is Madoka's soulmate, she drops an "Oh fuc-" before Mami reminds her of her language.
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique: Mel's powers can predict the future perfectly, but they also lock the future into that path for good or for ill. For this reason Yachiyo forbids her from using them as she used to, and using them to verify Ui's existence and survival is not done lightly.
• Deadly Euphemism: Kyubey likes to refer to Magical Girls turning into Witches as various forms of the word 'maturation'. This is also rather helpful when talking to others, like Sayaka, about it because they don't realize what said 'maturation' actually means.
• The Dead Have Names:
  • Sayaka might not know every victim of The Griefer, but she does know the names of the ones from Sorashido thanks to her cousin ^note  Amaya, Doi, Hanako, Hoshiko, Nanako, Rie, Rikka, Saiua, Sueko, Tamami, Tonica, Toma. She reiterates them during her beatdown of Akatsuki alongside Nagisa, Hitomi, and Madoka's.
  • Homura has found a few human names of the Witches that she encounters, beyond the Holy Quintet and Hitomi, she also knows the names of at least Kirika's (Latria) and the identities of the Scribbling Witch/Albertine and the Box Witch/H.N Elly (Hiroko Nako) among others, though it is too late for her to do anything about their fates. During the story she learns the identities of Charlotte (Nagisa), The Armor Witch (Takako Takeda), and Patricia (Noriko Chiasa), as well as by implication that of Stacey the Cat Witch due to being Takako's friend, though the latter two she's too late to do anything about. She dwells at times about being unable to save them, both as potential allies and to spare them the fate of witching out.
• Dead Man Writing: Kyoko's parent left her and Momo a letter each about the truth of their deaths, hidden in the church in a fire-proof font.
• Decomposite Character: With Mifuyu having died before the events of the series, her role in the Magius has been split between others, with Oriko taking on Mifuyu's role in managing the Black and White Feathers and Yuuri taking the role Mifuyu played as the replacement for Iroha.
• Deconstruction Fic: The story is tagged as a deconstruction (and reconstruction). The focus of which is on the concept of Soulmates themselves.
  • First of all, Homura does not come from a Soulmate universe at first, and thus when she starts getting hit with tropes like being constantly cold until she meets them, having her life linked to them, and feeling the others emotions, she does not find them sweet and romantic; instead, she's spooked and greatly unsettled. Even when she settles into her new status quo and becomes happy with both Madoka and Mami, even falling for Mami, she isn't completely comfortable with it. She's not even entirely comfortable with being magically married to Madoka, who she loves even before she gets Soulmarks because it wasn't her choice. The fact she does fall in love with Mami as quickly as she does is something she even wonders about, though she also attributes it to her own past making it very easy to fall for someone who treats her well after being starved for affection for so long.
  • Soulmates aren't just something that makes two people live together happily. They have affected history and influenced religion, culture and beliefs all over the world since the dawn of civilization. They have changed history in ways Homura can clearly see just by comparing history books in the current timeline to ones from older ones. Having people be outright marked with what many see as divine blessings can also influence their behavior in a lot of ways: Pastor Sakura as well as his wife, was partially as determined to reform the church as he was because he had a Soulmate and thus believed he had some sort of divine mission either to change the world, or to possibly be the father of someone who would do so and was assured of the righteousness of his actions by said marks. In turn, because of how sacred they are considered, Kyoko has some severe damage about the fact her wish caused one to go horribly wrong.
  • Soulmates are quite truly connected in the soul. This is not flowery language, they are metaphysically linked. While this has advantages, especially for Magical Girls, the fact that if one of them dies the other dies is emphasized, as well as how being away from your Soulmate is not good for your health, especially at first. Ui's vanishing from memory is implied to have some very negative effects on Touka and Nemu's health even without being officially dead, and this close connection means that Homura's Soulmates are immune to her powers. Meaning that before meeting Homura, Madoka was constantly experiencing Homura's time stops without any context and spent them freaking out about time constantly stopping at random.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance:
  • Lampshaded by Kyoko when discussing Nagisa's homelife: as noted by the policeman who approached her to be a witness for Yuma's mother's trial, Nagisa's homelife would be considered abusive in some countries, but legally it would not pass muster as such in Japan. It is simply easier to take advantage of the neglect by not having Nagisa go home because her mother is unlikely to actually press the issue instead of trying to get Mrs. Momoe arrested.
  • Homura, who is not from a Soulmate timeline natively, considers them as odd as aliens and ghosts in a discussion about Arbitrary Skepticism. Sayaka, who is native to it, considers them as normal as the sky being blue or Ms. Saotome not being able to keep a boyfriend.
  • Mami recalls the difference in earring culture between herself in Japan (where they don't pierce their ears) and her Italian cousins (who do) while shopping.
• Despair Event Horizon:
  • When Homura encounters Takako, who in the Oriko manga would eventually become the Armors Witch, during a hunt for an escaped Familiar, it's clear she's about to cross this line given her disheveled appearance, her Soul Gem being very dark, her desperation for Grief Seeds and anger at realizing she was hunting a Familiar instead of a Witch, and the later reveal that she knows the truth about Witches. Luckily for her, Homura gives her a Grief Seed and a pep-talk and advice on how to live with the knowledge she has, which alongside Takako going onwards to Kamihama afterwards, likely saved her from Witching Out for the foreseeable future.
  • Kyoko nearly does this to herself by accident, as dwelling on Suzumebachi's "Not So Different" Remark causes her negative feelings to build up and darken her Soul Gem, and when Yuma in alarm calls attention to this, Kyoko can't help but remember the last time her Soul Gem darkened like that. The memory of that traumatic incident causes her Soul Gem to darken even more, and if Yuma hadn't immediately used a Grief Seed it's possible she would have Witched Out right then and there.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: The Sakura family in canon were killed by their insane patriarch before he hung himself and set their home on fire. In Soulmate the Sakura parents set the church on fire to kill themselves to free the thousands of people enthralled by Sakura's wish, with Momo dying after them from running into the burning building and dying from being trapped in the flames.
• Disability Immunity: Deaf people can't hear it when people try to Break Them by Talking, so when Suzumebachi attempts to tell Mami that Magical Girls become Witches and the only reason that hasn't happened to her is that she inspires others to contract and thus Witch out, she blows out her own eardrums so she won't hear the speech.
• Disappointed by the Motive: Mami and Homura aren't particularly impressed at the fact that Kyoko's being chased down by Ryoko and Sute entirely because Kyoko didn't report two Grief Seeds she got on top of a job and kept them. Fighting dinosaurs and shonen manga powers should not be because Kyoko interpreted a sub-section about reporting everything the wrong way.
• Discard and Draw: Being a Magical Girl with a Soulbond means that you are able to clean your Soul Gem just by being near your Soulmate. This frees them from being dependent on Grief Seeds, but it also makes it very hard, if not outright impossible, to use Doppels because of just how hard it is to make your Soul Gem dark enough.
• Do Unto Others Before They Do Unto Us: Homura usually kills serial killer Magical Girls before they can begin targeting her or Madoka, but her soulbond to Madoka and Mami has prevented her from doing so this time.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • Madoka doesn't believe she's anything special despite getting a soul mark that has five diamonds on it (one for her, four for the other Puella Magi) and that she has the highest magical potential of all Puella Magi. In the same chapter, Doctor Aiuchi states that Homura is delicate and sickly and hopes that she's not exhausting herself...just as the next scene has her firing a gun at a witch.
