#Which excludes a lot of actual abuse while classifying things that are not abuse as abuse

[proudfreakmetarusonikku]

bizarre how people go like “exile was ages ago!” whenever someone brings up c!tommy's abuse when c!dream still acted the exact same way in like every situation afterwards. which is. still abuse. he was still abusing c!tommy until they both fucking died. like abuse is a mindset and an action. you don’t need to be an absolute authority over someone to abuse them you just need to feel entitled to something or someone and engage in behaviour to break someone down to get it. “doesn’t that make a lot of things abuse” yes it’s just very normalised in our society.

[infernallegaycy]

Writing Psychotic Characters

Hi! I’ve seen a few of these writing things pop up recently (and in the past), but I haven’t seen any on psychotic characters—which, judging from the current state of portrayals of psychosis in media, is something I think many people* need. And as a psychotic person who complains about how badly psychosis tends to be represented in media, I thought I’d share a bit of information and suggestions!

A lot of this isn’t necessarily specifically writing advice but information about psychosis, how it presents, and how it affects daily life. This is partially purposeful—I feel that a large part of poor psychotic representation stems from a lack of understanding about psychosis, and while I’m not usually in an educating mood, context and understanding are crucial to posts like this. A lot of this also relates to writing psychosis in a modern-day setting, simply because that’s where bad psychotic representation tends to mostly occur (and it’s the only experience I’ve had, obviously), but please don’t shy away from applying this advice to psychotic characters in sci-fi/fantasy/historical fiction/etc. Psychosis is not a wholly modern phenomenon, nor would speculative fiction feel truly escapist without being able to see yourself reflected in it.

Please also note that I am not a medical professional nor an expert in psychology. I simply speak from my personal experiences, research, and what I’ve read of others’ experiences. I also do not speak for all psychotic people, and more than welcome any alternative perspectives to my own.

*These people, in all honesty, aren’t likely to be the ones willingly reading this. But there are people who are willing to learn, so here’s your opportunity.

(Warnings: Mentions of institutionalization/hospitalization, including forced institutionalization; ableism/saneism; and brief descriptions of delusions and hallucinations. Also, it’s a pretty long post!)

Up front, some terminology notes: “Unpsychotic” refers to people who are not psychotic. This includes other mentally ill and neurodivergent people. Please try to avoid terminology like “non-[identity],” as much of it is co-opted from “nonblack.”

Also, “psychotic” and “delusional” will not be, and should not be, used to refer to anything but respectively someone who experiences psychosis and someone who experiences delusions. Remove these words as insults and negative descriptors for anyone you dislike from your vocabulary.

In addition, I generally use adjectives rather than person-first language because that is the language I, and the seeming majority of other neurodivergent and mentally ill people, prefer. Others might describe themselves differently (as “people with psychosis,” for instance). Don’t assume either way—I’d generally suggest you say “psychotic person” first, and then correct yourself if the person in question prefers different terminology.

1) Psychosis is a symptom, not a disorder.

As a term, “psychosis” describes any number of symptoms that indicate a break with reality, such as delusions and hallucinations (I’ll go into more detail about this in a bit). It commonly occurs as part of several mental and neurological disorders, including but not limited to:

Schizophrenia

Schizophreniform disorder (same symptoms as schizophrenia, but for a shorter period of time than 6 months)

Schizoaffective disorder (combined symptoms of psychosis and a mood disorder, but not enough to completely fill the diagnostic criteria for either)

Bipolar disorder (typically as part of manic episodes, but it can also occur in unipolar depression and depressive episodes)

Personality disorders, including borderline personality disorder (for which transient paranoia under stress is part of the diagnostic criteria), paranoid personality disorder, and schizoid personality disorder

Post-traumatic stress disorder

Obsessive-compulsive disorder

Dissociative disorders (though psychosis =/= dissociative identity disorder; if you want further information on the latter, which I do not have, please seek out another post!)

Psychosis can also occur with forms of epilepsy, sleep disorders, metabolic disorders, and autoimmune disorders. It tends to be a major part of neurodegenerative disorders like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. In addition, it can occur when not related to a chronic health condition; things like sleep deprivation and stress can induce temporary psychosis, as can drug use and medication.

This isn’t to say you necessarily need to define a disorder for a psychotic character, as some psychotic people (including myself) primarily just describe ourselves as “psychotic,” and some aren’t diagnosed with anything specific. However, if your psychotic character is a main/perspective character, I definitely recommend it. Chances are, someone with that disorder is reading/watching, and I’m sure they’d love to see a bit of direct representation. In general, you probably should at least have something in mind, because psychotic symptoms and severity/onset can differ greatly.

Some psychotic disorders’ diagnostic criteria explicitly exclude others (someone cannot be diagnosed with both schizophrenia and schizophreniform disorder at the same time, for instance, though the latter can develop into the former), but comorbidity is possible—and often common—among certain disorders and other neurological/mental conditions. Rates vary, so definitely research this, but in short, it is very much possible for psychotic people to have multiple disorders, including disorders that don’t include psychotic symptoms. (Personally speaking: I’m autistic, ADHD, and OCD in addition to being psychotic, and I’m physically disabled as well.)

I’m not here to do all the research for you—if you want to know more about specific psychotic disorders, then by all means, look them up! Go beyond Wikipedia and Mayo Clinic articles, too. Talk to people who have them. Seek out blogs and YouTube channels run by people with them. Read books about psychosis by psychotic people**. Pay attention to how we describe ourselves and our disorders.

And if you want to write characters with those disorders, especially if you’re writing from their perspectives, then please for the love of God, hire a sensitivity reader. For authenticity, I would recommend seeking out someone with the same disorder, not just anyone psychotic.

**If you want a fiction recommendation: I don’t actually know if the author is schizophrenic like the main character, but I really enjoyed and related to The Drowning Girl by Caitlín R. Kiernan. Content warnings include, but might not be limited to—it’s been a while since I read it—unreality, self-harm, suicide, abuse, and mentions of transphobia. I haven’t personally read any autobiographies/memoirs/essays yet, so I don’t have any to offer, and quite a few that came up through a cursory search seemed only to focus on being an inspiration to neurotypical people or were from a perspective other than that of the psychotic person in question. If anyone (preferably psychotic people) has any more recommendations, fiction or nonfiction, let me know!

2) Not every psychotic person has the same symptoms.

As mentioned, psychosis consists of symptoms that involve separation with reality, which can present as positive or negative symptoms. Every person’s experiences with these are different, but some generalizations can be made. I definitely recommend reading studies and articles (especially directly by psychotic people) describing experiences and presentation!

I’ll start with positive symptoms, which refer to the presence of symptoms unpsychotic people don’t have, and can include hallucinations, delusions, and disorganized thoughts, speech, and behavior.

You probably know what hallucinations are (perceptions of sensory information that is not really present), but you might not know the specifics. Types of hallucinations include:

Auditory (which tend to be the most common, and are probably the form everyone is most familiar with, primarily as “hearing voices”)

Visual

Olfactory

Tactile/haptic

Gustatory (taste)

Somatic

Some types with regards to bodily sensations get a little muddled from here, but some forms of hallucinations you might not have heard of include thermic (hot/cold), hygric (fluids), kinesthetic (bodily movements), and visceral (inner organs).

(Note: Hypnagogic/hypnopompic hallucinations, which occur when falling asleep or waking up, are not related to psychosis and can occur in anyone.)

As mentioned, there are some forms of hallucinations that are more common, but that is not to say that everyone has the same hallucinations. A lot of us have auditory and/or visual hallucinations, but not everyone does. Some have tactile, olfactory, or gustatory hallucinations instead of or in addition to more common forms (hi! Auditory hallucinations are pretty rare for me, but I constantly feel bugs/spiders crawling on me). If you write a psychotic character that experiences hallucinations, then you should definitely do further research on these types and manifestations of them.

You’re likely also familiar with delusions (a belief that contradicts reality), though again, you might not know the specifics. Delusions can be classified as bizarre (implausible, not shared or understood by peers of the same culture) or non-bizarre (false, but technically possible). They can relate to one’s mood or not.

Some people only experience delusions and no other significant psychotic symptoms (this occurs in delusional disorder). Delusions differ between people and tend to be heavily influenced by environment, but there are some common themes, such as:

Persecution

Guilt, punishment, or sin

Mind reading

Thought insertion

Jealousy

Control

Reference (coincidences having meaning)

Grandeur

Certain types of delusions are more common in certain cultures/backgrounds or certain disorders. I can’t really go into details about specific delusions, because I try not to read many examples (for a reason I’m about to mention), but if you plan on writing a character who experiences delusions, I definitely recommend heavily researching delusions and how it feels to experience them.

I would like to note: I’m not sure how common it is, but I’ve noticed that I personally have a tendency to pick up delusions that I see other psychotic people talking about having. Just kind of, like, an “oh shit what if” feeling creeps up on me, and before I know it, that delusion has wormed its way into my life. Just in case you want some idea of how psychotic people can interact amongst ourselves!

Another quick note: Delusions, by definition, are untrue beliefs; this does not mean that anyone who has ever been delusional is inherently untrustworthy.

Disorganization of thoughts/speech and behavior is more self-explanatory. Problems with thinking and speaking tend to be one of the most common psychotic symptoms, sometimes considered even more so than delusions and hallucinations. There are a lot of ways thought processes can be disrupted, and I honestly think it would be kind of difficult to portray this if you haven’t experienced it, but some common manifestations are:

Derailment

Tangents (which you might notice me doing sometimes in this very post)

Getting distracted mid-sentence/thought

Incoherence/“word salad”

Thought blocking (sudden stops in thoughts/speech)

Repetition of words/phrases

Pressured speech (rapid, urgent speech)

Use of invented words

Poverty of speech/content of speech

(Note that thought/speech disturbances aren’t necessarily exclusive to psychotic disorders. They tend to be common in ADHD and autism as well, though symptoms can be more severe when they occur in, for example, schizophrenia.)

Behavioral abnormalities can include catatonia, which presents in a number of ways, such as mutism, echolalia, agitation, stupor, catalepsy, posturing, and more. Episodes of catatonia last for hours and sometimes longer, which usually requires hospitalization and/or medication. This tends to overlap heavily with symptoms of autism spectrum disorders, which can be comorbid with conditions like schizophrenia.

Negative symptoms, on the other hand, refer to the absence of certain experiences. It can include flat affect (lack of or limited emotional reactions), generally altered emotional responses, a decrease in speech, and low motivation. Most of these speak for themselves, and I’m not honestly sure how to describe them to someone who’s never experienced them in a way that isn’t very metaphorical and therefore kind of unhelpful. If any other psychotic people have suggestions, feel free to add on/message me!

Not every psychotic disorder involves or requires both positive and negative symptoms (to my knowledge, manic episodes of bipolar disorder mostly only include positive symptoms), but many psychotic people experience both. And, as expressed multiple times—and I really can’t stress it enough—every person’s experience with psychosis is different.

If you interview two psychotic people at random, chances are they aren’t going to have the same combination of symptoms. Chances are they won’t even have the same disorder. Therefore, if you write multiple psychotic characters, they shouldn’t be identical in terms of personality or psychosis.

There are also some qualities of psychotic disorders that may not necessarily be diagnostic criteria but are prominent in people with these conditions. These also vary between disorders, but cognitive impairments and similar traits are fairly common.

3) In a similar vein, daily experiences can vary greatly. Psychosis can be a major part of psychotic people’s lives, but it doesn’t always affect daily life.

For some people, psychosis occurs in episodes, not 24/7; you may have heard the term “psychotic break,” which tends to refer to a first episode of psychosis. This is especially true of disorders where psychotic symptoms occur under stress or during mood episodes.

For other people, psychosis is a near-constant. It can wax and wane, but it never completely goes away. These people might be more likely to invest in medication or long-term therapy and other treatment methods.

Psychosis’s impact on everyday life can also be affected by insight (how well the person can tell they’re having psychotic symptoms). There’s not a ton of accessible research—or research at all—into insight and how it affects psychotic people, and I’m not a big fan of describing people as having high/low insight because I think it has the potential to be used like functioning labels (which, for the record, are bad; plenty of other autistic people have written at length about this), but just something to keep in mind. It’s a sliding scale; at different points in time, the same person might have limited or significant awareness of their symptoms. Both greater and poorer insight have been linked to decreased quality of life, so neither one is really a positive.

Just something to be aware of: Yes, sometimes we do realize how “crazy” we seem. Yes, sometimes we don’t. No, it doesn’t really make things any better to know that what we’re seeing/thinking/etc isn’t real. No, people with low insight shouldn’t be blamed or mocked for this.

As such, the diagnostic process can vary greatly. Psychotic people aware of their symptoms or how their lives are being impacted may directly ask for a diagnosis or seek out information on their own. Other times, family or friends might notice symptoms and bring them up to a mental health professional, or someone might be forcibly institutionalized and diagnosed that way.

My professional diagnostic processes have been pretty boring: Over time, I just gradually brought up different diagnoses I thought might fit me to my therapist, whom I started seeing for anxiety (which I no longer strongly identify with, on account of my anxiety mostly stemming from me being autistic, OCD, and psychotic). I filled out checklists and talked about my symptoms. We moved on with the treatment processes I was already undergoing and incorporated more coping mechanisms and stuff like that into therapy sessions. Hardly the tearful scenes of denial you’re used to seeing or reading about.

Other people might have very different experiences, or very similar ones! It all depends! I generally don’t really like reading scenes of people being diagnosed (it’s just exposition and maybe some realization on the PoV character’s part, but it’s usually somewhat inaccurate in that regard), so you can probably steer away from that sort of thing, but you might find it useful to note how your character was identified somewhere? I don’t really have any strong opinions on this.

I’d also like to note: Everything I publicly speak about having, I’ve discussed in a professional therapy setting, just because of my personal complexes. However, I do fully support self-diagnosis. Bigotry and money are huge obstacles against getting professional diagnoses, and if someone identifies with a certain disorder and seeks out treatment mechanisms for it, there’s no real harm being done. If someone is genuinely struggling and they benefit from coping mechanisms intended for a disorder they might not have, then I think that’s better than if they shied away because they weren’t professionally diagnosed with it, and therefore didn’t get help they needed. With proper research, self-diagnosis is fully ethical and reasonable.

I do not want to debate this, and any attempts to force me into a discussion about professional versus self-diagnosis will be ignored.

Anyway! I can’t really identify any specific daily experiences with psychosis you might want to include, because as mentioned, everyone has different symptoms and ways they cope with them.

Some psychotic people might not experience symptoms outside of an episode, which can be brought on by any number of things; some might experience symptoms only under general stress; some might have consistent symptoms. The content of hallucinations and delusions can also shift over time.

Psychosis can also affect anyone—there are certain demographics certain disorders are more likely to occur in, but this could just as easily be due to biases in diagnostic criteria or professionals themselves as it could be due to an actual statistical correlation. If you want to figure out how a psychotic character behaves on a day-to-day basis, then you’re better off shaping who they are as a person beyond their psychosis first, then incorporating their psychosis into things.

(A note about this: I consider my psychosis a major part of me, and I firmly believe that I would be a very different person without it; that’s why I refer to myself as a “psychotic person” rather than “a person with psychosis.” However, there is a difference between that and unpsychotic people making psychotic characters’ only trait their psychosis.)

4) Treatment for psychosis differs from person to person. The same things don’t work for everyone.

Some people are on antipsychotics; others aren’t. Medication is a personal choice and not a necessity—no one should be judged either for being on medication or for not being on medication. There are many reasons behind either option. Please do not ask psychotic people about their medication/lack thereof unprompted.

If you want to depict a psychotic character on medication, then research different forms of antipsychotics and how they affect psychotic people. I’ve never been on medication and don’t really plan to be (though if I ever do, I’m definitely taking a note from Phasmophobia’s book and calling them “Sanity Pills.” Just to clarify, I don’t want unpsychotic people repeating this joke, but if you want some insight on how some of us regard our health…), so you’re better off looking elsewhere for this sort of information!

I’m not going to get into my personal opinions on institutionalization and the psychiatry industry in general now, but institutionalization is, while common, also not necessary, and many psychotic people—and mentally ill and neurodivergent people in general—have faced harm and trauma due to institutionalization. Again, I can’t offer direct personal experience, but I recommend steering clear of plotlines directly related to psychiatric hospitals.

I would also like to emphasis the word treatment. Psychosis has no cure. It is possible for psychosis to only last a single episode (whether because it’s only due to stress/another outside factor or because it is treated early), or for symptoms to be greatly reduced over time and with treatment, but for the most part, psychotic people are psychotic for life.

