Literature / Mendoza

Everybody has a limit... Everyone...

Mendoza is a Black Comedy Mystery Fiction Web Serial Novel written by Yookee-Mookee. It's hosted on Wattpad, where Yookee-Mookee regularly updates it.

The story of the novel begins when the titular Manolo Mendoza, a socially anxious IT with repressed violent thoughts, drives home after having a nervous breakdown that cost him both his job and credibility. Unfortunately for him, his life starts taking an even darker turn when he arrives home and sees his wife, Ximena, has been lynched from the front balcony of their house. Seeing this understandably causes Mendoza to undergo another nervous breakdown, this time so intense that it puts him in a three-day-long coma.

When Mendoza finally wakes up, he finds out the local police haven't gotten anywhere close to finding out what happened to Ximena. In fact, he realizes that nobody in town—from the police to even his neighbors—really cared Ximena died and went on with their lives, brushing her death off as just another "unfortunate mishap".

This knowledge along with the fact he's lost both his job and the love of his life causes something in Mendoza to snap, and he decides to find out who took Ximena away from him his own way. The story from thereon in is a deep dive into Mendoza's mind and Mendoza's world, where he meets a large assortment of eccentric characters, gets into all sorts of "unfortunate mishaps", and unravels mysteries that reveal many things about not only his late lover...

But himself, as well.

Though ultimately completed, it has since been deleted from Wattpad. As a result, all spoilers will be unmarked.

This series provides examples of the following tropes:

• A Boy, a Girl, and a Baby Family: Mendoza wanted to have this with Ximena, but her death obviously put the kibosh on this plan.
• Abusive Parents: Norman's father's a perfectionist who beats him on a daily basis for the slightest mistakes, which is why Norman's so obsessed with being Mendoza's Kid Sidekick: He never has to go home since he'll be spending all his time "adventuring".
• Apathetic Citizens: Mendoza's neighbors and the people of Alma Falls in general more or less turn a blind eye to the tragedies that befall their home. Nobody gives a damn about Ximena's death beyond telling Mendoza it was an "unfortunate mishap", and a good deal of what happens to others over the course of the story is treated the same way: As something to gawk at and talk about for a bit today, then completely forget about tomorrow.
• Asshole Victim: A good deal of people end up dying very horrific deaths—with more than a third of them by Mendoza's hand, no less—but considering most of them were either complicit in or helped in the furthering of Aloysius's scheme, it's hard to feel sorry for them.
• Author Appeal: An in-universe example with Julie Juliet Julienne, who loves giving the female characters in her sappy romance novels her own name.
• Bestiality Is Depraved: Let's just says Henry Swallows likes his animals a little too much...
• Big Bad: Alberto Abaddon's presented as this, being the one who lynched Ximena, but he's pretty much rendered irrelevant after it's revealed been answering to someone else all along and Ximena never died from the lynching.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: Headmistress Nadia and Aloysius Abaddon, with the latter being the Greater-Scope Villain and the former being his actual dragon.
• Bizarrchitecture: Alma Falls sports quite a lot of odd buildings, from Mendoza's home having no windows, to the roof of Henry's being made of asphalt, to the walls of Julie's being covered in J-shaped fixtures.
• Black-and-Gray Morality: It's the Aloysius Abaddon and his various agents vs. Mendoza and Norman, who do what they do for a good reason, but are no less vicious in accomplishing their goals. Nadia and her Star Pupils, who turn out to be even viler, are added into the mix once Mendoza and Norman pay a visit to Alma Academy.
• Black Comedy: Copious amounts of it. From Mendoza's various nervous breakdowns, to Ximena's lynching, to the Domestic Abuse Norman suffers from, to the kidnapping and brainwashing the students at Alma Academy undergo, pretty much any horrible thing that happens in this story is treated like a joke.
• Boarding School of Horrors: Alma Academy, full stop. Norman is a "castaway" from it, and it's also the same school Mendoza and all his "friends" attended when they were children, too.
• Booked Full of Mooks: This is why none of Mendoza's neighbors cared Ximena died: They're all affiliated with Aloysius.
• Brainwashed: Some of those who've either attended or currently attend Alma Academy turns out to be this, though there are some who are willingly complicit with the school's schemes and thus aren't brainwashed at all. And it turns out said brainwashing lasts for life, as those who attended the academy but are now adults in the story proper are still violent and obey Aloysius's every whim, Mendoza included.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: The brainwashing the kids at Ama Academy go through turns them into killing machines, essentially.
• Carnival of Killers: Exaggerated. Pretty much everyone Mendoza knows from his childhood or meets in the story proper wants him dead for some reason or another, and the majority of the story is him trying to kill them before they kill him first.
• Cerebus Retcon: The first half of the story is Strictly Formula, with every arc happening the same way: Mendoza and Norman investigate an old haunt of the former's; they come across clues along with someone strange who knows the duo; the strange someone invites them to their Bizarrchitecture house; the duo explore the house and uncover some connection to the person and someone from Mendoza or Norman's pasts; the strange someone ends up being an operative tasked by Aloysius with killing Mendoza; Mendoza (with a little bit of help from Norman) murders the person; and the cycle continues when what they find in the person's house leads them to another old haunt. This is the formula for quite a while until the dup finally pay Alberto a visit, where the deeper, darker truth behind Ximena's death's revealed.
• Characters Dropping Like Flies: Characters die in literally every chapter, with some even dying in the same paragraphs they're introduced in.
• Diminishing Villain Threat: Abaddon the Knight of Cerebus when he debuts, being one of the few characters in the story that's treated dead seriously. He's the one who lynched Ximena and set the entire plot in motion, after all. However, while he's always dangerous, he gets less and less threatening as the story progresses, for it's eventually revealed Abaddon's a Mook Lieutenant at beast as a simple Mook at worst to a massive conspiracy that surrounds all of Alma Falls. It makes Abaddon absolutely nothing in comparison to how monstrous those he answers to are.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The first arc, as it's the only arc devoid of Black Comedy, and the only one that doesn't follow the formula the story eventually follows, with Mendoza trying to cope with his loss instead of playing detective, and Norman being a genuinely "friendly face" and not a monster that wants to kill Mendoza.
• Fantastic Nuke: Alma Academy's time capsule, which Nadia planned to use to blow up the city with everyone but her in it (since she'd be flying the plane). Fortunately, Norman dismantles it before Nadia ever loaded her plane with it.
• Family-Unfriendly Violence: Averted heavily. Even the protagonists themselves, while not always, are capable of incredibly horrific violence.
• Formula-Breaking Episode: The sixth arc is the last time the story follows the formula of Mendoza and Norman fighting against the former's neighbors, with Alberto's debut introducing more complex story elements such as the war between the Mendoza and Abaddon families, and the conspiracy surrounding Alma Academy.
• Gambit Pileup: The war between the Mendozas and the Abaddons. The third wheel that is Alma Academy just makes it even more confusing.
• Jigsaw Puzzle Plot: It's Strictly Formula in the beginning, with every arc boiling down to Mendoza and Norman investigating places and getting their progress impeded by a seemingly friendly person who's actually trying to kill them. But once they encounter Alberto and go through the formula with him, things take a much more complicated turn once Mendoza and Norman start uncovering the history of the school Mendoza once attended and Norman was expelled from: Alma Academy.
• Murder Is the Best Solution: For literally every character, even the main characters a.k.a. the heroes.
• Police Are Useless: The police are pretty much a nonentity in Alma Falls; they can't figure out what happened to Ximena and would rather constantly lie to Mendoza that they're "working on it". They ultimately pay for this when Nadia unleashes her Star Pupils on the police prescient and turn it into a bloodbath.
• Random Events Plot: The "plot" is basically just Mendoza wandering around Alma Falls and getting attacked by his old classmates. Countless characters are killed for the sake of being killed, and a good deal of plot lines, MacGuffins and Chekhov's Guns just go away. Ximena isn't even mentioned half the time, and her death's the reason the story even exists.
• Shoo Out the Clowns: The first six Graduates are cartoonishly evil people whose actions in the story proper don't move anything along, but once they're all dead and Alberto appears, things get much more serious...
• Strictly Formula: The first six arcs all follow the same pattern of Mendoza and Norman investigating somewhere and being interrupted by a strange person who's actually a killer they must outsmart. This pattern's broken once Alberto Abaddon appears and the subplots regarding Mendoza and Alberto's families and Norman's school, Alma Academy, take over.
• Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: The Graduates and Nadia are all killed, the latter's plan to blow Alma Falls up is thwarted, the Star Pupils are freed from their Brainwashing, and Alma Academy is shut down... and then Mendoza's told Ximena's still alive...