#and playing thorught it again

[mistress-light]

The Last Story •  Mistwalker (2011)

[orientedorchestra]

Can I please request a loona hanahaki scenario where yves and jinsoul are in a relationship and are really happy together altought both know the other one is also in love with Haseul but would rather not say anuthing because they think she has too much on her plate unaware that haseul is also in love with them and gets hanahaki disease and decides to hide it and distant herself because she doesn’t want to get in the way of their relationship? Angst with Happy ending please

now playing: taillight

content warning: a little “gory” descriptions of the hanahaki disease at haseul’s part, blood.

---

Jinsoul notices it first. How they barely see Haseul around anymore. She feels like it had been months, but she knows it'd been barely two weeks.

They'd usually meet for coffee after their internship, abusing a little of Sooyoung's mom's generosity and getting one or two chocolate cookies for free - as it was her coffee shop, anyways - after the stressing hours working hard. Many beautiful smiles thrown around the comfy table, happy giggles and innocent looks of the blossoming friendship showing thorught the bubbly atmosphere

The second she notices as well, Sooyoung is confused. She's also scared she had done something bad for their short best friend. She wonders if something happened between Haseul and her, now, girlfriend. Even if the black haired woman was her girl now, Sooyoung knew she - they both were - was in love with the shorty.

The last time they had seen the youngest, was the day they revealed their little secret.

"She seemed fine, after we told her," They didn't have in mind that Haseul is an incredible actress. "Maybe she just wants to give us more time alone!" The Ha wasn't sure of that. Although she and Jinsol have been really happy together, having fun dates and everything... It just wasn’t the same without Haseul; for neither of them.

If Jinsol knew Sooyoung well, Sooyoung could literally read Haseul like an open book. They even met each other at kindergarden, like life is a beautiful childhood friends' story gone wrong.

"Sol," Sooyoung's eyes were glistening - she was scared, - worry, sadness and regret filling her lone tears. "We need to find her. Now"

/---/

Haseul would be lying if she said she did not know where it all started. The day she saw blonde and dark brown hair contrasting the cloudy sky above them in high school, Haseul knew she was in deep. It was somewhere around sophomore and junior year; with a nerd turned blonde and a dancer turned nerd.

She met Sooyoung in kindergarden, puffy cheek and charming moles drawing the attention of a 5-year-old Jo Haseul ever since. Then, they met Jinsol in high school - big glasses, messy ink black hair and nerdy hobbies.

It all escalated from there; shy feelings turning into cravings, dreams turned drunken realities. Although forever hidden, thoss feelings were never gone.

Jo Haseul kissed Jung Jinsol and Ha Sooyoung when they were all 18 and a few too many drinks into a high school party ,and, hell. The youngest of the girls knew from then, she wouldn't be able to picture herself with anyone else.

/---/

Maybe she still had a bit of hope inside her - maybe she hoped one day she'd confess and have Jinsol's and Sooyoung's lovs just for her. Although hidden, her feelings were hopeful.

She was wrong.

Just that weekend, her best friends dropped the truth on her - they were dating. God, Haseul thought the feeling of your heart shattering into the tiniest pieces was just an exaggerated way of telling stories, but she felt it. She felt it like her whole being was porcelain, and the air the strongest of the hammers.

It hurt, but nothing would ever compare to what was still to come.

The first time it happened, was during the late evening of a Monday. Haseul’s throat itched and hurt endlessly, until the hardest cough gave place to a little, yet painful, sunflower petal.

The yellow looking flower somehow painted with red, blood droplets, fell to the floor along the silence despair in the Jo’s eyes. She knew what it meant - her family had a history of an hereditary, ancient disease that affected the Jo women ever since centuries ago. She didn’t think destiny would chose her.

The days and nights came slowly, the painful flower blooming inside her lungs as if it was the most fertile soil it could have. Tuesday, she’d cough up seeds and petals. Wednesday, she’d feel the flowers sucking the life off of her. Thursday, Haseul threw up a whole Helianthus flower, blood dripping out of the corner of her lips.

The flowers grew too quickly - she’s sure they were holding back these symptoms since high school. It wouldn’t make sense otherwise.

By the next week, the girl could barely get her tiny frame out of bed, petals all around the pillows and floor.

/---/

It hurt so bad. When Sooyoung and Jinsol managed to get into Haseul’s apartment; the several yellowish petals scattered around the floor were the first thing they saw. Their friend had told them before, the disease she was born with. They knew what could have happened - or was about to.

Jinsol walked in further first.She was scared, but wanted to help as soon as possible, even if it meant to run into the worst of the scenarios.