However, with proper support networks and coping skills, many psychotic people are able to lead (quote unquote) “normal” lives. What coping mechanisms work for what people differs, but some psychosis-specific coping mechanisms might be:

Taping webcams for delusions of persecution/surveillance (which is honestly also just something everyone should do with webcams that aren’t in use)

Covering/closing windows for similar reasons

Using phone cameras/audio recordings to distinguish visual and auditory hallucinations from reality (most of the time, a hallucination won’t show up on camera, though it’s possible for people to hallucinate something on a camera screen too)

Similarly, removing glasses/contact lenses to check a visual hallucination

Asking people you trust (because of stigma and delusions, this might not be a long list) to check for symptoms of an oncoming episode

Avoiding possible triggers for psychosis (for example, I don’t engage with horror media often because a lot of it -- both psychological horror and slasher-type things -- can trigger delusions and hallucinations)

I’d also like to mention that treatment isn’t a clean, one-way process; especially with certain disorders, it’s normal to go up and down over time. I’d honestly be really uncomfortable with a psychotic character whose symptoms don’t affect their life whatsoever. There are ways you can write how psychosis affects someone that are… weird, which I’ll touch on, but overall, I think it’s better to actually depict a psychotic person whose symptoms have a clear impact on their life (even if that impact is, say, they’re on medication that negates some of their symptoms).

Just to reiterate: I am not a medical professional and cannot offer real-life advice regarding treatment, especially medication. Please do not ask me too detailed questions regarding this.

5) There are a lot of stereotypes and stigma surrounding psychosis.

The way psychosis is perceived both by general society and the field of psychology has changed a lot over the years, but even now, it still remains highly stigmatized and misunderstood. Wall of text incoming, but it’s important stuff.

Typical media portrayal of psychosis tends to fall into specific categories: The scary, violent psychotic person, or the psychotic person who is so crazy you can’t help but laugh. There are other bad depictions, but these are generally the ways I see psychotic people regarded and represented the most, so I want to address them directly.

Let’s talk about psychosis in horror first. Psychosis is often stereotyped as making people aggressive and violent. You’ve all seen the “psychotic killer” trope and depictions of people who are made violent and evil by their psychosis, even if it’s not explicitly named as the case. You’ve all seen “psychotic” used as a negative adjective, used synonymously to murderous, evil, harmful, violent, manipulative, etc—maybe you’ve even used it that way in the past. There’s no denying that the way society regards psychotic people is overwhelmingly negative, and that leaks into media.

If you are considering giving a violent, irredeemable antagonist psychosis, consider this: Don’t. More or less every psychotic person hates this trope. It’s inaccurate and, needless to say, rooted in ableism.

There are racialized aspects to this as well. People of color, especially Black and Latine people, are already stereotyped as being aggressive, violent, and scary; there’s also a history of overdiagnosis (and often misdiagnosis) of schizophrenia in Black people, especially civil rights activists. White and white-passing people will only be singled out if someone notices us exhibiting psychotic symptoms, but Black and brown people are already under scrutiny. Be extra cautious about how you write psychotic characters of color.

I’m not saying you can never give a psychotic person, say, a temper; in some cases, it might even make sense. Spells of uncontrollable anger are part of the diagnostic criteria for BPD, for example, and irritability is a common trait of manic episodes. Some delusions and hallucinations can affect aggression (emphasis on can—it would be inaccurate to imply that this is always the case. Once again, each person has a different experience with their psychotic symptoms).

But when the only psychotic or psychotic-coded characters you write are angry and violent, even when the situation doesn’t call for it, then there’s a problem. When you want to write a schizophrenic character, but only in a situation where they’re going on a killing spree, there’s a problem.

Studies have shown that no substantial link exists between psychosis and violence. There is a small association, but I think it would be reasonable to say this is partially because of the stigma surrounding psychosis and various other overlapping factors; no violence or crime exists in a vacuum. In addition, though I can’t find any exact statistics on this, psychotic people are susceptible to being victims of violence (likely because of this very stereotype).

On this note, don’t use mental hospitals as a setting for horror, especially if you plan on depicting the mentally ill patients there as antagonistic and unhinged. As mentioned earlier, institutionalization is a huge trigger for many psychotic people. True, psychiatric hospitals have definitely served as a source of trauma and pain for many in the past, but mentally ill and neurodivergent people have been (and are) the victims in those situations.

Also, don’t do the “what if it was all a delusion” thing. I know this is most common in ~edgy~ theories about children’s series, but… yikes.

In the same vein that you should avoid depictions of psychotic people that are ripped straight from a bad horror movie, don’t push it too far into comedy either. You’ve heard “psych ward” jokes, you’ve seen “I put the hot in psychotic” jokes (a supposedly humorous instance of that psychotic as a negative descriptor thing), you’ve heard people say “I have anxiety/depression, but I’m not crazy!”

Even other mentally ill and neurodivergent people constantly throw us under the bus, as can be seen in that last one. We’re the butt of plenty of jokes—we see things that aren’t there, we talk to ourselves, we believe things that are just so wacky you can’t believe anyone would think that way. (Even when we don’t.)

If you have to write another character laughing at a psychotic character for their symptoms, then have it swiftly criticized in the text, and try not to imply the reader should find psychosis funny either. Treat psychotic characters’ symptoms with sympathy and understanding, not ridicule.

Psychotic people literally cannot help our delusions/hallucinations/other symptoms. If something we think/say seems “crazy” to you, chances are it does to us as well.

(We’re talking about portraying psychosis in fiction, but this applies to real-life treatment of psychotic people, too!)

Also, I’d like to note—all of this is about the way unpsychotic people view psychotic people. If you see a psychotic person laughing at themself or viewing their symptoms as scary, then that is not an invitation for you to laugh along or go beyond symptoms and think the person is scary for being psychotic. That’s the thing about gallows humor; you have to be the one on the gallows.

Moving on! In romance, there is often a presumption that love can cure psychosis. This is false. No matter how much you love (whether romantically or platonically) and want to help a psychotic person, that alone will not “heal” their psychosis. Please do not depict a psychotic person having to be cured to be happy or in love. It doesn’t work that way.

This doesn’t mean you should stray away from romance in general—I personally would definitely like to see more portrayals of psychotic people being loved and supported, especially in romantic relationships. I’d prefer it not be in spite of their psychosis, either; it would be weird if someone loved a person because of their psychosis, but I don’t think you can really love someone whom you disregard such a large part of either.

Point-blank: Psychotic people are worthy of love and affection, and I think this should show in media as well.

In relation to relationships, I’d also strongly advise steering away from writing family members and friends who see someone’s psychosis as harder on them than for the psychotic person, unless you want to explicitly disavow this behavior. Sure, it probably is difficult for other people to witness my psychotic symptoms. But it’s harder for me to have them.

I’m not sure if this is a widely-held belief, but some people also seem to think psychosis is less common than it is. Psychotic people are all around you, and if you read that as a threat or anything like that, you might need to do some self-evaluating. We exist, online and in person, and we can see and read and hear the things you say about us!

Specifically: By the NIMH’s statistics, roughly 3% of people (3 out of every 100) in the United States will experience psychosis at some point in their lives. Around 100,000 people experience their first episode a year.

This also means that it’s possible unpsychotic people reading this will end up developing a form of psychosis at some point in your life as well. Yes, even without a genetic basis; yes, even as a full-grown adult (see how common psychosis is in neurodegenerative disorders). Now this one is intended as a threat (/hj).

Also, you can’t always tell who is psychotic and who is not. I imagine there are a lot of people who wouldn’t know I’m psychotic without me explicitly saying so. Set aside any notions you might have of being able to identify psychotic people, because they will definitely influence how you might go into writing a psychotic character, and they will definitely end up pissing off a psychotic person in your life. Because… you probably know at least one!

People often regard psychosis as a worst-case scenario—which, again, is something that occurs even by people and in works that uplift mental health in general (something I’ve mentioned before is The Bright Sessions, in which a telepath is misdiagnosed as schizophrenic and has an “I’m not crazy!” outburst). I’ve talked about treatment already, but I just thought I’d say this: Psychosis is not a death sentence nor a “fate worse than death.” It may be difficult for unpsychotic people to understand and handle; it is harder to live with. But being psychotic is not an inherently bad thing, and psychotic people should not be expected to act like our lives are constantly awful and hopeless on account of stigma.

I think that’s all I have to say, so thank you so much for reading, especially if you’re not psychotic! I hope you’ve learned something from this, and once again, fellow psychotic people are more than welcome to add on more information if they’re willing.

[ruby-whistler]

The "redemption questionnaire" - the survey results.

Hello! Welcome back to the results of this survey, which is now closed - I really didn’t expect this amount of interest and am thankful for the ability to collect this much data on the subject.

Now, the reason I made this survey in the first place was this post crossing my dash. It talks about people wanting to see characters or people who they dislike suffer, even if healing is completely possible or even the better option - it’s about people denying that there is such a thing as bad people “deserving” things that we humans need to function, such as being loved.

This post talks about fictional characters, but despite that fact, it made me lose my faith in humanity just a bit. I am a pretty cynical person, but I also consider myself quite empathetic to existing and fictional people alike.

So, I got curious, and wondered - in the Dream SMP fandom specifically, is there a way to get input as to what people actually think about the issue of redemption?

[ tw for brief mentions of torture and abuse ]

So, the goal of the survey was get information to answer certain questions;

Do people think that some characters shouldn’t be redeemed or are irredeemable because of their actions, however don’t hold this true for others?

Are there people, who despite disliking certain characters, still believe that they deserve healing?

Would people want characters to suffer or even die for their actions rather than heal and be happy?

Do people think certain characters in the story don’t deserve to be happy?

Now, I did get some responses that were asking to include or exclude certain characters from the main three (Quackity, Dream and Wilbur - all names are talking about the characters only), however there was a very specific reason I chose these people.

Quackity and Dream have both done actions that have similar weight, while Wilbur serves as an outlier; someone who hurt people in more indirect, but still impactful ways. All three of them have been hurt - Wilbur mostly by Eret’s betrayal, Quackity by Schlatt and others, and Dream by Sam and Quackity. All three have contributed to a toxic and harmful environment, which in turn hurt them back even more and drove them deeper into becoming destructive.

Such a comparison between them would test the fandom’s ability to separate their feelings from in-story morality, as well as bring double standards to light.

Let’s see the demographic part of the survey first, as to see what we are working with;

Of the 390 people partaking in the survey, 44.9% like the direction the Dream SMP plot is heading at the moment, 3% do not and 52.1% are not sure.

Of the characters whose redemption arcs are most anticipated, 71% of participants are expecting a BadBoyHalo or Eggpire redemption arc, Niki/Jack and Wilbur coming close in second and third with 59.2% and 51.8% respectively. As for the main trio of this survey, Quackity lands with 28.2%, Dream with 43.3% and Wilbur with 51.8% of participants thinking a redemption arc for them is likely in the near future.

I would like to express right now that the characters included in the “possible redemption” section do not in any way, shape or form reflect on what I personally think about the characters. I don’t think certain characters need a redemption arc, however I left in the option in order to let people pick it if they wish to do so.

As for the healing arc question, quite understandably, Tommy and Tubbo are the characters most expected to get a healing arc in the upcoming storylines, sitting at 76.2% of participants. Niki and/or Jack come in second with 62.1%, and Quackity, Wilbur and Dream land at 25.4%, 45.9% and 42.8% respectively.

For the aforementioned questions, 3.6% or participants thought none of the Dream SMP characters would get a redemption arc, and 5.4% thought none of them would heal - and with the track record the story has so far, I honestly cannot blame them.

Now we move more towards the main trio;

48.7% of participants have positive feelings towards Quackity’s character, and 23.1% have negative ones. The majority of the participants (66.2%) think that his actions are intentional and hurtful, but interestingly enough, only 25.4% say they find them inexcusable and awful.

For c!Dream, 51.5% feel positively towards him and 35.7% do negatively. Luckily, 53.8% find his actions inexcusable and awful, while 40.3% find them intentional and hurtful.

c!Wilbur breaks the trend with 58.7% of people feeling positively towards the character and only 17.2% feeling negatively, however such a discrepancy can be expected when we compare his actions (found 65.1% of the time to be intentional and hurtful).

I want to preface this next section by saying that I have nothing against people who find redemption arcs unappealing, or wouldn’t find them narratively appealing in the specific story. These answers will be counted as merely neutral ground in the upcoming questions; you are completely valid if you think certain character arcs would not fit the themes or style of storytelling, or if you want bad people to stay bad for the sake of conflict.

However, 79.5% of people find well-done redemption and healing very appealing within the story, and 19% like it for certain stories and characters, so this shouldn’t impact the results on a large scale.

1. Do people think that some characters shouldn’t be redeemed or are irredeemable because of their actions, however don’t hold this true for others?

People’s reasoning for not wanting characters to heal varies, however the contrast between c!Quackity and c!Dream in this scenario is very intriguing.

Despite the two having done comparably disgusting things, one with more and one with less selfish reasons but neither excusable, both classifying under abuse, the people who think c!Dream shouldn’t get a redemption arc (9.7%) because of his actions greatly overshadow the people who think c!Quackity doesn’t deserve a redemption arc (1%) because of his actions. Hell, even c!Wilbur’s percentage is higher, sitting at 2.1%.

This is extremely surprising considering the demographic - and seems to hint at the fact that people who think positively of c!Dream are far more likely to think that c!Q and c!Wil deserve redemption and healing (despite the common argument that both have hurt him greatly) than it is the other way around.

Even sending a bad message is a lot higher with c!Dream (30.5%), despite the fact that c!Quackity’s actions and him as a character could be similarly triggering, and he himself sits at 2.6% of participants. Of course, this question could be partially taken as what he went through in prison making him better, which would definitely be a bad message to send, but considering the percentage (42.1%) of people who don’t want Dream to be redeemed, that’s still insanely high.

Overall, people from a very balanced demographic of people who are positive and negative towards the three characters, only 52.6% want Dream redeemed as opposed to the 83.8% with Quackity and 86.7% with Wilbur - and the reasons given seem to be largely based on bias and double standard, or even hypocritical in context.

For the fandom, this question’s answer seems to be yes, although from the people who are c!Dream positive, this sort of thinking seems to be of a much lesser extent and amount towards characters they dislike.

2. Are there people, who despite disliking certain characters, still believe that they deserve healing?

Let’s look at some of the comments given to this answer;

“On the one hand I do want Dream to recognize that his actions have hurt people, but I really don’t want torture to have ‘made him better’ or for the people he hurt to have to forgive him.”

“as much as I hate c!quackity and dislike c!wilbur, I believe that evil is not something you are, its what you do and as such I think every person deserves to heal and grow.”

“Quackity is the closest - he's spiraled far, but we got to see some of what he could be as a more moral man. Dream's arc would be....incredibly difficult to pull off, and while everyone deserves a chance to change, not everyone who does is ever owed forgiveness. And Wilbur....I dont know what would make him want to get better, but I want him to.”

“I wouldn’t like some of these characters to get redeemed(c!Quackity), but I know everyone deserves a chance at redemption because no one is mentally stable and not traumatized.”

“bastard men. on a serious note ive noticed a lot of evil in dsmp come from the perpetuation of the cycle of revenge and punitive punishment and i think excluding someone from them would. just not be a good message. and yeah c!dreams motives and methods being seen in separate characters is just proof of this - nothing that made any of these men villains are unique to them, and they are all shit-infested holes other characters can fall in.”

“i think every character on the smp has done horrible things and is morally grey, but i think everyone deserves the chance and the ability to heal and try to be better.”

“listen, i love big q, and i know he doesn't mean it, Wilbur also deserves better (far from tommy tho, they're not good for each other rn) and dream can go f**k himself, the only "healing " Arc that would ever make sense is if he escapes the prison and f**ks off to the middle of nowhere (wich is unlikely)”

“Even if I don't like some of the characters they deserve a chance at healing and moving on”

“Controversial opinion but Wilbur has been pretty shady from the start, so a redemption/healing arc just wouldn't make sense to me. He antagonized Dream to sell drugs.”

“i would like to qualify all my answers towards redemption as that they are /all/ allowed to get better, just not necessarily near those they've hurt. those they've hurt are under no obligation to forgive them or be involved in that.”

