[X] Ease in, try cheering her up by talking about how much Emi's manga meant to her back in school.
-[X] And how it's still meaningful; her publisher can take her job, but they can't take the impact she made on her readers.
"Then I'll head to Daimon-sama right away! I-I'll tell her all she's meant to me; all she's meant to tons of readers! That's something no publisher can stand between," Miyako said, smiling with her fists pumped.
For a second Koyomi tensed at that, like a great shroud of apprehension had fallen on her. But then she let herself relax and said, "Well, no harm in letting you try, I suppose."
"Alright, I won't let you down! Wait, hold on a sec," Miyako said as he raised a finger to her chin, the journalism motor in her mind still having fuel in its tank. "The Earthly Purified are supposed to have a ton of connections, right? No, you don't think they pulled Shonen Sublime's strings to get her fired?" she gasped.
"I certainly wouldn't put it past them," Koyomi said, "however, from what I know about the manga industry, she was just as likely fired out of the sheer pettiness of the execs. Make an example of her to all the other creators they treat as mills, that's how their kind thinks." Then, though nobody was accusing her, she instinctively groaned and said, "And yes, I'm fully aware novel publishers are no paragons themselves."
Miyako just nodded at that. Then before Koyomi could accuse her of anything, she said, "Like, you know I know the manga industry's bad and stuff? What with overwork and strict schedules and stuff," but then had to admit, "I'd heard all those things, but… knowing something who went through all that, it feels a lot, y'know, heavier. Think that's the word."
"Difference between reading it online and seeing it for yourself," Koyomi took it, having the urge to glance at her own hands. "Of course, at least reading it online
was an option for you. You didn't have to worry about clicking on a newsgroup to find it was really a Frost Fair trap, having alien ice storms blackout whole neighbourhoods, or someone using the phone while you were online."
"…Newsgroup?" was Miyako's first response.
Sighing, Koyomi then said, "Another thing. When you go give your pep talk or whatever to Daimon, best you don't bring up the chance of that cult arranging her firing. Knowing her, she could see it as another reason to blame herself, to think this never would've happened had she stayed with the cult," those words made her wretch.
Hold on, should I really keep info like that from her? Miyako thought, but still said, "You bet! I'll tell her she made the best decisions no matter what."
"Well, I wouldn't quite tell her that…" Koyomi muttered but didn't elaborate. She really didn't need Miyako to know about Emi stopping her from killing Blue Lotus, however impulsively. It'd only send the 'pep talk' spiralling downhill.
"But tell her this," she then said, before she went off on a tangent, "First off, do you at least know who Pink Floyd is?"
"Y-yes, of course I do," Miyako was quick to say, "I know all about the rainbow triangle and the brick song. Don't go thinking I don't know about stuff from before I was born!"
"Glad you do," Koyomi said, "because I once heard a story about how Roger Waters was approached by a woman who said she loved their album
The Final Cut. I've never even listened to it, but anyway, he said as long as a single person loved it, that was enough for him. It was an anecdote I kept remembering as an author whenever my own work didn't do well, and my point is it's something you may want to remember too when talking with Daimon, given her own manga weren't best-sellers. I even remember you telling her something similar the first time you met."
"Er, I definitely wasn't gonna bring her sales up," Miyako gulped, then said back in her regular tone, "but yeah, think I get what you mean. It's a nice thing to say, and she could really use that right now. Though come on, not
just one person cared for her manga," she then huffed, hands on her hips.
As Koyomi nodded at that, who but Hayato suddenly came in. Or not so suddenly given this was his parents' shrine. "Hello and good morning, Miyako-chan, hope you slept well!" he began on a cheerier note than his usual tranquillity. "I heard Mother has less work for you around the shrine today, so I had to wonder if there was anything you'd be interested in doing? Say, picking rare flowers, dining out in town, practicing calligraphy? Those are just my ideas, of course."
Eager as he was, he avoided looking at Koyomi all the while, and she wasn't easy to miss.
"Actually, I had something in mind right now, Arisugawa-sama and I were just talking about it," Miyako said, then hesitated a little not knowing how Hayato would respond. "I was going to see Daimon-sama. A lot's been happening to her, so I thought she could use someone to cheer her up."
"Ah, I see," Hayato said with all pleasantries… except for a serious twitch in his eyebrows. "Well, ahem, as you wish."
"Her plan was to talk with her alone," Koyomi cut in.
Miyako, seeing Hayato squirm as he looked at her, then told him, "It's just that Daimon-sama lost her job and had a friend die," generous as that word may've been for Hibiki, "so I thought maybe I should talk to her one-to-one, keep it personal."
She tensed at the thought of Hayato blowing that off or acting like he didn't care about Emi, but that wasn't what happened.
"I-I'm sorry, I didn't know. It must have devastated her," he said, "I could always say something to her if you want, but I do trust your decision to speak with her alone. It sounds for the best."
"Aw thank you, Higashi-kun, er, Hayato-kun," Miyako smiled back, especially as she couldn't help imagining his mother getting far pricklier if she told her she was meeting with one of Koyomi's friends. A former cult member too, though Miyako didn't want to think any more about that part.
