#he was such a silly guy this episode i was clawing at the bars of my enclosure trying to not gif everything he said....

[linoyes]

lee know in every skz code - ep 27-28

[solalunar-eclipse]

Sonic Boom - S3E13

Chapter title: Schrödinger's Hedgehog, Part 1

Summary: The truth about Shadow is revealed, and some problems are solved…while others are made worse. Will a team of five emotionally inexperienced people be able to do what needs to be done?

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[This episode begins without any kind of a cold open, jumping directly into the introductory sequence.]

[Shadow is not present in the part with the rest of the heroes, but their team shot is still structured as if he were there, making the absence very noticeable.]

[Instead, he appears in his old villain intro, with just his stripes and angry eyes visible. However, after a second or two, his eyes change into a much more nervous expression, and dart around briefly.]

[Then, the rest of the sequence continues, complete with the episode title at the end.]

…

When Tails had called the others, they’d all rushed into his workshop immediately, fearing the worst. “What’s wrong, Tails?” Amy had cried. Sonic, somehow, didn’t say a thing. Instead, he darted over to Shadow, clearly concerned for his rival-turned-friend.

What they found, however, was something far stranger than what they had expected.

At Sonic’s gasp, all five teammates gathered around Shadow, staring at his exposed hand. It didn’t look like anything they’d seen before—in fact, it barely resembled any of their own, except in general shape.

Starting from the middle of Shadow’s forearm, his black coloration ended and a strange silicone material began. It was a dull and semi-transparent grey (except for his arm stripe, which was pale red), with wires threaded throughout it, weaving around a central piston that extended up into the rest of his arm. His hand was made of the same silicone, and contained five segmented metal bars that extended through each of his fingers in place of the usual hand structure. They ended in five wickedly sharp steel claws that looked as though they could slice through Eggman’s badniks like they were made of warm butter.

Everyone stared until Sticks broke the silence. “He’s been replaced by a robot!” she screamed. “Who knows who they’ll come for next?!”

“Oh, don’t be silly, Sticks. What I want to know is, since when has Shadow had a prosthetic hand?” Amy asked, confused.

Tails frowned. “I don’t know, but however he got it, this is a seriously advanced piece of machinery. It almost perfectly mimics a real hand!”

While Amy and Tails discussed this revelation, Sonic eyed the way the piston in Shadow’s arm seemed to extend past what he could see somewhat suspiciously. Sure, maybe that was how prosthetics worked and he just didn’t know it, but something wasn’t quite adding up to him.

Running on that gut feeling, he pulled off Shadow’s other glove…

…to reveal a second synthetic hand underneath.

A momentary silence fell as everyone stared again.

Knuckles blinked. “So was Sticks right about him being replaced by a robot?”

“I don’t know about replaced, that just doesn’t feel right, but maybe…aha!” Tails exclaimed. “My scanners were calibrated to organic material, not inorganic! Let me try again.”

The entire team waited with bated breath as Tails’s machinery began to analyze Shadow one last time. The loading bar on the screen seemed almost excruciatingly slow as it ticked upwards a centimeter at a time.

And then, there was a map of Shadow’s insides for everyone to see. 

It still didn’t make perfect sense, since there were large parts of Shadow simply listed as “unidentifiable material”, but now it was perfectly clear that he didn’t have one (or even two) prosthetic arms. Shadow was, somehow, an android. An android with Ancient markings on some of his frame, to boot.

Tails looked torn between freaking out in shock and freaking out in excitement. “Chaos, that actually makes perfect sense!” 

“Uh…what makes perfect sense, bud?” Sonic asked.

“You guys remember how Shadow knew all this stuff about the Ancients—like with your mech, Sonic? Well, a while back,  Amy and I discovered that Mighton and Bolts are actually Ancient robots with ridiculously advanced AIs.”

“Oh yeah! Plus, now that I think about it, he seemed kinda awkward earlier when we were all talking about our opinions on robots.” Sonic added.

“So what I think is, since the robots of Roboken are so…lifelike, mentally, why couldn’t the Ancients have made a robot that looks like us as well as thinks like us?” the engineer finished.

“Why would they want to do that?” Amy asked. 

Tails shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe just because they could?”

“But how does any of this help us fix him?” Knuckles said, looking upset.

“Because…” the fox said proudly. “I may not know how to fix people, but I sure know how to fix robots!”

The entire team cheered at that, even Sticks.

“Alright!” Tails declared. “Guys, I need all of you to go back to Shadow’s cave and find anything that might help me fix him. Meanwhile, I’m going to hook him up to my computers and see what else I can figure out.”

“On it!” Sonic said, saluting. He rushed out the door with everybody else in tow, leaving Tails alone in the lab.

With an unconscious, highly advanced robot who also just happened to be his semi-friend. 

“This is one of the best days of my life.” he whispered.

Fifteen minutes later, once he’d managed to access Shadow’s brain wirelessly, his computer crashed.

(And so did his mood. At least temporarily.)

Tails sighed, rewiring some ports in the back so that all of his various devices could share processing power. Then, he tried rebooting it and reconnecting it to Shadow. 

Immediately, he received about twenty different error messages, including a [Files Incompatible: Open anyway?] request. 

He selected [Yes] hesitantly, and then gasped as row after row of files filled his screen. Most of them were names he didn’t even understand…because they were all written in Ancient. 

Tails scrambled for the original and translated copies of the robot manuscript that Amy had made him, hoping that he could use them as a sort of decoding mechanism for what he saw on screen. Thankfully, they did indeed make it a little easier to understand the writing—and the parts he could read were all incredible.

Shadow had an absolutely insane amount of files just for his sense of smell, let alone his optics and auditory sensors. And that wasn’t even touching his actual cognitive programming. 

Once he’d finished geeking out, Tails ran a full diagnostic of Shadow’s body, and discovered the problem. The house had fallen on him in the right position to somehow…disconnect some of his processing capability? It didn’t entirely make sense, and Tails spent the next few minutes deep in thought.

Suddenly, he came to a realization. Very slowly, he clicked on the file labeled with what he hoped was the Ancients’ version of ‘opacity’, and crossing his fingers, he turned the slider contained within most of the way down.

And with that, the entirety of Shadow’s ‘fur’ faded to the same dull, transparent grey and pale red. 

Beneath the rest of his silicone body, endless wires and metal framing lay. Even his eyelids were transparent (and Tails thought it was slightly creepy to see him staring blankly through them, if he was being entirely honest). And in the center of his body pulsed a bright blue crystal.

Looking closely, Tails could see that one of the clamps attaching a wire to the crystal had completely broken, leaving the wire detached. He knew at a glance that it wouldn’t match any of the clamp types he had—it was a completely unique make.

Unfortunately, that meant that all he could do now was wait for his friends to come back.

…

The other four were all busy searching through the boxes in Shadow’s cave, hoping to find something that matched what their engineer friend had seen inside him. Nothing seemed to fit the picture Tails had sent, though, and they were all starting to lose hope.

Sonic wandered throughout the cave, past the place where they’d found the mech. Only a little farther along, a rough bedroom was set up, and it made Sonic a little sad to see how poorly Shadow was living even compared to Knuckles these days.

Then, he noticed the corner of another cardboard box poking out from underneath the bed. Scrambling forward, he pulled it out, barely noting the carefully lettered label: Emergency Parts.

“Guys!” he yelled, already digging through the electronics. “Guys, I think I found it!” The others gathered around him just as he held up a clamp triumphantly, and Amy quickly matched it to the picture Tails had sent.

It was perfect.

Immediately, they all raced back to Tails’s workshop, the blue hedgehog making no effort to be gentle as he slammed the entire box down on the table. “Can you fix him?” Sonic asked, looking over at the android nervously. 

“I think so?” Tails said hesitantly. “I spent some time searching through his command files and found a couple things that might help.”

He pressed a button, and a section of Shadow’s silicone covering pulled back to reveal his internal wiring. Carefully, Tails pulled out the broken clamp with his fingers (since there was no tool that matched the ones the Ancients had used) and replaced it with the new one. Then, the engineer pulled out some of his most delicate tools and gently reset the wire in its housing. 

After a moment of careful inspection to make sure nothing was out of alignment, as well as a quick voltage check, Tails set the silicone covering back in place and sat back with a sigh. “We’ll just have to hope that he’ll be able to fix the rest on his own from here.” he said quietly, watching Shadow’s still body along with the others.

…

>>System malfunction: Corrected_

>>Rebooting_

Shadow gasped, sitting bolt upright. 

He took a trembling breath, out of habit more than anything else. Looking around, he saw that he was in Tails’s (currently empty) lab. He relaxed marginally at that—so he was among friends. Good. 

…Immediately afterwards, he remembered to feel embarrassed about how easy it was for him to feel safe around the other five these days.

Now then, what was he doing here? The last thing he remembered was saving that little girl from the house, and then everything went dark. As he looked around, however, he suddenly found that feeling of safety ripped right out of his head—

—when he noticed that his coloration had been dialed down to only twenty-five percent opacity. No matter whether it had happened during his injury, or afterwards here in the lab, it meant that the team knew.

As Shadow looked around with increasing terror, automatically running a self-diagnostic, he noticed that one of his clamps was registered as having been recently replaced. That must’ve been what knocked me out, he noted faintly. The most terrible part of all of it, though, was the fact that there were files filling up the entirety of Tails’s screen.

His files. The files that made up the personality of the creation named Shadow.

How long had they been looking through his head?!

Shadow terminated the connection instantly, his eyes flashing with a mixture of hurt and fury. And here he’d thought he could trust these heroes. They’d called him their friend. He scoffed to himself furiously, ignoring the betrayed pain building up inside him. He had been a fool. 

And it was then that Tails appeared at the door.

The android bared his teeth defensively, leaping off the table and into a fighting stance.

“Guys?” Tails squeaked. “I…I don’t think Shadow’s happy with me…”

Suddenly, the rest of the team piled into the room, making Shadow take a sudden step backwards. 

“You okay, Shads?” Sonic asked worriedly.

“Do you need anything?” Amy added.

Shadow snarled at them, his shoulders hunching. “Liars. Traitors! Don’t bother pretending you all still like me.”

“What?” Tails said, his eyes widening.

“You heard what I said!” he barked. “I know you all rifled through my head like a—a storage cabinet! Did you like what you saw? Was it fun?”

“No! No, Shads, we didn’t look at anything, except what we needed to fix you! We’d never!” Sonic cried, visibly taken aback.

“Sure.” he scoffed. “As if I’d believe that now.”

And with that, he vanished.

…

The team scoured the entire island in search of Shadow, but he was always one step ahead of them. After several hours of searching, they were forced to take a break, regrouping at Amy’s house.

“How does he keep on escaping?” Knuckles sighed, currently collapsed on the couch.

Tails frowned. “As long as his power source doesn’t die, he can theoretically keep going at the same pace for as long as he wants. We just can’t match up to that kind of persistence.”

Sonic began to type on his communicator even more quickly than usual, belying his stress. “Well, we might not be able to, but I know someone a little more experienced than us who could find him.”

“Nobody’s a better tracker than me!” Sticks cried.

“You are the best tracker we have…but you’re tired right now, and we need more people with different skills to find him.” Amy pointed out.

“Fine.” the badger huffed. “So who’s he calling?”

Sonic watched his communicator intently as three flashing dots appeared on the messaging app. “Someone who owes me a favor.”

Several minutes later, Vector kicked the door open. “Never fear, the Chaotix Detective Agency is here!” he cried.

“Agency?” Amy asked skeptically. “There’s only one of you.”

Vector smirked. “Well, sure. Last time you saw me, there was! But I’ve been asking around, putting up some ads on ConnectIn, and I managed to find these guys!” He stepped aside to reveal a chameleon dressed in stereotypical goth clothing and a hyperactive bee.

“He didn’t actually find either of us on ConnectIn.” the chameleon added. “I sought him out, and he just stumbled upon Charmy over there by pure chance.”

