#this fits aura maria so well though | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

piratejoongie · 26 days

Text

All Mine

🍒 Hii, this little or maybe not so little story is my first ever so I hope you enjoy it.

🍒 tw: sexual content, kidnapping, swearing, violence...

🍒 Pirate Hongjoong x reader

🍒 smut hehe with a bit of fluff, because aftercare is important

🍒 word count: 🤷🏻‍♀️ (a lot, i guess)

Where it all began:

It was when my mom was pregnant with me when a deal was struck between my parents and parents of later very known, vicious and merciless pirate Kim Hongjoong. It has been agreed that I will have to marry Hongjoong when I turn 22, because my family's fortune with his would make one very powerful and united family that would be unstoppable. Little did his parents know how their plan would be ruined, or was it?

As soon as that deal was struck, mu parents went to the king and queen to ask for their help.

"My king, we need your help!"

"Ah, lord Tang, long time no see. Tell me, what seems to be the problem?"

"We were forced to make a deal with pirates, the Kim's specifically, that our daughter Y/N has to marry their son Hongjoong when she turns 22."

"Well, that's unfortunate, lord Tang. What is it that you want of me? I can't declare a war out of thin air."

"We would never ask that of you, your majesties. We hoped that, as soon as Y/N is born, she can live with you as a fake princess and hopefully be safe from Kim's. "

"Lord Tang, that's quite an idea... and a dangerous one if HE figures out."

"I know that's a lot to ask of you, my king... but we just want our daughter to be safe and to never have to witness what horrible things those pirates do."

"Very well, lord Tang. As soon as your daughter is born, she will live here as our 'daughter', learn to be a proper royal and if successful, maybe even inherit the throne. She'll be a better fit than any of my cousins and their bastard children."

"Thank you, my king. I owe you my life for doing this."

"Careful, lord Tang, you might just have to do that if they find her."

"Yes, my king."

Even though my parents had a good plan, and everything went smoothly, eventually, something had to go wrong.

Now:

The day has come, my 28th birthday and my coronation. The day when I finally become queen of this country came, the king Jun was proud and so was his wife, Laeya, or should I say, my parents. However, my real parents were in the crowd, watching me, with tears in their eyes and hope that nothing would go wrong.

The coronation went smoothly, and so did the majority of the night, but then all of a sudden, pirates came barging in through the main doors... and it was everything my parents feared... the blood... the screams... people panicking... but I couldn't move, I couldn't run... I knew I had to face them, and I knew I was ready... or so, I thought.

Then he came in the throne room. His presence, his aura... it was very powerful and magnetic, something was pulling me towards him, and I didn't know what it was.

One thing I was sure of... this man is Captain Kim Hongjoong, of the Nightbringer pirates. The cruelest, the most vicious and merciless pirates of them all... and he was here to get me.

"Hello, my queen", he said bowing to me, showing respect. Good for him. "They hid you well from me. I hoped to meet you 6 years ago, and make you my beloved wife, but as you see, I had some misfortune coming my way. I had my most precious treasure stolen from me, I was searching all of the seven seas for you, and as I was about to raid this hideous castle, I have find you. My precious ruby."

Ruby, a nickname I thought I'd never hear again... but here we are.

"Captain, you must me mistaken. I was never promised to anyone."

"My queen, isn't your real name Y/N Tang? Isn't your father one of most respected lords, lord Marcellus Tang and his beautiful wife, Maria Jelena Tang, former princess of Russia. You're their only daughter and, of course, my soon to be wife." he said, and I gulped.

How did he know all of this? Where did he get it from?

I needed answers, and I needed them soon.

"Mother! Father! What is he talking about?" I asked angrily, and they explained everything to me. I was furious, I didn't know what to think, how to act... do I go with them? Do I put up a fight? So I tried being rational and parley.

"Captain, I'm flattered, but unfortunately, I will not be going with you. I have a duty towards this country, this land and all people who live here."

He laughed. He fucking laughed.

"You're in no position to bargain with me,'princess'. You will be a good little princess and come with me. Otherwise, you can say goodbye to everyone because all that will be left of this land is corpses and bloodshed", this prick... "You have a choice pretty, come with me in peace, and I'll let them all live, or you can decline me and see everyone die, so you'll be forced to go with me."

"I pick nothing. You're in no position to bargain with a queen, pirate and you and your small crew are outnumbered."

He doesn't say anything. He just walks up to me, lifts up my head with his finger, looks me in the eyes, and like a feather, he throws me over his shoulders. To my surprise, no one was harmed, and I was taken to his ship, with no one coming after me. His ship, The Illusion, was beautiful and modern, I was stunned. He took me to his cabin and locked me inside. Then, the long one week journey to his kingdom began.

On the ship:

The seconds. The minutes. The hours.

They were passing slowly, but at least I had my fun pissing Hongjoong off. He hated it but I loved it. Serves him right for literally kidnapping me.

Suddenly, I hear the door unlocking... it must me him.

"Rise and shine, Ruby. We are close to my kingdom, and here, you'll be a proper queen. I must admit, giving you up to the royals was a bit over the top, but at least you have the manners and the brains now."

"That's more brains than you'll ever have Hongjoong. " I smiled to myself, good one. He makes me think of comeback so easily, whatever he says, I can just snap it back at him. But the patience this man has, its unbelievable.

"Now now baby, haven't they taught you manners and respect, or are you just a brat in general?" As he was saying that, he gets close to my face, looking me deeply in the eyes, and as always, I get turned on... but I can't let him know that, if I did, he'd have complete power over me and he'll use it well. "I asked you something, 'princess'."

"I just respect people who show respect to me first. That's how it is and how I was taught." I said.

"Hmm, or you just like pissing me off, hoping to get a reaction out of me, but also finding my composure and presence rather magnetic." Shit... how did he know? "Princess, you were bound to be mine, and I will, make you mine." Well, now is not a good time to be horny and wishing he would rail me on his desk. "Be ready in 10, we're close to the main land. And wear something nice, you need to look presentable to my people." He leaves, and with that I go through the dresses I have, and find the sluttiest, dark red dress that hugs my curves well. I can hear, and feel the ship slowing down, which can mean one thing... time to get out.

"Y/N, time to go." I hear Seonghwa, Hongjoong's first man and his most trusted member of the crew, and the sweetest, if I may add. I check myself once more, and I head out. The crew kept whistling, cat-calling 6 it made me feel powerful until Hongjoong turned around and his eyes went dark. Oh, oh. I needed to play this off as cool as possible, which I did. He hasn't said anything to me on our way to his castle, and I didn't mind because San and Wooyoung were keeping me entertained.

Over the next few months, I kept pissing Hongjoong off, talking to San and Wooyoung, who became my friends here and occasionally to Seonghwa. The majority of days here, I spent with the crew, whereas Hongjoong was nowhere to be seen... and to be honest, it had me worried. I stood up and decided to go to his room. Not a brightest idea so far.

His room was across the hall from mine, with big black doors and skulls decorating it. To some, it may seem intimidating, but to me, it has always been normal. I came inside, the room was empty, but it was big, spacious, and it had nice big windows that made the room brighter. I was busy admiring the room and haven't heard footsteps behind me.

"What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be out with the crew doing something?" He asked, leaning onto the doorframe. Damn he looked hot. His messy red hair was shining from one sunray that hit it, his dark eyes looking at me curiously, and his lips... those juicy pink lips were formed into a smirk. "Do you like what you see, Ruby?" He asked, slowly moving forward and closing the door behind him.

"Not really, I've seen better." I snap.

"Oh really, so I don't have any effect on you? You don't feel turned on by me? You don't fantasize about me? You don't imagine me pleasuring you until you scream when you finger yourself at night? You don't imagine how my tongue would tease your sensitive clit, how I would eat you out like a starved man, as if you were the last meal I could have, how I would such on those nice tits of yours and make you cum? You don't think about how my cock would fill you up like a skut you are and stretch you so good, you will only need my cock and noone else's? You want to say that you never, not even once, wanted me to fuck you senseless over my desk, make you scream my name so my whole crew can hear how good of a slut you're being for me, your captain. Tell me, Ruby."

I couldn't move. I couldn't speak. I couldn't do anything I wanted to do because of him, and the effect he had on me.

With one swift movement, he put his hand around my waist and turned me around so my back was pressed against the door. He started kissing my neck, moving his way slowly to my jaw and then kissing my lips. His kisses were intoxicating, and through them, he made sure you knew that he was in charge. There's no doubt that he was good at it, he knew very well what he was doing.

"My precious Ruby, tell me, what do you want." He said seductively, as if he didn't know what I wanted. "Captain, I want you."

"Very well darling." He kissed me again, then stopped, looked at me and just tore my shirt apart. I was stunned. He on the other hand was amused, taking my boobs in his hands, massaging them, and then kissing and teasing my nipples. I squirm and pull his red, ruby hair, making him whine a little. While sucking on my nipples, he quickly disposed my skirt and underwear, kissing his way down on me. Making me shiver, getting wetter and wetter with every kiss he made down my stomach... but he stops... and gets on his knees in front of me, putting my leg on his shoulder so he can have better access. Slowly, he licks my folds, tasting all of my juices and making his way up to my clit. His tongue glides over my clit, goes in circles around it, making me moan loudly. He starts sucking and nibbling on my clit, sending shivers down my spine and making me quiver. Eating me out like a starved man, he speeds up a little and adds a finger inside me, matching the speed of his finger and his tongue. The feeling was sensational, no one made me feel like that. He adds another finger, making me moan from being stretched out. "Look at you, being a good little slut for your captain. Are you gonna cum for me slut? Are you gonna make a mess all over my face and fingers?" He asks, still sucking on my clit but more roughly this time and fingering me faster. "Aye, captain. I'll be a good slut and cum on your face." I moan, and the pleasure keeps growing. I grab a handful on his hair in my hand and pull his face closer to my folds, closing my thighs as my orgasm approaches and squishing his face between them, which he doesn't seem to mind... instead he picked up a pace. "Oh...I-... too much..."

"What's that slut? Don't tell me you can't take it?"

"I- I'm gonna c-..."

Before I could finish, I squirt all over his face, making a huge mess and wetting his clothes.

"Get on the bed slut. On all fours. Head down. Ass up."

I obey.

Before I knew it, he was undressed and stood between my legs, carefully watching my juices leaking out of me from previous orgasm.

"You look so pretty spread out for me like this."

"Only for you captain." I purr.

"Good, now you'll take my cock like a good little slut, won't you?"

"Yes captain."

Without any warning, he slams his dick in me, stretching me well and making me full. Each thrust is better than the other, making my legs weak and shaking. He fucks me roughly, penetrating me sweet spot and making me a moaning mess. He picks up his pace again, thrusting hard and deep touching my cervix with a tip of his dick.

"Fuck baby, if you keep clenching around me like that, I'm going to cum and fill that tight cunt of yours with my cum. Would you like that, slut? Would you like being breed by me and have my baby in your belly?" I nod.

"Words, slut. Use your words. I want to hear you say it."

"Ah- yes- I want you to breed me, captain. I wanna be filled with your cum and have your baby in my belly." I scream, and I hear him chuckle as he keeps thrusting. I can feel him twitching inside me, ready to cum. His thrusts become shorter but deeper.

"Fuck baby, I'm gonna cum in that pretty cunt of yours. Cum with me."

As he came in me, he kept fucking his cum back inside me hence it was leaking out. I kept rolling my eyes into the sensation.

"On your knees slut. You need to clean the mess you've made on my cock."

I get down on my knees, in front of his beautiful long dick that still hasn't gone soft. I start pumping it with my hands, sucking on his balls, kissing them and moving up to his tip, sliding it in my mouth, slowly taking it whole.

"That's it, slut. Let me fuck that bratty mouth of yours."

With that, he grabbed a handful of my hair, moving his hips and fucking my mouth. I grab his thighs for support and scratch them because he was too much. He slides out of mouth, letting me breathe for a second before sliding himself back into my mouth, thrusting roughly, and sliding out again. Confused, I see him sit on his bed, tapping on his lap, signalling me to come up to him, and ride him. I slide down his cock with ease, enjoying the feeling of being stretched out once again. I kept bouncing on his dick, feeling euphoric and having Hongjoong sucking on my boots while his thumb was circling around my clit. I couldn't take it anymore, it was too much.

"You gonna cum again slut? C'mon, make a mess on my cock and I'll fill you up once more." I don't know how or why, his words have a huge effect on me. Hearing him saying that and moan, made me ride him harder and faster, urging me to cum.

"Ah- Hon- Hongjoong " I scream, and as I was about to collapse on him, he flipped us over, putting me in missionary and filling me up once again, making me feel warm inside. He never let his cum drip out of me, so he kept fucking it back in, releasing once more and kissing me. God, I loved every second of it.

"You good princess? Not too sore? Can you walk? Do you need anything? Food? Water? Shower? Just tell me, princess, anything you need."

"Some food would be nice, and a shower... and, if we can cuddle after?" I asked, hoping he'll agree.

"Anyhing for my Ruby. You're the queen of my heart after all."

Who knew a pirate such as Hongjoong would have a soft side, or was he only showing that side to you. Nevertheless, you loved it, and even though you were forced to come here, maybe it's better than the life your parents would choose for you. And there's one thing Hongjoong will never admit, but he always knew where you were, how you were and he watched you growing up. You might not remember it now, but he'll tell you what you two met when you were 7, walking along the beach alone and bumping into him. You called him ruby, because of his red hair and he never told you his real name because he didn't want to scare you, instead he admired you and told himself that he'll find you again and protect you with all he has.

162 notes · View notes

sparklingmusicofstars · 7 months

Text

Hamefura light novel 12 : Sora x Catarina Sora assigned as Catarina's body guard

As I was the only one in the carriage, I fell asleep as usual. I asked the coachman to wake me up after arriving in the Ministry of Magic .

When I got off the carriage and walked to the gate, an escort guard followed me. I feel like a noble lady. Ah, that’s what I am !

After entering the gate, I saw Sora already waiting for me there.

"Good morning to you."

Sora greeted the escort guard and me respectfully.

"Good morning, my lady, I'll leave it to you."

The escort guard responded to Sora and left.

I, on the other hand, was looking at them in confusion.

"Uh... what's going on, Sora ?"

I asked Sora next to me as I watched the escort guard leave.

"My name is Sora Smith. From today on, I will be responsible for escorting you, Miss Catarina Claes, in the Ministry of Magic. I'm counting on you"

He saluted me as elegantly as when I first met dressed as a butler, and then tell me that.

"Huh, a guard in the Ministry of Magic !?"

Seeing my surprised face, he showed an incredulous expression.

"Haven't you heard about it ? "

he asked me.

That's when I remembered what my father told me before I left home.

"I will find someone else in the Ministry of Magic .

My father mentioned that he would find someone in the Ministry of Magic to protect me.

"...I've heard of it. So Sora, you are the guard ?"

"Yes. We are in the same department and we are familiar with each other. Your father said it should be a good fit."

That's indeed the case.

Sora knows about dark magic and the "Dark Contract" (and of course Maria's contract). There should be no one more suitable than him.

"But Sora, don't you have your own job ? You have to be my guard so I feel a bit guilty."

Sora is also a member of the Magic Items Research Laboratory and has his own job to do. It would be troublesome to leave the department to protect me.

"Oh, don't worry about this. Duke Claes has officially entrusted the Ministry of Magic to arrange the escort, and it seems that the payment is also included. Even if I am missing, people from other departments have been arranged to make up for it."

I see. Father has officially commissioned the Ministry of Magic."

The Ministry of Magic accepts all kind of business, so I heard that it also includes such commissions asescorts. But to have an employee protect an employee internally──that sounds a bit strange.

"That said, your father is really good."

"Yes, he respects your wishes. In fact, it would be easier for you to stay at home than to arrange for an escort."

Hearing Sora say that made me realise that it was indeed the case.

Now I'm very motivated about my work and want to work hard. But at first, I didn't want to marry Geordo and become a royal right away, so I entered the Ministry of Magic as an escape.

In fact, some people criticized me and sa things like "The Duke's daughter is just killing time temporarily" This is still the case today.

Father must have heard it at his workplace as well. A lot of people think that grown-up noble girls shouldn't work.

Even though others didn't think highly of his daughter's work, father didn't ask me to stop working. Instead, he went out of his way to arrange an escort to get me to work. The same goes for not rushing me into marriage, father has always respected my wishes.

I'm really taken care of by my family. Both in this life and in my previous one."

"I'm really blessed."

I couldn't help but mutter.

"That's great."

Sora told me with a smile.

"Yeah. So, Sora, I'll leave it to you to be my guard."

"Please leave it to me."

Sora said with a respectful bow.

So Sora and I headed to the department together. He exudes an aura of neatness, like a capable butler.

After knocking on the door of the magic item laboratory, we entered. Normally (Sora is with me today) I would be the first to arrive, but today someone was here earlier.

#my next life as a villainess #hamefura #katarina claes #bakarina #otome game no hametsu flag #light novel #hamefura light novel #sora smith #my next life as a villainess: all route lead to doom #otome game no hametsu flag shika nai akuyaku reijou ni tensei shiteshimatta

12 notes · View notes

heraldofcrow · 2 years

Text

I don’t see him talked about much, but I wanna mention that Vileblood Drifter Leo seems like a pretty interesting character….

Also, I’m pretty sure this unused Vileblood facedata was his—

In a sense, this guys fits with how a lot of people imagine Bloody Crow. He’s got the pasty skin, red eyes, the long white hair (pony-tail style), the black circles that are probably eyeliner cuz he’s emo like that…

But I feel like they would have used this for Crow if it was him and not Leo. I also have a theory that the Crows were meant to remain faceless for a reason. Ciaran, an assassin with a similar aura in DS1, received the same unfortunate treatment. As much as I dislike it, I think maybe we weren’t ever meant to reveal the faces of the enigmatic assassins. Who knows.

Anyway back to Leo. I find his name interesting. So he’s a drifter? Like Yamamura? Maybe the two were friends then. Vagabonds stick together right? Ha. Plus, taking into consideration the Japanese connections within Cainhurst…well yeah, maybe they knew each other. It would be interesting to have this contrast though, because of Leo’s Vileblood heritage. Wouldn’t it be funny if they were in the League together too? I also think he must have been dead by the time we show up since Annalise is convinced there are no other Vilebloods besides you and her. Bloody Crow isn’t counted here. He’s special 🖤

My other theory about Leo is that he only poses as a drifter, and was actually a Cainhurst spy. Maybe one employed directly by Annalise. He could have kept an eye on Byrgenwerth and later the Church, before being killed or dying…somehow…

I also further appreciate the suggestion that recipient Vilebloods look a certain way. The red eyes and pale skin have to be a result of consumption of Annalise’s blood. Why else would he have red eyes? It also suggests that neither Iosefka or Arianna ever received the Queen’s blood directly even if they were distant relatives. Same with Maria. Meanwhile, this guy Leo was probably like us and was one of the special servants of the Queen that got his share of tainted blood. It must have changed his appearance.

I mean, it’s a theory for sure…but if you look at the portraits of the Cainhurst family, they all look relatively normal. I have a feeling they were simply relatives of the Queen, and though they may have had special blood like Maria or Arianna, they were still pretty natural looking. But the guards that carried out Annalise’s orders and longed to share in her blood? I don’t imagine they were very healthy looking if they ever received it, ha. That’s why I’m leaning more towards my theory that Leo was a servant of Annalise, and maybe a spy that moved from place to place. Either that, or he became a drifter after the Cainhurst genocide.

