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warsmith-38 · 3 years

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How I would do RWBY pt.4

World Travel Arc.

Season Four.

Cinder was found by Salem after fall of Beacon.

Missing arm and eye.

Salem helps her and even rewards her.

She accomplished her goal of shooting Ozpin with the arrow.

It didn’t take, sure, but that’s not Cinder’s fault.

Arm is replaced with grimm arm.

An eye was also offered but Cinder refused because she wants a visceral reminder of her failure.

Translation: Because chuunibyou.

Cinder spends her time training to compensate for and overcome her new disabilities.

Has massive grudge against Ruby.

What should have been two easy wins were stolen from her by sheer dumb luck and circumstance.

She has made it her goal to prove that she is more powerful than Ruby and will do so by tearing her heart out and turning it to ash.

Salem decides that Ruby will be an issue to her long term plans and sends her best assassin, Tyrian, to kill her instead of Cinder.

Just like Summer.

She doesn’t want to send Cinder on the grounds that she thinks that homegirl REALLY needs to chill.

Ruby is full murderhobo.

Killing grimm and taking whatever freelance bounty money she can on her way to Mistral.

Fuck if she knows what she’s going to do when she gets there but she hasn’t planned all that far ahead.

She just wanted to not be stuck at home again.

Finds JNR, who had volunteered for general assistance in the areas around Mistral.

JNR says that there’s both a grimm issue and a bandit issue in the area.

Ruby wants everything to do with it.

Blake is on her way back to Menagerie.

Encounters SSSN who are on light duties and are being sent to putz around in Menagerie.

Sun asks her ‘what the fuck is your plan?’

Blake says that the only place for her in the world is back home with her family.

Weiss is also back home with her family but is far less into the idea.

Dad is distant and detached.

Mother is drunk and miserable.

Winter is the only one she properly interacts with, training and sparring to keep herself in shape.

Winter offers a position in the military, a cushy one at that (Can I get an amen for nepotism?)

Weiss ignores the offer, is depressed, misses her friends.

Yang is stuck at home, also depressed, dealing with deepening abandonment issues, and constantly fiddling with the trinket Raven gave her.

Having Ruby run off only made things worse. Combining her abandonment issues with the feeling of letting her sister down when she needed her most.

Tai barely pays attention to her outside of his constant worrying about Ruby but eventually sees the trinket and tells Yang about Raven.

Is very clearly bitter about the whole thing but is pretending he isn’t.

VERY rose (ha) tinted glasses about Summer.

Not that she was secretly a piece of shit or anything, but to hear Tai talk about her she made saints look like goatfuckers.

Ironwood shows up and gives Yang robo-arm as an apology for saying he’d help her after the fight with Mercury and then letting her down.

Ironwood helps break Yang out of her funk, offers some military style counseling, helping her work off the muscle atrophy, even teaches her some spec-ops chokeholds and the like.

Yang says it’s nice to have an actual male role model/father figure in her life.

Ironwood rips Tai’s shit in for being such a bad parent to Yang.

Tai has no real counters to what Ironwood is saying.

He realizes that he’s been a neglectful asshole and starts helping retrain Yang too.

Weiss makes a scene at an event her father is putting on.

Jacques sits her down after it and says that they’re going to have a completely frank conversation.

Topic shifts to their viewpoints and life choices.

He’s fine with his daughter disagreeing with him, he just wants her to understand him and he her.

Weiss calls him out on the blatantly bad shit the SDC has done.

Jacques defends his points, saying that he tried to make things better for the faunus and the White Fang just made everything worse for everyone.

Weiss tells him that passing the buck is bullshit.

Agree to disagree.

Jacques gives her a spiel laced with double meanings about freedom and making your own path.

Weiss leaves that night. (keikaku doori (Translation: All according to keikaku (Translators note: Keikaku means plan)))

Jacques might be a dick but he does want his family to be as genuinely happy as he can make them.

Blake gets back home.

Gets royal reception on the grounds that she’s the daughter of the chief of the kingdom.

Sun sends SSN to get on with their mission, he’s gonna be a while, faunus business.

They understand, they’re hip to this sort of thing, and tell him that if he needs them they’re just a phone call away.

He calls Blake out for being one of the most privileged faunus alive while lecturing others on said topic.

Blake and Sun walk in on White Fang people trying to recruit Ghira.

Notices Blake in the process of telling them to leave.

Ghira shoves everyone out of his way to embrace his long believed dead daughter.

Emotional reunion.

Sees Sun, makes joke about ‘Adam’s cheerier replacement’.

Blake gets sad.

Ghira assumes Adam died or something and doesn’t press the matter.

Calls for a royal banquet to celebrate the return of his daughter.

Sienna is present.

Sienna is overjoyed to see Blake alive and well.

Blake is happy to see ‘aunty’ Sienna but is apprehensive to talk that much with Sun glaring at them both.

Ilia is there (as head of local White Fang cell) and is happy to see her old friend is alive.

She already knew but has to keep up appearances, especially after The White Fang was seen at Beacon.

Very poor publicity to be seen operating at a place like that.

Ilia had been reassigned to Menagerie before the fall happened so she’s not guilty of taking part.

Later has small meeting with Blake, Sienna, Ilia, Sun, Ghira, and Kali.

Sienna tries (again) to bring Ghira into the White Fang.

His joining would bring all of Menagerie and the connected resources into the conflict.

This is opposed by everyone else present barring Ilia.

Ghira says that he has washed his hands of the problems in Atlas and has local stuff that he believes is more important in the long run.

Supporting Wild Call is how he helps the rest of his people.

Kali’s been running Wild Call since Ghira stepped away to run Menagerie.

Sienna talks about how faunus are treated in certain parts of the world.

It really is nowhere near as bad as she says it is.

