#but I’m afraid of not having enough stellar jades for him

[rubywolf0201]

Man am I tempted to get Jiaoqiu but at the same time I’m afraid of not having enough Stellar Jades for him since I’m aiming to get Huohuo.

But at the same time, I don’t really have Acheron and I’m not to sure if it’s worth pulling for him if I don’t have Acheron. What do you guys think?

[bobdylanrevisited]

Infidels

Released: 27 October 1983

Rating: 8/10

With his reputation as a songwriter and forward thinker in the gutter following years of derision for his Christian albums, Bob released this short record to a collective shrug from critics and audiences alike, however I do think this album is criminally overlooked. Whilst his voice almost sounds like a Dylan parody at times, his songwriting is returning to politics and poetry, and his sound now has a strange Caribbean feel to it. This album is the work of a man both jaded and hopeful, possibly at odds with his own life, and his standing in a zeitgeist that had written him off as a has been. Though religion still features prominently on the album, the edgier songs are a welcome return to form for a man who writes about bitterness and feeling out of place better than anyone else. It is, however, impossible to talk about the songs on this release, without also focussing on what was bafflingly left off it.

1) Jokerman - The opening reggae drum beat is a shock, as is the almost mumbled singing from Dylan to begin with. For years I dismissed this track for some reason, unaware that it is one of his best ever songs. There’s a reason Leonard Cohen said it was his favourite Dylan track, it’s truly breathtaking. It’s filled to the brim with religious and historical reference, spilling over from his previous albums, but it is also beautifully poetic with a stellar chorus. The album version is a brilliantly laid back Caribbean number, but when he played it on David Letterman’s show back by The Plugz, it morphed into a roaring punk song. It’s a timeless classic that proved Bob could still unleash wordy odyssey’s and was still the greatest songwriter around.

2) Sweetheart Like You - This is just a nice love song. I like the way Bob sounds on the track, I like way song builds then relaxes, there wouldn’t be much else to discuss here other than one certain lyric: ‘A woman like you should be at home, that’s where you belong’. Obviously, this line isn’t great. In the context of the song it does stick out in the worst possible way, I understand Bob probably didn’t mean it as a horrendously sexist statement, but regardless it does bring the song down in my eyes. It’s a shame as the song is a sweeter side of Bob, but that line really should have been cut.

3) Neighbourhood Bully - This is a fast paced rock song in defence of Israel, a sore subject given today’s political climate (free Palestine). To judge the song on its own merit, it’s well written, almost sarcastic and humorous about the country’s history. Not the best song on the album and it certainly hasn’t aged well, but it’s a decent enough track and a return to Dylan’s take on political events.

4) License To Kill - I like this track a lot, it talks about political and environmental concerns, with Bob attacking society for taking the world for granted. However, it does also have huge religious connotations and a weird distrust of space travel, likely due to religious fears at the time, but it is still a brilliantly structured song. Bob sounds more relaxed and understated here, and the tune is quite mellow, despite a rather out of place drum beat.

5) Man Of Peace - Another fast rock number, this is easily the most Christian song on the record, which talks about Satan and temptation being everywhere. Despite this, it’s a fun and enjoyable song with the best backing instrumentation on the album, although Bob’s voice does slip back into the nasal whine we previously heard throughout the religious years.

6) Union Sundown - This is a scathing attack on American capitalism, it’s just a shame it’s hidden in a very average song. Bob lists everyday items and the countries in which they are made, backed by a weird country guitar riff, and also mentions America’s greed for wanting to keep costs down and not pay workers a proper wage. He then sings a basic chorus with a distracting back up singer who clashes with Bob’s voice. I like the message, and it’s nice to hear Bob take a stance on a geopolitical issue that is still a problem today, but I’m not a huge fan of this track as a whole.

7) I And I - A much darker song, that talks about loneliness. Bob seems to almost view himself as another person, unable to feel at one with his public persona and his real feelings, and this culminates in a pained sounding chorus which is punctuated by a simple but effectively stark guitar backing and those island drums. The ‘Real Live’ version from 1984 is my favourite rendition of the song, Bob’s in great voice and the band gels together to deliver a brilliant performance.

8) Don’t Fall Apart On Me Tonight - Much like track 2, the album closes with another sweet love song, that features some great harmonica and guitar, and Bob actually sounding romantic. It might not be the most memorable song on the record, but it’s a nice, uplifting note to end on.

Bonus: Blind Willie McTell - Bob Dylan is his own worst editor. I’m sure I’ll talk about this masterpiece at length once I get to the Bootleg Series, but I can’t review this album without also mentioning this outtake. I just think if I’d written and recorded one of the greatest songs of all time during the sessions for the album, a song with perfect vocals and Mark Knopfler on guitar, I’d have probably added it to the track list. I definitely wouldn’t have left it on the cutting room floor and only released it commercially 8 years later. In a decade when people were saying he isn’t as good as he used to be, he chose to leave this song behind. Bob is terrible for leaving great songs off his releases, but to deny listeners this unbelievable tune truly annoys me.

Verdict: This is just a solid album. It’s certainly not his best work, but it is pretty great with a collection of brilliant songs. There’s not much else to say about it, other than I’d urge everyone to find all the outtakes from the recording sessions, as they’re all enjoyable. But especially go and and listen to ‘Blind Willie McTell’ if you haven’t, it’s his best song from this period and it’s not even on the fucking album, if it were I imagine this one would be a 9/10. Following the release, Bob would embark on a fantastic tour throughout 1984 before getting back into the studio, and I’m afraid to say it all goes downhill for the next few years. Music was changing, and a middle aged Bob was struggling to keep afloat in an increasingly young persons industry.

[rwbyconversations]

A retrospective look on the second half of Volume 6

Just over a month and a half ago, I did a retrospective on the first half of Volume 6- everything from Adam’s short up to The Grimm Reaper. Now in hindsight if I’d known the season was getting cut down an episode I’d have done the analysis a week earlier so it would be perfectly symmetrical, but life comes at you fast. I adored the first half of Volume 6 and still rank it as the best string of episodes quality wise that the show has ever had. It was very clear even early on that the crew over in Austin were going all out to prove that they knew what they were doing and could still create a stellar season of a show. I was confident at the time that the back half would stick the landing, and while it wasn’t as good as the first half, Volume 6′s second half still retains the quality that makes it one of the best volumes of the entire show and a standout piece of animation by any standards.

As such, this will be a review of every episode from Chapters 8 to 13, spoilers obviously will follow if you haven’t watched those. 

Dead End- the stumbling block

So you know how I said in the retrospective for the first half of the volume that if chapter 8 was good than we’d get the longest uncut string of good episodes in all of RWBY? I’m pretty sure someone upstairs heard that and chose deliberately to make Chapter 8 the weakest episode of the season. There is good to be found here, but unfortunately every race has someone end up dead last and chapter 8 drew the short straw. 

While the opening scene with Caroline and her minions is funny at first, it quickly drags on for too long and desperately needed another few goes with a weed-whacker to condense the scene. Barring setting up Corvodin as an obvious antagonist little is gained from the scene, especially given how much of the episode it consumes. 

Jaune’s scene with Oscar remains... sketchy on a moral level, especially the accusation Jaune makes that Ozpin has been pretending to be Oscar the entire time. Jaune’s still not truly processed his grief over Pyrrha’s death and while I’m glad to see his anger at Ozpin return after it went missing in Volume 5, I think Jaune crossed the line when he decided to start manhandling Oscar. It’s also still really weird how outside of Yang and Weiss saying “Jaune!” with the concern you express when someone stubs their toe, no one actually runs over to pull Jaune off. It’s just a weird moment, I still don’t really like this scene or many of the defenses for it. Fuck’s sake, Oscar’s trembling like a leaf in a hurricane afterwards that stuff ain’t right. 