I dunno, peeps. All I know is that I’m obsessed with my idea that the Cainhurst nobles belonged to a big family that took in the forbidden blood, became incredibly long-lived, and eventually birthed Annalise, the first Undead Queen. It was her immortal blood that was most tainted and held an iron grip on the lower ranking classes of Cainhurst, aka the guard and the knights. That’s when the simping started and the blood dregs thing started off. On occasion, a few of these dreg hunters might have gotten exactly what they wanted and transformed into what Leo looks like. Basically a discount vampire.

After all, according to the cut “Queenly Blood,” the possibility wasn’t completely out of the question…

Leo…we know what you did you bastard…

#CrowNotes #bloodborne #bloodborne theory #yeah i took a breather from midterms to write this #it was therapeutic and i needed it #i’m also including Leo in my fic so i wanted to study him a bit #cainhurst #vileblood drifter leo

16 notes · View notes

skye-huntress · 2 years

Text

RWBY Ice Queendom Reaction

Episode 9: “My Dream, Your Dream”

Well what do you know, Weiss actually was able to communicate directly with Ruby.

This is the kind of White Rose moment I’ve been waiting so long for where Weiss makes it clear how she really feels about Ruby. Sure, she has her criticisms and concerns, but despite that she trusts Ruby completely. And Weiss relates to her loneliness, something I never thought about before.

Once again I have to reassess how much Weiss has been resisting the Grimm and secretly helping her friends. In retrospect, I realise it is quite odd that Weiss altered Crescent Rose so much when everyone else’s weapons are more or less the same. Thinking about it though, turning into a snowboard did make it easier for Ruby to move around at the start of the dream. Why would she do that if Ruby is supposed to be locked up all the time? Same thing with Yang’s bike. Same with where she placed those weird signs and the Relics, and her friends. So she had her reasons for altering Crescent Rose the way she did, even if it’s not yet clear how it’s supposed to help. Also there was some cryptic nonsense about the “shadow of the person you’re fighting” if I got that right but I was too busy watching to give it any real thought.

The little Weisses continue to be the most adorable thing on screen.

Once again I think I’ve underestimated Jaune. Not just with the sword thing, but also lifting someone even Ruby’s size that high, for the weakest person in his year, is quite the feat. It also seems like his semblance may have helped a bit even if he hasn’t fully unlocked it or is even aware he is using it.

So that was Ruby’s last coin. Did it actually do anything or did Zaiden use her last one up trying to wake her up themselves? At least their aura doesn’t seem to be in the red yet, but we’ve still got a few episodes to go. I should probably go back and do a count of how many coins they have used up because it’s easy to lose track of who uses their’s when they were all together.

Also, Ozpin definitely made a subtle reference to Ruby’s silver eye abilities. It’s unclear but still possible that we might see them in action but I doubt it will be for much if at all. Other than the fact that its not something the show will be able to get too deep into for new audiences, I feel like even in the main show it is being hinted that the silver eyes are not something you can rely on for a victory. Even Maria, a former silver eye warrior, flat out tells Ruby that her training and semblance are still her greatest assets.

Can we talk about how Negative Weiss first asks about Ruby? She might be obsessed with Blake but Ruby is clearly never far from her thoughts.

So did Negative Weiss absorb the little Weisses and normal Weiss into herself before making them all go to sleep? I suppose it could symbolise Weiss’ negativity winning over her other thoughts and desires and dragging her closer towards that eternal sleep.

Also I can’t remember exactly when in this episode it happens but seeing the little Weisses frozen in fear just hurts me further.

So what are Blake and Yang up to?

Bashful Klein’s line about being embarrassed about the inside just further reinforces my earlier suspicions that much of what he keeps locked up are things Weiss is deeply conflicted or even ashamed about. I think what the Bees said about everything being a disorganised mess like Weiss didn’t really know what to do with these thoughts fits.

And as expected, Blake’s room is actually quite nice, huge contrast to the rest of the mess. There’s the Relic Weiss gave to Blake. And removing awakens the White Fang because of course it does, but they’re docile and not attacking the Bees.

It’s an important reminder here of how similar Weiss and Blake are. Jacques Schnee and the SDC gave Blake plenty of reason to hate the company and Schnee’s, while in turn Sienna Khan’s White Fang gave Weiss plenty of reasons to hate the White Fang and distrust Faunus. I wouldn’t dare say either are wrong to feel that hatred, but both let the hatred control them and cloud their judgment for a time. That said, deep down both knew there were issues with their own side. It’s why Blake left the White Fang. It’s why Weiss has tried so hard to free herself of her father’s influence, but doing so in a way that she can still one day inherit the company and make the changes she knows are needed. It’s possible Weiss’ desire to reform the SDC was the inspiration behind Blake wanting to take back the White Fang instead of just destroying it.

So Yang immediately wants to charge off again and Blake being the voice of reason points out they already tried that, twice. Any time they get close to the Grimm Negative Weiss stops them and drives them back out before they can even really fight the Grimm itself.

A similar conversation is going on with Ruby and Jaune with the former being more desperate than ever to get to Weiss knowing how close she is to sleep. Then Ruby takes the knowledge Weiss gave her and the immunity Jaune gave the train and puts them together. The train likely only stopped where it did so Ruby and the others could get the Relic, but if the tracks only just appeared when they got to the city, why not take it further? Especially now Ruby knows that in Weiss mind she can go wherever she wants.

Ruby still wants to bring the little Weisses along and we know the reason why. They’re too adorable!

The clock rewinds and Negative Weiss is awake, which is really good but at the same time, it’s Negative Weiss.

Oh yeah, a train full of dust so they have all the ammo they could want. Hah, Negative Weiss isn’t the only one who can cheat! Also, Pyrrha is also actually fighting as well.

That damn Arma Gigas knockoff is really a pain. Of course it’s nearly unstoppable, it’s the toughest enemy Weiss ever faced at this point. Seriously, can someone destroy that thing already.

So, back in Episode 5, I made a prediction that Blake would command the White Fang to make a distraction that would be enough to occupy Negative Weiss. It seems Blake has taken it a step further and embraced the role of the villain. This wouldn’t just be playing to Weiss’ hatred but also a fear she no doubt had the moment she learned Blake’s secret, that the girl she wants to think of as her friend is really her enemy. That might mean that in her mind, a Blake that is still a part of the White Fang is more dangerous than the Blake who is her friend. Blake might possibly be a match for Negative Weiss. The flip side is just like what happened with the children, things could get out of control, especially with the last Relic removed from its place. Blake might even risk losing herself in the role she is playing and become infected as well. Well, fortunately Yang is there, too.

Speaking of whom, did Yang go back for her motorcycle?

#RWBY #RWBY IQ #RWBY IQ spoilers

9 notes · View notes

inhuman-obey-me · 3 years

Text

On Simeon and what it means to be an angel

The beautiful, gentle angel who can smile through just about anything. But what's underneath the ever-present smile of his? Is he really just pure, sweet, and kind?

Not at all. Simeon can be very mischievous at some times, and scarily wrathful at others. Some of you may be thinking, just what kind of angel is someone like that? Well, let's talk about that.

(includes spoilers up to lesson 52)

Starting with the idea of what angels are supposed to be like - the common, pop-culture characterization of angels is that they are pure, merciful, peaceful beings who can only do good and are horrified by anything dark or bad.

And admittedly, Simeon doesn't seem to quite perfectly fit that mold.

[Disclaimer: Neither mod of this blog belong to the Abrahamic religions, so this is purely from our own research]

In terms of how angels have been described in various scriptures, however, this isn't actually what they are like. Angels act on behalf of God, and are usually not meant to have any free will of their own. The thing that separates angels from demons is not a tendency towards kindness and purity, but that their actions are aligned with God's desires rather than their own. What this means in effect is that, both in actual scripture and in the game, angels can and will do things that are a lot less pure and peaceful than their modern mainstream depictions would suggest.

For example, there is a part of the Bible (at least in various versions) where it is mentioned that an angel was ordered by God to kill one hundred eighty-five Assyrians, leaving their camp full of dead bodies in the morning.

The poet Rainer Maria Rilke states in his The Duino Elegies - "Every Angel is terror".

Seraphim - which is what OM!'s renditions of Simeon and Lucifer both formerly were - are basically six-winged snakes. Cherubim, as OM!'s Beelzebub formerly was, are actually multi-faced humanoid-lions with wings. "Do not be afraid," is a line angels often say when they meet humans because they are just as scary-looking as demons - just they're, you know, the "good" ones.

Actual descriptions of angels aside, even in-game, we are presented with example after example that angels are not perfect "pure and good" beings either. The game itself emphasizes this point at various times - if you upset Simeon during Surprise Guest interactions, one of his displeased lines is: "Just because I'm an angel doesn't mean I'm all forgiving." In lesson 51, though he initially says he left Satan to be with the Angel versions of his brothers for Satan's benefit, if MC actually agrees that he was just being kind, he is surprised that they really believed him.

It's not just him, either. Similar to Simeon's upset reaction, if you give Luke a present he doesn't like, he says, "I know I'm an all-forgiving angel and everything, but even so, this is a little too much..." When MC briefly lands in the past, the brothers actually describe Simeon as the least intense of the seraphim. Back when the brothers were angels, Lucifer was still known for being strict and arrogant. On the more extreme end, Raphael was known for keeping the angels in line via the pointy end of his spear, as Asmodeus fears will happen to him as punishment for going to a party. And Michael himself, the top-ranking leader, who one might think should be the most angelic of angels, is described as a sadist. In the Angelic Demons event, Michael even gets Simeon to give the demon brothers cursed bracelets that temporarily turn them into angels. It's not a very nice prank to pull on them, as it makes the brothers miserable to be converted back to their old forms, not to mention that the curse goes so far that they are turned into the caricature of overly nice and polite angels - but as it could be considered more in line with pulling them towards "God's will," this would actually be considered a good angel thing to do.

As the game points out, being the least intense doesn't exactly make Simeon easygoing, either. In fact, we have seen at this point quite a few examples of Simeon's rage. As a play director, he berates the brothers so much over any mistakes that they call him a dictator. Not to mention, the reason they are in the play in the first place is because the entire previous cast quit because they couldn't deal with him.

Later, when he and Luke are running the Angel's Halo, he drags the brothers into helping out. Though he is shown still smiling, everyone agrees because they are terrified of his menacing aura. Even Diavolo, when on the home screen, remarks about hiding because he made Lucifer mad again, but it's Simeon who he calls "the one person in this world I don't want to anger."

On a much lighter note, some of his less "angelic" behavior also comes from his playful, mischievous side. As referenced earlier, he is surprised if MC believes he was just being nice, but if the player says they thought he was pranking Satan, it gives intimacy points with him, and he says:

He also joins in on the teasing of Luke, having his name as "Luke (Chihuahua)" in his D.D.D. contacts. Multiple of his home screen lines also show how much he loves messing with Luke in general:

"I'm free right now, so I think I might go and tease Luke."

"Luke is like a Chihuahua who thinks it is a German Shepherd. Cute, huh?"

"I'm back! I was so excited to meet you that I left Luke behind."

"If you don't eat enough breakfast, you'll turn out tiny like Luke."

Plus, in dance battles, one of his chibi poses is him teasingly scaring someone, while Luke has a corresponding scared pose, suggesting that he may be meant to be scaring Luke in particular.

He also gets MC to mess with Belphegor when they are looking for him, instructing them to kick the tree that he knows he's probably asleep in as hard as they possibly can.

However, while none of those things make him any less of an angel, there is evidence to support that he is, in fact, a "bad" angel in a different sense.

As the two Celestial Realm exchange students, Simeon and Luke represent two opposite ends of a spectrum of angel attitudes. Luke, having still been very young when the Great Celestial War happened, has been taught to have very uptight views of the demons, insisting that they are evil and should be avoided at all costs. When he first arrives in the Devildom, he is terrified at the idea that the two of them could get corrupted by the demons and fall. This is the prevailing attitude taught in the Celestial Realm: that demons are wicked, and that angels are inherently better than them.

By contrast, Simeon does not hold this view at all. He is happy to spend time with the demon brothers, and doesn't look down on them for falling. On the home screen, Luke complains, "Simeon is too sweet to demons! He's sweeter than a cake from Madam Scream's!" In the Rain, a Fire and Simeon Devilgram story, Simeon even talks about how he actually prefers the hustle and bustle of the Devildom, feeling that the Celestial Realm feels too quiet now.

This difference between him and Luke is not only expressed in his fondness for the demons, either. Simeon understands the nuances of good vs evil, and he himself seems to operate in shades of grey at times, rather than being perfectly aligned with Michael's (and by extension, it's implied, God's) wishes. More than once, he displays quite a flippant attitude towards following the rules, such as his very hand-wavey dismissal when MC asks about his lying.

Luke also calls him out on his disregard for rules, saying that Simeon is just too loose about following them:

However, this glib attitude should not be taken to mean that Simeon doesn't know exactly what he's doing. When it seems the only solution to restore stability to the three realms is for MC to sever all their pacts with the demon brothers, he quickly realizes that the other option, the Ring of Light that used to belong to Lucifer, must be hidden among Michael's things rather than lost to time as everyone thought. He tells Luke that he needs to go back to the Celestial Realm to take care of something, but he is firm that Luke should not come with him - because he is going to steal the ring from Michael, a risky, rebellious move that he doesn't want Luke to get involved in. He is perfectly aware of what he's doing, and actively chooses to do it anyway, consequences be damned, because he wants to do what he feels is right.

When Michael does confront him about it, he's not the least bit sorry, either. In fact, he sasses him and talks back, unafraid to show disrespect to God's top angel.

We also know that he's been demoted at some point. Luke tells MC that Simeon is an archangel, making him one of the Celestial Realm's warriors, or as Simeon himself has jokingly described it, a "low-level grunt" who is overworked by higher-up angels like Michael. However, during MC's time travel back to the Celestial Realm, we learn that Simeon used to be a seraph right alongside Michael and Lucifer. It is again referenced during the fairy incident, when he makes the low-level grunt joke again but is then reminded that he was a seraph at this point in time. We're not sure yet why he was demoted - there's a lot of speculation on this point, and we can't draw any definitive conclusions yet - but if we take that being a "good" angel means being obedient to Michael and God, we start to get a far less rosy picture of Simeon's good standing as an angel.

What does this mean? Is he a "bad" angel? Kind of, but not for the reasons some may think. His mischievous, devious, and playful side is not what makes him less angelic. It is his more rebellious, nonconformist way of doing things that actually opens up the possibility of him gradually getting further and further away from being an ideal angel, and potentially putting him on the path of falling from grace.

#obey me #obey me simeon #om! simeon #obey me!#obey me swd #obey me analysis #character study #so now that we are outlining these .. they're all long #yes we said we were gonna focus on demons but #we also got to talk about our fave angel

566 notes · View notes

rachetmath · 3 years

Text

Favorite (Characters)

Ruby: *barges in* RatchetMath!

Me: What is it Ruby?

Ruby: You’re showing favoritism.

Me: Okay. And?

Ruby: You need to stop. Why not draw us for once?

Me: Hm, maybe because I like Jaune more. Hell I like Penny and Neo more than you or your team.

Ruby: Why?!

Me: Because your team is horrible.

Ruby: So is team JNPR!

Me: Yeah, but only because they have to follow you. They have some individuality but we don’t explore that as much. Plus, your team would be dead without them. But you know what Ruby, I would rather draw Yang, Blake or any other character except Weiss than you right now.

Ruby: What?! But I’m-

Me: The main character that barely does main character things. Woman, Salem was in Atlas! Why was she not your top priority? Why was James your problem?

Ruby: Um well…

Me: Ruby, she knows your mother! She might know what happened to her! I get Yang was some levels your mom but shouldn’t learning what happened to your actual mom be just as important? Especially after that dark memory.

Ruby: That is true.

Me: You have silver eyes but you still don’t know how to use them. There was army of grimm around Mantle and that would have been good practice. And a better solution than Ren.

Ruby: But then I be overpowered.

Me: No. Ruby your silver eyes only work on one person. If someone sneaks up on you or doesn’t care about that light you give off then, you’re dead. Maria is proof on that.

Ruby: Um..

Me: Plus, the question that everyone in the audience could have an answer to is whether your silver eyes can even work on Salem. In all honesty, it proves the writer don’t keep track of the characters and their personalities to where they fit together in story. You know what I have been making skits, trying to be funny but… the jokes died. Look guys I-I’m sorry but… let me explain.

1. Ruby and Blake should have stayed in Mantle. Why?

1. Salem is the main villian. She knows Ruby’s mother. You know the same mother who left for a mission and didn’t come back. The same mother, who Ruby knows nothing about while everyone seems to have different perspectives of her. Or has a better clue on who she is, than Ruby herself. Plus wasn’t Salem after her too? She basically would be killing two birds with one stone by kidnapping Oscar and giving Ruby a reason to see her. That way Ruby isn’t assuming what happened to her mother. Let Salem antagonize Ruby. (Question: Can silver eyes work on Salem?)

2. Perfect training for silver eyes. Let’s face it, Ren proved to us he can mask a bunch of people without Jaune’s help. All he needed was concentration. However, Ruby is more effective because silver eyes seem to be able to destroy multiple grimm on sight. And with lives on the line that gives Ruby plenty of reason to start using them.

3. Ren calling Ruby out on her issues. Look I loved how Ren was willing to tell the truth, but him revealing Jaune cheated Beacon was… weak. Reason being it relates to Jaune’s character and Ren still follows Jaune’s orders. However, Ruby, who is supposed to be a prodigy because she came to Beacon two years ahead of her class, has not proven once that she is worthy of such praise. The only reason-The ONLY reason Ruby was enrolled into Beacon was her silver eyes. Ruby even in volume one has been nothing but liability. Initiations, she almost dies from a Stinger. Stake out, she almost got run over by a truck and it ended in failure. First mission, she gets kidnapped and almost destroyed a city block. Roman, a man with no semblance or aura continues to beat her four times in a row. And it gets worse. Ruby almost got her uncle killed. She was the first to get knocked out by Emerald. Almost dies by a robot and Godzilla. And the moment she arrived in Atlas her first move was to lie to James. She didn’t even try to stop Tyrian when she saw him. She had her gun with her too. Ren is not her sister, he might as well tell her the facts so she can do better.

4. Blake is Faunus. Mantle hates faunuses. Why not have Blake help them to prove faunuses are people too? Let Blake represent her people. I mean Velvet and Sun represent faunses more than she does her whole existence. Blake also can relate to Ren’s problem. How? Blake was a part of the White Fang, so there were expectations she had to fulfill. Especially when trying to measure up to Adam. However, she explains the longer she was in the White Fang, the more she found out how messed up and extremely bias it was. Including with Adam to the point she decided to leave. She even states she was lucky that Yang even forgave her after all the trouble she caused her. Blake challenged her bias nature, and it made her stronger for it. Blake would be basically telling Ren the more he tries to live up to someone else’s expectations, without seeing their flaws, the more he loses touch with himself and everyone around him.

