#again i have no malice against the character the ship or the creators doing really fascinating things with them | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

im-the-punk-who · 4 years ago

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Hi! I’m new to the fandom and I’m simply curious (not trying to start a feud or anything), why don’t you like Steinberg?

Hello dear anon! And welcome to the fandom!

Oof. That’s a question. xD

I’m going to try and stay as uh. neutral as possible. Because I’ve already written the post I know I failed but, the intent in answering this is also not to start a feud or hurt anyone’s feelings.

Okay, so I got fairly negative in this chilis tonight, so I want to start by saying that even in light of the opinions I’m about to express, Black Sails is one of, if not my number one, favorite TV shows of all time. Certainly in recent memory - I’ve been hyperfixating on this show for 18 months with no sign of stopping, and I have a tremendous amount of respect for everyone who worked on the show - even Steinberg. (The one exclusion is Michael Bay, he can go twist.)

AND I think Stienberg is an incredibly talented writer. Black Sails is one of my favorite shows because it does such a wonderful job of weaving stories, creating characters, and melding things in a way that is both unexpected and makes sense narratively. I have changed as a person because of the show, and they will have to pry James McGraw and Thomas Hamilton from my cold dead knives-attached-to-them hands. None of what I’m going to say is meant to detract from that.

I will also say that a lot of these issues are not particular to Steinberg and are in fact a systemic problem with American TV + Film. And I’m not leaving Robert Levine out of my criticism, it’s just that Steinberg had the biggest hand in the pot(he wrote a full half the episodes) and a lot of what I’ve heard as far as talking about the show comes from Steinberg. So, he gets the brunt. But it isn’t that I think Steinberg was the only problematic element of the show.

Also, these are all my opinions and are colored by how I interact with my fandoms. I am not only a fandom veteran, but I work and pretty much live in the entertainment industry. I work in indie film and theatre and am surrounded by artists and creators of all walks of life, like, constantly. I know what is possible, and when I see something that can be improved, I want to note it because it is important to me to always be striving forward. Like Miranda says about Thomas, this isn’t out of malice, or out of hate. It’s because I genuinely love this show, and I love entertainment as a whole, and I think in order to get to a better, more inclusive industry we have to have hard conversations and look critically at the media we consume, and it is frustrating to me to time and again see the same faces in the room.

But if that isn’t your cuppa, that’s fine! Fandom isn’t meant to be stressful and if all you want to do is watch a show about gay pirates that is your tomato and I applaud you. Have at it you funky motherfucker.

OH! One more. At some point I’m going to talk about Silverflint. When I do, it is NOT meant as a ‘you shouldn’t/cant ship this’ or ‘this pairing is bad’ or any negative attack on the people who ship that pairing. My criticisms in this post are exclusively about what it means for Steinberg as a writer and Black Sails’ representation of gay and mlm men. While it’s not my cuppa, this is a sail your own ship blog.

OKAY! SO!

My main criticisms of Steinberg & Co boil down to:

The homozygosity of the writers and directors shows a complete lack of desire to include marginalized people in the writing of a show that is about them. Which leads to:

The centering of white men while choosing a historical setting and time period that was in fact dominated by people of color and specifically a black woman,

The gratuitous inclusion of violence against women, particularly sexual violence, and again, that the female characters are often sidelined for the central male characters.

SO.

Black Sails is a show centered around queer, female, and black leads, and yet there were only two non white-male directors (one bi-racial man and one white woman) and only 7 female writers - one of whom was Latina. The entire rest of the major creative staff was white men. I’m not going to comment on sexualities but none of the writers or directors are out as queer according to a quick google search.

Let me reiterate the important bit there.

In Black Sails, where the last two seasons specifically feature around a real, actually-happened-in-history event that shaped black history in the Caribbean, there was not a single black writer on the entire show.

This is the main difference between inclusion for inclusion’s sake, and actually centering marginalized voices. Black Sails has a ton of gay, POC, and female rep in front of the camera but practically zero representation behind it, which leads to storylines and implications that Steinberg and his writers, as white men, simply would never realize.

It’s like why Silver and Miranda never realized the true reasons James was waging war on England. They just did not have the life experiences to realize they were missing a piece of the puzzle, and so they filled in their own without even realizing they’d done so.

Because no one in the room of Black Sails was a part of these marginalized identities, nuances get lost or mistranslated, motivations get muddled through a white man’s gaze(or a straight person’s) and implications that someone within those communities might think is obvious won’t even come up.

And again, because there were no writers or directors of color in the last two seasons (the biracial man directed episodes 2x02 and 2x04 - WHICH MAKES SENSE IMO) the entirety of the historical lore that the show bases itself on in its latter half is filtered through a white man’s lens. And so there is no discussion of how changing something changes the meaning, how leaving someone out or changing their role to be more minor might affect people for whom that is their heritage. How the entire story they’re telling might change with one simple exclusion or addition.

So, how does this relate directly to Steinberg, you ask? Well, simply, because it was his show.

