#is a whole other level of stupid on rt’s end

[monarchisms]

for the theater mode enjoyers: unfortunately, the entire series was taken down from rooster teeth’s website around a week ago:

as explained by chelsea, all of the episodes had to be taken down because rt lost the rights to the films that were used in the show. on the bright side, excluding the aux episodes, every other episode has been backed up to the internet archive. it’s separated by group: achievement hunter, funhaus, and cow chop.

#achievement hunter #funhaus #cow chop #theater mode #the aux episodes are still on spotify and apple music and all that #but it’s not a guarantee they’ll stay there indefinitely #archive your favorite media before it becomes lost to time‼️ #obligatory ‘of course i found this out through reddit’ rant: #this one makes me more miffed because theater mode was a first-exclusive series #so to not send anything to the first members. especially those who subscribed exclusively to support/watch theater mode #is a whole other level of stupid on rt’s end #rooster teeth #roosterteeth

[peakysanakin]

a bit about Elain's trauma and why it correlates with her rejecting her mating bond with Lucien in the future, a thread:

(WARNING: this post isn't about ships, except Elucien because Lucien is a key factor in Elain's trauma. )

Everyone deals with trauma in their own way and that's totally okay. Some are destructive, some shut people up and others want to not feel anything. Elain, just as Nesta, went into the Cauldron and those moments were horrific for her.

She is literally dragged and shoved into the Cauldron while she cries, struggles and kicks to escape the guards' grasps. The guards and the King keep laughing at her during the whole time.

Elain is used as an experiment for the Queens.

She is used as if she was a mere object.

Her body has been changed forever and she is practically naked, completely terrified and in shock from whatever she has gone through inside the Cauldron. (We know how terrifying and horrible it can be because of Nesta's experience.) Everyone is looking at her, some are even laughing.

Do you know how violating this could feel? To be left naked and vulnerable in front of people who have just terrorized you? How would you feel?

We don't know what she goes through inside the Cauldron, but it was probably very painful and terrifying. Then, she is thrown off it and she experiences this horrific scene, and her mating bond with Lucien snaps.

Another thing has been decided for her.

Not only has her body and life been changed forever without her consent, now her romantic relationship has been decided for her as well. And it's with a man who participated in the plan that made this horrific moment happen.

Lucien is an accomplice of that. He isn't a bad person, but he is CLEARLY an accomplice. (GO NESTA!!)

Elain is dealing with her trauma and she doesn't own Lucien anything. She suffered so much, she was broken and traumatized by what happened to her.

And Lucien and their mate bond are a BIG reminder of the day her body and life were changed against her own will.

We don't know much about her, but we have seen enough of her suffering and how traumatized she is in the books. Feyre always admired Elain's strength, because being kind and gentle in a world so dark takes balls, you know? Later on in the books, Elain is still kind and gentle but more reserved and quiet because she is dealing with her own shit.

Strength doesn't equal to physical force. A big example? Queen Elizabeth I of England was strong and she never fought in a battlefield, but she was intelligent, cunning and brought a Golden Age to her country. She made a place for herself in a patriarcal society and that's how strong she was.

Elain's strength differs from Nesta's, Mor's and Feyre's. She isn't an active fighter like them, but yet she had the guts to fight in the war and stabbed the King on the neck to protect Nesta because she loves her sister and would die for her. Look at this.

No one wanted her to fight, but she chose to. SHE CHOSE TO! This is important. She is scared in the battle camp and doesn't know how to fight or wield a sword, yet she trusts her friends and wants to fight alongside them. 

She might die in the battlefield, but at least she will fight fighting and not be a pawn.

She will enact revenge for what the King did to Nesta, to Feyre and to herself.

MOREOVER –– Another big trauma (aside from happened inside the Cauldron and the dramatic changes in her life), it will probably be center around her body. 

Her clothes, body and beauty are mentioned all the time. ALL THE TIME. Elain, who was a very proper and modest lady (and didn't want to talk about periods even with her sisters), was seen naked against her will by everyone and she probably felt violated.

Feyre mentions Elain's reaction when she sees her and Nesta wearing Illyrian fighting leathers. She mentions how Elain was offered something less scandalous and more proper. 

Imagine how someone so proper would feel after being used and seen all vulnerable and naked by so many people? To have been ogled against your will? To be seen as an “object” to see whether the Cauldron worked?

Nesta is a sexual assault survivor and she also suffered because of their youth, Feyre's sacrifice to provide for them and Elain suffering from the Cauldron incident. She dealt with her trauma in her own way, just as Elain deals with it in her own way. And that's okay!

In Elain's book, her choosing who she wants to be with and how she wants to live from now on will be important. She will turn down Lucien, as it is obvious from what I explained above and because of the following:  Feyre and Rhys comment on how being mates doesn't equal to being right for each other.

Sarah J. Maas said this as well.

She also said that a mating bond is something rare but that some people might be lucky and end up having two. But the main thing is: 

Elain will reject Lucien because they aren't right for each other and she will chose whomever she wants to because she loves that person. That's big and it will be key to the plot.

Elain might end up being lucky and while falling for another person, a new mating bond might develop. But at the end of the day, it will be her choice. 

Not the Cauldron's choice, not society's choice or anyone else. 

Hers and hers alone.

You think she is boring? Well, we will learn more about her and we will see her heal from her trauma. Her body and her choices have been violated, but she will heal and grow for that and gain ownership over herself once again. 

Rhys, Amren and Feyre believe there is more to her than just the kindness she shows. 

“Maybe she was never given the chance to be that way.” “You think I stifle her?” “Not you alone. [...] But I wonder if everyone has spent so long assuming Elain is sweet and innocent that she felt she had to be that way or else she’d dissapoint you all. [...] With time and safety, perhaps we’ll see a different side of her emerge”

“You think Elain is boring?” “I think she’s kind, and I’ll take that kindness over nastiness every day. But I also think we haven’t yet seen all she has to offer.”

“Don’t forget that gardening often results in something pretty, but it involves getting one’s hands dirty along the way.”

“You can’t have it both ways. You cannot resent my decision to lead a small, quiet life while also refusing to let me do anything greater.”

“I went into the Cauldron, too, you know. And it captured me. And yet somehow all you think of is what my trauma did to you.”

“Including Elain, who is more than capable of defending herself against the darkness of the Trove, if she chooses to. Don’t underestimate her.”

Being a seer gives you many powers, but it would take me too much time so I recommend you to read this LONG AND AMAZING list of powers a seer might have posted by @miru5llec​ and you will be shocked and hyped.

If you like mythology and fantasy literature, you know seers are feared and respected. Kings have killed for having a seer in their ranks. They can reach levels of divine status and their ability as a seer gives them many more powers than those I have mentioned before.

Elain might not be physically powerful like Nesta or Feyre, but being a seer makes her more powerful than both of them but IN ANOTHER WAY. Look at the list above (linked) if you don't believe me. 

Her being on the Night Court makes Feysand's court the most powerful in Prythian.

That's why Elain is not boring and her trauma is valid. There is much more to her than what little we have seen. SJM has said so. Rhys, Feyre, Amren, everyone has said so in the books. We will learn about her, see her heal and chose who to love in her book.

“Why?” Elain demanded. “Shall I tend to my little garden forever?” When Nesta flinched, Elain said, “You can’t have it both ways. You cannot resent my decision to lead a small, quiet life while also refusing to let me do anything greater.”

“But Elain said, “I went into the Cauldron, too, you know. And it captured me. And yet somehow all you think of is what my trauma did to you.”

We will see her develop her powers and learn how to use them. She is possibly the key to killing Koschei (the big bad villain) because she might have visions of where his heart is hidden in that fucking box and guide the IC to find it.

Furthermore, stop saying “I want Elucien to happen so Lucien can be happy.” or “Azriel deserves better than Elain because she likes to garden and is mated to Lucien.”

Elain doesn’t belong to Lucien.

Elain can garden, bake and walk around on her hands while singing La Macarena and that doesn’t make her any less strong than Feyre, Mor, Nesta or any other female character.

(Also, in this stupid ship war I have seen people pointing out how she wouldn't be able to give Azriel children because her body isn't Illyrian. This is disgusting. You are basically saying that all her worth lies in whether she can give someone children or not.

Do I remind you adoption exists? Rhys, Cassian and Azriel are brothers by choice, not by blood and they are BROTHERS. You can adopt and be a mother. And you can chose to not have children and that would be okay too. A woman's worth isn't in her uterus.

And that’s it. 

(I posted this thread on Twitter as well, so if you liked it you can go there and RT it or hit a like.)

[og post]

#acosf #acosf spoilers #elain archeron #nesta archeron #feyre archeron #elucien #elriel #nessian #feysand #acotar #acomaf #acowar #a court of mist and fury #a court of wings and embers #a court of thorns and roses #a court of silver flames #gwyn berdara #gwynriel

[irandomblogfulb]

Please go off abt how unbelievably white the rwby fandom is

I don't want to pit marginalized communities against each other, but there's this overall gross sentiment in the fandom where white wlws feel represented by the show so they don't care that poc, other lgbt+ folks, and marginalized communities don't.

Rvvby is their comfort show and they're hooked on crvvby's parasocial 'we're your fwriends!! We care about you!! Pls give us your money!!' nonsense and because they feel represented they buy into it all. Just like team Rwby, they prioritize their own comfort above all else while they sit and virtue signal and tout themselves as allies until one of us expresses an opinion that goes against their 'Roosterteeth is so progressive and caring' narrative.

We've seen it with the whole Adam fiasco. These fans project themselves onto the abuse storyline and re-write canon to paint Adam as the absolute embodiment of everything evil in this world but when us poc go 'Um, the writers making the abused, minority character into a jealous incel and invoking sensitive imagery of a branded minority just to push a ship is kinda uncomfortable', they roar at us for being abuse apologists. This is the same nonsense in the Encanto fandom where white queers push Abuela as homophobic cause they can't identify with the obvious generational trauma theme in the movie.

And then there's the weird BTS army level of stanning a bunch of cishet white men doing the bare minimum for representation. I don't have to explain how backwards that is. RT has so many skeletons falling out their closet, to their frat boy, offensive humor, the crunch controversy, people like Ryan Haywood and Michael Quinn being outed as creeps and abusers and the company's large history of sexism, misogyny, racism and every ism and phobic under the sun . But the fandom at large doesn't care cause at least they might get to see their favourite ship kiss in the next volume. And if not in the next volume then, the volume after that, or the volume after that one, etc. MEK go 'hey fellow feminists. Look at these evil white men. We feminists hate white men right? Look at poor Winter. The nasty white man groomed and abused her. Screw the military!' and the stans eat it up. Funny how it's only Winter who's 'groomed' and 'abused' but not Clover or the other Ace-Ops. Nope, they're bootlickers, but not the white woman.

All of it cumulates to a very, uncomfortable experience in the fandom as anyone other than white and wlw.

Rvvby has offended the black community, the disabled, mlm, and the neuro-divergent. The only way this stupid, made-up 'war against the HTDM' ends if when Rvvby offends the wlws/white women. Then it's GOT, Supernatural and Voltron all over again, proof that they only ever care about representation when it only concerns seeing themselves represented.

#rwde #white feminists are worse than bigots

[itsclydebitches]

RWBY Recaps: Volume 8 “Creation”

Happy Saturday, everyone! Oh man, oh man, oh man. I think I'll need to steer clear of the general RWBY tags this week, simply because I know the sort of responses I'll see to this episode. From smug celebration at Ironwood's downfall, to bad takes about what makes us human, this episode is a petri dish of sensitive material handled insensitively.

Let’s unpack it, shall we? 

We open on an action that feels like a summery of the last three volumes: a grimm attacks an airship from the front, no doubt killing its pilot, while the other grimm conveniently ignore our heroes, no masking in sight. The group looks a little sad at the destruction around them, but ultimately ignore it because they have bigger, heroic things to do. I could write a whole, additional essay on how the huntsmen code — to protect the people — has been warped and abandoned by our protagonists in their effort to do what they think is right. It's a tale that might have been compelling if only RT knew they were writing it.

We get a shot of Atlas drones unloading the bomb before one is taken out, presumably by Qrow and Robyn. Segueing to Ironwood and the Ace Ops, they're waiting for Penny to arrive, the former carrying a massive gun presumably capable of capturing her. Despite the horror we saw on their faces last episode at the realization that Ironwood would kill Marrow for speaking up, it seems that now the Ace Ops are entirely in agreement with these measures. A week ago the implication was that they fell back in line out of fear, but now Harriet talks passionately about "putting down" the group if they were stupid enough to accompany Penny. "The General gave his terms." Vine sighs at this, but doesn't actively disagree. He's just "retracing the steps that led us here."

So, congratulations on introducing four new characters, not bothering to develop any of them, killing one off while ignoring Qrow's hand in that, and having the other three become all, "Yeah! Mass murder is a perfect solution!" off screen. Marrow is the only one with something resembling development and, as covered in these recaps, that's been pretty badly executed too.

Ironwood sends them to deal with Robyn and Qrow after Winter reappears to "assist" him. That gets quotation marks because most viewers at this point have realized that she's who our two birbs spotted in the elevator. Winter isn't on Ironwood's side anymore, she's just skillfully clearing the field for the final attack. Indeed, we get a moment where she hesitantly brings up the bomb and Ironwood responds that he hopes she's not going to try and talk him out of it. No. Winter doesn't think that's possible. This was her final attempt at peace.

One of the reasons why I think I'll stick to my own blog for a while is because the fandom has a tendency to paint broad personality traits as evil when applied to some characters, yet simultaneously heroic when applied to others, when really it's about how that those traits are used. What I mean is, I've seen a lot of Ironwood critical posts that emphasize how stubborn he is. He thinks he's right and he won't back down. He wont listen to others. He's going through with this plan and if anyone tries to stop him? That's their mistake. Totally evil, right? Except, this is the exact same behavior Ruby displays, particularly in Volumes 6 and 7. She was stubborn about stealing from Argus and continuing the fight to the point where it endangered her and her teammates, to say nothing of the rest of the city. She refused to listen to Qrow, or Ironwood, or the Ace Ops, loudly announcing that she was right about, well, everything. If they didn't agree with her, the options were to leave the group entirely, or fight her. The actual difference here is that the writers have taken Ironwood to an extreme, one that's incredibly easy to understand as bad because it is bad: bombing Mantle has no defense. Ruby pulls the exact same nonsense, it's just not to that same extreme and her actions are followed by scenes that are meant to make us forgive her: a sad look because she didn't mean to get a city attacked by a leviathan grimm, a cry on the staircase because she didn't mean to risk the lives of an entire kingdom... even though she did. Ironwood is the bad guy because he's been written to take specific, OOC actions like shooting unarmed kids. He's not the bad guy because when other characters go, "Don't do this" his response is, "I have to." Because that's been Ruby's motto ever since she "had" to use the Lamp to rip Ozpin’s life story away. RWBY introduced those extreme actions of shooting the youngest in the group (for no reason) and threatening to bomb a city (for no reason) or shooting a councilman (for no reason) because when you remove those you've got a man who looks exactly like our hero. Ironwood's arc has been peppered with these confusing, unpersuasive actions because if you just keep the story as him stubbornly keeping to a plan he thinks will save the world, you're left with the reminder that all Ruby has done lately is stubbornly keep to plans she thinks will save the world. This moment with Winter just highlights how ill thought out Ironwood's descent has been because he does everything Ruby does... with a few, tacked on, “and randomly shoots people!” moments to ensure we understand that he’s definitely evil. No comparison to our heroes here, folks! 

Ironwood is a bad guy now. That’s certain, but he was made that way so the story never had to grapple with the question of what that means for Ruby if we really start condemning things like lying, secrets, stubbornness, or endangering others for the greater good. Well then damn, if we strip away the hypocrisy then she might not be a good person after all. Or the people she’s simplistically labeled as bad might not be the devils Ruby claims they are. 

But that’s a level of nuance RWBY would rather pretend doesn’t exist. 

All of which is highlighted by Ironwood’s reaction to "Penny." He sighs and sags over the gun, immediately putting it aside. With his hand on her shoulder, Ironwood tells her she's "done the right thing." Precisely the same way Ruby would lower Crescent Rose and give someone a smile when they decided to fall in line with her.

Which, of course, is the moment when Emerald reveals herself, dispelling the Penny illusion and revealing Team JNPR The Second behind her. She gives a quip about it feeling "weird" to do the right thing before disappearing.

From there the action picks up fast. I really enjoyed this battle simply from a choreography and energy standpoint. It gets the blood pumping, Ironwood's hand-to-hand is spectacular — especially that moment against Ren — and the group actually displays teamwork for the first time in what feels like forever, all of them needed to land a hit on Ironwood. As always, out of the context of the rest of the show it feels and looks great. My primary issue is that we get this fantastic fight against Ironwood. Not Salem, not Cinder, not Watts (like last volume when Ironwood was still a hero), not even Emerald as a means of transitioning from murderous villain to the group's best bud. No, what's arguably the best action sequence in the volume thus far goes to beating up the guy they betrayed from the start. There's no catharsis for me here, only frustration as we watch Ironwood stand in shock as Winter powers up Nora — who's fine now, I guess — and she slams her hammer into his face. 

