text; un:✨🕵️GOLDEN WEEK SPECIAL RELEASE

[paperpusher]

Happy Golden Week, everyone! Natori Shuuichi here, hoping everyone is doing well-- especially our new faces! Please let us know if we can help you adjust.

I'm excited to announce that my new movie Fiance of the Funeral Procession, the second film in the Sparkling Detective Akeboshi Koutarou series, is now available in theaters! It's a historical mystery involving a beautiful woman and her beautiful fiance and the dark secrets that they keep. Each film in the series stars a new case with only the detective as the recurring character, so you don't have to have seen the first one! It would mean a lot to me if you could support my coworkers by watching the film.

Thank you and I hope you enjoy ✨

[What Natori didn't make clear is that he is playing Akeboshi Koutarou, though that becomes obvious to anyone who know what he looks like as soon as they come across a movie poster. Shockingly, this is canonically a good movie. A summary of the plot is available here! Feel free to have characters already seen posters/seen the movie if you'd like.]

Comments

[breweries]

From before you were summoned here? How curious that Tenkohime had managed to acquire a copy.

[ then again, this version of hell is close to the world natori and the other japanese charas are from, so maybe it's not so surprising after all...? ]

And yes, that should suffice. Wizard productions usually take a hundred years, so this shall be interesting to watch for myself.

[paperpusher]

It's interesting, right? It's certainly not something I had on hand when I arrived here, so she must have been able to get it from home regardless. I suppose it's just as expected!

[Read: she sure is powerful, huh. But that thought completely leaves his mind when he reads the rest of the text.]

A hundred years

As in it takes a hundred years to make or a hundred years to perform...?

[breweries]

She must be a fan of yours, in that case. And for letting us enjoy it in this very place must be quite the honor.

And yes. To be exact, there used to be an all-wizard theater troupe who would perform at the national theater of Western Country. It would take them a hundred years for rehearsals and production. One act averages about three months, and thus it would take them a whole year to finish one show.

[ so yeah they're THAT long ]

[paperpusher]

[At first, Natori was 100% going to call bullshit and say this was a bit of ayakashi teasing. But with the additional details, it fits into the sort of timeframe he expects from ayakashi; plenty of them spent years the way humans would spend hours. Really selling the whole "wizards is ayakashi" vibes there.]

I see. I suppose we really are living on different lifespans, aren't we? I hope the actors had time to rest during the performance.

Shylock-san, I know it's uncouth of me to ask, but how old are you?

[breweries]

[ fufu.

fufufufufufufu. ]

I wonder. Would you like to take a few guesses, Mr. Natori?

[paperpusher]

That's just mean. I feel like you're setting me up to say something offensive.

[breweries]

Then you should know better than to ask for someone's age, whether they be human or otherwise.

Does it matter how old I am, though? The important thing here is that we are all alive in this moment of time to be able to watch your film. Isn't it?

[paperpusher]

Haha, it's very poetic when you put it that way. But I suppose I'm just trying to get a sense of scale. When we experience life on such different timeframes, it helps to keep things in context.

[He has a lot of thoughts about this for real-- the bulk of the clashes between humans and ayakashi occur because they're such fundamentally different creatures, experiencing the same situations through different lenses. But it's because of that experience that he also thinks he's not going to get an answer out of Shylock, so.]

But you're right, it was rude of me. I guess knowing that 90 minutes to me is similar to a year to you is enough.

[breweries]

[ nope, not at all. shylock can be rather tightlipped when he wants to be. that being said: ]

It is true that, once you've lived as long as I , the days and weeks and months would start to blend into one another. Decades and centuries and millenia -- time has simply no meaning for us the more it goes on.

Even so, there are still things that catch us by surprise, such as the concept of film. Humans truly are creative.

[paperpusher]

Mm, I've heard things like that before. ["from other ayakashi," is the unspoken ending of that sentence.] On both counts-- how hard it is to remember how fleeting a human life is, and what we manage to do with the time we do have.

[An extremely genre conversation for them to be having.]

I've heard similar praise for things like flavored popcorn, if you want to experience multiple examples of human ingenuity at once.

[breweries]

It comes with the territory of your other profession, I take it.

And oh? What other flavors are there?

[paperpusher]

Haha, that's right. You'd be surprised how often a dispute between humans and ayakashi comes down to that difference.

Or, well. Maybe you wouldn't. I imagine wizards experience something similar?

[That's just him being polite, implying wizards aren't ayakashi.]

My favorite is curry popcorn, but you can find all sorts. Caramel, chocolate, etc are obvious options but there are some more interesting ones to find, like milk tea or black pepper.

[breweries]

As a matter of fact, we do. It wasn't always like that, however. I was born during the time when perspectives were starting to change -- as the human population had begun to rise, so do the persecutions toward wizards.

But never mind that for now. Milk tea-flavored popcorn, you say? Hopefully I can indulge while I sit down and enjoy your film.

[paperpusher]

Ah, I see.

...and that would be approximately how long ago? (Kidding)

[More like he's trying to lighten the mood.]

Anyway, I hope you enjoy it! It'd be a shame if your first movie experience was a disappointment.

[breweries]

Fufu. Do keep trying, I like seeing other people guess.

And I'll let you know my thoughts on it very soon.