#im not totally happy with the ending but ill expand this world later

[burntoutangel]

MECHANICAL SEX DRIVES

LEFT HAND AMMO AT 20% SHIELDS AT 10% ASSISTED AUGMENT SYSTEM RECOMMENDING IMMEDIATE RETURN TO BASE MISSION AT ACCEPTABLE LEVELS PILOT I AM BEGGING YOU TO TURN BAC-

Shut down the warning signs, disconnect the jack in your cranial nerves that lets the onboard AI inject suggestions tactics and orders from base command directly into you brain 

You dont need them now   

10-15 enemy units are closing in on your radar, 100 feet, 90 feet, tanks with jet engines jammed into them to allow increased maneuvers and speed. 500 feet shows an enemy mech, the one you’re chasing. So close now, just a little more

40 feet

20 feet

Enemy within range 

You slam yourself through the concrete walls of the civilian residence you hid behind, the trinkets and purchases of someones life atomized in a second, a careful move to throw off the lesser visibility of the tanks

The first two are crushed under a mix of rubble and reinforced steel beams, wires from the buildings power systems sparking and igniting fuel leaks. You’re already gone and grabbing tank 4 as a club, its rotors squealing in open air as you crush it on top of tank 5, crushing them underfoot for good measure, neural links sending the details of a fleshy squish under your metal boots

3 units that had the misfortune of jetting behind you are torched in your boosters, jets of black smoke from the meat inside being cooked within seconds, they weren’t expecting a mech of this class, metal boxes with guns strapped on top are barely above the lowest rank of the food chain of combat

You arent sure if you’re the apex of that system, but you’re damn close 

The radar blip of the other pilot starts moving and you kick the violence into overdrive to make sure you’re ready and unbothered for her arrival, tanks 6-9 shatter and melt under you remaining left weapon ammo, not worth the waste of time for a proper violent death

She’s so close now

A few of the remaining tanks and what looks like two support flyers have joined her, jetting along in her wake like parasite fish, using her cone of violence to protect them from you. Gnats. Annoying insects that get in the way

You can see her through the optical systems now. Shining armor muddied and covered in scrap and imbedded shells and oil. The jagged mark of you shoulder mounted rail guns shot accents the beauty of her machine, a hole bitten through her abdominal armor, dripping oil and coolant and countless other substances that come together to make the death-angel before you.

Your fluids will mix soon. One way or another.

“YOU PSYCHO WHORE YOU DENTED MY SHELL” comes through her mechs speakers in a flurry of anger. Right shoulder lancer raised, charging, adjust two notches down, FIRE. That takes care of her speakers. We don’t need voices right now. 

She cuts boosters and doesn’t even bother counter boosting, simply stopping her furious momentum by crushing another apartment block, hands dragging deep gauges in the remaining landscape 

The remaining tanks are hit by your last 6 railgun shots, smoking craters burned into the ground as the flyers pepper small arms along your visors, blinding flashes as 7.62 shots ring against the sensors and antenna.

Out of nowhere her hand swats one out of the air, surprising even you Into stopping for a moment. Flyer 1 clips 2 as it sails through the sky, propelled by metal claws larger than its entire frame. Both create a cascade of sparks and light as missiles flares and fuel ignite midair. An incoming message from the last enemy in front of you flashes on your side monitor.

“FINE, WE’LL DO THIS THE HARD WAY”. 

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Her heat knife eats through the plating of your left shoulder, jutting close to the collarbone before the blade snaps in your armor and imbeds itself to you. The pain is unimaginable, burning through the pilots nervous system as it screams loud enough to crack its own jaw slightly. The retaliation is immediate, a final spare railgun round rammed through your enemies leg, blowing her mechanical kneecap out, the arching head of her mech mimicking the agony her flesh-body is probably going through, metal jaw ripping open and spiked forehead crashing into your own as the final bit of shielding for both your bodies gives way with an ear popping CRACK and a smell of ozone and desperation. A fist that costs as much or more as this entire city unit crashes into your stomach, flesh body vomiting up a mix of pre mission meds and nutrient slurry as your nervous system tries to understand feeling pain without apparent source 

Your left leg boosts itself up at uncanny speeds, remaining boosters jetting it into her center mass, where a solar plexus would be if we were flesh and blood, her visor is cracking and you can feel the anger radiating off her core. Either that or a power system on the verge of collapse. Same difference. At the same time warning signs flash across your eyes, power running low, generator damage at near critical levels, heat rising to unacceptable perimeters, pilot neural-link and information stress at 88% and rising

