#I probably will complete the entire character roster at this point

[teamzacian]

Back by not-so-popular demand….

[jooniperbonsai]

I'll Give You the Sun (jhs) | Teaser

Pairing: SunDeity!Hoseok x MoonDeity!Reader (afab)

Rating: 18+

Teaser Length: 1662

Part One Length: 10.6k

Release Date: Fri, April 18, 2024

Genre: Smut, fluff, angst, fantasy au, royalty, mythology

Summary: Fated to fulfill an ancient prophecy claiming he will ascend into a curse-breaking hero on the day of his kingdom's first total solar eclipse, Hoseok is jaded and cynical over his lack of choice in becoming the king and god of the Solar Kingdom. He's even less pleased that his coronation is to be shared with the future king of the Lunar Kingdom, whose clear obsession with power is already a sign of trouble ahead.

But when the moon fully overtakes the sun and bathes everything in darkness, the ascension of gods and kings doesn't seem to be all that the fates prophesied. With you now coming out of the shadows to claim your rightful title, the pressure is on for the two of you to break this curse together, before it completely destroys your two kingdoms.

Warnings for Part One: Swearing, physical aggression, low self-esteem, implied emotional and physical abuse, dirty talk, grinding/thigh riding, dom! hoseok already making himself known

a/n: I am so so so excited for this series. I had considered initially making it just a super long one-shot, but as this story builds, the characters have come alive for me in a way I didn't expect. I will of course be continuing Thanks for the Sub, but you can happily add this one to your roster.

I am obsessed with Sun Deity/God?Royalty Hobi as a concept. I remember when I read "fermata" by @yeoldontknow for the first time and I was ENAMORED with the world and way Hoseok existed in it. The prose was so poetically written, and I modeled a lot of my process after what I remember reading. Honestly, I would highly recommend this one if you haven't read it already.

This fic has been one in the making for years, but it really just took that extra push of the eclipse to bring it to life. I'm not sure how long it'll be in terms of parts, but I am loving the ride I'm on with it. Now that I'm back from Korea, it's safe to say that you can expect more writing from me this spring and summer.

thank you for your support. -h

He can hear her shuffling down the hall. His mother. No doubt draped in the silky, long golden cape that shines as she passes by every sunny window. He doesn’t need to look at her to know that she’s wearing it. That, or her crown, pointed at all sides in honor of the many ancestral deities who have served the stars before, whose power and strength created the very particles of the universe. He also doesn’t need to look to know she’s heading directly toward his chamber, seeking Hoseok out. 

He knows she is, because he was supposed to be in the Great Hall an hour ago to go over his coronation and is instead sitting out on his balcony, looking up at the moon high in the sky despite it being one in the afternoon.

“Hoseok,” his mother echos from his doorway, breathless and exasperated. 

“I know,” he calls back. He knows he’s due for a lecture, but because his mother is impatient, because the entire palace and kingdom and evidently the entire fucking universe is impatient for their prince to become a king, and with that title, a god, there’s no time for a lecture. 

He takes one last look up at the sky, the pebbled moon inching ever closer, and scowls before retreating back indoors.

If Hoseok had things his way, he would seek out whichever god before him who uttered his prophecy to ascend to the throne and burn him with all the power of the Sun he is so called the god of. Apollo, Ra, Helios, Tsohanoai, Sol, Tai Yang Xing Jun, whoever it was who caused this, who murmured his message before the fates, he is probably laughing at Hoseok as his mother clucks at him and pinches away invisible specks of lint from his pristine suit. 

“Your father wants to see you before we begin.”

“I thought the party was already under way,” he mutters, his mother cocking an eyebrow at him. 

“It is, which I now take it you are staunchly avoiding instead of simply losing track of time like I was prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt for.” 

“Eomma, you know I don’t want to do this. I have told you so for years. I don’t want to be king. I don’t want to be a god.”

“Yes, but the fates decided it so. They chose you over your sister, and this means whether there’s a party or not, it’s going to happen. You might as well enjoy the food and music and make the best of it.” With a sigh, she adjusts the heady gilded crown pinned to her head and strolls out of Hoseok’s chamber, leaving behind the faint note of her jasmine perfume.

Hoseok knows he can’t hide here forever. He knows that once the total eclipse occurs in a matter of hours, he will be thrust into a life of duty. And not soon after he ascends, he also knows that he will be expected to begin courting someone. That is another matter entirely, one he is not going to even entertain today.

He’s not opposed to marriage or courting, not in the slightest. His elder sister married a few years ago, a marriage that gives structure and stability. Her husband clearly loves her, and Hoseok enjoys when he sees his brother-in-law when they visit during the summer months, when the days stretch into nights and for a little while, the state of things feels less cursed and oppressive. 

They often have long, decadent dinners in the back garden, surrounded by the low hum of the bees as they move from sunflower to sunflower (his mother’s favorite). The summer months are coming, which means soon Hoseok will feel a little bit more like himself. Why wouldn’t he want to spend time with someone, to enjoy strawberries straight from the garden and walk along the river with the one he courts? 

All of these things are exactly what he wants. 

Or he used to, anyway. He glances at the mirror above his vanity, his black hair already losing some of its hold despite only being styled a handful of hours ago. Normally, it doesn’t do that. Normally, once set into place, he appears as the precise and put-together person in the room. 

But today, he realizes, is not normal. 

In his lifetime, there has never been a total solar eclipse over his kingdom. Which is why in many ways, today is the beginning of the end, as today he will fulfill his destiny within the prophecy:

On the Eve of day, the day of night,

when the moon fully captures the sun’s light

over the House of the ones who worship the rays, 

will an alliance occur that pleases the fates:

Two kingdoms will gain what they most need

after long years of suffering from past gods’ greed.

From the cliffs off the shore where the sky hangs low, 

will come the fated one crowned with a moonlit halo.

And from the flowering valleys where the rolling hills run, 

will come the destined one crowned with the beams of the sun. 

The shadows shattering during the fifteenth hour

shall bestow these two souls with ultimate power.

The moon stepping forward with nothing to hide

is burdened not by the sin of pride

nor the sun is he plagued by the darkness above, 

but balanced with allegiance, passion, and love.

United these two the fates will regard

with the highest of honor among the stars. 

What was once divided now becomes one, 

with the all sacred moon and almighty sun. 

And together these two blessed by the heavens’ ring, 

will end the curse of the promised false king.

He can recite the entire thing by heart. It is a prophecy that echoes in his oldest memories, ones when he could scarcely understand the phrases coded within, but recognized the cadence of over time as it swirled into words he one day understood. It was read on his tenth birthday as he watched the red wax of his “10” candle slide down the pillar and onto the buttercream frosting of his cake, the red upon white almost looking like blood. It was read at weddings, graduations, all a reminder of the great hope that is to come. 

Even then he knew it to be less of its intended blessing and more of a curse dooming him to follow its guidelines, to be “balanced with allegiance, passion, and love”. Hoseok doesn’t deny that these are traits he has, but he isn’t entirely sure if these are traits he was destined to have, or if through the power of suggestion and pressure over the years, he has become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

He looks back in the mirror, scooping a curl off of his face, memorizing the rich brown of his eyes, the even slant of his nose. He knows his ascension isn’t technically supposed to change him, at least not in the ways that are noticeable. All of the royal advisors and lesser gods on the council have assured him, reassured him, and if it’s even possible, over-assured him as such. 

Even his parents have dipped their toes into the conversation, despite always and forevermore being mortal.

It’s not like you’re going to sprout a second head and start devouring the souls of mortals. You are just going to feel different. More powerful. Rightly so. You will be. 

And that’s what concerns him. Not the sprouting of another head or bloodthirst. 

How can things still be the same–how can he still be the same–if he is about to be given power? Not just any power either. This is enough power to end the long-standing drought that wiped out the southeast corner of the Solar Kingdom. A drought so severe that the only thing left in that part of the kingdom is abandoned homes and stories from the Elder gods that prove it was once a vivid place full of diverse life, with lush flora that bore plump, juicy fruits, art, and culture. 

The Elder gods have been around for, well, no one quite knows how long, including them. When asked, they often click their tongue, sipping whatever sparkly alcoholic concoction that fancies them that day before dismissing the curious soul who asks. After a while, time just rolls itself together. You mortals are so obsessed with it. Relax, take it all in. Hundreds, even thousands of years may have passed, but still we eat and drink and dance. 

And from all that eating and drinking and dancing came the many stories about the parts of the kingdom that Hoseok had never heard of, and some he is still sure don’t really exist. How on this planet were there once waterfalls that fell up instead of down, or vines that could bear grapes the size of his head? Over time, he has learned to take what the Elder gods say at face value; they are bored and ancient and looking for something to entertain them. The only reason he knows the southeast corner once had any of these things is because of the ruins. 

When he was young, he was taken there by the royal council and his parents to help him understand the weight of his place in all this, how crucial it was that he rise and grow to end the drought that forced thousands to become displaced and desperate. How better was he to understand the importance of the power he would one day be given than to see how selfishly wielding it only resulted in strife and suffering for all?

The drought is expanding, leeching more from his kingdom by the year. By his twenty ninth birthday, the Great Forest of Solaria, a region two hours south of the capital, known for its tall redwoods and cypresses, has had three sizable forest fires, forcing its people, including Hoseok’s best friend Namjoon, to flee north. Namjoon and his family have been living in the palace for almost a full year. 

But because of this curse, this reign of the nefarious king Mang Shin, who tore down Hoseok’s people and the land around it for his own selfish gain, because of his cruelty that angered the fates, the Solar Kingdom has been managing a worsening drought. How much longer before the capital city can no longer sustain any of its people, when it is no longer a refuge?

His kingdom is not the only one impacted by the cruelty of Mang Shin. The Lunar Kingdom to the northwest is half underwater after high tides that led to flooding. While the capital city of the Solar Kingdom has not directly suffered from the curse of Mang Shin, the Lunar Kingdom’s capital city has not been so lucky. 

A month ago, a large tidal wave capsized the northern end of the city, drowning thousands and destroying a major sea port that was essential to the booming trade industry of the north. From the rumors Hoseok heard, the crown prince was set to be in the district that morning on official business, but was running behind after spending a night out drinking and occupying the brothels in the southern corridor. He would have been washed away in the sea if he were on time. 

Which means all this, all that Hoseok has been procrastinating on attending, has stopped seven times in the short hallway over, would have been for nothing. There would be no end to this curse, only the slow suffering of his actual fate. 

No. The crown prince is in the Great Hall waiting for Hoseok to get his shit together and help restore balance to both kingdoms. A dual coronation. Two princes to become kings of their own kingdoms. The Lunar Kingdom exists as the Solar Kingdom exists. Both need each other now to ensure the longevity of the other. There’s no other destiny than this. 

He pauses in front of the door to his father’s study, grazes his knuckles against the wood of the door. He sighs. 

You have to do this. There’s no other way. 

And just as he thinks to turn, to run, to flee his home and this kingdom and go everywhere and nowhere all at once, the door to his father’s study opens. 

He expects to see the firm set frown of his father, to be given his final lecture and coronet before his father abdicates and Hoseok is the owner of the hefty, ornate crown he has come to despise.

He is not expecting to hear a soft feminine gasp that is very different to the sounds his father makes. Nor is he expecting to see you staring right back at him.

©2024 by jooniperbonsai

[indominusavenger]

I'm gonna come out and say it; No Way Home sucked. Sure, it had some good moments but in my opinion, it does not live up to the first two instalments of the trilogy. I liked the first part of the movie but as soon as I knew where the second part was going, I fell off that train pretty quickly.

Not only did it make MCU Spidey end up with the same tale as his two predecessors but it also undoes Peter's entire establishment in Marvel's overall franchise. What was the point of the last four movies putting him on the roster with Earth's MIGHTIEST Heroes if you were just going take all that away and make it like he exists in a completely separate world from them? What was the point of the three cameos we had from RDJ, Samuel L. Jackson, and Benedict Cumberbatch in their iconic roles to show that interconnected universe as with every other MCU movie, only for that to be stripped away at the very last second? Might as well have been another one of Sony's solo ventures at making a series after TASM but it's not and that's why I HATE the uncertainty of Peter Parker's future in the MCU. However, given the current failing reality of the MCU with every new movie that comes out, I can already confirm it's nothing good. In fact, it probably would be best if progress stops altogether before Marvel really is stuck in the dust and just a part of a magnificent past with no legacy to carry on. (This is a side note but that is still a big issue for me anyways that I may expand upon later in another post. In the meantime, go watch all the video essays on YouTube, I'm sure you'll find many good ones.)

He had a unique story that fit into the overarching plot of the MCU and the premise he had was different from the previous Spideys which is what was so interesting about his character development. This Peter Parker had friends that weren't introduced before, or at least, they were more developed than in other series; he had a superhero as a mentor, not a scientist turned villain due to unfortunate circumstances; he had a guy in the chair who wasn't after him or turned villain because his father was one, he had two crushes that were friends, he was part of clubs and acted more teenage-like than the last two. He interacts with other heroes, joins the Avengers, fights THE villain, perishes, comes back, loses his mentor, and is still expected to keep on going.

For crying out loud, he was asked if he was going to be the next Iron Man but he knew he wasn't which is what Far From Home set out to show us. And to all those who called him Iron Man Jr. in Homecoming, I hope you know that you make no sense and I think Marvel did a wonderful job making him stand apart. He was a kid admiring one of his role models and now that he actually had a connection to him, of course he was going to want to be like his mentor but even Tony recognized that he wanted him to be more, not like him. This shows Iron Man himself had great respect for the young hero.

Now, moving onto No Way Home, two main things that annoy the heck out of me; Peter being forgotten (obviously) and Aunt May dying. I'll start with Aunt May's death. To be honest, it was a completely unnecessary death and it actually doesn't make sense for the purpose it had in the movie. The punchline "With great power comes great responsibility." loses its premise as soon as you recall Civil War's intro to Peter in the first place. Uncle Ben had already died, Peter was Spider-Man at this point, and remember what Peter told Tony when they met, why the older hero related to him so much? "When you can do the things that I can, but you don't... and then the bad things happen... they happen because of you." So he already learned that lesson on responsibility and by the time we get to No Way Home, this kid had learned lessons also involving the universe at large. Why are we rehashing Uncle Ben's offscreen death with Aunt May if Marvel literally stated that was overdone? Make that make sense. But oh, it was to make something big and dramatic happen in the movie because we needed to mOve aLoNg. Peter lost his parents, his uncle, and mentor; can you come up with something new other than parental figure losses? Why do TASM Peter and OG Peter still have their Aunt Mays and even if it was just a deleted scene, technically TASM Peter's dad? Huh, then what do you say there? Why did MCU Peter Parker have to lose ALL his parental figures?

