#and for every cool unit robot we must have … that

[buildoblivion]

we are so back

[plantify]

Toontown Corporate Clash: Grunt Cogs

Intro

This is an except from the Clash Crew's latest QNA session. This doesn't outright state too much about Grunt Cogs, but I do not like the implications of them not having "fully developed personality chips". This could be taken in many ways which I think would only serve to weaken Clash's writing, as well as cause minor to major contradictions to things already shown in-game. Corporate Clash is pretty defined by giving Cogs more of a personality. They already had some semblance of this in TTO, but they are closer to humans in Clash. Every single Suit has their own complex personality and life story. Sure, it may be infeasible to actually show this for Grunt Cogs in normal gameplay, but it's important. Even if Cogs Inc is objectively in the wrong, you still have to think about all the lives of Suits who work for the company. If the Grunt Cogs are "less human" than more important Manager Cogs, then a lot of that element is stripped away. I will quickly analyze some specific in-game examples of this.

Rainmaker:

Misty explains that she has been hurt by her own kind in ways that Toons would not understand. We can infer that her personality traits make her a poor fit among colleagues, which leads to poor treatment towards her as a result. This is something that often happens in real life, so we don't need the perpetrators to be robots that only act mean because it's all their programming tells them to do. Real people already act this way. Assuming that Grunt Cogs are the main perpetrators against Misty, this situation would lose some nuance under the implications that they aren't as human as Managers. Why would Misty care about what someone tells her if they aren't on the same level of sentience she is? It would be akin to having AI Chatbots insulting you; there isn't any actual person telling you how much they hate you, so it loses all meaning.

Witch Hunter:

Prester's fight revolves around him using his voice and words to empower Grunt Cogs to fight for a common cause. Sure, this may just be yet another battle against Toons, but he wants to go greater than just that, talking of Cog Communities, using fear tactics, and more. If we are under the assumption that the minds of Suits are just as complex as those of humans, than this notion becomes really cool; he's convincing others to fight for him, and all these Cogs that join him must have their own personal reasons for listening to Prester. It makes Prester himself also seem like he's great at uniting others for a common cause. HOWEVER, under the assumption that Grunt Cogs just have really basic personality traits, and not much going on in their mind aside from what they were programmed for, there is no variation whatsoever in the reasoning for listening to him. It becomes a lot more like just telling a bunch of programs to do something, and they all obey, with no nuance whatsoever. There are also two Cogs during his ending cutscene which resist his words, explaining that many employees have complained about Prester. These two are already showing individuality just by doing this, as well as explaining that other Suits genuinely do not like Prester in the workforce. If they were all practically the same, these two should not be able to resist his words, and there also likely wouldn't be as many complaints regarding Prester.

Major Player:

Dave's fight already shows some variation between Grunt Cogs. Some of them are eager to get on stage and perform with Dave, whilst others are more timid, confused, or unbothered by being called onto the stage. This could be seen as a minor retcon under the assumption of Grunt Cogs having less personality. Adding onto this, why would he perform to a group of Suits that are less likely to feel heartfelt emotion or interest in what he's doing? At that rate, he should simply just perform to Manager Cogs and whatnot.

Chainsaw Consultant:

While the focus of Chip's fight is the override itself, bringing in the fact that Grunt Cogs have less developed personality chips brings in interesting implications. Why does Chip even have the override installed? It is a experimental, untested feature, and they're testing it on Chip. Yknow, one of the guys with a fully developed personality. Someone who's much more likely to suffer from having it installed. Someone who's much more likely to try and resist it BECAUSE he has a life of his own, and is his own person. If the company has countless non-important workers with no personality, why wouldn't you just test the override on one of them? If they don't really have a life of their own, or are otherwise devoid of a real personality, wouldn't it make more sense for the override to work more flawlessly on the Grunts? Of course this wouldn't be an issue under the assumption that Grunt Cogs are just as well-developed as Manager Cogs. They would face the same issues that Chip does under the effects of the override. Also, unrelated to the override, but this also makes the fact that Chip uses the Grunt Cogs as weapons hit less hard. He shoots them out of cannons at the Toons, against their will. He fires them en-masse to use as cannon fodder. Obviously, under the context that they don't matter nearly as much, this makes it harder to care about them and weakens that aspect of the narrative.

Conclusion

This was a quick look at some of the in-game examples of things that could be put into question under the assumption that Grunt Cogs aren't as fully developed as other Suits. There are absolutely more examples in-game, as well as more narrative factors that could be discussed and delved into concerning this topic.

[ladyloveandjustice]

Fall 2023 Anime Overview: Pluto and Scott Pilgrim Takes Off

Pluto

Premise: Somebody- or something- is killing the most advanced robots in the world, along with humans involved with robots (either robot rights activists or scientists). Gesicht, a robot police detective, is trying to track this killer down. But has the detective himself been compromised? What is going on with these strange memories that keep appearing in his head?

Based on an arc in Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy, this anime is a tense, tightly plotted robot murder mystery that kept me engrossed and invested. Stuff that deals with "android" rights can often feel cringey at best and insulting at worst, but Pluto avoids this by having a future where robots have already gotten their civil rights. It instead largely uses robots as a metaphor for being seen as a disposable tool in a corrupt system, for how if you resist being a weapon for violence and imperialism, those in power will either discard you or fear you. And it asks the question--can robots feel human emotions like hatred? What happens when they do?

Speaking of imperialism, there are some very obvious allusions to the Iraq War in this and I mean obvious like the "United States of Thracia" stars a war with the "Kingdom of Persia" under the pretense of finding "robots of mass destruction". The anime is deeply sympathetic to the, uh, Kingdom of Persia (and very accurate about how much the United States of "Thracia's" government sucks and is imperialistic), but it does feature content that can be tough to deal with (especially right now), and does have some Middle Eastern antagonists, though they're not one-dimensional . I don't feel qualified to dig into it too deeply, but I just have to note it. 

Pluto is impressive with it's sizable cast that all have their own distinct stories. It makes you feel for almost every character. A lot of the plot twists punch you in the gut, and the animation is generally stunning. I

I did find parts of the final episode fell flat. It was a solid finale, but the world-ending stakes and the focus on pretty predictable action beats were so different than the gripping, investigative stuff that came before it that it was a bit of a let down. And it really beat you over the head by constantly verbally repeating the central message.

 (I also hate the trope of a male character lying to a female character about information she's begging for and affects her deeply, and it being treated as a great kindness. I wish female characters got more to do overall in this, because the two we had were potentially very interesting. It did give a nod to the female robots being just as advanced at the male ones but that being ignored because they weren't advanced in a traditionally masculine way. But you could feel it's Astro Boy roots in how male dominated the cast was.)

Overall, this is one of the most well-crafted anime of the last few years-- a psychological thriller and meditation on humanity and conflict, rich with story and themes, with not a second wasted. I definitely recommend giving it a shot, you'll probably be hooked in no time. And expect it to break your heart. A lot.

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off

Yes, this counts as an anime. It was animated by a Japanese studio, the director is based in Japan and has worked in anime for years. But there are some spoilers in the premise itself here, so I'm going to put it under the cut.

You have been warned!

Premise: Scott Pilgrim meets a cool girl named Ramona Flowers and falls for her, only to find out she has seven evil exes he must defeat. Unfortunately, he seemingly dies at the hands of the first one. This leads Ramona on a journey where she must confront her evil exes and see if Scott is really dead after all.

So, I was a fan of Scott Pilgrim as a teen. Moreso of the comic than the movie, since the movie didn't have the interesting arcs for the female characters the comic did thanks to it's short runtime and what it prioritized. (Ramona, especially, was done dirty). I liked Ramona a lot in the comic, especially how she went from a mysterious figure to someone just as messy and screwed up as Scott is, and the "final boss" was actually the abusive relationship she was stuck in, and she was the one who really had to defeat it. I liked how Knives outgrew Scott, and I liked how Kim exposed Scott's fantasies as not real, and let her crush on him go. I liked how Scott's arc was realizing he'd treated the women in his life badly and that he needed to grow up and stop being so selfish. 

So I was a little excited to see a more comic-accurate version... but what we got was even better. A story that was more from Ramona's perspective, that centered her from the very beginning, and which focused on her understanding, and often reconciling with her exes, rather than them being enemies to defeat. I especially loved seeing Roxie finally get her due. (The comic handled Roxie better than the movie's bullshit, but it still left a lot to be desired). Ramona's ex-girlfriend finally gets treated as an ex-girlfriend, with no "just a phase" bs from Ramona and no Scott doing the straight guy "ooh lesbians so sexy" bs. Instead, it's a sincere, emotional look at their relationship and the ways Ramona hurt Roxie, along with a killer fight scene. 

It was also great to see Knives thriving without Scott around, and Matthew Patel getting more of a spotlight. The series has grown up over the years ,but the themes are as sharp as ever. It examines the bad decisions Ramona and Scott have made, and not only the fear of growing up as a young adult, but the fear of what you'll grow into. It explores the fear that relationships will become regrets, the messiness of people trying to connect, and how you need to keep trying to communicate and move forward and take risks anyway.

There were a few things I wish we could have seen more of- like Kim and Envy. (And small yet bothersome nitpick, I also disliked how when Ramona talked about her pattern of "running away" from relationships, Gideon was included, despite the fact he was abusive to her in this version too). The English voice cast was also weak with the voice acting sometimes (likely because most of them were more used to being on-screen actors)- though there were some stand out performances like Satya Bahba (Matthew Patel), Michael Cera (Scott) and of course Mae Whitman (Roxy) (I also think Winstead settled into her role well too)-- though I got used to it after a while, and the Japanese cast is aces.

The animation was also phenomenal, and it had a killer soundtrack.

I'm not sure how this anime would hit if you haven't seen either the comic or the movie, (I've heard some newbies say they liked it) but as a fan of the source material, I was very pleased and found it a treat. Definitely worth checking out.

[beevean]

⭐

Not sure which one you want me to talk about, so I'll mention my favorite Sonic fic I've written, Remember :P

Not only setting up the HTML was pain lol, but I played The Doom over and over again only to jot down every line I could use. About 50% of the dialogue is taken from the stage. I wonder if someone has recognized them all.

My favorite sections are:

The mechs exploding at my feet produce a comforting warmth. The crack of the humans’ skulls and their cries of pain are music to my ears. The Heal Unit is cool on my palms, ready to be used… My empty hands are still shaking, though. Warm Dark Chaos Energy is flowing in my nerves, it fills my lungs like air, it needs to be released, they need to suffer like they’re making us suffer. A kick to the human’s helmet shatters the glass, and I smile at the crunch of his broken face. “Yes, show them all how powerless they truly are!” Powerless, that’s the right word. They are small, insignificant, and powerless, and such creatures did not deserve compassion, or to live. “Why are the soldiers doing this to us?!” “Don’t worry, I will protect you.” “Please be careful! I don’t know what I could do if you got hurt… I’m not as strong or fast as you…” “You’re doing what you can, just stay behind me!” This is not what’s happening! I’m on an elevator, Maria is holding my hand, Black Doom is following me, I’m covered in healing substance blood… Three humans ambush me. A blade pierces my skin, but I feel nothing. I finally unleash my energy. Only smears are left on the floor.

Shadow indulging in sadistic thoughts about "powerless creatures" reminds him of a powerless girl whom he actually wanted to protect, because he's a good person at heart even if he's not allowed to remember - Black Doom is starting to rewrite Shadow's memories forcibly.

“Those vile soldiers are still defiling our precious home.” Disgusting humans, harming me and Maria Black Doom! Maria is not here. She must have fled, the coward. Black Doom has always been the one on my side.

Even more blatant memory rewriting. I'm still appalled that Black Doom really calls the ARK "our" home, the nerve of him :P and I really like how in the cutscene before Heavy Dog, he replaces Maria in the cutscene. He replaces her as Shadow's companion, perhaps friend. Not as a coincidence, The ARK and Lost Impact have respectively Black Doom and Maria as the only mission partners.

Find the robot. Destroy the robot. Find the human. Hit the human. The rooms are blurring together, they all look the same, they all sound the same. Maria’s warmth comforts me. Doom’s Eye keeps its dutiful watch, always floating on my side, my only trusted company. “This facility is grotesquely large. I am not impressed,” quips the alien. And yet I can find my way through without thinking, the path forward is part of me. This room with a slope feels familiar, for instance. I used to run down them with someone.

True art is combining a jab at the game with a tragic reference to one of the few proofs we have of Shadow being happy on the ARK :')

I retaliated against the humans. No, I… I did what she asked me to do I retaliated against the humans. I healed the resear You retaliated against the humans. I tried to make Maria happy!

Black Doom slips in his effort to gaslight Shadow :) I like how I nailed the claustrophobic pace of this part.

[letrune]

"Buddy, its not that hero you need to worry about… it's my wife." I smiled. Dr. Destructor was confused. "If I were you, I'd HOPE you did not left this area. Do you have guards?" "Oh, you won't trick me, you little bait. You wriggle in pain-" "I don't know, it's more uncomfortable, these ropes really irritate my skin." "Silence! The Good Samaritanian will be here and that will be the end of the day, or you die to my deadly Gorebot!" An alarm started blaring. "See, this is going to go great!" he turned on the monitors, and I saw Anna. My heart was fluttering, and saw her holding a shotgun. She looked so angry, oh so angry... She is both scary and lovely when she has that pout. The image gone off as she fired a shot and destroyed the robot. "That's just my perimeter sentry. She will be dead soon, how many shells she got, twelve?" "How many robots you got?" I piped up. The doctor looked at me. "That number plus two or three." "Shut up! She had ONE lucky sho-" "Intruder." We heard a robot, talking in Dr. Destructor's voice. "Stop. In the na-" Kzzt! Another image turned into static. "Okay, TWO!" "I said nothing." I smiled. The robots started moving, and a third image turned into static.

I was humming and waiting, the images turned off one by one and Destructor got angrier at each. "Every robot! Find and capture the intruder!" he shouted at one of the commanding robots and stormed off. I saw the cameras turning off with Anna not showing up but as a cool action hero. She started to be more and more visible as more and more bots stormed at her, and she just blew them up. Oh, she is my hero... Dr. Destructor came back, holding a complicated looking weapon. "How can she... She has to run out of bullets!" Anna did... then flipped the shotgun and like a club, hit a robot in the camera, then tore out it's arm from the body and used it to beat the other robots while the one we saw on screen fell over and watched on a glitchy screen. "Impossible! She must be some sort of superhuman!" "She's just my wife, Anna..." I sighed. The doctor pressed the weapon at my neck. "You will not get away, who is she? The Amazon? The Black Lady? The Unstoppable Reprimander?" "No, just Anna." "Destructor." we heard her voice, oh, like bells of a choir... "You give my wife back, or I'll continue turning your junk into scrap metal. I got plenty more shells." "Fool! You won't survive my Gorebot!" he pressed a button and the multiple cameras changed to one big. It was some huge robot rolling thru a wall and we saw Anna, surrounded by disabled robots. Anna threw the robot she used as a communicator down on the ground and aimed at the Gorebot. Lots of sawblades and spikes were on the edges of the screen. Dr. Destructor pressed a button again and shouted into a microphone. "Nobody survived my Gorebots before, and you will be the fir-" he stopped as the camera gone off. "Nevermind! Gorebot, destroy!" "AS YOU COMMAND." the robot replied and we heard the sawblades. The huge screen changed to some security camera overlooking this new arena. The robot was like a giant ball with huge arms full of weapons, and Anna was about a fifth of it's size. Roughly six-seven meters! And she grabbed something from a robot, lobbing it at the Gorebot, then shot it. Big explosion! "ERROR! SPATIAL SENSORS UNCERTAIN!" "All your robots are this loud?" I asked him. "Shut up!" he replied. "ENEMY NOT FO-CORRECTION." The smoke was gone and I saw Anna, on top of the ball, shooting open some panels and hopping in. "ENEMY FO- ERROR! ENEMY INSIDE UNIT!" "What...?" The giant robot started flailing it's arms. "HELP! IT IS INSIDE! INSIDE! HELP!" "Sounds like your robot is not going to make it..." "SELF-DESTRUCT STARTED! TEN! NINE! EIGHT! SEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeee...." the robot started flailing around and just limply fell over rolling to a stop. Anna rolled out and loaded her shotgun again. "No matter! I got more robots! Attack!" he screamed and turned off the camera. "This is too bloody for you." the sounds were still on, we heard the robots blowing up and then the shooting stopped. A revving sound followed. Dr. Destructor turned back the cameras and saw Anna, wielding one of the smaller electric spear-like-things torn off of the Gorebot, used by Anna like a flaming sword of justice. "Help!" "Error! Can not feel my legs!" "Retreat! Retreat!" "Stupid robots! You got no retreat protocols! Remain and FIGHT!" he screamed. What followed was blurry for me, but it started with the robot minions breaking thru the door near his command center and running in fear. Dr. Destructor was shaking and grabbed me, trying to hold the weapon to my head, shaking in fear.

