#but emu is not close in age to her big siblings | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kawaiichibiart · 1 year

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can you talk more about the tenma's relationship with eachother in the au? sorry emu is my favorite character and emu tenma sounds so cute. i'd also like to know more about what's going on with the shinonomes

Of course!!

So, because we know very little about the Tenma parents, in my eyes they're: low key neglectful at worst, high key absent parents at best. A lot of responsibility falls onto Tsukasa as the oldest, especially now that he's a teenager and able to live on his own, even if not legally.

He takes his role as an older brother and caretaker seriously, and he's widely know by his neighbors for being this very polite, kind, gentleman. So they will offer him assistant if they see he needs it (such as when the elderly woman threatened Toya's dad and told Tsukasa to go back home to take care of his friend).

When Emu joined the family, it was meant as a temporary thing, she had other friends she could stay with, Kohane for example, but Tsukasa, Saki, and Toya all made her feel welcomed and loved, so she just, extended her stay until she she's either: ready to go home or wants to go live somewhere else.

Because they're all about the same age, Saki asks Emu when her birthday is. She knows Toya has been the Tenma baby so far. She wanted to see if that changed or not.

Well, Emu's birthday is in September, making her the new Tenma baby.

The Tenma siblings, specifically Tsukasa and Saki, are very close and consider their friends to be family. It's not rare to see one or both of them be worried about one of their friends, that's mainly what ended up getting Toya a permanent room in the Tenma household.

Emu, due to believing she wasn't going to stay permanently, believed she would just sleep on the couch. But she stays in Saki's room.

The Tenmas are a lot different from her family. The house is often filled with noise (she can hear Saki playing her keyboard, moreso since she went to that event with Ichika, she can hear Toya talking to someone, Akito perhaps? And she can hear Tsukasa's sewing machine as he works on costumes and customizing his own clothes). There's always at least one person who will greet her in the morning, at least one person who will listen to her ideas and help her try and work it out, even if it fails. There's this sense of trust between the siblings and Emu, that before long, she feels like she really is a part of the family.

So you can imagine how it felt for her when her bio siblings showed up, finally ready to listen, and at the end of it all, she can't forgive them. She can't go back with them. They don't ask her to, but the dynamic between the Otoris and the Tenmas is so different, and to Emu, the Tenmas are the better option. She felt safe, loved, like her feelings and desires and "childish dreams" mattered with the Tenmas. With her own family? Not so much.

Emu, Toya, Tsukasa, and Saki are essentially this big found family.

As for the Shinonomes, I think by now it's pretty well known that Shinei Shinonome isn't the best dad. He does things he believes are for the best for his kids, such as outright telling Ena that since she had no talent, she would never make it as an artist.

While they aren't as close as the Tenmas, Ena and Akito are still close and can rely on each other if the need comes to it.

It happened more as kids, but they would sneak into each others room when they needed the comfort.

Their dad just, almost always finds something wrong with what they like or what they want to do, and he'll often just tell them over and over why they should just give up just to follow it up with "but it's your decision" or "it's up to you." He's trying to make it seem like he's giving them the option, but his own "opinion" (if you can even call it that) is laid on so thick and heavy, it feels like he's just waiting for either Ena or Akito to finally admit he's right.

So, Ena decided one day, enough was enough, and that one day, as soon as she was able to legally, she would move out. She'd find a good paying job, open commissions, she'd do something to help pay rent.

And while she didn't have to, it didn't feel right to just abandon Akito with a man who didn't care about what he wanted in life. Ena could see how much music meant to her little brother. She could almost always make out the smile on his face whenever he was on his phone with his partner, Toya Aoyagi (who their dad seemed to dislike for some reason, Ena is fully convinced her dad is low key homophobic). She knew their dad was just as against Akito pursuing music as he was against her pursuing art.