“Wait, Sol. Please.” Sooyoung grabbed the younger’s hand, stopping her mid step. The oldest was terrified - anxious even. She didn’t want to think too much.

Jinsol stared at glossy, anxious eyes. With her own orbs shaking, she held her girlfriend’s hand tighter.

“She’ll be okay, Soo.” She heard the phrase echo on her mind several times.

After that, everything was kind of blurry - finding your best friend and first love bleeding like that wasn’t something Sooyoung, out of all people, could quite handle. Jinsol took care of most of it, cleaning the floor, the bed sheets, and the Jo herself, only asking of Sooyoung to hold the youngest girl and watch if she’d cough or wake up.

“Soo?” The girl on her arms called, faint voice and eyes barely open. Somehow feeling better just by being in the presence of her beloved Sooyoung. “What are you doing here...?” She tries to get up, but the older’s towering height over her small frame doesn’t let her.

“Seul,” Teary eyed, hugging tightly the tiny girl. “Don’t ever leave me like this again.” Sobs fill the silence the last girl finally enters the room; Sooyoung is crying loudly, and although feeling weak, Haseul still manages to pat her head reassuringly.

Jinsol also wants to cry at the sight, but she doesn’t. She is really emotional - but for Sooyoung, she holds her crying just to be the thinking head of the situation.

“Haseulie,” She pauses. The Jung is not sure how to word the question. “How... What happened? Isn’t this disease caused by... one-sided...”

“Yeah,” Haseul starts to answer, still lying on the oldest’s lap. Deep breathes once, twice, before continuing. There’s no use in hidding anymore; they’d find out anyways. “I’m in love with both of you.”

The older girls can’t believe it. Haseul has been suffering because of them. Unfairly so,

“No, I won’t remove it. If it means forgetting you two... I’d rather die.” Hearing the morbid tone of a over-reviewed option; the two older girls knew their friend went through her choices over and over again- and yet, she choose the far worst one.

“NO!” Sooyoung yelled, voice cracking mid word. “Seulie, please, no, don’t ever say this again,” Sobbing intensified hiccups, not even Jinsol could hold it anymore. It hurt. “You don’t have to go, no, no, this is unfair. The disease is for one-sided love! I don’t understand! I’ve been in love with you ever since we were in middle school, Jo Haseul!”

Wide eyed, the youngest wasn’t fast enough to say anything.

“Jinsol, too! I knew it, when we kissed in a high school party! I know she can’t stop thinking about you. It’s not fair, you shouldn’t be suffering, it’s not one-sided! Please...”

“Sooyoung, please calm down...” Jinsol kneels in front of the couch the others were, patting Haseul’s hair and trying to control her own tears. She leaves a kiss on the younger’s cheek, kissing where once was growing a sunflower.

“Y-You...” Haseul’s voice cracks. “You love me back?”

Both girls stare at each other, sharing a little, close mouthed smile through the still falling tears.

“We do, Seulie.”

[popculturebuffet]

OK K.O.! Let’s Be Heroes!: You’re Everybody’s Sidekick Review

OK KO was easily one of the best animated series of the 2010′s and i’ll stand by those words. The brainchild of Ian Jones Quartlery, voice of Wallow in Bravest Warriors and more importantly former head writer for Steven Universe, and current longtime romantic partner of that series creator Rebecca Sugar. That part isn’t AS important, but I still find it sweet.  Anyways OK KO was the story of K.O., a 6-11, not my own laziness for once but the show’s own way of doing age, year old boy who wants to be the best like no one ever was. In this case i’ts being a hero in a world that’s basically like if someone took the marvel universe and smashed a retro game collection and a pile of manga on top of it and then blended up the result and shot it full of gamma rays. Full of heroes of all kinds ranging from those fighitng crime to those who just want to loiter outside strip malls or cut hair.  To achieve this goal KO gets a job at Gar’s Bodega, the combination of your average bodega (for those unfamiliar with the term, i’ts a convience store) and a video game item shop, so the slurpee machine is right next to the power ups and ninja stars, and everything from skateboard polish to Spread Guns is avaliable. The bodega is owned by Mr.Gar, a mustachiosed muscle man whose basically a shoutier mexican version of MIke Haggar but with shades and a mustache. So a somehow better version of him, though with him being busy watching over the plaza itself, doing secret hero missions and what not the day to day operations are left to two teens: Rad, a muscle bound dude bro alien with telekenisis and a secret heart of gold and Enid, a cynical, slacker ninja whose also bilogically a witch because her parents are a vampire and a werewolf. So the series follows these three as they run the boedega, grow as people and fight the robots that frequently attack the plaza sent by the evil Lord Boxman who hates the place literally because it’s there and it’s existance annoys him. This is the canon explination and it is utterly hilarious.  The series was funny, had great character work, decent ongoing stories, great jokes and a fun tone that could go from meaningful and well thorught ot utterly batshit from episode to episode and was sadly canceled after 3 seasons because Cartoon Network is kinda stupid right now and dosen’t know how to handle a superhero show that still makes action a priority, but it did get a solid ending, a slew of great crossovers and a decent amount of representation under i’ts belt.  WHich brings us to today and the start of RED ACTION WEEK: A week dedicated to the series most prominent gay character and the bisexual ninja witch who loves her. I’m covering all 5 of Red’s more prominent apperances... I was just going to do the red/enid episodes but decided this was a better introduction to the series itself, as well as the fact it allows her character arc to better tie together by her final episode, which directly uses this one as a major plot point. I also threw Plaza Prom in there since, even if she’s only a supporting character, it’s still one of her few major apperances, is part of her final major episode, is one of my faviorites, and the climactic dance fights is one of the most intentionally homoerotic fight scenes i’ve seen in some time. With all that out of the way, let’s do this after the cut. 