“REDEMPTION IS POG F**K IT EVERYONE GETS REDEEMED THE ONLY BIG BAD THAT EXISTS IS SYSTEMIC”

“Clarifying about my wilbur answers. A character can only get a redemption if he wants to change. Wilbur doesn’t want to change. I still think he deserves to heal but not to be redeemed. Those are two very seperate things”

“PLEASE JUST LET THEM GET HELP. ALL OF THEM.”

“i'm at sort of an impasse with c!quackity & c!wilbur. i don't like c!quackity in the slightest. i think he has great potential for a redemption arc, but i probably wouldn't be interested in watching it. on the other hand, with c!wilbur, i actually would watch his redemption arc, but i don't see it happening any time soon.”

“I answered " he deserves to heal and get better despite the actions he's commited; everyone deserves to heal and get better " for c!Wilbur but I partially Disagree with the "Everyone deserves to heal and get better" part. simply because some characters are irredeamable eg : c!dream”

“If c!Wilbur gets a redemption arc (I hope he does) I really hope it comes with learning that ethnostates and nationalism are not poggers. I'd be worried about the message it would send if he didn't learn that & it only focused on interpersonal stuff instead.”

“maybe a bit weird that i want c!dream to have a redemption arc but not c!q or c!wilbur, but hear me out. c!dream is being tortured in pandoras vault and we all know (no matter what the c!dream antis say) no one deserves torture. we have something to sympathize with with c!dream. with c!q and c!wilbur, i cant think of anything to sympathize with …. im not trying to say that c!dream is better than them, or that he didnt do bad things, but i sympathize with him much more than i do with c!q and c!wilbur because q and wilbur caused their own problems while a lot of dreams problems come from other people”

“We have both seen Wilbur and Quackity be relatively good people, or at the very least morally Gray people who had genuine love and care to those close to them. While with Dream we have never seen that, as he has always been focused on chaos, fun, and power.”

“I just want everyone to be happy and get along. C!Wilbur to get his problems fixed. C!Quackity to be happy and not have to worry about being the next c!Schlatt. C!Dream to finally tell us his side of the story and potentially join the syndicate?”

“Redemption isnt something any one can say is deserved or not”

“For me the main difference is thay wilbur and quackity (although having done bad things) did them out of grief or bc they felt like it was the only thing they could do for a sense of security (both after they lost something important to them). Dream on the other hand went out of his way and hurt others maliciously when he DIDNT have to or there were other less horrible/long-lasting actions he could done”

“The message that some people dont deserve to learn and grow from their past mistakes is harmful”

“listen.. i really hate c!quackity and c!wilbur right now so.. erm..in emotionally, i don't want them to have redemption arc because i hate them..BUT by using my brain i know that is a stupid excuse, everyone deserve redemption so..yeah sorry if it confusing you but honestly..the reason i hate them so much is probably because of the arc they on so..give them time and i think i will say i welcome their redemption arc with an open arm”

“i answered twice for dream because i have mixed feelings, while i think he is an atrocious person, i believe personally that forgoing forgiveness from others, he deserves to be happy and healthy and heal. hes clearly got issues of his own, and while it doesnt excuse his actions he also deserves the basic right to heal”

“I personally regard redemption as the act of simply becoming a better person, seperate from whether or not they are accepted or forgiven by their victims. With that definition, I think there is no being "deserving" of a redemption arc, it's something that everyone is entitled to if they chose to. Therefore, everyone, and I mean everyone, in as something as morally gray as the Dream SMP is capable of becoming a better person. It doesn't mean they get rewarded or forgiven for it, it just means they are capable of change and are able to fulfil character potential beyond being a villain.”

It seems to me like there definitely are a lot of people in each side of the spectrum, so this test seems to have come back positive; however, there are more questions that we have yet to answer.

3. Would people want characters to suffer or even die for their actions rather than heal and be happy?

Here is probably a good place to mention this questionnaire was more of a psychological experiment than a survey. Most of the answers were specifically designed and in such an order that would get your mind thinking about certain things before shoving your psyche into a difficult question.

Well, here comes the moment of truth; what sort of redemption arc do people prefer? Would they rather the character get better and reap the “rewards” (which are actually simply things every human being needs and deserves; love and happiness), atone for their actions but not get to be happy, or would they like them to suffer or be punished instead? Do people really treat basic human needs as “rewards” for being a good person; or are they only reserved for characters that were never bad people in the first place? Remember; all of these characters have inarguably gone through pain during their life. Just how much do people enjoy punitive justice, and should I literally just stick to my corner of the fandom for my own good?

The answer probably won’t surprise you!

Starting off, 82.8% want a happy or neutral ending for Quackity, 59.4% of which think he should experience good things in the end. 54.4% of participants want a happy or neutral ending for Dream, 62.7% of which think it should lead to him being happy and loved. 89.2% of people want a happy or neutral ending for Wilbur, 49.4% of which lean towards happiness over closure.

17.2% of participants would prefer Quackity to experience pain as part of his redemption arc. 8.5% want him to be mentally tormented by the weight of his own actions, and 5.6% think he should be punished before being allowed to get better.

For Dream, these percentages are way higher- and here is the funny thing, I thought that pretty much no one would say he should suffer before healing, because he’s already suffering for his actions indirectly by being abused by people who hate him for them. However, 7.2% of people think he has yet to be punished enough for his crimes in order to deserve being redeemed. 21.5% want him to suffer under the weight of his own actions, and 6.9% would want him to die instead of getting a happy ending. Overall, 45.6% would prefer a redemption arc for Dream in which he is subjected to pain or punishment.

10.8% of participants would want Wilbur to have a more difficult character arc, with the percentages pretty evenly divided between the options.

4. Do people think certain characters in the story don’t deserve to be happy?

“Deserving” basic human needs, or not deserving them for being bad people/being bad people in the past, is something I don’t personally agree with, however this is tumblr, not thought police, so let’s just look at the survey results.

While 68.5% of participants believe all of the characters in the story deserve to be loved and happy, only 66.2% think Wilbur does, 61.5% think Quackity does, and 38.5% think Dream does.

Let’s look at some closing thoughts on the subject as a closing note;

“I want everyone to have a sort of personal redemption. Where they realize they have hurt people. But I think it’s difficult. I mean Dream abused a child. Quackity tortured Dream relentlessly. I think the redemption arc that is the easiest is one for Wilbur because of cc!wilburs acting and emphasis on his characters mental health. But I think Wilburs also done so much f**ked up shit too. I think it’s difficult. I just think the redemption arcs are really really difficult.”

“i genuinely can't help myself, i want everyone to have the chance to be better.”

“i think that wilbur, quackity and sam should be redeemed because we as an audience know that they all believe they're doing the right thing and regret/didn't enjoy hurting people with their actions. but with c!dream, there's a lot more evidence that he knew what he was doing wrong and actively enjoyed doing it.”

“everybody deserves to heal. if someone wants to be better and strives to be better, who is anyone to deprive them of that?”

“I don’t like some of these characters and their actions, but everyone deserves a chance to heal. To work through their trauma.”

“dream doesn’t deserve shit, quackitys probably gonna keep riding the las nevadas train until it crashes and burns and wilbur should move on from being “the villain” and stop seeing everything as black and white”

“No one is beyond deserving help. That's not how the world works and that's not what the story should show in my opinion.”

“narratively, i want redemption and happy endings for all characters but morally, i really despise some of them and i'm also really conflicted about some of them as well”

“I want my faves to be better and I think it's the best possible option for everyone involved, even the characters they've hurt.”

“c!wilbur and c!quackity go to therapy. c!dream get hit by another train /hj”

“Hurt people hurt people. If given a chance to distance yourself from your victims and abusers, if given a safe environment with a support network of people you haven't formerly harmed, you can then heal and let the others heal. Live and let live, but living is harder for everyone when we don't give others the chances they need to grow and change themselves.”

“all of them deserve to find growth and happiness but under no circumstances are those who have been hurt by them obligated to be involved in any aspect of that arc. most obvious example- c!dream is allowed to grow and realize that what he's done is awful, but c!tommy is not obligated to forgive him or even be near him.”

“They can all improve and get better and be better people …. They all deserve a chance to be better and be happy. However. Wilbur and dream should get their "redemption" arcs away from esp. Tommy and all the other people they hurt. Big Q. should get his redemption arc away from Dream and stuff. If the prison was less focused on detainment and more focused on rehabilitation and then Dream had no contact with Tommy for example that's a scenario that I'd like.”

“is quackity actually considered a villain in this story? What has he done wrong lol Create a casino? be emotionally manipulated? have rejection sensitive dysphoria? I don't think he's a good person based on his current actions but i don't think hes a villain. I think he's trying hard to become something hes not. … I hate c!dream and I don't think he can ever get better. hes a manipulator gaslight gatekeep girlboss and i think he deserves to stay in prison and rot. watching the tommy exile arc would make me so angry that i had to stop watching.”

“i'm so CONFLICTED about this! i want the angst, but god the angst has been going on for a LONG time. honestly, i think the conclusion i would be happiest with would be for c!dream, c!quackity, c!sam, c!tommy, and c!wilbur to calm down, get some therapy, and stay VERY FAR AWAY FROM EACH OTHER. god damn, it's like they WANT to get more traumatized,,”

“the loathing i feel directed at c!dream specifically is so goddamn strong. my god i hate that guy. uhhh regarding quackity no i dont feel like he shouldnt feel ANY pain or anything hes done some f**ked up stuff but i mean..? with the exception of the torture hes the most redeemable guy up there for me which is probably because we have seen his entire downward spiral.”

“I have to admit that although I strongly believe no one on the Dream SMP deserves to be tormented and deprived of their healing and happiness, I feel really icky about c!Quackity. I really hope that the ccs find a way to make his redemption logical and satisfying to watch. If that is not the case, I will still welcome it with open arms, but secretly I will be a little bit salty about it.”

“For the last question bit there i wanted to check more then once because i want them all to feel guilty and tormented for what they have done.”

“Yknow.... basic human rights... to be happy and loved isn't something that should be deserved it should be something that everyone is allowed to obtain for themselves and it shouldn't be allowed it should just be…”

“While i think that all of the characters should the chance to get redemption and healing, I’d probably be less likely to watch redemption arcs from c!Quackity and c!Wilbur than c!Dream, just because I dislike them. Not to say that they shouldn’t get them, because I hope they do, I’m just more like to be going “Good for them” in the distance.”

“I JUST WANT THEM ALL TO BE HAPPY PLEASEEEEEEEE -dr3”

“for the final question it doesnt provide a none of the above option or a some of the characters but not all option. since I dont think c!Dream deserves to be happy and loved but I do the other two (to some degree) but answering "all of the characters .. " I feel Includes c!dream who I ultimately just really hate and want to have nothing but a fictional death!”

“therapy. therapy for everyone.”

“f**k c!dream <3 i honestly don’t think people who abuse kids (or anyone) for fun should ever be redeemed i think they should just rot in a hole somewhere”

“It would be hypocritical to say that one character deserves redemption more than another, especially considering they've all done (almost equally) horrible things. Either everyone deserves redemption, or no one does.”

Conclusion: in the end, this is all the ways in which we like to enjoy fiction. However, for some completely unrelated reason, I am now about 45.6% less likely to attempt to interact with anyone outside my immediate group of friends in the fandom.

Thank you for reading!

[uraharasandals]

Intellectual Discussion Time

[Edited 3.8.2020: ‘Dominant’ gene to ‘recessive’ gene]

In an attempt to procrastinate on my requests writing, and to pull myself away from college apps, I decided to present to you this issue that have been nagging me for a long time, and something that I felt Asagiri didn’t really address. (Or maybe it’s just me, and feel free to criticise or tell me off in the notes/reblogging)

[note that I haven’t read the light series at all so if there’s something revealed in those do let me know] 

So within the BSD universe we see a lot of worldbuilding that resembles urban fantasy (i.e. a subgenre of fantasy that incorporates ‘supernatural’ elements in an urban setting; other prominent works in this genre include The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare), where there are organisations of ‘gifted’ individuals using Abilities, like the Port Mafia and the ADA. 

But there are significant plotholes within this; 1) how abilities came about, 2) how are abilities ‘shaped’, 3) implications of having abilities and 4) the question of ‘where are the other ability users?’.

1) How Abilities Came About 

The thing is, we don’t really see how abilities emerge? In other works, such as Katekyo Hitman Reborn, we know that their powers come from their rings. Other magical girl anime shows us that their devices/staffs/whatever gave them those special powers. In fact, a main theme in all of these fantasy anime was introducing the reason behind the emergence of powers in the beginning. You often see magical girl animes starting with the protagonist gaining a staff or a charm or whatever, and they learn how to use their powers throughout the entire show.

But here’s the thing in BSD; we don’t know how abilities came about. Whether it is a dominant gene thing, or whether it was from some kind of device or experiment or whatever. While we do know how characters originally without abilities gain them (in Kyouka, whose ability was transferred to her by her mother), it is assumed that all characters in the show are born with them. But then how did this come about? We know that the rest of the society consists of normal human beings without abilities (the clerks at the ADA is a clear example), so it must be an external factor causing the appearance of abilities in the beginning. 

(I think there was something in the manga about Atsushi’s abilities; it revealed that someone injected him with stuff, or was it in Dead Apple? Anyways, if my memory serves me correct, we can say that Atsushi’s abilities came from experiments)

My theory concerning abilities have two strands of reasoning. The first one (spoilers to those who haven’t read the manga) is that it came about as experimenting from the war preceding the series. If you look carefully, a lot of the characters were involved in the war, either directly or indirectly; Yosano, who was an infantry nurse; Mori, who was a physician; Gide, a missionary soldier, to name a few. It is mentioned that abilities was a huge asset in winning the war, and that Japan had been actively recruiting ability users to help them gain victory. There is no explicit mention of this, but seeing as Japan has had a history of experimentation on others, it is possible that scientists have decided to ‘mass-produce’ soldiers with abilities in the war. 

Another theory is the issue of a recessive gene. To put it simply, certain mutations in the human body results in different appearances, such as albinos or blue eyes. Likely this is the same in the BSD universe, except with abilities. This would explain the ‘original’ ability users who were born with their abilities. It is also possible that this gene may be more male-oriented, which would explain the unequal ratio of male to female ability users. (9, excluding Higuchi and including light novel and manga characters; there’s around 40 male ability users). It would also explain the Akutagawa and Tanizaki siblings; both brothers have abilities, yet their younger sisters don’t. [spoilers] It would also explain why both Tachihara and his older brother have abilities, despite him being the younger sibling. 

2) How Are Abilities ‘Shaped’ 

While we know that Asagiri designed each character’s ability in accordance or inspired by the original author (I’ll probably talk about this in another post), the fact remains that within the universe, there is no knowing how these abilities are shaped, or why they are unique to each character. An example of an explanation tackling this would be Bleach; because their zanpakutou (i.e. the source of their powers) are different and responds to each Shinigami’s unique soul, therefore the abilities are shaped in accordance to the soul.

But again, there is no basis for how these abilities are shaped besides the link to their original writers. How are abilities like Dazai’s and Yosano’s considered ‘rare’ if all abilities are unique? And how are abilities classified even? From our own instincts we know that some troupes are overused, like element manipulation or animal transformation (looking at you, Atsushi) but other than that, I would say most, if not all, abilities are pretty unique. The only overlapping of abilities is Gide’s and Odasaku’s, and it is hinted that when two ability users fight each other, there is the occurrence of a ‘singularity’ -- which is again, never mentioned again. 

3) Implications of Having Abilities

This is by far my favourite plothole to discuss. We know that abilities is not common in the BSD society; in fact, it is something that is considered unique. If that is so, how are abilities received by the general public? 

From what we’ve seen in the show, abilities are treated like a skill, and hence could be weld for different purposes, making it resemble a double-edged sword. We see those who use it for evil/own purposes, such as the Decay of Angels and the Rats, but most of them use it for the better good, like the ADA. Some are even incorporated in higher government, like the Hunting Dogs, and the Gifted Special Operations Division. 

But then if abilities are unique, how are they viewed by other normal, non-ability welding characters? I don’t think the universe is as flawless as to have other normal people simply accepting them as a daily fact of life, the continuous exposure of governmental flaws contradicts this. In fact, there are no opinions at all towards ability users during the whole series. There is no indication of fear towards them, and reception of powers differ depends on the organisation the characters belong to.

While there is not much normal people --> ability user reactions, Atsushi’s situation did reveal a glimpse into this plothole. It was mentioned that his parents abandoned him at a trash dump, and that he was constantly bullied and harassed at the orphanage. We don’t know what the reason behind his parents’ actions were, but we do know that he was locked up because of his ability to turn into a tiger. However, in the series this is played off as ‘because he couldn’t control his powers’, instead of actual fear towards the tiger. 

