Notes on Clarisse Quest

2026-04-09T01:46:26-04:00

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.

Contents

Part I: Machine in the Ghost
Sidestory
Apocrypha
Information Posts
Unthreadmarked Posts of Note

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 Ryouko/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 Ryouko 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 Ryouko 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 Ryouko 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 Clarisse
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 Ryouko
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 Clarisse, 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 Clarisse 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 Clarisse, 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 Clarisse; 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 Clarisse 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, Madoka, Sayaka, and 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 2400s 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 Clarisse
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.

you have been forsaken by the gods ¶

Enter Homura’s apartment
Madoka and Homura are kind of awkward together
Homura somewhat upset at/nervous with Ryouko for “stealing” Mami’s soul gem
- Justify it as trying to help her
Horoscope warned Homura to keep vigilant against betrayal; horoscope was fabricated by Oriko
Ryouko’s birthday has been magically changed
Homura doesn’t have implants
Homura took grief cubes; discovers they’ve been stolen from her and replaced with empty seeds

I am a powerful enchantress, and I can read on a sixth grade level ¶

Contact Hitomi for Oriko’s number, which was actually already printed on the horoscope
Try to emotionally help everyone, help Madoka and Homura become friends
Call Oriko, Yuma answers, gives three messages, all for different times
- First, for 11am Monday, is ransom message for Mami
- Second, for 7pm Wednesday, is for Homura, apologizing for theft and soliciting help
- Third, for unknown time, says that Ryouko’s “lover” was sent back to the future, we should follow her back⁹
We get Oriko’s cell number, “for emergencies”

You could break someone’s heart that way, even if you don’t mean to ¶

We request a memory recording of Nanami finding Ryouko’s body
- Soul gem vanished, not body
- Provides evidence for witchbomb
Share info with Homura/Madoka/Ryouko
- Later inform Nanami and others of events by message
Homura did exorcism to remove tech¹⁰
Ryouko and Clarisse get somewhat confused about the third message from the previous chapter, suspect “lover” might be Governance!Simona
Plan for Homura to maybe meet Oriko; discuss Homura’s powers
- Homura’s time stop lasts indefinitely for free
- Plan to get Homura guns and maybe bombs
Agree to split grief seeds Oriko gave in return for cubes with Homura
Briefly consider leaving body in Oriko’s bed to send a message
Return to Shizuki house; Papa Shizuki arrives home early,
- Briefly believes Hitomi has made a contract and panics before we correct him
- Very briefly explain who we are to Papa Shizuki

if I were to forget what happened to those I cared about ¶

We have an extraordinarily expensive alcoholic drink w/ Papa Shizuki
Get info on Papa Shizuki’s knowledge of Magical Girls
- Mitakihara was attacked in a nuclear war on October 26th 1985¹¹. One of the survivors, another of Papa Shizuki’s classmates, wished for the war to have never happened, removing the relevant memories
  - Papa Shizuki only knew it was a disaster; specifics were revealed via ribbon
- In the aftermath, the secret was shared with her friends, and at least 24 girls made contracts, which rapidly led to overpopulation and collapse
- Yukari Hitomi (our Hitomi’s namesake) wished for all of her friends to have never become magical girls and to forget recent events, said goodbye, and disappeared
  - Papa Shizuki asked not to have his memories wiped, and is the only other person to remember
Reveal being a taccomp v2 to Papa Shizuki
Hitomi arrives home, is overwhelmed by emotional situation, asks to stop taking Tea Ceremony and Piano classes to make more time for dance

What, you think she’s some sort of serial bomber?¶

Papa Shizuki had previously jokingly told Hitomi that they had previously had an interest in a magical girl before getting with her mother, not expecting her to take that seriously
Inform Papa Shizuki of birth certificates; Hitomi’s birthday has been changed to make everything consistent
Hitomi offers to let us call Papa Shizuki “Papa”, not expecting Ryouko to accept; Ryouko does.
Some level of flashback to events of 1985 nuclear war
- Yukari Hitomi looks very much like Asami
Police have visited and interviewed Homura; are coming to interview us next

I was certain she’d refuse.¶

Postpone interview to secure legal representation
Discussion with Hitomi about Ryouko agreeing to call Papa Shizuki “Papa”
- We feel some conflicted loyalties between the two of them
We reconfigure some “filthy, filthy address translation”¹² so that we can set up an encrypted chat with everyone.
- Won’t work if offline, Nanami will run a backup
- Agree that everyone should get cellular data ASAP
Provide everyone a cover story in case of police interview
Agree on transfer student story for Clarisse and Ryouko with group
Yuuka offers to talk with her Police Officer dad on our behalf