Anna walked in, holding that spear thing. She had lots of oil on her arms and legs, and looked absolutely gorgeous... "Release her." "Stop! One step an-" "Release. Her." Anna started walking forward. "You won't do anything to-to me!" he screamed and shot some plasma in Anna's way.. missing, because the weapon was unwieldy and long. Anna was so close she could grab me... But instead, she yanked the gun out of the shaking mess' hand. I saw on the screen some guys coming in, hero-looking fellows... But I was not caring. I turned around and saw Dr. Destructor, holding a bomb-looking thingie. "We all go, hea-" Anna punched him out. The ropes fell off and Anna held me. "You all right?" "I am, sweetheart." "I am so happy you left me your gun." "Aw, anything..."

Some heroes stopped Anne, but we were too busy. We had dinner at home, and it was her turn to cook. We could not care of the dude. We had each other.

You were kidnapped by a villain and he gloats about how you’re bait for his arch-nemesis, and you’ll be dead soon. You sigh and just look at him. “Buddy, its not that hero you need to worry about….its my wife.” and he looks at you perplexed.

[chickencupcake]

It was a dark and stormy night. The wind wailed through the trees like a banshee. A banshee looking for souls. Darkness lurked in the hearts of men, along with avarice and vain striving. Kind of a bummer, really. But not as bad as the vampires.

Vampires are often seen draining the lifeblood of the homeless in back alleys. This city has many homeless people.

Werewolves are sometimes seen feeding on the flesh of their victims in back alleys. This city has some victims.

Ghosts are seldom seen stealing the essences of the virtuous and virginal in back alleys. This city doesn’t have many virtuous virgins.

My name is Jack. I fight for independence for the robots. This is my story. The story of robot independence. And Susan. I mean, the story is also about Susan, she already had her independence.

Like I said, it was a dark and stormy night, just like every other. Except it wasn’t. That was the night she came into my life. She walked into my robot independence headquarters, pulled back her hood, her soft brown hair whipping in the wind. She stood, framed in the doorway, a vision of loveliness, with lightning and hail crashing down around behind her. She was here to help.

“I’m here to help,” said Susan

“We could use your help,” I said.

“I’m here to help,” said Susan

Our eyes met, and there was an energy in the air. We both felt it. I am a strikingly handsome man. I could tell she was struck by my chiseled, rugged jaw. Oh, and a toothpick. I always have a toothpick in my mouth. I have extraordinarily clean teeth.

“I am here to fight for robot independence,” said Susan.

“That’s what we’re here for, at the Robot Independence and Liberation Organization,” I said.

“Only the little ones though, right? The big ones are scary,” said Susan.

Susan thought the big robots were scary because they are scary. The little ones are pretty cool, though. They’re pretty bro. The big ones are controlled by the United Vampire League of Covens. Super murderous evil vampire wizards and witches, basically. They’re kind of dicks, too.

“Of course, sweetheart,” I said.

“Don’t call me sweetheart, champ,” said Susan.

I told you she was independent.

Suddenly the radio switched channels.

“Attentions of the Mortals! Purgation will commence! We are have seen you actions, and find you wanting! You’ve been naughty! Fire begins now!” The Radio belched it’s terrible message to us. Drat! the U.V.L.C. had found us, and hacked our carrier wave frequency module.

“Nota de los mortales! Purgación comenzará! Nos hemos estado observando, nos encontramos con la acción que desee! Usted ha sido travieso! Dispara ahora!” the radio continued. I don’t speak french, so I have no idea what it said.

“Jack, we’ve got to escape,” said Susan. I agreed.

“I agree, I said.

Suddenly my base exploded! Susan and I were thrown clear of the blast, unscathed except for a small cut on my face, and Susan’s torn blouse.

“These guys are going to pay for what they’ve done to all my friends and allies.” My base had been full of people, sorry I forgot to mention that. They were all really good people with wives and children.

“Yeah,” said Susan.

We stood there, staring at the ruins of our former home and base, taking in the sights of the fire and rubble for an hour. Moved by our tragic loss, we vowed again for robot independence, for small robots, and the destruction of the U.V.L.C.

Walking into the night, with the fires behind us, and our wind blown long coats, Susan and I must have looked pretty badass.

Pretty badass.

[aeonmagnus]

Happy 20th Anniversary Robots In Disguise!

This year, and today in particular, marks the 20-year anniversary of Transformers Robots in Disguise airing in the United States.  This was the official English language dub of the Japanese show Transformers Car Robots, which aired in Japan the year before.   This show and it’s accompanying toy line were a big shift in the Transformers brand and affected how things moved forward in the new millennium.  It was also a big influence on me and this website in it’s early years, so both the brand and TFW2005 may not be what it is today without it.

We hope you will read on after the break to check out our celebration of Robots in Disguise on it’s 20th!

Intro

The following is not a comprehensive article on the show proper, but rather a trip down memory lane from my personal perspective.  It was a period of change in my life, in the fandom, in the brand, and in the world – all happening at once.  Robots in Disguise was smack dab in the middle of it all and I think that’s why it still resonates with me all these years later.  For a deeper dive into the world of Robots In Disguise you can check RIDForever.info, a site I maintain just about RID and Car Robots. The 2021 updates are here, and the 2017 round of updates are here.  I’d also suggest checking the TFWe issue all about RID over on the 2005 Boards.  Now, onto today’s festivities…

The Show

RID, and yes I say RID as if it is the only RID.  If you must reference that other RID show and it’s off-shoots, refer to it as RID 201x, thanks. 😊 RID aired during the Fox Kids programming block on a Saturday morning, with additional episodes set to air each weekday during the afternoon hours.  Instead of stretching the show out over the course of 30+ weeks with only a new ep each weekend, they were going to blaze through it non-stop.  By the end of the first week, we would have been 7 eps in.  That however hit a big roadblock due to 9/11 just three days later.  While some local markets did air the episodes, many larger city networks, and especially east coast markets, stuck with news coverage.   Many of us did not catch the early episodes on TV the first go around.  In addition, several of the episodes got pulled from TV due to depictions of buildings being destroyed and other similar visuals which understandably could upset children that just experienced 9/11.  So right off the bat, the new millennium and new era of Transformers were dealing with a new reality.

The show, for those that don’t know – was a weird one-off in Transformers history.  We had G1 and then the G2 remixes for a bit.  Beast Wars came on the scene and ran all the way through 2000 with it’s successor – Beast Machines.   During the Beast Wars era – Japan did a couple of their own Beast Wars shows, non-CGI extensions of what we saw in the US.   Their market wasn’t quite ready for full CGI so they stuck with traditional anime.  When Hasbro decided to continue Beast Wars into Beast Machines, Takara went a completely different way – a traditional animated show which brought back Autobots and “Decepticons”, mixing them in with the beasts.  They focused the toys on a couple new and complex molds, then filled the rest of the line with repaints of previous toys.  Old 2nd tier Beast Wars toys, G2 Laser Prime, and even some Generation 1 molds in the form of the Combaticons got new life as new characters in this show, capped with the biggest TF of them all at the time – a repainted G1 Fortress Maximus, now Brave Maximus.  It was the prototype for what the Transformers brand did for years to come – repainting old toys into new characters.  Universe, Classics, Botcon, and even some Generations runs used this method to give us some great toys in the 00s.

While there is a very complicated and long explanation for how every single Japanese show is one continuity, to someone casually starting with Car Robots it was a refresh, a new story, a new arrival on Earth.  The Autobots vs the Predacons, and eventually the Combatrons/Decepticons. It was a hard cut from the last 5 years or so of CGI Beasts.  Hand drawn traditional animation featuring vehicle Transformers.  It wasn’t G1, but many of the folks who grew up with G1 were just getting out of college around this time.  They were rediscovering their childhood love of Transformers through Beast Wars, flea market finds, raids on their parents’ attics and basements, and for the internet savvy – imports of Japanese reissues from Takara.  It was a perfect storm of nostalgia; a return to Autobots and Decepticons was welcomed by kids and adults alike.

RID and TFW2005

In the years leading up to Car Robots, I was just getting into the internet, coding, design, some digital music, and all the possibility that came with it.  Beast Wars, especially when it hit Season 2/3 and the inclusion of G1 lore, really got me focusing on Transformers again as a hobby.  I eventually combined the two newfound hobbies into one and Transformer World 2005 was born.  At no point did I ever think it would last 20+ years and take over my life in the way it did.  I started the full version of TFW2005 around April 2000, with some starts and stops before that.  That was right around when Car Robots started airing in Japan.  Through the magic of 56k internet, I was able to connect with folks in Japan and get them to send me VHS tapes of Car Robots.  Really nice, high-quality tapes too, I still have them hehe.  To the younglings reading – try to picture this: no youtube, no video sharing. The concept of streaming anything did not exist yet. Napster and the eventual peer to peer stuff hadn’t fully kicked off.  Plus, we were all viewing the internet on giant computers in our rooms at the speed of 1x on your phone.  Less than 1 bar 3G mobile speeds today.

Yes, someone recorded episodes from TV to video tape over there, did that a couple weeks at a time, then physically mailed them across the world to me, who then got them on the internet.  Can you imagine waiting weeks to watch an episode of TV the size of a twitter profile avatar?  Crazy.  Uploading a full episode to the internet was a big pain in the ass, not easily done.  I decided to get a converter that allowed me to plug my VCR into the computer and encode the tape into digital format.  From there, it was reduced using Microsoft’s WMV technology so that the episodes were about 5 MB each.  30 minute episodes at 5MB each. Dimensions – 176 x 144 pixels.  4k video today – 3840 x 2160 pixels.  You can imagine that video looked like crap.  But we didn’t care – we were blown away.  Old school animation, vehicles, some cool Japanese anime vibes, it was what we as G1 fans kinda had in the back of our heads on what Transformers should be in a new era, and we were seeing it.  Most of us had no clue what they were saying or what was going on.  Also didn’t care.  I still to this day think CR/RID is better like that.

So one of the first things TFW2005 did on the internet was provide these super small windows into Car Robots and what was going on in Japan. It helped get US fans hyped up for what Transformers could be. It got us wanting the toys, and importers bringing the Takara toy line over were moving serious product.  It helped swing Hasbro, who was planning to return to Autobots and Decepticons again down the road, to move that schedule up.  Instead of running Beast Machines until 2002 and then starting what we now know as the Unicron Trilogy, it was cut short.  Robots in Disguise as a toy line and show came over in 2001, ran fast and hard for a year with non stop releases, got extended because it did so well, and then faded into the Universe line of repaints.  The new millennium of Transformers was here and Robot In Disguise kicked it off with a bang.

Wrap Up

As we all continue with collecting Transformers now, regardless if you tagged into the fandom during G1, Beasties, the Unicron Trilogy, the Movies, or just yesterday – let’s take the time to give Car Robots and RID some props!  It set the tone for what the new millennium of the brand would be.  It gave us some toys ahead of their time.  It solidified the repaint as an accepted thing in the hobby. And it gave us one crazy 39 episode run of TV that’s still a fun ride 20 years later.

For those that would like to learn more about RID and Car Robots – I still maintain a Robots in Disguise website that archives everything I have or came across.  There is a lot there if you want to go on a tour of all the awesome Car Robots and Robots In Disguise era stuff.  Check it out at RIDFOREVER.INFO! FIYAH!

Let us know what you think and remember from the good old days of RID on the 2005 Boards here!

Epilogue

If someone over there at Hasbro is reading – can someone please figure out who owns the rights to the show in the US market and then get it out on DVD in full, finally?  Work all that funky licensing stuff out (if there is any) and get it done.  The US has never had access to it via an official release.  Maybe get it up on YouTube like G1?  Something.  Announcing plans for that before the end of 2021 would be a nice 20th anniversary tribute.

[catcake24]

So um... Happy Holidays!! very rough first draft fanfic ahead, because I just wanted to capture this very breifly and didn't want to loose motivation LOL

Being grounded in the middle of nowhere was… inconvienient.

During the last battle, one of the Autobot snipers got a lucky hit directly on Megatron’s Anti-Grav unit which caused him to fall out of the sky into a large forest. He flattened several trees, causing whatever wildlife was nearby to scuttle away.

By the time he came to, his forces were gone and he was covered in a layer of snow. His comm units were out of range, so he had to make the journey back to base on foot. He growled to himself, frustrated. He could feel Starscream trying to wrestle leadership away from him, even though he’s barely been gone a day.

However, Megatron was not unused to inconveniences. He was in the Cybertronian military for centuries, living in barracks and doing drills every day, and during his time as a Gladiator he barely had any more luxuries.

Even during this war specifically, they lived in a humid underwater base which was constantly either moldy or infested with rats.

So he trudged on through the woods, eventually switching to tank mode to use the dirt roads.

Megatron came to an abrupt halt when a squishy popped out of nowhere, dressed in thick clothing which was meant to keep it warm. It looked up at him with inquisitive brown eyes, over his extremely out of place alt mode.

“Are you one of those robots?” The man asked eventually, and Megatron sighed as he prepared for their screams.

“Oh that’s so cool! I thought they only turned into cars and whatnot!” It exclaimed suddenly, running up and giving his alt mode a closer inspection. Megatron was shocked, and decided to transform. The man backed away as he did so, making awed sounds at him even as his Decepticon brand was revealed.

Did this squishy seriously not realize who he was?

“I’ve never seen one of you up close!” He said, before shaking his head. “Nevermind… hey can you help me?” He asked, and Megatron realized that yes, this man was clueless to who he was and even what his brand meant.

Megatron had assumed every human on this planet must know about the Decepticon brand, as they were a direct threat to the inhabitants of this world by taking their energy sources from them. It was something Megatron did not revel in, but it was necessary to allow Cybertron to continue living.

But it seemed… maybe not everyone was aware of what his brand meant.

Megatron wasn’t sure if it was the weather freezing his logic circuits, or if he wanted to keep the man from reporting him to the military, or if he just wanted a break, but he said “Alright.”

The human beamed at him, pointing back from where he came. “Cool! It’s just this way, the back road should allow you to get here without too much issue.”

Megatron looked to see that there was, in fact, a beaten in road which the human had come down and not from just out of the woods like he thought. He really needed to replace his sensors in alt mode, they were getting worse.

The warlord followed the human, who chatted along the way about why he came out, to get fire wood when he heard Megatron’s tank treads, and the local holiday known as ‘Chrismas’ coming up. “I guess you wouldn’t know about it, huh? Being an alien and all.” He laughed.

“We celebrate the winter solstice, we would usually have a large feast.” Megatron answered.

“Huh, not that far off from our Christmas dinner then! We also exchange presents and spend time with family during this holiday here!” He said. “Though many people celebrate differently, and some not at all. My friend in town is going to be having a movie marathon with his son during the day off instead of anything too special.”

The man kept babbling and Megatron followed along, trying to tell himself that he wasn’t intrugied by this man’s seemingly average life. They came upon a town soon enough, with a large tree out to the side of a house covered in lights. The tree itself was only lit up at the bottom, as it’s large size was obviously a challenge.

“Daddy!” A small femme, or a girl as Megatron’s human database supplied, ran up to the man. “There’s my little angel!” He proclaimed, spinning her around in the spot as she laughed heartily.

