#SO TECHNOLOGY NOW HAS TO BE OBLIGATORY FOR KIDS

[ianthe-is-a-bitch-and-i-love-her]

I've found that when I review a book that was on the whole quite good, but the element I was most interested in didn't quite play out the way I wanted it to, I tend to spend most of my word count on what I didn't like instead of what I did, so I'm going to try for a little more parity here. The Stars Too Fondly is a thoroughly enjoyable sci-fi romance with a lot to recommend it. It begins on a near-future Earth, twenty years after what was supposed to be the first of many missions to begin evacuating humanity to a new planet using a revolutionary new technology that would make interstellar travel cheap and easy failed dramatically and inexplicably on the launch pad, resulting in the cancellation of the program. A group of four postdocs who watched the failure live on television as kids break into the now-derelict launch facility determined to find out why the launch failed and what happened to the crew, all of whom vanished without a trace during the catastrophe. However, the ship inexplicably powers up and launches with them on board, and now they not only have to solve the mystery but also figure out how to survive their multi-year interstellar journey and return, with the help of the ship's onboard AI who, for some reason, has been programmed to be a perfect copy of the missing captain of the original expedition.

I really enjoyed the tone and setting of the book, which is much more Star Trek than it is The Martian, with much more focus placed on character drama, mystery solving, and moral dilemmas than logistical puzzle-solving. The influence of Star Trek: Voyager in particular are worn proudly in both plot elements - a holographic artificial intelligence with questions about her personhood, an unplanned years-long journey that the crew is trying to shorten - and smaller elements, such as the use of food replicators and even a direct reference to the show's most famous episode, Threshold.

The characters were solid and compelling, with engaging dynamics unique voices. I also, barring one personal gripe, really liked the book's exploration of queer experiences. If I found myself on an unplanned space mission, I would also be very concerned about how I was going to get HRT meds!

The book makes use of a combination of plausible hard sci-fi theories, which stopped me from giving the concept of a dark matter engine my usual obligatory eyeroll, and bonkers off the wall pseudo magic soft sci-fi. These elements synergized better than I was afraid they would, but the introduction of the softer elements was a little jarring. Also kinda like Star Trek actually.

The plotting was perfectly solid, though not extraordinary by any means. None of the twists and turns were particularly surprising, but neither did they come across as trite or formulaic. The themes weren't anything novel either, but they were well-supported and conveyed. The writing itself was mostly pretty good, with a few of the rough edges and structural oddities that I've come to expect from debut novels.

So now that I've actually given the book its due, I'm gonna dig too deep into what I found disappointing.

I've noticed a bit of a trend between the last few books I've felt really compelled by, and that's the idea of a character falling in love with someone who, by their very nature, they are not going to be able to have an "ordinary" relationship with. It's what drew me to Flowers for Dead Girls, which is about falling in love with a ghost. It's what drew me to Someone You Can Build a Nest In, which is about a psychologically and physiologically inhuman monster falling in love with a human. And it's what initially drew me to this book, which is about a human falling in love with the hologram of a dead woman - a space ghost, if you want, or a ghost in the machine, if you'd rather. All of these books take some pains to explore the rough edges of these relationships, where the participants' desires are stymied by their physical differences. However, where the previous two books end with the characters establishing an equilibrium of sorts where their needs are met, even if their relationship doesn't look like what society or their own imaginations expected them to look like, The Stars Too Fondly just neatly resolves things such that their differences are no longer a concern and they can have exactly what they imagined. And I found that to be cheap and unsatisfying, especially because the resolution only works if you really, really want it to work. When you start digging into it, it starts falling apart.

It's a symptom of a phenomenon I'm calling, "So You Want to Have Your Tragedy and Eat it Too". It arises when an author has an idea for a very compelling and evocative tragic event or outcome that results in rich character moments and strong thematic resonance and very profound emotions that they really want to explore... but it would also make the happy ending they want for their characters impossible, either because the rules they've established for their story mean that the damage can't be reversed, or because the change is such that, even if the conflict were apparently resolved, the characters have now been changed by the event that they can never be as they were before, and the happy ending is now emotionally impossible.

When this conundrum comes up in the writing process, the author has to decide - do they want to explore the rich possibilities of this tragedy, or do they want to go a different direction that allows for their originally desired happy ending. It's a difficult choice to make, and unfortunately, it's not uncommon for authors to think they can take a third option, that they can come up with a way to have their tragedy but still make things work out in the end. And the end result is a solution that doesn't hold up to scrutiny. That's what happens here, to the point that it's hard to read the last couple chapters because the main character reads like she's deluding herself that everything is fine and she's happy. And you know, that could've been a really interesting - and tragic - direction to go on purpose and explore, but it wasn't on purpose, and it just winds up feeling like the book is trying desperately to convince the reader that everything is alright, really! I can't help but compare it unfavorably to the conclusion of Lovelace's arc in The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, which confronted the fact that nothing could ever be the same again so unflinchingly that it gave rise to A Closed and Common Orbit, one of my favorite books of all time (that I completely forgot when I was trying to list some of my favorite books in a conversation the other day and now I feel like I've betrayed it).

And while I have you here, I also really hate that they made the transfem side character super into astrology. That's a personal bugbear, and while it's one I have grudgingly tolerated the singular time that I have seen a transfem author do it, I really, really wish non-transfem authors would knock that shit off. Find a different quirky interest to give to your transfem characters.

Still, on the whole, I thought it was a really solid book with a lot of entertaining and compelling elements. Unless you are reading it primarily for the logistical and emotional challenges of a romantic relationship between a ghost and a human, I would recommend it without hesitation. If you are, check out any of the other books I referenced in this post instead (except maybe for A Closed and Common Orbit, but if you're the kind of person who would like those other recommendations, I bet you'd like it too).

[pluckyredhead]

I am still reading my way through the Fourth World! Last time I talked about all the stuff published in the 70s; now let's talk about the 80s.

Kirby:

New Gods #12: In 1984, DC reprinted Kirby's original New Gods run and threw in an extra issue (not to be confused with Gerry Conway's New Gods #12) so that Kirby could finish the story. This was partially DC being nice and trying to give an aging Kirby money, and partially not because they refused to let him produce the ending he wanted, which was Orion and Darkseid both dying. After a couple scrapped versions, we got this, in which Orion goes down in a hail of laser fire. It's a real bummer, but at least he's extremely homoerotic with his best buddy Lightray first? (Oh, they're getting a whole separate post, just you wait.)

The Hunger Dogs: This "graphic novel" (it's only 64 pages but back then that counted) came out a year later and was the "conclusion" to the Fourth World saga. Once again DC and Kirby butted heads because Kirby really wanted to kill everyone and DC was like "But our IP!!!" In the final version, only supporting characters Himon and Esak die, which is sad but not going to do any damage to DC's bottom line.

It turns out Orion is not dead despite being riddled with holes (there's an intriguing suggestion that he has some kind of healing ability because he possesses the Life Equation, which like everything else in this book is presented with zero context or explanation), which is great because it gives him an opportunity to be homoerotic with Lightray again, although he has also been given an Obligatory Heterosexual Love Interest, Himon's daughter Bekka.

Anyway this book is baffling. Highfather blows up New Genesis (everyone survives) to taunt Darkseid, who is overthrown by the downtrodden masses of Apokalips. There's some shouting about the dangers of technology and maybe some anti-Cold War rhetoric about stockpiling weapons, but it's all so hysterically overblown - Kirby at his most grandiose - that it's nearly impossible to parse beyond "war bad." I do appreciate that Orion is able to break free of his rage and death wish and just...leave Darkseid behind, but the fact that he's emotionally mature enough to do that now comes pretty much out of nowhere. The art is extremely powerful, at least.

My final thought is that Kirby clearly gleefully ignored everything Englehart, Conway, et al. did and I love that for him.

Super Powers: Darkseid fights the Justice League. This was a comic created to sell a toy line and you can really, really tell.

Post-Kirby:

Legends: I've read this before, but it's great. If you like pre-Flashpoint DC, you should definitely read this, which introduces Amanda Waller and the Suicide Squad, sets up the JLI, and brings Wonder Woman into the post-Crisis DCU. Neither Orion nor Scott are present but this (along with the Happyland issue of the original Forever People) really makes the case for why Glorious Godfrey is one of Kirby's best and scariest Fourth World creations. And I will never complain about John Byrne art.

Forever People (1988): Blecch. It's definitely arrogant to read something and think "I know for certain that Jack Kirby, a man I never met who died when I was a child, would have hated this" but like. I'm right. And it's obvious from the very first page.

Basically, at the end of Kirby's series, the FP were marooned on a random, idyllic planet somewhere with no hope of getting home, so they embraced it as their new, hopeful future. This catches up with them years later, with Serifan (the sweet young kid) drooling and raving alone in the woods, Vykin (the only Black character) dead (he gets better), and the rest of them...living in yuppie paradise? Apparently the planet they ended up on was populated (missing the point) with "primitive" people (racist) so they decided to use Mother Box to forcibly "evolve" the people (SO RACIST) and were able to create...modern-day America? Literally why would they even do that, they're from New Genesis. Mark is mayor and married with kids, and Big Bear and Beautiful Dreamer are married to each other with a baby on the way.

Anyway a nebulous villain/evil force called "the Dark" undoes everything which brings Vykin back to life but takes away Mark's wife and kids (she's alive but still "primitive" and the kids were never born) and Bear and Dreamer's unborn child, which means the only female protagonist spends the whole rest of the miniseries clutching her stomach and going "my baby!" I absolutely don't mean to make light of pregnancy loss but this doesn't feel like a story about a three-dimensional woman experiencing pregnancy loss. It feels like a story that reduces a woman to a) whether or not she's having a baby, which is the only thing she cares about and b) the central point on a vague love triangle with Mark and Bear. SIGH.

Meanwhile they all go to Earth for...some reason...and then Mark gets possessed by the Dark and is evil for a while but then they manage to summon Infinity Man and Mark isn't evil anymore. And it's bafflingly revealed that they're all from Earth in the first place from random different historical time periods and Highfather kidnapped them as babies. Okay???

The Forever People are perhaps Kirby's purest and most optimistic characters, and this cynical take on them actively angered me even though I don't actually care about them at all. I've also basically never cared for J. M. DeMatteis's writing outside of JLI, and I don't like Paris Cullins's art, so this book just had absolutely nothing going for it for me.

Cosmic Odyssey: I do not trust Jim Starlin with the New Gods since I know he's going to kill them all off in 2007. This is...fine, I guess? Starlin really does not like Orion, who he has slaughter a bunch of innocent, brainwashed Thanagarians, and also be deeply bigoted against Forager. Everything else is...fine? It's basically all action. The only character who has an emotional arc is John Stewart because this is the story where he fails to save Xanshi because he's being an overconfident moron, but the moral at the end of the comic is like "Get over it already" so...that happens. It's fine.

But man, that Mike Mignola artwork is worth the price of admission alone. That guy's great at drawing.

Mister Miracle Special: The plot of this is that Barda doesn't want Scott to be an escape artist anymore because it's too dangerous, even though a) she's a warrior of Apokalips and b) he's an active Justice League member and she seems fine with that. So okay.

Mister Miracle (1989): Okay, so the basic premise here - Scott and Barda try to adjust to normal life in the suburbs - is good. And it's a spiritual spinoff of JLI, which is of course one of my favorite books of all time. But this book is like...imagine someone screaming "Iiiiiiit's WACKY!" over your shoulder constantly while you're reading. That's what reading Mister Miracle (1989) is like. Highfather wears a tuxedo! Funky Flashman shows up a lot! Scott fights a giant alien noodle! Some of it is actually funny, but most of it is trying so hard to be funny that it's just exhausting.

There are some interesting character moments in there. Scott, Barda, and Orion all get to call Highfather out. Orion mentions wishing he was closer to Scott. There are hints at Scott's depression and suicidal tendencies, which I find really fascinating. But all of it is always immediately overshadowed by ZANINESS.

Anyway, I think we as DC fans deserve a do-over with a new Scott and Barda book about their lovingly domestic (kinky) life together on Earth that is funny but not desperately mugging for laughs in every panel. And I think it should be set in Vegas where Scott has a residency. Call me, DC!

New Gods (1989): This book was mostly written by Mark Evanier (a couple issues were by Starlin), who was one of Kirby's assistants back when he was originally creating the Fourth World, so you might think it would feel the closest to a continuation of Kirby's vision. Instead, I am making it Exhibit A in my argument for why a character should never be assigned to a writer who obviously fucking hates their guts.

I mean, I don't know that Evanier hates Orion. But boy does he write him like he does. Starlin's Orion (who again, we get a couple issues of here) is a monster, but Evanier's Orion is just an incompetent idiot, forever slamming himself against the brick wall of his inevitably becoming his father. Almost every single issue has at least one character, often multiple characters, bemoaning Orion's absolutely unproductive violence and inability to learn or comprehend basic concepts that should not be at all new to him after living most of his life on New Genesis (i.e. justice, mercy, compassion). Even fucking Kalibak is like "Wow, you're a useless idiot." Kalibak! The king of useless idiots!

The comic is so into hating on Orion that it hates on him when he's not actually doing anything bad; at one point he walks into a nuclear reaction that's melting down in a desperate attempt to stop it before it kills everyone, and Big Bear is like "Wow, he's just like his father." REALLY, BIG BEAR? Show me the comic where Darkseid risks his life to save thousands of strangers. I'll wait.

This series also features:

a hawkish, bloodthirsty New Genesis military leader who keeps trying to overthrow Highfather, which both seems to undercut the whole point of New Genesis as well as Orion's uniqueness as The Angry Guy;

an Earth woman with the worst gaydar in the universe repeatedly failing to fuck an increasingly uncomfortable Lightray;

but then Lightray falls in love with a dead woman he never met?;

also Orion gets a crush on a bug lady and learns to stop being racist against bugs (she's not impressed and good for her)

and Lightray and Orion parade around Earth in the WORST fashions of the late 80s/early 90s, which is about all this book has going for it.

Anyway it was bad and I'm glad I'm done with it. Next up: the 90s!

[purble-gaymer]

i need to talk about falspar before i explode

okay so here’s the guy we’re talking about plus information that will be important going forward:

number 1. he is genderfluid and uses any pronouns but primarily he/him

number 2. he is aro/pan (but he doesn't know the aro part for a while)

number 3. autism adhd and a healthy dose of rejection sensitive dysphoria

without further ado, here is my lore dump

(also: warnings for child neglect and drug use)

for the sake of structuring my thoughts i'm gonna pull from a couple songs that have been fueling all this. i know it's cliche to have mother mother in character playlists but you have to trust me okay. because it's ball cap and touch up and the album they're from is dear to my heart

let's talk about astrals. in case you thought otherwise, this is going to be very headcanon-heavy so i'm opening with my hardest hitter and that's astral reproduction.

option 1: mitosis. can only be performed once due to the unstable nature of void creatures

option 2: random birth as a result of the random collision of light matter particles in space

in the case of option 2, the newborn usually just drifts around until they get caught in a planet's orbit and pulled to the ground. in the case of either option, they imprint on the first creature they see. only really a problem for option 2.

falspar here is option 2. he landed on mekkai before the whole planet became industrialized, which happened gradually during his time there. (additional note before i forget to put it anywhere: mekkai's vernacular is derivative of german because german is like 'the science language.' he grows up speaking both common and this yet-to-be-named vernacular.) when he's eventually found, he ends up in foster care because astrals live for a really long time and most species on mekkai aren't able to take care of someone for that long. he has no memory of whoever he may have imprinted on, but it never mattered to him that much.

