#[ memories just hurt you ]

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Good morning, Sleepyhead.

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[s0fter-sin]

something happening on a mission, something personal that has soap spiralling; panic and rage making him reckless, thoughtless, and ghost has to draw the line

“you’re compromised johnny; you know what that means?”

“you’re not pulling me out,” soap immediately snarls. he turns on him and ghost barely recognises him; venomous fear turning his eyes to unyielding ice. "you're not sidelining me; i need to be in this-!"

but ghost has never been afraid of venom; spat or dripped straight from bared fangs.

he snakes out a hand grip the back of his neck, jerking him in a rough shake. "if you can't think, you can't be a soldier," he growls and he flinches like he's been struck.

his lips quiver as they twist in a sneer and he wrenches, trying to free himself of his hold.

ghost doesn't let him.

"it means you give your body to me because your head ain't fucking attached to it anymore."

soap stills, body trembling beneath his hand as he sucks in shaking breaths.

he tightens his grip, pulling him closer and digs his forehead hard into his. “it means you give yourself to me so i can have the weapon that you are and use you the way you're meant to be used."

the ice in soap's eyes fractures.

ghost’s voice drops to a whisper, spoken only to johnny, not this facade of vengeance and pain, and wills it to reach him through the glaciers.

“so i can keep you safe ‘til it’s done and i can bring you back.”

[sysig]

How much of me is me? (Patreon)

[yashley]

"Yeah, but we talked about it and I didn’t want it." "Why not?" "Because it scared me."

[lesbiradshaw]

lovers’ quarrel <3

[solargeist]

Xelqua & Grian

[fandomseverywhereassemble]

Svsss AU where Shen Yuan transmigrates into the fake jade pendant. He’s confused at first. Obviously. What is this?! He manages to transmigrate, and he doesn’t get to be anyone cool. He’s a fucking necklace instead. Hanging around Luo Binghe’s neck. There could be worse things though, he supposes. If he could transmigrate into an inanimate object, better the protagonist’s prized possession than a nondescript rock somewhere in the forest, right?

Shen Yuan quickly realizes that constantly being attached to the protagonist in a novel where the first half of it had been accused of being ‘torture porn’ and the second half of it was… porn. He would see everything that happened to Luo Binghe in first person, and it… sucks.

Shen Yuan watches as Shen Qingqiu beats Luo Binghe bloody and locks him in the woodshed. He watches as Ming Fan attacks and taunts him. He watches Ning Yingying offer the little comfort that she can to Luo Binghe, but it’s not enough. She can only offer honeyed words and clean cloth. It’s not what he needs, and Shen Yuan tells him this, not that Luo Binghe can hear him. But over time, as Luo Binghe holds the necklace that his mother got him close to his heart, clutched in his (bloody, numb, trembling, bruised, broken) fingers, Shen Yuan starts to feel again. He feels Luo Binghe’s pain and tries to take it from him, for him. It never really works, but he likes to think that he takes some of the sharpness from his pain. Maybe he dulls it, just a little. He hopes he does.

Shen Yuan makes his peace with it. Peeking through Binghe’s robes, he rolls his fictitious eyes at people, yells curses at those that would dare lay their hands on someone as pure and good as Luo Binghe. Didn’t they know of his nascent power, lying just below the surface, waiting to be unlocked? Obviously not, but it still hurt to watch them all dig their own graves right in front of his eyes.

Then, one day, he’s reminded of a fact quite forcefully. It was his own oversights, everything considered, he knew the plot of PIDW like the back of his hand. The plot point that Airplane had abandoned.

Luo Binghe loses his fake jade pendant.

It happens just as it does in SVSSS. Albeit with a few more kicks and punches and blood spilled. And Ming Fan throws Shen Yuan high in the air, where his cord catches on an errant branch, and there he stays, helpless as he watches Luo Binghe curl around himself to protect his vital organs. Shen Yuan can’t do anything other than swing from side to side, and that’s probably just the inertia rather than his vitriol.

