2022-05-28: Apocrypha
- Log: 2022-05-28: Apocrypha
- Cast: Akane Shinjo, Yuka Ohta
- Where: Tsutsujidai - Train Station
- OOC - IC Date: 0096-05-28
- Summary: Akane sniffs around the train station for Anti, and ends up finding someone else. It turns out they have... some real specific things in common.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
There's nothing nefarious in what brings Akane Shinjo to the train station today -- quite the opposite, in fact. She's looking for Anti -- Ako had mentioned finding him by the train station, eating snacks out of the vending machines and generally looking like a homeless person. She needs...
... something, from him. She's not sure if it's to apologize to him, to ask him how tracking down Gridman is going, or to ask him why her texts haven't been getting through lately... she'll figure *that* part out when she gets there.
Sure, she could just lie to Ako, to Sayla... but that doesn't feel like something she can sustain anymore, honestly. She'll -- figure out her next step while she's taking it.
All that to say: No Anti at this particular train station. Akane looks at the vending machine.
... Maybe she'll get some Pocky. She's not sure she's hungry, but that was kinda nice.
<Pose Tracker> Yuka Ohta has posed.
What Akane finds instead, is a girl she doesn't recognize. She doesn't look all that unique on her own. Fairly average slim build, probably in her early twenties. Bit of a fashion disaster with whatever this casual outfit is supposed to be, but these things happen. Slightly babyfaced and on the shorter side, it wouldn't be hard to mistake her for being a few years younger, if she'd seen the girl from the front first. The key tell is that she has a rolling suitcase with her... Plastered in decorations of Tarabaman kaiju from its entire history. And some homemade kaiju accessories Akane perhaps is less familiar with?
She's nudging one of the vending machines with a calm hand at the moment she comes into sight. Looks like it might have eaten her money when she went for a post-train drink. Maybe. But at least she's not getting angry or aggressive with it.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
Wow. Nerd alert.
Then again... Akane's been steadily experimenting with being more honest about her hobbies. Maybe she should give this fellow weirdgirl a once- or twice-over. She glances over, looking at the accessories on the suitcase first.
"Hmmm... are you a kaiju designer too?" she asks, experimentally. "I get the Grellon energy on this one a bit, but it's not just another Grellon derivative or anything..." Her lips pout a little, as she glances up at the vending machine. "Oh, this one's... finicky. Sometimes the mechanism gets stuck... no one comes and oils these things regularly or anything."
She could just give it a good, stiff kick, of course... but that's a little too ungentle to show someone she's only just met. Instead, she reaches into her bag, fumbling for a few gilla. "Usually if it gets stuck like this it gives out two the next time, once the thing resets. What did you buy?" The sound of loose coins and bills can be heard, a bit.
<Pose Tracker> Yuka Ohta has posed.
Yuka turns to look, when she's addressed positively. It couldn't be anyone else, given her carry-on bag. It's something that usually gets her looked at with side-eye glances, at least away from work. "Aheh, you can tell they're custom-made? I based that one on a few old legends. My best guess of what it might look like. You enjoy making kaiju too then?" She has a huge smile on her face... but of course she does. This is something she's passionate about, and she's getting to share it. She was even ASKED this time! Of course, there's greater context that she might be missing. But surely this won't be an issue later!
She gestures toward a canned drink in the third row. Looks like pineapple juice? Or similar at least, definitely a citrus fruit. Yuka is of course already pulling out a few coins to repay her. "Thanks. I kinda forgot to bring anything to drink with me today."
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"I mean, I haven't seen *everything*," Akane admits, "but I'm pretty close. The only things I haven't seen are a couple of the cartoon entries and the style's wrong for that, and you're *clearly* a superfan so it's not a knockoff or anything." ... okay, this interaction is okay so far. Akane isn't even sure if this is an outsider or not.
"Oh, uh -- don't worry about it," Akane says, waving off the offered coins. "If two pop out, I'll just take the second one." Plunk, plunk. Coins.
"It's kinda a scorcher today, huh," Akane muses, as she hits the buttons. "Anyway --" *Does* she enjoy making kaiju...? It was a fun creative activity... at first... but... "... It's pretty fun," she admits. "I think it's pretty neat to think about how it'd have to move -- and whether it could even exist! Some designs really feel more like they're *just* the rubbersuit thing, but some of them really pop, right?"
<Pose Tracker> Yuka Ohta has posed.
