halfcactus

With thanks to past!me for taking the time to jot notes on my journal. Otherwise I would have no way of differentiating my 4894664 otome isekai webtoons.
( journal photos )

Books

Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God (tr. Anita Barrows, Joanna Macy)
Rita Dove, "Playlist for the Apocalypse"

Movies

Wicked (2024)
Look Back (2024)

Comics

Komomo Confiserie

Short shoujo manga about a pampered heiress who is forced to find a job and learn to live on her own while her family is sorting out a financial crisis. The MC is a vibrant and confident protagonist who embraces the chance to grow as a person, handles conflicts (and bullying) gracefully, and breaks out into professional renditions of Lacrimosa when anyone in her life is in need of comfort. The ML is sweet but sort of just there to help her attain her independence. The best parts are in the middle which highlight my favorite shoujo friendship dynamic: the spunky FL and her loud, tsundere best friend.

An Incompetent Woman Wants to be a Villainess (ongoing)

Proxy bride story where the FL is very Pure and Cute and Doing Her Best to act like her wicked half-sister whose place she's taking. No one is fooled, but she tries so hard they just go along with it and praise her villainy. Super cute and fluffy.

Like Wind on a Dry Branch (ongoing)
Saving My Sweetheart (a.k.a. A Way to Protect the Lovable You)
The Tyrant's Only Perfumer
廚廚動人 U Kill, I Cook (a.k.a. Kitchen Goddess and Assassin)

Villainess in Love

A good hurt/comfort fantasy canon where the FL, Yunifer, is mature and comfortable with her sexuality, and the ML's trauma is taken seriously. The first chapter timeskips the whole part where Yunifer's just transmigrated and is trying to avoid the main characters, instead landing us straight into a drunken and ill-advised one-night stand with the ML. The manhwa left a lot of loose ends which I hope are tied well in the original novel, but this was otherwise a solid romance fantasy with a less boilerplate setting and some worldbuilding of its own. The ship dynamic is cool and mature older FL x codependent yandere puppy ML, which does not feel as romantic on Yunifer's end since she's also trying to help him be more well-adjusted, but it's appropriately sweet. And there's a beautiful gigantic bird character who always steals the show whenever she's onscreen.

The Villainess is Retiring (ongoing; not sure I'll continue when S3 comes out)

Transmigration with strings attached, with the MC as a reluctant/inadvertent hero. The MC just wants to retire in the mountains but when she summons a demon to light up some unburnable wood, she gets cast into the role of magical problem-solving and leadership. S1 was pretty great (somewhat comparable to Lout of the Count's Family, from what little I've read of it), but in S2 the character writing takes a step back and the power imbalance between the MC and her devoted demon servant felt starkly worse. PS. The outfits for this webtoon are so nonsensical.

Why Raeliana Ended Up at the Duke's Mansion

Isekai with a price. This is an enjoyable self-contained romance-fantasy with fake dating and mystery elements, though some of the episodes in the latter half fall into the "plot in service of romantic moments" category, something I wouldn't have minded if they let the hurt/comfort potential marinate a little.

The MC has a strong sense of personality, her own set of pecularities, and is unafraid of getting her hands dirty. The transmigration plot is a puzzle that's meant to be solved and resolved, with the MC having to come clean about who she is and where she came from, which is probably what made the romance more believable for me. Probably not that memorable in the long run, but it was an 8/10 binge with some interesting twists for me.

TV

Link Click cdrama

Mostly enjoyable for the songs and the opera troupe case and the scene in the end which shows the gang with their donghua looks! Bold of them to save that for after the Worst Story Arc I've Ever Seen in a Cdrama (a.k.a the MRA case). The last case was kind of okay but, like most of the cases, overly long. I ended up enjoying the siscon because at least it felt so bizarre it gave the story some flavor and it was amusing to see the actor leaning into it. XD The boys' dynamic was actually pretty good (I loved the conflict), but Qiao Ling was, sad to say, paper-thin and awful.

I've been on a massive shoujo/josei kick, and the dissatisfaction of reading purely for the distraction and instant gratification is finally setting in. I don't think I'm built for inhaling a stream of media back-to-back and at a breakneck pace. I can actually feel my brain rotting haha.

