jigokulogs | [ OPEN ] double trouble

Entry tags:

[ OPEN ] double trouble

Who ⬤ Tamamori, Minakami, and whomstever (that's you)
What ⬤ Substory 2 and 4, and a couple other options
When ⬤ Throughout May
Where ⬤ All over
Content Warnings ⬤ None that I can foresee. Will edit if it crops up.

This is a duo open post involving

fuckdogramagra and

watermemory, because these two idiots are stapled at the hip at the moment. Harass one or the other or both, though let us know if you’d rather not have threadjacking occur.
Starters are in prose, but can tag in brackets if you prefer.

[ A: Substory #2: Vend Me A Dream ]
[ Location: Various (see below) ]

If anyone asks, this is Minakami's fault for agreeing to lend the shirime a hand—in his defense, he was startled and doesn't know how to say no to these things. Also in his defense, it sounded like a simple favour at the time.

Minakami and Tamamori can be found going round in circles downtown:

— ...in an arcade, trying to win a specific plushie from a crane game for an inugami's chew toy.
— ...at a drugstore, looking for a particular brand of hair conditioner for a nozuchi (What's the difference between regular and leave-in? Did it say what fragrance it wanted? What does hair porosity even mean?).
— ...down sidestreets and alleyways, chasing down a hapless tsurubebi to catch in a lava lamp. Sounds like some cabaret owner is redecorating and insists she needs it for atmosphere.
— ...trying, and seemingly failing, to help a hinnagami take a selfie. It’s likely they’ve forgotten exactly why they were doing this one, but they sure are giving it their all still.
— ...and generally getting hopelessly lost. Tamamori’s complaining that his feet hurt and Minakami’s usual good humour is bleeding away at the seams.

-

[ B: Substory #4: Haniwhat? ]
[ Location: A plaza in Sutoku territory. ]

Well, this one’s Tamamori’s fault, though Mina’s not free of sin for going along with it either. Despite getting cranky and tired by the end of the shirime’s runaround, it’s done its job at getting them situated in Jigoku-cho, and Minakami’s unease at seeing yokai everywhere (when he’s only been told cautionary tales about them and has had nothing but bad experiences with the one spirit he’s had contact with) has somewhat abated. Maybe things are less weird and bad than they seem!!

Which is why the duo can be found at an outdoor table not far from Tamamori’s apartment building. Normally there’s street performers or some kind of noisy event at this plaza, but right now it’s relatively quiet. There’s the remains of konbini snacks and onigiri on the table, and way too many soda cans for just two people.

Minakami has a small stack of books next to him (he’s already found a lending library willing to give a Lost Soul a library card), peacefully reading up on burial customs and ancient pottery. Tamamori has one of the haniwa figurines propped up on the table, rather having a very intense staring match with it, or trying to examine it. Not that he has any reason to be more suited to that than Minakami, but he’s apparently taken this self-appointed task very seriously. At odds with that is maybe the haniwa’s ‘embellishments’—the clay figurine appears to have a very small black felt cap, that looks like it would be from an old-fashioned school uniform. There’s even a tiny badge on the hat brim made from foil.

Spiritual sensitivity? Awful nightmare vibes? What’s that? It’s just a little guy.

-

[ C: Other: this was easier to pull off when they were kids ]
[ Location: Around the Sutoku apartment complex; the hallways, or lobby, or wherever else. ]

There’s no real rule saying that people from other factions can’t hang out. However, ‘hang out’ is a little too generous of a term for the ongoing shenanigans in Tama’s shiny, new Sutoku apartment. Mumbling voices at all hours, that quiet down just before the building superintendent makes their rounds, Tama poking his head out of his room’s door and checking down either end of the hallway before opening it for any reason at all... there’s even an incident with music playing a touch too loud, complete with the muffled sounds of people trying desperately to quiet it down.

It’s all pretty suspicious, and frankly, painfully obvious to his neighbors, no doubt. You could say something, give the duo tips on how to actually pull this stupid grift off, or just complain about the noise.

