/jp/ - Otaku Culture

>>46826422
who the fuck would eat an eel? They have a bunch of electricity in them, that can't be healthy!

>>45831204
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My interactions with Aya were few but enough to make me dislike her. Anyone who regularly frequents Yakumo's whore house deserves judgment—even Keine's allies—and in the crow's case, she's quite the regular there, or so the tengu jijis say; and they’ve taught me how to cook ginkgo seeds, so I trust those bastards with my life. Couple that with the bullshit she spews in that newspaper, praising Yukari as if a God, and I really want to rip her arms off for even daring to hold my baby… But Keine—bless and mega curse her kind soul—decided to welcome the reporter into our home. First those two idiots and their cursed letters, now a Yukari lover… Ugh.

I let my harsh feelings paint my face in its entirety and Aya, who was talking to Keine, squirms in place, holding Aki—whose wings gently flap up and down; she's happy~—a tad tighter.

The crow was sitting on the couch parallel to mine and Keine, with Suzu by her side—they know each other. Hm… Perhaps I need to perform some reevaluations? Suzu wouldn't mind telling me more about her relationship with the Yakumo scum, right? Especially if I threaten to melt those funny bells onto her scalp. I glance at her, arms crossed with a spiteful look, and Suzu freezes wide-eyed—

—Keine elbows my side, and I groan. Mystia giggles, now sitting on the other side of my bride-to-be; Mochi in Keine's arms tries to reach for her bento hat. “As I was saying, Aya-san, this is not an insurrection but instead a call-out for truth.” Recovering from my death glare, Aya gently seated Aki on her thighs and wrote in a notebook. “Force should be used only if pushed upon us—our crowning goal is to expose and fix the wrongs of the Hieda Clan while aiming to better the coexistence of humans and youkais throughout all of Gensokyo.” I smile to myself, remembering the hours she spent repeating her speeches to herself in the mirror.

“Hm~it's a noble goal, indeed—but isn't that the job of our shrine maidens? They keep the balance of Gensokyo, after all.”

“The shrine maidens deal with incidents regarding youkai and use violence at the end of the day; while it works for the incidents, it cannot solve everything. The problems we're aiming to tackle are of the kind a strike of the gohei cannot solve.” Though Aya nods, Keine turns to Mystia. The night sparrow doesn't need words before she starts to elaborate on the many troubles of weak youkai like her, from the illiteracy in a world built upon the human language to the necessity of throwing their weak young to death just so the nest survives. Aya writes furiously, the tiredness of before gone and replaced by a thirst for knowledge. Expected of a reporter…

Though there was a personal, excited shine in her eyes. I wonder…

Softly, I hum, noticing, with the side of my eye, Mochi looking at me…

I can’t resist, so I play with his chin with a finger, his wee wings going up and down before his little hand reaches out and catches that finger in a tight grip; so tiny~he laughs, eyes shining—it's just so sweet…

One thousand years…

They feel worthwhile at moments like these.

Still, problems—old and new—resurface from the depths of my mind: Yakumo, this plan… the knowledge of what could have happened if Keine hadn't been there to save them that night haunts me…

And just… for what? Why did that need to happen? Why did my kids need to go through fire and flames for the mere chance of survival? Gensokyo should be a place of happiness, beyond the nightmare that was prior to its existence—I shudder just remembering the last major war that happened in these lands before the barrier, feeling bitter…

Why must this land beyond common sense mimic the outside world's reality so much?

“It doesn't need to be like that, Aya-san.” Keine's words grab my attention. She looks determined, and Aya very curious, though still interested. “Humans also had to live only from hunting when the world was buried beneath ice and no plant could survive—but that changed over time. The world heated up; changed, as everything does, and humans adapted. Youkai are mirrors to humans; they can even breed with each other—so what’s not to say they can't change too? They don't need to eat fear forever!” Oh, that… “Change will occur no matter how much we try to stop it, but we can make this change be for the better—for the past three decades, the number of youkai hunting humans has decreased immensely thanks to the new generation of mikos that have befriended various youkai; the HSE…” She pauses, recollecting herself. “Has also shown humans and youkai can coexist, just as it created a responsibility towards the fruits of it. The writing on the wall says everything: Gensokyo will experience a boom in births by the following year, and things cannot remain the same after what these two tangents have shown us. Otherwise, I fear we'll have failed as a society—if the worst-case scenario happens, I’ll use my powers of writing the future to change Youkai forever.” There's fire in her eyes.