Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Cross Ange Episode 16

We begin Episode 16 with Riza (real name Lizardia) briefing the High Priestess via hologram about Aura's location, and the High Priestess declares that this will be a good chance to deploy an all out assault to recapture Aura and give Riza and her subordinates marching orders for the upcoming liberation raid.

After the opening credits, Ange wakes up, steps outside for a moment for some sun, sees some DRAGONs flying by, and is totally "meh, whatever" at their presence at this point. As she heads back inside, she winds up sitting on Tusk (who she forgot she tied up in his futon to prevent him from doing any funny business, turns out she STILL hasn't forgiven him for the whole "sex ed" incident), decides to untie him, and in the process he trips and falls atop her.

At this point, Sala, Kaname, and Naga walk in, see what looks like Ange and Tusk getting it on, and Sala trolls by telling them to continue, prompting Ange to palm strike Tusk retarded and literally start kicking the poor guy's ass.

Scene cut later, we head to where Vivian and her mom Lamia are having breakfast, and as Lamia tells Vivian she needs to chew properly, Sala and the others walk in for breakfast as well. Tusk is all ^_^ over the food, but Ange whispers in his ear it might poisoned or something (and elbows Tusk top keep him from mentioning he's been eating emergency rations for so long) and she's worried about Vivian, as apparently Ange is paranoid this is lower their guard and gain their trust by killing them with kindness. However, hunger finally forces Ange to dig in.

Later, as Vivian heads off with her mom to see the house she was born in, Ange finally demands Sala drop the crap and inform her of her real plans. Sala says they can't fight on an empty stomach, and a scene cut later, we see they will be fighting in a massive arena (read "arcade") to do stuff like bowling (lol, the bowling balls looks like Haros from the Gundam series), miniature golf, and so on, and while Ange asks Sala what they'll be competing over, an amusing background note reveals golf is a pricey sport.

Anyway, Sala ask Ange if she'll join them in rescuing Aura from Embryo, and points out stopping him is the answer to a lot of their mutual issues (it is, for the most part). Ange is cynical about this just being a ploy to use her, and Sala admits as much, but admits she knows Ange would hate that, hence the option she gives her: Win in a series of games against me, and you get your freedom. Lose, you become my bitch.This pushes all of the proper buttons, and Ange agrees.

First up is tennis: tie. Baseball: tie,  Indy racing: tie.Golf: tie. Ping Pong: tie. Crane Game: tie.

And then we get to Twister. Yes, TWISTER.

Both Sala and Ange are pretty uncomfortable but are doing fairly well, and Sala admits she's glad to have a rival who can fight on her level. Just then, Sala uses her tail to touch another spot on the Twister mat, and Ange is pissed this is "cheating" and takes a bite out of her tail. Sala is in obvious pain (tails are pretty sensitive apparently), and both her and Ange quickly get over it as the intermission cues.

Later, as they are showering, Ange mutilates Sala's full name (this annoys her), and when Sala expresses interest in playing laria (sport from Ange's world), Ange tells her, as a Norma, she's barred from doing so. Sala thinks that is shitty what Ange has to go through as a Norma and asks Ange if she wants to do what she once had the power to do (as royalty) and end that shit, and Ange is like "why bother, not a princess anymore". Sala is like "so, gonna sit on your hands then?", and Ange is all "......".

We cut to Vivian and Lamia, and the former is in the middle of telling her about her days at Arzenal, and that when shit starts to shake, and as Ange and Sala go outside, they see the dimension rifts opening up around the Tower of Aura. Sala heads off in her Paramail, Kaname and Naga take Ange and Tusk back to HQ to get theirs, and Ange and Tusk take this opportunity to hop in their own, ignoring Kaname telling them the Vilkiss isn't fully repaired yet.

Meanwhile, as the dimension rifts are continuing (looks like the worlds are trying to merge), Sala tells the people to escape to the temple. Vivian's mom takes a hit for her daughter while the dimensional rifts are still tearing stuff up (and apparently killing those caught in their wake, or at least teleporting them to other side), and the Hugh Priestess tells Sala to retreat since she' pivotal to rescuing Aura, Sala doesn't want to, and Ange shows up to bail her out.

Tusk confirms Embryo is fucking around with time and space and killed his family in a similar manner, which has Ange now really worried about Vivian. Speaking of her, she's by her partially buried mother, asking why she took that hit, and Lamia responds it was her duty as a mother. Tusk heads down to evac them while Ange and Sala are like "how do we stop this?"

Ange suggests pulling out their Wave Motion Guns, but Sala is like "WAY TOO POWERFUL, TEMPLE WILL BE BLOWN UP TOO". Ange is like "so cut power to 70%", and Sala is like "STILL TOO POWERFUL", leaving Ange in facepalm mode.

