#I've mained this man since December of 2020

[swimminginwatercolors]

I forgot Albedo eats Spiders

[somekeepsakes]

Thanks @urbanowa for tagging me <3

last song: Swampy by Dry Cleaning. I recently remembered how I discovered them by accident when one of their songs showed up on a playlist a few weeks after the plague™ hit in 2020 and how their music went on to accompany me through the rest of the year and beyond ofc bc they haven't lost any of their magic.

latest TV show: I don't watch many TV shows, actually I haven't watched a single one in 2023. The last one was probably a Polish one called Klangor which I was forced to binge at the end of December as I came across it a few days before the TV channel removed it from its streaming service and I needed to hurry up bc I was pretty sure I wouldn't find the German version online as I don't speak Polish.

currently watching: I'm currently working on making my films-to-watch list smaller, the most recent ones I've seen were The Third Man and Die Konsequenz. Haven't decided what's next, it's always more of a spontaneous thing.

currently reading: Die Arbeit der Nacht by Thomas Glavinic. It's a book I found in some bookstore during a trip about a year ago. I was intrigued by the title and also bc some critic described it as kafkaesque. It's a really weird book (in a good sense). The main (and so far only) character wakes up one morning and finds himself to be the only person left in the entire city.

current obsession: Definitely Shortparis since the end of January when I saw them live for the first time. I only started listening to one or two of their albums last year after reading an article about them. When I saw they were coming to Vienna, I bought my ticket on a whim. As I was leaving for Vienna, I wasn't in the best mood due to several things happening at that time so I wasn't expecting much and wasn't really looking forward to anything either. But then the concert just blew me away which was completely unexpected. It was just amazing and intense and managed to brighten my day, my week, my month, my mood whatever and I absolutely adore them now.

tag 9 people: @endorstoiii, @angelolsenwife, @elfyz, @velocidaixxtor, @lastflowerss, @murobrown, @broamen, @lighten-up-squirt & @lillekins if you want to and also please drop me a message if you are annoyed by my tag spam sorry lol

[carewyncromwell]

original background picture // edited with help from Lunapic // main musical accompaniment while working on this

x~x~x~x

“Carewyn!” She turned around, her ginger hair flourishing behind her as if in slow motion. A man had just leapt off the back of a carriage he’d been hanging off of without the driver’s knowledge and was now running toward her. Carewyn squinted, taking in his unfamiliar dark ponytail and sailor’s clothes – then, within seconds, she recognized the handsomely smiling, bearded face and his shining, galaxy-like eyes. “Orion?” she breathed. Her heart seemed to seize up, as if it were being squeezed in someone’s hand and yet being given wings at the exact same time. Then she threw herself into a run, and it slammed against her rib cage, as she ran to him, flat-out ignoring how her knees kept getting caught in her hoops and her heeled shoes pinched her feet. “Orion – ORION!” She just about tripped into his arms. Orion caught her and swooped down on her, burying his face in her hair. “Carewyn…” he murmured against her neck. “Orion,” said Carewyn. Her voice was strained with the effort of trying to contain her joy. It felt like she was being stretched at the seams and probably could’ve exploded from all the intense emotions beating at the edges of her heart.

~POTC AU, Act II, Part XII: Reunited

x~x~x~x

D'aww...don't we all love happy endings? 🥹 I absolutely loved doing this "take two" on my POTC babies' final looks --

-- though I set this moment a bit earlier than the original sketch, since I wanted to experiment more with angles and I felt more confident in depicting a more full embrace. (It's times like this where I really am happy I spent so much time during the pandemic actively practicing my art -- however painfully conscious as I am that I'm still a complete amateur when it comes to art and however much I'll probably always pick apart everything I've ever created and will create, I can't help but feel proud, seeing how far I've come. I mean, that original sketch is from December 23, 2020! That's really just over four years!!) And it also has been so fun revisiting this AU that I had so much fun putting together with so many other creators and will probably always have a soft spot for, both considering how big the project got and how much it tapped into my utter adoration for both the Pirates of the Caribbean films and the historical Golden Age of Piracy overall.

Love you all! Hope you have a magical day...and keep a weather eye on the horizon 💚

[consolecadet]

10 First Lines Game

Tagged by @specialagentartemis (thanks for thinking of me!)

“Rules: share the first lines of ten of your most recent fanfics and tag ten people. If you have written less than ten, don’t be shy and share anyway ❤️”

At Artemis' suggestion, I'm playing fast and loose with the rules and including original fiction too. I feel like I don't talk about my writing in much detail and many of these projects are not online, so I've included some context!

When Gareth Last gets to the top of the stairs to his office on Germantown Ave, someone is already standing there, waiting. “Latent Defects”, last worked on today. Latent Defects is a bi 1980s detective novel I started during NaNoWriMo 2018 and have been working on since. I don’t want to jinx it, but I think I’m getting close to a version I'd be comfortable asking for feedback on! HMU if we're mutuals and you want to read a 350-page manuscript soon (realistically a few months from now).

Kim closes his Mnemotechnique A6 and aligns his pen beside it on the desk. “Boot Black”, last worked on today. I started writing this fic about an undernegotiated BDSM scene between Kim Kitsuragi and Harry du Bois in February because of an intoxicated tag I left on this poor, unsuspecting artist’s drawing of Kim Kitsuragi. It's nearly finished.

He shows him the picture. “Rabbit Vector.” “This is Not a Virtual Simulation”, last worked on March 2023. This year I started outlining a new version of a very old cyberpunk heist novel project. I'm still in the R&D phase, but I did write a first line (or two).

PROBLEM: Lieutenant Kitsuragi seems repressed. “Thought Acquired: Manic Pixie Dream Detective”, finished February 2023. I wrote this Kim/Harry short in the style of Disco Elysium’s Thought Cabinet. An amusing exercise.

It doesn’t feel right to be back at the new school in Trenton so soon, after spending last night watching the shamash until it went out with his siblings. “That’s How Accidents Happen”, finished October 2022. A Latent Defects short about the love interest Luke Whittaker’s adolescent crush on his high school shop teacher.  

The first 30% of Hermann’s flare came from his and Newton’s ill-advised drift with the Kaiju fetus. “It’s the Weather, You Imbecile”, finished September 2022. After joining AO3 and revising my old fics to upload them there, the spirit of 2013 possessed me to write this Pacific Rim porn.

At Goodwill in boy mode, I watch for other shoppers in the mirror above the racks. “#191970 Midnight Blue” for The HTML Colors Zine, finished April 2022. I had a blast writing ten 50-word stories inspired by HTML colors for this zine I found out about on Twitter. Artemis also has some work in here!

A man tried to sell me a daydream today. Adaptive Daydreaming”, last worked on December 2021. One of a few ideas I have in a universe loosely inspired by William Gibson’s “simstim” technology (my version is a device called the SenShare). This one is also inspired by bullshit-artist corporate coaches.

He’s glad he’s sitting on the exam table, because the patterned cotton johnny is too small. “The Transformation”, last worked on January 2021. This was going to be a short story about a doctor dismissing a fat character’s strange symptoms, which turn out to be the lead-up of the character turning into a terrible (yet awesome) monster.

Connor remembers enough to know it wasn’t her fault. “Neural Feedback Loop”, finished/last worked on September 2020. Another SenShare device story. In this one, a cyclist disabled by a car accident takes revenge by using the SenShare to force the pain of her injuries onto the driver.

What have we learned today?

Unlike Artemis, I rarely if ever start a story with a line of dialogue

Despite my best efforts, ~70% of my recent work features a man as the main character

Most of the fanfiction I write is porn, while most of the original fiction I write is not

I tend to start with a zoomed-out generalization, a habit I do not love about myself

Please consider yourself tagged if you want an excuse to share, but I'll also tag @cryptiq @sealcontent @absolutely-basted @animeisgod @tadpoleconspiracy @definitionsfading @saxifraga-x-urbium with the general directive of "I'd love to hear about any category of writing you're working on, but no pressure".

[dervampireprince]

Any advice for new tumblr accounts? I just joined and I have no clue how to grow a following? -shy anon lol

oh boy this isn't something i've really thought about before.

when i first joined tumblr in 2013 i wasn't looking to grow a following, i just knew some artists i liked were on here and i wanted to see what they were posting. it wasn't until years later i started posting my own gifs and art over on my main blog. follower counts aren't public but i don't mind sharing if it helps so on @emptymasks which i've had since 2013 and at times have posted a lot of gifs, art and fisc too and at other times have gone months and months without posting any of that because i don't see tumblr as a social media to like make money off or anything, it's just fun, i have 2988 on my main blog.

this blog dervampireprince has existed since december 2020 but it was a different blog with a different name until march 2021 when it became dervampireprince. so this blog has existed posting 18+ writing since march 2021 and audios since december 2021 and i have 3682 followers over here. never expected this blog to me my post popular but i'm not complaining.

tumblr isn't like other social medias, you can't see other users follower counts, following counts, and recommended and trending posts don't get thrown at you. you mostly only see posts from people you follow. yes there are recommended posts now but if you're an older tumblr user like myself you may use Xkit which is a 3rd party extension for tumblr that adds a bunch of features (blocking posts with certain words in them, mass tag editor/replacer, an outbox, ad blocker, use tumblr using older themes and layouts, etc) so some people don't get any recommended posts.

there's only one way to get your posts noticed by people on tumblr and that's using tags correctly, and relying on people who check their favourite tags to notice your posts. now a lot of people must not be like me, because i don't check tags for things very often, but clearly a lot of people do or my posts would have no notes. what tags you use though is going to depend on what type of post you're making. you can use up to 20 tags. tumblr will let you type more than 20, but anything above tag 20 won't be searchable, as in if you 21st tag is [marvel], your post will not show up under search results for marvel unless it's tag 20 or lower, not on tumblr general search nor in search results on your own blog.

(sidenote - tumblr's search used to take you to tumblr.com/tagged/[thing you searched for] and years ago they changed it to tumblr.com/search/[thing you searched for]. you can still get to the /tagged page by typing it in the URL bar, /tagged always shows most recent posts first which i prefer and also if you searched for [loki] then /tagged would only show you posts where the word loki is tagged, whereas /search shows you posts that have loki tagged and have the word loki typed in any text in the actual post. which is annoying and you end up with non relevant posts showing up in certain tags)

so for example if i'm writing a nsft writing posts these are the tags i tend to use are: #nsft nsftumblr #nsft concept #nsft fantasy #nsft writing #ftm nsft #mlm nsft #nblm nsft #t4t nsft #trans nsft #trans man nsft #transmasc nsft #lgbt nsft #bi nsft . Now all those tags aren't relevant to every nsft post, some are gender specific, but you can find what other tags exist by just checking the general #nsft and #nsftumblr tags and seeing what other people use as tags when they post.

(and having xkit means i don't have to remember and type these out every time, i just have them saved as a tag bundle and one click and they all go in the tags)

or for example if i'm making a post on my main blog for a sandman drawing i've down i'd use the tags: the sandman #dream of the endless #sandman #fanart #hob gadling #dreamling #dreamgadling #hob x dream #dream x hob #morpheus #lord morpheus #myart #sandman fanart #the sandman fanart . And then people find it through the fandom and ship tags mostly.

Of course if you already have followers then your followers will see your posts no matter if you use any tags or none, but tags are the only way to get people who aren't following you to see your post, and hope that some of them reblog it so their followers can see (unlike social medias like Twitter, like aren't public here, your followers can't see what posts you like, and even if you set your likes to public they can only see them if they go to a specific page on your blog, your likes don't show up in their dashboard/timeline like they do on Twitter).

This is my oldest original piece of writing on here

I had somewhere between 1-10 followers at the time and currently it stands at 52 notes. I didn't use many tags, I didn't know about the existence of many tags, but I used the few I knew about and specific kink tags and people noticed it.

And as always it's the posts you spend ages writing that get fewer notes than one silly sentence you post at 2am thinking no one will notice

Because that still sits at my post popular post on this blog. And despite this blog having much more followers than my main, my post popular post ever is a Loki themed edit I did where I just posted 9 photos from fashion editorials, recoloured them to be green and black and gold, and it got to over 15k notes within a few months and none of my posts here are close to getting that many. Follower count doesn't reflect how popular a post can get.

Basically tags are your best friend on this site, use them wisely, don't use more than 20. It doesn't hurt to follow and interact with other blogs who are posting similar content to you, your followers are going to see any posts you reblog as well as your original posts. I've never approached another blog trying to be mutuals or friends before, if I end up getting to know anyone it just sorta happens from us seeing each others names a lot in our notes and sending asks to each other. Like with with aspiring-house-husband for example, I never sent them a message saying 'can we be friends' because that's kinda creepy, I just was reblogging a lot of their writing, chose to engage by sending them some rp asks, complimenting their writing, and then i realised they'd reblogged from me, small world, and speaking of Fawn, in less than a year they got almost 7k followers which is insane and goes to show how talented at writing they are. If you're really only doing it for the followers then finding a niche can help, if you're wanting to write nsft stuff you could focus around certain kinks or creatures or something. I ended up focusing around royalty kink stuff, and I hadn't even heart of it until a couple months into making this blog so.

I hope some of that was helpful? My goal with my main tumblr was just to be able to see art other people posted, making this tumblr yes I did hope for people to reblog my writing and I liked the idea of being a nsft blog people followed, but I didn't have any plans that I would make audios and end up making income off this stuff, it just happened that by the time I wanted to make audios I was lucky that 1. people were already following me and 2. I was making them for a new fandom that was really popular at the time (Arcane).

Yeah that was long, hope it helped, I don't know what sort of content you want to make and tumblr isn't like other socials, there's no 'tumblr influencers' and you can't get sponsored or monetized posts or get payed to host ads on your blog or anything like that so I can only tell you so much.

