#MM4

[zonydragon]

First proper pixel art i made

[yufugurenyan]

Some doodles of Cossack bots!!! (+🐍)

[decaffeinated-heads]

It's been on my mind lately

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Question: why do people refer to Tobias in Megamorphs 4 as a "quasi-voluntary" controller? I don't have access to my copy right now but I don't recall anything that would imply he had any knowledge of what he was joining/cooperated in any way? Did I miss something?

So I call Tobias quasi-voluntary, because I think — from my read of MM4 — that Tobias is about as voluntary as any "voluntary controller" ever gets. Which is not that voluntary. Tobias goes to a Sharing meeting because Jake's there, but pretty soon he gets sucked into the cycle of love-bombing: "When you attend your second meeting of The Sharing they assign you a guide" (MM4). In Tobias's case it's a guy named Bill, a few years older, who spends every meeting praising Tobias, and talking up how the Sharing cured his depression and being a full member changed his life.

Bill waits for Tobias to say "I want to be a full member." And then he asks if Tobias is sure, and Tobias says "Yes." Bill presses all the way to "You trade a little bit of freedom for a lot of belonging" and gets Tobias to agree a third time. When the time comes for the "ceremony" (infestation), Chapman makes Tobias explain why he's joining, and Tobias does. Three more times Chapman asks, and three more times Tobias says, out loud, that he wants what's going to happen next. Chapman explains why they want Tobias's consent: "We only have problems in twenty-one percent of willing members. And there are... fewer incidents of contested control." Tobias withdraws consent when he realizes they're about to put a slug in his brain, but by then it's too late.

Later Tobias says "Most painful of all was the image of myself swallowing everything the Sharing told me. I had walked, willingly, to my own destruction. At the time I'd seen no alternatives." So is Tobias voluntary? Well, is Chapman voluntary? He agrees not to resist in exchange for Melissa not being recruited, and he keeps his end of the bargain (#2). Not only does he not fight back while there's a yeerk in his brain, but there's every possibility he's one of the people allowing the yeerk to slip out of their brain and then quietly walking to go wait in the break room without supervision.

Okay, but surely the taxxons are voluntary. They chose to ally with the yeerks... Only it turns out their options were ally with the yeerks or starve to death (#53), and just because their leaders chose the yeerks doesn't mean individual taxxons were okay with it (Andalite Chronicles).

But then, we all know Taylor is voluntary. Because she gave up her freedom for little old things like... relief from pain. And escape from discrimination. And basic health care that didn't cost her family their life savings (#33). And she could never change her mind, because she got punished by Sub-Visser Fifty-One for misbehaving (#43).

But Mr. Tidwell's definitely voluntary. He chooses to have a yeerk in his brain even after joining the YPM. Only he was so depressed he couldn't take care of himself when he joined (#29), and probably would have literally died without the yeerks.

Hang on, is Tom voluntary? He spontaneously offers to "be quiet" and "never trouble you again" when Temrash 114 starts trying to recruit Jake (#6). We don't know for sure that Tom isn't hanging out in that same break room after the events of #1, in exchange for Jake not being recruited.

So on. We know the Sharing targets people who are unhoused and/or mentally ill, and that the ones with happy, stable home lives (Tom, later Jake) tend to go unconvinced. You have to be vulnerable to end up voluntary, the series shows, so vulnerable that your whole ability to consent is seriously called into question.

[sundove88]

Countdown to Halloween Day 15- Skull Man

Day 15 gives us the enigmatic Skull Man from Mega Man 4, who is mysterious as he is powerful!!

I thought he’d be a pain in the butt to draw, but he was surprisingly easy compared to someone like Splash Woman, who was pretty tricky to draw for MerMay.

But anyways, let’s hope you don’t have…

A bad time. Sorry for that.

[billdenbrough]

microfic monday

KEVIN/AARON • aftg • FOXBOY, for @naturecalls111

more kevaaron for mina, but with extra ears this time! also keeping the unintentional microfic monday tradition (at least one kevaaron every week) alive HAHA love u girl foxboy kevin doc alive and well 🫶

[you-cant-fuck-megaman]

top 5 reasons you can’t fuck toad man- number one

number 2 through 5: that does not mean "a frog that fucks"

[robotnikholmescomicblog]

This dude has no chill!

The day is saved, the Robot Masters have returned to their original helpful programming, and Dr. Wily has been dragged out of his castle and ready to presumably be arrested! All in all, a good end to the first of many battles in Mega Man's new life of heroism.

[switchnx]

[bassforte]

Skull man is so cool i love him.

[n0nesence]

🐚🤍🌀

[zonydragon]

"ahh!! i'm sorry! I'll leave the puns to Cutman" gud /j

[crybbyology]

[dan-brazil]

[billdenbrough]

microfic monday

AARON/NEIL • aftg • ARE THEY FLIRTING? for @vykio

tae asked for “are they. are they flirting” w aaronneil which i had to tweak very slightly but only in syntax LMAO never in spirit. in my head matt & dan are watching from the kitchen like a sideshow

[you-cant-fuck-megaman]

I've not fully read the Megaman IDW comics but i really really liked how much spotlight and personality they gave Cossack, i wish that the mainline games also gave some attention to Cossack properly (other than mentioning him by name for creating Tundra Man and other stuff)

What's your take on Cossack?

cossack owns, he's my favorite of the classic trio of doctors.

out of the three, we know the absolute least about him for the reasons you already mentioned--most of what we know is from the expanded verse in the Archie/Megamix comics. but it's clear he's a decent guy.

a lot of his appeal for me lies in the fact that he's clearly coded as a villainous mad scientist archetype. there's a lot of things to be said as for why the bad guys tend to be more appealing to fans than good guys. there's a frequent psychological pull towards the antagonists or edgy rivals as opposed to the straight-laced heroes.

meanwhile, right in the middle of the 90s, Russia and Russian characters were pretty clearly the designated go-to antagonists of choice for the yanks, and everything about Cossack plays into that archetype. his castle is an onion dome, the C logo is reminiscent of a star-and-sickle, his design is based on the revolutionist Trotsky, his music is stylized after traditional Russian music emphasizing the staccato notes interspersed between mournful melodies, and his fortress is set in the grim deathly russian snow. he clearly is designed after every single stereotypical antagonistic beat possible, the eeeeeeevil Russian bad enemy guy. hell, his original name was apparently going to fucking be Dr. Vice.

and yet, he's a hero. not just that, he's a personable hero. he loves his family. he loves his daughter. he wants to do right by her and take care of her. he's clearly just as into design as Wily is, but without the copy-paste of other people's robots. he's a self-made man, a man's man, who worked to get to his position and now works for his family. he's had tragedy befall him and yet pushes on through and helps Light.

having someone clearly leaning into the villain #aesthetic but still be a stalwart good guy is 2000% my jelly and i am all here for it. i'll take five with a side of pirozhki and vodka.

oh yeah and megaman 4 was a good game