(even if it's always felt like something was missing.)

so here's my first pull from ball cap:

I like the treetops 'Cause they're reaching just like me And I'm tied up in knots Like the brambles and the weeds

this stanza feels to me like it's from the perspective of a child. it feels like they're trying to fit in, or trying to understand why they struggle to fit in.

here's where some of that stuff i mentioned earlier comes in. all of it, actually, even if he didn't quite know all of it yet. 1, trans kid. astrals are born genderless and some ID otherwise later on. i imagine mekkai to be somewhat similar to human society, being so technologically advanced. something about colonialism and forcing the gender binary and now in the current day our young astral is very confused why everyone is trying to assign him an arbitrary label for something he doesn't have. of course it's too early for him to really question anything, but the confusion is always there.

2, welcome to my obligatory "you are aromantic" segment. wanna know how annoying it is to be aro in a romance-focused society? extremely! and that shit sticks with you forever unfortunately so you really have to try and unlearn it! this comes in more later and i'll talk about it then, but similar to point 1 there's the inkling that something is wrong, even if he doesn't know what just yet.

and 3, neurodivergent. here's where i insert my 'astrals are like cats' headcanon and tell you all astrals are autistic and there's nothing you can do to stop me. anyway, this is the bit that ties to this lyric the most at this point. yknow when you feel different and don't know why? or you do know why, and you're even more conscious about how you're just not like everyone around you? that's what this line is to me. reaching to understand your peers, but ultimately extending your arms and finding nothing in your grasp, just empty sky.

so, he starts not really fitting in anywhere. nowhere feels right. no one seems interested in him. he's loud, excitable, enthusiastic, but it seems to scare people off more than it invites them in. he moves between families a lot for the first few decades because, again, no one on mekkai is really equipped to deal with a kid who ages and matures ten times slower than the average person on the planet. this makes schooling especially bad--how do you even compensate for something like that? moving him up each year is far too fast, keeping him in the same grade for ten years is pointlessly excessive. it's complicated and he gets through it, but not without a lot of struggle. completing work always feels like a fight.

moving on: remember how awful it is being in your early to mid-teens? we're there now and all three things i mentioned before have only begun weighing on him more now that he's starting to understand them. societal pressure rolls around again! sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll being ostracized by your peers for not following the norm!

we can scratch that first one off the list because aro + terrified of emotional intimacy. the aro thing isn’t a problem but it is certainly confusing and he's like the equivalent of 16 at this point and has no fucking clue what any of that means. it sure as hell doesn't make him feel better about himself. second one's easy but we'll get to that in a moment. i only put the third one there for the joke but he probably does like rock. and the fourth is basically at the forefront of his thoughts the entire time.

this is about the time where he starts noticing things. a lot to do with his current family, mostly that...they don't really seem interested in him. no one ever has. he could never really make friends because they would all grow up and move on without him. his past family members cared about him, sure, but he always knew he would have to leave eventually, so he tried not to get attached. the longer he sits on this, the more sick of it he becomes. after a while he decides he's going to get someone's attention, whether it's good attention or not.

here's where the drugs come back. it's crazy what a little brain-altering substance can do. suddenly, you have no inhibitions, no fears, and falspar ends up with some friends for the first time. or at least, with people who don't find him unbearable to be around. he's not exactly close with any of them, but at least he's not alone, right?

here's another line that's relevant for this portion:

Oh, don't you know that beauty is only skin deep? Well, baby, baby, come on and skin me

his current state is a culmination of peer pressure, the weight of societal standards, and his refusal to really be vulnerable with anyone, only able to do so with great pain. this is a very confusing, very stressful period of one's life and everything that's happened up to this point is only making things worse.

but the drugs help. at least somewhat. he's able to talk to people. he can be normal for once. he goes along with his friends, and he's happy. at least, he's pretty sure he is. what starts as regular fun after-school activities starts to turn into some not-so-legal ones. but they're still pretty fun, he'll admit. the thrill practically gives him the same high as a smoke.

when his family hears, they aren't happy. falspar is, though. they start keeping a closer eye on him, making sure he gets home on time, and while he's still sneaking out with his friends from time to time, it's nice to know someone is wondering what he's doing.

it was nice for a while, at least. what he isn't ready for is after he became a legal adult, they asked him to leave. well, 'asked' is a gentle way to put it.

he manages to get ahold of a few closer friends who graduated recently and were living together in the next town over, and they invite him to stay with them. he's stressed at first, afraid of being a burden, finding a job as soon as possible to help out. after a few months, he gets more comfortable, and then...

freedom. for the first time, he doesn't feel...obligated to be one way or another. he works and helps around the house, and in the evening he and his friends hang out and smoke and play games and for once, he's happy. he really, really is, and the morning he wakes up and realizes it he decides it's time for a change. he cuts his hair and picks out a new name and he's finally started to understand himself.

i haven't said anything about touch up yet, so here's a bit from the bridge that i'm about to rip into:

I forget that I can remember when I was young, climbing up fences Scraping my knees, dirt on my cheeks Not one makeover queen bone in me

there's a stark contrast between falspar's younger self and who he becomes as he grows up. to address this stanza directly, there's the obliviousness that comes with being a child. there's no bigger picture, there's no pressure to be someone you're not, to pretend to be like the people around you for their approval. maybe something was off, but what did it matter? those problems seem so small now.

as he gets older, in comes the confusion, the isolation, the self-loathing. something was wrong, something, even if he didn't know exactly what, and it was excruciating. there had to be an answer, right? yet no matter how much he searched and fought, he could never find one.

and then, escaping all that, and being allowed to breathe freely. you have other problems now, sure, but all that weight is gone. somehow just the idea of being an 'adult' now opens up so many doors, and for the first time in, hell, maybe his entire life, falspar looks in the mirror and smiles back at the person he sees in it.

the repetition of the line "All my makeup, it has washed off" has two meanings in this context. the first, and more positive, being that he's able to do...anything, really. he can relax. unmask. he doesn't have to perform for anyone. he can remove the paint and be himself and for once he's not going to be forced to conform. it doesn't matter what other people think, you are alive, why shouldn't he be able to live authentically?

the second relates to his younger self again. this whole song feels like the buildup to a breakdown, eventually coming to a close with the constant repeat of "I need a touch up/give me the touch up," and one finally slam on the guitar, the exhausting aftermath playing out as it slowly fades to nothing. losing that mask is devastating, he can't be seen without it, he'll be cast out again, discarded, abandoned, and he can't let that happen, not now, not after everything. and once it's over, he's left alone, in the dark, too afraid to turn to anyone no matter how badly he wants to.

okay. this is getting really long and i'd love to add how he gets to the gsa here, but i think i've said enough. i'm done with the song analysis at this point, too, so i'll have to talk about it some other time.

YEESH feels good to get all that out of my system. if you've made it to the end of this, thank you so much for reading. it means a lot. can you tell i really really like this guy?

[mongpht]

Idia Shroud - Broom Bloom Birthday SSR Personal Story [PART 1]

Ignihyde dorm — birthday party venue

Idia: Ah. Another year, another obligatory birthday party, even though I don't want that. No, no, no… haha. I'm not going to be forced to be face-to-face, but the tablet can't be used. Depending on the presenter, it might not be possible…

???: Excuse me.

Riddle: I'm Riddle Roseharts, and I'm in charge of the birthday interview. I would like to wish you a happy birthday, Idia-sempai.

Idia: H-hi… Well, I don't… I-it's not like a party, it's more like a gathering of ants by the pear.

Riddle: We see each other often, but there aren't many opportunities for in-depth conversation. Let's start with the important stuff.

Idia: I'm glad to hear that Riddle-san doesn't need a warm-up conversation or anything. Thank you for understanding that.

Riddle: Okay, first question. "If you could go anywhere with a broom, where would you want to go?"

Idia: I've already decided beforehand. I don't want to go anywhere. I'm going to stay in my room.

Riddle: I knew you were going to say that. You're the kind of person who never disappoints. However, you must answer the questions normally. Those are the rules. I'll do my best to squeeze a non one-word answer out of you.

Idia: God… The title of this interview is now, "It's my birthday and I'm being threatened by my kohai"?

Riddle: So where do you want to go?

Idia: Where do I want to go? God… Perhaps I'd like to visit the Valley of Hydra.

Riddle: Hydra Valley is a canyon with sheer cliff walls in the Land of Heroes, isn't it?

Idia: Yes, it is. Legend has it that this place used to be the fortress of a monster with nine heads.

Riddle: I couldn't imagine that Idia-sempai would want to put herself in such a difficult situation.

Idia: There are other reasons why people seek to enter the Hydra Valley…

Riddle: May I ask the details?

Idia: I often admired pictures of the place as a child, so I've loved it since I was a kid.

Riddle: In other words, you'd like to see for yourself where it was taken…

Idia: The technology was first developed in the 1960s. CG and drone technology was not as advanced as it is today. So the cast and crew were actually climbing trees. And even the cameraman-focuser used his flying skills to take part in the shoot. But it was so bad! I was so nervous watching them. The height and strength of the film made my hands sweat! If it was so great on film at the time, the present will never be as good.

Riddle: I understand that when you experience something yourself, your knowledge deepens. I hope one day that will happen.

Idia: Well, with my piloting technique, it doesn't even make sense to start or try… It would take a lot of time and effort to get there any other way. So… 360° VR is the only way! It would be even better if smells and air were also realistically reproduced. Eventually, I'd like to build such a device myself. Would you like to try a local RTA tour?

Riddle: It's like a game… I don't think I understood any of it, but I think they enjoy it as a game. Idia-sempai, I'm afraid I'm veering off topic. Can I ask you a personal question?

Idia: Sorry, but I have a bad feeling about this question. If I can answer it…God.

Riddle: Thank you. One of the passages mentions that you use a homemade robot to clean your room, but there's a lot to do, such as moving and sorting things. I think it would be more efficient to use a challenge technique rather than designing and building machines from scratch.

Idia: No, the more you use them, the more they consume magic. It's true that the little fairies that like to clean up save energy, and the summoning procedure is simple, but… If all they have to do is pick up a few pieces of trash, they can be summoned with a simple push of a button. "2~3 Pop!" The energy saving process is simple.

Riddle: Did you build your robot specifically for this? Wouldn't it be most energy efficient to collect them yourself?

Idia: No, because I want to move as little as possible myself. That's all I can say. Riddle-san, let's get back to the main question.

To be continued...

translate by mongpht. DON'T USE AND REPOST MY TRANSLATE!

[wardencommanderrodimiss]

..ok, sorry for yet another ask, but I just realized that if Manfroy asked for Agarthan help in tracking down the prophesied mother of loppy's vessel via the internet, it would just end in an argument because Thales can't find anything and Manfroy doesn't believe him (at least until they find Sigurd's social media)

Oh this is actually the perfect lead-in to your other question about my potential plot threads.

Manfroy (boomer (derogatory), can barely send an email) asks Thales (cryptocurrency enthusiast (derogatory), introduced Kronya to NFTs) "how it's possible that there's not a trace of this woman on the internet, everything is in the internet, isn't it?" and Thales is like. "that's really not how it works. I'm doing this for you for free, if you want to go bitch at someone about this, go pay a private investigator" which Manfroy does not do, because the Loptyrians do not have money, they just have a bunch of stolen artifacts, and Manfroy and Thales just trade in favors.

Anyway eventually several years after this conversation, Thales does find Cigyun's daughter, because Sigurd is a proud husband and dad who can't fucking stop posting about his wife and kid. Thales sends this info to Manfroy and Manfroy's like "okay cool, next question. You Agarthans have a lot of advanced technology. How much would it cost for you to grow a baby in a test tube?" and Thales is like "...you are going to owe me favors for the rest of your life for this."

Manfroy dubiously acquires some blood and hair samples, Thales starts work with some technology that is deeply, incredibly illegal in Fodlan but is also how Rhea made Sitri. And probably around a year and a half later, Henry, who's doing a semester at Shambhala College on exchange and has spent all of his time poking around in places he shouldn't be, runs into Dimitri and Edelgard (who are doing their one yearly obligatory visit to their uncle) and is like "heyyy, you guys can probably steal some key card from your uncle and get access to the super-secret labs, I hear they're like, growing babies in there" and Dimitri and Edelgard, who would believe this wholeheartedly without evidence about their uncle, say "yeah sure okay let's do some breaking-and-entering."

And Henry turns out to be right and Dimitri and Edelgard both panic and the next thing they know they're on a train halfway to Deirdru with an armful of stolen hard drives and two stolen babies and Dimitri's texting Claude like hey I know you might be in Almyra right now because it's break, but can you ask Judith to leave us a key to your house on the porch? it's sort of an emergency.

Claude: weren't you visiting your uncle?

Dimitri: yeah

Claude: ...

Claude: right yeah sure I'll let Judith know.

Anyway they get enough info off all the hard drives they stole to find out that a cult on another continent commissioned Thales to grow their antichrist babies in a lab and the situation spirals even more from there as Edelgard and Dimitri keep accidentally looping in more people as they try to navigate the aftermath of their accidental baby heist. Claude shows up and calls Jeralt, because Jeralt knows how to take care of kids and is good at keeping secrets. Edelgard calls Hubert. Hubert needs more info about the Loptous cult and calls Robin. Robin sighs and calls Aversa like "hey, the Loptyrians are Doing Shit, do you want to knock them down a peg" and then she finishes reading all the info that Hubert sent her and she goes "wait a fucking second" and calls Arvis. Arvis has a breakdown. Thales and Manfroy are either about to kill each other or start killing everyone else around them. Validar thinks this sounds like an opportunity.

Anyway so that's (part of) Julius and Julia's origin story.

[countessofravenclaw]

The 2023 writing Advent calendar: Day 5

5. Star 

“Hey! You’re here!” Luna skipped to meet Simon and Ambar at their door. 

“Shhhhh!” Ambar shushed her and pointed to the sleeping Esme at Simon’s arms. “She fell asleep at the drive over. Don’t wake her, please.” 

“Uuup, okay,” Luna made apologetic face, “You can put her down at our room.” 

“Thank you,” Simon nodded and walked to left, toward Luna and Matteo’s bedroom. 

“How my goddaughter?!” Luna exclaimed and scooped the one and a half year olde Ivory to her arms. “You have gotten so big!”

“You literally saw her yesterday,” Ambar smiled as Luna twirled Ivory around. “but are you sure you should do that?” 

They had been told last week that Luna in fact was pregnant again. It hadn’t that big of a surprise, Ambar had super good instinct with this. She had been able to predict almost everyone’s pregnancies before they had been announced. 

“Why not?” Luna rolled her eyes, “I have six months. The doctor said that there is no reason why I should take it easy. And I am going to hold all my babies. So Ivory, are we gonna decorate a tree?”

Luna and Matteo had asked Simon and Ambar come to help them to decorate their tree. The girls would hep of course, although Ambar wasn’t fully sure how much 18 month old and freshly two year old could  make the different baubles actually stay on the tree branches.

“She is out,” Simon came back to the other. “Hopefully she’ll stay asleep.” 

“Good things she has your sleeping tendencies,” Ambar nudged Simon as they walked to the living room. “Where is Matteo… and more importantly… where is Stella?”