Their dad would never stop saying things to "protect" them. If it was meant to "protect" them, why was it hurting them? Why was it invalidating what they wanted? Because they had no "natural talent?" Bullshit. BULL. SHIT.

Ena is preparing for the future. She's getting ready to run. To find real support. To find people who can help her improve and become a better artist than her dad. And she's taking her brother with her. They would cut contact with their dad and his "protection." She'd let Akito chase music and be with Toya if that's what makes him happy. She'd follow her own dream, find artists who can give her genuine critics and tips on how to improve rather than artists who tell her to give up because she has no talent. She was going to work hard to prove to Shinei that she doesn't need him. She doesn't need him to protect her or Akito. They would be fine on their own.

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sparklyjojos · 4 years

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THE SAIMON FAMILY CASE recaps [8/13]

In which we meet the children, Ajiro becomes a Big Damn Hero, and the detectives get a tour combined with even more explanations about magic.

Waiting for the morning of January 19th to arrive, Ajiro and Kirigirisu discuss the case once more.

If Tamako was murdered, then how? Did seeing the curtain change colors shock her to death? Kirigirisu muses that since the family is full of magicians, maybe someone hypnotized her in such a way that the color change was a signal for her to drop dead. Ajiro replies that it’s not plausible; hypnosis can’t actually make the subject do something they wouldn’t want to do on at least some level. Hypnotizing even someone with suicidal tendencies into dying would be pretty hard. A more plausible option is that Tamako was already dead before her wheelchair was moved to the stage. If so, then Akiko who brought her there would be the obvious suspect.

The problem is that Akiko was the next person to die. However, if her death really was a murder, then the culprit chose a very unreliable killing method, so maybe it really was just an accident.

Yuuta’s death was likely a murder. The witnesses claimed they saw a man digging a hole in the sand, but maybe that man was actually the culprit burying the body.

Daisen could very well have been murdered; if Takayoshi made it into the mountains and performed the switch without being spotted, then an assassin also could have hidden somewhere. Ajiro theorizes that maybe Yuuta went to Tottori using Daisen’s car, then got murdered, which would make Daisen believe he himself was the intended target. Of course, everything is just a hypothesis.

“The first thing we should be trying to learn is who is targeting who,” Ajiro says. “The target may be Fujita-gumi, but at the same time it may be the Saimons… I think we should keep an eye on the Tsukumos and Tousens as well. I don’t really have a tangible plan on how to do it yet, but—Tensui, you’re here, aren’t you.”

The sliding door to their room moves aside revealing Tensui standing quietly in the dark hallway.

“I had a feeling someone was there,” Ajiro says without surprise while Kirigirisu as always has to take a moment to calm down his pulse.

Just like before, the conversation between the three is done through writing. Tensui proposes that he and Miku will keep the Saimon household under close observation throughout the day.

Kirigirisu has a strange feeling that maybe Tensui is actually the murderer, grasping the chance to get closer to his next victim… but no, that would be stupid, considering the next victim may not even live in Kami-Saimon, and with two Tensuis in existence one could still move freely even if the other one was stuck somewhere.

The detectives can likely trust Takayoshi to keep an eye on the Fujita household too. That awkward anxious man is the last person Kirigirisu would suspect of murder.

This leaves one problem: if one Tensui is going to be watching his family all day, how will he know what the other Tensui is doing and if he’s not in danger?

Do not worry about it, Tensui writes. Whenever I’m out and about, the other I always secludes himself in the shrine. No one other than us can enter it.

By “the shrine”, he means the building on the little island in the middle of the garden’s pond. Before Tensui leaves the room to hide, he asks them to show up at the pond a little later.

In the morning, Ajiro and Kirigirisu take a walk through Kami-Saimon’s splendid garden, wondrous in the middle of a bright winter day. The shrine Tensui talked about is visible on the little island at their big koi pond, Ryuugaike. With its octagonal base and roof, the shrine looks highly similar to the famous Yumedono, the “Hall of Dreams” of Houryuu-ji Temple in Ikaruga.