“Ohhhh wow, are you guys the heroes Vector told me about?” Charmy gasped, flying all around them excitedly. 

“Yeah, they are. But right now we’re on the job, got it, pal?” Vector said, gently pulling the kid back to his side.

“Got it!” Charmy chirped (and then immediately grinned at the team the moment Vector looked away).

“Yeah, so this is Charmy, our resident scout, air support, and mascot,” Vector explained, “and this here is Espio. He’s got some cool ninja skills, so he helps me out too. A lot, if I’m being honest.”

The chameleon promptly turned invisible, making the other five gasp. “So cool…” Knuckles whispered. 

Espio then reappeared, now with a slight blush on his face. “Thanks.” he said quietly.

“Now then, just sit back and relax!” Vector said cheerfully. “We’ll find your guy in no time, I promise!”

…

‘No time’ turned out to be exactly three hours and twenty-two minutes. During that time period, Amy managed to stress-bake two batches of banana muffins, Tails and Knuckles half-heartedly played a board game, Sticks was busy hiding the banana muffins in various ‘apocalypse caches’, and Sonic wore a circular hole in the rug.

All five of them nearly hit the roof when the Chaotix called Sonic’s communicator.

“Hey, Sonic!” Vector said. “Listen, we found your guy, but we have one tiny problem.”

“Yeah? What is it?” Sonic asked, his foot tapping rapidly.

Espio appeared in the picture. “He’s camped out in an old Ancient ruin, and he’s switched all of the defenses on. I was the only one who could get within forty feet without laser cannons trying to blast me to bits.”

“And we didn’t sign up to get blasted to bits!” Charmy chimed in.

“I, uh, I hope this won’t affect our payment?” Vector added hopefully.

“No way!” Sonic said hurriedly, eager to get on with things already. “I called you guys in to find him, not to bring him back here. Just send us the coordinates and we’ll call it all square, okay?”

Vector grinned. “It’s been great doin’ business with ya, Sonic! If you ever need something found again, just remember us and we’ll help you out!”

In the background, they could hear Charmy singing something that sounded an awful lot like “Team Chaotix! They’re detectives you want on your side!”

“Thanks so much, Vec. See ya!” Sonic said, signing off.

“Alright.” Amy said, punching a fist into her other hand. “Now all we have to do is get Shadow back.”

“That’s easier said than done.” Tails said, looking nervous. “I just got the coordinates, and this is a temple nobody’s even discovered before. It could be really dangerous.”

“Oh yeah? We can handle dangerous!” Knuckles said cheerfully.

A montage ensues in which the team prepares for the ordeal ahead. Tails gathers up all of his equipment, while Sticks does the same with their homemade monitoring devices. Amy smashes a few targets with her hammer, Knuckles practices his burrowing form, and Sonic adds some extra sports tape to his ankles.

Then, the scene cuts to the team approaching the ruins. They smile confidently and begin to charge in an epic slow motion shot—only to end up screaming and running back in the other direction when the laser cannons start firing.

“Alright, scrap the ‘Epic Hero Entrance’ plan.” Sonic wheezed. “Tails, you go ahead and disable the cannons. The rest of us can wait until you’re done.”

The fox dashed across the field, his tails whirring at top speed. After a few tense minutes, in which he was forced to work while plastered against the wall to stay in the cannons’ blind spots, he stuck out his hand with a thumbs-up as the machinery deactivated.

Knuckles inched out onto the field carefully, and when he wasn’t immediately turned into a scorch mark, the others followed behind him. Tails managed to open the doors not long after they reached his position, and they all braced themselves for the trials ahead. 

Next up was a…completely empty hallway?

At least, it seemed that way until Sticks held up their hand, sniffing the air warily. After a moment, they blew chalk dust into the hall, revealing the laser beams that crisscrossed the way forward. Carefully, the badger dodged each and every beam until they made it to the other side, their foot automatically pressing a panel that deactivated the beams.

After that, there was a memory matching puzzle that ended up being solved by Amy, which took her a few tries to get right. As soon as she finished, she did a quick celebratory dance—before remembering that she was supposed to be the serious one, and if any of you think about mentioning that ever again, first remember the ten out of ten targets I hit with my hammer earlier. 

Then, they were faced with a few riddles that Knuckles got right with his oddly specific riddling skills, and then (of course) a giant labyrinth with about twenty different hallways spiraling off it in every direction imaginable. Yes, that did include one pointing directly upwards. Sonic sped through each and every path until he found an exit that didn’t lead to a pit of flames, a pit of snakes, a spike trap, a pit of piranhas, or any other kind of murder-inclined pits. Then, he shot off a guided flare that Tails had provided to show the way, and the rest simply followed the glowing trail directly to him.

Carefully, they all lined up, staring down into the darkness ahead. A faint light emanated from the end of the hall, showing them the way they hoped would lead to their missing friend.

[screen fades to black]

[This time it’s Tails complaining. “Aw, come on! Another cliffhanger? We’re almost to the best part!”]

[roll credits]

[p-artsypants]

I’ll Handle This (5)

In Which There is an Akuma

Ao3 | FF.net

Plagg was laying on the bed when he returned. “Oh good, you’re back. I was kind of worried about you—“ 

“There’s an Akuma!” Adrien interrupted. 

Plagg’s eyes lit up. “An Akuma, you say? How interesting...” 

“Yeah yeah, just do the thing that sucks me in the ring!” 

“I’ll warn you ahead of time, when I’m in your body like this, the suit becomes factory default. Oh, and you’ll be able to see and hear everything I do.” 

“Great. This whole ‘Invasion of the Bodysnatchers’ episode is getting better and better.” 

“Adrien, Claws out!” 

That was an odd sensation. Now Adrien knew what Taffy felt like. He felt his whole body grow long and thin, before spiraling smaller and smaller. There was every color in the rainbow, flashing in a nauseous wave, and then, he was looking through his eyes again. 

“Ha!” Said Plagg with a little satisfaction. “Feels good to be on the other side.” He walked over to the mirror, where Adrien could finally see what ‘factory default’ meant. 

He looked like a ninja. Not like a Naruto ninja, but like a real Sengoku period, 15th century ninja. An all black, cloth ensemble, with foot wraps and a thick belt. Instead of claws on his fingertips, there were long blades attached to the back of his hand, almost like wolverine. Instead of a mask around his eyes, he wore one over the lower half of his face, and only left his eyes exposed. But his eyes looked different enough. The sclera was a toxic green instead of white, and his pupils were slit. Thick black eyeliner traced the eyes and framed them, making the color pop. His hair was a complete disaster and stood up in every direction. 

Finally, the ears. They were real, genuine cat ears. Complete with fur. 

“Not too shabby, if I say so. Though, the first guys that wore this had black hair, which made the ears less jarring. But I can’t complain. We mustn’t leave our lady waiting!” 

Plagg threw open the window and leapt into the city. 

He rushed over the rooftops, doing impossible feats of parkour and agility. It actually made Adrien dizzy. 

“Oh, one other thing I forgot to mention,” Plagg said aloud. “You know how when you’re in the suit, you can be body slammed into a building and be okay afterwards?” 

Yeah? 

“Well...you’re going to feel all that pain instead. That’s why I’m always so wiped after a fight.” 

What?!

Plagg glanced at his baton, the screen looking more like parchment than the usual LED screen, and found where Ladybug was. 

A hop skip and a jump, he landed next to her. “What are we up against?” 

She didn’t look at him, eyes glued to the akuma. “Stretchy guy. Like Mr. Fantastic. Can’t figure out what ticked him off, but he’s able to reach anything and even shape shift. Might be difficult to fight.” Then she finally looked at him and her eyes bulged. “Chat? What’s with your suit?” 

“Plagg’s having a hard time right now, so I’m factory default.” 

“O...Kay...are you going to be okay fighting like that?” 

“It feels fine, my Lady. Nothing to worry about. In fact, do you mind if I take the lead on this one? Give you a little break?” 

She chuckled. “You know I could always use a break.” 

“Great! We need to lead him over to the construction site over at Notre Dame, where all the scaffolding are.” 

She smiled at him. “I think I know what you’re planning, Kitty. Lead the way.” 

He dropped the bottom part of his mask, and wolf whistled quickly, before Ladybug could place his face. “Hey stretch!” He shouted. “You up for a little race?” 

“Ladybug and Chat Noir! You’ll give me your Miraculous as soon as I reach you!” 

“Good luck with that!” And he vaulted backwards on to the street and darted towards Notre Dame. 

Plagg was fast. Faster than Chat Noir normally was, and Ladybug was surprised at how hard it was to keep up with him. 

“H-Hey Chat! Don’t leave me behind!” 

He only stopped a second to scoop her up into his arms before running off again. Her added weight didn’t even slow him down. 

“Sorry, Bug. The Akuma has long legs, so he’s faster than usual. I can’t slow down, so hang on!” 

She did, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck. 

Adrien was going to kill Plagg if he didn’t die from ecstasy first. He could feel Ladybug pressed tightly against him, and he loved every bouncing second of it. 

Soon they reached the construction site, with the Akuma hot on their tail. 

“Split up,” Plagg commanded and Ladybug gave a firm nod, following right along with him. 

While Adrien was basically on autopilot, he noted that this fight felt a lot like being on the jungle gym when he was a kid. He swung on the bars, twisting up levels onto the scaffolding, the akuma chasing after with each turn. 

Except, the akuma was long, and he was starting to get tangled in all the bars. 

“Oh no!” Ladybug feigned a cry. “I’m stuck! He might be able to get my Miraculous!” 

“You’re mine!” Called the akuma, twisting around a pole and darting for her. As he was about to snag her, she dropped and spun on her bent knees away. 

“Whoops, not so stuck after all!”

“I’m going to—“ The akuma reached out their arm, stretching and stretching to grab at her ears. But he never reached her. He was out of length, and hopelessly tangled in the mass of wood and metal. “No! No!” He wriggled, trying to untie himself, but Plagg had already found the akumatized item in the akuma’s back pocket. A roll of measuring tape. 

“Akuma, coming in hot!” He called, as he smashed the tape. 

The black butterfly emerged, and Ladybug caught it and purified it easily. “Bye bye little butterfly!” 

One cure later, the relative damage done to the scaffoldings was repaired, and the akuma victim, a short man, was returned to ground level. 

“Wow! We didn’t even have to use our powers today! Great work, kitty!” She praised as he raised her fist.

He bumped her back with a grin. “Thank you, Bug. Hope you didn’t mind me taking charge. I just figured with you being the guardian and all, having some shared responsibility would really help you out.” 

She exhaled with a breath, her shoulders relaxing. “Ugh, you have no idea. When that akuma alert went off, I was already dreading it. It’s been a long day.” 

Plagg frowned. “A long day?” Even after their shopping spree and awesome lunch? “Do you need to talk about it?”

She ground her toes on the roof of the church. “Are you busy? Plagg said you were doing something…” 

“Oh, I was napping. I have all the time in the world for you, Ladybug.” 

“Want to get some ice cream, then?”

“Only if you let me pay.” 

She dramatically put a hand to her forehead, “oh, if you must!” 

Plagg chuckled with her, and then took off running.

“Hey! I never said it was a race!” She called back. 

“You never said it wasn’t either!” He shouted back.

When she finally located Andre’s ice cream cart, he was already sitting and waiting with her order. “Your ice cream, my lady?”

“You’re so fast! Have you just been holding out on me all this time?!” She huffed, taking the cone from him. 

He shrugged. “Oh, I have a couple of tricks up my sleeves.” 

They enjoyed their ice cream in comfortable silence for a while, before Ladybug asked, “hey, you’re a boy, right?”

“Last I checked.” 

She shook her head at her dumb question. “Right. Um…I have a friend. Guy friend.” 

Plagg crossed his legs. “OoooOOoooo is it him?”

Ladybug blushed. “Yes.” 

“Tell me everything.”

Inside his head, Adrien started to panic. This could only end badly for them!