5. Oscar shouldn’t have been able break out of Salem on his own: I’m sorry but… Oscar got beat up. Took a magic beam to the chest. Had to switch between him and Ozpin and mind you he had no aura to help him. He should be tired and unable to move. (In my opinion, this kid was given too much screen time. At first I was worried about him but now I’m wondering why was I worrying at all.)

2. Jaune and Yang should have gone to Atlas.

1. Penny is basically Pyrrha in the opposite light. Penny’s special because she’s a robot with a soul, a mind of her own and an attitude to prove it. She is just as human as everyone else, but no one seems to treat her as such. James only sees her as something of a weapon. Pietro treats her like child even though she’s more mature than the rest of the female cast, except Maria. And now with maiden powers, everyone is out casting Penny even more. Jaune is perfect for her because he has experience with this kind of issue. However, he would’ve had to take different route to the situation considering his failure with Pyrrha last time they had discussion on maiden powers or responsibilities (Destiny.).

2. Jaune already has been a part of maiden business since volume three. His reason to be with Penny would be make sure she doesn’t meet the same fate as Pyrrha or Amber. Not just for himself but for others around him. Especially since Cinder was in Atlas and is willing to hunt her down for the maiden powers. And James was willing to turn Penny into a soulless machine to follow his every command. (Actually, Watts is more a fault considering he hates Pietro.). James and Cinder are also opposite to Jaune in some ways. James earned his position and earned respect from his military. Jaune on the other hand cheated, and unlike James might not have everybody’s respect. Cinder treats her allies like tools. And with power she just consumes and gives nothing return. Jaune however treats his allies like family. And instead of just taking power he gives power to others around him. He’s the reason Cinder has maiden powers. So, him making it his personal mission to make sure Cinder doesn’t get more power only increases his resolve to protect Penny. (Especially since he already had to kill her in the canon finale.) In other words, James and Cinder purposed a challenge to Jaune. Can he pervert history from repeating itself? Can he really protect the maiden powers? Is he truly worthy of being a huntsman? What is he willing to risk in achieving his goal? (Also let’s be clear. Hazel beat Oscar down for the password to the relic. James shot the kid and was willing to let him fall to his death. Qrow intentionally punched the kid. I don’t care if it was for Ozpin, he still punched Oscar. Lion before even knowing Oscar was Ozpin reincarnation was already about kill him anyways. All Jaune did was push him to a wall. Yes, Jaune still would have hurt Oscar, but he didn’t. He walked away.)

3. A lot of the situations could’ve been avoided or mattered if Jaune was there. Don’t believe me? Well let me explain. Was Ruby the only option when sneaking pass Central Command? No, because they had Weiss, Nora and Penny. Weiss could have done a freezer burn like in her fight with Marrow. Or Nora could have thrown her grenades and Penny just shoots them before the hit the ground or damage anything. Both causing a smoke screen, so no one sees them. Plus, they were already caught by using Pietro credentials. Did Nora need to get knocked out for the team to escape? No. If she had Jaune with her they could’ve one caused an EMP wave being Jaune has gravity and Nora has lightning. Or two, if Nora still went through with it, Jaune would have healed her immediately. Penny lifting and keeping the arena in place. If Jaune and Weiss were with her then once Amity was in position, Weiss with Jaune’s assistances can keep it place so Penny can come back inside and the whole video could be played. Also, Pietro would know what was going on with his daughter and can properly explain how to fix her. (Better than Jaune healing her.)

4. Nora’s whole character is knowing who she is without Ren right? Then why not just have her lead the evacuation once she’s done with Atlas? Why not have her and Yang work together along with the happy huntress to evacuate Mantle? Especially if their friends disappeared to save Oscar. (And before ya’ll tell me they can’t do it….. Yang, blocked a punch from a mech, held off a Manticore, and has a semblance that literally lets her take damage and dish it back five times harder. Nora who literally crushed Weiss and Yang in a food fight. Knocked a giant horse down on its knee. And knocked Hazel away. Are you seriously saying these girls are not enough to take on a few little tigers? Come on!) If the whole point of Nora’s character development was finding out more about herself then let Nora try something without Ren. Let her call the shots. Let her take charge. Give her a character. (Hell don’t stop there. Have her interact with other characters. Like Jaune. Yang. Weiss. Or anyone other character than Ren. Let them tell her what they think about her. Let Nora be a solution to a character’s struggle. Ya’ll make it sound like Nora has no friends.)

5. All Yang needed was a break from Ruby and Blake. In all honesty Yang should have been the one to see the hounds face and kill it. Why? Well Ruby is Yang’s sister and only reminder of her nonblood related mother. And Blake is her girlfriend. And if we saw the hound’s face, we know it’s not just a silver eyed person. It’s also a faunus. This will give her a reason to protect both her loved ones because by seeing the hound she knows Salem intention with Ruby and want to keep her, and Blake from meeting the same fate of being turned into monsters. Yang should’ve been the 2nd to 4th member of team RWBY to fall. Why? One, a Yang vs Neo fight. Two, Cinder and Neo both wanted Ruby dead. So why not get rid of Ruby first? The fights would have been more thrilling and seeing the character, the show is named after, presumed to be dead would have added stakes and tension to the fight. (Also let me say this. Why is it, that the only great display of the maiden powers I’ve ever seen, was from Amber and not the maidens, as of now, Winter, Raven, and Cinder? The maiden powers are basically magic right? Why isn’t Cinder using any other element than fire?)

6. Weiss was completely useless. Look, as the saying goes, “You can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family.” And when it came to Weiss and family, she has little to no clue of what it is nor deserves it. Weiss should have been more of an inspiration for Whitley to do right. How? By simply talking to him. What reason would she have other than Mantle? Simple, he’s her brother and she started off like him. Beacon, she was a brat. She was arrogant. And more importantly a jerk. Blake ran because of her racist attitude. Ruby literally had to impress her to prove she can be leader. Even though Weiss is not leadership martial herself. Plus, hearing May and how she and her family never resolved their issues should inspire Weiss to not repeat that mistake. And guess what, her mom, Willow, the drinker of the family, wasn’t wrong. Both her and Winter left Whitley alone. Klein wasn’t there for him either. All Whitley had was his father. So Weiss, actually acting like his sister and trying to help him allows him to feel less alone. Instead Weiss was complete Jacque through out the entire volume.

And that’s all. Look I know I should have seen this coming but I had to say it. Volume 8 could’ve been good. The problem was.

1. Characters are not placed well within the story.

2. We lost track of who said characters are.

3. The ships are in the way.

4. Being dumb for the plot. (Sometimes it’s necessary.)

85 notes · View notes

youwontlikethisblog · 3 years

Text

Freddy and Aura Maria.

While Aura Maria and Freddy have continued to be on the outs of their "relationship" Betty and Armando have just barely started setting ground on their feelings and such.

However this post is for Freddy and Aura Maria.

In my last post I talked about how Freddy takes on the role of Betty in his relationship with Aura Maria and how Aura Maria takes the role of Armando and how they all share similar traits as characters.

The things that make them opposite are for example, Freddy is very confident and extroverted while Betty is very timid and insecure. Armando is is mostly always angry and on a bad mood while Aura Maria seems to always be cheerful and in a good mood. While Betty has a lot of degrees and a good job Freddy doesn't have a high education and his job isn't something people aspire to have. While Aura Maria is a receptionist Armando is a partial owner of a multi-million company.

This episode takes place on the night of Betty's Birthday.

Just like the previous time that Freddy and Aura Maria had a moment of romance, this night will be similar. Aura Maria has been hurt, has been angry, and has been jealous over Freddy's flirtatious friendship with Jasmine, who takes on the role of someone he cares for but not to the point that he does for Aura Maria.

Freddy too has been hurt but when Aura Maria has needed him most he has step aside from his own ego and helped her out, though he did resume to it.

While at Betty's house she tries to talk with Freddy and she tries to get his attention, just like she normally does at the office but Freddy' sticks to his vow of silence.

Last time Aura Maria made him pick between Jasmine and her, the same night that Armando had to choose between Betty and Marcela(by this I mean in a symbolic way. Marcela had forced him to choose between Claudia Boche and Betty. When Hugo finally agreed to fire Claudia Boche, Marcela was still upset because the head she really wanted was Betty's and when Armando let Betty into the launch he went over Marcela's order and her and when he insisted they stay after the event, even when Marcela once more went to kick them out, he chose Betty instead of Marcela's desires.) and Freddy chose her. However things the next day didn't go as planned.

While Armando was arming himself with "courage" to make Betty fall in love with him, Aura Maria was sneaking around behind Freddy's back who thought they were now serious.

Since then Freddy and Aura Maria have been on a rocky path. Days later he found out about Aura Maria being out with another man and has been giving her the cold shoulder since then and Aura Maria has been trying to get him to forgive her.

Aura Maria is very immature and she lets all her attention and desires be guided by the heat of the moment. She doesn't really care for consequence; she almost got fired for that exact reason and if it hadn't been because of Freddy she would have ended up with no job.

Freddy always covers her back and he's always rescuing her from bad situations, just like Betty does with Armando and Aura Maria takes all of that for granted, just like Armando with Betty.

However this night all of that is about to change.

Aura Maria asks Freddy to take her out and because his partner in crime is drunk he decides that he can't let Aura Maria on her own and he drives her straight home, however Aura Maria asks him to take her out and they do.

Aura Maria questions Freddy about all his affection in the past and the jealousy fits he'd cause because of her other boyfriends while Freddy revs his motorcycle as a response to her, Aura Maria tells him if all of that wasn't a lie for him to take her anywhere he wanted.

Aura Maria, though understandable that she wants a economically secure future for her son and herself, devalues and throws away all of Freddy's efforts and affection and it isn't just motivated by the economic state of Freddy's wallet but more.

She once told Marcela that she knew she was beautiful and desired by many men who were better than Freddy and who had money. There's two reasons why she won't date Freddy and that's because both physically and financially she isn't vibing with him. Sound familiar?

Obviously to some degree Aura Maria is attracted to Freddy but not enough to actively desire him. It isn't until Freddy tells her that with her he experiences heaven that Aura Maria sleeps with him because unlike all the other men before, her emotional attraction to him is more than just fleeting. She becomes possessive of Freddy's emotional attributes and because he makes her feel good about herself and boost her ego, she feels that Freddy owes her that affection so when she sees him give that to Jasmine, she feels that he doesn't care about her and her ego plummets. Does this sound familiar?

Much like Armando, Aura Maria doesn't value the efforts that Freddy has shown to her. It isn't until it seems to be too late that she finally does and much like the first night they spent together, which was the night that Armando realized he felt more than just an appreciation for Betty(You Are The Spirit Of This Launch post), Aura Maria this night will once again have to face the reality that what she feels for Freddy is more than just a crush.

Freddy however sticks to his guns. He continues to give her the cold shoulder.

Freddy takes Aura Maria to a club. Freddy's behavior is his revenge against her. He throws a jab at her by saying "She can order whatever she wants since she's never considered what I want."

This is very similar to Betty's revenge against Armando in the future.

Freddy's revenge is done by removing his affection from Aura Maria, only showing it when it's really needed but as soon as that moment is gone he takes it back. He parades his affections towards others in front of her, which makes Aura Maria doubtful and question if Freddy ever really cared about her.

Even when they dance at the club Freddy doesn't dance with her and when he finally drops her off he continues with the silent treatment.

The next day when Betty and Aura Maria meet in front of Eco Moda, when Betty asks her how her night went she said that it was terrible and like she had spent the night with a robot.

It's funny to see the reversal of these two couples. The first time, when Aura Maria and Freddy hooked up for the first time, Armando and Betty were just about to start, however Armando was still in denial and cold towards Betty in a romantic way(I've got a lot of post talking about them).

In a play by play that night while Armando was being forced to face his true feelings towards Betty, Aura Maria was too being forced to face the reality of losing Freddy.

Here Jasmine and Nicolas symbolize their truest fear: Losing someone that is important to them to somebody that could be better than them.

Freddy and Betty are the objects of disdain of the romantic kind on a normal day but this night they become the object of securing. Both Aura Maria and Armando struggle with this realization, that soon they could lose a person that they simply know holds a lot of significance. It isn't based on love but an object possession that they feel over them.

This night both for Freddy and Betty was the same. They went to work, they did what they were supposed to do, they enjoyed the perks of the night and while Jasmine wanted her heart to be lifted when she failed at her one attempt to walk a runway, Nicolas, a friend of Betty's, stood outside waiting for her impatiently so that he told the doorman he was Betty's boyfriend so they could let him in.

While Armando spent a day of torment in his own confusion and feelings as well as denial, Aura Maria witnessed how loyal and how much he[Freddy] is willing to do for the woman he cares for. In the same vain that Armando realized that if Betty was that special with him, when he was simply her boss, how much more special could she be to someone who is her romantic partner? Aura Maria too had to face that reality. They both had the same motive while one is clear as day the other is disguised under something else.

The parallel that these two relationships have is that one is clear as day in regards of intentions while the other is a labyrinth of intentions.

The night when Betty and Armando have relations for their first time, parallels to Freddy's and Aura Maria's first time. Just as Aura Maria finally allows herself to feel what she feels for Freddy when he tells her that with her he touches the heavens, Armando allows himself to feel what he feels for Betty when she finally lets him and shows him he much she loves him, not with affection but by simply respecting his desires.

While Freddy has always pinned over Aura Maria and been open about his desire for her, the same way Betty has towards Armando, they both get their biggest dream made reality. However it's contradicting to them this night.

This night when B+A are out there sinning, Freddy and Aura Maria are having a horrible night.

Freddy has removed his love and affection from Aura Maria, simply behaving as a robot, as she says the next day, while Aura Maria is now being heavy in her attempts to conquest Freddy. This time Freddy doesn't fall for her tactics like he did the night of the launch.

I mean it makes sense that he wouldn't. I agree that people should never feel possessive of another person, be it romantic or platonic. People are not something you posses or belong to you. They don't owe you anything.

Freddy, though possessive at the start, never really acted out in jealousy or anger towards Aura Maria. He knew that he gave her his heart, in limited ways because that's how she wanted it, but he wasn't shy to show her how much she meant to him, however that comes to an end when Aura Maria is discovered to be unfaithful.

Though as an audience we understand that what Aura Maria wanted was a no strings attach(friends with benefits) with Freddy, if we're being honest, it's really unjustifiable what Aura Maria did.

Let's consider this relationship in the basic elements.

Freddy tries to flirt with Aura, who ignores any advance he makes towards her unless it benefits her. For example: Freddy skipping his lunch and asking to borrow money so that Aura can eat. Aura only flirting with Freddy when she needs something from him but always ignoring him and disregarding him when he makes any advances towards her that don't strictly benefit her.

Essentially what Aura does with Freddy is feed his illusion of love. She gives him the right amount of attention and affection when she needs something which translates to Freddy as "she cares about me, why else would she flirt with me?" However she also gives him the right amount of indifference, one that makes him stop in the moment but doesn't completely discourage his future efforts.

Was Freddy crossing lines? Not really. He wasn't shy to share what his true intentions were and whenever Aura told him to stop he withdrew his affection, without removing his feelings for her. Yes men should respect when we say no. However notice again how Aura encourages or even makes the effort to flirt with Freddy only when it strictly benefits her.

However she makes it pretty clear that for her, Freddy is a last option, a final thought if you will.

What does any of this have to do with the night of Betty's party?

For starters the roles are now reversed. While Aura Maria is now the one begging Freddy for an ounce of affection, Freddy is now being cold towards her, except that while Aura does this for the simple fact that she wants Freddy to pay attention to her in her possessive terms, Freddy is doing so because he is hurt and he no longer wants to be played with.

He is justified in his actions, though they are petty/immature, he believes that Aura doesn't really care about him.

Again this parallels to the future of B+A.

The next days at the office Freddy continues this cold shoulder of his towards Aura Maria. He continues to ignore her and to speak to her only through Wilson and only work related topics.

Jasmine again has squeezed herself between them.

I think it's so interesting to note a phrase that Freddy used at the start of his flirtatious "friendship" with Jasmine when Aura Maria asked him if he was going to participate in Sofia's plan to prove that Jasmine was a hoe by making her "fall" in love with Freddy that way she cheated on Sofia's husband. Freddy told her something along the lines of "I am going to help her[Sofia] but by my own merits because I can't miss the opportunity for someone to love me for real."

The reason this holds such an impactful and important meaning in the future is because he told this to Aura Maria before the night that Eco Moda had the new collection launch event and when she saw that Freddy could possibly fall in love with Jasmine, for her sake, her ego, she went and got in the way of said possibility and ironically as Armando told Mario that day it was to save the object of their affection from someone who would just take advantage of them while they were doing the same thing they were trying to prevent.

Aura Maria got in the way of Freddy's love life, interrupting it so she wouldn't lose him, not for love, but simply for her ego. This night however, Aura Maria has been forced to face her feelings.

As she now sees how badly she hurt Freddy. How hurt he was because though to her Freddy was simply just a work friend who she wanted to fool with, to Freddy Aura Maria was someone he wanted to commit to and consciously made the decision to love her. Despiste her rudeness, dismissal of his feelings, and even to some degree her gaslighting him, he still chose to love her. His love for her has always been true and faithful. As he said he wanted to take care of her and her son, he wanted to be part of their lives and be responsible for them but Aura Maria always dismissed this.

Why did she? Well in the introduction post I made for them I went into a more detailed explanation. Simply put a man can be ugly and because he has money(or a good personality but the first is more realistic) will still find love however an attractive guy who is poor can still be treated like a "ugly" woman does in society(tho not as harsh if we're being honest). Aura Maria places economic comfort above love and her ego above both.

Days later while Armando and Betty are dealing with the whole AA drama Freddy and Aura are dealing with their own drama. They are both trying to make each other jealous, saying they've got plans, dates, etc for the night with other people at the end of the night while A+B are being open about their feelings, Freddy and Aura Maria experience their true feelings and finally Freddy forgives Aura

However, while the next day Betty finds the letter and her revenge is played out, Freddy and Aura Maria start their honey moon phase, though they still fight and whatnot, they still become a couple.

It's interesting to see just how linked their relationships are.

While Aura and Armando basically go through the same changes and experiences, Betty and Freddy go through different processes and changes.

This is a post that is separate from this weeks post and has been sitting in my drafts for a few weeks now. Finally decided to edit it and post it.

Hope y'all enjoy it, til next time!

#aura maria ysblf #aura maria #freddy contreras #freddy ysblf #betty pinzón solano #armando ysblf #ysblf #yo soy betty la fea

25 notes · View notes

itsclydebitches · 3 years

Text

RWBY Recaps: Volume 8 “Witch”

Happy Saturday, everyone! Well, it's perhaps happier provided you didn't watch today’s episode lol. Getting through these 18 minutes felt like watching an extended version of a CinemaSins vid. I heard a little 'ding!' every time something nonsensical, contradictory, or just downright stupid happened. My mind became a pinball machine.

Which, in the interest of being fair as opposed to just snarky, only matters if you're looking for something resembling emotional depth in this show. RWBY, for all its faults, is enjoyable as a mindless spectacle. It's when you expect — or simply hope — for anything more that this very fragile house of cards comes tumbling down.

If it’s not clear already, today’s recap contains copious amounts of salt. Fair warning.

With that disclaimer out of the way, let’s dive in. Episode nine is titled "Witch," which is fitting since many members of our group go toe-to-toe against Salem herself. The narrative issues inherent in having your heroes fighting their final boss years before the series is meant to end might have been avoided if it weren't for Oscar's ridiculous, sacrificial attack... but we'll get to that.