Meanwhile, Tusk and Vivian are still digging Lamia out, and that's when Ange has a lightbulb moment and suggest she fire a counterblast to cancel out the first shot by Sala once it's served it's purpose. Sala still ain't sure that's gonna work, and that's when Ange throws Sala's princess speech right back at her, and that convinces Sala.

Sala starts singing and is powering up as Ange takes position as well. As Sala's reaching firing mode, Ange starts singing herself. As they chorus together, Sala cooks off a blast, and as she yells for Ange to follow up, the Vilkiss craps out due to not being at full spec, and Ange demands the Vilkiss get off it's ass and fix itself, dammit.

THIS ACTUALLY WORKS!




The Vilkiss fully repairs itself, and as Ange hits the chorus of the song again, she fires her counter blast.

Scene cut later, the Tower of Aura is a wreck, but the dimension rift is stopped. Later, as Tusk watches Vivian reunites safely with her mother, Sala is impressed with Ange helping out and is shocked the song Ange sang was helpful, since it's the one Embryo ended the world with, and Ange tells her that her mother taught her that song, saying it would show her the right path. Sala responds the Song of the Stars was taught them by Aura for the same reason, and as the credits roll, they bury the hatchet, become friends, and start mutilating each others names (loled at Sala calling Ange Anko, or "red bean paste")

The next episode preview has an amusing catfight between Sala and Ange giving each other hilariously insulting names while we see more asskicking, Embryo torturing Riza (he discovered her double agent act), and what looks like Ange and Sala bash brothering up Ange's world (with Tusk and Vivian alongside).

Monday, January 19, 2015

Cross Ange Episode 15

When we begin Episode 15, Ange and Tusk are flying in formation with Sala's groupies, or rather, are in a box with Vivian carried by a DRAGON while their Paramail is being flown alongside. Tusk is understandably worried, Ange is trying to keep Vivian calm, Tusk is trying to sound like Knight in Shining Armor, Vivian is doing the draconian version of blushing, and Ange is trying to figure out how to ask their captors more about the world they are in.

And when Tusk is wondering why Ange is being so calm, I felt so much sympathy for Tusk as a fellow guy when Ange asks him if he's frustrated he didn't get any.

......ouch, Ange, low blow.

And that's when Tusk's contractual "must fall into Ange's crotch face first" moment happens as they descend towards their location, and to his defense, he can't really control turbulence and sudden direction changes, but Ange is in pissy mode and having none of that.

Cue opening credits.

The opening title is 'The Other Earth" and they are landing at place so Japanese looking it's not funny. The box they are in opens and a bunch of pissed off warrior chicks tell them to haul ass and see the high priestess (presumably Sala). Vivian is hit with a tranq dart, Tusk and Ange are a little upset by this, but a few weapons in their face make protesting kinda pointless.

Sure enough, they enter a place that looks like a massive temple, and the woman behind the curtain in the back asks who Ange and Tusk are. Ange shocks everyone by saying the other party should do that first, almost gets shanked for her disrespect, but the priestess doesn't care as she mentions they didn't open a hole to the other world, so how did Ange and company get to this one?

A bunch of other questions are being asked all at once, but Ange still proves she has bigger balls than Tusk by telling them all to shut up and ask one at time, since she has questions too (despite the fact she got a literal pair of daggers at her back). Tusk tries to tell her to chill, and Sala (one of the priestess, not the High Priestess) pops out from behind the veil, gives a really flowery intro, then confirms the Earth Ange came from is a halfass ripoff of the original. The high priestess is piqued, learns from Sala that Ange is the Vilkiss pilot who fought Sala to a standstill, and promptly shits herself and orders Ange's execution for being dangerous.

Ange is like "yay, another execution", and proves she got a massive pair of balls when she asks if they think they can actually pull it off. Sala decides to defuse things for the moment by instead advocating they let Ange live until they learn what makes the Vilkiss tick and promises to take responsibility for the two of them.

They are taken to a room for bedding down (still Japanese as hell, tatami mats and all), and Sala dismisses the guards, then to Ange's surprise Sala pours on the charm and says, no, they will be treated as guests instead prisoners, and they will take care of repairs to the Vilkiss. Later, as Sala prepares some green tea for them, Tusk intros himself and asks about the two Earth's situations, and is horribly confused how that works, then confirms their Earth is a parallel universe version of the original. She further confirms this Earth was so fucked up a bunch of humans migrated to an Earth in another universe as a result. Ange is kinda pissed at this point, as this means there's a way back, she wants back, dammit, and she breaks her tea bowl and holds a shard to Sala's neck demanding as much. The bodyguard pop up out of nowhere, but Sala is as chill as dry ice (also Sala is short for Salamandiy). One threatens Tusk's life, but Ange calls her a pussy and tells her Tusk said he'd die for her (and she gives him a death glare when he is understandably recalcitrant to die simply so she can prove a point).

And that when Sala calmly asks the loaded question:

"What would you do when you return, to a life where you have use your machine to kill your fellow man?"

