#like episode 5 and six may have to turn this all around

[mydairpercabeth]

One thing I’m really looking forward to seeing is how they convince Percy not to join Luke. Up until the end of episode 4, Percy doesn’t have any faith in his dad or the other gods. He resents them all for abandoning their kids and doesn’t like their excuses. He is disgusted by how Athena treats Annabeth. He detests the whole claiming system and that the gods can just choose to claim them if they feel like it. And he is also being actively targeted by Zeus. What will be the turning point for him to not join Luke?

[wanderingmind867]

My ideas for a season six of Batman 1966. You can tell this is probably where i'm gonna end all of this, because I was getting so tired that I started just poaching ideas from old 40s and 50s comics. Turns out thinking of Three or Four seasons worth of stuff (all 60-70 episodes long) is incredibly exhausting. So here. I hope it's okay. I'm not rewriting this one again. I'm so exhausted, I'm gonna go take a break to use my switch:

Season 6: Season Six is almost all about Batman on his own. Robin and Batgirl make appearances as supporting leads every couple episodes, but Batman is now the leading star. I'd have Aunt Harriet be made more of a minor character too, and I'd replace her with Leslie Thompkins. We'd still see Aunt Harriet, obviously! She's too good to abandon fully! It's just… we'll see her less, since Dick is at College (thus eliminating the need for her to live at Wayne Manor).

Episodes 1 and 2: An adaptation of a story from Batman #32, except this episode features The Riddler in the place of The Joker. Either way, I'm getting really tired of writing all this stuff constantly. So here's a copy and pasted paragraph about the story (with joker's name merely replaced with riddler's):

The Riddler captures Batman with help from his henchmen and they take the vigilante to their secret hideout. The Riddler's latest inspiration has come from watching college students forced to endure humiliating initiation stunts. Riddler then contacts Robin and forces him to perform embarrassing but apparently harmless feats in order to keep Batman alive. However, Riddler is using Robin for his criminal activities and when the Boy Wonder realizes the truth, he prepares a trap for the Riddler.

Episodes 3 and 4: Batman deals with The Archer, an old villian who tried to act like a modern day Robin Hood. Now he's gotten even more blatant with his thefts, and he tries to rob Wayne Manor of all it's valuables (since he learned the Manor had less occupants since Dick Grayson and his Aunt left). Batman still manages to stop him, but The Archer really puts up a strong challenge.

Also, the Archer had to find new sidekicks. So meet Scarlet, Doncaster and Lady Clorinda. Those are all real names of characters from the Robin Hood stories. I just looked it up. But after this story, we probably won't see the archer for a while. I don't know how many more times I can work with his Robin Hood motif, so we'll probably reserve him for appearances in team-ups with other villians.

Episode 5: Shortly after dealing with The Riddler and The Archer, Batman ends up running into Man Bat for the very first time. It's very much a one for one retelling of Man Bat's first comic story, including the fact that Man Bat escapes Batman's clutches at the very last moment.

Episode 6: Harley Quinn is tired of being a mere sidekick, so she strikes out on her own! This episode was probably more fitting to air back during season five, but I never found a good place for it. But this is as good a place as any. And now that Harley Quinn is beginning to distance her crime career from that of The Joker, it means I now get two clownish adversaries to mess around with! If we're getting tired of the constant Cesar Romero appearances, a Harley Quinn modelled after Goldie Hawn now has all our needs covered.

Episodes 7 and 8: The first apperance of The Penguin this season; we get a plot based around an issue of the comics this time. Specifically, based off of Batman #190. The Penguin begins commiting crimes using the methods of the future, since he wishes to be ahead of the trend and above the curve. Since i'm honestly beginning to run out of ideas for these seasons, I think i may just start adapting some comic storylines whenever i feel no inspiration. The TV show did this too, so I see no reason why I can't do it.

Episodes 9 and 10: Two-Face breaks out of jail, and begins defacing public monuments to make them reflect the jekyll and hyde nature of his soul. With his new scheme, he successfully manages to ruin the reputations of many good men and women in gotham. He defaces statues, people, everything he can get his hands on. And although this is a bit of a change from his usual M.O., Batman still inevitably manages to solve the case and get Two-Face back behind bars.

Episode 11: Batman encounters Man Bat again, and this time finally managed to subdue him. But is this really the end of the Man Bat story? Not quite, as there's one more part. But we won't get to see that part until after one more story, sad to say.

Episodes 12 and 13: The Joker breaks out of prison to perplex Batman with crimes based around sound effects and cinema. The Joker manages to convince a film crew to help him film a new comedy, all about his attempts to triumph over Batman. But nobody expects that his "film" is actually all but a ruse; a simple snare to lead Batman right into the palms of his hands.

Episodes 14 and 15: Professor William McElroy has been released from jail on good behaviour charges. He comes to Hudson University to lead a lecture on mythology, but he accidentally falls off the stage and reverts back to his King Tut persona again. And as King Tut, he finally manages to achieve his greatest desire: he steals an experimental mind control beam from the schools science labs, and he manages to convince everyone on campus that they're all in the time of Ancient Egypt.

News of the strange case reaches Gotham after a few days, and Bruce quickly realises that Dick must've been hypnotized by that beam too. So now Batman has to head to Hudson University, to dethrone King Tut and his egyptian empire before he has a chance to spread it's influence across the globe.

Episode 16: The conclusion to the long Man Bat saga, wherein Batman has to cure both Kirk Langstrom and his wife Francine of their Bat transformations and mental afflictions. By crashing their wedding, Batman successfully manages to get to them in time to save them from themselves.

Episodes 17 and 18: Catwoman pines for fame and attention, so she begins framing Batman for crimes. While Batman becomes a wanted crook, she becomes a lavish celebrity amongst the lights of gotham high society. Inevitably, though, Catwoman ends up giving herself away. Namely, she can't help but enjoy the thrill of theft. So when she sees a rare cat stature owned by one of her high society acquaintances, she snaps and steals it.

But Batman had planted a tracker on that statue, so it was all a big ambush! Him and Catwoman get into a fight, and Batman successfully manages to clear his reputation (while Catwoman gets sent back to the penitentiary). What I would do in this episode, though: Catwoman (as played by Julie Newmar) ends up flirting with Bruce Wayne while she's a high profile celebrity. The two of them have some sort of romance going (the same way Catwoman and Batman did in the movie), but Catwoman still ruins her chances by trying to frame and kill Batman. If these two are ever going to work together, it's not going to be anytime soon.

Episodes 19, 20 and 21: The three Mister Freezes got into a heated dispute when we last saw them, so they now have all been forced into using different names. Mister Freeze is George Sanders, Mister Zero is Otto Preminger and Mister Chill is Eli Wallach. But they all still want to keep the name of Mister Freeze.

They're now competing to see which one of them can truly dominate Gotham, to prove that there can only be one master of ice in this town! Batman ends up having to foil three seperate schemes from there seperate Mister Freezes, all because these criminals are being petty and trying to one up each other.

Episodes 22 and 23: Egghead is back to menace Batman! He's annoyed and deeply upset that the League of Assasins snubbed him for membership, so he's decided to finally dig his way into the Batcave, to prove his intellectual superiority over all the other supercrooks. He does actually manage to break into the Batcave, and he turns all of Batman's gadgets against him.

Batman manages to stop him before he can do too much damage, but he still ruins the set-up Batman had going. Which means that Batman needs to temporarily move all his stuff to a secondary location while the old one gets rebuilt.

Episodes 24 and 25: Batman goes to Hudson University to check on Robin while the Batcave is being fixed up, only to then discover a startling new crime taking place right under dick's nose. The new English teacher at Hudson University is really The Bookworm in disguise, hiding out at Hudson University to try and raid their prestigious libraries of all their beautiful books. He's gotten away with his ruse remarkably well, probably because he's earned a reputation as a good teacher.

But despite any good the man may have done as a teacher, Batman and Robin still need to stop his crime before he successfully carries it out! And before anyone asks about Bookworm's henchmen: they've all been masquerading as his teaching aides or as janitors or librarians or something.

Episodes 26 and 27: Batgirl comes to Hudson University as a Congresswoman to give a speech, and she winds up helping Batman and Robin deal with a new crime spree by Harley Quinn. She's set up a roller disco close to the university campus, and she's robbing the college kids of all they're worth. This episode set would wind up very much a tribute to the 70s era disco movement, as Harley Quinn and her mad discotheque have to get taken down by our terrific trio, who've been reunited once more!

Episodes 28 and 29: Batman, Robin and Batgirl are still at Hudson University, but Batgirl is admitting that she needs to get back to DC soon. And speaking of, Batman's heard tell that the Batcave is nearly all done with the remodel. But before the three of them can part ways once more, a new scheme begins to hatch in the university town. A rare north american bird statue has been robbed from right under our heroes feet, and we learn that it was The Penguin who stole it!

But it isn't just The Penguin who's involved in this mess. Oh, no. Catwoman (Eartha Kitt) is also involved. She apparently stole the statue first, but Penguin double crossed her. So now she's stalking him through the city, which means Batman, Robin and Batgirl have a real crime conundrum on their hands. Can they stop The Penguin and Catwoman in time? Or will their in-fighting tear the town apart?

Episodes 30 and 31: Batman and Robin end up stumbling upon a plot by Cluemaster to hijack the airwaves in Gotham and restart his old game show. Batman and Robin have to stop him, because he's going mad with a desire for attention and adulation.

Batman and Robin successfully manage to crash Cluemaster's show, and they send him back to jail. But in a joking scene at the finale of the episode, we see that the news is reporting on Cluemaster's crime by saying he ripped off a scheme of the Riddler's, some years prior. And that just inflames the tension between these two rogues once again.

Episodes 32 and 33: Joker and Riddler team up to issue a series of jokes and riddles to the people of Gotham City. You see, these two have realized that they're quite similar in their themes. So by pooling their knowledge, they hope to finally defeat Batman once and for all! Do their plans actually come to fruition? Definitely not, but I'm willing to bet that they come really close to victory.

Episode 34: Batman and Man-Bat end up teaming up to defeat the Getaway Genius (played by Bernie Kopell) and The Penguin (who've teamed up since last we saw them). Only through their combined skills do Batman and Man-Bat manage to bring this pair of crooks to justice.

Episodes 35 and 36: Batman gets into a really dramatic adventure this time around, as he has to help save Leslie Thompkins, a doctor he knew as a kid (operating out of Crime Alley). Turns out that a mobster named Lew Moxon is trying to kill her, to silence her the way he silenced Thomas Wayne years ago. Turns out that Joe Chill was a mere puppet of Lew Moxon, and Moxon had him killed in jail to silence him.

But Leslie Thompkins has poked her nose where it doesn't belong, and now her head is on the chopping block. So Batman has to save her, and finally confront the bitter shadows of his past. Finally, he has a chance to get revenge for his parents murder. But will he take it? Also involved with this story: Batman learns that Mr. Freeze III (Eli Wallach) was the father of Joe Chill, the petty thug who killed his parents. Mister Freeze abandoned his family when his wife was pregnant, but his name is Elias Chilton.

Episode 37: Sort of loosely tied to the previous episode (but still it's own independent thing), Batman has to try and get answers out of Mr. Freeze III (Eli Wallach) regarding his ties to the deaths of the Waynes. But Elias Chilton isn't talking. And the more Batman tries to press him for answers, the more we begin to sense a strange underbelly to Gotham Society. Lew Moxon was tied up in some kind of "Court", and Joe Chill was one of his "pawns". Elias Chilton may have been a negligent father, but he knows something's odd here. So him and batman come to an unlikely truce; both agreeing to investigate this issue on their own ends.

Episodes 38 and 39: On Christmas Eve, Gotham is menaced by yet another old menace from the past: The Calendar Man! Nobody has seen hide nor hair of him for years (mostly because he went straight years ago), but apparently being all alone and homeless on christmas made him snap and decide to commit a mad christmas and new year's themed crime wave. So Batman and Robin have to stop him, and convince him that people do care for him, and he doesn't have to go back to crime again.

Episodes 40 and 41: Christmas may be over, but apparently The Riddler didn't get the memo. He's leading a crime spree yet again, and this time it's all tied in to the themes of Christmas and New Year's. We learn that Bookworm, Riddler and Scarecrow are apparently coordinating all their plans, because Bookworm and Scarecrow are busy messing with Batgirl and Jason Bard somewhere else in town (Batgirl and Jason Bard got a Christmas break, so they came down from DC to visit Batman and Robin). That story won't be told until the next two parter, though. For now, it's all about Batman and Robin trying to beat The Riddler.