We open with a sweeping shot of the Atlas battle, as hundreds of dead soldiers segue into endless grimm. Hold onto that image for a bit. At the end of this carnage is, of course, the mouth of the whale. We cut to Jaune, Ren, and Yang already safely inside.

"Well," says Yang, "that was harrowing."

I'm on the fence about this choice. On the one hand, yes, it's good that RWBY knows it can skip over extraneous scenes. We have NINE characters to keep track of and develop, fourteen if you count Ozpin, Maria, Winter, Ironwood, and now Whitley. Plus villains. There simply isn't time to show every insignificant moment... but was this insignificant? Obviously finding Oscar and escaping Salem's clutches is the true hurdle of this mission, but that doesn't mean getting through an entire army of grimm is in any way a cake walk. I'd be more willing to ignore this time skip if it weren't likewise presented as such a challenge for Winter's team. They have to "clear a path" to the whale, but our trio got there unscathed and unnoticed? The obvious implication here is that Ren just masked them the whole way — supported by his aura breaking later in the episode — but it still feels like we missed an important chunk of this task.

I'm nit-picking though. As said, I’m straddling the fence on this one and, given that, I'm inclined to settle on a, "Good job, RWBY. You're keeping the writing tight," if only because I don't have much else to praise about this episode. Throw the poor, struggling show a bone lol.

Now that they're inside, they realize they haven't the slightest idea how they'll find Oscar. “Like finding a needle in a giant…whale… why did we think this was a good idea?!” Because you and your friends are idiots who no longer bother to think about a situation before throwing yourself straight into it? This isn't me being mean to Yang, she literally says as much later on. Our heroes no longer get by on intellect, strategy, and skill, but rather plot armor and a staggering number of coincidences. For example, Ren.

Yang: Wow, it sure is lucky for us that on our way to this incredibly dangerous mission Ren inexplicably developed a new part of his semblance. Now he can not only mask peoples' emotions, see the true emotions that someone is feeling, pull thoughts out of their head about what they believe about a situation, but can also track someone across long distances through their emotions alone. Even that doesn't actually help us find Oscar, we just got lucky again when, in this maze of a whale, he ran right into us!

Me: So what were you going to do if this meta-world stopped giving you the most contrived solutions in Remnant history?

Yang: Die gloriously, I guess.

What Yang actually says is, "Okay. That's new!" and they enter the literal belly of the beast wielding a shield of convenience.

Jaune is also being awkward again because remember, RWBY doesn't know when to incorporate humor and when to treat a situation seriously. He reminds Ren not to "drain [himself]," he'll help him, and it's clear the scene is hinting at their earlier fight. There's a lot to unpack there, but I want to save it for the second conversation.

For now, we cut to Oscar, curled up in his cell, repeating stories to comfort himself. Yeah that's fine. I could use a broken heart right before Valentine's Day.

“She brushed off her bumps and bruises, for nothing hurt worse than the loneliness in her chest." It's a line from The Girl Who Fell Through the World, which Ozpin recognizes given that he's "lived through" a fair number of fairy tales. He immediately asks how Oscar is holding up — because he's a caring person! — and Oscar admits that he never understood why the girl of the tale was sad upon reaching home again. Now he does: she wasn't the same person anymore. I don't think the fact that Oscar has had both a metaphorical fall — leaving his farm to 'fall' into this war — and a literal one — falling through Atlas to unlock his magic — is lost on anyone. This is a nice allusion to our themes. Yang's speech to Salem later on? That’s something else entirely.

Storytelling done, Ozpin says he thinks "this plan to divide might have run its course” and it's time to try and find a way to leave. I'm sorry, I love my farm boy, but what plan? He didn't do anything. At least nothing that could remotely be termed an intellectual plot. Oscar convinced Ozpin to try and turn Hazel by telling him the world would end under Salem's rule and the only reason that worked is because the story decided to chuck out Hazel's entire character. You know, the one that hates Ozpin above all others, wants the world remade into a non-Academy horror show, can't understand that people make their own choices, is terrified of Salem, and has no reason to trust a prisoner he's currently torturing. Oscar's "plan" hinged on his writers erasing a great deal of work to build a new story that fits said “plan.” He didn't even get Emerald involved, she just — again, conveniently — eavesdropped outside their door at just the right moment.

To be clear, I'm not against a story being written to work in the hero's favor. Of course things are going to be convenient in a happy-ending tale. Someone manages to hold out just as long as they need to, a sword is lying just within reach, you, yes, happen to run into the one person you're desperate to find. This kind of stuff is reassuring, telling its audiences that sometimes things do work out for the best. It's enjoyable... but only provided the hero's entire success doesn't hinge on fate being shockingly kind to them. That's what RWBY has become. A world where Salem doesn't attack Mantle, Amity Tower is suddenly finished, the group can charge into any deadly situation they want to and bank on destiny twisting around itself to ensure they come out of it safely. A hero finding a convenient weapon nearby to defeat their enemy with is only reassuring after we've seen them implement a brilliant attack, struggle, nearly win, but then suddenly be faced with failure, necessitating that little push from coincidence. They earned it. The hero doesn't get to run in blindly and find a Defeat Bad Guy plot point gift wrapped for them at the first sign of trouble. They just die.

RWBY used to be a better written show because that's precisely Pyrrha's story. She charged a Maiden unprepared, without a single plan or hope for success, and she died. That's what happens in a dangerous, internally consistent world, but RWBY has since lost the second half of that formula.

I'm harping on this because this entire episode is built on that foundation of coincidence, something that shouldn't be happening at all, but especially not when you're pitting the heroes against Salem herself.

So yeah, it just gets worse from here.

Back to Oscar. Without the cane magic is the only weapon they have at their disposal, but he's reluctant to use it because every time he does, they merge more quickly.

They... do?

Okay, there are three major problems with this announcement:

I'm pretty sure we've only seen Oscar use magic once: creating that barrier to survive the fall through Atlas. That was the point of his near death experience, to unlock something that had previously been unavailable to him. Yet if he's only used it once, why is he so sure that it hurries the merge along? What's this "every time" business? This confusion could have easily been avoided if the show had just let Oscar use his magic this volume, tackling some other questions and gaps in the process. Let him use it to fight off the grimm in Mantle, giving him the opportunity to admit to at least Jaune, Ren, and Yang that Ozpin is back. He could have used some magic against the Hound with Ozpin's encouragement, answering the question of why he was entirely silent while the two of them got their ass beat. Give us a moment where Oscar uses his magic against Hazel, nearly escaping in the process, but is captured again at the last moment. Basically, his line makes it sound like magic has been this ongoing resource with an established downside when... it hasn’t.

Coinciding with all of the above, how is it that Oscar can suddenly use magic at will? Yeah, yeah, he unlocked it during the fall, but really? You open up the magic gates and from then on out it's as natural as breathing? This is the same issue with Ruby's silver eyes. The story gives these characters incredible powers, but never has them talking about how they work, let alone training them. They just exist, perfect in execution, as soon as the plot needs them. (See: the final shot of this episode.) At least Weiss had to practice her summoning for multiple volumes.

Finally, the question of how Oscar instinctively knows how to use magic could easily be answered with, "Well, he's kind of Ozpin now," but that would require the story to actually explain what the merge is. "We merge faster," Oscar says, but what does that mean? The Ozpin and Oscar we see in this scene are fundamentally indistinguishable from the Ozpin and Oscar who existed at his aunt's house, four whole years ago. They're still separate people, with one controlling the body and the other existing as a consciousness he can talk to. Nothing has changed. The show keeps insisting that Oscar is going through this deep and painful arc of losing himself to Ozpin... despite the fact that he has yet to lose a single bit of Oscar-ness. Has he changed? Well of course, but anyone going through these experiences is going to change. Remove the "merge" aspect and Oscar's confidence or power up is likewise indistinguishable from any of the other characters' developments. Nora is becoming more of an individual this volume. Ren is becoming more powerful in his semblance. Neither have an Ozpin to force that change, it just happens on its own. So what separates Oscar from every other character going through a formative experience? When is “I’m not the same person anymore” due to unnatural magic vs. just growing up?

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy our boy is getting more screen time — and that the cast is actually being kind to him now — but overall his arc is objectively terrible. He bought some clothes, told Ironwood he was as bad as Salem, told Hazel how to access the Relic, and then asked him not to be a villain anymore. Somehow these things are presented as significant moments of growth while the real questions surrounding his merge go unanswered.

“Honestly, I think you’re doing just fine on your own," Ozpin tells him, but he's not. God knows our boy is trying, but this is a moment where Ozpin's self-hatred (and the story's insistence that the younger generation is intrinsically better than the older) is blinding him to the situation. Oscar has made terrible decisions lately, in as much as he's been able to decide anything at all, and now he's rejecting escaping captivity because he's terrified of a concept he doesn't even understand yet. None of that is fine. Reassurance is one thing, but painting this situation as Oscar making better choices than he would with Ozpin's input is insane. He literally just decided to keep them in Salem's clutches indefinitely because something something magic is scary, I guess. Oscar doesn't need a, 'You're better than me' speech, he needs a reality check so they don't both die. Remember back in Volume 5 when Oscar, a brave but idiotic 14 year old, insisted on fighting someone entirely out of his league and Ozpin was like,

then saved him from getting his head crushed in like a cantaloupe? We need more of that. Our teenage heroes need guidance, but because RWBY keeps insisting that every adult they encounter is corrupt or incompetent, that hasn't happened in three volumes. They're just aloud to decide things like, “Let's tell our captor the Relic's password because UwU ~trust~” and then the story bends over backwards to make that work. Instead we could, you know, let characters learn that they can be wrong.

The snow scene was the beginning, but RWBY really went off the rails the day it let Qrow warn the group against stealing from and attacking an allied city, only for them to call him an idiot for doubting them. Now, Ozpin doesn't even get to warn Oscar about stupid decisions, he just agrees with them, reassuring and passive. Never mind the complication of whether Ozpin is even emotionally capable of providing guidance after they labeled him the worst thing to ever happen to them.

Why does RWBY keep ruining my faves 😔

Anyway, we’ve got to stay on track. Oscar has decided to just lie there but, luckily for him, Hazel's redemption — I use that term so loosely — has begun. He drags Oscar out of his cell before we cut to Winter.

She's leading a portion of Ironwood's army, trying to get things ready for when the bomb arrives. Neon and Flynt are a part of her team, sharing scared glances and trying to remain optimistic. It's a legitimately hard-hitting moment, striking that balance between horror and hope. Funny though, I wonder that RWBYJNOR would think of their friends fighting for evil Ironwood...

Marrow, continuing the tradition of insisting that our heroes be both adults and kids simultaneously, looks sadly at the soldiers heading into battle and goes, "But... they're just kids." I would like to remind everyone reading that Ruby is younger than them. Anyone who thinks that these teenagers shouldn't be fighting grimm — the thing they have been training to do as their professional career, during an unprecedented attack on their home — should not simultaneously be looking to the girl who is two years younger as his savior. (Something that, while not overt yet, is very much where Marrow is heading as he continually doubts the Ace Ops and looks to RWBY's group as his new, moral leaders.) I'm glad that, for once, this perspective is firmly called out. Elm arrives to tell him point blank that he needs to figure out his personal ethics later. It doesn't matter because there's an army of grimm out there and monsters aren't going to spare anyone, adult or child. Quit philosophizing and kill some already.

Back to Hazel where we get the doorway shot from our trailer. He's taken Oscar to the Relic, because of course he has. Do I really need to list how convenient this is too? Apparently, "the moment we move that thing, this place goes on high alert," but there’s no alarm for when Oscar is taken from his cell, they enter the Relic's room, or when they use it. What does a movement alert matter if someone can just waltz in and waste the last question themselves? Put some of those endless grimm in the room to guard it, Salem!

Just assume that I am, at any given point in this episode, letting out the longest sigh my lungs are physically capable of.

Emerald shows up, demonstrating both the convenience of everyone arriving when they need to, and the very real danger that Salem herself could come in and discover what they're up to. Hazel has Oscar summon Jinn, only to immediately say that “Actually, I think all my questions are answered now.”

I'm sorry, how does this answer any of Hazel's questions? His driving question was not, "Is the Relic actually a magical object capable of doing magical things?" but rather "Are you telling me the truth about Salem's plans to summon the Gods and destroy all of Remnant in her quest to finally die, thereby changing who I'm going to support in this war?" Seeing a naked, blue djinn does not answer that question.

Hazel's "redemption" is non-existent. He — we — learned about Salem's death wish despite how that contradicts previous lore, then he trusted Ozpin despite that contradicting his entire character, now he joins the heroes because, literally, he sees Jinn floating there. It’s bad enough that Hazel goes from clear villain to sacrificial hero in a matter of in-world hours, but we don’t even get a reason for why that change occurred.

Oh, there's also this:

So Jinn doesn't come out of her lamp unless someone intends to ask a question, but does it for Ruby because she's special, yet still reiterates that this won't happen again. Then Oscar summons her without intending to ask a question, she comes out anyway, confirms that none of them seek knowledge from her, and happily pops back inside her lamp because eh, it’s whatever.

If RWBY had any courage the three of them would be cursed now for toying with a powerful, magical object. Remember the days when Jinn was a little terrifying because it felt like she was warping her answers and we had no idea what she might do to someone who used her carelessly? When she felt like a djinn? Good times.

Or better times, at least.

So Good Guy Hazel and Good Gal Emerald promise to get Oscar out. Never mind all the horror they caused, the people they killed, and that for Hazel, at least, this defection is coming out of nowhere.

Anyone remember that Emerald orchestrated Penny's death? No? Just me?

As they leave it turns out Neo was camouflaged against the wall, because she was also precisely where she needed to be. Does everyone just periodically pop into the Relic room to see what’s going on? At least this time it's not working in the heroes' favor. Remember when I said it's beyond idiotic for Oscar to just hand out the Relic information to known enemies currently holding him captive and torturing him?

Yeeeeaah.

So Neo's got the Lamp. Funny how all of this could have been avoided if Ruby had just put it in the vault like she came to Atlas to do ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

We return to our trio where Jaune and Ren need to rest because their aura is giving out. Good! These guys fought a battle, fought Neo, fought more grimm, fought the Hound, traipsed through the tundra, presumably fought through more grimm to get to the whale, and have been using both their semblances to look for Oscar. It's about time their reserves started to falter.

Jaune decides to scout ahead a bit, leaving Yang and Ren to talk about nothing of importance. I mean that seriously. Remember a few days ago when I spoke about how, if the snow conversation does come back up, Ren's points would be entirely ignored for a nonsensical “I’m glad we’re friends” speech? Remember how I also spoke about how every emotional beat now is entirely generic and you could replace any character with another and not a single thing would change? Yeah. This is both those arguments in one. Nothing is said about the points Ren made. His problems with how the group has been acting lately and the very real, very deadly consequences it has had are flat out ignored. We went from

"But these aren't the kinds of decisions we should be making because we have no idea what we're doing!"

"Forward, no matter what!"

in a matter of hours, with precisely zero insight into how Ren went from one perspective to the exact opposite. Kind of like Hazel. Because see, RWBY doesn't write arcs, it just writes one thing until it decides to switch it up for something else, with the opposite idea presented as a “resolution” or a “twist.” Our creators writes scenes they know the fandom is begging for without considering how to get a character to that place, let alone how to get them out of it. That's all Ren's speech was, the equivalent of moral fan service. Here's a glimpse of actual character depth and a morally gray situation... now forget it ever happened because we're back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Instead of working through the laundry list of issues Ren raised, Ren instead accepts Jaune's aura help — something they've been doing since Argus — and tells Yang it's okay to be scared. These moments are meaningless and, as said, could have been between anyone in our cast. Ren could have told Nora she doesn't have to use jokes to cover up that she's scared. Jaune could have reminded Ruby that she can depend on him. Yang could have tried to keep Blake and Weiss' hopes up. This scenes ignores the individuality of the characters, like the fact that they just fought over very different world views, to instead favor any dime-a-dozen moment of support. The number of times this volume has rejected the conflict and resolution the group needs for bland, generic reassurances staggering.

Also, apparently Jaune isn't scared at all? I don't think that's as good a thing as Ren seems to think...

Then Jaune immediately rounds the corner, terrified lol.

One of the seer grimm is on its way and he tells Ren to mask them. Apparently he had been masking them before — one of the reasons he's so tired now, trying to do two things at once — but it's only here that they go black and white again. Ren manages to keep it up for a little while, but his aura breaks before the seer passes and they're spotted.

Hark! A consequence!

That was well done. It makes sense and it adds to the stakes. We've seen the insane amount of fighting the group has done since Volume 7, we just established that they're at their breaking point, and then Ren's aura fails him right when he needs it the most. Add this to the miniscule pile of things that were well done this episode.

Salem runs into Emerald and Hazel, the former of which is acting very suspicious when asked if he's made any headway with Oscar. The seer's alarm interrupts them though and... okay. Was I the only one who cackled during this moment? Between Salem's voice acting and the fact that she just yeets herself down the hallway, it came across as really funny to me.

Either way, it is a bad situation. Our trio is trying to figure out what to do, to which Yang responds, "Do what we do best… charge blindly into danger!!”

Ren's aura is broken. Jaune barely has any left and it’s unlikely he could heal right now even if Ren had any aura to amplify. If Ren takes a single hit anywhere important he is dead.

Me, on my knees, surrounded by the ashes of the Hound, the last bit of serious storytelling we had: "For the love of God, the kingdom is on fire and simultaneously dying of cold. There's a grimm army decimating hundreds outside. Half their group is missing and they're wandering lost inside a devil whale, about to have the most powerful being Remnant has ever known personally try to kill them — can we please have their attitudes reflect that?"

The answer, in case you were wondering, is no.

Back to the bomb. Whatever scientists were given this task have completed it and Marrow watches as it's flown out towards the whale. "Come on, Juan" he whispers and I'm all, "Juan?" Apparently it's a callback to last volume when Marrow couldn't remember Jaune's actual name, but it took me hopping onto the RWBY wiki to remember that.

As death via explosion inches closer, the trio runs into Hazel and Emerald. Turns out though that Hazel is really Oscar, disguised through Emerald's semblance. Nice trick! Jaune immediately drops both weapons to hug Oscar and, while that's nice and all, it's also the stupidest thing he could possible do in enemy territory. Also, Oscar has been beaten up by the Hound, tortured with magic, and likewise beaten bloody by Hazel. I was hoping for a tender hug like the one Nora gave him, not a giant squeeze for more comedy purposes. It just feels like RWBY has no idea how to manage the tone of this volume, let alone the torture of a child...

There's the obligatory, "Why should we trust you?" from Yang regarding Emerald joining the team, to which Ren responds, "Because she's scared, just like us."

That doesn't prove anything. Literally everyone is scared right now. There is a war going on. I really cannot emphasize enough how RWBY throws out Deep™ sounding lines that are, upon inspection, absolutely nonsensical. Nora reminding Penny that there are different parts to her personhood, Hazel saying that all his questions have been answered, Ren announcing that Emerald is scared... it's all worthless chatter that has no bearing on their problems: How do I keep from being hacked? How do I know you're telling the truth? How do we know you're trustworthy after you spent years trying to kill us? But of course, because it's RWBY, Ren's announcement is treated as some sort of secret truth that everyone accepts. Emerald joins up.

