2072: Storybook Day

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “A Storybook Day.”

You have to spend one day as or with your favorite fictional character. Which one would it be and what would you do?

[NB: I am aware this is dangerously close to fanfiction territory, but whatever. Deal with it.]

Sometimes, you know before anything has happened that it’s going to be a peculiar day.

As odd circumstances go, suddenly waking up face-down on a hard floor, the sounds of civilisation and industry mingling somewhere in the distance, is probably near the top of the “most peculiar” list. And this is how my day began.

I open my eyes and groggily get to my knees. I seem to be in an alleyway, and there’s no-one else around. That would explain why no-one had come to my aid, then; I would have thought that a grown man lying face-down in the street would attract at least a little attention, but this makes a certain degree of sense. Not much, but a little, anyway.

My muscles expressing their displeasure at being disturbed from their slumber, I unsteadily brace myself against one of the alley’s walls and get to my feet. I seem to be facing a dead end of some sort; the alley doesn’t have much in the way of distinguishing features, aside from a couple of doors that look like fire escapes, and a dumpster or two towards the end. The alley itself abruptly ends at a strangely metallic wall.

“Stop right there!”

A feminine, assertive voice comes from somewhere behind me. I jerk upright, suddenly feeling a lot more awake than I was just seconds ago.

“Don’t move!”

I want to look over my shoulder. There’s something familiar about that voice.

“Um,” is all I can say. Somehow words seem to be failing me.

“Oooh!” comes another feminine voice, this one energetic and somewhat childish, from somewhere behind me. “Wassat?”

“My, my,” comes yet another woman’s voice, this one sounding somewhat more… regal, distinguished? “Isn’t this peculiar?”

I clear my throat and try, once again, to speak.

“I’m, uh,” I begin. “I’m not going to hurt anyone. I don’t think I’m really in a position to do so, from the sound of things.”

“Turn around,” says the first voice. It seems to be quavering slightly, but it’s only barely perceptible. “Slowly!”

I comply with the order and turn to face the ones who discovered me. I give a start as I see who I’m confronted with.

One young woman, clad in a short blue skirt, cropped top and stockings, is pointing at me with an aggressive look on her face. Her twin black ponytails are flapping in the slight breeze. Behind her is a tall, older-looking blonde woman with a calm, gentle expression on her face. And standing at her side, fists clenched and knees slightly bent in a stereotypical expression of excitement and curiosity, is a young-looking purple-haired girl who appears to be wearing a hoodie as a dress, paired with striped thigh-high socks and sneakers. I know without looking closely that her hoodie is tied up with HDMI cables.

I instinctively bow my head, because it feels like the right thing to do.

“Goddesses,” I say, trying to sound humble. “It’s an honour to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too, buddy boy!” pipes up the purple-haired young girl before the twintailed girl has a chance to respond. “Whatcha doin’?”

“I wish I knew,” I say. “I just sort of woke up here.”

The twintailed girl is still pointing at me and looks like she’s about to speak, but this time she’s interrupted by the blonde woman’s gentle tones.

“Hmm, we did wonder what had happened,” she says. “Histoire mentioned some sort of strange energy from this region, and here you are.”

I couldn’t even begin to guess why I would be the source of a “strange energy”, but given that I’m standing face-to-face with three women I’ve only previously seen through a computer screen, I feel something very odd may have happened.

This time I’m the one to interrupt the twintailed girl just before she gets something out of her mouth.

“Lady Noire,” I say. “Lady Black Heart,” I correct myself. “I’m not sure what I’m doing here, but I’m kind of at your mercy here.”

Noire seems to shiver and then falter slightly, still pointing at me. I swear her cheeks blush slightly. Neptune, the purple-haired girl, gives a slight snicker and digs the blonde woman Vert in the ribs with her elbow.

“Here it comes,” she says in a stage whisper just loud enough for everyone to hear. Noire apparently ignores her.

“W-well,” she says. “Perhaps you’d better come back to the Basilicom and we can figure this out. But don’t misunderstand! I-it’s not like I’m doing this for you or anything! I just want to find out why a stranger suddenly appeared in my city!”

