... so I tend to compile a short string of words for Sabrina's thoughts, right, to be sprinkled into the update. The one for this update was fascinating.
incubators math discard math pets fuzzys Asunaro caw caw
The author/Quest Manager, Firnagzen, post-2788832
A girl named Sabrina wakes up on the verge of death. Luckily, Kyubey is there to have her make a wish; unluckily, she has an entire thread from the forum of Sufficient Velocity.com in her head as well. (Or is it the other way around?)
Puella Magi Adfligo Systema is a Forum Quest written by Firnagzen. The premise boils down to taking a Blank Slate girl that's the Anthropomorphic Personification of the Sufficient Velocity forum, and having her make a stupidly overpowered wish. After much deliberation, the player base voted on "I wish to control grief! My own! That of others! The grief of the Witches! All of it!" The result? A magical girl who can cleanse Soul Gems, Grief Seeds, and tear Witches apart. Not only that, but she also has knowledge of the source material (though she doesn't seem to be aware it's fictional).
Thus begins the adventures of a magical girl who might have the power to Screw Destiny...if it weren't for the butterflies...or her lack of social skills...or the possibility that even Sabrina's powers won't be enough to save everyone...
It's available as a story only thread and a live thread version where the participants of the quest help shape not only Sabrina's actions, but also her mood and thought process.
Examples
- Adaptational Superpower Change: In canon, Kirika had Time Master powers that allowed her to speed up and slow down other people. Here, she has selective Anti-Magic powers instead.
- Likewise, Sayaka no longer has Healing Hands. Instead, she can copy the powers of other Magical Girls.
- Adventure Rebuff: Sabrina and especially Homura are set on doing everything they can to make sure Madoka, even if she knows about magical girls and Witches, never makes a Wish to become a meguca.
- Aerith and Bob: Part 293: A Witch called Jane, coexisting with Hildegard and Aurora.
- All-Loving Hero: Sabrina wants to help pretty much everyone. Even her enemies. The Incubators are the only real exception.
- Alternate Timeline: At first it seems the story is pretty much the canon line; however, it's revealed later that it's actually set in a time-loop after the canon timeline where Madoka made a different wish from her wish to eliminate all witches.
- Amnesiac Hero/Blank Slate: The only thing Sabrina knows is her name, the events of the original series (including spin-offs and sequels), and the combined knowledge of the playerbase. It's revealed that in the previous timeline Madoka wished to fix everything, raising the possibility that Sabrina was created by Madoka's wish.
- Anthropomorphic Personification: Sabrina is the avatar of the collective thoughts of the active participants from the Sufficient Velocity forum thread.
- Anti-Magic: Kirika's wish-based power has changed to this due to timeline differences.
- Artificial Human: It's hypothesized that Sabrina was somehow created by Madoka's wish in the previous timeline. The playerbase jokes that Madoka and Homura are Sabrina's Mom and Dad.
- Ascended Meme: Sabrina occasionally uses the same
Memetic Mutation slang the playerbase does, to the confusion of other characters, such as:- "Her brain damage must be acting up again."Explanation referenced in "Under the Radar pt. 12".
- Due to speculation on Sabrina's origins, the thread jokes that Madoka and Homura are Sabrina's Mom and Dad, referenced in the halfway point of part 287.
- Attack Its Weak Point: If things really get ugly, Sabrina is not above pulling the Grief out of enemy magical girls' Soul Gems, using that Grief to take hold of the gems, and yanking them far enough away that their bodies go inert.
- Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Sabrina is easily distracted due to the difference between in-Universe and Out-of-Universe time.
- Badass Longcoat: Sabrina's magical girl outfit includes a blue, military-looking coat.
- Bad Powers, Good People: Sabrina is a very friendly person who wants to make sure everyone gets a happy ending. She can also control and manipulate The Corruption.
- Barrier Warrior: Tamiko's powers are based off of creating barriers.
- Berserk Button. Do NOT hurt Sabrina's friends. She takes it very personally if someone does that.
