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#nora struggles to express her feelings
highdefhoetry · 2 months
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in the library.
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cw: nsfw!! female reader, public sex in library (discreet), penetration (vaginal fingering), handjob, blowjob
summary: you’re desperate to stay quiet. he’s determined to make you scream.
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There are only a handful of people in the library when you run into Zayne. You cross paths in the last aisle, where the “adult” novels could be found. You were trying to take a Nora Roberts book from the shelf when your hand brushed against something cold yet familiar. When you looked up, your eyes met those of your classmate. Well, former, back when you two were in the same gen ed course. He stood calmly on the other side of the shelf with a piercing gaze that sent chills down your back. 
“(Y/N),” he greets you with a slight nod of his head. 
“Dr. Zayne,” you awkwardly return his greeting, but when you look back to the empty space on the shelf, you find he’s already gone. He appears at your side in a heartbeat, his hazel eyes focused on the book you’re holding. 
“I’m not a doctor yet,” he corrects you.
“Haven’t you skipped a bunch of courses, though? You’re pretty much set to be one by the end of the year.”
“Unlikely. I still have a ways to go.”
Suddenly you become hyper aware of how close he’s standing. His shoulder brushes against yours as he takes the book from your hand in one smooth motion. You watch as his elegant fingers sift through the worn down pages, gently tugging each one at the corners. 
“For Now, Forever,” he reads the title. “An excellent choice.”
“You’ve read Nora Roberts?”
“Is that so surprising?”
“Well, yeah. I thought you only read boring medical texts.”
“That’s mostly true. But even I need breaks from my studies.”
“Breaks to read smutty novels?”
Silence. It seems you’ve caught him off guard. He clears his throat, and you notice his ears reddening a little.
“I was only curious about this one because it involved characters in the medical field,” he gives you a weak excuse. “I’m not a connoisseur of erotica, unlike some people.”
“Hey! Don’t say it like that. You make me sound like some kind of pervert.”
He chuckles softly at your expense.
“If I’m not mistaken, this novel in particular has a number of… graphic scenes,” he comments, his eyes drifting to your face in the process.
“I mean, yeah… all of her books are like that,” you say, trying to sound casual despite your heated cheeks. It was embarrassing having him comment on things like this so candidly. And by the way he was smirking, you could tell he was doing it on purpose. 
“You must have enjoyed these lewd scenes, too. Or else you wouldn’t have read it.”
A sudden streak of mischief takes over. You take a small step forward, closing the gap between you. His lips part as if he’s about to say something, but he remains silent.
“Speaking of that…” you tease. “Do you remember the part where they’re in the library? I think it went a little something like this…”
You place your hands on his chest, running them over his iron-pressed shirt to feel the muscles underneath. The hem is tucked into the waistband of his pants; you tug on it ever so slightly until it comes undone, allowing you access to his bare skin. He doesn’t stop you when you sneak your hands under his shirt, nor does he protest when you run your palms on his stomach. You hear his breath hitch slightly when you wander a little too low; as soon your eyes drift down and fall on the tent poking through his fitted pants, he suddenly grabs your hand and holds it firmly.
You look up again, locking eyes with the doctor in training, whose stony expression still hasn’t cracked. Although, he is looking a bit more strained…
“Zayne…?”
He pauses for a moment. Then, you see the corners of his lips curl up in a tiny smirk.
“...I remember it going a little differently.”
His steely eyes meet yours once again. You sense something deep inside them, struggling to break free, yet his demeanor remains as cool and controlled as ever. How many times have you wanted to break through that cold facade of his and curl up with the warmth of his heart? He hid it so well, but even the strongest armor had cracks. 
While you’re lost in thought, something flutters against your thigh, snaking up the hem of your skirt. The feeling makes your skin quiver, and you clamp a hand over your mouth to muffle a small cry. Meanwhile, his fingers reach the lace edges of your panties and tug them down until they’re right above your knees. The sudden rush of cool air makes you shiver.
“Zayne…” you whisper, trying to keep quiet so you don’t garner the attention of the other visitors, or worse, the librarians themselves. You look around anxiously to make sure no one is nearby while his hands grope your thighs and hips. He takes his time feeling you up before finally caressing his cold hand on your outer lips. It makes you jump, but soon you feel a warmth spread through your body, fueled by his gentle circling of your clit.
“Shhh,” he leans forward to whisper in your ear, right before sliding a finger inside you.
You let out a tiny gasp, forcing back a moan as he curls his finger upwards, seeking out the elusive spot he knows will make you cum hard. He finds it and begins to stroke the spongy walls, slowly at first, then with a bit more force. All while pumping those beautiful fingers of his in and out, in and out, in a steady rhythmic fashion. It’s taking everything in you not to scream and moan. He chuckles as he watches your face twist in pleasure and your strained efforts to silence yourself.
“Mmm… mmph!!”
“Calm down,” he croons. “You need to stay quiet in the library.”
It’s the same thing the male lead had said to the heroine of the story. You remember it vividly, for you had pictured yourself in this exact scenario, with this exact same man. Zayne’s hands are quick and skilled; his thumb continues massaging your clit, putting just enough pressure on it to warm you up without bringing you over the edge. It’s driving you mad, how gentle yet forceful he is. He stares down at you from his massive height, lips slightly curved upwards in an amused smile while you fight to remain silent as his hands and fingers roam your body. Your heart has begun to pound so intensely you wonder if he can actually hear it.
You’re close. He can sense it, too. He chuckles again when you grab onto his arms, as if bracing yourself for impact. You squeeze your eyes shut as wave after wave of electrifying pleasures surge through your body. It’s taking everything in you not to scream. You force back every moan, only letting little gasps and groans escape when he hits you in just the right place. And from the grin on his face, you can tell it amuses him to no end.
A few moments later, you finally cum. You bite your lip, feel your eyes roll in the back of your head, let out fluttered sighs as you squirt all over his hand. He caresses your waist and hips, relishes the way you twitch and shudder under his hands. The orgasm made you extra sensitive, so every touch feels like cold fire. You open your eyes to meet his, letting your lips part as you take in large gulps of air while trying to regain your composure. His soft gaze makes your heart dance. He doesn’t say anything, opting instead to admire the sight of your flushed skin and relieved expression.
But his own expression soon turns to one of restraint. His gaze falters when he feels your hand grope the tent in his pants. You rub the tip with an increasing amount of pressure and smile when you hear stifled grunts emerge from his throat. His brows furrow slightly in determination, as if he is focusing all his attention on retaining his composure. But you see the mask slip when you unzip his pants and let loose his stiff member.
Still covered by black boxers, you sneak your hands into the slit in the middle and take hold of his shaft. He grunts softly, almost losing it when you begin caressing the tip and teasing the length of his cock. You start off slow and take your time fondling him, noting what makes him sigh and gasp and when his breath becomes more erratic, more desperate. 
You pause briefly to look around, once again making sure that no one is looking, before falling to your knees.
Before he can protest, you take his cock in your mouth and run your tongue along his shaft, stopping only to kiss and lick his tip before going on. The muffled sounds he’s making are delightful. His grunts start off quiet, but the longer you suck him off, the louder they grow. He grabs fistfuls of your hair, firmly but gently so as not to hurt you, and pulls you close until his cock is hitting the back of your throat. You suppress the urge to gag; it won’t be much longer until he cums.
After a few deep thrusts and more teasing from your mouth and tongue, he erupts his load into you, gasping quietly while still holding onto your locks. You taste his cum and swallow it all, savoring the warmth he’s given you. You slowly guide his cock out of your mouth and stand back up, smiling at him while his heavy breathing subsides. He zips up his pants with a relieved sigh, as if he just released a lifetime’s worth of stress.
“Well?” you whisper. “How did it end, again…?”
Zayne looks down at you with eyes full of affection, taking your chin in hand and gently pulling your face up.
“I believe it went like this.”
He kisses you softly, and his icy exterior melts in your hands.
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cocogum · 2 months
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There’s something off about Yugo now.
‼️ SPOILERS FOR SEASON 4 ‼️
LEAVE AT THE WARNING IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE FIRST FOUR EPISODES.
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Way before 2024 hit, when Tot was still teasing us with some snippets of Season 4 on Twitter, there was a time when one of his tweets made some people think about what he meant.
The specific tweet was made on the 10th of January of 2023 at 5:10 AM which showed a small scene of Yugo once said that THIS scene in particular was going to change Yugo forever
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Here’s the full translation:
“Season 4 of Wakfu is going well my friends…Here’s a small snippet of Yugo that makes me want to cry. 🥲”
We didn’t know at the time what he could’ve meant by that or what that specific scene that saddened him was even about.
But now that Wakfu Season 4 is out, we were able to watch that same scene that happened in episode 3.
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And omg it makes perfect sense now.
In his tweet where he addressed his feelings for the scene, Tot specified that this moment would be the last time we see Yugo, the last scene before saying goodbye.
Some people, back when the tweet was still recent, thought Tot might have been implying that Yugo would actually die or possibly gain his adult form through this scene where he’s surrounded by his mother’s blue hues.
But now that we’ve watched the actual episode where this same scene Tot was talking about took place, we can all finally confirm that neither of those two things happened.
Because what happened ended up being far worse than that.
Yes, what’s worse than Yugo dying or growing up to an alarming speed is nothing compared to what actually happened :
Yugo’s mindset changed.
When Yugo met the Eliatrope goddess for the first time (in this life at least), he explicitly told her that he does not know her, therefore, he cannot sympathize with what she’s saying to him. Yugo could see how she was crying when she told him, Nora, and Qilby she missed them as well as her other children and that she promises them she wouldn’t be away from them any longer.
Yugo doesn’t react to this, only Nora and Qilby truly understand the power behind her words.
But as soon as the Eliatrope goddess puts Yugo to rest for a while, the moment he wakes up was as if he changed his mind completely.
He claims that his mother is the purest of the pure and that she’s so perfect that she can’t express any negative emotions. Keep this in mind for later.
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He truly believes what he’s saying and cannot fathom the fact that she may be imperfect in some ways.
His mind did a complete 360 to the point where he immediately joins the Eliatrope goddess, Nora, and Qilby’s cause. He changed his mind so quickly that even Nora noticed and brought it up.
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When the assembly began, Yugo was proud of showing up first to welcome his mother and he proudly stated her arrival to the rulers. He had even told Joris that he insisted on being as forward as possible to the rulers and to welcome his mother appropriately.
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Now, remember when I stated that Yugo does not believe that the Eliatrope goddess can express any negative emotions?
Well, it turns out he was wrong.
Not even a full hour passed, and the Eliatrope goddess was already in a full confrontation with one of the rulers, the queen of Bonta, Astra. When someone, especially a higher being, is claimed to be a pure being with no flaws, it usually means that they cannot even fathom the idea of expressing a negative emotion or struggling to keep it in.
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But the reason why this scene was just so important to focus on was because THIS is supposed to be the goddess of love, the goddess that represents purity (no wonder people were beings suspicious of her. How are you gonna be called the embodiment of ‘love’ and yet express something that is out of your agenda?)
So the reason why we need to focus on this moment, is because the goddess hesitated.
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This is what makes Yugo’s claims about her being perfect completely wrong.
And since his declarations were very much flawed, his current way of thinking can only mean one thing :
Something has gone wrong.
From what we’ve been able to witness from his slumber, Yugo was able to see how he and his siblings were created by their mother, how their original planet came to be, how their mother got thrown aside, banished by the other gods and ended up in the Necroworld, and how she got saved by Nora and Efrim.
To us, this sequence must’ve probably lasted for about three minutes or so but to Yugo, this moment lasted far longer than that. He must’ve seen the details, heard a lot of recrimination from the other gods, and seen his mother’s suffering from being cast aside. All of this pain and suffering that she must’ve felt was what made Yugo side with her and her cause.
But as much as his sudden want to be closer to her makes sense, it doesn’t mean that Yugo’s portrayal of his mother is true. Anyone can tell that the Eliatrope goddess had broken a very important major rule: DO NOT use a planet for yourself. She had betrayed the trust of the other gods without any explanation other than wanting to have children and making a world for herself.
Yugo saw it all and yet he did not think that she made a mistake. He does not care if she went against the other gods (creating a world for herself), he does not care if she wants to monitor the world (she has told this in front of all the authorities of the world), he does not care if she wants to infuse vigilantism (again, she told this in front of the leaders of the world), and he does not care if all the commanders of the world do not side with her ideas (he deliberately chose to follow her as soon as she left the assembly).
But it seems like even when he was not, at the time, sleeping under her energy, he didn’t care if people with bad intentions got paralyzed for some undetermined amount of time as punishment (he was watching Nora and Adamaï fight the rogues). That could have been an early hint that he would do much more than just stand aside and not say anything in matters like these but rather silently do what his mother wishes to do.
Since he embraces everything that she is, he embraces everything that she wants to do or has done.
Another thing I should mention is the fact that ever since he woke up, he started calling the Eliatrope goddess “mother”, implying that he now felt completely comfortable with knowing and understanding that she was truly his creator, mother.
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As you can see, every time he addresses her, it’s always by calling her his mother, which is factually true, but again, he has just met her and is already completely enamoured by her. His admiration and respect towards her makes sense because he has seen everything that she’s been through while sleeping.
The problem is that even when he considers her perfect, he doesn’t seem to understand that the people around her (besides Nora and Qilby) DO NOT agree with her plans.
Yugo does not understand why Adamaï left because his intuition was telling him that something was very wrong about all of this (even though Yugo wasn’t too convinced by the Eliatrope goddess, he was still taking a neutral side at the time. Even though he didn’t completely understand his mother at that moment, this still counts as an event where Yugo did not think about the Eliatrope goddess’s ways even when his brother told him something was off. Also, if Yugo did see his mother’s suffering at that moment, he would have still most likely sided with her.)
Yugo also does not understand what the leaders are trying to say and how right they are (even though they have mistreated the Eliatrope goddess in the process). One of them, the queen of Bonta, makes very good points that the goddess should have answered and explained.
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But instead of taking a moment to think about it or try to at least think about how the rulers are feeling right now, Yugo simply leaves them and goes right back to the goddess.
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This is a very surprising decision of his because Yugo has lived his entire life in the World of Twelve. He has not only lived here but has met a lot of different people, gone through life and death for them, saved numerous victims and fought off enemies for them, and did all that in the same world where he is currently turning his back to the very rulers of it.
Tot wasn’t wrong when he said Yugo wouldn’t be the same.
And we’re starting to see it.
It’s becoming more obvious and I’m sure that at some point, there could be another fight between Yugo and Adamaï happening, or perhaps even a misunderstanding.
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rwbyrg · 5 months
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RWBY Ship Parallels #1: Fear & Bravery
There are too many ship parallels to put them all in one meta, so I'll make individual posts as I remember them. The first one I want to tackle is how all the canon or hinted-at-being-canon ships all have pivotal moments where the themes of being afraid and/or having courage come up.
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Some elaborations under the cut!
For starters, just for context to refer back to throughout the post, the definition of courage/bravery is as follows:
noun 1. the ability to do something that frightens one. 2. strength in the face of pain or grief.