Giving Neptune a knowing smile and a nod, Vert moves aside to make room for me to pass, and I step out onto the streets of Lastation.

“So that is the long and short of it,” says the tiny girl perched precariously on a floating book. “It will take about three days to make the preparations.” Her facial expression doesn’t change, but for some reason I find myself thinking of an exaggerated emote as she speaks.

“Three days?” says Noire.

“Yes,” says Histoire, the tiny girl, whom I already know is a “tome”. “Although this individual has brought a substantial quantity of Shares into this dimension, it will still take time for the–”

“Yada, yada, yada,” says Neptune. “We got three days to go out and play!” She grabs me forcefully by the hand and starts to drag me out of the Basilicom, a large church-like structure that acts as Noire’s home, office and base of operations.

“W-wait!” says Noire, her voice oddly high-pitched. “We still don’t know anything about him! You shouldn’t just go off with him by yourself!”

“Who said anything about going on my lonesome?” says Neptune. “You’re coming out to play, too, Lonely Heart. It’s about time you had a break! I swear, you’d be working through the night if your body didn’t shut itself down every so often!”

“I concur,” replies Vert. “After all the strange happenings recently, I feel we could all do with some rest and relaxation.”

Noire puts her hands on her hips and looks like she’s about to object, but thinks better of it at the last moment.

“F-fine,” she says. “I can take a little time off, I guess. You are all visiting, after all.”

An hour later, I’m sitting at the head of a table with an array of colourful women. Noire is sitting to my left, Neptune to my right. Then, moving around the table, there’s Neptune’s little sister Nepgear; the sullen face — currently buried in a book, ignoring the situation — of Blanc; Blanc’s twin sisters Rom and Ram, the former of whom is looking very uncomfortable indeed; then Vert, who is wearing a borderline-indecent dress that shows off her considerable cleavage to great effect; and finally Noire’s sister Uni, who keeps giving her older sibling and Neptune furtive glances.

“I don’t understand what’s going on really,” bellows Neptune in what she clearly thinks is an authoritative tone, before indicating me with a wave of her hand, “but Mr. Dude here is our guest! So let’s show him how we have a good time! And you know what that means — pudding!”

On cue, several waiters — whose faces I, strangely, seem to forget the moment I look away from them — put a selection of large dishes on the table, each full of a colourful pudding of some description.

“I-is this all pudding…?” says Noire slightly uneasily.

“Yes!” cries Neptune, throwing her hands in the air and accidentally tossing the spoon she’d picked up so hard into the air that it embeds into the ceiling. “We’ve got strawberry, vanilla, chocolate, dogoo and lamb with rosemary!”

Noire doesn’t look convinced of the nutritional value of our dinner, but chooses to say nothing further. Neptune, meanwhile is clearly excited about it, and it’s hard not to go along with the sheer amount of energy she seems to exude at all times.

“Dig in!” she cries.

The three days pass far too quickly for my liking; a blur of pudding meals, trips to the local chocolate cake shop, multiplayer tournaments on slightly twisted versions of video games I recognise from my own dimension and some truly baffling conversations with the goddesses.

“I wish I could stay here,” I say to Noire as we both look out over Lastation from the balcony of her Basilicom. We’d both stepped out for a little air — and to get away from Neptune’s vacillations over what we should all do next, to be honest.

“Hm,” she says quietly, not turning in my direction. Her attitude towards me seems to have softened somewhat in the last few days; gone is the prickly, defensive young woman who confronted me in the alleyway, and taking her place is someone who seems to be strong, but carrying around a faint air of melancholy.

It’s silent for a moment; all I can hear is the faint throb of industrial machinery off in the distance. Then Noire turns to me.

“I think you’d like it here,” she says to me with a gentle smile, a slight flush in her cheeks. “And believe me, we’re all truly grateful for your faith in all of us. We get really competitive over the Shares, but it’s rare to find someone who has such value for all of us.”

I smile wryly.

“Is that all I am to you, Lady Noire?” I ask. “A fountain of Shares?”

