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Post by Matylda Sudakov-Oka on Jan 13, 2018 9:15:47 GMT -5
All things must have a beginning, a place of origin from which both dreams and nightmares sprung forth. Whether this new school and new city held dreams or nightmares remained to be seen by Matylda, but she was thoroughly excited. Even in colder weather - as this day held - she was pretty stoked about the warmer climate that she'd moved to. Growing up in the far north of Europe hadn't done much to give her warm summers and pleasant springs. Once she'd found out that they were moving to Japan she'd read up everything she could find about what it was like to live there. What struck her from that reading was four distinct seasons, courteous people and vending machines everywhere. If she were in the middle of the night working on an art project and happened to get a craving for liquid refreshment, that would be super useful. Plus sometimes you could get soup in a can from those machines, so that was even better.
She'd taken the train up from Tokyo since her family was for the moment remaining in the capital. Of course she was sad to leave them behind, and going through the process of getting tickets and asking directions had been difficult. She never knew what to say even when she was doing something really simple and mundane in this country. They were a really homogeneous group of people, used to hearing only Japanese dialects; her Finnish accented Japanese wasn't going to sound right at all. Thankfully she had someone waiting in Fukui for her who could speak another language she knew. While some family was still in Tokyo or Finland, she had a cousin attending the same school she'd gotten into!
Anticipation for meeting Fue after time apart had kept the Finnish girl happy and motivated despite her misgivings about speaking out in Japanese. So long as her cousin was waiting for her, she could handle the pressure of living away from her parents too. From what she could tell she got along just fine with Fue, who seemed to be a pretty quiet and reserved person. If anything Matylda might be the more outgoing of the two - and that suited her just fine. Her cousin was someone she wasn't anxious about speaking to, so it would be a heck of a lot easier to be sociable.
By the time she stepped off the train she was bouncing with energy. And side-stepping the other passengers that had disembarked at the same station. Everyone seemed to be going somewhere in such a hurry! As if fleeing from a giant steel skinned robot wolf being ridden by a disfigured swordsman while fire shot out of its rocket boosters. Hey, that was a cool idea for a drawing! With such a merry thought in her head she happily shuffled her way through the ticket gate and scanned the area for her cousin. Luckily Fue was a little on the tall side.. and with that red-brown hair it was easy enough to spot her. Clad in a long-sleeved Lordi t-shirt under an unzipped denim jacket with a long yellow skirt and tennis shoes, Matylda stood out from a crowd. Shouldn't be too hard for Fue to find her.. but Matylda was gonna make sure she did!
Dragging her wheeled suitcase behind her Matylda headed over to her cousin and waved, "Serkku, kiva nähdä sinut!"
Realizing she was speaking Finnish a second later she switched to Russian, "Cousin! Hello!"
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Post by Fue Shi-Su on Jan 14, 2018 10:47:51 GMT -5
The sun shone down on the sitting figure of Fue. She had arrived early as a precaution and had parked herself at a bench not far from the tracks. It was hard to tell what she was feeling at the moment, just as it was hard to guess at why she was there. Her winter school uniform didn't stand out as much as it might elsewhere, students taking the train was a common occurrence here and the academy was the largest fixture of the town. In her hands was her camera, a rather high quality piece, with which she was constantly adjusting, looking through, and readjusting. Beside her was a small case of supplies to go along, mostly cleaning wipes and alternate lenses. This process she was going through was an exercise in passing the time and was only interrupted by the occasional ruffling as Fue pulled out her phone to check the time and a photograph.
Fue's side of the family put a lot of faith in photographs, and, as such, relied on them heavily too. It wasn't just the family's jobs in fashion that encouraged this but also her Russian mother who had a large binder full of friend's faces. Each one carefully organized and as orderly as Fue's camera bag. This was to offset the illness that locked away the part of the mind where faces could be stored. Instead, she relied on the binder as an external source of memory and this habit was passed along to her daughter. Going to meet somebody was a tricky exercise and it could be offset by a sign or a picture. So Fue had a mostly recent photograph that she'd received from her parents along with the message.
it had been a big surprise that her cousin was coming to Fukui. The academy was well known in the world and very notable, but it was a foreign school in a foreign land. Her parents had some tentative connection but for Matylda, it seemed as if Fue was the connection for which they were sending their daughter across the world. Well, Fue didn't mind that, as strange as it seemed to her. She was just excited to have somebody at the school who she felt comfortable with. That would be a welcome change from all the people she'd been forced to get to know. It was not unlike having a childhood friend.
Finally, the train arrived and her cousin was due. Fue stood up on her tip toes to catch a glimpse of the girl in the picture. Easier said than done on a crowded station like this but she had her eyes out for another uniform, likely why she was second to notice the other girl. Matylda was not in uniform, obviously the picture Fue had was from a normal formal setting. It had been a few years since they had last seen each other on a holiday family visit but she was still the same old girl. "Russian cousin, Russian." Fue replied in Russian, she had learned basically nothing during the last visit with family apart from a few simple phrases and greetings. "Or better yet, maybe we should practice your Japanese?" She said, still in Russian. "That is going to be important in the future, n'est-ce pas?"
