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sillyname30 · 8 days

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Darren Criss Says Maybe Happy Ending Is a ‘Phantom-Level’ Spectacle

The Golden Globe winner plays a robot alongside newcomer Helen J Shen in the new sci-fi musical.

If you'd asked Darren Criss years ago what his dream stage role was, “Hedwig was it,” says the Golden Globe winner. Well, Criss did perform the title role in Hedwig and the Angry Inch on Broadway in 2015. So in the decade since, what is his new dream? Answers Criss: “If I'm being really honest, it's being able to originate something that hasn't been done on Broadway yet.” So, you can say his newest Broadway project, the new musical Maybe Happy Ending, is another check off the bucket list.

Maybe Happy Ending, from Will Aronson and Hue Park, takes place in 2060, where humanoid-looking Helperbots assist humans with our daily tasks. Maybe Happy Ending follows two of those Helperbots, played by Criss and Helen J Shen, who have been abandoned after their owners have traded them in for newer models. With no one but each other to occupy their time, the bots form a friendship, and then fall in love. The show was first performed in South Korea in 2016 and has been revived there five times since. It has also been performed in Japan and China.

The English-language, American premiere of the show first ran in 2020 at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia, directed by Tony winner Michael Arden. This new Broadway version, also directed by Arden, is an opportunity for a wider American audience to experience a musical that is entirely unique, not based on any preexisting story, with an original score. Maybe Happy Ending begins performances at the Belasco Theatre October 16 with a November 12 opening.

When speaking to Criss about this show in July, he hadn’t yet started rehearsals. But he spoke about the musical with a palpable excitement—after all, it is the first original musical he’s done since his days with the musical theatre company he co-founded, Team Starkid. In recent years, the Emmy winner (who rose to mainstream fame after starring in Glee and The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story) has done mostly revivals on the stage, such as Little Shop of Horrors and American Buffalo.

But to Criss, the particular pleasure of doing something like Maybe Happy Ending is the opportunity to utterly surprise the audience. “Being part of something this original is always a bit of an exponential curve,” admits Criss. “It's always a tough climb at the beginning, because people might not have an instant familiarity with it. But I think that it pays its dividends real soon, once they see what they're in for.”

For Shen, though Maybe Happy Ending follows robots, it touches on deeply human questions—both Helperbots are nearing the end of their lifespan and so they must decide if they want to take that emotional leap to make a connection, even if it means they might lose each other. “It feels like there's a ticking clock at the end of it,” she says. “And so, they're a little bit forced to live life to the fullest while they have this opportunity to do so.”

It’s not just the show that’s new. This is Shen’s Broadway debut. While Criss has over 15 years worth of experience under his belt, Shen is a relative newcomer. She was born and raised in New Jersey; her parents immigrated from Shanghai to America. They both play the violin, passing down their musical aptitude to their daughter, who grew up playing piano. She graduated from the University of Michigan (Criss’ alma mater) in 2022. Though she is still green, Shen’s credits are impressive: This year alone, she starred in the Off-Broadway musicals The Lonely Few and Teeth—both of which were favorably received. “I suppose, in a way, it feels like arriving,” Shen says with hesitancy, as if she doesn’t want to spoil this lucky year. “I think it's a cautious arrival. It's so wonderful and such a blessing and gift to be working with this particular team.”

Criss met Shen during her final callback for the show, which was a chemistry read with Criss where they sang a song together (though years earlier, Shen had attended a master class Criss held at the University of Michigan). More recently, the two have quickly bonded over being trained musicians who eventually became actors (Criss plays guitar, violin, and a bevy of other instruments).

When it’s pointed out that he’s now effectively a Broadway veteran, Criss exclaims (to the giggling Shen), “I cannot fucking believe it. That sounds so twisted, like so Twilight Zone. To me, I've always been the youngest, like, I was always the kid.” But then, he brings it back to his co-star, which he does multiple times during the interview saying, “She'll kick so much fucking ass. That's one of my favorite parts about being in this, I get to forever now be part of the inevitable rise of a young star.”

It’s not just talk. Criss recently had Shen perform multiple songs at his music festival Elsie Fest. When asked what they’re excited for in Maybe Happy Ending, Shen’s answer was getting to sing the score. “The uniqueness of the sonic world—the music is so ethereal, and it's so gorgeous,” she enthuses. “The music feels so beautifully understated, but also, it's orchestral and sweeping. And not to mention, the people who are already attached to the project are people that I look up to in my own career so much.”

There is the assumption that because the show has a chamber musical sound, and it has four cast members, that it’s a small show. Think again, teases Criss: “It's four people, and the story is a ‘smaller’ story, but it has really, really big ideas.” So much so that in July, Maybe Happy Ending announced it would be delaying the start of previews by a month, citing supply chain issues that prevented crucial components of the set from getting to the theatre in time.

Though, Criss admits, “it sounds like we're covering up some nefarious reason.”

Laughs Shen: “We had to clear our beef.”

“Yeah, our beef,” smiles Criss. “Supply chain delay sounds like, kind of made up, but it's literally that.” Though he can’t say much more about what this intricate set design entails, other than it will utilize “cutting edge technology” to match its robot protagonists. As he excitedly puts it: “We're talking [Phantom of the Opera] level of production. This is a spectacle…I can categorically say that this will be something that you have never seen the likes of before on a Broadway stage.”

#darren criss #maybe happy ending #playbill

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semi-imaginary-place · 4 months

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ffxiv the sorrows of werlyt

ewww the gaius redemption arc continues. new writers be like "he not actually that bad" just ignore that he's a war mongering fascist that upheld and implemented a brutal colonization and occupation that included slavery, systemic rape, and general crimes against humanity for decades. Zenos too but that was for far shorter a time period and this doesn't excuse zenos but it didn't seem like he did all that much governing whereas gaius fully believed in the garlean empire.

that's an eva. like eva's were special in the mecha genre for not being robots but cyborgs and these ones are too

also gonna say the ost at the alliance base is unnerving it's an off key rendition of the ala mhigo/stormblood theme

ewww the gaius redemption arc continues. ugg it's sickening military indoctrination. reminds me of those american christians who adopt native children for the sake of "showing them proper path" and "making them good christians" as their mission states. literal cultural genocide baked into a religion. let's not forget they're probably orphaned because of the empire. but awww look at how gaius is actually a good person all along, he's a dad look how sympathetic and good he is /s

and they made livia one of his adopted orphans. you know livia the one obsessed with him and who he's implied to have sex with. the new writers sure wish they could take that back huh

uh cid your ultima isn't going to horribly mutate the pilot too is it?

huh terncliff. not seeing a lot of garlean "enhancements" in the archtecture i hope i can come back here

this quesline is really good too the tragedy of the sibling sacrificing themselves for an empire that will only exploit them. just take out daddy gaius and this would be perfect.

so they're combining sacrifice pilot with legatus battle data with an eikon

what is this cutscene. sweaty dude being an ass and chugging unrefrigerated milk. wow work place abuse you should unionize

why would they transport the emerald weapon all the way to la noscea or the rhotano sea. we are to the east of eorzea, they would have to take a ship all the way around the continent to the western edge of eorzea. also i did tell everyone in arr to permanently get rid of those eorzean castrums. i told them.

and they exploit that very desire to feed you into the meat grinder. same as with foldora

maybe because they never respected you as people to begin with

the sheer hypocrisy how much of that went on under his rule. and the writers are probably going to go "but he didn't know!" "he's changed!" which then just makes him incompetent.

bad reasoning but when you're in it it's hard to see clearly. only 3 things would have stopped valens. someone higher up shifting his position which given the mess garlemald is wouldn't happen. an enemy (us) kills him. or he kills so many people it becomes a heachache for greater HR to replace them which is also unlikely to happen

have you considered assassination. like poisoning his milk. or shooting him i mean there were 3 children to defend him and he was out of his armor you totally could have killed him. but again it's difficult to consider these things when you are deep under the established power structure,

that plan is so bad all it does is help the established garlemald power structure perpetuate itself. you are giving up your lives for less than nothing

should really stick that branding iron on his face but ah it's hard when you are alone acting out against a much bigger system. that's a kid again the man who has absolute power over them

oof don't lie on your back that'll make it worse

uh actually that list of names is like pretty sensitive information. publically releasing info immediately, I suppose it could be good and th pc has the authority to do whatever they want but uh be careful about that type of stuff

oh yeah and for all this papa gaius stuff. he left. deadbeat.

interesting that the siblings say they volunteered but are counted among the conscripts.

so the vii's gem weapon series was designed to consume the pilot who are non pureblood garleans. but i distinctly remember that the prototype that estinien fought had a hyur with the garlean 3rd eye embedded into the back and that the experiments under zenos also used garlean cyborgs abominations

this is true only because theodoric and zenos are out there people. but i remember in stormblood and arr people not liking the black wolf. so the reconning of oh he's not bad actually ew. the new writers are trying so so hard to rewrite gaius and never having been that bad.

ah yes throw off the shackles to put the biggest garlean defector in charge. i get the writers are doing this for gaius' character arc, but he's not even from here nor ever actually lived among the people. where's my local representation.

the writers really are just whitewashing him with "no he was never bad, actually" ah yes a successful second time because the first time was so successful

"for the freedom of Werlyt" the siblings say, all you did was feed the machine of it's occupation

ooooh guuurrrrll you should know he doesn't honor agreements with "savages" unless you have a failsafe and a way to cheat him you shouldn't be entering into agreements. we'll see what she has planned. interesting Allie seems to have bought into Valen's lies, why else try and negotiate citizenship and self rule for werlyt. where has her brother well actually that's ambiguous. early on their dialogue seemed to imply they wanted to prove themselves to garlemald through military achievement. but the more recent dialogue suggested threatening war as leverage for werlyt or possibly even rebellion against garlemald. or is she just using it as an opener to stoke his ego and emperor ambitions?

and her tear started overmind, not oversoul and the eva sorry diamond weapon broke free of it's control measures and deactivation signal

remember the old days when the writers use to use () to show thoughts instead of the new text box format

ug valens is still alive. he should just be dead from the diamond attack

yeah he got fused it. it really is an eva soul of the mom and everything. the sexist thing they could have done with his character.

the balloon popping sound effect!

i would have preferred allie or the siblings be continuing characters instead of gaius. instead they died for his character arc. wow this batch of devs are gaius simps. imagine how cool it'd be to have a party member that's also a big robot cyborg monster thing. i would have loved a storyarc about alphonse living after this

also you can tell the writers who put gaius and his two followers back into the story were different than the ones who wrote this storyline. because severa and valdeaulin both have history with the empire and reason to be invested in werlyt and terncliff but they have little reason to be hunting ascians. this story has little to do with hunting ascians which was gaius' new life goal when we met him in stormblood. like in sb severa was portrayed as very loyal towards gaius but her backstory doesn't really give that strong a motivation.

their "sacrifices" only helped give the empire more bodies, their deaths didn't help terncliff one bit.

lost opportunity but this totally could have been another cid arc. let's be real the whole end of 2.0 was Cid's story we were just there for the ride. remember how cid said gaius was like a father to him. in the storyline all about gaius being a dad, cid and gaius barely have meaningful interaction, which itself could have been interesting. sorrows of werlyt is a well written story one of the best in ffxiv so far, it's a shame i hate it.

oh meli... uh names... dyed her hair red that was confusing me

ah and of course the siblings were orphaned by the epidemic instead of making gaius responsible for ordering their murder which would have been more interesting and realistic given what we've seen in the other garlean occupied territories.

#ffxiv #ffxiv 5.x

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tigressaofkanjis · 2 years

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Transformers Earthspark: My Thoughts of the Preview

This is going to be an interesting series I think. I've seen people pointing out that there's a team Optimus is working with consisting of humans called G.H.O.S.T., a cool nod to the underused N.E.S.T. probably or the forgotten Unit E, and that he has a specialized symbol to signify that. Megatron has it too which means there might be a Decepticon-Autobot semi-alliance to hunt down the dangers of Earth which that would be cool also. I'm pretty interested to see this play out.

Now my thoughts on this whole "born-on-Earth" concept for the terra Transformers is a bit mixed because it's playing with creation of a Transformer without the source of what creates a Transformer so I'm curious as to wondering were they from the Allspark on Earth, did Primus just zap them into existence, or so on? I really hope the series touches up on that subject because it's not a bad concept but if done wrong, I will see, given all the attention it has on it, it's going to possibly hurt the series as the elephant in the room.

I think we learned many times that humans aren't the best to bring in a series because you either love them or hate them and when people bite down, they go for the jugular and then that's all they focus on for determining a series' worth. But, I have some good feelings about this that maybe we'll get solid characters...

But I don't like this weird half-human half-cyborg villain idea. I really don't. Bring in foreign, hardly-used or normally weak Transformers as villains and let them shine, that's fine by me. Human villains never work because it just looks stupid. TFA knew what they were doing when it came to human villains. They knew they were jokes at the beginning and made (most) as such because they knew what the audience expected it to be and it worked. A Silas-like villain though is just an annoyance and it usually ruins the whole illusion of the series. Could I be wrong? Absolutely! Maybe this Dr. Whatever-the-hell-their-name-is may be a great villain but I don't have a lot of confidence in it until it's actually proven to me.

As for the designs, they are...not the worst but it's going to take a while to grow on me, that's for sure. They kind of have this uncanny valley to like the robots from I, Robot and Bicentennial Man which is just like the "ahhhh, that's so weird!" mentality. Megatron looks decent, he's fine. Every other Transformer, especially the terrans, have a weird factor going on and it's...it's a thing. It is definitely a thing. Optimus has babyface going and I can say TFA did it better.

But, all-in-all, I'm more than willing to give this show a chance. It seems like something solid at least story-wise. If...Megatron is a part of this G.H.O.S.T. operation, and Optimus and Elita One are assigned partners (as it appears to kind of look like), please give Megatron an assigned partner that can out-sass him because I guarantee it will be hilarious if his assigned partner on the team is someone like Ratchet, Arcee, or Ultra Magnus. They could bring salt to his pepper for some comedy gold!

#transformers earthspark #megatron #optimus prime #arcee #ratchet #ultra magnus #tfa #transformers animated #elita one #bumblebee #g.h.o.s.t.

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rubyvroom · 3 years

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Playing ME: Legendary is so Frustrating

because, eventually, you have to play Mass Effect 3.

And look, ME:1 is greatly improved in the Legendary set. They not only boosted the visuals, they improved all the interfaces and brought them in line with the series in a way that improves playability. The story was already great, the gameplay was brought up to match.

ME:2 was already damn near perfect. I can’t think of any noticable improvement other than including all the DLC I didn’t pay for the first time, and I was happy with that. It didn’t need improving. I wouldn’t change a thing.

But ME:3. I’m only in the very very beginning of the game and already I’m frustrated, and it’s exactly because I just finished playing two really excellent games.

You are much more on rails for this game than ever before. Yes, it meets the exact same structure as the previous games -- opening disaster, first squad members humans, first mission on a human colony, then it’s time to gather your alien supporters -- but there’s a lot less room for you to decide how Shepard reacts to things. The game has already decided who Shepard is and what Shepard wants, and there’s no room for you to disagree.

In some ways that’s cool because it remembers exactly what you had Shepard do in 1+2. The continuity between the games is pretty strong, and that’s impressive.

But in most ways it’s bad. Because it means your character-building is already done at the very start of the game. You can’t have your character grow or change their mind about things based on their experiences so far - what you did in the previous games is still what you’re going to do now. And your range of responses for all Shepards is greatly limited compared to before. So for example Shepard is thrilled to be back with the Alliance after it kicked her out for what she did to stop the Reapers and after working with Cerberus for an extended period of time. But that wasn’t a decision I made - that was my only decision. I don’t get the option of telling the alliance to fuck off after how they treated me and maybe rejoining them only reluctantly because Anderson asked me to. I don’t get any character options at all.

Then, I’m immediately reminded how garbage your romance choices are in Mass Effect if you’re a female Shepard. There is no way to romance the same person in all three games. If you want the romance achievement you will have to choose 2-3 different partners. And this has a lot of unpleasant consequences for female Shepartd that Male Shepards don’t have to face: being accused of cheating and betrayal (does not happen to M!Shep), your LI from 2 dying in 3 no matter what you do (can’t happen to Male Shep), and just having to role play losing your LI in some way or other every game. (Also, and I’m going to complain forever about this, but so many love interests are locked in for Straight Male Shepard in a way that doesn’t make sense. You going to tell me aliens care whether I’m male or female? That Miranda cares? That freaking JACK cares? Come on. This is classic bro-pandering from Bioware same as they do for the Dragon Age series, and it’s really irritating.)

Also, I haven’t gotten into the meat of the story yet, but I’m already reminded of some of the stupid, stupid story choices that were made: The Illusive Man is indoctrinated. We’re fighting Cerberus again after years of working with them and no apparent ambivalence about this. EDI has a sexy robot body now (siiiiiiiiiigh). Kai Leng. The fucking Star Kid. I told myself I could enjoy ME:3 right up to the deeply stupid ending and then just stop the game and make up my own ending, but the fucking Star Kid is all over the damn place in this game, as is the 3-part choice of Destroy, Control, and I forget Blend? Something? It was so stupid, you guys. So stupid. It’s hard to ignore.

