#;defected red

[kiksniko]

hold me like you'll never leave

[monkesupreme]

Maybe i SHOULD draft out my ‘Clark is a SuperPlant’ propaganda post

[luneariann]

Happy birthday Chuuya!! <33

[viric-dreams]

As Estival draws to a close, two exhausted spies meet under a parasol.

Meeting with Jones and @zeebreezin’s Shaw below:

[Mercifully, you seem to have a few days off after the last of the Sixth Coil business is over. Aside from a few ‘teary farewells’, all that you’re left with is to draft up your report on the situation and get back to it. You receive a rather substantial parcel in a dead drop - one you scarcely use, these days. Inside the tin case is nothing more than a military standard medical bag and a pouch of what claims to be genuine Ethiopian coffee beans. The typed note attached is brief. The cipher is two layers deep, but standard issue enough.] 

“Hope the games were entertaining. Was curious about your report’s details. Is your calendar free for a brief meeting? Your choice of location. – S.” 

[… Well, shit.]

[The letter you receive back in the dead drop is in standard encryption. No personal flair.]  “Summerset quad. Name your time.”

[The choice of location is clever—the quad is quiet, but not empty. Any passing eyes might recognise Professor Shaw. Does he hope to keep you in check somehow? The fact that it’s Summerset’s campus, the location of his forged diploma is not lost on you. He wants you to meet him on his turf. Making some sort of a play at your own meeting might be out of pocket for an agent normally, but he’s crafty. You can’t dismiss the possibility entirely.]

[You receive a response promptly - specifying the time with no further details. He’s chosen to meet up at a quiet hour on the edge of evening, dead in the middle of the week. A time where few will be milling about, but you’ll most likely be seen by exiting students and the like. But why wait a few days? Does he plan to hide his men in the crowd?]

[The specified time arrives without fanfare. Despite your best efforts, you can’t peg any disguised agents among the chattering student body, nor any watchers tucked away in vantage points. This is the opposite of comforting.] 

[You do, however, see him. Sitting alone on a bench amongst the neatly tended to pebble gardens. He has his parasol in hand - the shimmering translucent thing casts a spray of colour across the rocks as he spins it. The gesture would look absentminded in another’s hands. It’s hard to pull your eyes away. Soon, you’re face to face.]

“Jones. It’s good to see you.”

[It looks like he just snuck away from Benthic - still in a warm professor’s garb. Beyond the twisting light cast by the parasol, though… god, he looks like shit - about as tired as you were before that 16 hour crash, at least.] 

“I trust you’ve been enjoying the quiet after the storm?” 

[Jones nods in acknowledgement and takes a seat on the adjacent bench, not at the far end, but with a certain degree of distance between you. At this angle, the lamplight throws the planes of his face into shadow, sunken eyes and hollow cheeks receding from view. Up close, his suit seems to swallow his frame. Its shade does him no favours either, the deep olive drawing the colour from his skin. His gaze stays forward, silently tracking the passersby.] 

“I don’t miss the chaos.” 

[He finally says. It’s not a direct answer to your question.] 

“You said you wanted to talk about the report I’d sent. Was something insufficient?”

[The parasol casts odd shadows as he rests it over his shoulder. The edges of the technicolor shade kiss your fingertips as they rest atop the bench’s table.]  

“No, it was perfectly sufficient, trust me. I’m merely putting together a report - and I’ll need the testimony of all the traitorous Kolomans that stayed behind despite their orders.” 

[He offers a small smile, before placing a few documents on the table - close to him. You’ll need to lean over to reach them.] 

“I’m looking to triangulate where most of your countrymen hail from based on the languages they were speaking. Check these over, fill in any you noticed, and so on… busy work. Were you expecting anything else?”

[Jones is trying to look at you, though his eyes involuntarily flit to the kaleidoscope patterns cast by the parasol. His fingers twitch, drumming a pattern onto the stone bench, a nervous habit he usually keeps under control. When you place the documents on the table, his hand withdraws, curling into the inner pocket of his jacket.] 