Once the detectives make a circle around the pond, Kirigirisu realizes that not only does the shrine not have any visible entrance, there isn’t even a bridge leading to the island.

“The shrine is called Seiryoin,” Ajiro informs him.

Seiryoin… Kirigirisu imagines it might be written 清涼院 [like the JDC writer’s name], a fitting name for this “pure” and “bright” “temple”. Ajiro doesn’t actually know how the name is supposed to be written, but his pick would be 静療院, a temple of “quiet” “recuperation”. Maybe neither way is correct, who knows.

The detectives are waiting on the shore for Tensui when someone suddenly appears next to them. “Suddenly appears” seems like the right phrase to use, considering the man’s footprints begin in the middle of the snowy field as if he teleported there.

The man is, even more surprisingly, not Soga Tensui, but that quiet contemplative man who played the afro clown in the show: Saimon Akio. (Tamako’s grandson, Akiko’s son, Takayoshi’s and Taishi’s brother.)

“Good morning! Indeed what a good morning we have,” Akio greets them with a kind expression. “But more importantly—look over there!”

He points towards the island, where in front of their very eyes Soga Tensui emerges from the doorless shrine, seemingly phasing out through the stone wall. Then he starts walking into the lake—no, walking on the lake, getting only his soles wet, and casually makes it to the other side away from the detectives. His famous Sea Walk.

“Anyway, I’m going to be the one guiding you around today,” Akio says. It’s only expected, seeing as Tensui will be busy keeping an eye on the house.

Akio gives them a sightseeing car trip around town—Tsuwano is small enough that it’s not a far journey. The detectives climb the local torii to get a full look at the town from up high. It’s easy to notice where the Tsukumos and Tousens live; it’s a surprisingly wide space south of town, full of various buildings and trailer houses. The two families’ houses are actually connected with Shimo-Saimon into one complex, demonstrating just how closely their lives are intertwined. The entire complex is called Sanasou (山烏荘)—a strange wordplay on the phrase “the trio’s house” (三羽烏の家).

Akio drives them to Sanasou. As soon as they arrive, they spot a few snowmen and a lot of tiny footprints on the ground, and then several curious children come running their way, some happily shouting seeing Akio. A few kids are still holding snowballs; it seems the adults interrupted one fierce battle.

The oldest child present is Tousen Matoki, looking around grade school age and acting like he’s the kids’ leader.

“Look, look!” Matoki does the thing where you put your right hand in your left jacket sleeve and left hand in your right sleeve, and makes an attempt at a dignified princely expression. “I’m Shoutoku Taishi!”

“Oh come on, Maji-chan, you do this every time,” comments the girl next to him. It’s Matoki’s sister Yomiko, the one who played Koyomi. She may have looked older on stage, and may have seemed a bit creepy with her staring back that one time, but with kids her age around she turns out to be a really nice girl. The nickname Maji-chan probably came from an alternative reading of Matoki’s name and is of course a horrible pun on the word “magician”.

Matoki and Yomiko act quite brave and natural in front of adults they barely know. In comparison, the other girl present—Tsukumo Emu—is hiding behind Yomiko’s back, and even further behind them, keeping careful distance, staring at the adults cautiously, are Tensui’s twin sons, Juku and Joukei.

The twins look pretty much identical, but after several meetings with the family Kirigirisu has learned to somewhat differentiate between them. Joukei is the one lacking confidence and with constant scared look in his eyes. Juku’s eyes just seem emotionless and unimpressed. Though their intense, somehow unnaturally pretty stares are filled with different emotions, they equally make Kirigirisu feel like his consciousness is trying to slip away.

It’s hard to believe that either of the twins would play the cheerful, energetic role of Kotensui. The puppet’s voice must have been dubbed over by another boy.

Apparently the twins got here from Kami-Saimon on their bikes to play with the other children.

“Chisato and Chiaki already got here too,” Joukei informs in a timid voice.