Episodes 42 and 43: Batgirl and Jason Bard have to stop Bookworm and Scarecrow from ruining New Year's Eve for everyone in Gotham. Batman and Robin have to deal with The Riddler's mad diabolical schemes; but Batgirl and Jason have to deal with Bookworm and Scarecrow. Both groups definitely have their work cut out for them.

Episodes 44 and 45: With Christmas over, Robin has recovered and left to go back to university. Now that Batman is all alone, he has to face a threat that's endemic of the new decade to come: the Black Spider. Eric Needham is a violent vigilante torturing drug dealers for what they've done to the slums and ghettos of gotham. He says Batman inspired him to go after criminals, but Batman is disgusted by the actions of this mad vigilante. So he tracks him down, and stops him before he can take the step from brutalization into murder.

It takes Batman a while to defeat the Black Spider, but when Batman does…he can't bring himself to hate the kid. He just wanted to bring better conditions to the slums of gotham, although his methods were excessive and cruel. Still, the wayne foundation pays to help eric needham get the mental help he desperately needs. Because batman isn't cruel enough to leave this kid all alone in the cold.

Episodes 46 and 47: Batman has to deal with The Joker, who's returned to bedevil Batman once more. This time, his scheme involves commiting a series of upside down crimes. This is an adaptation of a story from Batman #23, and it involves a batplane sequence (which would definitely be fun to see on screen).

Episodes 48 and 49: Now that Batman's finished dealing with Black Spider, he learns that the Black Spider was actually the pawn in another criminal's foul scheme: the Black Widow, to be more precise. Either still modelled/played by Tallulah Bankhead, or modelled after/played by Eleanor Audley (replacing a dead Tallulah Bankhead), I'm not quite sure. But I am sure that the Black Widow is back in Gotham, and this time her scheme has become even more intense than before.

She's got an army of giant mechanical spiders, and she's using them to rob gotham, hold places for ransom via web, and otherwise generally make a menace of herself. For a criminal mind this cunning, batman's skills are required. But who knows if even the caped crusader can defeat a foe as cruel and calculating as this one?

Episodes 50 and 51: Batman has to investigate a series of arsons in Gotham. Along the way, he keeps running into a strange new crook known as Firefly, a master of heat and flame. Batman isn't sure just what connection Firefly has to all these arson attacks on Gotham, but he knows there's some connection. So in this somewhat more dramatic tale of industrial espionage, we get to see Batman deal with a arsonist for hire.

But I would also keep some of the silver age firefly stuff, and i'd have his flames have different effects based on their colours. I want a colour themed villian, and i'm going to make firefly that colour themed villian, whether it's accurate or not. So yeah, we're using arson and themed rainbow effects for this story.

Episodes 52 and 53: Batman meets the Ragdoll (as played by Ray Bolger). I don't think a live action story with ragdoll could get into all the contortionism stuff, but I think it's still worth having him here. He very much feels like a character who works in a Batman '66 setting.

Episodes 54 and 55: Mister Freeze returns to Gotham and Batman has to stop him. Along the way, he meets a lady named Venus (played by Eva Gabor), who Mister Freeze has kidnapped, claiming she bears a startling resemblance to an ex-wife of his (an in-joke about George Sanders and Zsa Zsa Gabor once being married). But Venus and Batman end up teaming up, and their combined wits lead them to escape from the deadly traps of Mister Freeze's lair.

Episodes 56 and 57: Batman encounters Minerva, the criminal who ran a hypnosis based mineral spa, has been released from jail on good behaviour. But her plans for Gotham are anything but good. In jail, she used her spa to learn the secrets of all of gotham's major weaknesses. She now knows all the ways batman has defeated the different criminals in gotham, and she plans to use that knowledge to her advantage and finally have her revenge on Batman…

But thankfully, her plans all backfire. Mostly because of Venus, from the previous set of episodes. Minerva and Venus are actually sisters, and Venus vows to stop her sister at all costs. When Minerva captures Batman at the end of part one, Venus summons Robin and Batgirl to save the day!

Episodes 58 and 59: A new villian arrives in Gotham, going by the name of The Spook (which I still think sounds like some sort of ethnic slur, but which was actually a real 70s Batman villian). Claiming to be the ghost of dead prisoner Val Kaliban, the spook's powers of disappearence stump even Batman. But with the aid of The Scarecrow (possibly the only other person who could successfully combat this motif of fear), Batman successfully manages to capture and unmask Kaliban. Turns out he was never a real ghost; he was just a master escape artist who faked his own death.

Episodes 60 and 61: The beginning of the show's adaptation of Steve Englehart's comics storyline. Doctor Phosphorous and Silver St. Cloud both debut in this episode set. Although Doctor Phosphorus isn't seen again after this set of episodes, Silver St. Cloud remains relevant to the remaining few episodes in the season…

Episodes 62 and 63: An adaptation of the next part of Steve Englehart's Batman saga, starring Hugo Strange. I can't actually recap all of this saga, but we're covering the events detailed in Detective Comics #471-472, and that's about it.

Episodes 64 and 65: An adaptation of the story in Detective Comics #473 now, which allows us to see Batman and Robin working together to stop The Penguin, who's prepared yet another mad caper. And with Rupert Thorne using his influence to undermine Commissioner Gordon and Batman's affairs in Gotham, it's now unclear just what Batman and Robin can do to protect the city.

Episodes 66 and 67: For the next several episodes, there'll be a break from Steve Englehart's saga, because I plan to end the season by focusing on that. In any case, this two parter involves King Tut trying to summon an ancient mummy back from the dead, using ancient egyptian rights and rituals. His plans actually seem to work, but we learn that another criminal group is playing him for a dummy. They were using an automaton of a mummy, and they fooled him into thinking it was real.

If you're wondering about which criminal group, I can't really say. I haven't decided yet myself, so that's going to be left unclear. But it's probably either the League of Assasins or the Court of Owls. One of those groups makes the most sense to me.

Episodes 68 and 69: The Riddler starts a new crime wave, once again with the aid of The Bookworm. These two are now delivering riddles in all sorts of ways, from poems to different book titles to even having their henchmen mime out crimes without actually commiting them. Batman and Robin are left deep in the lurch by these two, and a real game of wits begins once more.

Episodes 70 and 71: An adaptation of a story in Batman #45. Again, I am beginning to really tire of writing these notes. So here's a copy and pasted description of the story from off of the DC wiki:

A famous author has recently published a book about the most evil women in history and a Hollywood studio has bought the rights to make a movie based on the book. At the same time, Catwoman escapes from prison. And when she learns that she wasn't included in the book, she decides to sabotage the film and steal from the crew and the studio. Catwoman's criminal spree is successful until she is captured and arrested by Batman and Robin.

Episodes 72 and 73: Batgirl and Jason Bard get involved in this one, as Shame and Calamity Jan crash Washington, DC. They're getting married again, and they've chosen to capture the US capital, so they can use it as their shotgun wedding Chapel. This news shakes the US to it's very core, so Batman, Robin, Batgirl and Jason Bard end up having to play the role of wedding crashers, stopping this outlaw posse from damaging the fair people of washington with their gunfights and rodeo matches.

Episodes 74 and 75: An adaptation of Detective Comics #474. It's Batman '66's introduction to Deadshot, who's still played pretty seriously (albeit not too, too violently). A skilled crook and sharpshooter, deadshot's broken out of jail to get revenge on Batman for their past encounter many years prior.

The death trap at the halfway mark for this episode might actually include a literal firing squad, since deadshot's whole motif is guns and bullets and things like that. So you know…it might end up being one of the show's more dramatic episodes.

Episodes 76 and 77: An adaptation of The Joker storyline from Detective Comics #475-476. This would be the season finale, and it would help to both resolve all the storylines of the past few issues; and yet also to set up the movie that's being built up to lead into Season Seven and help introduce Jason Todd. So a lot of important stuff happens in this episode set.

[demonicc0024tt]

I’m tweaking so have this flippy age theory

So being in the htf fandom I’ve noticed that lots of people portray Flippy as this traumatized war vet in his early 20’s and it bugs me out because there’s no way this man is 20 by the time he’s “discharged” from the war. Although it was never confirmed by any means that he’s actually discharged, he may be on some leave or the war just ended. But what war did he even go to? Well it’s only mentioned he went to W.A.R wich stands for Weaponized Animal Regiment, but seeing that Fliqpy’s booby traps are heavily inspired by the viet cong many say it may be possible that he also went to the Vietnam war (i also thought that would be the most rational explanation) which would make sense considering the insane trauma he has but also make him 60 even if he was drafted at the end of it, so i think he was just really interested in it but never actually got to fight there since it ended. He could have taken part in the Persian Gulf War but i doubt that. All we know is that Flippy went to the W.A.R so let’s stick to that.

What age did he go to the war then?

There is a possibility that if he was interested in joining the military from a young age and enlisted by himself then he may have been 18 at the beginning , though if that wouldn’t be the case and he was drafted instead, he would be around 20-25 years old. So let’s go with 20.

In the W.A.R journal episode he’s said to be a private, which is considered the lowest military rank (E-1) , but seeing the patch on his shoulder that could be inspired (definitely is) by the military rank insignia he could be a E-2 second class private.

The mission Flippy, Mouse Ka-Boom and Sneaky are on where they have to confront a literal General, could be seen as a very serious and important mission that would take at least 4 years of amazing performance and service for a literal second class private to go on without any forces except for two other privates, which i think makes sense because Flippy killed a literal General and that on it’s own could get him promoted to a sergeant (E-5). While promotions from E1 to E4 are mostly gained by time, E5 and higher are mostly performance and binding time earned. For a E2 to get to E5 it would take a great amount of time. To get to E3 could take at least 10 months and to E5? That could even be three to six years based on performance or even more!

So let’s say that Flippy was a great soldier for at least four years, got assigned to a serious mission, completed it alone because his teammates died, and that got him promoted to a Sergant at about 24/25 years old.

Although there is no real number of years he was at war it would make sense for it to be at least ten years if we look back at how long he had to be a private to be promoted,and how long he could fight as a sergeant. If we went down that route then he was like 30 when he left.

His first appearance is the hide and seek episode that came out in the year 2000. If we used the year when the episode came out as the year that Flippy left the military then that would make him about 31. Why 31 and not 30? Because imagine you leave a war you’ve been fighting for ten years. You don’t just immediately move somewhere new and make so many friends that you feel comfortable playing hide and seek knowing about your ptsd problem in the span of like 11 months (not saying that’s impossible but just not likely).

The episode Party Animal where we see flaky and others prepare a party for his birthday aired October 2nd 2006 that means,of course that he turned 37 that day.

The last episode featuring Flippy was In Over Your Hedge that got released (for free) December 22 2018 and that would make him 49!

In conclusion Flippy throughout the whole series is in his early 30’s to late 40’s.

Im sorry in advance if some of this info is not right, i tried doing as much research as i could! If something is wrong pls say so i can correct myself!!! Also sorry if the grammar is wrong but English is not my first language😢

[guywrestlingaddiction]

Frot Fighters: Jason Aleqsander v Aiden Langston (ucwrestling.com)

Sometimes the wrestling is not the only main event.  In fact, there are times when it's all working up to something else entirely.  Enter another episode of Frot fighters.  

Jason Aleqsander v Aiden Langston (ucwrestling.com)

SPOILER ALERT: I highly recommend viewing this match in its entirety before reading this post.

So let's begin with the "Fight": 

We begin with our two rookies circling each other in anticipation of the match.  You can tell from the start that both are filled to capacity with nerves and hormones and each has something to prove.  

Jason makes the first move, uncharacteristically flex-showing off for us to see.  The guy is really enjoying not being the newest guy on the block and he totally wants to win.  Now, while it may be all fun now, he'll later regret showing off that target, I mean bicep. 

Aiden: You have such a tight body... Not a bad view.

It's not long before they begin taking turns and putting each other in different holds.  It's all play wrestling really but I'm reminded that these two are rookies trying wresting out, so it's fine.  

Aiden: I'm just going to worship these muscles for a second.  Nice washboard abs, fuck yeah.

At some point you realize that this was never a fight at all but really just two guys using wrestling as an excuse to admire each others' bodies which brings us to the eventual frot ...

Then we'll get to the Frot: 

It's not hard to guess this would happen; throughout the match Aiden continually gushes about how amazing Jason's body feels and how much he adores those muscles.  All that mutual admiration turning to mutual worship, and here we are.  The biggest tell would be how Aiden has that perpetual smile on his face giving away how much he wanted Jason to trash him the whole time.

Aiden: Fuck, you're stretching me out so good.