Megatron’s fuel tank sunk as he realized that this girl was the man’s creation, his sparkling, and felt a warm joy in his chest that he didn’t just squish the poor man. No creation deserved to loose their creators, especially earth ones as they take the role of both progenitors and their mentors.

He… was always weak when it came to sparklings it seems, even alien ones.

“Hey there!” The man called up again, jostling Megatron out of his thoughts. He pointed towards the tree, “Could you give us a hand please?” He asked politely, and Megatron shyly pointed towards himself, before agreeing with a nod.

It was a bit of a hassle, he had to wrestle with the finnicky and delicate chords of lights as they tended to tangle and wanted to fall off. But he eventually managed to wrap the lights around all the way to the top, and took the large star decoration from the other creator, a femme, and placed it on top.

The family beamed at him from below, and that warm feeling grew.

He smiled, a small thing that made his facial plates creak from misuse, and bent down slowly. He offered his hand to them, “Climb on.” He rumbled, and the family hesitantly climbed on.

He lifted them upwards slowly, and deposited them on his chest plate next to his head before backing up. They gave awed noises at the view, and he looked over their town.

It was lit up, in green and red and white, with decorations around their homes and people buzzing around in the darkness of the winter evening. They seemingly did not mind him, and Megatron wondered if most humans even knew the difference between a Decepticon and an Autobot – barring those who had to go through Decepticon raids.

Megatron allowed himself to forget his duties though, just for an evening. The happy squishy family talked to him from their spot, admiring the view of their small town idyllic enough for a holo vid.

Megatron gave himself this one moment to feel happy, before he continued his journey back to his base.

He’s sure Soundwave can keep things together for one more day.

Edit: Also, AO3 link here :) https://archiveofourown.org/works/43790088

a gift for a holiday exchange :)

[fear-before-valor]

AU Ficlet: Jim, who was raised by the Order from the age of five, attends Arcadia Oaks High, for his first day of human high school. Weird things happen in Arcadia, though, and his appearance seems to be one such weird thing to the residents in this small, strange town... 

Aka: How an Order-raised Jim met Toby and Claire

Words: 2939 II Warnings: none II ok to rb --

Jim dropped his backpack at the empty desk next to one Tobias Domzalski’s, one of the only people at school who’d been properly friendly to him so far. It was Jim’s first day of mortal high school, and he’d been vetted mercilessly by every student group but Tobias’s, though he was beginning to suspect that said group consisted of only Tobias.

Of course, Jim had been screening his peers right back, but it was still exhausting. He thought he’d been ready after the Order’s… extensive lessons on humanity, and how to fit in with the mortals like himself, but already, everything he’d done felt like it must have been a social faux pas of some kind.

Act quiet around the quiet kids? Then no one speaks, until the silence grows so long that it’s awkward, and starting up a conversation makes it feel painfully forced. So, okay, maybe find some louder kids and try to blend in with them. Except, they start to grow obnoxious, and at some point, the headache simply stops being worth it.

Jim wasn’t even going to dare try and bond with the overly studious; he wasn’t here to vie for valedictorian, nor was he all that interested in making grades that separated him from the pack. Not to mention, he much preferred whatever lessons the Order could teach him anyway. They were very practical things, going over philosophy, strategy, combat, computations. He was already conversational in Bellroc and Skrael’s original languages, and though he knew Spanish would be equally valuable, the Spanish teacher seemed… intense, in a way that Bellroc and Skrael, who could likewise be rigorous sometimes, were not.

In fact, the only class he was indeed eager to take was history—and, okay, perhaps physical education didn’t sound horrendous, so long as he was careful about holding back in certain areas—because while he could learn plenty of history from his very ancient guardians, to hear of human history from the mouths of humans, like himself… it sounded unique, in a way that he hoped was amenable, at the very least, if not genuinely interesting or entertaining.

As he sat down in the chair beside Tobias, the boy seemed to light up, beaming over at Jim, a reaction that he hadn’t expected from his peer. He’d thought he’d rather botched his first conversation with Tobias in homeroom that morning, as he hadn’t known anything about anything that Tobias had referenced (what on earth was Gun Robot?). But, evidently, he must have done something well—or at least, acceptably— because Tobias was leaning over and excitedly holding out his hand to show Jim something which clattered in his palm as he moved. Politely, Jim glanced over to see what it was, and—oh.

Oh no.

That was definitely the remains of a troll.

Tobias was holding out small, grey pebbles for him to see, on which Jim could just make out hints of tattoos that had been etched into the troll while they were alive.

Holding back his mild panic, he gave a tight smile and a nod, as his classmate diagnosed them incorrectly as gneiss—which, admittedly, Jim thought wasn’t a bad guess, really. It’s not like the other boy had any reason to think that the rocks he was holding were anything but an average metamorphic stone.

Tobias was looking to Jim for a response, though, so he opened his mouth to speak, breathing in—

—magic.

Jim froze once more. The distinct tingle of magic had just washed over his senses, keen and undeniable, unlike anything else he’d felt that day.

It was raw, underdeveloped, not yet bolstered by the right teacher, but it was there, and it spoke in tones of purple, pulsing with potential.

Jim was no wizard himself, much preferring combat to the arcane arts, having not a strong penchant for it or its intricacies and delicate, temperamental nature, but even still, he’d been raised with the three most powerful magic-users in the known world. They’d taught him from youth how to recognize when magic was present, how to glean as many clues as he possibly could about it, or who might have cast it, might be walking in it, based on its style and scent, its intensity, or its intentionality. He wasn’t quite the best at sensing the finer details, nor could he find it when it was masked, but when it was open, unhidden, he could feel it like a mild electric shock that one might get when touching a door handle in dry weather; he could sense it like the faint scent of ozone during a storm, or like a prickle on the hairs on the back of his neck, when lightning was about to strike.

What’s going on? He thought, as he turned his head in the direction of the epicenter of the magic. First, there’s troll remains in the hands of a classmate with the same schedule as him, and then there’s—the girl, there. The girl with the blue streak in her hair.

The witch.

She’d caught him staring, as she set her books down on a desk in the front row, a couple columns over from his. Beside her plopped down two more girls—her friends, Jim noted, as they chattered familiarly, cheerfully.

The girl gave him an awkward smile, then, and Jim realized that he must have been staring for a few moments too long, so he rapidly flicked his eyes back to the surface of his own desk, trying not to think about the flush he could feel splash across the back of his neck, or the tips of his ears.

Tobias did not grant him such grace.

“Ooh,” he grinned, smug as a cat in a sunbeam. “That’s Claire Nuñez. President of the drama club, valedictorian candidate, great actress. She’s tied with Seamus Johnson and Shannon Longhannon for top of the class right now, I heard. She’s wicked smart, and—Jim?” Tobias huffed, “Are you paying attention to me?”

Jim’s eyes darted back to his new friend, from where they’d been briefly studying Claire Nuñez’s back, trying to get a more in-depth read on her arcana. He nodded distractedly. “Yeah, yeah, smart, a president; I heard you.”

Tobias sighed, shaking his head. “Jim.”

Jim raised an eyebrow, indicating that he was listening.

“She’s out of your league.” He deadpanned. “She’s super popular, and you’re, no offense, definitely not.”

Jim shot Tobias a confused look, brow furrowing. “What do you mean?”

The boy stared openly at Jim. “What do you mean, ‘what do you mean’? Do you really not— Oh my god.”

Jim blinked. “What?”

Tobias shook his head. “Jim, you’ve kinda… scared a lot of the people in our class today. They don’t know what to think about you. You’re like a giant question mark! No one even knows where you came from—”

“Ohio.” Jim recited his cover story, which Skrael had helped him pick the night previous. They’d chosen a city that started with a c… right. “Columbus, Ohio.”

Tobias shot him a deadpan look. “Okay, fine, Jim Lake from Columbus, Ohio. Why’d you suddenly move to Arcadia, then? Why not L.A.? Why not Burbank?”

Jim frowned. “Do you interrogate every newcomer like this? My parents got a good job opportunity here.” He held up one hand, “And before you ask—real estate.”

“Oh yeah? How come I haven’t seen them put up ads, then?” Tobias crossed his arms. “I’m just saying, dude; I think you’re cool, but you freak a lot of people out with that brooding, silent thing you do.”

Jim snorted. “I do what?”

“Y’know—”

“No, I don’t know—”

“You act, like, all silent and mysterious when people try to talk to you.” Tobias shrugged. “I don’t think it’s a bad thing, but some people don’t seem as ready to brush it off as me. I’m only telling you so that you can make more friends here.”

“Well, I have you, don’t I?” Jim’s head canted.

Tobias blinked, floundering at that. “Well—y…yeah, I guess so, but—”

“I mean, we are friends, aren’t we?”

It was Tobias’s turn to go a bit pink, shaking his head in bewilderment. “If you want, yeah, but—”

“Then there we go. I have a friend.” Jim smiled.

Tobias tried to protest, “But—” only to find himself cut off as Mr. Strickler strode into the classroom at that moment, placing a leather briefcase on his desk with a decisive thump. Cacophonous voices incrementally petered out, as attentive heads turned to the front of the classroom, where Mr. Strickler had pulled out a stack of syllabi, handing them to the student nearest the door, with the instructions to “take one and pass them,” spoken precisely to the class.

Tobias looked like he wanted to say something when Strickler turned his back to write his name on the chalkboard, but Jim shushed him from the corner of his mouth, opening a fresh, blank notebook as he did so. This was the only class he’d bothered to buy a separate notebook for, and, to be frank, was the only class he’d even intended to take notes in at all.

Tobias looked chagrined, but not angry, as he rolled his eyes and went to fetch a pencil from his own bag. Might as well have something to do with his idle hands for the next hour.

—

As his first day was winding to close, Jim had to admit, having a friend at school did end up making it a little easier.

The rest of his time there had passed largely unremarkably, since a rather thrilling start to the history curriculum. Jim’s hand had shot up just as much as the apparent reigning top of the sophomore class, one Miss Claire Nuñez’s, had— a fact which had, according to Tobias, already begun to percolate across campus.

The lesson had only briefly covered the basics of ancient Rome, going over a bit of easy, more widely known trivia, to see what the class already knew about their oncoming first unit, but, nonetheless, Jim had been eager to jump in, to talk almost directly to Mr. Strickler, going back and forth in the form of a discussion. He’d spoken quietly, quickly, and he’d felt the eyes of his peers glued to his desk, but had ignored the sensation altogether, in favor of listening to what his teacher had to say about aqueducts, instead.

When the hour had finally come to an end, in fact, he’d packed up slowly, most of his classmates abandoning the room as quickly as they could—the lunch period was about to begin—though Tobias was kind enough to wait for him. As such, Tobias was the only other person present to hear Mr. Strickler stop Jim after class, paying a brief compliment to his performance that day, and accompanying his words with a poster for the history club. Jim didn’t think his furtive smile had gone entirely missed by the teacher, but as they’d exited into the now mostly empty hallway, he forgot to worry about it further, as Tobias wasted no time in asking him how the heck his new friend knew so much about history already?

Jim had shrugged it off, saying that it was his favorite subject; and besides, didn’t Tobias— “Seriously, dude, it’s Toby, by the way”— know more about geology than anyone else in their class? The compliment had made Tobias—Toby— preen, and he’d promptly dropped the topic, instead launching into an enthusiastic lecture meant to coach Jim through the cafeteria process. Jim, who had tried to jump in to say that he’d heard this at orientation the week prior, but Toby had shot him an appalled look at that, swiftly informing him that orientation did nothing to help the social side of things. Sure, he knew the motions, but did he know how to do them without standing out in the crowd? Absolutely not—in fact, the thought was almost laughable, according to Toby.

So, Jim had grinned, followed Toby’s lead, and had just barely survived the ever-important lunch line waltz.

The rest of the day had passed mostly the same way, in the end. Toby, having warmed up to Jim, took him through the whole rest of the day, guiding him through the intricacies of Arcadia Oaks High, and by the time the final bell was ringing, Jim almost felt like a normal student. Some of his peers had even started waving to him in the hallways; he’d broken the ice, after all.

Well. He’d thought so, until Toby had said goodbye, peddling away on his bike toward home, leaving Jim alone in the courtyard by the bustling lockers, surrounded by students eager to either go home, as Toby had, or to dive into after-school clubs and sports.

Jim opted to take his time, though, to enjoy the Southern California sun, as he strolled casually across the campus, toward the front of the school grounds.

As he rounded the corner, though, intending to head toward the Arcadia Oaks sign, where he’d stop and shoot off a text to the Order that his first day had gone well, and that he’d be home soon, he felt a tap on his shoulder, instead, and heard a throat being cleared behind him.

He knew who it was before he even turned to face her; her magic had given her away as soon as she’d reached a hand for him.

Despite this, Jim whirled as if she’d caught him by surprise, schooling his features into something startled but friendly, relaxing his shoulders as a polite smile crossed his face, upon seeing her. “Oh, hey. Sorry, I wasn’t expecting—” he rethought his words, shaking his head. “Never mind. …It’s, ‘Claire,’ right?”

She nodded, returning his smile. “Yeah! And you’re ‘Jim Lake’, hm?”

Something about the way she asked that question sent up a warning bell in the back of Jim’s mind, but he tried not to look unsettled; it was probably just nerves.

“Yup; just Jim is fine, though.” He added with a casual laugh.

Claire tilted her head, continuing. “So, you’re quite the history buff, huh?”

Jim’s hands dropped to his pockets, as he glanced at his shoes, then back up to her. “Uh, yeah, I guess so.”

“You guess?” She teased. “You were on fire in class today.” She lifted her chin, to look at him head on. “Do I need to worry about you unseating me, Jim Lake from Columbus, Ohio?”

Jim snorted, shaking his head. “No, no; it’s not like that. History’s just a hobby.”

“Pretty intense hobby, if you know half as much as you seem like you do.” She raised an eyebrow at him.

Jim grinned. “Intense? Like being the president of drama club, the vice president of debate, and the supposed shoe-in for the lead in the play this fall?” he recited, much to Claire’s surprise, who shot him an impressed look.

“Huh. You sure do pay attention, don’t you?”

He glanced around, making it a leisurely movement, concealing the way he was searching for anyone who could overhear, before his eyes met hers again, as he said, “Only to certain people.”

Claire blinked, cheeks reddening, mistaking his meaning. “Oh, yeah? What kinds of people?”

Jim rolled the dice. “Well, people who seem nice, or kind, who I could make friends with. People who do things I wanna do, too, so I can have an ‘in’. Like clubs, and things.” he clarified.

“And, uh…” his voice grew hushed, “Magic-users in the human world.”

Claire’s face fell. “What was that last one?” Her nose scrunched with the skeptical look that overtook her features.

Jim’s eyes darted to look for an exit, realizing coldly—fearfully— that he had grossly miscalculated.

“Uh…” Stupid. He chided himself. Think of a lie before you go backing yourself into a corner. Skrael would be disappointed in him if he were here.

“Did you just say ‘the human world’ like you… aren’t human?” She stared at him suspiciously.

Jim blinked. “What? No. I’m human. Of course I’m human.” He gave a strained laugh. “What else would I be?”

“…Someone who thinks they aren’t?” Claire’s brow furrowed.

“It was a rhetor- well. I mean, I guess that’s true. But I’m not!” He smiled weakly, and then froze for a split-second, rapidly adding, “Someone who thinks they aren’t human! I know I’m human!”

Claire’s eyes shot to the street, where, to her poorly hidden relief, her dad had just pulled up to the curb, there to pick her up. “…Right. Well, Jim Lake from Cleveland, Ohio, my dad’s here, so I need to go, but this has been… interesting.”

Jim nodded rapidly, shooting her one more smile— a sheepish, apologetic one— as he gave her a shy wave. “…Yeah.”

Claire hoisted her backpack onto one shoulder, giving him a half-hearted wave back. “…Bye, Jim.”

“Bye, Claire.”

