Daphne Enjoys Some MM Art (And Tina Enjoys Some Snacks!)

Daphne

The night at the Susan Wagner Appreciation Wing of Nimlith Grove’s Royal Art Gallery has gone quite well. The Royal Portraitist got to unveil his latest masterpiece, a lovely painting of Marcie Storm in Susan cosplay, milking herself and mouth in the perfect shape for mooing. Daphne’s Beloved is too busy watching the first challenge transformation votes to be here but Tina, always looking for official excuses to break her diet, was glad to accompany the mermaid to the premiere. The bonny bunny did not generally appreciate the art, but she loves the canapés.

The two are standing before the piece, Daphne drooling, Tina with a look of annoyance. The bunny whines, “Why are her boobs so big? It’s not fair!”

“Curses from a cactus and some pervert twins. The costume was a gift from Shar to help make Marcie get through the milk production.”

Tina tenses up from the mention of Shar. She’s afraid of being suckered into doing an MM review. While Daphne was somewhat scarred by the last review (poor [REDACTED]!), she knows Cow-guy won’t steer her wrong (assuming no racist mermaid caricatures are about). The bonny bunny attempts to cast Dimension Door to escape, only to pout as the spell fizzle from Daphne’s Counterspell.

“C’mon, Tina, helping me review Shar’s second week will be fun!”

The ravishing rabbit looks skeptical, asking “How?”

“I spent an hour making so many cotton candy burritos with Time for a Restock today. All of them are yours if you help!”

“Oooh, really? And you won’t tell Josie?”

Daphne makes the zipper motion across her lips. Tina squees like a teenager and plops onto a bench. Daphne joins her, summoning the first burrito.

Tina bites into it and starts talking with her mouth full, “So, I didn’t see the first week’s review. Anything I need to know?”

Daphne summarizes the complaints within the review using a number of convenient bullet points:

• So many typos!!!!
• Leaving life saving treatments to Round One votes was too cruel
• Susan’s initial TF set was too cruel (Josie only)
• Too many breast expansion transformations (Josie only)
• Carla’s sex orientation transformation was hypocritical (“Glitterdust” only, WINK!)
• Week One Date Theme (24 hours trapped in the too spartan Suite) too restrictive
• Poor cutting around the sexy scenes (transcript only)
• Goal Post Shift (needing 300 VP to “win” now)
• Laura getting the preggers transformation makes the **** twins super gross (Josie only)
• A lack of overarching conflict leads to boredom
• Pacing issues (not enough emphasis on the dates)
• Pacing issues (10 weeks is a long time)

“Finally, to be fully transparent,” Daphne concludes her summary, “our Susan complaint was not particularly fair, as we were judging that situation based on modern expectations, where dark seasons are the exception instead of the norm. At the time of the premiere, dark seasons were much more prevalent; in that context, we would evaluate it differently. Seasons back then typically had a John Booker type, someone brought on for the express purpose of being instantly eliminated. Sparing Susan from that fate not only resulted in super sexy leaky egg sacs but displayed a relatively high level of kindness.”

Tina looks annoyed, despite chipmunk cheeks full of cotton candy burrito. “Just how big are these leaky egg sacs?”

“Q-cups?”

“BOO! No violating the Tina Rule!”

Tina uses Major Image to display said rule: “Tina is ALWAYS best in chest!”

She then shifts her illusion to make her appear as if she has T-for-Tina-cups. And then she adds a cute cow headband to fit the room’s aesthetic. Daphne shrugs and casts Alter Self to grow cute little cow horns and Q-cups for an hour.

With that, they begin to read. Or, Daphne reads aloud while Tina listens and cheats on her diet.

READING IN PROGRESS (BGM)

“The time between challenge and the proper start of the week sure feels aimless. They don’t even throw a fun party like we did. They just went shopping and then to the bar,” Tina notes.

Daphne chuckles, playing with her (temporarily larger) egg sacs, “Well, it’s a time to set up fresh character arcs, get Evie a chance to join the mix properly, and let the contestants adjust to the new transformations. It’s useful. We see Carla try to tame Kim, Stacy and Tracy being **** to room together, Gabby try to shamelessly appeal to the audience, Misty start to tackle some body image issues. The Tracy Susan ship is chugging out of port, too. Best girl Evie is a paranoid little ex-Host.”