“N-no!” she says hastily, her cheeks blushing even redder. “Y-yes! No! I…”

Her shoulders slump slightly and she closes her eyes for a moment. After a moment’s quiet, she begins to speak, her eyes still closed.

“You don’t belong here,” she says. “I… kind of wish you did, but you don’t. There are people waiting for you, aren’t there…?”

“Yes,” I admit.

“Then you should go back to them,” she says, opening her eyes and smiling softly. “We’ll always be here for you, even if we’re not standing right in front of you.”

I smile back at Noire.

“And I’ll be here for you,” I say. “You’ll always have my Shares.” Hesitantly, I reach out my hand and pat Noire on the head, ruffling her hair slightly. She doesn’t object, thankfully.

I turn around from the balcony to go back indoors and am unsurprised to see Vert, Neptune and Blanc crowding around the doorframe, clearly watching what has been unfolding with great interest. Neptune gives me a thumbs-up and an enthusiastic nod of the head. Noire doesn’t appear to have noticed her observers yet, and I feel I probably shouldn’t point it out to them.

I turn back to Noire.

“Lady Noire?” I say.

“Hm?” she says absently.

“I’ll miss you,” I reply. In an uncharacteristically assertive display of affection, I take her in my arms and hug her.

“Wh-what are you…” she objects initially, but after a moment I feel her shoulders relax and her own arms reach around my back. We stay like that for a moment. I glance over to the doorframe and see Neptune giving Vert a silent high-five. I can’t help but smile.

“Thank you,” says Noire. “Don’t forget us,”

“I don’t think you have to worry about that,” I say. And I mean it.

The journey back was surprisingly simple. Histoire gave a technical explanation that Nepgear did her best to expand upon, but it frankly went in one ear and out the other. All I really had to do was stand before the Sharicite crystal and wait for Histoire to do her thing; she was waiting for “dimensional alignment” or something.

I faced my friends, who had assembled in the doorway to see me off. It was strange; these people had been “friends” to me long before I’d ever met them face-to-face, and so parting from them now, while sad, didn’t hurt as much as it could have done. I knew that when I got home I could see them again any time I wanted; it wouldn’t quite be the same as the experience I’d just been through, of course, but it was good enough for me. And I had a strange feeling that even if dimensions of time and space separated us, they’d all be able to make good use of the Shares I contributed.

As the Sharicite chamber fills with a brilliant white light, I raise my hand in farewell.

“Bye,” I say. It doesn’t feel quite like enough, but it also doesn’t really feel like goodbye.

“Bye-bye!” cries Neptune, followed by a slightly subdued chorus of farewells from the other goddesses and Candidates.

The light intensifies until I can’t see anything any more. I close my eyes. Then, I feel the light replaced by blackness.

There’s a strange chiming noise. I open my eyes again. I’m sitting up. Wherever I am, it’s dark, save for a small sign up in the upper-right field of my vision.

“You have earned a trophy!” it says.

2033: #4favocharacters

As luck would have it, just as I was settling down to get this written, someone tagged me in one of those viral Twitter things where you post pictures of four favourite somethings (in this case characters) and then tag a bunch of new people to see what they come up with.

I responded relatively hastily, though I did make one substitution before I submitted. I kept mine to the world of games, largely because I think that was the intention, and also because if I start getting into TV series and anime I would have been there all night deciding.

Anyway. This seems like a good opportunity to expand on my choices. My picks were as follows:

Katsuragi (Senran Kagura)

I’ve already written reams of text on Katsuragi so I won’t delve too much into that again, but suffice to say that Katsu-nee is one of my favourite characters due to the fact that I think she’d be fun to hang out with if she was a real person. I question whether or not she’d actually hang out with a dude like me, of course, given that Senran Kagura rather strongly implies that she’s a bit gay — also the whole “I’m not a ninja” thing — but, assuming that sort of thing isn’t a consideration… yes, I think Katsuragi would be fun to hang around with.