As she turned to leave, Jim frowned to himself. He wasn’t sure why, but something felt wrong. He supposed it could have been the awkward manner in which he’d acted, but in a flash, he decided that wanted to see her again, just in case that wasn’t it. He couldn’t be too careful.

So, before he missed his chance, he called after her retreating back, “See you around?”

Claire stopped, hand poised on the handle of the passenger side door, freezing there for a heart-pounding pause.

Then, she shot him a look over her shoulder, one of interest, meeting his eyes deliberately. Jim got the sense that he should heed it carefully.

“Yeah. See you around, Jim.”

[vaguely-concerned]

The Mandalorian Chapter 14 reactions: HOLY SHIT THAT WAS AWESOME BUT ALSO I’M CRYING edition

- the good good din characterization is back after all the weirdness last episode!!!! that soft way he says ‘no, no, I’m not mad at you’? THAT’S din djarin, he would not be fucking impatient with his son having just been informed and seen for himself that he is terrified, go away mr filoni I know you’ve got all of canon memorized but you don’t get this lol. this feels much more right in how din being conflicted and still thinking he should give the baby away for his own good plays out too  

honestly every line of dialogue for him in this one was perfect I was just whispering ‘I love this awkward clueless wonderful man just doing his best’ to myself any time he said anything. “...does this look Jedi to you?” sir I adore you more than words can describe

- we got din chuckling. asjdklfhsdkafghsdafsadhjkfsdahjkfh. fskahfksjad. side note: I can’t believe my joke post about din desperately trying to Force home school the kid with the one (1) jedi trick he knows about and the baby being delighted by it over and over anyway -- listen to his expectant excited laugh when din takes the ball and sets up the game!!!! -- was canon all along. and then the baby & mando music kicking in when he gently put the silver ball into the baby’s hands again and tells him he’s special (because he IS special. to din)? hmng. hmmmmnnnnn  

they opened on the height of softness so we would all crumple under the weight of the rest of the episode and that was very mean of them in a way I sincerely appreciate 

- nothing to see here... just a dad trying to walk through the literal manifestation of the unassailable underlying forces of the universe to get to his baby again and again........ the desperation in that, the love, the foolhardy devotion................... shit

- okay so I might be a dumbass, but I’d never noticed this before -- the silver ball has a blue spot on the top, like so: 

and in addition we get the room where the baby goes full darth grogu (I have to laugh so I don’t cry okay) on those storm troopers, and there’s a red light in there dominating the room (and it did even more in the concept art):

in star wars blue means light side and red means dark side (it’s very sophisticated that way), meaning the visual storytelling here is that there’s a battle for the baby’s soul and gideon and all his nonsense (and the trauma bb’s been through in the wider sense) is pulling towards the dark, while grogu and din’s connection leads him towards the light. just... the image of the baby looking at his own reflection in the symbolic representation of his relationship to din? the way children find their sense of self through being safely reflected and held by their caretakers? god help meeeeeee I will go in there and fistfight gideon myself for disrupting that in any way  

the smaller light seems to be blue too, like there’s still the presence of light even if it’s dimmed and small in that shitty horrible room, which is a change from the concept art!

- FENNEC SHAND SURVIVED BITCHES!!! I even called that she’d be back with new shiny robot parts back in season 1, could not happen to a cooler lady, I hope we get more backstory and interaction from her the next episodes -- sounds like she’s basically sworn herself to boba’s service in gratitude for saving her life, I wonder if that’s a cultural thing of whereever she comes from? does she live aboard slave 1 now too?? because that would be hilarious and amazing, it must be like two strange cats trying to get used to sharing the same space   

- everything I could ever hope for about boba fett in this series came true, they went down the much more interesting and nuanced route with jango and boba’s identities as mandalorians, he looked cool as fuck and made din as a character shine rather than overshadowing him... amazing beautiful yesss 

(I did 100% not anticipate just how ‘cool uncle boba here to help you fuck shit up’ he was going to be but I am delighted to get it anyway. uncle points deducted for getting someone to point a gun at the baby, but the main point still stands lol) 

the power and brutality of his hand to hand fighting too... a w e s o m e , I enjoyed the action scenes a lot in this one

- they even recanonized him actually wearing jango’s armour. what more could I ask for. I’ve had confused parent & child feels about these two since I was like eleven and here we fucking go again. and jango fighting in the mando civil wars too!

- so I’m grieving the razor crest (and I always will be, rip you magnificent jalopy, always in my heart) but also there’s the grim satisfaction that my reading on it was sort of true -- it is (...was. oh god it’s going to take a while to sink in huh) a symbol of din’s self and life, and at this point when they take the baby it tears everything else to pieces. the only thing that’s left in the ashes is the beskar and the thing that connects him to the baby. and there’s... a strange solace in seeing that that’s all he needs to keep going? he’s fucking obliterated from orbit but he still has his love for the baby and the beskar and that can keep him going until he finds something new, everything else can be replaced?????? weirdly healing, though he is probably going to have a solid breakdown at some point after they get the kid back (shut up they are getting the kid back) and the cold distant fog lifts 

also this scene/shot feels like it carries some Meaning, doesn’t it? I’m on record several times saying I never want din to be mand’alor and that’s still true, but there’s something about the framing of this and the way boba looks at him that’s like... hm. I’m not sure I have the words for it. there’s something heightened about it, anyway, for a moment he looks like something mythic there in the wreckage 

(something I would be much cooler with is our clan of two growing a little bit and those new people rallying behind him, actually, that might be neat. imagine if a force user does show up for the baby and gets adopted into the clan somehow??? so many possibilities.) 

- from the way he picks up the silver ball... din djarin is on his way to straight up murder some people huh

I think part of what reassures me about this scene is the music -- this mando flute is not distant, is not beaten, is not despondent, it’s clear and determined and strong.

- 

I love this. I love when we get explicit baby POVs, it makes it feel so real and intimate and... like home. (I especially loved baby’s point of view inside the razor crest, which just made me tear up again. baby lost the closest thing he’s had to a home in a long long time on top of it all. everything is suffering)

-

Emotionally Significant Thumb Grabbing tm; the show

- din djarin looking for the ‘on’ switch on a magic rock fhsdakjfhsadlfhsdjah I can’t breathe

 “Well, this is the seeing stone. Are you. Seeing anything?” fsafkdsajhfsa sdhfksjalhfkjsdahfkjsdhf

- the energy around the baby as he’s, in ahsoka’s words, ‘choosing his path’ is blue, and the force sort of works across time and space, right?? so there’s definitely still hope for our lil green bean to not have to come up with a really dumb unsubtle sith name for himself, as is regrettably yet delightfully tradition. darth babbu should never come to pass (I do like how they’re interrogating the normal dark/light side dichotomy in this series, seeing as this is a literal baby who can’t really be responsible for that stuff himself yet and has such capacity for both.)  

- listen. listen, the way din says ‘can you please hurry up’ with no sarcasm or real impatience whatsoever, more like a harried worry, to his force-meditating son as he jogs off to make sure no one’s trying to kill them. is hilarious and also YES this is what the character is!!! weirdly and incongruously polite under stress sometimes and with a slightly odd reaction pattern to things!!! he’s not just quiet and badass, he’s a little strange sometimes and it’s so good!  

- a friendly opening volley warning shot from boba there

also din uncertainly asking BOBA FETT if he’s a jedi... now this is the dramatic irony I’ve been looking for haha 

I guess neither shand nor boba actually know din’s name after this either. baby you gotta start introducing yourself at some point it gets real confusing when there are two mandos on screen 

oh the long weary sigh going through din’s frame when boba says he wants ‘the armour’ and he thinks it’s just someone trying to peel the beskar off his corpse again. sorry the galaxy’s so shitty dad   

- “But fate sometimes steps in to rescue the wretched” is a killer line well done mr favreau. I like that boba actually offers din a good deal as well and seems to intend to deliver on it from how things are going. 

- din using his beskar-covered bod to cover someone he’s fighting alongside!!! literal moving cover haha. also I love fennec’s costume design  

- I don’t know where din got more whistling birds from and I don’t care, it was really cool haha 

-

wow haha um so anyway -- 

(cue all the ‘who wore it better’ with cobb vanth’s ‘spiderman’s first home made costume’ look on one side and ABSOLUTE UNIT DADDY boba fett on the other side posts lol)

- aaaghh the music almost like a stunned desperate fluttering heart beat as din watches the razor crest be destroyed 

- for someone who has willingly worked for them in the past boba sure sounds less than thrilled about having the empire back in any capacity 

- oof the deadness in din’s voice when he says “The child is gone”. ooooh no that got me  h e l p 

- guessing next episode is at least partly a ‘gathering old allies and preparing the assault’ step before the grand finale, then! they cannot go for the season ender cliffhanger with this, I will fucking riot. anything can be up in the air except baby and dad being separated, I will not allow it

it would be very funny if the force user baby called out to comes stumbling into the middle of all this like the troy entering the room with pizzas meme too 

- the music in the darth grogu scene is partially a dark mirror of the baby & mando music :’( is nothing in this world sacred

also from how he reaches out for it baby might have used a light saber before in the past with the jedi? ngl the idea of baby wielding the dark saber not when he’s all grown up but in like two episodes -- with all the chaos a toddler holding a laser sword would involve -- is all that is keeping me sane here 

‘liable to put an eye out with one of these’ well gideon you sure have doomed someone to lose an eye with that one, here’s to hoping it’s you, for full dramatic payoff 

he is a deliciously smug awful force with great musical cues tho, you have to give it to him

- okay so this

is obviously awful and horrible and it makes me so sad... but it is undeniably also very very very funny in how it’s framed. you know what? after all this bullshit baby grogu can have a little dark side tantrum, as a treat, we’ve all been there right

(forget finding a jedi, we need to go out there and find a child psychologist who can help him deal with this without adding the fear that he’s on the path to become a two foot tall evil space sorcerer to the mix Y_________Y) 

- rip the razor crest except for the second time :’’’( gone but never forgotten

- the last thing din tells the baby is “I’m gonna protect you; I’ll be back soon”. and I hope that stays with the kid somehow and that it actually comes true, that din will be back for him as soon as humanly possible and all this pain and fear can be repaired. ggggghhhhh my emotions are too big for my dumb human body 

[pennamesmith]

For Want of a Skeletor

Entrapta hosts a Princess Alliance meeting at the Crypto Castle and absolutely nothing goes wrong. More Skeletor stories!

*

The lights were on late in Dryl. 

Stars shone outside the windows. Entrapta sat hunched over her desk, studying datapads and readouts. A polite cough from the laboratory door caused her to look up from her work.

“Oh! I’m sorry Hordak, did I wake you?”

Her partner stepped softly into the room and shook his head. “Imp did. You know how he gets when either of us take too long to come to bed.” 

Hordak crossed the cluttered floor and joined Entrapta at the desk. He was holding Imp in his arms, and the smaller, winged clone whined plaintively when he saw her. Entrapta kept her screens on, but leaned gratefully into Hordak’s side and curled a tendril of hair around his waist. She yawned, despite herself. 

“I know. I just want to make sure I get everything right before the other princesses come over tomorrow.” She glanced back at the data, nervously tapping her fingertips together. “I’ve never hosted an Alliance meeting before! And this rescue will be our biggest mission since… well, you know. I don’t want to mess anything up.”

Hordak smiled. “Your diligence is admirable. But I also seem to recall someone telling me that imperfections are beautiful.”

Entrapta stuck out her tongue. “No fair.” 

“I’m afraid the science is sound. Come to bed, my dear.” 

The scientist scoffed, but she did not protest when Hordak gathered her up in his arms. She wrapped more of her hair around him, and Imp settled sleepily in the resulting nest. Entrapta could already feel herself drifting. 

“You will be a shining star tomorrow,” Hordak promised, as he carried his family back to rest. 

“Tomorrow,” echoed Imp.

*

The next day saw the Crypto Castle’s largest meeting room filled with princesses, dignitaries, and other honorary Alliance members. While Scorpia and Perfuma admired the tiny refreshments laid out for everyone, Mermista split her time between groaning at Sea Hawk’s boasts and trying every available chair to find the most comfortable one. Glimmer and Bow stepped uneasily around the edges of the room, watching carefully for anything that might be a trap, and Frosta followed their lead. Netossa and Spinnerella tried their best to find a chair Swift Wind could sit in. 

Adora and Catra, wearing increasingly baffled expressions, were conversing with two domestic-looking robots who sat at the head of the table next to Entrapta. One was tall and skinny, and the other wore a welded-on handlebar mustache. 

“Entrapta has parents?” Catra was asking, her face a galaxy of disbelief. 

“Adopted, technically. Or adapted,” the skinnier bot explained. “We’re Entrapta’s parental units. She built us when she was six. You must have seen the painting in the foyer.” 

“Yeah, we’ve been here pretty much the whole time,” the mustachioed model added. “You kids sure made a racket during your last few visits. What was that all about?” 

“Uh,” Adora faltered. 

To her immense relief, Hordak swept into the room at that very moment, flanked by Imp, Emily, and the reprogrammed Horde drone Entrapta had dubbed ‘Skeletor.’ 

“Welcome, everyone,” Hordak boomed, bringing the gathering to a respectful hush. 

“Witless fools! I’m in charge now! And if you know what’s good for you you’ll do as I say!” Skeletor shouted. 

Hordak scowled and shooed the fussing robot away from the table. “Pay no mind to that one,” he grumbled once he’d regained the floor. “Now then. Please allow me the honor of introducing the unparalleled mind who has made this operation possible, Princess Entrapta.” 

“Thank you all for coming!” Entrapta started, while everyone took their seats. “I know you’re all excited about what we’re planning, but there’s still a lot of preparation to do before we can take off. As the chief science officers for this mission, it’s vital that Hordak and I gather as much data on your abilities as possible! Interdimensional travel is severely unpredictable and —” 

“Hold on,” Mermista interrupted. “Exactly how high are the chances of us getting mutated by cosmic space energy or whatever? Because I only want cool mutations, not gross ones.” 

“Maybe thirty, thirty-five percent?” Entrapta guessed. She shrugged. “A lot of this is theoretical. You guys will be like my guinea pigs! By which I mean the small robotic animals in the castle I protect and care for. And experiment on, sometimes.” 

She laughed heartily. Glimmer and Bow shared a nervous glance. Perfuma turned slightly green. 

Entrapta regained her composure and pointed back to the display board. “Ahem. Anyway, the good news is we already know some things about where we’re going! Probably.” She shuffled her notes, gaining confidence as she spoke.

“Before Adora found the Sword of Protection, historians debated ancient records of She-Ra. Some claimed she was called ‘Her-Ra’ and fought for the ‘Power of Grayskull.’ But I theorize that what those archaeologists actually uncovered was evidence of —”

“I have a question!” Frosta yelled. “Will there be hunky guys in the other dimension? I’m asking for a friend.”

“It’s funny you mention that, actually,” Entrapta replied. “Listen, just let me finish and…” 

Unfortunately, anxious impatience had already gripped the assembled Alliance members. They clamored with questions, all talking at the same time. Entrapta shrank back in her seat and pulled her welding mask down, seeming to reach for something under the table. 

Hordak stood up. Just as it looked like he was about to do something violent, a loud alarm sounded and the lights in the room flashed red. 

“Uh-oh.” Entrapta glanced around at the assembled company. “Um, get ready to tuck and roll everybody!”

“Get ready to what?” Mermista cried out, but it was already too late. Multiple trap doors swung open across the meeting room floor, and with flailing limbs and startled shouts the guests were sent tumbling down chutes in every direction. In moments they had all vanished.

“I always feel so much better after doing something bad!” Skeletor cackled. “Now we begin phase two!” 

*

Adora and Catra, who had clung to each other as they fell, landed with a bump in a darkened, underground space. As soon as they arrived, bright lights flickered to life and a huge screen lit up against the wall. 

Entrapta’s face appeared on the monitor, larger than life. “Oh good! You’re alive,” she chirped when she saw the other two. 

Adora clambered to her feet. “Entrapta! What’s going on?” 

The scientist glanced away. “Well, I guess Skeletor didn’t like that we were ignoring him. So he stole my map of the castle and activated the security systems! Which means we’re all lost in the labyrinth until I can catch him. Isn’t that great?” 