EDIT: I remembered something else! There are some blogs called source blogs, these blogs are normally centered around a fandom, character, actor, ship, etc. For example marvelgifs is a blog that reblogs Marvel gifs. These blogs will check posts tagged with their username, not @ ing them in the post, but putting their username as one of your tags etc #marvelgifs . You can tag source blogs as a way to help get your posts potentially reblogged. Most of these blogs only post and reblog gifs and edits but some do also reblog fanart, fics and other content for example I also run a blog @europeanmusicals where I reblog and post all content about European musicals that I can find including fanart and writings, and I check the #europeanmusicals tag to see if there's posts people want me to notice to them reblog to that blog. I was able to set up that blog as I'd already been posting about European musicals on my main emptymasks blog for a year or two at that point and surrounded myself with others who like that content.

[thunderbone]

The Shadow Hunters

Hello, today I decided to share with you a story that curiously underwent several changes over the years. As a child, I was a big fan of Monica's Gang and Peanuts. To this day I have Monica's Gang comics and I've read several Peanuts comics at the school I studied, especially the comics from the first version of Peanuts (1950), which by the way is my favorite version.

At a certain point in my childhood, I had the idea of ​​creating a cartoon when I'm adult, where this cartoon would be like Monica's Gang and Peanuts, only based on my life, where I would be the main protagonist. As I was a child and I was still starting to draw, obviously the drawings of the first versions of my story were very ugly, after all, I was a child and I didn't even know how to draw properly at the time.

From the first version to the 2018 version, all the characters were children and the intention was to be a children's cartoon, although there is a 2015 and 2016 version that was the opposite of that, where the drawings of this version presented extreme violence, gore and etc (my God! where was I thinking, since when is this for children?!). However, it was from the 2019 version that things started to change, because now the characters are teenagers and the intention is to be a cartoon for teenagers, probably for people over 12 or 14 years old.

The characters that were the protagonists of the first versions were characters based on real people, like myself who was the main protagonist (duhh), my brother, Alex (@alekizw), and my old friends who studied with me. However, it was from the 2015 and 2016 version that I started to create fictional characters, where some were also the protagonists, while the others were mere supporting characters.

When I created the first version of all, I didn't know what the name of the story would be, and as I was without creativity, I chose the simplest name of all, "Os Amigos", which in English translation means "The Friends", which curiously was the only thing that remained until the penultimate version of my story during its constant changes. In each version of my story, the characters had different appearance and visuals. But the version I want to share with you is the latest version, which is the version I created last year.

It all started in December 2022, where after I created the penultimate version of my story, I realized that that version is a shit LMFAO Yeah, the story was horrible and I soon realized that I would have to create a new version of the story that was a thousand times better.

But this new reboot would have to be the definitive version of the story, as I was tired of having to create a different reboot for the same story every time. Seriously, I couldn't take this anymore, having to redo the story from scratch, do a new drawing of the characters, etc.

One day, I was watching a video from a Brazillian channel called Vício Nerd about the most bizarre dubbing in the world. It was thanks to this video that I discovered an anime called Ghost Stories (2000-2001). The story of this anime was very interesting and what caught my attention the most was the fact that a ghost that was in the body of a cat was helping the protagonists in the fight against evil, even if reluctantly at first.

So I thought: Why not create a story about a group of teenagers hunting ghosts? I told my brother, Alex, about my new idea and he really liked the idea. However, in January 2023, my brother and I went to watch the series Supernatural (2005-2020) for the first time, where we started to marathon this series.

Man, this series is really good! The story is interesting, the characters are very good, the monsters and ghosts they hunt are very interesting and the villains so... It was an amazing series. I liked this series so much that I soon remembered my idea and thought: In addition to hunting ghosts, the protagonists could also hunt monsters, right?

When I told my brother this, he loved this new addition to the idea, because for him, the story wouldn't be so good if the characters only hunted ghosts. So my brother and I started creating this story together, where my brother suggested some ideas, but I developed most of the story myself.

Also, I decided to discard the idea of ​​the protagonists being teenagers, because besides the fact that I had already created other stories about teenagers dividing their normal lives with their lives as heroes, it wouldn't make sense for teenagers still in high school to travel the entire country to hunt monsters and ghosts. So I came up with the idea of ​​them being young adults who are in college, because since they are adults, it makes more sense for them to have the freedom to travel the country and hunt monsters and ghosts in their free time, just like it was in Supernatural.

To create this story, I was inspired by Supernatural, Ghost Stories, Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare (2001) and Goosebumps (2015).

To avoid making the story too repetitive, I had the idea of ​​adding a monster or ghost of the week, just like that old horror TV series did. Like, at the end of each season, the protagonists would have to face an even greater threat, where this monster or ghost would be a kind of "main villain" or even the season's standout villain.

As in the first four seasons there wouldn't be a main story or main villains, since in the first seasons the protagonists would have to hunt all the monsters and ghosts and there isn't much to complain about because that's how it has to be, I got the idea from the last season have a main story and a main villain. This villain was even inspired by The Creeper from the Jeepers Creepers franchise and Pennywise from the It franchise.

After I created the story, I had to think of a name, because that old name, "The Friends", is rubbish. Then I remembered that two of the protagonists in my story are part of a lineage of Shadow Hunters, just like Edward Carnby in the game Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare, so I thought: The story could very well be called The Shadow Hunters, right?

And no, I was not inspired by those books The Mortal Instruments and Shadowhunters (2016-2019), because my story is VERY different from the story of that books and that series and has a different proposal, where my story was created for a audience that loves horror films (that is, my story has death scenes, gore, etc.).

Furthermore, to get the idea that two of the five protagonists are part of a lineage of monster and ghost hunters known as Shadow Hunters, I was inspired by Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare, which actually came out six years before the book series written by Cassandra Clare. So don't even think about accusing me of plagiarism >:(

No offense, but my story has more variety of monsters than these books LOL After I created the story with my brother, I decided not to do a new drawing of the story's protagonists, as drawing a group of characters is very tiring, as I have to draw, outline and paint the drawing and this makes my hands, fingers and neck hurt XD

As I no longer wanted to make a new drawing of the protagonists of my story, I decided to try to find someone who could draw them for me. On 08/03/2023, I asked @banenaz (also known as Banena The Sheep), a very talented and kind artist who has done a art for me before, if she could do a new art for me, which she accepted.

After many unforeseen events and 10 months of waiting, Banenaz finally managed to draw the protagonists of my story on the 7th of this month.

This art was really worth waiting for, because I really liked the final result, which is perfect! Seriously, the art is incredible, besides being beautiful and wonderful 🥰❤️ Just look at these neat details 😍 Thank you so much for drawing all my OCs for me, Banenaz 💖 If you want to see her amazing work, click here: https://www.tumblr.com/banenaz

The characters in the art are (from left to right): Claire Parker, Pedro Giovane, Alexander Junior, Alice Silveira and Azaloth (cat and dog).

To draw my persona (Pedro), the artist was inspired by the human version of Rocky Rickaby from the comic book Lackadaisy. Furthermore, to draw the book he is holding, she was inspired by Sarah Ravencroft's book from the film Scooby-Doo and the Witch's Ghost (1999). To draw his girlfriend, Claire, the artist was inspired by Mary Jane Watson, as well as being inspired by an outfit that Ari (@ladybugkisses' Lackadaisy OC) wears.

To draw the persona of my brother (Alex), Banenaz was inspired by the actor Jack Champion. As for Alice, she was inspired by some random photos of black girls that I found on the internet for her to draw. And to draw the kittie version of Azaloth, Banenaz was inspired by Mordecai from the comic book Lackadaisy, while the doggie version was inspired by a Snoopy fanart made by gNAW.

In addition to the art made by Banenaz, I also have other art of my OCs.

In May of this year, I was looking for someone who could draw the 4 human protagonists of my horror story, The Shadow Hunters. Luckily, I had the great pleasure of meeting @divumreves, a super talented and very kind artist. Divumreves was accepting art requests and I soon asked to draw my OCs, which accepted.

The art is perfect! Seriously, I really loved the drawing, I really liked the final result! Just look at Claire, she looks so hot 😍 My persona (Pedro), besides being handsome, seems to be very brave and determined 😎 My brother's persona (Alex) is so cute 🥺 And Alice, just like Claire, is very beautiful 🥰 Thank you very much for making this drawing for me, I loved it so much 💖 This is definitely one of the best drawings I've ever received!

If you want to see the wonderful work of divumreves, click here: https://www.tumblr.com/divumreves

In May of this year, I was looking for someone who could draw one of the protagonists of my horror story, The Shadow Hunters. Luckily, an artist called @stargazer365 was still accepting art requests. She had already made a drawing for me, so I asked her if she could draw my OC, Azaloth, in the body of a cat and a dog, which she accepted.

To draw the cat version of Azaloth, she was inspired by Mordecai Heller from the comic book Lackadaisy (@lackadaisycats). Man, the drawing is amazing! Seriously, I really loved the cat version of Azaloth, he looks cute but evil at the same time XD

To draw the dog version of Azaloth, she was inspired by Snoopy from the comic Peanuts, more specifically the 1950s version, which is my favorite version, by the way. However, while Snoopy is a Beagle dog, the dog whose body Azaloth owned is a mutt, having the same size as a Dalmatian or even a Rottweiler.

Bro, he looks so beautiful and gorgeous aaaaaaaaaaaa 😍🥰❤️ Seriously, this doggie seems so kind yet threatening if someone hurts his friends. You managed to make him very imposing, making him a good dog who will do anything to protect someone he loves. I loved the drawing so much, thank you very much 💖 If you want to see her art, which is beautiful by the way, click here: https://www.tumblr.com/stargazer365

Well, now that you know the whole story behind my creation, below is the story of the current version of my old idea. Have a good read ^w^

Set in Brazil in 2012, the series revolves around Pedro and Alex, two brothers who have just moved to start a new life with their family. Eleven years ago, Pedro and Alex lost their little sister, Sophia, who died in a tragic car accident when they were children. Pedro is 20 years old, has Asperger's Syndrome – the mildest form of autism – and is the oldest brother, while Alex is the youngest brother, aged 19. Initially, after moving to the new city, Pedro and Alex had a lot of difficulty living in the new house, studying at college and making new friends.

However, their lives changed completely after they met Claire, a 20-year-old American girl who was rich and already lived in Brazil with her parents, as well as being Pedro's neighbor and student in his class. Despite being rich and living a luxurious life, Claire is not happy and has no interest in material goods, being a humble and good-natured girl. Pedro and Alex became friends with Claire, and she helped them make new friends and get to know the city and its inhabitants better.

Pedro and Alex, with Claire's help, became friends with their new neighbor who had also just moved in, Alice Silveira, a 19-year-old nerdy girl who dreams of being a writer and lives with her divorced father. However, Pedro and Alex's grandfather passed away at the age of 60, where he left them both a mysterious book, which should never be opened under any circumstances. One day, the two brothers ignored this warning and decided to open the book out of pure curiosity. However, upon opening it, the book ended up releasing several ghosts and monsters, which ended up spreading throughout the country.

Later they discover that their grandfather was actually a monster and ghost hunter, where one of his weapons was that old book, which was actually a magical book of sorcery that also served as a prison for those monsters and ghosts. Realizing the great responsibility they would have to deal with, Pedro and Alex, with the help of their friends, will have to travel across the country to capture all the monsters and ghosts that were inside the book before they hurt people. In addition to the magical book, they also began using improvised weapons that were made to exclusively fight monsters and ghosts, in which Pedro and Alex's uncle, Sergio, repairs some of these weapons.

During the course of the first season, the protagonists face various monsters and ghosts, including Werewolves, Vampires, Mermaids, Fairies, Demons, Ghouls/Zombies, Ogres, Doppelgängers, Wendigo (legendary creature from the USA and Canada that feeds on human flesh) , Amaroks (Giant wolves from Inuit mythology), Medusas (Creature from Greek mythology), Goblins, Vengeful Spirits, Evil Spirits and Supernatural Entities. Throughout the story, the different personalities of the protagonists are revealed, such as the fact that Pedro is a very nice, friendly guy but very impulsive and immature; Alex is kind, sincere, arrogant and quite cocky; Claire is humble, selfless, vain and ignorant and Alice is affectionate, brave, sarcastic and proud.

Furthermore, it was from this season onwards that Pedro and Alex began to see Sophia through hallucinations, where she blames them for her death, saying that they should have saved her from that monster. At the end of the season, the protagonists had to face an absurdly powerful ghost, who did not want to live imprisoned in that magical book again. They tried to defeat him using their improvised weapons which are weak against ghosts, such as a shotgun that shoots salt and iron chains. However, it was of no use, as their weapons did nothing against the villain other than tickle.

Because of this, the protagonists began to suspect him, believing that perhaps he is not exactly a ghost. After several efforts that almost resulted in their deaths, the protagonists finally manage to defeat him, as he, even though he was powerful, was still weakened and was recovering his powers all this time after leaving his prison. However, instead of trapping him in the book, the protagonists accidentally trapped the ghost in the body of Félix, a stray cat that was there.

The protagonists already knew it, where one of them played with that cat and fed it. Before the ghost can use his powers to kill them, the protagonists cast a spell on him, preventing him from using all of his powers. To prevent the ghost from leaving the cat's body, the protagonists manage to cast a powerful spell, ensuring that it remains trapped inside the cat's body forever.

After what happened, the ghost, now in the cat's body, and the protagonists make a deal: If he helps them capture all the ghosts and monsters, they will free him. In the second season, 1 year later, the protagonists are still trying to capture the monsters and ghosts to then imprison them in the magical book, with the help of the ghost, now nicknamed Félix due to the fact that he is trapped in the body of the cat of the same name.

