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funficwriter · 6 months

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A Wolf and A Snake (Wriothesley x Reader)

Chapter 3: In the Low Gardens

A/N: Thank you all so much for being patient with me! I wanted this chapter to be fun to read, but had so little time to write this week. I just hope I have a little more freedom in the future. Anyways, enjoy!

Synopsis: Being a noble meant that marriage was a chess game, not an affair of love. Unfortunately for the pristine Balthazar family of Fontaine, Y/N has long been enamored with love and sought it out before their priorities. After her grey, boring time of courtesy, she meets Duke Wriothesley, who makes her yearn for the first time in her life, and it's the same for him. Threatened by the idea of losing this first, it seems they'll stop at very little to be together...

Taglist: @yue-caelum, @reyy-chanx, @mis-disaster, @ladyarchiviste, @keigo-hawks-takami-simp

Warnings: Talk of murder/violence/corruption, yandere talk, Wrio gets a lil primal, a few smutty details, does scheming behind the back count as a warning? Lol

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Your parents were not the type to sing, least of all sing to express joy. But whenever they peered at you from the balcony, they looked like they could explode in song any minute. They never looked as jubilant, as proud of their daughter as they saw her, arm linked with the chivalrous and gentle Duke Archandelle.

You supposed any other girl would kill to be in your place. Duke Archandelle hailed from a long and well-respected lineage, and made a fortune for both himself and Fontaine's economy through his commerce. He was rather handsome, had a voice described as 'light honey with mint', and towered over you, the lady he was going to protect with that advantage. Hopefully, for the rest of your lives. On top of that, he was cultured, up-to-date with Fontaine's classical and modern trends, but was no pansy; He was an excellent swordfighter and hunter. You almost heard their voices yelling at you: "You've got the perfect gentleman falling at your feet, and you're not grateful?! How dare you!".

There you two were, in one of your manor's many gardens. This was the highest, prettiest one of all, and had a lovely table among the flowers where you would soon take your tea. Both of you were well-dressed, engaged in conversation (he carried most of it) and took tiny steps to ensure it stayed that way. You looked like the perfect royal Fontainian couple. Add on the fact that Archandelle has decreed himself 'fervently in love' with you, and didn't look like he was going to give up... No wonder your parents were probably even happier than they were on their own wedding day.

'Fervently in love', my ass. If I wasn't so angry, I'd laugh. Maybe with his stupid monologues or my last name's history book... My Wriothesley could teach him a thing or two about love.

"And I say, it was so dastardly for them to write that ending! I mean, to let these filthy 'protagonists' get away with their crimes! I can think of youngsters reading this novel. What will they think? How are we raising them and- My dear, are you with me?".

The funny thing about his tirades was how they can be condensed to the same strand of puritanism, either outrageous or righteous. You barely had to listen and should he feel testy, you had an answer.

"Ah, forgive me, my dear Duke. I was just appalled at the text, to the point where I didn't know what to say. But do know I'm in full agreement!".

He beamed: "Why, of course you are. Your parents raised a fine and virtuous young lady who knows right from wrong.".

Your agreement seemed to have calmed him down. He stopped to take your hand and kiss it.

"One of the countless reasons I fell in love with you.".

Liar!

You wished you could shut him up. As he embodied the peak of your social class, he also had all the ideas you wanted to criticize as loud as you can, but couldn't risk. One of them was this picking on cultural output not based on whether it was good, whether they liked it, but whether it was 'moral' or not. What's more is the power they hold. Should something not be 'moral', that would mean another secret trip to the bookstore for you, before it got fully banned.

Though you couldn't shut him up, you had two tools up your arsenal: The first was thinking of Wriothesley, which made you surprisingly more patient than you imagined. The second was hearing Archandelle be less of a whiner, more of an admirer.

"Say, my Lord, surely you've seen some good plays where this doesn't happen, right? I'm sure we'll all need good recommendations.".

Once again, he beamed, and you could tell he was restricting himself from being too physical. But perhaps he felt a bit more daring, because he put an arm around your waist and carried on walking, while talking about 'good' plays he's seen (which you were sure were total dogshit if it came from him.).

The butler had called you for tea time. It wasn't the day for your favorite dessert, but a quick wink from Agatha, who was passing by, let you know who twisted his arm into bending the unofficial rule. You felt a bit of remorse for not being able to tell her who you really liked, but you decided to do it when you were in a more secure position with Wriothesley.

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Curse whoever decided that falling in love with a half-wolf (or any hybrid, for that matter) was a curse, and bless your own canine lover for using his affinity towards the night to pick this one. The stars shined along with the soft moon, with only a few cloudy wisps passing by. The air was crisp, cooling but not so much that you had to stay in.

The hour struck. Your heart did a leap so brusque, you had to take a deep breath. The clock said it all: It was time.

You picked a simple dress for your rendez-voux; Flattering, but no hassle. Your mother wasn't fond of it, because she thought it didn't 'do justice to your beauty'. Another one of millions of differences between you two, separating her and your father into the loud and showy sun, while you counted the minutes until you could entangle your hand into his under the moon. Though everyone slept, the night was still young... Should you desire it, would more than that happen?

No one could police your desires if you thought of them.

Let him hold me again. Let him hold me securely, claiming me as his under the full moon as his own culture decrees. I'm asking a lot... But please, let him kiss me before Duke Archandelle does and let him scream it out to the world so it could throw me into his arms.

As you made your way down, your reverie was only interrupted when you passed by your elder brother's room. Being married, he split his time between his new villa and your manor. You weren't looking forward to his next visit, especially when he caught wind of your 'engagement' with Duke Archandelle and sent you a long, pompous letter congratulating you as his 'equally prestigious sister, upholding the Balthazar's powerful unions'. Ugh.

In retrospect, perhaps you should have hurried along; Just after you continued, you bumped into a curvaceous figure you knew well (after all, she held you more than your mother) and made an audible "Ow!".

So much for not being caught, least of all by your own hissing governess. Should you be caught, she'd surely get heat for not making sure you were in bed.

"Y/N! What are you doing out of bed? You have lessons tomorrow, don't you?".

As she talked, she pulled you away from your brother's door and the bedrooms of the floor. After all, she was just in as much danger as you were.

"Agatha! Hey, um... I was... I was going down to grab a glass of water. I'm thirsty.".

Forget the fact that you weren't in your sleeping attire and that your voice was racked in nerve. How could you have hoped to lie to her, your true mother figure who knew every inkling of you hiding something on your face? Her quirked-up brows clearly let you know that she didn't buy it, but what really made you want to spill the beans was the slight glimmer in her eyes: She was hurt by you lying to her.

"Really, Y/N? After all those years, you think I'd believe that? I have raised you as my own, yet you act as if I were hired this morning.".

"Agatha, I'm so sorry. Please don't be sad, I'll tell you but...".

You couldn't believe it; You were about to tell someone that you were seeing another man behind your arranged partner's back. It would be one thing if he were some king and your parents were idiots at making their final verdict. But you were seeing Duke Wriothesley of Meropide. You were seeing a wolf-hybrid, a dangerous kind to human beings (even though you'd argue that correlation does not equal causation). You were seeing a prison warden, a polite but hardy, brutish man.

Agatha could sense that your secret was a big one. She ran a hand through your head: "My dear, I've always kept your secrets, haven't I? What is so scary that you would hide it from me of all people?".

"Oh, Agatha, it's not scary at all. It's wonderful and lovely and beautiful. It makes me get out of bed with hope in my heart. it sends me to sleep as the happiest girl of Teyvat.".

Her face broke out into a smile: "By Focalors! What is it then?".

"But I'm the only one who sees it that way! It's not scary to me at all. He brings me all the joy in my life, and yet if anyone found out that would spell the end of me and him! Agatha, why did you have to be up tonight of all nights?".

A moment of silence eclipsed, you wallowing in the realization that you gave her a hint. In both your hearts, you felt that she knew you didn't like Duke Archandelle, as with most royal women. But to go to the lengths of seeing another man... Did she think you had it in you?

"Who is he, Y/N?".

"Duke Wriothesley of Meropide. We snuck by the last two socials, and we were planning to meet up tonight in the low gardens.".

You could see the shock in her face. Anyone would be, pairing you with him of all gentlemen. You couldn't blame her. If anything, you wanted to burst in tears, put your head at her feet and thank her for her tolerance. Rather than alerting even the most insignificant servant in the house, she patted your hand and stayed.

"Does he make you happy?".

"Yes. Happy enough to live.".

"That's a lot of happiness. A level you've always deserved, but if you're honest, only recently acquired. If at last my prayers for your joy are answered and they come in his form, who am I to judge you?".

A small, meek smile made its way on her face. You threw your arms around her shoulders.

"Thank you, Agatha, thank you!".

She helped you up, then looked out of the window. Whether it was at the skies or the gardens below, you couldn't tell nor had the time to ask. She grabbed your hand and continued the way downstairs.

"Let's not keep him waiting.".

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You stepped out, feeling light and relaxed under the cool moon. Then there he was: Your very own prince charming, who was expectantly waiting in front of the garden's backdoor. His ears perked up. Once he saw you, your time of admiration from afar was over. A few loud steps resonated before you felt his embrace engulf you, and at last you were in his arms and everything felt (was) alright.

What made it better was his reciprocation; From the big, dumb smile, to the twitching ears (how cute!) to the feeling of his strong muscles protecting you from whatever misery could strike you right then and there...

"If I told you of how much my heart screamed out for you, you wouldn't hear the end of it.".

He kissed your hand as per usual. You supposed that if you wanted more, you had to catalyze it yourself: "I don't want to hear its end, Wriothesley.".

You didn't have to hear it, for you were still held against him. His heart was beating frenetically, reverberating into your own body.

Only when he looked up and saw Agatha, that wonder dwindled.

"What the... Who are you?".

"Wait, Wrio. She's on our side. She's the only one who supports our romance.".

He let out a small 'oh', trying to relax but with worry clear on his face. Agatha, being ever so talented at soothing, stepped in.

"Greeting, Lord Wriothesley. I am Y/N's governess. Forgive me for being out, I wasn't supposed to know of this. I just caught her by accident, but I promise I won't tell a soul.".

He took a moment before speaking up: "Agatha? Oh, Y/N has mentioned you before. In that case, I'm glad it was you who caught her, and no one else. And thank you for keeping up the secrecy, though it won't be that way forever. I intend to marry her, one way or another.".

"Frankly, anyone who can take care of her and makes her happy is great, in my opinion.".

Her warm, motherly smile has lowered many people's guards. You could tell his worry was fading away, knowing she could be trusted. He nodded one more time, and off you two went. The good thing about the low gardens was the fact that unless someone was close, no one could hear you. It was the 'abandoned' garden per se. While it wasn't as grand as the higher ones, it had many beautiful flowers, a lake, and you could never uncouple your memories of playing hide-and-seek there with Agatha or your friends.

But nevertheless, it didn't stop your displeasure at the fact that you weren't recognized at his yet. You wanted to show all of Teyvat who you really loved, who had the right to call you 'mine'.

"I wish... I wish I could have shown you the higher gardens.".

He squeezed your hand and you looked up to him. You could have died with the beautiful vision in front of you: Did the moon make his piercing eyes glow better, or was that just you?

"My love, there will be a day where we can stroll out in the open, in whatever garden you want. And besides...".

He looked on his surroundings as you kept walking, now linking arms.

"I like the secrecy aspect that comes with this one. It's like... Like our social world doesn't want you to be mine. And yet here and now, you are. Always were, always will be.".

It made you blush. It only got worse when you wanted to tuck a piece of hair, and he caught a glance at the wolf bracelet: "And from the looks of it, you want to be all mine, don't you?".

"Oh, yes. I wear it all the time Father isn't around. I'm sorry if I was morose earlier. It's the fact that I can't stand being someone else's fiancée, especially when I had no say in the matter.".

"Don't beat yourself up. I know well that we're on the same wavelength. I'm already scheming on it, too...".

While you loved talking about being his, you knew that alone wasn't enough. There had to be some sort of plan, some idea as to how he'd get you. And much to your happiness, he wasn't empty-headed to doom you to just keeping your affair, an affair. You leaned close to listen.

"So I'm presuming he wants to marry you because of your family name, yes? Like all other shitty noble marriages...".

You laughed a bit: "That's the one.".

"I already have an investigator to look further into his. Depending on whether he committed serious crime, going above the general corruption that's too often seen and brushed aside, you as his future wife have the right to file for a 'Motion of Marital Worry'. Then the Court could look into how that may affect you, and thus stop you from marrying him even if your father objects.".

This was... Wonderful.

"Why, Wriothesley, I love a man who's proactive! But I have one worry about this plan: Fontaine may be less corrupt than other nations, but there's still crime that's deemed as 'not serious', especially from our class. What if they bribe someone? That's what always happens.".

"Nah, don't worry. I myself am well acquainted with some... Important figures in the judicial system. They'll be sure to look out for such a motion with your name or mine on it. And if the crime is very serious, there's no way they'll turn their head.".

He stopped walking, letting the soft howl of the wind play out before continuing: "And anyways, that's only the first plan. I've got more ideas in case it doesn't work.".

"You really think ahead, eh?".

"If it concerns you? I think about it all the time. Even my sleep is yours.".

All the time. All the time, for me. This union was nothing like the trash your father wanted to force you in. In the other one, you belonged to Archandelle, but contrary to his spiel about love, he didn't belong to you. Maybe not other women if he were 'loyal', but you saw his attitude towards seeing you as a Balthazar, versus seeing you as... You. He really only belonged to himself.

"Don't worry. If he didn't do anything, I'll just make him. If his hand is clean, I'll twist it until it bleeds then yell bloody murder until he's sentenced for life.".

Wriothesley long made it clear, and he kept making it clear to reassure you. His loving gaze, his obsession, his thought of you that went as far as remembering everything you've ever loved or told him (and believe me, it's a lot) said it all: He belonged to you, and you belonged to him, as true love should be.

You stroked his cheek, taking in his eyes as he did yours: "And when you twist him into the wrangled, bloody mess you can make... I'll cheer you on. I'll praise like I'm watching the greatest of theater.".

Perhaps it was the fact that everything has been so dreary, or that the full moon just made people playful, but you broke away from him, your arms brusquely rejecting him and giving you distance. His stunned look hurt you a bit, but the fun you wanted was priceless.

"But Duke Wriothesley, the prince must always fight hard for the one he desires, yes?".

His boot made a quiet crunch as he approached you, and you took a step back. In a way, it was fun, withholding yourself from him as he ached for you. However, he reciprocated your playful smirk, understanding what your intention was. As you stepped back, you did the occasional twirl as your dress flowed with the moon's shine.

Teasing him was so fun: "Aren't I right? Isn't what he desires most, the most guarded and forbidden by everyone else? Shouldn't he be ready to do anything if he loves the princess that much?".

"My... Are you underestimating the limits I'll break to call you my wife? While I try to be calm to avoid prejudice, I have no issue tuning into my violent side if it's for you.".

The string snapped. You turned back and ran off: "We'll see about that, Your Grace!".

How long has it been since you ran? You forgot the freedom, the breeziness it offered.

"I'll make you see, alright!"

But that wasn't where your true excitement laid. It was the quicker, heavier crunching sound right behind you.

Off the wolf went, chasing down his partner. He had the advantage of being fit, and his hybrid blood granting him more speed than the average human. But you were also flighty and you knew the garden better than he did. Whenever he thought he had you, you ran back another corner, and even pulled your tongue at him if he was far enough.

At some point, you hid close to the lake. He had not reached this area yet, so you were safe to catch your breath. If only this could last beyond your couple of hours together! Not even factoring the end yet, you thought of him, smiling and chasing you both literally and figuratively. Only when you looked down to check on your dress, did you notice your legs clenching tight and the sudden warmth, the higher you went...

Perhaps you should have remembered that you were still being chased, ergo had no more time than a few quick breaths. You didn't hear the rustle of the bushes. Before you knew it, large hands grabbed your waist and their owner let out a victorious growl, lifting you up.

"Oh no, the wolf got me!".

"Damn right, he did! Now you're his to devour!".

He wanted to carry on, but a loving state always reduces one to recklessness. He tripped on a pebble, but made sure to switch so he'd take the fall rather than you. Thankfully, it wasn't as bad as he expected.

"Wriothesley, my dear! Are you okay?".

He chuckled at your worried face: "Nah, don't worry. It was way softer than I expected. Hah...".

A crimson blush spread upon both of your faces (but especially yours). It just dawned on you: You were on top of him, like on his body, and the chase excited him in the same way it did you. His red cheeks and the hard poke you felt against your thigh said it all.

"Archons, I... I'm so sorry, Y/N. I tend to enjoy that sort of stuff, running around and chasing...".

"It's okay... I enjoyed it, too...".

The time stopped when you (slowly, yet surely) shook off the awkwardness, as you sat up in his lap. How do you proceed from there? How do you deal with feeling so clueless in what you want? You barely processed that, as you ran a hesitant hand through his hair.

"I really like your ears.".

"There it is.".

His arms tightened around your waist as he replayed the phrase in his head: "I really like your ears.". And you liked his dark attire above all the others'. And you liked his voice and his way of comportment, and by Focalors, you were madly in love with the human and wolf halves of him, never conditionally or pretending some part of him did not exist.

In the midst of this prolonged yearning, you two could no longer wait. He leaned down and sealed his promises with the kiss you've long thought of and saved just for him.

The full moon made its appearance on the lake reflection. The wind rustled the plants around you a bit. Unbelieving that this was actually happening, you pulled him in closer, wishing you could merge your bodies together. Even when you were dipping slower, slower into the ground, you knew he wouldn't let you fall harshly. You knew his tight grip was ever present to protect you from that or any other dangers, and its warmth of love and appreciation was only for you.

And you took in his mint breath, each time breathing in more and more. You were starved for your lover, and so was he, keeping you in his arms and away from a world that wanted you two apart. It already did enough of that throughout the day. The night was yours.

You two broke away, panting and looking into each other's diluted pupils. Sometimes, you couldn't believe how being with him was like having your own puppy. He whispered: "I love you with the marrow of my bones.", before dipping his head into your neck to kiss it. If marrying him, sharing the same bed, meant you could nuzzle your face into his fluffy hair, you had another reason to fight away from your other suitor.

Happy with its softness against your running hand and face, and his sweet kisses, you couldn't help but purr out: "I can't wait until... Until we can do this all the time, whenever we want.".

