There wasn't much point to running, and everyone knew it. If you took away the furniture, the lobby was just a large box with a single door from which the monster had come in the first place. No one had any route to escape; at most a student might have avoided the monster for a few more moments as it tore through their friends instead. A few students started to cry.
The overall way that MOTW are treated always interests me, because there's often this sort of tension where obviously in this sort of mg show the monsters are goofy and kid friendly (except when they are weirdly horny because ikuhara be ikuhara), but you do in some sense want to pose them as some kind of threat. Precure often kinda squares the circle by making the goals be able to be accomplished through nuisances rather than direct violence against anyone. Or by erasing all mothers out of existence, kinda depends on how the writer feels that day
Anyway, it is interesting to see you give the monsters a degree of an edge in this chapter, as it were. C does allude to some cases being perhaps slightly more innocuous but here they are pretty clearly being painted as a serious threat that can be outright violent. In the context of the MCs being older, it does make sense though, and even if you don't plan to take things super seriously, I could see how that could create a tonal clash potentially.
Naturally, that's when an arrow made of fire crashed into the back of its head.
The fire aesthetic is of course typical but bow and arrow is kind of interesting; it is in some ways kind of a disadvantageous weapon because of how awkward it is at close range. Then again I suppose it comes down to if this is a more physical mg show a la futari wa or fresh, more magic spam like Smile Precure, or a combo of the two like Sailor Moon. This first chapter gives me second option vibes, but I guess we will see.
Cleansing evil with the flames of purity, Angelic Saint Castitas has arrived!"
Gotta love the catchphrases, the villains need to know you have a brand, damnit.
I get the other puns but I honestly am not sure on this one.
Castitas tended to favor shooting absurd numbers of arrows into anything that moved. Instead, she froze for a moment.
Bad form, but I can not blame her on that one.
I suppose arrow spam could work in a more physically aimed series and you just never let the opponent clear the distance, but it more gives me Mami vibes.
Aside from the fact that the new girl's yellow costume was very similar to Castitas' red, the two were as different as could be. Where Castitas exuded a fiery charisma, the second Saint had a sturdiness and stoicism to her that lent her a knightly mein. She was also, to Castitas' frequent consternation, a great deal taller.
I do kind of like the fighting style and aesthetic kind of match up to the roles on the team. Casitas is aggressive and combat ready, so she gets a flashy outfit and arrow spam. Diligentia is support, so she gets a knight aesthetic, a role whose purpose is to defend one's liege, and just a general vibe of sturdiness and support. Good stuff.
I'm not sure it's necessarily something you really see so much in actual magical girl anime, like the powers fit but they less fit in terms of their placement in the team (in fairness because the parts aside from sometimes the leader are typically relatively interchangable) but just base concepts behind the characters- Rei is a hothead and can use fire powers, Ami or Cure Beauty are cool-headed and collected so they use water/ice powers, and Cure Peace uses lightning because... I'll get back to you on that one.
I do think that this largely has to do with just the way in MG anime you don't really want to slot magical girls into certain roles, because everybody has a favorite- sometimes a favorite color!- and it can be understandably frustrating to feel like other MGs are hogging all the important roles and whatnot. It works better in a very constrained narrative setting, though, I think, particularly in an original work, because the set expectations for the characters aren't there.
"Steadfast as the earth," I found myself muttering, oddly distant from yet another near death experience.
C having their catchphrases memorized is a good touch.
A pressurized jet of water struck the mechanical monstrosity in the arm that wasn't holding me, sending it reeling. Taking advantage of its distraction, Castitas leapt over her teammate and bounced off Diligentia's waiting shield to soar toward the radio creature. Landing just in front of it, she plucked me from its distracted arms and carried me as if I were a princess.
I actually wonder the like, gender distribution for things like princess carries in MG anime. I am not so far gone that I will try and research it, but it could actually go in any direction imo.
Anyway, we have our blue mg with water magic, which kind of seals it in my head for the moment that combat is going to be magic heavy. A bit of a shame because I do tend to prefer series with slightly more physicality, but it is not remotely a big deal and I might be jumping the gun.
This does a good job at both really showing the team's experience and synergy too. And of course the team has red, blue, and yellow with no pink, but I have a pretty good guess why that is.