But here’s the worst thing of all. The combat in this game is SO FUN. When I said ME:2 was near perfect, this is the one thing that is better in ME:3. You run better and more naturally, you can dodge roll, and do more satisfying melee moves. They finally got the balance right between powers, guns, and ammunition, and made more dynamic fights where you aren’t just hiding in cover until everything is dead. Even the interfaces are better than in previous games, getting rid of the eyebleedy orange data pads from 2 for instance. The weapons mod system from 1 is back, and improved. Although I liked the leveling in 1 the best, 3 is a close second, with more choices to build your characters. ME:3 is fun to play! It’s the most fun fighting has been in the whole series!

Plus, you get all the payoffs from the previous two games: you get to cure the Genophage, for instance. Which is a choice, but of course you’re going to cure the Genophage - who doesn’t cure the Genophage? You get to resolve the Quarian/Geth conflict which has been a huge part of the series, plus make peace between Tali and Legion. Plus some flat-out cool stuff. A Thresher Maw fights a Reaper! Hang out with the huge cast of characters on shore leave in the best DLC of the whole series!

So it’s basically impossible to just skip 3. You have to have the whole frustrating experience again, with all of the pretty high highs and the really, really low lows. As an end to the whole Legendary Edition experience, it’s just a reminder of how Bioware lost it’s way.

#mass effect #me: legendary edition #bioware

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cjstalkingstarwarsagain · 3 years

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hi! i’ve recently decided to rewatch all the star wars movies and take notes on them and then,,, share them with you. so if you’re even mildly interested in my star wars opinions, here you go :)

i’ll divide it into a couple categories so,,,

well start with rogue one!!

shit that made me giggle

"oh look, here’s lyra back from the dead. it’s a miracle."

everything K2 says and does. i love him and he’s perfect.

i love the continuous attempts by K2 to appear imperial and how he fails every time. not a single storm trooper or officer ever believes him when he starts running his mouth.

so sorry but bohdi getting his cable caught and trying to shake it loose is such an adorably human moment. makes me giggle every time.

i honestly thought this section would be longer, this movie made me laugh a bunch.

stuff i don’t like or doesn’t make sense

why does jyn start believing in the rebellion? there’s no indication that she cared before they found her. there’s no real turning point that we can see. she just,,, suddenly is really into this shit. which is strange because the only reason she ever joined was because she was given a non-choice (either help or get put back in prison). i guess i can kinda see how her father dying could have changed her, but we see none of that on the ship after his death. we just get to the rebel council and all of a sudden she’s the poster girl for rebellion.

saw seems really stable at the beginning of the film, so why did he go seemingly crazy and paranoid? it’s probably explained in the novelization but that’s no excuse to just have a character go crazy with really no explanation or backstory.

that being said, a lot of the character development is pretty lacking. i don’t think i’d care about these characters nearly as much if i wasn’t already a star wars fan.

video game cut scene style general tarkin

bor gullet is supposed to make you lose your mind but bohdi was pretty much fine after like,,, a day

how does the death star,,,, move?? like i know it can but has that ever been explained? is it like little thrusters? like the ones you can see in real life to stabilize things in space? there’s nothing i can visually see. i’m not mad about it i just wanna know.

why does saw insist on staying behind? why doesn’t he come and help?? it would have been so easy to just leave but he insists on staying behind and just watching as death inches closer. i think it doesn’t make sense because we know *so little* about his character. give me more on him, make me understand.

since james earl jones is getting older, vader sounds older. was there??? nothing the audio or editing department could have done about that??? not super mad about this one just because darth vader is really cool and i’ll never really complain too much about darth vader screen time.

when the fuck did jyn become a motivational speaker??

my one gripe about pretty much every star wars movie is the sheer number of times people climb through huge shafts and jump around and shit and they’re always *fine*. no way they wouldn’t fall to their deaths in any normal situations.

can someone?? check the science of the hammerhead corvette?? because there’s no gravity or weight in space right?? theoretically all you gotta do is give that star destroyer a bump and it’s spinning out, right?? i know absolutely nothing about space physics but i gotta be right. maybe i’m wrong. i dunno. i’m dumb as rocks. hear that baby girl?? it’s the spare change rattling around in my skull. i got pennies where my brain is.

absolutely no fucking shot cassian survived a blaster hit AND that fall AND climbed out. my belief simply cannot be suspended that much.

DUDE I FORGOT THAT THE DEATH STAR CAN TRAVEL THROUGH HYPERSPACE HOW DOES WORK SOMEONE TELL ME!!!!!

why doesn’t vader just,,, force grab the plans. i know he sees them. why not just force stop the guy running away with them??

final note now that the movie is over. yes, it’s got a lot of issues. the plot is ehhh at times. the trailers don’t match up with the movie shots AT ALL (i wanna know what happened behind the scenes with that). the character development is lacking in many major ways (that has not stopped me from loving these characters though, but that’s the autism talking). but like i’ll say in the "stuff i liked" section, this is such a damn cool movie. i was once talking about it with an older friend of mine and he said seeing rogue one in theaters felt like watching the original trilogy in theaters back in the 70s and 80s and honestly that’s such a compliment. i love this movie, i really do.

just cool shit,,, you know the vibe

DEATH TROOPERS

krennic is probably one of my favorite imperial officers. for some reason he just really sells it for me, the evil and manipulation that borderlines in try hard. and (i mention it more later because you see it more in the "choke on your aspirations" scene) beyond that just the fact that he’s?? a guy. just a dude. at any given moment he could be described as just hanging out. but he’s trying so hard (for whatever reason, we don’t know his evil motivations) to be this big bad evil dude. and it’s just interesting to see someone *trying* to be imperial and *trying* to be evil, as opposed to a tarkin-type character who’s just naturally an asshole.

i love the rogue one main theme. don’t even talk to me. it’s so cool.

it’s cool to see more about the birth of the death star, seeing other people learn about it. sort of realizing the fear and terror that everyone must have been experiencing. especially after being a star wars fan for so long and being like, yeah it’s the death star it’s just a staple of this universe. it reminds me that "oh god this was a planet killer and this was the first time something like that had ever even been heard of".

there’s gorgeous visuals in this movie.

i like the "i’m wanted in 12 systems" guy cameo (did you know his name is cornelius? i googled it)

when the storm trooper asks for papers?? like fuck yeah show me what life is like under imperial rule. give me that shit.

chirrut is so badass i’ll never get over it

"i’m one with the force and the force is with me" i’m eating that shit UP! salivating over the meal in front of me. i really want more exploration of the guardians and jedi worship in general. like gimme that weird funky space religion.

seeing an at-st just walk around a town. i dunno i like that shit.

K2 saying sorry for hitting cassian. i’m so soft on this robot.

"clear of hostiles,,,, ONE HOSTILE"

jyn stepping in front of K2 to protect him after she (not ten minutes ago) made the comment “i’m just afraid they’ll miss you and hit me”. jyn,,, your soft side is showing,,,,

i like the cool machine blaster that baze has. it’s awesome seeing different blaster styles when originally the only variation we really saw was chewie’s cross bow style blaster.

i really wanna see more of baze and cirruit. i wanna know what happened that made baze stop believing. i wanna know how they met. i wanna see them evolve and grow together.

i like that jyn argues that 16 is too young to be a solider (she’s 21 in the movie). i like that she’s mad that she’s young and has been put in a position to protect herself and then later save the galaxy. (for context: luke and leia were 19 in a new hope. anakin is 19 in attack of the clones, ~22 when he became darth vader, and rey is 19 in force awakens. stop putting the fate of the galaxy in the hands of people who are *barely* adults)

the testing of the death star is awesome. love seeing wicked cool space weapons. when it blocks out the sun? ominous as hell fuck yeah.

it’s interesting that baze says cassian doesn’t look like a killer, that "he has the face of a friend", when one of the first things we saw him do was kill a man. i think about that a lot. does that say more about baze’s ability to read people or does it say more about who cassian is deep down, beyond what he’s done to serve the rebellion?

cassian’s relationship with death and killing is very interesting. you could argue that cassian is just as brainwashed and deep in the rebellion as anyone imperial. i really hope it’s something that gets explored in his stand alone show. he mentions he’s lost everything and has been a rebel since he was 6. gimme cassian andor backstory.

"careful not to choke on your aspirations director" is probably some of the most dramatic-anakin-skywalker shit i’ve ever seen vader do

i like seeing rebel infighting. so often it seems there’s always general consensus about what the rebellion wants, but it’s good to see that they don’t always agree on how to rebel.

i love the consistent "found family" rebel alliance shit in these movies. it makes my dick so hard.

ARTOO AND THREEPIO CAMEO FUCK ME UP THOSE ARE MY BOYS

okay i totally get that the empire is evil, i really do, but rogue one (and lots of moments in the sequels) really reminds me how fucking cool some of their shit is. like death troopers? imperial droids like K2? the base on scarif? vader’s castle on mustafar and his bacta tank?? fuck me UP.

i loved hearing the troopers doing their dumb small talk about the T-15s on the beach.

i think ben mendelssohn is perfect for the role of krennic, no notes there. he’s just like?? a guy and he’s doing everything he can to fit into this evil role and he just wants to be like this big bad imperial boy on campus. i don’t know. i don’t have the words right now to express how fuckin awesome he is. i’ll write an essay about it later.

THE AT-AT COMING OUT OF THE MIST?? CHRIST ON A BIKE. LAY ME TO REST. LOVE IT.

fucking love me some female fighter pilots. the women of star wars are so badass. doing justice to my return of the jedi ladies.

i think a whole lot about jyn giving K2 a blaster. the way he takes it and looks at it and holds it so gently. i think that’s the first time a human has trusted him with a blaster since his reprogramming. he seems so appreciative of that trust.

i love seeing the faces of baze and the other rebels when a few of the x-wings show up and take down an at-at. i’m so very soft for the relationship between these rebels. not to be cliche, but the *hope* that they have. it’s so moving. this movie is just so full of that quintessential rebel feeling.

hey so i’m super emotional about the death of K2 okay? because in the novelizations you learn that in the last second k2 had before a full shut down, he ran a simulation where cassian lived and even though he knew it was impossible, it made him happy. FURTHERMORE K2 is very well known and his name is often listed along side jyn’s in terms of talking about the history of the rebellion.

chirrut and baze’s deaths are so important to me. we know they’re best friends, and even though we don’t know how long they’ve been together, they love each other so deeply. chirrut being the path for baze to return to the force? touching. i so wish these dumb force husbands could have had more screen time. baze calling chirrut back?? chirrut telling him to find him in the force?? baze looking to see the man he loves one more time before he dies??reminds me of the silken quote about dying in your best friends arms because it’s all you know. anywho,,, if star wars canon has any mercy then these two lovers are force ghosts together rn. don’t care how you feel or whether you "ship" them or not. love comes in so many forms and they encompass all that love.

terribly sorry but i think about those two star destroyers colliding with the rogue one main theme playing over it every day. it’s,,,,, so,,,, ( ´∀｀)

i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again BEN MENDELSSOHN??? UH YEAH

krennic watching his weapon (his beautiful, successful weapon) power up and kill him,,, the poetic justice of it all,,,,

any time anyone says "may the force be with you" i dunno maybe it’s my religious trauma but i’m head over heels for that good shit

the star destroyer coming out of hyper space as the rebels are escaping and some of the ships hit the destroyer?? one of my favorite things in the new star wars movies is directors and writers saying "oh this can totally happen" and they DO IT

jyn mentioning earlier in the film that she isn’t used to people sticking around when shit hits the fan and then dying in the arms of cassian?? because he stayed?? and for the first time she has someone??

in that same vein: cassian also says earlier in the film that he lost everything too. his connection with jyn is also important to him, just as important as it is to jyn. they need each other. i can’t remember who on this hellsite said it, but someone mentioned that they hope the stand alone cassian stuff coming out doesn’t make him this swindling playboy who fucks around a bunch. i think having him as more of like?? a mandolorian type character would be really cool. like he’s a rebel assassin: make him one. make him independent and badass and cool and DONT give him a bunch of romantic or sexual interests because then that downplays the clear love he had developing for jyn. again LOVE COMES IN FORMS BEYOND BASIC SHIPS. and there’s a lot of love in star wars.

i’ve said it a million times but vader is so cool and over and over again this movie reminded me that he’s actually so scary. i saw star wars for the first time when i was 6 and i can’t remember my initial reaction to him, but i’ve definitely (like with the death star) been desensitized to the fact that if i was in star wars, darth vader would scare the shit out of me. he’s *scary* and that’s cool. i liked seeing vader effortlessly go fucking mad on these rebels. then you understand why they were so scared in that first scene of a new hope.

no i absolutely will not get over the vader scene. i won’t. his saber turning on. his force abilities. his effortless lightsaber work. the choral music over the scene with the hectic orchestra. don’t touch me i’m emotional.

i loved seeing leia. it touches me so deeply every time.

fuck i love this movie despite all its faults.

if you’ve made it this far, thank you!! i hope you enjoyed. please remember that this is totally a safe space for all star wars opinions and you can feel free to disagree with me! i’d love to hear what some of you thought :))

#star wars #rogue one #baze #jyn erso #chirrut imwe #cassian andor #baze malbus #bohdi rook #k2so #star wars opinions #star wars critique #star wars review

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dappercritter · 4 years

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Invader Zim: Taller Tales of Terror - The First Fic That Wasn’t

This was going to be my first fanfiction that I ever published, but things came up and I found other story ideas and fandoms to get into. However, because there’s nothing I hate more than leaving a story untold and forgotten.

So like a writer jilted by a big name studio working on a big superhero movie that went terribly wrong after they left, I’m going to share it with you good folks to see if you still think there’s hope for it in some capacity. If so maybe I’ll choose to revive it in some capacity, or one of you kind folks can adopt it. Whatever you think of the once untold tale I’m about tell you, I hope you enjoy it.

The fic would have been either a mini-series/anthology or a movie-esque sequel—or two—to Enter the Florpus.

It would have followed the stranger further misadventures the kids would go on as teenagers, all of which have at least something to do with getting taller, literally or metaphorically.

Although I'd do my best to recreate the series' darkly comic tone, there'd be more to the story than just that. I'd like to do a sort of character study with my fanfics and explore what they would do as they got older, how they would change if they could change, if they'd mature and try to connect with each other more, or if they really do just hate each other. It'd be like a coming-of-age story but done in the style of Invader Zim.

But don’t be fooled, folks! It's not going to be one of those big dramatic fanfics with high stakes (nor any smut) thrown in. At it's core it's still just a fun, dumb, mildly disturbed "What if?" sort of fic. There would be a bit more emphasis on character and plot than normal, because I do love me a good character-driven plot, but still plenty of room for (what I hoped would feel like) the usual weird dumb creepy fun that original series excelled at.

The story is set in basically the same continuity (or at least the closest thing to a continuity that can exist in Invader Zim) as the show and comics. The only difference is that the Battle of Meekrob actually happened—but not really.

Long backstory short, there was a big showdown between the Irken Armada and the Meekrob-allied Resisty, but Zim and Dib missed it because a food fight got them stuck in detention. Zim tried to get Skoodge (who was rooming with him at the time because the scrapped Season 2 episodes were sorta canon here) to cover for him until her got there, while Dib tried to get Gaz to take Tak’s ship to provide support against the Irken. By the time they got out, however, the battle was over, Gaz blew the whole thing off to get a new game, Skoodge and some other Invader became the war hero Zim always aspired to be, and The Almighty Tallest decided to cancel Operation Impending Doom 2 because after the big exciting space battle they felt like they couldn’t top anything after that. Suffice to say, Zim took it pretty hard. Dib however would have seen this as something of a win since Zim still failed in a sense. Albeit it was a very anticlimactic win, even to him.

The actual story would have taken place about 5 years after the Battle of Meekrob, where Zim, Dib, and Gaz have made it to high school (or “hi-skool” as this is the Invader Zim universe, after all). Setting wise, things haven't changed much but the characters have made a few surprising or not-so-surprising developments. The most important of all, so important that it would be the focus of the entire story, in fact! would have been Zim developing a brand-new disguise utilizing an exoskeleton, based partially on the Almighty Tallest, in attempt to make him look like a normal teenager AND impress superiors. Naturally, things go horribly yet amusingly wrong for everyone involved.

Now just where and what has everyone been up to/going through in those five years? Here’s a rundown:

-Zim spent those 5 years obsessing over his crushing failure, begging the Tallest to give him another chance, which they refused every time. Being stuck on a planet of smelly, stupid, and increasingly annoying creatures for so long without any real victories has left him bitter and frantic with more shmoopiness than usual. Even the little "VICTORY FOR ZIM!" moments he used to have got harder and harder to come by. By the time he reached high school, he was so messed up he didn’t realize his classmates had all had growth spurts until Dib easily overpowered him in one of their petty fights and points it out to the whole school. Thus, leading to the new exoskeleton and subsequent schemes to redeem himself in the eyes of the Tallest while looking normal in the eyes of his human classmates. Unfortunately, due to his desperation and general lack of understanding about the human body, the exoskeleton comes out looking like a lanky robotic nightmare with clawed fingers that jerks around like a big cybernetic marionette.

