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wardencommanderrodimiss · 5 years

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Witches, Chapter 7: the actual end of the case.

And goin’ off the rails into a crisis of morality and questions of justice, as you do. Wait, that’s not supposed to happen this early in this game, is it?

[Seelie of Kurain Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

[Witches Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

----

“That was a hell and a half of a case,” Phoenix says. He shows up in the lobby as Apollo and Athena attempt to reassure Mayor Tenma that most likely, his unpopularity as mayor won’t affect his popularity as the Amazing Nine-Tails, and rather his popularity as the latter will bolster him as the former, especially now that he is no longer attempting the merger. “And that’s a hell of a mask there, Mr Tenma.” He raises his eyebrows. Apollo gets the feeling he’s trying to communicate something more, something he can’t possibly guess at.

“It is,” the mayor agrees curtly. “One of the rare few to indeed be magic.” His voice drops and his eyes dart around, glancing behind Phoenix, making even his unchanged ramrod posture so much shiftier. “Though I should hope word does not get out. Our daughters would be distraught to learn how few spirits are involved.”

“My lips are sealed,” Phoenix says, slowly turning his head to Apollo and Athena in turn.

“Don’t break kayfabe,” Athena says seriously. “Lie our butts off, got it!”

“You don’t have to lie,” Phoenix says. “It’s not like you can lie, not to Trucy. You just have to not tell the truth.”

Athena considers this, her expression equally solemn and confused. Apollo hears the question: there’s a difference? And there is, to lawyers and fae and fae lawyers, a whole realm of difference, and it’s there that they work, in the gray, in the twilight. Apollo would like to stop slipping through the cracks and ending up there.

“Mayor Tenma?” he asks. Since trial’s end, another question, besides the matter of why the hell L’Belle thought that a more complex coverup was better, has bubbled up to the forefront. “Can I ask you how you got that mask? You’re not from Nine-Tails Vale, and it seems like something incredibly powerful and dangerous to just be lying around.”

Phoenix attempts to communicate something with his eyebrows, to Apollo this time, but he isn’t alarmed, isn’t making a frantic stop this line of inquiry motion, so whatever it is can wait. “Indeed,” Mayor Tenma says. “I admit, the circumstances of my coming across it were very strange. I had come to Nine-Tails Vale the first after receiving the threat against Jinxie, to propose the merger to Alderman Kyubi, and on my way from the manor so pondered what I could do to fight against the situation. The thought had occurred to me, of course, of our masked wrestlers, and that I could hide myself in that scene - and no more had I thought so than before me appeared, amidst the flowers, the mask of the Nine-Tails.”

“You don’t mean it was within a ring of flowers, do you?” Phoenix asks warily. Apollo realizes, in that moment, that he never mentioned to him that he fell into a faery ring when he found the mitamah in the woods last year.

The mayor’s face is like stone. He’s tall enough to stare Phoenix down, literally, though Phoenix doesn’t blink either. “My daughter’s life was threatened, Mr Wright,” he says. “Would you not take such a risk for her safety?”

“Papa!” Jinxie cries, bursting into the lobby, and the mayor moves to meet her. He leaves Apollo watching Phoenix, to see his lips move, soundlessly. An objection? An agreement? The correction that Phoenix wouldn’t have to take up strange masks distributed by unknown fae because he’s on a name-basis with some already? Jinxie takes the mask from her father and in awe, hugs it to her chest.

“Yes, there was much risk to accept what I was offered,” Tenma continues. “But I felt there was little other option, and the Nine-Tailed Fox has been called the protector of the Vale for generations. I hoped, as it was, that it was well-meant, to help me help the village. And is has been.”

“Mon Dieu,” Athena breathes. “That’s really cool!” Phoenix’s head snaps around to stare at her. They’re going to go from her not believing in yokai to trying to make a deal with one in three days. “But that’s also dangerous when someone else gets their hands on it,” she adds. “Like if L’Belle had done more than just disguise himself.”

“I doubt he could,” Tenma says. “I believe I understand something of the Fox’s mind, sharing its power - and while the body may take the same shape no matter who is beneath the mask, the real power is held in the tails, which are granted should the Fox think your cause is righteous.”

“I thought that was strange,” Jinxie says, from under her father’s arm. “That when I thought I was talking to you, I noticed you didn’t have your tails. But that was because it was Mr L’Belle instead and he wanted what was worst for the town.”

Tenma nods. “Yes; even in my dazed state I too thought it strange to look upon my guise lacking its tails.”

Something about this doesn’t seem quite right, but Phoenix is nodding, saying, “That’s somewhat reassuring,” and then the mayor is saying that he and Jinxie should be going, it has been a very long few days for them both, and, Mr Wright, say hi to Trucy for me! Jinxie adds, and he laughs and assures her that he will, and that he’s sure she’ll be coming up to check in on them - and he freezes, his smile twitching and then faltering, and Apollo is frozen.

“Wait,” Apollo says. “Mr Tenma - about the tails. If the Fox’s mask only gives the tails to people it decides are, are good or righteous or whatever, then—”

“Prosecutor Blackquill,” Phoenix says, his hand combed halfway through his hair in frustration and then stopped.

“When he took the mask and proved our point for us, he had tails,” Apollo adds. He didn’t count them to know if there were nine, or if he’d just been granted something halfway. It didn’t matter then. “But he’s…” A convicted murderer, an underhanded manipulator, with an attack hawk and a cruel chuckle and the ability to literally twist what people see. Nothing to draw a guardian yokai, especially not when he was trying to get the Fox’s chosen vessel convicted of murder.

“Indeed,” Tenma says. “A samurai, certainly, but a murderer as well. I agree that I cannot imagine what our protector spirit should find in him - but I must trust that there is something.”

“Even the nicest fae can have morals that are a little—” Phoenix folds his arms and struggles for a word. “Squidgy,” he decides at last, and Apollo snorts. All that thought for that end. “Or perhaps it just wanted to prove that yes, this is how the mask works, in the flashiest way possible, for your sake. I wouldn’t dwell on it much.”

The corners of his eyes light up red. Apollo starts - going so long in trial without seeing any flashes almost made him forget - and Athena shoots him a puzzled glance. Phoenix is going to be dwelling on it, and from the looks of it, Athena too. She taps her toe on the floor as they watch the Tenmas leave. “Figuring magic out is just a lot of guesswork, huh?” she asks softly.