And that's when Sala reveals her balls are just as big as she trolls the shit out of Ange with how pointless that decision would be, then calmly gets up (Ange is too apoplectic to be focused) and tells the bodyguards (Naga and Kaname) they need to show their guests the truth, and Ange hilariously protests she's supposed to be holding Sala hostage.

Later, as they ride a DRAGON (with Ange still holding that pottery piece), they find this world's Dawn Pillar (called the Tower of Aura, a dracunium reactor pre-apocalyptia). Turns out it was basically radiation on crack that proved to be a retarded awesome energy source discovered at the close of the 22nd century, and much like the GN particles from Gundam 00, it was meant to promote peace and was instead used for war, and even though it COULD have been used for good, humans were assholes and used it to fuck each other over.

Ange confirms what she knows of this on her Earth, and Sala then reveals that the remaining humans on Earth-1 made a decision that let them live on their Fallout-esque planet.

The tl;dr version is that the first being to be mutated into a DRAGON by the radiation (Aura) sacrificed their genetic material so the remaining humans could willingly inject themselves with the Cross Ange version of Fallout's FEV virus, but instead of becoming Super Mutants, they became human/dragon hybrids, and as Ange is all 0_0 as the holographic display of how they did this, Sala sprouts her own wings and carries Ange up with her to show her the rest.

Men transformed themselves into the massive dragons we've seen so far, ingest Dracunium poisoned crap around the land and turn it into stable crystals inside themselves, with the woman helping. A few generations of doing this and giving birth to dragon/human hybrid descendants later, and they basically started rebuilding their fucked up Earth after adapting to their circumstances Fallout mutant style.

Unfortunately, Aura was captured by the same asshat who discovered Dracunium, built the Ragna-mails, and fucked up Earth the first time round.

If you guessed that asshat was Embryo, well, that was obvious.

We also learn Embryo basically harnessed Aura as a energy source and the Mana that powers the world Ange is from is basically leeched from his body, and he's basically been torturing the poor bastard like that space whale from the Doctor Who episode 'The Beast Below" for his own gain.

So the racism against the non-Mana users is built on pure bullshit, because Mana is not inherent, it's simply something Embryo created by doing the same bio engineering the original humans did, he just did it in a different way.

Not So Different.txt

Further, remember all the DRAGONs killed? Yeah, the Dracunium inside their bodies is used to keep Aura a perpetual motion machine, and thus the Norma were being used as unwitting dupes to keep the society that shit on them going.

As the intermission starts, Ange is understandably horrified to learn this.

As the show resumes, Sala tells Ange "our people are killed to sustain yours" and then asks if she still wants to go back to a world literally built on fucking people over. Ange says yes, it's still her world, shitty though it might be, and Sala tells her sorry, can't let you do that so no one else from her world dies.

Ange quickly gets owned as she tries to fight Sala, and when Ange tries to call Sala out for being violent herself for razing Arzenal, she tells her it was a test of the Ryushinki (her Paramail), because Arzenal was deemed a threat to Aura's liberation (no wonder the DRAGON's were attacking), then reveals Riza was basically a double agent from their world sent feeding them intel.

This pisses Ange off more, and she only gets her ass kicked more trying to fight Sala.

Ange passes out, then wakes up later (still thinking Sala has her in a leg lock), in bed naked (again), with a shirtless Tusk bring her some morning coffee. This immediately revealed a dream turned nightmare as Tusk turns into Sala and that's when Ange really wakes up, scaring the shit out of a now human Vivian (they are now in an infirmary of some sort), and when Ange asked how she's human again, Vivian draws a blank, until a doctor pops in says she basically twiddled with Vivian's genetics a little. Afterwards, Ange asks about Tusk, and that's when we hear him screaming from another room.

Turn's out he's strapped to a bed naked, with a ton of dragon chicks apparent checking him out (gee, he got that harem after all, though not in the way he hoped, lol), and a few of them are fiddling with the plumbing, if you know what I mean, to his obvious discomfort, and as Ange tries to free him, the running gag has a dramatic reversal, and this time her head meets his crotch.

Cue Tusk turning purple because the shock of the blow just swole his balls to the size of basketballs.

It gets worse as the doc (who could be Maggy's perverted sister) reveals they were using Tusk's naked body as "sex ed", and a now furious Ange picks up some medical tweezers and few other painful looking objects, and Tusk screams like a little bitch as she attempt to castrate his ass.

Later, as Ange is washing off outside and still pissed (with Vivian trying to calm her down), Sala and the bodyguards walk up with another woman, and we find out Vivian is the missing daughter of Lamia (the woman in question, who named her daughter Mii at birth)

Lamia is all teary eyed, and Vivian is kinda confused, but Lamia smells like Ersha, so she isn't pushing her away either, and we discover Vivian accidentally got stranded on Earth-2 ten years back.