Finally, the thing that probably broke most of us; Peter being wiped from everyone's memory. As I stated earlier, his entire existence within the MCU just vanishes, like that, in seconds. So......... what was the point of his existence up till now in the MCU? What was the point of his specific development and growth if he was just going to get forgotten? Why was he meticulously introduced at the height of the Avengers' conflict and then constantly involved with some other MCU hero/important character if he was going to be removed from that? If the Avengers were never a big deal, why make him a part of that at all and why were we still bringing them up at the climax of the film? For those who bring up the argument that he's supposed to be a solitary hero, well that was the worst way to have introduced him then, right? But Marvel chose that route, not any other. Which is why that decision still makes no sense to me. You put him in a world where he wasn't the only superhero and he was going to interact with other heroes which none of the other Spider-Men had and that already put him in a unique position. Why give him a background that was going to get swiped?

Imagine that, making five blockbuster films that gave him a firm standing in the MCU at the peak of Phase 3 and then in his sixth film, his last standalone which is supposed to be his most shining moment, he gets the rug pulled out from underneath him to give him a blank slate? You might as well have thrown every script out from 2015 to 2019 including him before they were ever written or considered. It's the equivalent of undoing everything you just worked on in a school project that's worth 40% of your final grade. Think about that for a second. Marvel just undid 6 years of work and investment in a single character for them to go back to the beginning. Why didn't you just do that then from the start? You could have had more classic Spidey a long time ago by that train of thought (which I really didn't want because we already saw that twice and this Spidey was something fresh).

Anyways, thanks for reading. This is 2 years worth of disappointment and frustration put on the page.

[maxwell-grant]

What did you think of Mortal Kombat X, and the new characters introduced there?

Never really played it compared to it's predecessor and successor, came out at a time where I had kinda fallen out of keeping up with MK. I did go back to catch up more to it and watch the entire Story Mode and all but, just never really did much for me. I barely even play Mortal Kombat as is and I completely forget this even had a big Story Mode, even now I couldn't tell you anything that happens in it besides Johnny Cage getting tortured by bees and later beating Shinnok, and the D'Vorah parts, because D'Vorah rules obviously.

Still, I like the Variation system, at the time I thought it was a really cool idea and I enjoyed trying these out the few times I played the game. Custom movesets and special variants are allright but I liked the idea of every character having between 3 optional movesets and playstyles to choose from. I also like some of the choices the took with the characters here (what they did with Mileena's teeth was total cowardice though, frankly way worse than killing her off right as they're taking her character somewhere interesting). I definitely appreciate their commitment to creating lots of new characters instead of immediately padding out the roster with the 3D era revamps of has-beens and never-weres

Really it's just the characters I have thoughts on when it comes to these so let's get to them (won't be using any images of them in X and instead just talking about them in general, man was everybody ugly in X now that I'm looking back on it)

Cassie Cage: ...you know what, she grew on me a bit in MK11. She is pretty much the Mortal Kombat version of Luke and I hated her for most of the same reasons but, 11 had her take the backseat a little and patched up some things and generally made her funny and occasionally cool enough, with some fairly good Fatalities, that she grew on me. I like her better than Sonya, which isn't a lot but it's something.

Jacqui Briggs: Pretty cool, I like her the most out of the new heroes and she got the mother of all glow-ups in 11. I like the contrast between her and Jax and how her moves and gameplay are very different from Jax while also having basically the same powers. I like that she's a kickboxer and that she has no innate magic abilities and instead gets by on enhanced gauntlets and tech, makes it feel like she's always at a lot more risk than the other fighters. I really wish she had more of an identity besides Jax, Jax is great but they overplay it to the point I think it drags her down a bit. Still, easily the best of the new heroes.

Takeda and Kung Jin: They're allright, cool weapons, you could do worse for the first confirmed gay character in Mortal Kombat, but I completely forget these guys exist most of the time, I have their profiles in hand right now and still couldn't tell you much of anything about him. Idk man most of MKX is just a memory hole for me and these guys weren't anywhere close to the most interesting things about it.

Triborg: Not a character so much as an excuse to feature all the cyborg ninjas without having to cram them into a narrative role, and fine, there could be worse ways to go on about it, the cyborg ninjas are a staple of the series with individually fun playstyles, so putting them all together via the Variation system is a practical and good solution. Only really bummer for me is that I like Cyrax as a character quite a bit and would have like for him to stay around, but I get it.

Ferra/Torr: Vaguely uncomfortable? Really don't care much for when Mortal Kombat flirts with fantasy race worldbuilding and I hope Ferra's not supposed to be like, an actual pygmy, we're probably only gonna get clarification when she shows up in MK1. I feel like they could have used an extra turn on the drawing board before being put in game but putting these aside though, pretty allright, borrowing from Mad Max freakshows feels like a no-brainer for MK and they're a fairly novel idea for a fighting game two-in-one character.

Kotal Kahn: Kotal's pretty great. He's the heart ripper to end all heart rippers a killer design and silhouette, he's got some pretty cool ideas for special moves, he is a fairly great fighting game character design. He's used to glue plenty of separate storyline threads together and he's a very solid midcard character, in that he can and frequently does job to just about anyone but can still get individually cool moments like his takedown of Goro and amazing Fatalities enough to justify him being enough of a threat in-universe to be Emperor. He is fairly novel in being The Next Emperor of Outworld who isn't a wholly evil bastard like Shao, even if he is very much kind of a bastard a lot of the time. Phil Lamarr's excellent voice work does most of the heavy lifting in making him seem a lot more cool and honorable than he actually is.

He isn't really "noble" so much as he's just regal in a cool way, and humble and honorable enough to not be at cross-purposes with the protagonists most of the time or at least own up to his mistakes, and having that bare minimum of decency is enough to make even a murderous heart-eating violent warlord who executes and enslaves people for petty thievery comparatively a great guy next to the ones that came before him, the guy who relinquishes the throne to Kitana as someone who was far better than Shao Kahn, but not good enough to properly heal Outworld from Shao. His romance with Jade is pretty allright as well.

Erron Black: I'm frankly shocked that it took Mortal Kombat that long to add a Cowboy to the roster, seriously you'd think that archetype would have shown up in the wacky MK3 years or something. Erron's pretty great and I feel like his appeal is fairly self-explanatory and everybody's more or less on the same page that he's great, so I don't have as much to say on him. They get a lot of mileage out of him as a wildcard mercenary dirtbag, who is just different enough from Kano and Kabal and the lesser variants of those two that popped up over the years that he works in storylines with, and against them. Obviously his named bullet X-Ray is the sickest shit and they do a surprisingly amount of cool stuff for his moveset, I love that he's a total scavenger and it shows in his specials. Also love his voice work, love how mysterious they keep his background.

Gunslingers tend to get a bad rep in fighting games because of how cheap their options can be, but frankly I think gunslingers nearly always tend to make for cool characters because of how much they have to be designed around game design limitations and having to give them movesets besides The Schut. Erron's easily the most iconic of the new characters and I think he's the only one who's more or less guaranteed to keep showing up, I'd be surprised if they didn't add him to MK1.

D'Vorah: People have no taste whatsoever, D'Vorah fucking rules completely. If I'll give NRS one thing, is them not capitulating to fan outcry and diminishing her in 11. The fandom went nuts over her killing Mileena in X, and so for the sequel, they let her get away with taunting Shao Kahn to his face about killing his daughter and then killing fucking Scorpion, absolute queen shit.

Women characters designed to look cool and fearsome over looking attractive are already goddamn unicorns in videogame/fighting game economy, and designed to look unapologetically monstrous and unsympathetic and horrifying, let alone all of these in one and more, are much rarer still. But disgusting? A rotting parasitic baby-eating scavenger with flaky, cracked open exoskeleton skin, filthy rags, appendages and spikes everywhere leaking gooey poison, whose belly tears open for her to caress giant maggots before the fight? I don't think any other major fighting game franchise would pull off D'Vorah's design the way they did. She only looks like a naked yellow alien lady from a split-second distance before you actually look at what's going on there, and that dissonance makes her work even better than if she was a shapeless or purely-insectoid monster. She looks just close enough to all the other bikini-clad women that it makes what she actually is and does stand out more.

It's not even like D'Vorah is that much new ground for the series besides her design, because for the most part she is just one among many backstabbing sadists with agendas looking to get a leg up by throwing their lot with the villains (that was basically Mileena's role for the longest time, which is why D'Vorah has to one-up her in grossness and kill her), it's just that unlike Mileena and most of the others, D'Vorah actually gets to follow through with backstabbing fuckers and playing them for chumps instead of getting trampled in the sidelines (and she is beatable, yes, but she's very good at last-minute dirty tricks with bug swarms and poison and scurrying away). She is every bit as much of a disgusting dirtbag heel as Kano tuned in a completely opposite direction from Kano's funnyman sellout antics, driven by a fierce blood loyalty to the hive that she embodies alone and far more capable of killing you than you ever would be towards her

I think D'Vorah is easily best female character design in the series, she's one of the finest heels in fighting games, her Fatalities are some of the best in the series, she is beauty she is grace and her maggots will melt your face, in 11 she's got the cutest voice ever, and I think she should get to kill and feed to her bugs as many of your beloved characters as she wants to. As a treat for her and her babies.

[theizzifromosaka]

Here it is! I'm starting my review series of Monster Girl media, and for the first entry, I'll be reviewing

Monster Musume: Everyday Life with Monster Girls

To be perfectly clear, this review will be foucsed on the Monster Girl aspect of this series. I'm not sure if my opinions on the actual show itself would be worth listening to, I'm not trying to sway anyone one way or another.

Monster Musume follows "Darling-Kun" as he adapts to life with a rapidly growing cast of Demihumans. They learn about Japanese culture, and he finds himself pressured to pursue a relationship with one.

Darling-kun, whose name I don't think we ever learn in the anime, is kind of a weird dude. Throughout the course of the series he sees a LOT of naked girls, and he NEVER gets used to them. Other than that he's mostly just one of those generic anime nice guys, though he's aware the girls like him, unlike most of his peers.

Moving on.

Miia the Lamia

The Classic

The most iconic and recognizable character from this seris, Miia is a Lamia (go figure) with a lot of affection for Darling. She gets jealous easily and can be very clingy but still manages to be one of the most reasonable girls in the roster. She tends to see every new girl as a rival for Darling's affection and at this point you've probably noticed her entire personality revolves around Darling. This is standard for all the girls in this series and any deviation from this is considered strange.

Lamia in Greek mythology was the queen of Libya who, as you do, had children with Zeus and incurred Hera's wrath. Hera killed her children and this drove Lamia to madness, she lived out her days eating children and became monstrous in appearance. The story of Lamia was kinda like the Greek version of the Boogeyman.

I always encourage doing your own research on these topics, and take anything I've said with a grain of salt.

I'll refrain from asking why an apparent reptile has breasts as I could ask that about most Monster Girls, but aside from that, why are her genitals at her waist? They should be at the end of her tail.

Papi the Harpy

God damn it.

Okay, so Papi's name comes from the Japanese pronunciation of Harpy (would be something like Haapi). She's a very childlike adult, which is apparently typical of Harpies. They don't completely physically mature so they're light enough to fly, and she's a "bird brain". She claims to see Darling as a big brother but seems to have no idea what that really means.

Harpies are also Greek, they were birds with features of human women. They were seen as undesirable, ugly and foul and yeah, all the boxes are checked here.

Okay, it's not fair to judge Papi on these terms. We ought to be judging the creator of the series here. Honestly if not for the constant sexualization I probably wouldn't mind her too much.

Centorea the Centaur

Double damn it.

She's one of them warrior women that acts all stoic "but hides the heart of a woman" or whatever. I don't care for her, and unlike with Papi, I think it's her fault this time. I don't like her character, and I don't like her design.

Centaurs, yet again, are Greek in origin. They're half horse half man and are named after Centaurus, the first Centaur. Pop culture depicts Centaurs as being a Warrior Race, probably stemming from Chiron, among the most famous Centaurs in Greek Mythology. It is speculated the image of a Centaur arose from people seeing horse mounted warriors and either misinterpreting what they saw or a Telephone Game effect eventually resulting in what we're familiar with today.

Her design is a perfectly passable Centaur besides her Serious Honkers. Her real set of Badonkers. She's packin some Dobonhonkeros. I'm sure you don't need me invoking a copypasta to tell you she looks ridiculous.

Suu the Slime

Oh baby a triple!

Another child coded character. Suu is a shapeshifter so she doesn't always resemble a child, but her mannerisms are harder to change. Throughout the course of the series she becomes more intelligent and capable, going from a shapeless blob to barely coherent to regularly speaking full sentences. Suu is like... THE Slime Girl too, the first case of the author coming up with a wholly original design.

I'm not actually sure if Suu is the first Slime Girl but her influence can't be ignored. Slime Monsters overall are a pretty recent thing, and hard to track the history of (by that I mean they don't have a Wikipedia article). Their origins can be traced back to many sources, including classic Monster Flick The Blob, the Gray Goo Global Catastrophic Scenario, Tabletop RPGs and Dragon Quest.

(in absence of a Wikipedia article)

Honestly Suu would be cute and endearing if she wasn't subject to so much fanservice. Her personality, as it develops, is very childlike, with no sense of tact and little in the way of a filter. In this case I think I'd prefer it if they made her MORE childlike, and I wouldn't mind one bit if she remained a shapeless blob the whole time.

Mero the Mermaid

it was Big! Scary! and PINK!

Mermaids in this universe romanticize tragedy, and that ends up being one of Mero's most defining features. She states outright to ease Miia's worries that she does not want to marry Darling, she just wants to be his mistress. She's very soft-spoken but occasionally says some weird things.

So Mermaids have a lot of history and multiple origins, ranging from Greek Sirens to misidentified Manatees to just disoriented pent-up sailors seeing a Thicc Fish. The story of The Little Mermaid is very influential, and the in universe reason given to why Merfolk romanticize tragedy so heavily.

Honestly Mero might be my favorite of the main cast, her taxonomy is vague, she states that her skin secretes mucus, she's got tiny little arms on her hips, and in the 11th episode she tries to drown Darling, which if you ask me makes her best girl by default. I lament that most of the time she just looks like a girl in a wheelchair, and I also have to mention the fin ears.

Rachnera the Arachne

Not so itsy-bitsy

Rachnera is perhaps one of the most fleshed out characters in the show, she has a backstory and is capable of a range of emotions. That said most of the time she's just horny. Her initial foster family greatly disliked her but tried to "put up" with her, and after an incident resulting in their daughter being injured they sold her to a shady man who wanted to sell her silk on the black market. She starts off not exactly fond of humans but in typical fashion a single interaction with the main character all but changes her opinion.

The Greek story of Arachne is about a woman who challenged the Gods and was turned into a spider by Athena. She won by the way, the moral of the story is the Gods are jerks I guess.

This girl is a mixed bag. On one hand she has motivations that don't involve the main character, but on the other hand she very quickly becomes a vessel for bondage fetish pandering. As for her design, I like her eyes, it's a bit overdone to represent spider eyes like this but that's for good reason. I also don't really like how if you erase her human parts you're left with kind of a dumb looking spider. Overall I'd rank her pretty low, but not the worst.

Lala the Dullahan

So no head?

Lala is only in the show for about one and a half episodes, plus gets some screentime in the OVAs. She's a Chuunibyou who claims herself to be Death and gives the rest of the cast quite the spook.