Both of your bodies collapse, her failing knee dragging her down as metal screams under stress, her hands clawing you down with her, falling flat on your back, adjustment boosters spluttering as they fail to adjust the sudden horizontal nature of your body. Command is screaming at you over whats left of the comm system, and from the shivers of her body she’s hearing the same message, something about “reactor meltdowns taking out an entire populated area” and “blatant waste of company resources”.  The wires remaining in your brain make a pop as you rip them from sore and bleeding ports, last message being broadcast on a private mech to mech channel

“See you back at base baby, thanks for the good time <3”

[chatonyant]

im just so sad about this funky crow ninja

Listen

Listen

Itachi is just

Such a tragic character and it makes me so sad

Like he's a pacifist at heart but he was forced to be the literal opposite at such a young age and I'm just so sAD ABOUT IT

(Under cut cause it’s long and it’s about the uchiha massacre if yall would rather not read bout that But it also has some soft ideas down at the way bottom if yall wanna just speed scroll to the bottom)

How he came to the choice he made regarding the Uchiha massacre totally makes sense to me. It wasn't a good decision, it wasn't a decision best suited for the situation, but it made sense. And it gets worse once you realize that he was 13. Thirteen. No wonder he couldn't find/use a third option. He's still a child, even in this world of child soldiers. He bloodied his hands and wore a mask so that the home he loved and the brother he adored could be safe.

I wish his story could've been written... better, for a lack of proper words. Maybe that is the right word. But I want to see him do more for Konoha. He became a missing nin for Konoha to spy on Akatsuki/Madara but we don't see the results of that. What information does Konoha get from him? Because we know that he's still loyal to Konoha after all this time. Did he do anything to slow Akatsuki down? Did he do things to benefit Konoha or stop something from badly impacting it? What did he do?

And then he dIES AND HE JUST DOESNT GET A BREAK AND IM HHHHH :((((((

And he was sick and going blind too!!!! I swear he was the universe's punching bag (though one of many cause the naruto universe just Be Like That)

Fuck ok I came on here to ramble about Itachi in my au but then got sad sO AU TIME NOW

For one I want to make him.... more sympathetic? A redemption works best when its shown from the start that there is more than meets the eye. Like Zuko, for example. He was a jerk, but there are moments where it's clear that he's not as much of a jerk as he could have been. And I wanted to do something similar with Itachi (and a couple other villains tbh but it's also a matter of "Should you survive" coughObitocough I love you but idk if you survive in this au or not but I have ideas nonetheless but that is for a later time)

Anyways, morally grey but more clearly Itachi

Honestly I've got more ideas for his ending than the beginning. Which is... very annoying. This is unfortunately the case for many... many of my ideas....

An idea I've been juggling with is Itachi not killing everyone. He definitely kills everyone who's activated their sharingan and anyone who is/was a shinobi. So everyone who's not a civilian. So,,, the survivors are very very little and are civilian mothers and civilian children too young to even attend the academy and like the occasional shop owners. The massacre was to stop the coup and prevent it from ever happening, so those who have the power to set forward this coup are any shinobi. And unfortunately, the Uchiha clan is an old shinobi clan.

Itachi is not a blank mask and does cry when he kills his parents and they leave their parting words. He's 13, forced to commit a crime that goes against his every wish, moral, and beliefs. Plus I believe the Uchiha are naturally every emotional- or at least feels it more intensely than others. Their whole defining ability has to do with emotions. They feel Very Strongly.

And thus by "cry" I mean he cries a lot. He almost has a breakdown right then and there when little baby Sasuke crashes in and see his crying older brother holding a bloody blade over his two very dead parents. 

For someone willing(ish) to murder a(lmost) a whole clan for the sake of his little brother, Itachi sure does directly hurt Sasuke a lot. Like genjutsu torture? Placing responsibility of avenging a whole clan on his tiny, angry shoulders? Oof, Itachi, bad ideas. 

So Itachi wants Sasuke to be safe. To be happy to the best of his ability. So instead, he uses a milder form of Tsukuyomi to place a suggestion in his baby mind that Itachi was in fact a cold hearted murderer. But the human mind is a strange thing that is difficult to understand, so for years Sasuke has nightmares of that night with his perception of Itachi varying wildly between a stone cold face and a tear-stained one. 