“It’s something,” Catra groaned, rubbing her head. 

“Exactly! Now, without my map I can’t come find you. But if you can make it through the traps, the hallway you’re in should take you back to the meeting room. Then you’ll be safe until I can fix things!” 

The screen dimmed again before Catra or Adora could protest. Left with few other options, they turned to get a good look at whatever dangers lay ahead. 

They were standing at one end of a long corridor. Square blocks floated along its length, suspended in midair with anti-gravitational tech. An interrogative punctuation mark flashed on one, while a squat robot with painted-on angry eyebrows shambled slowly back and forth beneath it. 

Catra took it all in. “You have got to be kidding.” 

Adora had already drawn her sword and begun to venture forward. Catra was about to follow her, when something made her ears flick. A suspicious frown crossed her face.

“Hey, Adora!” Catra called. “Listen!” 

“What?” 

Catra pressed her ear to the wall. “There! Do you hear that?” 

“Obviously not,” Adora huffed. “Now stop dawdling, the first puzzle looks pretty easy.” 

Catra stayed where she was. “Hold on a second. This part of the castle feels familiar. I remember walking through here back when, uh, back when it was still Horde territory.” She coughed awkwardly, and then reached up to tilt the frame of a big-eyed kitten painting. “Look!” 

Something clicked and the wall slid open, revealing a new passageway. Distinctive laughter could be heard coming from the other end of it. A purple neon sign reading “Secret Entrance!!!” buzzed to life. 

Adora sighed and rolled her eyes. 

“One time Entrapta had me and Scorpia over for a life-size Snakemen and Ladders game that got a little out of hand,” Catra explained as they entered the tunnel. At the far end there was a brightly lit office; inside, it was filled with laboratory equipment, video monitors, and a humble but dignified desk. 

Hordak was sitting at the desk, in what appeared to be a smaller version of his old Fright Zone throne. It swiveled. Entrapta was sitting on the desk, and she waved as the other couple entered. 

“Myaah! Sleep gas and stun-rays only, my evil minions!” muttered Skeletor, who was busy working the video monitors. On closer inspection, Adora realized that each of them showed some of the other princesses as they traversed the castle labyrinth. 

“Welcome to mission control!” Entrapta sang, spreading her arms wide. “Hordak didn’t think you’d find us, but I had a hypothesis you might.” 

“It was a ruse!” Adora gasped, scandalized. “You’re not lost at all!” 

“You really need to hang out with Entrapta more if that still surprises you,” Catra observed. She looked at the monitors. “Ah, are they gonna be okay?” 

“Better than!” Entrapta sprang off the desk, hanging by her hair as she showed off multiple datapads. “Everyone was getting a little… distracted upstairs, so I just decided to speed things up a teensy bit! The princesses using their powers to escape the maze will let me get all the readings we need, and then we can have a nice little party! I had the baker make tiny cakes.” 

“I made sure Hordak’s doomberry pie was especially tasty!” Skeletor piped up. 

“And it’s all perfectly safe!” Entrapta promised. Discreetly, a ribbon of hair reached out to push a blinking button. On the monitors, Mermista and Sea Hawk were rescued from a robot shark attack by a convenient change of the currents. 

“This is hilarious,” Catra laughed, looking more closely. On one of the screens, Swift Wind was gleefully running loop-de-loops along a curving racetrack. “I think they’re actually having fun in there. Can we stay and watch?” 

“I’m afraid not,” Hordak said. She-Ra’s — and your — assessment is the most important of all. But we’d love to have you over to the castle for dinner soon. Shall we say eight o’clock next week?” 

“That sounds nice!” Adora chimed, before Catra could stop her. 

“Splendid. I’ll cook,” Hordak concluded. Then he pressed a button on his desk, and a trapdoor sent the younger women plummeting through the floor. 

Catra and Adora yelped in surprise, only for their fall to be cut short by an enormous pile of pillows on the level below. They struggled to their feet. Another corridor stretched away in front of them, filled with further challenges. Floating gold coins, each about four feet tall, indicated a pathway. 

“Try not to have too much fun,” Hordak called good-naturedly as the trapdoor slid shut. 

“Use the warp zone! It’s faster!” Entrapta added. 

“Have a nice trip down!” said Skeletor. 

*

Hordak settled back in his chair (it had soft armrests, and a cushion for lumbar support) and watched his partner at work. Entrapta flitted from screen to screen, taking notes and making adjustments. On one display, Bow and Glimmer had met up with Netossa and Spinnerella while navigating a cage minefield. On another, Frosta was making an ice bridge to help Perfuma and Scorpia cross a slow-moving spike trap. 

“I’m sorry you had to use your backup plan. They really are utter fools if they ever doubted your genius,” Hordak mused. 

“Different people have different strengths and weaknesses,” Entrapta replied, without looking up from her work. “And a good scientist collaborates whenever they can! Even if that requires a little creativity sometimes.” 

Hordak nodded. “Fair enough. Nevertheless, I would not blame you if you wished to have nothing more to do with the Princess Alliance. Even their attempts to help you can seem… insensitive. You’re not obligated to forgive that.” 

Skeletor looked up from his control panel and shook a fist. “Don’t you get awfully tired of being a hero all the time? Don’t you ever feel like doing something evil?” 

“They’re trying to be good friends,” Entrapta defended. “And so am I. And if I really did need their help, maybe things would be different. But I’ve got it all under control!” 

She vaulted across the room, flipping switches and turning dials along the way. On the monitors, Perfuma’s fall from a tall platform was gently broken by a sudden anti-gravitational field. 

“Besides, forgiveness isn’t always about the person being forgiven. It’s also about taking back potential energy that was lost.” 

“Did you learn that in my brother’s therapy group?” Hordak asked. 

Entrapta smirked. “Actually, he got it from me.” 

A pleasant ding sounded and Entrapta clapped her hair. “Hooray, everyone made it back! I’ll calculate the high scores and then we can continue the social experiment!” 

“You astonish me every day,” Hordak purred as he rose to follow her. Entrapta put out her hand, and he took it. 

“Wait for me!” Skeletor cried out. “You might get lost by yourself!” 

*

One week later, a much smaller gathering of royals met in Dryl. 

Catra and Adora sat together in one of the Crypto Castle’s least intimidating dining rooms, listening with barely-contained delight as Entrapta’s parental units thoroughly embarrassed their former boss. 

“...And so I said to him, ‘I have charging ports Hordak, can you download raw data offa me?’ Ha! Oh, you shoulda seen his face!” 

Hordak slouched in his chair. “I do not think we need to bore our guests with the details of this particular story,” he protested, feebly. 

“Oh, I’m not bored at all! I want to hear everything,” Catra said. She leaned forward, grinning. “So, was this before or after you hooked him up to the lie detector?” 

Entrapta giggled, and gave Hordak a gentle pat on the shoulder as she reached for another helping of his tiny quiche. All things considered, the night was going surprisingly well. 

It was exactly what Entrapta wanted. 

After dinner, wheeled bots carted away the leftovers and dirty dishes. Hordak poured coffee for himself and Adora, and the parental units retired to wherever it was they lived in the cavernous castle. Entrapta, lost in thought as usual, felt a familiar feline presence approach her. 

“Thank you,” Catra said, sincerely. “Not just for this. For everything. For being so nice all the time. For making this mission happen. It means a lot to me.” 

Entrapta smiled softly. “To me, too. Everyone makes mistakes. It would be a shame not to learn from them when we can.” 

“Did you say something?” Skeletor squawked, suddenly materializing in the doorway. 

Entrapta, unbothered, immediately produced a datapad. “Oh we’re just talking about the big rescue mission! Actually, you should probably take a look at my data, Skeletor. I haven’t told you much yet, and we might need you!” She held the blinking screen out happily. 

Skeletor looked at the datapad. At first he seemed confused; then he boggled as he registered the information in front of him. “Eternia?” he gasped in disbelief. “Grayskull?” 

His voice rose to a fevered pitch. “He-Man!”

For once, Skeletor had no words. He shrieked incomprehensibly instead, fists shaking. 

Hordak chuckled. “It’ll be just like the old days!” 

Skeletor screamed. 

[duhragonball]

Hellsing Liveblog Chapters 25-27

This is the first leg of the “D” arc.   I had originally planned on trying to do the whole thing in one post, but it’s pretty long and meanders in places, so instead I’m going to break it up, starting with the part that wraps up volume 4 of the collected editions.

Much of these first three chapters just showcases Millennium preparing to depart their secret headquarters in Brazil.  They have three blimps, maybe more.   We already saw the Graf Zeppelin III, but there’s also a Graf Zeppelin II and a Hindenberg II.   Also, the Major refers to all of this as “Operation Sea Lion 2″.  The original “Operation Sea Lion” was Nazi Germany’s plan to invade the U.K. during World War II.   It was never enacted, however, because the Germans couldn’t establish air and naval superiority over the British.  Basically, the Major is declaring that he has finally achieved what Hilter could not, thanks to his “Last Battalion” of 1000 vampire soldiers.

The bridge of his flagship (flagblimp) has this big comfy chair on a robot arm, and a panoramic world map.   The arrows on the map point in all sorts of nutty directions, including the United States and other European nations.   I could have sworn I had heard some mention in Hellsing Ultimate of Millennium sending forces to the U.S., but the international angle was never mentioned again, and I assumed that I must have imagined it.  In any event, the Major made it clear that his target is Alucard specifically, so it doesn’t make a lot of sense to invade places where Alucard is not.

The Major prepares to take his seat only to find Warrant Officer Schrödinger sitting in his chair.   Remember, Schrödinger inexplicably teleported himself to London to address Hellsing and Iscariot, and then he got shot and killed for his trouble.   But now he’s back, alive and well.   He mocks the Major for being to slow, and the Doctor scolds him for his insolence, but the Major orders Doc to back off.   This is a running gag throughout the rest of the series.  The Doctor keeps trying to chastise Schrödinger, but the Major lets him do whatever the boy wants, almost like he’s some favorite pet.  

Meanwhile, an unidentified helicopter tries to land on a British carrier, the H.M.S. Eagle.   The Captain orders his crew to open fire, but the first officer suddenly does this:

So yeah, the first officer is a vampire now, and he’s sold out Queen and Country for Millennium.  He and a handful of vampire crewmen kill the rest of the crew and turn them all into ghouls, allowing the helicopter to land, making way for...

This lady, Lieutenant Rip Van Winkle.  I should point out that in the pages leading up to her boarding the Eagle, she was singing Engelandlied, a German war anthem from World War I.   She’s nutty, is the idea.

So, I’m gonna go ahead and put forth my fan theory that all the bad guys we dealt with prior to Rip were just patsies for Millennium, and not actual members in their own right.   This includes Tubalcain “Dandyman” Alahambra, because, for all his powers, no one ever said his rank, leading me to think he didn’t have one.   Same with the Valentine Brothers and any of the vampires Alucard and Seras were sent to fight during the first dozen or so chapters of this manga.   Millennium may have turned them into vampires, and in some cases they even let them in on Millennium’s inner workings, but they were never more than cannon fodder.   Jan seemed to understand this, although Luke and Dandyman seemed to believe they were genuinely created to represent the new pinnacle of vampiric power.   Even the Doctor thought Dandyman had a strong chance of beating Alucard, but in the end they were just experiments meant to test Alucard’s mettle.

And, really, the rest of Millennium is not much different, except Rip and the others actually know why they’re being sacrificed, even if they don’t necessarily understand how or when.

Meanwhile, Seras still won’t drink blood, and she keeps trying to eat regular food instead, even though she struggles to swallow every bite.   I’ve never been very clear on whether vampires in Hellsing can eat non-blood food or not.  Seras is doing it, albeit painfully, but I don’t think she really gains anything from it, except whatever coping mechanism this is supposed to serve.   

So in walks Sir Integra, who dumps a bag of medical blood on her table.  Seras never really answers Integra’s question, but she already told Walter, and it’s not much of an answer.   The heart of the matter is this: Seras really doesn’t want to be a vampire.   Or, maybe, more accurately, she doesn’t want to stop being human.   The trouble is that she already lost that battle way back in Chapter 1. 

In many ways, Seras has accepted her fate.   She works for Hellsing, recognizes Alucard as her vampire master, and so on.  I think she understands that this is the only life she can have now, and her will to live is strong enough that she appreciates what Alucard and Integra have done for her.    At her core, Seras is a public servant, and fighting monsters for Hellsing is not so different from fighting crime as a policewoman.  I think she sees her current condition as a means to that end.   She doesn’t crave power like the evil vampires we’ve seen thus far.    Seras views her abilities as a means to an end.   Alucard biting her gave her a way to stay alive and continue fighting the good fight.

However, she doesn’t want the baggage that goes along with that.   She wants to retain as much of her humanity as she can, and drinking blood is the one thing that she has some control over, or so she believes.

But Integra’s far too practical for that dilemma.   Alucard was willing to respect Seras’ relucatance, but she needs her troops on their toes and ready for action.  So she takes a knife and cuts open her finger, and then orders Seras to lick the blood off.    This is... disturbingly sexual, and one of a number of scenes that reminds me that Hirano Kouta had done a lot of, er, adult comics before Hellsing.   I think he did a lot of uniform fetishy stuff too, which is why Seras and Schrödinger’s uniforms look so similar to each other.   Both are meant to resemble German WWII gear.   I’m willing to grant some leeway here, because there’s probably only so many ways to do a finger-licking scene like this without sexualizing it a little, but the last bit with the saliva trail is just revolting. 

So, what’s bugged me for a long time was that if Seras drank (a little) of Integra’s blood here, why did this subplot not get paid off until much later in the story?  She drank blood, didn’t she?   Well, yeah, but Integra ordered her to do it, so it doesn’t count.   This came up a couple of times earlier in the story, when Walter and Al mentioned that she wouldn’t drink blood willingly.  It’s not just an ethical issue for Seras, or she’d simply chow down on the medical blood.  I guess Integra could force feed her every night, but that wouldn’t solve anything.   This is about Seras accepting her transformation as a fait accompli.   I think this is why she very nearly drank Alucard’s blood back in Northern Ireland, when it sure looked like there was no other way for her to survive.  But if she’s just sitting there with no one making her do it, and no urgent need to do it, she’ll refuse every time.  

I think Hellsing uses the premise that a vampire has to do more than just bite a human to turn them into a vampire.  That is, Alucard had to put his own blood in Seras’ body to complete that transformation.   I think that’s how it worked in the Dracula novel, and Seras herself mentions it in the Gonzoverse anime.   But that wouldn’t count either, because it’s part of the change itself.  The idea is for the new vampire to partake in blood-drinking by choice, and until that happens, they won’t get all the cool powers.   

One other thing, Integra takes this opportunity to mention that she’s a virgin, which is a weird flex for this situation, but okay.  In Hellsing, that means Integra could become a vampire herself, but not if Seras bites her, because it has to be a vampire of the opposite sex.   In any case, Tegs warns Seras not to bite down during this creepy finger-licking KFC-hentai thing.   

Back in the damn ocean, Lt. Rip van Winkle is welcomed aboard by the traitorous crew of the Eagle.   She asks them how it feels to be a vampire, and causally reminds them of their treachery.   Then she gives them new orders, which are to die by her magic gun, which fires a bullet that can turn around in midair.

And so the First Officer and his lackeys learn the same lesson as the Brazillians working for the Dandyman, and the Dandyman himself, and the Valentine Brothers and whoever else.  Millennium might turn you into a vampire, but that hardly means that you’ll live forever.   Millennium always demands treason as payment for their help, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that they might betray you sooner or later.

Besides, Rip doesn’t need the British crew, because she has her own henchman on board her chopper.   While she waits for them to wake up, she paints a swastika on the deck, just to make it clear that they’ve taken control of the Eagle, which she renames the Adler.  That’s German for “Eagle”, you see.

Back on his blimp, the Major cuts this twenty-minute promo which basically amounts to “I love war, we have no particular agenda except to wage endless war for the fun of it.”   Back in England, Alucard is eagerly awaiting their arrival.  