“I see… I’ll make sure it gets back to you in a timely manner then.” 

[His hand emerges from the pocket, holding a pair of reading glasses. He slips them on and reaches forward to take the documents from their resting place.] 

[Shaw’s expression is rather pleasant, though you can see the hint of something in his eye. Is that… fondness? Some level of ease? Worry? Under the parasol’s drifting colours, it’s hard to tell. He leans forward as you do, placing a hand - lightly - on one of the documents. Preventing it from being moved.] 

“…What were you expecting in this meeting, Jones?” 

[You’re both under the parasol’s canopy, now. He twirls the thing’s handle back and forth, casting a smattering of light across your face. A need to fidget he’s usually able to swallow.] 

“I’d like to know, if you’re able to share.” 

[Back and forth.] 

“You’re one of my favourite agents, after all.” 

[Back and forth.] 

“And your wellbeing is far more important than some busywork.” 

[Back and forth.]

[Jones’ hand freezes to a stop when yours comes down on the document. His eyes dart to yours, wide and magnified through the lenses. There’s a flicker of emotion in there, but before you’re able to parse what it is, it’s clouded over. His eyes jump across your face, tracking the swirling colours of the parasol across your skin.]  

“I don’t know. I never seem to know with you. An end to all of this, maybe. After all this waiting.” 

[He tugs the document free with a forceful pull.] 

“I can’t do this much longer. What do you want?”

[There’s a little twitch of his lip as the trap springs shut - a trap set for two. Underneath the colours cast down, Shaw lifts his hand the second you tug.]

 “What do I want..?” 

[His voice is soft, still touched with a bit of pleasing calm, but it’s in a natural accent you’ve never heard before - clearly working class Scouse. Another mask slipped free.] 

“I want so many things, Jones. It’s sickening. But right now, I want to know you. To understand why you’re here, why you’re doing this. You… fascinate me. You have for quite some time.”

[For once, Shaw stops spinning the parasol, a break in the intensifying rocking motion. He takes a deep breath, leaning back just a tad in his chair.] 

“…Pardon me, I haven’t been sleeping well. Does that answer your question?”

[Jones wasn’t expecting you to let go, and the document comes free with more force than he’d intended—his arm rebounding into his chest. When you let the parasol come to a rest, something in your prismatic hold seems to break. He blinks up at you, expression still clouded, but something sharper jutting out from under the surface: alarm. Is it from your answer? Or the knowledge that he’s unable to hide what he’s doing.]

 “No.” 

[No? Is it a rejection or an answer to your question? Jones pulls back, his free hand sweeping the glasses off of his face. He has no intention of reading through the documents now. Under the lamp’s gas light his face morphs again, slipping on that familiar neutral expression you know so well. No indication of the turmoil below, though you know he must be piecing together what he’d just let slip.]

 “I’ll ensure this finds its way to you soon.” 

[He raises the papers pressed against his torso to punctuate the sentence. Then,] 

“Am I free to go?”

[With clearer eyes, you almost see him catch his breath as the parasol stops spinning. He swallows down an unknown emotion that had begun to creep into his expression. His gaze never stops studying you. Tracking each and every reaction.] 

“…Fair enough.” 

[Is that meant as reassurance? Acceptance of your answer? Some acknowledgement of your alarm? Either way, whatever frenzy seized him a moment ago seems to have faded. Shaw’s practised accent is back in place when he speaks again.] 

“Of course. I won’t keep you.” 

[He smiles, adjusting his grip on the parasol before standing. Your technicolor shade is ripped away.] 

“But… Do try and enjoy the reprieve after the games, won’t you?”  

[The smile and assurance you receive in return tells you nothing you don’t already know, but it’s disappointing nonetheless–he doesn’t trust you. As soon as you take a step away, he sets the glasses back onto the bridge of his nose, leafing through the documents. You don’t have to turn around to know he’s going to keep doing this until long after you’re sat back in your office. And then he’ll head home and look at them again.] 

