I just thought of something that might make one of my earlier ideas less dangerous.

Have we found out if we can make grief attract grief yet? Or grief that transmits its properties to other grief/the grief equivalent to a computer virus? With proper constraints and shaping we may be able to build a self sustaining tower capable of cleansing all of Japan.

We can make grief lasers, so what if we restrict the grief attraction so it only happens when lasers of a certain wavelength are hitting the grief? Something like this https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110606113106.htm, except with light.

Edit: Grief that sticks to grief, turning it into more sticky grief in the process. That exerts grief magnetism only when hit by lasers of a given wavelength. This is to avert a gray goo scenario.
 
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Let's not make Grief Ice-9.

Do you have any ideas for better safety measures then the magnetism only working when the grief is exposed to a specific laser wavelength? Or is this just a let's not do this idea scenario. Ice nine can't be stopped. This can be stopped if you stop the lasers from shining on it. Besides. Grief is significantly less ubiquitous than water.
 
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Do you have any ideas for better safety measures then the magnetism only working when the grief is exposed to a specific laser wavelength? Or is this just a let's not do this idea scenario. Ice nine can't be stopped. This can be stopped if you stop the lasers from shining on it. Besides. Grief is significantly less ubiquitous than water.
Or we can just, y'know, not.
 
Pfff... that's silly. :rolleyes:

When thinking of obelisks, this is more what comes to mind:



Just add LASER-y functions besides Grief absorption and we'ge got our anti Walpy weapon.

:V :V :V
Really, any structures we build for Grief absorption should be perfectly flat, black, non-reflective hypercuboids that follow a strict ratio of 1:4:9:16:...
 
Really, any structures we build for Grief absorption should be perfectly flat, black, non-reflective hypercuboids that follow a strict ratio of 1:4:9:16:...
You know, if we were to make a huge-ass tower that absorbed Grief (and possible shot anti-Walpy death rays)... it really wouldn't look out of place in Mitakihara, if we made it super pretty and stuff.

It would be like, just one more of them Mitakihara marvelous structures. :V

Of course, it would be a better idea to just make a Grief Seed replacement that didn't run out nor required human souls to function, but Giant Cleansing Obelisks Of Doom (Made Out Of Actual Despair™!) are Giant Obelisks Of Doom. No, not that Doom.
 
It even uplifts the surrounding natives!

(in this case by dragging them out of a malthusian catastrophe so they can worry about art and civilization rather than killing each other, but still counts)
 
Did someone say grief obelisk?


(I imagine the thing would be either buried halfway along the bulb, or floating ?_? )

For hundreds of years, meguca everywhere marveled at The Obelisk, the Grand Construction that the Magical Girl only known as 'Sabrina' left behind.

Thousands of Magical Girl scholars across the world travelled to study The Obelisk, each one painstakingly transcribing the strange glyphs magically carved into it, wondering what did they mean; trying to figure out their function.

In fact, deciphering the Magical Script that covered The Obelisk, and thus managing to uncover the secrets behind it and how it worked was a challenge almost every Magical Girl took upon themselves at some point in their lives, and every single Magi in the world showed some interest in the construction.

It was thought that one day a genius Magical Girl would figure out The Obelisk's Script, and not only replicate it, but also discover great secrets of magic that would bring forth great Miracles.

The whole world of Magi waited with bated breath for that moment.

What they didn't know was that Sabrina was a nerd who simply felt like scribbling all over her biggest magical toy when she created it.

And they'd never know. It was better that way.
 
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(I imagine the thing would be either buried halfway along the bulb, or floating ?_? )

For hundreds of years, meguca everywhere marveled at The Obelisk, the Grand Construction that the Magical Girl only known as 'Sabrina' left behind.

Thousands of Magical GIrl scholars across the world travelled to study The Obelisk, each one painstakingly transcribing the strange glyphs magically carved into it, wondering what did they mean; trying to figure out their function.

In fact, deciphering the Magical Script that covered The Obelisk, and thus managing to uncover the secrets behind it and how it worked was a challenge almost every Magical Girl took upon themselves at some point in their lives, and every single Magi in the world showed some interest in the construction.

It was thought that one day a genius Magical Girl would figure out The Obelisk's Script, and not only replicate it, but also discover great secrets of magic that would bring forth great Miracles.

The whole world of Magi waited with bated breath for that moment.

What they didn't know was that Sabrina was a nerd that simply felt like scribbling all over her biggest magical toy when she created it.