“You got that right,” Phoenix says. “And it’s funny, because from all I’m told, it takes a lot of confidence in it to properly cast anything.” The tension in his face slackens; the lines on his forehead disappear and he relaxes his jaw. “Good work, both of you, by the way. Between the actual case and the prosecution, that’s a rough one. Ready to head out of here?”

They have barely left the defendant’s lobby for the hall when a voice hisses from behind Apollo, “Psst! Ey! Mr Demon Lawyer!”

He stops and spots Filch pressed up by a potted plant, just outside the lobby doors. “Er,” Apollo says. Athena turns around, nothing too quiet to escape her notice, and Phoenix sees her hesitate. His eyes follow to Filch and blink blue for the briefest fraction of a second. “What do you—”

“Gotta get something off my chest,” Filch says. “To - uh - to all ya three demon lawyer folk, I suppose.”

“What is your definition of ‘demon’ that all three of us fit it?” Athena asks. “People with cool hair? Lawyers, generally?”

“You’re already dealing with a couple counts of perjury, Mr Filch,” Phoenix says. Apollo thinks of this as his poker voice - faked kindness, faked ease, and a glacial weight behind it. It’s the voice he uses when he’s trying to shrug his way out of a serious conversation, when he was trying to pretend that he was nothing more than the unshaven mess in a hoodie he presented himself as. As he is now, in a suit, in a courthouse, that voice is a threat, unequivocally, the words set aside. “I hope for your sake this won’t be a continuation of that theme.”

“Ah heh.” Filch forces a laugh, unconvincingly. He runs into the wall when he tries to take another step back away from Phoenix. “It ain’t - ‘course it ain’t. See, I didn’t say nothing that was uh, perjury-ous. You said it, and I just didn’t exactly correct the bit you had wrong.”

There have been other cases that, even when it was over, in his client’s favor, Apollo has still wanted to throw up. That says more about those other cases, how bad they were (a droplet of blood, or was it just paint, on the card; the echo of Kristoph’s laugh), and much less to say anything happening now is good or normal or the end Apollo wants or expects to a case. The verdict came down. The client walks free. It’s supposed to be over. Apollo’s voice croaks. “What—” He coughs to clear it. “What did I have wrong?”

Oh, god; what did he have wrong? How many dominoes fell after it?

“Oh, fuck!” Widget exclaims, and Athena doesn’t even try to belatedly muffle or apologize for it.

Filch’s grin, wide and awkward, stays plastered to his face, like he either can’t read the room or thinks that it’s going to get even worse if he ends his pained attempt at friendliness. “Well, see, the verdict ain’t wrong - shoulda figured out myself that L’Belle wasn’t offering to cover my alibi for my sake, he wanted me to lie for him - he absolutely did it, no question there - I wouldn’t even have a motive, y’see, I worked in that manor all the time and wouldn’t need to kill anyone to get in to the treasure, if Grandpappy hadn’t already—”

“Can you get to the point?” Apollo snaps. “No one’s accusing you of murder, even if you’re making yourself way more suspicious!”

“Sorry, sorry sorry!” Filch claps his hands together and bows awkwardly. Phoenix’s eyes have narrowed further and he comes to stand next to Apollo, saying nothing, just glaring. Is Apollo not intimidating enough on his own? He was the first one Filch called a demon. “Thing is, yeah, woulda made a lotta sense to chuck the costume out the window before the security cam; woulda done that myself if I’d still had the costume when I got back there.”

“If?” Apollo repeats. The word gives him some sense of where this leads, and nothing on that path makes him less want to vomit.

“Vent got pretty tight and hot in such a big ol’ costume,” Filch continues. “And it felt like it was getting smaller as it went. I couldn’t fit my whole costumed self, so I kinda just kicked my way outta it and left it there in the vent and kept going ‘till I got in the chamber.”

“You said you didn’t know what happened to the costume!” Apollo tries not to yell. He really, really tries. Phoenix winces and leans away, and behind him Athena’s footsteps scrabble across the floor as she too puts some distance in between her ears and Apollo’s vocal chords.

“I sure did, didn’t I? Heh.” Filch’s cloying grin is wearing on the patience that Apollo no longer has. “Was gettin’ kinda afraid up there, didn’t know what you were gonna say next--”

“So you decided to become a more suspicious and uncooperative witness!”

Even Filch winces at Apollo’s volume, that time.

“Mr Filch,” Phoenix says dryly, having dropped the false levity of his poker voice, “I hope you’ve never once in your life wondered why tanuki have the folkloric reputation that they do, when you can find the answer in a damn mirror.”

“That’s the other thing!” Filch says. “For ditching the costume! Easier to get through the vents on four paws, y’know?”

Phoenix snorts. Apollo stares. “Wait,” he says. “Mr Filch isn’t actually—”

“Apollo, you had the magatama,” Phoenix says. “That’s what it was for.” In spite of the words, he doesn’t sound frustrated. Maybe just a little confused. Apollo still feels the need to defend himself.

“There wasn’t exactly much opportunity to subtly take a look,” he protests. Was there? There probably had been, and he was just occupied with too much else. “And then L’Belle did notice and chewed us out for being superstitious yokels or whatever!” He stares back at Filch. A shapeshifter. An actual goddamn shapeshifter. Apollo could scream.

“Grandpappy was, too,” Filch says cheerily. “He had it better figured out than me, though; he could turn anytime, but me, only if I’m real stressed out, like the thought of gettin’ stuck in air ducts, y’know? Or uh - yer all kinda lookin’ a bit scary, yourselves, now.”

“If you try and run I am going to step on your tail,” Phoenix says.

“Wouldn’t dream of it!” Filch says, and his hands toying with his scarf blink red. Clearly he at least considered it. “Just wanna prove myself, y’know? On Grandpappy’s honor!”

His honor as a thief, but Apollo blinks and in front of them, peering up with small round eyes out of a distinctively-patterned face, disheveled brown fur all over, stands an actual raccoon dog. It looks nothing like those yokai statues by the Fox Chamber doors. Apollo is numb enough to have only that thought. Athena shrieks, and by the time there’s an officer and bailiff running out of the next lobby to investigate, Filch is human, and Athena puts on a grin and assures them that she is fine with a ferocity that makes Apollo proud.

“I was trying to skitter back up the wall to the vent to get out when the chamber door opened,” Filch says. “Turns out, ain’t so good at climbing. Think American raccoons might be better at that, their creepy little hands and all.” He takes in their expressions, Athena’s dropped back to intense concentration, Phoenix’s never so much as twitching. “So I went skittering out into the Fox Chamber and hid there for a bit ‘till I knew I could get out without anyone seeing, ‘cept maybe that lil maid girl got a glimpse. ‘Cause villagers might keep quiet about Tenma Taro, but tanuki don’t get such respect.”

