#Hikari is always in my party so he's still getting first row seats to this shadow disaster

[lunar-insanity]

Gonna ramble a bit bout Octopath Traveler II because I think that it's both funny and interesting how different yours and potentially the traveler's understanding about this "Shadow" that seems to haunt 4 of the narratives can be depending on what comes first.

Note: I Have not finished Agnea's Chapter 5, it is literally the last thing I have before I presume the thing the Crossed Paths have been leading up to kick in.

And of course: Spoilers below just in case

So, ya see, I had initially planned to save Hikari's CH5 for last, since in Octo 1 I started with Olberic and ended with his last chapter. But then I learned the Conjurer class is locked behind completing it soooo.

My journey so far was Do all of CH 1 Do the Western CH2s Do the Eastern CH2s Do everything in Welgrove (Hikari, Partitio, Throne) Do two of the chapters in Stormhail (Hikari, Ochette) Do Hikari's last Chapter

And then amble about doing what I felt like next. Which went as follows:

Parti's Last Chapter -> Ochette's Last Chapter -> Castti's CH3 -> Osvald's CH4 -> Throne's CH4 Father Route -> Osvald's Last Chapter -> Castti's Last Chapter -> Temenos' Stormhail Route -> Throne's Last Chapter -> Temenos' Last Chapter -> All Crossed Paths as they became available -> Agnea.

4 of those tales have you goin up against the shadow in some form, 5 if I'm counting Castti and Ochette's Crossed Paths.

Now, Imagine, if you will, if you saved Hikari's Final Chapter for last.

You end up dragging the guy into close contact with the very thing that's haunting his veins. The Scarlett Moon and the creature of the Sorrowful Moon, Harvey and the Sorrowful Golem, Harvey and his concentrated blasts of his "One True Magic", Kaldena becoming consumed by the Shadow like Mugen would/did.

How would that be affecting him? Does each brush with the shadow call the curse even closer to the forefront? Does the Scarlet Moon test his resolve, determination, and strength to keep his blade sheathed and unbloodied?

Does he feel the call of the Shadow when Kaldena is consumed by it?

Of course, each triumph over this could instill in Hikari some faith that, Yes, the Shadow can be overcome. Yes you can beat it, Yes, you can. So when you finally go up against Mugen, he's got all that behind him.

... But what if you do his last chapter first?

Hikari, going up against his Shadow for the final time, doesn't have all that build up behind it, no, but he's still got the words of his friends (and I'm including fellow travelers) to bolster his resolve. He finds the Light himself.

So Mugen ends up being the party's first true blue brush with that Shadow. And, at the time, what they think is their ONLY brush with it.

And then the Scarlet Moon comes, and Ochette smells the same pungent scent along with the underlying familiar one from years ago.

And then they meet Harvey for the first time. And then they go up against his Shadow True Magic. AND THEN KALDENA PULLS THE SAME MISTAKE MUGEN DID-

That sequence events turns this into "Okay. We know the Shadow can be beaten. We've seen Hikari do it. BUT WHAT IN THE HELLS IS THIS THING?!"

Scarlet Moon: So it's a corrupting force.

Harvey: It's too powerful to be controlled by 1 man, but it does have it's opposite.

Kaldena: Please don't do that, we've seen what happens 3 times over now ARE YOU KIDDING ME WOMAN WTF-

It's not just the Shadow they're comparing notes on either at this point. It's the Light that keeps coming to their aid.

Hikari's Latent power changes to Radiance, Ochette (and the party I presume) are saved by the First Flame, Osvald kamehamehas a colourful laser light now, Temenos has an explosion of light skill now.

Light always seems to come to their aid whenever they go up against the Shadow.

And it all starts with Hikari as well.

[justfollowmyhansel]

October 15th -- One, Two, Three, ‘I Love You!’

The next morning went more or less the same as the other two mornings in Japan had: Miya and I got up when her alarm went off, had breakfast (for me this time, the rest of my food from the previous night), and had tea.