It never should have come to this and when a good character is done so dirty, their downfall doesn't evoke the emotions the writers are looking for. Watching Ironwood fall doesn't generate feelings of victory, or even tragedy at a course of events others were powerless to stop. It's just frustration at watching years worth of bad writing, sprinkled with fantastic ideas that never go anywhere.

Oscar gets a few hits in, Ironwood snatches his cane, and just as he's about to throw a punch, Winter arrives with the most dramatic sword slash I've ever seen.

Ironwood's aura breaks and he falls, unconscious. We cut to an image of a droid's head separated from its body, one of Robyn's arrows through its skull. That doesn't have meaning or anything.

I suppose I should be grateful they didn't rip Ironwood's arm away during the fight, or outright kill him, though I'm still expecting him to die before the end of the volume.

Hmm. Wouldn't that be something? If after Salem's arrival, freezing cold, a Hound attack, grimm soup, a giant whale, a massive army, and a hack ending in self-destruction, the one character who actually dies is Ironwood. 

It's looking more and more likely.

Honestly, beyond all the obvious, what's so frustrating about this fight is that characters are only now using their impressive abilities to their fullest. Emerald creates an entire fantasy of what's happening and then straight up disappears, but she only does a half-assed version of that when fighting against Penny. (And really, she put more effort into helping the heroes she just joined over Cinder, the woman she's been obsessed with since the start?) Marrow refuses to use "Stay" against a group they wanted to peacefully arrest because that's just too horrible an act, I guess, but he'll do it on his own teammates the second Qrow and Robyn don’t want to fight.  

This is what I mean when I say the rules of the world bend to assist the protagonists in absurd ways. It's not nearly as egregious as Amity suddenly being up and running, but the fact that characters become substantially more powerful while fighting for the protagonists than they do against them is still a significant problem.

So Ironwood is down and out. As much as I hated watching that and didn't necessarily want more, am I the only one who felt like it was... a bit lackluster? I mean, the action was great, yes, but relatively short. There was no dialogue, such as another delve into the moral questions that led to this fight in the first place. There certainly wasn’t any hesitance against fighting a former ally. (Again, we’re meant to believe that the Ace Ops won because they just couldn’t bear to fight the group seriously, but every former ally here is capable of wailing on Ironwood without a single pause or pained look?) Ironwood just skillfully blocks for a while, is blindsided by Winter's betrayal, and then falls unconscious. Given that we learn he and Jacques will be evacuated after the rest of the kingdom, it's possible he'll escape somehow and we'll get a fight 2.0, but if not that feels like a rather tame end to the guy forced into the antagonist seat. Plus, what was the point of having Qrow frothing at the mouth to kill him this whole volume? I never wanted that to happen, I'm glad it hasn't, but I'm nevertheless left to ask why we bothered with that eleven episode side plot if we were going to erase it with one sentence from Robyn about Qrow being better than this. If that's all it took, let them work through Qrow's irrational anger while sitting around in a cell.

Winter tells the group to move onto "phase two" which is when we're treated to a flashback. We return to the ending of the last episode, with Ruby realizing that opening the vault is an option. Jaune, all smiles, goes, "We never considered using what's inside!"

This is what I mean about no consequences! This is what I mean about it all being a meaningless circle that ends with undeserved praise for the group! We started this horror show with Ironwood going, "We don't have a plan to protect the people, so I'm going to take what people we do have to safety" and the group going, "We don't have a plan either, but we're going to stop you implementing your plan because it's not perfect, risking a kingdom's worth of lives in the process." Now, the group has used two plans, one of which two characters knew about at the start and another they could have devised with the information they had. Oscar and Ozpin's, "We have an all powerful magical blast in our cane" and the group's "What if we used the Staff for something other than raising Atlas?" are both things that could have come up in the office debate. These were both always on the table! Instead, Ruby grew furious over the mere thought of cutting their losses, betrayed Ironwood again, attacked his people, denounced him to the world, and then two days later goes, "Oh wait! We could do something now that we could have easily done before if we hadn't made a needless enemy!" 

Everyone realizes how much worse they made things, right? Turning against Ironwood, bringing everyone left in Mantle directly under Atlas, sitting around while an army was devoured, drawing it out until Penny was hacked... all of it would have been avoided if the group had thought and discussed things for a few minutes, not jumping straight to violently resisting what Ironwood came up with first. "We never considered..." Ruby says. Yeah, you didn't, except that's not something to smile about. The group made the situation a thousand times worse with their reaction when they could have just magically evacuated the kingdom from the start. “Maybe we could use it to save Penny and get everyone in Atlas and Mantle back to safety." Nothing has changed! They had this ability the whole time! Nothing about the last twelve episodes led them here, they just randomly thought of it after RT had padded the volume with needless drama. Considering that they're heading to Vacuo now, we could have just made this the finale of Volume 7 instead: big fight with Ironwood, revelation, get everyone  evacuated while Salem attacks, leave her behind, then Volume 8 begins in Vacuo with the group knowing Salem is out there looking for them. This entire volume has been pointless. What did they accomplish?

Oscar got kidnapped and beat up, Nora was scarred, Ruby and Yang realized horrible things about Summer, and the whole world is panicking about a witch. Good things are... Ren and Ruby unlocked some semblance stuff? Weiss loves her brother again after he proved himself useful to her? Great work, team.

So this one moment makes everything they've done up to this point useless and, of course, once thought up the plan goes off without a hitch. Note that the summary of this episode says, "It's risky, dangerous, and nearly impossible — but it's the only plan they've got." Nearly impossible? That's a whole lot of talk for a plan that was implemented perfectly.

There is, admittedly, one snag, but one that is likewise made meaningless just seconds later. We'll get to that.

We see Winter call Weiss who also smiles at hearing from her sister. Obviously interactions like the group's with Emerald are the bigger concern, but it's still an issue that no one reacts as they should to people reappearing in their lives. Rather, RWBY continually confuses audience knowledge with character knowledge. We know Winter is on their side now, but Weiss hasn't a clue. Last she saw, she and Winter were agreeing to head down different paths. She has no reason to think her sister isn't loyal to Ironwood, so why isn't the group treating this call with suspicion? What if it's Ironwood trying to mess with them through a presumably safe party? I swear to god, with any consistency in the story this group would be dead ten times over because their decisions are so stupid. Oscar decides to believe in the guy currently beating him to a pulp, the group decides to trust a villain over a flawed ally, and now they see Ironwood’s second calling and are like, “Great, big sister Winter is checking in!” There’s a difference between a hopeful story filled with second chances and characters whose reliance on the narrative bending to assist them makes them come across as insanely naive. 

None of which even touches on characters forgetting that other characters are presumably dead. Ironwood shot Oscar off the edge of Atlas, but doesn't react to learning he was kidnapped, or when he shows up to the fight. Thanks to Marrow's comment, Winter thinks YJOR have perished in the whale, but also has no reaction to them appearing to help with this plan. Absolutely nothing is followed up on.

We then get a flashback within the flashback (fun) of Winter — shock — not arresting Marrow. It's precisely as I assumed, with Marrow angrily asking why she hit him and Winter responding with, “Because you were about to get killed if I didn’t do something!” As I said last recap, I feel like I should let the marginalized groups lead this discussion, but I do want to add that no matter how well intentioned — or strategic, as I mentioned last time — the imagery itself is still harmful. No matter the context, we were still left with white woman Winter putting her knee on black man Marrow's back to arrest him, and it’s an image that everyone in the U.S. should be familiar with the horror of. Far more of a problem than the (presumed) ignorance of this scene is, I think, the choice to make Winter entirely unrepentant. I think some of this discomfort could have been alleviated if RT had written Winter as apologetic, contrite that it came to that and asking Marrow to understand that she only did it as a means of assisting him. Asking his forgiveness. Instead, we get this

So what, the only emotion we have room for is gratitude that Winter beat him up? Yikes.

As a lighter side note, I find the animation here unintentionally hilarious. Winter's assistive device makes her shoulders look too high, making this gesture more, "Woman exaggeratedly pouts about not getting ice cream for dinner" and less, "Woman sternly closes off during a disagreement about saving lives and betraying their general." Gotta find our humor where we can, right?

What's intentional, but far less funny, is the needless animation to show us that, yes, Marrow is peering at Winter calling Weiss. Oh, the shenanigans. 

The elevator opens where Qrow and Robyn spot them. "Speaking of help," Winter says, as if she has any reason to believe Qrow didn't kill Clover. He and Robyn lower their weapons a bit, as if they have any reason to believe Winter and Marrow aren't still loyal to Ironwood. Would it really be so hard to have Winter immediately throw up her hands in the face of their almost-attack, blurting that she's not their enemy and needs their help, please listen? Again, RWBY can't remember which characters know what, let alone what their motivations and reactions should be.

We then enter the third part of the flashback where everyone piles into the Schnee dining room and discusses doing the things they could have done from the start. I'm metaphorically banging my head against that table. In RWBY's favor though, we also get a long shot of Jaune continuing to boost Penny’s aura.

Though it's only one of many issues, just the other day I asked, "Hey, why has Jaune always needed to hold onto the person he's assisting, but now suddenly he can touch Penny once and the boost remains?" It still doesn't explain why he was letting go before/why him needing to boost her continuously didn't put a hard time limit on their plan — not that Mantle's hour limit meant a thing — but at least they're showing more of that here.

Oscar notes that Atlas has enough gravity dust that it won't fall immediately when they use the Relic, but they will have to move fast to ensure no one is underneath. Yeah, like all the civilians you put there. He also cautions that the Staff isn't a "magic wand" that they can just wave to make all their problems go away... even though that's precisely what they're going to do. Ozpin gets some lines that aren't apologies or followed by attacks — hallelujah! — about how the Staff's spirit is a "character" and requires that you be able to precisely explain anything you want him to make. Blueprints, examples, a firm knowledge of how this will be accomplished — all of it is required to actually get what you're after. That's a cool limitation. It's just too bad we didn't know about it episodes ago, forcing our heroes to find ways to meet those requirements. Instead, they already have everything ready to go the moment they learn about it: Penny has her own schematics and Whitley apparently has knowledge of the entire kingdom after sending some ships out. Normally I'd go, "Really?" but I'm still just struck by how much good he's done compared to everyone else in this room. Your show is seriously broken when the side character the writers didn't even want the audience to like until a few episodes ago is more active, mature, and sensible than the heroes.

From there we see the group implementing the plan. They fly up through the hole Oscar left, straight to the vault. Penny opens it without any trouble and Ruby uses her speed to grab the Relic and stop time, halting her self-termination. I do like that combination of skill and their knowledge of how this magic works. That felt like a smart move. What's interesting though is that the Relic appears to stop time in the entire kingdom. We see people in Mantle and Atlas slowing to a halt too. I assume no one remembers that happening after time restarts, otherwise people would be freaked out by suddenly being frozen in place.

Wouldn't that have been cool though? The group often takes a while to use the Relics, either deciding what they need, or watching Jinn's information, so what if you had a population that blinks and suddenly, from their perspective, half an hour has passed? How long might Ozpin have sat on his knees after Jinn told him he wasn't able to defeat Salem? How long was that space frozen? We could have had a world built around rumors and fairy tales. Not the random stories Ozpin brings up to make a point and that we never hear about again, but tiny details that foreshadow these revelations. A Beacon where the kids tell each other spooky stories of people suddenly losing time, once a whole day. The wives, sisters, daughters, and nieces who disappear, or wake up one day with horrifying, unnatural powers. We see magic influence the world around it, but we've seen very little of the world reacting to that influence. The one time I can think of is Blake reading a book about "a man with two souls," the fiction clearly inspired by knowledge of Ozpin. And indeed, it felt great to recognize that as a significant detail and then be proven right years later as the lore was revealed. We could have gotten so much more of that if RWBY was better planned out.

I'm getting off track though. As time stops we see a series of images: Ironwood being led to a cell with Jacques, Penny succumbing to her hack, Team JNPR The Second preparing to contact the kingdom about what's going on. Then everyone is distracted by the giant, blue, buff Ambrosius who comes out of the Staff.

...there's a lot of innuendo in that last statement lol. At least RWBY is committed to the crazy design they chose? I was never particularly comfortable with the image of characters gaping up at a giant, naked woman in chains, so it's nice to balance that a bit with an equally giant, naked dude in chains.

From here things get confusing. In all honesty, I'm not sure if this is another moment where RWBY is trying to pass off a retcon as the group being brilliant, or if I, as an individual, simply didn't follow the logic. I won't bother to rehash the slow, meandering way that Ruby reveals their plan — that certainly didn't help with the clarity. Not in an episode where we didn’t even know these rules ahead of time — but it boils down to this:

The moment they have Ambrosius create something new Atlas will start to fall. Two of his creations can't exist at the same time.

He needs clear instructions about what he's making in order to create it.

The group has brought him Penny's schematics so that he understands how she's built.

They want, specifically, "a new version of her... using her exact robot parts."  

They can't just create an exact duplicate of Penny because that would carry the virus with it.

They can't create an exact duplicate without the virus because that Penny would cease to exist as soon as they used Ambrosius to make an evacuation plan instead.

So they essentially want Ambrosius to create a new Penny by removing all the robot parts from the Penny that currently exists, carrying the virus with them, and leaving only the human parts of Penny behind: her aura/soul. Then, the purely robot version is destroyed when Ambrosius creates something new.

Except... this new Penny, this human Penny, still needed a human body. That's what Ambrosius created and that's the snag I don't understand. They want a version of Penny that's just her aura, just her soul, but that soul still needs something to be housed in. Ambrosius himself notes that. At first I thought the group would just have some wisp-like version of Penny they'd have to find a new body for — perhaps leading to a new one for Ozpin too — but she's just... given a human body when he takes the technology away, something she absolutely didn't have before. That is Ambrosius' creation. That is what should have disappeared along with the removed parts of Penny, leaving only her soul — what Ambrosius didn't touch — behind. Instead, the plot oh so conveniently has Penny get a new body for free and it's untouched as they move onto the next task.

Ruby drops a casual line about Ambrosius not being able to kill, or destroy, or something, which I think is meant to be the justification here. The rule (which, again, we JUST learned) about not killing anyone supersedes the rule of two creations not allowed to exist, allowing Penny to stick around. But even if that’s true, it’s a load of bull. What, does the magic think no one in an entire city might die if the floating mechanism is removed and it plummets to the ground? Ambrosius didn’t say, “Sorry, can’t stop floating Atlas because thousands of people are still here and they’ll die if I create something new,” but we’re supposed to believe the group skated by on, “Sorry, can’t destroy the last creation like everything else because there’s a single person still using that body and she’ll die if I create something new”? 

Seriously, did I miss something? Or is this another, "Amity is ready because the group needs it" situation? The rule of creations ceasing to exist is bent because the group needs to have their friend around. Ambrosius is certainly enthusiastically complimentary, saying how "smart" the group is and that they've "done their homework," but I'm not so sure. It feels like a moment where the show is (once again) insistent that the group is far more talented and brilliant than their actions actually imply. It's only the rules of the world twisting and turning that allows for their success. To say nothing of how the episode dropped all these rules on the viewer in a ten minute info dump, ensuring we didn’t have any time to think about them before the deed was done. 

It doesn't add up for me and honestly, even putting that aside? I hate this. I absolutely despise it. Look, if it turns out this really does make sense then props to the group for coming up with that plan. Our snag aside, the rest is a legitimately well thought out wish. I don't have a problem with the execution so much as the message. I've been saying since Volume 7 that RWBY has done Penny a disservice in terms of her "real girl" narrative. Whereas before we had a firm message that you don't need "squishy guts" to be human, to be real, Volume 8 continued to carry us further and further into the idea that it is necessary. That Penny's body is entirely inhuman, something to hate, but at least her soul is human and good. That's what the virus arc taught us: your terrible, technological body might be betraying you, but hold onto the parts of you that are really human. I hated that too, but I never thought RWBY would go this far. They made Penny fully human and went, “THIS is the version that always should have existed.”

And this isn't just me reading into the implications. It's right there in the text. Blake says that they're looking for “Penny, the girl who’s always been there underneath." Meaning, underneath the metal. The girl exists trapped in the robot body. Yang holds up her arm and says that the metal is only "extra," it's not really who you are. 