We start at Gar’s Bodega, just after the opening two parter, with KO starting his first day of work, part of the reason this episode is a fairly smooth introduction into the show. Not even in the door he accidently shoryukyn’s joe cuppa, a stand up comedian with a cup of coffee in the big time for a head... I told you anything goes and I meants it.  After that accident, we find Enid at the counter, ignoring the customers before shooing them away and when KO asks for work, plays along with his enthusasim and tells him to clean the store.. which he does in minutes, before being told to sort the penny dish, and while he does the two discuss KO’s love of helping people: KO just genuinely thinks that’s part of his job, the right thing to do and feels good while Enid.. dosen’t feel it’s worth the effort and people are just generally ungreatful and not worth it.  I really like this scene for showing off their character dynamic beautifully: It starts showing that while at this stage Enid is largely an asshole, she does care about K.O. and while he’s cleaning, despite usually turning customers away, still let’s Ginger, an elderly patron and one of KO’s mom’s dojo customers, not only check out but pay in freaking pennies. It shows that try as she might, Enid really isn’t a cyncial or heartlesss as she claims. It’s also nice setup for later in the season as, and as i’m sure Ian Jones Quartlery and crew were preparing for, we later DO see why Enid hates people so much: her best friend, possibly more, Elodie, who i’ll certainly be covering eventually, betrayed her for a spot at Point Prep, basically UHA or Xavier’s for this world and claimed their friendship was just a ploy (It wasn’t, but again, story for another time), while her one date with Rad went terribly due to him acting like a huge jackass at the advice of his even bigger jackasses of friends. It’s easy to see why she stopped carring: When she opened up in the past it only lead to her being hurt and alone. K.O.... is the opposite. He genuinely belivies in everyone and tries to help them because, as said above, it’s just what he does and what he belivies a hero should be... he hasn’t been hurt or influenced by assholes like his friends, and thus is able to get them to open up. It’s a wonderful dynamic and I love it.  And naturally, KO is determined to help Enid see the light, with Enid responding with the wonderful line “You’ll never melt my icy heart”... give him a few more episodes Enid, give him a few more episodes.  So K.O. Decides to set out helping people, shouting about it to enid back at the store as he does because he’s 6-11 and kids in that age range are many things, but subtle is not one of them. He starts with Geoff and Nick Army, a monk and gay duke nukem reflectivity who despite having polar oppositie personalities, are both a couple, as confirmed by the creative team and then the finale, and a crime fighting duo who are having a dispute over opening a pickle jar with the good old ultra violence or non violence, which KO solves by letting both do it once, which results in a pickle jar explosion, both men in their underwear and everyone happy, especially the shippers.  KO continues his quest, going to Logical Cuts where we meet Mr.Logic, a robot who has a rather moving and well done backstory we’ll certainly get to, and is voice by James Urabanik, aka the voice of Rusty Venture on the venture bros, to my utter delight. And yes i’ll be covering the venture bros eventually, and might be this month. His customer, another one of KO’s mom’s regulars, is upset because her haircut isn’t right while Mr.Logic is upset, well as upset as a monotone robot can convey, that his usually 100% mathmatically perfect haircuts are off. KO pitches in and the new result is perfect, with both being greatful. 

