#road trip arc

[professor-amaryllis]

:{ Hello!! I am Echo, The Professor's Personal Porysistant™!! It’s cold out here!! Why are we here again?? ‘:3 }: :{ A video file is embedded. [LOCATION UNAVAILABLE], Kanto. 1/1/24 4:28 pm. }:

The duo of professors are in a familiar cemetery, the lush greenery from mid-September giving way to the biting cold of winter. Casi is wearing her holiday gift, a green jacket modeled after the patterning of her own Meowscarada, which stands out against the white of her hair and the snow around her. Amy seems to know their way around marginally better than Casi, retracing their steps from months before, but this path isn’t one they’ve walked that often. Occasionally they glance behind them, checking to see if anyone else is around. As they walk Casi carefully weaves around the graves so as not to mistakenly step on or over one. 

The shorter of the pair seems to finally recognize something, presumably what she had come here for, making her way over to the crumbling remains of a smashed headstone. For a few moments he hesitates, hovering along the perimeter of it in the same way he had with the other graves, before gradually taking that step closer. He crouches down over the grave and attempts to right the marker as best he can, assembling the pieces and cleaning off some of the grime obscuring the lettering. There’s a lack of experience in his actions, but an immense amount of care and gentleness to them.

Aiko “Melody” Mori

1988 - 2013

A name that most now would only mention in contempt, but when Casi catches sight of it she can’t help but smile. 

“There we go… Now it’s a bit easier to read,” her tone so warm you would think it could melt the snow gathered around her. Casi brushes her gloved fingers across the engraving. “I wish I knew how to seal these pieces back together… But I think this will do for the time being.”

Amy’s gaze drifts elsewhere, focusing on the adjacent gravestone rather than the one his partner is handling. They approach that grave, running their fingers over the snow on top of the stone and sighing out something indistinct in what seems to be Kantonian. After taking some time for themself, they rest their hand on the other researcher’s shoulder, making Casi look up at them softly, laying her hand over their own.

“Thank you for bringing me here, Amy.. I know it’s probably a bit silly now but I needed to come here at least once.” For a few moments the two sit there in relative silence, listening to each other’s breath and the rustling of the wind through the trees. When Casi speaks up again it’s in his native tongue and translated by the Poryphone. “At one point I had so much I wanted to say… A decade of boarded up feelings welling up within me. Now that I’m here it feels like nothing I could say is enough. This Space feels so sacred and so hollow… Maybe this is what being at ease feels like.”

With the rustling of Amy’s coat they settle into the snow beside him. Casi opens his mouth to fret over them, but they interject with a chuckle, “I’ll be fine. Might need a little help getting back up but I’ll be fine.” 

She gives a hum in response, snuggling up against Amy’s side as they sit between the two graves, “I don’t mind that if you don’t. You helped me and then I will help you!”

“And this is helping?” 

“Well yeah. It’s pretty much the only advantage being in the area has…”

There’s a couple beats of silence as Amy pulls their coat around the both of them, bringing Casi in just that bit closer. Casi seems to melt against them. 

“Can I… talk about her a bit? Will that make you uncomfortable?” 

“We came all the way out here. I think we’re past that.” 

“...True. I know you don't think that highly of her and I understand that.. Most people don't these days. But she was still a person at the end of it all. Above anything she wanted to feel safe... I wish she could've at least gotten to truly experience that.” 

Amy responds with a hum of acknowledgement, giving Casi a bit of space to continue. It takes him a moment, like he’s trying to sort through years of backlogged thoughts. The end result comes out jumbled, filled with hesitations and faltered words as he struggles to get them out. 

“Sometimes I wondered if she would be happy now or if that’s wishful thinking.. I’d think about her being in my place instead… Sure it would’ve been better but what would she have actually wanted if given the choice?” He trembles, whether it be from the cold or from emotions welling up. It doesn’t go unnoticed, Amy taking one of his hands in their own. 

“Why did you keep going back?”

“I think I enjoyed the feeling of being wanted, at least at first. Being wanted was supposed to mean I was safe.” 

“Safe…: The word isn't so much a statement as it is a gentle musing, and a sigh punctuates the silence in its wake. “Yeah I suppose… I suppose I can understand that…” they praise again, running their thumb over the back of his hand. “Casi… you say she wasn’t what people thought. What was she like, to you?”

Casi looks up at the taller professor, seemingly surprised at the question, but after a moment just softly smiles in response to their more somber expression before leaning her head on their shoulder. 

“She was a lot of things, truthfully. I think that's one of my favorite things about her. And I mean that very literally, when you thought you had her figured out she would always manage to surprise you."