-

[ D: Other: happy birthday to the ground ]
[ Minakami-specific ]
[ Location: Shuten apartment foyer. ]

Despite the fact that he's made other living arrangements, Minakami been ducking back into his assigned flat every so often, whether to keep up appearances of abiding by the residency rules, or respond to Shuten obligations when they come calling, or store stuff that doesn't fit in Tama's place, or—in this case—to check his mailbox. There's rarely anything there, which he supposes is a consequence of doing everything through the telephone thing, but this time...

Jigoku-cho has adapted fast to the influx of "Lost Souls", and for a functioning, thriving modern city, that means marketing. And mailing lists. Truly, Hell is where data harvesters go. Somehow, his personal details got into the system, and after a little confusion of dates (it's June where he comes from, but May here), eventually the backlog of spam had to go somewhere.

Minakami can be found at the dingy foyer, his mailbox open and overflowing with advertisement fliers and promotional cardstock. He's carrying a shoulder-bag with one hand, and in the other hand he has a cheery-looking card recommending he spend his special day at a Tamamo-run spa (price 25% off for couples!). A tinny little mechanism is singing a legally-distinct version of Happy Birthday.

While his face is a difficult read at the best of times, it is more inscrutable now than ever.

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[Minakami tenses a little, the only sign of his reaction at Van Zieks's amusement at their expense -- but not enough for him to prevent the handover. He settles back in his seat, folding his arms.]

...alright. Please ensure they're treated respectfully.

Kaigo no Bou... [He's only seen the heart of the Enma's operations up close once (and not in a position to appreciate it considering the speeding car and the screaming and so on), and not from the inside.] A tower that tall, and it drills down into the earth as well?

[ Once Minakami gives the go-ahead, Tama finally finishes relinquishing custody of the haniwa to Zieks, though he does set the little doll with a firm stare right after. ] You better behave, Kawako! Let the exorcists do their rites and then stay buried like you ought to...!

[ Dramatics over the kawaniwa aside, Tama does cock his head at Mina's curiosity. The building was certainly...imposing, and without thinking, he mimes a hammering motion. ] It sort of reminds me of a stake hammered in to the ground, like a hitobashira for the hells. They would need a a massive keystone anchor, if that really is the Sanzu river...so maybe that's it.

[ If nothing else, van Zieks is at least careful not to damage the much-cherishes Haniwa as he places it with its already-collected brethren. Once he delivers them to the higher-ups, he will wash his hands of it all, but until then Kawako shall be treated with care. ]

A hitoba... [ ...something, he's lost the rest of the word already. Ahem. ]

Would you mind elaborating? I have long thought of the Kaigou no Bou as a marvel of architecture, but as you may be able to tell I am a foreigner to these lands. The possible cultural significance of my own workplace eludes me, much to my dismay.

Oh, then you really are European...sorry. It's hard to tell, when so many people just stare at me blankly over asking about that. [ Which, again, he's assuming someone is European again, but anyway. Tama straightens up his posture a little bit, sliding his glasses back down on to his face like this will somehow enhance the explanation. It won't, but. ] Hitobashira is when you bury someone alive, to serve as a pillar for something- like a new project, or a new building, or sometimes even just to appease the gods and increase your standing.

[ He gestures, pointing upward a little and shaking his hand ~~I can't just write 'the Alphinaud point' but I want to I'm sorry~~. ] It's certainly not practiced anymo- uh, well. It's not practiced anymore as of when we come from. But people will still stake down effigies and such as a symbol of that, when they build crucial structures near water.

Not for at least four hundred years, no. [Minakami looks thoughtful, the topic distracting him from his earlier unspoken tension.] Though this is hell, so...

...ahem, anyway, it certainly is a marvel of architecture, isn't it? Tama and I saw the Ryounkaku in our world; it was designed by an English-- no, a Scottish man, I believe. Twelve stories high, and electric lights and elevators... [Like those latter two aren't a commonplace sight in this city.] Yet the Kaigou no Bou dwarfs it.

