Stop me if you've heard this one
Jan. 20th, 2005 11:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
petroniaI... I could swear it was Friday.
Okay, work all done. Instead of going home like the saner next person, I'm going to sit here in the nice quiet warm office with a hot anti-flu drink and blog about about Mirage of Blaze book 10, which as aforementioned arrived yesterday morning. Since I'm now past anime continuity I'm going to... attempt... to be more detailed. Or regular, or something.
Prologue. Very gothic. A princess named Isari has her face burnt off by her sister, in a fit of insane jealousy over her beauty. I read this in the metro yesterday morning; not all that early in the day, strictly speaking, but still a bit too early for a scene like this.
Chapter 1. The return of Morino Saori! In any other series she would be annoying. In Mirage I look forward to seeing her, because she reminds me that normal people exist. Anyway, it is now March in the continuity of the books**, which is capital as it probably will be March by the time I finish this arc. The soon-to-be-seniors have formed their school trip organizing committee, of which Saori is a member mostly because she wants to swing it so she can sit next to Yuzuru on the bus etc. Thus she's at school on an off-day for the meeting. (I think she also manages the tennis club. For some reason this fails to be surprising.) Yuzuru shows up because Takaya called him down. Takaya's failing school due to sheer accumulation of unexplained absences, which causes the other kids to spread rumours about him joining the yakuza and so forth. Chiaki drives him straight back from wherevertheheck they were exorcising so he can make his interview with the school administration--
--And. Takaya has new clothes yay! It is almost the same thing as Midou Ban's winter outfit, only the scarf is blue. I don't ask anymore, I just go along with the ride. Morino Saori says Takaya's grown prettier; if Morino Saori says it it must be true. Like he was a diamond in the rough, and now he's a diamond. Mind you even when Asaoka Maiko met him she saw him as this astonishingly beautiful boy, but it has as much to do with bearing and expression as anything else I think. Not so much with the slouching about and scowling at people, now he stands there quietly, smiling a little. It's kind of heartbreaking, because it's not really Takaya pulling a Kagetora in this case; he's just growing up, very fast. :/
Anyhow. Takaya goes to the principal's office. Yuzuru is worried. Chiaki lays it out for him - Kagetora Versus Random High School Teachers is not really what you might call a contest. If it doesn't end with the teachers begging to be allowed to pass him it's because Kagetora's deliberately not trying (Chiaki himself of course has the entire school hypnotized to believe that, well, he's really a student there for one). And... Takaya deliberately doesn't try. When he gets out of the meeting he takes Yuzuru on a rather depressing and symbolic jaunt through their usual Matsumoto haunts, arcades and ramen shops and so on, finding at every turn that things have changed. Takaya thinks that it's not so much that the city never changed before, only that now he's noticing the changes, and conceiving of them as a loss. The way of the world being that one has to lose something in order to move forward into something else, he accepts to be held back a year. More than the fact of the thing what he means by it is to sacrifice the normal future he might have had, in which he graduates high school and studies for entrance exams and maybe gets into university with Yuzuru. Graduate from that, get a job, so on. Not being dumb, Yuzuru knows this and is immensely upset, because move forward into what, anyway? A short life and a nasty death look to be the likeliest option. Takaya won't use Jedi mind tricks on the school administration but he does use them on his sister, who thinks he's "at his part-time job and will be home late" for weeks on end. I found this unaccountably depressing until Yuzuru accounted for it: meddle with the heads of your friends and kin and you rob them of their right to care about whom they damn well care about. He makes Takaya promise two things: 1) he doesn't have to tell Yuzuru everything, but please not to hypnotize Yuzuru or mess with his memories; and 2) fix it so that he can come on the school trip down to Hiroshima in April, and let that serve as a coda to their high-school life together.
On the way to Takaya's house they meet up with Miya, who'd been out shopping. We discover that Takaya is self-sufficient to the extent that he can make his own sushi (I'm sorry, this has been a point of some debate on MSN XD). Miya is cute. Miya does not at all notice that Oniichan has been missing for a week. Miya proceeds to tell Oniichan all about the sempai on whom she has a crush, which just goes to show what an abnormal family life they have because no 14-year-old girls do that. Oniichan feels guilty about lying to his sister and continuing to lie to her for the foreseeable future, possibly forever. --It's all very Buffy-like, this interlude (not to mention Ougi Takaya's existence in general), insert your own conclusions if you're more familiar with t3h Whedon than I am. XD
(Well into chapter 2 at this point) The next day Takaya convenes with Chiaki, whose angle on the situation is rather different. As far as he's concerned Kagetora deserves mild congratulations for finally making up his mind to stop fucking around. The way he puts it is, you can't hold up the weight of all those dead souls ("conquistadors who took their share" - pace Ian Curtis) with one hand. If Kagetora's to have the remotest shot at ending the 400-year War he has to be prepared to drop everything else he might otherwise be tempted to consider important. As it is, it turns out Takaya broke promise #1 to Yuzuru before he even made it: he called Yuzuru out to check on and reinforce the neutralizing spell they cast on the Demon Seed planted by Ranmaru, and... to hypnotize Yuzuru so he won't see the minor spirits attracted by the spell vortex. ^^; And they'll be using the school trip to check up on the doings of the Mouri clan, so there goes #2 as well.