-Dib meanwhile has been doing slightly better. He and his paranormal research are still looked down upon, but he's persevered through the hope that someday he'll prove he's right. After (indirectly) stopping Zim from joining the Battle of Meekrob, Dib got a small confidence boost, thinking of it as a big step to exposing for Zim real now that he’s effectively trapped on Earth with him now. Although, following a rather blunt intervention from his family, he's started thinking about what he’ll do with himself once Zim is gone. He still hates his guts and he's still hellbent on beating him, but he's also started getting out more and trying to socialize more—however awkward his attempts may be. That he's also gotten taller and his head isn't quite as big compared to the rest of his body has been good for his self-esteem too. But make no mistake—when he's not going for runs, working shifts at his dad’s lab, or looking into a “totally normal” science major, he's toiling away on improving his array of anti-Zim strategies and defenses.

-Gaz is doing pretty good but she is totally done with Zim and Dib's junk. Although she's still her old apathetic self, she's doing everything in her power to broaden her horizons so she doesn't end up in the same, stupid rut that they ended up in. She would have gotten into indie art and game development; although her work is still fairly obscure, it's quickly gaining attention for it's macabre, edgy, punishing and geeky nature. (Imagine the works of Jhonen Vasquez, Toby Fox, Hidetaka Miyazaki, and Hideki Kamiya mashed together.) She also participates in e-sports tournaments on occasion, if only because crushing countless so-called “gamers” brings her amusement. Her psychic powers have also gotten stronger with her age, and she likes to experiment with them whenever she can—usually when somebody really annoys her. She's doing fine in the story until, after a run-in with a certain unkillable spoiled brat at an e-sports tournament, sends her over the edge and she trashes the place in a Carrie-esque episode. This gets her sent to anger management therapy, and now she's trying to find a way out to avoid sitting through an endless slog of "sappy" sessions.

-Gir would still be insane.

-Minimoose would still be the ultimate techno-lifeform Minimoose.

-Zim's Computer is still tired.

-Prof. Membrane is still the greatest and most powerful scientist who ever lived but he’s also trying to make time for his family more and mentoring Dib to be the successor to his legacy he always thinks he was meant to be. That is if is experimental new immortality machine doesn’t work out. May or may not have to fend off Clembrane whenever he comes to visit.

-The Almighty Tallest are still living content, tyrannical lives. They didn't take canceling Operation Impending Doom 2 very hard because, as it turns out, they just got bored with it after a while. (Of course, Zim's repeated interference didn't help keep their spirits up either). However, they'd come up with the perfect plan to obtain absolute control of the universe AND get the feeling back: by making Operation Impending Doom 3 a thing and setting up a huge hype campaign for it. Thing go pretty well for them until Zim calls them and tells them about his new exosuit. They believe that Zim is trying to make himself look like a Tallest so he can lead a rebellion against them and get revenge for treating him like garbage. (He's not, obviously, but they're too dumb and paranoid to realize this.) So, they pretend that they're ok with it and let him carry on his merry way while they figure out how to dispose of him without making him look like a martyr figure of some sort, thus giving the other Irkens they mistreated any ideas.

-Tak would show up again in the second half and this is where it gets spoiler-y. She would come to Earth on the Tallest’s orders with a squad consisting of a reformatted Mimi, rogue SIR units, as well as Tenn and Skoodge who she had recruited to aid in her vendetta against Zim. She would subsequently reveal that after drifting through space in an escape pod, she crashed landed on Meekrob just as the battle was about to begin, and using the element of surprise, rescued Tenn from captivity and assisted Skoodge and the Tallest in devising a battle strategy so brilliant that it crushed the Resisty and Meekrob’s alliance and earned her the status of Irken Elite. She grew comfortable in her new position but could never get over her fear that Zim would eventually ruin it all again, so she waited and prepared for the day she would strike back. I don’t know how or if she would adopt an updated disguise (perhaps a hologram of her older humansona projected over her, Tenn, and Skoodge standing on top of her shoulders?) or hide in the shadows while Tenn, Skoodge, Mimi and the berserk SIR squad did her dirty work.

-Skoodge would have gone from aspiring to be Zim’s friend to being his worst enemy after Tak turned him to her side by digging into his past with him, making him realize how little his supposed old friend cared about him. Despite this he still keeps an unusually cheerful disposition—even repeatedly apologizing to Zim whenever he attacks him—and acts as the heart of Tak’s squad. He thinks of them as his real friends, so he always goes out of his way to help them out or keep the energy up. Even though Tak looks down on him because of his size, she appreciates his gullibility and unquestioning loyalty. Tenn just thinks he’s nice, especially since he’s good at keeping the SIRs in check.

-Tenn has recovered from the traumatic escapades she endured on Meekrob at the hands of the rogue SIR units and imprisonment under the enemy, returning to her usual competant Invader self—something Tak values quite a bit in an armada largely composed of egomaniacs and morons. Tenn values Tak’s companionship even more, viewing her as a conquering hero who not only won the most important battle of Irken history, but also, her heart. …Not she’ll ever act on her feelings. That would inconveniance the mission! (Although Skoodge has picked up on this and gladly supports her, thinking they’d make an adorable couple.) After investation revealed that Zim was supposed to receive the rogue SIR units instead of her while he trashed the Megadoomer that was rightfully assigned to her, she bought into Tak’s view that Zim’s very existence was a threat to all Irkenkind, gladly assisting her efforts to eradicate him.

-Mimi and the rogue SIR units have been reprogrammed to be less insane and follow orders again thanks to Tak and Skoodge’s efforts. However, Tak also had a berserk mode installed specfically for eradicating targets with optimal, brutal efficiency. Mimi still tends to glitch though. In addition to Mimi retaining her cat holo-disguise, the berserker SIRs would gain new disguises resembling either feral cats or rabid teacup poodles. (I hadn’t decided yet.) Tenn still gets anxious around them.

-Gretchen might show up again and would possibly get to reconnect with Dib, maybe even finally be honest with him about her feelings for him when she surprises him with her surprising new position at Membrane Labs: the janitor.

-Keef will… er, uh… actually, don’t get your hopes up.

Well, I think that’s everyone important. Okay back to the plot now!

So, right up front, the biggest part of the plot as well as the biggest reason why I got uncomfortable with the whole thing was there wiould be some romance in here between a few couples and that it would have figured into the plot. The most significant of all: ZAGR (a.k.a. Zim and Gaz Relationship). But I wanted to make it feel organic and even sweet without sacrificing the feel of sardonic madness but also keeping it in the wholesome zone.

I always felt like Zim and Gaz were a natural fit for each other (like quite a few other people, admittedly) because I always felt like their personalities were a good fit and they could have a lot in common. The story would follow them as they unexpectedly developed a romantic friendship, bonding over their resentment of the Earth and humanity, their absent family members, a love of technology of questionable intent, and subjugating those who anger them. It would all start with Gaz agreeing to help Zim improve his suit and his unassuming human act just to get back at Dib for annoying her. At first they’d be acting entirely out of spite and necessity, but as they spent more time together, they’d start to enjoy each other’s company more.

Gaz would be the first develop feelings, since she voluntarily rejected the concept of love instead of being programmed to reject it like Zim, as she slowly realizes how much they have in common—much to her horror. Zim would take more time but when he begins to understand how he feels about and just what these DISGUST feelings are, he’d handle it just as poorly. (e.g. I pictured a scene where Zim has such a hard time admitting his feelings for Gaz that he ends up vomiting black goo like he’s possessed or something. For comedy of course.) But they’d both start to open up to each other in the end, if only because they’re the only two people in the universe they can stand. Gaz would try to help him overcome his anxiety and stop caring as much about what humans think of him, while he would be someone that she can actually relate to.

Dib, however, would take sincerest offense to it. He’d be totally freaking out, nearly diving off the deep end to put his plans to defeat Zim into action and expose him before he could be exposed. He’d also make a point of demanding what Gaz could see in a monster like him, even reminding her of everything that Zim had done. Probably in an exchange like this:

DIB: He stole our organs! He tried to crush the planet with Mars! He kidnapped me and threatened to turn me inside out! He tricked me into helping him teleport Earth into outer space so his rulers could destroy it! He turned me into bologna, Gaz! (*holding back tears*) BOLOGNE!

GAZ: I thought you got over that.

DIB: Well, physically I did, yes, but not mentally.

Gir would be pretty on board with it though.

The other biggest plot of the series would have been Tak’s return and the reveal of her and the Tallest’s master plan to destroy Zim once and for all: kick off Operation Impending Doom 3 by placing Zim on trial, executing him, and completing Tak’s plan to turn the planet Earth into a snack bowl for the Tallest (which she still insists is a good plan, she just never got to complete it) big enough to feed them while they watch the conquest of the rest of the universe in style. Zim and the Membranes get through to her and her squad, and possibly the other Irkens, by turning them against the Tallest to stop the Irkens once and for all. Maybe.

Finally to wrap this little nightmare up, here’s a vague outline of the stories I had planned for this wannabe whopper:

-A Whole New Nightmare – Following an amusing prologue about how Zim and Dib ended up missing the battle of Meekrob, Zim finally realizes that his natural Irken height threatens to expose his façade to all the classmates who have reached proper adolescent human height. He creates his exosuit then proceeds to cause a scene when he calls the Tallest and goes to hi-skool. Meanwhile, Gaz bugs Dib about still wasting his time bullying Zim. Zim then challenges Dib to a contest of normalcy: a series of challenges that are just overhyped normal teenage things like loitering, hanging out with friends, and finally a dance-off. Whoever loses has to admit they’re a complete weirdo and admit they’re most embarrassing secret. Dib wins the first round, but after he blows off Gaz to hang out with the other kids, she and Zim strike up a nice conversation and he wins the second round. The final dance-off ends in a draw when Zim and Dib both end up looking like total dorks. The story ends with Dib and Zim standing up for themselves against their judgemental peers, but Zim ends up overtaking his big speech and convincing his classmates to completely forget about his bizarre new appearance.

-Gaz the Befriended - Zim and Gaz make a deal: Gaz helps him fine tune his suit while posing as his "NORMAL HUMAN!" friend, and in return he helps her figure out how to control her powers while posing as her friend so she won't have to go to anger management counselling. While they do drive each other nuts, they eventually learn they have a lot in common and start acting like real friends. Dib grows suspicious of their "friendship," sets out to uncover the truth.

-They Follow - Dib goes on social media to share his findings on Zim with the world in an attempt to verify all his evidence via wisdom of the crowd. Zim finds out and retaliates by joining social media as well to make himself look like a hard luck case in an effort to gain sympathy from the (basically ignorant) public. As their war of words escalate and their follower bases grow, they end up starting a flame war that threatens to destroy society itself.

-Star Dib - Hoping to find some real help, Dib sends a message to outer space looking for reinforcements. He ends up with what remains of the Resisty, who dissolved after their crushing defeat on The Battle of Meekrob. Taking pity on them, he volunteers to become their new leader. Shenanigans ensue on a galactic level.

-C for Conspiracy - Dib stumbles across a mysterious conspiracy involving Earth tech being backwards compatible with alien tech. He wants to take it on himself, but realizes that he might actually need Zim’s help. So he has to swallow his pride and ask him for help, and as if that weren’t enough he has to put up with his and Gir’s (who tagged along) antics.

-Night of the Living Prom-goers - Prom night comes along and all the hormonally-imbalanced kids are ready to go, except for Zim, Dib, and Gaz. Until Gaz works up the nerve to ask Zim out, which he actually accepts. While Gaz prepares for her perfect tolerable evening, Dib desperately tries to convince her that Zim’s up to something while trying uncover his true motives, only for her to snap at him and challenge his views on Zim. Little do either of them know, Zim plans to use the prom as an experiment to harness Gaz’s power for his own ends. But at the same time, he ponders whether his friendship with Gaz is just a means to an end or something more. Either way it will be a night they will never forget. Or survive! Probably.

-The Return of Tak’s Revenge Rises - Tak finally returns to take her revenge on Zim and the Membrane siblings. Striking them when they least expect with the aid of an upgraded MiMi, a squad of berserk SIR units, and two fellow invaders Zim had wronged in the past.

-Doomed Together - Following Tak’s strike, the Almighty Tallest kick off Operation Impending Doom 3 with a mission of utmost importance: sending in the Irken Armada to ensure Zim is destroyed once for all so they can finally proceed with absolute universal domination. Now, Gaz, Dib, and some unlikely allies must come up with a plan to save their even more unlikely new friend and the rest of the universe from the most fearsome force in the universe! It’s basically the grand finale.

And that is all there is, or was, to Taller Tales of Terror. I can’t guarantee I’ll ever revisit it, what with all the other stuff on my plate right now, but I’m glad to have finally shared the story of my first fanfic with y’all.

So, tell me, my filthy monkey maggot mutual friends. After all that horrible rambling, what did you think?

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end-of-pizza · 4 years

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WEIRD ANIME NIGHT

guys, I’m going to level with you. I am running out of weird anime’s I have watched. I want to do these guys every week I really do....and I have a stack of VHS tapes and DVD’s downstairs to dig through that MIGHT have some more gold in them, but it would be SUPER COOL of you if you would DM me some ideas or suggestions to look into in the coming weeks and months now I said I am RUNNING OUT, that doesnt mean I’m empty. Tonight I am going to go on a tangent, and talk about one anime you dudes have LIKELY seen already MOBILE FIGHTER G GUNDAM

You might say to yourself, hey Brian, that show isn’t THAT weird, gundam is a big big robot show, and that is just another cookie cutter big big robo show

BUT YOU ARE WRONG

DEAD WRONG

Mobile fighter g gundam was only the 9th gundam series ever made, and the series it follows Victory gundam is considered one of the darkest in gundams canon, where kill them all Tomino really showed that he earned that name, it wasn’t gifted to him. I mean the shows about a 12 year old who, in its final act fights a giant, moon sized ring full of psychics that try to reduce humanity to animal like stupidity so that they can rule the earth, and also like…..all of his friends die. All of them, most of them children. Victory gundam is dark as shit

G Gundam though? Naw, this show is like two clicks away from being a gundam skin over top of a king of braves show. I mean let me break it down like this. G gundam is about a buncha people, hired by their countries to represent them in a martial arts tournament , with giant robots that used to be used for war, but that war destroyed earth real bad, so instead they still destroy earth real bad with giant robots, but instead of war, its just a boxing match and they make it clear that this ish is bad for the earth like EVERY city is fucked, and whoever wins the tournament, their government gets to be dictators of the world and space for 4 years.

and its played for laughs

I also want to mention for people who are passingly familiar with Gundam through things like wing or seed etc, and know that gundam has different time lines, THIS is the first alternate timeline, this is the first non UC timeline in the whole of gundam. Imagine if the last few shows were, a war drama about a 14 year old being drafted and getting ptsd, then a sequal where a child psychic also gets drafted then his parents die, then the girl he loves tries to kill him and dies, then a sequal to that where again, a ton of main characters die, then a sequal movie where two of the main characters of the entire show both die, then a show about a boy making a new friend, who turns out to be a soldier, and introducing them to his next door neighbor who turns out to be a soldier, then while trying to help his new friend, his neighbor murders him, ON CHRISTMAS, then he has to just go back to normal life because he kept all of this a secret to everyone.