They eventually leave Luo Binghe, and Shen Yuan watches as the protagonist searches for the amulet everywhere. Everywhere but up. Everywhere but WHERE Shen Yuan is, and fear shoots through him. He could be abandoned right here. Would life as an inconspicuous rock be any different from now on? Maybe it would have been better because he would have had no way of knowing where he was or what story he was in. He begs Binghe to just look up. Please look up. He knows it’s futile. Binghe never found the Guanyin in PIDW. He still screams, tells him where to look until…

Luo Binghe looks up.

He lights up, and spends the next two hours dragging his bruised and bloodied body up to Shen Yuan. And when he finally grabs it, Shen Yuan feels so much better, and Luo Binghe does too. Did his pendant tell him where to find it? Impossible.

The next time Binghe is injured though, the voice he heard gets louder, and it isn’t just… Binghe’s internal voice telling him what to do. It’s got its own consciousness. Something he figures out as soon as he tries talking to it in the quiet of the frozen woodshed and it immediately responds.

The two get really close really fast. SY tells Binghe that those extras don’t know anything. That Binghe is better than all of them, especially that lecherous Shen Qingqiu. Binghe tells him that he’s sure it’s all just part of his training. SY tells him that they’re abusing him, and Binghe sadly shakes his head.

The story progresses as usual, Binghe suffers a little less because now he has his secret Shen Yuan. Shen Yuan comforts him as best as he can until… the Abyss.

Because something happens in the Abyss and Luo Binghe dies.

It wasn’t supposed to be possible, he was the protagonist, but Shen Yuan can feel Luo Binghe’s life slipping away. He can feel pieces of his soul fragmenting and dissipating, so he does the only sensible thing: he catches the fragments as best as he can, puts them back together, and pushes them back into Binghe’s body.

He doesn’t allow him to die.

It isn’t perfect though, and some of Binghe is in the pendant with him, and some of Shen Yuan is with Binghe. Souls intertwined.

There’s a few more close calls in the Abyss, and each time, Shen Yuan gets slightly better at putting Luo Binghe back together again. They still spill into each other, though nothing is ever perfect. Luo Binghe might even be a little… reckless with his life. He knows SY is there to put him back together, and when they’re with each other… pieces of him blowing in the wind, tethered to each other by SY’s tenacity. He felt… comforted. Warm. He felt safe, even in the danger of the abyss.

When they emerge, Binghe’s seal broken, but not blackened, they own pieces of each other. Binghe has some knowledge of the modern world, and some anger toward this guy named ‘Airplane’ (what kind of a name was that, anyway?)

One time, Luo Binghe loses Shen Yuan. Some villain snatches the necklace from around his neck and Binghe feels incomplete. Like there are physical pieces missing, even though he’s unharmed. He thinks back, and his memories are… fuzzy. There are things that he knows happened to him. But it’s more like facts that he knows rather than memories. He knows that the woodshed was cold, but he can’t remember how his hands shook and his fingertips went numb as a result. He knows that Shen Qingqiu beat him, but he doesn’t remember how the bruises felt the next week.

The worst part is that he doesn’t remember the comfort Shen Yuan provided during those times. He knows it happened, but the memories are hazy. Incomplete. Like viewing something blurry in black and white from 20 meters away.

It turns out that Shen Yuan took some… liberties when he put Binghe’s life back together. He took away those painful memories, keeping Luo Binghe’s pain and inadvertently the comfort Shen Yuan gave him as well. When they’re close, it doesn’t matter. Their memories flood each other’s minds. Their souls dance and flow within each other. But separated… Binghe doesn’t have those memories anymore. They’re gone. Along with the pain that accompanied them.