[spookyspaghettisundae]

Steele Resolve

Over 300 billion years into the future.

"Get out," Dallas told Darkwing.

He eyed her suspiciously, then she shoved him—captain of this ship—out of his very own cabin. Punching the control button by the door, the panel slid shut in between them in a flash, shutting out both him and the glaring light from the corridor.

She stifled a laugh as the hypersteel barrier muffled his yapping—something about being a living god, among other things, rattling on as he audibly turned and wandered away, babbling all the way to the Avian's cockpit.

Dallas waited till he was far enough away, then listened at the door even longer. Ensuring she heard no signs of the cat, the psychotic robot, that disgusting engineer, or—most importantly—the girl.

The ship's star-drive churned, causing all surfaces to subtly vibrate while it steadily propelled the combat vessel through space. It meshed with the rushing of blood in her ears. Her eyes adjusted to the dim light in the cabin, generated only by arrays of glowing buttons, some of them steady, others blinking.

Half a minute felt long enough.

She slid into the swiveling chair that was bolted down onto the floor in front of a quantum entanglement communicator terminal.

The assassin tilted her head back and forth and her neck cracked both times.

With the routine of a spy, she slung out her trusty old ballistic revolver, flicked a concealed switch with her thumb, and slapped the archaic weapon against an open palm.

Then—again. And a third time.

A scrambler chip clicked out of the gun's grip.

She slipped it out and quickly inserted it into one of the terminal's slots. Tapped the power buttons and fired up the device.

The soft blue glow of the screen in front of her illuminated the entire dark chamber she sat alone in. A sigh of impatience escaped her as she awaited the loading bars of the chip's overrides to reach completion on-screen and guarantee her the use of a secure channel.

Meanwhile, a window popped up, listing all recent encrypted text messages she had received from her contacts over the course of the past time units. One of the message subjects read, "DIE BITCH", sent by a certain "Dragon." Many others reflected the bridges she had recently burned and flattered her with other colorful threats and creative insults. Fueled by professional pride, and mixed with a newfound sense of liberty, she smiled to herself and dismissed the entire window with a languid swipe.

Clickety-clackety-clickety-clackety—

Her fingers hacked away at the keyboard with an uncanny speed and precision. Hit the key to transmit with excessive force, a sound of polymers and metal snapping together that cut through the quiet, stale air of the captain's cabin.

Her heart began to race as she awaited response. The ensuing seconds dragged on like molasses, even if they were only few.

A screen, cropped out within the screen, flicked open and displayed a sea of static. The silhouette of her handler turned visible, emerging from within the visual noise, but never fully surfacing in full definition. Masked behind a helmet that emitted an ominous cross-shaped red glow, cast in shadows by a hood.

An agent of the Holy Lahasan Empire.

"Steele? You now also owe me some explanations," said her handler on the other end of the connection, that shadowy silhouette speaking to her from far across the galaxy, distorted by the distance and dampened by the mask.

Dallas leaned back into the chair, unknowingly sinking into it like the many times that the captain had done before, sinking into a spell of deeper contemplation.

She clicked her tongue and finally replied, "Things did not go quite as planned. There were some—complications."

"According to my intel, Agent Reeve was disintegrated in a blast caused by archaic explosives."

Dallas' mien darkened, turning into a frown. "All due respect, but Rourke was an asshole, and—"

"With all due respect, your personal opinions need to leave, exiting through the nearest airlock right now. Not only are you living on borrowed time for your treason against the Empress, but you have a jarring track record of valuable agents dropping dead around you."

"That sounds like your problem, not mine."

The handler's voice dropped in volume, slowed down to a grim crawl. "You remember the cortex bomb I had implanted in your spine, right?"

She scowled at the screen, unable to find any eye contact, instead focusing on the red glow of the cross.

"Come on, I'm too valuable to you. You wanted the best tracker in the universe, which is why you pulled me out of cryo-prison."

"And I am constantly re-evaluating that decision."

Dallas held her tongue. Her chin jutted out and she fidgeted in her seat until her fingers encountered the calming cool of the stainless-steel surface of the old lighter, hidden in her pocket.

"Moving on. Report your progress on retrieving subject K70001-34966."

Dallas decided to play it cool.

She had to play her cards right.

"What a mouthful. We are talking about some girl. Don't you wanna abbreviate that name a bit?"

"No."

Hesitating to answer, she patted her jacket down until she retrieved a palm-sized silvered case from another pocket. She pressed a button on it, and it clicked—also analog and mechanical—triggering its finely-engraved lid to swing open.

Removing a thin cigar from the other three inside it, she lit it up, puffed a few times, and then blew a mouthful of smoke towards the QEC's monitor. The agent awaited her response, but she regained some confidence just in the thought that constantly tested his patience to the point of annoying him.

He had to put up with her.

Threats aside, she was, in fact, the best woman for the job.

"I've gotten pretty damn close. I think it's a matter of weeks, or even days now."

"Be more precise," growled the handler.

"Look, I found out how she's getting around, alright? By stowing away on other people's ships. I'm closely on her trail now. We almost had her too! Sadly, for Rourke, he got killed in that explosion by some idiot that had nothing to do with the job. There was a shootout at this place on—"

"Most of that was in the report. Share more pertinent details, or get to the point," he ordered.

"It's just a matter of time till I can bring her in."

Now he remained silent, processing her meager report. It must have been better than nothing.

"You had best not disappoint. You know we—"

"Yes, yes. Borrowed time."

He said nothing.

Dallas' nostrils flared, blowing smoke out of them.

She squinted and smirked, then asked, "I offed Youssell for you like you requested, right? That wasn't exactly on the books, was it?"

This time, the agent failed to respond.

"Right, and now you're having me track down and retrieve some kid that you lost in the first place."

Though the hood, and helmet, and eerie mask with its cross-shaped glow fully concealed his face, she could practically hear him gritting his teeth as he replied, "Because of your meddling, Steele."

"Well, you have to agree that it's a bit—uh, how to put this—a bit outside of my usual expertise to find people and get them back alive. So, you'll have to kindly stick a thumb up your ass while you wait and give me some time to improvise and succeed. I mean, you do want the kid alive, right?"

More silence followed. Dallas blew more smoke at the monitor, wishing she could be blowing it into his face.

"So, my word—you're getting her alive—or you'll find me as a corpse floating through open space. That is a promise. But if you want this to work out, you'll have to trust me." Saying that, her smirk widened as she feigned every ounce of confidence she could put on display.

With an abrupt flash, the screen within the screen winked out of existence, and the static noise from the scrambled transmission went dead. The handler had ended the communication without giving Dallas any further notice.

"Oh, my. Lovely. Fuck you too, Prince Charming."

She basked in the cold blue glow of the terminal's screen and puffed some more from her slender cigar. She tried to focus on thoughts about how to proceed—of where to go from here. But instead of finding clear ideas and reaching decisive plans of action—something she was usually adept at—pesky memories kept welling up instead.

Thoughts also regularly circled back to the cortex bomb implanted in her spine, but the older memories eventually overshadowed them.

   * * *

"I will not ask you again," said the inquisitor.

His hand crept towards a button on the wall outside the cell.

The girl trapped inside, identified on the monitor next to the white energy barrier as "Delinquent K70001-34966", drooled and writhed on the cold metal floor of that cell. She did not respond to the inquisitor's threat.

He pushed the button once more, causing the girl on the floor of the cell to convulse under waves upon waves of searing pain that washed over her, illuminated by bright yellow, crackling energy. Each surge of electrical discharges caused her to spasm until she threw up. Then she collapsed again, one cheek resting in the tiny pool of vomit. Covered in sweat, she lay there, curled up in a pathetic and helpless heap.

This was the umpteenth time that he had used the interrogation interface to torment the young woman trapped within.

The shock trooper standing guard by the inquisitor looked on in disbelief. Her gaze bounced back and forth in between the inquisitor standing outside the cell, coldly and callously operating this abominable torture device; and the helpless young woman who groaned pitifully as she twitched on the floor of her cell, not once having answered his questions, and not once having begged for mercy.

"I missed the memo on the M.O. of how you handle these things. But it's far from palatable," the guard said to the inquisitor.

The masked inquisitor turned to confront the assassin posing as a guard.

"Memo? Palatable? What the devil are you blathering on about?"

VLA-VLAM!

The barrel of the energy rifle in the hands of the false guard glowed.

She had shot the inquisitor twice in quick succession.

One to the chest to send him reeling, the other to the head to take him out.

To her chagrin, his masked helmet with the glowing red cross emblazoned on its front had absorbed some of the shock from the energy weapon, and he stumbled backwards, reeling—but still quite alive.

Damned energy weapons, Dallas Steele thought to herself, encased in the hijacked power armor of the guard. And this was why you can only count on ballistics, she thought next, even though time had slowed to a crawl.

He was too slow on the uptake though, too slow to raise his weapon and retaliate in time. She jacked up her weapon's cadence with a flick of her wrist, unloading a full salvo into his center mass.

VA-VA-VA-VA-VLAM!

The inquisitor collapsed into a lifeless body in the narrow corridor outside the holding cell, the metal of his armor clanked against the hard floor.

She approached him, poked him with the muzzle of her rifle, and confirmed on her helmet's HUD that his vital signs were bottoming out.

Next, she punched the cell barrier controls. The white force field between her and the girl flickered, then it dissipated entirely.

Hunching down over the young woman inside the cell and holding out an armored hand in offering to help her get back up on her feet, she simply commanded, "Get up."

K70001-34966 took her hand, trembling, feeble, and weakened. The false agent helped the young woman limp along through the narrow corridors, using the powered armor's strength enhancements to effortlessly brace the girl's entire weight as she stumbled alongside her.

A voice crackled, coming in over the false guard's armor-integrated headset, "Agent Heinlein, report in. We registered a weapons discharge in the holding area, and Inquisitor Valstrum is not responding. His vital signs are tanking. What the hell is going on back there?"

"Uh, it was some sort of, uhm, equipment malfunction," Not-Agent-Heinlein lied through her helm's intercom. "Investigating it right now."

"We registered seven discharges and you are moving from your post. What kind of—"

"Factory code zero-zero-zero," she quickly talked over the operator, cutting the communication off with a hard reset of her intercom, and shutting him out.

She dragged the girl along as she picked up the pace.

K70001-34966 was pretty out of it. Drooling, bare heels sliding with squeaks over sleek metal floors.

The dozen or more shocks must have rendered her groggy. No matter—she had nothing to do with the mission anyway. Dallas just had to take a moment to silence that pesky consciousness that was knocking on the mental door, begging to be let in from the prison inside the back of her head.

Once they had reached an emergency escape pod, Dallas shoved the girl inside, causing her to tumble forward and fall back down onto the floor, not unlike she had been in the holding cell. Leaving her no time to recover, the false guard shuttered the docking mechanism and ejected the pod. For a brief few seconds, she saw the girl looking back at her helmet-clad face, going wide-eyed with surprise. A jet of steam shot in between them, obscuring that glimpse.

The next moment, the angular pod jettisoned off at breakneck speed as its boosters activated and it shot off into space, hurtling towards a thriving terrestrial planet pockmarked with a brightly lit complex of clustered urban zones. And all around it, the Sea of Stars.

The intercom in the hallway crackled, whined, and then the operator shouted at her over it, "There will be a court martial—"

VA-VA-VA-VLAM!

Four shots had ripped through the corridor and caused the exposed intercom console to explode into a shower of sparks and fizzing.

The false guard ripped her helmet off in annoyance. Her face was covered in a sheen of sweat.

This job was a bust. She would have to cover her tracks. She would have to kill every single person left on this ship.

As two scout troopers rounded the corner, Dalla popped out of cover to greet them with bursts of hyper-charged plasma shots, cleanly removing the head of one of them in the first burst, and ripping the other apart, cleaving his upper body from the rest of him.

One of them had reflexively shot back with a salvo of his own. The powered armor could only absorb so much impact and energy.

Her leg and ribs throbbed, she coughed and grinned and mostly gritted her teeth to ignore the waves of pain, surging from those uncomfortably hot spots, wondering for a moment if it was worse than what the girl had gone through.

Dallas limped away through the claustrophobic corridors. Her breathing had turned raspy. A maniacal laugh emerged from her throat, ending in a hacking cough.

She had never fucked up a job this badly. She was a killer, sure—but she had some rules. Some principles.

No kids.

That was her only condition.

Why did they have to be torturing a kid aboard of this damned transporter? She wanted to kill the guy who had fixed her up with this "milk run".

Her vision blurred. Next, she coughed, blood splattered on the panel by the door. She punched the controls, it slid shut in a flash. She limped away, towards the droning and deafening noises emitted by the engine core.

Tried to make sense of the engineering console and all its blinking lights and inane strings of letters and numbers that said rather little to a woman of her trade.

The outlines of the blast door glowed brightly as someone tried to force the doorway open, using a fusion cutter, from the other side. Trying desperately to get inside to stop their murderous stowaway from sabotaging their star-drive.

Dallas gave up in her failed effort at trying to override the engine's security protocols.

She aimed the plasma rifle at a set of power couplings, closed her eyes and turned her head away. Pulled the trigger.

VA-VA-VA-VA-VA-VA-VA-VA-VA-VLAM!

Sparks and metal pieces flew all over the place, causing her to flinch.

The weapon not only glowed, but steam also rose from its barrel now.

"Critical system failure," a monotonous computer voice announced over the ship's intercom speakers. It continued to repeat the warning, over and over again. The bright white lights went out, replaced by red lights rhythmically rotating and casting everything in an eerie state of emergency.

A revolving alarm sound began to bleat, piercing Dallas' already throbbing skull. The edges of her eyesight blurred, closing in quickly.

They got inside, but the next moments turned into a haze.

A rush of unfiltered instinct—killer instinct. A perfect storm of honed reflexes, augmentations, and pure skill. A ballet of carnage.

Three more bodies hit the floor, clanking, and clattering, and groaning. One of them even yelled for his mother before she snuffed him out with a sudden stomp from her armored boot.

She remembered leaving bloody handprints whenever she pushed herself off the walls of the corridor, methodically making her way back to the escape pods, locking each and every blast door behind her as she progressed, shutting out the sounds of pursuers, of troopers in powered armor chasing her through the transporter's winding hallways.

Just before she lost consciousness, she remembered seeing the ship shrink. Smaller and smaller, as the escape pod she had jettisoned herself with flew farther and farther away from the imperial transporter.

Only moments after the vessel transformed into bright explosions and space debris within the blink of an eye, her eyelids weighed a million tons and she blacked out.

The next thing she remembered, she was on some forsaken planet's surface with a breathable atmosphere, staring down the barrels of high-powered pulse rifles of MilSec soldiers, surrounded by Imperial attachés.

They already had her wrists wreathed in the purple glow of energy shackles, lifting her up and dragging her off, taking her into custody.

"Hello, boys," she said, groaning, then cackling until it was clipped off by her pained coughing.

Unbeknownst to her then, her future handler stood there, amid the attachés. The ominous red cross glowed from the front of his masked helmet as he watched the grunts do the heavy lifting, peeling her out of the damaged suit of armor and confirming that the emergency gel would prevent her from dying.

At this point in time, she did not know him yet, but he recognized her. Had seen her mugshot as a wanted criminal more than once.

Looking back, she knew. In that moment, he already formulated plans for her.

But first, she had to go into cryo. After that, installing the bomb in her spine would follow.

—Submitted by Wratts

[number5theboy]

The notes I took while reading the comics are under the cut. These are not my ordered thoughts, just thoughts I had while reading. I’ll write something more coherent a bit later, once my thoughts are sorted better than these

APOCALYPSE SUITE

Diego repeatedly stabbed a Caravaggio, which just personally offends me. Also @ Reginald the fact that you left a Caravaggio in reach of your KIDS, who have KNIVES, is just as insulting. Someone save that Caravaggio since anything and anyone else is beyond saving

“Inexplicable resemblance to an Ingmar Bergmann extra” askjdsgbkdsbhsd Gerard sir that is so oddly specific. Is Reginald an Ingmar Bergman fan. Is that what you’re trying to tell us. Or is Klaus just a silent movie type

Right off the bat, the comics universe is so much more interesting than the show universe. They have boxers who beat up squids like??? Give us an adaptation with the comic world, preferably animated

The kiddos were all born to “mostly single women” dsbksdgbksdgbdsg??? Did the magical alien thingamajig check their relationship status first?

