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jq37 · 5 months

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The Report Card – Fantasy High Junior Year Ep 16

Kipperlilly Copperkettle and the World's Smallest Violin

Welcome back to Fantasy High where everyone’s graduating with A pluses and we’re *finally* figuring out what the hell Kipperlilly’s deal is!

But, before we get to that, we have some loose ends to tie up. You’ll remember that the Bad Kids just demolished the Last Stand Exam and dropped Gavin Pundle off at the Council of Chosen office in Bastion City. It’s the day before Spring Break so hypothetically they should be relaxing–they don’t have a Spring Break project like everyone else because of the Last Stand–but these are the Bad Kids. They don’t get breaks.

First order of business when they get back to Elmville is to check the crystal they left recording at the crime scene. They see a massive figure--14 to 15 feet--wearing a hood approaching Buddy with their back to the camera. The stones behind Buddy glow with Ankarna-style light so they check to see if Bakur is escaping the gem he’s trapped in. He isn't but Riz using his spy tie can tell it's def something Ankarna related based on the magical mDNA he's clocking. Based on the footfalls, it seems like something big and humanoid (though not like a tabaxi or dragonborn with their digitigrade feet. Giant is def on the table though).

The figure moves closer to Buddy and Kristen thinks they’re about to slap the symbol on Buddy’s chest but Buddy’s body spasms and blood spatters as his organs seem to crush. He jolts awake with a pained roar and then says in his southern drawl, "Dang, y'all. I worship a nameless god of rage." The figure kneels over Buddy and they both vanish.

So, yeah. Good call setting up some CCTV.

Fig right away speculates that maybe all the Rat Grinders died and were brought back to life in that way. Maybe in the Mountains of Chaos, Fabian adds. Kristen points out that KP has been angry since Freshman Year and they all finally get around to digging into the file that Riz stole. Has she always been a follower of Ankarna or was she scouted at some point because of how insanely aggro she is?

Everyone piles on buffs to Riz’s already stupid Investigation score so he gets a 32. I’m going to bullets to organize all of this info:

Her Freshman and Sophomore Year accomplishments are pretty meh. She was doing quests but pretty low level, easy ones

We find out the reason KP hates Riz so much and it’s his tragic backstory. In a meeting at the top of Sophomore Year, they see KP complaining that it’s so unfair that Kalvaxus killed Riz’s dad. She’s too suburban and normal and she hasn’t been able to find any sordid secrets in her lineage that would make for good plot hooks essentially. Her parents went to *Mumple* for Cassandra’s sake! Over the course of Sophomore year she started having rage outbursts. and saying that kids with tragic backstories had an unfair advantage in adventuring and their grades should reflect that.

She talks about how much she loves her party. The way she speaks, she's def the leader (which we kinda already assumed from the vibes). She seems especially fond of Lucy and says that she's the only one who sort of "gets it". Apparently, KP came up with the name "High 5 Heroes" and Lucy was supportive of that because it meant a lot to KP. Rat Grinders was a name that Ivy and Oisin came up with (they're the other pair of besties in the group which checks out because they were the ones hanging out and playing beer pong together). Ruben voted for the change to piss off KP and Mary Ann voted for it as well and refused to elaborate (on brand).

In her Junior Year she gets even more unhinged. She talks about wanting to straight up murder Kristen. She thinks Kristen is going for President as a joke and won't even do the job when she's elected. And she he hates Fig for boxing her out from confronting Kristen.

There's a note that, for Spring Break, they're going to the Mountains of Chaos for the second time. The last time they went was a week or two after Spring Break last year, right before Lucy died. They had a school chaperone because it was too high an adventure for their abilities in the school’s view and no prizes for guessing who that was: Jace Stardiamond.

As we kind of already know, KP has been gathering Bad Kid info via Jawbone--specifically, stuff about the Prompocalypse/Kalvaxus fight and the Yes! Stuff. These questions are coming Sophomore Year, post the first Mountains of Chaos trip.