Blake brings up terrorist acts in places completely innocent of any faunus abuse.

Sienna ‘condemns’ these acts and blames them on ‘bad apples’ like Adam, citing the fall of Beacon.

Says that Adam was acting alone and without official endorsement.

She’s lying through her fucking teeth, but the only other one who knows that for sure is Ilia.

While taking part in the fall was technically unsanctioned, Sienna knows all about Salem and was okaying Adam’s efforts working with her.

Ilia suddenly feels very guilty for some odd reason.

Ghira is very confused, doesn’t keep up too much with world affairs, generally too busy.

Blake rounds on Sienna for trying to shift the blame to Adam, cites all of the bullshit attacks she was involved in, letting it be known that she herself was in the White Fang.

Ghira and Kali both become enraged at Sienna, who told them that Blake was killed years ago at a protest gone south.

Sienna tries to make excuses for the cause.

Is escorted with Ilia from the palace at gun point.

Kali and Blake reconnect as Ghira has a sit down with Sun, telling him to tell him everything he knows.

Weiss is stowed away on airship bound for Vacuo/Mistral (doesn’t really matter which, ship gets taken down either way).

Ship gets attacked by grimm and gets splashed.

Weiss makes it to shore and travels southward, realizing that maybe she should have planned this a little more than not at all.

Wonder who she picked that up from.

Ends up surrounded by bandits who see the pretty girl from Atlas who might just be worth a lot of cash.

Weiss kicks the shit out of them.

Raven shows up.

Weiss loses.

Yang decides enough of her sulking and gets ready to set off to find Ruby and either 1. Bring her home 2. Look after her and keep her safe on her personal quest 3. Kick her ass for running off and making everyone worried 4. Some combination of the above. (Maybe hit up where Raven’s map leads along the way if she gets the chance)

Tai acknowledges that he can’t always protect his girls.

Tells Yang to not be too hard on Ruby, realizing that she would never have been happy with a calm, sheltered, life.

Summer was the same way.

He also apologizes for neglecting Yang for as long as he did.

Yang gets a hug from Tai, a salute from Ironwood, and a slobbering from Zwei.

Yes, the dog is still here. He’s a good dog. Every story could use a good dog or twelve.

Gets to the continent that Mistral is on. (I do not care about the name)

Starts biking in the direction that the conflict zones are, hoping to find word about Ruby along the way.

Gets accosted by bandits along the way.

Kicks the crap out of them.

Raven shows up saying that she expected nothing less from her daughter.

Yang realizes that she is indeed around where the map was pointing her.

This was supposed to be a test to see if Yang was resourceful enough to track her down.

Didn’t really mean to come this way just yet, but sometimes things just work out that way.

Raven happily takes her daughter to the main camp.

Yang is apprehensive to get comfortable and seems a little disappointed that her mother is just some asshole bandit.

Raven gives her a speech all about survival of the fittest and might makes right and all that jazz.

Yang wants to know why she left her in the first place and why she is suddenly wanting to be back in her life after all this time.

She’s got a lot of questions and Raven has very few answers.

Raven avoids Yang’s questions and says that she’s always been watching her from behind the scenes.

Yang actually dislikes that even more because it means that she could have been there for her the whole time, yet wasn’t.

Raven continues by saying that if Yang’s so weak that she couldn’t beat a pissant like Neo then she really needs mama to teach her what’s what.

Offers Yang a position in the tribe and even offers to make her second in command.

Yang then sees Weiss in a cage.

Raven explains that she’s going to be given to Salem to use as a hostage in Atlas.

Yang had already given up on getting answers and was already going to tell Raven to eat shit but now...

Demolishes the camp, takes Weiss away on the bike, and leaves the trinket Raven gave her in the dirt.

Would have taken the time to kick the shit out of Raven, but she needed to get Weiss out of there.

Raven is livid.

In Menagerie, Ghira and Kali have very upfront conversation with Blake.

They are upset with her that she ran off with terrorists but are happy she’s alive.

They also admonish her for running/taking the easy way out of every problem she’s had.

Blake is exasperated that the last place she could run off to is calling her out for running off so much.

Adam is all like ‘what up bitches, imma kill ya’.

Has sizable team of White Fang commandos with him and some grimm Salem sent.

Ilia shows up with her own commandos to counter his.

Both sides duke it out with the Belladonnas (Nightshades technically) getting pissed and telling all of them to get off their lawn.

Blake fights Adam.

Starts losing.

Sun calls SSN in for the assist.

They help but not all that much.

Sienna shows up to break the stalemate.

Starts kicking the shit out of Adam’s posse.

Officially denounces and attaints Adam for his crimes.

Adam leaves and swears vengeance, telling Blake that if he can’t kill her, he’ll kill RWY and make sure they know it was her that sent him to them.

Blake finally learns her fucking lesson.

Start to pack up to stop Adam before he kills RWY and, either afterwards or in the process, find and reconcile with RWY.

Takes the time to actually explain why she’s leaving this time.

Ghira understands.

Sienna takes partial blame and offers Blake the last known location of a red hooded huntress with a big fucking scythe her spies found.

Blake thanks her, but refuses an escort, hitching a ride back to the mainland with SSSN.

Ghira and Kali thank Sienna for the help but still tell her to get the fuck out and that the White Fang and their war are both not welcome in Menagerie.

In the name of their past friendship, they don’t just shoot her.

Blake has parting conversation with Sun about justifications and personal growth.

She and Sun amicably part ways.

SSSN go back to their usual shit and Blake starts hunting for Ruby.

Her logic is that, as far as she knows, Weiss is surrounded with SDC security and Yang is probably somewhere safe-ish, while Ruby is actively in a dangerous locale and ripe for predation.

Speaking of…

Ruby and JNR are clearing out local grimm around Mistral as expected.