The monster swung one clumsy hand at her head. Without pausing to recover or setting me down, Castitas dropped into a crouch. The displaced air from its attack left me with little doubt as to how dead I would be if we had been hit. But Castitas showed not a hint of concern as she bounced up in the monster's wake and jumped once more. Her feet struck the arm that had just swung past us, pushing it further off-balance and sending both me and Castitas careening through the air away from the electrified beast.
Ok, so MOTW should be taken super seriously if you do not have magical girl resistance. Lesson absorbed.
Overall I think you are doing a pretty good job with this fight scene. Fight scenes are hard and in some ways they do kind of feel like they are floating in a void in space (though in some ways a sort of dispassionate perspective towards non particiapamts in a fight scene is very authentic to the source material), and part of it may be the first person narration; we focus on what our protagonist does after all.
"Calm as still water. Biding until I strike like a tsunami, Angelic Saint Temperantia..."
I actually like this one a lot, and I genuinely do hate being That Girl, but I think it is missing time after biding? I feel like you need another word there to clarify what is being bound. Then again, this is also something that at heart is very faithful to the source. (Let's! Precure!)
Sure I'd thought of telling my best friend—who'd just just saved my life again—that she was really bad at this whole secret identity thing; but it felt like it would be rude to pry when she clearly didn't want to tell me. And the only times when I might have had the courage, when she'd just saved me yet again and I burned to tell my hero that I knew what was up, always ended up being the times I couldn't speak.
I might have said something right there, in that floating distant high of another near death experience. But for some reason I couldn't find the air to speak. On closer examination, my heart was doing its best hummingbird imitation and I was panting desperately. I managed to force out a barely audible thanks as Castitas slammed the doors open to dramatically reenter the fray.
I waited a few moments, then sagged into the wall and fell to the floor as my legs gave way under me.
This reminds me a lot of a scene in Sailor Moon R at the climax, when Usagi meets up with Naru while the shit are going down- I don't think I remember the scene exactly but as I recall the two kind of stand there awkwardly, Usagi about to go head to the battle and Naru about to find some way to escape, Naru says something along the lines of them escaping, then corrects herself and says obliquely "You have something to do huh", Usagi agrees and they part.
It's a really good scene to be honest, especially when you contrast how close the two were at the beginning of the series. It's kind of an interesting question- even if you think your friend is a Magical Girl... what good does telling her that actually achieve? Getting involved likely would be a danger to you with little benefit to them, and they likely wouldn't agree to let you help them anyway. (There are shows that have had a different approach, like Princess Precure I think, but the cases there were slightly different.) Like there's a sort of bleak resigned finality about it, that only hits harder when you think about how Naru is just kind of quietly written out of the show over the next 3 seasons because there's just too many characters to focus on; I think you could genuinely argue this is her last real big scene.
But yeah, like, for the kind of character that needs to be rescued constantly, eventually something is going to come up that leads you to that sort of conclusion, even if it's just them having to ~disappear~ any time the magical girl is needed. But not only is it a really stressful question to come out and ask, what good does it do really? Not that having to stew on that knowledge by yourself is that much better, of course. Especially when you clearly already have Shit Going On.
Freed of the all too familiar dance of hostage and rescue, I had little to do but realize how scared and frustrated I actually was. I hated how powerless this always made me feel. My best friend was out there risking her life, being a hero and doing something bigger and better than anything I'd ever manage in life and all I could do was huddle into a ball and try to avoid losing my mind. "Pathetic," I muttered to myself.
Yeah, this is pretty understandable. As I said, I feel like in some senses it's a lose-lose sort of situation, but it also just creates a sense of helplessness and feeling like a coward for not being able to even ask her. It's all kind of a mess. And I definitely could see how needing to be the damsel in distress constantly and forcing somebody you care about to risk their life saving you could hardly be good for one's self-esteem.
At least I didn't cry. Boys aren't supposed to do that.
Oh, emotional suffocation and deadness. While it being due to gender roles wasn't my experience, I know it well.
By the fifth time, and the looming realization that none of us would be getting through half of the required curriculum if this kept happening, they'd simply decided to soldier through.