This season, new monsters and ghosts appeared in the series, such as Bigfoot (legendary creature from the USA), Headless Horseman (Ghost from European folklore since the Middle Ages), Kuchisake-onna (Ghost from Japanese horror folklore), Jersey Devil (Legendary creature from the USA), Tiger Man/Catman (Mythological creature from various Eastern cultures, similar to the werewolf), Ahool (Legendary creature from the Java forest, originating in Indonesia) and Alraune (Legendary creature from Germany), in addition to the appearance of creatures from Brazilian folklore, they being the Saci, Headless Mule, Cuca, Corpo Seco, Bradador, Capelobo, Quibungo and Mapinguari.

Furthermore, it was from this season onwards that the protagonists also had to deal with many problems in their friendship. Throughout the season, even though he reluctantly helped them, Félix took great pleasure in seeing the protagonists in trouble, getting screwed at the hands of the monsters and ghosts they faced during the episodes. At certain times, Félix did not help the protagonists under any circumstances and saw the circus burn, but when the situation got worse, he helped them, even against his will.

At the end of the season, several hunters are mysteriously disappearing in the Amazon rainforest, leaving no trace. In that same forest, the protagonists and other students were on a college trip with teachers and forest rangers, where they went to learn everything about the animals, fauna, ecosystem, etc. In parallel to this, a group of people went to the forest in the hope of finding the missing hunters, who are their relatives.

However, both groups are attacked by Curupira, resulting in the death of some people from both groups. After being relentlessly pursued by the creature, both groups met and took refuge in an old cabin. Later, the protagonists, with the help of forest rangers and the hunters' relatives, tried to defeat Curupira. After a long battle, they manage to defeat him.

But when the protagonists were going to imprison him in the book, Curupira asked for mercy, saying that he was just trying to protect the forest from hunters, who are bad people. He explains that he attacked everyone because he believed they were a threat to the forest and the animals. Proof of this was that Curupira attacked the forest rangers and the group that was looking for for their relatives, as they were using firearms.

Furthermore, Curupira spared Pedro's life, and when he was cornered by the creature during the attack, he knelt down to pray, where upon seeing such a scene, he left him alone instead of killing him, in addition to the fact that one of the hunters' relatives killed an animal that attacked the group to defend himself and others, further increasing Curupira's fury, although he did not know that the group did not kill the animal out of pure evil, but rather out of legitimate defense.

Realizing that everything was a misunderstanding and that the forest and animals need to be protected from bad people, the protagonists spare Curupira, as he is not an evil creature like the other monsters and ghosts they faced previously. In the third season, 2 years after the events of the second season, the protagonists managed to capture half of the monsters and ghosts that were loose in the country.

However, Claire's mother passed away, where her cause of death was a severe brain aneurysm, much to the sadness of her daughter and husband. Furthermore, Félix ended up developing a feeling of protection for the protagonists, in which he gradually became their best friend during the course of the season. This season, the protagonists begin to evolve; Pedro is now more mature and is no longer a very impulsive person, Claire is no longer so vain and has stopped being ignorant, Alex is no longer arrogant and cocky and Alice is less proud and less debauched.

Throughout history, new monsters and ghosts emerged, including the Abominable Snowman/Yeti, Kelpie (Creature from Celtic mythology similar to the horse that haunts rivers and lakes in Scotland and Ireland), Strigoi (Creature from Romanian folklore, being a creature similar to the vampire), Iron Witch (Ghost from a Brazilian urban legend), Aswang (A generic term for 5 evil creatures originating in the Philippines that change shape through metamorphosis just like the werewolf, being the vampire, the viscera sucker, the Dog Man, the witch and the ghoul), Dobhar-chú (Creature from Irish folklore that resembles a giant otter), Emela-ntouka (Legendary African creature from the mythology of the Pygmy tribes, being resembling a herbivorous dinosaur), Loira do Banheiro (Ghost from a Brazilian urban legend) and Black Annis (Witch from English folklore).

In addition to facing new monsters and ghosts, Pedro and Claire began to fall in love, but both do not admit their feelings for each other. Throughout the season, the protagonists, except Pedro, had to face their personal problems; Alex had to deal with his Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD); Claire has excessive anxiety and is trying to control it and Alice has had to deal with racism from her boyfriend's mother.

In the Halloween special, the protagonists, with the help of some children, had to face Jack O'Lantern, also known as Samhain, a legendary ghost who gave rise to Halloween and Halloween pumpkins. Having been completely forgotten by people around the world, Jack plans to launch an attack on Halloween parties around the world in an attempt to be remembered by people again.

With that, he used his powers to make Halloween night last forever, in addition to controlling all the ghosts to order them to scare people as punishment for forgetting him. However, the only ghost that resisted Jack O'Lantern's control was Félix, much to the villain's chagrin. At the end of this special, Samhain is defeated, but is spared by the protagonists, believing that he can make people remember him without harming people, and that his intention was never to hurt people.

In the Christmas special, the protagonists had to stop Badalisc, a Christmas creature from Italian folklore who is making life hell for everyone in the city with his very bad pranks. However, at the end of the special, like Curupira and Samhain, he was also not imprisoned in the book, as he never harmed anyone and his intention was just to make fun of people.

In the final stretch of the season, several people are dying mysteriously, where some people were torn apart in an extremely violent way, while others were brutally beaten, having their bones broken and their eyes, jaw and tongue ripped out. The police believe that some wild animal is attacking people, as it is impossible for one person to have done all this barbarity. At one point, Alex's friend and schoolmate, Fábio, died mysteriously, in which his body was torn apart.

Suspecting his friend's strange death, Alex, with the help of Pedro, Claire, Alice and Félix, went to investigate what was happening. At one point, the protagonists received a mysterious link from an anonymous person. When clicking on the link, the protagonists accessed a website called Pesadelo.com.br, where they watched the site's videos out of pure curiosity. Much to their horror, the videos depict the extremely brutal rape and death of a woman.

Later, the protagonists discover that all the victims, including Fábio, before they died, had accessed the same website that they had previously visited. According to an urban legend, if someone accesses this website and watches all of its videos, the person will die within 24 hours. Coincidentally, all the victims died within 24 hours of watching those horrific videos.

Furthermore, according to Alice's police officer father, who is investigating the case, all the victims were acting very strangely, as if they were all seeing bizarre things around them, things that left them quite psychologically disturbed. Believing they have been cursed, the protagonists race against time in the hope of discovering a way to break the curse before they are killed within 24 hours.

At one point, they tried to save one of the college professors from being killed by the ghost, where they managed to trap it inside the book. However, to their great surprise, the ghost came out of the book and attacked the teacher, brutally tearing him apart in front of the protagonists. After this tragedy, the protagonists discover that it is impossible to trap ghosts that created a curse within that magical book, as the book only imprisons ghosts that do not have a curse.

They then realize that the only way to defeat the ghost is to break the curse. Throughout the story, the protagonists begin to have paranoia and many hallucinations, where most of them were apparitions of dead people, including Claire's mother, Alice's uncles and Pedro and Alex's little sister, Sophia, the latter of whom had died fourteen years ago. Initially, the protagonists believed that the only way to break the curse is to show the website and its videos to another person, making them die in the place of the person who accessed the website.

Following this possibility, Claire and Alice's friend, Júlia, who also visited the site and watched their videos, put it into practice. However, after showing the website to a friend, Júlia is attacked by the ghost, who brutally beats her and takes out her eyes, jaw and tongue, much to the horror of her little sister, who saw everything. After Júlia's sister tells everything that happened, the protagonists discard that possibility, as it implies that if the cursed person tries to cheat by showing the website and videos to someone, instead of someone dying in their place, the cursed person will be dead, having their 24 hours of life ended early.

Later, Félix managed to discover the ghost behind all this: A month ago, a woman with psychic abilities named Lindsay had been attacked by a group of men, who raped and killed her by brutally beating her, in addition to rip out her eyes, jaw and tongue. The murderers then dismembered her body, put it in a bag and threw it into the city river, preventing their crime from being discovered.

However, while she was being raped and murdered, Lindsay, using her psychic powers, recorded all that barbarity through projected thermography, creating the website's curse. Believing that the only way to break the curse is to avenge Lindsay's death, the protagonists went after the guys who raped and killed her, intending to attract the ghost to them and then take revenge for what they did to her.

While Pedro, Alex and Alice went looking for Lindsay's killers, Claire will be the bait that will attract the ghost to them, as her 24 hours of life are nearing the end as she was the first to access the website and watch the videos. To ensure her survival, Félix will protect her at all costs. Pedro, Alex and Alice manage to find Lindsay's killers, starting a chase.

In parallel to this, Lindsay's ghost appears and goes after Claire. Initially, everything was going well as planned, but to Claire's great surprise, the hallucinations intensified to a level that made her completely crazy, this being the work of the ghost in an attempt to corner her and then kill her. When Lindsay's ghost was about to kill Claire, Félix managed to save her in time, starting a fight between the two ghosts.

During the fight, Felix assumed his true form, much to Claire's surprise, as usually an individual who is being possessed by a ghost or demon does not transform into the ghost or demon's true form. Being quite powerful, "Mini Mordecai" easily defeated the ghost. After being defeated, Lindsay's ghost confronts Félix, questioning him about his real nature and what he really is, as he is too badass to be a ghost.

This further increased Claire's suspicions about Félix, as it is very likely that he is not actually a ghost. Upon realizing that it would be useless to try to beat Félix just to kill Claire, Lindsay's ghost spares her life and goes after the others. After a long frantic chase, Pedro, Alex and Alice manage to corner Lindsay's killers. At that moment, the ghost appears to kill the protagonists whose 24 hours of life have ended.

However, upon seeing her rapists and murderers, Lindsay's ghost killed them all, where the curse was finally broken for good. In the fourth season, 1 year later, the protagonists' duty to capture and trap all the monsters and ghosts inside the magical book is finally coming to an end, with the only thing left to do now is to capture the last remaining monsters and ghosts.

This season, Pedro and Claire confessed their feelings to each other, where they are both now dating. Furthermore, here we see the biggest change in the protagonists' personalities as they have now become more mature and everyone is learning from their mistakes. Throughout the season, the protagonists become more involved in their hunts for monsters and ghosts, in addition to showing significant advances in their lives.

It is also revealed that the protagonists are managing to resolve their personal problems, where Alex and Claire are managing to control their respective mental disorders and Alice, with the help of her police officer father and her mother-in-law, manages to save her boyfriend from loan sharks – who had been kidnapped by them because he owed money – causing his mother to open her mind towards black people, where she gradually stopped being racist during the course of the season.

During the season, in addition to the appearance of monsters and ghosts that they had already faced before, such as Werewolves, Vampires, Evil Spirits and Vengeful Spirits, new monsters and ghosts also appeared, such as the Kasai Rex (a legendary African creature that lived in the Kasai Valley in Congo, being similar to a carnivorous theropod dinosaur, more specifically an abelisaurus), Kongamato (African legendary creature, being similar to a pterosaur), Chupacabra (Legendary creature from the folklore of the Americas), People of Shadows (supernatural entities), Yōkai (Entities and supernatural creatures from Japanese folklore), Gator Man (Creature from New Jersey that has the appearance of an anthropomorphic alligator, originating in the USA), Yaoguai (Mythological demons from Chinese folklore) and Bloody Mary (Ghost from an urban legend, similar to the Loira do Banheiro).

Throughout the season, while facing monsters and ghosts with the help of their friends, Pedro and Claire are trying to deal with some problems in their relationship. This season, when confronted about his real nature, Félix finally revealed to the protagonists what he really is. Several centuries ago, more specifically in the Middle Ages/Medieval Era, a lovely and kind young man named Prince Adam would assume the throne, as his father, King Charles III, was very ill and on the verge of death.

However, Charles believes his son is unfit to rule, wanting his army general, Phillip, to succeed him. Upon learning of this, Adam was quite enraged, as he did not think it was fair for a man who is not even related to the king to take the throne. Determined to prove his worth and prevent Phillip from becoming the new king, Adam, upon discovering the existence of a divine angelic entity known as Ariel, who supposedly helps people solve all their problems, went to summon him.

Ariel agreed to help him under one condition: First he would have to free him from his prison, as he was very weakened and without his powers he could not help Adam. After following his orders by completing several steps, Adam finally manages to free Ariel from his prison, where that prison was destroyed forever. As promised, Ariel went to help him, but said he needed to merge with Adam's body to restore all of his divine powers.

By fusing, Adam and Ariel became one person, where Ariel is now part of Adam forever. However, Ariel was not just any angel, but an archangel called Azaloth, the legendary Angel of Death, that is, he deceived Adam all this time, much to the latter's great misfortune. Azaloth ruled the Underworld (also known as the Kingdom of the Dead), a place where the souls of the dead go to be judged before going to Paradise or Hell, where he was the head of the reapers, who went to get the souls of the people who died, as did several personifications of death created by humanity in films, books, series, cartoons, games, etc.

However, he was banished by the other angels and by God himself for defying the sacred rules, as he was quite bored and tired of ruling the Underworld, feeling that his life no longer made sense. His daily and monotonous tasks were so boring that they did not cheer him up, so he began to practice evil and absurdity as a means of entertainment, to the great chagrin of the other angels and God, who strongly repudiated his evil actions and attitudes, in which they created a sacred prison to imprison him forever.

During all this time imprisoned, Azaloth was losing his powers, where that prison was slowly weakening him over the years. Azaloth needed someone to free him, where that individual would destroy the prison created by God and the other angels to ensure his complete freedom. Furthermore, he needed to fuse with this individual to regain his full power.