“But—” This is all just a distraction from the main issue, the one that reared its head minutes before and that Apollo hasn’t asked because there’s so much else to be angry with Filch for, too much dragging his attention back and forth and back. “But if your Tenma Taro costume was left in the vents, then who was the Tenma Taro that Jinxie saw? Who left the feathers and the tracks!”

Filch’s eyes dart in both directions. He hunches his shoulders and leans his head forward, his voice dropping to a rough whisper. “You have to ask?” he says. Athena growls in her throat. Filch’s eyes grow wider. “It was Tenma Taro, o‘ course!”

Apollo no longer wants to throw up, but the nausea has turned into a headache pounding at the front of his skull and he hasn’t yet decided which is better. “You said you don’t believe in the village superstitions!” he says. “You said—”

“Shh!” Filch hisses. “I said I didn’t believe all that glop about getting yer soul stolen just for looking. Grandpappy knew his stuff, and he said to me, souls don’t come lose that easy, not unless you’ve already cracked it up and given parts away.” Phoenix shrugs one shoulder, apparent affirmation of that statement. “But Tenma Taro - might not go taking souls if ya talk too loud about him, but you draw his attention instead. And now that he’s out he’ll be listening. Couldn’t say that back in there.” He jerks his head back, toward the courtroom, but smacks it on the wall in the process. “Too many people, y’know? I can talk to you ‘cause you’re demons yourselves, he might not so readily go messing with you.”

Athena clutches the back of her neck, her eyebrows high and eyes wide, turned pleadingly toward Apollo and then Phoenix. Apollo squeezes his eyes closed. “So you went to try and steal the treasure in the Forbidden Chamber,” he says, “even believing there was an actual real life demon trapped in there?”

“Grandpappy always said that he was sealed up tight even if the chamber doors opened, and that was extra extra protection!” Filch says indignantly. He could say anything and none of it would make Apollo believe in the rationale of what he did, though Apollo also willingly went on a trip to set a faery ring on fire. He still works at the Wright Anything Agency, despite everything. Maybe he shouldn’t judge.

(No, he’s still judging.)

“But,” Athena says weakly. “But, if that’s all true, then - then Tenma Taro escaped! If what Jinxie saw - if the feathers and the footprints - then there’s an evil yokai loose in the village now! Doing - evil things! We have to do something! Mr Filch, you have to tell Mayor Tenma! He’s the Amazing Nine-Tails! He can wrestle Tenma Taro back into its prison!”

Filch didn’t explicitly confirm that was what he did. He didn’t deny it, either, just let Apollo keep going and them all assume - because in the end, he was still too afraid of Tenma Taro to testify truthfully. He would rather lie and blame Jinxie, and then place himself on the scene of the murder, causing murder-unrelated trouble, than speak to its presence in front of everyone. And on that supposition, that Filch was agreeing and not dodging, Apollo kept going. Built the rest of his case on a fact fundamentally untrue.

(The last person who did that to him, he punched in the face. The last person who did that to him is standing right next to him.)

“Not sure Mr Mayor is gonna wanna hear from me after all the trouble I caused him and his daughter,” Filch says. Is shaming him in silence better, or should Apollo start screaming? He deliberates this, and while he is, the silence works well enough. “‘Course, yokai running loose in town is even more trouble. Least it’s just him and you and I don’t have to tell that scary witch on prosecution.”

Apollo believes coincidences happen. He runs into them often enough, always to make his cases so much more nightmarishly complicated. Or maybe he’s cursed, or the Agency is, with bad luck, but that’s still luck, still just random. The point is, he believes in inherent randomness of the universe, and this is not. It can’t be.

Because immediately after Filch merely alludes to Blackquill, Taka swoops, talons outstretched, straight for him. The hallway ceiling doesn’t rise nearly so high as the courtroom, or even the lobbies, and Apollo can’t tell where the hawk came from or how it built up its momentum. Shouldn’t they have heard it flapping around above them, waiting for its chance to strike? Birds can be smart, sure, and maybe Apollo could believe that Blackquill had trained his to attack on cue and deliver him evidence. But to recognize when he’s being spoken about, not even by name?

(Vongole, doing as Klavier wants without a word. The crows that spent a week flocking around Apollo. Fae or otherwise magic. Add another animal to the list.)

“Yipes!” Filch swats back at Taka with his hat, and when it circles back up to prepare a second attack, Filch bolts, not for the stairs, but for the window at the end of the hall cracked open maybe an inch. As he runs he suddenly isn’t Filch anymore, but again a tanuki, streaking along on four paws and bounding up onto the bench beneath the window. In another smooth movement he leaps up against the window, opening it far enough to slip through, fluffy tail the last thing out of sight. Two paws briefly reappear to kick against the window and slam it shut again.

Taka reaches the sill moments too late, alternating between jabbing at the glass with its beak and turning its vivid yellow eyes on the three of them still clustered where they found Filch. After several rounds of this, it takes to the air, flying just high enough to do a pass straight over Athena’s head. She yelps and throws her arms up over her head, but Taka simply lands on her arm to pluck at her hair. It does this several times while she remains paralyzed with fear, before it rustles its feathers in a motion that looks annoyed and lifts off to grab the end of her ponytail and tug it back in the direction of the window.

“No!” she shrieks, snatching at her hair and succeeding at pulling it away. “I’m not letting you go out there and eat Mr Filch!”

It stares her down from its perch on the bench for several more seconds, but she wins the staring contest and it swoops down the stairs and out of sight below.

Voices drift out of other lobbies and up the stairs, but none of them matter. They can’t break into the silence that has draped itself over them. Athena is the first to speak again, but her words just pull the shroud tighter. “If - if Mr Filch lied - and our whole case was based on that - then the verdict - then everything - then everything is wrong!” She turns around with heavy stomps; Widget glows furious red at her neck. “It was supposed to be a simple end! Our client’s innocent, the truth comes out, and the bad guy goes away! It’s not supposed to be based on a lie!”

“We didn’t press Filch hard enough,” Apollo says. “We should have made sure that we were - that I was - on the right track. At the right end.”

“L’Belle confessed! But false and coerced confessions are a thing! The mayor nearly falsely confessed!” Athena digs her hands into the hair at the sides of her head, pulling strands loose from her ponytail. “This isn’t right! This is—!”