“Well today…he was acting really weird. Usually, he’s really nice and reserved and polite…I know he can be silly and rambunctious, but…today, he was larger than life. He took us out for an expensive lunch, and then shopping for clothes that would make his dad angry. I think it’s a rebellious streak, but my gal friend said his money has gone to his head…” She scuffed her foot on the floor. “I’m just worried. I don’t want him to change…but I don’t want him to fake being someone he’s not just to make others happy. I guess I’m just confused. What do you think?” 

Plagg finished his cone in one gulp, hiding his face right after. “I think it’s just puberty.” 

She did not think that was amusing. “Yeah right.” 

“Has handsome rich boy ever shown signs of materialistic superiority?”

“No, he wears the same clothes all the time, and never flaunts the things he owns—“ 

“Then I think your gal pal is off base. It probably is rebellion. Just…be a safe place for him, and I’m sure it’ll end up okay.” 

“A safe place? What do you mean?” 

“I’m not sure what this dude is rebelling for. You’d probably know. Is his family…strict?”

“Very.” 

“And controlling?”

“Extremely.” 

“Okay, so if I was in his shoes, I’d want a friend that was trustworthy for me to confide in. Rebelling is liberating and exciting, but also extremely scary, because it’s risky. He needs to have someone to have his back in case things go south.” He massaged her shoulder. “And it would be best if that friend was soft and smelled nice.”

Ladybug smacked his shoulder. “When did you get so wise?”

“I hide a lot of wisdom under my ‘dumbass’ veneer.”

Ladybug cackled loudly, making Plagg smile and Adrien swoon.  

“You can be a dumbass sometimes,” Ladybug admitted. “But you’re my dumbass.” 

“Aww, thanks bug!” He grinned. “So, handsome rich boy is all that’s on your mind? I know identity clues have to be avoided and all, but I like knowing stuff that’s going on in your life. And I think I can manage another golden nugget of advice as well, if needed.” 

Ladybug frowned, obviously something else cropping up in her mind. “Actually…there’s something I haven’t told you that I probably should have.” 

“I’m all ears. I literally have four of them.” He twitched his cat ears.

She reached up and rubbed them, an affectionate look on her face as she felt the fur under her fingertips. “Not too long ago, I was expelled from school.” 

“Ladybug is a bad student in her civilian life?” He joked.

“No! I’m not!” She damn-near cried. “Sorry, I just…ugh. I was framed. There’s this girl in my class that…she lies with every breath. I know she has a crush on my crush, but she’s lying and manipulating to get her way to him. She works with him now too.” 

Plagg knew there was certainly more to the story than that, but he had to play dumb as Chat Noir. “Lying is bad and all, but it’s not really your problem, is it? She’ll get caught in her web eventually.”

“Argh, that’s what Ad—my boy said too. Take the high road. And it made sense, for what he knew about her at the time…but what he didn’t know was that she threatened me. Threatened to take all my friends and him away, just because I told her to stop lying.”

This was a shock to both kwami and holder. “She threatened you?” 

“Yeah. And she went through with it. She got me expelled. Apparently, according to my boy, he sort of convinced her to double lie to get me un-expelled. She’s been quiet ever since, which has been a few weeks, but…she keeps staring at me. It’s unnerving.” 

“I suppose it would be, with her track record.” 

“I didn’t want you to find out about this, but I have to tell you. She’s almost gotten me akumatized, twice.” 

Plagg slapped a hand over his mouth with a gasp. 

Lila was a nuisance for Adrien, but she was a problem for Marinette. No, an imminent threat. This changed his attack strategy…though it started to look like Adrien’s three problems were weaved together. The whole situation was a little more delicate than he had considered at first. 

“I’ve beaten both akumas off, but I worry about the future. I’m trying to come up with a contingency plan, but for right now it’s just ‘don’t get upset’.” 

“I’ll try to come up with a plan too. Maybe next time, you could hand your earrings off to Tikki for a little while, if things start to get dicey. She can bring them to me, since she knows who I am.” 

Ladybug gnawed at her lip. “Tikki’s been my greatest ally in fighting them off. If she’s not there…” 

Plagg rested a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “Bug, you’re the practical one here. What happens when you don’t give Tikki your earrings, and you don’t fight it off? When you’re so consumed with pain you don’t even see the Akuma coming? What then?” 

She shook her head. “You’re so right, I hate it.” She sighed. “That happened the last time too…I was only spared because Hawkmoth suddenly stopped his attack. That was the day I got expelled.”

“And I’ll follow the plan too. I haven’t gotten akumatized or anything, but it might only be a matter of time.”  

“Yeah…” It was awful to think about. Having to fight her partner was not something that Marinette wanted to do. But this loose plan was better than no plan. “Hey, it’s getting pretty late. I have a project I have to finish up.” 

“Oh, of course, go on home.” Plagg insisted. 

“Thanks for the Ice Cream, and for lending an ear. You’re the best, Kitty.” 

Plagg smiled at her, though she couldn’t see through his mask. His eyes crinkled in mirth. “I try.” 

“Tell Plagg I still have that cheese danish if he wants it. Night, Chat.” 

“Night, Bug.” 

And she swung off into the distance. 

Plagg took out his baton and made his own way home. He knew Adrien didn’t really want to be transformed any longer than he had to be. 

He landed inside the mansion, and called, “Claws in.” 

Adrien came flying out of the ring, and Plagg caught him carefully in his hands. “How you feeling, kiddo?”

“Like I got hit by a truck,” said Adrien, weakly. “You didn’t even use my power, why am I so tired?” 

“How much cheese did you eat today?”

“None.” Adrien scrunched up his nose. “Come to think of it, I didn’t eat anything today.” 

“That would certainly do it.” Plagg said, with a sigh. He took out a wheel of camembert and took out a wedge for Adrien, holding it in front of his face. 

Normally, Adrien couldn’t stand the smell. It was putrid and foul and moldy…but this…this was on a different level. Curse Plagg’s disgusting body! He sat up and helped himself to a nibble of cheese. A nibble turned into a bite, and a bite turned into a full inhale, almost taking off his fingers. 

“Better?” 

Adrien sighed as his energy started to return. “Remind never to complain about your eating habits.” 

Plagg grinned. “Oh it's a deal!” 

Adrien’s phone rang, and Plagg reached to answer. 

“Who is it?” Asked Adrien. 

“It’s Marineeeeeeetteeeee~!” Plagg sang, and connected the call, putting it on speaker for Adrien to hear. 

“Hey Pooh Bear.” 

“H-hey uh, Tigger? No no that was dumb. Sorry, hi Adrien.” 

Plagg and Adrien shared a look of fondness. She was just too cute sometimes. 

“Whats up?” Pried Plagg. 

“Uh, not-not much! I just finished your second shirt! I can do more tomorrow, but for now…” 

“I’ve got an outfit picked out for tomorrow, don’t worry. And you’ll love it.” 

“Will I really? Or will it turn me into a pillar of salt?”

“Have a little faith in me, Mari.”

“I—of course. Did you just call me Mari?”

“Yeah, I thought it was about time I gave you a nickname. Is that okay? Or are you okay with Pooh Bear?”

Marinette’s giggle was adorable, as it was filled with thinly veiled embarrassment. “Call me whatever you like! I don’t mind!” 

“Great! What’s my nickname?”

“I don’t know? Do you want one?”

“Only from you, Pooh Bear!” He sang. 

“Um…I’ll have to think about it. I think I’ve heard Lila and Chloe both call you ‘Adri’, so I’ll try to come up with something else.” 

“I appreciate that.” Plagg said, as Adrien smiled fondly at the phone. It sure was considerate of her to think about that.

“And Adrien?” Her tone conveyed so much. So much more than Adrien could understand. But it brought a warmth to his face. 

“Yes?”

“I’m here for you. You know that, right? Whatever you need. An ear, a h-h-hug. Whatever. I…I care about you.” 

Adrien wiped a paw under his eyes, fully prepared for tears to take him. 

“I care about you too,” Plagg said, not faking the genuine appreciation in his voice. “I appreciate everything you do for me.”

“I-…” She trailed off, and Adrien wondered if she was going to say something else. But instead, she just exhaled and said. “It’s getting kind of late. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Of course, Pooh Bear!” 

She laughed. “Thanks Adrien, goodnight.” 

“Goodnight.” And he ended the call. 

“She took your advice.” Adrien noted.

“She took Chat Noir’s advice. She trusts him after all.” 

Adrien sat on the desk, still feeling a storm brewing inside of him. He was still upset about Plagg’s behavior with his father…but he was starting to come around. Marinette never called him, and her conversations with him were never so easy. Was this actually working?

“Adrien,” Plagg started, scratching between his ears. “I’m sorry for hurting you. If there was a way to humble your father without hurting you in the process, I’d do it…but right now…”

“I understand, Plagg.” Adrien said with a hopeful smile. “It sucks but…that Chloe-tantrum you threw was really funny.”

Plagg beamed at him. 

“And,” Adrien added. “After hearing the whole truth about Lila, I’m fully on board with whatever you want to do to her.”

“Fully?”

“Absolutely. This bitch needs to go.”

The mansion was nearly silent in the night, so Plagg’s evil cackle echoed and echoed, sending goosebumps down the neighbor’s spines.

[pinnithin-writes]

I Realized. Then I Couldn’t Stop Realizing.

Chapter 2: Pleck

Pleck Decksetter wasn’t a liar. He really was meditating when he shut himself inside his room all day. Perhaps those meditations weren’t always on the Space, and perhaps he wasn’t always entirely conscious while he was doing it (his sleeping average had racked up to 14 hours a day), but he was meditating. He found that he was less susceptible to the Allwheat’s influence when he was repeating phrases over and over, focusing his mind on the mantras instead of letting his thoughts wander to darker places.

He had started with motivational words, things that would encourage him as he pounded them into his head syllable by syllable. This had rapidly devolved into just blurting whatever he could come up with - nonsense phrases, recipes he remembered, random lines from a stray TheyTeen magazine - anything to blot out the fuzz on the edge of his consciousness. If he was asleep or otherwise mentally occupied, the maddening blend of Beano and the Emperor stayed relatively quiet.

When Dar showed up at his door announcing a mandatory party to raise morale, he felt a swoop of panic in his stomach. It wasn’t that he was avoiding the crew. In fact, he missed them terribly, but he’d had enough episodes in front of them by now to want to keep some distance. He couldn’t forget the looks on their faces when he snapped - uneasy, awkward, mistrustful. As someone who prided himself on being authentic, it made him prefer the company of his closet walls over experiencing that anymore.

“Is it really mandatory?” Pleck asked, staring up at his captain as they towered over him.

“Yes,” Dar said, crossing their arms. “Mandatory party. Mandatory fun. You have to go, Pleck.”

He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Dar, I don’t know. How long do I have to be there?”

The talons on Dar’s chest twitched with mild irritation. “Until I say so. I haven’t seen your face in days. We’re all feeling pretty shitty after our last mission, so tonight we’re all going to have fun. That’s an order.”

“Saying ‘that’s an order’ really only works on AJ, Captain.”

Dar clamped a heavy hand onto Pleck’s shoulder, dwarfing him instantly. They applied some small pressure, and he felt their claws lightly press into him, a warning. “You wanna play this game right now, little man?” they asked lowly.

Pleck shook his head, shrugging out of their grip. “No. No, I’ll go. Just… don’t expect me to stick around for long, okay?”

But Dar was having none of it, and they stabbed a threatening claw in his direction. “You’ll stay and you’ll have fun. We are gonna raise morale on this ship, hear me?”

Pleck opened his mouth to argue, but Dar was already turning away from him. “Okay,” he sighed. He watched them clomp down the hall in the direction of AJ’s room, resignation settling heavy on his shoulders. Sure, he would go. Sure, he would stay. Have fun? He hadn’t had fun in so long he wasn’t even sure he remembered what it felt like.