KO’s next stop on his good will help people crying for help tour, after the above bit of wonderful art shift as that version of ko moveds like a south park character for some reason. Anyways, it turns out best friends, co workers and the dante and randal of this show, i.e.two best friends working a dead end job who despite arguing a lot need each other, A Real Magical Skeleton, self explaintory and Greg, a bear, are having an argument because RMS is trying to do their job and frame a baseball for a guy while Greg is being a dickhead and playing the drums constantly. As you can probably wager, I do not like Greg, probably more than rusty, partly because a future episode has him making KO doubt his macaroni art gift for his mom so he can eat it, yes really,and partly because he’s less intresting than his buddy and yet the two are shipped frequently despite my honest assumption they’d kill each other.. much like if dante and randall finally banged. However if you do ship them, I have no hostility with you. Unlike say loudcest or shipping sam with lincoln over at the loud hosue, there's nothing wrong with RMS X Brandon, it’s just not for me.  Anywho KO solves it in the hilarious and awesome manner of just putting Brandon inside one of those baseball cube things... it’s a shame he apparently gave him air holes but whatever. Proud of himself, K.O. plans to head back when he runs into the Ally Teens: Red Action, rude teen warrior from the future who just had a bad haircut, Drupe, a sentient strawberry because of course, and Greg, Drupe’s nonbinary best friend and combination of one of the bone cousins and Woodstock. K.O. offers to help and , with the trio being huge steaming bowls of elephant piss at this point, they instead trick him into waiting in a lava flow and then have drupe whip him every time the lava causes him to cartoonishily jump in the air.  Yeah despite both Red Action and Drupe going on to having supporting roles, like our good pal tom, who I will get back to this month, there isn’t nearly as much wiggle room in their first apperance. With Tom Lucitor, he was a dick.. but you could make the case, even just off that ep that he genuinely dosen’t know HOW to be a good person or that what he’s doing is sketchy at best. Here, it’s fairly obvious the ally teens know setting a child on fire and using vine whip on him super effectively is wrong, that’s why their doing it. Red, being that special brand of asshole, posts it on social media. I mean posting a video of yourself hurting a child, that’s Tucker Carlson level’s of dickery right there. Stone cold. Enid sees it and is understandably concerned, and goes over to see if KO’s allright when he returns and is forced to explain to him that no they weren’t laughing with him, they were laughing at him and were just being dicks. Also he wasn’t in lava, it was magma. It was above ground. 

K.O. glumly wonders why and Enid reitrates this kind of shit is why she dosen’t help people. K.O. also wonders how she saw it and we find out Enid is basically facebook stalking red action on her social media, as you do, and that Red’s been on a bit of a tear lately, smashing up shit and farting in Geoff’s face all because she got a bad haircut, with K.O. , likely going thorugh more of her posts, realizing theirs a pattern: When bad things happen to her she lashes out at others.. just like Enid. I do like the parallel there: Enid likely has a crush on her because the two are fairly similar.. but Enid runs cold and tens to be standoffish as a result of her past, while Red tens to take out her anger and frustration on everyone else and runs red hot. But they come together because opposities attract... it’s what noble laurite MC Scat Kat taaught us after all.  K.O. however, having Steven Universe level’s of empahty and an equal sense of wanting to help, and just as few boundries as he had as a tween, decides that it’s clear the ally teens have underlying issues to adress and gets Enid help to look at their social media. Returning to the ally,and seemingly unphased by earlier, K.O. sets out helping them, starting by helping red get her haircut fixed by Mr. Logic. Red is adorably delighted. Moving on K.O. notes that Drupe basically just follows Red’s lead but has a fashion blog and clearly an identiy of her own and we soon learn she believes no one reads it. K.O. showed it to the not at all ambigiously gay duo and Geoff and Nick thank her> That’s two blushes and two wins in K.O.’s court.  Finishing up, K.O. realizes Gregg stays quiet because they have low self esteem and feel they have nothing to be proud of. K.O. however found lots to be proud of and framed Gregg’s valdectorian certificate for him, again with some help from earlier.  Instead of graditude red just calls him weird and leaves and KO slumps back depressed. I’ts a good lesson though: people DON’T change just because you did one weirdly kind thing for them. That takes time.. as we’ll see with Red and as we see with Drupe, who has less of an ons creen journey but is far nicer after her next apperance. While Enid is grossed out over having helped someone, Gregg comes in.. and after some great deranged animation thanks K.O. and Enid admits after some prodding that it does feel good to help, and K.O. is happy to have helped her int he process. The two playfully mess around as the episode ends. Final Thoughts: This was a really good one. Reaching back this far into the series, I didn’t think it’d would be nearly as good as it ended up: It serves both as a good proper introduction for a lot of the plaza regulars, a good setup for Enid’s character arc, and was also really funny with great animation. LIke Tom, I don’t think the creators knew exactly what they were going to do with the Alley Teens and thus take the two they end up focusing on in opposite directon: Red keeps her assholishness for her next apperance and grows from it, while Drupe’s drops off by the end of this season, likely due to her fashion blog taking off, but we’ll get into Red more in a review or so and Drupe more later this month.For now this episode was good and next up we have their next apperance in Plaza Prom. Until then, follow this blog for more reviews and nonsense, like and reblog it if you enjoyed this, hit me up with asks for review suggestions or comssions and until next time, later days!

