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These are chapter notes for the excellent Clarisse Quest by tomoyo a.k.a. Madison Taylor, a recursive fanfic of the PMMM fanfic To The Stars (TTS), hosted on Sufficient Velocity. It is very good and I very much recommend it to anyone who enjoys TTS or likes stories about AI (especially ones mostly written before the LLM boon, as this one was).

It should be noted that this is primarily intended to jog memories and help with finding particular chapters, mostly for the purposes of planning for future votes. It should not be relied upon by itself, especially not for non-story content like e.g. Apocrypha. It will also, of course, not be nearly as fun as actually (re)reading the story.

It is also currently incomplete as I continue my reread of the quest.

Part I: Machine in the Ghost¶

2011: A Spacetime Odyssey¶

You’re Clarisse. You’re equipped with spoilers from Hieronym’s To The Stars up to Chapter 52. You’re hanging around with Shizuki Ryouko, magical girl in the 24th-and-a-half century, Hero of Orpheus, savior of humanity, favored of the goddess Madoka, and general purpose plot-bait.

• Ryouko is distracted (“something’s not quite right”), Asami upset
• Governance declares Emergency Mode 2, patches Clarisse in on her report of magic being weird
• Simona appears, having suddenly contracted
  • ”… Simona?” asks Ryouko, remembering the first time she saved the girl from suspicious demon spawns. “… Not again?”
  • ”… What do you mean, again? You’re not … You don’t remember the last time… do you?”
• Per Simona: Wormhole, Demons, War are distraction.
• Go to Cult HQ, Kyouko out fighting demons
• Simona ties ribbon to Ryouko, promises to take care of Asami after kissing her
• Homura shows up with corrupted wings
• Wake up in 2011
• Unnamed boy on a bicycle waves hello to “Shizuki-san”
  • bicycles don’t exist in the future, apparently

This chapter contains an apparent factual error in that GNSS satellites aren’t in geostationary orbit, they’re in semi-synchronous orbits. Also I don’t think you’d get 2011 from them, they usually use day/week numbers that wrap after a while.

Are you a clone.¶

• Decide to find out “as much as we can before committing to anything”
• Approached by Yuuka, Wakaba, and Nanami
  • “That’s not the real Hitomi-chan! Her hair is too long and her breasts are way too small!!”
• Ryouko introduces herself as Shizuki Ryouko
• Girls believe her to be some sort of prank by Sayaka

(the Sublime and Merciful)¶

• Decide to ask about Mami and Hitomi
• Wakaba calls Sayaka, we try to reverse-engineer 3G UTMS
• Realize that real honey might still exist
• Yuuka takes our hand while walking, may not be internally clear on us/Hitomi being different people
• Walk together to greater group with Sayaka, Madoka, and Hitomi
• Sayaka denies involvement in prank
• We give Kaname Madoka (who is not magica) nomenclator tag “Kaname Madoka (the sublime and merciful)”

We’re gonna work together from now on¶

• Group surprised by resemblance between Hitomi and Ryouko
• Hitomi so suprised she goes to touch Ryouko to make sure she’s real
  • Ryouko slightly shorter than Hitomi, too
• Yuuka declares Ryouko her friend now
• Ryouko claims they didn’t know of a Shizuki presence in town, which is taken as suspicious
• Claim not to be relatives
  • Yuuka innocently asks if Papa Shizuki was keeping her secret from family
• Group asks if Ryouko is mythical transfer student
• Hitomi gives Ryouko phone number
• Homura shows up, publicly claims to be magical girl, tackle-hugs Madoka

I really am from the future!¶

• Decide not to break masquerade as yet.
• Girls assume Homura is part of Sayaka’s prank
• Homura discloses she’s from a month in the future, that everyone died from Walpurgisnacht
• Homura tries to prove magic by transforming and stopping time
• Ryouko doesn’t get stopped despite not being touched by her, complains to her about revealing secret, unsure of potential repercussions
• Homura panics, reverts timestop in different location still transformed