“Stella’s helping daddie bring the decorations out,” Luna nodded broadly. To Ambar, that sounded a recipe for disaster. Luna and Matteo’s two-year-old daughter Stella had already come to her mother almost completely. She seemed to have unending energy and ran around for hours. Luna had been so sad when she had not been able to find skates that were tiny enough for her feet. 

“Are Gastón and Nina coming?” Ambar asked as she at down on the couch. 

“No, the Professor had an obligatory faculty benefit or something,” Matteo’s voice sounded as he apeared from the stairs that led to Luna and Matteo’s house’s basement which was Matteo so called music lair.

Gastón had finished his Ph.D. earlier in the year and had almost immediately been snached by the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina for the Science and Technology faculty. He only did teaching part time, since quitting the Castillo Corporation had never been in his plans.

“Look what I have!!” Stella toddled along behind Matteo from the stairs. She was holding a huge tangle… of what looked like maybe lights? 

“Well, what is it?” Ambar looked at it. 

“Stars, like me.” Stella showed it proudly to everyone. 

“That must be like all of your Christmast lights in one,” Ambar noted while Stella was showing the coil to Ivory, “Ivory sweetie, don’t start pulling it. It will break.”

“Where did they put the kids?” Simon asked as he sat next to Ambar, while Luna started unpacking the decoration box with the girls. 

“I told them they could just drop them off here, but apparently they’d fixed month ago now that Jonathan and April were taking them somewhere.” Matteo remarked and took the tangle of lights from Stella and looked at it blankly. “I don’t know how, but there has to be someway to get this untangled.” 

“Do I hear a hint of jealousy in you voice Matteo?” Ambar teased him. 

“No,” Matteo stared at the lights, “I’m happy that his family is around, it has not always been like that.” 

“Who were they again?” Simon scratched his neck. 

“Jonathan Ruiz and Dr. April Ruiz?” Matteo looked at Simon, “Gastón’s cousins. Oldest kids of Isla’s older younger sister Mía. He has nine cousins.”

“Oh, well, in that case, you should never feel the need to compete with someone’s flesh and blood.” 

“And well, who wouldn’t want to babysit those angels?” Ambar noted, “I don’t know what on earth they have been doing, but it is working.” 

“Well, that is our godson, so we can have some of the credit,” Matteo smirked while examining the lights.

“And our goddaughter,” Ambar reminded him before crying started coming from the bedroom. 

“I got it,” Ambar got up from the couch, “She’s probably hungry.”

“Daddie, we need starry lights,” Stella was pulling Matteo’s arm and pointing toward the tree.

“Just a minute,” Matteo looked at the light for the hundredth time. Who on earth had packed them last year for them to get this tangled. Honestly, he didn’t even remember had they use these last year… 

He had given these star-shaped Christmas light to Luna as a present in 2025, right after their wedding. 

“Luna? Did you put these away last year?”

“Maybe,” Luna turned to look at him from the box. “For some reason she hand two Christmas baubles, shaped like stars, tangling from her hair already. Ivory might have put those in there, but you never knew with Luna

“You wouldn’t possibly know how we get these out of this coil?” Matteo showed Luna the tangle. 

“How would I know that?” Luna shrugged. “But hurry up, we need to put the lights in the tree so we can decorate!” Ivory and Stella both were standing on the both sides of Luna nodding. 

“This is why we needed Gastón here,” Matteo sighed, “This is way up his alley.” 

“I mean he’s not an electrician,” Simon also stared at the ball of wires.

“Being a environmental engineer and a university professor is plenty of technical knowledge that we don’t have,” Matteo huffed. “Can you see the other end of the wire?”

“Maybe…” Simon squinted.

“Oh come on!” Luna had apparently had enough and came to grab the tangle. “Matteo you hold on that end, Simon the other end. Me and the girls will figure the middle out. 

“Okay darling, do you wanna go see the tree?” Ambar asked Esme after she had finished feeding and changing her. The others would probably be in full force decorating now.

Ambar hopped Esme on her arms and walked out of the bedroom… Only to walk into a sight…

“What happened here?” On the floor in front of the tree were sitting Simon, Luna, Matteo with Ivory and Stella. They were all tied together by that string of star lights. 

“So… We tried to uncoil this thing…” Simon started. 

“I can see that.” Ambar sighed. Even Esme looked at everyone confused, or as confused as a barely two month old could. At least no wire was around anyone’s neck. 

“Please help us.”

“Just a minute,” Ambar grinned suddenly and pulled her phone out. “But first—” She snapped at least 10 pictures and sent them in variety of group chats. Everyone had to see this. 

“Hey, who are you sending that to?” Matteo asked.

“No one.” Ambar put her phone away, “Okay… Who has the tailend?”

This was going to the the whole night.

And here we have the first Next Gen oriented drapple of the calendar... we will have more stories featuring the Roller Crew kids as I have unlocked that part of brain now. So this is what you get when you let Lutteo and Simbar lose with some offsprings and a tangled Christmas lights, when Gastin are not there and Ambar isn't looking... Also, I have confession to make. This was originally supposed to be tomorrows story, but the story I was writing today started to be more about the lights...and this works for stars as well, so we're going with this one instead. You come to notice that lot of the stroies for the calendar work for multiple different promps.

[dammitadolfnomorecake]

Rage Fire Institute

Movement. 6.

Barely squeezing in enough time to shower, Tatsumi gathered his things and headed to the student lower library to meet with Maki and Li. Samara hadn’t informed him that the latest arrivals to the institution would contain both Erebus and Goliath models, making for the delivery being a rush job at the end under the eyes of prying students. With one functional Erebus on board, they’d had to wait for the correct paperwork to be signed off at each military gate on the way out, and naturally, that meant inspection each time. The only time he’d had to relax was when driving the semi-trailer, while Samara was snoring his head off next to him. He’d thought perhaps he’d be able to begin his part of the team project seperately, yet that Li kid had messaged him repeatedly about not skipping out on them again, leaving him both amused and feeling obligated to show his face.

Ever early, Tatsumi took enough time to pick up obligatory snacks for both alphas. They were still growing and he could hear Li’s voice whining over lack of sugar already. It seemed something more likely for Li to do, rather than the frostier Maki who’d chug coffee from a pot if left to it, no matter how long it had sat. Choosing a desk out of the way, his bringing of snacks and coffee into the library was permitted thanks to his good relationship with the library staff. They might not have been quite so willing if they’d known Maki would be meeting with him… though the real trouble would come if Li forgot to keep his voice low. The pair were clearly close, despite the distance between backgrounds, and thanks to Li, Maki seemed a tad less resentful towards him.

Pulling out his sketch pad, Tatsumi connected it to his data pad, then set up the small holographic 3 dimensional projector. He had no idea what the two had planned for their project, and being older naturally meant he had more technology at his disposal. It was highly doubtful to him that either would come up with a revolutionary idea he’d not heard of before, but he wasn’t about to crush the dreams of the younger alphas. He firmly believed that the visions of dreams was the only thing preventing the civilisation from slipping back into stagnation. Still, he was early, and with no one else, Tatsumi opened up the specs for the Erebus MXV 7 that had been delivered that day. He’d only piloted it for a few moments, but it had been long enough to cop a scolding over. Though laced with concern over his condition, Tatsumi wasn’t fooled, the scolding more about the mech than him.

“Is that an Erebus?”

Preoccupied, Tatsumi hadn’t heard Maki approaching. Hurriedly he went to close the projection, then changed his mind. Li hadn’t arrived with his friend, so indulging Maki may make his temper less volatile than simply denying everything. Plus, Maki’s eyes were so transfixed on the projection that there was no way Tatsumi could simply turn it off now

“Yes. It’s an older model. A DXO002. It’s been sitting for some time now. The previous pilot made it out alive, yet was forced to abandon it. Do you want to see the specifications?”

“Am I allowed?”

Tatsumi bit down smiling as he manipulated his data pad

“It’s fine. All combat files are encrypted, so even if it fell into enemy hands they can’t access the data. Its main memory has been removed, but the mods are still in place. Are you interested in Erebuses?”

“I think Sandgropers are more fit for combat these days. You can scrap’em down to nothing in an instant. But, there’s something about the Erebus models that seems… it suits its job. Are the mods all individual custom or hard built?”

Hard built parts came from the military and had limited modification ability outside of enhancing war weaponry. Pulling the specs up, Tatsumi let make guide the conversion

“Custom. I didn’t think they’d allow such liberal design alteration. Two power cores… damn, the sync rate must have been high. Then again, it would have been modded to match its user. It seems in pretty good condition considering all things. Why did they boost jumping capabilities and not weapon output?”

Tatsumi zoomed in on the mechs knee joints

“You can’t always shoot horizontally. Mods like this are good for uneven terrain. It allows more room to move in all directions, and hence increases dodging capabilities”

Maki nodded, brow scrunched as he did

“Of course. It’s not always nice smooth terrain. Still, those knee joints… it’s a brilliant idea really. Added dampeners for minimal impact on the user despite the length or height of the jump. It has uses in both long distance and short distance combat. What else is there?”

Zooming out, Tatsumi pulled the specs up again, curious to know deeply the alpha’s knowledge on mods were

“Advanced communication and navigation capabilities. Automatic defibrillation. Nanobot emergency aerosol… They don’t mess around”

It was true. The mech once belonged to a captain and had been nodded accordingly. Tatsumi feeling almost proud that Maki wasn’t hiding his dire thirst to know more

“No. And so you know, not all captains mod this way. You’ll still come across those who will sacrifice movement capabilities for raw power. You’ll also come across captains who’ll save their own skins in a heartbeat. What are your thoughts on Goliaths?”

Maki scrunched his brow further, before scratching the back of his head

“An Erebus would have them beat. The relay lag between barrier activation and successful particle arrangement is a disadvantage. Goliaths have the height and the width, but everyone knows that lag factor is the big killer. If the school is going to acquire old military mechs, then how is it fair that pilots aren’t trained adequately from the start? I know we must get used to fighting in the worst of the worst, yet… don’t they think they’d get more out of their students if the mechs weren’t as limited?”

Tatsumi remembered. Piloting a school mech felt like piloting a brick cemented in place

“Don’t you think that’s exactly why? It takes dedication to be a pilot. You have to be prepared for times your mech feels every bit of its weight. Couple smooth moves and accuracy with a group of alpha males showing off for dominance and someone could very well end up dead. It’s meant to wean out those looking for an easy ride and those who can grit their teeth and bare it. As of next semester there will be an update across all school training mechs”

Maki sighed heavily. Tatsumi supposed he had over spoken given the research department hadn’t made the announcement. Over the semester break the mechs available for students to use would all be overhauled. Placing his backpack down, the alpha finally took a seat across from him

“It’s bullshit, that’s what it is. How do you know so much?”

He couldn’t very well tell Maki he’d gone to pick up the mechs

“I do have friends, you know”

“Like that man you were with earlier?”

So Maki had seen him with Samara. Samara in a great mood after napping the drive away. Sliding one of the coffees in front of him across to Maki, Tatsumi couldn’t help wanting to tease him a little

“So you saw that? Worried I’m seeing other alphas?”

Maki clicked his tongue as his expression turned to a glare

“Tsk. I never said that. You simply don’t seem the type”

“And what type is that?”

“The type to be piloting mechs. Was the man who piloted that Erebus today the same one that defeated all the students?”

Tatsumi shrugged off the comment. He didn’t want to think of his days as a pilot

“Maybe. Maybe not. Don’t go getting involved with Samara. Even if he offers you what seems more money than you’d see in your life, it comes with a catch. Not to say he’s a bad man. He used to be a front line engineer. Worked in the emergency repair department on Sylax 7. Now he follows the money around”

Maki boldly lied

“I’m not one of those research types, you know. I’m going to be a pilot. Skylark can punish me all he wants, yet he won’t change my mind”

No. The more Skylark pushed Maki, the more Maki dug his heels in.

Before their conversation could continue, Li came rushing over to their table

“I’m so sorry I’m late. Yon got talking and it’s so hard to hang up. Did you two start without me? I can’t believe it. I told you I would be here!”

Smiling at Li, Tatsumi pushed down the memories of his first love. It really seemed the day was set on forcing him to remember his past 28 years. Calmly he pushed Li’s coffee across the table, making it clear Li would be sitting on the same side as his friend

“It’s fine, you’re only a few moments late. I’ve got coffee and snacks. I’m hoping you both have ideas of what you want to produce for this project. You’ll need to budget it and submit the plans early if you want a good technician on this project”

“Excuse me, you’re our team member, not our teacher. This is our project”

Now Li was there, Maki seemed to be retreating into himself. Tatsumi’s hard work going out the window, despite that, a genuine smile tugged on his lips as he apologised

“You’re right. Forgive me. I haven’t worked on a team project for a little while now. It’s our project. Do either of you have ideas?”

Li pulled his chair out and dropped himself down to sit. Excitement lighting up his face

“I have so many ideas. What if we come up with a new modification?”

To his right, Maki sighed

“We’re not installing x-ray vision so you can perv on the other pilots”

Li smacked Maki’s arm lightly

“As if, as if. No. But what if we made a mod that could trigger a rut or estrus? You can’t pilot when that comes around. No. My mouth won’t stop I’m so nervous about this all, I mean your babysi- oof! Don’t hit me!”

Tatsumi couldn’t help but snort as Maki hit Li in the stomach, Maki grouching

“Will you stop with the crap. We’re here to study”

Li sighed as he hung his head

“I know. But the Professor is right there…”

“And?”

Li gave a frustrated sigh. Tatsumi taking pity on him. As the oldest one at the table, it went with the territory to be the calming influence

“Mister Kang, it’s honestly fine. I’m not a professor so try to think of me as a fellow student who also wants to get a good grade. Do you have a list of your ideas?”

Li nodded, perking back up a little as he produced his data pad

“I don’t know how good they are. You know I was joking right? I’d never…”

Tatsumi flashed him a smile. The alpha was more than nervous, despite the chain of messages he’d sent prattling on. It seemed he was quite famous for being “stuck” taking care of Maki

“I know. The infamous babysitter is right across from you and you’ve only seen things from the outside. There’s no need to be so nervous, Mister Kang”

“Li is fine… everyone calls me Li. Do we call you Mister…?”

Li looked to Maki to supply Tatsumi’s last name, Maki instead seemed to glaring at his coffee as if it he’d never seen one before

“Tatsumi is perfectly fine. I’m not one for titles or positions between students. Please relax, here, I’ve got coffee and I’ve got snacks. Despite what Maki may think, they’re not poisoned”

Swapping the data pad for a coffee, Li’s ideas were far more terrible. The alpha had gotten distracted and started drawing a rather sad looking mech battle. Some of the ideas were already in use, and some were completely impractical. Taking a rather loud slurp from his coffee, Li’s eyes went wide

“Hey, this is great!”

Tatsumi took no offence

“I thought you may need the sugar pick me up. Classes are long enough as it is. Maki, do you have any ideas?

Pulling out his own data pad, the alpha slid it over

“I don’t know if they’re any good. Probably not up to your standards. And since when is your name Tatsumi not Tatsuma?”

This time Tatsumi was slightly offended. He’d spent months with Maki, yet he didn’t even know his first name

“I’ve told you this before. Skylark started calling me Tatsuma long ago and now I’m certain he’s forgotten it’s Tatsumi. He said I was quite the stoic bastard and should go plant myself outside until my attitude changed”

Li choked on his coffee, thumping himself on the chest

“Wait. He bullied you too?”