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Post by Matylda Sudakov-Oka on Jan 16, 2018 8:27:36 GMT -5
A few years apart didn't dampen the excitement which the Finnish girl felt at being reunited with her cousin. Despite her mistake in defaulting to Finnish she was quick to move over to her cousin so they could speak without calling over a crowd. People were liable to give the obviously foreign girl disapproving looks if she continued to nearly shout out in Finnish and Russian. She was already almost too shy to speak in Japanese to people in Japan of all places, so getting dirty looks for speaking something else loudly wasn't an appealing alternative. With the rest of the distance closed she was all smiles while Fue reminded her of which tongue to use when speaking.
"Sorry, I sort of forgot what to speak for a minute there," she continued in Russian herself, shrugging as if to say 'what're you gonna do?' about the earlier outburst, "I.. um.. don't really feel confident about Japanese. It's hard to do when you have a funny accent like mine, and people will just think I'm weird at best. Maybe think I'm butchering their language at worst.."
She tried to keep smiling as she explained her difficulty with that particular language, but it wasn't quite a full smile. Rather more of a smirk or half-hearted grin than a pleasant expression of acceptance like she was attempting to affect. Russian wasn't that similar to Finnish but somehow she'd managed to pick it up far more confidently than her third language. Possibly because she had a mother and cousins whom she was close to that all also spoke it; closeness was a wonderful motivator to believe in one's ability in speaking to others. Had Fue begun to switch to Japanese she probably would've quieted down in a heartbeat (and gotten distracted by details for the metallic wolf-rider she'd just thought of). In Russian she was doing okay even if she was aware that she still sounded odd when she said particular words. Fue was possibly her closest cousin, almost more of a sister than something quite so distant. That meant a world of difference as there was far less likelihood that she'd be judged on her ability to pronounce things exactly the way they ought to be pronounced. Once she shook off anxiety over Japanese, Matylda threw her arms around her cousin (or at least tried to) in order to give a proper welcome hug.
Only in the heat of the moment did she notice the uniform Fue was wearing - that was neat! Matylda remarked, "Oooh! That's a nice uniform you've got yourself there, cousin. Wait..."
She stepped back, hands on the Russian girl's shoulders and eyes locked on Fue's as she asked, "Does this mean I get one of those too? Like, really really?"
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Post by Fue Shi-Su on Jan 16, 2018 20:06:45 GMT -5
"You gotta get confident in Japanese. That's basically the only language here." Fue said and returned her cousin's enthusiasm with a tight hug. "Though the nurse, she speaks Russian, maybe she knows Finish too. You might have a treat there." She pulled away and kissed Matylda's cheeks, left then right then left again. A more traditional french greeting and something she most certainly hadn't done with anyone since getting here. But Matylda was family, Fue felt better about family, freer and less nervous about everything, after all, family knew your troubles better than anyone.
"Anyway, you speak Russian with a funny accent too." Fue teased, a pot calling the kettle black as her own Russian was tinted heavily by the French of her Mere. Just one of those things that came with speaking a lot of languages. "But you'll pick it up in no time, and you're not the only one here at school playing catch up with Japanese. There are girls from all over and most of them speak far fewer languages than we do." She let go of Matylda and turned to look back. "Is that all your stuff? Do you need any help?" The uniform question caught her off guard. She'd gotten quite used to it, and even in her private school back in France she had been assigned what clothing to wear.
"Umm, yes?" She met her cousin's eyes. This was weirdly intense for such an obvious thing. "You can wear normal stuff off hours but you have to wear your uniform to class. There's a summer and winter one." She looked down at herself and self consciously brushed a few trace wrinkles from her skirt. "So yeah, you get to wear a uniform. Can't really make too many changes to it though." She shrugged and pulled away from Matylda's grasping hands. "Some girls get dispensations for clubs or majors or whatever but it's pretty much all this all the time everywhere."
"So your bags, did you have your things shipped or were you planning to purchase more stuff here. Because that would be a real quick way to force you to brush up on your Japanese." Not that she expected that to have happened, after all, Matylda seemed pretty nervous about trying Japanese here even with her. But time would fix that, and they could practice together later. Fue certainly didn't plan to go and shop for her. Actually, she didn't even want to be there when Matylda did go shopping. That would mean she might have to talk to random people in shops. Bad enough when she did it for herself. She'd basically chosen a few specific stores and went nowhere else, quite often she just ordered online for shipping or pick up. Not because she was nervous with her grasp of Japanese, but mostly because she didn't like dealing with new people.
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Post by Matylda Sudakov-Oka on Jan 22, 2018 7:32:06 GMT -5
Hugs were the best kind of welcome that Matylda was aware of. Nothing said that someone was welcome and appreciated quite like a warm embrace from someone who was happy to see them. In this case she was was embraced in kind by her cousin who was just as warm as ever in her greetings. Throw in those French style cheek kisses and it was the warmest of warm welcomes that a young woman could possibly want! Her misgivings about speaking Japanese in Japan aside, she was in a pretty good mood now that she was reunited with her family. Especially family that knew the area and school much better than her and would be capable of introducing her to the wonderful world of Fukui.
