#and I'm not amused

[foulfirerebel]

True Weiss has tried to figure out “what comes next” but she can only even ask that question now that Salem got rid of Jacques, had Salem not targeted atlas he’d still be in charge,

As for the white fang, they haven’t actually progressed,

They stopped Adam and put ghira in charge again, basically resetting things back to how they where before sienna took over as in, the times Blake expressly told us weren’t working

Okay. I suppose this won't convince you of anything, but I'll take this one step at a time.

"True Weiss has tried to figure out “what comes next” but she can only even ask that question now that Salem got rid of Jacques, had Salem not targeted atlas he’d still be in charge."

Salem was going to target Atlas regardless, so that point is moot. Secondly, Ironwood already threatened Jacques that if he stepped out of line or got on his bad side he'd depose him in Volume 4. And to round things out, Salem's faction only gave Jacques enough rope to hang himself with given that his abusive behavior would've come to light eventually.

How do we know this? Willow planted cameras all over the mansion in case she ever needed to leave or bring things to the authorities, she only gets the courage to do so because WEISS came back and HELPED start the investigation AND also figured something was up.

The idea that Salem somehow helped things along is ridiculous, given that her motive and strategy is always divide and conquer WHICH WAS WORKING had Team RWBY not investigated into things further circa V7.

In short, Jacques already had plenty of enemies, Salem doesn't deserve any credit for his takedown, as he would've been brought down eventually.

~

"They stopped Adam and put Ghira in charge again, basically resetting things back to how they where before sienna took over as in, the times Blake expressly told us weren’t working."

As for the White Fang, yes they have progressed. They aren't at a "back to square one" situation just because Ghira took charge. Ghira himself says as much in V5, that Blake taught him the value of forgiveness with Illia and something that he should've realized regarding Sienna. Plus, Sienna and Ghira weren't enemies. Ghira even calls Sienna reasonable in V4 and respects that she's fighting for the Faunus, even if they disagree on methods.

Plus, the Faunus KNOW they cannot stay out of the literal fight for the world's sake otherwise things will stay stagnant and get WORSE for the Faunus. That's why they stopped Adam's militant group from literally ATTACKING ANOTHER SCHOOL.

You really think that letting Adam run rampant was going to change anything? That's letting a violent terrorist basically be the only face of resistance against oppression, and guess what? Normal people don't like that. There's propaganda at play when it comes to fighting oppression, sure, but there NEEDS to be a pushback when things go too far from within the movement before said extremism becomes its face.

Also, I'm sorry but where did Ghira say they were going to go back to square one? All they said was there was work to be done, and they all fought off Adam's White Fang when they tried to literally assassinate the Belladonna's and blow Haven up. Tell me, truly, how were either of those two actions Adam's faction took going to help Faunus at all?

Adam needed to be stopped before he further went rampant and tarnished people's legacies and names. Because when all you have is a violent extremist representing you, that's all people see. You need to have a variety of tactics and people to encourage betterness in society and people.

And standing on the sidelines wasn't working, clearly. Also, the reason why progress is slow on that front is because comms are still down. They stopped the White Fang and saved Haven from destruction, sure, but that's one Kingdom. There is work to be done across the world and that's going to take time.

Time they won't have if Salem isn't defeated.

~

And before you try me with the whole "Well, why didn't our heroes try anything against Ironwood or Atlas or Jacques?" Because:

They have no authority to make any moves. Blake has pull in the Faunus circles, sure, but outside Menagerie she's effectively nobody. With the communications still down, they can't effectively organize. Likewise, our heroes aren't in any position of power and don't have any real sway over people that Atlas or Mantle would recognize.

To add to the above, Weiss had her inheritence to the Schnee fortune and name stripped in V4. There goes any kind of pull over anyone in Atlas that they may recognize.

Also. People may not know Weiss has changed. They may still associate her with Jacques and her pompous attitude.

When our heroes DO have pull over people, they are refugees abandoned by Atlas who have nowhere to go now and require aid from the Faunus in the Crater. That's working alongside Robyn Hill's Happy Huntresses, who people are far more willing to hear out.

They barely got into Mantle before being arrested. They were forced into stealing an airship in V6 due to Cordo not listening to them. They stopped a whole pack of Sabyrs when they first came in, and got arrested afterward.

