#Roman and Neo are straight up not having a good time

[caterpillarinacave]

just got kickstarted on an ancient fic lol

[greentrickster]

WIP game

Rules: You will be given a word. Share one sentence/excerpt from your wip(s) that start with each letter of that word.

@shadow-pixelle tagged me with ECHO, so congrats - have some 'Got a Light?' (my RWBY fic) snippets! And, to have some extra fun, since they're all from the same fic, I'll get one snippet from each of the first two books I've written this fic in and two from the current book (because it's the biggest), and you'll get the sentences in the order I wrote them... but not necessarily in the order they'll come in the fic, because I'm writing non-chronologically. ;D Enjoy!

E

"Easy for you to say," Jaune gives up on meditating (because he's weak) to glare at Roman, "You're probably just saying that because you had a stupid one, like- like bad luck or making your pockets bigger or something!"

...Branwen had flinched at the first suggestion. Interesting. Neo'll have to look into that. More importantly, however, Roman has frozen in place, dust crystal fallen to the ground beside him. He stares straight up into the sky unmoving for a good twenty seconds before he lets his arm fall across his eyes with a distraught groan.

"Dangit, that second one actually sounds like an amazing- that would have been so useful for shoplifting or, hells, just storing extra ammo without ruining the lines of my suit- dammit, now I'm sad, thanks a lot."

C

"Consider: would any of you say you are quite the same people now that you were at the beginning of the school year? How about ten years ago?" he smiles at the range of reactions this elicits. "To me, it is much the same, albeit on a far larger scale. It seems as though we each carry a certain amount of... ourselves, for lack of a better word, with us to each new life.

"For example, it may surprise you to know that, in regards to myself, while I have heard many times that I seem to have gained a certain level of maturity overnight when my memories and powers are unlocked, oddly little in my personality or mindset of my new life seem to change beyond that. I will confess, it inspires a certain amount of curiosity these days, whenever the end of a current life draws near, as to what new myself I will have become the next time my memories return."

H

"Hey, what about all the nice things you were gonna say to Pyrrha?!"

"They will be formatted as an extremely flattering eulogy!!!"

Qrow is drawn away from this amusing interaction by Neo, who has removed a glove and stolen a fistful of bacon with her bare hand, wiggling it enticingly at Qrow with a big smile.

"I feel like I'm being mocked," he states, examining it with each eye suspiciously.

"You're not," Torchwick says, finally calm again and theatrically wiping his eye, "She just likes watching birds eat. Used to sneak into kitchens at restaurants so she could get table scraps for it."

...eh, fair enough. Qrow obliges and daintily tugs a strip of bacon free with his beak, holding it with one claw to peck at. Neo beams.

O

"Oh, um- yes! He says... 'Thinking of mew.'"

Ruby glances up from skimming her texts to see Weiss staring blankly ahead.

"...he's a dork," she says, voice dazed, "He's an enormous dork."

"Weiss-" Uncle Qrow groans, only for Jaune to hold his hand up.

"Don't bother, Mr. Branwen, I've got this."

"Kid, it's Qrow."

Jaune ignores him, going to put a steadying hand on Weiss's shoulder. "Look, I'm sorry you have to find out this way, but the thing about guys is... we're all dorks. And Neptune is our king."

"...I see." Weiss nods, and Ruby goes back to her own texts, "Is it a bad sign that I still like him, even though he's flawed?"

"I mean, he didn't realize you wanted to keep seeing him after the dance until you cried at him for flirting with other girls," Nora comments, "You kinda already knew that he wasn't perfect."

"I suppose that's true... In that case, I'm going to respond in kind! Nora, I require your assistance!"

---

(Told you guys it's not as dire as my research subject list makes it sound!)

I'll be tagging @fullbattleregalia and @elektricangel, along with anyone else who wants to play - your word is LIFE (because my fic's about Roman coming back as a ghost and I'm funny).

[itsclydebitches]

Okay so, just to recap:

Ruby drives away Little, which works. That's a classic "I hate myself and am being cruel in order to supposedly protect you, but you'll still follow me out of love anyway" situation.

Neo's semblance has evolved to the point where she can keep multiple, independent copies going at once, all of which have a different veneer, as well as a whole-ass mansion for them to play in. Sure! Why not! We're well past the point of power scaling jumping the shark.

All these copies can talk. I don't care if this is some Ever After magic, Neo is mute! Let her be mute!!

The story straight up forgot what information Neo has. Does she know anything about Ruby and Penny's friendship? Is she aware that Clover died out in the snow? Is mind-reading a part of her semblance now too?

How come everyone else hasn't gotten insane semblance power ups? Jaune must feel so cheated after spending a whole lifetime here...

Ruby defends herself against this horrific onslaught despite JUST being unable to fight against more garden-variety baddies. Is she having a crippling aversion to Crescent Rose or not?

Ruby is physically and psychologically tortured which, while compelling, means that every criticism we're shown is easily dismissed. The question of whether Ruby has caused more harm than good isn't really something to grapple with, it's a horrific lie told by the villain that Ruby needs to be rescued from. It's the Caterpillar situation on steroids and the extreme nature of the scenario just makes the viewer uncomfortable (understandably!), rather than allowing space to acknowledge, "The dead allies she's at times had a hand in getting killed have a point about Ruby's consequence-laden failures."

This includes images of the adults in her life - notably adults that the show has demonized - beating her to a bloody pulp to the point where we're shown rare injuries. Great! Love watching my discourse-laden faves choking a teen against the wall and beating her with a cane /s

This culminates in Ruby slicing "Oscar" in half, the kid who previously underwent torture too. This guy just can't catch a break.

Also love the implication that seeing Oscar cut in half is psychologically damaging, but if the copy had stayed as Ozpin it would have been fine. Or at least far less impactful. Why would Ruby care about her old headmaster who remains a current ally in this fight? Seeing HIM dead, even if it's a fake currently attacking her, just doesn't mean much emotionally.

Little is dead. I mean, they'll probably resurrect them somehow, or reveal that they were just badly injured, but Neo was grinding her heel. The tiny mouse should be a goner.

Yang is pissed at her little sister for having a breakdown after she spent the last two days flirting with her girlfriend instead of acknowledging the horrors they've all been through. Sibling of the year.

Then all of them just STAND THERE while Ruby, injured and lying on the ground, surrounded by enemies, sloooooooowly drinks the clearly messed-up tea. Hey, at least the sisters are even now? Ruby just stood there while Yang fell and Yang just stood there while Ruby killed herself. Great job, girls.

Oh yeah, hey, RT? It's called "themes of suicide," not just "distressing themes." Kudos for having our protagonist make a huge mistake that's FRAMED as a mistake and should have an interesting impact on the story... but warn appropriately for it, yeah?

Why does Neo want Ruby to be remade via the tree instead of just killing her? Idk idk.

Then she immediately goes comatose because apparently killing Ruby was the only thing keeping her going. There's no interest in ruling the Ever After. No temptation to spend all her time with this fake Roman that can, apparently, hold independent conversations with her and generally act like the real Roman did. Like, tell me this isn't a Neo falling hard into her fantasy, content to have "Roman" again in this magical world:

No desire either to go get revenge on Cinder for dropping her here in the first place. Neo is just done now that Ruby has fallen into a root-covered void. 10/10 great character depth.

Love the insanely evil Cat but... what's is their actual goal? Something about curiosity, something about being left by their creators, something about needing a host, something about broken hearts?? This would all be far more compelling to me if I had a better handle on what exactly they wanted.

Preview of next episode: Yang, Weiss, and Blake are totally fine with Ruby's choice. I mean, why wouldn't they be? It's not death! The Paper Pleasers promised! It's her right to go to the tree if that's what she wants and you need to rethink your narrow perspective if you're going to be upset about that choice. This is a totally fine outcome and they can just go find this new, definitely improved Ruby to take back to Remnant. No reason to be sad about it. Right, Jaune? :)))

Oh, and there's only two episodes left to do [gestures] everything.

[spahhzy]

"I'd knew I find you up here"

One Roman Torchwick walks up to his partner Neo as she looks down from roof of the building they were in.

Below them, a festival was happening.

"You okay?"

...

"You know you can go to him, it's clear as day you still love him and he you..." Roman said, but Neo just gazed down, not even acknowledging.

"Just don't let your mopey self lose your edge this city don't care about your feelings," Roman said, and Neo just nodded, and Roman sighed before walking over and putting a hand on her shoulder before walking back down.

Neo raised her her left arm and rolled her sleeve back to reveal a little yellow bracelet.

Memories flowed, and a pang hit her heart, and for the first time in a good long while, Neo let a tear drop escape her eye and roll down her cheek before careening off her face to the festival below.

-

"Come on, Jaune! Theirs so many games we can play!" Came the excited voice of Ruby Rose as she dragged Jaune to various stalls.

"Ahaha, slow down, Ruby. we can get to them all, don't worry. " Came Jaune as they both stopped at one of the game stalls.

"And all the rides, we have to try all the rides," said Ruby, giddy as Jaune smiled at her.

"Of course... although I'm not sure my poor stomach can handle it, but it's something I'll have endure, won't I? He asked, and Ruby nodded.

"Don't worry, I am designated vomit bag holder." She shakes some bags around to prove her point.

"Gee, thanks."

"Soo, are you two going to play?" Came the stall runner, and Jaune and Ruby looked at each other before shrugging, Jaune threw some money on the counter and a set of five balls were placed.

"All you gotta do is knock down 3 stacks of bottles, and you win any prize on the rack." Jaune looked at the bottles and nodded as Ruby looked at him with her eyes sparkling, looking at the Giant Beowolf plush.

Jaune, with determination, looked at the 4 balls and bottles.

Lifting one up, Jaune breathed in and focused before aiming to the first set of bottles, winding up Jaune threw it hard as the bill hit and knocked down the first stack of bottles.

"Yeah! Go, Jaune! " Ruby cheered from the side as the stall runner rolled his eyes.

Feeling confident, Jaune grabbed the next ball, breathing in once more and stealing his nerves. He aimed at the stack on the right and winded up before throwing the ball hard and knocking off the right stack of bottles.

"One more Jaune! You can do it! I believe in you!" Ruby cheered, and the stall runner just smirked, knowing that the middle was usually rigged in some degree with the middle stack of bottles, the bottles being heavier than its left and right stack.

Jaune nodded and grabbed ball number three out of four and breathed in once more. Jaune aimed down the middle and threw the ball straight at the bottles hard, and as the ball made contact, the bottles only budged lightly before bouncing off.

"Oooh, tough one kid still got one more try, though," said the game operator at Ruby's shocked face. Jaune narrowed his eyes, knowing something wasn't right.

"I-its okay Jaune, you got this! No matter what!" Jaune looked at the bottles and then back at the last ball, picking it up. Jaune rolled the ball in his palms before holding it up at the bottles. As he did, his right sleeve rolled down, and his eyes hovered over to a pink and brown bracelet.

Memories of a girl and said girl showing him how rigged some festival games are, including milk bottle game.

Mostly, he remembered her smile.

Snapping out of it, Jaune clutched at the ball tightly he wound up his arm, and with great heavy toss, he threw the ball with all his might and in a blink the heavy bottles were knocked over.

The game operator jaw fell to the floor as Ruby cheered before going over to the prize corner and grabbed the big stuffed beowolf.

"Yes! Thank you, Jaune!" Ruby squealed as Jaune just nodded and hugged her, much to Ruby's embarrassment, as she held up the stuff Grimm to her face as Jaune released her.

Ruby looked up at Jaune.

"Come on Rubes plenty of games to win," he said to her, and while he sounded happy...some part of Ruby felt like he was sad for some reason, as if he was sad.

Ruby clutched at the stuff Grimm, thinking to herself it was just imagination and not wanting to ruin this good moment.

Jaune led Ruby to whatever next game stand she wanted to play, and as he was walking, he felt a drop of water hit his right hand, stopping Jaune looked at his hand and then up in the sky. Ruby,seeing him stopped, looked at him.

"You okay Jaune?"

Jaune looked back down and gave Ruby a smile.

"Yeah, Rubes I'm fine. Come on, let's go and dominate these stalls, " he told her, and Ruby nodded, clutching at Jaune's arm with her stuffed Beowolf in the other arm, they walked into the sea of festival goers and into the night.

Unfortunately, Jaune wasn't fine.

-

🎵We're just two wrong souls that met at the wrong time, so just go your way, and I'll go mine. You'll be alone with someone new until the day that you die, and I'll watch from afar to make sure you're alright🎵

[marcmarcmomarc]

RWBY Closed Captioning

Featuring the first example from each character.