Include sad scene or two there they find the ruins of Nora’s home village, destroyed by bandits.

Tyrian is all like ‘what up bitches, imma kill ya’.

Ruby is actually very eager for a fight against one of the important bad guys.

That excitement is curbed when Tyrian lets her know that he was the one to kill Summer.

Ruby is now more scared than anything.

R+JNR fight him and get their asses handed to them.

They try running but Tyrian isn’t giving up the chase.

Turns into cat and mouse game.

Jaune is pushed to his tactical limit against an incredibly intelligent and just as unpredictable enemy.

Everyone is scared out of their minds.

The cat (Tyrian) is just playing with his food (R+JNR) at this point.

Could have killed them at any point but he’s a sadistic animal that gets off on this shit.

Nora flies into a fury, bellowing that she will never lose anyone close to her ever again.

This creates an opening in Tyrian’s style.

Jaune’s planning manages to exploit this enough so Ruby gets a good hit on him, severing his tail.

He is very unhappy at this development.

Decides that he’s done playing with his food.

Wrecks R+JNR.

About to kill Ruby when Qrow ex machina runs him off.

Jaune discovers his semblance is healing and uses it on everyone that needs it. Which is everyone.

Qrow is annoyed that Ruby ran off on her own but understands.

Says that there’s an abandoned chateau that can serve as a pit-stop.

Been in the Branwen family for ages.

They abandoned it after they lost their fortune and it got overrun with grimm in the past.

Grimm have since moved on but the building is still there.

He’ll explain everything he can when he knows they’re out of danger.

Raven contacts Salem and tells her which direction Yang and Weiss are going.

Salem barely cares about what one of her least important agents is up to.

Notices that Ruby is in the same area and gets wind that Tyrian failed.

Sends Cinder and company to meet up with Raven and get hunting.

Salem makes a point of ordering Cinder to let Tyrian take on Ruby and not get involved against her.

Cinder just happens to ignore that order.

Blake does a little extra tracking but heads in the right direction.

Yang and Weiss hear about a red hooded huntress with a big scythe and follow the rumors.

Everyone converges at the chateau at the same time.

It’s a very all over the place scene.

Ruby is happy to see Weiss and Blake but is a little wary of Yang after how their last conversation went.

Yang is eager to make things up with Ruby but more than a little scornful of Blake.

Blake is scared of everyone’s rejection but understands their anger and is more than willing to work through it if they’d have her.

Weiss is happy to see everyone but her happiness and excitement is curbed by how everyone else is reacting to each other.

The tension explodes when Cinder and co. arrive.

Ruby and Cinder lock eyes.

Ruby goes quiet for a moment-

And then goes completely Broly BERSERK!

Group of boss fights.

Ruby madly charges Cinder in a rage.

JNR, Qrow, and Weiss begin fighting Emerald, Mercury, Tyrian, and grimm they brought.

Blake fights Adam. (again)

Yang fights Raven, constantly calling her on her shit.

Abandoning her and Tai to be some asshole bandit, siding with Salem, being a coward, et cetera.

Says that she has figured out that the reason Raven left was because she’s just a chicken shit coward who can’t deal with the world.

All of her issues and traumas have manifested into a sort of nirvana of wrath that gives her a one-time, ‘fuck you, mom’, power up that puts her at Raven’s power tier level.

Ruby vs Cinder takes them away from the others.

Ruby is in berserk, adrenaline filled, wrath fueled, fugue state, taking hits that should be stopping the fight but aren’t.

Cinder is also not fighting at her best due to A. missing eye, B. her grimm arm having a built in weakness to Ruby, and C. the fact that she had no idea that Ruby would go fucking mental like this.

Ruby eventually knocks Cinder down a pit and promptly passes out from blood loss.

Blake beats Adam and tells him to fuck off, saying that she will not stoop to his level of murder.

Yang overpowers and beats Raven, but barely.

JNR is busy with the grimm and Qrow is busy with Tyrian, who has a freaky grimm tail now.

Weiss is fighting both Emerald and Mercury.

Is losing pretty hard.

Yang shows up to fight Mercury.

WY have their first proper rival fights against E+M.

And proceed to lose.

Raven has heel-face turn and bails them out.

Tyrian is killed at the same time. Small justice for Summer.

Qrow reunites with Raven.

The Branwen siblings intimidate E+M, faking not being fuckoff exhausted.

Dare they stand against this deadly alliance?

Nope.

Emerald and Mercury cheese it.

Raven explains that since Yang beat her, Yang is now in charge of the bandits.

Raven says how proud she is that her daughter is such an ass kicker.

Yang is about to tell her off but then realizes that Ruby is still gone.

They find her in a widening pool of her own blood.

Jaune heals her.

Everyone wonder just what the fuck that was that Ruby did.

It’s not its own power or a sub-power of her new semblance.

She was just that fucking angry at seeing Cinder.

RWBY has a big ‘we beat the middle to high tier bad guys’ group hug.

Ruby affirms that she senses that Cinder is still alive but accepts the hug anyway.

Raven says that Salem’s next target is Mistral itself with Adam’s White Fang hardliners.

Yang says thanks for the info and then tells her to do what she does best and fuck off.

Literally everyone mirrors the sentiment.

Raven leaves in a huff but starts to question her morals.

RWBY is now reunited as a team.

They’re not quite back to normal, but they’re all together again.

Reunited RWBY, JNR, and Qrow now on course to Mistral proper to recoup and make new plans.

Season four done.

#RWBY #does this count as rwde?#Ruby Rose #Weiss Schnee #Blake Belladonna #Yang Xiao Long #Taiyang Xiao Long #Raven Branwen #Cinder Fall #Tyrian Callows #Salem #Team JNPR #but without the P #I regret nothing #Qrow Branwen #How I would do...