We generally went over the plans for the day including changing something from my itinerary. Originally, I was going to check into the hotel before going to the show so that I could already have the majority of my stuff dropped off before heading out and since there was no curfew, potentially spend more time stagedooring should the possibility arise. Unfortunately, after seeing the map of where the hotel was relative to the Hikarie, Miya didn’t think that I had left myself enough time to get back to the venue and up to my seats before the show would start and advised that I check into the hotel after the show. I agreed. So far, I hadn’t gotten lost at all, but even if everything went smoothly, the timeline would have been too tight to realistically be comfortable with. Besides, the original reason for wanting to leave that evening open ended had more or less resolved itself out of being an issue. We ultimately opted for me to come back after the show and pick up some of the stuff that I’d leave with Miya for the evening before heading to the hotel. I had until 11pm to check in and the show was earlier than it had been either of the two previous nights. Realistically, I should have had time to go to the show, eat, and find the new shopping area that I had been told about the previous night.

I mentioned again to Miya about how seeing the Hedwig shows were making me wish that I had a ticket to see John’s movie premiere and double checked with the airline that it was still only the $400-ish dollars to switch the plane reservation dates and that it hadn’t gone up even further since the last time I had checked. The date-change price was still the same, but it didn’t matter if I didn’t have a ticket to the movie. Miya very kindly looked to see if there were any movie tickets up for resale on one of the sites we had used to get a closer seat for the Osaka show than the original row M that we had won in the lottery. (As well as a couple of other sites.)

While she looked, I started doodling the look that I wanted for if — when— I was able to see the movie. For about a year, when I did my makeup I had added a small black star under my left eye because of David Bowie. He had always been aligned with celestial bodies for me from the Ziggy Stardust era to TMWFTE to his last album being titled Blackstar. It seemed like a fitting tribute to him to have a star doodled by my eye considering in the video for Jean Genie, he had an anchor by his right because of how Elizabeth Montgomery had done her makeup as Serena on Bewitched. I also opted for some small contouring to exaggerate the sharpness of my cheekbones and a blue lipstick like the one I had just bought from M.A.C. (but there was another one that I had had my eye on.) Also while I waited, I drew on my own arm Hedwig’s name in silvery Japanese and a gold version of her blonde wig beside the last character. When I showed it off, Miya said that it looked good enough that it could easily have been mistaken as written by someone who had written Japanese their whole life.  

It took some searching, but Miya found one that might work. I didn’t want to switch my flight or hotel reservations until I knew for sure and we wouldn’t know until the ticket was delivered the next day (or Tuesday.) I was glad that I had more or less already sorted my things that morning into the things that I would take with me to Osaka and the things that I didn’t need to bring, but had required either thus far on the trip or were in case of emergency. I opted to leave behind the purple water bottle that I had brought with me, but not yet used on the trip. Miya and I had agreed that I would come back to her place after the show to drop off any things I picked up.

Before I left, Miya suggested that we take a picture together so that we could show Risa and also so that we could have a photo of the pair of us meeting in person – a further way to memorialize the trip and a better way for us to remember each other beyond our further digital communication.

Miya had asked that I go down to the station entirely by myself this time and having walked the relatively straightforward route twice already, I felt confident that I could make it on my own without any hiccups. Outside of confirming which platform I needed to get on of the two similarly named ones at Tabata, I arrived without running into any issues.

In what ended up being a coincidental stroke of brilliance, I took off my hoodie to reveal my David Bowie t-shirt at the exact moment that Young Americans started playing over the theatre’s speaker system. It was one of the earliest times that I had arrived for any of the shows and yet, I still had this sense of being late. (Up until this point, only the first night’s performance had seen an earlier arrival from myself.)

Shortly before going, Miya had remarked something along the lines of not having heard the new encore song that John had mentioned wanting to perform in Japan a few months ago. It had been mentioned in one of the earlier interviews discussing the shows. I also thought that it was strange that he hadn’t performed it yet, but a lot can change in two months so I had thought that perhaps he changed his mind about wanting to perform the song at the end of Hedwig at all.

The show itself was wonderful. I still had the distinct feeling that Saturday night’s was the best in terms of whole-show delivery, but some of the individual scenes or songs were some of the best performed overall, specifically Angry Inch and everything from the trailer scene with Tommy through the end. It was the first time in four performances that Hedwig said to Tommy ‘What’s wrong?’ ‘I love you.’ ‘Then love the front of me.’ That line has always been so powerful to me. For a long, long time, whenever that line was delivered I would start to cry because of the meaning within the text. And to myself. And hearing it for the first time in Japan -- hearing it for the first time live, almost brought back that feeling for the first time in months.

