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shinki26 · 11 months

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The Sims 2 Disc Installation and fix guide for Windows 10/11 PCs

I’ve been seeing around the internet people demonizing the discs and saying they are “bad” “old” “unsupported” “buggy” “ancient” and a bunch of other bad words and also outright refusing to give support to disc users.

I’m writing this guide to hopefully instruct people on how to properly install, fix and run their disc based The Sims 2 game and also educate you on why the discs are not as bad as everyone makes them to be.

Just a warning: I’m a Windows 10 user, I don’t know if exactly everything is going to be 100% accurate to Windows 11, but the game SHOULD work the same on it.

First things first, some clarifications about common misconceptions of both the Ultimate Collection and TS2 disc games I’ve been seeing being tossed around:

1. The Ultimate Collection has compatibility patches for modern hardware:

This one is actually kinda true? The UC did have some patches made to it compared to a fully patched disc game but no one has been able to tell what exactly it did.

A fully patched, fixed and correctly installed disc game should work the same as the Ultimate Collection, with no difference in compatibility or game performance.

2. SecuROM doesn’t work on modern OSes so you can’t run the game off the discs:

Totally untrue. People who says SecuROM doesn’t work on Windows 10/11 haven’t actually tried running a game that uses it at all. It 100% works even on Windows 11. What doesn’t work on modern OSes is SafeDisc, which all packs released before Bon Voyage used. So if you install BV and any pack released after it, the game IS going to run normally as it’s using SecuROM instead.

3. But SecuROM makes the game lag:

True, for some machines it does happen. But as I will explain in the guide, you can uninstall SecuROM with the official removal tool and just use NoCD executables to have it not install itself again.

4. The discs requires Flash and it’s been deprecated:

No, the discs DO NOT require Flash. The only thing that uses it in the setup is a pop up that used to ask you if you wanted to register your game. Since of course you can’t register it anymore, you can just close it and it WILL NOT affect anything.

That out of the way, let’s get to the guide!

What you are going to need:

-All original TS2 patches released by EA back in the day: They’re all hosted HERE on ModTheSims.

Please, be aware that there may be multiple variatons of a patch. You need to pick the right one for your game. If you have The Sims 2 Base Game DVD version, you will have to download the second option where it says “DVD Patch Notes”, for example. For Pets and Seasons the “DD” patches mean Digital Download, so if you have them on either CD or DVD them both are going to use the “Disk Patch” If you seem to be not able to download them, right click the download link and choose “Save Link As”.

If you have The Sims 2 Deluxe / Double Deluxe / Holiday Edition / Other compilations you’re not going to need the Base Game patch as those versions are already updated!! You also don’t need the Nightlife patch if you have Deluxe or Double Deluxe!! The same thing applies for the Collections: You don’t need to patch their EPs!!

-Grumpy Loader: Get it HERE on ModTheSims.

-If you have Bon Voyage and/or packs released after it... SecuROM Removal Tool: Get it HERE.

-If you have Mansion & Garden Stuff... Sims2RPC: Get it HERE on ModTheSims by @lazyduchess! If you DO NOT have this pack, you’re going to need to source a NoCD executable of the game based on your latest installed pack.

-If you DO NOT Have Mansion & Garden Stuff... 4GB Patch: Get it HERE.

-Graphics Rules Maker: Get it HERE.

Having downloaded everything, you can start inserting your Base Game disc one! Or your Base Game DVD!

Installing the Base Game:

There’s no mystery in this part, install your game normally as you would back in 2004 following the instructions of the setup.

Three of the biggest problems I’ve seen people have when installing the Base Game is:

1. I get a red pop up saying “This app has been blocked for your protection”

This happens usually on Double Deluxe games and later EPs such as Bon Voyage, FreeTime and Apartment Life.

There’s two ways you can circumvent this. First one is the one that I personally prefer:

-Open the Task Manager -On the top left, click “File” -Click “Run new task” -Click “Browse...” -Now go to your disc drive in your PC and open it, select Autorun.exe -The target box should be pointing to “D:\Autorun.exe”. The “D” letter changes depending on what letter your disc drive is set to in your PC -Check the “Create this task with administrative privileges” box -Now click OK.

The setup is going to run normally now. When you are installing EPs that show you this error, you can do the same thing to every one.

The other way is just to change your PC’s date to somewhere before 2020. This is going to work too, I can’t explain to you why though! Something about licenses expiring!

2. I get a Flash pop up when I try to install!

As I explained earlier, you can just close it and the installation will continue normally.

3. The setup just hangs at a specific percentage and won’t progress anymore!

This is mosty probably the setup asking you to swap discs! DVD users do not have this problem. What happens sometimes is that the setup GUI is supposed to make a pop up window appear in front of the GUI asking you to swap to disc 2, but on modern OSes it doesn’t appear sometimes. Actually, it does. It just is in the background, if you minimize every open window on your machine you’re going to see the little pop up! Just swap to disc 2 and press “Ok” on the pop up and it should resume installing. The same thing can happen when having to switch to Discs 3 and 4.

After installing the Base Game:

Yay, you did it! See how the discs aren’t the devil??

So, after installing the base game you are going to need to patch it.

Open GrumpyLoader, on the top left select “Load...” and on the window that opens, choose the Base Game patch’s executable you’ve downloaded and open it. It’s going to automatically patch your game, if you are on the 4 CD version of the game you may have to swap discs. Sometimes GrumpyLoader throws errors when updating, especially when it ends. But you can just ignore it.

After patching, your Base Game is FULLY installed and properly patched, congratulations!!!

But if you didn’t already try, you will see that you can’t run the game as it doesn’t open. That’s because the Base Game uses SafeDisc that doesn’t work on modern OSes as I said earlier.

Installing Expansion and Stuff Packs:

It’s the same process of installing the Base Game. Follow the setup instructions. After installing each one, PATCH them with GrumpyLoader. For example: you just installed University! Do NOT immediately install another pack right after. Follow the same GrumpyLoader patching process you did on the Base Game but choose the University patch instead. Do the same thing to ALL EPs and Family Fun Stuff.

Also, there has been some info online about installing packs out of release order can mess up your game.

I personally don’t think it’s true as I never had any problems but I prefer to be better safe than sorry.

If you want to, Install them in this order:

-University (or University Life Collection) -Nightlife (skip if you have The Sims 2 Deluxe/Double Deluxe) -Christmas Party Pack (I don’t recommend if you have Happy Holiday Stuff or The Sims 2 Holiday Edition) -Open For Business (or Best of Business Collection) -Family Fun Stuff (or Fun with Pets Collection) -Glamour Life Stuff -Pets (skip if you have Fun with Pets Collection) -Happy Holiday Stuff (skip if you have The Sims 2 Holiday Edition) -Seasons -Celebration Stuff (skip if you have The Sims 2 Double Deluxe) -H&M Stuff (skip if you have Best of Business Collection) -Bon Voyage -Teen Style Stuff (skip if you have University Life Collection) -FreeTime -Kitchen & Bath Interior Design Stuff (skip if you have Best of Business Collection) -IKEA Home Stuff (skip if you have University Life Collection) -Apartment Life -Mansion & Garden Stuff (skip if you have Fun with Pets Collection)

If you’ve installed all packs, great! You can even launch your game from SP9′s (Mansion & Garden Stuff) disc and executable as it uses SecuROM which WORKS on modern OSes.

Getting your game to work properly:

Your game is fully installed, patched and even running if you have Bon Voyage and later released packs!

But you probably noticed very heavy lag, crashing, bad graphics and things not running as they should. That’s because, just like the Ultimate Collection, the game is a PITA to get running properly on Modern OSes! If you have Bon Voyage and/or later released packs: I HIGHLY recommend you to uninstall SecuROM from your machine. This is going to help greatly with game performance. Use the SecuROM Removal Tool I’ve linked earlier and remove it from your PC. Do NOT open the game again as it’s going to install itself again if you do so.

If you have Mansion & Garden Stuff: After uninstalling SecuROM, you’re going to need to install Lazy Duchess’ Sims2RPC Launcher I’ve linked earlier. Follow their instructions on the download page and be sure to apply the 4gb patch in the launcher as it’s going to GREALTY help with the crashing.

Or... if you DO NOT have Mansion & Garden Stuff: Get an appropriate NoCD executable for the pack you are using to launch your game and apply the 4GB patch to it. Open the 4GB patch executable and use it on your game’s exe.

After doing all that, all that remains is fixing your game performance, resolution and graphics!

Install Graphics Rules Maker and open it. Firstly, you’re going to have to add your Graphics card to the game’s database. To do that, go the “Device Info” tab and add it there.

Back to the “Settings” tab, be sure your game is set to “The Sims 2″ and is properly recognizing where your game is installed, if for some reason it isn’t, click “Browse...” and point it to your latest installed pack’s folder. For example: “C:\Program Files (x86)\EA Games\The Sims 2 Mansion & Garden Stuff”.

-Force Texture Memory: Use the auto-detect button and it should automatically calculate the best value for your graphics card.

Check “Disable texture memory estimate adjustment” and “Enable driver’s memory manager” boxes. If you have an AMD Radeon HD 7000 series, also check the “Fix AMD Radeon HD 7000 series recognition”. If you have Intel integrated graphics, check the last two boxes. Now you can set your resolution! Choose your default (which one the game is going to start with) and maximum resolution your game is going to support.

After doing all that, you can click “Save Files...”

And... Done! You got your disc-based The Sims 2 game fully working, properly patched and fixed!!!

Any Feedback on how to improve this guide is very welcome!

Happy Simming, y’all!!! :)

#ts2 #sims2 #ts2guide #guide #discs #help #sims 2 #the sims 2

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owarinaki · 2 months

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Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 [BD-OP non credit] HD 2

OP 1/1 :: 1/2 :: 1/3 :: 1/4 :: 1/5

ED 1/1 ;; 1/2 ;; 1/3

OP2/1 ::::: OP2/2

Jujutsu Kaisen Blu-ray Disc Recap [All LINKS]

OP1 // OP2:: ED1 // ED2

EP1 1/1 :: 1/2 :: 1/3 :: 1/4 :: 1/5 :: 1/6

EP3 3/12

EP8 8/1 : 8/2 : 8/3

EP9 9/1 : 9/2 : 9/3

EP12 12/1 :: 12/2

EP14 14/1 :: 14/2 :: 14/3 :: 14/4 :: 14/5

Feral Gojo part 1 // part 2 // part 3

#Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 #Jujutsu Kaisen #Jujutsu Kaisen S2Jujutsu #anime #anime recap #anime cap #jjk #jujutsu #gojo satoru #satoru gojo #gojo #itadori yuji #yuji itadori #jjk anime #jjk op #jjk bd

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thatgordongirl · 1 year

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Ghosts Season 1 References to the ghosts’ lives

Finally got through the first season on all the references and inferences to the ghosts’ lives, hope everyone likes the results?

Episode 1 - Who Do You Think You Are?