I recommend watching something like Up, Planes: Fire & Rescue, Inside Out, The Good Dinosaur, Soul, or Luca on Disney+ and paying attention to the way the subtitles. Very close attention.

Here’s a demonstration:

General

ALL:

BOTH:

(CHARACTER) AND (CHARACTER):

Team RWBY

“Black” Trailer

BLAKE: Move!

“Yellow” Trailer

YANG: (SIGHS) It’s a long story.

1x1: “Ruby Rose”

RUBY: Huh?

1x2: “The Shining Beacon”

WEISS: What are you doing?

Team JNPR

1x2: “The Shining Beacon”

JAUNE: Hey.

1x4: “The First Step”

NORA: Whoo!

1x5: “The First Step, Pt. 2”

PYRRHA: I’m sorry!

1x8: “Players and Pieces”

REN: Nora!

4x10: “Kuroyuri”

YOUNG REN: What can I buy with this?

Team STRQ

3x2: “New Challengers…”

QROW: (DRUNK) Happy Vytal Festival.

3x12: “End of the Beginning”

TAIYANG: (SIGHS) Nothing.

4x4: “Family”

RAVEN: I told you Beacon would fall, and it did.

9x1: “A Place of Particular Concern”

SUMMER: This is the story of a girl.

Beacon Academy Staff

1x1: “Ruby Rose”

OZPIN: But perhaps victory

GLYNDA: I hope you realize that your actions tonight

1x9: “The Badge and the Burden”

PORT: Monsters. Demons.

1x12: “Jaunedice, Pt. 2”

OOBLECK: Yes, yes. Prior to the Faunus Rights Revolution,

Salem’s Inner Circle

1x1: “Ruby Rose”

MYSTERIOUS NARRATOR: Legends. Stories scattered through time.

ROMAN TORCHWICK: Persistent.

1x16: “Black and White”

CINDER: How very disappointing, Roman.

2x1: “Best Day Ever”

EMERALD: (GIGGLES) ‘Scuse me, sorry.

MERCURY: So how much farther?

3x1: “Round One”

NEO: Hmm.

3x12: “End of the Beginning”

SALEM: A smaller, more honest soul.

4x1: “The Next Step”

ARTHUR WATTS: You hear that?

4x5: “Menagerie”

TYRIAN: Excuse me.

4x10: “Kuroyuri”

HAZEL: Don’t let such a small obstacle block your path.

5x1: “Welcome to Haven”

LEO LIONHEART: We may have dealt with Grimm,

5x3: “Unforeseen Complications”

VERNAL: Straight to the point. I like it.

6x7: “The Grimm Reaper”

TOCK: Well, that’s a fancy trick, now, innit?

8x8: “Dark”

THE HOUND: Take the girl.

Atlas Military

2x3: “A Minor Hiccup”

PENNY: Oh.

JAMES IRONWOOD: The AK-130 has been a standard security model

3x3: “It’s Brawl in the Family”

WINTER: They had reason to assume you’d been compromised.

6x10: “Stealing from the Elderly”

CAROLINE CORDOVIN: I was relieved to hear

Ruby’s Group

2x8: “Field Trip”

(ZWEI BARKING)

4x7: “Punished”

OSCAR: Shut up!

6x1: “Argus Limited”

MARIA: Still alive!

7x1: “The Greatest Kingdom”

PIETRO: And no more heavy lifting, you hear?

Team SSSNN

1x15: “The Stray”

SUN: I knew you looked better without the bow.

2x1: “Best Day Ever”

NEPTUNE: Dude.

3x2: “New Challengers…”

(NOLAN GRUNTING)

SAGE: Neptune! What are you doing?!

SCARLET: Gotcha!

Team CFVY

1x11: “Jaunedice”

VELVET: Ow! That hurts!

3x4: “Lessons Learned”

YATSUHASHI: Coco.

3x10: “Battle of Beacon”

COCO: Velvet!

Ace-Operatives

7x1: “The Greatest Kingdom”

CLOVER: Good work, team.

7x2: “A New Approach”

MARROW: So that was the second time I got banned.

ELM: I feel so bad, honestly!

7x3: “Ace-Operatives”

HARRIET: (OVER EARPIECE) Bravo, checking in.

VINE: (OVER EARPIECE) Everyone use caution.

Happy Huntresses

7x5: “Sparks”

ROBYN: (SIGHS) I was hoping you’d play it straight with me.

7x6: “A Night Off”

FIONA: I- I’m okay. I’m okay.

8x1: “Divide”

JOANNA: Inside.

MAY: I know.

The White Fang

“Black” Trailer

ADAM: Blake. It’s time.

4x5: “Menagerie”

GHIRA: Kali? Who is it?

KALI: Ghira.

CORSAC: We understand if you bear any skepticism towards these claims.

FENNEC: An interesting development. Wouldn’t you say?

5x1: “Welcome to Haven”

ILIA: You need better security.

Schnee Manor

4x2: “Remembrance”

WHITLEY: Good afternoon, sister.

JACQUES: I’m not talking about the good of my company.

KLEIN: Hot coffee, Miss Schnee?

7x8: “Cordially Invited”

WILLOW: Hello, darling.

Ancient Times

6x2: “Uncovered”

JINN: Once upon a time,

6x3: “The Lost Fable”

GOD OF LIGHT: I understand your pain.

GOD OF DARKNESS: Rise, child.

OZMA: Are we sure this is right?

Xiong Family

2x4: “Painting the Town…”

JUNIOR: Stop, stop! Nobody shoot!

MILTIA AND MELANIE: Whatever.

6x5: “The Coming Storm”

LIL’ MISS MALACHITE: That’s enough, ladies!

Team CRDL

1x11: “Jaunedice, Pt. 2”

CARDIN: (CHUCKLING) Oh, Jaune.

1x14: “Forever Fall, Pt. 2”

RUSSEL: That’s a big Ursa!

2x5: “Extracurricular”

- (DOVE SCREAMING)

- (LARK GRUNTING)

Team FNKI

3x5: “Neon”

FLYNT: Hey.

NEON: (MOCKING YANG) “Hey, why don’t you…?”

7x5: “Sparks”

(KOBALT GROANS)

Arc Family

6x7: “The Grimm Reaper”

SAPHRON: There you are!

6x10: “Stealing from the Elderly”

(ADRIAN CRYING)

TERRA: Okay.

The Ever After

9x1: “A Place of Particular Concern”

JABBERWALKER: Seeking.

LITTLE: Why not? You seem trustworthy.

9x2: “Altercation at the Auspicious Auction”

JINXY: The diamond-studded rabbit!

9x3: “Rude, Red, and Royal”

RED PRINCE: So, what exactly do you desire

CURIOUS CAT: Your Majesty.

9x4: “A Cat Most Curious”

HERBALIST: What are you?

9x5: “The Parfait Predicament”

BLACKSMITH: Does that one interest you?

(JUNIPER CHITTERING)

9x10: “Of Solitude and Self”

ALYX: You never were the hero.

SOMEWHAT: Wait!

Minor Characters

“White” Trailer

ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Weiss Schnee.

“Black” Trailer

AK-130 ANDROID: Intruder. Identify yourself.

1x1: “Ruby Rose”

XIONG GOON: Crystals.

CYRIL IAN: The robbery was led by nefarious criminal Roman Torchwick,

1x15: “The Stray”

POLICE OFFICER 2: They left all the money again.

POLICE OFFICER 1: Yeah, it just doesn’t make a lick of sense.

SAILOR 1: Hey! Stop that Faunus!

SAILOR 2: You no-good stowaway!

1x16: “Black and White”

PENNY’S DRIVER: You should know better

2x1: “Best Day Ever”

SHOPKEEP: Hmm. Mm-hmm.

TUKSON: Be right there!

2x3: “A Minor Hiccup”

CCT AI: Hello. Welcome to the CCT. How may I help you?

STUDENT: Hi, Mom. How are things back in Signal?

SCHNEE CORP OPERATOR: Are you sure you wouldn’t like me

ATLAS SOLDIER 1: Down here! She went this way!

- STUDENT 1: Did you see that?

- (STUDENTS MURMURING)

STUDENT 2: Do you think she’s okay?

STUDENT 3: Do we need to call the police?

STUDENT 4: Did she stop that with her bare hands?

2x4: “Painting the Town…”

ATLAS SOLDIER 2: Check down here!

XIONG GOON 1: Hurry! Close the door! She’s coming!

XIONG GOON 2: She’s back!

WHITE FANG GOON: New recruits, keep to the right.

WHITE FANG LIEUTENANT: Thank you all for coming.

2x5: “Dance Dance Infiltration”

(STUDENTS LAUGHING)

ATLAS SOLDIER: Excuse me. No one’s allowed in this area.

2x10: “Mountain Glenn”

WHITE FANG GOON 1: What was that?

WHITE FANG GOON 2: What was what?

WHITE FANG GUARD: Where did she come from?

2x11: “No Brakes”

WHITE FANG MEMBER: Give me a hand. I can’t reach it.

WHITE FANG GOON 3: Hey, be careful!

2x12: “Breach”

COUNCILMAN: Ozpin?

3x1: “Round One”

(REESE GRUNTING)

(ARSLAN GRUNTING)

BOLIN: But who’s got yours?

NADIR: Thanks, Reese!

3x2: “New Challengers…”

(ROY GRUNTING)

(ZEDONG GRUNTS)

BRAWNZ: What do you think you’re doing?

NEBULA: Alright! Home field advantage!

DEW: Hey, the ocean!

(GWEN GRUNTS)

(OCTAVIA GRUNTS)

3x4: “Lessons Learned”

VIDEO GAME ANNOUNCER: Soaring Ninja wins!

3x6: “Fall”

ATLAS SOLDIER: Yang Xiao Long, stand down!

3x7: “Beginning of the End”

SALESMAN: A beautiful ring for a beautiful woman.

WOMAN: I’m sorry?

MAN: She went that way!

LARGE MAN: He lives on the mountains with his son.

INN KEEPER: Ah, yes. She was just here yesterday.

(CHILD CRYING)

AMBER: Huh?

SECURITY GUARD: Stow it! You’ve already caused enough of a scene!

3x8: “Destiny”

NEWS REPORTER: Despite Atlas reinforcements,

3x9: “PvP”

BROADCAST OP: Something’s wrong! We don’t have control over the cameras!

WARNING ANNOUNCER: (OVER P.A.) Alert. Incoming Grimm attack.

BLUE FOUR: We’re hit! What’s going-

BLUE THREE: Roger! Blue Three, in position!

3x10: “Battle of Beacon”

(STUDENTS PANICKING)

(GIRL CRYING)

4x1: “The Next Step”

BLACKSMITH: Can’t have a Huntsman without his weapon.

4x3: “Of Runaways and Stowaways”

CAPTAIN: Traveling alone?

REPORTER 1: With no end in sight, try as they might,

REPORTER 2: Though the fail safes

LISA LAVENDER: Multiple rumors continue to circulate

FIRST MATE: Fully functional, Captain.

4x4: “Family”

OSCAR’S AUNT: Oscar? You be careful with those tools!

(HIGANBANA WAITRESS GASPS)

4x6: “Tipping Point”

BUSINESSMAN: Well, I think the bigger issue here

BUSINESSWOMAN: I mean, what exactly are you suggesting?

HENRY: It’s beautiful.

ANGRY BUSINESSMAN: No, no, no!

WAITER: I’m so sorry, sir.

TROPHY WIFE: But really,

4x10: “Kuroyuri”

AN: (GIGGLES) Why, hello, little Lie.

TALL BOY: Hey! Get back here!

MEDIUM BOY: Does that mean I have rabies?

LI: Listen to me, son.

4x12: “No Safe Haven”

MISTRAL PILOT: We were on patrol and saw the smoke.

TRAIN ANNOUNCER: (OVER P.A.) Approaching. City of Mistral.

5x1: “Welcome to Haven”

CARGO PILOT: We’re in the home stretch now.

FEMALE PILOT: (OVER RADIO) Mayday, mayday!

MENAGERIE GUARD: Good evening, miss. Can I get you anything?

SHAY D. MANN: Are you telling me you’re too young to drink?

5x2: “Dread in the Air”

SIENNA KHAN: Adam.

5x4: “Lighting the Fire”

BANDIT: That’s enough!

5x5: “Necessary Sacrifice”

MATA’S MOTHER: Mata!

MATA: Mom!

5x6: “Known by its Song”

SMALL GIRL: Daddy?

5x8: “Alone Together”

TRIFA: Huh?

5x10: “True Colors”

FAUNUS 1: Isn’t that the White Fang girl?

FAUNUS 2: I thought she hated the Belladonnas.

OLDER FAUNUS MAN: I’ll stand with you!