“Skylark knows he can get away with it. I think we’ve talked more than enough about myself. If we want a good grade, we’ll need to come up with a solid foundation for this project. We’ll also need to sort the information into sections for each of us to present. Now, I see here, Maki, you’ve suggested improvements with the heating and cooling systems of the pilot. There’s technology already in place for that. What did you think could be improved?”

Maki shrugged it off

“It gets too hot in the training mechs. Sync rates rise and fall with pilot comfort”

Tatsumi nodded along. Maki had no experience with advanced mechs after all. The school mechs were a joke compared to piloting the real thing

“I understand what you mean. So rather than working on modding the mech, you’d rather mod the pilot suit?”

“Uh, yeah. It’s just an idea. Maybe fixing the student suits… it’s dumb”

“Not really. Having never piloted a professional mech, students are at a disadvantage when it comes to projects such as these. A proper pilot suit will react far better than a student one. I think I’m having an idea”

Both Li and Maki cast him doubtful looks at the same time. Tatsumi doubted that the looks would remain there for long

“You both know students are able to access the research wing, aren’t you?”

Where Maki slouched further, Li lent forward

“Yeah, but, like, they don’t like us there. We were told to keep away from interrupting them there”

That sounded about right

“If you’re going there for no reason. For projects such as these, it’s expected especially in your next two years. If modding a suit is what you’re interested in, they’ll be only too happy to help. You can download the less complex specifications off the school network. Some data will be limited, but remember, there are as many different ways to pilot as there are pilots”

“You mean, we can go for it?”

Li sounded so excited that the librarian cast a glare in their direction. Tatsumi nodded again

“Yes. You could even approach this project from a dozen different angles. You could think of relay speed, dynamic synchronisation, cooling, fit, species customisation… or, if you wanted to be more unique you could customise your own two suits. You both have institution provided suits yet a lot of pilots in combat have their own, even their own tailors that they’d never think of taking to another brand”

Li groaned suddenly, reaching for the bag of snacks on the table

“This is why you brought them, isn’t it? Because we have to think. You’re not just a pretty face behind those glasses. Do you even need them? Why haven’t you gotten surgery. A few bips cures everything these days”

“Nyctalopia. Night blindness. Thanks to a certain incident my eyes are sensitive to high levels of light and darkness. Glasses really aren’t so bad. And I’m glad to hear you think my face pretty, though you’re not my type”

Maki chuckled at the confusion, then blush, that rose on Li’s face

“You started it. Prof-… ah… Tatsumi, ignore him. You get used to his mouth pretty quickly”

There was “Professor” again. Tatsumi thought Maki more comfortable by addressing him as such due the age difference, not because Maki seriously thought he was

“Tatsumi is fine. Honestly, you only need to worry about talking formally in front of actual teachers. I don’t want any use of proper titles or honourifics, I’m not that old. I’ll submit a request to research department over suit specs. But the main problem is that we aren’t agreed on the project. Li, you would rather concentrate on making a mech modification, right?”

Li grinned

“You caught me. What pilot doesn’t dream of modding their own mech? Skylark would choke if we pulled something major off”

With Maki looking displeased at his best friend’s comment, Tatsumi knew they were in for a long night. Either way, one of the two friends would have to give ground or they’d never get anything done.

[nysus-temple]

YA'LL I'M AT MY LIMIT— Someone came today and said "why do you want to defend Latin and Greek so much? They aren't of any use" AND SIR I'M SORRY TO BREAK IT TO YOU. BUT YOU'RE SPANISH. YOUR LANGUAGE COMES FROM LATIN. USE LATIN INSTEAD OF COPYING ENGLISH WORDS. And then he went and made it worse saying "ok fine, Latin is useful, whatever you say. But Greek? What do you need Greek for?" LIKE DUNNO. IT'S A FUCKING ACTUAL LANGUAGE SPOKEN IN AN ENTIRE COUNTRY WITH YEARS OF HISTORY. PERHAPS THE FACT THAT MANY SPANISH WORDS COME FROM IT. DUNNO BUDDY. IS THAT USEFUL ENOUGH TO YOU, YOU PIECE OF SHIT???

[true-blue-megamind]

FAN THEORY THURSDAY: Megamind’s Connections Beyond the Film

Before we get started, it’s time for the obligatory SPOILER WARNING!  

In case this hasn’t been made sufficiently obvious by the fact that this is a post about Megamind written in a fan theory series about Megamind and published on a blog dedicated solely to Megamind, please let me just assure that this article is, in fact, about Megamind.  

If you haven’t seen the film yet yet, I have to question why you’re reading this in the first place.  As well as your taste in animated movies.  I’m definitely questioning that.

Over the years I’ve heard several fan theories concerning connections between the film Megamind and various other forms of media.  Today, let’s delve into just a few.

The first one is so obvious it’s almost painful, but it has to be mentioned.  Megamind is a Superman spoof.  Metro Man is clearly based on the Man of Steel himself, with a hefty dose of Elvis Presley and a larger range of character flaws thrown in for good measure.  (He also seems to contain quite a lot of the Popular Jock archetype.)  The character of Megamind is more complex still, combining elements of Alice Cooper and a nineties Goth theater kid with several comic book supervillains. The best known of the last include alien genius Brainiac and mad inventor Lexx Luthor, but they aren’t the only ones.  Some of Megamind’s engineering and technological inventions call to mind Spiderman villain Doctor Octopus even more than Lexx Luthor, and he also shares some parallels with the mad inventor Dr. Sivana in the SHAZAM comics.

Megamind’s most notable of the latter is the similarity of attitudes toward society.  Both Megamind and Dr. Sivana started off trying to use their inventions for good—the first in the classroom and the second for the betterment of mankind—but both became bitter when people mocked and shunned them.  For Dr. Sivana, this led to a desire to conquer all of Earth while for Megamind, in a sort of microcosm, it led to a similar drive to take over Metro City.  Both Lexx Luthor and Dr. Sivana have, perhaps, the strongest connections to Megamind as share, deep down, a desire to help or protect mankind, and as Lexx Luthor, like Megamind, harbors a secret love for the reporter damsel in their respective stories.  (This desire to do good, especially in the face of corrupt officials, ties into another Megamind fan theory that I will likely discuss in more detail in a later post.)

The connection between Megamind and Alice Cooper, by the way, was extremely intentional.  The creators stated in an interview that, like Alice Cooper, Megamind’s dark, evil self is, in fact, a stage persona.  (Even their clothing, consisting largely of black leather and spikes, is similar.)  That fact is illustrated in the film as we can see that Megamind’s behaviors on- and off-camera tend to be vastly different.  Even as a villain, he is merely playing a role, although in the case of Megamind that role has begun to merge with his self-identity.

There are, however, hints within the world of DreamWorks that Megamind has other connections as well.  The first is fairly recent and intensely interesting. In the Rise of the Guardians, Jamie Bennett, a young boy who still steadfastly believes in the seemingly impossible, mentions “aliens in Michigan,” only to be scoffed at by his friends.  Because Metro City is located in Michigan, (as can be seen briefly when the Death Ray is fired from space,) many fans theorize that the “aliens in Michigan” are none other than Megamind, Minion, and, perhaps, Metro Man. 

This would indicate that the two stories take place in the same world, and that Megamind’s adventures, while well-known in Metro City itself, have been covered up and kept secret from the rest of the world.  (Imagine moving to a moderately-sized city only to discover that—surprise!—there’s an extraterrestrial supervillain in residence and, oh, by the way, if you live downtown homeowners’ insurance is ridiculous!)

The second inter-film connection is less clear, but has spawned some interesting fan theories as well.  The idea is that, like Rise of the Guardians, Monsters VS. Aliens also takes place in the same reality as Megamind.  It’s not too far fetched—after all, both films involve extraterrestrials and amazing inventions—but there is one specific theory that really ties the two together.  Consider this for a moment: Megamind is a blue alien with incredible intelligence who hails from a destroyed planet.  Does that sound like any other DreamWorks character you know?  If you’ve seen Monster VS. Aliens, the antagonist, Gallaxhar, probably springs to mind.

According to Fandom.com, Gallaxhar’s official backstory is that he “destroyed his home planet” for the implied reason that “he experienced bad childhood and unhappy marriage.”  The fan theory is that that Gallaxhar’s planet was, in fact, Megamind’s home world, and that the former created or harnessed the black hole which destroyed it.  This would explain why Megamind’s people—as well as Metro Man’s—didn’t have time to escape despite being space-faring.  You see, black holes take millions of years to develop, and even a rogue black hole would take about a million to shift and swallow an entire solar system, so if the event had occurred naturally, there should have been plenty of time to build an entire fleet of spacecraft and leave for Earth or another safe planet.  (The fact that Megamind’s parents set his escape pod’s navigation system for Earth indicates that they knew of its existence.)

Of course, despite their large heads and blue skin tones, there are quite a few physical differences between Megamind and Gallaxhar.  The first is humanoid while the second has four eyes and tentacles instead of legs.  Fan theories have explanations for that, too, however.  

There appear to be two schools of thought on the subject.  The first is that Gallaxhar was another breed of alien living on the planet, possibly a servile race different from Minions, and the second is that part of Gallaxhar’s “bad childhood” involved being experimented upon, thus giving him his bizarre appearance and his seeming obsession with experimenting on others.  (There is some disagreement in the Megamind fandom about exactly why Gallaxhar was subjected to such treatment, ranging from falling into the hands of an unscrupulous scientist to being part of an experimental medical program.  The latter fan theory suggests that Gallaxhar was both blind and paraplegic, and that his additional eyes and tentacle “legs” were meant to rectify that, but that those physical differences made him an outsider, thus leading to his unhappy life and ultimate hatred for his own planet.)

If that were true, many may wonder what, exactly, Megamind might do if he ever found out about Gallaxhar.  Well, good news!  Just like there’s an app for everything, there’s a fan theory for that, too!  I will warn you, however, that this one is, frankly, build upon pretty thin evidence.  However, it’s interesting enough to be worth relating.

There is a character in Monsters VS. Aliens named General Warren R. Monger who, on the surface, is exactly what he appears to be: a high-ranking military man.  However, there are a few things that fans point to as possible evidence that Monger isn’t what he seems.  

The first is so simple that, alone, it would be inconsequential.  Monger rose through the ranks uncommonly fast, so much so that it caused some comment among others.  The second is significantly odder; Monger claims to be ninety years old despite looking like he is in his late forties.  Now, of course, this may have simply been the character exaggerating or messing with the “monsters” under his care, but some fans say it’s more than that, and claim that Monger chose that age because he was unfamiliar with human lifespans.  Next there is the fact that Monger is so intelligent that, despite one of the beings in his containment facility. Doctor Cockroach, being a super-genius, Monger outwits every escape attempt the monsters can make.  Then, of course, there is the fact that, despite his brusque manner, Monger seems to actually sympathize with the inhuman people he is charged with containing, and even pushes for them to be given a chance to prove themselves.  There is the oddity that, although he is assigned to the secret military base at “Area Fifty-Something,” Monger seems to disappear a lot, often for days at a time.  Finally, there are a few key physical and technological attributes: Monger has some odd and incredibly energetic facial expression—including a nearly maniacal smile and a dark scowl—as well as a jet pack that he appears to have constructed himself and green eyes.

I’m still not certain I see the resemblance, but maybe there are some similarities?  What do you think?

If you’re familiar with Metro City’s resident blue alien, you can probably see where this is going.  Although it’s not a popular theory, I’ve heard it suggested in the Megamind fandom that Monger is, in fact, Megamind disguised using his holowatch.  (This is why the green eyes are significant; Megamind’s eye color is the only aspect of his appearance that the holowatch doesn’t change.  However, I feel compelled to note that the shade of green appears to be different.) Fans insist that it would have been easy for someone as incredibly brilliant as Megamind to hack government systems and forge documents such as birth certificates thoroughly enough to dupe even U.S. Military Intelligence. The two jet packs, some have contested, look different either because of the disguise or because the one featured in Monster VS. Aliens is an older model. I’ve even seen the fact that both Megamind and Monger begin with M being pointed to as possible evidence that the latter is no more than an invention of the former.

The argument is as follows: as Monsters VS. Aliens takes place in 2009, one year before events in Megamind, it’s possible that Megamind, still being a villain, created an alter-ego which he could use to help him search for and deal with other alien life.  (He is shown to be painfully lonely, and the Megamind comics reveal his desperate desire to find other survivors from his home planet.)  Upon figuring out who Gallaxhar was, and more importantly what he had done, Megamind wanted to be part of taking him down.  But he couldn’t be too open about it; he was, after all, still a “Bad Guy.”  This theory explains Monger’s frequent long absences—during those time Megamind was back in Metro City taking care of his regular business— as well as why Monger had a secret soft spot for the “monsters.”  Megamind, having always been treated like a monster himself, would naturally want to give them a chance, but wouldn’t dare behave in too overtly friendly a manner as it would have aroused suspicion.

As I said, support for that particular theory is, perhaps, a little thin, especially given the fact the Monsters VS. Aliens preceded Megamind, so character designs from the former are unlikely to have been influenced by the latter.  Nonetheless, I admit to appreciating the complexity and creativity of it.  It’s an undeniably fun theory. If they haven’t already, maybe someone will write a fan fiction about it one day.

Those are only a few of the theories out there connecting Megamind with other fandoms.  One could go on and on about the subject, but I won’t torture readers by doing that.  Nonetheless, it illustrates once again the immense love and original thought that Megamind fans put into developing their theories!  I dare say that few other animated movies have earned a following so dedicated and inventive…  But, then, any of us who love the film Megamind will tell you that it has more than earned the consideration!

[industria-adastra]

Fridays, gotta love em' (A continuation)

Low-key wanna write an actual fic to go with that idea but...headcanon format is low-key funnier so:

Talking about this fic -----

So the entire premise of "Fridays, gotta love em'" is pretty much some weird crossover/reverse isekai/dimension travelling

Basically I just wanted to see WMMAP Claude struggle with modern tech because my humor has devolved into this. Also I wanted to see how a modern LP-verse would work.

Now I think Modern LP Athy would probably get better emotional support? Because she's not exactly isolated in a modern equivalent of the Ruby Palace.

Modern LP Athy basically has a deadbeat dad aka modern LP Claude. Although she still has Lily taking care of her. In a modern LP verse, I'd guess Claude ignores his daughter in favour of his niece simply because of inability to move on from Diana-Jennette (Did I spell that right??) looks like Penelope, and I'd say it's easier to face the child born of your dead cheating girlfriend and your equally deadbeat dad of a brother (I still idk if Anastacius would be a good dad, but since this is a modern lp au he's not) than your own child who constantly reminds you of your dead spouse.

Claude provides funds for Athy's upbringing, education, etc. But he's not actually there for her. Lily and Felix are more like parents than this guy. (It's still pretty much emotional neglect though Claude.) He's more of a walking wallet than her Dad really.

Now Athy is brought up mostly by Lily, and Felix since there's no way to hide the fact he has a kid. So while she does grow up yearning for her nearly always absent biological father, she has a good father figure in the form of one (1) Felix Robane.

Later she moves out and gets an apartment of her own ig.

Anyways so back to the ACTUAL plot

Yes Athy here concusses the reverse isekai-ed wmmap Claude into oblivion with her door. Why? Because Claude passing out at least once is completely obligatory and needed.

So Athy hauls wmmap Claude onto her couch. Upon closer inspection, she realises this rando in her apartment is pretty much a carbon copy of her deadbeat dad. So Athy's thought process is basically:

My Dad??? Is in my apartment???? Dressed in robes???? Is he cosplaying why is he HERE

She ties him up and waits with pepper spray and a frying pan for him to wake up. A bit like that scene from Tangled where Eugene is tied up with Rapunzel's hair.

