#anyway. shout out to the handful of people who actually make meta posts about the older games. ily

[oncillaphoenix]

i'm having fun in the pokemon fandom, but i'm really feeling the lack of the kinds of deep meta and character-study fanfics that fandoms like gravity falls and undertale have.

there's really something to be said for what not having a steady stream of new content does to the fandom ecosystem. without constant new content you're forced to really dig into the source material you do have if you want to keep engaging with it, and that leads to tons of really interesting analysis.

meanwhile the pokemon fandom gets new stuff so comparatively fast, and the fandom is spread so thin between the games and the anime and the other anime and the manga and the spinoff games and the mystery dungeon games and and and and, that there's not time for the collective fanbase to really dig into things before everyone but a handful of dedicated people move onto the next shiny new thing.

[enniewritesathing]

Discussion Post #4? (I lost count)

more like I talk to myself

The other half of the big update. Let's talk about.

First, some meta, I guess:

You may have noticed that the pics look different. Much more vibrant and all of that. I was brainstorming with @pink-chevalier (once again, thank you 👏) and she pointed me towards some PS actions.

Shout-outs to PhotoMosh Pro for existing. I had some visual ideas and I was able to pull it off this time around.

Shout-outs to Internet Air by AT&T. I went from having rural ass DSL to 5G internet averaging 400mbps. That's a major reason why I was able to pull off my visual ideas via gifs. Wouldn't have worked otherwise and I would've had to do just images.

Shoutout to my ADHD. (derogatory)

The posts with the lab scene(s), I've noticed, uhhhh, isn't viewed as much. I have a feeling that it's gonna be like that for a while. I'm doing cool and unique things over here... idk, it feels bad when there's a clear asterisk to it. let me put it this way, if I try to make it ~pleasing~ and it gets more attention than anything else... 🙃🙃🙃

I don't ask for much but please RB and/or comment, anything!! recommend! my pinned post has a lot of things you can read! Anon's on! It feels bad and desperate when I'm on my hands and knees like this lol... I feel like there's something wrong with me and this story but everyone's being polite...

((btw thank you @99simproblems and @changingplumbob))

Now that's out of the way:

(leans into the mic) JOHN'S DEAD. More on that later.

Are we all in agreement that Daniel ain't shit? He is 0 for 2 on rising up against someone and just be like 'ok guess i'll do it 🥺'. You're been given so many outs my guy, holy shit. Just hit the bricks, man! What are you waiting for?!?

I'll say this -- he one ups himself on that. Maybe twice. No, I won't elaborate but if you've read The Incident you probably have a good idea.

(actually, I think maybe two people have read it and I wish I were joking on that... I did a RB of it around that year's halloween and I lost 10 followers LMAO. It's really criminal. still my fav story but anyway. )

Charles being the manipulative bitch that he is but he had to make it very slight. Notice that he doesn't report his monitoring... no one caught it because of John.

I was gonna try and see if I could find something for the machine screen but it didn't look right... but I am saving the idea for something else.

You will not believe how many swatches I made for the vital monitor on the wall. I know I've said it earlier, but it's from an actual simulator that I had to use two laptops with (one for settings, one for capture.)

I almost forgot about Mark but especially Thomas. We'll see them again. :)

Mark saying that he's gonna resign after this trial. I mean, he can walk out too, but he's too polite for that so he's just gonna wait. :)

Thomas has an inexplicable Brooklyn accent and Bernard is a Southerner. Don't as me why.

I love how the gifs of Charles looking at Daniel and Bernard with the faux camera focus came out. Sinister.

Another note on Thomas -- so he's there (or rather got voluntold) to be "security". Security for who?? The fuck he's gonna do? Anyway.

I really, truly thought about showing John getting stabbed with that big ass needle but I think we got enough of that. Or at least being implicit. Truly though, that was a big fuck-off needle. I ain't scared of 'em but eesh.

now let's pivot to John and The Werewolf:

You may have noticed in the dialogue somewhere but this is not their first time meeting each other that wasn't a fight. Perhaps we'll circle back to that.

One of the first things that The Werewolf tells John is that he has zero intention of harming him. He's true to his word. In fact, I'd argue that his general behavior changes the context of things from The Incident. He's actually pretty calm all things considering! He stands his ground when John's being a dipshit.

Love how John picks the absolute worst time to be arguing with The Werewolf. My dude, you're literally being tortured and dying and yet you don't want the only person to save your life to take over.

You may think, damn John's naive and you're right. Charles did a number on making him think that The Werewolf is that dangerous. Maybe there were points that John didn't believe that... ?

For the visual effect of the toxins, I did the same thing when he made his declaration. This time, it's harder because of his chest hair and complete tats so naturally, I did the S4S shuffle and doubling them up.

I didn't have much action words for John because... well, he's doin nothin' but screaming and there's only so many ways to write that. The expressions speak for themselves. I am very proud of how they came out! He fought for his goddamn life and he made it count.

After much deliberation, I left the post of John's death wordless. I don't know what he and The Werewolf talking about at this point, and if I do, I'm not sure if I want to elaborate! Aside from The Werewolf telling him it'll be okay to let go...

It's a surprisingly soft moment.

The breathing effect I found out messing around in PM. That's all John could do until his heart stopped.

Oh! So, I decided to make something distinguishing about John's eyes in all of this. Blank, aka just a solid color, means he's mostly not there. White = flat out unconscious; his body is on autopilot/reacting. So! Couldn't use the blank for death so I went and found some pupil overlays and such by Pralinesims and used it over the blank.

John dies with his eyes open so ofc his pupils needed to be fixed and dilated so you know he's actually dead.

Even in death, he has a chilling gaze...

...but not as much as The Werewolf's gaze in the last two shots. This was one of the shots I wanted to keep from The Incident -- but I left the one of him baring his teeth... I'll save that I think for later. With his sclera being black, he absolutely looks terrifying. Monstrous, even.

I had the idea of the gif when I first did The Incident but I couldn't quite put it together (among other things). If you really look at it, a lot of ideas are there but I didn't have the skillset that I do now...

I can't wait for the next update to see what I have in mind. There's a reason why I haven't made many WIPs this time around >:)

I might as well drop this now, the back half of this story? Loads of CWs. How many? I'll list them at the top of the post many. At least six.

Idk about yall, I said it already; the context has changed, I think. I like to think that The Incident is John's version of what happened (bits and pieces of it) and he ofc, 'told' it first and you'd think wow The Werewolf is scary. This? He's way more than reasonable given the situation. He thanked John.

but I see this as "thank you for permission for me to wild the fuck out and kill my torturers"... but, he is grateful fr.

...not saying that John's an asshole for what he may or may not have done but...

This may be a very ambitious thing I wanna do in the next update but, I kinda want to see if I can animate an effect. If not, I'll try and get close to it.

[fangroyal]

#3 What is that one scene that you’ve always wanted to write but can’t be arsed to write all of the set-up and context it would need? (consider this permission to write it and/or share it anyway)

Fun Meta Asks for Writers

Adding the link to the ask game at the start this time, 'cause this is gonna be a long one, y'all. 😂

Where do I even begin? First of all, @angie-leena​, thank you so SO much for sending me this ask! It was the kick in the ass I needed to get me to actually write this scene, and for that I’m extremely grateful. I still don’t know if I’m entirely happy with the finished product, but it exists now, and that’s something.

So some of you may remember (if anyone actually follows my ramblings, haha!) that I’ve been simultaneously complaining about and obsessing over this gigantic WIP I’ve had since fucking March 2019. Nearly two and a half years have passed since I put the first word to paper, and oh how I’ve loved to cry out in frustration about how I have about 12k written on the stupid thing and yet not a single scene finished.

AT LEAST

NOT UNTIL TODAY

YES, I’VE DONE IT. I’ve finished a scene on this amazing, wonderful, and incredibly stupid WIP, and I could just cry.

FYI for anyone who doesn’t know what the fuck I’m talking about (which I’m sure is everyone, ‘cause I don’t expect anybody to remember this insane thing I’ve been shouting about all this time, LOL): this is the Slytherin My Gryffindor WIP. Yes, that is a working title. 😅 I will find a better one.....some day.......Ron/Draco is the main pair, but there will also be plenty of others sprinkled in the background.

Anyway, about this ask and that context I haven’t been arsed to write yet...

Context required in order to understand this scene 😂:

Fred Lives AU

The Muggle world and the Wixen world has kind of mixed in recent years, and it’s very common for magical people to be using Muggle technology

The Weasley twins have opened a second shop in Diagon Alley...selling sex toys (yes, really)

Their first original product line issssssss..........dildoes shaped like the Weasley brothers’ own dicks (and a fleshlight kind of thing for Ginny)

Yes this is crack!fic (but, like, also not???)

Ron has been made general manager of the shop and is there all the time, as they’re incredibly busy

Draco wants 👏 that 👏 D 👏, but is worried about Ron finding out, so keeps coming into the shop randomly hoping he won’t be there (and of course he always is)

Eventually there’s a day where Ron’s in the backroom, Charlie’s visiting and helping out at the register, and when Ron emerges, Charlie informs him that Draco Malfoy has just run in and bought Ron’s dildo

Cue Ron being incredibly turned on by this notion

So that pretty much brings us up-to-speed for this scene - it’s been a few days now, and Ron’s been trying to figure out a way to contact Draco to talk to him about the whole thing, since they never became friends or anything after the war and don’t regularly talk unless they’re just seeing each other around

The fic is meant to touch on, like...fame in the aftermath of the war (i.e. why anyone would be interested in sex toys modelled after the Weasley siblings in the first place)

Ron has evolved from his teenage self and grown to hate the fame - it prevents him from being able to date, because the press can never let him keep anything private

After this scene, the fic will focus on Ron and Draco developing a sexual - and eventually romantic - relationship (originally under the guise of “testing out” other products from the shop together)

They will try their best to keep their relationship a secret, but, like...everyone knows 😘😘😘

Also Draco is a model in this one (not important for this scene, but just thought you might want to know 😂)

In addition, some warnings/content to make note of before reading:

NC-17 (smut incoming!)

Technology circa 2005

Phone sex

Semi-public sex

Sex toys

Both Ron and Draco are a little drunk (but very consenting!)

Crack taken way too seriously

Of course, this hasn't been betaed or Britpicked, so I apologize for how very rough it is right now, lol. It will likely be a little (or a lot!) different if I ever actually finish this whole fucking fic and post it later on. I am treating this scene like a “sneak peek” of the fic, because I definitely do still want to try to finish it someday...

HOLY SHIT, I had a LOT more to say about it than I thought. 😅 So anyway. Scene under the cut.

Friday night at the Dragon's Head was packed. It took a bit of initiative, but Ron, Seamus, and Dean finally managed to snag them all a table in the back corner, hoarding the extra seats till Harry and Neville finally arrived, trailed closely by Ginny and Parkinson ― who were curiously short one blond wizard.

Ron tried not to think about it. He bought the first round with Harry, listening to him chat about the recent Puddlemere match against the Magpies. They ordered nibbles for the table. Ron munched on chips, his heart skipping every time the door opened across the room and another few patrons trickled in.

He was on his third pint of the evening when he started getting antsy. He sipped his Simison, using the light smoke curling around the rim of the glass to discreetly glance around the pub, hoping to spot a familiar head of blond hair in the crowd. His foot tapped impatiently on the floor.

"Is he coming, then?"

Ron's head snapped to attention. Ginny checked the door as well before turning back to Parkinson.

"Who?" Neville asked, snagging a vinegar-soaked chip from the bowl in the center of the table.

"Malfoy," Ginny said, craning her neck to see her girlfriend's screen.

Parkinson tapped away on her mobile, shaking her head. "No. Says he's already curled up with a bottle of wine and a good book, and doesn't fancy getting all done up."

Fucking hell. Ron drained the dregs at the bottom of his glass. It wasn't often Malfoy joined them on a mostly-Gryffindor outing ― not unless Parkinson could convince him. Somehow, Ron felt he should've known it wouldn't be in the cards tonight. Conversation pivoted again, and Ron ran his fingers up the sides of his empty pint, thinking.

At some point, Seamus and Harry set off to get another round, and Ginny hurried away with them after a quick peck to Parkinson's cheek. Neville and Dean had gotten into a chat about proper Mimbulus mimbletonia care, and Ron saw his chance. He could feel his heart start to thud in his chest as he cleared his throat, raising his voice to catch her attention.

"Parkinson?"

She turned back from watching Ginny leave, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "Yes?"

"Think you could give me Malfoy's number?"

The smirk she gave him in response made his hands shake a little as they drummed against the tabletop.

"Whatever for?"

Ron stared her down, knowing full well any excuse he told her would never be enough. Parkinson's expression was predatory ― as if she already knew the answer anyway. He waited for her to comment, bracing himself.

To his surprise, she instead dug her mobile back out of her handbag.

She turned the screen towards him, and he typed the number directly into the dialer on his phone. He waited a few minutes until everyone ― Parkinson included ― had moved on to other things and forgotten about him, and then slipped from the table.

Ron shouldered his way through the crowd to the loo, pushing inside and locking the door behind him. It was a small room, hardly bigger than a broom closet. There was a toilet and a sink, a grimy mirror hanging above it, and a dim ceiling lamp that barely lit the space.

Ron backed up to one side of the room and slumped against the wall. He gripped the phone in clammy hands. Those pints had picked a perfect moment to hit him all at once. Ron blinked away the creeping dizziness, staring down at the numbers glowing dauntingly on the tiny screen. He'd been unable to get it out of his mind for days ― the image of Malfoy riding his dildo ― and now that he had a way to contact him, he was frozen. The leaky faucet dripped, the sound maddening as it mingled with the rush of blood in his ears. This was stupid. This was so bloody stupid.

He hit call.

Ron held his breath, cupping the phone to his ear. The line rang and rang, until he started to realize he didn't have a plan B. What if Malfoy didn't answer? What if he had to leave a voicemail? What would he even say? He should've just texted him, damn it.

Then, suddenly, the ringing stopped. There was rustling and a mumbled, "Bloody useless thing." Then, louder, "Yes?"

"Malfoy?"

"Yes, this is ― Weasley?"

Malfoy sounded surprised. Ron breathed out gradually, his heartbeat slowing with it. Malfoy's voice was clear and present on the other end. No looking back. He tried to think of something to say, and only came up with one thing.

"Haven't seen you round the shop yet this week."

"Don't tell me that's really why you called." Malfoy sighed, trying to sound put-upon, but Ron could hear the hint of nerves underneath. "If you must know, that would be because I found what I'd been looking for."

"I know."

There was a sharp intake of breath on the other end. For a moment, Ron thought Malfoy might hang up. But then he cursed quietly. "Damn that brother of yours. Incorrigible."

So it really was true. Charlie hadn't just been taking the piss. Ron felt a warmth flare up in his belly, spreading down to the tops of his thighs.

"Try growing up with him. And the twins? Now that's a real nightmare."

"I was trying for discreet, but you were always there."

Ron leaned further back against the wall, staring up at the dark ceiling above. He thought of all those times Malfoy had dropped in at the shop, only to hurry out again if Ron ever came too close. Malfoy had jumped at the chance when Ron had been called away to the back that day.

Malfoy cleared his throat. "Well. You know. So what, then? Looking to mock me for it?"

"You always assume the worst with me. Why is that?" Although Ron couldn't exactly blame him. He hadn't given Malfoy much else to go on in years past. Neither of them had. "No. No, I was calling because…" Why had he been calling? It had seemed such a natural thing when he'd asked Parkinson for Malfoy's number not five minutes ago. "I was curious. If there was, er." He waved his free hand, searching for the words. Nothing sounded right. "Any particular reason for it."

Malfoy laughed ― a short bark of a sound. "I mean, obviously yes. It's a sex toy, Weasley."

Ron snorted, taken aback. "That's not ―"

"Actually, I thought it'd make a nice statement in the middle of my dining table. It would be an excellent conversation piece for dinner parties."

"For fuck's sake, Malfoy, I didn't ―"

A chuckle rumbled through from the other end of the line. There was that snark again. Merlin, it made Ron hot, his skin blooming from his collar up to his ears. He chewed his lip, pulling back the grin that threatened to spread across his face.

"I only meant ― was there a reason? That you'd picked mine?"

The line suddenly went quiet. Ron had to check his phone just to make sure the call hadn't dropped.

When Malfoy finally replied, his voice was soft, uncertain. "What would possess you to call and ask me that?"

Ron breathed in slowly, his hand tapping an incoherent rhythm on his thigh. "Well, I'm a bit pissed, to be honest," he admitted, still feeling the slight burn the Simison had left in his throat.

Malfoy didn't say anything more at first. The lamp above buzzed as the faucet continued to drip. Ron could hear the noise from the pub pressing up against the other side of the door.

Then, Malfoy said, "Maybe there was."

Ron felt his heart jump into his throat. "Was what?"

"A reason why I bought it," Malfoy said slowly, deliberately. "Figure it out, Weasel."

Oh, bloody hell. Ron took a shaky breath. Every nerve felt like it was on fire.

"And...how was it?" Ron heard himself ask as if from very far away.

Even over the din of the music beyond the bathroom door, he could hear Malfoy swallow. "It was good."

"Oh, ta." Ron chuckled despite himself.

"No, I mean...Bugger." It was nice hearing Malfoy so flustered. A rare occurrence, and one that the little fluttering pixie in Ron's stomach very much wanted to repeat. "It was brilliant, alright? Happy?"

Brilliant. The word tingled down Ron's spine. For some reason, he couldn't wipe the smile from his face. Bloody hell, was this really happening? He thought of fleeting insults thrown in the school corridors all those years ago ― then he thought of a night just a few months ago, the look in Malfoy's eyes as Ron told him about the shop.

"You wrote a song about me once, if I remember correctly," Ron said, feeling deliriously happy.

"I suppose I did." Malfoy sighed.

Ron's eyes flicked to the door, to the noise of the crowd beyond. "Why didn't you want me to know?"

"Oh, please, Weasley," Malfoy said bitterly. "Pick a reason."

"I know, but ―" Ron tried to argue, but Malfoy cut him off.

"You don't owe me anything. It would be incredibly unfair for me to expect you to be interested in return."

Ron supposed that was fair enough. He'd had similar feelings towards Malfoy until very recently.

"I would be, though. I mean ― I am."

Saying the words out loud gave them a weight Ron hadn't felt before. He let them roll off his tongue, flattened the tip of it along his lips as he thought about flashes of icy blond hair, high cheekbones, and long fingers swirling around the rim of a glass. He thought of the moment he'd finally realized Malfoy had been looking back.

"Oh." Malfoy paused, seeming surprised by that revelation. "Good to know."

Malfoy fidgeted. Ron listened intently, hearing the breath he released and the scrape of his fingers against his mobile.

"You wouldn't ― ah." Malfoy caught himself, and Ron waited for him to continue, his ears ringing. "Would you want to…?" Malfoy trailed off, finishing his thought with a scoff.

"Would I want to what ― oh."

Oh.

Ron swallowed hard. He wanted to believe Malfoy was asking him what he thought he was asking him, but even after everything, it was almost too good to be true. The long stretch of awkward silence on the other end told him he was right, though, and that made him jittery, his hand coming up to rub at the back of his neck.

"I could be reading too much into this," Malfoy muttered.

"No, no, definitely not. I mean." Ron licked his lips, his mouth suddenly feeling far too dry. "I just don't want you to think I expect this."