Ruby’s scene with Maria is the real saving grace of the episode, especially since we finally got some solid information on the Silver Eyes, accompanied by some wonderful background music and cinematography. Maria really is one of the best characters in the show and it’s amazing how much audiences grew to love her in just one single year, so kudos to the writers, designers and actors for that. Maria’s Semblance is simple but neat, and you can actually go back and listen to the Maria vs Tock fight for their auditory trigger which is an insane attention to detail touch. 

Also something I couldn’t fit in anywhere else; it’s sad but fairly realistic that Qrow falls right back off the wagon after the Corvodin meeting goes south.

Dead End has some quality to it, mostly in the back half with Maria and Ruby bouncing off each other wonderfully to create a great teacher-student dynamic, but the first half drags and is let down by an overly long intro before pouring gasoline on the fires of the anti-Jaune crowd. 

Lost- The Refound Footing

Remember what I said in the first half of the volume retrospective, Em and Merc appearing is an instant thumbs up in my book. So an episode where they get half the episode to themselves, and even get to be in the thumbnail for the first time since Volume 3? Hoo boy, that’s a solid contender for episode of the season right there. And it nearly is, in all honesty. In fact, Lost’s only mis-step is how a part of it feels like the third act to a trilogy when we never saw the second part, but we’ll come back to that. 

Mercury and Emerald’s scene is nothing short of breathtaking. There’s a lot of great lighting choices in this scene such as Emerald initially sitting in the darkness before rising and coming into the moonlit parts of the room after being confronted with her denial to believe that Cinder’s a monster, that lend the scene a bit of extra weight. Yuri and Katie are their usual amazing selves, especially since this is the first time either of them have been given some really meaty dialogue in a while. 

Kerry had already teased content for Mercury was coming in the Reddit AMA, and we already knew the kick boi was sporting one of the darkest backstories of anyone in the show, but the curtain was uncovered here to make it absolutely obvious how much of a bastard Marcus Black was and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that interest in Mercury jumped up after this episode and the average theory on Team Jaded went from “Emerald will defect and Mercury will stay or die giving her a chance” to “Emerald and Mercury will leave as a group.”I also love how the Yang and Mercury foil status only continues to amplify, as now we have both of their fathers giving different advice and training in regards to their Semblances- Tai encouraged Yang to learn to control it and not to use it as a crutch unless she was sure it would finish the fight, while Marcus stole it so Mercury never got reliant in the first place.  

Merc’s backstory is also making me salivate for when he finally gets to cut loose in a fight, since his two biggest fights- against Pyrrha and Yang- were him holding back, so Mercury fighting needing to worry about keeping his cover would be an insane fight. And if Cinder and Neo is any sign of the CRWBY’s skills with hand-to-hand fighting... yeah, Merc’s next bout will be something to look forward to. I also love that Merc spends this scene training his punches, showing that he’s covering his bases for the next time he gets to fight Yang or another brawler. 

Emerald is still the best girl in this show. I love to hate how the music changes to a soft version of Cinder’s theme when Emerald explains why she’s backing Cinder, as if Emerald is twisting the music itself to make Cinder out to be the hero. Mercury bluntly telling her to stop living in fantasy land was a great moment that I’d been waiting years for, and “I’m sorry you didn’t have a mommy who loved you, but I had a father who hated me,” is just solid gold in writing. 

I love how Merc’s smirk as he calls Emerald out on her denial just melts off his face because he cares enough to want Emerald to stop being delusional, but he’s not going to be nice about it.

Also can I just say Mercury, the whole “I think I’m right where I’m supposed to be” crap would work if literally every other one of your scenes this volume didn’t show you scared and clearly rethinking your life choices. 

Tyrian’s tail upgrade is fine, but the real treat to his grand return is Tyrian playing psychoanalyist on Mercury and immediately calling bullshit on his above line- Merc’s only here because he’s been in a cycle of violence his whole life and is too afraid to leave it. The way he practically begs them to run because he called dibs on hunting them down is way too gleeful for my liking but given how Merc and Tyrian are two of my favorite villains right now, them finally getting to chat was a delight. I can’t wait until Volume 7 when we get to see Tyrian bounce off Watts without Mama Salem’s watchful eye. 

OK I’m done talking about the best scene in the Volume. Now let’s talk about another great scene. 

So first off I’d like to give my apprecation to the crew for making new Argus locals every episode we spend in it. It gives the city a lot more weight as a locale to see different streets and environs every week instead of prop recycling like a motherfucker. It gives Argus a lot more weight and makes it feel more lived-in than the few samey environments of Mistral that we got to see, and the streets are beautiful as a consequence. It also lets me play my new favorite spot, Spot The Emerald Clone!! 

Jaune’s scene at the statue is a beautifully shot and acted scene, no complaints from me here and Forever Fall has already killed me and claimed my soul. I love how it calls back to the Volume 1 OP as well, and Miles and Jen kill it here. It’s on its own an amazing scene, but the wider problem is what sets it down. This is JN_R’s only scene this volume, and as a consequence it feels like it needs to include most all of their character beats since they won’t get the chance to otherwise- their mutual grief over Pyrrha is brought up, Nora tells Jaune to drop the suicidal tendencies he suddenly gained at Haven and Ren... is there. If JNR had more to do this volume I wouldn’t mind but this scene just gives the vibe of “JNR get one scene to develop and justify them staying to fight Salem and that’s it!”  So nothing wrong with the scene itself, more the problem around it.

Finally we have Oscar’s sudden return. I think even if Chapter 8 hadn’t been the episode before the New Years break, fans wouldn’t have liked how this played out. Oscar really needs more character moments, especially after spending much of Volume 5 as just a fleshsack for Ozpin. Him going solo would have been a great way for Oscar to develop on his own and come to terms with his part to play in the war against Salem, maybe even have Ozpin or Ozma manifest and talk to him. Instead, he just goes and buys a new costume.

I still think Oscar lifted Qrow’s wallet for the record. And I still like his new outfit. The bandages give me Bungou Stray Dogs vibes. 

So in this retrospective, I’ve been pointing out little moments for Ruby in each episode, moments where the writers pointedly have her take center-stage, even if just for a minute, to remind the audience that she’s the leader. Here, her moment is... fairly weak. Ruby’s inspirational speeches are never her strong suit, but her telling Qrow that they “didn’t need an adult” when he saved her from Tyrian back in V4 and Maria saved her from the Apathy just a few episodes ago is almost darkly comedic. Her quiet exasperation with Qrow when she finds him on the stairs is a much more understated moment that landed for me. Her hero worship for Qrow has been pretty much shattered at this point and now she’s just tired of his crap. 

Lost is just an amazing episode. Mercury and Emerald are easily the most interesting characters in the series for me, this episode gives us more sights of Argus, the statue scene is wonderful and now I have the mental image of Oscar lifting Qrow’s wallet to go stress shopping as my favorite headcanon of the volume. Ruby’s speech is a little phoned in but it’s still a decent ending to a fantastic episode, and it’s easily my favorite episode in the entire season as a consequence. 

Stealing From The Elderly- Most Apt Name For An Episode 2K19

The Argus Battle episodes all vary in quality- while none of them are outright bad episodes, some flow more smoothly or have more standout moments than the other. There is, however, one constant.