I got a lot of this idea from a book series called The Liveship Traders by Robin Hobb and there are some details I thought about but didn’t include: Binghe and Shen Yuan being so intwined that they physically cannot die without each other (Binghe crawling toward the discarded pendant just for Closure, SY begging him to stay back bc he doesn’t want him to die); and the reason SY’s consciousness gets louder is because more of Binghe’s blood is soaking into the fake jade pendant.

[shadedheart138]

I'll Be Here Until You're Okay

Legend was fine when they landed in Skyloft. It'd been ages since Sky had seen Groose or Sun, and he quite literally cried when he saw them again. Sky deserved to see his partners, deserved to see his Loftwing, his home. It was a blissful few days of rest, before they had to leave due to hearing of a group of black blooded monsters nearby.

Legend was fine when they landed in Outset, even with the memories of the waves, the sand, a girl and a dream. Wind had missed his grandma and sister so much, and he'd screamed as soon as they hit the sand. He ran faster than Legend had ever seen him run. Wind had smiled more than he had in a while too, and Legend got really sunburnt and quite miserable.

Legend was fine when they landed in Four's world. It was good to see Four's Grandpa again, to trade stories and fix some of Wild's broken weapons. Four had been excited to see the Minish again, and get a chance to talk to Dot.

They were fine when they landed in Time's. The ranch was quiet and felt almost like home. Malon was kind as always, and they had good places to sleep. Fighting was easier, almost, with the knowledge they'd have an actual bath and mattresses to sleep on when they were done.

Fine in Wild's. Flora had been ecstatic to see her partner again, and Wild relaxed a good bit around her. Seeing Farosh had been a rare treat, and the hot springs Wild had brought them all to were heavenly.

Fine in Twilight's. Ordon was just as quiet as the ranch had been.

Hyrule's. Good to see Hyrule acting confident for once.

Warriors'. The bars were good.

But they were most decidedly not fine once they landed in Wild's again, after only a couple of months away from it. ***

Legend stepped forward out of the portal, Hyrule right behind them. They blinked in the bright sunlight, expecting to see a familiar landmark, the house they shared with Ravio...

When none of that was seen and instead they were greeted by an open field, Legend froze. Why Wild's Hyrule again? Why? Hylia must really hate them if she won't even let them go home. Legend hated her just as much, she never let them rest, not even after all the adventures. No matter how many times Legend did her bidding, she was never satisfied. Legend clenched a fist, angry. They wanted to go home.

Home.

Oh, Ravio.

Legend's eyes watered. They let their hand unclench, suddenly gripping the side of their skirt instead. It'd been almost five months since Legend had seen Ravio. Legend bit their lip and didn't notice their name had been called until the entire Chain was watching them with worried expressions. Legend took their hands from their skirt and clasped them together instead, with a sort of finality. "Wild. This is yours, right?" Fuck, Legend's voice broke. Legend took a shuddering breath, watching Wild. Wild nodded, expression sad. Legend nodded stiffly right back, before turning around and beginning to walk, shaking. They didn't care where they went, not right now. If the road didn't lead to home then Legend didn't care.

"Legend-?"

Legend ignored Warriors, continuing to walk. The longer their mind dwelled on home, on Ravio, the worse they felt. Legend was quite tired of feeling sad already.

Ravio. Legend missed him so much. The space between his teeth, his scarf. Sheerow. His laugh. The feeling of his hands against Legend's. The gentle curve of the back of his neck against Legend's hand. The stumble when they danced together.

Legend hadn't even received a letter from their husband in what, three, four weeks? Almost a month? (Married for tax purposes, Legend always insists. Lies.) What if Ravio was hurt? Worse, what if Ravio was dead? Fuck. The thought alone... Legend choked, giving a soft whine. They brought a hand over their mouth, trying to stifle it. Tried not to cry, don't cry, don't cry, don't-

A soft hand came down on Legend's shoulder, encouraging them to turn. Legend turned, eyes squeezed shut, biting their lip hard to try and make the pain there worse than the pain in their heart. Legend was gently pulled forwards into someone's chest- Time, only Time had that height -and Time's hand came up behind Legend's head to cradle it close. Ravio had always held them the exact same as Legend was being held by Time right now. It hurt.