“Inventor of The Televator, The Levitator, The Mobile Umbrella Communicator, and Clever Crisp Cereal” dgdsghsgdhjsdkjhg Reginald names his inventions like Dr. Doofenschmirtz from Phineas and Ferb

Also the page that reveals/introduces Reginald is SO good, just the panelling and the action tells you so much. There’s dead bodies and excavations and masks in addition to text. It’s great.

“The Day The Eiffel Tower Went Berserk” is an EXCELLENT hook to a story

“It’s your Eiffel Tower, it’s gone insane and must be stopped at all costs.” Dksgdhjbkgsdhjbdsghjb the show could never

This comic keeps disrespecting cool art. Why is it doing that to me. Don’t let the musée d’orsay get robbed

Okay, luther came through for me on that

Dsdhlsdghlgsdhldsh the siblings arguing while the Eiffel Tower is falling apart around them had me cackling

“WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE” dsbdgsbgsdbdgsbklsd okay diego

“And just as I suspected – ZOMBIE-ROBOT GUSTAVE EIFFEL!” hello I need at least three comics of back lore on this. Why does luther have that hunch. Why is Gustave Eiffel a zombie-robot. How did we get here. Please I want answers

The missing line on the ‘e’ of ‘touché’ makes that dramatic moment way less dramatic and more funny ngl

Oh but you can be bothered to put the accent aigu on ‘séquence’

“And while you lost the Eiffel Tower, you saved Paris.” I am laughing too hard by this point. How dare this be a barely brushed upon adventure. Please I need to know more about zombie-robot Gustave Eiffel

Te Ben-robot makes me emotional and “Only my father calls me Number One”? ouch.

Also for the record, I love Luther’s design SO much

“Hello your father is dead. Please audition for my orchestra for revenge. Many thank. Bye.” Okay Conductor, whatever floats your boat, I guess

“and something worse is coming” dbhsdghbjgshbjsgbjhkgf okay Five, whatever floats your boat I guess

Allison immediately coming in with the ‘I know everyone blames you for Ben’s death, Luther, but honestly, who the fuck knows?’ dsbgbhdgshbsgdhkbj

Klaus has such an entrance and I honestly didn’t know that Claire was a comic character

The introduction to the apocalypse comes SO the fuck out of nowhere, but grumpy little Five with the ‘I knew I shouldn’t have run away from home’ speech bubble? Awesome

Also just genuinely interesting that Five truly hated Reginald and was aware of these feelings

The apocalypse introductions in the show and the comic are going for different feelings but they are both equally devastating, which is a nice touch

Also someone give show! Five a sword

Comic Diego is a fuckboy, and that’s obvious from a hundred paces

Apparently Grace makes me sad in any incarnation

Okay but the backdoor of the Icarus in the show is lifted straight out of the comics

I love the Conductor’s design so much, and his introduction is so good

Oh my god someone get a language checker, The Orchestra Verdammten doesn’t even make grammatical sense

I love the Conductor, he is so extra and just the concept of a piece of music that destroys the world…….it fucks so hard

This comic just throws wild shit at you and expects you to keep up

Just read the instructions Dr. Terminal gave his bots. Is he okay.

Why does Dr. Terminal want to eat Finland. Please I need to know what’s going on in that head of his

Gabriel Ba has excellent comedic timing

Five is a bitch and I love him

Diego hiding in a haunted house…….what a drama queen

Klaus is so fucking funny oh my god

Diego is so hilariously bitter towards Vanya. No need to destroy her like that, asshole

Love how Diego single-handedly brought about the apocalypse. What an idiot.

Dr. Pogo deserves the world

The Vanya reveal of powers is a bit. Uh. Underwhelming. Love the Frankenstein set-up tho

The art, man……..it’s so good

Comic Luther is SO savage holy shit

I love you Mister Conductor, but please stop butchering languages I know, thanks

I knew he was gonna die, but I am still hurt. Please bring him back, he’s the best character in this

“I don’t know where to begin…But I suppose I should start with the Kennedy assassination.” Okay five you drama queen

Allison is a bitch, and I mean that as a compliment

Honestly these Five and Vanya are made to be enemies, it’s great

HELL YEAH YOU GO KLAUS

This wraps up a little too nicely. Where did the moon boulder go

DALLAS

Sagfdghjasfkjghdsfjhksfhkj it opens with a ‘by the way, I’m still dead’ from Pogo

I can’t believe TUA directly inspired Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian

No seriously, I knew about sentient monument Abraham Lincoln but this entire scene FUCKS

Dsbksgdbhsgbhksgdhbkj Celebrity Surgery, the big popular reality TV show, I’m laughing

Luther and Klaus are both such messes jeesus, even if Klaus is coping better

Allison immediately kidnaps Vanya and exposes her to all the horrible shit she caused?? Dbgbhjdgkjhbgdhkj I love these versions of the characters

While Show!Diego is Walmart Batman, Comic!Diego is Walmart Rorschach

I thought I got the gazelle speech but now I’m just confused

It literally is an epiphany AND WHAT GOT HAZEL AND CHA-CHA SENT ON HIS ASS I’M

CACKLING

Also that one wordless Hazel and Cha-Cha panel……..so good

Five is a communist lmao Diego

Luther and Diego arguments are tedious in both versions

I hate the Marilyn Monroe ape scene. With a passion. It is so cursed

Also show Hazel and Cha-Cha were partners that grew apart. I think comics Hazel and Cha-Cha are in love

I am every killer ever. That is one cute puppy.

Also Klaus and God is great in every universe

Dsjfghjdhjdgjhbdgbjhkdbkjhgb Five’s face when he is outfoxed

Why do dream!Luther and Allison have am ape cyclops daughter

I love the Luther&Klaus dynamic

This is just a remix of Watchmen

I have no idea why they suddenly know what Five is up to, from the corpse of a Commission agent. What.

Wait now they can use corpses as time travel devices. What.

Okay, Klaus accidentally blew up the world. Cool?

I am so confused

Now Diego Klaus and Luther are fighting vampires in Vietnam and hurling mummies through the bush. Okay.

So Pogo always knew what kind of disasters they’d turn into? Dskbgdsbkhsdgbkgsdkh

THE WHOLE JFK ASSASSINATION ARC IS AMAZING

HOTEL OBLIVION

Hotel Oblivion really just presents a cockroach on a plate to you, huh

Reginald’s aesthetic is seriously so much cooler than he deserves

EVIL IS THE NAME OF THE FIRST PART OF HOTEL OBLIVION?!? I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE MR. AIDAN GALLAGHER

Five is a hired gun now?!? Man, that dude cannot catch a break ever

“TV is a healthy alternative to dying” esjkdsgbkgskbhdsgkbes

Who is Luther’s Japanese bro?!?

Also I just kind of really like the Luther&Diego dynamic in the comics

The show robbed us of Allison helping Vanya recover. It robbed us of Vanya getting injured in the first place, so what recovery, but still. This is incredibly sweet

God, all the villains in this universe are so intriguing. Except for Knock-Off-Adrian-Veidt, I keep forgetting that Perseus exists

“I’m a haunted house.” Is so metal as a self-descriptor

What the FLYING FUCK is Klaus doing there

Giant chicken?

The Enterprise???

“What are you doing?” “A report. I’m really interested in capitalism.” Djhsgjgskjvsevksevjesvjsefjv maybe Diego is right and Five is indeed a communist

“I know what it feels like to be unloved. I was born an object, and never treated as anything but.” It really was that bad, wasn’t it?” “For the both of us, yes.” B R U H

Evil Grace is fun

I love Allison and Five and their relationship so much

Five is interested in the stock market??

I am way too emotionally invested in whether Murder Magician and his baby make it out of there

Oh I CANNOT believe their romantic loves for their SISTERS is what unites them. I hate this.

What on earth is going on with Perseus and the flying head of Medusa

Alive Ben 😊☹

I am an idiot for not making the Perseus-Medusa connection sooner.

The Eiffel Tower now looks like the love child of the actual Eiffel Tower and the Atomium.

And now the Dr. Manhattan knock-off is here

God I love Allison so much

What the fuck is Pereus on about

Terminal eats a zoo

Scientific Man borders on plagiarism I’m sdhbgshsvjhksfvjksdjhkdsj

No no no no no not the Murder Magician

This whole baby arc makes me so soft

HELL YEAH LUTHER

Well this ended on a cliffhanger

[hispydamy618]

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power x Spaceling: Glitch in Space

Summary: After opening the portal, it tears a hole across the dimensions giving an entrance for the New York heroes: Utopix Jones, Georgine Wilson, Gabriel Rodriguez, Oliver Schmidt and Makena Jones, to fall right through. Together, they'll need to recreate the disaster that brought them to Etheria alongside the Princess' Rebellion in order to go back home and fix what was broken... but not before defeating the obstacles on the way.

Disclaimer: Contains spoilers for She-Ra’s season 3 finale and Spaceling’s issue 10-12 events.

(Thank you so much to @catlliecal​ for co-writing this with me!)

Masterlist: Chapter 1 (you’re here!) // Chapter 2 // Chapter 3 // Chapter 4 // Chapter 5 // Chapter 6 // Chapter 7

Word Count: 3.2k 

Check Spaceling out!

Chapter 1: And We Must Be Brave

Sunrise in Ethernia was always a sight to behold, bringing out the beauty of the land. Even the Horde infested Fright Zone looked nice at this time of day. The Kingdom of Snows sparkled like a diamond, the rays of the sun making the ice shine. The flowers in Plumeria reach up to soak in the light, opening up their petals and showing off their color. Salinaes' waters began to twinkle in the light as they kept hitting the city walls. Shadows stretched over Dryl, the sun showing off the kingdom's grand architecture. The hidden kingdom of Mystacor danced in the sky, floating in place as the sun came up and passed them. None of these places compared to Bright Moon at sunrise. every nook and cranny came alive with energy and life, glimmering with hope for all to see. 

Which did not include Adora, who was currently fast asleep. 

She began squirming around, trying to grab something without waking up. Unfortunately, she squirmed around too much and fell out of her bed and onto the floor.

"Urg..." Adora regretfully opened up her eyes, groaning and moaning as she tried to get a sense of her surroundings. Hadn't she gotten over the whole 'falling out of the very tall bed thing' already? According to today, apparently not.

"Oh, I didn't think it could get worse..." she slowly stood up and began stretching, trying to lessen the aches running up and down her. That last fight with Catra really put her through the ringer, even putting aside the whole realty-crumbling-as-far-as-the-eye-can-see fact. Falling onto the floor only aggravated those pains. A hot bath was certainly in order, especially if the First Ones wanted to go over more physical combat skills with She-Ra later on.

Adora let out a huge yawn before she felt her a couple of her bones pop. Going back to sleep now was pointless since the sun was up. She'd only get a few more moments before Bow came in telling her not to sleep the day away, followed up by Glimmer teleporting onto her bed and yanking the sheets off.

"Morning, Adora."

"Morning, Glimmer. Good to see you– what are you doing in here?"

Adora rubbed her eyes to make sure she wasn't imagining things. There Glimmer was, sitting on the window seat, looking over Bright Moon.

"Oh, you know," Glimmer shrugged. "Just... thinking."

"What kind of thinking?" Adora plopped down on the other side of the window seat.

"Just normal thinking about normal stuff."

"Right, normal thinking. Not processing-what-just-happened thinking."

"Totally not that!" Glimmer's voice cracked on the last word.The two sat in silence, watching what remained of the sunrise.

"You know," Adora began, "if you wanna talk about it, I'm here to listen."

"Not really," Glimmer pulled her legs to her chest.

"You sure?" Adora asked, trying to push the envelope as much as she could.

"I'm sure... I don't wanna think about it unless I have to."

"Got it..." Adora clicked her tongue. She shuffled around a little, the air heavy with unspoken words. It's not like Adora could blame Glimmer. Even if Angelica was alive, she was sealed away. Sure, Etheria was safe from being ripped apart by space-time itself, but nothing felt right. It had barely been a day and the lack of one prominent face was already very noticeable. While Adora had never had a good mother, she couldn't help but think about how heartbroken Glimmer must be.

Hopefully she would open up soon.

And yet, dozens of dimensions away, another planet dealt with a less disastrous situation. Most specifically at New York... on a young girl's house. Makena's.

"Make yourselves at home!" Makena smiled at her two guests, Georgine and Utopix, while trying to unlock the door. 

"Oh, this'll be fun!" Utopix excitedly waited by Georgine's side, who kept him close at all times. It hadn't been weeks since she decided to confess her love to him by printing her lips on his... yet she decided to protect him with such ferocity and valor. 

"Why, hello!" Gabriel greeted the two lovebirds, leaning near Oliver's grumpy self.

"Hello, guys!" Utopix immediately reacted at his interaction by happily waving at him, unlike Georgine who glanced away at the discomfort of noticing Oliver there. Not that she cared, but she'd rather not deal with it right now.

"Oh, shoot..." she spoke out like a curse. 

Hours have passed and Georgine had explained the uncomfortable situation that Utopix and her had to face earlier that week: a doppelgänger barging in her house and intimidating Utopix... letting him know of his existence. 

"A doppelgänger?" Makena asked in concern.

"Yeah... We saw him a few days ago," Georgine replied, keeping her head low.

"What did he look like?" Makena added another question as she handed her a pencil and a blank piece of paper for her to sketch the stranger's face. She knew that such ability was one of Georgine's skills, so it'd be easy for her to try and replicate the unwanted individual's features. It wasn't that hard to remember it either. She had checked Uto's, as she called him, video log to understand what had happened that night. 

"Kinda like Uto, but his hair was..." Georgine allowed the pencil to do the work for her.

After she was done sketching, she allowed her body to rest against the chair she was sitting on. Makena's hand rested on Georgine's shoulders as she contemplated the illustration. 

"Oh." Makena didn't know what else to expect. The illustration looked quite like Utopix, just a tad bit different.

"Every good villain needs a name!" Gabriel interfered into their conversation as he prepared a chess board to keep Oliver entertained. "What about 'Otu'?" Gabriel's imagination run wild as the doppelgänger-needs-to-kill-the-hero situation was placed upon him. It bothered Georgine at times, but for once she'd let it pass.

"I guess so..." she said, holding the illustration near her face. "Takara must have sent him to take us off guard." Georgine assumed. "'Otu' managed to turn off Sabrina..." she added.

"That's awful..." Makena's concern instantly invaded her once more. "I-Is she okay? Oliver can fix her!!"

"Enlighten me," Georgine held Sabrina's... body up which was covered by a blanket which easily slipped off.

Oliver immediately analyzed the problem and decided to reveal his diagnosis. "If she's turned off, then she'll eventually turn back on. We can't force it." 

Utopix's curiosity jumped at his words. "How do you know that?" It's not that he was amused that a foreigner knew basic Sardkenofian technology. It was the fact that he quickly came to a conclusion without hesitating... why? Oliver nearly stuttered, his head trying to come up with an excuse to satisfy the robot's curiosity.

"Checkmate!" Gabriel shouted; easily winning the chess game that Oliver barely paid attention to. 

"Let's just get to fight practice already." Georgine merely seemed to suggest.

Once they were all at the bluntly painted basement, Georgine began wrapping some sport tape around her knuckles. 

"Tsk... Mine is a lot better," Oliver commented on Makena's basement, as if there was supposed to be something more than just that.

"Lil' brat." Georgine shook her head as a mere reaction. "Either way, just watch and learn for now."

Makena giggled at their interaction, attracting her sweet kitten Smokey who simply posed by her. "Aww, Smokey..." she caressed him, attempting to make him sleepy.