I will keep your secret safe!¶

• Decide to take charge
• Ask Homura to calm down, as situation is somewhat out of control
• Hitomi loans us her phone. Much bigger deal socially to us than to her.
• Agree to meet on roof after lunch to let everyone get to class
• Hitomi insists on showing Homura to main office

you can be Hitomi’s phone¶

• Attempt to contact Mami telepathically; she doesn’t appear to be reachable
• We research the phone; manage to reverse-engineer UTMS and break the pitiful encryption so that we can impersonate her phone
• Ryouko decides to play with the ribbon, ribbon has accidentally been moved to hair
• Find dead bird killed by the cat (Amy)

You are not a monster¶

• Ryouko tries to pet Amy, accidentally kills it after it tries to attack her, whoops
• Try to visit library; it’s closed on Mondays
• Opening hours are surprising in general; the impacts of sleep remain mysterious
• Nanami sends a text message asking if they should get Ryouko lunch
• We decode Shift-JIS and reverse-engineer the SMS protocol
• Reply with message asking them to bring us lunch

I was about to complain a little about there being no reason for Governance to ever replace Unicode (or at least not the general character tables, I could see standardizing on UTF-32 with compression or something; and yes it has a decent number of warts, but most of those are because of human language or for necessary backwards compatibility, and the rest are way more effort to fix than replacing it is worth), but no, the hexdump is actually “ちょっと志筑2志筑仁美は、もしあなたが昼食を持っているのか、それともあなたのために貰うべきかを知りたい” encoded in Shift JIS. Ok, you got me, tomoyo (I’d never noticed that you’d done that on my previous reads, either, had just relied on your translation, haha).

Clarisse, I don’t like the twenty-first century¶

• Walk around residential neighborhoods; Ryouko surprised by the sprawl of suburbia, judgemental about pets
• Discuss economic situation of 21st century with Ryouko
• They meet woman with dementia, who invites them in, clearly incapable of maintaining ADLs
  • Try to decide what to do, Ryouko has trouble not blaming neighbors for not “doing something”
• We make joke about indignities of CDMA lmao
• Delete all messages we sent to Hitomi’s phone as part of previous update¹
• Meet group on roof; they set up a trap to detect teleportation, which catches us

You’re from Crystal Tokyo!¶

• We give Very overdramatic explanation of magical girlhood to group
  • Reveal lichbomb to group
• Incredibly extremely overdramatically swear everyone to secrecy, in a scene that is apparently stolen from a story
  • As this involves some physical separation from the soul gem, we note some discomfort from being separated from Ryouko by actual space, though don’t disclose that to her
• Ryouko admits she’s a clone, validating Nanami’s joke from a few chapters ago
• Wakaba jokes Ryouko is Chibiusa from Crystal Tokyo (apparently an “ancient, some of the oldest that there is” reference, but still recognizable) and that Hitomi is her mom
• Ryouko says it’s been over 400 years, probably everyone is an ancestor
• Clarisse introduces herself by phone, though doesn’t admit to being an AI
• Hitomi offers to let them stay at her place, initially reluctant
  • Nanami interjects, Hitomi is rich and gentle and it would make her sad to reject her
  • Hitomi says she understands if there are concerns about family, understands if we say no, but would trust her Papa with info
• Homura also offers to let us stay at her place

Our teacher is kinda insane¶

• Agree to stay with Hitomi
• Try to figure out internet connection
• Group talk about school and how it differs over time
  • Ryouko’s last class was on light railgun construction²
  • Some jokes about a hypothetical nap club and possibly going to cram school to learn about naps
  • Group complains about English teacher
• After Wakaba asks if aging/death are cured, Ryouko brings up old lady (Mrs. Akiyuki) w/ dementia
  • Was known to group, but has apparently gotten worse since the last time they saw her
  • Sayaka agrees to tell her father, in the hope that he’ll call social services
• Mami shows up, angry and ready to attack, complains about “little crew of psychopathic loser-freaks” which she assumes Ryouko is a member of