You'd really expect this to be a thing that magical girl stories dealt with more, right? Like, Futari Wa and Sailor Moon both kinda nudge at it right at the beginning, but don't really do much with it, even when a schoolteacher is a very frequent victim in the early episodes. (Then again school administration not giving a shit about teachers is honestly realism in action
) but while some magical girl shows at least try to address this, and honestly you could argue that others do treat it with a kind of banality (more likely to be a, forgive me but I'm about to quote TV Tropes, Status Quo is God kind of situation, but nonetheless), but it can be weird how cavalier people often are about the whole thing. It feels like this sort of thing should end up resulting in some kind of investigation at the very least!
Except for me apparently. For whatever reason our routine monster attacks honed in on me like Inessa—Castitas—honed in on Lupin, the senior class' token goth girl. Of course, while Inessa tended to just sigh longingly at her crush from a distance, the monsters were a lot less shy about things.
Imagine being able to talk to your crush like a human being. Couldn't be me. Even before I knew I was a gay disaster I was a gay disaster.
The end result was that I'd assembled a pretty impressive history of being manhandled, getting thrown at things, turned into an object, held hostage; charmed and, naturally, of being rescued by magical girls.
I'm honestly beginning to get curious, like, what the villain's goals are here. Like, when you're using a variety of methods it seems unlikely that your goal is incredibly straightforward per se, otherwise while you may have differing plans, it feels like they'd have a sort of consistency toward the endgoal that we don't see here. Not to mention that the MOTW didn't really seem to have some kind of coherent "end goal" like searching for something.
Now if we're operating under early Sailor Moon or a lot of later Precure where there isn't much of a coherent goal, at least as a primary objective, so much as causing chaos and maybe hurting people, it does make a lot more sense, though even then it's always interesting to think about what the end goal of that is- the traditional explanation is that it awakens the big bad, but there are also shows like Fresh that are a little more cute about it, and since this is aimed at older audiences, as it were, I would definitely expect a bit of a more windy motivation, potentially.
Honestly, you'd think I would be used to it. I hadn't been surprised when Shocker grabbed me. Hell, I'd made no real effort to not be one of the closest students to the monster. And yet, I'd still panicked like an idiot and ended up trembling in a hallway.
The struggle behind wanting to help people but also feeling too weak and powerless to truly make any difference. A struggle many side characters
and unawakened magical girls face.
And, obviously, they couldn't cancel field trips,major club activities or holiday celebrations even though these were basically guaranteed to prompt magical terrorism.
This of course makes sense from the perspective of a poor student who not only has to be a victim of MOTWs but also has to try and fit any degree of normalcy into their lives, to try and play the Good Kind of Devil's Advocate- I do think that there is a valid rationale there. Like, at the end of the day, especially if you don't know what the monsters' goals are, like... is any place inherently more dangerous than another? You can get attacked at your home just as easily as at a school just as easily as at some kind of holiday celebration or field trip. It's really a hard thing to determine when you don't even know what makes something a risk and what not.
I'm not saying you are entirely unaware of this perspective or that C doesn't have a point that it's very unlikely the people in charge of the school honestly give a damn about the student body when compared to things like trying to keep things going as normal, but I do like thinking about this sort of stuff.
It had been nice, the first few times, to have a quiet place to gather myself. But this was no longer a simple matter of getting attacked once or twice and nothing really bad had actually happened to me. I didn't need to be coddled like this.677 Inessa and company had been the ones actually fighting for their lives and they didn't need to skip class afterwards.
I totally understand that this whole thing is in many ways a sort of misaimed toxic masculinity and desire to cling to stereotypical perceptions of "manhood", but it's still sad. Poor C, at least they're trying to be empathetic even if this exact approach is a bit misguided.
No, they'd been able to fight instead of freezing up like a little…. person who is not particularly manly. Which, like, sure, that was toxic masculinity or whatever; internalized despite my best efforts at avoiding dad's bullshit. But like, what was the point of even being a guy if I couldn't even stand up when a man was 'supposed' to?
Man, I can't totally relate to this, hyperfixation over like gender roles was never really a Thing- maybe a product of never having much respect for my dad and living with a Progressive in a slightly Boomer Way single mother most of my life, but the Energies here just make me want to give C a hug. (Also I just thought about the fact that detailed internal dialoguing with yourself like this is, in fact, not actually a normal thing and a sign of depersonalization which just makes me want to hug them more.)