I was initially going to list these chronologically, but we're going to do it on a ship by ship basis instead. First up:
Renora
The first incident for them happens all the way back in V4 during their backstory flashback. Ren underwent a small arc learning from his father that sometimes the worst action to take is not taking any action at all, even if it's scary. He then tries to support Nora by teaching her this same lesson: that they both need to be brave. She expresses vulnerability about how scared she is, Ren confesses to feeling the same, and together they decide to look after each other from that point on. Which makes everything just a bit less frightening.
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We also revisit these same themes in their V8 confession. First we see Nora criticizing Ren for running away just because things got difficult:
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And after Ren owns up to this cowardice, the things he did out of fear of failure, the conversation shifts. Nora admonishes herself, and Ren lists things off about her that he admires, the last of which - while not using the word itself - calls to how brave of a person she is and cites it as one of the main reasons why he loves her. Because as the definition above states, being strong and helping people without worrying about how much it might hurt you in turn is what it means to have courage.
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WhiteKnight
Their heart-to-heart in V9E9 says it all. Weiss has been carrying the weight of failing to save Atlas since it fell, and after Ruby's actions in the episodes prior, she became aware (a bit too late) of how those same failures were weighing on their leader. So when Jaune acknowledges the harm he caused from trying so desperately not to repeat their past mistakes, Weiss is the perfect person to step up for reassurance.
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She knows that their failures do not equate to their worth or all the good they're capable of doing. And reminding Jaune of this, calling him a brave and good person in spite of his failures, is what he needed to hear to be able to reach an acceptance he hadn't been able to achieve in all those years trapped alone in the Ever After.
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(Also the framing parallel of BB and WK both holding each other is a very nice touch.)
Bumbleby
With BB it's not just one or two moments. Blake and Yang's characters both centre around the themes of cowardice and bravery since their beginnings and we see it come up throughout the show a lot. Back in V2, Yang sees the bravery in Blake when she herself can only focus on the opposite:
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Blake: When you figured out I was a faunus I didn't know what to do, so I ran. when I realized my oldest partner had become a monster, I ran! Even my semblance... I was born with ability to leave behind a shadow of myself. An empty copy that takes the hit while I run away.
In V4 and 5 we see Yang struggling to get back on her feet after losing her arm and the trauma she endured at Beacon. Blake tells Sun that she sees Yang as the "embodiment of strength" and we, the audience, get to see the proof of this every time she keeps fighting despite shaking, and especially when she faces off with Raven in the finale.
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These parallel arcs culminate with both of them facing off against Adam together, but most especially gets called back to in their mutual confession scene in V9:
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Yang acknowledges what she saw in Blake all those years ago, that she doesn't give up on what matters to her, even when people hurt her, she still fights for what's important. While Blake acknowledges Yang's reliability, her strength, and her courage. And both of them, like Renora, cite these reasons as things they admire, and reasons why they love each other.
Now last, but certainly not least:
Rosegarden
One of the very first things Oscar says to Ozpin when he leaves the farm is that he's scared. This comes back time and time again, especially in the Atlas arc where Oscar spends so much of his time counselling Ironwood against letting his fear control him (a conflict Ruby is also a part of). Our little prince even has a theme song titled Fear to really drive it home.
Whereas Ruby has always been the poster child of "keep moving forward", no matter how much the trauma, stress, pressure, and grief weighs you down. You just have to be strong and keep pressing on, fighting the monster that took her mother away. No matter what.
So, much like BB, there are themes around bravery, fear, and perseverance that apply to both Ruby and Oscar's personal arcs. Both of them especially have focus on being brave despite fears of loss. With Oscar, it is fear of losing himself to the merge; whereas Ruby has a fear of losing those she loves.
All the way back in the infamous Dojo Scene is where we first see these themes addressed in their dynamic. It starts with Oscar expressing vulnerability to Ruby about how afraid he really is.
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Ruby initially tries her usual strategy; surface level reassurances about just pushing through it... but it doesn't work on him. So after some upset from Oscar, she ends up being vulnerable with him too. Something she hadn't done with anyone else in show by that point.
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Ruby admits that she's afraid too, not just for herself, but for the threat Salem poses to the world as they know it and the people within it. Ruby tells him about those she's lost and says that if it had been her instead, those friends would have kept fighting too. That vulnerability, which requires courage in and of itself, is what motivates and inspires Oscar to keep moving forward where Ruby's earlier attempt could not. The scene closes off with one more nod to these themes where Ruby pauses at the door and turns back with one final thought:
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In both the above scene and the V4 finale, Ruby cites "fighting for those they've lost and those they haven't lost yet" as her main motive to keep fighting. Up until V8/9 she used this as her greatest source of strength, but that strength is a double edged sword which eventually became her greatest weakness when Neo used it against her. First trapping her in a room with all the people she "failed":
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And then landing a finishing blow with making her kill lose one of the people she loves most: Oscar.
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Ruby can be brave if it means she can protect the people she loves. But just as Penny's death dealt a very big hit to Ruby's hope, what little she had left was crushed at the thought of losing Oscar (and Little) too.
Aside from that, there has also always been an underlying mystery around what having silver eyes means for Ruby. In V4, she is hunted by Tyrian and in V8 she finds out what her fate would have been had he succeeded. A fate which very justifiably terrifies her and seems to be a theme that will carry on into the Vacuo arc. It is also something that was brought up in the second RWBY x JL movie, I talked about this a little bit in this meta, but I'll share it here as well. In the movie, Ruby opens up a bit about this fear saying the following:
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“Did you know I lost my mom when I was a kid? I don’t know exactly what happened to her, I don’t really remember her, I just have stories. And I keep trying to live up to those stories, but… I realize they don’t matter anymore. Heroes fall. And I just want to get as much done as I possibly can before I do.”
This scene directly parallels one of Oscar's back in V6:
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“I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be… me. But I did some thinking, and I do know that I want to do everything I can to help with whatever time I have left.”
Both of these scenes show their respective courage around fears related to their issues with identity. Oscar saying he will do whatever he can before he loses himself, and Ruby doing whatever she can before she loses her life as all heroes eventually will.
So to summarize: Renora, Whiteknight, Bumbleby, and Rosegarden all have a scene where one or both partners cite the other's bravery as something they admire or love about the other person. All of these ships also include at least one scene - but often more that just weren't listed here - where they open up and are vulnerable with each other about their fears and motivations. And lastly, with BB and RG especially, bravery and fear are central themes to both their relationship dynamics as well as their individual character arcs within those pairings, all of which narratively parallel each other extensively.
CRWBY is very consistent with how it writes its ships and this is only the tip of the iceberg of all the parallels we've seen between these partners so far. But that's all for now; thanks for reading!
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RWBY Love Languages (Part 1)
Ruby Rose - Physical Touch
Ruby has multiple ways of showing affection, but her favorite is definitely touch. Pouncing on you is her go to, unfortunately leading to you both falling. When you're together she is always touching you in some way. Although she can be hyper, after a long day, nothing feels better than gently melting into your arms (Also she is not adverse to PDA, so expect tons of hand holding and public kisses)
Weiss Schnee - Quality Time
It is well known that Weiss' family is not the most healthy, and it shows in her. As much as she is initially adverse to (but truly desires) affection in any way, quality time is the most important thing to her. The simple fact of you willingly choosing to spend time with her and stay by her side, despite everything, makes her emotional. Going on dates is her favorite thing in the world. Whether it's a candlelit dinner, balcony seats at an opera, or just a walk in the park, if it's with you she will do anything
Blake Belladonna - Quality Time
Blake has a lot of trust issues due to constant hurt and betrayal, so it will take a LOT for her to open up to you. But the way into her heart is just to stick it out and never give up. Eventually Blake will understand your intentions and let you in. Although it seems like you're always the one to initiate, secretly Blake always finds a way to "coincidentally" end up at the same place at the same time as you. Kinda like how cats pretend to not care but always follow you around
Yang Xiao Long - Quality Time
Yang has been abandoned multiple times, and it has taken a toll on her mentally. She is constantly worrying about when her loved ones will leave her, and that includes you. Spending time with her as much as possible will both quell her anxiety and make her heart race. As someone who knows how it feels to be abandoned, Yang wants to make sure you never feel that pain. She will never leave without letting you know, always promises to come back
Oscar Pine - Words of Affirmation
Due to his situation with Ozpin, Oscar has a lot of self doubt issues and problems with identity. His mind is always racing and it's never good thoughts. So having a partner that reassures him and comforts him is key. He appreciates every word you tell him, and sometimes writes them down in a notebook for when he gets really down
Penny Polendina - Physical Touch
Penny is still getting used to human interactions and relationships, so things may get a bit awkward. But although she struggles with most aspects, she excels in physical touch. Penny loves to feel your skin no matter the texture. It feels so unique to her! When she can't properly express herself or is lost for words, Penny will just quietly hold your hands and stare into your eyes
Jaune Arc - Words of Affirmation/Acts of Service
Jaune has been through a lot of pain the past few years, and needs a lot of healing mentally. Telling him you love him or complimenting him matter a whole lot to him. It boosts his self-esteem and makes him feel wanted and special. While he also returns the sentiment, Jaune prefers to do acts of service for his partner. He will happily give you a massage or do your laundry without prompt. And when it comes to defending you, Jaune is always on the front lines ready to die for you
Nora Valkyrie - Physical Touch
Nora is like Ruby, but amplified by x1000. She loves to cling to you like a koala and tease you. Although she has appreciation for chests, Nora is a butt fiend. She does not hesitate to slip in a slap or squeeze whenever she can, giving you a shit eating grin when you react. Nora also enjoys hugs a lot, and basically every hug she gives is a bone crushing bear hug (so get used to back pains). Sometimes though, when it's late and night and you both are tired, Nora will happily lean on your shoulder and fall asleep. A further way to make her melt is to gently trace your fingers along her Lichtenberg scars
Pyrrha Nikos - Words of Affirmation
Being such a well known figure, Pyrrha has problems making real connections with people. She always feels like people are trying to take advantage of her, but doesn't have the heart to object. But when it comes to you, whenever you compliment her or reassure her feelings, she knows it's genuine. Every word you speak fills her with warmth. And Pyrrha is always making sure to return the love and always talk to you and listen intently. This often leads to you two getting into compliment battles that always end in a stalemate
Lie Ren - Acts of Service
Being more introverted, Ren is kinda hot and cold with affection. He loves you with all his heart, but sometimes he just needs time alone, and you're happy to oblige! But when he's fully charged, Ren loves to do things for you. This mainly pertains to domestic skills like cooking and cleaning. He always makes sure to make you a delicious breakfast everyday with your favorite foods. And he does this with no expectation of reciprocation. He does this with all his loved ones, it's how he shows he cares. A lot of times he does it behind the scenes. Sometimes you'll come home to the trash taken out, your bed made, or a hole in your shirt sewn up in a heart shape (his favorite thing to do is leave cute love notes in your lunch bag)
Sun Wukong - Acts of Service
Sun is a himbo through and through, we all know this. He is incredibly open about his feelings and isn't afraid to show you how much he loves you. Doing things for you is his favorite thing to do to show his appreciation. No matter what it is, if you are looking for something Sun already has it. Car keys? Phone charger? Hot pocket? This man is READY. He tries to do other things like cook and clean for you, but uh... he ain't that good at it. He has definitely broken some lamps and started a couple kitchen fires. But Sun always means well and will happily do whatever he can to make you smile
Neptune Vasilias - Physical Touch
Although Neptune is known as a smooth talker, that's mainly for show with girls he meets for the first time. After actually getting into a relationship Neptune's true love language comes out. He really thrives on physical contact. It's great in general, but whenever he is anxious or scared it's even better. Neptune will instantly cling onto you and feel much better. But he is also known for being a bit possessive. Neptune is known for holding you by the hip when you walk, and proudly drapes his arm around your shoulders. He bagged a total masterpiece of a human, of course he's gonna show you off! PDA is a must and he always gives you little kisses throughout the day
Coco Adel - Gift Giving
As your local fashionista, Coco adores the finer things in life. And she feels like you deserve it all! She loves to gift you designer clothes, authentic jewelry, $1000 lobster dishes, fuck she once tried to buy you a puppy! It's gotten to the point where you have a whole room dedicated to her gifts. If you tell her to cool down a little she will, but will eventually get back into it. She doesn't understand why materialism is so looked down upon. Why shouldn't she and her partner enjoy expensive things?