Wake Up, Sleeping Beauty: modern-day, romance, paranormal + found family
Manga by Morino Megumi (English translation: Kodansha)

I would describe this as "DID, but paranormal". Not sure if I liked it (I sure am not a fan of the main romance and the way the physical abuse is mostly just there to ramp up drama), but it's short, has an interesting twist towards the end and some very touching found family beats. I was bawling my eyes out in the last chapters. I found it refreshing that the ML is the maid in this scenario--he's a poor student who does domestic labor in order to support his family, good at taking care of people, and great with kids.

CW: mental illness-related trauma--the FL is imprisoned at home, has been forced to stay in facilities that did not help her, and it's implied that she sometimes endures physical assault so she "resets" to her main personality state.

Namidaame to Serenade (ongoing): time travel, historical - Meiji era, romance, adventure, crime, mystery
Manga by Kawachi Haruka

I mainly picked this up because it was giving me 2000s vibes, but I wasn't expecting it to get so dark.

This is a time travel romance adventure with MULTIPLE fake identity storylines that starts as a wild goose chase for a necklace—the item that the FL needs to travel back to the modern day—and then spins out into a whirlwind of interlocking conspiracies, with increasingly complex secondary characters. While the main characters and pairings aren't of particular interest, I did really enjoy the strength of their emotions, the intimate yearnings, and the overall writing.

The standout characters are definitely the 2ML and the relationships among the literal circus that he works with. The drama! The messy and problematic dynamics! The twists! The way everyone teeters between betrayal and personal loyalty! Most recently they've been building up Chiyo and Tenshin's relationship and I'm very much seated for that.

Manga is ongoing and only available as fantranslation. It looks like the finish line is in sight since they've gotten a lot of the major reveals out of the way, but the events in the past timeline still need a bit of a push...

CW: drugs, prostitution, human + child trafficking

Hello, I'm a Witch and My Crush Wants Me to Make a Love Potion!: fantasy, romance, fluff
Light novels by Mutsuhana Eiko (translated by Charis Messier / Cross Infinite World), with manga adaptation (translated by Alethea Nibley / Yen Press)

What it says on the tin: cute and fluffy fantasy romcom, and one where the ML is actually more fun and interesting than the MC because the ML at least has a consistent personality and is unafraid of punishing bad children. The MC is very inoffensively cute, but horribly undercooked as a character. We know that she "loves" the ML for the bare minimum of human decency, but she also has like... zero interactions, relationships, or emotions for anyone else. There's a traveling merchant who treats her as family (and is Viet-coded, which is really cool to see in a manga!), but the MC doesn't really have any feelings about that. Neither does MC have any feelings for her mother who died when she was super young or her grandmother who raised her and taught her all the recipes, though it is very sweet (and funny) whenever she compares the ML to her grandma. Otherwise, the ML cares more about these family figures more than the MC ever does.

The series benefits a lot from being short enough to hide the writer's weaknesses; the manga covers only volume 1 of the light novel and is more enjoyable for it since volume 2 kinda sucks. We do get some moments of the MC yearning for a grandma figure in volume 2, as well as confirmation that the MC had been decaying with depression after her grandma died, but all of the characters come out flatter with a plot forced in.

tl;dr - enjoyable as a manga (dialogue flows better too); the light novels don't add anything

Matcha Made in Heaven (DNF): modern-day, josei, romance
Manga by: Yamanaka Umebachi (English translation: Kodansha)

Created by the mangaka of Ossan's Love, which I haven't consumed in any form.

DNF. This is so bad and not even in a fun way!!! I should have followed my instincts and bailed the moment they introduced a calculatedly daughter-shaped character (designed to bring the leads together, of course).

Everything you learn about the FL at the beginning--that she is a yoga(?) instructor and wants her career to be respected, that she hates society's patriarchal and misogynistic culture, that she had a traumatic previous relationship, and that she grew up in a tea farm, is all irrelevant. At some point homegirl (who I reiterate was a fitness instructor before she moved back to the countryside) gets muscle cramps from doing physical labor at the farm and the ML has to come save her because she doesn't know how to deal with it. And her traumatic relationship backstory mostly functions as an excuse for her to... pass out aesthetically in the ML's arms. There's no indication that it affects her life in any other way, once the basic romantic setup is established.