5x13: “Downfall”

WF MEMBER 1: Who’s there?

POLICE CAPTAIN: (ON P.A.) Adam Taurus!

WF MEMBER 2: Hey, wait!

6x1: “Argus Limited”

WF GUARD 1: I can’t believe he turned his back on us.

WF GUARD 2: We? Everyone knows what you did!

WF GUARD 3: We’re not taking orders from you!

DUDLEY: Huh?

DEE: Well, I didn’t do it, either.

6x2: “Uncovered”

MISTRAL WOMAN: Gods, are you okay?

NEWSCASTER: (ON TV) The perpetrators,

6x3: “The Lost Fable”

YOUNGEST DAUGHTER: Mommy?

6x8: “Dead End”/6x10: “Stealing from the Elderly”

NUBUCK GUARDS: Very well!

NUBUCK GUARD 1: Nonsense!

NUBUCK GUARD 2: Allow me to assist you as well!

6x9: “Lost”

RED HAIRED WOMAN: It’s really beautiful, isn’t it?

6x10: “Stealing from the Elderly”

TERMINAL SOLDIER: Ma’am, we’ve got something on radar.

6x12: “Seeing Red”

ATLAS SOLDIER: Ma’am, we’ve been trying to reach you.

ARGUS AIR CONTROL: All units, be advised!

6x13: “Our Way”

MANTA 2-2: We’re getting slammed by hostiles out here!

MANTA 3-4: Argus Base, this is Manta 3-4!

MANTA 2-1: Target stopped! Engaging, over!

MANTA 2-4: All squadrons, fall back to evacuation procedures!

AIR TRAFFIC FEMALE: Manta 5-1, welcome home.

7x1: “The Greatest Kingdom”

CIVILIAN 1: (GROANS) Not these again.

CIVILIAN 2: Why can’t they just leave us be?

ATLAS SOLDIER: It landed over there! Let’s go!

DRUNK MANN: Yeah?

7x2: “A New Approach”

PILOT 1: You threw a brick at our ship.

FOREST: Hmm?

PILOT 2: Please let us help you.

WOMAN: Oh, no! Gosh.

7x5: “Sparks”

(MOMS GIGGLING)

FRIA: Good morning.

7x6: “A Night Off”

NEWSCASTER: Although rioting in Mantle is finally under control,

MANTLE CITIZEN: It’s Ironwood’s robot!

7x7: “Worst Case Scenario”

MANTLE PATROL: Stop running! Wait!

NEWS BROADCASTER: Though military officials

AK-200 DRIVER: Civilian, you are obstructing

ATLAS SOLDIER: Everything alright over here?

ATLAS SOLDIER 1: This way, hurry!

ATLAS SOLDIER 2: Come on! Over here!

PATROL: We saw them run this way!

7x8: “Cordially Invited”

WAITER: Care for a drink?

WAITRESS: Miss Schnee?

7x9: “As Above, So Below”

MANTLE CITIZEN 1: What’s going on?

MANTLE CITIZEN 2: They wouldn’t just turn the heat off.

- (MANTLE CITIZENS RIOTING)

- MANTLE CITIZEN: I hate you!

MANTLE CITIZEN 3: Atlas killed the heat on purpose!

MANTLE CITIZEN 4: They’ll do anything to control us!

ATLAS SOLDIER: The situation here is getting out of control.

MANTA TEAM DELTA: Atlas, Manta Team Delta.

7x10: “Out in the Open”

MANTLE CITIZEN 3: Take us to Atlas!

MANTLE CITIZEN 4: The protector of Mantle!

7x13: “With Friends Like These”

ATLAS SOLDIER 1: Freeze!

ATLAS SOLDIER 2: They went this way!

ATLAS SOLDIER 3: Drop your weapons!

ATLAS PILOT 1: We’ve got multiple hostiles on radar!

ATLAS PILOT 2: These readings can’t be right.

8x1: “Divide”

ATLAS TECHNICIAN: Wait! You can’t be in here!

CAMILLA: I told you! We need to speak to the General!

SLEET: And what’s this about martial law?

8x2: “Refuge”

(ATLAS SOLDIER GRUNTS)

REPORTER: With still no word from General Ironwood,

MAN: Mm-hmm.

(CHILD CRYING)

DISGRUNTLED GRANDMOTHER: I don’t want to go to the slums.

SHOVEL MOM: Mother.

FIONA’S UNCLE: Fi!

CRIMSON: (OVER EARPIECE) Fiona? Crimson again.

8x3: “Strings”

ATLAS SOLDIER 1: I don’t think even the squad captain knows

ATLAS SOLDIER 2: It’s creepy. All those Grimm just waiting.

MECHANICAL VOICE: Welcome back, Dr. Polendina.

OPERATOR: You put salmon in the microwave!

8x6: “Midnight”

MADAME: I’ll take her.

STEP-SISTER 1: You missed a spot.

RHODES: Alright, what gives?

STEP-SISTER 2: I apologize for the inconvenience.

8x7: “War”

COMMANDER 1: (OVER COMS) Yes, sir?

CHILD: Dad? Look!

COMMANDER 2: We can’t get the Hard Light shields back up, sir.

COMMANDER 3: We tried bombs, missiles, but we can’t make a dent, sir.

8x8: “Dark”

COMPUTER TERMINAL: Credentials verified.

ATLESIAN SOLDIER: It’s her!

8x10: “Ultimatum”

ATLAS COMMANDER: Sir. We have confirmation

(BABY CRYING)

ATLAS SOLDIER: (OVER EARPIECE) Sir, we are detecting non-military ships

CCT VOICE: This is an emergency CCT broadcast.

8x13: “Worthy”

ATLAS CIVILIAN: What is it?

9x1: “A Place of Particular Concern”

MOUSE: The trap has been sprung!

(HUNTER MICE CHEERING)

9x2: “Altercation at the Auspicious Auction”

TOY SOLDIER: Hmm.

TOY SOLDIER 1: This way! Somebody’s sad!

TOY SOLDIER 2: I’d be sad, too, if I ruined the royal birthday!

9x3: “Rude, Red, and Royal”

WHITE PAWN 1: What’s wrong with them?

WHITE PAWN 2: I don’t know. They look stupid.

(WHITE PAWN SHOUTING)

WHITE PAWN 3: Hey, what about us?

TOY SOLDIER 1: Banish them!

TOY SOLDIER 2: Your Majesty!

TOY SOLDIER: Come on, men! They went this way!

TOY SOLDIER 3: Get them!

TOY SOLDIER 4: There they go!

TOY SOLDIER 5: I see them!

TOY SOLDIER 6: Get them!

TOY SOLDIER 7: Not a single one gets out of here!

TOY SOLDIER 8: This way!

TOY SOLDIER 9: Your Majesty!

TOY SOLDIER 10: Banish!

TOY SOLDIER 11: Go, go, go, go!

TOY SOLDIER 12: Where’d the red one go?

TOY SOLDIER 13: They’re out here somewhere!

TOY SOLDIER 14: Keep searching!

TOY SOLDIER 15: Who saw her?!

TOY SOLDIER 16: Where did she go?!

9x5: “The Parfait Predicament”

HAWKER: Come on! Try our mud cookies! They’re delicious!

TEAPOT LADY: Welcome to Things and Things!

9x7: “The Perils of Paper Houses”

BLUE PAPER PLEASER: Hello.

YELLOW PAPER PLEASER: Hello, water. How may I serve you?

GREEN PAPER PLEASER: Thank you, brave knight!

RED PAPER PLEASER: Hello. I am the one called Ruby.

PURPLE PAPER PLEASER: The Great Tree does not kill.

9x9: “A Tale Involving a Tree”

GENIAL GEM: Hello, there.

9Bx4: “Boba”

VACUAN 1: Uh, excuse me. Are you Ruby?

VACUAN 2: Oh, my goodness, can we take a picture?

Chibi 1x23: “A Slip Through Time and Space”

KERRY SHAWCROSS: And, cut! Great job, Sam.

MILES LUNA: Uh, yeah. Okay, cool.

Chibi 2x10: “Cannonball!”

FLOYD: What is up, awesome possums?

Chibi 2x23: “A Slip Through Time and Space Pt. 2”

BARBARA DUNKELMAN: Where is that pesky light switch?

[rwbylovediaries]

Maybe a cuddly Roman and Neo one?

The business of crime is demanding, both mentally and physically. At the moment, Roman was feeling the effects of the latter the most.

A Dust robbery, which turned into a chase on foot, which then turned into a car chase, and then briefly a chase on bike (he was on the bike, not the cops; he fell off said bike after maybe two city blocks)… Not his finest hour. As was becoming a trend, Neo had to bail him out seconds before the cops converged on him. At the very least, she’d managed to snag some Dust, but this was now four-in-a-row when it came to compromised robberies. And much like his pride, Roman was left hurting, and he wanted nothing more than to take a scalding hot shower and get straight into bed.

When he emerged from the bathroom, towel around his waist, Neo was sat on the bed having already changed into her usual pink, white and brown tank top and matching shorts. She looked up from her scroll and repeatedly raised her eyebrows at him, setting aside her scroll and laying on her side across the bed, posing salaciously with her hand on her hip.

Roman just rolled his eyes fondly as he went to put on his usual nighttime attire. “Not tonight, Neo. I feel like I was hit by a truck. Which I almost was, actually.”

Neo frowned and rolled onto her stomach, wiggling her rear at him. While it was always nice to see her petite butt in those petite shorts, nothing was overcoming his immense desire to fall unconscious as soon as possible. He dropped his towel and put on a pair of boxers, then going to grab a t-shirt. “Cute.”

She looked over her shoulder at him and rolled her eyes, rolling onto her side and curling up, assuming her usual position as little spoon. Roman got into bed behind her soon after, switching off the lamp and groaning loudly as he laid down. “Oh, that’s the stuff…” He said with a sigh.

Neo responded by scooting backwards, pressing her back against his chest. He wrapped an arm around her, enjoying how warm she felt. “Good night, Neo…” He murmured.

She wiggled her butt again, this time against his crotch. These boxers did little to restrain him, and even when he was this exhausted and achy, there was no hiding the way his body reacted. As if he could help it. He sighed and kissed the back of Neo’s head. “Nine out of ten times, you wouldn’t have to ask twice. But I am spent. I don’t have a single thrust in me.”

Neo let out an exaggerated sigh, but then snickered breathily and kissed his arm, pressing her cheek against it. He smiled and closed his eyes, kissing her hair again, then kept his mouth and nose nestled against her head.

A few minutes passed, with Roman allowing a combination of Neo’s sweet-smelling hair and his own exhaustion to lull him to sleep, until he felt Neo move against him. Her body twitched, and he noticed her breathing—short and shallow. And with his arm across her chest, he could feel her quick heartbeat. He groaned softly, which seemed to startle Neo a bit. “Neo…you okay?”

Neo nodded her head, and nestled her back further against him, grinding her butt into his crotch. He laid there confused for a moment, before he trailed his hand down from her chest, along her side until reaching her shorts. He felt her hand beneath the front of them…

He sighed and laughed softly. “That needy, huh?” He muttered, still groggy from almost falling asleep, but awake enough to notice her shiver in response. While resting his hand on the front of her shorts, he felt Neo’s hand start moving again. He sighed and shook his head, reaching up to hold her by the wrist. “At least let me handle this.”

She gasped softly and allowed him to move her arm out of the way. He then slid his hand into her shorts, discovering how wet she’d gotten. It made it easy to slip a finger further down and into her, and she responded accordingly, letting out a shaky breath and lifting her leg up and aside.

This wasn’t what she’d been asking for earlier, but Roman figured Neo wouldn’t mind if this served as a little compromise.

Though he was still practically half-asleep, fingering Neo wasn’t exactly difficult. He could probably do this while full-asleep; he’d had plenty of practice. Hence why she was already a trembling twice as much as when he started. Maybe now that she no longer had to worry about waking him, she didn’t have to hold back her reactions to how good she was feeling. She began rocking her hips, taking deeper, harsher breaths as he curled his finger in her, grinding back against his once again erect member. He just kept his eyes closed, enjoying listening to her and feeling her body move. Roman so wished he had the energy to do more, to push her shorts down and give her what she really wanted. It would feel so good, as it always did, but just making Neo feel good was what he was truly concerned about right now. And if he could manage to do that, then he was perfectly content. His own pleasure could wait.

But Neo’s pleasure couldn’t, not even for another minute. He felt as she took in a deep breath, then held it. She stopped rocking her hips, her body going rigid, and then all at once, she trembled violently, arching her back and thrusting her hips forward. She let out a ragged, raspy breath, and reached behind to tap him on the arm. He slowed his movements and gently retreated from her shorts, then leaned up to kiss her cheek. “There,” he whispered, his lips right by her ear. “Is that better?”

