#idk i just think it would be a nice little culmination of his arc and growth

[accursed-worm]

Idk.. this is kinda going off of that last ask you responded to but like. The last time either of them saw each other (or at least that we know of) was when they were at their absolute worst. It’s just so sad that neither of them got the chance to prove something to the other in any way. Ho16 was a major set up of them tearing each other apart while being undeniably obsessed/infatuated by the other behind closed doors, only to never properly discuss this mutual connection they have and maybe even hash out WHY they felt the need to do the things they did. It’s not only closure for the recent events involving the burger van, but everything that came before that they never got to talk about.

Yeah. Yeah, I'm totally with you anon. Handshake emoji. The entire Paradise arc was about Wilbur chasing after the rush of being alive, of feeling alive. The sprint up the steep mountain, to feel the air in his lungs, to feel the blood pumping in his veins, to feel human again after 14 years of nothing. It blinded him, this chase. His rivalry with Quackity. And the end of The Wilbur Van was the top, the "Wilbur felt alive," the peak so high he couldn't fucking breathe. The euphoric rush came crashing down, he’s alive and it is ugly. He's alive and he's doing harm, he's hurting people, he's become so focused on his goal he hasn't realised the consequences of his actions. That was the point Ranboo made, jumping off the pressure plate. Showing Wilbur how frivolous this whole thing is.

That whole scene, it was raw and harsh and it's abundantly obvious that the things Wilbur and Quackity spat at each other came from their own insecrurities. And that fist fight—it should have been a turning point. And I mean, it was a turning point in Wilbur's arc. But it should have been a turning point in tntduo's arc, in their relationship. It should have changed things. What it shouldn't have been was an ending. Yet it was. It was, and no matter what non-canon stream they do now, it doesn't change that fact. The Wilbur Van is tntduo's last canonical interaction.

In an ideal world, an ending should add to the story. It should create a new lens with which the audience can look back on what has happened. Reengaging with a piece of media after knowing how it ends should be exciting. You should be able to point out all the details and themes that then culminate into that ending, the parallels and setup and foreshadowing that built up into the satisfying payoff. And I understand, I really do understand that this is the fucking Dream SMP. This is a silly little minecraft roleplay and I'm taking it way too seriously. Except that... Wilbur wrote out this entire arc, right?? His pre-revival arc was so fucking wonderful, with such a fantastic finale in Nov 16. I just... I don't know. I feel a little bit lost, really. Maybe it really is just that my expectations were too high. That I was doomed to be disappointed no matter what. Except that... my expetations really weren't very high. All I wanted was something. And I don't think we. Got that.

I can't even point out any specifics, because their two finales were just so completely seperated. Absolutely no overlap (in events, not locations ofc), even though so much of the Revivedbur arc centered around Quackity. I'm very much aware that they are individual characters and not EVERYTHING has to be about their relationship, but. It really was still a very big part of things. And y'know. Something would have been nice. And... yeah, I think I'm talking a lot more about Wilbur than about Quackity now, simply because so much of Revivedbur's arc centered around Q, and we always saw it from Wilbur's POV, whereas Quackity's lore streams have always been focused on a lot of other things. NOT TO SAY that cQuackity wasn't invested in their rivalry, because there's so so much proof that he very much was, but y'know. I am talking about cWilbur now when I say that... his finale put such a terrible spin on the entire Revivedbur arc. Both the burger van and the apology tour... the first ended in a peak that got absolutely no closure, and the second ended in what amounted to one great bit gotcha! moment. And that just. That really fucking sucks. Looking back on the entire arc is kinda just. Sad. And a little bit hollow.

Anyway. That's what fanficiton is for!! Giggling and kicking my feet and writing more of Red Flags.

#okay so #i might be a little bit salty #maybe even a little bit bitter #BUT #i am very much aware that the ccs don't owe me ANYTHING #that i am just one fan amongst millions and these opinions of mine mean less than nothing #i am glad that we got AN ending at all #and am very much just dealing with it #i just like complaining on the internet as well <33 #ask #anon #tntduo #wilbur soot #quackity #dsmp #dream smp #cwilbur

[chena-h]

Finished S2 of Elementary last week. Spoilers under the cut. 

I didn’t say anything about S1. Don’t have much to say other than I loved it. The way Sherlock and Joan’s relationship developed and how that culminated in the climax of the Moriarty arc was fantastic. 

S2 was pretty fun to watch. It was nice to get some episodes centered around Gregson and Marcus, in particular. It was nice to see Marcus needing some space after the shooting, and for him not to accept Sherlock’s apology right away. 

The moments between Marcus and Joan were pretty sweet, esp. considering she called him family back in S1. 

I was not expecting them to kill off Alistair. That bummed me out, though I did like how his character/background was expanded on in that episode. 

Sherlock’s monologue about partnership to Gregson tho ;w; 

Also, just every moment where Sherlock antagonizes Mycroft is *chef’s kiss* it’s just beautiful. 

Speaking of Mycroft, I kinda wished they did something different with his arc in terms of him coming in between Sherlock and Joan. Not entirely (I do like the MI6/Le Milieu arc), but the romance/affair/idk bw Joan & Mycroft felt...not out of character, but it felt like undercooked almost? Not that I blame the actors for that, I think they did a good job with what little screentime they had. 

Also - I know it’s a thing to have Sherlock intervene in Watson’s romantic relationships to some degree (at least, I remember that from the RDJ movies). I love Mycroft’s response after Sherlock confronts him at Diogenes about pursuing Joan (honestly, I’m a sucker for the “she’ll find someone when she’s ready” “and there you’ll be, to pick them apart, find flaws, and hoard her gifts to yourself” type of call out scenes), but I also felt that we didn’t get to see that side of Sherlock much. I feel that that comes down to Joan not getting much attention this season. You see her go on some dates in the first couple episodes, and Sherlock makes a comment here and there, but he doesn’t work to try and break up/get in the way of her relationships the way he does when Mycroft is around. Idk, just a thought. 

That said, god damn the Le Milieu arc ;w; and Sherlock’s reaction to Joan’s disappearance. “She’s the person you love most in the world” destroyed me. It sucks that we don’t get to see Joan react to her kidnapping. I suppose the writers figured she’s the type to bottle up her feelings or set them aside, which I can see, too. Still would have been nice to see something given the situation with Jem being somewhat similar to the death of her patient. 

Ugh, my heart broke when they had the conversation about Joan moving out, though. Sherlock took it so hard (and he’s so extra about it, I can’t). That’s another thing about S2 - I know it takes place over the course of a year. I kinda wish we’d have seen Joan express more of that desire to find her own place/not have her entire life revolve around Sherlock or their partnership.  

That speech Sherlock gives her in the finale about the beauty of their partnership, though DX The way he tries so hard to get her to stay. And how he says he’ll change for her, I was beside myself gdi 

)o’:

Looking forward to S3!

#chena.txt #elementary

[currentlyonstandbi]

one thing i really need from season 3 is to see luther protect his siblings from reginald

#for whatever reason! personally would love to see him physically protecting them #idk i just think it would be a nice little culmination of his arc and growth #like going from being the 'team leader' who followed their father's every orders and saw protecting the team as a task? #or as a 'responsibility' of being number one? #to then go instead to him actually being their brother (designated eldest) who protects them out of love #and against reginald too??? the one responsible for their trauma who luther struggled so much with to finally take a stand against #i just have a lot of feelings about luther okay #tua #tua3 #the umbrella academy #luther hargreeves #the hargreeves #reginald hargreeves #hargreeves siblings #tua season 3

[degenerate-perturbation]

for the ship game...vrizrezi hawke/anders and ummmm kaladin/moash 👽

Vrisrezi: Do not ship

I do not like Vrisrezi because interactions with Vriska make Terezi much more boring, and Vriska isn't particularly oriented towards Terezi either. The character I wanted to see Vriska grow and change alongside with was Tavros. They had narrative resonance and something sort of resembling a coherent parallel arc. Vriska and Terezi are more of an informed-attribute Ultimate Rivalry than a dynamic I really felt invested in. Somehow, these characters are less than the sum of their parts; they do not contribute meaningfully to one another's arcs in ways that are good rather than bad.

I could easily have liked this ship. I have nothing against it in principle. I just don't think what was presented in the story made a compelling case for them, and I didn't ever read any fanfiction.

I enjoy the concept of this ship more if it's in the context of a fucked up FLARP polycule with Aradia and Tavros also involved. That shit is great. I also do strongly prefer it to either Dave/Terezi or John/Vriska, and it's probably one of the best Vriska ships out there.

Hawke/Anders: Do not ship

This one I actually do actively hate and will not engage with fan content for.

Partly it's that I think that the DA2 story works better without any Hawke/Companion romance. Hawke is most interesting to me as an aggregator of baffling ruffians rather than someone who is actually One of the ruffians. Because Hawke is boring. They're a boring cookie cutter protagonist who I care for only as a plot device and narrative tool.

But I dislike Hawke/Anders especially because a romance arc would be a terrible decision for Anders' story. The whole Kirkwall period is things getting worse and worse for Anders and culminating with a suicidal act of mass violence. There is no way to jam a healthy relationship into that character arc, not even getting into the actual in-game details of their romantic interactions.

Now, an unhealthy relationship? Yes! Absolutely! I can read Hawke/Anders as abusive, mutually toxic, or otherwise some kind of ill-advised train wreck which ultimately is only a brief stop along a larger story about something else. But hardly anybody writes that. Everybody wants to project their protective poor little meow meow feelings onto Hawke and have them Take Care of poor widdle Anders who is so sad and so wet. And I don't truck with that. Hawke is entirely the wrong character for this formula and I cannot enjoy it.

What would have made me like it? Idk, if Anders' entire character arc was completely different.

What I'll say for it is that I do think it's fantastic as a toxic trainwreck nightmare story and I actually love shitty evil rivalmance Hawkes who make Anders' life worse.

Kalmoash: Literally have absolutely no idea if I ship or not. Like I fucking guess?

I think I only like the made up fandom version of this ship. But when I remember their actual canonical interactions I just feel sort of icky.

Moash is just so...look, I love Moash. He sucks, and I love that for him! Here is a character so absolutely, triumphantly responsible for his own suffering, so clearly being damned by his own basic character flaws, that it's fucking excruciating to watch. It's fantastic. What fertile ground for a redemption arc! Moash is a guy who hit rock bottom and picked up a shovel. He did this all to himself, and boy howdy does it compel me.

But wow, he sucks. And he's not being written with compassion by an author who ultimately likes him and his bullshit. He's being written by an author who has nothing nice to say about him at all. My enjoyment of this character is not supported by the text, because the text is frankly not that deep. The text is all there on the surface and it doesn't leave much room for interpretation.

So I enjoy pretending that they dated during WoR, but like their close friendship is moooostly an informed attribute. Which is a real shame, because it limits the emotional impact of the betrayal and the emotional impact of any possible future redemption arc.

Anyway yeah I guess I do ship it because if I see a picture of them kissing I'm hitting reblog.

#asks #stormlight archive #homestuck #dragon age

[quackitytheduck]

IT'S TIME TO TALK ABOUT THE NEW SLMCCL VID

despite it covering pretty much all of what happened during purpled's june 9th stream (the vod is on his vods channel under "purpled joins las nevadas")

first of all, the thumbnail doesn't have anything to do with the vid for the record. it kind of messed me up for a minute there too

second, it's all from charlie's perspective!! pog!! i was pretty excited to see this juuuuust in case there was anything super special that we didn't see from purpled's pov, and there kind of isn't, but there's some editing stuff i'd like to mention that's a little weird

but we'll get to that later

(sorry for the shit quality)

it starts out pretty much exactly with purpled's stream with c!charlie in the cave overlooking c!purpled's lands yeah yeah charlie gets caught uh huh yada yada "leave me alone" "YOU leave ME alone" "what" yyyyeeeeaaaahhhh

it was nice watching the funny parts over again, charlie really is one of the top funniest people on the smp overall

i really liked how the sun was going down when purpled said he was going to have charlie see what quackity did to the ufo, ofc it's not on purpose but i think it worked out really well and it makes me thing about charlie possibly gaining more autonomy and asking more questions and eventually realizing maybe quackity isn't the best best friend after all, despite charlie still not understanding purpled's reasoning behind his anger when he showed off the ufo

plus the music during that scene kinda adds to how unnerving it is how charlie is following quackity without question, i can't really explain it though

ALSO the music when charlie was showing off "his" bones made me think about where the fuck he's getting all these bones from anyway, more specifically the skull???? what???? yeah i know there are skeletons and i know it's never gonna get addressed, what about it

BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY

WHAT THE FUCK WAS THIS

it cut a few times between this (with purpled's voice muffled and more nerve-wracking deep tones) and purpled's pov with his monologue about everyone else's buildings and legacy, with him eventually noticing charlie yet again and telling charlie to take him to las nevadas

and it reminded me of how fucking old charlie is and how long he's been watching the smp and everyone around telling their own stories and monologuing with their own plot points and man......he knows Everything

and the consistent muffling of purpled's voice in charlie's pov definitely doesn't help!!

and THEN

the PERFECT timing of purpled questioning whether this is really what he wants, a small life in his own small place, and the rain along with the shaders is sooooo nice and good and a little bit sad (but that might just be me relating haha) and culminating in yet another explosion

PLUS!!!! plus i found it just a liiiiiittle weird how....normal c!charlie sounded when he said "oh wow...would you look at that"?? i'd clip it and put it in here if i could but the timestamp is 10:16, and then when purpled notices him in the cave again he says "oh no" in his little voice and goes back yk...idk the language he used was just a little too human

and then right outside las nevadas, charlie does his CLEARLY rehearsed speech of "you'll never take me alive!!" and jumps into the river and swims away, which i just think is funny

there's not much else there, except for quackity's "he's uh...he's just still learning...about everything around him" and charlie going up the fountain which i thought was cute

tbh i kind of wish there was any kind of extra thing that you'd only know if you watched charlie's pov to get a little bit of revenge on people who only watch a few fav ccs' povs bc i'm still salty about the people who thought they could comment on quackity's character during the cookie outpost territory conflict with SHIT takes who never watch his pov

anyway

i just really really really like c!charlie and i want some kind of deeper arc (?) with him soon

#i won't spy on you at all #i'll just impartially watch...always #dream smp #dsmp #charlie slimecicle #purpled #las nevadas

[coffeeteaitsallfine]

ok.... it’s Vampire Boyfriend, Live Free or TwiHard time

(disclaimer i dont actually really talk about S6x05 live free or twihard, it just sounded catchy)

No, Castiel is not the archetypical vampire boyfriend but he is a very Edward vampire boyfriend-- Seasons 6 - 8 in nice little arc. No, he is not lustful (just in subtext). S6-8 (& a lil before that) Cas is heavily the outcast. He is not impure traditionally (until he gets those leviathans!! sick ahaha sera!!!!!fightme) but he does have a crack in his chassis. Cas doesn’t think about sex the way humans do but it’s not really about that. Human feelings let alone feelings for humans are sinful (hellooo nephillims being abominations) they’re just “mud-monkeys.” To the angels, Castiel’s love for humans is worth giving him lobotomies over and over. Falling in love with one is the worst sin (“the very touch of you corrupts [Castiel]”). He is thus outcasted! (this was all written pre-s12 so go with it)

Now, in twilight the sex subtext isn’t subtext, it’s repressed because this is a good little Christian novel of course. Edward the vampire is constantly repressing his thirst and they’re only able to be together with ease once they’re on equal footing. I’ve reread it just this year. It’s repressed and not just in Eclipse when he won’t have sex with her. Bella CLEARLY has a sex dream and Edward knows about it but they don’t talk about it. Anyway, the text is the whole “I’m a killer bella” not blood drinking though. He is repressing that so it’s under control. NO no Edward is a danger magnet literally just crushing her with strength or luring other people to kill her. Castiel’s violence pre-s6 anyway is framed as holy and because heaven commanded it, but the slaughtering of angels for no good reason? unforgiveable. Cas doesn’t tempt dean in any lustful way but just the fact that he’s Gay and in love is already too obvious subtext as it is thanks to S4-5, bringing sex appeal or tempting imagery here would be too obvious or overdoing it i guess and works for us so it doen’t come off as predatory I don’t think. Meanwhile for the proxy Meg Castiel is the pizza man. (whereas s9′s answer to that is...nah he’s the babysitter apparently lol ? lets not read into it). Note as I’m editing: Eve literally eve is a character is S6? I forgot this but oh my god make it stop.

