#decent human fitness

[supersaiyanjedi14]

RWBY COMBAT ANALYSIS: MARIA CALAVERA, THE GRIMM REAPER

“It is the desire to preserve life which fuels the light inside you. And to make no mistake, it is light. Preservation is an extension of creation, or, at the very least, an enemy of destruction.”

This entry in the RWBY Combat Analysis will be a special detailing the capabilities of Maria Calavera…both of them.  Since Maria’s two on-screen fights are separated by a minimum of thirty years, I will be ranking Maria in her prime and Maria in the present as separate entities, with additional commentary on her development between then and now.  Therefore, while I will be referring to her by both her name and ops-moniker interchangeably, my evaluation of Maria in her prime will be officially labeled as the Grimm Reaper, as she has effectively ceased to be that figure by the time of the show.  Furthermore, the sections will be more condensed than usual for the sake of time, but I do hope I provided sufficient detail where needed.  With all that out of the way, let’s get started.

PHYSICAL

(Grimm Reaper)

A human female, Maria Calavera’s exact age when she was blinded by Tock has not been established, though based on her appearance, I would estimate her to be in her mid to late thirties.  Born into a lineage of Silver-Eyed Warriors, Maria lived a relatively isolated life due to her father’s caution about those with Silver Eyes being targeted and killed, unaware of Salem or her purges.  As a result, Maria did not attend an of the professional Huntsman Academies, instead relying on private tutoring and self-taught experience.  Despite her lack of formal education, she demonstrated an immaculate degree of natural talent, setting a record score on her licensing exam and coming into her own as a legendary though isolated Huntress that became known as the enigmatic Grimm Reaper.

Aside from her magical eyes, Maria was a conventional yet highly impressive specimen, standing at medium height and distinguished by her black hair, tanned skin, and athletic build.  In her physical performance, the Reaper demonstrated a balanced array of attributes, leveraging her dexterity through her skillful handling of twin scythes and her agility through nimble footwork and energetic acrobatics and flanking maneuvers.  She was agile enough to maintain a protracted midair battle with a Nevermore as well as keep Tock and her party in her crosshairs, all the while deflecting their gunfire and fencing evenly with Tock.  Though she was eventually overpowered by Tock’s ferocity, her ability to maintain her grip on the bucking Nevermore indicates that her strength was also respectable.  However, easily the Reaper’s most impressive trait was her exceptional tolerance for pain and injury.  Her battle with the Nevermore ended with her being violently stuck with the creature’s claws onto the rocky ground, yet she was unfazed when she petrified it with her Silver Eyes and went on to battle Tock’s party to a draw.  In that fight, she soaked up several heavy physical blows that broke her Aura surprisingly quickly, yet she remained composed and continued the fight without any noticeable toll on her performance.  The Reaper was only subdued when Tock staggered her with a headbutt and slashed out her eyes, reducing her to a blind, crawling wreck.  Despite screaming in agony, Maria focused through the pain and managed to pull a narrow victory by blindsiding Tock with one of her sickles.  This powerful ability to focus through pain highlights just how jarringly difficult it would be to realistically put this woman down.

Maria’s choice of wardrobe reflected her inconspicuous nature.  Instead of adopting armor, she wore a simple dark blue tunic and corset with cinched sleeves and a ankle-length combat skirt.  She completed the outfit with rugged boots, a hooded cloak, and her signature skull mask.  Despite providing no protection, her garb left her unencumbered and was practical in the field, supporting her more skill-based approach to combat.

RANKING: Tier 2, Peak Human Fitness

Despite a great lack of feats, the Grimm Reaper’s athleticism is still highly polished, demonstrating truly exceptional strength, speed and stamina comparable to other master-level huntsmen.  While none of her assailants were bested on the back of raw physicality, her success instead tied more to skill and power, she was still able to match all of them in the areas that counted, leveraging her attributes for maximum effect.  Furthermore, she proved to be extremely tough and did not go to pieces under strain, her ability to focus through even the most horrific of injuries serving as a testament to her will to fight.  She will not be beaten into submission; it’s a death blow or nothing.

(Maria Calavera)

Moving our attention to modern-day Maria, the now jaded former Reaper was an elderly recluse.  As a figure of urban legend during Qrow Branwen’s pre-Beacon days, she was likely in her early to mid seventies by the time of the Atlas Crisis.  Following her blinding, Maria underwent surgery with the aid of Dr. Pietro Polendina to replace her eyes with prosthetic replacements.  The goggle-like eyes were fitted with shuttering lenses that mimicked natural expressions, as well as including built-in computer equipment that allowed her to interface with data terminals.  However, Maria’s eyes required regular maintenance, and she had to make regular trips to Atlas to have them fine-tuned. M ore telling by far was her change in lifestyle, her humiliating defeat causing her to quietly withdraw from the Hunstman community and become even more isolated.  When she met Team RWBY abord the Argus Limited, she was a wandering hermit whose only meaningful interactions with people was her antagonistic relationship with Caroline Cordovin and her much warmer friendship with Polendina.

As far as Maria’s physical performance was concerned, her capabilities were severely undercut by her age, most clearly visible in her now white hair and hunched diminutive stature.  Her regular walking speed was little more than a trot, she needed a cane to maintain her general mobility, and she even admitted to moderate hearing loss.  Despite this, she was a vigorous old woman, more than able to manage her wandering life unassisted, and was still fit enough to acquit herself surprisingly well in combat.  Though old age had effectively killed her strength, her agility remained polished, able to keep pace with Neopolitan despite the latter’s youth.  To compensate for her limited mobility, she scaled back her use of acrobatics, coasting on momentum rather than actively propelling herself while evading attacks with quick sidesteps.  Her dexterity, while nothing to write home about, was still refined enough to let her fight with Neo and leverage her weapon’s functions with proficiency, notably performing precise binding techniques in close quarters.  However, while she was still quite tough, powering through both the Argus Limited crash and the escape from Brunswick farm, her age had reduced her to a glass cannon.  A few strikes from Neopolitan, a fighter with middling physical strength, was enough to overpower her at Amity, and while never directly stated, fatigue would undoubtedly be a major obstacle for her to overcome in any prolonged engagement.

