#the titular beast herself

[bellasaracardchive]

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 1/30/2024

a good 60% of my brain is screaming in unemployment terror at all times so these will be somewhat abbreviated until that situation resolves itself

listening

sleeping on the ceiling by friday pilots club. this is a song by a five-piece alt-rock band from chicago that could EASILY open for mid-aughts fall out boy. i would like to think it is from the point of view of a freshly-turned vampire. listen this slot isn't about the best song i heard this week it's about the one that got stuck in my head the most

Hey, I swear I'm okay Honey, I been sleepin' on the ceiling all day Yes way, like hey I swear I feel great Looky, looky, love the feeling of being okay Yes way

spotify.

reading

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and the Amulet of Power by Mike Resnick. it was in a dollar book bin and i got it as a joke gift for a friend. mike resnick is a remarkably prolific writer who's done a lot of tie-ins. i don't have anything particularly notable to say about his star wars books but they are a sort of minimum viable product? they feel star warsy and don't annoy me on every page.

this book was published in 2003 and treats the people of the Nile delta and their beliefs with all the delicacy you might expect from a 2003 video game tie in novel. i do think the twist is being telegraphed way too hard. perhaps i should say instead of sending a telegram mr resnick has simply set the telegraph office ablaze as a signal fire. the titular triangle-pointed woman herself ms croft is VERY insistent she's just as good as the boys. this is pretty on par for my experience of 2003 empowering womens' feminism AND my experience in a male-dominated field so i can't really ding it too hard? aside from the racism, in the notably racism-free fields of archaeology and video games and archaeology video games, this book is aging a little strangely overall. i do not know if i will finish it before i mail it out to my friend, but despite its sins it is a very fast read.

watching

watched the four dungeon meshi episodes. it's cute! ProzD was an unexpected delight! it made me want to make something fancy for dinner but alas i still have to go food shopping!

some posts on my dash were talking about how the episode with the mollusks inside the living armor really got them hooked and i have to agree. i also saw the full potential of the show's speculative biology unspooling before me. i don't know if i currently have the brainwidth for the manga but it is going on my reading list for after i finish berserk. which is kind of like saying i'm going to watch chopped after i finish up hannibal

playing

forgot i had an original gen switch, given to me through a complex series in a complex series of friend barters back in uhhhh late '21? early '22? i got through 3/4 of the divine beasts the first time around and then could not crack the camel. it was well past time to create a new switch profile so i could start a new game without losing the old one.

omg twinnsssssssss

i did forget how goddamn big the map is. i have just now unlocked the camera and the memory quests, i have not really. done much more than basic tutorial and beginning of game stuff.

making

anxiously junebugging between a whole bunch of shit. finally figured out the correct charger/extension cord setup for my bedroom. replaced all the fluorescent lightbulbs and took them to be recycled. fixed the hall door enough so it latches closed and an irritated cat can't claw it open. tidied up the balcony and patio and repotted the surviving houseplants.

in textile news, started this cross stitch. this is a Bless This Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy Star Wars themed sampler, i have made two as gifts and had to throw out a mostly-completed one i made for me bc of the moths. but i now know exactly where this will go in this apartment and i already have the frame and i bought all the floss pre-being fired, so might as well? the real bitch of the situation here is backstitching the buildings. it's so start and stop. it's so much tan. i talked about this on the weekly siblingchat facetime and now my brother has requested one lmao. that's his christmas gift settled. i suppose.

i had somehow forgotten how loadbearing textile crimes are for me. i haven't done much of anything since the moth debacle, and that was almost two years ago. last night i found some suspicious holes in a camisole and i'm really really hoping it's just cat claws and not moths or carpet beetles or any other fun things that eat clothes.

[procrastinationaccount]

The back of Harrow the Ninth says that the fate of the universe rests on one woman (Harrow's) shoulders. But crucially, it doesn't. Harrow isn't a full Lyctor, but is too loyal to God to consider betraying him. No one expects her to help fight the Resurrection Beast, and she doesn't. Half the cast dies and she's not even there to see it. Harrow the Ninth is such an intimate novel. Sure, you're getting a handful space adventures and reveals about the characters (which are delightful of course) but the titular character? When she fights, she's only fighting for herself and her cavalier. And I love that.

[writebackatya]

i wanted to ask, why beauty and the beast as your favorite disney movie? do you have any specific memories with it?

There might be some childhood bias but man I do love the Disney Renaissance era. I was born near the end of that era so I did have a certain fondness. Mind you I have vivid memories watching both Tarzan and Mulan in theaters and the rest on VHS and DVD with my siblings

For the longest time I’d say Aladdin was my favorite Disney movie of all time and I think it might be the one I watched the most, but when I was in my teens Beauty and the Beast became my favorite because it’s just the best in my humble opinion

I love everything about it!

The music numbers are wonderful! The Disney Renaissance in general has a lot of wonderful music!

Every movie from that era I will admit have some bangers. The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, The Lion King, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, and Mulan; all great stuff! But I admit all of them have song or two that just don’t really do it for me as much as their others. Doesn’t mean I hate them though. (The only songs I genuinely hate out of these movies are Les Poissons from The Little Mermaid and A Guy Like You from The Hunchback of Notre Dame)

But Beauty and the Beast! Every song is a banger and not a drag and moves the story forward! First you got it’s opening number: Belle! I just love it’s energy and how it introduces its main characters! It’s so good it gets another reprise and you don’t know how often I’ve sung “I want adventure in the great wide somewhere” in public. Twice. Once at work

And Gaston!? An amazing villain song. It’s so ridiculous, makes you wanna sing along and do all the voices, and it captures our villain’s scummy ways so well! And the reprise!? So good! Just love how sinister it becomes while still being so jovial!

Be Our Guest!? Yes please! The supporting cast in this movie is so good and this song is a great showcase of these characters, specifically Lumiére and Cogsworth! Lumiére with his excellent showmanship and Cogsworth just slowly getting into while being on the end of a lot of slapstick! Don’t worry, Mrs. Potts will get her time in the spotlight soon but we get a small taste of her singing talents in this one!

And how about Something There!? Whenever it’s a beautiful winter day this song will always play in my head! And it’s funny to think that one of the previous scenes before it was the Beast fighting off those wolves in the snow! When all of that was kinda scary and he was still seen as somewhat of a threat! But look at him now! Birds love him! He has a gentle side! And he sucks at snowball fighting! It’s funny! Oh and his voice! So damn good! And Belle’s singing is still just as beautiful as ever

If we’re talking extended edition I do really enjoy Human Again which is a great addition to the soundtrack! The beast’s servants deserve their own song singing about what they want

And now. The main event. The titular song. Beauty and the Beast sung by Mrs. Potts herself!! God this song is so beautiful! Angela Lansbury’s voice is phenomenal; it’s so loving and caring and soft! (Also absolutely great blend of 2D and 3D animation in this scene! So well done!)

Funny to think about that the final song (besides the reprise) is the Mob Song. But yeah! This song is damn good too! Like I love the Beast but this fear mongering song is such a banger and shows Gaston’s manipulative side so damn well. And let’s not forget the servant’s side as they head into the final battle! Good stuff!

I love all the characters in this movie! Belle is a great protagonist, the Beast has development that you just love to see happen, Gaston is the most fun villain to ever come from Disney, and the supporting characters are great at stealing scenes

I remember there was a time on the internet where everyone just seemed to have this whole “Yo! Fuck the Disney Renaissance movies” and just had a whole bunch bad takes such as Belle being a horrible person, Gaston is a good person, the infamous Stockholm syndrome take. I guess that pushback just made me love it more. Not to say the movie shouldn’t have its critics but i just felt those arguments were always weak and either ignored details from the movie or just added something that wasn’t in the movie

In the 8th grade, I was in my school’s musical of the Disney version! I played Monsieur D’Arque (the asylum guy) and my big solo moment was “He’ll wreak havoc on our village if we let him wonder free”. I was friends with a lot of the leads already so this musical was a lot of fun for me

And recently on my trip to Disney World I got to eat at the Beast’s Castle

So yeah. I love this movie. It’s my favorite. But I admit there is some bias to it but who cares!? There’s always bias when it comes to opinions

[ryttu3k]

so I have had a thought, and I wanted to ask someone who knows more about VtM then me about it. So, we know from V5's letter in the core book that Mina is Embraced, and has a childe, alex. do you think the rest of the polycule was embraced too? is lucy still about? I would like to invite you to imagine Mina bullying Dracula into embracing the polycule, and then imagine you're playing a VtM game and it turns out the new tzimice who moved in to the edge of town are the Harker extended Family. :P

Ooh, good question. The VtM canon explanation is that Dracula told his story to Bram Stoker (who then sent him a signed first edition, which he still owns as of the early 21st century), and Mina is his childe, a sixth generation Tzimisce. Lucy is listed in the wiki as a now-deceased childe as well, and Renfield as a favourite ghoul.

Assuming we're following the canon of Dracula, we can assume that Renfield genuinely was ghouled, was possibly going through the effects of withdrawal from the blood bond, and fought against the bond to protect Mina, leading to his domitor killing him.

For Lucy, Dracula probably was feeding on her regularly, steadily weakening her, potentially using a blood bond / Dominate to mess with her. Since she died in front of witnesses, obviously he couldn't have drained her completely then given her vitae, so I'm wondering if she was actually... not actually dead but very close to it, and after she was entombed, he returned and Embraced her properly. She can't deal with her Beast and starts hunting kids. Then, as per the novel, ultimately killed by the other characters.

For Mina, it's a bit more complicated. The V5 letter implies that she was only ghouled/blood bound and not actually Embraced over the course of the story. She has Quincey after it's all over, and it must only be after he's born that she's actually Embraced, since apparently whatever Dracula did to her was like, some sort of genetic illness, and Alex is both her childe and her great-great-grandchild, whom she Embraced to save their life.

So when on Earth does she actually get Embraced? The most logical assumption is that Dracula survives the events of the novel, tracks her down later, and Embraces her as per VtM canon rules. Dracula then selectively tells parts of the story to Stoker, and Stoker embellishes further, creating a more satisfying narrative - one where the titular character dies (in VtM canon, it's also possible Stoker met Mina as well, and simply liked her better, deciding to make her the protagonist and the one who ultimately triumphs).

With that in mind, you can go by pretty much any explanation or even characterisation you want, with the idea that Stoker changed things up to make a better story. Mina gets Embraced and watches Jonathan and her friends die. Mina gets Embraced, loses herself to the Beast, and Embraces her loved ones herself before coming back to herself. Mina gets Embraced, and Jonathan begs her to Embrace him too, so she won't have to go into that dark night alone (or else approaches Dracula and demands he Embrace him too). Since the canon is so inconsistent, really, you can do whatever works for whatever story you're trying to tell.

[adarkrainbow]

I was reading “Contes de loups, contes d’ogres, contes de sorcières: La fabrique des méchants” by Eva Barcello-Hermant (Tales of wolves, tales of ogres, tales of witches: The making of villains). 

It is not the best book by far - it is not a scientific book, it is not a true literary study, it is more of a sociology-psychology book looking at the state of fairytales among youth literature today and how villains are received today in young literature. 

But it still has a few interesting things. For example, Barcello-Hermant’s classifies the fairytale villains as they are received and perceived today in four categories.