Then in S7 Cas is all “I deserved to die” because he killed a lot of angels and bad people as Godstiel (hello eddie boy’s serial killer murder streak if you didn’t pick up on this yet). Then, obviously, he is not even deserving of LOVE he’ll just hurt everything and everyone around and probably dean too. Cue the early S8 New Moon subplot culminating in fallen angels because we all know the third ingredient for the spell that would expel angels from societyheaven and lock the door behind them, was an angel falling love with a human. At the same time, his angel grace is taken away from him, making him a human no longer “pure” or without sin in the eyes of heaven like adam. the first to fall causing all the angels to fall with him.

Now this doesn’t quite work the same way for dean from dean’s perspective cause why would it. He’s not the Laura/Lucy to Castiel’s Carmilla/Dracula. (This makes Benny’s placement in Purgatory for the love triangle (literally) so in contrast like Benny IS this story’s Jacob) He’s not scandalized by the prospect of falling love. He’s got complicated emotions & thoughts is scared to for vulnerability reasons plus his own sexuality issues but I beg you to see that as separate and not over think it-- Twilight is very repressed, Dean is extremely repressed, poor Cas. But! Dean feels completely “pure” in purgatory & wants nothing more than to find the angel the entire time. He is Bella Swan thinking the killer/monster is an Angel (see: Twilight Ch. 23 “The Angel”), the only angel. All the other angels (vampires) are evil dicks but not my angel :) Mine is powerful, strong, psychic, and sexy. he’s beautiful and perfect and will never love me the way i love him unless we are the same species, equals if you will. 

Castiel is the vampire boyfriend, but not in the old, traditional way rather in the inevitably “modern” (2000s--early 2010s) take, where the vampire isn’t preying upon your sexual purity but the wholesome family ideal (ie lisa/ben, raking those leaves, the cookouts ah yes how american)....ehh yikes sera gamble? s6 reeks of homophobia thanks, thanks a lot. Except well, also, dean doesn’t really want that life not entirely. Neither did bella either tbh until the end but lets not get into that, except twilight is the “wholesome” ending, the opposite in every way to traditionally evil (lol ykwim...) vampires. The show eventually moves into a middle space, a synthesis of horror and home-- where it should’ve ended as we all know. Anyway, while writing this I remembered the beginning of Season 6, when the modern version of the vampire boyfriend arc kicks in, was also when they had the episode “Live Free or TwiHard.” Is this coincidence? probably, maybe, idk. I started this post just wanting to make casward parallels cause it sounded right and I’m a deancas/bellaedward truther for the Jokes, a Good Time, and the hot takes. 

except no, with Carver finishing up S8 (bookending the arc nicely with the two gay truckers being soulmates), Benny is the old world would be tragic vampire boyfriend and they couldn’t last! Sorry benny it’s been real. Castiel is the modern twilight vampire boyfriend, without predatory vibes and since religion is more of a plot device than a theme, less Mormonism and heteronormativity. Plus this reading is just sexy and cool and I like to have fun 

#deancas/bellaedward parallels #castiel twilight vampire boyfriend #mine #destiel #spn

[amuelia]

I'm not sure if you've ever mentioned anything about this but how do you feel about show Roose? I was really sad to see his character get cut so much but I really like his voice,,,,it's a good Roose voice ( also it's CRIMINAL how they took away the Bolton's pink like they don't even wear anything but black in the show 😭😭 ) (( also also I absolutely love your art YOU MAKE SO MUCH GOOD ART OF UNDER APPRECIATED CHARACTERS ITS SO GOOD TO SEE 🥺😭♥️♥️ ))

I think the actor is very handsome and talented! I like reading his Interviews, he seems very intelligent and you can see the thought he put into his character and his scenes. He did a great job with the material he was given, and i think it’s very understandable and professional that he read the first books but then decided to focus his portrayal on the show scripts, because the way they wrote him was too different.

Did you read the books before you started filming? I read the books before I started. Well, I read two of the books, and then I stopped actually. Because the character in the books is very, very different to the character in the show. The core differences were he spoke with a whisper. He never raised his voice. He had no emotion on his face. I remember there's a [line] that joy and laughter were very similar. So you couldn't play that. It's fine if it was the Roose Bolton show, you could do something like that. The character was not written like that at all. So it kind of did me a disservice reading the books. So I put them aside and just concentrated on the character in the scripts. - Michael McElhatton, IGN interview

But also, in the end, what he mentions about the difference is part of why, as a book stan, the show version doesn’t interest me that much; it’s not even about him specifically, but just a general thing all the show characters share. Just like most other characters they adapted, they completely suck the fun out of the character grrm wrote - no leeches, no icy eyes or pale face, no pink house sigil; ending up with a character that pretty much looks and acts like every other dude. I don’t need Roose to look like Dracula (as much as i love it, the long dark hair for example is not book canon, since his hair is never described), but he should be memorable! Instead, i often hear that people new to the show don’t remember his s2 scenes, or mix him up with other regular looking dudes like Stannis, or otherwise don’t remember him. One of grrm’s biggest strengths is how with just a few traits he makes every character memorable and distiguishable; think about any random character and youll probbaly remember at least one “special trait” that sets their appearance or personality apart from the rest. The show completely falls flat in this regard, ironically making it so that the books make better use of the “visual medium” than the show does.

Apart from that, visually the actor is ok; Considering a Dance with Dragons came out at a similar time as the first season and the casting process takes a while, I don’t blame them for leaving out some details of his character descriptions (for example his “ageless” appearance or the small close-set eyes are only mentioned in aDwD). His height (175cm, influenced my hc for the book version) and body type are close to the book, though i wish they’d left him clean-shaven like in s2 for the entire show. He has a bit of a long face which fits with the book’s northmen. He’s no Supermodel but i heard him called handsome frequently, so idk if that fits with the book description “not handsome but not quite plain”; i love interesting faces more than conventionally attractive ones so i can’t really judge objectively. Voice is imo too deep (imdb also calls it “commanding”), i imagine him having more of a mid range voice; and the actor also just talks normally instead of being notably whispery/quiet.

In terms of characterization, as the actor hints at, I do not think they are written very similarly. Roose in the books is a character who is ruled by an underlying fear/anxiety that drives him to, at all times, ensure his own safety and health (I elaborate on this more in this meta); The show version the way i remember it does not show this a lot. He doesn’t have the leeching scene and if he has scenes about being obsessed with health they werent prominent enough for me to remember (maybe the Jaime scene included some book dialogue?). He is serious, but he does not act emotionless to hide his feelings (Though the show scene where he says he doesn’t drink was a nice touch; it is not completely congruent with book canon, but brings across the same idea that he wants to be in control of a situation and his feelings).

For a bigger example: Show!Roose’s characterization in the Red Wedding episode shows him acting very confident and in a great mood, bantering with Cat, and staying in the room the entire time while wearing chainmail; while in the books he barely eats and doesn’t talk to Cat, is shown exchanging threatening glances with Walder, and leaves early to ensure his own safety only to return fully decked out in armor to give Robb the final blow. In the books, imo, you can see that he is stressed out by the situation; because while he planned it very thoroughly with Lothar Frey, it is still a great risk for such a cautious man to take, and he needs to trust that Walder doesn’t backstab him.

Bolton had made a toast to Lord Walder's grandsons when the wedding feast began, pointedly mentioning that Walder and Walder were in the care of his bastard son. From the way the old man had squinted at him, his mouth sucking at the air, Catelyn knew he had heard the unspoken threat.  

They are not necessarily great story-changing differences, but to me still paint a different picture of his character. People always say “oh a character doesnt need to look exactly like the descriptions as long as the actor works for the story, oh you dont need to adapt every little character detail as long as the story is intact”, but do this too much and somewhere along the way you lose what makes the character themselves. The small details and human traits are what makes me love a character, so if those are missing i end up not seeing them as a an adaptation of the same guy, even if the plot is similar. I do think there are scenes in the show where you can see the scriptwriter read the books and put in some of the book characterization, but the general direction of the character is still different.

I also loathe the s2 change that had Arya as Tywin’s cupbearer; it removes one (/two) of Roose’ best chapters and also the one that establishes a lot of his character traits and Red Wedding foreshadowing. The Tywin-Arya scenes are everything wrong with the show; changing scenes arbitrarily to prop up fan-favourite characters (later culminating in stuff the s7 wight hunt), bad “feminism” (like Arya saying “most girls are idiots”), having characters act OOC to be more “likable” or “sympathetic” (like that weird “fatherly” way Tywin acts towards Arya), ignoring how people in that time period and universe act (as if a man like Tywin would even glance at a servant), etc etc... here is a great post on that scene by @turtle-paced.

As far as the post-s3 scenes go I’m not a fan (though i did not rewatch those a lot, so feel free to remind me if i forgot something). i don’t like that they made Ramsay the main character of the plot, with Roose merely as a supporting role side character; the books give Roose a great arc starting in aDwD that imo is needed as a continuation of the Red Wedding plot. They pretty much cut out the Winterfell aDwD story (one of my fave storylines in asoiaf) entirely and replaced it with forgettable scenes. Replacing Jeyne with Sansa not only makes no sense for Littlefinger but also for Roose, since that makes him antagonize the Iron Throne. His death scene was so bad that it makes me hopeful he will have a bigger story in the books, and that they just culled him because they wanted to thin out plots like they did with Mance, Barristan, and Stannis.

Though in the end, while i don’t like the show’s writing and visual direction, i do still thank them for making the Boltons such prominent characters; They seem to have gained a lot of fans through the show, and are regarded as very important characters (i even see them in some “great houses” gifsets). They are of course also important in the books, but not as prominent/central as for example Ramsay was in s6. So even if they are adapted badly (Show Ramsay is especially bad), if they make people interested in their book counterparts, it’s still some sort of a win in my book.

(Also, thank you so much!! Glad you enjoy my art ❤️❤️)

#asks #asoiaf #roose bolton #meta #game of thrones #Anonymous #not art #long post

[pog-through-the-suffering]

ive . never made an original post on this blog besides being completely head full of thoughts regarding the dream smp these past months so, 🎉here’s to my first og post

The Traitor!!!

(yeah i know it's already been a day and none of this stuff is new hsjfhj just let me be a drama queen that really likes analysing characters)

can i just say before i get into it that i love the descent into pretty much grey morality for most of the "characters" involved in the smp. like. pretty much nobody is morally correct! other than niki nihachu because niki can do no wrong :) also i'll be referring to the characters... of these people? and not who they are

now, i've got a couple people that i think are traitors and i'll explain them a little further down but here's some things i noted when i was watching the vod that might be interesting owo

dream says, quote, "[you] may have traitors in your ranks" which,

could be a double jebait; he knows there's a traitor but he wants to sound like it's up in the air

there really is no traitor and this is just a ruse to get pogtopia to implode on itself

the traitor still hasn't made up their mind on whether or not they will betray pogtopia

and i think the last one is the most interesting, at least from a semi-meta perspective, to have a traitor that's not fully into the role and doesn't decide until last minute. idk, something about the angst really fuels me :)

either way, here's my predictions on who could be the traitor ranked (more or less) most compelling to least compelling, and i'm not accounting for realism because... this is my tumblr post and i get to pick how i order things :) i'm hiding the (long) analysis in read more because... i just realized how much i have to say and i am Not concise.

tl;dr

tubbo, while unrealistic, makes for an interesting twist and, for angst reasons, would also be cool to write about if he betrays pogtopia

similar to tubbo, tommy betraying is unrealistic, but for angst reasons would also be cool

technoblade is kind of obvious, but the continuity (if he’s the traitor) would make me pretty happy.

wilbur soot would be a little null, since he’s already planning on blowing everything to smithereens either way, but would be another step in his spiral downwards (jeez how far can this guy go) so i’m not mad.

georgenotfound would not be super surprising per say but would continue with his general characterization as an arbiter of chaos (i’ll maybe elaborate in a different post) it would be :)

badlands folks would... not be surprising. they never formally aligned with pogtopia, and aside from sam never really... offered their help? concretely, at least.

fundy already used up his secret traitor card.

same with eret, i love her, but his betrayal wouldn’t be super impactful. plus, they’re more aligned with badlands?

niki nihachu... i said i won’t care about realism but i sincerely cannot in canon imagine this. but if she did... oh the angst would be *chef’s kiss*

hbomb, ponk, purpled, itsalyssa, punz, other people? they never really were involved with this season aside from like,,, maybe helping schlatt hunt down tommy and wilbur right at the beginning. so the betrayal wouldn’t. matter.

tubbo - look, ik i said i don't care about realism, but the chances of this actually happening are... pretty slim. i love tubbo. i support tubbo. but they... like, the confused "no?" when he first came on VC with tommy makes me think it probably won't be him, unless they're really that good at acting. which, i mean, i guess would make for a fantastic surprise. but there's something deeply compelling about this kid, who largely has been relegated to third in command/less important than his friend, and who has been treated like a work horse a lot of the time (being asked to farm netherite for this upcoming war, being forced to decorate what ended up being his fucking funeral, otherwise grinding for shit in the earliest war only for it to get ruined by dteam), fucking snapping. plus, it's not like tubbo hasn't demonstrated his penchance towards chaos. also, i think there's something to be said about the lingering effects of manipulative authority/paternal figures and how that would manifest in tubbo, but that's a post for another day.