With a dirty 20 Insight, Fig sees that, starting at the end of Soph Year, there's a change in KP's language where it goes from, "I don't think X is fair"/"I think they get special treatment" to just straight up, "I hate them."

The group wonders if Jace is the mastermind here and scoped out which of the students were susceptible to rage poisoning or if maybe he died during that mountain trip and got taken over just as much as everyone else. As far as they know, he was super chill prior to this.

They take a brief detour to razz Fabian about The Incident in his dance class with some excellent puns and then another brief detour to IRL razz Murph because he makes the grave mistake of saying the phrase, “honor the cock.” And then, Kristen has a brain blast. She wonders if maybe the difference between someone who gets a crystal put in them and comes back as a rage person (eg: Buddy) vs someone who is left in limbo like Yolanda and Lucy is that you get a choice and you can either come back full of rage or refuse and stay dead with the mark on your chest. Brennan doesn't even make Ally roll for it, Kristen just gets it in one. And everyone realizes it makes sense. Yolanda was super principled and Lucy always stuck to her guns according to Ruben. [Note: This also offers a potential reason that Ivy wasn't shocked to see Lucky at the party–maybe she thought she finally took Ankarna’s deal.]

Another list of info just to keep things neat:

They check the tape from the Coliseum and see that there's a ten minute gap between the Bad Kids leaving and the figure coming to rez Buddy so that’s a bit of a timeline established (assuming no chronomancy BS I suppose).

They also get the thing about digitigrade feet I mentioned earlier at this point but I just thought it fit better with the other tape stuff above.

Ruben has deleted most of his social media presence from a little bit before last year but they can see from photos where he's tagged with his friends that the emo thing started after spring break of Sophomore Year, confirming what we assumed from his old Yearbook photo. Before that his vibe was more soft rock/folk pop (based on the musician they reffed who I've never heard of but just Googled--Jack Johnson).

The Bad Kids think they might have to waste yet another Spring Break, this time chasing the Rat Grinders into the Mountains of Chaos, but before that, they have in-town business and downtime to attend to.

Everyone's parents and guardians are so happy and proud of them for their Last Stand victory.

Sklonda asks Riz if there's anything she can help with and he asks if she can look into Bobby Dawn. She says Bobby used to go to Aguefort (info that has come up before according to Brennan though I don't remember it) and asks if Fig knows he's teaching there. It seems like a non sequitur until she reveals (via Emily figuring it out at the table with very impressive swiftness) that Bobby Dawn was at the center of Sandra Lynn's sordid past! For those of y’all who don’t remember, we learned in Sophomore Year that Sandra Lynn joined a party when she was young as a replacement member. There was a married couple in the group who were older and more powerful than her. She fell in love with one of them and when it all came out, she was kicked out and slandered (even though it takes two minimum to tango, as we all know). She was basically blacklisted from adventuring after that which is why she joined the rangers. Well, now we know who that couple was: Bobby and Pamela Dawn!

Which, ugh what an upgrade Jawbone and honestly even Gilear are from Bobby Dawn.

(Also, as an aside, we learn Pamela is the chief paladin of the church of Sol which, como se dice, yikes. That whole pantheon needs better reps. Tracker is doing all the heavy lifting herself.)

Gavin checks in to say that the Council of Chosen is looking into things but the body is missing. The Bad Kids, who already knew this, share their footage because they have to do EVERYTHING around here. Gavin also lets them know that they’re completely free from academic requirements other than filling out a teacher eval and attending graduation (which is odd considering they aren’t graduating but Aguefort is a weird school and Brennan never went to trad high school so shrug–we’ll see if that’s just a weird Aguefort thing or a something suspicious).