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rwbyremnants · 4 years

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Here you go! Might be a minute before this fic continues, but I will try to make it not TOO long. In the meantime I hope you guys are enjoying Lady Stardust!

=Chapter 16

Life was good for the next few days. Though Weiss hated having to sneak around town the way she did, at least it meant she could be with Yang. They spent every available moment with their lips locked together, hands sliding up and down lightly-sweating backs. Maybe they never found a good time to go any further than they had thus far, but she wasn’t overly concerned; they had all the time in the world.

Despite the allure of the depot’s solitude, it was also slightly dangerous due to the neighbourhood, and getting increasingly chilly. This was the reason the most recent of their “dates” occurred somewhere a little unconventional for the besotted couple.

“Great chicken, Mrs. B,” Yang said around a mouthful as Kali returned from the kitchen for the eighth time.

“Thank you,” she sighed with a weary smile as she sat at last. “Sorry for running in and out, girls. I’m just trying to make sure the cassata doesn’t burn.”

Blake shrugged in a weary manner. “You know I could go look for you. Stop being a martyr.”

“I’m not a martyr,” she said in an overly-affected tone. “I’m just a housewife without a husband. Doomed to wander this earth alone!”

Weiss had just been rolling her eyes. Then she felt the tip of a shoe prod her under the table; it was coming from Blake. She hissed, “What?”

“This is your line.”

“Huh?”

“Mom’s ‘alone forever’, and you’re supposed to rescue her,” she said, though she was looking at her mother the whole while instead of Weiss. “Isn’t that right?”

“It was supposed to be a soliloquy,” she cackled as she stirred the chicken and pasta around on her plate, preparing to scoop some up.

“Oh, Kali!” Weiss said, pressing both hands to her heart. The elbow movement made Yang duck out of the way instinctively, even though it would have missed. “I cannot bear to hear of your loneliness! Say it isn’t so!”

They all clapped, and Weiss waved at them to leave her alone. Then Blake said, “You oughtta join the drama club. Maybe you could play Emily in ‘Our Town’.”

Swallowing her current bite, Yang put in, “I heard they’re gonna put on ‘Oklahoma!’ next year. Might not happen until we already graduated, though.”

“You really think so?” Weiss said with a wider smile. “You know, I’ve always thought I could be very dramatic…”

“No kidding.” At the tone, she frowned at Yang and sat down quickly. “I’m just kidding, Weiss! Wow, didn’t think it would rattle your cage that much.”

“If I’m so dramatic, why are you with me? Hm?”

“Because the drama is exciting.” They leaned closer and closer, Yang grinning wolfishly, Weiss frowning as deeply as she could be - even though the frown was quivering with her efforts not to burst out laughing. In the end, she lost, and they giggled before going back to their food.

Blake sighed. “I know this is dinner, but I’m about to lose my lunch.”

“Sorry,” Yang laughed. Weiss glanced at her with slightly more concern, due to the private information to which only she was privy, but Blake didn’t meet her eyes. “We’ll keep it a little less friendly.”

“Don’t on our account,” Kali chuckled, dabbing at the corners of her mouth with her napkin. “I’ve seen it all before - and done most of it myself.”

“Mom!” Blake hissed.

“What? Your dear old mother’s supposed to act like she’s dead now?” Even as Blake was rolling her eyes, she pushed up from the table. “Be right back.”

“Again?” Yang asked. “C’mon, sit down. Let it go a little longer.”

“Not if we want dessert! This time, I’m sure it’s ready to come out - and then I have to do the icing. This is my fault for not getting it done earlier when I knew I should have…”

As she left, Weiss was glancing between her and her daughter. Blake had been a little sullen ever since they got there. Before that, she had been doing quite well with the situation all week; cracking jokes the same as anyone else during the few moments she dared stop by their table. It was infuriating, having to keep from talking to them in the hallways lest her annoyance of a brother take it upon himself to report back what he had seen, but this was the situation in which they found themselves. All they could do was make the best of it - and keep her jacket in Pyrrha’s car trunk.

But now, she had to do something for her other friend. Standing quickly, she said, “Let me help you with that icing!”

A little late, she realised Blake was doing the same thing. “Oh… uh, why?”

“Don’t worry about that!” Kali said with a genuine smile. “You’re guests! Why would I ask that of you?”

“Well… I want to help! Might be fun!” That sounded like a pathetic excuse, even to her own ears, but it was too late. “You get started, I just have to ask Yang something.”

As Kali shrugged and went through the door, Weiss waited impatiently for Yang to stop blinking at her and get up. In a whisper, she ordered her, “Talk to Blake.”

“What? I mean, I have been. What do you mean?”

“She’s feeling…” There was no way she could divulge the whole truth, since that would be a breach of Blake’s trust, so she had to compromise. “I think she’s been a little lonely. You’re best friends, aren’t you? But you’re spending so much time with me that I think she’s feeling left out. So just… try, while I’m helping her mom?”

Yang had started to glance over her shoulder at Blake, but caught herself just in time before she made it obvious that was what they were talking about. “Oh. I mean… you really think so? Wow… chee, I never thought- I’m a real butthead.”

“You’re not. I think we’re allowed to be real gone for the first week after confessing our undying affections.”

“Yeah,” she said with a shy grin, and Weiss grinned back. She leaned forward and left a peck on her cheek. “Go on, I’ll see what I can do.”

Weiss returned the cheek-kiss herself, then passed through into the kitchen. She just barely caught Yang going, “Eyyyy, so…” before the door swung shut and she couldn’t hear the rest.

Presently, Mrs. Belladonna was just setting the cake on top of her cooling rack, which was perched on the stovetop range. Luckily, she was clothed this time - in a black halterneck dress with white polka dots, high-heeled pumps to match, and gold earrings and pearls to accent. Really, she looked phenomenal, even if most housewives certainly wouldn’t wear something so light and flirty for a simple dinner at home.

