#the british power to make any noun sound like an insult

[cs-operation-basilisk]

no, no one knows how I look without my mask.

(DON'T LOOK AT MY PFP YOU DOLT)

[thanksjro]

More Than Meets the Eye #7- Just in Case You Forgot Decepticons Were a Thing

While the Lost Light gets all of Rung’s appointments in order, our narrative is going to take a little shift, so we can get to know some pretty neat dudes.

And by “neat dudes” I mean completely morally and ethically reprehensible bastards.

But first, here’s a brief history of the Phase-Sixer known as Black Shadow.

Very limber, Mr. Shadow. Also, note the abstract sort of Decepticon insignia shape going on with the panel. That’s just neat.

Now, Black Shadow’s kicked a lot of keister in his long, storied career as a ‘Con, which makes his current situation all the more bleak, as he’s in the final throes of a visit with the Decepticon Justice Division.

The guy with the arm-mounted cannon that’s clearly compensating for something is Tarn, the leader of the DJD. His main character trait is he’s sapiosexual, but only for Megatron. He’s so devoted to the Decepticause and its rhetoric, he wears a mask of the insignia at all times.

Behind him are Helex and Tesaurus, who turn into a fondue pot and industrial-sized blender, respectively, and Vos, who turns into a sniper rifle, and was once fired by Megatron himself. I assume he’s only part of the DJD for the clout.

And then there’s Kaon, who turns into a wheelie chair.

Black Shadow’s looking pretty rough, but the boys haven’t killed him yet, and there’s a reason for that; the DJD’s sole reason for existing is to punish any Decepticon who stalls the glory of Megatron’s vision of a better tomorrow coming to fruition, no matter how slight the infraction, and simply killing their victims doesn’t exactly drive the point home, now does it? They’ve got to make an example, you know?

But really it’s so Tarn can pontificate. See, he considers himself a bit of an intellectual, as shown in his quoting of Megatron’s autobiography, Towards Peace.

Ugh, He’s a fanboy. It’s enough to make you want to puke. Which Black Shadow does. It’s mostly blood. Or is it? Hard to tell, energon is everything for these guys.

The DJD have had their fun, so now it’s time for them to say goodbye to Black Shadow. This is where Tarn’s special talent comes into play, and it’s a nasty one.

Tarn has a unique voice, one that, when matching the timbre and frequency of another ‘bot’s spark, can be used to affect said spark, even making it give up the ghost. This is exactly what he does to Black Shadow, but not before making him apologize for selling out the Decepticons for a butt-ton of money.

Speaking of unique voices, Tarn’s characterization is almost completely in his. It makes sense, given his power, that he have a way of speaking that stands out from everyone else. It’s smooth, and cool, and seems well-rehearsed; this is not a guy who stumbles on his words. He sounds like a Bond villain.

Roberts has admitted that he wrote these characters with English accents, and while I can’t say that I buy it for everyone in MTMTE, I certainly do for Tarn.

But maybe that’s just because I’m American, and a lot of the media I consumed growing up had the whole “the villain sounds British/camp gay” thing going on.

Anyway.

Black Shadow explodes, because we haven’t had one of those in a while.

With another tick put on their List, the DJD get ready to move on to their next target. We don’t get any names, but whoever they are, they’re about to have a very bad day.

Then we take a quick jump back to the Lost Light, since things were kind of a massive mess when we last saw everyone.

Rung’s not dead, by the way. I guess Swerve really is just that bad of a shot. Still, he’s not much more than a brain on a rope, and that means that Rung’ll be out of commission for a good while.

Poor Swerve. He feels so awful about this whole thing, even brought Rung one of his little ships to keep him company. The worst part is, now that Swerve’s shot the therapist, who will he talk to so he can work through having shot the therapist?

Speaking of guys who need therapy, Red Alert comes visiting in the dead of night, after visiting hours and in cover of darkness. He tells Rung about the little surprise he found in the basement, and bids him farewell, as he will surely be killed now that he knows about Overlord.