They’re all too fucking short. Half of the episodes are just barely fourteen minutes long, and taking out the Genlock preview and the opening and closing credits, it’s more generous to say they’re ten to twelve minutes on average. While I will take shorter, more concise episodes over something that drags on longer than it needs to (see Dead End and the opening scene again for my thoughts on that), there is a point where I must bemoan the length being too short. Especially when some of these episodes are insanely good. 

Jaune’s plan is alright. Not quite as much of a disaster as some make it out to be, it’s a decent plan if lacking in contingencies. I think it’s noteworthy that had Adam not intervened, the plan would have gone off without a hitch.  

The first half of the episode is also really funny. Corvodin’s guards are a lot easier to manage in the shorter pace of the episode and Maria is just a goldmine of comedy. Like I said earlier, it’s amazing how fast the fandom fell in love with this salty old grandma. I also love the joke that Maria’s jargon was perfect (which it is in real life btw I checked), but the guards knew something was up because their pilots aren’t old women.

The one real drag to the episode is Qrow having another angst episode and bemoaning how everything is his fault again, which just seems to be in the episode so Ruby can have another Ruby Moment. This is perhaps the weakest of all of her moments in the season, as it feels the most shoved in for the sake of being able to say “We gave Ruby something to do in every episode!” Which is fine, but repetition is a beast best avoided when possible in writing.

The mech is kinda cool, at least. And for the record, Corvodin is the guilty party in this conflict- yes, Ruby and co stole military equipment, but it was Caroline’s call to escalate to the Walking Gen;Lock Ad. They could easily have just dispatched other airships to catch the protagonists. 

Adam’s return was a bit of a wet fart, unfortunately. A CRWBY episode released days prior to this episode releasing accidentally had mocap footage of someone fighting with Adam’s style, and storyboards that could be seen in this episode showed he was fighting Blake during it. Had the CRWBY episode not been so blatant in spoiling the surprise the twist of him suddenly arriving may have had more impact, but alas. I will say on an animation level, the fight in the tower is pretty good, if a bit clunky compared to what comes after. It makes good use of the environment and has Adam and Blake constantly crawling up and down the tower, giving the fight a bit of a unique quality to it. I also like the new visual additions to Adam’s Moonslice such as the bolt of lightning that crawls up his back. 

Stealing From The Elderly is a decent, if very short, opening act to the Argus Battle episodes. It sets up the major conflicts of this trilogy of episodes, and has some great wit at the beginning, but doesn’t have much to make it stand out on its own.

The Lady In The Shoe- 

Pretty. Fucking. Stellar. This episode is almost all fight scene, and works for the most part.

The mech fight is unfortunately the letdown of this part, and I’d probably rank it as the least exciting fight of Volume 6. While it does have some great moments such as Ruby getting to run on goddamn missiles, Ren actually getting to do something and not job for once, Ruby and Weiss’s great moment on the Lancer, everyone getting a moment to themselves where they get to land a blow on the mech (barring Oscar) and a new song in Big Metal Shoe, it’s overall a very slow battle that never really picks up. It doesn’t help that Caroline as a villain is very one-note, an exaggerated caricature who we know won’t stop the heroes, she’s just a stop gap for them. 

Honestly though, the fight in this part of the episode just peaks at Ruby zooming up and firing her sniper rifle one handed at Caroline, and landing a no-scope right on the window. Heck, go and look and it’s at head level with Caroline. Ruby went right for the kill shot! God it’s so cool to see Ruby being a badass again.

But of course the real highlight of this episode and of the entire Argus Battle sequence was Adam’s brawls against Blake and Yang, the latter of which has already earned a spot in most people’s favorite fights of the entire show list. Every time I thought Volume 6 had peaked fight wise, it got one more burst of energy and make a new “best of the season” fight to top the last. Cinder vs Neo was topped by Maria vs Tock, and now that was beaten out by Adam vs Yang. I can look at this fight and find a new favorite moment each time- Blake putting Adam’s sword into her sheath and disarming him for a few seconds while dual wielding for the first time in years, Adam’s almost instant turns whenever Blake uses her Semblance on him and him breaking Gambol Shroud, Yang smashing Adam with the bike, the list goes on. It’s not only great to see the Adam/Yang test footage getting remade to give the fight an extra edge, but as someone who wrote a lot of words on what the Battle of Haven did to Adam’s reputation, it was great to see the CRWBY remedying that mistake and giving him and Yang a fantastic battle, easily their strongest outings. Yang in particular really has evolved since Beacon, with her style having specifically changed to counter Adam and a whole barrage of new tricks- that rapid-fire machine gun punch is beautiful. 

If this is how Yang fights now, her rematch against Mercury is going to be a fucking treat. 

Adam’s face reveal was also a big shock. Some people had predicted branding but I don’t think anyone specifically called that he would have the SDC logo plastered on his eye socket. It’s a rather haunting sight, and puts his utter hatred for humanity in a startling light. It doesn’t excuse Adam of his actions, especially the abuse he put Blake through, but it puts a lot of Adam’s older actions- his disregard of the people on the train the Black trailer, his sadistic grins in his short whenever he was dominating humans- in a new context. Kudos to CRWBY for finding a way to take what most people thought they’d called already and putting a new spin on it. 

While the mech fight isn’t stellar (though Nora’s moment of “You get back here with MY MAN!” was adorable), Adam vs Yang on its own makes this a high-ranking episode of the season with what cannot be stated enough as a good fucking fight. Melanie, you are a goddamn boss and I can’t wait to see you get that team working on more battles. 

Seeing Red- The Assassination of Adam Taurus by the Not-So-Cowardly Blake Belladonna

So uh... last episode had Maria’s ship get hit with a missile, then it’s fine in this one? No smoke trails, not even any damage? OK? 

Mech fight isn’t as good as it was last time, unfortunately. Ruby’s speeching is still rather annoying but at least she makes up for it by jumping into the cannon to make sure we all realize Volume 5 Ruby is a thing of the past. A really nice touch was her psyching herself up for a second before taking the second shot. It reminded me of Wonder Woman when Steve dies, he takes a second to breathe before firing. I like that she didn’t succeed with the first plan to shoot the missiles, it added a little tension to the fight. I also loved her moment with Qrow when he tried to stop her, it was a really soft and humanizing moment for both of them. 

Adam vs Yang and Blake is still great, but last episode has it beat for sheer choreography. I very much enjoyed seeing them tag-team Adam, but part of me finds it funny that after Lady In The Shoe’s declaration of “We’re protecting each other,” Blake gets knocked out 40 seconds into the fight while Yang has to fight Adam for over a minute. 

It was great to see the fire hair finally make a return, and having it serve as part of a climax where we see Yang correct her error when she fought Adam at Beacon- literally, they recreate the move where Adam cut her arm off but this time Yang dodges to the side first- was an amazing touch. And the hair looks pretty great too. 