That gets into two perspectives on disability that RWBY just doesn't have the nuance for: what's an integral and celebratory part of one person's existence can be seen as something separate and discomforting to another. Though there are many people with disabilities who would happily cure themselves with a magic Staff if given the chance, there are just as many who say no, this is a part of my identity. I don't want to change, I just want the world to accommodate my existence. However, RWBY takes a hard stance here, saying that any metal in your body is intrinsically bad. We didn’t use to have this take, but now the show has embraced it. Blake says the real Penny is trapped in there. Yang's words implies that she'd get rid of this "extra" bit of her if possible. Mercury with his metal legs is the enemy. Ironwood with half his metal body is the enemy. Whereas once difference was truly accepted, now it's shunned and fixed whenever possible. Those who can't be fixed, like Yang, must simply deal with the lot they've been dealt, reassuring themselves that the metal isn't really them. But Penny? Penny they can fix.

So they do and the very first thing Penny does is hug Ruby, exclaiming, “Do hugs always make you feel this warm inside? Wow. More!” and proceeds to hug all the others. 

What's the underlying message there? Penny didn't understand hugs before this moment. She never experienced the "warmth" of them while an android, despite the fact that here warmth is entirely metaphorical and has nothing to do with a literally cold body. RWBY really went and said that the "real girl” android was never actually real at all — not as real as she could be — because it's only when she's given "squishy guts" that she understands the true happiness of a hug.

Wow.

I mean seriously, wow. 

Never-mind that, you know, we've seen that happiness and warmth since she was first introduced.

RWBY is really rewriting all the core themes introduced in Volumes 1-3 and it sucks. The show is absolutely the worse for it.

To say nothing of all the other disservices to Penny's character here. There's all this buildup about whether she'll still be the same Penny once the wish is complete, but of course she is. We wouldn't want to have Penny struggle when she becomes something other than what she's always been, would we? After all, it took Yang an entire volume to work through the shock of a metal arm, but taking away a metal body for a human one is in no way traumatic. Having a normal, human body is intrinsically a good thing! Of course Penny accepts it with nothing but smiles. Becoming human is celebratory, but becoming more machine is a horror.

She gets to watch her body self-destruct, glitching out and collapsing in front of her. But again, nothing to unpack there that can't be covered with a hand over her mouth.

There's no discussion of whether Penny still has the Maiden powers, or whether a wish like that would mess with the transfer in any way. How did the group know this action wouldn't register as a clear-cut death, forcing the power out of her and into someone new? Obviously they couldn’t know, but no one even thought to bring it up? 

And the entire time they're formulating their evacuation plan, there's no talk of whether these portals will appear before everyone currently alive in the kingdom. I mean, if they do then Ironwood and Jacques can just waltz through and escape into Vacuo. If they don’t, then Maria and Pietro don't necessarily have a way out. We still don't know if they're stuck floating in Amity, or if Amity crashed, or if they made their way back to Mantle or Atlas. More importantly, the characters don't know. I have no problem with RWBY keeping that a surprise until the finale, but I absolutely take issue with Pietro's daughter walking through a portal, seemingly not to care whether her father is going to make it out too.

It's been the same with Qrow and his nieces' relationships. The show is good at insisting that these families love each other because they hug and smile while on screen together, but when shit is actually going down, none of them care about pesky things like disappearances, arrests, or “The last time I saw you, you were with an old woman on a damaged station after a villain attack, potentially stranded in deadly cold if life support failed.” 

So yeah, this entire arc with Penny has been a disaster. From throwing away her framing subplot, to giving her a virus that did absolutely nothing, to giving her the Maiden powers which she's also done nothing with, to erasing her android status for a “She's really human now” message, Penny has been done dirty by the show these last two volumes. Not nearly to the extent Ironwood has, but still. At this point I wish they'd just kept her dead dead. Why do I want her back when that resurrection produces no reaction, her conflicts lead nowhere, and one of the core things that made Penny Penny has now been magically erased?

I've been saying for weeks that killing Penny off and keeping Penny around each had serious downsides attached, yet I never expected RWBY to do BOTH.

Also, I'm warding off any, "But Pinocchio was made into a real boy too" defenses. RWBY is not Pinocchio. Penny is not Pinocchio. I thought the allusion was going to be the Pinocchio inspired girl heading into the whale, not the show forcing the exact plotline  —  down to a blue, magical creature — onto a character whose entire journey has been about accepting herself as an android. Congratulations, RT. You just obliterated years of work.

Again, if you'd like an example of how to do this far better:

As Penny's character falls apart, Atlas shakes, alerting Jaune and the other that a new wish has been granted. Jaune pecks at the screen and realizes "That did, uh, something…?” but doesn’t realize that there's a giant, red "LIVE" up in the corner.

Jaune tries to warn the entire kingdom about their plan, but what he actually says is

“Atlas is falling, but — !”

And then the communications cut out. 

Watts, perhaps?

Our heroes are really good at saying things that make large populaces panic, huh? This is the one (1) snag in their "impossible" plan, but as said above, it doesn't amount to anything. We get a shot of Nora, horrified at the thought of kingdom-wide communications being down, but literally seconds later Team RWBY has made portals appear that everyone can walk through. So... why do we care about communications? More importantly, why does the show try to make us care? So much time is spent getting the viewer invested in problems that never come to mean anything. 

Including the problem of Salem herself.

Because the group successfully creates that evacuation plan. This is it. Everyone is leaving while Salem still reforms. 

Yang asks if they can use the vaults themselves as a single point for everyone to go to and Ambrosius agrees. So everyone is going to pile into the Vacuo vault that can only be opened by an unknown Maiden? They're going to put an entire kingdom's worth of people, including their enemies, into the vault where the Relic of Destruction is? Yeah, that's great. Prior to this — like if this had been the plan at the end of Volume 7 — I would have 100% agreed that these risks are better than death by Salem/grimm/cold. Now though, Oscar as axed Salem for an unknown length of time, the cold is having no impact on the civilians outside, and the grimm only attack background military personnel that supposedly no one cares about. They couldn't have spent another few minutes (especially with time stopped!) to figure out a means of getting to Vacuo that doesn't involve revealing and providing access to the location of a super secret vault? To say nothing of what they're going to do if Salem wakes up and snags one of those portals for herself. Two kingdoms for the price of one!

But that's what they're going with. Weiss gives Ambrosius a schematic of the kingdom, I guess, and he makes branching pathways appear with numerous portals for everyone to step through. They'll enter through one and, when they exit another, will be in Vacuo. Easy peasy, right? Especially since Ambrosius doesn't seem to have any limitations about how often his power is used. Is it three creations every 100 years like Jinn? We're not told, at least not to my recollection. However, I was expecting there to be a waiting period, that they'd fix Penny, go to evacuate the kingdom, and learn that sorry, I can't make another creation just yet. It feels like the sort of shit move these beings would pull — "Don't cry to me when it's not what you wanted" —  it would have been another commentary on the group's insistence on putting friends over the people's safety (like demanding the Ace Ops not bomb the whale because of Oscar), and crucially, would have kept the action in Atlas. Isn't that what this volume is? The battle for and potential destruction of the Kingdom of Atlas? We have two episodes left and, unless something unexpected happens, we're moving that action to Vacuo. Why? 

Meanwhile, Penny's corpse is just chilling in the background 😬

While all this is going on, Winter reassures Jacques that he and Ironwood will be evacuated too, though she makes it clear saving him was Weiss' idea. It checks out, considering Weiss is the one who turned her father's arrest into a joke last volume. Winter still takes his abuse seriously.

The group prepares to leave with a celebratory, "We did it!" from Weiss. I'm still banging my head against that dining room table. Before they can pass through the portal though, Ambrosius leaves them with one, dire warning: "Do not fall." 

In any other story a line like that is a neon sign announcing to the audience that someone will absolutely fall, and maybe they will, but RWBY has dodged consequences so often I wouldn't be surprised if this was merely another way to string us along. Remember all the hype surrounding Salem? The cold combined with her army and magic? How she was going to decimate Atlas and leave our group broken in a Fall 2.0?

I mean, we still have two episodes left. Forty minutes of content. Salem might still decimate them, especially since something has to happen in the finale. But god, it's a problem that we've come this far without a payoff. Salem randomly decided not to attack anyone, was stopped by a weapon added in solely for this purpose, and now the whole kingdom is being evacuated with a plan the group could have used at the start. This volume really is meaningless. 

“We go to vacuo and hope we’ve thought of everything” they say as the camera zooms in on Cinder's smiling face. For the second week in a row.

Bingo time!

Winter betrayed Ironwood, the group used the Staff of Creation, and I'm axing Maria on behalf of Pietro. You can't have the guy's daughter become human — after he was killing himself to give her his aura?? — and magically walk to Vacuo, not knowing if he's even survived since she last saw him, and expect me to think he hasn't been forgotten. Same with Maria. Has the group mentioned her since Amity cut out, notably for reasons they couldn’t explain? Of course not. Did they care to find out what happened? Of course not. I have no doubt they'll both re-appear in the next two episodes, Pietro crying over how perfect his girl is now and Maria congratulating the group on their actions, but we're still marking it.

This is the ugliest thing I’ve ever created, I hope you all are enjoying it :D

Another week, another couple feet added to the hole we’re digging. I know I keep saying I have no idea what's going to happen next... but I have no idea what's going to happen next. A Vacuo ending was not in the cards, not outside of them miraculously showing up in ships. Maybe they have been on their way to Atlas (somehow...) and will arrive precisely when everyone has left! Anything is possible at this point.

See you next Saturday, everyone. Hold on until then lol. 💜

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

[texasthegreatdestroyer]

Just some theories and critcisms that I have the the recent two volumes.

Probably to start off from the beginning, Volume 7 was... interesting the say the least. Not that I hated it, because I didn't, I enjoyed many of the characters that they introduced to us, as well as I kinda enjoyed Penny making a come back, however I do have gripes about that, but I'll get into it a little further down the road. There was always one issue that I had with 7, and admitedly, it ruined one of the characters for me. Clover. A little bit of back story, when I first started watching 7, and Clover was properly introduced in the Dust Minds with Qrow, and the phrase "My semblance is good fortune." came out of his mouth, I instantly hated him, and for 2 main reasons. I knew the shippers were going to go crazy about it, and I just hated the potential connotations that came with it. I don't know about everyone else, but I love good and propper character growth. I was gonna be kinda pissy if they spent a whole volume trying to build Qrow's character up, only to solve his whole character arc by making his depression magically go poof with friendship, and that friend having a semblance to combat his own. Not matter what people want to believe, that's not good character growth. Genuinely sit down and think of the message behind that. It might as well be implying that if you can find that one person who builds you up, all of your problems will go away, and speaking from real life experience, it is not a good idea to have your happiness revolve around a singular person, because you never know when that person can back stab you, or just kick rocks.

What really broke my heart is that it took RT killing him off for me to actually take a deep look at Clover as a character for me to realize that I actually like him as a character, I just hated how they used him for plot device towards Qrow's developement. As much as I now like Clover, I'm glad that RT killed him off, because in the long run, it was better off that way for Qrow's sake, and again, the implications of their friend ship aren't entirely healthy, and is kind of ignorant to how much of an issue things like depression is. That shit doesn't just go away just because a person is introduced into the mix. In part it's also why I don't like Fair Game as a ship, because while cute in concept, it gets boring with a lot of the content that get's produced as it's mostly happy, cute, good times. It lacks in any real complexity because it's all honestly just cookie cutter romance, and it's not really all that fun to take in. In addition to that, the main issues I had mentioned before come into play. The idea that one person is so perfect while the other is fucked up in the head, that the fucked up one is heavily emotionally reliant on the other which is in fact not a healthy relationship for either member, and it would be terrifying to see how Qrow would pull himself together if he's even able to, in a scenario where they were long time romantic partners, and suddenly Clover just up and kicked rocks, or the relationship fell a part. In all honesty, it would potentially just destroy him. In general, I just think the lucky semblance thing was a dumb idea all together. I see why they did it in the grand scheme of things, but it annoyed me.

Then of course there's Robin. Let's be real, her semblance is story wrecking levels of broken. Like come on RT. Lie Detector semblance??? Really??? That is a power no mortal should ever have, and there's so many times that Robin could have broken the whole ass story just with the touch of another person's hand. (And no, just because Harriet didn't take her hand in Vol. 8 doesn't make the semblance concept any less stupid. If anything, it just makes it worse, because it shows that Harriet can't be trusted to act rationally in a situation she should realistically be able to act diplomatically towards. Grief is not an excuse when you're on the job.) I have the same issues with her that I had with Clover, it's that her semblance is damn near unneccessary.

Now to go into Volume 8, but not before giving a genuine criticism towards the whole series of RWBY. Why is it that the majority of the antagonistic characters have tragic back stories. Roman Torchwick was the only one who didn't have that sort of back story, and he wasn't even the main set of antags. Then of course there's Neo, but what good does that actually do when that's exactly what her future drives end up being is the tragic tale of her losing a close friend and associate. With Cinder, they pulled no punches, and oh my god, the song that goes with it. Like my god RT, could you slap the veiwers any harder with your dick obviousness? I hate that they gave easily the 2nd most fucked up character a sob story. It wasn't neccessary. The only good thing about it was when Wattz used her tragic past against her to put her in her place. There's no need to humanize someone who is so driven by hatred like that, as she's done so much fucked up shit to the main cast of characters that most if not all people wouldn't bat an eyelash at her, because it doesn't change her decision to intentionally be sadistic. And while on the topic of a Maiden, let's move to another. Penny. Volume 8 did her dirty. I'm all for bringing a character back, and I'm all for killing off a character for plot purpose, but the two don't fucking mix. Penny's death was redundant and unneccessary. What was the point of giving her a human body if she was just going to die within that same day? What was the point of bringing her back again if she was just going to die? Again? There's two routs RT should have taken. Either they should have killed her vol. 3 and had her stay dead, or she shouldn't have died in vol. 3, continued on as normal, and only then should she have died in vol. 8. Option number 2 is the ladder. I get what RT was trying to do with Penny's death, and I think it was a good concept, but god damn, this is Dragon Ball, we don't need redundant, pointless deaths. At least in vol. 8, there was a purpose behind Penny's death, but in vol. 3, Penny's death was more so unneccessary, and was only used to be a maryr for Ruby's cause. In fairness to them, you can't really expect them to fix what they had done years ago, but with full knowledge that this is what their plot meant they would have to do, they should have reconsidered the handing of their events for either Vol. 8, or both Vol 8 and 7 by removing Penny from it entirely.

Some additional criticisms that don't hold a lot of weight in the over all quality of the show, and more just some missed opportunities. Okay, so remember that whole speil Nora went on about having to find herself before she could be with Ren? Yeeeeeah, so why was it again that Jean had to be the one to fall into the abyss and not Nora or Ren??? Just putting that out there. If Nora and Ren needed to be seperate long enough for Nora to figure herself out, there's no real reason that they couldn't act on this. Because now instead, they're going to have to lean on each other even more so when news comes to them that the majority of their friends just got fucking dusted, and so they'll most likely be grieving together under the pretences that their friends are dead. Speaking of the abyss, fan theory time.

From what we've seen of this abyss that everyone has fallen into, it seems to be a fairly habitable pocket demention. With enough work, a civilization could possibly grow there. Where am I going with this? Well what do we know about Salem? She's a force to be reckoned with who could very potentially kill off the whole world with or without the help of the gods. We also know that she's immortal and cannot be killed. That doesn't however mean she can't be stopped. That's where the pocket demension comes into play. How do you fight off an immortal, blood thirsty, angry ex wife? By taking away everything she has to destroy in her path. You can't cause a mass genocide if there's no one to kill. And so that's where the pocket demension comes into play. What if that's how they stop Salem? By just leaving Remnant behind completely? They could take the staff back, and move all of Remnant's population into this dimension, and start new. In addition to that, they would need to take the staff of creation with them, meaning so much for collecting all four relics to blow up the planet. Now of course, there are some flaws with this theory, mainly in regards to carrying capacity of the area around them, rather or not the area is truly as inhabitable as it appears, and how safe the it actually is to live there. It's just more fodder for thought. What is RT planning with this pocket demension? Why are they so excited about Vol. 9 in regards to this? I'm really interested in how they're going about this, and hopefully the do a good job with it.

Anyways, those are just my thoughts on RWBY so far. Hopefully Vol. 9 does make up for the haphazard ending that was Vol. 8

#rwby spoilers

[incorrect-ikevamp-quotes]

Hot take: Vlad is more Tragic than Comte, He had to witness the downfall of humanity, his friend didn't believe him, he ended up losing his friend, he can't trust anyone, in his bday story it's revealed that unlike Comte who was confident in telling mc he's a Pureblood, Vlad Is scared of revealing that he's even a vampire, he feels like MC will leave and be scared of him. Vlad is tragic, not excusing his trigger fangs but he's definitely hella scared of anything regarding humans.

Comte rt mild spoilers and Vlad spoilers!

Er...sure? Idk I don’t really subscribe to the whole pain is on a measurable scale, or the whole false equivalence thing? I have no doubt that Vlad has seen his fair share of fear and tragedy in life; it’s kind of the nature of being alive in general. 