Later, at the festival, Sala is giving a little thank you speech for Vivian's return.and offering up what look like floating lanterns in praise of Aura (who is kind of a god figure for understandable reasons)

In the meantime, Tusk walks up next to spectatoring Ange, who is still pissy despite the fact his hear is hers (but apparently his body isn't despite the fact he was kinda strapped down to a bed and had no say in the matter), but like any tsundere she flips around to letting it go, and as they continue watching the festival, Ange is happy Vivian's human again and Tusk finally square the two Earth's thing in his mind.

She then gets told by Naga and Kaname that Sala wanted them to learn about each other, and when Ange wonders what good that's gonna do, she gets told that despite the past things can get better, and Ange and Tusk are left wondering if they do want 2 go back to their world.

Cue end credits.

Next episode features more asskicking, Riza giving a report to the High Priestess, and Ange and Tusk bitching about how they are running out of preview ideas.

Sunday, January 11, 2015

Cross Ange Episode 14

And we begin another episode of Cross Ange, and the first shot we see is the crashed Vilkiss and Tusk's paramail, and as Ange starts to wake up, a long pink tongue is licking her cheek.

Turns out to be DRAGON!Vivian, and Ange understandably flips out until Vivian manages to convince her she's still herself. Tusk is up at this point and checking on Ange, and that's when Ange remembers they were over an ocean earlier, and after a quick look around, we see that they are on a deserted island of a lost civilization that looks suspiciously like stock imagery ripped from an episode of Life After People, and I'm going to bet money it's Japan/Tokyo or a serial numbers filed off equivalent.

Basically, one of those lost civilizations consumed in whatever screwed up history the first go round as explained by Jill/Alektra.

After the intro, Ange tries radioing in to HQ, no response, and that's when Vivan manages to trigger a soda machine. Meanwhile, Ange is slightly panicky as Tusk can't get squat either. Ange wonders if it's an ancient ruin, Tusk isn't so sure, and Ange wonders if they feel into another world or something, and Tusk confirms that could be possible given the Vikiss l33t hax powers (hey, it was designed to do incredible stuff by Embryo after all), and surmises the Vilkiss teleported them away from Embryo's death ray last episode. Ange asks Tusk to repair the Vilkiss while she susses the terrain, so he hands her his assault rifle and tells her to watch herself, and that's when Vivian offers her back so Ange can scout from the air. Tusk is bit surprised Vivan was a DRAGON, and Vivan holds a finger to her lips and says it's a secret (bit late for that, Viv......)

As Ange and Viv fly around, we get confirmation of Mt. Fuji, so this must be a serial numbers filed off Japan/Tokyo, and we also see what the Dawn Pillar Julio referenced a few episodes back, and when Ange reports this to Tusk, a few pieces fall into place, as she realizes that the Ppalace/city are gone, but the pillar is there, but the weird part is the mossed and shrubbed over runis they are in, and Tusk muses they time traveled Rip Van Winkle style, but Ange isn't amused.

Just then, a robot passes by, asking if any survivors are around, telling them to gather at the refugee center in the central park, so Ange and Tusk head on out. They are scanned at the shelter, detected as valid life signs in front of the mossed over dome, which opens up to reveal a full on shelter, which Ange and Tusk enter with guns raised, and as they reach the heart of the center, an automated message of a woman reporter tells them to pick a part of the center to reside in, and to Ange and Tusk's horror all they discover are the long dead corpses of a ton of people, which, given the sealed environment, are very well preserved.

Ange queries the automated computer (called Himawari) as to what the hell happened, and they get an automated holographic recap of what looks like World War III (or World War VII in the CA world), and it appears a serial numbers filed off version of the Union from Gundam 00 faced off against some version of the AEU/HRL from the same and basically wiped each other out (one of the alternate names is RAGNAROK), and the population of the world decreased by 89% (HOLY SHIT!), and the Federation ended the war with the Ragna-Mail (which means Embryo must be a remnant from the Humanity 1.0 world), and they basically cooked off a ton of wave motion gun blasts that ended the war, and basically fried most of the planet as well, detonating all the Dracunium reactors (their version of the Solar Elevators from Gundam 00, and most likely the radiation for these are why some humans turn into DRAGONs) on the planet with weaponry capable of warping dimensions, and the Cross Ange world experienced a Fallout style apocalypse scenario due to all this radiation blanketing the planet (yeah, they definitely cribbed notes from Fallout), and as Ange and Tusk watch all this in horror, a few more pieces fall into place.

Basically, Embryo was the guy responsible for the mass world die off and it's subsequent resurrection, and the SEELE ripoffs are contemplating ANOTHER mass world die off and subsequent reset because they aren't satisfied with how so many Humanity 1.0 remnants are lying around. It also explains why Embryo was so horrified at Julios brutality last episode: He apparently did all the above as a well intentioned extremist (as far as we know), doing what he felt was necessary at the time, and Julio's barbarism basically went beyond that, hence why Embryo was pissed off enough to ice him and undo some of the damage.