Another example of ability user reactions was the one towards Yosano, though this is somewhat skeptical because of the context and situation. In the war, Yosano was able to heal the soldiers and make them able to fight again. Though it is assumed most of the soldiers were normal people, the situation they were in forced them to appreciate her abilities (imagine consulting a doctor who has to chop you up before they could heal you, would you appreciate thta?), so it doesn’t really reflect what the general society as a whole think of ability users. 

4) ‘Where Are the Other Ability Users?’ 

In the series, we’ve only seen the ability users who have affiliated themselves with a certain organisation; the ADA, Port Mafia, the Guild, the Rats, etc etc. and we assume that this is true. Going by this logic, Asagiri is presenting the idea of ‘teams are stronger and safer’ which, going back to my third point, would likely mean that ability users may have been targeted at the beginning, which resulted in the rise of these organisations. But that is not the case; we have clerks working for the ADA with no abilities. 

Another reasoning about this would be that someone decided ability users working in a team would be able to exploit their abilities to the full and have more freedom and autonomy. This logic, I suspect, is used by the Port Mafia, the Rats and the Guild.

But then there has to be other ability users. Atsushi, for one, was one of those individuals wandering around with no knowledge of abilities. From what was known about Akutagawa and Dazai’s background, it is assumed they are also picked up somewhere and groomed for the Port Mafia.

So then, where are these other ability users? 

In the BSD universe, we are exposed to the knowledge of ability users throughout the globe. In Dead Apple, Kunikida’s briefing shows that there are ability users from Singapore and other places; the Rats, the Guild and Agatha Christie is also proof that ability users are spread all over the globe and that international ability users exist.

However, we aren’t really shown much exposure to these other ability users except in fights and their wars. What bothers me most is that the series made it seem as if the ability users belonging to organisations are the only ability users around, and that there are no others. You could literally depict a scene in which some rogue ability user misuses their ability and the ADA had to step in, yet aside from skirmishes with the Port Mafia and helping the police department, they don’t really show what happens when ability user confronts ability user.

The only time they gave us a hint of what happens when ability user confronts a lone ability user was in the OVA, where Kunikida confronts his old acquaintance. Though he was driven by his own ambitions, I’m guessing the majority of ability users who knew about their powers might be driven to use them for bad purposes and abuse them to their whim, especially when they don’t have organisations to take them in. Zettai Karen Children is an anime that explores the use of ability users in government and as a police force against ability users who misuse their powers; a few parallels could be drawn between these two works as well.

At any rate, there is no doubt BSD is an absolutely fantastic anime that I love to death, but I think these plotholes should be addressed and just,,,these are my two cents to the community :D 

(Also sorry I wrote this at like 2am at night so if this is disorganised or doesn’t make sense,,,you know why) 

[thenugking]

Grand Academy For Future Villains, Chapter 1: Introduction. A commentary for Three.

Because no one can stop me.

Here’s the important decisions, and other things it feels relevant to comment on, from Three’s playthrough. Contains spoilers for GAFFV, obviously, and there’s a few references to the sequel, although nothing I’d really call a spoiler. All game text is copied from the text files, found here.

General CW for the whole thing: parental abuse, internalised dehumanisation as a trauma response. Three’s not doing well.

Specific CW for this chapter: misgendering, transphobia

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9

***

Rathna hisses with satisfaction, takes you by the wrist, and pulls you after her through the archway into the blackness.

It feels a bit like doing a belly flop into a pool of cold mercury. (And you would know; the exercise facilities back home were very well-appointed.) When the ringing clears from your ears and the fuzziness from your eyes, you're standing in a subterranean chamber. The walls are dripping. The lights are flickering. The screams are echoing.

An icy voice echoes in your head, making your ears sting. "Prepare yourself…to be screened."

"Oh, I am prepared," you assure Rathna the Soul-Flenser. "I trust the Academy! And if they say I need additional screening, I'm sure that's something that really is necessary for everybody's safety!"

How would you classify the expression in her dull metallic eyes? Quizzical? Startled? Pitying?

"Your faith," hisses the cold voice after a moment, "is… touching to me."

"Speaking of touching," you say cheerfully, "we'd better get to the screening part, right? The sooner I get screened, the sooner I can be reconstituted by, who is it, the fourth-year Resurrections class?"

There is a long pause. "No..." Rathna says. "You have passed the screening already. You are a true student of the Academy."

Nonplussed, you head up the stairs in the direction she indicates. As you glance back, you could swear she's wiping away one dishwater-gray tear.

Three’s entire introduction is them being a Good Student - it doesn’t even occur to them not to wait in line, or to try hiding their many, many weapons, or to try and get out of additional screening. They pick Rathna because they’re pretty sure Phil will mess it up and not screen them properly, which means they’re messing up too. 

Phil, in Three’s opinion, clearly has zero discipline or competence, and they dislike him instantly. With his utter lack of commitment to the screening process, he’s off to a great start as Perfect Student Three’s unintentional narrative foil.

Rathna, on the other hand, they develop a mutual respect for in this scene. They don’t interact again in-game, and aren’t going to go out of their way to hang out with each other, but I like to think they get along well whenever they do see each other, and are at least friendly acquaintances. (I was very offended when the second game told me Rathna was my enemy, but I like Miriel Bloodshrike, because neither of these things are remotely true for Three.)

VERY WELL, THREE. BUT I KNEW YOUR MOTHER ONCE. AND SHE GAVE YOU ANOTHER NAME. YOU WILL BE THREE AT THIS SCHOOL, BUT TO MAEDRYN THE QUANTUM-WITCH, ONE OF OUR PROUDEST ALUMNAE, YOU WILL ALWAYS BE...

It's true. Your mother named you

#3.

Hardly a name at all.

I mean, Three’s life revolves around keeping their mother happy. They’re not going to throw away the name she gave them. They only changed it from the number to the word because of the massive bureaucratic hassle that trying to input your whole name as 3 was. And what would they change it to anyway? It’s not as if they have an identity outside of Maedryn, is it?

(This does, of course, result in a lot of funny experiences in-game, where people try and psych me out by knowing my birth name and Three’s just, “Yes, that is my name, are you feeling all right?” It’s not impossible that these still take place, even with Three using their mother’s name; in the very next scene, Xi reveals they can hear how people spell things. I’m sure there are some people in the Academy who would deliberately say 3, rather than Three, and hope that Three hears the insult. They don’t.)

As for gender… I think Three at this point still mostly identifies as female. They come out as agender part way through their first year, feeling more confident after meeting a lot of non-binary people at the Academy. They don’t tell their mum. While I’m glad that the game doesn’t have Maedryn misgender you, the fact that she consistently deadnames you and gets angry at you changing “her” body if you become a monster makes me feel it would be very in character for her to do. I’m sure she hears Three is using they/them pronouns now at some point, but has better things to do than remembering to use them.

If asked about their pronouns, Three will tell you that you are welcome to call them whatever you wish, and their closest associates usually use they/them. Expressing their own preference would be far too close to acting like a person with their own desires and feelings, though. Luckily they can easily justify being agender as, “What does a weapon need a gender for?”

“Let's get to know you, Three. What do you hate most?"

 #Incompetence and idiocy.

And right now, Phil’s incompetence and idiocy in particular. Three is already up to 75% competence at this point, by the way.

Well, that's your mother. How do you feel about her?

#I'm proud to be her child. But I plan on choosing my own path- while keeping her as happy as I can.

The actual answer here is a lot more complicated. Three certainly doesn’t plan on choosing their own path, they exist only as a tool of their mother’s and are well aware that being anything more would not make her happy. They think Maedryn’s achievements are incredible and that she’s the cleverest person they know. They think they might be proud of her, if not of themself. They love her.

They’re also far more aware than they let on that she’s abusing them, and that they’re never going to get the love and approval that a part of them buried deep down still wants. While they absolutely keep it to themself, they dislike the way Maedryn’s destroyed worlds that could have had so much to offer, and believe she should treat her goons and servants (themself excluded) better.

And they have no intention of ever letting her know they've ever thought anything negative about her, because they value their life too much.

"Excuse me. I'm Three, and I-how did you do that? What were those wires, and all that stuff you were saying about humanity?"

"Nice, isn't it?" says Xi with pardonable pride. "Like I told you, I'm the ultimate fusion of human and computer. Instead of veins-" their voice is suddenly coming out of the speakers again "-wires course the length of my body, running directly from my mind to the Network."

"Oh! Computers!" the other student breaks in. "Whyever would you want to be all tangled up with those...things?"

Xi narrows their metallic eyes contemptuously at him. "I'm a cyberpunk villain. It's what we do. Wait- who are you again?"

The student draws himself up proudly. "Aurion Umbrator Malisar, Scourge of the Universe, Bane of Virtue, Shadow that Swallows the Light, and I-"

Xi sniffs. A shower of sparks falls from one of the wires. "This is the first time you've ventured outside your genre, isn't it? Let me guess, spawned in Fantasy, and now you're here expecting everything to be the same magic and mush you grew up with?"

"Well, that would explain things," Xi continues. "Trust me, pitiful lump of flesh, computers are the way to go. Why, the true power in this school, DarkBoard--no matter what any other genre says--is an artificial intelligence, one who has truly ascended beyond the tether of matter and mind-"

"That's the problem!" Aurion protests, waving his schedule again. "It will not heed my bidding!"

"Well, of course not, if you're talking to Them like that." You can hear the reverence in Xi's voice when they speak of DarkBoard. Odd, since as far as you can tell, the Grand Academy's administrative AI is basically a glorified secretary.

And Three gets to meet their best friends! They’ve been given permission to ask questions about something very cool! Even if they would never be caught using the phrase, “All that stuff,” and would much prefer a, “Would you elaborate further on your state of being, please?”

This also forms the very early seeds of their friendship with DarkBoard. They believe everyone deserves respect, and they know how easy it is to underestimate someone as being a tool. The majority of their previous knowledge on DarkBoard came from Maedryn, who they also know underestimates people she considers below her notice, so they’re very willing to take Xi’s opinion on DarkBoard over Maedryn’s. And if Xi calls DarkBoard a They, rather than an It, They is what Three will use too, because secretary or not, it’s only polite.

Xi sighs. "You've got to organize yourself, pitiful lump of- Aurion. Make some choices. Look. What do you want to do?"

"Have legions of darkness, take over the universe, slay the proud and noble, bring about a black reign of terror on the land, cast evil spells from my fortress, shoot out wires from my hand like that, seduce the pure and innocent, callously waste human life, destroy the world with a word, blow things up, have great men fall before the slightest motion of my hand, manipulate people's minds, be able to call up balls of fire, beat up the heroes, have Ultimate Weapons of Destruction, and wear a nifty cape!" rattles off the aspiring Scourge of the Universe breathlessly. "And more things, too, if they teach them."

Xi looks as if the student's enthusiasm has overloaded their circuits. You step in.

#Tell Xi I'll help Aurion with his schedule. That should earn me some points with the RA.

I mean, if Three had circuits, they’d be overloaded by Aurion’s enthusiasm too, but if there are two things they like, it’s sorting out schedules and making people in positions of authority happy! This encounter doesn’t make Three and Aurion friends, that comes later, but they gain a small amount of respect for each other, at least.

Sidenote - I’m not sure how close Aurion and Xi are supposed to be, they don’t interact much after this in-game, but I love their interactions here, and I really enjoy Three, Aurion and Xi as a group of friends.

#Better get Xi to advise me on this. Isn't assistance in their job description?

You stick your head out into the hall. "Xi? Can you help me with something?"

After a moment, Xi appears, expressionless.

"I need to get my books," you explain, "so I need to access my money. Can you tell me how to make DarkBoard do that?"

One of Xi's wires cracks like a whip. You hope that means yes.

Three might value self-sufficiency, but they also value making use of the resources available to you, and when someone’s job is to provide you with help, it would be arrogant and foolish to rely solely on your own conjecture.

They are also an eighteen year old who’s never spent much time with people their own age suddenly discovering that they find cyborgs in control of wires they grow out of their fingers really hot.

#Get a quick fund refreshment from Mom.

It won't make your mother happy to have you draft her account like this--she prefers more face-to-face groveling, as you've had plenty of chances to observe--but you know that you can make a quick transfer from the Student Security Deposit. A few words to DarkBoard, and the money is yours, with a little extra cushion to cover you in case of emergencies.

I mean, Three’s definitely going to call Maedryn up for a proper groveling session later tonight, and hope that helps a little. But she’s also expecting them to get perfect grades, and they’re worried about their chances of doing that without all the equipment available. Anyway, that’s their first day at the Academy finished!

[enetarch-working-w-adhd]

Why do people with ADHD have Depression so much?

Studies show that by the time children with ADHD turn 12, they have heard 20,000 times more negative comments directed at them than a typical child does. The ADHD kid, like most kids, want to do things well and get praise, so they try as hard as they can to do things right!  However, more often than not, no one even notices the effort, and the child has over looked some detail, so they recieve more negative criticism.  This eventually ends up in a chronic sense of, “I can’t make anyone happy ... especially myself!”

The scars from being constantly reminded that it isn’t working by abusive family members, friends, community elders, and other people in authority, leads to a vicious cycle of trying, failing, comparing themselves, all while trying to navigate through the fog in their minds, due to low dopamine levels.  Which, leads to questions and self doubt about why people with ADHD are always one step behind everyone else, or an outsider.  This repeated disappointment and frustration snowballs easily into a negative thought cycle and depression.

People with ADHD get these negative comments because they forget details like: promises, birthdays, friends special moments, parties, or details of projects.  It appears that you’ve let others down, because you hyperfocused on a project you liked, or were lost in a depressive episode about something you screwed up again.  No matter how hard someone with ADHD tries, they will always let someone down.

The negative thought cycle is the key to ADHD Depression.

In order to break out of the depression, people with ADHD have to remember that their emotions are event driven. [ per Dr. Russell Barkley ].  In his discussion on the 30 Essential Ideas You Need to Know about ADHD, he discusses how the DSM excludes emotions from the diagnosis of ADHD, and that’s he’s working to get it back into the DSM.  The reason why it’s hard to classify emotions is that they are qualitative, not quantitative.  Thus, they are hard to categorize and show causality, vs coincidental relationships.  What is not coincidental and can be quantitatively tracked is how the emotions are affected by various types of events, real or imagined.

Since, people with ADHD have event driven emotions, the focus of stopping depressive cycles is in resolving the original event that cause the depressive episode to start.  This is akin to reversing a spell on Be Witched, where Sam has to figure out which spell was cast, then reverse it. The original event, is the original trigger that created a negative emotional response, which shot cortisol into the brain, which started the negative thoughts, which created more negative events, which shoots more cortisol into the brain, and so on.

The next step for the person with ADHD is to build an event driven emotion from something that generates positive events, and positive feelings.  The easiest practice to learn is to just breath. Taking a deep breathing feels good.  Meditation, is actually the easiest thing to learn. Many people with ADHD are curious and ask how to stop the thoughts in their head - positive or negative - because, they want to just have a clear minds for once.

Taking a deep breathing feels good.

Building a series of positive events takes practice and needs to become a default learned behavior, just as it’s the default learned behavior to self criticize.  These positive events create a series of positive emotions, which produce dopamine, which create positive thoughts, which create positive events, which create positive emotions ... And, so on.

People with ADHD fall out of this cycle because an external event restarts the negative thought cycle.  It doesn’t have to major, something small and tiny.  And, with practice, they can catch that negative event, sandwich it between positive events, and restart the positive event and self talk cycle.  Psychologists call this self soothing, or a coping mechanism.

People with ADHD need to learn how good taking a breath is.  Sitting down, breathing in deeply, and exhaling. Once, you have mastered this, then people with ADHD can move to the next level.  Learning how to create positive events, or arranging their day so that the majority of events are positive.

Creating Positive Events is Fun.

Creating positive events is easy.  It’s actually very easy. You just have to pay attention.  2 things that people with ADHD have lots of trouble with. Paying attention, and doing it right.  So, let’s make creating positive events as easy and simple as possible.  

Most people with ADHD become overloaded by the things they have to do, or don’t remember what those ToDo’s are.  So, first, they need to write down their ToDo’s as they pop into their head.  If they can’t get that ToDo out of their head, then they need to DO IT! otherwise, they become distracted by the thought of something they have to do it, over and over and over again.