"Hah... And that time will come. I've already handed so much to the world, I'm not handing you out too.".

He looked up at the sky to tell the time, then chuckled in a morose manner: "Time sure flies by when I'm with you. It's like I lose control over it so easily.".

He made a sad, but true point; For one, you had to head back into your chambers, because dawn would emerge soon enough and you needed time to change, actually sleep... There was also the fact that even if he got onto the active part of taking you from your father and Archandelle (funny, you just remembered his name), your parents would probably want to have you married soon. Time was of the essence, and that essence was short-lived and impossible to take back.

As he walked you back to the backdoor, hands squeezed tight, he leaned in: "My dear, can I ask you for a favor?".

"Of course. Anything for you.".

"Next time you have to meet that idiot your parents call 'your fiancé', look at whether he behaves out of the norm. Specifically, if he's nervous or uncomfortable. Or maybe if he talks more about politics.".

"I see...".

"Nobles who feel like they have something to hide always act like that. Depending on what's found against him, he could be called for questioning. That's enough to cause unrest.".

You laughed: "As with every other noble guy. You'll probably find worse skeletons in my father's closet.".

"The question isn't whether there are skeletons. It's how you use them.".

You liked that idea a lot, enough to make you smirk. Now that you thought about it, there were many 'skeletons' around you, especially those belonging to your father. And now, you were growing into a position where you could use them, where you could be as knowledgeable in the law as Wriothesley and use it to your advantage. Sure, that might get you called 'disgraceful', but you'd be ripping yourself away from them faster, ergo into your lover. And if Fontaine was all about fairness, what was happening to you was unfair. You were just rectifying an error.

"Uh-oh. My mischievous darling is smiling like that of all ways. What do you have in mind?".

"I just liked what you said. It feels a lot like how the world works.".

"It's not far off.".

Agatha was sitting down next to the backdoor. She stood up and bowed, but her smile grew bigger when she caught sight of your intertwined hands. You felt very lucky to have her by your side.

Before bidding goodnights, Wriothesley turned you to him, and kissed you one more time, before stroking a strand of hair from your face: "Dream of me. Let us meet in the realm of sleep and continue this, until we won't have to dream anymore.".

"I promise.".

Much to your heavy heart, you headed back in, and he was off to the nearest teleportation waypoint. The ending of your meetings always brought sadness to your heart, but he worked so hard for a reason; He would rather die than you two not be together. His very passion was you, and you knew that if he was yours, some things had to be done. And you were sure that could happen, starting with the favor.

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"Y/N, you said he made you the happiest girl of Teyvat?".

"Yes.".

"Well, you sure look like that right now! How was it?".

#yandere genshin x reader #yandere wriothesley x reader #yandere reader #wriothesley x reader #genshin impact x reader

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orangerosebush · 9 months

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hi there! I was wondering if I could pick your brain re: accents in the fowlverse because I adore reading your analyses and thoughts so I’m curious to see what you think! Artemis 1 and 2 I’m assuming have a Dublin accent (forgive me Irish fans I’m not familiar with Irish accents!), but what about butler and Juliet for example? And holly and opal and other fairies, while of course they can speak any language they’d like, do you think they adopt an accent that fits their language of choice, or is there a “fairy” accent they have?

Hi there! I have a few thoughts on this, though I will ask that you take them with a grain of salt due to being an American, lol.

The Irishness of the books is a subject on which people have written much more intelligently than I ever could. The first AF book was published in 2001, which I note here due to economic context. The "Celtic Tiger" refers to the rapid economic growth in Ireland from the mid-1990s to the late 2000s.

O’Leary, Eoin. “Reflecting on the ‘Celtic Tiger’: Before, during and After.” Irish Economic and Social History, vol. 38, 2011, pp. 73–88. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24338906. Accessed 2 Aug. 2023.

During this period of economic growth (which one must note was characterized by high technology exports), there was a boom in internationally successful Irish children's and young adult fiction. These books usually harkened back to pre-colonial mythology while incorporating high-tech themes connected to economic optimism for Ireland's future.

The 2011 essay collection edited by Keith O'Sullivan and Valerie Coghlan, Irish Children’s Literature and Culture: New Perspectives on Contemporary Writing, analyzes the historical context behind these trends in youth fiction.

O’Sullivan, Keith, and Valerie Coghlan. Irish Children’s Literature and Culture: New Perspectives on Contemporary Writing. 2011. Routledge.

‌Of the Irish children's fiction and YA published from 1995-2005, Colfer's Artemis Fowl series remains one of the most internationally popular. In looking at these books' success, Patricia Kennon interrogates the particular Irishness of AF in her essay, "Contemplating Otherness Imagining the Future in Speculative Fiction".

O’Sullivan, Keith, and Valerie Coghlan. Irish Children’s Literature and Culture: New Perspectives on Contemporary Writing. 2011. Routledge.

The first book establishes some interesting elements of the Fowls' class. When describing the relationship between the Butlers and the Fowls, we learn, “The first record of this unusual arrangement was when Virgil Butler had been contracted as servant, bodyguard, and cook to Lord Hugo de Folé for one of the first great Norman crusades"; the Fowls and Butlers arrive in Ireland as Anglo-Norman conquerors.

One other note we have about the Butlers and Fowls is that: “The original Fowl castle had been built by Aodhán Fowl in the fifteenth century overlooking low-lying country on all sides.” The fifteenth century saw the reconquest of Ireland under Henry VIII; Ireland was changed from a lordship (where the island was ruled by the King of England and controlled by loyal Anglo-Norman lords between 1171-1542) to a full Kingdom. Furthermore, with this excerpt about Aodhán Fowl, we must note that the Manor was built in Dublin. During the 15th century, Dublin was located in the Pale.

From Wikimedia

The Pale was located around and in Dublin, and it was the base of English rule in Ireland following the reconquest. By the Tudor period, there was intermarriage between the Gaelic Irish aristocracy and the Anglo-Norman lords, and many of the Anglo-Normans had become "Gaelicized"; descendants of the Anglo-Norman colonists were seen as assimilated into Irish culture and increasingly less "English" by the end of the Middle Ages. These descendants were seen as the "Old English" of Ireland, in contrast to the "New English" of Ireland of the Tudor invasion. One should note that in the case of the Pale, it remained subject to the English king during the 15th century when other parts of Ireland were predominantly under the rule of native Irish lords or Anglo-Irish lords (who, in theory, answered to the king). One should also note that the Pale was comprised of Old English merchants who were loyal to England. Thus, there is a specificity to the time in which Aodhán Fowl lived and built the Manor.

Based on the aforementioned bits of lore and historical context, we have to understand the Fowls as having their wealth and power tied to the class position they enjoyed historically due to being descendants of Anglo-Norman invaders, as well as being "Old English" during the reconquest. The Fowls are undoubtedly Irish -- Colfer positions Artemis and his family as nothing but -- yet they hold the power they do as a result of having at one point been Anglo-Norman (whose descendants "Gaelicized").

As such, IMO the Fowls wouldn't have a location-based accent per se, but rather an education-based accent that is posh, RP-style with a tinge of Dublin. FWIW, some Dublin accents already are received as posh, like the D4 accent. With the Butlers, I think that they'd have a similar accent to the Fowls due to being of a similar class. However, their training would likely lend them the ability to affect an accent that is "local" to wherever they are stationed.

Honestly, I have no idea on accents for the People! I would assume that there is a "Haven" accent, though when it comes to the gift of tongues, I am open to ideas as to how that would affect speech.

Also, I would love to hear any thoughts/additions you may have :)!

#artemis fowl

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eviltiddyproductions · 7 months

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Destined With You : Episode 16

I will feel all of the feelings of this being a finale later. HONG JOOOO WHERE ARE YOU ?!!!

my impatient ass sitting through the intro after the first episode 😂😭

why has this loser emptied her purse

lmaoooo she even scared me for a minute

oh god bless for once my sister didn’t get tricked into something (again!)

he’s so nasty and this plot is so absurd 😭

GET AWAY FROM HER !!!!

GOOD JOB HONGJOOOO

YOU BETTER DASHI RUN 🏃‍♀️

ooh she’s rocking the Duan Jiaxu fit from Hidden Love!

where are you running towards Sinyu and if you’re running why is the police not following you 😭 ???

sis you should’ve just ran 😩😩😩

but also saying ‘you’re just insane’ to his face before he kidnaps you again was kind of a serve 💅

Sinyu has gotten zero days of rest since he got out of that hospital

he’s got the red string of fate tied to my sister NOOO GET AWAY FROM HER !!!

his creepy ass turning towards her with the blood red moon behind him

all about that fate and going into the next life and the second the police flashes light on him he cut the string…. nasty loser 😭

Rowoon’s acting’s gagging me rn like suddenly I’m genuinely feeling the shock of seeing someone you love passed out (possibly dead)

someone hold my hand 😭

not this romantic music playing

‘hong jo ah’

police !!! paramedics !!! where are y’all 😭😭😭😭😭😭

oh 💔💔💔

the way he leapt off of the ambulance

oh my heart

the tiny nurse 💀

my poor bean

hongsinyu nation we made it !!

mother is here 😭💕💕💕

who even asked the dad to be here like go work on your failing company idk 😭

I thought he was going to talk about the curse he’s talking about the baby 😭💀

they’re being so adorable rn

the office couple again…

everything that hongjoo does goes public but at least this time it’s for the greater good!!!

talk your shit office girlies! chew Nayeon’s head off 😍😍😍

recorded by the weirdo assaulting ex of Nayeon, isn’t it

exactly bean, you don’t have to thank or forgive him at all!

Nayeon’s getting dumped again lol. right after she suggests marriage too 😭

lmaooo I know he isn’t calling her a bully and a bad look, he was sexually harassing people in the first episode

my babies are on my screen again 🥰

oh he’s still got that bracelet on! <3

my sweetest beans !!!

lmfao Mr. Kwon

oh I was genuinely scared when I saw someone near Hong Jo’s house staring from the mirror, it’s just Nayeon

that shove was satisfying

get your lick back bestie !!!

Mr. Kwon bodied the construction loser 💸

are they going to do the perilla leaves trend thingy

can he just leave the marriage thing alone for 5 seconds

Subway !!!! I know it’s for ease of shooting but these sandwiches in the kdramas are so dry 😭 like it’s technically not the best advertising like babe what are you even eating 😩 just bread ???!

I don’t fully get them but look at Ms Ma getting married in a suit !!! 🩷 oh just saw her whole fit. well a blazer !!!

lmao Mr. I wear shirts at home Sinyu is wearing a simple T-shirt to this wedding 😂😭

I can’t believe it’s ending so quickly, I’m not ready to let go 😩

I knew our princess Sinyu was going to catch the bouquet 😂

they finally get to enjoy cherry blossoms together 😭💕

LMAOOOO the lawyer bestie became an actor?!!! did not see this (adorable and fun) plot twist coming 😂

the old man being investigated instead of being let go by the main leads! progress in the drama world! although I know they’ll defend and help him

and Sinyu’s here!

he’s going to move in isn’t he 💀

lmaoooo she pounced on the car and he pounced on her I LOVE THEM 🦁

aaaaah they’re both so cute 😭😭😭😭😭

‘you sure use your money wisely’ ‘you got me here to work’ 😟

lmaooo go off Hong Jooooo !!! queenie 🤣 (context: she just turned off the light and started rolling with him on the bed)

cannot wait to rewatch this series with lightness and fluffiness in my heart !!!

I did not see this coming 😭😭😭 the peach is Sinyu’s little sister 😭😭😭

to be fair Hong Jo had a gulped a lot of poison, they would’ve let us know back then but wow 💀

back at the beach again 🥰

I love how in love they are and how they’re always ready to vocalise it. Oh I love them downnnn

I knew he was going to ask her dad! 🌊

💍🥰💕

they’re back at the mountain, my lil diligent civil servant and grim reaper!

I know y’all are well versed with the other realm but don’t open random relics let me just 🧿🧿🧿

goodbye my sweet loves 🥹

now what was that little turn of 300 year old Sinyu for 🤨🤨🤨

AAAH it’s over 😭💔💕

can’t wait to rewatch this again! our past and present couple made all the caving plot lines worthwhile. let me go binge from episode 1 again. 💕💕💕

#destined with you #episode 16 #finale #naurrrr #I will miss them so much #my babies fr #lmao at the peach reveal #Rowoon #Jo Bo Ah #you have entered my favourites list!

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frainteso · 10 months

Text

lee insoo, artist & owner of barracuda inc. / mobile navigation

hi everyone! I'm so happy to be here and looking forward to writing with you. my name is char, she/they pronouns (i genuinely don't have a preference) and est timezone. neurodivergent with adhd that goes stoopid and crazy so apologies in advance if it takes me a while to get back to you!

i haven't roleplayed on tumblr in forever, so forgive me if i seem lost as all hell. i've been wanting to play this particular muse for years now, so i'm excited to finally see him come to life. click under the cut for personality info and a (very rough) bio!

personality:

the best word to describe insoo would probably be eccentric. he kind of gives demon but he really can't help it, his upbringing molded him into how he is today

that being said, he's trying to be better and redeem himself from past wrongs. it's hard though when he refuses to change a bulk of his personality and is kinda stuck in his ways LOL but i guess...?

it's more about how he treats people than who he is as a person. like, maybe he would usually blow off plans with someone by acting like he died, but now he'll be honest and just say "yeah, i don't feel like seeing you today, sorry"

he is also the type that your muse would probably see trying to walk up the escalator that goes down or digging in the trash for some undisclosed reasons

idk, he's just really weird and used to be a very dangerous person, but now he's fairly harmless. he's still dealing with dangerous people, though, so it's hard trying not to get sucked back into things

backstory:

he left home at 16 and started living with a friend's family. it was supposed to be temporary, but they fell in love with him and treated him like their own son

he started auctioning his paintings anonymously because he was a minor, using the simple moniker 'art' and a false age

he saw success rather quickly, the mysteriousness behind his paintings becoming a talking point amongst some of the most renowned critics in the art world

his paintings began selling for way more than they were worth. it was almost a trend for rich people to buy his super minimalistic, expensive paintings just to say that they owned it

(and when i say minimalistic i mean like, a black dot on a white canvas with a question mark underneath that would easily be auctioned off for well over $10,000 USD)

he decided to do something with all of this money, eventually buying barracuda inc

the tattoo + piercing shop is the first thing in his life that he took seriously fr. that includes his family, past relationships, his own life, everything. he cherishes it like it's his son

this is kinda long, i'm sorry but that's all for now! feel free to IM me or ask for my discord (pref) to plot, i would love that! also please excuse any errors i'm rushing this rn. talk to you soon!

#intro.

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yunwooz · 6 months

Note

Forgive me if this is a bad question (if so, you don't need to answer this). But so we know of any pro-Palestinian Kpop stars?

Because on the one hand, I get that it might be difficult for them to say anything outright, for various reasons, from Kpop stars having to be mostly apolitical, to many pro-palestine people getting silenced. (I mean, just look at tumblr trying to constantly remove Palestine from the trending tags.)

But on the other hand, one can't help but wonder. And I feel like a lot of fans would appreciate knowing that one of their favourite artists is pro-Palestine, even if celebrity opinions may seem insignificant in the grand scheme of things. It's the little things, you know?

Unfortunately it is far easier to list the names of those who are supporting genocide (such as Eric Nam) and it is likely to remain that way. Kpop stars are by nature silenced by their companies and their fans both, and as long as there is a slight hint of a possibility of backlash or monetary loss for being against a genocide (which lol, there shouldn't be), these companies will stay silent until the end of time.

It is the little things, yes, and a sense of comfort to know that someone you admire and look up to and put so much time of your life into is inherently a good person, but part of the veil of celebrities is not knowing such things. I would say that it is best for us as fans to not wait for the companies behind our favorite artists to grow a pair and speak up because otherwise that would mean waiting in silence. Silence from these artists and companies is not support, it is an attempt to ignore the blatant horrors happening in the world in an effort to "protect" an image that is, by nature of the term "idol", above humanity.

#luna.answers

0 notes

dreamkidddream · 3 years

Text

I haven’t written for JJK yet so here I am 😤 so this is a trend where you trick your partner into thinking your shirt/hoodie/whatever stinks and you kiss their forehead when they go to smell it (I already did this w/ Obey Me! and MHA) reader is gender neutral!

CW: Manga spoilers in Choso’s part

SN: shout out to the gif creators! Especially @/cassisart seriously so talented 😩‼️

Yuuji, Nanami, Choso and Forehead Kisses (Tiktok Trend)

Yuuji

You have his hoodie on and it smells? Does he stink??? He’s already smelling you cause he doesn’t want his stink to make you stink! He’ll be like the worst type of boyfriend if he let that happen!

Wait. You smell fine, so what-

Then he feels your lips on his forehead, and his look of confusion washes off his face and is replaced with the brightest smile you have ever seen

He’s smiling ear to ear, and you find yourself facing him perched on his lap with him wanting more. The one thing about Yuuji, if he wants something he has no shame asking for it, and right now he wants more of your kisses, more of you

It has become a sacred thing to be exchanged between you two daily now (Nobara and Panda pretend to be disgusted but they know it’s cute). Give it to him when he’s celebrating another victory no matter the size, when the weight of being the vessel to the King of Curses becomes too much to bare, when he comes back to you alive. Just don’t stop giving it to him, it means a lot more than you think

He has Megumi, Nobara, Gojo and the others as his family. But you’re his home, someone that he will always come back to, no matter what

Bonus: Sukuna is disgusted at your display of love and affection, but only because you did it on the brat and he doesn’t want to admit that it felt nice lmao

Nanami

He just told you to change at first. It doesn’t make sense to keep it on if it does smell, and you have plenty of other things to wear (and he’ll be more than pleased if you wear his shirt)

But you’re determined to keep it on and have him smell it, which means one of two things: you’re being stubborn or you’re planning something. He is sincerely hoping it’s not the latter

If Gojo put you up to this- his jaw is already clenching just thinking about it. Even when he’s not at work, he still manages to be a pain in his side. Either way he relents because he’s tired of you giving him puppy eyes (because it’s one of his weaknesses in life)

Feeling your soft lips press against his temple is a welcomed surprise. And you trying to stifle your giggling just added on to how pleasant this is, how pleasant he feels, and it’s making the tip of his ears burn red

He gently pulls you onto him, a genuine smile gracing his face. “You didn’t have to trick me you know, I would be a fool to deny your kisses.”