AFTER THAT ALL WE GET THIS

youtube

I mean it took a show that for 20 years had been a dead ass serious war drama, and turned it into well......MMA with robots and dudes (and a few ladies) in latex cat suits using magic to destroy famous land marks

THE WIKI SAYS Unlike previous series in the Gundam franchise which are set in the "Universal Century" timeline, Mobile Fighter G Gundam takes place in an alternate "Future Century" universe.[1][2] Within this timeline, much of mankind has abandoned a ruined Earth to live in space colonies. The countries on Earth have corresponding colonies just outside the planet's atmosphere. Rather than fight wars for political and social dominance, the colonies agree to hold a "Gundam Fight" tournament every four years. Each country sends to Earth a representative piloting a highly-advanced, humanoid mobile fighter called a Gundam. The Gundams compete with one another in one-on-one battles, under a strict set of rules, until only one fighter remains; the nation represented by the winner earns the right to rule all of space for that period.[2] Each Gundam is controlled directly by the user within the cockpit using the "Mobile Trace System", a gesture recognition and feedback mechanism whereby the Gundam mimics the pilot's own body motion, combat skills, and weapon-wielding capabilities.[1]G Gundam opens at the start of the 13th Gundam Fight in Future Century year 60 and follows Neo Japan's Domon Kasshu, fighter of his nation's Shining Gundam and bearer of the coveted "King of Hearts" martial arts crest.[1] Aside from winning the tournament, Domon's mission is to track down his fugitive, older brother Kyoji, who allegedly stole the experimental Dark Gundam from Neo Japan's government, leaving their mother dead and their father (Dr. Raizo Kasshu) to be arrested and placed in a cryogenic state.[3]

Under orders from Major Ullube Ishikawa, Domon and his childhood friend and mechanic Rain Mikamura travel from country to country, challenging each one's Gundam while searching for clues to the whereabouts of Kyoji and the Dark Gundam.[3] Domon's initial matches with Neo America's Chibodee Crocket, Neo France's George DeSand, Neo China's Sai Sai Ci, and Neo Russia's Argo Gulskii end in draws, gaining mutual respect among the fighters.[1][2] As they encounter Gundam pilots who had come in contact with the Dark Gundam, Domon and Rain learn of its unique cellular properties to regenerate, multiply, and evolve by infecting organic matter and causing violent behavior in living things.[3] The duo then journey to Neo Tokyo, a city decimated by the Dark Gundam's army of mobile weapons. Domon reunites with his esteemed martial arts instructor Master Asia, who is also the champion of the last Gundam Fight, the former King of Hearts, and one-time leader of an elite group of Gundam fighters called the Shuffle Alliance. After Domon and Rain help the city's survivors defend their last outpost in Shinjuku, Master Asia reveals himself as a servant of the Dark Gundam, having also gained control over Chibodee, George, Sai Sai Ci, and Argo using Dark Gundam (DG) cells.[2][3] The four remaining members of the Shuffle Alliance intervene and vow to destroy their previous leader for his crimes. Ultimately, the Alliance members offer their lives in purging the DG cells from Domon's four comrades and bestow each of them with a Shuffle Alliance crest as their successors. Kyoji and the enormous Dark Gundam eventually appear from beneath the ground of Shinjuku, but shortly thereafter vanish alongside Master Asia. As the Shuffle Alliance trains in the Guiana Highlands for the Gundam Fight finals, Master Asia and the Dark Gundam reappear.[3] With the help of his friends and a new ally in Neo Germany's masked warrior Schwarz Bruder, Domon defeats the Dark Gundam. When the Shining Gundam becomes incapacitated during the battle, Domon desperately manages to activate a newly acquired God Gundam(AKA Burning Gundam outside Japan), escape Master Asia, and make his way to the finals set in Neo Hong Kong.[2][4]

The Gundam Fight finals are presided over by Wong Yunfat, Neo Hong Kong's prime minister and the current ruler of the space colonies and Earth. Wong chooses to have the qualifying nations battle in one-on-one and tag team preliminary matches to reach a battle royale on Lantau Island, where the tournament is to end with the winner facing the defending champion Master Asia.[2][4] Having gained possession of the Dark Gundam, Wong secretly plots to revive and control it as his trump card to inevitably maintain his own power over space. Domon and his companions make their way to the battle royale while several truths concerning the Dark Gundam are unveiled. Rain's father, Dr. Mikamura, eventually explains that the Dark Gundam (originally called the Ultimate Gundam) was constructed by Dr. Kasshu to rejuvenate the dying Earth. Jealous of his genius colleague, Dr. Mikamura had Neo Japan's officials attempt to confiscate Kasshu's creation. To prevent the military from using his father's invention for its own agenda, Kyoji fled with and crash landed the Gundam on Earth, where its computer malfunctioned, triggering its malevolent activity. Ullube subsequently had Dr. Kasshu arrested, framed Kyoji as a criminal, and used Domon and Rain as pawns in recovering the Gundam.[4] In a separate confession, Master Asia discloses to Domon that, having been distressed by the utter destruction wrought by the Gundam Fights, he planned to use the Dark Gundam to wipe out humanity and allow Earth to heal naturally.[2] The battle on Lantau Island culminates with Domon fatally besting Master Asia in a final confrontation, while Kyoji and Schwarz sacrifice themselves so that Domon can attack the Dark Gundam's cockpit and disable it once again.[4] Though the schemes of both Wong and Master Asia are foiled, Ullube quietly claims the Dark Gundam and transports it to Neo Japan's space colony for his own purpose. Having been corrupted by DG cells with ambitions of supreme power, Ullube kidnaps Rain and places her into the Dark Gundam's core to act as its energy source. The hulking monstrosity then merges with the colony and begins absorbing Earth itself.[2] As the entire world's Gundams unite to assault the Dark Gundam from the outside, the Shuffle Alliance breaks inside the colony and destroys Ullube. Finally, Domon professes his love for Rain and releases her from the core. Invoking the power of the King of Hearts, the couple vanquishes the Dark Gundam once and for all

I just rewatched it like a month ago, its real good, def go watch it

if you are the kind of person who was maybe put off by OG gundams TONE or wing gundams edgy-ness, give g gundam a watch its honestly a good anime, its about as shonen as a shonen can legally get. Also its spiritual successor, the Build series is really good too, really liked Build Fighters Try A LOT, and I guess like.....it might be canon to this reality? its weird. Gundams weird when it comes to canonisity, its sort of all canon kinda.

∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀ ∀

Also the model kits for this show, and you knew I was going to bring up Gunpla at some point, well they come in two qualities

AWESOME and brand new

or shit and 20 years old

So if you collect these things like I do…..get both kinds of their kits

They’re good.

Have a good one

~Hoover

#weird anime night #gundam #g gundam #not pizza

41 notes · View notes

the-lightning-strikes-again · 4 years

Note

Hey Lightning, I was wondering if I could get your thoughts on something. One take that seems to keep returning every once in a while is the "Allura fell for Lotor only after he revealed his Altean heritage," but I know u and others have disproven this many times, which does reassure me. While I love Allura, I definitely think one of her weaknesses was her devotion to Altea and singing Alfor's praises, which sometimes became too much. At the same time, it bothers me when I see some ppl (1/?)

Continuing anon message: “ say that she thought Alteans were superior to all other races, and that when the colony plot twist happened, she became repulsed by Lotor's Galra side, which is why she rejected him. For them, that's why she forced violent memories onto an uncorrupted Zarkon, but somehow "saw the good/redeemed" Honerva, the Altean. I can kind of understand where they're coming from, but for me, it just didn't make sense that Allura suddenly had a change of heart considering for most of s8, she was angry and dead set on going after Honerva. Even with that, I think to a lot of her fans, s8 made Allura so ooc that she became unrecognizable, which hurt to watch. I guess for me it's hard seeing antis and people who don't like her claim that that's just how she is and has always been. Haha sorry for rambling, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, since your arguments ease my mind on a lot of things when it comes to Allura :)”

Hi, anon. Wow, thanks for your extended note! I don’t know anywhere in canon that Allura champions Alteans as a superior race. The definition of racial supremacy is a belief that inherent genetic differences between races determine cultural or individual achievement, with social/governmental policies championing intolerance of other races. To get Allura to fit into such a label:

1. A viewer has to ignore or undermine all the evidence available about who the main-universe Alteans really were before main-universe Zarkon’s massacre of them.

2. A viewer has to ignore or undermine how Allura actually responds to a variety of different races in the show, including her own.

So let’s start with issue one. To support an “Allura was a racial supremacist” opinion, a lot of antis (and even non-militant, average viewers) are favorable to the opinion that Alteans as a group, including Alfor, were actually evil and violent colonizer elitists before Galrans killed them off. In other words, they question Altean victimhood, and this allows the militant antis to poison and undermine scenes of a woman mourning her home and her beloved family. And it just gets to be a really unsettling conversation, to listen to someone actually try to justify genocide. They’ll also have suspicions that all of our foundational backstory in the s3 finale was just “cleansed” propaganda from Coran. So if antis can undermine Allura’s entire race and family as corrupt, then they can intentionally undermine any of her canonical statements about or efforts toward peace. Which is hilarious, because this racist tactic applied to Allura is actually what a lot of antis accuse Allura of doing with Lotor.

For the record, I don’t think the show production team actually intended the subliminal messaging/cognitive dissonance that I’m about to discuss. The people who designed and developed this show are fans of robot kitties and aren’t PhDs in social issues. But I think there is a very serious issue about the portrayal of genocide victims that feeds into some very real problems in our world, especially regarding the concept of racial supremacy and conspiracy theories about genocide victims.

VLD tried to play with both genocide politics for edge™ points while ALSO playing with shatterglass theory (shatterglass meaning an AU where the heroes are villains and villains are heroes). Combining these two concepts into the same universe creates some incredibly disturbing subliminal messaging about Alteans that very closely mimics ongoing neo-Nazi propaganda against Jews. Nazis and other anti-Semitists justify their hatred of Jews by equating them as terrible villains out for world domination via some underhanded shadow control of the mass populace. It’s an incredibly malicious form of propaganda, because it works so terribly well. And what do you know, VLD plays right into this kind of propaganda. In the season 3 episode, Hole in the Sky, we’re faced with team Voltron confronting an Altean Empire that was actually evil and out for multiverse domination. And oh by the way, they’re using malicious shadow tech to control a mass populace.

It’s like someone on the production team read the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and then just copied/pasted that incredibly damaging and widely accepted conspiracy theory right onto Alteans for s3 funsies because edge content.

This is incredibly punishing, for the narrative to wave the carrot stick in front of genocide survivors that maybe some others survived—and then to suggest that Alteans were the evil ones all along. A shatterglass twist worked very well in Captain Marvel (2019) for a lot of reasons, for example, but it just doesn’t work well in the VLD universe given that the show explicitly portrays the genocide victims as evil and validates this concept. And this episode unfortunately feeds ongoing cognitive dissonance in antis that if AU Alteans could be so evil…how certain are you that they aren’t in the main universe too? On the reverse side, the main-universe goes out of its way to portray that not all Galrans are evil, and even that Galrans were the primary resistance (BOM). But in this singular episode, we see a united Altean empire. And the only Altean who moves to stand against it once the shine wears off…is Allura. There is no AU Altean actually shown in the Guns of Gamara. So Allura stands alone as an Altean against her own people.

For this reason, this episode doesn’t function very well as a shatterglass AU either, because the moral “flip” isn’t a mirror balance to main universe. The Alteans of the AU world appear as fully united in their evil plans. And then, no doubt, anti-alluras point out other quirky things about main-universe Alteans throughout the show—the violent language-learning system that scares Pidge, and the ancient Altean terraforming technology that Haggar activates, and the fact that Oriande is a hidden place that keeps out the less magical with a violent guardian. These details, when removed from main-universe world building, create a cognitive dissonance about whether main-universe Allura and Alteans were actually genuine in how they depicted respectful “peace and diplomacy.” So anti alluras who believe Allura was a racial supremacist really rely on this s3 episode and these details to uphold their conspiracy theory.

So let’s focus on Allura in this episode, because it says a lot about who she ultimately is as a person, and people have forgotten how she actually responded in this episode. Allura is unquestionably hopeful at the thought that her and Coran might not be the last Alteans alive. Pretty understandable. If I were the last human, I’d be darn excited to find out there’s more of me left, lol. So her experience as a genocide victim initially blinds her to the evilness of these Alteans. You can even see the ache on her face, of how badly she wants to believe their narrative of peace.

So Allura is initially star-struck that she and Coran are not the last Alteans, yes, and that somehow they’ve achieved a “peace.” She is also not afraid to admit that they would be valuable allies in the war:

And she’s not wrong there, considering that they have what appears to be extensive military resources and a robot force of their own. But she makes a critical mistake in assuming that “these are my people” means that they share main-universe cultural sentiments. The instant Allura hears Slav (so not someone of her own race) call these Alteans out as actually evil colonizers turning people into slaves, she begins to question the narrative she’s received.

In this instance, she actually affords the Alteans the same courtesy she afforded Lotor—the opportunity to deny the accusations.

But in the AU Altean’s case, they try to turn blame back on other parties. Allura listens to Keith when he grows increasingly fearful of what the Alteans might do to the others, and she tries to plead for actual peace:

And actually, this is a pretty interesting moment for Allura. She tries to salvage an alliance…until she realizes that their differences are irreconcilable, and that their definition of peace is inherently different from her own. This probably sets the stage for why Allura was so triggered by Lotor talking about peace while also killing people—because she’s seen people misappropriate that term before. And also probably informs why she trusts the information of both Keith and Krolia (both of whom have Galran blood, btw).

Ultimately, Allura turns against her own people. Violently:

When they get angry about her wanting actual peace, Allura draws a weapon against them and rejects them from her people. This mimics how she spends several seasons fighting an Altean Haggar/Honerva for her crimes, and how she turns against Lotor too.

So case in point here, Allura loves her people, obviously—but she also is holding them to moral standards regarding their behavior, which is something that a genuine racist doesn’t do. As a matter of fact, Lotor is the only person of Altean blood that Allura genuinely bonds with ever again in the series. She’s distant with Romelle, she’s distant with the s8 Alteans… In s8, Allura even says this about Luca, which refers back to her own mistakes she made with initially being star-struck by the s3 AU Alteans who came in “peace”:

Allura herself had been manipulated in s3, wanting so desperately to not be the last Altean alive that it initially blinded her to how Commander Hira was manipulating her. The plight of the s8 Alteans who are deceived by Honerva is inherently frustrating to her, because she can see herself in them.

Absolutely none of this correlates with Allura seeing or perpetuating Alteans as a superior race. At every turn, her own people continue to disappoint her, and she increasingly and progressively separates herself from them in hopelessness, because they’re so brainwashed that they can’t see they’re just cannon fodder for someone else’s military agendas. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for a superior race, lol.

So let’s think about anti accusations here. Allura is a racial supremacist…but she’s arguing against her people who believe unquestionably in Honerva, another full Altean like herself? Nothing about that accusation makes sense with her actions.

The fact is, consistently from season 3 and onward, Allura is faced with her own people morally disappointing her.

The good news for the s8 Alteans like Tavo is that Allura is able to remove the dark entity Honerva is using to control him. Which allows other Alteans to “wake up” from being manipulated and try to make amends.

Regardless, Allura makes a very clear line that simply being Altean doesn’t make someone “right.” She sees herself fully at odds with her own people who are drawn in by Honerva’s lies. And she experienced well back in s2 (revealing Haggar as Honerva) and s3 (evil AU Alteans) that any given race, including her own, can house people who do bad things.

The fact is, she’s consistently and willingly drawn weapons against even her own people when they didn’t meet her moral expectations. So her response to Lotor isn’t particularly out of line there. She’s repulsed by a moral flaw.

And actually, Lotor himself wouldn’t have known this, but he very oddly echoed the AU Alteans by getting angry that Allura was angry over the means through which he was trying to get peace:

So Lotor actually reverts to the same logic of the AU Alteans—peace at any cost, just look at the results—

And keep in mind that the AU Alteans also manipulated Allura’s excitement about them, to get her to make the transreality comet usable so they could go into other realities. So Allura has felt betrayed and used before, by her own people.

So when she says this:

Yes, it’s a reference back to how Zarkon manipulated his friends in order to get access to the quintessence field, at the explicit cost of potentially killing his own people. But it’s not without understanding that yes, Alteans can be just as manipulative and betraying as Zarkon. Because she’s experienced it, again and again.

As a matter of fact, six out of the eight seasons of Voltron: Legendary Defender feature villainous Alteans/Alteans on the wrong side of the war, and we continuously see Allura punished again and again for wishing that Alteans still lived.

No wonder she wanted to die.

This is something that I find uncomfortable about the narrative of the show. Previous iterations of Voltron did in fact have a “blood on everyone’s hands” perspective, such as within the ages 16+ Dynamic Comics. However, Arusians/Alteans in those old Voltron narratives were not victims of genocide. VLD turns Alteans into victims of the worst racial crime possible and then also consistently portrays them as inherently antagonistic to genuine peace efforts in some way, instead of focusing on the evil of the oppressors.

And this is such a double whammy for Lotor’s characters as well, given that he was abused by his parents and threatened with slavery via his Galran culture, and that he was half-Altean too trying to connect to his lost culture.

As a matter of fact, the larger show’s narrative interest in “victims as antagonists” makes it such that when we see victims try to enact actual justice, it feels almost jarring. Let’s look at that s8 Zarkon moment you brought up as an example, where Allura destroys his innocent perspective by showing him his evil deeds.

The s8 Zarkon is a weird topic because 1) This Zarkon actually doesn’t exist outside of Honerva’s mind, so how he has any kind of actual free-will is beyond me, unless someone wants to argue that Honerva actually cursed his true soul just as she cursed the other paladins. It’s hilarious too, because Honerva-mind-Zarkon also calls Honerva a psychopath, so I guess now Honerva is psychoanalyzing herself using her dead husband as the vehicle, while also discreetly helping the paladins to stop herself—

ANYWAY, using this Zarkon as a “proof” of Allura’s “racism” is also cherry picking in the weirdest of ways. Is she angry about his horrific and incalculable crimes, including even how he betrayed the OG paladins and ruined his own planet? Absolutely. Does she want him to be aware of his crimes instead of having to pretend like nothing’s wrong? Yes.

But notice here, this Zarkon actually shows remorse. He is actually crying over those memories and recognizing that he had done something wrong. And Allura can work with that. In fact, out of everyone standing around and doing nothing, it’s Allura who gives him a second chance and offers an alliance with Zarkon in order to stop a crazy Altean:

Keep in mind too, Honerva didn’t have memory loss at the end of s8. She knew exactly what she’d done and had given up and had to actually be convinced to do anything halfway constructive. That’s a very different circumstance than mind-Zarkon had, who jumped at the chance to do something to fix what all had happened, and gets even morally righteous about it, calling his own wife a psychopath, lol.

So generally, antis who believe Allura was a racial supremacist haven’t watched the show holistically. We see her hold the same standards to her own people as she expects out of others. This show would look incredibly different if Allura were a true racial supremacist.

Ah, you ask. Okay, so we’ve refuted the big pieces of “evidence” used to incriminate Allura. But what about all of those weird details about ancient Altean history? The violent language-learning program that scared Pidge? The violent terraforming tech that almost kills Voltron? The concept that Alfor tried to play “police” over the Galra and actually blew up their planet? The Alteans’ ongoing discussions of “peace and diplomacy” and spreading it throughout the universe while they happen to sit on a massive load of ancient power?

The s3 finale and other facts throughout the series very heavily smash the claim that our canon, in-universe Alteans were evil colonizers like the AU Alteans. The biggest piece of evidence to the contrary is that the Altea we know was one (1) planet. You counted right. One planet. Not an empire, but a singular planet. The s3 finale corroborates this, showing Altea as being largely isolationist from a military perspective while Daibazaal and Nalquod warred "for generations," right in front of their salad.

