#really loved the giant robot you get to pilot

[jojolimons]

lmao finished pepper grinder before downloading the qol update

[obsessivevoidkitten]

Heroes To Villains

DILF Yandere Superheroes x Gender Neutral Superhero Reader CW: Noncon, imprisonment, minor violence, gratuitous amount of firearms, super powers, super soldiers, spitroasting, general yandere behavior, bratty reader Word Count: 3.8k (I am sorry this took a bit for me to get to, only took a few hours to write though. I hope you guys love it. Feel free to tip if you do~)

The city you were stationed in was under attack by some fairly destructive super villains. They were either traitors born of the same government program that had produced you and the other super soldiers you worked with or they were sent by another country to attack the retired super agents of your country. Though it was also possible they were a rogue foreigner with a vendetta. All the people making up your squad had been in the military and had made significant enemies.

Their goals did not really matter so much at the moment. It was more important that they were defeated before they caused any casualties.

There were two of them. One of them with an ability to lash out with streams of fire and smoke and another that could jump up really fast and high before slamming down and causing a large explosion on impact.

They were no match for you and your comrades. Red and Ace had handled much worse threats than these two with ease. Ace had been a top pilot before undergoing medical experimentation that left him with angel-like wings and the ability to shoot energy blasts from his hands. The man was like a living B-52. And Red was basically a human tank. Very little could so much as scratch his skin and he had tremendous physical strength.

Both of them had soared through the ranks and had distinguished themselves as competent generals in the last great war. Now they were retired and used their abilities as super soldiers to become heroes and protect the capital from the strange threats that had been unleashed during war time. Mostly the occasional villain. Sometimes a mutant animal.

You had just been a simple medic. Nothing too fancy, but you had hesitantly taken the opportunity to go through experiments that would allow you to heal others much more effectively and without the need for invasive surgery. Most of the super soldiers gained a unique ability and also became more resilient to damage and agile.

And you had gotten those perks too, but not to the degree as everyone else. Though you had gotten an extra ability that most people lacked. Hyper accurate aim with long distance weapons. But you also suffered a drawback when compared to your peers. You got exhausted easily, having very little stamina.

Who could forget the time you had saved the city by firing the railroad gun at the giant robot that used mutated biological components in its construction? Firing a 19,000 pound shell and obliterating an entire giant robot with one perfectly executed shot had been amazing.

You longed for that kind of usefulness again. But currently you were a bit bored, as a long range support unit you frequently hung back a bit. Red and Ace normally cleared everything up themselves without having need of your abilities.

Ace had plucked the hopper from the sky and injected him with a serum that would knock him out cold until he could be taken into custody where his abilities would be removed completely, if they could be. Red had similarly taken out the fire user who had discovered that his searing flames did little more than make Red sweat a bit.

They regrouped together before they started walking back to you, each carrying the limp weight of an unconscious enemy on their shoulders. It would be a few minutes before they got to the rendezvous.

You heard the gruff voice of Red on your comm line.

“We got em’ On our way back now.”

“Affirma-”

You were cut off by a sudden shift underground followed by a woman jumping up from the earth below you and punching you hard enough to launch you several feet.

There had been a third and they had split up to take you on individually.

As you fell through the air you took out your side arm and fired every round in rapid succession. Each one aimed for her heart. Each one hit their mark. But when you hit the ground you had smacked your head pretty hard and the world faded to black.

You woke up in a medical bed in the basement of your headquarters. You were quite dizzy and you felt like you were certainly going to vomit.

You held your hands to your head and your palms flashed.

Much better. If you hadn’t been knocked out you would have simply been able to heal whatever injuries you had sustained in a flash. Oh well you were better now.

Ace walked in to check on you right as you had been getting up. He burst into a smile at seeing you awake. His blue eyes full of joy.

“Hey runt! Glad to see that you’re getting up and about!”

“Who’s a runt!?”

He flexed his biceps to drive the point in.

“Red, get in here, The runt is up!”

You heard his loud steps reverberate upstairs as he bounded towards the basement door and came rushing down.

“It’s been five days, we were beginning to really worry about you, squirt.”

He was smiling but you could tell his red eyes held a lot of concern in them. It seemed like there was something he wanted to say but didn’t know how.

“Well, no need to worry. I am not as fragile as a regular person. And I am fully healed now.”

“Yeah… but you weren’t hit by a normal person. And you aren’t as durable as most of us…”

That was Ace.

“Yeah, yeah, I will be more careful, okay? I know my limits. I don’t need a lecture. I took the enemy down and I am okay now so we don’t need to linger on it.”

Ace put his hand to his face and his wings quivered in annoyance as they often do when he tries to lecture you and you just won’t have it.

You rolled your eyes and finally Red spoke up.

“This isn’t the first time you have gotten hurt on the field. Even with precautions like staying back you still end up injured!”

“What’s your point? It's a battle, injuries happen. At least I can heal.”

Ugh, an Ace lecture you were used to. You didn’t need both of them nagging at you.

You rolled your eyes as Red continued.

“Have you ever considered… going into another career? You volunteer at the hospital… maybe you could do that full time?”

That did it.

“Excuse me? I wasn’t in any command position, but I was a trained soldier all the same! I think I can handle myself!”

You stormed away from them and went up the stairs, slamming the door behind you. Assholes. Who were they to tell you what you should consider doing? It was your life and if you wanted to use it fighting genetically enhanced monsters and super-criminals then that was your right to do so.

It would become evident in the future that this incident was where everything started to go wrong. Going forward in battle they always had at least one of them at your side whenever it was physically possible for them to do so.

When you were eventually still injured even with that precaution, even though it was minor, they pressured you again to quit being a hero. They thought maybe you just were too attached to them to leave so they even suggested that you could still be their medic but you would stay on at the base. You could even still operate the railroad rifle that could fire shells from miles away whenever a large foe approached the city.

But you wouldn’t have it. Fuck them. You told them that if you had to form a new squad in a new city then you would do so.

They frantically apologized immediately so they let it go.

It was unfathomable that they would ever allow you to do such a thing. Go off where they couldn’t protect you even a little? Where some inexperienced whelp of a leader would surely get you killed? Not a chance!

But neither could they allow you to remain a front line combatant. Not after the injuries and not with how easily you became fatigued when exerting yourself.

The solution was ugly, but it was what it was. You left them no other option for your own safety.

Though it would make them criminals themselves they had to do it for your own good. They had to keep you here with them where you would be safe and secure. They could turn the base’s AI defenses to keep you here and make sure that you were safe. They could also have it alert them through their comms if you there was any trouble while they were on a mission.

You were laying on your bed with your hands behind your head. You stared at your ceiling and contemplated all that you had been through. The war, seeing comrades on the battlefield ripped apart with no way to save them as they bled out in agony. You had to protect people from that in every way that you could, and if you did die on the battlefield then that was fine by you.

The intrusion of Red and Ace barging into your room out of nowhere pulled you from your thoughts and you regarded them both with a scowl.

“What NOW!? Can’t you guys at least knock? I mean seriousl-”

Ace cut you off with a hand gesture for silence before Red spoke up.

“Listen squirt… we decided something. We can’t allow you to join us on the field anymore…”

“Didn’t you just apologize for saying that after I threatened to leave? Whatever, I am out of here!”

You hopped up to gather your belongings and set out at once, the mere sight of the two heroes making you want to go on a rampage, but Red pushed you back onto the bed, then Ace picked up where Red had left off.

“Well that’s not all, runt. We also decided… you can’t leave here either…”

You started laughing. It had to be some kind of joke. But the tension that filled the room told you otherwise. You looked from Red to Ace and the empty expression from Ace and the guilty one from Red told you that they were deadly serious.

You grabbed your sidearm and launched yourself at Ace, you weaved past Red and twirled yo get behind Ace and held your arm around his neck with your gun aimed at his head. You didn’t speak a word, your intention clear.

There was no way you would be kept here.

You couldn’t go for Red as small arms fire would bounce off of him, but at point blank range Ace was toast. You backed out of the room, pulling Ace along with you. He cooperated fully. Even a pair of overprotective psychos didn’t want their brains blown out.

Out of nowhere a robotic arm emerged from one of the sockets in the walls. It seized your gun and then Ace flipped your positions with him behind you.

They had reprogrammed the defenses of the base to not allow you to have a weapon. These two were not former generals for nothing. They knew how their adversary, you, would react.

You slammed your foot down on Ace’s and smacked your head behind him to hit his nose. Such weak attacks did nothing to dislodge you from his ironclad grasp.

“Stop this childish behavior and just accept things. This is for your own good. If anything this little outburst has proven that you need to be protected because you certainly cannot control your emotions!”

Red was in front of you, still looking at you with that guilty expression.

“I’ll go get your weapons from your room.”

Ace and you watched in the doorway as Red got a sack and rummaged through every single inch of your private space to look for what was now contraband.

“Come on! If you are going to keep me here at least don’t go invading my privacy like this!”

Much to your embarrassment you actually cried a bit as the large man went through all your things.

He started by removing your pistols from your weapon’s display case. Your Beretta M9, your SIG Sauer P320, you… dear god no… not your baby, not your Magnum Research BFR!

You thrashed more as you saw him take that one.

Then he moved on to your bookshelf. He took out your religious text from the shelf.

“Hey, keep your grubby mitts off of that! It’s sacred!”

“Yeah, Red, don’t you think you should focus o-”

He opened it revealing that it had been cut out and housed one of your many sidearms.

“Of course,” Ace said flatly.

When Red finished with all your pistols he moved on to the ones mounted on your wall. Your Mauser M 98, your Browning BLR, and your little Marlin 70PSS.

The rest of the search was much the same. All but one had been found. Red had to get a second bag for them all. The ones in your desk, under your bed, and the one in your mattress.

Well at least they hadn’t found your most precious gun-child…

“Okay I think I got them all. Nowhere else to search. Be truthful, did I miss any?”

You wiped the tears out of your eyes and lied convincingly. You tried to look as defeated as you could.

“No”

Ace moved the two of you out of the way so Red could take your weaponry to the armory. As he started to leave the room he noticed his footsteps sounded odd in one place.

He pressed his large foot down in the spot a few times, narrowing his eyes.

Fuck.

He bent down and realized he could remove the floor board under the rug in that spot.

He found it, the bag unzipped and your M1 Garand joined the rest of your firearms.

“NOOOO!!! That one is my favorite! It PINGS when you use it!”

Now you were truly defeated, they had gotten every single one of them…

“Holy fuck, how many did you need??”

Ace joined in.

“Yeah that’s all a bit… much…”

“If your only offensive power came from guns then you would make sure to have one near you at all times in case of infiltration or emergencies…”

Ace sighed and let you return to your bed in peace. Or what peace could be had in your glorified prison.

Later in the evening they knocked on your door.

“Hey, we made your favorite food for dinner! And made your favorite dessert too…”

That was Red, you could hear the nervousness in his voice. He knew you would hate him now. You ignored them.

“Come on, don't be like this, you have to eat!”

And that was Ace, insisting that not complying with his psychopathic behavior was childish.

You opened the door and took the food tray. Both of them smiled.

“There, see? We can all still get along. We worked very hard on that meal for you!”

You were sure that they had, they were both skilled cooks. You stared at them expressionless and slammed the tray into their faces before slamming the door.

Ace looked furious but Red held him back.