As they head for an exit we return to Marrow who, frankly, is getting on my last nerve. I know the fandom loves him because he's clearly leaning towards Team RWBY, but does anyone actually listen to what he says? He starts yelling at Winter for sending in the bomb because the trio might still be alive in there, despite:

Seeing for himself the hundreds of soldiers that have fallen trying to keep Atlas safe

Knowing and hearing again from Winter that the only way to stop this carnage is to take out the whale. Given more time, the whole city falls

Sadly announcing to the world that children shouldn't have to fight in a battle, rather than just joining the fray and helping to keep those kids safe

How does Marrow think those kids are going to be able to stop fighting? How does he think he'll get a city to return to? It's no wonder that he's drawn to Ruby because both characters stand around twiddling their thumbs, mourning that things are bad, and blaming others for imperfect solutions rather than doing something to make the situation better. Marrow's disgust at Winter over the bomb is precisely the same as Ruby's disgust at Ironwood over Mantle: how dare you not have a plan that results in both victory for us and zero sacrifices? They want perfection which, yes, is an admirable trait, but their problem is they refuse to do anything until that perfection appears. They’re paralyzed, a trait that’s particularly dangerous when your story insists that perfection will never appear: it’s not a fairy tale. So they just continue to get mad at others for the fact that they live in an unfair world. You want that perfect solution? Think it up yourself. Otherwise, stand aside and let those coming up with something do what they can to make things better.

Marrow goes so far as to drag Weiss into things, trying to guilt Winter with the knowledge that she'll have to relate the death of her sister's friends back to her. Winter, because she's a badass who isn't in denial over the situation, tells him that yes, she will shoulder that responsibility. To Marrow's credit he backs off then, but man. RWBY has legitimate moral questions here — when is holding out for a few worth risking the many? — but they go about exploring it in the most frustrating way possible. I personally have no respect for the guy who wants to announce that Children In War Is Bad instead of, you know, using the power he currently has to protect those kids already neck deep in a battle.

Because John Mulaney remains relevant:

"There shouldn't be a horse in the hospital :( "

"We're WELL PAST THAT."

Marrow is the one going, "There shouldn't be kids in a war :( We shouldn't have to kill a few to save the whole kingdom :( " and everyone around him is like, "No shit, dude! But this is the hand we were dealt! You going to help us, or what?"

Literally all of these characters could have been so much more than what they currently are.

Except Winter. She's doing great.

Now for the final scene. Our group nearly manages to escape the whale, but is incapacitated by some sort of screechy power that Salem employs.

She contorts her body, stretching out her arms to snag Emerald, and the others have a brief, but intense skirmish. Jaune manages to block a blast of magic aimed at Ren with his shield — nice — and Yang dots Salem's face with a bunch of bombs before blowing her sky-high — double nice. Oscar shoots out some magic of his own because, yeah, I guess he can just do that now? It really feels like it came out of nowhere after eight episodes of being the punching bag.

Of course, Salem immediately reforms. She traps the group with grimm arms that come out of the whale, interrogating Ozpin about why he bothers to keep coming back. There's a very sad answer there of, "I don't," referring to his lack of choice in reincarnating to fight her.

Yang interrupts their little tet-a-tet to throw the question back in Salem's face, calling her out on her choices. A great idea but, as always, execution: "because something bad happened to you once upon a time? No one gets a fairy tale ending."

I’m sorry, but that dialogue had me cringing. Like I said before, way too on the nose. There's keeping with the fairy tale theme, and then there's shoving the viewer's face in it. More of Oscar's musings on how he relates to the protagonists of fairy tales, blurring the lines between storytelling and reality, which in turn encourages the viewer to consider how they see themselves in the RWBY cast. Less... whatever this is.

Yang goes on to talk about how many people Salem has taken from her, which upon reflection makes a certain amount of sense if you toss in all the people who are here, but changed somehow due to Salem's influence, as well as acquaintances who died as a result of her meddling: Raven is scared off, Tai suffers as a result, Pyrrha dies, Penny dies, Yang loses her arm and her school. I think the dialogue could have been revised to reflect that better though because what Yang implies is that Salem has killed countless of her loved ones, yet what she says is, "Summer Rose. My mom." Honestly, for the few seconds this exchange was happening my thoughts weren't even on Summer. Yang calls Salem out for killing loved ones and my brain went, "Pyrrha??"

That's how little they've done with Yang and Summer. I know in the past I've argued that RWBY has a "better late than never" situation going on, that I would praise them for making the right writing choices even if they arrive years too late... but now that we're here, I find that it's a hard problem to overlook. Summer is Yang's mom? When's the last time we heard that? Volume 2? Whenever the conversation with Blake was. Since then Yang has called Raven "Mom," focused on that emotional connection (or lack thereof), was excluded from the conversation with Qrow, comforted Ruby after she was blindsided by Salem's taunt, and otherwise hasn't mentioned Summer at all. There is no foundation for this accusation except a few lines about getting cookies as a child and the fact that we're tossing references in now makes me worried that we'll indeed get a grimm!Summer reveal. Better remind the audience that she exists before the twist arrives! Honestly, as much as a part of me wants to praise RWBY for trying to get things back on track, moments like this just ring hollow now. They waited years and now it’s too late. It doesn't help that this is the episode where we shrug off Ren's speech. What will Yang's cutting admission amount to based on this trend? Probably nothing. Summer will become Yang’s mom again in another six seasons.

Salem, obviously, doesn't care. The real Hazel arrives and she orders him to take Oscar back to his cell. Instead, he gives him his cane with a whispered, "No more Gretchens, boy."

Behold, another meaningless line. Hazel hates Ozpin for "forcing" Gretchen on a mission and "getting" her killed. The whole point of his villainy is that he doesn't understand the concept of choice and that bad things can happen to good people with no one able to prevent it. Not every loss has a responsible party attached (outside of, you know, Salem/the grimm). So what is he even demanding here? No more huntsmen schools? That's what you wanted Salem for. No more "forcing" people to fight for you? Ozpin never did that in the first place. Or is it just a strange promise that no one else will die here? RWBY seems to be under the impression that they can just name drop dead family members — Summer, Gretchen — and that's that. Emotional depth created, never mind a lack of buildup or clarity.

Then Hazel punches Salem across the room and she releases every single hero from their bonds. See the theme of this episode: convenience. Hazel shoves a whole bunch of dust crystals into his shoulders and yells that he's doing what Gretchen would have wanted, clearly sacrificing himself so that the others can escape. The battle between him and Salem is pretty decent. I enjoyed the dust vs. magic creativity and the sheer damage Salem can take before reforming. This fight really showcases how not human she is.

It does, however, bring into question Hazel's reveal about her needing an hour to heal at the longest. I mentioned how unlikely it would be that our heroes would get the chance to "kill" her multiple times, yet here we are, just a few episodes later. They got that opportunity and... does it matter? Salem's reforming doesn't appear to slow down at all, despite her head getting obliterated at least three times, so at what point does she need longer than a few seconds to heal? If this was meant to be a potential weakness the group would eventually exploit, we needed to see it here, both for that setup and to keep it consistent with Hazel's story.

Regardless, they fight and at first it looks like a pretty straight-forward sacrifice on Hazel's part, giving the group their chance to escape. Except... Oscar.

"She'll just come after us," he tells Jaune, turning away from him to fight.

I need a list for this:

Of course she's going to come after you. This is not some shocking revelation. At no point has anyone thought that escaping the whale is the answer to all their problems, it just creates one less problem to deal with. Namely, the problem of "Our ally is captured, being tortured, and may give up important intel to the enemy. Oh, also he's about to be blown up with a bomb." Salem coming after them doesn’t matter. What matters is making her plans as difficult as possible as you work to come up with more solutions of your own. This is just a smaller version of the Ironwood conflict: “Well, Salem will just follow Atlas into the sky so it’s useless to attempt escape, or to buy ourselves time.” It’s really not. I know I’ve used this ridiculous comparison before, but if you’re ever chased by a horror movie serial killer hell-bent on your destruction and your reaction to this problem is, “Why run? He’ll just chase us. The only possible choice is to fight him with a 99% chance of our death,” then I beg you to re-evaluate things.

What was the point of coming to rescue Oscar if he was just going to stay behind? The whale is about to be blown up by a bomb and the trio risked their lives ten times over to get to him. If I were them I would be pissed. We went through all that to get you out and now you’re refusing to leave when we have a chance? Thanks for that.

Same with Hazel. Not that I care about the guy, but if I was sacrificing myself for others to escape I'd be pretty annoyed at them randomly deciding not to do that.

What does Oscar even think he's going to do? Kill the immortal witch? The entire point of our series is that they can’t do that (yet).

However, if he is able to do something significant via Ozpin's magic, why didn't Ozpin do that generations ago? Somehow I don't think a younger Ozma closer to the height of his power was in a worse position to attack Salem than a tortured, aura-less kid who unlocked his magic yesterday. The more RWBY reveals about Salem, the more I go, “Okay, but why didn’t his happen [insert any number of years] ago?”

Did Jaune actually leave? I assume he's just grabbing an airship or something before coming back to drag Oscar away, but seriously where did he go?

There's no way I can approach this scene without throwing up my hands and going, "What? WHY?" Which is a real shame because we finally get to see a bit of what the cane does and it’s... precisely what Ozpin's magic has always done? I mean, we saw that green shield five years ago and now there's a giant white beam. Okay.

If the beam just hits Salem with Generic Magic Power then there was never anything secret about the cane, it’s just, you know, Ozpin’s weapon. If the cane does something significant to hurt her we're left with the question of why it took literal generations to use it. Nothing is making sense to me and the only way I can think to salvage this scene is if Jaune runs back in, snags Oscar like a sack of potatoes, and runs out yelling about how he's clearly suffering from a concussion because what are you trying to accomplish here?

It doesn't help that this moment feels... final. Hazel has managed to hold Salem in place. Oscar has unlocked his cane and lands some mega hit right before Hazel passes out and looses his hold. Not only does this feel like a scene that should be at the end of the volume (we've still got five episodes), but also the end of the series. RWBY is building Salem into an unbeatable enemy by giving her more and more powers, and simultaneously eliminating the stakes by having our currently weakest character (in terms of exhaustion/injuries/aura/training) landing a shot like that. Why would you nerf Salem's threat level like that in the middle of a volume? Especially with a tool our group has had available from the start? If the cane does damage, maybe lead with that in the, “Here’s why we should stay and fight” office conversation.

I assume that Oscar's hit will obliterate Salem to the point where both he and Hazel have time to escape, or he obliterates both of them (“Do it”) and that's somehow presented as a better choice than just running while Salem is captured, or the bomb will interrupt things somehow... but it's just so shoddily done. At the very least, if they were going to have Oscar refuse to let someone fight alone, have it be an actual friend he's staying to assist. Having Oscar refuse his own rescue to help Hazel has more than one problem attached to it. We can say what we want about RWBY's themes of forgiveness, but this guy was torturing him just a few hours ago while serving Remnant's version of the devil. Just let him sacrifice himself and move on.

And that's where we end. Oscar powering up, the cane getting all magic-y, and him shooting a crazy big blast that engulfs both Salem and Hazel. I can't believe how not excited I am about my farm boy doing something badass, but here we are.

Overall I think this episode was way worse than last week's. We absolutely had problems in "Dark," particularly when it came to the Hound and the group's blind devotion to Ruby, but at least those moments were cushioned by an otherwise decent episode. "Witch" felt like I was watching something closer to a parody of RWBY, one deliberately poking fun at the fandom's desires: erase all conflict for awkward silly times, your favorite villains are instantly good now, the heroes go toe-to-toe with the main antagonist because why not, throw a bunch of magic in there for good measure, and wrap it all up in some over the top "this isn't a fairy tale" lines. I can see the pieces of a much better episode here — Emerald sneaking Oscar out with her semblance, Neo snagging the relic, Flint and Neon, Hazel attacking Salem — but it simply didn't come together.

I know I said this last time, but I have no idea what we're going to do for another five episodes. Salem slowly reforming from bomb damage as the group tries to keep Penny from opening the vault? The grimm attack halted with the whale gone so Qrow can go after Ironwood? The longer this volume runs, the more I think it was a mistake for them to introduce Salem as a fightable antagonist now. RWBY doesn't know what to do with her besides have her inevitably fall in the final season, so until then she's left being stupid (Relic), passive (Mantle), or, likely, written out of the story temporarily so the heroes can turn their attention towards smaller conflicts and weaker foes. They literally can’t beat Salem yet, but they can’t focus on other problems when she’s around without coming across as negligent, so if you have to find ways to erase her to make room for that... what was the point of bringing her here in the first place? We could have established that Salem is bound to her realm and had her send the Hound and whale to attack Atlas. There, all the fun parts of the volume without her complicated presence.

Well, the next five weeks will certainly be interesting, at the very least...

Until next time 💜

[Ko-Fi]

#rwby #rwby spoilers #rwby volume 8 #rwby witch #mymetas #rwby recaps

69 notes · View notes

arabellaaldous · 3 years

Text

Shingeko no Crystal 18+

Levi Ackerman x OC

A newly promoted addition to the Survey Corps has everyone wondering why Eren and Mikasa never mentioned their older cousin.

Major Celine Avery has broken the solo kill record within the walls, and transfers from the MP's to the Corps, taking Levi's promotion. Not only is the Captain quite angry, he is beside himself with wonder. How could this tiny, quiet and composed woman be the rage filled Titan killer he'd heard so much about? How can she be the one to help Eren destroy the Titans, and not himself? He may soon come to find out.

Chapter Two: Transfer

The feel of wood the underneath my fingertips was course and grainy. A film laid itself over my tongue, cotton swirling around my mouth. I couldn't have been more nervous.

I was on the stand at a full Military Tribunal. Centre stage for the whole of the walls to see. I was giving witness to a trial.

Premier Zachary's eye bored straight into my soul, causing me to gulp down a dry swallow. I knew why I was here. My little cousin had turned into a Titan, and they thought I'd known about it.

"Captain Avery," the premier started, "You have been asked here today to give council on the outcome of your kin's life. Do you submit to being questioned by this panel?"

I looked across the line of men that had gathered before me. Each of the regiment leaders of our military stood facing me, ready to give me a good dressing down.

"I submit," I answered, nodding my head.

"Then I shall go first," Zachary straightened his glasses on the bridge of his nose, and looked down at his stack of papers.

"When did you first meet Eren Jeager?" he asked.

My mouth took over for me, willingly giving the answer.

"I've known him his whole life," I stated, "I helped my mother deliver him when my aunt Carla gave birth."

Zachary furthered on.

"And you raised him after the fall of wall Maria?"

"Yes, sir."

"In any of that time, did he ever mention his abilities, or seem to know about them at all?"

"No, sir."

The premier looked to his papers once more, staring at me once more when he was finished.

"You have an outstanding military record, Captain, quite impressive. Have you ever used your position in the Military Police to further your cousins training?" he questioned.

I sighed. "Sir, I wasn't aware that he had even joined up until General Pixis was informing me of our plan to use him to seal wall Rose."

"But you had correspondence," Nile Dok interrupted from below the Premier stand, "You exchanged letters weekly for the three years you've been with us!"

"Yes, Sir," I stated pointedly at him, " In which time Eren Jeager had lied to me, telling me that he still resided in my previous residence, which I had been sending him money to rent on my behalf."

I snapped my head back around to Eren whom sat shackled against a post. I was furious with him. The terrified look in his eyes when I looked at him told me he knew it as well.

"We've combed through all of Yeager and Captain Avery's letter's, sir, there is no evidence to persuade us that she knew anything otherwise," Pixis spoke up, silencing Nile.

A scorned look washed over Dok's face, and he crossed his arms, going silent once again.

"Commander Erwin, you've been awfully quiet, would you care to join us?" Zachary asked the tall blonde ahead of me.

Erwin's jaw tightened as he peered straight into my eyes. I could feel him searching my face for any inconsistency, any false tell to crack my story. Yet I knew he wouldn't find any.

"Captain, you were found last week, covered in your comrade's blood, standing atop a pile of five titans. How did you escape death when all of your troops could not?" Erwin asked.

My heart sunk to my stomach, and my mind went numb. All I could do was stand there silently, reliving the horror we had gone through.

"I-I don't remember, Commander," I offered meekly, " In all honesty sir, I remember hitting my head quite heard on the bell tower, and blacking out. I had woken up only minutes before i was found. I only know that I watched my squad die at the hands of wretched beasts, and I wish I could've gotten to them before they did."

I only stared forward at the floor as I said my piece, giving all of the evidence that I knew. But soon after a moment of silence, Erwin spoke again, and I was launched back to reality from my state of half conscious thought.

"Thank you, Captain. That is all."

"If there are no further questions, we will move on to the next item pertaining to Captain Avery," Zachary said.

With nothing but quiet coming from the room he cleared his throat and moved on.

"Captain, although you have moved quite quickly within the ranks of the military police, it has come to the government's attention that you are coveted as a soldier by more than one of our regiments now. This panel has decided it best that you be placed under either the Garrison or Scout regiments. Following no major objections from yourself, of course."

I heard a gasp go throughout the room, a quiet uproar coming from the stands, and a few of the officers in the gallery.

"Order," Zachary pounded his open palm against his desk. "Captain Avery?"

I was without a doubt shocked beyond belief, but as I was faced with the question, I looked around the justice hall.

To my left, Armin and Mikasa held terrified gazes as they watched my every move. Behind me, Eren shook his head in protest, knowing what I was about to do. I turned back to the panel and gave my answer.

"I have no objections," I offered simply.

With a sigh, Zachary swept a hand over General Pixis and Commander Erwin, both of which had stepped forward, presenting me with a formal read out of the positions they were to offer me.

"You will be presented with an offer from each regiment, and be given the opportunity to choose which you will join."

I nodded, Looking to General Pixis as he cleared his throat.

"Captain Avery," he started, "In these trying times, we need soldiers like yourself to defend humanity with all they have. I believe that a soldier will not fight if not to gain something for themselves. Most soldiers take the chance to live another day as enough incentive. Though I see you as the type of person who needs incentivized in other ways."

The general began to pace in front of my table, making me wonder how detailed his proposal would be.

"You would be housed in the interior, given captain's quarters in his majesty's royal guard. Your salary would increase to double what it is now, and your adoptive children would also be given housing in their unit of choice."

His offer was grande, even for a captain such as myself, yet his offer was short and sweet. The room fell silent as he retreated to the side of the remaining commander. It was Erwin's turn.

His stature was all the more intimidating as he came to place himself before me, far too close to the table for my comfort. I nearly had to crane my neck in order to meet his gaze. I shuddered.

"Captain," Erwin gave me a courteous nod, one I returned, before continuing.

"I have taken the liberty of looking into your your training scores, seeing that you graduated number one in your regiment. You are a very skilled soldier. This puts you in high demand according my opposing commander," Erwin began to pace as he spoke, lending an over the shoulder glance at Pixis before he continued on.

" I would like to lie to you and tell you that I could offer you a safe place to live and a certainty that you will be alive, but we both know that that would not be true." I gulped down a lump in my throat an nodded as he continued.