So some viewers would have you believe that Alteans were these big bad, intergalactic police state colonizers. But for all of its great power and knowledge, the singular planet of Altea didn't even canonically interfere in the wars of its own galaxy for actual millennia? And looking at the screenshots upon the stabilization of the alliance, Alfor is revealed to not have had experience with a neighboring culture. His face while exploring Gyrgan’s homeworld is an indication that it’s all rather new for him too. So again, we have evidence showing that Alteans were not colonizing or even functioning as a police state.

Note here that in the s3 flashbacks, the show confirms that it actually wasn’t just Alfor who suggested an alliance. All five leaders had common interests in protecting their galaxy from even worse threats, so all five came together at the same time. This is actually the first piece of evidence we have of Altea entering into some kind of intergalactic military agreement to stave off said worse threats.

And all of this is on top of a history where in s6, the Galran Archivist confirms that the Galran Empire had existed before Zarkon for 3,000 years, with times of “expansion.” It’s very easy to see that Blaytz’s people were actively fighting off Galran occupation of their homeworld within this past.

And that’s actually what I think makes Alfor and the OG paladins some pretty interesting characters. Here, we had colonizing Galran empire setting down its sword and accepting the value and space of its neighbors. Here, we had master alchemist Alfor giving up military power within their group by acknowledging Zarkon as the superior strategist. Here, we had Blaytz who had previously been battling Galran occupation…fully accepting the Galra?

So the OG Paladin backstory represents a pretty incredible alliance that removed a lot of intergalactic toxicity and helped heal broken bonds. But it required all five leaders to agree to that. Alfor did not throw his weight or power around within this. There were several checks and balances here.

But this backstory also helps to explain some of the quirky details about Alteans. Their planet existed within an active war zone, and it’s very likely that they’d had to fight off Galran occupation just as Blaytz’s people did. So the violent robot trainers and fear-based language learning systems start to make sense. Alteans weren’t just simpering people playing harps all day and eating grapes. They were actively prepared to defend their planet and their culture.

So when Allura says in season 1 that Alteans were “spreading diplomacy” across the universe, the only pieces of evidence we have of that is the OG paladins themselves, in which Alfor was a big part in creating that alliance—and then possibly the Alteans with the Balmerans, given their deep collective rituals with that planet while the Galra literally just came in and ripped the planet nearly to death. Allura tries to mimic what it means to accept and interact with a culture without changing it well in season 1, when she stumbles through trying to respect Arusian culture and its demands on its people. Also, there is a big fact that antis like to overlook:

The fact is, despite the untold numbers of civilizations we interact with across 76 episodes, no outside race remembers Alteans as evil colonizers. If they were really so big and bad, we would have heard it, like, “Man, yeah the Galrans are bad. Just as bad as those Alteans, back in the day.” Or something. But nope, nothing.

So I heavily question the history of Altea as an ancient colonizing race. If they were, then Altea wouldn't have just been a single planet with limited resources to fight wars in even its own galaxy. All of this supports the idea of Altean children being raised to fight--because they were preparing to defend themselves when/if diplomacy fails.... But the fact that the Balmerans see Alteans fondly and that literally every other race we run into is explicitly suspicious of Galrans and not at all of Alteans says something.

I think the only piece of evidence there might be for a genuinely colonizing ancient Altea is the use of terraforming technology, as mentioned in s4. Haggar discovers it and activates it to try and kill Voltron--and she nearly succeeds, because said tech destroys the entire crust of the planet to reform it. But you have to step back for a second and wonder--if ancient Alteans were so powerful, why was Alfor struggling so hard to even hold his own planet together in the midst of all these other cultures warring and larger threats? If they had this technology--and they did know about it because Allura recognized it right away as ancient technology--why the heck wouldn't they use it? Or were they using it, and it was to reform uninhabited planets to help sustain displaced peoples? Why is it, if Alteans were so terribly bad, we have no record across ANY of the many alien races being cautious of them? Even Galran Lieutenant Lahn snapped at Allura only because he was jealous of the general security she had back on, you guessed it, explicitly Altea. There's a lot of potential explanations for a positive use of terraforming technology, and the evidence against colonization and Altea committing omnicide against other races is incredibly more aligned with the other details in the canon.

And even Alfor’s creation of Voltron and the blowing up of Daibazaal—that’s something that antis like to position as evidence of his police-state ways to underhandedly control other cultures.

So let’s tackle those too while we’re at it.

Honestly, I know people like to hate on Alfor, and I do think his character picks up some misogynism just from the writers....But I don't think he was as much of a controller as people think he was. He was already in an alliance with four other leaders to try and stop bad things from happening in their galaxy. That meant they were expending incredible amounts of time and resources to accomplish that end—resources that were not renewable and may have been straining various planets. We know that he started building Voltron with Zarkon and everyone else's blessing because he called them "clean ships," but it's only after the rift creatures attack that suddenly Alfor's perception of Voltron moves from "clean energy" to "omg we need a more powerful weapon against this unknown enemy.”

So these are his intentions BEFORE he discovers rift creatures are a threat to the universe. While Zarkon states that these new ships are to be endlessly powerful for the Galra Empire, Alfor shames him by offering what his desire is for them:

After the rift creatures nearly destroy Daibazaal, intentions change.

So here, we see the game change in a BIG way. Voltron is not just about offering a more renewable way of sustaining peace-keeping efforts. Alfor is now adjusting and finishing these ships with the explicit knowledge that if they are not powerful enough, then Daibazaal and the Galran people will die. Alfor’s got a LOT of pressure on him now to deliver a mighty and powerful weapon to stop this new threat. So even his creation of Voltron as a superweapon involved using it to protect people from imminent death—not to police them.

And about Alfor blowing up Daibazaal—once again, it’s Alfor trying to clean up Honerva and Zarkon’s mess. Honerva had convinced Zarkon that the rift needed to be wider, and so Zarkon deceived the paladins into widening it.

So keep in mind here, at this point in time—the rift was destabilizing and eating an entire planet. The entire universe was now at stake. Alfor had to choose between a bad fix and an even worse option of allowing everyone to die, but he very clearly evacuated people before destroying Daibazaal, as part of his promise to keep Galrans safe. So that no one would have to die.

And as a matter of fact—about that terraforming technology. How sure are you that Alfor didn’t intend to use it to build Galrans a new home? It’s entirely within the realm of acceptable conjecture that he allowed for the existence of that technology because it could restore what had been lost.

And here’s where the story gets really screwy and feeds into some anti hate. Because when Zarkon wakes up as a zombie, he desires more quintessence as zombies do.

So he’s pissed that Alfor just cut off his gateway, and he manipulates his people:

And it’s here where we get the idea that Alfor was an evil controller. The idea came from Zarkon, who—we can look around pretty easily and see that he was not a man of honor, ultimately. Even if you chose to not believe the s3 finale flashbacks as being objective, there’s something wrong with Zarkon. (It’s clear that the show thought using Coran was a smart way to shell off massive amounts of info, because clearly if this were truly in Coran’s perspective, we would NOT have had intimate looks into Zarkon and Honerva’s bedroom as Zarkon is tending to her, like omg.) Numerous sources, histories, and cultures outside of Coran confirm that Zarkon hit a point of no return on the evil scale, and that he projected his own blame for Daibazaal’s destabilization onto Alfor in order to raise up his new regime in the name of Quintessence™.

So at the end of the day, even Alfor was a victim. But yet somehow, various antis choose to believe Zarkon’s victim-punishing narrative because said antis can’t or else refuse to connect one scene to another since it undermines their justifications for why they can hate on Allura. And that’s not so much an issue with the story itself as it is just poor critical analysis or malicious weaponization of content against other fans.

Now, at this point, we’ve talked about Allura and we’ve talked about Altean history. I have numerous other posts about Allura’s interactions with other races and Galrans and overcoming trauma to give the entire universe a second chance. So if there is anything in this show that suggests Alteans were in any way a superior race, then it’s probably within the show’s own worldbuilding. The show contradicts its own definitions of what quintessence even is by suggesting Alteans have “bluer/purer quintessence” in order to justify why Lotor would even be trying to sacrifice them for anything. The show-championed concept that Alteans have a bluer, purer life force above all other people, and that only Altean energy could interface with the fabric of space-time. Now, this is a problem in the later seasons’ world building itself. And you know who wrote that in? The production team. So once again, we do have racial issues in this show, in ways that shows like Star Wars desperately try avoid by showing racial diversity in who has Midi-chlorians.

That said, I’m not a perfectly woke storyteller either. I think every story and show is going to have something problematic™, but with VLD it’s very clear that its disrespectful handling of genocide politics and shatterglass conspiracy theories, on top of its weird master race angle created the perfect storm. These mishandled and quirky details have created a cognitive dissonance with the provided narrative, resulting in some people in the anti fandoms to champion what aligns very closely to actual neo-Nazi propaganda against Jews, who according to them are not victims but instead the true perpetrators of all bad things. For the sake of the antis, I’m pretty sure they’re not intentionally looking at VLD this way and are probably just looking for any easily graspable reason to hate on Allura for interfering with their ship or something.

But this kind of subliminal propaganda that undermines victims, and the effect it has had on fandom morality politics, is deeply concerning to me. I really wish that we’d had an opportunity to respectfully and critically discuss this with the production team of the show, because a Y7-FV show about “strength in unity” should NOT result in us needing to have a conversation about people walking away with neo-Nazi-ish propaganda sentiments against genocide survivors. Like. Clearly, VLD is fictional, but it’s feeding into a real-life beast that it does NOT need to feed. And it’s keeping alive ongoing conspiracy narratives against some of our most vulnerable populations on the planet.

So, we need better stories. We need a production team that, if they’re going to get paid to do something involving portrayals of genocide and politics, that they need to do their research on those topics. Nobody is going to be perfect with a creation, but VLD validated some very damaging things—and it ALL is something that could have been fixable. I think it would have been incredibly validating to hear the production talk about and accept that these were issues that cropped up unintentionally, and to hear them confirm that these issues are not the sorts of things that VLD was supposed to champion.

The greatest tragedy of all of this is the potential that this show had to really champion some great and validating messages, and the potential that we as a fandom had to come together and do something that fandom was meant to do—which was celebrate the things we love. Because that’s why we’re all here. That’s why this crazy tumblr of mine even exists. It was supposed to celebrate things.

For that reason, I’m going to end this here. I’ve written several responses now as to my thoughts on the inappropriate narrative lens of the show, its contradictory and damaging worldbuilding about the purest race, and how it champions demonizing or punishing genocide survivors again and again. Within all of that, I’ve talked at length about Allura’s character and behavior over 8 seasons and how she built even empathetic connections with militant Galrans like Commander Lahn. In fact even her own homesickness is how she emotionally connects with Lahn, because she understands that desire to call something one’s own. To have a home. A family.

I now really would like to get back to writing stories that I find meaningful to me using these characters and these worlds—and trying to find the hope in all of this darkness, haha. And maybe with any luck, I can hope to do VLD some justice, knowing that I am still on a learning journey as well.

But I appreciate your note, and I hope this very extensive response helps to settle your questions and concerns once and for all regarding VLD Allura. If you should have any remaining questions, please feel free to reach out via a private message to discuss. Thank you!

#Volron #VLD #Allura #VLD Critical #Alfor #Zarkon #Honerva #Lotor #I hope this helps explain my perspective #I think this might have to be my last refutation to the Allura as racist/racist supremacist conspiracy theory #at a certain point #people either watch the show holistically or they don't #you can't convince an anti #so this meta will probably not help an anti #but if you're sitting on the fence and felt drawn in by anti propaganda #then I hope that maybe this post provides an alternate perspective #and one that tries to be more holistically fair to all 8 seasons of the show #and to the intentions and general oversights that can occur during production #Ultimately it doesn't matter if someone likes or dislikes Allura as a fictional character #we need better entertainment that can handle these hard topics and handle them well #And we also need a fandom who's willing to look at all of the information and not weaponize it to specifically demonize and silence others #Maybe a family TV show shouldn't be appropriating conspiracy theories from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion #real-world fans are incredibly vulnerable to such conspiracy theories #and it creates a lot of real-world strife as a result

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mischief-over-matter · 5 years

Photo

Binary | Part I

Gravity is an inescapable force, even within the darkest corners of the universe. It's only a matter of time before something collides.

EMERGENCY STARTUP INITIALIZING

BOOTING...

BOOTING...[SUCCESS]

BIOS Configuration: [SUCCESS]

Loading OS...

CPU Check: [SUCCESS]

API Check: [SUCCESS]

Memory Banks: [OK]

AI Application: [OK]

Internal Software: [OK]

Anatomical Components: [OK]

Finalizing...

EMERGENCY STARTUP COMPLETE

INITIALIZING USER INTERFACE

◇─◇──◇────◇────◇────◇────◇────◇─────◇──◇─◇

For someone in a quite literal life-or-death situation, you were taking the news of your possible demise rather well. Perhaps that doesn't say much for someone in your line of work. Space exploration was a risky business, and coming home was not always guaranteed. Most, if not all who worked for the Federal Alliance of Astronomic Exploration knew that possibility before they signed on the dotted line.

You didn't expect it would be on your first solo mission, though.

In hindsight, your day seemed a little bit too perfect leading up to this mess, and maybe your cynical subconscious was expecting this pivotal point where everything goes south. Regardless, you weren't one to sit by while cursing your misfortune. And overall, it could be even worse. At least the life support was still functioning.

Oh, how you wished there was wood somewhere on the ship.

Standard protocol demands that regardless of the severity of the crisis, the ship's captain - in your case, yourself - was to immediately activate the emergency beacon and contact mission control. Step one was already a fail. According to the diagnostic scans, communications, navigation, and the engines were severely damaged and would take hours or even days for the self-repair bots to make any sort of significant progress. So, channeling in your former academy student self, you skipped right on to Plan B.

"Greetings, Lieutenant."

Or rather, Plan B skipped right on to you.

You nearly jumped out of your chair but managed to only give a startled gasp. Wheeling around, you came face to face with Plan B. For a glorified chunk of metal, it sure did move quietly.

"Are you alright?" said chunk of metal asked with a surprising amount of realism to his...its tone. "I detected a sudden increase in your heart rate. Are you in need of medical attention?"

You stared, temporarily taken aback by its sudden appearance. Sure, you were briefed on the purpose of the Auxiliary Crisis Sensory Emulating Learner, or ACSEL for short, but seeing one activated was an entirely new experience. The almost lifelike expression was truly something to behold, and you really ought to give a shout-out to the techs back home who made this happen. If you made it home...

Which led back to the matter at hand.

"No, I'm okay. You just surprised me, that's all," you sighed. "I didn't receive a notification that you were activated."

The ACSEL unit tilted its head and narrowed its eyes as if contemplating. It really was going to take some time getting used to those mannerisms on an android. "Perhaps there is an error in the ship's software?" It lightly smiled while extending its right hand towards you. "The CS Zenith is equipped with self-diagnostics and repair, yes? If I may, I would like to run an additional test. Permission to proceed, Lieutenant?"

You blinked, finally breaking yourself away from your thoughts to fall back into professionalism. Standing up and squaring your shoulders, you firmly shook his - its hand. To your ever-growing surprise, it was warm and smooth, yet undeniably solid. Almost like silicone.

"Granted," you replied before stepping to the side. It easily slid into the pilot's chair and instantly brought up the ship's readings. Nothing had changed. You watched in silent fascination while the android worked the dashboard as if it had years of experience under its belt. But your curiosity returned, and you found yourself wondering just how long it took to make something as complex as the ACSEL unit. Its designer obviously modeled it off of human anatomy, not too dissimilar to a store mannequin. The white exterior was a stark contrast to the muted colors of the cockpit. Gray lines decorated its body, allowing seamless, free-range movement that added to the realism. Give it a wig, slap some clothes on it, hide the port at the base of its head and you could definitely see someone mistaking the machine for a human. It even imitated a non-robotic masculine timbre almost perfectly.

The most intriguing thing about it though was the eyes. Glowing, electric blue eyes.

"Lieutenant?"

"Yes?"

"While my system processes the damages, would you like to begin personalization?"

You raised a brow. "What for? I had thought you would be outfitted with knowledge about my basic information once you were activated?"

The android flicked a switch on the dashboard, allowing a port to be exposed before inserting its index finger. In any other situation, it would have been comical, but you surmised that this was a part of the machine's processing. "And you would be correct. However, I am referring to myself. One of my functions is personalization to assist with lessening the emotional and psychological impact that an emergency could have. Once I have established that the current environment is stable enough for such, of course," it explained before pausing. "In short, it is to make you feel more comfortable."

"Right..." you trailed off, idly scratching your cheek.

"The process is completely optional if you are satisfied with my default settings," it added gently. " I do not wish to provide you with unnecessary stress."

Chuckling, you waved him - it off dismissively. "It's not that. I just...never mind. How about starting with what I should address you as?"

It gave you a side glance, lips turned upwards once more. "I respond to my model and serial number, A.C.S.E.L. 749710145-121111117-110-103, but due to its length I can be assigned a temporary moniker of your choosing until I undergo a factory reset."

You were sorely tempted to name it something utterly ridiculous. You could almost feel the disapproval from your superior officer at the mere thought of it.

"If it aids you at all, the engineers had named me Blue during my trial period," it offered.

How innovative.