Edited 2022-05-20 09:48 (UTC)

[ Van Zieks offers a small nod at being accused of being European, so at least Tamamori hit the mark with that comment. Van Zieks has full sympathy for the horrible confusion resulting from those with entirely different continents and countries though - he finds himself secretly relieved whenever he can ascertain another Lost Soul is from Earth as he knows it, even if the time period is all wrong. ]

What a barbarian ritual.

[ And he'd probably have worse words for it, if a faint memory at the back of his mind weren't rising. Ryounkaku... ]

I believe I have heard mention of that tower - it's construction was finished some decade ago, I recall. A Japanese contemporary living abroad said that it rather impressed his wife to watch it grow and grow into the heavens. She wrote of it in some of her letters.

[ What happened to Genshin Asogi's wife anyway...? It occurs to van Zieks that he never even asked. ]

[ Well, he certainly won't object to this specific thing being called 'barbaric'- it all sounds pretty creepy to Tama, thinking that they just dumped someone, still squirming and alive, in to the foundation of a bridge...but he does scowl for a moment about the wording, too. Not for very long, though, because that specific detail- someone discussing the construction of the Ryounkaku as only being a decade ago -that's like, close! Shockingly close given what he's used to! Tama sits up straighter at the table, leaning forward insistently. ]

A decade? You might nearly be from the same time as us-! [ He's so overjoyed by the mere thought that someone in this stupid Hell might be as bewildered as them about the, well, everything, that he can't help but push all other thoughts to the side. ] It was 1922 for us. And, if the Ryounkaku was built a decade ago for you... [ Hold on, he sucks at math. ] 1900...?

[Minakami's expression and tone don't change at Van Zieks's comment, though he does sit a little straighter.]

Perhaps. I have read that certain places in Europe had similar rituals, when erecting buildings... not humans, but animals and bones buried under walls. Perhaps our customs are not so different?

[Next to Tamamori's enthusiastic recognition of someone in the same time period maybe (!!!), the mention of Zieks's Japanese contemporary doesn't slip by Minakami.]

You have some familiarity with our nation, then. Have you ever visited it, in your time?

[ Just barely 22 years...? That is indeed pretty much nothing at all compared to hundreds of years or completely separate country structures! Van Zieks is not one to outwardly get excited, but he is definitely interested.

Tamamori's estimate of 1900 earns a confirming nod. ]

I have not as of yet had opportunity or desire to leave Europe, no. But there have been a number of exchange programs with Japan in the last decade, allowing me to meet a few of your countrymen in London and hear their tales.

[ Mentioning his Japanese associates is always a little odd. By habit, he feels like he should be disparaging, but he owes a debt of great gratitude to some and is the direct superior of another... The hatred just isn't there anymore, he's finally burned himself out on it, and readjusting is awkward. ]

Exchange programs...it must be through the Imperial University, then. [ Even in 1922, the university exchange program was still a rather large deal, even if the Imperial faculties (as well as its attitude) had shifted somewhat. It was much more fashionable to be doting towards France than the United Kingdom, within the Occident Studies program especially but throughout the liberal arts faculties. But, it was also still the United Kingdom and all, and the student body remembered its' origins. Even 1919 couldn't completely damage the Japanese fascination with Europe. ] What was it then...law, medicine, letters...and the other one. [ Tama, ] Does that mean you're-

[ A moment passes, before he looks up with confused suspicion. That stare before- it could be the leer of a lecturer, but he has a funny feeling it's not that. Why is his luck so shoddy when it comes to this stuff- ] No, you said 'legal offense' a moment ago...so, you're involved in law?

--Sciences. [Automatically finishing the list of faculties, after law and medicine and letters. dw bud he's got you. ]

The two of us were only in the capital for two years before our arrival here... It's possible we've crossed paths with your acquaintances, but I admit, it's not likely. Though-- [He glances at Tama.] --a friend of ours is studying in the medical department, but if he has, he's not here to say yea or nay.

[At Van Zieks' possible occupation, he does have a quizzical expression on his face, looking from the imposing man to the basket. The Department of Enma sends a lawyer to... pick up supernatural ephemera?]

