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theteasetwrites · 2 years

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The Beginning Is the End Is the Beginning

Chapter 90: Blood Money

❧ Pairing: Daryl Dixon x Female Reader ❧ Era: Season 11 ❧ Pronouns: she/her ❧ Warnings: none! ❧ Word Count: 4k (another shorty)

❧ In This Chapter: Daryl is enlisted to help Sebastian with a shady mission, and your distrust of the Commonwealth's leadership is starting to reach a boiling point.

❧ A/N: Okay, this is unexpected, but this is the last chapter of this series until the next part of the season comes out! So this is kind of like... a hiatus, I guess? But don't worry, we'll be back as soon as the next episode comes out, which will probably be in the fall. In the meantime, I will be working on lots of other stuff, so stay tuned! Also sorry if this chapter is relatively lackluster, but it's hard to come up with stuff for Reader to do when she's EIGHT MONTHS PREGNANT. Like, girl... I'm gonna try to give you stuff to do but I don't want you getting too stressed with that baby in there, Jesus... Anyway, enjoy the last chapter for a few months!

The baby was healthy, of course. How couldn’t he be? Six months of being well-fed and barely lifting a finger, besides your at-home birthing preparation classes, were so far paying off. Still, you felt exhausted most of the time, your legs cramped and were covered in varicose veins, you found yourself running for the bathroom to urinate every half an hour, your breath was short more often than not, and, last but certainly not least, you’d been experiencing short bursts of practice contractions, but at least you were nearing the end, and you could finally meet the child whom you had dubbed Daryl Jr.

Of course, Daryl protested this moniker, and though you were only half-serious about naming the child after his father, you were still having a hard time coming up with a suitable name.

Aaron, who’d moved to the Commonwealth about three months ago, was vying for the name Owen, after your father, while Robin simply requested an “R” name to match hers, and Daryl didn’t care as long as it was simple (and not his name, which he claimed would doom the boy to being thought of as a redneck, but you loved his name, so there was some conflict there).

In any case, everything was ready for Daryl Jr.’s arrival. Not far from Robin’s bed was a brand new crib (not handmade like Robin’s, but tweaked by Daryl to be as safe as possible, as far as he was concerned), and you’d blown a good chunk of your maternity leave paycheck on a selection of boy’s baby clothing and other accessories from the baby shop across the street from your apartment. Indeed, you were excited to have a baby boy, even if a year ago from today another baby of any kind was the last thing you wanted.

It was a strange time, with everything still being so up in the air with Alexandria, Hilltop, and Oceanside. You hadn’t heard much from home, other than that Maggie, Lydia, and Elijah were still trying to fix up Hilltop without the help of the Commonwealth, and that Alexandria was slowly but surely getting the repairs it needed despite Maggie’s defiance.

All you could hope was that you could return home not long after the baby was born so you could raise him there, but as you made your way up the stairs to the Commonwealth police station, intent on surprising Daryl with his favorite donuts, you wondered what the future had in store, and if anything could ever really be simple again.

You opened the door nervously, trying to balance the large pink box in one hand with your other on the doorknob as you looked around, hoping to find Daryl in a sea of people dressed in those identical white uniforms.

“Dixon!” one trooper called out, and you followed the direction of his gaze to see Daryl at his desk, not yet in uniform, as he hated wearing that thing for any longer than he needed to.

You smiled and approached his desk with a bounce (well, as much as you could bounce with your rather large carriage). “Special delivery,” you said in a sing-song voice, jauntily scooting some of his paperwork to make room for the box on his desk. “Extra jellies,” you announced proudly, knowing Daryl’s favorites were the jelly-filled ones. “And some plain glazed, too. Oh, and I think I got a maple bar… Maybe some sprinkles. Little bit of everything.”

Daryl stood up and touched your arm, looking you over worriedly, with a slight irritation in his eyes. “You should be at home,” he said seriously. “You walk all the way here?”

You frowned, and looked around sheepishly to preserve your dignity, as you were so hoping he’d be much happier than he seemed. “I just thought… You didn’t have breakfast so I wanted to bring you something.”

His shoulders relaxed as he huffed and let his eyes wander to the box of donuts, and he could already smell the sugary glaze. “Thanks,” he said. “You didn’t have to.”

You sighed in relief as he broke out into a small, lopsided smile, which was a big smile for him. “Oh, yes I did.” You turned your attention to Rosita, who had been eying the box of donuts from her desk since you came in. “You better share with Espinosa,” you said. “I know she likes the sprinkles.”

Daryl spared no more time in looking at the donuts, opting to grab a jelly-filled donut and take a big bite out of it, nodding his head in appreciation as he did so.

“Good?” you asked.

“Good,” he answered, mumbling as he chewed.

Rosita leaned over her desk to pick one out herself, and Daryl quickly realized that you were out of breath from the walk.

“Sit down,” he said, pulling out his chair and dusting it off before sitting you down and handing you his water bottle. “Can’t believe you walked all the way here on your own. You’re eight months pregnant.”

Rosita scoffed and shook her head in amusement at Daryl’s scolding. “I think she knows,” she said. “Still no name?”

Daryl held his hands up as if to block Rosita’s questioning. “Don’ get ‘er started.”

“Well,” you said, getting started, “I’ve got a list, but I’m thinking maybe we should wait until he pops out, huh? See what he looks like.”

“Pfft,” Daryl scoffed. “Don’t matter what he looks like. Just give the kid a name. Any name you want, I don’t care.”

You crossed your arms and exchanged a snicker with Rosita. “Daryl Jr.,” you said, though you were mostly joking at this point, knowing Daryl hated the idea. “I like Daryl Jr.”

“I like it too,” said Rosita, much more seriously now as she played along with your teasing. “It can be a family name. Robin or Daryl Jr. have a son, they’ll name him Daryl, too, and his son after that, and his son after that…”

“Mm,” you hummed, taking a bite of your own donut. “That’s a great idea. How sweet would that be, honey? A whole line of Daryl Dixon’s. Adorable.”

He narrowed his eyes at you. “Not funny.”

You snorted, and subsequently burst into a fit of laughter with Rosita, both of you finding great amusement in Daryl’s serious, grumpy expression that threatened to break out into a smile at any moment. “Oh, come on, you big grump,” you said, lightly shoving his shoulder as you stood up from your seat. “Well, I guess I should let you two get to work. I’ll be at home if you need me.”

Just before you could place a kiss on his cheek, you were alerted to a sudden presence that didn’t sit right with you. Well, maybe it just… annoyed you, but you felt uneasy nevertheless.

“Shit,” you mumbled under your breath.

Daryl moved closer to you, pressing his chest against your back. “Just ignore him,” he whispered. “Come on, I’ll walk you out.”

He stepped in front of you to lead you towards the door, but just before you could get there, Sebastian, standing near the door with a young woman who must’ve been his girlfriend, seemed to notice your familiar presence.

“Hey,” he said, brushing off the trooper he was talking to. “Don’t you work at the library?”

He broke out into a mischievous grin, and chuckled as he looked between you and Daryl. “What’s this?” he laughed. “You his… sister, or something?”

You scoffed and shook your head. “I’m his wife,” you said simply as you turned to leave, trying to spend the least amount of time possible around this obnoxious little prick.

Sebastian chuckled louder now, catching your attention once again.

“You’re kidding,” he said, and switched his stare to Daryl. “Well, I mean, I guess where you come from that’s pretty standard, right? Sister, wife… Same thing.”

Daryl had a professional responsibility here not to tell him off, but you weren’t at work, and you’d told him off once before, so you were sure you could do it again.

The girl at his side snickering at Sebastian’s joke, you cleared your throat before speaking, knowing you were going to have to speak loud enough to be heard over their laughter.

“Very funny,” you said, with a purposefully condescending smile. “But you know, it’s not very nice to say things like that when everyone knows you come from a corrupt political family with more cover-ups than the CIA, so if I were you I’d keep jokes like that to yourself.”

Sebastian’s face turned downward in anger at your comment, and though he was beginning to stutter as if to say something, you did what any woman prone to pettiness and public displays of affection would do and kissed your husband goodbye. Not like the kiss on the cheek you gave him before, mind you, but a big, sloppy kiss on the lips as you held his cheeks in your hands to keep his unsuspecting mouth locked onto yours.

Despite his initial grunt, and a deep blush forming on his cheeks, he gently grabbed your waist and accepted the gesture, albeit with a slightly embarrassed look as you pulled away.

“See you at home, sweetheart,” you said, not caring if a few of Daryl’s co-workers were snickering. “Be safe.”

Sebastian Milton, however, had other plans for Daryl that day.

After seeing you home and changing into his much maligned uniform, he was assigned patrol on sector D with Rosita, but was intercepted on his path by two other troopers, who informed them that their assignment had changed: they were to help deal with a herd outside the walls. At least, that’s what they’d been told by Alves and Castle, who’d dragged them out to an empty field, beyond which, down gentle slopes of grassy hills, was a large house, the kind that might have once been inhabited by some family who’d inherited old money, and had a little too much.

Notably, the house was surrounded with at least a mile of walkers at every angle. It was far too big of a herd for four troopers to fight, and Daryl already had a bad feeling about the whole thing.

“Where’s everybody else?” he asked Alves and Castle, who seemed to be up to no good by coercing them outside the walls in the first place.

“There is no one else,” laughed Castle.

“You want the four of us to take all that out?” asked Rosita.

The snarling of a walker approaching from behind caught Daryl’s highly tuned attention, but the monster was being dragged in a snare pole by another trooper, with Sebastian Milton sauntering jauntily just beside it.

“You aren’t gonna take them out,” he said. “You’re gonna go through them.”

Shoulda known, thought Daryl, turning to face the young man who’d been a particularly irritating thorn in his side since he started this job.

“What are you talkin’ about?” he asked.

“I’m talking about my buddy, Cooper,” he answered happily. “We grew up together. He lived in a big house, right down there.” He gestured to the walker-surrounded mansion, and Daryl already had an inkling of what was about to be asked of him and Rosita, the two “expendable” troopers from an outside land. “His dad was actually the president of SDS Bank.”

Rosita and Daryl exchanged an unamused look, both irritated with Sebastian’s long-winded explanation, and unimpressed by the title of a man who was long dead, along with his company.

“Anyway,” continued Sebastian, “his dad was also a prepper, so he turned his office into a panic room. It’s where he kept all his good shit, like… whiskey, weed, E, coke… He also kept cash in there. Lots of it, and that is what I need you to get for me.”

“This is a joke, right?” asked Rosita.

Sebastian smiled and shook his head. “No, sweetie, it isn’t.”

And Daryl found himself wanting to smack the shit out of that man for the second time today.

“All right, look,” he continued, this time a little more eager to cut to the chase. “My bitch mother has cut off my line of credit, so I need to come up with creative ways to… support my lifestyle.”

“So have these dickheads do it,” said Rosita, nodding her head towards Alves and Castle, who, indeed, were dickheads.

“They don’t want to because they can’t shoot down there,” answered Sebastian. “You see, fired rounds are tracked, so it’d raise questions, and if these guys can’t shoot guns, well, they would probably get dog-piled and suffocate. You two, I know that you can do it. I believe in you.”

He procured a small scrap of paper, upon which was written a string of numbers. “Now, this is the code to the office’s electric lock. There’s a solar generator in the garage that you can through—”

“Nah, we ain’t doin’ it,” interrupted Daryl, just about done with Sebastian’s condescension for the day. He might’ve been a hell of a lot better at controlling his short temper than he was ten years ago, but he still had that short fuse, and it had actually run out around the same moment Sebastian insulted him in front of you at the station, but he had kept the anger at bay, not wanting to risk his job if a superior saw him manhandling the governor’s son.

Of course, he still didn’t want to lose his job, but there wasn’t much to be done out here in the middle of nowhere if Daryl took matters into his own hands, so if Sebastian continued down the road he was going, there wasn’t as much stopping him from containing his rage.

“Yes, you are,” replied Sebastian, grinning as always. With a snap of his fingers, the trooper holding the walker plunged a knife into its head, and let the body fall to the ground. “Now, you’re gonna slime yourself up with guts,” he said, more impatiently now, “and then you are gonna walk through that swarm, and you are gonna get me my cash.”

Daryl exchanged another look with Rosita, and stepped forward, wanting nothing more than to knock the prick to the ground, but opting instead to push past him, looking him in the eye as he growled, “Or what?”

Sebastian spoke again, though, and stopped Daryl and Rosita in their tracks with his words: “Hey, how are your kids doing?”

Careful, he thought.

He could take almost everything these days. He could face humiliation and degradation and insults of the lowest kind, but there was one thing he still could never let slide, one thing that would always send him into a fit of sheer, unadulterated, unbridled rage—if you hurt his family, he’d kill you.