Despite being retired, Maria’s dress remained largely consistent. Her color scheme remained the same, simply replacing the hooded cloak with a heavy shawl clasped with light pauldrons and covering her hands with rugged leather gloves.  Still lightweight and practical, though reflective of an old woman rather than an active warrior.

RANKING: Tier 5, Decent Human Fitness

Maria’s ability to fight and arguably beat Neo at Amity proves that she is a tough old bird, but her physical limitations are as obvious as she is snarky.  She’s decades past her prime, her short stature makes it harder for her to contend with people of average height, and her athletic performance, while still polished and strong, has atrophied over time.  Additionally, we have Maria’s physical disability to take into account.  Given the regular maintenance she requires her eyes, it’s reasonable to assume that the electronics are fragile and not designed for combat. If damaged or disabled, Maria is completely blind.  Maria’s still very capable and won’t burn out immediately, but she’s old and has her limits.

MARTIAL

(Grimm Reaper)

As the Grimm Reaper, Maria Calavera wielded a pair of enlarged kama sickles known as Life and Death.  The handles scaled to about half of Maria’s height and appeared to be composed of simple wooden staves.  The primary blade curved outward with a slight hooked tip while the secondary blades protruded from the back, with the pommels fitted with retractable spikes.  Each piece of weaponry was topped off with a blue skull ornament that protruded a semiautomatic gun barrel from the back, with the triggers situated under the teeth.  Additionally, the kamas could be connected at the pommels to form a two-sided scythe.  These weapons would go on to serve as an inspiration for Qrow Branwen’s Harbinger and, by extension, Ruby Rose’s Crescent Rose, a testament to the reputation of their wielder.

Due to her father’s insistence on keeping a low profile, Maria Calavera did not attend a formal combat school, instead relying on private tutoring and personal combat experience.  Despite this largely informal instruction, Maria’s father was a former soldier and a Silver Eyed Warrior in his own right, and his training produced results, demonstrated when Maria held the highest score on her Huntress licensing exam that year.  Battle-tested and experienced, the Grimm Reaper was unquestionably one of the most accomplished and skilled martial artists of her day, her feats garnering for herself a quasi-legendary reputation even after her disappearance.  Whether she was dual-wielding or with the conjoined scythe, the Reaper’s core fighting technique was aggressive yet fluid, favoring the use of sweeping slashes and powerful chops the quickly overwhelm her opponents.  Fast and agile, she would regularly contort her body and perform running charges to put her full weight behind her strikes, while quickly moving from one target to the next with blinding flanking maneuvers.  She adopted more grounded postures with the scythe-staff, using the increased length to keep her opponents at arm’s length while maintaining her center of balance.  When forced to defend, she utilized flourishing deflection parries to turn aside strikes, and when fighting with her scythe she relied on twirling blocks to endure attacks and wait for an opening.  She reinforced this heavy offensive style with integrated physical combat and gunfire, preferring hard kicks and sudden shots to blindside opponents, and the unique properties of her Gravity Dust and Semblance, using her weapons to help traverse the battlefield and predicting her opponents’ moves so she could more to intercept.

As a young Huntress, the Grimm Reaper was natural talent but prone to arrogant posturing, causing her to develop into a cocky and daring adventurer.  While not unintelligent, her tactical outlook was very straightforward, simply relying on direct heavy offense to overcome her opponents while freely showboating.  To be fair, she was extremely formidable, as what few feats we have for her speak to her well-earned reputation, though they also showcase her overconfidence.  When attacked by a Nevermore in the wilderness, she almost casually dodged its initial attack, stabbed it in the wing, and forcibly pulled it towards the rocky cliffs to make it kill itself.  However, this did not finish the job, and the Reaper was blindsided by the recovered bird, forcing her to quickly unleash her Silver Eyes to petrify it.  Immediately after this, she was confronted by a small band of mercenaries under the leadership of one of Salem’s agents, the Faunus assassin Tock.  In the ensuing battle, the Reaper felled Tock’s trio of redshirts with aggressive power blows, each strike aimed at ending her opponent so as to move on to the next and focus on the greatest threat.  However, Tock herself was a greater challenge due to her invulnerable Semblance, making it impossible for Maria to overpower her and leaving her exposed to the crocodile’s vicious twin blade onslaught.  After her Aura broke, Maria conjoined Life and Death, allowing her to engage Tock and her surviving henchman more easily, even putting Tock on her back foot. However, Tock’s invincible Aura again allowed her to endure and power through, destroying Maria’s weapon, staggering her with a headbutt, and slashing out her eyes.  Reduced to a crawling wreck, Maria was forced to resort to a desperation tactic to survive, using the Dust in one sickle to call the other into Tock’s back and giving her a chance to instinctively decapitate her.

RANKING: Tier 3, Standard Mastery

While a prodigal talent who took no shortcuts, the Grimm Reaper’s success was predicated on the successful execution of a specific, singular fighting style.  She was a flexible, devastating warrior who boasted a performance level well above most of her peers, able to engage multiple opponents, including one at or near her own level, when dropped in cold, and very nearly came out on top.  However, she lacked adaptability, unable to adjust her tactics to deal with people she couldn’t simply overpower, and her fallback options tended to amount to reacting to the problem rather than controlling the fight.  The Reaper is a product of coasting on raw talent, developing her style according to her aptitudes rather than tactical consideration.  The Grimm Reaper is a sledgehammer. If she can’t overwhelm you, she can’t make a dent.