As the evening approached, Pleck tried to make himself look at least somewhat self-contained. He combed through his hair, long enough now to reach past his shoulders, and tied it out of his face. He found his eye patch and secured it over his blind eye - the ruined socket tended to be a little off-putting, and he felt off-putting enough already in his current mental state. He pulled on a shirt and a pair of pants that at least smelled clean and secured his robe over the outfit.

Pleck had been living in that robe constantly. It was ratty and coming apart at the seams, but he couldn’t bring himself to part with it. When he wore it, he felt that he still had some sense of purpose, and he clung to that purpose with desperate hands as he tied the sash around his waist.

He stood in the doorway of his little closet-room, searching inside himself for any sense of excitement for the upcoming party. Growing up back home, he wasn’t ever invited to any parties. Most of the time he and his underage friends had just driven out to the middle of a grass field, drinking and shooting the shit until the farmer caught them. It should feel good to have friends who wanted him to be at a party, right? But he was coming up empty.

Nothing out of the ordinary as of late. He heaved a sigh, rolled his neck, and ventured out into the ship.

He was the last one to arrive, and he found the common area rearranged to better suit a gathering of the whole crew in one place. Bargie was already rattling the room with a heavy bassline that he could feel in his chest and the lights were dimmed. The couches had been shoved into a semicircle against one wall, allowing an area of open floor. Dar had squeezed themself behind the counter, stashing it with drinks to make it into a bar while AJ hovered nearby, calling dibs on any empty cans he could crush.

Even Horsehat was there, toddling around and reaching for the streamers that fluttered as they hung from the ceiling. Pleck was already dwarfed by the being whose appearance was identical to Dar’s. He smiled at the thought of involving them fully with the crew’s missions once they were more cognitively developed.

The heavy thump of Bargie’s club music rattled his teeth. This was good; loud, continual noises were pretty effective at blocking the voice that hung out in his head. His eye skipped over the rest of the room and landed on the square frame of his best friend, sitting next to one of the couches and keeping a close watch on Horsehat. Pleck raised a hand to wave at C-53, and once the droid spotted him, he lifted a heavy claw in return.

Maybe tonight wouldn’t be so bad, after all.

He went to settle onto the couch next to C-53, leaving Dar to lasso the turbulent AJ on their own. He had to lean in close and raise his voice to be heard, but he didn’t mind the proximity.

“Wow, you guys really went all out,” Pleck commented. “I thought we were just going to sit around and drink and talk.”

C-53’s scanners turned in his direction. “Yeah, well, we figured it would be nice to have some reprieve after… y'know.” His machinery whirred as he gestured vaguely. “All of it. Everything.”

Everything was right. Lately it felt like the universe was against them, the stakes higher, their failures heavier. It had never bothered Pleck that much to do poorly on a mission when they had first started working together, but now he preferred to not even try over risking the consequences of their inevitable screw-ups. His shoulders slumped. He needed a drink already.

C-53 noticed his melancholy. “You know we’re all worried about you, right?” he asked.

Pleck waved him off. “Yeah, I know, you’re worried I’m going crazy,” he acknowledged. “Well I���m not going to lose it tonight, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“Nobody thinks you’re crazy, Pleck,” C-53 began.

“You guys shoved me in a bureau drawer when I started talking to myself,” he responded. His tone was good-natured, but there was a bitter edge buried in it.

The droid beside him said nothing, surveying him in silence. This frame didn’t emote as well as some of his previous ones, so Pleck could have no idea what was going on in his cube. Finally, C-53 rose from his seated position, forcing Pleck to crane his neck to maintain eye contact.

“I’m gonna get you something to drink,” he said. “What do you want? An orange beer?”

Pleck flushed, the question unexpected. “Uh, sure, I’ll take one.”

“Alright.”

Pleck watched his friend shift toward the newly converted bar, crossing the room in only a few steps. There had been dozens of times he had imagined the droid offering to get him a drink in varying contexts, all discarded as ridiculous on account of C-53’s disinterest in organic consumables. This, however, was essentially an offer to “have a beer and maybe you’ll calm down a little,” which was not exactly the scenario he preferred.

His feelings for C-53 were complicated. They had gone through a lot together in the past two years, and Pleck had watched the droid’s personality gradually grow into a really special individual once his restraining bolt had been destroyed. Pleck was also painfully aware of his own development as a tellurian, and the intimate knowledge C-53 held about the kind of person he was. Who he used to be. Who he was becoming.

Still, he felt drawn to him. Which was silly if he gave too much thought to it. Pleck was just a blip on the radar of a droid who’d occupied hundreds of frames and lived dozens of tellurian lifetimes. Plus, he was, well. Him. Pleck Decksetter. Tellurian Disaster.

“You’re staring off into space,” came a voice beside him.

C-53 had returned, holding a bottle delicately between his clamps. Pleck took it gratefully, marveling at the fact that the same guy who busted the refrigerator could handle glass with such care. “Yeah, well,” he said, cracking it open. “That’s what being a Zima knight’s all about.”

“Uh huh,” C-53 responded, settling back down to sit beside him. Across the room, Dar was trying to explain to AJ that he should, in fact, not break an empty glass bottle over his helmet, making a swipe for him while the clone danced out of the way. “Pleck, do you ever think that maybe you’ve been getting a little too invested in the Space lately? You’ve been… gone a lot.”

“What are you talking about? I’m right here on the ship.”

The droid stared at him again, blank-faced in his loader frame while the bass pulsed around them. “The only reason you’re here right now is because Dar forced you to come.”

Pleck changed the subject. “Are you drinking tonight? High power? Low power?” He wasn’t exactly sure about the specifics of droids altering their states of consciousness, but he remembered C-53 ordering power at a bar before. At any rate, he’d take the droid’s stern chastisement for his ignorance over having to lie to his best friend any day.

C-53 considered him for a moment longer before following the conversation turn. “Bargie and I agreed to land somewhere later and do a little dust together. After Horsehat goes to bed.”

“Responsible.”

“Captain Dar would probably not be able to relax if Bargie was flying the crew on dust,” the droid reasoned.

“Yeah, they’ve been pretty stressed out.” Pleck watched Dar as they bodily hoisted AJ into the air, turning him upside down and shaking the bottle forcibly out of his grip. He stifled a chuckle. “It was a good idea to have this.”

“I am glad you think so.”

Hearing the fondness in C-53’s vocal modulator made warmth spread through Pleck’s chest. They were friends, good friends, and Pleck remembered how much he missed him when he locked himself away. He took a drink and stood, worried he would blurt something stupid if he lingered for too long.

“I’m gonna go help with AJ,” he said. “Thanks for the beer.”

C-53 inclined his chin in his direction. “Thank you for the company. And Pleck?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m always here for you if you need to talk about anything. I’m serious.”

Pleck ached with all the things he wanted to talk about. But he just offered a congenial smile and a mild “thanks, buddy,” before turning away.

Chapter 1 <-----> Chapter 3

[merinnan]

DMBJ Explore with the Note Ep 3

Okay! Recap post for DMBJ season 2 (Explore with the Note), Ep 3!

Current counts:

Season 2 Xiaoge Rescue Count: 2 for Wu Xie, 2 for protagonists, 3 for everyone

Season 2 Wu Xie Swoon Count: 0 

Season 2 Evil Hair Count: 2 

 Cumulative Xiaoge Rescue Count: 12 for Wu Xie, 17 for protagonists, 18 for everyone 

Cumulative Wu Xie Swoon Count: 6

- Hopefully this ep has less snorkelling scenes 

- But to be honest 

- It would be hard to have MORE snorkelling scenes than ep 2 and still have plot

- Oh yeah, they've just had the first switcheroo of the side chambers and Wu Xie is Very Confused

- And Xiaoge just realised he's been here before, and is admitting he has memory problems 

- You are still such a bad liar at this point, Wu Xie. 

- Oh my god, Pangzi, you can't just ask people if they inject Botox or have a radiation-caused genetic mutation

- Also, yes, I am already on my bullshit with the soft looks Xiaoge gives Wu Xie 

- Well. The looks. Because this Xiaoge looks at people who are not Wu Xie about the same amount as Yang Yang's Xiaoge did

- It is very convenient how the flashbacks in this one are colour coded with that soft yellow lighting 

- It's taken these guys from 20 years ago a lot longer to get out here than it's taken Wu Xie and co. in the present time

- Like. I'm kinda wondering if this past Xiaoge was just straight up watching the idiot Xie accidentally kill himself. 

- I mean, I wouldn't blame him, tbh

- Going out diving by yourself without telling anyone is borderline suicidal without adding sneaking into an underwater tomb without adequate preparation to it 

- It's nice to have better lighting in the flashbacks, though 

- There's a snek-browed fishy, and past!Xiaoge is shook

- Also, that Xie guy looks like he was boiled or roasted down there 

- Oh, is past!Xiaoge remembering something about snek-fishies?

- Wu Xie coming in with some epic side-eye as Xiaoge tells the story

- Why does the flashback get a much more clear and visible snorkelling scene?! 

- You can actually see things! - Are they trying to make a low-key accidental statement about water pollution?

- Okay, this episode's snorkelling scene starts 6 minutes in 

- Let's see how long it goes for 

- Hopefully it will end before the 17 minute mark 

- That's the bar it has to beat here 

- Surely it can't be that hard 

- Oh, I spoke too soon on the water clarity

- Hey, if Sanshu and Wenjin could properly communicate underwater without arm notepads and without pulling out their fucking snorkles to try to literally talk underwater, WU XIE AND PANGZI, then why couldn't people in the present timeline do the same?

- Not looking at anyone in particular 

- At all 

- Especially not ones named Wu Xie and Pangzi

- The sea monkey that Sanshu chased off looks like baby compared to the one on the ghost ship

- Wow. Snorkelling took less than a minute and a half, with almost twice the number of people 

- Obviously A-Ning needed more people on her expedition 

- Then they wouldn't have had to swim around aimlessly for eleven fucking minutes before getting into the tomb

- Hahah, a perfume tomb 

- Sure it is 

- Don't you think that should make you suspicious, Sanshu? 

- There's always gotta be a big, interesting mural. Let's see what exposition this one will trigger.

- Ofc Pangzi goes sniffing for perfume after hearing about it being there 20 years ago 

- In a different room in the tomb 

- After people had traipsed through it with their stinky diving equipment

- And ofc he doesn't smell it and then complains that it can't have been there in the first place 

- Xiaoge's expression just says everything

- See, Wu Xie is the smart boy with the logical suggestions of why that might be, Pangzi 

- This guy who wants to leave is like the only genre-savvy one of the lot of them 

- Smart suggestions from past!Sanshu that yes, everyone should listen to 

- They're not gonna listen to him

- Yep, taking a nap is never a good idea in these situations 

- Which is why he's gonna do it 

- After DMBJ 1 Pangzi, it's so nice to have a Pangzi who's smart and competent straight off the bat, instead of having to take like 4/5 of the season to get to that point

- And ofc you were a hooligan as a kid, Pangzi. I am totally unsurprised by this news 

- I'd wondered why he jumped straight to aroma hypnosis, but him having come across it before when he was younger explains it

- This Wu Xie has some fantastic facial expressions 

- For instance, this one is wondering if Pangzi is bullshitting him 

- He doesn't even need to say it. It's right there on his face

- Oh yeah, Xiaoge recognises that

- And I was wondering how they'd intro that in without Wu Xie's disreputable antique store contacts telling him about it 

- Pangzi is ofc the logical choice for it 

- Hahah, yes, Wu Xie, you're right and you should say it

- Wu Xie: There's no such thing as ghosts 

- Xiaoge's expression: You might want to reconsider that 

- Oooh, Wu Xie has heard about it, too.

- Like almost 20 years ago, judging by how young he is in these flashbacks. And that this one looks like it takes place not long after Sanshu got into trouble from Grandpa Wu 

- But like, Sanshu, why are you telling a five year old about this? Or maybe he's six. BUT STILL

- Sanshu, do not recommend evil, possibly-ghosty, nightmare-inducing perfumed bone to your baby nephew as a sleep aid 

- Who tf let you near children?