Back to Riz and Sklonda, he asks his mom if she's ever heard of Eugenia Shadow and she tells him that she's a granddaughter of one of the founders of the Society of Shadows (which was named after their last name--it's literal AND a metaphor. She offers to drive him to the cemetery in Ashgrove which is about 90 minutes away.

Wilma and Digby are exuberant as always about Gorgug's success. They’ve finally fixed up the Hangvan for him and give him the keys. He thanks them and then asks about why Frosty Fair picked their tree as the new event site. They think it's just because they're heavily in the Frosty Fair circuit and also someone (who we know is Ruben) vouched for them. But they mention that the FF reps had a lot of questions about their tree including whether the tree was a Root Warden. They don't have a Druid or Ranger who would know but Kristen gets a Nat 20 (and Cass is a sylvan goddess so it checks out that she would know some stuff about trees).

A Root Warden is a tree that is so magical that it's a little more alive than a normal tree (without fully being a treant) and has an Int of like 1 or 2 instead of zero. So it's basically the big, old tree that guards the other trees in the area and tells them when to have their guards up and protects them from general bad mojo. Brennan calls it a sentinel. The Thistlespring tree is the Root Warden for the trees in all of Elmville county. Gorgug rolls too low to tell if the tree is corrupted but his parents do tell them that the people who came by to check on the tree dropped something into the roots with eye droppers that was absorbed. Everyone is worried about rage pollen, especially since it’s the middle of spring. And once he’s looped in, Riz can see on a map that Loam Farm is significantly outside the tree network that Thislespring tree is a part of. It seems clear that they were trying to make sure they were not only operating within the network but poisoning its very heart.

Fabian gets a proud message from his dad now that they’re synced up with infernal/material plane communication. Gilear asks Fabian about baby clothes so, naturally, he burns them all. He also gets another 20k gold allowance because his life is full of intense highs and lows and that’s about it.

Kristen’s parents text her to ask her to make sure Bucky is going to his classes. Suspicious! She agrees to check up on him.

Aelwyn has accepted the job at Leviathan so she starts coming by the mansion again since there's a door/portal to the library which saves her the spell slot. Adaine tells her she can just come back home if she wants and Sandra Lynn agrees. Aelwyn asks if all her cats can come and everyone says yes, even if it means kicking out Kristen (which is a joke…mostly lol). So yay, Aelwyn is back in the bunk beds baybee! And during the month of my birth irl and in canon. Ty Brennan. Kristen tries to verbally spar with her because she knows Aelwyn is uncomfortable with people being too openly nice to her but Aelwyn accidentally claps back too hard and sends Kristen running back to her room near tears. Sorry, K! She’s working on her people skills! Fig of course has her President’s back and gives Aelwyn a wet willy which majorly grosses her out but she doesn’t sling any retaliatory spells. Progress!

Gorthalax makes sure that Fig knows he’s always a resource for any help with anything infernal. Meanwhile, Adaine has a couple of spells she wants to cast. She makes a Simulacrum of Kristen, to make it confusing for anyone who wants to go after Kristen. It’s a clone of her with half her HP which is slightly British and slightly straight. She casts Legend Lore on Kipperlilly and gets no info which means she’s a basic ass bitch. (Riz, in comparison, does get a ping but it’s for being the 5th person to summon the Night Yorb so he is keen to do better than that). Finally, she casts Scry on Kipperlilly and doesn't get anything because she has Nondetection casted on her. She realizes that all of the Rat Grinders do at all times which is 18 third level spells a day which is crazy. Clearly, they’re scared.

Graveyard time! On Saturday, they head to Ashgrove and find the grave of Eugenia Shadow who died at the age of 111. Adaine swaps to Ethereal Vision to try and find her but Riz (with his Blindsense) is the one who finds her (she’s carefully ducking behind Adaine to dodge her line of sight). Eugenia is annoyed to have two students find her in one year but very happy to drink, smoke, and do drugs with the Bad Kids(just go with it).