"I am not the only member of the scouting legion that wants you for our team, but I am the one that desires your presence the most. If there's one thing I can guarantee you, it's the fact that you will be a very valued member of our team. You would have a private office and sleeping quarters in the legion's headquarters, the option of any scouts you see fit to create your own squad, and a promotion to Major," a gasp went throughout the stands as he said the words, whispers following close at hand.

"What about captain Levi?"

"Isn't he next in line?"

"He's gonna be pissed."

Clearing his throat, Erwin closed his statement.

"Even with all these glittering advancements to your title, I cannot ensure your happiness. The probability of your death is a high one. Just know that when you consider your options."

My mind was buzzing with background chatter as Erwin receded to his earlier stance. Though he was now farther from me, I still felt the commanding aura that radiated from him as he gave his speech.

Join the garrison, and I would be able to make sure Armin and Mikasa were safe, looked after and cared for. I could force them to stay away from the scouts. Though I knew that Pixis wouldn't be granted leave of Eren. He would be sent with Erwin.

Join the scouts, and I end up launching myself full force into Erwin's dastardly plans beyond the wall, actually having the responsibility of helping him plan them. No more glorified baby sitter job for me, investigating behind closed doors and being a spy. I would be a soldier. A proper, blood drenched, battle proven soldier.

The heavy thuds of the premiers palm against the table echoed through my brain as the hissing from the stands grew louder before coming to a stand still. This whole trial was a blur.

"Captain, if you wish, you will be allowed time to-"

"No," I interrupted Zachary lowly. "No, sir, I don't need time to decide."

"Then state your intent, Captain Avery. Which Branch of our military will you be joining?" He asked in return.

I looked back to Eren once more, seeing his wife green eyes plead with me. He spoke no words, only breathed heavily as we exchanged that knowing eye.

My eyes caught on Armin's before I could look back to the panel. At first he shared Eren's look, practically begging me not to choose what he'd known I already had. When his face changed, it had become stoic and strong, a nod once more coming from him, letting me know his intent.

With a quiet salute that said, "I will follow you to the edge of the world," he gave me the courage to look back to the premier.

"I will join the Survey Corps."

#aot x reader #aot x oc #levi ackerman imagines #levi ackerman smut #levi smut #levi x you #eren #aot fanfiction #aot smut #aot headcannons #shingeki no kyojin #snk smut #armin arlert #mikasa ackerman #eren jeager

21 notes · View notes

rockets-and-raccoons · 3 years

Note

Blake, weiss, and ruby are all on par with each other. Plus Blake and Weiss are literally on opposite sides of each other not the same side or relatively close to even think that. Ruby saving weiss makes more sense because she has the semblance to do so? Blake looking at ruby remembering her upgraded semblance and her dealing with neo in the meantime makes more sense if Weiss’ needs saving.

Narratively the team choosing to go find yang together before jumping, with Blake on one side and Weiss on the other side of ruby is actually very powerful, since yang always finds them & no one chooses to go find her willingly. Could deal with yang’s insecurities not only with her relationship with Blake but seeing ruby and Weiss choosing to jump to find her would mean a lot to yang. is a better choice then them falling one by one for no reason. It’d be nice if the team to choose to go after yang together after finding out she might not be dead. it’d be kind of shitty of Blake to ditch ruby when she’s actually in more danger then weiss? It’s not like cinder is going after her, her semblance didn’t break, & Weiss can create a few glyphs and join them.

These are pretty similar asks and I'm presuming they were sent by the same person. If not, I'm still gonna answer all in one!

I'm gonna be honest, I had only taken the depth of the fall into consideration and not the lineup as well. The episode made it look like Blake was torn about who to assist, and you're right I've now changed my mind about who she's going to help. I think it's going to be Ruby, because Blake is out for Neo's blood.

However, I honestly dont think any of them are going to willingly jump off after Yang. I believe they are going to fall - RWBY have come out on top consistantly since Beacon. While they, themselves are feeling torn and beaten, as the viewer they look like they're coming out on top time and time again. They win almost every fight, everytime and have done since v4.

With Cinder's power taking on a strong resemblance to Fria's 'fully realised maidan' power, and her taking Watts' advice to heart it would make sense for her to take the win. Neo is unbeaten by the protags - only Maria has been shown to be capable of winning a fight against her.

And on top of that, RWB believe Yang is dead. We, the viewers, know that Yang has plot-armour therefore shes alive. But RWB don't know that. And we know they think she's dead because we've seen Blake collapse in that exact same way before - when she and Yang stabbed Adam, his aura broke, and he fell to his death. Her reaction to Yang falling parallels her reaction to Adam dying, and that's not coincidental.

If she jumps, it's not because she's going searching for Yang. It's because she's trying to join her - which is what made Weiss hauling her back to safety so tragic.

I do agree that having the team looking for Yang and proving how much they care would be powerful and meaningful. Yang deserves to know how much she really means to the team. But for me, personally, I dont think them jumping into an abyss they believe to lead to certain death makes much sense. (Unless they somehow find out that it doesn't lead to certain death, but, again personally, I don't think theres enough time in a 20 minute episode for that as well as everything else CRWBY need to fit in).

As for the order they fall in, I really think Ruby will be the last to fall as she's the last to hit the abyss in the intro.

Blake and Weiss are on par with each other here - which is why I initially thought Blake would try to help Weiss - while Ruby is lower down.

With Blake's current emotional state, I wont be surprised if she also sacrifices herself for Ruby - their chat earlier in the season, as well as the way their landings are entwined here.

Which makes me wonder if Weiss falls because she's distracted by the loss of Blake as well.

It's interesting though, how far away Weiss is, the other three are pretty close together. As you pointed out though, Weiss is pretty far away from Blake and Ruby at the moment.

I love hearing/reading all the theories, because so far this season the only thing we all accurately predicted was Yang being the first to fall. Every other prediction was, either proven to be right but occured in ways we never expected, or nowhere near accurate. So no matter what I say here, I know that I honestly cannot predict what CRWBY will actually do next and it's so exciting!

Again, this is all just my opinion, and with how wild this past season has been, I'm very likely to change my mind, aha! Thank you for the ask(s)!

#ask #anon #rwby #rwby spoilers #rwby v8 #rwby theory #yang xiao long #blake belladonna #weiss schnee #ruby rose

22 notes · View notes

remnantoforario · 4 years

Text

RWBY Volume 8 Episode 1 Thoughts

Welp, here we are. RWBY Volume 8 has officially started. CRWBY said ad nauseum that this volume was what all that set up in V7 was for. So as tradition (since V5) I’ll give my random thoughts on the episodes. These AREN’T reviews, just random things I thought while watching the episode.

We’re finally going to get Cinder’s backstory huh? I wish I still cared.

Salem is VERY forgiving. Most other main villains would have had a “kill on sight” order for minions that have failed as much as Cinder has.

I would ask how does Salem not know who Neo is, but I guess Cinder never thought to bring her name up when she was in Vale.

To be fair, Cinder, Tyrian has done way better than you if we go by the tally. Really you bringing the relic barely makes ya’ll even.

That brings up a question, why did Salem choose Cinder of all people to be her lone vessel for the Maidens? Why not choose four women? One for each member of RWBY? They could have been a rival faction and-you know what? Let me stop making sense.

Salem has no idea what will happen if Cinder gets all four powers, she doesnt know what will happen when Cinder gets TWO. She might just blow up. I hope she blows up.

Mercury’s new fit is trash. Looks like a Duel Academy reject.

Emerald looks like a mint chocolate chip.

I prefer Hazel’s old look, but I guess being sleeveless does help with his cocain-dust addiction.

If Neo doesn’t stab Cinder this volume I will be disappointed.

If Cinder doesn’t outright betray Salem this volume I will be DOUBLE disappointed.

So you’re telling me there’s a slum full of Faunus in Mantle and they never thought to bring that up in V7? Was the montage and Jaune’s dumbass new hair really more important?

How did Ruby and the gang find Oscar anyway? They just fly around the city? Seems like a bad move with all the Grimm around.

Actually the streets are just empty in general for a supposed invasion happening. People are even burning trash and barrels in the streets like hobos. This invasion is terrible. Where the Grimm at?

Oh look, it’s May actually having more than two lines.

Her VA was hyping her up all through the lead up of this volume, if she doesn’t deliver...my memes are at the ready.

Yes, Oscar, hide MORE important information. Not like that’s what got you guys here in the first place.

Ruby: “Doctor what do you need to start Amity right now?” Well getting Robyn and her merry band of jobbers to return everything they stole would be a nice start. Just saying.

Joanna’s voice is not as intimidating as she thinks it is. Should have got Clarine Harp. She’s great at playing tough women.

Wasn’t expecting the first meaningful interaction between these two since V4 would be a fight, but I’ll take it.

Yang actually calling Ruby out on how terrible she was as a leader last volume? I almost shed a tear.

I love how when Yang tells Ruby “No” everyone else is legitimately shocked at this. It’s like she’s gone rogue from the matrix.

“Maybe if we have Ruby and Nora say that they need to get the tower running, people will think its a good idea and wont realize they are being hypocrites for condemning Ironwood.”

Great. MORE Renora drama. I still don’t get how CRWBY took the most wholesome ship with years of subtle build and made it annoying in just one volume.

Of course Jaune is the voice of reason. He didn’t do anything all volume 7 and Miles couldn’t hold back any longer.

Hey look, Blake being useless. Glad that’s not changing anytime soon.

Penny is totally gonna give herself up about halfway through the volume.

“Oh yeah, General. By the way, we’re doing your plan but we don’t want to admit we were wrong so we’re just going to act like we have the moral high ground over you.”

Well he’s not completely right. It will be 95% Ruby’s fault if things go south. 3% is on Robyn. 2% Ironwood.

Maria is a glorified cab driver at this point. Why is she still here again?

Hey, AceOps. Can’t wait to see how they waste you this time.

I see they gave Ironwood his Vader arm. As subtle as mjolnir to the face.

Winter remains the one Schnee brain cell. Weiss has half of one (still love her though).

Keep Robyn locked up forever. She’s terrible.

DAMN! Guess his aura wasn’t activated.

I would question WHY Salem doesn’t know how the lamp works...but it doesn’t really matter.

New OP is kind of mid, but then again I am one of those rare RWBY fans who never cared about the music in the first place.

36 notes · View notes

marithlizard · 3 years

Text

Thoughts on RWBY v8c8, “Dark”

Do you ever find yourself hoping that a rumored Horrible Plot Twist won't happen for the sake of the characters you care about, but at the same time halfway hoping it will because So Cool and Elegant and it fits with all the foreshadowing in the credits?

Yeah. Time to find out.

- I thought for sure the fireball would be Cinder! But no, and the hard-light cells don't even look damaged. How long are the jailbirds going to be in there?

- Two scenes that start out with black-screen-with-audio-effects in a row suggests less "atmospheric dread" and more "it was not easy to get this thing done at all in the middle of a pandemic, okay?" - Orange veining. Welcome back, Nora. Klein is a reassuring sight to wake up to. (Speaking of cool plot twists I was on the fence about, I really thought we'd find him working in the mines, heigh-ho heigh-ho to SDC slave labor we go.) -Whitley helping to carry Penny! He really is on board now, I'm glad. - Bombing run? Is Atlas bombing its own streets to try and clear them of Grimm? - Annd May took off with the ship so they're trapped here with the lights out in a classic horror movie setup. (I don't blame her, of course. RWB have no plan and if the world's going to end, you want to be with your people.) - what the - what WAS that? It looked like a giant version of one of Salem's jellyfish tearing an Atlesian airship apart with long ropy red tendrils. Very possibly was. - "Believe it or not, I am above drinking in the dark." Nobody believes you, hon, but that's okay. - Klein doesn't even answer her. Ouch. - WHITLEY YOU GO, BOY I didn't realize they had drone pilots, but I still should've thought of that many episodes ago (and so should Weiss). With Jacques out of the picture, they can commandeer all the SDC resources to help. Nice!

- There is of course the question of where to evacuate the crater refugees *to*. How long a range do those cargo ships have? The next closest settlement we know about is likely Argus, and I think Maria said something about their stolen ship barely making it at the end of v7. Still it's an avenue worth pursuing - even camping in a frozen wasteland beats a Grimm army. - Time for the traditional "team splits up to go exploring in the dark" phase. I'm rewinding every few seconds now to squint at all the backgrounds, but tbh I was no good at spotting the Hound last time. Never would've known it was there in most of episode 2. - Lovely little pep talk from Blake. All the sweeter because they don't get much interaction onscreen. - (rewind rewind squint squint where is it is it in the hall shadows) - RT not even pretending the computers don't run Microsoft Windows.

- YEEEEEEEEEK - (I wish I hadn't seen the preview bits. Unspoiled, there would have been 3x more EEE in that yeek. ) - Rewind to watch Blake's ears fold down in sudden terror. Nice touch. - Klein and Willow, equals for the first time, sitting in awkward silence. And his little frown when her reaction to a crash and breaking glass is not to look around but to reach for her bottle. - (I regret a whole lot of wasted potential for Qrow this arc, but I think most of all I regret him never getting to meet Willow. They would understand each other in a way no one else in the cast can, and he could have offered her hope.) - Oh, shut it, Weiss, he's doing great considering the circumstances, and your own default attitude is set to High Snark. Which I don't mind, but pot-kettle. - Still so effing creepy. It sure doesn't look like a Hound right now, more of a gorilla. And Blake successfully not freezing up and taking it on! It's good seeing her get to be badass here, since she missed out on the Nucklavee and didn't fight the Apathy at all. - "Take the girl". It's repeating its orders, I had trouble making the words out at first. - Ruby, in contrast to Blake, is frozen to the spot and doesn't even aim her weapon as it charges at her. She's really at a low point right now. And oof, there goes her Aura just from a TACKLE. It didn't even hit her! - It's noticeably more efficient taking Ruby. Was Oscar its first mission? It's much more smooth and quick about the shapeshifting now, too. - Weiss taking precious seconds to alert Klein. That actually shows considerable presence of mind; it would've been completely natural to just charge in, but she was thinking about the civilians she's responsible for. Good show. - oop, there goes Willow. She tried. I don't think she can have ever been a Huntress herself, as cool as that would've been. (I would have *loved* to see her rediscover her hereditary power to conjure defeated foes...and use it to summon a Jacques.) - Penny's exaggerated puppet-movements, with arms held out wide from her body and stiff clanky-machine noises. Oh dear. Maiden powers going out of control are just what we needed. - Is Weiss starting to summon a Nevermore there? That's a beautiful shot!

- we're only 8.5 MINUTES into an almost 18 minute episode - It's holding Ruby more carefully than it did Oscar, too. It hasn't hurt her any more than necessary. - wha? OHH of course it's here for Penny. But it grabbed Ruby first because her scent was on the lamp? Or because Penny was dormant and it couldn't sense her? - ouch - what is that Grimm. An antlion? - oh, Nora repeating Blake's words. *sniffle* There's still no light in her eyes. - Weiss it's above you, have you not watched any horror movies - So Willow did pull herself together a bit. And she's putting all the cameras she installed to spy on Jacques to use, nice! - I TAKE IT ALL BACK AHAHAHA wow, it's good to be wrong sometimes - GOOD JOB WHITLEY - Blake asking important questions. Seriously what is that thing based on, I'm having horrible DA:O flashbacks - she continues to badass - Now that's how I expected the Hound to treat Ruby, instead of that inexplicable gentleness. Theory probability continuing to rise. - rewind rewind did it just grow a third arm out of its back? It did. Grossly. - Annnd what will come climbing back in the window? - Well, it's not Summer. - It can't be Clover. It *can't* be Clover, we saw his body for several seconds at the start of the volume. - ...It's a faunus, he has wolf-type ears. Nobody we know. - Ruby's silver eyes must have mostly taken it out already, if that was enough to finish it off. And Grimm dust dissolves and floats up into the air like disproved theories. - Oh, hi, Cinder. You're kind of anticlimactic. But I wonder what you meant by "my turn to ask for something". Is she going to demand Watts build her something? - The hardlight walls are gone now, so I'm guessing Qrow and Robyn escaped after all. And probably took Jacques with them, more's the pity. Overall a really good action episode, though I'm left still wondering why the Hound was so gentle with Ruby. And what the writers have in store for the revealed fate of Summer, and those ominous credits, that could possibly live up to the fan ideas.

Oh, yeah, and also - where ARE they sending those refugees? If Whitley just programmed the planes to fly them up to Atlas, that doesn’t seem safer...

#rwby #rwby spoilers #rwby v8 spoilers #rwby volume 8 spoilers

11 notes · View notes

captainsassmanes · 4 years

Text

Follow up to It’s the Little Things

Alex poked his fingers between the blinds and slowly lifted them, hoping not to draw attention to himself.

It was 9am on a blazing hot Saturday and he’d been woken by the sound of a weedwacker whirring right outside his window. He didn’t have to look to know exactly who it was, but he was curious as to what the fuck Michael was doing.

He’d be lying if he said the image of Michael, shirtless and sweating, didn’t turn him right the hell on but this was getting out of hand.

After Alex had spilled his guts, throwing his insecurities into the wind before thinking about where they’d land, he couldn’t get up. He lived for helping Michael, for finding ways to give back, to make some kind of difference, however small, in the other man’s life.

Michael had managed to call him on his bullshit, though. It was Alex’s way of staying involved, of being as close to Michael as he could be without physically being near him.

But he’d pushed too hard and it really was over.

That first night was awful. He replayed their conversation, or the word vomit he’d spewed, nonstop. He drank, and then drank some more, until he woke up on the couch, stiff and barely able to move with a headache that made blinking agonizing.

After a puke, a coffee and some eggs, Alex had taken Buffy outside and sat in one of his patio chairs, taking in his house, his car, his stuff.

It meant little now.

The thought of Michael, of their potential relationship, possible future, had quietly been keeping him going all these years. To have that hope extinguished...he didn’t have the words to describe how empty he’d felt.

His chest ached as he went inside and opened his laptop, starting his search for the country’s top cities. He knew he’d want to live somewhere busy, populated, but safe. His job could easily be remote once his re-enlistment period was up, plus he had quite a bit of money saved so he could take his time getting readjusted.

New York City and LA definitely had his attention, the music scenes alone would be worth the trip, but the apartments were tiny, and he may end up having to sell a kidney to pay his rent. Miami wasn’t his scene and Seattle looked like the type of place to send his depression spiraling.

He grabbed his third cup of coffee and moved to the living room, getting comfortable on the couch and making room for Buffy to rest her head on his lap. He found another one of those top cities lists and was intrigued by Portland. LGBT friendly, relaxed people, music scene, not so far that he couldn’t visit if he wanted to.

That afternoon was spent clicking through photos, checking out postings for apartments, falling down a YouTube spiral of some artists who got their start in the city.

The next day, feeling a bit better with a plan under his belt, he’d ventured outside to Beam Me Up for a cup of coffee and a snack. On his way out, he literally bumped into Maria.

“God, sorry. Did any of that spill?”

Alex just blinked, an uncomfortable wave of jealousy moving over his skin and pinching him where it landed.

He shook his head and said, “no. It’s okay.”

She gave him a smile as they stood awkwardly in the doorway. He wanted to say something, even if it was small or unimportant, just something to break the ice, but his instincts telling him to get home were clouding his thoughts.

“Michael mentioned he saw you the other day.”

Alex’s eyes grew wide. They hadn’t spoken in weeks; nothing more than worthless pleasantries and she knew why; he’d been honest with her. He’d also felt he’d been fair, leaving them both alone to their relationship, not interfering or getting involved.

