Agrippa

My Apologies (Again) and a Bit of Oversharing

So, I already told you that last week my output was lower than usual due to some family matters. This week, I struggled to get past them and managed to barely finish two more or less okayish chapters of Wake-up Call and All Right! Fine! I Will Take You!

That wasn’t the plan.

I wanted to have the next chapter of Ginosko done already, and I wanted to fit a third Periodical Cicadas update this month, but… Well, here comes the oversharing part. You’ve been warned. Please, do not...

All Right! Fine! I Will Take You! – Chapter 59

Callbacks.

The power of callbacks is a subtle one and not within reach of every series. You can’t call back to something that isn’t there, so you need to establish things properly and in a way that’s memorable enough to stick in the audience’s mind.

A classic example would be something related to a rivalry (that pillar of shounen manga since people decided that wearing spotted, yellow and black bandanas was a good fashion statement) and how an exchange of attacks is someth...

Wake-up Call – Chapter 62 – Danny Hebert Sympathizes

“You owe me, Danny,” Lisa says, glaring at me with… far less energy than I know she can gather.

Behind her, a woman who’s uncomfortably attractive while still looking like my daughter’s girlfriend and partner-in-not-quite-crime bites her lip in something contrite that would make most men try to at least pretend to be chivalrous.

I’m not most men.

But… Old habits die hard.

“I… I’m not sure what it is that you want me to do,” I tell Lisa while shift...

Periodical Cicadas – Chapter 9

“How are things going at school?” Dad asks after minutes of silence only broken by chewing noises over a breakfast table that is unpractically bigger than what we used to have.

I…

I look at him.

He’s trying to smile, white teeth gleaming like the tiles beneath the cupboard behind him, as he makes an effort to seem… approachable? I think?

And a part of me wants to lash out. Another wants to tell him about yesterday. Another wants to desperately hide...

My Apologies

I wanted to do quite a lot over this week that still hasn't been done, such as the next Periodical Cicadas (which has involved me taking a long, hard look at the outdated outline), the next Ginosko (to be published on Monday), and as much of the She-Ra one-shot as I could manage. Sadly, yesterday I got some family news that will force me to take care of a couple of things. Finishing Periodical Cicada's next chapter and Ginosko are still very much something I intend to do, but I can't guarante...

All Right! Fine! I Will Take You! – Chapter 58

There’s a power that all shounen protagonists share, the real key behind their ability to escalate, to go beyond, to surpass any and all threats, and reach a realm above that of their fellow manly men who are sometimes women, or men who cry a lot while still remaining manly, or men who are alternatively manly and become surprisingly beloved by the audience despite their introduction involving creepily licking the main character whilst proclaiming they tasted like a liar, an affirma...

Wake-up Call – Chapter 61

“Don’t call me that,” I say. Reflexively, harshly, unbidden.

And my biological mother stares at me in incomprehension.

“What—Sarah, what are you—”

“That. Sarah. Don’t call me that. Not anymore.”

Her arms are still tight around me, and I shrug my shoulders in discomfort until she lets me go. Then I step around her to close the door to my apartment.

Mine.

“Sarah—”

I whirl toward her, my face right in front of her, my h...

Ginosko – Chapter 6 – Magda’s Coffee Break

Patricia spoils me.

Which she can obviously afford to do, but I think she shouldn’t. I think she should stop viewing her own value only in terms of her identity as Patricia Ginosko, high executive of Ginosko Corp, millionaire, and ‘expensive.’

I think she should just realize that she is… beautiful. Not in the way she carelessly remarks as often as to feel self-deprecating, but in that she’s a good person. A beautiful soul.

That she has a soul.

I shou...

October’s Poll Winners, November’s Plan, and Thank You!

OK, this last month was… great. Just great, I have no other words for it, for how it felt to see so many new readers rush in and support me, it’s… Wow.

I’m awed, really.

It also was the month I finally managed to (partially) get over my fears of rejection and post something on Amazon, even if it didn’t show up in there until November, and I don’t think I would’ve managed if ...

All Right! Fine! I Will Take You! – Chapter 57

In one of our previous lectures on the history of anime tropes and conventions with Hachiman-sensei, we talked about the planning scene and how its most prominent and staunch defender is a certain franchise with a penchant for pissing off any major religions to have ever existed. But is that hatred really justified? Really, can anybody be offended by somebody, particularly a foreign non-believer, profusely displaying worship and deep love for their deities? Who among the faithful would turn a...