1) The Wolf

Barcello-Hermant spends a LOT of time talking about the Wolf, or the Big Bad Wolf, who is according to her one of the most iconic and widespread villains of fairy tales today. Though she does recognize that this is particularly true in France - while fairytales of other countries tend to have different wild beasts. She reminds people that the Vietnamese version of Little Red Riding Hood has a bear instead of a wolf, while in a Louisiana version of “The goat and her seven youngs” it is an alligator that preys on the titular characters. (Personally I also know of other replacements for the wolf - for example how in an Asian version of Little Red Riding Hood it is a tiger that preys on the little girl and her parent figure ; and in the older English version of The Three Little Pigs the predator is a fox, not a wolf). 

2) The Ogre

If you have been following my “What makes an ogre?” series you’ll know the ogre is as iconic as it is complex and nuanced, and far away from the image we have today of just “an orc by another name”. But given this book is about modern literature and the reception of fairytales today, it presents the ogre with its numerous misconceptions: Barcello-Hermant notably explains that the giant and the ogre are just two side of the same coins, and she also places in the category “ogre” the trolls of Nordic tales, as well as the Bluebeard-type of characters. I do not agree with that in principle, but it is true that in today’s world, the ogre, the giant and the troll tend to be fused and confused together as the “ugly, stupid, man-eating giant”

3) The Witch

Barcello-Hermant recognizes that the witch is not a traditonal fairytale villain of French fairytales - in the tales of Perrault and others, it is rather the evil fairy/wicked fairy/old fairy that fulfills the role of the malevolent female wielder of supernatural powers. But the witch is still one of the key antagonists of fairytales today, herself divided into two sub-types. On one side, the hag, the old woman who lives alone in the depths of the wood - the Hansel and Gretel type of witch. On the other hand, the young and beautiful witch who seduces people and usually enters the household of the protagonist - the “Snow White” or “The Six Swans” type of character. 

[ Fascinatingly, if you recall my posts about Benjamin Lacombe’s Grimoire of witches, it is precisely the two fairytale witches he picked up for his portraits - on one side the Hansel and Gretel witch reimagined as a mad sorceress of the Hundred Years War ; on the other the Snow-White witch reinvented as a narcissistic serial killer of the Renaisance].

4) The wicked woman / or the wicked family

In this category, Barcello-Hermant places the evil female antagonist that are not supernatural in nature, and that usually are part of the protagonist’s family. It is the wicked stepmother, the evil sister, or the perverse mother: the type of antagonists we find in “Cinderella” or “Toads and Diamonds”. Though Barcello admits that this category tends to bleed into the others, as the wicked stepmother can become a witch (like in Snow-White) the same way the evil mother-in-law can be revealed as an ogress (like in Sleeping Beauty). 

[tnc-n3cl]

1) Compliment your writing! 21) What do you do when you get writer's block? 33) Which of your fic titles is your favorite? (and why?)

Thanks for the ask @unmaskedcardinal

1) Compliment your writing!

Let's see... I've got some intense action scenes, some funny narration and/or dialog, and I've made myself cry writing one scene in particular (cause it was sad not cause writing was frustrating me)! [Okay maybe two...] Bonus, the big sad scene was making me tear up in a different fic that was referencing it before even writing it (so of course I had to go and write that fic first...).

21) What do you do when you get writer's block?

Stare blankly at the Word document for hours. :P Okay maybe a little bit, but usually I'll either work on something else, maybe doodle something related to the project, or do a little research on something related. Or I'll take a break from writing for a bit and do something else.

I have gotten into a bit of a cycle where an arc idea or inspiration will come to me and I'll speed through it and when I get to the end of it and be like "okay now what?" and have to take a little break for a while. (Which is perhaps the reverse of what was going on when wrote the first version of Tale of the Realm Walker. I would just be kinda winging it for a bit, only having a vague idea of the scene and then I would have an epiphany and everything would fall into place.)

33) Which of your fic titles is your favorite? (and why?)

Shifting Tides of Fate. Why is this my favorite title? The layers... It starts from Mipha's POV as she and Link set out to Rito Village to free Revali and Vah Medoh. Tides => Water => Zora... But also the tides of fate have indeed shifted, the Champions weren't murdered but possessed and are still alive, Link just has to save them. But also, by the time I started writing this, things had gone off the rails. Not just in the sense of Champions Alive AU, but also many of my original plans got tossed out the window.

See I was originally just going to do a series of oneshots freeing the Divine Beasts, maybe only really diving deep with a Revali-centric fic. But then "Link's Story: Finding Hateno Village" ballooned into The Amnesiac Hero's Quest which made a bunch of things happen that made me have to adjust scenes in The Ballad of Kass. And then stuff that changed in TBoK means things are a little different in SToF than what I planned.

It just works on so many levels and I usually struggle with titles. Like most of my other projects are just "Untitled [Franchise] Fanfic Project" or a codename like "Project 47". But The Realm Walker has just been really generous so far. (Also The Realm Walker is a perfect! Very much a titular character title like Twilight Princess... Even though I haven't posted anything from the Realm Walker herself's POV...) [Side Note: I had originally posted The Ballad of Kass under the name of "Kass' Story" but at some point the inspiration hit and I changed it.]

Ask Game

[bestworstcase]

ok everybody. tin hats ON.

in his commentary on ‘the grimm child,’ ozpin mentions but does not name a second fairytale about a “white witch in the woods.” he implies that this tale is the original source for white skin/hair and dark eyes of the chill’s victims in his rendition of ‘the grimm child,’ although note that his rendition portrays the victims with red veins as well, and ozpin specifically does not remark on these as non-traditional elements of ‘the grimm child.’ so, it seems the red veins are a traditional element of ‘the grimm child’ and only the white skin, white hair, and dark eyes originated from this fairytale involving the white witch—which tracks with the latter tale probably originating before ozma’s first reincarnation, making it probably one of the tales ozma heard about “a terrifying sorceress who commanded dark powers in the wilds among the beasts and monsters.” ozpin doesn’t provide any other information, but everything checks out. it’s just an old legend about salem, yeah?

so why isn’t it in the book?

think about it. ozpin’s commentary on ‘the grimm child’ makes it explicitly clear that he altered the traditional details of the story to match salem’s present-day appearance, and he specifically cites an old folktale, dating back to a time when frightened rumors about salem were everywhere, to justify this choice. his commentary on the girl in the tower is a screed about propaganda in which he blames the girl for orchestrating the deaths of everyone who tried to rescue her. this book OVERTLY flags to the reader that ozpin wrote it as anti-salem propaganda.

why didn’t he include one of those terrifying stories about the witch in the wilderness, surrounded by beasts and monsters?

i submit to you that he actually did.

he just chose a later version of it that conflated the witch with unrelated folklore about warriors with silver eyes.

EXHIBIT A: STRIKING RESEMBLANCES

the tale about the witch evidently has several similarities with ‘the grimm child’ which, according to ozpin, caused “some versions” of the latter tale to be conflated with the story about the witch. he does not, however, elaborate on what these similarities are.

but.

‘the grimm child’ takes place in a village at the outskirts of a forest, which the children in the story are forbidden to enter. two children disobey these instructions, go into the woods, and encounter a grimm—the chill—which they unwittingly lead back home. it massacres the village that night, and the elder child, the one who initiated the venture, discovers the carnage before succumbing herself.

in ‘the warrior in the woods,’ the main character is a young boy who lives in a village on the outskirts of a charmed forest, which the villagers believe has magic will keep them safe as long as they do not enter the woods. the village children do not heed these warnings, and the boy ventures even further than most, eventually encounters a grimm, and is rescued by the titular warrior. despite her repeated warnings not to come back, he does so once a year, bringing gifts and learning more about her past… until one day, when the grimm set upon the village again, and he fights his way through a horde of them to find the warrior’s cottage wrecked. presuming her dead, he returns to the village and tells her story.

the chief difference between these tales is the nature of what the disobedient children encounter—a powerful, malevolent grimm on the one hand, or an aloof, powerful warrior who can make the grimm flee with a glance on the other. even so, the basic beats of the stories are similar: a child breaks the rule not to enter the woods and learns a secret, one evil and one good, that alters the course of their fate; and by the end of the story the village is either wiped out or in serious danger, and the child is the witness to the true nature of the threat.

one is a warning to children not to disobey their parents or wander off. the other is a warning not to believe in simple, magical answers because the world is complicated and dangerous—and according to ozpin, it’s also often told with the same moral as the first.

EXHIBIT B: THE WARRIOR HERSELF

note that—despite ostensibly being a story about a silver-eyed warrior—the color of the warrior’s eyes is mentioned only once, at the very end, when the boy declares that he “fell in love with her the moment [he] saw her silver eyes.” think about that for a moment, in the context of how symbolically important traits are usually described in a fairytale—for example, the “skin white as snow, lips red as blood” motif. fairytales of remnant is absolutely riffing on the classic style and structure of european fairytales, and that is a form in which important colors and symbolic traits are introduced early and repeated often.

doesn’t that make a last-minute “i fell in love with her silver eyes” feel just a tad tacked on? like it might, perhaps, be a later addition? food for thought!

now check the way the warrior is described throughout the fairytale:

“a tall, fair woman in a flowing black cape […] as beautiful as she was fierce […] her black cloak was threadbare, its hem tattered, tears throughout it mended with fraying red thread […] hair almost as dark as the grimm’s, white standing out as brightly as bone”

“more white strands in her hair […] but she was still proud and strong, and even more beautiful than he remembered”

“black skirt, sturdy boots, and a dark green cloak […] hair pulled back into a ponytail […] the end of the [billhook’s] broken handle crisscrossed with red ribbon”

now—this rendition of the tale is accredited to glynda goodwitch, and the descriptions of the style of clothing the warrior wears is, um, pretty clearly informed by glynda’s own taste in fashion, which a) is hilarious and b) dilutes the similarity somewhat.

but the colors. look at the colors. every single time the warrior is described in narration, it’s black and white and red—and the first time, her physical appearance is explicitly compared to that of a grimm, and before the boy brings her new clothes, she specifically wears a worn black cloak mended with red thread.

the fourth and final time the warrior appears, she herself is not described, but the “homely hut” she lives in, deep in the woods, is noted to have a small table with two seats out in front of it—innocuous enough a detail on its own, but in conjunction with the warrior’s, again, explicitly grimm-like appearance it does rather jump out.

further, the first time the warrior appears, she shoves the boy out of the path of a charging boarbatusk, and the grimm stops dead in its tracks, turns around, and runs away from her. now, when qrow tells ruby about the myths of silver-eyed warriors in 3.11, he does say that the grimm are said to be afraid of them—but while we’ve seen grimm flinch and draw away from ruby’s glare, we’ve never seen a grimm behave as though it’s afraid of her.

we have, however, seen grimm stop cold mid-charge, spin around, and run the fuck away.

from the hound. from salem’s creature.

a silver-eyed warrior isn’t scary enough to make the grimm run away—but salem is.

the third time the warrior appears, she’s preceded by a flash of bright white light that makes a grimm vanish, which of course is an accurate description of a fully-fledged glare; but it’s also not at all something that would be beyond salem’s power to achieve given that she can a) crunch giant grimm to dust with a snap of her fingers and b) make magical light shows like nobody’s business, so a vague (and easily embellished or subtly altered or conflated with other stories about magical silver eyes!) description of a magical blast that destroys the grimm in no way rules out the possibility of salem being the original basis for this tale.

and then there is… this: “I live here alone because I am alone. And as a general rule, I don’t like people. Most of my own people were killed long ago. My family, everyone I’ve ever known is dead, and if there are other survivors like me, they’re scattered all over Remnant.”

an entirely believable statement coming from the mouth of a silver-eyed warrior given that salem does appear to have been hunting them down for quite some time but also a statement that would have been entirely true coming from salem’s mouth prior to ozma’s return.