"I could say the same thing to you, cousin! You'd probably speak Finnish with a funny accent, I think. But we can just speak whatever language with our funny accents.. do you think any of the other girls speak Finnish? It'd be nice to have someone to converse with.. maybe I need to get a 'check up' to see if the nurse does!" Matylda replied eagerly, using air quotes to make sure her point about the check up being a ruse was not misunderstood. Given how emphatically she performed the gesture it was unlikely that it could possibly be mistaken.
That news about the uniform was music to the Finn's ears, though not quite metal music. She'd been a bit concerned about her attire not fitting in with the other girls at the new school, and thus standing out even more. Standing out would mean people asking a lot of questions, questions which she probably wouldn't want to answer given they'd be expected in Japanese. A uniform would help her look more the part of just another student who happened to think of brilliant artistic depictions of everyday happenings. Totally not unusual in any way or form. Plus she had to admit the uniform was pretty cute and therefore at least worth trying on if not geeking out over. Sure it didn't have studs or spikes or anything but it was neat in its own way. Getting to have matching clothes with her cousin was an added bonus that she couldn't overlook either.
Motioning to the suitcase at hand and the bag over her shoulder she remarked, "What you see here is all the stuff that I brought with me. Enough stuff to get started until I have a chance to go out and do stuff like shopping. We.. we don't have to do the shopping today, though. I'm sure you've got other stuff you'll need to take care of.. maybe even need help with! Neato stuff like.. um.. homework.. or cleaning.. or.. an album cover. Important stuff like that!"
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Post by Fue Shi-Su on Jan 22, 2018 10:29:04 GMT -5
"I probably would but fortunately for everyone, I speak better languages like French." She teased back. "It wouldn't hurt to give the nurse a shot, and the other girls might. But I don't know any other Finns personally." Not that she really knew anyone personally. It would be nice to have somebody here she felt comfortable spending time with. A sort of security blanket in a way. Not that that was especially fair to her cousin but Fue was pretty sure Matylda wouldn't mind being a blanket sometimes.
"Guess you may have to do quite a bit of shopping. I'm surprised you didn't bring a thousand boxes of music posters and cardboard standees." She added with a smirk. Her cousin could be kind of crazy sometimes. But family was allowed to be crazy, it tended to travel along every branch in the tree after all. "Did Aunt and Uncle give you any money?" She was a bit disappointed not to see them. It was generally nice to see family, even if it was only for a short time before they split between school and whatever sightseeing her aunt and uncle were planning. Maybe it was too out of the way.
"I don't really need help with any of that." Probably not from her, at least. Fue didn't know much about her cousin's habits when it came to cleaning or aptitude at school. Sure she'd made it into Fukui but then, so had Fue. The school was far more interested in art than aptitude. She'd give it a little while before she turned in this direction for help, especially since Japanese tended to be her weakest subject. Matylda may not have wanted to speak it for fear of embarrassing herself, but speaking was the easiest part.
Fue grabbed her cousin's hand. "Well let's get back to the school and get you all unpacked. Then we can figure out what we need to buy you for your uniform and other things you might have forgotten. We can make a checklist and that will help shopping go faster, especially if we have a Japanese version in case you have to ask somebody for help." Suddenly, she let go. "Oh wait, before I forget..." She grabbed Matylda's waist and pulled her in close, leaning her had on her cousin's shoulder. Her other arm pulled out the camera and held it out. "Big smile." She said and took the picture.
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Post by Matylda Sudakov-Oka on Jan 24, 2018 8:23:55 GMT -5
"I don't know if I'd call French better. More flowery sure, but Finnish is more.. erm.. fun!" Matylda teased in turn, sticking her tongue out jokingly as she avoiding saying the 'm' word. As much as she loved the genre of music herself she knew that there were some people who just didn't care for metal to that degree. Not that it was bad, just unfortunate that she couldn't really talk about it in detail with anyone. Anyway, with no other Finns likely to turn up in the student body, she would happily take whatever comforts she could get. Familiar people or at least familiar languages would do just fine. Having her cousin here would just make it that much better since she was comfortable around the Russian girl and spoke a common language. Together they'd have less trouble navigating Fukui!
"Oh, of course they did! I mean, it'd be silly for me to come up here from Tokyo with no money to get living supplies or even food. I even get a bank account they'll put my allowance into! It came with a choice of bank book designs, and fate saw fit to give me the opportunity to acquire.. this!" she fished around in her school bag a bit before her eyes lit up. Out of it came a Winnie the Pooh themed bank book from the place her parents had set her account up through. Hardly the sort of apocalyptic or monstrous imagery she had a reputation for, but it had been the greatest option available to her.
"Pretty swift, huh?" she playfully gloated before putting it away and stretching her arms out over her head. It'd been a long trip up, and she hadn't even been in Japan that long before that, so she'd been a ball of nerves for a while. Now that she had someone she knew to talk to, and didn't have to speak Japanese, she felt much more at home and unwound. She grinned at the suggestions her cousin threw out, "Oh yeah! We have to know what supplies I need before the arockalypse comes.. um.. I mean before I have my first classes. I'm sure my cousin knows all the best places to get everything too.. I am in your hands.." Then a picture was to be taken, at which point Matylda smiled as wide as possible, resulting in what would have passed for the smile of someone who'd never seen a person smile before.