I guess the way I understand fear and anguish is that there is an acute arrogance to believing that you are the only one to feel or understand those things. And I’m pretty against the idea of condoning violence as an appropriate response to any kind of emotional struggle. Sometimes people just react, and I understand that, but there is a lack of self-awareness and control that becomes dangerous for surrounding people. I will offer that I understand he has his reasons and his narrative, but I sincerely doubt my sympathy will extend beyond that point. That being said, I fully respect other people enjoying his rt or character conflicts--everyone has their thing, man! I don’t mean this in any kind of disparaging way for people. But on a personal level, I really can’t get too close to his content without having Bad Times Man^TM

Also I’m a little confused about Comte not believing him, if I understood the ask right? I’d have to double check, but I’m fairly certain Comte rejects his methods, not necessarily his fears. Comte is upsetti because Vlad suggests a kind of surveillance state to ensure that human beings never enact large scale violence on each other. And while I agree human beings are both violent and stupid, there is an acute extremity that is both alarming and inappropriate in terms of humane reactions to the future in sight. Comte rejects Vlad’s plan and says something along the lines of “purebloods are not gods, we’re not kings.” Comte understands that not only is this not the most productive response to the perils of the future, it is an actively destructive and dangerous path to tread. The moment you dehumanize another person/species--the moment you brand them as lesser by definition--that is a hinge point. Either you de-escalate, understand that the people you are afraid of are more than just cold-blooded animals, and find another way to try to diffuse the situation--or you massacre and control others to no avail, repetitively begetting a cycle of hatred that inspires even more destruction. Perhaps it’s extreme of me, but I’ve read too many historical accounts and seen too much pain in the world to understand Vlad as anything less than someone that needs to be stopped. I hope that such a healing can happen gently, but if it can’t--innocents come first.

I stand with Comte on this one. We all have our fears, our loneliness, our insecurities. What matters is how we choose to cope with them, and others are not responsible for teaching us that no one life is above another in value.

I’m sorry I can’t really engage abt Vlad, but I’ll do my best to respond to questions about him and portray him as accurately as I can in my memes!

#asks #ikevamp #ikemen vampire #ikevamp vlad #ikevamp comte #ikevamp saint germain #ikevamp spoilers #er im sorry if this ask sounds a little serious but vlad hits a little too close to home for me to be comfortable;;; #i have never really vibed with the idea that people are 'more sad' because they don't know how to stop being actively harmful #learn. grow. make an effort like everyone else with an ounce of maturity. #i think everyone deserves to have help when they need it ofc #but i dont think other people are responsible for your making good or smart decisions for your own health #esp at 400+ yrs old #you're old enough to know better #maybe he needs time to figure himself out but i have no desire to be his therapist #additionally i find it INCREDIBLY unnerving that he hates humanity but only accepts MC? #given some of the unique things she's capable of doing/comments on the quality of her blood i........have suspicions to say the LEAST #maybe his attraction is sincere but given his track record i am not a fan lol #but i also know i can be v harsh and impatient so pls dont let this discourage you #this is just my take #rambles

[gore-maballer]

alright here goes big personal post time

i did wanna make this yesterday but i had to do a couple of things and i got kinda tired

this is definitely gonna get  heavy but i do want to end on a good note

I think i need to get this out straight away, i have Asperger’s Syndrome, i’m very high functioning but i do have it. I like to think it doesn’t affect me that much but i’ve lived with the diagnosis long enough to know it’s just not true.

Loud noises cause me no end of distress. Focusing on particular subjects can be almost impossible sometimes. Naturally this impacted me at school, which is what i think caused the bulk of my mental health issues.

Officially i only have 9th grade completed, i haven’t even finished high school. Like, i know i’m not stupid, but imagine what that does to someone’s self-esteem.

That isn’t to say i didn’t try to finish high school. I tried harder than anyone i know, i’ve taken practically every course available to me, even across multiple schools. I’ve taken science, art, multimedia, health and safety, culinary school,  you name it.

but like i said, for people like me, studying is practically impossible sometimes.

whatever information i needed, i had to get it first try during class. That’s not easy when you share a room full of people always chattering and making distractions. And that’s even if you like your schoolmates somewhat, most of the classes i was in i couldn’t stand the people around me.

Don’t get me wrong, i didn’t hate everyone i met, i even made some dear friends, which kinda hurts now because i’ve lost contact with so many of them, and the ones i can contact still, i don’t really want to because i feel like they’ve moved on and i don’t want to bother them. So that was my school life, lonely, overwhelmingly stressful and underwhelmingly rewarding.

All the while i felt like a burden to my parents. Like, here’s this fuckin deadbeat leeching off his parents way past any reasonable amount of time to finish high school. i should have finished high school by the time i was seventeen. I’m 26 now. In retrospect, it’s not exactly a bad thing, none of the courses i took felt right to me. Like that health and safety one. I HATED that course, i took it because it was the only one i could at the time. I had no interest in the subjects, my classmates were insufferable, we shared rooms with ANOTHER class that was somehow even worse than the one i was in because our courses shared subjects and it was a small school, and some of the teachers were downright bad at their job sorry not sorry. So something happened, the stress got too much and i had an outburst. And people noticed. My parents noticed.

I started going to a psychiatrist, i got diagnosed with depression. Not anxiety but i feel like those go hand in hand anyway. Fuckin three hit combo right here, autism, depression, and the anxiety that goes with it. Fuck me up fam. Still, it did get me the help i needed and i started getting medication. And things started getting better.

Back to school. Starting over, three more years.

I really enjoyed culinary school, i found i have a knack for making some mean arroz con leche and i feel like i do really well with pastries and sweets in general. So school was nice for a while, i was enjoying my studies even if i wasn’t doing well in ALL of them, (sorry to my french teacher she was cool, but fuck that entire language), my classmates were pretty okay for the most part, the fact that it was a professional course meant that when i finished, not only would i have a highschool diploma, i’d be immediately certified to start working.

But on my second year, my father got diagnosed with cancer. And it all went to shit. I felt pressured to start helping my family anyway i could, after all, i’d taken so much and given so little. I started taking driving lessons and i got my license which was a big help in general. And good thing i did, because my dad’s health deteriorated quick. It was caught too late. I was miserable because when he was sick, at one point we had a heart to heart and i realized how much he loved me and didn’t think i was a burden like i thought he did, and though sometimes he really made me upset, i felt like i never showed how much i appreciated and loved him. He didn’t make it. Not a month later my grandmother died and a little under a year later my grandfather. This might seem cold, my grandparents were riddled with dementia, they barely recognized me so i wasn’t too upset when they died. But my mom, these people have been with her in the most important moments of her life and she lost them all in the span of a year. She was devastated, and seeing her like that wrecked me.

So my depression got worse, and my grades tanked, and i failed school again, and again i felt like a burden. I start thinking about things. I should run away, live on the street, anything so i wouldn’t burden my mother anymore. What’s the worst that could happen? I die? So what? Death felt welcome, even deserved. But could i do that to my mom? I’m glad i didn’t.

Things started getting better. Pushing through it all, i started another course, auxilliary health technician, and this one is right for me, i’m certain. I’m great at it, i get to help people and i love it. It’s just the right level of responsibilty, we basically assist nurses and help take care of the patients among other things.

It’s too bad the damn pandemic hit, we got stuck with telework, suddenly every subject and every class shifts to theory, and we’re spending hours upon hours everyday on our computers doing boring research and just completing assignment after boring assignment. So i started getting headaches, cool. My brain’s finally taken all it can take.

Anyway, i start my third and final internship before i finish the course, and i make it through my first week. And one night the seizure happens. I find out i have a brain tumor and it’s been growing for a while. Thankfully it’s not cancer, i really didn’t want to put my mom through that shit again.

Most of the mass was removed, i didn’t have any complications, i’m feeling great doing RT to remove what they couldn’t take out through surgery, plus i’m almost done with it, and further on i’ll do chemo, which i’m a bit more nervous about, but i’m sure it’ll go well too. And i got plenty of time to organize my thoughts. I really start thinking about life, about everyone who helped me get where i am now and i realize. People care about me, and i care about them. And i don’t want to hurt them, and i think they don’t want to me get hurt either.

So i’m not gonna. I’m not gonna hurt anyone, least of all myself anymore.

Needless to say this whole situation kinda grinded my studies to a halt. But I found out i’ll be able to kick off where i stopped later on this year.

Hopefully the state of things will be better by then, and i’m feeling the best I’ve ever felt, all things considering. I’m gonna see this damn thing through. I’m taking control of my life.

I finally feel like a person.

I got nowhere to go but forward.

If you read through all of this, thank you. It meant a lot and i love you.

I think i’ll go have a healthy cry now.

#getting better #personal #long post #like really long i don't think i ever put this much effort into writing something

[nahte123456]

(RWBY) Ruby should be more over powered

So let me preface this, this is not a hate-post or anything like it. I love RWBY, I love it’s characters, and I adore it’s music. That being said if you can’t criticize what you love you don’t love it you love it’s image.

And I get that this may not be popular, people just dislike the idea of a character being OP, I don’t know why power is not everything and in fact can be a negative trait in a story, but people dislike it on principle.

So here’s why I think Ruby should be more over powered, both for consistency sake and for narratives sake.

CONSISTENCY : I don’t know why but RT gave Ruby some of the most OP powers and abilities a character can have. Let’s review real quick, super speed, psuedo-intangability thanks to her petals, a huge radius of attack, her casual attacks can punch through Grimm bone like it’s nothing(something other characters like Blake can not do), and a sniper rifle. Now let’s break down just how strong these powers are.

Super-speed kind of speaks for itself, if you can hit first, hit more, and dodge any hits in return you win, end of discussion. But even beyond Ruby isn’t just faster then other people, she’s stupidly faster. Pyrrha, who’s able to defeat even professional Huntsmen in fights, could not react to Ruby’s attack in the food fight, the slip-stream of her running picked up and THREW 4 reasonably sized people, and when she stopped(on a dime) the shock wave crushed the stone wall in front of her. Even in the Red Trailer she was able to murder dozens of Beowolves before her bullets could land on the ground. This speed is beyond even the showings of Qrow or Raven, this already should make her a serious threat to top-level fighters in-verse, even if she had no skill or weapon, just running into people at that speed would be deadly.

Petal intangibility thing may not seem super impressive at first, it’s not like she’s a One Piece Logia, she can be hit if surprised or whatever. But it is a “get out of jail free” card for just about any other Semblance or Dust attack. For instance Pyrrha’s Polarity Semblance is pretty strong in it’s own right, but petals are not magnetic, as long as Ruby just keeps shifting back and forth it basically nullifies Polarity at all. Same thing for say Adam, sure his strike is cool but the moment he starts glowing Ruby can just be petals and wait until that stops or run away and attack a distance. Explosions would push the petals around but it shouldn’t hurt, maybe fire or being frozen would but we don’t know how that would work.

Her attack radius isn’t as strong, especially on it’s own, but combined with super-speed it means she can take down dozens of enemies in just 2 or 3 attacks. Also dodging is near impossible, the sheer number of attacks she can launch at once and the size of her weapon would cover a massive area around her.

Her attacks punching through Grimm is, like the radius thing, not that impressive on it’s own, especially given that this pales in comparison to the feats that Yang or Nora show off casually. But that this is beyond the normal potency we see from characters like Blake, Weiss, or Ren this shows that strength is above average, combined with her speed that is a stupid combination of hitting most enemies more then they can hit back, AND hitting them hard.

Finally the sniper thing. Just snipers are effective for a reason, shooting someone in the head from miles away is effective. Now we don’t know Ruby’s exact range with her sniper, or her accuracy average, but since she can just petal away from most situations even if she only has 50% accuracy at 100 meters that means she can run, shoot a few times, run, shoot more, repeat until the enemy is dead.  And given the few times she’s used Crescent Rose in this way I’m fairly confident she is more accurate then that. Again for example, Ruby-vs-Yang, Ruby never needs to be within 50 meters, she can just keep running and shooting. Unless you can block bullets like Tyrian you lose.

Narratively : So narratively I also just think this would be an interesting story to explore. Ruby has kind of been floundering as a character for a while now, she has a defined and good character in an interesting situation, but the plot bends over backwards to make sure she doesn’t need to address anything. That is a plot flaw not a character flaw, but I see this as an easy way to keep the plot bending for her and let her grow and have conflicts.

So to explain this simply, Ruby is OP, her family is around or above her(side note, I want Taiyang to be a monster, I want him to be able to take on Qrow, Raven, Summer, and Ozpin all at once, that kind of monster), she doesn’t know how to deal with weaker people. She drives Weiss and Blake to exhaustion them trying to catch up to her power and her naively encouraging them but they just can’t.

Or what about Jaune, she pushes him because she doesn’t get how weak he is, then she get’s injured just as he starts to get strong, and Ruby goes full over-protective mode because that’s never happened to her. No one around her has ever almost died because of something so ‘small’. So just as he’s getting strong she starts stifling him, and he starts getting frustrated, they argue.

Also for Ruby this could be an interesting thing to overcome. She’s so strong but she can’t be everywhere at once, she can’t protect everyone, they need to fight on there own. Cliché but learning to trust other people’s power and be a team player is a cliché because it works, and it would work better here because it parallels Ozpin’s and Salem’s whole thing is having a small controlled group of trusted people they use for there goals. Ruby’s goal would be essentially to emulate them and turn WBY, JNPR, and so on into her group, learning from those two and improving so her group works better, making a better more healthy version.

#rwby #rwby musings #ruby rose #over powered #writing

[tiffgeorgina]

fuck it black monday soulmate au

this one goes out to brit pricevore and that damn quote rt about hating soulmate aus. also to all the time i wasted in the shower last night thinking about this. brit if you’re reading this i have done my part. 

this fic is sponsored by the hyuna and LE collab that i cannot stop blasting. it’s called blacklist and it kind of invented music

-ok so im starting with mo and dawn because of fucking course i am

-mo spends like four years in prison starting from when he’s 20 or 21 or sum shit. around this time, dawn’s getting her MBA from northwestern. as soon as mo’s out of prison, jammer stakes the jammer group and hands majority ownership over to mo. alright so mo needs some employees he can’t do all this by himself. so he schedules an interview with dawn and meets her and realizes that this is His Soulmate. 

-im not really certain what the exact soulmate au would be for this because frankly i don’t care, i don’t want to get into that rn lol. but it’s something obvious and clear-cut, like seeing color for the first time when you make eye contact with your soulmate or smth. Actually i rly like that idea so im gonna roll with it. Fuck it you see color the first time the first time you touch your soulmate (i’ll get into the general implications of this some more later on, maybe after keith/mike’s part stay tuned xx) i love me some ambiguous soulmate aus but all the relationships in this show are ambiguous enough so i’ll pass in that regard this time. also in this universe, your soulmate isn’t necessarily regarded as your romantic partner for life. some conservatives/evangelists/fundamentalists/traditionalists will consider any marriage/sexual or romantic relationships with people other than your soulmate to be an abomination or w/e, and the 80s were pretty conservative, but they were also pretty weird, so a lot of people give zero fucks and will date/fuck/marry whoever. these people tend to regard soulmates as the most important person in your life, regardless of the nature of your relationship with them. some people’s soulmates are like a parent to them, and could never imagine being romantic/sexual with them. lots of people never meet their soulmates due to distance/death/etc. basically fate is not as all-knowing in this soulmate au as it is in some others. there is more to a long-lasting, successful romantic relationship than just love. back in the 40s or whatever, people would meet their soulmates and marry like two weeks later, never having had sex or a romantic relationship with anybody else, and then two days into the marriage they realize how devastatingly incompatible they are and the relationship crumbles under the strain of resentment and confusion within a year. people in the 80s have started to learn the lessons the people in the 40s never had time to figure out, so most people have some romantic/sexual experience before they meet their soulmate. besides, who wants to wait that long to have sex? not me tf

-ok back to the plot now that we got the background is down. mo and dawn meet and know they’re soulmates. so they get to know each other, but their main focus is work bc they’ve got a lot of work to do if they want to get anywhere. the company is young, dawn’s just out of school, and mo’s just out of prison. there’s a lot of ground to cover and they’re impatient asf to be rich and powerful. 

-the romance sort of happens naturally, given how much time they spend together, and they fall hard. they start dating, and when it’s great, it’s great. but when it’s bad, it’s fucking horrible. they’re both really underdeveloped as people (should i mention that they both literally just entered the workforce lol) and they just. can’t. get. along. 

-they hire some more people, like keith and yassir and wayne, and even they can tell that their relationship just sucks. they fight all the time over petty shit, and their fights always go way too far and never get properly resolved. sure, the sex is good and they want pretty similar futures (lots of money and no kids), but emotionally, in the short term, they are as incompatible as it gets. they have the same argument that they’ve had a gazillion times about promoting dawn to partner, but this time it goes a little too far. the things they say are a little too hurtful, and at this point, the relationship is a little too broken to salvage. they both know that when dawn storms out that night, it’s the last time. she moves out the next day.

