Sword Art Online: Origination.

A brief forward concerning Origination:

If you’re reading this, then somehow, someway, something has piqued your interest into either the world of Sword Art Online, or just this version of it.  And if you haven’t seen SAO for whatever reason, I highly suggest watching it.  In the very least watch the first arc of season one, since this story takes place during that timeframe.

While this story is, in essence, a ‘fan fiction,’ it is by no means a retelling of events that happened within Sword Art Online.  This will not follow Kirito, Asuna and the others on another quest, or an altered version of what the main story was.  This story is unique to its own, and will follow totally new original characters that were delicately crafted for this story and this story alone.

That being said, if you are a fan of Sword Art Online, you can expect to see a number of well timed and placed cameos from some of your favorite characters.  And while the majority of these cameos are short, they were specifically implanted to help move the story along.  You’ll note that none of them were placed in here for the sake of being thrown in.  Everything has a rhyme and reason, and that is to push the story along.

As we wrote this story out, we had one rule.  Everything has to support the story.  If it doesn’t support it, take it out.  That being characters, dialogue, moments of action, cameos, anything and everything must service the greater story.  And in our quest to ensure that the story was rightfully upheld by everything, we removed characters, tweaked scenes for days, argued for several weeks over how we thought something should happen or take place.  But in the end, we feel what we have created here to be the best story we’ve ever crafted.

What you are about to read is the love child of two hopeless romantics who fell in love with Sword Art Online, the characters within, and the story that Reki Kawahara beautifully crafted.  As soon as we watched SAO for the first time together, we nearly immediately began planning this story.  (I don’t think we even finished the whole first season when we started talking!!)

The characters were rough ideas at first.  “Oh, wouldn’t it be cool if…”  Then as the ideas began to evolve, a story slowly began to form and take place around these characters.  Once we had a general outline of the main story, we began the process of finalizing the characters and laying down their own individual stories against the mainframe of the core story.  And with every passing day for well over a year, the story slowly began to finalize and become what it is today.

Even still, when me and my best friend set out to create this story, we had no clue how large and vast of a world we would be diving into.  The subtle complexities of, “Is there coffee in SAO?  And if so, does it affect people in game as it would in real life?” and other confusing questions that weren’t inherently or directly answered within the anime or light novels, proved to be quite an intriguing problem as we wrote this story.  

You will note though, that as we wrote this out, we crafted a document detailing our ‘assumptions’ and ‘given’s to help understand various things within the greater world of SAO and to help explain things in our own story as well.  That page can be found here: on our sister website.

While the vast majority of the content within this story will stay within the frame of the anime—that being around a normal TV-14 rating—there are some instances in which it will branch further than that; albeit in a tasteful and proper manor as opposed to just ‘pushing the limit’ for the sake of being edgy.

Whereas this story is still ultimately one of hope and love, friendship and joy; there will be some dark times for these characters.  And in order to do some of those dark times justice, the general TV-14 feeling needed to be lifted to allow for some of these characters to fully express themselves, and, as stated before, for the story to ultimately unfold as it should.

As a result of that, some of the chapters within this blog have been slightly altered to keep them down to a more ‘tame’ rating.  If there is a chapter that has been edited from its original form, it will be specified at the beginning of the chapter.  And at the end of the chapter, there will be a link to the full, unedited version on our sister site.

The chapters that have been edited, however, still retain their full value and continue to push the story along in the proper way.  So by not reading the full version of the story, you will not be missing anything terribly important.  However, to fully enjoy the story as was originally intended to, you will want to read the unedited cuts.  But understand, that if you are uncomfortable reading the unedited versions, or wish to not read them for whatever reason, you will still be able to enjoy the story without anything hindering your understanding of the events that happen within!

And with all that being said, we sincerely hope you enjoy reading this story as much as we have in writing it.  It’s been a labor of love and anguish for the past two years, but it’s not something that I would ever wish to erase!  Without any further ado, let’s hop right in to Sword Art Online: Origination!

Homura Akemi and Madoka Kaname; is it Love?

Homura Akemi and Madoka Kaname.  There’s been a lot said about these two recently.  (As if nothing’s been said about them before?)  I’ve noticed an increasing number of blogs, polls, questions and theories about them as of late.  “Will these two ever end up together?”  “What do you think about their ship?”  “Does Homura deserve Madoka?”  And many, many others on other forums as well.  And while it’s no big secret that I absolutely LOVE these two—they’re absolutely adorable, and possibly my favorite ship of all time—someone asked me a question the other day that stumped me.  “Do they love each other?”

Such a simple question, with a simple answer, right?  Obviously they do love each other.  Otherwise it wouldn’t be such a popular ship!  But…  That’s not an answer.  To find out if these two really do, in fact, love each other, we have to look into the show itself.  Look at what these two girls said and did, and get behind their minds and actions to fully understand them.

Right off the bat, someone told me the other day that these two will never end up together because Homura loves Madoka, but Madoka doesn’t love Homura.  What!?  Madoka doesn’t love Homura?  I know for a fact, that Madoka does love Homura.  But to understand what I mean, we’re going to have to go to school today! 

