#akiten

HELLO everyone welcome to the secret cave of madoka akiangel au… thank you for clicking to hear about the rambles of the chud akiangel fan with a passion for character design deciding to make another au instead of doing anything with the original universe…!!

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LORE:

AKI:

ok. well let’s start with aki first. so aki is definitely the veteran out of the two of them, and i imagine how angel originally encounters magical girls as a concept is because aki saves them (note: they are all genderbent in this au. but angel is always some weird gender freak enby in my heart). and i wanted aki’s wish to revolve around her family, so she possibly wished to save them from an event where they could have died? this parallels the manga too.

and the most compelling thing about this.. is that i think, either way, aki would feel some sort of regret. if she didn’t wish to save her family, she’d probably have some sort of survivor’s guilt. BUT i also think she’d feel some sort of regret with wishing to save her family too, because she’s jealous of taiyo. i feel like a part of her might’ve thought that her family would look at her more if she saved them, but the problem is that nobody knows she made the wish to save them in the first place, or EVEN KNOWS ABOUT MAGICAL GIRLS AT ALL.

so i think she’s in a constant state of pain and anger and regret and feels trapped.

though she learns to ignore those feelings because it’s easier, and it’s become normal for her now. she just accepts that this is her life now, and probably feels like she deserves it a bit too, because of her feelings.

that’s pretty much all i have for aki’s lore right now………!! SO ANGEL TIME!!!

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ANGEL:

for this au, i decided for angel to be more related to makima because i think he was pretty content with his life before makima in the manga, and i need more angst potential because i’m an ADDICT!!! though, i do think it’d be interesting if someone content with their life was given the choice to change it… hmm…

but anyways, for now, angel is with makima. in the church. angel lives or is related to the church… me thinks. i think angel lost her parents when they were super young, so they've always been under makima and surrounded by other members of the church. and i think over time, that got really suffocating for them. though for the most part, she’d be complacent with whatever people told them do with their life because they'd gotten so detached from it, and it was better to disassociate—or i suppose, separate their true self and societal self—because it hurt and got annoying to deal with. and i think they'd also be a little hopeful, that maybe one day, if they wait long enough, they'll be free.

but i guess one day they were having a really bad day and just like. decided to run away for a bit, which is when they get stuck in the labyrinth and meet aki!! (if i remember correctly, this is similar to how homura learns about magical girls in the first timeline, except aki and angel don't meet prior like homura did with madoka).

they definitely DO NOT get along at first, angel thinks aki is kinda full of herself and aki thinks angel is kinda incompetent. but well, they come from totally different backgrounds so it is to be expected.

but i think over time, aki realises angel might be more similar to her than she previously thought, and kinda softens a bit.

i really love akiangel parallels a lot, and i think that’s why they can connect to each other so well. they both experienced loss, both feel guilty or responsible in a way, but just express it differently.

ummm anyways, aki kinda has to tell angel about magical girls and angel becomes one. angel’s wish would have something to do with freedom i think, and a huge chunk of their regret after they become a magical girl is their naivety and realisation they'll never really be free, it’s just different things trapping them.

that’s the main plot or lore I Guess. not really thought about that much, BUT YOU CAN SEE THE VAGUE IDEA HOPEFULLY???

i didn’t mean for this to be so long… but now i wanted to talk about their character designs because i thought about them a lot..

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CHARACTER DESIGNS:

fun fact, aki's design is the one i designed first all the way back mid-last year...!! i just didn't do anything with the au because.. i was absolutely stumped with what to do with angel LMAO

i always liked the subtle symbolism put into the madoka designs, easiest one for me to point out right now is how sayaka's is kind of inspired by a knight. or maybe even the dullness of homura's colour palette being representative of how prominent being a magical girl is in her life. so i tried to take that same kind of direction in my own designs (and who doesn't love good design symbolism amirite).

anyways, i guess we'll talk about aki first again.