So when Claude wakes up he's basically like "where am I, why am I tied up and why is my daughter looking like she doesn't know me and what is she wearing wtf is happening." Also his magic isn't very stable rn because plot and he just got forcibly chucked to an alternate universe.

And when he opens his eyes Athy can now see that yup, this is defo her dad. (She calls him Father though, because like they say "Father is for emotional distance"). So she basically goes "Father wtf are you doing here (you deadbeat)" with an added "why are you cosplaying"

wmmap Claude has no idea wtf she's saying and is now lowkey sad he's hearing his daughter (*cough* lowkey emotional support child *cough*) call him "father" bc emotional distance. But then he's like wait what if this ISN'T my daughter

Ofc this Athy is technically his Athy, just an alternate universe version of her. So that gets resolved after a bit. Then this Athy learns that this is basically a fantasy AU version of her father. Except he's somehow an ok parent. Bit of angst there seeing as her universe's version is practically a deadbeat parent

But now we have one (1) overprotective dad aka wmmap Claude (sudden image of him collecting Athys like pokemon) who is technically a tech dino

So shenanigans: Claude inwardly freaking out over the TV. What is this glowing box with pictures. Advanced memory stone???

They end up sitting down and talking about modern day technology. Claude is pretty interested, so Athy brings out some of the books she has and they go over them. Claude seems especially interested in cameras/camcorders/the likes. (Instant pics without using a memory stone/hiring a painter? He's pretty interested)

Eventually Athy's gonna need to get some clothes for him. And since this world's Claude doesn't really notice/care about her and what she does, Athy has no problem using her Dad's money to buy this Claude some modern-day wear because let's face it, he'd cause a commotion wearing that robe-and let's not mention the commotion caused by his face and (partially exposed) body.

Claude likes the sweatpants and shirt combo. It's comfy.

Also back to wmmap Claude being an overprotective Dad: he grows to really care for this Athy-also, he can probably empathise with the daddy issues/deadbeat dad part, even if said deadbeat dad is technically him. So don't hurt his newly adopted sunshine child because I can't guarantee you'll live another day. (Sometimes he thinks of taking her back to his own dimension when finding a way back.)

But when he does, Athy won't ever go with him. Because no matter how much she grows to care for this alternate version of her father, she cares more for Felix and Lily. To her, they're her "real" parents.

So if this was a fic, the ending would be quite bittersweet I suppose.

-----

Do I know what I'm doing here? Nope.

Might elaborate more/flesh out some more of this if I have enough time and the motivation to do so.

[brooklel]

my thoughts on worlds end club, under the cut because it’ll probably be long and also spoilers

so i bought the game today at around 9am and played it until i beat it at around 11:30pm ish? so ha uh yeah it took a little while but i was very enthralled in the story

the story and characters are hands down the best part of the game. compared to literally any of the danganronpa games, i like the cast of characters so much more. like there’s always one or two in a danganronpa games group that i just don’t like but in wec i loved all of them. i’d usually dislike chuko’s tsundere character type but i actually ended up liking her. my least favorite is probably dragon power ranger kid whatshisname but i don’t hate him or anything i just found him to be the weakest character tbh. but i do really like his character design

speaking of the character designs OOF they’re all so good. i didn’t realize until looking up stuff on the characters but they’re all based on the animals of the Chinese zodiac which is cool and the design elements are subtle and it’s not narratively important but i mean they didn’t need to be. there’s a few offhand remarks here and there like comparing kansai to a tiger and chuko to a rat but they’re not really shoved in your face which is nice

oh also i wanna compliment pai in particular. she’s the boar character which first of all i feel like people would usually make male, and if they made her female, then she would be angry and stubborn and probably not conventionally attractive but she’s not any of those! also she’s a little heavier than the rest of the girls which 1. makes her even more adorable, and 2. no one in the game brings up or makes fun of her for which is nice. mowchan sadly didn’t get exactly the same treatment he was still the fat comic relief character. he deserved so much better.

the art is all so pretty as well like i already loved the art style from pokemon and in wec it’s even more exaggerated and i live for it. i also like the movie they’re watching at the beginning has more realistic humans that’s just kinda funny.

the humor is pretty good i guess but what i’m really here for is the fun childish but realistic portrayal of friendship and emotions like it does kinda take me back to my own little group of friends in elementary school, where sometimes there would be disagreements, but we were still always friends

i loved reicho as a canonically mute protag and how none of his friends ever minded or even brought it up like that’s so cute. but the reveal that reicho was basically just a big puppet kinda just made it feel a little different... like idk how to explain it but yeah

ANYWAY here’s my obligatory paragraph about pochi because he’s my son now. the writers knew what they were doing by making him a kinda shy gamer kid bc they knew people were gonna relate to him even when he had a somewhat smaller role in the story before turning into the full fledged protagonist. anyway this robot puppy boy is my son i will protect him

the scene where pochi basically gets dunked on by the rest of the team is weird to me like idk it just feels out of character for most of them to be like lol yeah pochis useless RIGHT after he drove an entire train to one of the specific places that those special mushrooms grow and now they can all see vanilla

also kinda unrelated but this is my second game in the past few months where i correctly guessed one of the characters was voiced by megumi ogata because dang i just love her voice. this time it was pochi and the other one was the protag in the famicom detective club games. i legit heard one line and was like HOL UP and googled it lmao

i’m still confused on why the story takes place in the 90s. it doesn’t have a particularly 90s aesthetic and most of the technology just doesn’t match up with 90s tech. like i feel like it works better if it takes place more near present day. if there’s more cultural reasons then i’m not sure what they are but i’m really curious about this. the game is very reliant on japanese culture and locations, which isn’t a bad thing but i’m an ignorant american who was also born after the 90s so im wondering if there’s some specific reason why it’s SPECIFICALLY 90s japan

oh yeah i haven’t even talked about the gameplay yet. it’s.... shitty. maybe i’m a little biased because i’m not a big platformer girl but even so it’s just not.... good...... i kinda got myself soft locked one time because a big snowman guy was blocking my way and i had no way to kill him or get around him, luckily you can just restart from your last checkpoint but still. some of the special abilities/attacks just didn’t feel that good to use, like dragon boi’s and chuko’s felt too short range at times and jennu’s and aniki’s felt a little too slow. the rest were fine i guess. the only one i felt like was done well was kansai’s.

i played on easy mode cuz it was the default one that was highlighted and idk if it effects the platforming sections or the “puzzles” but the puzzles were way too easy. most of them just felt like they were checking that you paid basic attention to the story. the ones at the end are somewhat harder but i still didn’t have any problems with them. the stuff the outright tell you would have mad better puzzles like the xxy thing but at the same time were you even supposed to realize that? the otherworlder aka you i guess says it like no big deal but like i guess the middle x looked slightly different? but not enough to be like OH OBVIOUSLY ITS X TIMES Y. on the flipside i solved the heaven map puzzle before i even had all of the pieces. i guess i have to give it some slack though because it would probably be a bit harder if you didn’t really know english kinda like the danganronpa 11037 thing

also am i just stupid or how were you supposed to know the year the phone displayed was the y number in that puzzle? i forgot to get it before trying to solve the puzzle so i knew it corresponded to the y because it was the only clue i didn’t have so i didn’t have to think about it that hard but like did the phone have something to do with the letter y or was it just like a what clue haven’t i used kinda thing

anyway apologies for the super long post if you read the whole thing then wow thanks i guess? anyway in conclusion pochi is my son

[coredrill]

alright here are my rwby8 thoughts now that i’ve had a few days to sit on ‘em!! spoilers for the entire volume under the cut

so if anyone happens to open this and is like “wow this is more words than i’ve seen you use ever” lol yup! it’s probably the most words i’ve written since high school lmao. feel free to read through if ya really want but this is mostly just my own way of organizing my thoughts for this kind of stuff rather than making a million different posts on random parts of it. this way if i want to look back in the future and say “haha wow can’t believe i thought THAT” it’s all in one easy location! i don’t expect anyone else to be reading all this shite lol

thoughts on the volume as a whole:

honestly i loved it!! there’s very little that i would’ve changed and most of that is nit-picking stuff. i’m very impressed that this volume was made in quarantine lmao. the animation in and of itself was STUNNING (shout out to the finale’s water animation...the aura break particle effects...the cinnamon topography of the amity scenes...all of the facial & body expressions...the whale disintegrating...)

i’d honestly say that it’s probably my second favorite volume?? volume 4 is still my beloved but v8 was so good. i’ll probably need to watch it through a few more times but god. i LOVED IT.

honorable mention cause idk where else to put it: some of the scores were breathtaking!!! i tend not to notice background music on my first watch unless it really sticks out to me and there were quite a few scenes where that happened in a good way this volume. the ones where cinder breaks into the atlas control room and the one at the end when atlas is flooding are probably my favs!!! also there was this one part where it was just screeching over ironwood and it worked really really well.

okay so now for individual characters. let’s start with ruby:

i would like to fund her therapy

very surprised that she didn’t “break” this volume! i was sort of expecting it to happen--between ironwood, the amity plan only kind of working, the hound, the virus, and the fact that she was separated from her usual support system (qrow, yang, and jaune), i was definitely expecting her to. i’m glad she didn’t though cause it’s gonna be so much harder when she actually does (probably when she finds out that cinder has the relics and penny’s dead...)

massive shout out to lindsay jones for managing to make squeaky-voiced ruby still sound like ruby even while going through a whole host of emotions we’ve never seen ruby go through before!

god. that scene where crescent rose fell into the drink and ruby scrambled after it. my heart dropped lmao.

also. this is likely because i’ve got an engineering degree (which came with a free stick up my butt when it comes to technology in media) but the line where they say “mass no longer matters” wrt her semblance??? WHAT??? bro splitting mass up into smaller chunks doesn’t change the actual mass of the material itself what is going on here 😭😭😭 (this isn’t a real criticism of any kind i just yelled WHAT after they said that line lmao)

weiss:

i have one single weiss criticism and its that, in the scene where she’s leaving whitley to go fight the hound, she says “we still need to work on your attitude” and for whatever reason, the voice track doesn’t sound like it was quite mixed right? like it sounds like she’s just standing there rolling her eyes but my girl is BOOKING it out of the room lmao

other than that: weiss you are PERFECT. she really spent this entire volume saving and taking care of the people she loves!!! and i loved every second of it!!!

i would’ve liked to see more of her and klein/whitley/willow. i think there’s a lot of great stuff in that dynamic (not me crying when klein showed up at the manor...) and especially between weiss and her mother. i hope we get one big schneeuinon in vacuo once they + winter are all in the same location (but that’s gonna be a while i think lmao)

it’s been said a million times before but weiss?? shaking and crying but using gambol shroud anyway?? even though she thinks her teammates are all dead?? giving ruby the staff and pushing her out of the line of fire and pulling blake back to safety??? fighting cinder, a fucking wholeass maiden, with no aura because she needs to protect penny?? only unable to get up and keep fighting after she watches gambol shroud (the last physical piece she has of her teammates) go over the edge??? bro. BRO. i’m legit tearing up just TYPING THAT. god she’s gonna find her team at that island resort and never let them go. gonna be like v4 jaune all over again huh??

blake/yang:

not as much here since they didn’t get a whole lot of focus this volume, but i enjoyed all their scenes! yang just fuckin going at salem was 1000/10.

i will say...i think blake’s gonna kiss yang when they meet up in tropical paradise. and good for her!! (especially if this volume’s been planned since the beginning, it makes sense that this would be the writers’ idea for where they wanted their first kiss to be)

jaune:

going from ren saying “he has no fear. he believes that we can do this” about jaune to, five chapters later, forcing jaune to deliver a killing blow to penny was just CRUEL

the fucking dissonance of jaune haha!-awkward-renora-moment-exit vomit-boy-through-the-portals hit-in-the-head-with-a-rock arc being the one that penny asks..............bro. don’t hmu.

it’s going to be such a long time until we see him smile again.

also. the moment when crocea mors snaps in half...again, my stomach dropped.

but it’s okay! he’ll be fine without a weapon! he’s the ~strategist~! *breaks the fuck down*

it hurts so much too to think about, like oscar mentioned.....even if/when he does reunite with ren and nora, he’s not gonna be the same person he was when they last saw him. he’s not gonna be their goofy, wholesome, soft, snarky, healer team leader anymore. he just got his shit sorted out, he just stopped being actively suicidal, and tbh i think this might affect him worse than what happened with pyrrha. especially since they were compounding in his brain--what he did gave penny more of a choice than pyrrha ever got, but GEEZ.

pain. just. pain.

nora:

NORA MY BELOVED

okay. OKAY. so like she was passed out for half the volume but what we did get of her was fucking amazing

nora’s mom i am going to find you and have some words. i’ve mentioned this before but this woman has the same energy as the mom from grave of the fireflies who was like “i know we’re actively being bombed right now but i’m going to abandon my children and get myself to safety.” SQUARE UP BITCH. i hope we never see nora’s mom in the show because i will become filled with rage

but nora herself??? flawless. perfection.

i really did love her journey this volume. realizing that she wants to become her own person apart from ren, and then telling him that when he says that he loves her?? nora sweetie that was heartbreaking but i am SO SO PROUD OF YOU.

nora putting herself first for once and being told that people love her WE FREAKING LOVE TO SEE IT

except NOW that’s all gonna go haywire 😭😭😭

like...the moment in the finale where you can see she’s hesitant to leave jaune to to go vacuo but she goes anyway because he’s her leader and he doesn’t like splitting up either and she loves him and she trusts him only for her to get STUCK ON THE OTHER SIDE BANGING ON THE PORTAL. that scene fucking BROKE me. you just KNOW she’s gonna be hating herself for going through and leaving jaune (even though nobody knew it was one way!!!) and when the portal dissolves and he doesn’t come through........

she really thinks that she’s lost TWO teammates now. that’s TWO teammates that she wasn’t able to save. she saved ren from the nuckelavee but pyrrha’s dead and as far as she knows jaune’s dead too

and jaune’s her fucking family!!!!!!!

and like. when we see her on the vacuo side of the portal, we see that she’s got the happy huntresses behind her. she did her job and she gathered them but now she can’t get back through and AHHHHHH. FUCK. when she drops to her knees because she realizes.........that fucking killed me. i’m tearing up now just typing this sdmndbm

and like. the worst part is that she just realized that she wants some time away from ren. but everyone else is gone and just like when they were kids he’s all she’s got and they are gonna lean on each other harder than ever because this time they both lost EVERYTHING. not just jaune, but ruby, who was their teammate for a while too. weiss, who took such great care of nora while she was injured. penny, who nora helped with blake’s advice. yang, who ren had time to bond with this volume. FUCK

it’s gonna hurt so bad to watch but i cannot WAIT to see what nora does next and how she moves forward. god. this is gonna kill her. it’s killing ME and i’m just a viewer lmao

ren:

remember that one week where neath went on twitter and was like “i love renora and i’m gonna make that everyone else’s problem”??? yeah. that was a good week lmao

speaking of neath. MASSIVE PROPS TO HIM FOR HIS WORK. he managed to give ren every single emotion in the book this volume and none of it sounded ooc despite ren being such a repressed character before. he did incredible!!!!