The most appealing thing about Katsuragi is not her aggressive sexuality — though her self-confidence and willingness to pursue what she desires rather than moping around in the dark about it is something I can respect — but rather it’s that in her calmer moments, she’s the very model of the perfect older sister. She’s kind, she’s caring, she looks out for the people she loves and she’ll do anything to protect them — though she’s most certainly not averse to playing a prank or two to have some fun at their expense.

Senran Kagura as a whole is filled with deep and fascinating characters, and those who actually bother to give the series the time of day (rather than writing it off because boobs) all have their favourites, leading to frequently quite heated discussions online. I could have picked any number of the Senrans, but on balance, it’s Katsuragi that my thoughts keep returning to, so Katsuragi it is.

Noire (Hyperdimension Neptunia)

I love all of the Neptunia cast to pieces, but from the moment I “met” her for the first time, I knew that Noire was going to be my favourite. Twintailed hair, a tsundere personality, a propensity towards attractive but impractical-looking outfits with garters, belts and straps all over the place? Sign me up.

After spending a considerable amount of time with her over the course of a number of different games now (with more still to go), I realise that my connection with Noire goes somewhat deeper. It’s not just that she exhibits traits that I find attractive. It’s not even that she’s cute or has a figure to die for (man, Tsunako really knows how to draw curves). It’s that, amid the chaos of your typical Neptunia story, I find her to be probably the most relatable of the cast — with the possible exception of IF, whose world-weary exasperation with the nonsense she constantly gets caught up in nicely reflects the feelings of frustration and annoyance I often feel at the most stupid things our own world has to offer.

Noire, though, she’s an interesting one. Determined to always do her very best and prove that she “can only do everything”, she often falls foul of her own ambitions and desire to climb to the top of the heap. This is particularly apparent in Hyperdevotion Noire, where an impulsive act towards the beginning of the game throws the world into chaos — but rather than slinking away quietly to pretend like she had nothing to do with it, she takes responsibility and does her best to make things right, even in the face of constant and frustrating opposition.

Noire is lonely, too. She has a lot of what could be described as niche interests — though not quite to the degree of the yaoi-loving Vert — but doesn’t quite feel comfortable sharing them with anyone. The closest she comes to opening up to another person is with the player-protagonist characters in Hyperdevotion Noire and Hyperdimension Neptunia PP‘; it’s kind of sad that she has trouble being this honest with the people who are ostensibly her best friends, even as they’re honest with her. I suppose that, more than anything, is why I feel like I can relate to her somewhat; while I’m not a goddess running a country, I can most certainly understand the desire to shout about the things you’re passionate about but hesitating, not knowing what people will think of you if you do open up.

Maya Fey (Ace Attorney)

At the opposite end of the spectrum is Maya Fey from the Ace Attorney series, a character whom I don’t particularly relate to as such, but whom I find enormously fun to have around.

Maya is the perfect foil to Ace Attorney protagonist Phoenix Wright’s initially bumbling ways, and grows and changes with him as a character. Initially appearing to be rather childish, over the course of the Ace Attorney games she gradually shows herself to be a deep and complex character, holding enormous respect for her cultural traditions and a passionate belief in Wright’s ability to find the truth in even the most confusing of cases.

Maya and Phoenix’s relationship is kept somewhat ambiguous throughout the games. It’s clear that there’s a bit of a “spark” there between them, but whether or not it’s simply close friendship through shared trauma — they first meet as a result of the death of Maya’s sister Mia, which Phoenix ends up investigating and eventually solving — or something more is never quite clear. One can probably assume that Phoenix, being a few years older (early 20s to Maya’s 17 at the outset of the first Ace Attorney game) is understandably hesitant to even consider taking things any further, but frankly, I wouldn’t have been at all surprised to see them get together in one of the games. To my recollection, though, it hasn’t happened — though it has been a while!

Anyway. Maya is a fun character who is enjoyable to hang out with. Since the majority of the Ace Attorney games unfold from first-person perspective, Maya is the character you see most frequently, since she often offers observations and suggestions to “you” (as Phoenix) while you’re investigating the crime scenes. Spend that much time with a character — the Ace Attorney games aren’t short! — and you’re bound to develop some affection for them.