The Dullahan is from Irish mythology, originally referring to any headless spirit, but eventually invoking a Headless Horseman, said to use a human spine as a whip. The image of a Headless Horseman can actually be found in various parts of Europe, and even in the Americas thanks to The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, which is apparently where the Jack-O-Lantern head thing comes from.

This is probably gonna be a recurring point of friction throughout this review series but you can't just paint a girl blue and call her a monster. Given the monster she's supposed to represent in this case I suppose I can't fault them too much, but in my opinion painting her blue somehow makes the design feel MORE lazy. Other than that I could criticize her inaccurate scythe for not having grips but that seems to be an anime thing.

Overall I'd say this series has surprisingly competent worldbuilding, reason is given to why most of the infrastructure doesn't accommodate demihumans and, though shallow, the different cultural origins of the girls play a part in how they interact with Darling and each other. That said the girls' designs are all very safe and same-y, with the most out there design being Polt, a character that only shows up in one of the OVAs. If I had to pick a favorite from the main cast though, it would have to be Mero. Her little arms really sell her design for me, and her gimmick of wanting to live out a tragedy actually got a chuckle or two out of me.

Overall, would I recommend this series? It depends. If you're a fellow Monster Girl Connoisseur then the sheer influence of this series earns it a watch, and if you're the kind of person that enjoys a good hate watch, or if you like ecchi (no judging) then you could probably get some enjoyment out of it. Outside of those spheres, nah it's not worth it.

Next review:

[captainkurosolaire]

Judas Ceasar is my favourite of your crew.

It's endearing to hear that! Too difficult to explain with words alone, that anyone, ever taken an interest to stuff been working on throughout the years. But my gratitude is boundless. I cherish you forever. My devotion to create only heightens and exceeds itself the more, I delve into learning about the characters and flushing them out. As I go often putting them into settings and right now it's just an on-rail, roller-coaster.

For years now I've thought out and had so much vivid ideas of the world building and just how detailed, I wanted to go. At-first making Captain's crew was too daunting. But man, I've so much love and fondness in this community for the infinite inspiration of others who commit unbelievably into their works. I've got too many idol's in peers to name-off. My Roleplay partners, and those who brought per-established, all my RP partner's former or wherever, account for everything and Captain always been a character that was designed off other's reactions, he was molded to this point where finally he was worth enough to make his own story. And all the Tales people, everyone whose ever been apart of his life, none of that ever goes away. It's all going to be referenced, impacted, or mattered.

Totally makes you feel at home when you find an environment that's filled with your kindred-souls.

If my vitality could just be as equal to my passion, I would do much more. Praise and give so much too, I tried for so-long to overcome my limitations but that became unhealthy, so now from on and ever, I just have to be me. Whatever amount, I am. I'll throw something together and it'll be with all my heart or energy at that day or moment.

I've lot of stories in me, I can see the front-covers, images of them inside my head, I can explain the entire story now in one-word and eventually will come into fold. I've got ideas to make cultures, civilizations, just a lot of Isle's, relics, all sorts of stuff and make every Crewmate and NPC have some sort of evolution, character progression. All leading into a bigger cause.

Think anyone would say hardest part is to stay on the path to continuously write or dedication to your craft, you've sculpted the draft but not lined up and finished all the whistles.

Struggles exist for certain, not feeling your best. But when you really start loving, your own pieces, genuinely, even if goes unseen, the fact you can look-back at the aftermath someday and say; I put my energy in the world and that was, me moves mountains. For me, anymore I feel complete and infinite and I've got an internal sense of peace. Just creating and getting closer to a new story. Bringing it to life, alongside the many muses, I've got fills me with joy.

I'm excited almost to be at point in the story of just doing an abundance of revelations. Like having stories lined up in a stack of domino's and finally you get to push one to make all the other's fall into place and eventually it creates your true picture.

Treasure you though anon, sorry for putting so much into this post. Haven't had the energy to work on a side project or update things. Typically wake up do a story and I'm tapped. Trying to get my feet back to consistency.

Hopefully someday probably soon, I'll take a break throughout year and can work on making a Roster page, overhauling my blog and cleaning it, do proper tags. Make thing's way more user orientated for anyone interested, but also me. Since I like to reference a ton of stories in each new thing sometimes.

Thanks for the power.

[guilhem-png]

Housamo events from worst to best

Aight so I was bored and decided to rank all the « event quests » from Housamo, from worst to best. As I’m writing this, 31 of them have been translated so far, most recent one being “Seaside Fashionista”. So like, I guess here we go. It’s going to be a long post, folks.

#31 Raiders of the Lost Isle

Let’s get this out of the way: not a big fan of shotas. Makes me feel uncomfortable to be honest. So an event centered around one is unlikely to win my favor – but even without that, Raiders of the Lost Isle is strangely boring. It’s not that I have an issue with the premise (though I will say that adding another layer of amnesia to a protagonist that was already defined by amnesia may have been a bit much), but the execution is surprisingly bland. So little goes on in this mystery island! Tangaroa is the most boring daddy this game has ever presented to me, and Dagon’s expository evil dialogue nearly had me falling asleep. Not much to salvage here. The music kinda bangs tho

#30 Black Snow on the Hot Spring Mountains

This one’s a mess y’all. It’s so long, too. Did it really have to be nine parts long? Usually with these event quests, the beginning is a little boring, but when they get to the meat of the story (quite literally in some cases), it becomes a lot more interesting. For this one, it was the opposite. Zao’s introduction as a mountain enthusiast was pretty fun, but then as soon as he gives up on you to fulfill his “mountain healing ritual” or whatever it was, the story completely loses all sense of direction. It’s just the poor MC climbing mountain after mountain, meeting with so many characters who have absolutely nothing to do there, and being attacked by an infuriatingly large amount of wyverns. The part with Hogen and the Tengu school of sword fighting (what) felt like it was ripped out of a different story entirely. I genuinely don’t think the MC could have had a worst day if he tried. At least they allow you to be rude to Zao, for the sake of Catharsis. And no, Life Wonders, seing Kengo in a speedo doesn’t make up for the poor writing! I did like the part with Chernobog though – but I think his later appearances were better handled.

Also (last point of contention before I move on), for an event solely based on the beauty of the mountains, I feel like they should have maybe worked a little harder on the backgrounds. Zao being like “Look at this beautiful sight” once you reach the peak, and then it’s just… a blurry picture or an ugly 3D model. Not a good look.

#29 The Afterschool Hero and the Fantastic Boyfriends

Gosh, what is even going on in that one. The concept is really not dumb; they had all those backgrounds, characters and soundtracks from Fantastic Boyfriends, so might as well use ‘em. But the issue is they have too much of it – and they don’t seem to know what to do with it. I think this event is probably a lot more fun if you’ve actually played Fantastic Boyfriends, but it really doesn’t work well on its own. My main issue is with the plot in this one, though. It’s too generic. It’s actually the most generic medieval fantasy story I’ve ever witnessed, I believe. That part at the end when you end up inside the protag’s mind was very weird, but not in a bad way. I think that’s what I liked the most about this event. That, and Sol’s attack sprite, hehe.

#28 Lil' Salomon's Golden Week

That one’s not… bad, really. But it’s not super memorable either, and also really short. I mostly remember that one exchange between Motosumi and Marchosias, about what it takes to be a good dad. Or the part where Licht and Kuniyoshi become friends. Like, it’s pretty sweet, granted, but it doesn’t go really far. No new characters introduced either, no new sprites, it’s not a very exciting one overall.

#27 Battle of the Valentines

You might be surprised to see such a recent event ranked so low on the roster. I think the issue with that one is that they tried to forcefully cram in as many characters as they could – but they went a bit too far, and the event feels unnecessary crowded. McRoich doesn’t really work as a character for me either. For one thing “Youth” is a bit strange of a gimmick to assign any character, and he repeats the word so damn much that past a certain point I wanted to whack him on the head with a broomstick so he would shut up. Also, the “oh no my sacred artifact doesn’t work properly” plot line had already been done (poorly) with Gullinbursti, so bringing it back felt repetitive. Same thing for the “oh no, a collision of world” plot point. Out of all the collisions we’ve had, this one was probably the least necessary.

#26 Embark! Summer Ocean Adventure

I’ll say, this one introduces some amazing characters, but almost all of them are better known for what they do in other events. Ganglie is amazing in Desert Journey, Benten and Typhon shine a lot brighter in the second boat adventure, Makara has this short yet hilarious role in the Seaside Summer School event (where he roasts Claude for wanting to marry the ocean, long story), etc. The beginning of this event is pretty crazy (MC thinking that Benten intends to take a suicide while she was just trying to take a dramatic-looking selfie, resulting in both of them falling into the water and being captured by pirates) – but then it’s a bit of a roundabout journey, with no clear objective, besides going home (which isn’t exactly compelling). Black Storm is a really low tier villain too. I wouldn’t say this is a bad event overall, but it’s overshadowed by its successor.

#25 Year of the Wildest Boar

The new year events are always short, which makes sense. They come right after the (probably expensive) Christmas events, so there isn’t a lot of budget left. Sometimes that works, others… eh. I can’t forgive Gullinbursti for being such a lame character, mostly because he represents an archetype I love (the loyal servant), but which works so much better on other characters, like Tadatomo, Shino, or Yasuyori. Also the end where he goes alone in a cave to sulk is kind of a bummer, honestly. Like, why? Did they fear the Summoners would get a little too crowded if a new member joined them every year?

#24 A New Year's Food Fracas: The Cleaner is on the Case!

I’ll say, I had absolutely no interest in the Cleaner before this event, but I warmed up to him a little. That’s something. I feel like reusing the slimes for the third time in a new year event was probably a bad call, though. Not much else to say, really. It was a decent event.

#23 O the Great Gendarme

I’ll say, I was very afraid they were just going to redo Black Snow on the Hot Spring Mountains, but this one really isn’t as bad. It’s not good enough to be called a redemption, but it’s still pretty neat. I liked Durga’s arc in this event, it was handled a tad more subtly than I expected. Also I was really surprised at how enjoyable the baseball match was. As absurd as it was to have a baseball match in the middle of a hike, it still worked very well. The villainess is forgettable, but you can’t win ‘em all.

#22 Gift from an apprentice Santa

Ah, the OG event. Not the best for sure, but still very charming. I love Yule, his earnestness to please, his insecurities, his cute little scarf, he works very well as a character for me. The Santa school is a really weird concept, and I LOVE IT. The more they add to it, the weirder it gets, and I have absolutely no complaints. Also this event makes use of all the kid characters in a strangely non creepy way (I thought so anyway – I hope it’s not just denial?). Absolutely love Ryota in the Santa outfit too. Now did they have to end every chapter with a fight? Absolutely not. It’s a good thing they toned it down in later events. Learn from your mistakes, and stuff.

#21 Valentine Panic

Valentine Panic is good, but it takes a while to get there. The feathers that make people fall in love with the MC is contrived as hell, but whatev’s. It’s fun. Having all the characters suddenly professing their love to the MC in the most awkward way possible was hilarious (big up to Gunzo’s declaration, I don’t think I’ll ever forget it). Sitri’s “cool cat” deal is annoying at first, but when you understand at the end that it all stems from his admiration for Kengo, it makes a lot more sense, and is consequently much more enjoyable. Bonus point for showing a side of Kengo that we don’t typically get to see.

#20 Clash of Floats

Just based on Nobuharu, I thought I was going to hate this event. Once again, shotas make me uncomfortable. But Tajikarao saved the event for me. His rivalry with Suzuka is believable and rather entertaining. They definitely cop out at the end though, blaming all the issues on a third party and not letting any side win the argument. Honestly I don’t think this event should rank this high still, and I was probably swayed by Gyobu’s waitsline. Yeah, that’s probably it.

#19 Seaside Summer School with you

Weird that they didn’t introduce a single new character for this one, huh? They were probably like “We need an event where every single character we have ends up wearing a swimsuit. ALL OF THEM.” And that they did. Well, almost anyway. To be honest, I played this one a long time ago, and don’t remember everything that happens in it. Love that they let me flirt with Ashigara though. Hate that they dropped the words “swimsuit contest” and didn’t let us see a second of it. Glad they corrected that mistake in Seaside Fashionista.

#18 New Year's Sunrise

More new year stuff, less slimes, and more ghost. That one was sweet. Hilarious that Gyumao and Wakan Tanka get an alt, but Shennong doesn’t, when it clearly seems like that’s what they were going for. Maybe they ran out of budget a little sooner than expected. I feel like gathering all characters that share a common trait in a single event is a pretty fun idea, and I wouldn’t mind seeing it again.

#17 Valentine's Extravaganza

Okay so. We all know that Life Wonders likes to cater to all their audience’s specific kinks. Mpreg with Temujin, vore with Marduk and his dragon buddy, foot fetish with Surtr’s giants, etc. And well, it seems like we each get a turn, cuz inflation is my jam (pun intended), and that’s what we get with Behemoth. So naturally I’m a little partial with that event (an event that must seem very weird to anyone who doesn’t share the kink, now that I think about it). I’m kinda pissed though, because there’s this whole mystery surrounding Behemoth, about what he can and cannot eat – they spend so much time trying to figure out the solution, and I don’t think the answer is ever revealed! Kind of a big oversight there. Big up to Nomad and his new dancing gig, he looks so happy doing it. Babalon’s whole deal about encouraging sin is also pretty great.

#16 Canaan – The Promised Land

This one is so interesting to me. Being a sequel to Raiders of the Lost Isle (must I remind you, at the very bottom of this list), I thought I was going to hate it, but it’s actually a lot better than the original. The problem is that it feels unfinished. Astaroth’s deal is never really explained properly, nor his relationship with Astarte. Like, I get that Astaroth is trans, and it’s great that we get a trans character in this game, but I don’t understand why he’s spiritually connected to Astarte, what he learned over the course of the adventure, or what he plans for the future. Transition is possible in Tokyo, right? But will he ever get there? Should I even be saying “he”?

With Canaan the promised land, they decided to tackle some very complex questions. The gender issue is already complicated enough, but if Canaan is supposed to be a utopia, that opens up a whole other can of worms. There’s also the end, where Bael threatens everyone with the ethical dilemma of fleeing Canaan at the cost of all its denizens’ lives. None of these issues are addressed properly, and the whole event feels very clumsy as a consequence. Still, as clumsy as it is, I really loved it. Astarte is such a compelling character, I really hope she’ll come back some day. But I don’t know if that’s something we can hope for.

#15 Valentine's Time Warp!

An interesting concept, certainly. I like time warps. I feel like the characters they chose for this event were intelligently picked. Three grown men which serve as surrogate dads to this shy little girl – one of them being an actual dad. Don’t know what to make of Herakles in this event though. I know that a lot of people love him, I’m kinda sleeping on ‘im to be fair. But whatev’s.

This one should have been a little shorter. At one point you begin to wonder just how many times Echo can even fail to express her feelings. But it’s a minor flaw I think.