They need to work WITH Ironwood in order to figure out what to do about the oncoming threat of Salem. Had they refused, as Ironwood cleanly demonstrated at the end of V7, he can trump charges up and have them all placed under arrest as he attemped to black bag Robyn Hill too.

In the meantime, they do try to sway his opinion. They do push him away from martial law, they adamantly suggest working with Robyn Hill and the Happy Huntresses, and they're the ones that oust Jacques and get the evidence he's working with Watts.

Further, their plan actually works. It's only a stroke of bad luck in V8 that prevented everyone from evacuating safely and Ironwood's continued insistence on fascist bullshit.

To tie that back to point 1 as a final comment: Jacques is a businessman whom holds a lot of cards in Atlas. Taking him down isn't as simple as killing him, because then the assassin looks the part of the villain unless they bring proof of villainy to people that are willing to properly assess the evidence.

Which they did in V7.

Salem isn't an agent of change, she's a force of destruction and domination that seeks only the world's end. As people like @matrixdragon, @citadelofmythoughts, and others have said: our heroes have multitasked on this front, hence why they repeatedly tried brokering peace between Mantle and Atlas, stopping Adam's attack, etc.

Just because they are trying to focus on the literal end of the world doesn't mean they don't keep things like this in mind.

If they didn't, then maybe you'd be correct. But they did. So you're not.

Good day to you.

[dionysus-complex]

funniest Kamala Harris VP picks go

[captainadwen]

Damian Wayne vs the World

Sixteen year old Damian Wayne is on the hunt for a younger sibling. Being more discerning than Bruce 'child collector' Wayne, Damian's firm criteria for Batman's latest adoption problem includes but is not limited to: black haired, blue-eyed, tolerable humor, not evil, and most importantly - younger than Damian.

Lucky for him, fourteen year old newbie vigilante Danny Fenton is the perfect fit. Now, to fulfill his end of their deal, Damian must defeat the evil government organization hunting Danny in order to gain a baby brother.

Or, @livinghalfway your post made my brain go !! but in such a different way I figured it was better to make a separate post, hope you don't mind/enjoy still

~~

Damian Wayne re-entered Tim Drake's life like a gnat revealing itself in a closed bedroom space. Tim was in t-shirt and a boxers, maneuvering ramen into his mouth with one hand and scribbling out an epiphany on a murder case with another, when Damian's demonic dulcet voice echoed down from the ceiling. "Drake," said Damian, judgemental, "You live like this?"

Tim nearly choked on his ramen, because the day Damian doesn't attempt to murder him - however doubtfully accidental this incident might be - is the day Darkseid decides to be friends with the Justice League. "Fucking knock," Tim coughed out. "And get out. No one invited you in."

"Put better traps if you don't want me here," said Damian, dropping from the ceiling where he'd crawled in on wall-clamps.

"This is my apartment," said Tim. "It's called courtesy."

Damian sniffed. He padded around to Tim's desk and frowns at his cases, then said, with no further lead up, "I need your assistance."

"No," said Tim.

"You did not even listen to my request."

"Don't need to," said Tim. "Answer's still no. Door is that way. Bye."

"Father says mutually assisting each other is beneficial," said Damian.

"Father," said Tim sarcastically, "blamed me for you exploding a glitter bomb in the batcave two weeks ago."

"That is your fault for not being able to provide evidence to the contrary in an appropriately efficient manner," said Damian. He squinted down at Tim. "And he apologized. Eventually."

"I would not have glittered the batcomputer," said Tim. "Do you know how much of a pain in the ass it is to backup those servers? No, because you don't like tech work, you just profit off it."

"Blaming me for Father's mistake," said Damian, "Most mature of you. But we must put our differences aside. I have selected a new family member and I need you to dismantle a government organization."

That drew Tim up short. He blinked down at his ramen as though it might explain Damian's words to him, but the ramen remained disappointingly uninformative. "Repeat that," said Tim, gesturing with his chopsticks. "Slower, and with more detail."

Damian pulled out his phone and sent him an email. Silence surrounded them in the brief moment it took Tim to set aside his chopsticks and open the email. The subject line was titled 'New Baby Brother', which birthed all sorts of horrifying nightmares of Damian Part 2: Demon Child Boogaloo. The teen in the inserted picture, however, was reassuringly not in possession of Damian's bone structure.