“Your little one,” he continued, much to Daryl’s indignation, “Robin…” Even hearing his daughter’s name on that insufferable weasel’s lips was enough to have him reaching for his knife. “She just skipped a grade, right? And Coco, is she walking yet?”

He blacked out for a minute there, unable to even tell what he was doing until he realized he had his knife to Sebastian’s neck, and his other hand holding his shirt collar so tight the fabric threatened to tear under his death grip.

Rosita had her gun pointed at Sebastian, too, and Alves and Castle had their guns, naturally, pointed at her and Daryl. He didn’t seem to notice, though, not when he was a centimeter away from slicing that son of a bitch’s neck open.

“You think your advanced military training is gonna help you right now?” he growled. Sebastian only smiled, like the psychopath he was. Of course, rich people can’t be psychopaths, right? At least, they get to wear masks.

“Drop it,” said Alves, “or you’re both dead.”

“Not before I take this asshole’s head off,” retorted Rosita.

“Let’s get somethin’ a little straight,” said Daryl, not relenting in the slightest. “You threaten our kids one more time, and I will gut you.”

“Hey,” said Sebastian, grabbing at Daryl’s hands in an attempt to keep them at bay. “Who said anything about hurting kids? I’m just saying, I can make their life easier.”

“Or you can make ‘em all orphans,” said Alves. “It’s your call.”

Sebastian raised an eyebrow and quirked his lip in amusement. “And make your wife a widow,” he said. “I don’t know if she could handle it.”

He tightened his grip on the knife, and Sebastian’s collar, snarling as Rosita broke the tense silence.

“We do this,” she said, “and that’s it?”

“Yeah,” said Sebastian, not breaking eye contact with Daryl, who was one slight movement away from cutting Senastian’s vocal cords. “Totally.”

The heist turned out to be more complicated than walking through a herd and opening a safe. It turned out that Sebastian had sent several other Commonwealth citizens into the fray to collect his money, including one woman named April, who’d gotten locked inside the vault and was the only survivor of her group.

A series of events involving an alarm and the herd surrounding the vault got all three of them in a tight situation, and by the time Daryl had usually come home from work, he was nowhere to be seen.

What’s more, there were now four children inhabiting your apartment for the time being. Aaron had left the day before to help initiate a group into the Commonwealth (colonist style, you joked), and Gracie was left in yours and Daryl’s care.

The stress was getting to you, to say the least.

In a panic, you used the landline in your apartment (something you’d never thought you’d use again) to phone Mercer at the station, inquiring about Daryl’s whereabouts.

He went to work looking for Daryl and Rosita, who were supposed to be on patrol of sector D that day, but had never checked into their post. Two other troopers had checked in instead, and Alves and Castle had informed Mercer of startling news: Rosita and Daryl went on a mission outside the walls to loot money from an abandoned house.

Of course, you didn’t believe this. At least, you didn’t believe they’d done it on their own accord. Daryl never cared about money, even if your family needed it. No, there had to be something more, and Mercer went to investigate.

Carol volunteered to help, seeing how distressed you were when she came to visit earlier that day. At least when Daryl did return, he’d showered in the station locker room.

“Oh, thank God,” you huffed, taking him in your arms and nestling your head against his neck. When the relief washed away, you turned serious, almost angry at his carelessness. “What happened? Where were you? Do you have any idea how worried I was?”

Daryl’s gaze floated somewhere behind you, where Robin, Judith, RJ, and Gracie sat upon the couch, curiously watching the interaction.

“Hi, Dad,” said Robin, tossing a piece of popcorn into her mouth. “Wanna watch a movie?”

He didn’t say much that evening, not until he came to bed after tucking in the children, and wrapped his arm around you despite your protest as you lifted his arm up and away from you.

“Hey,” he said, “what’s wrong?”

You turned and scoffed at his questioning. “You haven’t talked to me since you got home,” you said. “Now you wanna cuddle? No way. You’re lucky you’re not sleeping on the couch… I was worried sick about you, and you know I’m already losing sleep with Aaron being out there. Oh, and I’ve got four children to take care of, and I’m eight months pregnant with your baby. The least you could do is tell me why you came home so late and why Mercer told me you were stealing money from a walker-infested mansion.”

“Sorry,” he sighed. “It was that asshole, Sebastian. He had us go in there, get him his money. Didn’t wanna do it, but he… He was talkin’ ‘bout the kids, sayin’ how he could make their lives easier if we did this. Was worried he might do somethin’ bad if I didn’t.”

You closed your eyes and sighed, turning to face him fully and taking his hand in yours, despite how irritated you still were that he’d been so distant that evening, but you understood.

“He’d sent in others before,” he continued. “Citizens. All died… There was a woman still in there when we got there. We tried to get ‘er out, but we lost her. None of us would’ve gotten out if ya hadn’t called Mercer.”

“Oh,” you said. “Well… I had no idea where you were. I got scared.”

He nodded in understanding, and tugged on your hand to pull your body closer to his as you allowed him to hold you now. It was all he needed, just to hold you after what had happened that day.

“Took my cut,” he said softly, as if to not hear himself speak. “Didn’t wanna but… Didn’t know what else to do. That money ain’t for me, it’s for you and the kids, but it’s dirty. I mean, it’s bloody.”

You stroked his hair as you held him back, resting in silence until you could figure out exactly what to say. “It can’t be this way,” you said.

He pulled away slightly to look at your face, curious at your meaning. “What way?”

“This isn’t going to work for long, the way they do things here,” you elaborated. “You’re telling me the governor’s son bribed dozens of civilians to risk their lives to get him money, and they all died, and no one’s going to say anything. I wouldn’t be surprised if Hornsby knew about this. It can’t be like that. People can’t get away with things like that.”

“Always been like that,” he said. “Since before… Ain’t gonna change.”

“Yes, it will,” you corrected. “It will.”

He narrowed his eyes at you, suspicious of the tone in your voice that he knew all too well. Ten years of marriage will do that.

“(Y/N),” he warned, “don’t get involved. There’s one thing you need to worry about, and that’s…” He gestured to your bump.

“Daryl Jr.”

He scoffed. “Whatever. Daryl Jr. I don’t want ya havin’ anything to do with it.”

“But he can’t just—”

“Woman,” he said, “don’t get involved. I mean it this time. Do this for me.”

Your shoulders lost whatever tenseness they had as you sighed and flashed a small smile. “For you, huh?”

“Yeah,” he said, rubbing his hand down your back until he reached your bottom, squeezing it lightly over the sheet. “For me.”

“Mmm,” you hummed. “I’d do anything for you, sweetheart, but you know me… I can’t keep a secret.”

“Yeah,” he huffed before he kissed your forehead and adjusted his body until he was snug tight against you. “I know. Still gotta try, though.”

Indeed, you wouldn’t be silent about the heist.

A week had passed since the incident, and you’d held your tongue until you received a call from Magna, who’d informed you about a meeting being held at her apartment that night.

It came at a conflicting time for you, as Aaron was still out there, and Daryl had been sent out earlier that day, accompanying Hornsby and other troops to investigate what was reported as an attack at the settlement they were trying to recruit.

Still, you did what you could, helping Connie write up a piece about the Miltons and their transgressions, and that night, you laid awake in bed, uncertain once again.

You were uncertain about many things, all of which pertained to your future, and the future of your family.

Perhaps you were in over your head, as you always thought you were in the Commonwealth, but as the tide turned, and as Connie’s paper hit the stands the very next day, it seemed as though an ill wind was blowing through the streets, but also a wind of change.

Now, you had to accept the change, because you’d once told Robin that change could be good, and if change could make the world a better place, you’d welcome any ill wind that might accompany it.

So long as, of course, you could get back home.

Thanks for reading! Likes, comments, and reblogs of any kind are always appreciated!

Series Masterlist Next Chapter ➳

✏ Taglist

If you seen your name is on the taglist but you didn’t get tagged, it’s because Tumblr won’t let me tag you for some reason, sorry!

#daryl dixon x female reader #daryl dixon fanfiction #daryl dixon x y/n #daryl dixon x you #daryl dixon fanfic #daryl dixon x reader #daryl dixon #the walking dead #the walking dead fanfic #the walking dead fanfiction #twd fanfiction #twd fanfic #twd #norman reedus fanfiction #norman reedus fanfic #norman reedus x reader #norman reedus #the beginning series

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absolutebl · 3 years

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This Week in BL

June 2021 Wk 3

Being a highly subjective assessment of one tiny corner of the interwebs.

Ongoing Series - Thai

Top Secret Together Ep 6 - aw, dejected puppy is dejected. Enter new cactus baby (file "potted cactus” under the “things that are inherently gay” tag?) It’s ep 6 so we got a hug and an aborted kiss for the main couple. New couple is cute but highly unnecessary. Not enough gay advice dads. Never enough.

Y-Destiny Ep 12 - the timeslip ep continues and I just found the main characters problematically naive and childish. So this one was kind of a pass for me.

Fish Upon The Sky Ep 11 - whatever

Nitiman Ep 7 - I’ve decided that basically everyone in this show is a confused bisexual except Bbomb who is just gay af. His little face anytime Jin does anything remotely proprietary. These boys are the cutest tentative boyfriends but Jin doesn’t trust himself so neither do we or Bbomb. The tension is mounting. Things about to get dramatic and messy.

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

Monster in Law AKA Mẹ Chồn Dâu Cáo (Vietnam) Ep 7 - a morality tale about living with in laws? Not sure, but we are finally getting to the meat of the matter and we are 7 eps in. So is this one going long? That’s crazy rare for Vietnam. Then again could end abruptly next ep since pacing is NOT Vietnamese BL’s strong point. Still, loving the gay domesticity of it all.

Love is Science? (Taiwan) Ep 12 (BL subplot) - DELAYED again. *whine*

Friend or Lover (Taiwan) Ep 4 fin - Probably won’t drop until next month.

Be Loved in House: I Do (Taiwan) Ep 6 - THEY ARE SO AWKWARD AND SO CUTE!!!!! What more to you want from me? My brain is entirely occupied with the frown smoothing and the metal ring making. GAH. I’m dead, throw some bread on me.

Breaking News

Korean queer media studio Strongberry dropped their latest short, Fingers After. It's good. They went serious with this one. Weird, but I like it when they’re weird.

Strongberry also posted the teaser for their next short, The Confidential Coffee Brake, which features professors in a secret relationship. I’m sure it will be good, they never disappoint.

Thailand’s Wabi Sabi did intros for 7 Project with 7 Songs, just images with music track samples. You can look at Studio Wabi Sabi YouTube channel if you wanna investigate. I found it sublimely lackluster. Here’s the rundown:

SantaEarth - Would you be my love?

BounPrem - I’m sorry

BoomPeak - Crush on You

SammySamantha - Memory

YachtSood (het) - Safe Zone

Plan? (het) - Loser

Perth? (het) - Social Distancing

I was kinda hoping Wabi Sabi was doing a Friend Zone thing, with a group of university students of different orientations falling in and out of love. But it’s a lot cheeper to do Close Friend style installment eps. With this kind of OST release, we are heading in that direction.

Thailand’s indie pulp bodyguard romance, Golden Blood is still dropping promo stuff, so I guess it got funded. EXCITED.

In Case You Missed it

Y-Destiny dropped a 10 min players (Peuth Kaeng) special out of the blue (YouTube). There is NO high heat on screen right now so maybe they were like MORE OF THESE BOYS to fill the vacant market? (Although I don’t think Thailand gets that targeted.) Maybe it’s an interest teaser for a pitch? Wouldn’t that be great? Anygay, no subs, but what can ya do? I don’t mind the pet names mostly because of the implied switchiness of it. These two already have a switch vibe and this just exacerbated that. (Although I don’t think that was the intention.)

The Night Beyond The Tricornered Window or Sankaku Mado no Sotogawa wa Yoru is available from Japan and it’s pretty good. Scary, bloody, suspense ghost story bromance, but ya know, obvs not a bromance. Hell if you give WOH a pass, why not branch out a bit? Essentially, a fated mates trope about a supernatural Sherlock Holmes who can preform exorcisms but can’t really see the spirit world. He meets the boy of his dreams (literally) who can see ghosts and the history of dead bodies (but is terrified of them as he is unable to do anything about them). If they are physically touching, they’re unbeatable exorcists. Together they help the police investigate a serial killer poltergeist. Adapted from a manga, and filmed that way. (Incidentally Mikado-kun is played by the actor from You're My Pet or Kimi Wa Petto, one of the few het romances I really love - on Viki.) Anyway this is horror so all the usual trigger warnings that aren’t sex-related.

Speaking of Japan, Love Stage!! is currently on YouTube. This is a yaoi/anime live action adaptation that released in 2020 that no one seems to know about. Watch it now if you’re intersted. This is Japan + YouTube so who knows how long it will stay available?