Hanako (Katawa Shoujo)

Games had captivated and emotionally engaged me with their stories before, but it was Katawa Shoujo that forged the tastes I have today. And, specifically, it was Hanako — though before we get into any arguments about “best girl”, I liked all the others; I just liked Hanako the best. And here’s why.

Again, like with Noire, I found Hanako to be relatable. And again, not because I’m in the literal same situation as her — Hanako has burn scars all over one side of her body due to a past trauma, and thankfully I am free of such readily apparent mementoes of tragedy — but because I recognise so many of her personality traits, her route in Katawa Shoujo was almost painful to play through.

Hanako suffers from dreadful social anxiety, much like I have done. Hanako’s is far worse than mine, at least at the start of the game — she literally can’t stay in the same room with people she doesn’t know — but her feelings of being trapped in an uncomfortable situation, of wanting to do nothing but bolt; they were all too familiar.

Hanako’s route is one of the most interesting ones in Katawa Shoujo because things sort of happen in a bit of a haze. When protagonist Hisao sleeps with Hanako, for example, it’s clear that the two of them were very much caught up in the moment, with Hisao unable to restrain himself, and Hanako unable to communicate quite what she was feeling. This leads to a gut-wrenchingly awkward scene after the fact where Hisao realises that technically Hanako never actually said “yes” to him. From here, the story can branch in one of two different ways: Hisao can either try and be overprotective of Hanako, which ends rather badly with her finally snapping and casting him out of her life, or he can quietly support her when she needs it, allowing her to work through her issues at her own pace, opening up when she’s good and ready.

It’s this last bit that I found particularly poignant. There are a lot of things with which I need help, that is most certainly for sure. But I’m someone who tends to prefer to have the satisfaction of at least trying to solve things himself. I don’t like asking for help, and I don’t like people interfering when I haven’t invited them — but I do welcome support and encouragement when I make it clear that I am in need of it. I understood Hanako’s frustration in the “bad ending”. I understood her sense of closure in the good ending as both she and Hisao come to terms with their own broken lives, accepting both themselves and each other as they both look forward to a future in which they no longer have to be alone.

1104: Tsuntsun, Deredere

It’s funny to think that it was only this time last year that I played Katawa Shoujo, rekindled my love for all things Japanese and got properly “into” the visual novel medium. Over the course of last year, I played a bunch of VNs and took some tentative steps into the world of anime, too, and I haven’t really looked back since. I’ve found a medium (well, several forms of closely-related media, really) that “speaks” to me, and that’s always a pleasant feeling, particularly when there is a whole shitload of stuff in that medium for you to explore and discover.

Because it was only last year that I got into all this shit, though, it was only last year that I found out what the word “tsundere” means. I had occasionally heard it mentioned by people I knew were into anime and Japanese games, but I’d never thought to look it up before — perhaps because I assumed it was an obscure, specialist piece of jargon relating to something that I wasn’t, at the time, particularly immersed in.

There’s a good chance that there are a few of you reading this who have absolutely no fucking idea what I’m talking about right now, so allow me to educate you. Then you can walk away from one of these posts feeling like you’ve learned something for once. Wouldn’t that be nice? Of course it would. Let’s go, then.

“Tsundere” is a word primarily (though not exclusively) used in relation to characters in Japanese media (manga, anime, games and everything in between) who run “hot and cold”. Tsunderes are usually female, though not always. The word is a portmanteau that combines parts of two different words to describe the two main moods of the character — tsuntsun describes the part of the personality that is aloof and/or irritable or even outright hostile; deredere describes the soft, squishy and adorable lovestruck centre that the abrasive exterior is protecting.

The tsundere is a stock character in a variety of Japanese works, and can pretty much be guaranteed to put in an appearance in any “harem” stories — i.e. those that include a male protagonist and a disparate gaggle of female heroines who flock to him for various reasons that are not always to do with love or sexuality. (Popular anime Sword Art Online has been described by some as a harem work, for example; even though the main focus of the story is on the romantic relationship between protagonist Kirito and female lead Asuna rather than Kirito attempting to knob his way around cyberspace, a number of episodes introduce a female character who is drawn to the protagonist for some reason before disappearing without a trace by the next episode.) They are a character type that is obviously exaggerated for either comic or dramatic effect — sometimes both — and thus it’s unlikely that you’d find a real-life tsundere. At least, not one that takes quite the same form as you’d see one in an anime or game.