Fox Alistair - Physical Touch
Despite his serious appearance, Fox is naturally very talkative (just ask his team) and always likes to joke and tease. And it's the same deal with his partner. Sometimes he kinda can't shut up. And although he tells you how much he a loves you a lot, the real way to show how he feels is touch. Fox is blind, and although he has an ADA device, he doesn't know how you look 100%. So he likes to just touch you all over, enjoying feeling your curves and edges and rolls. He likes it so much sometimes he will hold your face in his hands and just caress your cheeks for like 10 minutes
Velvet Scarlatina - Gift Giving
Velvet is naturally a bit more shy than the rest of her team, so when it comes to showing affection she gets very flustered. She isn't good with PDA and sometimes finds it hard to say what she feels. But Velvet is well versed in gift giving. She always pays attention to everything her partner says and makes note of all the things they desire. Pretty much all her gifts are perfectly tailored to you. She adores holidays and milestones, and always makes those days a whole ordeal with presents and date plans
Yatsuhashi Daichi - Acts of Service
Yatsuhashi is a very reserved person, and is not talkative, even with his loved ones. It's a mix of holding in his emotions and having self doubt about himself. So instead of saying what he feels, he prefers to use his actions instead. Yatsuhashi is very protective of his partner and does everything in his power to make them feel secure. He sees you as precious and never wants anything to happen to you. So he gladly does anything he deems too dangerous for you. Reaching things from high shelves, walking you across the street, this man would fight a damn bear for you. He isn't above just carrying you around either. You will always be safe and secure around Yatsuhashi
Neon Katt - Words of Affirmation
Jesus fucking CHRIST can she talk. You will never have a moment of peace while dating Neon, that's the unfortunate truth. But hey, that's what you signed up for. And it has it's perks! Neon never hesitates to gush about you and make you feel appreciated. She has definitely bragged about you in public, much to your embarrassment. She's just loves everything about you! (especially how hot you are) But don't be mistaken, everything you do is met with pure joy and admiration
Flynt Coal - Gift Giving
Flynt is a simple, suave man who knows he's smooth. He knows his voice makes you melt. But what he loves to do is give presents, especially unconventional ones. There are the standard flowers and chocolates, but Flynt really loves writing songs for you. Being able to express himself through music makes him feel whole. He puts all of his emotions into the sheet music, and every song is dedicated to you
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Ozpin - Quality Time
As the headmaster of Beacon, Ozpin doesn't have a lot of spare time. He's often busy and tied up in work. But also, his past as Ozma has made him live hundreds of years, and he's lost a lot of loved ones. He treasures time spent and wants to spend as much time as possible with the ones he loves. Whenever he is able, Ozpin will be with you as much as possible. Even if you are just existing in the same room, it's perfect for him
Glynda Goodwitch - Acts of Service
Glynda can be pretty abrasive, and a bit of a hard ass. But it really is from the toll of years at an academy of psychotic students. So honestly? Getting her a hot cup of tea or her favorite book when she comes home from work is one of life's greatest joys. Always being expected to fix any damage caused by her students, it's nice to have someone return the favor and give her a break. She'll always encourage you to sit down and join her, but definitely isn't complaining. To show appreciation she doesn't mind fixing stuff around the house in return, as it isn't expected of her. Now she can do it of her own will because she wants to. Keep pampering her and you will never have to call a handyman ever again
Bartholomew Oobleck - Words of Affirmation
You know how I said Neon can't stop talking? Jesus. Fucking. Christ. Oobleck is amazing, but he won't stop talking no matter what. Info dumping is one of his favorite things to do with you, especially if it has to do with interesting facts. He may be a motor mouth, but when he isn't spouting information, he is talking about you. Oobleck may seemed a bit scatterbrained, but he notices everything about you. He compliments you on the smallest things, often things you never notice. Oobleck likes everything about you and isn't afraid to let you know. He doesn't really have a filter when it comes to your relationship, so expect a lot of out of left field compliments
Peter Port - Acts of Service
This man is a MANLY MAN, and you will NOT FORGET THAT! He wants to prove to you that he is capable and worthy of your love, and he does that by doing things for you (whether you ask for it or not). He especially loves doing heavy work for you like moving furniture, chopping wood, and hauling away any Grimm that interupt your dates. Don't get it twisted though, it isn't that he thinks you are unable to take care of yourself or weak. He just naturally likes to show off and prove himself. And with you? Bruh he is always flexing to get your attention and make you blush (frankly though you tend to make him blush way more)
James Ironwood - Quality Time
Similar to Ozpin, Ironwood doesn't get a lot of free time to himself. Being a major general is hard work and tends to leave him drained. He knows he isn't around often and feels bad. So to make up for it, when you do have time together, he is 100% focused on you and you only. Ironwood wants you to know that he never forgets you when he's working. You're always in his mind 24/7. Sometimes when he has to stay super late, you like to surprise him by showing up at his office. His heart instantly starts beating faster, and he will wave you over for a long hug (and sit you on his lap if he's feeling super affectionate)
Winter Schnee - Acts of Service
As with Weiss, Winter has been severely damaged by her family. And her time in the military has only made more walls around her heart. Hell, it took forever for her to come to terms with her feelings for you. Winter is not good at expressing herself directly, so she likes to indirectly show her love by doing things for you. Anything you ask of her she will do with no hesitation. It's kind of her military training kicking in, it's pretty much ingrained into her. But it definitely isn't cause she feels obligated to, Winter cares about you and wants you to follow your "orders". She often denies it whenever you offer to do things for her. But if you do it anyways, she'll scold you... before giving you an awkward kiss and hug
Summer Rose - Quality Time
Summer is known to go off on her own quite a bit. She doesn't often explain why, but always makes sure to let you know she is coming back. And when she comes back she is spending the rest of the day with you. She loves to just sit around with you and talk about anything and everything. When she isn't going on missions, Summer tends to follow you around happily
Taiyang Xiao Long - Words of Affirmation
Taiyang has been through some heartbreak, so some uplifting words mean a lot to him. No matter what issues he is faced with, a good conversation with you will always lift his spirits. And this applies to even just casual small talk. He just likes talking to you, I mean it's as simple as that! And he always knows how to repay your kindness by being your number one fan. No matter what you're doing, Yaiyang is cheering you on from the sidelines!
Raven Branwen - Acts of Service
Raven is kinda... yeah. There are a lot of words to describe her, and most are negative. But one thing she excels at is using her actions. She may seem to not be around often, but usually she is behind the scenes doing small things for you. Raven uses her portals to keep an eye on you wherever you go, and makes sure you are safe and healthy. She keeps away any shady people, leaves you your favorite foods on your nightstand, kills any threatening Grimm, even adjusts your blanket while you sleep. It may seem like she doesn't care much for you, but whenever you notice your weapon polished, you know she does
Qrow Branwen - Physical Touch
Qrow is starved for attention in multiple ways, but mostly in physical touch. He was originally very flirtatious, but after all the shit he's gone through, he is definitely more subdued and anxious. While dating him, you can often find him questioning if he deserves you, and whether you will get hurt by his semblance. Words have a hard time getting to him, so the best way to calm him is to just... touch him. Hold him, stroke his face, play with his hair, cuddle him, anything. All of his worries wash away as he melts into your touch, and he becomes the most vulnerable man in the world. And whenever you seem down or upset, he instantly pulls you into a hug and rubs your back. Just... just hold this man okay? He deserves the world and all the kisses
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Well hello, here is my first post on this blog! I thought a good place to start would be Love Languages. A part 2 is coming out featuring allies (like the ace ops) and antagonists!
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cerealboxlore · 4 months
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The number thing, I recommend numero 18
WIP #18: Loose Ends Tied Up In A Bow "Holy moly..."
Billy Batson was a boy who had seen wonders beyond the minds and imaginations of man. From monsters to the mythical and magical, Billy was accustomed to the strange nature of the universe and participated in being an active part of it.
He'd been to the depths of hell and farthest corners of space, experiencing what many could only dream of as a superhero. However, nothing could ever beat the pure joy of a childlike sense of wonder when experiencing something new.
Nothing could beat a cool-looking train.
"Billy! If you stop staring at the train, you might be able to get on it with the rest of us this century." Billy's sister, Mary, shouted at him, with a drawn-out yawn from the check-in entrance. She may have sounded irritated, but she was just as excited for this trip as Billy, if not more. Neither of them had gotten any sleep last night, staying up late thinking about their first family vacation together. They'd planned all the things they'd do together and all the sights they would see, the only thing the both of them didn't plan for was sleep.
Mary was not unfamiliar with the age-old tradition of traveling for vacations with family, but for Billy, this would be his first time ever leaving Fawcett that wasn't related to Captain Marvel or Justice League business. This would be his first time just...relaxing, with his new family, the Bromfields.
Naturally, Billy was hesitant at first, but with Freddy promising to look after Fawcett in their absence, sorting out any potential problems with the League, and most of their major rogues locked up in prisons at the present, Billy was eventually convinced to take some time off. Billy believed he was bullied into it by Mary and Freddy, but he wasn't too upset about it in the end.
What could go wrong on a train anyway?
Stopping his admiration of the cool train in front of him, Billy gleefully sprinted back to his family. Mr. Bromfield ruffled his hair the moment he got close and reeled him into a side hug, trapping him in his arms.
"Aha! There we go, Nora, I think we're all here now. Our boy's not getting left behind like some cheesy "Home Alone" sequel. Lord knows we don't need more of those movies going around." Nick Bromfield chuckled. The dad humor was something Billy was trying to get used to.
"Oh, Nick. Let the poor boy go, his hair is all a mess now. Here, give him to me." Nora Bromfield coerced her husband into setting Billy free, but upon the taste of freedom, he was just met with another trap which was Nora Bromfield "fixing" his hair. She cupped his face and pushed his hair back with a comb, straightening it out. Billy once again struggled to escape the arms of a loving parent, but ultimately let Nora comb his hair in defeat.
He never knew having loving parents could be such a hassle.
Mary did, apparently, as Billy heard her laughing at his misery. His face flushed red over feeling so fussed over. Suddenly, Billy felt a devious little idea pop into his head.
"Uhh, hey, Mrs. B, I think Mary's hair needs some help, too. You know, the hair she's hiding under her hat because she didn't want to tell you her hair was bad today?"
"Oh! Thank you, Billy. I need to get on that. Mary! Come here, let me clean up your hair real quickly. No, a hat is no excuse to be lazy about your hair. Come here- no don't hide behind your brother! Remember, we're sleeping in the same cabin. You can't run from your mom!" Mary zig-zagged away from her mother's comb in her hands, glaring at Billy with an expression that could make Medusa shake. Clearly, neither of the twins liked being fussed over, almost like cats who hated baths. Billy couldn't help but laugh in return.
While Nick Bromfield sorted out the check-in line for them, Nora Bromfield got to embarrassing her kids in front of everyone else around the train station. Multi-tasking parents. You can't get any better than that.
The Bromfield family were so busy smiling and enjoying their time together, that none of them had even realized they were being watched by a pair of glaring eyes. Eyes that would follow them on the train soon after.
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diazfox · 9 months
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I have a lot of thoughts about Red, White & Royal Blue (both the book and the movie). If you manage to read through the whole thing, I would love to hear your thoughts and feelings! Please feel free to interact. If you don't feel like reading through the brain dump of a random girl from nowhere, here's a summary: movie was great, but the book remains undefeated, plus a pathetic attempt at rallying for a petition to make this into a series.
I first read the book in january 2023 (I was very late to booktok I'm sorry) and have been obsessed since then. I have re-read it multiple times and have pages of annotations in my pdf copy. as a huge literature nerd, thematic expressions, plot and character development mean so much to me. While it's not a crime to interpret this book as an idealistic and purely romantic piece of fiction, I think there is plenty to value in the way family, politics and self-discovery is illustrated in the novel.
To me, it's really the intricacies that give so much to life to many scenes and characters. June standing up for Alex even when he never outright asked for it, staying in the white house for him instead of pursuing her own dreams. June feeling trapped and chained down being born into a life of politics, while Alex, entirely optimistic and determined, revels in it. Nora being introduced as a tech junkie who gives it to him straight while June is the more soft-spoken one, but Nora being the one to deliver the most important cold hard truths that wake Alex up multiple times throughout the book. How Alex is who is because he has these 2 girls who provide him with 2 different support systems - June who understands the struggles of the public eye, the divorce of his parents, being biracial, and Nora who understands the realm of queerness and shares his passion in politics. Rafael Luna's story arc and the triple-crossing. How Alex looked up to him so fervently, how Luna has his own dark past that made him who is today.
and Henry... (cue BIG DREAMY SIGH) The harrowing reality that someone so special not only to him but both Bea and his mom as well left all of them so bereaved that his mom completely shut off and Bea turned to a life of drugs. His father who symbolised everything that the crown frowned upon, and stole his mother's royal-blooded heart anyways. How Henry was probably brought up to be fearless and strong just like his parents but his entire family was snatched from him at such a young age that it left him stranded and lost, leaving him no choice but to follow the path of royal traditions, being pushed and shoved around however they deemed fit. and when he did get older and privy to his sexuality, it was too late to turn back and stand his ground to say "No, I don't want this life." The pills, the insomnia, the piece of himself that's been lost forever, that nothing and nobody will ever be able to replace. Percy being his only escape from the royal lifestyle, how he was willing to share a part of his life's works for Henry to experience outside his mundane royal duties, something Henry chooses to do instead of being forced to. Bea stepping up after realising how she needs to do better not only for herself but for her brother as well, that all they have is each other and she needs to fight for them. Bea being the protective sister who explains to Alex how Henry misses his dad, and that he needs to be comfortable with the fact that there will always be a part of Henry that Alex might never be able to reach. Henry's mom stepping up in the end, not willing to lose her son the way she lost her husband, how Henry is the closest living reminder to the love of her life, born with his heart on his sleeve.
Their emails. Henry and his beautiful monologues depicting grief and love. How he has never bared his heart out like that to anyone, yet when he finally found the right person, everything was leaked to the entire world. The multiple references to historical figureheads and literature that actually give "History, huh? Bet we could make some" all it's meaning.
The tension in the confrontation with the queen. The nervous wreck that election night put me in. The political journey of this book further helped to solidify the idealistic, fairytale-like nature of the novel and its ending. It left me with such an overwhelming sense of comfort, like coming back to my childhood home (quite literally in Alex's case).
Ellen and Zahra's relationship, Oscar and Luna's relationship, Oscar saying Ellen will always be the love of his life... the list is literally endless. I could go on forever. I laughed, I cried, I screamed into my pillow, I stared out my window wistfully, wondering how people can feel so much so deeply.
All these details that bring so much colour and dimension to the plot convinced me that it would be a crime not to make a live action of this book. But that is not to say that the movie was bad. I had already prepared myself beforehand to handle the disappointment of not getting all 500 pages verbatim, and I understand the directional choices made to focus solely on Alex and Henry's relationship, not having the luxury of time. Viewing the movie as something separate from the book, it was beautifully executed and I have already watched it 3 times now.
But... just to put it out there...
Imagine a live action with everything I mentioned above, though. Wouldn't it be lovely to go on all these journeys with all these people together with Alex and Henry? And it's not something completely impossible is it? I think even an animated series would be sublime but is it really too much to ask for the novel to be made into a proper series? I feel like Casey has given us such a wholesome and never-seen-before story that deserves every nook and cranny to be explored and made into film. We have had so many versions of Little Women and Pride & Prejudice, so I'm holding out hope that a rwrb series is not an impossible feat. Taylor and Nick will always be Alex and Henry in my head, but that's something I'm personally willing to trade for a longer series made with even more people and further explorations that the movie couldn't afford to make.
My sister asked me last month why I kept losing my marbles everytime a new photo or clip dropped. Said that "it's just a random book, get over it". I think this book means a lot to many different people from different walks of life. Minority race, being biracial, coming to terms with bisexuality, dealing with divorce, dealing with the public eye, being born into a family that you don't entirely identify with, losing a loved one, dealing with mental illnesses, dealing with grief, standing up to authority, being outed, letting yourself love and be loved. This book encapsulates such a vast array of experiences and emotions that I'm confident that I'm not the only one who feels this strongly about "just a random book".
Casey really did make history, didn't they?
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apricity-writes · 20 days
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WIP Tag Game
Tagged by @koteevna ♡♡♡
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Ye olde rules: If you’re tagged, make a new post and share 1-2 (a few) sentences from your most recent unposted WIP(s) with zero context Let your followers guess!
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WIP #1
"And how many are you owed?"
"Twelve." The words feel strange in his throat. When had he last spoken as much to another person? The king in Meridian? His family back in the nora lands? His throat aches from lack of use.
The tenakth across from him raises his eyes in surprise. "Twelve were taken from you?"
Rost's eyes darken, a growl growing in the edges of his voice. "More. A village's worth of lives, spilt on the ground. But twelve did the taking, and I will not rest until their debt of blood is payed."
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WIP #2
The boy let out low, keening sounds, weeping bitterly as he struggled against Tekotteh's hold, and the man let him until every once of energy had poured out of the boy. Only once he hung limply in Tekotteh's arms did he lower him to the ground, careful to keep his hand on the child's back.
"You're their son, aren't you?" He lowered himself to a crouch, trying to catch the gaze of the wearied boy. "Jintanna and Sekka's boy."
The child—Kotallo, wasn't it?—nodded slowly. "Yes." The word was small, barely more than a whimper.
"Head up," Tekotteh chided, ignoring the way the command made the boy flinch. "Warriors are not scared of death. We accept the dead and the lost into the ranks with the Ten."