Juku mutters something too low to be heard.

“What did you say, Juku-sama?” Yomiko asks. (Why the ultra-honorifics among children?, Kirigirisu thinks in surprise.)

Beautifully expressionless Juku mutters the same thing a bit louder. It sounds like Kudaranai… Ima wa kudaranai yo… Huh? “This is stupid”? “It’s useless now”? What is?

Before Kirigirisu can figure it out, they hear a woman scream at the top of her lungs.

“Ria! Koma! NEMU!”

Everyone turns to see the most unusual scene. Two Shetland Sheepdogs are running towards them at breakneck speed, pulling a sled with a crying tiny girl—Tsukumo Nemu—and being chased by the trio of Nemu’s terrified mother Yumeji, Matoki and Yomiko’s mother Maki, and the only still single Tsukumo sibling Ranma. Several white doves are flying around in chaos.

“What the… Nemu, watch out!” Akio shouts and runs towards her, Ajiro instantly joining his side.

Before they can reach the sled, the dogs see them approach and react with a sudden swerve, the force involved sending little Nemu flying high in the air.

In an instant, something similar to two long poles zooms past Kirigirisu. He glances back: Kotensui’s Magic Hands are being deployed out of Juku’s sleeves. They reach towards Nemu, and barely, just barely—

—miss their mark.

But Ajiro is already close enough, jumps in the air and grabs the girl before she can hit the ground. Nemu is safe in his arms.

Once everyone catches their breath, the newly arrived adults explain what happened. The dog sled is a toy strictly for the older kids. Nemu had to jump on when no one was looking, scaring the dogs and making them run for the hills.

The white doves flying around belong to Tsukumo Ranma, who takes care of the family’s aviary. Though in his late twenties, he still has a lot of a cheerful child left in him, and perhaps because of that all the kids in the family love him. When the sled incident happened, he was in the middle of loading doves up his sleeves to surprise the children with a Channing Pollock-style illusion, and the birds got out in the chaos.

Teary-eyed Yumeji thanks again and again for saving her daughter. It looks like Ajiro became an instant hit with the kids, too, graduating from an adult stranger to someone they can trust. Even shy Joukei and Emu, even stoic Juku are all smiling at him.

For some reason, Juku’s look of approval and respect towards Ajiro leaves an especially deep impression on Kirigirisu.

Akio leads them to the training studio. A few girls are already there: Chisato and Chiaki (Akio’s daughters) along with Akiko (Taishi’s daughter) are training their ribbon-hula hoop routine, while slightly older Tsukumo Seika observes them with a critical eye. The girls stop, not wanting to show the secret to outsiders, but Akio assures them it’s fine; Tensui actually wants them to explain the method to the detectives. Akio leaves for a moment to change into his costume while the girls perform the illusion.

Just like in the show, the girls dance with ribbons which suddenly turn into hula hoops. Chiaki and Chisato successfully make their moving hoops link together, Akiko approaches with her own, and—all the hoops clang down to the ground.

“What are you doing, Akiko?!” Seika yells.

While Akiko is staring on the floor with tears in her eyes, Kirigirisu takes a glance at the hoops… which turn out not to be as normal as he thought.

“She didn’t do it on purpose,” says Akio, suddenly showing up next to them in his clown costume, though without makeup. (How can this man just keep appearing out of thin air?) He picks up a hula hoop and it suddenly returns to being a ribbon with a sound like tape measure retracting.

Akio explains that the ribbon-hoop is a magic prop. What looks like the ribbon’s handle is actually hiding the entire hoop, which can zoom out telescopically in an instant. The resulting hula hoop isn’t actually a closed ring, but has an opening small enough that it can’t be seen while moving fast. The illusion of the Linking Hula Hoops is basically an unusual variation of the famous Linking Rings.

“But linking the hoops while moving so fast… could anyone accomplish such a feat?” Kirigirisu asks despite having already witnessed it a few times.