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Post by Fue Shi-Su on Jan 24, 2018 13:05:08 GMT -5
Fue squeezed Matylda tight. "French is totally better." She switched to French for a moment, "It is a beautifu language from a beautiful land." Then back to Russian. "It's the language of love, too. All the best romances are in French. That's better than fun." It was a silly conversation, and a strange one for people who might have overheard the sudden burst of chatter in several foreign languages in quick succession. "But beautiful or not," she jumped to Japanese, "you must learn this language."
She flipped her camera around and looked at the picture. It wasn't perfect, she'd slightly cut off the side of her own face and they weren't really centered, shame, but she was getting better and it wasn't bad for a free hand snap without a front screen. If there was one thing phones had going for them, it was a camera where you could see the screen. But what was that face Matylda was making. "Pfft." she sputtered, "Look at this." She held out the camera screen so her cousin could see. "You look like a crazy shark girl." She patted Matylda's back hard as she broke into a fit of giggles.
"Food's provided, silly. There's a menu where you can request stuff even. It's all super fancy, and then if you find a really good friend in the cooking classes, they might make you nice stuff too." Fue didn't really have that but she did put a lot of requests in, mostly to avoid any trouble with the food when she took pictures of it. Simple was often better and if the food was pretty enough already, that meant she could get to eating it quicker. "But I guess money for treats and going out is nice to have too." She looked at the bank book, it wasn't what she'd expected from her cousin. "It's cute, mine is just plain navy blue."
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Post by Matylda Sudakov-Oka on Jan 28, 2018 9:12:13 GMT -5
"French might be the language of romance and fancy schmancy artists, but Finnish is a beautiful language from an even more beautiful land! It's the language of the heaviest of metals.. and.. Santa Claus! Does France have Santa Claus living there? I think not," Matylda replied dramatically as she went so far as to over-accentuate her Finnish vowels in the process. She even folded her arms over her chest to show that she was indeed proudly Finnish on this point. Then she chuckled nervously and attempted, in Japanese, "Learnding is difficult... it's.. hurd.. er.. hard.. and people talk fast.. too fast."
Her eyes were big and her cheeks rosy as she fumbled around with her Japanese. Just the act of speaking those few words was quite a challenge to Matylda's confidence, and she was sure she'd sounded like an utter barbarian as she worked on it. Thankfully the picture they'd taken was presented just in time to save her from dwelling on the utter failure to communicate in Japanese. Her timid expression transformed into a big silly grin as she was referred to as a crazy shark girl. Now that was something she could really sink her teeth into - imagine a girl who looked normal, but then opened her mouth to reveal razor sharp shark's teeth! Obviously she'd be wearing some marine life-inspired ceremonial armor, wielding a triton that had a mic at the end of the central tine and a backup band of fish monsters providing the music of her madness. What a show that'd be! Matylda was reaching for her sketch pad.. only to remember it was tucked away in her suitcase, and not easily accessible.
Sighing she stored away the mental image of Shark Girl and focused on school supply stuff instead. After all that was sort of important too she guessed. Matylda smiled at the food part too, "Whoa, full food service with attending the school? Here I thought I'd be stuck running to the convenience store to get stuff, or storming the school store to get bread before it runs out! That sort of thing happens in schools in this country right?" After Fue noted her bank book Matylda stored it away, "I just couldn't resist when it was that or plain old boring solid colors."
That being said, she looked around and suddenly realized something, "Um.. so how exactly are we getting back to the school? Is it far? I.. um.. haven't eaten so far, so I don't know if I could make it on a long walk." Just to reinforce what she'd said, her stomach growled then and there.
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Post by Fue Shi-Su on Jan 31, 2018 13:37:14 GMT -5
The language of metals and Santa Claus, Fue shook her head. Sometimes her cousin was absolutely crazy. “You’re being silly. The screaming growls of your music must be because they want to escape and go somewhere beautiful and romantic like Paris.” Fue returned sarcastically. She really didn’t understand the shouting rebellious nature of her cousin’s favorite music. Something smooth, maybe a bit perky sometimes, jazz had all that and more. “Besides Matylda, Santa Clause lives in the North Pole, not Finland.
Fue couldn’t help but smile at her cousin’s not quite successful attempt at Japanese. She disguised her small laugh as a cough and covered her mouth. “That was good.” She said not entirely convincingly. It was a start at least, Matylda could get the point across which was the most important part. “You have a bit of an accent though.” That was an understatement. Well, anyone looking at her could probably tell she was foreign. Even back home in France, just putting forth the effort of trying with the language was enough to earn some leeway. “Anyway, if you’re having trouble keeping up just say” she switched to japanese again and slowly said “I am sorry, could you please speak slowly for me, thank you.” Then back to Russian it was. “People speak fast in their native tongue everywhere, even you Finnish with your loud music and Santa Claus.”
Theora saved the picture to her cloud collection, she’d sort where it belonged later. Then she put her camera down again. “I’ll send you a copy later when we get back to the dorms, I’m sure your parents will be happy to see you’ve made it.” Actually, that was a good point. “You should probably text them that you made it here and we’re together.” Relieve any tension they might have and also it would mean Fue herself wouldn’t have to worry about a lecture on punctuality. Basically it was a win on both accounts.