  • When telling Sayaka about how if she has to contract, it should be for something she won't regret afterwards, Homura talks about how she met a Magical Girl who wished to save a cat's life. Sayaka can't help but think that example sounds like something Madoka would be willing to do, not realizing that's exactly how Madoka became a Magical Girl in Homura's original timeline.
  • The fire set at a church named after Tart (Joan of Arc) that was set on fire was not actually aimed at killing a 'Witch' at all.
  • After Nanaka presses Matsuri on the details of Arisa's vision due to its similarity to Iroha's and learning it was about the salvation of Magical Girls instead of a missing sister, Meiyui starts thinking about hypothetical siblings of other Magical Girls. Matsuri is one of the ones where she thinks a sister like her would be a good thing and a sister unlike her would be a bad thing. She also believes that Kagari is likely not related to anyone. As readers of Puella Magi Suzune Magica would know, Kagari is Matsuri's Evil Twin.
  • Kyoko thinks that she must of really scared off Mayumi when she hasn't seen her make an attempt to get back into Mitakihara, not knowing that Mayumi is already dead after having turned into the Swan Witch that Hitomi and Akasuki defeated.
• The Dreaded:
  • The Magical Girls of Asunaro City, also known as the Pleiades Saints, have a reputation for being extremely territorial. Even though Asunaro is one of the few places left to still have Witches present, the fact that no other Magical Girl who has come to that city has returned has made the city a last resort for any desperate magical girl. They'd rather try their luck at Mitakihara or go on to Kamihama instead.
  • A Walpurgisnacht is this to any Magical Girl. Mami's utterly disturbed at the idea of anyone having to fight two of the thing as she believes is the case with Homura and becomes horrified when Homura confirms that one is coming to Mitakihara, a reaction she shares with Kyoko, while Suzumebachi immediately wants to get as far away as possible when Kyubey casually mentions that one is coming.
• Due to the Dead: Referenced but not done: Kyubey admits that, for all Akasuki has done for him that by human standards, she deserves a statue commemorating her deeds in assisting the fight against entropy. However the Incubators don't do that and consider it a waste of resources.
• Entertainingly Wrong:
  • When trying to figure out the nature of a Shared Dream she had with Homura, which featured the aftermath of a battle with Walpurgisnacht, Madoka and Mami come to the conclusion that Homura has battled a Walpurgisnacht multiple times...because she is incredibly unlucky and that her odd behavior comes from having lived through two Walpurgisnacht battles where she was the sole survivor. Being a time traveler fighting the same Walpurgisnacht again and again doesn't cross either of their minds.
  • When Kyoko demands that Suzumebachi tell her why she's kidnapped so many young girls, Suzumebachi shoots back it's the same thing Kyoko does with Witches. Kyoko takes this to mean she captures girls to directly feed to Familiars in order to grow new Witches for Grief Seeds, which causes Kyoko to swear off Familiar farming entirely just so she can stop any such comparisons in her mind. What Suzumebachi actually meant is that she's cultivating new Witches directly by manipulating vulnerable young girls into becoming Magical Girls, then forcing them to Witch Out and harvesting their Grief Seeds, but Kyoko doesn't even consider this possibility because she doesn’t know of the true nature of the link between Magical Girls and Witches.
  • Meiyui thinks that some Magical Girls she once knew were likely killed by newly appearing Witches, as shortly after their disappearances, there was a flare of curse energy and new Witches were in the area after. A logical conclusion if you don’t know that Magical Girls can turn into Witches.
• Eternal Love: The implications of the combination of Soulmates and Magical Girls living as long as they aren't killed leans into this as the state of all such Magical Girls in the end.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Kyoko is a rude delinquent who isn't afraid to get her hands dirty and is fully willing to resort to morally ambiguous methods for Grief Seeds, such as farming Familiars on random unsuspecting people so they mature into new Witches to destroy. Her encounter with Suzumebachi, who seemingly directly kidnaps little girls to feed to Familiars to create Witches, completely disgusts her to the point Suzumebachi dropping a "Not So Different" Remark gets Kyoko to swear off Familiar farming entirely just so she can stop thinking if she had a point and go back on the straight-and-narrow. She also tries very hard to not swear in front of Yuma and Nagisa, and the fact that they both have Abusive Parents brings out Kyoko's protective instincts.
  • Homura may immensely despise Oriko and Kirika, but when she gives Ryoko and Sute five Grief Seeds she had stored up from past timelines to take back to the Magius, an organization she knows the two are part of, she very specifically makes sure to not give any Grief Seeds from Sotria or Latria, as she both considers that too cruel and doesn't know what giving them their Witch's Grief Seeds from another timeline would do to them.
  • Pastor Sakura was a very tolerant man who liked to discuss faith with those of different denominations and respecting their beliefs as valid as his own, but he had no love of the prosperity gospel interpretation of the faith, considering it just a way to use religion for money and power.
• Evil Counterpart: A Walpurgisnaught is this to any Soulbond Magical Girl group. Naturally as a Soulbond falling into despair is what creates a Walpurgisnaught in the first place.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: Suzumebachi is looking at the newly contracted Sayaka's Magical Girl outfit when she notices a set of diamonds on Sayaka's outfit. Making her realize that she is staring at not a scared little girl, but a very angry just awakened Soulbound Magical Girl who has every reason for wanting her dead after injuring Madoka.
  First of all, she had the pink girl on her back, clinging onto her like some infantile animal or something, partially covered by, all things, a white cape. The girl literally had a white cape, how cute. And oh, she was shaking too. She was scared of her, even as she was glaring at her like she was a sick monster or something. Girl’s outfit was blue and white and had cleavage, her Soul Gem was a blue crescent over her belly button, she had a cutlass sword (of course), and on her left breast was a set of diamonds…
  
  Diamonds….
  
  Suzumebachi stepped back as she looked at the girl over again. That shaking…that wasn’t fearful shaking, that was starting from one arm….
• Fatal Flaw:
  • Mami's is loneliness, the loss of her parents, disconnection by geography from her maternal family, and loss of Kyoko having left her desperate for companionship. The actions she takes that cause problems are either by a non-malicious desire to sate that loneliness or caused by Kyubey exploiting it.
  • Pastor Sakura admits to pride being it for him in his letter to Kyoko, admitting to her that his suredness that his Soulmarks meant he was special led to his family's suffering and Kyoko in turn believing she had to make a deal with Kyubey to put things right.
• Fire Alarm Distraction: This is something that Magical Girls will often use to go after Witches, though Mami long deduced it wasn't particularly effective and eventually switches to causing gas leaks.
• First Friend: As in canon, Madoka was this to Homura in the original timeline. However the sheer importance this is for Homura is emphasized, with the original Madoka being outright called the first person to see Homura as an actual person with value.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Kirika's appearance before Mami to rattle off Oriko's message about the future contains a lot about upcoming events.
    Kirika: So you should make sure you have Grief Seeds to spare for when the Magius come to town or Kyoko Sakura suffers a Fate Worse than Death at the hands of dinosaurs and shonen manga^note Mami and Homura giving five Grief Seeds to Ryoko and Sute to prevent them from taking Kyoko back to Kamihama, when the scary one needs you to trust her you need to temporarily cripple yourself to keep a secret^note Mami deliberately deafening herself to not hear Akasuki's attempt at break her by revealing the truth about Witches., you need to teach her ‘Tiro Spade’ and ‘Tempesta Di Spade’^note Mami will help/teach Sayaka how to use the two attacks in question., and you will be the last to find out what the pink one’s wish is, though it isn’t your fault. You couldn’t be there when it happens.
  • Homura at several points talks about Hitomi as a Magical Girl. When we see her as a Magical Girl, it lines up with what Homura had been noting.