Basically the uke is from a family of actors. When he was little he ended up accidentally appearing in a TV ad as an adorable girl. (He v pretty.) The other child actor fell in love with the girl him. 10 years later the uke (still pretty) is now an introverted college kid who just wants to be a manga artist. The seme is a famous actor. He refuses to do the reunion advert without the original girl. When the uke shows up and reveals he is actually a he and always has been, hijinks ensue.

Stylistically, Love Stage has more in common with something like 2014′s Docchi Mo Docchi than anything recent. So it feels somewhat overacted, stilted, and dated (e.g. bloody noses, dub-con, dead fish kisses). The plot is rushed for the movie-length time frame and may be incomprehensible if you’re unfamiliar with the original anime/manga. But if you’re hungry for Japanese BL (like self) it will satisfy, it does have kisses and an HEA.

Next Week Looks Like This:

Some shows may be listed later than actual air date for International subs accessibility reasons.

Upcoming 2021 BL master post here.

Links to watch are provided when possible, ask in a comment if I missed something.

Vietnamese BL Monster in Law bringing the gay domesticity combined with the bridge trope. HOW MUCH DO WE LOVE THEM FOR IT?

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animecreator3000 · 3 years

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About the Boueibu iceberg

@delphoxqueen asked me to explain about my list for the iceberg so here it is. I might update this from time to time with links and stuff if I stumble across the original posts. This is all from what I know so feel free to add new info. Also, spoiler warning for RobiHachi and the Boueibu manga and novels. (This is like a masterpost it’s very long)

1. There’s a theory in tumblr about which decade the series is set in, using data like the friday the 13th calendar in s2 ep11. In HK we got a second number for when the next monthly Pretty Boy Contest was happening and using the one from Love it was theorized that around a decade had passed since then, which ended up being true.

2. The stage play had a few original songs and characters exclusive to it so unless you watched the full performance, you probably weren’t able to witness all of them. One of the characters is called “Robato Deniro”, as romanized in the stage play booklet I own.

3. The nurse and the cafeteria staff from the s1 mobile game appear in the background in around the first half of s2 ep3.

4. S2 had an unfinished manga that was only available online and was never released on physical format; it was centered around the defense club and sometimes the conquest club and Beppu brothers. All that’s left from what I know are the scans linked on magicalgirlsandcerulean’s blog.

5. This isn’t that obscure because it’s talked about in the anime, but I’m mentioning it because I think many people dropped it before the ova, where right at the beginning it is revealed that the alien that resucitated Mr. Tawarayama twice was, as described by Io, a “mulberry-colored naked mole rat-looking thing”, and was nicknamed “Moley-san” by Yumoto. At least in the anime, we had never heard before of who this was and it never appeared on screen nor was mentioned again.

6. In HK ep8, Karurusu promises the knights to grant a wish if they show him how earthlings spend summer. Kyoutarou reveals at the end of the episode that he wished that summer lasted one more day so he could spend it doing nothing, which prompts Ichiro to theorize that it’s the 32nd of august, and the next day is the second 1st of september.

7. The stage play was was held from march 10th to 13rd, of which the latter is Ryuu’s birthday. There’s an additional recording of a small celebration with cake focused on Ryuu and Io.

8. Atsushi mentions his older sister in the flashback at the beginning of s1 ep4, but she never appears or is mentioned again.

9. There’s a few posts on tumblr theorizing about what happened to the Hakone parents since Yumoto only says in s2 ep3 that according to Gora, “they are busy with their hot springs tour”. En mentions that it’s a bit suspicious, but it’s all the information we have from the anime. Posts talk about the parents perhaps passing away from an accident or an illness, thus the reason why Gora was so worried about Yumoto’s cold in s1 ep10, but from another post I think it’s implied in the second novel that they actually left their home when Yumoto was still a toddler.

10. It’s no secret that the surnames of the characters are all real onsens in Japan that even the seiyuus have visited, but apparently the Arima onsen has two different kinds of water, “kinsen (gold hot spring)” and “ginsen (silver hot spring)”, with different properties each, and the Kusatsu onsen water also has certain properties, both that were used to build the characters. Additionally, Ryuu’s favorite food are Sato Nishiki cherries, which are grown in the same prefecture, Yamagata, as his onsen, Zaou.

11. The press club lose relevance after s1, with only Kinosaki and Tazawa reappearing briefly in s2 ep2 to interview the Beppu twins after they arrive at the school. Tazawa doesn’t even have lines. Hireashi is mentioned by Zundar in ep11.

12. What the heck

13. Exclusively in the manga we see that Arima met Kinshiro and Atsushi when they were little and they were good friends, but when they met again as adults, Kinshiro seemingly didn’t remember Arima. Atsushi, however, stated that Kinshiro’s talent is remembering people’s faces and names, so Arima wonders if he’s just trying to distance himself from him. He also explains to Akoya that he follows Kinshiro and obeys him because as a child, he was fascinated by his radiant smile. This is never talked about in the anime.

14. Like the previous point, the anime never shows Akoya being bullied, at most just a slight dislike of his full name, but the manga shows that he was made fun of for it and how he actually hates his surname, to the point of introducing himself formally to the president and vicepresident of the student council as “Holy Angel Akoya”.

15, 16, 17, 19. Batonama lives were the livestreams done through the franchise by the defense club seiyuus on youtube and niconico. They’re all on youtube, without any kind of translation.

Love-ko is a girl with a shell bikini drawn on a piece of cardboard that was used as a girlfriend in the Batonama Love! lives, acted by the seiyuus themselves.

RobiHachi has one episode full of official Boueibu artwork and a parody of the series too, a Love-ko doll appears, and Wombat appears as well, named “The Don”. It received an english dub, so for a bit, people were excited that Wombat was going to speak in english too. Also, various mechas appear in both Boueibu and RobiHachi.

18. The director of Fairy Ranmaru (Masakazu Hishida if I’m not wrong) revealed in an interview that he was inspired by Boueibu and aimed to make a show like that.

20, 21. The website super-groupies.com has results for defense and conquest club lingerie sets, dc and VEPPer tote bags, the Beppus’ scarf rings, dc bath sets and the pumps magicalgirlsandcerulean mentioned. I’ve found the s1 Loveracelets and Caerula Adamas’ ring on different sites, the True Loveracelets on TheChara’s twitter and the Happybraces (apparently called “Hapibure”) on broccoli.co.jp but I’m not sure where exactly they were all announced and sold, so I’ll just drop that.

22, 33. Boueibu was originally pretty much a copy of Sailor Moon, I think they were all going to be called “Lackluster Moon” and that stuff and be literally Sailor Moon genderbent. They were all different from color palettes to physical features (except Yumoto’s), and Ryuu was a shota, even smaller than Yumoto. Their names were also very reminiscent of the five Sailor Senshis’. Even if they made it more original, the show is still clearly inspired by Sailor Moon (just look at Caerula Adamas lol) and Pretty Cure. It has also referenced, very blatantly, animes like Doraemon, Detective Conan, Aikatsu and even Vocaloid, when Kyoutarou tries to guess what Karurusu is saying with ““Just Google It, Asshole”?” in ep1.

23. Wombat’s real name and the name of his planet sound like gibberish to the earthlings and ends up being named after the Earth animal, but Zundar, Dadacha, Karurusu and Furanui all have original names. And I think Hireashi means “goldfish”?

24. If you google “zundar technology”, it’s actually a company in Shanghai, China. Aren’t Wombat and Zundar always talking about “advanced alien technology”?

25. Zundar and Dadacha are siblings, so are Karurusu and Furanui, and so are their father King Kamopapa and their uncle minister Wao, but neither are the same species and, except the first two, not even the same color. But they are supposedly related because they share birthmarks or something like that...

26. Everyone who’s in this fandom knows about the pixel blur and voice pitch censor from s1, but I’ve added it anyway because it’s so rare for mahou shoujo and shounen animes to explain why the heroes aren’t recognized when transformed.

27. A good while of s2 ep11 is spent discussing Zundar’s ex-wife and his problems to give child support. Naturally, he gets mad at this.

28. “Money doesn’t betray” (s1 ep6) and “The despair hidden behind your smile that comes from not being understood” (s3 ep11) are sentences that came out of nowhere and implied that the people they were said by (Io) or about (Taiju) respectively had some kind of angst going on but were never explained at all. They’re famous for just that.

29. The Beppu twins’ house in Andromeda shown in flashbacks had strange green circles that apparently are from another anime I don’t know but honestly I didn’t get it very well... It was revealed on a tweet from Takamatsu.

30. Alien language mostly appeared in s2 due to the many flashbacks of Aki and Haru in Andromeda, but in Boueibu s1, it appears on the Zundar Needle before it is shot on the human. It appears a lot through RobiHachi as well, due to being a story about travelling through space. There might be an alphabetical chart somewhere, but I can’t assure it exists, I might even have dreamed it.

31. Hikaru Midorikawa as the melon monster, Kousuke Toriumi as the bishounen monster, Yoshitsugu Matsuoka as the kotatsu and panda monsters and Takuya Eguchi as the remote controller monster in s1 and 2, before going on to voice the main cast in HK. Keisuke Koumoto voiced Hatchi Kita in RobiHachi as well as Akihiko in Boueibu, and the characters look similar.

A new addition is that so far Boueibu is the only anime I’ve seen where children weren’t voiced by female seiyuus, but by actual children. Personally, it’s charming and makes it so much more realistic, specifically since no women appear in the franchise at all either (not counting Protag-chan in the game).

32. Speaking of seiyuus, Can I Destroy The Earth? had a dub shown in ep11/12 (?) that made Gora the villain that wanted Earth to stay the same and not progress, against the monsters that supposedly wanted to bring good things to earthlings. Aki and Haru quickly dismissed this dub as fake. (I made a mistake in the title in the previous post btw)

34. As seen in the glossary in the Boueibu Mook (I think, but might not be the mook), Caerula Adamas’ speeches are based on an old japanese detergent commercial that went “Gold, silver, pearl, gift”.

35. In the manga there’s a short parody of the first chapter of Sailor Moon with “Pretty Boy Guardian Gakuran Akoya”. The conquest club manga was released before the anime, so I remember reading somewhere that a fake website appeared for the Gakuran Akoya manga, before turning into the conquest club manga website in the day of its release.

36. Cgi was used a few times in the anime: s2 ep10 for a short sequence of the defense club on a rollercoaster and the carousel monster, ep11 for a cenital shot of the Battle Lovers singing, and HK ep12 for the Honyalaland soldiers and the Wao mecha.

37. The toothbrush incident in s1 ep7. (It’s definitely well-known but it’s so weird lol)

38. “We hope we can see each other again someday!” Something along those lines was the last text to appear in the last episode of HK, implying a s2. We all know how that went.

#boueibu #new post bc i didn't put a readmore in the other one and it was getting too long #msorry #long post #speaking of the robihachi eng dub... sarazanmai has one too...#so many animes like those get dubs but not boueibu?! HOW UNFAIR #at least we got the funimation subs #is the game even canon??#i mean with stuff like how everyone is apparently straight in there #even yumoto who pretty much came out as gay in the anime #that's very inconsistent #i mean. it is canon but maybe it's like an au? idk #also we need gakuran akoya to be real lmao #also no prequel with gora or hk s2. WHYYYY #i think this took me four hours

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nekrophoria · 3 years

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I've been starring at Roy's face for a while, cause I wanted to assume something about him, but realize I know next to nothing about him, thus find assuming anything more than superficial or trivial crap, quite difficult. I've come to the conclusion that I wanna know more about him. So quick! Drop 5 facts about Roy! XD nah, that's up to you... I will however assume he's someone who definitely should get better at opening up and letting people in, perhaps even learn how to put things behind him.

Thank you so much for the ask 💙

First of all... you are spot on with your assumption! Secondly... I'd totally get that you feel that way about Roy.

To be quite honest it's hard not be kinda clueless about him.... Even after getting to know him better.

(Blame it on lackluster character creation idk...but Roy is a strange character even for me. )

But yeah, in order to change that a lil bit here are 5 facts about Roy:

1) Roy's favourite song is By Myself by Linkin Park

Fun fact: Roy and Mel used to share a very similar music taste as kids/teens. Mel actually got a lot of songs he still listens to from him. While Mel has kept a similar taste Roy has drifted more into mainstream music..but he always comes back to this song.

2) Both Roy and Serena used to be...well they were kind of codependant assholes as kids... A tag team from hell if you will. They were incredibly mistrusting of other children and would establish dominance among their peers by scaring them and occasionally beating them up. Serena being the leader while Roy was more of a silent follower but also quite horrible.