Make no mistake however, all of this is leading up to the frot finale.  Jason is a little to cocky flexing that bicep so Aiden lures him in by worshiping that very bicep before reversing the hold and putting him flat on his back.  Jason will later regret putting those abs and biceps on display after Aiden gives him a taste of worship gone wrong.  He even rubs himself all over Jason's shiny perfect abs to claim him.  

Aiden: How you like that? Guys around here like being humiliated?

Aiden: I thought you liked this the last time? 

Aiden: There you go, flex that bicep for me.

------- So there you have it. This is what happens when two guys wrestle as foreplay and can't go 5 seconds without worshiping each other.  Our match ends with Jason congratulating Aiden with a handshake before launching into a cheap shot.  In the end, Jason was just not seduced by the worship and I'd like to think that Aiden really thought he was going to get some action before Jason pulled the rug out from under him.  

Aiden simply wanted this too much and while he was able to humiliate his opponent six ways to Sunday, in the end Jason got the last laugh, leaving a beaten Aiden on the floor writhing with lust.

[crow-artworks]

Huskerdust Analysis and Prediction's for Season 2 (Also some goofy headcanons)

Besides a few writing and pacing issue's I overall fucking loved Hazbin hotel and can't wait for season 2. One of my favorite subplots being Huskerdust now I know some people think of them and prefer more a Mentor and Mentoree type of relationship between them. That's completely valid and I can see that but I think they can still have that with Husk helping Angel overcome more of his trauma but still be a romantic item.

Analysis: We see multiple moments between them of course the main episode between them being episode four where we really explore more of Angels character and his trauma we also see Husk calling Angel out for hiding behind this fake persona to cope with that trauma. Where of course we get the freaking masterpiece Loser, Baby and see them reconcile and bond over their shared and similar pain.

In episode 5 we see a bit more of Husk's issue's with Alastor come up when he confront Alastor about Mimzi. Where of course this leads to Alastor retaliating by scaring the shit out of Husk showing the green chains representing Alastor's hold on Husk's soul and literally leaves him shaking we can really see the deeper and hidden part of their relationship literally like Master and Plaything. Then in episode six we see Angel and Valentino and their confrontation where Angel is standing up for Niffty then leads to him say fuck you to Valentino (as he should fuck you Valentino) then leads to him to smoking the chains around Angel representing Master and Plaything. We can really see their similar, yet different situations and we can see them further even more bond over it in season 2.

That all sets up the rest of their moments for season 1 my favorite being the finale with their small bar scene where can see them looking at each other in some could say flirtatious and entraced manner.

The amazing thing about their relationship and one thing I see that Vivienne did actually great with in he writing is that it can work good as a romance or a deep friendship which both I would be ecstatic for either way. Whether you ship them or not they are still going to mean something to each other romantically or platonically and help each other over come each other's trauma.

Predictions:

With all the signs and hints from Vivienne and within the show itself I expect them to end up in a romantic relationship with each other. Now how I expect this to play out is in two seperate ways that blend together. One way exploring the more serious sides of what they bond over of course their trauma. Seeing Husk helping Angel confront Valentino maybe and digging deeper into Husk's past with Alastor and how Husk may break from that or another way this could go is they end up both still being trapped for season 2 but starting a relationship over their shared bonds, similarities, chemistry, and over all just being good for one another.

The second less serious part of it will I think be Angel trying to ask Husk out. We can see Angel oversexualizing and objectifying himself for others as other's also oversexualize and objectify him all the time to the point he's uses it as mask but Husk as seen in episode four helps break that mask down showing he want's to know who Angel really is not who other's make him out to be and he want's him emotionally and not just sexually.

In turn Angel not being used to this but wanting Husk not just as a one night stand but an actual partner will have trouble asking Husk out. Leading to some awkward moments like with Sir Pentious and Cherry bomb where Angel attempt's to ask Husk out in certain moments but ultimately at the last second fumbling over his words and changing the subject unlike his usual flirting. In the end I think Husk will catch on to this and ask Angel out himself or take a moment to ask Angel to breathe and just to say what he want's to say. Which will either way probably leads to a very cute and romantic date hosted by Husk.

Headcanons:

This is the least serious part of this just some silly and cute things I headcanon for them.

Pet names: I feel like they would use Baby and Doll the most.

Affection: Definitely physical touch but not in a sexual way I think Husk would hold Angel's hand or things like a small kiss or wrapping his tale or wing around him. Word's of Affirmation alot of discrete I love you's and such.

Husk I think would definitely be very protective over angel with cat callers or people oversexualizing him and just in general even though Angel would probably say things like "I can handle myself." Husk wouldn't care and be an overprotective asshole and Angel would act like he hated it but secretly loves it.

They would be jealous in their own ways Husk I would be more open about it like pulling Angel close or glaring at whoever he dislikes. Angel would be more grumble and hide it type but Husk can always tell.

Angel would be a flirt with him but in a more himself way and Husk would sometimes flirt back leaving Angel super flustered

Finally when it comes to sex I feel like consent and bounderies would be immediatly placed to make Angel feel definetly more comftorable to let him know this is because they love eachother and not just to use Angel. Husk would 100% be the top. I feel like their first time would be more intimate and slow but I feel like it could also be that one meme where afterwards the one person flustered just staring at the ceiling over what just happened (Angel) and the other is just also staring at the cieling with his hand behind his head unphased (Husk). Later on I feel like they would try things like BDSM and that stuff but later on in the line.

Anyway, there's my autistic info dump on Huskerdust if you read all the way down you are either a God or neurodivergent . Here's some cookie's for making it this far:

[zonerobotnik]

Let's see…May 12th plus 6 months is…

…Fuck.

Okay, so, we have a bit of a timeline issue, everyone. As we all know, Tangled takes place on Rapunzel's birthday, and everyone is in agreement that that's May 12th. And, as an aside, Varian's birthday is agreed to be March 24th. That's all well and good, but then we have a six-month time-jump from the Tangled movie to Rapunzel's coronation. Counting up, that's June, July, August, September, October, November. Six months.

Then a week later we have Rapunzel meeting Varian and let's say the Goodwill Festival is, what, a week or two after that? Maybe a full month? Which would put it around the same time as Yuletide. December.

So, stay with me here, our first time seeing the Goodwill Festival is episode 2 of season 1, "Rapunzel's Enemy". Then we go through the series with time passing until we reach "Queen for a Day", which is stated to be around harvest season.

Now, typically, harvest season is in the fall, so that's around September or October. But, we have a problem here.

Rapunzel's 19th birthday in May, and Varian's 15th in March, actually takes place somewhere between the coronation and "Queen for a Day"! I'd place, based on the episodes, Rapunzel's 19th birthday to actually be around "Pascal's Story" and Varian's to be around "Under Raps". That seems like a good placement for the timeline.

According to the story, Rapunzel's 19th birthday is taking place during "Secret of the Sundrop", but according to that six-month time-jump, that's impossible! But, let's take a look at the timeline if we remove the time-jump and replace it with two months instead of six.

Rapunzel's birthday is in May, so let's do one month for the "Contest of the Crowns" and the next month is her coronation. We are now in July. We meet Varian a week after, so we're still in July. A week or two after that, depending on the date of her coronation, we are either in July or August.

We are still dangerously close to October here, so let's make things happen a lot faster. Instead of some of these earlier episodes being months apart, they are now days and weeks apart. A bit rushed, but we have a pretty strict time-frame here and we can't have any big gaps because we need to be at "Queen for a Day" by October, harvest season. Then we can kind of relax a bit because the time between October and May is…November, December, January, February, March, April, May. Seven months. Varian turned 15 in March and Rapunzel turns 19 in May.

Quite frankly the production order makes it so less episodes happen in the time before "Queen for a Day" and more happen after, so that actually fits with that timeline if you move the episodes around to match the production order.

But, that only happens if we remove the six-month time-jump, but since it's canonly there, we can't just ignore it. So, canonly, we skipped Rapunzel's 19th birthday and Varian's 15th and Varian is 16 at the end of season 1 and Rapunzel is actually 20.

In other words, the timeline is messed up no matter which version you go with, but at least removing the time-jump makes it happen in the same year. Now I'm going to pull up the production order and give it a watch to see how that works for the timeline.

Here's the production schedule's order, for those interested in joining me:

1: "What the Hair"

2: Rapunzel's Enemy"

3: "Fitzherbert P.I"

4: "Challenge of the brave"

5: "Cass v Eugene"

6: "The Return of Strongbow"

7: "In like Flynn"

8: "Great Expotations"

9: "Under Raps"

10: "One Angry Princess"

11-12: "Queen for a Day"

13: "Painter's block"

14: "Pascal's story"

15: "Big brothers of Corona"

16: "Not in the mood"

17: "The Wrath of Ruthless Ruth"

18: "Max's Enemy"

19: "The Way of the Willow"

20: "The Quest for Varian"

21: "The Alchemist Returns"

22-23: "Secret of the Sundrop"

[ravenwriter16]

Creative Minds Think Alike

Episode one--Episode Two--Episode Three--Episode Four--Episode five--Episode Six--Halloween Special pt. 1--Halloween Special pt. 2--Halloween Special pt 3 (Here!)

Happy Halloween!

Come and join me on all the fun the castle is having with our annual Halloween Festival!

Enjoy! ~~~~~~~

(POV: Written by @lets-zofifi-stuff)

The witch weighed an apple in her hand, looking at it critically. The apple stared back at her with far less judgment in its brown apple-seed eyes. It was making calm movements with the tiny fins made of apple peel that caused the fruit to look like a very bulky fish. Unlike a real fish it did not need water to live so it was not in a hurry anywhere.

Zofifi gently tossed the dark water of the small kiddie pool. She smiled seeing it swimming away with a slight wobble, joining a flock of other apples that slowly circled the pool. there were red yellow and green apples, keeping mostly to the surface but every now and then one was diving under. Closer to the bottom she could see a few pears zooming, thick parts first with mouths half opened to present their soft juicy teeth.

Oh my!" A voice exclaims in surprise somewhere behind the witch. The Archivist walks up to the pool, a black masquerade mask covering the top half of her face. Her black cloak hides her raven wings, but as she walks the cloak swishes and some feathers poke out.

"You really did make pearrianhas (hehe). They look tasty and deadly!" Raven beams.

“Thank you!” Zofifi smiles back. “Well, they are really ‘deadly’ unless someone is very allergic. But some are still hard enough that their bite may hurt if they get your nose or finger. I tested!” They wave towards the sign post standing in front of the pool. “Fruit bobbing. Bite or be bitten.” it reads.

Raven snorts at the sign, covering her mouth slightly. “I love it!”

She looks back down at the pool, a twinkling in her eye. “I’m debating on whether or not to try my luck at this…”

“Oh oh but first! Let me show you the other games!” the witch shakes her hands. She pulls the archivist by the sleeve to turn her around.

“Here is a carousel! Well it will be operational in a minute. Guys are still finishing the montage.”

She waves at the two automatons, one gold, one silver, who are utilizing their amazing strength and installing figures on the colorful merry-go-round. The Sun variant turns his head around and returns the wave enthusiastically. The silver automaton still in his black robes seems completely preoccupied with the task. Their y/n sits on the merry go round platform, watching wide eyed the electrical fairy lights decorating the area.

“Oh my!” Raven exclaims, “this is incredible!”

Her wings puff up in delight, and her eyes sparkle in excitement. “You went all out tonight!”

“Yes yes! Oh and here-!” she turns the archivist around, “Toss the loop!” The witch pulls somehow dizzy archivists to the next stand. She pushes a frisbee size loop in Raven’s hand. Before her Raven sees a big table with a tiled surface and… A number of skulls on low perches sticking from the tabletop. The braze plates under the skulls have numbers on them 5, 10, 25, 50 and the furthest one, 100.

Raven looks at them, one skull's eye holes suddenly lights up. “Hello participant!” It speaks in a jovial tone.

Raven yelps, stumbling backwards before balancing herself. The downy feathers in her hair had poofed up. She shakes her head, “h-hello to you too.”

“Come here, come here! Test your skill! Toss the loop! I don’t bite! I am stuck!” The skull chuckles at its own joke.

Raven then looks down at the disk in hand. She tosses the hoop, scoring a modest twenty, smiling as ghostly numbers fly up in the air, showcasing her score.

“Amazing!” She looks back at Zofifi, “This is fantastic!”

The archivist's head turns side to side. She hums in question, "Are any of your other characters on the festival? I haven’t seen them."

”Oh! Well they are-”

*splash*

Zofifi and Raven turned around. There was a black and blue satyr standing grinning next to the fruit bobbing pool. He is holding onto another satyr with golden and fluffy wool who is handing over the edge with head in the water, short tail wagging in excitement.