Love.  What does the word “love” even mean in english?  Such a simple four letter word carries so many different meanings…  You wake up everyday and tell your family you love them.  You hug your brother, or sister and say you love them.  You punch your best friend in the shoulder, then say, “Love ya!”  At school, or work, you say you love your friends, classmates, co-workers.  Then you go home and text your significant other, and before going to bed you say, “I love you.”

When using that word, are you meaning the same exact thing, every time?  More often than not, no, you aren’t.  There are multiple forms of love.  Some people debate on whether there are four, or six, or eight or however many you want.  But I like the idea of there being eight different forms of love.  (Don’t worry, I won’t go into all eight of them in too much detail!)

Each of the eight forms of love have a different, unique meaning.  Whether it’s the intense fire that is Eros, the playful flirtatious Ludus, or the completely selfless Agape.  But since all eight forms are solidified into one word, how do we know what was meant?  This is one of the things that the english language fails at: without properly defining each version of love, we have lumped them all into one word.  So if someone were to ask me, “Do you love someone?”  ‘Course I do.  I love everyone.  (See what I did there?)  In order to continue further, then, we must look at the different kinds of love and understand each one. 

I’ve broken down each of the eight forms of love here with a brief description of what each one means.  There are several articles online that give further descriptions, and examples, but this is the basic gist of them.

Eros:  The intense fire of love.  Fully passionate, fully selfish.
Philia:  The affectionate love.  The strong bond friends who have suffered together form. 
Storge:  The familiar love.  This is the bond families have.  Natural and born with us.
Ludus:  The playful love.  Think of this as the kindling for Eros. Flirtation and euphoria.

Mania:  The obsessive love.  Purely selfish; this is the desire for love just to fill fulfilled.
Pragma:  The enduring love.  Couples who have grown old together express this love.
Philautia:  The love of self.  Not selfish.  But healthy.  Love yourself to know how to love.
Agape:  The most pure form of love.  The unconditional love of all others above yourself.

The main four that we need to look at in terms of Madomura are Eros, Philia, Mania, and Agape.  While there wasn’t any clear fiery tension between the two in the show, we can rule out Eros simply by definition.  Philia, however, clearly represents the love all of the Puella Magi will have had for each other since Philia is formed after suffering together, and, as we all know… “Being Meguca is suffering.”  And since we aren’t making a five-way-ship, we have to rule that one out by default.

That leaves Mania and Agape. 

Agape being the ultimate sacrificial love, clearly this one represents Madoka and her wish at the end of the series better than any of the others.  Seeing the evils that Kyubey had inflicted on the other Puella Magi, and seeing how hard Homura had tried to keep her from making the mistake of becoming a Magical Girl; Madoka decides to make the ultimate sacrifice and to save all Magical Girls.  Agape at its purest.

Now one might argue that agape isn’t the kind of love you want to form a relationship, but I would counter: is it not the perfect kind to start one with?  The purest form of love, wanting the other’s benefit above all, and above yourself.  How is that not what a perfect relationship is supposed to be about!

So, yes, Madoka does love Homura.  Simple as that.  But, does Homura love Madoka?  Or does she love the idea of Madoka?  If Madoka’s love for Homura is the pure Agape, could Homura’s love for Madoka be the dark opposite?  Mania?  No, I don’t believe so at all.

Now, depending on your interpretation of the ending of Rebellion, you might have differing opinions with what I am about to say here; however, I will do my best to convince you in short terms.  A lot of people seem to lump Homura into the Mania territory.  Saying that she became Homucifer in order to fulfill her own selfish desires.  Because apparently Homura only cares about Madoka and was perfectly fine with ruining the lives of everyone in the process of trying to steal Madoka for herself. 

If you’ve heard me talk about Rebellion before, you know I completely disagree with that interpretation.   And without getting into too much detail in this blog—I’ll write another blog detailing the TRUE ending of Rebellion as I believe it to be, if this blog does well enough.—Homura did nothing wrong.  Her becoming a demon was not out of selfish desire for Madoka.  Her desire was the same as Madoka’s when she made her wish in the last episode.  

Madoka wished to save Homura and all the other Magical Girls from suffering, so she erased all witches before they were formed.  In doing so, she became a goddess and the Law of Cycles was born.  Homura, on the other hand, wanted to give Madoka a normal life.  Her ultimate desire isn’t just simply to “have” Madoka.  It was to give Madoka a normal life.  One without all the suffering that they had gone through in the hundreds of previous timelines.

In Homura’s own words, “I finally remembered, all the times I repeated history over and over, getting hurt and suffering…  Was all proof of my feelings for Madoka…”  In explaining what had soiled her soul gem and transformed her, “Something that you Incubators wouldn’t understand.  It’s the pinnacle of all human emotion.  More passionate than hope, far deeper than despair.  Love.” 

Now, in Japanese, there are two main forms of love.  Ai.  And Koi.  Koi being the romantic, powerful and sometimes dark forms of love. Think: Eros, Ludus, Mania.  Ai covers the other forms of love.  The pure forms.  When Homura Akemi says the word “Love,” guess which word she says.  (Hint.  It’s not the one that could translate into Eros.)

