Tfw it’s been more than 10 years since you made an AMV and you don’t know if you’ve still got it.
Tfw trash levels over 9000 for this literal meme show
The hardest parts of this – making the footage flow with the lyrics, making the footage flow with the beat AND the lyrics
Split, delete, mute, rinse repeat…
Another one that’s probably going to be proven wrong by canon but hey a girl can dream I guess.
A Shot in the Dark: An Anime Crimes Division Fanfic
Characters: Diesel, Mrs. Prestige, Joe (mentioned)
Pairings: Diesel/Joe
Summary: After the events of episode 5, Diesel finds herself lost and alone. (WARNING SPOILER ALERT)
“I’m tired of having my fandoms decided for
me. I’m going to be the author of my own manga, and you can’t stop me.”
“Still sick of this
wannabe-aboo yet?”
“Don’t worry
Diesel, you’re as weeby as they come.”
“You’re not my
mentor anymore, Joe. I may not have a quirk but I can’t keep relying on you to
be my All-Might.”
“You’re not from
Neo Otaku City… you’re a Prestige TV Princess… aren’t you?”
“Get out of here Diesel! Get back to Neo Otaku
City! Gather anyone who still truly loves anime! You’ve gotta start a revolution!”
“I know, he broke your Gundam, which was a
metaphor for your heart. But it doesn’t have to be, Joe. Let me be a metaphor
for your heart.”
“It must have been
so hard growing up the only Otaku in a city of Breaking Bad-ittes. You must
have been so lonely…”
“I’ve had enough of
this, Diesel! It’s all my fault! I should have been there more often, then I
could have seen what you were turning into! I didn’t raise you to be some kind
of JPop singing, v sign making, bug eyed, childish… ANIME FREAK!”
“I thought I was
solid once, until I met you.”
“You were my blue
eyes white dragon.”
“I may not know
what happened to you, and I may have the will they, won’t theys for you but
none of that matters now.”
“You’re as alone as
Shinji at The End of Evangelion. My God, you couldn’t even keep your partner
around and now you’ll never see him again!”
“Joe…”
“Joe…!”
“JOE!!”
“JOE!!”
She awoke screaming a
name, reaching her hand out, only to grab onto thin air.
“Joe…”
But no matter how much
she called out to him, no matter how much she screamed, no matter how much she
wanted him there… he would not come to her.
“Joe…”
She croaked his name
again, her voice feeble as tears rolled down her cheeks.
“Joe… Joe… Joe…”
She could take it no
more. She sobbed in anguish into the bed, allowing her tears to stain the
sheets. She recalled the last moment when they saw each other. When he held a gun
to her head, when he had truly given up on Neo Otaku City and all that it stood
for.
Joe, who was such a
staunch Otaku that he doubted her credibility when they first met. Joe, who
loved his Gundams. Joe, who was often seen with marble soda and pocky. Joe, who
could quote Dragonball Z and Sword Art Online like the back of his hand… said
that anime was a mistake.
The first person in
this city to see her for who she was, the person with whom she laughed, cried,
fought alongside. The person who saved her from being sent to the shadow realm,
the person who gave her a reason to keep the fight for anime alive… had tried
to kill her.
But she was still
alive.
She was still alive,
but as her vision cleared up, she noticed that there was a bandage on her
shoulder. She winced at the pain when she tried to lift her arm. Either Joe had
missed, which would have been likely as he was to be honest, quite a poor shot.
Or… he had resisted her mother’s control, and spared her on purpose.
But wait… where was
she?
She looked around. She
knew these sheets, light pink with frills. The wallpaper, the same shade. The
desk in the corner, neatly lined with books. The white bookcase, the pink
armchair, the TV on the left side wall.
This was her room.
She forgot how little
say she had in her life as a child. Everything down to the colour of the walls
was decided by her mother. She felt anger in her heart when she remembered her
childhood. How trapped she was, how she was treated as little more than a clone
of her mother-
Her mother.
It had dawned on her
what happened when she heard the door open. And sure enough she appeared with a
glass of water and spaghetti in a tray.
“There, there, Diesel.
Relax…”
Her mother had never
served her dinner in bed, even when she was sick. She knew that something was
gravely wrong.
“…what have you done
to Joe?” She asked, her voice echoing in the quiet room. Her mother just
sighed, put the food on the bedside table, and placed a hand on her shoulder.
“Dear… please. Try to
understand-“
She could take it no
more. She wrenched herself from her mother’s grip and grabbed the collar of her
blouse.
“WHAT DID YOU DO TO
HIM?!”
