entrancelogs | [Action OTA]: アニメクラブに行こうよ！

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[Action OTA]: アニメクラブに行こうよ！

Who: Anyone who wants to attend!
Where: Second floor tearooms.
When: 5/ 18
Rating: E for Everyone, though individual discussions may go higher.
Summary: It's the inaugural meeting of Wonderland's anime club, and it's being kicked off with a movie marathon! Come watch, chat among friends, and eat up.
The Story:

Those who venture up to the second floor tearooms will see a variety of signs, hand-drawn in colored pencil and pen, directing them to the first room in the line, where a big poster is taped to the door. It reads:

Wonderland Anime Club!
Please come in quietly and find someplace to sit!
Remember to keep it quiet for other viewers.
Refreshments are in the back!

Inside, the tables have been pushed against the wall, and the chairs arranged around them, with some limited theater-style seating in the middle; the rest of the room is full of pillows, blankets, and cushions, making a soft place to lie around and relax with a view. The middle of the room contains a projector set up on the table, projecting onto the far wall, and the lights are dimmed. All the films are subtitled, and the speakers on the side let the audio flow throughout the room. A refreshment table is in the back, filled with Japanese convenience store snacks, including various flavors of ramune, pocky, chocolate candies, and potato chips. There is also, helpfully, a list at the refreshment table of all the films being screened that day, and the times they're playing at, so people can properly identify them.

The list reads:
サマーウォーズ / Summer Wars: 12-2 PM
となりのトトロ / My Neighbor Totoro: 2-3:30 PM
猫の恩返し / The Cat Returns: 3:30-5 PM
魔女の宅急便 / Kiki's Delivery Service: 5-6:45 PM
ハウルの動く城 / Howl's Moving Castle: 6:45-8:45 PM
千と千尋の神隠し / Spirited Away: 8:45-10:45 PM

There's also a 'mailing list' left next to that where people can leave their names if they're interested in coming to weekly meetings, to watch new shows and discuss their favorites, among other things. Everything is also decorated with stickers of cats, dogs, and rabbits, along with a surprising amount of glitter for pizzazz.

Come, stay as long as you like, and enjoy the show!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Nah. She's gonna point and laugh while he bleeds out all over the floor." Chara says, lightly and breezily, like they aren't involved or interested in anything at all here. Except maybe for a raging internal debate on if it's gross to eat the floor cookies, or if the five-second-rule is something a mature and also intimidating individual can get away with.

"What do you think, Frisk. This is a stupid sappy movie for babies." Of course he's gonna be okay. Frisk is totally gonna end up going on and on about how okay he's gonna be, probably, and then he will be okay, not that it's any business of Chara's or anything.

"Maybe it is." Privately, Frisk doesn't really think so, and even if it was, it wouldn't matter. They're invested in the outcome either way.

Then they grin. "But you like it anyway, don't you?"

Really, they wouldn't have come over here to bug Frisk if they hadn't. It's like their way of expressing themselves, or something, they're pretty sure.

Chara looks away and flattens their smile into an embarrassed, stretched-thin line. It's getting to be pretty obvious what the guidance this word has decided to hand down says: it's fine if you enjoy things, maybe a little. You might actually get made fun of less if you admit liking things than if you don't. But reluctance still tugs at the corners of their words, and they can't look at Frisk, can't look at the screen.

"It's not totally boring, I guess. There's blood in it."

All right, Chara, whatever you say. Personally, the parallels between Chihiro's life and theirs are a little too glaring for this not to be deliberate, and it's clear that this has spoken to Chara on some level, even if they won't admit it.

Frisk giggles a little. They think they're getting better at interpreting Chara's way of saying things.

"Well, I like it too."

"Yeah, but you like everything. Alphys could show you an hour and a half of static and you'd still thank her for it," Chara points out, though it's perhaps sort fo absently pointed out, because Haku is dying and this is incredibly intense and oh my god he just threw up a... snail??

"That's not true."

Then Frisk squeaks in mild terror, because Chihiro just went and shoved her whole arm down this big dragon's throat, and there's blood everywhere and Haku is sick and dying and just hacked up a black slug thing, and the tension with No-Face in the bathhouse is sending chills up their spine. Something about that white face on the goopy blackness is oddly familiar to them, though they can't put a name to it.

They don't even realize they're clinging to Chara's arm right away. The movie is suspenseful, all right?