“Hey! You!” The witch shouts.

The Sunny faun emerges triumphant with a sizable pearahnia in his teeth.

“You had enough of those already! Some have to be left for others.”

“But we are hungry!” Moon smiled innocently.

“Ghm!” Sun said.

“Then to the buffe! Steal some apple pie or something!” the witch waves at them. “Go! Shoo!”

The automatons near the carousel turn their heads to see if they need to intervene.

The sunny satyr took the fruit from his teeth. “Pie?! That’s… a great idea! Come on brother!” and he pulled the other satyr along.

Raven snorts, covering her mouth, “I hope those two haven’t been causing you too much trouble.”

The witch shrugs. “They are the ‘trick’ part of the trick or treating. Oh! Speaking of!” Zofifi drags the archivist to the counter. Two very slender figures already man the stand, another Sun and Moon variants. They are seemingly organic beings. Sun has pastel yellow skin, and gold lines spiraling on his skin, as well as a crown of orange feathers on his head. Moon wears a full body suit and a helmet with mirror visor. He leans back on the shelf and seems to observe the surroundings warily.

“Those two are me, alien Sun and Moon. I put them in charge of the prize counter. You only got 20 points so far but you must be very busy with the festival so maybe pick something as a treat? There are candies and toys! Some of them even have some magic!”

“Hello!” Sun waves at the pair, his triangle teeth in a wide smile. “Oh, I like your feathers miss!”

Raven smiles, wings relaxing against her back, “I like yours as well!”

She looks over the toys, eyes stopping on a small star charm. “May I have this one?”

She grins when moon nods his head and hands her the charm. She attaches it to her belt lace, letting it bounce on her hip as she turns to face Zofifi.

“Thank you so much for all the fun!” Raven gestures to one of the small outdoor dining tables, “if you like, I’m gonna set up camp over there and send some ravens out to gather the others to just hang out. Come over whenever you’re free over here!”

“Sure! Will do! Happy Halloween!”

“Happy Halloween!” Raven laughs, giving the witch one last hug before running off to claim the table before anyone else could.

(POV: Written by ME!)

I sigh, happily claiming a table for the night. I set down all my gifts, determined to share everything with my friends. I let out a shrill whistle while setting up the silverware.

One of my ravens land on my shoulder, cawing and nuzzling their beak into my cheek. I laugh, scratching their head gently. I pull back from the table, admiring my handiwork before holding my arm out to my raven. They climb on, tilting their head at me as I holding them out in front of me.

“I need you and the others to go out and tell these creators,” I snap my fingers, a tiny scroll floating in front of the creature, “That they can all gather at this table when they’re done with their tasks…Make sure to mention the food.” I add that last part after some thought.

My raven caws, spreading out their wings and taking off. I follow their flight path until there are too difficult to spot in the darkening sky.

Doing one last stretch, I pull out one of the chairs. Releasing a long sigh as I sit down. I pull off my mask and let it rest on the table then I grab a small glass of water. Sipping on it, I look around me, taking in everything the night had to offer.

I close my eyes, gently swaying my head to the music. I crack one eye open when I hear some shouting. I look down the path, smiling as I spot my group of friends walking towards me. I wave them over, planning to play my own tricks and give my own treats to these five.

When they reach me, we all laugh and chat. Enjoying the food, music, lights, and each other’s company. Letting the night wash over us and getting completely lost in the wonderfulness of it all.

...

... ~Meanwhile~

The being sneered down at the distant castle. It was all lit up and music could be heard even from the highest peak of the mountains.

Another being approaches the first, “Are we truly going to let those dimwits play around like fools while we sit here and wait?! Freezing to death?!”

“Yes.” Their tone is cold when addressing their companion, “Let them play their games and sing their songs.” They look back over their shoulder at the vast number of tents and troops, hidden due to the snowy mountain top. “It’ll make their defeat all the more gratifying.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you @lets-zofifi-stuff for your amazing writing! It was a blast and honor to work with you again! If you guys don't know this creator and their AUs? Then go check them out! Thank you everyone who did this with me! I am so flattered! I hope you guys enjoyed!

[aihoshiino]

I did some mathing in my brain about when is AI’s and the Twins birthdays since I’m trying to figure out with what we got in the prologue since Aka never gave anyone birthdays and the time line of seasons is a fuck here. but I’m thinking Ai just turned 16 around the same time she was discovered to be 20 weeks along(5 months) and it starts snowing when her death/20th birthday but the twins birth it also starts snowing with the reincarnation happens.Japan usually starts having snow around mid December til early April so I’m shooting that AI’s birthday is around December while the twins might be late march if im doing a ball park guess I know this is weird thing to bring up in a ask but if Akasaka doesn’t give us birthdays then the fans gonna have to do it with the context clues we get especially since she’s still 16 when the twins are like … 6 months. Idek I’m rambling and want to know of your take cause I love your takes

please undrstand i am saying this with nothing but love but this ask briefly sent me down a rabbithole of forbidden knowledge and insanity and i feel like a lovecraft protag who has seen too much. I THINK i have made sense of all this but.................... listen akasaka clearly didn't think about it the same way i'm doing here so really, i guess i'm the clown in this scenario. heehoo.

The most direct clue we get about when Ai's birthday falls is in Viewpoint B, during her conversation with Kyun. The flashback portion of the story is implied to take place in December (the framing device is set in December and Kyun's recent breakup happened 'right before Christmas') and Ai's upcoming fifteenth birthday is mentioned indirectly; she talks about being about to age out of the children's home she'd been staying in which would put her birthday either in December or January.

This is also supported by the fact that the the snowfall that occurs after her death is noted to be unseasonably early. Given that the series is set mostly in Tokyo which mostly gets its snow in January, December makes the most sense for her birth month. In addition, during the little happy memories montage at the end of the episode, we see the family celebrating Christmas in a space that has exclusively Christmas decorations — so Ai's birthday is not close enough to the 24th or 25th for those sorts of celebrations to overlap. With all that in mind, my best guess for Ai's birthday is late November/early December. I personally like to headcanon it as November 28th, as it matches the timeframe and is when the real life Strawberry Productions Fan Thankgiving event was held.

As for the twins birthday, my instinct was to try and guesstimate this based on the details of Ai's pregnancy. We're directly told by the text that it lasted the full 40 weeks (which is actually not as common for twins — Ruby and Aqua were a bit late!) and that a few months have passed by the time she returns to working as an idol; Aqua and Ruby are using walkers the day she returns from her hiatus and babies are not typically physically capable of using them until around six months old. Obviously the twins are a bit more mobile than a regular baby would be much earlier, but they do seem to be reasonably constrained by the physical limits of their bodies so I feel pretty comfortable saying around six months have passed by the time Ai comes off hiatus. This also makes sense in terms of Ai's health, since it takes about six months to fully recovery from childbirth.

20 weeks post hiatus pregnancy + six months postpartum recovery = ten to eleven months passed between Ai arriving at the hospital and returning from her hiatus. It's also worth noting that she may not actually still be 16 around this time? When Saitou talks about her age, he mentions her becoming a mother at 16 which is obviously the age she had the kids, but it does leave room for her to have had a birthday between getting pregnant and actually having them.

With that 20 week starting point in mind, though, we can use the remaining 20 weeks of her pregnancy to try and narrow things down a bit more.

Using the anime as reference, it seems to be around early/mid autumn when Ai arrives at the hospital. If you look at the greenery behind Gorou when he's up on the roof, you can see there's patches where leaves are starting to show their autumn colours.

Since the hospital is all the way out in Takachiho, where autumn typically lasts between November and early December (if I'm remembering right?), my best guess would be that Ai arrived at the hospital probably late November or early December.

With that in mind, the remaining 20 weeks of her pregnancy playing out in full, that means the twins' birthday must be in mid to late April. This is actually implicitly confirmed to be the case in the series itself: while Ruby's age (and therefore Aqua's by extension) is given as 14 at the start of volume 2, they are already sixteen by the time LoveNow starts airing, which happens not long after they start high school - and the Japanese school year starts in April.

I'm choosing to headcanon them on the earlier side of April, just because that places them smack dab in the middle of cherry blossom season for Tokyo, which both makes them spring babies in contrast to Ai and ties nicely into how cherry blossoms represent rebirth and new beginnings.

anyway watch me post this ask and then next chapter confirms the twins were born or october 5th or some shit.............

[bunnywritesjunk]

Ruusaan | Captain Rex x Reader

Series summary: You missed your tropical planet, but coruscant had more to offer. You are a field medic in the 501st. you work closely with the captain in hopes of not losing your job. But how close is too close.

Chapter summary: You work get ready to leave Umbara.

Pairing: Captain Rex x Reader

Warnings: Canon level violence, mean general, Blood, Head injury, T for teen (for this chapter)

Word count: 2k

Genre: Fluff and angst

A/n: Hello! Chapter 5 is out and we are officially out of the umbaran arc. Next up is gonna be some more pinning fluff with rex and the Zygerrian arc. Stay tuned!

Chapter 5

You lay in your bunk motionless. You took deep meditative breaths. In for six counts, hold for two counts, out for eight counts. This was how you always calmed yourself. You heard distant explosions outside the base. There was still a battle going on and here you were, benched. You looked at your comm, you,d been crying for twenty minutes. You decided to get up to get fresh air. As you walked out of the barrack you saw Dogma and a few other troopers lining up outside of the hangar. Their blasters were at the ready position. As you moved closer you saw Rex approach them with Fives and Jesse in tow. You sped up to meet Rex.

“What happened to the court martial?” You asked him concerned.

Rex looked dejected. “Krell said there would be no time, he ordered their execution immediately.”

Dogma walked up to Fives and Jesse. “Will the prisoners request to be blindfolded?” They didn't respond.

“I'll take that as a no.”

You turned around. You couldn't bear to watch two good men get killed like this.

“I hope you can live with yourself Dogma.” You heard Fives say.

“Ready weapons, aim.”

“Wait!” Fives exclaimed. You turned back to look at them.

“This is wrong and we all know it. The General is making a mistake, and he needs to be called on it. No clone should have to go out this way! We are loyal soldiers. We follow orders, but we are not a bunch of unthinking droids! We are men. We must be trusted to make the right decisions, especially when the orders we were given are wrong!”

“Fire!” Dogma shouted.

You flinched at the sound of blaster shots going off. When you looked up, Fives and Dogma were still standing. None of the blaster fire hit them.

“What...What happened?” Dogma faced his firing squad. They all dropped their weapons. Rex walked up behind Dogma.

“They're doing the right thing Dogma. If this is how soldiers are rewarded for heroic actions, then one day, every man on this battalion may face a similar fate. Take off their binders.” Rex walked over to both troopers.

“We have orders!” Dogma shouted.

“Good luck finding someone to do them.” Rex said over his shoulder.

You walked up to Fives and patted him on the shoulder.

“Glad you're still alive.” You said while giving him a warm smile.

Fives chuckled “I'm still a little freaked out by your teeth, but it's not as bad as Krells.” You giggled lightly.

Rex and Dogma made their way to the main tower, no doubt about to get severely scolded by Krell. The other troops chatted among themselves while you eagerly waited for Rex and Dogma to get back.

After a few minutes, the elevator doors opened and the two men walked out. They made their way toward you.

“Prepare the troops, we are assisting General Kenobi's squadron in taking the capitol.” Rex told the group.

You looked at Rex eagerly. “You are staying behind. It's too dangerous without visuals and Krell still has you benched.”

You looked down at your feet. “I understand.”

The men went their separate ways to prepare for battle. You went back to your bunk. You figured since you were probably heading off the planet soon you should pack up and get ready.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You were packed up completely. You also decided to check on any injured soldiers. Most were asleep and all were stable. You headed back to your barrack to watch another episode of your drama show. As you walked, you noticed the base seemed really quiet beside the distant explosions on the horizon. You made it back to your bunk and decided to see if Na'wi was ok. You commed her.

“Hey girl, you heading over here yet?” Her light voice rang through the comm.

“Huh? What do you mean?” You responded.

“Um, the Capitol. We took it, General Kenobi said the 501st should be on their way here.”

“That's weird. Krell said that Kenobi needs our help and sent them into battle.”

“I mean there's a few Umbaran troops left and we sent a battalion to take care of them. They are wearing our armor to try and sneak by us.”

Your eyes widened. “Na'wi...Tell Kenobi that Krell has betrayed us. I have to warn them.” You didn't give her time to respond before you ended the comm. You rushed out of the barrack door only to end up pushed backward by a hard force. You fell on your backside and looked up.

“Where are you in a rush to?” Krell stood before you, he made slow steps inside the barracks trapping you.