He did have black hair and blue eyes. "Who am I looking at?" asked Tim.

"Daniel Fenton," said Damian. "He is fourteen years old, enjoys puns, and has recently awakened 'ghost powers' that allow him to transform into the vigilante Phantom to fight other ghosts."

"Is he also an orphan with a tragic backstory?"

"No," said Damian, and Tim relaxed. "But that will not be an issue. We can share custody if they cannot be removed from the picture."

"Jesus H, kid."

"I am joking, of course," said Damian blandly. "Murder is wrong."

"Ha ha," said Tim. "If he has parents already he's not joining our menagerie."

"He will," said Damian, with a smug upwards tilt of his lips. "He and I have a deal."

"So you're coercing him in addition to stalking him. Anything else you want to share with the class?"

Damian considered this query with a serious frown, which was how Tim knew this was not a flight of fancy or a very early midlife crisis (although with their lifestyle and Damian already having died before...).

"He has," said Damian after a moment, "a rogue that calls himself 'The Master of all Technology' and is a technopath." This was clearly meant to be of interest to Tim, and not to be a stereotype, but it kind of was.

"Great." Tim turned his attention back to the email the demon child sent him. He scanned through it quickly. There was apparently a secret and evil government organization dedicated to the investigation and extermination of 'ghosts' and other paranormal creatures in the world. Their latest efforts were focused on the town of Amity Park, Illinois, which was 'infested with ectoplasmic pests'. Their words, not Damian's. (It was specified in the email.)

"Okay," Tim drummed his fingers against his desk. "Before I help you defeat this secret evil government organization so that," he opened the email attachment with a contract on it and squinted at the legalese, "this poor newbie teen you've harassed into signing this joins the family in exchange."

"I did not harass him," Damian huffed. "It was a gentleman's agreement."

"Does he know that?"

"I am not a politician, Drake. I thoroughly explained the terms and legalities before presenting any contract. Now ask your question."

"Why are you doing this?"

"Because," said Damian, tone implying 'you are stupid and haven't noticed something obvious, idiot'. "Father has begun saying he misses the noise around the manor and looking wistfully at old pictures."

"We still live there though?" said Tim. Damian looked flatly at him. "Sometimes."

"If you lived there frequently enough," said Damian, "you would already know Father is having...empty nest syndrome." Damian sounded disgusted. "I refuse to tolerate whatever inadequate and incompetent child he will find."

"So instead you found an incompetent and inadequate child for him?"

"Don't be stupid, Drake," said Damian. "I would not have chosen someone inadequate. Daniel is merely lacking formal training. Father can rectify this. It will keep him occupied for at least the next two to four years, which gives me enough time to find another black-haired, blue-eyed, tolerable child I approve of to be his successor and my second younger sibling." Damian paused. "Or until one of you procreates and gives him a grandchild."

"You're really serious about this," Tim whispered in horrified awe.

"I am serious about everything I do," said Damian. "Now, you will help me defeat this evil government organization so that our new sibling joins us."

"Okay," said Tim, but his mind snagged on a minor, throwaway detail, so utterly in odds with Damian 'Demonic Jealous Child' Al Ghul it surely came from another person - "Did you just call this kid your successor?"

[hatedbyiife]

Hearing about what goes on in the vengeance saga is so funny to me. What do you mean he used a second wind bag as a jetpack. Can I imagine athena going "okay odysseus now hit the second tower" with it

[sunderwight]

Bingqiu AU where Luo Binghe's the chosen village sacrifice to the evil deity who lives up the mountain.

Normally the village sends maidens, but they've more or less run out of expendable girls of the right age and, ahem, "virtues". So of course Luo Binghe's early life bad luck kicks in. In the wake of his mother's death there's no one to really care about what happens to him, he's fairly pretty, and the village leaders decide that if they dress him up like a girl the teenaged homeless kid should pass well enough. And hey, y'know, he's probably got a hard life ahead for him anyway -- dying in a brothel of some venereal disease or on the streets of exposure or starvation. At least as a sacrifice, everyone else gets to benefit from his loss! And the kid will get added to a shrine and be remembered as a hero! If anything, he should be happy about this!