She nodded lazily, her shaking body gently slowing, until completely relaxed. Her breaths went from quick and shallow to slow and heavy. He moved his arm back up to her chest, resuming their normal sleeping position. She clung to his arms with both hands, holding it tight to her chest, allowing him to feel her heartbeat again—slower, calmer.

He let out a sigh and relaxed, closing his eyes. “Good night, Neo,” he whispered. She rubbed her butt against him again, though this time as an silent show of affection rather than an attempt at enticing him. He considered it as another one of her countless alternative methods of saying “I love you.” “I love you, too.”

And now they were both exhausted, which made falling asleep together that much easier. And it only came at a cost of Roman having a slightly sorer wrist than before. Absolutely worth it.

[yourthirdparent]

what r your thoughts on Reyna. curious because you have good jason takes and their relationship is So. theyre best friends To Me

OOOO i am not a Reyna Girlie but i do think she's super awesome. she's one of those characters who in my head is just like stick figure violence and tv static but who i love very much. like hazel or magnus chase yk. i have so much affection for her but i cannot channel it into anything tragically.

i think she's really cool as a character what with her past with circe and the pirates and her father and such and then joining the legion and rising to praetor (which btw i wanna see more of so fucking bad when do i get roman prequels split between jason and reyna that delve into their pasts and experiences in the legion and the paths they took becoming praetors and their relationship and the shit reyna dealt with while jason was missing for eight months and also an answer to why he spent two months just straight up missing not even with chb or his homies just fucking gone. what was that. where was he. what the hell was reyna doing while he was gone how much fucking work did she have to do how exhausted was she during that time how much did she struggle to get the senate to agree to sending someone to search for him before giving up (if she did give up). when do i get to learn more about them)

she's also one of those characters where i have many headcanons that i switch between at the drop of a hat. like yeah she's ace ik that but is she aroace or alloace and if she's alloace what flavour of allo is she hetero (not my most common one) is she a lesbian is she bi is she unlabelled. transfem or transmasc or nonbinary or cis. she/her or she/they or she/it or it/any neos. loves animals or cannot rock with any creature that is not a dog or horse. insane about reading and art or exhausted of looking at words and pictures. autism creature or family guy death pose type beat. is she a psych type or a math and chem girlie. latin music or metal or only the weirdest shit that nico shows her that she actually likes the sound of (example uhhh bernie sanders speech lofi remixes). is she exploding leo with her mind or is she like besties with him while also exploding him. is she on the verge of tears every two seconds or is she actually okay sometimes. does she get therapy or is she still afraid of it.

i also have a few ships with her (platonic and romantic) that i'm not really terribly passionate about which is a shame because i love her to death. but like ouguguhg reynabeth could be so fucking unhealthy and fucked up if i wanted it to be i swear and pipeyna could be so AWOOOOOGA AWOOOOOOOOOOGA vibes considering their silly asses and jeyna is sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo girlboss and her malewife and theyna is so home depot x lowes i know it to be true but i can't get invested in any of them and it's such a fucking tragedy yk.

anyways in short she's really really really cool but i have no like Deep Cool thoughts about her unless i'm building off of someone else but i wish i did cuz she's such a cool character!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[icedcoffeeandsunshine]

Hey, can you do a character analysis of Minerva Orland? I barely see much of her on here smh

hi yesss ikr, i feel like she’s an underrated female character in the series and barely anyone on tumblr posts about her as far as i’ve seen :( but i hope you like whatever i’ve written.

MINERVA ORLAND - Character Analysis (Requested)

CANON ANALYSIS

in the gmg arc, minerva at first is seen as possessing some traits similar to her father. she is calm and confident but also has a sadistic side as seen in the naval battle. minerva is also portrayed as the type of person who would do anything to achieve or get whatever she wanted. minerva also seemingly has a superiority complex. i think these traits were embedded in her because of the cruelty of jiemma during her childhood, like he ingrained the desire for superiority and power and the idea that so-called “weaker mages” are below her into her mind from a young age and i do feel all of this has been hard to unlearn for her.

we do see a considerable change in her personality in the end of the tartaros arc (minus the whole neo minerva thing) and alvarez arc. she is now definitely more self reflective, caring and considerate. she even apologised to kagura and lucy for the way she treated them during the grand magic games and becomes closer to her guild mates.

MY HEADCANONS FOR THEM

minerva is either lesbian, bisexual or pansexual. she does not give me straight vibes in the slightest

it says on the wiki page that she speaks an old and archaic form of japanese but “minerva” is the name for the roman goddess of wisdom and is of latin origin, which is why i will fully believe that this woman is half italian

minerva is also the smartest in the guild, more so than orga, rufus or rogue (i’m sorry sting bbg)

her hyperfixation is makeup. i don’t know where this came from but i can just see her having a big space filled with all types of makeup and see her experimenting

i also think minerva would be really good at history

but i also totally imagine her geeking out to k-dramas with yukino.

these are so fucking random and messy i’m so sorry

MINERVA IN LOVE + FRIENDSHIP

i have nothing against rogue (he is my favourite character yall) or straight ships but i just cannot get with the roguerva ship like y’all ‼️ did you not feel the sexual tension between minerva and erza or yukino

minerva would be a confident but also shy lover. she’s highly insecure of the fact that she was not a good person beforehand (talking about gmg arc and prior) and does not deserve to be showered with love and affection. her s/o will reassure her but it’s like a voice in her head type of situation. therefore i feel like it’d be really hard for minerva to fully open up to dating unless she knew you really well.

if she was to date someone, it had to be someone really understanding and empathetic. someone mature and not irrational. she would totally be super protective and all but is not great at showing emotions so i think even if she is protective and jealous, she’d suppress her feelings.

i feel like as a friend, she’d be protective as well. but it takes her lesser time to open up to and get comfortable with a friend as compared to a s/o because obviously, dating is scary and minerva sees commitment as something that is formal. so if you are a friend, especially a best friend, get prepared to have your ear talked off.

i will die on this hill but minerva is 100% very very…not insecure but let’s say hesitant, in her relationships because of the negative connotations of her past actions. she fully believes that one day people might abandon her and that freaks her the fuck out. at the same time, she doesn’t like to be vulnerable so not everyone would know about this. but overall, she is a sweetheart and her love language is acts of service. she will never fail to make her s/o or friends feel appreciated.

WHO DO I SHIP THEM WITH?

yukino, kagura (as a crackship) and erza, but mostly yukino because i feel like the dynamic is the best here.

PERSONAL OPINION ABOUT THE CHARACTER

i loved her character development! minerva is actually criminally underrated and i wish we get more of her (not as rogues love interest) in 100yq. she’s also a character i have many headcanons for, and amongst my favourite sabertooth members (the bar is not really high though)

[midnightechoes]

In volume 9, team RWBY will face revelations about their identities. This volume is the one where all of team RJWBY crack their eggs

Haha, that would be something. I can imagine Jaune calling her mother when she gets back like "guess what mom, turns out you have an 8th daughter."

I am really curious how they're going to be exploring the team's identifies this volume. The theme of "identity" was heavily featured in the synopsis, teaser, and clip, so I assume it'll be a major part of the volume. We know, or we're all pretty confident in the idea that the Ever After is basically going to be Therapy Island where a lot of the characters try to process a lot of their issues and traumas, it'll be interesting to see how their sense of identity is developed as they work through all their stuff.

My friend @shera-dnd pondered if maybe Ruby might come out as nonbinary in this volume, which, while not actually likely, would be really cool. And it does make some bit of sense. Ruby's already being voiced by a nonbinary voice actor, so it'd fit that way. Plus, in past volumes Ruby has repeatedly shown discomfort with overly feminine things, maybe Ruby will explore exactly where on the gender spectrum they do feel comfortable. On top of the mountain of repressed trauma and grief that Ruby has been bottling up forever.

Weiss' issues with identity could be tied to her family. She wasn't the kind Schnee her father was, and in volumes 7 & 8 she learned that she's not the kind of Schnee her sister is either.

I'll be honest I'm not totally sure what Blake's going to face in the Ever After. The show's actually done a good job of having Blake work through a lot of her issues during volumes 1-6. But those could always come roaring back up, especially since she wasn't able to save Yang at the end. Even though Yang's not actually dead, I could see Blake feeling a tremendous amount of guilt over it. I have no idea how her identity might be explored, though, except maybe what it means to be a Faunus in a world that still discriminates against Faunus.

Yang. Oof I could probably write a WHOLE LOT about Yang (she's one of my favorite characters). In terms of identity, I think there's a good chance that'll be related to her sexuality. Besides one throwaway line in the second episode of volume 1, Yang hasn't shown any interest in men. Meanwhile, she's shown an obvious desire for Blake, and has been dressing in butchier and butchier outfits since Beacon. Maybe she's not lesbian (even though I'm personally rooting for her to be one), but she's definitely not straight. But what even is sexual attraction when you spend most of your time suppressing and pushing down your own wants and desires because you think the only value you have is your ability to be of use to the people you care about, especially Ruby and Blake.

The obvious thing for Jaune will be him dealing with his participation in Penny's death. Will he think of himself as a monster? A murderer? A failure as a Huntsman and leader? Poor Jauney-boy's going to be a mess this volume.

I'm also really interested in Neopolitan in volume 9 (she's also one of my favorite characters). Neo's rejected her existence for just about her entire life, eventually even abandoning her name in order to live out a fantasy of playing cops and robbers with Roman. Her life was carefree and driven by an almost child-like hedonism until she lost Roman. Since then the only thing driving her has been a misguided quest to avenge his death. But without that, who is Neopolitan? At this point, I'm not sure she knows the answer to that.

Goodness volume 9 is going to be SO MUCH FUN. And by fun I mean we're going to be witnessing our gang go through just the most trauma, and I can't wait.

[therealvinelle]

I agree that Aro definitely is not straight, but if he is gay and not bi, why window shop for a wife? If he wanted a partner for some reason, why not find a male one? It was a different era, yes, but are vampires really homophobic?

So, for this meta, we’ll have to get historical. Before we do, keep in mind that while I know Ancient Greece better than most, having studied it (introductory level classes only, mind), I don’t know it well enough to be any kind of authority on the matter. History, more than any other discipline I can think of, is not respected as an academic field, and people with poor to no understanding of historical hermeneutics will make very bold assumptions that they then have too poor understanding of history to realize are bullshit. This is a disclaimer because I don’t want to join in on the chorus of authoritative-sounding people on the internet with no verifiable credentials who spout things about history that are then taken to be gospel truth by readers because the author made it sound good.

More, I say this because your question is asking me to explain the morality and social norms surrounding a character from 14th century BC Greece. And this man would not, for the record have been Ancient Greek, he would have been Mycenaean Greek. Very quick history lesson: Mycenaean Greece was a flourishing society that suffered a downfall, Greek civilization fell into its very own dark ages, until around 800 BC when Greeks began forming what would become the Ancient Greece we know and love. This in turn means that I can’t very well read up on the marital and sexual norms of Ancient Greece when I’m researching for Aro, because he was five hundred years old already when Ancient Greece became a thing.

And your question concerns cultural history. And for that we’re going to have to look at how we know the things we know about history. How history is studied.

Historians have two kinds of sources: archeological findings and written records. (I’m aware that oral tradition, like the one carried by the Aborigine people, isn’t technically one of these, but to my understanding it’ll be treated to similar analysis as written records, which leaves us with the two types of sources standing strong.) These sources are analyzed, and we apply various theories and models onto them to make sense of the context they were written in. The more sources we have, the more we can refine or eliminate these theories or models.

More, history is an ever evolving field. There are movements and schools of thought that influence how history is written (marxism in history, that is, history as a class struggle, was heavy in the 60′s and I think until the 80′s), which means that how a certain culture will be perceived today is not the way it was perceived a few decades ago, nor will it be perceived the same way a few decades in the future.

You see why I am daunted by you asking me to give you an answer about sexual and marital norms for a guy who lived 3000 years ago, and I hope you’ll understand why I feel this word vomit is necessary.

Now, the danger with Mycenaean Greece is that it’s a society it’s easy to feel we know a lot about, because it was the precursor to Ancient Greece, and we know a lot about the latter. But, first of, the reason why we know as much as we do about the Ancient Greeks is the Romans. The Greeks wrote about their history, their philosophy, their government, and they wrote plays and told stories. However, that was two thousand years ago and their writings would have been lost to the sands of time if the Romans hadn’t idolized and sought to emulate their society. This meant preserving their written records. This tradition was carried on by the Christians, in part because Hellenistic philosophy was incorporated into Christian philosophy. We have neo-platonism to thank for Christian asceticism, the “mind over matter” cornerstone.