[He might just process some of the words that second time.]

[ms-scarletwings]

On Defective Irkens

“It is theorized that Tak may also be an Irken defect because-“

“Say guys do you think Skoodge is defective? He did a thing he wasn’t told to do once do you suppose-“

“Service Drone Bob's contempt for the Tallest is extremely abnormal, even for most defective Irkens…”

“Hints of the comms officer being a defective are seen when-“

Ohhh mauling the fan wiki writers grr biting biting thrashing and then turning around to the rest of you before I’m done, you bet, for I have sat and listened for over 12 years of leaps and speculations of this sort and now I’m now one of the ones who gets to have what the cool kids these days call a hot take on the matter.

By the end of this I’M going to bring up and expose who I actually think may be the only other defective Irken(s) in the show besides Zim, whom I’m aghast I haven’t seen anyone suggest before.

But before anything else, I want to front one preassumption center and loud.

It took me a long time to guess at why very few people can ever seem to get on the same page of what it actually means to call an Irken defective. Implicitly, the bulk of what we are given is that something can be wrong with a member of this species, and Zim is our prime and singular clear example of that. So there’s a ton of trying to find patterns between Zim’s behavior and that of other Irken characters. Weirdly (to me), a lot of people have, in their efforts, chalked the status up to a sense of rebelliousness or insubordination- a defectiveness in the manner of D&D illithids, stomping out disloyal break-aways from the collective hive mind with punitive wrath. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a cool concept, and it’s definitely closer to my opinion at least than the comparisons to real life mental disorders or disabilities. Not knocking the comfort or the enthusiasm, obviously.

From my view of the canon, I hope it’s at least apparent to other fans that “defective” isn’t some empirical measurement or status to Irkens. Look at the way they determine the defects from normal society. IRL, if I have a faulty device on my hands, there’s some way out there to tell me in a clear cut fashion if there’s a problem and what exactly it is. If it’s code, it can be scanned and debugged. If it’s mechanical, something can be seen, fixed physically. Most organic health problems are only different in the complexity of the matter, but the entire purpose of medical research is to come close as we can to bridging that gap. In Irk’s people, that line is rapidly becoming one long smear of wet chalk. I’m going on like this because if defective paks were akin to hardware actually being damaged, as Purple had put it, it doesn’t make as much sense that they are neither “fixed” nor given real, concrete diagnostics. The only way we know of that the aliens are tested in a since on this merit is by existence evaluations. And existence evaluations are anything but empirical, impartial events. They’re worlds more political and cultural than clinical.

Digest the terms we keep seeing all around the concept: Innocent, justice, trial/evaluation, Judgementia, these are terms of judicial courts and moral weight and sentencing. In effective practice,

Irk labels defects by what one does, not by what one is.

Yet, defection is presented as if that’s not the case, and there are reasons for that. Reasons that reinforce the current power structures and promote what its leadership has decided is healthy for the broader society. When Zim was merely re-encoded from invader status to food service work, it was a more secluded evaluation, presumably done on Irk. His only seen witnesses then were the Tallests and the single control brain dishing the judgement. His existence evaluation, on the other hand, rings more similarly to the IRL historical practice of literal “show trials”. Show trials were something that existed way less for the actual crimes of the accused and so much more for their audience, which, show trials are always for an audience. Three main points about them off the Wikipedia cuff:

• Typically, the defendant of such has already been determined to be guilty (oftentimes of completely fabricated transgressions), and the trial serves mostly to make a massive public spectacle and warning of the accused.

• They tend to focus on retributive punishment over correction. The disproportional brutality and lack of mercy is often the point.

• Their goals are propagandistic in nature, and there’s many notable examples to be found in the history of Nazi Germany, the USSR, and in witch trials across the world (because it was never just Salem).

A formality? Well, that much they couldn’t have more brazenly admitted to. Retribution? There’s hardly a more absolute punitive sentence I could craft up over obliteration PLUS Damnatio Memoariae. And as for the degree of spectacle, I will let you make your own observation here.