Fanny is Heather’s Great-Grandmother

Mary could make baskets and died in a witch trial

Kitty ate and dislikes eggs

Julian mentions his by-election victory speech from 1991- very inspiring, very long, and a few smutty jokes. This particular by-election occurred after the death of a conservative member on 20th September 1991 in which a labour member took their place. Whether it is altering that by-election to insert Julian or if it is completely unrelated all together is unknown (Take with a grain of salt, I am an Aussie who doesn’t know the intricacies of British politics)

Robin lived on the land first, but Fanny owned the house

Both Alison and Captain love gardens/garden views

When Thomas was alive, he heard a rumour that a plague girl could be heard singing in the pantry

Julian is wearing two rings: his wedding ring and presumably his Cambridge ring

Fanny was pushed out of the window by her husband George

George was having an affair with two other men

Mary could milk a cow

Episode 2 - Gorilla War

I Am The Very Model Of A Modern Major-General was written in 1879, so Captain most likely heard it when he was alive

Kitty sings The Lark in the Morning, dating back to 1778

Julian is a first from Cambridge

Once, a bear was able to see Robin

Julian references compact discs, but also seems to have some knowledge of technology

Robin references a cousin

Julian claims to have, as a lead envoy, solved the Arabian crisis in 1991 by starting a war

The plague ghosts know how to fix the old boiler, they were most likely there when it was fixed previously

Not a living thing, but Pat calls Thomas Tom in this episode and it’s adorable write that down

Julian refers to the Watney MP having sexual relations with horses (That’s right, plural)

Julian references a liberal in a sailor sauna (And he was not there to learn about boats)

Thomas most likely read Romeo and Juliet when alive

Episode 3 - Happy Death Day

Pat was killed when teaching his scouts archery, in which Keith accidentally shot him. He died calling out for someone to call his wife and driving the bus into a tree. (Self-explanatory, still horrified me)

Captain references a speech made by Winston Churchill

Robin talks about fighting with rocks and sticks and bears (recurring theme apparently)

Kitty thinks her father is dead, which may imply he didn’t die on the grounds

Kitty’s sister Eleanor told her that people made babies by pressing their ears together

Captain references The Blitz, a German bombing campaign that occurred during WW2, and the Luftwaffe, the German airforce

The east wing’s drainage was put into the house in 1894

Pat’s death day was October 27th 1984

Julian mentions extending the Bramptons in 1986, he ran it through the MP expenses

Robin has a flea in his ear and worms

Julian shot fish in a barrel once at a Party Conference in Bournemouth

Pat’s family come every year on his death day to the tree that he crashed into, which came down after the storm of 1987

Pat has a son, Daley, and a wife, Carol

His best friend Morris had his own set of keys to their house

Pat came home one Sunday from camp and found all Morris’ clothes on the floor, he and Carol had an affair

Captain mentions the Western Desert campaign and Bernard Montgomery

Thomas had probably eaten figs and drank wine

Julian has taken part in a ‘Norwegian picnic’ and ‘Himalayan Campsite’

Mary says that when you saw a swan in her town it was the devil at play

Julian is wearing a watch on his left wrist

Daley had (what I think to be) beige pants, he’s an accountant, he’s happy

Carol is busy with the bowls club, Morris is sweet but very small

Pat’s grandson is named after him, and has Pat’s legs

Episode 4 - Free Pass

Julian remarks that he was never fond of cornflakes

Thomas liked eating an egg atop a cutlet, a thin slice of meat from the leg or ribs of mutton, veal, pork or chicken

Button House is from the 15th century, 1469 to be precise

The facade is mid-16th century

Captain assumes the actors will be dressed in loincloths, oiled up, and kissing each other. I don’t know if that’s a Tim period thing or if Captain’s just seen freaky stuff

Henry VIII dined in the banqueting hall, he had swan, hog, dumplings and figs and stank out the privy (I’m dying rn)

Mary is from the Stuart era, Humphrey from Tudor, and Thomas from the Regency

Pat dislikes veggie sausages

Julian likes to bet on horses

Julian’s free pass was Samantha Fox

Both Julian and Margot had lists, Margot’s included Wolf, Cobra and John Fashanu from the 1992 show Gladiators

Thomas’ rivalry with Lord Byron is mentioned

Pat references video cassettes

Thomas believes that Lord Byron stole one of his verses

Robin asks why Toby is doing a rain dance

Julian remarks that the free pass wasn’t a joke in his marriage

Episode 5 - Moonah Ston

Fanny falls from the east wing window, and is notably dressed in grey

She’s Edwardian. This era is placed between 1901-1910, but some say it ended with the beginning of WWI in 1914. As Fanny mentioned having a ticket for the titanic, this would place her between 1910-1914

Julian met Barclay at a party fundraiser at Button House

Julian heard a funny story on a golf course involving Bruce Forsyth-Johnson, a British entertainer

Pat loves dogs so much he’s willing to get sick, bless him

Julian references The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde

Fanny possibly ate turtle soup, oyster rissoles and pheasant

Captain is unsurprisingly able to shoot a gun

“Gleaming bundook op from the civvy” and “boshing jerry” is Captain just saying that the civilian is good at shooting and he’ll be out fighting Germans in no time

Mary knows how to properly prepare a pheasant

Robin had his own site on the grounds that Stonehenge apparently copied, and he remembers the ritual reading

Fanny is disgruntled by the cutlery and says they should be on the outside, which was how she was taught

Fanny also seems to have knowledge on Barclay’s family

Kitty says she’s wearing what she died in, pretty self-explanatory there

Thomas is well aware of techniques for public speaking such as dramatic pauses, but clearly wasn’t good at using them

Thomas references Saint Cuthbert

Pat references Betemax

Julian is aware of Barclay’s poker ability and his bank account in Fiji

Robin’s connection with the moon is rooted in it being the only thing that’s been around as long as he has

Captain mentions light pollution, which only began getting addressed in the 1950s, though he could’ve learnt about it earlier or later

Episode 6 - Getting Out

Robin liked eating cooked meat

Julian likes fondue

The house was worth a thousand pounds in Fanny’s era

Julian has committed fraud to get money

The plague ghosts have had falling outs before, but they’ve never lasted longer than 20-25 years

Pat describes having music on the go, unaware that it already exists

Fanny hid an Arabic jewel in a box under a floorboard, it was given to her husband by Queen Empress Alexandra. He pawned it.

Captain has ear hair

Captain’s limbs creak, it is a joke of course, but canonical so my hands are tied

Kitty likes to talk about balls and eligible men

Robin has seen many people come and go from the house

The plague ghost skeletal remains are under the house

Captain was aware of the bodies in the basement

#bbc ghosts #the captain #pat butcher #fanny button #julian fawcett #robin bbc ghosts #kitty bbc ghosts #mary bbc ghosts #thomas thorne #bbc ghosts humphrey #alison cooper #mike cooper #barclay

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zoomzooomfast · 3 months

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So one of many parts of me explaining my sims HC's of how the sims universe is

Part One The Timeline

So Sims 3 is messy in the timeline because different worlds take place at different times so that will be noted when needed

The Sims 4 is similar in difficulty but also different because" it's an AU" so the Sims 4 is taken lightly on the timeline with parts that will be built upon later in explanation posts

the baseline of years are also based of the constant characters of the goths and the fact that sims 2 came out in 2004

-Sims 3 Twinbrook- between 1900-1910(The Curious brothers grandfather was a toddler)

-The Sims 3-Late 1950s-Early 60s

-Sims 3 Monte Vista, Roaring Heights -Late 60s-early 70s(The Montys and Capps are still young and growing a there families)

-Sims 3 Midnight Hollow, Lucky Palms, Moonlight falls-Mid 70s-early 80s(The Summerdreams are young adults, The Dreamers are young adults, Nervous Subject is a toddler)

-Sims 3 Aurora Skies -Some time during the early 80s (The Beaker siblings are alive and Loki is a child)

-The Sims 1- the late 80s-early 90s(The goths are adults and Cassy is a young child with out her brother Alex)

-Sims 3 Sunlit Tide-between 1986-1988( I know this is really specific but if the pleasant twins are between 14-16 in 2004 they had to be born between 1988-1990 and Mary-Sue and Daniel are on their honeymoon in Sunlit Tide. This also takes into account the theory that if The Sims 1 had a teen life stage Daniel would have been a teenager.)

-The sims 4 Horse Ranch and Cottage Living-Mid 90s-Late 90s (I put these two together earlier than The Sims 4 because Mortimer's aunt Agnus and her "Dead Husband" are elders)

-Sims 3 Dragon Valley-Mid 90s(John and Jennifer Burb are unmarried and Lucy isn't born yet)

-The Sims 2- 2004-05 (This is the baseline year with Bella being abducted in the Summer of 04 and then I am guessing the events of The Sims 2 take place between Summer 04 and then Summer 05 given the handful of pregnancies we know of and the fact that Seasons start in the winter with the exception of the Greenman who start the next spring)

-The Sims 4- the 2010s-Present ( Look at the game and tell me you don't think it takes place in the 2010s it might just be the fault of the game being stuck in 2014 in style)

-Sims 3 Lunar Lake- 2020s ( I just feel like its the vibe of Lunar Lakes plus if Mathilde Goth is the third goth child that would have had to be born after Belles abduction in the 2000s she would be a young adult now pretty much )

-Sims 3 into the future-"New World Hundreds of Years into the Future" (this is a direct quote from the back of the Disc)

Parts I want to but somewhere else on the timeline but I am not sure where I would

The Sims 4: My Wedding Stories- In My Wedding Stories Arnessa Thebe talks about how she misses her Aunt Queen and Uncle Eetion. And how her and her dad{Queen's Brother} would visit them time to time when she was a kid. So this just creates a wired gap I have yet to figure out yet.

Princess Cordelia Thebe- So still being on my Thebes issue. In the sims 4 in text it suggest that Princess Cordelia lived at least 100 or so before the events of the sims 4. But Arnessa is referred to as her Descendant which to me suggests more than 5 generations But I think that maybe Arnessa is like her great-great granddaughter. because in 100 year you don't really get decedents you get great-great grandkids. Maybe Cordelia never got to meet if she was older and had a kid or two.

If you read this whole thing WOW. If your wondering what I am on to come up with this much of a sims everything timeline my answer is hyperfixation and Cherry Slush Alani. I think its wild this is just my like baseline timeline to without any like actual headcanons besides estimated ages.

#The sims #ts2 #ts3 #ts4 #headcanons #god it sounds like I am losing it #i probably am

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1980sactionfigures · 5 months

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Some of my current EBAY Auctions

Hi everybody! Hope you're staying warm as the holiday season arrives. As many of you know, I've been dealing with some incredibly difficult hardships over the last few months and one thing I've been doing to help alleviate it and help make rent and bills is selling my collection of toys and other things on Ebay. I currently have several dozen auctions listed, and here are a few highlights you might be interested in:

I'm letting go of the last part of my MONSTER IN MY POCKET collection, and that means a collected lot of the giant MONSTER MOUNTAIN with its original box, a complete 48-figure Series 1 collection AND the Nintendo NES video game, complete with its original box, manual and exclusive monster!