As for the ML, he's a highly competent tea nerd, and to his credit he looks the part, but he has no business dating anyone, considering he is, what, 30-something years old? But never communicates anything or honors commitments to either his daughter figure or his business partner/girlfriend when those personal obligations become less convenient.

I'm the Villainess, So I'm Taming the Final Boss: transmigration, otome game, fantasy, romance
Light novel by Nagase Sarasa / Manga by Murasaki Mai

Your typical wish-fulfillment transmigration romcom where a minor villainess has to romance the villain to survive, but the villain is not that bad, actually! Once again a generic European setting with fantasy elements. The FL is a highly competent noblewoman who has been jilted by the prince, while the ML is kind of a Disney princess and his magic can do all the things but he's also a demon king and a yandere.

The manga was short, only around 3 volumes? Again, the shortness is what makes it readable, since the art is pretty but the writing and plotting feel largely inconsistent... And one can see the creator's classist/colorist biases in the portrayal of Beelzebuth. AND there's this weird slavery storyline* that one is only able to glaze their eyes over because it then crashes into an attempted rape storyline.

There's an anime adaptation on Netflix but it seems both terrible as an adaptation and in animation quality.

"[Character] is good because he only chose to sell demons who consented to being sold as slaves!" - They could just have focused on the part where he was a literal child that got tricked by adults into signing things...

CW: attempted rape (+ the perpetrators are gently let off just because it's standard in these kinds of stories for villains to go unpunished)

Snow White with the Red Hair (DNF): fantasy, romance
Manga by: Akizuki Sorata

DNF; I missed out on the anime for this, which means I also missed the window where I could enjoy this. XD The FL is an aspiring herbalist who's set on getting by on her own merits, and the ML is a prince. Perfectly inoffensive manga, I just wasn't in the mood.

Usotoki Rhetoric: historical, mystery
Manga by: Miyako Ritsu

A charming little shoujo manga where the FL has the ability to hear whenever anyone tells a lie, and the ML is a talented but humorously penniless detective who owes a lot of people money. I haven't gotten far enough to have any real thoughts about it, but the early chapters had a mystery-of-the-day format that was quite weak but focused enough on the FL's character growth to keep me engaged. It's only started to pick up in the doll arc, which is where I am now. The case writing isn't anything special, but the story is cute, occasionally OTT, and so far pretty gen in a way that might attract fannish feelings from me.

CW: mild horror (dolls)

I was checking to see if there was an anime adaptation and found out that there's an ongoing jdrama adaptation that just started airing in October!

Colette Decides to Die: fantasy (Greek mythology), romance
Manga by: Yukimira Alto (translated by Max Greenway / VIZ)

Plot: Colette is the overworked apothecary of a tiny mountain village. Seeking respite from her work, she jumps down the well, discovers that it's a gateway to the underworld, and is asked to treat Hades the bishounen.

In spite of the morbid title this is quite wholesome. Most importantly, in this version, Cerberus reverts to puppy form every time he's hungry, which is super cute. It appears it only just got an official translation this month and is listed as having 2 volumes so I guess we'll see what comes out first - volume 2 of the English translation, or Hades 2. XD My main takeaway is that VIZ's digital manga has a functional table of contents.

The Apothecary Diaries is a Japanese light novel with two (2!) manga adaptations and a new-ish anime adaptation, set in a fictional world (mostly) inspired by ancient China. It's a mix of mystery (focusing on the forensic aspects, as the MC is an apothecary who deals with medicine and poison), palace drama and politics, and courtesan (+ consort) romance.

PLOT: Our sixteen-year-old MC, Maomao (literally "Kitty"/"Cat"), was raised in THE most prestigious brothel house, by THE most distinguished courtesans, and trained by THE most knowledgeable apothecary. The anime begins with her being kidnapped and sold into her tenure as palace maid. This convenient combination of worldly knowledge and upbringing gives her access to all sorts of information and a perspective/skillset so unique that only she can solve the cases and see how they are linked. There are also some found family storylines, which I like, including Maomao being raised by a community and being doted on by her jiejies, and brothel workers banding together for revenge and survival.

( rambling thoughts about the anime )


Friday Five:

1) Is summer a break for you, or is it busier?
I guess pretty busy? Mainly it's brutally hot and humid.