Who the hell programmed that drone to be so menacing?

Red Alert, again showing that this ain’t his first paranoia rodeo, slips a data slug full of Overlord bondage footage into the hole where Rung’s thumb should be- guess it got lost in the helter-skelter when he got shot- then walks out of the medibay, presumably to die.

Anywho, that’s enough of the Autobots for a little while. Let’s see what the Decepticons are up to.

On a planet far from wherever the Lost Light is faffing about, a Decepticon wakes up to a bunch of dudes hovering over him, insulting his looks, and stealing his organs. He reacts accordingly.

This is Fulcrum. No, not the Decepticon medic from Eugenesis, different guy. This Fulcrum’s primary function is probably about as removed from healing as it gets.

The guys trying to harvest him are the Scavengers, and they’re pretty surprised that he’s not dead, because, well…

Yeah.

Misfire- the dude who got kicked in the face a second ago- does both Fulcrum and the reader a solid by introducing all the members of this merry band of assholes, starting with the surliest of their ranks.

Crankcase was first introduced into the IDW run in Stormbringer #3, where he shot at Thunderwing and spouted off a couple lines ripped straight from a porno.

Stormbringer is really just… something else.

Spinister, who can and will shoot anything that meets his unpredictable criteria of being a threat, is the only other Scavenger who isn’t debuting in the comics with this issue. He was in Stormbringer #4, not that he really did anything of note there.

There’s Flywheels, who can’t tell a lie without transforming, and is a born-again evangelical. His character is a removal from his previous iterations, as he’s a triple-changer instead of a Duocon, a robot that only exists if two separate sentient vehicles combine. So, in his case, tank + plane = giant robot. Transformers is weird.

Then there’s the leader of this group, the ever-stressed, glorified babysitter, Krok.

Krok takes the opportunity to save Fulcrum from the verbal barrage, explaining that the Scavengers are expropriation specialists, meaning that they take people’s shit for their own benefit, and that includes bodily fluids. Misfire was supposed to be siphoning energon from the corpses in the area, but accidentally got high on another dude’s supply in the process. Misfire may be hopped up on drugs at the moment, but he’s only a bit more put-together sober, so this really is roughly par for the course with him.

Back on the Lost Light, Chromedome pays a visit to Brainstorm, who is currently hanging from the ceiling. Not in a suicidey way, mind you, just in a Brainstorm way.

He wants to be noticed so badly.

Chromedome’s here because he managed to steal Skid’s weirdly forgettable gun back in issue #4, while Skids was busy harassing that bar drone. He handed it off to Brainstorm to try and figure out what the deal was. Problem is, the gun blew up the moment Brainstorm cracked it open, only allowing him to get a quick look at the internals thanks to his super-futuristic robot eyes. All he can really say is that it looks like something that came from The Institute. Back at it again with the ominous proper nouns.

Getting back to the Scavengers, it looks like the boys have set up a little campfire for the evening. It’s a gorgeous night.

In love with the colors this issue.

We get a very brief history lesson that shows us why reducing your workforce to a spreadsheet instead of living, free-thinking creatures isn’t a super great idea, and then Krok drops the bomb on Fulcrum about the war being over. This is pretty wild to Fulcrum, probably because after 4 million years of that nonsense, you don’t really expect it to ever actually end.

Of course, when the impossible turns out to be possible after all, there’s only one question to really ask: who won?

Now, none of the guys really know how everything ended, only going off of the pulse wave that Vector Sigma shot off during the reformatting of Cybertron. They figure it was probably the Autobots, because they’re at least a little genre savvy. Bummer for them, considering they’re technically part of the bad guys. Just ask the campfire.

You know, I don’t think this is what President Roosevelt had in mind when he started doing fireside chats.

And so our location is finally revealed to us- this is the planet known as Clemency. Hey, wasn’t that the place Tarn said their next target was? Man, that really sucks for these guys. Hope they’ve got their wills in order.