(Maria Calavera)

Maria’s humiliating defeat caused her to withdraw from the Huntsman community, exploiting her anonymity to quietly retreat into a wandering hermit.  Though she was retired, she still retained one half of Life and Death on her person as a walking cane, and clearly made a point of keeping her skills honed.  Due to the limitations of her age and stature, Maria’s fighting style underwent a significant reconstruction, swapping out her heavy offensive barrage with a slippery defensive retreat.  She would use her cane to execute warding deflection parries, knocking aside the enemy’s strikes while conserving her own energies.  Once she had their measure, she would take the initiative herself, but instead of laying into them with blinding aggression, she relied on counters, turning their attacks around and getting inside their guard.  She would use the hook of her scythe to trap and manipulate the opponent’s weapon, forcing it out of line and leaving them open to retaliation.  While rarely employed, she was perfectly willing to resort to physical combat when necessary, coasting on momentum to deliver flying kicks.

Maria’s tactics and conduct in her old age served as a perfect example of how she learned from her mistakes in her youth.  Having learned the hard way the dangers of overconfident overcommitment, she played it safe and avoided taking unnecessary risks, making efforts to warn the next generation the dangers of such recklessness.  Appropriately, Maria Calavera’s revised strategies revolved around defense, subversion, and retaliation.  She took a slow and steady approach, opening defensively to test the waters and get a feel for the opponent’s fighting style and tactics.  Instead of flinging herself at the enemy and steamrolling them, she allowed the opponent to make the first move, giving her breathing room and buying time so she could assess the threat and work around their own guard.  Where the Grimm Reaper used heavy offense to overwhelm, Maria Calavera used active defense to subvert.  While still prone to sarcastically taunting her opponent, she typically employed these taunts in a more measured approach, using psychological warfare to aggravate the opponent and provoke them into overextending.

Maria’s capabilities as both a tactician and fighter shone through during the battles in Argus and at Amity Tower.  She proved her ability to coordinate as part of a larger strategy by commandeering a Manta airship with Weiss Schnee, though her attempts to blend in were thwarted by Caroline Cordovin’s recognition of her voice.  When Cordo unleashed the Colossus mech, Maria piloted the Manta to provide support for her allies on the ground, using the craft to probe the Operative’s defenses and harass it with missiles, giving Ruby and co. time to slowly chip away at the robot’s weapons and defenses.  Though she did draw a fine line between goading Cordo and actively provoking her, intentionally mocking the specialist with a needless taunt, she reined it in during the battle proper, her comments aimed at manipulating Cordo into overextending rather than simply insulting her.  When confronted by Cinder Fall, Emerald Sustrai and Neopolitan at Amity Tower, Maria initially sought to defend Penny with a bulk loader, but was blindsided by their shuttle, the subsequent wrestling match settled by Sustrai’s illusions allowing Neo to ambush her.  When Neo threw Maria from the mech, the Reaper hit the ground fighting, fending off Neo’s attacks while turning her own counters against her, staggering the underworld assassin with a flying kick and a few scythe strikes to the face.  Neo’s inexperience as the aggressor was worsened by Maria’s cackling laughter, getting under her skin and hampering her ability to press an advantage.  However, Maria would be distracted by Penny, giving Neo an opportunity to strike her unawares, surviving by dint of Penny's interference.

RANKING: Tier 4, Advanced Application

Maria Calavera’s performance against Neopolitan indicates the high level of skill she retained to her age, and her revised tactical analysis arguably made her a far more effective fighter than she was in her youth. However, she is still significantly out of practice and down a weapon, and she cannot retain the performance level she once had.  Furthermore, she wasn’t really put under any serious pressure against Neo, and it’s not unreasonable to assume that more focused offensive heavyweights would be harder for her to deal with.  Maria Calavera’s success in her old age is predicated on her ability to manipulate and control fights rather than slugging it out, and when put between a rock and a hard place, she runs the risk of burning out.  Regardless, her functional defeat of Neo proves that, even with a reduced technique, she is still a force to be reckoned with.

SPECIAL

(Grimm Reaper)

Maria Calavera named her semblance “Preflexes”, providing her with above-average senses that allow her to react to the world around her more effectively.  In practice, it functions as a form of low-level precognition, giving the Grimm Reaper a feel for approaching danger and providing her with the time to respond.  In her prime, the Reaper used the advance warnings of her Semblance primarily for defense, anticipating incoming attacks and allowing her to block or evade them quickly and efficiently.  Against the Nevermore, she leapt off the bridge she was crossing at the exact moment to avoid being struck, giving her an opening to launch her kamas into its wings.  Though nearly bucked off several times, Maria’s Semblance likely allowed her to adjust her weight and positioning to maintain her balance.  Against Tock’s band, she regularly deflected gunfire and blocked attacks from range, even those outside her field of vison.  However, this did not always translate into an automatic ability to avoid injury, as the advance warning still required Maria to act on it appropriately.  Tock was able to dig deep and power through, denying the Reaper the opportunity to respond and ultimately spelling out the doom for her eyes.  Regardless, the Grimm Reaper’s last act was a masterful use of her Semblance, providing her with enough special awareness to blindside and decapitate Tock even while completely blind.

As advanced and tricky as her Semblance was, the Reaper’s far more notable, albeit obscure, special ability was her status as a Silver Eyed Warrior, a divine gift she inherited from her father.  Powered by a desire to preserve life, Silver Eyes allowed the warrior to channel the emptions of their bonds to friends or loved ones to produce power against agents of destruction, specifically Creatures of Grimm.  This power manifested as withering flashes of light that could blind, petrify or simply destroy the target. By Maria’s own admission, this power cannot be properly trained, the only opportunities for such being to go through a trial by fire.  That being said, the power of the Eyes can still be called upon by forming a disciplined state of mind.  It was this power that made Maria such a legendary Huntress, as she was capable of obliterating Grimm in an instant, while her practiced use allowed her to unleash her powers on a whim.  When attacked by the Nevermore, Maria was dazed by a strike from the Grimm, yet was able to almost casually release a flash of power that completely petrified it, its body crumbling to dust upon hitting the ground.  However, this power only has effect on Grimm, making it relatively useless against conventional enemies and forcing Maria to rely almost wholly on her martial arts when faced by more conventional adversaries.