What I’m getting at with all of this is that we know the insane amount about Ancient Greece that we do because of some very unique circumstances, and so we can make very sophisticated theories about what the Hellenistic world was like. It’s still detective work, but not Pepe Silvia type of detective work. This is not the case for Mycenaean Greece. We know a comparative lot about Mycenaean Greece, considering how long ago it was, but there is very much we don’t know.

With Mycenaean Greece, we are dealing with a lot more uncertainty. We haven’t deciphered one of their two writing styles, and a lot of the text we do have is very fragmentary. Coming up with detailed societal models for Mycenaean Greece, and for the 14th century BC specifically, is... well I don’t know enough about what this society left behind to know what historians have to work with, but I imagine they have their work cut out.

More, I haven’t studied this at all, which means that any attempt on my end to research this would be stumbling around in the dark.

One example: the Illiad and the Odyssey, while composed around the 8th century BC, were set in the early 12th century BC, which is nearly Aro’s time period. The Illiad depicts a homoerotic relationship between Patroclus and Achilles, and both works depict a lot of matrimonies, so I wish I could use it as a source. However, not only would this time gap alone make these sources questionable, but there’s also the matter of the Illiad and the Odyssey being transmitted orally, from bard to bard. Changes were made over the years. For example, the technology described in the Illiad is from several eras, as the warriors will be using bronze weaponry in one book and then switch to iron in the next. This game of telephone is what happens when a story is transmitted orally from person to person. So, while it’s tempting to use these works as a sort of reference point, the possibility, likelihood even, that the bards made adjustments to keep the old story entertaining for their contemporary audience is strong.

For this reason, I can’t give you any kind of historically correct analysis on what the marital or sexual mores would have been like in Aro’s time. Even if the knowledge is out there, I don’t have it.

But I can say this, spouses have for the longest time been partners. Men and women got married, even in the gay, gay, Ancient Greece, not just to have children but because they complemented each other, they were partners. Men needs wives, and women needs husbands. And a partner was canonically exactly what Aro was looking for, feelings had nothing to do with it:

After Caius and Marcus had found their romantic attachments, Aro decided to find his own, although rather than finding his other half in another vampire Aro decided to create his own instead. Aro had a certain type of woman in mind and he found what he was looking for in Sulpicia. He successfully courted her and she came to fall in love with him.

As for vampires being homophobic, I think that is for another post about what culture they bring with them into their new life. But to be brief I’ll say that while the individual vampire can be homophobic, there can be no homophobia at an institutional level because vampires have no institutions. And it’s the institutional homophobia that gets ya. It’s what the whole fight for gay rights has been about: secure legislation against discrimination and that protects gay people. (The right to marry and protection from employees firing LGBT employees comes to mind as examples of this.)

So, no one could force Aro to marry a woman. 

And I’d go into a rant here about how the prospect of gay marriage, of even identifying as homosexual (the labels homosexual, bisexual, and heterosexual are very new and, to my recollection, were born off of the Western psychiatric discipline as men who slept with other men were diagnosed with homosexuality. I imagine a man from the Antiquity would be confused at the notion that just because he likes to sleep with dudes he shouldn’t get married to a woman), was unthinkable up until very recently, but I just made this obscenely long rant about how I can’t really make these kinds of guesses, so I’m not gonna.

I think being married to a woman and then banging hot dudes who came along suited Aro just fine.

Also, I can’t believe I’m doing this, but - I’m going to encourage history asks. Because this fandom has a bit of a history problem, as a lot of the characters are from different time periods and many feel unsatisfied with the way Meyer handled that. I am by no means a historian, but I know several of the historical periods the characters of Twilight are from well enough to make educated guesses.

So, hit me with your worst.

[fatefulfaerie]

Once Upon A Time

Long one shot under the cut. Every once in a while I obsess over Gelato (Roman x Neo) so...yeah...

Spoilers for RWBY: Roman Holiday (read it if you haven’t it’s so good!!)

He didn’t know how to treat it like anything but a heist.

Roman had definitely kissed a girl before, Bleu Berry at the orphanage when he was twelve, Crimsen Blank when he was fifteen, Verd Webster when he was seventeen, and then of course the off and on thing with Chameleon while he worked for Lil’ Miss.

But something about kissing Neo was special, something not to be messed up or done lightly like every other young woman he had kissed. He had to do it right.

It had seemed like a lifetime ago since Roman had planned a heist without Neo, and he found himself at a loss because of it. She really was the brains of their partnership...and the brawn…

Why was he even here?

Neo gave him a distinct look. She snapped her fingers in front of his face.

“Sorry.”

He was staring again, at her instead of the television. His cover story was that he stared into space when he was really tired.

Lie.

It was really him taking glances from under her nose, like pickpocketing a stranger’s wallet.

Steal.

Cheat.

Survive

Love.

When did that get in there?

Normally when they sat down together to watch the large, holographic screen that emitted from Neo’s facedown scroll -- Roman still hadn’t gotten his hands on a new scroll. He was perfectly able to steal one of course, especially since the Vale City Mall had the most pathetic security. He just kept straight up forgetting -- they were watching themselves on TV, laughing about the coverage of their recent ridiculous robbery and eating spicy hot wings from the Cuckoo Crazy Chicken Shack.

This was the first time that Roman was thinking about someone else while watching his own name flash across the screen.

He was catching feelings for her, and there was no doubt about it. He had been catching feelings ever since she saved his life in the alley where she first showed off her semblance, and then more and more as they spent time together.

Roman pinpointed the moment she showed him the fabulous outfit she had made for him as that oh moment that you read about in romance novels.

Not that he read. He accidentally stole a book once. Once. Neo was the reader. He could hardly summon the patience. When Neo gave him a book to read, he skipped to the end. Roman didn’t see the point in all the rest.

But for some reason with this conundrum, this real-life conundrum, he couldn’t bring himself to skip to the end, to just kiss her like it meant just as much as any other kiss.

He tried to plan it like a heist, watching Neo, memorizing her routine, figuring the best moment of the day to perform the act, but it didn’t work. Neo was too unpredictable. She wasn’t like a bank or a warehouse that had their security guards on the same schedule every day. Her chaos was part of her charm, always doing the unexpected, but Roman was absolutely lost as to when he should make his move, if at all. They had a good thing going here, after all, and for all he knew he could kiss her one second and be knocked out cold the next.

Roman felt a slap on his shoulder and he looked over.

What the hell?

Neo was mute yet Roman could hear her say it. She must have been doing airplane arms before she slapped him.

She pointed at him and then her right ear, her forehead creased with inquisition.

“No, I am not going deaf,” Roman said.

She must have been clapping and snapping to get his attention.

“I’m just thinking,” he explained, the words spilling out just as he realized he might have to come up with an answer for what he was thinking.

But Neo nodded in understanding. What a wonderful human being. She mimed sleep, resting her head on hands that touched palms.

“Yeah,” Roman agreed. “Sleep. Good idea.”

Since his fancy condo was ambushed by Lil’ Miss, the two partners in crime had settled in an abandoned building that had gone from being a restaurant to a convenience store to a nail salon in the span of three months, before being abandoned for a year now. This street was a terrible place for an above-board business and even the Vale Government had let it rot, too small and inconsequential to be made into a factory or a warehouse of any sort.

Neo and Roman found it a week after the skirmish at the Vanille mansion. It was dilapidated and falling apart but it was only as broken as each of them were before they found each other. They quickly saw it as home.

So Roman stood up in order to head towards his bedroll in the corner. Neo watched him with a suspicious eye.

“Now that we’ve done as much damage as we could with the information from Mr. Vanille’s computer…”

Neo had already noticed that Roman never referred to the late Jimmy Vanille as her dad. Biologically he was her dad but he never treated her like a daughter.

“We may as well start on this dust business,” he continued. “Dust Till Dawn seems like the easiest target to me but I’d rather start bigger, something more fun.”

He turned around in case Neo had anything to add but she only stood up and paced towards him, using her semblance to change into Roman Torchwick himself. Roman looked at the mirrored version of himself as Neo made fun of the way he had been acting, staring with a blank expression, losing his train of thought. She then changed back into herself and shrugged her shoulders with her hands up as if to ask him why.

“I…I don’t know.”

He stammered. He rarely stammered.

She crossed her hands over her heart, then offered her hands to him. He knew what that meant.

Can I help?

She was always so thoughtful.

“It, umm…”

He had to be confident about this, he absolutely had to. He was Roman Torchwick, after all, the fabulous, the famous. He was fearless. He was clever and could get any girl he wanted, even the best of the best that stood in front of him. He could do this.

“Roman Torchwick this is the VPD,” a voice bellowed. Roman closed and opened his eyes.

“Why is it never you?” He asked Neo quietly, who was smirking. She stuck out her tongue.

“Come out with your hands up,” the loud voice continued. “We’ve got you surrounded.”

Neo turned back into Roman.

“Meet you at Forever Fall?” He asked.

Neo nodded and ran off to get caught by the police. Roman pocketed Neo’s scroll and grabbed Melodic Cudger and Hush, the two hooks of which clinked in his grasp.

“Your reputation precedes you, Mr. Torchwick,” he heard as he was halfway out the window in the back. Roman froze and listened. He dared to let his vanity doom him. “But I’m afraid it doesn’t do you justice.”

Roman turned his head.

What was that supposed to mean?

He could see the scene barely, through a gap in one of the distant boarded windows. Neo, in his image of course, stood with her hands in surrender.

“A volatile jokester,” the policeman continued, circling around Neo. “Always has something to remark. Doesn’t seem to want to shut up.” He stopped his spherical pacing and turned on his heel. “Do you know where I got these phrases?”

Neo shook her head.

“Vale Police Department records,” he said. “It’s how they describe you, and it’s how I know you aren’t really in front of me right now, are you Torchwick?”

He felt the panic in his heart, he tried to slip out the window but his forehead met a gun as it cocked with a click.

Their strategy had worked twice already, a disguised Neo getting arrested as Roman fled to a rendezvous location. Neo would use her semblance to escape captivity easily and they would have cheated the system. But it seems the police caught on.

Roman was almost impressed as he bumped shoulders with Neo in the back of the cop car, their weapons confiscated and Neo’s scroll slammed in half by the heel of one of the officers. Their hands were literally tied and Roman might have found a way to fight his way out of this but hey, he had never seen the interior of the Vale Police Department before. He figured it was time for a grand tour of the rathole’s rat hole.

“What’s that?” were the next words out of his mouth twenty minutes later. The VPD building was disappointing. Roman regretted wanting a look inside within a couple steps.

“Semblance inhibitor,” the officer replied, latching a second pair of handcuffs onto Neo’s wrists and only Neo’s wrists. “New tech from Atlas. It drains aura.”

Neo looked at Roman with a flash of panic in her eyes. She was always so confident in her chaos that it was a rare sight to see her scared.

“It’s okay,” he managed softly.

“We’re submitting her for questioning,” the officer continued, nearly interrupted as if Roman hadn’t said anything. “And we’re sending you back to Mistral. Lil’ Miss will be elated to learn that you are alive.”

They began to pull them away along two different hallways.

“No,” Roman said, struggling. “No!”

He lurched for Neo with all his might and caught her lips. That one moment of vulnerability where she tried to keep him with her cost him his better sense as he was very nearly yanked away, only seeing Neo’s face in shock.

“She’s mute, you idiots!” Neo heard Roman exclaim. “She couldn’t answer even if she wanted to. You lay a hand on her and so help me gods I’ll--”

A door slammed shut. Neo didn’t get to hear that last bit.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Trivia Vanille a.k.a. “Neopolitan”

Height: 4’10”

Age: 19

Prisoner ID Number: 827338

It was the first time in several years that she genuinely smiled in a picture, and it was a mugshot. Although she could see in her file the name that was dead to her, they referred to her verbally only as Neopolitan. The respect made Neo over the moon with happiness, made her almost forget her concern to get out of this without her semblance. The lock on her normal handcuffs were simple enough to pick once she was left alone but the one that shone blue and drained her energy even now would take a bit more creativity.

Roman Torchwick

Height: 5’11”

Age: 27

Prisoner ID Number: 827299

How many times did he have to tell them? He was six foot three. Six. Feet. Three. Inches. They never listened to him and it bothered him that it was on his permanent record that he didn’t measure up to at least six feet. For goodness sake, he was a celebrity. Any dunce on the street knows that he has orange hair, a white jacket, a grey scarf tied around his neck, and dashing emerald eyes. Everyone knows that he gave himself the birthday of October 31st (the mother who abandoned him at the orphanage didn’t care to specify the day that he had an excuse to steal cake) and that he was six foot three. It was on his mugshot and everything. He pleaded until he had two hands on the bars of his temporary holding cell. He was on his knees.