Meanwhile, in the medibay of the Lost Light, Rung has another late-night visitor. This guy takes the data slug from inside his thumb hole, thus removing any hope of Red Alert’s fate being found out. Well dang.

Back on Clemency, the boys have made it through the night, and are using the light of daybreak to start scrounging up parts for their super sweet ship, the Weak Anthropic Principle.

Hold on to your butts, because this one’s a doozy.

The Anthropic Principle is based in the school of philosophy, and states that any and all observations about the universe- or any universe, really- have to be fed through the filter of realizing that said universe is only observable because it allows for sapient life to exist and observe it. There are two flavors of this principle; the strong anthropic principle states that the universe has some sort of compelling force which dictates it be able to house life which can observe it, while the weak anthropic principle basically says that the only reason we’re even considering the strong anthropic principle is because we live in a universe where we can.

Now, why exactly Roberts decided to bring this philosophical idea into the fold completely escapes me, unless he decided to, in a roundabout way, poke fun at the fact that we are currently observing a universe we don’t exist in through the magic of fiction- that theory doesn’t hold water, though, because there are still sapient creatures populating the universe of the IDW comics, and even humans at that. I’m curious where he even learned about this. What an odd, confounding tidbit of information this is.

But enough about that, because Misfire’s just seen a cryptid.

He transforms and blasts past Fulcrum and Krok, interrupting Krok’s explanation of what the device he keeps hidden in his fist is for, trying to catch up to the Necrobot.

The very same, Fulcrum, thank you.

Misfire is a firm believer in the Necrobot, while Krok is firmly not. Misfire’s tried chasing down this guy several times now, but he’s not caught him. The Necrobot is kind of like Bigfoot, if he were also a Catholic priest. This go doesn’t prove any different for poor Misfire, though it’s not all bad.

Flywheels’ only purpose as a character is so that Roberts had a stand-in for the word “fuck” for this issue.

Misfire’s found something very exciting, and he immediately calls Krok to bring everyone over.

Everyone’s super jazzed about finding this thing, and they break out the flashlights and break in to see all the fun stuff that’s inside this obnoxiously large ship.

Of course, this is a Roberts story, and we haven’t yet had any sort of scientifically experimental horrors yet, so we’re honestly a little overdue at this point.

But wait, there’s more!

Aww, it’s nice that Fulcrum and Krok already have each other’s contact info.

Everyone regroups and they weigh their options. Misfire fucking hates this ship, and wants nothing to do with it. Fulcrum however, isn’t so quick to throw this entire nightmare bus off the cliff. Fulcrum’s a little weird, and not just because he looks like he’s got a military pack on and no shirt.

Oh honey, you got a storm coming.

As if on cue, Krok starts hearing music, and asks around for a phone. He picks up a transmission from a familiar masked face. Tarn lets the fellas know that one of them has done a big no-no, and if the others hand the transgressor over, he’ll let them watch, because Tarn assumes that that’s something other people are into. Tarn is bad at people. The transmission ends, leaving the boys to panic, and also wonder where the leader of the DJD learned to count, until they find a very special friend deep within the bowels of the ship. The extra life signal, and the only other living thing on the Worldsweeper- Grimlock.

[his-naughty-little-kitten]

On SebaCiel and other things

I am greatly surprised that nobody had written about this before. To be honest, I'm even more surprised at how some SebaCiel shippers simply take the blame when they are called pedophiles, rape apologists, and abuse supporters. So I thought it was time already to clarify some misconceptions that those antis have burned so strongly in their own minds.

1.- So we are all pedophiles...

 pedophile

[ped-uh-fahyl or, esp. British, pee-duh-]

noun, Psychiatry.

An adult who is sexually attracted to young children.

I always find this one very funny. They think we are all attracted so children! Oh, my god... Let me tell you something, this one is even funnier when those who say it then ship Ciel with someone else too, be it Lizzy, an OC or any other character. Because, you know, Ciel is the problematic part of this argument.