Chara's generally not... exactly the biggest fan in the world of being touched. But... it's Frisk. And the movie is really distracting. The past few minutes alone have featured a mysteriously protective character vomiting blood, talk about saving him with love, and a mysteriously faceless masked void-ghost-spirit-thing that's growing uncontrollable out of a misguided loneliness and a desire to be what the world seems to want and value.

So. Yeah. It's going places.

They... don't yank their arm away. By the time Chihiro reaches the train, and... and decides to take No-Face along? Instead of just leaving him? They maybe even. Lean into Frisk a bit more.

"Changed my mind. I hope Haku's not the villain," they mumble quietly. They hope he doesn't die either, but they don't say so.

Don't they cut a sight, two kids clinging to each other with a skeleton on the other side, wholly enraptured by the scenes unfolding on the screen. Seeing how kind Chihiro is to No-Face and her two little tagalong polymorphs, Frisk's soft heart can't help but ache for her plight. She's stayed so strong despite being so scared. And she's been so nice to everyone. No wonder they all want to help her.

"I don't think he is," Frisk whispers. "I think he's just...made some mistakes."

Chihiro fought so hard to keep him safe. That wouldn't make any sense if he was bad all along, right?

"Must've been some pretty huge mistakes if they meant he's stuck working for Yubaba and almost dying," Chara whispers back, just the teensiest hint of laughter forcefully injected into their response.

But that's... not quite a perfect argument, is it? "...I guess Chihiro got stuck working for Yubaba too, and she didn't make any mistakes."

"He said he forgot his name. That's how she gets power over everyone, right?"

The train keeps rolling onward, cutting through the water, and the scene is quiet but...there's kind of a power to it. Frisk relaxes their grip on Chara's arm and coughs, awkwardly. "Um...sorry."

"It's okay," Chara announces breezily, even if they're sort of biting the inside of their cheek over how often "sorry" and "it's okay" keep popping up. "Somehow, I put up with it. Probably because I'm so nice."

Nice, of course, being the main trait that Chara is known for.

They open their mouth to add that they were worried too, but immediately reconsider. They sort of. Just choose to cough, instead. It's very smooth and planned and subtle and also for a very good reason, much like everything Chara does.

"...You don't just go and forget your name for no reason. We'd both know that, wouldn't we? Chihiro signed hers over willingly. Maybe Haku did, too. Maybe he's getting beat up and also I guess eating slugs because he wants to be."

"People have good reasons for eating slugs?" Frisk's nose wrinkles. Toriel ate snails, but they're pretty sure the snails she ate weren't all black and goopy like Haku's slug-thing.

"Maybe he's just someone who did some bad things. That doesn't make him all bad."

And they'd both know that too, wouldn't they?

"Then who is the bad guy in this movie?" Chara ventures.

Haku might've seemed likely, since Chihiro did get warned that he works for Yubaba. Yubaba herself, probably? Maybe No-Face, since he ate a bunch of people and acted kind of creepy. But then why would Chihiro bring him along? What's his face... the baby who was gonna break her arm? Nah, a tiny mouse isn't much of a villain. ...Zeniba, maybe?

"Yubaba?" Frisk tilts their head this way and that as they puzzle it, then shrug. "Maybe this movie doesn't need a big bad guy."

Not every movie they've watched beforehand has had a really clear-cut villain. Frisk rather likes that. It's highly redolent of the way things were Underground, and how no one person could be held responsible for all the bad or wrong things in the world. Everyone just did their best, and sometimes made some mistakes along the way.

Chara looks... sort of annoyed?

"That doesn't make sense. If there wasn't a bad guy, nothing would even go wrong, and there wouldn't be anything to fix. There's always someone at the root of everything. Otherwise it's just... a bunch of characters suffering for no reason in particular. Who wants to see a story like that?"

"Chihiro and her parents didn't know this place belonged to the spirits." Frisk doesn't dare glance in Chara's direction. Not every story does need a villain, but they seem bent on ascribing the role to themselves.

"I think even the bad people are allowed to be people. Some of them just...just messed up, is all. Everyone messes up."

"Chihiro didn't mess up," Chara argues. "She didn't eat the food like her parents did. She did what Haku told her to do. She did her job. She didn't accept No-Face's gifts because No-Face is bad. Now she's fixing her parents' mistakes AND fixing Haku."

"But she was so scared before. She didn't even want to stay here." Not that Frisk can really blame her - they can relate. They feel oddly proud of her, an utterly alien feeling, considering that she's little more than fictional character, indifferent to how the viewers feel about her. But it still fills their heart with determination to know that she can be determined too.

"And now look! She's gotten so much braver and stronger for her friends."