Wake-up Call – Chapter 60

In front of me, Noelle, frozen in time, stares with curiosity at the broken chassis of Bakuda’s time-stop grenade, the scattered pieces of the red metal perpetually glinting in a floating cloud of shattered light.

Sometimes I wonder how that works. How the light can keep on shining when it shouldn’t exit the area of effect, much less enter and go back to us. How is it that I can see anything other than a blob of vantablack darkness, yet the same doesn’t happen with a pe...

“You Can Leave Your Mask On” is now on Amazon!

OK, yesterday I told you that I was kinda bummed that, after rushing it as hard as I could without the quality (hopefully) suffering, the short story You Can Leave Your Mask On wouldn’t be available on Amazon for the Halloween mini-event I was trying to offer you. As it turns out, Amazon must be wise to my ways and delayed a single day.

Here it is: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BL43KRY5

My last attempt to...

Periodical Cicadas – Chapter 8

Do you know what I never expected I would have to deal with once I set on being a superhero?

Prank calls.

“Look, if you’re gonna try and convince me that you’re the Tinker murdering people for shits and giggles, maybe do something more impressive than using a gag voice garbler from the closest dollar store you could find. Fuck off,” I say.

And hang up.

Nervously, I stare at the phone in my hand. It sounds once again after just two seconds.

I think. Note t...

You Can Leave Your Mask On [Complete]

The 31st of October has a lot of names. Hallowe

A Pure Knight’s Natural Enemy – Chapter 7

I have already talked at length about companion quests and why they are so important to make one feel attached to the bundle of pixels displaying more character and focused goals than most people you’ll ever meet outside of an eroge release queue.

(I never claimed it was good character, but the point stands.)

Anyway, those companion quests are part of a greater whole: the party system. Most RPGs worth their name have more available characters than party slots...

All Right! Fine! I Will Take You! – Chapter 56

It is said that history repeats itself. If that is the case, then anime is history.

The rival who struggles to catch up to the oblivious shounen protagonist, only to briefly surpass him as a prelude to the latest bullshit power-up? The main girl who’s about to realize her ‘true’ feelings only for the male lead to do something so boneheadedly stupid that the tsundere is reluctantly forced to go back to the harshest possible tsun setting just to preserve the dredges of her remaining...

Wake-up Call – Chapter 59

There’s a weird thing about superheroes. I mean, other than the sexualized costumes, the ‘no guns allowed unless a gun is your whole thing’ rule, the ‘no killing allowed unless killing is your whole thin—with an exception clause for the gun thing’ other rule, and the alarming propensity toward child labor. Yeah, those things aren’t concerning or alarming at all. Just staples of the genre.

Even when the genre is actual people.

That includes me.

… Ugh, I feel d...

October's Plot Bunnies Poll

It’s this time of the month again, the one when I offer you all (some) of the plots brewing up in my lemming-like brain that’s too proud to admit I already have too many ongoing projects.

So, choose what new challenge to impose on him until he learns not to taunt me with more ideas. Really, it’s for his own good.

Also, hopefully, your enjoyment.

(As usual, the poll is multi-choice. Because if I can hesitate and dither on what’s my favorite thing to tackle, s...

Puella Monstrum Madoka Moecha – Chapter – 9 – Teenage Territorial Futa Lesbians

Sayaka – Thieving Cats Should Watch Their Hands

OK, calm down, Sayaka. All of this has a perfectly reasonable explanation. There’s no need to make a scene. Madoka, Hitomi, the new girl, and you are just gonna have a nice, peaceful talk while eating lunch in the sacrosanct privacy of the school’s rooftop. Everything can be peacefully resolved.

As soon as the damn intruder stops holding Madoka’s hand!

That bitch!

“Say...

All Right! Fine! I Will Take You! – Chapter 55 – Iroha Is a Worried Girlfriend

I let him trick me.

Again.

Because, let’s face it, taking up the Student Council President position? Playing to his tune and taking the damn job? That… That was…

That was dumb. Like, so dumb.

I knew what he was doing! He told me to my face! And I still fell for it, hook, line, and sinker!

I would like to claim that at least it was cunning on my part, seeing how I keep roping him into helping me with any of the annoying ch...