Believe it or not, the part where my comparisons along this line end with Existence Evaluations is that their standard for taking place isn’t actually this cartoonishly oppressive one that some fans try to make it out to be. In “The Trial”, Zim was not having his data read for some binary is/is not determination… he was having his experiences and actions interpreted by how much damage he has done against the Armada. He said it himself, that hotseat is reserved for criminals. Likely outright traitors and maniacs. Those who have given cause to alert the brains to a genuine existential threat to their civilization and who have repeatedly failed every opportunity given to redeem themselves.

Defective doesn’t just mean “different” to Irk. We’ve hardly seen an exploration of what the median Irken example even is, because the more we see of any one of these characters, the more they show us their eccentric uniqueness and will. Yes, Irkens are authoritarian; yes they’re over-militarized; yes, they’re a supremacist breed aligned under one ruling military… but listen, they are not literally The Borg, or illithids.

The biggest victims of this government itself are those races it colonizes. Average civilians on the other hand, they get to largely enjoy all the vices and pains and indulgences of hyper-space-capitalism. The height-ocracy may limit their opportunities, but even the lowest drones among them are supposedly hired into their positions in return for wages. Irkens are pretty selfish, but in a rugged individualism sense. It’s a dystopia of atomization instead of collectivization. If everyone had agreed that “defective” had anything to do with arrogance, free will, or an ability to feel one’s sense of self worth, no one would ever be pointing to Skoodge as a possible example. That guy’s the poster boy for what it means to be a “tool” in the derogatory sense. I’m not forgetting that he technically never even left his job. He was fired and more or less forced into hiding, and he’s still not even that perturbed over the whole thing.

Moreover, it also takes some extreme acts of harm to justify such a trial. Real harm- not rebellious attitude or even disrespect to authority. The control brains and the tallests alone get to define that threshold, and neither Tak’s/Zim’s insubordination nor Bob’s audacity concerned them enough for a ticket to Judgementia. In fact, they really don’t seem that bothered at all by deserters and those that abandon their encoded function. Tak is likely to be merely the responsibility of her janitorial squadron, the same way that enforcing Zim’s banishment was the responsibility of his Frylord. Because Irk actually does have standards of justice and layers of bureaucracy to work within when it comes to dealing with true malice. Small fry problems are for the lower rungs of the ladder to handle, until they become a higher priority by necessity. Incompetency alone isn’t a crime, either. The go-to punishment for failure in one function is demotion to a lower position. These are the only Irkens formally not allowed to change jobs, making what they do a kind of communal service or forced labor sentencing. Remember how Tak’s motivation for leaving Dirt wasn’t solely dissatisfaction with the grunt labor? Remember how she kept justifying her actions by the logic of fairness and setting things right? Not to mention how she fully made the Tallest aware of what she was up to and how her plan was well crafted enough to probably work out exactly like she wanted. Tak is utterly as loyal to the empire and competent as any invader. She was genuinely just dealt a shitty hand, and her response to it is at least understandable.

She even went to great lengths to identify and specifically target Zim and to use a planet that otherwise had less than no value to the armada’s operations. She is a great foil to Zim, but I can’t see how she’s any bit defective, only full of rage that she was screwed over by the actions of a real disgrace to their species. Genuinely destructive cases like Zim are an incredible rarity. Such a rarity that I can only guess it took this long for him to go to Judgementia because his degree of dysfunction outright baffles the system. It also would appear that it’s an event of such significance that it can only be set into motion by the command of the ruling Tallest. By murdering a couple of them, and then being a clown show for a couple more, he inadvertently bought himself some time.