And they'd never know. It was better that way.
The text, if translated somehow, is her "full" name. Seems like gibberish to a non-SVer, of course.
 
The text, if translated somehow, is her "full" name. Seems like gibberish to a non-SVer, of course.
A door clicked open; a dark haired girl stepped in with a frustrated sigh. Her bag was carelessly thrown on the floor, the door slammed shut behind her.

"Hey Bennu," casually greeted another girl from where she sat reading atop her bed.

"Hey yourself," snarled Bennu as she let herself drop on a chair, immediately hitting the power button on her computer and tapping her fingers impatiently on her desk, waiting on the long seconds it took for her system to boot.

The other girl rolled her eyes, but deigned lift her sight from the comic she was reading.

"Things didn't go well at the conference, did they?" she prompted more than really asking.

The dark haired girl stiffened for a second, and answered through gritted teeth: "No, things didn't go well, Sammy."

Sammy rolled her pink eyes. "You got laughed out of the building again."

It was not a question.

Bennu's fists slammed on the table, as if in confirmation.

"They just don't understand!" she exclaimed in an exasperated tone, as if she had repeated this many times, "it's so simple!" her voice dripped with disdain.

"And your latest theory is...?" asked her roommate, not entirely disinterested.

"The Script..." Bennu shook, her anger dissipating instantly, replaced with nervous anticipation, "the meaning behind it..."

Sammy held her breath, hanging on her friend's every word.

"... is internet usernames."

A second, two seconds, three seconds passed in absolute silence in the shared room after Bennu's declaration.

Sammy broke in laughter. "HA! AH-HA HA! WHAT-" she dropped her comic to she could grab her belly instead, "INTERNET NAMES? PFFF- HAHAHAHA! HA..." she rolled in her bed, laughing at her increasingly infuriated friend for what seemed like minutes.

"You done?" growled the dark haired girl once her friend finished laughing at her genius.

Sammy rolled herself back into a sitting position, breathing hard and patting her pinkish locks of hair out of her face. "Y-yeah... I'm done."

"Look, it makes sense-" started Bennu only to stop at the pinkette's raised hand.

"OK, I'm gonna stop you right there," she said, "The Obelisk is ancient. How could the Script possibly represent anything related to the internet, of all things?"

"W-well," Bennu's anger vanished, "I-I'm still trying to explain... that one..." she bit her lip, looking away from her friend's amused eyes.

Sammy shrugged. "Like," she waved her hand, "The Obelisk's been there like... uh, forever?" she frowned.

"Well," the dark haired girl adopted a pose, crossing her legs and arms, "the origins of The Obelisk aren't well known; it might have been constructed around two thousand years ago, though some people says it's closer to five thousand, and others claim -and not unfounded- that it was built far more recently, due to its observed time altering properties..."

Sammy mentally kicked herself. She had to learn to not prompt her scholar friend to explain things.

"... since the Great War somehow managed to erase almost all records of the time before -magic foul play heavily suspected- we can't really pinpoint Sabrina's time or place of origin, but we know she likely hailed from Germany..."

The pinkette groaned to herself. Bennu liked to go on in detail.

"... due to a lack of strong competing theories, an unfortunately increasing, large number of people believe Akemi Homura's recent theory that Sabrina was created whole cloth from a powerful Wish, but every rational magi knows that woman's crazy, anyway..."

Maybe if she stopped breathing, she'd pass out.
 
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Utopia
Fragment I: Dead Man's Drop

The air here was thick with grief, churning and twisting. It was a silent, black wind that only Puella Magi could feel. Kyouko wished she could say she relished in it (and indeed she would to anyone who asked, just because she liked being a memetic badass too much to be honest,) but she couldn't; It was an awful, cloying, gross feeling. It left her with the urge to shower, and a sensation akin to but not entirely like being sticky with the liquid that comes out of the bottom of the trash bag.

But she was pushing 50 years old now, and she'd been literally bathed in the stuff before, so she took the sticky feeling with the same scowl and acidic look in her eye that she had kept all her life. Kyouko huffed, scuffing the bottom of her boot (faux-leather, not that anyone could tell without the price-tag) on the rough asphalt. Her cell phone pinged in her pocket and in her skull, but she immediately dismissed the spam - more advertisements from Yuna's department, trying to poke her into becoming more involved with the UoC. As if she already wasn't - Though officially, it was true.

Still, Yuna of all people should know better what her Onee-chan did these days. Nobody else in the Union decided to have "chance encounters" underneath Sabrina's Grief Spires.