Chara sits up, about to argue. Being scared isn't messing up. She isn't even stronger, she hasn't earned an ounce of EXP, or whatever the anime equivalent is.

But the movie's still going on. Zeniba turns out to be altogether kindly - definitely not the bad guy at all. And No-Face, that mouse-son-guy, the weird bird? They made Chihiro a hair tie. Whatever Chara was going to say fades off as Zeniba - Granny? - explains that because her friends made it, it will surely protect her.

"I guess," Chara instead offers, and takes a tiny little corner of the fabric of Frisk's sleeve in their fingers. Not actually holding on, or anything, but... but for some reason, they really like that line. "She's... kind of tough."

Frisk blinks in surprise at the pinch and pull of Chara tugging at the fabric of their shirt, but doesn't resist it. It is awfully sweet, everyone pitching in to keep Chihiro safe. And then Zeniba says there's someone to meet her, and then it's -

"Haku!" Frisk whispers his name to match Chihiro's joyful shout. "See? He's good! He came back for her!"

For once, Chara doesn't have a dry, biting response. They just let that tiny bit of barely-holding turn into scrunching their fingers up in the fabric of Frisk's sleeve, even if they're probably totally gonna stretch it. They're maybe relieved to see Haku too. Maybe. But, you know, don't tell anybody. It's totally a secret.

Though it's not a secret for long, because they're flying home, and Haku's silvery-white and his fuzzy mane whips in the breeze and it's kind of beautiful, and there's still one more thing that Haku needs before he's truly saved, and Chihiro -

Chihiro remembers.

Chihiro remembers falling into a river and being saved, and Chara abandons this shy not-really-cradling to seize Frisk's arm and squeeze, because there it is! The true name!

Frisk doesn't even pretend not to be crying. They've got big glassy tears rolling down their cheeks to rival Chihiro's, because Haku was good and she knew he was good and they're hugging each other sailing through the air, laughing and crying together.

They ruin the moment a little with a loud sniffle, ducking to wipe their nose on their sleeve - their other sleeve, the one Chara isn't holding, of course.

"He really was good," they whisper.

Silver scales scatter like flower petals, and the two of them are holding onto each other like anchors as their emotions spill out, and... god.

Chara doesn't cry. Chara never cries. Big kids don't cry. People who are no longer supposed to feel don't cry. They aren't crying. They don't cry. Their eyes are dry. Not a single tear.

But they do... sort of need to duck their head, curl into Frisk's side, bow their forehead against Frisk's shoulder. That much touching might be overbearing, might be weird, might be threatening or bad, but they're acting before they can really think it through. They're... they're not overcome, they don't care, they're just...

"He was good," Chara agrees, though it's a little squeaky and weird because their throat's a bit tight.

They need a second, that's all.

All right, Chara "I don't enjoy anything" Dreemurr. Frisk will keep your secret. Definitely no tears or enjoyment or emotional impacts left by movies about spirits and dragon boys whatsoever.

Frisk curls their free arm around them a little bit in kind of an awkward side-hug, faint and gentle and hopefully non-invasive. They don't say anything, unsure as to whether Chara might want to talk at all, or whether anything they might mutter might be construed as mocking.

It's a beautiful ending. Frisk's cheeks are still damp and they smile as the credits start to roll over the quiet sound of a piano.

"It's...it was all good."

They... they can hardly imagine what that ending felt like for Frisk. Chihiro still having to leave without Haku, setting out to her new home with her parents. Forgetting... maybe forgetting all about him forever. But... he promised they'd meet again, right? He promised.

He promised.

Chara pulls in a slow, shaky breath, then lifts their head again. Dry eyes. No tears. They kept it together. They smile, even if it's a little bit lopsided and wobbly.

"So, Frisk...? Is anime real?"

[Action OTA]: アニメクラブに行こうよ！

im kinda tired i think im gonna go crasherole

or just move to tallahasserole

or stage an economic revolt in the name of the casseroletariat

avasterole matey

all these puns are starting to take a cassertoll on me

not like there's a casserwhole lot more we can do with them anyway

thats it. im officially arresting us both if more casserole puns happen

.............or i could be a cassertroll :^]

SENTENCES YOU TO LIFE WITH NO CHANCE OF CASSEPAROLE

i'll just tunnel out. like a cassermole.

i have no more puns so i'm putting you in DOUBLE JAIL

you should have more classerole

TRIPLE JAIL

ONE THOUSAND YEARS DUNGEON. made of molasserole OK I'M DONE

the jail is without end

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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