Zel

     Ishuzoku Reviewers

Content warning: Source material is 18+. Non-explicit but pervasive discussion of sexual themes below.

Backstory

Maybe the most genuinely embarrassing character on this list so far. I am trying soooooo hard to be nice to myself about it and give myself a break. It's not my fault I tell you... Sometimes I see a guy and something just happens and I can't help it!!!!!! Idk!!!

I was having a really rough day and my friend suggested watching this goofy show to cheer myself up. As someone who does honestly love a good stupid sex comedy, I took her advice, and well. Here we are. More proof that I can't watch anything these days without catching feelings for some guy. But it is what it is I guess so we're just going to make the most of it.

About Zel

Zel is an elf and an adventurer, of sorts. Most of his time between quests is spent drinking and going to brothels instead of doing anything worthwhile with his time. He and his pals publish reviews of their time spent in these establishments to the delight and education of other interested patrons. Also, he's stupid and I hate him.

About My S/I

At first I was going to make my S/I a demon succu-girl, and honestly I may still end up making a second S/I (everybody laugh) later to use this idea... but for now, she's just a regular human. She's a low to mid-level adventurer from a small and fairly quiet town who decided to take off to the big city for more work. She was not even remotely prepared for the culture shock she would experience strolling into such a place unprepared.

She is extremely repressed and self-conscious, and the loud, shameless displays of her new surroundings are just straight up freakish to her. Most of the time she tries to avoid being out after dark if she can help it. She simply tries to act as if brothels do not exist and actively pretends like she does not walk past 300 of them every single day. She has sort of a hard time reconciling her feelings on the subject (she feels like people who do that kind of thing are bad and shameless, but she doesn't want to be rude to the women who work there, but she just cannot think about it for more than two seconds without getting a headache and feeling dirty so she just ignores the whole thing). Girlie needs to chill out for real.

Lore

At the time of writing this page I started the show a week ago, so this is still very new and fresh in my mind and hasn't developed a lot yet. I think she frequents the tavern where the gang hangs out because there are lots of postings for quests and jobs tacked up on the boards, but that means she also has to sift through the foul things that get posted there, and has to sit through very loud and explicit conversations on a near daily basis. She is able to block out most of it through sheer force of will; this is how she's able to think Crim is a super nice and sweet boy (which he is, to be fair) and be friendly with him without clocking that he is also involved with the debauchery that she hates so much.

She has the misconception that the entire city is full of crazy, disrespectful perverts, and she is honestly half-right, but she doesn't understand that somebody can do these sorts of things for fun and still be kind and a good person. She basically distrusts everyone on a base level and hardly interacts with anybody if she can help it. She's also unfortunate enough to somehow end up with a crush on a stupid stupid elf despite hating everything that he stands for, which is literal agony for her. It causes her genuine anguish and guilt and she stews on it for so long that it actually drives her crazy and she is miserable almost all the time.

Somehow - somehow?! - Zel catches wind of her feelings, and honestly cannot help himself from messing with her. I think at first he doesn't realize how much it's actually tearing her apart and is really blithe and a little cruel with her, even saying things like "You're too young for me, and you're no fun anyway" that make her feel even worse and lash out at him even more. It's a combination of not being able to understand the viewpoint of someone so repressed, differences in age and maturity between species, and just generally being a smug little asshole. It takes a while before he realizes that this is something he should be taking seriously, and he drops the smug act to actually try and help her with opening up.

I think the key thing here is that, Eventually, he will be able to get her to open up and realize that it is okay to be a little bit of a freak, and having fun is not a bad thing. However, it is MISERY for her. Every single step forward is the hardest thing she has ever done, and half the time she takes two steps back immediately after to cover her tracks. Her perception of herself and what is and isn't 'okay' is so twisted up that it takes a very long time for her to make any worthwhile progress, but eventually, I think she will be able to be stupid and crazy with the rest of them, if not even more stupid and crazy. It's what she deserves.

What I Love About Him

♡ The chapter with his and Mitsue's first meeting was so sweet that it actually made me cry for like an hour after I read it... it made me realize the depth of his emotional maturity that I hadn't taken into account before, and I kind of went from 'tsundere about this stupid elf' to 'oh God maybe he is important to me, actually'.

Art



Commissions/Gift Art

- artfight attack from tophatcats feat. their OC Zélie!

Extra

♡ Ship template - I want to start filling out more of these, I think they're cute...
♡ The one where she gets drunk - 2.3k word ficlet where she gets some surprisingly helpful advice on how to move forward with her crush. I never know how to title my writing, lmaoooo.
♡ Letters - Letters between the two of us... I saw this idea quite a while ago and I honestly don't remember where, but I thought it was quite sweet.

Songs that remind me of us:

♡ Sister Golden Hair / America