“Come on Ace… they just need to adjust…”

But you refused to adjust. You ate only when they were out of the house. As the days went by you didn’t speak a single solitary word to either of them, you may as well have been a ghost.

Well… it would have been. Had you not been doing your best to make them the two most miserable men on the planet. You destroyed all the toilet paper, clogging every toilet in the base with it, you destroyed the fridge twice, you broke the TV, tore the couch, the robotic arms stopped you, of course, but you could manage to do a bit of damage each time before it stopped you.

Even Red was getting annoyed with your behavior.

They had both tried everything to get you to behave. Punishments ranging from not eating anything but flavorless oatmeal for days to being forced to sleep in a bed with one of them so they could make sure you didn’t cause any destruction while they slept.

Finally they had had enough, things could not continue on like this and it seemed like you may never open your eyes and see that they were just trying to keep you safe. Without them you’d have ran right into the jaws of danger.

They discussed it among themselves and had one more idea. You needed to feel loved in every possible way. They loved you so much after all, that’s what all this had been about, to protect you because they cared for you. But clearly they needed to step things up a notch or ten.

When they came home that day they barged into your room and grabbed you, taking you kicking and screaming into one of the many spare rooms the base had.

They had outfitted it with a huge bed, the walls painted your favorite color, fresh roses filled a heart shaped vase on the nightstand.

“Let go of me! What did you drag me here just to give me a newer bigger room? A prison is still a prison…”

“It’s going to be…” Red started.

“Our love… nest…” Ace finished, blush evident on his face.

“No thanks. Fucking weirdos.”

“Come on, sex is known to alleviate one’s mood!”

“Yeah, just give it a chance”

Ace smashed his lips into yours and kissed you deeply, you looked at him stunned.

They were serious… You wanted to wretch… Fervently you struggled, trying to get out of Red’s grip but he handed you off to Ace who wrapped his wing around you and led you to the bed.

They took your clothing off before moving on to your own. All of you had scars due to combat and training, and you had seen them nude in the showers before, but this was different. For the first time you felt vulnerable and scared under their combined gaze.

You covered your genitals but they each removed and held one arm so they could appreciate the view. “Come on, don’t be like that. Nothing we haven’t seen before,” Ace whispered as he spread your legs apart.

“Red, did you bring the lube?”

“Yeah, right here.”

Red opened a bottle and lathered both of their growing cocks so that they were drenched with the stuff and then pressed some to your hole and massaged it in. They had no intention of letting this be a painful experience for you. They wanted to show how much they cared about you.

You tried to clench. To close yourself off from them. But the probing fingers would not be denied. You squirmed uncomfortably at the sensation of cold lube being worked into you.

“Try to relax, it will be much better if you embrace us.”

“FUCK YO-”

Red cut you off with a kiss. You tried to bite his tongue but his tongue was no more vulnerable than the rest of his body.

Two sets of hand roamed and pet, and groped your body. Gently caressing you as Red made out with you. When they felt as if they had explored every part of your body they flipped you on to your belly, with Red on his knees in front of you. His crotch level with your face.

Ace was behind you on his knees between your legs, holding them still as he wedged himself closer to your entrance, until the tip of his cock was kissing it.

You couldn’t kick because he had control of your legs. You couldn’t punch because Red had your arms pinned. Now they just had to plug your bratty mouth and you wouldn’t have any means of protest. Verbal or otherwise.

They knew you’d try to bite so Red took your mouth, claiming it with his cock. You tried to move and turn away but once Ace sank his cock into your sensitive depths you gasped in surprise so Red took the chance to put his cock in your soft mouth. He did not go in balls deep, neither of them had yet. They wanted you to enjoy it. To relax. Not worry about being hurt or gagged.

Red humped into your mouth carefully and slowly while Ace did the same behind you.

“Damn, for someone so opposed to it you fit me so well.”

Then Ace added, “Your mouth feels amazing babe. He used his thumb to draw lazy circles into your arms where he held them down. He sighed in pleasure when he felt the pleasured moans Ace was coaxing out of you. Much to your dismay.

But you couldn’t deny that it felt nice. Your body relaxed, just a bit, as the men slowly bred a bit of the stress you had been under out of it.

Now that it seemed that you were enjoying yourself, even though reluctantly, Ace decided he could speed up just a bit, rolling his hips as his cock dug further into you.

Red was going a bit faster too now that you had acclimated and stopped trying to resist so hard. He let your arms go, sure that you had finally realized how silly fighting was. The large man stroked your cheek as he continued thrusting into those sweet lips.

Ace was the first to cum, his wings outstretching fully and deep voice gasping as his large nuts filled you with wave after wave of his seed. His large cock twitched inside of you, pushing you over the edge and into your own orgasm.

Feeling all your muffled cries of pleasure right in his prick caused Red to start cumming. He pulled out, not wanting to choke you on his copious amount of semen that he knew all super soldiers produced in spades, instead cumming all over your face.

Ace pulled out of you and was the first to speak.

“There, that wasn’t so bad, was it?”

You didn’t respond, you were still panting from the workout you had just received. You didn’t protest when Ace pulled you into his lap and held you with your head nestled into his chest. Your head laying right on his hawk tattoo. You didn’t protest when red scooted beside him and kissed you tenderly on the forehead. You even let them clean you up and feed you your favorite meal that they diligently cooked for you while you waited politely on the couch. They figured your resistance to them before was just because you had needs that weren’t getting met.

And from that day forward they knew that anytime you got too snarky or rebellious all they had to do was make time to fuck the brattiness out of you.

[mitraoki]

Hi hi! I'd like to rq a Ken Sato x Gundam pilot (pilot of a giant war robot, similar to a transformer) reader, fem or gen if possible!

She's slightly older and used to work with the KDF but quit due to realising the problems KDF has caused.

OR! She could have worked for the Japanese army but due to a horrible accident during a mission she could've been injured badly and was forced to retire early.

Possibly low-key sassy and stoic personality that she acquired after years of working for the army, that undermine her politeness and sweet personality.

And if possible, can she wear an eye patch?

If you don't like this feel free to ignore :( But I really like this concept and your writing style so it'd be really nice to see it written out :)

Don't tire yourself out!

😧🪒😦 - Anon

hot and cold. (ken sato x gn! reader)

note; HELLO anon!! thank you soo much for requesting. this is a REALLY good background you've given me, i just hope i've done it enough justice for you🥹🥹please let me know of your thoughts about this! i always welcome feedback <33

as usual, requests are open!! refer to my rules for a better view on what i write (✿◕‿◕✿)

masterlist.

i would say that after ken's experiences with emi and bonding with his dad, he becomes more open to various possibilities. yes he's happy he's slowly recovering what he'd lost long ago, but there's definitely something in particular that's missing in his life.

he hasn't thought about love in a long, long time. back in america it was always crushes, or simple dates but nothing ever lasted longer than he wanted it to. ken sato hates cliffhangers.

you, on the other hand, weren't hoping for much. all your life you've worked - very obviously - as a tool for the KDF, but what good did it bring you except to push yourself away from people?? so you did, not wanting to be around people quite often, so much as to even isolating yourself.

after learning of your boss' potential demise, what good is there staying in an organization that left you completely shallow? gone was the need to remain in KDF, signing the very last paper regarding your resignation.

"i should get an eye patch," you muttered, staring into the mirror with a dull look. it was no news for the frontliners to experience heavy injuries, but you definitely did not expect one of your eyes to become completely dysfunctional.

it had only been a few days since your departure from the shackles when you just had to bump into the well-known, ecstatic baseball player, ken sato in a convenience store. purely out of coincidence, of course. squinting your eyes, you sent a nod his way.

"heard of you," you uttered, stretching your lips into a thin line as you headed towards the counter, paying for the stuff you'd picked out for dinner later.

....leaving the man himself completely speechless.

who were you? why didn't you say anything else about his plays? have you attended any of them? were you pissed that he wasn't playing to his full potential? and what was with the eye patch?

he needed to know more of you.

i'd like to think he'd ask more about you from mina, gaining as much information as he could about you. if you had any specific history, some kind of secret that he was yet to uncover. lo and behold, he dug far enough to find out you once worked with his enemy. emphasis on worked.

a shiver ran down his spine when he read those words. he didn't need to see it, but he could tell there was more to than what meets the eye.

"something the matter, ken?" mina questioned, her holographic screen dissipating.

"oh- how difficult do you think this is gonna be?"

"....i cannot give you a definitive answer, ken. i would depend on the way you'd choose to approach her."

and approached you he did. not exactly, but again. it was purely out of coincidence when he saw you sitting by the window of a quaint cafe, sipping on your favorite beverage.

"baseball boy?" you called out behind him while he was "trying his best to order his favorite drink." his words, not yours.

"fancy seeing you 'round here."

"yeah! well. you know me - super down to earth," he chuckled nervously, clearing his throat after.

but you can see just how bad he was suppressing himself from throwing the biggest questions he had for you. out of respect, you had hoped. nodding, you walked back to your seat after grabbing your long-awaited dessert.

that was - until - the same baseball boy practically begged to sit at the same table as you. there it was. one would expect the fan to do most of the questioning towards their idol, but in this case it was different.

you were no fan, and ken surely wasn't one himself. the KDF doesn't really have a good image going on, after all. it was the slight glimmer of hope in your heart that this man had a pure heart, just wanting to explore what he hasn't in this big, cruel world.

heaving a huge sigh, you gave in. this can go on. what's the worst that could happen?

and it did. for hours. hours turning into days. days turning into weeks. months. suddenly a year had passed, and you were now in his arms, being the little spoon you had desired for so long.

he hears story after story of yours. all the secret missions you'd gone through before resigning. the eye that you'd lost a long time ago.

ken sato was careful with your heart, soul and you. he cares for you like the world's most fragile glass, holds you in his arms like he might lose you the moment he lets go. he kisses every single scar of yours like he was silently acknowledging the sacrifices you'd made through the years.

and for the first time, you felt like there was some meaning. you needed to see this through. you wanted ken sato more than ever now. the way he smiles, the way his eyes glimmer when you tell him something new. the way he cups your face and reminds you of your worth.

it's mind boggling to know someone slightly younger than you has such a vast and mature mind, ready to accept you when no one else has. life had always been stagnant. you wake up, you face the days ahead. some conversations with or without you. unwanted noises that bothered you to the core.

it was just something about ken, his voice perhaps. or it could be the way he wants to listen. he chooses to listen even when he doesn't understand, because this man would do anything in the world to be in yours.

"i don't know what the others have told you, y/n. but in my eyes, i can keep them on you forever and i'd never grow tired."

and those were the words that left you speechless, the fresh warm streak of tears flowing down your cheeks. it was such a rare sight to see someone so stoic, so persistent break down. but even then, ken sato was there to hold you tight, whisper soothing words into your ear and pepper you with endless kisses.

you'd grown absolutely smitten for this man, and i would say you'd never regret a single moment with him.

all created content belongs to mitraoki. reposts/remakes are not allowed.

[faksyan]

Huey Emmerich, mgs v cast & hypocrisy, a character analysis

Prefacing this with the fact that this is the morally gray franchise with the morally gray characters and I love how it portrays Huey Emmerich precisely for him being Like That. I think he is one of the most nuanced and well-written mgs characters and I'm pretty sure like half of it wasn't on purpose. He is the guy everyone hates for killing his wife (understandabe reason), trying to make one of his kid pilot a giant robot and almost drowning another in a pool (also understandable reason), and, most of all, for being a traitor. And with such a list, feels a bit weird that the accent often falls on that last part, doesn't it. Which is exactly how the narrative wants you to feel about his betrayal, on a surface level.