Wake-up Call – Chapter 58

“So… why the Machine Army?” Taylor asks, apparently disinterested as she sits on the hotel’s bed with me on her lap, my back against her slight bust, her uninjured arm around my waist, and her lips on my hair.

And I panic.

“I mean, by mere process of elimination—”

“Liz, you just told me about Ellisburg and the Machine Army and then off-handedly remarked that the other zones are not something the public knows about,” she says, thin lips breathing ...

Bad Girl Guidance, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Sitch [Complete]

Disclaimer: So that this story fits inside of Patreon’s Community Guidelines, it’s been revised so that it occurs in an AU where all the characters are legal adults. This includes the characters not involved in sexual events. Everybody is an adult, without a single exception. Sorry about the inconvenience.

Being a supervillain is one of those things most people can’t wrap their heads around: no fixed salary, irregular hour...

Schedule Update

OK, it’s clear my trying to have a detailed weekly schedule, while good at making me stress myself out at every approaching deadline and making you in turn be perpetually disappointed at the false expectations I kept setting up, isn’t quite working in the way I intended. Starting this month, I think what I’ll do is announce the things that need to be written and maybe post a poll from time to time to prioritize.

This also means that, from now on, Wake-up Call and All Right! Fine! ...

Puella Monstrum Madoka Moecha – Chapter – 8 – Mami Tomoe’s Very Special Day – Part 1

Oriko – All According to Keikaku (Keikaku Means “Nookie”)

Komaki is taking a shower.

She’s… She’s weirdly punctilious like that. She may be utterly exhausted, barely able to lift her head off my breasts, but as soon as she can drag herself away from the bed, she will go straight to the bathroom.

It’s not even about hygiene, because she then will come right back and drop on top of Kirika’s and my own still sweaty (among other things) ...

All Right! Fine! I Will Take You! – Chapter 54

There’s been talk in recent years about how otaku culture is a dark mirror on which Japan’s most regressive views are often showcased. Despite our fascination with blond foreigners (or darker ones, among certain connoisseurs of the NTR tag), it’s clear that our social mores are anchored in a nostalgic past when everything had its proper place. When it comes to Japan’s political climate, it’s not so much that we are prone to conservatism but that we would rather like to ge...

Wake-up Call – Chapter 57

“Are you really comfortable with those?” Taylor asks as she points to my shoes with the hand not resting on a sling.

My white kitten heel shoes.

Sinking into the lush, pistachio carpet of our hotel room with vistas to the sea.

…

Look, I may or not have expectations about how a date between Taylor and me goes, and I may as well flex my financial muscles to provide the best environment for the activities ahead.

“I’m actually a bit more...

Of Sisters and Shadows – Chapter 8

Sometimes, when you bring your non-blood related sister with pseudo-incestual feelings for you home, you… ponder things.

Things such as: am I OK with our kissing escalating and becoming more and more frequent? Has she deliberately changed her body enough that I will be able to dissociate the current Amy from the one I grew up with? Will Mom kill herself, Amy, me, or all of the above as soon as she finds out what we’ve been doing and will likely continue to do? And how doe...

All Right! Fine! I’ll Take You! – Yui’s Lily Garden – Chapter 8

She’s…

OK, OK, Yui, you can handle this, whatever this is supposed to be. It’s not like you’ve been holding back from pushing Yukinon down, tearing her clothes off, and making her scream in a continuous, never-ending climax until she collapses breathlessly beneath you since Hikky had the bright idea of putting you in charge of a Yukinoshita’s mental health.

Not at all.

… My vengeance upon him shall be swift, terrible, and likely invol...

First Milestone Reached! €500 Monthly!

Thank you, everyone! I can’t even begin to tell you how grateful I am for your continued support and making this possible! I’ve still got a lot of work to do, and I’ll keep taking as many commissions as I can manage (that is: the current amount), but it is an amazing feeling that we’re finally at this point.

I hope to keep bringing you at least an ounce of the warm feelings you give me just by being here. Again, thank you. I’ll do my best to live up to your generosity and trus...

All Right! Fine! I Will Take You! – Chapter 53

In this introductory series about manga, anime, games, and other ways for Japan to decrease its birthrate, we’ve already talked about the ball as a scene that is a staple of romance in plenty of settings, many of which shouldn’t even have any kind of ball, seeing as Japanese high schoolers rarely attend high society events and we don’t tend to have that thing Americans do where people are forced to dance with one another as if teenagers both know how to not look like they are...