“Lights out.”

He sighed.

“Fine.”

He heard a foot stomp behind him. His cellmate was standing against the barred window that let in only streaks of moonlight, only fractions of nightlife and remnants of an already crumbled world.

He was a quite heavyset man and Roman’s heart skipped a beat. Roman was good in a fight but he wasn’t sure about these odds as he slowly stood up. This guy looked to have the strength of ten men and his arms were crossed.

Descending pink triangles dispelled the illusion and Roman choked a sigh of relief when the burly man turned into the small silhouette of Neo herself. Her hip cocked to the side and Roman knew, although he couldn’t see it, that she was smirking.

Roman rushed forth and hugged her, embraced her desperately like he never had before. He must have really thought they weren’t getting out of this one together.

“How?” he asked when they separated, his eyes searching her moonlit face.

Neo mimed picking a lock but then shook her head. She then mimed smashing her heel into an invisible pair of handcuffs between her two wrists and gave Roman a thumbs up.

“Good to know Atlas technology goes so fancy on design that brute force is the solution to breaking it. Would you like to pick the cell lock or shall I?”

Neo nodded and skipped to do just that, as if that were the easy part. Neo plucked pins from her mess of brown and pink hair and got to work kneeling before the lock and snaking her arms around the other side of the bars. Roman leaned on the bedpost and ignored his actual cellmate, the actual burly, wideset man who was knocked out on the bottom bunk and had a gnarly bruise the resembled Neo’s heeled boots across his face.

“About earlier, I…” Roman hesitated. “I guess I just wanted to apologize if I took you by surprise. It’s something I’ve been wanting to do, don’t get me wrong, I just…”

After several clicks, the door swung open and Neo turned around to face Roman, approaching him. Roman wondered if she had even heard him until she grasped his tied gray scarf and pulled him into her lips. It was all the answer Roman needed as they explored each other’s mouths, Neo slowly backing up and Roman chasing her, walking forward. When she let loose his lips they were out of the cell. She smiled. Roman was absolutely smitten.

She turned into a security guard, one they had seen earlier and she took his hand, Roman giggling under his breath as they fled from the Vale Police Department and into the wild night they had claimed as their own.

The memory became foggy, as it always did. It turned into a million other nights of chaos with him, all melding into a single lifetime that was now deceased. Trivia Vanille once died in the burning rubble of the Vanille Estate and left Neopolitan in her stead, but the moment Neo saw a blinding “X” over Roman’s aura gage a different Neopolitan had emerged. This one wasn’t languishing in her new sense of identity, wasn’t happy beyond belief in her friendship with this Torchwick guy. No, this Neopolitan was in pain, deep soulful, cutthroat, bleeding pain. When she threw a parasol and made her dad bleed she felt nothing. When her parents died because of the dust her dad harbored, she felt free. But when Roman died, she felt grief for the very first time, felt loss and lost in this world that didn’t understand her, would never understand her like he did.

Neo blinked her eyes open.

She liked when her dreams dipped into her memories up until the point where she woke up, where reality reminded her what was past and what was present.

It smelled like blood here. Neo had started to wonder if this is what it was like to be in the womb, gestating, trapped, waiting to be reborn in Salem’s image. The thought made Neo gag. This was the last place she wanted to be, seen as a mere chess piece in Salem’s game. She grew up as a chess piece that had been discarded, then used, then discarded again, like a dirty towel her parents kept forgetting about. What once liberated her was her newfound knowledge that her decisions could be her own but now she was CInder’s helper? beneficiary?

She would have to stomach it until Cinder upheld her end of the deal and got her to Ruby Rose.

Neo pushed against the bed she was assigned and sat up, although she would use the term bed extremely loosely. It was a hunk of red rock and the small room looked like the maw of a Grimm more than anything else. Neo would quantify it to a torture chamber if there wasn’t a small young man literally being tortured a few rooms over. She at least had it better off than him, but that didn’t say much.

Neo steadied her breath and closed her eyes. She thought of him, not the boy who screamed in anguish down the hallway but him. Roman. She thought of his brown, leather slip-on shoes and how much he hated the hassle of tying laces. She thought of his dark grey pants and how they collected around his ankles. She thought of his white coat and remembered tailoring it to his size, remembered thinking of the moment she would surprise him with it. She remembered his gloves and how it felt to be held by those hands. She remember his grey scarf and tried not to think about how it was on her neck instead of his. She tried to think of his piercing green eyes and his pumpkin orange hair, his bowler hat that had a red ribbon and a grey feather. She tried to remember his voice.

She opened her eyes and stood up slowly, pacing towards the illusion she had created, feeling tears sting in her eyes, feeling her heart beat with relief she tried to subdue.

“Neo,” he said softly.

She bawled, tears streaming down her face. She took the hat off her head and put it on her doll. She cupped his face with her hands and found herself missing having to go on her tippy toes like this.

Neo thought she could hold the illusion long enough to at least hug him, to at least derive some comfort from her memories and what her semblance was able to do with them. Yet, the illusion just as soon shattered, crumbling into shards of glass. Neo’s gasp was shaky as she looked down into her palms. Her breaths matched no rhythm and her soul bled as if she had lost him all over again. She looked up.

Cinder.

Her lip quivered. Neo couldn’t help it. Her brow furrowed in anger despite her sadness. The pink and the brown were like flames. And yet Cinder couldn’t even see her hate. No one could see anything of her.

“Salem wants everyone on the bridge,” Cinder said. “Welcome to reality.”

She walked off without a care and Neo fell to her knees, gathering the glass shards. She seethed with anger as she held them delicately in her hands. Her panting increased as balled her hands into fists, not caring in the slightest the sharp pain in her palms or the blood staining her white gloves.

She made a silent promise to Roman then, not to live for herself like she once did but to survive long enough to give Ruby Rose everything she deserved.

[tyforestposts]

What Your Favorite RWBY Ship Says About You (with a dash of salt) Part 2

A sequel to this! I’m making a Part 2 simply because there are still quite a few RWBY ships out there I didn’t cover last time. Unfortunately, there won’t be a Part 3 anytime soon because I think I exhausted myself trying to find more seemingly plausible ships for this part, and even then, I think I got desperate near the end and just started including more nonsensical crack ships.

Still inspired by that one guy on YouTube who did something like this. I must again say: THIS IS NOT TO BE TAKEN ALL THAT SERIOUSLY. Some people apparently didn’t get the memo last time. I am merely having fun, but there’s also a reason why the “with a dash of salt” is in the title.

There’s a reason why I left the FNDM a long time ago, and that reason is the toxicity.

NutsAndDolts (Ruby x Penny): You either love the “friends to lovers” dynamic, or you took Ruby’s love of weaponry to the extremest extreme.

Gelato (Roman x Neo): You’re probably really attracted to Torchwick, which is fair, and your favorite character is Neo.

Ren or Nora x Anyone Else: My dear friends, you are brave souls who shall be remembered. You had the courage to stand up to a titan, and your bravery is commended. You may be dead now, but you will not be forgotten.

Emercury (Mercury x Emerald): You just want good things for both of these characters.

Emberald (Cinder x Emerald): You probably unironically ship this while bashing Tauradonna for the abuse, completely unaware of your hypocrisy. But if you’re intelligent, you’re just like the respectful Tauradonna shippers and don’t want to touch the canon with a fifty foot pole.

Thermometer (Cinder x Mercury): You thought that one skit from RWBY Chibi made a bit TOO much sense.

SunFlakes (Sun x Weiss): You’re all for rounding out character development for Weiss.

RoseWick (Roman x Ruby): This... Yeah, I got nothing except “FBI, OPEN UP!!!”

SilentKnight (Jaune x Neo): You’re all for a Neo redemption arc, but just a bit too straight to go for anything else.

Strawbana (Sun x Ruby): You’re always a sucker for the ship mirroring the actors.

Ironwitch: (Ironwood x Glynda): I honestly don’t know, maybe you’re just a casual Glynda fan who just doesn’t ship her with Ozpin, so you latched onto those hints in Volume 2? There aren’t many of you out there anymore, so I can’t say for certain...

Prismatic Ponytails (Weiss x Ilia): You like the dynamic previously said for Sunflakes, but you’re too gay to like that one.

Frostbite (Adam x Weiss): You also like the dynamic of Sunflakes, but also want actual character development for Adam too.

Catmeleon (Blake x Ilia): You’re a bit too gay to like Tauradonna.

Any guy x Ilia: You are either in denial, want Ilia to have a better character motive, or both.

DairyFarm (Oscar x Neo): You probably imagined Neo giving Oscar a kiss while disguised as Ruby and it was all downhill from there.

Overthrown (Ozpin x Cinder): You laughed a bit TOO much at Matt the Mammoth Rider’s RWBY Volume 3 Recap.

CombatBoots (Mercury x Yang): You are all for those prosthetic parallels.

DataFarms (Oscar x Penny): You probably just think freckles are adorable, and double the amount is almost too much for you to handle.

Alcoholics Anonymous (Qrow x Willow): You love the dynamic of Snowbird, but would rather not have to deal with the age complications.

ChocolateArc (Jaune x Coco): You delved WAY too deep into the Jaune Harem content.

The Princess and the Pauper (Oscar x Weiss): You are all for the rich girl falls in love with the poor boy trope, even if the age difference is... questionable.

Cadbury (Cardin x Velvet): You are all for a Cardin redemption arc, even if they both have dropped out of the story.

RedBull (Adam x Ruby): I don’t know WHAT avenue you took to get to this ship, but what a journey it must have been.

Ice Coal'd (Flynt x Weiss): You’re deeply invested into Weiss’ story with the SDC, which is fair, and just want this ship to be the nice icing on top of the cake.

Wizard’s Apprentice (Ozpin x Oscar): There comes a time in all forms of media consumption where you are so utterly bewildered by what you have seen, that there are so many things wrong with it, that you don’t have words and you simply laugh. When I saw this ship for the first time, I wish I had recorded it. I burst out laughing, struggling to compose myself, and I was fundamentally blown away at what in the world I was seeing. And the kicker? I wasn’t even entirely sure of why. It’s like so many issues cascade on your brain at once, you are overwhelmed and you couldn’t possibly pass it out in the amount of time you have left before something utterly ridiculous happens on top of what you just saw. So that’s why we have posts like the one you are reading now; to have a moment to think, to collect information and lay out what it is. Because... What The Fuck...

[itsclydebitches]

re: that ask you posted a couple days ago about the male and female representation in RWBY, part of what makes RWBY's whole 'girl power' thing ring exceptionally hollow to me is the fact that there are like... no women in positions of real power in remnant. like at all. except the big bad.

winter is second in command to james. glynda is second in command to ozpin. all of the headmasters are men (for no discernible reason, imo; why theodore and not dorothea?). the leader of the ace ops was a white man (and then winter seemed to take over clover's position instead of either of the women of color on the team, and she was still second to james). RWBY is an all girl team, but JNPR was led by a boy despite a girl arguably being far more qualified (pyrrha). the happy huntresses are all women, and robyn had no real power to speak of--she didn't even manage to win the election, because jacques rigged it, and then the council ceased to matter. there was one (1) woman on the council, but she was so inconsequential that i can't even remember her name. (i suppose we're lucky it was the guy and not her who james shot lol) jacques controls the SDC instead of willow, even though he's not even a schnee by blood and actually married into the family for power. (and we don't even know how he got it over his wife.)

and then there's the white fang, which ghira led and not kali--and it's ghira who leads menagerie itself, while kali seems to be a housewife. sienna had five minutes of screentime before being brutally killed and her position assumed by adam, a man. cordovin is basically a one off lackey we haven't even thought about before or since. neo was second to roman. you have cinder, sure, who is a second but to salem, a woman, and raven as the leader of the branwen tribe--but what does it really say about your 'girl power' narrative when the only women with genuine systemic power in your world are villains or antagonists with massive bodycounts??

atla has the same sort of problem--a couple great female characters, but all the leadership positions are men (except the kyoshi warriors, an all girls group, and even then the leader of their island is an old man) and the one female mentor figure also turns out to be evil--but it at least has some great writing to help overlook that fact, and it came out in the mid-00's and so has some sort of excuse of being a product of its time. but rwby didn't even start until 2013 and it's still going and still making these kinds of decisions well into 2021.

where is this supposed girl power, exactly? am i really supposed to overlook the very patriarchal worldbuilding just because the title characters are girls?