“Hey,” Phoenix says sharply. “Woah, okay, take a breath, kiddo. Both of you. I’m lodging an objection, right now. I wouldn’t call your entire case based on a lie.”

Of course you wouldn’t, you lying, hypocritical—

“But it was wrong!” Athena cries. “It’s all wrong!”

“Not all,” Phoenix says. “Here, c’mon, let’s get out of here and we’ll talk.”

Athena’s anger slumps out of her in an instant. “Alright, Boss,” she says. They trail out of the courthouse after him, back out to the bustling city street and the noise that muffles all of their conversation. Maybe Phoenix did that on purpose. Maybe he didn’t want any court staff hearing them discuss bungling their own case. Athena flings herself onto the nearest bench. Widget has turned a sad blue color. Apollo sinks down next to her and Phoenix, shaking his head, assesses them both sadly.

“Your whole case, really?” he asks. He still doesn’t sit. He would have been sitting the entire time in the gallery while they stood behind the bench. He probably relishes the chance to stretch his legs now. “If I recall, the matter of what left the feathers was the problem of whether Jinxie was an accomplice or not. And that was a side matter, wasn’t it?”

“But we couldn’t address the entire case without dealing with that!” Athena protests.

Phoenix holds up a finger. “Because Prosecutor Blackquill wouldn’t let you,” he says. “Because as long as he had that, he had the mayor close to just confessing. You didn’t have room to work because he wouldn’t give it to you. But look at everything else. Imagine, for a second, that Tenma Taro, the - shit, the real one, got some friends I gotta give a call to see what we can do about that - never left any of that evidence behind. It’s tangential to the case. It’s important to solve to make sure it isn’t connected to the case, but it was not the crux of your case. It was a stumbling block you had to get through so that Blackquill would allow you to address anything else. He put that there.”

Apollo nods numbly. Athena puts her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands. Her nodding isn’t very noticeable. “Yes, it’s absolutely critical to get the truth, fully, confirmed as such, out of the witnesses,” Phoenix continued. “So yes, maybe next time, you hit a little harder to make them say ‘yes, that’s what happened’ and if they’re still lying, then that’s more perjury on their plates. Make it have a consequence. Learn from this here. Do better next time. But—”

“If Filch had said yeah, there really was a monster set loose,” Apollo says, “could - could we even have solved the case at all? I mean, how do we prove that? Would the newspaper even be enough to point to and say that’s it, flying away?”

“It wasn’t yesterday,” Athena says glumly. “We’d have to spend today hunting down the real Tenma Taro and figuring out how to bring it to court.”

Phoenix sighs and combs his hair back. A few strands of it spring forward again, down his forehead. “Usually when I dealt with monsters and magic, they were tied right into the case as witnesses or culprits,” he says. “It’s easier to get your proof. Tenma Taro’s just damn bad luck for you. But if Filch hadn’t lied, then that would be both him and Jinxie corroborating that yes, there was a yokai. And two witnesses and that newspaper, you might have a fighting chance again. And the thing is, the rest of it fits together, doesn’t it? L’Belle’s batshit ploys, the blackmail, the self-incrimination—”

“It’s still wrong!” The wheel turns and Athena, and by extension Widget, cycle into red anger. “The whole truth should be known!”

“And I’m not denying that,” Phoenix replies evenly. “Of course it needs to be. What I’m telling you is that you don’t need to have a crisis about the entire case being false because of that one piece of testimony. You certainly didn’t present false evidence. Everything takes it to this same logical end, the one you reached in court.”

He addresses Athena, not Apollo. He doesn’t look at Apollo. Would it be better or worse if he did? Better or worse to acknowledge that history and hypocrisy? He’s always going to be tainted - he and Apollo both will always know that, and this reassurance he offers Athena casts a long shadow she’s fortunate not to see. She just has to grapple with magic and monsters making cases more complicated than they should have been, muddling the verdicts. It’s wrong to let this go uncorrected, but Apollo’s head hurts at the thought of what Blackquill would do with another chance, and his heart hurts at the thought of putting the mayor and Jinxie back through this because of Filch’s lie and his mistake.

(And he let the ace of spades go by. He took his own personal justice against that wrong and let it stand because everything else made too much sense. Everything else fit together too well. All they lacked was—)

“Except verdicts aren’t made on logical ends and common sense,” Apollo says. “It’s all about the evidence.”

“And you did have the evidence you needed to acquit the mayor and take down L’Belle,” Phoenix says. “It was all there, this time.”

This time. That’s the closest they’ll come to addressing it, that their hands are stained, their morality just slightly too flexible. Do better next time, and this is next time, and here is Apollo again, and what has he done?

(Do better next next time. Even the damned fae make less of a mess of cases. They slide right into the legal system, take their places, and settle there. Yokai trample right over it.)

“And evidence is everything,” Apollo adds dryly. Phoenix winces. He sets his jaw and all the muscles in his neck tense.

“It still matters how we get to the end, even if it’s common sense,” Athena says. “It’s all - it’s all just a mess! This just isn’t how it’s supposed to be! This isn’t how this case ends!”

Except it is, and Apollo sighs, and so does Phoenix. He doesn’t look any more at ease. “Welcome back to LA, kiddo,” he says. “But I am sorry it turned out like this.” He shakes his head. “It’s not your faults.” Except it is, that they’re all doing nothing. The guilt isn’t strong enough to outweigh his impulse that justice has been served. Maybe he’s a hypocrite, too. Maybe he always has been, since he let Phoenix get away with it. Maybe that’s something Phoenix saw in him somehow, too, to pick him. “That you’re scrabbling for evidence and technicalities even if the truth is plain because evidence is everything.”

The bite he puts to the phrase is sharper than Kristoph’s.

“Though it took a while for this truth to become plain,” Athena adds. “To anyone without our eyes and ears.”

They can cut to the truth quicker than anyone. Maybe that’s why Phoenix doesn’t show any remorse about taking justice and a playing card into his own hands. Because he knows. Because he doesn’t trust anyone else not to cheat worse than he does. In his third case as a lawyer, he proved one of the world’s most famous and accomplished prosecutors to be corrupt and a murderer. Two months later he unseated the Chief of Police for the same thing. Apollo’s read his cases. He can guess at what’s made Phoenix into what he is. What broke his faith in the system and sunk him into the wreckage of the men he tore down.

“I wish there was a clean answer to everything, too,” Phoenix says softly. “That it was just as easy as saving people.”