- Beware the Silly Ones: Sabrina may be a Cloud Cuckoolander with the attention span of a goldfish, but she's backed up by a Story-Breaker Power that effectively hard-counters both Magical Girls and Witches in different ways, and as she points out during the leadup to the Iowa Group fight, the only thing stopping her from being a Person of Mass Destruction is the fact that she doesn't want to cause too much collateral damage.
- Big Damn Heroes: Sabrina shows up mid-battle to save people multiple times during the "We've got hostiles" arc. On another occasion, she charges into a witch barrier, freshly-contracted Yuma in tow, to rescue Kyouko.
- Broken Bird: As per Madoka canon, Homura has gone from a dorky girl to an Ice Queen who is focused exclusively on saving Madoka. She's also reluctant to trust Oriko, which is quite understandable if you consider their last encounter.
- Kyoko is focused on helping herself and no one else. However, suddenly becoming a Cool Big Sis to Yuma seems to be changing that mindset.
- Behind her status as a professional Magical Girl, Mami is extremely fragile. Especially when she gets worried that Sabrina might leave her.
- Brutish Character, Brutish Weapon: Sabrina's weapon is a warhammer. As the Quest Manager explains, this is because Sufficient Velocity (and its predecessor, SpaceBattles.com) is well-known for its subtlety, finesse, and tact. It's also explicitly mentioned to have a regular-sized hammer head and pick, instead of being an oversized brick on a stick.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer:
- Sabrina's a Wide-Eyed Idealist weirdo who tends to act like she's from a Lighter and Softer magical girl show, but she's undeniably powerful. In the zero-sum game of Madoka Magica, Sabrina's powers allow her to create a post-scarcity situation with her powers, at least at a local level.
- Mitakihara Middle School teacher Miss Saotome hooks up and breaks up every few days and vents about it to her students, but:"Miss Saotome is a great teacher," Madoka offers.
- Butterfly of Doom/For Want Of A Nail: Besides Sabrina, there are other irregularities in the timeline which limits the usefulness of Sabrina's meta-knowledge and Homura's knowledge of past loops. For example Nagisa Momoe has never contracted in this timeline.
- Calling Your Attacks: Discussed between Sabrina and Mami a few times. Sabrina eventually calls her Witch-disintegration move "Dissoluzione Bianca".
- Chekhov's Gun: The author says, "There's very little I've written that isn't meaningful on some level or another." And it shows in the oddest ways.
- One instance is Mami mentioning offhand early on that she has a test coming up. Days later in story (but months in forum time) she mentions via telepathy that she hasn't studied for it.
- Combination Attack: Sabrina forms one with Mami by dint of a Grief-and-ribbon, rapid-firing cannon.
- Cloud Cuckoolander: Sabrina, by virtue of having her thought processes influenced by thread discussion. Her thoughts tend to go off on odd tangents, her time sense is screwy due to the discrepancy between in-universe and out-of-universe time progression, and, as Running Gag notes, she gets hung up on things like Homura's hairflips and Mami's spontaneous teacups.
- Cypher Language: The witch runes. Which Sabrina, due to her access to the thread, can decipher. As such she is able to see every witch's name.
- Dark Is Not Evil: Considering that Sabrina controls and fights with crystallized grief and despair, yet is the nicest person in the setting with a possible exception of Madoka, this is very much the case.
- Defeat Means Friendship: Sabrina tries to befriend any magical girls she defeats in combat and is relatively successful.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: Homura's becoming more willing to work with the other magical girls around, and even to just hang out with Madoka and her friends. She also displays serious trust (if not outright faith) in Sabrina at multiple points—a sign of how much Homura considers Sabrina to be a dependable friend.
- Development Gag:When players voted for what wish to make, the choice that very nearly won was "I wish for the means to fix everything". This is later revealed to be the wish that Madoka made in the previous timeline.
- Dishing Out Dirt: Yuuna can cover herself in concrete armour and is implied to be able to generate earthquakes.
- Easily Forgiven: Sabrina will help people who have just been attacking her. This annoys some of her allies.
- Euphemism Buster: Played with. Sabrina's narration explaining the semi-euphemism to the audience:Homura... Homura deserves to have good things happen to her. She needs hugs and everything. She came from a Catholic school. She's said as much, elsewhere and elsewhen, and here in Japan, that's as good as a euphemism for being from an orphanage.