- Ah, now time for the Sanshu-POV flashback. Which is happening within Wu Xie's flashback 

- Flashback-ception! 

- See, Sanshu, told you sleeping was a bad idea 

- None of them listened to you 

- Because you fell asleep and couldn't tell them no

- He can see surprisingly well for a man left in a sideroom of an underwater tomb with no light sources 

- It looks like they took all his diving gear as well as their own 

- How rude of them 

- OH GOOD, it's not just me who was thinking that this room looked really empty

- I thought I was imagining things, or mixing up the room they were in earlier with the room that Wu Xie and the rest were in last ep 

- Are those...claw marks where the mural used to be?

- OH WAIT NOW I REMEMBER WHAT'S HAPPENED TO HIM 

- If this is following the book as closely as it seems for this bit, anyway 

- I am less confused now

- Weird flash of light and sudden coffin appears 

- Which Sanshu can still see without a light source 

- Remember, kids, eat all your carrots like Sanshu obviously does!

- Do they just paint the same mural in every side chamber that has a mural? Because that looks just like the one from the other room. 

- Oh no, I can see some differences in it now 

- Yeah, that's not a good sign

- WTF Sanshu don't touch the creepy coffin that's suddenly pouring dark liquid out of it 

- Is that another sea monkey?

- Apparently diving equipment is only necessary to get down to the tomb, not to get back up. You won't even swallow much water, you'll get back perfectly safely, just a bit out of breath 

- And tired enough to pass out on the beach, but that might be from fighting a sea monkey first

- JFC, Sanshu, why are you telling all this to a five year old? 

- You really think this is gonna dissuade him from this when he grows up? No. You are planting the early seeds of encouragement. 

- Also the early seeds of lifelong nightmares

- You know, I still haven't worked out how Sanshu didn't recognise Xiaoge in DMBJ 1 - both drama and book. I mean, drama can be explained by them only adapting the first book that time, but book? Unless it gets explained later on

- Or I somehow skipped the explanation, which is also possible - I'll go back and reread them another time 

- lol, Pangzi 

- And look, more spiderwebs 

- The undersea spider colony here really works hard 

- Aaaah, Wu Xie's figuring it out already

- Pangzi seems to be serving the purpose of giving all the hints and little plot points that book Wu Xie already had before he stepped foot in the tomb 

- Hahahah, 'can you please speak human'

- Pangzi with the major concerns. Who cares about running out of oxygen if the food is gone?! Not Pangzi! 

- lol, looking at each other when they think Pangzi's being silly or unreasonable is already their go-to response

- lol, and Xiaoge doesn't agree until Wu Xie nods 

- Ah, first thing they come across is the coffin from one of the other rooms, and Pangzi is showing off that this time around he actually knows things! Yay!

- Okay, this little smile and nod from Xiaoge to Wu Xie is just too adorable for words

- And in they go to investigate the coffin 

- I do have to say that it's a very pretty coffin, though 

- Yes, Xiaoge, that look is the appropriate look to give to Pangzi for saying that XD

- WTF is that 

- lol, I like this troll Wu Xie 

- Well. That was dramatic. 

- IDK how the coffin lid when flying off like that though, there doesn't seem to be a sea monkey hiding in there this time 

- Ew, that's a little gruesome 

- Wu Xie is appropriately horrified by this

- It does still amuse me how Pangzi isn't even pretending not to be a tomb robber this time. He's so refreshingly honest about it. 

- Hahaha. "Are you a Virgo? You're so picky" because Wu Xie is more interested in looking at the vases than in just grabbing a few to bail water with

- But hey, Wu Xie is a Pisces, nice to know 

- You're just gonna walk over the top of that coffin lid like that, huh, Pangzi? Weren't you the one talking about how valuable the coffin was? And how you needed to do the proper rituals to show respect before opening it?

- And Wu Xie is back in the other room happily playing with vases and looking at the stories painted on them 

- Alone 

- Nothing bad could possibly come of this 

- It's not like Wu Xie has a tendency to get into danger without even realising it 

- Not at all

- But he's so happy! Like a cute little puppy 

- lol, you really were so wrapped up in the vases that you didn't notice him leaving, huh, Wu Xie? 

- Oops, looks like you stayed there a bit too long, Wu Xie. The entrance to the other room isn't there anymore

- Hahah, Xiaoge is so delicately scooping out water with the bowl compared to Pangzi just fucking going for it with that huge vase 

- Aww, Xiaoge is worried about Wu Xie. 

- But, y'know, guys, maybe you should turn around and realise that there's no entrance anymore

- Although that body is pretty creepy and attention-grabbing 

- Yeah, I don't think that's gonna help, Wu Xie 

- You're so adorable, though 

- WTF how is there a live cat there 

- Yeah, I don't blame you for pulling a gun, Pangzi

- Now back to poor, worried Wu Xie 

- WTF does the theory of relativity have to do with the current situation? 

- Awww, he's talking himself down from panic again. And it seems to be working. 

- ...or not

- Ooh, the cat corpse is gone 

- Xiaoge doesn't seem that concerned. More interested in the human corpse 

- And they STILL haven't noticed that the entrance is gone I thought you had better situational awareness than this, Xiaoge 

- Oh, that's not a good sign

- Ah, finally, NOW you notice 

- As always, Xiaoge takes this the most calmly out of all of them 

- I think it's a little late for not getting anxious, Wu Xie, when you were practically panicking earlier 

- Uh-oh

- Here's the sea monkey, and Xiaoge is trapped in another room with no way of knowing 

- Even though he does seem to have a sixth sense solely dedicated to Wu Xie being in trouble

- Run, Wu Xie, run! 

- Lose your balance on those arrows! Throw those priceless vases as ineffective weapons! 

- Ah, a side chamber which conveniently as a door that closes and locks

- GDI, Wu Xie, don't taunt the monster that's chasing you 

- lol, his, 'wait, did that actually work' face

- Oh, so it's just gonna...dig through those stones. Fantastic. 

- Why is there no blood on his knife? There really should be blood on his knife after stabbing that deeply. 

- Hahah, Pangzi says that Wu Xie's guess was wrong, and Xiaoge just gives this lovely 'bitch please' look

- That's a hairy hairy hand right there 

- I don't think Xiaoge so much as flinched 

- Even when Pangzi's dart almost hit him 

- Oh, okay, he seems vaguely concerned about the mark on his wrist now

- Oh, and now he's worried 

- Yeah, when Xiaoge is worried and yells at you to run, it's time to fucking book it 

- Guess he's a bit too distracted for his Wu Xie Is In Danger sense to be tingling right now

- That's a weird looking coffin 

- And on Wu Xie considering anachronistic elements of this tomb that he's now noticing, Ep 3 comes to an end. 

- And with no updates to the Rescue Count, the Swoon Count, or the Evil Hair Count. 

[wheremytwinwatches]

[Where My Twin Watches]: Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood Episode 41

Last time: Armstrong the Great got a promotion, Beardless grew a beard, and Teacher got a surprise surgery. Onwards!

The Mining Crew is still going through the tunnels towards Fort Briggs, it looks like Al hasn’t caught up to them yet. Whoops, Winry just tripped over a box of - gah, dynamite!

[Yoki]: “Nah, these are all sopping wet. Relax, they wouldn’t blow up even if we wanted them to.”

Wow. Yoki being the Voice of Reason. Times sure have changed.

Scar snaps at them to keep moving, “they could already be after us.” Yeah, but if you dwadle long enough then Al can catch up! So please May, keep up with the freakouts!

Back in Baschool, the storm’s passed so Sideburns is back to plotting against Kimblee. Aw, come on. I get shooting Kimblee from the get go, but why do you have to kill his other two guys (I’m assuming Chimeras like Toad and Boar). Keep them alive, they can join Al’s Chimera Army! Ed is understandably shaken at these KOS orders being thrown about.

Episode 41 - “The Abyss”

See, I hear “The Abyss” and I immediately think about the staring quote. Is Sideburns going to get a last-minute change of mind about killing all three, decide to be better than Kimblee? Not like that’s a high bar to clear, but still.

Ed’s trying to argue for taking Kimblee alive for questioning, Sideburns says he’ll never talk. As for his men? Maybe they’re being forced to serve Kimblee, but Sideburns thinks it’s too big a risk to bet on that. First Law of Briggs: The Careless are the first to die.

[Sideburns]: “We aren’t going to be careless. We’re killing Kimblee. And the two men with him.”

Walking down the hallway, Sideburns and the two Briggs soldiers talk about how Ed’s chosen the more difficult path of trying to keep his enemies alive. Their attitude seems to be “Admirable, but foolish.” Come on Ed, prove them wrong!

Back with the Mining Crew, Marcoh’s getting translations from Scar (finally), seems the current passage is about a “miracle drug” that extends life and transforms all metals to gold. Damnit, so it’s the Philosopher’s Stone, so much for the notes giving an alternative. Ooh, Xing culture lesson! Apparently Xingese refer to immortals as “a true being” oh Leto DAMN IT it’s right back to that smirking Truth. Whatever. Anyways, “True Beings” are considered perfect souls so they’re compared to the perfect metal gold (yeah, Winry and the Chimeras are totally lost by this point).

[Marcoh]: “So in other words, an immortal person is seen as a golden being.”

[May]: “In a sense…”

*camera shifts to Beard*

Oh. OOOOOOOOHHHHHH!

Keaton said:One thing of note is that all the people of Xerxes have gold hair and gold eyes. And I do mean gold, because there's no black outline that blonde people in the series have.

[May]: “It comes from the man who brought Alchemy to Xing.”

Wait, where are you going? Beard you’re walking away from one of the most badass fighters in the entire show and her husband, team up with them and you’ll be unstoppable! Whyyyyy.

Winry remarks that the Xing teacher of Alchemy having golden hair and eyes sounds like Ed and Al… hold on, I need to check something.

*rewinds to Ed standing in room* *returns to Winry, pausing at Beard along the way*

Huh! So Beard has the Xerxes no-outline blond hair, but Ed has almost this blend between Xerxes and Amestrian hair, he has an outline but it’s not as pronounced as Winry’s. Neat!

Finally, the exit! Scar must have been feeling a bit cooped up since he just kicked the door down. Yoki relishes his newfound competence and takes the lead nope instantly falls into massive snowdrift. I knew it couldn’t last. Aw, Boar sees how deep the snow is and immediately offers to give May a piggyback ride! And Toad says they’ll go first to make walking easier for the rest.

Walking through a winter wonderland… wait, is that Al? It is Al!

[Winry]: “That’s Al!” [May]: “THAT’S MY HUSBAND?!”

Jeez May, chill. No I didn’t mean rub your face on Al’s arm, Winry may have frostbite-proof earrings but Al was literally just buried in a snowdrift, you’re gonna lose your cheek at this rate! Al reports on the occupation of Fort Briggs, they’ll be walking right into their hands. So now what, do they just go back to the mine? Wait a minute, Scar just walked off and is staring all mysterious-like at the mountain range… are they going to Drachma? Scar says there’s a mountain village nearby (no idea how to spell that name), there are some Ishvalans living there. Toad and Boar are skeptical, but Yoki’s all too eager to give leadership back to Scar.

Oh shoot yeah, Al did kind of just run off on Kimblee. Do they even have an excuse for that, or is Sideburns just banking on Kimblee being dead before the absence of an Elric brother becomes an issue?

...Ed literally made another suit of armor and is making a Briggs soldier puppet it around. Wow. And the voice? Kimblee, come on. I was just starting to think that you were a valid threat again. Stop disappointing me.

As “Al” struggles with stairs, Sideburns is trying to set up his assassination. Seems Kimblee’s suspicious of the Briggs soldiers (gee, I wonder why) and is planning to search the mines with just his two flunkies. As Sideburns prepares the snipers, Ed runs ahead.

Kimblee orders his guys into the mine to look for tracks as a sniper lines up his shot… until he sees Ed approaching. Ed tries claiming that Kimblee would get lost searching the tunnels- nope, Kimblee’s already clued in on the assassination plan. With an attitude and past like his, he can practically smell the murderous intent. Sideburns tells the sniper to line up the shot and nope Kimblee pops a steamcloud.