Of course, everybody has their own favorite character, but when it comes to the SebaCiel shippers, what is it that they find so appealing about the ship? I understand I cannot answer this in the name of the whole fandom, but I think a good part of it will agree on the following; we do not fantasize about Ciel.

I am not going to argue about how SebaCiel is not ilegal, problematic or immoral in it's most pure form, because everybody knows that already. Any normal person with some common sense as well as the ones who, like me, study law, are well aware that underaged girls and boys date older men rather often, that love is not regulated or penalized and that child abuse is only a crime when there is a sexual behavior. Liking someone, regardless of the age, is not a crime unless you act on it.

So I am going to skip the introduction and go right to the problematic point; yes, there are a lot of SebaCiel supporters who ship it sexually, me among them. Does this mean that they're all depraved old men who hoard child porn on their computer and jerk off to it? Who knows. Maybe some do, maybe some don't, maybe some Cielizzy fans do, since they ship children too. But the point is, what's the profile (from a statistical point of view) of the average SebaCiel shipper?

We know the majority of the Kuroshitsuji fandom is female. We know that based on GFantasy (Kuroshitsuji publishing magazine) surveys as well as the author's word, and it can be easily proved. We also know that a big part of the readers' ages range from 14 to twenty-something, which can also be proved through GFantasy surveys, or simply checking around the profiles of the Kuroshitsuji bloggers. This gives us an idea of what kind of age and gender the shippers might be, as well as probably reject the dirty old man's theory. But, how is this relevant to the topic at all? A twenty-something young woman can't be a pedophile? Well, yes, she can. But it is unusual, again from a statistical point of view. But then, why do they ship it? And to answer this I have to travel back in time to the not so ancient times in which I was still an underaged high schooler who was starting to get into the series. A time in which many of my female classmates were all crazy over certain male teacher in his forties (yes, you read well, forties) and my best friend couldn't stop talking about her favorite male idol, who was at the very least ten years older than her. I don't know whether you find this shocking or not, but through my experience I was realizing the already well documented fact which is that young women tend to find older men more appealing. But this doesn't have anything to do with shipping, or even with Kuroshitsuji, does it?

Those who are into the yaoi/bl fandom are probably getting my point already. And this is because the japanese bl genre, which is in fact aimed at women, often uses feminine males as protagonists, so a female reader can relate, unlike the real gay erotica, which uses manlier characters, and similarly to the hetero erotica in which the heroine often represents the reader's ambitions. And I'm sure that you've guessed who the more feminine part of the SebaCiel ship is. Ciel is the perfect heroine. He's beautiful, domineering, hard to get, dresses cutely and has the hottest guy ever all to himself. So, do we find Ciel appealing? Yes, of course. He's a well written character with good looks and innate sexyness. Do we fantasize? For sure. Any woman dreams about putting on that lacy lingerie, knee-high stockings and stilettos just like him and seduce their man. But, is he arousing? Hmm... No. Or at least, not without Sebastian.

I don't know whether or not Cielizzy shippers (and other Ciel shippers) write smut, and to be honest I really don't want to know, but if there's something twisted in a handsome man getting it on with an underaged yet highly sexualized, borderline crossdresser boy in high-heeled boots, there must be something equally sick in an underaged girl getting it on with that very same boy.

And then why do we ship it? Because we like little children getting naked? No. Because we like older, handsome, dark, devilishly seductive, adult men getting naked, and we don't like to see them snatched away from us by some other woman, fictional or not. And since Ciel retains that feminine, yet not quite female appeal, he's the perfect match for the true object of our fantasies. And for that reason, I don't think that SebaCiel shippers are any more pedophilic than the rest of Ciel x (?) shippers.

2.- ... And we also promote child abuse...

 Rivers of ink have been spilled on this topic. By both parts. On how Ciel is or is not a child, the nature and requirements of consent, what and what not was child abuse in victorian era and how it translates into the contemporary world... I'm not in the mood to repeat all the arguments that have been given. Instead, I'm putting the canon universe aside and talk solely of the nature of law that, I'm aware, is very different in my country and the US.