“Anyway,” She said to change the subject back, “I wouldn't know. It certainly doesn’t happen at our school and this is the only Japanese school I’ve ever gone to.” It sounded barbaric and possibly just too poorly organized for real life. It probably led to a lot of ruined food too. Ripping and tearing rarely left food in a state that was worth photographing so what was the point? Fue decided that if something like that was going to happen, she’d just start making and packing her own food. She wasn’t that far away from doing it already, after all, that saved on preparation for photographs when she took them early.
“Well it is a bit of a walk.” She looked up. “I guess we could get a snack or something. “There are a few places worth eating at.” Of course her definition of worth was mostly reliant on consistently serving food that looked nice more than anything. If they didn’t, she had to do her own adjustments and then she got weird looks and the food got cold and the whole experience was awful. “What kind of thing are you hungry for?”
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Post by Matylda Sudakov-Oka on Feb 5, 2018 7:18:09 GMT -5
"Say what you want but Father Christmas is Finnish! Or at least he lives in Arctic Finland with his reindeer and workshop and e... well, maybe not elves. Elves are too uninspiring for our country. Probably orcs or some kind of Vikings work with him to ensure the greatest possible winter festivities occur," Matylda replied with a big smirk as she bantered with Fue. The whole bit with Fue going between three languages like it was nothing was just a tad hard for her to follow. Of course she understood the meaning since she had been raised by a Japanese step-dad, but it was still a little slow to process.
Still she was actually pretty happy at the compliment! Matylda beamed at the kind words and bounced a bit in place as she remarked, "Really? That's good to know.. I've only really spoken Japanese with my dad so far, so it's hard to tell if I'm doing it right. And I'm sure people are going to think I sound funny or point out how I'm doing it wrong... so I'm kind of scared to talk to people. But it's okay because now I have you!" For her it was true in many ways that having her Russian cousin around was going to make life a whole heck of a lot easier. If she'd gone to any old school she wouldn't have known anyone, probably been the only foreigner and certainly would have a hard time speaking up with Japanese girls. Her cousin knew her, and that meant less having to explain things like Metal or how she could feel perfectly fine in mid-winter with light clothing. About the only thing she wasn't fine with in mid-winter was traveling on an empty stomach, which thankfully was going to be rectified shortly.
"I hunger for the flesh of a slain animal, preferably the type that has wings which could not help it flee to safety," Matylda responded in her best impression of a dark, monstrous singer from a musical group, "But anything that's hot, warm and quick would be fine with me! Nothing too fancy I guess, unless you'd prefer that?" She smiled a little as she poked her cousin, "I'm sure you're more of an expert on food than me, eh cousin? Maybe you should choose where we stop."
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Post by Fue Shi-Su on Feb 5, 2018 21:10:52 GMT -5
The languages were a lot easier for Fue, she had grown up constantly switching between Russian and French depending on the parent she was traveling around with. Though when they were all together, it tended to default to French or, oddly enough, Japanese. Mama felt far less comfortable with French than Mere and Mere wasn't all that good at Russian. They were both pretty fluent in Japanese. They told Fue that it was their love language because they had fallen in love in Japan. Of course, once Fue had actually spent more time on her own here, she'd discovered that the Japanese her mothers spoke was closer to street talk than actual Japanese. It had been a troublesome few months of Japanese class. That was for sure.
Fue rolled her eyes at her cousin's food request. "So you want some chicken." That habit of Matylda's was not going to help the girl communicate in any language, let alone Japanese. "Well you're right about one thing, you can keep your elfs and orcs, there's nothing like french cuisine cousin. But I know a few places that get pretty close." Places she really shouldn't be going to. Despite her best efforts and her recent crash diet and the track running, she'd still managed to put on weight. Fue was not looking forward to the next health inspection.
"Follow me." Fue had a place in mind, they did chicken curries and a very nice sauced rice. They could be very exacting if you asked for it which made organization for her pictures so much easier. A nice vegetable curry poured over white rice would be lovely and she could have them make a bowl out of it. It was hard to make a rice bowl look bad in a picture. Fue tapped her camera. She might not have her tools with her, but she had her makeup case in her bag, as long as she was very exact with her requests, it should be plenty.
"I know a rice place, they have curries and other things. That should be familiar to you or you can try something more local. The school has a lot of international students so the food places here have adapted to draw them in." And most of the time, it worked, even if some places really didn't seem to get it.
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Post by Matylda Sudakov-Oka on Feb 12, 2018 8:05:39 GMT -5
"It could be known by many names, but that is certainly one of them," Matylda acknowledged regarding her desires for food, "As long as it sustains you, it doesn't matter what it's called! The creatures to be devoured are still devoured regardless of their specific name or.. determinations.." It wasn't exactly the sort of thing that was easy to continue once she started trying to get all foreboding and menacing in talk of food. Neither was her current choice in food all that healthy, but she seemed to be capable of burning off the extra calories and the like rather readily. Not that she was super active or athletic, just possibly more of a freak of nature when it came to such things. Or that she didn't eat all that much of the unhealthy stuff when she did get a craving for it, whichever came first.