Every character essential to the Phantom Pain plot gets their "please feel bad for them, sympathize with them" moment, no matter how horrible a person they are. We get multiple monologs from Kaz, we get the 'I was the same way once' interrogation room and the ending of the Truth with Ocelot, we get Paz tapes and 'you're all diamonds' with Venom, we get Code Talker, Quiet, Eli (if they actually finished mission 51), even Skull Face, somewhat (don't even make me start on that guy. how is he less hated than Huey). The point is, the game is trying to make you feel bad for people who murder, torture, and whatever else, and parts of it are working, because it's fiction, and humans and morality are complicated and layered things! But what does Huey get? Torture sessions and tantrums that are framed as pathetic and ridiculous, even when what he is saying makes sense. Because yeah, there's some of that there. It's just that everyone else in the room deliberately doesn't acknowledge it.

When Venom just finds him, the first thing Huey says is that what happened to MSF was Snake's fault. The same during his exile - that there wouldn't have been an inspection, if there weren't a nuke to begin with. and it's like. he's not wrong. Having their own nukes as an independent military organization was a risk Snake and Kaz didn't just take blindly, they knew what could have happened. It was a gamble, and it didn't work out. If it did, it would've been their achievement. It didn't, so it's all Huey's fault, even though literally anyone could've been in his place. XOF weren't even the first to attempt to attack them, Zero was, Paz just didn't succeed. And if Skull Face hadn't either, someone else would have, the attention of the entire world was on them. It wasn't about betrayal, it was Snake and Kaz being drunk on success and biting off more than they could chew. Yes, Huey is a bastard and a traitor, but are we really going to blame all of this on him?

The answer is yes. And the reason is that they need someone to blame that's not them. The whole big theme of Phantom Pain is that Ocelot, Venom and Kaz have to do their best to keep up appearances, for the sake of Big Boss and his reputation. He is a legend, he is above everyone else, and he can do no wrong. Except after the fall of MSF everyone thinks that he can, Ocelot says as much in the briefing tapes. And they can't have that. So they blame it all on Huey. (<- all of this is a dictatorship allegory and critique of governments and military systems btw. 1984 or whatever I haven't read it. yay symbolism.) And blaming Huey is easy.

Huey is not a fighter. His father was a scientist who worked on the Manhattan Project. He was born on the same day as the Hiroshima bombing, his disability was (presumably) caused by his father's exposure to radiation. It's not that there was no choice involved in what he was going to do in life, but it was kind of inevitable that he would get involved with building nuclear weapons. And even when he says he is thinking about quitting upon being found by Snake in Peace Walker, it's Snake who convinces him not to, offering him to join MSF instead. In the PW tapes he also expresses that if it weren't for his disability, he would've been anywhere else, doing something different and living a "normal life".

He talks about the concept of nuclear terrorism there too, about nukes falling into hands of people without state who would be able to use them however they want, and I wonder if that was part of the reason for his betrayal. He didn't make the decision to bring nukes to base, he doesn't actually know these people. If maybe he thought it prevented a hypothetical nuclear catastrophe. Huey does say that he trusts Snake not to use them, that he values how honest Snake is, and is honest with him in return, even telling him things he's never told anyone before, like about his plagiarism of Granin's work. So what changed between then and the inspection, what was his motivation for betraying MSF, why was he approached about it of all people? Did he lie in the tapes, did he change his mind, did Skull Face offer him something that seemed more compelling, just threaten him? We never get to find out anything about it aside from every other character screaming that he's just a coward. No villain monolog, nothing.

Maybe it was about feeling important, like he is in charge, something that the hostility he has faced throughout his life didn't allow him. Huey is a sheep among wolves (wolf in sheep's clothing more like, but still). He does not fit in with the buff cool masculine soldiers, and even while working with Strangelove at NASA, he was regarded as obnoxious and spineless. It's not surprising he agreed to work for Coldman, since he, apparently, was the first person to actually recognize his skills. And even that later turns out to be a lie told to use him. Huey rarely if at all has been treated seriously, he is an outcast, even among people who share his ideas.

All he has is his brain and his knowledge, but it's never framed as much of an achievement (despite people exploiting it left and right), nor is him essentially being the nerd in a military setting ever really viewed as something dorky or endearing by the narrative like with Otacon, because the characters around him don't see him as such (as a result, so don't the players). On top of that, every other person uses his mobility aids to further degrade/harm/threaten him, even though he is already harmless when it comes to physical confrontation. In short, people he is surrounded with just enjoy the powerplay.

Right up until the point he actually does something that hurts them. And this is where my favorite part kicks in.

All three Diamond Dogs' higher-ups blame Huey for slightly different reasons, some maybe even believing that they are in the right and entitled to it (looking at you Kazuhira), but I am more than sure they know what it is that they're doing. And it's not like Kaz lacks self-awareness either, I don't think. Maybe it's denial that some of his actions led to the death of his friends, maybe blind belief in his own martyrdom and self-righteousness (sounds an awful lot like another character we know, huh), it still doesn't change much. How they all frame the story is the same. Huey's powerless and pathetic, but has ruined everything at the same time. And it doesn't really make sense, but everyone on the base agrees. It's the moment where individuals turn into a crowd that demands blood, but at least it's not their commanders it's directed at!

The Questioning Huey (6) tape is a good example of that. I especially like the bit where he starts talking about how DD is not actually a dog, because on a smaller scale, it shows how people on Mother Base just roll with things that are objectively false and turn on anyone who says otherwise. No, DD is our beloved mascot, and we are called dogs, he is just like us. And it's not like DD is just a wolf either, so neither of them are right here. But each of them thinks that they are.

That's why the amount of genuine Huey hate is a bit amusing to see, I guess. Because it's precisely the thing the game is trying to commentate on. None of these people are good. None of them have it figured out. The point is that it's just narrative bias that makes you belive that some are, if not good, at least better than others. In reality, it's never about morals or being correct, just perspective.

Huey himself, on the other hand, falls into another extreme - in his eyes, he's done nothing wrong. Because he can do no wrong, he's powerless, like everyone's alway told him, remember? He sees himself as the victim, because in a lot of cases, he is.

You can say that he is a lying traitor and that the truth serum didn't work on him because of some failsafe Skull Face thought of, but really, would he bother? He didn't even view Huey as anything but a traitor he despised. you know, the guy who was in charge of organizing the betraying part. the guy who put bombs in people and wanted to commit mass-murder on a scale no one has seen before. So the obvious and the most simple answer here is that Huey whole-heartedly, truly believes he hasn't done anything wrong. He thinks he doesn't possess the power to, that he isn't important enough. And it's drilled so deep into him he never acknowledges it's not really true. Even when he kills Strangelove, he still doesn't accept that it is his fault and his actions matter.

That's my favorite part about him, I think. How deep in denial he is about having an impact on the people around him, while also having a sort of god complex when it comes to his machines. How everyone around despises him for it, while being the ones who caused it and doing the exact same thing, refusing to get off the high horse. Metal gear is a messy franchise about messy people, but it's good exactly because it shows what has messed these people up so much. And more often than not, it's the system they're surrounded by, or that they created themselves in an attempt to escape the previous one. It's easy to point at Huey as just a bad person and only that, but I find the context of his whole life and the ways he's coping with it really compelling. There is a lot of complexity to it, and in the end of the day, they are all hypocrites.

[asushin-mermaid-au-ask-blog]

So I said I had a crazy Evangelion fic idea, so here it is. This is a mock up of a 12 episode first season of a NGE is a Saturday morning cartoon in the style of Sailor Moon or Power Rangers au. Each ‘episode’ would be a short chapter in the overall fic and hopefully I’ll be inspired to write 12 more ‘episodes’ some later. What do you guys thinks? Too weird and tacky? I’d honestly love some feedback.

Under read more because it’s very long.

Episode One: Is it Destiny?: Shinji Becomes A Pilot - Shinji Ikari an apathetic teenager aces NERV’s aptitude test after being pressured to take it by his guardian Misato Katsuragi. Alongside classmate Rei Ayanami he becomes a pilot for the experimental giant robot known as an Evangelion. Shinji is sure that this is a huge mistake, but when an angel attacks and Rei is injured he’ll have to fight whether he thinks he’s ready or not.

Episode Two: A Duel Of Love: Asuka Arrives In Japan - Asuka Langley Soryu, Shinji’s childhood friend who he hasn’t seen for nine years has also aced the aptitude test. She arrives in Japan with a score to settle and the only way to do it is face off against Shinji in a simulated angel attack. If only Shinji could figure out why she’s mad at him.

Episode Three: To Be A Role Model: Hikari’s New Club - Class president Hikari Horaki is horrified at the fact that Shinji, Asuka and Rei aren’t acting like proper role models now that they’re pilots, so she ropes them into to joining her club: The Tokyo 3 Middle School Good Works Club. Now they need to figure out how to get out of it.

Episode Four: A Man’s Fight: Shinji And The Upperclassman - When an upperclassmen insults Shinji for not being manly enough he doesn’t really care even if Kensuke and Toji do, but when that same upperclassman becomes trapped outside during an angel attack Shinji is able to win his respect anyway.

Episode Five: A Bookworm’s Love: Rei’s Struggle - Tokyo 3’s library has been destroyed by an angel, now bookworm Rei Ayanami needs to find something to do while it’s being rebuilt and she doesn’t have any books. Shinji and Asuka both try to lend a hand with limited success.

Episode Six: The Girl Who Could Do Anything: Asuka vs The Ace - Asuka boasts that she can play every single sport better than almost anyone else during gym class. However, she’s going to have to prove it when an injured volleyball player asks her to stand in for them. Shinji will do whatever he can to help.

Episode Seven: The Sporty Senpai: Noriko Comes To Town (Part One) - When Shinji, Asuka and Rei all get hurt in an angel attack Commander Fuyutsuki is talked into letting the JSSDF’s own ace pilot Noriko Takaya try to whip them into better physical shape. However for indoors types like Shinji and Rei this is it’s own kind of hell.

Episode Eight: The Sporty Senpai: Noriko Comes To Town (Part Two) - Shinji and Noriko are forced to team up for a complicated attack plan. Asuka’s jealousy is the least of his problems though since Noriko is just a hell of a lot more skilled in her mech than Shinji is in Unit 1. Shinji manages to use his own skill set to assist Noriko and win a little respect from himself.

Episode Nine: Make Your Move: Asuka and Shinji’s First Date - Asuka is still jealous of Shinji and the now departed Noriko, so after some prodding from Misato they spend the day hanging out around town. Of course an argument ensues and there’s only way way for them to solve it: another duel this time at the arcade.

Episode Ten: Mother’s Day From Hell: Shinji’s Dream - It’s Mother’s Day, Shinji and Asuka’s least favorite day of the year. After falling asleep inside Unit 1 Shinji has a dream that his mother is Commander of NERV and he’s a popular kid. However in this world Misato hates him and Asuka has no interest in being his rival. Shinji wakes up and decides the real world is better than the dream one.

Episode Eleven: Is She Shinji’s Clone?: Enter Mayumi Yamagishi (Part One): Everyone is amazed when a girl transfers into class who not only looks like Shinji but acts like him too. After some prodding from Kensuke and Toji Shinji manages to befriend the new girl and they hit it off quickly. However Rei keeps her distance and offers Shinji a warning about getting too close to Mayumi.