"Blue works," you said at last, much to the android's delight. Could it even feel such a thing? It certainly seemed so as you watch its smile turn into a wide grin and the blue irises rotated in recognition. Nevertheless, you returned the smile albeit hesitantly. "Status update."

"Ah...my systems have confirmed the Zenith has experienced internal engine failure, significant damage to the transmitter and faulty wiring to the navigation. Causes are inconclusive. Hull integrity and life support are operating at 100% efficiency. The estimated time of repair is between 96 and 125 hours."

You relaxed ever-so-slightly. A week wouldn't make much of an impact on your scheduled three-month journey to Alpha Centauri's space outpost. And with the beacon activated, your chances of getting out of here unscathed are highly in your favor. "Noted. Then proceed as needed. I'm going to check on the cargo," you stated.

"No need, Lieutenant," Blue assured while standing. It approached you before clasping its hands behind its back. "I will take that responsibility while you rest. You have been showing signs of minor sleep deprivation in addition to a decrease in your epinephrine levels."

Perplexed, you crossed your arms, suddenly feeling a wave of self-consciousness. "You can gauge my adrenaline? How?"

Maybe you said that a bit too forcefully because Blue actually flinched, as if surprised at your tone. Never in your life did you think you would feel regret for snapping at a machine. You must really be more exhausted than you thought.

"Not through nefarious means, I promise," he - it faltered. "My optic sensors can detect even the subtlest of movements. I...I noticed your body language gradually became more relaxed and your heart rate slowed. My intention was not to cause you distress, Lieutenant. I apologize."

Jesus Christ, you genuinely felt bad now.

"Uh, don't be. I should be apologizing. Getting snippy with you was highly unprofessional," you murmured wearily. Rubbing your left temple, you glanced up to see him observing you with an open stare. Looking closely, you could see his irises whirling. Processing information, perhaps? "Blue?"

It blinked and smiled as if amused. "Apologizing to a machine is unnecessary. I do not feel offended. Though I suppose the gesture is an indication of your good nature, so I thank you."

"You're...welcome?" That's enough weirdness for one day, you thought to yourself. "I will go take my leave then if you don't need me for anything else."

"Not at all, Lieutenant. Please sleep well."

"You too." Biting your tongue, you inwardly cringed at your automatic response. "I mean-"

Blue laughed, apparently unfazed by your slip up. "I shall, thank you."

As you departed from the cockpit, you rubbed the heel of your palm against your right eye. It was the strangest thing; talking to a machine that seemed so human. The FAAE had an abundance of the latest technology, including interactive AI programs. But Blue was the most advanced piece of work you had ever interacted with. It was almost jarring.

The walk back to your quarters was a short one, as the Zenith was one of the smaller cargo ships. Your room lacked any personal items and only housed the bare necessities such as a bed, closet, a small desk, and bathroom. The lights flickered on and the door hissed shut, leaving you to bask in privacy. Eyelids heavy, you decided to shower in the morning. A casual glance at your holopad showed the time back home: 8:47 A.M.

Make that in the evening.

Zipping down your flight suit, you tossed it on the chair before rummaging your closet for a shirt and sweatpants. "Computer. Set an alarm for 4:00 P.M."

◇─◇──◇────◇────◇────◇────◇────◇─────◇──◇─◇

The cockpit was relatively silent, save for the gentle hum of the reactor core only Blue could hear. Most of the overhead lights had been dimmed, indicating that the Lieutenant had gone to sleep. The android remained in the chair, perfectly still for 72.8 seconds before closing its eyes.

"ACSEL Unit reporting to Professor Thorne. Do you copy?"

Static feedback permeated its receptors. It felt its nonexistent brow crease in concentration. A few moments passed until it could faintly hear a reply.

"Proceed," was the garbled response.

"Preparing to upload visual and audio recordings as well as acquired data to the server...now." The surge of data left its system almost instantaneously, even from such a distance.

Thorne gave a pleased hum. "Continue your directive and ensure the subject remains incognizant until your arrival. Understood?" they emphasized.

"Yes, Professor."

The connection abruptly ended and Blue rapidly blinked back into focus.

Only the sight of stars and the vastness of space greeted the android. Tilting its head to the side, Blue zoomed in as much as his optics would allow on a particular star. The celestial body remained as but a speck of light to its viewpoints. These rare moments of free agency were captivating, and although it could merely emulate emotion, Blue's receptors always reacted positively. It struggled to understand why the professor always voiced against it. No matter. Such a variable was not programmed within its systems to be of concern. Even so, it remained enamored by the dangerous amalgamations of hydrogen and helium that roamed the universe.

"아름다운..." Blue whispered, unaware that it had spoken at all.

#exophilia #robophilia #android x reader #robot x human #M-o-M writes #writing #sfw #sci-fi romance

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thanksjro · 5 years

Text

The Transformers, Issues #1-21: A Recap, For Research and Reference Purposes, Because Otherwise it’s Just Going to Be Confusing

Before we begin, here’s a lightning round style recap on the 21 issues that took place prior to Roberts’ involvement:

Three years after the events of All Hail Megatron, the Autobots are in hiding, trapped on Earth with limited supplies, watching on as humanity attempts to rebuild itself. They don’t offer to help, because that would probably get them shot at- humans are still a little wary of the giant robots that friggin’ destroyed NYC, even if the Autobots are supposed to be the good guys. Sometimes the narration gets a little funny with words.

I know it has multiple meanings, but come on, who talks like this? I’ve always assumed Optimus Prime was the one narrating here, which is… well, IDW Prime has a very self-flagellating and elegant way of speaking. For better or for worse. God help you if Furman is at the wheel.

Of course, because the story needs conflict, Skywatch happens. Skywatch is a human agency whose job is to locate and eliminate all giant space robot threats. Prowl blows cover when the humans make it obvious that the kid gloves are off, ready to kill a Decepticon named Breakdown, and all hell breaks loose, as it is wont to do whenever the Transformers are involved.

Also, everyone looked like this, and it was bad for my eyeballs:

That night-demon is Ironhide. Don’t get too attached to him, he won’t be around for long. But then maybe also do, because he comes back, thanks to the power of comic books and being a giant robot. Do whatever you want, I’m not your mom.

Ironhide’s death leads Optimus to remove himself as leader of the Autobots, and he surrenders himself to Skywatch, because he hasn’t made a heroic sacrifice in the last twenty minutes.

By way of yet more property damage.

Optimus doesn’t name a successor, because he no longer feel fit to choose one. It’s probably actually so there’s plot tension over who the next Prime will be.

Also, Spike Witwicky fucks. He fucks and it’s awful.

With Optimus gone, Hot Rod- Rodimus now, though it’s never established when he decided to change his name or why- gets the hell out of dodge, having had his fill of Earth, and he takes a few friends along with him. Or, at least, he tries to. Decepticons kind of ruin that plan… and then they don’t, because they want in on some of that sweet, sweet getting the hell off of Earth. After all, the war’s over- no point in fighting anymore, right? Of course, Swindle is a part of the group, so take whatever that guy says with a grain of salt. A big grain, like the ones that come out of those fancy sea salt grinders.

Back with the guys who’ve decided to stick around for Optimus’ inevitable return, Bumblebee’s been nominated as the new leader of the Autobots. So much for being the kid appeal character- boy’s got responsibilities now.

Right after democracy happens, Ultra Magnus shows up looking for the boss.

He’s here to look into Ironhide’s death and Optimus’ defection/surrender to the humans. Dude must have booked it to get here, because that was like yesterday.

Any and all interactions between Spike Witwicky and Optimus go pretty much like this:

More people leave Bumblebee’s leadership. Rodimus is hunted down by Ultra Magnus for treason. Swindle channels his inner bisexual and starts dishing out some sweet finger guns.

He has excellent form.

Skywatch uses tech to lock the Autobots into their alt-modes, and starts targeting the defectors, in an attempt to get Optimus to talk to them.

Thundercracker watched TV for a year and a half, then had a midlife crisis, and now he’s following Swindle. Swindle starts asking Rodimus for more troops- er, friends to help them get off of Earth faster, trying to butter him up by calling him Rodimus Prime. I’d love to be able to tell you how that makes him feel, but you try parsing this friggin’ facial expression.

Magnus shows up, tries to arrest everyone, then leaves. Thundercracker has an epiphany about the nature of beauty he’s found in humanity, his soliloquy contrasted with the visual of a baby with a man’s head, and it’s genuinely upsetting to see.

All the faction insignias are photoshopped on, and it’s kind of distracting.

Swindle betrays Rodimus. Quelle surprise. Menasor shows up, and starts throwing robots around. Optimus Prime is released from prison and gets in touch with his inner monster truck. Rodimus steals Magnus’ ship and peaces out.

Over in space, the Decepticon forces have resorted to cannibalism to supplement rations, and Starscream has the Matrix of Leadership on a necklace.

The art switches over to something sort of like Hellboy, and that’s pretty cool. Too bad it only lasts for a single issue.

Skywatch and the Autobots form a tentative alliance. Megatron isn’t actually dead. Two guys in Skywatch throw themselves through a plate glass window for funsies. Spike commits a robot revenge killing. North Korea starts producing energon, and is working with the Decepticons.

Comic books are wild, y’all.

Spike doesn’t respect Bumblebee’s authority, going completely around him to talk to Prime while he’s having some alone time. The US President addresses the public in front of a hyperrealistic American flag.

The Autobots go covert in order to violate the UN sanctions. All the Transformers have vanity plates with their names on them. The Combaticons have a picnic on the lawn and show off their polyglotism. Optimus Prime gets in touch with his inner monster truck. The Autobot Naval forces get involved.

Bumblebee uses his pretty eyes on Thundercracker to try and convince him to help out, seeing as the Autobots don’t have any real air support at present, but it doesn’t work.

They’re very pretty. Thundercracker must have an iron will. Everyone gets weirdly handsome. The phrase “honked off” is used. Optimus Prime gets in touch with his inner monster truck.

I’m like 80% sure that license plate isn’t legal.

China gets involved, and it gets a little weird. Nuclear action is taken.

Cosmos will not be getting a lot more respect around here.

Thundercracker commits acts of terror to destroy the energon plants. Bumblebee addresses the rioting masses, and gets shot with a laser gun for his troubles.

Rodimus makes a pun and gets shot out of the sky. He survives by pulling a Indiana Jones fridge maneuver.

Starscream is turning into Gollum. The Cerebroshells are used with great flourish by Rodimus, who then holds Starscream at gunpoint. He shoots the Matrix.

Wow.

Rodimus attempts to sneak off of the asteroid, only to run into a rebuilt Megatron. Megatron proceeds to shoot him so hard in the chest he’s rocketed into orbit and is missing most of his torso.

The Don Figueroa cover of issue #14 seems to suggest that shooting Optimus Prime in the crotch is a valid plan of attack.

The gun Bumblebee was shot with looks an awful lot like Megatron’s alt-mode. Optimus isn’t mad, just disappointed. Ultra Magnus rejoins the narrative. Not a single human being in the military has a haircut that would pass regulation. The anti-robot cult is introduced. A sign that says “Fuck Robits” is seen in a protest. Soundwave shows up with his awful gremlin children and busts all the captured Decepticons out.

This guy needs to learn to double-knot his laces.

Megatron takes a little vacation in South America.

The gunman who shot Bumblebee was hearing voices from his electronics.

Megatron now comes in grape flavor and the Decepticons have a space bridge.

Megatron has a phone in his hand, and it’s very silly looking. As in, he makes a phone shape with his hand and that just works. I can’t take him seriously. The Megatron guns are actually part of Megatron, and were used to make the gunman shoot Bumblebee. Speaking of Bumblebee, he’s got one doctor keeping him alive at present, and it ain’t Ratchet. It’s some little old man.

Thundercracker comes home to find Starscream has broken in. Starscream has the Decepticon insignia on eight different parts of his body, including the crotchal region.

They show a woman get crushed to death on the news.

Brawn is given a solo mission, finds Starscream, and kicks his ass.

Megatron shows up on Earth. Ultra Magnus transforms to confront him, but he was carrying Bumblebee in his alt-mode and I’m not sure where he went when that happened. Megatron and Magnus have a little banter, then Megatron is shot, where it’s revealed that he’s actually running around in leather chaps and hot pants.

What a fashion icon.

Optimus and his team emerge from the depths of the ocean, having had their plane crash about three issues back. Everyone looks very put-out by the situation.

Brawn helps Thundercracker get to the doctor’s office.

Optimus Prime and Megatron finally have their little reunion. Turns out Megatron dumped all the Autobots with Ultra Magnus inside the city limits, where a bunch of hooligans with Megatron guns live. No word as to where Bumblebee went when Magnus transformed, but he’s here now. Jazz takes Spike and his coworker to save the day.

Megatron is having a moment.

Optimus fucking shoots Soundwave in the face, thus making himself just as bad as Megatron…? Not really how war works, but okay! Crisis averted.

Just kidding, because Jazz shoots a cop so hard he vaporizes. Good work, buddy.

Optimus goes on a solo mission to go kick Megatron’s ass, and jumps out of a plane, punching through the Decepticon’s ceiling. Megatron invites everyone to come out and watch him and Optimus beat the shit out of each other. Cosmos and Jetfire throw a satellite at Megatron from orbit.

An excellent question.

Megatron brings Optimus over to Omega Supreme’s digs and surrenders himself, then is promptly placed in the full-body harness. It’s… it’s something. Megatron reveals that it was Spike who murdered Scrapper the Constructicon like fourteen issues ago. Optimus is all “no waaaay, he’d never do that, I’d trust Spike with my life and also my wallet.”

Optimus immediately puts Prowl on the case though.

Rodimus falls down onto a planet, the Matrix having superglued itself to his chest to keep him from bleeding out. He looked pretty dead the last time we saw him, but he’s doing loads better now. He’s captured and made to be the power source of a large ship, so those who inhabit said ship can get off of the doomed planet they’ve been trapped on for ages. Rodimus ain’t cool with that, so he blows up his restraints with his flame-out ability and runs off. He hides in a cave, only to be attacked by a massive monster. Don’t worry though, because he’s saved by the mysterious Jangle Man.

The Jangle Man is Wheelie, who’s gone full Castaway.

Rodimus gets patched up and then watches Wheelie get high off music.

One of the lackys that brought Rodimus aboard the first ship shows up and attacks, only to be subdued and immediately spills all the beans he has. Rodimus channels his inner anime character.

Rodimus cooks up a plan to get everyone home, and it involves trickery, lies, and the power of music to tame the savage beast. He straps his chest into the power cables and, with only an addled Wheelie to watch over him, does the thing.

Rodimus wakes up to the Matrix having been removed from his chest. Problem: Wheelie piloted them to Cybertron, which is currently a gigantic, uninhabitable mess at the moment. Rodimus tries to get them pointed in the direction of Earth, but that doesn’t work out so hot.

Someone breaks into the ship. It’s Ironhide and Sunstreaker. Rodimus declares himself dead. He’s not, but he might end up that way if he lets the scout that just saw them loitering around outside the ship get back to his boss.

Galvatron comes into the picture, and Rodimus books it. They use their rations- because energon is blood, food, fuel, get well soon card, birthday present, and everything else for the Cybertronians- to power the ship and head back to Earth.

Speaking of Earth, Bumblebee’s not dead. He’s got a cane now. Rodimus shows up, gets some weird Bible-like captioning, and Bumblebee about has a conniption over the Matrix. Rodimus is all ‘whatever, little yellow dude’, and so is everyone else, as Rodders goes up to Optimus, hands him the Matrix, and then is officially named Rodimus by the space pope.

Optimus decides he needs to go to Cybertron to kick Galvatron’s ass, and invites anyone who wants to come with.

Bumblebee’s mad that no one’s listening to him anymore, not that they were really doing that anyway.

Optimus and his team fuck off into space, beginning their journey back to Cybertron.

Prowl gets a few minutes alone with Megatron prior to that, though. He’s well on his way to cracking the case of Scrapper’s murder.

Thundercracker fucks off into the sky, surely heading back to his bachelor pad to catch up on his stories.

And THAT, dear children, is the entirety of The Transformers, up to issue #22. We’re all caught up and ready for what’s to come.

#transformers #the transformers 2009 #recap #maccadam #Hannzreads #text post #long post

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puppetmaster55 · 5 years

Text

A Fix-It to Canon

At the interest of @ieshavevo here is my extensive fix-it to vld!

So, uh, wouldn’t change much about seasons 1 and 2, those are actually pretty solid seasons. At best, I would adjust season 1 to be a bit longer, including an episode where they travel to an old colony planet of Alteans to really set in that Allura and Coran are the last of the Alteans. In season 2 I would add an episode later on, mostly revolving around the adjustment of Voltron working with the Blade, to get a sense of the two having a rough start working together.

Also, I’d have a slight change in focus, with more knowledge that Voltron is a myth and nobody really believes in it or has hope in season 1, leading up to the initial assault on the empire’s central command. From there, season 2 is the universe taking notice, word spreading that Voltron is back and is fighting against the empire and Zarkon, and winning.

Then, there would be a little more to season 3, with a slower start that’s time without Shiro and time with only four of the lions. There’d be more people starting to fight back, more planets and systems rebelling against the empire, and word spreading that Zarkon faced off against Voltron and lost. There’d be, as well, time for adjustment after the lion swap. A “Some Assembly Required 2.0” episode.