-but she can’t really quit, can she? at this point she’s put in like three years of work at this place, and it’s moving up the ranks, and she’s head trader. she’s not taking a pay cut because she’s too immature to work with her ex-who-is-also-her-soulmate. so she sticks around. it’s a little awkward at first, but she and mo just come to an unspoken agreement that they’ll spend less time together and let themselves detach as much as possible, because at this point, a romantic relationship just seems so impossible, so why try? they can be each other’s most important person without being romantic partners, right? of course they can! Yeah, maybe they were just destined to be platonic soulmates. this will definitely work.

-so dawn meets this guy. his name is spencer. they hit it off right away too. of course, they’re much less compatible (in terms of long-term plans and all that, especially regarding having a family) than she and mo ever were, and the chemistry is nowhere near as electric, but at least they can have a conversation about something other than how much they hate the lehman brothers without screaming at each other. despite how much she knows she doesn’t love him like she still does used to love mo, she thinks she can live the rest of her life like this. they get engaged after dating for a year, and then married after a six month engagement period.

-mo stays single for about a decade or so. the most serious relationship he has isn’t even monogamous and it’s like, barely a year. he tells himself that he’s not looking for love, and he’s much happier to just sleep around and count his money and focus on that. everybody he ever talks to knows this is a bald-faced lie. they choose not to bring it up.

-(IM REALIZING HOW SIMILAR THIS IS TO THE CANON BACKSTORY/PLOT OF BLACK MONDAY IM SCREAMING SHGLKSDFHGLKSDRGHLS WHATEVER IM HAVING FUN) so mo and dawn are still working together and their relationship is... getting better. time heals all wounds right? well, not if you keep rubbing salt in the wound by literally working with your ex-who-is-also-your-soulmate and seeing them everyday. they know subconsciously that they could’ve been really fucking great, if only they hadn’t been such idiots in their 20s. but now that chance is gone, and they both just have to accept that. they still get into fights and shit, but it tends to be over much more superficial stuff. of course, people without fifteen years of history don’t get into screaming matches over tiny shit like they do. but that’s the territory of working with your ex-who-is-also-your-soulmate.

-so mo has this stupid fucking idea that he doesn’t even run by dawn before throwing $60 mil on it, because of course he does. so she has no choice but to go with it. they hire this kid, his name is blair, because they need him to pull this off. blair finds out that mo and dawn are soulmates who used to date but don’t anymore, and he’s really not even that surprised. of course, it’s weird to find out that your bosses whom you’re weirdly close to, who seem to hate each other, used to be in love and date and the whole nine yards and all that, but it makes a lot of sense.

-so they go off to the predator’s ball bc even rich people need money sometimes. you know that scene where they’re walking back to their rooms after that wild ass night, and mo’s like “you want to call it, or?” and dawn’s like “would if i could but im married” and then they get into a fight over collateral shares? fuck that scene entirely. let dawn find out about that 30% collateral shit like the next day or some shit idfc. instead, dawn’s just a smidge drunker than she was in canon, or maybe she was thinking more clearly than she has in a while, and she just fuckin goes for it. she kisses him, and of course he kisses her, and they... sleep in the same room that night. lmfao you know what i mean. and so starts this sort of friends/business-partners-with-benefits thing. 

-they are next level awkward when they get back to NYC, and blair and keith notice the fuck out of it. they aren’t exactly on speaking terms, so they don’t bring it up to each other, but fuck if they don’t bitch about to their respective soulmates (which i will get into)

-dawn feels soooo guilty it’s unreal. But she rationalizes the hell out of it. Her relationship with spencer has a textbook dead bedroom (which is actually sort of canon), and she signed up for monogamy, not celibacy. it’s not her first example of fucked up morals for sleeping with somebody other than her husband, anyways; there are worse things she can do (and has done) than cheat. It’s not fair that he gets to have all the sex he wants while she has to suffer in silence. So she keeps hooking up with mo even if it’s the worst thing she could do for her relationship with him (and her relationship with spencer, who doesn’t even know that she’s met her soulmate, let alone that her soulmate is her fuckin business partner [canon divergent, spencer does not find out about her and mo in 1x02])

-mo feels guilty in theory but really he’s just happy to be with dawn again in some way. They’re never in dawn’s apartment, so there’s no chance they can ever be caught ever. This is fine. They are fine.

-as one can expect, they are not fine and spencer notices dawn acting differently. Eventually she has a couple drinks one night and the guilt overwhelms her so she ends up coming clean. Safe to say she and spencer get that divorce.

-around this time, mo is telling blair about the georgina play, and blair is telling him to go fuck himself. Also around this time, tiff is getting kidnapped.

-dawn immediately suspects that mo did some stupid shit when she finds out mo told blair everything. So she goes to find him, only to find him at his lake house, spreading ashes. After he tells her he knows nothing of tiff’s kidnapping and he’s spreading the ashes of a friend, she relaxes and they spend the night together, just talking over all the shit they’ve been through. They don’t have sex that night, but they feel what they used to feel when they were together 15 years ago.

-in the middle of the night, blair calls dawn in a blind panic, talking about how tiff’s parents arranged her kidnapping for the press without telling her. Blair says, “Let’s you and me run the georgina play. That’s right, i know you knew, you’re too smart not to” and dawn says “no.” she doesn’t give excuses or anything, she puts her foot down because she will not let this kid she’s known for barely a year convince her to fuck up the most fulfilling relationship she’s ever had as soon as they get to a good place again. She tells him she’ll run the play with him, but it’s not gonna be against mo. either all three of them are fucked with mo and dawn $60 mil in the hole and blair out of a job, or all three of them can be filthy rich and successful. That’s the deal. Blair says he’ll call her back tomorrow.

-the next morning, mo and dawn are talking on the doorstep, and mo brings up the georgina play and how the kid fuckin hates him now, and there’s no chance of pulling off the play bc he quit. Dawn’s like “yeah, about that… we need to schedule a meeting with him” and mo’s like “what for?” and dawn’s like “i spoke to him last night, his fiancée’s kidnapping was a sham that her parents pulled off and he might be in the right headspace to fuck them over right around now” and mo’s like “holy shit you miracle worker” and they make out and when they walk back into the office, they’re hand in hand. 

-they call blair into the office and they basically just yell at each other for three hours. Keith, yassir, wayne, and ronnie do not know what is going on and frankly they are too afraid to ask. Eventually, they reach an agreement: blair will pull hand over 6% of georgina jeans in exchange for 20% of the jammer group, and another 25% to dawn (after they use blair’s algorithm to grab that last 30% from the lehmans). They shake on it, but none of them leave happy.

-blair’s not exactly happy to fuck over his parents-in-law, and mo isn’t happy to lose majority control of his own company. Dawn lucked out, gaining more power and losing little in the play, but her relationship with both of them is so on-the-rocks that she can’t imagine upholding a business partner relationship with them. This is gonna go so great after blair gets married in *checks watch* like two months.

-so blair gets married and the georgina play is a thing that happens (successfully might i add) and everything is kind of shitty because there are at least two relationships to repair here, and one that’s coming back from the dead. But little by little, they all get to a better place until they’re more or less back at where they were before mo told blair everything and they were all just friends except this time mo and dawn are dating xx

-WHEW and that is that on that. And by that on that i mean that on mo/dawn for this au. Dw im gonna get to blair/tiff and mike/keith and im super excited to write those too but i’ll make sure to put those in a separate post because i don’t think tumblr could handle a +7000 word post lmfao (since this post is nearly 2500 words jesus christ)

-i hoped y’all liked reading this as much as i loved writing it!! Again i love feedback and i read everything y’all say in the tags so please put stuff in the tags bc i love that shit!! Gn xx

#black monday #fanfic #fanfiction #andrew rannells #blair pfaff #mo x dawn #maurice monroe #dawn darcy #dawn towner #fic: bm soulmates #otp: partners. #slander #a million queue lawyers a million queue years to queue out

[mentalisttraceur]

So Tumblr keeps showing adds for this puzzle game (though its name sounds like it would be an RPG or RTS or something, but anyway), which seem to have hit upon a clever marketing technique:

Marketing through frustration.

They mostly show examples of attempted solutions that are really dumb and obviously flawed - I imagine almost anyone can probably tell they're the wrong choice immediately.

(I hope I'm not overestimating people in a way that ends up hurtful to people once they realize they don't meet my standards... that happens a lot.)

Anyway the superficial sales pitch is the stereotypical smartness validation angle - something like "many have tried, most fail".

And wouldn't you know it, most of the examples seem like you could solve them so you already feel validation for how smart you are if you just accept the whole setup at face value.

The online free "intelligence" or "knowledge" quizzes often market themselves the same way.

It appeals to the very popular but largely unspoken (except during specific socially acceptable moments) beliefs that many people around us are really dumb.

Such beliefs of course are more often held by people who lack the competence at thinking well and at mind interferometry and good-faith idea-fitting needed to accurately judge others so harshly.

In reality people are rarely straight forwardly "stupid". Most people are disturbingly frequently and thoroughly "wrong", but it's in much deeper and subtler ways than that.

Or I'm overestimating people again, plus I understand that the target audience is probably kids - and for example 8 or 10 year-old-me would've found those advertisements much easier to believe at face value - after all, I was surrounded by people who regularly made that level of thinking mistakes.

But they knew how to make friends and how to not be the weird kid in the class, so like, I want to believe they were just putting the same amount of intelligence and mental effort to work elsewhere.

Where was I? Right, advertising by frustrating.

So even if you are not influenced by the "you're so smart" implicit ego fellatio that the ads are trying so hard to give you, after enough repetition, another, deeper mechanism can kick in.

At least in some minds, me being one of them.

After seeing something attempted and failed over and over, humans tend to get frustrated.

Mostly because our brains are prediction machines but simultaneously association machines, and have a built-in reward mechanism for understanding or solving things.

So we have rational predictions based on many life experiences that doing something right which is being repeatedly done wrong has good odds of better outcomes than ignoring it - reward, recognition, goodwill, future harm mitigation, less distractions from the ongoing failure, etc.

We also have a tendency for irrational, just-by-association "spill" between seeing it happen, and our mind taking it on as its own problem to solve - heuristically skipping whether or not the above reasons apply, etc.

Regardless of the how, the end result is that after seeing enough ads like that, it is possible to develop a mental itch to want go do the thing yourself - we build up this subtle frustration and our brain knows that solving it ourselves would release it and give a sense of closure.

And that's an impressively deep and perverse way to manipulate a human mind into doing something.

#cognition #ethics #mind interferometry #idea fitting

[calliecat93]

Top 5 Things I Liked About Red vs Blue: Season 2

(Top 5 Dislikes)

One post down, one more to go… and then twenty-six more to go for the rest of this series. Why did I decide to do this again? Meh, whatever. Let’s just get on with it as we resume looking over Season 2.

#5. Machinima

Okay, this might sound weird, but hear me out. The machinima last season was… basic. Not bad mind you, there is only so much that you can do without a lot of creativity and resources. Resources that RT didn’t have at this point in time. But mostly, they just went through the default motions. Nothing really stood out. It had some cool stuff, like them somehow managing to blow the Warthog on top of Red Base. I think they even said in the commentary that trying to replicate it for the remaster was a pain in the ass. Still, it just didn’t stand out, though the humor made you not notice.

Clearly, the RT guys wanted to push themselves a little more now that they knew how Halo operated and they could machinimate better. Which they did. I noticed a lot of little things when watching the season. Like having Caboose jumping up and down during the opening gunfight while behind a rock, or even Doc just pretending to fire his blaster. Or having Simmons more or less trembling in the finale when his… ugh… fax parts act up and you can tell what Grif is staring at when he questions it. Or adding in things like Lopez’ note in the finale, and even having it written in binary. Heck, we even have smoke come out of Grif’s helmet when Simmons catches him in the act.

These are small things, but it helps make the world and characters feel a little more alive. Clearly, machinima has its limitations, and we’re a long way away from them adding in animation. But creative people will find a way to work within their limitations, and even use those limitations to their advantage. Considering how long this show has been going, I’d say that they succeeded.

#4. Caboose’s Mind

One of the most memorable parts, and one with some actual effects on the characters, is when Church and Tex go into Caboose’s mind to kill O’Malley. It’s one of the weirdest, yet funniest parts of the season. We get to see how Caboose views everyone, with Tucker being stupid and Church being obsessed with being Caboose’s best friend. He gets them wrong, but it makes sense because it’s how /Caboose/ interprets these individuals. They aren’t supposed to be accurate. It’s especially funny when we see the Reds and only Simmons is close to right Grif is Yellow (which they outright did to prove that he was Orange to viewers), Donut is a girl since that’s what Caboose thought at the time, and Sarge has a pirate accent instead of a Southern one. 

It’s just funny to see Caboose, who at this point had been portrayed as the most dim-witted, and how he views these people. It kinda reflects what he wants with Church being his best friend and the Reds fearing him and his greatness. His ideal version of himself is pretty much a cool version of himself, though otherwise not too different. Church’s reaction and frustration at all fo this, especially Caboose!Church, only makes it funnier as is Tex being unfazed by all of it. It did kinda throw me off when I watched it the first time, but God it’s funnier on rewatch now that I know what’s going on. It’s a nice look into Caboose’s mind, and we got to see glimpses of the others int he S14 episode Head Cannon.

I think the biggest things though were for one, we got a location that wasn’t Blood Gulch finally. Sure it’s pretty much a standard video game map with a bunch of cubes, but after having the only setting be a canyon, it was refreshing. We also have some major impact with this since due to all the chaos, Caboose’s character becomes what it is now. We can debate all day how we should view Caboose and his intellectual level, but I do think that this helped endear the character to people and allowed him to stand out much, much more. Even now I know very few people, if anyone, who dislikes Caboose so while maybe they should acknowledge that he was more or less brain-damaged, the character himself has become better due to this. Which is nice~

#3. O’Malley Subplot

Speaking of Caboose’s mind, the O’Malley plot was by far the standout in this season. At first, it wasn’t too much since only Tucker cared about Caboose’s sudden murderous behavior. But once Tex came back, things picked up. While the backstory wasn’t totally accurate, it would certainly lead to more ahead. The fight in Caboose’s mind was fun. Tucker got to show some genuine competence when he came up with the plan to make the Reds turn their comms off and even using Lopez as a backup plan. With how much more competent Tucker grows later once circumstances pretty much force him to, this was an early sign showing that he is capable. He just needs to be pushed into doing it.

O’Malley himself didn’t stand out too much, just being kinda murderous. Then he escaped into Doc. I’ll go more into this next season, but this was the best decision ever. Doc is a whiny goody-two-shoes while O’Malley is gleefully, over-the-top evil. The contrast of the two personalities works super well and is just really funny to watch, though again it applies more for the next season. By the end, O’Malley makes his move and firmly sets himself up as the first proper Big Bad of the series, and he’s the perfect villain for the Blood Gulch Chronicles.

Overall, the whole subplot was really fun even though it did kind of have a slow start. It brought back Tex, had some really funny moments like the Reds' reactions to Lopez’s horrible love song. At least Donut liked it, haha~ It gave us our first proper villain, which led to one Hell of an insane finale. Even everything in between with Donut getting captured by the Blues and them trying to use this to make Sarge build them new bodies was fun to watch. The first half of S2 s super fun, but the second half is, without doubt, the best part for me. O’Malley was the catalyst, and to this day is one of my favorite villains. Love it~

#2. Improved Production Standards

Season 1 was good but flawed. It was clear that the RT guys weren’t really sure what they were doing. Audio quality was meh, jokes could drag, and the pacing was rather slow. It makes sense though when you read about what the original plans were. RvB was meant to be a miniseries, and nothing more. But pretty much a combination of them not getting to what they planned as soon as they thought (Donut was supposed to be in pink armor much sooner for example, and they realized how long it was taking to get there) as well as just coming up with more ideas extended things to a nineteen episode run. So there was no long term plan and things like writing and machinima were done in mere days in between releases. Plus there were only two main machinimators, Burnie and Geoff, and if you listen to the original S1 commentary they are both clearly exhausted. Burnie even said on a one-on-one podcast with Geoff on how they had pretty much had every conversation ever and they’d be like some old married couple just staring at each other. You can find it here if you’re interested, it’s a fun one~

So yeah… when you look back you can kinda tell that S1 was a bit of a rush job, and a tiring one at that. It’s still very good and like I said, they found ways to use so much you barely notice things were made up on the fly. But clearly, they needed a better system. Enter Matt Hullum. He had already been voicing Sarge, but he ended up stepping in to play a larger behind the scenes role. He joined Burnie on writing and directing, and thus they started planning things much farther ahead. As such, they knew the general plot and thus things could be tightened. The pacing is much better with episodes feeling faster, but having plenty of things happening. I already talked about the machinima improvements, which having Matt as well as Gus coming back from Puerto Rico also helped there. The voice acting, while still amateur, improved as well as the audio mixing. The filter is still a little distracting, but it and the general audio mixing is greatly improved. Pretty much every aspect of S1 was improved big time. It wasn’t perfect, but still, they clearly put a lot in creating a more quality product.

