Sayaka was not asleep, nor was she binging yuri mangas... but instead she was currently preoccupied with her television set, staring straight forward as if some major world event were currently happening. And so was Asumaru, and with his attention span that meant it couldn’t be anything other than cartoons, right...?

“Hey, Sayaka,” Madoka said. “Sorry we’re barging in like this. It’s no trouble, I hope. You know us though, just trying to borrow your sugar even though your house is several miles away from ours and separated by an inhospitable desert. Just mommy things, am I right?”

“Not the smoothest you’ve ever been,” Kyoko whispered.

“Shut up.”

It didn’t matter, because Sayaka wasn’t making much of a reaction anyway. In fact, she wasn’t even smirking at the television with slight condescension as she usually did anytime she looked at pretty much... anything.

Her expression was completely blank.

“S...Sayaka? You okay bro?” Kyoko asked.

Sayaka turned her head and looked into Kyoko’s eyes. “Oh, hi there, friend,” Sayaka said. “I was just catching up on an old childhood classic, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood . Don’t you want to sit down and join me?

“Oh, yeah, I really like all those PBS stalwarts like Bob Ross and Mister Rogers and I’m pretty much always up for-- Oh, no.” Kyoko caught herself falling into a nostalgia pit. “I... Sayaka, this isn’t like you. You... you need to stop watching this stuff. We’re not Americans who grew up in the 80s or 90s. We don’t know anything about Rubik, the Amazing Cube , and certainly not about our top five members of Limp Bizkit. Though man, Fred Durst is as least at number three there. You guys remember-- NO! Madoka, stop!”

Madoka had gone over to the couch near Sayaka and was staring at the TV. Her expression had finally gone blank herself.

“Madoka... Wifey... Fu-fu... Answer me!” Kyoko shouted.

“Hey, do you remember Sailor Moon?” Madoka asked.

“Yeah, the Sailors who totally did not show up for the wedding even though we spent weeks tracking down all their current addresses? Even Nagisa and Honoka showed up and they somehow couldn’t be bothered. Disgraceful, man.”

“I mean the cartoon,” Madoka said. “Isn’t it interesting that the DiC dub of the series censored a lot of elements? They flipped certain shots when characters were reading books so that they would go through the books left-to-right instead of right-to-left. They made Sailors Uranus and Neptune cousins even though they were making out offscreen in almost every episode. I think that the world of cartoons has changed a lot since we were kids.”

“We were hardly born when that cartoon came out!” Kyoko shouted. “And I thought you guys were watching Mister... Rogers... huh?”

Kyoko stepped around at the TV and saw what was playing--

A static screen.

Nothing but static.

And yet-- Kyoko smiled.

She started to have fond memories of her favorite childhood cartoon, Megas XLR .