Amy hums and there's a moment of silence while they seem to think about that, but as they open their mouth to keep talking, movement to the left of the camera catches the attention of Echo. The voices of the professors become distant as the camera zips to the side, following a round, pink pokemon floating through the air. The indistinct words fall away as the rest of the footage- roughly 14 minutes- is just focused on the movements of a lone Jigglypuff in the wind.

:{ Transcription ends. }:

[sneasedtomeetyou]

Do you guys mind if I complain a little bit? Get a little candid with you? We came all of this way because Professor Holly absolutely refuses to travel at her age. Sure! Fine, I get that. We come all this way here, drive all the way out here through the snow which let me tell you really increases the drive time when roads are icing over. Anyway. All of that and then we still have to wait overnight for the test results.

Wanting to see a rare specimen is one thing, you don't exactly see a shiny Hisuian Sneasel every day, but GODS I'm so tired. All this way when we could've sent some DNA samples through the mail or something. My eyes hurt. I want to cry. I'm cold and I'm bitter.

[coconuttyglittersmurf]

[gatorgrumbles]

Finally drew my favorite sassy bitch

[atomicradiogirl]

my friend and i were discussing house post canon scenarios today and while i am firmly in the house dying post wilson’s death camp there is another also compelling possibility in my book that after wilson dies house just lives in a middle of nowhere rural town and becomes their Everything doctor and since foreman and chase know he’s still alive they can call him for a consult on difficult cases

[fazafras-pizza]

There are many uses of the Home Depot flooring department, (as long as you've got someone who knows what they're doing)

[glitchdecay]

bad news: Noct doesn't actually use ぶす ("ugly") in the Japanese dialogue of the opening scene of Episode Gladiolus. good news: it comes down to the same thing (in a way).

ノクティス：さらにガラが悪くなったよな

Spelldaggers, the project that translated the game directly from the Japanese version, translated it as: Noctis: And it makes you ugly.

if *I* were to translate it, it'd be: Noctis: You look even more like a thug now.

which is (unfortunately) closer to the English version's "Worse than looking like some kind of thug?", but let me explain.

the exact phrase Noct uses here is ガラが悪い (literally "[a] bad type [of person]"), which is often used to describe delinquents and people with no good manners. and these kinds of people are often depicted as ugly.

have you seen Kiryu from the Yakuza/Like a Dragon series? i'd describe him (based on his literally being in the yakuza) as ガラが悪い... he ain't ugly though. but i digress.

in any case, this is just a case of light banter between Noct and Gladio, so i wouldn't read into it too deeply.

[libraryleopard]

Young adult contemporary coming-of-age story (releases 4/16, I read an early copy from Netgalley)

Follows two first-year students at Wellesley College who run dueling anonymous advice columns and befriend each other in real life as they bonded over both being aroace, unaware of the other's internet identity

Platonic love story

Explores themes like aroace identity, finding community, being the queer child of immigrants, and trying to find your place in the world as a young adult looking towards the future

Love letter to platonic/familial love and finding community

Aromantic asexual Chinese American protagonist; aromantic asexual gender-questioning/nonbinary (she/they) protagonist; lots of QPOC side characters

[suffarustuffaru]

1. julius tired of being nice?? 😳😳 want to go apeshit?? 😳😳 good for him. absolutely valid after everything gluttony did to him.

2. I LOVE OTTO AS A CHARACTER SO MUCH FOR HIS HYPOCRISY…. STFU OTTO YOU CANT TALK YOURE MORE OF AN OUTSIDER TO THIS THAN JULIUS IS 😭😭 AND YOU BUTT INTO EVERYTHING EVER DUDE YOUVE BEEN NOSY SINCE YOU WERE A KID, AND THEN YOU HAVE THE AUDACITY TO BRING A BOOK OF WISDOM INTO PRIESTELLA THUS ATTRACTING SIN ARCHBISHOPS. STFU OTTO LMAO 😭😭😭

[autistic-echo]

*slaps hansa* this bad boy can fit so much autism in it

[professor-amaryllis]

Things have been... Uneventful today. Maybe that's the best it could be honestly, I really can't complain about that. It's genuinely nice just being able to drive like this, well alright I can't drive, that's all Casi. But still. It's nice seeing the snow. It's nice seeing the mountains in the distance. It's nice listening to music while we talk.

Cheddar's been a bit clingy in the car, I don't think that she really enjoys the movement, or perhaps it is the sound, but she prefers to be up front with me rather than looking out the window. It's sort of nice having a purring Sneasel on your lap really. Like a little living hand warmer :)

[sneasedtomeetyou]

Don't get me wrong there's aspects of this trip that have been wonderful and I love spending time with Amy but I think I speak for both of us when I say I'm so excited to get out of this gods forsaken region finally

[lord-squiggletits]

Something I keep seeing when I speak to others about MTMTE Megatron is basically the idea that he's going on a personal journey to become a better person, that the point isn't for him to be "redeemed" but for him to get a chance to do good and die as a person he can live with again. That MTMTE presents a unique take on this because being away from Cybertron gives Megatron a chance to be a person rather than a political figure and this is how it gives him more depth as a character. Or just generally pointing out in a narrative sense that Megatron being in MTMTE limits his story options so of course his story is going to be more focused on a personal journey than on politics of him dealing with the Decepticons/Earth/etc and that just because JRO made a choice to take that path with Megatron doesn't mean that it's inherently bad.