"Heya, Stranger. Long time no see!" Came a light-hearted cry. Kyouko turned only slightly to see the bob of pink headed her way. If she noticed it was starting to be flecked with grey, she wouldn't mention it. It wasn't that Madoka was scary (Though shockingly, she could be if it suited her), or that the pinkette would take her mid-life crisis out on Kyouko at her next session (Kyouko had a different Metaphysician, as UoC psychiatrists were called). It was more like why someone didn't kick a puppy. Madoka was... off limits to most of the teasing.

Given the way she got after she got her psyche degree, maybe that was planned. Kyouko was starting to think Madoka might be a sociopath.

"'Sup." Kyouko said curtly. Her eye twitched slightly; they weren't supposed to know each other in public - even though everyone and their mother would recognize Madoka, and most of the higher-ups in the organizations might recognize Kyouko. It was a security issue. But calling attention to it now would be criminally negligent.

"Nothing much! Just taking a walk. Us old ladies have to keep fit, you know! I hear the new administration wants to dissocialize the healthcare again~." Madoka made a face. "I'll probably be dead by next week, so don't get hung up on birthday presents, okay?"

"What in the heck makes you think I of all people would get you a birthday- aww, don't."

Madoka had put her puppy-dog eyes on again. Her crows feet kind of killed the effect, but she had managed to keep a face and figure more generally associated with the young than women her age. Kyouko was a little jealous, to be honest.

"Fine. I'll get you a new Slide or something." Kyouko refered to the small chips that slotted into newer cell-phones that had replaced Wi-Fi after the Crunch.

"Huzzah! But more to the point..." Madoka leaned onto a nearby rail, finally looking her age. "Mr. Morgan has been getting a bit froggy again lately. I guess someone has been spray painting his house. 'Magical Girls Represent' and stuff. You know how those politicians are; He's taking it as a sign he's onto something." The local leader of the conservatives had a daughter who became a Puella and witched before the Union could get to her. He had thus been about half-way into the know, and the Incubators had refused to wipe him, citing their alien ethics. Naturally he had become a thorn in the UoC's side. But Kyouko got the feeling the hit wasn't on him.

"Great. And this effects us how?" As in, How do we deal with it.

"The Cleaners and the Hotel say we should bring him in, but Security disagrees and says he's too dangerous. Admin won't give us any word on the subject, and personally, I'm with Homura-chan. He is a bit dangerous." That did sound like the terminally trusting Mami and Sabrina. And Homura, too, though this time she was probably right. And it wasn't like anyone actually listened to the president right now... Which Kyouko dreaded 'Fixing', given the source of the insubordination.

"Not usually the way you think. You've always been a bit naïve, even as you wrapped the Colors around your little finger. What about Oracle?"

"Mum as usual. She mostly just likes to talk about the Western Front these days. 'Those stolen Clear Seeds will bring more Grief than they can consume!' and other craziness. You know, Oracle stuff."

"Glad to see the whole team is still in character." Kyouko said dryly.

"Well, if you want to hear about 'in character', you got to hear the story about O&K showing up at Sayaka's birthday party a few months ago." Madoka said, putting her hand to her mouth. "I thought her house might burn down a third time."

"Heh." Even Kyouko couldn't keep from laughing at that image. No grudge burned hotter than one held for fourty years. "So, Mr. Morgan is on another Witch Hunt?" Witch Hunt being the covert term for a hit.

"Not quite." Said Madoka without batting an eyelash. "I think it might be those girls who are painting that stuff on his house. Riling him up. They're the ones on a Witch Hunt."

"Really?" Kyouko chewed thoughtfully on her lip, absently producing a pack of gum from her pocket and drawing out three sticks. "Guess so huh. Got anything more on them? I'm trying to catch up on the local Grapevine." And she needed more information on who exactly needed taking care of.

"I'll call you later about it, 'kay? I have to meet with Homura in like, five minutes."

"Really? Nothing?" Kyouko couldn't help but sputter, even as Madoka wrapped her in a hug.

"Bye, Kyouko-chan! Say hi to Yuma for me!~" Madoka said as she withdrew, smiling brightly. She turned, still waving as she walked away, as spry as any 30 year old woman could wish to be at nearer to twice that age.

"Damn you- Pah! Leave it to Kaname to show up and leave and leave half the answers she's supposed to." Kyouko said. She spun, before half-tunring back to lean against the same railing that Madoka had - at which point, her back pocket crumpled.