• The Force Is Strong with This One: Magical Girls are able to get a read on the potential strength of future Magical Girls, which both Mami and The Griefer demonstrate at various points.
• Funbag Airbag: Kyoko's attempt to run away from having the others wash her hair is stopped by her walking into Mami's chest.
• Fusion Dance: Rika fuses with Bella Donna during the battle against the Uwasa of the Seance Shrine and can repeat the fusion later. Bella Donna’s explanation of how this happened (Ren, Rika’s Soulmate, meeting Bella Donna in a dream and then helping Rika accept her) implies that this could be possible for Madoka’s Soulmates as well, and Chapter 17 hints that Yuuri Asuka also has this ability.
• Genre Refugee: Sute wished to become a Shonen Protagonist, and sees the setting of Madoka in those terms. Madoka is very much not a Shonen Manga however.
• The Ghost:
  • Several Magical Girls who tend to be active around Mitakihara from the Oriko series of manga, specifically Komaki Asako, Lina Hitomi, Futaba, Mio, Miyako Saki, Mai Akane, and Sasa Yuuki, have been mentioned or referenced a few times by Homura, Kyoko, and Akasuki, but none have been confirmed where they are currently, making it unclear if they are dead, turned into Witches, or had to migrate to a different city like Tokyo or Kamihama due to the Witch drought. Chapter 17 would confirm that Komaki is in Kamihama, alongside minor Oriko characters Chihana Masumi and Hikari Ayano, while Sasa had joined the Wings of The Magius, tried to take it over from within, but was defeated.
  • Kriemhild Gretchen is mentioned frequently by her fellow Witches, but has yet to appear in person.
• Ghost Town: A variant, in that that it's the Magical Girl populations of Japan's cities which are vanishing courtesy of the Witch Drought. No Witches lurking around mean no Grief Seeds to hunt and, more cynically, no Familiars to farm on human victims to grow new Witches and thus new Grief Seeds. As a result, cities that once boasted Magical Girl populations in the half-dozen to several dozen are emptying out as they're forced to either head to other cities that still have Witches and clash with local Magical Girls defending their territories, or follow the "migration" to Kamihama where a massive Magical Girl population in the hundreds already resides and have formed their own factions and rules for how business should be conducted.
• Giant Enemy Crab: Cancri, the Depth-sounding Witch, takes the form of a giant crab made out of musical instruments.
• Good Cop/Bad Cop: Akasuki and Kyubey essentially do this to set Hitomi up to contract, with Akasuki playing the good cop to Kyubey's bad cop, Akasuki playing up her false persona as a good mentor and friend to Kyubey's trademark bluntness to get Hitomi to do what they want her to.
• Good Parents: Just like in the anime, Junko is a loving but firm mother who gives Madoka advice on how to set limits if and when Mami (and later Homura) start becoming clingy.
• Gratuitous Italian: Mami and by extension every magical girl inspired by her, which includes Iroha, the Pleiades Saints, and enough of Kanagi's subordinates to annoy her. With Mami, it's justified, as her mother's sided of the family is in fact Italian.
• Grave-Marking Scene: Both Mami and Kyoko are shown visiting their family's graves, though Mami's the only one outright said to constantly visit and talk to the graves. Kyoko's status isn't as clear due to her conversation being much more focused on what she learned versus a regular occurrence.
• Hard Light: Ryoko's dinosaurs aren't flesh and blood, but made of solidified light.
• Has a Type:
  • Jokingly applied to both Madoka and Yachiyo's multiple soulmates, with Madoka's mother joking she has a orphan fetish after meeting both Mami and Homura (and again after meeting Kyoko), and Kanagi joking that Yachiyo's type are girls who get really lost as Kanae, Mel, and Iroha each manage to get very lost around the time they meet Yachiyo.
  • More seriously, Madoka is shown to be really into girls who can rock a suit, and is giddy when Sayaka gets Homura into one.
  • Kyoko likes girls with large breasts. A description that includes Sayaka, Mami, and Tsukuyo Amane. The latter having a caveat about how said girls also need to be 'competent' to get Kyoko's interest.
• Healing Hands: Most Magical Girls are capable of healing others with magic, though it takes a lot of energy and there are limits to both how much they can do at a time and severity of wounds. Obviously, a Magical Girl whose wish relates to healing can do much more at superior cost effectiveness.
• He Had a Name: Invoked by Sayaka while fighting Akasuki as while she certainly doesn't have a concrete list of everyone of her victims over the decades, she does in fact know the names of the ones from Sorashido where she has family. She lists them off while fighting Akasuki.
• Heroic Lineage: One of Tasuke Satomi's theories in his unfinished transcript about Magical Girls is that the potential to be a Magical Girl is genetic and passed through families. Yachiyo isn't sure about this herself, though she admits there just isn't a lot of examples she knows of one way or another and she can't tell if that absence is evidence to the contrary or not.
• Hero Insurance: While this usually doesn't apply to Magical Girls because their fights tend to be in other dimensions, Mami is a special case because she has taken to the habit of causing small gas leaks in Mitakihara Middle School to get out of school to fight Witches without affecting her record. Having done so for nearly three years, she's managed to do this enough times to have noticeable effects on Mitakihara's tax rate from the constant need to repair the school's piping. She made enough of a habit of this that Kyoko is well-aware of this tendency, and Homura makes a note that if Sayaka contracts they never let her know about this since she'd likely abuse it every chance she gets.
• Hero of Another Story:
  • In the last six hundred years Elisa has reformed the Order of the Dragon into an organization of Magical Girls who have lived long enough to learn the truth, endured it, and oppose the Incubators and those who would abuse Magical Girls (like the Tokime Clan elders do) in Europe. They are one of several of such groups throughout the world, though there aren't any in Japan.
    • Other species in the galaxy who have Magical Girls have had their longer lived Magical Girls unite in larger versions of these groups to a point of severely limiting the ability of the Incubators to act on their planets.
  • Sora and Mashiro keep the peace in Sorashido together entirely offscreen.
  • If the writer of The Immortal Explorer series, Yousra, is a Magical Girl like Hitomi guesses, retelling her own story, than she's been having adventures since the 1320's.
• Historical Rap Sheet: Kyubey is the reason for the extinction of all other human sub-species, such as Neanderthals and Denisovans, as they were less productive for harvesting energy from.
• Hollywood Autism: Homura is autistic, being easily fixated on a few things and having very poor social skills and often misses social cues. Her interests have shifted over time, having once been particularly interested in ballet but the timeloop stress having shifted her focuses onto keeping Madoka alive with specific patterns that she became very distressed when she was unable to execute due to the poor condition she started the story in. She also mentions that as a child she really didn't like certain noises. However as the author notes she doesn't display every common aspect of autism, as is the case with people who actually have it, and note that she isn't diagnosed with it due to both common Japanese trends and having grown up in an underfunded orphanage.
• Humans Are Insects: More like very, very efficient cattle, but Kyubey notes that humanity's energy quota is constantly adjusted upwards because, even with Soulbonds making it hard to harvest all of them, they still are very good at providing energy while not wiping themselves out in the process of their species development. So much so that the Incubators helped set up the extinction of less efficient human sub-species to leave only the most efficient humans alive for harvesting.
• Humans Are Special: Per Kyubey, Soulbonds are something only seen in humanity among the species they deal with and they just baffle the Incubators. On aspects that the Incubators understand more, humans create more emotional energy, are more numerous than many similar species along with being less prone to destructive violence. Also its implied that trans or non-binary humans being contractable is an unusual but useful feature of the human race to the Incubator's goals.