First and foremost, in my country, sexual activities of any kind aren't considered child abuse when the underaged partner is older than 13, unless the teenager has been deceived to give his consent. Which means that it is licit as long as it is consensual, and promoting a licit act is, once again, not illegal. I am not breaking any law.

But then, what about morals? Yes, I've read a lot of posts of morality and immorality regarding this topic. It is funny how those who believe to be more righteous talk about morality as if they held the ultimate truth. But let me tell you what my college professors, magistrates and connossieurs of law think of "morals"; nothing. And with this, I'm not saying that morality is useless, or that it shouldn't taken into account, simply that 1. Law doesn't always reflect morality. That your laws forbids adults to have sex with consenting teenagers doesn't mean it is immoral. I could as well argue how I find limiting someone's freedom of choice regarding their deepest intimacy to be far more immoral and against the very human nature. And 2. Every single person has different morals. Morality is an opinion. No human holds the absolute truth. What is considered immoral has changed through the ages and it will keep changing with humanity. So be humble, and never attempt to force your view of things into anyone else.

And on a side note, I have a constitutional right to voice mi opinion and promote my ideas, regardless of how immoral, and the attempt to stop me through coercion, including bashing, insulting and shaming, is indeed a crime, so most of the antis are actually breaking the law, not the shippers. So yes, if my crime is doing what I am allowed to do, then I plead guilty. Guilty of being an apologist of freedom, of opinion, and of course, of shipping! :D

 3.- And then they say we romanticize abusive relationships...?

This is yet another interesting point, and from here we leave the boring world of law and come back to Kuroshitsuji! <3

So, after seeing that shipping SebaCiel is not illegal nor immoral, we can discuss whether or not it is abuse. It is not child abuse in canon, as age of consent was only for male/female relationships, male/male being an entirely different thing that they called sodomy and didn't have anything to do with age, as well as the fact that Ciel was given his title at the age of 11 in an official ceremony, obtaining the status of head of the family which equals to adulthood to all legal circumstances. Yet someone could argue that a demon from hell could as well coerce a little boy into something lascivious, couldn't he? That he could force, hurt and otherwise violate his consent. It is not hard to believe but, does their relationship work like that? I don't think so.

An abusive relationship is "a pattern of abusive and coercive behaviors used to maintain power and control over a former or current intimate partner. Abuse can be emotional, financial, sexual or physical and can include threats, isolation, and intimidation."

This doesn't sound much like SebaCiel to me, no matter how many times I read it. I truly can't recall a single situation in which any of the things in that list took place. I do, however, notice a strong power-play in which the two of them struggle to maintain control over one another. But, to what extent is it dangerous? It is kind of obvious that for Sebastian is not dangerous at all, so one could make the mistake of believing that Ciel is the weak part. And I wonder if they realized that Ciel is the Master, the owner, the dom, the one handling the riding crop, binding the demon to his will. There's no argument about consent, because what he doesn't like he can stop it with a single order, restrain the demon, make him kneel. And yes, the demon could break the contract, set himself free and take the boy forcefully. But he doesn't, because he loves it. The proud, beautiful and foolish human who doesn't surrender to him.

Of course, this is open to character interpretation, but I think the power-play in Kuroshitsuji is very strong, as well as the subjacent bdsm undertones and themes that we have seen so many times in cover art and official illustrations, as well as in Yana's previous yaoi works. I wanted to point out these themes because a relationship based on dominance/submission is not the same as an abusive relationship, and once again it is all about consent and the sub's power to stop it at any time.

 And with this, I'd like to put an end this long review, as well as to agree with some anti's last popular point, which is that fiction affects reality. It really does, so enjoy it as much as you can, and learn from it all the things you might not experience in real life. Immerse yourself in a good story, make research, be critical, ship as much as you want and never, ever let anyone exert any kind of censorship on what you can read, watch, like or ship. ;)