Malfoy made a sound, and Ron could practically feel him rolling his eyes on the other end of the line.

"Oh, so you don't ring up every person who buys a model of your cock and ask them how they enjoyed it?"

"What? No, of course not!" Ron stopped, realizing, and laughed at himself. "You're joking. That was a joke."

"Terribly clever, this one."

A sudden jiggling of the door handle made Ron jump, almost dropping his mobile in the process.

"Occupied!"

He fumbled with the phone, his heart thudding wildly. When he put it back to his ear, Malfoy was laughing. The sound made Ron feel weak in the knees.

"Where are you?" Malfoy asked, still snickering.

"In the loo at the Dragon's Head."

"Oh, of course." Malfoy sucked his teeth contemplatively. "Hang on. Is there anyone in there with you?"

Another frustrated turn of the door handle.

"It's a single."

"Good." Malfoy lowered his voice conspiratorially. "Do you want me to use it?"

Ron pressed his hand flat against the door, waiting until he heard the bloke give a huff and storm off. "Use what?"

"Your dildo, Weasley."

The silken drawl of Malfoy's voice spread like gooseflesh across Ron's skin. "Right now?" he asked incredulously, although he was already half hard at the thought.

"I could give you an exclusive product review. Unless you don't want to."

"No, I do!" Ron replied quickly, and Malfoy laughed again, making him blush.

"Eager, are we?"

"Yes." Ron passed a hand over his face, trying to laugh as well, but it came out shaky. Merlin, it had been all he could think about for the past few days. Still, he'd never imagined Malfoy would offer it outright. "Just didn't take you for the phone sex type."

Malfoy hummed. "You caught me in a randy mood. Now how do I ― ah, right."

Ron assumed he'd been put on speakerphone, as there was now an echo. He dug out his wand for a moment and cast a quick Silencio on the bathroom. It was a wonder how he had the brain power to spare, when all the blood in his body was suddenly rushing to his cock. He could hear Malfoy fumbling for something on the other end.

"Where are you?" Ron asked in return, trying to distract himself from the heady thrum of anticipation.

"In bed. Naked," Malfoy added with a hint of a smirk in his voice. Ron groaned, shutting his eyes against the image of Malfoy stretched out on soft sheets, hard and waiting for him. Merlin, had he been naked the whole time they were talking? Ron pressed the heel of his palm to the crotch of his jeans.

Malfoy went silent for a moment, until there was a faint intake of breath. His bed creaked distantly in the background.

Ron licked his lips, cupping his hand around the solid, hot line of his cock under his trousers. "Are you prepping yourself?"

"Of course." Malfoy breathed out steadily, the bed creaking again. "You're bigger than I thought you'd be. Although I'd always wondered."

Fucking hell. Ron arched against his hand. Was he really going to get his cock out in a pub toilet? The last shred of his resolve melted away when he heard Malfoy moan, low and guttural, a sound that shot straight through Ron, all the way to his toes. He imagined Malfoy laying back, his knees bent up, and slick fingers down between his legs, pressing in and out of his puckered hole. Ron was switching the phone to his left hand before he could give it a second thought. He flicked open the button on his jeans and pushed his pants down to hook under his balls, taking himself in hand.

Ron rolled his hand down over his length. Malfoy's breath hitched, and he cursed, the bed shifting with him. Ron caught his lip between his teeth, wondering how many fingers he had in him. He imagined himself leaning over Malfoy on the bed, licking a hot stripe along his neck as his hand worked him open, his thighs falling open as he settled between them.

"Fuck, I needed this," Malfoy breathed. Ron moaned, pulling his foreskin back and rubbing over the weeping head of his cock.

Malfoy muttered a Cleansing charm, and then a drawer was pulled roughly open nearby. Ron heard Malfoy pick up the phone, moving and setting it down again as he bounced on the bed, adjusting himself.

"Are you ―?" Ron wanted to ask, but he couldn't finish the thought, left hand gripping the phone hard as he tried to steady himself.

"Yes, gods."

Ron paused, listening as Malfoy shifted and panted on the other end. He didn't have to ask when it was fully in. He knew the moment Malfoy's breath faltered, the gasp he gave sending shivers down Ron's spine.

Malfoy huffed, the sound so loud to Ron's ears as the whole world funneled down to a point, to this moment as he listened to Malfoy move the toy inside of himself. He moaned, and Ron thought he could hear the squelch of lube on the other end of the line as it entered him.

"Talk to me, Weasley."

Malfoy sounded wrecked. It was enough to make Ron's toes curl just to hear it. It was almost too much to handle ― the idea of Draco Malfoy being thoroughly fucked out by a dildo modelled after Ron's own cock. Ron's head thunked back against the wall. His hand trembled a little as he began stroking himself again.

"Get on your knees for me," he said softly.

Malfoy swore. Ron heard him flip over, his panting breaths suddenly closer to the receiver. In his mind, he could see Malfoy bent over the bed, arse in the air and cheek pressed against the mattress, lips rosy and parted. He imagined himself knelt behind Malfoy, hands gripping his slender hips.

"There's, uh." Ron swallowed. "There's a self-shagging feature. If you want. The spell's ―"

"Oh, we're well acquainted."

"Fuck," Ron moaned. No way he was going to last like this. He rocked his hips, thrusting into the tight circle of his fist. Malfoy sounded like he was trying to collect himself, even as his voice broke on the last word. Ron couldn't begin to explain why that aroused him so much, but he didn't care, already speeding up his hand as it flew over his cock.

Malfoy cast the spell, and Ron felt his cry as the toy began to move on its own. The bed gave a jolt under Malfoy's weight. He gasped again, and Ron heard his fingers scrambling across the sheets.

Ron could almost see it. He imagined Malfoy's bowed back, his knees slipping and spreading apart, his toes curling. The bed creaked with each movement. A dildo of Ron's own making, Malfoy arching back onto it as it fucked him down onto the mattress. Merlin, he should've known Malfoy would take it so well, his eyes rolling back as he listened to the sounds Malfoy made as it thrust into him.

Ron closed his eyes and felt like he was sitting in the room, watching the whole show, watching a copy of his cock pound into Malfoy again and again. The pub outside the bathroom door fell away from him, and all he could focus on was Malfoy's voice and his hand on his own cock.

"Tell me how it feels," Ron choked out, wanting to hear it, see it, touch it, to watch Malfoy unravel under Ron's hands and cock, to capture each cry with his tongue.

Malfoy groaned. "So ― good ―"

"Tell me," Ron rasped again, thrusting his hips forward into his hand. "Tell me ― ah ― how good it is."

"It's so ―" Malfoy cried out, his hands skittering over the sheets. "So good ― so big ― I ―"

"Fucking hell, Malfoy."

At that point, Ron didn't know if he wanted to be watching the toy fuck Malfoy or if he wanted to take over for it. Was he really getting jealous of a dildo? He wished he was there. He wanted to tell Malfoy as much, but he couldn't manage it, instead moaning loudly as he felt his balls begin to draw up against him.

"Fuck, Weasley, you're gonna make me come," Malfoy whined, his posh accent slipping. 

Holy shit, and that was what did it. Ron made a gut-punched sound, his wrist flicking over the head of his cock. He was coming almost before he'd even realized. He barely had the presence of mind to do anything about it before the first spurt had dribbled onto the floor. He pushed off the wall and lent forward, pumping the remainder into the sink. He heard Malfoy swear, and Ron slumped back against the wall again, listening as he came apart with a shuddering cry.

The line went quiet once more. Ron rested his head on the tiles behind him, closing his eyes, holding his softening cock. For a long time, all he could hear was Malfoy breathing on the other end, his own heartbeat equally loud in his ears.

"I liked that. A lot."

Eloquent as always. Ron half expected for Malfoy to say just that, but instead he heard a very soft chuckle ― and then, quietly, "So did I."

Now that his heart rate was gradually slowing, the noise of the club outside wormed its way back in, reminding Ron of where he was, and what he'd just done. He shuffled his feet uncomfortably, glancing at the door when he heard a chatty couple pass by. How long had he been in there? Were the others looking for him?

Another person suddenly banged on the door, and Ron started, pushing off from the wall and quickly withdrawing his wand, disabling his Silencio and spelling himself clean.

"Right." He wanted to say more. Merlin, he did. But instead all he said just then was, "Well, I should probably, er, get back to it. You know?"

"Of course." There was rustling on the line, and then Ron was off speakerphone, Malfoy's voice close and intimate again in a way that made him shiver. "Have a good night, Weasley."

"You too, Malfoy."

Ron exited the bathroom, ignoring the irritated look the other patron gave him as he slipped past.

The entire way back to their table, he felt like he was floating on a cloud. Harry gave him an odd look when he slid into his seat, pulling the fresh pint they'd bought him an indeterminable amount of time ago towards him. Ron couldn't even begin to catch up with what they were all talking about, his mind drifting to thoughts of Malfoy, his mobile a leaden weight in his pocket as the night wound on.

[prairiedust]

The Further Folklore of Supernatural

Here’s a little more folklore meta in light of how season 15 has been playing out if anyone is game. I genuinely thought that Moriah would be the end of the folklore stuff and tossed out “Folk the Author” as an “epilogue,” so this is probably less of an addendum than it is a waymarker as I try to continue to parse these themes into the last seven episodes.

Welp. *waves hands at everything* THIS is not how anyone expected 2020 to go. Things got a little bit big and I stopped thinking about Spn in light of needing that energy elsewhere. But I also don’t want this crapfest to ruin how I fan my favorite show, so here I go again. I will attempt a TL;DR, too!

If you’ve read my old “folklore” analysis here about how I think fairy tales and all their baggage fit into Supernatural season 14, you know that I believe Castiel has stepped into a Sleeping Beauty type story, and that coincidentally a few themes and symbolism from Snow White kept popping up around Dean. (I hold Sam to be a Protagonist in the modern “literary fiction” sense of the word, but emotionally, thematically, and narratively he’s always been a little inaccessible to me. I finally understood him when the death-of-the-author plot surfaced, and I’ll get to Sam eventually here. And Jack, there’s a little Jack in here, too.) 

If you would rather have the TL;DR than read several thousands of words about how folklore and myth *might* be abstractly connected to an American genre show, all I can say is that I tried. The textual support is all in the folklore posts. This is as succinct a summary as I could fabricate. At least I’m not gonna talk about Sam and bricolage and freeplay! This is an almost completely theory-free post! If you don’t want to read or don’t need a refresher and just want to know how this has been working in 15, you can scroll down to “END OF TL;DR”.

So, to catch up, I’m not talking about the folklore and mythology that this show has always relied on for plot and MOTWs. I wasn’t drilling down into urban legends like Hook Man or world folk monsters like shtrigas or pishtacos. By “folklore” I mean the study of storytelling tropes and tale types that have been with us for ages. One of the many subtexts of the end of the series. I’ve been tracking this because I think it’s fun to see how fairy tale imagery and mythology might layer preconscious suggestions into the text of the show. I personally think it was loud enough to be seen easily, but more than likely viewers felt unsettled, felt cheered, or felt like they knew what was coming? I’m curious to know. Anyway.

When we found out that Kelly Kline was going to name her baby “Jack” waaaaay back in season 12, things started chiming. Jack and the Beanstalk. Jack the Giant Killer. Jack Tales. Jack is a powerful Western character, sort of a cross between a noble hero and a trickster, featuring in stories that often blur lines and boundaries. He is both the poor man’s youngest son and the equal to King Arthur’s heir. Jack is both everyman and extraordinary. Jack is so cool, I wish I had more time to parse that but his qualities are not subtle in the text/subtext, anyway.

But back to my half-crack reading of seasons 14 and 15. 

Once upon a time in Supernatural, there were two fairy tales being told. Both fairy tales are found all over the world and in many forms, but they all can be grouped together because they all contain shared elements of the same basic plot or shared themes, and these two in particular are sister stories. So when I mention “Sleeping Beauty,” I’m talking about lots of different versions of the folk tale, and the same for “Snow White,” which can be found in one form or another in storytelling traditions all over the place. It is both helpful and irritating that these are both Disney movies, too.

Jack makes an allusion to Sleeping Beauty in 14x03 The Scar while talking to Castiel-- it’s the kind of subtextual flash that in and of itself means little and proves nothing, but then beginning with The Scar we got three stories in a row that dealt with “sleepers” of some sort-- Lora in 14x03 doomed to die because of a witch’s spell, Stuart in 14x04 Mint Condition in a coma because of a ghost attack, and Sasha’s father in 14x05 Nightmare Logic under the spell of a clever djinn. It’s powerful subtext, like a soft light that bathes these episodes in the color of fairy tale and makes Jack’s Dramatic Swoon at the end of Optimism all the more Dramatic-- subtext amplifying the plot. Jack goes to Heaven, but is eventually cornered by the Shadow, who wants him in the Empty where he will sleep forever-- the Shadow being an entity who has claimed the husks of dead angels since their inception and thus implies a “curse” laid on Jack from the moment he came into being-- but Castiel, who is ever a thief in oh so many ways, makes a bargain with the Shadow and essentially takes over the consequences of Jack’s Sleeping Beauty story (hence my rarely used but hilarious tag “Castiel Thief of Endings.”)

Now that we know from 14x20 Moriah that the Shadow and Billie the Reaper are, if not allies, at least working together when Jack is awakened in the Empty, does that mean that Castiel’s deal is still on the table, or has that fate been thwarted? *pounds table* Was Jack’s death and Chuck’s rise as a “greater threat” in 14x20 enough to shift Castiel’s ending? It’s the kind of subtextual question that lends tension to the narrative and it’s what I am here for. 

Well, speaking of thwarted expectations, Dean’s arc was being shadowed by a Snow White tale type. We all know Snow White but why don’t I sum it up anyway, since Disney messed up the folktale ending lol. Snow White is cast out of her home by her jealous stepmother (and echoes of the stepmother’s magic mirror show up in 15x02 Gods and Monsters) who sends her huntsman to kill her; the dude can’t do it and turns the girl loose in the forest instead. Snow White joins a band of outsiders who live in the forest-- in the Disney movie and the Grimms’ tale they are dwarfs, in some versions she happens upon a band of robbers-- and they love her very much and we presume she’s safe for the rest of her life; Michael mysteriously turns Dean loose to join Sam’s gathering of hunters, however we know, like Stepmom, Michael is still out there. The stepmother finds out that Snow White is actually alive and contrives to kill her herself. Eventually succeeding, Snow White appears to die and is usually laid to rest in a crystal casket/glass coffin. Her stepmother’s machinations have _stolen her agency_ (further paralleling Dean’s possession by AU!Michael.) A Handsome Prince stumbles upon Snow White, is besmitten with her, and he asks her protectors if he can have her, as one does. Leaving the Disney adaptation aside, Snow White awakens when whatever item that has caused her death-like state is dislodged (piece of apple in her throat) or removed (magic corset) or withdrawn (poisoned hairpin) by her protectors. Snow White is a story about the community of the dwarves of band of robbers or adopted family caring deeply for her, and when Dean starts making his own crystal casket, the ma’lak box, in which he will ride out eternity in tormented symbiosis with Apocalypse Michael, he has to rely on his family to help him see the plan through. However, here’s where Jack-- who is as much a chaos engine as his surrogate father Castiel if not more so-- steps in and ruins the ending. Jack smites Michael. Dean Winchester is saved. Again. To put the final nail in the coffin, so to speak, Jack later destroys the ma’lek box entirely. 

That was quite the surprise ending… for one of the stories.

Was the end of season 14 the end of the Sleeping Beauty theme, also?

END OF TL;DR

I quit writing about “folklore” for a while, but that doesn’t mean it stopped being a theme. It just stopped being fun to write about as the story got more and more dark, and when it transmuted into two parallel themes of “folklore” or storytelling by the people versus Death of the Author--or storytelling by a lauded authority-- and there was so much angst about the boundaries of Chuck’s powers, I just wanted to sit back and enjoy that. I did distill my thoughts about Sam’s new arc in the DotA plot, which I thought would subsume the folktale themes but hey, we still have folktales around, too. I mean, we have Sam and we have Dean, and we have two “literary” subtexts, or maybe rather two subjects about the nature of story, something that I thought was a little bit of a surprise.

Storytelling was a Feature of 15x07 Last Call, both in the sense that Lee and Dean swap new stories and tell old tales of their adventures together as they catch up, but also in the sense that we got additional “text”-- hints of a backstory where John and Dean hunted with Lee in that swampy long-ago “Stanford era,” and again we get storytelling when _Lee recounts how he ended up keeping a marid in his basement_. There is also an allusion to the Thousand and One Arabian Nights in that episode that I yelled about in a meta that I never put on the interwebs, but the “marid” is in a specific tale in many editions of that collection, and thus calls in not only a different folktale tradition but the concept of a framed/nested narrative, which I believe will be important to understanding the last episodes of the series, but that’s an aside. In 15x08 Our Father Who Aren’t In Heaven, Castiel _tells Michael the story_ of how everyone ended up where they are now to convince him to help. And Michael and Adam’s allyship, if not friendship, was probably the best subversion of any “storytelling” expectation we’ve ever had on this show. Belphagor set us up for “room full of crazy” or something, but, no. We got symbiosis. 

That almost sums up how I’ve been viewing the last “era” of spn. This wasn’t in the master post, but I shouted a lot about underworlds before 15x09 Purgatory 2: Return to Purgatory, and then stopped shouting because I had to ferment for a while. Also, as has been mentioned, the world turned to crap. But talking to other meta writers during the ramp up to the resumption of the season helped me realize just why this reading of myth to folktales to literature feels so right.

Underworlds and Otherworlds…. Everybody has crossed into an “underworld” or three in Supernatural, it’s really nbd. It was actually surface-level plot in season 13. By the time 15x09 rolled around, our heroes are just, like, strolling in and out of “sealed off” Hell after doing a level one spell and chilling with Billie in the Empty and even that Purgatory trip didn’t have the same feeling of danger that, say, crossing into the AU did. But also, we’re at the point where subtext is leading us to a _satisfactory_ ending. Where before we had serial text, like a cumulative tale type-- “The House that Jack Built”-- which just kept adding more and more plot, we’re hurtling o’er the apex of Freytag’s pyramid now and things are getting loud.

But they’re also getting very shifty.

I wrote a little bit about Sam Winchester successfully reviving Eileen in 15x06 Golden Time and the “Orpheus and Eurydice” symbolism of him keeping his back to her. (I’m not linking it because it’s so, so rough.) But because Sam is not an underworld hero, not completely-- I see him as a modern Protagonist coming to terms in a psychoanalytical model with things like mortality, fallibility, and mastery-- maybe bildungsroman, even -- he was able to subvert the tragic ending of the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice because it is not “his” story. But if I were pressed to find a mythic or folk tale type to measure Sam against, I could. I would probably sideye “the sorcerer’s apprentice” trope (ATU 325-The Magician and his Pupil :D ) which began as a poem that entered European folklore on different fronts. (and weirdly, that story was also Disnified in Fantasia. That’s probably more my own limitation as a gen x american lol than anything coming from the writer’s room.)

Dean got his moment in Purgatory where he was able to finally come to grips with his anger and heal the rift between himself and Castiel because Purgatory is a different kind of underworld. Dean is a successful threshold-crosser, having crossed that boundary out of Purgatory before, but in 15x09, his prayer to Castiel is all a subtextual evocation of doing the emotional and mental work of therapy, which Sam, as a modern protagonist, is usually caught up in. The mythic hero also deals with mortality, failibilty, and mastery, but in different terms. I hope I’m doing an okay job peeling apart these nuances that I’m seeing.