He's still apparently a villain since he's willing to do another world reset despite the fact this would reset most of humanity to square once again (including a bunch of people who would have every reason to object to this), but at least he willing to draw a line in the sand, again, as far as we know.

Ange is in "WTF?!?!" mod and finds out this all happened 538 years ago, and that what was left of humanity apparently perished in the mass die off last time, so Embryo was basically the only guy left and recreated the human race with his own hax (okay, maybe this guy is God after all)..

tl;dr: This show's backstory is like what would happen if Fallout and Evangelion had a baby.

Theory here: I'm willing to bet all that Dracunium radiation in the background cocked up Embryo's rebirth of the human race and caused all the retrograde humans (Norma) and the DRAGONs (further mutated Norma). Also, given how dimension warping BS is not out of the question for this show, I'm guessing a ton of them have been launching attacks from another dimension because they are cheesed off over what happened the first time round, and the Norma at Arzenal have been duped into killing off those whom they would otherwise consider allies, though it doesn't explain why Riza (an apparent DRAGON) was manipulating Julio, unless she was hoping to pull off a Ra La Creuset (Gundam SEED) "watch both sides kill each other because they both suck" plan.

As Tusk and Ange had back to their Paramail, Tusk realizes the writing on one of the soda cans is in Japanese (which he can't read) and that a LOT of shit must have changed since over 500 years ago. Ange is in denial mode again (entirely understandable, given the fact she just watched Armageddon and all the horrible aftereffects up close). Tusk is trying to convince her it's frickin real, but Ange just doesn't want to hear and heads off on Vivian.

Cue intermission.

Once we get back, Ange is still in denial, and Yusk is still doing repair work. Later, Vivian is tired from all the flying, and Tusk tells Ange not to strain her any more.

And that's when Ange earns some Jerkass points by yelling at Vivian for being useless.

.....way to go, Ange, and the audience was really respecting you at this point.

Tusk calls her out for this, and that's when it's obvious the stress, denial, and panic have taken a massive dump on Ange's reason at this point, as Ange is worried sick about everyone else, and she also takes this opportunity to call out Tusk for using her for Libertus (which is not that off the mark). Tusk of course isn't that much of coldblooded ass, but Ange racks up a few more asshole points by claiming Libertus was doomed to fail and that Tusk is fucking idiot for believing in it (and we finally get to see him getting pissed).

And that's when he makes her feel about an inch tall when he quietly remarks,

"Then, my parents died for garbage's sake then."

As Ange realizes how much a bitch she sounded like, Tusk tells her the Ancient People always wanted to free the world from Embryo and make world where the Norma could live without persecution, and his parents gave their lives for that, and that's when he finally gets fucking mad (and I don't blame him a bit) and angrily asks Ange if she thinks all of their sacrifice wasn't worth a damn.

Tusk stomps off at this point, leaving Ange feeling like a real heel.

The next morning, Tusk is still working on the Vilkiss during a light drizzle (he's stretched a tarp overhead to keep water out), and Ange is mad Tusk won't talk to her (gee, I wonder why, Ange, could it be because you were a fucking asshole?), and as Ange flashbacks to all of Tusk's face in crotch moments while sitting in a collapsed building,t hat when she realizes she in a store of some sort, and as she sees some cute, Vivan-esque trinkets, she decides to find an "I'm sorry gift".

We cut back to Tusk, who hears somethign behind him, sees some male jewelry hanging off the Vilkiss for him, and we get an amsuing shot of Ange failing to tiptoe quietly away as Tusk asks her about it.

She claims she thought it might look good on him, and he puts it on and asks her if it does indeed look good on him. As he tells her she needs to eat and tries to walk away (after confirmation his new amulet looks good), she tells him she's sorry. Tusk is honestly shocked she CAN apologize (hey, she's spent so much time being in angry Tsundere mode I can understand), and before she can be offended, he apologizes too. Vivian passes by, and Ange reedems herself completely by apologizing to her too.

Later, Tusk sneezes and realizes it's snowing. That's when Ange and Vivan drop in and Ange is all ^_^ about finding something awesome. We cut to them dropping off in front of a hotel (named after Mu La Flaga from Gundam SEED, lol), and they discover the hotel has working electricity (after screwing with some circuit breakers), beds, a bath, and a nice roof, and as the three of them are in 0_0 mode, Ange has a hilarious bit of naivety where she thinks it was an aristocrat's castle (looks more like a love hotel to me, Ange). Vivan and Ange are bathing (and I'll admit, this scene is both fanservicy and adorable, especially watching Ange wash a very ^__^ DRAGON!Vivian.