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WIP #3
"I see," Kotallo says slowly, offering the heart back to her.
Aloy shakes her head, folding his fingers back over it. "No. Keep it. You'll get to say that you're the only tenakth in the entire west who has the heart of a Strider."
His expression shifts at her words, and Kotallo looks away sharply, though Aloy can still catch a burn of color across his ears and unpainted portions of his cheeks. He clears his throat, then dips his head. "I will cherish it always."
There's something about the way he says it. As if this is vastly more important than just a piece of a machine.
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I dont know who to tag... so literally anyone reading, go nuts and have fun ♡♡♡
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chaikachi · 10 months
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Since the writing team simply refuses to have Oscar meaningfully interact with most of the main cast besides Ruby and Jaune (for now, at least) smh smh, what sort of dynamic and relationships do you think Oscar would have with WBY? Pine boy deserves more justice!
Ohhhh v good questions!! Basing off their respective characters and what few interactions he has had with them, it's still tricky to say, but I'll do my best. DISCLAIMER: RG GLASSES ARE ON FOR THIS, I AM VERY SORRY. IF YOU WANTED AN UNBIASED APPROACH YOU CAME TO THE WRONG PLACE 😭
Both him and Blake are fairly quiet and more introspective members of the group. I think if they had any sort of relationship they'd probably talk to each other about their shared love of books and stories. I do think it would be fun if Blake teased him a little bit like she started doing with Ruby in v8, although Yang is doing a good job of that on her own. My guess for their dynamic is dependent on where Blake's character goes from here though, which is yet to be seen.
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As for Weiss... She seems to care about him a lot! And Oscar got super happy when she agreed to go to the movies with him and Jaune. It's hard to say what their 1-on-1 dynamic will be. Honestly i picture it being a bit like Oscar's existing dynamics with Jaune or Nora after the comic relief treatment Weiss got for all of v9. But it's also hard to say, I wish I could come up with more than that. :(
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Lastly Yang... honestly she's the one I have the most hopes for future interactions. We've seen so far that their dynamic is a bit goofy with Yang teasing him lots, but she cares about him a whole bunch too. Very much living up to big sister energy imo. She also seems very aware of how close him and Ruby are with how often she brings him up when talking to her sister (Ex: Yang being the one to first call Ruby when Oscar went missing in v6, asking her how Oscar felt about lying to Ironwood, emphasizing that they brought Oscar back from Salem when trying to cheer Ruby up, etc.)
I think I'd really like to see a heart to heart between Oscar and Yang in the future. Not as much as a Ruby and Oscar or Ruby and Yang conversation, but Yang expressed a lot of frustration, hurt, and confusion after Ruby snapped. She doesn't understand why her sister hasn't spoken to her or the rest of their team about her struggles... but Ruby did speak to Oscar about them at one point. We've also been given direct parallels back to back of how Yang and Oscar both approach Ruby differently about the same issue. And I think there's a lot to explore there.
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As much as I would love to look at this question as exclusively about Oscar + one other person, with no exterior influences, I really can't. When I think of the canon narratives around all these characters, it really skews my read on what to expect in the future.
During v9, we see WBY being setup to be more mindful of Ruby and her struggles in the future... compared to Oscar who has always paid attention to those things. And how any dynamic that mixes those two sides together could lead to Oscar and WBY learning to take better care of their Ruby together.
Also, while we don't get a lot of other relationship focus for Oscar outside of what's absolutely necessary for the story (curse you limited budgets), it is worth noting that Oscar is very often included in team RWBY meetings/arcs where the rest of JNR is not.
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Look at our little deuteragonist go. I don't feel like I answered these questions well but I don't know what else to say ahh i'm sorry but thank you for listening😫
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celestiall0tus · 3 months
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Miraculous AU - Chapter 38 - Terror
Beginning || Previous || Next
            “Run! The big, bad wolf is still hungry!” Ella and Etta shrieked. They laughed as they ran from Louve.
            Louve grinned and roared. “That’s right! And I’m looking for some scrumptious children to gobble up whole!”
            The twins ran in circles while Louve chased them around. Marlena smiled as she watched Louve entertain the twins. Nora rolled her eyes and helped Marlena with cleaning up dinner. Louve cornered Etta and reached to grab her, then stopped. The joy she felt faded along with her smile. Her ears straightened as a sickening dread consumed her. She took a step back and looked out the balcony doors. This hadn’t happened before. She had feelings, but nothing this strong before.
            “Is everything ok? You didn’t gobble me up,” Etta said.
            Louve turned to Marlena. “May I be excused?”
            “Did something happen?”
            “I don’t know, but I feel like something will.”
            Marlena nodded. “Be careful.”
            Louve nodded and grabbed her phone. She stepped out onto the balcony and leapt onto the buildings across the street. She focused on the dread and used Trail. A few paths appeared before her. She huffed, picked one, and followed it.
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            Rose hummed to herself as she washed the dishes. She was about finished when Fluff materialized before her. She opened her mouth to speak, but Fluff held a hand in front of her mouth to stay quiet. Fluff hovered closer and put a hand on her cheek.
            There’s a problem. Your stepfather has been akumatized.
            Rose’s jaw dropped. Her eyes widened as she shook her head.
            Fluff nodded. Transform and get out of here as quickly as you can. Get to the others. If you get caught, call for Alix, ok?
            Rose gulped and nodded. “Fluff, hop to it,” she whispered.
            Lapine peered out into the living room. She saw her stepfather sitting on the couch with his back to her. Fear struck her when she saw dark purple sludge cover his body. She covered her mouth and stumbled backward into the kitchen. She leaned against a wall and used Telepathy.
            Alix, I need you. My stepfather has been transformed. I’m going to try and run, but in case I get caught, can you be here to stop him? I need you.
            Lapine startled when she heard footsteps. She took a deep breath and ran but was caught by her stepfather. She squirmed as he lifted her up. What little of his smile she saw vanished when he looked her over.
            “Sweet, little Rose, what have we here? Cute little outfit you have there, my pretty ballerina.”
            Chills passed through Lapine as he spoke. She struggled against his hold, but he wouldn’t budge. She placed her hands on his arm, but when she tried to move them, they wouldn’t. Her hands were stuck to the ick.
            Her stepfather laughed. “Like a bunny caught in a trap, you aren’t going anywhere.”
            Her stepfather threw Lapine at the living room wall. She left an imprint and staggered to her feet. She moved to run, but he grabbed her and slammed her into the ground. The muck on his body fell onto her arms and legs that stuck her to the floor. She struggled against the ick as he moved his hands to her chest. He attempted to tear off the outfit, but it wouldn’t budge.
            He sneered. “Why won’t this come off?”
            “Because it can’t! It’ll never come off unless I say so! And there’s no way in heck I’m saying so.”
            “We’ll see how long you keep that attitude.”
            More sludge fell from his body and covered Lapine’s mouth and nose. She froze when she couldn’t breathe. She sent out one last message to Alix and remained still. She stared at him but refused to relent. Her body twitched as her lungs begged for air. She kept her eyes on him and his twisted expression as spots formed in her vision. Her head felt light as she saw a green flash.
            Alix stood behind Rose’s stepfather. Her eyes widened and she kicked his exposed skull. A loud crack broke the silence and he staggered. He turned and her eyes were draw to the necklace with a ring on it. The ring was black with a soft purple light. She kicked his face as she pushed him to the ground. He struggled against her, but he couldn’t move her. She lifted her leg and bashed his face with her skates. She did this until his face was a bloody, unrecognizable mess. She grabbed the necklace as the sludge completely returned to his body.
            Alix scooped up an unconscious Lapine and headed into Lapine’s room. She put Lapine down before she grabbed a large duffel bag. She filled the bag with Lapine’s clothes, electronics, and other essentials. She placed the necklace in her pouch, picked up the bag and Lapine, then attempted to use Voyage, but it failed. She tried again, but it failed. She swore and jumped out the window into the alley. She tore through the city at high speeds towards Juleka’s place. She slowed down and jumped onto the boat, then headed below deck. She hopped down the stairs into the living room where Juleka sat.
            Juleka turned as Alix landed in her living room carrying a large duffel bag and an unconscious Lapine. Fear gripped Juleka as she rushed over to the pair.
            “What happened? Why is Rose passed out?”
            Alix put the bag down. “Her stepfather was transformed. I don’t know what he planned on doing to her, but it looked like he was trying to kill her through suffocation.”
            “What? Why?”
            “Do I look like I know?”
            “Ok. Alright. Put her on the couch. I’m going to get Luka.”
            Alix watched Juleka barrel into Luka’s room. She snorted when she heard Luka’s girly scream and the pair arguing. She rolled her eyes and placed Lapine on the couch. She patted Lapine’s head, then headed back to Rose’s place. She stood on a nearby rooftop and watched the building.
            “Hey, Alix, what are you doing?” Louve asked.
            Alix looked back as Louve ran up to her. “Waiting.”
            “For what? Did something happen?”
            “Rose’s stepfather was transformed and nearly killed her.”
            “What? Where is she?”
            “With Juleka and Luka.”
            “Good. So, what’s the plan?”
            Alix took out the necklace and showed Louve. “Lure him away from Rose with this. Once he chases, bring it to Chat to be destroyed. Would you know where they are?”
            “Don’t need to when I can track them.”
            “Then I’m depending on you to lead the way once the monster emerges.”
            “Why hasn’t it?”
            “I might have killed it.”
            Louve furrowed her brow. “Is that possible?”
            “I’m not sure. I cracked his skull and smashed his face in. That should be enough to kill anyone, but this thing is still intact, so I’m worried.”
            “Is it where the akuma is?”
            “I think so. I can’t break it, so I’m assuming it is.”
            Louve hummed as an idea came to her. “Hey, your greater power allows you to defy rules, right?”
            “Yes.”
            “Do you think with it you could destroy possessed objects?”
            Alix blinked. She activated Defiance and took a deep breath. She gritted her teeth as she fought to break the ring. She broke it in two and released the akuma from within. It fluttered around, then flew off.
            Louve gulped as renewed dread filled her. “That can’t be good.”
            “Let’s worry about it later. Let’s check things out.”
            Alix grabbed Louve’s arm and teleported into the house with Voyage. They saw Rose’s stepfather sprawled out on the floor. Louve knelt and checked for a heartbeat. She looked at Alix and shook her head.
            “C’mon, let’s get the last of Rose’s things.”
            Alix and Louve went to Rose’s room. They grabbed some bags and gathered the last of Rose’s belongings.
            “So, what exactly happened?”
            “Don’t know. I heard Rose in my head saying that her stepfather had been transformed and was going to run but needed me in case she failed. I kinda ignored it until she reached out again almost begging me. When I got here, he was on top of her, suffocating her.”
            “And how are you feeling? After all this?”
            Alix stared at Rose’s plushies. “I don’t know. I guess I don’t really feel anything.”
            “Nothing at all?”
            “Well, I wouldn’t say that. I just… don’t know amongst everything.”
            Louve paused and placed a hand on Alix’s shoulder. “Do you want to talk about it?”
            “Not really.”
            “It might help.”
            “I… know that. I just… don’t want to burden you guys with… my failings.”
            “You aren’t burdening us with anything, Alix. We’re friends. We’re all here for you no matter what.”
            Alix opened her mouth, then shut it. She shook her head and Louve’s hand off.
            “It’s ok if you don’t want to talk, but I do encourage that you do. If not with one of your friends, then perhaps a stranger?”
            Louve stepped back and looked at Alix. She could see the gears turning when she looked into Alix’s eyes. She smiled and finished packing the last of Rose’s belongings. She turned back to Alix, who held all of Rose’s plushies in her arms.
            “Awe, you do care.”
            Alix rolled her eyes. “Let’s go.”
            Louve placed a hand on Alix’s shoulder. Alix used Voyage and teleported them into Juleka’s home. Juleka and Rose sat on the couch while their kwamis and Sass sat on the coffee table. Mullo and Fluff ate banana nut bread while Sass ate tofu. Juleka and Rose jumped up at the sight of Alix and Louve.
            “Please tell me you have good news,” Juleka said.
            “Well, we have news,” Louve said.
            Alix held up a finger. “Kaalki, dismount.”
            Kaalki emerged from the goggles and transformed Alix back. Kaalki took a seat with the other kwamis as Alix placed a bag of carrots in front of her.
            “Good idea. Fang, let’s rest.”
            Fang appeared from the chain ring bracelet and transformed Louve back. Fang took a place with Mullo and Fluff as she ate some of the banana bread.
            “Alright, so, you don’t have to worry about your stepfather. He’s no longer an akumatized monster, but we do have another problem.”
            Kaalki inhaled a carrot. “An akuma is on the loose.”
            Mullo, Fluff, and Sass choked on their food at the news.
            “How is that possible? Why didn’t the black cat destroy the akuma?” Sass hissed.
            “Isn’t it obvious? We didn’t have the black cat with us,” Fang pointed out.
            “Then how did?” Sass stopped and glared at Kaalki, then Alix.
            Alix munched on her own carrot. “What?”
            “You need to be more careful with Kaalki’s powers. And Kaalki, you need to be more considerate of the holders you choose.”
            Alix snorted. She leaned forward and flicked Sass’ head. He tumbled back off the table.
            “Thank you,” Kaalki said.
            “Of course.”
            “So, what happens when an akuma is on the loose?” Alya asked.
            “If it didn’t just disappear, it’ll seek a new host. Remember Trail?” Fang asked.
            “There were three paths. Which means, there are two other hosts it can change.”
            Fang nodded.
            “We need to head back out immediately. Juleka, Rose, will help us?”
            “Yes. I won’t let someone else suffer,” Rose said.
            Juleka nodded.
            “How do we want to do this?”
            “Alix is the fastest with Rose being the second. We should split up. One person trail the akuma and another fetch Chat and Ladybug,” Juleka said.
            “Leave the akuma to me and Alix. Juleka, you and Rose get Ladybug and Chat,” Alya said.
            Juleka and Rose nodded. They transformed and headed out. Souris used Perception and located Ladybug and Chat. Lapine scooped up Souris and they headed to Ladybug and Chat.
~~
            Ladybug sat on a high-rise fence with a laser pointer. She smiled as she waved it around and Chat chased it. Mayura sat on a nearby bench as she watched the scene. She smiled behind her fan at the silly fun the pair had while they waited.
            Chat paused when he heard someone’s approach. “I think Bee’s almost here.”
            They all looked up and waited for Queen Bee but saw Lapine and Souris land in the clearing. Souris rolled out of Lapine’s arms and ran up to Chat and Ladybug.
            “We need you guys. There’s an akuma loose on the city, seeking a new host.”
            “What do you mean by that?” Ladybug asked.
            “Alix broke an akumatized object that transformed my stepfather. When she did, she set the akuma loose to find a new host to change,” Rose answered.
            Mayura stood and joined the group. “What did your stepfather want?”
            Lapine gulped as she turned to Mayura. No words left her mouth, but she mouthed: Me.
            Mayura’s eyes widened. “Where is the akuma now?”