Ooooh shoot he’s going into the building with Sideburns and the snipers, isn’t he? Quick Ed, I’m totally ok with the mass murderer getting sniped but if you can still take him alive then never mind, that was a claw strike and a nonhuman fist, flunkies confirmed as Chimeras.

Hey, it’s the Lion and Gorilla from the end credits! New potential recruits for Al’s army, please don’t kill them Ed. Also, I am having major OPM flashbacks now.

Mid-ep pictures of Kimblee (wait, didn’t he already get one of these?) chewing on a Stone, and Edward getting ready to pummel some Chimeras.

While Ed is otherwise occupied, Kimblee strolls down into the mineshaft and wait what? How are there tracks? The Mine Crew left right before that huge snowstorm that Al could barely read street signs in, how on Leto’s depressing planet were these tracks now obliterated by that storm?

Fighting Music starts up as Ed faces down Lion and Gorilla, he can’t see them but at least they can’t see him but animal hybrids, remember? They’ve got superhuman senses and if sight fails then they can probably hear and smell him with ease. Yup called it. An armknife to the Lion gets Ed free to dodge Gorilla’s attacks, the Briggs troops reach the street but can’t see through the steam to help Ed. Not like they could do much against the Chimeras.

Whoops, Ed dodged a bit too much and walked straight into the mineshaft. Ouch. Now he’s going to stunt his growth even more!

[Ed]: “Dynamite, huh? There’s one perk to fighting in a mine.”

Aw, Ed baby. You’re about to try something that even Yoki knew wouldn’t work, aren’t you?

The Chimeras jump down to continue fighting Ed, who brandishes the sticks in their direction. But they just laugh at him? Aw, they know about dynamite being worthless when damp. So much for that attempt-

Nitroglycerin. Nitroglycol. Ammonium Nitrate. Nitric Acid and Ammonium. YES

By the power of Chemistry, Ed with his silly little nose-plugs and shit-eating grin has turned your superhuman sense of smell into a tactical disadvantage!

Kimblee looks up to see a stinky explosion and his two flunkies down for the count, now without a hostage in play it’s just the Fullmetal Alchemist and the Crimson Alchemist. Ed demands that Kimblee spill the beans, but Kimblee isn’t inclined to cooperate. Saying he’ll speed things up, he pulls out a Philosopher’s Stone.

Alright, here we go! Ed vs Kimblee, the Stone Seeker against the Butcher of Ishval, our hero facing against the very power he once sought, and a true Philosopher’s Stone at that unlike Cornello’s pale fragment. This is gonna be

are you fucking kidding me.

Kimblee. Kimblee, you stupid incompetent trash-talking eternal disappointment. I thought your “fight” with Scar on the train was as low as you could go, I thought that with you easing back into my good graces you would earn recognition as an acceptable villain. But nooooo, you have to boast that you’ll end this quickly and then stand there like a dolt as Ed nyooms around you and kicks your Stone into the mineshaft. And then he slices your palm so your TC tattoo is useless.

You. Utter. Failure.

Don’t bother trying to continue dude, I know that you’re just gonna pull out your second Stone to try and keep fighting but come on. That was just embarrassing. Just stop, please.

Alright so now he’s got those glowing red eyes like Bradley had when he was blabbing at The Great Armstrong, boasting about how Ed’s mercy just gives him another chance to kill. He spits out his second Stone and wow ok that was a big explosion. The tower over the mining shaft collapses in a huge cloud of smoke, the Briggs troops are knocked back and the Chimeras fall through the shattering floor (noooo, come back, Al hasn’t had a chance to recruit you yet!).

We’ve got the Somber Music playing as the last pebbles fall in the ruined mine shaft, Ed is down at the bottom a little worse for wear. Hey, it’s Lion and Gorilla! Quick Ed, rescue them from the pipes that have them pinned so we can… uh… that’s a lot of blood. You feeling ok, buddy?

OW. Uh, so when Ed fell down into the mine shaft he landed on a beam. And the beam went through him.

The camera’s shaking and going in and out of focus as Ed tries to pull himself off the beam, but the shock’s setting in and he collapses twitching on the ground eye rolling up and getting obscured by his hair Leto this is not good

Al just collapsed?! Aw hell no he’s getting another pull from his body? Bad timing, Al’s body! The girls are panicking and the Chimera’s are wondering what’s wrong with General Armor Guy, Winry’s doesn’t know what to do and Al’s motionless in the snow not even with his usual glowing eyes stop it

Ed? Ed’s not moving and there’s too much blood finger twitch! He’s still breathing but he really needs to figure out Roy’s flame technique to seal his wound soon.

[Ed]: “I won’t make her cry…Especially not over something this stupid!”

Ok so through the Power of Love Ed is overcoming the shock to Transmute part of the beam away, then Earthbend the rubble off of the Chimeras. They’re not too happy with their boss destroying the building they were in, so heck might as well join up with the kid who dug them out.

So Ed’s helped up by the guys he was enemies with five minutes ago, Lion notes that if he pulls the beam out then Ed’ll bleed out. But Ed has a plan, bioalchemy! He totally read about it before, he’ll be fine. But with all the damage he’ll need the power of a Philosopher’s Stone

well isn’t it convenient that he knocked one down the mine shaft just a little bit ago, huh?!

Wait what, he’s going to “use his own life force”? Take a few years off his lifespan what. Ok, so I’m supposed to just go with the idea that the kid who has no real bioalchemy experience beyond the failed Human Transmutation is going to manage to concentrate as a beam is pulled out of his guts and harness the power of his own soul in a way that’s never been done before. Just spend a minute or two looking for the shiny red gem that’s down there with you! Fine whatever, Protagonist Powers away.

Look I’m sorry I know that this is a moving scene and all with Ed accepting the cost of his mercy and screaming as the bloody beam is yanked from his intestines and visualizing himself as a Single Soul Philosopher’s Stone but come on we clearly saw the Stone fall down and you’re just going to ignore it. Fine whatever I’ll try to move past it. So Ed grits his teeth and managed to ok thank you for not making it perfect, he’s patched up his organs and stopped the bleeding but it’s only a temporary fix, he’ll need some professional help. Not that he plans on getting any, he’s up and raring to keep fighting Kimblee nope he’s out for the count.

Lion and Gorilla look over their rescuer, knowing that he can’t fight their former boss as beat up as he

there it is!

Apologies for the rant about the Stone earlier, Lion just found it and decided to not give it back to Kimblee. They’ll just head out and let the madman think they died in the explosion. As for Ed? They’re off to find the kid a doctor. (Oh please let this go where I think it’s going… *knock knock* [Lion]: “Hey, so we hear you’re a good doctor, and we’ve got this kid who’s a bit beat up…” [Doc]: “Oh come on!” pleasepleaseplease)

[courage-a-word-of-justice]

Waver 1 - 13 (FINAL) | Prisma Illya 1 - 10 (FINAL) | Prisma Illya 2wei! 1 - 3

Another (and to be honest, the last) batch of impressions from the Fate/ project.

Waver 1

Well, this’ll be interesting. I’ve been hyping this show up for a while for myself, so let’s see how it goes.

Geez, this intro is like a dang movie! I’d love to see a proper Troyca movie! (<-Says the fan of Troyca.)

Wait, if it’s Kayneth Archibald, then is Archibald relatd to Archisorte? Or am I just making thing up here…? Also note Reines refers to Kayneth as “Kayneth El-Melloi Archibald”, possibly meaning Archibald is the middle name, since El-Melloi is a shared surname (or is that a title…?). That probably means Archibald =/= Archisorte and both are similar-sounding middle names. The fact Reines is Kayneth’s niece also explains things quite a bit.

Why is Waver upside down…? Won’t the blood rush to his head soon? (Sure, it allows me to ogle his hair more, but…logic rules more than my stupid whims, y’know?)

Interesting. You can see that although Waver grew out his hair, there’s two layers to it – the longer one in the front and the shorter one in the back. (I’m just curious because I like the hime cut – which is pretty similar - and long hair on dudes in general, in part because both are fairly rare.)

Okay, that explained my gripe with upside-down Waver. Thanks, Reines. (<-genuine)

Aw, Waver buddy, even at this stage, you’re plenty cute. Don’t ever change! (<- As you can see, I am an easily pleased person in most cases.)

Melvin who now???

Troyca’s comic animation rules! It’s too bad Idolish7 Second Beat is using chibis instead of this…

Professor Kayneth. I forgot he had a formal title. I wonder, does Waver - I mean, El-Melloi II – have that title as well?

I guess I should’ve known Saber had the capability to look scary, but…I never knew Saber could look so scary…

*cut to eyecatch* - *points at eyecatch* Okay, someone tried to save budget here, didn’t they???

Aw, friendship between fiction boys is cute…until it involves the puking up on blood on one end.

Waver is the OG underdog here…don’tcha think?

“…with several demands.” – Uh-oh…this is gonna be bad, isn’t it?

You need a Tuner for Magic Crests? (…Like a tuning fork, but a person?) *brow raised in suspicion*

…is it appropriate for me to say “Oh, good lord!” now? (Okay, I did that rather deliberately, but normally in these notes I’d self-censor it to be “oh, goodness” or something like that.)

Seriously, the black-haired dude in the Ionian Hetairoi is my favourite, even if only because he looks like Waver (and he’s really easy to spot, to boot).

Why is this in first person??? I’ve dropped entire shows based on their usage of 1st person cam! Room Mate and Makura no Danshi basically scarred me for life on that front…and both of those are TV shorts!

Hey, wait a second. This “use a quote on the titlecard” thing is clearly an Ei Aoki sort of thing to do. I mean, it’s in ID: Invaded as well…

Waver 2

*new blonde girl appears* - So this is the rumoured Animusphere girl (Mary), huh?

Bounded field, huh? I’m glad I chose to watch F/Z before this, then. Now I actually understand the (rough) mechanics of how that works.

There’s assassins and then there’s Assassins…*thinks about the Holy Grail War*

As it turns out, astromancy is basically astrology.

The one thing that bugs me about “Modern Magecraft” (there’s a similar concept of New Magic in Mairimashita! Iruma-kun) is…how is the magic “modern”…? Especially in a work like this, where the magic is based in arcane rituals and bloodlines…you really need to establish how the “modern” bit works.

Gray is facing away from the Animusphere girl (Mary), I noticed.

“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” – Sherlock Holmes – Basically, the fact I’ve memorised this quote is one of the lingering impacts of my time in the Detective Conan fandom, as it can be used on things like quizzes, not just mysteries.

Can we please use proper English, Waver??? (Says me to a character whose name I still find nonsensical enough to not be proper English.) As I said previously, “whydunit” is modus operandi or motive…the new bit is “howdunit”, which would be the method.

I do believe the geocentric model was overthrown by people like Kepler.

Gray kind of looks like Saber with that hairstyle, come to think of it.

With the way Gray hides herself under that hood, it’s no mystery as to why guys love her…at least, I know ThatRandomEditor does. Of course, I’m heavily neutral on the whole affair because I don’t swing that way, but…you know…

LEMPC seems to stand for “Lord El-Melloi Production Committee”, if I’m guessing right.

I seem to remember there was a quote somewhere that said the only constant in this world was change…hmm.

Waver 3

They seem to keep calling Japan “the Far East” (or at least, Japan is part of the Far East). That’s a pretty antiquated term for a supposedly “modern” magic anime. I get vaguely peeved by the term “the Far East” because it causes people to take an oriental viewpoint on things and thus it’s kind of like people from the Anglosphere looking down on Asians. (I also get vaguely peeved by the term “Westerners” for much the same reason and “Caucasians” because it implies all people of the Anglosphere come from the Caucasus, which is false…then again, these niggles are specific to international studies, so I have a vested interest in explaining them.)