"I'm sure the next portal we go through will be yours, Legend." Time said quietly. Legend gave a soft sob- the way they were being held, how much they missed Ravio, the soft tone, it was all too much- and that was all it took for them to lose the tiny bit of control they had over their emotions. Legend shakily put their arms around Time, fisting the back of the man's shirt tightly.

"I miss Ravio." Legend whispered, crying harder as soon as Ravio's name was out of their mouth.

"I know, Legend. You'll see him again soon." Time soothed, hugging Legend for an undetermined amount of time. By the time they were done, the rest had set up camp most of the way and Wild was making lunch. Legend sat down next to the fire, close to no one.

Warriors offered Legend whatever Wild had made for lunch. Legend refused, staring into the fire. An apple was put into their hand.

Legend looked at it, and reluctantly took a bite. It wasn't long before Hyrule was pressed to Legend's left side, trying to comfort. The soft tingle of magic against Legend was soothing, even if only a little. Wind quietly came to rest against Legend's other side, small hands fiddling with a seashell. Legend tiredly watched the fire, tuning everything out.

Ravio, Ravio, Ravio. Every heartbeat pressed Ravio's name into Legend's head. If they closed their eyes they could see their home. The place they put their shoes. Where they packed up their gear. The rocking chair. A table with a cup Legend had carved out of wood, when their hands didn't shake. A blanket that Ravio had crocheted, at the end of their shared bed.

Legend hugged themself, bringing a shaky hand to an earring in their ear. Enchanted with both a minor protection charm and a resistance to lightning. Ravio had given them to Legend for an anniversary. Legend took a shuddering breath. Their anniversary had already passed, and Legend didn't even get to spend it with their husband.

That night, Legend slept away from everyone, and poorly. They were grouchy all the way to the nearest stable, and then some. Warriors didn't jab at them even once the entire trip.

xxx

A week passed in Wild's world. A week and a half.

Two.

Every day, Legend was worse and worse. Everyone was quiet around them, lest they shatter whatever fragile state Legend was in. They cried, and frequently. No further words from Ravio, no reassurance that he was okay.

Three weeks.

Four.

xxx

They spent a month and a half in Wild's world. When the next portal appeared, everyone cheered. No matter how pretty Wild's world was, blood moons were no fun and neither were the guardians. Legend stepped through the portal first, and even chanced a prayer to Hylia. Another one to Lolia for good measure.

Please, let this one be mine. Let me be home.

They landed in an apple orchard. Legend rubbed their eyes and turned around to help Sky through, then Wind. When everyone was through, Legend put a hand on one of the trees, thumbing an engraving on it. L + R.

Link and Ravio. They'd engraved their initials in every one of these trees, after an escapade with a good bottle of wine.

Legend was home.

Legend started stripping themself of their gear, much to the Chain's surprise. They got their boots off, ignoring the questions, and started pulling on the Pegasus Boots. They started cursing up a storm when they had to untie the left one. As soon as they were on enough to stand, Legend clicked their heels and fucking bolted.

It didn't matter that they ran into a tree on the way there. All that mattered was the man in the purple button up, sleeves rolled up and hands in the garden soil. What mattered was the way he hummed and the way his fingers moved and the wedding band on a cloth beside him. Legend wrenched the boots off their feet as soon as Ravio was in their sight, and yelled for him.

"Rav! Ravio, I'm home!" Legend had tears in their eyes, scrambling to get to Ravio.

"Link?" Ravio's head whipped around, and he dropped whatever he had been trying to plant. He'd barely risen to his feet before Legend barreled into him, hugging almost tight enough to bruise.

"Link-? Oh, honey." Ravio whispered, as Legend started crying hard.