            “We don’t know. Louve is tracking it with Alix right now. We came to get them,” Souris indicated to Chat and Ladybug.
            “You gained more help. Take us to them. Lapine, can you message Queen Bee and tell her the change in plans?”
            Lapine nodded and used Telepathy to share the plan with Queen Bee. Souris used Perception and found Louve as she faced off against a muck monster.
            “We need to go now! Someone has already been transformed!”
            Lapine scooped up Souris and headed off. Mayura followed after them. Ladybug readied her yo-yo but paused when she looked at Chat. She jumped down and approached him.
            “Hey, are you ok?”
            “I don’t know. I felt ready for this, but there’s still some hesitation. But I need to be ready for this. It’s the reality of being a hero, isn’t it?”
            Ladybug smiled and hugged him. “A reality you won’t face alone, I promise.”
            Chat smiled and hugged her back. “Thank you. I don’t think I could do this without you.”
            Ladybug kissed Chat’s cheek, then moved away. “We better hurry. We don’t want to fall behind.”
            “Want me to carry you? I am the faster of the two of us.”
            Ladybug smirked. “I think I should be carrying you. You’re fast on your feet, but my yo-yo beats you any day of the week.”
            Chat grinned, his ears straightened, and his tail wagged. “Is that a challenge?”
            “Race you to the finish, Whiskers.”
            Ladybug threw her yo-yo and flew off. Chat laughed and ran off after her.
~~
            Louve crashed through the wall as she plummeted towards the street below. Alix caught Louve and set her on her feet. They looked up as a distorted woman’s laugh filled the air. A sludge monster jumped down and stared at them. It paused and looked at Alix, then smiled.
            “Look who it is. I was warned about you. You’re dangerous, aren’t you?”
            “Wouldn’t you like to find out?”
            “Let’s see what you got. Or are you all bark and no bite?”
            Alix and Louve charged the monster. It stood and waited until they were close before it swung. It missed Louve by a hair, but Alix kicked it and stuck to it. It covered Alix’s mouth with sludge before Alix could activate Defiance. Alix screamed behind the sticky ick that cut off her breathing. It grabbed Alix and slammed her into the street. The pavement cracked and broke upon the impact. More sticky slime oozed from it onto Alix that stuck her to the street.
            “Alix!” Louve called out.
            “I was warned to take care of the redhead first. That she’d keep me from what I want. From the most beautiful creature in the world.”
            “I’m still here, monster! I won’t let you anywhere near them!” Louve yelled.
            The monster turned to Louve. “On the contrary, you’ll bring them to me. You’ll bring the bug, then the cat. Once I have them, I can lure out the beautiful creature.”
            Louve raised a brow. How did getting Ladybug and Chat lead this monster to the “beautiful creature?” That didn’t matter right now. She had to keep it busy and find a way to save Alix. She wasn’t sure how, but there had to be a way. She couldn’t leave Alix to suffocate.
            Louve summoned her armor claws on her right hand. She moved around the monster as it swung wildly at her. She attempted to move closer to Alix, but it threw sludge at her when she did. She dodged the attacks, until one caught her foot. She fell over as it was lodged in the goo. She fought to break it free, but it wouldn’t budge. She swiped at it with her sharpened claws, but it was stuck in the sludge as well.
            The monster laughed as it neared Louve. “Be a good little puppy and sit still.”
            Louve’s breath caught as she stared up at the monster. She could see some of the woman that was underneath. She noticed the more it used the sludge, the more exposed it was. She attempted to swing at the exposed parts, but it simply moved out of the way. It waited until she stopped, then moved closer again. She glared at it when she saw a green turtle shell shield hit the exposed creature’s face. It screamed and staggered back. Her eyes never left it as a Carapace stood between her and it.
            Louve blinked as she stared at the man. A strange familiarity bloomed within her that threatened to bring tears to her eyes. This person was someone she knew and loved. She shook her head as she ignored those thoughts and feelings. Now was not the time.
            “Whatever you do, don’t let your shield touch any part of her covered in muck.”
            Carapace remained silent.
            “Keep her busy, please. Give me time to escape and free my friend.”
            Carapace turned towards her and nodded. The familiarity returned as she saw his face. It was concealed by a mask that shielded the entire bottom half of his face and sports goggles that masked most of his upper face. Despite the masks, she saw a familiar face. A face that brought with it a sense of joy and anger with it.
            Carapace sighed and turned away from Louve. He charged at the monster as he aimed for the exposed parts of it. Louve watched him for a time as she tried to deny what she already knew. This man couldn’t be the broken boy she’s known. The boy that had been afraid of the world since he experienced traumatic loss. The boy that dared to push her away from being a hero. This man who fought with purpose and donned a kwami couldn’t be the boy. It couldn’t be.
            Louve’s ears twitched, and she was broken from her thoughts when she saw movement. The sludge that surrounded them moved towards the monster with each blow the man made. The ones that held her down moved away to free her. She rushed over to Alix and swiped at the sludge. Her claws didn’t stick as she cut through the paper thin muck to free Alix’s mouth and nose. She placed her ear to Alix’s chest and heard a faint heartbeat. She let out tears of relief as she worked to free Alix. Once Alix was free, she scooped her up.
            “Hey, let’s go!”
            Carapace turned as Louve took off with Alix in her arms. He smacked the monster one last time before he ran off after Louve. The monster screeched as it chased after them. Louve looked back as her ears flicked. She heard Ladybug’s voice, then the whirr of the yo-yo. A string barricade formed between them and the monster. It shrieked as it slammed into the strings and stuck to them. Ladybug jumped from the buildings and joined them.
            “Is everyone ok?”
            “Alix was nearly killed… again. We need to get her to Viperion,” Louve said.
            “We will, but first that.” Ladybug pointed to the monster.
            The monster stopped struggling as it stared straight ahead. They looked at it puzzled until they heard metal against the pavement. They turned and watched Mayura approach.
            “This is the power of the butterfly? Quite fascinating.”
            The monster squeaked. “It’s you! The beautiful peacock woman.”
            “Do I know you?”
            “No, but I saw you. Your beauty is unlike anything, and it stole my gaze. Since I saw you, I’ve thought of nothing else. Day and night, it’s just you. He promised me I could have you in any way that I desired.”
            Mayura sneered. “Flattering, but you should be careful when falling for a pretty face. Beauty is deceiving.”
            Mayura looked past the monster and nodded. Chat activated his Destruction and ran in. He sliced through the sludge of the monster. It broke and fell away to reveal the woman. Around her neck was a black necklace with a pendant that pulsed purple. Chat grabbed the necklace, and it broke at his touch. A butterfly fluttered from it and fell apart.
            The woman grabbed onto the strings as she looked at Mayura. “What do you say we ditch these kids?”
            Mayura glared at the woman. She closed her fan, then reopened it as the feathers turned to metal. She cut through the strings of Ladybug’s yo-yo, so the woman fell. She pressed her heel into the woman’s chest.
            The woman laughed. “Very scary, but you wouldn’t hurt me. You’re a hero.”
            Mayura snickered, then broke into hysterical laughter. The woman’s smile fell, and fear clouded her eyes as Mayura flicked her fan. A feather blade shot out and pierced the woman’s throat. Chat watched in horror as Mayura easily killed the woman, then walked away, laughing.
            Mayura fanned herself. “My, I don’t think I’ve ever laughed quite like that.”
            “Mayura?” Chat asked.
            Mayura stopped and turned towards Chat. “I’m sorry you had to see that. I… forgot myself.”
            “Why did you… why?”
            “That was a monster, not a person. They didn’t need a butterfly to be a monster.”
            “But did you have to… kill her?”
            “Perhaps not, but the alternative could have been worse. Alternatives that you all will need to consider when dealing with these people.”
            “But don’t these people deserve a chance to prove they can be better?” Ladybug asked.
            “I’m sorry, Ladybug, but not everyone deserves those chances. Some people can never change.”
            “You can’t be certain of that,” Ladybug said.
            “I have to agree with Mayura. Some people don’t want to change or refuse to, even when it’s too late,” Louve said as she looked at Alix. She looked over at Carapace. “That is, unless they want to, but it’s still something they have to decide on their own.”
            Carapace nodded.
            Mayura approached Louve. “Let me take the horse. I’ll take her to the snake.”
            Louve raised a brow, then looked around. She saw Souris, Lapine, and Queen Bee up on the rooftops, watching them. She nodded and handed Alix over, then turned to Carapace. He took a step back, then ran off. Her ears pinned back as she chased after him.
            Mayura turned to Ladybug. “You and Chat are free this evening. Make sure to enjoy it. Souris, Lapine, let’s go.”
            Souris and Lapine leapt from the building and joined Mayura.
            Ladybug approached Chat. “Are you doing ok?”
            “Not really. I never thought… she would always do the right thing.”
            “Maybe she did. At least, what she thought was right.”
            “But killing can’t ever be right, right?”
            “I don’t believe it’s ever the right option, but to some people, it can be. I suppose we can’t really judge since we don’t have all the context here.”
            “Do we need the context?”
            “Yes. We don’t know what all happened tonight. We don’t know what happened with Lapine’s stepfather, the fight with the new monster, or why people made the decisions they did. We just have to hope they made the right decisions, even if we don’t agree with them.”
            “There has to line, right?”
            “Yes. I’m just not sure where it is.”
            “What do you mean?”
            “This is a bizarre situation we’re in. Where should the line be drawn when there isn’t one. I feel like, at this point, anything is allowed. Alix has almost been killed… twice. You were in the claws of a monster. So many innocent lives have been put at risk and even killed. If there’s a line somewhere, I don’t know where it is.”
            Chat’s ears flicked. One ear pinned back while one stayed up. “If the line is missing, shouldn’t we draw it?”
            “We should, but where and to what extent? What is the right thing? What’s the wrong thing? After all of this, it seems like to take the right course, means doing the wrong thing. At least, if the situation calls for it.”
            “I suppose we’ll figure out as we go?”
            Ladybug held Chat’s hand. “We will together.”
            Chat smiled and squeezed her hand. “So, what now?”
            “The night is ours, Kitty.”
            Queen Bee watched from her perch as Ladybug and Chat headed off. She smiled, happy for the pair. More for Adrien, but Marinette too. Despite the joy, there was a pang of envy hit her. She stood and looked away. She wished it could be that easy for her.
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ladyknightellen · 2 months
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I would love to hear more about The One Where Henry's Metaphor Is Not A Metaphor or read a snippet from it!
Okay so, little summary of sorts, then I'll give a lil snippet!
-Henry was born with his heart partially outside his body along with some other issues that go along with that condition (the actual condition is called Pentalogy of Cantrell in case you're curious)
-For the most part, it follows canon, but deals mainly with Henry's struggle to find a balance between his genuine medical needs, and the safety precautions that have been imposed on him by his family. Basically Mary is being awful in new and horrifying ways, and Catherine stopped fighting her and became a bit of a helicopter mom after Arthur died.
The party is loud and bright and everything Henry would normally hate since he can’t dance or drink, but the moment he sees Alex, he doesn't really care anymore. The suit he’s wearing makes him look like he stepped off a runway, and Henry is sure his mouth is hanging open.
He can tell that Alex wants to dance, but he stays with Henry and talks with him about anything and everything. When the songs change to some early 2000s hip hop however, Alex can’t seem to help himself and he doesn’t resist when Nora comes and starts pulling him up.
“Come on Henry!” She yells over the music “You come too!”
“Oh no, it’s–” Alex trails off, like he’s trying to decide how to explain things to Nora without actually explaining it to her. He looks at Henry with a look that says ‘help’ and ‘sorry’ and Henry makes a decision that he knows he’s going to regret.
“I’ll join you!” Alex studies him with a concerned expression, and as they walk towards the dance floor, he pulls him aside and gives him a concerned look.
“Are you sure about this? I don’t want you to…umm…” He trails off, and Henry finds it painfully endearing how worried he looks.
“I’ll be fine Alex, remember how I told you that I don’t like people treating me like I’m made of glass?”
“Oh, right, sorry.”
Henry only makes it through one song before he starts feeling dizzy, and Alex follows him when he wades back through the crowd of bodies to find somewhere to sit down.
“Don’t bite my head off for asking this, but seriously, are you alright?” Alex asks. Henry doesn’t try to answer out loud, but he manages a weak nod that does nothing to help the dizziness and pounding headache.
“Do you want me to leave?” Alex asks “Because I don’t think I should, but I’m not gonna hover if you don’t want me to.”
“Stay” Henry says as he leans back against the wall and closes his eyes, willing his body to take in deeper breaths. “I’ll be good– In a second.”
“I’ll believe you when you say something without gasping for air.” Henry cracks one eyelid open and gives Alex a look.
“I told you, I don’t– need you to treat me like– I’m made of glass.”
“Well call me crazy, but I feel like there’s a pretty big gap between treating you like you’re made of glass and just making sure you don’t pass out in the middle of a crowded ballroom.” He’s right, and Henry knows it, and he doesn’t have the energy at the moment to even attempt to protest, so he just nods and waits for the episode to pass.
When Henry opens his eyes this time, Alex is sitting in a chair next to him instead of hovering over him, but he’s still glaring at Henry with an expression that is a mix of worry and exasperation.
“I’m fine now Alex, I promise.” He says, sitting up fully again.
“Okay, see, now I believe you.”
“You can go back to dancing now, I’m fine.”
“No no it’s fine, I don’t mind hanging out with you, I’m sorry Nora dragged you out there.”
“Alex, please, just go back and enjoy your party. You don’t have to sit here with me the whole time, I know you want to dance and have fun. You don’t have to reign yourself in on my account, and don’t say you’re fine and you don’t care, because you are currently bouncing halfway out of your seat to the rhythm of the music. Go enjoy yourself, I’m fine. I promise.” The words come out a bit more forceful than he intended, and Alex looks almost hurt, but after a few more seconds, he stands up and gives Henry an awkward little wave before rejoining the mass of people on the dance floor.
Henry watches him for the next three songs until the DJ starts counting down to midnight. He sees Nora wrap her arms around Alex’s neck as he puts his hands on her waist and pulls her in for a kiss just as everyone screams
“Happy New Year!”
For the second time that night, Henry feels like his chest is on fire, but for an entirely different reason. He’s not sure how he gets outside, but when the cold hits his face, he stops and reaches out to grab hold of the first thing he can find to steady himself. The bark of the tree is rough on the palm of his hand and it’s oddly comforting and grounding.
“Sir, are you alright?” Shaan’s voice startles him, and when he turns around so fast he nearly collapses.
“I–” He starts to say he’s ‘fine’ but he knows Shaan wouldn’t believe that for a second. The only problem is; there’s not much Shaan can do about what’s currently making him ‘not fine.’ “I’m not in need of assistance at the moment.” He says finally.
“Are you certain of that Sir?” Shaan asks, and there’s something in his tone that tells Henry that he’s picked up on what’s going on, or at least grasped that it’s not a medical emergency that’s got him gasping and holding on to a tree for dear life.
“Not really, but there’s nothing that would be in your power to do about my current predicament.”