1st thing, stop being overloaded.  Create 2 ToDo lists.  The first list contains all the things you had to do yesterday and days previous.  The second list contains all the things that HAVE TO BE DONE TODAY!, because today is all that matters to people with ADHD. Right NOW!

2nd thing, put on happy music. Not a video, but happy music.  If you need a bit more of a kick start into happy land, put on a short positive YouTube clip of Kittens or Puppies.  Or, something that you know, generates positive emotions for you.

3rd thing, people with ADHD need to sandwich negative tasks / negative events, between positive events.  Every time you look at a ToDo and have a negative reaction to it. that ToDo has to be placed between positive rewards.  Include, but not limited to a 5 course Steak Dinner.  Sometimes, the reward has to be so powerful, that it drives you right through the negative task / event.

4th thing, learn to arrange your events.  If you have a series of positive events lined up, you get shots of dopamine. The more happy juice you get, the easier, funner, happier things seem to be. And, the easier it is to keep negative thoughts out of your head.

There have been days where I’ve went from ToDo to ToDo to ToDo because I was driven by positive outcomes.  I could keep working till I was exhausted.  And, this will happen. At some point your dopamine production will be exhausted, and you can’t do anything anymore.  SLEEP!

5th thing, remember to sto and take a deep breath and feel how good it feels. And, remind yourself of how good things feel right now.  The more you do this, the more you cement this practice into coping skills, habits, routines, and your life in general.

6th thing, everytime a negative thought or criticism pops into your head, push back with a positive thought, about something you accomplished.  You did that!  And, remind yourself, that you’re no longer in the past. You’re here, in the present, in the moment, and you feel good.

7th thing, if there is something super important that has to be done that day, chant it like a montra until it is done.  Turn that ear worm into something useful. Take a song you like, and chang the words so that it contains the ToDo that you need to get done.  

8th thing, pay attention to body sensations. These will distract a person with ADHD, and derail their goals - completing the day’s ToDo’s.  Body sensations are hunger, aches and pains, cramps, itchy skin, or other things.  Write a note about what you were doing, set a time, set the note on the timer, and then take care of the body sensation.

How will you know that you’ve done it right, every time you do this right, you will get a shot of dopamine.

[wausdraws]

Howdy! Commissions are now open! As this is my first time doing anything of the sort, I'm keeping it to five slots so I'm not overwhelmed, on the chance I am commissioned. Also of note: I am open to discussion! If you're unsure about anything, please contact me via Discord, at Awauspic#3154. I will answer you as soon as I can, so feel free to ask!

A Few Things First

          A few things you'll want to know before even considering commissioning me.

All In One Place.  Since I'll be having a limited number of slots, I'll be leaving these available for checking. You can track these on my Trello if you want to see what I'm doing, though I will also state whether my commissions are open or closed on my dA profile & art Tumblr.

Full Payment Beforehand.  I require full payment upfront for commissions. Pricing and Payments below will cover how I'll handle refunds and anything extra that may come up.

Communication is key! I will check with you for every stage of the commission, and request that you stay reasonably responsive; I want to make sure it looks as good as can be, but to do that, I need to know your thoughts!

On Uncertainties: If you think you might want to commission me but aren't sure where anything falls - contact me! I want to give you the best possible experience, which includes before you commission me. I'm perfectly willing to discuss what you want with you, regardless of whether or not you decide to commission a piece from me.

Referring to references... As a general, I will want a flat-color reference, with no or minimal shading, or an available color palette. If there isn't one available, I'll work with you to get the appropriate colors down and provide a swatch with the completed piece for future reference.

Cleaning up afterward. Post completion, you have one week to point out anything minor or easy to fix within the piece that bothers you; as long as it's within that week, and reasonable, I'll fix it. Past that, however, it's done and dusted, and I will not be altering it.

What Can I Do For You?

          You're okay with the above? Great! Here's what will be accepted, what will be rejected, and a few things I'm a little iffy about. This isn't exhaustive, so if you're hesitant at all, contact me! I'm more than happy to clarify for you!

I will draw:

Furries! As visible in my commission post above, I will draw fursonas and general furry creatures, feral, to anthro, to 'taur.

Animals! In-line with furries, I'll also do general animals.

I might draw:

Fandom content!  This is more so because I need to know where it's from, and have references available. Though by no means an exhaustive list, some fandoms that I'll cover are:

Undertale/Deltarune

Since this is AU heavy, please specify if Classic for standard, or give me the AU. I try to keep up but dear god.

Warriors, including OCs.

Light Gore. I am willing to draw bleeding/injuries/fights. See below for what classifies as too much. Again, this is case-by-case.

Body horror. I'm much more tolerant when missing chunks, extra mouths, broken shapes, and general weirdness is just part of the design. However, it is still case-by-case, and we'll need to talk it out.

Innuendo or Suggestive. Tasteful relative nudity, suggestive posing or behavior, and visual innuendo. Nothing too obvious, but I’m game to work with you on figuring something out.

I will not draw:

Mechs!

Actual Human People. Those who are real people. I’m not drawing a celebrity, I’m not drawing your cousin.

Humans, in general. This will change as I improve, but for now, humans are a firm no go.

Bugs. I am terrible with them. I will improve, but for now, these are no-go.

NSFW.

NSFW Gore is anything excessive; pieces being ripped off, clear abuse or painful deaths are hard no's.

NSFW Sexual is with visible genitalia, actual sex, etc.

Pricing and Payments

       Having chosen what you want and the piece in question confirmed to be alright, here comes the rest of it; paying the artist. As a heads up, everything listed is in US Dollars.

Details, Extras, and Deadlines, Oh My.

Character(s)

Group Shots: I will do multiple characters for full-body pieces of any level, but not for sketches or mugshots. Each character will add seven dollars onto the original price, for up to five characters total.

Complications In The Making: Characters come in varying levels of complexity. However, if one is exceptionally intricate - either in having heavy, detail-orientated patterns or a lot going on, that will be ten dollars per intricate character, alongside the original pricing.

Backgrounds: With all pieces, I’ll include a simple mono-color background, as well as one without. In fully rendered, I’ll add an effect on top to make it special. However:

Funky Background on Non-Rendered: I'm happy to add background effects on a non-rendered piece. However, it'll cost you another two dollars.

Simple Scenery: Scenes are another beast entirely. For simple scenes, that's seven dollars.

Detailed Scene: Fifteen dollars flat for anything detailed; more requested features drive the price up by two dollars every two features.

Deadlines.  If you want a piece done by a certain time, it may drive up the price depending on how quickly you want it, and if there is anything I will have to set aside to get it done. Naturally, I will reject deadlines that I know I will not have time for, or are otherwise unreasonable.

Start to Finish: For a single fully rendered body piece, it takes me approximately three days to complete, while balancing it between the rest of my workload, while sketches often only take minutes.

Sets: You can commission multiple works at once, and I'll bundle them together to be done along the same timeline, or at least with each other; excluding a deadline or real-life problems, I'll have them done and sent to you at the same time. Individual prices still apply.

Up-Front, And Returned

       After alerting me to your intent to commission and getting the details worked out, so comes the green.

A Cuppa! Feel free to pay me through Ko-Fi! It takes in 3$ increments, so anything divisible by three is an option, and with less processing fees.

Paypal! After we've got everything settled, I'll hand over my Paypal.

Patreon! Still a WIP, my Patreon is available if you're feeling like you want regular doses of art, or just want to support me. I appreciate it no less. <3

In the event of a refund... I will refund for work not completed. If, for example, you commission a full render, but request a refund after I have completed the sketch, I'll keep the sketch costs, but return the rest to you; you also, of course, get to keep what work was done before the refund.

[littlemisssquiggles]

RWBY Musings #49: The Bandit and the Assassin. A Squiggle Meister’s Views on Emerald Sustrai and Mercury Black for the Future of RWBY.

@mojo72400​ asked “…Any emecury/jaded theories for vol. 6?” Anon-ninja asked “…Question: Thoughts on Merc and Emerald in the upcoming volume(s)? I just have this feeling that while they may get redeemed, it'd be at the cost of getting horribly injured/used by Salem in the process? I mean, with Cinder gone, Emerald is the Only maiden candidate team WTCH has. I imagine the walls are gonna start closing in on these two FAST. :/”

Squiggles Answers:

‘Sup up you two? It took me a while but at long last I’ve arrived at your respective musing. At first I had planned on keeping this nice and short (well...short for yours truly) because to be honest I didn’t have much theories on Merc and Emerald for the next season. However, in true squiggly fashion, as I started jotting down my points, it basically ended up delving deeper than expected.

Anyways I’ve kept you both waiting long enough. Y'know the drill, click forward and let's get into this, shall we?

An Unlikely Trio

I want Emerald and Mercury to stay with Hazel because I think together on their own without the influence of Salem, the three can form a strong family type of bond where they each will be able to compensate for relationships lost or never experienced in their respective pasts. For Mercury, he can possibly find a father figure in Hazel to make up for the lack of compassion and proper paternal guidance he never got from his own abusive drunk of a dad.

For Emerald, she can find compassion in others and learn to feel loved or cared for by another beyond Cinder Fall whose own influence on her was twisted. Emerald only turned to the dark side because of Cinder and was willing to do anything so long as Cinder approved.

According to RWBY Chibi, Emerald idealized Cinder as a proxy maternal figure. I guess to make up for an absence of a real family of her own since she has been surviving alone, starved on the streets of Mistral for many years using only her semblance as a means of perseverance until Cinder took her under her wing.

But I believe that Emerald will soon learn that she can find that kind of solace in Mercury; who will respect her as a close companion, possibly even a potential love interest later down the line if a romance is meant to spark between the two; and Hazel, as a big brother figure. I like the idea of Hazel coming to treat Emerald in the same nurturing and overprotective manner as he did for his deceased sister Gretchen. 

Perhaps Hazel will even begin to see a lot of his sister in Emerald or something along those lines. Speaking of Hazel and his eventual development. For the price of one, I think the Rainart man can gain two young adults that he can learn to treat as surrogate younger siblings for his sister.

A Squiggly Hunch about Hazel Rainart

I like the idea of Hazel eventually coming to his senses about his anger over Ozpin. If I’m being completely honest here, like a number of things about V5, I never quite bought Hazel’s whole revenge story about blaming Ozpin for what became of Gretchen.

Yes, Ozpin was the Headmaster at the time Gretchen was enrolled at Beacon however as Oscar rightfully justified, becoming a huntress was Gretchen’s choice. While it was unfortunate that she died on the battlefield, it doesn’t exclude the fact that it was a path she chose of her own accord and did it in spite of her brother’s disapproval.

This is why I’m hoping for a possible rematch between Oscar and Hazel in which Oscar performs some unexpected feat that reveals the truth to Hazel about the night Gretchen was killed. Either it’s a semblance unlock for Oscar where he gains the ability to probe Hazel’s mind and mentally share with him the memories of the night Ozpin spoke to Gretchen before her mission or perhaps something to do with the Oz-cane. Who knows?

All in all, I want the truth to soon come out to Hazel and once it’s done, I think he will switch sides or…y’know, be brutally killed off for his treason when Salem realizes that Hazel is no longer of use to her, like Lionheart. Though unlike Lionheart, Hazel would go down with a proper fight; dying strong with his corpse being donated for Watts to experiment on for Grimm-hybrid or Grimmoire research. Getting ahead of myself here but you get the idea.

For me, the satire with Hazel’s character is that he’s inspired by Hansel from Hansel and Gretel. As the fairy tale goes, Hansel and Gretel were a sibling pair who got lost in the woods and wandered into a gingerbread house owned by a wicked witch who tried fattening them up to eat them. But as we know, the siblings escape after tricking the witch and trapping her inside the very oven she’d planned to cook them in.

I find it ironic that Hazel is working with Salem, whose been classified as a wicked witch while his fairy-tale counterpart killed the evil witch in his story. Perhaps this is a sign to foreshadow Hazel’s redemption in a way.

Do you actually know what would make an interesting twist? What if… Salem had planned on recruiting Hazel from the start and had actually arranged for his sister’s death as a means of getting him to her side.

Suppose...Salem had sent a younger Tyrian Callows to recruit Hazel with the offer of granting him a much better lifestyle for him and his sister in exchange for his loyalty. Like let’s say, Hazel came from a poor family that had fallen on worse times. After his parents passed away, Hazel was made sole caretaker of his baby sister.

Despite the enticing proposal, Hazel refused since he couldn’t wholeheartedly trust the word of a stranger he had just met especially when he had more pressing matters to deal with, like his sister’ wellbeing.

Imagine…if it was revealed that Tyrian had murdered Gretchen at Salem’s behest. What if…during her training mission from Beacon Academy, Tyrian lured the naïve Gretchen into a trap where he murdered her like an animal cornered by its prey after separating her from her team.

The impression I got from Hazel’s side of the story was that he shared a deeper past with Ozpin. After all, Ozpin did comment to Oscar that he knew Hazel highlighting a history that possibly stemmed even before Gretchen’s involvement. I doubt Hazel’s sister becoming a student at Beacon and dying under Ozpin’s watch was the whole debacle.

Nah. Can’t be. Do you know what I think? What if…in his past, Hazel was a former professor at Beacon under Ozpin. It would make sense if that was the case, right? 

I think before Gretchen decided to become a huntsman, Hazel was a Beacon professor like Professor Port and Dr. Oobleck. He was probably given the position courtesy of Ozpin who decided to take a chance on him giving his harsh past and his strong ambition to care for his family.

Imagine…Hazel formally harbouring a strong respect and devotion to Ozpin, owing the old wizard a lot for helping him turn his life around. Perhaps, in their early years of Beacon Academy, Hazel and Ozpin were actually good friends and Hazel probably confided many secrets about his past in Ozpin because back then, Hazel trusted Ozpin like so many others. Ozpin was Hazel’s friend.

This would make Ozpin allowing Gretchen to attend Beacon while he was headmaster such a huge slap to the face for Hazel and would help clarify why he’d hold him fully responsible for her death.

Think about it. Picture yourself in Hazel’s shoes for a second. Imagine becoming a proxy parent at a tender age as you’re left to care for your baby sister, the only family left in your life after a period of hard times and it’s your responsibility to ensure her safety.

Picture struggling for many years to make a comfortable life for your sister to live in. Imagine meeting a man who literally changed your future---like a beacon shining a path towards a better tomorrow when you’ve been lost to the darkness for so long.

Because of this man, you were able to turn a new leaf. With a new job working under this man, you are provided with the resources to shape your life in a better direction and because of this change, suddenly things improved. You now have a better home. More food and your sister is able to grow up beautifully and safe.

Life is the brightest it’s ever been for you and your family and you owe it all to the man you met. A man named Ozpin. Ozpin had been your beacon in the night.

Imagine having great respect for Ozpin. Imagine even regarding him as an important friend because of his help and your comradery with him. As Hazel, you trust Oz.

Now imagine how you would feel if that same man you trusted so much then allowed your little sister---the same little sister you were trying to protect to enter a school that bred its students for a dangerous profession where she could likely die. Especially if you told said man time and time again that this is not the kind of lifestyle you envisioned for your sister to have.

Let’s say…Ruby Rose was not the first underage huntress Ozpin had allowed to attend Beacon ahead of time. Perhaps it was the same for Gretchen Rainart who probably met Oz when she was, I dunno, fourteen years old or something like that. Due to the strong potential she displayed when they first met, Oz asked Gretchen if she wanted to come to his school and of course, just like Ruby, she agreed. I think there is room for a potential parallel between Ruby Rose and Gretchen Rainart. 

But… here’s the thing too. Another hunch I have is that when Ozpin first met Gretchen, he had no clue that she was Hazel’s sister. Gretchen probably knew fully well who Ozpin was thanks to Hazel but Oz had never met Gretchen in the flesh before. My guess is that he had only seen her in an old photograph of her as a little girl with her family that Hazel would always keep with him. By the time Oz would finally encounter ‘Little Gretchen Rainart’, she would’ve grown into a rather rebellious but strong-willing teenager as opposed to the helpless child her older brother often proclaimed her to be.

It’d be interesting if Gretchen was like Jaune in the sense. While she didn’t fake her transcripts, she did however lie about her last name; going under a pseudo-surname because she didn’t want her brother knowing that she had enrolled at Beacon without his consent.

So I’m picturing a very awkward enrolment ceremony where Glynda Goodwitch is giving all the new first years a tour of the school grounds, introducing them to Professor Ozpin and all the other teachers.

This moment is then cut short when Hazel suddenly recognizes Gretchen in the crowd of students, expressing his disdain and shock at seeing his sister at Beacon in a booming roar that literally shook the compound while simultaneously scaring all the new students who were already intimidated on their first day to begin with.