They sorta did a 180 after becoming more acquainted with Mel. A key moment for their change being when the three of them found an injured nestling in a park near their group home and, not knowing what else to do, decided to take it home and tried to take care of it.

It died before they could even get it to a vet, but the experience caused them to open up to Mel and be more reflective of their actions.

3) A feeling that haunted Roy throughout most of his life is shame. For his upbringing, the fact that his mother treated him better than his sister, and that he failed to protect her, the way he used to act as a child, his anger and his inability to control it on many occasions, the fact that he can't bring himself to hate his mother despite the abuse he and his sister had to endure from her. There's more but I'll leave it at that because spoiler.

It's something he can't deal with and that he internalised to a point that he barely let's people in...or any emotions out for that matter.

4) Roy is incredibly competitive. You know that kid in PE class that treats every dodge ball game like it's the fucking Olympics? That's him.

Paired with an immense fear of failure (not even fear...more like inability to accept failure whatsoever) and a compulsion to over achieve. For example he used to be an almost straight a student in his teens, apart from a few subjects like Art and English. While also being part of his school's football team.

With everything he does he gives it 200% however he's very prone to neglect his surroundings and own well being in the process.

5) Roy's favourite TV show is Rick and Morty. Occasionally Serena and Roy end up watching a few episodes, which is like the only quality time they spend together these days.

#Abuse mention tw #ask #drawing way outside the lines #Re number two #Please don't think too bad of them :/#I guess number two is a bit of a spoiler too #...shoot #royocask

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razorblade180 · 3 years

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Overall thoughts on V8? Assuming you didn't answer this already.

I meant to do a volume wrap up review but I got incredibly busy and it fell to the waste side. The thing about me judging RWBY I have to come at it from two angles or I won’t feel like I judged it appropriately. There’s the casual, first time seeing the episodes and seeing this through the lens as a casual watcher who probably only sees the episodes once or twice. But then there’s the other side to that coin. I review these episodes, write aus, theorize, check extended lore, listen to the music, etc; that means I have to go back and watch episodes several times for any given reason and that’s when you start noticing the holes or picking up on things you didn’t before.

As a casual watcher, I’d give this an 8/10. There’s plenty of moments where characters do things that got me excited and plot points I wanted explored. This volume actually gave a decent amount of things I wanted for quite some time and some things I didn’t know I needed. Certainly there are things I don’t like in this but I’m open and curious to see where RT takes their storie because it’s their story.

Okay, now as a someone who’s had to deep dive and take a step back multiple times for a variety of reasons. 6.5/10 maybe a 7/10 if I’m being generous. A lot of my problems with this volume are problems that aren’t new to RWBY and that’s just how surface layer portions of arcs are and how a variety of choices/bonds don’t exactly make sense with what we were previously shown, or they only make sense because the writers don’t want introduce other complexities even though they should be there realistically. I’ll give a couple examples of these and yes, I’m aware what I say doesn’t bother everyone but it bothers me.

Qrow was never angry at or brought up Robyn being the reason their airship crashed in the first place because she started the fight; which aids in Clover dying.

Emerald follows Cinder, not Salem. Even if Cinder is working under Salem, why would Emerald be so willingly to complete shift to the side that actively goes against Cinder? There’s been no grand revelation to make Emerald believe Cinder doesn’t give a damn about her. Leaving made sense because she was about to get tortured. Going full turncoat right now doesn’t. No change happened. Emerald always hated being near Salem but adored Cinder no matter the crimes and the show hasn’t done anything to switch that view point.

I’m happy Whitley and Weiss had a touching sibling moment that implies they’re okay and making/made up, but there was never a conversation about the actual problem and thoughts that had them at odds in the first place. Weiss saving his and Willow’s life shouldn’t be the thing that smooths things over. It would’ve been terrible if Weiss do something to save their life. Whitley helping Penny is okay I guess because he really had no reason to contribute but did anyways. Even so, a person doing a morally correct thing doesn’t automatically warrant the conflict between him and Weiss’s resolved.

We got Cinder’s backstory; it didn’t tell us anything about how she eventually came into contact with Salem. Honestly her back story felt more in line of her main goal through the series was an absolute freedom by the means of breaking down the systems that trapped and didn’t give a damn, rather than her quest for power. Yes you can argue gaining power means it’s easier to maintain her freedom to do whatever she wants but I personally think that’s a little off the mark when you gave her a story that involves her trapped by rules and time rather than being too physically weak to gain freedom.

This show has built up that the Schnee family has suffered various types of abuse because of Jacques and uses Weiss as a medium to build towards breaking free from that. Not just overcoming but confronting the abuse by cementing it’s place below you. We don’t really get that. There will never be a moment where the siblings and mother truly get to break out of Jacques grasps emotionally and then put him in his place because he’s dead! Yeah they never have to worry about him again but even last volume they showed Winter still having turmoil and being able to get strung along by him. We don’t even really know how Whitley perceived his father. It feels so lackluster. Then they care to mention how it’s Weiss’s idea to save him like it’s an empowering moment when in actuality, it would be against her character, values of a huntress, and morality to let a person die in cell when you’re the reason they’re in a cell! Letting him die in there would just terrible. I don’t even know why he wasn’t let out in that scene! He’s a coward! He’d follow their orders to save his skin. All he has to do is shut up and walk through a portal.

Ironwood and Oscar both knew they could remove that staff to use it and Atlas wouldn’t drop immediately. Why did nobody have any kind of compromise with one another since there’s nothing stopping them from using the staff for something and then putting it back? They had this morally gray thing going on which I liked but then they decided to make Ironwood go full evil. I’ve never had to say this before but the song he got in V7 and the character they made him be in V8 just don’t connect. I got upset listening to that song recently because I liked that Ironwood.

Clover’s importance. RT tried making a character who had no more than 9 minutes in the series and one meaningful line of dialogue into the cornerstone of a side plot. Clover is such a nothing character. Vine did more than Clover. They try to make him have such a profound impact to the people around him but we never see him bond with his team; Harriet specifically. We get one scene of Clover telling Qrow the kids are fortunate to have Qrow even if he doesn’t think so. First, I doubt Clover knows Qrow decided to get drunk in a ghost town and the kids nearly died and cellar while he did it so that compliment doesn’t hold much weight for me. Second, We see nothing meaningful between the two. V7 has a time skip and just expects viewers to be on board with Clover being this influential change on Qrow without showing anything outside of a witty remark and Clover flexing his semblance. I would’ve bought it more of Qrow almost relapsed and Clover stopped him then had a real meaningful conversation.

Ruby goes against Ironwood only to then want to do a plan that’s aligned to longer term thinking than even his, talks about how everyone should be working together, but then adds a part in her video to actively antagonize and vilify Ironwood. Afterwards, she wonders where everything went wrong and doesn’t think of a plan or do anything to immediately help either kingdom until the final hour between the ultimatum being made, to everything getting destroyed. The inciting incident was disagreeing Mantle should be left in favor of Atlas but the main character didn’t do anything to help Mantle 90% of the season and hindered Atlas’s safety up until the final plan.

Yang is used to be the devil’s advocate in a bunch of situations, but she’s wrong most of the time or her lines just don’t make any sense. They weren’t doing just fine before Atlas. They almost died every step of the way. The team didn’t beat a Leviathan; silver eyes and a robot take credit for that. Why would Blake think less of Yang for wanting to go save people immediately? Blake was never mad at anyone to begin with. Yang consistently calls out people for following orders as if it’s objectively wrong, but is never called out on the fact she hasn’t followed anybody’s orders but her own and added discourse to every situation. I get RT is making her ask questions because that’s what Raven told her to do, but all she’s really doing is picking fights and disobeying every order. Yang states to Ruby they accomplished more than they expected. That’s false, getting Oscar back is correcting a mistake caused by her own plan that she didn’t even complete.

It took 6 volumes before Yang had anything to do with the Summer Rose subplot again and 7 volumes before her and Ruby had a sister to sister conversations; 5 if you wanna count Yang telling Ruby to leave at the end of volume three. The reason I bring this up is because in V8 , they treat their argument as if it’s a big deal but then have every character say it wasn’t that big a deal; but then have two circle back to that conversation later after having neither character discuss to anybody that the argument actually did weigh on them. Yang doesn’t think about Ruby until she sees her again and the closest we get with Ruby is Blake reassuring her that people need her and how Blake admires her. I like that scene but it’s not the same as Ruby actually airing out the specific point that Yang said something that Ruby found hurtful. Vol8 in general people trying to comfort others but nobody ever actually addresses what made them uncomfortable to start with. Except Ren.

This one is a nitpicking but I’ll say it anyways. Penny getting hacked only served as a purpose to go to the vault, a thing Ironwood already wanted them to do. Nobody got her because she was hacked. You can’t even say her getting hacked is the leading factor to her actually dying because Penny became a vulnerable human afterwards that can’t be rebuilt. Pietro was gone, and already stated last volume he doesn’t have the aura to build Penny again. If she died as a robot then it’s still permanent death. No core, no Pietro, and no aura; hacking her was just to create a Hound reveal situation and make them go to the vault on a different set of terms. I’m not exactly upset with this, but I don’t understand why the extra steps. The Hound was hunting her anyways. I would’ve brought some kind of value if she hurt a friend and it caused them to potentially hinder the plan later on or remove them entirely. Penny could’ve rekt Yang and it only adds value to Yang getting one shot later. I don’t know. I’m rambling.

I think I’ve wasted enough people’s time. Honestly, I do like this volume. I’ve enjoyed a bunch of it. But there’s things that legitimately make me think it’s not as good others and makes V7 even worse.

#rwby #rwby volume 8 #ask me stuff

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reallyhardy · 3 years

Text

regent’s open air theatre LSOH (2018) breakdown

act one. herein, two years later, i try to remember as much as i can about this production with the help of gifs i took from the trailer and shutterstock images. let’s go!

THE BEGINNING. i went to see a matinee so it was daytime, but the stage set was all black-and-white very newspaper aesthetic. my sister and i were very close to the front, five rows back:

and here we are, excited for everything to begin. (note my giant tooth earrings. was really hoping they’d catch matt willis’ eye.) soon enough crystal, ronette and chiffon took the stage for the prologue, belted their faces off and got me hype from the first moment. their costumes were kind of punky, street style (my favourite look was on the girl with the green jacket and shiny leggings:)

skid row was great. the grey set really highlighted the colourful costumes, and for this first number the set stayed black-and-white so the only colour were the main characters and urchins, and the ensemble wore black-and-white costumes.

and i remember being so thrilled by the costumes - in this photo seymour is wearing yellow socks but by the time i went to see it they were pink (to match audrey’s hair!) and audrey is wearing fluffy slide slippers in the promo photos but when i saw it she wore a pair of blue open-toe kitten heels.

once the song ended we got to see some character personality: marc antolin as seymour was adorable. he was (for most of the first act at least) very goofy and beamed a lot, he had a very cute smile. his voice was quite high and nasal and silly and i honestly had a really big crush on him. jemima rooper as audrey was equally sweet and adorable - she had a cotton candy pink wig and started off in kind of a sexy-ish outfit, with a sheer off-shoulder top over a bra. her eye makeup was light blue (and the bruise bright purple) and she was really short compared to seymour. mushnik was super tiny and greasy looking.

every interaction seymour and audrey had was just! so cute. at the start where audrey and mushnik discuss orin (the ‘you don’t meet nice boys on skid row’ conversation,) seymour is stood behind them kind of goofing around and he flips his shirt collar up pretending to be orin and acting macho but at the end of the scene audrey goes quiet and carefully fixed his collar back down before she left and it was!!! emotions.

da doo i can’t remember anything about how things looked :( during grow for me it really highlighted how…cute seymour was. he beamed the whole time, and the plant puppet in its baby form was fantastic, (the pod head at the top opened up and had little human teeth lmao) and they used like… household objects painted green for plants. the roses were red toilet brushes:

with red ink on them so when seymour touched the bristles there was visible blood on his finger which was fun. lots of attention to detail in this production.

seymour on the radio i think happened off-stage? so we just hear him being interviewed while we watch mushnik and the urchins listen to the radio together. the choreography during you never know was really fun too, with seymour and the urchins dancing together, seymour did a lot of hip wiggles and kept trying to stop audrey ii from trying to bite at the urchins as he danced. one of the green ping-pong balls fell off the puppet but nobody slipped on it so it was fine. also GOD the voices of the urchins were just so good in this one.

somewhere that’s green is a song that makes me cry most of the times i listen to it or watch any versions of LSOH, but this is the first time i’d seen a version where audrey was also crying. during this number the actress climbed up onto the top of the mushnik’s store prop and she still had the bright purple black-eye makeup on as well as the cast on her arm so she looked so beat down and sad and it was just toward the end of the song at ‘i’m his december bride’ where her singing started to break down and she started crying, and covered her face by the time she got to ‘far from skid row’ with her voice breaking oh my god the tears were flowing VERY much from my eyes.

and as a note the actress did not have this beautiful wig on when i saw it, she wore one with much less volume - it could have been the same wig just styled differently, (tucked under/trimmed to be just sort of...round?) but it was just... so much less cute lmao, you can just about see it here in this cast mirror selfie:

anyway. then it was time for closed for renovation! this one was fun, audrey and seymour i think were just...arranging plants and other things? the ‘mushniks’ shop prop might have expanded a bit? they turned it around?

there were some cute little dancey bits with the three of them together:

then audrey & seymour talk a bit. audrey gives seymour the kind of advice that she also needs to be taking herself -- seymour asks audrey if she’d go shopping with him, and then orin arrives on the scene.

dentist was amazing. i’ve seen a lot of bootlegs of kind of lackluster orin scrivellos but… well, me and my sister decided we were absolutely going to see this production when we found out matt willis was playing the dentist. (we were big busted fans lol) he wore this insane painted leather jacket with this tooth-themed biker gang design (he and his backup dancers all had hell’s teeth on the backs of their jackets) and his dentist coat underneath had the sleeves ripped off to show his tattoos… they gave him white foundation to make him look i guess more ill/joker like? it totally worked. he honestly kinda stole the show and he totally exceeded my expectations (which is saying something because my expectations were that he’d be perfect for the role and that i’d enjoy his performance thoroughly!!!)

then he comes into the shop, comments on the plant, poses around, treats audrey terribly. and not only does he abuse audrey in front of seymour who iirc was watching horrified (as you would) but also poor seymour gets his junk grabbed twice by villains in this production too lmao, orin grabs and squeezes seymour’s junk while he’s yelling at audrey. it’s a theme i guess???