“I know but it wouldn’t have been fun that way!”

He can forgive Gojo this once if he did put you up to this

Becomes a sucker for your kisses (like he wasn’t one already lol), but prefers it to not be done in public or in front of anyone. It’s intimate, and it should be done behind closed doors. He’s not risking the chance for anyone to ruin the moment, and it becomes a shared memory only the both of you can enjoy reminiscing

The best time to give him these kisses is when he’s just had a grueling day at work (especially if he’s had to work overtime), like the world just beat him to hell and back and when all he’s ready to do is just lay his eyes on you. It reminds him what he’s fighting for; his retirement so that he can spend the rest of his life with you in comfort, in peace. He doesn’t want you to watch him leave every morning and worry if that was the last time you’ll ever see him; he wants those days to be gone for good

He’s lucky and very grateful that today is a lazy day, that he gets to experience this with you, that he gets to love you. Working as a sorcerer, he understands the risks that comes with it. But just because he understands it doesn’t mean that he’s ready to accept it. Accepting it means that he’s accepting the possibility of leaving you, and he won’t ever bring himself to accept that

Choso

He doesn’t hesitate to smell you; although he doesn’t smell any foul stretch coming from you now, you need his assistance and that’s what matters

But you don’t smell bad (quite the opposite) you smell like your usual scent, so he’s confused. Did he mess up doing laundry possibly? He knows that you claimed that he’s a very fast learner, but he’s still trying to adapt to the current times and a human lifestyle on top of that. He’s very adamant about helping you in any way he can, especially around your shared home, so making a mistake like this is-

He froze. Did you…kiss…his forehead?

Is this your way of showing forgiveness to him for not noticing the smell, or for ruining the laundry?

He honestly thinks it was an accident, until you do it again, and again, and again and then it clicks that there was nothing wrong to begin with

When you explain to him that it was a prank, he was embarrassed that he didn’t catch on (he still didn’t understand why or the point of it, but he also got this result so he’s not complaining), but he’s not upset. Poor guy didn’t know how to react, but oh please don’t stop

He’s flustered, but he’s bent down still close to you, and lacing your hands with his, not wanting you to leave

You got this man addicted to you even more now (if that was even possible)

After seeing how he reacted so positive to it, you incorporated it into your daily routine. It got to a point that he began expecting it to happen and didn’t ask or prompt you for it anymore

“Dear…am I forgetting something? Anything else that I need to add to the list?”

“No…but you are forgetting something.”

It took a second for it to click and you’re literally going to the grocery store but who are you to deny him his kisses

He already melts for you, but this just makes him putty in your hands. Any affection that you do give him he craves it. He blushes, but it does bring a smile to his face that you can appreciate

The only time you know that he really needs it is when he’s thinking about his brothers. He’s already worried sick about Yuuji, but he regrets not being able to care for his younger brothers. Yuuji and the other girl may have ended their lives, but he blames Geto and Mahito for their deaths. If he wasn’t foolish enough to accept to work with them, if he wasn’t so gullible enough to believe their lies, then his brother wouldn’t have been forced to fight his other brothers, and they would all be here today. They would be teasing him about being so in love with you, but happy for him nonetheless. He misses them dearly, and the sins weigh heavy on his soul as each day passes

But you’re there for him, you’re always there for him. You’re there to remind him of the truth, of how far he’s come, of how he’s not alone and that he doesn’t have to deal with his personal demons on his own. As you hold him in your arms, he can’t help but marvel at how he went from hunting you down to being so in love with you, and how he doesn’t regret any of it

He’s vowed to be your protector, someone that will give his life and soul to have you see another day, to live life, without a doubt. But you pressing your lips above his brows makes him feel protected in his own way

#jjk x reader #jujustsu kaisen x reader #yuuji x reader #nanami x reader #itadori yuji x reader #choso x reader #nanami kento x reader #jjk headcanons #jjk #jujutsu kaisen

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tender-rosiey · 3 years

Note

hi hi <3 back to request bc i just love your work!

could i request haikyuu boys reacting to their fem!s/o getting a phone call and a guy on the other line says “hey, you home alone?” or something along those lines. there was a tik tok trend where girls would get a fake ft call with a guy saying ^ to see how their boyfriends would react, i think i may be able to find a video if you want but i do hope i explained this well :)

❥ “Hey, you home alone?” Prank on HQ characters

Includes Oikawa, Bokuto, Tsukishima and Kageyama

ᴀ/ɴ: i am glad you like my work, luv and this looks fun to write and I love these pranks a lot! hope you liked this luv 💕 also did my blog really go quack or is my stuff just getting ignored 👩‍🦲

Oikawa Tooru:

I would like to write a whole damn essay about how much I love oikawa but this is not our topic for today until now at least

SO, you felt bored and wanted to do something, plus oikawa has been free from pranks for far too long

That’s another reason why TikTok is your place to go for pranks

You saw said prank and wanted to do it since our lovely tooru has rather interesting reactions

So you set it up the sound and held your phone while your boyfriend is in the kitchen counter behind you preparing a snack for movie night

It was all fine and dandy until

“Hey, you home alone?”

You suddenly heard things stumble and your boyfriend was beside you in a snap with a frown on his face

“No she is not alone and in fact we are going on a date so you can just go FUCK YOURSELF— babe you are recording?”

You then smiled cheekily before bursting out laughing resulting in the blank stare and a pout from your boyfriend beside you

“Y/N, that’s mean, how dare you?”

However you didn’t expect your boyfriend to slam down on you and try and suffocate you with hugs

“Tooru get off!”

“No, apologize!”

He also peppered your face with kisses until you were sorry

You also posted the TikTok and it got more than 400k likes 👩‍🦲

And my favorite part is the comments so let’s start

Some of them were like

“LMAO THE SPEED HE GOT THERE WITH”

and “he is so pretty tho tf”

as well as “the kisses at the end were adorable tho lol”

Of course his ass was sticking out while peppering you with kisses so someone commented

“What a flat ass”

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Bokuto Koutarou:

I personally believe that Bokuto would have TikTok and would know about the trends unlike the dumbass up there who I think would only stick to one side of TikTok

Bokuto likes diversity in everything and doesn’t like getting left out, once again it’s my opinion

So he obviously knows the trend and you know that he knows, so you got a video of someone with a voice he never heard

He had just came from training and entered the home with a big smile and greeted you with a kiss

And so as he turned his back to you he heard

“Hey, you home alone?”

Bokuto threw the toilet roll at your phone knocking it down

His hair then deflated and looked at you with a look that made you feel extremely guilty

“Kou, it’s a prank.”

He then crossed his arms and faced away pouting

Now how do we make up things to a deflated and pouty Bokuto Koutaro, the great captain of Fukurodani?

Hug him from behind and start kissing his cheek and face then tighten the hug, like you are doing right now

He starts to relax to your touch still being just a little petty

“Don’t do that again, Y/N; these pranks aren’t funny.” He said barely audible as he was trying not to break his pout

He then broke into a fit of laughter and turned to hug you cause I stand by word when I say bokuto loves physical affection with every fiber of his being

And you guys continued the day cuddling <3

Onto the comments:

“HOW COULD HE KNOCK US DOWN LIKE THAT”

“That aim tho”

“HE IS SO MUSCULAR”

“Can we buy someone like him?”

He also gave you a kiss on the cheek while the camera was filming

Cause ✨ AFFECTION ✨

And by the way

He told kuroo about this

And kuroo is planning a lovely prank to get you back for what you did for his bro 🥱

And kou doesn’t have any idea that kuroo is doing a prank even

Tsukishima Kei:

BAHAHA

The fact that you thought this was a good idea is very humorous, however tsukishima has TikTok, but ,unlike Bokuto, he literally knows everything

And he knew the moment you kept staring at him with a smirk on your face that there is something up

Inasmuch he was patiently waiting for your time to strike

He however then heard kageyama’s voice say

“Hey, you home alone?”

Love, when I tell you he whipped his head so damn fast he almost snapped it

“Hey king why don’t you go stick your dick in a dirt hole instead, y/n is too good for you.”

Cue you laughing while replaying the recording of kageyama saying that same line three more times

Explaining to him that it was a prank took some long time cause tsukishima was being a petty bitch

“Keiiii, I told you I am sorry—“ “no.” “Please, talk to me!”

Maybe just give him a hug or threaten him with going to kageyama and he will hug you from behind

“Don’t do it again, or I will never forgive you.”

Of course you wouldn’t go off the hook so easily sweetie

Tsukishima Kei ,as Tanaka once said, never forgets to counter and take revenge

So you basically started a prank war and may god be with your neighbors

But y’all still gonna watch the movie you agreed on and gossip so 🙄

You even managed to make him put on a face mask which I salute you for by the way

He is a little disappointed in himself cause he already knew you were gonna do something but still was shocked or rather startled

And for the comments which are the loveliest

“Woah is his neck okay—“

“The GLARE HE SO MAD”

“So stubborn wow”

You showed kageyama his reaction and he almost burst out laughing instead just ended up smirking in an evil way

While on the other hand hinata was rolling on the floor having the best laugh of his life aside from the one after his first receive which I was very proud of him for

Kageyama Tobio:

Hinata was low key gonna ruin it all

Why?

He almost laughed his way through the one sentence he was supposed to say

So your boyfriend was just doing his nails peacefully like the pretty boy setter he is until your dumbass decided to do the prank him while he was doing that

And so in the middle of his nail care session he heard the voice of his best friend say

“Hey, you home alone?”

You didn’t want to use the actual audio since when you guys cuddle he watched TikTok with you and basically knows the trends because of you

Unlike his senior who despite having TikTok doesn’t remember trends for shit

So you called his best friend and made him take part in this and sacrifice his being for a good laugh

Anyways back to him almost injuring his finger when he heard it

“HINATA BOKE WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM Y/N?!”

“BAHAHAHAHA I AM SORRY Y/N I CANT!”

He kept glaring at hinata through the phone and ended up hanging up on him and returning him to the “to serve at their head” list for the 37th time

He just looked at you and pouted unintentionally

“It wasn’t funny you know, you scared me.”

now make it up to him

“What can I do so you can forgive me then, Tobio?”

“…milk and cuddles.”

And so he got it what he asked for

Hinata’s funeral got scheduled 3 days later but he made it out alive so it’s okay :D

The comments were interesting to say the least

“Did he just do like oxen do? You know, the air from their nose when mad”

“THE NAIL; IT ALMOST BROKE NO”

“So pretty”

“I feel like the orange headed dude is gonna get his ass handed to him.”

He went to ask noya and tanaka for advice to get you back for what you did

To which they told him to ignore you for 24 hours

They also shared the idea because they heard oikawa and tsukishima talking about it separately

They also showed him their evil laugh

do not copy or plagiarize or you will be reported

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mc-lukanette · 3 years

Text

Anonymous asked:

That anon coming at you thinking you wouldn't have sources to back up your criticisms of the show has the same energy as a Karen asking to speak to the manager, not knowing the the underpaid, beleaguered employee they've been berating is the manager

pfffft.

me, flashing my nametag: ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you to leave

Anonymous asked:

Honestly the people who are honestly convinced Marinette never gets punished, Marinette never rejected Chat Noir, and that she was leading him on are seriously just watching the show with Adrien vision I don't know what to say.

Really these people go on hating Marinette for “being an obsessed Adrien stalker” but these Adrien stans are freaking obsessed with their favorite blonde boy and can only uplift Adrien by putting down Marinette. It is creeping me out!

My reply got long so I put it under a read more lol

The weird part honestly is that most of the stuff they get on her case for in terms of “stalking” is stuff that I would expect people to know of a celebrity they’re interested in in a TV show. The trend with them is usually that they can’t go anywhere without getting attention, so like--yeah.

the pictures (which disappeared in the entirety of Season 3 and only pops up in Season 4 at the writers’ convenience with no explanation) - can be taken from magazines/websites

the schedule (which got upgraded to a general non-Adrien-specific schedule in “Gamer 2.0″ anyway) - stuff I would expect to hear Adrien tell Nino at school while Marinette’s sitting behind him; if you wanna confess to a celeb or ask them out, better make sure you know when he’s free (plus, “Lies” has a camera crew literally just following Adrien around on his day),

stuff like his favorite macaron flavor - stuff I’d expect to hear from interviews

+ “stalker” is a very loaded term and I feel like calling Marinette one actually downplays the danger and cruelty of actual, real-life stalkers

other bonus/additional things:

“Copycat” - it was Alya’s idea initially to go get Adrien’s phone (and Tikki even broke into the locker without much of a fuss; Tikki’s supposed to be Marinette’s moral teacher); Marinette didn’t take it with intent, she panicked and made an impulsive decision (also, this is a narrative issue because they needed to ensure that Adrien didn’t hear the recording or else Marinette probably would’ve been rejected and could’ve moved on)

“Volpina” - required and encouraged by Tikki in order to check on the book; Marinette also wanted to reveal what she was doing in order to tell Adrien that Lila stole from him but she got increasingly angry at Lila insulting her hero self (while Adrien didn’t really say anything in defense of Ladybug, which was strange; also, semi-unrelated because it’s not brought up as an option, but Lila coming in suddenly and being adored by a bunch of students is suspicious and sounds like akuma behavior)

“Ikari Gozen” - this is more of a narrative issue I have with the episode than anything else (I’m not saying that Marinette’s in the right); Kagami was acting strangely and Alya was onboard with sabotage, and they (the writers) couldn’t find a way for Kagami to reveal that she wanted Marinette to be a friend without Marinette peeking into her phone (also, the hypocrisy of the narrative getting on Marinette’s case for invading people’s privacy while:)

Sabine lowkey threatened to look at her emails and diary in “The Bubbler”

Alya peeked into Chloe’s locker with her phone and the narrative had a very black-and-white view on it (Chloe bad, Alya good, since it took pressure from Chloe for Mr. Damocles to do anything; also, the school doesn’t have a rule about invasion of privacy???)

Chloe going into Marinette’s locker to sabotage the gift is treating by Miss Bustier as something for Marinette to just “forgive and forget,” and Chloe comes out on top in the end while Marinette apologizes to her (Chloe never apologized to Marinette herself)

Marinette was forced (narratively) to reveal what was in her private chest to a child in “Christmaster” (regardless of akumatization - that thing that was caused by Marinette doing basically what Alya did in “Stormy Weather” - Marinette’s personal things are none of Chris’ business)

The girls blatantly invade Marinette’s privacy in both “Gang of Secrets” (after lying to her that she could talk “when she was ready”) and “Backwarder”

“Oni-Chan” - Marinette’s worries about someone getting hurt because of Lila is literally what happens when Kagami gets akumatized; regardless of Marinette’s actions, her fears were valid and ended up coming true

“The Puppeteer 2″ - never would’ve happened if Alya hadn’t orchestrated a whole plan, if Tikki hadn’t tried to give Marinette “advice,” and if Adrien hadn’t tried to prank someone that he even said in “Riposte” got flustered easily

“Chat Blanc” - never would’ve happened had she not been under extreme pressure and a literal threat from her friends to not hang out with her anymore

And the gross part of all of this is that they (the fandom)’ll treat Marinette horribly for having a crush that’s so “extreme”/”awful” (which was made worse and then get mad at her when she can’t move on/get better all on her own. Like, pardon? This crush is apparently the worst thing ever but she’s also expected to do it all on her own while her “friends” keep pushing for the ship? I would think that the worse the problem is, the more help one would need.

#((omg I don't deserve you guys))#((thanks for the resend!))#type: salt #((Not to mention the people who say Marinette is ''awful'' for Adrien))#((or criticize her heavily for her crush on him))#((and then continue to ship the love square in canon. I don't get it.))

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canyouhearthelight · 3 years

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The Miys, Ch. 151

This chapter has been one that I have been dying to write for a while. I was worried that @baelpenrose would resist the idea, but he very much thought it was hilarious. As always, his input and riffing on this chapter has very much made it better and better.

However, it also made the chapter longer, lol. But there is just no way to trim it down without losing something that makes it all work, so this week is nearly double my normal length... break everyone’s heart, right? ;)

“I don’t like these numbers,” Parvati grumbled - as much as she was capable of grumbling - as she scrolled through the final counts of approval ratings on her and Hannah’s inaugural Food Festival.

The statistics had been dropped into our inboxes that morning, in the static of about a thousand other notifications now that Derek had finished the stress-test. Also included were the results of the last three invasion-prep drills, which I was in the process of scanning over.

“How bad are they?” I asked, half listening for a number. The drills were trending better, which was a good sign that the moves were effective.

Dismissing her display with a gesture of disgust, she sighed. “Seventy-four percent approval rating.”

I arched a brow and glanced over. “Did you adjust for those who did not attend?”

The glare she sent me wasn’t seen so much as felt. “Of course I did. First thing I ran…”

“Are you filtering by the day the comments came in?”

“I -” Bingo. She huffed. “No! These are intended to be ratings for the entirety of the event!”

I started scrolling through my own statistics. “Chart them out by the date the ratings came in, filtering out everyone who didn’t actually attend.”

A pause. “Oh… Oh! It’s showing ninety-three-point-four now!”

“Et voila,” I murmured. Louder, I clarified, “People like to weigh in early, and those who object in general tend to speak first.”

“I see that… how’s it going over there?” she asked, smoothing her braid over her shoulder as she turned to look at me directly.

“We are improving with every drill, marked upticks since the relocations. Arthur should be here in about - “ I glanced at a clock, “Seven minutes to go over next steps.”

Alistair breezed over to swap my empty bulb of cold coffee for a fresh one of water. “The appointment is in fifteen minutes.”

Parvati beat me to the punch. “He is also compulsively early, meaning…. Six minutes now.”

He rolled his eyes hard enough that I wanted to giggle. “He doesn’t even have the decency to be fashionably late. Appalling.”

Surely enough, Arthur paged at the entrance - out of some sort of manners I accidentally instilled in him - exactly five minutes prior to our scheduled appointment. As he breezed into my office, he managed a half-assed glare at Alistair for abruptly turning away and focusing on my schedule rather than his usual tendency to get a beverage for any newcomers. “Okay, updated data on drills isn’t what I want it to be.”

I laughed. “You’re joking, right? Your team and Michael’s haven’t gotten past deck four by more than three percent in the last seven exercises.”

“Any percent above zero is unacceptable,” he grumbled. I chalked it up to the indignity of being forced to get his own tea from the console.

