#tcwg

she makes a comment at one point about mirror-eyed page tab toads and how its been so hard to get them from side quest commissions because they only come out on wednesdays between 5:40pm-7:20pm right after a rainstorm. and lime just snorts and goes "Looks like you'll just have to settle for the ordinary poisonous toads like everyone else" dismissively.

but on his way home from practice one day it is indeed a wednesday after a rainstorm, and its 6:12pm, and he sees an odd-looking toad by the baseball field fence. And he just stares at it for a long ass time debating if he should. he stares so long that it starts to jump away and he scrambles after it

the next day he just goes up to her desk. stands there ominously over her. "Hey." and says nothing else. when she looks up he holds his hand out and reveals the frog. and she makes the mochi-shiny-eyed gasp face and jumps to her feet. "You were looking for one of these right?"

she gets so excited and bubbly about it. its the first time hes seen her so happy, usually shes in that gentle stoic non-attention-drawing state, or fighting, or worried. but for the first time, he sees her all happy and excited and grateful, and that happiness and excitement is aimed at him. without even realizing what hes doing hes following her to go make it a little jar-habitat to live in for the day, and listening to her yap about its cool little properties and the stuff she can do with it. and she thanks him and excitedly grabs his arm and shakes him multiple times. bobbing in her seat. her eyes are shining and shes constantly smiling. there is a shocking absence of snarky comments from him.

this is something ive always thought about in the back of my mind but never really have been able to conceptualize and address other than "this is where the story starts so this is where people come in" and make excuses for it, but there was always that "Why now?" "How come coco latches onto mochi now suddenly?" "How come oscar suddenly can 'see' her as well?" "What makes this special that the mob spell doesnt affect them?"

but under the My Rival Is The Main Character framework, it makes much more sense. Lime joins the guild under the (admittedly silly in retrospect) condition that mochi stops using magic at school and works honestly for once. this includes getting rid of the mob spell that is on her. the Mob Spell makes someone into a "mob character"--a background npc that no one pays attention to and they just blend into the crowd. No one cares, you can do whatever you want essentially and nobody would notice, hence why she was able to cheat on tests, skip classes, etc without anyone raising an eyebrow.

honor is a huge thing for witches. If mochi swears she will do something, she will do it. If Lime says "I'll join your guild and keep your secret if you get rid of that mod spell lying bullshit" then she will get rid of that mob spell lying bullshit.

this means that suddenly, she is a "character" at school. people take notice. ESPECIALLY NOW THAT SHES HANGING OUT WITH LIME MORE!!!!!!!!!!! this is how girls in the school start whispering, pointing, going "What, are they going out??" and "Does she think shes special or something, getting to hang out with him??" and you get scenes like in the OG TCWG webtoon where they glue her locker shut and, because she swore she wouldn't magic her way out of things in school (as if she could, without the mob spell), she stands there struggling while the girls behind her giggle, until lime comes up and rips the door open so hard it partly comes off its hinges.

side note: indeed she is hanging out with lime more. shes not sure if its the whole guild joining thing or if hes intent on making sure she'll fullfil her end of the deal, but he would come up and take the seat next to her, eat with her at lunch, etc. eventually she thinks its okay to go and seek him out too. she waits for him by the lockers to go home together. starts hanging out on the bleachers at his baseball practices. hes like "What are you hanging out here for?" with a comicly suspicious look and she goes "I was working on spells so I thought this would be a good place since no one is really around" and during breaks in practice, he goes to sit with her while she asks him insane questions ("If you had to lose an ear or a nostril, which would you choose?" in a tone too conversational. lime just goes "Are we talking loss of function or complete loss?" and it turns into an actual conversation.)

anyway, back to the thing about coco and oscar. Since mochi no longer has the mob spell, coco is actually able to latch on during their first interaction. this scenario is unchanged: coco is late and gets lost on her first day, mochi gives her directions while on the way to class, coco just goes "Okay you seem chill" and decides to befriend this random girl. this still all happens while lime is sick, so hes not there to scare coco off. mochi thinks its an odd feeling to be "making friends" and is cautiously suspicius of coco for a while. over time coco does enough dumb shit where mochi starts to trust her.

oscar still comes in as a new student as well, who was friends with lime in elementary school/first year of middle school before moving away. last he remembers, lime didnt like mochi, so hes still surprised to find out they are now friends. lime winces at "friends" and makes a look like someone was skimpy with the french fries, or like he bit into a piece of undercooked chicken. oscar, much quicker than he shouldve, starts suspecting something is off with mochi (due to his conspiracy theory uncle) and begins his silent mission of uncovering what she is. this also makes more sense as oscar doesnt have any kind of notable magic resistance, but without the mob spell there, there's nothing barring him from finding everything out very quickly (hes very clever)

also a good catalyst for putting things in motion in general. the nonsense magical adventures that come about just from other members of the magic community being able to sense a powerful witch nearby. taffy getting involved. amanita becoming active. etc

ALSO a really good developmental tool, as now that mochi can be 'seen' she starts getting a bit of romantic attention after a while. random boys in school going "I never really noticed, but shes pretty cute". The pitcher for the rival school's baseball team is getting a crush on her. lime getting this tinge of irritation whenever guys start approaching her too much. "You're not special by the way, don't get cocky," he mocks her again with a smirk, but he can tell that it does actually make her feel a bit special to get that kind of attention, which she's never had before. He feels absolutely sick. He reasons that the feeling of the sickness is that she doesn't deserve the attention (obviously, after lying to everyone for years), and they don't even know the real her. Certainly not anything else besides that.