Later, as the snow really starts to fall and Vivian is crashed across an entire bed sending up a line of Z's, Ange and Tusk are in bathrobes (yeah, definitely the types you'd find in a love hotel, and that amulet Tusk is wearing makes him look like a playboy), and we get an awwworthy scene with the two of them, where Ange is basically complimenting him for being a sweet guy and he's blushing cherry red as he fumbles with a hair dryer. As Tusk muses he understands her rollercoaster feelings given the crazy shit she's gone through, she asks him what he knows of Embryo.

He confirms Jill's statements about him holding the world by the balls, but comments that doesn't seem to apply in their current situation. After some more aww-worthy scenes, Tusk opts to be a gentleman and sleep in the hall, but Ange tells him there is a sofa and a bed. He's all stammering and nervous, but she insists. He goes to sit on the sofa, and it collapses underneath him (hell, it had 500 years to atrophy, makes sense, apparently the bed is made of sterner stuff), and Ange laughs as the crash is loud enough Vivian wakes up. Ange shyly offers him the other side of the double bed, and Tusk's face turns into a tomato.

Later, as Vivian looks out the window at their room, she's all 0_0 at Ange and Tusk side by side in the same bed, with Tusk obviously uncomfortable, as Ange is still in "being all sweet on him" mode. The dialogue takes a severe turn for the romantic, and Tusk decides to get out of the bed while he can, but Ange catches on, and after he weakly protests they can't......(do I have to spell this out for anyone?)....Ange pulls the "don't you like me?" card.

Tusk changes the subject really quick and mentions when the first shot at Libertus failed (when Alektra/Jill lost her arm). He mentions since then he ran like a bitch to that cave we first found him in, and until he met Ange, he didn't really have anyone he wanted to fight for, and that when Ange inspired him to sack up and crawl out of his shell with how much of a badass she was, and even though his confession he chose to be her knight is both touching and borderline melodramatic, Ange calls him a loser, but soften the blow by saying she admires the purity of his intentions, and his face fills with blood as she partially sheds her robe (yeah, she's naked underneath), and she tells him the fact she now has hands covered in blood means she doesn't feel she deserves to have him as her knight, and Tusk finally proves he isn't a eunuch when he tells her he doesn't give a shit and will stay by her side regardless, and when she protests she's violent and fussy, he still doesn't care, cue them starting to suck face as Vivian flips out.

For more than one reason, as a massive DRAGON shows up to crash the party (and, per series obligation, Tusk falls into her crotch again), and that's when two women who look like Sala (y'know, all eastern styled uniformed) welcome the "false citizens"), and they confirm "yeah, you are now in another dimension, the Earth everyone on the world you came from left behind".

Cue end credits.

The next episode preview is FUNNY AS HELL, as Ange and Tusk comment on them meeting Sala and a bunch of others from her world, and Tusk wonders if this means he'll get a harem, which cues Ange to want to kick his ass, and we also see Sala has DRAGON wings too, but unlike Vivian and like Riza, has some degree of control over it.


........okay, this episode confirmed my above theory (I was writing this as I watched it), and from what I gather, Embryo basically warped himself and what little remained of humanity to a new world (a paralell universe, apparently) and attempted to start over, but left behind a bunch of humans who manages to survive the initial destruction of Ragnorok, and the DRAGONs we've seen so far are basically them launching assaults against the second world that left them behind.

Basically, they have as big an axe to grind against Embryo as do the Norma, but whether they'll come to that conclusion sooner or later is up in the air for now.



Monday, January 5, 2015

Orain holding an Indiegogo campaign to raise funds for infrastructure costs

The Orain wikifarm is currently holding an Indiegogo campaign to raise funds to expand our infrastructure to better meet the needs of our community, and we need about $5,000 dollars to make this a success.

The link I'll be providing will explain in more detail why the funds are required, but I'll just say this for myself: Without Orain, All The Tropes would probably not exist today, and as a firm advocate of donation funded, ad free wiki farms with nigh limitless customization capability, I have poured my blood, sweat, and tears into helping make Orain a success story, and to prove I can "put up or shut up", I was the very first donator to our campaign, as I'm deeply invested in Orain, and I hope others who like what they provide and who believe in the same ideals would be willing to help us out.

For more details on the hows and why of donating, go here:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/help-orain-stay-free-and-online/x/9547049

Sunday, January 4, 2015

Cross Ange Episode 13

Before I begin, the Episode title is "Arzenal in Flames", which says quite a bit.

Anyway, we start with the "it's okay, we just want to give you juden a nice shower, here's some bars of soap" bullshit from the previous episode, and while everyone is in "what?" mode, Momoka is naive enough to think it's sincere. Jill shows up in the comm center and outright calls that bullshit and orders anti-air defenses, and we get undeniable proof of her respect amongst the troops when they don't question this at all.