After freeing himself, Azaloth, who had transformed into Adam, fulfilled what he promised him, killing Charles and Phillip, assuming the role of king. After several long years of a tyrannical and perverse reign, the inhabitants of the kingdom, who were against the king's cruelty, tried to remove him from power. The rebels then launched an attack on the king's palace, where after confronting all the guards, they finally went to confront the king face to face.

During the fight, one of the rebels manages to kill Adam by taking his head off with his sword. However, before they could celebrate their victory, King Adam was resurrected, revealing himself to be immortal, much to their surprise. He then assumed one of the dark forms of Azaloth and used his dark powers, killing everyone present except one of the rebels who had managed to escape the carnage. The other rebels tried various efforts to defeat the king but failed miserably, resulting in the deaths of several rebels.

Realizing that the king was very powerful and invincible, in a last ditch effort, the remaining rebels went to ask for help from a sorcerer known as Derkion. Using all his knowledge of magic, Derkion managed to create Darkhaven, a magical book whose function is to imprison any evil creature on this planet. The rebels manage to defeat Adam/Azaloth, trapping him inside the book. After Azaloth's defeat, a lineage of monster and ghost hunters known as Shadow Hunters emerged, whose mission was to capture all these evil beings and imprison them within Darkhaven.

A new Shadow Hunter appeared every 60 years in a leap year. Pedro and Alex's grandfather was the last Shadow Hunter and he had managed to trap all the monsters and ghosts that were left on the planet and by accident, the two brothers and their friends also ended up becoming Shadow Hunters, because like all monsters and ghosts had been imprisoned in Darkhaven and evil was contained, there wasn't supposed to be a new Shadow Hunter, but unfortunately the protagonists made the biggest mistake of their lives when they opened that book during the events of the first season.

Furthermore, Azaloth also reveals that the form he takes every time he fights monsters and ghosts is not his true form, as in addition to having the ability to take on various dark and frightening forms, his true form is literally the same true form of angels according to the bible. In the final stretch of the season, several people and animals are mysteriously disappearing, without leaving a trace. At one point, Pedro ended up disappearing too.

Upon learning this, Claire and the others went to try to find him. Later, they would discover that the person responsible for the people's disappearance is actually the Loch Ness Monster, a legendary creature from Scotland that resembles a dinosaur, more specifically a prehistoric marine reptile known as an Elasmosaurus. To make matters worse, Nessie (the monster's nickname), even though she was a female, had reproduced asexually, giving birth to several cubs that are equally dangerous and murderous as she is.

This explains why Nessie kidnapped several people and animals, as she wanted to feed her cubs, who had not yet learned to hunt, where most of the people and animals were devoured alive by the creatures. Luckily, Pedro and the other missing people managed to escape, where they took refuge by climbing trees in the forest for a few days, avoiding being caught by the cubs and their mother. Furthermore, half of Nessie's cubs have already grown into adults, where they are hunting and killing people, as well as reproducing at a rapid rate.

After finding Pedro and the others, the protagonists tried to stop the creatures from reproducing throughout the country and consequently, the entire world. At the end of the season, the protagonists manage to destroy all creatures, including Nessie, narrowly preventing the extinction of life on Earth. Furthermore, the protagonists finally managed to capture all the monsters and ghosts that had left Darkhaven, ridding the world of their threats. As they had promised, they released Azaloth into the cat's body, where he could finally enjoy his long-awaited freedom.

However, he stopped being a villain and swore to never again do evil as he did in the past, because thanks to the protagonists, he evolved, learned from his mistakes and achieved his redemption, becoming a good person. In the final season, 1 year after the events of the previous season, the protagonists are living a normal life, since they had previously imprisoned all the monsters and ghosts. In this season, Pedro and Claire are in their last year of college.

Also, as he is in his last year of college, Pedro will try to do everything he can to make his biggest dream come true: to become a film director and screenwriter. The problem is that due to his atypical mental and emotional condition, Pedro faces conflicts from his friends, college classmates and family, who see him as childish and unreliable, where the most critical are his parents, saying that he is not prepared to work, live alone and live his life without depending on them, as he does not understand anything about the outside world and its dangers, in addition to the fact that he has great difficulty expressing his own emotions and recognizing or understanding the feelings and intentions of others.

However, several children and teenagers are mysteriously disappearing in the city, much to the concern of citizens. According to the police, before they disappeared, all the victims were mentally disturbed, as if they were seeing their greatest fears having a life of their own. Furthermore, while sleeping, the victims had nightmares about their greatest fears, leaving them even more tormented. At one point, Alice's cousin, Lucas, was waiting for his mother to pick him up from school.

His mother actually showed up there to pick him up, but to his great surprise, his real mother had also shown up there. Upon being discovered, the fake mother kidnaps the boy, who takes him by pulling his hair with brute force while running quickly. The real mother tried to save her son, but it was too late, as her clone managed to escape with the boy flying into the sky with his big wings. After the incident, she told to authorities what happened.

Furthermore, she also revealed that weeks before, her son was very disturbed to the point of going crazy, as he said he dreamed of the Xenomorph (an alien monster from a famous horror film franchise in popular culture), as it was the biggest fear of her child. He also said that he saw it and was constantly chased by the fictional creature. However, no one believed her, despite the police realizing that this case is somehow linked to the other cases of children and teenagers who disappeared.

Despite this, the only person who believed her was Alice, who soon told her friends everything. At that moment, Pedro and Alex realize that they are dealing with the killer of their younger sister, Sophia, where the two brothers finally tell Claire and Alice the truth. In 2001, when they were still children, Pedro (who was 9 years old), Alex (who was 8 years old) and Sophia (who had turned 6 years old the previous month) stayed at home with the nanny, as their parents went out to to the city wholesaler that day.

Weeks before, Sophia was tormented because she was having nightmares about clowns, which were her biggest fear. Furthermore, she said that she saw these clowns and was chased by them, but her two brothers didn't believe her. That day, their nanny had disappeared after the 3 siblings went to play. When they went to look for the nanny, someone was knocking on the door. It was their parents, who had just arrived. When Alex and Sophia were about to open the door, Pedro went to answer the telephone, which was ringing at that moment.

To his great surprise, it was his parents who were on the phone, who had called to say that they would arrive in a few minutes. Realizing that it was not his parents who were knocking on the door, Pedro informed the others, who did not open the door. The individual outside, who was pretending to be their parents, broke down the locked door with brute force, revealing himself to be a humanoid monster. He attacks the kids, starting a relentless chase.

While being chased, Pedro, Alex and Sophia found the nanny, who had been killed by the creature, much to their horror. However, the monster manages to reach them and captures Sophia, taking her far away. Pedro and Alex told everything to their parents and the police, but no one believed them, except their grandfather. However, the police realized that this case is very similar to other cases of missing kids and teenagers, and the strange thing is that all these cases happen every 16 years, further increasing the possibility that all these disappearances are linked.

Furthermore, everyone in the city associates these disappearances with the legend of the Bag Man, as in addition to rumors about the kidnapper using a large bag to take children and teenagers away and that he kidnaps them to sell their organs on the black market, the parents tell about this legend and the disappearances to scare their children if they are too naughty or don't respect their parents and elders. Determined to avenge their sister's death, Pedro, Alex and the others went to summon Azaloth for help.

He agrees to help them defeat the monster, but says he needs a shell, as the cat he previously owned, Félix, is already dead. Claire offers Azaloth to possess her body, but Pedro is strongly against the idea, saying that Azaloth cannot possess someone, as that person can have a family and will be greatly missed by the people who love them, in addition to the fact that that person can die due to the various mortal wounds they will suffer when is possessed, since if the person is shot in the heart, for example, the body will die.

The person will still be alive because of the entity that is possessing them, but that does not change the fact that they are already dead. Pedro is also against the idea of ​​Azaloth possessing the body of a pet, because just like a person, the animal will also be greatly missed by its owners, who love it very much. Azaloth then suggests that the receptacle be a street animal just like its previous shell, because unlike a pet, it will not be missed by anyone, as it has no owner and no one cares about it.

Without a choice, the protagonists agree to the idea and Azaloth then possesses the body of a street dog. At that moment, Azaloth gained a new nickname, in which he began to be called Snoopy, as he looked very similar to the dog with the same name from the comic book Peanuts. When they remember that their grandfather believed in them after Sophia's disappearance, Pedro, Alex and the other protagonists find his notes in the hope of discovering something about the monster they are facing.

Back when he was a Shadow Hunter, Pedro and Alex's grandfather had a book that contained notes of all the monsters he and the other hunters trapped in Darkhaven. Pedro, Alex and the others find the last notes from the two brothers' grandfather, which were in fact notes about the kidnapper of Sophie and the other kids and teenagers. It is revealed that Pedro and Alex's grandfather began investigating the disappearance of Sophia and the other children and teenagers.

He stalked the monster, following its footsteps, in which he discovered basic information about it, such as its abilities, powers, etc. The creature takes on a human form to serve as a disguise as he is among people. He looks for people to feed on, where a part of their bodies will become part of him. However, he does not choose his victims randomly, being very careful when choosing.

To do this, he uses his victim's fear. But it is not enough to be afraid to be chosen, because in addition to fear, the person needs to have something that he likes, that is, even if someone is trembling with fear, if that person has nothing that pleases him, he will not attack them. Fear helps to exhale the smell of the victim's body or organs. When fear releases this smell, the monster feels it and analyzes whether it likes it or not, just like when a person smells food to see if it pleases them, since the smell has a relationship with the flavor.

When choosing his victims, he takes the form of his victims' greatest fears. It feeds only on children and teenagers, as the fears of a child and teenager are easier to take a physical form and consequently scare them easily (such as the irrational fear of clowns, ghosts, demons, werewolves, vampires, aliens, etc., in addition to the irrational fear of some animals such as snakes and lions), unlike adults, who are afraid of more formless things, such as bankruptcy, loneliness, what comes after death, etc.

The monster has the ability to invade the minds of its victims, where it discovers their fears, taking the form of whatever scares them most. So he scares his victims through dreams and hallucinations with the aim of making them even more vulnerable, tormenting them to the point of driving them crazy. Scaring them before devouring them is equivalent to "seasoning the meat", that is, he scares his victims to make what he likes, whether the body or the organs, even tastier.

After his victims become weakened and mentally unstable, he takes the form of the people closest to them and then captures them, such as their father, mother, brother or sister, one of their best friends, boyfriend or girlfriend, etc., in addition to being able to imitate their voice, becoming the perfect clone of someone closer to his victim. In addition to metamorphosis, his powers and abilities are: Super strength, super speed, highly heightened senses, large wings for flying, telekinesis, teleportation and superhuman resistance.

It is also revealed that the creature is very old, because after collecting DNA samples from the monster, Pedro and Alex's grandfather took it to an old friend who is a scientist to analyze the samples, where they discovered that the DNA is from a creature unknown to humanity until today, who lived 8 million years ago. Because of this, he believed that the monster is some kind of demon that has been on Earth for a long time, nicknaming him Beelzebub. The two brothers' grandfather discovered Beelzebub's secret hiding place and went to kill him personally.

The protagonists deduce that before he could surprise attack him, he had a heart attack, dying instantly. Furthermore, it is likely that Beelzebub burned down his entire hiding place, destroying any potential evidence of his crimes, as he had been discovered by the old hunter. This would explain why the grandfather of the two brothers was found in a burning place by people passing by, getting him out in time.

They then come up with a plan to defeat the monster in an abandoned port that night, where they will use Pedro and Alex's friend, Guilherme, as bait, as he is the next victim chosen by the villain. In fact, they manage to lure Beelzebub into the trap, but it goes wrong, starting a battle against him. The protagonists tried to kill him using weapons against demons, but failed miserably, as the creature is not a demon, much to their surprise.

To make matters worse, he managed to control Snoopy's mind, who followed his orders. Even though they know they will never be able to defeat him because he is an angel, the protagonists fought against Snoopy, who defeats them very easily. Not wanting to give up, the protagonists continued fighting against him, where after several efforts during the battle, even though they were defeated again, they managed to free him from Beelzebub's mental control by reciting an unbreakable spell that not only saved him but also prevents him from being mentally controlled again.

Snoopy then went to fight Beelzebub and spanks him by taking on one of his various forms and using all his dark powers. After Beelzebub takes a huge beating and is seriously injured, before Snoopy can kill him, much to his surprise, Beelzebub has the ability to regenerate very quickly, completely healing his injuries. He then used his mind power to move several containers towards Snoopy in order to delaying him.

The other protagonists try to stop him, but he teleports several times and at the same time spanks them, in addition to capturing Guilherme and flying into the starry sky, taking him far away. In the final stretch of the season, the protagonists, with the help of Snoopy, manage to locate Beelzebub's new hiding place, which is an abandoned factory. Furthermore, they discover that they are on the last day of hunting the monster, as it will soon go into hibernation and will only attack again for the next sixteen years, this being their last chance to try to defeat it.

When they got there being teleported by Snoopy, they arrived just in time, as Beelzebub had returned from his hunt, bringing with him yet another victim he had just killed. At that moment, he reveals his real origin and what he really is. He is actually an alien creature, created as a biological weapon by an extraterrestrial civilization with the purpose of exterminating life on entire worlds so they could be colonized.

However, after awakening from a long deep sleep, he developed self-awareness and free will, where he refused to continue with his creators' plan, preferring to live among humans. His creators then visited Earth with the intention of eliminating him personally, bringing they entire army. However, to their great surprise, he proved to be very powerful, killing all of his creators.