Binghe is not happy about this.

But he's also a skinny underfed nobody who is easily overpowered, dressed up like a bride, and tied to a post. So. Not much he can do but wait for the evil deity to come and do whatever horrible thing he's gonna do to him.

Meanwhile, Shen Yuan is pretty sure he's been isekai'd into the over-powered hero of some kind of supernatural adventure story? He's not totally sure because he doesn't recognize the setting, but the signs are there. He's got a shrine-like base of operations (though it seems to have become corrupted/ruined, probably he has to restore it somehow), he has a very resilient and handsome new body with spiritual energy of some kind flowing through him, and a very clearly magical sword. Plus lots of neat starter powers! Though it feels like he has other abilities that have been blocked somehow? Probably he has to level up in order to access them.

When he treks out of his "base" and finds what seems to be a distressed maiden, he takes it for his beginner hero mission. The girl claims that she's been doomed to be sacrificed to an evil god. That sounds a little above Shen Yuan's pay grade for dealing with, so he unties her and decides that they had better just get out of the whole region altogether. He already packed up anything useful from his base, anticipating he might get caught up in an adventure once he left, so they follow the river away from the settlement until they reach another one.

While they travel, Luo Binghe tells Shen Yuan about the cursed deity, Shen Qingqiu, who was cast out of the heavens for slaughtering one of his brethren and has apparently being do-who-knows what to maidens from the local village in exchange for his "protection" ever since. Sounds like a real asshole! And also mid-level boss type bad guy at least. Shen Yuan hopes he doesn't have to fight him, but he probably will.

Thank goodness he found Binghe, though! Clearly the helpful little sister type! He's definitely going to require her assistance if he's going to figure out how to navigate this world and level up his skills enough to take on a god.

[aceredshirt13]

if there's one thing about classic literary detectives it's that they are not conventionally attractive. doyle told sidney paget to stop drawing holmes so pretty. christie was like "let me introduce you to this short pudgy balding man who is retirement age and i hate him." sayers compares wimsey to maggots on literally the FIRST PAGE

i love it. i love them. stop casting hot people in these roles. we need our detectives to be Charmingly Weird-Looking

[littleskrib]

It's alright | 26122023

-

Based on a scene of @asterbae's story "Perfect Slaughter". I already did some simple character art before, but this particular scene in chapter 10 just hit differently and I wanted to bring this to paper since the first time I read it. reader discretion is advised, pls read the tags before checking it out

[marzipanandminutiae]

I'm at the Boston Massacre site

I'm at the SweetGreen

I'm at the combination Boston Massacre site and SweetGreen

[benevolenterrancy]

~loathing, unadulterated loathing~

[technically-human]

I always get so excited when you post your art! It’s so cute!

All I’ve been thinking about lately is the boys getting hired to actively haunt someone and Charles insisting they do the old bedsheet ghosts for authentic haunting.

Why is there lore in my silly comic?

ko-fi

Bonus, the boys went to Mexico during Día de Muertos:

[questionableadvice]

~ Woods Motor Vehicle Company, 1903

"Carriages, Not Machines"

As a History Geek I've always loved the period of time it takes for language and style to catch up to a new invention. Example: when early automobiles came along, they weren't necessarily viewed as something brand new, but as upgraded carriages. The Woods Company made electric/hybrid vehicles from 1899-1916 and they looked so much like carriages they were even named after them.

Behold the "Brougham" style from 1903 with a driver that looks like he's just waiting for his horses:

If you are also amused by stuff like this you can see an entire catalog of the Woods Electric Carriages over here.

[queenoffoliage]

Your honor, he was indeed spinning

[iheartvmt]

So I attempted to groom Rin myself, and uh, the results were less than stellar, shall we say. I have transformed her from a cute ball of dryer lint into a scrungly little rat dog. My mom gasped, "Where are her curls?!"

I have done her a grave injustice 😅

[daily-odile]

AUGH I’d love to see more time looping odile if possible,,,,, how do you think she’d like; “devolve” over each of the acts as compared to Siffrin over time :O

ok im gonna be honest i did like portrait edits months ago and just never finished them. so here you go

act 3:

act 5:

[joycrispy]

It's Bisexual Visibility Day, take this.

[leserattevirginie]