"I missed you, I missed you so much, Rav. I love you. I was so worried when you didn't send any letters, I thought you could've been dead and-" Legend whispered, the rest of the words lost against Ravio's skin, holding so tight as if Ravio would disappear like the girl on the island. Legend wouldn't be able to take it if that happened again.

"Breathe, dear. I missed you too, and I love you just as much. If not more. I was equally worried, since I haven't heard word from you in months." Ravio said softly, and even though his hands were covered in dirt, he brought one of them to cradle the back of Legend's head very firmly. Even though Time had held them like this more than a month ago, it hadn't felt the same.

This was home, and it smelled like lavender and apple soap. The other hand landed on Legend's back. They were still swaying lightly together when the rest of the Chain caught up. Sky flopped down onto the grass, wheezing. After a few moments, both Hyrule and Four joined him.

Legend whined very audibly when Ravio tried pulling away, tightening their grip.

"Link, we've got visitors."

"Don't care. Please, stay, please. Just a little bit longer, Rav. It's been so long. I was so scared." Legend's voice was soft, barely heard, whispered against skin.

Ravio sighed, and kissed Legend on the forehead.

"A little bit longer, then." Ravio sniffled, tightening his hold.

Link's wedding band glittered on their right hand, the only ring that Legend had brought themselves to wear for a while. They'd polished and fiddled with it a little obsessively. Sheerow twittered about, pulling at Legend's hair, nipping at his ear tips, his own little way of saying, "Hello, welcome home, missed you."- no matter how irritating. Sheerow was gently told something by Ravio, and after a moment, Ravio's right hand had the same ring resting on the designated finger.

"You're alright, honeybun. I'm here." Soft, whispered against Legend's cheekbone.

"I'm real."

Legend sobbed, squeezing tight.

Ravio was here, and he was very, very real.

fin.

[cupophrogs]

1. Dog day…why did you say when you saw your husbands picture “ he’s alive????” Did you think he was dead.

"The passage of time is worthless when you there's nothing you can count on, except pain. So I always assumed my past life, and everything in it, was already gone. Hope is a very fickle thing, down here."

(Based on this song)

[gomzdrawfr]

in-betweens

[sparky-is-spiders]

Thinking about Jon mourning his relationship with Elias and doing it alone.

Thinking about Jon having so many little fond memories of Elias. Discussions with him when he still worked in research. Little bickering arguments from when Jon was first promoted. His fondness for scheduling. Thinking about Jon missing those times so much that it aches. Thinking about Jon mourning the person he thought he knew, the person he did know, the connection they always had. When Elias is in prison and won't even see him. When Elias is in the panopticon above the world, far away from Jon. Thinking about Jon still caring about Elias, missing him despite everything.

Jon would have all those little memories of Elias, I think. And he would pick over them, and wonder which ones were real (all of them, in a way), and which ones were lies (all of them, in a way). And he would never be able to say anything. Because he's the only one who ever had that connection to Elias, and by the time Elias is out of Jon's reach nobody who would understand is left.

Just. Just thinking of Jon mourning his relationship with Elias, and having to do it alone.

[lunarkittenn]

I rarely take pictures anymore. It’s like I just don’t want to remember any moment from this part of my life lol

[mushroominaforest]

I keep drawing stuff for the ask blog and then realizing i can't post it lmao (by "this keeps happening" i mean its happened three times I'm just dramatic)

look. look. the siblings au was just me having fun writing a story, and then one day i drew and posted one (one) meme about it to my account with twelve (twelve) followers, and it somehow blew up??? so i kept posting more about the au cause... people liked it! exciting! and now i have 321 followers and i have NO idea how that happened lmao but uh it did.

the thing is, the story and the canon is pretty dark in a few parts (obviously lol) and I'm worried about posting any more-in-detail angst and a few things i havent even mentioned bc i dont know how much i trust you guys to listen to trigger warnings. no offence of course!!!! im sure you guys are super responsiple and stuff, i just want to be careful, human curiousity is a very powerful thing and i know ive probably looked at a few under the cut things that I knew would upset me just because i was curious lol.