“How can I help?”

“By going back in and talking to your friends,” she said pointedly, shooting a brief smile over her shoulder. “Honestly, I don’t know why you want to be in here when you’re our guest.”

Trying to come up with an excuse that didn’t involve admitting that she thought Blake needed more time with her girlfriend, strange as that would sound, she said, “Because! Um… obviously, I didn’t do as well in Home Ec as my friends did, and… and I would love to watch a master at work! Yes!”

The woman’s amber eyes - a hereditary trait, apparently - narrowed at her for a long moment. Then she said, “Sugar.”

“What? Hey, I’m being serious!”

“You’re sweet, but you aren’t sugar,” she snorted, gesturing to the counter behind her. Embarrassed, Weiss picked up the large jar. “I need five tablespoons in this bowl. I’ll get the orange liqueur and the ricotta.”

In short order, the two managed to make the “sciroppo di zucchero”, as Kali called it; it looked like syrup to Weiss. Then they set that aside and moved on to the frosting, which was made up of a fresh-squeezed lemon and confectioners sugar - the latter of which got everywhere because Weiss thought it would pour the same way as regular sugar. Kali laughed for quite a while, even as she got a wet dishcloth to wipe down her grumpy face.

“This is ridiculous!” she groused, arms folded over her chest. “I thought I knew how to bake, at least a little, and I’m making a mess!”

“It’s not that bad, signorina,” she tittered. Weiss tried to pretend having the older woman dote on her didn’t evoke two very different kind of feelings at the same time; an odd fluttering of excitement, and a dull ache of loss due to her own mother not being part of her life in that way. But there was no sense in putting either of those on Kali. “There, all clean. Now, we start building.”

As Weiss returned the cloth to the sink for her, she asked, “Building what?”

“The cake. Here, watch.”

Not that there was much to watch. Kali was so practiced that all she had to do was take a knife, hold the cake in the middle, and take one horizontal swipe so that it turned into two thinner cakes. First try! Weiss knew that no matter how much work she put into it, she would never be that effortless in the kitchen.

“Now pour the syrup onto the bottom layer,” she instructed. “Evenly as you can. This is what I always let Blake do, because you can’t really ‘hurt’ the cake during this part.”

“Thanks for your vote of confidence,” she grunted, and Kali laughed again. But Weiss had to admit, it felt good to be able to help without fear of ruining the whole confection. Once the syrup was drizzled on, Kali added a layer of ricotta, then they repeated both actions with the second layer once it was placed upon its mate.

“There. Now we just let this chill for about an hour.”

“Good.” She watched as she slid it into the refrigerator, then eased it shut. “So… what now?”

“Put a towel over the icing. And hand me that small Tupperware of candied fruits.” Weiss obeyed on both counts while Kali wiped down the counter quickly, ridding it of the rest of her confectioners mess. “Those will be ready to go once it’s chilled. Though sometimes, you’ll have to add a little water to get the right consistency.”

“Wow, there’s so much to remember,” she half-laughed, and Kali grinned at her. “I don’t remember the cakes in class being anything this complicated.”

Her index finger raised for emphasis. “Ahhh, but they weren’t Italian cakes. We pride ourselves on making everything far more complex than needed.” They both shared a little giggle. “Take my daughter out there. She really got herself in a pickle, didn’t she?”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“Letting you slide in and steal the woman she had her heart set on.” When Weiss looked shocked, she held up a hand to forestall her. “No, it’s alright. It’s Blake’s fault, not yours. You did what came naturally when you felt an attraction to Yang.”

“You knew she liked her? And… and you didn’t try to stop me?”

Shrugging her shoulders, she went back to wiping down the counter, even though it was nearly spotless. “Should I have? I think you two really suit each other. And my Blake and Yang could have suited each other, but if they were meant to be, it would have come to pass. One of them would have made a move to close that gap between them. Alas, no such thing happened - and I don’t even think it’s my daughter who’s to blame. I believe fate plays a larger role in love than we foolish mortals like to believe it does.”

“Fate, huh?” she sighed, leaning back against the stove. It was still a little warm, but not bad enough to burn her by now. “Wish I could believe that. Instead, I feel like… like I stole her. Exactly how you put it.”

“Ohhh, honey.” Kali walked over to hold her shoulders bracingly. “You can’t steal anything that isn’t a possession. Yang is her own woman. The same way if I tried to turn your head, I wouldn’t be ‘stealing’ you, and if Blake finally made her move, she wouldn’t be ‘stealing’ Yang. You and Yang are the ones who have chosen to be together, and that is the choice that matters most. Really, it’s the only one that does.”

For a second or two, she took that in, letting out a couple of sighs as Kali pet up and down one of her shoulders. Then she smiled up at her. “Thanks, Mrs. Belladonna. Or… Kali, sorry.”

“Better. Or ‘Kali-carina’, if you want.”

“Oh, is that your middle name?” A shake of her head. “Maiden name?”

“It means ‘Cute little Kali’,” she purred in a seductive voice. But by now, Weiss was just barely able to tell that she was teasing, even if her teasing was slicker than that of the younger Dragons.

“Ha, ha.”

Her smirk was still coy, but at least she stood back a little further. “Wow, you really are growing up. It makes me want to chase you around the kitchen even more.”

“Stop that!” she laughed, and Kali brought up her manicured nails to form scary wolf-claws. “Hey!”

“Something more delicious than my cassata has wandered into this kitchen! I… I can’t control myself!” She pounced, but the move was so telegraphed that Weiss could easily dance to the side, giggling even louder.

“Enough! I’ll put you out with the fire extinguisher!”