At least he’d thought that was what he’d been doing.

But now, as he stared at his oldest friend, watching as her face changed to apprehension, maybe realizing that playing the we can connect over Michael card was the wrong move, he felt angry.

“I’m moving.”

Maria stepped back, surprised. “What?”

Alex nodded, looking around the street, hoping he looked as relaxed and casual as he was aiming for. “Yep. When my enlistment period is over.”

Her mouth opened and shut a few times, small sounds trying to become words escaping. Eventually, she was able to croak out a, “where?”

Alex shrugged and took a sip of his coffee. “Portland looked interesting. I’m looking at a few apartments there.”

The silence took over again as the street became a bit busier with the weekend tourists coming out to enjoy the weather and the sights. Maria’s hair bounced, the ends of her head scarf wrapping loosely around her throat. “You’re leaving because of me, right? Because of me and Michael? You can’t just go because – “

“I have no reason to stay, Maria.” Their eyes met and both sets were filled with a sadness neither could describe. Alex’s heart felt too heavy in his chest, memories of late nights and shared shakes and tears and joints and hugs threatening to leak out of his eyes. Instead, he smiled. “My time here’s up. I did my part but it’s time to see something new.”

With that he turned and walked to his car, coffee cup shaking in one hand while his fingers curled painfully around the bag in the other. Fuck he missed Maria. But he didn’t know if he’d ever be able to look at her the way he used to again.

It was that night, his excitement dwindling and replaced by a quiet desperation, when the first text had come through.

Don’t leave.

Alex stared. Obviously, Maria had told Michael about their chat. Maybe he felt bad, a twinge of guilt. Alex hoped he did, then felt guilty for hoping Michael felt guilty. This was exactly why he had to leave.

He ignored the text and went back to his computer, sipping on a beer and occasionally giving Buffy some nice scratches behind the ears.

His phone pinged again. Alex stared at it, hoping his glare would make it blow up or something. In the end, curiosity got the best of him and he looked at the text.

Don’t leave me.

Alex’s heart raced as his fingers moved without thinking.

You wouldn’t come with me anyway.

He turned his phone off and tossed it across the room, not caring when it bounced along the wood floor a few times.

He didn’t sleep well after that. Thoughts of car rides and spaceships and apartments and soft blankets and bright sunshine and honey curls played behind his eyelids every time he tried to rest.

The further away from Michael he was, the better it’d be for everyone.

The next morning his doorbell rang at 8am. Alex had thought it was a part of his dream at first, cuddled up on a firm, warm chest, wiry hairs beneath his fingers while nails scraped his scalp, lulling him back to sleep. When the buzzing continued, he was thrown back into reality with a big, empty bed and a headache to boot.

Grabbing his crutches, he went to the door and threw it open, shocked to find Michael on the other side looking clean shaven with a cup of coffee.

Michael looked…different. Yes, the beard was trimmed, maybe his hair, too? His clothes were definitely clean. But there was an energy, an aura, around him that Alex hadn’t seen in years. One side of Michael’s mouth lifted, an almost bashful smile, and he held out the coffee cup. Even Michael’s fingernails were clean. Alex lost some time staring at those nails and remembering the comfort they’d brought him in his dream just moments before.

Michael cleared his throat, bringing Alex’s attention back to the moment. “Whole milk and one sugar.”

Alex raised an eyebrow. “What are you doing?”

Michael shrugged and pushed the cup gently into Alex’s chest. “Bringing you a coffee. Good morning, by the way.”

Alex would later blame the broken night’s sleep for the dreamy way he’d whispered out, “good morning,” while accepting the cup. He took a sip and was instantly in his glory. His favorite coffee from his favorite café made perfectly delivered by his favorite…

“Well, have a good day, Alex.”

While Alex stood in the doorway, mouth hanging open at a loss for words, Michael sauntered back to his truck and drove away.

It had fucked with Alex for the rest of the day.

After that morning, Michael made appearances most days. A delivery of a burger and fries one afternoon, randomly bent over the hood of Alex’s Jeep for a tune up a few evenings later, dropping off a case of Alex’s favorite beer. Each time Michael came around, the conversation was limited. Michael would smile, explain why he was there and, as soon as he was finished, he’d smile and say goodbye, driving off once again.

Alex hated it. It was so confusing and contradictory, it made him fucking furious.

Alex really loved it.

He was seeing more of Michael than he had in years and Michael was absolutely different but in a way that suited Michael, not as though he’d changed to fit someone else’s wishes. He looked great and seemed healthy. Happy.

Apparently, today was clean up the yard day. With a sigh, Alex turned from his window and looked at Buffy with her head raised and cocked to the side in concern.

“Yes, it’s Michael.” Buffy’s tail wagged furiously. “You little traitor.”

Alex watched him for a few quiet minutes, taking in every detail, from the way his curls looked almost blonde when the sun hit just right, to the pattern of body hair scattered across his torso, to the flex of his legs when he bent and stretched.

He’d realized the other night, as he sipped on one of the beers Michael had bought him, that he’d stopped looking at apartments, collecting more information on Portland. All it took was for Michael to notice him and his universe tilted, and its center of gravity became Michael once again. That was the first night since their fight he’d allowed himself to cry again.

With a sudden surge of resolve, Alex threw open his drawers and grabbed whatever clothes his hands touched. He took the time to get his leg on, wanting to feel stable and steady for whatever came next.

By the time he got outside, Michael was leaning against the bed of the truck looking like a tan god, bottle of water to his lips, head tossed back with his face covered in sunlight.

Taking a deep breath, Alex charged ahead.

“I want a reason.”

Michael startled a bit, lost in his own thoughts, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Alex couldn’t help but stare at the dampness his hand missed.

“What reason?”

“Don’t be coy, Michael. It’s not cute.”

Playfully, Michael pouted while batting his lashes. Alex wanted to laugh and scream and cry and hold Michael, confusion and caution warring within him.

Alex looked at the ground, noting a nasty scuff across the toe of one of his boots. He pushed his foot into the sand and whispered, “why are you doing this to me?”

Michael made a quiet noise that sounded hurt and stood straight, blocking out the sun from Alex’s face. “To you?”

Alex looked up and fell into hazel eyes. He nodded. “You’re not actually trying to talk to me. But you’re being- being really kind and generous. I don’t understand.” He shook his head this time and took a step back so he could think. “You told me to get out of your life, I say okay, and then you come flying back into mine.”

Michael shook his head and started digging around the bed of his truck, apparently looking for his t-shirt to throw on as well as his trademark hat. Turning back to Alex, he shrugged and pulled out his car keys.

“I have no idea what I’m doing, Alex.” The silence between them felt thick with opportunity; to be honest, straightforward. Just a chance. “But that night I…” Michael scoffed and broke eye contact, looking around at Alex’s house. “You’ve got a loose shingle up there – “

“That night you what, Michael?”

With a sigh, Michael continued, “I knew that might be it. I know I’ve pushed, and you’ve walked and recently I’ve been pushing a lot harder but I just, I dunno, never let myself imagine you not being in my life somehow.”

Alex crinkled his eyebrows, confused yet again. “If you didn’t want me to go then why say all that shit about – “

“I have been drowning for years, Alex. In booze, in sex, in work, in regret. Just fucking drowning. Then you came back, and your dad was the fucking devil and then my mom and Max. I couldn’t separate it all out. Everything felt like it went back to you.”

Alex nodded, feeling the familiar creep of guilt working its way into his gut. “And I said I understood all of that. I gave you as much space as I could.”

“Did you?”

Alex sighed and dug his hands into his pockets, wishing he had something in his hands to keep them better occupied. He could either choke Guerin at the moment or pull him into a suffocating kiss. He couldn’t decide.

“I guess I didn’t.” He blinked as the next thought smacked him across the face. “I’m not as strong as you, Michael. I can’t know you’re nearby and struggling and do nothing.”

Michael shook his head, taking a step closer to Alex.

“That’s why I’m moving. I can’t stop myself from being in your orbit and you made it clear that’s what you wanted. It’ll give me a fresh start, too, you know. No one’ll recognize the Manes name. No one will care. I can just be another face out there, have a little anonymity and figure out what I’m doing.”

“I don’t want you to go.”

Alex groaned. “C’mon, Michael! You just came here not that long ago bitching that I sent you some food! I’d think you’d be thrilled that I’d be gone.”

Michael laughed. Alex watched as his face changed with the humor and his heart broke a little to see how much younger Michael could look when he relaxed. Even if just for a second. “I told you stay away. You didn’t. I told you again stay away and then you did. Then I couldn’t stay away and now you’re gonna leave. Can we just say the fucking things we need to say and stop doing this?”

Alex took the challenge at face value and straightened up, nodding his head. “Fine.”

“Why did you do all those nice things for me even when I told you to stay away?”

“Because I love you.”

The ease with which those words slid from Alex’s mouth surprised both of them. There was something freeing about the honesty, of finally just saying the words out loud to Michael without fear of rejection or consequence.

He took a deep breath. “Because I love you and I was worried about you.”

Michael licked his lips and looked away, nodding in understanding.

“Your turn,” Alex whispered, pulling Michael’s attention back. “Why do you keep showing up here when you told me to stay away?”

“Because I regretted everything I said as soon as I said it.” Alex lifted an eyebrow, not fully understanding. “I thought I needed distance. Not seeing you all the damn time helped me focus on other things. And I did tell you the truth; I didn’t think we were good for each other and I really, really wanted to be good for Maria.”

Alex took a step back, feeling the burn in his throat start at the mention of his friend’s name when Michael’s callused fingers wrapped around his wrist. “The second I realized I probably pushed you completely out of my life, I regretted it. I don’t want you to leave. I don’t want you to stop caring. I want to be better. I just – “

Michael stopped and took a deep breath, clearly overwhelmed as his voice began to crack. Alex slowly shifted his wrist from Michael’s grip and gently held his fingers in his own.

Michael sighed, “can you ask me one more time?”

Alex nodded. “Why do you keep showing up here when you told me to stay away?”

“Because I love you.”

They stood together in the blazing sun, sweating and staring at one another as though the world had fallen away. The moment was broken when Alex’s eyes shifted to Michael’s turquoise belt buckle. “But you love Maria, too.”

Michael nodded and watched helplessly as Alex let go of his hand. “I do. But I love Maria the same way you love Maria.”

Alex rolled his eyes. “I don’t know what that means.”

“She’s my friend, Alex. That night we fought I had an epiphany.”

“An epiphany?”

“Yeah. You probably already know this but I’m an alcoholic.”

Alex’s head whipped up with concern in his eyes. His mouth moved but he couldn’t think of anything to say.

Michael took it as his cue to continue. “I’ve also been a shit brother to Isobel, so I’ve been working on that. But the morning after I left here, I talked to Maria. Told her how I was feeling, she talked about her feelings and, we both just told the truth.”

“Which was?”

A smile tugged on Michael’s lips. “That we both love you.”

Alex cleared his throat, doing his best not to start crying. “I’d like to get back to the alcoholic piece of this, and I’m glad you’ve stepped up to support Isobel but, uh, are you and Maria still together?”

Michael shook his head. “Not for about, what? Two weeks now?”

Alex nodded. “Okay.”

“Go out with me.”

Alex waited a beat, making sure he’d heard clearly before repeating, “okay.”

“The Crashdown? Lunch tomorrow? Around 12?”

Alex nodded. “Yeah. I’ll meet you there.”

Michael smiled and closed his truck. Slowly, he took off his hat and leaned in, kissing Alex on the cheek. They were both just piles of sweat and beet[TS1] red, but Alex thought it might be one of the most romantic moments of his life.

“I wanna do this right, Alex. From the beginning.”

Alex smiled. “Me, too. I’ll see you tomorrow. For our first date.”

Michael laughed, his youth bursting through every pore. “For our first date.”

#Roswell New Mexico #Malex #Malex fic #my fic #barely edited #angst with a hopeful ending

129 notes · View notes

huntsman-ash · 3 years

Text

RWBY V8E5 LiveThoughts

And now for the last episode before the HUGE break they’re taking. Seriously, February? Damn, whats going on at RT?

It matters not. Lets see what this weeks episode has for us.

And here we see Aminety Colloseum, the place that Atlas SHOULD have weaponized the moment it rolled its way back here. Seriously look at it; floating free away from everything else...you could mount missile launchers and laser batteries and CIWS batteries on it, launch fighters from it, let dropships deploy through its base...a floating aircraft carrier of unprecidented size.

Or maybe turn it into a weapon...use its drive system to focus Dust energy into some kind of gravitational force...thats just me though.

Missed oppertunites...ah well.

You CAN see its been adjusted though, it looks less like the sports arena from its last apperance and more like a floating coms hub, with those dishes on the outside and the huge spire.

Intersetingly if you look in the upper right corner the moon is there but almost completely covered by the storm Salem summoned. Interesting.

Wait why is PEITRO out there? With like...no supports? Seems kinda dangerous to send the weak old dude out there...

...thats a bomb. A Dust bomb in pipe bomb style form but thats very much a bomb. Yes, Penny, danger indeed.

Atmospheric orbit. Ahhh that must be the low-level orbit path that they need to ensure it doesnt loose power. The part where you coast along with almost no drag. Like what the X-15 hit in our world, and punched through at least once.

WAIT WHAT THE HELL IS THAT. Thats some kind of loader mech. THATS A FUCKING UTILITY TITAN. WHEN DID ATLAS GET ONE OF THOSE?!

Also thats a jet engine.

And Maria’s piloting it. To quote Daimon Baird; I know wha thappens when you let an angry chick loose with a power loader.

Multiple bombs...wait. Thats the mine that RWBY fought in with the Aces, the one that almost blew the fuck up. They’re... Oh. I get it now. They’re gonna use the blast to fling Amneity into upper orbit and stabalize it. Clever. Not exactly SAFE, but clever. Just hope the mine doesnt go anywhere important. Those tunnels are going to turn into firestorms.

Cute, she thinks she can stay and help. Trust me, Penny. You’re better off running.

MARIA CASUALLY DOING THE MEXICAN GRANDMOTHER THING WITH HER MECH...THE HIP HAND. MY GOD.

Oh, and his chair has gravity restraints too. They...gonna handle the impact of the launch? I mean thats literally a fuel/air bomb under them. Dust/air...

Well Maria seems alright with it.

OH GOD DAMMIT. Its Cinder isnt it? Fucking bitch...

On the positive side if she DOES hitch a ride then they get a chance to give her the ol’ “Long fall special”. Lets see your maiden powers save you from a fall from near orbit.

Well then, she burned right through the floor. Interesting. Maiden powers or her own, who knows...I do admit seeing her ride the ship in like that is kinda cool.

The eagerness in Cinders remaining eye interest me. Also, even when using maiden powers, her dead eye emits nothing. So that whole parts just gone.

Secondary note, I think they’re standing on the...Shade emblem? Shade is the swords I think. Vale is the axes, Atlas is the staff, Havens the lamp. Doubt it means anything.

Ahhh, okay I was gonna say, that launch was...kinda lackluster. But the blast is being used as a BOOST on top of the four existing external thrusters. Like the yellow emergency turbines on the outside of the Pillar of Autumn in the end cutscene of Halo Reach

Dust explodes in its own individual colors. The blast under them looks like a Pride festival.

Also Penny just going WHAP like that amuses me, whereas Cinder just crouches. Guess she knew what was coming.

I dont see how the blast is helping through...maybe its the pressure wave and we cant see it right.

Now THAT is a command and control table!

Based on the image I can see, the map is showing “Atlas Mantle” in the middle in green, Aminety in red to the north, and the whale as its own red marker just off to the west a bit of Atlas/Mantle. So now we know where everything is stationed.

The scales all kindsa weird tho

Ah THERES the G-force. Emeralds literally stuck to the floor.

And because Cinders an unoriginal bitch, fire swords. Im not impressed ot say the least. On a side note that DOES mean that radiobandit was right about her powers, so theres that. I’d wager this is a combination of her semblance and the maiden abilities.

For those who follow me, Cinder’s blades here are similar in look to what Ash Vulcan can summon, minus the fire. His are more of a cooled obsidian look. They are, however, as sharp as these are, but much less sturdy. Ex; the one that pins itself to the wall by Penny’s head would have shattered on impact, which Ash uses as a secondary ability. Because no one likes a hundred glass shards in their eyes...

OH HELL YES. Maria with the mech. Now, Cinder...TASTE METAL FIST.

RT...I salute you. Angry mother figure piloting a giant robot screaming “get away from her you bitch”. ALMOST had it. Almost.

What smacked into her though. Neo?

Yes, Neo piloting their escape craft. Interseting.

Emerald looks completely useless and confused and Neo is suddenly very much in a realization shes inside a tin can and MARIA IS OPERATING A GIANT TIN CAN OPENER

Emeralds semblance works on Maria. Interseting, so it must bypass eyes. Effect the brain specifically. Note to self for Chrys on that...

WHY did Neo take Ruby’s form when shes fighting Maria? On that Maria seems very happy to brawl on the ground now. Old habits die hard, I guess.

Additional math note; “broadcasting range” is, by this numerical, 543.523 of...whatever Remnant uses as units. On Earth, the edge of outerspace is almost exactly 100 km, or 62 miles, straight up. So going by that measurement... (Doing the math here hang on)...1 km is equal to 5.43 of Remnants distance units. Lets just say 5.5. Assuming Remnants edge is the same (but everything we’ve seen so far hints that it is, or at least very close)

Alternatively, since we heard klicks used in V4, but miles used in After The Fall, we can assume this is one of those, meaning that either broadcast altitude on Remnant is ABSURDLY HIGH, because 500km is literally 5 times the edge of space on earth, and 540 miles is ALMOST 9 TIMES AS HIGH. Either way Im pretty sure this is the first measurement of Remnants units we’ve seen.

Alternatively alternatively, judging by the arrows we see, these might be required velocity to maintain orbit, which MAY make a bit more sense but it doesnt really fit. Low orbital velocity on earth for example is 17,000 KPH. Even with the math above, theres still a TITANIC difference.

And now we see the numvers going down again because CINDER BURNED A HOLE IN THROUGH ONE OF THE STABALIZERS. Bitch.

Again on th e weaponizing the colleseum; look at all this empty space. They didnt even remove it from when it was a consorse for the festival. You could put SO MANY weapon emplacements...the landing pads are still there!

Oh so now Cinders a Dawnblade from RWBY is she.

And exploding arrows too. Alright then, sure, why not.

Not sure what the point of this little bit was, aside from Penny trying to draw Cinder off and Cinder going back because...evil? Bait for Penny? Who knows.

Oh yeah, Marias having a GOOD time. Also, Neos face when she gets kicked in it; “NO, NOT THE SANDEL!”

Also the disrespect from Maria. Yes. Suck it, Neo.

Also theres some timeskippage, as there is NOT a 2 minute gap between when we see the clock the first time and when we see it now. I dont think, anyway. Im sure theres math to be done but it serves the purpose its suppose to, for tension.

Uhhhh...Cinder, please. Your Salem’s most bottom of bitches right now. She favors Hazel and Tyrian over you.

Did Cinder really just try for a does not compute moment. Or is she just out of ideas.

Cinder stealing the maiden powers reminds me of the Grip of the Devourer perk from the Necromatic Grips in Destiny 2. Mainly the green energy flowing. I know thats Pennys aura stuff but it does remind me.