Not all orphanages in Japan are Catholic run, but many are. - Evil Is Petty: When it became obvious that the Iowa Group was defeated, their leader attempted to kill their hostages purely out of spite. Thankfully, Sabrina was able to put a stop to that.
- Excuse Me While I Multitask: Sabrina, for all of her apparent brain damage, is a master of this trope, being able to divide her attention through a large battle and provide assistance as needed while also paying attention to her own oppenents.
- Extra-ore-dinary: Atsuko controls metal.
- Fatal Flaw: Sabrina's pride of always thinking she knows best, insistence upon butting in and solving others' problems whether they want the help or not, and impatience (which is largely a result of the discrepancy between in-quest time and real-world time) can sometimes get the better of her.
- She also is a compulsive meddler even if the situation's unclear, and handles failure extremely poorly.
- Genki Girl: Kirika...and Sabrina to an extent.
- Good Counterpart: The world of Puella Magi Adfligo Systema has its own counterpart to Gen Urobuchi. He writes nothing but lighthearted slice-of-life content.
- Gratuitous Latin:
- "Adfligo Systema" translates to "System Break" or alternatively "Breaking the system".
- "Dedolere" can translate to "grieve no more". Probably an Ironic Name. Or possibly an indicator that Sabrina's witch form will stop the movement of Grief, starving witches, de-empowering magical girls, and allowing the heat-death of the universe.
- Gravity Master: Yumi controls gravity.
- Green Thumb: Haru controls (and rapidly grows) plants.
- Good Is Not Soft: Sabrina (eventually) took off the kid gloves when it came to stopping Akiko.
- Also, when confronting the foreign soul-stealing meguca Riona Mag Aoidh, once she hears the extents she goes to and even feels Riona try to mind-control her, Sabrina wastes no time in calling for backup, pulling Riona's Soul Gem, and putting it in anti-magic so that she can't hurt anyone else.
- When Sabrina's team was having trouble with the Iowa Group, Sabrina's response was to completely dismantle their replica of the USS Iowa, all while coordinating with her teammates and providing Grief as needed.
- Half The Woman She Used To Be: Masami was bisected prior to the events of the quest.
- Headbutting Heroes: Despite Sabrina's good intentions, her attitude rubs many of her magical girl peers the wrong way. Masami resents her for being associated with Mami, Kyouko finds her generous idealism baffling and irritating (as well as her association with Mami), Ono hates how she meddles in her life, and so on and so forth.
- Hidden Depths: Sabrina might be a Wide-Eyed Idealist, but with her knowledge of how bad a world she's in, she's fully capable of going to shocking lengths when the chips are down.
- Hope Is Scary: Homura admits as much to Sabrina, that for the first time in her many time loops, Sabrina and her powers have given her a real chance to stop Walpurgisnacht, and the thought unnerves her quite a bit.
- Humongous Mecha: One fight has Sabrina and Mami have a little bit of fun and construct MECHA GURREN ZILLA LAGANN to fight a witch, with Sabrina providing the structure and Mami providing the firepower.
- Invisibility: Yuko can make herself invisible.
- Imagination-Based Superpower: Sabrina can make pretty much whatever she wants out of grief. The catch is that grief constructs ping as "Witch" to magical girls.
- Just Think of the Potential!: Sabrina does odd experiments with Grief, mostly because she (and the playerbase) wants to see how far she can push her abilities. This sometimes backfires; doing something like taking control of a familiar can lead to Mind Rape. Also, Sabrina's experiments nearly cause a Witch to re-hatch from it's Grief Seed.
- A particular project is wondering if she can turn a Grief Seed back into a Soul Gem.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: The general topics and tone of the thread's discussion tends to be represented in the story, leading to things like the page quote.
- Light 'em Up: Sasami has light-based powers. Such as the ability to create blinding flashes and long-range lasers, earning her the nickname of Ramiel.
- Living Emotional Crutch: Sabrina occasionally worries about how much she's become this for Mami.