In addition to her native abilities, Maria supplemented her loadout with the unique properties of Dust, using elemental combat to reinforce her fighting style.  Specifically, she incorporated two Gravity Dust cylinders into Life and Death, this substance allowing them to be influenced by gravitational fields as a form of limited telekinesis.  The Reaper’s integration caused the sickles to attract to each other like magnets as well as fly around chosen trajectories.  The Reaper utilized her Dust primarily for tactical support, retrieving her weapons when disarmed and using them as cable-less grappling hooks to traverse the arena.  In the event that her Aura and Semblance were rendered inoperable, she would unleash the Dust to repel her aggressors and give her time to regain her composure.  However, while this did give her someting to fall back on, she almost never used this Dust as a weapon in combat, her only offensive applications being to swing them around as a safe zone around her body and later to pull her discarded sickle into Tock’s back, a clear act of desperation on her part.

RANKING: Tier 3, Specialized Combat

Maria’s Silver Eyes, Preflexes, and the gravity Dust in her scythes were all very potent tools that enhanced her combat viability to a very high degree, providing various practical and situational assets.  However, these traits only had a small handful of uses, and her approach to battle reduced them to a collection of specialized hammers.  Silver Eyes are only effective against Grimm, making them useless in standard combat, her use of her Preflexes only warned her of danger so she could defend, and the Dust functions were usually only for utility.  While the Dust could be used for tactical subversion, the Reaper only used it once out of duress, making it unclear if something like that is in her usual repertoire.  She was flexible and deadly, but as in all other things, the Grimm Reaper’s special abilities were overspecialized and narrow, defined by her aptitudes rather than active skill construction.

(Maria Calavera)

With her eyes slashed out by Tock and one of her weapons lost, the elder Maria was left only with her Semblance as a special ability in her old age.  Despite her arsenal being so heavily reduced, Maria still proved able to utilize her powers in combat, and to a much higher degree than she had before. Much like her martial arts, Maria’s use of her Semblance underwent a revision accounting for her life experiences, and her use of her powers served as the greatest representation of her new defensive approach to combat.  Instead of passively responding to incoming attacks, Maria now actively utilized her Preflexes to intercept and interrupt her enemy’s offensives, taking the initiative and manipulating the flow of the fight.  As previously stated, the elder Maria’s primary strategy was to turn aside incoming attacks and slip in counters, capitalizing on overextentions on the opponent’s part.  And what better power to enable this than precognition?  Calculate where the bullet is going to fly move out of the way before the trigger is even pulled, then move to engage the opponent by intercepting their evasions.  Instead of striking where the enemy is, she strikes where the enemy is going to be.  It was this more calculating use of her powers that allowed her to pose such a serious threat to Neopolitan at Amity.  Neo’s entire schtick is to goad her opponents into overextending before slipping inside their guard, yet Maria’s ability to intercept her attacks before they were even executed before countering immediately made her Neo’s worst nightmare.

Additionally, despite losing her Sivler Eyes, Maria still retained her academic knowledge of them.  Her life of experience had taught her many of the finer practical elements of the magical powers, knowledge that was further elevated by Jinn’s revelations about the Gods of Light and Darkness.  It was this knowledge that allowed Maria to provide limited tutoring to Ruby Rose about her powers, stressing to her the importance of protecting life and the strength that could come from drawing on her friends.  She encouraged her informal protégé to focus on those she loved and how they made her feel, likely stemming from her own application of the power.  Instead of seeing the Silver Eyes as a weapon for destroying evil, she viewed them as a tool to protect the innocent, this calm and comforting focus enabling Ruby to partially petrify a giant Leviathan mere days after the old legend’s instruction.

RANKING: Tier 3, Specialized Combat

Despite losing many of her special talents after going blind, Maria’s revised application of her Semblance has more than made up the difference, allowing her to retain her Tier 3 effectiveness.  Slippery and subversive, Maria’s powers allowed her to manipulate and the opponent, reinforcing her tactical viability in a way she never had before.  Where her former ranking was determined by coasting on raw talent, her current ranking is determined by focused specialization in a specific skill, a result of her supplementary powers being stripped away from her.  Maria still has her limits and lacks any direct offensive ethereal talents, but she has learned to use what she has far more effectively than she once did, retaining potent supernatural ability even with a lesser bag of tricks.

OVERALL RANKINGS

The Grimm Reaper: TIER 3, ADVANCED HUNTRESS

I consider the Grimm Reaper to be an archetypical Tier 3 combatant in the same mold as Adam Taurus and James Ironwood.  All of her skills and abilities are elevated to the master level, and her performance level is more than sufficient to overcome most enemies with raw intensity, but her success is predicated on the direct application of her core abilities, dominating through focused power rather than true versatility.  Her rock-solid physical performance levels are more than sufficient to enable her top-notch fighting style, her marital arts are high performance and overwhelmingly powerful, and her special abilities made her even more deadly by way of supplementary tricks and powers.  However, Maria’s tactical outlook was very straightforward, wielding all of her tools a blunt instrument, and those she couldn’t overpower were more than she could handle.  The Reaper is a prodigy to coasted on natural talent rather than actually building her skill set, and major holes in her style were left unaddressed because they never came up.  When they did, Maria paid the price.  However, much like her young contemporary Yang Xiao Long, Maria Calavera learned from her catastrophic defeat, rebuilding herself to avoid the same oversights that nearly killed her.

Maria Calavera: TIER 4, EXPERT HUNTRESS

Maria’s revisions to her tactics and technique arguably make her a far more effective fighter than she used to be, but these new advantages are counterbalanced by a slew of new weaknesses that hold her back, most visibly her old age.  Maria is a tough, vigorous old woman who can more than handle herself in a fight, but the limitations of age and her physical disability hampers her ability to leverage her body in battle.  As a fighter, her martial arts have clearly atrophied over the years from the lack of real combat experience (relentless training can only make up for so much), yet she still retained expert-level skills that more than qualify her as a master in her own right, able to contend with much younger reigning masters.  Though her special abilities have been severely crippled due to the loss of her eyes and one of her weapons, her revised application of her Semblance enables her more calculating approach to battle, seizing the initiative with clever tricks instead of brute force.  Maria lost a lot with her eyes, but she has learned from her experiences, rebuilt her tactics accordingly, and uses what she still has to the best of her ability.