Almost as though to spite Arthur, Alistair made a point to set a refreshed water bulb in front of everyone except the professor. “There are guards on the other levels for a reason,” he suggested drily.

“And I would rather those guards be idle, thank you,” Arthur threw back in a near-venomous tone.

“Us guards would rather be prepared for any eventuality, which you may do well to plan for in your petty drills.”

I didn’t even try to intervene. Clearly there was some blatantly disagreement between my admin and my friend, and I was exhausted from trying to make them cooperate.

“If I’m doing my job, you should be so grateful as to be idle,” Arthur drawled.

Alistair scoffed. “As if being left to rest and get fatter than a Christmas goose is a blessing…”

“You’ll live longer!”

“And get lax in my duties, which I will not stand for!”

“Get fat! Get lazy! LIVE! I don’t care! I’m not going to be lax in my duties to allow you the opportunity of getting practice at fighting.” Standing, Arthur buried both hands in his hair, but it looked less like he was running his fingers through it than pulling on it. “Are we really discussing this when we are training to fight in living body condoms?”

“I need to defend the Archives!”

“And Michael and I need to defend everyone! Us doing our job means you don’t need to do yours.”

My neck snapped back at the vehemence in his tone. This wasn’t their normal sparring… they may have never truly gotten along, but even in the beginning it was never so vicious.

To my further alarm, Alistair took a long stride forward and stared down his nose at Arthur. “We both know that she - “ his hand flung out to point at me “is either the luckiest or unluckiest person in existence. You can’t really believe that, in an actual assault on this ship, that she won’t be in danger. Which will place Tyche, the Archives, Derek Okafor, and Samuel Richardson in equal danger. You aren’t an idiot, you know this.” The hand pointing toward me turned, and time seemed to slow down as he stabbed Arthur in the sternum with it, punctuating each of his next words. “Stop lying to yourself.”

“Poke me again, and the finger comes off.”

“I would dearly love to see you try.”

Hannah and Parvati had jumped to their feet when Alistair approached Arthur, but were now slowly moving around to my position, safely behind my desk. Hannah hissed at me through clenched teeth, “You had to tell them to fight it out.”

“I thought they would use a gym, not the damned office,” I hissed back.

Before she could respond, Alistair spoke again. “You aren’t the only one on the Ark who wants to protect everyone. You need to trust us to do our bloody jobs.”

“The last time I trusted anyone else to protect people, I lost fourteen students,” came the ground out response. “I’m not backing down on this.”

“You will, or I will sedate you and strap you to a medical berth for the next four months.” Alistair stepped back and crossed his arms with finality.

A trickle of nerves ran down my spine as I watched Arthur clench his fists and release them. “You think the solution to everything is to tie it up, I swear.”

“Stop changing the topic. I am deadly serious, Farro.”

Arthur turned away from him, waving him off. “Try something else, you would never just sedate me for months on end.” Before we could stop anything, Alistair leapt forward and put Arthur in a headlock, only to be immediately flipped over the other man’s shoulder and onto the table. “Tch. Sloppy. I know you can do better.”

“I thought you wanted me to get fat and lazy,” Alistair grunted as he sucker-punched Arthur in the stomach and rolled for the other side. Once on his feet, he eyed Arthur carefully as he circled the table. “You stubborn ass, you know I am right. You are putting everyone in the lower levels at risk by not running preparedness drills with them, because you don’t want to factor in the fact that one of the offensive teams could fail.”

“We don’t have the luxury of failing, so no. If we do our jobs correctly, everyone who matters will be safe at the other end of the Ark.”

They didn’t seem to be at each other’s throats anymore, but the arguing wasn’t getting anywhere. “Guys - “ I tried.

Both men turned and practically screamed at me with their glares to stop talking. Oookay. I held up my hands in surrender and decided to let them sort it out their way.

Damned if the console wasn’t on the other side of them, though. I couldn’t even get popcorn and a drink.

Alistair blew a harsh breath through his nose. “If you won’t include the lower decks in your drills, I will start sparring with Jokul.”

“He would kill you,” Arthur barked in the most miserable laugh I’ve ever heard.

“God forbid,” Alistair mocked. “If I were gone, who would make your tea in the morning.”

“The same person who picks up the socks that magically appear all over my quarters every day, obviously. Worthington, I’m serious, he could really hurt you. He has really hurt me. And Charly.”

That last part was dismissed with a wave. “Madam Charles the First put the fear of herself into him.”

“And you haven’t. He could kill you by accident, and he’d never forgive himself.”

“Maybe that wouldn’t be the case if you would let me train more!”

Arthur groaned and ran a hand down his face. “You are an adult, we’ve talked about this. Train all you want, with whoever you want - Charly, Sophia, Tyche… hell, train with Evan or Michael, I don’t care. Just, not Jokul.”

When did they talk about this? I wondered. It had to be during a sparring session or something, because it definitely wasn’t in my office during one of our meetings. A glance at Hannah showed she was watching everything unfold like it was the most riveting show she had ever seen, and Parvati’s squint of consideration wasn’t much better.

“As you said, I’m an adult. Perhaps I should take your advice, and train with Charly - “

“See - “

“- and Jokul. She will make sure I don’t get hurt.”

Arthur flung his hands up in frustration. “You are so stubborn, I swear!” Growling, he paced in a circle. “Fine! Train with Charly and Jokul. IN the bivouac suit, though! And I don’t want to hear a word when you end up confined in a med bay yourself.”

Alistair’s smug grin showed just how much he seemed to care. “At least I would be spared of picking up the trail of dishes that seem to follow you around.”

“For the love of - they are my quarters! Mine! And I don’t want to hear about it when your bloody socks are constantly getting lost behind my sofa!”

Oh. Oh no. Nonononononono.

“My socks can go wherever they fucking want to, when I am constantly cleaning your disgusting whiskers out of the sink!”

“You know what would fix you having to clean whiskers out of the sink? I could just stop shaving altogether. How about...that…” Arthur trailed off and very slowly turned toward the three of us behind my desk with a look of dawning horror.

And I tried. I really, really tried not to laugh. I could feel my face reddening, my chest aching with the effort of holding it in.

Hannah’s snort was my undoing. As soon as that tiny noise escaped her, all three of us erupted into hysterical, stomach-cramping, tearful laughter. I felt stabbing in my arm as Parvati dug her nails in, trying desperately not to fall. Unfortunately for her, Hannah grabbed me at the same time and all three of us toppled to the floor. The sight of Arthur rolling his eyes and crossing his arms only made me escalate from laughing to shrieking in hysterics and relief.

I couldn’t speak for the other two ladies, but I thought the two men were going to end up killing each other… At no point did I think they took the other option when I told them to either fight it out or….

I gasped for breath, trying to get myself under control. Wobbling to my feet with the help of my trusty desk and a couple yanks to free my shirt from Parvati’s desperate clutching, I pointed between them. “This… how long? Can’t believe… didn’t figure it out.”

“Not everyone is as… public… as you, Conor, and Maverick are,” Arthur snarked at me. “You know, private lives should be private and all that?”

“Must be for you,” I confided in Alistair’s direction, where he had turned his back to our fit. “He’s never not told me when he was dating someone. Or thinking of dating someone. Or potentially interested in seeing if he was interested in dating someone… Best friend privileges and all that.” While I waited for Alistair to respond, my mind whirled through all the things I had brushed off before but were very obvious in retrospect.

Glancing at Arthur for a hint yielded nothing but a flat stare that all but declared in flashing lights You Aren’t Stupid.

I tilted my head at that, and kept thinking. There had been genuine animosity on Alistair’s side in the beginning, and not a small amount of needling on Arthur’s. So I knew it wasn’t something that had always been going on. My mind came to a screeching halt, however, when I remembered something - the day Alistair, Tyche, and I decided that, when I vacated my position on the Council, they would vacate roles as well to leave behind a ‘clean slate’. “Four years, holy shit,” I gasped. “Four years!?”

Finally, Alistair moved. His back was still to us, but his arms went limp by his sides, and his head dropped down toward the floor. “It would be unseemly to have the new Councilor of Education in a relationship with the attache to the Councilor for Resources and Engagement. Or formerly in a relationship, should things not end well.”

“And since he won’t be taking his position until we are on Von,” I put together, “You are okay to serve out the rest of my term, just not Hannah’s or Parvati’s.”

“Correct.”

“Huh. That makes sense,” I admitted before hopping up to sit on my desk, the chair being a lost cause on the other side of two women who were still sniffling and giggling on the floor. “I learned a lot today.”

“Uh huh,” Arthur confirmed drily. “And it had better stay in this office.”

“What?” I managed a pretty convincing confused face before pretending to realize what he meant. “Oh! The relationship thing. Yeah, cool, whatever. That’s not what I was talking about, but you’re good.”

“Dare I even ask what you meant?” Alistair ventured, finally turning around so that he could give me a warning look.

“Uh, isn’t it obvious?” I asked, shaking my head and spreading my hands, palms up. When they both just stared at me, I finally broke and grinned. “Dude. You two are freaking slobs.”

The squeaking noises coming from the vicinity of my feet told me that no further work would be getting done for the rest of the day.

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itsclydebitches · 3 years

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RWBY Recaps: Volume 8 “Refuge”

Happy Saturday, everyone! Welcome to week two of… fourteen? Is that how many episodes we’ve got this Volume? Man, we’re going to be here for a while.

There’s a ton to unpack in “Refuge,” but as promised I want to delve into the opening first. Given the scattered, symbolic nature of our intro I think it’s easiest to just chuck out observations in list form. I’ll segue back into cohesive recapping in a moment.

So, what have we got?

The glitching between a happy, whole Atlas and the burning wreckage we’re now dealing with. That works well given both Atlas’ tech-focus culture and the ways that tech has led to some of our biggest tragedies (hijacked army, framing Penny, etc.)

Ruby looks scared and is standing behind the rest of her team, separated from them by the title. I’m not really feeling that theme so far though, given Yang’s incredibly weak challenge, Ruby’s immediate forgiveness (during her talk with Penny), and the fact that she’s still working with half the team who vocally support her, particularly Nora. Unless something drastic changes, the idea of Ruby being the outsider here is silly.

We get shots of the girls with their past selves superimposed over their bodies and weapons. I like the message here—they carry those versions of themselves with them—just not how it’s contrasted with Ironwood’s image of an earlier Atlas now burning. So that’s all he is now? Everyone gets to embody their growth except for him? His past is erased to focus solely on our current predicament? I’m not picking up any redemption flags here…

Robyn’s hand reaches down towards Clover’s badge, which then circles to show off the Ace Ops. The final image contrasts an angry Harriet with a defeated Qrow. At least, I hope they’re contrasts. It’s going to read as absurd if they somehow end up working together after Qrow helped get her leader killed.

This morphs into Qrow alone who sits, devastated, until Robyn offers him a hand up and they both smile. I’m not a fan of this symbolism after the prison scene we got this episode. It’s like Qrow might have thought about his choices until Robyn’s anger reminded him that, oh yeah, he can be angry at Ironwood instead. These two teaming up, when their last team-up led to a death, is worrisome to say the least.

We get our horrifying image of Salem looming over Oscar as he clutches his head. The group’s weapons fall. This makes sense given this episode’s kidnapping and the team’s sheer inability to do anything to stop it.

Jaune stands determined—also makes sense with his trend of giving “pep talks”—while Ren and Nora stand apart, facing opposite directions. Nora looks back though.

Paralleling them are Winter and Weiss who also face opposite directions. This is becoming a common visual theme: Harriet and Qrow, Nora and Ren, Winter and Weiss. Here though, Weiss looks determinedly ahead while Winter stares down at her feet, unsure. Ugh, I just know they’re going to have her betray Ironwood too.

We get a brief glimpse of Whitley and Willow, not a whole lot to go on. Then we see Salem turning her chess pieces into grimm—literally changing the game—while Ironwood’s white pieces are turned to dust. I could make a quip about how white is supposed to go first, but the initial move was made thousands of years before Ironwood existed and thus he never stood a chance, certainly not when his own allies are actively working against him… but I won’t lol

Watts is smiling at a terminal while at his back Pietro works at his. More opposites. Pietro’s reflection looks to Penny even as his body continues to work, his heart contrasting his head. Penny, in turn, looks upset as her reflection flinches at something off screen and the glass cracks. Watts hacking her, perhaps?

We see the new teams as a cherry blossom (I think?) floats across the screen. It melts in Ren’s hand while escaping Nora’s. Honestly, I’m not sure what to make of that just yet.

Ruby and Yang share a look—undermining their supposed conflict this volume. Couldn’t we have gotten sister unity over the last three years instead?—and a fight against grimm starts up. It freezes as Cinder walks through it, hopefully implying that the group’s attention is on the wrong threat. While they concern themselves with low-level grimm, Salem and her allies are walking free and wreaking havoc.

Then Cinder screams and clutches her grimm arm as things go up in flames. I hope that’s not a death flag given that we’ve teased her death twice already and we only just got a glimpse at her backstory. Also, I think it’s worth mentioning here that there’s a “Summer is the Hound” theory gaining traction which, frankly, I think is 100% unsubstantiated. It’s a fun crack theory, but not something I’m inclined to take seriously until we get some actual evidence behind it. There is, however, potential evidence for people becoming grimm in general: Salem falling into the pool and Cinder receiving that arm. That’s not much though. So while I’m far from convinced that the Hound was once human—let alone that it was Summer—there is something to the theory that Salem may be able to control Cinder via her arm like she controls other grimm. After all, she knew Cinder was alive despite everyone else thinking she’d perished. They seem to have some sort of connection that hasn’t been explained yet and now that Cinder has willingly walked back into Salem’s clutches, she may not be able to walk out.

There are shots of all our other villains, the Lamp and the Staff reflected in Salem’s eyes, and Jinn’s blue smoke, perhaps suggesting that we’ll see her again, or the entity residing in the Staff (if they exist).

Atlas glitches back to normal—a false victory?—before the ice breaks and Team RWBY falls into the darkness below. Volume 3 vibes all around. There’s light above them emanating from the Staff, but as Ruby reaches for it grimm arms circle and pull her deeper. I hope this means that the group will suffer the defeat we need to keep Salem as a legitimate threat, but we had very similar imagery back in Volume 6 and they made it out of that situation just fine, so.

“Happy Ever After” glitches into “Happy? Never Again.” Which isn’t ominous or anything. We finally end on the classic RWBY image of Crescent Rose buried in the snow underneath the shattered moon.

On the whole I think the opening is strong and I like a lot of the symbolism in it, though I do question how much will actually end up being relevant to the story. My only gripes are that there are too many different styles going on—it feels like three or four different Volume openings slammed together—and the fact that it also feels overly long. I don’t think it’s actually any longer than our Volume 7 opening, but it seems that way to me, perhaps because of those varying styles breaking things up.

So that’s what we’ll be watching for the next twelve weeks! Let’s move onto the actual episode.

We open on the image of Clover’s bloody badge in Qrow hand, the same one we got in the trailer. I theorized last recap that we’d be getting the rest of our trailer/promo material this week and I was almost entirely correct in that. This moment, retrieving the bikes, fighting off the grimm, Watts getting hit, Oscar carried away… all we’re missing are some eye closeups and Nora powering up her hammer. As said, it makes me nervous for what the rest of the Volume holds. I can’t decide whether the footage wasn’t ready to be included in promo materials that early, or if RT is just determined not to give us any information past the first two episodes…

Regardless, this is supposed to be a moment of grief and all I could focus on was Qrow’s hand. Specifically, the lack of detail in it. On the whole, I’ve been very happy with the engine upgrade and I quite like RWBY’s animation now, but a closeup here draws too much attention to how, sometimes, they’re just not animating their characters in a way that looks natural. Where is Qrow’s wrist? Why is his palm perfectly smooth? Stylistically that’s usually fine, but when given the chance to stare at it you realize how odd it looks.

Says the woman whose own drawing skills suck but, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But we’re talking about the important bits in this episode! Out of frame Robyn is heard yelling, “This is your fault. You realize that, don’t you?” We’re meant to think that she’s telling Qrow this, especially with how he’s bent guiltily over the badge, until we cut to reveal Jacques right next to them.

I wish Robyn was saying all that to Qrow. It would mean that she was ignoring her own responsibility in Clover’s death, but at least it would have started an arc where Qrow has to grapple with what he did. Not the awful moment that’s coming up.

Before that though, Jacques claims that he’s the “victim” here who was “duped.” His hands may not be clean, but “at least I’m not a murderer.” Look, I’m not here to absolve Jacques of anything. The guy is an absolute shit stain on the Remnant world. However, he’s right in his overall point even if his words are BS. Meaning, Jacques is not a victim and he is a murderer, but he is not the one responsible for Clover’s death. Robyn has plenty of things to be furious at him for, but this is not one of them. Ironically, here we have Jacques functioning as the kind of villain the show wants Ironwood to be. He is a murderer because the company he runs exploits faunus and forces them to work in dangerous conditions (see: the death of Ilia’s parents). He is culpable because he a) had control over these conditions and b) has full knowledge of their flaws. He’s a racist who cares more about money than lives. His informed choices then led directly to deaths. Ironwood? Not anywhere near the same thing. Overlooking the “Omg Salem is here and I have to do something about it” context, he did not try to arrest Robyn. He did not force Qrow to resist arrest, or Robyn to get involved, or Qrow to break Clover’s aura, or Tyrian to stab him in the chest. Ironwood had no control or knowledge of these events, so he is not responsible for Clover’s death in the way that Jacques is responsible for the faunus’. RWBY is giving the right arc to the wrong character.

Robyn then insists that Qrow didn’t kill anyone. He didn’t strike the blow, but he certainly helped! Look, Qrow is one of my favorites, but I’m not about to claim that he didn’t have a hand in getting his friend killed. I seriously can’t believe the show is ignoring this.

We then segue into some, uh, questionable dialogue choices. Jacques is a “snake with a mustache”? Sorry, I can’t take Robyn seriously at the best of times, but definitely not when she’s tossing out laugh worthy insults like that. Nevertheless, this “snake with a mustache” is guilty because he “helped that man tear us all apart.” That man being Watts.