Since Castiel accompanied Dean to Purgatory, and in the past made his own wildly successful incursion into and out of Hell with Dean’s soul, and was the one in The Trap who actually retrieved the Leviathan blossom, Castiel counts as an underworld hero, too, but you can pull the lever and send the tumblers spinning again and make him a fairy tale character in that he has made this Bargain with the Empty which is both in the “modern” tradition of subverting a fairy tale, and the tale type “deal with the devil.” Or he could be seen as a modern protagonist in that he’s lowkey grappling with questions of selfhood and identification. “I am an angel of the lord.” “I am no one.” “It’s Steve, now.” “You are nothing.” “I am an angel.”

We even got an episode that playfully explored the concept of “hero” by subverting our expectations (Sam and Dean were rescued by, of all people, an upgraded Garth.) It was called The Hero’s Journey, after the Joseph Campbell book about mythic heroes.... !!! Like, what??? !!!! I didn’t even have anything to say about that episode, it just rocked. The “meta” was just all out there in plot, like the olives and boiled eggs in a 1950’s gelatin recipe. 

Some of this slipperiness in the subtext points right at the study of folklore and the (admittedly Eurocentric at first) efforts to transform a “soft science” into something approaching scientific rigor. The Aarne-Thompson-Uther folktale index is today a codifying or cataloguing tool, with which anthropologists and literature scholars can line up stories based on the motifs found within them-- it is useful for cataloguing tales, making comparative studies, and for trying to trace these stories back through human history to find the One First Story of that type, for instance the ur-story that led to Snow White. When did people first start telling that tale, where, how did it spread, and why are we still telling it today? The danger in using the ATU index is that by stripping a story down to it’s bones, we lose the story, if that makes sense. The beauty of using the ATU index is that you find many, many more interconnected stories. It’s sort of a paradox. Some scholars criticize the ATU, claiming that one could take a random selection of these motifs and shuffle them to create a story and, you sort of could? That’s the beauty of the system. 

So that brings us to Jack. I feel like Jack, as in Jack of all Trades, is anything that the narrative needs him to be. As far as I can find, “Jack” is not a “tale type.” He shows up alongside any number of them-- sometimes as a trickster, sometimes as a hero, almost always as a kind of slippery character. In the first folklore post, I invested many words in exploring Dabb’s obsession with threes-- AU Michael asks three beings what they desire, asks his human victim to guess his name three times, then we follow three sleeper stories, and so on. The original TFW was three people. But Jack makes four. 

What is Jack’s story going to be?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

And speaking for a sec about the origins of myth and folklore-- what about ALL OF THE OTHER PEOPLE in the world? Are they lowkey churning the matrix of reality on their own and generating their own content, like Becky and her AO3 stories and mackettes? 

*¯\_(ツ)_/¯ intensifies*

It all just feels so good at this point, even the peril that I feel surrounding Castiel.

I *think* this will be the last of the longform metas before the end of the series. I mean, I can only hope so. I’ll drop some stuff about individual episodes that might be applicable as I rewatch, and I might clean up my post about Last Call and drop it on here, but I just wanted to kind of hold this up as a mile marker before the Final Seven air.

[plusultra-anime]

I’m actually an SPN blog: a few thoughts on 15x19

Hi I don’t make long posts like this often. But I wanted to gather a few thoughts from this latest episode, some that have been put forward by others and some of my own, just to make a bit more sense of where we’re at for myself and to gather/collate things into one place. I am writing this at 6am in a pre-coffee haze so forgive me if any details are wrong or make less sense.

There’s some positivity and some negativity (seems that way after pretty much every Bucklemming episode lol) so I’m trying to take a more positive angle – for my sanity. I may be clowning and I don’t want to get any hopes up to be disappointed but this is just where I’m at with it atm.

Bucklemming So this episode was written by Bucklemming, and as we expected it didn’t make a whole lot of sense in terms of narrative (to me anyway), apart from the overarching narrative of Being Free From God/The Writers. In true Bucklemming fashion we even had an appearance from Mark P (yuck). However, as many others have pointed out, the ~final~ final is written by Dabb, in whom I think we can have confidence that he knows what he’s doing. The big positive for me (and again, many others) is that Bucklemming got this episode and not 15x20!

Empty Space Again, this has already been pointed out by others, but there’s obvious empty space left at the end of this episode. We see Castiel’s name carved into the table, but no real effort made to bring him back into the home, with the two Winchesters “riding off into the sunset” as they started – pretty much alone. There’s also the empty space left by Eileen, and there’s clearly (imo) been an effort made this season to place her firmly next to Sam as endgame. And again, no real effort made by the Winchesters to find her.

We’ve long since moved on from the Two Brothers on the Road story and arrived at Found Family, and to me the empty space left by Cas, Eileen, Jack leaving to become God (?? Did I get that right? Because it sounds wrong lol) and leaving the homely, safe nest they’ve created for themselves, is glaring and screaming. This could just be bad writing (but we were promised no GoT ending, right?!) or it could be set up to make us want that empty space to be filled in the final episode.

I’ve not been digging too hard into the Internet this morning but I’ve already seen (who I assume to be) GA viewers left confused, saying “but what about Cas/Eileen/the contentment/the closure?” which I’ll get to in a moment. Of course, there are those who take the episode for what it is and are left happy with it, but I think that empty space is there for us to notice.  I think.

Closure Speaking about the ending, I remember seeing J2 saying that it ended with a “content” feeling, and “closure”. To me, that’s not what we’ve seen at the end of 15x19. We’ve been shown time and again what a happy ending for Sam and Dean would look like. Dean running a bar, keeping his home nice, going out on the odd hunt but nothing world-shattering, peace. And for Sam we’ve been led towards him becoming a Leader for hunters, a scholar, and a partner to Eileen. We haven’t had any of this yet! And that’s not even considering the Castiel of it all!

(Closure, if we do consider the Castiel of it all, would involve a confession from Dean to match Cas’s, and for them to be endgame romantic to mirror Sam and Eileen. That’s all I want to say on that because I realise that with that kind of TV representation for queer couples what we already got could be all they managed to fight for from the network. Definitely tempering my hopes in this case. But I do have hopes! Because, as many wonderful meta writers have pointed out time and again, it makes narrative sense!)  

At the end of a story, closure is important. Sometimes the absence of it can be satisfying in itself, projecting the narrative beyond the story we’ve been told for the audience to continue in our own minds. But I don’t think that’s quite what we’re getting here, because a good Lack of Closure ending still needs to be satisfying. Which, imo, this was not. We still have one episode left, and I’m wondering if that unsatisfied Lack of Closure feeling we all have right now is deliberate. (I think it probably is?)

Fake Out I saw someone (sorry I can’t remember who) describe this “season finale” episode as a fake out, made for the part of the fandom who ~want~ that Two Brothers on the Road ending. They can stop watching now. “Ok Destiel and perceptive GA fans, now the Bibros aren’t listening we can tell you the real ending”?

And to me it felt like a fake out, it felt fake, it felt like a projection on the wall. Like at the end of the rom-com when the two straight people kiss and that’s the end, but after that snapshot their lives carry on? We’re going to get that after-the-snapshot moment, which I think is rare in TV, as the series finale. Now that the loose plot ends are tied off, the projector can be powered down. We can see what happens to the characters when the writers stop writing, I guess.

I don’t know if I explained that well but basically, I agree with the feeling that This is Not the True Ending. EDIT: I just thought of this after I posted but it’s like it’s given closure to the Two Brothers on the Road narrative itself to make space for the Found Family ending. idk??? what do you think?

(I was going to make this another point itself but as I addressed this already mostly – it feels like a Performative Ending, like what you’re Supposed To Do for a series finale, which I feel can partly be attributed to Bucklemming being shit writers, and partly (I suspect … because I’m assuming Dabb still had a bit of a hand in things as showrunner) to generate the kind of “wtf was that ending?” buzz we’re seeing. To make people want to tune in to the ~final~ final, to see how the Empty Space will be dealt with, and to see what kind of Closure we’ll get after all.)

Flashforward My final point, directed towards the pessimistic bit of my brain in the hope that it’ll chill out, is that there’s still an hour of story left to go. What are they going to give us, @ me? An hour of flashforward with no Cas, no Eileen, and no Peace/Content/Settling Down? Imo, as a long-time fan of the concept of narrative, that would be lazy and dull. They might do it (can’t put anything past them at this point lol it’s been a long road), but I’m playing my Doubt card (that’s how Doubt works, right?) just to tide me over for the next week. What else is left to do? God is dead (shout-out to Rob Benedict for killing it, no pun intended). Lucifer is dead. There’s no big bad left. What monster of the week could they be chasing? Could they really just spend an hour long episode reminiscing? Doubt. Maybe we can have a little flashforward as a treat.

 So that’s it! Again I feel a bit cautious to get my hopes up for 15x20, particularly as a Destiel fan, but I kind of am getting my hopes up because I feel like it makes sense for me to be hopeful. At the end of the day, we still have time before we’ll know for sure, and once that happens, good ending or bad, I’ve had a fantastic 11 years in this fandom and that won’t change!

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 266: Sad Naruto Flute Music

Previously on BnHA: Tamaki ate a horse; Dark Shadow punched Re-Destro through a wall; Gigantomachia didn’t want to wake up from his nap; Tokoyami climbed inside of Fatgum’s stomach like a little emo joey and mused about Hawks; Hawks was all “am I evil or no? history shall decide!” and sort of kind of maybe tried to kill Twice; and then Dabi showed up and set the two of them on fire before you could say “stop, drop, and roll.” All of this was a real chapter that really happened. Anyway but then Hawks saved Twice by pulling him out of the fire, which I totally didn’t notice during my first readthrough last week, so that’s nice. But then Dabi stepped on Hawks’s face and used his quirk again. So that was not so nice. We’re really having ourselves an arc, here.

Today on BnHA: Well you know the old saying. Save a man from burning and you feed him for a day, stab him while he’s running away and you feed him for life. Oh, the chapter? Right. Well Hawks is perfectly fine aside from getting a sexy scar for his troubles, which I’ll have you know I did predict. Twice however is not so fine, which, fun fact, I did not predict. If you’re just joining us. Yeah. I boofed it. Anyway so Hawks escapes Dabi using the power of mysterious main character logic, and then he stabs Twice, and Twice dies, very slowly and sadly and in Toga’s arms. That’s it that’s the chapter. You’ll love it. It’s full of feels. And death. Lol I’m in a mood right now I’m sorry guys. I’m gonna go write some healing Bakugou essays.

so as mentioned on the “previously” section above, Hawks saved Twice’s life! meanwhile Dabi apparently arrived in time to listen to Hawks’s “here I go... time to kill you... really gonna do it... here it comes...” speech for at least several seconds before he finally decided to make his grand entrance, as evidenced by him quoting Hawks’s “sentiment” line right back in his face before setting him on fire. so basically Hawks is still okay and villains gonna villain. this is my conclusion and 4 out of 5 dentists approve but you can form your own judgements as well and that’s fine!

(ETA: this is all your fault fifth dentist.)

anyway so before we begin, full disclosure, I was warned this chapter would make me cry. so that ominous pronouncement is gonna be weighing on my mind while we embark upon our weekly manga journey today, but alas such is life! at least life in March 2020. did we really expect any good news at this point. I want a refund on this whole year but apparently I should get in line

so here we go. someone is narrating and it’s not quite clear who

but the “you’ve just been unlucky” part is a reference to what Hawks was telling Twice in chapter 264, so unless Dabi was listening in on that part too, I would think this would have to be Twice? even though Dabi’s the one whose face is so prominent here, all handsome and crazy

omg Hawks is holding on to his feather and using his tk to blast away while holding Twice

what a fucking thing to do. is the fucking feather still on fire. and somehow he hasn’t instinctively let go of it?? THIS BOY I SWEAR TO GOD

and so he’s definitely going to have a scar there now it looks like! pretty sure this makes him an honorary Todoroki. aww

and also Twice seems to possibly be unconscious, so I guess that was Dabi’s narration?? you mean to tell me Dabi was basically sitting outside for like a full five minutes. were you fixing your hair. getting ready to livestream?? “hey there villain nation it’s me ya boi, so I’m here in the Hilton Gunga Heights and omg like a shitton of heroes have attacked us out of fucking nowhere, and now the number two hero is getting ready to fucking murder my bro Twice, and he hasn’t even noticed I’m here yet. shit is totally crazy, anyways before we go on just a reminder to click on the link below to check out our official league merch, and if you haven’t already, click on the button to like and subscribe, it really helps us out.” and then boom, just in time to save Twice from Mr. To Stab or Not to Stab

(ETA: now that we know it’s actually Twice what am I gonna do with all these Dabi social media jokes. huh?! Horikoshi you ruined everything!!)

oh this chapter is apparently called “Happy Life.” that’s fun I’m sure we’re going to have a really fun time here

(ETA: so fun the funnest.)

Dabi doesn’t really seem fazed though

yeah he’s fucked we know don’t have to rub it in ffff

(ETA: Dabi. we underestimated him, Dabi.)

so Hawks is all “you nearly murdered your bro just fyi” and Dabi is all “smirk it’s fine cuz I knew you were going to save him cuz ~that’s ~what ~heroes ~do” wow you guys. I just realized that between Dabi and Hawks, this has the potential to be the single snarkiest fight we’ve ever had in this manga. my hype for this chapter just went up 10x

also even though I just summarized these last few panels I’m also going to post them so we can all shamelessly admire hot wounded Hawks

hot damn. you were right, AFO. wounded heroes are the sexiest. I may be paraphrasing a bit

also two things, (1) looks like he called some of his feathers back (so then WHERE WERE THEY??), but it’s not much. and (2) he was wearing gloves this whole time that’s right I forgot. so maybe his hands are okay?? the hell are those made of, damn

oh my freaking lord

this is one attractive chapter I’ll give it that. also raise your hand if you’re surprised that Dabi never actually trusted Hawks. yeah that’s what I thought

well shit looks like we’re finally getting some Hawks thoughts! unsurprisingly, they are all “I’m fucked”

please note that while talking!Hawks is continuing to be all sassy, thinking!Hawks is busy tallying up Jin’s injuries. this is a good sign, maybe. I hope. lol

anyway but speaking of Jin, what is going on

oh lol he’s making a break for it

this is so bad you guys. this is so so bad. if Twice lives that’s all well and good, but if he escapes, Hawks is 100% right about how dangerous he is. they could literally capture 90% of PLF in this raid and it would hardly even matter. also in the meantime the #2 hero is about to be roasted alive so that’s also not great for the hero side all things considered

ohhhhhhhhhhhhh no. I don’t like this. no no no

why did we suddenly cut to outside and someone’s screaming (?) echoing from offscreen. I’m trying to think of not-terrible explanations for this and coming up short. uh

now we’re back to Hawks/Twice/Dabi, only I don’t see Hawks yet. but Twice is just barely dodging the flame blast, and meanwhile Dabi is all

is he talking to Twice?

yep he’s talking to Twice

that’s fine. that’s all I need. for Twice to “go wild” while my nine-year-old son is outside with his batteries all fried and innocently waiting for someone to lead him back to where his other child soldier friends are waiting for him. like. say what you will about Hawks and betrayal, but there was a fucking reason he was trying to take Twice out first

hmm but we’re getting this slow-motion panel now and FUCK ME I SWEAR TO GOD IF A FEATHER PIERCES HIS HEART OUT OF NOWHERE I’M GONNA LOSE IT

WAIT WHAT

EXCUSE ME BUT

? ??????????

well you sure have been made to look the fool now, Dabi. thought you’d won just because you had Hawks cornered in a narrow room and you set him on fire while standing in between him and the only exit. rookie fucking mistake. you scrub. you clod. you halfwit. how could you let this happen. wow I can’t believe Dabi let Hawks escape unscathed except for a sexy scar and that’s the end of the chapter

LMAO

oh my god. well good news everyone this chapter did indeed make me cry

(ETA: listen. I’m going to hell, I know. but it’s still funny as fuck.)

“he went outside with the blast... and flanked me?!” ...sure. sure let’s just go with that. seems reasonable

actually no, sorry, I literally went back two chapters to see if there was another way out of this room, and nope

by the way that last panel is apparently from Dabi’s POV if I’m understanding this right. just standing behind Hawks waiting for youtube live to connect

but anyway. so no exit. meaning Dabi apparently torched a hole right through the wall and Hawks just sat there and was all “okay this hurts like a mother but if I wait it out a few more seconds I think I can... there we go!” you know, logic

so now there is a ton of action happening which I can’t quite understand, but also Dabi is shouting Hawks’s real name for some reason

why do I feel like this is definitely the last page before somebody definitely fucking dies. shit. shit

oh thank god so far so good. and also, lol

BECAUSE HE READ THE DATABOOK, HAWKS. that’s probably how he figured out you were a spy too. we’ve been had

oh snap?!

don’t do this to me Horikoshi. don’t give me hope. don’t act like you’re gonna actually address this topic sometime before the heat death of the universe

AND HE’S OUT

MY BABY OFF TO DESTROY PEOPLE. ;_; shitttt hahaha nervous laughter Ralph Wiggum sitting on the bus etc.

GODDAMN IT HORIKOSHI

I don’t want Twice to kill anyone but it doesn’t mean I want him to die either! just!! can’t I have it both ways?? please stop with this I can’t take it also what is Spinner doing. and also YAY GIRAN SIGHTING hot damn the sex appeal of this chapter is fast approaching critical levels

GOD FUCKING DAMMIT FUCK

fuck me. [eyes post from last week] the real announcer jinx was the metas we made along the way

well we’re cutting away again!! because of course we are!! Horikoshi won’t show violence unless it’s a dog exploding or a little boy accidentally murdering his entire family

[taps megaphone] this thing on. all right then. [clears throat] NO ONE WANTS THIS

FOR FUCK’S SAKE

“I KNOW YOU’RE ALL DYING TO SEE WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN, SO HERE, LET’S CUT TO A RANDOM PAGE OF TOGA AND COMPRESS BEING CAPTURED BY A MAN WITH HUNGRY HUNGRY HIPPO ARMS”

oh damn but are they really captured though??

forgive me for being skeptical. not to doubt you, Hungry Hungry Hippo Man. I’m sure you’re absolutely right and your sentence cut off at the end there because you remembered that they changed their name to Pliff, and not because you’re being stabbed or burned or impaled or whatever the fuck

!!!

HE LIVED BITCH

yes he totally lived and this definitely isn’t so that he can get one final scene with Toga before he suddenly keels over and dies. shit. at this point it’s fucking inevitable. you had to go and drag his girlfriend into this. I’m so sad you guys I can’t even deal with these emotions I’m just gonna stubbornly joke about stupid shit until I figure out what the fuck else to do

OH MY GOD!!!!???

HE DIED BITCH!?!??

he’s already dead he’s already fucking dead fucking shit

ohhhhhh it’s pouring down sads now

my bird son really went and fucking killed the sweetest little dumpling in the manga. I wrote like 5 thousands essays defending you, Hawks. we gonna have to get you a damn good lawyer now

why is sad flute music from the Naruto OST playing

he’s not gonna need it where he’s going Toga. because they already have plenty of handkerchiefs on the farm. and lots of room for him to run around and play with other villains too

lmao fuck

I really did this to myself, why did I actually start playing Sadness and Sorrow fuck my life. real actual tears

and it SEEMS TO ME, YOU LIVED YOUR LIFE, LIKE A CANDLE IN THE WIND~~~

[sad makeste noises]

AND I WOULD HAVE LIKED TO KNOW YOU

BUT I WAS JUST A KID~~

...

your candle burned out long before

your legend ever did.