A confused expression on her face, Kyouko reached into her back pocket to find a small post-it note in it. It appeared to be blank, but Kyouko knew better. Holding it up to the darkly luminescent Grief Sphere whirling above the Spire, Kyouko read the note and grinned darkly.

Megane Ono lost her cat on Thursday and has been really down about it. Do you think you could help her help you? She's kind of mean, so don't be afraid to get stern with her. ~Shrink

Leave it to Kaname to reverse pickpocket the pickpocket-turned assassin.

"That girl... is definitely a sociopath. And probably Batman."

Kyouko pocketed the note and headed away from the grief tower. It was time to find out how many ways there were to skin a cat.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

No idea if I'll actually continue this, but I felt like showing a snippet of what life might be like in our Not!MSY. Emphasis on "might", since I doubt everyone will end up falling into exactly the role they're in here. For one, as much as I love the idea of Madoka turning into a good aligned Gendo Ikari, unless Firn shares that same absurdly specific desire, I doubt it'll happen in PMAS.

Madoka is definitely batman though. Everyone else has superpowers. Everyone else either is or ought to be afraid of Madoka somehow seeing the need to get them out of the way. I feel like it might be a good way of getting her not to contract either if we can make her want to be Batman.
 
Utopia
Fragment I: Dead Man's Drop

The air here was thick with grief, churning and twisting. It was a silent, black wind that only Puella Magi could feel. Kyouko wished she could say she relished in it (and indeed she would to anyone who asked, just because she liked being a memetic badass too much to be honest,) but she couldn't; It was an awful, cloying, gross feeling. It left her with the urge to shower, and a sensation akin to but not entirely like being sticky with the liquid that comes out of the bottom of the trash bag.

But she was pushing 50 years old now, and she'd been literally bathed in the stuff before, so she took the sticky feeling with the same scowl and acidic look in her eye that she had kept all her life. Kyouko huffed, scuffing the bottom of her boot (faux-leather, not that anyone could tell without the price-tag) on the rough asphalt. Her cell phone pinged in her pocket and in her skull, but she immediately dismissed the spam - more advertisements from Yuna's department, trying to poke her into becoming more involved with the UoC. As if she already wasn't - Though officially, it was true.

Still, Yuna of all people should know better what her Onee-chan did these days. Nobody else in the Union decided to have "chance encounters" underneath Sabrina's Grief Spires.

"Heya, Stranger. Long time no see!" Came a light-hearted cry. Kyouko turned only slightly to see the bob of pink headed her way. If she noticed it was starting to be flecked with grey, she wouldn't mention it. It wasn't that Madoka was scary (Though shockingly, she could be if it suited her), or that the pinkette would take her mid-life crisis out on Kyouko at her next session (Kyouko had a different Metaphysician, as UoC psychiatrists were called). It was more like why someone didn't kick a puppy. Madoka was... off limits to most of the teasing.

Given the way she got after she got her psyche degree, maybe that was planned. Kyouko was starting to think Madoka might be a sociopath.

"'Sup." Kyouko said curtly. Her eye twitched slightly; they weren't supposed to know each other in public - even though everyone and their mother would recognize Madoka, and most of the higher-ups in the organizations might recognize Kyouko. It was a security issue. But calling attention to it now would be criminally negligent.

"Nothing much! Just taking a walk. Us old ladies have to keep fit, you know! I hear the new administration wants to dissocialize the healthcare again~." Madoka made a face. "I'll probably be dead by next week, so don't get hung up on birthday presents, okay?"

"What in the heck makes you think I of all people would get you a birthday- aww, don't."

Madoka had put her puppy-dog eyes on again. Her crows feet kind of killed the effect, but she had managed to keep a face and figure more generally associated with the young than women her age. Kyouko was a little jealous, to be honest.

"Fine. I'll get you a new Slide or something." Kyouko refered to the small chips that slotted into newer cell-phones that had replaced Wi-Fi after the Crunch.

"Huzzah! But more to the point..." Madoka leaned onto a nearby rail, finally looking her age. "Mr. Morgan has been getting a bit froggy again lately. I guess someone has been spray painting his house. 'Magical Girls Represent' and stuff. You know how those politicians are; He's taking it as a sign he's onto something." The local leader of the conservatives had a daughter who became a Puella and witched before the Union could get to her. He had thus been about half-way into the know, and the Incubators had refused to wipe him, citing their alien ethics. Naturally he had become a thorn in the UoC's side. But Kyouko got the feeling the hit wasn't on him.

"Great. And this effects us how?" As in, How do we deal with it.