And the crazy thing to remember here is that Zim doesn’t even understand that his actions are an existential threat to the Empire- that he IS a whole supervillain to his planet. This is how effective Irken programming and the education plugs are. They’re supposed to do 99% of the work of setting up the population, even the lowest drones, for not turning out like traitors to their kin in the first place. ALL of them grew up on a steady diet of the same drip-fed propaganda and essentialist ideology as their most militant soldiers. So I can see the logic behind the conclusion that the only explanation for criminals in their society must be outright brain damage or corrupted data… and I’m not gonna lie I do openly headcanon that the latter case is exactly what happened to bad egg Zim.

The limits of only having the one example in him notwithstanding, I’m anything but against theorizing about who else could be “worthy” in the Irken sense to also stand before those brains, playing sweaty advocate for the worth of their continued existence and all. I just don’t see it in Bob, or the Comms officer, or any other invader. Tak, there may be some hypothetical ramp to that end, in her future, but as things are right now, I only see a candidate that has become comfortable right in the control brains’ biggest blind spot of all. See, eggs don’t always have to crack in order to go bad. Sometimes, maybe they just spoil. Sometimes, I believe just the right conditions and time can turn them downright rotten.

Dramatic musical flourish, please.

I forget whoever said the quote “Power doesn’t corrupt, It just exposes who people really are”, but I’m a huge fan of the fact that they did. In my opinion, it’s less about power itself and more about a complete lack of accountability that allows the weakest and most toxic seeds to really fester in a seat of authority. Indeed, we all know that there is something pathetic, and vapid, and cruel floating around The Massive’s bridge. I am saying I’d call Red defective, but I couldn’t be certain enough with myself to say that Purple’s largely the one carrying a lot of fault. His greatest sin is his negligence and enabling his companion. whoever we can say shoulders more of the blame, they have been running this horror show as a joint unit, so they will both bear the guilt. Without a doubt, these two are terrible- popular maybe, but terrible leaders. Like, more responsible for the near ruin of their home world and species than I can even pin on Zim at this point. By almost every measure once you hold them up to Miyuki’s and Spork’s barely few moments of would-be screen time, they’re the worst Tallests for the Empire we’ve ever known. It’s too bad that they have no one over them we know of to flag them for an existence evaluation, because I am assured that the real orchestrators of the Armada would be disgusted to look over their track records since they took power.

I mean, what can I remember just off the top of my head?

- Full awareness of Zim’s blackout-causing history before the beginning of Operation Impending Doom I and not keeping a close eye on him, removing him from his position, or keeping him away from the homeworld’s WoMDs

- Overseeing the shipment of faulty equipment to Invader Tenn (even if the packages had not been switched, the Megadoomer still had a potentially fatal flaw), and then presumably NOT giving her urgent guidance/assistance to avoid being captured by native hostiles

- Showing an egregious amount of immaturity and frivolity when making logistical decisions, such as the flight path of the Armada or how conquered planets are utilized

- Repeated abuses of their standing, trying to extra-judicially get rid of subjects over the pettiest reasons (if they had the formal authority to just vaporize Skoodge, Bob, OR Zim on the spot, they wouldn’t need to come up with convoluted and indirect methods that they only hope kill said targets)

- Upon Zim returning to them from his banishment: not sending him back to Foodcourtia and not refusing to humor his wishes to larp as an invader

- Oh yeah, also granting Zim at least some invader tech and allowing him to leave Conventia in what I assume is a ship he could have only stolen

- Still not dealing with Zim with extreme prejudice in a timely fashion after the events of Backseat Drivers from Beyond the stars, or investigating enough to find out and deal with prisoner 777

- HAVING WAITED THROUGH ALL OF THE ABOVE BEFORE SENDING FOR ZIM’S EXISTENCE EVALUATION

- Spending the bulk of their reign so far dicking around in space and gorging themselves. Seriously, Red showed us one act of proactive competence… and it was in order to fix a mess that they allowed Zim to get them into. Not to mention, the Resisty got away from that scrap after thoroughly humiliating their flagship.

Red, and by extension, Purple, are the almighty, Tallest threats to the entire Irken project of galactic conquest, as much as Zim would have loved all the credit in the universe. By what they’ve done, and who they are. He might be damaged, but them? There’s some defective moral character if I’ve ever seen.

