With Memorial Day, Summer was considered to have officially started. This caused a number of things to start up in Animalia and its colonies.
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Memorial Day and Veteran's Day were the two days where war veterans could get half-price conversions, and this caused a few things to happen. While women serving in the military wasn't unheard of, it wasn't until relatively recently that it became more mainstream. This was causing a few incidents.
"So, this is one of those female veterans?" asked one Horizon Agent, as one new dog girl twirled on one of the poles on the stage of the Meat Market.
"We do know that females are more susceptible to RHS than males when they become Animalians," said the second agent, "But it seems that traumatic experiences exacerbate it, both in males and females."
"Duly noted." confirmed the first, jotting it down in their notes.
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Memorial Day was also the debut for the second "episode" of When Worlds Collide.... In it, the newest "members" were none other than the titular characters of the Alexander Dumas novel, as well as d'Artagnan and a Fransiscan friar (which was mainly for contrast between Christian and Japanese mythologies). During the episode, it was indirectly revealed that d'Artagnan was one of the few mortals who were able to not only see Japanese Yokai, and thereby spirits in general, but also kill them. Also, the first antagonist (so far), the demon sorcerer Kashin Koji used the power of the spirit stones to bring Oda Nobunaga back to life as the "demon king" he was believed to be.
During d'Artagnan's battle with him, Nobunaga was able to break, or sunder, d'Artagnan's rapier but, bizarrely, he refused to finish him off. Then, in a plot twist, he turns on Kashin Koji and forced him to retreat. When asked why, Nobunaga revealed an unexpected reason why he turned against Kashin Koji.
"He thought he could get me to follow him. I follow no one."
He also revealed that one of the reasons why he launched his "unification campaign" was because he had heard so much about Europe and wanted to see its "wonders", such as the Notre Dame Cathedral, for himself. But before he "departed"/crossed over, he revealed that Hide was a "shiftling", which was a Japanese term used to refer to someone who had yokai blood in them.
While originally thought that the Japanese were using this episode to make fun of the French, by the end it was the Japanese way of showing how encountering things outside of one's culture can put someone at a significant disadvantage.
In a similar way, the friar was also encountering cultural shock, both about the yokai, and how they could come in two major kinds: nigitama (guardian spirits) and aratama (fiends). Eventually, the friar was able to accept the nigitama as similar to guardian angels, and he was also fascinated by the White Spirit Stone, mainly about its power to weaken the aratama while also strengthening/cleansing the nigitama.
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Since June was coming up in the same week, half-price conversions were also offered for gay and lesbian couples in honor of pride month. This year, however, the ones that were taking up the offer were porn stars who specialized in gay and lesbian scenes. While initially reluctant, since the Animalia Virus was being falsely touted as a "cure" for homosexuality, they were a little more willing to convert once they learned more about it. In a way, Miss Fabina was happy about these new LGBT+ conversions since there had been a surge of requests for LGBT+ porn videos on the website.
There was also a new research project requested at Horizon Labs, though the details still caused a few raised eyebrows.
"So, we've gotten a request for a herm horse conversion for an asexual couple, one male and one female." said one of the scientists, reviewing the file.
"But why are the higher-ups requesting that the conversions take place in MRI machines? Not that the virus is affected by magnetism." asked his coworker.
"It's one part watching the development of both primary and secondary hermaphroditic characteristics in both males and females," said the first one, shaking his head. "And one part trying to find out more about RHS."
"Some people..." said the second, also shaking his head while leaving his sentence unfinished.
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Of course, the most common thing that was going on was preparation for "swimsuit season", as some people know summer as. Of course, this involved working out in various ways. Animalians, as a rule, had a better time of losing weight and building muscle, but there were cases of humans showing off unusual ways of working out, mainly by using the equipment in unusual ways.
One video that was an excellent example of all of those things was the official Quasi-Raccoon Cuties' coverage of the Temple of the Body on Heiya Island. Contrary to popular opinion, the Temple of the Body was more like a temple compound of several buildings instead of just one large building. While they did show the combination of Western weightlifting with Eastern martial arts, there were still those who were making them unnecessarily complex and convoluted in order to make them more challenging, often with hilarious fails.