Tina shrugs, her comically exaggerated illusionary breasts jiggling, “So, Candy date is first. What you and Josie do?”

“Focus on the date, unless something super major happens.”

Tina salutes, “Okay, cutie! So Candy date! Two chapters in and we only get one date scene? Anyways, Laura and Candy go date event shopping, where Tracy interrupts. Then, a fun sex scene after lunch!”

Daphne interrupts to quip, “Labeling the second date scene as an ‘Interlewd’ speaks poorly to the hope that the transcriber will do a better job at balancing date versus non-date scenes.”

Tina swoons, “But it was soooo romantic! They confessed their love for each other and Laura took Candy’s virginity!”

Another interruption, “Technically, she lost it in a practice session during Week One.”

“Nope,” the bonny bunny declares, “Everyone knows it doesn’t count if you call it practice! Then they go to the Rose Garden for another super romantic picnic dinner! They go to the Suite and that’s the end? I think I see what you two meant about bad pacing.”

“One date does not a pattern make, but this is actually an improvement. Week one, we basically got two scenes of date per day. Here, we got four, and two of them were much more elaborate and interesting than last week’s fodder. If this continues, I guess Josie’s lesser complaint about how relatively sparse the Suite is for locking Laura up there all week will be proven valid?”

Tina continues, “Misty date! She gives Laura a painting of Gabby as a maid. Gabby thinks that appeasing the audience with volunteer maid-ing will let her avoid a maid outfit transformation? That seems like a dumb plan. Gabby plays maid and then the three are going to watch TV.”

Daphne interjects, “A quick detour for, of all things, a ‘Carla does band practice all week’ arc moment. The show-runner picked an excellent Symphonic Metal cover of Hall of the Mountain King for the background music of the last week’s review. It completely forgot about Carla and Kim and best girl Evie basically doing the same thing. Good for it!”

“Back to the date. Gabby keeps up the maid act instead of watching TV. They have lunch, then head upstairs for sexy times. Gabby does a strip tease, then they go down for more TV! Naked maid time for Gabby helps. Then back upstairs for a 69 show and the scene ends just as a proper threesome would begin.”

Daphne jiggles her enlarged egg sacs, “Okay, now we hit the first dream intermission. These are important enough to note. We get a glimpse of Shar’s introduction as a contestant on a previous season. The Master is Steve and he is a wiener. The other contestants on screen are power suit woman A, power suit woman B, a mechanic, and Tonya Henderson. The Host is weirdly missing from the dream.”

“Hey! That’s Candy’s last name!”

Daphne pulls out another cotton candy burrito, which the buxom blonde was happy to snag. “Good job, Tina!”

Mouth full of ice cream again, Tina mumbles, “Tracy Date! The twins take Laura to a hot springs under the castle that they found. The twins sound like they are going to start dating? Really? Eww.”

Daphne shrugs, “Mermaid genetics is a lot closer to bacteria than humans so I don’t see the problem.”

Tina gives the mermaid a funny look, “Anyways, Laura challenges Stacy’s **** hunting bribe thing? I guess I missed that from intros. Kiddo Laura apparently killed the mugger that murdered her Daddy! Then the twins demonstrate Tracy’s vibrational hand off-transcript. Stacy skips out on the rest of the date; Tracy goes for more **** sex with Laura. Again, as a mother of nearly 900 bunny-girls, eww.”

Daphne picks up the dream intermission, “Okay, dream number two. Seems to be right after the first challenge. Shar is racist against Brits? What’s a Brit? Nevermind, it’s not important. We get transformation options for everyone but Shar, who got first. Seems to be a darker season. Steve seems to be getting into the dark season Master corruption swing of things; mostly due to how most of the others contestants are treating him. Again, the Host is not ‘there.’”

Tina picks up the date narrative, “Anna date time! So, Anna and Susan take Laura tramping through the snow to the pagoda for a picnic lunch and pregnancy talk. Seems like the plan is for Laura to impregnate both of them tonight. They go to the hot springs next and have a milk draining threesome. Oooh, now that I think about it, we should ask Harper for a hot springs!”