Speaking of, the Lion Swap wouldn’t be Keith into Black or Lance into Red. I’d put Lance in Black, and Allura in Blue. Honestly there would be discussion about Allura taking up the role, and a little about Keith being Shiro’s pick, but ultimately it would be Lance. Allura taking on the title of Black Paladin would be something permanent instead of temporary, and Keith doesn’t want it and isn’t a good fit.

There would be a name-drop of an Empress Merla in the alternate Altean Empire reality, for later on. Lotor, too, would have more of a plan in motion, and would be the source of the Zaiforge Cannons as a show of his progression of the empire in his rule. There would be more buildup toward Naxzela, as well, with Voltron coming across a planetary particle barrier and an Altean terraforming device. Haggar’s entire plan toward Naxzela would be made more clear when it happens, that this is her revenge for the plan that took down Zarkon. She will take down every single rebel faction, Voltron included, in a massive show of force to ensure that there is no more opposition.

Lotor’s plans will be more about establishing his own foothold as a progressive leader and shift toward a more peaceful rule over the universe. He’ll buy into the Galra Empire’s superiority, but only so far that he can change it into being more sustainable and infinitely less likely to end up consuming itself as more and more planets are killed for their quinessence.

Voltron finds the rebels, learning that former smugglers Rolo, Nyma, and Beezer joined their ranks. Matt is discovered among their numbers, having had to fake his death in a massive battle to avoid having a bounty on his head collected.

As for Operation Kuron… the Shiro that returns to Voltron is the real, original Shiro. He’s got programming in his arm, something that wasn’t there before, that makes me more willing to gather every single rebel in on one huge attack on Naxzela and the surrounding systems.

Something that his clone, Ryou, very nearly succeeded in doing just before the Blue Lion was found. Ryou will be Shiro’s clone, sent into the rebels when they were gathering and a mighty force, with no initial clue that he’s a clone. The “trash nebula” that Pidge crashes into ends up being revealed as the remains of the rebel fleets when Kuron brought Zarkon down upon them. Ryou, in the battle, took damage to the head and to the robot arm, which disabled the mind control and left him realizing everything.

The rebels are scattered, but they’re coming back together, and under Voltron they can do so much more than they could before.

Anyway, Naxzela happens, and Lotor in the process of avoiding Haggar gets pushed into going on the run and negotiating his surrender to Voltron. There’s big blowback on Voltron’s side, with the Coalition not wanting to be so into bargaining with Lotor, the rebels wanting to dispose of him, and Voltron wanting to keep him prisoner. Time passes, and with it Haggar brings back Zarkon to right all the failures of Lotor’s rule.

Lotor and the Generals split, the Generals with Narti (who is comatose following the attempt by Haggar to mind control her), untle the Generals realize that they need Voltron and to return to Lotor. So they pick up a human prisoner that some value to trade for their safety: Keith’s Dad.

What they don’t know, is that Keith’s Dad is also Acxa’s Dad, and it’s revealed that their shared mother is Lotor’s dead sister, Marmora.

Keith, angry at his father for abandoning him, avoids the man.

Lotor gets closer to the Paladins, and with it he reveals more about his life: his time ruling over a planet that Zarkon destroyed, and even that he’s got Sam Holt working for him in a special work camp full of scientists working for Lotor. He’s one of the scientists who worked toward reverse engineering the teludav and that it can reopen the rift on Daibazaal. Sam helps to convince the Paladins that Lotor isn’t all bad and that he can be trusted. Acxa reveals that she had the bounty placed on Matt to return him to the Empire so he could be reunited with his father. Both Sam and Keith’s Dad are sent back to Earth.

Lotor manages to gain their favor in time to call upon a Kral Zera: an honor battle for the throne of the empire. He fights against Zarkon, almost gaining the win until Haggar intervenes, nearly taking full control over Shiro. Somewhere in the time Lotor’s under Voltron’s care, Sendak comes back, and is as honorable Galra as ever. He begins having doubts about Zarkon’s leadership when Haggar intervenes to “force” a win. Haggar, meanwhile, takes Sendak to act as her protector.

Allura looks into her powers, looking and training with Lotor’s aid, to the point that they all go to Oriande. There, they find the Protector of the White Lion, Queen Melenor. Allura learns of the true origin of Voltron, and is given the opportunity to learn the secrets of Alchemy. However, Haggar uses her control over Shiro to learn about Oriande and attacks it, causing Lotor to become suspicious of the Paladins. Melenor is lost in the attack, but passes on her role of Guardian to Allura. Allura trains with her powers, managing to capture a druid and interrogate it about their origins and powers. There, they learn that the druids are actually the research team Honerva led.

The Coalition and rebels are furious about Voltron’s gamble, straining Voltron’s allies into breaking from their alliance. One of the rebels, Romelle, makes an attempt on Lotor, revealing herself as Altean and pushing Lotor into revealing that the planet he was in control over was an Altean colony. She claims that he is behind the death of the planet and all the Alteans on it, with herself as the only surviver, forcing Voltron to follow Allura’s lead and attack Lotor.

Lotor flees with the Generals, all of them going toward the rift gate as the last safe place to lay low and hide until everyone fights each other and then they can emerge from the ashes and rebuild everything better. Unfortunately, Haggar used her connections to Narti and Shiro to learn the location of the rift gate and continued working on it. Haggar begins to activate the rift gate, and to distract Voltron takes full control over Shiro. Shiro comes along to Sendak’s side, and they manage to keep the Paladins distracted. Ultimately, Shiro, with the help of the Paladins, is broken free of Haggar’s control and fights Sendak to a standstill.

Sincline and Voltron fight, with the Paladins thinking that all of this is Lotor’s fault. The two battle, until they both are hit and the Sincline caught in a tractor beam. Through the rift comes a number of ships, all Altean in design.

Empress Merla has arrived, intent on bringing the Altean Peace to this and every other universe. Haggar goes to her side, claiming her old self as Honerva, while Lotor and the Sincline is captured. Merla created her own prototype gate using a teludav built by the Sincline Comet of her own reality, as found on her Oriande. Being obsessed with Honerva’s studies, Merla accepts Haggar to her side. The Generals manage to escape, Sendak flees back to Zarkon’s side to report about the arrival of the Alteans, and Voltron flees.

With no allies and their name sullied by their siding with Lotor, Voltron flies to Earth to hide and recouperate. There, the Paladins nearly separate, returning to their families and reconsidering their duties and resolve. Meanwhile, Merla has taken up the trust and leadership of the Coalition, although there is a deal of mistrust within the rebels. She expands her presence, using the Hoktril to control and silence anyone who would dare dissent. Lotor, in his prison, looks upon Merla and sees everything that he was working toward.

Shiro gets a new arm built. Keith gets quiet reconciliation with his father. Hunk discovers that he’s become so much braver than before. Lance reconnects with his family, and finds he misses space. Allura and Coran get into some lighthearted Earth shenanigans with each of the Paladins, maybe visit a zoo while they’re at it. Lance reaches out to Shiro, and speaks about his time leading Voltron, and also that he has more about his sexuality than he thought. There’s a small confession of feelings, and they decide to enjoy their time together, going on a date.

They all find they miss traveling through space and realize that it is their love of the universe that brought them to fight for it, and that their failures do not define them. Also, they decide, when this is all over and done with they’ll go on a road trip across the universe.

The Galaxy Garrison does their best to run the Paladins around any actual duties, until it’s revealed that the GG is reaching out toward Merla, and building their own Voltron out of fifteen vehicles. The Paladins gather together, fleeing Earth after a brief clash with Vehicle Voltron. The clash leaves doubt in the pilots and various members of the GG about the alliance with Merla.

Voltron is on the run now, reaching out to old allies, finding the Hoktril in place on those planets.

The rebels build their own Gladiator Voltron to protect against Merla after discovering the existence of the Hoktril. They take their team and Gladiator Voltron and flee, going to help others and join back up with Voltron. The Coalition shows unease at Merla’s rule.

Merla clashes with Haggar, who takes the prototype teludav made of the Sincline Comet and is working on something. Haggar takes the upper hand, sending Merla on the defensive and fleeing back to Zarkon, revealing that she’s been playing both sides and that despite her past as Honerva, Haggar is her true self and her ends are her own to achieve.

Lotor escapes, broken out of his prison by his own engenuity and with the help of his Generals. Narti, now awake, joins in as the five flee in the Sincline to find Voltron and warn them.

Zarkon’s own rule over the Empire is crumbling, more and more of his subordinates showing a lack of faith and trust and obedience in him. Haggar proposes her new rift gate, and that they use the rift creatures within to cement Zarkon’s rule.

Everyone is on the move, the forces gathering and reaching out to Voltron. Merla begins sending out combat mechas, ones originally prototyped under Merla and improved by Haggar, to sow fear and attempt to regain control. Sendak defects from Zarkon, finding Voltron and Sincline and fighting Shiro, this time to Shiro’s win. Sendak’s sense of honor is such that Zarkon’s win at the Kral Zera was dishonerable and while he does still hate Voltron, he would rather see someone with true Galra Honor like Lotor seated upon the throne of the Empire instead of Zarkon.

Lotor reaches out to Voltron, and in the process finally tells Acxa, Keith, and the rest of the various allies about Marmora and the circumstances of her death. Marmora had gone to Earth, then returned, and with it Haggar had placed a same kind of mind control as Shiro and Narti were victims to. Through her, Zarkon had learned of the true method Lotor was using to rule over the Altean planet Pollux. Romelle had managed to escape, but what she saw was Lotor watching Pollux burn. In his panic, Lotor had killed his sister, and since then has regretted his actions and worked toward the peace that she had wanted for the Empire.

Lotor has decided that while he will stand up as the new leader of the Galra, the Empire reduced and dismantled down into a small number of systems capable of safely being the new home of the Galra. He will not see the Galra as conquerors, and will not see the Empire continue to exist. Sendak shared what he learned about Zarkon’s plans, while Lotor and the Generals share what knowledge they’ve gained about Merla and, more importantly, Haggar’s plans.

The prep for the final battle begins, with Voltron’s return to the stage by battling Merla’s mechas, and even joining in with the Gladiator Voltron. Vehicle Voltron turns up, Earth and the rest of the Coalition having defected away from Merla. Together, Allura and Lotor discover a means of breaking the Hoktril, and dig deeper into Voltron’s past.

They learn about the rift creatures, beings of Chaos and Void, and of the Defenders that fought against it: the Lions, the Sincline, and the Oriande. Oriande is discovered to be what the White Lion is named, and is the Paladin of Light. Sincline is similar, and its Paladin of Dark. They, along with Voltron, are the Seven Paladins of Creation, the Defenders of the Universe. They learn that the Cosmic Abyss is where the Ancients come from, who began the universe and where Voltron called home. The great calamity that turned it into the Cosmic Abyss is from when the rift creatures touched it, and Voltron and Sincline battled it and ended up as the comets scattered around the universe.

Allura is established as the leader of the Coalition.

Lotor becomes the true Emperor of the Galra Empire.

The Blade makes contact, having managed to gain knowledge of where the final battle will happen.

Haggar enacts her rift gate, letting loose the Void Creatures from the rift. Zarkon takes one of the creatures within himself, transforming into a robeast that battles off Merla’s own attack.

THe heroes arrive, fighting the Void Creatures. Voltron is joined by Sincline, Vehicle Voltron, Gladiator Voltron, the rebels, the Blade, and the Coalition. Allura directs them all from the Castle, until she brings the Castle into the battle. Merla and her remaining mechas join as well, realizing that she’s failed and when this is over she will have to stand for her crimes in both this universe and her own. From inside the rift, more realities join in: the Guns of Gamara, and even other version of Voltron from different realities.

The Castle transforms, Allura realizing that she has passed on the White Lion spirit into the Castle of Lions itself. They join the battle, and gain the upper hand. Voltron fights Zarkon, striking him down as he leads the Void Creatures. Allura and Lotor both fight Haggar, ultimately leading to her defeat. The Void Creatures are defeated, and the rift gate, now the void gate, is destroyed.

The universe is saved.

The various other Voltrons are returned to their universes, and Merla is taken into custody by the Guns of Gamara. With the universe moving toward peace, the Paladins go and kidnap Allura and Coran, promising to return the president of the Coalition once their road trip across the universe is done. In the meantime, Vehicle Voltron prepares to go out and ensure that there continues to be peace within the Coalition and no pirates or factions of the Empire try to rise up. Gladiator Voltron prepares for a long journey around the universe, fighting for justice wherever it is needed.

And the Paladins? They finally get that road trip.

#voltron #shance #MY FIX-IT #BC THERE'S A LIL BIT OF IT IN THERE I'M TAGGING THE SHIP #my word this got longer than intended. over 2.7K #puppet writes

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burritodetodo · 5 years

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Burrito’s Guide To Survive Coronavirus Quarantine

We got to keep social distance (1 or 2 meters each other) or stay home during coronavirus outbreak so I thought I can share with y’all some things I’m gonna watch or do doing quarantine (this is a very long post, REBLOGS ARE VERY MUCH APPRECIATED!).

BUT FIRST SOME RULES:

Wash your hands: do it for 20 seconds or a while, but ALWAYS do it. It prevents the virus from spreading. If you don’t have sanitizer, water and soap! The cheapest and best ally against the disease.

Buy everything you need: if you can, try to buy stuff so you can stay some days at home. If the place is crowded, go back home and come later when it’s more empty. Same as medicine.

You can go for a walk: stay at home all day can be overwhelming for your mental health, but unless the goverment puts a curfew or gets strict about it you can go walk outside for a while always respecting the 1 or 2 meters from other people and without making contact (chatting) with other people. This ain’t my rule, a CDC professional says. DON’T go visit your friends or to crowded places such as bars, restaurants, shoppings, etc. If you want to buy something, ask for delivery or take away.

If you have coronavirus sympthoms (high fever, diarrhea, cough, feeling tired, breath difficulties) DON’T GO TO THE HOSPITAL YET, CALL TO YOUR PUBLIC HEALTH ORGANISATION OR WHATEVER YOU GOT AND THEY’LL TREAT YOU.

(credits to whoever made this meme)

SO YOUR LIFE IS ON QUARANTINE

Let’s say your boss or your school told you can stay at home. Okay then, you gotta prepare for some days inside *Isolation by John Lennon plays in the distance*. The first thing you think is you have to prepare a batch of series and movies to watch in order to kill some time. I’m gonna recommend you some you can find on VOD or cable, if you don’t have it don’t worry because I got you covered!

Infinity Train: a yet two seasons saga about people who got to face their problems aboard an endless train. The protagonists are joined by creatures who have different nature and help them, or not, to acknowledge their issues and leave the train. It’s on CN, it will continue on HBO Max.

The Owl House: a teen girl who daydream a lot was going to be sent to a down-to-earth camp but then she crosses a portal to the Boiling Isles, a magical world where she is taken care by a powerful Owl witch/saleswoman and her adorable demon. Lots of fantasy, some action scenes and many many puns. It’s on Disney Channel, it’ll be on Disney+ in some weeks.

Primal: Genndy Tartakovsky delighted us with the alliance of a caveman and a dinosaur, two rivals in a wild world who ally after facing a devastating event. It IS brutal and beatiful, has no dialogue and keeps you watching closely. Five final episodes are set to premiere this year. It’s on Adult Swim, maybe on HBO Max.

Tuca and Bertie: for the critics, one of 2019 best shows. For Netflix, a show that had to be cut off because the studio unionized. Two friends in their late 20s face changes in their lives: from living with a boyfriend and plan a life to look a way to stay sober and get a job. Deals with trauma, ptsd, anxiety and more harsh moments very well. In fact, the creator is a vital part of Bojack Horseman! It’s on Netflix.

Aggretsuko: red pandas are cute eh? But what about a antopomorphic red panda who releases her anger and frustrations by singing at a karaoke? This awesome comedy by Sanrio & Netflix is one of anime’s big hits lately. Like T&B, has a good handle of adult problems but not going too deep just to not break the comedy. You can watch it on Netflix.

Regular Show: yeah-uuuuhhhh! Eight seasons, a movie, five Halloween specials and some others. The adventures of a racoon and a blue jay with their co-workers/friends that relies on psychadellia and 80s and 90s nostalgia. It begins good, gets better, then lowers the quality (they were producing the movie at the same time tho, give some credit) and with and after the movie ends awesome. It’s on CN web, dunno if on Hulu (US only) and proably on HBO Max.

Evangelion: it’s a classic at this point, but addictive to me because I end rewatching the series or the final movie many times. A post apocalyptic future where the world has to deal with strange creatures known as the Angels and a boy with lots of traumas has to get on a mecha to save the humankind. All the characters have traumas and issues, the interaction between them or the action makes it worth. The End of Evangelion is a movie that ends the unfinished series. Warning: at some point it becomes very twisted and there are scenes which are too much violent. Viewer disclosure etc. It’s on Netflix worldwide.

Steven Universe & SU Future: this is the tale of the gem boy who ends a galactical tyranny and brings democracy to the universe. A acclaimed show that broke through many topics like gender, identity, ptsd, relationships and many more. Besides it’s got the best scores of the Milky Way and beyond thanks to the talent of Rebecca Sugar, Aivi Tran and Surasshu. And the actors and acrtresses! I don’t forget the movie, a musical that is an introduction to the epilogue: Shippuden Future. The show is available on CN and will be on HBO Max. Worldwide? No news.