- Love Makes You Crazy: Akiko's relationship with Kato has resulted in her becoming a bit unhinged.
- Made of Evil: It's noted that the bodies of Witches are made out of Grief, the same Grief that accumulates in the Soul Gems of magical girls. Witch barriers and familiars are also made of Grief. Sabrina hypothesizes that she is capable of doing anything a Witch can do, if she can just figure out how.
- Interestingly, Grief Seeds aren't this; removing all the Grief from a Grief Seed creates a "clear", or "broken" Seed with unusual properties. These Seeds still take Grief from Soul Gems, but their Grief is sucked out by ordinary Grief Seeds... as if the clear Seed was still a Soul Gem.
- Making a Splash: Akiko controls water and is implied to be able to create rain.
- Master of Illusion: Hiroko is an illusionist.
- Namedar: Sabrina's powers allow her to sense the name of witches, including her own, Dedolere.
- Meaningful Name: The Iowa Group, a group of magical girls who's apparent leader has a flying replica of the USS Iowa as her power.
- The Medic: Yuma and Rin are specced for healing.
- Combat Medic: Yuma is skilled enough in combat that she can use her mace to take away an opponent's kneecap priviliges.
- Me's a Crowd:
- Aki can make magic clones of herself.
- It is discovered that Mami can make ribbon clones of herself, and can be controlled by an extremely long ribbon. They are just magically expensive. Sabrina can do the same, but still limited by her 100m radius.
- Mind over Matter: Masami is a powerful telekinetic.
- Mind Rape: At one point, Sabrina tries to take over a Familiar. This backfires horribly and very nearly drives her to despair on the spot.
- Mirror Character: Sabrina and Homura. The Familiar Mind Rape scene, among other thoughts and situations, shows that her protectiveness of Mami is very similar to Homura's of Madoka and that she also may be headed down a dark path to save everyone. It's hinted that she knows (at least partially) about the events of Rebellion as well, and given how close she is to Homura it's likely she won't let it happen.
- My Greatest Failure: Sabrina isn't proud of what she had to do to get Oriko to surrender peacefully, specifically, hold Kirika's Soul Gem hostage, and even threaten to turn her into a Witch with the accumulated Grief if Oriko doesn't comply.
- Mythology Gag: Mami's ability to create ribbon clones of herself is something she was able to do in the Rebellion movie.
- The Nicknamer: Sabrina is fond of giving out nicknames, which others often find appropriate. She's also (by virtue of having a forum thread controlling her thought processes) fond of having secret nicknames for certain people, like Momura and Murderface for Homura, Mumi for Mami, Best buddy/Bestbuddy for Kirika, Best girl/Bestgirl for Kyouko, etc.
- Noodle Incident: Homura says that Sabrina should be careful if she goes to heal Kyosuke because he'll develop a crush on her. It's implied that Homura has tried this before and had this happen, but no further details of that timeline are given.
- No Ontological Inertia: one of the biggest weaknesses of Sabrina's power is that anything her Grief constructs do that violates the laws of physics (such as healing) comes undone as soon as it's out of her range.
- Not a Morning Person:
- Sayaka is one, and it shows whenever Sabrina does her favorite ""Gooooooood morning Mitakihara!" telepathic wake-up call.
- Mami as well. Given Sabrina lives with Mami, the viewers get a front-row seat every morning and it's absolutely adorable.
- And also Kazumi:"I do not acknowledge the right of any time before nine to exist."
- Not What It Looks Like: While having a telepathic conversation with Sayaka in front of her father, Sabrina teases her about Kyousuke. From Sayaka's father's perspective, it looks like Sayaka is performing a Crush Blush while looking at Sabrina.
- Odd Friendship: Sabrina with Kirika (Or Bestbuddy as she is often referred to).
- Oh, Crap!: This was Sabrina's reaction when Oriko greeted her by name.
- One Degree of Separation: Apparently Nagisa's uncle works with Madoka's mother, and may actually be her boss!
- One Hero, Hold the Weaksauce: Sabrina's power makes it very unlikely that she will ever witch out, considering that any Grief she builds up by using her magic, she can drain out of her Soul Gem and use it against her enemies.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: After telling Mami the truth, Sabrina called Kyubey an emotionless abomination for what it had been doing to her.