“Hey, I worked hard on our network of pools and water slides! Scarlet has pools for magma baths and lava immunity potions, too. Back to the story for a side note. Carla finds a sentient book in the library and gets sucked into it. Apparently, the life rewrite led to some bad times between Becca and Tom; things are arguably vague about whether those things happened before the rewrite. Carla gets to experience some Becca trauma firsthand.”

“BOO, Shar! Kim was just scared! They didn’t deserve punishment! Back to the date. Anna and Susan do movie night, then we get a long sex scene featuring a weird pregnancy power.”

“Weirder than Honey’s?” Daphne quips.

“Honey’s is weird in a different way. And appreciated. I’m not carrying quintuplets the natural hoppalong way!”

“Back to the Shar season flashbacks. Looks like we have Agnes’s Week Two date. Shar is setting up a scenario to get Agnes, egg sacs now leaky, a buffer of points. It seems to be going well enough, then the Host, still ‘not there,’ challenges Shar. They kiss. The dream ends.”

Tina, having finished her second cotton candy burrito, opens her hand towards Daphne to get another. She takes a big bite, adjusting the illusion so a drop of ice cream drips down her imaginary cleavage, then says, “Carla and Kim date. They start with a concert, with Susan on drums and Evie getting to show off her harp skills. Then they talk about the Book after lunch. Dinner happens, a little sexy Kim cleaning, then Laura gets a break from constant sex with cuddles.”

“I love cuddles. Our Beloved should send Laura some stamina improvements. In Shar flashback land, we see post four challenge. Agnes got herself eliminated after the third and is now fully pet cow. Camilla colludes with Maria and Lucia to set Shar up for failure. She’s facing her first transformation vote. The one implied to win is gaining another foot in height.”

Tina cocks an eyebrow, “How is making tall lady taller a sexy transformation? Anyways, Susan date. It starts with a big group snowball fight! That’s fun, even if the point of view for it is Evie from Shar’s office. Laura, Susan, and Candy goes for hot spring cuddles. Then another rock concert. Some of these date activities are getting repetitive. I assume more stuff happens, ‘cause next date bit is a threesome in the Suite and the springs was before lunch.”

“Evie got laid! Kinda. Good for her! And she is probably going to join the harem at some point! From my personal experience as staff turned harem girl, it’s a fun time! Shar dream sequence five. Immediate aftermath of the previous sequence’s vote. Shar is sleeping with her Host. She has the first date of the week and we see the wiener’s corruption start to come out, with both Agnes being neglected, outside of being a sex toy of a sort, and Shar getting permission to domme the colluders. And domme the colluders she does. Next challenge happens and Tonya is eliminated. We finally have the Host’s name, too.”

Tina is nibbling on her cotton candy burrito. She looks to be slowing down? Perhaps there is a limit to how much sugar she can eat at once. She stops to say, “Stacy date. Hopefully with a lot less ****. They talk. Then watch TV. Then dinner and **** sex. The whole date was kind of meh?”

“A repeat of how the dates were last week. Stacy is just bad at this. Back to Shar dream sequence. We have Shar’s date after being turned vampire. Good news: the wiener cleaned Agnes. Bad news: the wiener was using Tonya like a toy and the poor girl was conscious of everything in her sex doll body. Needless to say, that date does not go well.”

“Like Jenny?” Tina asks, feeling for her former coffee table friend.

“Tonya does get the benefit of being put to sleep, so she’s not aware of what’s going on around her. Otherwise, yeah, like Jenny.”

“That’s sad. Finally, Gabby date! They got to an arcade, where a trap card makes Gabby join the Tina Rule violators! Grr! Misty wins a gun that teleports clothes away, which would please Mattie. Then, they hang up some more paintings. Finally, a threesome after a pregnancy talk.”

“And then we wrap up the Shar dream sequences. As described in Week One, Shar wins, wishing to become a Host to escape the wiener’s harem. She also uses the moment in time to resurrect Nimue. I got to say, the dream sequences are really good little snapshots. The storyline is generally more engaging than the main one; this is why having a conflict is important. I get that Shar wants a season free of cruelty, but conflict and cruelty are not mutually inclusive. The more engaging bits in the main story, Carla’s future band woes and Evie’s future harem status, are more examples of that. What’s going to happen with Tommy after the season is over? When is Evie going to join the harem and how will she adjust?”