The school bell interrupted my wallowing before I could really get into it and I practically sprinted to the nurse to ask his permission to head home. Begrudgingly, as if he wanted me to lie around being useless for even longer, the nurse let me go after extracting a few concessions like "taking it easy" and "setting up an appointment with the school's guidance counselor."
Not important, but I really have to think that person must be busy with everything going on.
"C!" the redheaded bane of my existence crashed into me outside the nurses office, wrapping me into a tight hug, "I heard you got attacked again," Inessa said, as if she hadn't literally princess-carried me out of danger.
Just realized how interesting "C" as a nickname is- it doesn't really give you any insight into them as a person; whether somebody prefers to go by Kat or Katherine or Katie can actually tell you a bit about them in some ways, even if that sort of thing is typically realized in hindsight. Not to mention it is essentially... nothing, it is essentially just a letter, floating in space, absense any clarification or any further meaning. Empty feels harsh, nicknames obviously have a connotation of affection that makes that kind of a weird thing to say, but it's just... an interesting choice. Of course the connotation is vastly different if this was a name Inessa gave them, or they chose for themselves.
Inessa Brandt, without the magical uniform and its accompanying heels, was a petite and thoroughly upbeat girl, whose breezy disposition, freckles, and cute looks had made her quite popular in the last few years.
This is actually really intriguing because this sort of sharp contrast in personality between magical girl persona and real life persona isn't really something... that happens much. Usagi is the main exception I can think of, maybe Love? But generally speaking magical girls act very similarly in both "modes" as it were, and people not really noticing that tends to be that those similarities are honestly not particularly notable (Like deducing that Rei is Mars because they're both aggressive and fiery would be pretty clownshoes), or like in the case of Haruka and Michiru where the party's perceptions seem to be clouded by biases.
I could see this meaning something, or the kind of obvious innocuous explanation- that it was a life or death battle with her friend on the line, of course she's going to be mad and take it incredibly seriously. It just feels like it's worth noting.
Honestly, it burned a little that Inessa had gone and become someone so amazing while I was still the same boring C. I couldn't resist teasing her. "I just wish there was a way to thank her to her face for saving me so much and tell her how amazing she is."
Inessa blushed, "W-well, I'm sure she knows she's appreciated and really she's probably just sorry that you keep getting involved."
"Yeah," I trailed off, guiltily.
The feelings of wanting to give C a hug intensify when I realize that literally everything they've said about themselves has been how shitty they are while they just heap praise after praise on Inessa. Like, yeah their position is frustrating, but they just aren't in a good place in general, seems like.
I thought, for a moment, of telling her that I knew exactly who'd saved me; that I was so grateful and also so jealous of how radiant she'd become, while here I was unable to take a step forward or make anything of my life. I would never get to be a beautiful strong girl like Inessa, standing in center stage and challenging the forces of evil.
Damn, Past Me catching some shrapnel in the crossfire there. (Good she deserves it, truly an utter clown.)
Also I'm sure feeling the need to gender that praise at all, let alone apply a different gender, is a very normal thing to do. (In some sense I don't know, maybe it is and this is confirmation bias talking, the sentence isn't particularly jarring, but it just... feels weird to feel the need to specify that you'll never be a beautiful strong member of a gender you are allegedly not and not a gender neutral descriptor. Eh.)
(I mean obviously I know it was a thing I did from time to time, but like... that doesn't really help much.
)
That I could, you know, do something to fight back if I'm always going to get pulled into these things," I laughed awkwardly. Inessa didn't deserve my issues, not with everything she was doing. "But I guess I'd look pretty awful in a Saint's uniform."
"C…" she hesitated, not sure what to say.
"I dunno," a quiet, emotionless voice cut in, "You're pretty leggy, I think you could probably pull the look off."
A tiny pale blue-haired girl stood a bit away from Inessa, looking somewhere between apathetic and awkward.
kajsdflkjasdf Amazing I love her already. The fact that from her tone she seems to be totally sincere just makes it better.