#14 I ain't Scared a no Halloween

This one is great for the characters. Volos obviously, who’s just an adorable plant nerd, but surprisingly Alice too, whose work of costuming is actually fairly entertaining (love that they kept dropping fun facts about pumpkins, it tickles my nerdy side). Cu Sith dressing up as a werewolf for Halloween was the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen on a screen. Zabaniyya trying to let loose and relax in the most horrible way is always funny. Not sure what they were going for with Chernobog’s play at the end there, but it’s nice to see Chernobog having fun.

#13 Unfurl the Sails! A Golden Treasure Ship

This is actually the first event I ever tried out. I immediately crushed on Ebisu the minute I saw him. I wouldn’t recommend starting with that one tho, because if you don’t know who the characters are, it gets confusing really fast.

This one is obviously much better than the first boat adventure – at the very least they have an actual reason for going on a journey this time. The whole battle of the band aspect makes this event more diverse and is honestly really fun. Gives Benten something to do, thank goodness. Aegir is a slightly more fun villain than Black Storm, but not by much.

#12 In with the Ogres! Carpentry of the Heart

This one is short, but for once it doesn’t feel like an issue. Unlike in Canaan – the Promised Land, they seemed to know exactly how deeply they were willing to deal with their themes (racism, mostly). The answer is: not very deep. Which is not a problem, I think. Takemary hates humans, he learns that they’re not all bad after the summoners throw a special party for Setsubun. This carpenter guy is racist against ogres because he feels like they’re stealing his job, he gets hired, apologizes and all ends well. It’s simple, sweet and very heartwarming. That’s the kinda stuff I want out of my Housamo side quests. Minimal conflict, compelling characters who get to learn something over the course of a short story, and lots of moments that make me go “aaw”. This event had everything I wanted. I like how casual it was about revealing the new sprites (like, Motosumi is just sitting around with his kids, and they’re like “oh yeah we have this new sprite for him, might as well drop it here).

#11 Year of the Guardian Dog

That’s right! The best of the new year events is the very first one. Another instance of a simple concept executed flawlessly. Agyo wants to be a guardian dog, so have a little round up of all the guardian dogs. Garmr, Cu Sith and Xolotl all have very distinct styles – and though none might seem all that skilled from a distance, they’re actually more competent that they appear. This event is essentially all about making Agyo taste humble pie, but through the form of a nice stroll with MC and Moritaka. Also, letting Moritaka serve as a mentor of sorts was an interesting subversion of his character, he who usually ends up being the one mentored (either by Shino or Kimun Kamui).

#10 Desert Journey

Oh, we’re getting in the top ten now, huh? How exciting! Seth is another of those characters I didn’t expect to like, but I was proven wrong. Always had a tough spot for characters who act tough but are actually big softies. Love love love that they didn’t really focus much on the relationships between MC and the characters, but rather how the travelers interact with one another. It’s kinda similar to the Year of the Guardian Dog now that I think about it – they bring a new character who’s proud and confident, gains some allies he doesn’t think much of as first, but they end up teaching him quite a lot. I’ll say, I never liked Hanuman all that much, but this is the best they ever handled him. Ganglie was never this subtle either. He becomes a lot more interesting, without them betraying any of his character, or negating any of his flaws.

But I’ll be real with you, I don’t really get the Journey to the West parallel. Granted, I didn’t read the book, but I know a lot about it, and I was more confused than anything else by the parody elements. Well, it’s a minor detail.

#9 Valentine Jail!

Props to Life Wonders for coming up with a character like Aizen. He’s really really fun to be around; I always like a character who wears his flaws so ostentatiously. The fact that he’s really mean but also gullible and sensitive makes the whole event a catastrophe in motion – you know exactly where it’s going, and it’s amazing to watch it unfold. I love that the MC can tease Tadatomo for working for “the enemy”, if only briefly. Love how Hakumen doesn’t care about anything in that one, and is just proudly having her fun, walking around in BDSM gear. Oh the bisexuals must have been happy with that one! I also love that Aizen doesn’t change too much over the course of the event (which could have been tempting, but would have flattened his character considerably). Essentially Aizen carries this whole event, and I have literally no complaints.

#8 Let's Go! Hot Spring Jamboree

Ah yes, the REAL redemption for Black Snow on the Hot Spring Mountains. O the Great Gendarme tries, but this one succeeds. Third time really is the charm, huh.

This event does a good job of putting together characters who don’t really have any reason for hanging out in the first place. Moritaka, Shiro and the MC aren’t so rare to see together, but pairing them with Aizen and Kagutsushi is a bold move, and yet they make it work! I love how they all get a turn at the “character development” trick. It’s highly artificial, but I don’t mind. Papa bear Kimun Kamui is just adorable (and I don’t usually comment on this, but I’m amazed by his character design too), Wen Kamui adds a fun twist to a character which might have otherwise been a little flat.

Moritaka is the real star of this event, mostly because I think the way they handle his problem is actually pretty smart (it’s true that if you obsessively try to get better at one thing by training daily, you end up being highly predictable…) Also they didn’t think it was enough to make him fight his past self once, but twice, which is hilarious (poor guy). The ending in the world of Kamui Kotan drags a bit, but that’s my only complaint.

#7 Trick or Treat! Jiangshi Night

Man this event was so fun. Oddly enough, neither of the characters that they introduce for this event (Licho and Sanat Kumara) I liked all that much, but it doesn’t matter. First there’s that truly incredible scene where Tetsuox learns to deal with his survivor’s guilt through a theater play that rhymes, like how crazy is that? Then Babalon and Motosumi engage in a “child stacking contest” if I remember correctly, a real thing that actually happens. And at the end, everyone gets to perform in a live ranger show orchestrated by Krampus!! Having some characters that we love performing a role for a fiction within a fiction is a lot more fun than I would have honestly guessed, and Krampus looked so happy with his idea, it completely melted my heart. I rarely had as much fun as I did in this very moment.

#6 A Fluffy Nightmare in Ueno!

One of the only events to prominently feature the Beast Tamers, and it’s one of the best. The concept is both interesting AND well executed (I’m still looking at you, Raiders of the Lost Isle). Exploring the dream world is a common yet tricky trope. In the dream world, anything goes, which is both a good and a bad thing. But they knew how to use it creatively without making it confusing.

This one is also good because there is an element of mystery to it, that is actually resolved properly (looking at you, Valentine Extravaganza). And the more it goes, the more it gets you thinking. “Oh okay, we’re in a dream. Some people have all their senses, others don’t. We haven’t see Kuniyoshi and Benten yet, what the hell are they up to?” Really well done. If they were to recreate a similar event in the future, I’d gladly play through it.

#5 Make a Killing! The Beach House and Andvari Falls

This one’s quality is a lot more homogeneous than the previous ones. It’s just good, from beginning to end, without many drawbacks, or any particularly striking moments. It doesn’t have an incredible concept, but it plays to its strengths, and it does it well. Those beach events tend to attract a whole flurry of characters, and this one is no exception, but most of them are well handled. I recall there’s a part where you go diving with a whole bunch of kids though… yeah, I might have partly erased that one from my mind.

Love the joke at the beginning when Adnvari is asking for a resume, and the MC can choose to reply “My blade can sever gravity itself”, like it’s a perfect illustration of the shonen plot and the slice of life plot mingling in a really funny way, I wish they did it more often! Other than that, not much to say. Just go play it.

#4 Seaside Fashionista

I think to a certain extent, Life Wonders know that if they want us to love a female character, they’ll have to make extra efforts. Not that we’re all terribly misogynists, but we’re all super gay, and it’s harder to distract us from a character’s flaws with chiseled abs or tight clothes on a chubby belly.

It works most of the time, but it works especially well with Arachne. I love that her issue isn’t lack of talent, or ambition, but inability to understand what the people want. I love how she’s a workaholic who doesn’t listen to people, but also an incredibly kind individual, who will go out of her way to make you happy with just the most perfect outfit imaginable. I love how she’s curious about everything, and often puts herself in trouble because of that. Honestly, Seaside Fashionista had no business being this good, but it was. All the new outfits they gave the characters are amazing (I still haven’t recovered from Amatsumara’s suit). The fact that we get to see a side of Tsathoggua that we rarely get to see otherwise – awesome! And as I said earlier, we got our revenge for that swimsuit contest from way before. All is well.

#3 Battle of the Bells! An Ikebukuro Christmas

Top 3 now! This is getting serious.

Since it’s ranking so high on this list, you might be surprised to find out that I don’t care all that much about Tansgrisnir (am I even writing that name properly?). Like, he’s sweet and all, but there are a lot of characters I love more. No, what got me in this event is the concept. I think it hit me when Transgrisnir hurt his leg and said that he couldn’t run anymore – when he said that the MC would have to pull the sleigh himself. A human, a teenager no less, pulling a sleigh, and flying through the air. And then competing in a race, full of people running through the air and pulling sleighs too! Can you imagine it? That’s so incredibly specific, and just so strong of a concept, all on its own! And to top it all up, they complicated the race by adding this element where you have to take frequent stops and fight groups of people in different wards of Tokyo. Yoyogi academy, Roppongi, Aoyama, and Shinjuku – groups of characters teaming up to prevent the sleighs from moving onward. And who doesn’t love teamwork?

I think this is genuinely one of the best ideas they’ve ever had, and I think they should congratulate whoever came up with it.

#2 Me-ow! Happy Illusion! The Festival of Magic Hijinks

Genuinely surprised at how well this one turned out. Another of these events where they gave themselves a lot of work; introducing Cait Sith and Tvastar, giving Ryota, Tezcatlipoca, Furufumi and Licho a new alt, and consequently a tidbit of character development, tying it up neatly at the end with the collision of worlds plot and the magic show, and it all works! I think Tvastar especially is a brilliant addition to the Crafters, because similar to Arachne and Aizen, he’s flawed in a delightful way. “Why won’t you let me help you” has always been a favorite trope of mine, so I’m probably biased. Caith Sith’s theme is a bop, mini Tezcatlipoca nearly had me cry from laughing so much, I can’t believe a team composed of Miss Ziz and Shennong of all people won a FOOD EATING CONTEST, but I’m so proud of them anyway.

Also I like that they slid some discreet references to the main plot in there. The world representatives being shady, how MC interacts with Mononobe, it was so subtle in some instances that it was almost a little spooky. Really can’t overstate how much I enjoyed that one.

#1 The New Champion of Christmas

If you’re a Krampus stan like me, you were waiting for it, and you’re probably bouncing right now. I have nothing but love for The New Champion of Christmas. Krampus’ introduction is incredible, because it’s so silly in such a charming way, I mean have you seen what the guy wears? Military pants, this absurd, ripped santa jacket that covers his face, the cow bells around his neck, the chains, whoever his chara-designer is they’re completely insane and I love them for it.

I mean all of this event is silly, and it only works because they fully commit to the bit. The Santa school has a dark Santa course now, which is incredible, Krampus threatens to give the thugs a big spanking, like can you IMAGINE if this happened to you in real life?

But then beyond the silly, Krampus is actually an adorable and shy little dude, who just wants to make friends. His character development is compelling and well executed. And can we talk about Ryota for a second? I love that they allowed him to have a crush on Krampus, something that they rarely do, since all the teenagers in this game must inevitably fall in love with the MC at some point. Shiro says something that’s absolutely wild at the beginning of the event, regarding that. Apparently Ryota crushes on people easily and becomes briefly obsessed with them, but it doesn’t last. Like okay Shiro, I hear you. But then Shiro casually says “this is how our friend group ended up forming” and I’m like HOLD ON, this is huge, you can’t just drop this on me and then move on! What? Ryota crushed on everyone? Shiro, Kengo, Moritaka, even TOJI??? And then they just became friends???? HUH????

Oh yeah, also they tie it up with wrestling at the end, and I have no complaints. A wrestling gimmick is a no brainer for Krampus, but it forces Ryota out of his comfort zone, so it’s good for two different reasons. Over all, I’m ranking this event first because Krampus literally captured my heart, and I’ve never so badly wanted to be isekai’d so I could just fall into his arms. I rest my case.

So yeah there you have it, I would be deeply surprised if everyone agreed with me, but that’s my two cents on the question. If anyone feels like writing a similar “worst to best” article about Housamo, feel free to dm me cuz I’d be SO curious to know how you rank them (or the chapters in the main plot, why not!)

[patchun]

I know I'm a very harsh critic of post-Gen 5 Pokemon, but as far as 3D games go, Sun and Moon are undoubtedly the best the series has to offer - despite their evident flaws. I think there were a few key events that permanently negatively altered my perception of Gen 7, and I want to point those out here.

USUM released. I think it's pretty agreed upon nowadays that USUM is a downgrade from SM in almost every way, but the notable things were a) how the story was altered to be 10x worse, character developments (especially Lillie's) were removed entirely, motivations were altered, etc. And b) the Rainbow Rocket thing was hyped to hell from the Pokemon Co and then turned out to be atrociously lame, starting a pattern of underbaked content.

Incineroar was put into Smash. Back then I cared about the unfolding Smash roster and also hated Incineroar. I still hate Incineroar, but like, it's one offensive Pokemon among a generation where the other two starters are, in my opinion, awesome.

Recently @clickntreat and I reviewed every generation's designs, and I was shocked at how agreeable I found most of Gens 6 and 7, making me realize that it truly was not until Gen 8 when everything went COMPLETELY south.

Now, that said, I do believe that there are specific designs we can look at from these eras that show the beginnings of the bad design habits we have seen almost exclusively since.

I believe Passimian is one such example - in fact, I would be surprised if the designer of Passimian is not the designer who has overseen most Pokemon since Gen 7 - and even then, Passimian is probably one of their BETTER designs (ech). There are three defining problems traits of this design that will become the standard for almost all Pokemon going forward.

It is wearing clothes. Namely, the melon hat, which covers the top half of it's head. The specifics of how this melon hat looks are also bad.

It has random markings on its arms. These "leaf shapes" serve no purpose other than to fill negative space to distract from the fact that this design is, in fact, boring. Due to their shape, these also look very unnatural, unlike something like the markings on Ivysaur, for example.

It is based on something from our modern society, a quarterback.

Whether these things are bad or good is... well, frankly, objective. They are bad, and if you don't think that, you're wrong, thank you. Starting with the next generation, all three starters also have all of these traits!

Yes, indeed! Clothes! Random markings! And, being based on something very modern, often sports. I could also posit a fourth design trait in object usage - Passimian has his melons, Rillaboom his drumsticks, and Cinderace his soccer ball. Suddenly, Pokemon need objects to be interesting (cough to distract from the fact that they are bland designs cough).

But Passimian is not the only Pokemon that functions as a precursor to design direction. The next big contender is

Araquanid. Now, I want to be clear, I actually really like Araquanid! I think this thing is cool as hell - however, Araquanid consists almost entirely of simple shapes. Circles, triangles, and tubes, as I like to refer to these kinds of designs. Going forward, many Pokemon designs will rely almost entirely on this simple geometry, rather than actual anatomy - and my theory is that that's because they've started designing Pokemon from the ground up in modeling software, specifically so that they will be easy to make, animate, and merchandise.

The thing is, I feel that Araquanid, as a single Pokemon using these design principles among MANY Pokemon that do not, is a very strong design! With many of these design traits that I've pointed out, it is not that you can't make a good design with those traits, but that when almost every single design does it, it is bland and stale and frankly creatively bankrupt.