Episode Twelve: Is She Shinji’s Clone?: Enter Mayumi Yamagishi (Part Two) Asuka’s jealously is again the least of Shinji’s worries when it turns out that Mayumi has an angel inside her heart. The angel takes control of her and manages to pilot Rei’s Eva in a fight against Shinji. Shinji is going to have figure out how to defeat the Eva without hurting Mayumi is doing that even possible? It is when Asuka helps him do it.

[cryssyboo]

I love Tokusatsu (And it's time to make it your problem.)

Ok, This is something I finished writing like a month ago. It's basically a whole essay on what Toku is and some of it's elements. It's a long read, but if anyone ends up reading this I hope you enjoy it!

I am really, REALLY interested in Tokusatsu. (I’m not very subtle about it.) What is Toku? Toku is a genre of media that essentially translates to “special effects”. There are 5 major shows/franchises that fall into this category: Godzilla, Ultraman, Kamen Rider, Super Sentai, and Power Rangers. Now, personally, I’m not really a fan of Godzilla or Ultraman, but I am VERY into the other 3. There are also some other series that I’ll talk about. Now, someone reading this might be asking themselves: “Crystal, what the hell is a Kamen Rider or a Super Sentai? It all just looks like Power Rangers to me.”. That’s what I’m gonna answer here.

Kamen Rider began airing its very first show over 50 years ago, in 1971. The basic premise of any rider series is 1 or multiple people transforming into heroes know as ‘Kamen Riders’ using either a belt, a gun, a wrist mounted changer or a sword, along with various gimmick items (such as the Lockseeds from 2013’s Kamen Rider Gaim, or the Progrise Keys from 2019’s Kamen Rider Zero One) to fight an overarching villain. A typical Rider show lasts around 50 episodes, and ends in around August to September, with a new one almost immediately following it. The 2022-2023 series, ‘Kamen Rider Geats’, came to a close on August 27th, 2023, with the 2023-2024 series, ‘Kamen Rider Gotchard’, beginning on September 3rd, 2023. The 2024-2025 series, ‘Kamen Rider Gavv’, has been trademarked as of writing this. A rider typically has power ups that they get throughout the season, things like Kamen Rider Zero One’s Metal Cluster Hopper, Ex-Aid’s Hyper Muteki Gamer, Geats’ Boost Mark IX, or Gotchard’s Rainbow Gotchard form. Secondary Riders also get upgrade forms, like Tycoon’s Bujin Sword Raise Buckle, or Buffa’s Plosion Rage Raise Buckle. They also get a movie each summer, which typically has a cameo with the upcoming Rider show in it. There’s also sometimes side series’ and specials throughout the year, like Kamen Rider Outsiders, Tycoon meet Shinobi, and the Kamen Rider Legend special.

        Super Sentai is a yearly team hero series about 3-5 people transforming into heroes to save the world, sometimes with gimmicks (like Zenkaiger’s Sentai Gears, Donbrother’s Avataro Gears, or most notably, Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger’s Ranger Keys), sometimes without (like KingOhger’s OhgerCalibur or Kiramager’s KirameiChanger). The team also can gain more heroes throughout the show. For base teams of 5, the number of extra heroes typically ranges from 1-2, although we rarely get 7th rangers anymore. For base teams of 3, the number of extra heroes is typically capped at 1-2, upping the team to 5 members. The only exceptions I can think of are Ninpuu Sentai Hurricaneger, and Engine Sentai Go-Onger. Now, what makes this different from Rider? Well, for one, the suit designs are all standardized, and fit in with each other. But the bigger thing is, well, the giant ass robots each team pilot. The mecha, which I will be calling a Megazord from here on out (because it’s more recognizable), gets other auxiliary mecha (Zords from here on out) throughout the season the main team can use to increase the Megazord’s power. The 6th ranger (or any other extra ranger) typically gets their own separate Zord when they’re introduced. This Zord can also transform into a standalone Megazord, and can later on combine with the core team’s Megazord to create a more powerful Megazord. Towards the end of the season, the 2 or more Megazords combine with the auxiliary Zords to create one final combination, which I’ll be calling an Ultrazord for simplicity. Sometimes the Ultrazords are simpler, other times they’re what the community likes to call Clusterfucks. Some examples of this would be Samurai Ha-Oh, or God KingOhger. An example of the simpler ones would be something like ToraDora Onitaijin Kiwami. The main Red/White ranger (the color can vary, or sometimes even the whole team can use the power up.), and sometimes the 6th ranger also gets a power up midway/toward the end of the season (and even sometimes long after the show has ended, in the case of Gokai Red’s Gokai Galleon Armor). Some examples of this are Gokai Silver’s Gold Mode, The ToQger’s Hyper Resha, Super Zenkaiser and Super Twokaiser, or the Donbrother’s Omikoshi Phoenix. The previous sentai that was on air was OhSama Sentai Kingohger, and currently airing sentai is Bakuage Sentai Boonboomger. In recent years, sentai has deviated a bit from the norm, with Avataro Sentai Donbrothers being pretty much nothing but filler, with not much story tied into it, and 2023’s OhSama Sentai KingOhger not having many filler episodes, and being almost entirely story focused. However, Boonboomger seems to be a bit of a return to form for sentai.

Now, moving onto Power Rangers. This is the one most people reading this should know about. Power Rangers is a yearly team hero series about 3-5 people transforming into heroes to save the world, sometimes with gimmicks,  sometimes without. The team also can gain more heroes throughout the show. Sound familiar? That’s because, with some notable exceptions, Power Rangers pulls all of its suits and most of its action and Zord footage from Super Sentai! The show pulls suits and stock footage from a Sentai season of the team’s choice, and adapts it for an American audience. Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (MMPR) aired its first episode on August 28th, 1993. However, the idea existed long before that. Power Rangers was an idea dreamt up by a man named Haim Saban during a trip to Japan in the 80s. He wanted to bring Super Sentai to the states, and put his own spin on it. The first series he tried to bring over was the 1984 series Choudenshi Bioman. It wouldn’t have been called Power Rangers, though. Saban was just going to call the show Bioman. He put together a pilot for the show (which sadly is still lost to this day), but no children’s network programs would pick up the show. He kept trying to pitch Bioman for a while, before eventually he went back to the drawing board. He tried again a few more times, with another series, 1991’s Choujin Sentai Jetman, before settling on 1992’s Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger. He also made a pilot for this show (which was officially called MMPR by this point), and to his surprise, Fox Kids picked the show up. The show began airing in 1993 and blew up almost instantly. Nearly every kid who grew up in the 90s watched at least some form of Power Rangers. MMPR Ran for 3 seasons, all pulling different Zord and monster footage from either Zyuranger, Gosei Sentai Dairanger, or even some brand new Zyuranger footage Saban commissioned Toei to film for him. MMPR was followed by a miniseries called Mighty Morphin Alien Rangers, which was adapted from Ninja Sentai Kakuranger. In 1996, a new season of Power Rangers started: Power Rangers Zeo. The show dropped the Mighty Morphin, switched suits and power sets yearly, and up through In Space it kept a consistent cast, with the occasional switch out. After In Space, however, it swapped cast every year, with new characters each year. That’s how it's been ever since. However, the PR franchise itself has switched hands a number of times. Saban had the franchise from 1993 to 2001, when Disney acquired it as part of a larger buyout. Disney made, frankly, some of the best seasons of the franchise, despite the fact that they hated the brand and did not want it. Seasons like Dino Thunder, RPM, Jungle Fury. Disney continued to make new seasons up until Power Rangers RPM in 2009. In 2011, Saban bought the franchise back, and in 2011 Power Rangers Samurai went on air as the first show in what the fans call the Neo-Saban era (fun fact about samurai, the writers had to scramble to get a new season out after the buy back, so samurai is pretty much just a bad remake of Samurai Sentai Shinkenger). This era housed some of the worst shows in the franchise’s 30 year history. Shows like Super Megaforce and Ninja Steel. In 2018, Hasbro ended up buying the franchise from Saban, with Power Ranger Beast Morphers going on air in 2019 as the 26th season of Power Rangers. In 2021, Power Rangers Dino Fury began, and its cast will be the first since MMPR to stick around 3 whole seasons, as they returned as the main cast of the 30th season, Power Rangers Cosmic Fury, on September 29th, 2023. Cosmic Fury is also the first since MMPR to use just Zord footage from a sentai show (the show will be adapting Megazords from Uchuu Sentai Kyuranger), as the show uses completely original suits. Unfortunately, rumors suggest that Cosmic Fury is the last traditional season of the show, as it seems Hasbro has plans for a reboot of the franchise sometime soon. (post cosmic fury amendment: the franchise is dead. very dead.)

Power Rangers wasn’t the only show Saban made, though. He made a number of other shows using the PR formula. Those shows were Big Bad Beetleborgs (Alongside Beetleborgs Metallix), VR Troopers, and Masked Rider. Beetleborgs and VR Troopers were made using a mix of footage from different shows in the now dormant Metal Heroes franchise, with a mix of American footage, same as PR. Masked Rider followed that same formula, but instead was an adaptation of 1987’s Kamen Rider Black RX. While Masked Rider was a failure, Beetleborgs and VR Troopers actually did really well. The only reason they ended when they did was because the straight up ran out of footage to use. Older fans of Power Rangers probably remember at least Beetleborgs and VR Troopers.

When it comes to other shows in the genre, I’m not the most knowledgeable on them. There’s Godzilla (which most people probably know, it has a big presence outside of Japan, unlike most things talked about here), Ultraman, the aforementioned Metal Heroes, and Spiderman. No, that wasn’t a typo. Spiderman is genuinely a part of this rabbit hole. In the late 70s, a partnership was made between Marvel and Toei that allowed the 2 to use each other's properties. Spiderman (スパイダマン) was a result of this. Aside from some powers and his outfit, the show didn’t resemble our Spiderman at all. His suit was stored in a brace on his wrist, he shot literal fucking guns, and the biggest difference of all was that he had a giant robot. It’s name was Leopardon, and it’s the entire reason that Super Sentai has mecha in the first place. The first 2 shows, Himitsu Sentai Gorenger (not Goranger oh my lord) and J.A.K.Q. Dengekitai didn’t have mecha. It was the success of Leopardon that gave Toei the idea to bring one to the 3rd Sentai, Battle Fever J (fun fact, Battle Fever was also a part of the Marvel x Toei deal! It evolved from a japanese version of Captain America), and they’ve been a major part of the franchise ever since.

There are also some sudo-toku shows out there. Toku itself is limited to live action, but that hasn’t stopped various anime and cartoons from imitating the genre. Some of the ones I can name off the top of my head are Yo-Kai Watch Jam: Y School Heros, which is a clear toku parody, and Fuuto PI, which is an animated sequel to 2009’s ‘Kamen Rider Double’.