And yet… Somehow no one but me seemed to have realized that the blue haired girl named Temperance might be connected to the magical girl named Temperantia. Temperantia had first appeared on the day before Temperance had transferred to our school and they shared distinctive blue hair. In my mind, this was a strong point of evidence that everyone else in this town was an idiot. Alternatively, everyone else in this town had long guessed Inessa, Ida's and Temperance's identities and was simply being circumspect out of gratitude.
I mean, from an IC perspective this makes total sense, of course- feeling like you're the One Sane Person can come across as pretty ridiculous. Though I do think that from a genre prospective it typically makes sense; sometimes there isn't even any reason to think a character's Mysterious Disappearance around the time of a MG sighting is that mysterious, if you know about it anyway, and I think that on some level either the characters tend to be similar in ways that, as said, aren't really THAT meaningful, or you kind of have a Clark Kent deal going, where CLEARLY that idiotic Usagi couldn't be the super awesome Sailor Moon who clearly has it all together. You could apply a similar sort of logic to Love really.
Though there are seasons where like, it at least comes across like basically everybody does figure it out and it's just kind of a Town Secret because like, what can you do, really?
Also this does remind me of one of the best covers up of a MG screw-up ever, I think it was the episode in S1 with Shingo and the Evil Doll? And Usagi slips up and says Shingo's name, and Shingo is like "wait how do you know me" and Usagi responds "I'm Sailor Moon, I KNOW EVERYTHING" and Shingo just totally buys it because he's like, 8, and she did just save his life. Absolutely amazing.
Again, this is mostly just me thinking too much about this stuff.
"Ha ha," I laughed awkwardly, more angry at myself for making the joke in the first place than Temperance for hammering it home, "as if."
"I think it would at least be a much better aesthetic than oversized hoodie," she nodded sagely, her voice betraying not a hint of emotion.
"Just drop it okay, and I'm not even wearing a hoodie!" I didn't hate her, for all her endless needling, but I did not understand Temperance Atwater at all.
"Spiritually," she corrected without a single indication that she was joking. Temperance drifted into companionable silence and I took that as a momentary victory from her near constant teasing.
AND SHE JUST KEEPS GOING. Absolute Queen shit tbh.
and if dad ended up coming home earlier and he saw me in this kind of mood, the evening would be unpleasant. It struck me that it might be in my own interest to stay out for as long as possible.
Oh. Oh no.
(Also noting the implication that mom is out of the picture.)
Inessa sagged as she let go of a tension I hadn't realized she was holding. Then broke out into a big smile, "Great!"
Temperance, for some reason, offered her a high five.
Hm. Putting a pin in this.
I'd anticipated a night of brooding. But between the fact that it was hard to fake being upbeat around genuinely kind people for long without becoming a little bit happier yourself, and that I'd beat dad home despite the late hour, I felt remarkably good. It was still unpleasant to dwell on the day's events, but I didn't feel compelled to obsess over them for once. Instead, I spent the night alternating studying with reading silly little stories online and wishing that kind of thing could actually happen to me. It was enough to almost let me feel like I could handle things by the time I went to bed.
I dreamt equally ridiculous little dreams of a world where Temperance's jokes weren't just jokes and I got to be one of the heroes, fighting side by side with my friends. They were silly and impossible and I woke with an unusual spring in my step and a smile on my face.
Aww, cute. Nice to see C happy for once.
I was missing too much school as it was. But no, instead of enjoying Friday afternoon AP Macroeconomics, I had to be sitting on a couch in Mr. Noir's small office. The bespeckled man carefully lit an incense stick then took a seat across from me. He was tall, in a kind of reedy way that made it seem like there was more suit than man there, with sickly gray skin and a smile that didn't quite reach his sunken eyes.
50 likes says this guy is one of the bad guys. I have no idea if this is true or not, but this paragraph alone just radiates that energy.
"So," he pinched out the match, "what can I do for you today Charleton."
I hated him instantly.
"Everyone just calls me Charlie," I tried not to let my irritation show. I had an objectively terrible name and the less I heard it the better.