Edited 2022-05-26 14:39 (UTC)

[ A glimpse at Ryunosuke Naruhodo in the future... It feels wrong to inquire about events that have not yet come to pass for him. The Ryunosuke he knows has only just departed for his home country with no temporal opportunity to put his goals for the legal system into motion. For a moment van Zieks is tempted to bring up his name, just on the off-chance that he exists in the universe of these people, but he quells the impulse. He'd much rather revel in the new-found trust he holds in another person than have a reality he cannot affect one way or another color his perception. ]

The circumstances of the most recent exchange were... a little fraud, but yes. The vast majority of exchange students coming to Britain have been law students. Sixteen years ago there was also a scholar of medicine, but it was likewise in relation to criminal law. He was being educated as a coroner.

I am a prosecutor of her Majesty the Queen. Here and, I am a rather powerless trial attorney instead.

[ Tama does mull the information over, as if trying to remember Kawase talking about any history of the medical program stuff, but...it's not as if he's been keen to discuss his studies. Given everything going on in their lives, he understands why now, but it only makes his absence feel more acute in the moment, so he reluctantly shoves the thought off in to the back recesses of his mind. ]

Your- [ No, wait. Tama might not care much for standing on ceremony, but surely a Queen deserves his manners. He'd not want people to mock the Emperor, even if the guy is kind of...well. Uncharismatic. ] I mean, being part of Her Majesty's high court, then getting to one of the hells...this is quite an. Unfortunate step downward, yes. [ He's always easily swayed to sympathy when people actually make it apparent their loyalties are, y'know, real. And calling the Queen 'her Majesty' when she can't even hear it surely counts as that, doesn't it? ] At least the Enma is a lord of the hells. It would be much more dire had one of the other groups insisted on paying your pledge...oni don't seem as if they would get on with the spirit of the European powers whatsoever.

((hello I have decided great ace attorney is actually the worst game because of every time I'm forced to sit here and ask "is historical figures fourthwalling when this specific figure gets freaking mentioned in both of these canons and doesn't contradict real history in his depiction"))

[16 years prior to Van Zieks's time, so... he frowns, deep in thought. Before they'd left home, he'd been asking the Oizumi elders about the universities around Tokyo; one of them was a school of law...] To my knowledge, there were law students sent abroad around then, but -- they were sent to France, not England. I'm sure of that much.

[He does nearly mention another possibility: he's pretty sure the writer Natsume Soseki had gone to England as a student, around the time Van Zieks claimed to be from... but he stays his tongue. He'd been hoping to meet Soseki in person at the Imperial University, only to learn he'd passed on years prior. If they really were acquainted (and that was doubtful, given Van Zieks hadn't mentioned literature), he doesn't want to deliver the news that the man had died young.]

[(...typical that Kawase had been the one to find that mint first edition of Soseki's first book EVEN IF HE DID NOT HAVE A PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORY HE WOULD NOT FORGET TYVM.)]

...It's possible we aren't from the same timeline, after all. Or our experiences simply don't overlap. I'm sorry.

[ France, huh...? He hasn't heard of any comparable programs happening concurrently, though there is a faint possibility that he'd simply forgotten a brief mention from years ago. More likely though, Minakami is correct and their worlds are simply adjacent but not identical. Speaking with a number of Lost Souls, van Zieks has come to understand that there is an incredible variety of 'Earth'-like worlds. ]

There is certainly no need for apology. Even if there are divergences, your point of origin is still one of the closest I have encountered. There is comfort in knowing we are not alone in our relative temporal position.

[ Stronghart being here had been absolutely no relief on that end, but the man is gone now. Sholmes meanwhile... Well. He should at least mention him. ]

There is one other from the London of my time period - a certain Herlock Sholmes, should you run into him. He is an eccentric fellow, so for better or worse he'll be hard to miss in the long term.

[ Tama almost slumps in disappointment when Minakami puts together the facts- he'd really been hoping for something familiar, and hadn't realized just how much he'd been longing for it til just then. But then his frowning shifts, head tilting like a bird. ]

Herlock...Sholmes? [ That. Okay wait. The difference between France and the British empire is at least a large, functional difference, even if still one that can be understood- this one is just bewildering. He turns to Minakami almost instantly, brows dipping. ] We've read of his adventures, a lot when we were younger in fact, but...that must be a translation mistake on our part. Surely? [ It wouldn't be the first time things were changed arbitrarily for a Japanese audience, especially if it involved a real person's name- which, as far as Tama remembered, the stories did claim to be real. ] I'm glad you warned us, and we didn't accidentally call him by the wrong name, if that's the case...