Adam’s death was a bit of a shock. It’s karma, no doubt, and ultimately this fight was only going to end with either him or the protagonists dead. But to be honest, I don’t think anyone expected him to win, especially after Weiss and Cinder took a spear to the narrative stakes last year. After the branding reveal I was personally hoping (but I was 90% sure he’d die) that Adam would get knocked off the cliff (I suppose I wasn’t wrong on that front at least) and get picked up by Cinder and Neo, then he’d become a problem in the Atlas arc. In particular I feel it would have been a great way to tie Adam into Weiss’s plot, as a way for her to see first hand that the SDC under Jacques is directly creating the monsters that go on to kill Weiss’s family. I’m fine with the death here, so long as what Jacques has done to the Faunus still appears in the Atlas seasons. But I feel this was a good place to see him off. On a technical level it would have been difficult for the crew to top the fighting scene in Chapters 11 and 12, while on a thematic level unless Adam went full-in on the Faunus cause he would have felt like dead weight. In effect, he’d have become the villain’s version of ReNora in how useful he really was for the plot. Additionally, even with the choreography here, had he run away again or lost I think that would have been a nail in the coffin for Adam’s threat-factor regardless. So ultimately, this was the best place to get rid of him, and at least he went out with a good death. (i really hope none of this paragraph gets twisted by someone trying to say i’m an abuse apologist, been down that road already thanks) 

Also Blake breaking down was harsh. Her and Yang are gonna need to have a long conversation or six about trauma because that’s the closest either of those girls are getting to therapists in this death world. But for real, the finale all but confirmed that Blake and Yang are endgame, and whether your own thoughts on that, their arcs next volume should be about addressing that before romantic tension comes in. We’ve got at least six volumes left, the show can afford to take it slow and have them get some therapy before they get a Tinder profile.

... though I will complain about one thing about the fight. Adam’s sheath is a gun, why didn’t he just try and shoot Blake and Yang after he lost Wilt? He just rushes for the broken fragments of the sword when he has a working gun at his belt. Literally, the one thing I don’t like about the fight itself and it’s the epilogue to it. 

Seeing Red’s fighting choreography might not be as impressive as Lady In The Shoe for either fight, but both are augmented by instead focusing on the characters and nailing a lot of the symbolism in its key moments. Ruby gets to shine with a hell of an insane move, and the show parts ways with its first real villain. 

RIP goatboi, you were trash but at least it was fun to watch you swing your weeb stick. Thanks for sucking in Volume 5 so much I started writing narrative essays about the show as a consequence. 

Our Way- And now, the end is near, and so I face, the final curtain

As an episode, Our Way is pretty cool. As a finale, it’s a bit weak, continuing the meta trend of season finales getting shorter every volume since V3. Nothing here is inherently bad, in fact it’s a lot of good material, but it’s not finale material.  

Ruby’s arc (well it’s not really an arc but that’s a subject for another post) has been building up to the moment where she finally become a proper leader, and her facing down the Leviathan was that moment. The shots of this thing looming over Ruby are cinematic gold. I love that Ruby uses Jinn’s time stop feature to cheat out a few more seconds to prepare her Silver Eyes, and that Jinn, albeit begrudgingly, admits that she made a good play. When a near omnipotent lamp admits you’ve got some moves, you really have come a long way as a fighter. 

The 2D stills of the Beacon season moments were a delight to behold, especially thanks to the added detail they gave moments like Weiss giving Ruby coffee and Penny’s death. The Summer appearance was amazing and made the finale for me, and it fading right as the lyrics to Indomitable kick in is a fantastic rush of emotions. Four lines and that song’s already my most anticipated track on the volume. I’m kind of bitter it wasn’t the credits song if I’m being honest.

Corvodin getting the final blow on the Leviathan was mixed. I appreciated how fucking anime it was that she used her DRILL THAT COULD PIERCE THE HEAVENS to kill Bubbles, but that the Leviathan was just so casually one-shotted made for a bit of an anticlimax to the battle. I’m not exactly also fond of the racist old hag being given a “soft” redemption but whatever. 

Really that’s my one big problem with this. I get that there was no real way to have another big Grimm fight, but it makes the Battle of Argus feel like a bit of a cheap fight as a consequence. I’m overall fine with the result, but it does weaken the finale as a direct consequence. If the Ruby Silver Eyes moment didn’t land for you I can imagine this finale being rather weaksauce. Still, at least most of it was onscreen this time, so progress over Haven. It’s overall an OK episode but it needed a bit more time in the oven to make it a great finale. I didn’t hate it, but I can’t deny that outside of the character moments it wasn’t as climactic as I hoped it would be, especially once they cut episode 14 as I assumed that meant a longer than normal finale to compensate for the runtime. If you like Ruby, this is a great conclusion to a season that’s been great for her overall. If you don’t? Well, twelve out of thirteen good episodes. 

Really though, Our Way made clear one important fact. Blake will never be allowed to solo her own songs, she will always have to share it with someone else. Honestly after From Shadows, Wings, Like Morning Follows Night, This Time and now Nevermore, it has to be deliberate that Blake only gets duets. 

Also you remember how I pointed out that each even-numbered season up to V6 opened with Em and Merc? Well the tradition was kinda kept alive because they closed out Volume 6. Fitting that they be the ones we close out the Mistral seasons with, alongside literal flying monkeys. At least Mercury has his eyebrows back to normal now so... character arc?  

... oh yeah and Neo and Cinder were in this I guess

Conclusion

Volume 6 is stellar, superb, at times outright spectacular. As a fan who felt Volume 5 was at best mediocre and at worst just bad, Volume 6 is an immediately counteraction and a redemption arc for RWBY as a show. Almost all of the major criticisms that had been levied at the Maya Era since Volume 4 started- janky animation, poor pacing, underused characters, weak fights, poorly explained backstories and weak villains among countless others- were all addressed and fixed to a certain extent. Ruby finally feels like the protagonist of her own story, Salem and Ozpin’s backstories have been explored, Adam was given a shred of sympathy before his death, the songs were great, the fights were stellar and it managed to, for the most part, stick the landing.

Granted, the first half is far better paced and written, the pacing does take a hit once RWBY reach Argus, but a conscious step was taken to avoid the Mistral House Round 2, we only spend three episodes in the Cotta-Arc house and a large portion of time outside it to boot. Miles said in a post-RTX interview that the plan was for each episode to have at least one new location per episode to avoid repetition and for the most part, they succeeded. As a consequence, the world feels more alive than it ever has before, Argus feels much more intimately known and we see the characters reacting to new environments and stimuli. But regardless, things slow down and hit a roadblock at Argus and while the pacing smooths out, it does break the stellar flow the earlier episodes had managed to keep going. 

The Argus Battle episodes, while as a whole better shot and choreographed than last year’s battle at Haven, have far smaller stakes. The mech fight has some entertaining moments but fails to entertain, but the slack is thankfully picked up by Adam vs B&Y which will top a lot of “best fight of the show” lists for a while to come. But still, the episodes feel less wide-reaching than the Beacon or Haven versions, and perhaps because of this, the final episode fails to excite as much as it does due to the Battle for Argus having no real stakes or danger. It leads to a great moment, but it’s not as exciting as it could have been.

While overall the pacing was very good, one plot did drag- Cinder and Neo. This did not need to be in Volume 6 and while I liked their fight, Cinder’s plot is rather blatantly just there to set up Volume 7 and their threat there. While it did give the crew a chance to finally explore Mistral’s criminal underworld that had been teased in the World of Remnant, Mistral still feels woefully underused compared to Vale thanks to a shoddy start. As well, plain and simply, I just don’t like Cinder and Neo as much as I do the other villains, and I’d have rather their screentime be used on the other villains- a segment of Adam stalking Blake in Argus, more of Emerald and Mercury processing Cinder not being around anymore, Hazel and the duality of his want for pacifism and his utter hatred of Ozpin, Tyrian and Watts and the inevitably buddy cop drama that will ensue from them. This is a personal gripe, I’m aware, but Cinder has still failed to grab me as a villain six volumes in- hopefully now that there’s one less villain to juggle, she can finally get something to hook us in next volume. Also I just don’t like Cinder’s new outfit, give Em and Merc new outfits already for Christ’s sake. 

Another plot that didn’t so much drag as was just removed was Oscar going missing. I was sure this would lead to an Oscar solo scene where he’d get to confront Ozma and Ozpin and figure out his place in life. As it is, it feels like he just went missing so Jaune, Ren and Nora could have the statue scene. At least his new costume is nice.