But we’re not done yet. It’s time to move into one of the biggest parts of this genre.. The Toylines! Yeah, if you haven’t figured out, these shows, while super cool, double as big toy commercials. Nearly every gadget they use gets a toy in the real world. From the base transformation device, to the gimmick, to the Megazords, it almost always gets a toy. The toy version of the changers and weapons are almost always smaller than the on-screen prop, but they get the job done. Megazords can vary in quality. Up until Donbrothers, Megazords have always been bricks, pretty much, Barely any articulation, and can barely move in the first place. However, starting with Donbrothers, Sentai Megazords have had decent articulation. (Boonboom amendment: Boonboomger Robo took away the articulation. Damn you Bandai.) The gimmick lines are typically released in multiple ways: Candy Toy, Deluxe, and Gashapon. The candy toy release is self explanatory. It comes with a little piece of candy. The deluxe format is the best version of the toy (although sometimes all formats are basically identical), and the Gashapon format can vary. Sometimes it’s really good, other times it’s the gashapon release of Gokaiger’s Ranger Keys. Speaking of Ranger Keys: Ranger Keys! This is probably the best part of any toyline these franchises have made over the decades. It began in 2011 with the release of Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger, and, as the name suggests, were tiny little figures of the previous 34 sentai teams that could turn into keys to be used in the Gokaiger’s changer. These little toys were wildly successful, more than Toei or Bandai could have ever predicted. Now, over 10 years later, minus a few breaks here and there, the line is still going strong. We’re still getting Ranger Key sets through Premium Bandai pretty much every year now. Now, what exactly is Premium Bandai? It’s the bane of every Toku fan’s existence, that’s what it is. Many things go up there, like certain Kamen Rider Drivers, certain Sentai Changers, extra gimmick sets, action figures, unnecessary rereleases (cough PREMIUM DELUXE I AM LOOKING AT YOU.). Sometimes things are reasonably priced, but often the stuff that goes on to Premium Bandai is pretty expensive. Recent drivers like the Vision and Zillion Driver’s, some Villain Changers from Sentai like the Ninjark Sword or OhgerCalibur ZERO have been pretty expensive (for toys that is). Even some main series gimmick items like the Fantasy and Bujin Sword Raise Buckles have been PB items (Personally I think they should’ve just been retail items). There’s also the Memorial line, which is bigger and more show accurate versions of Sentai Changers. They’re expensive, but most of the time I think they’re worth it. If you’re a hardcore collector, it’s not worth buying the Deluxe Changers anymore, since they’re pretty much guaranteed to get a Memorial Edition when the show ends. Also, replica clothes sometimes go up there. Most of the Gokaigers outfits got replicas, so did Zenkaiser’s main jacket, along with the DGP jacket from Geats. 

Now, this next part is still toyline related, but I wanted to separate it from the Japanese toylines, because the Power Rangers toyline is a fucking mess. The toys are almost always lower quality. There was a time where Bandai America, the original holder of the toy license, would import the original toy’s from Japan or just use the same molds, but those times are long gone. The toys were pretty decent up until the late Disney and Neo-Saban eras. Over time, Bandai’s Power Rangers toys got worse in both quality and detail. The toys were tiny, they were missing detail, and sometimes they were just pure dogshit, like with the Ninja Stars from Power Rangers Ninja Steel. While Bandai did get some good toy lines under their belt in the Neo Saban era, like the Dino Charge toyline and bits of the Samurai and Megaforce toy lines, Ninja Steel was the last toyline they made before Hasbro bought up the toy license, and then bought the entire brand from Saban. Hasbro had a decently strong start with Beast Morphers, the show still had a lot of the stupid Neo Saban regulations, but it’s not that bad. That's about all I can say for the toyline too, it wasn’t that bad. They came up with an original gimmick, which was cool, but they also made Beans Morphers Gold’s morpher a NERF Gun and never even released some things. For Dino Fury, the show was actually really good in my opinion, and the toy line was a lot better than Beast Morphers’ if you ask me. And Cosmic Fury? As a show, it wasn’t too bad. Not as good as its last 2 seasons, but it also had a crunched episode limit so it gets a pass. However, the toy line does not. We got 3 toys released in this line. A repainted roleplay set, the Cosmic Fury Morpher, and the Cosmic Fury Megazord. That’s it. But toywise, where Hasbro really shined was the Power Ranger’s Lightning Collection. It was a standardized 6 inch figure line that began in 2019, and lasted until 2023. Well, technically it’s on pause until… well, we don’t know. But still. Figures came with Head Sculpts, well chosen (for the most part) accessories, good paint, and absolutely NO QC ISSUES!! ….oh yeah, did i mention it had heavy QC issues during the later years of the line? Yeah, they were awful. It ranged from paint mishaps to literal missing accessories or wrong head sculpts. Sometimes the figures were just built bad, like Time Force Blue, and the packaging shift didn’t help with this at all. In fact, the removal of the plastic window made the QC issues more prevalent because no one could actively see the figure to get around them. Eventually it toned back down, but even then there were still heavy issues, with mold changes and all that. The drop down hips were almost always loose and the pinless figures were always fragile. As of now, the lightning collection is on pause. Why, you may ask? Well, because the entire franchise is on pause. There's no new content outside of the comics releasing. The reboot has moved from Netflix to looking for a new home, Hasbro signed a toy deal with Playmates, there’s the occasional merch drop or acknowledgement of the brand by Hasbro, and that’s really about it. They bought it because the CEO at the time really did care for the brand, but now that he’s no longer the CEO, Hasbro doesn’t really know what to do with Power Rangers. They’re trying to do things, and they have people on the team that care, but the higher ups don’t really care about the brand. And until either the reboot comes to fruition, or the production rights are sold off to someone who actually cares and wants the best for the brand, I think that’s how Power Rangers is gonna stay. It’s in a constant state of limbo, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. So, yeah. A bit of a sad conclusion to such a long running franchise, but it is what it is. In its current state, Power Rangers is essentially dead until someone who cares gets their hands on it. I hope you at least semi-enjoyed reading this stupid essay of mine, and maybe you learned a thing or two from it!

[specterthief]

i see a lot of people in the notes on that poll who don't know anything about anime and are just voting because they want to see destiel lose and i already said this on my tags but: please check out the witch from mercury (and possibly further gundam if it interests you)! it's genuinely a really good series and suletta and miorine are excellent characters and i would love if all the voters coming out in force against destiel could also turn into even more love for sulemio

gwitch is a queer futuristic sci-fi retelling of the tempest that also draws heavy inspiration from the salem witch trials and it rules, and imo it's very accessible to people who don't really Do Anime (there really isn't much in the way of otaku cultural knowledge you need to have to follow it, if you know of anything like pacific rim or VLD or can otherwise just get your head around the basic "people piloting giant robots" concept you're golden)

[hermannsprecursors]

How my pacrim birthday went!

So the Pacrim community on here helped me plan my 17th birthday party, and I wanted to tell you abt some of the results!

I didn't take as many photos as I would've liked, but it's alright! I was too busy having fun with my friends tbh, and that's the more important part.

So, without further ado-- a complete list of what I did at my Pacific Rim birthday party!

Starting off strong with my cringe-ass, hand-made invite

BIRTHDAY GIRL DRESSED UP AS NEWT!!! With shorts because it's Michigan summer, but still!

Started by watching Pacific Rim. I, my sister, and my friend Kai were the only ones who had any kind of pre-requisite on what Pacific Rim was, so naturally I started them off with the movie.

Newt and Hermann were well loved, and I gave my QPP a new hyperfixation because he, a transformers nerd, liked the giant robots

Played a game called "[Hermann] or Charlie Day, in which my friends were forced to guess whether it was me or Charlie Day that said the quote. Surprisingly, they won.

Presents were opened! I got 3 handmade drawings, a patch, a pillbug stuffed animal, and several fun toys and collectibles, including a Leatherback toy >:3 he came w a little building made of 4 pieces so you could stack it up and have him knock it over. Now I gotta get a Striker Eureka to fight him.

We had drift compatibility tests! I paired everyone with someone I thought they would coordinate well with and had them play kahoots. They all made their own Jaegar names too!

One of the only pictures I got 😔 you can vaguely see me all the way on the right in my lil tie.

Once drift compatibility tests were complete, our Jaegar pilots were sent out onto the field to take down a Kaiju (me)! I was thusly covered in silly string as my friends teamed up to fucking destroy me, and had to change my shirt. No more Newt :(

Cake.

We played gartic phone! I've included some of my favorites

I made everyone watch the Newmann supercut of Uprising as I explained in detail how they MASSACRED Newt's character but it's ok bc at least the yaoi is now toxic and I love that shit.

Had a campfire. Talked more about Pacific Rim until everyone went home

In conclusion, everything went really really well! Thanks so much for your help in planning! Can't wait to do it again next year when I turn 18!

[should-have-been-at-the-club]

Round 1 Match 17: They Should Have Been At The Club Tournament

Propaganda below the cut.

Propaganda for Delia Ketchum:

Okay, timeline wise, she must have had Ash when she was pretty young. Still an adult, but going off of her son being eternally 10, she must have been 19 based off what the Pokemon wiki says. Her husband went off to go be a trainer sometime, so she was also a single mom. I think she absolutely deserves to have been at the club just for that, since she didn't really get to experience adulthood for more than a year before she had a child to raise. Also based on more scattered lore for her she also had some big dreams of her own that she put aside both to run a restaurant she inherited and to raise her son. She should have been pursuing those dreams AND at the club.

Propaganda for Lewis Smith:

(Spoilers for Bang Brave Bang Bravern)

One: He's just been through so much. He's so young (tumblr would tell you that 24 is old but that's a lie). He needs a break, he can't keep going through all this without some time off to have fun. He deserves to relax and flirt. I'm removing him from the battlefield and putting him in a club where he can drink Kona beer and dance badly and flirt with other men before realizing that the only man he wants to flirt with is the one he's been pining for since the beginning of the show. That's it, that's what the explosion did, it just brought him to a normal club without homicidal giant robots. He's fine.

Two: Big spoilers ahead! Also this is still an ongoing story!

First of all he's 24, prime club age. Second of all he just cannot get a break: during a normal military exercise he was part of, the Earth was attacked by aliens and a big part of his unit just died. Then the super robot that showed up to save the rest of them rejected him (Lewis is a big fan of super robot shows and tried to pilot the robot instead of the guy who was having a panic attack trying *not* to pilot the robot again). Then he gets his ass kicked by a comatose girl. Then he gets rejected by another super robot (he tried to play the role of the rival since he couldn't be the protagonist) and almost dies in the process. Then he realizes that the only way to save his friends from an evil super robot is to blow it up, and blows *himself* up at the same time. He might not be really dead, we don't know, there's some time travel bs going on. We're all still very sad. Also he apparently had a rough childhood (strongly hinted at by staff, should be shown in the series in a few episodes at most). Third of all he's very gay, I've rarely seen a character yearn so much for another man. We all think he'll end up being the love interest.

[digital-yuri-saga]

WALL•E and Unregulated Capitalism

So, we all know that the second half of WALL•E (Pixar, 2008) shows that apparently, in 700 years, the human race is all fat, “disabled” and “lazy”, right?

Except, the problem is, they didn’t get that way on their own.

WALL•E’s main message, in my mind, is that if left unchecked, capitalism will take away literally everything. And, you can see that: The Earth has been practically destroyed by pollution, and the human race has to live in a giant outer space cruise ship, confined to their reclining hover chairs and watching their holographic screens all day while they idly sip on their food, all Buy-N-Large(TM) brand.

What’s more - the tasks the humans would normally do, such as housekeeping, putting on makeup, teaching their babies everything they need to know to be able to Human properly, even piloting the damn ship - all of it is performed by robots who were made to take those tasks out of the humans’ hands.

But is that really it? No.