EXHIBIT C: MORE FANTASTICAL VERSIONS

but everything outlined above might be coincidental: salem is far from the only character with a black/white/red color palette, and given that glynda penned this rendition it’s perfectly plausible that she took some inspiration from certain colleagues of hers—a silver-eyed warrior who dressed in black and the black-haired, aloof and prickly woman on her team, perhaps—rather than these being traditional details. and lots of cottages have small tables on their front porches. and just because the grimm don’t run away from silver-eyed people in reality doesn’t mean they wouldn’t in stories.

but this rendition of ‘the warrior in the woods’ is one of several tales—along with ‘grimm child’ and ‘the infinite man’—which ozpin specifically identifies as having been altered from the more traditional telling in some way, and unlike ‘the grimm child’ (with its nontraditional physical description) and ‘the infinite man’ (which strikes a more balanced tone between the more typical portrayals of the titular character as either a hero, a fool, or a villain), ozpin does not clarify what got changed.

all he says is that there are “more fantastical versions of the tale, embellishments which add nothing to its deeper meaning and don’t bear repeating.”

fantastical embellishments that don’t bear repeating, writes the man who wrote an elaborate telling of the “most romantic” variant of the infinite man where all the magic was genuine, and also included stories about a god bringing his chosen ones to a magical island and transforming them into faunus, and a king haunted by a crown that taunts him with visions of a nightmarish future, and two gods fighting over their creations and nearly destroying the world, and a cranky old wizard dividing up his powers to bless four young women with magic out of gratitude for being kind.

fantastical embellishments that don’t bear repeating, writes the man obsessed with fairytales.

the warrior in the woods, as written, is overtly magical—grimm flee before her, she vaporizes them with a mysterious flood of light she refuses to explain, and she is identified at the end as having silver eyes. from what qrow and maria say of silver eyes, all of that is pretty standard as far as legends of them go. in-universe, anyone who reads this rendition of the tale and has even a passing familiarity with the canonically diverse, if a little obscure, folklore regarding silver eyes would immediately clock that this is a tale about a silver-eyed warrior. there’s nothing we’ve been told about the general folklore that is particularly more fantastic than what happens in ‘the warrior in the woods.’ and since qrow mentions that he heard about these stories from ozpin, and ozpin himself takes an interest in ruby because of her silver eyes, we can be fairly sure that ozpin isn’t invested in burying knowledge of the folklore itself, beyond ensuring that its actual existence is kept secret from the general public.

so what are those fantastical embellishments that ozpin dismisses as so silly and meaningless they don’t even bear repeating? (and doylistically, why put such an uncharacteristically disdainful remark into ozpin’s commentary at all, with zero elaboration, if not to flag that something is fishy here?)

what’s more fantastical than a warrior with magic eyes who can strike grimm dead with a mere glare? maybe a lonely grimm sorceress who lives deep in the wilderness, commanding dark powers over the beasts and monsters, protecting a village on the outskirts of her forest because just one of them treated her with kindness—until the village disregarded the one thing she asked in return, that they leave her alone and stay out of her forest, and she withdrew her protection and left them to fend for themselves.

that a) is a very classic fairytale plot (“if a magical benefactor tells you not to do one specific, seemingly trivial thing, don’t fucking do it”), b) ticks both boxes for the traditional morals ozpin mentions (“don’t wander too far from home” and “don’t rely on others to save you”), c) amps up the loose similarities between ‘warrior and the woods’ and ‘grimm child’ considerably, making their eventual conflation more natural, and d) is exactly the kind of story about witch-in-the-woods miserable hermit era salem that ozma would try his damnedest to erase or, failing that, change enough to obscure the connection to salem herself by attaching it to some other, unrelated but plausibly similar bit of folklore.

‘the warrior in the woods’ IS the story about the white witch in the woods, hiding in plain sight with the help of a few trivial tweaks and a perfunctory remark about embellishments so unbelievable they aren’t even worth thinking about.

and if you still don’t believe me, ozpin all but tattles on himself, in the commentaries on ‘warrior’ and ‘girl in the tower’:

“In fact, ‘The Warrior in the Woods’ is often used as a cautionary tale, intended to discourage children from wandering too far from home on their own, or from relying too much on others to save them. But the most enduring, and I think the most inspiring, aspect of this story is one which many have taken to heart: If you can help others, it is your responsibility to do so. […] From each according to their own abilities.”

“This is how propaganda works, of course. Arguably, every fable was originally told for a purpose, either overt or hidden. Some were designed to communicate a moral lesson or instruct children on how to behave, while others were meant as warnings or to persuade people into believing a certain thing.”

[countessofravenclaw]

El Lugar más Feliz de la Tierra: Chapter three

To all that come to this happy place, welcome. Disneyland is your land. Here age relives fond memories of the past, and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future. - Walt Disney

Luna had never heard these words before, nor had she heard of the man who had said them... well until she and Mateo end up having a movie night and Luna comes up with an idea. If there is really a place that can be called "the happiest place on the earth" she wants to see it for herself. So she and all her friends leave on an adventure ... an adventure over to a place where you can leave today and enter the world of the past, future, adventure, and fantasy.

The song of the chapter V ¤

Get up and don't delay coming home to Disneyland!

“Simon, don’t take the whole day there!” Ambar was brushing her hair in front of the mirror in their hotel room. Simon was still in the bathroom and hadn’t even put on clothes yet. 

It was their first day at the parks in this ten-day trip and once in her life Luna had made a schedule for everyone. Today they were going to the titular park Disneyland, and it opened at 10 am. Breakfast had started at 8:30 and they were trying to make it to the rope drop. 

“I’m coming,” Simon came out of the bathroom only wearing a towel, his hair still wet. “Were not in a rush.”

“We soon are, if you keep this pace up,” Ambar rolled her eyes as she was attaching her earring and clasped the necklace behind her neck. 

She was wearing a yellow lace dress and her jewelry had red roses on them. As soon as the plan for the trip had come into full fruition, Jazmin had started to make plans of her own. She had for a long time been obsessed with a 2010s trend of “Disney bounding” and had forced all of them to take part in it with her. She had assigned everyone a different Disney couple and required approval on all the outfits for the first day. 

If you ignored Jazmin’s full-blown obsessiveness, Ambar thought it actually was a very cute idea. She and Simon had been assigned Beauty and the Beast and she had actually had quite a blast with putting together her outfit. She really loved that movie. 

Simon had originally protested the whole idea of dressing up, but Ambar had assured him that he didn’t need to give up the plaid jerseys and beanies… Sigh, that was her darling musician husband alright. Fashion never came before comfort, even on stage. 

“Okay, I’ll be fast,” Simon made a pretend salute in the sign of defeat, before starting to pull a shirt on.

“Okay, I’m done.” Ambar saw Simon put his shoes on through the mirror and stood up from the vanity herself. She walked to the nightstand on her side of the bed and picked her wedding band and engagement rings up from the box she always put them in if she took them off. She didn’t like wearing them while doing her make-up, they would just get dirty. 

“Good,” She looked at her watch while picking her bag from a back of a chair, “You got everything?”

“Yes,” Simon grinned at her.

“Your phone? The ring? The water bottles?”

“Darling,” Simon placed his arm around Ambar’s shoulder, “I have everything. I’m not gonna go out there and let all these Americans think I am a free man.” He joked and flicked his left hand at her where his wedding band was firmly in his ring finger.

“They better not,” Ambar laughed as they walked out of the door. 

The breakfast that had been complimentary addition to the stay, was taking place at a big hall that you entered in from the second floor, so it wasn’t far away. 

Ambar left Simon to grab the food from the buffet and walked herself to find a table. 

“Delfi, I will have to confiscate this if you won’t stop.” Ambar saw Delfi and Pedro sitting in one of the bigger tables. Ambar knew exactly what they were arguing about. Delfi was a control freak, pretty much as Ambar was if not more. “The wedding isn’t going anywhere if you don’t talk to the vendors during the time were here.”

For Delfi and Pedro, Jazmin had assigned them to be that couple from the movie Frozen. Delfi had a blue skirt, and purple blazer while Pedro was wearing a shirt that read “Lost in the Woods” and faux fur belt.”

“Listen to him, “Ambar said as she sat down, “It’s going to be fine.”

“Easy for you to speak,” Delfi huffed as she surrendered her phone to Pedro, “You already had your wedding.”

“I did, yes,” Ambar nodded, “But what I learned was that when you start getting filled up to the brink with stress, you need to take a step back. You have a planner, trust her. I have done this, I know, trust me too. If you want a second opinion, ask Nina, but I am sure she will say the exact same thing.”

“What are you talking about?” Simon came to them and handed Ambar one of the plates. They always shared their breakfast while traveling. 

“Delfi needs to relax about the wedding and have fun,” Ambar said and stabbed an orange slice by her fork before grabbing a piece of bread. 

“Yeah, definitely.” Simon nodded and shared some kind of look with Pedro. 

“Is no one else here yet?” Delfi furrowed her brow and Ambar checked her watch. “I mean I’m not completely surprised, Jazmin is probably shooting a make-up tutorial: How to survive 12 hours with no touch ups. But I was willing to bet that Gastón and Nina would surely be here before us, but that’s clearly not the case. Oversleeping doesn’t sound like something you get away with at Oxford.”

“I doubt they are sleeping,” Ambar mumbled. She felt for two of them. Getting dragged to another big trip with all of your friends only a couple of weeks after your honeymoon…there certainly was a need for some privacy as newlyweds. “I won’t be surprised if they happen to vanish from time to time on this trip. You’ll get that once you get married.”

“And here we have the breakfast hall,” Maybe after about 20 minutes Jazmin was waltzing toward them, vlogging camera in hand. She was wearing a white sheet dress with a black belt and black beads. She was even wearing carrot earrings, which Ambar thought was quite of a commitment to a Disneybound, even if you were dressed as a snowman. “Everyone, say hi!”

“This is not a work trip Jazmin.” Ambar waved mildly to the camera before turning back toward her breakfast before Simon ate everything up.

“It is for me,” Jazmin insisted as she sat down, “I have the whole feature planned and promised Fundom that I’ll give a seminar about shooting in theme parks once we’re back. Where is everyone?”

“Someone should have been assigned to wake Luna and Matteo up,” Almost like on cue, Nina appeared to the table, wearing a green skirt, purple shirt, and a seashell necklace and earrings. “But I’m sure they’ll get here eventually.” 

“What took you so long?” Jazmin blurted out and Ambar sighed internally. Jazmin had no filter sometimes. 

“We, uh… We’re not late.” Nina sat down and Gastón came behind her. A slight change in her expression did give away that oversleeping had indeed not been the reason, “Why is our sleeping schedule a topic of discussion?”