Tina doesn’t exactly look like she is listening. She sniffles, face smeared with melty ice cream, “Are we the bad guys, Daphne?”

Daphne blinks. “Huh?”

“Uhm… I mean, didn’t we do the same thing to Harper that the mean girls did to Steven, in a way? Warped her beyond recognition, torment her?”

Daphne sits and thinks. She finally answers, “No. If anything, our Beloved had the opposite problem of Steve. Most of us approached it like Shar did, trying to make her better; she was, if anything, too accommodating, too willing to sacrifice herself for us. Most of Steve’s crew tried to belittle and demean him, which led to him becoming mad with the power the show started granting him. Any pain Tyalangan suffered should be laid at the hag’s feet.”

Tina sniffles and finishes her burrito, “Okay. That season still makes me feel bad.”

“We went through a dark season. We overcame it; most harems in that situation don’t. It’s okay to feel for them.”

“Anyhow, mail time before the challenge. Most of the letters are from Sally and Hardric…”

Daphne interrupts, “You still owe my a letter, Hardric! Shar wrote me, so I gotta be cool enough for a Hardric letter!”

“…But [Redacted] and Sylvia wrote a couple, too. And Aurora’s gang wrote to Tracy.”

Tina continues, “Challenge time! It’s sexy Monopoly? What a weird concept? Anyways, Kim is an idiot. Tracy throws the game at the end. The challenge seems fine?”

Daphne picks it up, “Finally, transformations. Laura’s vote gets vetoed so that she gets dragon power and wings. Tracy gets a robot friend from that fake anime RWBY. Gabby gets calming powers and an end to the dumb maid outfit drama. Misty gets teleportation, which is fun; the reference should have been Misty Step instead of RWBY, though. Stacy gets another three-way tie after a veto, getting cunnilingus enjoyment, comfort crawling, and a multiplier for group sex power. Candy gets the pregnancy power. Carla and Kim get both the teamwork power and proximity alarm married via transformation. And Anna gets adjustable bigger egg sacs!”

“Did you mispronounce Ruby?”

“No, Tina. It’s the name of a show. Time for some general thoughts.”

“I can see the pacing issues are still there; missing out on large portions of the dates seems bad. Date variety was also an issue. Two TV dates, two different concerts from the same band, and three different trips to the hot springs? Some of these girls are worse date planners than I was.”

“As I mentioned above,” Daphne retorts, “the balance of date and non-date scenes is better this week. There is also a bit of an improvement to the lack of conflict problem with some character arcs, though the overarching plot is still too low stakes. The cutting around sexy scenes is generally better, but several are still cut too soon in the transcript. Also, the copious typos are still there. My best girl, worst girl picks haven’t changed. Evie is great and I am proud of how she’s grown over the week; incorporeal spirit 2510 still owes me squid. Susan is great and she’s getting better. Gabby still feels unnecessary, if not a full-on impediment for Misty’s integration, and her clothes drama is still dumb because clothes are still dumb. Tina, best girl, worst girl?”

“Hmmm… Best girl is Candy, no contest. She’s sweet and romantic and a firm follower of the Tina Rule. I should totally bother her for parenting advice! Worst girl is harder to pick. I can see an argument for Misty or Gabby as being boring, but it’s better to be boring than unlikable. I think I am going to pick Tracy, not just because kitties and bunnies are natural enemies, but because she reminds me of Glitterdust too much; the cat-girl way too gung-ho about ****. Gross. At least Stacy shows some ****. Now, if you excuse me, my tummy hurts from too much ice cream. I’m gonna lay down here and close my eyes until the pain goes away.”

And the buxom blonde bunny-girl lays her head in Daphne’s lap, her illusionary breasts fading. Daphne looks up to the Marcie painting and asks, “What do I do now?”

Tina murmurs, “Fix your boobs.”

Daphne pouts, then drops concentration on Alter Self. The bonny bunny smiles as she nuzzles into Daphne’s lap. The mermaid lightly teases one of Tina’s fuzzy bunny ears. Maybe I won’t be her pillow for too long?