A sorta-still-sealed 1990 WWF outdoor activity pack, with frisbee, yo-yo, kites and more! I have a DISNEY edition of one of these up for auction now as well!

A large lot of childrens books based on the Masters of the Universe series! Golden Books, coloring books and more!

My huge Batman and DC merchandise collection. TONS of BATMAN 1989 items, many still sealed, as well as the later '90s films and other DC toys and items!

A collection of 16 Imaginext dinosaurs and dragons! I've tested all of them and most work! A great lot for the young dino fan in your house!

Over 40 Cartoon TV Show DVD sets, many of them out of print and going for top dollar these days. The starting price and even the Buy It Now are many hundred dollars less than the total of these on Amazon.

My DRAGONS KNIGHTS & DAGGERS collection, with several of the durable rubber beasts, tons of weapons and chariots - perfect for the He-Man collector in your life!

A great lot of sealed DC Comics' greatest superheroine action figures! Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Batgirl and more!

7 modern MEGO-style figures, sold together to help you kick-start that collection you've wanted to start!

My beloved collection of JACK KIRBY #1s from DC has to go. Sandman, Kamandi, OMAC and Demon #1s plus more!

Thanks for checking these out! And if you'd like to help me out but don't see anything among my auctions of interest, please consider donating to my GoFundMe. Thank you again, have a wonderful holiday!!!

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sideordertheories · 2 months

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so. i was on youtube and saw in one of the side order shorts that this popped up for a second

i wonder what this is?

it reminds me a lot of the music upgrades in the story mode of splatoon 3, so could this possibly be related to the music in side order?

in the fresh season trailer, there's this scene with dedf1sh:

i have a few different ideas about what this could be:

1. dedf1sh makes the music for the dlc, and maybe we even get the songs that are 'missing' (since, yk, dedf1sh has their songs numbered but some numbers in between others are missing) and the disc pieces unlock more songs

2. they bring back squidbeatz (is it spelled that way?) and the disc pieces unlock more songs for you to play

3. the disc pieces unlock more of the story

also, i think it's interesting that the disc comes in pieces. i wonder if there's multiple discs or just one. i've heard that the tower has 30 levels, so maybe there's three discs and you find pieces of one in each ten? idk if that makes sense. but let's say theres disc a, b, and c. in levels 1-10 theres a chance to find all the parts of disc a in random levels, probably by killing enemies

EDIT: so. MAYBE IT CHARGES UP A SPECIAL ATTACK??

because in the overview trailer, you see this on the sude of the screen which is clearly counting the disc pieces. why would you need to count it in a level if it only affected the music? and then i remembered that weird color chip that said "sound-wave damage". maybe they're related and its a special attack that does a lot of damage? (another edit: this is probably wrong actually, the color chip is apparently more about killer wail and the pearl drone. i really dont know what else the disc could be)

maybe acht helps you fight if you collect all three pieces??

#side order #sideordertheories #splatoon side order #splatoon 3 dlc

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kaythefloppa · 7 months

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New S7 WK Eps - [Spoiler Free] Review + Predictions/Thoughts:

New Wild Kratts Season 7 episodes are on the premises after a 4-month hiatus. The episodes were found on https://metadatabank.pbs.org by a few Twitter users, with premises to boot.

Two of the episodes were uploaded on the TVO Kids' YouTube Channel. For anyone who doesn't know, full episodes of PBS Kids shows are uploaded on that channel and are only accessible directly to Canadian viewers. The only way U.S. viewers can access them is through a VPN.

To prevent heavy spoilers, especially for those who don't have a VPN/want to wait until the episodes come out in America, I won't provide any links. I have watched the first two episodes of the new batch, and I will be doing a [spoiler-free] review of them below the cut, again, because I know that not everyone is going to/is able to immediately hop onto a VPN and watch the eps months before they air on television. The other 2 episodes are yet to be televised or uploaded, so anything I say about them will be pure speculation until the U.S. airdate.

This is not a 100% spoiler-free thread. If you have seen the episodes on the VPN and intend on reblogging with spoilers, use the spoiler tag/cut appropriately; Spoilery comments in the thread are prohibited overall because there's no way to loop around that, so bear in mind:

Backpack the Camel:

The gang travels to the Gobi Desert to discover the last remaining wild camels in the world. They experience the harshness of the desert landscape and are rescued from it only by the wild Bactrian camels and their amazing survival skills.

No Name Dream:

Martin has a dream that he's forgotten to name some baby animals and awakens in a sweat. Aviva tries to reassure him that he named them all, but Koki, after checking the data base, confirms that Martin's right! The Wild Kratts' mission is to go back and name all the ,unnamed, and along the way, learn more about their creaturenality and share some wow facts about their animal friends!

Fish Out of Water:

After a Creature Power Disc mishap, the bros become marooned in the world of a mudskipper, a fish that can walk on land. They must find their discs within a foreign world of intense competition, with unexpected dangers at every turn

Our Blue and Green World: Parts 1 & 2:

While doing their annual Laundry Day, the Kratt Brothers disagree on what's better; blue oceans or green forests. Can the gang get Martin and Chris back in synch in time to save Planet Earth from Zach and Paisley's villainous plans?

Again, no confirmed airdates, so we know what we're in for, but we'll just have to wait. But I'll post my disjointed thoughts and predictions on each episode in this big-ass compiled post bc I'm too lazy for separate posts:

—————————————————————————————————

Backpack the Camel - REVIEW

How the fuck did it take us 12.5 years to get a camel episode? There was literally a live-action opener featuring camels and llamas which segwayed into a fucking Koala episode? I know it doesn't really matter, but it's so jarring

The episode's humor is..... not that good. It feels like they were trying too hard to make it "meme" material with a recurring facial gag but it gets old really quickly. Luckily it's not present throughout the episode, and compared to previous scenes in the show (ex. that awful dabbing and floss scene from the ant episode), it's pretty tame.

The camels in this episode are beautifully animated. I swear to god, you could clearly tell that they wanted the camels to look as detailed as possible but still retaining that WK-style look.

The Camel Power Suit, I thought it was going to be awful and at first I hated, but it actually turned out to be pretty good. It gets right what a the more recent quadrupedal power suits get wrong. Though I’m fairly certain that this is going to be an unpopular opinion once the episode comes out.

Wild Kratts has a pretty good track record for debunking animal myths so if you're frustrated with how the mainstream media misrepresents camels or how many myths and misconceptions about them are spread, then this episode is definitely for you.

Ranking: 7/10

No Name Dream - REVIEW

We started off the season with Chris angst and now we’ve got Martin angst. I can’t comment too much on the dream sequence but… let’s just say that the animators were having a lot of fun with it. It’s giving Zooboomafoo vibes if anything.

I feel like MK IRL realized that there were some unnamed baby animals, and decided to write this episode as a meta ref to that. Overall, it feels like the most self-insert-y episode of the show to date (even moreso than Liturgusa Krattorum)

This episode highlights what Wild Kratts does better than most shows nowadays. It knows how to do fanservice correctly. Mainly in the form of callbacks to inventions/locations, power suits, and animals that we haven’t seen in years. The reason they do this correctly is because they don’t do it for the sake of it, there’s a very intriguing plot around it that gives it a point/purpose and it overall makes sense. The crew goes around naming unnamed baby animals from past adventures. That’s something I have wanted to see in years (I even made up my own fan-names for some baby animals that didn’t get a name, though one of them is rendered non-canon in the ep.)

In fact, the modern seasons of the show do this pretty damn well, what with the return of Aviva’s rollerblades in the S6 finale, the tellurium crystal cameo in the raven episode, giving Paisley Paver a solo role in this season, and this episode, where we get a lot of cool callbacks to the earlier seasons when the crew travels around the world to name the unnamed. I think the reason they do this is because they know that after 10 years, people are going to get nostalgic - That and because PBS Kids’ horrible scheduling that forces viewers at home to wait months or even years for new episodes to come out, makes the show runners try and work their way around it through the episode’s quality, so that if it’s great, or hell, even if it’s good, that would compensate for the episode’s wait. It’s one of the many things that gives me hope for Season 7.

I kid you not, there is one scene in this episode that made me scream at my iPad when I first watched it. It’s clearly fanservice, but in the best degree. I’m not going to give ANY hints because it’s too spoilery, but let’s just say, as someone who is a longtime viewer of the show since S1, and has been begging for years for untapped stuff in the earlier episodes to make a comeback, this certain scene in this episode felt like an extremely detailed love-letter to my childhood, if not a very clever witty response to my brainrotting on the blog. This scene is kinda why I’m very adamant about the “no spoilers” thing; The majority of the fandom needs to see this scene televised.

The baby animal’s names vary. Some are cringe, (I guess,) some are okay, and then some are actually alright. Also, cute baby animals!!!!!

Ranking: 8/10

Fish Out of Water - Predictions/Thoughts:

Again, almost 13 years to give us a mudskipper episode? If it wasn’t for that one episode of Octonaughts, I wouldn’t have even known what a mudskipper was if you showed it to me. Side-note, mudskippers are cool.

Ok but a Creature Power Disc mishap? Even after getting disc-holders, these mf still loose these damn discs 😭

Going back to the “WK magazines show Creature Powers of future episodes,” there was a page of a mudskipper shown in a magazine from 2019 that I cannot for the life of me find.

Mudskippers live in Borneo. I hope this implies that we’ll see more animals/Creature Powers of that location since we haven’t gotten it since S4 (more than 5 years ago).

Here’s a Wow Fact about Mudskippers: Their eyes bulge out of their heads unlike other fish and can move independently from each other (not unlike chameleons). They can also live on land apparently and, well… they skip pretty well. I’m expecting the name of a mudskipper to be something like “Skippy” or “Skipper” or something along those lines.

Oh, these motherfuckers can also CLIMB.

Our Blue and Green Earth - Predictions/Thoughts:

This episode was hyped during the premiere marathon week of S7, where Martin originally called the special “Blue and Green: The Living Earth” and listed the animals we’d be seeing in the new special.

Honestly, am I the only one who’s kinda bummed that this is the 8th/9th episode of the season? I mean, didn’t the article that first disclosed this special say that S7 would be breaking the 200 episode milestone? I feel like a huge one-hour special with an aesthetic title like that would be a good contender for Episode 200. Unless this was 200th episode of the show to be produced, but the network fucked up and broadcasted this special early and had another one in its place… it wouldn’t be the first time they’ve done that though.

I’ve gone on about a Paisley/Donita team up, but Zach and Paisley also fit too. Both have a grey aesthetic, have alliterative names, are executive CEOs who are both implied to get away from the law via nepotism/capitalism. And both villains have engaged in logging and habitat destruction. Whilst Donita and Paisley have an “opposites attract” thing going on with them when you put them together (which is one of the million reasons why I hardcore ship them), Zach and Paisley are like two peas in a pod.