…Wow, that star-eyepatch girl is…really something, to be thirsty specifically for Waver’s Iron Claw. (Then again, with my weird tastes in things, who am I to critique her?)

Flitz von Erich. I was surprised to learn this guy actually exists…on Wikipedia, at the very least.

“Any lady should know about wrestling.” – I disagree, Luvia.

Blue furry electrical creature…I dunno how the zoology in this show works, but the fantasy series I’m reading as of the time I was typing this comment has a blue creature called a Raiju (literally “thunder beast” in Japanese, so it would suit the “Thunder” in the episode title). If it’s anything like that, I’d laugh myself silly.

This girl on the poster seems to be called Flan Noir (or something similar).

“…yellow, round, fluffy-smelling…” – What? Svin, you have no right to call a girl those words!

When is this series set if people don’t have phones as a standard? *Googles* Okay, if F/SN is set in 2004, then F/Z is 1994. That would make sense, actually. The internet as we know it was first used in 1995 and didn’t become widespread for home use until a few years later, as I remember having computers in 2004 (albeit the blocky ones with the dial-up).

I was looking at images for the source material and I think I know why I like Waver (aside from the fact he has long hair). Normally I like the boys whose appearances are hard to get right, such as En…Waver in the novels and manga for this series sometimes looks grumpy, sometimes he looks constipated and worst of all, sometimes he looks like Snape with a hook nose.

Okay, so I googled Caules to figure out who his sister was…and I got Apocrypha spoilers. See, his sister is Fiore, who is apparently in that series.

The videos got encoded funny again…

There seems to be a mystery around why Svin and Gray can’t be together…well, one deeper than just “Svin is gaga for Gray [for reasons we don’t know at this point in time]”.

Ha, the El-Melloi Class is basically just the Misfit Class from Mairimashita! Iruma-kun.

“Only the flesh was bitten off.”  

This Jupiter gibberish, I assume, is drawing upon the mythology of Jupiter – that is, Zeus – as the god of thunder and king of the gods (thus presiding over living beings).

The English is good on the bill, bar a space between “Mystics of magecraft”.

Norwich is apparently a “faculty” which the Modern Magecraft Theories guys – i.e. Waver – rule over.

Can you imagine Waver swearing? Since I had the volume off, I basically made him say “…if Sir Gueldoa had resorted to brute force, we would’ve been f***ed” in my head…and that was hilarious.

Aw, thanks 7Mononoke. “A cowardly thief sneaks away in the night. If you stride away, bursting with song, you are a conquering king.” That’s a quote from Rider himself.

So the Association has set positions for Masters in the War? Geesh…that must be hard on Waver to find out they’re closed, considering how much Waver pines for Rider.

Waver 4

I finally got the chance to listen to the ED last ep and now it’s the OP I can hear properly. This OP isn’t particularly impressive, considering it’s an instrumental (instrumentals always seem to have less impact for me unless I’m looking for something to chill to), but it does capture the London-esque spirit of the setting very well.

What’s up with this metal (?) maid off to the side, anyway?

“Good thinking to leave the door open…” – For some reason, even though it’s a completely different and much more benign context, this made me think of KyoAni and my heart sunk.  

Atrum Galliasta…I hate that man. He may look hot, but he was nothing but a b*stard to Medea.

Bolo ties…nrgh…Basically, ever since Arima wore a bolo tie, I’ve become fairly bugged by them. That’s why Bram’s bugs me.

Aw, Waver, buddy, plase don’t sacrifice yourself again. I read on the wiki you become a Servant’s vessel (specifically for Zhu Ge Liang), so keep your hopes up.

I’m seriously feeling ID: Invaded vibes from this episode, what with the lightning.

I suspect a locked room murder is going to happen soon, knowing the genre. Either that or some other crime.

Considering Fate/ was an eroge-based thing initially, these sex jokes…there’s probably plenty of them out there.

Well, it seems this series only makes sense in that non-Detective Conan way, i.e. you want to know how it all comes together and can’t necessarily figure it out for yourself until you know how the magic works. I’m randomly going to guess this is more Jupiter-based stuff and call it a day on that front.

Seriously, I never got what was up with nightgowns (or just pyjamas in general) having hats. You don’t need protection for your head at night…that’s what pillows are for, yeah? (The only reason I see a hat-like thing working with nightwear is a onesie and that’s meant to be part of the inherent appeal of the thing.)

Waver 5

I feel like Adashino is meant to be an Irene Adler-type figure…

“Peaceful Fairys” (sic)

Where did Kairi’s scar come from…?

The Black Dog was in Mahoutsukai no Yome as well, but this one looks a lot less inviting, huh?

It seems, like the name Rail Zeppelin implies (as “Demon Eyes Collection Train”), most of the people involved in this case have Magic Eyes (or whatever they’re actually called). I wouldn’t be surprised if Kairi had them as well, considering he’s wearing dark glasses in the middle of a thunderstorm.

“King Arthur is a dude, right?” - *laughs madly* They finally managed to parody their own bulls***! (Well, I’m not counting Carnival Phantasm or whatever else because this is the first time they threw a meta joke in there in the whole of this project, as far as I can remember.)  

Trimmau seems to be the maid’s name…huh. They never mentioned that earlier, I don’t think.

So what’s the difference between Fairy Eyes and Mystic Eyes?

Wait, does that even work…? The entire house is the murder weapon? That’s basically breaking the “secret passageway” thing on a larger scale.

So what’s Trevor’s motive…?

The dogs running towards the Workshop reminded me of the Hunger Games for some reason…must be the climax.

That fairy isn’t emoting much…

Oh cra-Wills is going to sacrifice himself, like Adashino was going to do! That’s the second time I’ve seen that in 2 days (the first was in the Hypnosis Mic manga about the Dirty Dawg).

Uh…Waver’s not particularly fit or fast, is he…?

Can you be paid for your case if your client is essentially dead…?

Adra? I read around and Adra seems to be a way to spell the location (or whatever it is) in the first case…which got adapted into a stage play, but not an anime. That’s probably what he’s (Waver) referring to.

Notably, the title is translated to “lance” but yari means spear…

Waver 6

I seriously wanna slap that pink-haired girl…Update: Her name is Yvette.

This is basically Gray fanservice…

If Gray = Saber and Saber =King Arthur…hmm…does it count as a girl’s party?

Homeland? Since Britain is Saber’s (aka Gray’s) home country, I think they meant “hometown”…I’d hav to listen to the Japanese to make sure, though.

I still think Waver is a stupid, or at the very least false, name for a boy, especially if he did come from Britain. That’s basically my one limitation on him as a husbando.

The red bit of the eyecatch was shapd like an eye…it did catch eyes in a sense, after all.

So Trimmau is sustained by magic.

Locked-room…or rather, bounded field…mystery time!

Luvia did mention wrestling in another episode…

I had to google that, but the Separation Castle is from the Adra case mentioned in episode 5. No wonder I don’t remember it…

“Are you suggesting there were faults…” (from Luvia) - Ooh, I was thinking the perpetrator was caught inside their own bounded field or maybe it was an outsider, but that works too, Reines.

Add calld Luvia out for her extravagance, LOL.

Catch-as-catch-can appears to be “no-holds-barred fighting”, particularly wrestling.

That case was both informative and possibly solveable by the audience. Both good qualities for a mystery.

If you summon the spirit again, is it the same Rider with the same memories? Or can you summon a different version of the same Rider with amnesia, much like Rin did with Archer? Update: Oh yeah, I did read this on the wiki at one point but then forgot about it. The next episode (7) confirms that Rider wouldn’t remember Waver if he were summoned again.

Waver 7

…C’mon, admit it, show. The glasses are not only there for plot reasons but to up Waver’s status as megane boy for the rest of this case. Not that I mind – I actually really like megane boys, but I’m nowhere near the love of Meganebu – but in the case of plausibility, I wanna poke holes into it.

Auction for which Mystic Eyes now…?

There’s a guy…with an elephant head…I know I shouldn’t be bugged by it, but I need the MST3K mantra right now.

This is gonna be a Murder on the Orient Express thing, isn’t it? All cases set on trains seem to take cues or make homage to it. (I may not be that proficient on Christie in comparison to Holmes, since Holmes was Conan’s inspiration, but Murder on the Orient Express I have read and I did secure an anthology of 4 Christie novels at one point specifically so that I could improve in this area.)

The main series never explained the bad blood between the Church and the Tower, did they…?

*sweatdrop* Let me guess…when Yvette mentions “multiplay”, she means a threesome, right?

How do anime people see out of those blindfold thing, anyway??? (Or is it that Leandra has Mystic Eyes that were sold off or otherwise tampered with?)

I believe the word is “palate”, Kairi (or subbers).

Anime characters being bagworms with their blankets is always appealing, no matter the gender. It’s funny and/or relatable, after all.

Does Gray get motion sickness…? Update: Seems I spoke about a minute too soon. She does.

Waver 8

How does Waver know that Adashino got the documents about the train? Is it because she was in all those places at all those times and he connected the dots?

This lady has heterochromia. Specifically, one is brown and the other is blue or green.

Hmm? I thought the character design was familiar for this. As it turns out, Jun Nakai (who did the character design for this) also did Gate’s, which explains it.

Dionysus is the Greek god of wine, IIRC. Hephaestion is, as (s)he explained, the confidante of Alexander the Great (had to google this one).

It’s hard to see before the brightly-lit scene where Olga reappears, but as shown, Waver seems to have cut off part of his forelocks on the left side.

What’s an Odo???...ooh, fanservice…*ogles*

The summoning of Hephaestion and Trisha’s murder may or may not be related…we just don’t know how, yet.

I think a Detective Conan Murder on the Orient Express-style mystery would be a good video ga-*googles* There’s at least one of them out there already (albeit only in Japan)...namely, this one. Spoke too soon.

Oh yeah…this is Olga’s new room, isn’t it? I almost forgot about that.

Update: I think this look at the Adra Separation Castle case is interesting. It’s similar to posts I would write, but done by a professional – namely Richard Eisenbeis of Kotaku and Anime News Network.

Waver 9

So if there’s a Servant…you have to find the Master.

Olga reminds me of Reines…kind of.

LOL, whoever thought of a zombie cooking show…?

This series really goes all-in on the zombies and the fake-outs thereof, huh? Dangit, Melvin, don’t scare us.

Melvin has a really odd relationship with Waver, huh? If you’re really insisting you’re “the only person to ever be able to hurt Waver”, I don’t quite see how you guys can be friends in the normal sense of the word.

Why would someone have a violin at a time like this…?

Interestingly, they don’t bother to do any fanservice of Caules. That scene with Gray and Yvette was fanservice for those who like them, but the only guy who’s getting to do any fanservice in this series is Waver himself…(what with him being naked and knocked out right now.)

“Sibyl” seems to be a synonym for “virgin”…(*whispers “Awkward…”*)

Update: After reading some of Marth’s posts on this series, I’m inclined to call this “Murders on a Train (with an Exploding Helicopter for Good Measure)”.

Waver 10

For some reason, there’s episode 0 – 9, then 11 – 13 on the service I’m using. Where’s 10?

I think Waver’s relationship with Rider is interesting because of the way I think of relationships myself. Waver has made it clear that he wants to see Rider again so he can basically prostrate at his feet all over again (and maybe win a wish and/or see Oceanus while they’re at it), but – hey, hear this! - I used to believe, when I was still an impressionable kid, all relationships, whether they be between friends, family or even lovers, lasted roughly in the same state basically forever (as in, friends stay friends forever, they’ll never be so far apart that they can’t kep their relationship alive etc. etc.)…Obviously, I was wrong and arguably, this change in thinking, plus the related changes in technology, are where my ability to fleetingly but passionate love both 2D boys and the series they come from comes from.

Wait, so the Child of Einasshe (sp?) is the forest, yeah? I don’t think I got that 100% straight.

I never thought the shield form of a Mystic Code could be used for snowboarding down a mountain/hill…whatever Gray just went down. I didn’t even know Add had a shield form, for that matter.