While I’m not certain how old Gretchen Rainart was when she started Beacon, a part of me would like to believe that she started school around the time Team STQR was still present at the school just to keep things connected within the same timelines.

Perhaps Team STRQ were third years like Team CFVY were when Gretchen joined the school. But that’s just another hunch.

I’d imagine that Hazel furiously confronted Ozpin after embarrassing his sister in front of her fellow first years the way he did. However Ozpin is innocent in the matter because up until the first day of the Academy he didn’t know that the Gretchen he accepted into his school was the same little sister Gretchen related to Hazel. The same Gretchen Hazel had told him wanted to become a huntress but he strongly disapproved.

I’m picturing Hazel confronting Professor Ozpin and demanding that he expelled his sister from Beacon immediately. Ozpin, of course, would counter that while Gretchen did lie about her identity, it was only her last name and based on her brother’s reaction, the headmaster morally understood the girl’s decision to take action the way she did. Since her brother was behaving like a deranged lunatic, not that Oz would dare say that to Hazel’s face.

To make matters short, let’s say, Ozpin eventually convinced Hazel to give his blessing on allowing Gretchen to continue on as a student at Beacon. It was a difficult argument as Hazel was a stubborn mule of a man but Ozpin got him to turn around under the grounds that while Gretchen is at the school, Hazel could keep a watchful eye on her and Ozpin himself promised to ensure her utmost safety as he did with all the students in his care. This is a promise that Hazel took to heart as he told Ozpin, in a very grim tone that if anything were to happen to Gretchen under his leadership, he would hold him most responsible.

And…well…we all know how that turned out, right? I really feel like there is a deeper story involving Ozpin’s history with the Rainart Siblings. One that connects Hazel back to Beacon itself as one of its former professors. I mean it is plausible, at least in my opinion.

 Another theory I have, which is a big stretch is that Tyrian Callows also played a part in Gretchen’s death that Hazel wasn’t aware of. 

Here me out. Let’s say…when Ozpin permitted Hazel to watch over his sister at Beacon, the older Rainart took it to the extreme. Hazel would constantly intervene in Gretchen’s school affairs, from her education to her relationship with other students. This made Gretchen’s experience at Beacon very uncomfortable to say the least. As a result of her brother’s looming presence and him incessantly badgering Ozpin with his overprotectiveness, Gretchen didn’t have many friends. Either folks were too daunted by her relation to the fearsome Professor Rainart or were jealous of the occasional favouritism she received from the headmaster at her brother’s request.  Even her teammates didn’t like her which made cooperating with them very difficult on the training field.

All in all, Gretchen Rainart was alone---her dream of becoming a huntress at Beacon Academy to fight for her Kingdom of Vale being squandered away by her own blood and the very headmaster who claimed he chose her for her potential.

I’d like to think that the only friends Gretchen had at Beacon were third years at the school---Team STQR (mainly Tai and Summer) who were also favourites of Ozpin and another mysterious friend that Gretchen wouldn’t tell anyone about.

This mystery friend that Gretchen was associated with would then be a younger Tyrian Callows, who taking advantage of Gretchen’s loneliness, would become the instigator that would lead her to her eventual demise at his hands.

I really dig the idea of Tyrian being tied to Hazel’s sister because I dig the twist of Tyrian being the one who recruited Hazel to Salem’s side both before and after Gretchen’s death. I like that just as much as I like the twist of Hazel eventually learning that the very man he’d been fighting alongside all this time was his sister’s true killer. Just as much as I love the twist that Tyrian had only pursued Gretchen under his ‘goddess’ command meaning that Salem was also responsible for killing Gretchen.

I mean I had a feeling that Salem had something to do with Gretchen’s death already since my first assumption was that Gretchen got killed by a Grimm and the Grimm are connected to Salem. But as I pondered further, I came up with this better assumption of Salem moulding Hazel into the man he is now and that everything that has happened to him from the time of his sister’s death was all her doing.

She made Tyrian seduce his sister. She order Tyrian to murder his sister and she did it all to make him turn on Ozpin because Salem knew Hazel trusted Ozpin once before.

And as we know, Salem has a habit of making Ozpin’s former allies turn on him so…why not the same for Hazel too. This is only a theory but I quite like it because it gives a much broader correlation to Hazel’s backstory with Ozpin.  It’s what I think could make his eventual turn on Salem far greater than him just coming to terms with becoming a huntsmen being Gretchen’s choice and that no one was to blame for the outcome of said choice. Not even Ozpin.

So yeah, I think at some point Hazel will turn on Salem and when he does, Mercury might wish to join him too. Emerald on the other hand, may be conflicted in the matter.

As I mentioned earlier, I like the idea of Hazel learning to love Emerald the same way he did for Gretchen long ago, even calling her ‘little sister’. I think Emerald can find the family and loved ones she’s desired for so long in Mercury and Hazel. But what could thwart that is her reliance, somewhat Stockholm syndrome-like dependency of Cinder.

Some theorists have speculated Emerald becoming psychotic after the ‘loss’ of Cinder. I, on the other hand, don’t think it’d be that extreme. I think Emerald would become a more withdrawn person instead. I can just see Emerald being completely broken over Cinder to the point that she just turns into a vegetable---an empty shell of herself unable to comprehend what she was going to do with her life now that Cinder wasn’t there to guide her.

This is the reason why I would love to see Mercury step up and become a crutch for Emerald to lean on. For the life of me, I can’t gauge a plausible explanation as to why Mercury would want to follow Cinder. The closest excuse I could come up with is the possibility of Mercury previously having romantic feelings for Cinder in the past.

Sleeping with the Devil

 I mean, RWBY Chibi did hint at that last season. Weird. 

Perhaps once upon a time, Mercury was attracted to Cinder and his feelings for her were what motivated him to work for her. He was attracted to the way she would encourage him to be better and stronger and would stroke his ego if he was successful. But eventually Mercury fell out of love with Cinder when he found a quality in another woman he realized he liked even more than Cinder kissing his ass. When we first met Mercury, he wasn’t the character we now know him to be now. He was so much more serious---angrier.

Current Mercury actually cracks a smile and is prone to sarcastic jabs, mostly at Emerald. He also seems more carefree. I mean, he’s still got his wicked streak which has only been moulded by Cinder and the villain’s influence. However the part of Mercury’s personality that got my attention was his compassion towards Emerald. This was evidenced last volume in the finale episode.

Mercury could’ve easily left Emerald to be captured by the authorities. Not to sound heartless but he had every reason to since she was compromising his and Hazel’s escape after their mission during the Haven Battle was a failure.

If Mercury so desired, he and Hazel could have abandoned Emerald. But he didn’t. Instead Mercury spent a chunk of precious time urging Emerald for them to escape together. She was even the first person Mercury reached out to when captivity was imminent.

If Mercury was the type to truly value strength over signs of weakness then he could have abandoned Emerald to the mercy of the heroes. Instead he kept egging at her for them to go. Even when she fell unconscious he probably made sure that Hazel grabbed her before all three escaped. I think Emerald Sustrai is honestly the only character I’ve ever seen Mercury Black care about. I don’t even think he cares about Cinder that much. When the group learnt that Cinder was defeated, the only person who appeared affected by it the most was Emerald; naturally.

But Merc, he didn’t even bat an eyelash. He didn’t even accost the heroes, proclaiming revenge for taking down Cinder. Nope. Instead he looked to Emerald. His attention went straight to Emerald. His concern went straight to Emerald.

If you were to make the argument with me that Mercury only half cared about Cinder then I would’ve probably agreed with you on that matter especially following V5. I think the only thing that motivated Mercury towards Cinder was what she said to him in their backstory episode. In V3, C7, Cinder asked Mercury if he was anything like his father who was her original target in her recruiting strategy.

I think that’s the line that probably triggered Mercury to follow Cinder in her endeavours. I think all of his life, Mercury was trained to become the best assassin---pushed to be the strongest killer and brutally punished if he failed. The irony is I think Mercury did become the best assassin in the sense that he dethroned his own father by murdering him in cold blood. I think it was Cinder who pushed Mercury in the same manner that his dad did and it was for that reason why he followed her and was probably even interested in her at some point. They say that children who come from homes with ‘tough parents’ eventually pursue people who possess the same qualities that their parents did or something like that.

What if…Mercury did have the hots for Cinder and she used that to her advantage to get the young boy to dance to her whims; all the while using what little knowledge she knew of Mercury’s former relationship with his dad to motivate and even criticise him if he failed.

I mean Cinder once slapped Emerald when she became defiant, imagine how she punished Mercury when he joined the team.

 I know the prospect of sex is an adult theme that isn’t traditionally mentioned in RWBY. I mean I don’t expect RWBY to pull a Game of Thrones and suddenly start introducing characters doing the ole meet and greet between the sheets; even as the show’s cast and story matures with time. However…that being said, with Cinder being an attractive older woman whose been praised for her looks before and Mercury being a naïve teenage boy; lacking any affection from his past life---I’m just saying, I wouldn’t be surprised if Cinder ever used that as a ploy to manipulate Mercury in a sense.

I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if at some point in their relationship, Cinder would at times seduce Mercury to do her bidding by promising him sexual favours. That’s a more mature outlook on Mercury’s alliance to Cinder. The child-friendly version would be to say that Mercury was once in love with Cinder whereas the Rated R version would’ve been Mercury being involved in former sexual relationship with Cinder or…at least one where he would blindly follow the older woman for the promise of them being together romantically. 

Y’know like how Deathstroke manipulated the adolescent Terra using her love for him as a means of keeping her in line in Teen Titans Judas Contrast.

It could explain Emerald’s bit of highlighted jealously towards Mercury in previous seasons. Perhaps, there was a time when Emerald and Mercury would compete with each other for Cinder’s affections. I keep saying ‘at some point’ because we’ve never honestly gotten much signs of a rivalry between Mercury and Emerald over Cinder before.

It’s why I’m so confused on what his motivations for following her are. It’s why love is the one answer I can think of that made sense to me. I like it because it might sound ludicrous especially for a guy like Mercury but coincidentally it’s what fits given Mercury’s history especially with his dad. The impression I got from Mercury’s past is that his father was an abusive drunk who never cared about anyone, not even his own child so from the time he was born, Mercury was probably starved of any kind of emotional affection. And the lack of his mother not being in the picture either shows that he’s never had someone to care for him.

I wonder what happened to Mama Black anyways. Perhaps she died during childbirth which could justify Marcus Black’s abusive nature towards his son. Or… maybe Mama Black was previously Marcus’ original stepping stool and he would abuse her just as much as Mercury until one day she succumbed from her injuries and died.

Or perhaps Mama Black took off long after Mercury was born and didn’t even bother taking him with her. Those are three possibilities but my money’s on Mama Black being deceased with Marcus to blame for her death.

For all we know, Cinder Fall was probably the first woman to take an interest in Mercury and, it’s an interest he greatly appreciated and longed for. So I think Mercury could’ve been in love with Cinder. As I said, Chibi did hint at it.

I know the rule of thumb is to not associate things done in Chibi-verse with the canon. However…in regards to Mercury and Cinder, I actually found it kind of weird that Burning Steel (sorry, not sure what the name of the Mercury and Cinder ship is called) suddenly became Mercury’s gag for the latest season.

It came as a real surprise. Up until this point, in the main canon, it has never really been implied that Mercury shared feelings for Cinder. It was never even teased in the earlier seasons of Chibi. Yet, there it was in S3. Hmmm...

.Still, that’s one thing in Chibi I wouldn’t be surprised became canon next season. Perhaps Mercury was in love with Cinder at some point because firstly she gave him the feminine attention he never got as a boy raised by a single father. 

Secondly she encouraged him a way that was like his father while at the same time appealing to a side of him that desired to be better than his father.  Thirdly, she made Mercury feel powerful while his father probably made him feel powerless---powerless to stop his father’s drinking problems. 

Powerless to stop his father from forcing him into rigorous training regiments that stressed and destroyed his body. 

Powerless to stop his father when he would beat and punish him---sometimes for failing his training, other times just because he just wanted to use him as his personal punching bag to vent his anger on.I have this inkling of a hunch where Papa Black is the one responsible for Mercury losing his legs. Some fans have said Papa Black gave Mercury his trademark prosthetic legs. My hunch is the sadistic version of the story where Papa Black deliberately broke his son’s original legs to prove a point.

For the DC fans in the FNDM community, y’know how in the MCU, Thanos ‘experimented’ on Nebula every time she failed. Let’s say Mercury tried to run away from home once in his youth in the hopes of finding a better life somewhere but his ambitions were thwarted when his experienced assassin of a father tracked him down. 

And when he found him, Marcus Black basically broke both of Mercury’s legs so the poor kid couldn’t use them to escape a second time. I used to think that the prosthetic legs were a gift from Cinder or Salem to Merc as part of their alliance. Perhaps they still are in the case that they’re a better, more upgraded version of the legs (probably crafted by Watts). 

Now I’m thinking that Papa Black probably ‘operated’ on Mercury---taking away his real legs and replacing them with shitty prosthetics that he couldn’t use properly in the beginning as a clear sign of what he was willing to do to him if he dared defy him again.  

According to RWBY Wiki, it was mentioned by CRWBY Writer: Kerry Shawcross that Mercury has one of the darkest backstories in the series that has yet to be explored. So who knows, maybe I am right on the whole Papa Black hacking off his own child’s legs so he can’t escape his abuse. But…I’m probably getting ahead of myself I think right now Mercury is probably attracted to Emerald. 

Maybe…at some point previously she too showed him a kinder side to herself that made him actually like her a little bit more.  I think the reason why Mercury sticks close to Emerald other than the fact that they were assigned to be each other’s partners is because, in his own weird way, he likes her. 

Though Mercury’s presence has been show to annoy Emerald, I like the idea of Mercury preferring Emerald’s company over anyone else’s (including Cinder’s) because she made him feel, I dunno, like he wasn’t a heartless killing machine (literally). With Emerald in his life, I think she showed him that he was capable of caring for someone besides himself. 

Green Fall

I’m hoping that V6 will touch a bit on the aftermath of what happened to Emerald, Mercury and Hazel following the Triumph of Haven Academy. I still stand by my theory where I don’t think the three will return to Salem after their colossal failure. I think a reason why Mercury and Hazel might be unwilling to report back to Salem is due to Emerald. There is no way in shit Emerald is going to want to go back to Salem.

That hallucination from the V5 finale was Emerald’s perception of Salem. Emerald is frightened by Salem but what has kept her fears at bay and has prevented her from hightailing it out of there is her loyalty to Cinder and her cause. But with Cinder gone, I don’t believe Emerald will want to go back.

Even if Hazel were to sling her over his shoulder and try to force her to go back, kicking and screaming, I think Mercury would intervene on behalf of his partner. Though I don’t think Hazel is the type to force anyone to do anything they’re not comfortable with. Hazel’s wrath is solely directed at Ozpin and no one else.

Hazel has not dared to kill anyone else besides Ozpin and anyone associated with him who dared to get in his way. Take that away and what you have is a man with only one main motive driving him---Revenge against one man.

I think if Emerald told Hazel she didn’t want to go back, he’d willingly comply. He’d gruffly roll his eyes but he’d comply. Hazel is an odd character to me but at least I can fully understand his motives and hatred towards Ozpin as opposed to another character like…let’s say, Raven Branwen.

I hope we get episodes where we get to see Emerald, Mercury travelling together with Hazel or at least keeping a low profile to avoid being detected by the authorities because I’m sure following what happened in Haven, the police will be out looking for them.

A part of me thinks that there could even be a potential revenge plot to come with Emerald where she may desire to kill Yang. After all, Yang was the only one to return from the vault with the Relic in hand. As far as Emerald is concerned, Yang might’ve been the one who struck Cinder down.

Mercury might want to support Emerald in this just to be helpful while Hazel wouldn’t mind it either because it’d provide another opportunity for him to enact his vengeance on Ozpin and acquire the Relic of Knowledge.

So we could see Emerald, Mercury and Hazel laying low (for Emerald’s sake) until they get the bright idea to go after the travelling heroes by Emerald who is out for blood. It’s a side of Emerald we, as the audience, have never seen before so it’d be interesting to see done in the canon.

That being said, I’d also find it cool if Emerald was revealed as the new Fall Maiden. I want Emerald to become a Maiden, especially Fall because I think it could be an excellent learning experience for her to fully realize Cinder’s intentions.