…why are they all in what amounts to the same cell with barriers dividing them? I suppose we could make the argument that they’re being held in some secret facility, given that they’re in this dark, garage-esque space with no lights and no other prisoners. Some sort of maximum security setup that... doesn’t have any other inmates and no additional security? Hmm. Then again, the power is supposed to be out and I don’t really trust RWBY’s ability to craft consistent backgrounds. I feel like they’re packed together merely because that’s plot convenient, not because it makes any sense in world.

Watts looks pretty comfortable in there though and Jacques is likewise full of confidence. He says that by now Whitley will have already called their lawyers to get him out. Now, non-imprisoned people know that the apocalypse is currently underway, as Joanna will later put it. No one is lawyer-ing at the moment, but it will be crucial to see whether Whitley is trying to get Jacques out despite the chaos. How faithful is he to his abuser? Can Willow start undermining Jacques’ influence now that they’re alone?

Jacque’s confidence thoroughly pisses Robyn off and she screams, punching the barrier between them. Keep this in mind for a second.

A moment later two guards show up to take Watts somewhere and… oh no. Please don’t tell me Ironwood is going to team up with him now that Penny has written him off? I know the guy has (presumably) already killed someone, and he must assume he’s killed Oscar, so we’re definitely in full villain territory despite the stupidity of it… but please don’t start working with Salem’s henchmen too. You know what? I’m not going to assume the worst until I actually see it. RWBY gives me enough nonsense as it is lol.

What I really want to talk about is that hit.

I’m somewhat concerned by a lot of the fandom’s reaction to this moment in comparison to another. Who remembers Volume 6? That scene when Qrow punched Ozpin directly into a tree? Now, I’m not keeping track of who says what when—this is a generalized reaction—but I saw a lot of posts defending that action. There were numerous justifications for the punch, but the three big ones were: 1. These characters are fighters and they’re used to it, 2. These characters have aura so it’s not that bad, and 3. Ozpin totally deserved it. Now, the problems here are that 1a. I don’t think punching someone when they’re crying on their knees is justified, whether they’re a fighter or not, 1b. Qrow was likewise punching Oscar, a totally innocent kid, 2. We had established earlier that Oscar was having trouble remembering to activate his aura and didn’t seem to have it active then (no ripple effect, he’s rubbing his jaw afterwards), and 3. Ozpin’s crimes are, as explored on this blog, not nearly the horrific actions that the story and fandom would like to paint them as. The point is that despite all this, lots and lots of fans said it was totally okay to punch Ozpin&Oscar. What’s the big deal? they asked. Now, lots and lots of fans—mostly when the trailer first dropped—say it’s not okay to punch Watts. Despite the fact that he’s also a fighter. Despite the fact that his aura has broken. Despite the fact that he’s not currently a threat (seated on the bed/Ozpin on his knees). Despite the fact that he’s responsible for helping Salem try to take over the world. If we were to make a case for who deserves to get hit, Watts is a WAY stronger candidate in my opinion, yet he’s the one who a lot of fans are scrambling to defend. Why? I assume it’s because hitting him feeds into the generalized police state/dictator theme Ironwood has been thrown into. It helps villainize Ironwood for fans to go, “Poor Watts. He’s done horrific things but no one deserves to face police brutality.” I agree. The only problem is that a lot of those same fans seem to have gone, “Ozpin can get over it. He deserved to be hit! I would have done a whole lot worse to him…” So is the difference only that one attacker is a military professional and the other is… a huntsmen professional who soon after that scene starts working for the military? Yeah. The show continually ignores that the group aren’t the rogue heroes they pretend to be. They worked under Ironwood for weeks, if not months.

The show isn’t clear about its morals and neither are the fans, with both changing tactics whenever it helps blame the character they already don’t like. When Robyn punches the barrier, do we really think she wouldn’t have hit Jacques if given the chance? Why would it be heroic for her to hit the Evil Man but it’s not okay for the grunt minor character to hit the other Evil Man? These morals don’t change just because you like Robyn and don’t like Ironwood.

Jumping ahead for a moment, we get another example of this hypocrisy with Joanna. A reporter is informing the people that the military seems to have stopped evacuations and there is an unheard number of grimm hanging out overhead, both things that are objective facts. He’s reporting as he should, sticking to what’s known and provable, and thus is, notably, not some lackey of Ironwood’s who is hastily presented as evil. Yet Joanna treats him like he is. She snatches the microphone from him and, when he starts to protest, threatens him with her weapon. After she’s done hijacking the feed, she shoves him on her way out.

Look at how scared this guy is. These are our heroes? This back and forth doesn’t work. Prior to his random killing spree, Ironwood took his fear and frustration out on some furniture, yet the show acted as if he was hurting real people. The mere possibility that he might use violence and intimidation to achieve heroic goals—getting Amity up/escaping Salem—was enough to label him as an antagonist because the understanding was that you can’t act like that no matter what your intentions are. Yet our current heroes can use as much violence and intimidation as they want to achieve their own heroic goal of warning the people? Do we think the story will encourage us to be critical of the group if they start beating up a bunch of Atlas goons to reach the access point? Of course not. And it’s that flip-flopping that’s the problem. Your heroes have to function differently than the villains in order for them to be heroes. Under that logic, our heroes haven’t acted like heroes since mid-Volume 6 and it’s getting harder and harder to watch.

Especially when we take the scene before this into account. Yup, we’ve still got Qrow gunning for Ironwood. Robyn bemoans the fact that they can’t do anything, to which Qrow replies, “We can do something. We can kill the man who put us here.” I… feel like I shouldn’t start repeating myself given how long this recap is—we’ll be here for forever lol—BUT I hope everyone reading this understands precisely how little this makes sense. How god awful a choice it is. I mean c’mon. Robyn attacked Clover unprovoked, Qrow teamed up with Tyrian, he broke Clover’s aura, Tyrian murdered him, Salem is here, and now he’s sitting in a cell with Watts and Jacques… but Ironwood is the guy he wants to kill? REALLY, QROW? THAT’S WHO YOU’RE GOING TO GO AFTER? I really can’t with this show sometimes. RWBY, put your clown makeup on.

We get a cut to Ironwood’s image just so there’s no confusion about who Qrow wants to help kill next and Joanna threatens that reporter who, you know, is also a citizen in need of help and protection… Her “General Ironwood has abandoned you, but we have not” sounds absolutely ridiculous when we just watched her intimidating this guy to get what she wants. ‘You can trust us! Unless we randomly decide we don’t like you.’ I have other things to say about Yang calling out that racist woman later on, but she gets props for helping her regardless. Honestly, I don’t get that sense from the cast very often: that they’d help you even if they don’t agree with you. They certainly didn’t offer that to Ozpin, Ironwood, or the Ace Ops.

There’s a very long shot of a scared toddler staring out the window, just to hammer home how young and innocent Mantle is. Seriously, pay attention to our imagery: Mantle is scared children in homes, cute children fist-bumping Jaune, family photos lost in the street, a stuffed toy run over by hoverbikes. It’s meant to evoke a general sense of domesticity and, again, innocence. Meanwhile, Atlas is only shown via Ironwood and Jacques, the villains. Where are the families living up in the sky? The children? The humanizing details? Our racist woman is an outlier who is quickly silenced by Yang. The rest of Mantle is characterized as victims: scared women, worried fathers, the faunus huddling together in the slums, even another racist who, while an asshole, is supposed to have a point about things like the embargo. Which is all true. These characters are all of these things, it’s just that they’re not unique in this. All this exists above too—from those families, to the faunus slave labor, to the beloved objects that remind you of someone’s worth—but they’re ignored to provide a simplistic look at Atlas as the villain.

Throughout this entire episode the group tosses out snide remarks about how “They” don’t care about you and it’s just… they who? The other thousands of innocents who have nothing to do with Ironwood? The hundreds of Mantle citizens you already evacuated? The redeemable people like Winter and Whitley? The group fights alongside a Schnee who was one of the most vocal racists a year and a half ago, yet writes off the entirety of Atlas as the bad guys. What a mess.

As Joanna’s voiceover finishes, we cut to Yang’s group going after Pietro’s tech. I already covered this scene in our promo material, but to summarize here: horrible tone. Absolutely nonsensical given the situation. Salem is here and Yang is giggling over bikes. In fact, the tone is off for most of the episode (our end being the wonderful exception): Yang’s joy ride, antics with the Mantle citizens, Blake poking fun at Weiss, the tube scene… none of it fits the context of the series’ big bad here to kill everyone. Arguments along the lines of, “But it can’t be doom and gloom all the time” or “This is a brilliant parallel to Volume 3 with happy times heralding tragedy” don’t erase the fact that our cast isn’t taking this threat seriously. Last week Weiss’ “We’re never going to sleep again” moment worked because it’s humor in the context of how bad everything is. All of this? It’s just the group goofing off despite supposedly being in mortal danger. This?

This doesn’t read well. I’d argue this scene is even worse in context due to lines like “The others are definitely missing out.” In our promo material I assumed that the group just split for the sake of splitting and they were, in fact, just missing out on something cool. But we’ve since learned that they split due to a fundamental disagreement about how to help people, a split Ruby compared to Salem’s plans, a split that Yang started! Why is she now acting like their separation is a funny “missing out” moment? It’s like if half your friend group decided to go to the movies while the other half went to a party with an unexpectedly good DJ. The movie-goers are people who are “missing out,” not the group who went off to take over a military base and everyone left angry.

Keep in mind that Ozpin is also back. Every fun times scene with Oscar in it has the added problem of Ozpin hanging back, not saying anything, not acknowledged, still a secret.

The other issue I brought up weeks back was the lack of grimm. Why are the streets deserted? Shouldn’t the army be overrunning the city? Well, turns out that there’s no army because… Salem just hasn’t bothered to send it into the city yet? When Jaune and Ren take out the low-level grimm Oscar asks if they’ve “already pushed this far in,” to which Yang replies, “No, I think those are from last night.” A few minutes later, last night’s grimm change to new non-Salem grimm as Oscar observes, “It’s the negativity. Salem’s forces aren’t moving in, but it’s enough to attract the stragglers.” Later still, Joanna asks, “…grimm are circling out there. What are they waiting for?” GOOD QUESTION. We don’t know, but it’s real convenient, isn’t it? RWBY redeems itself a bit at the end of this episode with that Hound grimm, but I’m still calling it out for having Salem hold off long enough for the group to evacuate pretty much all of Mantle and infiltrate the base. That’s real nice of her. As the characters keep pointing out, it would be a staggeringly different situation if they were overrun with grimm right now, huh? Kind of like the situation Ironwood (rightfully) assumed they’d be dealing with.

Again, I’m so glad our Big Bad is kind enough to let the heroes do everything they need to before lifting a finger to attack them.

RWBY seems to be setting up a, “See! There was always time to evacuate the city!” accusation even though no one could have known that and it makes zero logical sense. Salem brings an army with her so she can not use the army against Atlas? Right…

This all segues directly into our other promo scene. My initial comments still stand: the tone doesn’t work, the lack of urgency doesn’t work (Jaune playing with the kid, Oscar politely knocking on doors), the low-level grimm are not a threat, that shield is useless against anything not driven by plot convenience, and it’s weird for Jaune to be yelling, “Heads up!” when there’s no one in front of him. As said, this moment really doesn’t sit well given everything that’s going on. I had hoped that it would read better when seen in the episode itself, but that’s sadly not the case.

After Ren one-shots the grimm Jaune suggests that they use his amplified semblance to get everyone to the crater safely. Ren seems less than pleased about this, but agrees. Right now, it’s easy to say that he’s in a bad mood because Nora is mad at him, but what about the Volume before? Where’s this underlying tension coming from? I can come up with lots of theories, but at some point the show needs to confirm something. The longer we go not explaining what’s wrong with Ren, the less faith I have that it will make sense when we get it.

We see the racist woman upset that they have to go live with the “animals in the slums” rather than going up to Atlas. As said, I like that Yang helps her despite clearly hating the woman, I also think her criticism holds up well (ignoring the simplified ‘They abandoned you’ narrative). The only thing that bugs me is RWBY continually presenting racism as a problem to throw a band-aid on and then pat yourself on the back for ‘solving.’ Racist drunk says shit? Toss him in the trash! Racist woman says shit? Remind her that her survival depends on you! It’s not that these responses aren’t earned, but that we’re given them instead of an actual arc that tackles the complexities of this issue. I mean, Blake has abandoned the White Fang and we’ve barely mentioned the faunus slave labor in Atlas. When they head to the dust facility it’s conveniently run by bots instead of faunus. Can you imagine if Weiss Schnee walked into a group of exploited minorities, hoping to use them to access a military base? But of course, there’s nothing like that. RWBY ignores the actual issues for these simple solutions. Heroes just attack/threaten racists and then it all goes away. Yay.

The other problem with this scene is that we learn the crater is the slums. Um… what? Hold on, Joanna made it sound like it’s a separate place, potentially inhabited by grimm, yet it’s the same area Oscar was in last episode? How is that area warmer? This makes no sense to me.

Also, ha, the crater below Atlas apparently houses all the “animals” that Team RWBYJNR is very protective of. I’m waiting for them to do something that messes with the Staff—Ruby reaching for it in the opening—Atlas crashes down on a whole city of exploited minorities, and then Ironwood is blamed for it somehow. Can’t wait for that episode.

So the group starts making their way there and hark! An Ozpin! I’m always thrilled to hear him, even if he’s treated just terribly by the show. Oscar is at the back of the group and comments that “It should not be this hard just getting people to cooperate.” Except… they are cooperating? Oscar, you are watching them cooperate right in front of you. That one woman might grumble a bit, but she hasn’t made a move or said a word about not doing what you say. Where did this complaint come from? Another example of RWBY insisting something is there when it simply isn’t. More importantly, Ozpin responds:

“And yet, it’s becoming something I’m increasingly concerned about.”

“You know, I really don’t need your additional comments right now.”

Then why did you comment out loud, Oscar? What, do you normally talk to yourself like that? You were clearly speaking to Ozpin! Don’t criticize him for responding. I hate traps like that.

Ozpin immediately says that Oscar has every right to be upset and apologizes for leaving… it’s not apologizing for his entire existence like I wrote on the bingo board, but it’s close. Who’s surprised that Ozpin is the first to offer (another) apology? Not me. Oscar corrects him with, “I’m upset you came back!”

Okay. Here’s the thing. I like the idea of Oscar rejecting Ozpin both because he’s taken over his life and because Oscar has suffered horribly due to Ozpin’s presence (punched, slammed into walls, kidnapping attempts, etc.) That makes sense, it’s actually morally complex, and it’s great groundwork for character growth. The only problem is… this came out of nowhere. Oscar was shown accepting this new life when he left the farm. Then again when he insisted on fighting Hazel. Then again all the times he’s been told he’s acting like Ozpin and seems to accept that just fine. He’s clearly pleased with this new badass self he’s got going on—he even says as much—yet doesn’t want to acknowledge Ozpin as the catalyst for all this positive change. Okay, that’s something we could still work through, but what about the group? Fans are already theorizing that this is why Oscar is keeping Ozpin a secret, because he’s scared of how the group will react, punishing him to get at Ozpin again, and though he 100% has reasons for thinking that will happen, Oscar hasn’t shown that fear before now. Qrow punches him? Bonding moment with Ruby. Jaune attacks him? I made you all dinner. They all smile over his inevitable death/disappearance? He smiles back. Yang is the most scream-y? Happy to have her using him as an armrest. The group continually ignores him and treats him with suspicion? Not a peep of protest. It’s horrifying that Oscar accepted how the group previously treated him, but he did accept it. Where did this fear come from if we haven’t seen it in response to the harm done towards him? Just as importantly, can’t we have an arc where Oscar is mad at the team some too? I’ll admit that the general premise of blaming Ozpin makes sense for the traumatized fourteen-year old, but after two years of blaming Ozpin for everything… aren’t we sick of this? His team has actively hurt him, outside of Ozpin’s ability to prevent, yet Ozpin is the one who takes all the heat for their behavior. “I felt like I was actually part of the team” should lead to the realization of, “Hey, Yang shouldn’t yell at both of us for things outside of our control” not, “Hey, you should stay away forever because others have decided they don’t like you.”

All of this following Ozpin saving Oscar’s life in the airship. Then saving his life again after Ironwood shot him. Our heroes are real grateful, huh. I hate that RWBY is taking another fave and doing them dirty, though I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.

Ozpin also mentions his magic—would be nice if Oscar brought that up with the team!—and that he is now “recollecting my longest held memories.” He…is? When? Don’t you think that’s something important to show us? We keep being told that “the merge” is occurring but not shown what that actually means. Seriously, when did Oscar get slammed with that many memories??

Please just use the aura machine and give Ozpin a robot body. RT doesn’t have the chops for writing this situation.

As they continue on towards the crater Ren snaps at Jaune about not needing a “pep talk.” Jaune looks annoyed at the attitude which, fair. It says a lot about the writing the last few years that Jaune is the character I’m least frustrated with lol. Likely because they haven’t had him do anything lately which, given that he’s not one of the title characters and our cast is bloated enough as it is, I’m still totally fine with.

Ozpin concludes the scene with, “We need to find a way to work together. Not just the two of us, all of us” with the camera panning up to look at Atlas. I’m glad someone isn’t ready to throw Ironwood under the bus. Given how the group reacted to him sparing Lionheart’s name though, I don’t think they’ll follow Ozpin in his forgiveness. If anything, I expect this perspective to just be more hate fuel.

We move to Ruby’s group which now includes May. Woohoo! She still hasn’t gotten half the screen time as Joanna, but I’m really glad she’s here. In fact, between a useful semblance and that adorable courtesy, I love her already. Despite, you know, helping the team break into the base and all that. Everyone has their flaws lol.

She also frames the Amity plan as getting the world “talking again.” Why is everything presented like a fun romp rather than avoiding death via Salem? Absolutely terrible tone this episode.

The group hilariously waltzes past a sign labeled AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY and enters the dust facility with the bots I mentioned earlier. This I do like. My hypothetical scenario incorporating the racism issue aside, I like that Weiss is using her knowledge and connections to further the mission, rather than something conveniently dropping into the group’s lap. Like Amity suddenly being ready for launch…So yeah, it makes sense that Weiss would know of a potential way in.

Sending someone up through the tubes though? Ehhh… I know they have aura and everything—and that Zwei was once mailed—but are we sure this is safe?? Doesn’t matter because Nora sends Weiss through with a misplaced button press. Good thing that was the tube heading to the base. Too bad Weiss is heading to a guarded military base alone. It should have been May going first with her semblance activated, but no. Chuck this onto the ever increasing ‘Bad Tone’ pile. There should not be giggles over Weiss being in that level of danger, especially with everything else going on. Ruby’s expression is the only one on point.