Itachi doesn’t do the whole “hate me and kill me for vengeance” because, again, he wants Sasuke to be safe and happy. Considering that he lives in a shinobi village and just had a highly traumatic experience, both are hard to come by, but the least Itachi can do is not have Sasuke’s whole life be overcome by hatred. Curse of Hatred is a very real thing, Itachi. I know you want Sasuke to have a goal to drive him forward and not waste away but bad idea Itachi. Maybe he says something else. Maybe he tells Sasuke to get stronger (but not in a “so you can get revenge” kind of way). I don’t know. But he doesn’t quite plant the idea of vengeance in his mind, so Sasuke’s motivation and drive ends up differently. Butterfly effects oho Also since Sasuke unlocked his sharingan during the massacre... is it possible to activate mangekyo as well? Cause he loves Itachi most, yes, but he also loved his parents, his mom especially. Would that be enough? Wiki says “death of someone close to the user”, so it’s possible, I think.

So many ideas about the massacre holy shit

Like Shisui. I’d totally love to make him live but frankly, I’ve got no idea how. :”D sorry Shisui, you’ll have to stay dead until I can find a solid reasoning as to how you survived and why

As for Madara/Tobi, well in anime he went after the Police headquarters while Itachi went after everyone else so there’s that, not much to change there

Then there’s a whole bunch of aftermath hijinks

Itachi is said to have aided Konoha within Akatsuki, but it’s not very clearly shown. Considering how we aren’t shown what exactly he passed on, that will be uh.... perhaps expanded on later. 

Sasuke and Itachi interactions before Shippuden would be different due to Sasuke’s own differences, but those differences haven’t be set yet so that will be explained later.

Ok, now the whole Itachi dying and being reincarnated shebang. Fourth War sure is wild as fuck. “Let’s mass reincarnate people!” what.

I don’t want Itachi to die. I want to let him rest. But not in death. 

So the general idea I have for the “end” of the story is:

He becomes legally blind. Not completely blind, but very close. His chakra coils are fucked and his sharingan are stuck in a way that he can kinda see chakra but very vaguely. 

His illness isn’t completely healed, but it’s much better than before; Sakura and Tsunade are legendary at what they do

He returns home to Konoha. Not sure how he will be accepted into the village but I was thinking the village makes a half-lie half-truth story pinning the blame on Danzo (Cause when in doubt, blame Danzo. Or Zetsu. But Zetsu isn’t blamable here)

He may not be imprisoned, but he isn’t free to roam. He’s monitored and has a (temporary?) seal placed on him limiting his use of chakra.

Itachi is surprisingly ok with all of this. He gets to retire from a shinobi life and he’s unraveled the story to Sasuke and was gifted a form of forgiveness. Life’s chill.

He works at the Yamanaka flower shop. It’s calming, peaceful, and it’s run by Yamanaka, powerful shinobi and also knowledgeable on psychology.

His crows are now seeing eye crows. They sit on either his shoulders or head and squawk whenever Itachi is too close to bumping into something. Sasuke very much enjoys when the crows are on Itachi’s head because when he tosses little treats at the birds, sometimes they land in Itachi’s hair.

It’s very hard for the shinobi to fear this honestly tiny man (because Itachi is small, fight me) who’s humming while watering plants with a bird on top of his head while the various heroes of Konoha take turns tossing treats at the bird like it’s a dog. 

“Nii-san. Nii-san stop squishing my cheeks.” “But Sasuke I want to see your face.” “Nii-san-”

oh my god so much brain power used on the massacre just so i could make itachi have a very domestic ending

[dantereviews]

Anime Review: Blame! (2017)

7.5/10

Blame! is the new netflix adaptation of the classic manga of the same name. The new movie lacks the grim, gripping gravitas of the original but still packs a heavy punch of its own as a sci-fi action film. The movie follows Killy, a mysterious man roaming the cavernous, vast desolation of a future megacity looking for someone with ‘Net Terminal Genes’, a person who is authorized to give orders to the out of control AI governing the city. He comes across a small tribe of humans called the Electro-Fishers eking out an existence hidden from the city’s terrifying guardians.