Of course, even with all of these design traits in mind, just how bad most Gen 8 and 9 Pokemon are is STILL surprising. There are surely other factors at play. But I highly recommend going through this visual list of Pokemon and paying special attention as you go from Gen 7 to Gen 8 - you may notice the quality downgrade, as well.

Well, this post started out as me saying, I'm going to be replaying Sun and Moon now. Hopefully I'll enjoy it as much as I did the first time, and I can look back on the games as the true last good Pokemon games, rather than BW. Gonna use Oricorio-Sensu because I just realized how much I love that thing. Wish me luck.

[cavehags]

I mean if they were gonna have Ted go back to Kansas why did they not show more of his support system there and instead just show us his ex-wife, the hideously unethical marriage counselor she was dating (though it does seem like he was on his way out in this episode so at least there's that) and his really iffy mother. Like he doesn't even have Beard now bc he chose his awful girlfriend over him and didn't even invite him to the wedding. Meanwhile he had Rebecca literally begging him to stay and presenting him with a solution that would make everybody happy and they don't explain why that couldn't work. He just has to leave everyone he loves and cares about and completely devote himself to his child at his own expense, right back to where he was at the start of the show but with less. Separated from everyone he cares about besides Henry and coaching youth soccer like Roy at the beginning of s2. He's probably not gonna go down the same path as his father but he may well go down the same path as his mother.

because the show is about richmond! you know... the richmond way? you really think the impossibly cluttered parade of guest characters we put up with this season should have added randos from kansas to its roster? the thought of entire scenes set in kansas focusing on ted's neighbors and the other PTA parents sounds like hell to watch tbh. more to the point, the lonely life you imagine for ted is incompatible with everything ted proved over the series. you know, his arc? over the course of three seasons, the show hammered it into our brains that ted is a winsome guy who can make friends anywhere. and if the famously chilly personalities in england can warm to him, then certainly, he'll have his people back in kansas too.

[bluebudgie]

10 YEARS OF GW2 – A TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE

Hello peeps! As a little countdown to GW2's launch anniversary on August 28 I decided to dig up some old memories and take a small look at my personal journey through the game. Each day I'll make a post about another year.

DAY 9: 2021

I mentioned the sort-of-kinda-semi-hiatus last post... you know what pulled me back deep into the game in 2021?

Sometimes all you gotta do is have a scenic stroll through the jungle at 3 in the morning. Hopped on Tvekks, decided to complete the most tangled of all maps. It was such a relaxing experience late at night it unironically pulled me back into playing actively.

I could probably just sum up the entire year by saying “Tangled Depths” because my god did I start dissecting that map in and out. But seriously look at it, it’s so, so pretty.

I haven’t really talked about any of the characters I created throughout the years because it would really explode the scope of these posts, but I do want to point out this little brat:

I had wanted to make a character that goes with the endless ocean weapons ever since the set released in 2019, and two years later I finally did it! I don’t know why, but somehow his creation felt very significant to me. I have no idea. Maybe because he was the first character I created in a really long time.

Other than running around like an unhinged photographer taking a bazillion landscape screenshots (approximately 75% of those in the jungle) and starting to do chak gerent regularly (one day it will be... the chak egg sac.. and me...), my girlfriend and I decided to replay the entire story starting from LS2 in preparation for the upcoming End of Dragons! This time we did it on different characters than our usual commander duo. Our extra objective for that playthrough was to pose in as many inappropriate places as possible.

I also got to see Cmaj perform this year! The concert was so fun to watch, it’s incredible how much effort goes into these perfomances.

That aside, most of my screenshot folder looks like this:

Or, uh.. this.

I think that about sums up the year, really.

Lastly, apparently I made a reminder for myself (that I didn’t remember)?

Good to know, thanks past self. But why?

Permanent additions to the character roster that year:

Links to all posts: 2012 // 2013 // 2014 // 2015 // 2016 // 2017 // 2018 // 2019 & 2020 // 2021 // 2022  

[albertonykus]

Doraemon Movie Review: Nobita and the Island of Miracles (2012)

What is Doraemon? The title character of the Doraemon manga and anime is a blue robotic cat from the 22nd Century who keeps an array of high-tech gadgets in a portable pocket dimension on his belly, and has traveled from the future to improve the fortunes of a hapless schoolboy named Nobita. Although relatively obscure in the English-speaking world, Doraemon is a Mickey-Mouse-level cultural icon in East Asia (and some other regions, too). The Doraemon franchise was a big part of my childhood, and there are still elements of it that I enjoy now.

Doraemon has released theatrical films almost annually since 1980, most of which involve Nobita and his friends (kind Shizuka, brash Gian, and crafty Suneo) getting swept into adventures thanks to Doraemon's gadgets. Despite being of potentially broad appeal to fans of science fiction and animated films, there are very few English reviews of the Doraemon movies, so I'm embarking on a project to write about all the films that have come out so far. Good luck to me…

Movie premise: Nobita and his friends travel to the 22nd Century to visit an island that has been converted into a preserve for extinct animals.

My spoiler-free take: Conceptually appealing, but severely undermined by a contrived and underdeveloped story. Sad to say, one of my least favorite Doraemon movies.

POTENTIAL SPOILERS AFTER THIS POINT

Review: By all rights, I should love this movie. I found the short story it’s based on (previously discussed here), in which Nobita tries to save moa and some other animals from extinction, to be one of the most memorable out of the Doraemon manga I’ve read, for probably obvious reasons. Nobita and the Island of Miracles not only expands on that tale, but also adds a whole host of remarkable extinct Cenozoic animals to its critter roster. (Something interesting I noticed was that whereas the original manga and next-movie teaser from the previous year’s Doraemon film incorrectly drew moa with wings, I didn’t see any scenes in this movie itself where visible wings were shown on the moa, making it possible that this was an error they caught during production.) Furthermore, one of the protagonists’ new allies in this film is a younger version of Nobita’s father who has been displaced in time, an interesting idea! From a conceptual standpoint, this movie shows a lot of promise.

Sorry to say, however, I like very little about Nobita and the Island of Miracles. To start off, there’s the premise that the extinct animals on the island preserve are sustained by the “life force” emitted by an immortal golden beetle that lives there. (No, this is never elaborated on any further.) The existence of this golden beetle drives much of the story, and yet it simultaneously feels wholly unnecessary. As an explanation for how the extinct animals can live on the island? That could have been chalked up to 22nd Century animal husbandry. As a source of wonder for the protagonists? One might think seeing extinct animals alive would have been enough. As a target for the villains to go after? The movie would have worked just as well if they’d wanted to poach the extinct animals.

Then there’s the fact that the entire story is built on contrivance after contrivance. Doraemon and Nobita bring the moa into their home by complete chance, unlike the original manga in which Nobita actively wanted to rescue extinct species. The reason Nobita’s father ends up in the 22nd Century as a child comes down to a series of accidents and a robot employee from the animal preserve being incredibly incompetent at his job. Doraemon sends all his weapon gadgets away for maintenance, and then the plot still has to devise ways to make most of his remaining gadgets unusable. (Why did he try hitting a charging Elasmotherium with the Anywhere Door?!) Right when the heroes need to fight a giant mech, Doraemon happens to rummage out his Big Light, which happens to turn on and happens to shine on a beetle that the main characters didn’t know was there. The list goes on...

The movie also tries to force emotional moments that don’t always work. For example, one scene has the main characters reminisce about their experiences with their parents, which was nice and all, but felt thematically odd at the same time. Despite Nobita’s father being a major character here, most of the story doesn’t particularly focus on the interactions between the kids and their parents. A conversation like this would have been more fitting in, say, Nobita and the Birth of Japan. (It also doesn’t help that much of the dialogue for this segment appears to have been borrowed from the 1974 manga chapter “Mom Swap”.)

Suneo of all characters gets a good bit of characterization in this film... or it would be good if it weren’t immediately undercut. When he and Koron, the young granddaughter of the village chief on the island*, are captured by the villains**, he tries to reassure her by saying the others will rescue them, even adding that Nobita is actually quite dependable in situations like this. (It’s rare to hear Suneo say anything good about Nobita!) Not only that, but when the villains threaten Suneo in an attempt to persuade Koron to give them information about the golden beetle, Suneo continues to insist that she shouldn’t tell them, a very brave gesture compared to his usual reactions to danger. Unfortunately, just then a pendant made out of a fossil of the golden beetle’s horn***, worn by Koron’s pet dodo, starts glowing, giving away the beetle’s location and rendering Suneo’s heroism moot. By the way, the fact that the pendant glows in response to the beetle and that this phenomenon can be used to track the beetle’s location are never mentioned before this.

*Yep, there’s a village of humans living in the middle of this extinct animal preserve. Why are they there? This is not explained.

**At least it’s not Shizuka getting kidnapped for once... 

***Why is there a fossil of the beetle’s horn if the beetle is still alive? This is also not explained.

Meanwhile, Nobita is panicking over how they’re supposed to save Suneo and Koron without any of Doraemon’s weapon gadgets. After this goes on for some time, Shizuka tells him to get a grip, saying (paraphrased), “Can you do nothing without Doraemon’s gadgets? I hate cowards like you!” Whoa! As much as I’d normally welcome Shizuka displaying aspects of her personality other than straightforward niceness, this reproach felt unearned, because Nobita’s concern came across as completely valid: how are some children, peaceful villagers, and a babysitting robot supposed to contend with 22nd Century criminals without weapons? What’s more, when the heroes eventually reach the villains’ doorstep, Doraemon reveals that he does still have a few potentially useful gadgets left after all. Maybe you should have brought that up back when the others were panicking and arguing!

Probably the most ridiculous part of this movie, however, is when the protagonists respond to the villain leader bringing out a giant mech by... running around and yelling. Somehow, this actually works to stop the villain from attacking. Maybe he was just as confused as the audience was...

(This is so far the only Doraemon film I’ve watched in theaters, and this may well have been the most awkward scene I’ve ever seen in a cinema.)

Now, how do I end this on a positive note...? Well, I guess we got this relatable Shizuka moment.

Star rating: ★☆☆☆☆

[brawltogethernow]

How would you, personally, go about writing a plot where twenty-something Dick Grayson has to take care of suddenly-deaged-to-just-after-his-parents'-deaths Bruce, who doesn't remember anything of his adult life? (I mean, other than Necessary Alfred.)

Well, the part of this concept that can really sock you in the face is. Dick knows exactly what Bruce needed to hear right after Martha and Thomas died.

Bruce, though not lacking for people trying to take care of him, did not get what he needed after becoming an orphan. He grew up, and he made the best of things, and he thought about what he needed from the world and didn’t get, and he became that, and that’s Batman, and that’s Bruce Wayne. When he saw a kid go through trauma very similar to his own, he had an entire playbook written by his own suffering and fixer tendencies ready to go. It wasn’t perfect, but it was the best thing in the world for Dick Grayson short of his family spontaneously coming back from the dead, and things were good for a long time.

And now Dick Grayson, age, I don’t know, maybe the same age Bruce was when they met to intensify the parallels, has this playbook memorized. So.

Brief, miscellaneous scenario that’s about to cause the de-aging, to establish adult Bruce’s voice. He is motivated and capable with a strong sense of deadpan humor, and there is a large mishealed wound at his core. He is aware of this. He is used to working around it. He isn’t even that bitter about it, most of the time. Basically any supporting cast members filling out the scene could be interesting, so lacking an established roster to pull from you can use anybody. I think I'd use heroes who aren’t in the Batfam - characters with their own concepts of Batman but who don’t all know Bruce’s entire life story from a personal or Gothamite perspective. Dick is not present.

So something goes zam or zap or “Go back to your beginning, hero!” —Actually yeah, I like someone using magic to try to turn Batman into a baby but the symbolism catching wrong and rewinding him to when Batman was “born” instead. Some heavy-handedness is good with DC.

Elementary age Bruce Wayne is deeply unsettling. He intuits most of the situation without assistance or effort. He also doesn’t care. You can’t expect a pile of shattered glass to care about some sci-fi nonsense suddenly happening. He is a million years old. He hates you. He should be dead, they shouldn’t be dead, nothing is right. Breathing hurts, or, doesn’t, but should. It’s unconscionable that it doesn’t hurt to breathe. This child's despair is actively uncomfortable to be around. The grit of a nascent Batman grants him immunity to being comforted by the surrounding gaggle of semiprofessional child comforters. —I’m of the opinion that Bruce Wayne was probably a weird child to match the weird adult he grew up into, just initially happy about it, which I’d gun to make clear in his reactions even with the bottomless agony.

You could also snug a very traumatizingly timed identity reveal moment in here if somebody was tagging along who can go, WHY do I recognize this face from old news... WAIT.

Now Dick can show up. To a JL workroom, or the batcave, or maybe the manor, because I would want to demonstrate that Alfred is well versed in this and is sent back to a not great mental place by it. The old coping methods rise easily to hand even after decades, but he feels he never properly figured out how to fix the problems Bruce had in this period instead of just working around them. Eventually Bruce started working around Alfred’s inability to help. —But anywhere you put that sequence seems like it would drag the pacing.

So Dick shows up, and he crouches down with his characteristic gymnast’s fluidity, and he puts his hands on this kid’s shoulders, and he says...something. It’s not going to be okay. How could this ever be okay? The people assuring you it will aren’t trying to lie to you, there just aren’t words for this. But you can stop this from happening to anyone else. Opening with a conscious deployment of Bruce’s own words from a decade and then some ago, because Dick has always understood this element of their dynamic.

Except then he’s touching this real child who is warm under his hands and small. The shoulders under Dick’s hands are bony, which is a brain-meltingly irreconcilable detail with adult Bruce Wayne the meat slab. When Dick says, “My parents were killed when I was your age, too,” it’s a completely unintentional verbatim quote that crawls up out of his throat like a toad in a fairy tale. He hates that; he has a whole snarled up capital-T Thing about unconsciously parroting Bruce. But also it’s not like he’s going to stop comforting the actual child who now has a complicated look in his eyes—like he was drowning and then Dick threw him a life preserver and told him to hang on until they get to land because it’s impossible to reel him back up to the boat.

So then we go to the manor, and finally get to do some domestic nonsense, but hideous. Ugly conversations about coping and grief in your socks in the kitchen—when your parents just died, the sentence “The weather looks bad” is about your dead parents—because Alfred is coping by airing out whatever rooms Bruce used when he was smol he doesn’t now so hard you’ll never know they were shut up, which leaves Dick free to feed the child a fortifying dinner of instant oatmeal. (Mourning and food have a complex relationship, and I don’t feel food you actively enjoy is always a good choice!) This process involves Dick walking on the counter unnecessarily, which entertains Bruce for a quarter second before he’s swamped by guilt at having the audacity to enjoy something.

It’s miserable, but there’s a distinct glimmer of something promising under the murk. There’s this building surety that this could lead to something good. Bruce gave Dick the tools he needed to heal once, and as an adult Dick could repay that to this version of Bruce with interest.