(hell of a promotion image, that one.) then orin and audrey leave and it’s time for mushnik and son. they did a lot of the usual ‘awkward-tango’ choreo and it was just excellent really. there’s nothing i didn’t enjoy about the number, plus mush was quite a short guy but had a real big voice.

you get a good view of all the fun things they used to represent plants here too: cleaning brushes, feather dusters, hairbrushes, a small fishing net, a bubble wand...

so feed me was great because it starts off of course with the plant puppet prop:

but then by the second verse (when it comes to ‘does this look inanimate to you’) they opened up the puppet’s leaves like a mouth and audrey ii in drag queen form emerged (to thunderous applause). [i found a short clip someone got on instagram a while back, you can watch it here!] she was holding a microphone in her hands so when it came to seymour’s responses she held out the mic to his mouth and it was :’) really funny. and seymour gets his junk grabbed again:

because he can’t catch a break. staging wise i think i remember this was very bisexual - it’s important to note that the first wig audrey ii wears strongly resembles the wig that OG audrey wears - and at times during this number audrey ii acts quite flirtatious with seymour and he seems receptive to it and has to visibly shake himself out of it.

audrey comes back for her sweater (iirc it was a VERY jazzy 1990s looking one in aqua green and pink) and seymour and audrey ii make up their minds about what to do with orin.

so seymour heads out - the dentists chair was just a beat-up shopping trolley with various things stuck on (see there’s what looks like a plunger, wrist restraints too lmao) and orin had a bunch of bloodied weapons such as a power drill instead of a dentist drill:

anyway i usually don’t enjoy now(it’s just the gas) as a number when i’ve seen it in bootlegs but again matt willis had tremendous feral energy and he pulled it off. plus the gear was quite retro-futuristic very cool looking:

it was also especially funny just after ‘now’ because after seymour runs off with orin’s body in the trolley he comes back in with it all chopped up and he was pushing dismembered limbs (the arm was even painted with matt willis’ tattoos and nail polish which was a GREAT detail) into the windows of the prop mushnik’s building that audrey ii was inside of, and he even threw up into the audience which was :’) gross but funny. it was yellow. i didn’t see if it splashed anyone.

then... intermission. will continue this in [part 2, which is here!]

#LSOH #little shop of horrors #regent's park open air theatre

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lixie-lovie · 3 years

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{ Mysterious Stranger | skz }

h.hyunjin x reader

Chapter 4: The Reckoning

Genre: Dark!au, Thriller-ish, Fantasy!au

Warnings: Some cursing, mention of weapons/blood/demons, fighting occurs

((if anything else needs to be tagged/warned about please send me a message..i’ll fix it asap))

Word Count: 4.1 k

Note: I am so sorry this is later than anticipated (uni is kicking my ass lol), but regardless I hope everyone enjoys! Hopefully the next chapter already being in progress will make it come out sooner..

Side Note: This/my blog is getting a bit more popular..should I open taglists for my work or start taking requests? Anyone wanna lmk if you want that???

Chapter Song: Mayday - VICTON

<< prev ; next >>

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Overwhelmed. That’s how I felt. My heart felt too heavy, my hands too shaken, my mind racing, and my body lethargic. The Straykids base was nice, at least what I had gotten to see, but everything felt far away. As if it would all collapse in on me if I breathed too suddenly. I was sitting on a medical cot now, staring at my shaking hands as if they were not my own. They said they needed to check me over, make sure I wasn’t infected. Infected. What does that even mean? Their words were kind enough, although few and far between, but I could see what was unspoken in the way their eyes scanned my poor form, the way their hands hovered over their weapons, and how their chins lifted as they spoke their greetings towards me, as if trying to send the sound waves through me. I was an outsider, different, infected, dangerous.

I had met the majority of the rest of the group now and I let myself recall their names and faces while waiting here now, trying to rid myself of the anxiety pressing coldly against my eyes and pooling heat in my cheeks.

First was the large training room, sparks flying as metal swords struck metallic testing dummies. Their sound hurt my ears in the large, open room with ceilings so high the noise reverberating was making my head throb with the sound of my own pulse. Minho they called him. Soft brown eyes, wild on the inside. His wet with sweat hair laid flat over his eyes and he used his non-weapon wielding hand to push it out of his face. Then, sticking his hand out to shake my own with his larger, much more sweaty palm, he noticed my scrunched up nose in disgust and laughed, pulling his hand back and apologizing lightheartedly. His eyes stayed trained on me, not unkind, but definitely guarded. We made quick of our goodbyes and I couldn’t help but dwell on the meeting while trying to match strides with Hyunjin who had been leading me silently.

Minho smelled of old leather, iron shards, and something distinctly warm I couldn’t quite place. I thought briefly that if our situations were any different I may have thought him handsome and blushed at his eyes staying lingered on my form too long, but our situation wasn’t different and I knew his stare wasn’t trusting and kind, but full of silent, unspoken malice.

The next room I was led into was a room full of old books and the smell of ink. Hundreds of thick, worn books laid dusty on shelves having long lost their gloss. Many were in languages I couldn’t read, some I pictured weren’t distinctly human in origin. Pages torn and my interest peeked. I couldn’t keep my eyes off of the handheld knowledge surrounding me long enough to notice that I was being approached by a figure unfamiliar to me. When the smiling, kind face of the freckled boy popped into view with a hand on my shoulder I winced and jerked my body harshly away, muttering shy apologies.

I was only met with laughter, but as I studied his face further I found myself taking note of the worried bend in his brow and questioning eyes. I felt scrutinized and defensive suddenly, squaring my shoulders and smiling a little too forced. He simply introduced himself with a boisterous laugh before making up some half-assed excuse my tour guide scoffed at before scurrying away as if my presence caused some disturbance. He told me his name so briefly and quietly I found myself drawn out of my memories questioning if I could even recall the sounds. Felix, my brain supplied. I let out a silent huff of air as my lips formed an ‘o’ shape, before diving back into my thoughts about the others I had met.

The office space I was soon led to was crowed to say the least. Each of the walls were meticulously lined with filing cabinets, but it seemed as though at least half of their contents had been thrown or piled haphazardly on the large, wooden desk sitting between the bodies currently arguing. Yelling continued as Hyunjin and I stood by the door staring awkwardly. I shuffled my feet and became increasingly interested in the elegant marble tiles beneath my beat up shoes.

“Enough!” A loud cry followed by a harsh jostling noise shook me out of my anxiety riddled state and I swiftly whipped my head up to see what had happened. My eyes stayed trained on where the noise came from and found myself staring into the cool, calm, and serious eyes of the man at the head of the desk. His curly ash blonde hair bounced around as he ran a firm hand through them and he sighed deeply, one hand raised in a silencing gesture towards the men in front of him. “We have a visitor..Hyunjin, are you going to introduce us?” He said, his tone firm while his eyes stayed trained on my form critically.

Hyunjin groaned, uncrossing his arms and straightening himself out as he pushed himself off of the wall he was once leaning on. He gave a short, lackluster introduction of me before turning to the men in the room giving a sarcastic pointed look to the man at the head of the desk as if pushing him to make Hyunjin talk more. The man, who I now assumed to be the leader of this group, rolled his eyes and waved Hyunjin off in a dismissive behavior before making a move to round the desk quickly. Hyunjin took this as his cue to stand by the door looking uninterested and my eyes followed the only familiar figure out of the room slowly.

Soon the leading male was stood in front of me with a wide, slightly awkward grin as he held his hand out in introduction. “Hello. I am Chan, the leader of the Straykids operative, this is Jisung, our adversary expert, and this is Changbin, our mission lead. I am sure this is a lot to take in, but we are currently handling some important new information, so please make yourself at home and direct any questions you may have to Hyunjin. He will be assigned as of now as your personal trainer and mentor for the time being.” He said, quickly, warily eyeing me up in a way I am sure he thought was subtle. My eyes darted to the two men standing behind his broad shoulders, one dark haired with an undercut and brooding look staring harshly at the other brunette with soft eyes and a joking smile playing on his lips while he bounced on the balls of his feet. I let my palm rest loosely in Chan’s as I smiled as genuinely as I could manage at his surface kindness. It was then that I heard the aggravated noises coming from outside the door from a certain tour guide that was a bit unhappy with the new arrangement. I wasn’t sure what training these people were mentioning or what I could possibly be mentored on, but I didn’t have the energy left in my fatigued state to question anything.

Chan swiftly collected himself before excusing me out of the office. As the large black doors closed loudly behind me I heard the previous commotion of voices start yelling again as something distinctly paper-like in sound slapping against a wooden surface. I giggled softly to myself at the silliness of the situation before turning my head and catching the glaring, malice filled eyes of Hyunjin already boring into mine.

“Just because he assigned me to deal with you doesn’t mean I’ll take kindly to babysitting. Just do as I say and we won’t have a problem.” He said harshly, obviously throwing some kind of a fit as his arms stayed tightly crossed as he pushed himself forward to start walking down yet another seemingly endless hallway. “This is only until Seungmin returns. Now, hurry up, I’ll take you to the ward to get checked. You can stay there for tonight.” He said, already quickening his pace at the thought of not having to stay by me.

“Hey!” I shouted after him, trying to softly jog to keep up. “Don’t you think you’re getting a bit ahead of yourself?! I have some questions I need answered first!” I spoke loudly, trying to portray whatever confidence I had left in my body. Before he could make a motion to swiftly turn on his heel to presumably yell at me some more, I suddenly heard a striking voice coming from behind me.

I whipped my head around at the sound of my mother’s name being formed by an unfamiliar sounding voice. I gasped softly at the sight of a young woman, dressed in elegant purple silk robes, a hood covering my view of her face, being pulled harshly in the other direction by a man wearing the same type of outfit. As I came to my senses and out of my shock I heard the door they were leaving out of close sharply and couldn’t stop my body from taking off in the direction after them. I ran, my eyes nearly filling with tears at the picture of the woman’s softly shocked, shadowed face as she was pulled away. All I could focus on was the fact that this may be a chance for answers I have been harshly denied of since coming to this strange, foreign place. I called out, unsure of what I was even saying, before suddenly being unable to run any further. I noticed in this moment how numb my outstretched arms were and how cold my body had become as Hyunjin wrapped his strong arms around my waist and pulled me harshly in the other direction.

Quickly and shakily I began questioning Hyunjin while staring down at his arms still holding me tightly in a way that began to make me feel as though he was trying to contain a wild animal. He sharply shushed me before leaning down and tightening his grip around me further, to the point all I could focus on was that it hurt. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want answered. Shut up, follow me, and you might as well forget that ever happened.”

His words were sharp, cutting deep and piercing through me like cold silver daggers. At this I began to get angry, I felt a scolding warmth building up in my chest spreading to the point I felt as though my fingertips would melt like wax from a candle forgotten too long. Suddenly, in a way I don’t remember even being capable of, I had found a point of weakness in Hyunjin’s grip before swiftly, in a practically practiced manner I had turned to face him, pulled the dagger from where I had placed it in my pocket earlier, and held it sturdily to Hyunjin’s throat an arms length away from his now shocked form.