Okay, now this is getting a little weird. So, C's name is Charleton (which like, they are totally right. Total cringe.) And that is the nickname they use. But ALSO they use the nickname C with at least their closest friend? Feels more like a nickname they'd give for themselves in that case, just because it seems a bit weird to give somebody who has a nickname a shorter, less clear nickname and Inessa didn't strike me as that kind of Quirky. Which would kind of imply that they asked for that nickname, which goes back to the connotations from earlier.
"Everyone says it sounds like Charlatan, so I go by Charlie," well, people might have said that if I had social interactions with anyone my own age that wasn't Inessa or her friends.
So, wait. They say they go by Charlie, but also they don't have any friends except Inessa and her cadre, and Inessa doesn't call them that. Admittedly Temperance didn't actually address them by name but like, now it's starting to seem like they're just lying, but it feels like... a really weird lie?
I shook my head, "My dad's fine," that was more or less true. Neither of us respected the other much at this point and I couldn't remember the last time we had had a pleasant conversation, but he wasn't a monster or anything. He kept a roof over our heads and food in the pantry.
Ok I've heard this before. Concern deepens. (Also yeah their mom is clearly dead or gone.)
Wait, I didn't even mentally process that his name was MR. NOIR. Okay, villain for sure.
"Fascinating." he cut me off just before I said something dumb, "Getting wrapped up in all of that business, I mean. And how does that make you feel?"
I hesitated, "Well, it's not like I can really control it, right? And, barely anyone really gets hurt, what with the Angelic Saints saving us all the time and all."
Mr Noir adjusted his glasses, "Yes, yes, but surely you must be angry? Always getting pulled into their fights, forced to take part in business that disrupts your life? It must be upsetting?"
This is a weird-ass tack to take. Like, honestly even if the idea is that he is trying to pit C against the Saints, like, I feel like the bad guys should have some sense that C is their friend at this point, and being this obvious that you're trying to pit them against their friends like, won't make them think you're evil probably or anything, but not really productive and just cause them to shut down on you? If he is trying subterfuge he doesn't seem that good at it, which to be fair is on brand for henchmen. Any competent ones that show up early in the story just end up turning into magical girls anyway.
"And they're powerful and beautiful and amazing and here I am and I can't even keep away from a monster for longer than three days at a time."
He perked up at that, "Ah! I see. beautiful, yes, that makes sense. Luxuria then, after all this searching."
"What?" Okay, he was definitely giving me monster vibes now. Latin tended to do that lately and I was starting to get a sense for when these things were afoot. I took a deep breath, nearly coughing on the overpowering scent of incense.
Okay, so wait a second. I was thinking about how there seems to be no goal here, but there IS a commonality between a lot of these attacks at least- they end up targeting C. While obviously that doesn't mean every attack does, it happening THIS much is honestly a bit surprising, like... I'm not sure Naru even got quite that unlikely. Maybe a bit of hyperbole, but... putting a pin in it.
"A problem I frequently see with 'well-behaved' boys your age," he said paternalistically, "is that they don't want to admit their own needs. Oh, they try to be 'good,' and the world rewards them for being nice little diligent drones."
Okay, he's evil, but he's kinda spitting facts in a way tho.
"Oh yes," his smile showed his teeth, "hiding your darker emotions helps no one in the end. You can run from adolescent desire as long as you want, run until you can't even remember what you're running from if you want. But the primal need will catch you and it will be all the more empowered for your attempts to confine it. Boys should be boys."
Okay there we go now we're going back off the rails. It is actually interesting to see a villain kind of weaponize toxic masculinity in this way though; emphasizing the destructive core that men are implied to have when you take gender norms to their extremes, that they can barely be kept in control except by their own instincts. And this is of course then justified by this exact sort of logic when men go on to do heinous shit because society decided that that is what they were destined to do.
Though this is honestly far more clever than his opening salvo- does make me wonder if that was a more general thing and this is a bit more targeted; if not at C specifically, then boys he talks to.
I hesitated. I wanted to ignore him, to say that was nonsense. And yet, on top of everything that had happened in the past few months, beyond mom and the monsters and dad, he wasn't wrong. There was a hollowness in me I couldn't quite name.
"I can see it in your eyes. You know I'm right. You know that your desires are there, boiling beneath the surface and that nothing will make them go away beyond embracing them."