You scrambled to get up. “Um, I was just gonna check on the injured men.”

“Oh? But you already did that. Didn't you?” He circled around you, all two of his arms crossed in front of him and the remaining two behind his back.

You took a few steps back, and he matched your steps forward.

“Uh, I wasn't done with something. Excuse me.” You stepped to move past him. His hand wrapped around your throat tightly as he pinned you against the wall. Your vision went blurry and your head felt like it was going to explode. You gasped for air. He leaned in close to your face.

“Do you really think I'm that stupid? I'll have to dispose of you before you ruin my plans.” He said to you.

You started to see spots in your vision. You willed yourself to stay awake as you tried to pry his hand off your neck. Just before you lost consciousness you heard the blast door open and muffled voices.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Rex POV

Rex and his battalion stood in line. Confused and hurt looks were written on their faces. The horrible acts they committed unknowingly against their own brothers. They won't be the same after this, and neither will he.

“We all know who's responsible for what happened out there. What we don't know, is why. Something has to be done. What I'm proposing, is highly treasonous. If, any man chooses to opt-out, do it now.” Rex said.

All of the troopers stepped forward refusing to back down.

“From this point forward, we are entering uncharted territory. My orders are, we arrest General Krell for treason against the republic.”

His troops nodded and then moved out back towards their captured airbase. Their weapons at the ready position, the troopers made their way up the control tower to confront the General. Only when they got there, it was empty. They went to the brig to free Fives and Jesse. They suited up and went with the rest of them.

“Where is he?” Kix said.

Rex wracked his brain, trying to think quickly. Would Krell have made a run for it? Or would he underestimate the troops assuming they wouldn't find out that they were killing their own men? The only other person that could figure out something was wrong was...

“Men! Follow me. Quickly!” They shuffled back into the elevator and ran towards the barracks. His heart was pounding as he approached the door, unprepared to walk into what he might find. He opened the blast door and raised his blaster. Krell was holding Ruusaan by the neck, her feet barely touching the floor. Blood dripped down near her feet.

“Drop her! Now Krell!”

“You're committing mutiny Captain.”

Krell slowly let go of her and she slid down to the ground limp. The soldiers filed into the room surrounding the General.

“Honestly, I'm surprised you were able to figure it out, for a clone.”

The battalion moved in toward Krell. “Surrender General, You're outnumbered.” Rex said.

Suddenly, a force threw the soldiers back into the walls.

“You dare to attack a Jedi?!” Krell ignited his lightsabers. The men started firing at him. He managed to deflect every shot, slashing at the soldiers left and right. Krell managed to get himself near the blast door.

“I will not be undermined by creatures bred in some laboratory!” He stabbed the Door controls with his saber. The door hissed open and he ran out. The troops followed. Krell disappeared into the thick Umbaran Jungle. Rex circled back to the room.

“Kix!” The trooper seemingly materialized next to him.

“Make sure she's ok. We're going after him.”

Kix rushed towards the unconscious woman and started treating her. Rex ran with the rest of his troops to apprehend Krell.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Your POV

Your head was pounding. You twitched your fingers, not fully regaining bodily autonomy yet. You heard voices around you but couldn't quite pick up what they were saying.

“.....right-, con..........Fine.”

You squeezed your eyes before opening them slightly. The light of the room forced them closed again. You brought your hand up to your face sluggishly to shield them. There was a scratchy fabric wrapped around your head. You heard a voice approaching.

“Hey, you're awake.” You turned to look. It was kix. You tried to sit up but the pain in your head stopped you.

“Take it easy Ruusaan. Lay back down.” Kix gently pushed you back onto the bunk. Your eyes started adjusting.

'You took quite a hit there. Here take this for the pain.” It was a liquid painkiller. Kix gently sat you up by the shoulders to take it. Someone else walked up to the bunk, it was the Captain. Rex knelt down.

“How are you feeling?”

Not able to find your voice yet you gave him a thumbs up.

“Good, good.” Kix gave Rex a look you couldn't place and left the two of you alone.

“We managed to capture Krell. Uh, Dogma actually...killed him.” Rex said.

“Oh” Your voice came out raspy. The painkillers started to kick in so you sat up and gently swung your legs over to sit on the bunk. Rex grasped your shoulder to stabilize you.

“The shuttles are coming soon, we'll get off this planet for good.” Rex said.

“Thank you Rex, for taking care of me. I'd probably be dead if it weren't for you.”

“Well, we had some...unforeseen events. I'm sure you could hold your own, but you're part of the team. I've got your back.” You smiled and went to stand. Your knees gave out a bit. Rex caught you by the arm and waist.

“Take it easy.”

“I'm fine.” You tell him a little snappy.

“Just making sure, let's get you to a shuttle.”

The Captain grabbed your pack for you. You made your way out to the hangars slowly, Rex following very closely next to you. A shuttle was waiting with a few men already on board. The shuttle took off and you were on the star cruiser in a matter of minutes. You stepped out into the hangar and turned to Rex.

“Let me grab that.” You said while reaching your arm to out get your pack.

“I got it.” Rex shook his head.

“I'm sure you have more important things to do than carry my stuff and escort me to my room.”

“At this moment, you're more important.” You swear your heart skipped a beat.

You abruptly turned around and continued walking, trying to ignore the heat your face was producing. You made it to your room in about five minutes. As the both of you drew closer you felt the exhaustion catch up to you. Your body yearned for your soft bed with all your blankets and pillows. You made it through the door and headed to your side. Rex stood at the threshold of the small quarters you and your best friend shared.

“You can come in.” You told him. He gingerly walked into your room. You plopped down on the bed.

“You could just set it down anywhere.” Rex put your pack down near the door. He looked a bit awkward.

“I guess I'll go now, get some rest.” He turned to walk out.

“Thank Rex, I really appreciate you. I'll have to get you a gift or something one day.” He looked back at you.

“That's...really not necessary.” He chuckled a bit.

“You saved my ass more than once, I think I owe you one.”

“Well, like I said. I'll always have your back.” He left you to get comfortable and sleep.

[trashyp]

okay so I just rewatched the episodes where discord was first introduced and here are some things I’ve noticed

1. The first pony to stick around and look at his likeness in the stained glass window was Fshy.

2. The only pony he couldn’t turn by trickery was Fshy.

3. Screwball, or better known as “discord’s daughter”, appears in the episode, which I had no idea about

4. When Discord claps, his hands don’t make a clapping sound, but they make various different noises, like a glass breaking, a dog barking, and a cat meowing.

5. For whatever reason, Discord’s chaos only affected Ponyville. It was going to be the capital of his new chaos world, but he didn’t spread— only counting the maze in Canterlot.

6. I may be wrong about this, but the way RD betrayed the group was still her being loyal— Discord said that Cloudsdale, her home town, was in trouble, and said that she can take her wings and go save it, or stay in the maze. She was loyal to her home.

7. Each of the things that Discord lured each pony away with was their cutie mark; Fshy’s was butterflies, Applejack’s was apples, Pinkie Pie’s was balloons, Rarity’s was her gems on a rock, and Rainbow Dash’s was a cloud with rainbow lightning.

8. (I have not seen past season three, so please correct me if I’m wrong) Discord would have taken over completely if he didn’t get cocky and think the girls couldn’t turn him to stone, making him the only villain to have literally WON. If he had just done something at the end to avoid the blast, he still would be causing chaos.

9. Celestia and Luna are no longer, in any way, connected to the elements of harmony. They have no power or them, so any problem that Equestria had that needed the elements of harmony to save it, Celestia and Luna physically couldn’t do ANYTHING. Now I’m still rewatching it for the first time in several years so correct me if I’m mistaken, but most of the World Ending enemies pretty much required the elements to stop them. I know a lot of people are like “okay but if Celestia is the most powerful pony why doesn’t she fix these problems instead of the mane six”, but in those specific cases, there is literally nothing she can do to fix the problem. The power comes from the elements, not just her own magic

10. This is kind of just a gripe I have but the riddle discord says is like “find them where you began”, meaning where the elements of harmony were, I think they should’ve been in the everfree forest, in the old castle, cuz that’s where the show first showed the elements

11. This is more of a headcanon. So you know how people are like “oh they don’t fit their elements at all, Applejack lies all the time and Rainbow Dash is a bully”, I think maybe something fundamentally changed in them after being effected by Discord’s magic. It could also be the characters changing and growing, but it’s evident even in the episode— Fshy, when they’re changing RD, gets so angry at Discord that she charges after RD and captures her.

12. I also like to think that while they embody these elements, they have flaws within their specific element. Like, when it REALLY comes down to it, they are that element. When in trouble, Applejack is honest, Rainbow is loyal— like, the message is no one is perfect, but when it’s serious, true friends are there for you.

[mariacallous]

I feel sorry for Gary Oldman. He has done something rarely attempted by stars of year-end Oscar-bait movies: He has turned in an understated performance! He plays superannuated spymaster George Smiley in the new movie version of John le Carré’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. And it seems all anyone can talk about is the 1979 BBC TV version, starring Sir Alec Guinness in the same role.

In The New Yorker, Anthony Lane gushed over Guinness’ “opaque yet disarming sagacity.” The Atlantic’s James Parker dubbed his “the definitive performance.” (My favorite of Parker’s many astute observations: Guinness’ Smiley “moved as if he were wearing three overcoats.”) They’re both right, of course. Oldman understands that Smiley’s strongest urge is to blend in with the hideous ’70s wallpaper, and he seems appropriately worn down by the life he’s led. Nevertheless, Oldman can’t quite embody the retiring world-weariness and disappointment that Guinness so effortlessly conveys.

The problem is one of reality vs. verisimilitude. Guinness was 65 years old when he first put on Smiley’s spectacles; Oldman is a mere stripling of 53. The same can be said of the period setting: Director Tomas Alfredson did an amazing job of summoning up the dismal gloom of Britain in the 1970s—all smoke and fug and nary a glimpse of color. It’s an artful reconstruction. But Guinness and the murderers’ row of great British actors assembled by the BBC were twitching net curtains and visiting bland safe houses in the real 1970s. How can Alfredson possibly compete with that?

Greater length doesn’t always mean added depths, but le Carré’s complicated story makes more sense when it spills out over the course of the TV series’ six hours rather than the movie’s 127 minutes (as my colleague Dana Stevens can also attest). Both versions turn a thinky book into a talky teleplay—even in the big-budget movie, some parts of the story are conveyed in conversation rather than shown.

The TV series is full of brooding menace, but there aren’t a lot of thrills��it’s more cerebral than that. The mole at the top level of the British intelligence service is trapped using logic, not firepower. (Smiley is a very scholarly detective who spends hours examining documents.) The movie’s most heart-racing scene involves an attempt to smuggle a folder full of documents out of a library-like place. It’s the old-school version of that contemporary cliché: a hero copying computer files onto a thumb drive as bad guys approach.

Watching the TV version after seeing the film is a fascinating exercise, but it’s also a little repetitive. If you can’t face the same mole hunt all over again, check out Smiley’s People, a BBC production from 1982 in which Smiley once again returns from retirement to save “the Circus,” as le Carré called British intelligence. It was filmed three years after Tinker, Tailor, but the rudimentary computers that have started to pop up around the office make the setting seem positively prehistoric. In this adventure, Smiley heads off to Europe in pursuit of his nemesis—proving that the man can maintain his composure even among foreigners and hippies. The highlight of the series is an amazing face-off between Smiley and the Circus’ new boss, Saul Enderby, in Episode 5. Barry Foster plays Enderby as a slimy showoff who treats Smiley like a doddering fool. It’s worth sitting through the whole six hours just to see how effectively Guinness can express annoyance and dismay in a momentary glance. You may not even notice—and that’s kind of the point.

[scruffyplayssonic]

Are the ArchieSonic comics actually an 80's/90's syndicated cartoon? Episode 48: Benign alien visitors 

Welcome back to my look at the ArchieSonic comic series, and how it shared a lot of the same story tropes as a typical ‘80s or ‘90s syndicated cartoon! My last two updates focused on the evil aliens who gave Sonic (and Shadow) grief, but now it’s time to turn our attention to the nicer ones.

Episode 48: Benign alien visitors 

Well first of all let’s get the obvious ones out of the way. The Wisps had limited appearances in the ArchieSonic comics, unlike in IDWSonic where they’ve shown up quite frequently. Their first appearance in the comics was in ArchieSonic #219, which featured an adaptation of the opening of Sonic Colours. This story was classified as, “Another Time, Another Place,” meaning it wasn’t canon to the ongoing storyline of the comic. ArchieSonic did this from time to time when new Sonic games came out, essentially just making them glorified 5 page advertisements. It wasn’t as satisfying as getting a full adaptation like what was done with Sonic Adventure, but at least this way it didn’t completely disrupt the ongoing plot in the comics. Let us not forget that at the time they had to squeeze in the Sonic Adventure 2 adaptation that Knuckles was green and Tails was a doppleganger. 