tommy - okay, yeah, maybe i just like kids my age popping the fuck off because of terrible parental figures, but shhhhhh. for real though, i think it would be really interesting for the person who up to this point has largely been the moral compass or otherwise the hero of the smp. for him to turn out to have always been as bad as the "villains" he's fighting... i dunno. also, something about him betraying because he's so fucking done with the people who are supposed to protect and lead him? mghhghh. but i like this probably mostly for the pop off factor LOL

technoblade - i mean... this one's a little obvious innit? i'm not mad at this, for sure, because techno's always made it clear he is ultimately here for chaos and anarchy. plus, i'll be able to stew in the dynamics of dream and techno fucking the server up LOL. all that aside, if techno turns out to be the villain i will be happy about the (now) fired chekhov's gun. like, i appreciate the continuity between "schlatt suggests techno is a pogtopia spy when he joins" to "techno admits he's just an anarchist" to techno's accidental or forced, depending on how you read it, betrayal of pogtopia by killing tubbo, and it all culminating in techno's final betrayal. while not the most surprising, it would be narratively fitting. and that's always nice isn't it? when things end with a nice bow on top-

speaking of nice bows on top, wilbur soot! i mean,,, as the man has said himself, there's really nothing more he can do to betray (if not pogtopia) tommy's values. the bitch wants to blow up manberg! and that's super fucking sexy. i love his corruption arc, it's *chef's kiss.* so... is he gonna be the traitor? probably not. but something about being driven to the very brink, that you've got nothing else even after you want to destroy it all that you seek out your former mortal enemy to cause even more pain and destruction... very compelling, very nice.

speaking of brunet british twinks,,, georgenotfound. even if george wasn't really on the smp or never formally betrayed manberg, i think they kind of accepted that he's on their side. and while this wouldn't necessarily a surprising twist, this would continue with dteam's (accidental?) characterization of themselves as arbiters of chaos. maybe i'll write a whole nother post about that, stay tuned :)

any of the badlands people - i mean... i love them. i love what they stand for. but they never really aligned with pogtopia, did they? so one of them, any of them, except maybe sam, would make for a pretty weak sauce twist. like, perhaps with skeppy? and it continuing the trend of enemy between tommy and skeppy? but really the most compelling is sam in that he agreed to help tommy but as a final reveal he doesn't join tommy's side when tommy does whatever with the creeper head.

as for weak sauce twists, fundy being the traitor would be pretty fuckin' weak. i'm sorry! he already used his secret traitor card, and everyone knows, once you've used it once you can never (until the next season) use it again.

other characters on the smp... yeah, i love eret! i love her! he's fucking fantastic! their gay castle? best fucking build! but like i said, already used secret traitor card. plus, she's part of badlands, so i don't think his betrayal would be surprising. and niki nihachu,,, i know i said i wouldn't care about realism, but i honest to god cannot imagine her being the traitor. i guess if she was there'd be some nice angst about her realizing that everything is shit, no matter where you turn, pogtopia's being run by a fanatical JD, manberg's run by a dictatorial senile goat man, badlands isn't even strong enough to have its own territory. so, what can a woman do when she has nothing left to lose? but for real, within canon it just... wouldn't really make sense to me. hbomb hasn't been involved in the plot, punz + ponk + purpled + alyssa + others haven't really been involved in the plot aside from. like chasing down tommy and wilbur that one time.

and... yeah! those are my thoughts :)

#og posts #long post #mcyt #dream smp spoilers #dream smp #the swearing happens after the read more #so if that's triggering for you pls stay safe <3 #(and if this somehow gets popular enough that people want a clean version...) #if any of this doesnt make sense.... send me an ask!! #i would love to brain dump more #plus #this was all written in like... half an hour without revisions #tommyinnit #tubbo #tubbo_ #technoblade #wilbur soot #georgenotfound #badlands #badboyhalo #awesamdude #skeppy #antfrost #fundy #itsfundy #eret #theeret #nihachu #hbomb94 #punztw

[tiffgeorgina]

what did you think of the new episode???

OH LORD i had a lotttt of thoughts on this episode, understandably. CONTENT WARNING FOR DISCUSSIONS OF SUICIDE AT THE VERY BOTTOM OF THIS POST (it’s a long paragraph). also obviously spoiler warning for 2x08.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1-800-273-8255

please reach out to somebody if you’re feeling distressed after this episode, or if you or a loved one is considering self harm or suicide. im always here if you need somebody to vent or talk to. i love you all and i would be devastated if anything happened to any of you. 

anyways, episode discussion below:

-first of all, the corgina scene at the very beginning was PRICELESS. tiff and corkie had it DOWN until tiff lost her cool. i was DYING. casey wilson invented the word “fuck.”

-marcus/dawn and connie/mo double date. this whole scene had me CACKLING. marcus being such a comrade was not at all what i expected. the three-on-one connie smackdown i could not BREATHE. also includes classic moments such as “we’re doing black shit right now keith” and regina stealing every scene she’s in. also WOMEN xosha roquemore (connie) in dark lipstick is the best part of s2 prove me wrong

-also kind of out of order but dawn calling mo her best friend did not sit right... like in my soul. it’s like inherently wrong. so STRANGE to hear her say that.

-but connie sucks at being subtle lmfao dawn was not having any of that 

-“i can’t vote. im a felon” just out of nowhere GOD. and the fact that that’s the first time dawn’s learning that mo went to prison is fucked up. i’ve never seen a woman want a man to shut up so badly, and i’ve never been so glad that said man did not shut up lmfao

-tiff and blair’s apartment looks so good yes god!! also this season keeps referencing blair’s parents and it’s kind of putting me on edge. especially since next episode is “blair [being] forced to revisit his past.” on another note, andrew’s voice in this scene is SO FUNNY. you can tell he’s a voice actor i think

-also like we knew blair was into older men but now we like know lmfao. the richard gere jokes had LAYERS these writers outsold

-ok blair&tiff’s relationship... yikes. i cannot tell what the writers want their relationship to be. are they unhealthy and toxic and bad to each other? or are they platonic soulmates and life partners? make up your MIND, showtime.

-DON’T INFANTILIZE THE CUP BYE KJDFHGDFKJ

-first blarris scene was TENSE. acting good

-the confirmation that roger has kids... i mean i suspected it from the moment tuc’s character was announced in september but it makes the ending so much more painful. i KNOW that’s the only reason why they pushed the fact that the harrises are parents in this episode, bc it was never confirmed earlier.

-i hate how funny michael hitchcock is. im trying to hate newell but im laughing. why are his lines so funny who wrote this. 

-the sound design in this episode was a lot to take in. the music was intense asf and it stays intense throughout the whole ep

-keith cracking onto blair and trying to reconcile with him bc he’s feeling empathetic but blair shutting him down... can’t say keith doesn’t deserve it but i would’ve loved to have seen keith and blair just talk about being closeted and having affairs and shit.

-THE TRUMP CHILDREN LMFAOOOO they all look so smug the casting was great this ep

-mo shit talking connie TO HER FACE bc he knows connie can’t give up the act... fucking priceless i love to see it acab

-dawnroe physical contact hhhhh can you tell im rewatching this ep as i type this

-the wording on the “you’re with the FBI?” line is so perfect. bc it makes it totally sound like dawn’s onto mo and connie when really she’s just like “you’re siding with the FBI bitch?” highkey genius line

-posted this too early by accident oops. im still editing im not done yet lmfao

-MARCUS MO AND DAWN SAID ACAB FUCK YES

-ROGER GRABBING BLAIR’S HAND I AM ASCENDING. i knew about the hand holding scene there but i didn’t think roger would initiate it <3

-roger nearly kissing blair :’/

-LORD the trump children are little shits god

-daddy says it makes me look hot. you mean cute? ...no.

-oh GOD not this blarris scene. i like to believe that a gay person generally wouldn’t threaten to out another gay person on principle, but blair has shown how shitty of a person he's become all season. i hate it and it’s still ooc but i’ve seen worse on this show tbh.

-roger’s got a point, if he supports his campaign fund manager right off the bat, he’ll look like a total fraud and his career will be over. the fact that blair barely gives a shit really speaks to what his character has become. “fuck them” what a classic line

-ANDREW’S ACTING!!! his voice when he says “you use me” ugh i felt that in my chest. plus roger looking away after he says that... i mean god this cast is so talented

-blair snapping god. he’s got a point, he and roger have been dysfunctional asf all season. doesn’t justify threatening to out somebody AT ALL but finally hearing some emotion out of blair, a little bit of anger and frustration, it’s refreshing.

-does “who are you, blair?” count as a parallel to “who are you, pfaff?” from 1x01?

-blair outing roger to newell... yikes. again ooc and bad. blair’s a shitty guy but we’ve seen him have empathy before, even in s2. why would they make him do this i don’t get it.

-keith finding out about lenny is good. maybe something will finally come of this arc?

-parallel to 2x02 with blair mentioning his mom’s phrase, cool. probably gearing us up for more references to his parents next ep, culminating in a flashback to his childhood in 2x10.

-this scene where the trump kids are destroying everything is classic. you can genuinely tell that everybody there was having so much fun shooting that. idk, it’s nice.

-trump reveal HA what a great end to that scene

-keith coming by and fucking everything up... i mean i guess everybody KNOWS now. dawn/marcus is over (good) and dawn is probably right pissed at mo rn. but hey, fuck em all resurgence!!! ive been waiting for it and now it’s here!

-im scared, what’s connie gonna do? fuck cops

-“that’s a long way to go just to get a dig in” “it was a stretch but-” see what happens when you’re a narc? you lose your wit :/ sad! nice exit line from connie tho

-CW SUICIDE MENTION. ok time to talk about what definitely needs to be talked about. god this has had my chest hurting all day yesterday. i knew blarris would be outed eventually bc sho likes to milk every plot point for every bit of drama they can get out of it, but i did not expect roger to take his life. and blair finding him is just devastating. i said this on twt, but the fact that somebody could be so overwhelmed with internalized homophobia that being outed could cause them to commit suicide is so incredibly and deeply sad to me. i’ve been crying for a while over that fact. 

im just. im really sad. i’ve connected so much with these characters over the past two-ish years and this is such a devastating turn of events. i have no words. it isn’t bad writing or ooc by any means, it’s just so extremely and incredibly sad. there are probably thousands of people who have been in roger’s exact position before, and the realism really hits me hard. i can’t put into words how overwhelming sad this makes me. 

also pretty upset that this came as a COMPLETE shock to me and all my friends. we all watched on the sho streaming service, which did not have the “viewer discretion advised” card before the ep. the premier did, but the episode on the app did not. i really REALLY wish they had added that before i had seen the episode so i could prepare myself, even if just slightly. also wish they had added a suicide hotline number at the end. 

seeing blair grieve his loss is going to hurt but it’s probably going to give us closure too. i think about this show all the time, and now thinking about it makes me so overwhelmingly sad. i sound dramatic but this show has been with me for so long. not being able to see much of blair’s reaction beside the initial shock has been haunting me. im so scared for what the future episodes are going to bring.

thank you for reading, i love you all <3

#suicide ment // #suicide #black monday #shoblackmonday #andrew rannells #slander #meta analysis #open mic night #anonymous

[silverbastardgoldenfool]

Realm of the Quarantine Reread End-of-Book Questionnaire: Royal Assassin

Any differences between your first/previous reading experience and this one?

Not as stark a difference as with Assassin’s Apprentice, but definitely still there. Apart from all the obvious stuff, like feeling much more attached to the characters already and picking up more details, I think the biggest change was a complete lack of patience for the teen romance drama lol. There was a decent period where I was feeling quite frustrated with it. Not that I loved it the first time round, but back then I had a very different view of how it fit into the story. I saw it as teaching Fitz a depressing lesson of what it really means to be a royal bastard and a king’s man. Fitz’s literal need (for all he knows he would have been killed if not for his deal with Shrewd) and sense of duty to put his loyalty to his king and country first creates a relationship that is toxic, turbulent and built on lies. And teenage horniness masquerading as love. I saw all that the first time and thought it was just something he had to go through. Now I know it’s something he never really goes through but rather grips onto, romanticises and ultimately goes back to. I know the point of that is meant to be that he finally gets to have something for himself, but why it had to be Molly specifically??? I have very few qualms with Robin’s writing choices overall, but why she chose to write their relationship this way if they really are meant to be is beyond me, especially when so many of her other romances are written so well - it feels like it can’t possibly be unintentional. For most of this book they’re either fighting or fucking and honey! That ain’t love! Hell, Fitz all but sees her as just another demand on his time as the book goes on. But he can’t let her go because she’s the one thing he can point to that makes him feel normal. Not happy, not cherished, not safe. Normal. She’s simply a refuge from his real life. He literally says to Chade “I need her.” I find that so telling, man. It’s not really about her, which is a shame because Molly is great. They’re just really not good for each other.

So yeah. It’s just kind of trying to read all the Fitz/Molly stuff when you know and don’t like what it ultimately culminates in. At the same time… Bee… So I will always be conflicted lol. I just can’t separate the events of Royal Assassin from the furious disappointment I felt when I finished Fool’s Fate. Perhaps I’ll have a new Fool’s Fate experience this time that will make the next re-read a bit easier in regards to Fitz and Molly? But I won’t bet on it lol.

Anyway. It’s not as if I haven’t already said just about everything there possibly is to say about Fitz and Molly yet I also feel like I could go on about it forever. Luckily this is kind of as bad as it gets in terms of how much “screen time” they actually get (apart from Fool’s Assassin maybe? But they don’t bother me too much in that) so yay! I made it! And hopefully it’ll be a good few books before y’all have to endure my ranting about it again :)) Also hopefully this doesn’t give the impression that this read was more bad than good? It was mostly just a particular angsty chunk before they properly get together that was a bit of a slog to get through, but overall I really loved reading this book again and got a lot out of it.

Something you can’t believe you forgot

That Molly punches Fitz in the face hard enough that he bleeds and that Fitz fully intended to punch the Fool for asking if Molly was preggo before seeing he had already been beaten. I pretend I do not see it.

Favourite character introduction moments/scenes

Omfg I was just about to say “huh we didn’t really get any major character intros in this book” bitch Nighteyes???? But in my defence I just. Cannot process the fact that Nighteyes is only really in 3 of 16 books he just feels omnipresent to me BUT his introduction is most definitely iconique and god I love him and he made me cry eight thousand times!

Favourite character arcs

Speaking of Nighteyes: what a glow up. He goes from angry, scared, untrusting little bb to……. Nighteyes. Like. How does one even describe the kind of person Nighteyes becomes. He’s just Nighteyes and I love him with all my fuckin heart!! He is Fitz’s constant… He is wise… He is silly… a comedic genius…… a big, open, unconditional heart. Incomparable. I can’t believe I’ve seen ppl saying they dislike/d Nighteyes……. Honey…… it’s called taste xx

Favourite quote/s

Again no tabs so it’s a bit harder to keep track but there were a few that stuck out enough to copy down. There are a lot of iconic quotes in this book that get shared a lot so I only bothered with ones I didn’t remember.

