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Develop Yukkuris that will sell!! Marisnail Breeding Plan Part I
Summary:
With the pet-yukkuri fad fading, the factory is trying to increase profits by developing a method to mass-produce the rare, expensive, and still highly-sought-after Marisnails (Marisatsumuri).
Marisnails are sought after as pets because (according to this writer's rules) they remain small all their lives. Their shell, being made of calcium instead of manju, doesn't grow (how a calcium shell ends up developing inside the mother is unexplained), and they keep the shell they were born with instead of trading up like a hermit crab, so they (somehow) stop themselves from growing. They don't require much food, and with the weight of the shell, they can't move around very much, so they make good, quiet pets.
Marisnails are too small and weak for childbirth, so directly breeding them is impossible. All the factory can do is mass-breed regular Marisas and wait for a rare Marisnail to be born. Even with 60 Marisas being force-bred nonstop, they're lucky if they get three or four Marisnails in a year. (Here, there's an abuse scene of Marisas being force-bred and the reject babies being taken away screaming to be ground up for food.)
Since previous research in _breeding_ Marisnails has failed, the research team tries _making_ them. They replace the hats of baby Marisas with shells while they're unconscious, but the Marisas only reject the shells and continue to cry out for their lost hats, even when a female Anon posing as the voice of their mother tries to tell them the shell is their accessory.
Next, they try conditioning them to accept the shells.
The hatless baby Marisas (and their rejected shells) are placed in a tank next to hatted baby Marisas. As the hatless Marisas watch, the hatted Marisas are tormented with a hot plate under the floor, a spiked ceiling that comes down to stab them, dry food without water, and floods of salt water.
Then, a light illuminates a tank on the other side of the hatless Marisas, and they see a real Marisnail on a cushion being fed and pampered. Then they see the hatted Marisas being abused again. Then they see the Snail-Marisa being pampered again. And so on, and so on. The voice of their "mother" helps persuade them and reinforce the idea that hats mean not being able to take it easy and that Marisnails are very easy. The hatless Marisas begin to put on the shells. As reinforcement, reluctant ones are threatened by a human arm with a Reimu-ribbon on it, as the worker talks about how Marisas are can't-take-it-easy trash who should be crushed and--oops, I'm sorry, you're not a Marisa, are you, you're a nice easy Marisnail, AREN'T YOU.
The first obstacle to mass snail production has been overcome.
Illustration: post #17777