Part 1 - The First Half

At the beginning of the movie, we see WALL•E performing his programmed directive - to “clean up” the Earth by compacting all the trash on the ground into huge towers, and nothing else. There are dozens, if not hundreds of other WALL•E line robots who perform the same task, and they seem to be self-sufficient - they have their own shelter, they are solar-powered so they don’t have to rely on an outside source of energy, and they don’t seem to need anything else.

And then a dust storm happens and all of the robots are damaged except for one, the titular protagonist and the last of his kind.

The movie skips to 700 years later, at which point WALL•E seems to have gained some kind of individuality. He has plenty of spare parts to keep himself alive if needed, and more than that - He likes to collect things that the humans have left behind. He collects everything from twinkies to lighters to even VHS tapes, and he seems to love all of it - all the things that humans loved, that were left behind when they left Earth.

While we see WALL•E’s current daily life, we also get some context: The humans have left Earth as it is, and are now on a giant ship somewhere. This is revealed through an advertisement from Buy-N-Large, which was seemingly a prominent corporation in the world beforehand. They seem to have had control of everything, actually - we see an “Ultra-store”, gas station, and an unholy amount of other Buy-N-Large branded things, as well as enough advertisements to make the average person irate within seconds.

At some point, this company - who knows what they originally were - monopolized so much of everything that it had basically taken over what we see of Earth. Everything, everywhere was Buy-N-Large, and nothing else. There are even corporate-sponsored newspapers - promoting the propaganda they want regular people to hear.

We then get some blatant exposition in the form of an advertisement, fitting for the world as we see in the movie.

“Too much garbage in your face? There’s plenty of space out in space! BnL Starliners leaving each day, we’ll clean up the mess while you’re away.”

The mega-corporation was advertising vacations to the regular people, presumably also non-stop, in addition to the propaganda that the Earth was in trouble and everything sucked. Why not have a little escapism?

“The jewel of the BnL fleet - The Axiom! Spend your five-year cruise in style. Maided on 24-hours-a-day by our fully automated crew, while your captain and auto-pilot try to course for non-stop entertainment, fine dining…”

Here we get to see a glimpse of what humans looked like before they left - perfectly “normal”. There does seem to be some diversity in the people shown, too, though they are clearly actors who were likely cherry-picked and paid to promote this ship. I don’t see a single fat person in the ad, which is more likely implied to be because of the in-universe corporation choosing only the most conventionally attractive people to promote their product.

“…and with our all-access Hover Chairs, even grandma can join the fun! There’s no need to walk!”

Also, it seems that at least a small part of the intention of the hover chairs was to be a mobility aid for those who wouldn’t be able to get around a giant-ass cruise ship on foot. But, they weren’t just advertised to the elderly / disabled / people that needed them, they were advertised to everyone.

Everyone that could afford a “5-year” vacation on a giant cruise ship, anyway.

We don’t see what happens to those who may not be able to afford, or even get to, one of these ships. Presumably, they were left behind too. Would a giant capitalist regime let people on that couldn’t pay them? Doubtful.

After this, we see WALL•E discover the plant - a glimmer of hope. Something finally grew on Earth. And then, immediately after, a probe - presumably from BnL to try and find evidence that the Earth was sustainable for living - lands, carrying several EVE units, also presumably made by BnL. One of them is deployed from this ship, and she is activated and begins scanning her surroundings for life.

WALL•E follows this unit around and EVE pays him no mind, because he seemingly doesn’t have what she’s looking for. She is eventually frustrated with not being able to “complete her purpose” to the point of taking it out on her surroundings. The two finally exchange formalities, and once another dust storm passes by, WALL•E takes her back to shelter.

EVE seems to fall in love with all of WALL•E’s objects, just like he did, and then he shows her the plant. Detecting life, EVE’s programming overrides her free will and collects it as a sample, then forcibly shutting her down. WALL•E stays by her side the entire time until the ship comes back for her. He hitches a ride on the ship, not wanting her to be taken away forever, and it leaves for space with him, docking on the Axiom.

We see here that there is an immense amount of space junk orbiting Earth, and that BnL was even attempting to colonize the Moon.

After the EVEs are unloaded, we see some of the robot crew of the Axiom, who strictly conform to their directive. And, as soon as anyone steps out of line, police bots are summoned - and one of them sees the plant that EVE has found and takes her away.

Part 2 - The Second Half

After some robot hijinks, we see the state of humans 700+ years after they left Earth - All of them have become fat and seemingly unable to provide for themselves to a ridiculous extent. They are constantly bombarded by ads from the screens in front of them while the robots seemingly do everything else. Several generations have passed since the original humans boarded the ship. The robotic teachers are indoctrinating kids from a very young age about BnL - quote, “B is for Buy-n-Large, your very best friend.” The megacorp wants people to be dependent on them for everything - why else would they herd everyone into areas they have full control over?

Keep in mind that while these humans all seem to be fat and hover-chair bound - this seems to be enforced. As stated earlier, BnL wants people to be hopelessly dependent on them, because that’s how they stay in power.

WALL•E breaks one person’s immersion, and she looks around - she doesn’t immediately go back to what she’s looking at on the screen, and even helps WALL•E. She doesn’t go back to looking at her screen, either. She apparently didn’t even know the Axiom had a pool, even though she “could have” looked over and seen it at any time. That is how much control BnL had over these people’s lives.

EVE is brought directly to the cockpit of the ship, where the Auto-Pilot AI notices she has found a plant and wakes up the Captain. The Captain himself is victim to the same automation as everyone else. He simply goes through the motions, and then changes the time for everyone on the ship. After his morning announcements, in which another ad is shown, EVE is reactivated.

We then see the protocol for organic life being found - and a pre-recorded message from the then-current CEO of BnL. In this, he mentions that the microgravity of the ship could have caused some “slight bone loss”, an understatement, which leads me to wonder - Was the CEO telling the truth about the passengers’ state being due to the conditions outside the ship? Or was the complete immersion, to the point where the Captain of the ship remarks he didn’t know there was a jogging track, the real cause for their current state?

During a “why can’t I voice activate the book :(“ joke, WALL•E and EVE reunite, and EVE immediately rushes to hide him from the police bot and tries to warn him of something related. Hmm.

Once EVE is opened up, the plant seems to be gone somehow. EVE is deemed to be ‘defective’, and sent to the repair ward. This will be important later.

We then see the Captain analyze a sample of dirt that came from WALL•E, and out of curiosity, he then begins to look up topics related to Earth. Knowledge that he didn’t already have. Knowledge that Buy-N-Large did not educate him on, because they wanted him to be just as hopelessly dependent on them as the others.

We are then taken to the “repair ward” - where the “defective” robots go. Here we see robots with all sorts of erratic behavior, behavior that puts them out of line. When looking at these robots as if they were human, this can also be interpreted as stereotypical mental illness that this repair ward is trying to “cure”. WALL•E promptly causes a scene, accidentally freeing all of these robots, who parade him around and alert the attention of the police bots. The robots, meant to serve the passengers of the ship, are governed by their own police state.

WALL•E and EVE are framed as rebels, and they go down to the escape pod bay, where we can see a police robot deposit the plant necessary for the humans return to Earth into an escape pod so it isn’t found.

The police robots are programmed not only to enforce compliance on the robots, but to use deception to keep the humans as they are - hopelessly dependent on Buy-N-Large.

WALL•E goes after the pod, and is shot into space along with it. We then see that the pod is set for self-destruct, implying the robot’s intention was to destroy the plant. To kill any remaining hope that humans could return to Earth.

The plant is saved and WALL•E and EVE have some romantic moments in space, and we come back to the woman from earlier, who still has not turned her screen back on. She is still admiring the view of space from the giant windows as the others cruise by, immersed in their screens. She accidentally breaks another person’s immersion, the man from earlier, and they connect over seeing WALL•E outside.

We cut back to the cockpit, and the Captain is still doing research into everything he’s missed about Earth. The Auto-Pilot tries to get him to stop by setting the ship to “nighttime mode”, but he doesn’t listen and continues researching. He does not blindly follow the AI. The other two humans seem to rebel some, too, splashing pool water at each other with their feet, and then at a robot when it tells them not to.

WALL•E and EVE sneak back into the ship, and EVE tries to sneak through a trash chute back to the cockpit in order to deliver the plant. The Captain is overjoyed, but that turns to confusion and disappointment when he sees EVE’s memories of Earth. But, that doesn’t last very long, since he has that hope for a better Earth - the plant. They have to go back.

The Captain calls the Auto-Pilot down, who immediately tries to take back the plant, and when the Captain refuses to give the plant to it, it shows him a video - from the same Buy-N-Large CEO. And the CEO gives the message,

“…so, just stay the course. Um, rather than try and fix this problem, it’ll be easier for everyone to remain in space.”

”Rather than try and fix this problem, it’ll be easier for everyone to remain in space.”

Not that it would be impossible to solve.

It would be easier.

All of this - the programming the Auto-Pilot and police bots conformed to that led them to use deception to keep humans in space, the completely sedentary, fully immersed-in-ads states the humans were led into, the reason they have been up there for 700 years - all of it was because of the opinion of one man. One CEO. One CEO who decided that it was easier if humans never regained their autonomy, that it was easier if they never got back to a state where they could fend for themselves. He wanted this.

The Captain once again rebels against the AI from Buy-N-Large.

“I can’t just sit here and do nothing! That’s all I’ve ever done! That’s all everyone on this blasted ship has ever done! NOTHING!”

“I don’t WANT to survive! I want to live!”

The Captain - no, the humans don’t actually want this. And when they are given even a scrap of their agency back, by chance through WALL•E or otherwise - they want to do things their way. Not the way Buy-N-Large wants them to.

As soon as the Captain plainly denies the Auto-Pilot, it and the police bots still under Buy-N-Large’s will immediately go against the Captain. The plant is taken from his arms and thrown into the trash chute. And who manages to climb up the chute just then, but WALL•E. He tries to keep the Auto-Pilot from getting the plant, and the Auto-Pilot resorts to damaging another robot to get what “it” wants.

What Buy-N-Large wants.

Both of the robots are tossed down the trash chute, and the Auto-Pilot forcibly takes control of the ship.

But hope is not lost - WALL•E and EVE reawaken in the trash area, and they realize that WALL•E can be repaired if they get home. So, the two of them fly out of the trash area, going straight for the area where they will deposit the plant and turn the ship around.

The Auto-Pilot catches wind of this, and sends every police bot available after them. The Captain helps by hijacking the comms, telling WALL•E and EVE what to do. The “defective” robots from before help the two, and the Captain stages his own rebellion by causing a distraction. He manages to press the button to launch the return mode of the ship, and everybody’s immersion is broken at the same time. They are herded onto the same deck, and see reality for themselves - the Captain is struggling against his own robot. The Auto-Pilot ends up tilting the ship to get the Captain off of it, and because of this all of the humans fall out of their chairs and begin sliding helplessly downhill.

Mind you, these people have just been broken out of their entranced state induced by Buy-N-Large - likely for the first time. They may never have moved a muscle outside of changing what they were watching, or grabbing a cup - all because Buy-N-Large wanted it that way. They have all just been given their agency back for the first time. And, after the humans are almost killed by transportation vehicles because of the Auto-Pilot, and WALL•E ends up squashed in the plant deposition chamber because of the Auto-Pilot, the Captain stands up for himself.

Literally.