- “I wince to think of the price willingly paid for loving me.”

- “My soft, clean bed beckoned, like a soft, clean tomorrow.” (mood)

- “I looked and saw they were both made of hungers, like containers made of emptiness.”

Favourite relationships

Kettricken/Verity obviously. I was shocked by how little time they actually have together being in love before Verity leaves??? Because all I remembered was how strong their love is. But the whole journey towards that love is what makes it stand out as an actual compelling story in its own right. This is definitely one of Robin’s greatest skills as a writer; giving the minor characters depth by giving them their own relationships that grow and change and have a life of their own outside of Fitz. It makes the world feel so much more alive.

Also Burrich/Fitz in this book continues to be bittersweet, but with a lot more sweet in there than usual! They fully start out this book as a team. Burrich calling Fitz “FitzChivalry” makes me fuckin emo and idk why even. Burrich does seem to start seeing Fitz a lot more as his own person in this book which changes their dynamic in some rly nice ways. The fact that towards the end of the book Burrich even uses the wit to help Fitz is enough to make me cry tbh - and writing this has made me realise that I’m officially past any uncomplicated good times between Burrich and Fitz y’all mind if I fuckin die real quick!!

Fitz/Verity is soy pure and beautiful. Fitz and the Fool is always, always compelling and complex and tender and perfectly mysterious. But overall you’d have to say Fitz/Nighteyes, hey? They are literally meant to be, in a way so straightforward and undeniable and beautifully simple that I never really know what to say about it. Little brother!!! :’) They literally make me cry all the frickin time lol rip!

Favourite setting

There aren’t that many to choose from in this book! Ima go with the skill river bc hey, Robin’s magic systems are so unique and beautiful and the fact that the skill is written as a kind of a place is really frickin cool and deserves a shoutout.

Favourite chapter

The final chapter (not the epilogue) ummm broke my heart but it is written so beautifully, oh my god, it’s like an out of body experience. I feel like this is kind of when RotE becomes RotE - the first time it really goes to that place that is so fitting yet so unexpected, so beautiful, so tragic, so awful, so visceral. Making use of the genre to really test the limits of humanity; to see how far you can bend a person without breaking them and then refusing to turn away from the consequences. Idk man!! I don’t know how to describe it without sounding like a pretentious dick but it really is that intense and strange and overwhelming for me. There is something in that moment, when Burrich pulls Fitz’s body out of the earth and Fitz/Nighteyes is recoiling from it and deeply terrified… Something about the enormity of the existential questions raised converging with the pinpoint specificity of it all being wrapped up in the story of a character that feels so real and who you care about so deeply… It’s almost written like a horror scene, but that’s not quite the feeling. It’s just the RotE feeling; there are multiple throughout all five series, and it’s what makes these books unlike any other.

Most loved character

Fitz, Nighteyes, the Fool all had my entire heart this book. The Fool is just so sad and pathetic and literally must be protected!! I think I’m kind of obsessed with Burrich? Also I think I almost forgot how much I love Kettricken? She’s a complete badass of course but she’s also got the biggest goddamn heart like…. Who said she was allowed to be such a beautiful person???

But god, everyone. I love them all.

Most hated character

What can I say? Regal is disgostang. Wall Ass a close second.

Raise your hand if you’ve been personally victimised by Robin Hobb (most heartbreaking and/or visceral moments)

Shall I list just a few? :)

- Burrich screaming at Fitz through the bars of his jail cell, horrible things you can’t help but feel are at least a little bit true

- Burrich sobbing over Fitz’s dead body repeating, “You aren’t dead, you aren’t dead.”

- Fitz going to Nighteyes before everything went down on the night of the coronation and just fuckin hugging him really tight

- Fitz trying desperately to leave his broken vessel behind but not quite being able to disown his body

- The Fool being beaten

- The Fool being beaten again

- The Fool sprawled and weeping across Shrewd’s dead body

- The Fool really believing for a moment that Fitz had betrayed him and killed Shrewd

- Fitz tending the Fool’s wounds………. bitch….

- Chade giving Fitz a chance to escape with them and Fitz going to kill Serene and Justin instead

- Idk why this is even that sad but Nighteyes saying the only person he loves is Fitz!

- The entire incident with the forged ones literally tearing apart a three year old girl, which I had completely blocked out until now :)

- The fact that Fitz continues to be reminded and traumatised by this incident for the remainder of the book beCAUSE HE IS A GOOD BOY. A VERY GOOD BOY WITH A VERY GOOD HEART.

- Fitz repelling at Nighteyes to try and force their bond broken

- LITTLE BROTHER

- WOLVES HAVE NO KINGS

- High off his face Fitz calling Patience “mother” no shut the fuck up!!!!

Details, observations, spoilery notes made with the benefit of the full picture

- I’ve been trying for ages to decipher when the Fool started falling for Fitz, and I think I’m officially putting my money on their last interaction in AA. “I wish I had a place that was as much me as that place is you.” I mean. If someone said that to me… I’m not a slut but who knows, ya know? (I know this is more a note for the last book but I thought of it while reading this book. So shh.)

- It’s so clear to see this time how much Fitz’s sense of self and politics are affected by his time in the Mountains. He obviously feels much more inclined to their way of thinking about royalty and sacrifice and equality and returns to Buckkeep with a self-respect he’s never really had before. Weird how being among people who don’t just think of you as The Bastard will do that.

- It’s no wonder Fitz becomes so fixated on Molly; he literally has almost nothing else to occupy him and no companionship when she suddenly shows up

- It’s gross that he spies on her, obviously, but you can’t not take into account the fact that Chade has been teaching him since he was ten that this is justifiable behaviour; a reasonable way to gather information and get what you want. Fitz’s lack of social awareness goes further than him just being a little awkward; he has literally been trained to believe the only thing wrong with stalking would be getting caught.

- I’ve seen a few people talk about the fact that Regal isn’t appropriately punished as if it’s bad writing and like, while it is frustrating, it is supposed to be frustrating - it is not a plot hole. It made sense to me the first time I read it and it was even more obvious this time; Regal has the loyalty of the inland duchies. If he were to be publicly punished those dukes would rally behind him and raise hell, and Regal would no longer need to play the part of the dutiful prince. Even if Regal died a “natural” death - something I can’t see Shrewd or Verity orchestrating anyway - the inland dukes would feel that they no longer have a Farseer on their side and may, again, raise hell. It’s a delicate balance that would be outrageously difficult not to topple if you removed Regal from the equation. There is a lot more to it than I’ll bother writing here but yeah. I don’t really know how people can read this book and think that Regal retaining his life and position is some sort of lazy plot contrivance. It was all set up in the first book dude.

- Fitz and Nighteyes meeting in this book is the perfect metaphor for our need for connection versus the fear of inevitable loss. Fitz’s experience tells him that entering into a bond with an animal can only end in pain, yet he can’t resist it. In real life this is especially true with humans and our animal companions, since they almost always have a shorter lifespan than us; signing up to love them is signing up to lose them. But the same is also true of our relationships with other humans. And like Fitz, we have all had our fair share of loss and pain. We all have our reasons to be afraid of the connection we naturally crave. Sometimes we give in to the fear to the point of holding ourselves back from it entirely. That’s where Fitz is at when he meets Nighteyes. But what’s so beautiful about their arc as a metaphor is that it suggests that these connections, if we submit to them, are what keep our vital spark alive. Even when Nighteyes dies later in the series, the sentiment always remains, essentially, “It’s better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.” Ya boi is projecting bc it’s hard to be vulnerable and make friends as an adult, but I think the observation stands. Love and connection and vulnerability are key threads that run throughout all of Fitz’s story, but in this book it is best represented through him and Nighteyes.

- “I hoped I would not become too adept at lying to myself.” Honey, you got a big storm comin.

- Very inch resting (gay) that Fitz finds it hard to meet the Fool’s eyes. I know almost everyone does bc his eyes are weird, but I reserve the right to reach and I will absolutely NOT be accepting criticism.

- I find it interesting that Fitz says Kettricken’s wit is not strong just because she doesn’t use it exactly the way he does

- I know it’s not meant to be funny but……. The way Fitz described losing his virginity had me literally laughing out loud

- Fitz was really like “okay i better go break my bond with Nighteyes” just cos he and Molly fucked. Teenagers don’t deserve rights.

- You know what? I really, really appreciate how fucking weird these books are lol. What other author would use their magic system to have their characters accidentally intruding on each other’s awkward sex stuff? Okay, maybe a few, but they would do it to be like, edgy and sexy. Robin Hobb just does it to make you cringe so hard you lose several years off of your life.

- But seriously, even apart from the cringe stuff, these books get so strange and out there and like! That’s what magic is for! 

- Bruh. When Fitz is like “omg poor Verity…. He’ll never have what i have with Molly” I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone encapsulate the self-important delusion of teen romance so perfectly lol. Wow.

- Okay some Fitz/Fool stuff that made me lose my tiny mind. Sorry.

- Fitz literally said about the Fool “he burned too brightly” I WILL DIE.

- Fitz is always like, irritated by the Fool… yet positively delighted by his presence at the same time…… okay bitch

- Inch resting how Fitz has always been uncomfortable with the Fool getting serious. I don’t quite know how to put my thoughts on this into words so like. I’ll just put it there. Make of it what you will.

- “Sit on my clothes chest and take your shirt off…” i stopped fucking breathing noah fence

- “I ran my fingers lightly down the line of his jaw, and around his eye socket. At least no bone seemed damaged. ‘Who did this to you?’ I asked him.” my GOD this is literally textbook gay/romance. It hurts me. It physically hurts me.

- Straight from my notes: “I can’t even focus on reading this bc it’s the first time they are tending each other’s wounds and I am a homosexual!” and “the gays are quaking!! (it’s me I’m the gays)

- Okay wow! I think that’s it! Hello if you made it this far! Hope this was remotely coherent and I’m always keen to hear your thoughts on my thoughts :)

Anyone doing a reread feel free to fill this out! You don’t have to use the tag :)

#rote #realm of the elderlings #royal assassin #royal assassin spoilers #fitzchivalry farseer #realm of the quarantine

[treacherous-dwarf-of-the-seas]

I had a lot of Thoughts about the Steven Universe Future finale

It’s exactly a month after its premiere, but I still have a lot of feelings and I wanna organize my thoughts a bit so I can have them somewhere, perhaps for any future ideas I may have. I think I’m just gonna list my thoughts on the 4 individual episodes, the finale (and season) as a whole, etc. Overall, I liked most of it, but I’m gonna get a bit su critical because although I absolutely loved many things about this finale, Oh boy. Some things I downright Did Not. Spoilers ahead I guess, this is a long one. 

This is my favorite part of the finale by far. To me, it did almost everything right.

I loved picking up right after Fractured, and Steven’s expression and body language, *chef’s kiss*

Poor Jasper gets killed *twice*

Homeworld looks so good! It’s all gardeny and disorganized in a good way.

Purple pearl?

SPINEL’S BACK!!!

Edgy theories that spinel and the diamonds were a disaster waiting to happen (I agreed with these) were wrong and this makes me happy. 

Steven’s reaction to Spinel kissing him? Was a tad strange//

SO GOOD to see Spinel being mentally healthy and happy and while still being herself.

The Diamonds! Actually working to better themselves!

I love the idea of diamond powers “working in reverse”. Like, Yellow diamond can change bodies and destabilize bodies, Blue can change emotions for better or worse, White can take over others or let others in. Honestly the idea that Pink/Rose could bring random plants to life and basically heal anything always struck me as so overpowered and random. The context that she was a goddess of destruction that changed into a goddess of creation makes the concept make a bit more sense to me, I appreciate that. 

I’m so ambivalent about Yellow’s scene. 

Like, its so satisfying to see. The thing that everybody (including me) was complaining about was that the diamonds’ redemption did not change the millennia of shattered, corrupted and amalgamated gems and suffering they had directly caused. Its very nice to see them putting their money with their mouths are. There’s acknowledgement that redemption isn’t just saying sorry and being less of a dick than you were before, it’s also correcting past wrongs and making it up to the people who were hurt.

However, I’m not totally sold on the idea of healing every shattered gem and the cluster. Like, I guess it makes sense considering a shatter is just a crack that’s been finished, and cracks in gems can be healed. But I don’t think it should be as easy as it is, and in any case, it just feels like it cheapens the impact of shattering, and even the forced fusions when they were so impactful in the original show. I wish the healing could still be done, but in a way that respects how awful and impactful the harm was.

I totally understand Steven in the Blue Diamond scene. I had had mental health problems where my mom had just offered drugs instead of talking to me or trying to help in a way that showed she cared about the issue, so this scene hit a bit hard.

Blue gets a song!

White, by far, my favorite scene in all of Future. 

Spinel White, no joke, gave me nightmares. 

The little moment of Steven yelling at himself for being a diamond is exactly what I wanted and I needed so much more of it. 

Triggered by everything White Diamond does. *chef’s kiss*. I especially love the little subtle moment of looking uncomfortable and pushing away white’s fingernails.  

Finally seeing similarities between Steven and White is canon, though I wish it was more explored. 

THE HALLUCINATION

Zach Callison is Intense(TM). This man always goes so hard and deserves mad respect.

TOO BAD.

Intrusive thoughts being represented in this way is amazing.

I still wonder if White knows what happened. Can she read thoughts in that state? 

He used White Diamond’s power to go into her body, and then while in her body, used her power of possession to take over his own body to puppet himself? I actually love the twistedness of this concept. It shows how twisted Steven himself has become. It’s so much about self-harm, while also not being self harm? vengeful thoughts, intrusive thoughts, anger, just everything. This moment could take all day to analyze, and I think it is way more thematically relevant to Steven’s internal struggle than the corruption.  

Love that the diamonds were still willing to help and only seemed concerned after how Steven was acting. They have changed!

Fairy tale imagery, noice.

This one is odd in the best way.

My favorite scenes in anything with supernatural beings is when they look at their own eyes in the mirror and realize that it’s not human or changed from what they should be. The way this scene played out was in a way I’ve only seen in fanfiction, and I am Here for it. The horror on Steven’s face when he’s looking at his own appearance is just wonderfully done. 

Very uncomfortable that there is an actual painting of Steven as an angel in his own room. I love how it ties into this episode, but I genuinely feel uncomfortable that he was thought of in that way at all. 

The flat out denial that he had just done the things he had done simply by virtue of who he is, I love the idea that “Steven Universe” has become more of a concept/symbol to him rather than being his own name. It reminds me of his concept of his mother and how her name is more of a symbol to Steven than a person. I just love the subtle parallel. 