The tsundere can be recognised through a number of different means. Most commonly, it’s through the use of the iconic combo of stuttering slightly when around the object of their affections, and the curiously-specific denial of something that belies their deredere side through what initially appears to be tsuntsun behaviour. (“What? I-it’s not like I’ve been thinking about you or anything…!”) Other tell-tale signs include excessive use of the word “baka” (idiot, stupid) for the slightest misdemeanour and blushing beet red when confronted with an obviously romantic or sexual situation that they haven’t steeled themselves for.

Most tsunderes have tsuntsun as their default behaviour pattern and lapse into deredere when they let their guard down, but characters who represent an inversion of this format exist, too, spending most of their time adorably lovestruck and occasionally lapsing into abrasiveness and hostility if provoked. The latter type can easily be confused with the yandere, which also has deredere as their default behaviour type, but hides proper full-on psychotic mania underneath if the object of their affections either doesn’t want them or is taken away from them. (A tell-tale sign that an anime yandere is about to go bonkers, incidentally, is that their eyes go completely blank, lacking the usual “sparkles” seen in the corner of anime eyes. If a character goes like that, you should probably get worried, and you can pretty much guarantee that someone is going to die very soon.)

Yanderes aside, the tsundere’s behaviour is usually tolerated and accepted by their friends, and rarely commented on directly — it’s just the sort of person they are. The object of their affections usually has to take the brunt of the tsuntsun side, but close friends who want to help the tsundere get closer to the person they obviously like often have to deal with this, too. More often than not, the long-suffering best friend either just shakes it off or is completely oblivious to it, having presumably learned to tune it out a long time ago.

There’s something oddly attractive about a tsundere character, which probably explains why it’s such a commonly-appearing trope. I couldn’t possibly speak for everyone on why this is, but from my own personal perspective, I find the commonly-used “hard-hearted bitch showing a softer side” approach to be an effective one that helps me to sympathise with the characters in the relationship. Reasons that “tsuntsun by default” tsunderes act the way they do vary by story, but one thing is constant — letting that deredere side out is a sign that they’re letting down the barriers around themselves and showing another character that they both trust them and care about them. It can be a very touching moment if handled effectively.

Here are a few of my favourite tsunderes. Oh come on, you knew this was coming.

Noire (Hyperdimension Neptunia)

Noire, the character who represents Sony and the PlayStation in the Hyperdimension Neptunia series of games, is very obviously a tsundere thanks to her regular use of curiously-specific denials when talking to Neptune in particular. She seems aloof, arrogant and abrasive most of the time, but gradually reveals herself to be someone who just really likes to try and do their best at all times. She obviously likes Neptune, despite what often appears to be open hostility, and has found that her efforts to make the land of Lastation as good as it can be have left her lonely.

Irina (My Girlfriend is the President)

Irina Vladimirovna Putina, the Rusian [sic] president in the visual novel My Girlfriend is the President, is a textbook tsundere. Spending most of her time early in the game alternating between yelling at the protagonist Junichiro and twatting him around the head with her slapping fan every time he does something pervy (which is quite often), she eventually shows a softer side and ends up being a positive influence on Jun. Jun also has a positive effect on her; while she manages to mellow him out somewhat, his easygoing nature helps her be less uptight.

Ayano (Yuru Yuri)

Poor old Ayano is the butt of a bunch of jokes in the slice-of-life anime Yuru Yuri. The feisty redhead is obviously carrying a rather large torch for resident chaotic character Kyoko and is completely unable to express her feelings adequately, instead regularly flying into a blind rage at Kyoko’s slightest misdemeanours. Kyoko, being Kyoko, doesn’t mind at all, and is oblivious to Ayano’s feelings. The only one who is truly aware of Ayano’s crush is student council member Chitose, who regularly fantasises about the pair of them, usually resulting in a violent nosebleed.