“You all do realize right that we’re not in school anymore, finally.” Gastón had a much better poker face than Nina did. He wrapped his arm around his wife as he sat down, “So, we’re allowed to not be completely on time all the time.”

“I agree, lets change the subject,” Ambar piped up, “Nina, tell Delfi to stop worrying about the wedding.”

“You’re worried about it?” Nina turned toward Delfi. 

“I am worried about things not getting done,” Delfi lamented. 

“Well, you can do nothing about it now, so just don’t think about it. It’s going to be fine. What we learned was that never try to do things alone. More you want things to be perfect, they will look more imperfect to you.” 

“That’s what I said,” Ambar nodded and directed her eyes back to the entrance of the hall. Maybe someone really should go wake Luna and Matteo up.

“These rooms are amazing!” Jim and Yam suddenly joined them, and Ambar could also see Ramiro making his way through the buffet. “The bed was so comfy, we slept like logs.”

“Did you also sleep in your clothing?” Delfi eyed Jim and Yam suspiciously and Ambar saw why. Jim was wearing a blue top, Yam a red one, and they both were extremely wrinkled. Yam’s white skirt and Jim’s white shorts also had some very random colored blotches. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” the girls said quickly and started to stuff their faces to avoid further questions. 

“We only have about 30 minutes left,” Ambar said while looking at her watch, “Maybe someone should go and bang on Luna and Matteo’s doo—”

“It is this way. Come one or we’ll be late. Hurry!” A voice suddenly rang in the hall. 

“I can’t hurry. It’s all too beautiful!”

Luna and Matteo finally appeared into view. Matteo was dragging the completely awestruck Luna forward like a toddler. Luna got away from his grasp and spun around. Her purple shirt said “I got a dream” with some sun imagery. Extremely fitting for her. Jazmin had done spectacular job with assigning the characters.  

***

“Everyone! Come on!” Luna was bouncing as the group finally left the hotel. She was so excited. She had studied the map she had found on the internet at least a hundred times, so she knew exactly where to go. “This way!”

They walked down a path lined with trees. Everything was so beautiful. 

“Chica Delivery wait.” Matteo caught up to her and grabbed her hand, “None of us came prepared for a morning jog. We can’t all fly on our feet.” 

“But we’re almost there,” Luna slowed her pace as they came up to a place that looked like some kind of…shopping district? Had they taken a wrong turn after all? “Where are we?” She turned toward Ambar.

“DownTown Disney.” Ambar stated, “You remember? The shopping district.”

“Uuu.”

“Not now Jazmin!” Ambar had pulled her phone up, “The park is that way.” She pointed to a sign that was pointed to the left. The sign had fancy-looking letters and a symbol of three different-sized circles. 

“Is this what they called those… those…” Luna tried to find the right words…she had read about this. “...Hidden Mickeys?”

“Doesn’t look very hidden,” Gastón’s voice remarked as he and Nina appeared at Luna and Matteo’s side. “This is probably just a sign.”

“The hidden ones are actually hidden or more like camouflaged,” Nina continued, “I read couple of blog posts about it. We can see how many we can find.”

“Yes!” Luna jumped into the air again and her yell appeared to scare some family walking past them. How many 23-year-olds usually showed this amount of excitement at Disneyland? Surely, she wasn’t the only one. “Anyways… that way. Lets go!”

Luna saw Ambar nod and they started walking again until they reached a plaza that had two absolutely beautiful gates. 

Luna would care about the other one later, but right now all her attention was focused on the turquoise one. Behind it, loomed a huge flowerbed and the flowers had been planted on the shape of that mouse Nina and Ambar had given her a long history lesson about. 

The adventure loomed just beyond that gate, and she had to get in. “Let’s go!”

“So, this isn’t the castle, right?” Luna asked as they all had finally gotten past the turn stables. There was a castle, she was sure of it. She had seen pictures of it, and this wasn’t it.

“No, this is the train station,” Nina explained. 

“There’s a train?” Luna whipped her head around. She had done so much research, more than she ever had done before…where had the mention of this train been? She really should have made a list…Luna was never going to become a master researcher like Nina. 

“That’s the reason why this park was ever even built,” Nina continued, “Disney was a big fan of miniature trains.”

“Then we’ll have to ride it,” Luna clapped her hands together, “But now I wanna find that castle.”

“I think we need to go around this,” Ambar was looking at her phone where she had the map. 

“Okay, thanks! Lets go!” Luna jumped up again and was just about to sprint around the train station when a hand grabbed her arm so she couldn’t move. “Hey! Matteo, let go.”

“If I do that, you will run off like a headless chicken and we will never find you again,” Matteo was giving the most idiotic “listen to me” look to her. 

“Okay,” Luna rolled her eyes and took his hand as they started moving forwards, in much more moderate speed. In other words, they were moving slowly! “But I won’t get lost, plus I have a phone.” 

“I don’t trust this place’s cell reception…or that you remembered to charge your phone,” Matteo gave her a look, “I’m just looking out for you. Our wedding will look very stupid if it’s just me standing on the altar by myself since you are lost at Disneyland. 

“If I am not allowed to talk about my wedding,” Delfi snarked behind them, “Nor are you.” 

“Maybe we just cease all the wedding talk all together,” Gastón suggested as they walked under the train tracks, “This was supposed to be a vacation.” 

As they came from under the bridge, Luna was already completely floored. The plaza that opened before them looked like something off an old photograph. It looked exactly like the pictures online. The street was lined by old-looking very fancy buildings that looked like they were shops. 

“This was one of the lands, right?” Luna turned toward Nina. 

“Yes, it’s called The Main Street USA. Modeled after Marceline mainstreet,” Nina nodded.

“Why do I feel like these buildings have shrunken somehow?” Luna asked next as she kept looking at the street.

“That’s called forced perspective,” Nina continued, “I don’t actually know that much about it, but it’s a construction technique to make things look bigger or smaller than they are.” She tapped Gastón on the arm she had been holding, “Gastón, is that something that’s used in real life construction?” 

“Not on any stuff I have worked on” Gastón turned toward Nina and Luna, “But I’m not an executive team member so I’m not involved with the actual construction of projects… But I do think it’s used in some architecturally detailed buildings and stuff like that. Just like that looks taller than it actually is because the details higher are smaller, so they look further away.” 

“What that?” Luna turned toward where Gastón was pointing to. 

“Since you were looking forward to that castle, there it is.” Nina pointed to the end of the street as well…

There it was. The castle loomed at the end of the street towering very high. It was extremely cute. 

“We have to get a picture in front of this, with all of us,” Luna gushed as they finally got up to the castle. “Weren’t there those people who take pictures for the guests? The…” She tried to remember the right term, “The PHOTOPASS people! Where can we find one?” 

“I think I already found one,” Simon appeared next to Luna and pointed toward a man who was wearing a bright green shirt with a Mickey symbol on his sleeve. He also had a camera, which should have been the real giveaway. 

"¿Disculpa? ¿Puedes tomarnos una foto?" Luna approached the camera man who just looked at her. 

“Excuse me, I didn’t quite catch that…” The man started saying. Right…he probably didn’t understand. Luna had already forgotten.

“I got this,” Gastón came behind them and exchanged a couple of words with the camera man who nodded and walked up to their group. 

“So, there is twelve of you?” He asked, “Where from England are you from?”

“We're not from England,” Gastón answered, and he and Nina shared a small glance. They had already been mistaken as British at the airport twice and once at the hotel, “We’re coming from Buenos Aires.”

“With very mixed bag with English skills,” Nina continued. 

“Good to know,” The camera man remarked, “So what do we want to do with the picture?”

“Uuuuuu, can we jump?” Luna asked and tried to mimic jumping to make the camera man understand. Nina seemed to translate it to him.

“Jumping, yes of course we can do that. Uhm, are you all couples?”

“Most of us,” Jazmin jumped into the conversation and started arranging everyone for the picture, “We have two married couples: The Alvarezes and The Peridas, then we have the almost Ariases and almost Balsanos,” Jazmin made Luna and Matteo stand next to Delfi and Pedro. 

“Actually, I’m not gonna change my name—” 

“Anyways,” Jazmin cut Luna off, “Jim and Yam stand here, and then we have me and Ramiro, the only ones who are single.” 

“Okay, great,” the cameraman was focusing his lens, “Can you all jump on three?”

“Of course, we can!” Luna answered. She was pretty sure that English phrase was right, “¡Somos el equipo de Jam & Roller después de todo!"

“One, two, THREE!”

***

“Boy, it is tall,” Simon cranked his neck as he was looking at the view that looked like it belonged to Switzerland or the Alps, not at Anaheim, especially given the heat. The fake mountain looked really impressive. 

“So, you done admiring the view?” Ambar grabbed his arm as they, Delfi and Pedro plus Jazmin who was talking into a camera at the moment, were walking past what looked like a fairytale village. “Let’s go. We didn’t come here to just stand.” 

After the picture, everyone had dispersed to their own directions as separate groups. They had agreed to meet up for lunch in few hours. 

Jazmin had B-lined through the castle at once and Delfi and Pedro had followed her with Simon and Ambar. Now they were heading toward that huge artificial mountain. 

“The Matterhorn was actually the world first tubular steel roller coaster,” Ambar was looking at the map again. Simon loved to see her this happy. She clearly was having the time of her life, and so was he as a result. “There are two sides. The Fantasyland side is like tamer, while the other one is faster.”

“So which one are we going on?” Pedro asked. Jazmin was speaking onto the camera again about two meters away from them. 

“Obviously the faster one,” Ambar stated crossing her arms. “Jazmin! Come on!”

“I need interviews from all of you as we wait in line,” Jazmin said as she joined them, and they entered the queue line. 

“Sure,” Delfi rolled her eyes. “How fast do you think this will be?”

Simon was afraid of the answer. He liked speed…but in moderate amounts. He wouldn’t call himself a daredevil of any sort. But guess who he would call? His darling, but also daring wife.

Ambar actually was a quite a speed fiend. You would never catch her getting a speeding ticket while driving, but she sure enjoyed the times when going fast was legal. 

Simon was pretty sure that it had a lot to do with her sheltered and controlled upbringing. He would be more than happy to help her experience everything she felt like she had missed. 

When they had been at Mexico visiting his family last, they had ended up taking Maria and Rika to Costa Maya, because there had been a waterpark they had been dying to visit and Mom and Dad had not let them travel alone as 16-year-olds, given it was over four hours away. Simon still wasn’t sure who had had more fun on that two-night trip, Ambar or his sisters. 

“So, this will be our first ride of the day: The Matterhorn!” Jazmin was pointing her camera at Simon’s face, “How are you feeling about this ride?”

“I’m excited,” Simon said quickly to the camera. The queue had moved again, so that saved him from the rest of Jazmin’s questions. 

“Pedro, how about you,” Jazmin continued.

“I just hope it doesn’t spin,” Pedro nodded before trying to hide behind Simon.

“You know, I read that there is a Jeti on this ride,” Jazmin was pointing the camera finally at herself again. 

“A jeti?” Delfi rolled her eyes, “This is a theme park ride. You been reading way too many conspiracies theories Jazmin. There is a reason why you need to stay away from Buzzfeed.”