She screamed at the
top of her lungs, and shook as her eyes grew misty with tears. At that moment,
she wasn’t the hardened detective Diesel. She was just an ordinary person wracked
with frustration and grief. She was just a woman who had lost the man she-
“Oh Diesel…”
She felt her mother
pulling her close. She continued to sob, only thinking of the pain she felt
then and there.
“…you loved him, didn’t
you?”
Her eyes flew open. To
be honest, she didn’t quite know. Love may have been too strong a word, but
earlier it was the first one that came to her head. So, was it the case? What
she felt for Joe… was it love?
“Every mother dreads
when this day will come, you know. The day when her daughter meets the wrong
sort of man, when that man breaks her heart. When she can do nothing but watch
her cry her eyes out and think to herself ‘I told you so.’”
She felt her hand
stroking her hair. She rolled her eyes. Of course, even when trying to console
her, she had to slip in some way to make herself look right. Her mother was trying
to break her defenses to bring her to her side. Much like Medusa from Soul
Eater, Lusamine from Pokemon, or Ragyo from Kill la Kill… or wait. Not like the
latter. She felt the bile rise to her throat with that last comparison. Even
her mother would never stoop that low, their bathtub wasn’t big enough to fit
two people anyway.
“I had him
investigated. He was already turning his back on anime, long before he even met
you. He was growing sick of all the absurdity, the over the top fight scenes,
the zaniness. It’s all too much for any person to deal with, it makes them go
crazy.”
It was the frigid
normality of Prestige TV City that drove Diesel crazy. It was their
close-mindedness that drove her crazy. It was her parents’ obsession with having
a Prestige TV Princess instead of supporting their daughter unconditionally
that drove her crazy. Anime was the only thing still keeping her sane.
“And then he met you.
You were so innocent. You thought that you’d be among your kind of people when
you left. You were ready to lead him here, to real TV, just like that. You left
yourself open for him, and he took the bait.”
“N-no… Joe wouldn’t…
that’s a lie!” She gritted her teeth, stuttering as she sniffled.
“I know, I know. It’s
going to take some time to accept. I tried to warn you, dear. Neo Otaku City is
a horrible, horrible place. You went through so much since you left home. So
much sadness, so much pain.”
She finally let go of
her, and looked directly into her eyes as she cupped her cheeks with her hands.
“Don’t worry. Mommy’s
here. Mommy will make the pain go away. It’s not too late. You can come back
and we’ll welcome you with open arms like you never even left in the first
place.”
Another lie. A lie on
top of a lie. And if her mother had even bothered to see an anime in her life,
she’d know that she was using every manipulative villain tactic in existence.
“…you never accepted
me. Dad never accepted me. Nobody in this city accepted me. Why should I come
back?”
“And you think Joe
accepted you? You think anyone in that hellhole of a city ever did? Don’t lie
to yourself. We do love you and accept you, we always have. That’s why we have
the sense to know when you’re on the wrong path, we know what’s best for you.”
She knew that a battle
of words would go nowhere at that moment. Her mother was not going to back
down. She had to bide her time. She decided to go back to the tactics of her
childhood. Nod, smile, and take care of business when her mother wasn’t
looking.
“…you really do know
what’s best for me?”
“Of course. I’ve never
been wrong after all.”
“…and you think that
Joe never loved me?”
“I don’t think, I
know. You’re better off without him. There will be others. Other normal, adult,
non-Otaku men in this city who’d be lining up at the chance to be with you.”
A prospect she dreaded
more than anything else, but she held her tongue.
“I’ll think about it,
what you have to say. And… you were right, about Joe. He wasn’t a genuine man,
he was a liar.”
“Exactly. Now eat and
rest up. Tomorrow we’ll watch The Walking Dead together, it’ll be just like old
times.”
She watched unblinking
as her mother walked out of the room and closed the door. As she slurped the
spaghetti in her bowl, she began thinking up an escape plan. Firstly she had to
get that hardrive back, it had to have been in her mother’s possession. Then
she had to find some way to destroy the fibre connection limiter without her
mother’s knowledge. And then she had to find Joe, and bring him back to his
senses.
She thought back to love
being the first thing that came to her head when she thought of him. If she
confessed to him… would he return it? Would this love turn her into a shrill
damsel screaming for him to save her, like Miaka in Fushigi Yuugi? Or would it make
her stronger than ever before, like it did for Yona from Yona of the Dawn?
Until the day she knew
the answer, until the day they reunited, she had to keep fighting. She had to
find a way to stop TOXIC. She had to hold in her heart Mama Sasuke’s dying
words…
That anime was for
everybody.
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