Steinberg(and Levine) were involved in every major decision about the show, from its conception, to the script, to choosing the writers and directors. They chose how they wanted the show to look, to think, what stories to tell and how they wanted to tell them. Their decisions(and the biases that formed those decisions) are woven into the show.

And look. I don’t for a second believe any of this was willful or malicious. I don’t think that John Steinberg and Robert Levine sat down one day and said ‘you know what would make the gays really angry? If we locked the only two canonically gay men up in a prison camp.’

But the decisions that were made in the show were based in ignorance in a way that shows more than just simple negligence or laziness(especially given the attention to detail in everything else). The things they leave out or change in the Maroon War plotline for instance are not small details easily missed. They are big, giant waving flags. They are things that are irreplaceable to still have the same events and stories and tell them respectfully.

It shows an insane amount of privilege to, for instance, write a show airing during a time when the Black Lives Matter movement was at the forefront of the American conscience, include black characters and black storylines, and yet not include a single black voice on their creative team.

In a show that centers a gay man’s love and his journey in attempting to process the horrible things done to him and his lover because of it, we are given just forty minutes of the entire show dedicated to their relationship - and just fifteen of those minutes actually feature the lover!

(Relatedly, the entirety of the gay romantic rep is two kisses, and a forehead touch. That’s the entirety of your gay intimacy representation. And yet there are in the first two seasons alone - because that’s all I’ve clocked so far - something like twenty seven minutes of scenes involving a naked or half naked woman. Five minutes of that is explicitly wlw sex.

Again, I just want to reiterate this because it’s important in recognizing bias.

There is fully twice as much female nudity in the first two seasons, as the entirety of the time the two gay characters have together on screen. )

Steinberg is a perfect example of how a lack of understanding why the diversity you are representing is important, matters. I dislike Steinberg because he, just like every other straight white cis man I have known, profited off of marginalized voices without including them or creating with them in mind.

Art does not exist in a vacuum. You cannot create something - especially something as back breakingly, intensely a labor of love as Black Sails - without putting several pieces of yourself into it. But those pieces color your narrative. They will expose things about you that you don’t even realize. And it’s in these places we are weakest, and why a diverse group of writers with a diverse group of experiences can help a piece be stronger. But for whatever reason, John Steinberg thought that he could make art with only people who looked and thought and experienced like him.

The lack of representation behind the camera in Black Sails was evident in front of it and yet Steinberg is out here getting to pretend like he created the most inclusive groundbreaking show that ever existed. It is important to me, personally, to acknowledge that. And that it kind of makes my skin crawl in the way all media made by straight white (cis)men makes my skin crawl. I wish I didn’t have to feel that way about my favorite tv show just because it was created by a man of privilege, but here we are.

SO. I hope that helped? Feel free to take what you want and leave what you don’t!

Below the cut is a more in depth look at things that I think show what I’m talking about, but that up there ^^ is the gist. <3 |D

SURPRISE!

The Maroons and the Maroon War

So the first thing I want to point out is that the Maroon War was a real thing that happened. It lasted ten years, and resulted in the most substantial victory the Maroons ever achieved against the British. Not only that, there was in fact a KICKIN’ badass female leader of the maroons named Queen Nanny, who is to this day honored as a national hero in Jamaica. While they weren’t able to drive the British out, the outcome of this war led to a mostly self-governing Maroon population in Jamaica from the mid 1700s on. This was a long term fight that had a very tangible and real outcome, even if it didn’t end in the destruction of colonialism.

And what is this war turned into in Black Sails? A white ‘madman’s revenge’ that is doomed to failure after six months.

That, my dear pirates, is a problem for me. (And those familiar with my brand of spiceyness know that I do not ascribe to the ‘Flint is a Madman’ trope, but that IS what Steinberg ascribes to, what he seems to have written the show thinking.)

There was no narrative reason to include the Maroon War in the narrative of Black Sails. The Maroon War didn’t happen until a decade after the Golden Age of Piracy, and aside from Silver’s wife being a black woman there is no mention of Silver ever having contact with them. To me, this feels like the choice of a showrunner who found a cool historical event and saw a chance to up the stakes of their white male heroes while getting in some sweet sweet POC rep.

Except that they then took the major events of the Maroon War and gave them to their white characters, Flint and Silver.

Here’s the thing. If you’re going to take a piece of culturally important history and use it for your show, you NEED to have sensitivity writers. You need to have people who are at least familiar with those events and who care about them to do them justice. Have an expert come in and read your script or go over your ideas. Or just like. Hire a black writer. Hire ONE black writer. As a treat.

The important Maroon figures, Nanny, Cudjoe, and Quao, all get sidelined or ‘sexified’ and then used as plot points for the white characters. Nanny gets split into two women - the older mother queen and Madi, the young naive warbent visionary. Quao(Mr. Scott is the closest, or Kofi possibly) gets killed off because the writers realized they didn’t exactly have a place for him in their writing. Cudjoe(Julius) gets a few scenes and one good speech but his entire role in the war gets given to Silver. And THEN. That sexy Queen Madi figure gets used as emotional bait for Silver and then has to learn he has betrayed her and destroyed the hope and freedom she had wanted to bring to her people.