The queue moved surprisingly fast or at least it felt like it because soon enough Simon found himself sitting in the front of a bobsled. How he had been the one sit on the front, he had no idea, but it had happened. 

“You scared?” Ambar’s voice came from behind him. She was squeezing his shoulder, clearly excited as the train took off and started climbing more and more higher before it started moving much faster. 

“Wooohoo!”

Simon had just started to enjoy the ride when they almost crashed into something furry with red eyes. There really was a Jeti!?!? Well, a robot that looked like a jeti. 

“I kneeew iiit!” Jazmin’s voice was yelling from somewhere as the bobsled kept rattling around. 

“Yikes!” Simon suddenly yelled as they crashed into a bond of water. Water?! Why was there water on this ride? He had not planned on getting wet today. 

“That was fun,” Ambar pulled her hair back as they exited the ride. Simon felt like the ground under him still moved…somehow. 

“Yes, very fun,” He nodded. 

“Were you scared,” Ambar linked her arm with his. 

“Me? No,” Simon shook his head. 

“Liar,” She rolled her eyes at him, “I heard you scream.”

“I didn’t want to get wet,” Simon shrugged. 

“Are you two coming!” Delfi was yelling for them where she, Pedro and Jazmin had gone ahead. 

“Lets go,” Ambar started pulling Simon forward, “There is more rides to be ridden.”

***

“So, this was the New Orleans Square?” Luna asked Nina as she was spinning in circles. Nina thanked the higher force that roller-skates were forbidden from the park. With them, Luna would have been completely out of control. 

“Yes,” she said while looking at the map. She knew that Luna had done more research that was usual of her, but in her excitement, she appeared to forget everything from time to time. “There are two rides here?”

“What’s that?” Luna pointed toward a creepy looking house. 

“The Haunted Mansion. One of the iconic ones.”

“Oh right!” Luna jumped up, for the hundred time that day. “We need to go on that! I mean I lived in a haunted mansion for years so let see how this compares. Where’s Matteo?”

“I have been standing right here the whole time,” Matteo’s voice came from next to Luna.

“Right, we know what we’re doing next.” Luna turned to him took a spooky tone with her voice while wiggling her fingers, “The Haunted Mansion…I hope you’re not scared Chico Fresa.” 

“When have I ever been scared?” Matteo seemed to roll his eyes, but Nina wasn’t paying attention. She kept looking at the mansion and tried to ignore the nervousness that had suddenly risen in her. 

“You sure you want to do this?” Arms wrapped around her shoulders, and she looked up at Gastón. “I have been on this before, granted ten years ago, but doubt they change these that much. There is a lot of lighting and thunder on that ride.”

“I think I have to,” Nina responded as the nerves started steadily easing up from his touch, “I can’t be afraid of thunder the rest of my life. I have done much scarier things already: Moved away, published a book, lived in a country that doesn’t speak my language. It’s about time I get over it. Maybe this is the way how. I read that the attraction itself is really good and quite funny.”

“As long as you’re sure.”

“I am,” she nodded, “What do I have to fear? You’re with me.”

“That’s my girl,” Gastón looked like he was about to lean down to kiss her when Luna’s voice interrupted them. 

“Are you two coming!?” She yelled from the entrance of the queue. 

“Yes, we are,” Gastón and Nina caught up to Matteo and Luna and they entered the queue. 

“Come on,” Luna linked her arm with Nina and yanked her away from Gastón, “I’m ready to get scared.”

They entered inside the house after being done with the outdoor queue. The place they were now in was some kind of foyer. It looked kind of normal, with some gothic and maybe rococo elements. The foyer had a big, heavy looking, wooden double doors. Things were looking maybe little too normal…

“When hinges creak in doorless chambers, and strange and frightening sounds echo through the halls. Whenever candlelights flicker where the air is deathly still — that is the time when ghosts are present, practicing their terror with ghoulish delight!”

An eerie voice suddenly filled the room. 

“Cool!” Luna had let go off Nina’s arm. 

Nina willed herself not to jump from the noise. It wasn’t that scary, and she would not get scared by a theme park ride. On the other hand…she really hated horror movies. But she was not going to be scared by this. The lightning and thunder were another thing, but that hadn’t even come yet. 

Gastón’s arm went back around her, pulling her close as the doors opened, and they walked into an angular room. 

“Welcome, foolish mortals, to the Haunted Mansion. I am your host, your ghost host. Kindly step all the way in please, and make room for everyone. There’s no turning back now. Our tour begins here in this gallery, where you see paintings of some of our guests as they appeared in their corruptible, mortal state.”

Nina looked around at the room and at pictures on the wall. This was the room that actually was an elevator… she remembered reading something like that from a blog post about all the fun facts. 

“Hold up… Wait… It’s moving?!” She heard Luna’s voice in the dark. 

“Your cadaverous pallor betrays an aura of foreboding, almost as though you sense a disquieting metamorphosis. Is this haunted room actually stretching? Or is it your imagination — hmm?!”

The ceiling truly was growing taller by the second, or the floor was moving lower. 

“And consider this dismaying observation: this chamber has no windows and no doors… which offers you this chilling challenge: to find a way out! Of course, there’s always my way.”

The lightning struck illuminating the figure hanged from the ceiling. 

Nina was glad Gastón was holding her so tightly, as otherwise she surely would have jumped. Her heart definitely had jumped to her throat just a little bit. Thankfully, the circles that Gastón was rubbing into her arm and his presence in general, were helping quite a bit.

The doors opened and they walked out to the next part of the queue where there were a lot of portraits that got illuminated by more lightning from time to time… great…

“Oh, I didn’t mean to frighten you prematurely. The real chills come later. Now, as they say, “look alive,” and we’ll continue our little tour. And let’s all stay together, please.” 

Look alive? Really? The script was cleverly written, Nina had to admit. 

“Okay, so, anyone scared yet?” Matteo asked them as the queue stopped moving for a moment. He was backing toward the wall and turned and got visibly frightened by one of the busts that was on the wall. “Because I am not.”

“Sure about it?” Gastón raised an eyebrow at him as they moved again. 

“There are several prominent ghosts who have retired here from creepy old crypts all over the world. Actually, we have 999 happy haunts here — but there’s room for 1,000. Any volunteers? If you insist on lagging behind, you may not need to volunteer. And now, a carriage approaches to take you into the boundless realm of the supernatural. Take your loved ones by the hand, please, and kindly watch your step. Oh yes, and no flash pictures, please. We spirits are frightfully sensitive to bright lights.”

The doom buggies didn’t fit four people, so Gastón and Nina took the first one and Luna and Matteo the one right behind them. 

The first part of the ride went fine. The “scariness” wasn’t actually that scary. The Madam Leota room had even been fascinating and Nina really wanted to look up how the ghosts on the ballroom worked. On the other hand, Gastón had been right about lighting and thunder being prominent elements. 

She wasn’t jumping exactly anymore, but there had been multiple points where she had pressed herself really tightly against Gastón…And there was absolutely nothing wrong with it. She was allowed to cuddle her husband as much as she wanted whenever, wherever and for whatever reason she wanted. 

“Is it bad for me to say that I’m glad that you didn’t look like that?” Gastón asked as they were entering a section which appeared to depict a series of events where a same bride had murdered bunch of her husbands. 

“In sickness and in… wealth. You may now kiss the bride. We’ll live happily ever after. Till death do us part. Here comes the bride. As long as we both shall live. For better or for… worse. I do. I did.” The figure of the bride’s ghost resided. 

“I don’t think so,” Nina responded, “I’m not that good at aiming that I’d be able to cut your head off.” 

“Good to know,” Gastón appeared to laugh as he swiftly pressed a kiss to her temple. 

They moved past the Hat Box Ghost, of which Nina had read about. The animatronic really was impressive—

Suddenly they heard a shriek coming from behind them. It hadn’t come off the ride, since the voice had been familiar and had been followed by bubbly laughter. 

"No estoy asustado!" 

Both Nina and Gastón had to laugh. That made Nina relax quite a bit and she was able to enjoy the rest of the ride. 

“Hurry back! Hurry back! Be sure to bring your death certificate… if you decide to join us. Make final arrangements now! We’ve been dying to have you…”

“Everything okay?” Gastón asked as the escalator brough them back into the daylight.  

“I think so,” Nina ran her hand through her hair. “I do need at least ten more times on that not to jump every time…but I’m good.”

“Good thing that we don’t need to do that again any time soon,” Gastón brushed some hair back that had escaped on her face from the confines of the headband. “It’s also a good thing that you won’t go on to murder me, for whatever reasons wives usually kill their husbands.”

“I don’t think there will be a reason.”

“There better not be.” 

Gastón placed his hand on Nina’s waist, pulling her close and kissing her. 

“Are you two going to knock it off anytime soon?” Matteo was standing next to the exit, arms crossed and Luna on his side. 

“No. Shut up, Matteo,” Gastón rolled his eyes at him. “Anyways, how did you like the ride?”

“It was so spooky,” Luna started talking, “I legit forgot to breathe at some points.”

“I was not scared at all,” Matteo draped his arm on Luna’s shoulder while making the most unconvincing face imagined.

“Yeah, the whole park heard how not scared you were,” Gastón raised an eyebrow at Matteo.

“It came out of nowhere and the head just disappeared,” Matteo tried to defend himself. “I was surprised, not scared… So, what are we doing next?”

“Uuu, can we go on that mountain where you get wet?” Luna suggested. 

“That’s not possible,” Gastón had pulled the park ´map up on his phone. “It’s closed.”

“Why?” 

“Some kind of refurbishments,” Gastón shrugged, “Those happen. If you wanna get wet, ask Simon. He says he got almost soaked on some attraction.”

“On what?” Nina peeked over to his phone where he had the group chat open.

“Doesn’t say. Oh, and Ramiro is saying that he, Jim and Yam are at Space Mountain right now, but after that he wants all of us to meet up at Astro Blasters. Apparently, the loser will buy the Dole Whips.”

***

“We have been standing on this line forever,” Jim whined as the line moved around the corner.

“It has not been that long,” Yam had her arm on Jim’s shoulder. “Hey, Ramiro.” She snapped her fingers in front of Ramiro who had been leaning on the railing, “You were the one who wanted to get on this. How long will this take?”

“How would I know?” Ramiro shrugged, “Didn’t you look at that waiting time as we walked in?”

“I repeat, this was your idea,” Yam continued, “Why didn’t you check?”

“I did,” Ramiro put his phone in his pocket, “It was about an hour, but I have no idea how long it has been now.”

“Why didn’t you put on a timer?”

“Why on earth of would I have done that?”

“Come on, we’re moving again,” Jim shouted as the queue started moving. 

They entered a hallway illuminated with red lights and some kind of safety spiel was being read to them. 

The hallways started ascending upwards… then it started descending. Then they were walking on a bridge… and suddenly they were on the loading platform. 

“Oh, we were this close,” Yam said. 

“Dips on the front seat!” Jim grabbed Yam by the hand as they moved behind the front seat’s gate. Ramiro just rolled his eyes and stood behind the next gate. 

Some person he didn’t know sat next to him at the rocket, but he didn’t care. 

“It’s moving!” He heard Jim’s voice as the train started ascending on the track. 

The coaster rolled down a hill and they were engulfed into the darkness. The speed kept increasing…

…until it didn’t. 