Hayato then even leaned forward to place a hand on her shoulder, smiling back. Though while he did so he kept his left eye fixed firmly on Koyomi, like he was waiting on her reaction. But of course, Koyomi barely glanced at him back.
"Daimon-sama, hi there!" Miyako called out as she lifted the door leading downwards. Seeing this damp, dark grotto beneath Koyomi's house made her immediately wonder why Emi would stay down here, even if 'dark' did describe the rest of the house.
Oh no, please don't let the answer be because this place reminds her of the Purified's chapel, Miyako thought. At least given all the books laid out in front of Emi and the stacks of drawing paper already filled in, it did look like she was making the most of this place that she could.
"Wh-what? Oh, Nozawa-chan, right?" Emi asked as she craned her neck up, fumbling in her makeshift desk at this sudden visit. "I'm doing nothing right now, well, nothing that really matters anyway. So, what did you want to talk about with, er, with someone like me…" she looked down and shrank back again.
"Hey, are you actually working on a new manga?" Miyako said, eyes lighting up, "that's definitely a something alright." She picked up the pages despite Emi wincing as she did, only to be met with page after page of what couldn't really be called a plot. Scenes of self-harm, drug use, torture, and other such topics were scribbled all over. 'Rough' would be a polite way of describing the art style, especially as the handwriting made the panels unreadable.
"I know, I know, it's unpublishable," Emi said as she took the pages back, "but except maybe online, I'm not gonna be published again anyway, so I might as well. I guess you've seen I've started on Arisugawa-sama's works," she gestured at the books littered around her, Miyako recognising
Ladder to Heaven, "and already I want to create something just like them."
Miyako wasn't sure what she should say, but said anyway, "Ah, do you think that's really want Arisugawa-sama would want? Like, I'm picturing she'd say you should do your own thing, broaden your horizons, not just try to copy her." She could've added that Koyomi's novels, from what admittedly little of them she'd read, usually had much more structure to them. But she was trying not to be too critical here.
"My own style? I, I don't really have one," Emi said, slumping further back. "Even just focusing on the series I made myself, not adapted or did designs for, my editors kept telling me I had to conform to the Shonen Sublime style in art, writing, everything, like I was just a conduit for them. That since I was a woman, I needed to be told again and again what was really in 'young boys' hearts', to use their words. Then when I had to get my hands roboticised after carpal tunnel, they-they told me it was my hands doing all the drawing, not me."
That also made Miyako remember Emi saying that she'd only gone from Shoujo to Shonen as the latter reportedly paid better. Or what she'd heard about the development of "
Silver Cloudcast," Miyako said, "I read it was gonna have a female lead. But even though you made her tomboy, they still told you they had to be a male, right?"
She held up a copy she'd brought along, with Emi barely able to look at it, but she still nodded at her words.
"Thing is, one of my male colleagues did get a manga with a female lead out there. But when I asked why I couldn't, I just got told 'That's different, he's more experienced than you'," Emi sighed, but then a shot of energy pulsed through her, "That would've never happened with Arisugawa-sama, were she in my place she'd stand true to her vision, regardless of what any higher-up said!"
"Wait, you said 'her vision'," Miyako brought up, "that means you really did have an original vision for
Silver Cloudcast, right? So you
do have a style."
"I-I suppose you're right," Emi said, her sunken face warming a little, but then had to say, "Even if I did my own director's, er, mangaka's cut version of
Silver Cloudcast, it couldn't legally be anything but a doujin. All the rights are with Sublime."
Miyako didn't really have a response for that, so she said instead, "Hey look, the important thing to remember is that the readers your manga did get, even if they weren't many, it always meant something really special! And no publisher can take that away from them! And I know, guess it sucks hearing you're best known for a work you didn't create, but
Shinjuku Eternitas was still huge, and it was your character designs everyone was looking at!" That anime incidentally also casting Hibiki as the main female villain.
Emi tried to smile, but still bit her lower lip. "I mean, I still got some serious hatemail, and to be honest I didn't like
Shinjuku Eternitas very much, would've done it very differently if they let me write for it," she said more politely than it sounded like she could've. Miyako then took a step back like she'd said the wrong thing, but Emi still said, "But thank you, it… really means a lot to hear you care. And that others still do."
In as tough a spot as Emi was, Miyako couldn't be happier that she was really getting through to her, not making her lose hope. So she then ventured a little further to talk with Emi about [multiple votes possible]:
[ ] Finding accommodation outside Koyomi's place.
[ ] Finding another job, even if only part-time ones were available.
[ ] Introducing her to more people around Hinodeharu besides Koyomi, help her be less alone.
[ ] How the Earthly Purified had treated her, since she talked about how Shonen Sublime did.
[ ] How Koyomi wanted to be a mangaka as a teen, since she wasn't here to cut off conversation.
[ ] The authors, artists, and author-artists that had made her want to be a mangaka in the first place.
[ ] If her Cultivar could be anything else, what would she imagine it being?
[ ] Write-in