…actually, in hindsight? Having those storylines interrupted for six months would have been quite welcome. 😛

Aside from the Dark Arms hybrids that Eclipse created, the Wisps didn’t really show up following the reboot of the comic either. However, Tails did mention that the events of Sonic Colours had already happened in the new timeline and that Silver had been involved, suggesting that it may have followed the DS version of the game that included appearances from many of Sonic’s friends.

But do the Wisps really count as benign alien visitors, considering that Dr. Eggman dragged them kicking and screaming into orbit around Sonic’s homeworld? Possibly not. So let’s at long last talk about an alien race who actually showed up of their own free will: the Bem.

The first appearance of the Bem was in Sonic #118, not long after the nuking of Robotropolis by Station Square. Eggman and Snively, having made several attempts in previous issues to download themselves into new robotic bodies only to be foiled by Sonic, finally succeeded only to be confronted by the Freedom Fighters again. After confirming that Eggman was no longer able to roboticise people by touching them, Sonic and Tails immediately leapt into battle. But the four of them were rudely interrupted as an alien race called the Bem teleported them aboard their ship and into a prison pod.

The Bem wanted to run an experiment to see if organic or robotic beings were superior, so to test this they roboticised Sonic and Tails and de-roboticised Eggman and Snively. Setting the two teams against each other, the Bem announced that the winning team of this duel would be reverted to their previous state, while the losing team would remain stuck as what the Bem had just changed them to. Setting the four of them loose in a holographically projected battlefield, the Bem watched their experiment play out.

It was over pretty quickly, which is one of the things I hated the most about the stories from this era of the comics. They always felt so rushed because a chunk of the book was being taken up by stupid Ken Penders’ stupid green Knuckles story. But anyway, the Bem kept their word and returned the four of them to Mobius, all of them now flesh and blood again, and with Eggman ranting about how this just proved that robotic life was superior.

Pin in that.

Not long after that in Sonic #123, a strange phenomenon occurred across the entire planet.

All the people who had been roboticised, whether they’d had their free wills restored or were still mindless drones serving Eggman, disappeared without a trace. This included Antoine’s father, Mina’s mother, and Sonic’s entire family - his parents, Uncle Chuck, and pet dog Muttski.

But several weeks later they all started reappearing again, now deroboticised and with no memory of how they’d been changed back to normal. The one exception was Sonic’s father Jules, who was eventually returned but still as a robot.

Sonic thought that this must have been a cruel prank by Eggman, but Eggman denied having anything to do with the mass deroboticisation phenomenon, leaving Sonic and his family to wonder who was really behind it. I mean, surely it couldn’t have been that group of weirdos that had abducted Sonic recently and proved themselves able to roboticise and deroboticise people almost effortlessly, right? Right?!

Well if readers at the time didn’t already suspect that the Bem were involved, the confirmation that their ship was in orbit around Mobius in the very next issue should have told them everything they needed to know. This was when the Xorda showed up to raze the planet, and the Bem dropped off Super Shadow to defend them while they escaped.

…honestly, I think Shadow needs to get slapped in the face like this occasionally to keep him humble. 

The Bem’s involvement in the mass deroboticisation of Mobius was finally confirmed in Sonic #129, when Sonic arrived on the planet Argentium as the final stop on his Tossed in Space tour. Having been told that the key to his getting back home was on this planet, Sonic tried to land but was told he was only permitted to visit if he was attending the trial of Ceneca-9009.

Sonic decided to play things straight and headed for the courthouse, where it turned out the trial (or if you prefer, exposition dump) taking place had a surprising amount of relevance to him. 

Thousands of years ago Ceneca-9009 had been part of a scientific exploration crew that discovered Biotex, a planet of robotic beings, and had petitioned the high council to allow them to create a machine that would transform the robots into organic creatures. They were given permission to do so, but they hadn’t realised that the species in question had become robots as an evolutionary defense mechanism to protect them from a toxic environment. So when the Bem deroboticised the Biotexans they all immediately died, and the Bem outlawed deroboticising technology from that day forward to prevent another disaster like that from happening. 

Thousands of years later Ceneca-9009’s ship would discover Mobius and observe the beginning of Robotnik’s coup of the Acorn Kingdom, including the roboticisation of Tails’ father, General Amadeus Prower. When his wife Rosemary was also captured, Ceneca-9009 decided to intervene and teleported both Rosemary and Amadeus onto her ship, also deroboticising Amadeus. Having witnessed the devastation that Robotnik was wreaking on Mobius, Ceneca-9009 took the Prowers back to her homeworld of Argentium and once again went before the High Council, requesting permission to deroboticise all of Robotnik’s victims. However this time her request was denied, and she was thrown in prison for using the forbidden deroboticisation technology. Sonic was outraged at this revelation and called the court out on it, alerting the Prowers, who had also been witnessing the trial, to his unexpected presence on the planet.

But their reunion had to be delayed so that the trial could continue.

Travel to Mobius had been forbidden following Ceneca-9009’s imprisonment, and so the Prowers had been unable to return home. They were however offered asylum on Argentium. Twelve years later Ceneca-9009 had been released from prison after serving her sentence, and she had once again asked the council for permission to deroboticise the victims of Robotnik’s takeover of Mobius. As she had actually asked permission this time the council were more open to her request, but wanted to ensure another disaster like what had happened to Biotex wouldn’t happen again. Unfortunately their idea of doing the best thing for the planet was to arrange an experimental duel to see if robots would overpower organics or vice versa, hence what happened to Sonic, Tails, Eggman and Snively in issue #118. The end result of this experiment had been the council agreeing with Eggman’s complaint that robotic life had been proven superior, and so they had ordered Ceneca-9009 to roboticise the entire population immediately.

Ceneca-9009 had gone against their wishes though and instead deroboticised everyone (with one rather glaring exception), as shown in issue #123. 

Having gone over all the facts, the council found Ceneca-9009 guilty and sentenced her to be executed at dawn the following day. Sonic refused to accept this and planned to break Ceneca-9009 out of prison, but found himself without a means of escape when his spaceship was ordered to be dismantled due to the ongoing war between Mobius and the Xorda, which the Bem wanted no part in.

However the head magistrate also disagreed with Ceneca-9009’s sentence and approached Sonic with an offer to provide another spacecraft for him and the Prowers to escape in with Ceneca-9009, if he could bust her out of prison. Sonic easily accomplished this task, but unfortunately on such short notice the only ship that the magistrate had been able to obtain was so small that only one person could fit in it.

Considering that Ceneca-9009 was marked for death Sonic told her she should be the one to take the ship, but she insisted that one of them should take it instead, rationalising that as long as her pursuers thought she was onboard the escaping ship that they would not look for her on Argentium. Sonic also offered the ship to the Prowers, but they refused to leave each other and sent Sonic on his way with a gift for their son. 

When Sonic finally crashed back down on Mobius, the first thing he did was…

okay, well the first thing he actually did was get pulled back into the fight against Eggman immediately. Seriously, he’d touched down for maybe ten seconds when he spotted trouble and raced to the rescue. But after he’d stopped Eggman from launching a pair of nuclear warheads and gotten settled back at home...

...and come to terms with the fact that he could now understand canine speech patterns, Sonic was finally able to answer a question that had been hounding his family for a year.

After that, he linked back up with Tails to tell him some news that would shock him to his core:

Tails wouldn’t be able to do anything with this information for awhile, but eventually his uncle Merlin helped him get to Argentium to rescue his parents.

Just in the nick of time too, because they probably wouldn’t have lasted much longer with the Black Arms and the Xorda waging war in the skies above.

The Bem did not appear in the comics again after that, but their impact was felt for a long time afterwards. When Ceneca-9009 had deroboticised all the victims of the roboticiser, she had also been able to nullify roboticiser technology across the entire planet. Eggman could no longer turn anyone into robots after that, and he had to make do with equipping his living forces with cybernetic body parts instead, a process he called “Legionising,” in honour of the Dark Legion, who were among the first of his forces to undergo this process. However he was eventually able to at least partially work around that when he got his hands on a Chaos Emerald and used it to rewrite reality with the Genesis Wave.

Those who had been deroboticised personally by the Bem, such as Sonic and even Eggman himself, were still immune to the effects of the roboticiser. Everyone else though…

Grim. 

So here’s a thought. If Eggman created the Genesis Wave in response to his robotic slaves being permanently transformed back to normal, then that means that everything that happened afterwards, such as Sally’s roboticisation, the disbanding of the Freedom Fighters, the second Genesis Wave rewriting reality again (creating the reboot era of the comic), and the shattering of the planet - that can all be traced back to Ceneca-9009’s actions in the back-up story of a single issue. Who could have possibly known that the effects of that single story would still be felt when the comic ended, over 165 issues later?

That’s all from me for today. Were there any other benign alien races that visited Sonic’s homeworld in the Archie comics that I missed? Be sure to let me know in the comments! Next time will be another instance where I struggle to come up with good examples from ArchieSonic: “Hero becomes blind. Magoo jokes aplenty. Ableism ages episode horribly.” How will I tackle this head-scratcher? Tune in next time to find out!

[theazureangel]

Luminous Promise - 5

Author - Important Note: English is not my language, so orthographic errors may be

The check-up went fairly well and without any setbacks, if anything it was determined that Gunvolt was physically fine, aside from his poor eyesight and probable fatigue. Any questions the doctor had regarding Gunvolt's amnesia, Copen had no choice but to answer. He wove some truth with lies when the doctor asked the cause of Gunvolt's amnesia, to the doctor, Gunvolt was a survivor of a recent maverick attack and was found by Copen later, since he only had a couple of encounters with him, he knew his name.

Since they found no wounds on his skull upon examination, the woman assumed his memory loss was due to the post-traumatic events he suffered. She told him he probably suffers from severe disorientation and warned him to be careful in case Gunvolt suffers any episodes in case he regains any kind of memory of his trauma, the latter being the most worrying to Copen.

He wasn't aware of Gunvolt's life, at that point, he was just another adept that he had to kill as an adept slayer, the little he knew was that he was labeled a terrorist by Sumeragi ever since he had freed the muse and later of his fights against six of the swordsmen before arriving at Nova and much later, of what happened to him when he faced Dermezel.

Either way, no memory that could come from the depths of Gunvolt's subconscious would be pleasant and Copen was a bit more worried about any memory that had to do with Dermezel.

Copen watched as the adept played with the contact lens case, looking around his temporary base with the same curiosity he had since they left the doctor's office. Lola found it endearing and funny, given that Gunvolt looked like a little boy, Copen tried not to think about it, because it was another reminder that Gunvolt was now a shadow of what he once was.

"So, all better boy?" Lola asked in a cheerful and playful tone as she fluttered around him. Deciding to engage the boy in conversation.

The adept only smiled at her in response, “You could say so. Though I didn’t expect the place to be…” Gunvolt looked around unsurely, cracks littered the walls, not so much as to be a structural issue (Copen made sure to properly inspect the structure so it wouldn’t be a long term problem) however, they just highlighted how old and run down the place was, along with the dust that settled on some things around the room and the poor state of the lights.

Gunvolt really wasn’t sure why their dwelling was in this state or even why they lived here. Copen sighed, guessing the adept’s thoughts. He hadn’t really bothered much with fixing the place up other than cleaning up some things that would be in use and exploring the surrounding area for the reason why there was still electricity.

This resulted in a hydroelectric plant with a system that operated through multiple water mills that took advantage of the sea currents. They were deteriorated by the passage of time and lack of maintenance but the fact that they were in operation was impressive.

Copen had to wonder why there was a problem with energy in Neo Arcadia when there were energy systems as functional as these. Was it because of its dependence on a single resource, the high population of the city or the deteriorated state of the planet?

Lola looked around and knew what the adept meant, maybe they should clean up a bit "Oh, oh, I understand, well, the boss considers it an appropriate place for us to live for now, since a lot of things happened, although some cleaning really wouldn't hurt, don't you think, boss?" The AI looked at her creator, who had moved to check the materials he had stolen from the warehouse.

“Probably.” Was the cyborg’s dry reply as he picked up a sturdy metal plate and carefully turned it between his fingers.

“Probably? Really boss? You know we don’t have Kohaku to clean up.” Copen doesn't really care much about cleanliness, especially when he was too wrapped up in a new project, Kohaku usually kept the whole place organized when she was alive…

"It's not like we have the necessary things to clean either." Was the albino's argument as he checked the quality of the material. A simple view seemed to be durable enough, but he needed more information on this if he wanted to use it to make weaponry and equipment.