Despite being dead, Eugenia knows a lot about stuff that's going on and congratulates them on passing their Last Stand. Riz asks her about what "the Rogue teacher found her" re: Kipperlilly means and Eugenia says that KP somehow found out that she was dead (despite the fact that as far as Shadow knows, the only records of her death exists in Aguefort’s office) and showed up at the grave with a rented backhoe, threatening to dig her up unless she showed basically. Which, yes, is grave desecration and messed up but is it any more messed up than the concept of a rogue in general? Like, I hate KP as much as the next person but this feels like normal rogue behavior. As Eugenia says in this very scene, rogues do crimes! Anyway, Eugenia reiterates something we already knew about Kipperlilly: that she's obsessed with technicalities and loopholes. We learn for a fact that she's a Mastermind Rogue and Eugenia says that she's a lot like Riz but walking a darker path.

As they're speculating how KP could have gotten into Aguefort's office (via Jace maybe?) Mazey comes up since she's acting principal and Eugenia reminds them that Aguefort is not a normal school with normal positions. Things are set up so that whoever is VP has to follow whatever the Principal says no matter what since Kalvaxus is supposed to be in that position as a prisoner. Equally importantly, Aguefort is more than a school. It's a hotbed of very important magical threads that Aguefort had going and they'll unravel without someone at the helm. That fact and the fact that killing her would mean chaos and not a simple transfer of power to another party is probably the only reason no one has tried to assassinate her yet. At his friends’ urging, Fabian texts Mazey to hang out, to help keep an eye on her.

Eugenia tells them to keep their guards up and that she expects to see all of them in Rogue classes next year. She gives Riz an eval form and Fig asks about a Landscaping Company that KP contacted (which I think must be in cut footage because this is the first time it comes up in the ep. Eugenia says that the name of the company is Loam Landscaping which gives everyone pause for obvious reasons.

Speaking of the Loams, they're on the same death clock as Lucy since it's been a while since they died and Adaine wonders if they can Plane Shift to where they are if they can figure out where that is. Brennan says that the vibe is that Yolanda and Lucy are probably with Cassandra, wherever Cass is.

Downtime before Spring Break!

Fabian is up first.

He rolls a 27 for Popularity. People are hoping he's gonna keep up lofi study nights over the summer and they're so psyched that his birthday is the same day as the election (the 31st). Adaine realizes that THIS must be the bday party/election victory she keeps having visions about and tells him he has to do it. For his second track, he asks Mazey out on an official date to Krom's Diner. She says yes and, on a 20, we get a very sweet scene where Fabian has a nice normal date with a genuinely nice, down to earth person.

Even though she's not supposed to play favorites, she tells him that Kristen's basically demolishing Kipperlilly in the election so far (which she is impressed by because she didn't think Kristen was going to take it seriously). She also lets them know that technically any place (including a big house party perhaps) can be a polling place as long as someone from the school admin is present (which could potentially be Mazey or Riz).

Mazey gives him a goodnight kiss (getting his kisses in!) and we move on to his third roll which he uses to try and mend fences with Kristen for Gertie’s sake. He offers her any satisfaction she wants from an apology to combat and she chooses combat. With a 30 to her 16, he handily defeats her and she considers her honor satisfied. They'll chill now. And he even gives her some tips on flirting with Kristen. Trying to make sure his girl gets her kisses in too I see.

Corsica and Terpsicore find him to give him eval forms. (Also, on a Nat 20, Fig steals RIz's eval and changes his one negative comment about her doing drugs with her students into a positive one because of course Fig loves her). He just barely gets his Owlbears roll with a bardic and that's his last roll.

Adaine is up next. She uses a portent to get a 29 on mystery to learn about the Astral Plane and figures out that when a god is dead in the Astral Plane there's still some level of intelligence, like how a mortal can die but then have Speak With Dead cast on them and answer questions. She also finds some weird linguistic trickery in a passage about how where gods die, where they go, and where they're borne--not born, borne as in carried. Imagine the laws of the universe hinging on a pun. Wild. They wonder if that's what Bakur was trying to do/if the proper location would have been the Mountains of Chaos.