Between the two versions of the character seen, Maria Calavera’s story is that of someone who rose above a critical failure to make themselves something greater.  As formidable as the Grimm Reaper was, she had her limitations and nearly paid for them with her life, but instead of stewing in self-pity for the rest of her days, she took her failure to heart and made efforts to learn from her mistakes.  Aside from rebuilding herself as a fighter, she also became more aware of the mission Huntsmen are supposed to uphold, remaining dedicated to the core of her mission.  Despite her sarcastic personality, she was extremely compassionate, wise, and hopeful for the best, whether that was being the best she could be within her handicaps or working the make the world a safer place for the next generation.  However legendary the Grimm Reaper was, Maria Calavera remains just as worthy of the distinction of a truly great Huntress.

*originally posted on RoosterTeeth Community page on 1-30-21*

*images taken from RWBY Wiki and @blackdagger456*

RWBY Combat Analysis

#rwby #rwby combat analysis #maria calavera #the grimm reaper #rwby maria #peak human fitness #standard mastery #specialized combat #decent human fitness #advanced application

[eyrieofsynapses]

good evening, all. it is May the 25th. our lilacs are blooming, just as the ones at the Watch House did. and I am thinking about remembrance of the fallen, and GNU, and the love in commemoration.

y'know, I read Night Watch… oh, maybe a year ago and some months ago. and the lilac symbolism, the remembrance of the Watch, has always struck me with the depth of the emotion of it, the tangibility of it in the flowers. but I wasn't aware that today was the day until I saw commemorative posts, all that gorgeous artwork and more, on my dash.

I was also not aware, until now, that fans commemorated the day not only because of the book reference, but in support of Terry Pratchett and of those with Alzheimer's. which knocked me over a bit because of course, of course the group that would use GNU to honor him would do that. and… I've been thinking about GNU a lot, lately, and this caught me again.

I read Going Postal a bit ago, and reread it recently. both times, the parts about GNU made me tear up. this idea of the names, the memories, the lives of the clacks workers who dedicated themselves to ensuring that people heard each other's voices—all those names spoken again and again and again by that which they poured their souls into, winging along in the air as they could not, an eternal reminder that they were loved—how could that not touch a person's heart?

when I found out that fans online used it to memorialize him, I damn well cried. hell, I still tear up just thinking about it. do you know, there's a code for an HTTP header "X-Clacks-Overhead: GNU Terry Pratchett" written by Reddit users to put in webpages, where it goes unseen by the average user? and in 2015, when Netcraft took a survey, there were eighty-four thousand websites using it? it's eight years later—how many thousands upon thousands of websites have this now, do you think? how many little cables of light has his name flown along, now? how many times?

that alone is absurdly and unimaginably lovely in its own right, but… there's something else to it. there's something about remembering with the lilac sprigs every year, just as Vimes and those who were there remembered their dead. something about how, when we take up our lilac sprigs, we carry a little piece of the characters in our hearts, too. I kept trying to put my finger on why that makes me tear up the way it does. the conclusion I came to is this:

what greater way to honor a writer is there, but to honor them the way they did the characters they poured their heart and soul into? what better way to say we know you and you are not forgotten and your work and words and gifts to the world are held in our hearts forever than to remember them by their own words, their own vision? how else could we say you embodied all the good you believed in and wished to see in the world, but to memorialize them after the little pieces of their soul they wrapped in ink and put upon the page?

it is a knowing of the writer, to remember them in their way. it is not a worn-out faceless platitude, but a reminder that their work has been read and will continue to be, that the characters and world they loved enough to bring to life last just as their name does. such remembrance is warm and loving and delights in their memory even as it grieves.

and now Pratchett's name has been written in his tradition, over and over and over, across the vast plane of the Internet, where it will—with any luck—continue to fly for generations to come.

there is no way to truly express the beauty of that… but perhaps we can catch a glimpse of it in the lilacs, both ours and the Watch's.

#the glorious 25th of may #night watch #gnu terry pratchett #discworld #I cannot express how much I love that our lilacs bloom at the same time as they do in the books #also I dearly wanted to include this little fact in my accidental monologue but it didn't fit. so in the tags it goes: #GNU Terry Pratchett is ALSO a Minecraft splash text #which is just. aaaaaaaaaaah of course a game with something like the End Poem would do that but aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah #I have many feelings on this and a decent summary of a lot of them is about the beauty of how humanity remembers and loves our dead #and also just... the love. the love that can be held for someone you never met #but whose writing and words can pierce your heart in the best of ways #and the love for characters--for the best of them are these little shards of the writer's soul that they decided to share #because that's really the nature of writing. baring your soul and your self to others in those persons you breathe to life on the page #and then sharing it with others just in hopes that it might ring true and inspire them #give them insight #help them in ways no one else could because only YOU could write that character and share that part of yourself #and by gods if Pratchett isn't among the best at that then I don't know who is #anyway. I have feelings and I accidentally turned them into a monologue whoo #have a good evening all

[duckapus]

Spider-Candace encounters the Impossible Man and is... notably unimpressed. She's only got room in her life for two guys with unusually shaped heads who regularly do the impossible, and frankly actual children who manage it with science and no (relevant) powers are far more impressive than an alien man-child who can just do it with a wave of his hand.

As you can imagine, Ol' Impy doesn't take that kind of immediate dismissal well.