[mellow keyboard tones]

welp. ... 2020 ladies and gentlemen

[tricksterreformed-a]

✩  INTERVIEW WITH THE MUN  ✩

➊ How many ships do you have on this blog?

          I don’t know, let’s count! I’ve been writing some super fun GabrielxBobby stuff with @multimuse-rp, and that good (complicated) GabrielxDean shit with @awaywardboy-andhisangel and actually... that’s all the canonxcanon ship stuff I’m writing right now for some reason. But that’s not all the ships!  Fulfilling a years long dream (for me) @daedaluscried and I are writing GabrielxAri and she has also indulged some excellet (unrequited) GabrielxEve content, @thxwxlf and I have dabbled in some GabrielxKekipi, and @inferniangod has been kind enough to write GabrielxIfrit with me. 

          I’ve discussed, but not actually written GabrielxSam with @smmie, and I think @hellsmother and I are on track to write some GabrielxRowena (but if I’m not sure I should probably check, whoops).  So that’s six total, eight if you count these last two.  Plus a handful of others where Gabriel is just flirting at people and waiting to see what happens.  Nothing has to happen, he’s just like that.  But something could happen with any of them.

➋ Have you ever roleplayed with someone that just left an unforgettable impression on you?

          Of course!  I’ve been doing this for 10+ years and people have made all kinds of impressions, some amazingly good and others downright awful. I can roll through some nicknames/first names only and proably only Anti will know who I’m talking about because a lot of them are from our shared history on gaiaonline!  I could go on and on about every single one of these people but here’s a quick ‘n dirty list instead: Noir, Kathy, Mariah, Moose, Lyss, Berry, and @daedaluscried!  I’m still occasionally in touch with three of these people (one more often than the other two) which I think is kind of wild all things considered. There’s also some not so good impressions, like guy-who-started-nice-and-then-harassed-me-for-nude-pics and the-person-who-broke-my-trust-and-caused-me-to-stop-writing-smut, but i have put them far far behind me.

➌ Which of your ships on this blog is the fluffiest?

          The fluffiest is probaly Gabriel and Ari now that we’ve gotten into the emotional core of the relationship on both ends.  Which isn’t to say that it’s not a spicy ship with a helping of angst, but... I’ve written more hand-holding with them than with any of the others and I guess that’s my definition of fluff. Also I suspect the gratuitous hand-holding will continue even once they’re past the language barrier. So... FLUFF.

➍ Would you say you’re a decent role player or do you have any self doubts?

          I think I’m a decent writer but my roleplay skills vary depending on the day.  I understand how to set a mood and (usually) how to string a decent sentence together but sometimes the craft that goes into bouncing off of another writer and giving them something to bounce off of in return eludes me.

➎ Have you made lots of friends on this blog?

          More than I expected too. But when I set this blog up I thought ‘those days are behind me now’ so... one would be more than I expected.

➏ What’s the one thing you especially love about roleplaying your muse?

          WRITING THE JOKES!  And not just the verbal jokes he makes, I love writing jokes into my narration! Meta jokes! Dick jokes! Bad puns! All of it! I love it!! I also enjoy the way Gabriel interacts with the world around him.  He rarely just stands in a scene and talks, he’s always moving and gesturing and doing stuff. I also love writing his dialogue, even when the things I write make me squinch my face up with shame. He just says stuff sometimes. 

➐ Are there any people you’ve been to afraid of approaching?

          NOPE!  I’m not afraid to reach out. Approaching people is the easy part. You send a meme, you make an ooc comment, you tag them in something, you hit them with an ask or an IM or whatever.  And if they don’t answer that’s a-okay!  Their choice, I’m not hurt or personally offended. What I’m afraid of is what happens after that part if they do answer.  I can usually BS a thread until I find the point of the thing but IMs and asks? Y I K E S ! Now there’s an expectation for me to be cool and witty and have good ideas instead of just mediocre ones. Very scary. The reason I don’t send IMs.

➑ Give us a rough estimate: How much time have you spent on your graphics? (icons, theme, banners, promos, etc)

          My icons/graphics are a visual representation of me learning to use G.I.M.P. and I think you can... very clearly see the learning curve.  More effort went into those old fuzzy icons I have than the new, crisp ones. Plus moodboards and other stuff?   My guess is 40+ hours.

➒ Got any memorable threads on here? Care to mention a few?

          Well now I wish I had thread tags.  Thread tags would be a lifesaver right now.  Anyway, I am once again shouting out @awaywardboy-andhisangel and our original GabexDean thread that has since spiraled and gotten very, very interesting (it’s not over, I just like it).  And @divinitatemxsanguis who has allowed me to indulge in writing Gabriel with Loki post all the betrayl and murder. They have a special place in my heart so thanks for not judging me! I’m getting ready to write the conclusion/endcap to a sad thread with @isclcphobics involving Talia, Gabriel, and a grave. Plus the thread with @downwillow where Gabriel is human and Micheal has forgotten him. And a shoutout to @daedaluscried for our thread series that I have affectionately dubbed the ‘The Nanny’ series ft. October and Gabriel.  Every thread has been a delight.

          I also have some stuff I’m really looking forward to getting into, specifically with @hellsmother​, @cursebcund​, and @magaprima​.

➓ What were some of the most frustrating moments you had with your muse’s interaction with another muse?

          One that’s on me: sometimes I know that a moment in a thread calls for some emotional vunerability, and often when those times roll around the Gabriel voice I use to write dialogue goes all quiet and resistant and just wants to make jokes.  And either one of two things happens, either I write the joke and cringe because I know now the thread is going to go way off track because obviously the other character won’t be thrilled/is about to shut down and shut up. Or I force some emotional vunerability out of him and it never quite sounds right to me.  Sometimes it’s natural, but sometimes he just won’t do the thing and it frustrates me!

          One that I’ve encountered from someone else: sometimes people will try to force a certain motivation or trait on my Gabriel based on their perception of canon/a past interaction they’ve had with another Gabe as portrayed by another RPer. This really grinds my gears because if you want a Gabriel with that motivation to critique/praise/fight with then go find one! I garantee someone out there plays him that way! There are a lot of us out here doing this! I’m not going to change my portrayl for you!!

[lan-xichens]

wait no i also want to recognise that everything you said about wwx is super valid like i feel there's less of a debate there but!! oh shit wait maybe wwx does also have rejection sensitive dysphoria (an emotional sensitivity and pain triggered by the perception that a person has been rejected or criticized by important people in their life. It may also be triggered by a sense of falling short—failing to meet their own high standards or others’ expectations.)

sorry for the complete spam but the rejection sensitive dysphoria can also lead to outbursts when you externalize it, ie in anger etc.- but it can also lead you to become like a people's pleaser (like i kinda do feel this sounds more like wwx) as for the like- starting something and not wanting to stop, i think it's a hyperfocus thing, bc you start something and you get in the flow and then you're afraid to stop bc when you pick it up again you won't feel the same (nd then you overwork yourself)

No no not spam at all! Sorry I couldn’t get to it the other day, but thanks for elaborating on this. But rejection sure is a theme amongst Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng like, oof.

But I definitely see how you brought that up for Jiang Cheng because, his entire life and story seem to revolve around him trying to earn his place and win the respect of those he cares about, but both intentionally and unintentionally, he keeps being sidelined.

First, by his parents:

And, both Jiang Cheng’s looks and personality took after his mother. He hadn’t ever been to Jiang FengMian’s liking. Since birth, he taught him in many ways, yet he still couldn’t change, which was why Jiang FengMian had always seemed as though he didn’t favor him too much.

Jiang Cheng pulled Wei WuXian’s hand away and stood up, letting out his anger, “I know! I know that I don’t have the personality he likes, that I’m not the heir he wants. He thinks that I don’t deserve to be Sect Leader, that I don’t understand the motto of the Jiang Sect, that I don’t have the air of the Jiang Sect in me at all! Those are all true!” - GDC chapter 56

How do you compete for the affection and approval of your parents if one of them rejects your entire being based on your personality? Jiang Fengmian’s favouritism towards Wei Wuxian is one of the massive parts influencing how JC and WWX interact, because there must be so so so much jealousy involved on Jiang Cheng’s part.

But even his mother never pulls her punches in criticising him, and adds fuel to this fire.

Jiang Cheng sat still as he looked up at her, “Mom.”

Madam Yu stood up and mocked, “What do you want me to do? Like your father, you want me to hold my tongue? You really are an idiot. I’ve told you long ago that you’ll never in your whole life be able to surpass the one sitting beside you. Not over cultivation, not over night-hunting, even over shooting kites, you can’t surpass him! It can’t be helped. Who could change the fact that your mom is worse than another’s? Worse it is, then. Your mom feels injustice for you, tells you countless times not to fool around with him, yet you’re still defending him. Just how did I give birth to a son like you?!” - GDC chapter 51

So between the two of his parents, there’s no pleasing either, no matter how hard Jiang Cheng tries to win their approval and live up to their expectations. I feel this is why Wei Wuxian attributes a competitive nature to him, but he misconstrues that; I don’t think Jiang Cheng seeks competition so much as he seeks approval, understanding the expectations of him as the future sect leader. He’s not trying to out-do Wei Wuxian’s cultivation because he wants to be better, necessarily, he just wants to prove to both his parents that he’s not... lesser than him. But he wouldn’t have had to do it if they hadn’t been the ones to constantly pit him against his brother in the first place!

But even with the situation being like that (and while we can address it in meta, I know this is probably not something Jiang Cheng could ever admit to himself or to any close to him lest he insults his parents), but even then, he seems to be able to take it in stride so long as Wei Wuxian doesn’t turn his back on him.

And that’s the unintentional part, because this does sadly happen, at least on the surface.

Their conversation at the Burial Mounds is one I’ve wanted to scream about for so long, because the miscommunications there run so deep you couldn’t see the bottom of it. But focussed on rejection, it’s this:

A while later, Jiang Cheng spoke, “Wei WuXian, have you still not realized what the situation at hand is like? Do you really need me to say it out loud? If you insist on protecting them, then I won’t be able to protect you.”

Wei WuXian, “There’s no need to protect me. Just let go.”

Jiang Cheng’s face twisted. - GDC chapter 73

As some super helpful posts have already pointed out, Wei Wuxian’s defection from the Jiang clan is a disloyal thing to do, regardless of his reasons. But I also think that, to some extent, Jiang Cheng feels it as a personal rejection as well.

CQL adds two very painful exchanges here:

JC: They turn out to be a group of the old, young, and weak. All useless! WWX: All useless? Can’t you speak in a good manner?

Jiang Cheng means they are no threat, so the sect leaders are wrong. Wei Wuxian hears him dismiss the lives of those he must consider worthless. This leads up to:

JC: What on earth are you doing this for? WWX: Jiang Cheng, I’ll tell you honestly. Even if it weren’t for Wen Qing and her brother, or for anyone else, I’d make the exact same choice.

Jiang Cheng asks why he would turn his back on the Jiang clan, Wei Wuxian hears him challenge his righteousness and his reason for protecting the innocent. Wei Wuxian explains he would do the right thing for anyone, Jiang Cheng hears he would always choose to reject the Jiang clan, and by extension himself, no matter for who it was.

This comes back at the Guanyin Temple:

On the other hand, Jiang Cheng refused to give up, shouting, “Wei WuXian, who was the one who broke his promise and betrayed the Jiang Sect first? Tell me. That I’d be the sect leader and you’d be my subordinate, that you’d help me your whole life, that so long as the GusuLan Sect had its Two Jades, the YunmengJiang Sect would have its Two Prides, that you’d never betray me or betray the Jiang Sect—who was the one that said these?! I’m asking you—who was the one that said all these?! Did you eat all your fucking words?!”

He got more agitated as he ranted on, “And in the end? You go and protect outsiders, haha! The Wen Sect’s people, even. How much of their rice did you eat?! Defecting with such resolution! What did you take our sect to be?! - GDC chapter 102

Actually, while I love rewatching this scene as so many things keep jumping out at me, it’s even better to reread this part in the novel. I’d forgotten how much extra background we get on just how far this misunderstanding goes.

Why does Wei Wuxian tell him to let things go, and not to keep this matter in his heart?

Wei WuXian pressed his temples, “Forget it. It’s all in the past now. Let’s not mention it again.”

It wasn’t something he liked to reminisce about. He didn’t want to be reminded again and again of what it felt like when his core was cut out or what price he had to pay. If this were exposed in the past, he’d most likely laugh and comfort Jiang Cheng, ‘It’s not that big of a deal anyways. Look at me all these years. Without the core, I still managed to come through, didn’t I? Beating everyone I wanted to beat, killing everyone I wanted to kill.’ But now, he indeed didn’t have the strength left to put up such a confident, nonchalant pretense. - GDC chapter 103

Maybe I was the one who misintrepreted this line in my head, but CQL makes it seem so much like Wei Wuxian is fully at peace with giving up his core, and he wants to impress on Jiang Cheng to find his peace with it as well. But in truth, it’s exactly the opposite, because Wei Wuxian doesn’t want to admit to how difficult it was and still is for him, but he doesn’t want to show him that his decision haunts him.

Which just smacks of a conversation they still need to have.

And also begs the question why CQL went for the second bolded line; why have Wei Wuxian smile and comfort him and try to soothe things over? It was an incredibly sweet moment, sure, but the words were so confusing to me, and now I see why. His heart shouldn’t have been in it at all.

None of this addresses Wei Wuxian’s relationship with rejection at all - how he always struggles to find his place and to solidify his standing with certain people, but how it’s always on loose screws. But the way he treats himself as disposable, especially towards the Jiang clan, was still the whole catalyst for this situation in the first place.

[mountain-ash-and-rusted-iron]

this is an oc masterpost of all my haf-formed ocs languishing on pinterest with their messy aesthetics and unedited blurbs, in roughly chronological order of their creation, plus sorted by fandom. this post is only asoiaf, harry potter, hunger games, and riverdale, cos i have tooooooo many original characters otherwise and the post was getting incredibly long. (note that i love my ocs but these one’s are not polished or even the final versions of their characters, i just wanted to post them lol)

under a read more, if you’re on mobile start scrolling i guess, sorry,,,

Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire:

Laeya Targeryen: (child of Rhaella and Aerys Targaryen, born 280 AC - three years older than Danaerys) 

Fearful of her impending marriage, Laeya is eleven when she takes her younger sister and flees across the sea to Dorne, hiding herself and Dany with dyed hair and badly controlled magic. As Leia and Dani Sand they learn to live normally. At 15 Leia joins the Royal Guard and secures Dany work as a tailor's apprentice. When she is 17, an assassin tries to kill her in front of the Dornish court and everything changes...

- so laeya straight up has magic, which im considering an extension of the dragon thing dany has - she can control flame and for the disguise uses her ‘inner fire’ to make her eyes white-blue like super hot flames, cos the purple eyes are super distinctive. and then she’s discovered and suddenly politics are happening. honestly she’s entirely a way for me to remove the child marriage bits of the targaryen storyline (stop marrying off your twelve-year-old baby sister viserys u asshole) - in terms of meta/basics, laeya doesn’t have a fc cos most of my early ocs don’t, and bcs i picture her as emilia clarke with faked dark hair and blue eyes lol

and a quick aesthetic below:

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Kyrra Snow: (child of Robert Baratheon and Maery Snow, birthdate ???)

Kyrra Snow is the eldest natural-born child of Robert Baratheon, current King of Westeros, and daughter of Maery Snow, a Southron (but Northern-born) merchant woman. After her mother realises Kyrra was growing up a little too much like her father in looks and needed to leave the far South before she caught the wrong sort of attention, Kyrra was sent off to travel with her aunt and cousins. She is 17 and heading further north, to Winter Town, when Jon Arryn dies.

- kyrra’s another child of everyone’s favourite asshole king, and she’s got a lot of people after her head, but she just wants to travel and continue her work as a simple peddler. (riiip poor girl) honestly she’s not that developed but yolo -

aes:

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Brynn Stark: (child of Catelyn and Eddard Stark, Robb’s twin sister)  

Brynn believes in honour and family, and she is loyal to Winterfell and the North above all else. Likes - archery, embroidery and weaving. Betrothed to [some young Northern lord] to keep the bonds between the Norther families strong.

-i basically made brynn as a contrast to sansa’s pro-southnness and excessive femininity and arya’s anger and desire for swords (relatable mood tho lmao). so brynn is here to mediate, extoll the virtues of both needlework and weapons, make a decent marriage to someone she likes, if not loves, and hold down the fort in the North while shit gets increasingly messier in the South. and a possible faceclaim is Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey - 

aes:

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Rosienne Lannister: (child of Joanna and Tywin Lannister, born 273 AC)

Rose is looked at by the realm with dismissal, a consolation prize for her father, a spare daughter only useful for matchmaking, but at least able-bodied and pretty, unlike her brother. After a long betrothal, Rose is married to Willas Tyrell at the age of eighteen, cementing her role as the next Lady of High Garden...

- Rosie/Rose is a bonus Lannister, bcs why not. likes cyvasse and the harp, soft and kind and maternal, powerful in her own way. originally she was from a minor divergence where joanna survives tyrion’s birth and goes on to have another kid, but not sure if i’ll keep that aspect, so for now she’s tyrion’s twin -

and her aes (yes that quote is cropped, no i don’t care rn):

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honourable mentions to my other got underdeveloped got/asoiaf ocs who need more effort before i post properly about them:

Tamlen Storm, a rookery apprentice (working for the Maester of House Tully, managing the ravens) who may or may not be a reincarnated si-oc trying to save westeros, 

and an unnamed northern huntress who stumbled into the plot somehow and wants her normal life back (entirely inspired by Keira Knightley as Gwyn in Princess of Thieves, when she’s doing archery stuff and looking v butch).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Harry Potter:

Taurus ‘Ara’ Lestrange:  (child of Bellatrix and Roldolphous Lestrange, born 1978) 

Raised by the Goblins after a legal mix-up following her parents' imprisonment in Azkaban, Taurus is good with a sword and aiming to be the next Minister of Magic. She attends Hogwarts with the other magical kids her age, under the fake identity Ara Burke, unknown cousin of a minor half-blood family. When the Potter brat’s drama starts destroying her change at an education just as her fourth year, her OWL prep year, begins, Ara intervenes.

- im tangentially aware that as bellatrix’s kid she’s almost occupying the place of whats-her-name from the cursed child, but considering that i know nothing about the cursed child and don’t care about it anyway, i have elected to ignore this. her actual parent might turn out to be some smitten half-blood from a minor branch of the Greengrass family, or it might actually be Rodolphous, who knows. slightly inspired by the fic ‘Harry Crow’ (by robst on ff.net) where harry is raised by the goblins -

messy aes:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Valerian Potter: (child of Lily and James Potter, born 1980)

After the Potter twins’ parents are murdered by Voldemort, they’re dumped on the doorstep of Number 4, Privet Drive. Dealing with two traumatised magical orphans, Petunia and Vernon Dursley turn to violence and neglect to stay in control, acting far more harshly than expected. With the arrival of two Hogwarts letters, life gets complicated incredibly quickly. (Self-sufficient and scarred from abuse, Val and Harry are immediately Sorted into Slytherin). 