Eating out with Fue was going to be an experience for the young Finn, given that tap to the camera. She had some idea of her cousin's predilection for photographing her foodstuffs but didn't really understand it herself. Then again a lot of people probably didn't get her love of music performed by rock and roll monsters singing in a foreign language. Point was they each had their own peculiar interests and hobbies. What Matylda did know was that every word being used to describe the restaurant only increased her desire to chow down on something. A good mix of stuff was probably the best option if she didn't want to feel like she was overlooking anything.. but she also didn't want to order too much food. Again. As she thought it over that concern started to dominate her thoughts a bit more than it probably ought to have.
"Hey Fue.. this place sounds really tasty and everything.. I wanna try more than one thing, I think! But what if I order more than I can eat? I mean, are they going to be okay if I just need to take some of it back with me?" Matylda asked with a very worried tone and expression. She tugged on her ear lobe a little as she blushed, "And what about the school? If I take all that food back with me in bags and stuff, people will be mad won't they? I mean, it's a lot of food.. is it even allowed?"
She then locked eyes with her cousin and somewhat desperately asked, "Cousin! I need you to promise me something. I need you to promise that you won't let me order more than I can eat at the restaurant. Please.. promise me. It's important.."
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Post by Fue Shi-Su on Feb 14, 2018 13:06:49 GMT -5
Fue just rolled her eyes again. Chicken it was, what a silly way to describe food. Just call a spade a spade. It made taking the pictures easier as well, fancy language was well and good for a menu but the photographer wasn’t interested in buying the thing, they just needed to know if they should be focusing on the chicken or the sides or even the sauce for the advertisement. Disparate elements couldn’t shine as well as they could support the main theme. “It totally matters.”
Fue shook her head vigorously. “You want meat which is totally useless as a theme. So maybe a bird, there are lots of birds in the world and people eat most of them.” She made a flapping motion with her hands as she said “And it’s wings couldn’t help it escape, that’s any bird that ends up on a plate. Obviously if it’s been cooked then nothing was able to help, let alone the wings.” She just couldn’t let it go. Food was too important a subject to just treat so frivolously. Plus it helped pass the time as they walked.
“Then there are the birds that can’t fly. Chickens actually can fly, just not very well. So maybe you’re actually after an ostrich, or an emu? Maybe you want to start trouble with the British and their queen and yo want to eat a swan? There are so many things that your words could be. Chicken almost isn’t even one of them.” The slightly out of character outburst left her just a little bit winded and she tried to regain her breath as they moved on. Of course her cousin couldn’t just leave it alone.
“You get worked up over the strangest things, Matylda. Of course they’ll let you bring food on campus.” She patted her cousin’s back mostly reassuringly. “You will be fine. Nobody is going to be mad. They might look at you like you’re crazy though. But once they hear your Finland music, they’ll do that anyway. Just order whatever looks good. But you’re going to be here for years, you will be able to come back, I’m sure you can show some restraint.” Fue grinned. “Think of it as suffering to inspire your next song thing.”
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Post by Matylda Sudakov-Oka on Feb 16, 2018 9:22:10 GMT -5
Fue's lecture on the importance of what something was called caused Matylda to roll her eyes. After all she'd just been attempting to wax poetic when discussing her desire to eat chicken for lunch, even though it hadn't quite panned out. Now that her cousin was getting full on into a rare lecture mode, Matylda wasn't sure what to say. Probably nothing that came to mind was going to get her off that track of thought until she'd well and truly finished speaking on it. And the issue of whether people would look down on the weird foreign girl with a bunch of extra food in bags lingered. Being so brand new to the school, she didn't want to risk being ostracized so soon just because she ate with her eyes and ordered too much. No matter how good that chicken sounded or looked, she couldn't let herself order too much or she might become the butt of jokes from which she'd never recover!
Actually the idea of eating other birds did bring to mind something new. A seven and a half foot tall ostrich/hawk chimera monster with the toe talons of a Utah Raptor! Eyes glowing red like the fires of Hell as it raced after its intended prey, a terrified goblin of some sort wearing nothing but a leather loincloth. Oh this was awesome! Unable to resist the urge she dug into her backpack and shuffled things around until she found a sketch pad and a pencil. This occurred just before her cousin gave her a pat on the back, causing the Finn to drop her pencil right back into the bag. Oh no! It'd taken so long to fish it out, and now she'd have to attempt to locate it again or that bird monster wouldn't be brought to life!
"Once people hear metal they'll know what real music is," she managed to tease her cousin in Russian as she looked up from her bag momentarily, "I guess you're maybe right about the food, but.. I mean, I can't be sure I'll show any restraint. My eyes get to ordering before my brain catches up and tells me I don't need as much." She then looked back down at the cavernous bag, shoving her hand in in a futile effort to relocate her pencil. Sadly it seemed to have been lost.. but maybe if she tried with both hands she'd have more luck. As such she dropped her sketchpad, focused entirely on digging out her pencil so that she didn't realize what was going on. The crazed drawings were revealed inside, which Fue probably had seen the like of before.. apart from a terribly mundane sketch of a cute girl sitting at a school desk. No flames, horns, wings, monsters or anything that was a staple of her other work.
"Accursed pencil, where are you?" she demanded of the writing implement while she searched on for it.