It’d be seen almost as a rite of passage between our three main female villains. Salem was Cinder’s mentor as Cinder was Emerald’s.

“…I wish to take on an apprentice. Follow me and you’ll never be hungry again…” Cinder Fall to Emerald (RWBY Volume 3, Chapter 7)

I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the same line Salem used on Cinder to influence her into becoming her apprentice only appealing to her desires to become powerful.

“…I want to be strong. I want to be feared. I want to be powerful…”  Cinder Fall (RWBY Volume 3, Chapter 7)

It’d be interesting if in V6, Cinder returns as a Grimmoire---a half Grimm, half human hybrid resembling Salem. Apprentices eventually become masters themselves, correct? So if Cinder becomes more like her master, shouldn’t it be the same for Emerald if she inadvertently inherited the Fall Maiden power after Cinder technically died in the Vault of the Spring Maiden.

Despite taking her under her wing in the past, at the end of the day, Cinder is just a power-hungry woman who is willing to hurt anything and anyone to gain more power. Even when she already possessed the powers of a Maiden, her taste of the Maiden powers was so insatiable that she even went after the Spring Maiden’s power. This in hindsight seems like a rather nonsensical move on Cinder’s part since it has been indicated that there is no distinct differentiation in the Maiden abilities.

However this move does make sense given the kind of person Cinder is. She’s a  megalomaniac. Her lust for power is what drives her. It’s what drove her to become Salem’s apprentice. It’s what drove her to kill the previous Fall Maiden and confront Raven for her power.

I’m probably going out on a limb here but it seems to me that it doesn’t matter how powerful Cinder becomes, she will always want more. I’m just waiting for the moment when Cinder becomes so obsessed by her power that she even dares to think she can dethrone Salem.

Y’know live the part of the fairy-tale princess long enough til you rise to become the evil Queen. In the fairy tale of Cinderella, our main girl was formerly a peasant, treated poorly like a slave by her own family, until she eventually became a princess when she married the prince of the kingdom. Wouldn’t be surprised if Cinder came from a peasantry upbringing too, treated like dirt and told she was nothing and would probably never amount to anything.

In an odd way, Salem is almost like the Fairy Godmother in Cinder’s story. Just like in Cinderella, the Fairy Godmother gave Cinderella the means to attend the ball where she eventually met the man of her dreams. In Cinder’s case, Salem provided her with the means so that she could pursue what she desired most---power to become someone to not be underestimated.

In an odd way, Salem even sort of resembles the Fairy God Mother in her design but that’s mostly due them sharing similarities in the shape of their attire as well as their relationship to their respective Cinderella characters. But that’s just me.

Where’s that Cinder Fall backstory that’s going to humanize her as a person and make me feel totally conflicted about  disliking her as a villain based on her past actions?

Returning to Emerald, if Cinder becomes like Salem then it would make sense for Emerald to become the next Fall Maiden. When Cinder returns, I doubt she’ll be human anymore. As a matter of fact, I think a part of Cinder did die in the Vault---the part of her that was human and connected to the Fall Maiden powers.

Here me out again on this one. So…let’s say, technically Cinder did die but what returned is a being consisting of the Geist Grimm that took full control of Cinder’s original body. This is where Salem’s training sessions with Cinder back in V4 come into play. Throughout V4, Salem groomed Cinder to seize control of the Grimm attached to her body.

You can almost say that Cinder was almost fully fused with the Geist Grimm arm by the time she fought Raven in V5. But when Raven defeated her and sent her plummeting to her doom, I think what little bit of humanity she had left in her perished and what returned was Grimm. So basically, Cinder died a human but was reborn a Grimm possessing her human form yet still retaining Cinder’s old consciousness…like Salem?

Makes sense that the Geist would fully take over Cinder’s body in the end since its power is possession. Just as much as it makes sense that Cinder would ultimately fuse completely with the Geist Grimm since that was part of her training since V4. Learning to dominate this creature and become one with it.

So I’m banking on Cinder being another Grimm-hybrid or Grimmoire or whatever they’re canonically called exactly like her mentor before her---exactly like Salem.

After all, if you eyeball the V6 official volume poster and squint at the silhouette of Cinder, you can almost see an inkling of a white hand---not as veiny as Salem’s but close enough.

What I’ve also just noticed that’s interesting is that Cinder’s silhouette is opposite from Yang on the poster. This detail intrigues me since Raven Branwen, Yang’s mother was the one who technically killed Cinder. Not to mention that Ruby Rose, Yang’s sister, is the one whose power took Cinder’s eye and was the primary cause of her turmoil following V3.

Another coincidence is that Yang and Cinder were the two characters with amputated arms that had to learn to adapt to their new limbs during the course of V4. Hmmm…I’m starting to see a parallel here.

I guess the point I’m trying to imply here is that Raven and Ruby are two characters responsible for Cinder’s downfall so for all we know, this might inspire the Fallen Maiden to suddenly change tactics and possibly target someone close to both Ruby and Raven.

And who do we is someone clearly connected to both Ruby and Raven? From watching this poster alone, my first choice would obviously be Yang. She is the closest martyr with Ruby at the moment. However, I have a second choice that could make a more impactful victim. What if… Cinder targets Tai Yang. I know this may seem impossible now since Cinder has never met Tai and is unaware of his existence as well as his ties to Ruby and Raven. But while it may seem like a long reach right now, something about the V5 Finale After Credit teaser featuring Tai just gave me a strong vibe that he could show up in V6. My hunch was that Raven teleported him to rendezvous with the heroes using her connection to Yang (or Qrow).

Not sure if he’ll just be in one scene unrelated to the overarching plot for the next season or…perhaps Tai Yang might actually show up to help the heroes towards Argus and Atlas.

Who knows? While it’d be pretty great to finally see Papa Dragon join the long journey, reuniting with both his girls and fighting alongside Qrow again just like the old days of Team STRQ. However, at the same time, putting Tai in the mix also puts him on the radar for villains like Cinder to take advantage of his association to her main adversaries as part of her revenge scheme 101.

Speaking of Cinder scoping out Tai Yang, I just remembered another coincidence. Last season, RWBY Chibi hinted at Tai and Cinder meeting each other. Yes; I know it was part of a silly skit about online dating. Yet still; as I’m making my theory, I’m starting to wonder if this was another subtle sign of things to come in the main RWBY series as told by Chibi that you wouldn’t really consider important unless you really overthink it like…well, yours truly.

…Anyways, despite this being mostly just speculation, either way…I guess what I’m mostly trying to say is that both Xiao Long Dragons better watch their backs for Cinder Fall next volume.

As for what I was saying earlier about Emerald---I actually once made a theory way back in V3 about Emerald becoming the next Fall Maiden.

Ever since the time she first fought Amber, I felt like Emerald was destined to become a Fall Maiden. Plus, it would fit into the Aladdin character that I heard Emerald is influenced by. In Aladdin, he was a street rat who survived on petty thievery until one day; he was tricked into an opportunity that allowed him to acquire a magic lamp with a genie that granted him three wishes of anything he desired.

Emerald being a nobody coming from nothing to rise to become a Maiden---with power and a purpose sounds like something I can see the CRWBY Writers doing for her. Besides, like I said. I think Emerald unintentionally becoming a Maiden would be what makes her realize that Cinder is not the woman she thought she was.

Picture this…Cinder losing hold of her Maiden powers after being defeated by Raven. Those powers then go to Emerald. Despite being overwhelmed by her newfound powers, Emerald sees this as a sign of her being important to Cinder since Maiden powers only get passed on to the next female who was in the previous Maiden’s thoughts last. Emerald will foolishly see this as a testament that Cinder loved her; like a lonely child yearning for compassion and approval from a wayward parent.

However, the crushing reality is that Cinder, obviously, did not want to give away her Maiden powers. On the contrary, the only reason she thought of Emerald in her final thoughts was because she was screaming on the inside of how much she didn’t want to lose her Maiden power, especially not to a weakling, incompetent street rat like Emerald.

To Emerald’s horror, Grimmoire Cinder will then attempt to kill her so that the Fall Maiden powers may return to her. Mercury will intervene to stop Cinder from killing Emerald only to be struck down (not killed) in the process. It is in this moment where Cinder reveals her true colours---literally taking on the same, pale, red-eyed monstrous appearance that caused Emerald to fear Salem.

Now Cinder and Salem were one and the same with all semblance of the once human Cinder Fall gone.

Witnessing the sight of the woman she once saw as family turned monster as she harmed the one other person who cared about her enough to protect her from said woman is enough to finally snap Emerald to her senses.

Emerald will realize the truth and then turn on Cinder using the very powers she stole from the former Maiden against her.

Emerald becoming a Maiden would be a fine shift in her story arc because it gives her her own purpose outside being Cinder’s pawn. Emerald was never meant to be Cinder’s disciple. But perhaps a Maiden she can be.

It makes me wonder how much different the story would’ve been if Emerald was actually discovered and made an apprentice of Amber instead of Cinder. I mean, Amber was such a kind-hearted soul that she was willing to tend to a crying child on an empty path, providing her with food as a form of comfort through her pain.

I think with a little more development and some soul searching, Emerald could become a great Fall Maiden. May even be redeemed a little. But that’s only if that’s in the cards for her side of the story.

A Friend In Me

If there is one thing I want for V6 is for Emerald and Mercury to realize that their lives can go beyond Cinder and Salem. It doesn’t matter what horrid backgrounds they came from, they can write their own future and they can do it together if they wished it.

Do you know what would be really cute? If as a parallel to Aladdin, Mercury offers Emerald three favours that he would grant her without question. So she can bug him for three things and he’ll willingly do it with zero complaints. It’s a ploy mostly done as Mercury’s way to cheer Emerald up and for the most part it works.

I like the idea of Emerald coming down to her final favour and she asks Mercury to stay by her side and never betray her and it’s a promise he’s more than willing to oblige.

I like the idea of Emerald going at Yang for revenge for Cinder but when Cinder returns and betrays her, it becomes the final straw that finally causes her to seek her own redemption.

If I’m being completely honest, I don’t see Emerald and Mercury going forward for the Atlas Arc. Since RWBY V6 will be 14 episodes long with the primary focus on our heroes reaching Argus before Atlas, I’m not sure how much we’ll see of Emerald and Mercury. I wouldn’t be surprised if these two along with Hazel are missing in action for most of V6.

My stronger hunch is that Emerald and Mercury will disappear with Hazel for V6 and that the three will be missing until a later volume or arc where their roles as villains and stories can be properly dealt with. I’d rather Mercury and Emerald fall into obscurity until the Writers are ready to give them the spotlight for development rather than rush to tell their stories for V6.

With the fact that Adam Taurus has been set up as a returning big bad with a vendetta against the Faunus who betrayed him, including Blake, I don’t expect to see much of our Jaded Duo. V6 already feels like it has its plate full with a lot of other important plot points to cover that I’m not sure how our Jaded duo will fit.

Nevertheless, the return of Cinder does have me pondering if this spells Mercury and Emerald reuniting with her or…perhaps Cinder might just pair up with someone else. Someone who shares her lust for power and revenge. Y’know…someone who had his own character short recently.

For the sake of this musing, let’s toy with the idea that Mercury and Emerald do have a set story for next season. Personally I think the Mistral Arc would’ve been a perfect place to conclude Emerald and Mercury’s stories respectively since the two were originally discovered in that particular part of Remnant, right? Correct me if I’m wrong. The same could be said for Hazel unless he’s actually from Sanus near Vale since Gretchen went to Beacon; tying into my previously mentioned theory on him.

Though I love the idea of Papa Bear Hazel becoming Emerald and Mercury’s parental guardian and he and Mercury tag teaming to protect Emerald; truth is this squiggle meister is not quite sure about Hazel’s fate. I do, however, think that his problems can be easily resolved in like one season if given proper focus.

I don’t expect three more seasons of Hazel returning…at least, not as a villain under Salem anyways. I feel as if one rematch with Oscar where the truth is realized is enough to show Hazel the error of his ways.

And even if he does still harbour some resentment towards Ozpin, by that time he would’ve gained a newer purpose which would be to aid and protect the adolescent Emerald and Mercury in the next chapter of their dual development.

If the Jaded Duo are to appear for V6, then I think this season could spell the last time we see of Mercury and Emerald (and Hazel) for a while. If there is a story for them in V6 then I hope it’s one where the two make a decision to reassess their paths and change--- something that was actually hinted at during the start of V4 when we were introduced to the volume by their shared horrified expressions at the sight of the Grimm pools in Salem’s Domain.

I don’t think Emerald and Mercury will join the good guys either. At least; not yet.

Again, if they do have a story for V6 then my theory is that once it’s wrapped up, Emerald and Mercury might drop out of the story for a while and the next time we’ll learn of their return is probably when the gang head off for Vacuo or Vale.

After all, if Emerald does become the new Fall Maiden, the group will need her on their side to open the Vault, right? So once the Atlas and Vacuo Arcs are completed, the heroes will need to find Emerald since, as the new the Fall Maiden, they will need her help.

Oh! Do you know what would be a neat idea? What if…Emerald and Mercury drop out of the main series yet, their story gets continued in book format. Y’know how we’re getting that young adult novel RWBY series featuring Team CVFY following the Fall of Beacon, right?

Picture this. What if…we got another RWBY YA that deals with the adventures of Emerald and Mercury with Hazel following the aftermath of the Triumph of Haven and their story ultimately leads them to Vacuo where they cross paths with Team CFVY.

I love this idea since the last time CFVY saw Emerald and Mercury was when their leader Cinder implemented the attack during the Vytal Festival. 

Not to mention that Yatsuhashi and Coco may share some bad blood between Emerald and Mercury from their fight during the Vytal Festival. So it’d be awesome to have CFVY reunite with Emerald, Mercury and Hazel in Vacuo in the YA novel series. Wouldn’t that be cool?

I really dig the concept of Emerald and Mercury along with Hazel spending some time away from everything---starting life anew. Out in the deserts of Vacuo, I bet finding people won’t be easy, right? So I think at the end of V6 (or whenever the CRWBY Writers decide to tackle their stories), Mercury and Emerald may chose to venture towards the desert sands of Vacuo with Hazel accompanying them.

After all, according to World of Remnant, the law of Vacuo is that if you’re able to survive the harsh conditions of the kingdom then you’re more than welcome to live amongst its people regardless of your background.

So basically, Vacuo sounds like the perfect place for a fresh start, especially for a former street rat and thief turned Maiden, the son of an ex-assassin and an ex-avenger freed from his rage. Am I right? I want this because it’s a compelling way to redeem all three of these characters while giving them a bigger purpose that will make even greater sense in the long run when the heroes head off to Vacuo. But then again, this is only my hunch.

Jaded Thoughts

I’ll be real. This squiggle meister definitely ships Mercury and Emerald or Jaded as you guys call them. I’ve shipped them ever since their debut back in V2. But between Emerald’s devotion to Cinder and her moments of annoyance at Mercury’s childishness, I was never quite certain if making them a couple would be a direction the writers saw them going in, y’know?

I wouldn’t mind a romance forming between them though. But I’d imagine that Jaded is something that’ll move like a slow building fire. I think at the moment a little romance is the last thing on either teenager’s minds. But take away the tension and push these two in a scenario where they’re able to learn more about one another and understand the other, I think something beyond just their usual partnership due to circumstance can form.

I can see Emerald learning to trust in Mercury as someone she can rely on besides Cinder and Mercury can have someone to care about besides himself and show that he’s capable of something his father wasn’t---basic human compassion. I really hope they touch base on Mercury’s backstory for the next part of his growth. Now would be the right moment for the show to do it as the story is still in Mistral and Emerald and Mercury seem to be residents of the area.

Perhaps they’ll even revisit Mercury’s old home in the mountains. Perhaps we’ll get to hear more about Emerald’s background before she met Cinder. Same with Hazel. I wanna know more about his ties to Ozpin and their whole history involving Gretchen.

Anima is a big place. It’s a chance to learn more about each of these three villains. Giving us a nice little villain’s journey if they will. So I sincerely hope the writers did take a chance with this for Emerald and Mercury’s stories. If not for V6 then perchance later when the timing is right.  

Emerald and Mercury already work seamlessly together in combat. Now what needs to be taken care of is all the mushy stuff like sharing feelings and whatnot. Similar to my other RWOTP RoseGarden, I think Jaded could work if left to properly build up and grow into something meaningful to both partners in the pairing.