Ai.  The pure form of love.  Homucifer uses this term to explain her love for Madoka.  It’s not the selfish form of love, it’s the selfless form.  Her desire wasn’t to “have” Madoka.  It was to create a timeline where Madoka can live a happy, normal life without the presence of Magical Girls, Kyubey, or any form of suffering.  And in order to give Madoka that life, Homura had to fly in the face of Madoka’s wish.  Exactly how Madoka’s wish completely disregarded Homura’s wish for her in the first place.

Homura’s wish?  “I want to meet Kaname-San all over again…  Only this time, I want to be strong enough to protect her!”  And while there are many interpretations on her wish there, and whether or not Kyubey granted her wish without a twist is another blog for another time.  But the baseness of it is that Homura wished to protect Madoka.  To keep her safe from pain, suffering and death.  To keep her from becoming a Puella Magi.  To keep her from becoming a witch.  (Meguca forbiddened.)

On the other side of the coin, what was Madoka’s wish?  “To erase all witches before they are born!  Past, present, and future!”  In making a wish, Madoka nearly completely disregards Homura’s wish to keep her safe.  But she did so out of love.  Because she wanted to protect Homura. 

Either way you look at it though, both of these girls acted completely selflessly and made tremendous sacrifices for the other.  Showing time and time again how much they truly do love each other.  Both of them exemplify Agape love for each other.  Both of them want what’s best for the other, and are willing to go through hell—quite literally—to ensure the other is protected.

So, yes.  Madoka does in fact, love Homura.  And Homura does love Madoka.

*~~*~~*~~*

Now that I’ve shown that these two clearly do love each other, what do you think?  Will they end up together?  Are they destined for each other?  Or will their end be much more tragic?  If you’re interested in reading more blogs like this, let me know!  There’s so much to write about in Madoka Magica that I could do these for years and seemingly never run out of content!

An Introduction to Me and My Blog...

Do you ever have those times when something is on your mind so often that you feel like you’re literally supposed to do something about it?  I’m not talking about our moral compass; I’m talking about other random things.  Like, feeling like playing the electric guitar one day.  As if the thought just randomly popped into your head and your brain was like, “YES!  THIS IS WHAT I WAS BORN TO DO!”  As if the heavens themselves opened up and God Himself looked down on you and said, “Yes!  This is my vision for you!”  

Yet you’re scared to give it a shot because you were afraid of it not working out.  Or maybe even moreso of it actually working out.  So you try to avoid it, you try to fill your mind with other random things.  More commitments, more fun.  Maybe some food. Yet no matter what you try to do, the thought won’t ever leave you alone?  Deep down inside you just know that you’re supposed to do this thing for some reason?

Maybe I’m the only person who feels that way sometimes.  Or maybe not.  Point being, it’s been weighing heavily on my mind recently to start writing a blog, and to be honest, it’s not something that I would have ever really seen myself doing.  In fact, for a long time I thought writing blogs and such was lame and only for those who were desperate to be ‘artistic.’  (I know, very immature of me.  I’m deeply sorry to all my now fellow bloggers.)  

But even though I harbored such vile thoughts, I constantly found myself reading other people's blogs.  So I’m unsure what exactly turned me away from writing my own.  It’s not as if there is some ‘middle grey area’ in between reading blogs, which is ‘cool,’ and writing one, which all of a sudden somehow makes you an otaku. 

Perhaps it was the idea that if I started something, I would have to see it through and finish it?  (I hate leaving things half done or unfinished.)  Or maybe it was the challenge of constantly having to come up with new content that caused me to push off the inevitable?  Or maybe it was the fact that I am my LEAST favorite subject and I despise writing in the first person!?

Whatever it was, I could think of a thousand reasons why I shouldn’t start a blog.  For example:

1) I’ve never done it before.  

A) How would I start?  

B) Where would I start?  

C) Or, more importantly, what even IS a blog!?

2) No one would read what I have to say.  

A) I’m boring.
B) Other people are so much more interesting.

C) Why would anyone listen to what I have to say?

3) If I started a blog, I would leave myself wide open to—GASP!—USER FEEDBACK!  Which could NEVER be a good thing.  Right?

4) A meteor would strike my house and blow everything up because I said the wrong words and accidentally offended it’s kind in one of my posts.

And that’s only FOUR reasons.  I could easily come up with a hundred more.  And yet, that inner voice of mine wouldn’t LEAVE ME ALONE UNTIL I FREAKING STARTED A BLOG.  So after much thought and time; I decided I should give this blog thing a shot.  If not only to quell that inner voice; then to see where this goes.  Who knows, it could be a lot of fun.  (Or so I’m trying to tell myself at 5:15 in the morning after getting home from working all night.)

And all that leads me to this moment here.  The opening of my first official blog!  And after much mulling over, I have decided that this is going to mainly be my outlet of sorts for ramblings about my various passions.  Albeit anime, or Star Wars, or Marvel, or what have you.  So I hope that some of my posts interest you and can start a conversation between you and your friends, or even between you and me!  And, hey, feedback is the best part about doing anything like this, so don’t be afraid to comment and share your thoughts with me!  I promise I won’t bite.  Much.

~Ruku-San