I LOVED REN SO MUCH THIS VOLUME GOD. i mean i love him in every volume BUT HE HAD SO MANY GOOD MOMENTS AND SUCH A GOOD ARC

i’ve already talked about it at length but the scene where his semblance evolves is one of my favorites in the whole show. he’s so fucking full of love that it’s literally tearing him apart and when he finally accepts that fact his ENTIRE SOUL levels up!!! he looks at himself and there are pink petals falling off of him because he can’t contain the love in his body anymore!!! it’s there in a literal, physical manifestation and it’s so. fucking. GOOD. FUCK.

and also my obligatory remark about how he was thinking about oscar and pyrrha and his parents in that moment. people he loved platonically and familially. rwby goes so fucking hard for platonic love and i can’t ever thank them enough. to see ren have this realization because he was thinking about oscar.....god i’m gonna cry again LMAO

and then after that the way that he just. looks at jaune in every scene with the biggest fucking heart eyes. i’m gonna fucking combust he loves his  leader SO MUCH. (which. as i mentioned in the nora section. pain now)

and the nora stuff........JUST AS GOOD

another thing i’ve talked about a lot but to see him apologize, be emotionally open, listen to what nora’s saying and what nora needs, TELL HER THAT HE LOVES HER FIRST, not holding a single thing against her, agreeing to wait for her to be ready.........literal perfection holy shit

romance is normally not one of my favorite aspects of any media but i will make an exception for whatever the fuck ren and nora got going on

basically as a ren stan / jnpr stan i was thriving this volume and then that finale hit me and i know i will be in pain until they reunite again

i have a handful of jnr gifs that i was planning to make during the hiatus but now they’re all PAIN aksjhdasjdh

oscar:

deeply worried about the quickly approaching merge. i’m really hoping that oscar and oz stay separate but i also love seeing all the animation/voice acting nuances that indicate that they’re getting closer to the merge.......AH

this volume really hammered home just how strong this kid is. he stands up to SALEM and does the right thing even despite the torture cause he’s so BRAVE and STRONG and when he trusted hazel with the password DESPITE IT ALL. ugh. so good.

i love oscar so much and i’ve loved seeing him grow!!!

penny:

serious stuff coming in the next bullet point but. GOD. her model’s head is so big and i don’t know WHY but this stuck out to me every time she was standing next to someone else. it might be because of the volume of her hair (but yang’s hair also has a lot of volume, and her head is normal sized)??? idk it just threw me off a lot. every time she was like, talking to ruby or something, all i could think about was how her head was bigger than ruby’s ENTIRE TORSO lmao. (also why didn’t they give her human body shoes skdjhaksjh)

that said.........oh, penny 😭😭😭😭😭

i’m surprised that she died but only because i thought her plot armor was pretty thick LMAO. narratively it makes a lot of sense and i’m glad her story ended the way it did.

i’ve seen a lot of people interpreting her actions in the finale as “choosing to die,” but i don’t think that’s the case?? penny’s friends all saved her every single time that she presented her own death as an option. that’s what makes this so tragic, is that they successfully saved her every time she offered that, and that in the end, she still died. she was gonna die anyway. she was impaled by cinder--jaune didn’t have enough time to heal her before cinder defeated weiss (who had no aura!!) and turned on them again. penny made her own choices when 1. she asked to die at the hands of a friend, rather than by cinder’s soul-sucking grimm arm and whatever horrible fate that includes and 2. to choose her successor. and i don’t blame her for making either of those choices! she wanted to die with as much dignity as peace as she could and to choose whose life she would be intertwined with. and while it’s very sad, i’m glad that penny finally got some sense of control over herself and her legacy.

and like...she was so happy when she met up with winter!! she was so happy to have full autonomy for once!!! that scene was both heartwarming and heartbreaking!!!

i also think that penny’s death reinforces the idea that remnant is gonna be very different by the time rwbyjnorqe is done with it. now not one but two kindhearted girls have gotten killed because they got tangled up in the maiden powers—which were originally meant to be a gift!! and i’m very interested to see what the resolution is gonna be!! (i know it’s gonna be in like. volume 52 or something alsjfndnx but still!!)

also, if nothing else, i am very glad that whole “pietro sacrifices the last of his aura to revive her” theory is gone. i hate that theory lmao

i will say, while i enjoyed penny’s role this volume, i do think that maybe some of her screentime could’ve gone elsewhere. i get that there needed to be a lot of focus on her, so that we would be attached when she died, but i think it would’ve been beneficial to spread that screentime elsewhere just a bit, especially since she wasn’t really developing at all. hitting the same point with her like seven times did start to feel a bit repetitive lol. my vote would be for extra time with the schnees, or the jn(o)r reunion at schnee manor, or maybe a scene checking in with pietro and maria!!

emerald:

EMERALD MY BELOVED

YOU DEFECTED!!!! GOOD FOR YOU GIRL!!!!

i hope we get a LOT more time with her in the future. she’s still gotta work out the cinder thing of course but i also think it’s gonna be super interesting to see how she acts now that she (alongside oscar, ren, nora, the hh, and winter) is one of the closest things their group has to a “leader”

also like........good for her for being one of the LEAST traumatized people this volume despite being THREATENED BY SALEM

somebody give emerald a nice long hug

i love her

that is all

winter:

WINTER OH MY GOD

seeing her struggle with her emotions all volume.....only to finally accept them and save marrow’s life.....and because of that choice she realizes how long overdue it was and goes all in on helping the heroes.....and is eventually chosen to become the next winter maiden by the girl who challenged her to accept her emotions in the first place......😭😭😭 chef’s kiss

“you chose nothing. this was a gift.” *demolishes ironwood but doesn’t stick around cause he’s not worth it* *fights cinder* POETIC CINEMA!!!!!

also i cannot wait to see her schneeunion with willow, whitley, and klein.......even if she does have to be the one to tell them what happened to weiss 😭

cinder:

CINDER I HATE YOU BUT ONLY BECAUSE YOU’RE SUCH A GOOD VILLAIN

her backstory was pretty self explanatory but i think this was a good time to spell it out especially while we were in atlas. the culmination of that, her consistent failures to achieve her goals after v3, and watts dragging her really all just came together to make her so much more intimidating and efficient and i loved watching it.

like i know there’s people who don’t like her as a character but she’s always so fun to watch and her va does AMAZING and she’s just. so INTERESTING

also. i cannot wait for her to find out that ruby and neo are both alive (and especially when salem finds out they’re both alive LMAO)

also also her line to ruby about never being born feels.......awfully specific??? i wonder if it’s a hint at some other part of salem/cinder/ruby/summer lore (like her “and i refuse to starve” line from last volume)

also also also CINDER.......lying to salem is gonna backfire on you at one point or another.......HM

salem:

gosh i love salem. she’s such a good villain and i loved all her scenes (especially the fight scene...SO COOL).

very interested in whatever she does next!! since the only remaining lackey she has is cinder (who is now starting to try to manipulate her) and tyrian and mercury, who are in vacuo, i’m curious about her next steps. is she gonna keep recruiting, now that people know who she is?? is she gonna come to vacuo herself?? she could definitely do a WHOLE LOT OF DAMAGE with the refugee situation there, so i’m super excited to see how her next moves play out!!

hazel/tyrian/watts/merc/neo:

rip hazel. glad we were able to get an INSANE fight scene out of him before his death BUT ALSO WHAT’S WITH YOU BEATING THE SNOT OUT OF A 14 YEAR OLD HUH

listen. listen. i know merc-rescues-oscar was never a possibility BUT i still love that idea. it lives in my mind rent free!!!

i feel like mercury’s gonna be so insane after the worst road trip ever in a confined space with tyrian that he’s gonna be immediately redeemed by team sssnn and the power of himbofication upon landing in vacuo LMAO

real talk though, i am VERY interested in what happens when mercury sees emerald again and learns she defected. like, this is his friend, who he’s tried to keep safe the only way he knows how (by keeping his head down and not angering their abuser) and she got out but he didn’t. GOD. AND in the first fight she was in after defecting, she used the move that she learned by watching him!!!! that’s gonna be SO GOOD and i can’t wait to see it!!!

neo is a wildcard and i love watching her fight and i think it’s SO INTERESTING that she went over the side with rwby and jaune and i CAN’T WAIT to see what she does next.

WATTS MY DUDE. what a GOOD volume for him. like the stuff where he yells at cinder was SO COOL to see and it was so funny that he thought that wasn’t gonna come back to bite him LMAO. i think this was super fitting for him and while i like him as a villain, i think this was a good place for his story to end. i had a lot of fun watching his scenes this volume.

qrow/robyn:

I LOVE THEIR SIBLING ENERGY. robyn talking qrow down and them bonding over their semblances together was so great.

i also loved qrow’s semblance...evolving?? changing?? idk what exactly happened yet, but i know that if i too hung out with robyn hill for 48 hours straight my outlook on life would improve dramatically.

i do hope robyn makes it to vacuo soon because she will be invaluable at handling the refugee crisis there.

on the other hand, if qrow gets to vacuo and finds out that ruby and yang (and three more of his adopted kids) never made it........PAIN. oh my god it’s gonna be like summer all over again 😭😭

aceops:

did not expect to get teary-eyed when vine died. and yet i did. that “themes of death” cw on the finale was CERTAINLY SOMETHING HUH

hell yeah marrow!!! what a good boi!!! i loved his defection ofc and him going off on ironwood...chefs kiss

i hope marrow sticks with the main cast. he’s my favorite and he deserves to see his friends again!!!

as for elm and harriet, i’m not sure?? i think harriet still has a lot of work to do before she’s redeemed in my eyes. maybe they can be dropped off at beacon to help glynda fight the grimm/rebuild so that they can be back for the show’s ending but the cast is somewhat trimmed for vacuo lmao

also. i know they’re not aceops. but WHERE ARE FLYNT AND NEON ARE THE MEME KIDS OKAY

happy huntresses:

may marigold is literally perfect in every way

loved them! would’ve loved to see more of them lmao. maybe even just cutting back to them in the crater reacting to some of the stuff going on.

i very much hope we get to see them in the future! i know the vacuans aren’t gonna be happy with the atlas/mantle people showing up unannounced but i feel like if there’s anyone who’s gonna be able to earn their respect, it’s the organized-and-saved-the-lives-of-those-downtrodden-by-atlas-happy-huntresses.

maria & pietro:

okay. SO. my thoughts are either that they made it to vacuo (penny did see where amity would touch down, so it’s possible that a portal was placed in that location and they made it through) or qrow picks them up.

either way, i hope we get to see them again. I LOVE THESE TWO GEEZERS!!!

oh, pietro......... *cries*

ironwood:

not much to say here except that i loved it. i loved how he got more and more paranoid, i loved that he vaporized jacques schnee, i loved that he only went cartoon-villain at the last moment, i loved that he died unceremoniously surrounded by the thing he thought would save them all. i love that cinder got in one final chess reference beforehand. 10/10

the hound:

it feels like a lifetime ago that this guy died but holy shit. holy SHIT.

i want whitley to summon the hound!! it was an enemy that pushed him to grow, i think it would be neat!!

ambrosius:

LOVED THIS DUDE. i LOVE how his powers work!!! like, even though it’s magic, it’s so realistic because that’s how creation works!!! you gotta design the EXACT thing you want or else its gonna be fucked up!!!

like. okay. so (back on my engineering bs again lmao) for example. let’s say i’m writing a program where the user enters a number from 1-10 and it’s displayed on the computer screen. so i write whatever code i need that says “take user input and put on screen.” that’s what ambrosius did when he created the portals and the pathways between them!

and then let’s say i also put a warning to the user that says “only enter numbers from 1-10.” that would be ambrosius saying “do not fall.”

but...the user can still enter whatever they want. what happens if they put in the number 100? what happens if they type a letter? this program only puts numbers from 1-10 on screen, so who knows what’s gonna happen. and that’s what happens when people fall off the railings!!!

“oh, but you told them what numbers to enter” yeah but humans are unpredictable and ya gotta account for the human element when doing stuff like this!! team rwby didn’t account for people falling off--because why would people fall off if they were told not to? but the human element messed that up anyway!!!

anyways i’m a fucking nerd apparently but it was super cool to see that reflected in ambrosius!!! i’m a big fan!!!

like whenever people call him tricky or sneaky...no!!! he was just doing exactly what he was told to do!!!! so good!!!

also i wanna see him hang out with his sister jinn lmao

alright and here’s my thoughts/predictions for v9:

first off i just wanna say that this entire section (this entire post really, but especically this section) is just me spitballing lmao. we literally have ZERO clue what’s happening next or where they are, i’m just throwing out some stuff that’s crossed my mind! whatever crwby gives us is gonna be infinitely better than whatever i come up with lmao

that said, i have two ideas for what could be happening in madagascar.

option one is the one i’ve seen other people toss around, which is the whole wonderland-land-of-the-dead thing. i’m kinda torn on this because i think it could be good for penny’s storyline, but not really anyone else’s?? sure, yang and ruby could see summer, but weiss would see...jacques?? and blake would see...adam?? i’m not sure what weiss and blake would have to say to them/learn from them the same way ruby and yang would.

on that same idea, jaune could definitely see pyrrha, but again, i’m wondering what purpose that would serve? obviously jaune’s actions in the finale were guided by pyrrha (or specifically her mom, and realizing that pyrrha never had a choice either), but it’s clear that that’s the case for all of team jnpr, and it will be probably forever. their scene together at pyrrha’s memorial felt like they were closing the door--specifically--on their grief. on the other hand, those actions are super relevant right now and i will never turn down the chance to see pyrrha!!! it’s just free waterworks babey!!!

neo also has roman, but i can’t really see roman admitting to anyone that he got swallowed by a grimm 😭😭 just seems too embarrassing for him LMAO

for penny, i think this could work nicely. all she ever wanted was to not have her life controlled by others--kind of like alice in wonderland (the disney movie version because i am fairy tale illiterate lmao). if penny gets to exist after death in a land where she gets to choose everything for herself i think she would be very happy!

again, if this ends up being the case, crwby could 100% make it work! (and i am 0% opposed to maya model pyrrha.) i just personally am not as sold on this being the case as some others are.

option two imo is vacuo but in the past. which i know seems kind of weird BUT i have reasons!

so we know a few things about vacuo. one, it used to be an oasis and was considered a paradise until atlas and mistral destroyed it for the dust. two, it has giant motherfucking crabs that people like to eat. yes this is all i have to go off of BUT both of those things are in the end credits scene we got!

also, them landing in past-vacuo makes sense on ambrosius’ level. their “one way ticket” probably didn’t include all four dimensions of coordinates--so i could see them landing in the same x, y, and z as the official doorway, but at a different time. the creation would still do exactly what it was asked to do--drop them in vacuo.

there’s also a couple other things. “vacuo” means “in a vacuum” which i’ve heard v9 is supposed to be. also in before the dawn, sun saw some bigass magic tree that awakened his semblance which this one definitely could qualify as

(okay. side note. when i first saw the tree i thought of the glowy tree from james cameron blue people avatar. IDK WHY, i haven’t seen that movie in years??? i also had to google it to make sure i wasn’t making it up and apparently it’s called the “tree of souls.” which would also make sense if it helped sun awakened his semblance. i don’t think rwby based something off of blue people avatar, it’s probably more likely that blue people avatar is based off of some fairytale/mythology that i don’t know anything about LMAO)

i don’t actually think option two is gonna happen, but it was fun to think about!!

also either option opens the opportunity to time not passing 1:1 in current vacuo & rwby’s island getaway which???????? AHHHHH

alright so now to the actual characters lmao. i mentioned wby earlier. i honestly have no clue what neo’s gonna be up to, she’s such a wild card and i LOVE IT.

ruby and jaune is gonna be...........PAIN. NO MATTER WHAT. i have no idea how ruby is gonna react--she might just be so overwhelmed by everything that she snaps/yells at jaune which. PAIN. but she also might not?? which. ALSO PAIN. i feel like no matter what ruby does, jaune’s gonna blame himself anyway. god. i love their friendship SO MUCH and this is gonna HURTTTT

and on that, he doesn’t have ren and nora this time to pull him back from the ledge. this dude’s guilt complex is gonna go crazy especially since he doesn’t have his team and double especially if ruby/rwby blames him for what happened. god it’s gonna HURT TO WATCH.

on a wildly different note, i hope we do get to see vacuo/qrow throughout volume 9. if i go a whole volume without ren and nora i WILL cry lmao.

also it’s gonna be super interesting to see how their group fares!!! vacuo’s fuckin nuts and i’d love to see winter just destroying the grimm there (3 headed giraffe my beloved) and see how the atlas/mantle refugees handle the climate--and how the vacuans react to all of them LMAO

ALSO!!!! THE SULFER FISH WERE THERE!!! very glad to see that they’re in vacuo too because from the concept art it seems like they have super unique abilities and i’m excited that we may get to properly see them, instead of just cameos!!!

team cfvy pspspspspspsps theodore and rumpole pspspspspsps team sssnn pspspspspsps

and, of course, i gotta mention that any possible jnr reunion WILL tear my heart out and i will probably cry for days. i gotta start emotionally preparing now LMAO

alright and that wraps it up!! if anyone makes it down to the bottom props to you!! i don’t expect anyone to actually read this mess lmao. tldr: INCREDIBLE volume and i’m so hype for v9 already!!!