I love the fact that “toxic positivity” is being explored in this show. I never really see it being discussed, and in a show so centered on being honest about emotions, no matter how painful they are, its so wonderful that the protagonist’s main character flaw is the exact opposite, to the point of being forcefully happy and smiling and actively ignoring things going wrong. It really strengthens the message by showing the opposite extreme.

I love the recontextualization that is present in suf. The criticisms of Steven being “too happy” during the cluster arc, being strangely positive after Lars’ death, etc. Although it was uncomfortable when those episodes came out and those events were all but ignored, I’m happy that it is being addressed as this culmination of madness in Steven, being so forcefully happy that its obvious that those episodes weren’t trying to ignore the problems, Steven was. 

I’m also happy to see a genuine “hero complex” in a protagonist. (usually the term is used incorrectly to mean “anyone who is a hero who works too hard.”

Steven talking to himself in typical protagonist fashion. 

The crystal gems staging an intervention, good shit.

“Steven’s here to help. Steven help. Help Steven.” Not subtle, but I’m always a slut for the glitchy messages. 

The confession of his crimes, love that we get to see the gems react to that. 

The whole monologue. Once again, Zach goes hard. I love the manic energy and still the ending is so raw and broken. 

“Oh, don't worry! I fixed that too! I can fix anything. I can just keep messing up and fixing things forever, and you'll never have to know or think about any of it! How messed up is that? That I've gotten away with this for so long. You have no idea how bad I am.”

 It honestly feels like some projection? (Idk something to do with that). It feels like hes a little put out by the things he learned in Homeworld Bound. Like, maybe he feels the same way I do? That the diamonds got off too easy? Maybe it’s simply that hes put out that they’re getting better and he seems to be getting worse. Maybe even, into the worst parts of his mom? I mean from his perspective, his mother had reverse character development and went, in his mind, from a goddess to a petty teenager, to an actual monster. How upsetting would it be to see the galactic dictators who got to live, do so many awful things, worse things than her, and just get to make everything better, to the point of total reversal of their crimes, while pink just ran away and left steven to deal with the mess.While he had to deal with the aftermath of EVERYTHING. Everyone seems to just be okay with the diamonds now, the monsters he feared for so long, so how come he has to be the bad one? How come he has to be like them now? Maybe it’s even coming back to his whole theory that he’s just a reincarnated version of his mom. (I know that he knows it isn’t true, but old fears and old habits can come back during a manic episode, and he spent a long time thinking that he was just there to clean up his mom’s mess and thinking that he was her in disguise.) If you look at what he’s saying, it’s a little strange that he’s talking about how bad he is and how he messes up and then fixes the stuff and no one has to know. It doesn’t even sound like he’s talking about himself, not really.

This sounds like a hysterical realization of what being a diamond means for steven. This is better explained in this post here :https://pennylogue.tumblr.com/post/613441610438590464/steven-is-a-diamond-and-thats-okay . Like, he is panicking that being a diamond means that he can just destroy everything and just fix it like the other diamonds. It’s terrifying that he can just destroy anything and hurt anybody, and people will still worship the ground he walks on just by virtue of who he is. (This isn’t true, obviously, but after what had just happened with jasper, a terrified mind would latch on to that.)  

 Dude, I could just go on all day this monologue is just fascinating. 

Love the parallel of Connie’s “backpack butterflies” and Steve’s back exploding. Its like a subtle way to show that the thoughts are “suddenly swarming.”

Oh god. I’ve gotta be honest. I hated this one. But I’ll start off with things I liked. 

The general concept is okay, but I feel like it is not thematically consistent, which I will get into later. 

The moment when the gems tell Greg to leave, and he stamps his foot down saying he needs to be with his son, I like that it is very apparent that his stomp makes almost no sound or impact, which really shows how different Steven is from him, aka, his separation from his own humanity that has been building up. 

Connie being amazing as always. 

“Yoo hoo! Steven! Is this a bad time?”

Spinel’s entire thing, from her reaction to seeing pink godzilla to her thinking that she is the main villain of steven’s story. It reminds me of Peridot’s “leader of the crystal gems, traitor to homeworld” thing and it makes me so happy. 

“WHy is something like this always happening when we show up for a visit?” 

The ending. Jesus. Zach always goes so hard I don’t doubt he was actually sobbing. I wish I could have cried during this moment. 

I respect the message, that it’s not about fixing it, it’s about being there for the person struggling, and Steven wasn’t cured, he finally hit a breaking point. I understand that the problem was not “solved with a hug” as so many say.

I love that before I saw the episode I saw pics of Garnet being as big as the kaiju and actually said to myself, “Wow the heights really ARE inconsistent.”

I don’t like that Connie included herself as one of the people that depend on Steven. They are the healthiest relationship in the entire show and Connie is always there for Steven? sometimes even more than he can be there for her? Where is this coming from? She has literally always been there. Her calling everyone out did clear my skin and water my crops though. 

Also, where is Connie’s emotional resolution? Didn’ she go through alot of the same trauma as Steven?

I don’t think it’s unreasonable that a diamond, Steven, could corrupt themselves. It’s not necessarily a bad ending to have Steven be corrupted into a giant monster. However, I don’t think it’s the ending that was really built up to. The only real build up was the presence of “Wyrm boi” in the theme song, and that’s about it. It’s not as prevalent as eye symbolism and foreshadowing of someone (Steven or Connie) losing a hand or an eye.

The episode itself was 11 minutes long, and the monster was very underwhelming and way too quick. I feel like the emotions were too rushed, and although everyone else seemed to put in their emotional 2 cents, I feel as though Steven did not get the emotional climax that he really needed. 

Also why didn’t we have a sweet little moment of connection with Nephrite Jade/Centipeetle? Wouldn’t that have been such a bittersweet parallel? The whole “being there for Steven like he was there for us?” So where is she? 

There was so much imagery and thematic elements in both Steven Universe and Steven Universe Future, that did not build up to the kaiju monster in the way that it was.

The imagery with one eye, the eye patches, cat steven, the heterochromatic eyes with Onion’s doll, Cookie cat, split Steven, etc etc, most people have many many more examples. I feel like someone could have lost an eye, or maybe Steven could have had a corruption scar that left his eyes permanently heterochromatic. It also would have been thematically relevant to have Steven come out of this with more of a balance of his gem half and human half. This never really becomes relevant in “I Am My Monster.” His gem half turns him into a monster, his gem half helps him turn back. It’s nice that his gem and human family were there as support, but there was never a sense of balancing both sides of himself in the fact that they are there, as there are only two humans and mostly gems there, and this lack of balance and security with both parts of himself was one of the major themes throughout the series and one of the sources of Steven’s identity crisis. 

Connie is always a parallel to Pearls. Our Pearl and Pink Pearl. I wish something had come of that. (There are amazing comics that show her losing an eye like Pink Pearl, as it seemed to be foreshadowed in Open Book and Sworn to the Sword.)

This idea isn’t mine, but I’ve seen it done really well and I feel like it would have been a better ending than 10 minute godzilla monster. I wish I could have seen Steven split up again. I am personally fascinated with the otherworldly enigma that are Steven’s two halves, but I feel that that would have tied into the themes better and tied up more loose ends. By the end of the series, we don’t know Steven’s opinion on his mother, and last time we heard him mention her it was in a negative light. This is connected to Steven’s conflict within himself, his desire to understand his human side better, his fear of his power as a diamond, his insecurity and loneliness as a totally unique being. Homeworld Bound was the closest we got to seeing Steven talk to himself, and confront the two sides of himself. This was also the closest we’ve seen Steven come to being honest with the diamonds about how he really sees them. However, this ended with Steven hurting himself, (wanting to hurt White was a response to trauma as well as symbolically confronting his own diamond self), and running away. We never get to see the resolution to that conversation. We never see Steven accept that he is a diamond and that it isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Furthermore, Rose Quartz/Pink Diamond is not resolved. The negative character development took a huge toll on her character. Not only does the audience think of her as a terrible person, but the characters also forget her positive character development after hearing about all the mistakes of the past. Rose/Pink’s redemption arc still happened. I think it would have been fitting to remind us here, like all the other diamonds get their moment in this special. I feel like having Steven split up would tie up these loose ends. It would be a dramatic ending while also being a way for Steven to confront these issues within himself in a grounded way, while also making genuine peace with Pink Diamond. We could have Steven talking to himself, maybe starting out the way he did with White in Homeworld Bound, then steadily coming to terms with the sides of himself that he is afraid of, maybe how both sides help each other, how Pink Diamond is not a symbol of all that is wrong in his life, but just a person with flaws who was able to be better, like he can be better, too. This was touched on a little in Change Your Mind, but I would love to see Steven’s thoughts on Pink after the events of Fractured and Homeworld Bound, as there has to be some difference in perspective there. I feel that if Steven split into his components, these themes and ideas could be explored more and we could have a better climatic resolution for Steven’s character arc.  Even if Steven came out with no scars, even with both his eyes, the imagery and thematic elements would still be satisfactorily resolved if we got to see the two halves of Steven actually talk to each other. This also explains it better. https://scatterpatter.tumblr.com/post/615024679798915072/hmmmm-okay-so-i-just-watched-one-of-those-rose

Btw, if anybody has fanfiction recs with this concept, please hmu. 

I think I hate the kaiju ending because it seemed like such a waste of potential and didn’t really resolve any conflict besides functioning as a sort of breakdown.

The Future. aka: Welcome to another episode of Crying Breakfast Friends!

Boogle

The cookie cat rap. Pearl obviously kills it because she’s awesome and I was dying the entire time. 

Steven/Therapy is canon!

I like that Steven puts up a poster of Kerry Moonbeam in his room that he’s giving to his dad. It’s like he’s made peace with the whole “mr. universe thing” and it makes me happy to see that he’s not holding it against his dad or even avoiding the subject. 

I appreciate alot of little moments with the family while it still lasts.

It is genuinely like watching Crying Breakfast Friends. 

Steven gets to be “petty” with his emotions! He is finally honest with his family. I do appreciate the subtle resolution to his character arc (despite my opinions of the climax).

My favorite thing about Steven and Connie is that the fact that they are “canon” has basically always been true. Like, they’ve always loved eachother as best friends and they still do, it’s just that they get to kiss now. I absolutely love that its not a huge dramatic thing, its just Steven and Connie and they are otp for life. 

The fanfic potential is strong with this one. 

I wish I could have seen a therapy session or at least meeting the therapist. Maybe Steven walking into the office with his family behind him and its a moment of doing the first steps toward getting better.

But as is, this one is fine. 

Love the idea of a road trip with our little weirdo interacting with normies. 

Time to hit up Gravity Falls, lmao. 

TLDR:, the finale was good, but I did not particularly care for the climax. I am genuinely sad to see this show go. I was not a fan until I was already 18, but even after 5 years this show has taught me so much about self love, acceptance, tolerance, emotional honesty, etc. (I’ll probably do another post about it because holy shit this is long.) But this season, or epilogue series, has gotten me through such a difficult time in my life that is still happening, and has given me the tools to get through it. I sympathize with Steven so much, and I know alot of other people did too. It was so nice to be part of a community that just adopted this feral child. Some of future was rushed and of course it wasn’t perfect, but I greatly respect what it was doing. Bringing up PTSD and mental illness in this way in something like this was not something I was prepared for, even in this show, and I certainly couldn’t have imagined it even 5 years ago. Even with its missteps, this show took so many risks and was so incredibly detailed and it was obvious that it was made with alot of love and the fans in mind. I criticize because I love this show and while I feel it is necessary to acknowledge its flaws, I have so much love for the possibilities that this little world makes me dream of. These four episodes in particular was an emotional roller coaster and I am so sad to see it go, but I enjoyed the ride. Thank you, Crewniverse!

#steven universe #steven universe meta #steven universe finale #su #homeworld bound #everythings fine #corrupted steven #i am my monster #the future #steven universe future #pink diamond #connie maheswaran #long post #su critical i guess? if you squint

[faunusrights]

OFFAL HUNT REMASTERED LIVEBLOG // CHAPTER 15

IN THIS EPISODE OF MURPHY LOSES THEIR SHIT ON MAIN:

“Tell her I said: fuck you, you miserable, conniving bitch. I don’t answer her summons. I don’t obey her orders. I’m through. I’m through with her, with all of you—”

THERE’S LORE, BUT IMPORTANTLY MURPHY REMEMBERS WHY THEY THINK CINDER’S HOT. LITERALLY.

already??? already??? yes, already. this chapter is called ‘nothing personal’ anmd i think that this is a lie. this is abt to get very personal very quickly.

It had taken two more days for Glynda’s soul to become bearable enough for Cinder to sit next to her on a bus.

out of the funniest lines they could have used to open the chapter up, this is just Peak. there’s so many moving parts to this. glynda’s rank soul. cinder having to be nice for TWO DAYS to make her chill out. the fact they’re taking the most menial form of transport of all time. oh my god they were sat beside each other. this is already so funny.

Gravity Dust glittered like volcanic glass.

👈😎👈 we sure love volcanoes around here huh

The clearing Cinder found was some twenty minutes from where she left Glynda with instructions for something salty for her.

im almost POSITIVE im not supposed to find these lines funny but cinder you are RADIATING salt you are COMPOSED ENTIRELY of salt please. you’ve asked for smthng salty and glynda’s gonna come back announcing she’s foiled all yr plans on accident again.

Mercury had stopped sending messages a month and a half ago. Emerald’s last one was a week old.

im almost definitely mentioned it in a prior liveblog but its worth remembering: cinder’s relationship w/ merc and em rly was the deciding factor in me suddenly loving her as a character and i just. every interaction they have hurts so good. cinders got TWO kids and even if her face says otherwise she loves them very much and that heals me on the inside

“There’s no way anyone knows about this island. We’re the only ones out here. Merc and I have to get his shitty frozen pizzas airshipped in.”

“Still. Be careful.” She paused for a moment. “...Is that all he’s eating?”

“You know he’d die before he ate a vegetable.”

“He will, at this rate.”

I LOVE U MOMMA CINDER AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA this is SO good. this section HEALS ME!!!!!!!! which is good because i have a feeling the rest of this will gore me alive

"I promise. At the end of all of this, I'm coming back and I'm not leaving again. Trust me."

aaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAA god u cant tell thru text alone but this section is K I L L I N G me and H E A L I N G me and also KIL L I

“It doesn’t have anything to do with trust,” Cinder said, miserably. “I need you to be safe.”

N G M E

The line between us and them had felt so concrete.

god i just. theres so much i still cant say that isnt 👈👈👈😨👈👈👈 but cinder and hati and all this other STUFF happening in the bg is so good and i just love how nuanced this dumbass is. cinder fall, the woman who never wins, and her brief moments of comfort. she is my ANGEEEEEEEEEEL

Now the only thing left was to deliver her to Atlas; if she had to speak with her more to do that, she would.