Brennan also says she gets some interesting stuff about the Mountains of Chaos and its history and is left with the question of, "When Ankarna was said to have 'died' in the Red Waste, what does that mean?" Adaine decides to roll to learn some spells to help her party survive in the Astral Plane if they need to go and on a 29 spell she learns one new spell of each level. She also talks to her teacher (Tiberia Runsetaff) who, in addition to giving her an eval to do, says she's been talking to Aguefort (Chronomancy) and when she mentioned that she was having problem getting supplies for wizarding, Ayda left her a geocache. Runestaff gives Adaine the coordinates and she texts Fig so they can go together because she assumes Ayda left stuff for both of them.

Next, she wants to roll Relationships and throws an ice cream party for the whole manor which everyone really enjoys. She chats with Sandra Lynn who tells her that the Mountains of Chaos have been nuts lately and social animals like wolves have been killing members of their own packs as of the last few weeks. That sounds very rage-y to Adaine so she tells Sandra Lynn everything they know (except for the Bobby Dawn stuff so Fig can be the one to break the news).

Adaine asks if Sandra Lynn will take them to the mountains since she knows the area so well from work and Sandra Lynn says they might have to sign some liability waivers but she's down as long as her bosses are down. They also have a very sweet conversation where Adaine says she’s very grateful to them for taking her in and she admits that she's not very good at being a kid. Sandra Lynn says that she's always available for any conversations that Adaine wanted to have with a mom and couldn't (on account of her mom being a raging bitch and also being chased by the Vands of course). Adaine thinks she's about to give her a talk on periods and dashes away, much to Sandra Lynn's bafflement.

Fig does her evals for her teachers including Lucilla who is weeping over her not remembering her name and just calling her "Attractive bard teacher", Porter who is irked to be sharing a sheet with Zara, and Zara who wants to see Fig because she send her a flap of flayed skin with writing on it (the contract from Bill). Valid concern.

Adaine wraps up her downtime by rolling to Scry on Jace and gives him a 1 to make sure he fails. She sees him sitting quietly working in his office where he's Fantasy Googling the Complicated Women podcast. Adaine doesn't see what else he's working on with a low Luck roll but on a 17 Perception, she sees that he's starting to sweat in his toasty office. He takes off his scarf and, as he does, she catches a glimpse of him in the mirror, revealing a deep ragged scar in his chest. He looks at the scar and, for a moment, his eyes flash red.

Detention

Kipperlilly for All Of That

Girl are you KIDDING ME?

“Oh boo hoo. Riz is so lucky. School is so easy for him because he has a dead dad to avenge. Some people have all the luck.”

Man, kick rocks. And she was like that *before* she got involved with Ankarna.

Also, sidenote, it’s not even like Riz ended up killing Kalvaxus because of his tragic backstory. He didn’t even know there was a connection going in. He just wanted to find his missing babysitter and the other missing girls! You’re a Mastermind Rogue. You want a plot hook? Nancy Drew it up, bitch!

You want Kristen dead? You want her DEAD? You’re jealous of Riz who lives in a household where sometimes you have to eat your cereal with water because there’s not enough milk to go around? Truly, get a grip.

Honor Roll

Kristen for Making a Clutch Connection

This should really go to Ally but yeah. What a great leap figuring out that staying dead is an option and that’s most likely what happened to Yolanda and Lucy.

This very likely explains a longstanding loose end from much earlier in the season. Ivy didn’t look shocked to see “Lucy” (Fig in disguise) at the party even though we know she was dead. With this new info, it seems likely that Ivy assumed that Lucy had finally given in and come back as a rage acolyte.

Anyway, baller connection and she got there before I did. I love it when Brennan is so impressed he doesn't even ask for an Insight roll.