I’ve had enough gaslighting for one day!¶

• We decide to transform, evade, explain, and not fight Mami
  • Try to explain what Homura was doing, swear everyone to secrecy
  • Explain we aren’t with Oriko
• Mami’s gem is very corrupted, offer grief cubes
• Mami reacts badly³, summons ribbon muskets, and starts blasting
• Homura and Wakaba show up on roof

Wow there was a lot of discussion after this chapter.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!¶

• Memory is incoherent at start of chapter, some sort of vision with someone braiding our hair, which is also Ryouko’s hair
• Flashback
  • Go with Homura to help Wakaba flee rooftop in timestop
  • Homura also concerned by “grief cubes”, trusts Mami more, whacks us in the back of the head when we go to try to forcibly cleanse Mami
  • Ryouko grabs Mami’s soul gem, tries to teleport away with it, time freezes including us
  • Mami witches out
  • Ryouko gets tied up by ribbons, Homura tries to fight Mami
  • we fucking die
• Wake up on Wednesday in a bunk bed in Hitomi’s house
• There’s a second girl who looks exactly like Ryouko on the other bunk; it’s us
• Hitomi barges in, had thought we were dead, someone made a wish to make us back alive
  • Hitomi’s mom knows about us, isn’t suprised when she calls down to tell us to stop being so loud

She’s in my tea ceremony classes¶

• We do some deep breaths, hug Ryouko
• Ribbon is missing
  • Nanami gave it to Yuuka
• We have normal implants but no taccomp, are both connected to Ryouko’s wifi and have cellphones
• On Tuesday
  • Lots of noises on roof, Homura and Wakaba go up to check, Wakaba suddenly appears back down, says fight is going on, don’t go up
  • Homura comes back down, leaves, Sayaka follows
  • School evacuated
  • Yuuka and Nanami find Ryouko’s body in field
  • Police come, school cancelled
  • Sayaka is missing
• We explain context to Hitomi
  • Mami probably fought Oriko, probably thought we were invading on her behalf, attacked us
• Everyone talked to Kyuubey, Hitomi and Madoka couldn’t see him

do you have a crush on Hitomi?¶

• Soul gem covers are still there, but grief cubes are missing⁴
• Hitomi says room was previously used when friends came over, no idea why they’re there
• We call Wakaba, she answers from in her head, has implants
• We call Nanami, she admits to wishing with minimal pressure
  • Nanami has a crush on Hitomi, and making her happy because of that was a primary cause for her wish
    • Wish likely subconsciously involves us going to school with them
  • We tell her that she’s given her friends implants too
  • We agree to call Madoka/Sayaka, Nanami agrees to call Yuuka
• Sayaka is probably alive
• We tell Hitomi about implants + some basic capabilities, which weird her out some

Did he actually say that he sympathized?¶

• Hitomi calls Sayaka, she’s fine
• Call Madoka, she does have implants but answers with her physical phone, tell her Sayaka + Ryouko are alive
• Ryouko calls Yuuka, goes well
  • Asks for return of ribbon
• School was cancelled due to the roof being damaged
• Yuuka also had dream with hair, but was the one braiding our hair, and was sitting in the lap of a “nice lady”
• Call Nanami back
  • Thank her for bringing Ryouko back
  • She offers to hunt together with Ryouko
  • Ryouko joins call, Nanami specifically mentions witches, are unknown to Ryouko, who thinks it might be a terminology change
  • Ryouko observes that she and Clarisse might be sisters with Hitomi now
  • We ask exactly what Nanami wished
• Nanami sends memory recording
  • Nanami’s big brother upsets her by being irreverent and saying she should be grateful to have time off school; offers to buy beer and hang out
  • She wants to be left alone, for obvious reasons, and snaps at him
  • Kyuubey arrives, Nanami expresses distress, Kyuubey makes some extremely avaricious comments that Nanami won’t understand, offers to let Nanami wish and become a magical girl
    • “T - then… then you bring her back! You fix… you’re going to fix everything, you hear?? It’s going to be better than ever.”
• Nanami tells us to forget about apologies, gratitude, etc. Only accepts gratitude with instance.
• Go downstairs for breakfast, Hitomi’s mother confirms that not sisters but have indefinite permission to stay; Papa in America and flying back