[popculturebuffet]

Reviewcaps: Mega Man: Fully Charged (BOOM!) #1

After 5 long years the Blue Bomber returns to comics and to the Fully Charged Universe! Things get a lot more grim as Aki grapples with a new robot army under actual robots, his buried past, and the fact Mega Mini is still around for some reason. Cracked skulls and dead cells under the cut. 

So i’m a huge mega man fan. I haven’t really talked about video games here because this is my first video game adaptation, but yeah, I love em and Capcom’s vast and awesome franchise of robots and humanoids in blue, and in one case red, is one of my faviorites. From children blowing up tons of robots from a balding man who dosen’t get the hint already, to the pacifist soldier forced to fight in a war against robot whales, buffalo, mammoths, and other bizzare robot animals, to his best friend who has amnesia for some reason fighting more robot animals because capcom ran out, to his human sucessors wearing him like a hat, to some guy who turns out to be a war machine I haven’t played yet because I haven’t gotten the chance to and is the only part of the franchise I haven’t, to another universe where he’s the ai versoin of a dead child whose now a teenager mentally, to that ai’s sucessor a shy child whose dad was kidnapped by a space monster and fuses reguarly with a much cooler space monster. What i’m saying Is I deeply love this franchise, this franchise is complicated iwth all the branches, and it’s also full of lovely nonsense. 

So naturally with that many versions and a decades long history Mega Man’s had a healthy life in one of my other faviorite meddieums: Comics. Over in his home country of Japan Mega Man’s had tons of Manga: The biggest and one of the few to make it here is Mega Man Megamix, a bunch of stories that, after the first two adapted the first two games in their own rough way, took place after each of the various games, and is pretty damn good. Others off the top of my head include a Mega Man x adaptation where X dates a mermaid, a weird mega man zero adaptation, and a longrunning adaptation of Mega Man Battle Network, all ones I need to read. 

Even Brazil had a Mega Man Manga... which I need to cover too.. less because it’s actually good or notable, and more because it’s BATSHIT INSANE, and you can read about it here. But the cliffs notes: Roll is an adult woman who goes around naked half hte time and is the most importnat character, X is master roshi with all the restraint and panty snatching that implies, and ther’es a character that one writer tried to have kill everyone and take over the comic.. yes really. I go most of this .l from that page but it’s documented on various wikis that this did actually happen. Just.. why. All of it.  Meanwhile in the US.. we didn’t get that many. No nintendo power adaptations despite being a huge franchise, no horrible malibu comics like street fighter got. There was one attempt by Dreamwave comics in the early 2000′s a series that only lasted 5 issues, and had mega man trying to go to school and some intresting if loose takes ont he franchise.. but the company bottomed out due to horirble mismanagment soon after and mega man sat ont he shelf for a while until the early 2010′s. At a time when Capcom had given up on the franchise, which has thankfully changed dramatically with the release of 11 and the various mega collections, they still gave the liscence to Archie comics, who, wanting some more of that sweet money they were getting off of sonic, gladly took the lisence and gave it to  Sonic Scribe and easily the best one the comic had during it’s long run, Ian Flynn, who set about adapting mega man from day 1, while incorperating nods and call forwards to the various other versions of the blue bomber, and adding his own nice touches. What i’ve read is really damn good and it’s a shame it got cut off right before the adaptation for mega man 4. I’m only being so brief as .. I intend to cover it like i’ve been saying. I love the character, Flynn’s comic was one of the best versions of him bar none, and I could use more comics content on here too. It’s a win win, smiles all around.  But yeah sadly Archie lost intrest in doing non-Archie stuff, with the Archie Horror Line proving a sucess and a reboot on the horizon. While I do LOVE Archie Comics, this edotiral decision still leaves a bad taste in my mouth and left fans without any mega man till 11 came out and any comics till this year, when the rights apparently lapsed and Boom! Studios, home of such great comics as the mighty morphing power rangers ongoing and JOhn Allison’s wonderful Giant Days, swept it up. Hopefully Boom! will reprint the archie comics eventually, but until then they decided to do a softish reboot of another version of the franchise, another one that like Archie had been given a raw deal.. but unlike Archie had issues: Mega Man; Fully Charged