The coaster came in a screeching halt all of a sudden. 

“What is going on?” Yam’s voice asked in the darkness. 

“I don’t know,” Jim’s voice said as in response, “Hold my hand.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, your space mission has been momentarily stopped due to technical difficulties. Please stay seated and cast member will be with you shortly.”

“What is going on?” Jim’s voice sounded again, “What did they say?”

“I don’t know!” Yam spoke again, her voice being pitched up at least three octaves, “Is this broken? Is this safe?!?! Do they eleven know we’re stuck here?! What if we fall off the tracks??!?!

“ARE WE GOING TO DIE?!?!??!”

“You can’t be serious,” Ramiro sighed, “No one is going to die. There are just some technical difficulties or something and that’s why we’re stopped.”

“How do you know that?”

“They said that in the announcement” Ramiro leaned back and rolled his eyes.

“Since when do you understand English?” Even when Ramiro could not see Yam’s face, he could imagine her expression. 

“Since I have been an international skating star. I’m not stupid you know, and Luna is not that good in languages, so someone has to keep up with an interviewer.” 

Click! All a sudden all the lights went on and they could almost see the whole track. They were stopped on top of some kind of a lift hill. 

Unexpectedly everyone, except Jim, Yam and Ramiro, on their rocket cheered. 

“What’s going on here now?” Jim was still looking quite panicked. “Why are they cheering? We’re still stuck.”

At least Jim was making some sense now. Ramiro was wondering the same thing. He turned toward the guy who was sitting next to him. “Uhm, Hi. My friends are being stupid tourists, so they don’t get why we’re all cheering.”

“It’s because we might get to ride the lights on,” The guy answered, “I have done it once. It’s so cool. The cast members will come and push us down the track.”

“Okay,” Ramiro turned his eyes back on the track. This was going to be fun…especially if he wasn’t going to tell Jim and Yam what he had just learned.

***

“The game was rigged” Matteo complained as they were walking away from the Tiki Juice bar. “I certainly hit more targets. There was no way that…”

“I have you know that I have not spent my whole life pointing the camera at people to have bad aim,” Jazmin walked next to him and pulled the camera out of her bag, “Hello everyone! We just went head-to-head on laser shooting ride and guess what, I won! Matteo lost, so he had to buy all of us ice-cream. So, Matteo, how does it feel?”

“No comment.” Matteo shook his head and thankfully Jazmin walked away as they entered back into the central plaza where the castle was. The night was getting darker, and the fireworks were going to take place in just about fifteen minutes. 

“This is so good!” Luna was zooming around everybody.

“How does she still have so much energy?” Gastón appeared next to Matteo while he had been looking at Luna. 

“Honestly, I don’t know,” Matteo shook his head, “One of the mysteries I have not yet solved.” 

“I’d recommend solving it, before you marry her. Then there’s no way out then,” Gastón smirked, “So you’re sure you can keep up. That is crucial in that kind of life.”

“Because you’re such an expert,” Matteo rolled his eyes, “You have been married for what? Not even two months.”

“Which is exponentially longer than you have ever been,” Gastón countered. 

“What are you two talking about?” Nina appeared next to Gastón. “Not arguing I hope.”

“Of course not,” Gastón shook his head, and his hand swiftly went on her waist as it seemed, pulling her closer, “We were just talking about how good I am at being a husband.”

Nina seemed to appear to give Gastón a look that was supposed to convey how much of an idiot he was being, but the love and affection were hard to miss in her eyes. She leaned her head on Gastón’s shoulder as announcements about the fireworks beginning were starting to be made. 

Matteo looked around in search of Luna. Hopefully, she hadn’t seen something interesting, lost focus and just run off. “Where are you Chica Delivery?”

“What do you mean? I’m right here.” A voice sounded from next to Matteo that made him jump.

“Are you still afraid of ghosts?” Luna laughed as she grabbed his arm.

“Of course not,” Matteo shook his head. 

“Look, it’s starting.”

“Just imagine: if you were standing right here over 60 years ago, you’d be standing in the middle of an orange grove. One visionary man stood right where you are now, but instead of orange trees, he envisioned a Magic Kingdom. This man’s name was Walt Disney, and his dream would be called Disneyland.”

{}

And we finally made it into the parks! I purposefully didn't name all the characters everyone was bounding as. Leave guessed in the comments. This was written in the summer of 2023, about a year before this occurred. Splash Mountain is right now closed because it's being turned into Tiana's Baoyu Adventure. I can's have the character ride a ride that doesn't exist anymore when they are there, nor can I have them ride something that doesn't exist in my time yet. That's why no Splash Mountain in this fic. And yes, I did have this trip happen right after Gastina's wedding so can just have them be extremely lovey-dovey newly weds

[ridley-was-a-cat]

Summer 2023 Anime Roundup

Anime of the Season – My Happy Marriage

I had been looking forward to this supernatural-tinged romance set in Taisho-era Japan ever since it was announced in 2022, and it did not disappoint me in the least. It follows a young woman who’s been sent to live with a fiancé without her input after a deeply traumatic childhood marked by physical and emotional abuse spearheaded by her spiteful stepmother and apathetic father. Despite his reputation in society as a cold, callous man who drives women away, her fiancé hides a kind, loyal personality behind a stern front and becomes instrumental to her recovery, encouraging her at every turn to stand tall on her own two feet.

The first half could be a little frustrating at times as the traumatized female lead struggled to speak up for herself and take up space, but that only makes her eventual growth into a more assertive woman all the more satisfying. Her voice actress does a fantastic job of slowly increasing the volume and strength of her voice over the course of the series as Miyo gains confidence. Adding to this performance is a beautiful soundtrack by Evan Call that blends perfectly with the dramatic story and gorgeous backgrounds full of traditional architecture surrounded by blooming flowers. It’s rare to get a joseimuke anime with this high-quality production, and I loved every minute of it. 9/10

First Runner-Up – Bungo Stray Dogs S5

At the beginning of summer, I hadn’t watched any of this series past season 1, but the hype got to me and I picked the series back up halfway through this season. Thank god I did, because this season was incredibly good, with well-animated action, gripping suspense, and a resolution that was both world-altering and intensely personal. 8/10

Second Runner-Up – Undead Murder Farce

A sardonic half-oni man teams up with an immortal severed head and her fierce bodyguard/maid to travel around Europe to pursue the people who stole her body, while solving mysteries involving monsters along the way. The mystery writing was a little uneven and exposition heavy, but the playful dynamic between the characters was magnetic. 8/10

Horimiya: The Missing Pieces – This season consists of the scenes cut from the first adaptation of the manga and lays them out thematically, rather than chronologically like the manga. Taken as a comedic slice of life, I think it works really well, as the vignettes can just sit and be amusing without feeling like they’re stalling for time to avoid ending the series. 8/10

Sacrificial Princess and the King of Beasts – For the first time in almost a decade, we got an anime for a Hana to Yume fantasy romance manga, and this complete adaptation of the story totally hit the spot. Our sacrifice turned queen-to-be was delightfully feisty, and our beast king was perfectly protective and encouraging. 7/10

Level 1 Demon Lord and One Room Hero – I went into this expecting a simple comedy on the ecchi side about a down-and-out hero and the demon lord he defeated ten years ago, and I got that, but I also got a really well-written fantasy story with complex antagonists and a delightful little romance with real chemistry between the titular characters. 7/10

Bleach: TYBW Part 2 – This part of the new season was right back to the problems I had with the original run of the series. The visuals are great, with stylish character designs, nice saturated colors, and smooth animation, but the story relies on stringing together fights between side/minor characters more than it should. 7/10

BanG Dream! It’s MyGO!!!!! – I don’t generally watch female idol shows, but everyone’s praise got to me, and I ended up checking this out at the end of the season. The character drama is excellent for the most part, and the music is good, but the 3D CG animation was not my favorite, and Saki felt poorly written just to seed a sequel season. 7/10

MIX S2 – This is the spiritual successor to the 80s series Touch, but it’s loosely related, not a direct sequel, so it stands alone just fine. This high school baseball series has the Adachi standard emotional sucker punch to the gut along with a generous helping of dry humor from its large cast of likeable characters. 7/10

Malevolent Spirits: Mononogatari S2 – If this was better animated, this would be a solid shounen action series with a romance subplot. The writing left nothing to complain about, with a large cast of well-rounded characters and a satisfying romance between two characters who actually suit each other. 7/10

Sugar Apple Fairy Tale Part 2 – What a complicated series this is to talk about. The art and animation were both pretty good, and the story was at least trying to be deliberate in how it addressed the inequality in its world, but I’m not sure it handled the slavery issue consistently. 7/10

The Most Heretical Last Boss Queen: From Villainess to Savior – People are starting to complain about all these villainess adaptations, but I’m enjoying this trend of female main characters working to avoid a disastrous end by gathering allies around them. I just wish the visuals for this particular anime weren’t so insipid. 7/10

Edens Zero S2 – This season felt a bit more coherent than the first, being split into two main arcs instead of several smaller ones, and introduced some genuinely tough opponents with tricky abilities, while also revealing secrets about the main crew. 6/10

Sweet Reincarnation – This reincarnation isekai does very little to distinguish itself from the rest of the crowded field of isekai, but it didn’t have an RPG menu and the pastry chef turned precocious lesser noble didn’t push Japanese food on the people of the other world, so I kept watching. 6/10

The Misfit of Demon King Academy S2 – Season 1 of this series was such a fun genre-savvy romp, but this season was a tedious Proper Noun fantasy that was extremely confusing and basically no fun to watch. 5/10

[digitalsatyr23]

WIP Intro: Bebop Bayou Tales

Genre: Post-Apocalyptic Fantasy, Slice of Life Setting: Bebop Bayou (Former Southwestern Louisiana) Time Period: 2139 A.D.

Tropes/Features: Eye dialect/phonetic dialogue, animal people, ghosts, monsters, action, violence, wilderness, swamps, kids doing their best in a troubled world, alternate earth, alternate versions of folk creatures/mythological figures/people from history, magic, psychics, super powers, references/homages to existing cultures (Cajun and Creole), references to Louisiana Voodoo, occasional horror, lost technology, varied POV, and a small remote community.

What are the Bebop Bayou Tales?

The Bebop Bayou Tales are a collection of planned short stories and novelettes that take place in the titular Bebop Bayou, a remote community of beast folk (human/animal hybrids) in the Southwestern corner of former Louisiana. The stories take place in an alternate version of Earth where around 2020, magic suddenly returned to the world, which allowed devils from Hell to invade and wreak havoc on civilization. While this went on, humans awoke to magical powers, a percentage of all animals in the world turned into beast folk, and creatures from myth and legend appeared, almost as if an invisible wall that separated the natural and supernatural had collapsed. Fast forward over a century, and people have managed to survive and adapt, though the world is a very different place from what it once was. A handful of people still remember what the world was like before the Devil Wars, but to most, the sprawling cities of the Old World seem like mere fantasy.

Out on Bebop Bayou, a small group of beast folk led by Old Man Eli (a snapping turtle man) have constructed a village of wood and repurposed junk. They live off the land and do their best to survive. Rina, the self-proclaimed toughest kid in the bayou, fights invading monsters with her best friend Lafayette. Between the action, the kids bump into ghosts, cryptids, and creatures from folklore, and still managed to make some new friends along the way.