But miles above the sky, that intimidating doppelgänger was being submitted to horrid punishment. His skin barely holding itself together after the many punches and slaps that Takara exposed him to. His target of destroying Utopix Alle Jones had been consumed by the slightest feeling in his non-existent heart. But he hadn't shown any sign of it when he paid him a visit, so what was really going on?

"I gave you a target and you failed miserably, 36." Takara angrily spoke to "Otu", a.k.a. as Experiment 36, merely giving the idea that she had tried this sort-of thing before. "Hit it." Takara ordered Blu, her other henchman, to activate the oh-so-painful electricity that ran across Otu's body mercilessly. "I hope that you don't disappoint me again," her voice delivering a statement and a threat.

"Ma'am... It seems that the squad has moved location." Blu pointed out as he observed the main screen.

"Where are they right now?"

"Ameritania Hotel."

"Okay, 36." Takara glanced at him, who was trying his best to recover from such treatment. "This'll be your chance to prove that you're not useless," she said, assigning him his next mission. "Make sure Uto suffers." Her usage of Georgine's nickname for Utopix in Otu's ears made him tremble, fully engaging into his armor.

The gang, unbothered by any of the events that had happened during that week, decided to sneak in one of the bedrooms at Ameritania Hotel, one of the most prestigious hotels in New York. They didn't complain... Georgine had done some very sketchy in the past: breaking into cars of her friends' exes, graffiting a bully's garage door, among other things.

"How come that they let us in?" Utopix watched the rain slipping down the window's glass.

"The receptionist's a friend of mine." Georgine replied, as if their presence wasn't a problem that could said person fired.

"Oh, that's cool!" Utopix united to the unbothered feeling that the others were in. 

"So, why are we here exactly?"

"You kidding? Free food!" Gabriel cheered up, as Oliver was munching on a couple of chips from a big bowl.

Suddenly, a lightning stroke in the sky, catching Utopix's attention but also making him flinch. Georgine found it adorable. She'd assume that Sardkenof had a climate similar to Earth's, but it seemed that he was mostly bothered by the sound than anything else. 

"It happens when it rains," she simply commented on it, placing a hand on his shoulder for reassurance.

"Well, it's horrible..." Utopix caressed his other arm in discomfort, despite feeling Georgine's.

"It doesn't have to be if you don't want it to." Georgine's fingers gently brushed his hand, meaning to intertwine said fingers with his. 

"You look so adorable together!" Makena's head popped from underneath the sheets she was hiding in. 

"Oh, shut up. We were too." Georgine objected, recalling the time that they used to share said feelings back in their youth.

"Earthlings date the same gender?" Utopix learned something new from their culture, to say the least.

"Yeah, but some are picky about it." Georgine added to said information.

But their heartfelt moment was interrupted by a blurry dark maroon sight from the other side of the window. "Uh, guys... Is that who I think it is?" Gabriel commented on it.

"Oh no..." Georgine instinctively placed her arm in front of Utopix, despite the other not having entered the building yet.

How horrid was it for Utopix to be able to contemplate Otu's smirk from afar, letting him know that something was going to be wrong, that something was going to happen. Either to him, or his new friends. As if called by a cue, Utopix's arms were wrapped around Georgine's chest to stop her from any sudden movement. 

"Goddamn it. It's that punk again!" Georgine leaned against the window, bringing Utopix forward with her. 

Makena's motherly nature kicked in. "Georgie, language!"

Takara thought that she had them all under her grasp, that she'd finally be crowned victorious after many weeks of wanting to eliminate what was, supposedly, left of the Jones family. But not just yet. Before Oliver could create any plan of defense, a big blast of lightning had hit the sky once again, making Utopix flinch yet again and refuge on Georgine's strong arms. 

And suddenly... silence. 

The gang took a better look at the sky from the window. Four of them knew what New York's weather was like, and it clearly wasn't like that. Seconds later, a minuscule purple light appeared on the center of gray cloudy sky, obliterating every piece of darkness 'round every corner in seconds. 

"What in the name of the sweet heck is that!?" Gabriel shouted in both fear and excitement. 

Oliver quickly jumped to a conclusion. Again. "It's a wormhole... A portal! Get out of here! Now!" He pressed a button on his smart watch; equipping Makena, Gabriel and Georgine with special gear that they had grabbed beforehand.

Georgine immediately scooped Utopix in her arms, running downstairs and to the hotel's entrance. As they joined the sea of people evacuating the hotel, the bright light shone brighter, vacuuming everything on its way. Cars, signs, trees... even people.

"Makena!" Georgine shouted in desperation, witnessing how her friends were lifted up into the sky and disappearing into the hole in the sky. Her feet meant to stick to the ground to the best of her ability, but a fire hydrant had prevented her from doing so. 

"W-Where are we going!?" Utopix's eyes were closed, his hands gripped onto Georgine's back whenever he felt their weight being lighted. His eyes shredding tears, fearing what might happen next. 

"Just... close your eyes." Georgine, out of options, embraced him closely as their bodies entered the purple-esque portal.

Otu observed in shock, until a dreadful voice in his communicator snapped him back to reality. "Well!? What are you waiting for, 36? Follow them!" Takara demanded from him, meaning to sacrifice him if it meant that the others had been obliterated by whatever there was in that portal. Hesitantly, but firmly, Otu rocketed from the roof he was standing on and onto the remaining waves of the terrifying portal. 

And just like that, the portal was closed. As if someone had pulled a switch and turned it off... or more likely, a sword.

The tan-haired girl had waited for a light... a soft voice that'd wake her up saying 'Welcome to Heaven', or anything at all. Instead, her eyes had opened to a soft colored sky. Gentle chirps and water waves made her realize that she was somewhere else. A pair of blinks helped her double-vision adjust to a strange one-eyed creature that shouted once it notice that she was conscious to which she yelled and slapped it off, making it run off to the purple-tainted trees. "W-What is...?" her hands felt the sharp glass around her but also alerted her of something else. "Utopix... Uto! UTO!"

"G-Georgie!" Utopix's frighted voice cried out from one of the trees, holding onto one of its branches for dear life. "H-Help..."

"It's okay, baby. Just let go," her arms were open-wide to catch him in case he fell.

Utopix's eyes widened at the idea and immediately shook his head in disapproval. "H-Hmm!"

"It's okay, sweetie. I'll catch you, I promise." 

"G-Georg-AH!!" 

Without any more words escaping from his mouth, the branch decided to break. Thankfully, his loved one had catch him perfectly, avoiding any accidents. "Are you okay, lovely?" Her emerald eyes stared into his with an expression of I-told-you-so, nearly smirking at his reaction. 

"D-Don't do that..." 

"Do what? Hmm?" Her nose ran up his sensitive neck, occasionally peppering it with gentle kisses, making him giggle as a soft tone of green appeared on his cheeks. 

"Utopix? Georgine?" Oliver grunted as he massaged his head from the rough landing. "W-What? Where are we?"

"OLIVER!" Gabriel ran up to him, hugging his sides, not wanting to let go. "I thought you were dead! I thought I was dead!"

"What the- uh! Let go of me!"

"Never!"

Georgine snickered at their somewhat-sweet reunion, placing Utopix to a side as she helped Makena get up from the strangely colored grass. "Are you okay?"

"Y-Yes... Where are we?"

"I have no idea," she clenched her fists as she observed the unntreathening space. "We better get moving." 

Once again, Georgine scooped Utopix from the ground, keeping him close to her warm chest. "Sorry, I should've asked."

"N-No. It's okay. I-I like it."

Her voice lowly hummed, turning into a chuckle. Her face leaned once again near his, planting a kiss on his triangle-painted cheek. Once she started walking, the others followed closed by... not noticing who had followed them.

"36. State your location," Takara's face appeared on Otu's wrist communicator.

"Unknown." Otu quietly spoke. Probably one of the few times he was allowed to do so.

"If you survived, then that means they did too! Follow them and wait for instructions. Is that clear?" 

Otu took a deep breath. Despite being born a few days ago, his opinion of Takara had quickly worsened with time. "Yes." He immediately ended their interaction, making sure to go unnoticed  as he sneaked around the shadows of the forest.

Eventually, the five individuals reached the entrance of the gorgeous golden castle, unsure of what to expect. "Halt there!" General Juliet stopped them from going any further. "What is your business in Bright Moon?"

"Bright Moon?" Georgine concluded that that's where they have ended up at.

"We just want to know what's going on," Makena kindly asked. "I don't think we're supposed to be here."

"Think!?" The guard seemed to nearly fly away when she flinched. "What is that even supposed to-?" 

"Calm down, general." A shadowy figure approached the entrance, but didn't seem to change any of its appearance once it stepped into the light... Shadow Weaver. "I'll take it from here. You go fetch... Princess Glimmer." The general left after letting out a long sigh and doing as she was told. "I don't take orders from you. I shall look for Bow who can look for Glimmer with more ease." Shadow Weaver rolled her eyes upon her statement.

Georgine's trust pattern was instantly altered upon Shadow Weaver's attitude. The way she spoke, the manner of her walking, how her hair swung around like a sharpen knife... she had seen it all before. Her hands gently gripped Utopix's thigh and arm... once he felt it, he looked up at her, then at Shadow Weaver. A similar pattern had fallen onto him as well... oh, brother. 

"I apologize for the unfelt welcoming, though I must ask... what brings you here so unexpectedly?" her dark eyes narrowed at that last word."I think we'll wait for the princess' arrival to discuss that matter," Georgine refrained from answering the question. Her hands kept Utopix even closer to her than ever.

"Very well, then. I suggest you wait in the throne room unless you wanna be seen by... unexpected guests." Shadow Weaver turned around, leaving them to their amusement. 

Unexpected guests? Georgine then considered that there might have been something else in that region even worse than her... Not liked she trusted the other's jurisdiction, but she'd want to avoid any casualties for Utopix's sake, so she entered the palace after the others had gone in.

"Oh. My. Gosh." Bow nearly jumped on his toes as General Juliet gave him the news. "New people!? L-Like- what? Horde soldiers? Princesses?" he then gasped as an epiphany hit him. "What if they're here from a broken dimension and want to take our souls!?"

"Bow! Just go find the princess, please! Once we know what's going on with... them, I'll decide what to do."

"Okay!" he then stopped his tracks and turned around to see her. "...why are you making me get Glimmer and not you?"

"Just GO!" Juliet seemed to nearly spit fire at him.

After Bow finally snapped from his fanboying illusions, he breathed deeply before entering Glimmer's room, noticing Adora and Glimmer standing near each other... and rightfully so. 

"Uh, guys...  there's some people here that I think you may want to meet."

[cerastes]

So, the Efreet, the Phantom Machine, the Production Model That Never Was, and one of my favorite Mobile Suits in Gundam, has the distinction of being one of the most stubborn figures in the history of the Universal Century.

To contextualize you, allow me to introduce our guest of honor:

This good lad right here is the MS-08TX Efreet. Attentive ace detectives and prodigy engineers will have noticed something: It’s basically a cross between a Gouf and a Dom. It was, indeed, produced before the Dom, perhaps even concurrently during its latter phases, and was slated to be the next mass production model after the Gouf didn’t really take off, but expensive production costs made Zeon favor the cheaper and very powerful Dom instead, and thus the Dom, with its genius design involving heavy armor and multiple-layered folds between which auxiliary thrusters were placed to make it both tough and very fast, became the next main mass production model. Only eight Efreets were ever made. It’s standard equipment was a Shotgun, uncommon weapon for MSes, also very uncommon in how it murdered the utter shit out of everything with it. Turns out expensive units are strong and can wreck shit.

However, this didn’t mean the Efreet wasn’t strong. The Efreet was strong. Very strong. It was too expensive to properly mass produce, which should tell you everything about how over-engineered it was. This is nothing uncommon in the Universal Century, but the Efreet has a special distinction of being a unit that Never God Damn Dies for good.

Its first appearance is in the SNES game, Mobile Suit Gundam: Cross Dimension 0079, as the final boss, in which the player, using the Gundam Pixie, must defeat it in single, climatic combat.

The base Efreet is one thing, but its when the spicy models comes out that things Get Real: Meet the [EXAM] Efreet Custom.

NOW THIS IS WHERE THE SPICE STARTS STINGING THE TONGUE. Gone are the forearm protectors and the base shoulders, replaced with arm-mounted grenade launchers and Bigger, Warhammer Approved shoulders. Instead of one Heat Sword, it packs two, and each leg is now equipped with a 6-tube missile launcher. The most important factor, however, is that it is equipped with the EXAM System, which, I shit you not, calls upon the power of a tortured trapped psychic soul in order to increase response speed in the pilot, and also to just be atrocious in general because you literally cannot make a single cool weapon in the Universal Century without it having accounted for at least ten skeletons in your ever-growing closet of war crimes. Like, ok, if we need help with our attention span, we take Ritalin, but in the UC, you just trap the soul of an unwilling servant into your big death machine and call it a day. We went from a shotgun-totting good lad to a walking abomination. Neat.

So how do you possibly up the ante? How do you outdo a machine that went from “military equipment” to “crimes against humanity and the cycle of life and death” in five seconds flat? THE ANSWER: THE BIGGEST AXE SCIENCE CAN MUSTER:

ONCE UPON A TIME, A MAN NAMED DOUG SCHNEID TOOK ONE OF THE REMAINING EFREET UNITS, AND FOUND IT LACKING. “HMMM. NO... I DON’T THINK THIS HAS ENOUGH OOMPH...” and so he had THE BIGGEST AXE (well, 2nd biggest) commissioned and that’s how the Efreet (DS) was born. It’s true that dark sorcery can solve most problems in life, but A Huge Fuckoff Science Axe can solve ALL problems in life, no exceptions, so why go over the trouble of tampering with the supernatural when you can just practice crude neurosurgery on everyone on the go? Doug Schneid knew what the fuck was up.

And where do you go from here? We already have en over-engineered shotgun lad, we have a dual wielding machine packing enough explosives to level Australia all over again and that is literally powered by a forsaken soul, we have a machine that has an axe so big it just cuts suits in two, no matter what fancy shield or force field you bring to the game. How do you improve on this? Has the Efreet reached the cusp of its potential?

No. The answer is in front of you: If the Efreet Custom is powered by a ghost, then the next Efreet should just become a ghost.

MEET THE EFREET NACHT.

The Nacht employs a very forward thinking philosophy of skipping the middleman, that is, the ghost, to just reach the endgame by its own merit, also because trapping tortured souls in machines is expensive and upsets your coworkers: Just build your own damn ghost.

Equipped with the strongest freaking stealth modules of the era, the Efreet Nacht is simply undetectable. It can be right in front of you, mere steps away, and you sensors are simply not gonna pick it up. Not just because it has Every Stealth Module ever inside the chasis, but also because it’s basically a walking ECM Hive: Your sensors cannot pick up hostile vehicles when your sensors have been fried to a crisp, which is exactly what this cheesy Nacho does just by existing in your general direction, it outright kills and murders your sensors. What do you even do at that point? This thing gets close to you and suddenly your screen goes static and you start hearing crackling white noise. The very next second, it runs you through not with a Heat Sword or a Beam Saber, but with a Cold Blade, which is basically a sword made of Electronic Warfare some-fucking-how because if it cuts your machine, it just fucking sends its internal machinery and AI into a frenzy. This bitch literally Y2Ks your giant robot with its sword. And if it can’t reach you with its sword? It’s got Throwing Y2K Knives, so even if you try to run away from it, you WILL bluescreen.

god DAMN.

What I’m trying to say is that it’s a fucking fortune they didn’t mass produce this thing because if a limited run of a Shotgun Fun Lad ended in a giant robot that deletes your System32 every time it sneezes at you, imagine what kind of madness would’ve erupted if it had become a widespread model. On one hand, it’s a shame there’s only eight Efreet units, but at the same time, we’re lucky there only ever were eight Efreet units. Despite being produced in 0079, they continuously survived battle after battle, even if their pilots didn’t, and we even see one of them in 0096, during Unicorn. Three whole wars outdated and these bad boys still out there causing trouble and stopping System from your Task Manager. That’s why I like the Efreet line so much: It’s absolutely god damn ludicrous, but it works out.