Empatheias App!

[witchinghour]

⌈ PLAYER SECTION ⌉
Player: Snarky
Contact: AIM: sargentsnarky ;; plurk: wildzubat
Age: 24
Current Characters: N/A


⌈ CHARACTER SECTION ⌉
Character: Homura Akemi
Age:14
Canon:Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Canon Point: Third known timeline. She knows that magical girls eventually become witches and has tried to tell the other girls only for them to disbelieve her. She also has incorporated guns and other weapons like grenades into her fighting in addition to the bombs she makes. However, I'm taking her from before Sayaka becomes a witch herself.

Background:
Please see the Other section for a short glossary of terms.

wiki link!

If you just want a super succinct, to the point summary, then start with the link. However, be aware that it is a brief summary and the personality section on that page is centered more around describing Homura as she is during the final time loop scene in the series and beyond. As I feel a more detailed summary of the events leading up to her canon point may be useful for thoroughly understanding her, I have also written it out below.

Little is known of Homura’s early life. It is implied that she is most likely an orphan or is otherwise primarily left to fend for herself by any family members, as she lives alone with only her name on the nameplate, and she seems to have fill out her transfer forms herself. Moreover, at one point she states that prior to enrolling in Mitakihara Middle School (where all the main characters attend school), she attended a Catholic missionary school in another city. While that alone doesn’t indicate anything in particular, it would nevertheless fit in neatly with the idea that she may have spent some time in the care of an orphanage or otherwise lived in unusual circumstances.

In any event, for six months prior to when she first enters the story, Homura is in the hospital due to an unspecified heart condition — likely a congenital defect and/or infection requiring surgery, a long recovery period and continued daily medicine, which she takes during lunch break at school. The time spent ill or recuperating has left her in very poor physical shape, as well as behind on her schoolwork (though apparently she did a lot of reading in the hospital).

Her story picks up with her being discharged from the hospital and beginning her time at Mitakihara about one week later. The teacher introduces her to the class and explains a bit of her situation, and later during the break for lunch, she is overwhelmed with curious students pelting her with questions. Madoka Kaname, the class nurse’s aid, rescues her by offering to guide Homura to the nurse’s office so that she can take her medication.

As they walk through the school, Madoka is immediately very friendly, even going so far as to ask if Homura minds being called by her first name. Having not really had much in the way of friends and being very shy, Homura stammers that most people don’t and that her name is kind of weird. Madoka disagrees, turning around to enthuse that she thinks the name is really cool (because it means flame) and that she thinks Homura should strive to be as cool as her name. Homura has her doubts…. and these doubts prove to be well founded as over the course of her first week, she struggles with everything from coursework to gym class, where just the warm ups leave her winded and dizzy. Classmates take note, gossiping about her and bullying her because of her lack of self confidence.

This disastrous first week leaves her feeling discouraged, useless and utterly miserable - all of which makes her an easy mark for a Witch. On her way home from school one day, a Witch begins to whisper thoughts of suicide into her mind - and before she knows it, she’s inside the labyrinth. But luck is with her, for in this moment something life changing occurs!

Madoka Kaname and Mami Tomoe appear in all their magical girl glory and defeat the witch, saving Homura’s life. Afterwards, the three of them have tea in Mami’s apartment, and the two magical girls and Kyuubey explain the whole schtick (such as they know it at the time, of course). Awed and grateful, Homura soon becomes friends with Madoka (and it is also very nice for Madoka to have a friend her age who knows her secret). However the good times can’t and don’t last forever…

A few weeks later, a mega witch known as Walpurgisnacht appears and threatens to destroy the city. Mami and Madoka face it, while Homura watches on — and witnesses Mami die in the fight. Horrified and not wanting her dear friend to share that same fate, Homura pleads with Madoka not to go - even to run away. She points out that a lot of people would be grieved by Madoka’s death, but it’s exactly because Madoka loves them and wants to protect them that she considers facing Walpurgisnacht her duty - after all, isn’t that what magical girls are for? Indeed, she goes on to tell Homura that one of her proudest accomplishments is having been able to save Homura.