Takaya gives a little soliloquy about how he always felt stifled by Matsumoto's small-town atmosphere (not sure of the significance apart from the obvious). Chiaki decides that the introspective mood warrants him asking about Naoe, so he asks - and he pokes - and he gives unsolicited advice - 不寻好死，I have to say, although I SYMPATHISE ENTIRELY - until he gets the Kagetora-in-extremis reaction. And then he shuts up, because there's really not much response one can make to "Yes, actually you're quite correct, I do enjoy hurting him and withholding from him the bare modicum of respect a human being deserves. Any further questions?"
...Well. Chiaki stands up to it, actually, and tells Takaya he's going to lose Naoe if he doesn't make an effort (Chiaki appears to think kanshousha souls can be snuffed out through sheer wear-and-tear of emotional frustration. Well, maybe!? I'd believe it). Takaya tells him he's not taking free advice from bystanders: no one gets to say a word about what goes on between him and Naoe apart from themselves. All right fine, says Chiaki, I can take a hint. From now on I'll just keep standing by and watch you two go down. And bring the fucking popcorn at that. The last thing he asks Takaya is if he's recovered all of Kagetora's memories yet. Of course he doesn't get an answer; that would be way too easy.
** Book 9 was December. Book 8 was August I believe. Naoe and Takaya don't actually go four months without seeing or speaking to each other: they meet up for work purposes several times, and are V. V. Polite to one another. It grates on Ayako's nerves to the degree that she actually attempts to play mediator, except Takaya's response is "none of your business" and Naoe's response is "hmm did you say something Haruie?", so.
EDIT -- Ran summary up to end of chapter 2 and unlocked entry. Chapter 3 starts with Naoe in bed with some chick, so I gave up. Absolutely nothing has happened by way of plot and I'm depressed already; lj hiatuses loom on the horizon once this arc really gets going. XD;;
Okay, work all done. Instead of going home like the saner next person, I'm going to sit here in the nice quiet warm office with a hot anti-flu drink and blog about about Mirage of Blaze book 10, which as aforementioned arrived yesterday morning. Since I'm now past anime continuity I'm going to... attempt... to be more detailed. Or regular, or something.
Prologue. Very gothic. A princess named Isari has her face burnt off by her sister, in a fit of insane jealousy over her beauty. I read this in the metro yesterday morning; not all that early in the day, strictly speaking, but still a bit too early for a scene like this.
Chapter 1. The return of Morino Saori! In any other series she would be annoying. In Mirage I look forward to seeing her, because she reminds me that normal people exist. Anyway, it is now March in the continuity of the books**, which is capital as it probably will be March by the time I finish this arc. The soon-to-be-seniors have formed their school trip organizing committee, of which Saori is a member mostly because she wants to swing it so she can sit next to Yuzuru on the bus etc. Thus she's at school on an off-day for the meeting. (I think she also manages the tennis club. For some reason this fails to be surprising.) Yuzuru shows up because Takaya called him down. Takaya's failing school due to sheer accumulation of unexplained absences, which causes the other kids to spread rumours about him joining the yakuza and so forth. Chiaki drives him straight back from wherevertheheck they were exorcising so he can make his interview with the school administration--
--And. Takaya has new clothes yay! It is almost the same thing as Midou Ban's winter outfit, only the scarf is blue. I don't ask anymore, I just go along with the ride. Morino Saori says Takaya's grown prettier; if Morino Saori says it it must be true. Like he was a diamond in the rough, and now he's a diamond. Mind you even when Asaoka Maiko met him she saw him as this astonishingly beautiful boy, but it has as much to do with bearing and expression as anything else I think. Not so much with the slouching about and scowling at people, now he stands there quietly, smiling a little. It's kind of heartbreaking, because it's not really Takaya pulling a Kagetora in this case; he's just growing up, very fast. :/
Anyhow. Takaya goes to the principal's office. Yuzuru is worried. Chiaki lays it out for him - Kagetora Versus Random High School Teachers is not really what you might call a contest. If it doesn't end with the teachers begging to be allowed to pass him it's because Kagetora's deliberately not trying (Chiaki himself of course has the entire school hypnotized to believe that, well, he's really a student there for one). And... Takaya deliberately doesn't try. When he gets out of the meeting he takes Yuzuru on a rather depressing and symbolic jaunt through their usual Matsumoto haunts, arcades and ramen shops and so on, finding at every turn that things have changed. Takaya thinks that it's not so much that the city never changed before, only that now he's noticing the changes, and conceiving of them as a loss. The way of the world being that one has to lose something in order to move forward into something else, he accepts to be held back a year. More than the fact of the thing what he means by it is to sacrifice the normal future he might have had, in which he graduates high school and studies for entrance exams and maybe gets into university with Yuzuru. Graduate from that, get a job, so on. Not being dumb, Yuzuru knows this and is immensely upset, because move forward into what, anyway? A short life and a nasty death look to be the likeliest option. Takaya won't use Jedi mind tricks on the school administration but he does use them on his sister, who thinks he's "at his part-time job and will be home late" for weeks on end. I found this unaccountably depressing until Yuzuru accounted for it: meddle with the heads of your friends and kin and you rob them of their right to care about whom they damn well care about. He makes Takaya promise two things: 1) he doesn't have to tell Yuzuru everything, but please not to hypnotize Yuzuru or mess with his memories; and 2) fix it so that he can come on the school trip down to Hiroshima in April, and let that serve as a coda to their high-school life together.