Before Weiss is yeeted off though, Penny and Ruby have a talk wherein Ruby lies her ass off. Penny says, “I do not like it when friends fight” and when Ruby starts talking about Yang she corrects her, revealing that she’s actually thinking about Winter and Ironwood. “They were our friends.”

I was ready to sing Penny’s praises and really, she still gets credit for being the only one who has acknowledged this, but her opinion is (once again) overridden by Ruby’s. Penny goes, “but then the Ace Ops attacked you” which Ruby doesn’t bother to correct. How would Penny know otherwise? The only information she has about that battle is what Ruby has told her, but Ruby is lying via omission here. The Ace Ops never attacked her. They very explicitly refused to start a fight. Ruby attacked them. Then when Penny is upset that Ironwood said “people were going to die because of me,” Ruby takes her by the shoulders and angrily insists, “That was a lie and he was only saying it to hurt you.”

Ruby… you’re the one lying. You know damn well Ironwood didn’t just say that to hurt Penny. Oh yeah, the general trying to keep a kingdom alive from an immortal witch is preoccupied with hurting Penny’s feelings for no reason other than being evil. That makes sense. More importantly, Ironwood is right. Look, I’m by no means blaming Penny for anything. She fought off Cinder, took the power when there was no other choice, and has now gotten caught up in Ruby’s plans which include incredibly misleading information that Penny has no reason to question. She’s doing her best and deserves that hug. But that doesn’t mean she lacks responsibility here. Ironwood needs Penny to evacuate. Penny—listening to Ruby—won’t help him. Ergo, if something happens to the people up in Atlas Penny will be partly responsible. If I have the key to a door with lots of people trapped behind it as a fire rages, and I refuse to open that door, I have indeed allowed a lot of people to die. As Penny says, she didn’t want this responsibility… but she has it. She has to deal with it. Too bad she’s with Ruby who encourages her to ignore it instead, insisting that nothing bad that happens after their choices could in any way be connected to them. Kind of like Qrow ignoring his own actions against Clover.

Because that’s the takeaway from this scene. Penny had empathy for their friends and then Ruby talked her out of it. She never even acknowledges that those were indeed seven friends that she betrayed. That’s horrible.

What happened to Ruby? I used to love this girl.

Continuing our tone issue, Nora is watching this show like her favorite soap is on. Okay then.

Weiss goes up the tube and then we cut to Fiona saying that… the Mantle police are helping them evacuate? So the military is bad, but the police are good? I need to stop trying to make sense of RWBY’s allegory.

When Yang and the others return Fiona makes an innocent comment about being worried about how they’d fare without the rest of their team. Yang is pissed.

Ah, so we’re back to her giving allies attitude for random observations. Remember the anger at Marrow for suggesting she and Blake try different team-ups? Now here Yang is, in a different team-up, doing quite well. Funny how we never acknowledge who first suggested that. Now, Fiona reveals a totally logical worry that losing four fighters might make a difference when fending off grimm, but Yang is poised to be angry at everyone, about everything, all the time. Which I get is something that a lot of fans like. I’ve already seen a couple of posts praising RT for letting Robyn and Yang be angry without consequences because women often can’t do that and, fair. That is indeed one way to read it. My problem is that their anger is actually irrational, not just called as much because we women are ~emotional~. Their anger isn’t justified: Robyn because she had a significant hand in all this nonsense (that she’s ignoring) and Yang because it’s clear Fiona means no harm here. This is anger that needs to be called out, not ignored because yay women expressing emotion. That kind of defense is reserved for a woman’s justified anger that needs to be expressed without criticism, especially in a narrative that tries to undermine her perspective. But what has Fiona done to Yang? Nothing. More importantly, the show has yet to teach Yang a better coping mechanism than lashing out at people, be it with her fists, words, or angry glares. Yang has been through the ringer and it makes sense that she’s angry, but that doesn’t mean she gets a lifelong pass to treat those around her badly.

Anyway, Joanna says they have a lot of people to keep warm even though the crater was supposed to be warmer? And they’re stealing dust? So what are they using it for it not heat? We’re not seeing any difference here and frankly all the civilians should be dead by now. Or at least entering hypothermia. (Give me that conflict: how do you keep people safe when they’re not all conveniently up for walking all the way to the slums?) Joanna also says that they’re trying to get the “Old mine shafts into a livable condition” which would take how long exactly? In fact, I’d say our timeline is already wonky. We’ve watched Yang hide the Ace Ops last Volume, fly to Winter and Penny, find the Happy Huntresses, wait around for Oscar to show up, ran off on her own at some point to scout, went to get bikes, evacuated all those people to the (far away) slums, then went back out to fight off the grimm. That had to have taken up a good chunk of the night, though it’s impossible to tell the time with Atlas’ snowy sky. I’m leaning towards a bingo mark though…

The faunus who I thought was a badger or something is… a bear I guess? He has a bear-like paw, but his nails seem too long… I honestly don’t know. But he’s Fiona’s uncle! Cute. She's off to deal with a fight that’s starting while the group goes to fight more grimm. Finally, the episode gets good.

The teamwork to take out the dragon grimm was nice, always glad to see it, but the real fight starts when two more grunts show up and then immediately run away. What could have scared them off?

The Hound. (I’m sorry, all I can think of is Game of Thrones when I write that, but it seems to be the name the fandom is adopting, so…) Remember how I said it was unlikely to be a threat on its own? I WAS WRONG. Holy shit this thing is terrifying. It snatches Oscar and in some wonderfully quick animation absolutely obliterates the kid. Oscar is thrown around like a chew toy, desperately trying to rabbit kick at this thing and it does [checks notes] absolutely nothing. I’d normally say something about our farm boy always getting the shit kicked out of him, but this scene was too good for my salt.

Then it changes shape, growing arms, and starts using Oscar as a shield. Yang can’t pull back in time and is snagged by her head, the Hound tossing her into the wall hard enough to break the stone. She’s still conscious though and warns the others about its strategy.

“But grimm aren’t that smart,” Jaune says. Maybe if you kids (Fiona keeps calling them kids) had stayed in school you would have learned that grimm get smarter with age! Oobleck knew that. Or, just as likely, this is a special Salem grimm. Hard to say at this point.

The point though is that the group is helpless in the face of this monster. I do want to emphasize this. I’ve seen a few people criticizing them for not doing enough to save Oscar and it’s like, what did you want them to do? Yang tried to attack and the grimm nearly had her hitting Oscar instead. Ren tried to attack and the grimm changed so fast his weapon was useless. Factor in that morphing—which the group has never seen before—the horror of Oscar hanging there limp, and the general fighter response of, ‘I can’t just keep attacking head on because that thing might kill me,’ and you realize the group was screwed from the start. They can’t stand up against this thing, not without a good strategy anyway, which there’s no time to think up. For the first time in years, ever since Tyrian, Salem actually made the right, villainous call.

Ren screams, “Give him back!”—which was just lovely in an angsty way—and the grimm creepily cuddles Oscar against his chest. Then he responds, “No.” Yeah, they’ve never seen that before either. Can you blame them for their shock? I’m impressed that they were on their bikes just seconds later, managing to keep the grimm in sight. That speaks to their combat experience. Not the ability to power through a situation where they’re clearly outmatched, but their ability to pick themselves back up and try again.

... Ah, so that’s why Pietro was oh so randomly making them bikes. The plot needed a way for them to keep up with a flying grimm. Got it.

My takeaway? RT should be writing horror. They’re far better at it. The animation, sound effects, voice acting, the grimm’s speech and protective instincts, that splatter of goo on Oscar’s cheek…

... stellar all around. Like the Apathy, this is the best I think RWBY has been since the lore episode of Volume 6. Granted, action sequences like this aren’t required to grapple with any of the messy morals and character consistency of other scenes, but still. If RWBY had just given me a lighthearted ‘Girls fight cartoon monsters’ show or a horror fueled ‘Girls fight monster abominations’ show, I’d have been happy. This? This is the only redeeming part of the episode. And it’s indeed one hell of a redemption. Look at this thing!

I’m not going to say it erases all the bad we got—it doesn’t—or that it likewise erases problems like Salem not using the rest of her army, but it’s a notable step in the right direction. This grimm is a threat. This grimm is a mountain the cast has to overcome. If this is the minion its master should be Everest. I still think this Volume is going down the tubes fast (it’s going the way of Weiss lol), but if it can give me more scenes like this? It might not be a total loss.

Last thing to acknowledge: What about Ozpin? I’ll admit it doesn’t look good. Given how fast he takes control he should have been able to override Oscar’s will and at least fight back a little with that spectacular magic we saw during the finale. So why didn’t he? I hope we get an in-world explanation: it happened so fast even Ozpin couldn’t do anything (shaky, but I’ll take it in a pinch), now that the merge is farther along he can no longer take control—something. Because I can easily imagine how quickly the fandom, and even the cast, will turn on him for not playing deus ex machina here. In reality, I think Ozpin didn’t take control simply because the plot needed him not to. The writers needed Oscar kidnapped so any potential out from that is conveniently forgotten… which is another knock against their writing, despite how great the scene otherwise was. The point is to take all these potential pushbacks and find a satisfying way to circumvent them, not pretend they don’t exist. RT can still save themselves here by providing that explanation later, so I hope they’re smart enough to do that. Ozpin has been blamed for everything at this point. His own kidnapping doesn’t need to be added to the list.

Also, still no word on Schrödinger's councilman. We’ve got to wait another week to see whether he’s dead or not.

Finally, let’s update the bingo card!

I’m crossing off “Ruby gives an ‘inspiring’ speech built on ignoring facts she doesn’t like” for that conversation with Penny. Yeah, it’s a speech to her alone about her worth, but Ruby mischaracterized the situation so badly I’m mad at her lol

I never thought the story would straight up just not have the grimm army attacking, so I think I’ll hold off on “Army of grimm conveniently doesn’t kill any civilians” until we see if/when it gets involved.

I’ll likewise hold off on the timeline slot until we see how bad things get…

Maria is on thin ice given that we have no idea what she’s supposedly doing while the group is off on their missions. Stay tuned.

Today we’re crossing off “Deadly cold conveniently doesn’t kill any civilians.” They should all be dropping like flies by now.

A friend pointed out that Cinder’s Cinderella flashback counts as an “Overly obvious fairy tale allusion.” In fact, I talked about how much of a shorthand that is, so that’s getting a mark.

From last week I’ve also decided to include Amity for “Retconning previous lore.” Now that the group is fully underway with their plan it reads as even more egregious that we were told it wasn’t ready.

I’ll hold off on Ozpin’s space for a while. See if he apologizes to the whole group and, if so, exactly what for.

“Oscar is finally kidnapped”—check!

Well, that’s a whole lot of headway this week. Can’t wait to see where the next episode takes us... Here’s hoping we spend a lot of time with that Hound. MVP of the episode.

Until next time! 💜

[Ko-Fi]

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

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hmsjiara · 4 years

Text

‘cause you’re amazing (just the way you are) jj + kie

request by @love-life-always: We never really hear anything about Kiara's kook year, so I was wondering if you could write a story where Kiara had an eating disorder during her kook year, while trying to fit in and stuff but she managed to recover when she became friends with the pogues again, but then for whatever reason it starts to affect her again and jj/the other pogues notice.

this turned into one big angsty mess real quick lol. but protective!jj is my kink, so... here you go lmao. thank you so much for the request, i hope you like it :)

read it here on ao3.

disclaimer: i understand that eating disorders are a serious/complex issue and am NOT trying to romanticize them in any way. and while i did some research before writing this, i am in no way an expert nor have i ever experienced something like this. so, if any part of this is inaccurate or ignorant i apologize. if this triggers you in anyway, please do what’s best for your mental/emotional health.

trigger warnings: eating disorders, panic attacks, brief mentions of abuse.

•••

It was an unspoken rule among the Pogues that they didn’t talk about Kiara’s Kook Year.

It hadn’t always been that way. When Kiara had returned to the Chateau with a years worth of apologies and a case of Miller Lite, John B and Pope had forgiven her almost instantly, but not JJ. Weeks of veiled insults and sharp glares had followed, and despite John B and Pope’s efforts to sway him, JJ seemed determined to hate her forever.

But eventually, even he managed to forgive her for abandoning them. Kiara assumed that it was a combination of her constant presence, and the boobs and curves she’d developed during her Kook Year. She couldn’t really blame them for noticing, since they were horny teenage boys and she spent the majority of her time in a bikini.

So, things went back to normal, and the Pogues caught on to the fact that Kiara didn’t want to discuss her absence, or her exile from the Kook Academy. It was easier this way, she told herself. Talking about Sarah still hurt too much, and as for everything else... well, it wasn’t important.

So, she doesn’t talk about Sarah, about how they got drunk and watched movies and saved baby sea turtles together, how her heart aches when she thinks about her. She doesn’t talk about the girls at the Kook Academy who spread rumors behind her back, who shove her in the hallways and on one occasion dump a smoothie on her head in the cafeteria. She deletes the mean comments under her Instagram posts before the Pogues can see, because she doesn’t need them to defend her, and the last thing she wants is to explain why everyone hates her so much.

Because she just got her friends back, and Kiara isn’t going to burden them with her problems, not when they have it so much worse.

•••

The words eating disorder cause a certain kind of alarm to go off in Kiara’s brain.

Because yes, there’d been those months at the Kook Academy where she’d gone from diet to diet, weighed herself after every meal, looked at the girls in her grade with their flat stomachs and thin, long legs and hated her curves and muscle-toned limbs. She’d followed all the trends— juice cleanses and swearing off anything over a hundred calories. She even stopped surfing, switched to running, wondering if it would make a difference.

Her mother’s comments hadn’t helped. Once Kiara was going to parties and sleepovers with Sarah, her mom started buying her clothes that were two sizes too small, handing her grapefruit halves in the morning when Kiara asked for eggs and bacon, shot pointed glares at the half-eaten box of cookies on her dresser.

So, she started just... not eating. It was almost too easy to do. All she had to do was say that she was running late for school and skipping breakfast, snack on celery sticks for lunch, tell her parents she had homework to avoid coming to dinner. And it had worked: she’d gotten thinner, and her mother smiled when she started wearing the clothes she’d bought her, so Kiara assumed it was fine.

It was a visit to her doctor that made Kiara realize that what she was doing to herself was wrong. There’d been no official diagnosis, just a few pointed questions about her daily food intake, a suggestion to incorporate more protein into her diet. But Kiara had read between the lines, and she’d gotten over it, moved on, recognized that what she was doing wasn’t how she wanted to live her life. And she hadn’t told anyone, especially not the Pogues, because it was her business and they didn’t need to know.

The problem is that sometimes Kiara forgets to catch herself.

Like when she spends a little too long looking at her stomach in the mirror, or when JJ offers her the rest of his fries at the Wreck and she wrinkles her nose and says too many carbs.

He frowns, presses a hand to her forehead, as if checking for a temperature. “Too many carbs? Who are you, and what have you done with Kiara Carrera?”

She laughs, shoves him away from her, goes to get another beer from the fridge, but JJ is still watching her when she gets back. “I didn’t know you cared about that sort of stuff.”

“What do you mean?” She asks, avoiding his gaze as she knocked John B’s feet off of the counter.

“Calories and shit,” he said with a shrug, and it was a perfectly reasonable remark, but Kiara didn’t like the direction their conversation was going in. “Is this something you picked up from the Kooks? You turning into one of those soccer moms who meal plan and don’t let her kids eat sugar?”

It hits a little too close to home, so Kiara snatches a fry from his basket and makes sure that he sees her eat it.

“There,” she said, chewing somewhat obnoxiously. “Happy now?”

JJ rolled his eyes, turned to listen to whatever Pope was saying about his internship, but Kiara couldn’t help but feel like she’d dodged a bullet.

JJ couldn’t find out. Not now, not ever.

•••

Being forced to attend Midsummers is the last thing Kiara needs or wants, but her mother doesn’t care.

She thinks it’s how she copes. Kiara can hang with whoever she likes, as long as her mother can put her in a pretty dress and show her off to the Kooks.

The subtle, pointed comments start again.

Take it in a bit on the hem, Silvia. I’m not used to this, you know. I never had Kiara’s curves when I was younger.

I know that your friends don’t have to worry about this, Kiara, but you have a figure to maintain. Eating at the Wreck every night just isn’t going to fly.

Maybe a side salad instead, sweetheart. I’m paying the seamstress by the hour.

Kiara’s not proud of it, but she does go along with her mother, because she’s tired of fighting with her, and the idea of her daughter going to Midsummers with all the Sarah Cameron’s of the world has made her happier than Kiara has ever seen her.

She tells herself it’s only for a couple of weeks, that she can get through it, but it’s getting harder to ignore the comments, to resist the urge to weigh herself after a bag of popcorn or a sandwich from the Wreck.

Before, when she was friends with Sarah, it was easier to hide. Sarah didn’t really notice other people— it wasn’t her fault, just how she’d been raised.

The Pogues are different.

At first, they buy all the usual excuses. She’s not hungry, she already ate. But then John B asks her to split a burger with him at the Wreck, or Pope roasts her a s’more and she refuses, and they start to notice.

One time, Kiara buys a new kind of green tea ice cream from the grocery store, and she eats it all in one sitting, calories be damned.

JJ laughs, nudges John B. “Now that’s what I’m talking about. Damn, Kie.”

It’s a joke, a passing comment, but Kiara flinches, feels a sudden surge of regret. Shit. Her mother was going to kill her.

JJ sees it, because of course he does, and then his teasing grin disappears and he gives Pope and John B a knowing look.

Pope looks instantly uncomfortable as John B clears his throat, and Kiara doesn’t like it one bit. She feels cornered, suddenly on edge, as John B opens his mouth and says, “Kie, is everything okay? With you, I mean?”

“Of course,” she says, shrugging, the deflection easy. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Well, it’s just—“

“You’re not fucking eating.”

Kiara flinches for real this time at JJ’s harsh, blatant tone, her stomach hollowing out as John B hisses JJ’s name and says this isn’t what we talked about.

Oh, so they’re talking about her now. Wonderful.

“Fuck this,” she says, springing to her feet, the empty ice cream cartoon and metal spoon clattering to the floor. She feels sick just looking at it. “Y’all are— y’all are delusional, okay? I’m out.”