• I Just Want to Have Friends:
  • Mami, whose loneliness is noted by Homura to be the source of most of her problematic actions both on her own accord and by Kyubey's manipulations. Having Soulmates, and thus people who will always be there for her, fills her with immeasurable happiness.
  • Homura grew up in an orphanage and had no friends or people who cared about her until she met the original Madoka, and after the first few timelines was rarely able to connect with anyone again. While she's not entirely happy to be magically bounded to even Madoka, let alone Mami, just having their virtually infinite trust and caring for her quickly warms her up to the idea, and even finds herself caring for Mami as much as Madoka in a short period of time.
• Improbable Weapon User: As Akasuki notes to Hitomi, not every Magical Girl has an immediately obvious weapon. For every Magical Girl who gets a spear, sword, or gun, you have one whose main weapon is a finger ring, a pen, or a stuffed squirrel.
• In a Single Bound: Magical Girls enhanced physical abilities include being able to jump over buildings of a few stories in height. While they can't jump over skyscrapers, they can clear factories and houses. The first thing Mami teaches Nagisa is this fact by telling her to jump as high as she can, then watching Nagisa as she goes up and up and up.
• Joke and Receive: Sayaka ends up doing this multiple times, including joking that Hitomi has to sit through pottery lessons and asking if Madoka can restore Homura and Mami's magic through hugs and kisses.
• Killed Offscreen: Zenobia, Albertine and Boxwood are vaguely referenced and having been killed in battle by Iroha and Momoko, Yachiyo, and Haruka respectively, though we don't see the fights in question. Roberta is also confirmed to have been one of the Witches Homura killed in Chapter 1 alongside an un-seen and undescribed 'Rust Witch'.
• Kirby Dots: The Comicbook Witch Mary Jane is made of them in the style of Venom, and they feature prominently in her Labyrinth's sky.
• Last-Second Word Swap:
  • A common tactic around Yuma and Nagisa by those prone to swearing. Not every swear has an easy replacement, though; Kyoko is forced to call Oriko a 'big meanie' instead of a bitch to her displeasure of a better replacement insult.
  • Nagisa herself does this several times when the subject of her personal life and especially her parents come up, such as using 'busy' to describe her mother when it's implied she was about to say 'bitchy'. It's the big red flag the girls need to realize that she needs help.
• Legacy Character: There have been multiple Walpurgisnaughts throughout history, though the total number is rather low. It's hard to get a Soulbonded Magical Girl to turn into a Witch, after all.
• Locked Out of the Loop:
  • Hitomi is left clueless about the going-ons of Magical Girls, which Homura prefers since despite Hitomi's reliability in past loops on the rare occasions she does become one, it's not a fate she'd wish on anyone for obvious reasons. Even when Mami takes up the role of secretly healing Kyosuke's hand, Homura refutes Sayaka's desire to let Hitomi know for her own peace of mind since Kyubey could pick up on her knowing about magic and use it as an in to start pestering her about a wish, as right now Hitomi's ignorance and lack of high potential is keeping her off his radar. Unfortunately, Hitomi's worry and visits to the hospital ends up catching the attention of Suzumebachi, who wants a rich vulnerable mark to turn into a Magical Girl for her own plans and convinces Kyubey to offer a contract by appealing to his logic. And while Hitomi doesn't fall for the speech, she still accidentally contracts anyways and ends up being manipulated and kidnapped by Suzumebachi. Sayaka is absolutely livid when she and the others realize what happen and partially blames Homura for the situation as a result, and Homura once the entire debacle with Suzumebachi is over offers Hitomi a personal apology for making the wrong call.
  • Iroha has not yet been told the truth about how Mifuyu died, although her Soulmates have said they will tell her eventually.
  • Nanaka has been keeping the truth of Soul Gems from her teammates while she evaluates how they might take it. After Meiyui finds out due to necessity, they decide to tell Akira but not Kako.
• Love Epiphany: Homura has one in Chapter Eight in regards to how her feelings towards Mami have shifted towards the romantic and accepts it.
• The Maiden Name Debate: Comes up a few times given the fact that many pairings are among girls who, while not legally married at the point of story, are basically magically married.
  • Homura outright wonders at one point if her name's changed to Homura Kaname or Homura Tomoe, and later admits, after Madoka agrees that she's as cool as her name sounds, that she wouldn't mind taking on the Kaname or Tomoe surname at some point, wanting a name that means she's loved instead of one that's cool.
  • Among Yachiyo and co, Kanae notes that her last name is 'Yukino, at least until we finally have a day for the ceremony', making it clear that with at least Yachiyo and Kanae, the answer is Kanae taking on the Nanami name.
  • While it’s only been shown in a non-canon Sidestory, Oriko has already taken Kirika’s surname in her mundane life, although it might just be to hide her parentage so people don’t look down on her for being the daughter of a disgraced politician.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Where Soulbonds come from is something that Homura has wondered about in story. Having found evidence in her research all the way back to the age of cavemen, Homura is sure that it has to be the work of the Incubators and it can't be the work of God because she can't imagine He actually exists (she can't stomach God allowing the Incubators to run free). Kyubey in turn is completely clueless about their origins and has nothing to do with them,and is outright continuously thrown off by them, leaving their origins completely unsure. Every culture throughout the world has their own views on them, each claiming their origin to be from their own from the gods of Japan to the Christian God with various cultures having folk stories about the various aspects of their natures, with no indication of whom, if any, is right about it. So if Soulbonds are the creation of magic from another source than the Incubators, some divine blessing, or an unknown third source is unclear, and it seems that Homura and Kyubey, being outsiders to the system, are the only ones who ever dwell on it. The fact that the Madoka from the most recent timeline that Homura had been in before this one gave Homura a book that fits very much with her current situation in the new timeline and that Homura does not know what that Madoka's fate or if she made a wish before Homura did her reset adds more questions into where Soulbonds came from.
• The Mentor:
  • After seeing Homura and Mami's fight with the Depth-sounding Witch, Nagisa is directed by Kyubey towards them to have the two become her mentors. Mami is happy to teach her, while Homura is quite eager to prevent her from becoming Charlotte. Kyoko later also begins teaching her after arriving in Mitakihara while also mentoring Yuma.
  • While also giving Nagisa assistance and ideas for how to use her powers, Kyoko is also teaching Yuma how to use her powers.
  • Horribly subverted with Akatsuki Suzumebachi, who acts like this to her victims and even gives good advice, but it's only to forge a bond of trust that'll make it easier for her to control them with her magic.
• Mindlink Mates: One aspect of being Soulmates is their own mental link, sharing emotions and thoughts with each other. This is considered a separate 'channel' of telepathy from the general Magical Girl ability, and it is very handy for Homura, whose feelings are more easily translated this way than in her own words and actions. Its not always peaceful though: Homura's level of hate for Kyubey and the duo of Oriko and Kirika has flooded it and outright choked Madoka on the sheer hate by mistake a few times.
• Moment of Weakness: One of Kyubey's favorite moments to show up and make a contract, opportunistically coming around when a girl is either at her most desperate or most vulnerable.
• Move in the Frozen Time: One effect of the Soulbond between Homura and her Soulmates is their immunity to her time stops. Whenever she freezes time they are unaffected, even if they aren't in direct contact with her. This was the first introduction Madoka had to magic, and she assumed that something was breaking time. Anything or anyone they are touching is also unaffected by time being frozen, which is how Sayaka ends up learning about magic on top of wandering into Cancri's labyrinth. This does not extend to inactive Soulmates, as Sayaka and Kyoko didn't gain the time immunity themselves until Sayaka's contracting.