Season 2 had a hard job. Season One had to prove that this was a show worth watching. Season 2 had to prove that it could keep going and wasn’t just a one-hit-wonder. And ho boy did they. It’s funnier, it’s more ambitious, and even starts adding in some story. This season got the viewers from last time to come back, and probably brought in some new ones. It proved that this was a show that was sticking around and that RT had staying power. If this season failed, RvB would probably just be remembered as this funny Halo show. But it succeeded because they wanted the show to keep succeeding and be good, and that effort shows.

#1. Improved Characterizations

The thing that I enjoyed most about Season 1 was the character interactions. They just had natural chemistry and their interactions were funny. The characters themselves though were a little one-note. They had personality, but they didn’t really stand out when you compare them to other comedies like The Simpsons or South Park. I guess that RT realized this as well because this is where the characters really begin to become the same ones that we know now. Not all of them mind you like Simmons and Tucker are the least fleshed out here, but even then the signs of who they would become are there with things like Simmons clinginess to Sarge and the joke about Tucker’s rock, as well as the previously mentioned show of competence when pushed.

Donut and Grif show more of their personality, with Donut expressing his hobbies like home decor and growing to like his lightish-red armor. Grif shows his more lazy slacker attributes, like sleeping during meetings and forgetting the ammo, and his unhealthy habits like smoking and his constant eating. Which he’s pretty much doing intentionally to annoy Simmons and mess up the parts that he got from him. Lopez also got a lot of personalities now that he can talk. Namely, after the Reds nearly kill him and the Blues use him for their own means, he hates them all and his apathetic personality has stuck ever since. Poor guy has had such a hard time, haha. And I already went into Caboose, so there's no need to repeat myself. Even Shelia got sassier this season~

The one I think got the most improvement though is Sarge. In S1, he was just kind of a standard sergeant character you could find in just about any military movie, and the voice reflected it. Here? Matt just goes off the wall. He said in the S2 commentary that Sarge is pretty much the combination of various 50’s character tropes, like the grumpy old guy and the mad scientist. It shows. Sarge’s hatred of Blues and love of warfare are much more evident, especially in the finale. His hatred of Grif is also much more played up. We see that he is absolutely insane with his conspiracy theories about Lopez being brainwashed by the Blues instead of reprogrammed and turning Simmons into a cyborg instead of just getting a new robot. Sarge is the opposite of sensible, and having this guy be the leader and forcing everyone to follow his plans due to it is freakin’ hilarious. Matt exaggerating the accent from this point on only adds to this characterization and is much, much more fitting.

The characters, in my opinion, are the best part of Red vs Blue. This season demonstrates that very well. Unlike S1 where there were only shades of their later portrayal, this one uses broad strokes. I think some of the better voice acting can also be due to this since the cast now has more of a character to fool around with instead of just having to more or less act like their everyday selves. The characters were stronger, and as such the interaction and humor were even better. As such, it is my favorite part of Red vs Blue Season 2. Can they keep it up in Season 3? Well… we’ll find out soon~

#rvb #rvb reviews #top likes/dislikes

[ghostmaggie]

hey so in your MKAT post (which you’re 100% correct about) you also mention you’ve had some issues with RT in the past. i’m fairly new in the fandom and also watch his other show iZombie, but i wanted to ask what issues they were?? i like to be informed about the media i consume lmao

Oof okay so I'm on mobile and therefore this will probably be more rant-y and opinion-based than you might be looking for, so I invite anyone with opinions or sources or thoughts or contradictions to reply or shoot me asks and I'll share them (plus I'm curious of other thoughts) but,,

Idk if this was clear in my original post, but my issues are mainly contained within the actual show as opposed to things about him irl, because idk that much outside of secondhand info, so take it with a grain of salt I guess, lol

Also, I feel like I need to say that this is really negative about vmars--which, to be clear, is a show I love dearly--and I know sometimes I like to avoid negative commentary on things I enjoy because it gets stuck in my head and ruins my enjoyment. So if that's you, feel free to skip this! I wont be offended and you shouldn't feel bad about it! It's also just one person's opinion, and I'm most definitely not always right :)

So mostly setting aside the brand new season because I have no clue how to talk around spoilers effectively, in short (with spoilers up through the movie and maybe some spoilers for the books and new season, I cant really tell at this point):

(Editor's note post finishing writing: it's not even all my thoughts, but it's not short. Sorry.)

RT shares in the grand tradition of showrunners I do not care for along with Steven Moffat and Jason Rothenberg, for many parallel reasons. Moffat thinks hes cleverer than he really is, jroth is a douche about romance and character motivation, and both are smug jerks who drove me away from shows I used to love, so.

So number one I guess would just be the sense that he really fucking does not care about the fans. It's especially egregious, as I've seen others point out, when he literally would never have gotten his show back (after driving it to the ground) without the LITERAL MONEY donated by devoted fans. I'm not saying you have to do things just because fans want them, but to go out of your way to do things you know fans will hate just to be contrary is,, yeah.

He thinks he's so very smart, and yet his plots are riddled with holes and inconsistencies (hello, Moffat). It speaks, to me, of a lack of respect for everyone involved--fans, writers, actors, crew, critics, just everyone. Write down a timeline. Something. Try.

One of my bigger issues, though, is that the misogyny in vmars is just...beyond appalling. Not just narratively--i understand representing the flaws in society, I guess, but veronica is honestly one of the most misogynistic parts of the show, and she is never ever ever held accountable for it. Ever. The show never sends the message that she's wrong for the atrocious way she treats, to name a few, Madison, Kendall, Gia, and even Carrie during the s1 plot with Adam Scott. The carrie thing is especially fucked up bc iirc the narrative only condemns her for guessing the victim wrong. (As another note, her treatment of other marginalized groups or basically anyone she ever treats badly--logan, Keith, Wallace, weevil, the list goes on--is rarely or never narratively critiqued. Veronica mars can do no wrong, apparently, even when she's obviously wrong.)

She's far from the only example of misyogny, of course--duncan's s2 dream about madonna/whore meg/veronica comes to mind in screaming color, yet donut is somehow treated like a prince forever and ever and v's lost true love even though he's basically the scum of the earth (pardon, my true feelings are coming out a little here).

Somewhat connected is, of course, the show's treatment of rape in general (hi, season 3), but especially Duncan's rape of veronica. I'm still not over the way they walked it back to "not a rape" and took back holding him accountable. I live for all the fanfiction that addresses it, because at least there people remember that, whether he "thought she could consent" or not, he literally thought she was his sister and didnt know. That's uninformed consent at best, babe!

And if that wasn't bad enough, to "resolve" that plotline and then come back at the end of season 2 to be all, "jk! You WERE raped, by SOMEONE ELSE [too]! Enjoy that reenabled trauma, and some chlamidya to boot!"

Speaking of retconned instances of sex, how about that piz/veronica tape that suddenly became full on sex in the movie? Fun times.

My favorite bout of misogynistic writing, you ask? That would have to be "narratively-enforced nicest girl in school who stands by her friends and is sweet and loyal becomes a raging hell bitch yet also the representation of misogynistic virginal innocence because she was knocked up and abandoned by Mr. Narratively-Claimed-to-be-Perfect-but-Actually-the-Worst and completely undergoes a 180 personality change then dies for plot reasons" because holy fucking shit.

Okay sorry I got way more into that than I meant to. I'll try to wrap up.

RT does a very jroth job of treating fans like shit for giving a shit about a romantic relationship he created. He acts like fans are a bunch of stupid girls for caring about romance, but then pushed it at every level of promo to reel us back in. Make up your mind, asshole. It's desperately unfair to bait fans with romantic promo (even in the form of an inane and ooc love triangle) and then snap back with "oooh it's noir, shut up about the romance!"

If that's how you feel, stop making every other plot point and promo about the fucking romance.

RT seems to want to be making a show that he isnt. He wants to be grimdark and angsty and awful, I guess, and while there have been elements of effective darkness throughout vmars, they have been tempered by the show as a whole. That made it (mostly palatable) for people like me. To flip the script now does a disservice to long term fans and does nothing to attract new viewers. If you want to make a different show, make a different show. Don't drive beloved characters into the ground because you're bitter about how your work is perceived post-death of the author.

To wrap up--he hates character growth. He must really hate it. This is dipping a little into the new season, but he just. Won't let anyone develop. Well. Maybe some people. A very few. But not veronica. Never veronica. Because heaven forbid your main character, the person we've followed for 15 years, be anything other than she was at 16. Her personality, her approach to the world, none of it has changed. Which begs the question: what has been the fucking point?

Sorry this is so long. I'm not sure I even answered your question, so feel free to ask me to try again 😂

#post #vmars #vmars spoilers #maybe #thanks for asking

[ajvlogsandstuff]

RWBY V5E13: Downfall (SPOILERS) and what I didn’t like about it

Now, I should place some prefaces before the pitchforks and torches come out. THIS IS NOT A RWDE POST. I love RWBY. I see it as a truly creative show and after nearly 5 years of watching, I am extremely invested in the world, characters and issues of the universe. Now, despite that, I am aware that the show has issues - some minute, some glaring, and some vastly blown out of proportion. I am not one of those people who send death threats to the CRWBY because of a stupid shipping war (you know which one I am talking about) or a character’s death, but I also don’t just accept everything the writers do blindly, as being demonstrated in this post below. That being said, I have one or two issues, one particularly major to me, that I want to discuss in the post below. Obviously, there are MAJOR spoilers under the cut below, so make sure you have watched the episode before reading this - as despite what I am saying, it is still one of the better episodes of the past volume - and then come back to read this. Now, let’s get into this…

So to start with, I would like to discuss my thoughts on the volume as a whole so far. I honestly have liked this volume a lot more than Volume 4 for one main reason: I haven’t had every episode be ruined for me by that half of the FNDM. Not saying that the FNDM is bad - some of the content being produced and discussed is amazing and I love it - but like most over fandoms on this site, the negatives vastly outweigh the positives. Be it death threats (of which I have received several from the fandom - more later), ships being forced down my throat and general overreactions to everything, I have tried to regulate the time I spend reacting to the show more with friends online and in person than scrolling the RWBY tag. 

But as I was saying, Volume 5 has actually been a vast improvement despite what everyone says: the graphics have had such a drastic increase from just a few months. The action is much better than Volume 4 - everything feels less floaty again and the environments for the fights (i.e. cargo ship, falling rocks, burning house) are much more varied and dynamic. Whilst the story has had moments of slowing down, it never felt to me as if it was unnecessary. Maybe some of the middle episodes could have been cut down to 1 longer episodes, but it doesn’t really matter to me in the long run. I will be posting a few posts in the coming weeks discussing my thoughts on how particular characters have played out this season (the first one being quite an interesting read given what has happened in this episode), but if relevant, I will discuss them later in this post.

Now, this isn’t to say I hated this episode. The Cinder and Raven fight is quite possibly the most visual and high-octane fight in the show so far, and had a song that I need to own right now. The bits of action we got with Emerald, Mercury and Hazel were… good, just give us more please. And the two semblance confirmations - Jaune’s and particularly Hazel’s - were interesting ideas and leave lots of room for future development. However, for all the good things we have in this episode, there were issues. So after all that, here we go.

1. The lack of screen time with villains:

Now, this isn’t just an issue in regards to this episode, more the show as a whole, but the villains do not get enough screen time in contrast to the other characters. Yes I know we spent pretty much half the episode with Cinder and Raven, but I would like to focus on the other villains present, being Emerald, Mercury, Hazel, Lionheart and Adam (this won’t be the last you will hear of Adam in this post, trust me).

First, I’ll start with the easiest on this list - Hazel, as he got a vast amount more than the other four present. Hazel in the past few episodes has been amazing, a breath of fresh air in contrast to the rest of the villains - a semi-unique backstory, an intriguing personality and motive, and one of my favourite weapons in the show. My issue is that due to so much focus being on Hazel crammed into the last three episodes that focus has shifted from where it could have been developing less developed characters. I still look forward to seeing more of this Mr. Hyde style villain, but let there be focus on the others.

Next up is the dynamic duo, Emerald and Mercury. My issue in this sense is that there is nowhere near enough screen time or development for these two. All we know about Mercury from his four Volumes on the show is that his dad was an alcoholic hitman who abused him, and that he has prosthesis, whilst all we know about Emerald is that she is a street rat that Cinder took in. That is it from FOUR VOLUMES. And I know you may argue that “other characters like Tyrian and Watts weren’t developed well”, but the point isn’t that they haven’t had development, it’s the fact that they have had so little development, despite having ample opportunity to. Mercury was one of the main characters in Volume 3 and everything we know about him was from a less than one minute scene in one episode. My point is that they have been in this area for 2 and a half episodes and have just been there in the background as goons for the protagonists to fight. The Yang and Mercury rematch should have been one of the highlights on the season, and we see it in the distance for about 3 seconds. Just give them more time, or just give us a scene of the two of them talking in Salem’s castle. ANYTHING! They are the only villains that the audience can in some way align with, so let us see them talk.

Lionheart is an odd situation. Episode 11 provided us with a lot of development for him, especially the revelation that he has been working with Salem for years. And then we get to see his thought processes of if he captures Oscar/Ozpin and brings him to Salem, that she will let him be free. “Yes, this is the development I have wanted for this intriguing character - what is he going to do in the next two episodes, I wonder?” Oh, sorry Andrew from two weeks ago, he does nothing except fire a few shots at Oscar. Really? You have the opportunity for a really interesting dynamic between Ozpin and Lionheart and you just have him sit on the sidelines. But don’t worry, it could be worse - you could do nothing, just like…

2. The writing of Adam Taurus:

Adam. Oh, Adam. Don’t get me wrong, I love you, Rooster Teeth. I really do. But this is the most insulting piece of writing I have ever seen for a character. Now, I will preface this by saying that Adam is my favourite character in the show, as he is the only character to have maintained a constant level of villainy throughout. Cinder did things under Salem’s orders. Tyrian did things under Salem’s orders. Hazel did things under Salem’s orders. Adam did all of those things FOR HIMSELF. He didn’t have to cut off Yang’s arm - he did it out of bloodlust. He didn’t have to kill Sienna - he did it out of a want for power. He didn’t have to send his forces to attack the Belladonna household - he did it because he wanted to. This man has been constantly portrayed in every scene he is in as a ruthless, vindictive and remorseless terrorist. And what does he do for three episodes? NOTHING! He plants the bombs on the tower and just stays there! This is the man that aided in the fall of Beacon, took out the leader of the White Fang in one hit, and even at one point intimidated Cinder Fall.

But okay, they may have just finished planting the bombs and were preparing to fall back to a perimeter. Let’s say that is what is happening - give RT the benefit of the doubt. Then as they fall back, Blake shows up. Okay, coincidental timing, but that’s RWBY for you. But who cares - this is the confrontation we have been waiting for, not just since the fall of Beacon, but since the Black Trailer. Adam was one of the first characters introduced in the show, introduced even before Yang. This is what Blake has been training for the past few seasons. The embodiment of her past trauma.The literal figurehead of her nightmares. And guess what?

She beats him in one hit. ONE HIT. No fight, no fitting ending, no last laugh. She defeats him with a FIST TO THE BACK. Yes, I know it is poetic - Adam has defeated everyone with one hit, so he gets defeated with one hit. But think about it. We have seen Adam fight in the Black trailer - he is clearly superior to Blake in terms of combat. He should have wiped the floor with her.

“Oh, but he was reckless and tricked by Blake’s semblance” - this man was her mentor and partner. He was probably the person who helped her unlock her semblance in the first place, never mind the months/years they spent together fighting in the White Fang. He wouldn’t forget about her semblance, it is just lazy writing. Blake has said in the show that she always runs away from everything, and that her semblance is an extension of that. The whole point of her arc is that she can’t keep running away from him. And she defeats him by using her SEMBLANCE. All ideas of it being poetic and monumental are thrown away by that point alone. 

And that would have been bad enough, but they also had to make Adam’s character a thundering dumbass at the flick of a switch. Not only does he threaten to blow himself up knowing that it would kill himself, despite being the most egocentric character in the show, he also only brought 8 MEN WITH HIM! This man is a leader of a terrorist military force and brought 8 men with him to one of the most important missions in years. 

Now this wouldn’t be so bad if they had made it seem like Adam would go down this route, but in the brief amount we had seen him earlier in the Volume,  he was made out to have become more ruthless and unhinged than we saw him in Volume 3, a dictator style leader who would transform the White Fang into more of a threat. But all of that development gets thrown out of the window when you completely shift a character’s personality on a dime.