“Kie, it’s okay,” Pope says, his eyes on the floor. “Millions of people have, uh, stuff like this, you know, it’s not—“

“I do not have a eating disorder,” Kiara growls at him, ignoring Pope’s own flinch, how he curls in on himself at her words. “Your statistics don’t apply to me, okay, Pope? You have no idea what’s going on.”

“Kie, we’re just trying to help—“

“Fuck you, John B,” she says, turning to leave, not able to stand the pity on his face.

“No,” JJ snarls, rising from his chair, clutching the neck of his beer bottle so hard she thinks it might shatter. “I’ve had enough. Do you know that’s the most I’ve seen you eat in weeks? Something’s wrong, Kie, we’re not idiots, okay? So just tell us—“

“I don’t have to tell you shit, Maybank,” she snaps, the pit in her stomach filling itself with something cold and bitter. “This is my business, just like whatever the fuck is happening with your dad is yours. So leave me alone.”

She regrets the words as soon as she says them, but it’s too late, because JJ’s beer bottle shatters and John B yells as alcohol and shards of glass scatter across the floor, and Kiara is out the door before any of them can make her stay.

They’re just worried, she knows that, but it’s fine. She has it handled.

•••

In reality, it’s the opposite of fine.

Kiara avoids the Pogues in the week leading up to Midsummers, ignores the texts they send her asking her to meet, actually hides when John B comes to find her at the Wreck.

She tells herself she just has to get through Midsummers, and then it’ll all work itself out.

The stress makes it worse, she thinks, and in between her anxiety over the Pogues and her mother’s pre-Midsummers prep, Kiara doesn’t realize that she can’t remember the last time she ate until she’s pulling up to the club with her parents.

It’s kind of like a wake up call, the shakiness in her limbs and the empty feeling in her stomach, and the next thing she knows, she’s hyperventilating over the sink in the girls bathroom.

It’s hard to breathe, and the heavily perfumed air definitely isn’t helping, and her mother is going to kill her, and Kiara doesn’t even know how it got this bad again. She doesn’t look too thin in the mirror, at least not to her, but what do other people see?

She’s not quite sure how, but she manages to find her phone in her clutch, to fumble through typing in her password and locating Pope’s contact.

He answers on the first ring.

“Kie? Is everything okay? Where are you?”

He’s obviously concerned, and she feels like such an idiot, because she spent the past week pushing him and everyone else away when all they wanted to do was help her.

“Bathroom,” she manages to say, fighting to speak past the tightness in her throat. “In— Inside. Pope, I can’t breathe, I can’t—“

“Okay, Kie, it’s okay,” he murmured, sounding surprisingly calm. “Fuck, I’m working, I can’t leave. But I’m gonna help you, okay? Just breathe. Give me one second—”

The call ended, and Kiara tried not to panic anymore than she already was, but it was a relief when Pope’s name appeared on her phone screen again.

“Pope?” She asks, his name more of a sob than anything.

“Yeah, it’s me. Listen, Kie, you’re gonna be fine. You’re not hurt, right?”

She shakes her head, then remembers that he can’t see her, and confirms that she’s fine (physically, at least) through the phone. Pope keeps doing that, asking her questions in a low, level voice, until she hears a knock on the bathroom door.

“Pope, is that you at the door?” She asks, clutching her phone tighter in her hand, any sense of control she’d managed to regain vanishing.

“No, it’s—“

“Kie? Kie, are you in there?“

She doesn’t know why, but the sound of JJ’s voice makes her crumble. She can still hear Pope talking to her through the phone, hear JJ on the other side of the door, but it’s like it’s all coming from very far away. Her breathing picks up again, and she barely registers JJ’s fuck it, I’m coming in.

His knock on the stall door jerks her back into reality. “Kie? It’s JJ, can you open the door?”

With shaking hands, she grapples with the lock, automatically shrinking away when light floods the stall and she sees JJ staring down at her.

She must look like a mess— sitting on the floor of the bathroom in her dress, mascara running, like some girl who just got dumped by her boyfriend at a party. But she can’t really bring herself to care about that, because she still can’t seem to get enough air into her lungs.

“JJ,” she whimpers, because he’s just standing there like he doesn’t know what to do, some raw emotion in his eyes she can’t bring herself to decipher right now.

“Hey, hey it’s okay,” JJ says, snapping out of whatever trance he’d fallen into at the sight of her, his movements slow as he crouches down beside her, his hands raised in mock surrender. “Take it easy, okay, Kie? Just breathe.”

He takes the phone from her, has a brief conversation with Pope, then hangs up and pockets it. Kiara doesn’t object, staring at her hands and trying to stop herself from shaking.

“Can I?” JJ asks, and she realizes he’s asking to hold her hands.

She nods, and then his warm, calloused fingers are brushing against her skin as he rubs soothing circles into the back of her palms. Her heart rate isn’t slowing, though, her breaths coming quick and fast again, but then JJ’s arms are around her and he’s pulling her back against his chest and murmuring reassurances into the top of her head.

He tells her to copy his breathing, and she does, focusing on the steady beat of his heart against her shoulder, the fact that his hands are still holding hers.

Eventually, her breathing returns to normal, and her anxiety is replaced by exhaustion. She sags against JJ, closes her eyes, relaxes into his warmth.

The next thing she remembers is JJ guiding her into the passenger seat of the van and bucking her seatbelt. It’s easy to trust him, to let her eyes slip closed and listen to the steady, familiar hum of the engine.

Kiara doesn’t ask where they’re going, and she must fall asleep at some point, because then she’s waking up in the driveway at the Chateau. She ignores JJ’s offered hand and stumbles out of the van, tugging off her heels the moment she gets inside and collapsing onto the pullout couch.

She doesn’t want to move ever again, content to fall asleep right there, exhaustion heavy in her bones, but JJ takes one look at her and pulls her to her feet. He takes her to the bathroom, turns the shower on and places a hand on her back to guide her inside. He asks if she wants him to stay. She says no, because JJ’s already looking at her like she’s a wounded animal, and she doesn’t want him to think that she can’t do anything by herself.

Even if she almost has another panic attack once he leaves, has to remind herself to breathe as she undresses and steps into the shower. The hot water helps, and she loses track of time standing in the spray. She never hears the door open, but when she gets out there’s a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt on the counter.

She puts them on, drys her hair with a towel but leaves it down, too exhausted to do anything else. The sweatshirt smells like JJ, and she breathes it in. She doesn’t want to think about what it means. She can have a pass tonight, she figures.

When she opens the door, the hallway smells like cooking oil and burnt toast. She wrinkles her nose, pads into the living room on silent feet, and she thinks JJ might be right to treat her like a skittish animal, because when she walks into the kitchen and sees the plate of eggs and toast on the table, she wants to run back inside the bathroom.

JJ seems to recognize her urge to flee, because he pats the seat across from him and gives her a pointed look. “Sit down, Kie.”

She complies, because she kind of owes him, and JJ actually managed to cook something without burning the house down, so that’s a miracle in it itself.

“It’s no five-star Kiara Carrera creation, but it’ll have to do,” he tells her, smiling at her as she sits down. “I only know how to cook breakfast— sorry.”

He seems almost embarrassed, but Kiara doesn’t see why. “No, I love it,” she tells him, and he just stares at her, as if he thinks she’s lying. “Really, I do.”

He grins at her then, his blue eyes sparkling in the dim lights of the Chateau, and then JJ’s digging into his own food like a starving stray dog who hasn’t had a real meal in weeks.

It smells great, even though the toast is a little burnt, and Kiara is starving, but she still hesitates before picking up her knife.

JJ notices it, because of course he does. “Eat, Kiara,” he says, his tone soft but firm. “You need it. Please.”

It’s the please that gets her. She takes a cautious bite of toast, which is burnt on one side by covered in butter. It settles in her stomach, warm and filling, and before she realizes it, she’s scraping her plate clean.

JJ doesn’t say anything, but there’s a gleam or triumph in his eyes when he takes her empty plate from her and places it in the sink.

She was exhausted before, but the food’s made her drowsy, and Kiara stumbles into John B’s room while JJ is washing the dishes. He’s not home, but she decides to wait until tomorrow to worry about it, if she has to. As well as a bunch of other things— like what the hell her mother is going to do with her.

Kiara’s muscles feel like they’re made out of lead as she collapses onto the bed. She’s exhausted, but her thoughts aren’t stopping, and it’s a relief when JJ appears in the doorway.

“You good?” He asks, and she hums into her pillow, not opening her eyes.

But then the floorboards creak as he turns to leave, and she doesn’t know what makes her do it, but she calls his name.

“Yeah?” JJ says, and she opens her eyes this time, studying his silhouette in the doorway, all soft lines and tousled blond curls.

“Will you stay?” She asks, before she can consider what it means, how he’ll interpret it. “I just... I don’t want to be alone right now.”

But JJ just nods, moving to the other side of the bed and lying a respectable distance away from her. He closes his eyes immediately, but Kiara can’t seem to relax. They’ve slept in the same bed before, but this feels different. Heavier.

“JJ?” She murmurs into the silence, and he hums to show that he’s listening. “Thank you. For tonight, I mean.”

“S’ no problem, Kie,” he says, his words slurred by exhaustion, eyelids drooping as he turned to look at her. “You know you can talk to me, right? About anything.”

“Yeah,” she whispered, picking at her nail polish to avoid meeting his gaze. “I know. It’s just... it’s hard, ya know? I didn’t want to bother any of you, God knows you have enough shit to deal with without me piling my own on top of it, and it wasn’t that big of a deal, I swear—”

“Kie, your shit is my shit,” JJ said, his voice firm as he reached out to take her hand. She brushed her fingers over his knuckles, comforted by the familiar pattern of the cracks and scars that had stayed there even after his cuts had healed. “I’m not going anywhere. And this... whatever it is, we’ll get through it together. All of us— John B and Pope too.”

Kiara nodded, and it was silent for a while, but then she said, “I’m sorry. About what I said, about your dad. I was out of line, and I—”

“Don’t worry about it,” JJ said, shrugging, his fingers squeezing hers in reassurance. “I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did, but... it’s just scary, Kie. It was like I was watching you slip away right in front of me, and I didn’t know how to stop it.”

Kiara didn’t know what to say to that, so she just tucked herself into his side, pressing her face into his shoulder as JJ wrapped an arm around her. Their fingers were still intertwined, resting on his chest.

“Kie,” he said after a while, when she was on the brink of sleep. “I shouldn’t have to say it, but... you know you’re fucking beautiful, right? Just the way you are. You don’t have to—

“Thanks, JJ,” Kiara whispered before he could finish, her voice catching. She told herself not to cry, but a few tears escaped anyway. JJ wiped them from her cheeks, wove his fingers into her hair, running them through her wet curls.

“No, I’m serious, you’re like really hot, I—“

Kiara laughed, swatting at his arm, even though there was no real force behind it. There was a certain warmth rising in her chest, as she breathed in JJ’s scent and fell asleep in his arms. She didn’t quite know what it was, but it was new, and she liked it.

Far more than she should have.

•••

It’s better after that. Not perfect, not right away, but better.

She explains everything to the Pogues eventually, and they take it all in stride, as if she’d just told them that she had decided to take up knitting as a pastime.

John B is always there, offering to drive her to get dinner, insisting he hasn’t eaten in days. He insists that Kie teach him how to cook fish the way they do at the Wreck, makes her taste-test each batch and critique them.

Pope does research, because that’s how he copes with this sort of thing, and after a while he starts bringing it up with her. JJ glares at him at first, asks Kiara if she wants him to stop, but she likes it. She likes knowing she’s not alone, that this is normal.

JJ’s approach is more subtle. He’s always making her food (he still can’t make toast without burning it, but she eats it anyway). Honestly, when JJ pouts and bats his eyelashes and flashes that devilish smirk of his, it’s hard to say no to anything he offers her. He makes it easy though, and that’s what she loves. It’s not awkward or forced, just them sharing a basket of fries at the Wreck, or visiting a local food truck festival in town.

She doesn’t know why she thought telling the Pogues would be a bad thing, because it’s nice not having to hide this from them, to know they’ll be there if she needs them.

Kiara doesn’t need perfect, she decides. She just needs her boys— if she has them, she’ll be fine.

No matter what happens.

#outer banks #obx #jiara #jj x kiara #jiara fanfiction #jiara fic #obx fanfiction #outer banks fanfiction #jj maybank #kiara carrera #pope heyward #john b #my writing

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sytycdinternational · 3 years

Text

Eurovision 2021 pre-show ranking #39 - #27

Less than a week until Eurovision 2021 is upon us. The wait has been gruelling but now it is almost here and finally my thirst for more Eurovision will be quenched. Also rushing this out last-minute before the opening ceremony tomorrow.

I’m only taking the official music videos and the national final performances (if those exist) into account so I expect my ranking to be turned upside-down once the live-shows happen as per usual, especially with how insanely strong this year’s entries are. I won’t talk much about last year’s cancelled entries because losing an entire year’s worth of songs still hurts but I thought it would be fun to do a little comparison for each country about which year’s song I prefer, shown in brackets at the end of each entry.

...

39. Uku Suviste - The Lucky One - Estonia 🇪🇪: It’s like Estonia took Sweden’s formula of handsome guy singing inoffensive pop songs, only worse, for the last three years. Come on, Estonia, you can do so much better. "Rändajad" (2009), "Siren" (2010), "Kuula" (2012) and "Goodbye To Yesterday" (2015) are proof for that. (2020/2021)

38. Tusse - Voices - Sweden 🇸🇪: I feel painfully indifferent about this and that saddens me. Sweden tends to send very polished pop entries that work for me more times than not, but geez, I can’t but feel like this song is incredibly bland. There’s no particular emotion it evokes in me, neither through the musical arrangement nor the lyrics. It does have ear worm quality since I sometimes catch myself summing the chorus , albeit dispassionately, so I can see it doing well voting-wise just because people will remember the song and its anthem-like qualities. (2020/2021)

37. Tornike Kipiani - You - Georgia 🇬🇪: I appreciate with all my heart that Georgia keeps sending bold but quality entries that often go against Eurovision trends and every time I am heart-broken that the general public doesn't appreciate them enough for them to reach the final ("Three Minutes to Earth" (2014), "For You" (2018), "Keep on Going" (2019). This year’s entry is equally bold in its simplicity but I fear this time it’s simply a misfit for this show no matter how you look at it. It’s just too relaxed and mundane. It stings a bit since Tornike’s song last year “Take Me As I Am“ was one of my top favorites. Oh man, I still get chills when I listen to that one. The only reason this is higher than Sweden is because it’s kinda wholesome. (2020/2021)

36. RAFAŁ - The Ride - Poland 🇵🇱: It has a peppy beat that I can get behind and I like watching the MV for the dancers. I'm a simple man lol. Choreography is done by Agustin Egurrola, one of the judges on SYTYCD Poland when it was still on, so that’s neat. Maybe I’ll check out the new dance show “Dance Dance Dance” that sorta replaced it. I’m only three seasons behind anyway. (2020/2021)

35. James Newman - Embers - United Kingdom 🇬🇧: I feel a bit bad because this is one of the greatest efforts the UK has spent on ESC in the last few years, but still, I just... don’t care for it? It somehow feels sterile and that’s just something I can’t party to. I guess it’s a pity the UK decided to actually try seriously competing for once by sending a bop only for all the other countries to bring their A-game this year. (2020/2021)

34. ROXEN - Amnesia - Romania 🇷🇴: I think I like the word combination “self-love amnesia” but that’s one of the very few elements I find interesting about this entry. (2020/2021)

33. TIX - Fallen Angel - Norway 🇳🇴: Super catchy so I can forgive the corny mess of a stage performance that he’ll likely replicate for the actual show. I did expect something better from the guy who co-wrote Ava Max’s “Sweet But Psycho”. (2020/2021)

32. Hooverphonic - The Wrong Place - Belgium 🇧🇪: I guess the Belgish delegation realized that using singers barely old enough to drink to sing the moody songs they’ve been putting out the past few yeaars might not be such a good idea after the disaster in 2019. While I do think that Hooverphonic is experienced enough to avoid the same pitfall I can’t help but think that the song simply goes nowhere and ends up in an uncomfortable swamp. (2020/2021)

31. Senhit - Adrenalina - San Marino 🇸🇲: Speaking of songs that go nowhere... I wish I liked this more since it's obvious how enthusiastic Senhit feels about this show with the myriads of professionally produced ESC covers she made and the amount of artistry she pours in everything. The entry itself is simply too monotone for me. Not feeling the hype about Flo Rida tbh. (2020/2021)

30. Benny Cristo - omaga - Czech Republic 🇨🇿: I think similarly to his song last year it will take the live performance for me to really warm up to it. The “Here’s Johnny Benny” moment in the MV is absolute gold though. (2020/2021)

29. Jendrik - I Don't Feel Hate - Germany 🇩🇪: The chaotic energy is as endearing as it is tiring for me. Let’s hope the German delegation doesn’t regret choosing this over El Diablo which was one of the songs which made the final rounds of the internal selection before it was given to Cyprus. (2020/2021)

28. Fyr & Flamme - Øve Os På Hinanden - Denmark 🇩🇰: I’m digging the retro vibes. Also cute dance moves from the singers. (2020/2021)

27. Vincent Bueno - Amen - Austria 🇦🇹: The generally positive and uplifting vibes of this song belie the sorrowful lamentation of a broken man to a higher being about what’s been taken from him. That’s the implications I got from this and it would align well with what’s been reportet about his personal life, explaining the sudden shift from the dancey songs Vinecnt is known for to gospel light. (2020/2021)

Oh, and because I feel bad for ranking Uku last, here’s a picture of him running to god knows where.

#ESC #Eurovision #Eurovision 2021 #eurovision song contest #ESC 2021 #rankings #text

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honhonluigi · 3 years

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I'm curious. You've said you dislike religion (which is valid as fuck and I have the same opinion), but if that's the case then why is Angie one of your favorite characters?

(I don't mean anything offensive or anything by this, by the way! If it makes you uncomfortable feel free to delete it.)

No, no, man, I totally get it. I’m sure it looks confusing from the outside. I can explain myself no problem.