• Multiple Gunshot Death: While Mami's usual finishing move is the Tiro Finale, she can also bind a target and unleash a barrage of musket fire at them, as Suzumebachi finds out the hard way.
• Mundane Utility: Many magical powers are used for ordinary things. This is particularly common in Soulbonded Magical Girls whose magic regenerates in the presence of their Soulmate(s).
  • Mami uses her magic to create ribbons for Madoka to wear in her colors (gold), Homura's (purple), Sayaka's (blue) and both Mami's and Homura's (purple and gold). She also mentions she uses magic to make it easier to run despite having large breasts to add as extra support, and offers to teach it to Sayaka.
  • Homura uses her time-stop powers to let herself, Mami, and Madoka have tea when awoken at odd hours without risking waking up Madoka's parents or brother. Her shield's storage feature also operates as a cooler. She would use her powers to cheat the lottery, but she's found that doesn't work.
  • Mifuyu used her illusion powers to cover up Yachiyo's scars for photo shoots. After her death, Yachiyo was no longer able to pose for swimsuits due to the positioning of her scars.
  • Kyoko subconsciously used her magic to give herself tolerance to lactose to let her eat more of Mami's cooking.
  • Nagisa uses her ability to create sweets and sugary products to caffeinate a groggy Kyoko to wake her up faster.
  • Motoko can use her magic to create mundane kitchen items, up to and including food, to help feed her family.
  • Hinano can create gold and silver, which she can sell to pay for things like her college tuition. She does need to be responsible with it and can't do so willy nilly.
  • Yachiyo has used her ability to create halberds, which she can throw, rocket, and control at will, to dispose of trash if she forgets to take it out for trash day, using her halberds to rocket the trash into the garbage truck.
• Muscles Are Meaningful: Among Magical Girls, where they all get a physical boost from their magic, increased muscle can better correlate to individual strength. Sute Kaneko is built with obvious muscles fitting her Shōnen powerset, and she probably outmuscles every other Magical Girl in the setting in sheer strength. Then there's Sayaka after she contracts and proceeds to easily outmuscle Akasuki, who previously tossed her aside with her Magical Girl strength, since now with a similar magic boost their differing builds become far more respective of their comparable strength.
• Muscles Are Meaningless: Once someone becomes a Magical Girl, it doesn't matter how young or petite they look, as part of the package comes with increased physical prowess not directly correlated to muscle mass, making them far stronger than any mere Muggle. This is shown in full when Homura can literally drag Madoka and Sayaka along and carry them under her arms, and when Akasuki casually knocks Sayaka aside after easily disarming her of the sword Homura lent her, despite both being described as very thin.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Several timelines have had some version of the events of the second drama CD occur in them, which is the source of Homura's opinion of Sayaka as a perverted cretin.
    • The same drama CD, in tandem with other sources, also hinted that Junko was a delinquent in her youth as referenced in her first meeting with Kyoko in Soulmate.
  • Several from the PSP game.
    • Kyosuke is mentioned to have believed Sayaka was more into superheroes than musicians in a previous timeline.
    • Mami's failure to save a boy named Kou is taken from the game.
    • Homura references the first time she made a cake for Mami with Madoka in the game when making one in the current timeline.
    • Hitomi's time loop of crushing on Homura is referenced by Homura in Chapter 17.
    • Madoka's forwardness towards Homura is derived from the game.
  • Towards Rebellion
    • Homura's fondness for lizards references her motif in the film.
    • The name 'Holy Quintet' and the Cake Song appear in the third side story chapter, in-universe being from an old Magical Girl show that Homura loved as a child.
  • Both Candeloro's initial appearance and Hitomi hearing the voice of her Witch when nearing the edge of despair are taken from the former's cameo in The Different Story.
  • Matsuri's Magical Girl Story event and the events of Cross Connection come up a lot in Kamihama Interlude 2 as part of Matsuri and her friends having history in Kamihama. Matsuri's friend group looking for Takoyaki is also referenced by Yuuri, who mentions Arisa pointed her to a good Takoyaki place.
  • Kyoko's admitting that she doesn't do anything special with her hair and the other holding her down so they can treat it is taken straight from her Pajama Costume story from Magica Record.
  • Kyoko invites Homura to Récompense, the cafe owned by Mabayu's aunt, for a 'not-date'.
• Named by the Adaptation:
  • The human form of the Armors Witch was not named in the Oriko manga, and the story gives her the name of Takako Takeda.
  • The name of the church that Pastor Sakura was the pastor of was given the name of The St. Jeanne Anglican Church, being named after the heroine of Tart Magica, Tart/Jeanne/Joan of Arc.
  • Patricia and Kirsten are given the human names of Noriko Chiasa and Hiroko Nako respectively.
• Never Heard That One Before: Kyubey's tone when Sayaka asks makes it clear that he's been asked about wishing more wishes before and no, that is not how it works. However she was the first one to ever compare him to Senketsu, as he admits.
• Never Win the Lottery: Homura can't use her rewind powers for this trope. Every time the timeline rewinds, the winning lottery number changes.
• Noodle Incident:
  • Homura often mentions odd incidents from past time loops in her thoughts that have little, if any context to them.
    • At one point she experienced a timeline where Mami was a coffee drinker instead of a tea drinker, just when she was trying to get Mami on side with a selection of fancy teas.
    • At various points during the resets Sayaka had come to believe, for some length of time, that Homura was a pod person or a vampire. In turn, Sayaka in several timelines was apparently caught doing things with Hitomi's underwear that only cemented her in Homura's mind as a "perverted cretin".
    • Apparently the first meetings of past Sayakas and Kyokos have ended in dismemberment.
    • Homura has had Hitomi crush on her at least once in the time loops, which she describes as having Hitomi be very forward, if not as much as Madoka can be.
  • Mami and Kyoko have a few from their time as teammates, including one that left Mami unable to look at a coffee pot the same way again, and another that involved Kyoko and a cat stealing used underwear. In Chapter 16 she starts on a story involving Mami using her clones to sweep and help her cook, but Mami cuts her off before she can get into any more details.
  • Kyoko did something in Asunaro, but all we know is that 'the bear had it coming' and she poked at some horns because it was funny.
  • Kazuko has been dumped by men not just over foods like pancake and eggs in their preparation, but also over napkins and her choice of tissues.
  • Kyubey has accidentally caused Magical Girls to turn into Witches by telling said Magical Girls that humans actually are quite non-violent and environmentally conscious for species of their development level. His own deductions are that humans are irrationally self-deprecating.
  • Yachiyo, Kanagi, Kanae, Mifuyu, and Hinano have dealt with Magical Girl cults before the Wings of the Magius, and they aren't fond of them.
  • Where Homura got her projector that turns an apartment into a while void filled with floating information and gears isn't explained. All Kyoko was able to get out of her about it was that it wasn't stolen from the government.
• O.C. Stand-in: The Armors Witch from Oriko was briefly shown in human form on a single page in the manga, but she wasn't given a name or any characterization. Here she appears in human form and is given the name Takako Takeda, along with some characterization.
• Older Than They Look: Suzumebachi looks like a teenager, but she's been around for decades. By her own admission, she's actually somewhere in her thirties.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten: According to Homura, after her reunion with Madoka in timeline 2, no one let her forget her introduction to the class being to go up to Madoka and loudly talk about Magical Girls and time travel. It and the first timeline are class introductions Homura is not eager to ever repeat.
