#i uh. meant to hit save draft lol. remind me not to do anything on mobile.

[pettyeti]

Etienne and Vrai (aka "Asmodeus")

Vrai is Eti's voidsent boyfriend. They officially met when Eti explored the Weeping City of Mhac (and cheese), but Vrai had been keeping tabs on Eti since the incident at the Void Ark.

They had a rocky beginning, as Eti held no love for Voidsent and Vrai saw mortals from the Source as mere playthings to watch. Eti's strength and ability to "destroy" Diabolos in Dun Scaith is what compelled Vrai to place his mark on him, granting him a front row seat to Eti's adventures.

Eti was not amused.

Obviously, Vrai didn't care. But he did provide Eti with an ultimatum:

“The Shadow Queen may be dead by your hand, but Diabolos yet lingers in this world. Defeat him once and for all, and perhaps I will free you from my watchful gaze."

This lingering shade would reveal itself within the Diablo Armament several years later.

They gradually get closer over the expansions, and once Endwalker rolls around they're more or less official. It's quite the slow burn.

Even though I meme about them sometimes, they are wholly dedicated to one another. Eti feels like he can be his most authentic self around Vrai, and Vrai sees Eti as his literal Moon and Stars (see Vrai's Lovemail.)

Vrai is a being who insists he is evil beyond the point of redemption. For a long time, soul crushing apathy was his only companion in the eons that followed the Thirteenth's fall into darkness. Eti entering his life helped him regain his lost humanity, bringing out that old sentimentality he once cast aside in favor of cruelty. Even so, Vrai is still very much "not nice." He's just unlikely to kill you or make your life a living hell these days.

[jellybi]

Let’s Rate Rubeus

This is going to be even worse than the  Ayakashi Sisters one because it’s been months since I’ve watched an R episode and I don’t really like him. But I started this and I’m gonna finish it!

Personality:  ★ ★

Congratulations, Rubeus. You do HAVE a personality. Which puts you ahead of Jadeite in some ways. Rubeus is not a particularly balanced character -- he hates women and manipulates his female underlings into dying for him for no other obvious reason than not wanting to risk his own neck in battle. And that’s about his only trait. But it’s quite well pronounced and definitely something his creators committed to. I’d even go so far as to say he kind of digs the betrayal of ‘outsmarting’ his underlings by sending them to their doom -- often their doom wasn’t necessarily the only way to fulfill his goals (we never see him grappling with a plan, anyhow) he seemed to romanticize the idea of being a powerful important leader who other people sacrifice themselves for. So, there’s something to Rubeus but it’s deliberately quite loathsome. He reminds me of the villainous characters in poorly written books I’ve read who didn’t get a lot of ‘screentime’ and would use what little they got to desperately shoehorn in something objectionable, like bringing up how they’d like to kill babies in the middle of a polite social gathering.

Style: ★ ★ ★

I’m not a huge fan of Rubeus’s ‘look.’ It’s a vest and baggy pants, and while I kinda like the pants, the vest is too chest-y for my liking. He also has unnaturally pale skin for no specific reason, which also weirded me out with Kaolinite in S and had me wondering the whole time if she was meant to be a zombie. Rubeus probably isn’t a zombie. Maybe it’s a redhead thing in this anime? He does that thing with the jacket over his shoulder that I guess goes into ‘style’ but I don’t really care about it, even as a thing to make fun of him for. However, I think it’s fair to lump in the UFO as part of Rubeus’ ‘style’ and I did so love the UFO -- particularly those ridiculous boing-boing floors. And it’s fun to see a self-consciously masculine dudebro sort of character sporting gigantic gothy crystal earrings, even if that isn’t a Rubeus-exclusive style thing.

Backstory: ★

What backstory? Uh, he has a jewel name which suggests some association with Demando/Saphir/Esmeraude beyond the obvious miniboss heirarchy. But two of those characters are blood related and the third hopefully isn’t. I don’t think they’re all siblings/relatives, or they’d be constantly bringing it up the way they do with the Saphir/Demando bond. All we know is that they’re part of a “Black Moon Clan“ which may or may not also encompass the Ayakashi Sisters. More backstory comes out for that whole group later, but it’s all terrible so I’ll just stick with the one star.

Hero Relationships: ★ ★

I’m going to reach and give Rubeus that second star just because I loved his confrontation episode with Sailor Moon so much. He engineered a really satisfying moment of growth for Usagi and Chibi Usa, and that almost counts for having a cool relationship to the heroes. The actual content of that showdown was pretty generic on his end “I am the best, I have made this situation impossible for you to win. Wait... you are.... winning anyway?!” but the taunty ‘I’ll give you a few hours to decide’ was ominous and fun. Also the ecstatic group cheer after he died gave me something weird and interesting to chew on, if unintentionally.

Villain Relationships: ★

While it’s kind of fun that Esmeraude swung by to taunt him a few times and to “lol” and abandon him to an explosive end, we’ve already literally seen how awesome this kind of dynamic can be in the show with Zoisite and Nephrite, so it was almost a taunt about what could have been.

His ongoing manipulation of the Ayakashi Sisters irritated me so much I forgot to put it into my first draft of this rating, so it’s definitely not worth any extra points. I actually think it would be possible to do a scenario like that and have me like it, but Rubeus just had nothing going on that sparked my curiosity to headcanon anything deeper.

Likeable/Love to Hate:  ★

I don’t love to hate Rubeus, I find disliking him kinda boring and unpleasant. I wish he’d been a more interesting kind of bad.

Resolution: ★ ★ ★  

Rubeus’s death hit all the notes I love to see.... ... ... for the heroes, not Rubeus himself. It’s weird because between the lead-up where Usagi decides to go face the miniboss alone after a moment of self pity, to seeing Chibi Usa take responsibility for the inners getting kidnapped and risk herself to save the day, this confrontation hit some cool notes that even the season finales don’t always manage. But Rubeus himself was just kinda ‘there,’ so how many stars can I give him for that, really?

Overall: ★

Sadly, Rubeus has become a symbol for me of the days I spent as a young Sailor Moon fan trapped within an endless unbearable loop of almost his entire R arc, unable to escape. His death episode is very good and it was extraordinarily satisfying when he finally exploded and the story could move on.