“Ah, I see.” Shaan says, then waits for a moment, probably assessing if he should stay or go. “I’ll return to the room then Sir, if you don’t require anything from me.”
“Yes, thank you Shaan.”
Once Shaan has left him alone again, Henry rests his back against the tree and slides down to the ground to sit. He tilts his head up to stare at the night sky, the distant fireworks flickering in the edge of his vision, and he wonders, as he often does, if his father is watching him from somewhere in the great beyond.
“Hey dad” He says, feeling slightly foolish talking to the sky, but the words keep coming and he couldn’t stop them if he tried.
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sterlingxlevin · 16 days
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[cis woman, she/her] Welcome to Aurora Bay, [STERLING LEVIN]! I couldn’t help but notice you look an awful lot like [MADELYN CLINE]. You must be the [TWENTY-THREE] year old [ATTENDANT AT SEASIDE ANIMAL RESCUE]. Word is you’re [SWEET] but can also be a bit [STUBBORN] and your favorite song is [HERE COMES THE SUN BY THE BEATLES]. I also heard you’ll be staying in [AURORA BAY DRIVE]. I’m sure you’ll love it! 
Family:
Father: James Levin (NPC, owner of 5 star restaraunt, Neptune)
Mother: Agnes Levin (deceased)
Sister: Elizabeth Levin
Daughter: Sunny Elizabeth Levin
Aunt: Noelle Driscoll
Cousins: Lucy Driscoll, Nora Levin
Sunny:
Named after Here Comes the Sun by the Beatles, a song Agnes would sing to Liza and Sterling when they were little.
Age: 4 (will be 5 this month)
Birthday: April 15
Appearance: A mini Sterling. Same hair, eye color, etc.
Personality: sweet, sassy, has an attitude like her mama.
trigger warnings: car accident, pregnancy, PPD, mentions of labor
When you’re born into money, everyone thinks you have everything you could ever want or need. Sure, Sterling and her sister had the best clothes, one of the biggest houses on Aurora Bay Drive, a vacation home, and nearly everything two young girls could dream of, but there’s more of a need than what money can buy.
Sterling was really little when she lost her mother in a car accident, and while she can’t remember everything about her mother, she certainly recalls how different life was with Agnes Levin in it. And Sterling recalled how her mother’s absence changed everything. She remembered how sad her father was, she remembered how her sister took on the motherly role of taking care of everything, and Sterling remembered how angry she became. It was as though the only emotion she could possibly express about any of it was anger. She became hot-headed, rude, and she was mean to her sister because she felt as though she were trying to replace their mom. Sterling didn’t like to talk about their mom, though, especially when she got older because she couldn’t remember much about her and it only made her feel worse.
To help her with these big emotions, James tried to help by being there when he could. He tried talking to Sterling about it, tried getting her into therapy, but what really seemed to help was getting Sterling active in things she enjoyed. One summer James enrolled Sterling in a camp where she became a certified lifeguard, and that girl basically living on the beach was happier than she’d been in years. James encouraged this and was happy when Sterling started surfing and swimming more and she was in the ocean 24/7. 
When Sterling got to high school, not much changed. She still loved the ocean and that was where she found her peace, but she was still struggling with being angry and she was still upset with Liza for “replacing their mom”. It was stupid to think that way and Sterling knew it, but even as a teenager, her feelings were still so big she didn’t know how to navigate them. Because of this and the stress of school on top of it, Sterling became somewhat of a wild child. She would skip classes to go surfing, she’d sneak out and party with her friends, and it drove James crazy with worry.
However, Sterling calmed down a bit when she met the boy that she believed would be her high school sweetheart. They started dating Sophomore year and they stayed together throughout the rest of school. Sterling and all of her friends were convinced that he was the one- that he and Sterling would truly be together forever, but that didn’t happen.
The summer after Sterling had turned eighteen, all her friends were talking about which colleges they were going to and what their plans were, Sterling learned something that would change her life forever. After realizing her period was abnormally late, she felt a bit panicked and came to her older sister and told her about it. Liza went with Sterling to get a pregnancy test and it was positive. Sterling was terrified and she had no idea what to do but she trusted her older sister to help her through it. And when Sterling told her boyfriend, he broke up with her and left to continue his plans for his future without her… without them. 
Sterling was scared and made Liza promise she wouldn’t tell their father just yet. It wasn’t until Sterling went to her first doctor’s appointment and saw her ultrasound that she decided she was going to keep her baby. It was then that Sterling, with the support of her sister, told their father. To Sterling’s relief, James was willing to support her through it too. 
All of Sterling’s friends went on to fulfill their dreams by going to college or moving out to LA to pursue their careers, and while Sterling had been dreaming of a million things before she graduated high school– things that would take her far from Aurora Bay– that’s now where she stayed. 
Sterling’s pregnancy wasn’t terribly difficult. In fact, she enjoyed being pregnant. She was still so scared but she thought it was cool to see the changes in herself and to feel the baby moving around in her belly. It made her so excited, especially when she found out she was having a girl. One night, she and her sister were looking through baby names online while listening to the Beatles (their mother’s favorite band), when Here Comes the Sun began to play. The name Sunny popped into Sterling’s head and she knew that’s what was going to stick.
Sterling gave birth on April 15th, 2019, to a beautiful little girl she named Sunny Elizabeth Levin. And while Sterling’s pregnancy wasn’t that difficult, the labor and pretty much everything else was. Sterling spent over twenty-four hours in labor with Liza by her side the whole time, then after they were finally allowed to go home, Sterling found herself feeling really down. It was so difficult and Liza and James helped as much as they could, but Sterling eventually hired a nanny to help them out. Sterling didn’t know the first thing about being a mother and there were so many times she cried in Liza’s arms, telling her how badly she wished Agnes was there to help her figure out what to do. If she couldn’t have her own mother there, she figured a nanny who was a mother of her own children, could help. 
The nanny would come over every day and help out as much as possible, giving Sterling tips and allowing her time to herself. Sterling did try therapy during this time and it definitely helped her this time around. During all of this, Sterling had an incredible support system and two of those people in that support system were some of her friends from high school that either didn’t move or did and came back. One was a girl she’d been best friends with since she was little and the other was a boy she soon developed feelings for during this time but since she had a newborn, she never pursued anything with him. 
It’s been nearly five years now since Sunny was born, and while Sterling is still navigating motherhood, she has come a long way. She adores her daughter so much and would do anything for her. And since Sunny is now a bit older, Sterling has been doing a few more things for herself as of late, like getting back into the dating scene and even working on her own surfing line with one of her best friends.
Wanted connections:
Nanny that helped Sterling with Sunny
Sterling's best friend who stayed behind
Sterling's love interest after she'd had Sunny
Exes
Baby daddy
Hookups
Friends
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red-hemlock · 2 months
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✿ @ghosts-of-gotham from Nora
Send “ ✿ ” for 2 headcanons for our muses’ relationship. @ghosts-of-gotham
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River has tried to get Nora to go out and and socialize with her more, with varying degrees of success. One of those instances involved going to one of the many, many clubs in Gotham for 'just a little bit of drinking and dancing', according to River. But the result of that 'brilliant' plan? Somewhat disastrous. River didn't leave Nora's side so that she would be more comfortable, but Nora spent the entire time hovering over River's drinks, and shooting daggers at any man who happened to even glance their way, so very little 'fun' was had on her end. Once River noticed how miserable she was getting, they left immediately, and instead grabbed pizza to-go which they enjoyed in a park. Not a single death was dealt that night.
Nora and River like to trade knives on occasion, and use the others' swapped blade when they work... Its almost like having your best buddy right there next to you, even if they happen to be off doing other things! Though she still struggles with expressing herself sometimes, Nora always gets excited whenever River mentions that she's bringing over a new blade over for her to see, because she feels that River has one exquisite taste in knives... Her favorites out of River's stock tend to be the serrated-edged knives.
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courtofmatchups · 6 months
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Um um, if it’s okay can you do my OC? Her name is Nora, she’s a pansexual/panromantic Latina with shoulder length brown hair, shirt and a little chubby, brown eyes, freckles. She has a cute but casual taste in clothes, things like pink hair ribbons, skirts with cute tops, sneakers, knee socks, sorta things. She particularly likes weird cute earrings, like those gimmicky ones that look like bows or ufos or lava lamps.
She has a very sweet and friendly personality! Very excitable and bubbly, cares *so* much about people. Like, too much so lmao, she never had a lot of friends because she came on too strong. These days she comes across as a crybaby, ditzy, and desperate, but she just wants to be nice and make friends but she doesn’t know what is “too much”. She’s not good at relying on people because she’s never had anyone to rely on but she doesn’t get bitter or resentful, just sadder and more self-reliant—she never expects anything from people, so she gets especially excited when anyone is even sorta nice to her haha
She’s a really good listener because she’s interested in everything! If someone is invested in something she’d love to know everything about it—partially a natural curiosity but mostly that she likes to value and respect other people’s time and it’s a way of building a connection and making someone feel understood and heard. It’s something she craves, so she likes to give it to other people.
She’s also really creative! She has a really eclectic and eccentric taste, so she likes weird patterns on clothes and drawing badly—she loves expressing herself! Which often comes across as oddball.
She really admires very charismatic, sociable, independent people, and really relates to people who are lonely or that others don’t really understand. It takes a *lot* for her to not like someone, but if someone proves themselves to be mean or disrespectful of other people’s feelings *on purpose*, then she will gladly get mad at them on someone else’s behalf lmao.
Overall she’s just very sweet, a little eccentric, very excitable, and gets nervous about offending or annoying people.
Sorry for such a long message! Feel no need to respond XD have a great day!
(A/N: Yay! Another OC matchup!/pos)
It seems to me you've captured the heart of...
The Immaculate Adept:
Toa Qelsum!
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Nora's bubbly and carefree disposition catches him off guard at first. Toa's grown up in a rigid and uptight environment, so she may have unintentionally come off a little strong for him at first. As much as he wants to dismiss her, he cannot help but feel fascinated by her
Social cues are a struggle for her, but she knows that Toa was off-put by her, and in her anxiety, she tries to dial it back. And Toa realizes this.
Their relationship would go pretty much the same as in the consort path. Toa takes Nora under his wing and teaches her magic. Some of the more... questionable things he did, he realizes was a bit much. He can tell himself it was "unproductive" till his complexion matches his hair colour, but really it was guilt.
He gets to know her more as she spends more time with him under his tutelage. On the surface, Toa and Nora could not be any more different: Nora is expressive, Toa is not. Nora is cheerful, Toa is not. But eventually, they learn that one thing they *do* have in common is their independence. They expect little out of people, at least in terms of friendships (let alone romance). He does eventually voice that he would not discourage you depending on him from time to time.
One thing Toa especially likes about Nora is that she is a good listener. Since she is such a good listener, he likes to talk to her, and when he feels certain he can open up to you, he'd do just that. Your willingness to lend an ear is a welcome change of pace.
In turn, Nora also feels ecstatic that she got to see how kind Toa is underneath his icy facade. She did admire him from afar, and the time she spent with him was all the more reason for her to be absolutely head-over-heels for him. Time and time again, she was a safe space for him and made him feel understood and validated, and Toa did the same for her.
in a nutshell, their relationship is the duality of the Autism Creature: one who embraces their authenticity, and the other who masks. Nora helps him to get in touch with his more authentic self (he also gets be a little shit in the most wholesome way) and Toa helps her reign in her enthusiasm as well as be her rock, (She just seems really autistic-coded to me, so...)
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supersaiyanjedi14 · 2 years
Text
RWBY COMBAT ANALYSIS: PYRRHA NIKOS
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“For it is in passing that we achieve immortality.  Through this, we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all.  Infinite in distance and unbound by death, I release your soul, and by my shoulder, protect thee.”
PHYSICAL
At the time of her death during the fall of Beacon, Pyrrha Nikos was a 17-year-old human female.  Born and raised in the Mistrali city of Argus, Pyrrha attended Sanctum Combat School before being accepted to Beacon Academy, and during that time made a name for herself as an amateur combat tournament champion, this string of competitions went a long way for crafting her for the physically demanding lifestyle of a Huntress.  Upon her admission to the school, Pyrrha quickly established herself as one of, of not the, most capable students of her generation, outstripping her classmates by a wide margin to the point where she took it upon herself to tutor her otherwise inept team leader Jaune Arc.  Despite this considerable talent, Pyrrha struggled with the pressures of her celebrity status in her personal life, feeling alienated from her peers due to the pedestal she stood on.  It is therefore truly appropriate that Jaune Arc quickly went from being her partner and student to being her closest friend and confidant, and potentially even more.
An exceptional though otherwise typical specimen, Pyrrha possessed no special or extreme alterations or enhancements, standing at 6’ exactly and distinguished only by her vibrant red ponytail, green eyes, and athletic build.  In terms of athletic performance, Pyrrha can best be described as balanced across the board, displaying an exceptional blend of strength, agility and dexterity.  She demonstrated her strength by plowing through several trees with only her shield to brace her during her initiation, and later supporting the weight of Nora Valkyrie before launching her into the air during the battle with the Deathstalker.  During her battle with Team CRDL, she ended the fight by manhandling the heavily armored Cardin Winchester and slamming him into the ground, and later briefly overpowered Cinder Fall during their final battle.  Her agility was best expressed through her nimble use of acrobatics, gyrating in midair to evade attacks and close the distance.  She kept one step ahead of all four members of Team CRDL at the same time, evaded Penny Polendina’s swarming blades during the Vytal Festival, dodged point-blank flame bursts from Cinder, and has casually kept pace with the likes of Blake Belladonna and Mercury Black (the former, mind you, being able to keep up with Adam Taurus and the latter able to dodge lightning).  Her dexterity was expressed through her elaborate but highly diversified fighting technique, capably switching between her various weapon settings on the fly and outfencing most of her opponents.  She has landed precise killing blows with her spear, both thrown and handheld, and performed everything from lunging thrusts to swift flank strikes with her sword, notably responding to the varied styles of Team CRDL without any loss in finesse.
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Additionally, Pyrrha demonstrated exceptional stamina and a highly respectable tolerance for pain and injury.  While not quite a human punching bag like the likes of Hazel Rainart and even Jaune, Pyrrha’s capacity for dealing with pain in battle was still considerable even compared to professional Huntsmen.  During her initiation, she was sent flying by a strike from the Deathstalker that left her in a crumpled heap, yet she recovered quickly and remained vital during Teams RWBY and JNPR’s inaugural battles with the Nevermore and Deathstalker.  During the food fight with Team RWBY, Pyrrha and the rest of her team were slammed against a wall and pummeled with a barrage of thrown debris carried by Ruby’s Semblance, and though she was conclusively disabled by this, she was relatively uninjured and joined her friends in the merriment immediately afterwards.  During the Fall of Beacon, she went through both a vicious one-v-one with Penny Polendina and the early stages of the Grimm invasion, endured the pain of the Aura Transfer machine, and was still strong enough to battle Cinder Fall almost to a draw.  In that final battle, Pyrrha had to be brought down through attrition, soaking up several serious kinetic blows from the Fall Maiden that demolished the surrounding area and eventually broke her Aura.  She was only subdued when Cinder shot an arrow into her ankle, the Fall Maiden proceeding to sadistically shoot another into her heart before disintegrating her body with the Scorching Caress.  Though she had no hope of surviving Cinder’s gruesome execution, the fact that Pyrrha met her death with dignity and calm despite her injuries and the emotional strain she had been subjected to that day was a testament to her discipline, composure, and will to fight.