“We are the Circus of Magic,” Akio says. “Any illusion requires training to polish one’s technique, especially circus acts combined with magic. That’s why these girls are practicing hard every day.”

“And apparently can’t focus at all lately!” Seika comments harshly, but calms down a little when Akio asks her to demonstrate a few more illusions with him.

Akio and Seika first set up the little table from two planks; this too is apparently a special tool that can be bought in a magic shop. Then Akio produces three red balls out of nowhere and passes them to Seika, who turns them white with a stroke. Kirigirisu inspects the balls and realizes they are reversible, just like that handkerchief changing colors that Tensui showed him. (Even stern Seika looks tickled seeing Kirigirisu’s child-like joy as he keeps changing the ball’s color back and forth.)

Akio demonstrates the next part: turning the balls into long pins by inserting them into an empty tube.

“Are you familiar with Doraemon?” he asks.

“Dorae… it that also an illusion?” Kirigiru doesn’t understand why the girls start laughing at him when he says this.

“It’s a very popular comic for children.”

“I’m familiar with it,” Ajiro says. “My son Souya is a fan, so we’ve read through it many times. I think it’s a masterpiece.”

A short explanation on Doraemon follows. Kirigirisu finds the premise fascinating (a time-travelling cat robot from the 22nd century who has a four-dimensional pouch?!) and decides he and Kano will have to check it out later.

Akio invites him to watch the illusion again, but standing behind the table this time. He sets the tube on the table, then retrieves a white pin from inside his clown costume’s front pocket (maybe not as spacious as Doraemon’s pouch, but still big) and hides it behind the tube. So that’s how something can magically appear “from the inside” when the tube is lifted.

Kirigirisu inspects the tube closer and realizes the opening facing up is slightly narrower than the one on the bottom… and that’s because there’s something similar to a small pocket around that opening, where the squishable balls can be hidden. A spectator looking through the tube from its bottom end wouldn’t notice anything suspicious.

Next, another illusion making use of the spectators’ limited angle of view. Akio holds one ball between his fingers and with swift movements makes it magically multiply into three… except the two additional balls are actually just two empty half-spherical shells. What seemed like a single ball actually had those two shells covering it. It’s a variation of the popular illusion known as the Multiplying Billiard Ball.

Finally, Akio performs the Five-Ball Cascade for them, five balls changing colors from white to red in mid-air as they’re juggled. The secret here is astonishingly simple: the balls used for this particular routine have their halves colored differently, white on one side and red on the other. The rest of the act is just a matter of practice.

“A different method is used for the pins changing colors,” Akio explains. “Do you know what that could be, Ajiro?”

“Using a mirror, I think.”

Judging by the girls’ expressions, Ajiro got it right, but Kirigirisu doesn’t understand how on earth a mirror could be used that way.

Each of the three girls takes two white pins and stands in a triangle formation, while Seika heads slightly behind them… and disappears into thin air. The three girls start the juggle, but eventually sneakily throw the white pins behind them where they disappear, only for red pins to be thrown back instead. It’s not that Seika disappeared; she hid behind a large mirror to help with the act.

Kirigirisu understands now how Akio was able to appear out of thin air earlier. Mirrors.

Akio gets to the next illusion. He takes an empty beer bottle, puts it inside his hat… no, just pretends to put it there, while actually hiding it in his chest pocket. So that’s how. The sweets were likewise produced out of his spacious pocket rather than from the hat.

Finally, Akio gives them what looks like a remote control with a small lever, encouraging them to play with it for a second while he’s changing back into normal clothes. The lever turns out to move the arms of those tall three-armed fire stands from the show, opening and closing them back inwards like an umbrella. The stands are designed in such a way that fire can be extinguished in an instant by pushing the arms into the stand.

“Juku’s Magic Hands are a similar mechanical device, though a lot more complicated,” Akio says once he joins them again, then announces that this would be enough explanations for the day.