Saving people. Is that it? Apollo wants the truth. He wants an end to this gut-churning discomfort of how easy it is for him to slide down that slippery slope in Phoenix’s wake. He thinks there should be a simple answer to this, to say that Phoenix’s bloody ace was unequivocally wrong, that to sit here and let Filch take his lie and run is unequivocally wrong. And maybe it is. Maybe that’s what he’s supposed to say. And he can’t, and he doesn’t know how bad of a person that makes him. He doesn’t know how bad that makes Phoenix, either.

(He thought he did, because he didn’t ponder the fact that he let Phoenix get away with it. And now that he does, maybe the gulf between them isn’t so wide. How wide is the gulf between them and Kristoph if he had just committed forgery and not murder?)

“I haven’t heard much about the Jurist System lately,” Apollo ventures, with his heart in his throat, not knowing how much more he wants to dwell on this but unable to look away from it now. Through the early winter, Phoenix had kept him and Trucy updated on what was, or more often wasn’t, happening with the committee, but it’s been months now. “What’s happening with that?”

He rubs his eyes. “Just about nothing,” he says. It’s the answer Apollo knew was coming, but knowing doesn’t make it hurt less. He knows the problems with their legal system run deep, deeper than anyone really knows, for longer than he’s been alive, and that the addition of juries can’t be a cure-all. But it would help. Anything would help. Anything that takes it out of the sole hands of Apollo and Phoenix and people far worse than them and this.

“I mean, me getting myself into that took enough strings pulled, friends and friends of friends in high positions, and then when I switched the first test case to - to that, even people who trusted the people who trusted me were giving me the side-eye. Like I was using the whole project for personal revenge and didn’t actually care at all about the ‘legal reform’ part. And now that Edgeworth’s Chief Prosecutor, he’s got the whole of California’s worth of legal issues to preside over, too, and even before that we were disagreeing on - well, what to do for things like this, fae and monsters and the like.”

“Maybe a jury would’ve helped for this case,” Athena says. “To see that more than us could agree that it all makes sense, even if the feathers came from anywhere.”

Phoenix smiles sadly. “Even if we had some of the protocols up and running, we wouldn’t have a jury here, not with this prosecutor.”

“He’d manipulate them just like he did the judge,” Apollo says.

“You think?” Phoenix raises an eyebrow, looking down on the two of them. “I think they’d be loathe to believe any word from his mouth, or any evidence he and the police presented, because he’s a convicted criminal and the common sense question there is, ‘who the hell let him prosecute? How are the police all okay with this, too?’”

“How are they?” Apollo asks. He knows who the hell let him prosecute. The Chief Prosecutor, Phoenix’s friend, Edgeworth. And taking justice and morality and legality into his own hands, too. Making it flexible. All of them, in different ways, trapped in this broken system, are to some points breaking within it. Doing better, but not great.

Phoenix shrugs. “I haven’t asked details of what kind of deal he struck for this.”

A deal. That wording feels fae. Like a question of what he had to sell - clean hands, like Phoenix has?

Apollo watches the cars go by. A squirrel skitters up one of the trees along the sidewalk; hopefully Taka is long gone to wherever it should be. “For a positive change in conversation,” Phoenix says, his head tilted back to look at the blue cloudless sky overhead. “You two are probably starving. How’s lunch on me sound? I’ve gotta see Edgeworth later, and then call up some other friends of mine to figure out what we can do about the Tenma Taro situation, but we’ve still got enough time now.”

“Eldoon’s!” Athena cries, springing to her feet. She turns it into a chant, bouncing up and down with the words. “Eldoon’s, Eldoon’s, Eldoon’s! Trucy’s told me all about it and that it’s like, the after-trial thing, and I want to try it!”

Phoenix coughs disbelievingly. “Right, just so - I’m offering to pay, and you’re still going for cheap ramen?”

Be still, Apollo’s heart - Phoenix arguing against the cheapest course of action? He really does like Athena. “Heck yeah!” Athena cheers, and Widget adds, “Abso-lutely!”

Both his eyebrows raised, Phoenix glances at Apollo. His input, actually asked for, and he doesn’t even know anywhere to eat that isn’t some or another sort of cheap ramen. “I wouldn’t mind getting some extra salt, after all this magic stuff,” Apollo says. The more his thoughts return in that direction, Tenma Taro and Blackquill, the more he wants to ingest enough salt that he implodes. It might not be able to protect him from moral quandaries and questions of what is and isn’t just that would make Fulbright proud, but it can do one thing.

Athena punches the air with both hands. “Eldoon’s!”

“I expected to see you immediately after the verdict came down,” Edgeworth says, barely glancing up over his glasses at Phoenix as he shuts the office door behind him. “To gloat about being right about Prosecutor Blackquill, surely.”

“I had to get the kids lunch,” Phoenix says. “They’ve had a hell of a case to deal with, after all.” And a different kind of hell after. “Besides, you already knew I’d be gloating, so I could put it off for a bit.” He grabs a chair and drags it around the side of Edgeworth’s desk.

Edgeworth snorts. “Did Ms Cykes or Mr Justice have anything to say about Prosecutor Blackquill?” he asks, finally setting down his pen and giving his full attention to Phoenix.

“Besides ‘what the hell kind of magic is he?’ and ‘why the hell is he prosecuting?’, put politer than that because they’re both generally politer than me: no, not really.”

“Mm.” And like that, he has turned his gaze back to the papers on his desk. “And do you know what he is?”

“No,” Phoenix admits. Edgeworth’s glasses slide down his face when he jerks his head up. “I can’t figure him out. It’s like he blocks me from figuring him out.”

He pushes his glasses back up on his nose. “Fascinating,” he says. “He’ll be giving you several kinds of challenge. I seem to have thrown you right back into the deep end.”

Phoenix props his elbow on the edge of the desk. He was never out of the deep end; sometimes it was tolerable, with Edgeworth, in Europe, and sometimes he was bleeding in the water sought by a shark. That office smelled like nail polish and chilled him to the bone every day, no matter the season, and Edgeworth might have pretentious decor as well but it’s offset by the Steel Samurai figurine on the shelf and the comfort of someone he can trust. “I hate to ask this, knowing you will continue to gloat,” Edgeworth says finally, slowly, and Phoenix wants to reassure him that if it’s important he would never, but he continues before Phoenix has the chance. “But what can you tell me about” - he sighs and closes his eyes - “the actual Tenma Taro?”