That's an excellent summary of the situation, anon, and as with so much in RWBY, it comes down to the full context. Any one of these examples isn't necessarily going to mean much on its own. It's when you look at the pattern that you can start making a case for those conclusions: Why is the show marketed on "girl power" set in a world where men hold the vast majority of that power? And, more importantly, why is that setup not the point? We could easily have a story where that lopsided gender dynamic is the problem that the girls are looking to fix, but... that story doesn't exist. Like the problems discussed with Jaune, the supposed point here exists only on the surface. Dig just the tinniest bit — the above — and you hit on a lot of structural problems with this "girl power" world.

To add just a few details to what you've already said:

Salem indeed has power, but she's never allowed to fully use it. Each volume the frustration with this grows as Salem accumulates more abilities and then just sits on them. From literally hiding out for a thousand years to worries that she won't use the Staff in Volumes 9-10, Salem really isn't allowed to be the threat she's presented as on the surface. And yes, this is absolutely due in part to the "She's too OP and the writers don't know how to let her be that powerful while still having the heroes win" issue, but again, context. That problem doesn't exclude others occurring simultaneously.

Same double explanation with Summer. Yes, dead moms are an incredibly common trauma to dump on a protagonist, but it still left Yang and Ruby with Tai as their primary influence. And Qrow. The uncle becomes the extended family influence while Raven is the absent one/eventual antagonist. It's personal power as opposed to political power, but Tai, Qrow, Ozpin, formerly James... most of the mentors are men. Maria, a key exception, has been ignored in that regard. The story announced that she was Qrow's inspiration, setup her being Ruby's new mentor, and then... nothing. Nothing has come of that. She disappeared for a volume and then went off to Amity and was literally forgotten by the story when evacuating everyone was the finale's whole point.

Like that Endgame moment I mentioned, the Happy Huntresses feel a little too forced to me. Yes, it's the same basic idea as in ATLA, but ATLA, as you say, has a lot more going for it. The Happy Huntresses feel... on the nose? Idk exactly how to explain it. Like, "Here they are! Another team of all women! Isn't this how progressive storytelling works? Just ignore how this is a one-off team of minor characters compared to the world building issues discussed above." And if you're not paying attention, you miss just how insignificant they are, with a side of Robyn being, well, Robyn. The Kyoshi Warriors, at least, are based off of Kyoshi. A woman avatar who is a significant part of their history. That is, presumably, why they're an all women warrior group (but who notably still teach Sokka). The Happy Huntresses are all huntresses because...? There's no reason except that meta "We want to look progressive" explanation. Just like having all the women superheroes team up for a hot second so people get excited and ignore the representation problems across, what? 21 films? Don't get me wrong, I love that May is among the Happy Huntresses. I think including her in the explicitly all-women group was one of the better things RWBY has done in a long time, but the rest is still a mess.

RWBY is arguably about these smaller groups as opposed to systematic power (despite the writers trying to work that in with things like the White Fang and the election. Not to mention the implication that everything in Atlas is fine now that evil Ironwood has died and taken the symbol of wealth (the city) with him. We saw a human holding hands with a faunus after all. Racism and corruption solved, I guess.) So yes, our group is dominated by women... but Whitley is the one saving Nora, helping to defeat the Hound (plus Willow), thinking of the airships, and providing the blueprints they need to escape. Salem is our Big Bad, except Ironwood is the one the volume focuses on. Ruby is our leader, but Jaune is the one leading the group into the whale and getting praised for how heroic he is. Ren does more to shake things up, even if he's painted as the one in the wrong. Oscar gets to confront Salem and destroys the whale threat. Ozpin provides the information they need to evacuate. Meanwhile, when the girls do things in Volume 8 it's almost always followed by a long-stint of passiveness. Nora opens the door so she can be unconscious for most of the volume. Penny keeps Amity up so she can also be unconscious for a good chunk of time. Ruby sends her message and then sits in a mansion. Blake fights so she can tearfully beg Ruby to save her. Weiss, as said, takes a backseat to Whitley (and Klein). They forward the plot, absolutely, but comparatively it doesn't feel like enough.

It's that pattern then, no one specific example. More and more the personal power, not just the systematic power already built into Remnant, seems to be coming from the men. Not all the time, but enough that scenes like the tea drinking moment feel like a part of a much larger problem. Pietro taking control, Watts hacking, and Ambrosius literally remaking her when Penny is supposed to already be in control of herself and her fate. Winter being presented as the active mentor to Weiss, only to turn around and claim that Ironwood was actually responsible for everything. Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and May straight up commenting on how awful things are out there while Yang, Jaune, Ren, and Oscar lead the charge against Salem — with the latter three doing the most to forward that mission (no fear, semblance, cane). As others have only half-joked, Yang's supposedly badass moment was bringing up a mother she's ignored for six volumes and briefly blowing up the immortal woman for a couple of seconds (with Ironwood's bombs). Even Marrow is arguably the most significant Ace Op after Clover. Vine isn't actually a character, Elm slightly less so, Harriet is there to go crazy and try to drop a bomb (notably before admitting to never-before-existed feelings for Clover), but Marrow? He's the one who breaks out. Who is meant to heroically stand up against Ironwood. Who comments on how awful it is that teenagers are fighting and, regardless of how messed up the moral messages are, is supposedly pushing for active change while all the women in his group, including Winter, insist on maintaining the status quo. Look at all these choices as a whole, it makes throwaway worldbuilding choices like "All the Maidens are women" feel pretty hollow. Why does it matter if Amber is a Maiden if she dies in a flashback so Ozpin can struggle to pass on the power? If Pyrrha dies before becoming one so Jaune can angst about it? If Raven is one and then disappears from the story entirely? If Winter has enough power to break Ironwood's aura, but supposedly had no power throughout every other choice she made getting here? If Penny is one, but is continually controlled by men and then asks another man to help her die? It's just really unconvincing, once you look past the surface excitement of a woman looking cool with magic powers.

When you do consider the whole of the story — both in terms of our world building and who is forwarding the plot in the latter volumes, getting the emotional focus, being proactive, etc. — there are a lot of problems that undermine the presumed message RT wants to write. They say, "girl power" by marketing RWBY with these four women, but too many of the storytelling decisions thoroughly undermine that, revealing what's likely a deeply ingrained, subconscious bias.

[bean-na-farraige-agus-foraoise]

Druids ain’t shit and here’s why.

Straight from the Pond- here’s a lesson from your friendly neighborhood historian.

It’s a long post so the history lesson is under the cut. 

Druidic “history” (or pseudohistory rather) actually begins with early renaissance politics. 

Basically Italy is dominating politics and religion by being able to call back to an ancient history that led directly into the formation of the centralized Catholic church. Surprising nobody who's familiar with European history- the German states want in on that action but they don't really have that direct line linking them to antiquity beyond their conquering by Rome- so, like any good 15th century academics, they create that link by just making shit up. 

So they look back at ancient roman writings, and see mention of druids, and also realize that they actually don't know fuck all about them, there's no records of them beyond a few classical authors- and for the record, classical authors are NOTORIOUSLY unreliable, there are entire graduate level seminars dedicated to teaching people how to read through ancient Roman propaganda, almost every druid I have ever met has taken classical authors at face value, anyway I digress, they just start making up a history of the druids, German lands used to be populated by Celts, and they create these mystical druids who serve as the direct precursor to The Church in these areas, like they forge documents and everything so when Italy goes "oh yeah since when?" they have something to hold up as a "gotcha" - they fashion statues and hide them in crypts as further evidence. It’s wild. 

So, France sees that the German states are becoming more politically popular within the HRE (Holy Roman Empire) because of these druid stories, and so they go "Hey Celts used to live in France too... we should have druids"- and they create druid stories. Scotland at the time is very close with France politically and they go "Hey us too, we're still Celts,” and then it spreads to Wales, and then England. Ireland is mostly staying out of druid nonsense- like in this period of the OG pseudohistories Ireland is like "this is disgusting we don't want druids" so like all the writings in Ireland in this period on druids are like "yeah the Church HATES druids"

Things quiet down for a little bit, because the stories are established, the cards have been played, whatever, but then Neo-Classicism and the Enlightenment- and now suddenly it's cool to have ancient history again - but like... Britain has "we got conquered by Rome" or "hey a few centuries ago people were saying we had druids?”; so naturally the more nationalistic go with druids....which is how we get, Iolo Morganweg.  Iolo's real name is Edward Williams but he insisted on going by his "bardic name"- bc druids.  Williams was a Welsh antiquarian- who is in some scholastic circles considered the father of “modern” druidry.  Williams literally named his son Taliesin after the bardic poet behind the Poems of Taliesin which is frequently in association with the Mabinogi in Brythonic texts. To pull from the wiki on this asshole: 

[he made] claims that ancient Druidic tradition had survived the Roman conquest, the conversion of the populace to Christianity, the persecution of bards under King Edward I, and other adversities. His forgeries develop an elaborate mystical philosophy, which he claimed as a direct continuation of ancient Druidic practice. Williams's reportedly heavy use of laudanum may have been a contributing factor

Yeah.... just... yeah. So not only did he forge like hella documents, which today in the 21st century, over 100 years after he was revealed as a fraud, are still more popular than the originals- but he also is the reason that ogham is like that. Williams created a ‘bardic alphabet’ based on combining Scandinavian runes and extant ogham - we are still wading through his bullshit trying to fix ogham. 

And this brings us to the Celtic Twilight...... 

To quote @liminalblessings​, “And a bunch of noodle fuckers decide "hey, we didn't bastardize the Irish enough for the last however long.... We should do more of that."” But for those of you not familiar with the term, it's a nationalistic pan-Celtic movement that wanted to like, make the Celts in vogue again? but like their idea of the Celts as "noble savage” - because the modern era was scary. At this point, Pan-Celtic Nationalism is starting to rise as pushback against British colonialism in Celtic nations. Unfortunately it's heavily reliant on the Druid myth as like.... A foundational shared cultural history between the surviving Celtic nations. The point largely is, though, "look at us. We should all be sticking together because we're the same / cousins / brothers". Which leads to a L O T of Celtic culture from various countries kind of getting.... molded into one singular idea- which is USUALLY what we think of today when we think of Celts. Basically everything gets branded as Irish because the Irish were “pure” and a “separate racial identity” as opposed to the Scots and Welsh. It took that idea of a pan-Celtic singularity, and then went ham with it mostly on Irish pre-Christian stuff, and as it occurred not too long after Williams’ fuckery, it really cemented those forgeries and psuedohistories in the cultural memory. And Williams wasn’t exposed as a fraud until after the Celtic Twilight had died down.

Now... Yeats, we all know Yeats- some people recommend his writings for learning about the fairies. DO NOT LISTEN TO THOSE PEOPLE. Yeats makes up an entire tree calendar, and also files all Scottish fairy lore under the “Irish” tab because he’s part of the Celtic Twilight and didn’t you know that everything Celtic is actually Irish? Fuck this guy. #yeetyeats

Enter... Robert Graves- destroyer of histories and all around fuckwit. Graves maked up an ENTIRE religious notion around a mother goddess and shit. And like, the irony of that is the people he supposedly went to originally were like lol dude you're a fucking idiot none of this is real. But he published it anyways and of course it got taken seriously. And then there's a lot of reverse etymology at this point which is just.... really bad linguistics. And because of Graves’ white goddess + said bad linguistics by others, you get Danu.(Danu is a whole thing, please shoot me an ask if you want a post about all of that nonsense). 

So.... Gerald Gardener.... to quote @liminalblessings​ again- “didn’t have a direct role in druidism, except he kind of did.”  See, Gardner had a good friend who was hella interested in the Celtic twilight. Said friend was hella inspiried by Gardner's "recreation" of old British trad witch traditions... But he didn't jive with the old British trad witch traditions. HE jived with Irish Druidry. So while Gardner's doing HIS thing, his friend's doing the modern Druid thing- heavily drawing from Gardner's own work but "making it more historically Druid" Except, as you may have picked up- there is no such thing as “historically druid” that can be reconstructed. Basically he can only pull from Williams, but because he had issues with with the old 15th century on stuff, up to the Twilight era (despite those being his sources) so he tries to distance himself from the earlier movements and leans hella heavy into Gardner's work as a result. Which is, if you've ever wondered, why Wicca and Druidry have such incredibly similar ritual structures and beliefs.