Gross, pirates. Gross.

Anne Bonny/Max/Mary Read - a heads up, this section includes a semi in-depth discussion of both Max and Anne’s sexual assaults. If that bothers you, the paragraphs talking about that begin with a ***

COOL NOW LET’S TALK ABOUT LESBIANS. Words my 20 year old self would never have imagined coming out of my mouth.

Specifically, I want to talk about Max, and Anne, and their backstories both involving extreme sexual trauma at the hands of men. And then Mary Read and the once again sexification of female characters.

(Actually while I’m here another criticism I have of Steinberg is that his writing does not seem to recognize how queer people existed in the past - again, likely because he didn’t have any gay historians to be like ‘actually buddy that doesn’t make sense also why is Anne not dressing as a man? If you want to fuck with anything and insert modern day terminology and ideas into this show, make her non binary and REALLY piss off the hetties.’)

(This same ficitonal gay dramaturg who is definitely not me has also questioned John Steinberg repeatedly about where Mary Read is, unsatisfied with the answer ‘well we wanted her to be hot so we made her a sex worker and then had Anne have to rescue her but then we realized it would be weird not to include her actual character so we gave her a five second cameo at the very end of the series and also made her like 13.’)

Anyway! So my main point in bringing up Anne and Max is the sexual trauma they are exposed to in the show, particularly being that they are the two primary wlw in the show, who Steinberg has said he views as being completely gay, and what THAT whole unexamined idea looks like.

***Max. My dear Max. There was literally no reason to have her be repeatedly r*ped(and for the love of god there was even less reason to make it that gratuitous and graphic). Max being assaulted like that did not add anything to the gravity of Eleanor’s betrayal. The traumatic event was being tossed aside by Eleanor, and that could have been just as emotionally damaging without the sexual assault. And the only reason for her to be continually assaulted was to bring her and Anne together.

***The reason imo that Max’s r*pe plot was added was because it was the only thing these white straight men could come up with that felt emotionally damaging enough to them. The act of betrayal itself wasn’t enough, the act of being thrown away, of having a lover put your life in danger because of her own ambitions wasn’t enough, they needed her to be r*ped to really drive home the point.

***Anne, on the other hand, is never shown being sexually abused, but we are given an explicit account of her own traumatic history and how Jack saved her from this vile beast who was passing her around to his friends.

But here’s the thing pirates - that never happened. According to every account we have of Anne Bonny, she chose her husband, and married him against her father’s wishes. They were probably relatively happy until her husband started being a pirate spy and Anne started cheating on him with Jack.

And yes, when they were found out. Her husband had her beat. That’s not fucking cool, and if they really wanted to go the damsel in distress route they still could have had Jack ‘save’ her from that. But at no point was she sexually abused by her husband(at least not in any accounts I’ve read.)

You know who did likely sexually abuse her or at least manipulate her and Mary for his own benefit? If you guessed our Rat man Jack Rackham, you would be correct, because when he found out about Mary and Anne’s (supposed, but probably real) relationship, it’s implied he extorted both of them into fucking him to keep their secret from the crew.

The addition of sexual abuse to Anne’s past isn’t done to be true to her character and was in fact explicitly untrue. Now of course I don’t know the reasons why they chose to do this, but I can guess. Just as with Max, the most traumatic thing a male writer can think of for a female character is for them to be sexually abused.

And the most disturbing part of this to me? The parallels it has to the real world of why straight men think lesbians exist. These characters who would be called man haters in present day are given these incredibly traumatic man-centered histories. It brings up something very uncomfortable in me about particularly wlw sexuality being viewed as a reaction to trauma at the hands of men. It’s just gross, I dont like it, and honestly there is no fucking excuse for it besides a room full of white straight men writing this bullshit. A room that Steinberg chose, because they fit his ideas.

In Fact heck, the women of Black Sails in general

***I honestly struggle to think of a single female character who I think was treated fairly in Black Sails. Miranda and Eleanor are killed for taking sides and not understanding their partners, Madi is betrayed in the worst way possible, Max is given a pseudo empowering ending but has that fucking terrible start. Idelle ends off fairly well, but tied to a man she may or may not have any actual feelings for, in what is essentially a political marriage. And Anne has her entire identity tied to a man who will be dead in two years as she is robbed of any agency whatsoever without him. (Oh, and the whole r*pe thing. And also her support for Max’s r*pe or death until she started having fee-fees. Who wrote this stuff. >_>)

Even though the characterization of each and every one of these women is PHENOMENAL - and again I will repeat that I absolutely LOVE these characters as they exist in a vacuum. I think they are well rounded, real, feeling people given motivations and drives and FEELINGS and they SHOW THEIR ANGER and i LOVE THEM.

But the show punishes them for it. Miranda is essentially fridged to move Flint’s storyline along, and to make room for Silver. Eleanor is killed for the emotional damage it will cause Rogers. Madi is placed at the center of a conflict she explicitly says she is willing to die for and then not only is her entire cause taken from her, but when she tells Silver to fuck off he - in possibly the most predictable white man move ever - says ‘no i will stay until you change your mind. I will never leave you. I don’t care about your choice in this matter, I will wait forever for you. I’m your biggest fan. I’ll follow you until you love me. papa, - paparazzi.’