I guess this is another “disagree” episode, like in Fireflies, Bass Class, or Wolf Hawks. Don’t know how they can drag it out for 40 minutes but let’s see how they do it.

I think they may be planning this as an Earth Day special. Blue and Green, whilst associated with the Kratt Bros, are also associated with the Planet Earth, so it makes sense to air this on Earth Day. Additionally, the 100th episode, Animals Who Live to Be 100 Years Old, had aired as an Earth Day special, as part of a week-long Earth Day marathon of S4 episodes (including Spirit Bear, Paisley’s debut episode). So I think it would be thematically appropriate to air this episode on Earth Day.

I think it’d be like, really funny if the double-episode had the “blue” as one part, written by Martin, and the “green” as another part, written by Chris.

I predict that the climax of the episode will involve the brothers having to defend the opposite climate of their preference. Like, Chris using Blue Whale Powers to defend the ocean animals from the Zachbots, and Martin using Indri Powers to rescue the forests from the Pavers. This is what brings them back in synch after realizing that blue and green are equally important and can rightfully co-exist… just like them (awww).

If there is not a Blue Whale Suit, I might actually cry.

Let’s hope that these episodes air on TV at the end of the year because this hiatus is killing me.

#wild kratts #pbs kids #kratt brothers #martin kratt #chris kratt #2d kratt brothers #2d martin kratt #2d Chris kratt #wild kratts season 7 #wk season 7 #Wild kratts new episodes #Youtube #vpn #spoiler free review #Seeing 2 of these 4 (5?) episodes is kind of further cementing my opinion that S7 is slowly living up to its hype #Despite the hiatus and horrible distribution #Backpack the Camel and No Name Dream are supposed to come out in 2023 since the video titles said that #So we can expect them by the end of the year #Fish Out of Water idk but maybe it’s batched with the other 2 eps #I’m literally turning 18 in half a year and currently obsessing over a children’s show that I’ve been following since I was 5 what is my li #pbs kids go #Between S7 of WK and S4 of Odd Squad PBS Kids really seems to be writing love-letters to my childhood atp

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dr3amofagame · 7 months

Note

5, 9, 16 for the ask game!

5. What do you think is the most character-defining c!Dream scene?

vassalvassalvassalvassalvassal--

I think. In terms of moments that actually ummm are the most telling of his character in general, vassal wouldn't necessarily be my choice. But in terms of impact on his character, god, is there anything more defining? If we are talking about c!Dream and the villain persona and every single action defined upon that as a foundation, you HAVE to talk about vassal. If we're talking about c!Dream and c!Tommy and the moment that truly set their roles in stone, it has to be Vassal. Vassal is what leads to c!Dream who "does everything for chaos" in November 16th, vassal is what led to a c!Dream who stood alone after Wilbur's death, vassal is what led to the breakdown at the end of Pogtopia that was the driving force behind all of his actions to put himself in prison, vassal is where he gives Wilbur the TNT, Wilbur who he intentionally echoes in Doomsday. If you make a list of c!Dream's standpoints on a variety of L'manburg related issues, not only is c!Wilbur the common thread between any changes in viewpoint he expresses, but Vassal is as well. Everything in season 1b is, in a lot of ways, The Fallout after season 1a, obviously, but also more specifically Pogtopia and especially the vassal conversation.

Dream acting in Wilbur's service at the same time that he resigns himself to play his role in service to The Lmanburg Narrative DOES ANYONE ELSE HEAR ME--

okay. i'm normal again

9. How do you headcanon c!Dream's appearance? Does it ever change?

Funniest part of this ask is that like, 2 years ago, I literally made a series of c!Dream portraits literally about this. I'd say that my designs have probably changed some since but I'll throw them here bc they're relevant:

(+1 plus the post-prison one I made as an update:

I don't have the strongest opinions on his appearance besides. Normal guy. Human. I tend to draw him with straighter hair, which is kinda funny to me--armor + mask usually, especially later on in the story. I tend to flip between wanting his appearance to have more obvious marks from the torture versus less so (I do love myself the horror of healing potions can literally heal everything so I play with that sometimes) but I definitely like a gaunter appearance post-prison. I do have a degree of preference for prettyboy c!Dream, because I think it plays with the whole dehumanization + mask thing in a fun way as well as how a lot of people on the server who see him + his power as a threat think that their best means of dealing with him is through subjugation + taking his power by force + making him their bitch.

16. What's your favorite c!Dream headcanon?

Ooooh that's a hard one...hmmmm. Mostly hard because I can't recall literally anything on demand. To Be Fair. Idk, maybe along the lines of the original Disc Wars (now that we've had both c!Dream and c!Tommy refer to those times as being much more lighthearted compared to later conflicts) there have always been a few conflicts where, in the spirit of the whole prank war nonsense that originally inhabited that first "war," I've been a fan of the idea of c!Dream going easy on c!Tommy and c!Tubbo (mostly because at the time I was preeeetty sure cc!Dream was going easy on them at a few points, the whole conflict with the ender chest being a standout. Like okay Tommy Just So Happened to craft the ender chest JUUUUUUUUUST in time. Mmhm. Sure..)

But for a later one bc it's the only thing my head is giving me, probably that c!Dream was high as fuck in the c!Bad prison stream. Those potatoes were not clean Sam and you know it 🙄

#ask game #dreblr ask game #my asks !!#the headcanons are bad because i couldn't think of anything dorry #maybe the one i mentioned earlier about healing potions being able to heal Literally Anything as long as you use them fast enough #bc i do like that one a lot it gives a lot of room for fucked up shit

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levi-venn · 3 months

Text

The First Toothpick

Chapter 1: The Kid

Gen Fic - Mentor/Protege

Characters: Cad Bane, Jango Fett, Crosshair (the kid).

Summary: Cad Bane teaches Crosshair how to be a sniper. The kid picks up some other habits as a result.

Chapters: Ch 1 | Ch 2 | Ch 3 | Ch 4 | Ch 5 | Ch 6 | Ch7 | Ch8 (Coming soon)

Available on AO3 here

Cad Bane will do any job...for a price.

But, there was a time when he’d do anything for Jango Fett for free.

Those days are long gone.

The last time Cad saw Jango was on Nar Shaddaa; some seedy dive cantina where blaster bolts and blood flowed as freely as the cheap liquor.

It was over their second pitcher of shitty beer that Jango told Cad he was leaving bounty hunting, the greater galaxy, leaving everything behind.

He said something about a classified government assignment with a big payout.

All Cad heard was that Jango was leaving him behind.

“Kraytspit, boss,” Cad snarled, shoving an index into that armored chest. “You taught me ‘Fuck the Establishment’ and now what, you’re joinin' some government program? Just like that? Fuck you." And then Cad said words that Jango taught him, "And fuck The Man."

The argument got heated. Glass shattered. Fists brandished. Blasters were never drawn, but a spattering of Cad and Jango’s blood was added to the cantina’s décor.

That was years ago, but it wasn’t ancient history.

Not to Cad.

Now Jango’s got the balls to send me a message after all this time? Using words like “personal favor” and “old friend"?

Cad should’ve told him to swallow a cactus.

Instead he set a course for Kamino.

You’re gettin’ soft, nerfpoke, he chided himself. Then again, never did have a clear head where Jango was concerned, did ya?

The Justifier’s ramp clanged against the disc platform outside the Kaminoan Facility and the knot in Cad’s stomach tightened. He wasn't ready to see Jango again, no matter how quickly he punched those coordinates in. Yet, there he was, a dark silhouette at the end of the bridge.

Waiting for him.

The storm roared its unwelcoming song as he approached his former mentor. With every step, raging winds threatened to toss him into the inky, frothing ocean below like an angry gambler swiping a losing hand off a sabacc table. He clicked his heels, activating the magnetic sensors on his boots and he pale-knuckled the wide brim of his hat and walked across the bridge.

His swagger never wavered.

It never does.

Cad gritted his fangs as the barrage of rain needled his skin anywhere his duster and hat couldn’t protect. Jango, meanwhile, was bone dry, leaning against the wall under the lip of the facility's domed roof, arms folded across his armored chest. His helmet obscured his face, but Cad could feel the sly smile behind that reflective T-visor. He always did give Cad shit for not handling the cold too well.

In fact, Cad didn’t know what a “season” was when he left - escaped - the temperate climate of Duro. Didn’t take him long to figure out he kriffin’ hated “monsoon season” and “winter” the most.

“Long time,” Cad said, refusing to stammer as the icy wind clung to his bones.

“Didn’t have to be. You know that,” Jango said, the soft, stern tone apparent through the vocoder. “I told you then I wanted you to join me here.”

“And I told you where to stick it. Whole point of being a freelancer is the ‘free’ part, Fett. What kind of life are you living here?”

“I didn’t ask you here to lecture me on what freedom is, Cad. You’re here for a job.”

“What’s the catch?” Cad asked.

“No catch. You’re the best and that’s what I need.”

Cad smirked. “Flattery don’t work so well on me.”

“No? That’s funny, used to be the only way I could get you to do anything.” Jango removed his helmet, and that disarming grin unraveled the knot in Cad’s gut far too quickly. “Times have changed, I guess.”

“A lot’s changed,” Cad said, stubbornly.

That kriffin’ charismatic smile hasn't changed, has it? It could still ask Cad to do anything. If Jango jumped into a Sarlaac Pit, Cad would do a swan dive right after him.

But those days are over…weren’t they?

Jango punched the control panel beside him and the door opened to a brightly lit corridor. Cad refused to hurry as he walked into the facility, shaking off the rain from his hat and duster with an annoyed scoff.

“Nice digs,” he said, popping a toothpick in his mouth. “Blinding white is really your color.”

“Hey, thanks,” Jango said, not taking the bait. “I keep telling the Kaminoans to add a few potted plants, maybe a Max Reebo poster or two, but they never listen.”

Despite Cad’s desire to keep his head down as the intense lights assaulted his retinas, he still stole glances at his former mentor as they walked.

Mentor…

...Former starsdamn hero…

...Jango got old.

Cad hated the way humans aged, always wearing their mortality on their sleeves. Wrinkled skin, graying hair, even their voices waned and cracked like a mud puddle drying in the summer sun. Jango only had a few laugh lines, crow's feet, a little silver in his hair, but to Cad it was broadcasted that Jango was getting old.

...and so was he.

Still, none of these aged additions bothered him nearly as much as the change in Jango’s eyes.

They glittered with warmth. With happiness. Comfort.

“You look tired,” Cad mumbled the lie.

Fuck him for being happy without Cad.

“You worried about me, Bane?” Jango teased.

“Just saying, if you’re here to beg me to rescue you, we’re going the wrong way.” He jerked his long thumb behind him. “Ship’s that way.”

“Believe it or not, I’m good here.”

“Sure,” Cad sneered. “You always did talk about retiring in a sterile medical facility surrounded by violent storms.”

“I have a son, Cad,” Jango said, in an infuriatingly light tone.

Cad froze. The toothpick broke in two between his fanged teeth. He spat it out onto the pristine floor. “The fuck are you talking about?”