Who are the reoccurring characters?

Rina Woodshed

Only eleven years old, Rina is a gator girl that loves fighting, fishing, cooking, and making friends. She lives with her two gigantic parents named Crush and Shelly. Once she had an older brother named Root, who was a protector of the village. One day the bayou was attacked by poachers (people who hunt and enslave beast folk), and Root brought the community together in order to strike back and drive the poachers from the land. Rina, despite being told to stay home, followed everyone and was nearly shot, but Root was there to shield her from the incoming gunfire. Root tragically lost his life in the attack, and Rina has always blamed herself for his death, so she takes it upon herself to keep the bayou safe in her brother's stead. The red patch on her overalls, as well as the band she uses to tie her hair, were taken from the red shirt Root wore on that fateful day.

Lafayette

The Lost Boy of Bebop Bayou, Lafayette is an orphan that wandered into the swamp some three years ago. Without a home or family to his name, the residents collectively adopted the grey fox boy and welcomed him into the community. Old Man Eli treats the boy like a nephew, and has taught him about all sorts of things, including construction, engineering, and foraging, and the boy uses these skills to construct a variety of traps and useful gear for the purpose of monster defense. He became fast friends with Rina early on, and these days the pair act more like siblings than mere friends. When Lafayette isn't helping Rina fend off monsters, he's usually sniffing around the area for treasure, using his lucky coin and finely-tuned senses to guide him.

Scarlet Beauregard (First seen in Episode 2)

A recent arrival to the bayou, Scarlet is the youngest child of the illustrious Beauregard family, a family of snake folk spellweavers from the Kingdom of Xatelia (formerly Texas). She arrived in the bayou with the rest of her parents Crawford and Victoria while riding within their house, which was carried by a giant flying carpet. Scarlet did not wish to leave her homeland behind and reacted poorly to her parent's decision, but through a series of events involving Rina, Lafayette, and the rest of the community, she finally grew accustomed to the strange new land and became proper friends with the other two beast kids. Posh and proud, she has a competitive side and sees Rina as her rival. When in danger, she makes use of her embroidery hoop (a gift from her late grandmother) to weave her magic spells.

All about beast folk

The main residents of Bebop Bayou are beast folk. As mentioned, they're anthropomorphic animals with varying degrees of anthropomorphism. For example, Rina and her family have clearly humanoid bodies with human-like faces, gator eyes, sharp teeth, scales on certain parts of their bodies, and long thick alligator tails. However, some beast folk can be more animal than man, such as another resident of the bayou named Big Pete, who is a catfish man that practically looks if a human-sized catfish grew arms and legs and put on some clothes. Beast folk come in all shapes and sizes, even among the same animal species, and no two beast folk look completely alike. There are also chimeras, which are beast folk that exhibit traits from multiple animals, though these are very rare.

Beast folk age and develop at roughly the same rate as humans do, though the way they're born and develop varies from beast folk to beast folk. Like actual alligators, Rina was born from an egg, and her mother Shelly would sometimes carry her when she was just a baby in her mouth while swimming in order to help get Rina used to water. You can think of beast folk as humanoid adaptions of existing animals with similar traits, senses, abilities, and habits. Most beast folk (such as the ones in the bayou) have very little knowledge of how the world once was, since they've only been around for about 119 years. Until she met humans for the first time, Rina used to think all humans were muscle-bound gunmen due to watching so many old action movies her and her father Crush found in nearby ruins, and even to this day, Rina still believes such humans exist somewhere, calling these people "Arnies."

Regardless of what kind of beast folk a character is, they're omnivorous, with a tendency to eat mostly what their real life animal counterparts eat. However, beast folk almost never eat other beast folk, and instead hunt regular animals (which still exist) and gather edible plants to the best of their abilities. Virtually all water-based beast folk are amphibious, so they can live on land and in the water. Some can only live in fresh or salt water environments, but this doesn't stop them from taking the occasional dip in a lake or the sea. Beast folk also tend to speak the same language that other people around them do, so because of Old Man Eli (who grew up in a human settlement), the residents of the bayou speak English, though some incorporate other Old World tongues, such as French or occasionally Spanish.

Humans have varying opinions on beast folk. Some like them, others fear them, and others still (such as poachers) do not recognize their sapience and hunt them for sport and profit. Beast folk tend to be naturally apprehensive of humans due to the possible dangers they represent, and beast folk communities tend to be remote and isolated because of this. The closest human settlement to Bebop Bayou is a town called Memento, which is due east about a day and a half's walk away. Very occasionally a resident from Memento may get lost and end up near the bayou, but the two settlements largely do not interact with each other. Many of the residents of each settlement don't even know the other exists... Though perhaps this is for the best.

Additional Information

Like my other WIPs, Bebop Bayou Tales has an irregular upload schedule. The first episode can be found here and content related to the series can be found under the tag #bebopbayoutales. Also for art credit, all illustrations shown in this WIP intro are commissions drawn by the very talented @sunshinememoir. If you like cute art like what you've seen here, I highly recommend checking their stuff out! Also while I personally have never lived in Louisiana, I've always been fascinated with its history and unique culture, and always try my best to be respectful to the source material. If my researching skill has failed me and you find something that could be improved, I welcome the critique!

[returntothefalls]

Behind-the-Scenes of Return to the Falls

I did a post like this once before covering the first two chapters, so it seems about time to do another one covering the next four chapters!  I like to think I’ve got a few interesting tidbits here at least:

IQ-tie

The working title for this chapter was “Mabel and the Smarty Pines”, which never quite sat right with me, but I had a hard time thinking of something better.  What would become the titular pun was originally on Mabel’s sweater, which said “IQ and QT”.  But then when I was trying to think of a better title, @immaplatypus told me the similar pun – that Mabel was an IQ-tie – and it immediately stood out to both of us that it would be a much better title.

Is Trivi-o’s a lame name for a cereal?  I debated about it and decided yes, it is, and that is good.  A lame name for a lame cereal.

I did a lot of second-guessing myself about the logistics of the Sfinx and her very existence, but I’m glad in the end I didn’t let myself overthink it too much.  I’m really happy with how she turned out.

Much like the previous chapter, I wasn’t totally sure of how the heroes were going to turn the tables at the climax, and then when I separately thought up Carla’s “It’s for … arson” line in reference to her lighter, then I decided that’d be a good ole Chekov’s gun to bail them out.  But there was an early draft in which Carla piloted McGucket’s sphinx robot like an anime mech to beat the crap out of the Sfinx herself, so that’s fun to think about.

Challenge of the Hunt

The theme of the chapter always centered around the idea that there are more ways to win a challenge than simply playing along, but the finer details of the plot went through some major changes.  In one particularly bleak version, the Hunt was the ghost of a child who was abandoned in the woods and was misguidedly trying to protect Dipper and Mabel from their Grunkles, but that never felt quite right to me.

Skull Kid from The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask was a major visual and behavioral inspiration for the Hunt, though they ended up being very different in the end.  My original sketches of the Hunt even included a very Majora-esque mask.

Originally instead of having a pet wolf, the Hunt was going to transform into a giant wolf-like beast themself during their chase.  I later decided that having a pet wolf to help would add to the huntsman theme, plus it just didn’t feel like a very sporting ability for the Hunt to have themself.

On a related note, if the joke wasn’t obvious, the Hunt’s wolf is named Virginia as a pun on the author, Virginia Woolf.

Originally instead of taking trophies from the losers of their game, the Hunt was going to just straight-up murder them, with it being implied that the Manotaur from the beginning was killed, but that was darker than I wanted and made it feel harder to let them off scot-free at the end, so I’m glad I had the trophy idea instead.  Plus that led to some fun Stan dialogue, so it’s a win-win!

The chapter didn’t originally feature Candy and Grenda but I was really itching to write for them and already had other side characters to focus on in upcoming chapters, so I threw them in here.  I’m really glad too, got some great material out of their inclusion.

Grenda’s middle name being “Papercut” is, of all things, a Kick Buttowski reference, where Carl Faruolo, Grenda’s voice actor, voices a former wrestler named Papercut Peterson.

The original version of the “Grenda tramples the Hunt” scene instead had her and Dipper being ambushed by the Hunt and her instinctive response being to pick up the Hunt and throw them like a shot put.  I really wish I’d found a way to incorporate that because it’s such a hilarious image to me.

The whole bit of dialogue in the pit with Stan rambling about digging out was graciously provided by @immaplatypus

I had various different ideas for the Hunt’s “trophy room”. The first was going to be something Dipper and the others stumble on while fleeing that really gets them freaked out about what the Hunt can do, but I struggled to organically fit it in and thought things were getting kind of long anyway, so instead I made it the sight of the climactic showdown with the Hunt.

For anyone not catching the joke, Stan calling the Hunt “Helen” is a reference to actress Helen Hunt.

The Carla and Soos subplot was born from this being one of my oldest chapter ideas, at a point in which I hadn’t even added Carla to the story yet, so I realized much later on that I just completely forgot to ever add her to this chapter.  And since Soos wasn’t a part of the family camping trip, then that all worked out perfectly to pair him up with Carla.  And I’m really glad it did, because their scenes were some of my favorites I’ve written so far.

Scrapped line from Soos, reassuring Carla about her place in the Shack: “Rudeness is polite in this house!  It’s just like Mr. Pines always says: get off the premises or I’ll shoot!”

There’s not really any significance to the Hunt being a deer-fox.  I wasn’t drawing from any particular inspiration, it was just two animals associated with hunting that I thought made a good aesthetic, and I think I’d been watching Hilda (which also features a deerfox) around the time I was initially sketching them.

Some other possibilities I considered for the ending cryptogram:

YOU JUST LOST THE GAME – if you get this, you’re liable for a senior’s discount

IT REMINDS ME OF THE HUNT – an obscure Fairly OddParents quote I think of daily

THE HUNT HUNTER HAS BECOME THE HUNT HUNTED – the word “hunt” really just gets used a lot in this chapter

The Sorceford’s Apprentice

Once again, Robbie’s song was spur-of-the-moment spit out by Jessica. Everyone go love up on her and her extraordinary talents.

Instead of a possum king, Dipper and Gideon were originally going to deal with a squirrel king that is defeated because Gideon is a true southern gentleman and always carries cashews in his pockets.

Supernatural Speakeasy

Here’s one passage from the town meeting that I had to cut for pacing but nevertheless love a lot:  “I’m still temporarily deprived of my wealth,” Preston Northwest said.  “And my pyramid scheme – I mean perfectly legitimate business – needs buyers. And I’ve already ripped off – I mean marketed to – almost everyone in town.”  He leaned over to the Pizza Guy sitting beside him.  “Hey, chum, have you heard of essential oils?”

Demusa is 100% voiced by Susan Egan.  She’s gotta be dripping with sultry like Meg from Hercules.

Pacifica was going to be obnoxious BFFs with C-Beth but then I had the idea for Gideon and C-Beth’s interaction and the concept of Demusa came to me.

A scrapped subplot would have had Mabel claim to be over the dating game, but Dipper is afraid she’ll fall back into old habits, so he tries to make her oblivious to any “dateable” creatures, which is difficult since there are now swarms of them in the Shack, and he doesn’t want another Norman situation.  I got rid of it because it just wasn’t working out smoothly and was just enjoying all the other minor conversations, but it persisted slightly in the existence of the Wolf Boy.