And then Bruce pops back to normal, because that’s not how time works, with all of the ways that his emotional wounds healed wrong and healed open intact. But also with this Escher-like doubled recollection of the most formatively terrible point of his life, a short new version layered over the original that was pointing distinctly in a direction that would have sucked less.

[peachy-panic]

Only Temporary: Sebastian Tate

Hello. I was completely blown away by the positive response I got on the first piece of Jaime’s story (title under construction). Thank you to everyone who had a kind word to say about it! You made me really happy I made the mildly frightening choice to post.

In the interest of acclimating to the no-rules, freedom-to-post-out-of-order structure of this community, I wanted to introduce a new piece of the puzzle this time, with a new character that will come into play later.

Also, this piece goes into a little bit of the details, but for frame of reference on the BBU-adjacent thing: this story takes place in a not-so-distant future of the BBU, where WRU has undergone some changes. I look forward to exploring this world building more as I go.

Anyway, I’m rambling again. Thanks for reading. Here it is:

WARNINGS: General BBU warnings, talk of institutionalized slavery, classism, and general terribleness of large corporations. Referenced past homophobia and rough parental relationships, briefly implied/referenced non-con.

When Sebastian reflects on the day he graduated from med school, a sort of emptiness is the memory that first bobs to the surface. Among the cheers and camera flashes in the crowd, white coats and proud smiles, what Sebastian recalls most vividly from that day is looking out into the sea of parents and families and people there to support their loved ones on one of the biggest days of their lives, and not seeing a single person that had come for him.

What should have been one of the happiest moments of his life had been quickly overshadowed by the sinking feeling that none of it mattered as much as it would have if he had someone to share it with. Like there was something so fundamentally wrong with his life, that even something as objectively good and right and decent as becoming a doctor could be dulled over into a feeling of nothingness.

Perhaps, he thinks in hindsight, that moment had been foreshadowing for the following months ahead of him.

Watching rejection after rejection pour in from his top residency programs had felt like nothing short of his own personalized nightmare. He had spent several nights in a row on the phone with Alex, his undergrad roommate and only friend, clamoring back from the edge of many a panic attack, spiraling into all-out existential dread about the future and the past and what all of it meant for him if he couldn’t land an internship, let alone a real job out of school. To his credit, Alex never gave up hope in his friend. Or at least, he did a decent job hiding it if he did. Which was probably exactly what Sebastian needed to get through that particularly dark time in his life, and a good reminder of what a solid friend he had. Even if it was a party of two.

Unfortunately, Sebastian did not have the same faith in himself.

He was able to keep up some facade of optimism as his top five were picked off one by one. Telling himself, despite his devastation, that they were a pretty far reach, anyway. Even with good academic standing, it was famously no walk in the park to land yourself at John Hopkins or Mayo as a first-year. He even maintained a brave face as his first few safety programs reached capacity and moved forward without his name on the roster.

It wasn’t until he received his final rejection letter from some internal medicine place in Bumfuck, Idaho that he felt himself slip into dangerous territory. Sebastian knew himself well enough to know his own depressive patterns by then, and he knew it was only exponential decay from there.

Rock bottom came, as it did, in the wee hours of the night, after a full bottle of wine. Alone in his small apartment, surrounded by half-packed boxes with no destination, Sebastian found himself sprawled out on the floor with his laptop hot against his thighs. He couldn’t have explained why he opted for a privacy browser, but something about it allowed him to justify the words that he typed into the search bar.

It was a new low, and one he had sworn to himself he would never stoop to. Yet there he was.

He gave himself a moment to reconsider, to back out of what was undoubtedly a morally-gray train wreck waiting to happen as his thumb hovered over the enter key. And then the alcohol decided to override his moral compass.

Facility Care is the open secret of the medical profession. It comes with its fair share of stigma, and rightfully so, but it is notoriously easy to break into and pays a decent wage.

There are two types of people who end up stooping to that kind of employment. More often than not, it consists of doctors and nurses who had their licenses revoked or suspended somewhere along the line and needed a way back in. As far as Sebastian understood, they aren’t terribly ridgid about the particulars of each circumstance. After all, in the eyes of the law, the patients they would be treating are a price tag away from being entirely expendable.

The other percentage of Facility Care workers, and the reason Sebastian found himself staring at his too-bright computer screen with a sinking feeling of dread that night, are young medical graduates who find themselves in a tough spot. It isn’t difficult to spell out the logic behind that one when you open the WRU CAREERS tab on the home page and see the bright white words printed across the top of the screen:

LOAN FORGIVENESS.

It is shamelessly predatory and aggressively capitalistic, but Sebastian supposes that particular exploitation is pretty far down on the list of transgressions for an institution of legalized slavery. A few broke and hopeless medical students were hardly going to keep the Powers That Be up at night when they were able to rest easy under the weight of hundreds of thousands of stolen lives.

The whole thing is part of the massive PR overhaul the company did a few years back. In a world that was slowly inching toward civil activism and with the accessibility of platforms like social media to hold them accountable, WRU had to adapt to survive. Adaptation, in this case, took the form of changing the barest of minimums in order to keep themselves above board — to the public eye, anyway. Anyone who dares to take a closer look at the policy changes can see that it’s bullshit.

Changing ownership conditions to a rent-by-contract basis isn’t the humanitarian move they try to paint it as. In the end, it probably just equals out to more money in the company’s pocket when they can get more return on their “investments,” and a larger chance of exploitation for the people being moved around.

Getting rid of the Romantic division is an entirely meaningless gesture when they are still loaning out human beings with no legal rights and the inability to say “no.”

And offering an open job market with good wages and healthcare options to lower class individuals is a pretty convenient way to mute the backlash.

Essentially, you can tie a system of slavery and abuse up in a bow and make it pretty on the outside, but at the end of the day, it’s still fucking slavery.

Not that he has any room to criticize now. Now that he’s one of them.

In the end, Seb tries to justify his decision a few different ways. He is, after all, more or less a young man alone in the world. The odds are stacked against him and have been for a while. With only his own two legs to stand on, the only force stronger than his internal ambition is his instinct for survival, and he’s been running on those fumes for longer than he can count.

He had lasted less than two months under his parents’ roof after he came out of the closet at eighteen. It wasn’t exactly a surprise for anyone involved; Sebastian’s parents had known about (and subsequently bottled) his… urges… since he was in high school. Probably before that, if he is being honest with himself. And Sebastian, for his part, had spent the better part of his teenage years mentally preparing for the inevitable. He can recall long, late nights he had spent crying into his pillow and the perfectly-scripted ‘coming out’ speeches he recited to his mirror when he was one-hundred percent sure his parents were asleep.

Of course, none of the preparation had been anywhere near adequate when he actually found himself wilting beneath the heat of his father’s glare, the weight of his mother’s grief.

But. He had recovered. That is the point he tries to remember when the memories sting fresh beneath his skin, even all these years later. He has more-than proven himself to be a survivor. He has worked harder than anyone he knows for every scholarship, every grant, every dollar to put himself through school. Sacrificed nights out and real relationships for night shifts at shitty diners and long weekends cramming for exams. It hadn’t been easy, but he considers it the price he had to pay for his independence. For freedom, to live the life as the person he is meant to be, despite his unfortunate odds. He spent years telling himself it would be worth it. That one day, his hard work would pay off.

He can’t stop now.

Sebastian doesn’t have the luxury of taking time off to reroute when his navigation has gone amiss. He is walking the precarious line of rapidly accruing interest and student loans and a dwindling savings account, and there is no safety net below him.

Beggars can’t be choosers, and as it turns out, beggars sometimes have to compromise their moral integrity in order to survive.

It’s only temporary.

That is the mantra that gets him through the (half-drunken) application process and the (disturbingly lax) interview process. It is a job. One job. In the medical field, though the details are up for debate, and it is real-life money for rent and food and a savings that will hopefully be sizable enough to get him where he really wanted to be. Which is… really, anywhere else.

He can do ‘temporary.’ And perhaps, some misguided part of him thinks he can do some genuine good from the inside, too. ‘Be the change you want to see’ and all that.

It is a far jump from the floor of his apartment, sloshed and exhausted and desperate, to the cold, sharp reality of walking into his place of employment on his first day of work. Ironically, it feels a lot like an echo of the emptiness from his graduation day.

‘Sterile’ doesn’t quite cover it. ‘Sterile’ is the expectation of any well-respected medical establishment, but the inside of the facility walls has been wiped clean of far more than bacteria and germs. It is completely devoid of humanity. The long corridors that connect the medical wing to the general ward are windowless and dimly lit by flickering fluorescent panels that had make his head pound for the entirety of his first week.

He is given an office, though it is a term he, himself, might use loosely, as it is more akin to what was probably a storage closet before the old prison had been converted into the state’s training headquarters. It leaves him just enough space for a small desk and two chairs. On his first day, he asks if it is okay to bring in some personal items to spruce the place up. The older, balding doctor who had been assigned to show him around merely shrugs, and Sebastian decides to take that as a yes.

The small, pink-framed photo of a six-year-old Sebastian Tate in his grandfather’s white coat and an old-school stethoscope around his neck is hardly enough to make the place cozy from the corner of his desk, but it’s a good enough reminder of why he has to make this work.

‘It’s only temporary.’

‘Be the change you want to see.’

He will do his best.

[killyourrdarlingss]

*EXPLAINING THE NEW SUPPORT SOREY QUESTS AND HOW IT WORKS!

Okay! So I’m going to try and explain the new event as best as possible, in easier terms for people who might be confused. (since I lowkey was confused at first)

So Sorey [Shepherd in Black] starts as a support character which is a new update for Tales of Crestoria. This new Sorey is a level 50 water unit who you can assign as your support character (like how you choose friends/other people’s characters in the support tab) but will only stay in your roster if you continue to use him and get his Character Bond maxed. That’s basically it, you just gotta max his Bond Points for him to stay in your roster.

(There is no current end date for this event.)

He has a specific set of quests that you need to complete to level him up from level 50. 10 quests for each element to obtain ‘tearstones’.

(Photo below of first ascension.)

These tearstone quests cost 20 AP each, and require you to do them 10 times per element (see above), clocking in at a total of 1200 AP per ascension you have to do for Sorey.

His new design isn’t very different at all, basically just an element swap, everything else is exactly the same which makes me think they’re going to be doing this to the other main characters for the tales series, and just swap their colours and element so they don’t need to make an entire new unit...

The leveling process IS very tedious though, I will admit not having a skip button for these quests is probably the payoff for a free SSR unit... it's still slightly tiring, and can eat into your AP resources, a lot. But, they do make the quests pretty easy, each ascension quest is only on Very Hard difficulty with 1 boss, which isn't hard at all, if you have at least 6 strong hitters.

Hopefully this helps people a bit, I know the worst part of this will be the AP leech... it costs a LOT.

/The transcendence quests are even worse on Evil difficulty and 40 ap each. But we'll get there when we get there!

And with that I bid you all a very happy leveling Sorey, and good luck to your AP resources !! Feel free to hit me up with any questions, my inbox is always open.

*Edit: MORE DISCUSSION IN COMMENTS

Also feel free to add me as a friend and join my guild!

[youwontlikethisblog]

Betty, My Betty! Part 2.5 (Hopefully the last one)

Alrighty, I think this will be my last post for tonight? This morning? But it is still in the same vine of Armando being possessive so he is the main subject of this breakdown but I will also be discussing Mario a lot here so this in an attempt to be the final post regarding this episode will be a lengthy one.

Again I accidently bought the bootleg version of the novela so some scenes and episodes are missing as well as the chapters aren't titled.

We are in the same episode of Armando reacting to Betty having a boyfriend.

Right now Betty is exiting her office, she just hung up the phone with Nicolas who warned her that they needed to pay a loan to the bank because their 24 or 27 days were up.

Mario is leaning over Armando's desk and Armando is leaning forward as they are both discussing and whispering (that part is so short you can't really pick at what they're talking about but you can imagine what it is. I'm assuming that while Mario was telling Armando not to question or judge Betty on her personal life that Betty was in her office on the phone with Nicolas and when Mario leaned forward to talk to Armando Betty was about to end her call so they are essentially talking about how to go about finding out who Betty's boyfriend is) something I cannot hear. As Betty fully exits her office Mario moves from being up front to in the back of the room by the doors that take us to the meeting room. He looks Betty down and up as if checking her out.

This small frame(I don't know if when they were whispering it was them arguing over Mario's proposal of the plan or if Mario hadn't proposed it yet and it was just them talking about how to find out who Nicolas is because again, since this bootleg version isn't the complete one some scenes are missing so I could be wrong about this one! but the episode I saw on NBC showed the exact same scene so I'm going by the first "(red)" in the paragraph above) allows us to depict Mario coming up or starting to scheme the plan.

We know Mario Calderon will screw anything that has legs, wears skirts, and breathes and consents that is(<-hopefully). Every woman who has had a seggsual relationship with him has said so. Marcela warned Paty about it before they got involved so I'm assuming that in this scene Mario is checking out Betty to see if it's possible for someone to really love(lust) her and if not than he needs to figure out a plan and a way to convince Armando to follow through said plan.

When you're writing a novel you write down the key points you want to make but as you imagine certain scenes you really delve into detail of characterization. You make sure that whatever happens in that scene that your characters behave as themselves. So you really spend time getting to know your characters. This is a general rule of thumb for any creative writer. The plus of being a novelist or writing literature is that you can really go deep into details and write scenes in really long poetic ways. I don't know how to write scripts but I've read some from TV shows I've watched and they are written differently than a novel. Scripts have more dialogue than poetic descriptions and they are usually blunt with what the writer wants from each character in that scene.

For example: (Take this with a grain of salt I don't know how to write scripts I am going off based on how I've read them)

Ana walks into the room. The camera focuses on her face. There's lighting outside and we see the lighting flash on her face.

Julian turns to see her. He is surprised to see her. He thought she was dead. He stands up slowly. The camera focuses on his face and then Ana's.

She smiles at him, tears forming in her eyes.

"Is that re-really you?" He stutters. He then walks slowly towards her.

In a script you write where the camera goes, where the actors move, the facial expressions, the mood of the room, and so forth. Yes directors do have a say on how they choreograph scenes and actors can add their own two cents but script writers have a pretty good idea of everything that is going on the scene and why it is. If in novel writing(that's not the correct term) we focus a lot on how the reader will imagine the scene and being able to correctly and artistically discribe it as well as how they will understand it because we are not focusing on visual cues like script writers but rather focused on using words to be able to paint a inner visual picture than in scripts the writer usually focuses on tone and movement. The same rule still stands though; show don't tell.

Why do I even bring this up?

This helps us understand that what is shown here isn't just an accident. We aren't being fed what we're told, we are being fed what we see. What we see is the final vision of the writer. Fernando Gaitan was the only one to write this novel and he wrote every detail with the intention of it to mean something.

I have no doubt that the actors added their own flavor as they are excellent actors and the reason why we were able to fall in love with these character. The directing is amazing as well. The scene cuts, the frames, and the choreo are amazing(tho some stills are funny and y'all know which ones) but the writing has a lot to do with it. If anyone is a script writer or knows what that's about correct me if I'm wrong!