Sometimes, she eats cake with her bare hands¶

• Shizuki Tomoyo (hihi!) makes breakfast for us, Ryouko, and Hitomi
  • She apparently waves a knife around as a nervous habit
• Hitomi is a bit overwhelmed at the improvements to the sensation of taste
• Test of maximum safe distance between us and Ryouko
  • Headache at 500m
  • Feel torn at 750m, but can be sustained with focus on one
  • Pass out at 1km, with control being entirely reverted to the spinal-node tactical computer; on Hitomi slapping the passed-out Clarisse, control changes to the new body
    • This results in panic, which results in Ryouko teleporting back to us, reestablishing the connection
• Nanami and Kyuubey show up to plan the hunt; as Hitomi still can’t see him, she and Clarisse leave to talk privately. We can only half-see Kyuubey⁵.
  • We offer to share recording of their conversation with Hitomi; she’s reluctant due to frowning on gossip
  • Reveal Hero of Orpheus, Asami to Hitomi, who seems almost more surprised by the girlfriend
  • Hitomi reveals feeling somewhat scared, disturbed by events, implants
  • Hitomi agrees to, as most influential non-contractee in group, to take care of Madoka, Sayaka, Yuuka, and Wakaba; we agree to take care of Ryouko and Nanami
    • Hitomi wonders who will take care of us; we agree to generally discuss things with her, if not secret or dangerous
• Flip back to conversation with Nanami, Kyuubey, and Ryouko
  • Magical girl from the future is not unprecedented but also is uncommon
  • Ask Kyuubey to help plan hunt
  • Kyuubey doesn’t know what’s going on with our soul
• Go to industrial area for hunt
  • We boot up tactical network
  • Nanami appears to have v1.8 taccomp; “Honestly, it’s probably for the best. Version Twos are still pretty new, and, well, honestly, we weren’t strictly meant to be sentient. I mean, I’m glad for it, but they’re still sorting out the ethical implications, and it would be a very bad idea to have another one in the early twenty-first century without a lot of support. She’d be confused, and lonely.”⁶

A Certain Magical Railgun¶

• Ryouko is 100% ready; Nanami isn’t taking this very seriously
  • Complains about “big dramatic entrance” being made in a freight yard
• Nanami has two weapons; Clara, a 1.21 GW railgun with no recoil because magic, and Beatrice, a 50 kW 13-gun revolver.
  • Actually possibly three weapons (“This isn’t even the really big one!”), but if so biggest isn’t shown.
• No response to attempts to contact person who made aborted attempt to join tactical network.
• Kyouko and Kirika show up.

Long Live Meow Quest¶

• Decide to hide from Kyouko, Kirika; they leave
• Nanami apologies for being “a complete idiot”
• An autonomous stealth infiltration drone (Amy the cat) shows up; they are not the aborted tacnet joiner.
  • Kyouko (carrying Takoyaki) spots Amy, feeds them some Takoyaki
  • Kirika is unimpressed, doesn’t see the point of cats beyond as “target practice”, jokes about skinning and eating them
  • Gives some more Takoyaki in an attempt to not have Amy follow her as she leaves.
  • Homura shows up, is confused about events, pets Amy and invites her to her home
  • Kyouko and Kirika reappear, surrounding Homura
  • Give Homura a message that “Your friends are looking for you.” in way that suggests that they’re angry at her with intent to prevent her from having friends
  • Kyouko feels something; “Someone’s out there.”