- Physical God: Although it's unlikely to come up,
Word of God says that Sabrina's Witch Dedolere is an "ontological threat" on the level of Ultimate Madoka, Madoka's Witch form, and Akuma Homura. - Paper Master: Rei controls paper.
- Poor Communication Kills: Sabrina actively tries to avert this trope as much as possible. Even in the few cases where she has to keep secrets from people for their own good, she outright tells them that there are things she can't or won't talk about rather than trying to pretend everything is fine.
- Power Gives You Wings:
- Sabrina often creates Grief wings for herself; this is actually an instinctive tendency once she gathers enough Grief.
- Chouko also create magical wings to fly with.
- Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: Sabrina drops a truly chilling one right before launching a plan in conjunction with her team to break the back of the Iowa Group."I suppose I never did open with a statement of intent," you murmur. Your voice doesn't issue from your mouth, instead vibrating from the very walls of the ship. "Surrender."
- Revenge: Akiko's apparent motivation for extorting an exorbitant amount of Grief Seeds from another magical girl group and later going to war against them is vengeance for them (supposedly) killing her girlfriend Kato. It's highly unlikely that they actually did, but Akiko believes that they were responsible for her death.
- Running Gag: Microwaved tea. Sabrina's not entirely clear on why it's so heinous.
- Mami, Homura and Kyoko are capable of doing a thing that's completely unimportant and yet still mystifies Sabrina. Kyoko can talk with Pocky in her mouth, Mami has her tea trick from episode 2 in canon, and Homura can do a glorious Hair Flip without messing up her hair. Mami at least hints she uses magic, but apparently not even Homura knows why her hair stays straight.
- Meta example: When the choice is how to interact with the Kyuubey, the author will allow kicking it, eating it, petting it, feeding it, and THE FLESH OF FALLEN ANGELS
- Secret-Keeper: With all the knowledge of canon Sabrina has a lot of secrets, but the most important one is that she's able to be there for Homura and tell her she understands what she's done for Madoka.
- Screw Destiny: Sabrina is going to do her best to stop magical girls from becoming witches - and stop the events in canon, as well.
- Shipper on Deck: Kirika ships Sabrina/Mami, while Sabrina herself has encouraged Homura to let herself get closer to Madoka. Sabrina ships Kirika/Oriko, not that they need any help in that regard.
- Shock and Awe: Kimiko can create lightning.
- Shout-Out:
- When the choice of how to interact with Kyuubey is offered, the author will almost always suggest THE FLESH OF FALLEN ANGELS as an option.
- Every single chapter is named after the chapters in Half-Life.
- When the group finally catches Akiko, Kirika compares it to trying to catch a wild Abra.
- When Sabrina asks if there were any new shows coming out, Madoka and Sayaka mention a harem anime featuring flying mecha.
- The Witch of #282 has chicken Familiars, with a giant angry swarm appearing the instant one of them is killed.
- As said in "Under the Radar pt. 3", Mrs. Cagle from Let's Speak English is an English teacher at Mitakihara Middle.
- "Under the Radar pt. 6": To Girl Genius 2008-03-05 strip, both mention "seriously until you shout and threaten like a cut-rate stage villain":
Narration: You pause. You really want to complain about people ignoring you when you try to talk, when you try to be civilized. And that nobody takes you seriously until you shout and threaten like a cut-rate stage villain.- When Sabrina meets with Kyouko during the Interloper arc in story-only post #291, she thinks to herself that she has to go meet a certain redhead, and not possess her like a certain diary.
- When Kyouko asks what could motivate Sabrina to offer aid to others so often without asking for anything in exchange, Sabrina suggests an Emiya Complex.
- Post #373 has Mami make a Sailor Moon reference because Homura and Sabrina went crime-fighting:Mami laughs until she runs out of breath, wheezing helplessly in your arms, gasping fits of giggles bubbling from her. "S-so-" Mami chokes out between giggles, "-did you punish anyone in the name of the moon?'