"Very good, very good, good point." Lola couldn't really argue with Copen's argument, but she still thought they should clean up a bit, she didn't think living in those conditions would be good for Gunvolt.

"Gunvolt, come here." The blond turned his head to Copen before walking over, the albino gestured to the chair beside him without looking at the adept, too focused on the material in his hands, in turn, Gunvolt watched as Copen turned the piece of metal between his fingers before setting it aside on the desk to look at him "I need to explain some things to you."

"Does it have anything to do with what you talked about with that girl or the training?" The question was asked with equal parts caution and interest as the adept finally sat down.

The blond shifted as Copen looked at him closely. "Both, actually, so this might take a while." Gunvolt walked over and straightened as Copen began to explain.

Xxxxxxxxxx

They had been called to their master's throne room and both Harpuia and her sister knew what that meant, of all the things that could have happened that day, neither had expected a reploid to raid the Great Library and steal information, however, the most humiliating thing was that both of them, guardians of Neo Arcadia, created to protect humanity and serve Neo Arcadia, had been unable to stop the reploid. "I want to know, how is it that even though the Great Library was led by Maha Ganeshariff, one of the Deep Sea Squadron members, he was defeated by a mere Maverick, who was not only able to raid the Great Library, but take information and escape with it, despite two of the guardians being there." A sigh escaped his lips, his red gaze filled with disdain settling on both guardians who were kneeling in front of his master. "How disappointing, I expected better from you than a small slip that allowed the Maverick to escape."

"We are sorry, master." Having no choice but to swallow their wounded pride, Leviathan and Harpuia could only kneel and keep their heads bowed at their master's contemptuous words. Harpuia, despite keeping a solemn face, was boiling with anger and frustration inside himself for having been caught off guard like that, things should not have ended that way, not when he had gone to support Leviathan in catching that maverick. The guardian, at his side, was the most furious between the two, not only had that reploid humiliated her in a fight and then fled, but he had also defeated one of the members of her squad, one who was trained under his supervision, but at this moment, Maha Ganeshariff was in the repair wing, after his armor was severely damaged, presenting deep punctures and an arm that had been cut off. It would take at least a while for it to be up and running again.

It was obvious that that reploid was not just any enemy, but any excuse would not appease her master in any way for having failed, especially not her, who was in charge of that area, her pride had been hurt and humiliated by the way in which that reploid had bypassed the security of the Great Library and had easily defeated her soldier.

"It doesn't matter, a Maverick can't do anything against Neo Arcadia, but whatever data he stole, do whatever it takes to track down this reploid and take the necessary measures with him, for now, the Great Library will be in Phantom's care." Leviathan froze when he heard that, fury and frustration multiplying by twofold, but he had no choice but to lower his head in silence and accept it, "Retreat." And without saying a word, both Guardians teleported to another location. With a discontented sigh, the Master turned to another of his Guardians, sunlight shining on his blue armor as his red eyes turned to the third Guardian, who was in the room the entire time from the shadows and keeping silent throughout the meeting, "Phantom, how are the operations going at the prehistoric laboratory?" he asked with an even tone.

"We have sent units to scan the area and protect it from the resistance, but no signs of Zero have been found yet, unfortunately, since there is no map of the facility indicating where Zero was sealed, the search is being conducted blindly." The guardian explained in detail, his face expressionless as he gave his report to his master of the reports he obtained from the operations center, with the way things are taking, most likely one of the high command members would be sent to conduct the search, but it wouldn't be done until his master gave the order.

"That's unfortunate." The blue reploid sighed deeply before leaning back on his throne, however, disappointment was not on his features, despite the fact that supposedly, the one in that laboratory was someone who fought side by side during every Maverick War that was unleashed and in the Elf Wars.

Or at least, that's what most people would think.

"But for now, we must stop the Resistance from ever resurrecting Zero." And yet, the reploid allowed a smile to grow on his lips.

No matter what happened, a Maverick or an ancient and dusty legend like Zero would be no match for him.

Copy or not, he would always be better than the original.

Xxxxxxxxx

"Do they really label innocent reploids as Mavericks?" Gunvolt's knuckles were white from the force with which he clenched his fists. He listened intently to everything Copen told him about Neo Arcadia, how reploids, created to reflect human nature as an interface, were thrown away by the leader who ran Neo Arcadia, someone of their own kind, just because he wrongly labeled them as such and the desperate measures they took to survive while being judged by society and ostracized by those around them.

From creating a Resistance in hopes of saving as many as they could to murdering others and becoming what they were falsely labeled.

There was something familiar about the situation, but Gunvolt couldn't put his finger on what it was, however, the feeling of familiarity didn't overshadow the frustration he felt.

"It seems so, and that only seems to create more problems in the long run, considering they're doing everything they can to survive." Copen replied solemnly, Gunvolt was finding his lack of emotion at the situation disconcerting – and annoying, though he kept that thought to himself – as if he just had to resign himself to what was happening.

"They don't have any options either, I don't think it'll be easy to get in touch with the Resistance," And that was true, the resistance was highly sought after by Neo Arcadia, being labeled as terrorists by the City, they didn't have many options, they had to be careful with their operations, one wrong move and they could be tracked down.

“I still don’t understand what the crisis has to do with it, I just find it hard to believe that they would sacrifice reploids for the sake of humans.” Gunvolt shook his head, something about this sounded familiar, there was a sense of deja-vu in the back of his mind but he couldn’t put his finger on what it was. However, the knowledge that everything about this situation was wrong was easily recognizable. Whatever the reasons were for the leader of Neo Arcadia to do this, he knew they were wrong.

"Believe me, I understand you, kid," Lola muttered quietly, letting out a snort as she floated beside Gunvolt. "I still wonder what went through that X guy's processor to think this would be the best solution."

"They looked very human in Neo Arcadia, I really don't see much of a difference…" Gunvolt lowered his head, that was one of the characteristics that had caught his attention the most, that despite being machines, their actions seemed like those of any human and the thought that his life was being abruptly sacrificed turned the adept's stomach.

"You could say it, the boss could pass himself off as one without a problem!" Lola remembered that moment when Craft had mistaken Copen for a reploid and herself as a 'unit'.

Gunvolt quickly turned his confused gaze towards the Cyborg. "C-Copen?"

"I'm a cyborg, I was once human, but what happened with Sumeragi long ago forced me to change my real body for a robotic one so I could fight against him and protect the last of humanity." Gunvolt's dazed gaze was still on him, Copen knew that he wouldn't understand easily, not with his amnesia, at least, "I don't expect you to understand, Gunvolt, it might be easier if you had your memories, but for now, just don't think about it."

"Just one question…" Copen looked at Gunvolt, urging him to continue, the adept hesitated for a moment before speaking, "Were the Adepts bad?"

Copen opened his eyes when the other asked that question, he looked at the adept, who looked at him expectantly, unsure, the cyborg let out a sigh, closing his eyes, the image of Mytyl quickly greeted him with a small smile despite being bedridden "No. They weren't." It was the albino's response before he stood up from his chair, deciding to change the subject to ignore the uncomfortable feeling that had settled in his chest, "We'll test your stamina tomorrow, at least your physical prowess, I'm not sure how good you'd be at handling your seventh, since I'm working with the Resistance, any conflict I have is very likely to end up involving you." Copen wouldn't get his hopes up and think that Gunvolt would be safe, not when he was deliberately working with what the entire city thought was a group of terrorists.

"Yes." Gunvolt didn't object to the change of subject, feeling a little more comfortable and relieved.

Copen sighed and nodded "It's time for lunch, I'll go prepare it." Lola scoffed at her boss's choice of words. They both knew after all that Copen wasn't capable of cooking.

"You mean just heat it up, you've never had any cooking skills, boss." Copen ignored Lola's criticism in favor of searching for one of the preserved foods, unaware of how Gunvolt bit his lower lip to keep from laughing at Lola's words, still, he followed Copen silently into the kitchen.

Xxxxxxxxxx

Data swirled on the server, damaged and corrupted, his blue eyes looked around the cyberspace. The presences of the invaders echoed ominously in the cyberspace. He created a holographic screen, inserting the codes and commands of the few security measures that responded.

He would like to do more to protect his friend, but he was limited.

Once he was done, he transferred to the servers, deciding to delete the little information they had on Zero.

The presence of the pantheons in the area had alerted him, he had no choice.

If Neo Arcadia was looking for Zero he couldn't allow them to easily find him or at least have some information on him.

A lot of things were going to happen, X could feel it in the air, an ominous feeling hanging over him and keeping him uneasy.

He didn't know if it would be for the best…

xxxxxxxxx

The papers and data pads were scattered carelessly on the table as Ciel pressed the keys on her keyboard, sighing, she gave Passy a smile before letting her out of the container he used to analyze her. The data they obtained from her core was the basis she needed for her project, she just needed to figure out how the E-Crystals' energy was distributed in the core, that way, she would create a prototype, but the power bases he would need were still a problem if she wanted a sustainable power source for all of Neo Arcadia.

She leaned back in her chair, putting away the data she had analyzed along with the rest of the notes and reports she had from her research. It would be a long time before she took the step to build a prototype, there were so many things to do and she just felt like time was against her with the destruction of life of so many innocent Reploids, the lack of energy from her own facilities and the existing threat that Neo Arcadia was looking for them, she needed to hurry and resurrect Zero, with him, they would have the time they needed and could disrupt some of Neo Arcadia's operations.

"You should rest, Ciel." Ciel looked up to find Passy's large black eyes looking at her, the cyber elf was already noticing that all the weight of the work was already taking its toll on the Resistance scientist.

"But I still have things to check on the equipment we need to go to the lab." Ciel stood up from her spot but Passy blocked her view of the door, placing her hands on her hips.

“No, you have to rest, Ciel, don’t make me tell Millan again.” Passy looked at her in discontent. Ciel could be quite stubborn at times, she cared a lot about stamina, unfortunately that meant she didn’t care as much about herself and would always put up a fight to take on another workload if there was no one to stop her.

It was in these situations that she had to take extreme tactics to force Ciel to rest, calling Millan or Cerveua to have one of them escort her to her room and make sure she was rested was one of them.

Ciel pressed her lips together, opening her mouth to protest before closing it, “I… will just contact Ix first to discuss the route we will use when we get to the lab.”

xxxxxxxxx

The materials and capabilities of the metal were of good quality, the strength and durability were high, it would be good to use it as a base for the weapon and equipment she planned to build. A photo laser to tag his opponents and conduct the flow of electricity from the seventh azure striker.

Copen glanced out of the corner of his eye at Gunvolt, the young man was panting, sweat covering his body as his right hand clutched a half-empty water bottle.

Said and done, Copen kept his word and took the first opportunity he was given to measure Gunvolt's physical prowess. The days went by in a routine series of exercises for a good while in the morning, until now, Copen decided it was enough and invested his time checking the material properties and drawing up blueprints for Gunvolt's weapon.

Lola fluttered in the air happily “I just finished my song! I will upload it to the network soon!

“Didn't you say you had to find a website to do it?” Gunvolt asked curiously.

“It wasn't that hard, time to relive my idol days!” The battle pod exclaimed excitedly, to which Gunvolt only smiled slightly at the lively atmosphere that was being generated. He was curious to know how this would turn out.

Copen looked up when he heard a beep, someone was opening a communications line, he checked the data on the other line and confirmed who it was, so he answered "I'm the leader of the resistance, I need to discuss some things with Ix." "Is something wrong?" Copen asked, straight to the point.

"It's about our meeting point, I'm afraid we'll have to meet sooner than we think." The leader answered in a tense voice, that caught the cyborg's attention, given that it was a rather drastic change in their plans.

"Why did they make that change?" It's not that Copen had a problem with meeting earlier than agreed, he simply wanted to know the reason behind this.

"You see, I sent an exploration team earlier to check all possible entrances, there is only one functional, the others collapsed, unfortunately, we just verified that Neo Arcadia sent Pantheons and Golems to guard the area, most likely to analyze the place until they find Zero and then retrieve him themselves…" Ciel's voice trailed off at the end of the sentence, worry taking over her at the last note, she didn't even realize that she revealed some extra information to Copen.

The albino narrowed his eyes slightly upon hearing the name, Zero, he wasn't sure, but the resistance leader made it sound like they wanted to retrieve someone and not just any thing, a unit? A reploid? It was most likely, but he couldn't make any guesses yet. "Do you want me to go clean up the area?" he asked, it sounded the most logical, getting rid of the pantheons and Golems that were roaming the area would avoid more problems.