I say this because what we are being told and shown is that Armando had feelings for Betty and not a crush like Betty did. He actually cared about her, as a friend. I know many don't agree with that because Armando was a crappy boss. We see them always interact as boss and employee but the reason why I continue to bring up the fact that he started to blur those lines is because we were being told and shown that.

Armando is mechanical. He is emotionless to the outsiders. As he once told Betty that she probably thinks he is a man of ice and later on in the future we see Betty daydream telling Marcela that she knows Armando acts like he's got a heart of stone but deep inside of him he needs a lot of love. However Armando isn't a man of iron and he tells that to Betty himself.

We are told this but what are we shown?

We are shown an erratic, often driven by emotion, and neutronic person. Now the people he has surrounded himself with aren't the most loving and welcoming people. They are pretty judgy and stuck up. So often the emotions he shows and knows how to distinguish well are anger, frustration, and most of all being erratic with the emotions mentioned above. These emotions drive him. The people around him think that he is a man of stone and that nothing moves him. However we then meet a woman who isn't like that at all or like any of the people he has surrounded himself with.

This person is kind, loving, respectful, and sweet to everyone. She loves her job, loves her friends, loves her family and secretly loves her boss. In a very poetic way Betty is color in an otherwise black and white world. She brings warmth to Armando and because they work so closely, how is he not supposed to be affected by this? How is he not supposed to be changed and moved by this?

He is an awe of her morals, of Betty's qualities and her general presence and though we aren't bluntly told this by the characters themselves we are shown this and it's not by accident and not by mistakes of post production.

Take a break if you need it.

It isn't an accident that we see Mario so much in these scenes just standing in the background taking it all in because he truly is the mastermind behind Betty's downfall. He truly mapped out and planned the way to seduce Betty and how to manipulate Armando and didn't even care if it hurt her or his best friend. What he cared about was that his best friend remained President because titles mean everything to him. As we saw in the past when Armando and him were arguing over the deal with the Panamanian fabric seller, while Armando focused on how it not only affected him and the major shareholders but everyone, Mario reminded him that he was also a minority shareholder, but a shareholder nonetheless. Armando's inner turmoil was that he was jeopardizing the livelihood of not only the company's shareholders, and his family but the entire company's employee roster while Mario was more focused on himself, telling him that he too had a lot to lose but not understanding what really weighted down Armando's shoulders.

Think about it, Mario in a sense is a leech. He gets the crumbs of women Armando doesn't want. If I'm not mistaken in the spinoff Eco Moda Mario himself says that women only ever showed interest in him because they wanted to get close to Armando. Mario lives off of the crumbs of Armando, not only with women but socially. Armando is one of the major shareholders of Eco Moda, he's attractive, charismatic, and an important figure in society and not only among the Fashion world like Mario is. Mario Calderon wasn't going to let his best friend lose the title of being President for anything because than it would be bad for him. It would be bad for his reputation to have been his close friend and accomplice to Armando while also being a part of a disastrous presidency term in the company.

Mario is charismatic, one could even say a lot more than Armando seeing as I myself even like him even when I know all of this about his character. I find him funny, charming, and at times endearing but of course that's when you look at him on a surface level.

Mario Calderon is despicable. He is downright selfish and egocentric down to the bone. He maps out this plan so easily because he knows his two victims well. He has seen Armando's disagreements with Marcela, he has witnessed first hand Armando's change towards Betty and silently observed Betty's interactions with Armando. He himself has thrown out his conclusions on Betty's actions by a simple snip bits of conversation that he's either been in the room to hear or heard from Armando himself.

Who better to make Betty fall in love than Armando? Because Betty has those feelings there and who better to do be the one to do this than Armando? Not only because those feelings are there but because Armando can stomach the job. The man who is confused about his feelings and behaving erratically and emotionally driven than Armando?

Because Armando proposes for Calderon to do it. At first Calderon is grossed out by the idea but Armando presents everything telling him he isn't the boss, that he has no morals and he was perfect for the job. Mario agrees with all of that, even asks for a bigger percentage of shareholding and Armando agrees. This gives us the understanding that Mario would be willing to seduce Betty.

I realize this contradicts my own personal opinion that Armando agreed to do this because it meant he was saving Betty from Nicolas but lets remember that Armando was afraid to face those feelings and he wasn't even aware that they were there. Here Armando and Mario weren't talking about love, as he thinks Betty is so in love with Nicolas that he is her eternal love and that Nicolas would take advantage of that and poison her against them, they are talking about seduction, meaning seggsual. Which I've said before Armando thinks lust is love and therefore that if he ain't wanting to jump they bones in that instant that it cain't be love therefore my mans thought he had no feelings for Betty(idk why bc we do get two scenes where he checks her out briefly (I am sure of this because it's the episode where Betty tripped and was limping and when Mario brought it up Armando asked if she didn't already walk like that, if he had been noticing her walk than he would have been aware of the limp but his eyesight went from the top of Betty's head all the way down. Do with that information what you'd like :)) and where he gets jealous when Charlie Zas kissed her cheek(someone once said that they were celos de jefe and excuse me ma'am jealousy is jealousy and a normal boss would not feel that. If my boss or manager ever did that I woulda done been fired in that instant))

Take a break if you need it.

Okay return back to this scene.

While Calderon does this mila second rundown of Betty, Armando and him share a stare. Either Armando wants the room to himself or is looking at him for a confidence boost. Then Mario nods and lets him know he'll leave them be.

Armando sticks to the script by not removing his trust from Betty. Instead he encourages her and congratulates her on doing things well.

In this scene while Betty has been entirely focused on the work at hand and being professional Mario was busy assessing the situation while Armando... is hard to read here. He is keeping himself composed rather than being emotionally driven or erratic or neurotic. In truth he is showing one of his best traits so far, composure. When he is sure of what he wants to happen Armando is really good at keep composure, feelings at bay, and controlling the situation. Something he later loses as he begins to get more lost and confused in his own feelings and understanding them.

Betty here is endearing, honestly I find Betty endearing at all times lol. She's super cute and such a good sport since her character is written to capture your heart, not by sympathy but by empathy. Again just like Armando how are we not supposed to be affected by such a sweet character? Constantly putting her feelings aside for Armando's, who hasn't done that? We empathize with her because at some point or another we've been her and ironically it's the exact same reason why we sympathize and empathize with Armando because at some point or another we've all been there where we let the worse get the best of us and we've learned to live with it and deal with it same as he.

As Betty starts to leave the office Armando calls her name, stands up in a slow but steady way showing us that he is the one in control in this situation. His tone is controlled but not enough where you don't hear that resent.

"Betty you didn't hadn't told me you've got a boyfriend"

Betty looks taken aback by this behavior of his. As she stares at him a bit shocked and rocks on her feet, seeming uncomfortable with this but also worried.

Armando proceeds to say "and that that boyfriend is Nicolas Mora, your friend from university. The one you've got in Terra Moda" Notice how now there is a waiver in his voice and he no longer is being as composed or in control of his emotions. As he for split seconds allows those emotions of jealousy and possessiveness to sweep through his tone of voice.

In this scene Armando isn't so much giving us body language as he is stiff, showing nervousness and discomfort himself, often we see this whenever Marcela is interrogating him but he is giving us tonality in voice.

Again the sequence as he names the list of what and who Nicolas is shows priority. First, Nicolas is Betty's boyfriend, that guy she's talked about who she went to university with, and she's got him working in Terra Moda. His priority: Betty has a boyfriend. He knows who said boyfriend is and he knows what he does.

Betty tells him that she doesn't have a boyfriend: "Ay ay no Doctor, eso no es cierto." Betty normally has a waiver her voice whenever she's nervous or scared so it's not unlike her to have it here, she smiles and chuckles nervously. In translation what she says is lost so by interpretation this is what she said "Hmm? No sir... um that's not true."

Armando's tone is now accusing her. He seems angered by Betty's "denial" as he tells her "It's not true? I heard it-" we then get a frame of Betty's reaction. She is truly concerned over this as we later find out at the end of the day that she was worried that it could cause Don Armando to build distrust towards her. Again we are shown that Betty is keeping it all professional whilst Armando isn't.

"I heard when Bertha told you, right in front of me. [Y'all] started gossiping, didn't notice I was there. You both forgot about me, no Betty?"* He is shaking as if agitated and he sports a cocky smile because he feels like he caught her in her own lie.

[*]This could be taken in a double sense. In his eyes Betty was so excited about hearing that her "eternal love" called her that she forgot he was in the room and in a figurative way, Betty forgot him.

Betty's understanding of his behavior is rational. He's upset that she withheld vital information from him after she told him she had nothing else to hide(when he interrogated her the previous night) and this is related to a professional work related situation.

Armando now sports similar traits to that of Marcela when she is looking for reasons to act out on her anger. Armando is agitated as stated before and while Betty goes to explain herself Armando grabs his glass of whisky, not taking his eyes off Betty and drinks(cantinero, otro whisky!(Now his behavior here is very interesting because as he grabs the glass to drink from it he takes in a deep breath. At first I interpreted this for anger but after seeing it a few times I realize it's panic. While at first he was composed and sure of what he was feeling which was anger, now he is faced with uncertainty from feelings he doesn't recognize and he doesn't know where this conversation is going to head or how he'll react or feel so he enters panic mode)). She tells him that it was something the cuartel came up with because she once mentioned Nicolas and since then they haven't gotten it out of their heads that he is her boyfriend "I don't have anything with him."

Then relief starts to wash over him as Betty's final words are reassuring him that she doesn't have a boyfriend. In this frame Armando no longer has a drink in hand and he doesn't seem as tense as before.

"Definite? We're sure of that?"

Betty chuckles and nods and his tone of voice returns to being soft spoken and calm, even hopeful as he tells her "Okay, okay it was only curiosity." (What kind of curiosity tho?;))

Betty leaves his office and has a slight smile and was on the brink of a daydream when Sofia interupts her from doing that.

I have this dumb theory where Aura Maria and Freddy are in some way a parallel of Betty and Armando except that Aura Maria takes on the role of Armando while Freddy takes on the role of Betty and if y'all want I'll write a post explaining this.

Take a break if you need it.

Skip a scene we've got Armando interacting with Freddy. Usually everyone pays the burnt of Armando's anger and in this scene he looks anything but angry. He actually humors Freddy which allows us to know that after that conversation with Betty, he has one less problem(you know the one that topped all the others). He then laughs at Freddy(I find it ironic that Freddy told him that what Jenny and him have is strictly professional at which Armando laughs and repeats the same thing. The reason I find it ironic is because we as an audience know that what J & F have is not strictly professional and the conversation Armando just had with Betty wasn't strictly profession. In other words, Fernando Gaitan has a good sense of humor) and tells him to show him his lil dancy dance and leaves to go to Mario's Office.

When he enters his office he informs him he spoke to Betty about that infamous boyfriend.

"What did she say?" Mario asks.

"Well no, that she doesn't have a boyfriend." his smiles and says happily. He the catches him up on the gossip.

While Armando is now showing an array of emotion and excitement Mario is poker face, fidgeting with his pen and studying Armando.

He tells him "You know what this means? That I'm a happy man!" he chuckles and looks around the room as if really taking in the news and letting the relief settle in. "What a relief, finally some good news today, ah" he says the final part as if he were an italian chef. This lets us know that Armando is truthfully relieved to find out that Betty, his Betty is single and that he is still her special man.

In the previous post I talked about how Armando went about listening his excuses to start drinking early that day and how he basically went going from his smallest problem to the biggest one as he says that the one that topped all of his other problems was Betty having a boyfriend.

See, all his other problems were a cause of stress and anger, emotions he is very familiar with so they don't disconcert him however, jealousy or fear of losing Betty, are new territory for him that alone freaked him out but the fact Betty had a boyfriend was enough to just push the boy just close enough to the edge he needed a drink so early in the morning because it was anguish.

Mario tells him he has never seen him so relieved and happy to find out a woman doesn't have a boyfriend to which we pan out to see Armando roll his eyes and slouch against the chair, annoyed at Mario's insinuation once again.

Mario reminds him of the last time he saw that same expression on him which was when he found out some woman was separated from her husband. Armando then tells him not to diminish the good news because it meant Betty hadn't ommited any information from him.

To really bring this post to the full potential of it being analytical let us break this down.

Why was it important for him that Betty not omit information from him? Especially relating to something so personal and intimate of Betty's life outside of the office? (Again the argument that this is only about Eco Moda and Terra Moda are disproven in the previous post).

[EDIT: Sometimes as I write I've got two ideas at the same time and forget to finish writing them. It wasn't only important for the reasons mentioned below but because he does in fact want to know more about Betty as he later tells Bertha the same thing].

Armando went through the five stages of grief.

Anger, denial, anger, denial, more denial, and then moving on.

He did not accept that Betty had a boyfriend therefore when she told him she didn't he fully believed her, didn't ask more questions.

For Armando Betty's character means a lot. I don't mean the individual personification of Betty as a fictional character in this novela I mean as in her inner self and what she represent. To him Betty represent stability, comfort, unconditionality, honesty, and most of all fidelity and loyalty and the last three qualities are what he is always naming. If she withheld something from him it would mean that Betty was no longer that. She no longer would be an object of reassurance and comfort but like everyone else she'd become an unpredictable and untrustworthy individual in his life. Some one more that he needed to keep at arm's length or pretend around.

Armando has gotten a taste of being around someone who doesn't judge him when he is himself and doesn't hold it over him when he makes mistakes based on his neurotic nature or anger issues. Instead he has been around someone who understand he's like that, someone who is patient and knows how to call him out on it and how to handle his erratic behavior so he has learned to let his guard down little by little and found a niche of comfort in his assistant but if she lied to him it would take all of that away. It would be betrayal in his eyes.

That's why it was so important to him that Betty didn't keep secret from him. Especially seeing as they were forming a friendship that was based on honesty and respect towards each other. This explains why that was important to him. It's important for him to have trust in her.

However we ain't kidding anyone because his reaction was possessive over Betty because Betty has given all of these things to Armando, who has never really received them without some fine print, and he doesn't want to share her with anyone else. This is possessiveness and it is not love or romantic. It is a toxic trait because not one person belongs to someone and Armando feels that Betty belongs to him. Be it romantically, platonically, or work related, a person is a human being and they do not belong as an object or property to anyone.

Armando is a very emotionally immature individual and this shows us that.

Mario then proceeds to be his classical self, which is to sow the seed of paranoia in his best friend as he starts to point out that her friends wouldn't be saying that if Betty hadn't given them a reason. His hands clasped in front of him show a position of power. Right now he is holding the cards and he is well aware of that.

Right as he see the reaction he wanted from Armando he leaves him to ferment so to speak in the paranoia he has left in him. Armando becomes nervous all over again and susceptible to it.

He is left with himself and he says "Y quien es el.." now if you're hispanic or latino you'll find the humor in how that scene ends as he starts to sing in a sorrowful tone a very romantic and a song that I'd say most listen to when dealing with a break up "y en que lugar se enamoro de ti?"

Which translate to "And what is he like? and in what place did he fall in love with you?"