Ahhh they got a plan with Emerald then. Interesting. Also Neo taking advantage of a distraction sounds like her.

And Penny ONESHOTS Neo. Lets be real here, without aura? She’d be LIQUID. Or maybe ash. Not sure how Penny’s funnels (THEYRE STILL FUCKING FUNNELS DAMMIT) works.

Annnnddd you forgot shes a robot and sees aura didn’t you. Again, without aura, she’d be dead. Actually, she might legit be dead considering that scream. That sounds like the noise someone makes as their organs are fried by high intensity radiation. Not too mention the MASSIVE BURN MARK on the back wall there.

Either way; GET FUCKED BITCH.

Very dramatic, Emerald, but really, come on. Penny has lasers. You would get maybe one more shot (from a weapon that has, at best from my viewpoint) a caliber equal to MAYBE a 9mm pistol. That stuff doesnt have the penetration power required.

If Penny wasn’t nice and more interested in saving Peitro...you’d be dead. Ripped asunder and Cinder made even worse.

A pity, really, Penny has a heart. But...hey. Real girl.

I feed upon Emeralds tears though. Mmm. Simpy.

What the HELL is hitting them. Grimm?

Oh boy here we go, more of this. Like...bruh. Just set down for a bit. Always gotta be dramatic dont ya

Aww. Touching. But pointless in the grand scheme of things.

Interesting note but she puts her gloved hand on his cheek, not the one with the glove burned off. For what thats worth again.

Holy shit, that map wasnt lying. That whale’s almost as big as Atlas is from this angle. Mind you, might just be a trick of the location but it would make sense if they were afraid of a Grimm THAT GOD DAMN BIG. I was just seeing it as like, about the size of a normal sperm whale, maybe as big as the Leviathan from the series of the same name, but even that was barely 150 feet long. This things HUGE.

Nope. Pretty sure its about the same size as Atlas is long.

Also the Moon seems smaller from this angle oddly enough.

Wait is she gonna superman this fucking thing?

Okay yes, the numbers were based on distance not velocity, as Penny is pushing the stadium UP, rather than accelerating it in proper stance.

The noises she makes...huh. Glad my sister didnt walk in on those. Sounds...not like someone straining.

Hey look, its clumsy shitface McGee. HES NOT DEAD!

Note about the message; whos the chick with the eye patch next to the faunus in the back left of Ruby.

Im going to assume the first place we see the message played is the Mistral Black Market. Seems fitting for how it is, and the design matches Havens ascetic.

OH MY GOD THE LITTLE EARED FAUNUS GIRL IN THE HOLE. OH NO. SHES TOO CUTE.

Also in that same shot we see the old Karen from two episodes ago, a mouse girl, Fiona’s mole uncle, and someone new I think. Plus the huge eared girls mom who has a fox tail. And also one of the thirsty moms and her kid maybe?

Hey, Sun and Neptune! Out in the middle of nowhere in Vacuo. So this is the first time we’ve seen it in the show.

And Ilia’s still alive too!

Hey and Goodwytch too. No voice, of course...she got fired ages ago.

Also hey, so this is where Ironwoods been. I love how Hare turns it off before Ruby finishes.

I will note that technically Ruby’s not wrong. Ironwood cant be trusted. But then, he couldnt before because (gestures to Atlas’s pathetic, scraggy SOFT “military” instead of THE CHAD FORCES OF...uh...) (Rapid sounds of shuffling papers and files labeled “UNSC” “Coalition of Ordered Governments” “SRPA” “GAR” and “Yukon Confederacy” fly off the table)

Several others. Yes. Lets go with that. (Accidentally bumps paper labeled “Vanguard” off the desk)

Watts is back out I see too.

Wait wait wait. Penny’s blades operate via chips...part of her, sure. So WHY does she need wires on them? AGAIN. WHY ARE THEY WIRE FUNNELS AND NOT SEPERATE ONES.

Interestingly the inside of the one Watts has resembles a Scroll...did Peitro commender that technology?

No focusing system for the laser. No chamber for acceleration or direction. Odd.

Salem looks oddly glad for this. Probably cause she thinks this is going to spread more fear.

And Ruby gets to the heart of the deal. You dont beat something that cant be killed. You capture it. Hurt it. BREAK IT. A sentient being can only take so much punishment before it shatters into madness and controllable fragments. You just. Need. To. Hit. It. HARD. ENOUGH.

Additionally Ruby’s got a point there too. Salem played the shadows until this moment when everything was going her way. So...whats she afraid of.

Annnnddd thats all it takes to hijack Penny? Seriously.

Fuckin god damn useless Atlas bullshit fucking...(LONG SUFFERING SIGH OF A TECH NERD)

Hey theres Taiyang. Where’s Raven?

Wait hold on a second. She catches fire literally two seconds after she falls? You gotta fall a bit more than that for shit to start happening. WHAT THE FUCK IS REMNANTS ATMOSPHERE?! Or is it just dramatic...

Also as a small note the way the coms between her and Peitro cut off like that is accurate to reentry; during the hottest part of a splashdown, a space craft creates such a huge trail of energy behind it, rattling and burning its way down, it creates a blackout with its own passage. So based on the massive Apollo style reentry fire cone shes already putting out shes most likely going to be out of coms until she slows down orrrrrr craters into Remnants surface with the force of a meteor.

And no. I dont think shes dead. The fact that, DESPITE being surrounded by the kind of fireball that worked its way into the fueltank of the space shuttle Discovery and blew it and its crew to bits on reentry, she was still intact...shes probably going to be fine.

Hacked, certainly, but fine. It takes more than that to finish her. Besides now that shes hacked, she has to fight Ruby. We all want that right?

Ahh good to see Winter in full armor now. Or...close to it. Im sure some of its a support rig for her injuries but I like to think this is the start of Atlas’s Specialist Weaponization Program.

Ironwood makes a good call here. Same thought process as mine.

Salutes in this world are the same as ours. Interesting. Must change that for the HKs

Annnndd of course Watts steals the busted Scroll because IRONWOOD IS A FUCKING DUMBASS

...um.

Im...not even going to COMMENT on what the FUCK this thing is that Jaunes detachment found.

Also why is there A TREE in the tundra?

Oh, caustic. Interesting.

Mmmm. (Pause. Fingers to lips)

Thats your plan, Salem? To literally leak liquid Grimm into Mantle.

More silence.

Ladies and gentlemen...Salem is, officially, THE WORST VILLAN. OF ALL TIME.

The level of incompetence and stupidity I have seen here today completely obliterates the LAST person to hold that title, President Snow from the Hunger Games.

The amount of unnececary back door work and seecret plotting here astounds me. Shes doing this because she can, Im SURE of it. Theres no other reason.

Unless...she kows in a straight out fight, she’d have Ironwoods metal arm up to her colon in seconds. Which I wouldnt be surprised about.

Either way uh...thats it. Thats the end of the episode.

Nice fight, at least.

See you all in Febuary!

EDIT: NOT FEBUARY, the break is a few more episodes after this

#spoilers #rwby spoilers #rwby #rwby v8

7 notes · View notes

calliecat93 · 4 years

Text

One of the biggest criticisms of Volume 4, if not the biggest criticism, was it usage of multiple plotlines. While an ambitious idea, the balance was really off which really affected the pacing. It felt like everything was scattered around and like things were being dragged out, or not even given as much attention as needed. But it looks like with Volume 8, CRWBY is getting a chance to try it again. One advantage is having all the relevant characters in tow main groups so only two major plotlines to focus on. This chapter focuses on RWBNP as they break into the Atlas Military Facility. How will it go? Well... since this is late you already know, but I’m gonna blab anyhow. Enjoy~

Overview

Team RWBNPM have made it into the military compound and Penny has located where the terminal is. They’re able to wonder around the base undetected via May’s Invisibility Semblance and Penny is able to use Pietro’s credentials to access the doors. They eventually reach an area that even with May’s Semblance, will be too difficulty to get through without being spotted. Penny, however, has a solution. You remember how Harriet pointed out Ruby’s Semblance was more than she thought in V7? Well Penny actually breaks it down here. Ruby essentially breaks down her mass and is able to more or less teleport herself and others before reforming, so Ruby should be able to do this with all of them.

Meanwhile, remember when Watts got taken by security last chapter? Well it’s because Ironwood is now forcing him to work for him, having a whole squadron ready to shoot him to death if he doesn’t comply. What does he need Watts to do? We’ll go into that later. Until then, Watts points out that Pietro’s credentials have been used, causing Ironwood to raise the alarm. This means that the team has to hurry, so they trip a worker with coffee as a distraction. As the guy's co-workers yell at him, RWBNP move past via Ruby’s Semblance as May goes to commandeer a ship.

Eventually, RWBNP reach the terminal. It is a VERY highly secured area with the door being guarded by some powerful electricity. It’s so secure that no humans even work in there. Penny allows Pietro to take over manually to begin the process of green lighting Amity. During this, Blake expresses concern about ruby and Yang’s fight, though Weiss assures her that sometimes sisters just disagree. Nora also tries to help by pointing out that Jaune, Yang, and Oscar should be fine (haha...) but noticeably leaves out Ren. It’s here that Nora expresses how upset she was about their argument and how just when things look up for them, it goes right back to zero. Even worse, without Ren, Nora doesn’t feel like she even knows who she is aside form the strong girl who hits stuff. Blake and Weiss point out to her that Ren is only a part of her, the rest however also matters and that maybe she can use this chance to discover more about herself.

The process is completed and Penny can now launch Amity. But despite wanting to resume helping Mantle afterwards, both Pietro and the girls believe that it’s best for Penny to remain with Pietro and Maria in Amity once it launches. This disappoints her. As the group gets ready to leave, they are confronted byt he Ace-Ops. Vine tries to reason with the g4roup, but they continue to refuse. it doesn’t help when Harriet and Elm essentially blame Penny for Winter’s condition and accuse her of stealing the Maiden power, nor does Harriet threatening to lock up Ruby alongside her uncle. To no one’s surprise, the group refuses, so the Ace-Ops trap RWBN in the room, leaving Penny to fight on her own.

Penny is ale to hold her own, even managing to make good use of her Maiden powers. However, the Ace-Ops are able to match against her and eventually Marrow is able to use his Stay power on her. RWBN try to break through the door, bot nothing is working. Nora, staring at the electric door, decides to do what she dos best be strong and hit stuff. Using her hammer and Semblance, Nora absorbs the electricity until she’s powered enough to blow the door off it’s hinges. However, even for Nora, this was far too much as her body gets some ugly scarring. She collapses, her Aura breaking.

Seeing the fight, Watts suggests that the Ace-Ops get one of Penny’s swords. Ironwood orders this, and they bandage to rip one off of Penny before retreating, though Marow noticeably is hesitant. WBNP reach a hangar where May has gotten an airship. They escape, but Nora is still passed out and seriously injured. After this, Penny agrees that she needs to remain in Amity and it’s time for her to go. She and Ruby hug one more time, promising to see each other again before Penny flies off for Amity. Meanwhile, the Ace-Ops turn over the sword to Ironwood. Why did they need this? The same reason that Ironwood recruited Watts: to hack into Penny and turn her back onto their side.

Review

Ah, action, emotions, and spilt coffee. All the things I love in a RWBY episode~

Let’s talk about Ruby’s Semblance first since I’ve seen some debate about it. IDK how scientifically accurate Penny’s explanation is... but Ruby is a girl who can trail rose petals behind her, so I’m not all that concerned about accuracy here. But this just more or less confirmed what I’ve been thinking for a long time now. I, as well as others, have pointed out that her Semblance doesn’t really appear to act line a speed-based one. Heck as I said, Harriet pointed it out just last volume. Now we know that Ruby’s power is essentially a slow-formed teleportation. Considering I always assumed that Summer’s Semblance had a similar breaking her body down function, this makes a lot of sense to me.

I’ve seen some complain about how Ruby didn’t know this... but really? That’s perfectly in-character for her. She’s a clever girl, but she’s always been one to act more than give deep contemplation. She knows the basic function of her Semblance, to move fast compared to normal, and that works for her. Heck remember last volume when she used her split apart trick. Oscar asked how long she could do that, and she answered that she had never really thought of it. Sure Ruby HAS carried people with her Semblance before (Penny in V2, Nora in V4, Weiss in V6), but that was with a single person. She had never tried it with a group before. It fits into how Semblances evolve over time and I’m really happy to see Ruby grow more. I get the feeling that she needs all the happy development she can get before things really go off the deep end.

Speaking of though, the chibi art accompanying Penny’s explanation? Both cute and hilarious. It reminded me of Ruby’s imagine spots back in Volume One. This chapter had quite a few funny moments. Weiss pulling Nora’s ear for last episode, Nora pushing all the elevator buttons. Blake clearly hating all forms of unconventional transportation, and while I feel it clashed with the tone a bit the coffee guy tripping up was great. The crude poster of a Shark Grimm (when do we get that?) especially got a giggle out of me. Like I said last review, it’s nice to have these bits of levity. I love it when Ruby gets feelsy and serious, but I don’t want it to divert form fun and light-heartedness all the time. They’ve gotten a lot better at keeping a balance and transitioning us from one mood to the other. I feel last chapter did it a bit better, but this was still well done.

Now lets talk about Penny. It was nice to see her act like her usual perky self a bit with her Semblance explanation and the direction to the terminal. But still, it’s clear that things are still haunting her. She’s still reminded of her robot identity with May’s comment, which no IDT May was trying to be offensive or anything, after all Robyn uses nicknames like that all the time and she DID use Penny’s name after the correction. But even past that, we have Pietro manually taking control of Penny. Now it WAS done with permission and there’s a good reason why, but my reaction to it was the same as Ruby’s. You ca tell that Penny wasn’t looking forward to it since it one more emphasizes that she is a robot. We all know she’s more, but Penny is still trying to figure out her new place.

This is especially evident in her reaction to remaining on Amity. Of course she doesn’t want to do that. She still considers herself the Protector of Mantle. She is now the Winter Maiden. She wants to help people. She wants to be out there doing good alongside her friends. But unfortunately with the target on her back from both sides, it’ simply too dangerous. She not only puts herself at risk, but those around her. We already know that ironwood will now go to any extreme to get his way, including work with an evil scientist and have a firing squad ready to fire. Salem... do I need to explain any further? The safest thin is for Penny to remain in Amity, but it still clearly pains her even after accepting it as necessary. And with Watts now having a piece necessary to hack her AND the episode showing us how it can be done... yeah, pray for Penny folks.

She DID however get to kick ass with her Maiden powers. While we had some Grimm fights last chapter, this was the first major fight of the volume, and it was awesome. Penny, even after just getting her power, uses it to great effect. Not as much as Raven or even Cinder, but is clearly more than capable of controlling it. But the Ace-Ops do manage to match her. They aren’t holding back now, they are going in for the kill and all of them (save Marrow, I’ll talk about him in the CH4 review) seem to be on the same wavelength. I think this helped the complaints about the Ace-Ops losing to RWBY (ones I don’t agree with, but still) and shows how even with Clover dead, they are still a capable force. Harriet and Elm’s words were still overly cruel, but I can’t deny that they can fight. Oh and we also FINALLY got to see Vine’s weapon, so there’s that. It was a fun action sequence~

But now we get to the star of this episode for me: Nora. Now... I have made it no secret that Nora is my least favorite character of the main group. Why? There’s two main reasons: her lack of development compared to the others and her character largely revolving around Ren. I won’t lie, some of the over-exposure and her portrayal in Chibi also contributed, but those don’t really affect her character in-show. While I feel that she has slowly improved, last volume especially being a step up, I still felt like she was the least developed. So going into Volume 8, I was very curious about hat they would do with her now that she and Ren are divided and she is on her own.

I have to say... I am very happy with her in this episode. It addressed my complaint about her and Ren being co-dependent as far as their portrayals in-show went. They outright existed more or less to fill out Team JNPR, and they spent Volumes 1-3 as comic relief to focus on Jaune and Pyrrha. I miss Pyrrha to this day, but her death DID allow the two to finally grow as characters. I don’t like it when the focus of a character is mainly on their relationship with another, hence why shipping gets on my nerves a lot. It was a HUGE issue I had with Renora until they became fleshed out. Here we have Nora expressing how upset she is about Ren, how every time it looks like they’ve gotten closer something comes in to ruin it (Volume 4 for example), and now that she’s without him for the first time in who knows how long... she doesn’t really know who she is. This has been something that I’ve wanted the show to go into since at least Volume 4, and it is FINALLY happening.

I love how the ones who talk to her are Blake and Weiss. Blake struggled with separating herself from a previous attachment, and knows how hard it is to remember that that’s only one part of yourself. Weiss has struggled with carving her own identity which while not in the romantic context, is still relevant as her family name is only a part of her, not the whole thing. It’s a dynamic I never knew I needed, but I am SO glad we have it now! I think as hard as it is, Nora needed to part from Ren for now. She needs to remember to care about herself and know that she is more than just the girl who likes Ren and hits stuff with a hammer. She’s funny, she’s caring, she’s loyal, she’s fun to be around, she can get carried away with things yet it’s always entertaining when she does. She is Nora Valkyrie before everything else. And in the end, she more or less sacrificed herself to break the door and save Penny. IDK if she knew that the electricity would be too much, but she still made the choice by herself. Now we just need to hope that she recovers... and that when Ren finds out, he doesn’t snap...

In the intro, I talked about how V8 seems to be a second attempt at the split teams plot in Volume 4. While I find V4 underrated and a nice character development/world-building volume, the handling of the split plots... did certainly cause pacing issues. The biggest issue was cramming essentially six storylines into the volume, four of which were vital, and not being able to give them all proper attention. Essentially, it worked fine when binged, but going week by week it could get tiresome very quickly. This time, we have the entire team split into two groups with the side plots being the villains and Ironwood’s forces. This only leaves two major plotlines that need the main focus and allows for unique character dynamics, like Nora with Weiss and Blake.

So far, the pacing with these two groups has been done very well. While we don’t see JYRO in this episode, last chapter did enough that we already know what to expect when we get back to them. Nothing feels out of focus or like one plot is getting more attention than the other. It feels balanced. It feels like both plots matter and I want to see what happens. The writers have clearly learned and improved over the years, with this being a clear example. It’s been really fun (and scary) so far and I’m really excited to see more of these different group dynamics (and since I’ve already seen Chapter 4, they are delivering!), though hopefully we will get the team reformed before long. But for now, I’m loving this~

Chapter Stats

Favorite Character: Nora Valkyrie Favorite Scene: Nora, Weiss, and Blake talk Least Favorite Scene: Coffee Guy Favorite Voice Actor: Samantha Ireland (Nora) Favorite Animation: Penny going Winter Maiden against the Ace-Ops Rating: 9.9/10

Final Thoughts

Three chapters in, and already this volume is looking to be one of the best. Some nice humor, great character dynamics and focus, an epic action sequence, and a lot of heart and emotion put in especially with Penny and Nora. This was a fantastic episode that gave me everything that I was hoping for! If the quality stays at this pace, the this is absolutely going to become a great one! And considering what happens next chapter, we haven’t strayed from that yet. But that review is for another day, for now I’ll say that this chapter was great~

#rwby #rwby8 #rwby spoilers #rwby reviews #rwby musings #callie reviews

7 notes · View notes