And I touched on this before, but I want to talk in more detail about what is possibly my hottest take to date, the sexification of Mary Read and Queen Nanny, as they are presented in the show.

Max is to Anne what Mary Read is, historically. She is the lover that Jack Rackham discovers with Anne, and then he joins them in their bed. They form a triumvirate that upholds Jack at the expense of the women. But for some reason, Steinberg didn’t want to just include Mary Read as an actual character. For some reason he needed to make Anne’s love interest a sex worker who was in need of saving (and who, coincidentally, we never see working the brothel after she becomes lovers with Anne, because she is now a madam. :) Gross.)

And Madi. My dear sweet fucking Madi who didn’t fucking deserve any of this bullshit send tweet.

So, historically, Queen Nanny was the Queen, spiritual advisor, and the military tactician of the Windward Maroons. She would have filled both Madi and the Queen’s character roles(and Flint’s, but who’s counting. A BLACK GAY LEAD? Inconceivable. I digress.) But, I guess, because they were wishy-washing with Silver’s sexuality or felt they needed to give him a female love interest because of Treasure Island, or because they were leaning a bit too hard into the gay shit and needed to backpedal, they took Queen Nanny and split her into a character who is for all intents and purposes powerless in the war and Madi, who is young and naive and does not have any real world experience outside of the Maroon camp.

Because that’s sexy, or something. They could have had the Maroon Queen be a fucking badass lady who works and fights alongside Flint and Silver and one ups them and teaches them shit and has her own ideas about where the British can stick it, but instead they made her into the perfect caricature of a female monarch, letting the big strong men handle the dirty work or something. Because white male power fantasies.

Just let women be powerful and not nubile and let them have character arcs over fucking thirty and let them be CENTERED in their own. fucking. narratives.

God damnit Steinberg.

James Flint, mlm extraordinaire

Oh, my love. My most amazing child. The light of my life. My purest cinnamon roll.

~~And now we’ve come to the dreaded Silverflint criticism part of our programming. Please please know and remember this isn’t a criticism of people who ship Silverflint. As I said up top, Your Tomato Is Not My Tomato and that’s cool. Please don’t take this next part as an attack on Silverflint as a fandom ship.~~

My criticism of Steinberg as it relates to Flint is related to:

What a romantic/sexual relationship with Silver being the basis of the tension and plot means for Flint in particular as a gay or mostly mlm man.

Refusing to confirm Thomas and James being alive at the end and honestly the whole finale in general but like I’ll try and focus.

The major problem I have with Silver and Flint being coded as in love with each other is the implications there in terms of gay men’s relationships to other men.

From every corner, men are inundated with the idea that any close relationship between them must be gay. That intimacy cannot exist unless there are sexual feelings involved. That a relationship cannot be close, deep and soul shattering and life altering, unless one guy secretly(or not so secretly) wants to bone the other dude. That two men cannot value each other as partners or friends or truly know each other unless they are gay.

Seeing both of the meaningful relationships Flint forms with other men be sexually coded feels a bit the same way as Anne and Max’s sexual assault plotlines does vis-a-vis being wlw. (Even with Gates, Flint never spoke about Thomas or his plans - Silver is absolutely the closest person to Flint besides Thomas and Miranda.) And this is just as true for Silver. Having both Flint and Madi - the two people he trusts - both be people he’s in love with also just feels. I don’t know.

It feels like a confusion between male intimacy and male love that is so so familiar to me as a gay man I could choke on it. Where they wanted these men to have a deep and really lasting connection, but could only figure out how to do it if they were in love. Friendship wouldn’t have been enough - only romantic and sexual love is enough for the gay man(or men, at all).

Just because it isn’t queerbaiting doesn’t mean it’s good rep, and I would have liked to see truly deep male friendships that did not center on sexual attraction - particularly for Flint as a confirmed mlm(and Silver too, if you’re counting him. The same arguments for why I dislike Flint being paired with Silver are also true in the reverse.)

Even if both Flint and Silver were confirmed mlm I still would have LOVED to see a platonic relationship between them. In fact I would have loved that EVEN MORE. Men! Who fuck men! Not needing to fuck each other to be important to one another! Who made this. Very delicious.

But because there weren’t any queer writers on the show, writers who understand this kind of struggle that gay and mlm men face, they thought ‘oh, let’s also have them be in love with each other. More gay rep is better gay rep, right?’ False. THOUGHTFUL gay rep is better gay rep.

Okay and here’s my last thing. The fact that Steinberg refuses to say whether or not the explicitly mlm men are alive at the end of the show - that the words he specifically uses are ‘up for interpretation’ is. Fuck, it’s gross, okay? It’s fucking gross.

I have been around enough men, enough people in power, enough people with leverage who also know how to play the field, to know that when someone wants a group’s support but does not agree with them, their go to phrasing is that it is ‘up for debate’ or ‘up for interpretation.’