Okay, yeah, this is cute. At its core this is very sound logic, but he doesn't actually interrogate what those desires could be, doesn't actually engage with C, doesn't ask them any actual questions about this except in the most rudimentary and useless terms, and just seems to kind of assume that C's answer can be found in a more societal assumption toward violence and aggression. It's cute. In some ways it kind of reminds me of Easetuna,, with a pretty decent ability to actually read people and draw the sorts of reactions she wanted, even if she wasn't always succesful all the time and it did help that Love was kinda a sucker. And hey, if she weren't the unluckiest/luckiest girl in existence she would have won, like, multiple times. So there you go, I suppose.
I tried to look away. But I couldn't. His eyes were wrong. There was something there so much worse than any of the monsters I had seen. His eyes were wrong. I wanted to bolt, to run, to do anything. Instead, I nodded and sank back into the couch. His eyes were wrong and the air was cloyingly sweet….
So, some kind of hypnotic power, probably? Sounds like implanting some kind of trigger or something, maybe tweaking their perceptions of something or their mindset to better flow with the cues he established in the session? Alright, noted. (Also cute inclusion, since incense is something that can indeed be used to relax the mind. You don't really think about that in the moment, though.)
I yawned loudly and cracked my neck as I made my way from Mr. Noir's office. It took a few moments to clear the overpowering scent of that incense from my nose, and I barely noticed a girl approaching.
"Hiya, how's it going? Charlie, right?"
"Yeah, Charlie," I coughed pitifully a few times as I looked my interlocutor over.
Okay, so they... do go by Charlie? I mean they just met this person even if she clearly knows them, so I guess it makes sense in this context, if it's just the general name they ask to give. That is actually more or less what they would have been implying, asking everybody to call you C would be kind of weird.
Lupin Noir was our small school's resident goth, and the focus of Inessa's silent adoration for all of senior year. Between the faux-leather jacket, the spiked collar around her neck, the neon purple highlights in her raven-black hair and the faint hint of an unplaceable accent, Lupin had no shortage of aesthetic. Allegedly, she was also the school's resident rumormonger, and a girl who always got what she wanted.
Damn, really rocking that sort of... punk goth look. Not for me, but I can dig it.
"When uncle dearest decides to spend the afternoon with a student, well, I can't leave until my ride's ready to go, so…" she shrugged.
"Mr. Noir's your uncle?" they were both pale to the point of being gaunt, but beyond that I could hardly see the family resemblance.
She nodded mournfully, "Yeah, I've been living with him since I came abroad to study. He's a bit of a square, but he's not that bad once you learn to speak his language. He treat you okay? It smells like he's been going hard on that incense of his."
Hm. Okay so she's almost certainly evil too- I guess not necessarily, given his hypnotic powers he could have ingratiated himself with normal/"normal" people to get more crediblity and maybe keep an eye on them if the latter. We'll put yet another pin in this. (More pins in this commentary than a QAnon corkboard.)
I laughed at that. "Well, he was a little weird at first, but we had a pleasant man to man chat in the end and I think he really helped me clarify my thinking on some things and it was nice to talk to someone who's, you know, older and wiser? Get things off my chest for once." I stopped there for a moment, then continued. "I just feel like I can trust him."
She looked at me oddly for a few moments. "Well, I'm glad you got along I guess. But Charlie, what deep dark secrets do you need to unburden yourself from? Got a crush? Is it Inessa, inquiring minds would pay good money for this info!"
Okay, so like, hm. Like this is really obviously a script that they were given while under (the weird gendered aside that despite their fixation with gender they never really use is a giveaway even if nothing else was), but then it feels like if she's in on it, she'd just go with it? She certainly shouldn't necessarily find anything particularly strange about it, which I do think gives some slight points toward her not actually being involved. Also I suppose it could be argued that it might be good to maybe try to bombard C with stuff while they're still potentially recovering from a hypnotic stupor, but on the other hand it feels like it could equally be likely to put them on edge toward you, and the initail impression we were given is that she's generally pretty good at this kind of thing. So eh, I'll assume that she at least isn't directly involved with Noir for now and work from there.
I winced, "No, that's just gross. Inessa's like a sister to me and besides," if I told Lupin that Inessa was probably the single gayest girl in school everyone would know by tomorrow, "I really don't think I'd be her type," I offered as a diplomatic alternative.
