I was a little (more than a little xD) dissatisfied with the ending for ES so I wrote my own (with cheerleading, beta-reading and emotional support provided by the wonderful @fowo )
Hope is a thing with teeth
(click on the title to read)
Summary:
“Are you alright?” Optimus asked, instinctively. He scanned his frame again, but there was no major wound, nothing that would bring Megatron to his knees like this. Optimus reached out a hand, automatic. Megatron’s optics widened as he fell to one knee. “What have you done to me?!” he yelled at Optimus uselessly. He curled around his torso, as if to protect his spark. Then, he noticed the hand. “Stay the fuck away –”
Optinus looked at him, confused, afraid, until – of course. The conjunx endura bond. Hurting him, really hurting him, hurt Megatron, too.
--
Or: Megatron lost his memories. Optimus desperately tries to get them back.
Rating: Mature
Archive Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Category: M/M
Fandoms: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Earthspark (Cartoon)
Relationship: Megatron/Optimus Prime
Additional Tags: Temporary Character Death, Temporary Amnesia, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Whump, light gore, Spark Sexual Interfacing (Transformers), this one's gonna hurt folks, Heavy Angst, Megatron is His Own Warning, Post S4 Special: Hometown Heroes
Additional Tags: Temporary Amnesia, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Character Study, Romance, Fluff and Humor, Optimus forgets he married Megatron, and he compliments him about it, Megatron has a brief existential crisis, Ratchet has a great time, Optimus rediscovers his life with Megatron for a day, Surprisingly serious under all that fluff
Language: English
Summary:
“You’re so pretty!” Optimus repeated, and then he furrowed his brows. He seemed to think about something very, very seriously. Then, hesitating, he asked: ”I - who are you?”
Megatron stared at him for a klik, but Optimus’ brow remained furrowed, and there was no recognition in his voice.
Megatron did the only thing he could think of. He slammed the “Request nurse” button and barked, “I need Ratchet! Now!”
---
Or: That video where someone discovers they're married post-surgery and compliments their spouse a lot... featuring Megatron and Optimus.
Additional Tags: Time Travel, Springer goes back in time to fix the war, Impactor flirts relentlessly, Canon-Typical Violence, Plot in the first chapter, porn in the second, slight spoilers for Mtmte
Language: English
Summary:
Impactor’s gaze shot up. He seemed to calculate something. His face shifted from anger to something else, but nonetheless heated. “Wanna head outside too? I bet I could take you.”
Springer felt his own eyebrow ridge rise, and something was rising along with it, in the back of his own throat. A mixture of grief, guilt, and something else.
“As you are? No. It's late. I suggest you head out without trying it in here. I’d hate to ban a good customer.” Springer turned around. His audial, however, was still focused on the two of them.
“Primus, you’re desperate,” Megatron hissed.
---
Springer goes back in time, to stop the war. He finds something (someone) else along the way.
Official Post from CanvasWolfDoll: To F,The Bus continues to hold up well. I've repainted it and manage to get a replacement solar panel after the last adventure. It's cornflower blue now. A rather abrupt change from the orange it was before, which was a change from its moss colored paint before that, and it started out yellow, so I'
okay, here’s the deal: long ago, my brother ( @vulpinmusings ) and i had a webcomic. a sprite comic, started at the half-life of the sprite comic age and riding the genre’s death throes. i joke about it, but i was and always shall be proud of it, and a little disappointed we let it just grind to a halt.
more importantly, i always intended to do more webcomics.
it’s been about a decade since that comic ended, and i haven’t followed through. it’s been a mixture of uncertainty, lack of faith in my abilities, time, all though excuses holding me back. plus just a series of concepts i can’t see through.
and for all the cries of ‘just start it! only your hand can tell your story!’ that circulates, my art skills suck. they’re terrible. unsuited for the world building visions in my head. visions that would require years of tedious work. i’m barely above stick figures, and even the great comics that started with Bad Art™ still were able to draw sleeves and pants.
so i kept putting it off.
then i heard different advice, from @voxlunch . he wasn’t saying ‘just do it.’ he was saying ‘start small’. and he also showed it through his own webcomic, and preached it on art streams, and he succeeded. more importantly, he projected positivity during the whole thing and spoke honestly about his own hurdles and issues.
anyways, as of november i am a quarter of a century old. i lost my job for getting too mad at a customer, i dropped out from college a while ago (should’ve done it sooner, i wasn’t fit for a theater program), and i’m still kind of adrift. worse still, the improv group i’ve been a part of is slowly fading away. and there are things i want to do.
so i might as well get started.
I have a new webcomic coming
starting on January 1st, 2018. Here’s the page.
it will update every Monday and Thursday.
if you’re impatient and/or just want to support me, five dollar patrons will get to see each strip a week early. back 2 dollars now, and you’ll be set to see the first two early (on the 25th and 28th).
as of this announcement, i have made the first 13 pages. i intend to have 26 done before the month’s out. i will see this through for a year (108 pages), then see where i want to go from there. it’s a pure gag strip, with no overarching narrative, but it’s something i can do. and it’s good. i may not be able to draw amazingly well, but i am an amazing writer. it’s a point i refuse to surrender any ground on, whether externally or internally.