I guess it’s probably important to give a little explanation of why I hate religion so much, because it’ll make more sense then. I don’t hate religion because I’m an atheist. I am an atheist because of evidence and facts. Because I want to draw my conclusions based on fact and evidence. If I saw what I thought was undeniable proof of any god’s existence, I’d change my mind. Nah, I hate religion because I was raised in a cult. Not like a “my parents were heavily evangelical/strict” way. My parents were actual official members in an actual cult, listed as a cult by government officials (though they’re considering removing it from the list which would be a supremely bad idea.) You look up all the fucked up things that cults do? Those lists of “How To Tell If You’re In A Cult?” You’re describing this religion to a tee. It gets an A+ in every aspect of cultism. It wasn’t a cape-and-fire-chanting-in-the-woods cult. Those aren’t real. This was a Christian-based cult. (Most real-life cults are. Aside from like...Scientology maybe?) But they weren’t just Christians who took it seriously, like I said. It was a separate cult religion and the entire religion is officially cited as a cult. It was just Christianity-based. See if you can guess what it is. Based on the clues I gave I’d say there’s like...two choices.

Anyway, that’s why I hate religion. Because I’ve seen and suffered first-hand all the damage that religion can cause innocent people. Not just in religious wars and acts of prejudice, but just in individual thought and life control aspects and so much fucking trauma. In torment and guilt and wasted years. In passed opportunities and ended relationships and sexual repression. Religion sucks. (In my opinion, all religions are fundamentally cults at their core. Or they would be, if the worshippers actually adhered strictly to the rules that they made. Which they usually don’t, hence why most mainstream religions aren’t thought of as cults.) I hate religion for the core principles of ‘sinning’, hell/heaven/paradise, good vs evil, thought-crime, religion-over-family, faith, not thinking for yourself, and believing whatever you’re told. That’s so damaging. But I don’t hate religion just because “lol it’s so stupid, I can’t believe people believe that shit!” or “religion is just too mainstream for me!” I can see why people would believe that in the old days, when things couldn’t be explained by science. I hate all religions, even the non-mainstream ones like wicca and shit. And I actually think studying ancient religions is really interesting. It’s an aspect of culture, and I can respect that.

What does this have to do with my opinion of Angie? A lot, actually. I didn’t just go off on a religion rant for no reason.

So, for starter’s, I don’t hate religion because I think it’s “too stupid to be believable” or that being religious is “too mainstream”, like I said. I don’t look down on religious people for being stupid, gullible, or trend-followers (more on that later.) That means that I can still respect Angie as a person, even if she’s religious. That’s important to know going forward.

But the main reason is, I hate religion, not religious people. I hate the institution of religion, any religion. I hate the ideas that it carries and the practices it puts into play. But Angie is not any of those things. She’s just a person. She’s not responsible for any of the things that any religion, including hers, will do. She just believes in it. She, as a person, is not the thing that is doing all the damage I hate so much. Maybe her religion is, but she as an individual is not.

Religious people are victims. I know. I was there. 10 years ago, I was an indoctrinated, god-obsessed homophobe, shivering in anticipation of a doomsday when god slaughtered billions of sinners. I won’t say I was different, and I always knew something was wrong about religion. No, I believed like everyone else. I was indoctrinated as much anybody. Religious people can’t help what they believe. They are the victims of peer pressure, cultural expectations, propaganda, lack of information/education, deliberate thought control, family pressures, and many other factors. Trust me when I say: they really can’t control what they believe. That’s why it’s pointless to argue with them. Their beliefs don’t come from logic. They are all victims. And I see everyone in my former cult as a victim, not an enemy. They really can’t help it. I can’t express that enough.

So it’s not Angie’s fault that she’s so deeply ingrained in a religion. It’s not a character flaw for her, and it doesn’t make her evil or bad. In fact, it makes me like her more. I feel sorry for her. I sympathize with her. I was exactly where she was when I was 13. I know to everyone else, Angie’s religion is just a caricature or a joke. But to me, it makes her character deeper, more interesting, and sadder.

Also, Angie’s not a cultist. Oh, this one makes me so mad. Everyone who says “Angie is in a cult!” or “Angie became a cult leader!” has absolutely no idea what an actual cult is like. The DR writers don’t know. The fans don’t know. It’s nothing like what Angie does. She never becomes a cult leader. Trust me. I would fucking know.

When she becomes Student Council President or w/e, the Student Council has nothing to do with her religion. She’s doing that because she believes she knows what’s best to stop people from killing each other. She’s not doing it because “my religion is right and you all need to convert!” Otherwise, she’d have done that at the start. The rules she makes, like the night time curfew, have nothing to do with religion. (Also, her rules about flashback lights and night time curfews were completely correct and were good ideas, but go off I guess.) Yeah, she might say “Atua told me to do this!” But all hyper-religious people credit their creativity, ideas, or achievements to god. Whether or not those had anything to do with religion. She’s doing it because she has ideas that she thinks can help, not because she wants to push her religion.

Case in point: in order to join her Student Council, you don’t have to believe in Atua. You don’t have to convert. K1-B0 and Himiko make that choice, but Tsumugi and Tenko don’t. And Angie doesn’t care. You’re allowed to be one of their group without sharing Angie’s religion. And once Angie’s Student Council is in power, then what? Fucking nothing. She doesn’t force anyone else to convert to her religion either. Even the people who didn’t join the student council. They’re allowed to not believe. She never approaches them being like “you have to join my religion now that I’m in power.” And she still treats Shuichi and Kaito as politely and friendly as always. (Not Maki and Kokichi, but for obvious reasons. She was right not to trust Maki, after what they learned about her.) Angie not once ever uses her power to push or pressure or threaten or force anyone to worship Atua with her. It doesn’t happen. She’s not a cult leader. If she was, it wouldn’t be optional. There would be grotesque amounts of threats, social isolation, pressure, etc even to those in her own student council if they didn’t believe. I won’t go into detail here, but trust me, it would be so fucking different if her little group actually followed the criteria for being a cult. Even when Tenko goes behind Angie’s back and escorts Shuichi into the school after dark, Angie doesn’t threaten her or oust her. She forgives her. She doesn’t say “no one is ever allowed to talk to you again” or “you have to do a horrible punishment” or “you have to die”. She just...forgives her. Yeah, she insults her a little, but she has a right to be angry after being lied to, betrayed, and used by Tenko. Still, she forgives her. Also: Tenko being in the school after dark and Angie being upset at that has nothing to do with Angie’s religion at all. The rule of not being out after dark doesn’t either.

Also, her actions before her rise to power weren’t culty either. Angie never pushed her religion on anyone. I hate people like that. People who want to force others to believe the way they do. They’re the fucking worst and the scum of the earth. Some of the worst, most evil people alive, in my opinion. Angie’s not like that. She only talked to people about her religion if they asked her. As she explained to Tenko “I wasn’t brainwashing anyone. I was just answering questions.” Himiko, Gonta, and K1-B0 asked her questions because they were curious about her religion. She answered them. When they showed interest, she kept talking to them about it. They were the ones who said they wanted to convert. She never even asked them. And then when they wanted to, she welcomed them with open arms. They approached her. All she did was speak openly and honestly with them. She never forced anyone to convert to her religion. She never even forced anyone to listen to her talk about her religion. When Kaede and Shuichi got uncomfortable about it and changed the subject, she let it fucking go. She stopped talking about it. She never made the first move when talking to someone about Atua. They always approached her first. That’s definitely not culty. That’s just a religious person being honest when they’re asked questions, or getting excited when someone shows genuine interest in their beliefs. Of course she would be excited. These are her friends, and she truly believes that her religion is correct. She would be happy to see them safely in it. In her eyes, it’s the only place where they’re safe. Also, if she was truly a bad religious person, she would think that everyone who didn’t convert to her religion deserved to die. Mark of cults. But she doesn’t. She loves all her classmates, tries to keep them safe, and prays for them when they do die. Also, she believes that they get into Atua’s kingdom simply for being good people, even when they don’t believe in him. That’s definitely not culty. A cult is like “everyone who doesn’t worship like you is always evil, and they always deserve to die, and if they don’t convert then they are not worth saving. If you don’t believe in our religion you will definitely be killed at judgement day no matter what.”

But, most importantly: Angie’s religion is not the only aspect of her character. Angie’s religion actually has nothing to do with my opinion of her. I like her because she’s cute, bright, hopeful, happy, and persistent. She’s kind and selfless and she tries her best to keep everyone happy. She’s confident in herself, even if other people ridicule her. She’s got an interesting twisted side to her, with her composure in the face of death and her desire for blood sacrifices. But that doesn’t stop her from being kind and friendly to everyone. And she’s surprisingly smart, in her own ways. And appropriately ruthless when going after her goals, which is always something I admire. (I loved that she was willing to turn on Himiko when it seemed obvious that Himiko was the culprit, instead of obnoxiously ignoring facts like Tenko. Um, hello? If Himiko is the culprit, you all die? And if she’s the culprit, she’s trying to kill everyone, which kind of gives Angie the right to revoke her friendship from Himiko, yeah?) Angie’s character goes so much deeper than her religion. As far as her religion influencing my opinion of her, it...doesn’t. I pretty much just ignore it. I love her for who she is, not what she believes.

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luminousbeansarewe · 4 years

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what are your takes/version of how the sequel trilogy went down? because i also have my own version in my head, not.... that, but im really interested in the ideas other people have had for it

hoo boy there’s a lot of ground to cover here lmao i will try to keep them as short as i can... i also enjoy multiple versions of events and outcomes for the sequels as long as they’re in-character so i’m not trying to say no other version of the sequels is good or cool bc only a sith deals in absolutes amirite? (i won’t apologize for that dumb joke.) first the jumping-off points:

first of all, i fully support Force-sensitive Finn. even if he didn’t become a full-blown Jedi, if the entire concept of the Jedi was reforged and we don’t see him become the kind of Jedi we saw in the prequels (more on that later), i see him as someone who was attuned to the Force in a way that is similar to how i conceive of Barriss; empathetic to the suffering and joy of others. this would drive him to defect from the Empire and fear it, too. i also saw him becoming a reluctant leader for the rebellion, and there’s a GREAT fic which i’ll link here that riffs on the idea that he creates a spark within the stormtrooper ranks and more and more of them begin to defect... which i love

Rey being a nobody is cool to me. the ONE character moment where she became super relatable for me was when she realized how frightened she was of her own Force abilities. but i don’t think she has to be the legacy of Palps to have that. she doesn’t need supercharged powers to be spooked by them in a post-Jedi Order world where the most recent memory anybody has of the Force is Vader. (also Rey being a Kenobi seems more out of character for Obi-Wan than anything else lol he was pretty committed to the ways of the Order even after they were destroyed, plus he already had one kid to furtively watch over... just imo). this also ties into my expansion on the Force.

Poe being not a carbon copy of Han. i think Leia looked after him, found him somehow after she sent Ben to the Jedi Academy and was a motherly figure in his life. i like the idea that he was a little shit, and she’s the one who taught him to turn his reactive defiance of authority into bravery when fighting for the rebels. i think he looked up to her, wanted to be a leader like her. i saw him in the position of generals like Akbar by the end, as he learns to balance risk-taking with steady leadership. I wanted to see that growth, how those leaders are formed, see Leia get to impart her wisdom to someone. (also i fully support Finn/Poe and Finn/Rey/Poe, i’m not a committed shipper so i’m down with no romance at all between them but those ships are choice af and Stormpilot is all Oscar Isaac wanted anyway, so...) plus can u imagine the dichotomy of Ben the fallen son with Poe, the “adopted” son who became what Ben couldn’t? the guilt of Leia for not knowing how to teach her son about the Force, doing better half-raising a nobody who had the same shitty attitude as Han when they met but no Force ability? THIS IS JUICY CHARACTER CONTENT

Rose was given cheesy lines to introduce an important topic: that fighting is all well and good but throwing away your principles defeats the purpose of the fight in the first place (an important theme in the Clone Wars era, too.) she was there to be the voice of the truly little people in the gffa, who we don’t hear much about in the other trilogies. Finn’s sensitivity puts him at risk of the sorrow-to-hate arc i described for Barriss; Rose is there to be the empathy that sustains hope rather than becomes a crushing weight. i love the idea that she might rally volunteers from blue-collar places (like... Lothal, for example?) and spearhead the notion that the New Republic should be very different from the old one, calling out the fact that working conditions didn’t change with the shift from republic to empire and the First Order simply took it to an extreme that left her and her sister with nothing else to lose.

Ben Solo, hoo boy. so here’s the thing, we don’t KNOW Ben Solo. we were expected to want him to be redeemed because he was the son of Han and Leia, and that’s it. that’s lazy as fuck. him killing Han in the first movie (if it happened it should have been in movie #2, that’s how fucking second acts work) was an excuse to shock people, subvert the ‘i can’t kill my own father’ thing, and make sure we knew he was “evil” even though we’re supposed to also want a redemption arc? you have to read the Rise of Kylo Ren comics to learn that he was a) hounded by the voice of Snoke in his head from childhood, manipulated by it, which is horrific bc it’s like grooming... or b) that he felt HUGE pressure as a legacy Force-user to save the galaxy, lead the New Jedi Order, etc. these are much more empathy-generating and we should have learned them in TFA. echoes of Anakin much? which is why i think him being redeemed in a way other than self-sacrifice (which made sense for Vader given his long history of being a terrible person, knowing it was too late for him in the end, and really just wanting to save his son rather than “become good again”) is more interesting than him just falling (which is too much the same as the prequels.)

it should have been Finn’s call, a moment of Truth that held the balance of Finn as either falling prey to darkness or learning forgiveness, whether or not Kylo got redeemed. Finn and Rey working together to get to that point while Rose and Poe took on the military aspect of the Big Finale would have been great. Finn with a lightsaber to Kylo’s throat, feeling the temptation to murder him instead of making him face what he’s become in a meaningful way? Rey trying to urge him away from darkness as she’s been tempted before, but this is the first time Finn’s really been tested, and he was the one who so often reminded her of her own humanity? Rey calling up Rose’s point of creating a new paradigm instead of recreating the old one, of Poe’s growth or Leia’s willingness to take Ben back showing it’s possible? shiiiiiiit

the rest is going under a cut!

SO... given those things as a basis...

there being no scene where Force-ghost Anakin bops Kylo on the head (but you know, more subtly and with gorgeous metaphor ofc) was a travesty. we needed some version of that, also imo that reaffirms that Anakin was the chosen one... as him redirecting his grandson away from that path would be restoring hella balance

Snoke should have had his own fucked up backstory, if he was even there at all. a dark sider fucking with Ben Solo is reasonable to me, but Snoke could have been someone who looked up to Palps as much as Kylo supposedly looked up to Vader. that would have been interesting... maybe there are multiple “nobodies” who are being touched by the Force, just like there always were in the prequels era, but some are going dark with no Jedi to try to convince them otherwise? or, maybe Snoke’s life was ruined by the Empire and he chose to become the beast that harmed him, whereas Kylo becomes the version where you think you want to do that but then realize that it’s just as bad and you still have empathy and regret what you’ve done?

Thrawn being the main military antagonist, since they couldn’t be arsed to make Hux into anything but a sniveling baby fascist (despite his really upsetting backstory of an abusive father, also found in the comics... noticing a trend here?). Thrawn was already established and beloved in the legends. why would you not use him. whY?? he’s like a foil for Tarkin. contention between him and the Force-users in charge (Snoke and Kylo) would have been VERY interesting, esp with the character of Thrawn in the new canon seeing the Empire as a ‘necessary evil’ and now maybe having the potential to make it into something else? how’s JOINING WITH THE NEW REPUBLIC for a subversion of the classic tropes, Rian?????? you fucker????

if Thrawn’s history is “too storied” for a bunch of cowards to "fit” into a new movie trilogy, invent another antivillain to take Thrawn’s place whose history is a little more concurrent with the sequel era... you cowards

Luke fucking off after his failure isn’t out of character IMO. he was THE STRONGEST JEDI EVER and his star pupil still fell? maybe he broke under the same pressure Ben did. maybe that’s what allows him to reach back out towards Kylo and reconnect, admitting his failure. i want to hear more about him cutting himself off from the Force bc i LOVE KOTOR 2 and Kreia, but maybe that’s too much for one trilogy to delve into meaningfully, i dunno

Han fucking off after Ben wrecked the temple isn’t OOC either. i think Han was always a little frightened of the Force, the way many non-sensitives are. I think he was critical as a father, because he was critical of himself and Han is the king of projection. i wanted more of the dysfunctional relationship between him and Ben.

if Kylo kills Han, the scene needs to show more of the fact that Kylo actually regretted it, which Snoke only alludes to in TLJ, foreshadowing his future. i rewrote Han’s death scene for a friend and got a lot of good feedback about it so maybe i’ll post it here sometime. i can get behind a version where he doesn’t die, too, i just haven’t fleshed it out in my own head.

i like the idea that the Jedi Order needed to be remade, and that Luke saw the failure of the old order when he saw Ben turn like so many of the Jedi in the Order did. i like that Rey and Finn might spearhead this, and maybe Kylo’s role is to know the dark side intimately enough now that he can actually teach how it works, how to deal with it... how inevitable its temptation is. because...

in this canon, i don’t think the Force has light or darkness. i think it’s Force-users who do. it is their internal landscapes which cause them to “fall” or be redeemed or not, after all. Finn can attest to the same, so can Rey and Luke... so like, all the Jedi need DBT therapy or something i guess. lmao hold the dialectic, you nerds

the Force has shown time and time again that it cannot be “balanced” so maybe it is ourselves who need to become balanced instead

the Force is chaos, a never-ending series of colliding butterfly effects that to us will always and inevitably be seen as turmoil, cause and effect on a cosmic scale. if you drink too greedily of its power, or try to exert total control over it, by its nature it will consume you because it is beyond your mortal ken. whatever you hunger for, the force will give you more and more of it until you are overwhelmed, drowning in it

this is why peace was a central teaching of the Jedi... peace, the antithesis of chaos, which can only ever be created from within, the eye of the storm which must be sought time and time again

anyway thanks for coming to my ted talk? i’m always down to hear other people’s ideas for these characters tbh. and always down to get more into these topics if you want to know more... esp as it relates to the failure of the Jedi Order, or KOTOR 2 and Revan and Kreia, or OF COURSE my OCs because Sol has a very interesting relationship with the Force.

thank you for this ask lordimperius!! ^_^

#star wars sequels #this got way deeper into my meta than i meant for it to but i can't help it #my headcanons #asks #if you read all of this or even most of it you're an actual angel

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