Despite being able to live without food for an indefinite period of time, he ended up developing a taste for human flesh, beginning his hunt for humans over the years, hunting them every 16 years. He already knew about the existence of the Shadow Hunters and because of that, he managed to stay off their map for many years, where these hunters never knew of his existence. Realizing that he is a much worse threat than imagined, the protagonists tried to defeat him, starting the final battle.

Initially, the alien creature gained a lot of advantage, as he took the form of the protagonists' greatest fears (except Snoopy), weakening them and leaving them mentally disturbed. Snoopy then encourages them not to be afraid, as apparently the villain's greatest weakness is for his victims to stop being afraid of him. Following this advice, the protagonists are gradually able to face their greatest fears, much to the villain's surprise.

After losing their fear, the protagonists regroup and realize they can stop the alien monster by exploiting the subjection of having a physical form and their perception of it. Their provocation weakens him, defeating him. However, the creature had an ace up its sleeve, because even though the protagonists were no longer afraid of him, he knew that they had another greater fear that didn't exactly have a physical form: Losing each other. He then attacks all the protagonists by surprise, brutally killing them one by one.

After killing all the protagonists in the worst possible ways, the monster went to fight Snoopy, who takes on one of his various dark forms. And so began a long and epic bloody battle between the two most powerful beings on the planet, a very fierce fight. After a long battle that seemed to have no end, even though they were completely exhausted and seriously injured, Snoopy and Beelzebub dealt their respective final blows against each other, resulting in a huge explosion that caused an earthquake of an absurdly high magnitude, devastating the entire planet, almost destroying the Earth and the life on it.

After the fight that almost destroyed the entire planet, Snoopy and Beelzebub were very tired and totally injured, where they could barely stand up, as they were lying on top of the crater caused by the explosion committed by them. Snoopy, who had reverted to the dog form he was possessing, assumed one of his dark forms again, slowly regained his strength and ran towards his enemy, brutally beating him.

The alien tried to defend himself, but Snoopy stopped him, continuing to beat him without stopping. After beating him up, Snoopy rips out the creature's heart, killing him. However, much to his chagrin, the monster was still alive, revealing to be immortal just like him. Realizing that it would be impossible to kill him, Snoopy imprisons him inside Darkhaven, finally defeating him. Despite having managed to defeat the villain, Azaloth is extremely sad for having lost his best friends.

However, Azaloth has the idea of ​​resurrecting them, but remembers that due to his dark powers, if someone comes back to life, that person will not be the same person as before, having quite disturbing behavior, becoming an evil and murderous undead (just like in the book Pet Sematary, by Stephen King). The chances of someone being resurrected and becoming the same person they were when they were alive are one in a million.

Even knowing this, Azaloth decided to take a risk to try to bring his friends back using his powers. To his great luck, Azaloth manages to bring them back to the way they were before they died. At the end of the season, now that all the monsters and ghosts are trapped in Darkhaven and the evil has been contained, the protagonists decide to burn the book, forever destroying all the monsters and ghosts they had previously faced.

10 years later, Pedro, Claire, Alex and Alice have finished college and are working, where Pedro, Alex and Alice have finally achieved their biggest dreams, respectively. Pedro is now a world-famous film director and screenwriter, Alex is an award-winning actor, Alice is a critically and publicly acclaimed writer and Claire is the owner and CEO of her father's company, who had passed away, leaving his inheritance to her.

Pedro and Claire got married and are living together, where they had 3 children, in which Pedro has finally been able to prove his worth to his parents, friends, family and college colleagues. In addition, Alice and her boyfriend are planning to get married so they can start a beautiful family, which they have the approval of Alice's mother-in-law, who has stopped being racist. Meanwhile, Azaloth is enjoying his freedom.

Well, I hope you liked the story I created with my brother and the arts 😊

[jjammy-skies]

Stepping away from the Sneeg community;

[image IDs:

Four screenshots from Twitter user @JJAMMY_Skies's account of a twelve tweet thread. It reads as follows:

I'm taking the spade out of my user, btw, which feels horrifying given the fact that I've been apart of ♠️'s community since late 2019/early 2020.

(Continued below)

He was one of the few content creators I watched while sick, and his community was there to watch me get better over time, most of my friends and moots were made from ♠️, and I'll never forget that

However-

This community has also made me feel extremely unsafe; more specifically, the mods. I feel like ♠️ doesn't pay enough attention to the on goings of those he put in power in his community.

There's also the problem of ♠️'s content as of late;

He's been branching out in his reaction content, however, he's branched out into a racist youtubers content for reacting, a content creator who, a white man, fully admits to culturally appropriating a dangerous indigenous spirit's name, which puts me and other ntvs in danger.

This problem actually first arose in December, when ♠️ used a different indigenous spirit's name for a joke. After being ignored and passed off by mods, I was told ♠️ was sorry and wouldn't do it again.

Fast forward to April, ♠️ starts reacting to said YouTuber. I was argued with and discredited by the mods on this spirit.

A few weeks ago, the ytber fully admits to cultural appropriation and says he doesn't care.

A few days later, ♠️ reacts to another one of ytber's videos.

This not only shows me the mods didn't care to make sure ♠️ doesn't interact with/post that content anymore, but also that ♠️ was dishonest in his apology, IF he even apologized. His mods could have easily lied bt that.

Coupled with years of neglect from the ♠️ mod team to own up to past mistakes and actually form proper and healthy modes of communication with their streamer, I have to fully acknowledge that this community isn't safe for me anymore.

There's nothing here for me if I have to constantly be worried that the next video will cause me spiritual harm, or that I'll have to argue with a mod to care about ntvs-and other potential minorities- when they've proven to me over the years they can't.

So that's been my main reason for my absence on twt as of late. Seeing another friend of mine tweet about stepping away from ♠️twt and his community had made me feel more comfortable in doing so too,

So thank you, if you see this, for making me feel comfortable enough to post :"]

I'm probably not going to be using Twitter a whole lot from here on out, but I have Tumblr where I'm more active in other things.

Thank you for listening, and thank you for the years I spent in this community, even if not all of them were great.

I wish the situation was different, but until I can see improvement from Sneeg's community and Sneeg's mod team, this is it.

See y'all later :]

End of image IDs]

[yeonchi]

Combo Rangers Vol 2 Review: We Are Humans

Graphic novel, transcript and translation available on Google Drive

Previously on Atop the Fourth Wall...

Fast forward to the late 90′s, where Brazilian author and cartoonist Fabio Yabu created a Flash webcomic known as Combo Rangers in 1998.

In December 2012, Fabio Yabu ran a crowdfunding campaign on Catarse (the Brazilian Kickstarter) for a trilogy of reboot graphic novels scripted by Yabu and illustrated by Michel Borges.

Additionally, an English version of the first novel was also published online around the same time as the original and made available for free on WEBTOON in 2019.

The other two graphic novels were made available online (in Portuguese) for a limited time in 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic, but I didn’t download them because I wasn’t that interested in the series.

There are a couple more preludes available on Fabio Yabu’s Facebook page if you scroll down far enough on the Photos section, but I won’t be covering them because they haven’t been translated and, as I stated before, I don’t have time to translate something I’m not entirely interested in.

...We Are Heroes is only the first of the Combo Rangers graphic novel reboot trilogy, as it is followed up by its sequels, We Are Humans and We Are Equals. However, despite it being years since their release, neither of the sequels have been released in English...

This leads me to the main reason why I’m making this review because in case you missed it, I’m not that interested in Combo Rangers as a series.

Storyline skit: The Interdimensional Café Part 1A

At the very edge of the universe lies the Voidstation, a structure connecting many parallel universes and dimensions. In it is a Hong Kong-style cha chaan teng cafe, serving daily specials like sandwiches, snacks and numerous types of noodles and rice, including instant noodles and baked rice.

Three people from different universes met for lunch that day; there was Parker Zhou from Yabuverse code PM10, a universe where the Drylanders of Earth were fighting the subjugation of the saline Salacians from their seas; there was Hiroki Ichigo from N-Space X, a universe where anything and everything could happen; and there was Azuma Yeonchi from Tumblrverse Y, where the author of this post comes from.

At the table, Hiroki was placing the order on his phone, because that's what modern restaurants are doing nowadays. Once the order was placed, Azuma wasted no time. "So, you got the goods?"

Parker dug into his bag and took out the three Combo Rangers Universe graphic novels, which he acquired in another universe while taking a break from the war in his universe. "Right here. I've also got a USB with digital versions of these graphic novels."

"Oh sweet, thanks. That'll save me about two months' worth of scanning, OCR and transcription."

"How did you go with the Sea Princesses books I gave you few years back? Sorry they took so long to arrive, I didn't realise there was a pandemic on."

"Oh yeah, it's all good. I got a better return out of them in my universe than what I was expecting."

Hiroki interjected, "I saw the things happening in your universe. Looks like you got a bit more than you bargained for."

Azuma replied, "Well, it wasn't that bad, even with all the horny pics and things that didn't make sense, but we managed to come to an understanding about that. Even if it was more than I bargained for or if it wasn't the kind of attention I was expecting, I still think it was worth the effort."

The food came to the table and the three of them began eating. What they had was the usual cha chaan teng fare; Hiroki had his usual satay beef instant noodles with a ham omelette and lemon tea; Azuma had a roast pork and tofu rice, colloquially known as "a man's romance", while Parker had pork chops on mushroom sauce and spaghetti.

After the three finished eating, they went back to their respective universes. Azuma began working on transcribing and translating the Combo Rangers Universe graphic novels. Two months later, Azuma was ready to begin his review of Volume 2.

Hello and welcome to Atop the Fourth Wall, where bad comics burn. Back in August 2022 I reviewed the first of the Combo Rangers reboot graphic novels, We Are Heroes, which were crowdfunded in 2013 to celebrate their 15th anniversary after 10 years on hiatus. Although back then I had no intention on reviewing the other two novels of the trilogy, which is also known collectively as the Universe phase, an upcoming story necessitates the translation and review of them, so let's dig into the second volume of the Combo Rangers graphic novel reboot trilogy, We Are Humans.

Prelude: The Mighty Combo in: It's Not Easy for Anyone

In my review of Volume 1 I briefly talked about the prequel included in the WEBTOON version, Fly Again, featuring Fox Fonseca. Because I couldn't find the original Portuguese version of it, I thought that the prequel was exclusive to the WEBTOON version, but after trawling through the Wayback Machine, I realised that I was wrong and that said prequel was actually released in 2013 before We Are Heroes was released in Brazil. Same goes for the other two preludes - well, there's only one other prelude because the other one is a side story. I won't cover Fly Again here because I've already done it, but the transcripts and translation for it (and the other preludes) will be in my cloud drive folder linked at the top of the post.

The prelude I'm highlighting in this review is the one that Fabio Yabu published to his Facebook page but I didn't want to bother reviewing last year. In this two-parter prelude, the Mighty Combo is visited by his old friend and lawyer, Doctor Cooper, to serve him an eviction notice as the state government is acquiring the land where the Heroes' Retreat stands for gentrification. The Mighty Combo remains unmoved, so Dr Cooper heads off.

Upon getting into his car, Dr Cooper is confronted by a young boy attempting to rob him at fingergunpoint; Dr Cooper refuses to give the boy his wallet and he gets shot with a bioenergy beam. The Mighty Combo, Peacemaker and Mirrorman confront him and after hearing a longwinded excuse from the boy about the ghetto and 3G and gun crime, the Mighty Combo gets the boy to return Dr Cooper's wallet before flying off. After seeing some Combo Rangers characters in his delirium, Dr Cooper regains consciousness and tells the Mighty Combo that he will convince the government to let him and his friends stay at the Heroes' Retreat.

In the original Combo Rangers comics, Doctor Paul Cooper was actually a scientist (seriously, how does a lawyer have the title Dr) who came to Cidade City, lost his daughter, Maya (who is mentioned in the prequel), and ended up adopting another (Fabi) from the streets. Apparently he was the villain Dr Delirium in Zero, but he returns to normal, reunites with Maya and becomes an ally of the Combo Rangers or something.

Anyway, let's just get into the story.

Story

Following on from the events of We Are Heroes, Giluke tries to understand what he saw inside Lisa's head during their fight when Satan Boss admonishes him and Deck for their failure, telling him that with or without them, the Earth will belong to the Evol Empire before we segue into the Flashman-inspired opening sequence. Last time I mentioned that I was unsure who Deck was inspired from, but I learnt that in the original comics, Deck was actually the servant of Cardman, a villain from Revolution whose rivalry was with Luke instead of Fox. And there I was thinking he was Izuku Midoriya when My Hero Academia came out after these graphic novels.

In New City, Principal Pile announces his candidacy for mayor, much to Fox's shock. Fox goes to warn his friends at school, only to be demorphed by the anti-power barrier that Pile put up around the school. Fox has no intention of returning to school after being expelled for having powers, with him and Pile telling each other that the former would go back to school over their dead bodies. If you have been following the translation up to this point, you will have noticed that one of Fox's lines has an uncensored swear word. To put it simply, I think it fits with his character in that scene and I'm not one to mince words if I can help it. A little bit of a spoiler, but another swear word is used in the next graphic novel, but it's represented by an emoji. Points if you can guess the obvious.

Meanwhile, Giluke proceeds with his plan to obtain the energy of the Combo Rangers, masquerading as a boy named Luke. First, he confronts Mirrorman and tricks him into looking in a mirror, which somehow turns him evil. Next, he infiltrates New City School to get close to the Combo Rangers and Lisa while Satan Boss sends Deck to attack with Zaskonda, based on the Flashman monster The Zukonda. You know, I was going to make fun of Mirrorman's ability to turn evil when looking at himself in the mirror as a weakness, but then I realised that Fabio Yabu probably acknowledged it already at some point.