the best can-opener in the world¶

• Hunting group goes to get food for Amy
  • Ryouko does not know how canned food works or how to feed a cat
• Clarisse is the best computer in the world, which is true (well, sans the other v2 taccomps) and also scary
• Return to hunt with Amy sent to Homura’s house
• Sayaka delayed leaving hospital, as she’s been talking to police all morning
• Find witch in wastewater treatment plant
• We start to get suspicions about having been attacked by a witch just after we teleported from the roof

Ugh. I hate creepy dolls.¶

• We share suspicions about the origin of witches w/ Ryouko
  • Ryouko guesses that possibly witches feed on Magical Girl despair?
• Everyone attacks the witch
  • Nanami loans us Beatrice
• Labyrinth is based on planes, boats, trains, Utena references, etc.
• Witch is a deformed/”creepy” doll, who dies basically instantly
• Ryouko surprised that the Grief seed is much bigger than a cube
• Nanami smokes a cigarette to cool down after the fight, which is in theory fine w/ her implants
• We discover a dead body floating in a settling tank

We should do something about the body¶

• We point out body to other two
• Ryouko wants to do something about his body, Nanami vetos due to risk of police attention
  • Also suggests shutting down phones before patrols to stop leaving location history
• Ryouko takes a drag of Nanami’s cigarette after we mention being tempted to
• Hunt ends
• Discuss Oriko with Nanami
  • “Kyouko shouldn’t be on her team”
  • Goal with Mami was probably to kill Ryouko
    • Maybe to result in Nanami’s wish⁷
• Nanami wonders why so many people from Mitakihara are remembered in the future
  • Some of it was the movie
  • Otherwise avoid elaborating
• Teleport to get ribbon from Yuuka
  • Goes successfully, with Yuuka being glad to see us
  • Yuma waiting ahead on path; Ryouko teleports to the Shizuki house w/ Yuuka
• Meet w/ Hitomi, Ryouko, us, Madoka, Sayaka, Yuuka,
  • Nanami asks why nomenclator has Madoka tagged as “Sublime and Merciful”; Hitomi realizes she’s the goddess and leaves the room
  • Yuuka wonders if Hitomi leaving is her fault for “saying something weird again”

Everything changed a long time ago, didn’t it?¶

• Go to Hitomi’s room with Nanami; Hitomi has buried herself in a pile of blankets, upset
  • “Everything is out of control, and I’m just not equipped to handle this, okay?”
• Clarisse and Ryouko have birth certificates due to the wish
• Hitomi wants to be with Madoka; is upset that she seems destined to become a goddess. Is concerned about apparently having to get married and have children
  • “I guess I’m just terrible and selfish and I just want her all to myself forever…”
• We tell Hitomi and Nanami what we know about Madokami
  • Nanami thinks Homura might only still survive in 2500s due to time travel; confirm it is just due to living that long
• Hitomi insists we don’t tell Madoka because she would feel obligated to wish to become Madokami
• We insist that destiny is dead; Hitomi can do whatever/love whoever she wants
• Hitomi blames herself for being “selfish” with conversation, snaps back to being a good host
  • Nanami objects, but Hitomi refuses further help
• Wakaba arrives for party
• We tell group that Ryouko is inadvertently flirting with Yuuka
• Wakaba jokes that destiny has caused Ryouko to be everyone there’s descendant; the genetic engineering done to Ryouko is disclosed
• Ask group to try to minimize any serious medical scans to prevent suspicion
• We ask how people feel about what has happened to their bodies
• We express concern about being human now; emotional changes; how it will effect our relationship with Ryouko
• Madoka’s ribbons were missing this morning (possibly stolen⁸); is wearing yellow ones