#spider-candace au #phineas and ferb #marvel #candace flynn #spider woman #impossible man #any decent marvel rogues gallery needs at least one of the few dozen reality warpers they've got on hand #and impy seemed like the best fit for a phineas and ferb based au #anything he can do the boys can do better with the right materials and an hour or so of prep time #i said “relevant” powers because technically in this au phineas is a Mutant... #-but his Mutation is his triangular head and has nothing to do with his brainpower or the whole lizard thing #not every x-gene gives you superpowers after all #ferb is 100% non-powered human and is literally just Like That for no apparent reason #i know impy's technically not a villain and really just a nuisance that's part of why i'm picking him #like i said he fits the pnf side of things

[ben-the-hyena]

Why do fandom Discord servers whether be they huge or smaller with some friends in it always attract the worse people in the world who ruin the experience for everyone

#the dark crystal servers are the worst case I left or deleted them all #also there is always a sort of hive mind in servers people pretend they are kind but they always team up against the 'weakeast' #who is often the less popular who is ignored whenever they talk about their own AUs and HCd who do no fit the others' self praise #always scandals gossip and rumors all to die off when the fandom isn't trendy anymore #as someone who was hurt and loves people who were hurt : fandom discord servers I loathe you snd your filthy people #discord #fandom #them bastards ! #also always those who go 'triggered' on purpose but are coddled and act lke you are super evil for having been clumsy ONCE #but go seek on purpose problematic triggering content to start shit. oh and those who actually even STEAL the 'weakest''s ones jokes and HCs #but get praised in their place when when THEY do they are ignored. these servers recreate highschool classrooms hierarchies #that's why I only stay in semi-dormant ones I created myself with like 3 people on each. tranquillity #and for all your hypocrisy like your cold shoulders because ONE friend doesn't share ONE opinion... And you call yourself decent humans

[tswwwit]

If Stan notices all the people who like Dipper, did Mabel or Pacifica notice when they were growing up?

I feel like Mabel missed in this area! I can see a lot of misdirected attention and wrong guesses, with her wanting to be a matchmaker for her brother, while simultaneously having the wrong instincts. Mabel's got rose-colored glasses on, and she's very firm about her opinions.

Meanwhile, Pacifica was in the right circles to hear people say they'd date Dipper Pines - then look around at their peers, and instantly play it off as a joke. Like, what? That weak nerd? No chance, haha, just kidding. That obviously raised a perfectly threaded eyebrow.

While Pacifica might be really out of touch with different social classes - she's not dumb.

#Headcanon that Dipper had a really awkward puberty phase #We're talking full on pizza face #Not quite fitting into his limbs and greasy - don't even get started on the voice cracking all the time #That cleared up after a year or two #Suddenly he had a decent complexion and he'd grown into his gangliness and all that exploring had finally built some muscle on his frame #And he started turning heads #Except the awkward phase was in recent memory so it was social suicide to admit you'd date that nerd #Combine that with social awkwardness and weak magically and wow like definitely still a huge nerd #And it wasn't the greatest combination #Also headcanon that Pacifica may have made a few comments about him being decently cute now #If only to salvage the ego of some of her friends that were interested #She is again not dumb and Dipper was shaping up well #But that didn't fly great so she shrugged it off #High school was gonna be over soon in any case #Everyone had already graduated prior to the start of Faking It #answers #Dipper in this AU is a pretty cute guy - but if you asked Bill? #He's Absolutely The Cutest Human. No Contest #Objectively he might be wrong but Subjectively? For once he's telling the absolute truth #He'd pick this weird unshowered nerd with a cheetos stain on his shirt and five-o-clock shadow going before he picked a sexy model #He's very biased and an unreliable narrator #Bill is Deeply In Love and it's Incurable

[sysig]

Xenofashionista (Patreon)

#Doodles #SCII #YIK #Molly #First time drawing Molly!! Who belongs to trollybazoo btw :3 #It's like fanart telephone haha I'm going off of Zarla's art of her so pls forgive any inaccuracies of a quick glance #She's super cute ♥ I have expressed my love of their relationship before and I will again! Lol #But first I gotta sing my love to YIK once again hhhgggg why is she so goshdang pretty #I think what's especially funny is that I didn't sit down to draw her - it might be a bit obvious in her eye and tendril expressions #I initially planned to draw DAX but was like ''Wait hold on this doesn't quite fit him but y'know who it would?? I can fix this I can fi-'' #Lol #It was fairly early on so I hope I captured her well enough despite the base hehehe #Gosh she's cute heck #I've been really grasped by the idea of ''Aliens wearing clothing designed by humans meant to evoke aliens'' lol #That was my intention anyway I think it just turned into YIK pinups after a point lol - not that I'm complaining! #Yes that'd fit a daki what of it don't look at me lol #I do really love her her arms and head tendrils turned out there hehe all curled around lightly twisted and hold ♥ #Pretty pretty pretty #And then Molly! Yay! ♪ #Simultaneously trying to learn her and give the scene to her lol ♪ A decent first attempt I think >:3c #And then a little smooch ♥ Hehe ♪ #It wasn't my intention but YIK looks like she's wagging her tail and just jfdlsahdfd the cuteness #I'm quite happy with how relaxed she looks there as well haha ♪ Fluster up her human <3 #They <3 <3 <3

[glimpsesofeuterpe]

been glancing at 2023's stuff for a moment, now wondering if it wasn't as bad as it seemed or was it

...did anything even happen at all? gotta try to take a look at bites

- have realised i have developed an ability to experience romantic interest or mb it was always there, failed to notice under layers of trauma and denial

- nearly every night i cried my eyes out about my ex friend in question (we broke up in the end of 2k22)... first weird exp or not, by now i know i should have known better and escape earlier. tbh it's been a struggle to move on fully, i still kinda miss that attention x ignoring combo and blunt wannabe guru "lessons", at least thanks to him i know what one shouldnt be doing if they wanna be a better friend

- i managed to make more friends and met one irl ... all just to fail later and avoid almost all interactions esp personal chats as apparently i am really scared of getting abandoned again, it's way easier for me to avoid and stay mostly alone... besides i still don't have enough energy to provide new ppl with anything more useful than basic enertainment

- despite stuff mentioned above, i figured out i love talking to ppl and i really wanna do good, i wanna love and be loved even even if it could be too much to wish for

- finally became a massagist!