But overall, the second half was good, no, great a lot of the time after the awkward stop in Dead End. Volume 6′s second half may not have been as grandiose as it could/should have been, but it still maintained a steady pace, gave us a lot of fantastic standout scenes, great combat and character beats while finally leaving the ghost of Volume 5 behind on Mistral. I am thoroughly onboard for Volume 7, and I am now eager to see where Miles, Connor, Kerry and Melanie steer the ship. 

Thank you for reading. 

[2twopiid]

> John(?): Visit Tower

He brought you.

uh. Yeah?

You don’t believe him.

no! i don’t at all! why are you upsetting him like this?

His situation is upsetting. How can I convince you that I’m telling the truth?

he says you’d know about me. well hit me with your best shot freak, i have nothing to know.

I know everything about your dad.

how? my dad is someone i don’t even know. you can’t just throw that at me and leave it there like that!

I know you had a dream about him. I know exactly how the dream went. Should I describe it to you, or should we just leave it at that?

so what? are you some kind of creepy stalker for sollux? i told him about my dreams! you’re so weird, ugh.

You didn’t tell him everything, did you. Like how you got nearly killed in your dreams. By a grimdark Rose. I guess he knows now.

i...i don’t even know what that means. grimdark? listen he can read my vent. i talked about that dream there. this isn’t very convincing.

You’re frustrated. You’re doubting your belief that I’m wrong.

don’t try to tell me how i feel!

Why not? Am I wrong?

maybe! what’s your angle anyways? did you not get the memo that yesterday was april fools? are you just some kind of asshole here to pick on his insecurities for funsies? or are you some sort of stupid GAME mechanic here to test him? i don’t care actually because FUCK YOU! PROVE what you’re saying to me or piss off.

All I’m here to do is tell his story. He wasn’t supposed to find me. Or maybe he was. That doesn’t actually matter. I can’t actually influence YOU, but I can make him do anything I want. I choose to let him take control most of the time, because I like him.

yeah right. so now we’re going full on wizard of oz here? ignore the man behind the curtain kind of thing? are you going to half ass prove that too? or have i uncovered the truth that you’re just a weirdo?

That’s one way of looking at it. I could prove it easily. I could have Sollux do something totally uncharacteristic without prompting. I just have to type it out.

uh huh. like what?

He’s about to do a handstand.

you know his hand is hurt right? uh...stop?

Would you prefer a little smooch?

uh what?

A kiss from your boy?

i don’t think he’d appreciate that.

I know how he feels about you.

so do i? that’s not a big secret to me.

I could easily tell you what he’s afraid to say to you. I won’t. Only because it’ll be more special from him.

ok but now you’re just being creepy again.

Fair enough. Do you still not believe what I’ve been saying?

i don’t know. you’ve just said some weird stuff and were pretty vague about my dad but whatever. just leave my moirail alone?

He approached me. Nothing is keeping either of you from just walking away.

yeah right. fine. riddle me this and i’ll let you go back off to your little curtain party. what happened to my dad?

You can’t un-know the answer to that question.

are you going to cough up or not, oh wise one?

He was killed in the game. He no longer exists.

… you’re lying.

People only lie to gain. I have nothing to gain. Why would I lie about that? Especially if I want you to trust me?

how do you know?

I was told.

well that’s really fucking ominous.

Lmfao, yeah. I know it is. That’s what you get, though.

great. so sollux’s friends are gone and so’s my dad, huh?

Yes, but by different circumstances.

awesome. that’s actually pretty stellar my dude.

I sense sarcasm.

yeah i’d never say stellar with a straight face. is there anything else i should ask or should i just take him and leave? and you know, never come back?

That depends entirely on if there’s anything else you’re dying to know. I can answer anything.

i...i mean yeah, there’s a lot of things but i don’t know if i really want to know them. if anything i only half believe you, but i guess you’re right that you have no reason to lie. you said...he might be able to get his friends back, right? can he really?

Like I told him, sort of. It’s a complicated situation, with a lot of variables and moving parts. If executed exactly right, there’s a small chance.

ok. i uh. i mean that’s more than i thought you’d say so i’m ok with that. thanks i guess. i don’t really know if you actually know anything about me, so i don’t think i’ll bother asking you anything else.

I’m not the one holding your leash. You’re welcome to ask, but I can’t decide if you will.

oh what? more creeps behind curtains?

Was that not obvious?

stop being so vague and weird! alright i’ll ask! do you think i’ll ever have to play the game again?

You will. With Dave and Jade. And your Rose, when you find her.

oh. ok. thanks i guess. i’m going to go now.

Bye, John. :)

[oselatra]

2017 Arkansas Times Academic All-Star Team

Meet the best and brightest high school students in the state.

The class of 2017, our 23rd, is made up of athletes, coders, budding politicians and brain experts. There's rarely a B on the transcripts of these students — in not just this, their senior year, but in any year of their high school careers.

Back in 1995, we created the Academic All-Star Team to honor what we then called "the silent majority — the kids who go to school, do their homework (most of it, anyway), graduate and go on to be contributing members of society." Too often, we argued then, all Arkansans heard about young people was how poorly they were faring. Or, when students did get positive attention, it came for athletic achievement.

As you read profiles of this year's All-Stars, it should be abundantly clear that good things are happening in Arkansas schools and there are many academic achievers who deserve to be celebrated. You should get a good idea, as well, of how these stellar students are busy outside school, with extracurricular activities, volunteer work, mission activities and more.

They'll be honored this week at a ceremony at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock with plaques and $250 cash awards.

Many college plans listed here are not set in stone, as students await information on scholarships and acceptances.

CAROLINE COPLIN-CHUDY Age: 17 Hometown: North Little Rock High School: Mount St. Mary Academy Parents: (guardian) Dennis Chudy College plans: Duke University

Caroline Coplin-Chudy has a 4.4 grade point average — high enough to rank second in her class at Mount St. Mary Academy — and lost her mother to leukemia during her sophomore year, something she told us came to be a source of inspiration and drive during her academic development. "It was a big adjustment. After my mom passed away, it was just my stepdad. It's a weird realization coming to the idea that both of your parents are gone, and it's just you. ... I still think of her every single day. She motivates me to do well in everything, because my whole life I wanted to make her proud." Caroline is president of Mount St. Mary's Investment Club and of SADD (Students Against Destructive Decisions). She's also been a regular volunteer for several years at the Little Rock Compassion Center, whose recovery branch provides meals and health resources to people suffering from addiction. Caroline said she found healing from her own grief in the friendships she forged there. As the recipient of a Questbridge scholarship, described by Caroline's guidance counselor and nominator Amy Perkins as a program where lower-income students qualify for tuition to schools with which they "match" via an early decision process, Caroline will attend Duke University on a full scholarship. "I'm going to study biology and psych, with a minor in Spanish. My plan is to work at the Duke Center for Addiction [Science and Technology] helping people with drug addictions overcome that sort of thing. It's something that I've had experience with, watching my family go through things like that."