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Post by Fue Shi-Su on Feb 17, 2018 20:19:37 GMT -5
Fue just kept walking while her cousin occupied herself with weird metal thoughts or whatever it was she did to think of things like calling a chicken meal some gaudy butchery style description like it was out of a horror movie. "Yeah yeah, real music." Fue replied, paying only half attention. Her cousin's bag seemed to be a never ending portal to some realm of chaos where nothing was properly organized. That seemed to fit the girl's personality pretty accurately. "Look, it will be easy enough, just order one thing. Then don't order anything else until you finish eating the first plate."
Fue shook her head, it was hard enough for her to manage to eat one meal before it got cold. Trying out new things was incredibly difficult. Oh well, if anything went poorly, she could probably pass it on to her bottomless cousin and be fine. She personally abhorred leftovers, they never looked as pretty the next day, maybe it was wasteful but at least she tried quite hard to not go around dumping good food. Although, her tactic of just eating the whole thing was probably also contributing to her weight gain.
When her cousin dropped the notepad, Fue bent over and picked it up. She was kind of surprised to see such a normal drawing considering all the other disturbing and 'imaginative' stuff her cousin often drew. It didn't seem to be some drastic shift in style either, no, the rest of the notebook was chaos and crazy images you might see in a record shop next to the leather and spikes. "Who's this, Matylda?" Her cousin was talented, there was no denying it and as much as Fue teased, she really did think her cousin was going places. That said, some of those places were scary. "Is it a friend from your old school?" She held the notepad back to Matylda. She could understand that it was difficult to leave people behind, though for Fue it was more of leaving her parents than her friends of which she generally felt pretty tertiary. But her cousin was a lot more outgoing and likely had to say a lot of goodbyes.
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Post by Matylda Sudakov-Oka on Feb 19, 2018 8:47:47 GMT -5
Just order one thing and everything will be fine as long as you don't order anything else before finishing. Such simple ideas had somehow escaped Matylda's thoughts as she went from one fixation to another. After all it seemed so straightforward and common-sensed that there was no way the Metal enthusiast could possibly have come up with it on her own. Her reaction to her cousin suggesting it was to nod slowly in agreement with something that had just come around and made a good deal of sense. Yes, this would probably work okay all things considered. Go slow with the orders and don't let delicious pictures tempt her into ordering more than one plate at a time. The latter part might be a little difficult if her cousin showed her any particularly excellent images, because that would just get the Finn's stomach thinking for her even more.
Further talk about the food would wait, though, as her sketchbook had fallen into the view of her cousin. Matylda froze in place with a hand reaching out for the sketchbook, as if afraid that any movement might cause it to escape her reach. Her eyes followed her cousin's movements nervously, though she knew that Fue had seen a lot of her typical works before. This though was a bit more than the usual monstrous events and wild imaginings that made for album covers. That picture was one that she didn't usually show people since it was a fair bit more personal than the others. Far easier to talk about a ukulele-playing Nosferatu on a pogo stick bounding between piles of bones than a particular girl from her recent past that had warranted this kind of attention. Was Fue going to press the issue? Thankfully it seemed that wouldn't be the case; it was returned even though a question had been levied at her. First the sketch book was stuffed back into the bag rather than being used for a sketch - she wasn't really of mind to complete one anyway.
Though it'd been stowed away she did think her cousin deserved some kind of explanation. Fue wasn't the sort who was going to make a big deal out of something like this no matter how surprising it was for Matylda. She picked her bag up and started walking along quietly for a few steps with uncertainty of what she ought to say and what would be possible to say without things getting awkward. Finally she stopped, turned around and looked awkwardly at her cousin as she said, "She was.. an important person for me. I thought about her a lot, and she helped me with more difficult homework.. or.. I listened in while she was helping her neighbor with it.. and she was quite pretty so it seemed like a good subject for a drawing."
Then she laughed nervously, "Well... how about you tell me more about your recent projects! Any good subjects for photography lately?" Smooth move Matylda. No further questions will come about that girl at all.
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Post by Fue Shi-Su on Feb 19, 2018 22:19:24 GMT -5
"Important?" Well that was an interesting word, and a fairly simple one considering the general habit her cousin had of saying thirty words when only one would do just fine. "Well, she sounds pretty great." Fue continued walking. It seemed like such a drastic change in artwork to be discounted as just being pretty. Not to mention her cousin's nervousness about the whole subject. Maybe it would be better to let sleeping dogs lie. After all, a single thing like that didn't really mean what seemed so obvious, right? Or maybe it wasn't obvious. Maybe it just seemed that way because of Fue's upbringing.
"Not really. Teacher doesn't like my portfolio. She says it doesn't look real enough. I think she just doesn't understand about food." Her mouth mostly went on autopilot while she considered if she should ask. Was her cousin actually gay? If she was, was that any of Fue's business? "I met a girl recently who was making these cheesecake stuffed strawberries and I got a lot of ok photos of her, and maybe one or two really good ones. She said she might send them home to be put up in her shop." Yeah, best to just let it all proceed naturally.