• Orphanage of Fear: Homura did not grow up in a fun orphanage, being too crowded and barely able to handle regular children, let alone Homura who had special needs. It was bad enough Homura used to enjoy going to the hospital because heart surgery was an improvement. The other orphans didn't help either, as they would forcibly stop her whenever she tried to watch her favorite show.
• Orphan's Ordeal: Homura's orphanage was not a good place for her to be in, to put it lightly. And being without parents, for all it helps her as a Magical Girl, has not helped either.
• Out of Continues: A variant: Homura's go-to plan whenever a timeloop hasn't gone the way she wanted (particularly involving Madoka's death or effective one upon Witching out) is to just reset and try again, but now that she's Soulbonded to four other girls with all their lives linked together, she realizes that this will almost certainly be her final chance to get things right to save Madoka's life.
• Peggy Sue: As in canon, Homura's a time traveler whose repeats of the same stretch of time have left her incredibly skilled. However, she's not the only one. Homulilly is just as aware of every other timeline as Homura is, and because their souls are now linked, so is Candeloro via Mami, and by extension Oktavia and Ophelia will be once Sayaka and Kyoko link to the Soulbond. The only exception so far is Kriemhild Gretchen, and that seems to be linked to Madoka's unique circumstances as she hasn't appeared in the Witches' "inner world" yet.
• Polyamory: While Soulmates are often in duos, trios and higher are also known, with such couples including Madoka, Homura, Mami, Kyoko, and Sayaka (the latter two taking longer to activate); Yachiyo, Kanae, Mel, and Iroha (with Iroha not having connected to the rest until the current time); and Touka, Nemu, and Ui. Group marriages are legalized in many countries including Japan, even if those involved are not Soulmates.
• Power Levels: Both an unofficial version (read off by Mami) and a more official version created by Touka exist.
  • Mami, to answer a question Madoka has about potential, uses Homura's own magical potential as a base unit, or 'Homuras', for the ease of explaining to Madoka, whose not contracted and can't see or sense them, with Homura's permission. As Mami puts it, the average person has about a fourth or fifth as much potential as Homura does, Hitomi has about two Homuras of potential, Sayaka Miki two and a half to three Homuras, Mami has raw magical potential worth about six Homuras, and Madoka's potential leaves Mami speechless and unable to give it a measurement of its own in Homura units.
  • Kamihama City has a refined measurement method devised by Touka that measures the raw power of Magical Girls via milliToukas, with her own power level being labeled as a 'Touka'. The average Magical girl has a 'power level' of 10 milliToukas, and the measurements given for a variety of Magical Girls at the end of the chapter only vaguely match up with Mami's own read (which Mitama implies is because it is really hard to put them down as raw numbers with just your mind's eye). More experienced magical girls, like Momoko and Yachiyo (who is notably one of two Magical Girls with greater raw power than Touka at 1.1 Toukas; the other is Madoka with at least 100 Toukas and possibly more), find the concept very dumb, and are pretty blunt about how such measurements are only part of the equation of a Magical Girl's potential.
• Power Misidentification: Those who don't know that Homura can stop time assume she's a teleporter. Kyoko wasn't corrected on this until Chapter 13 and was more than a little annoyed by the fact.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Kyubey usually doesn't bother trying to contract Soulbonded girls or actively manipulating Soulbonded Magical Girls into eventually Witching out because it's more hassle than it's worth trying to drive them into despair as a result of their support networks working against corruption despite the resulting Witches and Walpurgisnachts producing much more energy than regular ones would. Only Madoka's sheer potential is keeping him open to the possibility of trying with her and her Soulmates anyways, and he's being nowhere near as pushy about a contract as he would usually be in other timelines. Meanwhile, he only acted to try and get Yachiyo to Witch out when he noted she was in a uniquely vulnerable place and the odds, at least by his own math, were immensely in his favor.
• Public Secret Message: Hitomi speculates the writer of both history books and a new historical fiction series called The Immortal Traveler, Yousra, is a Magical Girl writing down her adventures for others to learn from. Homura doesn't know for sure, but can see how Hitomi might have guessed that.
• Pyrrhic Victory: Homura has seen Walpurgisnacht killed at least twice without Madoka turning into a Witch, which turns out to be doable with the help of the rest of Mitakihara's Magical Girls, but she's always the only one to live through it. Naturally this is not what Homura wants, and she's been trying to get at least Madoka through that fight. Madoka experiences the aftermath of one such fight as a nightmare where she's seeing it through the perspective of her own corpse.
• Readings Are Off the Scale: Mami finds herself speechless upon reading Madoka's potential as a Magical Girl and unable to field an answer for her Power Level. Kirika claims that Madoka's potential has made her scream "IT'S OVER 9000!" and would do so again, and Oriko herself muses that she and Magius had to reread their long-distance measurement results of Madoka's potential several times before they were convinced they were genuine (and giving Touka a spiritual reevaluation of her place in the universe in the face of someone with that kind of power actually existing).
• Resignations Not Accepted: Kyoko fully expects this to be in play with the Magius, and spends her entire 'exit interview' with Oriko trying to get Oriko to reveal the trope, only to be baffled when it doesn't. This trope is actually usually in play, but Oriko has use for having Kyoko leave and lets her go.
• Rogues Gallery: Homura's had enough timeloops to develop one, noting about sixty or seventy Witches that appear often enough to be considered reoccurring foes and categorize them. As seen in Homulilly's dream, she organizes them in her head in a certain way in her head from top to bottom.
  • At the very top is Walpurgisnaught, who she desires to kill the most.
  • Just below them are the Witches that come from her friends: Kriemhild Gretchen, Oktavia von Seckendorff, Candeloro, and Ophelia. Preventing them is among her upmost priorities.
  • The next tier down are what she calls the Mami-killers, Sayaka-killers, and Kyoko-killers: Witches whose attributes make them well suited to killing the three of them and have done so in multiple timelines. Examples of Witches she places here include Charlotte, who cannot be bound by Mami's ribbons, and Mary Jane, whose body is made of kirby krackle and thus can't be stabbed by Kyoko or Sayaka's primary weapons.
  • Below these Witches are dozens of others who appear often but have not gained particular animosity. The Armors Witch is among these.
  • She also notes Magical Girls she considers dangerous to her friends who need to be removed as quickly as possible in a similar light, including Oriko, Kirika, Suzune, Sasa Yuki, and a girl who kept wishing up zombie apocalypses.
• Running Gag:
  • Mami's Gratuitous Italian spreading around like a virus with her as patient zero. It has gotten everywhere, and several veteran Magical Girls like Suzumebachi and Kanagi are not happy about half the Magical Girls they deal with shouting their attacks in random Italian words.
  • Homura pillaging the Yakuza and possessing "drug money".
  • Mami's constant use of gas leaks to get out of school to fight Witches.
  • Homura's answer to every question asking her how she does something being "hard work".
• Sarcastic Confession: Homura admits to possessing stolen drug money in such a way that Sayaka and Hitomi will laugh it off, then admits the truth to Madoka and Mami through telepathy.
• Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: Suzumebachi hears straight from Kyubey's mouth that Walpurgisnacht is coming and wants to skedaddle out of the city and preferably out of Japan entirely before it arrives. Unfortunately for her, she's strapped for both cash to afford a ride and settle somewhere in China and Grief Seeds to give her breathing room in establishing a new hunting ground since Kyoko busted her last "crop" and Nagisa turned out to be a dud, so she's stuck until she can get both, preferably off a rich and naïve mark to trick into a wish. Cue her noticing Hitomi making visits to Kyosuke...
