To make people actually remember, here's it once for posterity: Minako is nonbinary and uses they/them. This message will be pinned so you people stop getting it wrong and pissing me off. If you get it wrong in the future I'm going to be much less nice, considering you have to scroll past it just to read the quest.
My read of the 'never married' bit is that these two will still not be able to commit to being more than just pals that fuck by the time Homura visits Madoka daily in some retirement home.
It's been seven years, and the last thing Minako Miki-Sakura expected to see is a tiny little creature in the shape of a cat.
Except, well, it isn't even what it used to be. No, they notice that it's missing a few items, namely those floating rings and the cat-like ears that those arms stretched out of. If anything it looks more like a rabbit, with a mouth that it has not even bothered to shape into a smile.
And as they stand at the balcony of their apartment they freeze. Their eyes lock one to it, their suit halfway open, their nonbinary-colored tie disheveled, the undershirt still over their chest and the underlying binder still not quite fastened.
"It's been years."
'I believe it's been precisely seven years, one month and two days.' The creature flicks its tail. Considering how little care it put into the rest of its appearance, Minako wonders if this is deliberate. Lord knows, they aren't going to scan it. They know better now.
"It has. What do you want? I have an anniversary date."
'I am curious. That is all.' The creature pauses. 'I have been on this world for a very long time, and yet there are very few things I understand about you.'
"What's there to get? I have fucking empathy."
'Yes. I know what empathy is. I am well aware. We are all well aware.' Another pause. 'I suppose I am attempting to understand individuality.'
"Again, what's there to get?"
'I have only thought of the collective. Is it incorrect? Is it wrong to believe in the safety of one's entire species, as opposed to the entirety? The whole matters...and yet humanity-'
"They're not mutually exclusive, if you're gonna say that." Minako visibly relaxes. "Other people matter. That doesn't mean you stop caring about individual people."
'I suppose that is what I have been missing, throughout my eons.' Another flick of the tail. 'Human souls, for all their familiar traits, are so very, very different from one another. I have seen the same wish made countless times across countless magi, and they never have quite the same effect. But more importantly, I regarded myself a herder. I believed myself necessary to corral humanity, to direct it in the best way possible.'
"Well, are you?"
'I suppose that is the end I am reaching. The conclusion that we're not.'
"But why're you thinking that?" Minako snorts. "That can't just be 'cause of that fluke back then, right?"
'I believe it is. I believe that we would not have reached that conclusion were it not for your wish and your interaction with Langstenacht. We operate on reason. We operate on logos, on empirical evidence and rationale. We believe emotion to be a barrier in the way of our goals, and thus we learned to discard it. Souls are a black box, a dangerous power that, in the wrong hands, can simply annihilate a species.
'Even with the strength of humanity, what's to say that won't happen? I now understand the ingenuity of humanity. But I am...' There is a long, un-Incubator-like pause. '...uncertain.'
"And that makes you uneasy, doesn't it?"
The creature doesn't respond.
"For a species that thinks emotions are a disease, you sure are acting human."
The creature continues to stay still. It stares and stares until its right ear begins to turn to ash. The creature stares ahead, at Minako.
'I will communicate with my colleagues. There is much to discuss.' The rest of its body follows suit as the wind carries particles away. 'And Minako Miki-Sakura...'
Minako stares at the moon as the pink flash engulfs the sky, bright enough to stretch across the horizon but so brief that it's like a blink.
It's over.
There's nothing left of the old world, just a new one in disarray. A new world that's still finding its feet, that probably won't find them for another decade if it finds them at all.
But despite that, they smile. Because when that old wound stops festering, perhaps they can find their way after all...
...But they still need to get to that anniversary date.
"SHIT."
They check their phone to see when the meet-up is. Their girlfriends are pretty low-maintenance, but even then, Minako doesn't want to keep them waiting. After all, this is special.
Ten minutes. Fifteen to get there by foot.
They scramble to get their clothes on, snap the binder shut, fix up the undershirt, make sure their hair is nice, make sure the suit is in good shape, make sure that tie is on tight.
Cool. They probably won't make it, but that doesn't stop them from taking a step forward at a hundred kilometers per hour.