people die when they are killed¶

• Consider it plausible that Ryouko is actually a descendant of all six girls as a “exercise in divine nostalgia”, albeit one probably unrelated to the genetic engineering
• We use Ryouko as a mirror to view the elaborate hairdo Yuuka gave us
• When contacting ribbon, Yuuka gives weird “Delphic” prophecy about symbolism of Ryouko’s hair, with her eyes flashing gold
  • “Her hair is like an ocean, or a river… turbulent and flowing, like the wild eddies of time and fate, chaotic, untamed, untamable, inevitable, an irresistible torrent. It overwhelms her.”
• Homura and Madoka shared strange dream right before we met her
  • Brief discussion of Walpurgisnacht and downtown being destroyed
• Update nomenclators and give a presentation about Oriko’s group (Hinata Aina, Miroko Mikuru, and Kirika plus the sporadics of Yuma and Kyouko)
• Agree next objective is to find Homura
• Talk to Sayaka about running into danger and getting herself killed
  • Hitomi possibly didn’t make that clear enough to her? No: “If anything, it’s our fault. Hitomi did nothing wrong.”
• Sayaka is agreed to be a “Pirate cyborg zombie”. Ryouko is a “time traveling magical girl cyborg zombie clone”
• Sayaka truthed her way out of the conversation with police by saying she ran off after Homura when she “panicked” at explosions, and “for all I knew about it, it could have been magical girls fighting monsters up there on the roof”
• Homura may blame herself for getting people killed; discuss Amy, decide to bring her food with Madoka
• We offer to be there for Hitomi
• Shizuki house is entirely indefensible against velociraptors

Desiderium¶

• Madoka takes us to get pet supplies to bring to Amy
  • Madoka feels like “just walking along with the two of [us]” and going to see Homura is something she’s wanted for a long time; feels like she’s known us “forever”
  • Briefly tell Madoka about Asami
  • Talk about Kamijo Kyosuke and Sayaka
  • Madoka told her dad about Mrs. Akiyuki
  • Inform Madoka in advance that Amy is hi-tech
• Talk to pet store clerk about licenses for Amy, not selling mated birds together
• Let Madoka hold ribbon, hint that they may have something to do with her
  • Madoka denies being anything special, says that while ribbon is just like hers it can’t be hers as that would imply that she’s special
  • Talks about helping because she doesn’t feel good at anything; “I even made a contract to save Amy, once; sold my soul for a kitty cat, because it looked sad.”
  • “[Even] when I was Hope for everyone, there was never any hope for me.”
  • Upon giving ribbon back, apologizes for it not doing anything special.
• Knock on Homura’s door, Homura peeks out and briefly hides before reemerging.
  • Invites us in.

Notably, The concept of dating Kyouko is first mentioned in the comments of this chapter.

Apocrypha¶

Puella Magi Homura Tamura¶

After We’re gonna work together from now on, Homura claims to be magical girl from the future Akemi Tamura, a reference to the official gag spin-off manga. No apparent plot relevance or hidden meanings.

Johnnie Walker Blue Label¶

Silly joke post about drinking alcohol, and explaining worship of Madoka to Hitomi. No apparent plot relevance or hidden meanings.

Elsewhere in Mitakihara?¶

Madoka arrives home after talking to Sayaka. Official story is that Sayaka doesn’t remember what happened, to which Madoka’s dad suggests that she should go to the hospital. Madoka cries from stress over recent events and from how good the food is. Written in the form of a screenplay. Canon-consistent, but unclear if actually canon, or if it has any utility in story planning.

Operation: Clarisse is a Weirdo¶

Brief snippet in the form of a screenplay with Nanami, Sayaka, and Madoka calling Clarisse a weirdo tactical computer implanted on someone’s spine. Based on some other Nanami, but the linked Youtube video that would tell me which is deleted. Probably Utena? Presumably no plot relevance or hidden meanings, beyond Utena being important.

Information Posts¶

Character Reference¶

Character Reference out of date to Mar 2018.

I wonder what happiness is¶

Related to egg sunny-side up/down vote. Otherwise no apparent relevance.

Unthreadmarked Posts of Note¶

• Objectives as of “do you have a crush on Hitomi?”