is that just me??? let me know if it is bc im clueless lmao

i just wanna know like. if i were to make a post on the ask blog with the comic under the cut and a "tw suicide" or something on top, would people actually lisen to that and be careful? I'm always worried that people will ignore those

[4sh-n4]

Bruce Wayne, who can't cook to save his life but can bake better than even Alfred. The catch? He can only do it in the night after being awoken by nightmares. No one knows about his extraordinary skills other than Alfred and Dick, because everyone assumes that the baked goods in the kitchen are made by Alfred. Dick knows because when he was younger and couldn't sleep because of nightmares, he used to join Bruce in the kitchen and watch him work.

Dick Grayson, who is an absolute disaster in the kitchen because he keeps getting distracted, but give him a microwave and a dream and he'll prepare a solid three course meal that actually tastes decent. He's also an excellent cocktail maker, which is funny since he prefers to have his alcohol straight without any mixers (he still puts the little umbrellas in his glass though, don't be mistaken)

Jason Todd, who is an ACE in the kitchen because he refused to ever be helpless with food again after getting off the streets. He was going to eat, and he was going to eat WELL. Especially since he finally had the resources to be able to actually experiment with what he likes and what he can do with different foods, instead of just what's cheapest or most easily found. The one thing he can't do? Crack an egg with only his hands without getting any of the eggshell pieces in the food. He needs to use one of those little egg cracking tools. The thing that pissed him off the most about this is that the one thing Dick can do brilliantly in the kitchen, is crack eggs with one (1!!!) hand only.

Tim Drake, who is definitely not michelin star level (the Drakes had a cook for Tim's entire childhood so he never had to learn), but has learnt to sustain himself with instant meals and those little ramen packets. He somehow always makes them taste good though, adding toppings and making sure they are some form of nourishing, even if that just means adding a fried egg on top and calling it a day. He also knows the difference between all the different little types of tea that alfred likes to drink just by taste, and is the only other person in the house that can make a perfect cup (that is Alfred approved). It always shocks everyone else, because Tim is notorious for hating the taste of tea.

Cass Cain, who has no culinary abilities and does not want them either. Her skills in the kitchen start and end with making sandwiches. But whenever she goes out to eat, she always goes to a chinese restaurant and gets something that she hasn't tried before, because she was never introduced to any foods of her culture and wants to taste them all now. Oh, and she can do super complicated tricks with the knives, her and Dick have constant competitions about who can do the coolest thing.

Steph Brown, who lives off of takeaway for most meals, but can make better breakfast foods than most people in the house. Waffles, pancakes, bacon, eggs, toast, you name it and she can make it. Only if it is traditionally eaten before noon though. She also worked as a barista part time for a while, so she knows all the fancy coffee recipes.

Damian Al Ghul Wayne, who doesn't care to cook other cuisines, but taught himself how to make almost every middle eastern and south asian dish he could get his hands on, because it helped him feel closer to his home and his mother when he first moved in with his father. His fondest memories of his mother are of her feeding him his cultural foods and telling him about their origins. It was the only time they did not speak of work, or his training, but instead about what his father was like as a person, about the things his mother has seen on her travels over the years, about his maternal grandmother, about his interest in animals.

Duke Thomas, who can cook enough for a 15 year old but doesn't touch the kitchen of Wayne manor very often, not unless he's just sitting on the counter watching others or helping minorly. His memories are still fresh enough to bleed when touched and all his memories of him cooking in the kitchen have his parents happily dancing in the background on Sundays with loud music blaring through the walls as they teach him how to chop onions without crying or knead dough.