And my main issue with this is that most of the community is loving it, happy that he is gone and wilfully accepting the writing. I am not going to petition RT to change the show like some have for other issues (such as #BringBackPyrrha) or send death threats. I know that there is still an episode left and anything could happen. Hell, Adam may even bounce back better from this, where instead of leading the White Fang, he ruthlessly hunts down Blake and keeps to his promise of “destroying everything she loves”. I just hope that this isn’t the last we have seen of my favourite silver-ey—- i mean, favourite character.

3. BMBLB:

Oh boy, I am going to get hate for this. Now look, I don’t hate BMBLB, never have. My issue with the ship is the obsessive nature of the FNDM rather than with the show. I used to be a Black Sun shipper (I’m not anymore, but I still think they should get together from a screenwriter’s standpoint) and every single time I would post about ships, I would get barraged by BMBLB shippers. My main issue is people taking a moment of any two characters interacting and saying it is proof that the ship is canon. And I know other ships do this, but never to the extent I have seen BMBLB. 

So, straight up, THIS IS NOT AN ISSUE WITH THE EPISODE, but just something I would like to say to the FNDM. Just because two characters interact doesn’t mean they are canon. So, I would just like to provide some context to a particular moment in this episode. 

When Blake first enters the hall - yes, she does acknowledge Yang specifically - but this is for one reason. The last time Blake saw Yang, she was being carried away unconscious with a missing arm. Blake knows how ruthless Adam is and assumed that she was dead. Blake ran while Yang was still in a critical condition. She says Yang because she is amazed that she survived, likely incited by having just seen Adam and recalling what happened. 

I’m just going to leave it at that, don’t tear me apart. Please.

4. The waste of potential

This point is less important, but I feel it still needs to be touched upon. Now, there is still an episode left and, as I said prior, anything could still happen. My point being that - to me - Cinder’s death would be a waste of potential. Yes, it wouldn’t effect the show as much as Raven dying instead or someone like Weiss dying, but killing off not only a Maiden, but currently the heroes’ main antagonist and rival would be too rushed. 

Cinder is a character who has ties to so many characters: she is Ruby’s foil and is the only character so far effected by her silver-eyes. She is Jaune’s main antagonist in the series, essentially being his final goal in terms of avenging Pyrrha. She is the mentor to both Mercury and Emerald, a rival to both Watts and Tyrian, and an apprentice to Salem, never mind the ramifications of being the first (known) human-Grimm hybrid. Killing her here with someone who she only met a few episodes ago would feel too contrived in my opinion. 

“But Raven froze her as he was falling”. Raven broke out of ice literally last episode and, oh yeah, Maidens can fly. Also, if she is dead, someone would have gotten her Maiden powers already. But anyway, I’m just spit-balling theories now. I think it’s time we concluded this monster of a post now.

Conclusion

Now look, despite (almost) all of the points above, I did still like the episode and I am hyped as all hell for the finale next week. I just hope that some of the issues are resolved, some sooner than others. AKA, “Please RT, don’t fuck up all the work you did with Adam. If this is the end of his story, then you have wasted vast potential”.

Anyway, I hope that you all enjoyed this discussion/rant and I am most excited to review the Volume next week. I will be posting lots of character analysis and theories in the coming weeks too, so look out for those.

Yours sincerely,

Andrew Sangster

p.s. just keep writing adam pls

#rwby #rwby5 #rwby volume 5 #rwby spoilers #ruby rose #weiss schnee #blake belladonna #yang xiao long #jaune arc #nora valkyrie #lie ren #cinder fall #raven branwen #qrow branwen #hazel rainart #downfall #adam taurus #white fang #haven academy #emerald sustrai #mercury black #oscar pine #ozpin #sun wukong #kali belladonna #ghira belladonna #vernal #ilia amitola

[spottedlekkudancer]

Same Heart

Chapter 2 - Onslaught        CH1

SUM: You are a Colonel from the Battlecruiser Absolution now aboard Finalizer in an attempt to close a banking deal for the Order abroad. Not much has ever given you cause to seek a significant other before, however, when several people on the ship start taking a personal interest in you things may change.(KyloxReaderxHux)

Word Count: 4000+

Warnings: N/A

The next morning came swiftly: sleep having taken you out like a highly trained assassin after retiring to your room. You had the day off but your body’s internal clock wouldn’t allow you to sleep in. So the next thing on your mind was your ever growling stomach. Typically you would just have your provisions brought to your quarters, however, as a guest on this ship you would have to dress in your uniform and go to the cafeteria again.

After grabbing your own tray you stood awkwardly in a corner of the dining area, scanning the tables for your Lieutenant. You previously sent him a message asking if he had already eaten and if not if he would share the meal time with you. Eating with Zack was better than eating alone with all trooper and grey coats’ eyes on you. You spotted him quickly: he already had taken a seat with an unmasked stormtrooper and to your surprise Matt the radar tech.

Zack gave a quick smile to you as you sat down next to the trooper, filling in the square. He was already deep in a conversation.

“Ridiculous, where do you get this stuff man? Are you like in love with this guy?” The trooper gave a short laugh: his unshaven double chin giggling with his own delight. “Why don’t you give him a kiss for me, huh?” Zack chuckled at this as well, Matt on the other hand seemed very unamused.

“What are we talking about?” It was a strange thing to hear when you were just engaging the three men.

“Matt over here wants to bed Kylo Ren.” The heavy man pushed the food on his tray around. You noted his ID number, he was part of the 501st Legion.

Zack was the one to answer next. Clearing your confused expression. “Ignore Tim, Colonel (L/N), He’s just teasing. Matt here was telling us some of the things his friend knows about the Commander.”

“We’re off duty, Just (F/N) will do for today.” You corrected, then immediately turned to Matt. His face was hot with anger. “What things? I’d like to know.”

“Uuugh here we go.” Tim groaned with his mouth full. You shot him a look of discontent and he momentarily turned his attention away from you and Matt to talk to Zack.

Matt’s hands slid off the table into his lap. “Why do you care?”

His tone was one you did not desire when someone addressed you, but he was upset. You were letting a lot of things you would normally reprimand go on the Finalizer. “For a better understanding of our Commander maybe. Maybe I just want to be included in a friendly back and forth. Take it however you like.”

Matt straightened in his seat. “Well how do you feel about him?” He turned the conversation on you first, some of the animosity he carried leaving.

“I know nothing about the man. Therefore, my opinion is null.” You took a few bites before continuing. Matt wasn't going to speak again until you answered him. “But if you must know: I feel like he is a loose canon. Or at the very least needs to find a coping method for his feelings other than hurting the things and people around him. I guess it would be understandable if they insulted him directly, but

I mean we are all on the same side here. Do you not agree?”

The way his brow knitted gave away that he in fact did not agree. He glared you down for a long intense moment, drawing the attention of Tim and Zack. Without any body language to warn you he shot up out of his chair and swiped his arm across the table. Successfully knocking everyone’s trays to the floor. He didn’t once brake eye contact with you as he left; his nostrils flaring with every breath.

For a moment you were stunned. Zack’s voice was the one to break your empty thoughts. “(F/N)?”

You connected gazes with him and then back down at your tunic. It was splattered with your unfinished breakfast. “Well. Guess I’ll be leaving too.” You brushed a piece of grey protein matter off your shoulder.

As you departed the other two men shared a shrug and returned to the mess hall’s buffet.

After a brief refresh and change of clothes you checked your data pad. There was a new message from one of the many officers. They were requesting your presence in the room Kylo had destroyed the night before; wanting a verbal and written witness statement. The latter of the two was easy, you had typed it out before leaving the scene and all you had to do was forward it to the officer in charge.

When you arrived two petty officers greeted you. You immediately noticed the back end of Matt. He was on all fours with his head stuck in one of the damaged panels. You mindlessly answered there 101 questions as you watched him work. He really had no idea what he was doing and you wondered where supervisor was.

“Thank you for your time Colonel.” The female officer nodded to you as she and her partner left.

Time. Time was all you had today, and time meant boredom. Boredom lead to bad decisions on your part. Like the one you were making right now: to go and talk to Matt again. You couldn’t put your finger on why you kept torturing yourself; approaching the man had yet to be a pleasant experience. Maybe it was the way that baggy uniform was trying to hide that more than perfect butt of his that got you to stick around just now. He did have it so perfectly on display for you.

That was a wildly inappropriate thought. You scolded yourself.

“What up Matt.” You made an attempt at sounding like the stormtrooper that kicked his wrench yesterday. His reaction was better than you anticipated, apparently your impersonation was good. He jolted up, hitting his head hard on the metal encasing he hovered between. He grunted and rubbed at the spot, pulling himself out slowly this time. “Whoa, hey you okay?” You leaned against to equipment next to him.

Every line in his face grew deep with a frown. “What do you want? Don’t you have something better to do?” Kylo wasn’t the least interested in making eye contact with you. Still all he felt was your stare burning into his head. You insulted him to his face, unknowingly at that, but nevertheless. If he looked at you now he might do something he couldn’t take back. He wasn’t just ready to blow his cover.

“Nope.” You said with plane cheerfulness. It was unprofessional, but so was everyone else besides Hux on this ship.

“Go bother someone else. I’m busy.”

You rolled your eyes at his dismissal, you were getting use to the rude way he rejected you. “You’d be less busy if you blunted that red and green wire and disconnect the TMA strip.”

He halted his movements.

“I mean you are trying to turn all power in this room off safely so it can be replaced right?” You watched carefully as the man nodded. “Good well then you will need these.” You squatted to his level and handed him a pair cable strippers, and then pointed to a thick red and green striped wired deep in the computer’s box. “Remove about two inches from the end.”

He took the pliers from you. “Why does a Colonel know how to do this?”

You smiled glad he was taking interest. “It’s not like i was trained in it. I just pride myself in my droid building skills. Not hard to figure this out from that. Same mechanics.”

“You have built a droid?” there was disbelief laced in the question.

“Well no. More like re-built. I have a B1 battle droid I use as an assistant waiting for me back on Absolution.”

The frown he carried faded and his shoulders started relaxing. “Clone War era. Why even bother with something so out of date?”

“Well Her programing isn’t out of date. I change it periodically.” You handed him the next tools he would need.

“Her?” It was an odd thing to address a droid as, especially a B1.

“Oh yes, I installed a RTS model translator chip. It was a surprise to me too when it influenced a feminine personality. So I ended up changing her name from Bucket to Sterling.”

“Sterling?”

“Ya. I had her painted a shiny gray. That sandy brown never was appealing to me, and almost every thing from that era comes in it. I also equipped her with k-FM top 40 droid music and a YYTW-c4 program that allows her to play orchestral music. She really seems to enjoy singing while cleaning.” You rambled on about Stirling. Even if he wasn't actually interested you jumped at any chance to talk about your accomplishment with her. She was the closest thing you had to a friend and you had worked so hard and long on getting her just right.

Kylo still wasn’t looking at you, but he could feel your aura light up with elation as you went on about the stupid droid. “It’s a B1 and you have it cleaning?”

You scoffed. “Come on, let's be honest. Those battle droids weren’t very good at fighting. Their whole shtick was to come in overwhelming numbers and hope they shot their target. But Stirling does still carry a hand blaster. I gave her a DC-17.”

That was something else old enough to be a collectible. “What’s with all the ‘rise of the Empire’ shit. Are you obsessed with that era or something?”

You scratched the back of your head thinking. No one had asked you that before. “I wouldn’t say Obsessed. But ya, kinda. I guess this huge fascination with droids and old tech stuff  came from my love for Darth Vader. I heard once as a child that he built a droid and was good with fixing things before he became the infamous inquisitor. Since then I wanted to build a companion of my own.”

That one caught Kylo completely off guard. “Darth Vader?” He stopped working, anger melting away enough to watch you instead.

You were looking up at the ceiling, in a day dream like haze. “Don’t get me wrong. As much as I admire him I know I could never be anything like the man. I’m no force user, but just the sheer power and restraint he had over others and himself. It’s awe inspiring, ya know?”

Perhaps you weren't as bad as he originally thought. Kylo figured you at least had good taste in this matter.

“Matt! You done with that box yet!?” The brass voice of Matt’s supervisor interrupted your train of thought. She had come around the corner and into the room.

“Almost ma’am” He spoke through gritted teeth, not at all trying to hid his loathing for the woman.

You took a step forward. “That’s my fault. I have been providing a distraction with questions about the extent of the damage.” You passed her. “Excuse me.”

“Of course Colonel. Not a problem.” She sounded less irritated with your excuse for Matt.

Now the question of what to do next stood. You didn’t want to go and just sulk in your room, nor did you want to go to a common area. Making friends wasn’t something you enjoyed. Too many years of “professional relationships only” being beat into you. You wished you were aboard Absolution and able to do real work. Work was your only purpose in life.

A thought struck you. Perhaps with permission Hux would allow you to do more under his command, as if this was a short term reassignment instead of a business visit.

Hux was where he always was: the bridge; his choses team of Lieutenants bustling around with his orders. You decided on at least trying to be pleasent with him. You catch more bees with honey than vinegar, after all. “General, Sir.” You called from the rear observation deck. “A moment of your time, please?” He excused himself quietly from the subordinate to oblige you. When he got close enough you continued with your request in hushed tones: feeling that if you came off more abrasive like you usually did he might say no. “Sir, may I be short with you?”

Though at times you could have blunt or snarky comebacks they were never directed towards him. You were always to speak in a roundabout or elegant way even when upset with him. So naturally the question peaked his interest. “Is this about Ren?” He wondered if the bloody Knight had insulted you again or even attacked you. The man’s rage was predictable and more so, worthy of a complaint. You shook your head negatively. A small wave of relief for Hux. “Then I don’t see why not.”

“Sir, I’m not use to down time. Do you have anything you’d like done that you-yourself can not attend to at the moment?”

Hux didn’t even take a moment to think. He had a long list of tasks every day that he couldn’t delegate to the officers under him. But a Colonel, he could use. “How do you feel about carrying out discipline?”

“Anything will do Sir. I don’t mind being the ‘bad guy’.” This was true. It had bothered you when you were first assigned to such things, but that faded quickly. The first Order was already viewed as a monster among most of the galaxy. So a few more handfuls of people was little more than a nuisance.

Hux was pleased. “I’ll send you a list. Sergeant Tolle will need a shuttle prepared for him. He is to be demoted and shipped out to Solken3 Base. The others are minor offenses and you may deal with how you wish.” He waited for your acceptance.

Whatever Tolle did must have been serious. Solken3 was a wasteland where the Order sent people they wanted to forget about. “I’ll have it done by next meal Sir.”

Without delay you set upon completing this small mission: first preparing  transport for Tolle, next sending troopers to Tolle’s dorm to pack his things for him while he was working, then issuing the appropriate documents to Solken3, and finally several hours later- when all your ducks were in a row- pulling the Sergeant out of duty to give him the bad news. Naturally he wanted to argue the sudden change, but you would hear none of it. If you needed too you would have a pair of troopers escort him to his ship. He knew this and the arguing didn’t last long.

Taking care of the others was far more simple. Some you sent to reconditioning, others to janitorial duty on the lower levels for the rest of the standard quarter year. More often than not Hux would have pulled them into the training room very nonchalantly and pitted them against a fighter far superior than them, or simply instruct a group of guards to beat on said individual. This however, never sat right with you. It was something he picked up in his youth and never grew out of. Knowing his father Brendol like you did you weren’t surprised by the development of man’s behaviour early on. You grew up knowing only this Hux and you use to wonder if Armitage was ever innocent and kind.

It was when you reached the last person on your list that you had your first bit of real trouble with the task at hand. You were under the impression going into the conversation that this would be the easiest of the lot, that’s why you saved it for last. Yalhem, a petty officer, had failed a block sweep. There was no contraband found in his bunking, but it was unusually untidy. You figured a verbal slap on the writs would be enough to satisfy everyone.

Apparently not.

“If this happens again you will face consequences. Do I make myself clear?”

Kylo overheard you chiding the younger officer. Your tone was the same you used with him the night before and this made his blood run hot. He dropped his previous thoughts on what he was doing and went to follow the clear authoritative reprove. After tuning corners he found you. Comparatively to him you were small and he found any other though of you was incorrect. Literally beneath him. You were petite, inconsistent, and annoying with the way you thought you could run things.

This was the third time he saw you trying to make your presence hold some meaning other than a paper lackey known. Kylo was having none of it. Your place was behind a desk; not berating and chastising every one of his subsidiary workers, including himself.

“(L/N)” his long legs made for determined strides, stepping in between you and the officer he did not know the name of. He pushed you by the shoulder back some making every inch of his incorrigible towering frame vividly menacing. “Three people on this ship have the power to dictate over these men. You are not one of them.”

“Excuse you?!” This was the last straw with him. For too long he had shown disrespect to you. “I have the  sovereignty to do as I see fit at anytime.” You couldn't help but think about why this guy was always around at the worst times. Yalhem started slithering away slowly, far more frightened than you were by the brute in front of him.