Fox and his dad, Formado, are the first on the scene. As Fox tries to deal with a kid rushing headfirst into battle, Formado goes to get the others on his son's request as the barrier at the school means that their communicators don't work. Formado tries to convince Principal Pile to dismiss the Combo Rangers so they can help Fox; Pile eventually does, even going so far as to join the battle with his jetpack as well. During the battle, Lisa unlocks the ability to construct prisms representing the Prism weapons of Flashman, but creating so many of them at once drains her power.

Luke gets other civilians to join the fight, making things more complicated for the Combo Rangers as they discover that Zaskonda is accumulating energy in the Evol Empire's plot to blow up the city. With Lisa forced to recharge, Kiko tries to use his portals to get Zaskonda away, but Mirrorman's betrayal causes Kiko to be thrown into his own portal. Formado tries to hold Zaskonda back, but he gets knocked away by Pile, who flies into the sky with Zaskonda and seemingly perishes in the explosion. It is here that Pile reacknowledges Fox as one of his students, showing that despite his strict demeanour, he still cares for Fox despite expelling him for breaking his rules.

At the Heroes' Retreat, Peacemaker proceeds to berate the Combo Rangers on the failure of their teamwork.

(Isn't it great that Tumblr finally added support for starting YouTube videos at timestamps?)

OK, allow me to break down Peacemaker's points here because his berating is honestly unjustified given their situation. Firstly, how did Fox "throwing himself into the conflict alone" constitute an "abuse of trust"? He only did that because he wasn't able to contact the others, who were at school under an anti-power barrier, and at least he recognised that he wasn't able to hold his own alone and asked his dad to get help. Secondly, it's only natural that Lisa would want to experiment with her new powers in the heat of battle even at the cost of her own strength. Thirdly, and this goes for his points on Ken and Kiko, if Ken was able to find out the enemy's plans earlier, you wouldn't be yelling them like you are now! And the worst thing about this is that the Combo Rangers don't make any attempt to defend themselves, instead just deciding to hand back their bracelets because they thought they failed their mentors, the people they looked up to. Yes, they saw Principal Pile die in an explosion so they were probably grief-stricken, but you'd think they'd be more angry considering they tried their best in the last fight.

Fox asks the Mighty Combo if he thinks they should continue; the Mighty Combo attempted to encourage them but thanks to Mirrorman's manipulation, he ends up telling them that he was ashamed to have given the bracelets to them. This leads them to return their bracelets to the Mighty Combo, thereby completing another stage in Giluke's plan.

Here's how I would improve that scene. Peacemaker berates the Combo Rangers with his unjustified viewpoints. The Combo Rangers try to defend themselves and tell Peacemaker that he was wrong, but Peacemaker takes their bracelets away in a fit of anger. Fox tries to get the Mighty Combo to put in a good word for them, but thanks to Mirrorman's manipulation, he ends up agreeing with Peacemaker and sends them back out without their bracelets.

Now with the bracelets in his possession, Mirrorman knocks out the Mighty Combo and takes him to Satan Boss. Peacemaker tries to confront Mirrorman, but he ends up getting hit by his ray. On Satan Boss' ship, the Mighty Combo tries to explain that his powers are dangerous and that the bracelets are encrypted with DNA, but Deck and Giluke just laugh it off because they can easily decrypt it as long as they have a single hair or a drop of saliva.

Fox is sent back to school the next day and is introduced to Luke. Luke tries to study Earth culture in the school library when Deck offers to help him collect the DNA of the Combo Rangers, but Luke refuses, telling Deck to go away before his cover is blown. The Combo Rangers, save for Ken, decide to head to Alpha's to go over the schoolwork Fox missed. On the way, they talk about how people treat those like Ken or Kiko differently for being different, whether it be being rich or black. At the same time, they also show their hypocrisy and prejudice towards aliens following their encounters with the Evol Empire. I'd just like to take a moment to say that this was a really great scene, which shows how people can still be prejudiced despite embracing the differences of others. On the other hand, I could also argue that such hypocrisy can be healthy, particularly when you think that some people who are apparently on your side of politics might not be as perfect as they seem. If we go around accepting people left and right, we slowly become unable to discern who the real enemies are until it's too late, and that can end up turning into a bad thing.

Luke enjoys himself with the Combo Rangers at Alpha's when Deck leads his forces to attack. While collecting the Combo Rangers' DNA, Deck confronts Luke and has him reveal to them that he is actually Giluke. Ken, who had discovered what happened to Peacemaker, arrives with his dad to save the Combo Rangers. Deck takes Peacemaker's weapon from Ken and fires at the Combo Rangers, but Giluke gets in the way of the blast just as Peacemaker, who has become pacifistic and clingy after being hit by Mirrorman's beam, teleports everyone to Ozora Tower.

After Giluke sees a vision of the old Combo Rangers, he regains consciousness and tells Lisa his story, which leads her to take him to meet her friends. Giluke reveals that Principal Pile is still alive, having teleported him away from Zaskonda's explosion. Meanwhile, Deck manages to gain access to the source and create the Evol Bracelet, deciding to morph himself into, let's just say the Black Combo Ranger, and leave Satan Boss.

Meanwhile, Pile is found by Mirrorman and is hit by his beam, but nothing happens because he was apparently pretending to be the opposite of his usual self. The Mighty Combo manages to find Pile, but Satan Boss manages to find him as well. Pile makes an offer to Satan Boss; because the only ones who can defeat Deck now are the Combo Rangers, he offers to give Satan Boss his two generals in exchange for himself, the Mighty Combo and the bracelets.

While the Combo Rangers evacuate the civilians, Deck confronts Giluke, offering to leave Earth with him. Giluke accepts and tries to prevent Deck from taking his revenge on the Combo Rangers, leading him to conclude that he is trying to protect them. Ken has Peacemaker shoot at Deck, but the effects of Mirrorman's ray make him shoot a rose at him. Ken and Fox are discovered and the others hurry to them and Luke. Formado and Ken's dad come to the rescue just as Principal Pile arrives with the Mighty Combo to return the Combo Rangers' bracelets back to them.

The Combo Rangers fight Deck, but he proves to be stronger than them due to him unleashing the full potential of their power that they hadn't yet discovered. Fox has Kiko teleport everyone away, resulting in Deck following them into the school's anti-power barrier, which demorphs Deck as Ken takes the Evol Bracelet. As Giluke arrives to tell Deck that it is over, Deck says that he doesn't feel so good. The Mighty Combo arrives and tells him that his powers are dangerous, which was why he created the bracelets and had the Rangers unlock their powers little by little, meaning that what Deck did was suicidal. A horrified Deck disintegrates in Giluke's arms as the Mighty Combo and the Rangers watch.

Principal Pile arrives to take Giluke back and fulfil his side of the deal with Satan Boss. Satan Boss tells him that he was promised two generals; with Deck now dead, Satan Boss decides to claim Pile as his new general and he leaves with Giluke and Mirrorman. The epilogue shows Formado as the new principal of New City School with the Mighty Combo as its vice-principal before we are treated to a sneak peek of Satan Boss introducing General Pile.

Reflection

This comic is alright. We get a bit of character development with the Rangers, but most of it does seem to be focused on Deck and Giluke even if it is minimal. Formado is more accepting of Fox's ambition to be a hero and as I stated in the review, Principal Pile comes to accept Fox for who he is despite expelling him from school for not following the rules. Not much is elaborated on Giluke's backstory (let alone Deck's), why Mirrorman thinks he is different or why he has dreams about Lisa and the Rangers, but I'm holding out for the third graphic novel to give us some sort of explanation. Disappointingly, I was expecting Sara Moon to make an appearance after the first graphic novel, but she just seemingly disappeared for no reason whatsoever.

While the first graphic novel was a bit of a cheesy speedrun through the usual tokusatsu tropes, the second graphic novel developed the characters and story from what was teased in the first before introducing some loose ends to be resolved in the third. There is no Megazord fight following the teaser from the first graphic novel, but we do get an evil Ranger fight with Deck, which kind of ends anticlimactically, but is kind of justified seeing how the whole team couldn't beat him even when they fought together.

The PDF versions of the first and third graphic novels have a foreword from Fabio Yabu and a postface from editor Cassius Medauar, but it seems to be missing from the PDF of the second novel. Well, from briefly looking at the eBook version on Google Play, the postface is there but not the foreword, and I don't want to bother translating those if I don't have them for each book. The English version of the first graphic novel doesn't have those either, so why should I bother?

It may interest you to know that transcribing the graphic novels was both easy and not as easy as I thought. It was easy to get the text from the PDF files and paste them in Word, however PDF files don't know what paragraphs are so every line in a paragraph is split into separate paragraphs (or multiple paragraphs will become one long paragraph) when I paste it. It gets worse when it comes to the graphic novels because paragraphs don't always paste in the right order.

After copying all the contents of the PDF and stripping the formatting, I got over 170 pages of raw text (the third graphic novel is 120 pages). I removed the foreword, postface, sponsor list and back cover synopses, then I have to condense the contents by removing new lines, marking in the page numbers (and adding them where they are missing) and putting in who speaks what, not to mention the bolded and coloured emphases in the text. Admittedly, I don't always do it when I get white text in black speech bubbles, but I did my best with everything anyway, and even then while going through everything, I've had to go back and add emphases where I've missed them. When the editing is done, the condensed transcript comes down to around 40 pages (the third graphic novel has 32), and thus the translation is around that length as well. At least the text is selectable and I don't need to correct any OCR mistakes like when I did the transcripts for the Sea Princesses books, because that was more of a nightmare than just scrolling through and pressing Delete countless times. I think this what it would have been like if I had asked Yabu to send me the manuscripts for the books.

This concludes my review of the second volume of the Combo Rangers graphic novel reboot, We Are Humans. Join us next time when...

*BOOM*

What was that?

Storyline skit: The Interdimensional Café Part 1B

Azuma was finishing his review of Volume 2 when he heard an explosion from outside. He got up and went outside to check; it was then that Azuma became alarmed at the sight he was seeing - there was a horde of Polvina clones outside his studio.

As if by instinct, Azuma took a bunch of throwing knives rigged with explosives, struck them on a wall to ignite them and threw them at the Polvinas. The explosives detonated and the explosion created a cloud of smoke.

"Are they gone?" Azuma thought as the smoke cleared, but little did he know that a surprising sight awaited him. Instead of the Polvina clones being eliminated as he expected, there were even more Polvina clones outside his studio.

Amongst the Polvina clones there were at least five distinct types among them; there was the standard Polvina that people recognised...

"There's an old saying on Dryland. It goes, 'A true hero recognises trends and adapts to the circumstances.'"

A red variant Polvina with pasties instead of a bandeau, forgotten to time due to the subtle changes in her design...

"Onbeishiramandayasowaka... Onbeishiramandayasowaka..."

A provacative-looking Polvina whose base design called back to a makeover surprise Ester and Tubarina gave to her for her birthday which looked rather decent until Ester and Tubarina decided that it wasn't enough...

"Hello, young man. Can I buy you a drink? Maybe we could have a little dance together?"

A zombie Polvina, possibly caused by defects in the cloning process or laziness from clones making more clones...

"Bruuuhhh, I’ve come to eat your brains..."

And finally, a politician-looking Polvina who looked like Brazillian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva but spoke like a combination of US Senator Bernie Sanders and Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews...

"I am once again asking for you to get on the beers..."

Azuma steeled himself as he prepared to face the horde of Polvina clones head-on, but little did he know that help was on its way from a most unlikely source...

"Heads up!" Hiroki said as a portal opened from the sky. Out from it came another Polvina, followed by Sougo Tokiwa and Hiroki Ichigo. Each of them had different belts on their waists and different collectibles in their hands...

"It's morphin time! Henshin!"

*KACHUNK!*

"Rider Time! Kamen Rider~ Zi-O!"

"KAMEN RIDE: DECADE!"

Landing on the ground were Kamen Riders Femme, Zi-O and Decade, who had come to Tumblrverse Y to fight the Polvinas.

Femme, aka the Polvina from Hiroki's universe, was not fazed at all the clones of her, though she was slightly taken aback at their appearances and how many of them there were. "So, the clones are on the loose, just as we thought. It's weird that there's so many of them and they all look like... well, me."

Zi-O, who hailed from a different universe to the other two where he was the one to inherit all Rider powers, the king of time crossing time and space to reign over over the past and the future, was eager to jump into battle, saying, "I've got a good feeling we can do this!"

Decade, known in his universe for being the destroyer of worlds and having a mixed reputation even before he became a passing-through Kamen Rider, was used to these kinds of situations, telling Azuma, "We've got the gist of the situation. Hurry inside and begin the review of Volume 3!"

"Oh, okay!" Azuma said as he went back inside his studio. What happens next, however, is a story for another time...

TO BE CONTINUED

[egg-emperor]

There's no reason we should've had to wait this long for Eggman vs Starline and for Eggman to be given the spotlight he deserves after all the other villains kept putting him down, he was hardly present, and was treated like some lesser evil side villain when they wouldn't let Tinker go. It really had people saying Eggman wasn't as evil and Starline was way better. But I'm so glad they finally let Eggman prove himself to be the real capable villain he's supposed to be and showed off multiple of his skills like his intelligence in his ability to make smart moves and his strength to physically beat the shit out of someone again ehehehe. I'm really happy but man did they drag bullshit on for way too long before we finally got here.

I'm so glad they made Starline look pathetic and like a fool for all the shit he was talking that was frustrating to watch for so long it made people believe him, it really was cathartic to see him get fucked up. But now Eggman only just did what I was expecting in December 2020 in Bad Guys #4 wtf lol. The only somewhat upside to it in a way was how it made it even more satisfying but it still really didn't need to take THAT long. they made this drag on for so long that it really harmed Eggman's character but I want to hope that from here on, things are looking up and giving him this much respect and accuracy isn't just a temporary reward for having to wait so long. That's my only worry now.