“What?” He would love to gloat that once again, Edgeworth is coming to him for information about magic - but the mere existence of this question from him means that either he suspects that there’s a truth that wasn’t addressed in the trial, or he knows there is. (Taka swoops down as soon as Filch mentions its master. Edgeworth surely had a debrief with the prosecution after his first trial in six and a half years.) “Is this something Blackquill brought up?”

“It is,” Edgeworth says curtly. “A confession, made by one witness who has already perjured himself several times, to your agency.” Phoenix’s mouth is dry. Edgeworth tilts his head to the side and asks quietly, “Were you planning on bringing that up to me?”

And he wants to ask Edgeworth if Blackquill told him how he found out, and he doesn’t because he knows that’s immaterial to the fact that Edgeworth does know now and what’s now important is Edgeworth waiting for an answer with narrowed, tired eyes. “C’mon, you know me, Edgeworth,” Phoenix says, forcing a laugh to make it seem like he’s just saying that and not dodging answering. And his answer could mean anything, because Edgeworth knows him, the good and the bad, and the way his face darkens further, he’s thinking of the bad. And so is Phoenix, for that matter, because this time last year he was waiting out the weekend in a holding cell with a playing card that he dipped in Zak Gramarye’s blood.

“Prosecutor Blackquill asked if this matter could be investigated further, to which I agreed,” Edgeworth says curtly. Phoenix’s hope that he might be allowed to stick around today after they’re done talking business withers and dies. “He did not ask for a full retrial, which I am sure your subordinates will be relieved to hear. He - somewhat reluctantly, because the man truly does seem to enjoy being difficult - concurred that it’s unlikely that Damian Tenma would receive a different verdict even with this information - though whether Florent L’Belle will make it factor into his trial, we will see.”

“I think Athena and Apollo will be more relieved to hear that you agree that information wouldn’t change the trial’s outcome,” Phoenix says. “They were both pretty fucked up at the thought that a miscarriage of justice could occur under their watch.”

Edgeworth frowns. “Had he told the truth, Phineas Filch’s testimony would align with Jinxie Tenma’s, that there was indeed a real, live yokai on scene.” As Phoenix had said to them, but he knows there’s a damn good reason Apollo has to not take any reassurance from him to heart.

“And after that performance with the mask, I suppose even I myself might believe them and accept that as truth and that Ms Tenma was in no way an accomplice.” He folds his hands together in front of his face, his glare still directed straight at Phoenix and only slightly lessened. “But I dislike the possibility as well, and loose ends in general. Mr Filch will face some punishment for perjury; Blackquill will be working on that. What we agreed we would ask from the defense - or I suppose you, in lieu of your junior partners - was to assist in some way accruing proof of Tenma Taro’s existence. If there is anyone who could know what to do to find a” - he pinches the bridge of his nose - “a yokai, it would be you.”

“I was gonna give Maya a call after this meeting and see what she knew,” Phoenix says. “For the sake of the village and the people living there, if nothing else, better to find out if that thing is truly dangerous and put it back in its prison if it is.”

“I have no doubt that it is,” Edgeworth says.

“Is this an official legal matter?” Phoenix plucks a pen from the holder and spins it in his fingers. “Or something you want for the sake of being thorough?”

“I’m Chief Prosecutor,” Edgeworth says. “What I want, I can make an official legal matter.”

That statement has its dark side, as taking justice into their own hands, however well-meant, tends to. Phoenix doesn’t point this out. Edgeworth always knows that well-enough. No good to pick at that wound. Everyone else already is tearing into the Demon Prosecutor for what’s going on with Blackquill. And Phoenix might not have much clue as to what the hell’s going on, there, but he knows where he stands and that’s with Edgeworth.

“And,” Edgeworth adds abruptly, surely thinking the same thing, “if you were going to be hunting down Tenma Taro anyway…”

“Might as well prove it’s real, legally, so that no one can entertain the thought that this verdict was wrong. Makes sense. Apollo and Athena will be glad for that, up until the part where I might have to ask for their help recapturing it.”

Edgeworth snorts. “I don’t envy any part of that task.”

“I don’t envy your amount of paperwork.”

That at least gets the shadow of a smile. “I’m not planning to send you out entirely on your own. I doubt you’ll be able to drag a yokai the entire way back to the courthouse as proof, so I’ll send some people along with you to corroborate whatever you find.”

“Not Fulbright?” Phoenix asks. “I don’t think he has any idea about—”

“Not Fulbright. Not when I have the two usual suspects who will doubtlessly leap at such a task.”

“Oh, no.”

“You haven’t missed careening around Europe with them?” That’s more than the hint of a smile, this time.

“Didn’t say that, but careening is the word there. God knows I can’t keep up.” Edgeworth is glancing back to the papers again. Phoenix takes that as a sign and pushes his chair back. “Right, I can see what Maya has to say on this and let you know and we go from there?” Edgeworth nods. “And I’ll let my kids know that they can take a breath and save the moral crisis for another day that might really deserve it.”

“Hopefully not,” Edgeworth says. “Don’t steal my pen.”

Phoenix drops it back on his desk. He has the door open when Edgeworth stops him. “Wright.”

“Yeah?” He shuts it again.

“We both agree that justice is best served by the prosecution and defense working in tandem to find the entire truth, no matter how complex or unpleasant it turns out to be. Or no matter how much it hurts.” Phoenix doesn’t like the look in his eyes, the one that looks like he’s trying to see down into Phoenix’s heart and soul, when Phoenix knows there’s only black and shriveled emptiness where both should be. “Which means that you tell me things, like when a witness confesses to another count of perjury.”

(Or worse. When you do worse.)

“Yeah,” Phoenix croaks. His mouth is too dry for more than that one hoarse word. It doesn’t matter if Edgeworth isn’t the prosecutor on the case; he’s the chief prosecutor. Everything is under his purview now.

His hand is still on the doorknob and he studies that thoroughly instead of meeting Edgeworth’s eyes again. Fingerprints get left very easily on the shiny metal. It would be easy to tell if someone had been here and wiped the whole thing down to cover their tracks. He takes the loud sigh from the far side of the room as a cue that there’s nothing left to say on this topic, not today.

But he hates to leave like that, either. Swallowing doesn’t make his voice come out less like a dying frog, which doesn’t make his words sound as offhand as they’re supposed to, like they are just offhand and not something he’s saying so they don’t part on that note. “Athena might be emailing you later - over lunch she was talking about wanting to buy a car, but Apollo and I both don’t know anything about that and I told her she could ask you.”

“When I gave her my contact information all those years ago, I presumed it would be for legal matters only.” Some amusement has edged back into his voice.