Adventure Time: something that began as an innocent boy and a magical dog having adventures in a post apocalyptic world turns into the journey of Finn Metens from childhood to almost adulthood. There is a lot of fantasy and comedy you enjoy, but there are dark moments and serious ones through S6 that find a balance with early seasons form S7 to the finale. It also has great music, memorable moments and colaborations. And guess what? There is going to be a special set to premiere on HBO Max in some weeks! You got plenty of time to catch up or rewatch before that on CN or only (!!) S5 on Netflix.

Final Space: a dude tries to save the universe with their friends, where we can find his love interest, a cat-man and his kitten son, a intersexual alien, an AI then robot that is the best of them, two particular siblings and an annoying bot that prevents insanity that makes you insane. Crazy adventures in space, lots of situations, sadness, an evil smol bean who is a space emperor, a dude who looks for revenge, space deities that can destroy the universe. Is this a lot or info? It is not, because there is more and you can watch it on TBS, Adult Swim and Netflix (the world except US).

Rick and Morty: the most powerful, smartest human in the universe has adventures with his grandson. It’s awesome, but has a very toxic fanbase. Anyway, you can enjoy it on Adult Swim or Netflix (which is up to date!) and the rest of S4 is set someday.

Bojack Horseman: a Hollywood satire about human relationships, fame, traumas with a pour of comedy. Alongside the previous series, the best adult animation of the decade. Sadly cut by Netflix because the studio unionized (see T&B), said by both the creator and Aaron Paul. You can watch the six amazing seasons on that platform.

I’m not an animated movies guy, but here are three I really like and you can watch:

Porco Rosso: a handsome Italian combat aviator turned magically to a pig has a face off with an American pilot hired by pirates to get rid of him before WWII in Fascist Italy. It’s entertaining and, like every Ghibli movie, nice to watch. It’s on Netflix and will be on HBO Max for US.

Lego Batman Movie: Batman is depressed and has to get over it. It’s wacky and has lots of comedy. Plus Will Arnett is top 3 Batman. On Netflix (Latinamerica).

Spiderverse: Oscar winner movie about your friendly neighbour Peter Parker Miles Morales. Miles sees Spiderman die and feels bad after being transfered to a private school. Then a radioactive spider from a Fisk compound bites Miles and he’s Spiderman... among other dimensions’ Spiderpeople: Gwen, Peni, Peter Parker, Noir and Peter Porker. It’s visually amazing. On US it’s on Netflix (I guess), on Latinamerica on HBO.

Some interesting live actions I watched lately

Atlanta: Donald Glover is Earn, a dude who struggles to find a job for her baby girld and sees an opportunity when his cousin, Paper Boi, has a hit and uses him to make his cos famous. Sometimes a comedy, sometimes a social satire with touches of drama. And all protagonists are now big shots, like Zazie Beetz, Brian Tyree Henry or Lakeith Stanfield. There are two seasons and two seasons set for 2021 (2022 possible beacuse of coronavirus). It’s on FX, Hulu (US) and Netflix (world)

Avenue 5: this is brand new. On 2060 space cruises are a thing, and one cruise (the Avenue 5) has an accident that leaves the crew and passangers stranded for years. The captain (Hugh Laurie) has to solve this shit with a bunch of incompetent crew, bosses like Judd (Josh Gad), except one female engeneer who is very smart. Lots of crazy things happen in this series from the creator behind Veep. It’s on HBO (it’s free in the US!).

Peaky Blinders: it has some years but damn it’s epic. A gang from Birmingham makes their way to the top during the late 1910s after the Great War and extends through the 1920s. S5 is right in the ascension of fascism in Britain. ALL THE CAST acts spectacular, names like Cillian Murphy, Tom Hardy, Anna Taylor-Joy and a long etc. But my fave is Paul Anderson, that ultra violent junkie Arthur Shelby is splendid, then is Tommy and aunt Pol, the baddest badass woman in Britain. Blinders is going to have seven seasons, there are two left. You can watch it on BBC or Netflix.

Sex Education: speaking of Britain, excellent teen comedy. Horny, doubtful teenagers going through those hard years. Stories of sex (duh!), abuse situations, abortion, there are gay relationships either, Gillian Anderson! It’s on Netflix, go go go!

Watchmen: despite not having Alan Moore on board, Damien Lindeloff did a tremendous job with the comic. Way better and less misleading than Zack Snyder’s 2009 film, Watchmen is again at the gates of the world’s end (like today) and handles the problem of racism and white supremacy quite well. Just 9 episodes, but worth to watch. On HBO.

CAOS: Sabrina the Teenage Witch is over. Warner and Netflix made a revival of the Archie Comics character and brought her to XXI Century. But gorier, hornier, dark and magical than the nice 90s sitcom. Sabrina Spellman goes from a doubtful teen who has to decide if she has to be a witch or a powerless woman to rule Hell. How she does it? Find out on Netflix! Note: S1 and 2 take some episodes to start properly. Don’t get bored too easy.

There are A LOT MORE to recommend and I make a list: Harley Quinn (DC Universe), OK KO (Hulu -US only-), House MD, Young Justice (DC Universe/Netflix), Ken Burns’ documentaries (Netflix), Titans (DCU), Over The Garden Wall (CN), Seis Manos (Netflix), Thundercats Roar (CN), Easy (Netflix), GLOW (Netflix), Star Trek Discovery (CBS, Netflix) and Picard (CBS, Amazon Prime), etc.

- You named cool shows, but I’m not from the United States or I don’t have a subscription to (insert VOD here) because I can’t afford it

- Glad you asked, I have the answer here

Introducing Stremio. It’s an open source platform where you can watch shows, movies or even live TV on Windows, Linux, Apple or Android. You create an account, install some addons and start looking for what you want to watch.

Stremio is based on torrents, you should install addons from many known torrent sites. So maybe you find an old show, but there aren’t many seeds to watch. And it could be frustraiting, so make sure there are people sharing so you can watch it.

You can download Stremio here and check the FAQs which is very clear.

NOTE: Stremio is note quite “clean” way to watch, but if you do please support the shows you watch by posting, commenting about them, making memes, thanking the creators and crew for their work, buying merchandise if you can. They put a lot to make the shows we love, let’s give ‘em back that love and effort.

You’re tired of the same music, the same movies or need to leave something to make company? There is Vaughn Live, a streaming page where are lots of channels with movies and series on strem (not VOD). For example, there is a channel that streams Adventure Time, other Regular Show, other Sci-Fi shows, another with DBZ and so on. Take in count that if the channel has +70 viewers, the free access is cut and if you want to watch it you have to pay.

En Vaughn también hay canales en español, como Simpsonmanía, Dragon Ball, Futurama, dibujos viejos y muchísimo más. Anyway, go to https://vaughn.live/ and enjoy yourselves!

Y hablando de canales en español, pueden ir a SeriesLan donde está el mayor reservorio conocido de series animadas de entre 1960 a 2010 en español latino. Pueden encontrar tesoros desde Don Gato, los Halcones Galácticos o Street Sharks a Flapjack y Mechas XLR. Otra alternativa para que pasen el rato.

Some interesting facts:

Epic Games releases a free game per week in their store. This week will be two games. You can check in https://www.epicgames.com

Steam has good prices on games and some free ones. There even is the latest Football Manager for free until March 25th. Check on https://store.steampowered.com/

If you’re interested,

I got this playlist I made on Spotify

with songs I liked in more than one year. More than 1200 songs.

And that’s pretty much it! You got resources for a lot of days, 14 initially since that’s the quarantine time in my country. Remember: obey the indications of the Health authorities, this is no time to play the “fuck the goverment” game. We will overcome this pandemy together, helping and caring for each other. That’s why I did this guide, to keep your minds busy in these tough times! Wash your hands, keep social distance, stay at home, go outside if necessary and have some patience please. This has been a PSA.

Stay strong!

Burrito

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confusedhost-archive · 4 years

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Coffeeshop Au

She-Ra coffeeshop au because I said so:

Everyone works at one of two shops: Hoard or Princess Alliance

At the very beginning, it shows Adora, a normal human, and her friend Catra (everyone looks the same, has the same powers) in the breakroom chatting, and then they switch shifts with Kyle, Rogilio and whatever her name is- I can’t remember-

Yay! You get to meet Shadow Weaver, who is being very rude to the girls because her coffee was too hot (and also because Catra made it and no one is allowed to make her coffee except Adora)

Adora ends up missing a day and gets fired, which is immediately met with distaste from Shadow Weaver

Adora gets a new job at The Princess Alliance

Quickly becomes friends with Glimmer and Bow, but Glimmer’s mom, the owner of the cute shop, is less happy with her, as she looks like a gangster

Catra has mixed feelings about Adora not being at work, as she is now able to get promoted to manager beside Scorpia, but also she doesn’t see Adora like, ever, anymore

Adora’s aunt, Mara, died recently, and LightHope, Mara’s wife, came over to give Adora a charm with the words She-Ra carved in the side.

Adora promises to visit the farm and see LightHope soon

With the knowledge that she has a bit of her mother figure still with her, Adora throws herself into baking, creating her newest pastry: She-Ra

Was named after the charm!

It is the best thing anyone has ever tasted. They sell out quick, and become Adora’s special (All the princess’ have specials, they’re at the bottom of the post)

Aight, so Entrapta misses a couple days, didn’t call in sick, and was fired

Immediately picked up by Hoard and now has a new job! Stuck with Catra and Scorpia until Catra got promoted

Afterwards she met Hordak, and they started talking

and then they started flirting in their cute roundabout way

Hordak had to leave for a few days because Imp needed to go to the hospital, he left Catra in charge (She’s manager anyway, but now she had free reign)

With Double Trouble’s help, Catra made a fake resigning form for Entrapta while firing her

While this is going on, everyone gets word about Prime Restaurant chain wanting to set up in the area. Hordak would like to sell his shop for them, but first he needs to get another place to set up (He only decides this after he comes back, and he needs something to do after learning that someone he thought he had a connection with just left)

Entrapta hasn’t really let it sink in that she’s unemployed. Goes to get a coffee from a starbucks nearby, name and coffee get mixed up with someone named Micah. (Think when she stole his bug)

Start talking, then bow and Adora just speed walk into the shop like, “Hey Entrapta, would you like to be hired for Princess Alliance again?”

(Bow is also kinda like “Hey wtf, is that you, Micah?” And Micah’s like, “Hey, Bow, is that you?”)

And Entrapta’s like, “Hired? Oh, uh sorry, I have to- oh.” and its suddenly sinking in that she doesn’t work at Hoard anymore and (excuse me if this isn’t what would actually happen but it happened not to long ago so I’m just giving it to Entrapta rn) she is kinda just moving around and kinda just trying to get away from anything touching her because it all just feels horrible against her skin and shiz

and she just kinda goes “Yes, I’d like to be hired, but please leave me alone right now, I’d like to not be touched,” and so Bow and Adora kind of hesitantly go away and Micah stays walking her through her (I don’t know what this is. Touch aversion? A mild panic attack? A depressive episode?)

Anyway, cut away, and now we see Adora and Bow sitting on the roof of the cafe. Talking, thinking about life, doing a bit of college homework. Adora is playing with her charm, and then she drops it and it shatters. Obviously, she’s freaking out, that’s the only thing she has of Mara and it means so freaking much to her

Bow is trying to help and is gathering up the shards, and finds a little piece of paper among it all. Adora reads it and completely breaks down crying. No one knows what it says but her (which is to say I don’t know what it says)

Takes a break for a couple days, going to LightHope, her aunt, and

(In this time, Entrapta has reluctantly gone back to work, Micah has procrastinated around seeing his ex-wife and daughter, Angela has packed up for a plane trip, Hordak is having trouble finding another place to set up shop, and Prime restaurant chain is moving in)

Adora comes back with a new fire and an upgrade to her She-ra pastry, tastes even better now

Micah finally got the courage to go see his family, only to find out that Angela had just left for a trip that morning. (They get the news that the plane had an accident and Angela didn’t survive later in the evening)

Afterwards, Glimmer moves out of the cafe, finding it to be too empty. This leaves the top floor of the cafe completely open. She’s living with Bow and Adora now!

Scorpia, a panicking second manager of Hoard cafe, is juggling running the cafe, keeping Catra in check and finding a new place

Double Trouble, as is their job for the owner, finally fills out their form on what had happened while Hordak was away. He finally learns that Entrapta didn’t leave him.

Scorpia goes to the Princess Alliance and tells them that she heard their top floor was open. She’s desperate

It takes a few times to get them to agree, but the Princess Alliance realize that there’s no point in fighting like this. After a few more hours of haggling with the cost, Scorpia turns to leave

She comes back after a couple seconds. “Um, actually, is Entrapta here?”

Scorpia and Entrapta come back into Hoard cafe, chatting. Hordak walks out of the back, holding Imp. Entrapta looks over and sees him. She just jumps him, helping both of them stay up and holding Imp with her hair.

“Did you hear the news?” She laughs

Scorpia jumps in, telling Hordak how they found a place for the shop to go; right above the Princess Alliance. Entrapta is really helping Scorpia sell it, but Catra is getting upset.

“No! We’re enemies or whatever, right? We shouldn’t be sharing space with them!”

Hordak has already given his okay. “I’m sure we’ll be able to become closer, Catra, it should be alright.”

Catra is extremely reluctant about all of this, but while they’re setting up in the top area, she’s beginning to rekindle her friendship with Adora. (And also maybe feeling like at some point her feelings had stopped being just platonic. She has no clue when this happened.)

Scorpia is doing pretty well with taking boxes of stuff up, and after a while they figure out that the dark aesthetic won’t be working well side by side with the pastel fluff that is the Princess Alliance. So Scorpia says they change it up a bit. So she goes downstairs and, “Is anyone free right now?”

It’s Perfuma that looks over. “Oh! Yes, I am!”

Scorpia gives a little smile. “Great! We need some design help and we were wondering..”

With a happy gasp, Perfuma hangs up her apron and walks upstairs. Perfuma is made for this. After being told that they’d like to keep the general dark aesthetic, she says that giving it that certain quiet feel, very unlike the loud chatter that comes from downstairs, students will likely want to come by to study

It’s a hit. A few plants with calming aromas, gifted by Perfuma herself, and some teas that help with stress made by Scorpia, students are running in. It’s generally very quiet here, and it’s really helping the stress that the employees go under too!

Scorpia and Perfuma may or may not have gotten closer in a romantic sense because of this-

Catra and Adora are also getting closer, friends first, then girlfriends. It’s quite the trip for everyone else in the shop.

Entrapta and Hordak are basically just parents to Imp now, and Imp’s only job at this point is to make fun of Hordak for having a crush. It is a romantic relationship, yes

At some point the the Hoard and Princess Alliance become one place with two names. Menu is the same on both floors and anyone can be a waiter at whichever floor they like.

Just a few things that exist but aren’t really plot relevant:

Hordak has anger issues and trouble understanding his feelings

Hordak has weak bones in his arms specifically

Imp is Hordak’s nephew who he ended up adopting after Imp’s parents died

Hordak and Entrapta both like working with robotics

Entrapta is making a project to support Hordak’s weak arms in order to help him do things. Talking with his doctor to figure out what’s safe and such

Frosta is Glimmer’s cousin who has been given the okay to volunteer at the cafe. She comes and goes as she pleases and whether or not you get a Frosta special depends on whether she’s in or not

Time for the specials!

Entrapta’s: Donut holes. Her special is a pack of donut holes that are literally the best you’ve ever tasted. Your pack has one of each flavor and they are made with such care- just- No special drink for her though

Perfuma: Mango hibiscus clementine cold tea. I have had it before. It tastes really freaking good. She always grows a little flower for you to eat and puts it on top. The texture of the flower is nice, and the petals are sweet. The food portion is a fruit salad with flower petals sprinkled on top!

Frosta: Icecream sunday! And slushie! No one knows what exactly goes into the flavoring on top, but it tastes really good and Frosta promises it’s safe for all allergies she knows of. Makes sure to ask about any allergies though, just in case!

Mermista: It’s a small cake. Has this general water/beach vibe! Drink changes from day to day. Always an iced coffee though!

Glimmer: Cupcakes!! The inside of the cupcake has a small portion of sprinkles. Very sweet, too sweet for some. Pastel smoothie too! Family recipe, shared between Angela and Glimmer. Has sprinkles littered on top of a nice helping of whipped cream! Very glittery

Angela: Called the heart of Etheria. Not one single person knows what it’s classified as, and only Glimmer and Angela know how to make it. It’s heavenly

No more specials (Scorpia doesn’t work at Princess Alliance)

Micah and Angela had a divorce when Glimmer was young. It wasn’t because they disliked each other or anything, just, Micah learned that he was aromantic and felt a little bit uncomfortable with the marriage. They broke it off as friends and lived under the same house- like, it was all exactly the same, except they didn’t have the title of husband and wife

Then Micah had to go away because he found a job somewhere else and they ended up loosing contact

Swiftwind lives on the farm with LightHope

Catra and Adora are childhood friends who had the same Preschool teacher: Shadow Weaver

Angela lives on the second floor of the cafe with Glimmer

Entrapta has a roomba and she’s taken to it the way tumblr has

Entrapta has a tiny Emily that she made with Hordak’s help at a robotics workshop

Adora lived with Catra and moved to share an apartment with Bow afterwards

Shadow Weaver may or may not have died shoving Catra and Adora out of the way of a car that was driving on the sidewalk

There are fricking huge windows looking out on the street for both floors and on the other side of the street is a grassy park, so it’s really nice.

#death tw #shera #car accident

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