Random Thoughts

Here is a super useful timeline of events Re: the Ratgrinders by @ratgrinders.

I’ve seen a lot of people assume that the RG’s died in the Mountains of Chaos but I’m not convinced that happened. Because that was way before Lucy died and we know that once she died, she refused to come back as a rage person. And we know you can take a rage crystal without having to die first. That happened in the mall fight with the wizards. If they TPK’d there and Ankara offered to bring them back, then they would have come back without Lucy because she would have said no.

Here’s my current theory: They went to the mountains with Jace. They either stumbled into information about Ankarna or were led there by Jace if he’s proper evil and not just taken over. They were offered a deal and everyone went for it but Lucy. KP really wanted Lucy to join them–esp cause she considered Lucy her best friend. She tried to strong arm her into it (maybe even forging her god change form) and, when she stuck to her guns, she organized everyone to kill Lucy, forcing her into a position where she’d have to say yes to Ankarna in order to stay alive. In KP’s head, Lucy would do this and maybe be annoyed for a bit but in the end see it was for the best and forgive her–maybe even thank her. But she miscalculated the strength of Lucy’s conviction and voila. Dead Lucy.

Edit: Wanted to come back and edit to note that it is of course possible that in the mountains everyone died except for Lucy and that's when they took the Ankarna deal, but even if that's the case, the rest of the theory would proceed as written. I was mainly thinking that while what we saw with Buddy is a strong possibility it's not the only possibility. If they died then they're a bit more sympathetic because self preservation is an understandable motivator and taking the deal doesn't make them craven--it just makes Lucy and Yolanda extremely principled. However if they just took the deal because it was offered to them then that's more eyebrow raising. Even though I'm skeptical, I'm kinda hoping their hands were forced because I think that's more interesting and we've had straight up petty power grabbing already from Penelope. But anyway, just being thorough.

"Flash of Stupidity” is so funny.

It's not surprising that Ivy and Oisin are one of the pairs of besties in the RG's--they were introduced playing beer pong together--but I'm super curious about what their dynamic is. And ditto for Lucy and KP. Was it like a high strung one/chilled out one kind of thing? I really wish the Bad Kids had been a bit nosier about their whole deal.

Do we think KP maybe wanted to make sure the BK's died in the last stand alongside Buddy and Pundle so they'd all come back as rage people? Maybe that crossbow bolt was laced with some rage mojo?

KP being mad at Riz for trying to pickpocket Jawbone of her file when (1) she’s literally a rogue as well and (2) she pickpocketed Kristen and Buddy of their revivify diamonds is insane.

I love Lou committing to the bit of being appalled at the thought of half-siblings via Gilear because I know he knows that every time he explodes it becomes even funnier which means it’s more likely to happen but he can’t stop because he’s Committed To The Bit. Classic Lou.

Wizards casting Legend Lore on themselves as the in-universe equivalent of Googling yourself.

I love the detail that Mazey’s family lives in a Labyrinth in the Red Wastes.

Kinda bummed we didn’t get to do more with the Relationship track so the special ability never came up and Brennan had to just reveal it (it can reduce stress but also increase it).

I am so stressed about the bylaws and also Bucky. They keep coming up and then falling off of everyones’ plates and we’re running out of runway here.

Adaine really said, “You didn’t just kill your parents? Skill issue.” She really is Aelwyn’s sister.

The VP has to do anything the Principal says, right? And Mazey is the Principal, right? There’s gotta be a way to exploit that, especially now that Fabian is in her good graces.

When did Aelwyn get FIVE MORE CATS?

Answered and Partially Answered Questions

Last week I made as thorough a list as I could about what info we were missing and I wanted to note the answers we got this week.