Somehow, I managed to not actually start crying at that point and kept it together until almost the very end where Hedwig sings ‘And all the strange rock and rollers....’ Then I lost it about as hard as I did seeing RENT earlier this year during Angel’s funeral. I actually thought I’d have to leave the theatre crying and that I’d have to explain to people (patrons, staff, whomever....) that ‘No, I’m fine, I just really love this show and tonight’s performance did me in more than the others.’ 

It was the last night in Tokyo and possibly the last night I’d actually be seeing John in Tokyo if the ticket for the movie didn’t pan out. And as incredible as this experience had been, after the show was actually over, there’d be one time left to see John as Hedwig this trip -- this year -- ever?  All of that somehow found its way bound up into the delivery of my favourite line and then a few minutes later into delivery of one of my favourite songs.

Of course, Midnight Radio wasn’t the last part of the show that night. Like so many other dates, John came out at the end with Ataru and introduced the band, himself, and Ataru and gave a few comments, remarks, asides... that Ataru translated for him into Japanese so that the majority of the audience could understand. And then they did the encore song. ‘The End of Love.’ It was very beautiful. He was beautiful. The lighting....was beautiful. And at the very end, one last time, John came out with his phone and requested that everyone in the venue on the count of three yell “I love you.”

And then it was time to go.

One of the stand-out things from that night’s performance was that during Exquisite Corpse, when Hedwig and Yitzhak end up pushing against each other’s hands, fighting for dominance within the narrative, was just how real the fighting felt. Like there was an actual rage behind it for Hedwig and a power that she was using to physically push against her husband and that she was using to push back against Hedwig with. In terms of acting, it was absolutely incredible. Some of the other particular stand out moments from that show included all of the screams Ataru did (Angry Inch and Exquisite Corpse, very notably) and Random Number Generation.

Once again, after the show I found a less-occupied bathroom, washed my face and hands, and started about completing the small amount of fun errands and things I wanted to accomplish that day. I had thought about going to one of the other restaurants in the Hikarie to get a pork cutlet bowl. Silly, yes, given that the reason that in particular had caught my eye was because it was mentioned in Yuri! On Ice, but it made a certain amount of sense given that I had enjoyed the show, John had enjoyed the show so much he made it the theme of his birthday party that year, I was in Japan, and that I would, in fact, have to eat something that night. But seeing that I wasn’t hungry yet, I chose to run my errands before heading back to Miya’s, getting food, and then heading out to the hotel.

The first thing was going to the M.A.C. booth once again. One of the things that I had done while I was waiting to find out if getting a ticket to see the movie was even still possible, was to design the makeup look that I had wanted to wear if I was able to go. So far, I had been relatively bare faced when seeing Hedwig, but I wanted to be able to be overtly punk rock when I went to the movie. That would mean buying some makeup since I had left all of mine at home, but clothing-wise I should have been relatively set, having narrowed down my clothing options to either my David Bowie saxiphone t-shirt from Hot Topic (photo by Mick Rock) or my distressed Union Flag t that I had only brought with me to sleep in. Both would have been pretty punk rock, but Miya thought the British flag was for sure the one to go with. 

Before that night’s, I had stopped by to see if I could refind a lipgloss I had thought about for the previous night -- a blue similar to the lipstick that I had, but with an iridescent quality that the blue I had bought just didn’t have. I couldn’t find it, but I did find a couple of others that I wanted to try on top of the blue that I did have and a very patient and helpful makeup artist who let me chatter on to her about Hedwig and John and How to Talk to Girls at Parties and how the show was wonderful for so many reasons, not the least of which was one of the major changes in the staging for Japan because of what it was, what it meant for two of the main characters, and what it generally could mean for the show going forth. I also showed off a drawing that I had done on my arm that day before leaving Miya’s house. I thought that it was be a nice touch for the lift up your hands part of the song and I don’t know if Hedwig or Yitzhak would have seen it, but it was something that made me feel a little more a part of the show than apart from it for that performance (especially considering very early on, I had opted to not do any cosplays for the shows since I didn’t know how I’d fit just all of that into my bags given everything else AND all the stuff I was anticipating buying.) 

The makeup artist was very nice and in addition to helping me basically see my makeup sketch be visually realized, offered to connect with me on Instagram later after she got off of work since she enjoyed talking to me and we could always chat with each other as a way to further our understandings of the other’s respective languages (she had studied in Canada for a year and a half prior to this so her English was much better than my Japanese.) We didn’t end up connecting later, but it was a very nice thing to have had happen in the moment. 