Julio sees this, muses he regrets this couldn't have gone peacefully, then tells the Imperial fleet "ok, they're traitors, shoot to kill". As they start firing off missiles and flak, Jasmine orders Ange and the others to haul ass as Momoka is all 0_o. Most of the initial missile barrage gets shot down, and as Ange and the others are heading for their Paramails, we cut to Tusk cursing how late he was as he speeds towards Arzenal via his own machine, and hopes Ange is safe.

The opening credits start and are somewhat more solemn than the first one, and frankly, I really dig the gothy opera in the background, though the James Bondish naked women cut ins kinda mar the awesome a little, though the somewhat Renaissance era painting like pose done by the main cast at the end is a nice touch.

We cut to inside the base, where the senior members of Squad 1 are trying to keep order as Rosalie and Chris are pissed they were lied to, and that's when Jill, enroute to the underground hangar, throws down the gauntlet and tells everyone "surrender or resist, make your choice now."

Operation Libertus now begins.

As Jill tells Salia not to forget to get Ange out intact (and Salia has grown up and accept this without complaint), Jill leads the comm tower staff into a battleship that had been waiting for this day. Meanwhile, Hilda is stoked for the chance to finally say an official fuck you to humanity, so when she asks Jill for orders, Jill tells her to sortie in the Paramails. Ersha's onboard, and while Rosalie and Chris are like "this is nuts", Hilda dares them to be badasses and realizes Ange isn't there. Meanwhile, Mei and the engineering staff are making sure the Vilkiss is flightworthy,

After we find out quite a bit of the remaining Arzenal pilots are willing to follow Hilda in fighting back, we get a brief cut to Salia escorting Ange, then back to Rosalie and Chris noticing the enemy has deployed the Cross Ange answer to Half Life 2's Manhacks to kill them, only these are bigger, can latch onto paramails like magnets if they get close enough, and are being deployed in hordes.

Meanwhile, Jill is having engine trouble since power to the base is down, but she just orders rerouting auxiliary power and discovered the base has been infiltrated. Meanwhile, some Imperial soldiers are examining some captives, apparently with Squad 1's commanding officers as their targets, and they are wondering if they are really supposed to be participating in a mass slaughter, and that's one of them goes full SS and reveals they have three goals.

1. Capture/kill Angelise.
2. Capture/destroy Vilkiss.
3. Capture/kill Paramail riders.

Everyone else, well, do to them what Hitler wanted to do to the Jews, and they proceed to start using machine guns and flamethrowers to do just that.

Before I go on, after being willing to do this, they have a lot of brass claiming the Norma are the savages.

Anyway, as this quickly becomes evident and a full on retreat is being ordered, Ersha runs off, presumably to evacuate the kids, and we cut to the infirmary, where Maggy is leading the evacuation of the wounded, and when Emma tries to save herself, a bullet through her hat makes it clear they consider her expendable. She soon catches a bunch of soldiers attempting to capture the comatose Vivian (she's part of their third objective), and almost gets cut in half with machine gun fire trying to stop them.

We cut to the mech bay, where Hilda refuses to pussy out while Chris is doing just that, and Hilda even takes a hit for her and takes the guy out, and tells the shocked Chris she refuses to let anyone die to the enemy. We then cut to Salia still escorting Ange (at gunpoint) while Jasmine has an unconscious Momoka over her shoulder, and the two of them get into a bitch fight over why Salia is throwing everyone else under the bus to get her out alive on Jill's say so, and Salia bitch slaps her over striking that nerve, and that's Momoka reveals she faked being unconscious, uses some spice shakers as improvised smoke grenades, and her and Ange leave a shocked Salia and Jasmine.

We cut back to Jill getting a call from Tusk, and she lets him know they'll need help tracking her down, and after brief cut to Ersha shooting it out with some goons,  Ange and Momoka discover the horrifying killing field the Imperials made of the mess hall, with dead, burned bodies of Norma everywhere, and as Ange tries to throw up, Embryo shows up, and even he's a little disgusted over the brutality and tells Ange Julio is responsible and the dead were collateral damage in his attempts to take her out. And that's when we hear a scream and gunshot.

Cue intermission.

We found Momoka was barely able to shield herself in time as Ange caps some Imperials in the head for daring to hurt her. She decides to get answers out of a survivor, and after shooting his arm as he tries to raise his gun at her, he tries to invoke the "just following orders" defense, and Ange is so pissed his head winds up a red stain on wall before he finishes that sentence.

In fact, she's so fucking mad she empties a full clip into the guy, not that I blame her.

Turns out Momoka got grazed across the shoulder but little else and tries to get Ange to calm down, and that's when Ange realizes what she has to do. Her and Momoka show up and kill some goons trying to ice Hilda and the others, and as she leaves Momoka in their care, she hops in the Vilkiss.

The runway is blocked, but Ange solves that by firing a few missiles (killing a lot of the goons in the process), and as she files off, Salia decides to give chase, Hilda decides to help out Ange, and Tusk  rescues Vivian as he starts doing action movie shit to kill off her would be captors, and as he asks Jill where Ange is, Jill sardonically tells him 'Well...."