And I'm just, mmm like I understand all of those points and acknowledge that they all contributed to the MTMTE Megatron we got. I even think that without JRO writing Megatron we wouldn't have had his lore be as fleshed out and 3D as it ended up becoming.

(Post starts out as a sort of meta analysis or at least me giving a reasoned explanation for my interpretation of the story, ends up being petty bitching in the last 1-2 paragraphs)

I just..... I just personally don't agree with the "he's becoming a better person by getting a chance to relax and experience happiness and trust after a life of trauma" as being the best choice for his character? Because the problem is that maybe if he were a random Decepticon foot soldier that would be appropriate, but he was literally the leader of the Decepticons that made them Like That and has political/cultural/societal responsibility for why things are the way they are? To be completely frank, I don't care about him going on a personal journey for self-peace, I think that he should become a better person by helping to un-fuck all the things he actually screwed up???

Like idc about the debate of whether he can be "redeemed" or if he should've been killed/imprisoned/etc at the ending. It just comes down to the fact that for me personally, I feel that since Megatron's wrongdoings were at a social level, him "being a better person" would've been better shown by him engaging with those people who he wronged instead of just going on a frigging personal journey for his legacy and self-peace???

Especially since in other series (exRID, possibly Windblade) we literally got plots like "the neutrals hate Autobots but they hate Decepticons even more" and "the Decepticons have been taken over by Galvatron and are now invading earth 2 electric boogaloo" and "yeah the Decepticons are literally living in slums because people hate them so much and won't give them any work." It just leaves me wondering why in the hell people are like, "oh Megatron got to be happy and have a chance to be a normal person." I don't want him to be normal! I want him to repay his debts to the people he actually wronged! Like if you want to cast Megatron as a hero of the people so badly (which so many of his stans do as if he actually cared about the Cons) then how do you reconcile the fact that Megatron just fucked off and left the Decepticons to suffer on Cybertron? Including some of them attacking during his trial and getting killed and Megatron is basically like "sorry, I'm not coming with you and this isn't going to work." And then Megatron complains about "toxic Decepticon loyalty" as if he didn't literally make them that way? Like I get that MTMTE Megatron is still an asshole but if you've read something besides MTMTE and know what the Decepticons are going through, it just ends up being really grating.

I just don't see Megatron as being a particularly good hero or having a particularly fulfilling story if he's completely isolated from all the bad things he did on Cybertron/the way the Decepticons are suffering until LL#25 where it's like "ah damn I'm going to trial now, well this is what I deserve so it's fine." Why could we not have seen something like Megatron trying to deradicalize the Decepticons or change their public image so they could integrate into normal Cybertron again? They were living in SLUMS and getting gunned down by Starscream's badgeless enforcers!

The best we got was the Functionist Universe but like.... I'm sorry, but JRO inventing a whole alternate universe for Megatron to save doesn't do jack shit to save or fix the people he left behind in this one. It was especially grating to read because JRO literally wrote in someone saying "you saved billions of lives from the Functionists" as if he was trying really hard to show how good Megatron is because he saved people (and also if not for Megatron existing Cybertron would be even worse and half of your faves would be enslaved or dead, also the Functionist Council was going to genocide organics too so technically they're WORSE than Megatron since they hate organics AND want to enslave their own race).

I read Barber's, JRO's, and MScott's series concurrently using the omnibus + a release order list for phase 3, and after all that I'm kind of puzzled why the fandom seems to ardently love MTMTE Megatron and think he's so well written but then also shit on Optimus for things that he did during the same points in the story? Because, and I know this is a blazing hot take, I honestly think that Optimus makes a better hero of his story than Megatron does for his, and Optimus' personal journey combines his personal and political identities into a narrative that's a lot more gruelling and questioning of his goodness than we got for Megatron in MTMTE. Which is fucking saying something considering Megatron committed crimes against sapient species and Optimus is the guy who tried to stop him from doing that and has always been pro-equal rights for all beings. But people pretty much just cherrypick things like Optimus annexing Earth or beating up Prowl and go "he's bad" and I'm like no??? IDW OP isn't a bad person or a bad character??? It's just that unlike MTMTE Megatron he's placed in a narrative that actually suits the nature of his actions and has themes that match. To the point that IMO sometimes Barber's narrative shits on Optimus excessively or paints him mainly in the most unflattering ways.