1) Why the move to Loam Farm for Frosty Faire? (The Thistlespring tree is a Rootwarden)

2) How is Jace involved? Why is he manipulating Ruben? (We know Jace went w/ them on the trip but that's not a full answer)

3) What were the exact circumstances behind Lucy’s death? Who was able to put the rune on both of their bodies and what exactly was the goal there? (We know the mark is from getting a rage crystal but rejecting it but we don't officially know who did it or what the goal was though you know my guess.)

4) How did KP find the rogue teacher? (Threatened to dig up her grave. Info that she was dead was only in Aguefort's office so maybe got that from Jace?)

5) Also what’s her damage? Why is she obsessed with Riz? What are her anger issues about? (She's a petty basic bitch)

6) Why wasn’t Ivy surprised to see Fig in disguise as Lucy who was at the time fully dead? (Most likely because she thought she finally chose rage zombie resurrection)

7) What’s up with the party vision that Adaine has now had at least twice? (We know this is election night and Fabian's bday now)

8) What made the Rat Grinders become the Rat Grinders when they started as the High Five Heroes? (We know it was a vote led by Ivy and Oisin and joined by Ruben and Mary Ann but not the why behind it)

9) Where exactly is Cass right now? (We still don't know for sure but it seemed like a realm within Ankarna’s dead body which is prob in the Astral Plane. We do know Lucy and Yolanda are prob with her as of this ep.)

As an aside, we still don’t know how Oblivati Mori was broken to write Ankarna’s name before the Bad Kids found it but is it possible that the person who wrote it was Ankarna herself? Because Ankarna is still “dead” right now, right? Because she’s been active all the same. Oblivati Mori disallows others from speaking your name but does it disallow the god themselves from speaking or writing their name if mortals find them somehow? Kind of a stretch but I’m wondering if there’s enough wiggle room there to make something happen, especially since this episode Brennan said that gods retain some intelligence even when they’re dead on Adaine’s high roll. I dunno, just spitballing.

(Also, I don’t remember where I saw this but remember how Aelwyn said KP is randomly loaded? The previous best guess on that was money from Oisin–the boy who was just gonna give Adaine diamonds–but is it possible that she’s spending the embezzled Frosty Fair money? We don’t know much much it was so hard to say if it was enough to be funding whatever this is. But wanted to throw that out there since we’re tying loose ends as much as we can.)

Anyway, can’t wait for next episode which I’ve been told will be more than THREE HOURS LONG and Brennan said in the AP that it’s gonna be a doozy. Excited, trepid, and preemptively bracing for another long haul review. See you then!

#Dimension 20 #dimension 20 spoilers #d20 #d20 spoilers #fantasy high #fantasy high spoilers #fhjy #fhjy spoilers #spoilers #the report card

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cleverthylacine · 5 months

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Japanese G1 continuity is absolutely not normal about girls but damned if they don't give us some of the best ones

There was a significant amount of Transformers continuity released between 1987 and around 2007 that was produced in Japanese and is really only known to most English-speaking fans through fansubs, dubs that were only released in Australia, and the like. Shows like Headmasters, Victory, and Zone. Manga like Victory and 15 Go Go Go Teletraan (which was really mostly Kiss Players). Radio shows like Kiss Players.

I'm gonna be super up front. Japanese G1 is not normal about femmes in any way, shape or form. At the same time, it gave us some of the BEST and most underused female characters in the Transformers universe.

Headmasters, which came out right after the US G1 show ended, is particularly egregious. In Headmasters, Arcee has been reduced to Fort Max's administrative assistant, uses ridiculously polite and subservient language, and is also the only medic. And being a medic would be kind of badass if they let her be as badass as Ratchet, you know? But they absolutely do not.

Also, in Headmasters, Carly (now married to Spike) allows her son--a freaking child, not even a teenager--to go on missions when Spike can't and a human is needed, because uh, for some reason it's better for a 12 year old boy to go, not an adult woman?

But most of the good femmes don't come from Headmasters. And some of the best femmes we have are from Japanese G1.