Cue her flying overhead, him facepalming at her insanity.

Meanwhile, Julio get a report of a few mail rider captures, but none of the priority targets, which makes him mad, but cheers up once he's sees Ange is inbound. Meanwhile, as Ange is taking down the Manhack ripoffs, Salia shows up to take her back, pissed Ange isn't even letting her do the one thing that is in her power (since Ange can do all the shit she wanted to do by now).

Ange tells her, despite the fact it was a prison, she really did like it at Arzenal (cue several flashbacks to the funnier moments), knocks off Salia's Paramail arms, tells not to follow her or she dies, and promises to make Julio a fucking corpse for taking away what little happiness she had left.

As Salia hits the water, still pissed, the Vilkiss turns red (literally) as Ange starts opening up a can of whoopass on the Imperials. Meanwhile, Hilda and her former groupies have metaphorically kissed and made up as they sortie.

And that's when a not quite dead imperial gets a lucky shot and kills Chris. Well, not immediately, but a second or so later, yeah, she's dead as Rosalie goes apeshit.

....well, if Embryo approaching Chris' apparent corpse means anything, maybe not.

Ersha makes the tragic discovery around this time of finding out those children she tried to save were murdered despite her best efforts, and as she's weeping, Embryo (how does this guy keeps popping up everywhere?) shows up behind her in apparent horror.

Meanwhile, Ange has discovered the Vilkiss now has it's own Phase Shift Armor (Gundam SEED)/Absolute Terror Field (Evangelion) hybrid, and takes advantage of this to start killing the Imperial fleet with scenes right out of Gundam SEED stock footage (you know, the scenes where the Gundam flies right at the enemy ships and starts slicing them in twain, minus the grunts shitting themselves and screaming 'IT'S A GUNDAM!", but same basic idea).

Anyway, Julio is starting to panic as reports of friendly vessels exploding around him keep mounting, and shit officially fills his pants as the front half of his own ship's bridge is sliced off, and the Vilkiss is right in front of him. As Ange pops out to have a word with Julio, we see Riza making a discreet exit.

Julio barely gets her name out of his mouth before she leaves a bloody hole where his right kneecap used to be with her pistol and orders him to call off the massacre. He does so, then freaks out as Ange rears back the Vilkiss' sword arm. He's like "this wasn't the deal!" and starts trying to get her not to kill him, and just as she's about to kill him regardless, her sword is blocked by an enemy Paramail.

It's apparently piloted by Riza (though Embryo is standing on its shoulder), and we get a few reasons to like the guy as we get some flashbacks to him reviving Chris and one of the kids Ersha tried to save with his apparently God-like powers (okay, maybe Jill calling this guy God wasn't far off), and even though Ange realizes this is the guy Jill has a raging hate on for, and to her surprise, he's willing to ice Julio in her place (apparently, he was pretty sickened by Julio's brutality), and even starts singing the Endless Song (you know, the one Ange's mom taught Ange).

As he's singing and Tusk and Vivian are like 0_o, we see Riza (apparently having escaped manually, so who the hell is piloting the Paramail Embryo's on the shoulder of?) naked from the waist up, wings flapping in the air some distance away, kinda pissed at Embryo right now, and that's when he reveals he's got the same wave motion guns the Vilkiss does as he kills Julio so bad it leaves a massive hole in the water, to Riza's shock.

Meanwhile, Jill is about to haul ass, as the final prep is confirmed, the battleship Aurora begins it's maiden voyage.

Around the same time, as Ange wonders what Embryo's true motives are, Tusk shows up attempting to put a few holes in Embryo's head, warning Ange to get the hell away from the guy, and this pisses Embryo off as he prepares to blow Tusk off the map. Ange dives toward Tusk, the Vilkiss turns blue, and teleports herself and Tusk away from the blast, leaving Embryo now floating in mid air with a brief 0_0 look on his face being both disappointed and impressed.

Cue end credits.

The post credits are funny as hell, with Ange being all pissed her and Tusk are on another deserted island, her warning him not to do anything perverted, him putting his foot in his mouth again, cue her being even more pissed. We also see what look like the ruins of a former civilization and more sentient DRAGONs.

....okay, this was fun. The plot is really kicking into high gear, and now it's kind hard to say just WHAT Embryo's real motives are. True, he kinda signed off on the whole "remake the human race' thing, but was more than a little sickened by Julio's methods and killed him for it, even reviving Chris and one of those kids Ersha tried to save, though it seems Tusk pisses him off epically.

Also, despite not calling himself a god, he sure as hell has all the powers of one, or the closest equivalent.

Finally, it looks like he and Riza are at cross purposes now, love to see how this turns out.

Gamergate 2 is on, and I want no part of it

 This will not be a long post, but I just want to make clear, as someone who was involved in the first go-round of Gamergate, I want no part...