In the end, Madoka dies all the same, leaving Homura to sob in grief over her friend’s corpse. She laments that it wasn’t worth being saved if it meant that Madoka would die. It is now that another life-altering event occurs: Kyuubey appears before her and offers Homura the opportunity to make her wish to have Madoka back a reality — in exchange for her soul, of course. The necessary price of becoming a magical girl. Homura thinks for a moment before standing, drying her eyes and making her wish:

“I wish I could meet Miss Kaname all over again. But this time, instead of her protecting me, I want to be strong enough to protect her!”

The contract now complete, Homura’s soul is extracted into a soul gem, and with that she is sent spinning back through time to the morning she was discharged from the hospital. This time, on the first day of school, she is overjoyed and excited, rather than afraid. indeed, so overeager is she that straight away, without thinking, she marches up to Madoka and in front of the entire class declares that she’s become a magical girl too! (…. much to Madoka’s mortification.)

Later, she demonstrates her new time stop power to Mami and Madoka, but given her poor constitution, even the act of beating up a steel drum with a golf club during a timestop leaves her winded and needing to rest a while. Mami observes that this ability has a lot of potential but that Homura needs to find a better weapon and strategy to optimize it. So Homura researches and learns from the internet, of course how to make her own pipe bombs (and possibly other incendiary devices). Gradually she improves in both skill and confidence in her skill, as well as becomes good friends with Madoka again. However, even this is not enough in the end.

Homura and Madoka do survive the battle with Waplrugisnacht, but not without cost. Having used too much of her magic in the fight and lacking a grief seed to purify it in time, Madoka becomes a witch right before Homura’s horrified eyes. Kyuubey informs Homura of what she is witnessing, and Homura therefore soon goes back in time to try to prevent this outcome. This time, she is considerably less enthusiastic, as doubts have begun to creep back in.

Eventually she tries to tell the other magical girls about Kyuubey’s deception on the origin of witches, but they don’t believe her - especially since she does not yet know why exactly Kyuubey does what he does. Instead, the tables get turned on her as Sayaka uses the opportunity to criticize Homura’s use of explosives, saying she didn’t like the danger of having explosions go off in her face, given that Sayaka primarily fights up close. Mami asks if there is any other weapon Homura can use, and Homura murmurs that she’ll think of something.

That something turns out to be raiding the weapons lockers of Yakuza for guns. (And in future timelines, military compounds.) Good job, Homura. Aaaaand it is about this time that she finds herself in this brand new world! She’s still figuring out the best ways to use firearms, but with practice she’ll improve and become more discerning in which ones to use. Notably, she is coming here before Sayaka goes utterly downhill and becomes a Witch herself, confirming Homura’s warnings….

So! With those events in mind, let us move on to her personality…

Personality:

Although by her canon point Homura has gained some degree of confidence and has become somewhat more fit and competent with an actual purpose, she still retains a lot of self doubt and a low sense of self worth as well as still being easily flustered at times. Moreover, although Madoka is (and always will be) the most important person to her, at this time Homura is still ready, willing and able to more or less work with the other girls to help them out. Nevertheless, Homura fails to really bond and become friends with any of them besides Madoka. This is in part because however much power and ability she has gained, Homura is still shy, meek and awkward - and she tends to maintain a distance with others. Indeed, Homura is never anything but formal and polite in her language. While more evident in the Japanese, even in the English translations, this come through with how she always refers to the others (even Madoka) as Miss [surname].

Part of the reason for her submissive, withdrawn and awkward behavior is that she has been rather isolated from her peers. In the hospital, she relied on books for companions, and even before that it seems likely that between her poor health and probably orphan status, she has never really had any real friends before. Moreover, having spent a lot of time in the hospital, being cared for by others and not really contributing anything coupled with her struggles in school - especially when she is saved and protected by Madoka - only builds and reinforces feelings of uselessness and purposelessness. At the same time, this also helps give rise to her strong desire to give something back, in a way. To switch roles and become the one who protects Madoka instead of the other way around. If she can save this one person who was truly kind to her and really reached out and connected with her, then everything is worth it. This gives her purpose and drive and forms a solid core of determination that will guide her through the many timeloops to come.