This is the type of Eggman I've wanted for so long, since the very beginning but would always be shoved aside by other villains, only get real main focus between bigger arcs and was being treated as a little bridge between bigger arcs. I hope it isn't going to end up like that again because this kind of awesome badassery and evil is supposed to be the norm for him! And wanting the main villain of the series to get more spotlight is a perfectly reasonable request, especially after four years of him hardly getting it since this comic started. :P

[pxmpkinalexis]

HEY!

Omg look at me goOoOo!! I don't know how to use Tumblr but wtv...

Hi! I'm Alexis, or Q, I'm a C!Quackity fictive (I know, it's great!), and this is my first time ever using Tumblr so this is my bad if I eff it up!

Main Intro!!

-I'm an alter in a DID System (our main is sbtr-sys), we're bodily 14-16 but I'm 23 in the headspace! I've been frontstuck since 26 December 2021 and I formed around mid December 2020??

- I use He/Him pronouns and I LOVE any neopronouns so you can use them too, mix and match 'em!! I'm nwlnw (for basics, cus I can't be bothered to go into detail) and I can't tell if I'm a man or I'm on the enby-spec.. help!!!

- I'm a massive fan of Minecraft still (bedrock players hmu I wanna play wit u guys!!!), and I have a little creeper plushie<3

Extra bits!!

- I'm an age regressor, and I will post abt it whether u little guys like it or not!

- UK Based, omg I know, terrible (/j I adore tesco meal deals)

- I'm in the process of making a Carrd so look out for that!!

- I am a trauma holder (oh hecc), and I'm super cool like that

- I'm actually an INFP... which is surprising (I redo the thingy every month B] )

- Sourcemates interact!!!! I love you guys!!! <33 /p

- The body is colourblind.............. *sobs* (Tritanopia for anyone wondering)

Okay uhh idk what to put here now so uh. Just say hi back or smth!!!! Pretty please I'm cool I promise... <3

[saranghanuuu]

PERKS OF DATING A YOUNGER GUY I LEARNED AFTER WATCHING CHINESE DRAMA FIND YOURSELF + REVIEW!

1. He has less baggage

This means that he has more time to attend to your needs and wants unlike an older guy with a demanding schedule and lots of responsibilities at hand.

2. He's more open-minded and adventurous

They are open to having new experiences and won't judge you for veering off the path you should stay on.

3. He's infectiously energetic *ehem*

Need I say more? A younger guy's youthful sense will surely find unimaginable ways to impress you!

4. He puts you on a pedestal

A younger man will appreciate your maturity and experiences and will admire you for it. They're also most likely take advice from you without letting it bruise their ego.

5. He'll make you feel young

Be prepared to relive the fun parts of your younger years with him.

It's not so wrong to say that the May-December relationship is taboo, especially among Asians. Most people I know had this inkling that when a younger guy hooks up with a woman way older than him, it could prolly mean one of two things — the guy's a paramour or she's a sugar momma. I'm honestly not a fan of it either on the premise that women mature faster than men. Let's be real, an immature relationship is a disaster. But now that I'm in my late 20s, and a hopeless romantic single at that, I kinda pondered over this. It suddenly occurred to me, what if one day I’m caught up in the position of being pursued by a younger man? Will I let the stigma affect me emotionally? Or will I take the risk ‘coz all is fair in love? I still don’t have a definite answer to this question. However, watching Find Yourself served as an eye-opener for me to look at things from a different perspective.

Find Yourself is a 2020 Chinese drama starring Song Wei Long and Victoria Song. It tells the story of a 32-year old Executive Director who never *even once* experienced dating. Given her age and career stability, she receives constant pressure from the people around her to find someone to marry and has since frequented blind dates arranged by her family, friends, or colleagues. But this girl is just someone who swears by the "spark" - no spark, then no point to the relationship. She may be old for fantasizing over first love and such, but she still yearns that it'll naturally come to find her someday. Until her thirst for real romance is quenched by a 22-year-old guy who started working as an intern in her company at his brother’s request.

Although hesitant at first due to their huge age difference and the societal views, she went out with him on the condition that they'll keep it a secret for the first 3 months. If everything went well, she agrees to publicize her relationship with him.

Let’s start off with the good things...

I just can't with this drama...! This so beautiful, cute, relatable - especially for a woman in late 20s like me. 

Plot-wise, it was well-imparted and makes perfect sense, touching a looooooot of relationship aspects in 41 episodes. Not only did I enjoy the happenings between our main couple, but our side couples' stories are very interesting too.

This drama pretty much straightened out my prejudice about age-gap relationships.

Light-hearted, just the way I like it! Every episode will make you smile and/or laugh hard.

Sexual tensions overload and superb kissing scenes! Let those hormones rush in. Not awkward to watch 'coz They. Did. Not. Hold. Back. Ack! If you're single, be prepared to feel MORE SINGLE watching this drama.

Well-written lines that will make you feel real emotions. The words will shoot you straight to the heart.

Acting-wise, the casts, from the mains down to the sides, did a super fine job in conveying the sentiments of their characters. My highest admiration goes to male lead Yuan Song, not (only) because he’s young, hot, and handsome, but because his youthful vibe made me reminisce the paradox of my early 20s awww. Anyways, in the beginning, I am sort of confused why (of all girls) he fell head over heels with our female lead He Fanxing who's obviously out of his league. I even suspected him of taking advantage of her naivety in matters of the heart. But as the drama went along, our dude proved himself genuine... That he's sincerely just a guy who's deeply in love with a woman... That indeed, true love can exist in this kind of relationship. Both Yuan Song and Fanxing emotionally benefited from each other and it's so lovely seeing that.

⚠️ AND SORRY BUT THIS IS A SPOILER ALERT⚠️

Halfway through the drama, our main couple called it quits. I'm somewhat grateful that it happened. Their break-up scene is just so powerful I had to rewind it many times. Not because I liked seeing them suffer from the consequences of their incompatibility. Rather, I loved it 'coz it became the turning point of their relationship.

Their love is premature, to begin with — trust isn't mutual, commitment is one-way, only showing each other's good sides in fear of the relationship turning sour, one is willing to compromise while the other wants to avoid responsibility, filled with doubts and insecurities. During this break-up phase, we were shown the difference between how kids and adults behave and decide in a dilemma. I suddenly remembered this one line delivered in the drama which I agree with — "Only kids would choose one or the other. Adults find solutions". The break-up also served as our main couple's period of contemplation about who and what they want in life. It taught them how to fully embrace their offbeat romance against the norms. Fortunately, things wrapped up into a sweet end.

And of course the bad...

Hmmm... Maybe I'm just not used to it but am I the only one who thinks that this drama is quite lengthy? Yes, I enjoyed it but it's not a good one to binge-watch. It took me almost a month to finish this I nearly drowned haha. Honestly, there were parts they could've just compressed instead of dragging it for too long. One example is Ye Luming and He Fanxing's relationship trial. Ooohhh I hate this part it brought shivers down my spine ugh. Well truth be told, Luming and Fanxing are compatible and better off as friends. They jive so well, and I give it to them that they're both adults who can only understand adult things.

But when Luming all of a sudden became a sneaky character to an intolerable point... Ah, I don't know anymore! Seeing how compelled Fanxing is to being Luming's girlfriend got under my skin. Although these ugly parts eventually became a good contributory factor to Fanxing's realization of her true feelings towards Yuan Song, but still...! I also hated Fanxing at one point for being so gullible in love. But yeah, I had to swallow it because that's her character setup in the first place. It should be expected of her to be hasty and dubious about it.

On the other hand, I wished they've been generous in showing us more about how Yuan Song and Fanxing's relationship is going after the public reveal. I've been waiting for this the entire time (they could've done so much more in 41 episodes' length!) so I'm quite disappointed.

After watching the second season of Well-Intended Love, I admit I lost interest in Chinese dramas. So watching this restored my faith in them. I even have a list of C-dramas lined up now! But I have to move on from this one first before I start another. It's not as easy as I thought ㅠㅠ

What do you think about this drama? Are we on the same frequency? ❤️

If you haven't watched this yet, watch it now. As in 지금부터 RIGHT NOW. Highly-recommended!

[bryan360]

My YCCTEAM's Wireless Switch Pro Controller - Part 8 (Playtime Battery Life Results)

Hi guys and my friends. I'm back to bring you my next YCCTEAM Controller topic that I took from past weeks of 🍀March 2021, but man that is like took forever to show this as my playtime results after using my controller. Just to clarify or something, I've been doing my next topic part with my controller to see how much playtime I'll having til the controller's batteries run out. Only thing is that my YCCTEAM Controller's battery had been still running well through some days I tracked on; from back in March 5th until 14th til the controller's battery finally almost running out as I stopped. I would've original plan to stop my results when if my YCCTEAM Controller's battery run out completely, but maybe not? ^^* I mean if it would to, then I would be take plenty of hours during the weekends more often. However since I already got the results from top, I would take a guess to learn how much playtime til the batteries runs out eventually.

By the way, I'd use my iPad Mini 2's timer and screenshots of my results I've putting down I gotten. This one different cause I took them back in March 5 til 14th that you already know. It won't be simply unlike my charging results for my YCCTEAM Controller I did last time.

1st Image from top left

From March 5th that I started this progress with my YCCTEAM Controller to track time; spending hours of playing Super Smash Bros Ultimate like I always do. I even picked the latest new fighter that you may know, but best that I can save my thoughts soon for this month or another month if I had trouble with my schedule a little. Nevertheless, at least knowing it took me of what it looks like 2 hours and 52 minutes on first try.

2nd Image from top right

It's been 7 days after I was doing some stuff with homework and drawing to get by, but on day 12th I'm back to continuing of my test at least 1 hour and 26 minutes through Super Smash Bros Ultimate a second time. ^^* Again that I been using the latest new fighter by doing Classic Mode, but it so hard that I was so close to getting 9.9 Intensity score. Yet the battery for my controller still fully charged of what I saw on screen.

3rd Image from middle left

At day 13th, I putting up a notch by doing a third try using my controller to play Luigi's Mansion 3; which if you know that I owned it from last year. Link Here It was actually a good game that I remember my first play to try back in December 29th, 2020. However, I wanted to reset things up to get any collectables of ghost and gems to hoping of getting that 100% completion. For doing so, I using my iPad Mini 2's timer again to track how much time I'll having to get Luigi's Mansion 3's 100% completion; while trying to drain the battery of my controller. So far, it took me 4 hours and 4 minutes before taking it break. At least knowing the batteries from my YCCTEAM Controller had finally powered down on half. 🙂👍🏼

4th Image from middle right

The same day that I went through lunch later, but back to continuing my progress still; even I would reset the timer instead I should've save it while playing Luigi's Mansion 3 again. It took me about 4 hours and 35 minutes I gotten before decided to take a ease. Yet the batteries from my YCCTEAM Controller still had half power before hoping it can reach to power down.

5th/Final Image from bottom last

Finally that I REALLY going through there for day 14th as I took 9 hours and 55 minutes of playtime with my YCCTEAM Controller. Yeah, it actually go through there non-stop at least on Sunday; just to make sure the batteries can finally drain out some more. Don't worry that I'm fine about having a blast with Super Smash Bros Ultimate and Luigi's Mansion 3 games at the same time; in making turns of course. At least knowing my controller's batteries is finally almost low power just before I can take a break at 7:20 P.M.

Whew! It was really something that I been using my YCCTEAM Controller through about 4 days (since from past 7 days that I was out after March 5th for my first progress til 14th to finished) with the batteries is working fine through more hours than I thought would be. Wondering what kind of batteries it was to power up my controller? Well, I look on its instruction book for the controller's battery was built in "1000mAh polymer lithium" that it can run about 8-10 hours.

However, I don't think that wasn't it after I been through my progress with my YCCTEAM Controller that took me days til the battery is running low. Also, the controller on the back saids that the battery capacity was "3.7V 1200mAH" instead of "1000mAh" from what the instructions book said.

It really get me confused the fact the controller's battery had a different built-in that it tooks me days after using it for my Nintendo Switch console with Super Smash Bros Ultimate and Luigi's Mansion 3. After checking some results at the end though, I'm guessing the different built-in battery set for my YCCTEAM Controller will take about 20 or more hours of playtime. I'm not sure it was the official answer I'll take, but still.

My Thoughts:

The batteries for my YCCTEAM Controller I've been using for days sure works me hard, even taking through more hours of playtime can be a good thing for the weekends to plan with your ownNintendo Switch system. That being said, I couldn’t put a finger on about what kind of build-in battery for my YCCTEAM Controller had gotten after playing it for 20 or more hours. I even look through online to double check the same controller’s details in Amazon.com, but still said it can take 10 hours of playtime. Link Here

I’m taking a guess after reading the controller on the back saids the battery capacity was “3.7V 1200mAH” had to do with taking 20 or more hours after using my controller. Hard to say, but it was likely in theory. Who knows if I’ll be taking another battery result test for next time soon, but for now it was a good first one I gotten from past weeks of 🍀March 2021.