Its impossible to review this movie without making reference to the original manga, so ill be doing that below. But first of all I’ll lay out my thoughts on the movie itself, as a standalone. I definitely enjoyed it. They went with a really interesting decision for full CGI, which has been attempted a few times but has never really succeeded in capturing traditional anime fans. Its still a bit uncanny, which actually works well for the unnatural tone of the material. The movie did lack a bit of purpose, since it was essentially just one arc of the manga, but ultimately it delivered on that arc quite well by the end. Action, characters and music were all strong, but especially for viewers unfamiliar with the source material there might be some difficulties working out exactly what the hell is happening in the odd world of Blame!.

To understand Blame!, Im going to have to lay down a little of what made the original manga such a cult classic. Picture a world, in the far future, where all life lives in one gigantic mega-city. Sustained by automated processes, the city expands itself continuously, creating vast empty ruins eternally. The control authorizations have long since been lost, and the programs intended to protect humans are now hunting them to extinction as intruders. In this desolate techno-wasteland wanders a lone figure, with only his deceptively small gun and black silhouette to identify him. Ahead lie only challenge after challenge of demented machine life forms seeking to deny him and humanity’s final hopes. Killy marches on, for untold centuries, as he continues his ancient, almost forgotten mission. 

Im trying to describe Tsutomu Nihei’s moody, existential, deformed and troubling world because its important to see where Blame! 2017 comes from. The manga has such a special sense about it, a massive unknown world that we are watching crash to the ground in front of us. This new movie doesnt, and couldnt hope to, match that sort of epic darkness. Its a very different beast to the manga, but it gets just enough right while doing its own thing to make it work. But for me specifically, someone who adored the way the manga was almost hostile towards the reader with its refusal to make sense and its sometimes offensively weird style, the movie did suffer from a lowering of that sharp style. Im trying to judge it on its own merits but its coming up a bit short.

The movie only takes the Electro-Fisher arc of the manga and folds in some earlier parts including the first meeting of Killy and Cibo. Legendary arcs like Toha Heavy Industries are left alone with the potential to be explored later (and which I would be extremely keen to see). Firstly Ill just talk about the characters. I mentioned in the intro that new viewers may suffer from not knowing the backstory, and this is one of the areas thats true of. Our hero Killy is a silent, stoic, not quite human traveller that the movie doesnt have time for us to get to know. The Electro-Fishers almost replace him as the main character. The lost human tribe are charming as the last remnants of humanity, efficiently making use of whatever they can to survive in the City. Yuru is the young woman who we spend the most time with, a talented and driven person who does whatever she can for the tribe. The older leaders of the Fishers and the other young people are all likeable enough, but arent very deep and never go through an arc as such. The most interesting character was Cibo, an enhanced human scientist from an older era who says she can possibly solve all their problems. As one of the main characters of the manga, it was great to see her again and she definitely shows her cool head and amazing abilities in the movie.

The plot and pacing is pretty good, the fact that they took a whole arc and adapted it wholesale let them work out exactly what to keep and what not to in order to move things along very nicely. It wasnt too long and the big beats of the story all hit at great times, ratcheting up the tension and scale more and more. The only flaw here is that since it was just one self contained arc, the greater story of Killy’s journey didnt really progress at all and so the ending was not as climactic as a stand alone film might have been.

The visuals and sound were both solid. With the sound, it was a bit more hit or miss. There were a bunch of times I noticed the music and thought it was doing great, but the big orchestra sound was a bit out of place as well at times. Im not sure how much a traditional type of score really suits this incredibly weird post-techno-apocalypse scenario. The CGI visuals are a bit better off. They still differ wildly from the original style, but at least the 100% use of CGI presents a very consistent world and delivers some great shots and scenes. For me, its just so different to the excessively detailed and shaded manga that it was a bit unsettling to watch this new smooth animation style. However on the whole I thought this movie did bring to life the manga quite well.

I’ve seen some scathing reviews of Blame! 2017 that I really dont think it deserves. True, its a big action movie with sci fi elements whereas the manga was more quiet, more disturbing and generally spikier, but judged as a big sci fi action movie you have to say it does a good job at drawing you in and wowing you with its reveals. Im aware that my review is totally biased by my love for the manga, but I was really happy to see something I like so much brought to a new audience in an exciting new way. If the words post-apocalypse, techno-dystopia, action-adventure interest you, then please check this out. And maybe the manga too.