On the way to Takaya's house they meet up with Miya, who'd been out shopping. We discover that Takaya is self-sufficient to the extent that he can make his own sushi (I'm sorry, this has been a point of some debate on MSN XD). Miya is cute. Miya does not at all notice that Oniichan has been missing for a week. Miya proceeds to tell Oniichan all about the sempai on whom she has a crush, which just goes to show what an abnormal family life they have because no 14-year-old girls do that. Oniichan feels guilty about lying to his sister and continuing to lie to her for the foreseeable future, possibly forever. --It's all very Buffy-like, this interlude (not to mention Ougi Takaya's existence in general), insert your own conclusions if you're more familiar with t3h Whedon than I am. XD
(Well into chapter 2 at this point) The next day Takaya convenes with Chiaki, whose angle on the situation is rather different. As far as he's concerned Kagetora deserves mild congratulations for finally making up his mind to stop fucking around. The way he puts it is, you can't hold up the weight of all those dead souls ("conquistadors who took their share" - pace Ian Curtis) with one hand. If Kagetora's to have the remotest shot at ending the 400-year War he has to be prepared to drop everything else he might otherwise be tempted to consider important. As it is, it turns out Takaya broke promise #1 to Yuzuru before he even made it: he called Yuzuru out to check on and reinforce the neutralizing spell they cast on the Demon Seed planted by Ranmaru, and... to hypnotize Yuzuru so he won't see the minor spirits attracted by the spell vortex. ^^; And they'll be using the school trip to check up on the doings of the Mouri clan, so there goes #2 as well.
Takaya gives a little soliloquy about how he always felt stifled by Matsumoto's small-town atmosphere (not sure of the significance apart from the obvious). Chiaki decides that the introspective mood warrants him asking about Naoe, so he asks - and he pokes - and he gives unsolicited advice - 不寻好死，I have to say, although I SYMPATHISE ENTIRELY - until he gets the Kagetora-in-extremis reaction. And then he shuts up, because there's really not much response one can make to "Yes, actually you're quite correct, I do enjoy hurting him and withholding from him the bare modicum of respect a human being deserves. Any further questions?"
...Well. Chiaki stands up to it, actually, and tells Takaya he's going to lose Naoe if he doesn't make an effort (Chiaki appears to think kanshousha souls can be snuffed out through sheer wear-and-tear of emotional frustration. Well, maybe!? I'd believe it). Takaya tells him he's not taking free advice from bystanders: no one gets to say a word about what goes on between him and Naoe apart from themselves. All right fine, says Chiaki, I can take a hint. From now on I'll just keep standing by and watch you two go down. And bring the fucking popcorn at that. The last thing he asks Takaya is if he's recovered all of Kagetora's memories yet. Of course he doesn't get an answer; that would be way too easy.
** Book 9 was December. Book 8 was August I believe. Naoe and Takaya don't actually go four months without seeing or speaking to each other: they meet up for work purposes several times, and are V. V. Polite to one another. It grates on Ayako's nerves to the degree that she actually attempts to play mediator, except Takaya's response is "none of your business" and Naoe's response is "hmm did you say something Haruie?", so.
EDIT -- Ran summary up to end of chapter 2 and unlocked entry. Chapter 3 starts with Naoe in bed with some chick, so I gave up. Absolutely nothing has happened by way of plot and I'm depressed already; lj hiatuses loom on the horizon once this arc really gets going. XD;;
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Date: 2005-01-21 09:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-21 05:29 pm (UTC)Her writing's gotten a lot better, though, I have to say.
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Date: 2008-05-09 01:52 am (UTC)