Ah, yes, the "type", good save. Technically correct while being suitably generic.
(I was tempted to make a "so you're saying there is a chance joke", but sexuality and this sort of thing is an axiomatic mindfield I don't remotely feel comfortable putting my oar into, so I'll stay away from that minefield.)
She nodded eagerly and, "I see, I see, so you're not together. Is she dating anyone then?"
Somehow, it felt almost like she was taking notes.
"That's not really any of your business is it?" That remained true, no matter how much Inessa wished otherwise, "Sorry I can't give you anything bankable."
Man, trying to ingratiate herself with a magical girl or just down bad. Tough call, though both is also always an option.
She shook her head, "Nah, my uncle can sometimes be a lot and I've been waiting out here for ages. Wanted to make sure that you weren't too overwhelmed or anything, especially since it sounds like you've gotten involved in, what, two monster attacks this week." The last was said with a coy innocence that made me wonder just what Lupin's angle was.
Okay, so Noir clearly also knows C is something special. Now, that could be something she figured out innocuously given that, evidently, C was not exaggerating. Or it could indicate that she is trying to pursue the same goal as Noir. Though I just realized that it's actually really unlikely that they are part of the same faction, since there is no clear theming to their names. Lupin would be a thief reference, while Noir is a movie/color reference. I'd assume color. Movie genre would be a weird pull. Assuming the former is a thematic name, of course.
So probably innocuous, or there are multiple factions. The question would be if they're two factions, why they are so closely associated. It could be coincidence but Lupin seems to KNOW something is up with him, so I'm not sure that'd be it in this hypothetical. Maybe just to keep an eye on each other?
I shook my head. Honestly, he'd been a little weird at first, but it had become obvious he was a guy I could trust as the conversation had gone on. Besides, I really wished people would stop babying me just because I kept getting in the way of these things, "It's fine. Honestly, we even made an appointment to talk more next Monday."
She looked almost worried, "he wanted to see you again?"
"Is that so weird?"
"Nope, just that he's usually got most of what he needs from a student after a single meeting. I guess that means you must be a real head case," she laughed, but her tone was only gently teasing.
Okay, yeah, she definitely knows something is up with him. Like that is just a weirdly indirect way to word that, and a counselor wanting a follow up would not normally... result in concern, one would think.
"So, you've seen through me then," she grinned in a way that showed all of her pearly white teeth and took a few predatory steps toward me. I backed away, suddenly a bit nervous. It wouldn't be the first time a student had randomly tried to attack me before suddenly turning into a money themed monster, "I'm a greedy greedy girl of course! Practically terminal."
Oh, Lupin. Greedy. Again, cute.
I laughed awkwardly, and she took a step back.
"Seriously though Charlie. I just wanted to check in? I'm sorry about how you seem to keep getting caught up in the middle of all of this stuff going on. It's really not fair to you."
I shrugged, "The Saints seem to get caught up in a lot more than me, and besides, it's not like it's your fault I seem to be natural monster bait."
"Right, obviously it's absolutely not my fault at all!"
With that strangely guilty rejoinder, Lupin practically dashed into her uncle's office.
Okay, so she's obviously part of AN evil organization. One would think that she actually would be part of the one that Noir is, given that the monsters seem to be pursuing the same goal. I suppose they're taking a Fresh Precure angle to it- Noir acts as the subterfuge, while Lupin just fires monsters around looking for the goal, and perhaps has herself noticed how they all seem centered around C. On the other hand, she doesn't seem HAPPY about it. She could be being coerced, I guess, or she just isn't huge into all this to begin with, which means she'll probably be a mid-season surprise protagonist, as things go.
I couldn't help but muse how little the two resembled each other. They were both unnaturally pale, of course, and there was a hint of shared accent in both their voices. But Mr. Noir was off-putting and a bit staid, while Lupin was just such a strange girl. Well, they both were nicer than I'd been led to expect.
Maybe Inessa's taste in girls wasn't so disastrous after all.
I mean I guess this doesn't necessarily mean that they are part of the same organization, so much as just... from the same place, maybe? It does point in that direction though.
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