While most of you probably know this as a refrsher Mega Man: Fully Charged was a cartoon from a few years back, a CGI adatpation of the games in an attempt to get in on that market by Ben 10 and Generator Rex maestro’s Man of Action. Like the Dreamwave comics it followed Mega Man, now Aki LIght as he went to school, did school stuff, and also fought rouge robots after school with secret powers he unlocked before the pilot and were never elaborated on in show.  The show kept Dr. Light, Mega Man’s creator and dad, and his dog Rush who while at first looking nothing like the games was later upgraded to resemble his game counterpart more from what i’ve heard and what’s present in this comic. Replacing Mega’s sister Roll, as his real name was Rock because the Mega Man staff loved musical puns, was Suna.. whos basically the same character but human and with an entirely diffrent design.  The show also, for whatever fucking reason, added... Mega Mini.. a tiny robot with a brooklyn accent who lived inside Aki, Mega Man’s regular name in this series which i’m fine with as while I do lik ehim going by Rock, I get that’s not really a name. Mini also manages his powers, makes stupid jokes and makes me pray for death but death won’t come. As you can tell I hate the little bugger from the handful of episodes i’ve watched. Rounding out our main heroes is Aki’s best friend Bert Wily, whose likely related to the canon wily and is your standard dorky best friend, but his roll as an inventor does come in handy since Mega hasn’t told his dad he’s a superhero, though it’s revealed in the end that he knows.. I did do my homework, even if i’ve only seen a handful of the series. More on that in a minute.  Opposing Mega Man were various robots from the games, adapted with varying degrees of design, from the good. 

To the okay if a bit weird. 

To the how the fuck is this airman. This is airman

Really good basic design. This is what fully charged calls airman, 

Why.. why not just make him Wind Man. He looks more like Wind Man.. why did ... I can bitch about this later when I cover the series, which, yes AGAIN I intend to. BUt seriously he has an awesome looking fan for a face. How do you screw that up. 

Behind the robot masters was Sgt. Night. See in a nice twist, and one of the things I like about the series, the world of Fully Charaged already had the kind of robot on human war that would plauge the main mega man timeline for centuries in the backstory, with LIght and Night being vetrans. Night being a racisit moron, wanted to keep robots apart and set up a false flag operation do do so as Commander Night. He however.. wasn’t a compelling vilian and apparnetly dosen’t really get better, not having any depth to his operations or actoins and his basic plan turns out to be, thank you research, to wipe all robots minds to be subservient.. he’s just.. bland compared to wily who while not complex in his motives, he just wants to take over the world, still has style and in some cases,real thought to his plans. Sure the vast majority are “blame it on someone else” but in a LOT of those cases, there’s still thorught and effort put into who he’s blaming to take doubt away from him. IN universe at least.  Helping night, is Namagem... yes Mega Man..spelled backwards and this series protoman, but hte character suprisingly DOES sound intresting... he just has one of the worst names in human history. Like my god, in god we trust why not just use proto man. the Character is basically proto man, with the interesting backstory of night kidnapping him, and apparently the series gets loads better once he arrives, so i’m not going to be too hard on the name, as the writers were likely stuck with it.    But as i’ve made apparent.. I haven’t watched much of the series. I do want to watch it all and i’m aware the second half is much better, but when trying to binge watch it at a friends house I only got about halfway through season 1, and then just forgot to keep going. And the series does have good pieces: a compelling background of a brutal war, mysteries to unlock, and a steady supply of new villians via the games long history and the series own original, and honestly intresting sounding and looking, robot masters... but it stapled all this to a “cocky hero fights vilians” every week setup we’ve seen a million times and didn’t grab me, but the intresting worldbuildnig and original bits do have me wanting to give it another try so look forward to that.  And with all the intresting bits i was truly invested to see a comic make more out of this part of the franchise,a nd was utterly excited, as it could be what the series could’ve been with less hampering by the various parties involved, as fully charged felt like it had a lot of executive madates slapped on. So free of those and free to be whatever it wants with Joe Kelly advising, what has fully charged become? let’s take a look. 

We Open 6 months after the series with the comic helpfully catching us via news broadcast.. and the art being moody with washed out colors the tone having done a 180. Seriously it is kind of weird for this unvierse to go from early generator rex, a dark backstory with a bizzarely cheery tone to full on Blade Runner or to put it in mega man terms, The Megas. Seriously the breif bit of silicon city we see , the constant rain as a mysteroius figure whose revealed at the end of the next page to be Namagem.. I expect that a pretty hologram in a raincoat is going to pop up next to him any moment... what I can pick which blade runner I want to refrence. Shoo. 