“Hold still so I can catch you, little mouse!” This time, when Weiss scampered away, she didn’t follow, merely laughing and holding her stomach. It took a moment or two for her to recover enough to groan, “Ohhh… oh, that’s too much fun! I haven’t laughed like that in a long time.”

Wiping her eyes, Weiss returned to stand near the counter, still braced to run if she needed to. “Don’t you and Blake play around like that at all?”

“Oh, no. Well, we used to, but I’m afraid she’s a bit too old to want to ‘play with Mama’ anymore.” Her eyes turned bittersweet, but she looked contented with the way things turned out. “Such a big girl now, I almost can’t believe it. Feels like someone stole my baby and replaced her with an adult.”

Weiss’s heart went out to her. “Well, I’m not too old.”

“I daresay you aren’t. Since… you had a significant portion of your life with no mother?” When Weiss only blinked in surprise, she shrugged. “You don’t have to explain. Though last I checked, Jacques Schnee is not a widower.”

As briefly as she could, Weiss explained, “They aren’t happy. And Mother drinks to pretend she is. The mornings, before she’s had her first drink… she’s the most miserable person I’ve ever known. And the rest of the day, she’s a stranger.”

“Ohhhhh,” she breathed in a voice of such real disappointment and sympathy that Weiss had to turn away from her completely. She didn’t want to be pitied, didn’t want to see that in someone’s eyes when they looked at her. She didn’t want to think about just how awful her home situation was for any longer than necessary, nor be reminded of it by unwelcome pandering. “I am sorry.”

“I am, too. So let’s not worry about that, since there’s nothing we can do.”

“Agreed.” Though Kali still looked a bit shaken by the revelation, she forced a smile onto her face as she gently took Weiss’s elbow. “I think I took you away from the last of your dinner, so… so let’s go polish that off while we wait for the cake to chill.”

As Kali's arm fell around Weiss's shoulders, she found herself leaning into the comforting presence. Probably because of their most recent topic of discussion. As usual, the woman seemed to know when teasing would not be ideal, so she definitely did nothing of that nature as they paced out into the dining room.

Only to find it empty. Of course, the table and their leftover meals were still there, but Yang and Blake were nowhere to be seen. They only had time to glance at each other before they heard a distant voice from upstairs.

“Oh, did we lose them?” Kali muttered as she headed for the stairs, pausing to listen. Weiss bumped into her from behind, having expected her to keep going. “Oh!”

“Ah, sorry!”

“It’s alright.” She was already cupping a hand around her ear, tilting her head. After a moment, she sighed, “Well, it doesn’t sound like ‘fun noises’, so shall we go see what we’re missing?”

About halfway up the stairs, Weiss finally figured out what she meant by ‘fun noises’ and nearly tripped.

Once heading down the hallway, she heard more clearly that Yang was speaking. They were just getting close enough when she caught, “...so we can have a normal conversation?” The response was muffled. “Well, we can’t do it this way, you germ-head!”

“What’s all this about?” Kali asked softly.

“Oh, your brat is being a… a brat!”

“Care to elaborate?”

“I am not!” Blake shouted through the wood of her bedroom door. Which at least cleared up why Yang sounded so frustrated.

“She’s mad because she figured out Weiss asked me to talk to her,” Yang sighed. “And maybe it’s not a problem anyway!”

“Shut up!”

Pushing her hand into her face for a moment, Kali muttered, “Perfect. Creating problems where they didn’t exist before.” Smiling sweetly at the two girls she could actually see at the moment, she asked, “Do you mind going back down to finish your supper? I’ll see what I can do with my daughter.”

Something about the sweet smile felt a little ominous to Weiss. Based on that, she caught Yang by the elbow and dragged her back downstairs.

“Sorry,” she sighed wearily. “I didn’t mean for her to figure it out. I just ran out of stuff to talk about, and she guessed. What was I supposed to say? I didn’t wanna lie, but then she got even madder when-”

“It’s okay,” Weiss headed her off, petting up and down her shoulders. “Really. Just… c’mere.” Leaning up, she kissed her cheek. “Thank you for trying. And I bet Blake will appreciate it later, when she’s feeling less…”

When Weiss never finished her thought, she glanced up toward the ceiling. “Less like a bitch?”

“Less betrayed. She probably feels like we had some big plan we discussed before we got here, and she was in the dark. Hard to blame her.” With a put-upon sigh, she turned back to the table. “Well, I guess we should eat, since it’s what Kali told us to do.”

“And you always do what you’re told, huh, good little girl?” But Yang sat down, anyway.

They barely had time to finish off their meal before a yelp came from the ceiling, followed by steps on their way down the stairs. Not long afterward, the Belladonnas returned, and one of them was being pulled along by the shell of her ear - and it definitely wasn’t the mother.

“Ow, ow, ow!”

“Apologise to your friends right now. For what you said, and for your behaviour.”

Though Blake looked quite sullen, she also looked so embarrassed that Weiss had a hard time watching her at all. “Alright! I’m sorry!”

“For what?”

“For-” Annoyed beyond her limits, she pushed the hand off, and Kali took a step back so Blake could apologise on her own terms. Still looking at the floor, she went on, “For getting too upset about nothing. You were trying to be nice, and I lost my head.”

“You got jealous,” Kali corrected.

“Jealous?” When glancing between them yielded no answers, Yang asked, “Jealous of what, me? If you want Weiss that bad, you can have her.”

“HEY!” Weiss yelped immediately. “I’m not a bargaining chip!”

After a moment of tense silence, Yang trying to find a way to gracefully backpedal from a joke gone wrong, Blake sighed. “No, not that. It’s just… you spend so much time together now, and sometimes it feels like I never see you anymore. Stupid, I know. But I can’t help it.”