Akio continues to guide them around the place. He leads them to another building—for some unknown reason called Shakuya (杓屋)—where two hammer sharks are swimming in a giant tank under the watchful eye of their caretaker, Tsukumo Souma, the hunchbacked man who’s little Nemu’s father. He doesn’t seem to be one for much conversation.

As they leave the building, they bump into Ranma again—and thank god, because his calming personality is somewhat needed after those sharks. Ranma shows them around the aviary filled with countless dove cages surrounding a cramped aisle in the middle. There’s a particularly big mysterious box with closed double doors in the back.

“Do you keep birds in there too?” Ajiro asks.

“Oh, no. There’s just this big figure of a dove inside. We’ve had it for ages, it serves the role of a god protecting the birds. We call it Onikaru-sama.”

The detectives have already met Ranma, Souma and Miku, so it’s time to head to the main part of Sanasou and meet the fourth Tsukumo sibling, Tsushima, the man looking like a bank employee. That first impression turns out to be close to life, as the man manages the show’s finances, looking as stressed as one can expect considering how much debt they’re in. He’s constantly busy and doesn’t really want to talk to anyone. As they’re leaving, they spot the man’s nervous son, Touji, who quickly hides somewhere.

Tsukumo Karan (Seika’s mother who played the Courtisane Hana Dayuu) then shows them to a room in which elderly Tsukumo Tamako and Tousen Tamako are resting in beds next to each other, under full-time care of Tousen Natsuko. In another room Tsukumo Mitama is similarly caring for her husband Gensui (the old one, known as the magician Soga Tengen in his days).

They quickly leave as to not disturb the seniors. Akio tells the detectives about how decades ago, shortly after the war, the show’s most splendid illusion was the underwater escape as performed by Soga Tengen. One day during practice his son Souma forgot to lock the cage, resulting in the shark viciously biting Tengen. The magician survived, but would never be able to move on his own again. Thirty years later, Tengen still leads his life in bed constantly cared for by his wife Mitama, while Souma still continues to raise sharks in a neighboring building despite protests from a few family members.

The tour comes to an end around noon. Ajiro calls Daisetsu and Miku in turn, making sure everything is fine in the Fujita residence and in Kami-Saimon. Daisetsu says that maybe Ajiro saving Nemu prevented the day’s unlucky accident, so they have nothing to worry about now. Maybe the case is going to stop here? Indeed nothing happens until late evening, so Ajiro and Kirigirisu head to the same bar as the previous night, meeting up with Daisetsu, Takayoshi and Uyama (somehow with an even more pronounced way of sighing “oh, oh!” now) as well as with Hyousen’s son Hyousai. Surely nothing bad will happen before midnight.

Shortly before midnight, they get a message that Tsukumo Mitama was found dead in the bath, where she must have fallen and drowned. It is later ruled as an unfortunate accident.

The case is nowhere near to being over.

A month later, on February 19th, Saimon Akio dies due to electrocution when the water filter at the pond malfunctions killing him and all the fish he’s been taking care of. When the body is found, all the water in the pond is dyed red.

A month later, on March 19th, Saimon Chisato is found dead from blood loss after apparently cutting off her hand using the Arm Guillotine prop. It is noted that she has been suffering emotional instability from stress related to the Case.

A month later, on April 19th, Fujita Daisetsu collapses on his way home from the bar and is taken to the hospital, where he dies from alcohol poisoning.

None of the eight cases so far have been deemed suspicious by the police, all of them ruled as either death from natural causes, accidents or suicides. Nevertheless, this perfectly spaced string of cases can’t possibly be a natural occurrence.

Who is the target and who is targeting them?

Perhaps the next month will show us the Case’s another face—or should we say, a mask.

[>>>NEXT PART>>>]

#sparkly reads the saimon family case #maijo and jdc stuff #*me pointing at juku in the back* THERE HE IS

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