Alfred Pennyworth, who only had the most basic culinary skills when he began working for the Waynes, just enough to keep him alive when he was in the military, but was forced to learn how to cook when he was unexpectedly given custody of an 8 year old. He can cook better than most professional chefs in the world now, but he still hoards Thomas Wayne's old cookbooks like they're the only tangible part left of the man who once filled the halls of the manor, even though he knows that's not true. He'll pass them down to his grandchildren one day...just not today. Today, they're still his.

[bestworstcase]

your point about team rwby being the maidens’ liberators made me think - do you think blake is going to have a special connection to the summer maiden? I noticed that she’s the only one who hasn’t been close to a maiden yet

i think gillian asturias is the summer maiden (and this post is hysterical in hindsight. at the time i wrote it, the full-length v9 epilogue hadn’t been released yet so we’d only seen qrow’s section and about half of winter’s – hence my pausing to lay out the argument for salem going to vale next and making a pretense of hedging my bets on the crown being narratively central in v10. lol)

now! with regard to blake and the summer maiden, the common thinking here seems to mostly run along the lines of “…and that’s why summer maiden ilia,” or the more general speculation that the summer maiden will be a faunus character.

to this i say:

it’s a fallacy to conflate “blake will probably have a strong narrative connection to the summer maiden” with “the summer maiden necessarily is or will be blake’s old friend,” and the argument for ilia being due for maidenhood is quite thin otherwise, and

blake can and does have important narrative connections to characters who aren’t faunus, and it’s a weird to presume that in order for the summer maiden to have a meaningful tie to blake, she must be a faunus herself.

to expand on that first point, let’s consider the personal relationships between each of the maidens so far and ruby / weiss / yang:

pyrrha -> ruby’s friend

cinder -> ruby’s personal enemy

raven -> yang’s estranged mother

penny -> ruby’s friend

winter -> weiss’s beloved sister

the takeaway here – other than that if you’re ruby’s friend and someone offers you to become a maiden you should refuse – is half the relations between maidens and members of team rwby are antagonistic. (raven seems likely to at least try making amends with yang in v10, but as it stands in the narrative right now things between them are very fraught.)

it is just as likely that blake’s narrative connection to the summer maiden might develop through a personal conflict between them, rather than friendship. yes?

and, if i’m right about gill being the summer maiden, well—stop me if you’ve heard this one: a girl with a driving, passionate ambition to uplift her people from the ashes of centuries of conquest and subjugation is radicalized by a boy she loves who pulls them both deeper and deeper into violent, spiteful extremism that ultimately harms the very people they claim to fight for, until he finally crosses a line she can’t accept and she says no i will not.

that’s blake and adam but it’s also gillian and her brother. the difference between them is that blake’s red line was adam glibly revealing that the train heist was actually intended to be a massacre whereas gillian’s was jax stating his intention to commit suicide rather than retreat and live to fight another day; she helped yatsu subdue him specifically to save jax’s life, not because she had a crisis of conscience about their movement.

(there is a certain—really irritating—contingent of CFVY novel readers who project their own dislike of jax onto gill and insist that she turned against him because he demanded she ‘sacrifice her life’ to save him, which 1. he didn’t, he asked her to give him all her aura and then bodily shielded her because he’s physically bigger than she is so this was at worst a “if we’re going down together, i’ll make them go through me first,” 2. if gill only wanted to save her own neck all she had to do was rip her aura out of him and bounce, and 3. she explicitly says that the reason she did what she did is because he’s her brother, she loves him, and she couldn’t let him die.)

the point being, gill is still a radical; her soft betrayal of jax revealed her priorities in that she loves her brother more than The Cause, but in no way did it represent a break from her belief in the cause. if the epilogue is any indication, she’s just as committed to overthrowing shade academy as before. (and i think there’s a real chance that her actions will have improved her relationship with jax to some degree, because he believed she didn’t care about him at all! he thought she only stuck with him because his semblance compelled her to do so! and then gillian exploded his mind by revealing that his semblance straight up doesn’t work on her and she just loves him. which, if the twins are on the same page now, cuts down on the internal tension and likely makes them more dangerous adversaries to the coalition.)