2) What's next for your travel plans?
If nothing goes wrong, visiting friends in neighboring Asian countries and not making any decisions myself. XD Normally this would motivate me to study the local language, but I've been struggling with motivation lately. ;___;

3) What have you spontaneously done lately?
Is it spontaneous when you're peer-pressured? (I booked a one-way flight.) I guess I also bought caramel-flavored Hello Panda and regretted my spontaneity.

4) What's your favorite way to unwind after a long day?
I wallow a lot over how sad and stressed I am and before I know it I have to sleep. /o\ Typically I'd like to stretch after a long day, but a lot of the time my anxious + dysfunctional mind is a huge hurdle. ^^;

5) What's in your pockets?
Today, nothing!

Pre-CNY successes :')

✓ Donated A LOT of books (...to an Italian restaurant, of all things) and put a few up for sale...

✓ Fiiiiiinally finished 我五行缺你 (My Five Elements Lack You). No more danmei for me for a while after this lmfao. (Also taking a break from cnovels, for obvious reasons.)

✓ Swapped instant coffee for instant matcha latte (but now it's too hot for hot beverages again...)

✓ Journaled (physical) regularly through January ♥

✓ Sorted out the Philhealth thing

✓ Got my hair (bangs only lol) trimmed

✓ Changed my DW layout hehehe (credit: myrtillenne)


January was, for the most part, wearyingly productive. I feel like all the "fun stuff" I did in my free time was scheduled and rotated very rigorously in lieu of taking breaks from one or the another. ^^; A lot of the mental energy was siphoned into work (which has been very busy, problematic, and sometimes sad), decluttering and donating (especially since I tended to fit my donation trips with my other errands for ~*efficiency*~)... and basic human-ing and adulting.

Anyway... mini photodump time.


Found during a decluttering session: Tenipuri things that were gifted to me ages ago—I still use the Oishi nail clipper. :')


I need to share the tikoy cheese turon that my SiL made... We got gifted with tikoy (niangao) that was bizarrely orange in spite of being—allegedly—brown sugar flavored. The mini-turons ended up looking like crabsticks lololol


And a photo of our NYE spread because I'm pleased with how balanced and nutritious it was and how well everything went together... Also my favorite party trick of getting the fancy grapes from Unimart never fails. :P

I thiiiink I spent more time subbing things + editing videos than watching things this month, and then got burned out of wanting to do/watch anything... I was probably also frustrated with my media rotation haha.

Finished

Keigo Higashino, "Salvation of a Saint" (English translation by Alexander O. Smith)
A really good murder mystery with satisfying answers, no notes.

Lost in the Stars (movie)
Dreamwidth entry.

DNF

I Am Nobody (cdrama)
Cdrama adaptation of a donghua? manhua? novel? starring Echizen from the Tenipuri cdrama, young Shen Siyi from Dear Missy, and uh... a couple of pretty boys. Directed by the director of Crossfire too. It's basically either a long martial arts movie or a shounen anime in live action form. If you like that kind of thing, this is very good at that! However, the main character is insufferable and the live action format magnifies everything I hate about anime and webnovels aimed at boys. Even when it "subverts" expectations, the humor is still really annoying, and has that harem anime/novel vibe? Also the scene where they give Baobao a makeover was too much of character disservice and skeeviness for me in spite of its fight scene payoffs. (I might come back for Baobao's fight scenes haha)

Horimiya (anime)
A very wholesome friends-to-lovers high school anime about a popular girl who's secretly a homebody, and a quiet and unpopular boy who secretly rocks piercings and tattoos + their friends. Somehow this was too wholesome and vanilla for even me...? In any case, I got bored and wasn't into the romance or the ~domesticity~. XD I do like how the FL is the popular and confident character for a change.

Parallel World (cdrama)
Adventure-romance with Bai Yu and Ni Ni. I might still continue this because I enjoyed Ni Ni's character + performance, and I heard that there might be more ensemble/group dynamics and a chicken later on... But my track record for finishing shows is... abysmal.

I Ship My Rival X Me manhua vol8
Vol8 ended last week, and I think vol9 is the last one! The recent chapters haven't been very interesting, but I'm going to miss my boys and Yanyan's colorful reactions.

Misc

I JUST found out that Yoruneko anime is now accessible outside of Japan, AND has English subs!!! It's a very cute and funny slice-of-life anime about living with a cat. :') Eps are just a minute each, perfect for when your soul needs a little bit of healing.