I felt powerful and awful at the same time. My mind was twisting and tangling with dark, racing thoughts getting lost in the mix. My hand wasn’t shaking, my arm stood firm while pressing the blade harshly to his honey-toned, tanned skin, and my expression wasn’t faltering as I stared into his startled, anger ridden eyes. I felt my heart pounding excitedly in my chest as I took in what I had done. I wasn’t sure how I had completed this action, nor did I know where it would lead from here, but I knew I was sure this was the only way to get answers to the questions plaguing my mind. My hand began to feel heavy as time went on, so I inhaled harshly, letting the cool air burn my lungs, the internal pain bringing me back to the present, before forming the words at the forefront of my mind.

“That was my mothers name.” I said, staring passionately into Hyunjin’s eyes. “Now, I would like some answers.” My tone was jarring even to my own ears, dark and persuasive, unlike the timid one I had used to express myself earlier in the day. I pressed the blade harsher into Hyunjin’s skin with a pointed look on my face. He gave me a wry smile before slowly raising his hands in surrender.

“Now, before you do anything rash. Think about what you’re threatening here..” He said lightheartedly, pointing at his neck, the dagger pressing there causing a thin line of red blood to pool from the connection of the cool metal and his warm skin. When my eyes flickered to my own hand and back up to his sharply we both knew I was faltering with my own actions. He took this as his opportunity to strike.

Before I knew it he had knocked the blade away from his neck before making a move to grab and restrain me. However, the warmth from before began forming in my chest yet again and my thoughts suddenly shifted to something of pure instinct as I dodged to the right and out of the way of his graceful movement. My arm, still holding the blade firmly, swung out at him causing a large gash in the sleeve of his left arm and his inky red blood began to drop from the wound profusely as he involuntarily yanked his arm back towards himself, applying as much pressure to the gash as possible. He hissed softly through his teeth before looking at me, his eyes much more wild and calculating. Out of his own sleeve he produced a weapon, much like my own, and as I gasped softly coming out of the fit of rage I had previously been consumed by I remembered very little of what came next.

Like a flash of elegant, terrifying, powerful lighting Hyunjin was lunging at me, one large hand of his restraining my armed one, forcing me to drop my weapon. It clattered to the ground loudly and I became alarmed. I cried out at the sprouting pain of being swiftly shifted around on my weight, my arm being bent awkwardly, and I quickly tried to pry myself out of his grasp. Soon, the tumbling, clumsy fight of pent up frustrations and untrustworthy anger led to us both falling to the ground. Hyunjin’s weight combining with my own was more than I could handle in my state and the last things I remember were the sharp impact of my head against the white marble flooring, Hyunjin’s soft words of annoyance laced with concern calling my name, the pain now blossoming from the suddenly sticky base of my skull, and the padding sound of feet approaching nearer as my vision faded to black.

===========

When I came too I was staring at a white ceiling, surrounded by subtle noises and voices. I then became brutally aware of a painful headache now gracing my already confused mind. Remembering slowly what exactly had occurred, I groaned and began to struggle my way into a sitting position.

“Oh, finally awake princess?” A sarcastic, annoyed voice came from the white bed across from the matching the one I was currently occupying. The voice itself belonged to none other than the man I was now sure was the enemy, sitting upright, glaring in my direction while having something done to his arm by the young boy with gentle hands sitting beside of him. My face began to heat up as I came to and took in the scene before me. When I noticed Hyunjin’s lack of shirt and my lack of response I began floundering for something to say or at least something else to look at other than the odd black lines covering Hyunjin’s defined chest and arms.

Luckily I was saved from this difficult situation by the boy patching up Hyunjin’s arm finishing his job and standing up abruptly. My eyes snapped away from the irritating blonde and over to the young boy with fox-like features and snowy white hair. “Seems like you’re all patched up. I don’t know how you got such a nasty cut, but you better be more careful next time.” He said with a soft, playful voice, but surprisingly stern eyes directed at Hyunjin. Each of the syllables of his sentence were punctuated with increasingly violent taps against the now stitched and bandaged wound. With each tap Hyunjin winced and by the time the boy was walking away from Hyunjin’s now pouting form he had a face of annoyance as he glared in my direction. I questioned to myself why he hadn’t told this medic what exactly had happened, but as a light was suddenly shown in my eyes I didn’t think to question further due to the pounding of the headache throbbing at the base of my skull.

“Hmm.. minor concussion, but after I patched you up it seems like you’ll heal up soon if you take it easy.” The boy said, leaning over my bedside to look over my face, his breath fanning softly over my cheeks because of his close proximity. His smile was soft and joyous, kind in a way I hadn’t seen since leaving Seungmin behind. This thought made me frown deeply in concern and frustration and the boy took notice of the shift in my expression immediately.

“Oh! I guess I haven’t introduced myself yet.. I’m Jeongin! I work here in the ward under Seungmin’s training and supervision. Hyunjin carried you here earlier and you both were bleeding and bruised up pretty bad, so I guess I forgot the formalities.” I nodded along with what he was saying, but when he mentioned Hyunjin’s act of kindness my eyes snapped to his grimacing form as he was re-wrapping the bandages just placed on his arm moments ago while glaring daggers at me as if trying to force me to hear his thoughts of “don’t read too much into that.” I took this as a signal to smile lightly and thank Jeongin, allowing him to run off to do whatever work he was assigned to before taking care of us.

As he left my line of sight I sighed deeply and began to take in my surrounding while pulling the IV attached to my arm out and shaking my limbs slightly as I started standing up and adjusting my now wrinkled, uncomfortable clothing. My thoughts were drifting back to the events in the hallway and my brow furrowed deeply as I scanned the room for whatever belongings I had with me and I tried remembering where the ward was located in relation to the hallway I had been in before. As I began to walk towards the door on the opposite side of the room that Jeongin had left out of I heard a light rustling noise from my side and suddenly was stopped by a large body blocking my way. I sighed harshly and looked up quickly, causing the pounding in my head to return and my balance to be thrown off for a moment. I staggered backwards and glared at the offending figure only to find Hyunjin’s sharp features glaring back at me just as harshly.

“And where the hell do you think you’re going?” He snapped at me while holding his uninjured arm out to steady me by my shoulder. I regained my balance and huffed, brushing his hand off and side-stepping to hopefully avoid another fight.

“To find answers.” I said dryly, pushing an arm out firmly to block him from getting in my way and walking towards the door. I was suddenly jostled as a firm, warm hand engulfed my wrist pulling me sharply backwards and turning me in the opposite direction of my destination.

“But.. you’re injured” He said, his brow furrowed as he stared past my form, obviously thinking about something deeply. His hand wouldn’t release its grip from my wrist even as I tried pulling it roughly, so I sighed and decided to finish this conversation as it was clear I wouldn’t be leaving as easily as I would have preferred.

“So? Remember that you’re the one to inflicted this, so what do you even care? Don’t you hate me anyways?” I said with a harsh sigh, staring into his face for any kind of reaction indicating an emotion, but as he kept his eyes trained forward I felt defeated in my stoic stance and relaxed my form, looking away to avoid becoming overwhelmed by the deep feeling stirring in my chest as I looked at him. “Look, this is important. What happened back there and before with Seungmin it all means something. I have so many questions and I just..” I took a moment to breathe, the tears I had been holding back threatening to spill over my stubborn lashes.

I was broken out of my depressive state by his hand aggressively releasing my wrist, practically shoving it away as if it has scorched his skin. His face became dissonant as he stared at the doorway behind me, his form ridged.

“Whatever.” He began walking hurriedly away, towards the door Jeongin had left from. I watched as he walked and listened to his footsteps sounding loudly on the white tile flooring in shock and awe of what had just happened, a million questions racing through my mind. Then, I was jolted out of my thoughts by the sudden stop of the sound of footfalls resonating through the room. I looked up towards Hyunjin’s back as he turned his face slightly to peer over his shoulder at my stiff form, still clutching onto my wrist his warm hand had been holding only mere moments before. “I’ll help you, but you may not like what answers you find.”

His words were soft, spoken like whispers that pierced my ears like gunshots. I felt dizzy as I padded after him trying to form the new questions overlapping the old that were competing in my mind. “Wait!” This was all I was able to get out, my wrist, still warm from his embrace out stretched as my feet fell short when the loud door closed behind him and his steps receded somewhere unknown to me. I took a shuttering breath, replaying his words and everything that had happened up until this point briefly in my mind. My headache was growing stronger, questions still unanswered, but my resolve was unwavering as I steeled my nerves and turned to rush past the previously occupied beds and back out into the hallway to continue my journey. However, just as I was about to round my corner my eyes drifted back to the bed Hyunjin had been settled on before and my brow furrowed deeply.

My steps were light as I crept slowly over to the bedside curiously. My hand ran over the stiff white sheets until my fingertips found the cool, sharp edge of my blade. It was lying there, placed delicately where the shine of the bright florescent white lights hit the blade elegantly. I picked it up, keeping my eyes trained on it, studying its shape yet again in awe. I turned it over in my hand a few times, entranced by the weightlessness of the deadly weapon I was handling. Then, as I turned yet again to leave the room my eyes caught on a torn, yellowing sheet of paper lying precariously next to where the blade had been before. The ink was messy and smudged in handwriting obviously rushed. It read: “Next time, dodge to the left. - H”

I snorted softly, a smile finding its way sneakily onto my lips as I pocketed the note gently and gripped my blade a little tighter. Then, I whipped my head in the direction of the door I knew was hiding secrets and adventure behind its hinges before hearing footsteps coming from the door behind me. By the gait made out by the noise I heard what I assumed to be Jeongin, coming to check on me and gasped knowing I wouldn’t be able to leave as easily if I didn’t rush. I took a deep breath and prepared myself silently.

-----

Jeongin entered the room, calling their name loudly with a practiced grin gracing his features. When he noticed the door on the far side of the room still slightly ajar, behind it the sound of rushed footsteps receding quickly caused his grin to casually turn into a smaller, more genuine smile before he found himself chuckling to himself at their antics. “They definitely remind me of someone.” He said, addressing no one in particular while moving to clean the beds previously used.

Unbeknownst to Jeongin a certain blonde boy, hidden out of sight, had seen the events of the last few moments and with a small smile and a whisper of laughter bubbling inside his once empty chest, he sighed and turned to make his leave with a soft shake to his head.

“Yeah, they do, don’t they?”

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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The Legend of the Three Caballeros: Shangri-La-Di-Da and Sheldgoose Squaredance Reviews: The Last Ride (Comissoned by WeirdKev27)

SALUDOS AMGIOS.. THIS IS IT! The finale review of my retrospective on the Three Caballeros THE RIDE OF THE THREE CABLLEROS. It’s the final ride. While there will be, as i’ve said the last few time, a little epilogue to celebrate finishing this, as clocking in at 15 reviews, one best of list coming next week and covering a film, two sizeable comic book stories, and 18 episodes of television, this has been one of my largest projects and one of my proudest. But there will be time to look back next week. For now i’m amped up, excited about this series and excited to finish. So after the cut join me for one last full ride as our heroes face their final hour!

Shangri-La-De-Da: Our penultimate adventure begins with the Cabs returning home after training with King Arthur, where they apparently got a years worth of training in a day.. because apparently Camelot is one giant hyperbolic time chamber. But the training’s paid off as our heroes are now at their most skilled and most powerful: As a result Jose skifully and perfectly cuts an orange in seconds, Panchito ropes an apple from a nearbye stand (and the owner’s really cool about it since Panchito gives him the money for it “Thanks magic rope!”) and Donald.. breaks everything but in a really impressive ways. Our heroes are at their best and ready to take on Feldrake when the time comes, while Ari and the Bear.. are hiding what happened last episode with the girls investigating. Hey can’t win em all. Meanwhile Sheldrake is leading Sheldgoose into the Manor.. after a few goofs on him running into the barrier because he’s a petty asshole. They decsend into the depths bellow leaving Leopold to guard.

Back at the Cabana Donald just wants one more thing... Daisy.

I’ve.. gone on about why he shouldn’t do this last time. He deserves better. Xandra is right there and while she’s treated him shabbily from time to time. it’s more human error versus... everything with Daisy just everything. This plot point has been nothing but pain and suffering for me and it’s not changing that track record in these last two episodes, though thankfully it’s barely in the finale, so my own track record of screaming about daisy in text form every time she shows up will also remain in tact. He does this because Xandra offered them a vacation so he won’t be distracted.. again why isn’t she the love intrest? I dunno maybe sh’es more into Jose. And Daisy sucks on arrival, phrasing, as her response to Donald’s call wasn’t to just.. tell him no but to go to his place to clearly tell him no to his place saying “Let’s recap, you abandoned me in a bad part of town, spent our date in the bathroom all night in a hula skirt, then brainwashed my nieces into helping you trick me with a dummy”. Okay Daisy, you want to recap, you insufferable, pompus, selfish, self absorbed, overly demanding, overly haughty, golddigging rose colored shrew?