• Serial Killer: Alongside Suzune being mentioned as being active while Kirika isn't one in this timeline since Oriko doesn't need her to, the story introduces another one named Akasuki Suzumebachi, otherwise known as The Griefer, who tricks young girls to contract and makes them Witch Out to harvest them for Grief Seeds. Doing this twelve girls at a time in a single city before going to the next one, she's been doing this long enough that she's actually Japan's most prolific serial killer, known even to regular people. Unfortunately for her, she's fallen on hard times thanks to helping Kyubey kill Mifuyu in a failed attempt to get Yachiyo to Witch Out, which has made her Persona Non Grata in Kamihama with a "kill on sight" order, and Kyoko busting her latest "harvest" of girls before she could get started on them thanks to Oriko's intervention.
• Shared Dream: One aspect of being Soulmates is sharing dreams based on memories. Madoka shared Homura's nightmare in the first chapter, while in seventh chapter both Madoka and Homura, who had since become a lot closer to Mami, experienced Mami's. Iroha also experiences part of Yachiyo's memories in a dream in the first Kamihama chapter.
• Shipper on Deck: Homura and Mami are both interested in the idea of getting Kyoko and Sayaka together, though the former has more motive beyond making the two happy as she has found if the two are dating it tends to end better than if they aren't and the idea that if they are dating, then they won't end in the Soulbond with herself, Mami, and Madoka. The thought that if this did happen it wouldn't actually prevent anything never crosses Homura's mind. Ultimately the two gaining a Soulbond, also with the two of them and Madoka, makes this come to pass.
• Shout-Out: Has its own page.
• Show Within a Show:
  • Tasuke Satomi wrote several books, as in canon. One such book was one on Soulbond histories and folklore from around the world, a copy of which Yachiyo owns. He's mentioned to be working on a follow-up, alongside his canonical Magical Girls: Their Hope and Despair that Touka had discovered that Yachiyo also has a copy of.
  • Super Magical Girl Cosmos, being a in-universe Massive Multiplayer Crossover that is essentially a big budget animated movie counterpart of Super Robot Wars, but with Magical Girls. Sayaka, Mami, and Madoka see the movie in Chapter 17 after being first mentioned in chapter 4. Naturally Homura wants to stay as far away from it as possible.
  • Holy Quintet's Joyous Friendship, a magical girl series from decades ago that Madoka's family has VHS tapes of. As it turns out, as a child it was Homura's favorite show, a fandom only she had in the orphanage, and she'll still get angry if someone badmouths it.
  • The Endless Trail is a book Homura gives to Hitomi that had she had been given in a previous timeline from its dead owner that is about a endless winding path they can't get off until they overcome their issues. According to the latter, a movie is in the works for it in the current timeline.
  • The works of Umika Misaki from Kazumi also exist in story, with Homura having some such works as Lemon Kiss Memories'’ and ‘'My First Love Was The Milky Way she obtained the same way as Endless Trail that she later gives to Hitomi, with emphasis that they were not originally hers added.
  • Love for the Lost One is a book that Homura brought from the previous timeloop, a gift from the previous Madoka that follows a warrior who returned home from a long quest for justice whose empty heart was cured by the blessing of the Goddess of Love. Unlike the other books that Homura offered her however, Hitomi did not recognize it.
  • The Immortal Explorer series, which Hitomi had read the first book and plans to give it to Sayaka for her birthday, is a ongoing historical fantasy series about an girl from 14th century Egypt who gains magical powers she uses to see the world written by a historian. Hitomi suspects it might be more than that.
• Side Bet: Apparently there's an active betting pool in the Magius about whether or not the Amane twins are having sex with each other or not, and if so, how it will come out. Kirika apparently is the bookie, and its implied every member of the Magius except for Oriko and Hotori have put something down in it.
• Sneeze Cut: Partly defied; it's noted that a girl implied to be Felicia Mitsuki didn't sneeze when Kyubey thought no veteran Magical Girl would be uncontrollably violent only because she was in the middle of uncontrollable violence.
• Society of Immortals: There are several groups of Magical Girls who have lived for centuries in the world at large, but not in Japan or in large enough numbers to be a true problem to Kyubey's goals, though they do act in ways that are problematic for the Incubator's goals regardless.
• Soulmate AU Fic: The premise of the story being Homura Akemi time looping into one where she otherwise is not from and having to adapt to it. Soulmates in the universe have identifying marks, can come in groups anywhere from two people to at least five (as is the case with Homura), and in larger groups soulmates become 'active' in waves and are triggered by traumatic or life changing events. According to Iroha, about a fifth of the world's population have Soulmates. Homura waking up in the new timeline ended up triggering a Soulbond with Mami, Madoka, Sayaka, and Kyoko, though the latter two are not active when she wakes up. Soulmates that are active can share emotions, experience the other's dreams, are cold until they find their soulmate(s) after gaining their marks, have societal services and norms set up for their relationships, and have implicitly changed history in ways that Homura can easily see when going over history books. Soulmarks themselves are distinct between each set of them and change over time to show how close a soulmate is with another, which in turn increases their connections. Magical Girls in particular gain a few unique benefits, as their bonds can purify soul gems just by being around the other, making it very hard, though not impossible, for them to turn into witches. However Soulmates have one key weakness in that if one dies, all of them die. Known sets of Soulmates in the story include.
  • Homura/Madoka/Mami/Sayaka/Kyoko
  • Ren/Rika
  • Oriko/Kirika
  • Yachiyo/Kanae/Mel/Iroha
  • Touka/Nemu/Ui
  • Sora/Mashiro
  • Yuuri/Airi
  • Masara/Kokoro
  • Pastor Sakura/Mrs. Sakura
• Spared by the Adaptation:
  • Kanae and Mel are still alive as Yachiyo's Soulmates instead of dying in her and Mifuyu's backstory. Mel's death in particular, in the broad strokes, is instead given to Mifuyu.
  • Yuuri in her manga of origin used her powers so much to heal others she overwhelmed her Soul Gem with the pain and sickness she took in and Witched out as a result. A combination of having a Soulmate to make overwhelming her Soulmate in despair harder and Oriko seeking her out to be Touka and Nemu's nurse for their condition has her remain alive.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Girls of Mami's maternal family, the Ferroros, tend to have very similar body types.
• Supernaturally-Validated Trans Person: Kyubey has no problem contracting with trans girls the same way as non-trans Girls.
• Swiss-Army Superpower: It's noted, often by Mami, that a Magical Girl's powers are limited only by their imagination. Mami's talent with her ribbons is a standout example, though she is far from the only example of a Magical Girl able to take their base abilities farther than it might otherwise seem possible.
• Take That!:
  • Pastor Sakura is noted at several points to be a very open man about a lot of religious ideas and concepts, happy to debate with other faiths. The one interpretation of faith he did not have any time for? Prosperity Gospel, which he considers a hideous abuse of faith for ludicrous material wealth and power.
  • Crossoverpairinglover does not like Magical Girls aging out of magic as a concept, bluntly saying it doesn't apply in the story and happily citing Nanoha's lack of the trope.
• Tarot Motifs: One aspect of Mel's powers allows the cards she uses as a Magical Girl to shift their appearance based on whose predictions are being told or who is seeing it. For example when Iroha is looking at the Death card, it takes a form based on Homura.
• Tempting Fate:
  • The first three paragraphs have Homura note that these small changes aren't going to be that important in the grand scheme of things. Oh is she wrong in so many ways.
  • When Madoka gets her Soulmate mark, in which she has four other diamonds aside from her own, she doesn't believe she's anything special. In fact, she's so special that Kyubey is quite willing to break his general rule about trying to contract Soulbonded girls for the chance of getting her to turn into a Witch and harvest the resulting energies, and Oriko and the Magius have an eye on her for their own ends.