“The Kaminoans here contracted me for a classified assignment. I told them I wouldn’t do it for less than a krayt-sized hoard of credits and a son created with my DNA.”

Cad shook his head in disbelief. “So you’re raising a little you, then?”

Jango shook his head. “I don’t see it that way. Boba does seem to have the best parts of me, but it’s not by design. He’s just a genuinely good kid. I don’t know how that’s possible. I was a little hellion.”

So was Cad. He wasn't that much younger than Jango when the Mando took him under his wing, but Cad felt like a bumbling kid and twice as stubborn as a reek.

“Cad, you gotta relax or you’ll miss your target every time,” Jango says. It was the fifth time he said this. It was the tenth bottle Cad had missed.

Jango’s tone never changes, though. Always a little gruff. Always a little gentle. Unwaveringly insistent.

"I’m calm, boss!” The duros snarled, his hat sinking slightly over bulbous red eyes.

“Oh yeah.” Jango snorted. “You sound real calm.” He placed a warm hand on Cad’s bony shoulder. “It’s okay to be nervous. And I’m not just talking about here and now, shooting bottles off a fence. I’m talking about life in general. It’s okay to be scared. Just don’t let your brain dictate what those hands are going to do.” Jango tapped his temple, then held up a calm hand. “Screaming mind. Cool hand. You master that and you’ll be unstoppable. Now take a deep breath, aim, exhale, and squeeze that trigger.”

“Maybe you just needed a patient mentor,” Cad mumbled.

“I heard your old boss was really patient,” Jango said.

Cad’s heart sank and he gave a little shrug, something he hadn’t done since before he added the “Bane” to his name.

“I missed you, too, Cad.”

“Fuck you,” Cad grumbled, but there was no bite to the words.

Jango led Cad through a complex labyrinth that was damn impossible to navigate.

“Is there anything you can tell me about what you’re doing here?” Cad asked, feeling like he’s walking through the gullet of some angelic serpent. “Kaminoans are cloners, I know that much. So…they’re cloning you? A lot?”

“Yes,” Jango said.

“And they grew you a son.”

“Yes.”

Cad rankled. “How many of ‘you’ are they making?”

“That’s classified.”

“Are they making mercenaries?”

Jango thought for a moment. “More organized than that.”

“Soldiers, then. For who?”

“That’s classified.”

“You’re really okay with them using your face, and your everything, to make soldiers?”

“Like I said, the pay is insane and I have a son.” Jango flashed him a smirk. “If you join me here, I’ll tell you everything in excruciating detail, including why I wanted to stay.”

“Never,” Cad growled, gut twisting again.

Jango’s easy smile slid off his face, his eyes lingering as if only now he realized Cad would never change his mind.

Cad couldn’t bear looking at Jango like this. “Just tell me about the job.”

“Alright.”

Jango pressed a control panel in an alcove Cad hadn’t noticed moments before. The wall slid open to an observation deck overlooking an artificial combat zone made to look like a war-torn village. Plenty of places to hide, plenty more blind spots. Dangerous and advantageous for a sniper that knew what they were doing.

“The facility has designed a squad of experimental clones, trained to be elite combatants. One of them is designed to be a sniper. I want you to train him.”

In the center of the village was a lone tower. Combat droids were starting to swarm around it.

“You can’t train him yourself? You’re the one who taught me how to shoot.” Cad noticed a silhouette move around atop the tower, a sniper blaster rifle peeking its muzzle out like the snout of a curious creature, then withdrawing again. No shot was fired.

Hesitation.

Not good.

“I did, but we both know you can shoot rings around me when it comes to a sniper blaster rifle. I wouldn’t trust this assignment to anyone but you.”

“I ain’t a teacher,” Cad pressed.

“He doesn’t need one. He needs…” Jango thought for a moment. “A role-model.”

Cad laughed and popped another toothpick in his mouth. “Oh yeah, I’m a real upstanding citizen.”

“See? I knew I could count on you.”

Cad rolled his eyes. “So who is this grunt?”

“CT-9904.”

Cad frowned. "That ain’t a name.”

“It’s his designation. It’s what they use here.”

Cad lifted the brim of his hat, watching the blaster rifle peek out again and fire a blast.

A droid went down.

The muzzle poked out another hole.

Two blaster bolts fired, two droids fall.

Every shot fired found it's mark, but it wasn't enough to thin out the herd of droids.

“He’s got a good eye, but he’s taking too long to take those shots,” Cad observed.

“Remind you of anyone?” Jango asked.

“Take the shot, Cad.”

“I will! I just need to-”

An air horn blared beside Cad’s ear. The blaster bolt hit the tree, several feet above the target.

“What the fuck, boss?!”

Jango tossed the air horn cheekily in the air. “Stop hesitating. Take the shot or don’t, but this lollygagging isn't going to save your skin on a hunt.”

“Fine…just stop firing that damn airhorn.”

“Alright, alright. Here," Jango tucked the air horn in his belt and held up his empty hands. "I’m done with it. Take the shot whenever you’re ready.”

Cad lined his shot up again. But…

…What if he misses?

What if he’ll never be good at this? Not like Jango.

Jango was perf-

The airhorn bellows overhead. Cad nearly drops the rifle.

“Jango!!”

“C’mon, do you think your bounty will stop firing at you if you ask nicely? Work through the distractions. Ignore the voice filling your head with thoughts of failure. We’re out here until you land ten hits on that target. This is non-negotiable. And you better hurry, that storm’s getting closer by the minute.”

Cad’s rifle shook, already feeling the bitter wind attacking his senses.

“You got this, Cad…” Jango said, nudging Jango’s elbows, gently reminding him to keep them close to his body. “...I wouldn’t be teaching you if I didn’t believe in your greatness.”

CT-9904 managed to take down a dozen droid, but two dozen more were climbing the tower. The blaster rifle’s muzzle poked in and out of the slits in the tower too quickly to be effective. He was panicking.

Jango pressed a button on the control panel.

“Simulation Over .” The droids powered down, falling off the tower into heaps on the tile floor.

“CT-9904,” Jango called through the comm. “Report to Control.”

Cad braced himself to see a copy of Jango emerge from the tower. Would he act like Jango? Would he have Jango’s memories? Jango knew Cad better than any humanoid alive...would this clone, too?

The answer came in a resounding "No" in the shape of a skinny kid with a shock of white hair dressed in a blue and red jumpsuit. He slid down the ladder, hopping lightly over the droid bodies, and bounding towards the lift.

“Dank farrik, Jango. You’re making kid soldiers here?”

“It’s more complicated than that,” Jango replied.

“Complicated how?”

“I bet you can get what I'm going to say”

“Classified. Right.”

The door slid open and the kid peeked in before entering the room, his eyes narrowing at the sight of the Duros.

Despite being Duros, Cad had spent most of his adult life around a variety of humanoids, most of them human. Cad could’ve picked this kid out of a lineup as Jango’s spawn, but…he didn’t look like a copy.

Experimental clones…right.

“CT-9904 is part of a special operation of elite warriors. He’s our finest sniper.”

“The best sniper in the facility,” the kid said, with a voice surprisingly raspy, like he smoked a pack of deathsticks before coming up here. The kid's sarcasm came through loud and clear though, like he had heard others call him the best sniper in the facility.

Doesn't mean he believes it himself.

The kid kept his eyes lowered, one fist clenched, the other white knuckling the strap of his sniper rifle, a version of the 773 Firepuncher augmented to accommodate for this scrawny child.

None of this felt right.

But this was a job, and…it was at Jango’s request.

“You’re welcome to any training room here. Any weapons you need are at your disposal. Droids too.”

Cad shook his head. “No.”

The kid and Jango both looked up at Cad with the same confusion.

“No?” Jango asked.

“Not going to train him here. You want me to show him the ropes, he’s gotta have a taste of what the galaxy is like out there.”

“He can’t leave the facility.”

The kid looked up at Jango, his eyes wide and round, maybe out of fear...

Or maybe he's hoping to get out and see the galaxy for a change.

“Says who?” Cad challenged.

“Says…uh...fuck…I don’t know, Cad. He’s property of the facility.”

Cad rankled.

Property? Who the fuck is Jango anymore?

Cad took his toothpick out to point at Jango emphatically. “Those are my terms, take ‘em or find yourself another sniper with skills as good as mine.” He flicked the toothpick against Jango's armor. It plinked musically before hitting the ground. “Good luck with that," he sneered.

The kid was now looking up at Cad with those large, owl-like eyes, but they were joined by a sneer of his own.

Jango sighed. “Fine. You’ll be compensated for any credits you spend, just…don’t take him to the Canto Bight race tracks, okay? I want daily reports. You return him when I say it's time to come back.”

"You have my word," Cad said. And he meant it.

The kid looked up at Jango. “Can I say bye to Tech first?”

Jango ignored the request. “Thanks for doing this, Cad.”

“I’m doing it for the credits.”

Jango sighed. “Don’t hold back on him. He can handle whatever you throw at him.”

“You never pulled punches,” Cad said, dryly. “Don’t reckon I would either.”

“I can handle it,” the raspy kid echoed, throwing Cad a dangerous look unlike worn by Jango's face.

But Cad knew that look all too well: The look of a frightened predator.

#the bad batch #star wars the clone wars #clone wars #cad bane #jango fett #bad batch crosshair #The First Toothpick

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painted-illusions-au · 2 years

Text

Painted Illusions Timeline

Masterlist of all of the plot related comics for this au put in order! Will be updated as time goes on

Season 2

Empty promises

Vibing

Protégé time

Cold friendship

So close

A team (a hostage)

No warrior

Permanent

Drista

Pets

Your fault

Memorial

Ghostbur’s grief

Like a cat (Bonk)

Familiar face

Secret friendship

Bitch lol

Brief rest

Hopeless searching

Beeduo

Dreary days

Found out

Betrayal

Don’t poke the bear [pt.1 || pt.2 || pt.3 || pt.4 || pt.5]

Ranboo gets fired

Revive Book

Memorizing, memorizing, memorizing—

Practice makes perfect

Punz (derogatory)

Hazy preparations

Doomsday

Goodbye L’Manburg

Techno tries

Disc Confrontation

[pt.1 || pt.2 || pt.3 || pt.3 || pt.4 || pt.5

|| pt.6 || pt.7 || pt.8 || pt.9 || pt.10]

Season 3

Foreign Gentleness

Home

Promises

Forever a Protégé

What did he do to you?

Reassurance

Alliums and Apologies

Sing for me

Moth boy

First laugh

Glimpse of Limbo

Their dead friend

Triggers

Helping hand

Big Q

Captain pus— puffy

Nightmares

Knitting (failing)

I— He wasn’t that bad

Why didn’t you visit me?

You’re hurting too

Tubbo’s nightmares

Bitter oranges

Love to the point of Invention

Brother

Confetti innit?