Let’s fucking recap: He left you in a bad part of town because he got FIRED from his job and found out his house burned down, something you REFUSED to let him explain. You found out about this and then proceded to berate him over dinner, saying he couldn’t possibly help people. While he did spend a while in the bathroom with a hula skirt nad never explained it the ONE point you have.. he LEFT to go help his friends, with you once again leaving instead of letting him come back and explain later or leaving but going to his place to hash this out or just dump him. THEN, something you CAREFULLY omitted, you moved on which is fine.. as a way to make him jealous, bringing the guy to his door to rub his beak in your new relationship with not a hint of shame,a nd ran off whie he was fighting for his life clearly. Now seeing things were more complicated, you asked NO follow up questions, imposed a date on him and while he did lie your nieces WERE NOT FUCKING BRAINWASHED. This was of their own free will you unbleivible she demon. You are so up your own ass you can’t even see the obvious. And then you came here JUST to say all this and be mean to Donald one more time. While Donald shoudln’t of called you up it’s not because of all that it’s because your a heartlress, selfish, shrivled husk of a person. You care about NO ONE but yourself, and that includes Donald. Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.

So Xandra just zaps them away and says she’s perfect for Donald.

Donald and Daisy end up in the himlayas.. cue the music.

youtube

Why isn’t this game on Switch? Questions for later. Point is our heroes find a cave to duck in and a yeti.. who after clearing their throat reveals Xandra left them at the entrance for Shangri-La, and the inside is intorduced.. with a very lackluster musical number. A weak note for the songs to go out on but not bad, though Donald is pissed off because that’s his schtick here.. though credit where it’s do: Since I didn’t know everything and hadn’t finished it turns out his anger was delebrate.. but we’ll get to that and why it dosen’t work in a moment. Back at the Cabana the boys fence with bread before Panchito gets a flash as Sheldgoose puts the first amulet into..some kind of melting pool... and the girls confirm what happened seconds later. Feldrake has the amulets, which were used to seal him last time as revealed in last episode, and is melting them into his own power. The final battle is nigh! So Xandra goes to fetch Donald.. and comes back as she CAN’T. Donald and Daisy signed a contract and they can’t leave till ALL their problems are solved. And given Donald is carried off after his anger issues not only are evident when, given a pillow representing his frustratoins he destroys it, but he DENIES having anger issues, he’s dragged off to some extreme thereapy.. i.e. a Self Reflecting reflecting pool that manifests his anger as a giant, sausgey, pissed off version of himself and he reacts as you’d expect and gets flattned. Back at the Cabana, Xandra breaks the bad news.. and whie Jose TRIES to reassure them, his amulet is next to go so he gets a flash of it being destroyed and our heroes now have to scramble to take on Sheldgoose.. WITHOUT Donald. Back at donald’s inner hulk.. man I love this fucking job, Donald is pounding away until his own flash breaks things for a moment.. and sends him into his own head. We’re then treated to an acid sequece, an homage to Donald’s surreal reverire from the original movie that while not as wild, is still gloriously bizzare. Donald rencounters the teapot ghost thing that’s apparently part of his psyche from the first episode that gets him to consider why his life is like this and he goes through a lot of moments of the first episodes.. conviently eddting out daisy’s questionable behavior and the fact some things had actual catalysits. See the idea of Donald FACING his anger issues and growing from them is fine. But this has two faults. One, it assuems you can just.. cure anger issues. You can’t. Anger is a normal emotion and as someone with them I hope to generally work thorugh mine with a therapist.. but I know they just don’t magically go away and therapy is a process and your mental issues are lifelong things you have to grapple away. It’s not the MOST insulting treatment of emtoinal issues i’ve seen, as Total Drama you know had someone with MPD cured with a fucking button press, but it’s not great. And the second is this was poorly set up. Donald was an angry asshole all series yes and it was an issue.. but it wasn’t really FRAMED as a character arc. Just Donald being donald. So while having that be the source of his issues is a good idea for a character arc for im it comes off sloppy and forced because it’s been treated more like a joke or a character trait and less like a SERIOUS issue or the problem with him and Daisy. Hell they put the whole Dapper duck thing in there when he was fine that episode and is rightfully angry about that if at the wrong person. This whole thing just feels rushed, forced and unsatsifying and is a hsame for such a good idea

The payoff is good though, as when Donald awakens and let’s his anger wash away.. he just stands as the anger donald tries to beat the crap out of him.. but can’t do anything to him since he’s calm. He’s fine, and he’s released.. and his shock collar is disabled. Good quick gag. Meanwhile our heroes aren’t sure what to do despite having tons of magical items.. until they think what would donald do.. and he’d just at least try and thus corm a GIANT FUCKING MAGIC CANON OUT OF THEM. Very nice. They blow the doors off.. and through the back.. and into the money bin where we get a scrooge cameo.

And he’s voiced by Eric Bauza.. which is sadly not great because it’s far from his best work and dosen’t even really attempt a scottish accent.

But our heroes storm the gate.. after Xandra easily disposes of the dog guards.. who Sheldgosoe apparently raised to do this... still not entirely over that. They find the staircase and the triplets op to go back while the rest charge in and prepare to fight leopold.

Back at the Cabana, Donald and Daisy return via tub and Donald, seeing the swirling vortex of darkness outside sheldgoose manor, tells daisy he has to go his friends need him it’s his destiny, gives her one hell of a kiss she dosen’t deserve.. oh and earlier he told her “Thanks for being patient with me” and she tells him it was worth the wait. Ha ha... I hope you get hit by a rusty tractor you unfathomable blight on duck kind.

So part one ends with Donald heading for the treasure chamber to armor up.

Sheldgoose Square Dance: Part two begins with Sheldgoose putting the staff in place, and an egg emerging. Weird.. and as a result of that Leopold sense his ‘Daddy’ and leaves, and before the cabs can charge in donald shows up, now confident, at full strength and after tripping as you’d epxct, with the other cabs armor and in his. The guys suit up, and we get to see both jose’s.. amazing.. toned.. stomach.

And Panchito’s big belly.. which I have one of those so we’re twinsies. And Xandra of course watches Jose change slyly. Eh i’ts a bit creepy but I can’t blame her for sneaking a peak as long as she didn’t linger.

So our heroes are suited up, look awesome and have their trademark weapons Let’s fucking go!

Back at the ranch, the Nieces talk to daisy and having grabbed a weird document last time, are trying to piece it together. Daisy.. is suddenly really good with puzzles and helps them with it. They reform it and.. don’t really do much until after the danger has passed and I avoid another cornary yelling innterally at this unpleasant pile of hippo excrement.

So while the Cabs dash to stop feldrake feldrake awakens.. as a demon baby. And Sheldgoose has about a minute of mockery before feldrake smacks him around with telekensis and agrees while his mind’s affected by his current state, he’s still fully aware and can talk and seeing the cabs are coming gives him a bit of power, i’d say about as much or a little more than what feldrake had as a staff, and sends him after the cabs.

So we get one of the most awesome moments if not THE most awesome moment in the entire series as something from EVERY episode makes a come back as shelgoose, after trying some zaps, back in full robe and cloak, MAKES HIS OWN ZOOM POINT. Thus it becomes an utterly awesome back and forth as sheldgoose summons one thing from the past and xandra summons another to counter. And it avoids reptititon as the sheer sight of characters from each episode battling it out, and never knowing which ones next, keeps it intresting.

In order: Sheldgoose summons the moon bots, Xandra summons the roman gods to hack them to pieces, after the boys get some shots in too. Sheldgoose blocks the way with lava lizards, the cabs respond with a goblin army who block the lava river and use a cat launcher against them, courtsey of king vomit. Sheldgosoe unleashes the tengu, the cabs unleash king arthur.. and we get the immortal line from donald “Thanks king arthur!”. Sheldgoose summons his ancestors, the cabs summon the ghost presidents! And in a call back that had me clapping Sheld summons the termintes.. and xandra summons THE MINOTAUR! And Sheldgoose thirsts over him. .huh.. so shledgosoe is bi good for him. And for a final distraction sheldgoose summons.. the dragon.. that was from the adventure they just had he had no way of knowing about.

So with that out fo the way our heroes and villians both reach feldrake.. whose awakened and is.. this

Really.. weird , if still threanting, deisgn aside, Feldrake now at full power turns new quackmore into the psycadelic starry battlefield we saw in the intro to the series and thus the final battle begins. We see the fight from the start.. but it’s now even MORE beautiful and glorious with context. Before we saw three strangers, if ones we knew from other works fighting some evil we never met. Now we’ve seen our heroes grow, both as people, and as heroes, learning from every encounter, getting stronger with every fight and slowly getting noticably more compitent: going from falling all over themselves just to work a ship, to defeating dragons, tengu, and other horrors as a team. And we’ve seen jus thow petty and cruel feldrake is.. and how serious the stakes are and what our heroes tand to loose should they fail. It’s not perfect.. we could stand to loose daisy and new quackmore dosen’t mean much, though Sheldgoose gets to zap regina into a worm, but it’s still AWESOME and feels like a tremendous payoff and Donald’s predator bro fist thing with Panchito has more weight. Our heroes have risen to their peak and now they face one last obstacle to becoming legends. The fight is fluid, awesome and gorgeously animated and utterly epic in every sense of the word and we catch up to their seeming defeat.. only for something we DIDN’T know about last time to help.. Xandra who gets htem out of the way. It’s a long and fantastic fight, with our heroes eventaully getting knocked over to a pool while Xandra tries her best to hold feldrake off, but is clearly wearing down despite doing her best.

Yeah while itw as established Feldrake was melting down the amulets and we saw a pool of resdiual magic, so teh magical pool of stuff the cabs find them at WAS set up.. but what happens next remotely wasn’t. The cabs fall in and commuincate with blazebeak the creator of the amulets who embues them with their power. Where he came from, why he’s just showing up n ow.. I dunno, it comes off as a really badly setup deus ex machina.. but it still dosen’t hurt the finale that bad. A little yes, as everything else is so well paced and feels like so much payoff.. but the awesomeness of our heroes glowing with their signture colors, rushing in to save xandra and then ari, who swiped the rest of the magic goop, giving it to xandra to reivvie her.. overrides it. Sometiems somethings too stupid to be awesome.. and sometimes it’s so awesome it overides common sense. So yeah poorly set up yes.. still fucking awesome also yes.

Our heroes tear feldrake apart and realize once they see the now empty staff floating in the void they can simply reseal him. Sheldgoose interupts it.. but the nieces arrive riding on humphrey and knock him inot a golden toilet... again I fucking love this job. Our heroes then try ghost bustering him back into the staff and SHeldgoose tries saving him by breaking it. And it seemingly fails.. new quackmore is restored, Sheldrake’s gone and the town remembered EVERYTHING, cheering at their new heroes and saviors. Sheldgoose finds the staff gone and bemoans his lost master.. and soon looses his presidency as regina strips him of it. With his own powers gone Sheldgoose flees on Leopold, and while Regina tries to take the presdiency for herself.. the girls reveal the document explains if a sheldgoose is absent.. a coot takes his place. And since Donald is the only remaning coot apart from Della and she’s busy actually raising her kids in this continuity apparently, Donald is the new president. While Regina vows to beat him in an election.. our heroes are now happy, with the lawyer from the first episode backing Donald’s claim up. So Donald now has a new job, a new purpose in life, his girlfriend back, which is negiably a good thing, and a new family he dearly loves and tells them as much. Awww. Also he gets the mansion, which our heroes promptly plan to move into. Donald and Daisy fight, of fucking course, our heroes claim roms and Xandra and Jose share a moment. The series gets a truly satsifyign and happy ending.. and a sequel hook as it turns out feldrake is now in sheldgooses body and the tow are going ot have to share it as Sheldgoose has leopold take them to a house with legs.. so the baba yaga then. Sadly we’ll probably never see with this leads.. and this is the end.

Final Thoughts on the finale two parter: While the first half is a bit weak in the yeti stuff, the rest of it is incredibly strong and Sheldgoose Square Danc,e while having the worst name of the series.. is easily it’s best episode, tying everythign together greatly and being one, tense and epic finale the whole way through. A true masterpiece and a clear sign the series would be even BETTER going forward had it actually been allowed to live and a true shame.. but even with the sequel hooks aside.. it’s still an utterly sastifying, joyous note to go out on and i’m GLAD I saved this one for last, as it provided a great capper for both the series and this retrospective.