Sometimes, as is generally human nature, I get in my head an idea that absolutely has to work its way to its natural conclusion before my mind will be satisfied. In this case the idea that had gotten into my head was finding a particular pair of sexy stockings that I had seen in a lingerie shop the day before. That shop did not sell those stockings, but one of the clerks had suggested trying Shibuchka. The way that she described it–and the way that Miya translated it for me– made it sound like Shibuchka was an underground shopping mall both in the sense that it was under the train station and that it was a seedy, sexy underground shopping mall. A place where I might be able to find my packer or a binder (or whips…) in addition to potentially finding sexy stockings.

Before I left, the makeup artist gave me a piece of paper with ‘how do I get to Shibushka’ written on it so that I could find my way (and hopefully, my stockings.) So far, no one that I had talked to thus far about it had actually been there.

I ended up showing my piece of paper to a different woman on the first floor of the mall, who pulled out a map of the Shibuya Shopping District and circled approximately where I needed to go and how to get there. I followed her directions down basically to where the train lines and companies crossed under the buildings above. It was a whole underground system of shops, restaurants, and train lines that explained where just all of the people who were supposedly in Tokyo at the same time as I was always were when I was outside and relatively alone.

Surprising myself, I managed to find my way to the Shibuska shopping center relatively easily and to my greater surprise found that it was not some seedy sex dungeon themed place as I had first imagined, but a bright shopping district set up more or less like a flea market. 

I bought things at a lot of the booths including a glittery skull-print tie (for when I inevitably dress up as Hedwig and have my mother be Yitzhak), a studded bracelet (for the movie premiere), a pair of thigh high sheer stockings with a couple of inches or so of lace at the top (because of the crate show staging), three brightly coloured hair clip-in hair pieces (blue for the movie and pink and blonde because of Hedwig), and a few other assorted items because they were relatively cheap and definitely cute.

As the shops began to close, I tried to make my way back to the Hikarie to get the pork cutlet bowl and get on my way. I managed to get turned around and went to a different grocery store than the one that I had passed through to go to the shopping center. That one had been organic and this one seemed to not be as it focused more on different little patisseries and meat counters. 

I stopped at one of the pastry counters and ordered a strawberry shortcake to go since it was just so cute and they’re always so expensive to get in the US when they’re done up in kawaii Japanese stylings as opposed to the more American approach of dumping everything into a bowl or onto a plate and calling that good. I asked the man behind the counter how to get back to the Hikarie and he pointed me in the directions I needed to go.

Once I actually reached the Hikarie though, I began to think that I was running late! That I only had an hour to get back to Miya’s and then get to the hotel before I wouldn’t be able to check in! I hopped on the train and tried to rebook my plane and hotel tickets as a way to stop from freaking out over being so late. As it turned out, my adjustment to 24-hr time had not been a smooth one. It was only 8 and not 10, I still had a few hours to transfer everything over and then head to the hotel.

At Miya’s, I switched around my bag again, adding in a few of the items I had opted to leave at hers until after the show and dropping off some of the things I wouldn’t need again until I got back from Osaka like all of my new purchases from Shibuschka. Even after an unscheduled backing up of my photos and what-nots, I still ended up leaving an hour earlier than I had anticipated. An hour, it turned out, that I very much needed.

Getting the train to the right spot wasn’t the tricky part, per se. The tricky part was getting myself from where the train station let out to the hotel at night. In the dark. In the rain. With streets that went diagonal just as often as they went straight. In the middle of being turned around and starting to be frustrated, John started posting things from his time in Japan -- backstage photos, videos, timelapse takes of him applying his lipstick.... I sent a vaguely worded request for the back of his outfit in Japan (as much for cosplay and drawing purposes as anything else, tbh.) To my surprise, he actually responded, posting a photo of the back of his Tokyo cape. The timing of that and one of the songs from Hedwig popping onto my mp3, somehow conspired so that I was able to find my way to the hotel with just enough time to spare.

I checked in, took a shower, and texted my mother to let her know that my seven day trip in Japan had now turned into an 8 day one because I didn’t want to leave without seeing the movie and I didn’t want to leave feeling like the trip was somehow incomplete. 

Before going to sleep, I listened to the video of the End of Love that John had posted again as well as a few other Hedwig songs that I absolutely adored.