It may not be true for every single human on the ship, but they have always had the ability to stand up for themselves, literally and figuratively. Buy-N-Large - the mega-corporation - tried to snuff all of that autonomy out.

The Captain is able to walk - albeit with difficulty - over to the Auto-Pilot and turn it off, and the ship is turned back upright. Some of the other humans can be seen standing up too in this scene, so these specific humans may not have needed mobility aids - this is unclear. But, either way, they, along with everyone else, were forced into them, necessary or not, for Buy-N-Large’s purposes.

Together, everyone manages to pass the plant to EVE, who tosses it into the deposition chamber. The course is set for Earth, and the humans fall over again as the ship launches at hyper-speed towards its destination. The Axiom lands on Earth, and the humans step out onto its surface for the first time.

One notable thing I see in the background at this point - you can see one human walking with the help of a robot as a mobility aid. Despite their autonomy being returned, some of the humans may still need mobility aids, and that’s okay. That’s normal.

WALL•E is repaired, he and EVE have their happy ending, and, meanwhile, the humans set out to rebuild. The scene pans backwards to see the progress the humans have made - and a lot more plants. And then the movie ends.

The credits show more of this progress, with the humans making progress as the visuals “evolve”, seen with the evolution of art - likely not to imply that the humans were in a “devolved” state, but to emphasize just how much was being done - and, hopefully, the influence of Buy-N-Large is gone forever.

Part 3 - Afterword

Disney-Pixar’s WALL•E is not about how, if left to their own devices, humans will become lazy and ruin the planet.

WALL•E is about how, if left unregulated, capitalism will strip away the freedoms humans have outside of their interactions with their products, to the point where they are hopelessly dependent on them, because nothing else exists.

We don’t see very much of the more controversial parts of humanity in WALL•E - homelessness, real (not artificially induced) disability, the differing opinions of humans - because capitalism in that world has tried (and almost succeeded!) in stamping those out.

Sometimes, a narrative will not include everything that exists to tell itself.

I believe, for a movie made in 2008 (16 years ago, almost two decades at this point!), WALL•E makes a great point. That point is not about the hopelessness of humanity, but the dangers of capitalism.

Was it insensitive, in retrospect, to portray that by way of making all of humanity fat and “lazy”?

Yes, but they were never “lazy” in the first place. They were made that way through several hundred years of indoctrination by the corporation - the capito-fascist regime that had control over their very existence. As soon as they gained their autonomy back, they used it to stand up for themselves - taking the “hard way” out.

Does it demonize mobility aids through this? No. The hover-chairs used as mobility aids throughout the movie were partially intended to be mobility aids for those who needed it - Buy-N-Large abused those to give themselves another layer of control over the humans. We also see a human still using a mobility aid at the end of the movie, a walker, when everyone steps off the ship.

Would this movie hold up to 2024’s standards for fat representation? It definitely seems like this isn’t the case. But, the movie was made in 2008. It would be impossible to properly hold a film to standards that came into play after it was created.

TL;DR: WALL•E doesn’t think humans will end up lazy - but they may be subjected to capitalist fascism.

[tomaturtles]

WHAT'S CAMPUS APOCALYPSE....

I'M SO GLAD YOU ASKED Campus Apocalypse (also known as Gakuen Datenroku) is an Evangelion spinoff manga!!! It has 4 volumes and 22 chapters, and it's basically an AU series with an action-y shonen feel to it.

It retains a lot of the cast and some elements from the anime, but for the most part does its own thing with the lore! Instead of piloting giant robots, the kids fight angels using these magic-y weapons (Shinji has a gun, for example), and the angels themselves are very different from the main series too. It can be odd at times, but it's a pretty fun and interesting take on the series imo!

The plot gets a little wild at times and the ending is sadly pretty rushed (I think it got cancelled?), but it's a fairly quick read and has enough neat concepts along the way that I feel it's worth checking out! :] (i am of course biased, but y'know)

What Personally makes me so fond of it is that it has more of the main 4 kids as friends, as well as features Kaworu as one of the main characters and introduces him right at the beginning! He gets to interact more with Rei and Asuka, as well as has more time with Shinji, and I really really love how his and Shinji's relationship is developed.

It's not as explicitly Romantic as in the anime (CA mostly focuses more on the friendships; there's some ship tease and it occasionally leans towards Shinji/Rei, but the romantic stuff is vague enough that you can see what you wanna see for the most part imo), but it's still very sweet and meaningful all the same. The development of their friendship is a significant part of the story, and it's not that hard to view it in a romantic light. It's like. Friends to lovers kawoshin. To me

IN SHORT: Campus Apocalypse has a different vibe from the anime and has some interesting stuff, but it may be just kind of average as a whole. BUT it does some specific things really well imo and said things are like catnip to me. If you too enjoy seeing the main four interacting and being friends and Shinji and Kaworu's relationship being able to take more time to develop, it may be worth checking out!

[gatormeister]

Gundam SEED Finished!

So, I came into this show with no idea what to expect. I was uncertain of how I'd think of the series, and even partly expected it would disappoint. Anyways, Gundam SEED deserves every bit of praise it's received. The show is genuinely fantastic.

Yes, the show re-uses a lot of ideas from UC Gundam, I mean if I didn't just watch through SEED, I probably wouldn't be able to tell the Archangel from the White Base. You have the story begin in a neutral colony, with the colony being destroyed, several civilian teenagers recruited to fill out the positions on an experimental battleship, and one kid who's special because he's the only one who can pilot the giant robot. It's not exactly the most subtle throw back, but even in that first half of the show, SEED manages to stop itself from feeling like a carbon copy of 0079 thanks to the show's greatest strength. Its characters and the different dynamics going on between them.

You have Murrue and Natarle and the tension over what decisions Murrue should make as Captain, neither one of them being entirely wrong or right most of the time. You have Kira and Athrun, neither one wants to be fighting the other, but circumstances forcing them to come to blows frequently and violently. You have the whole Heliopolis kids particularly Sai, Kira, and Flay. How all three of them clearly want to be able to just sit down and talk things out with each other at various points, but are too afraid to actually suggest it. Flay is a fantastic character with fantastic character development both positive and negative btw just thought I should mention that.

But then you get to Orb, and everything starts to feel almost entirely original from that point on straight to the finish line. And all throughout the last half its characters are going strong as ever. Especially the ones with less of a chance to shine in the first half.

My one biggest complaint would be in regards to Chairman Zala and Azrael. They're ultimately just monstrous people who do monstrous things in positions of power. The Chairman at least gets something to him being Athrun's father. Azrael and the Earth Alliance as a whole feel kind of empty. We hear about stuff, but the show never really has anyone on the inside to follow and show what they're all about until the very end.

All that aside, the next show I'll be watching is Gundam SEED Destiny. I didn't know what to expect from SEED, and came out loving it. This show however, even when I see people who enjoyed it's basically never all praise. I am both excited to see what happens next for the Cosmic Era and concerned about finding out why so many people came to hate it. I'll be watching through either way, so hopefully it's at least entertaining.

[sennerixx]

𝗠𝘆 𝗼𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝗔𝗹𝗹𝘂𝗿𝗮.

I've not watched all eight seasons in a while so I'm going off on what I can remember from the top of my head so I could get parts wrong. Please feel free to share your own views in the comments.

Now, I know the fandom mainly hates Allura (from what I've seen anyway) primarily because she seems bratty, self-absorbed, or "used Lance as a rebound" not to mention she had been completely discrimtive towards Keith after finding out he was half-Galra for at least two episodes.

I agree half and half with this statement, I'll explain both views.

The reason I agree is that Allura had been bratty, self-absorbed, or used Lance as a rebound because you can use the excuse that she is young, and no way should have been given the power and leadership she was given. She wasn't mature enough for it. It's like asking an eighteen-year-old to run for a country.

While I understand her character gradually developed and she became more and more mature, it was still forced upon her way to early. In the early episodes, she seemed very bratty and demanding of the paladins to form Voltron, who not to mention had just left their home planet, their lives, in a giant robotic lion, met aliens, and fought against an entire evil force and were only sixteen to eighteen? While they managed to form Voltron, I felt that Allura was pressuring them far too hard.

And when Keith, to what we can assume as we never saw it, let team Voltron know he was half Galra, not only did she struggle to meet his eyes but continued to appraise Hunk while ignoring Keith's efforts on the mission following. I can understand most of her entire race was wiped out because of the Galra but it was like Keith had been the one to slay his father or thousands of people.

With Lance, she knew Lance loved him from early on, it was pretty obvious yet continued to drag it out and then suddenly decided she loved him right after being with Lotor? to me, it really seems like she was just a rebound while Lance loved her with everything he had and that she just took advantage of that factor.

However, I also see her as a good character with decent character development. Overtime, we can see how she gradually develops into a powerful, strong character.

For example, when she began to pilot the Blue Lion she unlocked new abilities that Lance hadn't been able to, or how she gradually warmed up to Keith and accepted him, I believe she apologized for her behavior towards Keith too. And when the castle was corrupted, despite being early on, she made the first step to fight against the illusions and made the correct choice to delete her father's AI.

The first time they went to the Blamera, she risked herself to revive the planet and save it from further harm, another good intention. While Allura seems to be misguided sometimes, she mostly does have good intentions for the universe.

Overall, I think her character wasn't bad or completely shit but I do think she could've handled certain aspects of situations a lot better than she had and I love her character design just not so much her personality.

[comicaurora]

So, you mentioned on the podcast that you were watching some classic-era Gundam.

For the season(s) you've watched, assuming you're not planning on suddenly taking the plunge and making a Universal Century Detail Diatribe, would you mind sharing your opinion so far? Universal Century can be a bit divisive, but I always enjoy seeing people's opinions on it. I have mixed feelings on some of the decisions made, myself, but in the grand scheme of things I enjoy what I've seen so far. (Especially Unicorn, but that's not really classic era.)

Also, I'd like to reccomend watching (or reading!) Gundam The Origin, since it acts as a really good, pretty, (and in the anime's case, short) prequel series to the original.

It's interesting! I've watched the compilation movies for 1 and 2 and most of 3, and I can't tell if they lost the plot after 1 or if the writers were being really, really scathing in a subtle way.

1 was incredibly blatant about how Amuro is a traumatized kid who got strongarmed into being the gundam pilot and using it to kill people, something that he clearly absolutely hates - and it's pretty overt that the Federation Force is more than willing to mulch up as many child soldiers as they want in order to win. The movies, and I assume the show they're compiled from, go out of their way to show that there are sympathetic young people on both sides of the conflict that just want to be free of this war, and there are also right bastards on both sides that are willing to be very callous with the lives of others. You can, of course, always identify who the compassionate people are by how pretty they are, and all the right bastards by how grotesque they are. It's pretty unsubtle about that being the core of the narrative, and they really twist the knife at certain points, like when Amuro's mother is horrified and ashamed at him self-defense-killing a Zeon soldier that was actively menacing her refugee camp, and Amuro concluding that she doesn't love him and he truly has no family to go back to.