"I don't deny that it would be good and an advantage for us, but Neo Arcadia could be alerted and involve its high command members. We agreed to go within four days, we are pressed for time." Ciel replied after a moment of silence.

"I can clean up the area and clear it before your team arrives, just tell me the time they will be there." Having the place crawling with enemies wasn't ideal for him or the resistance, especially if he had to protect the exploration team, there was a chance he would alert his enemies, but Copen had enough ability and strength to take them all on.

“Could you?” Ciel asked with relief in his voice, Copen didn't have to repeat himself twice, the girl decided to continue “We agreed to go at ten in the morning in four days.”

“Well, is that all or do you have something else to discuss?” Copen asked, hoping the resistance leader had something else to say on the matter that was vital to their meeting.

“You said you had a human with you earlier… how is he? I'd like to know how his health is after you said he had a case of amnesia.” Of all the things Copen expected the resistance leader to say, that wasn't one of them, the cyborg raised an eyebrow at the sudden change of subject to Gunvolt.

“Okay, basically, his memory is mostly compromised.” The albino answered without giving specific details.

“Doesn’t he remember anything about his family?” Maybe asking that question was a bit out of place, but Ciel was a bit worried about the human under Ix’s care.

“No, and from what I know, they died in a recent maverick attack…” Copen answered with a half lie to avoid further questions, but in a way, it was true. Anyone close to Gunvolt had already died, the muse could have been one of them, but Copen didn’t know Gunvolt well enough to say for sure.

“… I understand,” Ciel fell silent before a yawn escaped her mouth, the blonde girl suddenly feeling the weight of all the tasks she had done today on her.

“Ciel… come on, you have to rest.” Passy approached her friend with a worried look, hoping that this time Ciel would listen to her to at least get some minimal rest.

“I’m sorry, I have to log off, I’ll just send the coordinates.” Ciel told Ix, there was still a while to go before the search could begin, but she was already feeling anxious now. She could only hope that most of them would return alive with the support and backing that Ix would offer them.

“I will secure the perimeter before their arrival.” The call came to an end and it was then that Copen noticed that Gunvolt and Lola had approached.

“You are leaving in a few days, aren’t you?” The blond asked, looking at him expectantly. He heard part of the conversation between the girl on the other end of the call and Copen, he honestly wasn’t sure what to expect from this.

“Yes,” Copen turned to look at the adept, “I don’t know how long Lola and I will be, so don’t leave here unless it’s really necessary, and if so, I will leave a weapon with you.” At least Copen was able to get a buster, a standard military weapon, so at least he wouldn't have to worry about Gunvolt being defenseless while he couldn't use his seventh, and yet he needed to train with it to practice his aim.

“You don’t have to worry that much either,” Gunvolt shook his head as he sat down in the other chair in front of the computer, keeping his opinions to himself when Copen told him he would give him a weapon “I won’t be going out, I’ll be waiting for you here.”

“Fine.” That was all Copen wanted, he could never be too careful, the last thing he wanted was to attract unwanted attention and have Gunvolt get into trouble when he wasn’t at the base.

Lola, however, laughed heartily, Copen looked at her as if questioning her sanity “Kohaku was right, you are a tsundere.” the AI mocked to which Copen looked at her with some mortification, even though he maintained his stoic face.

“A what?” Gunvolt looked at Lola in confusion. The word sounded familiar, but he wasn’t sure where he heard it from or what its meaning was.

“Nothing you need to know.”

[itdisneymatter]

Leaving on a jet plane

So its finally time, in just a few hours we head to the airport and we are currently flying out to Orlando, Florida for our first holiday in 5 long years, after much rescheduling since we originally intended to go back in 2019. And of course with that, THE BLOG returns (I am sorry in advance, truly)! This was meant to be posted before now (last night, then this morning, now whatever time zone we are flying across), but the last 24 hrs, nay the whole week has been absolutely choc-a-bloc, from lastminute.com stuff at work to the important stuff like making customised t-shirts, fixing switch controllers and making up snackle boxes (which we couldn’t use anyway because of someone’s stupid stupid peanut allergy).

And since the last time we were there, we’ve seen more than a few changes.

Our “kids” are no longer kids really. Patrick turns 18 at the end of the month and is off the Uni is September. Roberts in studying Advanced Physics and Applied Maths and doing a HNC in Cyber FREAKING Security all while still in six year. And Grace is the only one who is not yet taller than me which I don't think that’ll be the case for very much longer. Oh and fun fact: Grace is older that Patrick was the last time we were here back in 2017… eesh! No more buggies (well not ruling that out completely for me and Ann), and obviously no more tantrums or arguing from the kiddos (lol, I wish).

Old School

Social media, since the last time, has seen a big change. Patrick laughed at me when I told him I was continuing to use Tumblr for my blog, because everyone’s on YouTube, Tiktok or Instagram these days (well maybe not even Insta, I can’t keep up). I’m a terrible speaker so me doing live, unedited vLogs is an absolute no-go. And Tiktok? I’m sorry I just cant, I dont have the actual energy or sanity to plan and film a little skit of me talking to myself, pretending to be another character (seriously can we check on these people I’m worried for them). And the purpose of this blog is mainly to create a somewhat historical record of our events, intended mainly for personal consumption. Anyway, I’m too committed now to stop and this continues to be the format, however boomer it is.

I digress.

So only a short unofficial update today before we start the main event and roll out a rundown of our daily escapades. Michael graciously dropped us off at the airport this morning with our luggage which came in at just under the limit (not looking forward to smashing said limit on the return leg that’s for sure). Check in and security was fairly breezy and managed to get an obligatory pint & some decent Eggs Royale for breakfast oh and a wee sneaky purchase of a nice 14yo Aberlour. This, mainly for me during our three weeks, will also likely be Patrick’s first sip of alcohol EVER, as he won’t legally be allowed to drink until he’s back home and above the country’s legal age limit. Not bad for his first ever drink and sure beats Rolling Rock for a quid or so down at McFly’s in Coatbridge watching Shifter on a school night 😏

Best laid plans

Writing down this last part from the sky above the Atlantic, we have about 4 hours left until we land in Melbourne. I had, rather optimistically planned to watch ALL of The Last of Us and play the Switch at the same time but due to having about 8 hrs of sleep all in in the past 72hrs, and the kids probably not far behind, we pretty much all crashed as soon as we took off. So all in all I’m about two episodes in and had my Switch on for a total of 30 minutes. At least we’ll be rested for when we get there, though will probably play havoc with the old body clock, with an emphasis on old. Absolute belter from Grace because we’ve been plane buddies today - she turned around to me after struggling to get back to sleep at one point due to the noise and said “there’s too many kids on this flight” Oh dear… 😂

Itinerary is locked in (on a nicely formatted Excel spreadsheet I may add), and contains everything from Restaurant prices and happy hour deals down to best snacks and secret hacks at each of the parks. We’ll be kicking things off with Islands of Adventure tomorrow on our first full day (it would have been Magic Kingdom but they don’t do 21 day tickets any more 🤷🏻‍♂️). Once we pick up the car, we plan to head via Disney Springs to pick up our Magic Bands and grab some food (if we’re hungry which we probably won’t be). Then onward to the hotel to get unpacked, grabbing the traditional Starbucks at the Java cafe, grabbing some provisions at Walmart then heading to bed for some semblance of sleep.

Pauline & Kevin have been here since last Sunday too so we’ll also be catching up with them this week and it looks like they’ve had a blast thus far… 😁

Right I’m going back to watching The Last of Us on plane tv and kidding myself on I’m going to get back to sleep, so will catch you guys on the flippity flip!

[numbuh]

the thing is, it goes like this:

harvey doesn't want to be touched. he shows visible distress after wally lets him go, but says nothing. he stares in horror and smooths out his sweater and that's what clues us in to his phobia

nigel touches harvey and he snaps, saying not to touch him ever. he's very clear and nigel just looks at him weird and moves on. no apology or anything. nigel does it again to prevent him from waking father and possibly dying. harvey repeats himself. then nigel tries to have a sincere moment with harvey and touches him Again shortly after. harvey explodes because that was the fourth time he had been touched in the entire episode. nigel tackles harvey out of the way as the fifth, though it's the second time where he's getting him out of danger. sonia also grabs him after so it's six in total

he gets viewed as a weirdo for his collective freak outs so they decommission him months later

this implies you have to be comfortable with being touched by any operative at any time, even if you don't know or like them. i can see this in a life-or-death situation, but four out of six times these characters did not have to touch him.

implies that was the bigger issue and/or that it was inherently part of what made him selfish

kids may have an underlying reason not to like being touched. not saying this is harvey's case, it just makes me wonder if troubled kids would get the same treatment or be turned away because the knd would rather get rid of them for causing issues/being a liability than help them out or find ways around it

even if a kid simply just doesn't like being touched, they deserve the same respect for their boundaries as everyone else

numbuh 362 has sibling favoritism so nothing happens to him until after numbuh 5 is in charge. she of all characters doesn't change anything and orders for his decommissioning herself. because he didn't like being touched

also it strikes me that harvey was seven years old and a rookie. his team got the highest mission success rate in a short time. that's why nigel said he had a lot to learn about teamwork before he pretty much doomed his relationship with his team immediately after

indifferent to harvey as a character but i always have to agree that him getting decom'd for the Specific Reason of not wanting to be touched instead of "he's selfish with a disregard for other people" or however you want to put it was some of the coldest shit ever. like. i don't knowwwww

[egophiliac]

This may seem a bit dumb question for someone who's main in en server. But I need to prepare myself before chap 6 is coming. Anyway, is chap/book Ignihyde gonna be THAT hard?? I've seen a lot people kept saying they're not ready for chap 6 or good luck for 'that' battle. Is it that difficult?

some preparation would be a good idea, actually! if you just want advice with absolutely no potential spoilers (even vague ones), then I'll say this:

the best thing you can do for yourself is -- for the later part of episode 6 -- try to have at least one SR or SSR card no lower than level 40 for as many characters as possible (specific ones at the bottom 👇👇👇). I've seen 40 as the minimum recommended level but honestly, go as high as you reasonably can, especially with your SSRs.

I'll try to keep spoilers to a minimum, hopefully it'll still make sense :')

SO! most of the frustration revolves around chapters 6-66 and 6-67, which are both split into subroutes with multiple subchapters/battles that follow three different groups of characters. you have to finish all three routes to get to the next chapter, and they force certain requirements that can make it a lot more difficult if you aren't careful:

you build your teams at the start of the chapter, and can't change them without resetting your progress. (if I remember right, you do get a chance to rebuild for 6-67.)

teams are built by character, instead of by card like they normally are, and each one has 2-3 required characters locked into that team. you can use any cards of that character, but you can't use multiple of the same character, or use them in a different team. also, no guest/friend cards.

they tell you what the element of the bosses are, but the other battles are just...whatever. if you can manage more than one 40+ card for a character, having good type coverage will help out a lot (why yes, I did get stuck for an embarrassing amount of time on a low-level rando because I got unlucky with type matchups, what about it).

there's a couple of points where you have to wait several real-time hours before continuing. this doesn't have anything to do with the team building, it was just annoying. c'mon. >:(

to be fair, I think some of the general frustration comes from how out of nowhere it was, so it's sure to be much easier if you go in with some idea of what it'll be like. (on my first attempt I tried to be cute and put everybody with their friends. it...did not go well.) I also had a particularly hard time of it because 1) F2P = less SSRs to carry me, and 2) I hadn't really focused on any cards outside of my special little garden of favorites, so not being able to use multiples of the same character for everything kinda left me boned. I'd be lying if I said it didn't feel great when I finally got through it though!

more specific info:

in 6-66, the bosses are a 5-turn survival battle; in 6-67, they're infinite battles (reduce their HP to 0 to win) and, subsequently, much harder to get past. personally speaking, the Wood one was the hardest for me because it heals itself between turns (and also I had literally no good Rook cards at the time). your mileage may vary!

Team 1 - required characters are Vil, Epel and Rook, boss element is Wood

Team 2 - required characters are Leona and Jamil, boss element is Water

Team 3 - required characters are Riddle and Azul, boss element is Fire

teams are 5 characters as per the usual, so make sure you have good cards of the required boys and at least six to complement them, plus a few more if you want to be careful. this is ONLY for those two chapters, which are pretty late in the episode (for JP it came out as part of the final episode 6 update) so you've got time to prep!

there's the obligatory overblot battle later on that is technically harder (stronger + more HP and all that), but it felt SO much easier in comparison just because it was back to normal Twst rules. really hoping that episode 7 doesn't pull its own shenanigans 💀