Say the gays are alive. Steinberg refusing to acknowledge the reality of the ending of his show to maintain his own sense of artistic integrity is what, honestly, really sets me off about him and I don’t care if this is a nuanced take.

Like yes, death of the author. I honestly don’t care if he thinks they’re dead or alive. What I care about is that he thinks he can get away with being clever and leaning hard into a story is true/untrue’ - doesn’t realize what the implications of that are, and didn’t when he was writing, and didn’t have anyone else in the room who would think about it either.

ANYWAY. So this is....my long drawn out explanation for why I do not like Steinberg. Uhhhhh tune in next week for more of my totally unpopular opinions!

#good....fucking lord #i am so sorry #how many opinions can milo fit in one post #i mean i have more but yknow lmao #black sails #behind the black sails #milos black sails meta #long posts #my increasingly devoted attempts to find tumblrs word limit #Anonymous #john steinberg #js critical but the js is jon steinberg

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caracalfeather · 4 years ago

Text

WARNING- Cats and Birds is a mob AU fanfiction of the Arcana game, and is not meant for young audiences and is not meant to offend anyone. Some writing choices were made so characters are out of their canon way of acting and thinking. Please do not be offended by character choices made by the authors and content creators, this story was made for fun and in the way we wanted it to be. The story was not hijacked by any of the authors to make any ships or characters overshadow any other. All content contained in this story has been agreed upon and accepted by all parties in it’s creation.

TW- Cats and Birds contains scenes that may not be suitable with some readers, including themes of violence, smoking/drug use, sex, cursing and various other strong themes. Special warnings for scenes will be posted with chapters. Proceed with caution and Reader’s discretion is advised.

Julian tried to focus on Rose and on the movie. But oh god it was so hard too, there were old suppressed memories trying to resurface and Julian COULD NOT let them. He poured himself a glass of whiskey, more than what he usually drank and he tossed it down his throat like a shot of tequila. He grunted and then sighed as the liquid stung his throat.

“Jesus christ Amor.” Rose looked up at him and sat up “That was a lot more than usual. You don't usually shoot whiskey.” She put down her glass and slid close, almost in his lap “Are you sure you're okay? Did something happen during the mission?”

“I’m fine Rose just….tired.” He picked up the bottle and stood up, “I’m...going to bed.” He walked out of her room and to his own, which...hadn’t happened in….well a year. But Julian didn’t really care, not now anyways.

Rose watched him leave, her heart sinking slightly. Had she done something wrong? It was possible…. It was probably her fault. With a heavy sigh she turned the movie off and put on the news, taking the bottle of whiskey and draining it before the commercial break and eventually passing out on the couch in a pile of blankets and self doubt. Eventually One of the Capos Vice, woke her up, helping her clean up.

Julian slammed the door to his room, and flopped on the bed, the dresser across from him almost beckoning him. He growled and turned over, his eyes wandering over to that bottom drawer, he looked down at the bottle of wine he carried with him.

“I can hear your gasp of horror.” He sighed, “If you saw what shit i was drinking tonight you’d smack me square in the face…” he took a swig, “but it keeps me from remembering you...even if you are turning in your grave..” he stared at that drawer again, it was calling to him. He flipped it off, clearly drunk, “Fuck offfffff….I have a good life now.” He drained the bottle and blacked out in his bed, not even bothering to change.

Plume was the one who found him later that night, dropping his bag on the floor and dragging him to the shower, putting him in and blasting him with ice cold water “Despierta idiota. I don't know how the hell you drained that bottle alone.”

He jerked awake coughing and gasping for air. “PLUME! THE HELL?!” He shouted through his coughing fit, rolling onto the floor with a thud, groaning in pain, he was hungover as all shit. “We're celebrating a mission gone right...I assume Rose told you…”

“No actually. I heard from witnesses.” Plume through a towel onto him “Rose left for the night. I assume she went to the red district to drown sorrows with a stripper or a bottle of vodka.” he leaned against the sink cabinet, his golden eyes showing their usual look of anger.

“Ahhhhhhhhfuck…” he moaned, standing up and rubbing his auburn hair dry, “I’ll go get her if that’s what you're suggesting.”

“No. Im wondering what the fuck you did to her. It's been months since she’s done that.” He huffed and walked into the bedroom “You aren't leaving the den.”

Julian scoffed, “fine...so be it.” He threw off his shirt and searched his closet for a new one. “We just saw a dog yesterday thats all…” he called from the closet rummaging around for a clean jacket.

Plume rolled his eyes “A dog doesn't cause emotional stress to our boss idiot.” He sat on the bed and tied up his hair “There was an empty whiskey bottle and cigarette box on the couch. She was pretty drunk when she left it’d looked like.

“Well what else do you want me to say Plume?” He shrugged, running a hand through his hair. “I thought I recognized the dog and it threw me off for a while, THAT’S IT.” He appeared from the closet with fresh clothes on throwing his hands out in a dramatic way.

“Jesus christ. And did you tell her that it threw you off or did you just leave her so you could drink alone?” He stood and walked to the door “Because I think she blames herself for the mess you're making of yourself.”