At Yuka's first impression, this girl seems awesome. Somebody who likes thinking about the mobility and detail of kaiju in depth, how they can feel most real... This is somebody she could spend hours working articulation and specifications with. "I doubt any one person could have seen them all. There are some old episodes that aren't in modern circulation after all. You'd have to find someone who owns recordings, or hope they wound up online." There are in fact plenty of real ones to base these speculations on of course... but then she's acting like she doesn't know that? Ah well, maybe she's just one of those people who chooses not to focus on world events, news, and the like. No reason to bother her with that. She can keep it semi-hypothetical, and nods to the suggestion that the extra can makes them even.
As she puts away the coins, her hand brushes over a particular little kaiju in blue and orange. Quadrupedal. That one always makes her feel like she's sitting around at home. And Akane brings up a pretty good point about some Tarabaman kaiju. A couple entries had that flaw featuring more prevalently, and it never clicked why that bugged her until now. "I especially like the ones that can change form to a limited extent. They're rare to see, but it's interesting to think about how the body adjusts, in shifting from four legs to two, and back again. They must have some kind of special way to reorient their sense of balance and gravity more easily."
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"Hehehehe... my collection's pretty complete. I even have the full run of Kaiju Coliseum!" That's... over 250 five-minute shorts, some of which are generally agreed to be lost media due to overlapping with the Impact Wars. "-- Wait, no, I never actually found 175... I think that one might *actually* be gone." Akane's lips pout a bit.
The vending machine doesn't seem to want to comply with Akane either; there's a clunk, though, suggesting *something* either snapped into place or fell all the way out of it. "Hmmmm... just a second." Akane takes a half-step back, and then --
-- kicks the vending machine. It's really more of a horizontal stomp, and the effort she puts into it might be a bit of a surprise. It *does* do the trick, though; two drinks fall out. "*There*," she murmurs, rubbing at the side of her head.
She takes her own drink, and allows Yuka the space to get hers. "You sound like you're really into this stuff... not a lot of people look into actual kaiju legends." This... is a pretty cool adult, she decides. "What's your name, anyway?"
<Pose Tracker> Yuka Ohta has posed.
Yuka steps in and pulls her own drink out, once Akane has stepped back. No comment on the kick, because... Well, she wouldn't be the first person Yuka has seen attack a vending machine to make it work. ...Hebi doesn't know somebody saw him that time, when he was denied his favorite snack. He couldn't have possibly known. After all, Yuka was jammed behind the drink machine, fixing a cooling pipe that had evaded everybody's notice. Though... she used a cooling organ to do it, so now people complain the drinks come out TOO cold sometimes. "W-woah, if that's the only episode you're missing..." ...This girl has a more complete set than Yuka. She's NEVER met anyone who could boast to that, until now.
The shock of it almost makes her forget her manners. Almost. "Ohta Yuka. Would you mind telling me yours?" Hmm... maybe she could tell this girl her secret. She seems interested enough. But... maybe it's better saved for a later meeting. Nobody shares all their big secrets at first contact, right? With that thought firm in her mind, she opens her drink, to relieve an uncomfortably salty throat.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
Taking a long drink of her own, Akane says, "I had to ask around for a totally unrelated thing to get 190! I realized if I looked for someone who recorded stuff that was on either side of it I might get it by accident..." She breathes out contentedly. "I can't find out what was airing on either side of 175, though, so I can't do the same thing for that."
"Shinjo Akane," Akane answers, after a few moments. That's a name that's come up to NERV and 3G a bit, lately -- a kid in the other-world of Tsutsujidai that took on a fair bit of risk in rescuing Renais from Triple Zero. ... or so the story goes, anyway. "Nice to meet you, Ohta-san~"
She takes a few steps away, asking, "Any plans for the day, or is this just kinda a day trip?"
<Pose Tracker> Yuka Ohta has posed.
Normally she'd offer a hand to shake. But... Akane doesn't seem to be much of a touch-friendly type. Neither by first-hand experience right nor, nor the stories she's heard. She can respect personal space, no problem. "Just a day trip, no particular plans." There's no lie there. She was just going to walk around a while, take a few notes and observations. See if anything strange happened. But then she happened to have the best luck of all!