- val’s fic is basically an angst fest, okay,,, -

aes:

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and shout-outs to: holly addison potter, a half-baked reincarnation si-oc (i love that concept a lot, can u tell) and my fav girl thea dursley, who already has her own fic and so isn’t getting a proper spot in this post 

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The Hunger Games:

Asher: (District Two, age 18) 

[rip no blurb for asher]

-asher is a career from two, who wins the 70th games. mostly im focusing on her recovery and how the games function in two, with training volunteers and mentoring and collecting sponsors, plus eventually the rebellion. lots of the D2 headcanon i have is inspired by @/lorata but i defintely made a distinct effort to have my own stuff, cos where’s the fun in plagiarism -

aes for Asher’s Games:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  Rowan Everdeen: (District Twelve, age 19)

Rowan will do anything to protect her family. This extends to going to Head Peacekeeper Cray on a cold winters night, charging the most she can get for her virginity.  It extends to Reaping Day, when she steps out in front of the crowd and says “I volunteer as tribute” in the steadiest voice she can muster.  It extends to clawing her way out of the Arena, bloody and exhausted, with blades in her hands and violence kept tucked behind her teeth. It extends further, to a simple ‘Yes, President Snow’ when he coldly, carefully implies her family might meet with an accident if she doesn’t play the good little Victor (and fuck the people who pay the Capitol for her company). It extends to joining the Rebellion, to looking President Coin directly in the eye and agreeing to be a Mockingjay, a symbol for the people to rally around.

- another everdeen kiddo! as the big sister, rowan volunteers for prim, and goes through the Games - she’s a healer and a hunter, and a decent enough actor that she can manage interviews and a camera presence, unlike katniss. rowan also pairs well with a minor au i have, where the reapings are spaced out over a week and official training is a longer, giving the capitol a nice, long buildup to get excited and place bets, etc., and giving the poor, underfed tributes from the outer districts a better chance, which makes for more interesting television and better Games -

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Adrasteia Crane: (The Capitol, age 28) Unlike her big brother, Adrasteia doesn’t want to be a Gamemaker. Instead, she wants to create clothes, artwork, to enrapture the Capitol. She wants to be a Games stylist. After years of design school, of working her way up the ranks, first a PA’s assistant, and then fetching and carrying for Twelve’s prep team, and then eventually on a prep team for the dull tributes from Six, Adrasteia Crane finally has what she wants - the position of stylist for District Three’s male tribute in 74th Hunger Games. 

- tbh adrasteia is only seneca crane’s sister because i couldn’t think of a suitable last name for her lmao. i think i’d actually prefer her to be unattached to any major canon players. however, his death is a good motivation for her to join the rebellion, so we’ll see. she’s got a bit of the capitol fashion thing going too, with soft pink hair and diamond-effect skin on her face and shoulders -

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also bonus hunger games content: another oc, Sarsaparilla Verran, from District Eleven, fifteen and alone when she goes into the Games. An orphan, her siblings lost to the Community Home system years ago, her relatives dead or uncaring. So, Rilla is a wee lonely bab tbh. she did not want this, unlike most of my other hg ocs, and she’s not excited for weeks of murder. she just wants her family back, but since that isn’t possible, she’ll build a new family instead. and uuhhhhh,  spoiler alert, she dies before she can have this ://///

and my hunger games aus - a canon divergence where katniss joins the careers instead of peeta, her desire to go home to her family outweighing her reactive hate for the concept of training/volunteering to kill other teens, and a fem!Haymitch au where she’s a little wiser to the dark side of the capitol before she commits acts of rebellion (she still rebels anyway tho, just smarter).

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Riverdale:

Cat Cooper: (middle child of Alice and Hal Cooper) Cat Cooper (17) is the black sheep of the Cooper family. Her piercings, brightly dyed hair and connections to the Southside Serpents make her the odd one out among her sisters and constantly at odds with Alice Cooper. Cat’s life is occupied with her Serpent friends, work at a local coffee shop, and training - martial arts, supplemented with cross country, gymnastics and swimming. Until her older sister is shipped off to places unknown and her baby sister starts getting caught up in murder investigation with the absent Serpent heir... 

- haven’t decided between Catelyn or Catherine for Cat’s full name lmao. she used to be Kit, actually, but I changed it cos i prefer Kit to solely be my divergent oc (kit serafim). Cat is an ADHD disaster who loves her sisters and her friends and wants to get the hell out of Riverdale on a sports scholarship (she does either boxing or karate mainly, need to figure that bit out) -

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Georgie Andrews: (child of Mary and Fred Andrews)

Georgie likes soft drinks, cheerleading, and hanging out with the Blossom twins and Polly Cooper, their closest friends and a welcome distraction from their own problems. After Polly and Jason vanish, Georgie’s support system is almost gone, and they has to deal with everything they’ve been bottling up, just in time for Fred Andrews to get shot.

- also just angst ngl.  so georgie’s gender is basically ???, they enjoy cheerleading and not much else. they spend half their time dealing with depression, by trying to ignore stressful/hard topics and focus on the good side of everything. this isn’t a great long-term coping mechanism and has the fun side effect of pissing of the people around him when she seems unable to be serious or empathetic to someone else's pain (bcs she’s too busy deflecting for the sake of her own fragile mental health), so it gets fun when fred is shot and archie starts getting in too deep with the lodges -

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Sera Thornstone: (parents ???) Southside Serpent. Going to the Riverdale Community College and running errands for FP Jones. And secretly meeting up with her Ghoulie lover down by the Sweetwater where nobody goes. 

- everything about sera is vague and undecided lmao. but she has a ghoulie gf/bf/nbf? and they’re hiding that they were down by the river on the 4th of july, cos a serpent is an immediate suspect. going to community college to work on getting general credits before saving up for fancy school for law or journalism. the aes isn’t entirely accurate cos sera’s built from the remains of another serpent oc who i scrapped (she does have a baseball bat tho) -

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and honourable mentions to jen johnson and octavia blossom-murphy, my other riverdale ocs who actually have content, plus an in-development unnamed oc who gets adopted from the soqm by the Muggs family and growsup with Ethel. and my riverdale role reversal au, which i will never write but have some nice aesthetics for under the tag wip: bughead role reversal au.

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all my mini-aesthetics here are unsourced images/from pinterest. any similarities to other people or characters, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. 

alrighty that’s it. now i have to tag this behemoth argh

[qforqazaq]

Ninety One – Men Emes

Okaaaay, people, here comes a long-awaited comeback from Ninety One that screamed, no, shouted so much culturally significant meta at me I could barely handle it. Ironically, when I was watching reactions to this MV, most people were so bloody oblivious to anything that was happening on the screen that I was painfully restraining myself not to slam my head on the table, but then remembered "oh, right, that's why I'm running this blog in the first place."

Okay, let's start with the video, shall we?

The opening scene is obviously with Alem because if 91's song doesn't start with Alem there's something definitely wrong with it.

Anyway, we have Alem looking like a mo-fo mafia boss, a Kazakh Don, if you like, in an office that's practically littered with KZ references. First, your eyes might catch those weird looking symbols on the desk, which are actually Orkhon-Yenisei runes - a script of Old Turkic tribes aka one of the direct ancestors of Kazakhs - that I was going to talk about for ages, but didn't have a good excuse to. So thank you Ninety One for bringing that up, I can unleash my inner linguistics nerd upon people regarding the subject in a separate post. The runes are actually read from right-to-left (because that's how it works) as "l" and "r", although I'm not sure of their implied meaning here. My theory that means just that: "left" and "right", for whatever deep reason.

So, while you're admiring Alem's outfit and hairstyle as he's showing off his results of perfecting The Stare™ (I had a theory his stares are so intent because his contact lenses keep drying up and it's his attempts not to blink much when cameras are on), you notice not only that Samsung is the main sponsor of this production (is it surprising?), but also that there's a picture of random people on the background, and a funny-looking statue next to the window. Except for that is not a picture of random people, that is actually a photo of the leaders of the Kazakh national movement/autonomy against Communists in the 1910s - Alash Orda, which I'm probably going to elaborate on in another post. For now, I'll just say that these were the writers, poets, social and political activists, the Kazakh Intelligentsia™, who were later prosecuted and repressed by the Soviet regime. Very important addition to the set if you ask me, and very deliberately chosen.

As for the funny-looking statue, that is a miniature "Balbal" of Kültegin or Kül Tigin, who was the General of the Second Turkic Khanate of the same Old Turkic people who used to write in the aforementioned Orkhon-Yenisei runic script. We can talk about it later on, for now, I can only say that 10 seconds into the video and my inner history nerd was screaming very much delightedly at these references. Didn't expect that much meta in such a short amount of time, eh? And we didn't even mention how cigars are allowed now, along with the whiskey-looking tea in a tumbler.

Anyway, then we are abruptly cut to AZ and, shortly after, ZAQ with an eagle. And no, it's not just a "lol, look, a bird", that's the Golden Eagle, a species that was trained and used for eagle hunting by the Kazakh nomads for centuries. Which is why we have it on our flag too. Btw, extra kudos to ZAQ for delivering his lines while having an eagle on his arm without its hood. I would have been more than slightly concerned if I were him.

If you don't know much about that aspect of nomadic life in Central Asia, I recommend watching the critically acclaimed documentary film The Eagle Huntress about Aisholpan - a 13 y.o. Kazakh girl from Mongolia being the first female mastering the art. FYI, it is narrated by Daisey Ridley aka Rey from Star Wars. Watch it.

The scene is black and white, and AZ and ZAQ are wearing suits which look very agreeable.

Then, we have the bridge that is delivered by very blond Bala, which isn't the best look on him in my opinion, but he's wearing a suit too, which is always a good idea. Bala, you must know, has perfected his camera acting and now successfully flirting with it without so much as breaking a sweat. Good job Juz, you know what you're doing.

Now, when we're done sharing niceties, can we, please, focus on the background - which is, of course, all lofty and fiery - specifically, on those symbols carved on the wall? And what are they? Yes, you guessed right: the Orkhon-Yenisei runes, yay. FYI, it says "QAZAQ", in its very palindromic fashion - the meaning here, I assume, is quite self-explanatory.

In one of the cuts we see that Bala is actually there with a dog. And, guess what, it's not just a dog, it's actually a Tazy - the Kazakh national hunting breed, of which, quite frankly, I did not know anything before researching for this MV. See, even I'm being educated here, I feel so enlightened.

After that, we have the chorus, and all five of them are first standing and then walking like a bloody band of gangsters, all suited and effortlessly cool, as if towards an important tét-a-tét with a competing band. My immediate association was Crows: Zero (I'm sure, my fellow Japanese weeboos get what I mean) - lots of shonen swag and badassery. I approve.

In the meanwhile, Bala is showing off his moves, again, very at ease, chill and relaxed.

Chorus moves to the second part of the song with another rap verse from ZAQ. Do you remember that set in the previous black-and-white scene with the rappers? This one is that same set i.e. a carcass and insides of a Yurt - a traditional nomadic portable house used by Kazakhs for centuries. We see ZAQ sitting in what looks like a Khan's throne with battle spears and fur skins of wild animals. And no, nobody is trying to offend animal rights activists and humanists, just trying to showcase the culture here, alright? As you've noticed hunting has always had cultural significance for Kazakhs, and, well, it's survival in the bloody Eurasian steppes we're talking about here, with windy -50°C in the winters you've got to wear something to protect from freezing over, you know.

ZAQ delivers his lines in his usual very efficient fashion, and we cut to Ace walking over to the race track, very stylishly so that it might as well be a car commercial, to a parked Ford Mustang (and, yay, we've got a budget for a nice car now!) that's drifting its tires out in the shots in-between. Did I mention Ace's wearing a suit? I'm telling you, a car commercial.

I have a feeling that a Mustang was chosen deliberately, a subtle shoutout to horses as another culturally significant symbol and animal for Kazakhs. They could've gone for a Ferrari for the sheer visual effect of it, but I suppose Samsung is generous, but not that much.

And then, we have a chorus with a dance break. Interestingly, despite the numerous cuts and camera angles, and even blinding background lights that obscure the view, I did not mind how the dance was shot. The choreography itself is nothing short of cool: very laid-back, effortless, with easy open moves and a masterfully feigned nonchalance. I know I'm using cool and effortless a lot, but what can I do, they are the keywords for this MV. I like those claps btw, remind me of hilarious dances in Kazakh weddings lol. Very ironic. In either case, my compliments to Asiya for her work, bravo.

While you're still getting over the choreography, you're introduced to AZ casually lying among many ladies in night gowns, and yes, we now are allowing this too along with cigars and whiskey-looking teas in tumblers. Don't get me wrong, AZ is wearing a modest pair of black silk shirt with black trousers (can't say the same about his wild tricoloured mess of hair), and evidently still can't take his hands off his nose (he does keep rubbing it), but the whole scene, the wide shot of it, looks so unapologetically hedonistic that it might as well be a Gucci Guilty commercial. Well, Ninety One definitely went all Gucci in this MV, so associations are unsurprising. Scrumptious.

The only cultural reference we've got here is the neon rune "r" on the background when AZ is sitting up.

Then, it goes back to the chorus with the guys standing with more fire in the background. There are other cuts from previous scene including the one with Alem throwing off 10000 Tenge bills with that photo on the back while staring into the camera.

Conclusion? A+ to the production team, especially set designers, Bibotta for the styling, and Yerbolat for knowing what looks good and what doesn't.

All and all, it was a good MV, a good break from artificially colourful secluded studio sets.

Now let's move to the music.

The song starts with, what I thought, those weird sounds from some Japanese instruments, but upon hearing the chorus my immediate reaction was "wait, is it a hip-hop beat from the early 2000s?"

Honestly, it isn't a very pop song. It screams hip-hop, and I dare say, this song was meant to be performed by the rappers only, which was somewhat proven true given that AZ and ZAQ were both writers and composers of Men Emes. Its hip-hop nature shows even in the structure: there are no vocal verses, only a bridge and a chorus performed by the vocalists, and everything else is just rap. And oh my, that's some rap, indeed.

First, can we just address, that once again the rappers of 91 managed to sneak up another controversial line bordering with vulgarity? I am talking about the first two lines of AZ's rap here, those who don't know what I am talking about, ask me about it later. The audacity though, huh. In either case, that got an incredulous chuckle out of me upon realisation. Congratulations, boys, mischief's managed.

AZ was his extravagant self in general, wouldn't say he brought a lot of literary value in this track, to be honest. Well, especially compared to ZAQ (and it is always difficult to compete with ZAQ's lyrics), who's just unleashed the study of "how many words and rhymes with "u" and "ü" sounds I can shove into one rap verse while making it sound intelligible and meaningful." And did so successfully, I must say. Personally was always astonished how masterfully he manages to use the vowel harmony - one of the linguistic traits of the Kazakh language - weaving syllables to the whole other level of wordplay. Lyrically, all cultural references in the MV seem justified, given how ZAQ is lamenting over how "his nation is moving with a snail speed" and such. With this, he is brushing the socio-political problems in the country, it seems. And it is very promising, as in this country high profile artists don't risk doing that.

(Btw, a mention of Surtur was another delightful nod to my inner nerd who loves Norse Mythology, and a reference to Cthulhu was rather amusing. Lovecraft wouldn't've minded.)

I had many problems with voices in this track. For some reason, I couldn't recognise half of them. I only clearly heard Bala, Ace's voice became obvious only when he moved to an octave higher, and I didn't even realise it was Alem singing in the beginning. Was very shocked to know that it was ZAQ, not AZ, rapping with that higher voice in the second part before switching to his usual old school style. We're trying different things, I see, though I wouldn't mind them toning down their tuner game a bit. I know who's singing what now only thanks to the MV.

To sum up, it's a very different 91 song. Not that it's very astounding in its originality with blending different genres in one as you'd expect, but it's probably refreshing to hear something bold, audacious, yet simple, very hip-hopesque circa 2001 from them. It seems they're deliberately trying to diversify their audience throwing a track like that. Which isn't bad at all, I rather enjoyed it. (By the way, those drums in the bridge section sounded almost tribal. Just saying.)

Despite the MV and song screaming "WEALTH", "SWAG", "COOL" and "SUAVE", I do not actually think it was only about showing off. Well, of course, a part of the message was a la "look what I've got in the end, despite all your judgement" with "you're not me" and all that. However, I think it was also targeting and mocking the spoiled kids of corrupt government officials or just corrupt rich "bosses" in general who always act as if rules and law are not made for them. "Yeah, you're cool, but not the coolest, might be rich, but not the richest, and even good-looking but not really. Don't be so full of yourself, you're not the centre of the universe" kind of message. And that imagery of Alem as a mafia boss in his office is juxtaposed with all those cultural artifacts hinting on what is actually more important and valuable, especially with the Kazakh cultural leaders of the 20th century watching from the picture on the wall. And Alem throws those bills as if saying "yes, I'm doing that, but it's just money, so what." Even AZ looks somewhat lost and empty-eyed lying there among girls when he's not trying to convince you how envious you should be right now.

Probably it's me reading too much into this, I don't know, but the MV only amplified the feeling that you've got to read between the lines, it isn't all about bragging.

For now I'll give the MV 9 out of 10, and the song is a solid 7.

Peace out ✌️

[itsclydebitches]

RWBY Recaps: Vol. 6 “Seeing Red”

Well this recap is massively late. Blame foolish past!me for purchasing Minecraft two days ago... 

Still, deja vu, anyone? This recap feels like an almost exact play-by-play of last week’s: good second half, awful first. Honestly for those of you following my metas there’s nothing much new here to tackle, but we’ll dive in regardless.

Our episode summary asks "How far am I willing to go to win?" and Team RWBY answers with, “As far as it fucking takes.” If that attitude was directed against Salem and her subordinates or even a mess of grimm? Admirable! Now that it’s aimed at an ally and is screwing over Argus in the process? Not so much…

We open on base where a group of Atlas personnel are watching the mech fight go down, all of them cheering. I mentioned in a brief post that this is an interesting choice. No one else seems to think that Cordovin is overdoing it with the massive robot, so either a) everyone in this military is incapable of thinking through repercussions (i.e. “If we use something big and scary people will, astoundingly, get scared and draw grimm”) or b) they acknowledge that, to be frank, you kind of need a mech for this fight. Ruby says herself that they’ve fought giant monsters before. What hope does Cordovin stand against huntsmen—particularly a whole mess of them—if she doesn’t bring out the big guns? As we’ve already established ad nauseam, no military operative in their right mind is gonna go, “Sure! Cross the closed border without reason or qualifications! I’m going to 100% believe that you have a perfectly good reason for crossing, even though you won’t tell me what it is, even though you’re a bunch of armed teens, and a drunk, and a woman I despise. It’s not like this goes against common sense or anything!” Basically, Cordovin has perfectly legitimate reasons for feeling like she needs to stop this group and she’s using what’s probably the only means capable of doing that.

Interestingly, our supposed villain here remains the only one with a shred of critical thinking. She homes in on Maria, not as a rival, but as an adult who “[roped] in children to fail with you.” Cordovin is assuming, logically, that the adults are calling the shots here… because that makes sense right? The 17yo wouldn’t really be in charge of this group. And even if she were, the adults around her wouldn’t really help her with an idiotic plan like this. Cordovin is re-highlighting for the audience exactly how stupid this whole situation is.