[littlefankingdom]

~ Batman: Detective Comics (2016)

Future Tim is a monster because he is a killer (Tim is not fine with murder again), but especially because he murdered his brother.

[he-who-needs-to-be-silenced]

Ressemblance

A little diabloceratops notices that an old bull has the same birth defect to his crest and feels… uhh…. Idk… i guess comforted?? Knowing that he’s not alone in the weird world of ceratopsian crests. The old bull also notices this and does a little bow of respect.

In the background there is an individual I call mace face, due to the fact the pathology on the crest originates from an ankylosaur or a pachycephalosaur hitting them in the face as a child, scratching themself. The relation of mace face to the other ones into the piece isn’t specific so feel free to headcannon (ideas of mine include: mother of baby, child of gramps, a & b, sibling of baby, and stranger)

[dc-sideblog]

Tim: so when I became Robin you were so opposed to teenage vigilantism you almost killed me over it, but when Scarlet does teenage vigilantism you make her #2 in your criminal empire???

Jason: exactly. Now you're getting it, Timbo

[kitsupine]

☆ECHO☆ ECHO! AU doodles pt 1☆

[raayllum]

like truly two of the wildest viren-callum parallels are still, to this day

1) Viren’s re-birthday being Callum’s literal birthday because the story is just that insane about this foils bond

2) Viren and Callum both asking someone (Soren in 1x06, Rayla in 4x07) who’s sworn to protect the proposed target to kill Callum to keep things from tipping the wrong way

[theangrycomet]

Something something Steven Universe and TFA are the same story but from opposites sides of the war.

okay- obviously not the same-same story but I have been laughing at the amount of parallels the two shows have with them telling/giving completely different messages.

[hunterisnearme]

Could you draw Graham on a skateboard?

she still reported him anyway

[miralines]

I have too many ouatis wips help me make some progress on them

For every vote each one gets I’ll write 100 words of it (up to 2,000 words; after that I make no promises)

[machinedramon]

My current AC (Carnifex) and the custom decals I'm using on it. the first just being its name (and namesake) and the second a rough Redguns emblem for it.

the wasp decal was just glorious happenstance, but the fact that the redguns emblem isn't a pre-set decal is a CRIME I spend AGES getting it (somewhat) right

[paradimeart]

Okay I might be making this up so if that's the case feel free to ignore this, but I swear at one point you said something about purple optics in TFA? Might have had something to do with disagreeing with the concept they're used to mark traitors or something like that? If you do have this idea and I'm not just inventing stuff out of thin air, what is your take on purple optics in Animated?

ITS FUNNY YOU MENTION bc a friend of mine was just telling me that i got them to headcanon prowl as having purple eyes when i didn't even remember i had said that. i know theres a misconception that its canon that purple eyes are from insufficient energon, it was from the vector prime tumblr which isnt considered canon tho some ppl who run it did used to run the facebook page? but that was how they explained wasp and swindle's eyes, lack of energon from being in the stockade (ftr i DO believe in former autobot swindle). i mightve brought that up? i dont have any specific headcanons ig? i just dont think abt it. i think the hc wasps colors changed from like, malnourishment from prison rations is fine. i do like the idea yellow eyes are like "false"/"artificial" eyes because jetfire had blue eyes before and in rise of safeguard it looks like his face was blown off.

but as far as purple i got nothin sorrys....i think its possible for them to change their eye color though other wise i think overlord* and drift wouldve had annoying questions to answer. we also don't see wasp actually escape the stockade so its possible he changed his colors after escaping to try and evade detection, we know he has electronic paint. but i think swindle probably just naturally has purple eyes, regardless of whether he was an autobot or not before

[paladincecil]

The battery on my coordless vacuum won't charge after being on charge for 5 hours, I can't find a replacement battery or charger, and it's like 2 weeks out of warranty T_T

Nevermind I found the battery for sale on their vax website

It costs as much as a new hoover -_-