By 2, things have gotten a little confusing, and I'm inclined to assume this is because the compilation movies had to make some cuts that would've made the character arcs flow a little more smoothly. Amuro decides to leave the whole war behind, which makes sense, but he takes the gundam, which doesn't. They introduce this thread that Amuro is extremely attached to the gundam and very proud of his ability to pilot it, and he has an actual breakdown when he learns that other members of the crew are now trained in its operation and can use it just fine, if not quite as skillfully as he can. It seems like there was a bit of a lurch from "Amuro has been unwillingly dragged into this nightmare and is forced to fight again and again despite his extremely obvious PTSD" to "Amuro refuses to let go of the giant robot that tethers him TO this nightmare," and while it's very interesting in the implications, it doesn't exactly flow cleanly. In fact, this is where there seems to be a bit of a shift from "war is bad" to "wow! cool robot." Amuro goes from PTSD-catatonia every time he destroys an enemy mobile suit to counting them during fight scenes, which is kind of a chilling indicator of the mechanized horror he's becoming accustomed to - assuming that was on purpose and not just a broad defanging of the story to do more Cool Robot Fights.

But the thing is, there's this subplot sometime around 2 or 3 involving a bunch of actual toddlers that have been hanging around on the ship - because it started as a refugee vessel escaping the destruction of a colony, so there's a lot of women (who are now conscripted pilots, of course, and shockingly badass for the era it came out in) and children onboard, and they've been stuck on the front lines running from Zeon with almost no ground support because the Federation likes throwing the gundam at things too much to care about a handful of six-year-olds potentially getting mulched. But throughout this little arc, the kids are finally on track to getting rehomed on Earth by the military - something that the kids are unhappy about because they've got a whole Found Family thing going, but Amuro approves of them leaving, saying "little kids shouldn't see people killing each other," which aligns very firmly with how he is a kid who hates all the killing he's stuck in.

Except then the happy ending is that the six-year-olds get to stay on the warship because they recently helped out with bomb disposal and "they've seen things you guys can't imagine, they don't want to leave!" And this is either really losing the plot or absolutely brilliant spiteful writing on the part of the creative team, because as I understand it, executive meddling was pushing them to include newer, flashier, more colorful giant robots (weapons of war and untold suffering that our teen hero has been trapped in by a mechanized war machine that has effectively enslaved him for his talents) to push toys to the exact age demographic of those chipper six-year-olds. It's almost like the teenage child soldiers are turning out to directly face the camera and saying "what's the difference between forcing us onto the front lines and letting these precocious youngsters keep flinging themselves into the crossfire? Gotta sell more gunplas, right?"

So if that was on purpose, I really liked it. If not, it's kinda hearbreaking to see the show gradually start pulling its punches in favor of turning the Oops All Babies warship into a heartwarming found family situation.

Also they started really banging the "newtypes are the plot now" drum in 3 and once everyone started getting psychic powers I kinda lost steam tbh

[highly-important]

Thoughts on the Venture Bros Movie

I absolutely love this series and periodically get obsessed with it. The last two seasons were especially some of my favorites. I enjoyed the movie, it really felt like an episode. Any complaints I have are really in the "I loved it but the portions are too small" category.

I love that Shoreleave and Dr. Girlfriend are friends. I think this was kind of established earlier. It just makes sense.

I like how Brock - who knows Rusty better than anybody for better or worse- went to the bat defending Rusty to the OSI. And that Brock's shining moment isn't him being super kill guy.

Along those lines, I like how Rusty's entire arc this show is realizing to some degree or another that he isn't a failure. His father was able to present an idealized image of himself to the public, and it meant Rusty growing up under a shadow he could never live up to. But the reality is Rusty isn't as incapable as he or others believe he is.

We’ve kind of gotten this growth with Rusty during the show so we don’t need it as much in the movie. But it’s very interesting that he can use his brother’s robot to save not only the building but “restore” the destroyed Venture compound. I think it’s Rusty really earning his own legacy.

Plus his attempt to build something Jonas Jr-ish just made something super Science-y. Maybe he’s returning to his true calling

I like how the movie represents Dr. Girlfriend's powers. Yes, she is good at fighting, and is intelligent enough to build super science tech, but her strength is also in her diplomacy and the loyal connections she builds. Part of that is that when she is in trouble, others come to her aid. And her challenge in the movie is a test of her negotiation and diplomacy. I like that the movie takes time to give her this moment.

You can really see how Hank got a lot of his personality from Debra.

Debra’s tech was really cool and I love the scene on the train platform. Its a little frustrating that we don’t get more, but I think Venture Bros is very good at building expectations and then letting your imagination fill in the gaps.

I think this is partially because Venture Bros often ends at the climax and skips over the resolution. The building tension makes you want answers. And often the end-credit sequence gives us the pieces to put the puzzle together without handing it to us. It creates a sandbox and asks you to play in it.

Gary is just living his best life. He got a grappling gun and got to co-pilot a giant robot.

Hank's multiple personalities was never something I'd imagine getting conclusion on, but I'm glad they did. It kind of reminds me of Return to Oz, where at the beginning Ozma is free to wander around the real word, but is trapped in a mirror in Oz. And at the end that reverses. Hank doesn’t destroy these pieces of himself, he just puts them in a place where they can’t control him.

Dean's plot was kind of interesting, there was rumor that one of the brothers would be a protag and one would become an arch. Dean is so worried that his negative life experiences are going to ruin him and prevent him from having the type of life he wants to have. But sometimes things aren't as bad as we think they are. And I think it suggests he can stay with his brother and not be damaged by the experience

Hank and Dean are both controlled by vivid imaginations in different ways. Hank imagines how good things could be, and Dean imagines how bad things could be. Meeting his mother is never going to be as good or cathartic or as healing as Hank imagines it, just as reality isn’t as horrible as Dean imagines it.

I really like the story structure of this show where an emphasis is put on something - like who is the mother - and then the mystery is eventually dropped. But the reality is that who is their mother isn't as important. Hank didn't need to find his mom, and finding her wont give him what he wants. He needed to reconnect with his brother. But it’s also fun that we can solve this puzzle on our own, it’s just not the point.

Of course, I think it does mean Dean is heir to the guild.

I wasn't expecting the twist with the Monarch at all, and in retrospect I think I should have ? Its really interesting how well it fits with Rusty's arc the entire show. Rusty turns his hatred inwards and blames himself for not being his dad. Now that Malcolm understands his unconscious thoughts, it shifts his relationship to arching from an impulse to a choice.

[qberryshortcake]

Are you wondering how to get into Gundam and need an autistic transbian with insomnia to help guide you? Well you're in fucking luck!

Happy for u tho/I'm sorry

Start with either Witch From Mercury, Iron Blooded Orphans, or Mobile Suit Gundam. All three you can go in blind and have a grand old time. WFM is the lesbian one though, and my proper intro to the franchise.

What even is a Gundam?

Let's get a little vocabulary out of the way. A Mobile Suit is a bipedal giant mech, generally with one pilot, that uses a combination of mounted weapons and weapons held in the mobile suit's hands. This can be railguns, tank cannons, missile launchers, or a good old fashioned energy sword.

Are all mobile suits Gundams?

No, actually! It's a poodles/dogs situation. All Gundams are mobile suits, but not all mobile suits are Gundams.

What makes Gundams special?

It varies from series to series. In some it's that they use a special power source. In others it's a direct interface with its users. They often require less training than other mobile suits, and have a much higher skill ceiling. No matter what, one rule is more or less universal: only a Gundam can beat another Gundam. This is one of the driving forces for every antagonist. It's also why these shows get so heady.

Who is Char Aznabke?

The antagonist of Mobile Suit Gundam (see below). He's iconic, charismatic, stylish, and machiavellian. There is a Char in every Gundam spinoff. It gives you a sense of dramatic irony knowing that, because if nobody is wearing the mask, you're trying to figure out who will. And if somebody is, you're wondering what they'll do.

Okay, where do I start?

Let's bring out the timeline chart (bear with me):

This may seem intimidating at first, but once you break it down, it starts to become a bit more scrutable.

The first thing to understand is that Gundam has a singular canon timeline, the Universal Century, and the rest are spinoffs. You could theoretically start down any of these timelines and have a grand old time. That being said, some starting points are better than others.

Universal Century - if you're down with old animation, you can't go wrong with watching the original Mobile Suit Gundam! You can start with Gundam Origin to learn about Char Aznable's backstory, or jump straight into the original anime

Future Century - This is one of the weirdest wildest Gundam series with Mobile Fighter G Gundam. I haven't seen this one and I personally wouldn't start here? But hey if you want a giant robot tournament where every country has a themed Gundam that has sliiiiight racist vibes? Uh well then this is truly one of the shows in all of Gundam.

After Colony - This is where a lot of us originally bounced off of the series. Gundam Wing was what was on Toonami back in the day. The dub isn't...great, and the story is *extremely* edgy. That being said is is rife with ship bait and Deathscythe is an incredible Gundam design. All the same themes, just very hamhanded.

Correct Century - this takes place in the far far future, and technically the previous three timelines converge on this one. It's so far in the future that Gundams are practically a myth. This is Turn A Gundam, or as it's usually stylized, Ɐ Gundam. I haven't gotten to this one yet, but I love the moustachio'd design of the titular Ɐ Gundam. I wouldn't necessarily start here, just because this one kind of assumes the viewer has seen at least a Gundam before. From what I've heard at least.

Cosmic Era - While I own several gunpla from this series, I have only seen an episode! It's... I've never heard a single good word about this one. As far as I know it is more geared toward younger viewers, which also means it is the most shamelessly about advertising gunpla...well other than a couple other series we'll get to.

Anno Domini - okay here is where it gets a little odd because there's multiple timelines that use this abbreviation. The first is Gundam 00, or Double O (not zero). This one is really fun. It takes the edge from Wing and makes it kind of humorous. A slow burn, where you realize that maybe a single force having a monopoly on violence, made up entirely of child soldiers is,,,not the best idea? Great place to start.

Anno Domini - Gundam Build Fighters and Mobile Suit Gunpla Raiders G are, charitably, celebrations of the gunpla hobby. I wouldn't start here.

Post Disaster - God I almost wish this had been my first series. Iron Blooded Orphans is about a bunch of dudes being guys. They escape from slavery and go into business for themselves, and get embroiled in a political conflict while escorting a princess back to Earth from Mars. Fantastic show, but it clocks in at 50 episodes, so keep that in mind if you start this one.

Ad Stella - this is where I started. Witch from Mercury is absolutely incredible. Just 26 episodes. It follows Suletta Mercury and Miorine Rembran, after the former wins a duel, and due to sci fi anime logic, becomes betrothed to the latter.

Great, anything else I should know?

I said this in another post but if you're still on the fence because giant robot shows you've seen in the past haven't been great, I get it. I was the same way. The point of the robots being humanoid is because it takes out the abstraction of using vehicles of war, without cutting down on the scale of the wars being fought. When a character, for example, goes to destroy a military base single-handedly, you get that disconnect.

Sure it's a pilot doing war things, but it's *very* different when your opponents are as outclassed as most things and a Gundam.

It's always been about the horrors of war, the victims of those wars, and the wounds and scars that are left on the soldiers of those wars. The cool robot is so that a character can lose an arm but still have to keep fighting. In some series that character may have felt the pain of losing an arm while jacked into their mobile suit. It brings a viscerality that fighting with planes, tanks, and starships simply wouldn't be able to replicate.

Oh. And uh. Gunpla. Gunpla are the Namco Bandai line of models. They all require minimal tools and no glue. They're generally posable and some are extremely posable. They come in 1:144, 1:100, and 1:60 scale (primarily). They're also not cheap. The smaller models cost around 30-50, but they get expensive quickly. So uh. Don't? Get into them?