While everyone is going gaga over the fight we pull back to see an ominous red dot heading across one of the base’s screens. Later we’ll learn it’s exactly what the fandom assumed it was: one monster of an ocean grimm. For now though, we return to Ruby still hanging off that cliff… dangling uselessly… before suddenly, miraculously pulling herself up in about three swings of Crescent Rose.

This entire setup is ridiculous. As you’ll recall, Ruby was about to get blown up by Cordovin’s cannon because she’s suddenly vulnerable, to an OOC extent. No one on the cliff helps her, she doesn’t drop down into the water, doesn’t use her semblance to fly up, and doesn’t climb the mountain like we see her doing here. This sudden ineptitude “necessitates” Oscar and Maria coming to her rescue, despite the fact that they’re supposed to be keeping the airship out of the fight. We had a cliffhanger last week that was less about whether those two are okay (we knew Oscar would be at least) and more about whether that explosion destroyed their ship. …No such luck. The airship is totally fine! As promised last recap, I’m rolling my eyes.

You’ll see throughout this episode that the plot continues to twist in on itself to ensure that the consequences of the groups’ actions are never so horrible that they’re actually forced to confront their choices—at least not yet. The airship somehow manages to survive. Maria’s eyes are working again. No one has sustained serious injuries. No one has died. The real question is whether this will continue on into the finale.

For now, Ruby has the gall to be pissed off about being saved.

Oscar: “Are you okay?”

Ruby: “Are WE okay?”

Yes, Ruby. Tell us more about how annoying it is to be rescued from death via dust cannon, even if it comes at the cost of endangering your stollen ticket out of here.

Of course, we’re immediately given another justification for Maria and Oscar’s sudden involvement: Oscar thinks he’s come up with a way to take down this mech, but they’ll need to actually use the airship to do it. We get some explanations about how the missiles are vulnerable by popping out of the mech’s arm. “We could destroy the entire cannon. Oscar that’s brilliant!”

No, that’s willful destruction of military property. Yang’s line later on about being smarter than Adam really hammers home that yes, all these kids are brilliant when it comes to battle. Jaune, Oscar, Yang, and Ruby all demonstrate fabulous quick thinking in these fights, but this volume their intellect has been limited to the literal combat. Any great leaps of thought that take long-term repercussions into consideration—like what’s going to happen if we use an invaluable question to steal our leader’s hidden past, or whether there’s a way to get into Atlas that doesn’t involve making an enemy of the world’s strongest military—go straight out the window. This is why they need Ozpin. He’s the only one in this group capable of thinking about long-term strategy. (I thought Maria was another candidate, up until she went along with this plan just so she could taunt Cordovin with more cashews.) The gang has so far been learning that instant gratification is their best policy. Well we just took Ozpin’s secret and managed to survive—never needed him anyway, right? Well we just took the airship and managed to defeat the mech—so what if it required some close calls? This is why that end grimm attack is so important. The group has got to experience a consequence that they can’t easily shrug off.

And, you know, the writing has to emphasize that.

Anyway, back to this current nonsense. Ruby is all gung-ho to take on this crazy dangerous task in the name of destroying the mech they shouldn’t be dismantling in the first place. I would have appreciated the parallels between “Can you make that shot?” and Ruby’s first team battle (Ruby: “Think you can make the shot?” Weiss: “Can I”), but like everything in this fight the enjoyable aspects are lost to the awful context. Despite realizing that she’ll be “Staring down the barrel of [Cordovin’s] cannon,” Ruby hops into the airship with no hesitation, leaving Qrow to reach out to her in fear.

The butchering of their relationship in the name of Ruby’s Can Do No Wrong attitude is particularly annoying, but we’ll get to that in a moment.

For now, Maria is all smiles as she flies them straight at the mech. Ruby is confident in her ability to make an incredibly difficult shot. None of them can even conceive of the idea that they’d fail, a pretty egregious position given that nothing has gone to plan since the Fall of Beacon. The only one worried is Oscar—“Are you two crazy?!”

Which… doesn’t make much sense? Oscar, this was your plan. How exactly do you hope to enact it without Cordovin preparing to shoot? That’s the entire point of all this: her missiles are vulnerable when they’re about to launch. I’m just so over these inconsistencies. Maria shouts that, “Sometimes the best approach is simply the most direct!” which had better be the theme that comes back to bite them in the finale. No. Usually the most direct approach is far from the best option. Particularly during a war. 

Inside the mech Cordovin has an incoming call from the base and looks like she’s about to answer it… but at just the right second Maria starts taunting her again. Cordovin is distracted and she misses the info about an incoming leviathan.

The goading is, of course, about how they have one missile left and plan to stick it somewhere unmentionable. As the group knew she would, Cordovin reacts by pulling out her own missiles, giving them the clear shot they need. We get a long moment of Ruby setting up the perfect shot…

…and then Cordovin sees what she’s doing, pulling her missiles back just in time. The bullet bounces right off the mech’s armor.

Ruby’s little “Huh?” was amazing. Serious kudos to the voice acting because that one sound managed to encompass all that indignant surprise. I failed? But how is that possible! And like always, there’s nothing resembling a backup plan. Ruby’s confidence here—her arrogance, rather—nearly gets the three of them killed. Cordovin shoots the airship, Maria’s glasses short-circuit, and Oscar is forced to crash land them in the forest. There’s a moment afterwards where he comments that they’re all okay, but none of the shots include Maria. I honestly thought she’d been killed, or at least seriously injured, thereby hammering home that Ruby’s stupidity just lost her a new mentor.

…but no. Everyone’s fine. And trust me, Ruby is about to get a whole lot stupider.

She exits the airship and immediately makes a beeline for Cordovin, despite the fact that the plan failed and pretty much everyone is exhausted. We get a closeup on the relic as Qrow grabs her hand, “Ruby stop.” She gives her uncle another hard look and tells him he needs to trust her.

For one brief moment I thought that Ruby might put a stop to this, that her “Trust me” might be reframed as, “It’s okay, because I’m about to do what you’re going to suggest anyway.” After all, the Ruby Rose of five volumes makes empathetic and (usually) well thought out decisions. Surely she isn’t going to continue this fight out of pure stubbornness? Surely she hasn’t lost so much faith in Qrow that she won’t even listen to him when he’s (again) speaking sense? Yes, Ruby claimed that she doesn’t care what he thinks, but that was in a moment of fury. Before this we got her comment about learning so much from great mentors. Surely she’ll listen to her most important mentor now?

Nope.

Cordovin has ceased her attack, something that tells me—despite all her theatrics—that she’s got a more level head than most would assume at first glance. If she’d truly cared only about destroying this group she could have blown them all up immediately. Instead she tells Ruby to surrender and accept the punishment for her crimes. Ruby’s response?

“No!”

Everyone realizes that she comes across as a child throwing a temper tantrum, right? Ruby did something bad, started a fight to try and avoid punishment when she was caught, that failed, the adult sensibly tries to de-escalate the situation, telling her that it’s over, she needs to own up to her mistakes… and Ruby all but stomps her foot, giving an emphatic ‘Screw you.’

How are we meant to feel about this moment? Let’s take a look at the rest of the cast’s response for our cue.

Check out all those smiling faces. Yeah, screw authority and responsibility! We’ll do whatever the hell we want!

Ruby then gives another thoroughly ridiculous speech, the core of which is:

“We’re supposed to be on the same side. We’re supposed to use our power to protect people. But you just use yours to look down on everyone. We didn’t want to steal from you, we did it because you gave us no other choice. Now I’m giving you one last chance to stand down and hear us out.”

Ruby, newsflash, you’re talking about yourself. You’re the one who betrayed an ally (twice if you count Ozpin). You’re the one who is using your power to start and continue a fight. You’re the one looking down on everyone because you think your mission—the mission no one else knows about—gives you carte blanche to do whatever you want. Also, people love to paint Ozpin as the manipulator, but check out Ruby’s word choice here:

“Now I’m giving you one last chance” - What was the first chance, Ruby? Because, uh… there wasn’t one. You said, “Let us through.” Cordovin said no. You jumped straight to theft. There were no choices presented to Cordovin except the one that involves her going against a direct order for absolutely no reason.

“Hear us out” - Hear what out? There’s no argument here. “Hear us out” implies that Ruby has a persuasive stance to take, a presentation of why they should be allowed to go into Atlas. But she can’t give Cordovin anything like that unless she explains the whole Salem situation… which we know very well Ruby won’t do. In this case, “Hear us out” is just a dressed up way of saying, “Do as I say or else.” Ruby’s threatening her because as we see in a moment, she’s come up with another plan to cripple the mech.

“We didn’t want to steal from you, we did it because you gave us no other choice.” - You did have other choices. Lots of them. Not only is that a straight up lie, but Ruby tries to paint Cordovin as personally responsible, as if this one woman is the only thing standing in their way and not, you know, a whole kingdom that closed its borders. Her “We didn’t want to” tries to re-characterize the group as victims here. This sounds a whole lot like other false equivalencies, ones with a lot more weight. You know, things like, “I didn’t want to hit you. I did it because you gave me no choice.”

In fact, let’s consider the bigger issues at play in Ruby’s attitude. Bear with me a moment, but you know what all this reminds me of? Bullying. Over the last few weeks the vast majority of the fandom has been using logic often applied to bullying situations, wherein people are more focused on whether the victim had an “appropriate” response to the bullying, as opposed to whether the persecutor should have been acting upon them in the first place. Quick story time. When I was in middle school there was a kid who, looking back, had a number of behavioral problems that he chose to take out on me. Let’s call this kid Ryan. Ryan used to level a great deal of verbal and physical abuse my way, getting away with it because he was careful to do it out of earshot of teachers, careful to claim that any injury was an “accident,” and ultimately people were more willing to believe that the goody-goody teacher’s pet (me) had suddenly developed a taste for lying than accept the more complex scenario that a student was violently acting out. One day Ryan, in another “accident,” slammed into me hard enough to knock me into the gym’s concrete wall. When I got back on my feet I finally lost my temper and kicked him in the shin.

Guess which student finally got into trouble.

I chuck this story into my recap as a way of demonstrating a pattern. We tend to be far more concerned with how someone reacts to a situation than why they felt the need to react that way. Surely we’ve all heard, “You just can’t let them get to you!” placing all the responsibility on the victim to, somehow, turn off their emotions, rather than addressing the inappropriate behavior that’s causing those emotions in the first place. The fandom is applying this same pattern to Cordovin, emphasizing that she shouldn’t have gotten the mech out (a response deemed inappropriate) as opposed to acknowledging that our group shouldn’t have been lying, stealing, and beating up officers in the first place.

Granted, Cordovin isn’t a middle schooler still learning how to manage her emotions. Are there discussions to be had about how she might have handled the situation better? Absolutely, but that conversation is tangental to the underlying issue: that RWBYJNR are the perpetrators and she (representing Argus) is the victim. Telling Cordovin she shouldn’t have gotten the mech after two of her warnings is akin to telling someone they shouldn’t have punched someone else after twice telling them to keep your hands off me. Saying that the plan might have worked is just… so far off the mark I don’t even know where to begin. Getting away with illegal activity doesn’t suddenly make it right. It certainly doesn’t change the fact that a) the relay tower still would have been disabled for who knows how long, b) Argus would still have been out of an airship, and c) they still would have realized at some point that the ship had been stollen, further damaging these relations.

“I might have gotten away with it” isn’t exactly a defense.

ANYWAY, god. Cordovin has “heard enough” (so have I) and prepares to shoot another blast directly at Ruby. And then this girl throws herself into the cannon—oh sure now your semblance works—so she can take the shot directly from inside. Once again we’re encouraged to view this as the epic, heroic conclusion: Jaune’s awed voice over explaining what she’s attempting, the close up on Ruby, the dramatic lighting, music rising in the background… She takes out the mech’s arm and does serious damage to her aura in the process, getting knocked out for a few seconds. Ruby’s lucky she didn’t die. Hell, even Nora exclaims, “She’s nuts!”

And for what? Not to take down a grimm to protect the people. Not to defend her family from Salem’s subordinates. Ruby endangered herself and her team simply because she can’t take “No” for an answer right now.

When Ruby wakes up the first thing she says is a smug, “Told you” to Qrow. I’ve never wanted to put a fictional character into time out before, but I do now.

Luckily, at this moment we return to Blake and Yang, the well constructed portion of this episode. Honestly, nothing but praise from me for what they managed to pull off in this fight. Adam starts us off by demanding to know why Blake thinks she can win this time and it’s a simple answer: Because she has to. She doesn’t have a choice. Adam himself made sure of that.

Undaunted, Adam tries to undermine that determination by pointing out that Blake abandoned him. Who’s to say she won’t do the exact same thing to Yang? Blake has another wonderful answer—she only made that promise to someone he was pretending to be—but it says a lot that this doesn’t even put a dent in Yang’s conviction. You know, the thing she’s feared since Blake originally left Beacon: abandonment. I said last time that the writers might be going full perfection with Blake and Yang’s face-off here and this episode solidifies that. Relationship perfect. Strategy perfect. Control of their anger, perfect. I still don’t think we were shown how the girls got to this place, especially so quickly, but it is still satisfying to see.

During the second half of the fight we get to see the girls doing a reverse of their standard combo, wherein Blake is the powerhouse at the end of Gambol Shroud’s ribbon and Yang is providing the momentum. Adam manages to block it though—their normal finishing move won’t be enough—and Blake takes a hard hit against the rocks. As she struggles not to go over, Adam turns his original question on Yang. You couldn’t beat me last time, why is this any different?

And for a moment Yang collapses. Her whole body goes limp in terror.

That’s what I was looking for, especially since it’s a legit question. Yang hasn’t done much training recently. Her sparing with Tai was meant to get her used to a new limb and it was primarily emotional/strategic. She missed all the practice at Haven and you can presumably only learn so much from a single battle. By all accounts Yang shouldn’t be much better, physically, than she was back at Beacon and for a second I thought the writing would just straight up ignore this.

Instead they acknowledge it, giving us Yang’s line about not needing to be faster, just smarter. She catches Adam’s blade with her new arm and then Yang revs up her semblance, hitting Adam hard enough to tear up the rock around him.

It is, without question, a pretty epic moment.

Which makes the actual finale that much softer, something I was glad for. It would have felt cheap if Adam went out in some awesome blaze of glory, given that this is what the girls do to every dime a dozen grimm that comes their way. Instead we get the reverse. When Adam makes a break for Blake’s weapon she just manages to grab it first, Yang takes the broken piece, and without hesitation they both skewer him through. Adam’s final word is a broken, disbelieving “Oh.”

I really enjoyed the composition of this shot. Both girls taking a half of a broken weapon to make a new whole, Blake getting to face Adam as he goes down, slowly watching their fighter instincts give way to horror. Adam topples over the edge of the cliff… which I have to point out is pretty convenient for them. Yes, this was 100% in self defense, but considering that the rest of the group is currently battling the military, the last thing anyone needs is for Blake and Yang to get caught with a body on their hands.

Blake takes one look at Gambol Shroud and breaks down, collapsing under the weight of it all. Which… yeah. No matter what he might have become, it was clear a part of Blake truly cared for Adam long ago. No matter that it was self defense, the girls just took their first life. That’s going to be a lot to work through, so it says a lot that what Blake first focuses on is reassuring Yang that Adam was wrong. She’s keeping her promise this time.

With the girls comforting one another we return to the main group. Makes sense. With the mech’s arm disabled and Adam dead, both of the conflicts have pretty much been resolved. What do we have to look forward to in the finale?

By the Power of Plot the airship is still somehow able to fly and for a moment it looks like everyone will just leave while they still can, especially since Cordovin is calling for reinforcements. (Seriously. Did the kids think defeating the mech would keep the rest of the military from coming after them?) However, the call reveals that Argus is in danger. A leviathan grimm is heading this way and a mess of others are coming in from the opposite direction. We see the group’s shocked faces… and then a pan to the mech, re-emphasizing that it’s now pretty useless in this coming fight.

The group ought to be disgusted with themselves for putting Argus in this position. Their fight brought the grimm to Argus, they destroyed the primary defense, and they’re all so exhausted that, presumably, they won’t be much use in this fight. I almost wish the timing was a little different and they’d grabbed Yang and Blake, flying off to Atlas. What a kick it would have been for them to reach the city and hear reports of Argus being overrun by grimm. The military was missing a crucial defense. There were no huntsmen on scene to help push back the tide.

Still, the connection between their expressions and the mech is a hopeful sign that, after an entire volume, the consequences of the nonsense they’ve pulled might finally start seeking in. I honestly never expected to go 11 episodes with them blithely ignoring the impact of their choices. In my opinion, in order to maintain their heroic status, we should have started this process immediately after the relic. I’ve heard a lot of people claim that it’s only been a few days, but as we saw with Jaune, when you do something horrible we should see regret almost instantly—if there’s any regret to see. By all means, give us a volume where the group is grappling with their anger vs. their sympathy… but that’s very much not what we got this year. Ruby, and by extension everyone following her, has become downright callous. I miss rooting for our main characters.

Actually, you know what I want at this point? Back to the basics. As other fans have pointed out, let the group get to Atlas via arrest. We close the volume on them all in a jail cell for the crimes they’ve committed. Next volume James pulls some strings to get them released, but they’re all blindsided by a lack of support beyond that. Show us a James who took Ozpin’s words to heart—don’t scare people in a time of peace—and is utterly horrified at what this group has now done in the name of their mission. After all, he might have made mistakes, but he didn’t forsake the job of a huntsmen so badly that he knowingly attacked an ally and put a whole city in danger. He was overconfident in his technology, not arrogant about his place in the world. 

Frankly, I want James to throw them back into school. You want to stay out of jail? The requirement is you join Atlas Academy instead and learn everything you obviously missed out on at Beacon. There’s a reason huntsmen aren’t chucked into the world at 17 with one year of training, and you’re an A-class example of why. Want to continue the fight? Get your license first. Demonstrate that you’re responsible enough not to use the skills we’ve given you as weapons against the people. Anymore than you already have. Give me a volume where the group has to come to terms with the fact that they’ve put themselves up on a pedestal because of their super secret mission. Have them interact with students who have never seen the same sort of combat they have, but who are also level-headed enough not to use that as an excuse for any and all actions they might feel like taking. Let them start finding a balance between the near total freedom Ozpin gave them and the militaristic organization of James’ school (which probably isn’t all that different, if Neon and Flynt are any indication). In short, give the group some stability so they can get some perspective.

After all, no one knows what to do after they secure the relic. No one has even discussed yet if they want to do more. Is popping into each of the other schools just to say, “Is your relic still safe? Yeah? Great!” so important? The Salem battle is currently at a standstill until a) they figure out a way to beat her or b) she drops some hint about her next attack. So give the group some breathing room. Have this emotional growth about their attitude, yes, but also explore what it is to have Faunus students in an Atlesian academy (expanding that world building beyond just Adam and the White Fang). What it’s like for Weiss attending the school she originally rejected, so close to her father again? Give Blake and Yang time to come to terms with the fact that they killed someone, even in self-defense. Let Oscar get some actual training. Let Ozpin reconvene with his inner circle. Let Qrow get some help with his drinking. There’s still plenty of conflict to be had—be it internal, grimm, or (a good arc for the end of the volume) Watts, Tyrian, Cinder, and Neo finally showing up in Atlas. I realize that a lot of people would probably find a volume like that boring, but I think it’s needed after the mess of volume 6. If Ruby and the group ever hope to reach a place where they realize “just keep pushing forward no matter the cost” isn’t always the answer, they need to be in a space where they don’t feel like they have to push forward all the time. Peaceful Argus apparently wasn’t enough; they didn’t take that breathing room to think through a better plan. So slam them into a safe place that’s also governed by rules. Give them boundaries again.