[wheremytwinwatches]

[Where My Twin Watches]: Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood Episode 34

Last time: Detective Kimblee got curbstomped, nobody wears hats in freezing weather, and the contents of The Mighty Armstrong’s letter shall forever remain a mystery. Onwards!

Inside Fort Briggs, Ed is shocked to learn that having a metal limb attached to your flesh in subzero weather can be hazardous to your health, he’s being treated for exposure. A spiky-haired blonde doctor’s talking about how the cold freezes flesh and unoiled automail will stiffen.

So do all automail Briggs soldiers carry around oil cans, then? Like Buccaneer, who just came into the med room complaining about Al’s head being stuck in his chainsaw-arm. Apparently northern automail- Hold up, is it just me or does this new guy in a labcoat who’s working on Buccy’s arm look like Havoc? Eh, maybe it’s just the cigarette. -northern automail is flexible, lightweight, and resistant to the cold, so they worked out an alloy. And here Ed was just trying to transmute iron, makes sense a blend of metals he’s not consciously trying to manipulate would resist him. Aw, Buccy has an actual automail arm while his chainsaw is getting worked on. I was hoping for shoe-tying shenanigans. After the obligatory “wait this kid’s equivalent to an officer?” moment the Doc recommends he call for Winry to make a cold-weather arm. If he wants to live, that is. Also, that’ll be a hundred cens for the coffee thank you. Hmmm, maybe Ed should do some research on the place he’s going next time? I get that he’s used to Central military life, but the North seems to run on different rules. Still doesn’t keep him from being irritated. [Major-General Armstrong]: “Hello, little red runt.” Major-General Armstrong; so intimidating that when she nicknames our height-sensitive protagonist after a fairy tale he’s too frozen with fear to respond. And then the mechanic returns Al’s head with his “hair” left a scraggly stump? This day is not going the Elric Brothers’ way. Episode 34 - “Ice Queen” ...as much as I like Major-General Armstrong so far and you lot seem to worship her, I have a lot of favorite characters who have taken the title “Ice Queen”. Let’s see how she stacks up against them. Taking a seat at a small desk (I thought it was hers to show off an austere lifestyle or whatever until that picture of North Doc’s family, guess she commandeered the office for a bit), Major-General Armstrong asks how her brother Alex is doing. Aw, she cares! Except for snarling after the brothers say the big strong guy they know and love is doing great? (Please tell me she has a height complex with her little brother, please tell me she has a height complex with her little brother…) Anyways, time to explain why they came north. They can’t say much though, while they want to eventually deal with Uncle if they talk about the Goths it could reach the Fuhrer, and then Winry (and Riza) are in trouble. The brothers decide to just talk about the quest to recover their bodies, tracking down May to the north. Major-General Armstrong… calls them Trouble Magnets and tells them to GTFO of her fort. Except that’s what she’d “like” to say but her interest in Alkahestry trumps her irritation with the protagonists. Knowledge is power, and knowing a skill that’s little understood in her home country could be useful in defending its borders. Another weapon for the arsenal… Hoo boy. Al protests that Alkahestry is specialized for medical healing, Major-General Armstrong snaps that- [Major-General Armstrong]: “My job is far more perilous than yours. I will make use of any knowledge that I can get my hands on.” Ok then. I’m getting that people like her attitude and all… but I’m kinda concerned about that line. If her immediate reaction to Alkahestry is “how can I weaponize this”, I’m worried what Major-General Armstrong’s opinion on Philosophers Stones would be. Major-General Armstrong declares that she’ll track down May while the Brothers stay inside the fort, telling Major Miles (is that Sideburns-Guy who’s been by her side all this time?) to put them to work. No work, no food, capiche? Then down the corridor she goes with Buccy, talking about how they’re still “soft and weak”, and that they haven’t told her everything. Major Miles/Sideburns is leading the Brothers somewhere, Ed tries to engage him in conversation but he stays silent. Ed gripes that they keep getting asked questions but don’t get any answers, when Sideburns stops and- Ishvalan! Sideburns is Ishvalan! Ok then! While it’s common knowledge that Ishvalans were purged (yeesh) from the army before the War of Extermination, Sideburns is half-Ishvalan so apparently got to stay in the military as Ed’s country destroyed that of his grandfather. Ed lets out a shaky breath and says Sideburns’ people destroyed the countryside, and one of them murdered his friend’s parents. The two stare eachother down… until Sideburns chuckles? A test? Ed didn’t give him the response he’s used to (shame and pity), but it’s understandable given his complicated relationship with Scar. Wait, attempted kidnapping? When did Scar try to kidnap you, as far as I can remember all your interactions were either trying to kill each other or you using him as Goth Bait. Sideburns seems pleased with Ed’s views, ushers him on while explaining that yes he was active duty during the War, being outside the military purge requirements he stayed while his relatives died in the East. He understandably resented the military’s actions, and was confused as to why Major-General Armstrong would keep him around as a ranking officer given the racial tensions. Eventually he asked her. [Major-General Armstrong]: “This is Briggs. No matter what happens, this territory must not fall. Every soldier here must be both strong and flexible. You must move as one cohesive unit, following me your leader in all things and at all times. In short, we do not have the luxury of discrimination here. The blood of several races flows within you, and with that comes varying strengths and values. You can see this country in a way that others cannot. I was born and raised in Amestris; in order to lead I need someone with your eyes. Now shut up and follow me, Miles! Understood?!” Damn! Sorry, had to include that entire quote. Still worried about the desire to weaponize Alkahestry (and possibly Philosopher’s Stones), but I’ve gotta respect that speech. Pfft! And in addition to that awesome quote, when Sideburns asked if he can’t get over his resentment about the Extermination? [Major-General Armstrong]: *sword drawn* “Fine then, bring it! On behalf of the military I will accept your challenge any time!” Badass in Command for sure. And when Ed speculates that she said that because she had all those troops at her back Sideburns is quick to nope that idea right out. Scary lady is scary. They’re outside now, Sideburns expounding on the Survival of the Fittest culture of Briggs. You don’t have power? Dead. You have it? You might survive. Private or general, all are equal to that rule. And apparently they respect various forms of power, Sideburns notes Ed’s high luck when he trips and dodges a falling icicle. Ok, have to admit my first thought was Sideburns would say “we leave these icicles up because if you get killed from falling ice you’ve got no business at Briggs” to expand on the Survival of the Fittest, but they’ve got more common sense than that. The Brothers are assigned to scrape off the falling threats, after that they’ll get a room. Aw, poor vertically-challenged Ed can’t reach the ice while his little brother knocks them down with ease, when someone who recognizes them walks up. Oh hey, Falman! That’s right, you did get reassigned to the north. Or actually, wasn’t it the Northern Command Center? Apparently he was for a bit, but then promotion and shuffling over to Briggs. Unfortunately despite the shoulder bling the Brothers pick up that doing grunt work like this means he’s off the career track? Come on kiddos, show some tact when noting the middle-aged guy is off the advancement list! I’d run away crying too! After Falman gets it out of his system, he takes Ed and Al to the Research and Development Center, where there are a bunch of guys working on tanks. Seems Major-General Armstrong’s interest in keeping a weapon advantage extends to taking the latest Amestrian technologies and turning them into weapons. So it does extend beyond Alkahestry, then. Hmmm. Now they’re being shown a massive mechanical room, giant red pipes and fans everywhere. Falman says this is the lowest level of Fort Briggs, since Ed comments that it’s warm I’m assuming this is the engineering room that keeps all the toilets in the fort from freezing, as well as several less-important functions. [Falman]: “Even if the fort’s attacked, this area will remain safe.” ...now why did you have to say that, Falman? You know the Irony Gods can’t resist a line like that. Looking around, Ed’s pushed aside by a mechanic who’s inspecting a pipe for an odd noise, then puts his head to the ground when the Ominous Piano starts up. Digging? Spies from Drachma? Uh, the screens starting to shake and the sound is getting louder, if these are spies they are the least subtle spies I have ever seen/heard. Wait. Not Drachma! NOT DRACHMA! WE HAVE GOTH SIGN! Way, way back in the show we saw the Goth Sloth digging somewhere. I guess we know where that is now! But why? Sloth seems to have a deep voice, saying that it’s annoying to do all this digging, but it’d be a pain to die so whatever. Huh, so this Goth’s being interpreted as apathetic? Guess we’ll find out now, there goes the floor! Mid-ep pictures of Major Miles and yup, that’s Sloth. Major-General Armstrong’s getting a report on Kimblee, seems he’s been checked into a hospital after the train battle. She’s upset to hear that he’s free, especially by the Fuhrer’s orders, but that’ll have to wait because alarm! Intruder in the base!

Sloth sloooowly crawls out of the ground, a big hulking brute facing down the engineers and Elric Brothers. Sloth stares… Ed stares… Sloth stares… Ed stares… Sloth falls asleep wait what? Ooookay then. After the Brothers’s outburst Sloth wakes up and they claim they’re just there to research a way to recover their bodies. But Sloth doesn’t care? Doesn’t know them? What, did Sloth just get told to dig a tunnel to Briggs way back when and hasn’t been updated since? Why? Oh for- Buccy! They aren’t Drachman spies! Yes it looks suspicious that they were talking with the Goth, but that’s because they can’t engage it directly! So now that Sloth has finished his tunnel he seems at a loss for what to do, just stumbles forward and tosses aside a pipe segment (that nearly crushes Ed) because it was in his way. So what I’m getting is that Sloth is even more the dumb muscle of the group than Gluttony was. And durable too, the other Goths had to heal from bullet wounds but they’re just bouncing off him. Sloth shambles onto an elevator and bumps into the lever to rise, seems he’s heading to Development. Ooh, do we get to see the tanks in action? Everyone runs upstairs where troops are running around with rifles, and some hapless mechanics are stacking boxes and arming themselves with pipes. Yeah, don’t bother guys. Sloth arrives and they get ready to- [Major-General Armstrong]: “Don’t move!” *Rocket Launcher* Damn! Someone find me a good picture of her pose after that shot. Unfortunately it’s about as effective as the small rounds were, she tosses the useless rocket launcher to a hapless trooper and orders the alarm turned off. Don’t want the Drachmans to catch wind of an opportunity. Drachma this, Drachma that… part of me is imagining that this is a one-sided rivalry. [Imaginary!Drachman #1]: “Hey, do you hear that? Sounds like an alarm going off at the Amestrian fort.” [I!D #2]: “Wait, they’re still staffing that place? We decommissioned our own fort years ago, ever since we found the Light of Leto. I hope they’re ok.” [I!D #1]: “Perhaps we should send someone over to check on them. Ooh, and deliver some pamphlets!” yessss. We’ve got working tanks! Major-General Armstrong orders the fuses removed from the shells, and reassumes the title of Tank Lady as she boards the vehicle, swings her sword, and gives the command. Fire! Headshot, byotch! Sadly, these are Goths we’re talking about, who all raise a massive middle finger at any non-Alchemy means of attack. A shot from a tank shell just scraped Sloth’s cheek away, and it regrew in a matter of seconds. Sloth just gripes that pain is a pain, and stomps forward. Another shot lodges in his gut but is tossed aside and healed even faster, and further shots just bounce off. Damn, he has Adaptive Ability? Sloth’s “back to work” smashing stuff now, sends some boxes and lockers flying which Ed stops with a Transmuted stone hand. Major-General Armstrong notes his protecting her minions, and then Ed runs up to say stop wasting ammo. She demands answers, but Ed can’t answer without explaining about the Goths and violating the Fuhrer’s deal. In the end it boils down to one question: “Are you on our side or are you in league with that thing?” Ed just doesn’t want to see anyone get hurt, so the Major-General sets that aside and orders Buccy to get some tank fuel. I suppose burning did work on Lust, but that was Alchemy. Hmmm, Major-General Armstrong says they can’t stop it, just delay. And they need something stronger than fire? What are you planning? [Major-General Armstrong, smirking]: “Now you get to see the Briggs way, kid.” Oh my Leto don’t you dare aaaaargh. End of episode. Stop cutting me off, damn it! Alright! We’ve gotten some more info on Major-General Armstrong, who I’m still reserving a nickname for until I’ve got some more info on her character. I am really, really liking a lot of what I’ve seen so far, but after her immediate jump on weaponizing Alkahestry and the drive to research and develop new weapons I worry about her response to Philosopher Stones. Hopefully my fears will be unfounded and she can earn a nickname, it’s a real pain to type out Major-General Armstrong all the time. Sloth! Interesting that they went with the apathy aspect of his Sin, seems to be a guy that prefers to follow orders because thinking for himself takes more effort. Definitely got a chuckle when he up and fell asleep facing the Elrics, good humor potential there. And impressively strong, too! Should be a good battle next episode. With him I believe we’ve only got one Goth left unseen, Pride, who’s hanging out in Central with the other Goths and Uncle.

[tardytothepardy]

And now *drumroll* it’s Alexander! Who if I’m being honest, not really a fan of.  (Alexander is further down the list of favorites because he either doesn’t exist or is a child and there just isn’t a lot of depth for children in The Sims. Plus in the Sims 2 he looks like Goopy Gilscarbo when he’s older and I just can’t handle that. How could that happen???)

I tried to make it look like he has been influenced by his parents and his surroundings enough to favor darker tones, but still be a kid. (Except for the formal outfit that’s just his parents dressing him up in something stupid for the holidays)

And here’s where I put the obligatory “there isn’t a lot of content for kids in The Sims 4″ comment, because there kinda isn’t. It’s also an issue I ran into when dressing Olivia. 