In combat, Pyrrha leveraged her physical attributes as a rotating wheel of capabilities that she could emphasize based on the situation.  She met hard with soft and soft with hard, going for the throat by the path of least resistance.  This emphasis was reflected in her wardrobe, adopting light armor to provide a good balance between mobility and protection.  As a Beacon student, she wore a light brown corset, black miniskirt, and elbow-length gloves, over which she wore plated bronze greaves, cuisses, a gorget, and a bracer on her left arm, all this topped off with her distinctive red sash and bronze circlet. While the protection was less complete that it might otherwise have been, it still provided a solid margin for error against injury, while the gaps in the plating left her unencumbered for her more elaborate movements.
RANKING: Tier 2, Peak Human Fitness
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While not as overwhelmingly strong or fast as many of her peers, Pyrrha is not far behind any of them, her balanced array of attributes covering all of her bases and leaving her prepared for any athletic demand.  All her physical attributes are elevated to a degree that is more than sufficient to enable her skills, and her ability to emphasize the most appropriate attribute means she can match and exceed her adversaries where it counts.  While graceful in motion and outwardly unassuming, she was still a highly developed and powerful physical combatant who can comfortably function in any scenario. She displays nothing short of the Huntsman physical apex, which she further supplemented with light yet strong armor, providing a margin for error while leaving her free to strike.
MARTIAL
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Pyrrha Nikos’s weapons of choice were Miló and Akoúo̱, a paired set of a metallic shield with a combination sword, spear and rifle.  In spear form, Miló appeared to be a little over six feet in length, providing a reach advantage while not being so long as to be unwieldy.  The sword maintained the blade length while reducing the handle to about a third, enabling it to be held with either one or both hands. The rifle function was semi-automatic and appeared to be triggerable in the spear mode as well, demonstrated when Pyrrha launched the javelin at Jaune during their initiation and later when she triggered an automatic thrust during her battle with Team CRDL.  Akoúo̱ appeared to be about two feet in diameter and contained no special enhancements, although it was light enough to be utilized as a throwing disc.  Overall, a versatile and utilitarian weapon set, providing lethality at multiple ranges and a solid degree of defense
Like the majority of her peers, Pyrrha Nikos began her training at a preliminary combat school, in her case Sanctum Academy in Argus.  Graduating at the top of her class, Pyrrha supplemented her formal education with the rigors of competitive fighting, holding a four-time winning streak in the Mistral Regional Tournament.  Accordingly, she was already a tried and tested combatant when Team JNPR was formed in the months preceding the Fall of Beacon breezing through her initiation with the aid of June Arc, Nora Valkyrie, and Lie Ren.  Easily the most talented student of her generation, Pyrrha regularly outperformed her classmates in sparring, and even took it upon herself to privately tutor her teammate Jaune Arc, slowly molding the in-too-deep rookie into the capable field commander he would eventually become.  While her standing compared to true professionals is not established, I feel confident that, even on her worst days, Pyrrha would be a serious challenge to the majority of Beacon’s senior staff.  Pyrrha’s physical moveset took full advantage of each of her weapon functions, providing her with a diverse array of techniques that covered all her bases.  When fighting sword and board, she favored a one-handed grip on her weapon, using swift slashes and forceful stabs to pressure her opponent’s guard while using her shield to deflect incoming attacks before countering immediately.  Extremely agile, she supported this method with nimble gymnastics, evading attacks and building power for her blows.  Her spear-fighting technique appeared to combine classical spear thrusts with quarterstaff techniques, keeping her adversaries at bay with both probing stabs and overhand power blows while blocking attacks with the belly of the weapon. Her marksmanship, while not as well known as her melee skills, was also highly polished, usually using quick bursts of gunfire to break her opponent’s momentum and allow her to slip in counters.  She displayed greater accuracy with her thrown weapons, notably pinning Jaune to a tree with Miló’s javelin function after only a moment to gauge her aim.  Additionally, she regularly used her shield as a thrown weapon, blindsiding Cardin Winchester and Sky Lark with a ricocheting blow and staggering Cinder Fall with a flying shield bash. While she was an armed combat specialist first and foremost, Pyrrha was capable in hand-to-hand as well, staggering enemies with regular kicks and overcoming Cinder Fall with wrestling-like grapples in their final battle. This layered yet focused fighting style was reinforced by her fluid integration of her Semblance, often making subtle manipulations to her armor and weapons to bypass and subvert the enemy.
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However, while all Pyrrha’s skills were honed and deadly, none of them were elevated to a degree she could dominate with.  Where true master martial artists have refined their skill to the nth degree, Pyrrha’s individual techniques were merely good enough to contend.  Instead, her effectiveness in battle was predicated on her ability to alternate techniques, reconfiguring based on the situation and opponent.  Her tactics emphasized adaptability and subversion, getting around her underdevelopment in specific areas by using all of her abilities in tandem, tailoring her approach to suit the opponent.  During Team JNPR’s inaugural battle with the Deathstalker, Pyrrha opened with her rifle to keep the creature at bay before rushing in with Jaune to deflect its pincers with their shields.  Under their leader’s direction, Pyrrha used her shield to amputate the Deathstalker’s stinger after Lie Ren weakened it before coordinating with Nora Valkyrie, launching her into the air and allowing her to literally hammer the point in. During the food fight, Pyrrha directly engaged Blake Belladonna, capably fending off her dual blade (er, bread) assault before knocking her back, then immediately launched several loaves like spears at Yang Xiao Long, disabling her as well before being knocked back by Ruby Rose’s flying lunch tray.  When she fought Team CRDL, she seamlessly switched up her fighting style to deal with four very different fighter types at once, forcing openings in their guard and keeping them guessing.  She leveraged her speed and dexterity to subvert Cardin Winchester’s brutish mace strikes, fended off Russel Thrush and Dove Bronzewing’s blades at the same time before throwing them off with shield strikes, and closed the distance to render Sky Lark’s reach advantage useless, all while forcing them to react to her gunfire and keeping them at bay by suddenly unleashing her spear.  However, the thinly spread nature of her technique was demonstrated in her subsequent sparring match with Mercury Black.  She maintained her weapon in sword mode and fought fairly evenly with the undercover assassin, but was forced to defend against his more consistent kicking assault and was disarmed.  Pyrrha recovered quickly and used her Semblance to force Mercury’s boot out of line before retrieving her weapon, but he decided to forfeit the match, having already taken her measure.  In these battles, Pyrrha demonstrated her versatility and ability to undercut her opponents by probing for the chink in their armor, getting creative if a conventional assault failed.  At the same time, she showed a vulnerability to more developed stylists who could get the better of her if forced to rely on individual skills.
Unsurprisingly, Pyrrha proved to be her team’s ace during the Vytal Festival, to the point where Qrow Branwen, a veteran Huntsman with experience battling the agents of Salem, felt she was solely responsible for their advancement.  During the preliminary match against Team BRNZ, she replicated her effectiveness against CRDL, managing to contend with both Brawnz Ni and Roy Stallion in the initial exchange before coordinating with Jaune to flush out May Zedong.  After distracting the melee team, she launched herself into the air to block Zedong’s sniper shot, exposing her and giving Nora enough time to charge her Semblance and land a decisive blow.  It was after this that Ozpin approached her about potentially inheriting the powers of the Fall Maiden, both in recognition of her skill and out of concern for what Salem was planning.  Unfortunately, these revelations put a great deal of mental strain for the young prodigy, her sense of identity challenged by what was being requested of her.  When pitted against Penny Polendina, Pyrrha was distracted and reeling from a misunderstanding with Jaune, yet remained focused enough to acquit herself extremely well against the unseen android.  However, Penny’s varied multiangular assault prevented Pyrrha from finding a discernable weakness for her to exploit, and Emerald Sustrai’s illusions undercut her concentration even further, leading to her getting disarmed and being forced to unleash her Semblance to deflect Penny’s swords.  Tragically, this would inadvertently destroy Penny’s body, the resulting horror of the accident triggering the Fall of Beacon.  Pyrrha managed to work through her distress and aided her classmates in the defense of Beacon, putting a serious dent in the Grimm horde before being called away by Ozpin to facilitate the Maiden power transfer.  Unfortunately, Cinder Fall followed them and secured the whole power set, killing Ozpin in battle shortly after Pyrrha and Jaune escaped.  Rather than run, Pyrrha forcibly removed Jaune from the battlefield and went to confront the Fall Maiden herself.  Opening with a thrown sword and a flying shield bash, Pyrrha approached defensively, blocking and evading Cinder’s flame bursts and slipping in counters where she could.  She managed to gain some ground, briefly subduing her with unarmed combat after being disarmed, but the shock of the approaching Wyvern distracted Pyrrha long enough for Cinder to destroy Miló and brutally shatter Ozpin’s office.  Left with only her shield, Pyrrha was forced to lean heavily on her Semblance to fight back, her martial effectiveness severely reduced without her primary weapon.  To her credit, Pyrrha still managed to hit Cinder unawares, knocking her off her feet with her shield before pelting her with a series of gears, but Cinder’s power was ultimately more than she could handle, and Pyrrha Nikos was slain by arrows to the ankle and the heart.
RANKING: Tier 3, Standard Mastery
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Although this is Pyrrha’s official ranking, she is the kind of Tier 3 that I would describe as a “Tier 2 in the making”.  Most who peak at Tier 3, such as Adam Taurus, tend to rely on direct, focused applications of a singular, high-performance technique, dominating on the back of a single refined skill.  Pyrrha, on the other hand, employs the diverse fighting style and tactics of a Tier 2 like Qrow Branwen, all her skills adding up to something greater than the sum of their parts and providing a great deal of versatility.  However, she is held back by a lack of development, and is left at a disadvantage when forced to rely on singular skills.  Despite being an unambiguous fighting prodigy, none of Pyrrha’s individual fighting styles are refined to the point where she can rely on it to achieve victory against an equal.  She’s spread thin between weapon proficiencies, and her effectiveness is severely reduced if those weapons are disabled.  Instead, her success leans on her ability to funnel the most effective skill down the path of least resistance, getting around her lack of development by juggling all of her techniques until she finds the most appropriate method.  while this makes her a tricky opponent to engage, it also means she can come up short when no such path exists, either when she is restricted in her options, or more disastrously, when the opponent can answer all of her skills.  Pyrrha was a Tier 2 martial artist waiting to happen, tragically cut down before her prime, yet still a force to be reckoned with.
SPECIAL
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Pyrrha Nikos dubbed her semblance “Polarity”, the ability to manipulate metallic objects through magnetism.  With this power, Pyrrha could telekinetically lift, grip, and throw just about any form of metal.  Obviously, several of the metals Pyrrha has manipulated on screen are not actually magnetic, so check your scientific criticisms at the door.  Having clearly learned the extent of her abilities as she trained, Pyrrha developed her powers to directly support and supplement her overall fighting method, demonstrating both an incredible degree of fine control and an awe-inspiring degree of magnitude.  Her lifting strength was a minimum of several tons, demonstrated when she manipulated at least eight clock gears of Ozpin’s office during her fight with Cinder before pelting her with them.  Making this display more impressive was the fact that Pyrrha was able to maintain the trajectory of her thrown shield while still lifting the gears, showing her ability to wield power and precision in tandem.  Though she was typically cautious on how tightly she held her metallic projectiles, her grip power was sufficient to deform the metal she controlled, seen when she lost control of her power during her battle with Penny and bent Miló and Akoúo̱ into odd shapes.  Between her moments of cutting loose and losses of control brough about by emotional stress, Pyrrha has demonstrated a considerable amount of magnitude in her Semblance and the potential applications.  Other notable examples of her magnitude include overwhelming Blake with a barrage of thrown soda cans during the food fight, seizing Jaune’s armor and slamming him against a stone wall hard enough to crack it, blowing away Penny’s swords with a broad telekinetic wave, blasting off the lid of the transfer pod and using it as a thrown projectile, and launching the damaged elevator of the CCT tower to reach Ozpin’s office for her final battle.  Even more impressive is the ease at which Pyrrha has performed these feats.  Where other Semblances have been known to be labor intensive and draining on the users’ energies, Pyrrha has performed her most destructive feats almost instantly and without any noticeable toll on her stamina, her feat with the elevator taking place immediately before her intensive battle with Cinder Fall.
However, despite these impressive displays of power, Pyrrha typically refrained from such overtly destructive uses of her Semblance.  Instead, she favored using her powers for tactical support, using subtle and inventive magnetic nudges to force targets out of line.  Some of her favorite tactics included light deflections to off-balance her enemies and safeguard her allies, and more notably, manipulating her own weapons and armor to improve her combat evasions.  She made a habit of forcing her opponents’ weapons slightly out of range of her in the middle of their attack sequences, giving the illusion that she dodged the blow when in truth they just barely missed.  This method in particular was part of the reason why Pyrrha was such an effective prodigy, as she could effectively rob her opponent of their ability to bring their full power to bear, screwing with their precision and timing while enhancing her own.  This went so far as to earn her the moniker of “the Invincible Girl” due to her seeming inability to be hit.  During her sparring match with Team CRDL, she liberally contorted her body and thrown weapons to keep her adversaries at arm’s length and dodge around their attacks, turning their attempts to gang up on her into tangled and disorganized thrashing.  Against Mercury Black, she undercut his timing and control by forcing his attacks out of line, notably brushing his roundhouse kick past her after he managed to disarm her.  Her fine control and precision so great that many of her movements are completely missed, such as when she nudged Jaune’s shield up to defend without him even realizing it during his fight with the Ursa Major.  All this isn’t to say that Pyrrha couldn’t be an overwhelming powerhouse (her feats above prove that she can), but she much preferred to keep her full power in reserve, making the most out of the most efficient approach rather than the most domineering.  Why use a longsword when a dagger will suffice?