Not that she wanted to have to admit that to Hati.

cinder:there’s a lot of we and our going on and i’m a little nervous that the more we talk the more thats gonna happen and i gotta say; not a fan.

and [Glynda]’s desperate for—”

A heritage? A purpose? Belonging?

“She’s desperate,” Cinder finished, softly. Then: “She’s coming willingly.”

this might be another 👈😎👈 situation or im just drawing parallels like a three year old with a newfound ruler but HRM. CINDER. HRM.

Rather, her stomach twisted at the implications. Everything was ready. The machine worked. All that was left was to deliver the final piece.

“Okay. Good.” It was good. It was the culmination of years of work.

whats good and fun is watching cinder wrestle w/ her own humanity and its rly good because even as she tries her very best to use ppl to her own ends that pesky lil soft bitch inside makes her second guess everything and its GREAT fun. u can rly see that as soon as she spends longer than an allotted 10 minutes w/ somebody she starts being like ‘hrm. oh no’. oh cinder. u soft bitch. ilu.

The spot beneath his wing, though… Cinder folded into it as though it were meant for her, as though they were meant for each other, bodies fitted so easily. Here, safe, she closed her eyes and dreamed bleakly of the days to come.

i swear to god i cannot wait until [redacted] and [redacted] and [REDACTED] happens cause then i can lose my shit abt this ALL OVER AGAIN but for now. for now. immerse myself in cinder cuddles. im holding back but on the inside im feral

but Cinder was all calm, sliding through the trees like she belonged here. Like it was her domain by birthright.

FERAL.... FERAL!!!!!!!!!!!!

Because they were not friends, Glynda asked, “Where are we going?”

i love that glynda has to preface it like a reminder. because they were not friends. because she cannot trust winter. because she blocked oz’s number lmao. it’s great seeing how much more... clinical, i guess, glynda’s thoughts are, and it’s a great way to show the narratives differences? its GOOD is what im trying 2 say on main,

Instead, she complained, “It’s so difficult to be so wanted.”

firstly: i love cinder “i have a complaint” fall is secondly: i am going to read into this. i am going to read into this and divine a second meaning. i am reading into it.

Cinder emerged from the dark like a leviathan sloughing off a sunless sea. It rippled around her shoulders, swallowed the back of her skull, but the only sharpness to her was her smile. It was the first time Cinder had smiled since returning from her meeting with the Manticore.

oho. ohoohohohoooohohohooOUGHHOHOHO she hot. nasty mean lady big hott.

“You don’t scare me,” Glynda insisted.

“Silly you,” said Cinder. “Come on. I’ll lead.”

hohogughgohohoghgh f flirtign.......................,,,,,,,,,.,.,.,.,.,.,.

a faint light was stirring to life before her—suffusing out along Cinder’s chest and throat, spilling from her heart and out through her skin. In the beginning, it was so faint it seemed to be an illusion; but no, soon enough it was undeniable, and Glynda could even make out the rough shapes of the wall and floor.

YEEEEEEEEES i love. glowy lantern cinder. like theres a lot of fun little canons abt cinder in this fic i adore but the fact that she glows is like fuckin TOP. look at her. lil candle baby. shes like a microwave bean toy. i adore her.

She walked like a queen through her domain, seemingly irrespective of where on Remnant they were; even here, underground, in forgotten left-behind places, Cinder reigned.

god im sorry im too busy being gay to even be paying attention to anything rn i LOVE cinder to DEATH,,,,,,,,,, she knows shes the thing 2 be feared around here and its so good. i cant wait for her to open her big mouth and fuck it up again!!!

“High Leader Khan requires your presence in Mistral, Ms. Fall. She advises that you attend promptly, in order to discuss the missing members of our organization.”

A hum. Cinder said, “I don’t want to.”

GHSDFGSDFGHKJDF cinder you are. smthng else. shes just so LIKE THAT. what a great chapter for cinder this has been im SIPPIN baby

okay im doing a lot of leaping haead here and its not for lack of having anything 2 say in fact its QUITE the opposite because this whole bit is. wow. we got lore??? lore??? abt so many things??? what does any of it mean????? I AM NOT SURE BUT IM LOVIN IT (tm)

“It’s not a Semblance, idiot.” The control in Cinder’s voice was all staccato, pitching cold to inferno in an instant. “It was a gift.

okay bear with me for this JUICY LORE but i am Deeply fascinated by this section. im not gonna. say anything because idk how this is tying up yet (bear with) but HOO. HOOOOOOO. im trying to like keep grabbing sections but this whole part is SO GOOD i am loving-- like-- id have to-- TRUST ME THE OG WASNT AS SPICY AS THIS OKAY

THIS IS SO MUCH SPICER AND ITS GOOD

Cinder glowed like the magma heart of a volcano.

ITS SPICY ITS GOOD ITS 👈😍👈

im gonna have to reread this bit to get the full effect because the downside of a liveblog like this is having to stop-start but OUGHGHGHGUGHUGH THE LORE,,, THE MASKS,,, THE FANG??? also sienna dont listen 2 her baby i love u too

Cinder looked like a line to be crossed, and even though they weren’t friends—rather the opposite—Glynda found she didn’t want to cross her. Not now, when the emotion was still raw on her face.

oughgh... the vulnerability. cinder... snoft... but also angery 😔

this was SUCH a good chapter im DYING i love cinder in offal hunt to BITS and this arc is already feeding me so much good shit. fuck yea. FUCK YEA. HELL YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA--

#rwby #offal hunt #liveblog #welcome to the cinder fall defence squad how may i take yr order

[arcticwaters]

so i normally don’t share my in depth thoughts on movies (idk why, i just prefer to be like, “i saw it, i liked it!”) but since the avengers have been a pretty big part of my life the past seven years i thought i would write out my feelings and views of endgame, this being the end of the era and all. especially since this movie hugely affected the three characters i cared about the most: tony, steve, and my beloved natasha.

it should go without saying but spoilers under the cut, i’ll be going pretty extensively into the ending.

the good

everything about rhodey. don cheadle has amazing comedic timing

carol’s new hair

“who here hasn’t been to space?”

hey a gay/bi man! that’s pretty cool

natasha appears to be the quasi leader, i love that

sob she and steve are so soft. soul mates

ant man is?? so funny??

everyone finally reunited and appear to have made up. it’s great to see them all on screen together.

it’s always nice to see pepper

the scenes where they’re trying to figure out time travel and then trying to remember where all the stones are. (tony and natasha laying next to each other, legs almost touching, is my most blessed moment of 2019.)

nat saying “see you in a minute” then laughing at her own joke. remember when everyone assumed she was a joyless robot?

look i hATE time travel but all those call backs and visits to previous movies, i can’t hate that.

always good to see peggy

the part where the guardian’s opening scene music is playing, and then it cuts to rhodey judging peter.

mjolnir!!

steve is worthy !!

that climax is amazing, absolutely amazing. i was cheering, people around me were cheering, my younger sister was wailing.

girl team up !!

i think i liked carol here more than in her movie?? i came out of captain marvel liking her fine, but there was something about bri larson’s acting (or maybe it was the directing) that was kind of lacking. maybe it was cause i was already familiar with her, but i felt a little more character for her here. which is really odd cause she did this before captain marvel apparently.

queen valkyrie

sam is cap my LAD SAM SAM SAM

bucky was barely in it

hulkwidow appears to be entirely platonic, the evil has been defeated.

plenty of other things that i’m just not remembering right now

the bad

did five years really need to pass???? it didn’t really do much for the story. you could’ve gotten away with just one. now far from home is gonna be weird. (pretty sure they only did this time skip to give tony a child who wasn’t a baby and could actually speak but like... i wouldn’t have been upset if she was a baby?)

a lot of jokes went on too long. this movie was 3 hours long because ant man and thor sometimes talked too much. pretty much anytime thor was on screen i was saying “ok go away, get him out of here.” i wasn’t really upset at what they’d done with his character, they just needed to really reel in some of his rambling. you know something's gone wrong when thor isn’t being extremely charming. editing guys, just a touch more editing. snappy dialogue is always better than overly long.

so bruce’s struggle with hulk, a major plot line from the beginning, something that came to a head in just your last movie, is solved.... off screen. ok.

are bruce and valkyire not friends? :c i loved them, they were so cute in thor 3

carol and okoye were not in it enough. i actually forgot about carol until she showed up for the fight.

as i said, i am not a fan of time travel. it ultimately just makes everything confusing and convoluted. i get that like... ok, so it’s not really time travel, it’s more universe hopping, but the idea of 2014 thanos, gamora, and nebula coming through to the future.... it’s dumb. it’s just.... i was not on board. it just opened up too many questions and also was just too bombastic. the big grand finale should've been something else.

also.... what happened to 2014 gamora? did she disappear? is she just... out there??? what a cop out, that’s not our gamora. that gamora never said “i don’t know what cheers is!”

i’m not mad at tony’s death. i get it. i think it was extremely well done. he made the big sacrifice play, and we all knew tony or steve would be the ones most likely to die. i get it. but i’m putting it under bad because i didn’t want anyone to die. sPEAKING-

the how dare you

natasha deserved better. this is the character who has kept me invested in these movies and now she’s just gone. the first true superheroine of this franchise, who’s been in more movies than anyone else, and they just throw her off a cliff... for clint? who’s barely been here?? look i get it, they’re best friends (i’ve never been a clintasha, actively dislike it actually, but i do enjoy their scenes when they get them.) but what a slap in the face. she deserved to be in that girl team up. i couldn’t even fully enjoy it.

and worst to me personally, they killed her off just because he has a family. i’m sorry?? that makes his life more valuable then her’s??? i get that losing him would be extremely rough on his family, but i do NOT like the message that that makes her more expendable than him. what about natasha’s found family, the lives she touched? the good she could’ve continued to do? that doesn’t matter? and i really can’t stress how much more screentime she’s had them him; from an out of universe character standpoint, she is absolutely more valuable than him.

i do not think it was out of character for her to give her life (and god at least it was her choice, unlike poor gamora,) i see the idea of the beauty in this character “redeeming” herself by giving her life to get one of the stones in the only way possible. they couldn’t have saved the world without her. but why was death her only way to wipe out her red? why couldn’t she have lived to continue on being a hero? maybe be the new fury, connect her to agents of shield.

i’m particularly mad at how little steve seemed to mourn. they shared more movies together than anyone else, making them her best relationship; they’re inseparable in iw. all that on screen, multiple movie long build up, and all we get is some tears. and these are the same people who wrote the majority of that relationship, there’s no excuse.

she doesn’t even get a funeral!! just one last mention from clint. what about fury and maria? did they care? at least give her more respect than that. tony died with his team, wife, and a whole battleground beside him, kind words easing him off. nat died painfully and suddenly, cold and nearly alone. she deserved a better goodbye than that. let the whole world know that two avengers give themselves for the them. 

my one solace is that at least she’s with tony in whatever the marvel heaven is and they aren’t alone. brotp to the very end.

(it should’ve been clint. sorry, but i’m mad and that’s how i feel. it would’ve been sad but.... he was always my least favorite anyway. or maybe they could’ve found a way so neither of them had to, i dunno. i’m sure the writers could’ve thought of something. also i don’t buy that hulk’s snap couldn’t’ve have brought her back. would that really have upset anyone? no. it should’ve happened.)

but after thinking about it for a few days now, i think what makes me even more upset, more insulting than natsha’s death, is steve’s ending. i have way more attachment to my beloved widow, but at least, at least i can say that as much as i hated it, her last scene was beautiful in it’s own way, true to her character, brave, extremely well acted, and meaningful. she chose to die thinking about her best friend, his family who was also her own, her team, and the world. while i don’t think it was the culmination of her character arc, it was at least an end that i can believe to some degree. steve? they ruined steve.

steve’s arc from day one was about moving on, looking forward, and making the most in what he had. that he had to let go of the past and accept his new life. this is clearly set up in this very movie when he tells a group of people to move on, but then to natasha claims the two of them don’t. they decided that the climax of this arc was to make it so....he never actually moves on? he just gave up and never tried? look i’m not a film writer, but i’m pretty sure when you set up a conflict like that, you have them subvert it. like first act “we don’t move on” last act “we learned to finally move on.” that’s what character growth is. by making steve run all the way to the 40′s, you undo all the progress he’s been making since 2012.

and not only that but this requires me to believe that the over 10 years he was out of the ice never changed him. he never ever grew to accept his new life? sorry, i don’t buy that. he had sam, nat, the other avengers, even bucky came back to him. he says it himself in aou, a different person came out of the ice than the one who went in, one that didn’t really need the family and dream house and all that. where did that guy go? (plus is this dude really gonna go back to the past knowing all the shit that’s going to go down, both supervillain wise but also real history? does he just ignore everything?? what happens in that universe.)

look i like peggy. she’s amazing. she deserved more seasons for her show. but i just do not believe she was the love of his life. ya’ll are giving marvel wayyy to much credit with that. they knew each other for like two-ish years and had one kiss. never even went on a date. out of universe, we have not seen them romantically since 2011. it’s just not realistic to me that he would still be holding a candle for her, ten years later. a few years? sure, but over ten? nah man. he claims he wants someone with “shared life experience” and i guess we’re supposed to believe that’s peggy. but that’s not true anymore because he’s now had WAY more shared experiences with natasha, sam, and of course bucky, his lifelong friend. you really want me to believe he’s still madly in love with a woman he barely knew (in the long run) and not natasha?? who was by his side for like six years straight, some of the worse years of their lives?? yeah i don’t believe that, no matter how much i like peg. but way to send the message “if you get a first crush, that’s it! that’s all you get! you’ll never move on.”

(”but guys and girls can just be friends!” i hear you say. “romantic capwidow would undermine that.” to which i point to nat’s friendships with: clint, rhodey, tony, thor, bruce post aou, and literally everyone else. her dating one guy she’s known for over ten years would not invalidate all the rest of her platonic m/f friendships. this idea that dating someone you’ve known for a relatively short time is ok, but if you’ve known them for years than it should stay platonic is extremely weird. especially since some of the people i’ve seen say that about capwidow ship winterwidow. who have traded one single line. ya’ll know what’s what made hulkwidow bad right???)

he met with peggy when she was older. she moved on, had a life. he buried her. civil war gave him peggy closure. by just making so they get together anyway, you rob these scenes of their power.

tony and nat both wanted families and normalcy (ugh, i loathe to acknowledge that awful scene in aou, but it is heavily implied in an unfortunately canon movie that nat would be interested in a domestic life were it possible for her. but she also counted all her teammates as her family, and that’s what she wanted most.) they both died after only getting a small taste of that, dying to save the world at the cost of never seeing their families again. steve running off to have an idealistic ol fashioned 50′s life with his wife, and i assume children, kind of spits in the face of their sacrifice imo.

also way to get your dumb bucky (you know, the dude you almost got arrested for and split your superhero family apart for?) back for like a day and then IMMEDIATELY growing old without him. cool move. not like you could’ve navigated the unknown future together.