Coupled with a vague “bookworm” trait and “whiz kid” aspiration, I can’t really figure out who I want Alexander to be. Previously when I’ve played out his life, both in the Sims 2 and 4, I gave him knowledge aspirations, specifically the technology one for the Sims 4. I have read in the Sims wiki that Sims 2 Alexander has a fortune aspiration token, so that could be another avenue I could take Alexander but who knows?

Because of this vagueness, a couple of the outfits he had before stayed mostly the same, such as his party outfit. I changed, like, his shoes. I don’t think I changed the swimwear at all. (Mainly because my Sims don’t swim if they need to exercise I get them a treadmill or just take them to the gym)

Now I’ve finished the Goths! Hooray! I didn’t expect this would take so many posts it’s absolutely insane. I would’ve taken less if I knew beforehand. 

But onward to Alice Spencer-Kim! agh.

[theorynexus]

80 Redux

So. I attempted to actually make a liveblog post yesterday, despite how tired I was.  Unfortunately, by the time that I had returned home, my computer decided to have wanted to refuse to wake up from its sleep mode, so I had to force a reboot and lose all my stuff. I won’t try to remake the magic of the reaction, but I’ll try to relate what I was thinking. - It’s nice and interesting that John realizes that he has feelings for Terezi that are different than, say, his feelings for Rose. - John is oblivious to Roxy’s actual meaning concerning her/their awkwardness acting out the part of an adult human woman and her anxious connection of the obligatory choice to wear a dress and makeup and the fact that she seemingly feels that she’s not high enough class for the restaurant she’s having them visit, despite their godhood and the fact that she was “raised” in an essentially classless environment (which was nonetheless somewhat lavish/affluent) with the exception of her influence via movies. - Oh boy, we might soon be getting questions relating to sexuality as well as gender, because this is John Human “I am not a homosexual” Egbert Boy we are talking about. - While John’s uncertainty about being an adult and his belief that he’d just have a suitcase drop into his hands to help give a sharp transition into his new lifestyle/phase of life is very relateable because of the fact that post-modern society has engendered a phase of American+American-adjacent culture where the actual concept of adulthood is presently in a state of flux (as a result of the fact that the definition of what it is to be an adult-- despite the fact that there are definitely certain biological implications and concrete facts to the term --is always actually defined in relation to the society and general environment one lives in, taking shape based on the needs and responsibilities a person will experience due to socio-familial and technological pressures, alongside whatever perks+prestige are afforded/allotted to those that are considered adults in that society), his contemplation of this question (what it means to be an adult) also reflects the tragedy of the fact that he lost his father figure at a very young age.   Normally, one’s parents are-- to some extent --supposed to guide one and help the child reconcile/connect to their new identity, but SBURB pushes for a kid’s guardians to always die by the point the game is complete, in order to naturally make the kid embrace greater responsibility and force a natural transition to an independent persona.   This has its benefits insofar as it creates a dramatic break from the world and societal pressures that the person would normally experience (with the exception of those that they or their friendly neighborhood blood player [coughKankricough] might try to enforce upon them as what feels “right” or which they expect they need to do due to vague cultural knowledge on their part); however, at the same time it seems like it would be very prone to creating crises of uncertainty and even greater feelings of disconnection between the gods of the new world and their creations. ---  I didn’t actually think of this until I was typing this post, but Roxy’s gifting of her uncertainty/obliviousness/disconnection from such ideas as gender and adulthood to her friends seems like a direct expression of her Rogue of Void Classpect that directly parallels John’s expression of his Heir of Breath Classpect as he was pushing his friends in the direction of riffing off one another and building up connections in vaguely prescient anticipation of the Game, despite their vastly different Interests. ~~~ Now begins my short livebloggery for the day/this morning. I have only a few minutes to finish the bit of the page that I have left. I’m not sure I can make it!

Haa Haa. Hee Hee. Hoo Hoo.

Carapacians:   Aww maaan, it looks like the cool kid is back at it again, boys! (It is really quite interesting to see the complicated clash of coolness/smoothness and hesitation/awkwardness, here.)

[obsidiancorner]

Celebrity Overnight- Chapter 2

ObiYukiWeek 2019 Pairing: Obi/Shirayuki  Word count: ~2500 Prompt: Gluttony

Shirayuki follows two steps behind Obi as they walk up the stairs to his apartment. Everything about the decor of the building is carefully neutral. The walls are a soft eggshell white in the pale light of specialty light bulbs and fixtures. The grayish early-American style stain on the wooden wall trim and matching stairs feels timeless. 

She feels anxious, like a nervous energy is simmering just below her skin and banking, only in part, by the solace she takes in knowing Obi has been the very definition of ‘a perfect gentleman’ over the course of the evening. She had been so eager to get out of the limo, which had felt smothering after the heat of their red carpet performance had been followed with a glance into what Obi might be like in bed thanks to the obligatory sex scene of the movie. 

Even the knowledge of how the film industry works, knowing that the director had literally been involved with every touch, every kiss, every angle, and every thrust, hadn’t broken the spell of her heated fascination. Then, she’d had to endure a limo ride while she radiated tension. He’d given her space but his knee would bump hers every now and again and each time her fever surged higher. 

When he had asked if she wanted to come up while he changed, she leaped at the opportunity to get out of the enclosed space. Distance. Distance would be good…. Except now she has to face being alone with him in his apartment… While she is trying to fight a one-sided fire. 

Brilliant. 

They stop in front of apartment 2D at the far end of the hall but, instead of pulling out keys for the lock, he raises a fist to the door and raps twice. Inside, a chair groans against a wood floor and three knocks answer, followed by the sound of a deadbolt being released.

Shirayuki’s heart sinks, sending ripples of despondent aching coursing through her. She’d expected something like this. She knew it was all publicity when she went into this date agreement and she curses herself internally. Men of his caliber are not men who are single and she knows better than to lose her head over some guy just because his charm is natural and unintentional.

Of course he has a secret girlfriend. Of course. Tonight was nothing more than free publicity for an upcoming action star and her father’s new movie. It had always been and still is nothing more than an act- par for the course for a Hollywood hot-shot. Natural chemistry means nothing in the grand scheme of life- especially lives consumed by the entertainment industry.

Hidden behind him where he couldn’t see her face, she allows the disappointment at both her forgetting the terms of their date and his evident unavailability. She wants to run, to admit this was a bad idea and just go back to her apartment to sulk with a tube of cookie dough and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Karamel Sutra ice cream, her father’s afterparty be damned. Her heart stings, beating fast and angry against the confines of her ribs. 

As the door opens, she feels the heat of a blush surge to her cheeks as she mentally prepares herself for an awkward encounter with a woman who is likely the stereotypical half-plastic Bunny... tall, blonde, legs up to her neck, and breast augmentation to some obviously unnatural degree- the sort of woman who usually serves as arm candy to Hollywood’s hottest hunks. 

“Thanks, Ryu,” Obi says, startling her from her thoughts. 

A non-committal hum replies before she hears, “I wasn’t expecting you home this early.” but the voice is surprisingly male. It’s youthful and awkward, cracking slightly at the beginning of the statement. Shirayuki peeks out from behind Obi’s arm and comes face to face with azure eyes as wide and deep as the waters of the Mediterranian Sea. She can’t help the squeak that comes out, startled as she is to find a teenager blinking back at her. 

Delight surges through her when she realizes it isn’t last year’s Playboy Bunny of the Year but it is immediately tempered with a heavy splash of cold guilt when the boy’s eyes immediately turn down toward the floor. She hadn’t meant to startle him. She hadn’t expected a child at all, much less one that is so shy. 

“Ryu, Shirayuki. Shirayuki, Ryu,” Obi says by way of introduction as he steps aside to usher her in and the boy ducks back into the apartment. He chuckles and Shirayuki looks up at him. Turning to face her fully, he whispers, “he’s shy and usually keeps to himself but he’s a good kid and a genius with special effects.”

As if that explains anything at all. Who in their right mind decided letting a child stay with Hollywood’s newly crowned ‘Most Eligible Bachelor’ was a good idea? Where are his parents? How did he come into Obi’s care? 

Some of her puzzlement must show on her face, or maybe the gears of her brain are simply grinding too loud because he adds, “I’ll explain later if you want, Miss. But right now I’d just really like to change. This tux is constricting.”

Shirayuki scoffs. He should try wearing a dress sometime. This damnable number the stylists has squeezed her into may look quite fetching with it’s shimmery green fabric hugging her every curve, but she hasn’t taken a full breath in hours for fear of bursting a seam somewhere. She keeps her opinions on formalwear to herself and moves past him into the wide expanse of their living room before it dawns on her that he had successfully distracted her… again. 

To her right is an impressive kitchen area covered in granite countertops and sleek wood cabinetry a few shades darker than what was present in the hall. Ryu sits at the six-seater dining room table with notepads spread out around his laptop as he studies a film she’s pretty sure was made by Wistaria Entertainment. Curious, she thinks. There’s a massive TV mounted on the wall in the living room and yet he prefers to study a film on his laptop. 

“Make yourself at home. I’ll be right back,” Obi says as he walks around her and disappears down the hall. She blinks at his receding back until he turns a corner and is obscured by a wall. She shifts her weight from one foot to the other as a means to occupy herself.

She feels awkward loitering just inside the door with nothing but a studious and shy teenager to keep her company. She satisfies herself looking out the sliding doors of the balcony at the far side of the room to where the lights of the city stand out like stars in the night despite all the lights in the room being on.

“Since he seems to be forgetting his manners, I’ll ask,” Ryu pipes up. His voice is almost a true monotone and she focuses on the back of his head as if it will illuminate how he must feel being left alone with some strange woman nearly a decade older than he. “Do you need to use the bathroom or want something to drink?”

“I’ll wait, but thank you for the offer… Ryu, wasn’t it?”

It isn’t without effort that she keeps her tone light and her voice steady. She doesn’t know how to do this. She was expecting awkwardness with whatever gorgeous woman is in his life, not awkwardness with a child Obi, for some inexplicable reason, has guardianship over. 

He hums as a response, like he hadn’t quite heard her and is silently asking for her to repeat herself before he sighs and sets down his pen. He still doesn’t turn to her but mutters a soft “You’re welcome,” before picking his pen back up in anticipation of whatever is happening on his computer screen.

Tires squealing, glass shattering, and metal crunching on the screen in front of him is followed by rapid movement of his pen across the paper and makes Shirayuki curious so she inches closer. “What are you watching,” she asks, trying to at least keep conversation going until Obi comes back from the depths of the apartment. 

“It’s an old movie about death. I’m studying the special effects used,” he tells her, pausing the film as a log from a semi-trailer impales a car. She recognizes the film. She was nearing the end of elementary school when it came out and she tries not to be offended by it being called ‘old’ since he was probably an infant back then. In terms of Hollywood and technology, it is old. He might as well be studying the Matrix in terms of age but at least the graphics in that movie were ahead of its time when it was released. Maybe he already had, though. 

He presses play and she squints, turning her head sharply to avoid seeing the aftermath. She’s in medical school and can handle blood and trauma at a gross scale but that series of movies are all about the cringe factor and unnecessary, gratuitous gore. She opens her eyes to find Obi leaning against the kitchen counter with his arms folded across his torso. The amused smirk he wears makes his amber eyes smolder. 

She’s trapped, like the mosquito in Jurassic Park. She knows she’s still breathing because she can feel the fabric of her dress stretch against deeper draws of air because suddenly there isn’t enough oxygen in the room, no matter how full her lungs get. It’s dizzying for a moment, until she manages to pull her eyes away from his.

She bites her lip as she drinks him in. He’s classically handsome in the white tee shirt hugging every curve of hard muscle on his chest and arms and the tailored almost-black blue jeans leave very little about him to the imagination. She definitely does not belong with a man who looks like that. She’s no Pier Angeli. 

Damn, if he doesn’t wear ‘Rebel Without A Cause’ well. 

She’s captivated, lost in Old-Hollywood bad-boy style that seems both true to himself and contrary to the outstanding gentleman he has proved himself to be over the course of this evening, until a shift of his hips breaks his casual lean and brings him to standing at his full height. Shirayuki is a woman who prides herself on not being one to swoon over an attractive man but Obi is making it quite the challenge as he saunters over to where she stands by Ryu. 

The room feels too hot and her skin burns as though she has ben set on fire. She knows she’s blushing from her hairline to her toes. There’s an urge to hide, to turn away and walk out the door, but it doesn’t override her want. 

Obi looks like a certified masterpiece. Even Michaelangelo’s ‘David’ sculpture can’t compare to him as he glides toward her, oozing confidence and sex appeal. “Ready to go,” he asks innocently, as if he hadn’t just watched her ogle every inch of him with a degree of shame that left her blushing but wasn’t quite enough to stop her. He grabs his black leather jacket from the coat rack tucked against the wall behind the dinner table and drapes it over his shoulder before turning back to wink at her. 

Realization crashes over her. He’s putting on a show- he wants her to check him out and she played right into it. She gave him the exact reaction he was hoping for if the dangerous cant of his lips is any indication. Oh, he is a sneaky one. 

He must realize he has been caught and he lets out an amused huff before turning his attention back to Ryu who, mercifully, hadn’t been paying attention to anything but his computer screen. “I don’t know what time I’ll be home, Ryu. You’ll be okay, right,” Obi asks as the second version of the car accident comes to a close and the teens realize they have successfully evaded death. 

He doesn’t look up from where he is still scribbling notes. “I’ll be fine but I won’t wait up.”

“I’ll call or text to check in, okay,” Obi says, ruffling Ryu’s hair. 

He never stops writing as he bats Obi’s hand away but he leaves his freshly mussed hair alone. “Have fun,” he says. He adds, “stay out of trouble,” as an afterthought and Obi laughs.

Obi gestures to head out as he grabs his keys off the hook on the wall and opens the door but she hangs back. “Good night, Ryu. It was nice to meet you.”

He actually stops what he’s doing, then, and turns in his chair to face her. There’s the smallest hint of a smile as he says “You, too, Miss Shirayuki. Goodnight.” His eyes are still lowered but she feels light, like his acknowledgement is his acceptance. 

Since this publicity stunt will be an ongoing adventure, it is helpful that he likes her. Even though Obi has done a good enough job of sheltering Ryu from Hollywood press from what she can tell considering she’d never known about his underage roommate, it wouldn’t be believable if she didn’t get along with those in Obi’s circle of friends. 

Obi closes the door behind them and twirls his keys around his finger as they begin the walk down the hall. “What’s with the keys,” Shirayuki asks as a means to fill the silence. Nothing has been awkward yet but she has no intention of finding out if quietness will breed discomfort and ruin what has otherwise been an evening that is memorable for good reasons. “Won’t they ruin your pant lines unnecessarily if we have a driver?”

“Why, Miss,” he says, lifting his hand to his chest to feign embarrassment but the near predatory tilt of his smile, white teeth bared and flashing in the dim light of the hall, reveals his amusement. He definitely saw her checking him out and has zero intention of letting her off the hook for it. “Are you so concerned with the silhouette of my pants?”

“Not personally. No,” she lies. Keys in his pocket would certainly detract from other views and that would be tragic. “I just figured you would be.”

That startles a laugh out of him. “You are something else, Miss,” he muses. “But I texted my driver and told him to go home to his wife and kids. I’m driving to night,” he adds with another wink. 

The whole night has been an experiment in assumptions being dashed by better realities but hearing that he knows and has considerations for the personal details of the lives of the people he employs is heartwarming. Obi truly is a man of mystery and nothing like any actor she has ever met. 

It is a crying shame that it will end in some sort of grandiose breakup after the movie hype has run its course.