"It's unsafe for you to remove the steel suit, yes? But, through the use of sophisticated holographic refraction processes and advanced tactile warping algorithms I can make it seem as though you're wearing your everyday attire." - Steel, S1 E2
———
I have. So many questions. Possibly more than I started with.
Does Max ever actually remove the helmet or does it just look like he does? Actually no nvm we see him eat things—
Are the tactile warping algorithms just meant to change the texture of Max’s “clothes” for other people or does it affect the way they feel to him? If someone touches what looks like bare skin does Max feel a difference in tactile input? Is it actually bare skin??
If it’s not in camo mode does Max have the same sense of touch as if it is? Or is it different? I keep staring at the blue palms of his suit’s gloves and wondering if that’s highlighted for aesthetic purposes or functional ones.
(I also have logistics questions that kinda don’t matter if I just choose to ignore them. Which I will be doing because I don’t think it really matters how showering works with this. I have more important questions.)
Like, can Steel dye Max’s hair??? I’d need to look into how temporary hair dye works (and regular dyes, for that matter) but they’re working with light refraction here so I don’t think pigments would come into play at all. Failing that, wig??
…
God the mental image of Distress!Max and his Steel arguing in a one-person gas station bathroom about what hairstyle he should have.
Steel wants to go with something sooo edgy because they’re rebels, Max! Nobody understands them or their mission! It’s them against the world! They gotta go black and red stripes!! Spiky! No wait, bangs so long they—
Max, who is on his second gas station coffee this hour, grips the sink and says that if Steel makes him look as ridiculous as he did last week he’s going to cause a blackout so massive that NTek will be able to look in this general direction and know they’re here.
Steel just kinda floats there for a second. Then pitches, “platinum with black tips?”
“…that would look cool.”
They finally get to leave the bathroom. And Steel shoplifts some snacks on their way out.
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I generally headcanon Keith as aroace but even within that framework, I feel like Hunk is just sort of.
He’s warm and strong and good at all the things Keith is bad at, socially, and there’s a tiny part of Keith’s brain that’s just. Very gay for him.
It’s not really romantic or sexual, and it might not even be something he pays attention to 98% of the time, but it’s just this awareness that if Hunk grabs him (like he does sometimes), Keith’s brain WILL shut down and all he’s gonna be able to think about is the fact that big strong nice warm safe boy just picked him up and this is what’s happening now, this is fine.
OH THANK FUCK HE’S NOT HUMAN!! That just fixed a fucking plot hole for the egg-parasite fic concept that refuses to remain idle in my brain. Namely why it was only reaching out to Max. I’m so stupidly happy about that. And about a couple other things besides, but that’s for later spinning.
On another note, good to see Steel was always capable of good and inclined to question shitty authority. Stay true to you, buddy!! Save that guy’s life after he asked you some hard questions and you chose your own answers!!
Also for a hot second there are the very start of the episode I thought the blast was meant to infect Max with something.
Which is… a pretty fun concept, in light of these revelations. It’d be fun to flip the script a little and have Max blowing out the power for half a city block when he sneezes too hard.
…I wanna know how to spell literally any of the fucking buzzwords from this episode but I’m scared to look it up when I’m close to halfway through this playlist already without spoiling myself in any major way. We just power through ig!!!
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It says a lot about the strength of Max’s convictions and moral backbone in canon that my first and only plan for how to follow through on making him a supervillain without throwing away his entire character about it is beaming him with visions of his father’s plight way too fucking early for him to do anything about it.
Like???
I just have to go for the big guns immediately. I see no other way that wouldn’t involve some mind control or manipulation or blackmail or other extenuating circumstances that remove him from the blame. And I can’t have that for this. I gotta play it straight.
So I take a Max. I give him scattered visions of his father’s past in his dreams as his bond with Steel grows stronger. Something about their link, the way it… resonates? Unimportant. Somehow this bond between them is letting him access his father’s memories when he and Steel fall asleep linked. Though it is tanking the actual quality of Max’s sleep. Which does matter. Later.