A thought occurs to her just then. "Would you like me to look around for you, after I go back? I might be able to find out what aired that day. From one fan to another, I'd like to see your collection be completed." Somebody who took a risk like that, well, it just gives Yuka that much better an impression of her. And her impression was already as high as the clouds beforehand.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
An offer of -- help, with a project. ... no, AKane realizes -- this is just something Yuka wants too, that she happens to also want. That's fine. Easier to swallow, at any rate. "Yeah! That'd be great. Old TV schedules, anything like that. Even the original airdate would be nice..." She's pretty sure, at this point, that Yuka is from... outside. "... If you're going through the fog, though, uh -- I dunno that it'll be a ton of help over here. Then again, maybe you'll just find it yourself! If you do, though, I want a copy too."
She pushes a little of her lilac-toned hair back, asking, "Is this your first time in town, Ohta-san? There's... not a whoooole lot to look at, but I guess I can show you around, even if it's mostly just gonna be hobby shops and stuff."
<Pose Tracker> Yuka Ohta has posed.
"Of course I'll make sure you get a copy." If one exists at all... there's no way she wouldn't give Akane the FIRST one in fact. The last piece to make it all complete? That's way more of a big deal. Even if there was only one copy left at all, on the outside. But Akane doesn't need to know that, and Yuka's not offering that information either. It's probably less stressful that way.
"First time, yeah. I'd heard a few rumors floating around, so I took the day off work to see for myself." Tsutsujidai is a sleepy town... a lot like where she grew up. Even if she can tell it's just a bit off, it's still got that familiar feeling of home. Once she's finished with her drink, the can goes into the proper bin. The notorious gremlin of STORAGE won't upset the peace and quiet here. Hopefully nothing horrible will happen while she's gone.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
Akane's no stranger to making replicas.
Akane takes a long drink from her own can, stretching out a bit after she does so. She starts walking, saying, "Yeah, I... get that a lot lately. It seems like there's a whole other world and *everyone from it* is interested in here, for whatever reason. It's... kinda overwhelming, lately. I just wanna get through class, lately."
... Sooner or later, it's going to crumble. Akane knows that. But... maybe she can enjoy this strange woman's presence for a little while. "Where'd you grow up, then? I can't imagine anywhere feeling quite like this. I know over there there's a pretty similar ward, but still!"
<Pose Tracker> Yuka Ohta has posed.
Yuka covers her mouth to let out a small yawn. The summer heat doesn't make her any less prone to sleep... Good thing she didn't wear her work outfit, or she'd just be dying of heatstroke. "I grew up in a little town called Shishigaoka, in the Nara Prefecture." She can't help the slight tears when she recalls that part... She's not been home in a long while. "Probably too small to even find on a map, but... There's a little forest, and some mountains nobody was supposed to go climbing around. I think the only thing it had special about it, were the local kaiju legends. They were my bedtime stories pretty much every night."
It's not difficult to admit that at all. That this fascination was sprouted and encouraged from that early. The hardest part is just remembering the circumstances of her hometown. "My favorite was always the Solar Lion, who only emerged every three-hundred thirty three years."
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
... Close to home. A little too close to home. "Oh, huh! I only moved here a little over a year ago myself," Akane says; she chews at her cheek a little bit. She doesn't really want to let Yuka in on much -- she's carved so much of her past off, and so cleanly, here. Even her best friends don't know where she moved from.
... then again -- this is just some random woman. She seems okay, and it's kind of a nothing conversation topic... plus, she can see the pain there, a bit. "I used to live in Nagoya... it's been a while, though! I don't think I'd ever go back or anything." Maybe a sign of how different Tsutsujidai is, that she acts like she has a choice in that particular matter.
The Solar Lion... Akane isn't as familiar with real kaiju as with the fictional kind. "Ooh, tell me about it!" she says, as she leads Yuka along toward a hobby shop.
<Pose Tracker> Yuka Ohta has posed.
Thankfully, Yuka's tears stop soon enough. She can hold onto the good memories. And she's thinking she might be able to do something for Akane too. Well, something she thinks is nice at least. Even if it may have... ramifications one day. She kneels down, to pull out a book from her luggage. An old one, it looks like. This isn't one she keeps anatomy notes in since THAT might be a bit too far, but she does have it filled with legends and speculations. Ideas on how they might function. "I'd be happy to. I even have a picture of it. Well... one I drew years ago, at least."
And so it comes to pass, that at this hobby shop, Akane will learn all Yuka knows, of the legend of Horoboros. And perhaps several others in turn, as they find themselves lost in a shared hobby of kaiju.