A Certain Scientific Index ¶

Ask Yuuka not to involve him
Talk with Shizuki family, have chat conversations
- Agree to backstory of being transfers from a private school in US,
- “lol you should go tell JAXA how to do faster than light travel”
  - Nanami figures out how Mandatory Session works
  - Value of information probably outweighs “Europe”
  - Group agrees not to do anything with tech information until a clear strategy is agreed to
Visit Mami’s apartment with Ryouko; name plate has been changed from “Tomoe” to “Mikuni”
- Kyouko shows up

two for the price of one? Hot damn ¶

Explore Mami’s apartment with Kyouko
- She thinks we were Mami’s new student
- All pictures have been replaced with magically summoned photos depicting Oriko group members; Simona is depicted in one
  - Kyouko knows Simona; Simona is saying her name is “Shizuki Simona”
- Kyouko thinks Yuma was the one who redecorated on the basis of her powers: “Oriko’s been having her practice, like … she’ll burn a rose, and have Yuma bring it back in a different color. It’s like a weird healing thing.” She pauses. “Now, I’ve got no idea why…”

It sounds useful, doesn’t it? But they aren’t safe.¶

Agree to have a chat over food with Kyouko; she brings us to Fun City, an arcade and “quote, an ‘entertainment destination’.”
Jokingly flirt with Kyouko a bit, she admits to having written the horoscope to trick Homura
Clarify that we’re time travelers to Kyouko
Inform Kyouko of how Mami died, and that she may be alive again due to Nanami’s wish and our limited knowledge about Simona
Agree to cooperate on opposing Oriko; Kyuubey shows up, wants our help to stop proliferation of grief cubes, which he calls “weapons”.

He was asking for it!¶

Ask for more detail on the cubes to reveal depth of deception; Kyuubey witchbombs us
Kyouko kills Kyuubey body; another appears and cannibalizes the dead one

can we be the Gang of Nice instead?¶

Comfort Kyouko post-witchbomb, inform her it doesn’t have to be this way
Oriko is trying to fix the system via grief cubes, is doing so through murder because she sucks
Offer Kyouko provisional membership in the group
- also a place to stay, but she rejects that
Explain to group that Kyuubey is untrustworthy via chat
- Agree to be “a side”
- Plan to find Mami and deal with Oriko, concerns about how futuretech is influencing Oriko

I am the batman ¶

Search for Mami with a stealth electronic search near police stations
Reveal that Ryouko and Clarisse are in the military in the future to Kyouko
Check details of software on implants, which appear to be running Governance firmware 2011.04a Nanami’s Wish, “a civilian package as far as the physical implants and nanites are concerned, but with a custom set of what appear to be unrestricted drivers”
Homura and Nanami join us. Kyouko is rude to Homura and Nanami defends Homura; we defang it by telling Kyouko to stop flirting with them
Discussion of witch hunting logistics and sustainability
Kyouko and Clarisse talk about Clarisse’s military position, job
Find Nanami’s stepbrother doing a drugdeal likely to go wrong near a familiar

Sidestory¶

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.

Unthreadmarked Posts of Note¶

Which apparently ruined a cute little subplot of tomoyo’s, hehe. ↩
Probably why Nanami’s weapons are like that, maybe? ↩
Grief cubes are, of course, not known to her and are thus suspicious. ↩
Note that in this case they got taken by Homura, not Oriko (yet). ↩
Is this prior to Clarisse gaining potential? Interesting… ↩
Poor Dorothy 🫂. I know she’s not doing well, but I hope we can help her. Unless she doesn’t exist yet (why? that makes no sense) or somehow came into existence solely outside of Nanami, who somehow also got a v1.8 Nanami’s Wish, she began hiding and disguised herself as a v1.8 almost immediately.

Also, “I’m pretty sure I just caught the start of a handshake to join our battle net. I don’t know who it’s from, it cut out just before sending an identifier, but the signatures were definitely Governance.” is 95% Dorothy making an mistake early-on, though it could be another of our time-travelling friends. ↩
Unfortunately, this isn’t much clue as to which Oriko we’re dealing with. ↩
Super-spy Sayaka later confirms that we stole the ribbons in our subjective future, apparently. ↩
This is, of course, actually for Star Empire Clarisse (probably; it’s not entirely clear, though certainly it’s for someone from the star empire) ↩
Poor Higanbana, too, though at least we know what’s going on with her. ↩
As detailed in tomoyo’s other work ↩
IPv4 really is pretty awful; I wonder if they’re still using v6 or have moved on in the 2400s. Presumably moved on, just to have a single protocol for all of humanity, and IPv6 really isn’t suited to communications with long light delays. At least Clarisse has access to all the RFCs (and any ISO/IEEE standards she can find drafts of or pirate, I guess; probably does not have the ∞ CHF needed to actually buy said standards yet). ↩

nuew.net - fanfic

Notes on Clarisse Quest

Part I: Machine in the Ghost¶

Sidestory¶

Apocrypha¶

Information Posts¶

Unthreadmarked Posts of Note¶