“but arctic,” i hear you say, “steve deserved to have a normal life!” he sure did. they all did! but that didn’t need to be by going back to be with peggy, ruining his character. you know what actually would’ve made more sense? if they had found a way to bring natasha back (look all steve had to do with give the soul stone back and either 1) “a soul for a soul” counts both ways or 2) bring doctor strange with him, wait until past clint leaves with his soul stone, and then use to time stone to reserve just natasha and bring her back. we know it can revive people because it happened in strange’s movie. easy fucking peasy.) he brings nat back, hugs all around, he gives sam the shield, and then he walks off into the sunset with nat, both of them retiring, but not far away just like thor, clint, and bruce. (it doesn’t have to be romance, but nat IS his closest companion by this point, that is undeniable.) he finally puts his past to rest, and so does nat. maybe the final scene is still him dancing with peggy, but he left that universe right after, giving them both that closure. they got their dance, they can look to the future. that is a much better send off for the end of the phase.

at least i’m glad my ot3 left the franchise together.

overall, i really did like about 80% of this movie. i got so mad at the end there because i care so much about these characters. because i was having a lot of fun and then was left unsatisfied (i would not have believed this was the same team behind winter solider and civil war if i didn’t look it up myself. i know they can do better.) i could forgive the time travel, the weird as FUCK 2014/2023 crossover, if they hadn’t done nat and steve so dirty like that. was this a good movie? yes. but i probably won’t see it again until it’s out on netflix and i can stop watching it right before nat dies.

i’m always going to be a marvel person, i’ll keep watching them. i’ll see far from home. but a light has definitely dimmed. at least there’s always black panther.

#arctic says #endgame #endgame spoilers #romanogers #ugh still not a fan of that shipname but it seems to be the one used the most so fine #ok to reblog

[littlemisssquiggles]

Heyy, so, idk if you ever watched "Rio", but I was rewatching it, and there's the blue and jewel dance. So I was wondering, do you think there's any RWBY ship that fit in the context of that scene ? I mean, maybe there aren't but I cant help, I love that movie, and I love that scene XDXDXD anyway, what do u think ? have a nice day !!! =D ♡

HiyaLethie!I know I still have to answer your last question from before about your suggestionfor Oscar’s theme. I currently have a bit of a backlog of messages to sift through and answer so that plus my generalbusy schedule during the week with school has left me with not getting much of achance to answer your question as yet. Sorry about that but I’ll get to iteventually XD

Anyways,let’s answer this recent question at least, shall we? I’ve seen Rio 2but have admittedly never seen its first movie believe it or not. However Ilooked up the scene you mentioned. It’s the ‘I Wanna Party’ sceneright? Because that’s the scene that comes up when I look it up on YouTube. Letme know if otherwise.

“So I waswondering, do you think there's any RWBY ship that fit in the context of thatscene?”

Aww Lethie,you should know very well which RWBY ship I’m going to relate this to, right?Like the Nae-Nae song, you already know what it is. Or rather who itis.

Obviously the ship that comes to mind is RoseGarden of course. The scenefrom Rio is making me think back to that RWBY SquiggleScript I wrote before about Team FNKIinviting RWBY and JNPR out to party with them. The two birdssinging; the red and yellow birds (sorry not familiar with their names)definitely make me think of Flynn and Neon.

LikeI’m picturing a scene where Flynn and Neon perform for a crowd at a local rave joint inlower Atlas. Perhaps outside of Atlas Academy, Team FNKI are actually a band with Neon Katt as the lead singer.Now I’m imagining Flynn and Neon inviting the heroes out to one of theirconcerts and during the performance, the heroes really get into the groove asFNKI’s show really gets the crowd excited and dancing.

Ofcourse everyone starts to dance, including Ruby who is pulled onto the dance floorby Oscar. Perhaps for the Atlas Arc, the heroes can have two occasions to hang out and explore the citywith FNKI. One being the roller disco idea I brought up before and the second being an actualconcert where their FNKI friends perform.

NowI’m picturing Neon actually performing her classic theme from V2. Picture Neon singing Neon.Up until this point, Weiss Schnee hasbeen the only RWBY character confirmed to have singing talent in the canon withCasey Lee Williams providing her singing voice. It’d be nice if we could haveanother female character besides Weiss who can sing. Maybe Weiss and Neon could even perform a littleduet together.

Likeimagine a moment were Neon rolls up to Weiss and asks her if she could sing.And when Weiss says yes, Neon gets all excited and informs Weiss about how sheand FNKI sometimes perform little concerts from time to time to as a side job. Neon even invitesWeiss to sing with her the next timeshe performs and surprisingly, Weiss agrees. I would actually really like tosee something like this done for the Atlas Arc.

The only times we’veseen Weiss perform is during concerts hosted by the Schnee Dust Company. Weisshas only ever sung to fuel the agendas of her father.

Soto have Weiss perform outside of her family affairs while actually having fun with her performance this rounds; instead of itbeing in compliance or defiance with herfather’s wishes could be great for her. I just want to see Weiss sing outside ofthe SDC. If FNKI is indeed a band in the canon, perhaps they can even set thatup for Weiss. Imagine…FNKI evenapproaching Weiss with the idea of singing a small concert for a crowd that wasn’t rich Atlesian elites thather father wished to rub elbows with. That could be pretty cool especially forthe her character upcoming story arc for V7.  

Plus,apart from that…whatif…there’s karaoke. Picture FNKI inviting the gang out to karaoke andwe get some pretty hilarious performances from other characters like Jaune for example. Then again, Miles Luna actually has adecent singing voice. I’ll give him that. The man singlehandedly sung the Camp Camptheme song. Oh lord, now I’m imagining a pretty meta moment where Jaune sings theCamp Camp theme song in main RWBY aspart of karaoke. I know it made a cameo in Chibi but…imagine if the main seriesdecides to do this as a gag. Might not happen but…picture itfor a second.

Anywhozzits,getting back on track with my answer. Imagine FNKI’s concert is Ruby’s secondinstance out dancing with everyoneand at this point, Ruby has actually grown more comfortable dancing thanks toOscar helping her out of her shell on the dance floor.

Inreference to Rio, I’m actually torn between which Rosebud represents Blu and Jewel.The figurative response would be to have Oscar be Blue andRuby be Jewel.However going off my favourite Pinehead headcanon whichpaints Oscar as a good dancer, I feel like Oscar could be Jewel in thisinstance with Ruby being the one enamoured by Oscar’s moves on the dance floor.

Thenagain, since this concept reflects on Ruby’s second time dancing with Oscar…maybethis round, Oscaris pleasantly surprised that Ruby is the one eager to get up and dance with him as she practically pulls him into a groove with herand the two honest souls share a dance together for a second time.

NowI’m picturing Oscar definitely as Blu in this moment with he and Ruby moving incomplete sync with each other on the dance floor. All culminating in the momentwhere Oscar just stops, gazing in awe at Ruby’s jubilant form unable to containher content laughter as she enjoyed herself.

Inthat moment, Oscar couldn’t explain what it was---he didn’t know if it was themusic or the flashing colours but something about the moment just made Ruby gofrom being Oscar’s friend who he was happily enjoying dancing with to the mostbeautiful girl in the room. And as much Ruby couldn’t help but laugh as herswaying hips danced circles around Oscar, urging him to stop staring and dancewith her, Oscar couldn’t help but stare completely entranced.

SoI guess when I really think of this scene, Oscar is definitely Blu. Just as howthe red and yellow birds can be Flynn and Neon respectively performing togetherto bring on the FNK. I can even see Nora being the Toucan, encouraging Oscarwith dancing with Ruby.

Pictureif this is how Oscar comes to realize his true feelings for Ruby. In almostevery romance story, there is cupid moment. The moment where the characterrealizes that they are in love with their potential crushes/love interest.

Remember how I saidbefore that Oscar probably already has a crush on Ruby butis too much of a dum-dum to his own heart torealize it yet. Picture a moment like this being how Oscar realizes it.

Picturea moment like this, being Oscar’s spark of love wherehe finally comes to see that Ruby means more to him. Picture a moment like this when RubyRose goes from being the Silver Eyed girl who Oscar admires to Oscar’s bestfriend to Oscar’s crush. The girl he admires to the girl he likes and ultimately thegirl he loves. Looking forward toseeing this transgression but for now, it’s a theory.

Whaddayathink Lethie?Hope that answers your question m’friend. Have a good day too!

~LittleMissSquiggles (2019

#squiggles answers: rwby #oscar pine #ruby rose #oscar and ruby #rwby rosegarden #rwby theories #lethiepie

[calliecat93]

RWBY V6 CH13 (Season Finale) Review: Our Way

Well... we made it guys. RWBY Volume 6 Chapter 13. The grand finale. It feels like we just began, but still like it was so long ago. It's been one Hell of a ride. Train crashes, traumatic flashbacks via blue genie ladies, Zombie Grimm, confirmed lesbians, mechas, a VERY satisfying villain death, and now a kaiju. It's been quite a journey, and now it's time to bring it to a close. Can our heroes save the day? Can they catch their dreams together and keep rising like the moon? For the final time this volume, lets find out.

Overview

We begin... not in Argus. No, we're in some kind of forest area where we see a Mistral airship arrive. Turns out it got snatched by Neo, who they FINALLY gave a new outfit. It looks really good! She's not the only one as Cinder makes her appearance... and not gonna lie, she's pretty damn hot. She's very pleased with how things are going, especially when Neo uses her power to mask the ship as an Atlas ship. Which will make their infiltration of Atlas all the easier. As she climbs aboard, Cinder comments on how sometime ago, someone asked her if she believed in destiny. If you all recall, she replied yes... and she's happy to say that she still does. Haha... I can't wait for this to be the equivalent of Adam's “It's time I get what I deserved” line for when Ruby kicks your sorry ass! Seriously, I gave the middle finger to this scene. Screw you Cinder.

Okay, back to Argus! Cordovan is furious, repeatedly putting the blame on Ruby and the team for causing all of this. Blake and Yang rejoin the group as Weiss points out that they just took out the one thing that can stand a chance against the Leviathan. Everyone boards the ship as the Atlas Military fight the Grimm off, even activating a hard light shield around the city. Cordovan continues her rantings as her men call for her help. Blake tearfully apologizes to everyone as the ship takes flight, blaming herself as if Adam hadn't interfered, they'd have gotten out with no issues. Yang tells her to not blame herself and Ruby telling her that all that matters is that she's safe. The two even have a cute little hug! Aww!

Maria points out that with the military occupied, this is THE perfect chance to get by and continue to Atlas. But of course by doing so, they leave the chance of the Grimm killing everyone in Argus. Ruby opens her mouth, clearly about to refuse... but her teammates reply first. All three refuse to run. They are Huntresses, and they will fight until the bitter end to protect everyone. Maria seems pleased by this, but things are still not good as the Leviathan's fire breath tears straight through the shields. If it breaks through all of them, then Argus is as good as destroyed. Therefore, Ruby knows what she has to do. She calls out to Atlas' forces, telling them that she is a Huntress and that she can weaken it. How? Well... remember Maria's comments about Ruby needing a trial by fire to train her Silver Eyes? Well my friends, the trial has come.

Maria starts to comment on how she didn't mean like this, but Ruby isn't hearing it. She was able to use the Eyes at Beacon and at Brunswick, so she believes that she can do this. The Argus base, due to the ship being deemed hostile, refuse to aid them. So what does Ruby do? Decide that they'll do ti themselves. With Ren and Jaune keeping the ship masked, the plan is to get before the Leviathan and for Ruby to Silver Eyes blast it. It' a good plan... but by the time they get there, the Leviathan has charged up another attack. They're forced to pull back and both Jaune and Ren's already weakened Auras break. With no one sure of what to do now, Ruby looks to Weiss, a new plan formed.

As Yang and Nora shoot at the Leviathan to keep ti distracted, Weiss summons the Queen Lancer. Ruby hops on, telling herself that she can do this as she flies before the Leviathan. She closes her eyes, even throwing out her earpiece when Yang tries to reach out to her, and begins to think back through her memories. She thinks of the ones she loves like her father, her teammates, her friends, Penny... all the memories that make her feel happy and the urge to protect. But as she does, the darker memories begin to fill her mind. Seeing Jaune's broken state in V4, Yang's broken state at the end of V3, the sight of Yang in the V3 finale. And of course the deaths of both Pyrrha and Penny. All of these BTW use these 2D manga-style images. I honestly would have preferred they just use clips or stills of these moments... but they still look nice. But with the reminder of those dark moments, Ruby's concentration breaks. The Leviathan takes notice of her, and it prepares to attack.

Realizing that she is in trouble, Ruby takes notice of the Lamp. In panic, she calls out Jinn's name. Time freezes aside from herself, and she apologizes for she does not have a question to ask. She needed the time freezing power of Jinn's summoning to buy herself time. Jinn knows this, and decides to grant a pass on her summoning, but she will not allow so again. She DOES however compliment Ruby on her cleverness. With extra time now bought, Ruby again closes her eyes and remembers. This time, she is smiling in confidence as she remembers all the happy moments from the past volumes. Time begins to move again as she remembers those she loves, her team, JNPR, Qrow, Oscar, even Maria. It all culminates to a vision of one person in particular in the only Maya-animated shot of this flashback. We sees a white-cloaked woman standing at a familiar cliff-side, red and white rose petals flying around her as she turns around. Yes everyone, we have finally gotten our first glimpse of Ruby's mother, Summer Rose. With that and all of these thoughts in her mind and a new song titled Indomitable playing, Ruby unleashes the power of her Silver Eyes. With one massive blast,t he Leviathan is turned to stone. The Argus citizens cheer as Ruby can take in a sigh of relief... well, almost.

The Leviathan begins to break free of the stone, bringing Ruby back to panic. But not for long as Cordovan takes over, having dis-attached the broken arm and uses the other one to create a drill and truly destroy the Leviathan. She opens the cockpit to face Ruby personally, who thanks her and apologizes for her and her friend's actions. But, to my shock, Cordovan says that her forces can handle the remaining Grimm and that it's unlikely that anyone will take notice of one ship leaving in her report. Yes everyone, Cordovan is finally allowing Ruby and the gang to take the ship and go on to Atlas. Ruby smiles and rejoins the others as they head off.