“That’s what Weiss told me. And I’m sorry,” she went on before Blake could snap something unkind at the princess. “It’s my fault, okay? My fault for… kind of ignoring you, even if it wasn’t on purpose. You know that, right? I’m just figuring out how me and Weiss fit together, that’s all. But you’re always gonna be my right-hand chick. You know that.”

“Really?” Blake whispered. “Even… when you two are married and living together?”

“Like we could do that,” Weiss scoffed. “Marriage is for straighties. But… yes, even when we’re old and gray, we’ll still be your friends. I hope, anyway.”

It only took her a minute or so to think through her feelings, sigh in defeat, and walk forward to give Yang a quick, “manly” hug that mostly consisted of a few quick pats on the back before they stepped away from each other again.

“Glad that’s settled,” Kali sighed. “Now, I need to borrow one of you again to frost this cake. Weiss, would you like to volunteer? Or would you, Blake?”

“No way,” she grunted, still rubbing her ear. “I don’t want to be within an arm’s length of you for the rest of the night.”

Laughing merrily again, she gestured for Weiss to join her. Once they were in the kitchen, she could hear the conversation start up again, but decided to get back to work on the cake before she caught any words. After all, as she was fast coming to understand, some things just weren’t her business.

#princess and the dragons #freezerburn fanfic #rwby fanfiction #1950s au #rwbyremnants

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ohmama2012 · 5 years

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My Eulogy for Dad

This is the eulogy I read for my dad at his memorial service on April 28, 2019 at the Riverside Memorial Chapel in NYC. He passed away on April 2. I have revised a few things to correct typos and reflect what I actually said in the room, to the best of my recollection. I wrote this with a desire to let everyone in the room know who he was as a father, a side of him only I had the luck to know. It was my good friend Christopher Piatt, the only person I shared my draft with, who noticed the “stage manager” through line and advised me to add a few more theater anecdotes. I am indebted to him for the line about dad being a consummate stage manager at the center of our lives -- not just because it made a good line in the speech, but because it’s true and it helped me to see that. - Ali, 5/3/19

According to family legend, one of my father's earliest memories of me, and one of his latest memories of his father, was the look of abject horror on my grandfather's face as I tangoed around the living room as a toddler, singing “I’d be Surprisingly Good For You” from Evita. In the song, little Eva propositions Juan Peron with something more than just a “frantic tumble and a shy goodbye.”

I grew up with the theater. And not just because I'll always think of my dad singing “Bobby Bubby Bobby” as he pulled out Company album on vinyl to place on the turntable.

I should add that’s rare form -- my dad didn’t much like singing along to the many musicals he so adored. He did sing me “Doh a Dear” as a lullabye, and I sang it to him repeatedly in his final days, but by and large he would say: “Lyrics are your mother’s department."

They made such a good theater pair. He designed the shows, she remembered the names and dates, and they both equally treasured the adventures. Their love of musicals shone through in their parenting. My mother likes to say that if Patti LuPone had had better diction, a young Alison Weiss would have never picked up the Evita libretto and learned to read.

If I learned my ABC’s from Evita, I learned my LBJs, IRTs, and LSDs -- and several latin words -- from the other great musical that I forever associate with my father. He got his start on Broadway stage managing Hair. He was not a hippie, but he was a great enabler, calling cues in a haze of pre-show puffs and taking the show on the road through the USA amidst a backdrop of the Vietnam era. He taught me so much history through his stories about working on Hair.

But beyond the love of theater by association, my dad gave me the unique privilege of growing up as the child of a designer. As a baby, I crinkled canary paper at his drafting table. As a tot, I cut out collages from Rosco gel samples. As a kid, I made origami from extra Playbill inserts, hanging out in the box seats of a Broadway house during tech week.

He taught me a true love of New York. Once he sent me a postcard from LA, on which he wrote 3 words: “Sun & Sprouts!!!” He taught me that a city is the only place where you can just walk and run into people.

Once I ran into him on the street In New York, randomly, on 11th Avenue in midtown, on a summer day, as I walked south and he walked north. I was in my 20s and, naturally, upset about something. I saw him and hugged him and started to cry, and he took me out for lunch and told me everything I needed to know to feel better. He'd been coming from some theater-related errand or meeting. He used to walk everywhere. He would probably have walked all the way home to 83rd street had it not been for our meeting. And he walked FAST.

My dad liked to relax, but he had no patience for dilly-dallying. Always on a mission, he would run like lightening for a train that he could easily catch walking, leave 6 hours early for a flight, dash through the streets of a city on vacation rather than waste time strolling. Once, on the streets of Amsterdam on vacation, we repeatedly asked him to please slow down. There was no rush. The 75th time we nagged him with this request he snapped, "If I were walking any slower I'd be walking backwards on my hands!"

His dogged sense of time management was matched by his consistent desire to help. He was always reaching out to help with whatever I was doing, whether or not the help was needed. Often in response to this gesture I’d say: "Dad! I've got it!" But he never stopped trying to lift the box, carry the bag, hold the door, adjust the project, or move the stack of papers somewhere better where it wouldn't get lost.

Here is an incomplete list of things my dad taught me, in no particular order, either by example or by a lifetime of consistent reminders or some combination of the two.

Quack like a duck.

Thumb wrestle.

Properly hammer a nail. Use a level. Make pilot holes with an awl. Patch and sand walls.

See a need, fill a need.

The golden rule.

Warm tones make the colors around them look cool. Cool tones make the colors around them look warm.

Snakes are not smart.

You know rice is done when you see little craters appear on the top.

Never feign disinterest.

Never feign interest.

Put something on your feet.

You cannot be warm without a hat.

When driving on a curvy road at night, save time by changing lanes so as to stay on the inside of the curve. He called this: "Using Pi."

France had no problem letting Hitler take all the Jews.

You should be able to go all the way up Amsterdam Avenue without stopping if you just slow down and drive with the green lights.* There is nothing like a good stage manager.