And Phoenix assumed that he would just be guiding her to the Bar and then she would find somewhere reliable to work, someone reliable to work for. Not him. “Times change, huh?”

#roddy fanfics #fic: the witches of los angeles

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a-x-ce · 7 years

Text

My Anime Expo Experience

Finally writing this up before I forget because my memory is CRAP.

First con woot woot! This is mega long, probably don’t read it unless you absolutely MUST know about how this went.

The Good

Before I even got to the con I researched and planned and bookmarked and researched some more and came to the conclusion that for me, the highlight of a con, is to do things you can only do at that year. I looked over the panels, the premieres, and decided THAT was what I wanted to prioritize. They did not disappoint. I went to two premieres, the Welcome to the Ballroom premiere and The Ancient Magus' Bride premiere, for the first one we got to watch the first two episodes, and for the latter we saw the first THREE episodes. And they blew me away, especially Magus which by episode 3 already had me crying, I could not be more stoked for that to start airing. I then went to two panels which I HAD to go to, one being the FLCL panel, where we got to see the season 2 and (kind of) season 3 trailer a whole 5 minutes before they dropped that shit everywhere else (kind of lame) but what we got added on was “some” information in regards to the series, which made up for us not really getting to see the trailers before everyone else. And then I went to the Studio TRIGGER panel which was awesome! It started with them shooting fake money at us and if you got a special stamped version it got you access to their signing (didn’t get one but kind of didn’t care) and then followed into them playing a hilarious short video which was this bizarre mix of all kinds of shit and ended on them singing the national anthem?! It was funny as all hell. They pretty much spent the majority talking about Little Witch Academia which, I’ll admit, I kind of put on hold after like episode 5...BUT they spent that time giving us all kinds of back story and information on the various characters which was fascinating. Finally though, the main focus was them releasing information on their upcoming projects (which was why most of us were there) and the first two were kinda okay, nothing too much to get us excited, but boy, the hype they built around the last project got the room in a frenzy of excitement! Promare has the potential to be another classic anime for this studio, working with the people who helped bring Kill la Kill to life, as well as Gurren Lagann! You bet your asses I was stoked for this! 100% worth it. I also got free shit at all of these premieres, posters mainly, but I also got a cool Anime Strike pin when going to see Welcome to the Ballroom.

Another thing I ended up loving was actually doing shit in the exhibit hall. When I was sitting my butt in line for an autograph ticket to meet Miyu Irino I got to talking with my fellow line sitters, and one person I talked to gave me all kinds of tips and tricks to getting even more free stuff! She told me about 2 scavenger hunts going on for two of the booths, one got me a free Sailor Moon scarf, and one got me a free CD and a poster for a new game! They were a pain in the ass to get, but that’ll be talked about more in The Bad.

After having figured out you can just ask cosplayers for a picture I manged to get the coolest picture of a Guts and Casca pair and it’s the highlight of every image I took at the con. I wish I had taken more because there were a lot of cosplayers I wanted pictures of. I missed out on a Euphie and Suzaku and I’m still sad about it :’(

The last thing I’ll say I loved was the actual experience of trying to get Miyu Irino’s autograph. Not the actual getting his autograph, but sitting in line with other fans and con goers in the line to get tickets...to get an autograph...in which I met and talked with quite a few really cool and nice people!

The Bad

The sheer size of this event is ridiculous. It’s so ridiculous in fact they split events between the Convention Center and the Marriott hotel behind the Staples Center. And whoever ran this event was a dumbass and decided that the doors open at 8 am, but none of the major halls open until 10, soooooo, you had a 2 hour gap where hundreds to thousands of people flooded the main floor creating the most hazardous sight I’ve ever seen. Seriously, this was a fire martial’s worst nightmare if you saw this mess. Luckily I only saw this disaster on day 4 ‘cause I had spent the whole damn night on the street. Otherwise I came later on day’s 2 and 3 because to me coming early was meaningless.

And I did that because getting into the center on day 1 was absolute bullshit. I came a day early to pick up my badge thinking it would cut out waiting in line even longer. No, it didn’t matter. The mass of people outside waiting to get in, and the chaos of even trying to FIND the line TO GET IN, took hours! It was such a goddamn mess that they released a statement that same day saying they WOULD fix the issue. Luckily they did and getting in on day 2 and 3 literally took minutes. What a joke.

Staff for the most part was utterly clueless when it came to finding anything and I fucking hated it. When trying to find the line for Miyu’s panel I got run around the whole damn building, which in the end paled in fucking comparison to the run around I got put on trying to find the autograph booths which were different from the general ticket booths which in the end had ANYONE known fucking anything was a whole lot easier to find if they explained it better...

Lines for larger events were a NIGHTMARE. The Marriott is NOT designed for the sheer number of people lining up for the events held there. I thought it was bad for Magus, oh no, oh no no no, even the Lupin the III game premiere line was not remotely as horrible as what I caught just a glimpse of for the Tokyo Ghoul live-action premiere. That was capped off practically THREE hours before it even played, that’s how crazy popular this event was. I missed it because of that and ended up kind of disappointed.

Crowding. Holy fuck was this bad. Not even splitting the con between two buildings reduces the sheer number of people in EVERY given space. The artist Alley, crowded, the Exhibit Hall, FUCKING MEGA CROWDED! Moving in the Exhibit Hall was the worst. Add on terrible cell service, add on the fact that the ATM’s were few and far between (and sometimes not fucking working), add on the fact that some sellers use onsite conversion so if your card doesn’t automatically accept you making a purchase in like, Canada, you’re gonna have a bad time...the crowding even makes the fun things not all that fun.

The Disappointing

Cosplay gatherings. Oh boy were these underwhelming. I think the only one I ended up kind of enjoying was the Osomatsu-san gathering I went to on day 1, but aside from that the bigger they got the more chaotic they got, the ruder people become, and just overall super frustrating. What was even more kind of a bummer was that for most of the gatherings I saw the cosplayers walking around the convention at various points and could have MUCH EASIER asked them for a picture rather than deal with the crowding of gatherings. Not to mention when smaller gatherings were made up of people who had gone before and knew each other, as a newcomer you definitely feel left out. It gave off that click vibe and that was really disheartening. Some of these gatherings were definitely not “newbie” friendly which made them even less interesting and makes me not want to go to them again.