It’s just that for now… that core is still shrouded in uncertainty, self-doubt and some degree of social anxiety.

Now, all that said, despite initially being behind on schoolwork, Homura is nevertheless a very smart cookie with the capacity to be very creative. She is also a lot braver than she realizes, social anxiety aside. After all, not many fourteen year old girls would think to (much less actually be able to go through with) make pipe bombs (and possibly other incendiary devices), complete with built in time delay, light indicators and twist activation (indicating some sort of electrical fuse). Nor would many (even with the ability to freeze time) go through the planning and execution of stealing weapons from the Japanese Mafia! Particularly in later timeloops, she demonstrates remarkable forethought, planning and analysis abilities, as well as creative use of her time stop abilities to simulate teleportation (and… at times feed her apparent secret flair for the dramatic).

In addition, she is quite capable of being jubilant. Though the way the second timeline ends rather puts a damper on her cheer and eagerness, during that timeline when successful (and praised by Madoka), she is quietly joyful — and of course, let’s not forget that she got quite carried away with excitement at the prospect of getting to be a magical girl and help Madoka out to the point where she blurts it out in front of the whole class! She has since learned more caution and that things are much darker than she had initially known, but the point is that in the right circumstances, she can be happy, despite her normally more serious and even gloomy countenance.

Another quality worth mentioning, even if it hasn’t entirely made itself apparent yet, is the strong streak of obsession that runs through her. Already, she has become fixated mainly on Madoka and the idea of helping and protecting her. After all, her wish is in fact to be strong enough to protect Madoka. It is clear that Madoka is the most important person to Homura, and Homura would do anything Madoka asked her to. Though perhaps her devotion is admirable in some ways, it nevertheless will become something singleminded and terrifying in the future. The way Homura centers everything around Madoka may seem to some to be something beautiful (how wonderful to have a friend so wholly loving and devoted, right?), but the harsh reality is that this obsession and the subsequent traumas Homura experiences in her Sisyphean quest will twist her profoundly. And the end result is anything but healthy.

That said, this Homura has not nearly reached that point yet. She is just beginning her journey and has not yet seen nearly the worst of what is to come nor begun to take unthinkable actions.

Lastly, it is very much worth noting that for all the disillusionment and cynicism she may gain in the future, Homura starts with a strong optimism and belief that things can be made to turn out right - a hope and a wish that she will grow to cling to when all else seems lost.

After all… the moment she gives up that hope, the moment she believes she can’t change things to ultimately achieve her goal… that is the moment when her Soul Gem will cloud over with dark despair, and she will be lost.

Abilities:
♦︎ General Magical Girl-ness: Namely, the transformation between 'normal' and magical girl, as most keenly illustrated by the costume change. But with being a magical girl comes additional endurance, pain tolerance, healing and, of course, magical abilities. The magical abilities are based on the type of wish the girl makes, which brings us to...

♦︎ Time Magic. There are two components of this for Homura.

1. She can stop time around her for short durations, allowing her (and anything/one she touches excluding the ground she's standing on) to do whatever she needs to do. Then when time starts again, to observers it seems as though she has accomplished something in a split second. Things that she gives momentum as they leave her (such as bullets fired from a gun) continue to travel for a short way. However, she cannot do this an unlimited amount of times for reasons explained in point 2.

2. She can go back in time up to approximately a month. Basically from when she starts a timeline (always on the day she leaves the hospital to transfer to her new school) until the arrival of Walpurgisnacht, she has a limited supply of sand trickling through an hourglass in the shield she bears as a magical girl. She stops time by temporarily stopping the flow. But once she's out of sand, she can't stop the flow anymore - the most she can do at that point is turn the hourglass over, which sends her back in time. Theoretically there are timelines she will eventually have been through (such as the anomalous timeline shown in the manga Puella Magi Oriko Magica) where Madoka dies before Walpurgisnacht and Homura resets early, but even resetting early does not allow her to go back prior to the date she leaves the hospital.