Anyways a broadcast debate between a human reporter and her robot coanchor , ron roburgundy as I will call him, fills us in on exposition, while Mega Man himself narrators like this is a noir.. again i’m half expecting harrison ford to show up. Aki muses about how the city, HIS CITY, almost fell.. oh god is frank miller writing this? Are we going to get a middle schooler talking about how much he wants to make love to a city because no one wants that.  Anyways, we get expostion, both for anyone who hadn’t watched the series to give us the cliff notes, and to also catch up returning fans on what they missed. I like it, despite not having watched fully charged to the end, or known exactly what happened until research, this fills it in nicely: At the end of season 1, as I explained earlier Night was arrested, and is thankfully not a part of it nor is his foghorn leghorn attempt at a southren accent. However the remaning Robot Masters are still rioting and a new army of them has started a legit revolution, vandalizing the good guild, which still has that name for some reason despite the tone shift, who are about as compitent as the name implies. Here’s file footage of them fighting Pharoah Man. 

Anyways Dr. Light is going to negotiate peace and as I mentoned earlier nams is watching with a glare on his face. And yeah I .. I can’t keep calling him Namagem. That name is just bad and whoever came up with it is one of the biggest morons in marketing history as is whoever decided to force the poor creative team to use it. However while he is Protoman in ways.. it just dosen’t fit. The two were made together in this unvierse, maybe we’ll see as this comic fills in the blanks, and furthermore he’s a bit of protoman and bass.. and since protobass sounds stupid, and blues dosen’t work without the theme naming.. i’m going with Breakman, protoman’s disgusie from 3. With the heavy scaring, broken past and general state of him it just.. fits and HOPEFULLY the comic will give him a full on rename. If it does i’ll go with that but for now I just want to keep from slamming my head into a keyboard every time I have to type out NAMAGEM... excuse me. 

hgfjnhnghbjnh

That’s better. Okay so moving on from my new headache, we cut to the desert where the good guild, which is somehow even worse than Breakman’s actual name, are escorting light to a bunker in the desert, where the robots outside tell light to leave the good guild inside. Just as well he’d be better protected with a paper mache sword anda  note telling them to go away. 

Naturally, not long inside the robot masters leader forces light to bow and handcuffs him, before revealing himself. 

Skull Man. Who looks really badass in this thought, the skulls themed scrap throne, his regal posture and his speeches about how he feels that the only way things will be right, and settled is not by the fragile peace silicon city has but by humans beneath his rather sizable boots. And honestly.. he was a good choice for the main robot antagonist: Skull Man’s always had a cool look to him and most versions of him have been pretty cool, and the Megas gave him one hell of a theme song. If you haven’t heard of htem the Megas are an indie rock band that do reworkings of the various songs from mega man games, at the time of this recording a full album for 2, two full albums for 3, an ep for 1, and scattered other songs since the second 3 album, with plans to do their next full album on mega man x. Each of the stage themes for the robot masters is from the prosepctive of one of them and are really damn good and I’d recommend thema nd skullman’s.. really fits him here. take a listen. 

But yeah Skull Man feels like a good choice for a menacing revolutionary, as well as a former combat robot as he himself was apparently in the hard wars. He honestly reminds me a lot of more than meets the eye megatron in flashbacks.. just good stuff. But being in the wars, he’s naturally not too fond of repetant vetran light and plans to kill him as an example. Light however.. isn’t an idiot.. a good man who seeks to do his best, who came in good faith.. but just in case he put some sort of device under his skin and presses it, signaling his son to come save his ass. And thus he does come ...

And one of skullman’s minons mistakes him for a bomb.. which light clarifies i’ts a BLUE BOMBER. To skullman’s credit his response is to just order them to go full throttle showing no panic as Mega Man makes his entrance. 

Light thanks him by.. asking what took him so long.. when his son, whose a middle schooler mind you, had to fight through a bunch of armed assholes to get in here most likely. Mini shows up to my annoyance.. though credit where it’s do his zinger of what took so long “some birds, a plane, some guy in a cape” is actually.. really funny. I question why they kept him at ALL, but hey, at least he’s less grating and isn’t around long.. more on that in a minute. 