The other thing that matters is getting Max attached to the fact he gets to see and connect with his father this way. He sees things not just from when his father knew Steel but before. He sees NTek, yes, but also Takion.
Which… raises some questions. A lot of them. But finally learning how to not explode after eight hours is nice.
At some point Max gets tired of nobody believing his visions (read: people in his life are trying to gaslight him into not asking these questions anymore) except Steel, who became convinced when they found out Max can beam his own memories of the dreams at him with Turbo energy. (Or whatever the fuck Jim did to Steel that one time.)
I need this to be in peak Steel Wants Answers times. Maybe even before Extroyer. Because Max being uncertain of his humanity at the same time as Steel learning the Elementors are also Ultralinks has some incredible potential. Shake them both without either being in a position to truly reassure the other about who they are.
Then we can start to trickle in dreams that are… different.
Dreams of pain. Dreams of being hollowed out.
Max would think of these as nightmares about what’s gonna happen to him when Dredd catches him. Except. He knows how this works now. He has these nightmares only on nights when he and Steel agree to see more of his father’s memories.
Did someone do this to his father? How?? When??
It’s difficult to see the room his father’s in because of how weird the lighting situation is. And, you know, the pain is a bit distracting. But eventually there’s a lucky break. They get Steel to recognize the ship or maybe the ominous figure who comes to taunt Ja’em Mk’rah from time to time.
This is Makino’s doing. Makino is a world-eater, a powerhouse that’s hellbent on consuming all that he comes across. He has at last triumphed over the one warrior to defy him more than once, and now he’ll use this power against the planet he holds so dear…
(Max: Does he mean Takion?
Makino: Earth.
Max: What???? No. No!
NO!!)
There is a planet-eater coming to earth and Max is not thinking rationally about what to do about it because he’s getting maybe two good nights of sleep a week. Steel, who has only recently learned he left Makino’s army to save Jim’s life, is absolutely down to enable whatever bullshit plans Max comes up with on how to save the guy. Steel owes his father everything!
Cue some bullshit that makes the hunt for the Turbo Star look so tame.
These two don’t care about collateral or witnesses or permission. They want results. They want one result. And they don’t care what they have to do to get it.
They’ll run away, steal, collaborate with criminals. They don’t care what the public thinks. They don’t care what NTek thinks. This isn’t about them. They had their chance to help!! Now stop getting in the way!!
They probably learn of Jim’s spaceship at some point and move in there to have an easier time avoiding NTek, though they decide to save the Turbo Chamber for when they have to kick Makino’s ass with the Turbo Star. Which is honestly their most solid plan.
They might even risk teaming with Dredd to have him build it. They can always double cross him later before he gets the chance to do it to them first! Because they’re not going to risk letting the man who claimed to have betrayed their father once go anywhere near him after he’s been saved, so he’s gotta go.
Yeah yeah yeah yeah!!! It has to be a spiral. It’s gotta start somewhere sweet and end in a downright rabid desperation. A yearning so deep it’s going to implode into a black hole. They’ve sunk so much of their hope into this. It has to work. It has to.
What was it all for if they fail? They can’t stop. They have to see this through! They will! They will!
The entire premise can really just be boiled down to this:
Max Steel is going to bring James McGrath home alive. Whatever it takes.
Mmmmmmm. I don’t like the emphasis on the power source. Something Dredd said about the Turbo Star like a dozen episodes back has been kind of haunting me-
Has anybody cooked an AU where Max was leaking Turbo energy as a kid or nah? I feel like it must exist already, given we know what tiny Max looks like. He was already in an NTek onesie.
I’d be excited to “holy shit, two cakes” about it if it does already exist several times over. And I will be getting into the kitchen regardless. But I’m waiting until I’ve eaten at least this whole playlist before I start tag hopping soooo. I asks politely.