AKI:

the idea with aki's design was to mix school uniform and military-esque attire together. so i guess the overall 'structure' of the outfit is built like average japanese school uniform (except she's got the aura jacket cape thing), but has more of the solider/military vibe. i guess this is to show how she feels a sort of obligation with her purpose as a magical girl now (regret and #all that), and also how normalised it has become for her. i think in a way, it also shows her acceptance and desensitisation. (or lack of willingness to question her purpose now (because it's easier. less feelings.)

there's also that idea that what she's doing is heroic or noble, but she's just under the system of magical girls. what she's doing benefits kyubey in the end.

and of course, aki has a katana BECAUSE IT'S ICONIC!!! it's The Aki Weapon. and just fits the general vibe. love when the design works itself out. Yay.

forgot why the bandages were there but i guess they just add to the aura.

and fun fact (i guess?) the shoulder pad things were meant to reference a target because aki and gun devil.. stuff... not really relevant, but something to add to make the design feel more interesting i guess LOL

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ANGEL:

like i mentioned before, i had totally no clue what to do with angel's design!! which is why the au was just cooking in the back of my brain for a good half a year. but yesterday i had a divine vision brought to me: flying fish.

a bit of context and rambling: i knew i wanted angel's design to be flowy, like it'd fit right in with the beach, and also because they wished for freedom. and i settled on pants for their design because skirts or dresses JUST DIDN'T LOOK RIGHT.

so there was a lot of trial and error with angel's design, but aki's came to me naturally so it was frustrating!! but sometimes, you just have to keep drawing random fucking bullshit to get somewhere. and that's why i knew skirts weren't for angel's design cuz i kept drawing and it looked WRONG.

anyways, i eventually settled on the motifs or ideas of:

flowy

beach (and by extension, ocean)

birds

so that's where a lot of the flowy fabric came from in the earlier designs (which you still see in this design). and i tried to combine the bird idea with the pleated sleeves and any other fabric that looks similar, because bird wings kind of look a bit pleated once you simplify it, right? (trying my best to explain Help)

but you know how even though a design looks ok, it doesn't have that special sauce that makes everything click together?? that was me until i worked out the flying fish idea.

because i was thinking. "ok, well, fish and beach is a thing. OH WHAT ABOUT FLYING FISH BECAUSE THEY'RE LIKE BIRDS CUZ THEY "FLY", BUT THEY DON'T TECHNICALLY FLY!!!!!" and it felt so representative of angel's character for me that i almost started crying. because of angel's connection to the ocean (in the manga), and i suppose in a way, the ocean also represents freedom too. but the fact that the fish don't actually fly, rather have the illusion of flight, felt perfect as well. it felt like it matched angel's idea of "well, is fighting like a magical girl for my wish of freedom.. really FREEDOM?".

so that's where the non-pleated looking fabric comes in to represent the flying fish. but i think the best example of that is with angel's scythe. i don't know why i gave angel a scythe, but i guess it was funny because they're short as fuck. anyways, you can see there's a wing-looking thing at the end of the scythe, and that's meant to look like flying fish fins (it doesn't really but i was too lazy to get a reference. just know the idea is there).

on the topic of the scythe, i also tried to make. the actual. weapon part of the scythe have ocean wave patterns. just. for Fun. Yeah.

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AND IF YOU MADE IT TO THE END. THANK YOU FOR READING THIS BECAUSE I BULLSHITTED MORE THAN USUAL... i appreciate it..... because believe me, if i could, i would yap WAY WAY MORE. but i didn't want to make this post super long sob (as if it isn't already long as fuck)

maybe i will make a proper reference of them one day. anyways madoka au IS SO FUN!! i love pretending akiangel are my ocs and putting them through MORE HORRORS!!!

It somehow mended the tattered fiber of his trust. Was this Angel’s way to reconcile with him? “I asked the other special division devils, and none of them remembers hell. Only, they… they do remember the last sound they heard before dying in hell.” “A sound?” The news confounded him, and he repeated the word unintentionally. “A sound.” Angel confirmed the peculiarity, “The strange thing is… everyone in the special division remembers the same sound.” “What kind of sound?” Aki leaned forward, intrigued. “I started Chainsaw’s engine during that last battle. The brrroom sound he made…” Angel made a pulling motion and mimicked the low rumble with his mouth. Aki’s gaze snagged on the puckered lips, lingering a beat too long as his throat went parched. Angel noticed him and paused long enough for Aki to wrench his eyes back. Nothing changed on the devil’s face except a fleeting flicker. Heat crept up Aki’s neck as his heart hammered for no apparent reason. “It was that sound.”