They've never needed a car in their life, nor will they ever. They make a soaring leap into the air and kick off of a nearby concrete skyscraper, the momentum carrying them into the air past rippling glass and the occasional indifferent onlooker. There's no reason to care that much. People know what magi are now, and if they don't, they'll know very, very soon. It's impossible not to know in the city that changed the world.
Their feet hit a lamppost and it almost breaks under their weight. They're not as graceful when it comes to bouncing off as they'd like to be, but they quickly get their bearing. Seven years as a magi; they'd think they got better at this by this point. But it's not that big a problem as they skip across a freeway between two buildings.
To the left is Tatsuya's apartment complex, and they know it because Toji waves at them as they pass by the balcony.
To the right is Akane, watering a garden on their own balcony. She waves as Minako passes, and her son bounces and watches with awe as Minako does a spinning kick off a nearby wall.
They soar over Tomo and her wife, over Reika as she waves from the street in the middle of a guitar performance, over Hiro as he's laying in the park and over Saskia as she paints in a greenhouse in the center of the city.
Overhead is a massive set of sculpted gears, a replacement for the monument that was Walpurgisnacht's grief seed. Minako skips across the ground, careful not to hit anyone as their feet bounce across concrete. They do a flying leap over the grass and another massive jump towards the mall that their moms dated at.
Or, rather, where they are now. Sayaka is the first to notice as she walks out of the building, and she waves before Kyouko, to her right, notices too. Kyouko, who says "MINAKO! YOU SMELL!"
Minako sticks their tongue out, but they can't stop laughing on their way the the boardwalk. Their feet skid across the ground as they come to a stop and they glance around to find where their girlfriends are.
And at the edge, they see them. Two women, the blonde one slightly shorter than the green-haired one.
"Sorry I'm late!" Minako gasps. "Shit, I got...got a little caught up on the way here!"
Takane laughs. "It's perfectly alright. Mami and I were just...thinking."
"Oh, should I tell them?" Mami asks.
"Yes. Yes you should."
Mami takes a breath. "So...we were thinking of simply moving in together."
"Oh, please." Takane sighs. "It's marriage. We were thinking of marriage."
"Ah." Minako blinks. "Wait, wait wait wait you...this was gonna be a proposal?!"
"Oh, no!" Takane waves a hand. "I was simply floating the idea."
"We've been together for...nearly a decade?" Mami laughs, her face turning red. "It...well, it was Takane's idea, but I would be..."
"We're both willing, but this is a three-way street." Takane turns. "Are you ready?"
"I..." Minako swallows. "...fuck. Fuck, I don't..."
"It's okay if you're not," Takane says.
"Then I'm not," Minako says. "It's...this is a little much for me right now I just had a very interesting conversation."
"Oh?" Mami asks.
"Let's just...hold on, I can tell you while we're on our date, alright?" Minako smiles. "I just gotta think on things a little."
Mami smiles, and she carefully pulls Minako's hand into her arm. It's a little awkward; both she and Takane are much, much taller than they are, but it's not that much trouble.
"So, where to next?" Takane wraps her fingers around Minako's free hand.
Minako shrugs their shoulders. "Well, let's find out."
And I'm going to be honest, I kind of intended this to be the last thing I do on this forum.
SQ2 was started on a whim but then it turned into something much bigger. I definitely wasn't intending on making the finale comic a 27-page epic. I definitely didn't see it being as taxing to write and draw as it ultimately wound up being. This fanfiction was exhausting to write.
But fuck am I glad I wrote it. Between thinking it wasn't worth it to make comics, between wondering if I was even nailing the messaging or the themes or the storytelling I'm just glad I did it and it's out there for people to read. And more importantly, it's authentic to me.
It's not going to make me a cent of money. It's a fanfiction sequel to an already very long fanfiction and it takes a while to chew through even if you're invested in what's going on, which is a big ask.
But it's my obscure fanfiction sequel.
I'll still be around on discords and chats and PMs. I still have friends here, I still have art I want to post. But I can definitively say this is the last time I'll be writing a quest or even posting anything long-form here.
But fuck am I glad I wrote it. Between thinking it wasn't worth it to make comics, between wondering if I was even nailing the messaging or the themes or the storytelling I'm just glad I did it and it's out there for people to read. And more importantly, it's authentic to me.
From my perspective, you absolutely nailed it. This is easily one of the best stories I've read on this forum; the authenticity and emotion really shines through. Thanks for sharing it with us.