“No, you need to mind your place!” spit flew out of the enraged man’s mouth. Whipping out his saber and cutting you down would be an easy thing for him right now.

You crossed your hands over your chest and lowered your voice. Something you had picked up when dealing with aggressive men on the daily. If you stayed the calmer of the two, the more likely you were to come out the victor or an argument. “Maybe you should take a hard look in the mirror techie. You aren’t one of those ‘three people’ either.”

Techie. Matt. Kylo was still in his radar technician clothes. His realization of the mistake came too late, he would have to continue to lambaste you for the sake of pride.

“Matt. I don’t know if you think you have some kind of special place here because of your elegend relationship with the Commander, but no amount of favoritism is going to spare you from my hand. You are just as insignificant to me and everyone else on this ship as a pile of Wampa pie.” You made an obscenely disgusted face, emphasizing the offel nature of the beasts’ excrement.

Kylo, or rather Matt was fuming. Now at both you and himself. “At least I am not called on half way across the galaxy to sign an otherwise worthless document.”

You opened your mouth to speak but in an instant of realization were struck with awe. A brief recovery. “How do you know that?” It was not announced to anyone what you were here for, for all anyone under Hux knew you could be a new permanent. You shook this off too, returning to your upbraiding.  “Never mind. Weather you like it or not I AM your superior, and will not be spoken to in such a way.”

“Funny, You haven't corrected me on it before. I thought you liked it.” Through gritted anger his words were thick with sarcasm.

“Oh yes supper funny.” You came back dropping the higher ground to match the derision he gave. “As funny as it will be to watch you clean the sweat off the training room floors every night for the next standard half year.”

Kylo pointed an accusing finger. “You still don't get it. No one gave you the right to-

“Hux gave me jurisdiction over punishments while i'm here. And I’m positive you wouldn’t speak to him like this.” Your argument had turned to one resembling siblings or an old married couple. Too full of himself to back down, both feeling everything they said was the work of a god.

“You’d be really fucking surprised princess-

A chime came from the tablet in your arms. You held up a finger to hush Matt and surprisingly it worked. Though as you were looking down at the notification you missed the fact Matt received a message too.

Return to the bridge.

It was from Hux. “Speak of the devil.” You murmured. You didn’t bother engaging Matt again. He only lead to more trouble.

Kylo’s message on the other hand said something for more pressing to him and wouldn’t be able to keep up the fight if he wanted to.

The Supreme Leader has called. Where are you?

You snatched the com from Mitaka, glaring him down into submission. “Lieutenant, patch me into the main Hangar now!”

This time he does as you say, clicking away on the control panel at your hip. He gives you the nod to go.

“Flight Control. This is Colonel (L/N). I need six standby fighters, Zeta and Epsilon squads, launched to execute Tango-Delta-48.”

A staticked voice links back to you. “Uh.. Sir? This is Flight Control, Hangar one is locked down until

“That is an ORDER Officer.” You cut him off, well aware of the excuses.

“Yes Sir, right away.” His speech is hurried this time. “All stations get ready for a draft we’re opening the shield doors. On my mark. Ten. nine. Eight...”

When you had arrived in the main hub of the ship Hux wasn’t be found. Instead you were greeted by a very disgruntled Mitaka. For nearly a half hour the two of you exchanged small talk while waiting for the general to return. Then something unusual happened. An officer called out that resistance ships were pulling into your quadrant from hyperspace. The kind of ships were yet to be determined, however, that wasn’t to be analyzed now.

The ability to assess and determine the details of a situation make the Order’s elite revered and respected as vigilant guardians of maintaining peace and justice over their respective systems. In these situations careful coordination and patience  between man and machine is imperative to the success of a mission. That’s why you lept into action. If Hux nor Kylo was around to give orders you’d be sitting ducks.

Mitaka was quick to advise otherwise, even going as far to say he would give commands in Hux’s wake. This was unacceptable. He had no Navy or Army command training. Once this point was firmly made he had little left to argue with.

As the rebel group drops out of hyperspace the ties are ordered to maneuver defensively around the perimeter to ensure maximum coverage of the Finalizer’s surface. Following up on their new instructions the relentless squadrons exercised caution with the approaching battle. Once orbit has been secured you order the deployment of two tie bombers and a tie defender.

You signal for all coms live. Every word exchanged amongst your men is important.

“Bombers Zulu-918, 938 prepare initiate depart sequence.”

“Defender Foxtrot-005 stand by for final safety checklist.”

“Zulu-938 Roger that.”

“Zulu-918 Roger that”

“Foxtrot-005 standing by, Roger.”

“Foxtrot-005 crew is secured and pre-flight list checks out.”

“Good on go, Foxtrot-005 Roger that.”

“Colonel, All personnel accounted for. With your authorization we’re ready.”

Your calmness, that cool and calculating face, was returning. This was good news, but the tension behind your shoulder grew. You could do this. It had been sometime since your last fleet battle but you were confidant. You had been taught well, even under Grand Admiral Thrawn’s standards. “Good work men, you are released. Safe flight and let's keep the formations tight out there.”

“Zulu-918, 938, Foxtrot-oo5 You’re authorized to initiate departure.”  

“Zulu-918 Cross-locked engaged, disengaging primary docking. Confirmed.”

“Zulu-938 Confirmed. Transferring vector heading for hangar door approach.”

“Foxtrot-005  green light on final pre-launch sequence confirmed.”

“Colonel, Flight command confirms all troops secured and departing. Flight Command standing by.”

(Mun: I know guys I’m sorry. It’s late. I’m a procrastinator. And I know “cliff hangers” are a shit move. BUT It’s getting long. It would be well over 7000wc if I had EVERYTHING I wanted in this chapter. No worries. That just means another long chapter next week or an extra chapter total.)

Thanks for reading <3

#Same Heart #SH #part 2 #chapter 2 #kylo ren #kylo x reader #hux x reader #kylo ren imagine #kylo ren imagines #kyloxreader #huxxreader #hux #general hux #hux imagine #hux imagines #kylo ren one shot #hux one shot #matt #matt imagine #matt the technician #matt the radar technician #imagine #imagines #star wars #star wars imagine #tfa #tlj #tfa imagine #tlj imagine #drabble

[ki6-7-l8r]

Slacktivism For A New America!

My Lazy-Ass Slacktivism Manifesto.... July 30, 2016

How stupid are Americans really? You have a rigged DNC election and Sanders assaulted and threatened with violence both against himself and his family; and the sell-out

media and political apparatus shoving Hillary down our throats, and for most Americans, that is just OK. Most could not be bothered to put on RT, or find some decent

alternative media on You Tube or Google; which would take just a few seconds, to tell them what is actually going on. Prices are so high in relation to wages that 60% of

the US population does not have even $400 to access in an emergency. This is creating a dearth of spenders for many retailers, who are trying to create incentives to

have people max out their credit. Even this has been tapped out and many retailers are closing their doors. Private wealth, (Rich People) has outpaced economic growth to

the point that there is not enough currency in circulation to sustain the economy for much longer, because most people have no money. Some crash in immanent. There is

huge consumer debt to banks and no money to pay the banks, other than wealthy deposit holders, and this is not enough. Money only has value if anchored to an economy and

circulated as a proxy for goods and services. If everyone is poor, and there is not enough money in circulation, it becomes worthless paper and will cause a collapse.

30% of the population has dropped out of the work force, as there is little point in working if you are not paid enough to live anyway. As a response to this and to try

to end Capitalism, I propose a philosophy called "Revolution Of Slack," which I will describe:

1.Form co-ops and trade networks that barter products and services, and that keep the use of money to an absolute minimum. The less money in circulation, the less value

it has, and if nobody used money it would have no value at all. Money only has value if it is being used, and linked to goods and services; end that and money is

worthless, because it is "Fiat" money and not backed up by gold or silver or anything of real value.

2."Slacktivism:" Use computers to form on-line "anarcho-collectivist" trading networks; to meet members needs via crowd-sourced projects using "Bit coin" and other viable

virtual currencies as they come along. Do whatever you can.... If you are not using an anonymous virtual currency, or state-of-the-art IRS detection systems catch up,

make sure you pay your taxes, so you do not give them a reason to come after you for this. Using these methods you can create crowd sourced projects too, that are Art

related, Anarchist philosophies, or various kinds of media that oppose, or have nothing to with sustaining the current Capitalist system.....

3. "Slack:" By all means slack-off on the job to whatever level you can get away with, or drop out of the economy and not work at all, if you have some or *anyway* to

stay alive. I am not going to advocate that you break laws, but I really don't care if you do or not.

4. Find some more meaningful reason to live, than just living to chase dollars, even if that reason involves doing absolutely nothing...

That is all. (P.S. I have expanded the notion of Slacktivism to mean more than just clicking buttons online)

The End Of Work..... July 9, 2016

Capitalism is reaching the end of its innate workability..... The best thing that could happen would be to torpedo it for good! Here is how:

1. Barter: Money only has value as a medium of exchange. This integrates it with the productive technics of society, and creates the basis to create wealth; by keeping

prices high in relation to wages, and circulating money in excess of the GNP to create inflationary debt. The banks can thus collect interest, and can foreclose....

Using trade and barter, and forgoing money, will return goods and services traded to *actual* wealth, and turn money back into what it is, worthless paper. In this way

even on a small scale, it can ameliorate the alienation that exists between people and what they produce, which should be a creative choice.....

2. Communes: Create intentional communities that share almost everything, and drop out of society. Like #1, the severing of oneself from the political economy will

be gradual and not prefect at first. Over time though it could begin to have an effect. Limited production to immediate small localities and distribution to ones own

geographical area whenever possible; would cut back on transportation costs and mitigate pollution and strain on the environment to a considerable degree. Hydro-electric

power and clean water could be obtained by desalinization plants with turbines that will generate energy and purify ocean water to drink. This could power computer

networks and perhaps create energy for light rail transportation of people and goods.

3. Drop out of society: Right now the labor non-participation rate in the USA is 30%. We need more people to drop out of society, go on welfare/SSI disability; and make

use of the very limited and almost non-existent social programs that exist in the USA, as well as Europe. One should try to be as non-productive as possible. Get a labor

non-participation rate of 70%, that will be it for this economic system. The government to save itself, will create a state capitalist system and become the only

employer, when all production is nationalized.... This would be the first step to eventual anarcho-collectivist small scale social networks that could eventually evolve.

Capitalism cannot work without people giving it their consent with their labor and capacities. A giant work-strike across all sectors could put an end to that.

Capitalism Is A Scam Here Is Why…..

The basis of Capitalism is not too hard to understand. In the first place, you have to understand that money is not an even unit of exchange. It is a artifact to redistribute wealth.  Money in reality is just worthless paper, and the goods and services produced by society are what has real value. But a “bait and switch” occurs. Money is made into the sole “gatekeeper” for goods and services. You cannot get goods and services without money. When this happens goods and services in themselves become worthless; and money which constitutes the only means to them becomes actual wealth. Money has co-opted the value of goods and services, and has made the worthless paper that it actually is into a deviant instrument of constituted wealth. This is true.

Then the next thing you have to figure out, is the “purchasing power” of currency. In the political economy, how much of the “purchasing power” of currency is needed to pay for labor and raw materials, and how much of the purchasing power of currency makes up what Marx called: “Surplus Value.” Lets say the “Sustenance Level” of the currency is around 25%, and the “Surplus Value.” is around 75%. This means that you can charge a profit of 75% on all goods and services, and still stay in a sustainable range and not endanger the economic life of society, which is being taken care of by the afore mentioned 25%. Thus the holders of profit can allocate in this way 75% of the wealth of society, and use that wealth to buy back and own everything. Generally this is called “Wage Profit Co-efficients,” or “Disparity” but it is really more complicated.

Next you have the banks. The way they make money, is to distribute more money to society and corporations then can be matched in a society’s “Gross Domestic Product.” Since goods and services are worthless and money is everything, this means simply that corporations and society are borrowing more money than they can pay back. If the money exceeds “Gross Domestic Product” then this means that the society is borrowing money beyond its collateral or worth, and beyond its productive capacity. This in-debts the whole society and even corporations to the banks.

Once this happens the banks then tighten the flow of currency after the inflationary stage, to a deflationary cycle to make currency harder to obtain, thus increasing its value through relative scarcity. This causes the wealth that society has to  be sucked up by the banks through foreclosure and interest. And at this point interest rates can be raised to increase profit. Thus alternating cycles of inflation and recession insure that the banks keep making money.

The next question is how do corporations and banks split the 75% surplus value.

The banks get 60% through society and corporations paying back their so-called “debts” and corporations get to keep 40% of their wage/profit co-efficient or leeching of surplus value from the political economy described before, factoring in sustaining and surplus forms of purchasing power, as well as use value and surplus value in terms of socially sustainable profit. Then the workers and consumers foot the bill forever.

Thus Capitalism is a scam

https://www.ic.org/

https://www.sott.net/article/321812-Everything-you-ve-been-told-about-debt-is-wrong

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/bob-black-the-abolition-of-work

#slacktivism #anarchy #communes #anti capitalism #bob black #dropping out

[erazon]

my personal pros & cons

I’m gonna make a pros & cons list for the big blizzcon reveal, because admittedly I had a pretty negative reaction to some stuff but there’s enough highlights and things I am genuinely excited for that I’m building up hype for, so to get it out of my system I’m gonna make a lil list under the cut

starting on a good note with the Pros!

I’m really super happy with the Horde subraces, and I hope they live up to their promise on releasing new ones. 

Zandalari Trolls!! I wanna reroll my Shaman because the straight-backed Trolls have always looked so good and I can’t wait to see the customisation options.

Nightborne!! Drelleois gets to exist ingame :’) 

Tailla’s getting a highmountain tauren bf ok its the rules

Void elves seem like an interesting concept and Lightforged Draenei are also pretty cool.

As a big mount collector the idea of the stupid frog mount and a flying parrot excite me probably more than it should. I want to hop around on a stupid frog. 

The little fox people look cute and I want to play them I dont care if they’re furry gremlins

As usual the art team really delivered some great zone art, the Kul’Tiras zones especially but the Zandalar zones are also amazing. Glad to see Australia made it into the game. 

Some of the new creatures, especially in the swampy area, are really cool and I can really see myself building an OC around the swamp hag aesthetic. 

Level scaling for the whole zone was something I saw coming but still tastes so sweet. Getting the armour sets for levelling new races from 20 upwards is going to be a lot easier, and totally worth it because those unique armour sets are SO DAMN COOL LOOKIN

I’m gonna get a chance to really explore Erazon’s more Chaotic Neutral sensibilities, which she’s always had but have been tempered by the fact that there’s always some world-ending threat. Having saved the world Erazon now gets the chance to act almost as a martyr with nothing to lose, who’s more interested in fucking with the players than playing the game. 

Dazu involved in faction war battles will be nothing short of hilarity. She’s the absolute pinnacle of someone who’s only fighting for the sake of fighting, even if she doesn’t really know whose side she’s supposed to be fighting on.

moving onto the Cons, because there’s some glaring ones 

The obvious being obvious: Faction war has largely been the weakest of Warcraft lore for the greater part of nearly 15 years. The “it’s world of WARcraft” argument really, really, really falls flat when you remember that the core of WoW has always been a common enemy. I’m not going to “have faith” that Blizzard can write a clever and complex faction conflict because they have never been capable of it.

It’s hard to reconcile that I feel my character has no autonomy in WoW, and that a story I feel is largely irrational is the one I get shoehorned into. At best it’s nihilistic- what’s the point of saving the world if people aren’t interested in being anything other than a soldier? At worst it’s driving me away from a franchise that doesn’t understand that the major difference between its more popular and least popular expacs (Wotlk and WoD respectively) is just a damn good story. 

What’s missing from the reveal - more customisation options for the characters we already have, *cough* worgen updates *cough*, and certain subraces I would’ve thought more integral to the game than the current ones. (eg in an expac about faction war why choose Highmountain Tauren instead of the Maghar Orcs?) 

From a gameplay perspective - I’m watching the stream right now - it looks like there’s going to be a lot of grinding, boring invasion/mission table stuff that just drains on me. Legion was fun but by the end of it I’m really tired of having to constantly work on my weapon, that I can’t just max out my main and leave it to go work on my alts. It seems like they’re continuing with this kind of design into BFA and that’s gonna wear me down. 

Introducing an RTS battle system seems really weird to me? It just seems like more ‘content’ that I need to do to get necessary rewards that I’m just not going to want to do, and if it’s gated like follower ilvl then nah. 

There’s a real undercurrent of pandering to the vanilla/traditional fanbase this Blizzcon and it’s just not doing it for me personally. I have concerns mostly that dividing resources isn’t that healthy for the game long-term

#warcraft spoilers #blizzcon #i could extrapolate on a lot of this and will if you ask me to but i needed to dump my feelings as usual