The Patreon is for more than the comic.
i will continue posting reviews and essays as i write them, because i like writing them.
i’ll also continue to stream video games. it’s something i can do. i know i’m nothing special, but whatever.
i’m also going to try and learn a lesson from my old sprite comic and jump on a wave before it’s dying out.
i’m going to produce a tabletop show. ideally as both a stream and shortly after a podcast.
(my goal is to output podcast episodes fast enough that if you’re caught up on the podcast, you can watch the next stream if you want.)
there’s a few… Canvas quirks to my intentions, but let’s preserve some surprise.
As previously established, I have an atypical relationship with superheroes. More involved than the theatrical releases, but not to the point of actually reading the comics (with but one exception[1]).
I tend to prefer animated series when it comes to experiencing superheroes.
So I’ve been meaning to catch up with Young Justice, the slightly more mature spiritual successor of the Teen Titans cartoon. Teen Titans stands as one of my favorite shows, beyond genre and without hesitation.
Comparing the two may seem unfair but… well, I refuse not to. Because the two happen to make a good exercise in comparing and contrast, share elements and characters, and one of them is following the other.[2]
Young Justice opens well, just casually tossing the audience into the thick of things. The well-known characters (Superman, Batman and Company, and so forth) are treated as previously established, while the more uncommon heroes are given light introductions so that the show can just go.
The sidekicks are given access to the Hall of Justice, but not any real place in terms of the Justice League. It’s a publicity stunt, and the sidekicks are quickly fed up with being shoved aside, and hijack a mission to prove themselves (and just have something to do). In the process, we introduce Superboy, Miss Martian, and Young Justice is established.
Though the group is only ever referred to as ‘The Team’ which I dislike. It just feels like the writers and staff are embarrassed by the moniker, and are avoiding acknowledging it, and I hate when superhero media try and pretend to be above such things. Just embrace it! It’ll make things a lot more fun! This show actually does a good job of good natured mockery of everything except the name.
So, I mostly enjoyed the first season. They build the characters and the world while developing a myth arc that operates in the corners of the story so each episode can still stand alone, narratively, but still all link together as a cohesive whole.
Even as new characters and team members are introduced, the central six are still prominent in every episode to anchor the audience, give us characters we know and are thrilled to see grow. New elements are well paced with their introduction, and my only criticism is that Zatanna and Rocket didn’t get quite enough screen time to grow on me (especially Rocket, who was a very late game addition).
There are plenty of episodes with inventive and interesting story ideas; my favorite being when magic separates adults and children into two worlds, and how the show then plays with the concept and answers many small questions while it happens.
They really make the most of being in a world where superheroes are a thing, and idolized. From small details like high schoolers unironically wearing t-shirts with superhero emblems on them,[4] and interesting conflict between the realms of Science and Magic, which you rarely see in stories that embrace Clarke’s Third Law as much as the DC World. Is Dr. Fate a sufficiently advanced Alien, or is Magic that unexplainable?[5]
Speaking of Dr. Fate, he had such a compelling sidestory throughout the first season! Introduced as a former hero, then we learn the true weight of putting on his helmet. From there, he becomes The Team’s plan of last resort, until it finally comes to a head and someone has to finally make the ultimate sacrifice!
It combines a few of my favorite tropes: Blue and Orange morality, great power carrying a heavy cost, and Legacy Characters!
The only episode of the first season that I didn’t really like was ‘Secrets,’ due to its trite villain for the evulz and the rather depressing twist at the end.
And you know what? Everyone acts so reasonably!
When a psychically produced simulation goes wrong, to a traumatizing extent, a psychologist is actually brought in!
Superman struggles with the sudden appearance of a clone, and Batman, he who adopts and raises all the children, steps up to tell Clark to get a hold of himself and help the boy.
No one ever forgets that they have Dr. Fate's Helmet on standby if needed!
Three of our characters are in compromising positions to select villains by the end of the season, and what do they do? They come clean, tell the details to the rest of the team, and all come together to make a plan!
There’s nothing I hate more than plots that can be solved in moments if people just bloody talked to one another. Plot-required mistrust and secrecy is such weak plot fodder, that I was happy the show decided to subvert it in the best possible way.
But then there’s the second season.
Oh man, is the second season… disappointing.
First of all, there’s the five year time skip. I have decided I don’t like how western media uses time skips.
Because, in most Anime, time skips are used to handwave away boring bits (IE: then Bob trained hard for two years and… now he’s back).
But when a western show does it, they do it to Up the Ante, introduce mysteries, and obfuscate all the fascinating things that might have happened. To make the audience go ‘Oh wait? What happened to So-and-so?’
It… just feels like a cheap trick to me. And a distracting one, because suddenly there’s a new batch of kids, but I don’t care about them because I’m waiting to hear what happened to the characters we already know and love!
And Young Justice does a particularly bad job, because the events that happened in the missed time period would have been fascinating to see pan out. The new characters would be exciting see introduced and inducted. Would it have taken time? Yes! But then these things would carry weight!