But like. It's just funny to me because Optimus spent his entire part of the story doing things like trying to stop Earth from being invaded/colonized yet again. Grappling with his identity as Prime and dealing with the fact that people literally worship him vs. the fact that his upbringing made him see the Primacy as nothing more than a facade of authority/leadership. Having people get mad at him for prioritizing politics over friendship/relationships with other people. Even getting shit on for being a cop a decent amount so people can STFU about IDW OP being "copaganda" or "not held responsible for his actions". The problems that Optimus dealt with were personal because they had to do with his self-doubt, culpability for the war as a leader of one of the armies, distance from his soldiers, etc. But all of these are also POLITICAL struggles. Because Optimus gave up on the chance to just be a normal person having personal struggles when he chose to become a LEADER, which also means that he's held to extremely high standards that he regularly fails at in the eyes of others.

That's why, to me, MTMTE Megatron falls flat in comparison and really as a "hero" or heel-face character in general? Because he also made a decision to be a leader, and IMO once you do things like become the commander of an army and start your own galactic empire, you lose the right to prioritize your personal problems and instead are obligated by the power you've chosen to wield to focus on your POLITICAL problems. If Megatron's power, influence, and crimes are of a social-political nature, then his heel-face turn arc and ways of showing that he's a better person/helping to heal what little damage he possibly can should have been shown with actions that help on a social-political LEVEL. That's why I'm not particularly impressed with his character arc and feel as if it was overhyped by other people in this fandom: sure, the extra character depth and emotion is nice, but I'm not really going to see him as extraordinary or even particularly good when the extent of him "becoming a better person" happens entirely on a random road trip to fuck-off nowhere. Especially not when the ending of LL tried to sell me a "they lived happily ever after" ending while basically leaving the freaking MUTINY as just Rodimus going "oh it's okay you're forgiven, we're all together again" and I guess everyone was fine with Megatron and wanted to spend an eternity on a ship with him just because Getaway died.

This is why I like (the concept/themes of) exRID/OP and the way Optimus' character arc was handled a lot more. Because for Optimus, the personal and the political were as one. He was held accountable for his actions towards others and the disruptive effects they had on a social level, sometimes to a ridiculous extent (the fucking "oh Megatron is an Autobot so now that makes the Autobots colonizers" plot and that stupid colonist screaming about how Optimus is "literally fascist" my beloathed). Even his very personal issues like his relationship with Zeta were still cast in a wider lens of, yeah this is a personal struggle that Orion faced, but he was still part of a Society TM and his actions were sometimes ill-informed or harmful to others. Even if I had a lot of problems with the way Optimus' story was written by Barber (plot holes, little meaningful character interaction, forced conflicts), at least the BASELINE of it was way better than Megatron's in MTMTE. Especially since Optimus' struggle was explictly about things like struggling with responsibility and how he feels he HAS to intervene in political affairs because has to save people/make up for his past mistakes. That's something that a good leader/good person actually does, so I found Optimus to be a better hero (even if his actions weren't all "good") because he was trying to be a good person by actually getting involved with Cybertron/Earth and subjecting himself to something he hates (leadership, war) and dealing with a shitload of criticism instead of just going on a fuckin "personal journey" lksdlkfsd.

Which just makes me extra salty that people hold up MTMTE Megatron as the pinnacle of Megatrons and literally the best Transformers writing evar! while turning up their nose and ignoring or outright despising IDW Optimus. Like okay. I guess since Megatron got handled with silk gloves on while Optimus got put through the wringer of being shit on by every other person in the story, it's easier for you to pretend that Megatron is a poor uwu boy who just needs friendship and love while Optimus is literally the worst bastard to ever exist. Or maybe it's just that since Optimus' story involves him sometimes fucking up, being criticized, or making things worse, that makes him morally bad. As opposed to Megatron who disrupted a lot of other characters' stories in MTMTE, had to have an entire alternate universe invented so that he could "save lives," and got to sail off on a quantum Lost Light happily ever after, so since he's happy and the story says he saved people that means he's a good hero.

[stupidsexygrizzop]

"Scary ordered the execution of an innocent man!!"

god forbid women do anything

[fountainpenguin]

The fact that there is currently not a single Vicky/Mark ship story on either FFN or AO3 when they are a canon couple for multiple seasons (and Mark had a crush on her for at least 9 seasons) is a CRIME, actually :/

[fazafras-pizza]

BONNIE: WE'RE FALLING APART AND CAN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT

CHICA: WE'RE GOING TO ROT IN THIS HOME DEPOT

X: Are they okay?

FREDBEAR: They're all just very excitable. They've never been outside the restaurant before so it's a little overwhelming.