"The Cleaners and the Hotel say we should bring him in, but Security disagrees and says he's too dangerous. Admin won't give us any word on the subject, and personally, I'm with Homura-chan. He is a bit dangerous." That did sound like the terminally trusting Mami and Sabrina. And Homura, too, though this time she was probably right. And it wasn't like anyone actually listened to the president right now... Which Kyouko dreaded 'Fixing', given the source of the insubordination.

"Not usually the way you think. You've always been a bit naïve, even as you wrapped the Colors around your little finger. What about Oracle?"

"Mum as usual. She mostly just likes to talk about the Western Front these days. 'Those stolen Clear Seeds will bring more Grief than they can consume!' and other craziness. You know, Oracle stuff."

"Glad to see the whole team is still in character." Kyouko said dryly.

"Well, if you want to hear about 'in character', you got to hear the story about O&K showing up at Sayaka's birthday party a few months ago." Madoka said, putting her hand to her mouth. "I thought her house might burn down a third time."

"Heh." Even Kyouko couldn't keep from laughing at that image. No grudge burned hotter than one held for fourty years. "So, Mr. Morgan is on another Witch Hunt?" Witch Hunt being the covert term for a hit.

"Not quite." Said Madoka without batting an eyelash. "I think it might be those girls who are painting that stuff on his house. Riling him up. They're the ones on a Witch Hunt."

"Really?" Kyouko chewed thoughtfully on her lip, absently producing a pack of gum from her pocket and drawing out three sticks. "Guess so huh. Got anything more on them? I'm trying to catch up on the local Grapevine." And she needed more information on who exactly needed taking care of.

"I'll call you later about it, 'kay? I have to meet with Homura in like, five minutes."

"Really? Nothing?" Kyouko couldn't help but sputter, even as Madoka wrapped her in a hug.

"Bye, Kyouko-chan! Say hi to Yuma for me!~" Madoka said as she withdrew, smiling brightly. She turned, still waving as she walked away, as spry as any 30 year old woman could wish to be at nearer to twice that age.

"Damn you- Pah! Leave it to Kaname to show up and leave and leave half the answers she's supposed to." Kyouko said. She spun, before half-tunring back to lean against the same railing that Madoka had - at which point, her back pocket crumpled.

A confused expression on her face, Kyouko reached into her back pocket to find a small post-it note in it. It appeared to be blank, but Kyouko knew better. Holding it up to the darkly luminescent Grief Sphere whirling above the Spire, Kyouko read the note and grinned darkly.

Megane Ono lost her cat on Thursday and has been really down about it. Do you think you could help her help you? She's kind of mean, so don't be afraid to get stern with her. ~Shrink

Leave it to Kaname to reverse pickpocket the pickpocket-turned assassin.

"That girl... is definitely a sociopath. And probably Batman."

Kyouko pocketed the note and headed away from the grief tower. It was time to find out how many ways there were to skin a cat.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

No idea if I'll actually continue this, but I felt like showing a snippet of what life might be like in our Not!MSY. Emphasis on "might", since I doubt everyone will end up falling into exactly the role they're in here. For one, as much as I love the idea of Madoka turning into a good aligned Gendo Ikari, unless Firn shares that same absurdly specific desire, I doubt it'll happen in PMAS.

Madoka is definitely batman though. Everyone else has superpowers. Everyone else either is or ought to be afraid of Madoka somehow seeing the need to get them out of the way. I feel like it might be a good way of getting her not to contract either if we can make her want to be Batman.
Sociopath? No. Capable of love and big on empathy.

Batman? She certainly could be. I still have mixed feelings about a Madocontract, which are best summed up as "Avoid it in order to avoid Time Stop bullets."

Gendo-esque? Easily. Madoka lives to help others, and has the breadth of vision to aim for doing so on a massive scale.

Give her enough years to get past some of the traits that get in the way of doing so (mostly an unwillingness to manipulate people), and she could easily become Magnificent.

Give her loyal allies/minions with supernatural powers, and she could have the world in her grasp in a few short decades, lucky girl.
 
Without much thought, I kind of figured Homu could end up as the boogiemonster and killer, something like Hashshashin Homura, though she'd most likely prefer a position in which she could defend other (read: Madoka).

(Mado-Knight Homura :V )

Though, if Koko were to regain her clone skill, she could be a terrifying assassin, since, you know, she can kill you, but you can't kill her back.

Of course, I'd rather we didn't turn any of our friends into assassins or anything like that. :p
 
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