Heck, Zatanna and Rocket, who I was just complaining we didn’t get time to care about have both moved on from the Team! They barely get cameos. So they were just wasted additions in the last season.
Plus, they used it as an excuse to implant drama. The worst drama. Drama that also causes my two least favorite story techniques!
First, a lot of just telling the audience about character history, instead of letting us experience it. We are told Miss Martian has taken up Mind Breaking villains, and that’s bad and we should hate it. Except we don’t see it being the problem it is, just get told that it’s been a thing by Superboy and… eh? Besides Psimon (who, frankly, both deserves it and is able to recuperate), Miss Martian doesn’t do it on screen until the one time it’s the worst possible thing to do!
Which brings me to the second, and worse crime: no one tells anyone crucial information.
Because you remember when I was praising the first season for subverting that last season? How the original team came clean and told one another how they’re being blackmailed?
Yeah. They’re now doing the stupid thing. We have a season long plot where Aqualad’s a mole and… only a select few people know. Select people that excludes original team members, including the psychic mind-breaker and Superboy!
Egads, I understand not telling the new kids, but at no point should any member of the Season One team have been excluded from the circle of trust, Nightwing!
By the way, Robin is Tim Drake in season 2. Which means we missed an exciting arc of seeing Dick Grayson separating from Batman, and also skipped Jason Todd entirely! I would love to actually see what Jason Todd was like as a Robin for once, but he’s always skipped.
And yes, unlike Batman: The Animated Series, Jason Todd exists in the Young Justice narrative. We see the memorial hologram.
I mean, the second season wasn’t all bad. Blue Beetle was a strong addition to the cast, along with the compelling aspects he brought. Impulse is a good replacement for Kid Flash. Beast Boy was also pleasant to see, though he was ultimately underutilized[6] Static and his compatriots were also fun. However, from there, I don’t care about the rest of the new cast, as they never had any screen time to make me care about them. They existed for fight scenes and little else.
They weren’t introduced or given an origin, just dumped on us and demanded we muster a care. Which I couldn’t because… eh?
Ignoring the story surrounding Aqualad and dumb secrets, the Reach Invasion storyline was interesting, even catching me off guard in relation to Green Beetle, which is good writing!
The Light were less involved this time, mostly letting Lex Luthor carry the position of resident plotter.
Having not actually seen Luthor in action much, I did enjoy him as a villain. It’s actually fun to watch a villain who is very good at outthinking those around him and planning ahead, all while keeping his hands clean and his enemies managed. I kept expecting him to end up using both The Light and The Reach to reach his own, separate goals.
Roy Harper and his various clones did drag throughout both seasons. The grumpy pants vigilante with a chip on his shoulder was okay once. Not great, but adequate. But then Red Arrow faded away, replaced by Arsenal to just… do the story all over again? Only without the weird flirting with Cheshire.
I guess Lian would’ve been hard to get away with had they not done the time skip, but… actually, Lian added very little, so that’s not an excuse.
While I liked Artemis, I do wonder if the same basic story could’ve been done with Ravager instead, who has more of a history in the comics of working as a Good Guy than Artemis/Tigress did, and would’ve gotten Deathstroke in sooner.
Mostly I just think Sportsmaster is a silly character concept, and would’ve been happy to not have him.
You could even keep Cheshire, since comics Cheshire is unrelated to Sportsmaster and Artemis. It would’ve been so easy to pull off, and would’ve excited Teen Titans fans.
But that’s just me speculating based off the decisions I would’ve made. Maybe they were going to include Speedy initially, but realized they needed another girl for composition balance.
Then the second season ends with multiple loose ends, one dead character everyone liked, and a look to the future!
So of course the series is promptly cancelled. Whoopee!
So, first season was strong, second season felt like they were rushing things, skipping over rich and compelling material to get to a story they wanted to do.
Now Netflix is bringing forth (at least) a third season. I remain cautiously optimistic. On one hand, rumor says Tara Strong is coming in as Raven, bring us ever so closer to the Titans reunion everyone desperately wants.
On the other… well, the cast and roster is already pretty heavy, and viewpoint characters are few and far between. Focus will be split many ways, and I’m not sure they’ll be able to continue good character work if they don’t pick favorites and let them work. Plus, what if they do another timeskip?
Still, I liked it enough that I’ll watch the next season once it comes. But I’ll be critical.
Kataal kataal.
[1] Speaking of which, I’ve been considering checking out the recent run of Jughead comics. Thoughts?
[2] We’ll ignore Teen Titans Go! because I haven’t watched much of it.[3]
[3] Though Trigon Dad is still an amazingly inspired concept.
[4] Though they never address the matter of royalties. Seriously, I would love to hear if Superman gets a paycheck. Or is them being public figures make their IP public domain?
[5] I always disliked how the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been so dismissive of magic. Why does Thor have to be an alien from a distant culture? Why can’t he just be a god without the snide remarks? Let me have my magic.
[6] I will admit that the departure from the Teen Titans interpretation of the character clouded my judgement. But, then again, that’s my definitive version of the guy.