Lonely girl

Bitter boy

Rocket duo scheming

Project Dreamcatcher reminder

Chat with Ghostbur [pt.1 || pt.2 || pt.3]

Time goes on

Moving out

Clingy

Overbearing love

Contract for Awesamdude

Punz (derogatory, part 2)

Tubbo worries

A gentle ache

Homesick

Some healthy destruction

Some unhealthy destruction

A Dream [pt.1, pt.2, pt.3]

[Continuation]

#info #season 2 #season 3

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spiralcass · 9 months

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NEW X-MEN: THE ANIMATED SERIES - SEASON 2, EPISODE 6 (PART 1 OF 2)

We open 5 years ago in the realm of Asgard. There, 17-year-old Danielle Moonstar, 18-year-old Karma, and 16-year-old Sunspot are surrounded by trolls and giants, alongside two new faces, 17-year-old Cannonball, and 15-year-old Wolfsbane.

KARMA: “Where is she?”

DANI: “She’ll be here. We just need to buy time.”

CANNONBALL: “Alright, New Mutants! Here’s the plan!”

Before Sam Guthrie can begin calling out orders, Dani, far from the calm and mature presence we know in the present, snaps at him, since they’re meant to be co-leaders, and he’s trying to give orders on his own. Sam snaps back at Dani since it’s not like she was tossing out any ideas.

Roberto, whose voice hasn’t dropped yet, facepalms at these, “idiotas”, while Wolfsbane, Rahne Sinclair, shapeshifts into her wolf form and shouts at the team leaders in an aggressively Scottish accent if now is the time for this.

As the monstrous hordes attack, Karma supposes no plan will have to be the plan.

While Cannonball and Sunspot act as the New Mutants’ primary fighters, Sam flying into enemies as the living rocket he is, while Sunspot goes for the tried and true method of punching enemies in the face with super strength. Dani doesn’t use her powers at all, instead alternating between engaging with the trolls in hand-to-hand combat, and firing at them from a distance with her bow. Karma has taken control of on the giants and is using it to fight the others, while Rahne stands guard to protect her from any trolls who try to attack her while she’s defenseless.

They fight well and successfully clear out all the monsters, but when a giant dragon flies overhead, they all express fear, unsure of how they can fight such a beast after already tiring themselves out.

It swoops down at them, the five young Mutants ready to do the best they can to defend themselves…but they don’t have to.

A disc-shaped portal opens up inside the dragon’s head, blowing it up and killing the dragon. As its blood splatters all over the New Mutants, a 16-year-old girl with long blond hair and bangs, armed with a sword, hops out of the portal.

ROBERTO: “Uch! Gross!”

DANI: “Cutting it a little close there, don’t you think, Magik?”

MAGIK, in a deep Russian accent: “I wanted to see if you guys could survive without me for once. Obviously, you couldn’t. You can all thank me now.”

Rather than cheer her on, the rest of the new Mutants boo her. Magik just smiles and laughs at this, however, as this is just a bit.

MAGIK: “What would you all do without me?”

From the bright, innocent smile of a young girl, we cut to the present, where Kitty sits at Magik’s grave at dawn. She’s dressed in casual clothes, she’s holding back tears, and she has another rotted flower for her.

KITTY: “Happy 21st birthday, Illyana.”

In the cafeteria, the newly formed Hellions have taken over the student body. Various unnamed students bring Julian, Cessily, Roxy, Sooraya, Brian, and The Cuckoos their lunch, as well as their completed homework. Julian uses his telekinesis on Quentin and the boy he's sitting with, a skeleton with a pink gelatinous exterior, to make them spill their milk all over themselves, getting laughs out of the Cuckoos.

Along with all the unnamed students who've been blackmailed into servitude, there are also a few named ones.

Pixie, perky as ever and naive as to what's going on here, tells Roxy it was no problem helping her with her homework. Anything for a friend. Roxy just glares at her, before turning to the other Hellions.

ROXY: "She thinks we're still friends. Dumb bitch."

As the Hellions laugh, Pixie whimpers, questioning what she's talking about.

BRIAN: "Next."

Tagging himself, Brian forces Pixie to fly away.

We pan over to the cafeteria entrance, where Sofia and Noriko stand. Noriko has one very simple question…

NORIKO: "What the in HELL is going on here?!"

What they're seeing is deranged and wrong and obscene on so many levels. Nori can buy Julian and Brian falling in with the Barbie Bitches, but the girls? After what they put Cess and Roxy through? No way.

Sofia has TRIED talking to everyone over the last couple days, but they've all blown her off.

NORI: "Yeah? Then let's make them talk."

Nori stomps toward the Hellions' table. Sofia know this is likely to end badly, but reluctantly follows her lead.

As the two approach, the Cuckoos shoot them triumphant smirks.

SOPHIE: "What's wrong? Are you two realizing the consequences of your actions?"

NORIKO: "Big talk from the girl who only got her new boyfriend because her name sounds like his ex's."

CESSILY: "Back off, Noriko."

NORIKO: "No, YOU be straight with us."

BRIAN: "Asking the bi girl to be straight. Classy."

Noriko groans.

SOFIA: "Sooraya…please talk to us."

Sooraya just turns her head away.

Julian stands up. He's just trying to enjoy his lunch with his friends. Anything else they're doing is none of their business.

Noriko charges herself up, warning him that he shouldn't feel untouchable just because they can't talk to the teachers. Julian lights up and says he'd be happy to have another food fight…

JULIAN: "But if you haven't noticed, I've got a little more firepower on my side this time."

The groups continue to stare each other down. Noriko so badly wants to throw the first punch, but she knows there's no winning here and backs down.

NORIKO: "This isn't over."

Noriko walks off, but Sofia stays, watching Julian as he sits down.

JULIAN: "Yeah?"

Sofia shakes her head.

SOFIA: "Nothing."

In the teacher’s lounge, Kitty, Beto, Dani, and Xuan are sitting around in beanbag chairs, drinking beer, and telling stories. There’s a birthday cake on the table next to them, with Hell-themed frosting, alongside “flaming hot” sodas.

Kitty recalls the time she got way too angry at Storm for getting a mohawk and changing out of her usual, regal costume into leathers, so Magik cast a spell to give her temporary tattoos and dreadlocks to piss her off.

KITTY: “Honestly, I kinda wanted real tats, but you know...”

She playfully flicks her Magen David.

Dani reminisces about the time she and Illyana saved the rest of these dorks from becoming Emma’s Hellions, AFTER they’d willingly joined her, using time travel. Karma tells her to hold up and that she’s getting her stories mixed up. The time Magik and Dani saved them, and the time they joined Emma willingly were completely separate.

DANI: “Right, right. Hey, WHY is she still here?”

ROBERTO: “A million-dollar question, with a billion-dollar answer.” Beto takes a swig of his beer. “Remember that time we were at those hot springs and Sam and I–”

“Beto, if you tell that story, aye will claw your eyes out.”

Everyone turns to the doorway and finds their other two former teammates from the flashback, Cannonball and Wolfsbane. Cannonball is tall, muscular, and handsome, and dressed in a t-shirt, jeans, and jean jacket, while Rahne is a petite ginger in a frilly dress with furry arms and legs.

Roberto’s eyes light up with joy as he gets up to hug it out and welcome his best friend, Sam, while Dani, Xuan, and Rahne all squeal at the sight of each other, so happy to see each other again after so long.

Kitty looks on longingly at all of them in silence, wishing her own best friend could have walked through that door.

Sam’s glad Kitty thought to arrange this little reunion. They’ve been saying “We’ll hang out soon” without ever doing anything for too long.

RAHNE: “No Amara?”

DANI: “Magma’s busy. We’ll try and catch her another time.”

As they all sit down to have some cake, we get a better idea of who Sam and Rahne are as they explain what they’ve been doing since graduation. Rahne has been working with the Mutant detective agency X-Factor; Rahne namedrops Multiple Man as the team’s leader.

SAM: “And it’s same old, same old for me. Still just working with–”

Before Sam can finish that sentence, everyone else starts horribly singing the theme song to the Avengers animated series Bobby was seen watching several episodes ago.

SAM: “This is why they don’t like you guys.”

Kitty giggles, but her face quickly falls afterward. Her friends notice and ask what’s wrong.

KITTY: “I don’t know. I just…never stop thinking about what we could have done to save her.”

ROBERTO: “She was killed by a virus, not a supervillain. There was nothing any of us could have done.”

DANI: “She definitely would have been happier going down in battle.”

KARMA: “Mmhm.”

Kitty kicks the leg of the table.

KITTY: “Yana. Doug. Warlock. My dad. Everyone else on Genosha. Sometimes I wonder what’s even the point of keeping up the fight if we’re all gonna get killed eventually.”

BEAT.

ROBERTO, whispering in Sam’s ear: “She’s always such a mood killer.”

Sam punches Beto’s shoulder.

Sam tells Kitty he knows it’s hard. With everything they’ve been through and everyone they’ve lost, how could it not be? But it’s like “The Cap” always says: You have to keep rising up no matter how many times you fall.

Kitty and the New Mutants proceed to fall through portals.

In Laura’s room, Noriko, accompanied by Sofia, is shouting at Laura that she needs to do something about the Hellions. They can’t get help from the teachers, and they can’t force them to stop themselves…

SOFIA: “We considered seeking help from some of the other more powerful students like Quentin and Armor, but we don’t think even they would be enough.”

…but since Laura is both a kid AND an X-Man, maybe she can stop this.

While they’re talking, Laura is pacing around and packing a duffel bag. To their dismay, Laura tells them she wants no part in this. If this is what the rest of the squad wants to do, she doesn’t care. Unless they start actually hurting people, she’s gonna keep hanging out with them too.

NORIKO: “You can’t be for real.”

SOFIA: “Laura, what if the Cuckoos are hurting ALL of them?”

LAURA, zipping her bag: “Dust would have told me. She tells me everything.”

NORIKO: “Uh-huh. Where are you going anyway?”

LAURA: “Logan called. Needs me and Warpath to come help with a job.”

SOFIA: “I feel like I never see Mr. Proudstar anymore. How is he?”

Laura just shrugs.

LAURA: “Hellion is clearly still processing what he went through. What I LET happen to him. Let him be. Trying anything dumb could make things worse for everyone.” Laura brushes past the girls and turns around, looking at Sofia. “If he does hurt you, I’ll cut his dick off.”

NORIKO: “And if he hurts me?”

LAURA: “Eh.”

Laura departs.

NORIKO: “I hate this stupid school.”

Kitty rubs her head as she wakes up somewhere with red ground and a pale yellow sky, questioning what happened. The New Mutants wake up around her and instantly freak out. They know where they are because they’ve been here plenty of times.

ROBERTO: “KItty, welcome to Limbo.”

Rahne shivers and hugs herself. She always hated this place.

Kitty looks in awe and horror at the demons flying through the sky and the creatures crawling all around them. She’d only ever heard about Limbo, the realm between Hell and Earth which Illyana had ruled over as a teenager, and had never been here herself.

“In that case, my question is only for the rest of you.”