- Sir Swears-a-Lot: Sakura, from the Sendai group of magical girls, is prone to dropping a Cluster F-Bomb on a fairly regular basis. Especially if it's Sabrina talking to her.
- Spared by the Adaptation: Mami avoids getting her head chomped, and between her own skill and Sabrina keeping her soul gem clean she's not likely to die any time soon. Oriko and Kirika also survive, and Nagisa doesn't even contract. Sayaka eventually contracts, but Sabrina's power plus effective mentoring and warning Sayaka about the truth of Soul Gems well ahead of time avert her otherwise inevitable death.
- Squishy Wizard: Sabrina is not that good with her hammer compared to her grief manipulation skills. She can, however, create quite tough armor and a combat support harness made out of Grief to enhance her close-combat capabilities.
- Stepford Smiler: Mami, before Sabrina told her the truth and promised to stay with her...and Sabrina herself on occasion when it comes to dealing with the aftermath of what she did by telling her the truth about Kyubey and Soul Gems.
- Story-Breaker Power: The premise of the quest is that Sabrina has the ability to manipulate Grief, which would normally put a cap on how much magic she can use without dying or worse. Consequently, she and her allies are able to use infinite magic, since she can drain away any Grief buildup that occurs from normal magic use. Sabrina can also use Grief offensively, meaning that just using magic gives Sabrina more power. Finally, she can tear apart the Grief that makes up a Witch's body, destroying it with just a wave of her hand. In all probability, Sabrina already has the power to defeat Walpurgisnacht which is why it's hinted that something even worse is coming. It's been made clear by the author that Sabrina's witch form Dedolere ("to end grief") could literally break the universe.
- Supporting Leader: While Mami is the leader of Mitakihara magical girls, Sabrina is the one who bring them together and they all follow her lead.
- Swiss-Army Superpower: Sabrina has grief control. Given what witches do with grief, she's turned it into a borderline Imagination-Based Superpower. It does, however, have serious limitations: a 100 meter control range, the need to enter trances to create complex constructs, and various other problems (such as healing done with constructs designed to speed up and enhance healing resulting in the healing coming undone when Sabrina leaves the 100 meter radius, with nasty results). Still, it's incredibly versatile.
- Symploce: An encouragement of love and caring in "Surface Tension pt. 16":Give her a chance. Give yourself a chance.
- The One Thing I Don't Hate About You: About the only thing Sabrina thinks Kyubey is good for is as a disposal for all the excess Grief she accumulates, and maybe its memory-wiping powers to keep up The Masquerade. In all other aspects, it's an abomination.
- There Is Only One Bed: Oriko's otherwise well-stocked hideout for herself and Kirika includes only one mattress. This does not go unnoticed in-universe. Sabrina brings this up to Kirika and Oriko, with hilarious results.
- Token Good Teammate: The playerbase came to view Rin as this for the Sendai Group. At least, until they were befriended.
- Troll: Sabrina enjoys some good-natured, yet mischievous, messing with Sayaka and Sakura. In Sayaka's case, encouraging her parents to believe that they were a couple and waking her up in an excessively cheerful manner, and in Sakura's case, acting more like a witch around her.
- The Unapologetic: Riona Mag Aoidh makes no secret of the fact that she can and has stolen the souls of her enemies and enslaves them into shades, whom may or may not have been good people, but she won't let anyone, least of all Sabrina, tell her how to handle her problems.
- Villains Act, Heroes React: Mentioned by name in the first post as a saying the author dislikes. Sure enough, Sabrina tends to succeed by being proactive.
- Wide-Eyed Idealist: Sabrina sincerely believes that she can and should help every magical girl out there, and will go out of her way to help relative strangers simply because she can. Her ridiculous powers and knowledge of the canon characters' personalities makes this less suicidal than normal for the setting.
- You Are Not Alone: The core of Sabrina's relationship with Mami, and mentioned during a heart-to-heart with Homura.
- You Can't Fight Fate: Even though Sabrina told her the Awful Truth about magical girls, Soul Gems, witches and Kyubey, Sayaka can't shake her desire to not be useless and help out her friends, and eventually contracts and becomes a magical girl.