but her history, the way she became like this, is eerily similar to blake’s radicalization in the white fang, and i think blake would certainly be able to piece that together. she’s also by far the member of team rwby i would say is most likely to recognize and relate to the genuine pain at the heart of the crown’s movement—vacuo has suffered.

vacuo wasn’t even a state until the end of the great war. it was a mistrali territory. its people were enslaved and worked to death in a systematic and horrifyingly effective project to extract every last speck of valuable resources from the region, and then even statehood was a slap in the face because they were left to fend for themselves in a barren wasteland whose ecosystem had been completely and utterly destroyed.

the crown is a mirror held up to the white fang; blake is insightful and empathetic enough to realize these similarities and see herself and her past mistakes reflected in gillian, but this time she’s an outsider to the movement—she can’t effect change from within or reclaim the true, important work from the vengeful extremists. so she’s limited in what she can do, practically, even as it’s going to be painfully clear to her that the crown is falling into the same trap adam did.

and at the same time, the new white fang will in all likelihood either be in vacuo or show up to join the coalition in v10, so blake’s part in her own movement, her place in her community, can be directly juxtaposed with her opposition to/empathy for the crown.

v9 sets up for this with blake’s advocacy for the afterans—v7-8 do as well to a lesser extent, because blake is still dealing with the personal fallout of v4-6 and thus is quieter about mantle than say, nora is, but like. blake draws a comparison between her experiences in the white fang and with adam and the moral compromises ironwood starts making after the election. it just seems… pretty clear to me that the narrative has been setting up blake to play a pivotal role in relation to the crown since at least v4 if not earlier, depending on how granular the vacuo outline was during v1-3.

so this is a narrative connection i very much expect blake to have with gillian regardless, but… if gill is the maiden…

well, she’s certainly not trapped inside ozpin’s vault/key maiden paradigm! so in that case what does it look like for a member of team rwby to fulfill this narrative role of liberation? probably something like de-radicalizing her and her brother by convincing them there is a better way forward than their divisive, violent, paranoid ideology. and blake is unquestionably the member of team rwby best equipped to get the ball rolling there.

further, blake’s semblance is a really strong counter to gill’s – that’s true of ruby and weiss as well, because gillian has to touch a person in order to steal aura and so agile, fast opponents are going to be tougher for her in general. but blake has two more things going for her beyond the basic mobility advantage, vis-a-vis making it personal:

the illusionary aspect of blake’s semblance will allow her to create decoys, which is a very powerful tactical advantage against an opponent who really wants to grab her, and

blake’s girlfriend is a hand-to-hand fighter, and an incredibly brave one with an intense protective instinct at that.

clears throat. we all remember yang getting possessed in rwby x jl part 2, yes? and blake clocking it instantly? well.

if blake and gillian are meant to be not just foils but personal adversaries in the vein of ruby and cinder—yang’s gonna get got. agile though she is, as a hand-to-hand combatant yang is unavoidably much more vulnerable to the twins’ contact-based semblances than the rest of her team, her personality will make it very hard for her to play it safe and stay back if it comes to an open fight, and there is nothing the narrative could do to lock in that personal enmity that would be punchier than yang being compromised.

even if gill as a personal adversary to blake isn’t in the cards i expect yang to get got anyway because, let’s be honest: do we really expect crwby to set themselves up with a golden opportunity to do a climactic love-overcomes-mind-control scene with the bees in v10 and then not take it? with how nuts the entire creative team goes for these two? after the climactic battle in ice queendom hingeing on yang being able to free blake from a nightmare with the mere lesser power of unrealized lesbianism? do we reeeally believe they would pass that up? lol.

[kingkatsuki]

Mother Mitsuki, who despite Masaru’s pleas, is way too invested in Bakugou and your relationship.