I salute you moid for giving us a good ending to this quest. You are one of the few that can brag of finishing not just one quest not two but 3! Your dedication to this work is simply astounding. And although I am saddened to see the end of your writing career here. I will and many others will cherish and remember the fact you turned one of the most saddest magical girl stories written in the previous decade, by a sadistic butcher of characters. Into a rainbow of hope and happiness and love and will light up the world for years to come!
Congratulations on the completion of you're third quest. While I haven't posted at all within the thread before this point, I did lurk, read, and enjoy it as it went along.
I'm terrible at explaining how I feel, so I can't really offer feedback other than I liked reading this.
What I can say thought, is that when I first saw this picture of Kyouko:
The first thought that went through my mind is that it reminded me of Gilgamesh from Type-Moon.
On a different note now that I'm looking at that picture again, how bad of a condition of Shark Mouth does Kyouko have anyway? Or is that just a case of artistic license?
Do you have your notes about the in-setting cosmology in post-able format?
I very much want you to spam me with all your world-building notes!
I am especially hoping to hear about the parts you intentionally hand waved during your world building process, there is so much Insight to be found that way!
Yes, but with a few differences. Namely that soul gems no longer experience the corrupting effect of being outside the body.
As it turns out (and this could have been figured out earlier), soul gems cleansed by Minako's Witch Cleansing actually have a faint cleaning effect. They slowly make it so that other soul gems are incapable of witching out, too.
They're still fragile and destroying a soul gem means killing a person, but it's nowhere near the death sentence it once was.
On a different note now that I'm looking at that picture again, how bad of a condition of Shark Mouth does Kyouko have anyway? Or is that just a case of artistic license?
Kyouko has some severely overgrown fangs. Before the series she frequently bit her own tongue. Now she's used to it but those overlarge teeth still become a problem every now and then.
Do you have your notes about the in-setting cosmology in post-able format?
I very much want you to spam me with all your world-building notes!
I am especially hoping to hear about the parts you intentionally hand waved during your world building process, there is so much Insight to be found that way!
I don't, actually. What I mostly have is a bunch of things I bounced off of friends. But I can give a quick rundown. It's a lot of fun making up the cosmology because like...it's ultimately not super important for the story but it makes it more meaningful when things actually do happen.
Basically, Incubators are even more alien than previously thought. The bodies on the surface aren't real; they're all meant to emulate cats. Their first instinct (during the first civilization cycle) was to appear as themselves.
Their quarry found this utterly revolting. This may have been one of the inspirations for angels in this setting, given that they had to convince people to not be afraid of them.
Now, there is a period of history before the third cycle that is a massive blank space. When Kyubey means it had to reset civilization it means it had to reset civilization; cleanse the surface of radioactive material using the energy from witches, begin again. Incidentally this is why Gretchen isn't that big a deal. It's extra energy for the process, and there's more than enough left over to restart earth's relatively puny civilization.
A lot of the additional worldbuilding is mostly just notes to try and connect different ideas and concepts and happenings in the show together in a way that I personally find interesting. I hardly expect Madoka Magica to actually tie these together; there's absolutely no way to without bloating the short twelve-episode runtime.
(incidentally Kyubey's appearance in this story was inspired by this in Rebellion)
These are mostly just like mirrors and reflections but I liked the Incubators being so fundamentally alien that they just Don't Get It. After all their impression of humans is mostly "weird cattle that explode sometimes".
It's kinda fun to justify and think it through when ultimately the Incubators in Madoka began and ended with "they're an antagonistic force that wants to solve entropy".
How much would you have charged yourself to redo that art?
Less silly question, is there any symbolism in the armor outfit that the rework is meant to draw better attention to or is it just to make the action pose more action-ey?
How much would you have charged yourself to redo that art?
Less silly question, is there any symbolism in the armor outfit that the rework is meant to draw better attention to or is it just to make the action pose more action-ey?
I see you decided to give her some extra smug then.
Though I am wondering what's going on with her hat in the lower picture. Cause it seems like it's not on her head and in fact behind the gun over her shoulder.
I see you decided to give her some extra smug then.
Though I am wondering what's going on with her hat in the lower picture. Cause it seems like it's not on her head and in fact behind the gun over her shoulder.