I won't read too much into that as I'm sure it was written in for humor or added in for the humor effect as we've had some pretty heavy emotionally driven scenes in this episode but I do think it's an ironic placement of humor.

Now to bring the final scene that I will be discussing regarding Armando finding out about Betty's boyfriend we come full circle with Armando asking Bertha about it.

He acts charismatic, composed and professional to get Bertha to talk to him.

"The subject is the following: I've got a long time working with Betty and It's just until now that I find out she's got boyfriend. Do you know who he is?"

"Well like really know? No, because she's so reserved"

He then with a pierced mouth nods. Again those feelings are creeping back up. I get it. He's feeling paranoia, distrust, betrayed, hurt, offended, scared, jealous, possessive and angry but this proves what I mentioned about Armando having his guard up at all times because he doesn't show any of this to Bertha, at least not enough where she picks up but because we as an audience are given so much detail regarding his character, we can.

Quickly he asks her "And you don't know how long she's been dating him?" brings us full circle again. The same tone he had with Betty when he told her that he was in the same room as her when Bertha said that she had a boyfriend, minus the smirk and actual reaction of his, once again proves that Armando knows when to show his reaction and how to be in control and composed.

Bertha proceeds to tell him the "actual" story in which she tells him "dating dating? No, but he does have her eating from the palm of his hand because she's stupidly in love with him." and we hear Armando gasp and say "No." we then get a frame of his face which shows us... the opiset of happiness, joy, relief, tranquility, peace, serenity but with someone trying to be composed.

Bertha tells him that Mariana read her the cards and said that he was Betty's dream man and that he was going to change her life and she was going to change his life. I don't care for that but for the sake of this breakdown I'll mention it.

We know that Betty's dream man is Armando, not Nicolas. However everyone else thinks it's Nicolas. Armando's facial expression shows someone once again panicking.

He not only finds out that Betty has boyfriend, now it turns out she didn't just omit something from him but lied when he asked her and to top it off she so happens to be stupidly in love with him and on top of all of that he is Betty's dream man and to finish it off, he will change her life and she will change his life in the mildest of riches, meaning with Betty becoming the sole owner of Eco Moda and Terra Moda, making her rish rish $$$.

This is when it no longer is just about his mixed up feelings for Betty but now the entire livelihood of his family and everyone that works for Eco Moda.

Eco Moda is Armando's pride and joy. He does love that company which is why he started that scheme in the first place because he didn't want to lose it, let his father down, prove Daniel right, and throw away 30 plus year of his father's work and life time(Also as we're told because of his goals). The company means a great deal to him and in ways he's not aware of yet, so does Betty.

However someone is aware of this, not to the deep knowledge that Armando has regarding whatever he thinks he is feels towards Betty but they've got some sort of idea regarding this and they innact and come up with a plan to secure the company, the presidency, and his statues and reputation.

Step one: Tell Armando that he needs to make Betty fall in love with him to secure the company. Women in love will do anything for the one they love therefore if he beats Nicolas to the goal we secure the company. It worked with Paty(he's stupid so his logic doesn't work)

Step two: Convince Armando that he is the right candidate for the job. If that doesn't work, manipulate him with paranoia and make him fear Betty. If that doesn't work, tell him you were sure that Betty was in love with him before you found out about Nicolas.

Step three: Tell Armando I will be in charge of all the corny details because he will freak out and get way over his head and ruin the plan.

Step four: make fun of him.

Step five: Go on a trip and write a letter that explains the entire plan in detail and leave it on my desk without telling my secretary to not let anyone touch it or go near it except Armando so that she can go into my office, and I know how she likes to be nosy, and she can then think it's in the wrong office and give it to her assistant who takes care of all of his stuff, literally, and she finds it, reads it and does exactly what I was afraid of and made my best friend afraid of as well and that will then bring her downfall, his downfall, therefore the entire company's downfall.

Step six: never realize how stupid I am or take full accountability for it and apologize sincerely for all the wrong and harm I have caused.

Obviously I'm not saying Armando is innocent or that he didn't do anything wrong. He did. He allowed his best friend to manipulate him when he said he wouldn't listen to him again(the panama thing), he allowed his best friend to make fun of Betty and was a coward to admit his true feelings not only to himself but to his best friend. He was a willing(felt guilty for it but nonetheless willing) participant in the plan.

By now breaking down these past episodes and scenes allows us to understand where Armando was coming from so we can sympathize just a bit for him and his confusion and how he was so easily manipulated by Mario, however this doesn't mean he isn't guilty. At the start of it he too to some degree thought no one could love Betty, (yes we later find out that he did care for her as he tells Mario that he feels endearment for Betty and he looks relieved to find that out. I will be breaking down that scene when I get to it) because of her physicality (I already talked about this but when the time is right I will go into deep detail regarding this part of Armando's character).

It is eleven AM. I have been writing this post for the past seven hours and I am beat and tired. I hope this makes sense.

Once again, 'til next time.

HAHAHA OKAY I FORGOT TO ADD SOME COMMENTARY ON THE REST OF THIS SCENE.

[Edit:

Bertha proceeds to tease Armando about him liking gossip and being Nosey. He gets annoyed at her but in order to get the information he wants he stays composed and tells her that he just wants to know about Betty.

"It's not that[I like gossip], it's just that this is about someone who is really close to me everyday-who I work really close with- and truth be told I am a little curious about Betty's life. You know, one just imagine her a little ugly and with boyfriend...? You know? Why don't you tell me the whole thing?"

At first he is a being defensive while trying to justify the fact he is being nosey. His tone then changes to endearing as he tells her "truth be told I am a little curious about Betty's life." and his face goes along with the tone as he says "you know, one just imagines her a little ugly-" he catches himself and say "and with boyfriend...?"

Overall what we have learned here is that Armando is really good at dismissing his feelings on the spot, suppressing them, and running away from them(I too do that and it's a pain in the butt). He does this as a sport.

Bertha then tells him "The thing is that Betty doesn't like it much for you to know about her private life." and this again offends Armando as he straightens his face and stares at Bertha in shock and as Bertha says "How is it, Sir..." and he quickly sits down to listen to her. "that this morning when we left your office she pulled me aside and told me that she didn't want you to know about her intimate life?" he rubs his chin, eyes still on Bertha and whispers "Really?"

Armando knows that Bertha can't tell half a gossip so instead of asking her to keeping telling him, practically begging her to tell him the whole scoop he manipulates her by saying "If this is going to cause problems then don't tell me. Let's leave it as is, Bertha, thank you." his tone is somber to tug at her strings, how could she possibly leave this man curious over this juicy gossip? and how could she not tell the whole story? Especially because it's her boss?

Bertha chuckles and tells him that she, of course is going to tell him, that she is dying to tell him. Armando then tells her "Well then if this is between us two it doesn't leave the planet, go on, tell me how did it go?"

Armando starts to bit his nail as he listen to Bertha start from the beginning.

She tells him word for word what Mariana said about Betty's dream man. She's obviously describing Armando, but to everyone else that's Nicolas, so the impression or idea that Armando now has of Nicolas is that he isn't some loser or nerd or some nobody but he is an important man who is the type of man woman lust over. They will have an intense relationship that will be strong and that the man is fundamental for her life.

This describes a man that is both important and that will be for sure in Betty's life.

Now Bertha goes on to describe the man Betty told them about. He is desired by woman,tall, handsome, strong, isn't rich but has money, has a big car, and his name is Nicolas Mora. However Betty clearifies that she has nothing going on with him, that she just likes him and she feels a strong attraction to him but that nothing has happened between them.

Then Mariana tells her that something will happen because it will change both of their lives.

Take into account that though Betty's life in a personal aspect hasn't changed much in the professional aspect it has. She's got a respectable job, a boss who values her work ethic and her enough to hand over his company which means she's could be rich. She's abandon some of her morals to collaborate with her scheming boss and is doing things that aren't morally correct.

Armando's life has changed not only professionally but personally. For one he's begun to let his guard down and given more of himself to a woman he isn't in a relationship or knowingly attracted to, his relationship with Marcela is only getting worse and Betty is usually the center of their biggest fights, he has now built a friendship with said woman built on trust and respect, something he has never done with any other woman and of course professionally he has sunken his and his family's company into debt.

I'd say Armando's life is changing a lot and that's not even the peak of it. Betty's life is also changing a lot and they haven't even started dating.

Armando is aware of how Betty's life is changing on a work related level so he obviously believes everything Bertha is telling him because he knows things she doesn't know.

Impatiently and annoyed Armando tells Bertha to explain what she means by "it's going to change their lives." which again since he "knows" things Bertha doesn't, therefore Tweedledum has sowed the seed of paranoia and Tweedledee has given it the perfect terrain for it to flourish so Armando is now listening to Mario's voice that Betty could turn against them though the important thing to note here is that Armando isn't mistrusting of Betty instead he is really mistrusting of Nicolas, because again, who could really fall in love with "ugly" betty. Except that's a joke on it's own because the idiot was already having feelings for her.

They are interrupted by Guti Guti and this is where I will end this post.

Truthfully until next time. ]

[fur-claws-and-eyeballs]

2021 Teen Wolf ReWatch - S1E2

My Take from the episode Including: Info-Dump, and Questions & Concerns

Info-Dump:

Lacrosse: (”la crosse” = "the stick", French) is a team sport played with a lacrosse stick and a lacrosse ball. It is the oldest organized sport in North America, with its origins in a tribal game played by the indigenous peoples of the Eastern Woodlands and by various other indigenous peoples of North America. The game was extensively modified by European colonizers to create its current collegiate and professional form. The modern sport is governed by World Lacrosse and is the only international sport organization to recognize First Nations bands and Native American tribes as sovereign nations.

Lacrosse Jersey Numbers (so far):

> Scott McCall - 11 > Stiles Stilinski - 24 > Jackson Whittemore - 37 > Danny Mahealani - 6 (Background)

First Mention of Greenberg: COACH: “Greenberg, take a lap! Let's go! Faster, Greenberg! Let's go.” (Could be #31)

Fire Extinguisher: Black Label = CO2 or Carbon Dioxide. Typically used for Class B (flammable liquids and gases) and Class C (energized electrical) fires. Carbon dioxide can be used to extinguish flames by flooding the environment around the flame with the gas, thus starving the flame by displacing the oxygen.

Class Roster (so far): 

> English: Stiles, Scott, Allison > Biology: Stiles, Lydia > Algebra: Lydia, Scott > French: Allison

Quadratic Formula: (-b±√(b²-4ac))/(2a) 

AOL(?): The chat icon during Stiles and Scott’s video chat resembles the yellow AOL guy. Fun Fact: AOL shut down on February 24, 2017.

Morgue Drawer #1: 4486[11] - 201026738 | Semret Fesseha | 1568 879 4H876: aka, art department Coordinator/Director Semret Fesseha for Teen Wolf Season 1.

Morgue Drawer #2: 5775[53] - 201020192 | JANE DOE - PARTIAL | POLICE EVIDENCE | DO NOT TAMPER | 5678 107 54987: Toe Tag: Office of the Medical Examiner | Age: Unknown | Race: W | Sex: F | Case No: 376-098726 | Name: Jane Doe | Tagged: Partial | Tagged By: Dr. James B. Brothers

Cortisone Shot:  Cortisone shots are injections that can help relieve pain and inflammation in a specific area of your body. They're most commonly injected into joints. The injections usually contain a corticosteroid medication and a local anesthetic. Often, you can receive one at your doctor's office. Because of potential side effects, the number of shots you can get in a year generally is limited.

“The Wolf Man”: is a 1941 (Same year that BHHS was founded) American horror film. The film stars Lon Chaney Jr. in the title role. Claude Rains, Warren William, Ralph Bellamy, Patric Knowles, Bela Lugosi, Evelyn Ankers, and Maria Ouspenskaya star in supporting roles. The title character has had a great deal of influence on Hollywood's depictions of the legend of the werewolf. 

Relevant/Parallel (Wolf Man) Plot Points:  

> Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.) returns to his ancestral home in Llanwelly, Wales to bury his recently deceased brother and reconcile with his estranged father, Sir John Talbot (Claude Rains). Fun Fact: We’re gonna see the Surname Talbot again in TW S4E5 in Brett Talbot.

> “Even a man who is pure in heart, and says his prayers by night; May become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright.” in later films the final line is changed to "And the moon is full and bright"

> The night of the next full moon, he begs his father to restrain him to prevent him from hurting anyone else.

> The movie ends with Sir John and Gwen watching in horror as the dead werewolf transforms into Larry's human corpse.

Questions & Concerns:

Let’s Keep track of how many times someone hides in the locker room rafters: 2 (because I bet it’s gonna happen again)

Gotta wonder if being sprayed with a CO2 extinguisher feels like being choked...maybe like having an asthma attack?

I’m most offended that when Derek came in through the window, he probably stepped on Scott’s bed with his shoes on like a complete psychopath. (Alternately, what kinda psycho has the head of their bed beneath their open blindless/curtainless window???)

Allison is is French class...does she already know French? Or that her family knows French? Is that a part of her family identity at all yet? 

Allison made a point to tell Scott to invite Stiles after the game. +10 good girlfriend points to Allison...for now...

Does Derek know that Allison is an Argent? Like surely he does, but does he??? He’d warn our boy about the hunter’s right?

It’s pretty easy to see how Scott correlates being a werewolf with being unable to have the things that he wants. You have Lydia tying Allison to his Lacrosse performance, and Coach telling him that if he doesn’t play now, he doesn’t play at all, then you have Stiles tying Scott’s increased heartrate to both Lacrosse and Allison, warning him away from both, and then ultimately Derek telling him not to play Lacrosse at all, and further inciting Scott via Allison and her jacket. (Not to mention Allison’s dad is a Hunter, so he’s got the dual motivation of not MY daughter, and not a damn werewolf for SURE.)  Not that Scott would actually BE on first line without the bite, but he previously made it clear that he had fully intended on making the first line that season regardless.

Christ, Derek, that is a well buried, but TERRIBLY hidden dead body, ffs. Throw a couple of leaves on it or SOMETHING.

Totally just assumes that Derek is going to be at the burned out husk of his family home...I mean he was RIGHT, but that wouldn’t have been MY first thought.

WHY ARE THERE NO LOCKS OR KEYCARD ACCESS FOR THE MORGUE/POLICE EVIDENCE?

Is the Hale ability to full shift only tied to the Alpha Spark? Or being a Hale? Or having at some point been an Alpha Hale? Because Laura being in her full shift while dead (and therefore Alpha Spark-less) makes it seem more of a Hale thing?

Why does the Wolfsbane put/keep Laura in her full shit? She was human when Scott first came across her...

This is the first indication that even being NEAR wolfsbane can cause a werewolf physical harm...Which begs the question, how did Derek A) weave wolfsbane into a rope and then carefully bury it in a spiral around Laura’s body. or B) get ahold of both wolfsbane rope and an entire wolfsbane flower...

If I stand by the observation that Scott was nearly hit by a red SUV *cough* Victoria *cough* at the beginning of the first episode, I find even greater joy in Chris Argent actually hitting him with it in the second episode. 

Stiles’ dad being at the game even though he’s a bench warmer makes me soft like marshmallow.