A really well drawn action scene insues.. while the expressions vary for this comic, I will give the fight scnee, I will give the artist credit for having fluid motion and nice pops of color, most things are kind of blendy into the background other than major character but the color pops where it should.. not exactly my style but it works okay. In a nice change of his character though, Aki offers to spare the various robots there of a fight and possible death, as while he already attacked them it was in self defense.  And while it is a 180 from the show.. it’s not only a welcome change as it’s closer to the games canon and a more intersting personality.. it also still works. Aki went through a LOT at the end of season 1: while he did win, he found out he had a brother, his dad knew who he was but was never honest with him about it and also likely knows where his power came from but hasn’t told him, and has had to deal with 6 months worth of rioting where he’s unsure what side he’s on, machine like he is or man like his family. He’s trying to find the right ballance; be the hero his city needs.. but be the man he needs to be, one who will spare his enemies and won’t fight unless he needs to, for the good fo everyone, His friends, his family, everyone in the city who deserves to sleep soundly. And he’s also starting to wonder, via narration of course, if he’s a hero.. or even a kid.. or a weapon> Which again while a bit of a shift from the series again makes sense: he’s a middle school aged boy who started this jsut fighting random assholes and some idiot racist who was transparently evil and had selfish goals.. now he’s fighting against a revolution who MIGHT have a point. While Silcion city seemd fine and equal.. there wer eplenty of idiot swilling to listen to night. As the real world has proven over the last few months, just because things have gotten better, dosen’t mean that things are 100% or that prejudice is just gone. He’s a 12 year old asked to take a stand in a messy conflict that lead to war in the past with his father offering no answers and growing colder. While I thought his angst was  bit overblown on first reading the more I think about it the more it fits. 

Anyways Mega makes short work of the skull squad after they refuse to back down, but while Mega Man’s ready to ghost.. Skull Man’s not done and drills into mega man’s head... and reveals something. Flashbacks. 

But yeah, Skull Man’s either implanted or restored some memory of Aki fighting in the hard wars.. right alongside dr. light.. with a drill because science. DR. Light then gets REALLY badass, breaking out of the robot restraining him’s grip before fucking UPERCUTTING Skull Man.. jesus christ, Dr.Light clearly traded his empathy for miraclo pills holy balls.  Rush helps him escape and take Aki with him but skull man’s confident, he lost the battle but won Mega’s mind.  On the way home Mega Man tells dr.light what he saw and isn’t sure if it’s the past the future or something else but Dr.Light assures him..

Even though his eyes give away he’s clearly hiding something. Also I haven’t mentioned it yet but Dr.Light looks like santa in this sisue, red shirt, blue pants, big white beard. Just.. why though. Just put him in a suit or something. Also Mini crawls out of Mega’s head and passes out due to the memory restoration.. a nice way to write him out while still giving it weight since while the audience is presumibly cheering his long overdue demise, he is aki’s friend.. why I have no idea but he is.  Back at the lighthouse, the light’s home and home base, which is admitely a really good alternate name for light labs and a better one in my opinon. Light brushes off Suna, telling her to go to bed and avoiding telling her anything. Yeahhh.. while it could be the pressure of the situation I really dont’ like dr.light’s characterization before. Fully Charged, outside of the whole secret identity thing which at least was expalined as Aki not knowing if his dad would let him continue as mega man if he knew, though it extended clearly past the point he was clearly supporting mega man’s actions so I dunno. But he was a compationste scientest, deeply ashamed of his past in the war and wanting to make peace, he was done really well and peformed well by gary chalk. Here? He’s a dick who clearly did something terrible in the past and treats his kids like crap. It’s okay to be suspcious of him given the flashback but he’s given us no reason to like him or want to hear his side eventually, and hopefully that changes. 

Suna talks to Aki who tells her what happened and both side give out good arguments; Suna points out she reallyc an’t trust what some creepy asshole put in his head, as Skull Man could just want to brainwash him.. but Aki counters easily and quietly: How’s he supposed to know what’s real if his dad won’t tell him anything? He took months to tell Aki he knew about his alter ego, and even before his id came out avoided talking about the hard war, which hasn’t changed. He vows to find out though, and Suna naturally is helpful, pointing out there’s more people to ask and since she actually pays attention in school she knwos just who.. Dr. Wily. Yup he’s finally here. dun dun dun. We then close as Breakman watches and tells his brother he can’t stop what’s started. And we’re out.  Mega Final Thoughts: This was a decent issue, doing a fair job of bringing in new readers, and the art was decent and matched the tone.. which If elt was a bit too bleak at times. Better than say a Zack Snyder film at least, but still a bit too close to that form of edgelord for my case. That said it opens up some intresting mysteries and has me at least willing to give it another shot next month and was a solid opener, which while not having the best charcterzation for dr light, vastly improved Aki and Suna’s while giving us a far more intersting villian in Skull Man. If this holds, we’ll see. But until then I plan to cover more mega man comics, as well as my continued weekly coverage of amphibia. Until I see you again, stay safe, wear a mask and later days