"It's kind of a big deal for me, you know? This could be my first shot at actually being printed." Published was a whole different animal, nobody published pictures of advertisements. It was all about getting your work out in the world in the shops where the food was sold. "It'd be a big step for me. Like, I'm really worth something and I'm not wasting everyone's time." That was another worry that often plagued Fue. Certainly not helped by her consistently poorly reviewed portfolio. But she had no idea how to go about fixing that aspect of her life either. "And maybe that would be enough to convince the teacher that my style of photography is just as valid as taking pictures of real people."
She looked at her cousin. "You know you can tell me anything, right? Family is there for each other." Even if she wasn't going to bring it up, Fue wanted her cousin to know that, should the subject or any real subject came up, she'd be there. Real mostly being anything that wasn't some silly chaotic problem brought on by Matylda's excess imagination or anything to do with the metal. Any advince she had about that kind of music would be useless and misinformed anyway.
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Post by Matylda Sudakov-Oka on Feb 22, 2018 9:15:00 GMT -5
"Not real enough? What's not real enough about food? Maybe you're right.. or maybe it's just her way of suggesting you photograph other things? Honestly, though, if food's what you like taking pictures of then keep on taking pictures of food!" Matylda replied, happily thinking that the discussion of whatever had motivated her one normal drawing was done. Better to talk about her cousin's odd focus for photography instead, even if the topic just made her even hungrier. Especially when the topic of delicious desserts came up out of nowhere - gosh those sounded really good. You probably ought to buy extra just in case you didn't make it back to the shop for a while, the whole stock up idea and all that.
"I hope that she decides to use a bunch of your pictures, cousin! You work so hard at getting the right shots, I'm sure there have to be a bunch of really amazing images. Those strawberries probably look especially delicious in your photos," Matylda cheered, totally moving on from her embarrassing admission moments before. She was pretty sure that she could relate to what Fue was going through - her own images weren't exactly the sort of thing that the masses rushed to get their hands on for some reason. Metal was awesome, but not everyone really appreciated it the way that Matylda did. She did grin a little as she suggested, "Maybe the pictures of the girl will help you win over the teacher too. Assuming you did take pictures of her.. well, I know how you feel. For some reason my mentor kept telling me that the way I draw isn't appropriate for school projects. I'm not sure why.. I mean, they're pretty awesome, right?"
Later on her cousin made an odd statement of support out of the blue. Tell her anything? That seemed to suggest that she may have caught wind of something that Matylda didn't want to talk about. A secret. Or maybe it was just her cousin's way of voicing support for someone who'd just moved up to Fukui and was on her own for the first time. No way to be sure which one it was.. but if it was the former, maybe she knew. Maybe Fue had figured out the thing that had recently been on Matylda's mind far more than she had ever intended. Had she slipped up at some point? Did her art give her away? Matylda blushed a little at the possibility, but it was definitely a very real one.
"Oh, well that's nice," was all she could manage at first, but then she added on, "You noticed? Well.. it's embarrassing, and I really can't explain it. It just sort of jumped on me and all of a sudden I can't stop thinking about it." No specifics were offered since she assumed that Fue must at least suspect the odd truth. The fact that Matylda had other musical tastes besides metal wasn't something that she shared often, but maybe it was time to let the cat out of the bag.
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Post by Fue Shi-Su on Feb 24, 2018 1:06:43 GMT -5
"I don't know, it doesn't make any sense to me either. But I don't get it and she's all 'it's too perfect' as if perfect isn't the goal. A perfect score is given for perfect work." She held her hands out like she was holding something when she said perfect score and the shifted the imaginary thing to the other side of her when she said perfect work. "So I don't get it, and she's the teacher but I don't think I'm learning at all what I'm supposed to do. Maybe she's right, maybe I'm right. I don't know, I wish we had an actual food stylist here at the academy." She sighed, that wasn't likely though.
"Maybe I'll show you a few of the pictures later on. I have them all saved on my cloud." Not just the making of the dessert but also of everything she ever ate and almost everything she drank going back years. She was weird but meticulous in her record keeping. "Mostly it was food but when you photograph food being made, you're always going to end up getting the chef some too. I got one that was very pretty. Her hands are so smooth and delicate, like the perfect model for holding up the strawberry. I'd like to use her for other shoots and things but apparently she's not really a cook, she just does it as a hobby." It was kind of a shame since Mashiro had been so open to being photographed.
As for her cousin's pictures, well, she could understand why the teacher was not as pleased with them as Matylda was. They were, to put it lightly, offbeat. Sometimes they were just creepy and disturbing. Her cousin seemed to be deeply affected by her taste in music considering the girl's art so often matched the theme and composition of the albums that also decorated her room. Still, her cousin was a good artist, even when it came to normal art, as could be attested to with the drawing of her school friend. Maybe it just came down to coloring a bit too far outside the lines, as it were. Guidelines existed for a reason.
Fue was glad that her cousin seemed to understand. That made it a lot easier to address it. Fue wasn't even sure about her own sexuality, she was far too occupied with food, photography, and figuring out how to eat food without outing herself as a crazy girl. "I guess that makes sense. Ma Mere says she always knew but Mama said that she didn't realize that she was gay until her and ma Mere kissed by the tree at school one Christmas Eve. Feelings can be really confusing." Again, Fue didn't know for sure when it came to love so she mostly just assumed it was like her feelings about everything but even more jumbled up.
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