The last Sunday of November also marked the beginning of Advent which also marked the countdown to Christmas. As such, it was considered a new beginning in many ways, both for Animalia and for those looking to join.
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"Hey, Mi-soon," said Miss Fabina as she and Mi-soon began their warm-ups at Claw Coliseum, "How was your first class?"
"Fine, actually," replied Mi-Soon, "They're all willing and able to learn, but what they were most surprised by the fact that I'm a lot more flexible than they expected. How are those 'pumped-up, plastic' plastic girls?"
"I was actually quite sympathetic to them." answered Miss Fabina. "Even though they're clearly different races and different heights, the way they were 'fixed' made them all looked like they were all from the same 'mold'." she said, shaking her head sadly.
"I've heard." said Mi-Soon, "Their previous employer must have had some strict standards for them to be 'adjusted', as well as enough money to pay for the top quality implants."
"Don't worry," said Miss Fabina, as the swing musing they do yoga to began playing. "I'll be helping them rediscover their true selves, I promise."
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There were also a few other plans for Christmas in Animalia, aside from the more "adult" party at the Meat Market and the Great Snow War. Since there was now a larger group of rich and "super-rich" members in Lyre/Animalia, there were plans to have a more "classy" Christmas party, which Joanne said she would be hosting. While restrictions would be in place for controlling Coronavirus, it would still be a good party for the upper classes.
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Another new thing that was going on was actually from Mieni Atoll. While the plane crash on Halloween was a bit surprising, and the sudden "influx of new guests" even more so, it was finally time for the "guests" to be returning. There were small planes that were able to fly to either Japan or China with small groups of people, but due to Coronavirus restrictions, these were considerably less full than before.
There were a small amount of people from the crash who had decided to stay for "winter vacation" as it was labeled on Mieni, but this required a payment at the front desk. Fortunately, work-at-home software had improved considerably so the new (official) guests were able to keep working without too much problems.
But what was going mega-viral on the Animalia website were pics of Beacon and Allura's kids. This was partly because of what was originally thought as four turned out to be five as one of them had "decided" to become a pair of identical twins, and partly because of what they looked like. The overall appearance had the look of a crossbreed between anglerfish and frog, but after someone made a not-so-polite comment on them, people followed it up by showing pictures and information on how 'not all baby animals are adorable miniature versions of their parents'. These posts made that commenter quickly eat his words, in the best way possible.
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Heiya Island was also getting into the spirit in its own special way. While they did receive news of the Plane Crash at Mieni, they were surprised that one of the girls that had been rescued from the human trafficking ring had a brother who had been on that plane. Not only that, but the news that he had disabled one of the Chilean terrorists, and was a six-time world champion MMA fighter from Sri Lanka convinced Ami and Tsukuyomi to prepare a special reward for him.
Something else that was going viral on the Heiya Island subdivision of the Animalia Website was a picture of "Rose" wearing a (greatly modified) shrine miko outfit as a kind of advertisement for Heiya Island's gym, which was called the "Temple of the Body" (or Karada no shinden, in Japanese). It was relatively new, and a little controversial in Asia since it combined eastern medicine with western sports medicine, but what made it a bit more popular was a minor confrontation with a few former tormentors. While nothing violent happened, "Rose's" supreme confidence made those former tormentors retreat in a hilariously humiliating fashion.
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All together, the last days of November and the first days of December marked a new beginning for many things and people.