The six Mutants turn around and find a devilish-looking demon in attire similar to a Roman emperor’s approaching them.

BELASCO: “Do you like what I’ve done with the place?”

Cannonball questions who this guy is and what he wants with them as the team prepares for a fight. Belasco introduces himself.

BELASCO: “Not long ago, I was the absolute ruler of this domain. A perfect plan was in place to exterminate the mortal life that those like you fight so hard to protect. The Earth was to become the playground for the true gods to lay waste to as they saw fit. But then, my plan was foiled, my throne was taken, and I was killed, all by a little girl with a sword.

Kitty snort laughs. She gets it. This is the bastard who kidnapped Yana as a kid so he could turn her into a vessel for the jerks he worshipped, only for her to teach herself magic, kick his butt, and escape. Now he’s back and wants revenge.

KITTY, glaring: “Sorry buddy. But you’re too late. She’s gone.”

Belasco isn’t surprised to hear this. He was informed of her death as he took his throne back not from her, but from his old number 2. And while the thought of Illyana Rasputina dying slowly and painfully is an appealing one to him, it does him no good. He is the king of Limbo once again, and he is determined to pick up from where he left off. He spent years corrupting that girl’s soul, and he’s not about to start over with someone else.

BELASCO: “It’s your lucky day, New Mutants! You’re going to aid me in restoring your old friend to life.”

Kitty and the New Mutants stare Belasco down, all combat-ready, none of them stupid enough to go along with a devil’s devices. Belasco is unafraid and grins back at them all.

At The Grindstone, Noriko is working her shift and slinging coffee to customers. She’s wearing the forced smile mandated by all service jobs, but she’s unable to keep that up as Julian, seated with the other Hellions, sans Cuckoos, calls out to her.

JULIAN “Hey Ashida!” He proceeds to dump his coffee on the floor. “Come clean this up for us.”

Noriko struggles to keep control of herself as the Hellions all laugh at her. As she goes to get the mop, her boss comes up to her.

LUNA: “Aren’t those guys your friends?”

NORIKO: “Nope.”

LUNA: “Right. Well, try and keep a lid on whatever’s going on between you, okay? I only took a chance on you because Xuan asked me to.” Pause. “Has she asked about me lately?”

Noriko faux gags as she grabs the mop and walks off.

As Nori cleans up the spill, Julian mocks that this feels a lot more right than her hanging out with them, Cessily and Brian laughing at that as Julian floats off to the bathroom.

Noriko, spotting an opportunity while neither Julian nor the Cuckoos are present, puts down the mop and slams her hands down on the table. She demands they tell her what’s going on right now. No more games.

Roxy and Sooraya appear guilty, while Cessily and Brian tell her to not stick her nose where it doesn’t belong and to get back to work. In response, Noriko tells them that if they aren’t upfront with her right now, she’ll have them all banned from this place.

The four Hellions exchange glances before one of them finally snaps.

ROXY: “Shit! Okay. Fine.”

CESSILY: “Babe, don’t.”

ROXY: “Don't’ “Babe” me right now, girl.” She turns to Noriko. “I don’t know what, but the Cuckoos said something to Julian that convinced him all this nonsense was a good idea.”

NORI: “And you just went along with it?”

ROXY: “He wanted us to. And the Cuckoos got secrets from all our brains.”

NORI: “You have secrets so bad it’s worth doing all of this?”

ROXY: “My parents do.”

SOORAYA: “And I don’t wish to think about what those monsters could do with my mother’s location.”

Nori bites her lip and nods, glad at least two of them aren’t total assholes. She then turns her attention to Cessily and Brian. Cessily explains that Julian is acting out right now over his injury and rejection. If they ditched him too, he’d probably only get worse.

NORI: “Laura said something similar.”

CESSILY: “Laura is much smarter than you; you should listen to her.”

BRIAN: “Plus, you know, we’re not half as bad as the bullies I dealt with back home. And it’s kinda fun being the one pushing others around for a change.”

CESSILY: “It is kinda nice.”

The giggle and fist bump, Noriko rolling her eyes. She tells them that’s nice and all, but if they want to get things back to normal, they should just tell Julian–”

JULIAN: “Tell Julian what?”

Hellion returns and asks Ashida what she thinks she’s doing talking to his crew. Noriko calls him out herself, saying she won’t let him keep making them do this.

JULIAN: “Making them? I know you’ve never had any besides my ex, but they’re my friends. They help me because they want to. Like, say, if I asked them to take you out back and teach you a lesson, I’m sure they’d be happy to help.”

Nori mocks that idea but then notices the other Hellions glaring at her.

NORI: “Oh, you cannot be serious.”

Cessily just mouths, “Sorry”.

We cut to a wide shot of the coffee shop. We don’t see what happens behind it, only an explosion of metal and dust as we hear Nori swear at the top of her lungs in pain.

In Limbo, the old New Mutants command structure gives way as Kitty takes the lead. She doesn’t want Karma trying to go into this guy’s head, unsure of what could happen, and just being realistic, Sam, Beto, and Rahne probably aren’t strong enough to hit him head-on, so she instead orders Dani to project Belasco’s worst fears on him. Even a demon lord has to be afraid of something, right?

Belasco’s smug grin shifts into a sneer as a projection of 14-year-old Illyana appears before him, mocking his past defeat.

“ILLYANA”: “Honestly, if I were you, and I’m glad I’m not, I would have stayed dead. Can you imagine how embarrassing it would be to bring me back to life and then lose again? A HA HA HA HA HA!”

Belasco grits his teeth and spits that he does NOT fear her as he smashes the illusion. With him distracted, however, Cannonball is able to catch him by surprise, and, with momentum behind him, get Sunspot into range to deliver a powerful first punch to the face, before swinging back around and hitting him himself from behind.

Belasco blasts hellfire at the two men, but Sunspot is able to just absorb the attack. Kitty, meanwhile, phases through the flames and flips over Belasco, phasing her hand through his head and pulling something out the other side.

Kitty shakes her gloved hand with disgust as she drops the gooey, maggot-infested organ. She doesn’t know what that was, but she hopes it was important.

Belasco is fed up.

As Wolfsbane attacks in wolf form, Belasco simply grabs her by the neck and slams her into the ground knocking her out.

Dani is incensed by this and manifests a spirit arrow in her bow, but, before she can fire it, Belasco controls the landscape of Limbo itself, and juts blunt spires of stone into her and Karma’s stomachs, knocking the wind out of them before he renders them unconscious with a dark energy wave.

ROBERTO: “Of course a beast like you has no trouble hitting ladies.”

Belaso looks at him with annoyance, before laughing.

BELASCO: “Sunspot, yes? You don’t belong here.”

Beto freezes up for a moment, unsure of what that’s supposed to mean, leaving him vulnerable. As Belasco attacks him, Sam flies in to try and get him out of the way, but they both end up getting knocked out.

Belasco licks his lips at Kitty.

BELASCO: “And that just leaves the one who loves her most.”

Kitty looks around at all her unconscious friends, and, taking into account that none of their attacks were able to even do anything, realizes the best thing she can do right now is give him what he wants so they can at least get more information.

Kitty surrenders and asks how he plans on bringing Magik back.

At the school, Noriko groans in pain. In their room, Sofia is patching Noriko up, mentioning how her mother taught her basic first-aid, and she just hopes she’s doing this right. Sofia can’t believe their friends would do this to her, even given the circumstances.

Noriko, who’s covered in cuts and bruises, but nothing serious, groans again as Sofia sews up one of the deeper ones. Honestly, she doesn’t blame Soo or Roxy. They’ve got things worth protecting. Cessily and Brian are dead to her though.

Sofia shakes her head. This is her fault. She should have been firmer when she tried talking to everyone herself earlier, but she was too nervous and awkward because…

NORI: “If you tell me it’s because you blame yourself, I will zap you.”

It is NOT Sofia’s fault that any of this is happening. She didn’t have much to begin with, but she is officially out of pity for Julian. Normal people don’t do this kind of thing just because their ex didn’t want to get back together with him.

SOFIA: “Well…that isn’t strictly true.”

Noriko looks at Sofia in tired frustration.

NORIKO: “No. Seriously? Really, Princess?”

Sofia explains that she meant “No” when she told him, but after thinking about it and speaking with Laura, she decided that, in spite of everything, she did want to be with him after all. She was just too late.

NORI, hurting her shoulder so she can grip Sofia’s shoulders: “Sofia, get this through your unnaturally symmetrical face: Julian is a dick. You can have any guy you want. You can kiss Laura if you just want a warm body to smooch. But let this go!”

Sofia thinks for a moment before shaking her head. She can’t do that. Not until she knows exactly what the Cuckoos said to him.

Sofia stands up and asks Nori if she’ll be okay here. Nori sighs and just asks her to grab them some food on her way back; she doesn’t feel like dealing with the cafeteria. Sofia nods and flies off.

In Limbo, the New Mutants wake up, again, this time in a cell.

ROBERTO: “So…we didn’t win?”

DANI: “No, Beto. No, we did not win.”

As Kitty welcomes them all back, Sam asks her what happened. She explains that she surrendered after Belasco kicked their butts, and is hoping that however, he’s planning on using them to “bring back” Illyana, they can take advantage of the opportunity to escape. And maybe…actually get Illyana back. If they’re lucky.

KITTY: “It isn’t much of a plan, but it’s what I’ve got.”

After a little moping, Dani slams her fist against the ground. How did they lose so easily? They’re all trained warriors.

DANI: “I’d fear teaching had made Karma and I lose our instincts, but the rest of you failed just as miserably.”

Xuan tries to comfort her, reminding her how Illyana’s power was god-like while she was down here when she was queen, so Belasco is possibly operating on a similar level. No X-Men could have won that fight.

Dani, her warrior’s pride hurt, isn’t helped by this knowledge. What does help her is Rahne, without a word, turning into her wolf form and cuddling up against Dani’s lap. Dani giggles as she pets her friend, saying this isn’t fair; it’s hard to stay mad when your soulmate wants you to cheer up.

Sam kicks a rock. He knows they’re all good heroes, but at the end of the day, that’s because of their training, not their gifts. Beto is no Colossus, he’s no Northstar, and Dani and Karma are obviously no Jean.

SAM: “How many battles did we only win back in the day because Magik was there?”

RAHNE, purring as she gets pet: ‘She wasn’t always around…”

BETO: “But she was always there when we needed her.”

While the mood slightly brightens for the others, Kitty starts crying.

KITTY: “We’re all going to die.”

Sam tells her that’s not going to happen and she needs to calm down. Even if it’s a half-baked plan, they have a plan, and they’ve all been through worse than this. Kitty just shakes her head. They have no hope in a situation like this without Magik, Magik was killed by a Mutant targeting virus the US government actively allowed to spread, and now they’re all going to be killed too, because that’s the inevitable fate of all Mutants.

SAM: “Kitty Pryde, you’re the senior X-Man here! Quit the doom-saying, get a hold of yourself, and–!”

KITTY: “You weren’t there!”