Night falls and they have enough fuel to make it to Atlas. Qrow compliments Ruby as he gets his flask... before lowering his arm and telling her to not scare him like that again. He earns a hug from Ruby for that! As she walks off, Maria compliments Qrow on his efforts. While Qrow feels guilty for essentially causing so many issues, Maria points out that he still helped when the time came, and that was good. Qrow seems to be genuinely happy hearing this, complimenting Maria and how it was great to see the Grimm Reaper in action. With the others, Weiss apologizes to Blake for what she had to endure, but is glad that Yang was there to help her. Yang takes Blake's hand, saying that they were there for each other. It seems that the Bumblebee pair's relationship is restored... and may now be canon if Renora is anything to go by XD

Everyone turns to Ruby, Ren pointing out all the crazy but awesome stuff she did. Embarrassed, Ruby points out how Oscar managed to make a successful crash landing. Except... eh didn't. Oscar reveals that during the crash, eh got help... from Ozpin. While he didn't take control, he DID calm Oscar down and guide him on landing before vanishing again. Yang asks if he had been watching them this whole time, but Oscar isn't for sure. Guess we'll leave that open ended for now as Qrow tells them to come over and check out the view of Atlas. We get our first look, and... damn it looks AMAZING. You guys ever seen the Hayao Miyazaki film Castle in the Sky? Think that! There's only... one issue. There's an entire air armada guarding the city, as though awaiting an attack. Control welcomes the ship home, and cue the credits!

But of course, there's one more scene to talk about. First, the credit song Nevermore is AMAZING! It is very much a “Fuck you Adam: song and both Casey and a guest singer named Adrienne Cowan absolutely KILLED it. After hat though, we have of course the stinger. We see Emerald enter the meeting room, the windows still broken and the table still turned over. She sees Mercury and gets ready to apologize for Chapter 9... but sees that he is looking horrified. In a mirror to how the Mistral storyline began in Volume 4, Emerald looks out and is also horrified. Why? Salem is summoning an army of... those gorilla Grimm I can't remember the name of. But that's not all. With her powers, she gives them all wings. You know... kinda like those flying monkeys from that movie that also has a witch and  a wizard named Oz. Hazel walks in, referring to an old saying “If you want something done right, do it yourself”. Salem continues to summon her Grimm as Volume 6 truly comes to an end.

Review

So... what did I think of the finale? Well.. give me a second. Taking in a deep breath... okay, here it goes: AAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!

I LOVED IT!!!

Okay, we have a lot to go through, so lets get through the small stuff first. First, the stinger scares me. It's a great bookend, calling back to when the Mistral arc began so it's only appropriate that it end with Emerald and Mercury one more looking on in horror at the Grimm pools. Salem is clearly no longer fooling around and is taking matters into her own hands. It's  great Wizard of Oz reference... that makes me very concerned about both Ruby and Oscar since IDK which one is meant to be Dorothy in this case, but still I AM CONCERNED. It's a very good way to end things and to leave us in anticipation for the next volume. Same for the beginning with Neo and Cinder, which again Cinder can go to Hell. But it was a nice scene and they look great in their new outfits. Hopefully this signals that RWBY will also get some new ones! Come on RT, GIVE THEM COATS AT LEAST!

Okay, let us talk about Ruby now. Dear God, RUBY. I've said this several times now, but she has been SO GOOD in this volume. Clearly CRWBY listened to the critiques about the last volume because they've just been killing it with her. This was, of course, the biggest moment for her. Ruby has truly grown and stepped up. She lead when everyone else gave up, she remained committed to the task despite all the doubt and uncertainty, and she did everything in her power to fight back and accomplish her goal. This is, by far, her greatest moment since beheading the Nevermore in V1. She chooses to fight, even when Argus refuses to aide her. She faces the Leviathan head on. She actually remembers about the Silver Eyes and uses what Maria has told her to turn the Grimm to stone. Yeah it didn't work fully, showing that she still has a long way to go to mastering her power, but she still pulled it off and the clever use of Jinn to buy herself time to regain herself was an AWESOME move. And Jinn let her get away with it! Nice!

The entire scene was just great. The flashbacks, while I again would have preferred actual footage or stills, still looked really nice. You could feel how Ruby felt, trying and at first uncertain before the dark memories come back. Then she tries again, much more confident, and uses the memory of her loved ones to unleash her power all on her own, Not out of trauma or fear. Not form Maria needing to guide her. No, she did it all on her own volition. Ruby is no longer that same naive girl form Volume 1 who asked Glynda for an autograph cause she was a Huntress. No, now SHE is the Huntress. She recognizes her responsibility. No longer is it a young girl's naive fantasy, but her sacred duty, and she WILL carry it out. And it wasn't only Ruby. Her teammates, who went to Beacon for personal reasons over the duty and were having serious doubts to their commitment, immideatly refuse to run and to fight on with zero hesitation. These kids have grown so much, and I couldn't be prouder.

I think my only issue is... well, Cordovan. While there is truth in her blaming the kids, she escalated it to unnecessary lengths with the mecha and refused to listen. And she gets away with it. She also takes a 180 on her attitude, which just feels unsatisfying. I mean I'm glad that she let them through, but she receives zero comeuppance for her actions and attitude. It wasn't enough to deter form the finale, but it DID leave me annoyed.

So guys, after one Hell of a journey, the team have made it to Atlas. Which as I said, it looks stunning. There is of course reason to worry since Ironwood's paranoia seems to have gotten worst, but at least they're being allowed in. So... what happens now? Hard to say. There's a ton of possibilities. Hopefully some new outfits, as I said. There's the Winter Maiden, Ironwood's state, potential STRQ stuff, and probably some consequences to this volume since they don't have Ozpin to talk Ironwood down now. With Cinder and Neo on their way, as well as Watts and Tyrian, we've got plenty of worry for our heroes. And of course, there's Penny's father and the Schnee family. A lot of things are coming up I imagine. But all for another time. For now, everyone made it safe and sound. And as a familiar song once stated “that's all that matters somehow.”

Final Thoughts

I don't think I need to emphasize how much I loved this chapter. Think I did that plenty. It was a great wrap-up to what I can now call my favorite volume of the series. I have one more review to do, a full RWBY Volume 6 review. After that, aside form any Character Shorts or stuff that comes out, I'll be done with RWBY until the Fall. So I will see you all in the season review, and thank you all for reading!

#rwby #rwby6 #rwby reviews #callie reviews

[rerwby]

Volume 5 OST

I don’t normally have such verbose opinions on the RVVBY music (it’s like writing a review for fiberglass insulation) I managed to sit down and listen to this album the whole way through. My feelings on these tracks feels like a culmination of all my feelings of previous RVVBY music. I won’t try to be lengthy about this but I got some solid thoughts.

First of all, can we just collectively agree to stop making every fucking RVVBY song put on Youtube use fan art? Like can we just get a solid fucking static picture of the volume cover art maybe? I’m sick of the mediocre ship art used for goddamn everything and it looks incredibly unprofessional. Also since these are RT fans you know they don’t give a flying fuck about credit.

The Triumph Not to kick this off on such an upbeat note but this is one of my favorite OP’s. Maybe my favorite. Maybe. I could not fully appreciate this song when the episodes were coming out because the opening itself was the biggest trashfire to come out of this show. Like, sorry I can’t get hyped up on 10 seconds of Ruby and Ren and Jaune sitting on a couch. Listening to it alone though? Big improvement.

Jeff Williams does this thing where he’s clearly way too proud of his proud choice and rhymes, and usually lines end with a big focus on stupid vernacular. Trust me, this will come up later. The Triumph manages to avoid that. This Will be the Day does as well because it’s a pretty hammy song with a better, more consistent tone. “Back to reality, back to the show” is an awful, terrible, horribly ironic line in the context of Volume 5, but it’s not as in your face as it could be, so it gets a pass from me. I also think “That’s when you learned you were messing with gods” is awesome, sorry. It could be more awesome if these characters like, seemed more like gods? And they don’t? So eh.

Then the second verse happens and it calls back to the first with “Yeah I’m a girl but I’m also a god” and I’m like, oh, so you’re just gonna- oh, okay then. Yeah let’s just beat the one good part like a dead horse, sure. That really ruins the song for me ngl.

It also manages to avoid the formulaic trend of post-second verse slow sappy breakdown. Time to Say Goodbye and Let’s Just Live do that and it gets old after a while. If you’re gonna give me hype music then stick with it. Not that Let’s Just Live really hypes you up.

Overall it’s like a 7/10 for me because it has a good pace and it doesn’t scream “look at how clever I am!” at every turn.

Ignite The song I was most excited for and the most disappointed by. I wrote about it here and I’ll try not to do anything more than summarize what I said there.

It’s obnoxious and the lyrics are way too dumb. Not funny dumb, not hammy dumb, nope, just dumb. It’s not even in the style of Yang’s usual dumbness, which by all accounts should now be under Armed and Ready’s foot since that is now the prime Yang theme. The major problem is how obvious these issues are. Like you can’t not hear how bad the writing is.

Then Lamar comes in, and I usually enjoy him since, like I said above, he brings with him some hammy, corny lyrics that manage to be fun. But he’s phoning it in here. He’s mumbling and tripping over his own words. God I didn’t even understand what mumbling truly sounded like until I heard that verse.

4/10 and I hate to write that on a Yang theme but this song is everything wrong with these soundtracks.

Path to Isolation Which brings us to my favorite annual game of “Count How Many Times a Weiss Song Uses the Word ‘Mirror.’” Spoilers: it’s a handful.

It’s fine. Weiss songs have always been fine. The worst thing I can say about them is that you have to dredge through their slow-ass, repetitive openings to get to the good part. 5/10

All Things Must Die aka “Slow And Brooding Villain Song That Turns Into a Rock Anthem #5″ aka “Sacrifice And Divide Did It Better But Even They Were Only So Good” aka “We’re Not Even Going For A Subtle Title Here.”

I don’t even know whose perspective this is sung from anymore. Like Cinder is our designated villain song candidate but she has like no autonomy this volume so that falls flat, meanwhile Salem still has no clear motivation. Hazel and Adam might be the most developed(?) bad guys this volume but this song has nothing to do with them. 4/10

This Time (From Shadows Part II) I’m writing about this one before Smile for a reason.

A song called From Shadows Part II deserves better, lol. Also given the fan art uses on the version I found posted, this is a Blake+Sun song? I don’t know. It starts with the beautiful piano solo from the original which was godlike and relaxing and also dramatic.

Lyrics are just shitty but in a shocking twist they’re hard to hear other than THIS TIIIIME in the chorus which...I’m fine with. I’m legit convinced that the fewer lyrics you can make out in these songs, the better. This all sounds rather nice and has a good flow to it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s kinda just trash. Absolute filler. Fluff. Churned-out melodrama to keep the White Fang kindle going.

Also I guess in hindsight it’s weird to have Jeff singing here since this song is supposed to represent Blake moving on with new resolve. Like before it was clearly Blake and Adam singing, but now it’s Blake and...Sun? Adam again? Like some non-canon reformed Adam? Idk. At least it’s tonally a good contrast to Part I. It’s easy to listen to the song without focusing on the lyrics which is rather soothing, but it’s still nonsense. 5/10

Smile (From Shadows Part 0)

No yeah I made that part up, but I think this song is a better From Shadows Part 0 than This Time is a Part II. I’m dead serious. They gave us an Ilia song and made it more interesting than her character is in volume 5, if not extremely on the nose.

Because my god, it’s on the nose. It’s just Ilia’s backstory about blending in to avoid all the pain your oppressors brought you and biding your time until you can rip the smiles off their faces...oh I don’t think that’s how Ilia’s backstory went. This is much darker. Very Count of Monte Crisco and dare I say actually interesting. It makes Ilia sound way more compelling than Blake while also making her out as a foil to her. Except I don’t know why the fucking hell the character presented in Smile would ever join the White Fang, especially under Adam’s authority, and then follow him so blindly. But I guess as of last volume’s OST we should be use to that disconnect between show plot and music lore.

7/10 for being accidentally interesting.

All That Matters

It’s....fine? Fine-ish. Obligatory slow and sappy song because ofc. Casey at least sounds like she’s in her comfort zone. It just doesn’t mean much to me.I guess it’s the theme of the girls being back together but I have my own issues with that, which is mainly that three of them were already reunited halfway into Volume 5 and it was only Blake’s arrival that really pushed them into sappy territory.

5/10 it’s not bombastically terrible enough to merit a lower score and not interesting enough to be higher.

I’m Her Daughter After All - RVVBY Volume 5 Official Score

I don’t know why this song is here because it’s an actual non-lyrical official part of the soundtrack, which is mind-blowing. You’d think Jeff was contractually obligated to have his blood’s voices dip their toes in every track.

It’s a nice medley of Yang’s themes, namely I Burn and Armed and Ready. It also makes you appreciate how Yang’s musical themes have actually evolved, unlike those of the other characters. Why do we have this Western thing going on? Qrow had it too in Bad Luck Charm. I don’t mind it since I think it’s kinda neat, but 6/10 for being a random score track.

Mayday! Lancers! - RVVBY Volume 5 Official Sc- wait

They did the score thing again. I don’t know why. I also forgot the Lancer scene actually happened in Volume 5 until I heard this. Like, Weiss did so little in Volume 4 that I’m attributing stuff that happened in V5 to last volume.

It’s fine? It’s nice to have a non-lyrical Weiss song, actually. 5/10

Armed and Ready ie The Appeal Of The Original Was Lost On Us

This song did not need a remix lol. Armed and Ready is actually damn good, is a great proper evolution of Yang’s theme that successfully moves her out of the shadow of I Burn, and was a really, really good climax to her recovery arc. This turns it into a dance remix, which ironically is the exact sort of thing the original moved her character away from. 4/10

Gold (Acoustic)

As I listened to this I realized it wasn’t just the original vocals played over an acoustic cover; Casey actually re-recorded the song. That’s blowing it out of the park for a RVVBY remix. Also it’s like, good.

I always liked Gold for whatever reason. I just thought it was uplifting and it did the nice thing where the lyrics are simple and flow well. The loud instrumentals had me unsure if it made for a good complement to the lyrics or if it was just a bad choice. This just sounds wonderful. Most importantly, it makes you really appreciate Casey’s singing talent. More than anything, she sounds absolutely comfortable singing this song. No stressed notes, no weird word choices, no ham. This is just a nice song and it’s my favorite on this album. 8/10

Let’s Just Live (Remix) “The Obligatory OP Remix Oh God Triumph Is Gonna Get This Treatment Next Year

It doesn’t go above my expectations but I like the new instrumentals. Reminds me of Stickerbrush Symphony. I think it’s much more fitting than in the original and is a true improvement on it. 6/10

The final issue I have with this album is this, and it involves some statistics. This is a 12-song album. That isn’t strange. But here are some numbers for you:

Ruby Songs: 0 Weiss Songs: 2 Blake Songs: 1 (2 if you count Smile) Yang Songs: 4 Remixes: 3 Scores(?): 2

Just to put that in front of you. Remixes comprise 1/4th of the album, glorified scores are 1/6th, and Yang received 4 whole slots (one-third of the album!) while Ruby, the protagonist, got absolutely none. Nothing in this album is about just Ruby, and I think she kind of deserves that. I mean she did nothing this volume so whatever, but we didn’t even get Glorious Score Track Of Jaune Healing Weiss so that’s super strange. They didn’t even shaft her in lieu of anyone, she was just left out.

#rwde