“Ah shit..” he sighed, leaning against the closet entrance, “well...no I didn't tell her. Are you sure you still want me to stay here? Because the sooner I don’t cause anymore emotional messes, the sooner we can have our Queen back.”

“...Take the car. Naga has the keys. Make sure to check the Raven.” He tossed the keys over and grumbled “She’d only listen to you anyways.”

Julian was out the door in a hurry and sped to the Raven, throwing open the doors and frantically searching for his love. The sooner he fixes this...the sooner he can move on and forget the years and years of suppressed feelings.

Rose was in her usual booth at the bar, nursing a glass of tequila and groaning to herself. Her knuckles were bruised from punching a wall and she was extremely drunk.

“I know you don't want to see me right now.” He started to say, “but...I do owe you an explanation as to why I left with that….horribly flat tasting wine.” He sat in front of her, almost expecting her to react violently towards him.

She rolled her eyes, dowing the drink with a growl “Fuck off ilya. I don't know what i did but clearly you don't trust me enough to say so.” She stood, wrapping herself in her leather jacket and starting towards the door.

“Wait! Please just...hold on a second.” He grabbed her arm, “It’s just the dog that’s all..I thought I recognized it from...somewhere and it threw me off. It has nothing to do with you.”

She laughed, lacing it with slight drunken malice “Oh bull shit ilya. Let me go…” She stumbled back, leaning against him and growling “Damn alcohol.”

Julian rolled his eyes with a huff and in one smooth motion he picked Rose up bridal style and left the bar. “We’re going home..I’ll send Plume for your car later.”

“Fuuck you…” She slurred, leaning into his chest. He was so warm, it was almost impossible not to be soothed by his touch and scent “Fucking ditched me...son of a bitch…” She wiggled in his grasp until giving into her numb thoughts.

“Curse me out all you want, you’re not changing my mind.” He set her in the car and started to drive. An awkward silence filling the space as Julian hoped Rose would drop the topic so they could move on with life.

Rose was quiet on the way home, looking out the window as she got home. Plume made Julian put her to bed so he could get the car. Rose leaned into Julian as they got to the mattress, her eyes were dull.

“Sleep love.” He crooned, pulling a blanket over her, he kissed her forehead. “The Den needs their Cat.”

The alcohol was starting to take over her brain as she whispered “Don't call me that… you don't love me….” she was passed out in minutes.

“I love you more than there are stars in the sky…” he whispered into her ear before her lids closed. Julian returned to his room, the drawer still calling out to him. With a hard sigh he pulled out his knife and pulled back the comforter on his bed. On the left side of the mattress there was a gash in the bed sloppily sewn together in bright red thread. With one swipe of the knife Julian cut the threads and stuck his hand in the opening. He spent a few minutes searching before his fingers graced the surface of something cool and metal. He pulled it out and there it was...a key.

He walked over to the dresser and knelt down, staring the locked bottom drawer in the face. He hesitated for a moment before unlocking the drawer. Inside its wooden interior was a single magazine.

VOGUE

“The Loveliest Face in France says ‘Fantastic!’ To Jean Romeo’s latest rendition of ‘Cinderella; The Ballet’’

#the arcane game #arcana apprentice #the arcana #the arcane julian #julian devorak #arcana #the arcane mc #the arcana lucio #muriel #the arcana julian #cats and birds #mob au #rose sagenea #rose the apprentice #caracaltalks #lyra the apprentice

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kob131 · 5 years ago

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https://izetarion.tumblr.com/post/189410998186/theres-two-versions-of-adam-taurus?is_liked_post=1

Monty!Adam: Created by Monty Oum, a minority. Focused on the Faunus, while wanting to get back at the humans for their mistreatment of his kind, a man of revolution who was focused on the safety of his people - seen as how he was strong-armed into working with Cinder Fall after getting her maiden powers, wasn’t so psychopathic that he would turn on his own kind and kill humans out of sheer glee (seen with Cinder and her lot, as he gave them a chance to leave), prioritizes the cause over a cat girl, who was his student - sharing a “student-mentor” relationship as established by the show’s creator as well as said cat girl (“Forget it! It’s time I headed back to Mistral!”), has a legitimate reason to hate humans - especially those affiliated with the Schnee Dust Company, very charismatic, somewhat of a fallen mentor figure given the way the catgirl described him, his cause steadily consuming him (“I had someone I care for, who changed…”), is one of the most popular male characters in the series in the first half of RWBY - despite having little screentime, has an aesthetically-pleasing look to him, compared to DMC!Vergil and Jetstream Sam - two of the most iconic video game characters, in terms of looks and fighting style, Adam Taurus fans signs his adoption papers so that Miles and Kerry would never touch him. People use this version in their fanfics and RPs, turning him into a redeemable person while still keeping his morally grey aspects. Tauradonna is more mutual than lovey-dovey.

Okay so let’s break this down and show this is bullshit.