In game, she will be unable to go back in time unless perhaps during an event this becomes a thing. Otherwise she'll be unable to travel backwards in time. The trade-off is because there's no month limitation, she also won't be limited to only being able to stop time for the first month she's here. Instead it will be as if there is a perpetual flow of sand. However, as per discussion with mods, the time stop will have a limited radius wherein she can act, a limited duration of 5 min for Homura and be dependent on player permission.

♦︎ Hammerspace: Basically, in her shield, Homura can store pretty much anything and pull out whatever she wants that's stored in there. She doesn't have to hunt for it or anything. We know that she stores bombs, guns, grenades, etc. in there, but she could also theoretically store other things there.

♦︎ Other magic: In addition to her major time-related abilities, Homura is also able to use her magic to augment herself. Presumably she uses it (consciously or unconsciously) to fix her heard condition. And, after her canon point timeline, she eventually uses it to fix her eyesight. Moreover she is able to use it to help her achieve ordinarily impossible acrobatics (though of course this takes experience and practice - which she only has a limited amount of currently). Lastly, she can use her shield to sort of - project a bit of a shield in front of her to deflect attacks. And she eventually figures out how to fire magical blasts, but they're not practical for most of her fighting, and this Homura has not yet learned that.

♦︎ Knowing how to make pipe bombs and possibly other incendiary devices and also make use of various guns (though she's still learning there...).

♦︎♦︎♦︎ ALSO!!! The way her powers and the purifying the soul gem etc. will work in this game can be found here!

Other:
Let's talk about Soul Gems for a moment because it's not quite the same as a pure ability.

♦︎ Soul Gems: When a girl makes a contract to become a Magical Girl, her soul is extracted from her body and made into a Soul Gem. With this comes the following bonuses: powers, increased durability of her body because it can be healed with magic quite readily, feelings of pain are more removed... But it also comes with negatives: Really the girl is kind of a zombie now. A body animated by the magic of the Soul Gem. If the Soul Gem is destroyed, then the girl is dead. If the Soul Gem is moved more than 100 meters from the body, she ceases to be able to control her body.

♦︎ Magical Girls / Puella Magi: Girls who have made a contract with Kyuubey, wherein he grants one wish in exchange for them becoming magical girls. This process occurs by having their souls extracted and formed into Soul Gems. Wwhen they use magic (or feel too much despair), their soul gems become tainted and must be purified by a grief seed, which is obtained from defeating a Witch. Their duty is indeed to use their powers to fight Witches, and their fates generally go one of two ways: death or themselves becoming a Witch once their Soul Gem becomes too corrupted and turns into a Grief Seed (either because they fail to purify it or they succumb to despair). Lovely cycle, yes?

♦︎ Witches: The “mature” form of a magical girl, in a way. Where magical girls bring hope. witches bring despair, inducing people to unexplained suicide and murder or trapping people in their labyrinths. They “hatch” from Grief Seeds, but when they are defeated, they leave behind their own grief seed to be used by magical girls to purify their soul gems.

♦︎ Kyuubey: a monster An alien being known as an Incubator. Technically it has no gender, though it most often referred to with masculine pronouns. Kyuubey’s job is to collect emotional energy from Earth to be converted into energy to counteract Entropy and the eventual heat death of the universe. He does this by contracting with teenage girls, granting them one wish in exchange for them becoming magical girls. When they invariably become witches (provided they don’t die, of course), a tremendous amount of energy is released, which he collects somehow. Among Incubators, emotions are regarded as a mental illness, which results in him not really understanding humans and how their emotions work. He claims to never lie, but he certainly is good at withholding certain truths or otherwise implying false things in order to manipulate people… he is a cute motherfucker, though….




⌈ SAMPLE SECTION ⌉
First Person Sample:

Test Drive Meme! There are multiple threads here, so take your pick? The first one works as a sample for the telepathy thing, and the second thread serves as a pretty general sample that gets into some in depth thoughts later. Sadly it is not in prose format, so it cannot count for the third person sample.

Third Person Sample:

Perhaps this might work?

If not I will gladly write an additional sample.

Questions: