#Check Point firewall

[smartcitysystem]

How Firewall Solutions Save Your Business from Expensive Breaches

In today’s digital-first world, cyber threats are not just an IT issue—they're a major business risk. Data breaches cost companies millions of dollars annually, not to mention the long-term damage to reputation, trust, and operations. One of the most effective ways to protect your organization from these costly intrusions is by investing in robust firewall solutions.

Firewalls have evolved far beyond the simple packet filters of the past. Modern firewall solutions provide advanced threat detection, policy enforcement, and real-time monitoring that can block malicious activity before it causes harm. In this article, we’ll explore how firewalls work, why they're critical to your cybersecurity strategy, and how they ultimately save your business from expensive breaches.

1. Understanding the Modern Firewall

A firewall is a network security system—hardware, software, or both—that monitors and controls incoming and outgoing network traffic. It is a barrier between trusted internal networks and untrusted external sources like the internet.

Modern firewall solutions, often called Next-Generation Firewalls (NGFWs), go beyond traditional port and protocol filtering. They include features such as:

Deep packet inspection

Application awareness and control

Intrusion prevention systems (IPS)

Malware and ransomware detection

Threat intelligence integration

By inspecting data at multiple layers, firewalls can identify threats that evade basic security systems.

2. The Real Cost of a Data Breach

Before diving into how firewalls can help, let’s understand what a breach costs a business.

According to IBM’s 2024 Cost of a Data Breach Report:

The average cost of a data breach globally is $4.45 million

Breaches in the U.S. are even higher, averaging over $9 million

It takes an average of 277 days to identify and contain a breach

These costs include more than just immediate remediation:

Legal fees and regulatory fines

Loss of customer trust and loyalty

Downtime and loss of productivity

Damaged brand reputation

Potential lawsuits or compliance violations

Firewalls are one of the few proactive tools businesses can deploy to significantly reduce the chances of these high-impact events.

3. Firewall Solutions Prevent Unauthorized Access

Most breaches start with unauthorized access. Whether it’s a brute-force attack or a phishing link that gives hackers credentials, once inside your network, cybercriminals can quietly exfiltrate data or install ransomware.

A firewall acts as a gatekeeper, only allowing legitimate traffic to access your internal systems. With features like:

Geo-blocking (blocking traffic from certain countries)

IP whitelisting/blacklisting

User authentication

Access control policies

You can prevent external attackers—and even internal bad actors—from reaching sensitive data.

4. Stops Malware and Ransomware at the Perimeter

One of the most financially devastating attacks a business can face is ransomware. In this scenario, hackers encrypt your data and demand a ransom for its release. Even if you pay, there’s no guarantee you’ll get your data back.

Next-gen firewalls come equipped with:

Signature-based malware detection

Sandboxing to analyze unknown files

Heuristic scanning to spot suspicious behavior

Integration with global threat databases

These tools stop malware at the gateway before it reaches endpoints, drastically reducing the chance of an infection that could cripple your business.

5. Protects Against Insider Threats

Not all threats come from the outside. Disgruntled employees or careless staff can accidentally (or intentionally) expose your systems to risk.

Modern firewall solutions offer internal segmentation, creating micro-perimeters within your network. This means:

A compromised machine can’t access the entire network

You can set different policies for departments (e.g., finance vs. marketing)

Sensitive data stays isolated from unnecessary access

This containment minimizes the impact of a breach and prevents it from spreading laterally within your environment.

6. Ensures Compliance with Industry Regulations

Whether you're in healthcare, finance, or e-commerce, regulatory compliance is non-negotiable. Standards like HIPAA, PCI DSS, and GDPR require strong data protection practices, including network security.

Firewall solutions help maintain compliance by:

Controlling access to regulated data

Providing logs and audit trails for forensic analysis

Preventing unauthorized data transfers

Supporting network segmentation to isolate sensitive systems

Failing to comply with regulations can result in steep fines, legal action, and loss of certification—costs that far outweigh the investment in a quality firewall.

7. Reduces Downtime and Business Disruption

One overlooked consequence of a breach is downtime. If your systems are taken offline, every minute equals lost revenue and productivity.

A firewall helps avoid this by:

Blocking malicious traffic before it hits internal systems

Alerting you to unusual behavior before a full-blown attack

Isolating infected systems to maintain business continuity

Downtime isn’t just a technical issue—it affects customer satisfaction, employee performance, and your bottom line.

8. Enables Secure Remote Work and Cloud Access

As hybrid work becomes the norm, businesses must secure remote access to internal resources. Firewalls support:

Secure VPN connections

SSL inspection

Cloud-native firewall capabilities

This allows employees to work from anywhere without exposing their systems to unnecessary risks. Plus, firewalls can monitor and manage access to cloud applications like AWS, Azure, or Microsoft 365, ensuring consistent security across all platforms.

9. Real-Time Threat Monitoring and Analytics

Firewalls today are more than passive filters—they’re active security hubs.

Advanced solutions provide:

Real-time alerts

Traffic visualization dashboards

Behavior analytics

With AI-driven insights, IT teams can detect anomalies and respond to threats quickly. Faster detection means faster response, and that can be the difference between stopping an attack early or dealing with a full-scale breach.

10. Firewall as a Service (FWaaS): Enterprise-Level Security for SMBs

You don’t need to be a Fortune 500 company to afford enterprise-grade security. Many vendors now offer Firewall as a Service, a cloud-based model that:

Reduces the cost of hardware and maintenance

Scales with your business

Provides automatic updates and global threat intelligence

This makes robust firewall protection accessible to small and medium businesses, who are often prime targets for attackers due to weaker defenses.

Conclusion: A Smart Investment That Pays Off

In the world of cybersecurity, prevention is far more cost-effective than cure. Firewall solutions not only protect your business from the financial fallout of a breach, but they also empower you to maintain operations, meet compliance requirements, and build customer trust.

Think of a firewall not as an expense, but as an insurance policy, a productivity booster, and a brand protector all in one. In an era where cyber threats are growing in frequency and sophistication, having a strong firewall solution isn’t just smart. It’s essential.

[der-schweizer]

There's my portal

As i said on @bet-on-me-13 'Where is my portal' post, here is my short about their idea. please enjoy.

Danny sipped his coffee, slowly shuffling towards his lab. It had been a long time since he had a ‘run on two coffees and some ecto’ weekend but here he was, Monday morning, on his way to work.

He really wanted to be in bed but he had bills to pay.

Quietly he shuffled into his lab, which he found oddly drafty and oddly bright, considering he hadn’t turned on the lights yet. After flicking them on he moved on towards his desk, passing a big gaping hole in the wall and—

Danny paused, shuffled backwards a bit and then looked at the place where his portal used to be. For a long moment he just looked, then did a slow blink and took another sip of coffee.

After making sure that his portal, including parts of the wall, were really gone, he let out a sigh and held his face. “Who the fuck stole my door?”

With a sigh he pushed his bangs out of his face and walked to his PC, to check the security footage of his Cameras. For once it wasn’t Vlad who stole his shit, Vlad at least had the courtesy to leave a note that he ‘borrowed’ something. It was safe to say that he was surprised to find the footage gone. There weren't many people that could hack through Tucker's programing.

Danny sat there, looking at the black screen of his PC for a long moment before thinking aloud. “Okay, we have one or more people who can; One, break through Tuckers firewalls. Two, physically move a portal weighing around ten tons and, Three, knows their way around Arcane Runes so as to not cause a mass ghost invasion.”

He thought about it for a minute before throwing his hands up. “Fuck this, I’m just going to use the other side to find it.” He got out of his chair before transforming. 

Danny focused his power into one of his fingers before poking the air in front of him, the tip of it pierced the fabric of space which he then used to rip it open. He quickly flew through the tear before it sealed again. Despite Wulf teaching him how to do it he still sucked at it, which was the main reason he built his portal.

Once in the Zone he looked around for it. He found it after over two hours of searching, which only served to piss him off to the point where he began muttering curses under his breath.

Standing in front of it, he gave it a quick inspection. After inspecting the Runes, Danny had to admit that, whoever had stolen it, knew his way around them. They pretty much locked out anyone not authorized and or approved by the Caster. Too bad for them, Danny had the ‘Masterkey’ and went through anyway.

John Constantine was holding his face, quietly counting to ten. Neither smoking nor drinking would help in this situation. After reaching fifty he ran his hands over his head, looking at the assembled brigade of idiots in front of him.

“Okay, let me get this straight.” He started, “You,” he pointed at Batman, “found an ‘unknown energy signature’ and went to investigate. Then you found a high security lab with had an active portal to ‘who knows where’ and your first decision was to fucking steal it?!?!”

Superman moved forward, opening his mouth to counter but Constantine didn't let him. “AND you moron helped him steal it, not to mention you!” he pointed at flash, “Help install it here, in the watchtower, without telling anyone from JLD about it?”

Flash looked a bit sheepish at him. “Well, in my defense I didn’t know it was stolen.”

Constantine wanted to bash his head against the next closest bulkhead, maybe that would help.

“Okay, okay.” Constantine facepalmed, trying to stop the aneurysm from building up more.

A deep chill suddenly filled the air and sent goosebumps all over his back, “Oh this is just getting better and better.” Constantine reached into his pocket for a warding charm, before turning around and swearing. He stopped swearing when he saw who had come through. “Oh, hey Phantom.”

“Constantine, why the fuck did you steal my portal?” Danny wasn’t even pissed anymore. He knew the English drunktard too well to blame him. Granted he was obnoxious, didn’t pay back his debt and came whenever it suited him, but Danny liked the man. He didn’t exasperate problems and always did what was necessary.

“Look, I didn’t.” He then threw a thumb over his shoulder, “Those morons did.”

“Constantine, do you know this entity?” Batman already looked on high alert.

“Excuse you! I have a name. And that is my Portal. Explain why it isn't where it is supposed to be.”

“The sensors of the Watchtower found an unknown energy signature, upon investigation we found an unsecured pathway to a different dimension, so we secured it.”

Danny stared at Batman for a solid minute, then simply said, “Oh I'm going to sue your ass so hard your grandkids will feel it.”

[shadow4-1]

I'm just imagining helping Gaz upgrade the firewalls on the personal tech of the 141, and accidentally catching glimpses of their search history.

Like, it's not like you're actively trying to look. But the program you're updating has to check all of the websites/servers the 141 has been perusing. If anything is compromised you need to know, Laswell needs to be informed, etc.

Despite his name, Soap's history is bar far the dirtiest and most extensive. His searches consist of pretty much everything that a normal weirdo guy would look up. You're able to ignore most of it but you notice he'd cleared part of his browser data at some point and well...you couldn't help yourself. You check and immediately regret it.

public airsoft fuck

gun tongue fucking

military boot cock stepping

You can't bear to see any more so you delete the rest of his search data for him and move on.

Gaz's search history is surprisingly very normal. You almost snort at how much of a difference it is compared to Soap's. You also come to the realization that he probably already cleared and deleted his history. Then you also realize he probably knows you're looking at everyone's history and probably chose to leave these behind. You feel your face grow hot as you glance down the very short list.

best friends bestfriend blowjob

next door neighbor anal

massage porn

You huff and keep going, next is Price. You breathe a sigh of relief, he only has a couple searches and none of them have demeaning expletives in them. You spare them a passing glance.

Paddling adult film

Thigh high models

You raise a brow. Thigh high models, you could understand, but "paddling"? Like...spanking? With a paddle? You swallow thickly and shake your head. The shibari makes you wince too. Figuring out your Captain was into rope bondage and spanking was too much knowledge for one person.

Shibari classes near me

And, just like you'd expected, Ghost had no search history. You breathe a sigh of relief and do a sweep of the rest of his phone. Nothing. No recently viewed caches, cookies, pictures, or anything. The phone was so well taken care of it might as well have been brand new. You went back to the main browsing page, but before you could close out the app, you notice the page has a bookmark. You open up the bookmark tab and low and behold, there's two links. They look shady but you check them out anyway.

The first one is a cam site. The host of the channel is offline, but judging by their many saved livestreams, they're very active. You decide to turn back, but a very specific thumbnail catches your eye. It's the cammer, but with their mouth stuffed full of a random man's cock. It wouldn't have stopped you in your tracks if a) the man's leg tattoo didn't look so familiar and b) if the cammer didn't look suspiciously like you.

You immediately clear all of the data on the phone, essentially factory resetting it. When Gaz comes back into the tech closet you shove at his chest. He just chuckles and shrugs.

You're never doing this again.

[messenger-of-babel]

Coloured Red

Summary: He likes you in his colour, just not that like that. (Jason Todd x reader)

Word Count: 2.1K

Notes: blood and injury. Hope everyone's having a good week so far! Not my favouriteeeeee Jason piece I have written but please enjoy anyways. xx

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It wasn't supposed to happen like this.

Never like this.

He had been working out of the manor for a few days, something he was already reluctant to do. However, you had sent him off to "work" with a bright smile and a kiss on the cheek, wishing him well for whatever convention Librarians had. Instead of your boyfriend being the gruff librarian sorting returns every night, he was in fact the red masked vigilante cooped up in the cave, pacing back and forth in front of the Bat computer while Tim tried to trace their latest suspect.

Dick had called him back for some extra firepower in the latest case, and if he hadn't owed him one Jason would be back with you in a heartbeat. "Get anything?" he grunts to Tim, who's fingers are typing strings of code into the keyboard.

"Not yet," he hums, the younger man's face twitching with annoyance as the firewall warning flashes across the screen again.

"Give it time, Jay. we don't want to let them know we're onto them." comes Dick, who’s leaning against a railing and still fully suited up from his earlier patrol. "I've checked all through The Cauldron and Southside, no trace of them there. Penguin must have closed up shop around Cobblepot Steel when he started working with his new friend. Going through great lengths to gatekeep his new buddy from us." he hums.

"Well I want to get this meet and greet over with," Jason grumbles, crossing his arms while he scuffs his boots impatiently.

"Bee in your bonnet, Red?" Dick calls and Jason scoffs.

"You put it there. You wanted me to help take 'em down while the Bat is out of town with Superscout, but you don't even know where they are. I've spent a full night just waiting for boy genius here to get a lock."

Dick puts his hands up in mock surrender. "We'll be done soon, promise. Then you can go home to your sweetheart. Hey, you can even say you came back early just to see them. I'm helping you get brownie points." he grins, nimbly dodging the hand Jason had swung out to slap the back of his head. "Where are they anyways? Their place?"

"Safehouse." Jason grunts back. "Staying at mine while I'm helping you lot. Old Gotham, near the GCPD. Besides, I told them to mark down I'd be back tonight on the calendar anyways."

Dick whistles. "Didn't think you had a place that close to the cops."

Jason just shrugs. "They're not after me, and if they were it would be somewhere they wouldn't look. Plus it's a nice distance from you all." he grumbles.

Dick pushes off the wall coming to lean over a monitor near Tim. "Well if our mystery person is teaming up with Penguin, and he isn't interested in the drug business, what is he here for?" he hums, eyes focused on the map of Gotham that Tim has pulled up. He taps the screen after a second, zooming in. "Here. Dixon Docks. We haven't checked here yet. Penguin used to smuggle through here, but it also became a bit of a meet up spot. He might have gone back to old ground."

"Yeah, but Penguin shifted his focus into drug running. Bruce put him under pretty heavy surveillance, managed to shut down a lot of his operations for a while. You really think he'd be that stupid to start trying to smuggle firearms again?" Tim piped up.

"Maybe. But Maybe its not firearms. This spot used to be a mob meeting spot. He never visited the operation personally unless-"

"Unless he wanted to order a hit." Jason cut off his older counterpart, voice becoming modulated as he fixed his mask to his face. "Seems there's a chance his new play pal is a hitman."

"For who though?" Tim asks.

"Maybe the hit isn't one Penguin is ordering. maybe the Penguin's selling info." Dick calls, testing his in earpiece before giving Jason a nod. "Me and Hood are going in to take a look. Track our location and keep the cameras on."

Tim nods while Jason and Dick head for the bikes, mounting each of their respective vehicles.

"Finally something to do." Jason groans, stretching his arms above his head before catching the cocky grin from Dick speeding past him. "Show-off." he murmurs, his own engine roaring to life as he follows suit.

They had cleared the dock pretty easily, Dick's hunch being correct. Between the two of them the middlemen and thugs were strewn across the floor of the warehouse, and Tim had already called the GCPD to come pick them up for the arrest. "No sign of our flightless friend." Jason grumbled, stepping over an unconscious thug.

"Nor our new mystery visitor." Dick concludes, tucking his escrima under his arm as he goes through the stack of papers at the makeshift desk tucked behind some shipping containers. Jason has known the eldest robin enough to know when he was worried, and the tight way he now held his body was a clear sign. "You find something?" he asks, boots thudding as the come to stand beside him.

"You think Oz was beginning to catch on?" Dick asks quietly, turning the page to show Jason the blurry CCTV photo of Bruce, a crude cowl and ears drawn over the image in sharpie.

"Shit," Jason breathed, taking some of the papers from Dick and beginning to flick through it. "This is all of us." He confirms, worry beginning to gnaw at his bones. There were photos of Tim leaving the city library and entering the Wayne Tower. Photos of Dick back in Bludhaven in a police uniform, photos of him at galas. Photos of Damian at school and meeting with Alfred. The more he flipped through them the more his heart dropped. There was a photo for nearly every 'apprentice' of Batman, surrounded by question marks.

"Whoever is joining the dots isn't fully convinced of it themselves." he murmurs, blood freezing as he sees a photo of himself there. A photo with you on his arm next to him. Dick comes to peer over at it, cursing under his breath.

"Hood, don't panic-" he tries to soothe, but Jason is already pushing past him to tear at more of the documents on the desk. He rifles through the papers, the sound of approaching sirens and Nightwing's urging to leave the scene deafened by the ringing in his ears. In his tightly clenched hands there was a leger, with a list of addresses. In the middle, was his address. The address he had given you, highlighted in yellow.

"We need to go." Dick urges, hurrying him to mount his bike. Jason jaw clenches, and he shoves the piece of paper into his brothers’ hands.

"Yeah. We do." he grits out, but he hopes Dick can't hear the sheer fear held behind his teeth. His bike speeds off, roaring through the side street they came on as he reroutes for Old Gotham. Dick looks down, eyes wandering over the red written date next to the highlighted address, tonight date. "Jesus," he breathes out, quickly following behind his brother before he does something reckless.

Jason doesn't think that he'd ever driven that fast since he'd been on the run from Bruce, throwing the bike into park so violently outside his apartment that the tires burnt as they squealed. Dick wasn't too far behind him, calling out for him to wait in between talking to Tim on the other end of his earpiece. His heart is thudding in his ears, hands feeling cold as he scales the stairs to the fourth floor, knocking on the door rapidly. He didn't care he was in his full suit. He could make some bullshit excuse if you were fine, claiming some noise disturbance or the wrong door.

But if he wasn't?

Then someone was going to fear the fact he was already suited up.

"I told you to wait, Hood-" Dick snaps at him, slightly out of breath from having to run behind him. Jason doesn't listen, shoulder slamming into the door when you don't come to answer.

"Don't you have the key?" Nightwing hisses to him.

"Left it in my civvies." he grunts, stumbling slightly as the door gives way. "I wasn't really expecting to…" he trails off, bile rising in his throat and blood draining from his face. Dick pushes in next to him, still scolding. "You can't just go in like this-" he cuts himself off, catching sight of what Jason was burning into his brain. "Oh no, Jay..." he whispers, but Jason is already moving to your side.

His hands come to your head, softly cradling it in his large palms. Two fingers come to press against your neck, his breathing evening out as he finds a weak pulse. "They're still kicking." He grunts out, other hand coming to cradle the back of your head. He closes his eyes trying to scrub the image of you lying there in the living room, sprawled on the carpet surrounded by the shards of the broken window and white rug drinking your blood.

Your eyes flicker weakly and you make a faint cry when he presses down on the wound by your ribs, a sound that tears him up inside. "Shhh," he tries to say softly, but the modulator makes it robotic, stripping the emotion from it. "I gotta put pressure on it. Did you see who did it?" he asks. He can faintly hear Dick calling for Robin on the end of the commlink, calling for paramedics to come to his address.

He hates how warm his hands feel, gloves heating up as if they were stealing the life force from out of you. Blood is flecked across your lips from the spray, faintly mumbling the words, "didn’t see them."

He nods along. "That’s okay, that’s okay." he murmurs, but he wasn't sure who he was telling that to.

"Red Hood…" you groan out, hand coming the grip his wrist as he pushes firmer on the bullet wound. Your fingers are bloody, smearing the crimson across his suit. "You gotta…you gotta find my boyfriend," you cough weakly. "They were here for him. He’s just…he's just a librarian…" your eyes tear up, throat swelling with the weight of your words. "He was just coming back tonight…oh god…you have to find him… what if they-" you sob, causing your face to scrunch up at the pain that ripples through your body. "I wanna…I wanna see him."

Jason's heart is tearing into pieces as Dick kneels to your other side, hands coming to your non-wounded side as he preps the area, Tim faintly heard giving instructions on how to stabilise you until the paramedics arrive. Jason shakes his head, fighting back tears. Despite the side glance he gets from Nightwing, he pulls one hand up to his face, feeling for the latch under his jaw to release his mask.

When he pulls it away his eyes are red, tears already built in the corners. His lips have a tremble that hasn't been felt since he was in the single digits on the streets, and his hairline is beaded with sweat from worry. He offers you a weak smile, unable to stop the shooting pain that wracks his mind watching the hazy confusion on your face.

"Jay?" you whisper, the word more mouth than sound. He nods reluctantly.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

Oh god, it wasn’t supposed to go like this.

He dreamt of the day that he could tell you his identity, of his real profession. He imagined all the best scenarios of you accepting him, of letting him spin you around the kitchen when he picked you up by the waist like he did so often. Of telling you while you both read together on the couch, your legs pulled across his lap. He never imagined the bad scenarios. He pushed those to the back of his mind. But as you reached up with bloodstained fingers, dragging the sticky red across his cheek in that oh so familiar motion, he knew right then that this was the worst situation imaginable.

He lets his tears wash the red from your fingers, trying to blink them out of his eyes so he could focus on saving you.

"Hold on, sweetheart." he murmured weakly, desperately praying for the wailing of the siren to reach his ears.

He had always said how much he loved red, loved you in the colour. Loved you in his colour.

Now he was thinking he never wanted to see you bathed in this much red ever again.

[laxxarian]

Danny as a background npc of Tucker's and Sam's stream

It all started with Tucker and Sam having an idea to go live streaming to promote their beliefs like Sam with her eco-friendly stuff and her defense technique tidbits and Tucker's meat importance and also some tech tidbits.

Both streams were getting views, a whole lot to a point where the two were so popular that some haters would try and expose them, even tried to hack but is shamefully failed because for some reason, each time they tried to search about this Amity Park, their screens would glitch and the like. It's like the firewall is protecting all residents from the outside world which got the viewers questioning but Tucker and Sam didn't know anything about that, not even Danny who suddenly popped in on their stream.

slam12kki: WHOS THAT???

dragonobsessed_coffee: ....someone needs some explaining to do...just in case.

animalkingdom123: No

Bruce_W: Hey, the kid's look a lot like...

animalkingdom123: NO

blueM0nk3y: YES

Llupex0x: only one things that needs to check out

While the chat was booming, Sam and Tucker is in a collab this time and is in Danny's house when Danny first popped in and so is Jack and Maddie with some snacks, and seeing Jack's features and personality the chat went wild.

Llupex0x: lmao, nvm

viviran76: we're gonna hav to weyt

OPrtx: wats wrong wit u??

Everyone is thinking that Jack may be a cousin or something but the thing is, the Fentons are in no way related to Bruce at all. Sam and Tucker was confused but shrugged it off.

Anyways, continuing on, another collab was set again and this time, Danny popped in casually with an angry look, not noticing that Sam and Tucker was still live but the two didn't mind and had their focus shifted to Danny and Danny started complaining about ecto-acts and how he can't go a day without getting shot and hunted down by Skulker who wants his pelt.

The Batfam who watches this got concerned.

Then another collab was set outside and Danny was seen in the background with a strange belt on and he looks like he's being chased and beaten up, Danny wasn't just running, he was also fighting back and all. The one who is fighting him is Vlad who also has a strange belt on and is now using an ecto gun, but nobody knows that, what they do know is that the man is carrying a gun and is actively shooting it at Danny and Danny also has a gun with him and a bat.

Vlad and Danny exchanges blows, the JL are now concerned.

Sam and Tucker are just continuing their live cuz they thought it would be perfect if they could ask for help with this type of proof (they can't seem to find anyone to come help in their aid and was dismissed as kids prank)

Another collab was set up once more, and this time, Sam and Tucker wasn't shown. What it did show was Maddie and Jack trying to fight the men in white while Jazz tries to get Danny out of.... chains?? and Danny is also inside of a cage??? looks beaten up and bleeding.

Sam and Tucker was sending proof.

But that was in 1990's and the heroes and the viewers saw the video in 2020's already

[malsmind]

➸ hacker!matt telling popular!reader about coding & hacking ❥

you and matt sit at his computer, the glow of the screen casting a soft light over his face. his fingers flying across the keyboard as he explains something about networks and firewalls.

“so, basically, if you know what you’re doing, you can find vulnerabilities in a system and exploit them,” he says, his voice full of excitement. “but, like, ethically, you use it to test security. penetration testing, you know?”

you hum, only half following along, more focused on the way he talks—his voice animated, hands moving as he types, the slight furrow in his brows when he’s focused. you shift slightly in his lap, and he tightens his arms around your waist, absentmindedly resting his chin on your shoulder.

“okay, look,” he says, adjusting his glasses. “i’ll show you something simple.” he pulls up a window full of code, and you squint at it, trying to make sense of the seemingly random letters, numbers, and symbols.

“this looks like gibberish,” you say, and he lets out a soft laugh, shaking his head.

“it’s not! this—” he points to a specific line— “is a script i wrote to check for weak passwords in a database. like, if someone uses ‘password123,’ i can see it’s vulnerable.”

you raise an eyebrow. “so you can just hack into anything?”

he smirks. “technically? yeah. but i wouldn’t. it’s illegal.”

“right, because you’re such a law-abiding citizen,” you tease.

he rolls his eyes but grins, his hands settling on your waist. “i just think it’s cool. like, understanding how systems work, breaking them down, and figuring out how to make them stronger.”

you watch his screen as he types out a few commands, explaining what each one does. you’re still not fully grasping it, but you love hearing him talk, love how passionate he gets about this stuff.

“you’re kind of a nerd,” you say, resting your head against his.

he huffs. “and yet, here you are, sitting in my lap, listening to me ramble about hacking.”

you smile. “yeah, because i like you.”

his hands squeeze your waist, and he tilts his head slightly, pressing a quick kiss to your jaw. “lucky me, then.”

you watch the lines of code scroll across the screen, feeling his warmth against you, the steady sound of his typing filling the room. you might not understand everything he’s saying, youprobably never will, it's just not your world. but you don’t mind. as long as it’s him talking, you’ll listen.

dividers by @bernardsbendystraws <3

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series link

taglist

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@backwardshatnick @sturniolosymphony @sturns-mermaid @realzula @courta13 @sturnzzlovee @chrissweetheart @sturniolosymphony @sturniolo1trips @freshsturnzx @sturnslutz @rcklessheavn

[fancyfeathers]

Burn It All Down

(Yandere!Justice League & Yandere!Young Justice)

Based on Yandere!Justice League with their darling!children AU

Previous Chapter <- Chapter Ten, Legacy -> Next Chapter

This chapter is told from the perspective of Wonder Woman's Son!Reader

Each chapter will be the perspective of the reader but as the different children since when I originally had this concept, they were all darling/reader characters.

You sat on your bed in your room in the penthouse, well it was a shared bedroom with Firewall but that was beside the point, it was the middle of the day but you had nothing better to do so you were sitting and reading that book that your new owl friend brought you when you first met, a copy of The Odyssey. The book's content would be the same that you would find in any version but this one had no publisher mentioned, no published date, and certainly no sort of related address included, to put it simply this copy of the book did not exist on any record. You were perplexed by this book, you read through the contents of the book but not one thing was different, you even checked out a copy of the book from the library under a false name to cross-reference the two, but it was word for word. Your owl is currently flying through the halls of the penthouse, entertaining herself with something or other, which leaves you all by yourself. You sighed, forcing yourself to stand up from your bed, grabbing your hoodie and backpack from where they hung at the end of your bedpost. You walked out of your bedroom and ran down the stairs to the lower floor of the apartment where you saw Songbird and Supergirl sitting down in the living room.

“I’m going out.” You called out to the two of them, walking off to the elevator door, and pressing the down arrow button beside the large metal doors. “Getting some coffee, you two want something?”

“No.”

“I’m good, I had tea earlier.”

“Alright, see you two later-”

“Be back before this evening, I have a friend coming over.” Songbird interrupted you, catching your attention again, and making you turn your head to look where she sat on the couch. “It’s the friend who is making the… gifts for all of you, the suits and the gear.”

“Noted, be back before five?”

“Five works just fine.”

You lied to Songbird and Supergirl, you would indeed be back before five but you were not getting coffee. You checked the address on your phone again as you walked up the New York City subway stairs, a book and antiques store in upper Manhattan was your destination, it was snuggled between a jewelry shop and a bakery. You looked up at the words painted on the glass of the window, Relics and Rarities, an interesting place to say the least and it seemed more of a place where you would find Hex at, your friend and current roommate. You pushed open the wooden door that was painted a dark teal, the paint was faded and chipped in some places, but it held some sort of an old-fashioned charm. The shop was cluttered with bookshelves and cases of bits and bobs in between, but behind all of it you could see a little old lady behind the counter, a woman you were familiar with but had not seen you in over a decade. She looked up at you, smiling for a moment as you walked up to the counter, but then a look of delighted shock came across her face when your form focused in her old and decaying vision.

“Oh my…” She gasped, walking out from behind the counter, a smile peaking out from her gapping lips. “It couldn’t be…”

“Hi Grandma…” She nearly sobbed out as you confirmed her suspicion. She was your maternal grandmother and your only current living grandparent and living biological family, but more importantly she had not seen you in what was nearing twenty years and for all she knew, you had died with the rest of your family that night on the boat. You just let her wrap her arms around you as she began to cry, and you could hardly blame her after all that had happened to you over the years.

Leave it to a Greek grandmother to spoil you, closing the shop early and after you did your best to explain everything to her that has happened to you over the last many years, your new adoptive mothers, living upon Themiscyra, and what you were currently up to now before she took you to the apartment upstairs where she lived since you were a little boy. You sat at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee, as she stood at the kitchen counter, cutting a slice of something despite telling her you were not hungry. She picked up the small plate and set it back down on the table in front of you, it was melopita, a honey and cheese pie. 

“Eat, you are too thin.” She urged you on as she sat down across from you. “Get some meat on your bones.”

“Noted.” You laughed as you sliced the side of your fork through the pie before you picked it up and brought it up to your lips, slipping the bite into your mouth. It tasted just as amazing as you remembered, better in fact, the sweet and tangy flavors bouncing off your tongue as you savored the taste before swallowing it down. You hummed as you set the fork down on your plate, looking up at your grandmother. “Actually Grandma, I was wondering about something recently.”

“Yes?”

“Some… strange things have happened lately.” You replied to her, reaching back to where your backpack hung off the back of your chair, pulling the zipper of the bag down, and reaching in to take out the book, the copy of The Odyssey. You set it on the table, sliding it across the table to your grandmother. “A few weeks ago I got this book and since them weird things have happened, I know books are your thing but this one has no publisher or-”

“Who gave it to you?”

“Grandma?”

“Who gave it to you?” Her sudden serious tone set you off, it felt like the words you spoke set off a spark in her mind. She just stared down at the book intently as if she were looking at solid proof of some sort of deep-rooted theory. 

“It… it was an owl…” You sighed shaking your head, your fingertips tracing the edge of the kitchen table where you were sitting. “Sorry that sounds absolutely crazy but-”

“No, no, you do not sound crazy at all, you have no idea how truly wonderful this is!” She gasped, her demeanor suddenly changing and catching you off guard as she suddenly stood up from the table, rushing to the doorway. She glanced back at you, waving her hand frantically for you to stay seated. “You stay here, eat.”

“O-okay, Grandma…” You sighed and stabbed the fork down into the pie again, taking another bite of the pie and bringing it back up to your lips, knowing your grandma she would send you home with the rest of the pie, just like how she would send plates upon plates of food home with your birth parents when you came to visit her from Maine.

It was a solid fifteen minutes or so when your grandmother returned carrying a thick leather-bound book, it did not look like one she carried in her shop, it was more reminiscent of some old scrapbook or photo album. She set it down on the table beside your plate of pie, you watched as she sat down again and gestured with her hand for you to open it. You shifted to turn towards the book, flipping open to the first page it was photographs, very old photos in black and white, probably taken at some point in the nineteen twenties. It was of some well-dressed young man, no older than seventeen at the time, he was in a suit and tie, sitting in an armchair, he looked like you which did not surprise you since you were always told you had genes from your mother’s side of the family. What was particular about the photograph was the fact that there was an owl resting on the windowsill, an owl who looked nearly identical to the owl who followed you from the alleyway.

“Grandma… this man?”

“Your great-great uncle, the first of our family to come to America, he was a very successful journalist when he was alive, in the forties he even covered the Justice Society of America in the forties.” You let her point to another photo on the page, it was of your uncle though he was a bit older with another man, the other man wore a cape with a high collar and a costume that appeared less form-fitting than modern hero costumes. The solid color tunic had an emblem of a classic oil lantern on the chest. He wore a dark domino mask to conceal his identity. You recognized the man he was with, the first Green Lantern on Earth. But another peculiar thing about the photo was that the owl was resting atop your ancestor’s shoulder. “Rumor says that he knew the identity of that old Green Lantern, they were even friends, but he never told a word of who was behind the mask.”

“But, Grandma… that owl…”

“You know the stories about where our family comes from, ancient heroes of legend.” She tapped the first photo you had originally taken notice of. “And I know you know who that owl really is, my boy.”

“...The Goddess of Wisdom, Athena.” “That would be correct, it is every few generations of our family that she makes herself known to us as she did with you, someone who reminds her of...” She gestured over to the book you had brought with you, the book that the owl had given you, The Odyssey. “...well she’s given you the book.”

“Our ancestors… wait you don’t mean?”

“Oh, but I do.” You let her take your hands in her own, giving it a light squeeze. “It is the story of where our family comes from.” Your mind was reeling from what she had just told you, but she merely chuckled at your startled reaction and picked up the old leather photo album as she stood up, she patted you on the shoulder, giving you that same old smile of hers. “Seems like the Goddess of Wisdom sees much of him in you.”

You returned just before five, and as you predicted, you were sent home with the rest of the pie you had at your grandmother’s, it was not the rest of the slice, it was the rest of the whole pie, certainly enough to share with your housemates. You certainly sitting in the living room alongside the rest of your group, you tossed the book around in your hands, the book the owl gave you, waiting impatiently for whomever Songbird said was coming. You suppose Blue Lantern did not need gear or a suit since everything she needed lay within that power ring that she was given, and then her brother volunteered to run comm lines and anything technical-based since that seemed to be the only thing he felt that would be useful to your little team after all Firewall was the alias he told you all when you met. 

Your thoughts were interrupted when you heard the elevator alarm ding, you were not the only person who looked to see who was walking out of the elevator, rolling black creates that reminded you of something that you would see in some spy movie. You saw the way Songbird’s eyes lit up when she saw the man coming out of the elevator, He was a pretty young man, in his late twenties, with brown hair and eyes, freckles, and he wore a pastel blue vest and pink tie. Songbird was the first to stand up to run over and hug the stranger, seeming to be good quite good friends with him.

“Everyone, this is Mr. Mark Austen, he is a very old friend of mine from my time back in Gotham.” Songbird chimed in to introduce the stranger to you all, hid name did ring bells in your head, you remember the mention of his name when you, Supergirl, and Songbird were staying at that one safe house before you were interrupted by who Songbird called one of the most dangerous men in the world. “And he is also the one who I asked to make gear and suits for us, he made suits and gear for me back in Gotham.”

“That would be correct.” The young man responded, giving a nod to you all along with the smile he already wore upon his face. “I would just like to say that it is an honor to be of assistance to you all, Miss Way- Songbird has been a close friend of mine throughout the years, so any friend of hers is a friend of mine.” He gestured to the black cases that he brought inside along with him. “Now all that aside, I have gifts for all of you.”

[oracularvernacular]

the kitten and the corbillat

𝘚𝘺𝘭𝘶𝘴 (𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘥𝘦𝘦𝘱𝘴𝘱𝘢𝘤𝘦) / 𝘔𝘰𝘯𝘪𝘬𝘢 (𝘥𝘰𝘬𝘪 𝘥𝘰𝘬𝘪 𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘤𝘭𝘶𝘣)

•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•

The girl sighed listlessly, crossing her legs nonchalantly as her hands were handcuffed and her waist tied to the back of the chair. “Honestly, I do not see the point of all… this. You’re the head of a crime syndicate, and I’m a twenty-four year old law student, what in fuck’s name would I do, scream ‘objection!’ until the damn doors opened? Please.” 

Sylus only arched a brow. “For someone who seemed so anxious, you’re taking this situation shockingly well.”

“Oh, believe me, I am the most anxious person I know. However, most of my anxiety comes from wanting to please others,” She pointed out. “You just kidnapped me. I don’t think anything could possibly trigger my need to please you.” 

“The fact that it can be triggered implies that you have a need to please me in the first place.”

“When I first saw you, maybe I did, but there’s something about being magically knocked unconscious and taken prisoner by someone that sort of puts a damper on our bond,” Monika deadpanned. 

“Mm. You’ve got a sharp tongue, kitten.”

“Not sharp enough to slit your throat, unfortunately.”

“You want your tongue on my skin that badly?”

“Are you legitimately flirting with me? While you are holding me captive against my will? I admit I have a kink or two but I assure you this isn’t one of them.” 

“Ah. A shame, I really thought I was onto something there.”

“Wow, that’s great! Good for you! But you weren’t. Now, whatever it is you have me tied to a chair for, do it and do it fast.” 

Sylus chuckled. “To the point it is, then. Miss Monika, you somehow managed to trespass into the N-109 zone. Why, and how.”

“It’s not my fault your passcodes were easy to hack.”

“It is your fault you even tried to hack them… and also, Onichynus software is the finest in Linkon.”

“Fine pile of garbage is what it is. I barely had to move my finger to break through that firewall. If you’re going to be the head of a criminal organization, at least make an effort to be good at it.”

Something ticked in his jaw. “Watch it, kitten.”

“I’ve been watching plenty, corbillat. And so has ‘Mephisto’. Don’t think I didn’t notice. Why do you think I always looked good on camera? 

“Because you have an attractive face?”

“There’s something called contour.”

“Which we wiped when you got here. A check to see if you disguised yourself.”

“Well, evidently I didn’t.”

He sighed. “Look, kitten. Just answer me. Why did you enter the N-109 zone?”

Monika blinked, then laughed. “I needed a good case to investigate for my final paper. The fraudulent dealings of your company seemed like a good place to start.”

Sylus paused, caught off guard. “You broke into the most highly guarded, dangerous location in the entirety of Linkon City and possibly further… for your fucking college thesis?”

The girl grinned in response. “But of course.”

•─────⋅☾ ☽⋅─────•

all pics from pinterest

the amount of SHIT i had to go through finding similar art style pics for sylus and monika i even tried editing pics of caleb to look like monika. i hate my baka life. shimmy shimmy yai shimmy yay shimmy yah type shii anyways I WROTE HER SUPER SASSY HERE!!!! as she SHOULD BE. older monika is def too sleep deprived and high IQ to have her priorities straight miss girl is so the type of hoe to break into private property unwarranted to solve a case for extra credit (˵ ¬ᴗ¬˵)

BTW!!! FOR THOSE WHO DON'T KNOW!! Corbillat means baby crow >:3

[tealin]

McMurdo Internet

Internet service is supplied to Antarctica via a geostationary satellite. This far south, the satellite is only a few degrees above the horizon, and unfortunately for McMurdo, it's behind Mt Erebus. So the signal is beamed to a receiver on Black Island, about 20 miles away to the southwest, and bounced over to the sheltered alcove at the end of the Hut Point Peninsula where McMurdo sits.

The Chalet, administrative hub, with Black Island in the distance

The Black Island telecommunications infrastructure was installed in the 1980s, long before the internet we know and love today. It was upgraded in 2010 to allow more data transfer, mainly realtime weather data to feed into global forecast models. For this reason, it's probably the only place I've ever been where upload speed is remarkably faster than download speed – 60Mbps for outbound traffic, but only 20Mbps for inbound. Most regular internet use is receiving, not sending, so that's an entire base running on a connection that's only marginally faster than the average American smartphone. As you can imagine, this is somewhat limiting.

The limits to one's internet access actually begin before one even reaches the Ice. At the orientation in Christchurch, one is directed to a URL from which one must download and install a security programme from the U.S. government. It may feel like a hippie commune full of nerds, but McMurdo is an installation of the American state, and as such its computer network is a target of whatever disgruntled conspiracy theorist decides to hack The Man on any given day. Computers that are allowed onto this network (such as the one on which I am typing right now) have to have an approved firewall and antivirus service installed, then this extra programme on top of them. I am not sure what it does. For all I know the CIA is spying on me even now. (Hi, guys!) But you need to install it to get on the McMurdo Internet, such as it is, so I did.

To be honest, I was rather looking forward to a month cut off entirely from the hyperconnected world, so I was a tiny bit disappointed that quite a lot of day-to-day communication is done by email, and I would need to be on my computer a fair bit to get it. Had I known just how important email would be, I'd have installed an email client that actually downloads one's messages instead of just fetching them; as it was, the cycle of loading an email and sending the reply, even in Gmail's "HTML for slow connections" mode, took about five minutes, not counting the time it took to write. Tending one's email was a serious time commitment; sometimes I felt like I was spending more time on the computer in Antarctica than I did at home.

Crary scientists waiting, and waiting, and waiting

In a way, though, I was lucky, because I was technically a scientist and therefore had access to the one building on base with WiFi, the Crary Lab. And don't think you can just waltz into Crary with your laptop and poach the WiFi – in order to access it at all, you have to get set up by Crary IT with your own personal WiFi login. If you do not have Crary access, your portal to the Internet is one of a handful of ethernet cables in each of the dorm common rooms, or some public terminals in the main building. You can hop on, download your emails, maybe check the news or Google something you needed to look up, and then leave it for someone else. When most online time sinks are either blocked or too heavy to load, it’s amazing how little internet time you actually turn out to need.

Things that we have come to take for granted in The World are not a part of McMurdo life. Social media is pretty much out – the main platforms are bandwidth hogs even before you try to load a video or an animated GIF. There is no sharing of YouTube links, and no Netflix and chill. Someone was once sent home mid-season for trying to download a movie. Video calls with family and friends? Forget it. People do occasionally do video calls from Antarctica, often to media outlets or schools, but these have to be booked in advance so as to have the requisite bandwidth reserved. Jumping on FaceTime does not happen – not least because handheld devices have to be in airplane mode at all times for security reasons. Your phone might be secure enough for your internet banking, but not for US government internet!

It is, unavoidably, still a digital environment, it just gets by largely without internet access. Nearly everyone has an external hard drive, mostly for media that they've brought down to fill their off hours. If you want to share files you just swap hard drives, or hand over a memory stick. When the Antarctic Heritage Trust wanted some book material from me, I dropped it onto an SD card and ran it over to Scott Base on foot – a droll juxtaposition of high- and low-tech, not to mention a good excuse for a hike over The Gap on a beautiful day. It took half an hour, but was still faster than emailing it.

There is also a McMurdo Intranet, which includes a server for file sharing. Emailing someone your photos will take ages, but popping them into a folder on the I: drive and sending them a note to say you've done so (or, better yet, phoning them, or poking your head into their office) is much more efficient. To conserve space, this informal server partition is wiped every week, so you have to be quick about it, but it's an effective workaround, and also a good way to get relatively heavy resources to a large number of people in one go.

The telecommunications centre on Black Island is mostly automated, but like anything – perhaps more than some things, given the conditions – it needs to be maintained. There is a small hut out there for an equally small team of electricians and IT engineers; Black Island duty attracts the sort of person who might have been a lighthouse keeper back in the day.

Towards the end of my time on the Ice there was a spell where they needed to shut off the connection overnight, to do some necessary work. Given that most people's workdays extended at least to the shutoff time at 5:30 p.m., this meant essentially no internet for a large portion of the population, and some amusing flyers were posted up to notify everyone of the impending hardship.

Someday, faster, more accessible internet will come to Antarctica.  It's more or less unavoidable, as communications technology improves, and everyone's work – especially the scientists' – depends more and more on having a broadband connection at all times.  It will make a lot of things more convenient, and will make the long separation from friends and family much easier.  But I'm pretty sure that many more people will mourn the upgrade than celebrate it.  One can, theoretically, curtail one's internet use whenever one likes, but even before the pandemic it was almost impossible to live this way with the demands of modern life: I know from personal experience that opting out of Facebook alone can have a real detrimental effect on relationships, even with people one sees in the flesh fairly regularly, simply because everyone assumes that is how everyone else communicates.  Being in a community where no one has access to assumed channels, and is more or less cut off from the rest of the world in a pocket universe of its own, levels the playing field and brings a certain unity.  The planned (and, unarguably, necessary) updating of the physical infrastructure of McMurdo will wipe out a lot of the improvised, make-do-and-mend character of the place; how much would free and easy access to the online world change it in a less tangible way?

I'm sure the genuine Antarctic old-timers would shake their heads at the phone and email connections we have now, and say that no, this has already ruined Antarctica.  It's not Antarctica unless your only link to the outside world is a dodgy radio.  It's not Antarctica unless you only get mail once a year when the relief ship arrives.  Doubtless the shiny new McMurdo will be seen as 'the good old days' by someone, someday, too.  Change may happen slower there than elsewhere, but just like the rust on the tins at Cape Evans, it comes eventually, regardless. 

For my own part, I'm glad I got to see 'old' McMurdo, such as it was, all plywood and cheap '90s prefab.  The update will be much more efficient, and tidy, but yet another generation removed from the raw experience of the old explorers.  My generation is probably the last to remember clearly what life was like before ubiquitous broadband; to some extent, Antarctica is a sort of time capsule of that world, just as the huts are a time capsule of Edwardian frontier life.  I hope they'll find a way to hang on to the positive aspects of that. 

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to waste an hour mindlessly refreshing Twitter ...

If you'd like to learn more about the Black Island facility, there's a lot of good information (and some photos!) here: https://www.southpolestation.com/trivia/90s/blackisland.html

And this Antarctic Sunarticle goes into greater depth on the 2010 upgrade: https://antarcticsun.usap.gov/features/2114/

[sm-baby]

Thinking on the Amazing Digital Carnival

So, Pomni’s kinda the failsafe right? Well, the Jester is, but Pomni’s the Jester even if The Jester isn’t Pomni. She’s got ties into the Collar system to keep the AI’s in check, she’s the firewall to keep out viruses, she’s the Intended introductory AI to get you on track and keep things running as they should.

But you can’t just simply have it all in one place, it’s bad design to have everything loaded onto one singular program and expect things to go perfectly, because if The Jester gets compromised everything goes down with the ship.

Which is why she has her own collar… except you can’t just give her the keys to it, that ruins the entire point having a check.

Someone else has to have control over Pomni’s collar. And I’m pretty sure it’s Kinger. It’s likely how he figured out the whole removal process in the first place; he’s already got access to One key, just not his. But it’s enough to figure out some things, even if it doesn’t go smoothly as seen in Kinger’s … most everything.

Furthermore, there seems to be a second failsafe on The Jester by way of her inability to attack. Sure, she can basically disable anyone via their Collar, but that’s only if she’s using the system. Someone can just take her down physically and she can’t do anything about it. Checks and balances.

Course, Pomni’s probably unaware that she’s in fact the biggest potential danger to the Carnival as it is. Almost everyone unlikely to see that danger considering how she’s just kinda… harmless(?) She’s confused and uncertain and very very on edge. Doesn’t seem the type to be able to *yank* their chains and force them back into place.

Makes you wonder how differently things would have run if Pomni had gained sentience earlier. Things would be… quite different.

I sure do love hearing y'alls theories about the alternate universe The Amazing Digital Carnival based on the animated show The Amazing Digital Circus

[pyjamaart]

Firewall!

(A warning before we start with this essay: This got really really long. So sorry about that. I also wrote this before watching a lot of the later episodes again, so if I get any facts wrong, assume I realize and correct my mistakes over the course of this monstrous dissertation on Mega Man Fully Charged. I also included some more pictures down there! Have fun reading! Also TW for implied self harm, but it's really mild this time.)

Hey everyone, welcome back to the next episode of "Mega Man essays with Jenny"! Oh hey, would you look at that, the essay even comes with a little picture attached to it. ;)

This time, the title of this piece was also inspired by a song. I recently discovered the band TWRP. Their newest album, "Digital Nightmare" is a must-listen for all robot enjoyers such as myself. It's really really good. "Firewall" is a song that immediately made me think of Fireman and Waveman. Fireman building up a wall and not letting anyone get close, only for Waveman to come by and break it apart with a wrecking ball of love? Truly beautiful.

With that out of the way... I'm glad I finally get to talk about these two, since I didn't get the opportunity to write something about them on my last few posts. I gotta say that some of my headcanons for them kinda build onto the stuff from my first few posts, so if you haven't read them yet... Now's your chance to do that.

Time to analyze some episodes!

Let's start at the very beginning with episode 1 and 2, most people's first exposure to the series and also Firemans debut:

Fireman used to work as a welder, but lost that job after he caused some property damage at the construction site. He also almost pushed his HR guy off the roof, but only after he insulted him, telling him he should be a fry cook if he can't do his job properly. So after facing workplace discrimination and getting fired (pun not intended) because he retaliated in a pretty bad way, Fireman joined Lord Obsidian, who for sure offered him some way to get revenge on all the ignorant humans who only see him and all the other robots as tools to use.

Headcanon time! I honestly don't think Fireman caused the damage on purpose, I actually imagine him to be quite diligent, hardworking and reliable. The perfect worker one could say, if it weren't for his terrible anger issues. He probably had a particularly bad day back then. The HR guy insulting the abilities he had honed over years of honest work was probably the last straw for him.

Another headcanon is that he's so massively pissed off every time we see him because Lord Obsidian just keeps stoking the flames, by which I mean, he's just continuously insulting him while keeping him in check with his giant mech suit. Fireman just can't catch a break. And because he's so stressed out and irritated all the time, he let's that anger out on innocent (puny) humans. But as you probably know, he gets better later on in the show.

After watching that first episode again, Fireman also seems to care a lot about his personal space, as he angrily yells at Aki to get off after he climbs on his back to get a hold of his schematics easier. While on top of his tank, he also tells Fireman that he's got a lot of issues and to see someone about that. I mean, we knew that already. He also tells him to take up yoga or something.

On to episode 2. And oh man, Sgt. Night really told Fireman to wreak havoc in the city so that he can spread his anti-robot propaganda among the panicking townsfolk, with a speech that sounds as if he practiced it in front of a mirror the night before. At that point in time, the viewer doesn't even know who Lord Obsidian is, neither do they know that he and Sgt. Night are the same person. Night is probably riling Fireman up on purpose, since he already knows about his fiery temper, hoping that one or two injured humans may be enough to throw the town into disharmony again, or even better, start another war between humans and robots.

After shenanigans ensue and Aki, his family and Sgt. Edgelord vanish down a manhole cover, Fireman visibly struggles to get it open with his torch arms. A problem he has in common with Drillman, who's also missing his hands. But I've already talked enough about Drillman and his personal problems on my other post. Maybe he and Fireman bonded a little over their shared plight, even though the red bot doesn't let it affect him as much as Drillman. For Waveman, my personal headcanon is that he actually has at least one retractable hand, as in, he can replace his blaster or his harpoon with a hand at any time, just like Mega Man can with his arm cannon. There is a reason for that, which I'll explain when we get to episode 12.

Skipping forward a bit, at the very end of the episode, when the Lights and all the school kids (human and robot alike) surround Sgt. Night to protect him from Firemans wrath and show him the power of love and friendship, we find out that Firemans main goal was to burn that big robot racist to a crisp. All the other humans would have just been collateral damage, lol.

Now here start the questions. It's been a while since I've watched these two episodes. So color me surprised when in the last few seconds, as Fireman is carefully tiptoeing into Lord Obsidians office, his personality completely flipped from when he was fighting Mega Man in the city, Sgt. Night just sits there in the chair with his whole human mug out. I thought the bots didn't know he was a human???? Wasn't that the whole point of the season finale??????? Well, he was sitting in complete darkness, so I don't know. I'll need to investigate this further...

Pausing that line of thought for a second, let's continue with episode 5, otherwise known as Wavemans debut episode.

Compared to Fireman, Waveman has his very own bundle of problems to deal with. As we come to know over the course of the episode, the guy has some extreme attachment issues. And also an extreme fixation on cleanliness. In a desperate search for his only friend, he's giving the city a nice makeover along the way. Even if that makeover includes flooding a dozen basements and costing the city millions in infrastructure damage. Compared to the other robot masters we've seen this far, Wavemans powers are by far the most powerful and destructive. If his powers weren't so dependent on his current emotional state, Lord Obsidian would have a terrifying bot on his side. (I'll come back to that thought later) Sadly for him, this is Waveman we're talking about. The same guy who got beaten up and thrown into jail by a literal dog.

Speaking of animals, Waveman seems to have a huge soft spot for them, immediately stopping his hostile behavior towards Mega Man when he spots Rush next to him. This is also the point where we get to know that "his only friend" that he's been trying to find for the entire episode is a literal alligator he found in the sewers.

At the very end of the episode, when Waveman is already behind bars in the police cruiser, he and the viewer actually catch one last glimpse at Alligator (that's the name he decided to give it.), who's randomly wearing a top hat, monocle and holding a walking cane. It shakes its head at Waveman disappointingly and then jumps back down into the sewers it came from. I'm gonna be ignoring its sudden fancy getup.

Knowing Waveman, the true story of his alligator friend was probably a little different from the one he told Aki. I firmly believe that he found the little guy injured and/or starving and nursed it back to health. So far, so good. Any normal person would have released an animal like this back into the wild, or at least given it into the care of a wildlife rescue organization. But not Waveman. He must have been really, and I mean REALLY lonely if he came to the conclusion that he should keep an alligator as a pet to combat that loneliness. The alligator probably "got lost" on purpose, as I can imagine that Waveman must have been pretty overbearing regarding his only friend. That poor little bot. If he just had someone to give all his affection to...

And with that we're back to Fireman, who graces us with his presence once again just one episode later, in the sixth one. In the first few seconds, he already drops a bombshell on Aki (and us), as he reveals that he's actually seeing a robot therapist to work on his anger problems. Good for him. He also really took Akis advice to heart and started doing yoga as well. Fireman might be the only robot in this series who's actively trying to work on his problems.

The things he says in this episode are a little worrying though: Opposite to Sgt. Nights anti robot propaganda, Fireman is constantly trash-talking humans in this episode, trying and failing to convince Aki to join the "right side". The phrases he uses sound to me as if they were made up by Lord Obsidian and Fireman is just repeating them mindlessly.

And with that, we've finally reached episode 12, the long awaited Fireman/Waveman special. As you may know, Waveman and Fireman are the only robot masters who had the privilege of sharing an episode (If we forget about the finale and the few one hit wonder scenes later on for a minute), which may be one of the reasons a lot of people ship them in the first place. I am one of them, lol. I mean, the episode is literally titled "Opposites Attract", like come on.

From the moment they first interact, it's not looking good for us Fire/Wave truthers, since they can't exchange a single word without insulting each other or shooting each other in the face with their blasters. I have a suspicion that their animosity is mostly fueled by their current terrible living and working conditions. They both know that in the case their assigned mission fails, their asses are toast. Episode 2 already established that Fireman is scared of Lord Obsidian. And if the biggest, baddest bot out of the bunch gets all skittish whenever he's in the presence of his employer/benefactor (Was it ever established if they get paid for this? Or if they get anything else in return except maybe a shitty warehouse to stay in?), it's not looking good for the rest of these robots. Most of all Waveman, who's already emotionally unstable to begin with.

This episode is set up in a way that Fireman and Waveman act as a sort of foil to Aki and Suna, who are also having a fight about their differing opinions at the same time. After the two siblings split up and try to deal with the problem at hand on their own, the scene shifts back to the two bots, with Waveman actually trying to bury the hatchet, calling Fireman "friend" and helping him calm down a little by getting him to do breathing exercises with him. Fireman appreciates this gesture, but immediately gets stressed again because Waveman isn't tuning his machine fast enough for his liking.

Speaking of this machine... It has a very similar color scheme and pattern to the water bot, so it's probably safe to assume that Waveman is the one responsible for building it. That's why I think he actually has retractable hands. How else could he have built this giant, highly complex machine? How does he even know how to construct things like this?? One more fact to add to the "Waveman is secretly really capable" list. Or he just stole the thing from his old job. I dunno.

One skipped Rush scene later, Suna is beginning to clog the pipe the two robots used to drain the lake with junk she found lying around, agitating Waveman, who then says (And I quote): "Hey! She's- she's touching my machine! Oh, I hate it when people touch my machine... E- except for you, new friend." He says that last part while looking back at Fireman with a goofy expression on his face. It's so damn cute. He's just so happy to finally have a friend that isn't a wild animal! (Well...) The feeling doesn't seem to be mutual quite yet, as Fireman is still sporting the same sour expression he had before.

Now this next thing was just thanks to my impeccable hearing. The first time I watched Fully Charged, I did so in my living room, lying around on the couch while my TV was on the other side of the room. The actual line Waveman says after they get interrupted by Mega Man is "We got this, Fireface!", which, yeah, makes a lot more sense than the thing I heard. I kid you not, I really thought I heard him say "We got this, Firebabe!". I was actually flabbergasted, scrambled for the remote and had to rewind the video. Kinda disappointed that he didn't really call Fireman his "babe", but whatever. Moving on.

Fireman isn't exactly happy about being called "Fireface", but Waveman just tells him that friends normally give nicknames to each other. He really could have picked a better one, though. Like... you know... Firebabe? No, I guess that would have just made him even angrier.

This scene also makes me think that Waveman is just a tiny bit overenthusiastic about making a new friend, trying to force Fireman out of his grumpy shell a little too fast for the red bots liking. (This will also come back later when I get into heavy headcanon territory.)

The next scene, where Waveman slides down the pump cable like freaking Shadow the Hedgehog and then flips around in the air like a star athlete, only to stick a perfect landing directly in front of the clogged pump is another piece of evidence to me that Waveman is just all in all a really badass, capable bot. If his emotions allow him to be, that is.

When he and Fireman reunite at the bottom of the drained lake, still trying to find Suna, Fireman returns the favor and also gives Waveman a nickname, though his one seems to be a little mean spirited, as he's slowly losing his patience with the water bot. Waveman is completely oblivious to Firemans cold attitude, calling him "chief" and complimenting his leadership skills. Even Suna is grossed out by Wavemans continuous (bad) attempts at flirting, which results in her saying the truly amazing line "Eugh, it's an evil robot love fest over there." Seeing Waveman try so hard to be Firemans friend is actually a little sad to watch, even more if you factor in the knowledge we uncovered in his debut episode. But lucky for him, Fireman is actually warming up to all the compliments, saying that he never imagined himself as a leader.

And now for the most homophobic moment in Mega Man history: As Suna and Aki finally make up, they hatch the ultimate plan to stop the two bots from completing their evil scheme: breaking up their newly blossomed friendship by riling them up against each other! Truly, truly evil of them. Tactically speaking it's a good plan, but ruining all that character growth that happened in the past two minutes just to stop this weeks evil scheme? Genuinely diabolical. As the two robots fight over who of them is in charge, Aki actually finds out for the first time that there is a "boss" controlling all these wayward robots.

Aaaaaalso huge lore drop: I didn't remember this fact from my first watch-through, but Fireman actually seems to be the guy who got Waveman on Lord Obsidians team of robot outcasts in the first place, i.e. breaking him out of prison for causing millions in property damages. He's reeeeaaaally holding that fact over Wavemans head in this scene. Their little fight gets broken up by Suna starting the pump once again, sucking both of them in and spitting them out over the skyscrapers and into the cloudy sky, where you can still hear Fireman cursing even after they've flown out of sight.

Post episode / headcanon time: While the two of them may spend most of the episode arguing due to their different personalities (and after the siblings tricked them into fighting again after they had actually began to tolerate each other), I firmly believe that since the episode ends on the note that people can still get along great even if they have very differing opinions and worldviews, they eventually get over their disagreement and make up. Maybe even start talking outside of their very important Obsidian-assigned missions. Maybe even become real, true friends.

But before we can even think of that happening, the two of them are still free falling over the city. Now the writers probably thought this Team-Rocket-esque takeoff was a fun little bit to end the episode on and most people wouldn't even think about what happens to them afterwards, since this is a god damn children's cartoon we're talking about and falls from great heights aren't taken very serious in this show in general, but I'm weird and I love overthinking stuff, so I thought of an aftermath to that scenario:

Metal is pretty heavy. So if a 1000 kilo robot like Fireman hits the concrete from 30 meters in the air, that's not gonna end well. He'd probably be reduced to a million tiny pieces. That's why I'm gonna throw them a bone and say that they crash-land in the forest, where their fall at least gets absorbed a little by the branches of the trees.

While they're getting launched through the air, Fireman is still cursing up a storm, thinking that this is gonna be the end of him. Waveman on the other hand spontaneously decides that he would rather die than let his new friend get hurt, so he grabs onto Fireman and just hopes for the best. They do thankfully land in a tree, so they at least don't get blasted to bits. Waveman breaks most of their fall, getting skewered by twigs on the way down and then crushed by the red bots bulky frame, but other than that, they're both okay.

As soon as he recovers from this near-death experience and once he realizes what just happened, the first thing Fireman does is angrily yell at the other robot next to him on the ground, but not out of anger, but out of genuine concern. What does he think he's doing? Why would he use his lanky little body to shield him from the fall? Is he insane???

Waveman meanwhile is just glad that they both got out of that situation kinda unharmed. He also immediately starts crying, but only because he's so touched at Firemans concern over him.

In the end, Fireman has to carry both himself and the other bot back to Lord Obsidian's shack for wayward robots, where they're probably gonna get an additional asskicking for failing their mission so spectacularly.

Headcanon scenario over. Let's carry on then...

Okay, now the next Waveman episode is number 21, but before that, we need to make a very important pit stop at episode 16, since it basically unravels half of my headcanons. So. It turns out the robot masters DO know that Lord Obsidian is a human. Then why are they following him??? Why are they surprised when it turns out that he wasn't just pretending to be a turbo robo-racist? They're all so freaking scared of him, Jesus Christ! In episode 19, Fireman is visibly shaking after Sgt. Night premieres his giant mech suit. Why are they following him? I know for a fact that Sgt. Night threatened Blastowoman into joining his side, but what about the others?

I mean, most of the robots Lord Obsidian recruited have no other place to go. Chemistryman lost his teaching job and was probably facing homelessness, same as Drillman, who was probably disowned by his father after trying to take revenge on Skyraisers Inc. Fireman was deemed unhirable after almost killing his HR guy, Waveman is literally a wanted criminal after flooding half the city and so on and so on. The only exception is probably Cutman, who just likes being evil for the lulz. (I'm joking)

So is this like one of these cults that you can't get out of once they have you in their hands? And even when you try to leave or show signs of disloyalty, you get endlessly harassed or even killed? (We'll come back to that last thought after we reach episode 43.) Okay, maybe I'm just interpreting way too much into this children's show once again. Now let's get into episode 21.

This is for the most part a Rush episode. The pooch gets some awesome new upgrades after almost getting turned into kibble by Lord Obsidian, so Aki and Suna spend the whole episode building a robot from scratch to help Rush overcome his fears. While they are hard at work, Waveman is just casually trying to flood the financial district. Kinda based of him. (His puns while he's being shown on TV are also fantastic. Aquaman could learn a thing or two from him.)

Aki and Suna ignore Rushs pleads for attention, so the brave little dog decides to go battle the aquatic robot master on his own.

While Rush is busy saving a kitty and some civilians falling off of roofs, Waveman is once again spinning and flipping around in the air and swinging around the houses with his harpoon like freaking Spiderman. God, he can be so awesome when he wants to be. After getting his ass bitten by Rush, he almost immediately gets distracted again because he just can't resist the doggo's adorableness, due to his already established weakness to cute animals. Or all animals, I guess. Alligators aren't exactly what I'd call cute...

He regains his senses and starts fighting back after Rush gets out his laser eyes, however. Unfortunately for Waveman, afterwards, he just gets thrown around like a rag doll for the rest of the episode. By a dog. And to add salt to the injury, after Rush flies him over into the waiting hands of the good guild, the police bots hang him upside down by the feet and pose with him like he's a particularly big fish they caught on a fishing trip. There's even a reporter taking pictures for the newspaper. Ouch.

This probably means Fireman had to break him out of prison again after this episode ends, but that shouldn't be a problem, since the good guild bots are hilariously bad at their jobs.

I imagine Lord Obsidian wasn't very pleased that one of his robots got himself beaten up so badly by Mega Mans pet dog on live television, so Fireman actually had to plead with his boss to keep his friend on the team at all. For all Sgt. Night cared, Waveman could have spent the rest of his life in prison. Thank god he's got Fireman on his side now. Anyway, carrying on...

In between this and the next Fireman episode (34), nothing really happens related to them, so I'm just gonna skip forward to one of my personal favorites of the show, "Fire Man in the Hole":

This episode takes place on and in a freaking active volcano, that's apparently right next to the city. Aki, Suna and Ashley are filming a documentary for a school project, but accidentally drop their camera down the title-giving hole. It lands right next to Fireman, who's powering up his fire powers with a machine created by Lord Obsidian, with the goal of heating up his flames to a high enough temperature to melt right through Dr. Lights doors. This is accomplished by somehow converting the lava into energy that turns Firemans flames blue and therefore much more dangerous.

The big bad boss warns Fireman not to go too far with the machine, as using it too much could cause the volcano to erupt. Somehow. You can tell he doesn't have any faith in Fireman, as he yells at him not to mess up again. You can visibly see the robots face dropping at the particularly emphasized "again".

After Aki jumps down into the volcano to search for their camera, Fireman can be seen using his newfound power completely recklessly, even disregarding his bosses orders. This is the first time in the series where he just openly disobeys Sgt. Night, possibly foreshadowing that he's had enough of being pushed around by the human. He repeats "And nobody can stop me!" three times in a row (the first two times Sgt. Night even hears him say it), before Mega Man comes around and does try to stop him. But not because he cares about his evil plan or anything like that, he simply wants the camera back to impress Ashley and Fireman happens to stand right next to it. The robot sees this as the perfect opportunity to try out his powered up blasters, so he gleefully moves the camera out of the way and tells Aki to fight him for it.

During their fight, you can clearly see that Fireman has gone mad with power, not even sparing one thought to the warning Sgt. Night gave him about the volcano erupting. He fires at Mega Man in reckless abandon, who desperately tries to plead with him and get him to calm down, but without avail. This destabilizes the walls around them even more, causing the lava to rise and stones to fall from the ceiling. A particularly big one eventually traps Aki, causing him to be unable to move, making Fireman celebrate his apparent victory.

He was completely on board with the idea of just leaving this poor robot child to boil alive in the erupting volcano, only stopping in his tracks after he realizes that there's no way for him to get out as well. After lamenting that no one told him this could happen (seriously?), Aki chimes in as well, saying that they were too busy fighting each other to notice the rising lava.

Fireman doesn't take this comment from Aki very well, yelling at him that he was doing totally fine until he showed up, basically blaming the kid for all the failures he suffered under Lord Obsidians command. The stress from the situation makes him break into an entire monologue, venting to Aki that all he wants is to make his boss proud for once in his life, yet all he does is fail him again and again. There's a scene at the end of his little montage of failures where he tries to cook something for Sgt. Night and all the robots on his team, but ends up burning the whole thing to a crisp right in front of their eyes. Thank god he didn't really end up becoming a fry cook. Because he would suck at that job too. (Too far, Jenny. Too far.)

The voice acting during this moment is impeccable, by the way. You can just hear Firemans frustration and anger at his own continuous failures come to a (literal) boiling point in this scene. After he finishes his tirade, he just let's himself down on the ground next to Aki, seemingly left with no hope and willing to spend his last moments with his greatest adversary, getting swallowed by the rising lava.

Our protagonist hasn't given up however. He tries to appeal to Fireman one last time, telling him that if they work together, they could still try to stop the volcano from erupting and save the city. After some convincing, the red bot eventually agrees to this, blasting away the rocks that were pinning Aki to the ground and helping him up.

As they're blasting the cave wall in a desperate attempt to redirect the flow of the lava, Fireman starts doubting himself again, saying that they're never gonna be able to do this before they get their feet melted off. The little blue bot is determined, though. He encourages Fireman and tells him to believe in himself, which eventually leads to them successfully breaking through the wall, saving not only themselves, but also the whole city.

Fireman visibly relaxes after this, even laughing and giving Aki a fist (blaster?) bump, glad that he finally did something right. Mega Man even praises him, saying that his boss might not be proud of him, but he sure is. You can tell that Fireman is completely taken aback by this, clearly not used to being complimented (Let's just disregard Waveman for a minute, who absolutely showers him with compliments every opportunity he gets), but he greatly appreciates this regardless, even if he doesn't show it. He kicks the camera they've been fighting over back to Aki and then leaves as quickly as he can, before any of them have to acknowledge what just happened between them.

This encounter probably planted a seed inside of Firemans processor. Why should he settle for someone like Obsidian, who doesn't appreciate a single thing he does? Who terrorizes him every single day of his life? Maybe, just maybe... The good side isn't so bad after all?

And with that lovely thought in our heads we finally get to Fireman's last canonical appearance, episode 43.

We start out in Dr. Lights lab, where he and Mega Man discuss the identity of the mysterious bot who's been bothering them for basically the entire season. Dr. Light brings up second chances and asks Mega Man to consider giving the little edgy guy another try to become a good bot. Even though he has only ever shown hostility to everyone he's ever interacted with. Oh well. But as Dr. Light goes on about second chances, the scene switches to the dark warehouse Sgt. Night and his bots call their home and Fireman storms inside the command center angrily.

If we compare this scene to some others from the first few episodes, you can immediately tell that Firemans entire attitude towards his boss has shifted completely. Instead of cowering away and keeping his voice low, in this scene he's just openly berating him, complaining that he and the other bots still don't know what his plan entails and that they're still just standing around talking to each other instead of actually doing something to take over the city.

Sgt. Night doesn't let these harsh words phase him, instead linking their stagnant efforts to Firemans incompetence. To say he doesn't take that well would be an understatement. But now, instead of just accepting this mistreatment and swallowing his pride, Fireman actually gets so mad that he charges at Sgt. Night, intending to attack him. He only gets stopped by his bosses (child) body guard, who loudly proclaims that Fireman will have to go through him first.

The fiery bot takes that as a challenge and announces his willingness to duel the other robot. Sgt. Night suddenly turns around, having just thought that a battle right in the middle of his office would make for good entertainment. And since he's grown tired of Firemans disobedience anyway, he probably thinks this is a good way to test out his child's fighting capabilities on someone other than Mega Man.

Before Namagem can even begin to shit-talk him, Fireman already hits him over the head with one of his blasters, officially starting their fight. The animation during this fight and in this episode in general are really freaking good. Man of Action living up to their name, finally.

After Sgt. Night lets out a cartoonishly evil laugh, Fireman and Namagem continue exchanging blows and insults, until one particularly heavy punch by the smaller bot sends Fireman flying up into the busy streets of the city, seemingly coming out of a manhole? This implies that Sgt. Night and his bots just live down in the sewers?? This is even worse than a shitty warehouse!

This also puts the conversation between Fireman and Waveman at the end of episode 12 into a completely different light: Fireman was mocking him for the fact that he used to clean sewers before they recruited him... While currently living in the sewers himself? Not that much of a moral high ground, my man...

Anyway, now that their little kerfuffle has reached the city and the townspeople are panicking, Mega Man decides to investigate. Unsurprisingly, the fighting bots don't want to be interrupted and shoot at him, even momentarily pausing their fight for this. The shot where they both fire their blasters at Mega Man also made me realize something: I called Namagem the "smaller bot" before, since I assumed he was just as tall as Aki (Y'know, cause they're twins and all that. Oops, Spoiler.), but it turns out he's actually the same size as Fireman, if not half a foot taller! (I have no idea how much that is in centimeters. Okay I looked it up and it's like 15. That's a pretty big difference.) But since he's cheating with his "battle armor" I'm still gonna call him the smaller bot.

After continuing their battle through various parts of the city, including an art museum and Dr. Lights garden, where yet another gardener gets traumatized by the destruction of a prized bonsai tree, they eventually end up in the forest, where their fight finally reaches its climax.

Aki and Mini discuss the possibility of winning Fireman over for the good guys, since he helped them back in the volcano, but are interrupted in their planning by Namagem just absolutely wiping the floor with the fire bot, causing Aki to jump to his rescue and punch his dark counterpart in the chest.

Apparently, Namagem inherited some of his "fathers" more cruel traits, like standing above Fireman and holding his blaster straight to his face, very slowly powering it up, watching with delight as his victim awaits his final moments. Well, until Aki comes in.

The blue bomber quickly explains that he's only helping Fireman to save the city. After the other bot takes a second to recover from yet another near-death experience, he also tells Aki that he's only "letting him" save him because he hates the other guy more than him. These are good enough reasons for them to work together for a while.

And wouldn't you know, it's like they're naturals working with each other, because only a few moments later, they're absolutely tag-teaming Namagem, hitting him with fire blasts from every possible angle. Sadly, this strategy only works for a short while before Namagem brings out his own fire powers, throwing them into the air in the process. After they land back on the ground, there's even more shots coming straight for Mega Man, but Fireman actually gets in front of him to shield him from the attack, completely unprompted.

After that adorable display of camaraderie, they get right back to the battle and actually manage to overheat Namagems blaster, which gives them the opportunity to trap their enemy in a fiery vortex. A little goofy and over the top, but who cares. I'm not gonna spend any time talking about this episodes reveal related to Akis brother, since this is an essay about Fireman and Waveman and not him. And these episode summaries already take up a lot of time and space. Man. I really hope there isn't a word limit for tumblr posts.

Before Fireman can return the earlier favor and blast a hole into the defeated bots head, Mega Man obviously stops him, saying something along the lines of "Don't let anger make you a monster like him! Give him the second chance you want yourself to have!" This combined with the downed robots gasping breaths, suddenly sounding much more like a young boy than the scary guard dog of his boss, makes Fireman slowly lowers his blaster, eventually powering it off completely.

Mega Man is visibly relieved, flashing Fireman a genuine smile. But then... Before the episode can end on this happy note and officially kick-start the fire bots redemption, Namagem musters the last bit of his strength, shooting Fireman straight into his exposed back, instantly punishing his decision to show a little bit of vulnerability. He collapses into Akis arms, who can't help but scream in terror. After laying him on the ground and realizing that Namagem escaped while he wasn't paying attention, he softly reassures Fireman, telling him that Dr. Light will fix him up "in no time". Mega Man also tells him that he's finally free of his "master". All the red bot has left in him before he passes out is to groan in pain and mutter a defeated sounding "Uh huh."

Standing over his companions still body, Mega Man suddenly develops a taste for revenge, saying that he'll take Namagem down by any means necessary.

And this, ladies and gentleman, is the last thing we ever see of Fireman. For all the rest of the season cares, he might as well be dead. If you were one of the people who thought that he would heroically save the Light family out of a tough situation in the finale (like me), you might have been a little disappointed. "He'll fix you up in no time" my ass. But the one good thing about this is that it leaves me with much more room for headcanons.

So what happens after this episode? Fireman gets taken in by Dr. Light for repairs and Namagem returns to Sgt. Night with the news that the traitorous bot has been taken care of. (He leaves out the part where he got his ass kicked.) There's just one little problem with this: What do they tell the other robots? If they tell them that they had to get rid of Fireman for becoming a little too disobedient, I don't think that'll go over well. Especially when it comes to one bot in particular...

So to avoid Waveman going absolute sicko mode on them, they come up with a different story. They call the robot masters together for a meeting, where they tell them with a (not so) heavy heart that Fireman sadly perished in a fight against Mega Man, who showed no mercy in executing him.

Waveman is utterly devastated. Just as he finally found a true friend in this world, he gets taken away again. Why does the universe want him to be alone so bad?

The other bots take the news equally as bad. Fireman may have been a short-fused, grumpy hothead, but he was the robot that's been at Sgt. Nights side the longest of them all, someone dependable they could ask for advice when they needed it. And that Mega Man supposedly offlined him? Was his usual friendliness all just an act to hide his true nature as Dr. Lights killing machine?

But before Sgt. Night can actually celebrate the fact that the robots really believe his made up story, he has to ban Waveman from the base, as he slowly begins to flood everything with his tears.

As Sgt. Night has come to realize over the short time of working with Waveman, his emotions are usually very fickle, so he hopes that he'll come back to his senses in the next few hours. But the hours eventually turn into days. He's not gonna stop crying, isn't he?

Waveman gets so comically depressed after Firemans apparent "death" that he floods entire stretches of land with his tears, with no signs of stopping. It's only after Sgt. Night has to get out his row boat that he sends the other bots to try and cheer him up. Pictured here: The grouchy evil mastermind a second before kicking Drillman into the water.

Please disregard the random gray warehouse to the side, as I drew this exactly one day before finding out Sgt. Night and his gang live in the sewers. (It also felt so freaking wrong drawing Elecman without his ever-present shit eating grin. Feels kinda out of character.)

Anyway, in between episode 43 and the finale there are just a few more episodes, but we can basically skip them all because Fireman bit the dust and Waveman is too busy being taken over by an all-consuming sadness over losing his only friend yet again. He does appear shortly for one episode, but he doesn't say a single word and just gets absolutely blasted by Mega Man. Sgt. Night was probably hoping for him and the other robots to try and take revenge on his blue adversary, but since Fireman isn't there to shield them from all of his abuse anymore, maybe they're starting to doubt his plans and the story he told them about the fire bots passing?

(Side note before we talk about the finale: I know I said this was an essay about Fireman and Waveman, but I just rewatched "This Is Not A Drill", which comes two episodes after Firemans demise and it's sooo much worse than I remembered. At the end, Drillman Senior literally says "I never should have had kids!", which is just. Yeah. A great thing to say to your depressed child, who's probably at the lowest point in his life and stuck in a criminal organization whose boss is taking advantage of him and his insecurities. The "moral" this episode ends on just makes me so unreasonably angry. But you already knew that. Anyway, tangent over.)

I'm not gonna talk about the finale that thoroughly because this essay is already way longer than I ever imagined it would be. Sorry, this got really out of hand for some reason.

So Lord Obsidian brought the entire gang to Dr. Lights doorstep, where they do everything in their power to blast down his doors to get to the Mega key. But before they can even make it past the first glass door, they get a taste of the Light families awesome teamwork. I can't imagine Lord Obsidian wasted much time on maintenance for his robot army, so at this point, half of them are already battered and falling apart thanks to their repeated defeats at the hands of Mega Man. This would also explain how three people and their dog can successfully fend off an entire brigade of armed battle robots.

Waveman barely gets any moment to show off his hidden battle prowess, instead getting used more as the comic relief in this tense battle sequence. The one time he aims his hook straight for Akis head, it gets snatched away by Rush and he's thrown around in the air yet again.

As the battle continues and Aki ends up facing off against Lord Obsidian and Namagem alone, the remaining Lights wipe the floor with the robot masters in the meantime, tying them all up into a nice package for the good guild. After that comes the massive lore dump at the end:

One very important fact that gets revealed here (except for the brother thing) is that Daini was stolen away "shortly before the hard age ended". So that means, I was completely off with my 30 years. I know that they were originally built to be used as weapons in the war, but were given a second chance by Dr. Light wiping their minds clean. Which is.... uh... kinda fucked. Dr. Light out here just casually building child soldiers. But nevermind that, I guess the hard age wasn't that long ago after all. So instead of 30 years, it was more like 15 years? That's my new estimate, at least. I'm going off the fact that Aki and Suna are still in middle school.

This doesn't affect my existing headcanons as badly as I thought at first. One final side note before I get back to Fireman and Waveman: As I headcanonend on one of my last posts, Woodman and Drillman Senior actually used to be friends before the wooden bot went MIA. This 15 year shift means that Woodman actually got the chance to meet Drillman Junior as a child. That's actually kinda sweet. (Which reminds me of something, do all the robot masters have actual names like Cutman and Chemistryman? If Drillman were to have one, his parents probably called him something stupid like Drilliam. Lol.)

Anyway, now back to the post finale headcanons: After spending a moment to cope with all the stuff that happened with Sgt. Night and Daini, the Lights make their way to the good guild to tell the robot masters the truth about their boss and set them on the path to rehabilitation.

Surprising them, Waveman just straight up refuses to listen, still thinking that Aki killed his beloved Fireman. The two kids are kinda shocked at this revelation, since they thought the two robots despised each other after the stunt they pulled at the lake. Clearly not. Aki also finally makes sense of the fact that Waveman definitely tried to kill him with his harpoon in that last battle on purpose. A little concerning.

But the misunderstanding soon gets resolved, as Dr. Light had the foresight to bring Fireman along with them, who was understandably pissed off that they didn't get him out of stasis before the showdown with Sgt. Night occurred. But it all happened so fast, what can you do?

The second Waveman catches sight of the fire bot, he immediately breaks down the force field of the cell that's holding him, shocking not only the Lights, but also the good guild bots who were standing close by. (Seems like it's not the first time he's broken himself out of jail...) Before the police bots can do anything to stop him, Waveman is already jumping into Firemans arms, who barely has any time to react, but catches him regardless. It doesn't take two seconds before Waveman is already bawling his eyes out yet again, though this time out of relief that his friend is okay.

Fireman is a little bit overwhelmed with the situation, feeling guilty that his reckless battle against Daini and his subsequent disappearance apparently left his friend so horribly depressed.

Speaking of horribly depressed: Aki and his family finally get to tell the other robots the truth about Lord Obsidians plans while Fireman and Waveman are busy with their reunion. The robots are clearly disgusted with the things Sgt. Night had planned for them once he got his hands on the Mega key, questioning why they were even helping such a monster in the first place. To help speed their rehabilitation along, Dr. Light puts in a few good words for them, since he and the good guild work together quite closely. While he, Aki and Suna are busy getting the rest of the robot masters out of their cells (and patching up Drillmans arms...), Waveman has finally shed enough tears and calms down again. Kinda. He's so glad to finally have Fireman back that he accidentally blurts out a love confession.

Huh.

Fireman is at a loss for words. Needless to say, he's also glad to finally be reunited with his friend again, but isn't he moving a little too fast? Before he can think about it too long, he tells Waveman that he feels the same way.

I imagine this is going to become a common theme over the course of their newfound relationship. Waveman being way too overenthusiastic about the stuff they do, taking everything way too fast for Fireman to comfortably keep up with. If they don't talk about this, this could potentially lead to problems.

But they will make this work. I believe in them.

And that's where I'm gonna stop with the headcanons. I have plenty more, possibly enough to fill another one of these essays, but man, I have a full time job. I really wish I could just write about funny robots all day... But alas, the students want their books.

Before I sign off, I wanted to share this sketch from 2 years ago with you:

Please don't think about the horrible alligator-eel monstrosity that's gorging itself on Firemans arm. Drawing animals is hard, okay? This stupid little sketch was long abandoned, but the idea served as a sort of inspiration for the final image.

And that is all I wanted to say. Man, discovering layer modes in Gimp has really upped my art game. See you on the next one when we continue our quest to draw every single robot master in the classic series. (Next up are Tornadoman and Windman!) And maybe at a later point, when I draw the last of my favorite robot masters from Fully Charged that I haven't talked about yet: Airman. I have a fun idea for an image involving him and Blastowoman.

Jenny out.

[warningsine]

All right, since I bombarded a poor mutual yesterday...

Privacy is not security and security is not privacy. These terms are not interchangeable, but they are intrinsically linked.

While we're at this, anonymity =/= security either. For example, Tor provides the former, but not necessarily the latter, hence using Https is always essential.

It is impossible to have privacy without security, but you can have security without privacy.

A case in point is administrators being able to view any data they want due to their full-access rights to a system. That being said, there are ethics and policies that usually prevent such behavior.

Some general tips:

Operating System: Switch to Linux. Ubuntu and Linux Mint are widely used for a reason. Fedora too. And don't worry! You can keep your current operating system, apps and data. If you're on a Mac computer, you can easily partition your hard drive or SSD by using Disk Utility. If you're on Windows, you can follow this guide.

You want to go a step further? Go with Whonix or Tails. They're Linux distributions as well, but they're both aiming for security, not beauty so the interface might not be ideal for everyone. Many political activists and journalists use them.

You want anonymity? Then you need to familiarize yourself with Tor. Also, Tor and HTTPS and Tor’s weaknesses. When you're using it, don't log in to sites like Google, Facebook, Twitter etc. and make sure to stay away from Java and Javascript, because those things make you traceable.

Alternatives for dealing with censorship? i2p and Freenet.

Is ^ too much? Welp. All right. Let's see. The first step is to degoogle.

Switch to a user-friendly browser like Firefox (or better yet LibreWolf), Brave or Vivaldi. There are plenty of hardened browsers, but they can be overwhelming for a beginner.

Get an ad blocker like Ublock Origin.

Search Engine? StartPage or Duckduckgo. SearXNG too. Like I said degoogle.

Get a PGP encrypted e-mail. Check Protonmail out.

There's also Tutamail that doesn't cover PGP, but uses hybrid encryption that avoids some of the cons of PGP.

Skiff mail is also a decent option.

Use an e-mail aliasing service such as SimpleLogin or AnonAddy.

Check OpenPGP out. Claws Mail is a good e-mail client for Windows and Linux, Thunderbird for Mac OS.

Gpg4win is free and easy to use for anyone that wants to encrypt/decrypt e-mails.

Instead of Whatsapp, Facebook messenger, Telegram etc. use Signal for your encrypted insant messaging, voice and video calls.

Get a metadata cleaner.

Get a firewall like Opensnitch, Portmaster or Netguard which can block Internet for trackers.

Alternatively, go with a private DNS that blocks these trackers. NextDNS is a good paid service. Rethink a good free option.

Replace as many of your applications as you can with FOSS (free and open source) ones. Alternativeto can help you.

Always have automatic updates on. They are annoying af, I know, but they are necessary.

Keep your distance from outdated software.

Always have two-factor authentication (2FA) enabled.

Do not use your administrator account for casual stuff. If you're on Linux, you probably know you can be sudo, but not root.

On Linux distributions use AppArmor, but stay away from random antivirus scanners. Other distributions default to SELinux, which is less suited to a beginner.

Never repeat your passwords. If you can't remember them all, use a password manager like KeePass.

Encrypt your drive.

Honestly, VPNs have their uses and ProtonVPN, Mullvad and Windscribe are decent, but eh. If you don't trust your ISP, why would you trust the VPN provider that claims they don't log you when you can't verify such a thing?

[silenceofthewave]

[There were many things that Soundwave was. Symbiont host bot. Surveillance extraordinaire. Third in Command of the Decepticon Forces. Head Communications Officer. However, the most important aspect of it was often the most forgotten about, or simply thought of in passing- Soundwave had almost complete control over the Nemesis' systems.]

THE EXODUS

[This control was for several reasons; it had the processing power built into its frame to ensure that the automated systems did not meet unexpected failure, it needed to be able to adjust trajectory, course and speed at the blink of an optic, groundbridging, ensuring weapons and communications arrays always performed at top capabilities.]

[The control the mech had over the ship was not absolute- to save processing power, and to prevent becoming utterly useless in its other duties, Soundwave had created a patch that allowed the ship AI to take over the less relevant tasks. They would check in often, go over reports, fix what was broken. Though, it was easy enough to regain that control, and that's exactly what Soundwave was doing.]

[The mech silently stood at its usual terminal, paying no attention to the vehicons that came in and out of the bridge. It could vaguely hear the outraged cries of Lord Megatron- something about Starscream not responding to his comms. Soundwave couldn't help the small smirk behind its visor. Soon, that was going to be the least of Megatron's worries.]

[No, soon enough, Megatron would have a complete catastrophe on his servos.]

[Indeed, Soundwave had spent the last two weeks painstakingly coding a seek-and-destroy virus. While it would have been much easier to simply set the Nemesis to self destruct and leave, there was no guarantee that it would actually self destruct. That process required two codes, both of which it knew, then sent out a ping to the high command. It only took one code- the code Megatron knew- to halt the process in its tracks.]

[A virus though? A virus could be built to be discreet, undetectable, and just as devistating. The virus itself was complex- it had to be, for its task was no simple one. It had to utilize the AI's blindspots and complex firewall navigation to remain undetected. It had to be able to pull power directly from the engine's electical outputs to various systems simultaneously. It had to have every access and failsafe code built into it.]

[The virus would take the electrical output and put each targeted system into overdrive. Not only would this completely fry any and all circuitry, systems like the space bridge, communications array and cloaking would be rendered completely unusable. The electrical generators that powered them would more than likely explode and require either a full replacement, rebuild or extensive repairs. The Nemesis and her crew would be rendered sitting targets with no escape.]

[Truly, it was a feat of software engineering.]

[Soundwave had run tests earlier last week on its outputs and capabilities, which explained the strange system failures and power fluctuations the vehicons had been complaining about. The code had to be perfect- Soundwave would not be there to witness its execution, nor would it be patched into the systems. If it were, it ran the risk of being disabled itself, either by Lord Megatron or the virus. That was a risk it was not willing to take.]

[Soundwave had finished uploading the virus and was in the process of setting a four hour timer when Lord Megatron stormed in. It quickly finished and shut off the terminal before facing the enraged mech that stood in the middle of the bridge. Megatron was pointing a clawed servo at it.]

"Where are the seekers, Soundwave." It wasn't a question, rather a demand.

[Soundwave considered its options carefully. Though, the longer it waited, the angrier Megatron seemed to get. It quickly scrambled together a series of images from the last few days. Starscream in their quarters tending to Aurora, Thundercracker and Skywarp getting ready for patrol, Slipstream and her trine arguing in their own quarters.]

"If that is where they are, then why can't I find them? In fact," Megatron stepped closer to Soundwave.

[His field was alight with anger and suspicion. Megatron was close enough to touch, to get a true read. His field betrayed the way he knew something was going on, but Soundwave had no way of connecting the dots without that physical contact. Yet, it did not reach out, and neither did Megatron.]

"You know why, don't you?"

[Megatron raised a clawed servo, his index digit a mere milimeter away from Soundwave's visor. Still, they did not touch. Megatron was undoubtedly toying with it at this point.]

"I knew that little fling you had, and that slagged sparkling was going to cause more trouble than its worth." Megatron's voice was low, and if Soundwave didn't know any better, it would have classified the tone as sultry.

"I told Starscream to stay away from you, that I couldn't have my invaluable third in command distracted from its duties."

[Soundwave stayed maddeningly silent. It had no idea where Megatron's mind was- what he thought was going on, what he was going to do. There was an electrical charge that ran up its spinal strut and its HUD flashed the option to activate its battle protocols. It quickly denied that, standing stone still.]

"But, you wouldn't betray me, would you Soundwave?"

[Megatron's voice teetered between fake and genuine concern. Soundwave shut down the urge to shudder and shook its helm.]

"No, I didn't think so."

[Megatron's servo finally made contact with Soundwave's visor as he pet the mech with the back of his knuckles. Images instantly floated to Soundwave's mind, visions of unspeakable violence aimed towards itself, its mate, the seekers and...Aurora.]

[Megatron was threatening it.]

"Bring me the seekers, Soundwave." Megatron did not need to tack on the or else.

[Still, his threats rang hollow to Soundwave. There would have been a time where Soundwave would have ended the interaction cowering in fear, not unlike Starscream, but that time was also when its loyalty was unquestionable. Now, there was no loyalty left- not to Megatron at least.]

[Soundwave had evolved past whatever was keeping it here. Whether it be that it had no other tangible experiences than fighting to survive or that simply the Decepticons were all it had left- neither of those things were true now. It had something to live and fight for other than itself and someone it used to call Lord.]

[Megatron had left the bridge by now. The remaining vehicons stood as silent as ever, their fields anxious and jittery. It paid no mind to them as it faced the terminal and turned it on.]

[Soundwave opened an encrypted message link and searched the frequencies until it found the one it was looking for. Autobot signals and messaging might be encrypted, but there was always at least one open comm link available. It was untraceable, and had to go through several layers of scrambling, but it was a well known secret. Anyone who dared use it, at least within the Decepticon ranks, was immediately considered a traitor.]

[At this point, that is exactly what Soundwave was.]

[Soundwave unspooled a datacable and connected it to the terminal. It uploaded a large data packet containing vital Decepticon intelligence, and an inert copy of the virus, only to prove its good faith. It sent the datapacket with the following message.]

Use this wisely.

[Soundwave turned off the terminal. It had a limited amount of time to enact the next portion of the plan. Luckily, it had been smart enough to transport its Rumble and Frenzy to an unused, secure site a few days ago. It had stolen medical supplies to keep them stable- not like Knockout would notice anyway. Still, its spark ached. They were stable, but still had not even shifted. Soundwave didn't know if they ever would again.]

[It lightly shook its helm, perishing the thought. It needed to disconnect itself from the ship entirely, not focus on its woes. Soundwave quickly found its way to the engineering terminal and plugged itself in.]

[One by one, it disconnected from the systems. The sensations of the freed up processing power quickly began to leave it dizzy and unwell. Its frame had been constructed with the intended load of the Nemesis. To no longer have that weight on its neural net was both freeing and debilitating. Its thoughts raced by too fast- there was nothing to hinder them anymore.]

[The last one it disconnected from was surveillance. Its HUD suddenly became quiet. Too quiet. There was no constant video chatter, no moving images in the corner of its optics. For once, it could see the reflection of its optics against the tinted glass. That was perhaps the most unsettling part.]

[Soundwave had to take a moment. It felt like it was swimming under solvent, while also being pulled into a tidepool. Perhaps it had detached itself too fast, but time was not something it had. Still, everything felt terribly empty and lonely, its HUD blank, its mind startlingly clear.]

[Now, all there was left to do was...Leave.]

[There would be no goodbyes. Knockout was gone, and it doubted Shockwave would want one. Soundwave certainly was not going to say goodbye to Megatron.]

[It was not the time for sentimentality. Soundwave had already packed its things and left it with Rumble and Frenzy. The only issue was that Soundwave no longer had a space bridge. It would have to fly.]

[Quietly, the mech made its way to the very same flight deck that its relationship with Starscream started on. Luckily, there was no one out there. The sun blazed low on the horizon, painting the sky with firey reds and oranges. Tinges of purple could be seen the higher it looked. Briefly, Soundwave wondered if the Stolen Secret would ever witness sunsets as beautiful as this.]

[Without a final look back, Soundwave transformed and raced into the sky.]

[61below]

I really gd love how Cang Lan Jue digs into the way enmity just perpetuates enmity (unchecked) like, not only does Yunzhong immediately go ‘if she isn’t a fairy and she isn’t human, then she MUST be Yuezu’ but like the whole thing just escalated (so quickly) from what was just a genuine question that should have had an easy answer: what is XLH? And the thing is, we know that her true form can be read, that was like, the third thing DFQC did after meeting her. Including his instinctive reaction to kill all fairies on sight

So why couldn’t the high immortal, Sansheng, do it?

I think that the protection DFQC conferred upon her also protected her from any kind of magical intrusion or interference, too. Not just physical attacks, but magical ones. But like an anaphylaxis response to allergens, it’s not that good at telling the difference between an actual attack and just someone trying to … what, scan her meridians? Idfk how it works, but I’mna run with the idea that to sample something you gotta take a piece of it, so to ‘read’ her form, one has to dip into her qi. But the bone orchid registers that as HEY YOU DON’T BELONG HERE!!! and does the meridian-level equivalent of throwing up a wall of hellfire around her. Which is why what Sansheng projects ends up looking like flames. She can’t read XLH’s true form bc all she ‘sees’ is the firewall.

(… and ok now I’m actually interested in whether or not the Yuezu doctors were able to do any magical diagnostics on her. Like, did it not register as an ‘attack’ to the bone orchid bc it’s Yuezu cultivation? Did she refuse to let these nosy strangers even do a check? I am CURIOUS.)

But my POINT is that it’s really interesting that the story takes ‘here is someone just trying to defend what’s theirs, but the State of Hostilities is so Hot that even the very act of defense is seen as a Threat’ and gives ‘the INSTANT response to any Perceived Threat is with Aggression. Up to DEATH.’

… and where do you even begin to start conflict resolution from there? It’s no wonder things escalated as far as they did.

[witchofthesouls]

Challenges? Do tell what the nurse would be witnessing if Tarn was less isolated from the rest of the Deceptacons. Say Tarn and the DJD were transferred to the Nemisis or the Peaceful Tyranny crash on Earth trying to pick Megatron.

If mandatory meetings in the "office" were a thing, the DJD needed to haul ass to wherever Megatron planned it, then Nickel and the Camien wouldn't appreciate the finer points of 'con culture, especially with their dumpster-fire of a healthcare system that really needs fixing before they crash and explode.

Hook, a perfectionist he may be, has his own filing system that's a monstrosity that could give Tarn pointers.

As a Camien, you're no stranger to challenges, and you expected similar bouts, albeit more violent, especially with similar struggles over resources.

You didn't expect the gratuitous gore to come with sheer waste of everything and no common sense on preventative measures.

You and Nickel have been "spoiled" by the DJD's solid teamwork, which is a far different direction from the rest of the troops. It's "every mech for himself" taken to an extreme competitive sport level or something to bring corporate tears to the patron of billionares.

You thought Tarn's weirdness was just him. Apparently, Decepticons are a bunch of extreme weirdos on a pain and gore scale.

Funnily enough, more rumors would arise should this happen, you will become a legend, a cryptid, a powerful entity of unimaginable force, you're only trapped and impeded by a standard frame and back-to-back carriages. (Which is another another mindfuck for the faction since it's Tarn's.) Otherwise, what other miracles or monstrosities would happen, especially under the DJD...

You (and Nickel) managed to update Overlord's medical files, including his firewalls, hardware testing, oil change, rust checks, and all the finicky and little, yet important things that keep a mecha running smooth and healthy.

And with it, you get Overlord's attention, and Tarn isn't pleased at all.