Before I can finish off my next topic part for my YCCTEAM Controller and onto the next one, I like to apologize to my friends that I’ll be delaying my next DeviantArt posts til next month for Sam’s new bio and reactions with my main OCs to Pyra/Mythra after joining Smash Bros. Let’s just say that I’m working some drafts to make and other one of course, my homework writing after the package send me by mail. Yeesh.... 😑 Again, I’m sorry to my friends that I’ll be delaying my next DeviantArt posting plans at least next month soon. Though considering we have 2 weeks left until March 31st; which is the exact date til Nintendo will stop selling Super Mario 3D All-Stars, I would get into showing me playing my last year’s Christmas game now. I’ll even added through my next topic part with my YCCTEAM Controller on hand, but I promised I’ll bring up the gyro control testing first. Sorry. ^^*

Pervious Posts for my YCCTEAM’s Pro Controller Topic:

Wireless Switch Pro Controller for Nintendo Switch/Switch Lite (Part 1) - Link Here #1

My YCCTEAM’s Wireless Switch Pro Controller for Nintendo Switch/Switch Lite Unboxing (Part 2) - Link Here #2

My YCCTEAM’s Wireless Switch Pro Controller for Nintendo Switch/Switch Lite Comparison with my Xbox One (Part 3) - Link Here #3

My YCCTEAM’s Wireless Switch Pro Controller for Nintendo Switch/Switch Lite Comparison with my Nintendo Switch’s Joy-Cons (Part 4) - Link Here #4

Testing Buttons (Part 5) - Link Here #5

Rumble Feature Testing (Part 6) - Link Here #6

Battery Charging Test (Part 7) - Link Here #7

[freeasreallove]

Comparing bands

( S T O P D O I N G I T )

I know this is not my regular post but I honestly don’t care and I’m honestly ashamed of having to do this.

So I’ve been debating on doing this for a good while now but a post on Instagram made me finally decide on whether or not I should.

yes i use dark mode fight me

Earlier today I was scrolling through Instagram and came across this post and y’know curiosity took over after reading the caption and I clicked on the comments. Posts like these make my blood boil. And it reminded me of this

Along with the many other memes like it.

Please please PLEASE stop comparing bands like this.

The comparison between The Beatles and One Direction as well as BTS needs to stop. If you're trying to be funny, you're not. You're just being rude and in my honest opinion, childish.

The main comparison I've always seen is in The Beatles fandom where they're constantly compared to 1D and BTS. Though it's present in all fandoms.

All three of these bands respect each other, so why can't you all respect them?

The only thing I've ever seen that would fall under the rude category where a member of one of these bands talked about the other is when Ringo was asked about 1D and claimed they weren't really a band. This is no hate to Ringo (I love that man with all my heart and he needs to be protected at all costs) but he is incorrect there. The definition of a band ”a small group of musicians and vocalists who play pop, jazz, or rock music”. One Direction are vocalists so they are according to the definition, they are a band. But besides that, they all respect each other. One Direction loves The Beatles. Harry, in the early years of 1D, said one of his favorite bands is The Beatles. Louis read a book on the boys and was really into it. Harry has seen ’A Hard Day’s Night’ and loved it. They've worn Beatles merch. They also sang ’All You Need Is Love’ during one of their X-Factor performances. BTS sang part of ’Hey Jude’ and Paul loved it. I personally didn't like it when BTS recreated the Ed Sullivan show when the boys were on it but it's not something to be so pressed over and make comparisons.

You're entitled to your own opinion on which band is better in your eyes but comparing them needs to stop. They are each their own bands and are each great. Personally, I don't like BTS, but completely respect them and never once made the comparison between The Beatles and/or One Direction. I never made the comparison of The Beatles and One Direction and/or the comparison of One Direction to BTS. In my personal opinion, I like The Beatles more than 1D but my love for 1D is there and they are such great musicians.

I absolutely adore both The Beatles AND One Direction.

Originally, I hated anything popular (like most people do these days especially with music) and despised both The Beatles and One Direction. I didn't get into The Beatles until December 12, 2017, in a music class. I originally hated the lesson but heard ’A Hard Day’s Night’, then ’Help!’ (which has been my favorite song, and now my favorite album and movie), then ’She Loves You’, then ’I Saw Her Standing There’ and fell in love. The next day I watched the film ’A Hard Day’s Night’ in the same class. A few months later I got into McLennon and my craze only grew from there and lead me to where I am today. I got into 1D on April 28, 2020, because my fyp on TikTok was filled with both Larry Stylinson and 1D and I hated it because it was all about something I didn't care about but after a few days I caved and got into them and now here I am almost 4 months later absolutely obsessed. BTS is a different story being as I can't get into them. I do not enjoy their music. If you do, great! But I personally don't but notice how I respect them? I never did and never will compare these bands they way y'all are. Y'all can dislike the bands individually for whatever reason since you're entitled to your own opinion but if you hate them simply because they are popular and compare them to another boy band, you're being childish and need to stop. You're not a kid (unless you are then I can't stop you, you'll grow up and realize in the future how stupid it is) so stop acting like one.

I hated the bands individually because I went through a childish and immature faze where it was “cool” to hate anything popular and now with me liking two things that are/were very popular, I realized how fucking stupid that is.

My point in all this is to stop comparing these boy bands the way y’all are because it's stupid, disgusting, immature, and childish.

I honestly hate both The Beatles and 1D fandoms individually for a few reasons.

Beatles, y'all are fucking hypocrites. The wife-beater jokes calling John a rat aren't funny. They never were and never will be. As for being hypocrites, you call John an abuser to both his wives and his son but ignore the things the others have done for instance Ringo almost killing Barbara, by almost beating her to death, George gaslighting Pattie, and Paul being controlling to his earlier girlfriends. And if you did your research, you'll know that John wasn't a wife-beater and didn't intentionally abuse his son. John yes slapped Cynthia ONCE BUT APOLOGIZED AND NEVER DID IT AGAIN AND WAS ABUSED BY YOKO. As for Julian, he was born at the absolute worst time being as John was always on tour and working and then was slaved away by Yoko and never got to see Julian since Yoko didn't like Julian. None of the boys were saints but they aren't sinners. John never had the chance to show you he changed because he was killed and you completely ignore that and put him to 2020 expectations when he didn't get to 1981. Abuse never was and never is okay but the man learned. They all learned.

1D, the constant calling other fans locals if they get something wrong that happened to the boys or within the fandom or if someone doesn't know the words or flubs up the words to a song is annoying and needs to stop. And the constant war between larries, OT5s, harries, and louies needs to stop. Oh and you wanna normalize calling out celebs when they do wrong but when they do actually do wrong, you shit on them (mainly addressing the Niall situation).

andthewholesimonbreakinghisbackthingwasntfunnyandshouldntbejokedabout

Of course, there are great people inside each fandom but I'm addressing these toxic stans because I don't see many people doing it and it needs to be addressed.

I'm gonna go now but please, PLEASE stop comparing the bands they way you are and treat people within the fandoms and the celebs with kindness. Good day to you all. Tpwk

[chubbycaucasianchristiancloseted]

Obama is the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy, I mean, that's a storybook, man.

Obama is the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy, I mean, that's a storybook, man. Did my post just get removed?

For the Democratic Party and media outlets that continuously play the victim card, they really don’t mind it when one of their own does it. Can you imagine if Trump said something like that? What would the moral outrage be? Now FB, Tumblr and Minds if you remove my post just remember it’s been “taken totally out of context my use of the world ‘clean”. I was referring to a phrase my mother used “clean as a whistle, sharp as a tack”. Come ON! WHAT A JOKE! The worst part about the whole statement was not even addressed! In 2007 Biden thought Obama was the first Main Stream African American? We ignore that?

This article goes on to quote a few more gems from Biden. If Trump or I said any of this we would be ridiculed as a raciest. Even Rev. Jesse Jackson gave Biden a pass. I wonder if people were aware of these comments when casting ballets in 2020? There are different standards in the court of popular opinion for conservatives than anyone else and it’s trickling over into the court of law.

There are only a dozen or so reasons Joey would say something like this and only a handful I would agree to discuss. One possible is Joe Biden is unknowingly raciest. He is not even aware that he treats or sees people inferior to him based of the color of their skin. The color of an individual’s skin is so important to liberal Larrys and Lindas and Joey tries to discuss it and play a part in it but trips and stumbles over his own biases.  

OR Joe Biden is sick and has been sick. This is my biggest argument; Joe Biden has never been the sharpest tool in the shed and in 2007 he started to slowly decline. His mental cognitive ability has been question to a lot of people for awhile. NOW it is thrust into the lime light. Thumbs up and finger points aren’t going to save Joey this time.  

Direct Quotes:

"I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy," Biden said. "I mean, that's a storybook, man."

Biden issued a statement Wednesday afternoon, saying: "I deeply regret any offense my remark in the New York Observer might have caused anyone. That was not my intent and I expressed that to Sen. Obama."

"Barack Obama is probably the most exciting candidate that the Democratic or Republican Party has produced at least since I've been around," Biden said on the call. "And he's fresh. He's new. He's smart. He's insightful. And I really regret that some have taken totally out of context my use of the world 'clean.'"

Biden said he was referring to a phrase used by his mother.

"My mother has an expression: clean as a whistle, sharp as a tack," Biden said.

Earlier in the day, Biden had officially filed the necessary paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to launch a presidential campaign. Biden ran for the White House in 1988, but pulled out of the race before the first votes were cast.

Rev. Jesse Jackson, who also ran for president in 1988, also said he did not think Biden was being racist. However, Jackson did say that he called Biden to talk to him about it.

"You cannot go into a 7-11 or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. Oh, I'm not joking."

"Better than everybody else. You don't know my state. My state was a slave state. My state is a border state. My state is the eighth largest black population in the country. My state is anything from a northeast liberal state," Biden said.

He repeated the comment during a visit to South Carolina in December 2006 at an event before the Columbia Rotary Club, according to a story published in The State newspaper. The State reported that Biden referred to Delaware as a "slave state that fought beside the North. That's only because we couldn't figure out how to get to the South. There were a couple of states in the way."

[fictionfromafar]

The Silence Of The White City by Eva García Sáenz

The Silence Of The White City by Eva García Sáenz, translated by Nick Caistor, Vintage Crime / Black Lizard 2020

In August 2020 I spotted a review for this novel by "Rough Justice" in Crime Fiction Lover which had been shared onto the Crime Fiction In Translation Facebook group. I'd promised myself I would buy the book as soon as I saw it on sale in a local bookshop. The plot seemed of interest and set in the Basque County it was a new location for me. Seeing a Netflix recommendation for a film of the same name further generated my intrigue and having failed to find the book locally, I ensured it was top of my Christmas list.

Three days after unwrapping it I have read from start to end and since then watched the movie on Netflix! Please don't be tempted to rush to watch the movie though until after you have read the book. Reasons for this are given in my final paragraph.

It may be late December but this is one of my favourite novels of the year and it is precisely one superb example of why I enjoy international crime fiction so much. Not only have I enjoyed a thrilling and unpredictable crime novel with a compelling back story and credible lead character, but I have also been given a fantastic insight into the history, geography, culture, and food of the Álava province of Spain.

Eva García Sáenz de Urturi is a very successful author in her native Spain and her novels are also very popular in Latin America. The Silence Of The White City is set in the historic city of Vitoria-Gasteiz and is the first of the White City triology featuring Unai López de Ayala, known as Kraken. The translation by Nick Caistor, a past winner of the Valle-Inclán Prize for translation who has translated novels by the likes of Juan Marsé, Eduardo Mendoza, Manuel Vázquez Montalbán and Roberto Arlt is flawless. The Basque flavour is retained with use of a few words such as Cuadrilla which refers to a group of friends, the names of festivals and some appetising dishes. Just the kind of things I like to Google between chapters!

Inspired to join the police force after Vitoria is terrorised by a series of ritualistic murders twenty years earlier, Kraken is charged with investigating a new set of double murders using almost exactly the same modus operandi. A famous archeologist Tasio Ortiz de Zarate was convicted of the original murders after being arrested by his twin brother Ignacio, who was at the time a police inspector. Given the former is still incarcerated, Kraken and his colleague Estíbaliz have to discover if these are copy-cat killings or if the wrong man was convicted.

The investigation swings through a range of suspects and motives, while we read about the old town of Vitoria-Gasteiz, the regular festivals that see the killer strike, the surrounding countryside including many abandoned villages. Mystery surrounds the relationship between the Ortiz de Zarate twins and gradually we learn secrets that have never previously been revealed.

The story has a very contemporary feel where mysterious messages are left on Twitter for Kraken apparently by the imprisoned Tasio leading to concerns that he is being unduly mislead by a convicted murderer. Competing media outlets increase the pressure on the police investigation, particularly upon the new deputy Superintendent; while the unknown perpetrator is able to keep one step ahead. In a parallel story we also have a historical glimpse into high society with the interaction between the rich bride to be of a successful industrialist and her doctor from a humble background. Gradually we learn the significance of this with a startling revelation.

This is just the kind of rich novel that I enjoy, with surprises and twists that keep you turning the pages. Kraken is an appealing main pratagonist with a tragic recent history, while there is scope for more focus on Estíbaliz in subsequent stories.

I believe this novel has perhaps not received the attention it merits in the UK, it may have suffered from not getting the correct distribution channels to appear wider in British retail book stores (prices on the rear appear only in US and Canadian currency) and has missed the benefit of a good publicist. This is strange as Vintage Crime /Black Lizard have successfully promoted Henning Mankel, Jo Nesbø et al. Rest assured I've discovered many great authors this year and Eva García Sáenz is certainly up with the best of them. "The Water Rituals" , the second book in the Inspector Unai Lopez de Ayala series comes out at the end of March 2021. I'd urge you to read "The Silence Of The White City" as soon as possible get up to speed before then.

Just a final word, while the book is a whodunnit, this is not the case for the movie shown on Netflix which is more of a "hedunnit". Therefore I would strongly urge you to read the novel before watching the film which reveals so much from outset and misses lots of the charm of the book. It also features an implausible chase over the Cathedral roof which does not occur in the novel. While it is worth watching afterwards, a series would have better captured the detail, feel and cultural nuances of the novel.