AXEL NTAMATUNGIRO Age: 17 Hometown: Pine Bluff High School: Subiaco Academy Parents: Sixte Ntamatungiro and Sylvana Niciteretse College plans: Rice University, neuroscience

Axel Ntamatungiro grew up among books and maps dispersed throughout his home that "paint[ed] the walls with nuanced shades of knowledge." It shows. Not often can a high school senior explain, as Axel does, his love for studying the brain so easily. "Neuroscience is basically a neuron turning on and off," he said. "The fact that you have billions of these combinations that lead to consciousness, that's unbelievable." To continue learning about the mind, Axel is headed to Rice University on a full ride as a QuestBridge scholar. Maybe medical school or graduate school after that. Axel said his parents taught him a "humble intellectualism" that helped him understand "the irrationality of life." They always told him: "Work hard, but you need to realize you don't always get what you deserve." And life has been, at times, irrational and difficult for his family. Axel was the only member of his family born in the United States — in Little Rock in 1999. The rest migrated from Burundi in the early 1990s. They stayed here as the Rwandan genocide inflicted incredible damage in the area. That past was never hidden from Axel. "Instead of avoiding my questions, my parents level-headedly answered [them], telling me about Belgian colonialism, Hutu-Tutsi tension and the systematic poverty afflicting Burundi," he said. Maybe that is why Axel has never been afraid to ask big questions. He said it also helped to have a diverse group of friends who taught him new things. At his cafeteria table for lunch are kids from all over: Nigeria, Fort Smith, Japan, Bentonville and Russia. Everyone's small stories add to a global perspective, something bigger from something small, kind of like those neurons.

JADE DESPAIN Age: 18 Hometown: Springdale High School: Haas Hall Academy (Fayetteville) Parents: Brenan and Tiffany DeSpain College plans: U.S. Naval Academy, nuclear engineering

For Jade DeSpain, the question, "Where's your hometown?" isn't necessarily as straightforward as it seems. The National Merit semifinalist, swimming star and Quiz Bowler spent much of her childhood in Beijing, where her parents — both fluent in Mandarin — taught her Chinese concurrently with English (and where, she notes, she acquired an "incredible prowess with chopsticks.") "We've moved around so much that I don't really have a 'hometown,' but Springdale is the closest I've ever gotten," she said. She's made her impact there, too, tutoring students free of charge through her volunteer work with the M&N Augustine Foundation and putting in time at the Arkansas Council for the Blind and the Springdale Animal Shelter. Jade is ranked second in her class, and her high school transcript is full of aced courses in trigonometry, physics and calculus. She's also the co-founder of Haas Hall Academy's coding club, so a career in nuclear energy development — Jade's field of choice — isn't just an aspiration; it's the plan. "I have a deep appreciation for nature," she told us, citing Devil's Den State Park as a spot to which she feels closely connected, and stressing the importance of preserving natural spaces and developing more long-term options for sustainable energy. On Christmas Day 2016, Jade checked her email to find that she'd attained something she'd wanted as early as age 12: acceptance to the U.S. Naval Academy. There, she'll major in nuclear engineering and complete her five mandatory post-Academy years in the Navy, after which she hopes to acquire a Ph.D. in the field.

AVERY ELLIOTT Age: 18 Hometown: Cabot High school: Cabot High School Parents: Dan and Melissa Elliott College plans: University of Arkansas, medicine

Though many of our All-Stars seem destined from birth for academic greatness, there is the occasional inspiring All-Star who has had to overcome seemingly insurmountable odds. One of those is Cabot High School's Avery Elliott, who was born with nystagmus, a condition that causes involuntary eye movements that can make it hard for sufferers to concentrate and learn. Though it's hard to imagine it now, when she was in elementary school Avery found herself falling further and further behind her classmates in reading because of her condition. "That was difficult," she said. "I was behind schedule until about third or fourth grade. I would have to go home and really work with my parents to keep up with the rest of the class." Even though she struggled early on, Avery said that, in a way, the nystagmus contributed to her success and gave her a direction to follow. "I had to learn to really study even outside of school," she said. "I learned some very good study habits. But I think it also really affected where I wanted to go as far as my career. ... I really learned that a medical team can not only dispense medicine, but can really affect someone's life." A National Merit finalist who has volunteered extensively with Special Olympics and already completed 43 hours of college-level coursework, Avery has been awarded the University of Arkansas Fellowship. She plans to study medicine at UAMS after completing her undergrad degree, then practice in Arkansas. That goal has always pushed her to succeed academically. "I wanted to go into the medical field from an early age," she said, "so I knew starting out in high school that I needed to make very good grades in order to get where I needed to. I had to really learn the material, rather than just trying to ace a test."

JARED GILLIAM Age: 17 Hometown: Cabot High school: Cabot High School Parents: Dan and LeAnne Gilliam College plans: University of Arkansas, engineering

When most young people say they want to change the world, it's easy to believe that's just pie-in-the-sky thinking by someone who hasn't yet been through the Academy of Hard Knocks. When Jared Gilliam says he wants to change the world, however, there's a good chance he might actually pull it off. Jared even has a plan: He'll change the world through engineering. A National Merit finalist and AP scholar with a GPA of 4.18 and a perfect score of 36 on the ACT, Jared is well placed to do just that. A musician who plays percussion with the Cabot High Marching Band, Jared said his favorite subject in school is math. "I think I'm mostly interested in engineering because I've always been sort of a problem-solver," he said. "I've enjoyed math and science, working through things and finding solutions to everyday problems. This year, I've been in robotics, so we've spent time working on a robot to perform various tasks. I've enjoyed that a lot. I think engineering is where my ability would best be used." He'll attend the University of Arkansas, which has offered him the Honors College Fellowship. He said the drive to excel academically has always been a part of his life. "I've grown up being encouraged to do well, and I guess I have my parents to thank for that and all my teachers," he said. "I think knowing that I have the ability to do all of this, I feel compelled to do what I can to make a difference. I think life would be pretty boring if I didn't go out there and do all the things I do. I don't think I could settle for not being successful."

BENJAMIN KEATING Age: 18 Hometown: Fort Smith High School: Southside High School Parents: Drs. Bill and Janice Keating College plans: Undecided

If you were looking for a ringing endorsement of Ben Keating's character, you'd need to look no further than Amy Slater, the guidance counselor who nominated him for our Academic All-Stars roster and who said of Ben, "He is all the things I hope my son turns out to be. ... He really thinks about things, and he practices the trumpet and piano for hours a day. It's crazy, his dedication." Ben probably had something to prove here; he admits to some skepticism on the part of his mother when he announced he'd be pursuing a career in music. He's certainly proved his mettle; Ben is band president at Southside, was a principal trumpet for the 2017 National Youth Honor Orchestra, first chair for Southside's Wind Symphony and for the All-State Jazz Band and was ranked in the top-tier bands for All-State Band and All-State Orchestra each year from 2014-16. The accolades go on and on: Ben has received a Young Artist Award from the International Trumpet Guild, a Gold Medal from the National Piano Guild and superior ratings from the National Federation of Music Clubs competitions for over a decade. He plays for the Arkansas Symphony Youth Orchestra and as a volunteer musician for the Fort Smith Community Band. Ben is still deciding where to attend college, but wherever he goes, he hopes to continue playing with an orchestra. Eventually, he wants to teach at the university level. "Ultimately," he wrote, "I want to use my passion to unite people of all different races, backgrounds and cultures. In today's society that is politically and culturally divided, it is more important than ever to share the universal language of music."