Here's a compilation of eps 1-40 (no English subs):



And their episode playlist with English subs (though not all eps are accessible):

Playlist link: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL21PGVTtHmxgpTZwSrn-1QMUcbaJdnxZM

Twitter finds

MorgansGoodTime: "Oh to be a rat enjoying some soft rain" (a very lovely and soothing 20-second animation)

caldatelier: Fingerseek pages (like crossword puzzles, but with fingerspellings)

caldatelier: A comic about Filipino Sign Language and regional/personal variations (Comic is in English. A short and interesting read with useful visuals!)

cioccolato_kun: What if there's a shounen anime for Laundry Washing?

Cat Cafe: c/o superborb; mostly including so I remember what it's called haha. I'm not a boardgame person and I don't really understand what anything is for and likely never will, but it's very chill and cute. I like that boardgamearena automatically tells me my options and allows me to easily scan the other players' boards, but in retrospect, I think it would be pretty cute to draw(??) your own cats for the pen-and-paper version. (The toys might not be as fun to draw.)

I'm also trying to reread and then continue Dungeon Meshi because I forgot where I left off years ago (not very far) and it's still as fun as the first time. I love how the licensed English translation has translation notes at the end. And,,, I love,,, Marcille,,,,


( +2 more images )

I really wanted to unwind and recalibrate my mind, and thankfully there was a Calvin Klein event that Zhang Xincheng (among others) participated in. It was mostly just him promoting the product, interacting with fans, and playing unremarkable games onstage and streaming on Taobao, so I just put that on the background and did a little journaling hehe. It was nice! There were musical acts before he showed up, so it kind of felt like going to a friend's gig, hanging around the venue and doing other things while waiting for their set to start. :')

(Images hotlinked from Twitter.)




I don't actually know how to watercolor, I just followed this watercolor aurora tutorial on Youtube haha—didn't quite succeed, but it works for what I ended up using it for. :D

PS. The Niangzi Is Rio mug was a gift from umichii, and too large/heavy to drink from (unless soup), so it's a watercolor mug now hahaha.

---

I (FINALLY!!!) finished Little Mushroom novel, so I'm free from reading obligations for a while; I had some other books I was in the middle of (a Ted Chiang anthology + A Gentleman in Moscow) but I kind of lost my ability to read, oops. I found out that some manga IS actually compatible with my Kindle, and while I can't actually afford to buy several volumes in one go (which will only be a problem till I catch up on a canon), I'm still really excited to be able to read and properly look at the art in e-ink, especially since majority of my hobbies involve a heavy amount of screen time. I got the first volume of Witch Hat Atelier, and it was worth every penny. The art is beautiful and it spends a lot of time on the sigils, which is fun! The downside is that there's no Table of Contents to help you navigate through the chapters, and I can't add notes either (just unnamed bookmarks), but it's a small tradeoff to get the same visual experience (and lack of eyestrain) of a physical manga without having to own it physically.

+ Movies that are on my to-watch list (so I don't forget):

Marry My Dead Body: Taiwanese supernatural, LGBT-adjacent comedy that just came out. Might pitch this as a groupwatch (since we're on a Taiwanese media streak), but I'm still a bit tentative, haha. This one has Greg Hsu as a cop character who's forced to help a gay ghost with his unfinished business so he can reincarnate.

Before, Now, and Then: historical Indonesian movie set in 1940 and 1965, and seems to be about women. Highly recommended by dramateaque, who loves Kamila Andini's direction and has given me most of the information and warnings (...or non-warning haha; I was afraid it'd be violent) I need to hopefully proceed with watching this someday. It's kind of artsy and beautifully filmed, from the screencaps that I've seen.

Polite Society: an aartichapati rec; looks like a fun family-centric (sisters!) and high-energy comedy about a British-Pakistani teenager who does martial arts and aspires to be a stunt double.

Filipino movies that have been on my watchlist for a while: Ang Larawan (movie-musical, historical, based on a play I haven't read lmfao) and Saving Sally (romcom, animation)

April media log, with some spillover into May—I read With This Ring on the Labor Day holiday—I was sandwiched by snoring adults, and lying on top of the seam where two beds were pushed together, and couldn't sleep. 😂

Books

The Bonesetter's Daughter by Amy Tan

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


A story of intergenerational trauma between a bonesetter/oracle bone collector, an inkmaker, and a ghost writer.