“[U]sual individual” – LOL. What a way to refer to Waver.

“Wait a minute!” – I’m just imagining Phoenix Wright all of a sudden. A Waver legal mystery series would be boring as all get out – I’m far less interested in the courtroom versions of mysteries and more interested in how the pieces fit together. (Update: Then again, I am a person who likes the action genre and courtroom mysteries don’t have much of that, which might also explain my choice.)

“…lacking the element of motive to begin with.” – Well, Waver’s not wrong…

I’m observing this apple and noticing someone skimped on the detail around the stem. Does anyone still remember Art Academy for the DS? After looking at some promo material for it, I basically learnt how to draw a proper apple (and nothing else, really). If an apple is just drawn as a circle, it doesn’t quite look like an apple up close. (Two of the main things I screw up on when drawing are perception and the colour of highlights, both of which are covered in something like an apple stem and the related indent.)

Oh goodness…I was hoping Karabo would keep his vision (or actual eyeballs)…but that’s gruesome.

I’m guessing, based on the wheelchair, that Waver’s still paralysed or otherwise not able to move around like normal. Update: Spoke too soon.

Someone encoded the video funny again…

Waver 11

What was that crossword thing…? A warding spell of some sort?

Is that an owl in the back?!

Stealth fighter…Rider wanted on, didn’t he?

Every time he appears on screen now, I basically curse Melvin. He’s entertaining to watch, sure, but he’s annoyingly prodigal (= wasteful). He’s basically Dice from HypMic at this stage (aka he’s the sort of person who’d bet away his own clothes, given the chance and incentive).

Look at the way Waver’s hair drags behind him as he walks…it’s gorgeous…

“Residual Image” (as translated in the title) is literally “the left-over image” (zanzou). Not surprising, but I find the exact combo of characters used interesting since it could be short for “nokoru eizou” (where the nokoru’s character is read as zan in the combo, as you can guess).    

Waver 12

Wow…this series really pulled something out of its butt this time, huh? “The guy without a heart”…no viewer would’ve known that actually referred to a character called Dr Heartless unless they knew of his existence somehow (the closest they would’ve been was having an inkling that this pointed to a name of the culprit).

There is an owl in the back of the auction room!

Ay? So what the heck is Pandemonium in this case?

“dotard” – Turns out this means “an old person, especially one who has become physically weak or whose mental faculties have declined.” You can’t say I don’t enrich my vocbulary through watching anime, huh?

I’m still wondering…why adapt case 7 of this series (Rail Zeppelin)? Why not case 1 (Adra)? Update: I don’t know where I pulled the number 7 from, since this is volume 4 – 5 of the series. Apparently some of the cases were anime-original though.

Waver 13 (FINAL)

Oh, Flat, you stupid…

Waver’s exasperated faces are great. No wonder Reines likes to toy with him…

I can assume Rail Zeppelin is a Ghost Liner, yes?

Can I guess that Adashino ~likes~ Waver…? Update: Turns out that’s not quite the case.

Ooh, Waver without his shirt is se-okay, I’m getting distracted. Seriously though, Waver never showed his Crest in F/Z. I never even knew what it looked like until now! The fact it’s such a simple design in comparison to his Command Seals is…kinda underwhelming, really.

I think there’s a bit of a pattern between Jakurai (from HypMic) and Waver…namely, they suck when it comes to drinking. (Also, of course, the long hair. Don’t forget it, never forget it.)

Shut up, Add!

For some reason, I felt like a lot of that last part, while getting closure for Waver, it almost had connotations of “I’ll meet you on the other side, Rider”…so it felt kind of sad, to be honest. That talk between Reines and Olga I don’t think I’d understand without Apocrypha and Grand Order, but I guess that’s to be expected in such a huge franchise. Anyways, moving right along!

Illya 1

I’ve been a bit worried about what I’ll have to subject myself to for the sake of Magical Girls…

Was that…Taiga?

Who’s Liz…?

Okusama, huh? (Okusama = someone’s wife, although it seems to be used in the plural here since I don’t think Kiritsugu and/or Iri are dead in this timeline.)

The subs I’ve got say Shiro is adopted here too (when it’s not in the Japanese), although I wonder exactly how much of UBW is going to be true in this anime…

Hmm…a bit of digging reveals Luvia’s not a Master. So throwing out Lancer is really just a joke on how Lancer gets roasted early on in Grail Wars, right?

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh…squick, much…(Thank goodness the source I was using edited out the loli fanservice, so I can tolerate this series a lot more…but still, suggesting you have a romance with your step-brother, even if it’s known you’re not related from the beginning, is…you already know my feelings on that, based on my reaction. Shiro is, what, 15? About twice Illya’s age!) Update: Okay, so he has no confirmed age in Prisma Illya, but he’s 17 in F/SN so I’d assum the same or similar, seeing as he attends the same school. It’s fine if it’s platonic, but this is clearly an Onii-chan, daisuki! thing the likes of which Oreimo throws down! Thank you for calling it out though, Ruby.

Oh my gosh, this looks like the Rhongomynaid (Detective Waver) and Excalibur (or whatever Saber’s Noble Phantasm is called) summoning beam! LOL!

Ruby, you lech! Don’t go praising the angles! *shakes fist* (Seriously, what if magical girl mascots were paedophiles…? *blank face* Welp, considering what’s out there on the internet, I wouldn’t be surprised if a hentai or something had such a concept.)

Hmm? Turns out the word for Servant means something like “celestial hero”. Makes sense.

Nice callback to Saber and Shiro!

Illya 2

I thought Illya would say that her parents are dead…turns out the show’s not that grimdark (to the point where it wouldn’t set the show after Kiritsugu and Iri’s deaths), huh?

Do the sticks have a gender? The subs said “she” for Ruby…

LOL, it’s Rider. I thought Lancer was gonna get his butt kicked all over again (thinking more along the lines of CCS).

It’s Gay Bul-I mean, Gae Bolg! (I’ve been reading TV Tropes again…can you tell?)

This episode was pretty pedestrian. I like it more than the first one.

What’s up with the CGI…?

Oh! Bunbun, who does Yuki Yuna! Update: They only did the illustrations for some of the series. They also did SAO illustrations, although that’s of less significance to me.

Illya 3

The sticks do have genders!!! That’s like claiming Jesus for kakera with Mudae! (Yes, that’s possible. I got him in one server.)

The power of fujoshi…is amazing! How did it get to a girl who’s so young?!

These angles are a bit disturbing…

“Casao”, LOL.

Magical girl nakama, huh?

Illya 4

MST3K mantra!

Whose quote is that again…? “Don’t think, imagine”? Update: It turns out to not be anyone’s quote at all, if Google results are to be believed.

Uh-oh! Saber Alter!

Illya 5

Padding the episode already…?

The mist is a quality of a Berserker, right?

Geez the angles piss me off…

These sticks have brains???

Can you call it teamwork if they’re always complaining about each other?

Illya 6

More padding…

Illya’s UBW!

Geesh, that last-minute shot of Rin and Luvia popping out of the ground scared me for a bit…

Illya 7

*sigh* It’s the sick episode…

I recognise the vacuum cleaner. I have the same one at home.

*sigh* Random fanservice of elementary school girls. This is what gives anime a bad name.

*Sapphire pulls out a USB port* - Ohhkay, is that stick fanservice, in a sense…? Because that’s awkward too.

Maids went out of fashion years ago…

“Lyrical Radical Genocide” - I think this Lyrical Radical things is parodying Nanoha.

Based on the cloak, it’s an Assassin.

“Listen, if you aren’t careful, you’ll die!” – Yep, because people die when they are killed. I almost missed that meme for a bit.

Illya 8

Illya’s still reeling from Miyu’s talk, huh?

I noticed it said tomoda(chi) in the background at one point.

Does Miyu exist in any of the alternate universes?

Ah, there’s yuujou (friendship) in the background as calligraphy.

I think the video got encoded funny again…

Geez, complaining about boobs? The series got worse…oh, I forgot Shiro was around in this series.

…who’s left? There’s been Saber, Archer, Lancer, Assassin, Rider, Caster and…who? Berserker, that’s who.

Illya 9

Ohhhhhhhh brother, not more bath scenes…

Iri looks almost exactly like she does in the Eiznbern Consultation Rooms! (I found those around and watched them today.)

Thank goodness the fanservice is censored…

I never realised Berseker had heterochromia until now…

One thing that I assume makes Saber’s outfit look nice to thos that like girls is the window in the top…but it goes to waste on Miyu, LOL.

I find it interesting Illya has all these concerns – the ones (or similar ones) Iri harbourd in F/Z.

Hey, the bridge! This is the bridge where Rider dies inn F/Z, yeah?

The ED looks different this time…  

Illya 10 (FINAL)

E-Eep…loli fanservice…

Now Miyu is basically what Waver is to Rider, no doubt about it.

Bulls***! Speak of the devil! I was wondering what Waver looked like in the Illya style, because I read on the wiki he makes a cameo in season 2, and…here he is. Didn’t expect him in season 1, though.

Another new ED animation. I find it interesting they’ve never once had to recast any VAs throughout the entire existence of Fate/ anime…not that I know of, anyway.

Hiroyama Hiroshi is the original Illya creator.

Okay, that’s the end of one season. I feel kind of fatigued since I finished the Eiznbern Consultation Rooms today as well, so I’m going to take a break from watching more Illya until it’s necessary to watch again in a few posts’ time.

Now that they’ve collected the cards, I’m wondering what the series intends to do next…

Illya s2 Pt 1 Ep 1

They clearly skimped on the budget when Shiro was leaving the house…

I keep forgetting Illya is meant to be German…

That bad English…is actually there in the ep. title…

Oh great…schoolgirls talking about erotic swimsuits…

This s*** is what you call “Class-S”! I have no interest in it, because I don’t swing that way! (Sorry, yuri fans…)

The problem with series that aren’t 100% made with you in mind is that your favourite characters might look ugly…that’s especially the case with En, Jakurai and Waver.

Ryudou Temple, eh? Let’s hope Assassin still looks good.

I don’t think I’ve seen that before…namely, being able to hear what’s going on outside the transformation while it’s happening.

Now this 2 Illyas thing…this is new, alright.

Illya s2 Pt 1 Ep 2

LOL, what a horoscope.

Truck-kun! I don’t think Illya would make a good isekai protag, come to think of it.

Who is this nurse? I feel like she’s from some other part of the Nasuverse… Update: My guess was right. That’s Caren Hortensia, protagonist of Fate/hollow ataraxia and Kirei’s…uh, daughter. I know he had a wife. We never met said wife, but seeing the daughter really drove that fact home.  

Uhhhhhhhh…okay, now the lesbian loli scene just made things go off a cliff for me. I’m not against lesbians or yuri – to each their own – but that scene was clearly meant to be pleasing to a certain audience.

How does anyone kill anything gently…?

Ohhhhhhkay, strike 2 for loli fanservice.

I seem to remember…that’s right, Alice from the [something] no Kuni no Alice series was evaluated on her coffee-making skills (by Julius, I think it was). That’s why I’m thinking of Alice when I see Luvia praising Miyu on something similar.

Wa-hey! It’s Rin’s Azoth dagger!

Well, the mechanics of the transformation are also something you have to think about. I’ll give the show kudos for that.  

Illya s2 Pt 1 Ep 3

Can we not with the whole “Onii-chan, daisuki!” thing?! That’s it! That’s the last straw! I’m finishing this episode and aborting early so that I can preserve my dignity…and get some proper sleep for once.

The fact Miyu thinks Shiro resembles her brother must not be a coincidence…(I’ve become far too Fate/ savvy, haven’t I?) Update: It seems I was right. Apparently, Miyu was taken in by Kiritsugu in a certain universe, but apparently this is a bunch of spoilers.

Genki na aisatsu was in the back.

This is just getting worse and worse…

So now Kuro’s name is Kuroe (Chloe), huh? Anyways, good riddance, loli fanservice! So long! I won’t miss you one bit!