That’s personally what I’d enjoy after all this, but I also recognize that I’m in the minority here for even thinking there are problems that need addressing.

Regardless, we still have a number of practical and thematic questions to answer. Will the group regret starting all this? Will anyone in Argus die because of this attack? Are the Cotta-Arcs in danger? (Please no). Is everyone going to be out of commission because of their aura, or will there be a very convenient second wind? Will Ozpin return in a blaze of power?

We’ll find out next week, and good thing too. I’m ready for the hiatus, folks.

Other Details of Note

Ren’s “Guys!” when he sees that Jaune and Nora are okay is the most wholesome thing. Jaune obviously took a hard hit though, further emphasizing exactly how not ready this group is for another battle.

I like how Qrow needs to jump off the cliff to transform rather than just…heading on over to his left. Like yes, I fully understand this is for practical reasons (showing us the transformation is a whole lot more complex in terms of animation), but it’s still funny in a ‘Qrow’s natural state is to be overly dramatic’ way.

RWBY’s a big fan of the split-screen this volume, isn’t it?

In case anyone missed it, Adam’s comments this episode made it pretty clear that Yang and Blake are set up to be a couple. You don’t ask an ex’s friend “What does she see in you?” That’s very much not the kind of relationship Adam is assuming they have. 

[shauds-archived]

Can we get more Jay Eddie please???

Okay, so there was no word with this one, so I didn't know if it was a table request, or just a general " Will there be more of Jason and Eddie" thing. Just waited till I had something to post with it anyway.

Another add on to " Do Not Engage" Just Jay and Eddie hanging around and catching up, :).

They went for pancakes - smothered in syrup and cream - caught up a little - incredibly awkward with how little either of them were really willing to talk about - and there was no more physical violence involved which was more than could be said of most social interactions Jason tried to engage in. Not that he'd really expected much more violence on Eddie's end, Jason had been more concerned about himself with that, maybe with Spoiler, maybe any of the other costume run-around about Gotham wondering where she and Kid Devil had gone.

"Be back soon," Eddie said when it was over, with a grin that's cheeriness wasn't offset by either fangs it revealed, or the way it literally lit up his face in the alley behind the diner.

"Just go make sure they don't think I mugged you." Jason kept his tone casual was he waved them off.

"Technically, couldn't we kinda say we mugged you?" Spoiler said, pulling her face mask down now she'd finally finished clearing away the copious amounts of syrup she'd gotten on the fabric. "Attacked you in the Bowery and took your money?" She cocked her head at them.

"Don't you dare."Jason warned, but couldn't find the heat to put behind it.

She chuckled and patted his cheek. "See you 'round McHostage."

That was exactly the story she was going to tell, he knew it, and Eddie wasn't going to refute it.

"I'm not buying you pancakes again." Jason yelled at the fiery... portal? Eddie had opened.

She waved again, her hand slipping away the last of them he saw, and then they were gone. The alley was quiet, cold as Gotham always was on the cusp of another storm. Soon the background noise - cars, sirens, chatter and shouts - rushed in to fill the silence they'd left. It'd been nice while it lasted. Jason tugged up the collar of his jacket against the wind, tucked his hands into his pockets, and started on his way to his nearest heated safehouse.

He got to the end of the alleyway when the ring of fire appeared in front of him again and Eddie came stumbling out. Literally stumbling, he took one step and fell over.

"Gopher!" Jason caught him before he could hit the wet, grimy asphalt. "What the hell?"

"No one calls me tha' 'nymore." He slurred and looked up at Jason with half-lidded eyes, then turned away with and let Jason pull him back to his feet.

"What happened?" Jason asked, circling Eddie, looking him over for injuries.

"Said I'd be back soon." Eddie said, running his forearm over his eyes. "Stop that." He batted Jason's prodding hands away from his head. No obvious signs of concussion, but... "Just been teleporting all day." He planted a hand on his hip and gave Jason a thumbs up. "All good now."

"You sure?" Jason didn't move to far from Eddie, kept his arms out, ready to catch him again juts in case.

"They're my powers, Jayce, I know how to handle them." Eddie jabbed the thumb at his own chest. "So what're we..." He took a step out of the alley and tipped over.

Jason sighed deeply and thanked his paranoia that he hadn't been able to keep from wearing the heat resistant padding under his t-shirt.

000

"I swear you used to be smarter." Jason shook his head and kicked the fridge closed, then slid the glass of orange juice across the island to Eddie.

"Wasn't sure I'd find you again." Eddie took a big gulp of juice, and then a bite of toast

>

Jason ignored the sting he felt a at that, folded his arms and leaned against the counter where he would keep a close eye on Eddie. "I meant that recruitment drive bullshit." He'd seen some pretty messed up side effects of exhaustion over the years, some particularly nasty one from metas, it didn't hurt to be cautious. "You know what that sounds like, right?"

Eddie sank down a little on the on the chair Jason'd pulled over from the the living room. "It's not like that, a lot of kids need the Titans, and we're really short on members right now, so..."

If it were kids that needed the Titans, the Titans wouldn't need recruitment drives. It wouldn't have a higher turnover rate then the damn Justice League. Jason pressed a hand over the bridge of his nose and held back a sigh. This was an argument he'd had many times, one he'd never won, getting into a screaming match wasn't going to help anything. Eddie had survived getting his torn open, h could teleport, he'd be fine. Jason scooped up the empty glass and brought it back to the fridge for a refill.

"Not like anyone was was interested." Eddie shrugged and accepted the glass, brought it to his lips along with the toast, then stopped halfway through the motion. "Or... Hey, your technically still a Teen, right?"

Jason couldn't stop the laughter that broke out from his chest at that, at the very idea that he would ever so much as consider that, so much as be considered, ever. "Not a chance in this or any universe, K.D."

"Was worth a shot."

Eddie said, turning his nose up at Jason. He he popped the last piece of toast into his mouth. "And it's actually Red Devil now."

"Well, no one's ever accused you of being a coward." Jason took the plate to rinse the crumbs off it and heard the scraping of Eddie pushing his chair back from the ground. "And is R.D gonna pass out on me again?"

Eddie's chuckle was nervous. "Nah, R.D's good, just needed a boost. Man this is weird."

"Nah, I get attacked by demons every other night."

"I can't even tell of you're joking." Eddie said and hopped up to sit on the counter. "Guess it's not that weird anymore, but still, I just never thought, you were, you know."

"Yeah." Jason dried the plate and stacked it with the others. "I know." Jason wouldn't have believed it himself if someone had told him at fifteen that this was what he'd be. "I woulda told you, if I'd thought..." Jason pressed a hand against his eyes and huffed.

"M'not mad about that anymore." Eddie was swinging his legs, looking out the window at the stormy city. He was like something out of a B grade horror movie, just like he'd wanted when he'd been a kid, and he was still the most like what Jason remembered out of all of them. "Well I am, I guess, but not really at you."

"Thanks." Jason ducked his head and stepped around the island for the doorway. "So, we haven't tried to beat the crap out of each other yet, and I have no idea what we do now"

There was a thump of Eddie's feet hitting the floor and he was following after Jason. "I wanted to watch Ballistic: Ecks vs. Server the other night, and Amy kind of looked like she wanted to beat the crap out of me for it."

"You hate that movie."

"How do you remember that?"

"Hard to forget when you practically wrote me an essay on it."

000

Four odd years would be a long time for anyone. For people who lived like Jason and Eddie, who'd changed as much as they had in that time, it was pretty much an eternity. So much had happened, more than either could have guessed at and a lot that neither of them easily understood. So they talked.

They talked about Dan and Aunt Marla and the multiverse and the Titans. More about Eddie than about Jason, because whenever conversation turned to the older of the two, he'd find a way to steer it back around.

The movie played in the background, both of them paying more attention to each other and the bowl of popcorn between them than the screen. Eddie joked about how between the pancakes, the toast and now the popcorn, it seemed Jason was incapable of conversation that wasn't over food. Jason flipped him off and shoved a hand of popcorn in his mouth in lieu of a reply. Eddie brought up the swear jar he and Rose had made use of at the tower, when she'd still been there.

When the movie was over, they swapped it out for something equally bad and put it just loud enough to block out the sounds of the storm that made Gotham at daytime dark as twilight. And then they talked about Twilight and Eddie felt terrible about subjecting Jason to the horror.

"Can't believe you found the vampire hunter world and it's the old-timey one you wanted to stay in." By that point, Eddie was only half on the couch, having slid down lower and lower to the ground over the course of the night h had to look past his shoulder to see Jason. Or maybe not, it actually did sound a lot like 'Extra Credit History Assignments For Fun Jason.'

"Yeah." Jason had chuckled, only half awake himself and curled up in two thirds of the couch, Eddie suspected it had been a while since he'd slept at all. "Kyle got infected there." He linked his fingers and stretched his hands up and over his head. Eddie rolled his eyes and dragged the bowl of cold, and now too salty popcorn off the couch and onto his lap. " But can hunt vampire's here."

Eddie hummed in agreement and massaged his tired eyes, turned them lazily to the screen where a bunch off teenagers were shrieking very unconvincingly about a witch. "You wanna hunt a vampire?" Eddie slid still further off the couch, and this time Jason's legs uncurled a little to claim the space Eddie had vacated.

"No m'sleeping." Jason yawned and buried his face in the armrest, he looked a lot more comfortable than Eddie, who gave in and let himself fall the rest of the way to the ground. The carpet was soft too, well soft enough, Eddie didn't have the energy to get up and reclaim couch space. "Do it with the Titans."

"Titans don't hunt things." Eddie yawned too, great, he'd caught it from Jason and now he was going to fall asleep too. "We just kind of..." He flopped a hand in circles as the yawn winded down, "Get attacked by supervillains 'n stuff."

"So heroic." Jason scoffed, then he shifted so he was laying on his back, eyes on the ceiling, abruptly tense and nowhere near as comfortable as he'd been a moment ago. "Speaking of, you gonna be heading back soon?"

"No, I don't..." Eddie turned around, so he was kneeling, facing the couch and Jason. "I can hang a little longer."

"Ah." Jason nodded once, scrubbed a hand over his face before folding both arms behind his head and closing his eyes.

"Unless." Eddie bit down on his bottom lip, shifted his gaze quickly to the door and back, something heavy and cold settling on his shoulders. Jason hadn't expected Eddie to be back right after dropping Spoiler back at the tower, he knew that, and then, Eddie had been here for hours already, he knew he could be a little inept at telling when he'd worn out his welcome. "Did you want me to leave you alone?"

"No." Jason said, a deep line having appeared between his eyes and his lips set in a frown. "I wouldn't want you to go." He rolled his shoulders, a nervous gesture that didn't fit him "Just figured, you had thing's to do, n you'd wanna get back 'fore they knew you were..." He motioned at himself and then around at the apartment. "Y'know."

"I don't." Eddie tucked some strands of hair behind his ear and shifted away from the couch to keep the sudden spike in his body temperature from burning it up. "And I know you don't really thing I'd ditch you for such a dumb reason." He fixed his eyes on Jason and tried to smile, he was good at that. "I swear you used to be smarter."

Jason finally looked at Eddie, blinked owlishly at him with eyes so wide, Eddie might have thought it was funny if it hadn't made him turn every bit of the carpet he was touching to charcoal. Then Jason snorted and shook his head as he rolled off the couch. "I gotta fire-proof this apartment sometime."

"Yeah, that's a really, really good idea." Eddie winced and shifted away from the carpet he'd destroyed.

"Ima grab the fire-extinguisher, you get another movie going." Jason was gone from the room minutes after the sounds of him rifling through the kitchen came to an end.

The room was too dark to be sure, but when he came back in, Jason's eyes were suspiciously red. When he didn't bring it up, Eddie let himself pretend it was because his friend was short a couple hours too many of sleep.

They didn't do much more talking that night, but that was fine, there'd be plenty more time for catching up on others.

[youhearstatic]

META Pt 2 - LUCRETIA AND THE RED ROBES:

(For the first three times Lucretia talks about the red robes see Pt 1.)

EPISODE 51 - Start of The Suffering Game. The director brings the boys in, about to send them off to Wonderland. Magnus is still grappling with finding out he’s a red robe at the end of The Eleventh Hour. We get this right before Magnus decides he’s busting into the brig to talk to Robbie/Pringles:

Magnus: I… I need to ask… I’ve been thinking about it, it’s been a while since I’ve been able to talk to you. I feel like if there are other participants in the maze we run the risk of running into more Red Robes.

The Director: I find that unlikely. The Red Robes obviously, to my surprise, are still in operation, but there cannot be that many of them.

Magnus: But if we do run into one, what, is there anything the Bureau knows about them? Anything you can tell us?

The Director: They are extremely dangerous. They cannot be trusted. If you see one, report it to me over your Stone of Far Speech immediately. And just run away, you are not ready. Don’t listen to a word they say, they will lie to you to get you to do whatever they want, but their purposes are evil, Magnus, they are- they are beings of pure, concentrated evil.

Magnus: But how do you know?

The Director: I - I’ve had my fair share of run-ins with the Red Robes.

Magnus: And they’ve all been evil?

The Director: Invariably. Any other questions?

[snorting and giggles from Justin/Taako and Clint/Merle]

(I include that last line cause HA jokes on you two, too! You’re ALSO red robes of evil!)

Okay so. Lucretia obviously still has the party line to tow. She can’t be all, “Actually, they aren’t so bad, we just had a difference of opinion so I essentially roofied them all and stuck them in new lives while I handle shit Lucretia-Style... which turned out to also be bad so here we are with you three.”

But let’s break that down further. Starting with:

A.) “...there cannot be that many of them.”

So obviously she can account for five of the seven of them.  As mentioned above, as of most of the way through Crystal Kingdom she knows Barry is alone. But even if he’s since found Lup, there’s still only two.

I think Lucretia expects it’s just Barry, though. But the umbra staff being with Taako could mean Lup resurfaced and found Barry. POSSIBLY. (Also, I could make an argument that Lucretia saw the umbrella and figured out that’s where Lup was at some point between Taako showing up with it and Taako breaking it but that’s a-whole-nother post. Short answer: There were a LOT of smart people on that ship who should have worked that one out in the time they were searching for Lup. They can be forgiven because they hadn’t found the umbrella at that point either. But Lucretia... ANYWAY.)

B.) “They are extremely dangerous.”

Well, I guess if you read this as “dangerous to Lucretia’s plans and the boys staying unaware of their own histories” then we have to rate this as true.

If you mean dangerous as in “a threat to your health and well being” then we have to say: Eh? True and false? Like, it’s not great for mental well being to have the rug pulled out from under you in regards to a hundred years of your life and your family that you forgot.

But... Even if this is Barry and Lup together, they aren’t going to HURT them. I mean even if Lucretia believes the absolute worst of Barry and Lup she’d still never think they would HURT Taako, Magnus, or Merle.

C.) “They cannot be trusted.”

Now this right here... this is the statement that made me want to write this entire post.

Let’s put ourselves in Lucretia’s shoes here. You’ve done this thing. You’re at the end of the whole deal. The end is in sight. At this point, you’re probably spinning a lot of plates, juggling a lot of knives, keeping a lot of balls in the air, whatever metaphor you like. SO to that we can say this was just words flowing out of her mouth trying to keep things going.

And Lucretia is scared! She knows Wonderland is a bad, bad place. She knows that not only could this mean the end of the relic gathering, this could mean losing Taako, Magnus, and Merle. So there’s a lot on the line here and it’s understandable if she’s verbally scrambling.

But she’s saying this to Magnus who has - unknown to her - learned he’s a red robe. THEN SHE DOUBLES DOWN ON IT! She says: 

D.) “they will lie to you to get you to do whatever they want, but their purposes are evil, Magnus, they are- they are beings of pure, concentrated evil.”

So when he follows up with a question asking if all red robes are evil her response is, I think, seriously crucial. Because she answers: “Invariably.”

I think that answer is why Magnus decides he’s gonna talk to Robbie/Pringles. He knows something is up for her to make that blanket statement because even if he can’t explain how he was involved, he knows there is missing information. And he knows he’s not getting it from her.

I think that word right there: “invariably” is what sets up Magnus to trust the red robe in Wonderland. He MIGHT have trusted him based on the fact that he (Magnus) found out he’d been one. He MIGHT have relied on the red robe based on the fact that Wonderland sucked. They needed help.

But I think if she’d given him a different answer? If she’d said something about some of the red robes might have believed they had good intentions or SOME kind of answer that would have allowed Magnus to believe there was room for his history to have included being a red robe? I think Wonderland might have gone differently.

The red robe (okay, lemme just call him Barry at this point) had tried again and again to prove he was trustworthy. He’d saved them from Captain Bane. He’d tried to give them hints along the way with the patches and the explanation about the planar system. He’d worried for their safety in Refuge and told them he was proud of them. He’d hung on through so much - seeing them in Phandolin, realizing Taako had Lup’s umbrella, being told by three of the people he’s closest to the in the world that NO WAY DID THEY TRUST HIM. He’d saved Merle’s kids! He’d been worried about Taako on a freaking date with a reaper! (This one I’m willing to debate. It COULD be taken that Kravitz suddenly sensed Lup in the umbrella but he’d been around Taako with the umbrella for an extended period of time so it seems weird he should suddenly sense a lich and even weirder that, when handed the umbrella he’d say “nope, not this.” So I think all signs point to Barry being around and Lup reacting and trying to protect him. But if you want to say Kravitz sensed Lup ‘surging’ in power or something I guess that’s a valid take as well.)

But I list all those things to say: He’d gone through all that and done so much to try and help them, try and let them know, and they’d misunderstood, misremembered, or simply ignored it. They absolutely forgot he saved them from Captain Bane, no question there. 

So Lucretia had done her groundwork well. Even if they had suspicions, they did trust her, they did fall on her side.

She lost Magnus with that word “invariably” though. It led him to kidnapping the guards and trusting Barry and being on Barry’s side and saying: “Uh. Listen, uh, Taako, Merle, I know that’s a little weird, and you’re just gonna have to trust me on this one: He’s with us. I think. More or less.”

And we all know how it plays out. But let’s stop on one more moment. Because then, in Episode 67 you have what I just refer to as “that scene”

Griffin: What do you do?

Justin: I pull out the Umbra Staff and I point it at Lucretia.

Griffin: Um, she’s just kind of staring you down-

Taako: [voice cracking] Ten. Nine.

Griffin: She says,

Lucretia: Taako, I know you’re upset—

Taako: Eight.

Travis: I pull the Flaming Raging Poisoning Sword of Doom and point it at her.

Lucretia: Listen -

Taako: Seven.

Lucretia: Please listen to me, please.

Taako: Six.

Lucretia: Please stop— okay.

Clint: I look at the other two and say,

Merle: What the hell are you doing?

Taako: Five.

Magnus: The chance to explain yourself was… mmm about a dozen memories ago.

Taako: And honestly, 7 seconds ago, I’m doing this cool countdown. [shouting] You fucking took everything from me!