KATHERINE HAHN Age: 17 Hometown: Hindsville High School: Huntsville High School Parents: Shannon Hahn College plans: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, biochemical engineering

Katherine Hahn is ranked first in her class at Huntsville High School, which she attends because her hometown of Hindsville is too small to support its own school system. The population of Hindsville is "about 75 people," she told us. At Huntsville High, Katherine plays bass drum in the marching band and marimba/xylophone in the concert band and runs with the Huntsville cross-country team. Her real passion, though, is science. "I think I've always wanted to go to a college that was science-based and research-based," she told us. Her high school principal, Roxanne Enix, noted her own surprise when Katherine announced that she'd take 10 credits her senior year, instead of the recommended eight. "I thought she had lost her mind," Enix stated. Those credits, over half of which are in AP classes, are what Katherine hopes have prepared her for the rigorous workload at MIT. Aiming for a career in pharmaceutical development, Katherine plans to study biochemical engineering, something she said resonated personally with her as a result of her mother's struggle with skin cancer. "Biology helps me understand why medicine does the things it does," Katherine told us. "Whenever I first started out, I wanted to do environmental stuff," she said, but turned her attention to drug delivery systems after observing so many friends and loved ones battling cancer. "I want to help stop people from being scared of losing people," she explained. Katherine, a native of Tahlequah, Okla., who moved to Arkansas around fifth grade, has served on the Madison County Health Coalition as Youth Leader and was named Student of the Year in 2017 by the Huntsville Chamber of Commerce and Huntsville High School.

GEORGIANA BURNSIDE Age: 18 Hometown: Little Rock High school: Little Rock Christian Academy Parents: Bob and Ann Burnside College plans: Stanford University, biology and public policy

When this reporter mentioned to friends at UAMS that she'd just spoken to an amazingly poised, optimistic and intelligent young woman with a spinal cord injury, they said in unison, "You mean Georgiana Burnside." Her reputation as a teenager who at 16 was paralyzed from the waist down in a snow skiing accident but who considers the event a "blessing" no doubt goes further than UAMS, all the way to Denver's Craig Hospital, where she spent "the most memorable two months in my life," she said, and where she returns to continue her rehabilitation. What is a spinal cord injury? She answers that it is a) a life changed in a split second, b) finding out that a bad attitude is the true disability, c) a time to show off wheelchair tricks, and d) spontaneous moments of unfortunate incontinence. In her essay for the Arkansas Times, Georgiana writes, "my physical brokenness has developed wholeness in my heart about the capacity life holds for individuals regardless of their disabilities." In a phone interview, Georgiana, once a figure skater, talked about her work with Easter Seals, fundraisers for Craig Hospital, and giving talks and testimony about her faith. Georgiana has regained the ability to walk with hiking sticks and leg braces, thanks to the strength in her quads. And, thanks to support from the High Fives Foundation in Truckee, Calif., which sponsors athletes with injuries and which has paid for some of her rehabilitation, Georgiana returned to the slopes over spring break, skiing upright with the aid of long forearm equipment. At Stanford, she'll study to be a doctor, with a goal to return to Craig Hospital as a physician who'll treat other injured youths who, though they may have, like Georgiana, at first believed their life was over, will learn they have "a unique role ... enabling the advancement of society."

MITCHELL HARVEY Age: 17 Hometown: North Little Rock High School: North Little Rock High School Parents: David and Susan Harvey College plans: Likely Mississippi State University, chemical engineering

Mitchell Harvey is a big fan of the periodic table. "The elements are amazing little things," he wrote in his Academic All-Star essay. "They make up everything, yet we hardly see them in their pure form in everyday life." Mitchell decided they needed more exposure, so he started collecting examples of the elements and taking them to school for his peers and teachers to see. He extracted helium from an abandoned tank on the side of the road. He found zinc in wheel weights, grew crystals of copper with electrolysis and made bromine, which he describes as "a blood-red liquid that fumes profusely," from a "crude" homemade distillation setup and pool chemicals. Though you can buy sodium readily, Mitchell made his by melting drain cleaner (sodium hydroxide) with a blowtorch and then passing a current through it, separating the mixture into sodium metal, oxygen and water. His parents were OK with the procedure, he says, because he wore a Tyvek suit, three pairs of gloves, safety goggles and a face shield. While on a college visit in California last summer, Mitchell toured Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles and was impressed by the large periodic table display exhibit there. So he decided to build one for North Little Rock High. He got money from the school's alumni group, the Wildcat Foundation, to pay for the supplies necessary to construct the 9-foot-by-6-foot display. He hopes to have it completed in the next two weeks and fill it with examples of elements he has collected, though he may need additional funding to pay for other elements. No. 1 in a class of 687, Mitchell scored a perfect 36 on the ACT. He's also an Eagle Scout, and led a project to plant 800 native hardwood seedlings at Toltec Mounds Archeological State Park. After college, Mitchell said, he might start his own waste remediation business. "The business model I would be going for would be taking some byproduct that's hazardous and turning it into something useful."

CARSON MOLDER Age: 18 Hometown: Mabelvale High school: Bryant High SCHOOL Parents: Kevin and Ruby Molder College plans: University of Arkansas

Not everybody plays the mellophone and likes to draw up better interstate exchanges, but Carson Molder does both. The University of Arkansas Honors College-bound student, No. 1 in his class, likes to create three-dimensional schemes in his head, and has been creating road designs since he was young. But as a musician who plays the French horn in his school's orchestra and the mellophone in the Legacy of Bryant marching band, and who has won a band scholarship in addition to his Honors College reward to the UA, he said that one day he may be an audio engineer. "I'm going to put things together and see what sticks," he said of his future. Meanwhile, Carson said the internet has been his Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria, taking him to new places that he otherwise could not get to. "I can count on my hands the number of times I have set foot outside Arkansas," Carson wrote in an essay for the Arkansas Times. But with the internet, "I can gaze into the redwood forests of California and the skyscrapers of New York City without leaving my desk." Without the internet, he said in a phone interview, "I would not be at the top of my class." Carson added, "It's not going to replace going out and visiting these things, but if you're a kid and don't have the money to go out, you can visit Yellowstone." Carson, who describes himself as "really ambitious," is looking forward to studying with Dr. Alan Mantooth, the director of the UA National Center for Reliable Electric Power Transmission. The UA, he said, "will provide me the tools" he'll need to succeed in graduate school, which he hopes will be Stanford University.

OLIVIA LANGER Age: 18 Hometown: Jonesboro High school: Brookland High School Parents: Kelly Webb and Jonathan Langer College plans: University of California, Santa Barbara, chemistry

You might think that a student who is No. 1 in her class and a National Merit finalist with nary a B on her high school transcript might not consider one of her greatest achievements her selection as her high school's drum major three years in a row. But here's the thing: Schoolwork comes easy to Olivia Langer. "I never had to work hard," she told us. In fact, her style of learning is "conversation-based," she said; she enjoys "debate without argument." But music was different: "I struggled at points, and had to put in extra work to be good." Her selection as drum major was "something I know I've worked for," she said, and she has enjoyed the responsibilities that come with it. "I like to take care of people. The band calls me band mom," she added. Beside numerous academic awards, Olivia also earned a 2017 state Horatio Alger scholarship for students who have overcome great obstacles. Hers, Olivia said, was financial: She's always had a place to stay and food to eat, but she hasn't been able to afford academic programs. "Honestly, I wasn't able to visit any of the colleges I applied to," she said. So she will see the UC Santa Barbara campus for the first time when she arrives this fall. She's considering a double major in chemistry and anthropology; she's interested in the evolutionary side of anthropology, and plans to seek graduate and post-graduate degrees.