As the girls realize what’s going on with Kitty, and Rahne crawls over to Kitty to give her a hug, Sam starts shouting again, only to be cut off shortly by Roberto, who places a burning hand on his shoulder. In a rare quiet moment for him, Beto, the only other person here who DID see the aftermath of the Genoshan incident, just shakes his head at his friend.

Kitty sniffles and hugs Rahne back.

At night at the institute, Julian is outside on the basketball court, by himself, taking freeshots, and retrieving his ball each time with his telekinesis. He isn’t doing very well. Julian swears and disconnects from his metal hands. They drop to the ground as he screams how much he hates them.

“Don’t blame them.”

Julian’s ball is blown away and into the hands of Sofia

“You were never good at freeshots with your old hands either.”

Julian doesn’t say anything as he puts his hands back on and pulls his ball back into them, and resumes missing shots.

JULIAN: “If this is about Ashida, she got what she deserved.”

Sofia tells him this isn’t about her. It’s about them. Julian insists there is no “them” anymore. She made that clear. He’s with Sophie now, and he’s happy (he says, very clearly unhappy).

SOFIA: “Really? Just like that? You don’t find me, “Beautiful” anymore?”

Julian grits his teeth and shakes, charging up with energy until he pops his ball with it. This isn’t fair! She told him she didn’t want to get back together and she was right to! So what does she want now?!

Sofia shakes her head in frustration.

SOFIA: “You pigheaded, self-centered…I NEEDED TIME! You broke my heart, and I needed to think! You, after all your chasing, just gave up when the next pretty girl whispered in your ear. I don’t know what’s wrong with me that I still…”

Sofia trails off as her eyes widen. Julian is looking away, despondent, holding his arm.

JULIAN: “Go on. Finish. Say whatever terrible thing about me you were going to. We both know it’s true.”

Sofia floats over, closing the gap between them, and asks what he’s talking about.

JULIAN: “I realized who I am. What I am.”

SOFIA: “And that is?”

JULIAN: “Exactly like Ashida’s always said: A future Brotherhood member.”

Julian tells her to just think about it. His human parents don’t want him, the only Mutant adult who doesn’t see him as a nuicisance at best and a future villain at worst is the former supervillain, he uses the only people who care about him, he treats everyone like dirt, including her, and, without his hands, he won’t even be skilled enough to ever join the X-Men - or Hellfire for that matter.

JULIAN: “One day, when you’re leading the X-Men, I’ll just be another thug you’re handing over to SHIELD. If I’m gonna be the bad guy, I may as well start now and enjoy it while I can.”

Julian starts flying off, but Sofia meets him in mid-air.

SOFIA: “Did the Cuckoos tell you all that?”

JULIAN: “All they did was accept the real me.”

Julian tries to fly off again, but this time Sofia holds him back with her winds. Even as Julian fights back with his TK energy, he can’t get past her.

SOFIA: “How can you be so naive? How can you be brilliant enough to teach a girl who could barely get her feet off the ground to fly, but stupid enough to not see you’re being used?”

JULIAN: “I dunno. Why can’t the girl who was getting sponsorships when she was 14 figure out a half-decent name to call her followers?”

SOFIA: “Why you–it isn’t that easy!”

JULIAN: “Seems pretty easy to me.”

The two’s glares turn to warm, loving smiles, but they don’t last. Julian appreciates that she does still care about him, but she isn’t changing his mind. This is just how things are.

SOFIA: “I see. I’m sorry.”

With no more resistance, Julian successfully starts flying away.

JULIAN: “If you and Ashida want to rejoin the crew, I won’t complain. But you follow my lead. Otherwise, stay out of my life. For both our sakes.”

Neither seeing the other, both melodramatic teens shed tears.

Back in Limbo, Belasco approaches Kitty and the New Mutants, swirling isn’t screaming soul-filled wine. And he isn’t alone. Accompanying him are a muscular, purple demon with a massive sword that looks more like a knife strapped to his back, and a tiny, chubby red demon with a mouth for a face.

Now that they’re all awake, they can begin the resurrection, starting with introductions. The demons accompanying Belasco are Sy’m, one of the strongest demons in Limbo and his right-hand man, and Sy’m’s daughter, Despair. Now, he knows Despair may not look like much, but she has a very special ability: she feeds on her namesake. And there’s no despair like that which spawns from deep, true love. Like the kind all six of these Mutants had for Illyana.

SY’M: *SNORT LAUGHS* “Love. Disgusting.”

Belasco explains that their love and pain are the only ingredients he still requires to complete his spell.

XUAN: “And that’s it? You take that from us and she comes back?”

BELASCO: “Well, there are a few other things. For one, the spell WILL kill you all, but I’m sure that’s a sacrifice you’re all happy to make. Or maybe not, considering when she does come back, she will rise completed. There will be no trace of the mortal known as Illyana Rasputina, only her soulless demonic side, Darkchylde. And at long last, Earth will meet its end. Any messages you’d like for me to share with my herald?” She grins right at the team’s leader. “KItty Pryde?”

Kitty looks around at her team. They know this is hopeless, but all of them refuse to let that show on their faces. In spite of everything she’s feeling herself, she matches that.

KITTY: “Fuck you.”

Belasco laughs and orders Despair to begin. Sy’m tugs on his daughter’s hair and spits in her face that she better not mess this up and make him look bad.

BELASCO: “You do that well enough on your own, you imbecile. Now, Despair.”

Despair unhinges her jaw, expands her mouth, and sucks out all of the Mutants’ love and pain. Kitty and the New Mutants scream in agony as these powerful feelings are ripped right out of them. Belasco laughs manically as he begins chanting in a strange language and channels all the feelings Despair is absorbing into the rest of the already assembled ingredients.

This goes on and on, as the Mutants try to use their powers to get out of this, but Karma trying to get in Belaso’s head only increases the amount of pain she’s in, and Dani casts an illusion of Despair’s greatest fear only creates a second Sy’m, who Belasco blasts away. The fighters tell Kitty to try phasing away and leave them behind, but she refuses.

Slowly but surely, a humanoid form begins to take shape within a spell circle.

BELASCO: “Yes! Yes! It’s almost complete! My victory is at hand!”

SY’M: “Uh, don’t you mean our victory, boss?”

BELASCO: “Silence! You will not ruin this for me!”

As the light leaves the six Mutants’ eyes, something unexpected for Belasco happens: all of his ingredients explode.

Despair, distracted, stops sucking, and the Mutants all fall over, in agony and exhausted, but alive.

Belasco shouts, demanding to know what just happened.

“A ha ha ha ha ha!”

The smoke from the explosion clears, revealing Darkchylde. She looks like Illyana but with red skin, horns, a winding tail, metal arms, and goat legs.

KITTY, drained, with her eyes widening: “Yana…?”

BELASCO: “No, no, no! The spell wasn’t finished! You still possess a sliver of humanity!”

DARKCHYLDE, grinning: "Do I? Doesn’t feel like it.”

SY’M: “What’s going on? How are you here?!”

Darkchylde laughs again. These fools. She finished the spell once it was mostly complete and resurrected herself. After all, she couldn’t let him kill her friends.

With a portal right in the center of Belasco’s neck, Darkchylde instantly kills the previously unstoppable demon lord.

Kitty and the New Mutants have no idea what’s going on right now, but Sy’m knows the best move for him is to bow, dragging Despair down to her knees as well, and grovel before his new queen.

Darkchylde looks down at them both like they’re worth less than dirt.

DARKCHYLDE: “I’ll figure out what to do with you two later.”

Darkchylde teleports the two demons away, approaches the Mutants, and, with a wave of her hand, melts the bars of their cell.

The Mutants look up at her with a mix of love, awe, and horror.

DARKCHYLDE: “Sup, guys?”

Back in her room, Sofia finishes explaining to Noriko how her conversation with Julian went. Noriko groans and lays back in bed. That’s it then. If Julian’s convinced himself this is all he can be, and everyone else is going to enable him, there’s nothing they can do.

NORIKO: “Still not against the idea of rounding up Quentin, Armor, and Anole to beat some sense into them though.”

Sofia shakes her head, once again vetoing that. She supposes Noriko agrees that they can’t take up Julian on his offer to join the Hellions?

NORIKO: “A while back, Ms. Pryde told me about how she never spent time with the other kids here when she was our age, because she was too busy hanging out with the X-Men. She still regrets that. But they’re the ones choosing to break up our group by acting like this, not us. None of them are ever going to make X-Man acting this way, but we still can.”

Noriko figures if they impress Scott, Emma, and Storm enough, they can get added to the team, find new friends there, and use the authority they’d have to shut the Hellions down. Sofia falls into bed and says that could take several more semesters, even with them being “prodigies” as they’ve been told. And she hates the idea too. Even leaving aside Julian, these are her friends, her first real ones since coming to America, and she doesn’t want to lose them. Nori just responds that it’s all they can do. It sucks, but the old squad is gone.

Nori turns off the lights.

In Limbo, Darkchylde waves her arm again, this time fully healing the Mutants. They all stare at her with their mouths wide open.

DARKCHYLDE: “Well? Aren’t you going to say hello? Or thank me for saving your lives? Some joy at my return would be appreciated.”

She may not look exactly like Yana, but she sure as Hell sounds like her, and with her seemingly on their side, Kitty’s eyes tear up as she runs up to Darkchylde and hugs her, sniffling.

KITTY: “I missed you so much.”

Darkchylde pats Kitty’s head, saying she missed her too. She missed all of them. Sam and Dani shout at Kitty to get away from the demon and that it isn’t Illyana.

DARKCHYLDE: “Wow. Rude. We’re having a moment here. And you guys are hardly how I remember you, either.” Her eyes flare up for a moment. “Especially you, Beto.”

Roberto shakes, getting pissed that demons keep saying this kind of thing to him.

Kitty pulls away and wipes her tears. She needs her to be clear. She IS Magik, right?

DARKCHYLDE: “Ehhhh, yes and no. I have her face, her powers, her memories, and personality, but I’m not “her”, as you would say.”

Kitty is saddened by this only being a demonic clone.

KITTY: “Still, I’m glad there’s enough of her in there for you to have our backs.”

DARKCHYLDE: “Phh. Of course, I do!”

Darkchylde opens portals underneath them all. They arrive in Limbo’s throneroom, with Darkchylde taking the throne, the Mutants beneath her on the floor, and all the demons present bowing as they welcome their old queen’s return.

DARKCHYLDE: “That’s why you guys will get to live and watch as I destroy your world.”

The Mutants’ eyes fill with horror and nothing else as Darkchylde grins evilly.

TO BE CONTINUED...

#New X-Men: The Animated Series #New X-Men #Academy X #Scott Summers #Emma Frost #Ororo Munroe #Kitty Pryde #Roberto Da Costa #Laura Kinney #Bobby Drake #Sofia Mantega #Julian Keller #Noriko Ashida #Sooraya Qadir #Cessily Kincaid #Brian Cruz #Roxanne Washington #The Stepford Cuckoos

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