  • Homura thinks about how much she'd rather not be magically married to Kyoko and especially Sayaka enough that it is clear she is just asking for it to happen sooner rather than later. Even Homulily notes she's so deep in denial.
  • Kyoko thinks to herself that Ryoko is likely the only enforcer the Magius sent after her and specifically notes that Sute hardly ever leaves Kamihama. The next day, it turns out Sute was also sent after Kyoko.
  • Akasuki, while reviewing everything that's gone wrong since kidnapping Hitomi, including realizing that Hitomi is friends with Madoka, who is the Soulmate to Mami (aka, the veteran Magical Girl of Mitakihara) and Homura (yet another Magical Girl of unknown but presumably decent skill), and no doubt both of them are tearing up the city looking for Hitomi and all but certainly have Nagisa to give them a name and description of herself, contents herself by noting it could only get any worse if that "red-haired cult girl with a spear" showed up, not realizing that not only is Kyoko here, but she's just as eager to finish putting her into the ground. While Kyoko isn’t able to physically participate in the final showdown with Akasuki, the advice she gives based on their previous fight proves pivotal in allowing Homura, Madoka, and Sayaka to evade her initial ambush.
  • Kyoko tells Kamihama to 'bring it' near the end of chapter 17, ready for anything it might throw at her after a thank-you kiss from Mami and Madoka. The chapter ends with the point of view of Touka.
• They Died Because of You: Kyubey makes sure to slam this trope hard when he's pulling his Break Them by Talking routine on Kyoko in order to induce her "maturation" into a Witch, revealing to her that her little sister Momo was not intentionally murdered by her parents in their apparent madness-induced church-burning suicide, but was instead killed by accident when she ran into the already burning church trying to save them and succumb to the flames and smoke. He further points out that the only reason Momo was able to run in there by herself with no one stopping her was because Kyoko herself decided not to go home with Momo from her friend's birthday party early, still reeling from the huge shouting match she got into with her parents when they discovered the truth of her wish and Magical Girl status, and chose to be with Mami instead at the time.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: Downplayed. Magical Girls in-story either don't even consider the use of lethal force, or only do so as a last resort. While they often do end up fighting each other over resources and will defend themselves and their friends, killing is always something that a willing Magical Girl uses as a last resort both to preserve their humanity and to avoid dealing with the police afterwards. While Homura is more willing to immediately kill a target than most, this is based on her time loop experiences with Magical Girls prone to attacking her friends, and she is perfectly willing to knock out a target non-lethally (as shown with Takako and Sute).
• Tragic Keepsake: Homura has a number of books given to her by past iterations of her teammates.
• Unintentionally Notorious Crime: Akasuki Suzumebachi, having fallen on hard times and wanting to get out before a Walpurgisnacht arrives, decides to kidnap a rich kid for money; she knows full well that this will draw police attention, but she figures she can evade that. Unfortunately, her target is Hitomi Shizuki, one of Madoka's best friends, and so this action also draws the attention of the Magical Girls of Mitakihara, especially after Nagisa mentions to Kyoko that she met Suzumebachi at the hospital.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom:
  • Kyosuke has no idea that not being aware of Sayaka's feelings causes a lot of problems, and Homura knows this. However after dealing with the results hundreds of times, Homura is not happy with him and the only reason she doesn't kill him is that around the time she started thinking about doing so was when she discovered Madoka could revived the dead, and she knows Madoka would just revive him.
  • Juri's overthrow of the Monzenbashi and the death of The Bat of Monzenbashi would create a gang who would in turn press gang at least three other Magical Girls (including taking six younger siblings hostage in the case of one of them, Motoko) and attack Kamihama trying to get territory.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Suzumebachi's origin story had her wish to prevent an older friend from committing suicide, a selfless wish. When this older friend, a Magical Girl, then turned into a Witch, the very thing she was trying to kill herself to avoid succumbing to, Suzumebachi's heart grew cold, and soon she turned into a Magical Girl serial killer so imfamous even regular people became aware of her body count all in the name of staying alive.
• Violently Protective Girlfriend: As Suzumebachi notes, Soulbonded partners tend to get very upset if you try to kill the other, as she herself notes when she tries to kill Madoka and fails in the first strike, which is eventually followed up by first Sayaka then Mami utterly tearing her apart.
• Weak, but Skilled:
  • Homura doesn't mind the fact that she's certainly the weakest Magical Girl in Mitakihara in pure power; even Hitomi has more than her if she was to contract. However she's mastered what she does know to a point it rarely matters.
  • Deconstructed with Akasuki Suzumebachi, whose pure power is on the low end for a Magical Girl but who's managed to leverage her power to its full potential in her lifestyle to live for decades honing her craft. However, it's made clear that her preference for targeting young and inexperienced Magical Girls and their resulting weak Witches to farm Grief Seeds for years has left her ill-prepared for throwing down with more honed Magical Girls and tougher Witches without stacking the deck in her favor. She was quickly overpowered by Mifuyu and needed Kyubey to intervene to take her down, and she was pretty easily beaten by Kyoko, only getting away because Kyoko prioritized getting her victims away from her, being sure Suzumebachi was dead or doomed to die. She also fares very badly against a newly contracted Sayaka, who compensates for her inexperience with sheer strength, Unstoppable Rage, and a superior Healing Factor.
• Wham Line: At the end of Chapter 10, Hitomi wisely decides she's not buying what Kyubey's selling with his "contract" unless she's knows everything involved and tries to back out, telling him unless he explains himself fully she wants him to just go away. Unfortunately for her, a poorly-worded sentence with the words "I wish" coupled with her genuine meaning is taken the exact wrong way by Kyubey.
  Kyubey: Odd, it is in fact your heart's greatest desire for me to vanish. Very well. Your wish is granted.
• Wishing for More Wishes: When Sayaka half-jokingly states she's the type to use a wish to get more wishes, Kyubey immediately shuts down that line of thinking by stating in no uncertain terms the contract doesn't work like that, in a way that suggests to Sayaka that she isn't the first to broach this possibility to him.
• You Are Worth Hell: Both Homura and Kyoko consider their loved ones worth any amount of suffering.
  Kyoko: To keep Mami safe, I’d go to hell. You’re the same I’m sure.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Mami's Soulmates and subordinates go out of their way to reassure her after her Heroic BSoD over all the Magical Girls who died in Mitakihara during her tenure, pointing out that she's done well by the ones she did find and Kyubey deliberately didn't tell them about her or vice versa.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: In Kyubey's eyes, the average Magical Girl is only good for two to three years of "service" before it's time to get them to Witch Out, as a steady supply of Witches is necessary to cultivate new Magical Girls, and the ones that make it to six years usually start to become problematic. This implied to be a step to try and prevent the sort of mass resistance groups forming against Kyubey on Earth that exist on other planets from getting out of hand. Exceptions to the rule include the likes of Mami, whose outward appearance as The Paragon makes her ideal for a recruiter and a source of despair if her students fail to live up to that heroic image, and Suzumebachi, who is very good at providing energy via inducing girls to turn into Witches in her stead.
• You Remind Me of X: In a brief moment of honesty, Suzumebachi admits to a paralyzed Hitomi that a part of her actually feels bad about what she plans to do, as the latter proved to be a friendly and open girl to an apparent stranger, which reminds her of an old friend of hers (implied to be the very one she wished to save from suicide who then Witched Out). Unfortunately, Suzumebachi then admits that this still won't stop her from going through with her plan for her own survival.

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