“Focused on the Fanaus-”

He is never shown to actually help any Fanaus and all White Fang activity, ESPECIALLY in Volumes 1 and 2, revolves around fucking over human. In fact, considering Tuskon, the fact that Vale does not have discrimination against Fanaus and V1 E1 openly says a peaceful protest of Fanaus was interrupted by the WF (” In other news, this Saturday's Faunus Civil Rights protest turned dark when members of the White Fang disrupted the ceremony. The once peaceful organization has now disrupted...”): Adam has acted AGAINST the Fanaus since LITERALLY the first episode.

“A man of revolution who was focused on the safety of his people-”

Which is why, in an EARLIER episode than the one you cite (Volume 2 Episode 12 meaning MONTY was in charge here as we know since he was cited with putting in the Raven scene in the SAME EPISODE against Miles and Kerry’s wishes): Adam gave no shits about his men DYING when he openly said he’d convince them to work with Cinder without so much as a glare at her. BTW, Adam specifically cited Cinder being HUMAN for the reason why he didn’t want to kill his men (’I won’t sacrifice my men for a human cause’). If the human part wasn’t the reason why he wasn’t agreeing with Cinder, why would his dialogue not be ‘I won’t sacrifice my men, no matter what.”?

“ wasn’t so psychopathic that he would turn on his own kind and kill humans out of sheer glee (seen with Cinder and her lot, as he gave them a chance to leave)-”

Nuh uh, in the same Volume Adam out right STABS Blake and says he wants to destroy everything she loves, in the previous Volume he didn’t care about his men dying and said nothing about trying to DESTROY VALE killing THOUSANDS if not MILLIONS of people (including FANAUS) and at the VERY beginning, he tried to blow up a train car full of people who hadn’t even raised a finger against him even though, as Blake shows, he could have detached the train.

“ prioritizes the cause over a cat girl, who was his student - sharing a “student-mentor” relationship as established by the show’s creator as well as said cat girl (“Forget it! It’s time I headed back to Mistral!”),”

Except that, again. Adam STABS Blake and outright shows malice towards her in the SAME VOLUME, Arkos shows mentorship and romance are NOT exclusive and even THAT line is delivered with Adam looking furious clearly showing he’s hung up about Blake.

“ has a legitimate reason to hate humans - especially those affiliated with the Schnee Dust Company-”

Not really, especially since Adam was shown to be selfish in previous Volumes so why would he care about other people? In fact, the ‘fuckboi’ Adam you’ll bitch about later has the reason to hate humans, especially those with the SDC. This version, since he’s apparently completely seperate, is just racist.

“very charismatic”

Never shown OR said. Just projecting.

“ somewhat of a fallen mentor figure given the way the catgirl described him,”

Notice how here they don’t actually say WHAT the description is despite KNOWING about quotes? That’s because there’s nothing actually said in the show that is ambiguously about a mentorship.

“ his cause steadily consuming him (“I had someone I care for, who changed…”)”

Doesn’t prove anything AND it coinsides with ‘fuckboi’ Adam.

“ is one of the most popular male characters in the series in the first half of RWBY - despite having little screentime,”

So is Kirito, wanna guess what V1-2 Adam and Kirito have in common? They don’t have defined personality and their popularity came from people projecting onto them.

“ has an aesthetically-pleasing look to him, compared to DMC!Vergil and Jetstream Sam - two of the most iconic video game characters, in terms of looks and fighting style”

Both of which are incredibly common in anime.

“ Adam Taurus fans signs his adoption papers so that Miles and Kerry would never touch him”

Too bad according to you, they weren’t the ones who ruined Adam. No no, your issues, as I have shown, existed with MONTY. So you better start smack talking him... what’s that, if you did that you couldn’t profit off his name and his fanboys would rip you to shreds? Maybe you shouldn’t be a disingenuous fuck.

‘ People use this version in their fanfics and RPs,’

And people turn Jaune into a generic self insert and Ruby into an edgy angsty psuedo anti hero- that means nothing.

“ turning him into a redeemable person while still keeping his morally grey aspects.”

So basically making him a generic anti villian instead of a tragic case of someone not being able to get over their past tramua.

“ Tauradonna is more mutual than lovey-dovey.”

And it’s more ‘abusive’ than mutual.

Fuckboi!Adam: Created by Miles and Kerry, two amateurish white guys noted for writing sub-par comedy segments and part of the upper echelons of Rooster Teeth. Born out of the criticism of “show, don’t tell aspect” of the show - barely having any visible evidence of Faunus racism, born out of the two admitting they couldn’t write a racism sub-plot - despite having the money and resources to do so, established as an abuser by CRWBY and demonized heavily by them and the fanbase despite little evidence of such prior to because of catgirl’s various descriptions of him pointing towards someone “dear” (“More of a mentor, actually…”), “hElLo, My LoVe!” “tHe bElLaDoNnAs HaVe CaUsEd Me NoThInG bUt GrIeF!”, “sO i JuSt wAsN’t GoOd EnOuGh FoR yOu.”, A fedora wearing crazed nazi ex-boyfriend, DMC-Reboot!Vergil but with the edgelord turned to 11, “Tauradonna? More like Tauradon’t!”, How many zippers does your dumbass outfit need? lol, Why did your voice crack?, Even his own VA hate him, Is an incel-ass bitch, Gaston apparently, Lol he’s attempting the birdbox challenge, That stupid ass face reveal did nothing as the damage was done, The fandom - primarily BMBLB, and CRWBY sing of his death (“Ding-dong the bitch is dead!”) - with the BMBLB fandom using his death as major evidence of their ship becoming canon. Also, his death caused such dissonance in the fandom that shit hit the fan in all kinds of ways, not to mention his death started the slow deterioration of RT - embodying the spite element that Blake attributed him, probably because he was pissed at CRWBY to the point where his hatred manifested as a curse - causing their various injustices against their employees to come out and be heavily criticized as a result (No, seriously, RT is visibly crumbling shortly after his demise).