[ Wait. His beloved childhood mystery stories- the charismatic detective from those- Tama almost prickles up, looking back at Zieks with awe. ] H-he's here?! The Great Detective, in our hells?!

[Minakami shoots an apologetic look at Tamamori, before responding to Van Zieks. He's not the only one who was hoping for some kind of common ground in a world of strangers.]

We'd have just been born in your time, anyway -- we're in no position to say what was really happening on the other side of the world.

[Anyway. Good work everyone involved, you've managed to baffle the guy with a literally-supernatural perfect recall. Minakami stares down at the cover of the top book in his pile, as if it might divine some answer. It does not.]

I... I'm sure that I've seen that version of the name in a publication somewhere... It's certainly possible the ones we read was a localization error? [Ruikou's translations did put their own stamp on the material, after all... Even in his bewilderment, he does pick up on Van Zieks's wording ('for better or worse') and tone.]

Are you personally acquainted with the detective?

[Which is the diplomatic way of saying, you sound like you have opinions.]

[ Oh no.

There it is, the starstruck reaction that Sholmes' name elicits everywhere. Van Zieks had held some hope that the difference between their universes, however minute, might put a stop to that circus but... when has he ever been in luck about such things? He's not sure what all that about the man's name is about though. ]

As it happens, yes. Though for the most part our acquaintance rests on mutual contacts to third parties.

[ Like, an astounding number of them, too. The people who matter in Barok's lfie tend to be people who also matter in Sholmes'. He's not sure what that says about either of them. ]

So those tales of his exploits are still popular even in the future... Please be warned that the real man is a lot more... erratic than you might suspect.

Well, that would make sense, as he interacts with Scotland Yard and all... [ Still. Sher- Herlock actually is present. He...

Wait. Tamamori might be horrible at math, but when it comes to literature, he's more able to put the work in. The Final Problem was told to be during 1891, wasn't it? But The Empty House was 1903. That would imply that this prosecutor was well aware of the crafty detective's feigned death, before it would come to the public through his dear assistant's writing to the Strand...it made sense, but even for Detectives H, Sholmes, it was quite cold to let the law of the land in on his scheme, and not his dear friend Watson...

All of that to say, Tamamori took a while to try and process all of that, staring vacantly in to space before remembering his own excitement. ]

He comes across as plenty erra- ah. Ah, wait. [ More thinking, this one not taking nearly as long. He hadn't dwelled on the incident very much, but hadn't he...met a strange European already? ] I...may have met him. He dared me in to drinking something strange.

[Minakami gives a shrug and a wry smile, while his companion is ticking away over the (S)holmes timeline.]

If the real man bears even a fraction of resemblance to the one from the serials, that comes as no surprise. How does the saying go? One must make allowances for genius? It...

[He trails off, as he slowly catches up to what his friend just said and the first hint of the "erratic genius" starts to creep in. He's going to perish. Just pack him off into whatever hell basement the haniwa are being carted off to and leave him to pickle there. This is why you're five foot goddamn three, buddy, because drinking poison stunts your growth.]

[Speaking slowly:] Tama. When was this?

[ Van Zieks can't help but heave the deepest of sighs here as he touches his forehead. Sholmes isn't even present and he's already doing a great job at giving him a headache. ]

That... sounds like something he would do, indeed. I hope you suffered no averse effects.

[ Sholmes' chemistry experiments have not yet caused complete chaos and have (as van Zieks only admits in the privacy of his own mind) sometimes been helpful, but...

He would advise anyone against trying a concoction Sholmes was handing them. ]

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[ OPEN ] double trouble

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GAA2 spoilers implied

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i slump down my chair further, giving up entirely on the fourthwall conundrum

that is the only way to live, ALSO for better or worse

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