I was really engaged in Ruth's PoV, the conflicts and anxieties that arose from her traumatic upbringing, and the way she personified the themes of language and ghosts and writing. I'm so glad she found answers and got closure in the end, even though I wasn't very invested in the mystery of Bao Bomu's real name. I did really enjoy the novel's relationship with language and translation, and how Ruth's struggles with the language were very specifically a product of their time and place—matching radicals to the paper dictionary + her insinuation that only old or extremely specialized people could read traditional script. 😂

I couldn't stand Art or Art's kids and couldn't forgive them for how rude they and their families were during Mid-Autumn dinner. They were old enough to know better and school their children. May they never be invited to parties or community events ever again.

I actually think Lu Ling's chapters were the weak link because they weren't paced very well, and in spite of its intentions I think it failed to convey the emotional complexity in her relationship with her sister. The non-tragic relationships, in general, didn't feel earned.

Unrelatedly, I wish I'd paid more attention to the timelines of this book, because it feels like Ruth loses her voice around ghost month?

Content notes: this book contains suicide, drug addiction, embarrassing situations caused by poor sex education, childhood sexual assault




With This Ring by Carla Kelly

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Marriage of convenience + hurt/comfort romance novel: She is the unloved eldest daughter with severe self-esteem issues and a desire to do meaningful work, while he is a wounded soldier with war trauma and men he wants to take care of.

Nothing about the novel feels remotely plausible, but it's fine, other than the completely unnecessary child acquisition storyline—it just feels too heteronormative, especially since the characters' chemistry feels more platonic than romantic to me. I think I could have rolled with it better if it had more angst for flavor. :P




Shisi, “Little Mushroom” Book 1: Judgement Day
Book 1 = book 1 of the web version (the print versions collate the first 2 books into the same volume)—I'm mostly putting this down so I remember my impressions.

I really loved the first chapter: it draws you in atmospherically and emotionally, with the right amount of mystery to make you keep reading, as the information that's filtered through An Zhe's PoV comes to you piece by piece.

The backdrop for the story is beautifully, vividly rendered, but the worldbuilding feels pretty shaky as of now (I do presume that some of my questions will be addressed later on). There's no cultural information whatsoever, but I guess this is set far enough in the apocalyptic future for cross-cultural interactions to be natural to the characters. The vaguely Western names throw me off, and I'm not very sure about what the book wants to say about Doussey (sp?). I also feel that the romance tropes disrupt the tone and flow of the story, but sometimes they're a welcome interruption from the more gruesome bits.

The action-horror chapters are very well done and give me anxiety with distressingly descriptive (but not overdone) body horror, gore, and bug-related paranoia. 🙈 Anyway, the general vibe to me right now is science fiction shounen anime/videogame with BL endgame. XD

IMO, the English translation does really well with scenery and visual details! The dialogue is a bit stilted, though. But it is very readable, and has some choices I really liked. I just feel it could use more time for polish and a few rounds of editing to smooth out the phrasing and errors (there was one particular sentence that just didn't make sense).

Current/Recent Media

4 episodes into Trigun Stampede—I never watched the original so this is all new to me! So far it's fun and it nails what it tries to achieve, but it's not what I'm looking for right now haha.

Tears of Themis: My first gacha ever. 😭 This is a free mobile otome game/gacha game, with Ace Attorney-like elements (investigation, court trials). The gameplay is very hard to enjoy because my phone is low on memory, and it keeps crashing, but it has enough variety of things to do to make you want to keep playing. The investigation parts are particularly frustrating for me, though, because I keep failing to tap the right spots, and sometimes there are clues that are lying around that you can't interact with until a bit later. I'm mostly enjoying this as a translated piece of media! I nearly had a heart attack when Luo Jinghe (Marius) first showed up as a shadowy CEO that looked and sounded exactly like Fei Du. Turns out it's the same VA as the audiodrama actor. 😂 I found myself finishing 2 cases in 2 days and then quit cold turkey because I was tired of losing my entire night to it. I'm not really interested in the plot, cases, or any of the characters (I find my boss and the psychiatrist annoying tbh), but I enjoy Rosa as a protagonist, at least.