Super-God Masterforce made it up to us by giving gave us Minerva, a human girl who is a Headmaster with a robot body (transtector) making her basically a bad ass mecha pilot, and who actively does fight.

The Victory manga gives us Esmeral, Deathsaurus' incredibly classy wife, and Lyzack, Leozack's twin sister, who is in charge of defending the homefront but really does want to go out and fight. Illumina appears in both the Victory manga and the anime. She's a little human girl who has a crush on Jan Minakaze and is always trying to get people to choose nonviolence.

(Lyzack later appears in an English-language comic - the Wings Universe--wherein she's basically Deathsaurus' servant and Starscream hits on her. I don't like that.)

There are a number of great femmes who were only ever toys. The Cobalt Sentries set gave us Howlback, leader of the Decepticon military police (called the Cobalt Sentries). She is basically Ravage's twin sister but instead of being super stealthy she can turn your attacks right back on you.

(Later she appears in several English language comics and in at least one she is canonically trans. I'm not a fan of her depiction in the SG Recordicons Batman tribute arc, though.)

The Unite Warriors toyline - Takara's response to Combiner Wars, basically - gave us the combiner Megatronia, made up of Megaempress, and her four guards, Lunaclub (sometimes called Luna Clover or Luna Trefle), Flowspade, Moonheart, and Trickdiamond. They are incredibly awesome.

(IDW 2019 used Trickdiamond, but none of the others. Tricky was one of Swindle's contacts.)

Then there's the elephant in the room that everyone pretends isn't there...Kiss Players.

So, okay. There is nothing normal about Kiss Players whatsoever. On the other hand, I'd rather listen to KP than watch RID2015 which is just blatant copaganda from hell.

Kiss Players had an interesting plot involving little bits of Galvatron and Unicron getting into humans and creating the Kiss Players--humans who could give TFs a powerup by kissing them and then merging with their internals somehow. Then there are the Legions, the dick-tongued monsters that everyone who hasn't actually listend to the show or read the manga thinks are Megatron.

The dick-tongued monsters are gross. It is also gross that some of the Kiss Players are barely teenagers and definitely not adults and are constantly ending up in Situations.

But the plot centres around the apparent rise of Convoy, or Optimus, from the dead, and his transformation into a weird groomery dude, which many people don't understand there was an actual reason for, because it's not Optimus, it's someone else riding around in his body.

Melissa Faireborn is like if you chopped Marissa Faireborn's IQ in half, dyed her hair blond and threw out any pants or skirts that covered her knees. She is nothing like Marissa and I treat them as cousins, but Xiaoxiao Li is amazing and her real lover.

Anyhow, this female scientist (Dr Amaou) lost her mind over the loss of her daughter during the events of the 1986 movie et sequelae, and she's got to be stopped from turning Atari and her Autorooper robot pal into a permanent fusion to reincarnate her daughter Shizuku (whom for some reason I always want to call Setsuna instead).

It's a little confusing because most of the really good parts of the plot got jammed into a few episodes near the end of the season, although once you know what it is, it's clear that it's being set up. That artist just likes borderline lolicon way too much.

The second season of KP is very squeaky clean and sends the girls out to collect what they think are Allspark fragments, and they are very annoyed because Ravage, whom they call "black panther man" keeps getting in their way and fucking with them, only to later find out that the bots who gave them this task are Unicronian heralds and Ravage is trying to stop them from helping Unicron do what Unicron does.

Rosanna, everyone's favourite robot pop idol, comes from the second season of KP, although you don't see very much of her or her companions Glit and Sundor.

Incidentally KP sets up the Unicron Trilogy and some of its characters end up in the UT--which did come to the US, and gave us Alexis Thi Dang.

(This post is brought to you because I just wrote an Esmeral thing and someone was musing separately about Megaempress as a parent and I almost ended up writing this post while reblogging them, because I'm a nerd with a hyperfixation).

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