- somehow nailed to help some ppl (wat)

- learned how to bake without setting everything on fire

- computer's video card died, so had to deal with a very laggy ol laptop

- fixed computer parts, switched from windows 7 to windows 10

- improved drawing skills, started to figure backgrounds out

- started to discover clip paint studio

- lots of rp madness was going on! felix and pals my beloved <3

- started to return back to actual writing

- spent most of summer in parks

- kinda started listening podcasts again ... this reminds i should resume woe dot begone, ty popping up in person when

- simon petrikov and elliot stardew valley taking the top spot on my list of comfort muses

#blahblah #oversharing #conclusion: i need actual therapy #how do you find a decent ru professional who won't blame you for things you got no control over #not sends you to a local ol soviet hospital where they punish ppl and feed them with drugs instead of helping idk #will i ever afford something more effective than free medicine #likely i will #but humane psychiatry stuff? no idea #russia still sucks a lot regarding this #yes stuff is getting improved #but holy shit there are so many wannabes by now #esp american style uwu ones who brainwash kiddos into thinking they are always right #needless to say trendy shit does not fit in with russian reality at all but only creates more illusions about the world #eventually this will backfire with crazy outcomes and randomness knows i want to stay as far as possible no need in a frying pan #i sure love complaiining every now and then #could have made a twitxter career lol

[jacquiarno]

Happy Trans Day of Visibility my trans darlings, especially trans gamers! 💖

Whether you have decided to come out or not, you matter, you are loved, and there will always be support for you, especially from this cis lady. 🌈

#the colour scheme with my profile picture and nameplate colour was a happy accident in genshin #yae miko and kaeya are both my favourite characters #i know the genshin community can be quite toxic but i've been playing this game since launch #so if anyone can gatekeep it's me against these toxic people haha #but seriously if you need a safe space to come to any of my socials are a place you can come to #i keep my genshin id hidden here but if anyone from the trans community or the lgbtqia community ever need help pop me a message #i play on the us server #the ff14 has a fairly decent community even if a big name in the streaming scene has come out as a toxic person #but you can message me about that as well although i'm not great at the game haha and i'm on the oceanic servers #i've been a gamer since the 90s and i've loved games since #the fact so many in gaming circles are toxic is a damn disgrace #gaming spaces are meant to be a place where we all come together and accept others and treat them how we want to be treated #but some of these gamers and especially streamers seem stunted in their growth #a lot still act like they have the mindset of teenagers despite most being 30+ #bratty teenagers i should say as not all teenagers act immature #trans rights are human rights #lgbtqia #if you're wondering where i fit in the rainbow community it's the i love people regardless of gender #not sure if bi or pan but i just go with bi #ffxiv #Final Fantasy XIV #ff14 #final fantasy 14 #genshin impact #jacquiarno's screenshots #jacquiarno

[arolesbianism]

You see Jackie is great because she has a similar appeal to me as Maxwell but she's a lesbian and also not british so she's automatically a billion times better and more interesting

#rat rambles #oni posting #starve posting #theyre very different people fundementally but the core appeal of watching a shitty guy dig themselves into deeper and deeper holes remains #bro if they met itd make maxwell so pissy he would not be ok with having someone talk down at him like jackie would #bro jackie would at best be patronizing as hell she would see him as the dirt beneath her shoes #she would not be impressed by his magic tricks at best shed be intrigued by the science behind it but she would not think hes special #now to be clear. jackie is just as pathetic as he is and would 100% die so fast in the constant #like shed get attacked by nightmare creatures so fast and if she survived that a hound would probably maul her #I do hc that at least in the past jackie was decently physically fit but even back then she was like ripped and I think if she tried to #punch something shed miss pathetically and fall over and break all of her bones #olivia is a similar case but shes more fit and probably could barely brute force her way through a few hound waves #the real difference is that olivia would be quicker to adapt and would put up a much better effort at preparing the essentials #now. she would get side tracked as hell by the wildlife. I think if you showed her a carat shed stare at it forever. #but jackie would struggle so hard to adapt and I think the isolation would get to her hard #if you put them together itd just be olivia hard carrying while jackie trips and eats shit every 10 steps #now putting them with the rest of the survivors would be interesting given that I think the two would hate most of them dhdkhdj #like I have no proof that olivia wouldnt like most of them but idk man I dont trust her to not be quietly judging them all #and jackie would probably explode if she was forced to interact with other human beings in a non boss-employee setting #olivia would start calling her jackie again and the others would start calling her that too and shed light herself on fire #wilson would start trying to be buddy buddy with the two and theyd both hate him so fucking much lol #the two would start trying to blueprint machines they could build with what they have and winona would enter frame about to ruin their day #you see winona is like their dark reflection shes like if you took a lesbian and made her the worst but not a bad person this time #shed start critiquing their work for being to fancy and theyd want to strangle her #and god knows how theyd handle the kids I think jackie would have a panic attack and olivia would go smash her head into a tree #and by the kids I mostly mean walter he was hand made to annoy them specifically #oh no wait hypothetical crossover cancelled I forgot abt wanda dont Ever let jackie and olivia meet wanda

[supersaiyanjedi14]

RCA: Tiers

While the Council Forcecast, and by extension myself, typically agreed on a rough tier system to begin with, credit for the codification of the system goes to Mackattack1 in his debut versus video “Ki-Ad-Mundi vs. Kao Cen Darach”.  While there is a good deal of flexibility in terms of what will fit the requirements for each tier ranking, these are the general outlines for what I look for when giving a ranking to a fighter’s physical, martial or special abilities.  The rankings and their definitive examples for RWBY are as follows;

#rwby #rwby combat analysis #baseline superhuman #peak human fitness #advanced human fitness #high human fitness #decent human fitness #healthy #unhealthy #complete mastery #advanced mastery #standard mastery #advanced application #standard application #basic application #basic knowledge #dominating combat #flexible combat #specialized combat #reinforce combat #limited combat #no combat #no application