Miyu Irino. I have gone back and forth on this one, but after this much time I realize between his panel and the actual autograph this was one of the more disappointing experiences I had. First off, his panel. It lasted one hour, if it was not already bad enough that they split the line where premiere fans got to be inside the building, the rest of us had to figure out where the fuck the OUTSIDE line was. This was a pain in the ass, really, I was run around the whole fucking building to find this line, and by the time I did I was fortunate the line wasn’t too long, but I knew the reason for that was ONLY because no one else could find this fucking line.

So after getting let in late, we sit and we’re told right away we can’t take pictures or video. And originally I thought that was fine, maybe we’d hear some new content they didn’t want getting out. No. No we spent an hour talking about old roles and getting information that I’m sure we could have gotten through any magazine or interview in probably ANY Japanese source. We learned literally nothing about any new work, there was honesty no reason why we shouldn’t have been able to take at least 1 or 2 pictures. It was also incredibly frustrating seeing someone in the row next to us break that rule anyway and got warned THREE times and STILL got to stay and see the panel. Like why make a rule of no pictures to the point where you threaten to remove anyone breaking that rule only to not enforce it? Pointless.

But anyway, so we spend our hour listening to him talk about various roles, pretty much skipping the one series I was even there for (Osomatsu-san, he voices Todomatsu) and essentially we run out of time for the Q&A where only 3 questions were asked. And no one could even bother to answer one of Miyu’s questions on why Americans like Osomatsu-san, since the ONE person he did try and ask didn’t even watch the show! It was so disappointing.

So I was not all that disappointed at the time but reflecting on it, it was kind of a bust. But I did not realize just how much worse it could get. Because Miyu was one of the most popular guests for AX this year a LOT of people wanted to see him. So many in fact that while I heard lines could start for autographs anywhere from 2 am to 4 am, people got in these lines starting on day 2 (for his session on day 3) at 8 fucking pm. And it was the exact same way on day 3 (for his session on day 4) in which as soon as I go turned away from the Tokyo Ghoul premiere I had really nothing else I wanted to do so since I saw someone on twitter already experience night 2 I went ahead and got in line at like, fucking 7 pm! I was 5th in line...

So I stayed awake for over 30+ hours to get a ticket, which I wasn’t even all that crazy about, I’m not a fangirl so this wasn’t some life changing thing for me, I just wanted the experience. I enjoyed the hell out of the actual staying awake and getting to know people though. So at 8 am they opened the booths, and everyone with a handicap got to go before anyone so while I was 5th in line I got the 12th ticket (kind of bullshit but whatever, given how the rest of us literally had to sleep on the sidewalk seeing people just walk up last minute and get tickets was frustrating). But once we had those tickets it was another 2 and a half hours until the signing, which was in the Artist Alley hall, which didn’t even open until freakin’ 10 anyway. So again there was nothing to do but wait.

So finally 10 roles around and we can get inside, I have my ticket and I go to find the line for Miyu, and as I get in line and waiting we’re eventually told that he will not be signing anything that isn’t related to his anime work.

Now, this is where I’ll deviate to tell you why this pissed me right the fuck off. Because I live in NV I had to leave unbelievably early to get to L.A. within a reasonable time to check into my hotel. There really wan’t much time earlier in my week to make a run to wal-mart or somewhere to get my pre-chosen images printed for his autograph. So, we had to run around parts of L.A. which is a shit hole for traffic because Californians CANNOT DRIVE (seriously, that’s not a joke, California drivers are THE biggest morons on the West coast) and getting anywhere was a headache. Then the actual process of getting these pictures printed was also a nightmare, because the printing station cropped the images so badly they ended up looking like shit, until finally, after about 40 minutes I got ONE (1) good image of him. It was a picture of HIM.

And he was only signing material that was anime related...yeah. So, now that the picture I had a nightmare printing was not an option, the only other one available to most was that they gave you a pre-signed poster from Akito the Exiled. Which was shitty, it was pre-signed so you wouldn’t even be able to get it autographed and talk to him even a bit! Why the fuck would anyone be happy about that when people stayed awake for HOURS specifically to get an autograph FROM HIM???? Luckily for me I invested time and money into making my Kara and Totty ita bag and had at least ONE official Todomatsu item which I ripped right out of my bag. I was ushered through the line by multiple people and spent a total of maybe 15 seconds in his presence. I said hello, he said hello, he signed my badge, I said thank you, he said thank you, and the experience was over. That was it.

And as I was leaving the line I was then asked by others in the line what the hell was happening because other people were also being screwed over by not knowing what he would or would not sign (this was literally something they needed to tell us BEFORE actually getting in line for the autograph for fucks sake). I spent some time answering them and leaving. Where I proceeded to notice quite a few girls crying as they were the ones who were denied an autograph being ‘standby’ ticket holders. Miyu did NOT take ANY standby ticket holders on either day. So for anyone who sat up all night and managed to get their hands on one of the extra tickets, it did not matter. Which really, was kind of shitty seeing he really didn’t even do much while there. He had 2 panels, and two autograph sessions, one on each day. One of his panels wasn’t even a focus on him, he was included in the Akito the Exiled panel since he was a VA on it, but he was with others who worked on the show. And since our hour and a half Miyu exclusive panel was cut short to being only an hour since it started late!!! he spent even less time doing things he was signed up to do.

I decided that as a result unless it’s Tanaka-san or anyone else from One Piece I am never sitting in line for an autograph again.

Lastly, I learned that while it’s fun to meet up with people to hang out and try and do things together, you cannot let them try and control your experience. I missed absolutely everything I wanted to do on day 1 because I allowed myself to be guided around by another person. Which initially I was grateful for, as a first-timer I had no clue where things were, but that’s where my day 1 was fucked. There were things and ways to go about this that I planned that didn’t work out, and as a result I missed things I wanted to do. And I told myself at the time it wasn’t a big deal, but since I ended up so goddamn exhausted on day 4 I left early and missed even more stuff I wanted to do...so essentially of my 4 days I only truly enjoyed 2 of them to the fullest. Because on days 2 and 3 I put my foot down and decided no matter what I would do the things I fucking came to do regardless of anyone else and I ended up having a blast. It wasn’t even lonely doing those things by myself, because I had fun! And that’s what mattered.

So yeah, in the end I learned some valuable lessons for my first con, especially at one as big as Anime Expo! I know what I want to do next year, I now know what I don’t really care about, and I know what I absolutely will not be doing again. I hope from these lessons next year I can have even more fun and thoroughly enjoy my 4 days! Also there’s probably some stuff I missed in this post so not sure if I’ll do another part, most likely not since this got hella fucking long...

#Sab's random shit #Hella long post #my AX experience 2017

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