This last one rings so true. He valued efficiency -- CALM efficiency, even in the midst of chaos and absurdity. (And I certainly gave him my share of chaos!)

He loved anybody who was good at their job, no matter the job. He valued confidence and imagination. He blended the science of getting things done well with the art of, well, the things he got done. He got art done. He made his living making art, and he worked his butt off and gave me a great life and I sometimes need to stop and smack myself to remember how brave that was.

My dad was brave, he did great things, and through it all it could be said that mother and I had in my father a consummate stage manager at the center of our world.

But back to quacking like a duck. This was his signature sound effect and it's what sealed his status as the family duck. I feel like it's my obligation to demonstrate his quack. [Quack] Fortunately for his grandchildren, when Aphasia took much of his speech, it never took his quack.

There was another sound effect I'm afraid I cannot replicate and that is his water drop. He tried to teach me. It's the perfectly-time combination of a swift blow out the mouth and a tap on the cheek. It made and echoing "bloop" sound that I can best describe off the top of my head as the VH1 pop-up video sound.

But back to his voice. My dad had a voice that smiled. "Hi Ali, it's your dad," began every voicemail. "Helllo!!!" began every visit. He delivered dry quips, delighted in awful puns, had the sickest sense of humor. He earned the silence of a room any time he paused to choose his next words. He spoke with the perfect grammar of a gentleman, and he greatly preferred storytelling to small talk. As someone who cherished long stretches of focus and reading without distraction, he often spoke in the hoarse, breathy tones of a person who, perhaps, had not spoken out loud in several hours.

One of his most oft-used adjectives later in life was fabulous. "Just fabulous," he'd say, of everything from Derek Jeter to Opera to something cute my kids did. It was this funny, slightly out-of-character word for his generation and it became his highest stamp of approval.

My dad also dropped F-bombs like the best of them. I admit to taking some glee in the fact that he lived to see my then 3-year-old son shout, in front of the entire family at Thanksgiving, "open-da-fucking-door!"

Everyone laughed. I looked at my dad. He looked at me. I said, "I will take the blame for this . . . but we all know where I got it." And Marc smiled sheepishly and nodded.

That look of recognition, of amusement, of understanding -- that sly, conspiratorial grin -- served as my lifelong homing beacon for all that is right and good. Even as his face began to take on the mask of what we can probably attribute to Parkinsonism, that glimmer of the old Marc would come through. He relished being a grandpa, and regaled the kids with quacks and faces and games even when his body was well past its airplane hoisting days, and his voice could no longer sell Sandra Boynton.

During the last birthday party for my kids he would attend, I subjected this frail man who enjoys peace and quiet to an afternoon at Chuck E. Cheese. I believe, at least, he enjoyed the cake. Frazzled at the end of the party, I stood at the ticket munching machines, which are, as you may know, these kiosks where you have to take your hundreds of loose strips of raffle-style tickets and feed them into a slot to redeem a voucher which you then take to a crowded counter to wait in line to buy plastic crap and candy. Dad likely had no idea about or interest in this nonsense system. At the time, I had asked someone to get him to the car and not worry about clean-up.

But as a big ball of loose Chuck E Cheese tickets fell from my hands to scatter all over the floor, and I stooped down to get them, there was dad's hand, from out of the crowd, with its tremor, struggling to pick up those tickets for me, because it was something he could do.

* * *

You never expect to stand in the ER watching through the window as they attempt to keep alive the center of your world. But as I watched the doctor who oversaw the action we could not see behind the curtain, the doctor who spoke so calmly yet so intently, saying things like "OK, we have a pulse" . . . "next time let's try this" . . . "remember, everyone, base-line state is non-verbal" . . . "can we bring down the noise level please" . . . "OK here's what I want to try on the next one" . . . "OK, does anybody have any ideas?" . . . as I stood watching this magician preside over what we would later learn was my father dying three times and being brought back to life, I turned to mother and said: "I hope Dad can hear this . . . because he would LOVE this guy."

I pictured my dad sitting at the table back home someday, fully-recovered, saying "that doctor who brought me back to life, he was JUST FABULOUS."

That doctor stage managed his final hours and gave him the gift of a peaceful and dignified goodbye. But it’s a brutally hard goodbye nonetheless.

I miss him exactly as he was in the end -- even had he not gotten "better," I would give anything to sit with him for years on end, to watch the glimmer in his eyes and the strength of his hand around mine stand in for the sound of his voice. But I also miss him as he was before the final years, and so did he.

"Dad, I miss you!" I said to him during one of our last phone calls. He said: "Oh, I miss me too." It wasn't self-pitying. It was witty and it was brave.

#fathersday

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ouraidengray4 · 5 years

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The Best Ingredients for DIY Skin Care (Plus Ones You Should Avoid)

How do we feel about science these days? On the one hand, most of us rational folks would like to say we believe in it, at least when it comes to engineering, the climate, space, and medicine. But when it comes to squishier things, like the stuff that we put on our faces, we tend to get a little bit suspicious. And then, some of us decide that, rather than trust our skin and hair to chemists mixing up unpronounceable ingredients, we'd rather look back to our witchy ancestors and make our own.

"You know exactly what's being put into them, so there's a huge advantage to making your own skin-care products," says dermatologist and RealSelf contributor Michele Green, M.D.

The thing is, sometimes the old wisdom is spot on, and sometimes it isn't. "A lot of those natural ingredients are so incredibly allergenic that my patients will frequently come in with insane allergic contact dermatitis," says Adarsh Vijay Mudgil, M.D.

Yikes. With those pros and cons in mind, we asked Green and Mudgil to help evaluate the ingredients that will help us on our way beautiful skin and hair, and the ones that we'd better just leave in the pantry.