[dteamain]

I had mutuals who are not fond of dream making fun of him because of the reddit essay over Snapchat instead of the allegations and i told them he did this primarily for george and they were like “oh nevermind that makes sense” like george is his pr for now 😭

like who cares though who cares if he wants his own snaps not reposted why does it matter if he did it for himself or not?

why is it okay for him to be upset on george's behalf but not upset on his own behalf

why isn't dream allowed to say the most normal thing like 'please don't repost snapchats' without having to write a fucking 6 page essay to reason with stupid bitches throwing a fucking fit

bitches saying 'lmao why did dream write a whole essay 🤪 he's out here writing lengths to get laid 🤪' are the same bitches saying 'now that i read his reddit comment i'm not so upset' like clearly that essay was for YOU

#anon #when people realize no other ficking creator on snapchat outside of dteam and some mcyt's have to worry about people mass reposting snaps #when will* #like it's not normal! #update accounts that update on every post comment like and spotting are not fucking normal lmao #also y'all will be on hands and knees begging for boundaries just to throw a fit when they are given #be a decent human and just stop when people ask you to stop

[oksfranta]

.

#i’m so angry after going to the office today #I was discussing some movies with my colleague #and she said that she watched the last fantastic beasts movie recently #praised how good jude law fits for the role of dumbledore #BUT #she was annoyed that they made him gay #obviously saying something else instead of gay #and when I asked why #she said that they ruined her childhood #bc harry potter is a fairytale #and you’re not supposed to have gay ppl in fairytales 🙂 #also she said ‘being raised in a not very tolerant country you can’t accept these things’ #excuse you? #I was also raised in this country #and yes it’s one of the most homophobic ones #but yet here I am?? #being a decent human being? #ppl in this country piss me off so much

[horce-divorce]

wow that was absolutely the worst night of sleep I've had in recent memory, gonna have to spend my whole birthday napping to make up for it 👻

#me #like fr i dont even know how to quantify that #i think i maybe slept for a total of like 2 hours #i am so sick to death of this fucking bed #its TOO SMALL for an adult human. i dont fit upon the bed. my *blankets* dont fit upon the bed. #the weighted blanket drags every other blanket off with it every night bc it's wider than the bed #and i love that Frankie will snuggle up to me and stay all night. BUT. #i toss and turn even on a good night #and every time i wiggle it makes her sink toward the middle of the mattress #which means after about 2 hours she is literally taking up the whole bed with her mimiscule little subway footlong body #and i am fucking trapped all of a sudden unless i get *up and out #of bed #between where she is and how fucked up all the blankets are and how im pinned to the wall w a pretzel spine #listen im gonna go smoke some weed about it and ill feel better. its better than not having a bed.... by like.. an absolute hair #but its very difficult and tbqh if im cursed to be fucking ill forever i at least deserve a decent bed #but i cant afford that so 🤪

[boneless-mika]

There is unfortunately a trend in science fiction of making physically disabled people villains that BDG very likely has been subconsciously influenced by and I say this as somebody who really enjoyed Avery Goodman (his name is “a very good man” for god’s sake). I don’t think talking about this inherently means I am saying BDG is ableist or a bad person, I simply think we should have more disabled characters in sci-fi who aren’t evil and the problem would fix itself

#like Avery Goodman reads very much like he’d fit in the Cyberpunk 2020 universe #and that ruleset does have a decent amount of ableism in it #(prosthetics make you less human) #and that sort of rhetoric is unfortunately extremely common in cyberpunk #so it’s a flaw with the genre as a whole not with BDG as a person

[wantmeifyouwantme]

wait wait wait was just thinking does everyone remember that one time i got anon death threats from a t3rf ?

she was saying about “feminism is for real women only”

keep in mind at that time i was still using she/they and had a 'feminine name' in my bio. also had it clearly listed that i am a minor.

like i thought "girls support girls ?" she was inherntley contradicting herself ??????

#i have a lot of thoughts abt 'girls support girls' #(again while i was v fem presenting and identifying) #i was lowkey bullied last year and who by ? #THE GIRLS #not to be a pick me or anything but i had legit. like. 5 girls (tops) in my class who were decent to me #and the boys ? #some of them were arseholes #but the two lad-est boys in my class let me sit at their table and we would pull 'your mum' jokes and write silly shit on our calculators #and like i felt wayyyyy more comfortable with those guys then most of the girls in my class #in an ideal world i want equality #yes for everyone #and we're not gonna get true gender equality by saying 'kill all men' #bcs gender ~equality~ #means ~*~equality~*~ #yah #fingers crossed i don't get more death threats ! #terfs dni #trans rights are human rights #like i dont get why some people are soooo pressed abt how other ppl define themselves #like go get a life and stop harrasing trans people and people who don't fit into your 'femc3l' ideals #yes i'm a feminist last time i posted smth like this i got a barrage of asks claiming i wasnt ????? #just thinking idk

[godzexperiment]

nix not having an rank or classification like other angels given how he came about After+was not brought into existence with any likely need for one

nix 'im an experience' by default when those things come up because- his whole existence was mostly isolation+the whole listening gig etc and lots of information just never came up/or was "unimportant"

#<< falling apart at the seams i cant deny >> headcanons #(im having thoughts about that like- he came an decent time after humans were created too) #(like nix lacks all the angelic 101 etc because it just wasn't really supposed to matter for him) #(you don't need an rank or classification if you're 1 of a kind and not exactly built to be anywhere but heaven etc) #(he isnt like just an average angel/lower angel by any means but there isnt an spot he quite fits in general) #(and im sure it is in that department of he's glad but also very much isnt like the greatest for his psyche) #(its definitely an sore/pressure point like yes! he doesnt know if wing care is a thing and that's very much horrifying for him) #(no he wasn't around before humans came along- he's fully aware his maker never intended to create another angel or being) #(yet he was the exception and in his eyes that's not an good thing- given everything it was like being inherently expendable)