Much like her martial arts, Pyrrha favored using her Semblance as a multitool, using the most relevant application for the situation to channel her attacks down the path of least resistance.  However, Pyrrha seemed either incapable or unwilling to leverage both her power and precision at the same time. Most of the time, she simply used the subtle magnetic pushes to subvert the opponent or propel her movements, letting Miló and Akoúo̱ do most of the dirty work.  Even her combination of the gears and her shield was a combined assault with two vastly different objects being manipulated.  Had she sent one of the gears flying around as handily as she did her weapons, we’d be having a different discussion.  Whenever she was unarmed, her magnetic strikes became simpler and blunter, leaning on her power to overcome the enemy.  Against CRDL and Mercury, she tripped them up and exploited the openings as soon as possible, regaining the initiative long enough to slip back into her comfort zone.  But when pitted against Penny and Cinder, she was disarmed conclusively and backed into a corner, forcing her to resort to overwhelming power to contend with them.  Making this more of a black mark was the fact that her raw power seemed to be her only recourse to major setbacks; whenever her martial technique was insufficient or crippled, Pyrrha simply spammed Polarity to flatten the target.  She certainly maintained her focus and control, manipulating the flurry of soda cans to swarm over Blake and knocking Cinder off her feet with a shield throw before throwing the gears, but both of these displays still amounted to simply pelting her target with a barrage of debris.  This fallback option was effective enough against Penny, knocking back her swords and accidentally trisecting her, but Cinder managed to match and exceed Pyrrha’s power with her own, blasting the gears back with a contained fiery explosion.  If Pyrrha’s skill can’t cut it, she falls back on brute force, and if that fails, she has nothing to fall back on further.
RANKING: Tier 3, Specialized Combat
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Just as with her fighting skills, Pyrrha’s inventive and balanced application of her special abilities mark her as a Tier 2 in the making, demonstrating an extremely impressive range of power and application that nonetheless requires ironing out.  Her use of Polarity is brilliant, integrated into her overall fighting method in a way that most aren’t prepared to deal with, but her uses vary sharply depending on her armament situation.  When armed and in control, she uses her powers to capitalize on circumstantial factors and undercut the enemy, but when her fighting options are limited, she wields her powers and a blunt instrument.  My belief is that Pyrrha had a harder time directly influencing her target directly with her powers due to the need to split her attention. She’s so focused on enabling her style and defending against what the opponent is bringing on that she can’t spare the time to attack the enemy in the same way, such as stealing their weapon or more refined throws. Pyrrha is a magnetic savant, sacrificing power in favor of control. She is certainly not weak or inept in any sense, and her tactical uses demonstrate her intelligent strategy, but she hasn’t learned to consistently make full use of all of her powers. Again, a Tier 2 in the making held back by a lack of development, and given her dedication, this was likely one of the first things she would have worked to address had she lived.
OVERALL RANKING: TIER 3, ADVANCED HUNTRESS
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Pyrrha Nikos’s final ranking is determined from the average set by her martial skills and special abilities.  Pyrrha’s natural talent and status as a prodigy were signs of great things to come, clearly showing that she had the potential to be one of the greatest Huntresses of her generation.  However, Pyrrha was still a student when she died, and clearly still had a few tiny flaws in her style to iron out.  Her physical performance level was extremely advanced, comfortably providing her with all the tools she needed to enable her style, but she was still mortal and couldn’t fight forever.  As a martial artist, Pyrrha was versatile, high-performance, and tactically brilliant, but her individual skills were merely enough for her to contend, her success reliant on her ability to use all of them.  With her Semblance, she was skillful, precise, and deceptively opportunistic, expertly undercutting her opponents, but she was inexperienced with directly leveraging her power as a weapon in battle.  She is very much a jack-of-all-trades, her greatest victories tied to her ability to exploit her opponent’s weaknesses rather than overcome their strengths.  For all intents and purposes, Pyrrha Nikos is RWBY’s answer to Galen Marek from the Force Unleashed video games, a dynamic, underhanded savant who uses unconventional tactics to bypass stronger opponents’ defenses and catch them off guard.  Had she gained a few more years of training or lived long enough to join in the war with Salem, Pyrrha would have certainly learned to address these weaknesses; she’d be a serious threat to just about anybody.  As it stands, Pyrrha is more than eligible for Advanced Huntress status, but when she’s outclassed, she’s outclassed.
Aside from the obvious tragedy surrounding Pyrrha’s death, a genuinely kind, gentle, and noble young woman and a fierce, loving friend being brutally murdered, there is also the tragedy of a promising career cut so short.  Pyrrha was easily the best of her generation, well on her way to matching and exceeding many of the great masters of her day and embodying everything that a Huntress should be, body and soul.  As uncomfortable as she was with her celebrity status, her reputation was earned for a reason, both in the eyes of her fans and her friends.  The masses saw her as an unstoppable all-star and mighty warrior she appeared as on the outside, while her teammates, Jaune in particular, saw her for the courageous and compassionate person she was on the inside.  She was a rising star and true hero, cut down before her time, and even then, she gave her all.  Though she fell in battle before she reached her peak, Pyrrha Nikos did not die in vain, her friends honoring her sacrifice with every battle.  It may be cold without her here, but her memory lives on in the people who loved her.
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*originally posted on RoosterTeeth community page on 12-24-20*
*all images taken from the RWBY Wiki*
RWBY Combat Analysis
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Animaniacs : Wish Upon a Warner AU
I don't have a fully written out story for it yet (and I'm not sure if I ever will to be honest), but I thought this was a fun idea.
What is the "Wish Upon a Warner" AU? It's an AU where the world of "Wakko's Wish" and the world of "Animaniacs" are alternate dimensions. The main idea of this AU is that the Toon!Warners end up stuck in Warnerstock and eventually meet their older, royal counterparts. (I'm not gonna say how they get there yet, I have something in mind but I wanna see if people are actually interested in this AU first). Hijinks (and angst) ensue.
Some notes:
-Wakko's Wish, the movie, doesn't exist in this AU. Everything that happened in that movie (minus any fourth wall jokes where they reference the fact that it is a movie) happened in an alternate dimension.
-For the Royal!Warners, it's set 3 years after the events of Wakko's Wish; but for the Toon!Warners it's set in 1998, same year the original show ended. I chose for it to be set in 1998 because, without going into too much detail, the show's cancellation is the catalyst for the Toon!Warners ending up in Warnerstock.
-I made the Royal!Warners fae so that anything that the Warners do that could be explained with cartoon logic, for them they instead use magic (for example, they don't have hammer spaces, but they CAN summon objects, and they aren't squash and stretch characters, but they can transform their bodies, etc). They still look about the same as they do in Wakko's Wish, just older and in different outfits.
-The Royal!Warners can age and have the same lifespan as any human, whilst the Toon!Warners are...well, still toons. No adulthood for them-they're still (physically) 14, 11 and 9.
-Everyone else in Warnerstock is either a human or a talking animal-no toons here!
-Despite the AU taking place before the reboot, I do intend to have some characters from it be in the AU. Nils Neidhardt is a Wish Fulfilment Facilitator like Pip, Julia is a villager who moved to Acme Falls after Salazar was dethroned, Nora Rita Norita is the CEO of an elixir company (and rival to Hello Nurse), etc.
-Royal!Yakko is 17 years old and is trying to grow up a bit too fast, attempting to reject his family's signature zany and childlike nature. Now that he has a kingdom to rule over and that he's almost 18, he feels the pressure to stop goofing around and act like an adult, for the sake of the kingdom (his anxiety isn't exactly helping either). Meanwhile, Toon!Yakko is disappointed his older self is such a "stick in the mud" now, and cranks up his zaniness around him. Royal!Yakko thinks he's doing it to annoy him, but really Toon!Yakko just wants him to loosen up, and not fully lose his "inner" child.
-Royal!Wakko, and like his toon counterpart, always had the tendency to mimic others' mannerisms. Now that he's 14-as old as Yakko was when they searched for the Wishing Star-he's taken that to the extreme by trying to act just like his older brother. He does this mostly out of admiration, but also partly because he struggles with things Yakko, both his siblings really, are good at (reading, communication skills, etc) and he feels shame over this. Eventually he expresses his desire to be more like them to Toon!Wakko, who responds in confusion. Why would his older self want to act like Yakko? He's not Yakko-he's Wakko! Did he forget? They go back and forth on this a lot, although over time, with Toon Wakko's help, Royal!Wakko learns to not be ashamed for what he may lack, and to celebrate his own strengths by being his true self.
-Royal!Dot, or "Angelina" as she insists everyone call her now, is 12 years old and has fully recovered from her sickness. She wants to make up for the years she spent suffering from her illness and having to rely on her brothers to take care of her. Now that she's older, she's tired of being seen as the "cute, helpless little girl" of the family-she wants to prove that she's mature, independent, tough, reliable...and definitely not a burden. First order of business to show off her maturity was to she insist that everyone to call her "Princess Angelina", which she thought was a more mature sounding name than "Dot". Toon!Dot is surprised to learn that her older self was sick, then expresses delight at the idea of her brothers taking care of her whilst she lays in bed all day. Angelina accidently lets it slip she feels guilty over being a burden to her brothers when she was younger, even though Wakko's never said so and Yakko keeps insisting otherwise, that she isn't, and never was, a burden, that her brothers took care of her because they love her, and don't regret a second of it. Toon!Dot reminds her that if Royal!Yakko was anything like her Yakko, then he's not one to sugar coat things, so if he says he feels that way, he means it. Besides, ��We already know that we’re strong, but sometimes it pays to be seen as the cute, helpless little girl.”
-The Royal!Warners let the Toon!Warners stay at the castle with them (they are technically family) whilst they figure out a way to use their magic to reach Burbank.
This is the second Animaniacs AU I've made, the first being a "The Looney Tunes Show" AU. However, unlike that one, I might develop this one into a fanfic, since I have more ideas for it (a Pinky and the Brain subplot, which characters the Toon!Warners meet before meeting the Royal!Warners, etc). But no promises! (I am NOT a writer 😅)
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okay if you could swap two characters storylines in the show, who would it be? so like cinder the specialist schnee & winter the orphan turned villain. 👀👀
oooo Winter and Cinder sounds fun.
But personally speaking, it's gotta be the Cinder and Ruby storyswap for me. A friend brought this up and his brain was so huge for it.
Long post ahead.
In this scenario, Cinder is Taiyang's and Qrow's adopted daughter, who the latter found after a secret recon mission to expose unethical practices in Atlas (via the Madame's child slavery). This could be after both of them lost Summer AND Ruby to Salem, and to me it creates such good storylines for these character's relationships.
Taiyang loves his daughters, so Cinder never felt like she was unloved unlike when she was in Atlas. But being very observant, I think she would caught onto his grief about Ruby and due to her insecurities, would secretly feel like the outlier of the family. She loves her dads, but against her better judgement she wondered if fate would've favored her had Ruby not kidnapped.
Being closer in age to Yang, I don't think there would be the whole "Yang had to be responsible for her little sister" thing with them. They would be closer I think, where they understand each other's feelings about their parentage (Raven and Cinder's birth parents), while having a healthy sibling rivalry. I really love the idea of them going shopping together, training together and generally trying to one up each other in fun ways.
Another possibility could be, "how did Yang react to Cinder not being her real sister, and like Raven believed Ruby is still out there?". Did she convinced Cinder to go on a search for Raven and/or Ruby, which causes a little rift between them due to the Grimm attack? Did she sometimes thought about a relationship with Ruby, unknowingly feeding into Cinder's fears of being abandoned? So many possibilities.
What would Qrow be like for Cinder? Maybe he was like Qrow to Ruby, where she felt easier talking to him about her insecurities than to Tai. Again, being very observant, she could possibly understand him better than Ruby or Yang, and why he has to be alone all the time. Cinder probably relate to that feeling, and would have a vendetta against Raven for abandoning her family despite Tai's efforts.
What about her team in Beacon? (What would the the team name anyway lol). Yang and her are complementary to each other, but if we're going like canon by having her team up with Weiss, then wowie. Tensions up the wazoo, because of Cinder's anger against Atlas elites and Weiss' now inferiority complex of facing someone not only the same age and skills at her, but someone possibly better than her. But I do want to see them eventually growing a unique bond in relation to their tyrannical Atlesian parents, something that they understood from each other.
Blake could possibly rely on her as well, because both of them are very observant and their fighting style are similar to each other. Blake could open up about being Faunus, and Cinder, while experienced child slavery herself, lets Blake express her anger and grief about Faunus oppression without talking over her. Not to mention her potential clashing points with Adam, another Atlesian child slave.
Would Cinder be jealous of Pyrrha and then empathetic towards her feelings of being idolized? Would she develop a friendly, almost senpai-kouhai type of relationship with the inexperienced Jaune? Struggle to keep up with Nora's enthusiasm but loves how she can just understand her emotions? See Ren as a reliable friend who she sees a lot of herself in? So many possibilities.
Now, onto Ruby. While she's still quite dorky and awkward, she is uncanny. Like, "she knows more than you're comfortable with yet nothing about this tiny girl should intimidate you unless you're a Grimm uncanny".
I think her relationship with Salem is even more tense than Cinder and Salem. She knows that no matter how maternal Salem is being to her, she must not slip up (the Hound is a major factor in this fear). But Salem is also extremely manipulative and cunning, feeding Ruby lies that eats at her like, "her family never looked for her", "she has so much potentials if she stays", "I love you dearly, Ruby". Shit like that which would fuck with anyone's mind, let alone a 15 y.o.
Though, I don't think her relationship with Emerald and Mercury would be AS antagonistic as theirs with Cinder. Again, she's awkward and younger than them, with no one but Salem as "family", so maybe she would secretly see these two as her older siblings. I don't think she would maliciously manipulate Emerald, but it's more about her own safety over anyone else's. And with Mercury, she would help him with his prosthetics (both of them with their weapons tbh) and share his fears about Salem, as well as concerns about Emerald.
When they leave Salem's faction, forcibly leaving Ruby behind, it would create such good drama and angst between these 3. Ruby feeling abandoned and unloved (even if they're doing this to survive), and Emercury feeling like they've failed their little sister.
With Roman, he couldn't help but feel a bit of pity towards her. It's a cruel world, and even if she's threatening him and he hates her for it, he unfortunately sees himself and Neo in her. Little rats surviving in the city, instead of a measly life in a countryside.
What about Adam? Would she slaughter his sector? Would he perhaps sees Blake, his own little sister in her, and try to see something in her other than an enemy? How would she react to his scar if she ever has the chance to see it?
Ruby would be wary of Tyrian I think. He finds her fascinating and full of potential (maybe Salem assigned him to be her combat mentor), but also incredibly envious towards her because Salem values her more. Hazel is fearful of her situation, and if he could get her out like Emerald and Mercury, he'd die for it. He could be like the Taiyang to her life, teaching her about things that keep her from becoming truly malignant. Watts could inspire her with weapon development, but still sees her as a foolish little girl.
And the whole Silver Eyes thing. Oh my god, the potential, the drama, the madness that could come from this. Salem murdered Summer, took her daughter and basically have a weapon on her side. What heinous advantages could she get from this, is up to interpretations (and all of them slaps).
Would Ruby feel guilty about Beacon? Pyrrha? The people she manipulated in order to not be killed by Salem? What would her actual family's reaction be when they found out that she's alive, and what would it be when she betrays them? Yang now has even more motivation to keep moving forward for both of her sisters, so does Tai and Qrow for all of their daughters. Would Cinder be vengeful due to the death of her friends? Or would she join up with Yang to reunite their family from Salem's clutches?
God, I love every possibly of this AU so much, because Cinder and Ruby was written to be foils, but never actually acted like foils. But had their lives been different, I think it would create so much riveting storylines in the right hands. Fan creators, ya'll need to go crazy with this.
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