Fortunately Jaded already had a head start from V2 and as V3 implied, Emerald and Mercury have been together for some good time. So I’m hoping V6 or another volume will eventually bring it all home with both teens realizing that the one person they have left in the world now is each other (with Papa Bear Hazel to protect them too of course).

If a deep romance forged from a comforting and reliant relationship between two former villains is destined for the long haul of RWBY then that’s a love story that this squiggle meister is more than game for that. Bring it.

 So to conclude…

And…that’s all folks!

Nothing much left to be said beyond that. I believe I’ve more or less covered every theory I had on the Jaded Duo. Even tossed in a few bonus hunches on Cinder Fall and Hazel Rainart for you too.

Overall, I hope this helps answer your questions Mojo and anon-chan. Again, apologies that this took so long. But for the most part, I hope you both enjoyed the theories and points I shared in this musing. Let me know what you guys think.

That being said, this is the last of my backlog of musings from months ago. Thank you guys so much for your patience. Next up is my 50th musing post. Jeez, can you believe I made fifty of these already? Well…technically fifty; not counting the ones I made on Chibi, my remarks and quotes XD

Anywhozzits, @parrot-with-a-mohawk, the musing post with my response to your musing post is up next. So stay tune for that fam! See you guys in the next post.

More Squiggles’ RWBY Content

~LittleMissSquiggles (2018)

[philipfloyd]

What to Do When Your Website Ends Up in Google’s Omitted Results

Did you know that Google doesn’t show all your pages in the search results, even though they have the potential to rank high? Yeah, that’s right! Your page is eligible to rank high, but doesn’t get displayed in the searches.

  These are called omitted results and, although they aren’t something to freak out about, they can sometimes become a little bit of a pain. If your website is listed in Google’s omitted results, almost nobody will ever see it. Fortunately, there are some things you can do in order to get it out of there. 

    What are omitted results?

Omitted Results for Domains That Are Already Ranking

Omitted Results for Domains That Are Not Already Ranking

Why Does Google Omit Results from the Search?

The Right Way to Make Omitted Results Reappear in the Search

Check Your Website’s Architecture

Improve Your Content and OnPage SEO

301 redirects or rel=”canonical” meta tags

Multiple Locations/Languages

How NOT to Fix Omitted Results

  We’ve seen some really bad information out there, so keep reading if you don’t want to completely destroy your rankings while trying to get your web page out of the omitted results! However, before we can diagnose the problem and fix it, we have to understand what omitted results are and why they exist.

  What Are Omitted Results?

  Omitted results are search results that are excluded from Google’s search pages in order to provide a better user experience.

  These results usually provide information that is very similar to the information in another result that has already been displayed. They could be classified as duplicate content, but not necessarily.

  They could also be classified as a defense mechanism against people trying to abuse the system and rank multiple pages on the same keyword. This technique would be a sort of reverse doorway pages, since doorway pages usually try to rank for multiple, different keywords.

  To see omitted results you have to click until the last page of Google (for that particular query). This will basically tell Google ‘I haven’t found what I was searching for’ and Google will provide you with the omitted results message:

    If you decide to repeat the search with the omitted results included, Google will display the first results page again, but this time you will be able to find some extra websites/pages around there.

  I can recall seeing this omitted results message on previous pages in the past, but during my tests I wasn’t able to find an example. It’s probably not the case anymore. Sometimes, when you’re an SEO, you don’t know what’s real and what isn’t anymore.

    There are two common scenarios where results might be omitted:

  Omitted Results for Domains That Are Already Ranking

  These are the kind of omitted results you probably worry less about. They occur when you have multiple pages addressing the same topic. Let’s say you have 3 forum pages about Tesla’s new Falcon Heavy rocket. They all pretty much cover the same topic, but have been posted by 3 different users. Google will basically have to choose which page is best, display that and omit the rest.

  This doesn’t sound too bad, as you’re already ranking with one page at the top. Sure, it would be nice to cover multiple spots, but hey, at least you have one top position.

  The problem, however, becomes a little bit more serious when you have thousands of pages all competing for the same keywords. If the number of pages competing for the same keyword starts getting really big, then Google might have trouble deciding what to show.

  It’s a known fact that if you make a search engine’s job easier, it will repay you with rankings, so reducing the number of irrelevant pages is always a good idea.

  If you want to display more than one result here, you’ll have to create two very different pages, providing a lot of value, with pretty much different titles and content, but still relevant to the topic. It’s not easy, is it? As there isn’t a guarantee that you’ll rank both, I’d spend my time building content to rank for other keywords.

  Omitted Results for Domains That Are Not Already Ranking

  Although I wasn’t able to find an example (more on that later), this is the true reason why this question actually pops up: You build a website or a page, only to find that your website only shows up in the omitted results.

  Well, it might just be that your content is either very similar to the other ones that are already ranking, or that it doesn’t bring anything new to the table.

  “But if the content is very similar, why is this happening to me? Why aren’t other websites shown in the omitted results and mine in the real results?”

  Well, this has probably something to do with the domain age. Being a pioneer has always been hard, but when you make it, you succeed big time.

  I don’t want to be dull, but the truth is you’ll have to provide a lot more value in order to get out of the omitted results.

You can’t just put a website out there and expect Google to rank it on top.

For this, you need to work. That’s what SEO is. If you want to get to the top really quick, you’ll have to advertise. If you’ve been copying the content, don’t even bother trying any other tricks. They won’t work!

  Why Does Google Omit Results from the Search?

  As I previously said, Google omits results in order to provide the user with the best possible experience. I know this is a little bit broad, but don’t worry, because I’ll explain everything in more detail.

  Everything started with a lot of users complaining about Google pages returning a lot of results from the same domains, making the search experience a pretty bad one.

 In the following video, Matt Cutts (former Head of Spam @ Google) is trying to explain why Google sometimes shows multiple results from the same domain:

    In another video (which is a little bit older by the look of Matt’s hair color), Matt tries to explain how this actually works and how it has evolved over time. It seems like they’ve tested out every possibility until they reached a conclusion:

    One thing is clear: users didn’t like to see a lot of results from the same domain, so they complained about it and Google had to do something about it.

  For example, searching for ‘cheese calories’ in Romanian brings up 4 results from the same domain ranking up top, and then the results change. However, performing this search with the omitted results included only brings results from a single domain:

    This is because that website has separate pages for different types of cheese, which makes them all compete with the query ‘cheese calories’. Wouldn’t the second results be a little bit disturbing for a user to see? It looks just like as that website hacked Google into ranking it everywhere.

  Although it might seem that Google applied a clear limit on how many results from the same domain name can be shown in Google for a query, John Mueller (current Head of Spam @ Google) previously stated that there is no such limit:

  There's no hard limit on # of times a site can appear in a search results page set.

— John ☆.o(≧▽≦)o.☆ (@JohnMu) May 23, 2017

  Even if there is no limit, it’s clear that Google has been making efforts to not show the same domain over and over again when someone searches for something. Even Matt’s example in the video, regarding Hewlett Packard, fails to apply. Searching for ‘HP’ returns their primary domain, their Facebook page, a Wikipedia page and some news reports (all different domains). However, there are cases, like the one above with the calories, in which multiple listings from the same domain will be present.

  In the end, it seems like the more pages you rank on a search query with the same domain, the harder it gets for another page from the same domain to rank on that query.

  Testing this became really hard because, apparently, Google doesn’t always let you access the last page for a result. It’s probably an anti-spam measure, but that often left me frustrated, with broken Google pages in front of me.

  What I’ve noticed during my tests is that although the warning message only shows up on the last page, the omitted results aren’t necessarily the last ones to be shown.

  What does this mean?

  It means that pages that are omitted from the search results can actually ‘rank’ higher than the ones that are already shown, but they are removed from the search before the results page gets displayed.

  For example, if we had the following results, A, B, C and D, ranking in that exact order on the first page, then a result page with omitted results would display results A, B and D. Result C should be ranking higher than result D but, because of the fact that it’s very similar to website B (and probably a little bit less optimized, too), it disappears completely.

  Although omitted results are usually pages from domains already ranking, it’s possible that a result will get omitted even if its domain isn’t already ranking with another page. This basically leaves you with no position in Google, drifting into the unknown, somewhere so far away that even the last page of Google would be better.

  It’s highly probable that absolutely every search on Google omits some results. Due to the fact that there are millions of pages out there that might be targeting a certain topic, it’s impossible for Google to show them all. It would be useless anyway, as most users don’t even go past page two of Google.

  There are many factors that can lead to your results being omitted, but the general idea is that your result, although relevant for the query, has already been covered by another already ranking result.

  Google’s official statement on this is very exact and seems really simple to fix: just change the title and meta description and you’re done!

    However, I’m going to bust that right away and prove that things aren’t that simple. Here’s an example for the search “how to deal with addiction”. The left side shows the regular search, while the right side shows the search with the omitted results included:

    From what I can see, the first two results are very similar, while the third one is actually pretty different. Still, it has been omitted in the first search. I know it might not be the most relevant, but it definitely provides more information than the first two, which are pretty much the same thing.

  This proves that Google might not always get it right and that getting out of the omitted results space might not be at a change of a title away.

  Almost all cases of omitted results have something to do with duplicate content. All other SEO factors (such as page speed and backlinks) may play a role, but if the content really deserves to be there, Google will show it, even if it takes 2-3 seconds longer to load.

  The Right Way to Make Omitted Results Reappear in the Search

  First of all, consider that there are multiple ways your data can get unlisted from Google. Make sure this is not an indexation issue, by checking if your page is indexed. You can perform a Fetch and Render from the Google Search Console to tell Google to index your page.

  Also, remember that the best cure to an illness is always prevention. Check these tips prior to building a website or a new page, as once your results have been omitted, it will be harder to get them out of there.

  1. Check Your Website’s Architecture

  You site’s architecture might lead to duplicate content issues, which will eventually force Google to omit search results from your website. Preventing this from happening can help you rank higher, as Google will appreciate you fixing these issues for it.

  A common example is a hierarchy of categories and products, where products can be found in multiple categories. This will create different URLs with the same content, all competing for the same keywords. An easy fix would be placing the products in a separate subfolder such as /products/. This is also applicable to articles and blog categories. If you know your article is going to be found in multiple categories, it’s better to insert it’s URL slug right after the root domain instead of hierarchizing it after the categories.

  Most CMS do this on their own, but custom platforms might encounter such situations.

  If the pages are totally irrelevant, you may choose to remove them, block them from being indexed through the robots.txt file or mark them with a no-index meta tag. However, many of these pages might still have useful backlinks pointing to them, so it would be a far better idea to 301 redirect them to relevant locations, or use the rel=”canonical” meta tag to display the preferred page in the Google search results.

  2. Improve Your Content and OnPage SEO

  This is especially important if you’re not ranking with another page. It means that Google might think you’re just a copy-cat of already existing content.

  A really good way of creating unique and robust content is by using the cognitiveSEO Keyword Tool & Content Assistant. The tool will provide you with interesting topics to add to your content in order to make it more relevant for a specific query.

    Instead of writing new content on the same topic, consider improving old content with fresh information. This will maximize the potential to rank and reduce the chances of having duplicate content issues.

  If you can’t really come up with something new in regards to content, then focus on improving the user’s experience through better site navigation, design and loading speed. You might not think so, but a theme can affect your On Page SEO big time. Make sure you fix all technical issues and try to identify all sorts of gaps in your competition’s websites that you can cover.

  3. 301 redirects or rel=”canonical” meta tags

  If you have a lot of pages that don’t provide much value to the website and you simply don’t need them anymore, you can 301 those to the most relevant locations. This way they will pass the link equity, if they had any.

  A good example would be a very large website, with a huge amount of posts. At some point, it is inevitable that some topics will come up again and again. When too many articles are on the same topic, Google might start getting confused about which article from your website to show and choose instead to omit these articles from the search results. You could obviously delete some articles, but those articles actually have social shares and maybe even backlinks pointing back to your website.

  You might also have pages that you want to be accessible from the website’s navigation, sidebar, footer or content, but don’t necessarily intend to rank them. These pages are very similar, but also different in some way. They are still relevant to your users when they navigate the website, but you don’t want them to be the ones to rank in Google. You can use the rel=”canonical” meta tag to tell Google which version to show in the search results. Using the canonical tag is like combining two pages into a single page in the search results.

  4. Multiple Locations/Languages

  Although this is still a duplicate content issue, the fix for it is rather different. It actually has nothing to do with multiple languages (because it requires a single language in order to happen), but it does have something to do with the hreflang meta tag.

  Assume you have a product and you’re selling it in different regions. All these regions are English speaking regions, but the product pages are slightly different, therefore you have multiple pages with similar content:

  domain.com/region1

domain.com/region2

domain.com/region3

etc.

  The only difference in the titles for these pages will be the region. In order to prevent them from getting into the omitted results, make sure you properly add the hreflang meta tag. The hreflang meta tag will tell Google which page to show in which region. This way, Google will know exactly where to show each version, instead of having to figure it out all on its own.

  The hreflang will look something like this: 

  <link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en-us” href=”http://domain.com/region1” />

<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en-gb” href=”http://domain.com/region2” />

<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en-au” href=”http://domain.com/region3” />

  How NOT to Fix Omitted Results

  I’ve seen some articles out there that say that you should get rid of the omitted results, as if they were a cancer for your website. Well… that’s not actually true. At least not entirely. Those articles tell you to identify omitted results by searching your domain with the ‘site’ operator. The search would look like this in our case:

  site:cognitiveseo.com

  After you search, you will be presented with a list of all your pages that have been indexed by Google. Then, you need to reach the last page of Google, where the omitted results warning message usually appears. By comparing the results, you’ll be able to spot the ‘bad pages’.

  The tutorial then suggests that you delete the results that have been omitted from your website.

  I don’t think this is a good idea. While the results have been omitted, this is obviously something that’s happening for this specific query. Although this indicates that you have some duplicate/near duplicate content on your website, that doesn’t mean you should delete it.

  This is something similar to the content pruning technique. While this might be useful for a website with a billion irrelevant and unused pages, in our case, here at cognitiveSEO, pruning the content didn’t have much of an impact.

  Although content pruning won’t harm you in any way, identifying these pages with the method above isn’t a good idea. What if the omitted results are the ones that are actually more relevant to other specific queries? You’ll be deleting important pages this way.

  Instead, use the method posted above and merge your content into a single more relevant piece by using 301 redirect or the rel=”canonical” meta tag. While the omitted results might not rank for the search ‘site:yourwebsite.com’, they might rank very well for other keywords. I’ll explain:

  Let’s say that page A and page B both target keyword no. 1.

Unfortunately, page B get’s opted out and only shows in the omitted results for query no. 1.

Page A still ranks very well on keyword no. 1.

However, page B is also targeting keyword no. 2 through its content, while page A doesn’t. Keyword no. 1 has a lot more search volume, but keyword no. 2 also brings in a little bit of traffic.

  Does deleting the page sound like a good idea now? Not so much, right?

  Deleting omitted results from your website isn’t a very good idea. The results are omitted for a particular query, but might rank for other queries.

  By using the canonical tag, you can tell Google that when someone searches for keyword no. 2, you want page A to show instead of page B. This makes sense, since the content of page B is already ranking. Using a 301 redirect is also a better solution than deleting the page completely because it will pass the link equity to page A. However, with a 301, page no. 2 will pretty much get deindexed so no page will be ranking for keyword no. 2 anymore. Use a 301 only if the page isn’t actually ranking well for any keywords.

  Conclusion

  Omitted results aren’t always something to freak out about, but they can indicate a growing issue on your website. You should deal with it as soon as possible by improving the quality of your content and making sure that you don’t write about the same topic over and over again. It’s always a better idea to improve old content rather than to build more mediocre content.

  Have you had any experience with omitted results? If yes, have you managed to get out of there, or are your results still drowning? Let us know in the comments and maybe we can do something to help!

  The post What to Do When Your Website Ends Up in Google’s Omitted Results appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.

from Marketing https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/17778/google-omitted-results/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[antonychaffey-blog]

Some Fantastic 60h Birthday Presents And Ideas

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Because all equipping producers can prep the components separately and pack all of them in to a convinient prepared to assemble package is actually a brilliant method to conserve expenses, transportation as well as storage. The modern-day round brilliant contains 58 features (or even 57 if the culet is actually excluded), normally today cut in 2 pyramids put foundation to base: Thirty Three on royalty (the leading one-half above the mid or girdle from the stone), abbreviated fairly near its bottom due to the table, and also 25 on the canopy (the lesser half below the girdle), which has just the peak trimmed to constitute the culet, around which 8 added elements are actually often incorporated.