“ Created by Miles and Kerry-”

And yet will somehow completely overlap with the Volumes Monty had the most control over.

“ two amateurish white guys”

Miles is part Mexician.

“ noted for writing sub-par comedy segments”

While Monty is noted for never writing whatsoever so i guess that means you think Miles and Kerry are better.

“ Born out of the criticism of “show, don’t tell aspect” of the show - barely having any visible evidence of Faunus racism, born out of the two admitting they couldn’t write a racism sub-plot - despite having the money and resources to do so,”

The criticism being located SOLELY in Volumes 1 and 2 Aka MONTY.

“ established as an abuser by CRWBY and demonized heavily by them and the fanbase despite little evidence of such prior to because of catgirl’s various descriptions of him pointing towards someone “dear” (“More of a mentor, actually…”)’“

You know...despite the fact that every single aspect of Adam’s character has been shown WITH MONTY, as I showed above.

“ “hElLo, My LoVe!” “

Located in Volume 3, which you cite as a Volume where ‘Monty!’ Adam existed.

“ “tHe bElLaDoNnAs HaVe CaUsEd Me NoThInG bUt GrIeF!” “

Huh, if you spelled “Belladonna” as “Miles and Kerry”, that sounds an awful lot like you...oh

“ “sO i JuSt wAsN’t GoOd EnOuGh FoR yOu.” “

They scream as Rooster Teeth ignores them.

“ A fedora wearing crazed nazi ex-boyfriend”

Never actually shown wearing a fedora or ever showing any personbality traits associated with it...but then again, you know what they say about mirrors...

Also at least it’s better than ‘blank edgy emo teen’ he was in Volume 3 which you loved apparently.

“ DMC-Reboot!Vergil but with the edgelord turned to 11″

Uh oh, Op’s brain rotted so he can’t actually make arguments....oh wait, he was always like that.

“ “Tauradonna? More like Tauradon’t!” “

So basically ‘wah wah wah. my otp is not canon’.

“ How many zippers does your dumbass outfit need?”

Dunno, why is wearing a tux as a freedom fighter and sticks out like a sore thumb?

“ Why did your voice crack?”

Why did he sound fourteen in Volume 3?

“ Even his own VA hate him,”

Ever since Volume 3 which you cite as “Monty!Adam”

“ Is an incel-ass bitch, Gaston apparently”

Or you know, a Beats who never grew up and never became a better person. But who needs insight?

“ Lol he’s attempting the birdbox challenge”

*insert Family Guy skit here*

“ hat stupid ass face reveal did nothing as the damage was done”

They say as most of the fandom did a 180 on how they view his character and gave him more justification for his actions than “Monty” Adam ever had.

“ he fandom - primarily BMBLB, and CRWBY sing of his death (“Ding-dong the bitch is dead!”)”

Which considering he was meant to be hated is a GOOD thing.

“ with the BMBLB fandom using his death as major evidence of their ship becoming canon”

Basically ‘wah wah wah make MY otp canon”

“ Also, his death caused such dissonance in the fandom that shit hit the fan in all kinds of ways”

all kinds being two ways: accepting it and throwing a fit because you didn’t get your way. Also inadvertently justifying wasps being assholes because they did the same thing during Volumes 4 and 5.

“ t to mention his death started the slow deterioration of RT - embodying the spite element that Blake attributed him, probably because he was pissed at CRWBY to the point where his hatred manifested as a curse - causing their various injustices against their employees to come out and be heavily criticized as a result (No, seriously, RT is visibly crumbling shortly after his demise).”

And said curse infected many of his fans where they all became monsters after his death like say, using the suffering of others AND THE DEAD *cough* MONTY *cough* all over a fictional character that didn’t even exist because as I have shown Adam is completely consistent with his characterization from the Black Trailer to his death. Something I am certain OP knows deep down because half way through this point they completely abandon any attempt at actually proving what they are saying to instead spout a bunch of memes in a vain attempt to appeal to people’s confirmation bias because they can’t actually make an argument to prove Adam had changed AT ALL, especially since their obsessive behavior, attempt at creating an abusive/parasitic relationship with RT and their own childishness has all but prove Adam is in no way unrealistic as they act like him except with NO justification whatsoever.

But sure, scream loud enough and people will think you’re right. That hasn’t BACKFIRED before.

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