There are a few vague allusions here to a scrapped chapter that would have focused on Multi-Bear and his backstory.  It never worked out great and it felt shoehorned in as a continuation of old plots (namely that of Dipper vs. Manliness), so I never did much with it.  It would have involved a Russian ringmaster creating a circus of freaks and capturing the Manotaurs, forcing Leaderaur to team up with Multi-Bear and Dipper to save them.  I don’t remember my exact backstory for Multi-Bear but it was going to involve Mayor Befuftlefumpter of all people being the adoptive brother of Multi-Bear, and Leaderaur as a childhood friend of both.  It was all really weird and it’s good that it was thrown out on the curb where it belongs.

The ending cryptogram is a reference to a quote from Sgt. Frog Abridged on Youtube.

That’s all for now, hope some of you found this at least a little amusing!  Thanks so much for reading and sticking around!  And keep your eyes peeled for the sneak peek of the next chapter!

[fangedbeau]

Beyond the source

I'm not necessarily opposed to it. But I wonder whether film makers feel embarrassed when their source material seems insufficient for a feature film and they turn to very obviously out-of-canon material for inspiration.

The Battleship film had aliens. I don't think that was necessary for making a fun film of it. But for marketing it, it surely improved the chances of piquing audience's initial interest.

The Murder in the Dark film had the devil, and made her the titular character too. I know how she always has to make everything about herself. So I don't blame them for the title change. But couldn't they have stuck to just a killer? Admittedly, all the Murder in the Dark-based adaptations that come to mind are parodies of the genre (even that one Highlander: The Series episode — that's mostly not a parody show!), which makes it hard to sell that kind of story as serious. So changing it from murder mystery to horror may have felt necessary.

The Walmart film had a demon or ghost or something. I don't know. I haven't actually watched Smile.

The wildest example is probably Jurassic World Dominion drawing from the book of Revelation. They blatantly ignore the the description of the locusts from Rev 9.7-10, and the film's locusts do eat the crops. Maisie survived not a deadly wound but a deadly genetic disease and that makes her highly valued by many. So she's clearly the beast from Rev 13.3-4, and I guess Beta then is the lamb of god. Having the locusts become the fire falling from the sky (Rev 13.13) is actually a neat idea to tie the disconnected visions into something resembling a coherent story. But — why? Just as they've progressed to the most interesting version of the franchise, the one I've been looking forward to since the final shot of Jurassic Park III had promised it, someone thought, there's not enough to work with here. What do we do with this? I've heard cool ideas from some bewildered preacher on a street corner recently. That's what we need!

[xqueenybeebooks]

I Read The Masked Fae

Title: The Masked Fae Author: Shari L. Tapscott Tags: historical, fantasy, romance, fae prince, not really a love triangle, grumpy male lead, beauty and the beast retelling Spice: Fade to Black Cliffhanger: No CW: familial abuse, ruling through fear, attempted murder, implied murder of a child, human slavery (let me know if I should add others)

Read More for Review (Spoiler-Lite)

When I realized partway through this book that there were very strong Beauty and the Beast elements I had to take a moment to assess how I predictable I am. One of my favorite versions of the fairy tale involves Beauty living in the castle and being visited in her dreams by a beautiful and mysterious prince that gives her cryptic messages and advice. So when the Masked Man starts giving Alice cryptic advice when he visits her on her balcony at night, suffice to say I was having a great time.

The main female character is Alice. She is a talented painter that is going to the home of the local Fae aristocracy in order to bargain for the release of her older brother, who gambled away their home in a game of cards. She's fair and witty, and exceptionally stubborn. I enjoyed her taking the knowledge that copper was poisonous to Fae and getting herself a small weapon, however, I thought her use of the tool left much to be desired. She was fun, but I think I just wanted her to be a bit more kick-ass.

Brahm is the titular Masked Fae (who is also the first prince of a matriarchal fae kingdom) who dons the mask in order to help lost humans return to their side of the bridge before they get caught by goblins or nefarious fae. It is through Brahm that we learn most about this part of Faerie and it's history, which is about ten different shades of fucked up. He is a broody, intelligent fae prince who loves his siblings and his people and does his best to protect them with the truly limited power that he has. His backstory lines up really well with his personality and I genuinely just want all three of the siblings to all be happy.

The world of this book is very dynamic and it feels like we are only seeing a small sliver of the larger world, which I really appreciate. It definitely feels like the type of world where multiple stories could take place on the same continent and all be very fresh because the reader would uncover various pieces of the world through all of the different characters.

The plot was pretty fun, there's a scene involving acorns in a childhood fort that I thought was extremely cute. However, I thought that the finale felt a bit rushed, though perhaps that was the point considering it felt like a lot of things happened in a very short amount of time.

Overall I would recommend this book to someone who likes fae romance and wants something on the cleaner side.

[milesonthenet]

Beware the Demon Bear! (New Mutants Review)

Hello, welcome to the House of Milesverse

This year, we saw the release of the satire (but actually based on a REAL story) film Cocaine Bear. Naturally, it led to a variety of memes and jokes about the titular character. Funnily enough, this year I also got to read a book about another evil bear.

That's right, folks!

Today? We will be talking about the Demon Bear Saga!

Who are the New Mutants?

The New Mutants was a graphic novel released in September 1982, created by Chris Claremont and Bob McLeod. Eventually in 1983, the New Mutants would gain their own book. The group focused on a young team of mutant students assembled by Charles Xavier.

The original roster was composed of Mirage (Dani Moonster), Karma (Manh Cao Xuan), Wolfsbane (Rahne Sinclair), Cannonball (Sam Guthrie), and Sunspot (Roberto Da Costa). Other members would join the team as well. This includes Cypher (Douglas Ramsey), the extraterrestrial Warlock, and Magik (Illyana Rasputin), who was the younger sister of Colossus.

The New Mutants' started out as a lighthearted story for X-Men fans. The inclusion of the Demon Bear saga kickstarts a serious adventure for the team. Luckily, our grizzly friend provides us with an interesting narrative.

The Bear Necessities for a Story

One character central to Demon Bear's mythology is Danielle Moonstar. She is a young Cheyenne girl with psychic powers. In particular, Dani has the ability to create strong illusions.

Dani believes that the Demon Bear is responsible for her parent's deaths. The large ursine creature wants to kill Dani. He spends a good deal of the saga trying to get to her.

In fact, Dani tries to face the demon bear herself but is wounded. She is sent to the hospital, accompanied by her friends. The other members of the New Mutants try their best to deal with the Demon Bear.

Unfortunately, this is not enough, and it drags them to another dimension. In an unfamiliar environment, the bear temporarily gets the upper hand. In the end, Magik uses her soulsword to defeat the demon bear, reverting it to its original form.

The demon bear's 'original' form was actually Dani's parents. Something had twisted the two into this monster. Dani eventually wakes up and is able to reunite with her parents.

Danielle Moonstar: Our Main Protagonist

There is a lot to say about Danielle Moonstar as a character. Throughout the story, she is distressed about the Demon Bear's arrival. The beast stalks her nightmares, and she is clearly afraid of them.

In spite of that? Dani does her best to try and stop it. She faces off against the Demon Bear alone. Even though she loses, she still tries to kill it.

That quality, facing your fear even if it means certain death, makes her a worthy X-Man.

The Demon Bear is a WORTHY enemy.

I think the Demon Bear on its own presents a pretty scary threat. Can you imagine being in Magik's position? She's being hunted by this bear that wants to maim her. Heck, it goes through the troubles of infiltrating a hospital just to finish the job.

I think the Demon Bear's best feature however is its design. The bear feels so familiar and yet so different. The wonky art style really sells the Demon Bear and how otherworldly it is.

Right here, you see the Demon Bear's abilities. The creature has the ability to corrupt the minds, souls, and bodies of its victims. A police officer and a nurse are unfortunately cursed to become his minions.

It's even weirder afterward because the Demon Bear's defeat does not undo it. Both the sheriff and the nurse are permanently transformed into Native Americans.

As I mentioned before, it has the power to transport others into another dimension. It sent the New Mutants to the Badlands where it could do battle. That was also where it utilized it's minions.

Let's face it, Magik's kind of badass.

As I said, Magik is the younger sister of Piotr Rasputin, aka Colossus. She's a member of the New Mutants, one of the primary magic aids of the X-Men, and the occasional Queen of Limbo. Magik strikes fear in the hearts of her enemies with her vicious soulsword, a manifestation of her mystical powers.

Ultimately, Magik comes in handy against the similarly-mystical Demon Bear. She manages to undo the Demon Bear's twisted transformation, stopping the creature's rampage. It's awesome to see how Magik's able to help the team in the story.

Fun fact, but did you know that in an alternate universe, she would succeed Doctor Strange as Sorcerer Supreme? She even gets the cloak. Even now, she works as a teacher for the Strange Academy.

Conclusion: The New Mutants kind of rule?

The Demon Bear Saga actually made an X-fan of me. Of course, long before I read this, I at least liked some of the members. However, now I just want to sink my teeth into other well-written X-Men stories.

Honestly, I love the vibe of stories that mix superheroes and horror. It combines two of my favorite genres. In fact, this saga has the perfect blend between the two. While it may read as a horror movie in certain parts, it still presents the dynamic superhero action we've come to enjoy.

Overall, I hope you enjoyed House of Milesverse! I'll be back again with another X-Ceptional, Astonishing, and Uncanny discussion!

[b3crew]

REVIEW | Junji Ito's "Tombs" | B3 - Boston Bastard Brigade

When you want to be creeped out, Junji Ito’s your man. His stories, be it the short-form in The Liminal Zone or the long-form Dissolving Classroom, know how to give readers a good case of the goosebumps. His 2013 collection Tombs demonstrates a solid knack for crafting scares and giggles, with his audience knowing full well what they’ve signed up for by the first page of one of his stories.

The collection begins with the titular “Tombs,” as two siblings enter a strange town where those who die turn into tombstones. Although the reason behind the phenomenon is unknown, its presentation is trademark Junji Ito. Tacking on the subplot of the siblings accidentally killing a town resident adds more unsettling vibes to the narrative, especially when we see them transform. It all leads to a grand finale that not only is visually horrifying, but emotionally heartbreaking.

“Washed Ashore” takes the concept of hope and turns it on its fickle little head. A giant sea monster is found dead by the beach, with the sight causing tons of people to come see it. Two strangers with their own reason to hate the ocean bond over the situation, with one of them losing their fiancé to a boating accident years ago. But things go completely ape-shit when one person finds something horrifying within the dead sea beast. All of it crescendos into a bonkers revelation, bringing forth more questions than answers. (Personally, this is one I’d love to see a follow-up on sometime.)

Ito’s knack for the weird is showcased greatly in “Slug Girl”, where the young student Yuko finds herself having trouble speaking. After spending days with the ailment, the root cause of her problem literally spews from her mouth. It’s a story that’s more comedic than horrifying, but the last few images will certainly give some readers some cause for concern. The same can be said about “The Window Next Door”, which balances uncomfortable uncertainty with a sliver of humor thanks to a very bothersome neighbor.

Click here to read the rest of the review!