Final thoughts on Legend of the Three Cablleros:

This series.. was excellent. While at first I wasn’t sure it’s rep was warranted, as the first three episodes were good but had flaws and four and five were not great.. everything after that is sublime. The series has it’s flaws, the character devlopment is uneven, the characters can be made into caractures of themselves once in a while and the writing on Daisy is horrid and i’ve said enough on that to last me a lifetime and is easily the worst part of an otherwise fantastic show. But yeah.. as I said OTHERWISE fantastic, as while the daisy stuff is very bad, it’s for the most part in the background of a VERY good show with great voice acting, fun pacing, and beautiful animation. It’s a loveletter to clasic disney animation, holding tons of mythology gags and refrences and having humphrey as a main character, but with unquie touches like letting the nieces have a starring roll and everything about xandra and sheldgoose. It’s a unique, wonderful and awesome addition to the disney animated canon and deserves a second season or some other sort of revivial. This was a wonderful note to go out on and I’m throughly glad I finally watched it. So with this the Ride of the Three Cablleros is almost over.. but come back, let’s say next week, for one last party as we count down the top 12 cabs moments and celebrate these happy chappies in matching serapes one last time. Until then.. it’s been a pleasure.. and Kevin.. thank you.

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madame-fouquet · 3 years

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2020 Anime Retrospective

With the end of the year here, and all the anime that came with it now behind us, I feel like looking back and reminiscing on it. So, following the style of ANN's own yearly retrospectives, may I present my 2020 anime in review! Enjoy.

Best of the year: Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken

This is actually not the first time Yuasa and his crew of, let's be honest, visionaries have rolled something special out right at the beginning of the year in some weird power move against everything else that has to follow it. They did it back in 2018 with Devilman Crybaby, and then they hit us this year with Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken. You ever have one of those shows where you're just constantly in awe of everything it does? Where you never found yourself chasing merch or hunting after content based off it online, but you consistently find yourself thinking about it? Yeah, that's what Eizouken did to my brain after I watched it. It was such an earnest love letter to anime and anime production, to animation in general, that I couldn't help but get sucked into its imagination and enthusiasm. The way it was able to so perfectly illustrate that pure, boundless, childlike joy that one can derive from the simple act of creating, I'd be lying if I didn't say that it had a powerful effect on my own desire to continue creating. (Corny as that sounds, it's true.) The sheer amount of love it contains, and the equal amount it puts out into the world make it so I know I am going to be thinking about it again and again for a long long time.

Runner-up: Akudama Drive

I don't know if it's really quite a matter of my two favorites being opposites, but there are definitely some pretty sharp stylistic and tonal differences between my two top shows this year. Akudama Drive's cocaine-fueled bender of an intro episode made it very clear what it's intentions were and what it wanted us to be prepared for. That doesn't mean I had ANY idea of where it was headed narratively, but I did know I was in for one hell of a ride. And it delivered is spades on that promise. The twists and turns, no matter how insane, illogical, or steeped in tropes they were, were all such a colorful energetic spectacle that it would be hard to hold anything against the series. Every character was such a force that I didn't really consider any of them a weak point. Yeah, some of them were more or less cardboard cut-outs of antagonistic elements, but when the cardboard cutout looks REALLY FREAKING COOL, it's hard to get too torn up over the details. It's a show that oozes style and knew EXACTLY what it wanted to do and be, and I have to respect that.

Runner-up-up: Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun

The next few entries aren't really in any sort of order, I actually found it near impossible to sort anything below my top two. Hanako-kun however does hold a bit of a special place for me though because, at least from a stylistic standpoint, it hits so many of my buttons. Just visually this show is the exact kind of thing my younger self would have latched onto immediately, even before knowing anything about the actual content. I suppose not much has really changed though. I'm absolutely in love with the animation style of Hanako-kun, and I got really lucky that there is an interesting story and delightful cast of characters underneath that visual splendor. Along with the sharp lines, intense colors, and soft characters, I'm also a sucker for contemporary supernatural mysteries. That's a fancy way of saying one of my favorite shows as a kid was The X-files, but both make the point pretty well. The world of Hanako-kun has a lot to offer, and I can only hope it gets a second season so we can continue to delve into it's beautiful and terrifying mysteries.

Runner-up-up: Kaguya-sama: Love is War Season 2

I know a lot of people will be talking about this one when it comes to “Best of” lists. I know a lot of people were talking about the first season when it reminded us just how funny anime can be back in 2018. Absurd high school comedies (Is that a genre?) could definitely be considered my favorite. Hell, of my top five favorite anime of all time, THREE of them fall under that category. So believe me when I say Kaguya-sama absolutely deserves the deluge of praise it receives. For what describing something as “laugh out loud” is worth, this show had me constantly needing to pause it just so I could finish laughing at whatever ludicrously funny misfortune had just befallen it's cast of lovable morons. The thing is though, Kaguya-sama understands that you can't just earn love and goodwill on laughs alone, there needs to be a beating heart at the center of all the shenanigans. And when this season had me actually cheering on and feeling sorry for Ishigami of all people, I knew that beating heart was present and accounted for. Look, the cast are all self-centered idiots, but I'll be damned if they aren't also my dear children who I delight in watching slowly grow and become slightly less self-centered idiots.

Runner-up-up: Dorohedoro

When the Dorohedoro anime was first announced, a lot of my experience was watching a group of people online scream about how they were so pumped that it was finally getting an anime. I had never heard of it before, but the excitement was very real and tangible. And I gotta say, sometimes you need to believe the hype. I've never been one to shirk a series just because it was CG animation, (Watch ID-0 dammit!) but Dorohedoro makes a strong case for why people shouldn't sleep on something based solely on it's animation. The dirty, grease-encrusted world of Hole is brought to life with plenty of flair and style that, I feel, the CG didn't hold back at all. What I had seen said was that for a long time Dorohedoro was kinda considered “unanimateable” but I think MAPPA did the iconic manga a fair amount of justice. Even if pulpy ultra-violence isn't normally your thing, I still highly recommend giving Dorohedoro a look, it might just end up being a hole worth going down.

Honorable Mention: Show By Rock!! Mashumairesh!!

I know what you're thinking, but hear me out. The first Show By Rock!! was definitely an indulgence for me. While not something I considered a high level series by any stretch: messy plotting, shallow characters, a weird isekai angle, a lackluster finale, and an even MORE lackluster second season, it still got is hooks into me with its sheer energy and fluffy charm. So despite the, as mentioned, rough second season, I was more than happy to check out the new series in the franchise. And boy was I glad I did. Mashumairesh!! takes all the heart and sweetness that worked for the first series and dials it up. It then took a hard look at a lot of what DIDN'T work in the first series, and manages to fix most of the issues. Removing the isekai angle and the whole existential threat thing, and just letting the series be a “slice-of-life but in an electric animal filled music world” did wonders for the direction and consistency. Add to that more properly fleshed out characters, and you get a series that is far stronger than it's progenitor. The next series, Show By Rock!! Stars!!, will be adding back the cast from the first series, and that could very well be a sign that it will be falling back into its old habits, but the presence of the Mahumairesh!! girls gives me hope that it might have a chance of staying the new, far better course.

Worst of the Year: Digimon Adventure:

This one really hurts to say. What hurt more was how quickly I knew what show I'd be electing for this position. One thing to clarify is that I would not nominate a series that I'd only watched one or two episodes of, that's just not fair. So the award was bound to go to something I had at least dedicated a decent amount of my time too. And in any other year this may have gone to something that was more my “least favorite” or had an ending that disappointed me. But unfortunately I have to be honest and sit here and tell you that the newest entry in the Digimon franchise was easily the worst thing I watched this year. I have been a long time Digimon fan. Ever since I was but a wee lass watching the original Digimon Adventure premiere on Fox Kids at a family reunion, I have always considered the franchise a sort of cornerstone of my anime fandom. So please understand the excitement I had felt when I found out they were doing a full on remake of that flagship series. Imagine how absolutely pumped I was when the bombastic movie-like premiere of Digimon Adventure: wowed us with everything it delivered, and all the promises of what was to come. And then imagine my disappointment, my despair as the show devolved until it showed us what it really was during the finale of the Fake Tokyo arc. I would call it a production meltdown, but considering the precedent that got set back in episode 10 during the already shaky Ultimate Evolution arc, has been so clearly informing everything up to the current episodes in the early 30s, I have to be honest with myself and admit: this is what we were going to get all along from day one. All of the heart that had made the original series so endearing, despite its own flaws, just isn't present here. What you get here is just a non-stop (and I mean non-stop) string of barely related fights with poorly-defined stakes, or sometimes no real stakes at all. It's just one ugly set piece fight after another as the children chase after vaguely implied evils. I think the most damning thing is how much more I could say about just how much this series has let me down. Like I said, this one hurts.

Best Theme-Song of the Year: Night Running (BNA)

My opinion of BNA as a series is complex. But my opinion of its ED, Night Running, is simple: Its a god-damned bop! I could spend this whole section talking about the artistry of the ED animation itself, its fun and creative use of color, the slight variations for certain episodes, the focus on character, or the fact that it was done by an American animation team. I could even talk about the song's importance to the series as a whole and its place in the narrative. I won't though. The fact of the matter is that even without all that, I STILL probably would've picked Night Running as my best of the year because as a song it is just that much my jam. This is the kind of shit I could listen to on repeat for hours, days, weeks, and still keep coming back to it. Don't get me wrong, Ready To is a damn powerful and catchy tune that goes hard, but at the end of the day, I'm a sucker for a soulful pop tune like Night Running. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWTFfEnMCCc

Best Character: Sayaka Kanamori

This was actually probably the hardest category for me to decide on. It was stuck hard between Eizoken's Kanamori and Akudama Drive's Doctor. I know those are a powerfully different pair in basically every way, but it was specifically for their startling differences that both characters stuck out to me so much. In the end though, it was the poignant rounding out of, and emotional hooks of Kanamori's character that let her triumph over her delightfully two-dimensional opposition. Kanamori already had me from episode one. In a show that I wasn't really worried about the usual diversions of anime ingestion like picking a favorite character, Kanamori sealed herself as “Best-girl” from the word go. I have mad respect for a girl who knows what she wants, and has a clear idea of how she's going to go about getting it (See also: Doctor.) But Kanamori was more than a driving desire for success and money. Underneath her unstoppable ambition there was a very real, very relatable driving impetus. She stood apart, and yet still believably vulnerable and invested in the people she associated with. It was always a blast watching her suffer as the only thing keeping the more creative minds on track, and yet she was never reduced to a simple task master; her love and respect for her friends was always clearly visible. I could go on and on about how Kanamori is a nearly perfect character, but I hope I've said enough already without having to resort to senseless rambling.

Best Moment: Howan confesses her feeling to Himeko (Show By Rock!! Mashumairesh!!)

By the time episode six rolled around, Mashumairesh!! had already shown marked improvements over its progenitor in basically every area. Not only was the story in a better place by focusing on what had worked in the original series, (Ya know the BAND part of this show about bands) but the cast was also doing a good job of standing out from their seniors and feeling more equally rounded out. Where the original series had just kinda been the Cyan show with guest stars, I felt like I had an actual grip on all four of the main girls now. There were however the usual issues that come with a cute-girls-doing-cute-things series, chief among them the “ambiguously gay member of the group who constantly reacts with clear romantic interest towards the main protagonist but the writing will never actually do anything with those feelings” trope. Retoree had spent the better part of the first two seasons fawning over Cyan only for nothing to come of it and, despite the increased focus on all of the girls this time around, it looked like we were going to get the same old song and dance with Himeko's feelings towards Howan. But then the climax of episode six hit and, midst a really intense subplot about Himeko's abandonment complex, Howan comes out with a straight up love confession. And I kept waiting for the usual dead-ends these moments always seem to have. The “I love you! I love the girls too! I love the band!” Or a “I love being with you.” and the dreaded, “I love having you as my most precious friend.” But none of that happened. It was a full on heart-felt, “I love you, Himeko. I want to stay with you forever!” I'm just not used to getting that sort of straightforwardness from my silly little band shows, so I was shocked, but also completely overjoyed. And frankly the series just kept getting better from there. The evolution of their relationship built off that moment, no dreaded resetting of the status quo. I daresay it was on the power of this moment alone that I wanted to include this series in my top five at all. If there was anything I would want other anime to take from Mashumairesh!! it's that it's okay to introduce radical changes to character relationships partway through a season, and it's okay to let characters unequivocally state their feelings for each other. People will respond positively to that earnestness, I promise.

#anime #keep your hands off eizouken!#sayaka kanamori #akudama drive #toilet-bound hanako-kun #kaguya sama wo kataritai #kaguya-sama love is war #dorohedoro #show by rock #show by rock mashumairesh!!#howan #mashima himeko #digimon #digimon adventure:#BNA #Brand New Animal #Night Running

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