Lucretia: I know that things went wrong, I know I shouldn’t have kept you all in the dark for as long as I did. I swear, I had no idea how arduous a task this was gonna be, I know I have a lot for atone for. But please, just— I’m begging you let me finish this and then we can talk about it.

Taako: [defeatedly] …Fine.

Merle: [slight hysterical laugh] What are you finishing?

I bring this up because even after everything they learned when they got their Stolen Century memories back... This is how it breaks down: Taako is furious because she took his memories of his sister. Merle is confused. And Magnus steps up to second Taako. (AND I WOULD LIKE TO POINT OUT: Travis’s voice breaks when he says he pulls out the sword.)

And I think a portion of that? Still comes back to that word “invariably.” Because Magnus believes himself to be a good man and - albeit indirectly - Lucretia told him he wasn’t.

[xhellnhighheelsx]

List the angsty times she’s extra! Do it! Do it! Also, would you take meta prompts? I guess that’s just questions...but your metas are my fave, and I would read them all day everyday. P.S. still any plans to provide receipts for the Doctor’s and River’s irrevocable love? (Yes, that was my ask too ;)

Okay so here’s my emo companion to this post. 

I only picked a handful of moments cuz I wanted to get this to you quick so you don’t think I’m ignoring you lol and I will gladly accept all the meta prompts. Always. 

Let’s start at River’s beginning for this one, shall we?   

Kid Melody calls Nixon for night terrors. He ends up being entirely useless, but that’s government for you. I mean, technically the suit defaulted to the highest authority, so not exactly her fault, but lbr, River would. This gets glossed over a lot, and maybe that’s because it’s so sad.I don’t even have to dig for the angst here. Orphan girl, terrified, alone, cared for by a man whose sanity is unraveling before her very eyes. She watched him graffiti walls and his own skin, warning himself to get out, to get away. How much guilt does that put on a little girl? Unwanted. No friends. Nothing but isolation and a dusty room with paint chipping off the walls. Owned rather than loved. Swaddled by a suit meant only for murder. Other kids want a puppy, but little Melody begs the President of the United States, please, don’t let it eat me. She learns early on that going big is the only way to not be overlooked. 

Now I’m just wondering if the Silence fixed that little issue? If little Melody can call for help, did River? When she was trapped in that suit at the bottom of the lake, did she try to call the Tardis to warn the Doctor? Did he not answer his phone AGAIN? Did she leave a voicemail begging him not to come? Does 12 or 13 find it but can’t do a damn thing about it cuz these faces have to be a secret? Sorry, I spiraled.

Anyway, after she escaped, kid Melody also found an audience to regenerate in front of. She scared the daylights out of some poor homeless man because she was sick and, for once in her life, she didn’t want to die be alone. Think on that.

I won’t get into it too much cuz we’re all well aware, but friendly reminder that home girl actually broke time just to prove a point. She did it for love, yes, but she also did it for herself. She was done being a puppet. This is River saying the decisions she makes will happen on her terms and the universe learns it the hard way. While we’re at it, River has another go at changing time by that lake side by physically shooting at herself. And you know she tries because she is blinking back tears as she says, “of course not.” If the shooting is just for show, why does she say that? This scene is the cause of a lot of diverging headcanons because it either means, River doesn’t remember the events that took place in the aborted timeline and is still trying to change time and create another paradox. Or she does remember and she’s just that self loathing. Or secret option C, she’s faking it for the Ponds, which is it’s own brand of ansty extraness. Basically, pick your poison. They’re all bitter and hard to swallow. 

There’s a lot of controversy around The Big Bang and what River remembers and what not, but let’s consider this for a second: assuming she does genuinely think the universe will close with the Doctor on the other side, she’s agreeing to let her whole life be rewritten. Mind, this is the same woman that later DIES to protect her life and memories with the Doctor. Amy, Rory, and 11 don’t realize it at the time, but when River lets the Doctor climb into the Pandorica and fly it into the heart of the TARDIS, she’s taking the risk of never existing herself. She says, he hardly knows her and now he never will, but what she means is River Song will disappear and Melody Williams will take her place. She is literally self sacrificing at every opportunity. 

Another casual reminder: Remember that time she broke her wrist and tried to hide it because heaven forbid she be mortal for five seconds? And then slapped her husband because he has the audacity to love her? Yup, extra. The entire episode of THORS. If you want a crash course on how to make a scene, this is the ep for you. She makes her entrance by wearing a bright red Mrs. Claus cloak and threatens to remove peoples vital organs. Iconic. And then she follows it up with an overdramatic display of how her “love” will rise again. Meanwhile her medusa hair is just tingling with excitement over how close she is to murdering this sucker of a king. 

Anyway, back to the angst. Her speech is the obvious choice here and we’ve all cried over it a thousand times. She could have ranted about anything to kill time before the meteor strike. She could have laughed about how you can’t trust that slippery fellow, Jim, the fish. She could have listed the inaccuracies of the Byzantium movie, gone on for ten minutes of how it really went down and oh by the way, I’m one of only three survivors and I hunt weeping angels for fun. Forget the Doctor, I’m far more dangerous than he is. She could have bragged about her significant history of escaping. That would have made the most sense, considering that’s literally what she’s about to do. hahaha here’s my master plan and you can’t do a damn thing to stop it. Toodaloo suckers. Enjoy being deep fried.  

But she doesn’t. She talks about the Doctor, as if convincing a room full of strangers he doesn’t love her will save him from danger. Maybe she even convinces herself because she feels responsible for her parents. Maybe she steals diamonds and acts like a thief because she is one. Maybe she feels like she stole something from the Doctor and she tells herself he doesn’t give a damn because he’s better off without her. Moral of the story, he’s always her first thought in a crisis. How can I protect him, how can I save him? Even when he’s not around to see it. She’s so damaged affected by their love affair that it’s second nature for River to scream into the void that the people she loves most don’t give a damn about her. It doesn’t matter (that they’re her parents). You don’t expect a sunset to admire you back. is it a defense mechanism because everyone she loves leaves her? Probably. But only someone who’s extra shouts about their insecurities to a room full of criminals. 

And on a slightly less obvious note, when River and 12 first land on Starship Super Villains R Us, was it really necessary for her to blatantly incriminate herself? She tells what she thinks is some random guy about how this ship is full of despicable people, planet burners and murders and criminals. And then she gives him an icy stare and says, do try the fish. A neon sign of I come here often. In no way was it necessary to inform this guy that she has no qualms with murder. But she does because if she wants to believe her own lie, that she’s heartless and cold, she has to convince others first.    

And last but not least, she straight up haunted her husband’s ass. Ex👏tra👏. Now whether you believe the haunting was full time or just in TNOTD, you can’t deny that the look on her face when she says he left her like a book on a shelf. She didn’t have to follow Eleven and Clara through the tomb explaining things to Clara, but she does. She doesn’t have to flirt with the Doctor and give him the come hither eyes even though she thinks he can’t see/hear her. But she does. Cuz she’s extra.

[carriejonesbooks]

So, because I am a writer, something that I never imagined would happen, happened.

No, I did not suddenly learn how to fly.

This is Super Girl. She can fly, and rock a cape.

No, Grover did not propose.

Grover: Some day I will, Cawwie. 

Wow. I hope so, Grover, I’ve been waiting on that since first grade.

It wasn’t learning to fly or a Grover proposal.

Instead, I was in a real photo shoot with a real make-up artist and real stylist and real photo shoot coordinator and real photographer with assistant.

For Glamour Magazine.

Yes, seriously. Glamour Magazine.

And I wore make-up. And it was cold, but I still managed to not fall down or turn into an ice cube.

If you know me, you know that I am not a person who wears make-up.

Look. Proof. The photo of myself that I tend to post is make-up free AND my hair is wet. That is how un-glam I am.

So… why? Why was I doing this? Why was I totally stepping outside of my comfort zone?

It was for the Dear Bully anthology that Megan Kelley Hall and I were doing with Harper Collins, so I couldn’t cop out or claim social anxiety disorder because it was for a good cause.

I am a sucker for good.

Anyway, I was totally out of my previously-mentioned comfort zone and the whole time that I was panicking and thinking, “Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. I have to wear make-up. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. People are going to see my picture. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. I have to wear clothes that do not belong to me.”

Really, it’s true. You wear clothes that are not yours at these things. So, I was kind of thinking I’d get to wear something glammy because it is GLAMOUR MAGAZINE, and it was basically my one shot to be actually glamorous.

Yeah.

That didn’t happen.

Since they did the shoot in Maine, they wanted it to reflect Maine culture and I guess holding dead lobsters in our hands and swigging Allen’s Coffee Brandy while wearing moose hats was out of the question.

So the next best thing they could think of was…

Yeah,  it was basically …. um….

LL Bean.

Someday, I swear, I’ll be glammy. Really. I will. It’s on my bucket list.

Grover: I am on a cow. That was on the bucket list of me, Grover, and I managed to do it fabulously and glamorously, don’t I? 

Yes, I know Grover. You did.

But the point here is that if you are brave and you say ‘yes’ to things that are TOTALLY OUTSIDE YOUR COMFORT ZONE? Well, good things could happen. You can wear make-up and random clothes from L.L. Bean. Or you can be on the radio at WERU like I was this week. I got to talk to the amazing Brook Mining, who is a rock star librarian and radio host. The hour-long show is archived here if you feel like listening to it.

AND IF YOU EVER have to do a photo shoot with Glamour, do NOT be scared because the people are so awesome and nice and kind and patient. It’s amazing. I fell in love with all of them. They were just that cool.

To find out more about DEAR BULLY check it out here.

  And since it’s Mother’s Day in the U.S. this weekend and I am without a mother, here’s a quick shout-out to my mom who tried so hard in a world that was always pushing her down. She was amazing. I miss her.

Writing News

Yep, it’s the part of the blog where I talk about my books and projects because I am a writer for a living, which means I need people to review and buy my books or at least spread the word about them.

So, please buy one of my books. 🙂 The links about them are all up there in the header on top of the page.  There are young adult series, middle grade fantasy series, stand-alones for young adults and even picture book biographies.

  Time Stoppers

Dear Bully

Flying

Need

Sarah Emma Edmonds

CARRIE’S APPEARANCES

I’ll be at Book Expo America in NYC on June 1 at 11:30 – 12 at the Lerner booth signing copies of the Spy Who Played Baseball. A week before that,

I’ll also be in NYC presenting to the Jewish Book Council . Come hang out with me!

PODCAST

The podcast DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN PEOPLE is still chugging along!

Thanks to all of you who keep listening to our weirdness as we talk about random thoughts, writing advice and life tips.

We’re sorry we laugh so much… sort of. Please share it and subscribe if you can.

That Time I was in Glamour Magazine. No. Seriously. I was. So, because I am a writer, something that I never imagined would happen, happened. No, I did not suddenly learn how to fly.

[pixlh3art]

How I Would Fix Mercy

Disclaimer: I am currently a mid-bronze Overwatch player, but I am a game design major and my sister is a Mercy main. I’ve followed a lot of the discourse around Mercy’s balance, listening to Jeff, salty “pros” like xqc (though only barely, that dude is a homophobic crybaby and I hope he stays banned), and top tier Mercy players like Eeveea. I am not a Mercy main, I prefer Ana, but I’ve done a lot of thinking on this topic and I hope that Mercy players and flanker mains (like me!) can agree that every hero should be fun and fit their core identity as much as possible, while remaining balanced. Click the readmore for a long-ass post!

MERCY’S BALANCE HISTORY:

For the most part, the balance team of Overwatch has made great decisions, breathing life into a meta-irrelevant hero, or surgically removing power from a dominant one without defeating that hero’s identity, but it’s undeniable that they’ve dropped the ball with the game’s most iconic support hero, Mercy. If you’re not familiar with her lengthy balance history, Mercy’s original ultimate, Resurrect, was perhaps the most iconic in the game. She would lift her hand in the air, shout “Heroes never die!” and every teammate who had recently died within a specified area around her would be brought back to life. It was beautiful, simple, and streamlined. The problem with it, though, was that at higher tiers of play, the most effective strategy for a Mercy player was to allow her team to enter a big fight without her, let the enemy team waste resources on killing her team, then swoop in and bring them back. This “hiding Mercy” strategy wasn’t very easy to counter, nor was it particularly fun to do as the Mercy player, because they’d just stare at a wall until they saw five little “dead ally” icons, press the Q button on their keyboard, and then return to a team who was probably already winning at that point.

Blizzard’s eventual response was to give Mercy an entirely new ultimate, Valkyrie. For a very lengthy duration, Mercy gains the ability to fly, a constant self-heal, and her staff, which normally could heal or damage boost one ally at a time, “chains” to multiple targets in range. Finally, her resurrect ability was moved to the E button as a basic ability, but it can only revive one hero at a time, within a miniscule range. Finally, activating Valkyrie would make Resurrect have a 10-second cooldown instead of its usual 30, which is by far the longest basic ability cooldown in Overwatch.

This made Mercy an objectively stronger hero than she had been before, and the players who had complained that she was too strong (usually players who do not play healers) even angrier, as they still saw her play pattern as not enough effort for its huge payoff.

Since this rework, Mercy has been nerfed over and over again. Resurrect now casts after 1.5 seconds instead of instantly, Valkyrie doesn’t last as long, and it also no longer gives her any additional uses of Resurrect. Blizzard tried fiddling with the interaction between Valkyrie and Resurrect a lot of ways: first it was a lowered cooldown, then an odd charge-based system, and finally, the two don’t interact at all.

NOW:

The way that she is right now, despite all of the nerfs, Mercy is still a very strong hero. Valkyrie is simply too powerful an ultimate, and while she can be killed out of it by enterprising Widowmakers, McCrees, etc., it’s no easy task, and I would consider Valkyrie the strongest self-buff in Overwatch except for maybe Zenyatta’s Transcendence. And even after its duration was reduced, Valkyrie still lasts for two and a half times as long.

However, as a Mercy player, it’s hard to feel very strong, especially without Valkyrie. Resurrect’s 1.5-second cast time feels like two years from her perspective, especially when under fire. Furthermore, from my perspective, as a player who mains “flanker” heroes like Tracer or Genji, someone whose job it is to hunt down and kill heroes like Mercy, the cast time increase really doesn’t matter that often. In most cases, it feels like she would’ve lived or died anyway, even if the ability did still work instantly. It just feels sluggish and makes Mercy less fun. It’s an inverse quality-of-life change, and the exact opposite of what a nerf should be.

Finally, Mercy-haters are still angry about Resurrect in its current state, because if you’re an enterprising Widowmaker who gets an early headshot that would normally make a fight be 6v5 in your team’s favor, Mercy can press the E key and undo all your “hard work.” I personally think that using something that isn’t an ultimate to waste an enemy’s 30-second cooldown is still extremely favorable from the Widowmaker’s perspective, but it’s a criticism I hear enough that I think it needs to be addressed. Also, my personal opinion here is that most people who have this opinion are the kind of people who aren’t skilled enough to reliably get picks on enemy heroes, and Mercy actually exposes that lack of skill, but I digress.

So, you have a hero who is very strong, but whose play pattern has dramatically changed, and has been hit over and over again with nerfs that have mostly made her feel less fun to play, and yet is still considered “too easy” by more than a few players, especially at higher tiers. Finally, her strength, while considerable, is almost exclusively centered around Valkyrie, to the point that it defines her performance as much as Dragonblade does for Genji or Graviton Surge does for Zarya. Those two are some of the most difficult heroes in the game, and Mercy is designed to be relatively easy to pick up and play.

How would I fix this? Well, high-tier Mercy player Eeveea_ has suggested more than once to give Resurrect a resource system, like Torbjorn’s Scrap mechanic. This way, it would be unavailable at the start of the game, and a Mercy would have to “earn” the ability. However, talented Mercy players would be able to earn the ability frequently enough that they would perform better than they had before, and get off more uses of Resurrect. I would suggest that the resource could be earned by damage boosting allies, because right now, Mercy’s damage boost is an almost tertiary part of her kit, so encouraging it this way would be very healthy.

She’s also suggested an “ally hook” ability instead of Resurrect, something that would allow you to target one ally and pull them towards you, potentially out of danger. It’s a good idea, but because it’s an online game where people play with strangers, it is highly likely that trolls would use it to pull allies away from getting a kill or into a pit. As a former League of Legends player, I’ve had enough experiences where such potentially useful abilities (Kalista’s ultimate, Tahm Kench’s W, Trundle’s pillar, Bard’s ultimate, etc)  have been abused by my random allies as a griefing tool that I wouldn’t prefer for something like that to be in the game if it’s avoidable.

However, I’ve also had my own ideas about this, and I think that we could take Resurrect off of Mercy’s E key entirely, while still keeping it in her kit. Mercy is too focused around Valkyrie right now, and I think that because it gives her so much power, Blizzard is forced to keep non-ulting Mercy a very weak hero. What I would suggest is removing Valkyrie’s permanent self-heal, as well as the mechanic that chains her beam across several allies. These were the scariest parts of Valkyrie other than its mobility, so removing them allows us to put power back into default Mercy. Firstly, I would increase the range of Guardian Angel, allowing her to get to faraway allies easier. Also, as Mercy travels, I would either grant her damage reduction or instantly enable the healing effect of her passive (which normally only works when she hasn’t taken damage) so that she would be able to get away from her enemies easier, especially if she was low on health. Secondly, somewhat like Genji’s Cyber-Agility passive, I’d give Mercy a “double jump,” or just a slight wingflap that would give her a bit of height, that she could use either after her own jump or a use of Guardian Angel. Guardian Angel can often bring her right to a ledge that an ally is standing on, but not quite onto it, making Mercy just sort of awkwardly bonk her torso on it and fall. Giving her this one “wingflap” would allow her to correct these sub-optimal Guardian Angels, as well as get over some higher walls by herself, giving her better escape routes or another way to recover from being knocked off of ledges. Lastly, during Valkyrie, Mercy would begin charging a second ultimate. Symmetra is the only hero thus far with two, and she can choose between them. With Mercy, though, what I’m suggesting is that upon activating Valkyrie, she’d be able to earn ult charge as normal, and if she charged it all the way during Valkyrie’s 15-second duration, she would be granted the use of her old ultimate, Resurrect. The only difference with this version, though, is that it would only work on the allies whose corpses are within Mercy’s line of sight, as in, not through walls. Once Mercy activates Resurrect, she’d lose the remaining duration of Valkyrie.

And, there we go: Valkyrie isn’t the scariest ult in the game anymore, but if Mercy is left alone during it, and her team is still dying despite her very best efforts to keep them alive, she can bring them back. However, “hiding” or even just flying as high as she can with Valkyrie and allowing her team to die wouldn’t work either, because she needs to charge Resurrect in the very limited time span that Valkyrie offers. If Valkyrie ends and she doesn’t charge Resurrect, her ult charge will return to zero.

This way, we maintain both the “high-flying teamfight coordinator” identity of new Mercy while re-incorporating the epic “Heroes never die!” identity of old Mercy, as well as preventing Resurrect from feeling “cheap” or “easy” to obtain. Finally, we give her some quality-of-life changes and a bit more survivability when she’s trying to escape a tight spot. Lastly, because her kit isn’t entirely centered around Valkyrie, she isn’t “useless” if she’s killed during it, so there’s less pressure around making it count. Resurrect won’t bring back an entire team except in the most dire conditions, so not using it optimally won’t feel as crushing as whiffing a Graviton Surge or getting killed in the first second of a Dragonblade.