SO, this guy starts the Druid Order, decides that he’s gonna like pull his teachings from Williams- but he's also gonna say that Williams has nothing to do with his druidry because y'know, Williams has relatively recently been revealed as a fraud. This guy goes through the grueling process of ripping off his best bud gardner founding Druidry, right. So The Druid Order has this rebranding in 1951, that lauds the “history of the druids” as written by Williams but simultaneously rejects Williams saying “yeah we have nothing whatsoever to do with that guy.” Mix into this narrative, Gardener’s “burning times” bullshit, and now not only do we have mythical pseudohistorical druids, but a rewrite of Williams’ “the druids survived conversion” which then turned into - “The druids were heavily persecuted by the church and survived a horrible burning times but despite this there’s a tradition of continuous druidic belief.” Here begins the bullshit known as “vestiges of pagan thought”- which took actual historians not even a decade to disprove, and yet still circulates in pagan circles, because nobody picks up a fucking book.  Theoretical Folkloric archaeology became very popular at this time, which postulates (incorrectly) that all folk traditions and folklore absolutely stems from Pagan times and is 100% the Christianization of pagan practices and thoughts- which is not at all true. (Not-so-friendly reminder that Eostre? DOESN’T FUCKING EXIST. STOP FALLING FOR A JOKE MADE BY A MONK)

Td;lr so far- the druids went from 

the Catholic clergy before the Catholics existed 

to 

a religious group that survived conversion

to

druids survived an intense and violent persecution 

And now? In this our 21st century? 

Well.... druidic organizations today tend to still push these ahistorical narratives, that buy into the pagan persecution complex.... and several of these organizations also have known racists and terfs on their recommended reading lists. And while some organizations have made attempts to become more historically accurate- but the end result is usually.... bad. It tends to result in them using a source from like 1960 that’s been disproven 1000 times since by other historians to go “look a historian agrees with us!” rather than like... keep up with current research trends and academic standards. Druids also tend to be hostile to the syncretism of the Irish church which is just..... so fucking dumb. Don’t worship gaelic deities if you can’t accept that our lore are Christian texts about pagan beliefs. 

So yeah..... druids ain’t shit and I can prove it historically. I am also more than willing to send anyone links to full length books on the history of druids if you want to learn more. 

[ursie]

Non binary Nico headcanons please ?

Uses neo pronouns because as a Disabled, Autistic, Femme, Transmasc, Nb, Gay peep xer own specific gender identity is too complex and almost contradictory to summarize by he/she/or they, Xe prefers to use pronouns xe can define-that don’t define xem

Very androgynous does have that gender envy complete androgynous enby goal down to a tee

Does not “pass” as “male” on xer masc days

Xe doesn’t bind for health reasons either

Can walk in heels but prefers to wear big platform boots!! For expert stomping and kicking 💅🏻

I know fanon makes you think every character under 6ft is like obsessed with being short and unnaturally offended by it but like lol most people don’t actually care anyway I think Nico likes being short xe finds it somewhat euphoric and fitting to xer gender identity

Xe likes the fact xer boyfriends are taller then xem good too.

Prefers skirts and dresses to pants-after all the Greeks wore skirts! Also lol xer armor is a Grecian skirt like xe are used to it. Plus they’re easier to get on then pants and a shirt especially on the days xe use xer wheelchair

Wears a lot of traditional clothing-be it Greek, Italian, Roman, or on xer other side Arabic, and Roma

Is actually a lil vain about xer hair after all it’s not exactly practical but xe loves how it looks on xem and makes xem feel. Xe does like treatments and uses special conditioner ect for it and Percys like. You forget to eat but you made time for an egg treatment...

Xe especially love how thick and curly it is-xe used to straighten it #scene hair, but in the last couple of years xe really embraced xer curls

Xe find a lot of alt clothing empowering for how inherently gnc it is and how much Xe can be xerself in them

Femme loves makeup at first it was because of a complex relationship with xer scars but Xe really got into a lot of the more complicated eyeshadow and eyeliner designs and now it’s just another way to embrace xem self

Does not like gendered terms like son/bf/ect however loves being called brother and of course being the ghost king

Hades mostly calls xem pet names to avoid any gendered terms xer favorite being his Tesoro or Topolino (xer mom and Bianca used to call xem this a lot-he only uses it when Nico is feeling extra vulnerable or looks extra baby)

Uses music and the arts to express xemself-loves it when the pronouns and words don’t match up to the singer : ex : a woman singing a male role or a straight man singing a love song from a woman’s point of view ect

Draws a lot of self portraits

Really hated getting xer photograph taken but with how little memories xe have Xe knows how cherished every photo should be-and in xer healing and better relationship with xem self xe takes more and more selfies

Doesn’t really come out tbh talks to Dio/Hades/Hestia about it and stuff but otherwise just corrects people and let’s them figure it out themselves after all xe are still exploring too

Starts not just a gsa but a trans support group at the camps and it makes mr D incredibly emotional 😭

Probs reads like. All the theory books

Gender is this picture actually

[rwbyvein]

Firen Lhain: Chapter 810: Taste of Freedom:  Part I / III

Jaune walked up to the main floor, the others shortly behind him. "Aurora!" he shouted. Soon enough she appeared from the kitchen.

"Call a meeting." Jaune stated.

"Family?" Aurora asked.

"Everyone." Jaune said as he stepped to the side and she could see Neo behind him.

* * *

Jaune stood in the lounge with Neo behind him. Weiss elegantly stood beside him. Bumblebee sat on a nearby couch as others started to file in.

* * *

Qrow and Raven were the last to arrive.

"What's up, kid?" Qrow asked, and Jaune stepped to the side, the room echoing with shocked gasps.

"Our prisoner has now been upgraded to guest." Jaune stated. "I hope everyone will treat her properly. She's promised to be on her best behaviour." Neo vigourously nodded. "Let's hope that's good enough." Neo developed a wicked grin. "If this works out, we'll give her back the things that are precious to her."

"And her scroll?" Raven asked.

"Well?" Jaune asked, "She is a guest." He then turned to Neopolitan, "All of our communications are passed through Atlas headquarters, so that no one can find out where we are. If you, you know, betray us, we'll just turn you over to Ironwood and be done with it. I'm honestly tired of having to deal with this bullshit. So, you fuck with us, and you go straight to jail, get it?" Neo eagerly nodded at him.

* * *

Neo bumped into Aurora on her way out of the kitchen. Aurora then grabbed the apple Neo had been trying to conceal. Neo looked up at her nervously. "You don't need to steal food." Aurora admonished her, and then handed her back the apple. "Whatever food we have is available. Further, at least someone will be cooking proper meals three times a day." Neo clutched her apple and brought it close to her, as if someone was going to take it. "The only one here who has ever been a pickpocket was me, and I have no intention of taking your apple." Neo looked at her curiously, unsure of what to do.

* * *

Neo walked down the stairs to the first basement level. She found a dark hollow to sit in to eat her apple.

* * *

Blake sat on a parapet on the tower's roof, overlooking the mountains around them. Her ears focused behind her. "I know you're there." she said, and turned to look around. She saw nothing for a moment until Ilia appeared, though she was fully clothed. Blake jumped down, "So, it worked?"

"Just like Jaune said." Ilia replied.

"I was hoping he was right." Blake replied.

"You didn't think he could?.."

"I hoped he could." Blake simply stated, and moved forward to hug her. Ilia let let herself get pulled into the embrace before Blake pulled back.

"For the first time in my life..." Ilia voiced, and paused to take in a deep breath. "I feel more comfortable in a group than I did alone."

Blake turned around and jumped back up onto a parapet. She then turned her upper body back around, "I blame Jaune. He's good at keeping everyone together." She looked back out before looking back at Ilia. "Maybe it's because he grew up in a big family, and everyone needs to stick together." She then looked back out. "The important thing is that it works." She then paused a moment before looking back, "How's it feel to be part of the family?" Blake asked, and Ilia developed the most surprised look. "Oh, and for the record, if you run away, Jaune will just go and kidnap you." Ilia looked lost for a moment. "Does that bother you?"

"Surpisingly?.." Ilia asked, and paused, "No?"

Blake looked back out again, "Excellent. He really counts on you, almost as much as he does Aurora." Blake then looked back at her, "And, for the first time I've known you, you actually seem happy. Just a little happy, but deep down to your soul, enjoying your life."

"Before I was fighting for hated." Ilia stated, and turned away. "Now I'm fighting for love." she stated, and cloaked herself. She wasn't sure how Jaune knew, but he was right about her Semblance. He was right about her Semblance before he had any reason to. When, whatever it was Jaune's Aura did to her.

* * *

Taj hit a couple of buttons and turned back around. "We're just about to enter Vacuan airspace."

"And, that means?" Emerald asked.

"Less chance of Grimm, more chance of pirates." Taj replied.

"Why didn't you tell us it was so dangerous?" Emerald asked.

"I DID!" Taj shouted, "Your little fire flower said she could handle it."

"Then how do you plan to get back?" Mercury asked.

"Follow the usual trade routes." Taj replied, "Much safer." He then turned to Emerald, "Her plan was that no one short of an air fleet could follow us. There's no flight plan, we turned off our trackers. You'll just disappear into the Athabasca badlands. And consider what she did to the bats, I doubt we have anything to worry about. That fireball is more powerful than any military Dustarm I'm seen. ETA without pirates is four hours."

"And with pirates?" Mercury asked.

"It depends how long is takes fire flower to dispatch them."

"Why do you keep calling her that?" Emerald asked.

"Because she's beautiful." Taj stated.

"Thank you." Cinder added.

"And throws fireballs." Taj continued.

"Thank you." Cinder echoed.

"You don't need to get your panties in a bunch over it." Taj stated, and turned back to the controls. He hit a couple of switches before flying the airship again. "Just remember, I hate you all."

"I thought you said we were interesting?!" Emerald spat with nothing but bile.

"I wanted to learn about you." Taj stated, "And I did, and it turns out I hate you. You deserve each other."

"Thank you." Mercury said.

"It wasn't a compliment." Cinder added, and Mercury developed a wide smirk.

"I know."

* * *

Neo heard loud footfalls on her floor, and practically held her breath. That is until Jaune towered over her huddled form. He reached down to her and she clenched to strike.

"Best behaviour." Jaune stated, and she slowly unclenched her fist, shaking nervously and giving him a deathly glare. She figured that letting him rape her would be worth getting Roman's hat and cane back. Jaune picked her up.

* * *

Jaune walked into the dining room and plopped Neo on one of the chairs. He pushed her in and moved along to the head of the table. "Lunch time." Jaune said, and loudly clapped his hands. Aurora and Taiyang appeared carrying the food.

* * *

Neo hunched over her food, ever wary of everyone around her. No one seemed interested in her food, but she wasn't going to let that make her complacent. Nora then leaned over to her. "Psht." she said, "If anyone tries to take your food, Jaune will spank them."

Neo sat up with a start. She looked around questioningly. Okay, the wives might make sense. She then looked at Jaune. "Uh, true?" Jaune asked. Neo then looked between the others before focusing on Nora.

"Honestly, if he spanked me when I do something really stupid, I might do it less. Or more? Weird, though, as I'm already doing less really stupid things." Nora than trailed off.

Neo then looked around again, focusing on Ciel. "Chatisement is a traditional punishment, and since we are operating like a traditional noble greathouse, I do not want special treatment."

"Wait, what?" Jaune asked.

"I do not want special treatment." Ciel neutrally said to him.

"I really don't know how I feel about that." Jaune stated.

"What about Pen?" Ruby asked.

"I would not want special treatment, either, Friend-Ruby. Friend-Jaune."

"Alright?" Jaune asked, "I can spank everyone? What about Winter?"

"Did you want to spank my sister?" Weiss neutrally asked him.

"That is SUCH a loaded question." Jaune said to her with a scowl.

"What about Raven?" Nora eagerly asked.

"I should spank you for suggesting that." Jaune said to her with a scowl.

"Okay?" Yang asked, "What about dad?"

Jaune sighed and dropped his head inches from his plate, slowly lifting them back up to make sure his antlers don't hit anyone.

"Perhaps I should step in?" Weiss asked.

"Please."

"Guest can be asked to leave."

"That makes it SO much easier."

"And," Weiss continued, "apparently Penthesilea and Ciel have decided to fully be under your purview."

"Did we explain how this works?" Jaune asked.

"You did not, Friend-Jaune." Penthesilea added.

"Oh, uh, okay?" Jaune asked, "We take 5% of all family earnings, and divide it among everyone as discretionary income, and another 5% for retirement. Regular household expenses will be covered by the household budget."

"Like an allowance, Friend-Jaune?" Penthesilea asked.

"Like?" Jaune asked, "Yes."

"I have never had an allowance." Penthesilea stated, "I would not know what to do with it. Are you sure I deserve it?"

Jaune just stared at her.

"Of course you do." Ruby stated.

"Exactly." Jaune added.

"I have not, either." Ciel stated. "I would ask for guidance on spending my income."

"Weiss is the one to ask about that." Yang added.

"She's like really good with money." Ruby added.

Weiss flushed light blue with a mild blush.