REBECCA PARHAM Age: 18 Hometown: Alma High School: Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts Parents: Eileen and Rick Parham College plans: University of Arkansas or Hendrix College

On a visit to Hanamaki, Japan, with her school, Rebecca Parham noticed that once a month all the citizens would clean the front of their homes and shops. Folks would give each other gifts, too. "It was clear people tended to think for the whole," she said. "I thought that was really nice." An avid chemist, Rebecca did not just improve her Japanese on the trip, she brought those lessons of helping the community back to Arkansas. Her work has been at the intersection of heady science and community impact. In her robotics club, she noticed that girls were less likely to participate. "I decided that was not OK," she said. So, she designed a day with LEGO kits to encourage women to pursue STEM education. That desire to make an impact goes beyond school, too. For her senior project, Rebecca designed a test for homebuyers to see if meth had been cooked on their property (yes, meth). Her parents, on hearing of this project choice, asked her to "please explain a little bit further ... ." Here's the gist: The method of meth production in rural areas has shifted to something called the Birch reduction; older testing kits would no longer work. But Rebecca thought she could produce one that could. She designed a flame test. It finds lithium compounds left behind. The process of invention was "definitely frustrating," Rebecca said, but you "learn things you never thought of before." Rebecca did not plan to spend senior year in her dorm late at night "searching online" how to identify meth production, but she has a driving curiosity toward science and how it "connects to the world." She hopes to work in renewable energy — to be part of the global community, from Japan to Arkansas — making the world a nice place in which to live.

GRANT ROBINSON Age: 18 Hometown: Searcy High school: Searcy High School Parents: Eric and Lisa Robinson College plans: University of Arkansas

Grant Robinson's father is a cardiologist, and Grant long figured he would follow in his dad's footsteps. But now he's not so sure. Last summer, he was selected, among thousands of applicants from around the world, to participate in a Stanford University summer engineering program. He got to experience a taste of college life, to take advantage of Stanford's decked-out labs and to tour the area to see results of civil engineering. The most memorable part of the program? Grant's small group built a Rube Goldberg machine — a complicated gadget that performs a simple task in a convoluted way — that, by Grant's estimation, was "the most complex and aesthetically pleasing" in the program. It included an electromagnet the group handmade and chemical reactions triggered by the machine. Grant's academic achievements are the byproduct of a natural curiosity. He said he spends what little free time he has exploring YouTube, trying to figure out the way the world works. Another influence: His father, who pulled himself out of poverty to become a doctor, has always instilled in him the importance of hard work. The message clearly stuck. Grant is second in his class of 263, with a 4.27 GPA. He scored a 35 on the ACT. He's a Presidential Scholar. His classmates voted him most likely to receive the Nobel Prize. He also participated in Project Unify (now known as Unified Champion Schools), an effort by the Special Olympics to get young people with and without special needs to come together for activities. Grant helped plan a basketball tournament as part of the project. In the fall, he'll be rooting on the Razorbacks at the University of Arkansas.  

JOHN SNYDER Age: 18 Hometown: Little Rock High school: Little Rock Christian Academy Parents: Jill and Steve Snyder College plans: Cornell University, industrial and labor relations

Whatever you were doing by your senior year in high school, chances are you probably hadn't already authored a book, much less a book on the complicated intersection of taxation and politics. John Snyder has, though. His book, "The Politics of Fiscal Policy," explores the political aspects of economics, including the pros and cons of various governmental tax schemes and their effect on government spending. It's for sale on Amazon right now. "It's pretty concise," John said, "but I wanted a way to express all my ideas in economic terms. That was a great way to do that." A history buff who serves as vice president of his class, John has a stunning 4.49 GPA and is ranked first in his class of 129. Though he wanted to be a lawyer when he was younger, his plan now is to go into investment banking. "Ultimately I want to have my own hedge fund — this thing called an activist hedge fund — and eventually I want to be actively involved in politics, whether that's in the midst of my business career or after ... . I'd love to run for public office one day." At Cornell University, John will be studying industrial and labor relations, a field that marries his love of multiple subjects. "Basically it ties in business, law, economics and history all into sort of one degree," he said. "You can do limitless things [with the degree]. Some people go into law school, some go into banking, some go to politics. That's why I chose that degree." John said his philosophy is that we have only a limited amount of time on earth, and so we should try to make the most of our lives. "I think there are a lot of things I can do to change the way things currently are in society, whether it's related to business or in academia or public policy," he said. "If I don't play a role in that and I'm not striving to do my best, I would feel like I'm wasting my potential."

PRESTON STONE Age: 18 Hometown: Benton High school: Benton High School Parents: Haley Hicks and Brec Stone College plans: University of Arkansas, pre-med

Benton High School's Big Man on Campus — No. 1 in his class, captain of the football team, an AP Scholar, straight As — can add to his resume the fact that he helped build his home. Preston, his two brothers and his mother bounced around a bit after her divorce, from Texas to Arkansas, living with grandparents and friends, Preston said. Then the family was selected by Habitat for Humanity, and he and his brothers pitched in to build their house. "It was the first place I could truly call home and it allowed me the stability I needed to grow into the kind of student I am today," he wrote in his essay for the Arkansas Times. Preston, who also helped build a school outreach group called SERVE to help new or struggling students, also credits sports for giving him purpose. He recently volunteered to trade in the pigskin for a basketball, joining a team that played boys at the Alexander Juvenile Detention Center. "It was an awesome experience," Preston said in a phone interview. "We were a little bit nervous at first" at the detention center, he said, but the team enjoyed the game — even though they lost to the Alexander team, formed to reward inmates with good behavior. "They practice every day," Preston said. Preston has received a $70,000 Honors College scholarship at Fayetteville. He won't be playing football with the Razorbacks. Instead he is thinking of following a pre-med track that will lead him to sports medicine. He plans to go Greek, as well.

KARINA BAO Age: 18 Hometown: Little Rock High school: Central High School Parents: Amy Yu and Shawn Bao College plans: undecided

Karina Bao embraces complexity. The Central High School valedictorian (in a class of 636) is a member of the school's back-to-back state champion Ethics Bowl Team, for which she said she spent hours "researching, discussing and sometimes even arguing" case studies. Unlike debate, she said Ethics Bowl is "really about the back-and-forth and considering different caveats and nuances and considerations" in issues ranging from local food to gender identity. As president of the school's Brain Club, she leads discussions on brain diseases, disorders and anatomy. It's a role for which she's more than qualified: She placed first in the U.S. Brain Bee, a youth neuroscience competition in which contestants answer questions about anatomy and make diagnoses based on patient actors. Placing No. 1 in the U.S. competition landed Karina a trip to Copenhagen, Denmark, to the International Brain Bee, which happened to coincide with a Federation of International Neuroscientists conference, where Karina got to talk to scientists from all over the world about their groundbreaking research. She placed fifth in the international competition. A perennial outstanding delegate winner at Model United Nations competitions, Karina said Model U.N. has helped her to "not be scared of the complexity and interconnectedness of pressing issues we face today." In her spare time, Karina volunteers on the oncology wing of Baptist Hospital. "You don't get to do much," she said. "But at least we get to talk to people and help them with whatever they need and be there to listen." In her Academic All-Stars essay, Karina echoed the same drive for understanding: "The stories other people share with me become not my own when I retell them, but a part of humanity's collective spirit to understand each other. We grow from hours of listening and crying, to empathize, to have the strength and openness to pop each successive layer of the protective bubble that keeps us from seeing the very world in which we reside."

BRYCE COHEA Age: 19 Hometown: Greenwood High school: Greenwood High School Parents: Mike and Robin Cohea College plans: University of Tulsa or Vanderbilt university, biology

Though he grew up landlocked, far from the deep blue sea, Greenwood High School standout Bryce Cohea knew from an early age that he wanted to be a marine biologist. To reach that goal, Bryce had to start early. "In the ninth grade," he wrote in his Academic All-Stars essay, "I began planning out all my classes for the next four years. I wanted to graduate top of my class, and in order to do that I would need to take every advanced placement class and get an A in every class." That's exactly what he did, too, making nothing less than a perfect grade in every class for his entire high school career. With a 4.25 GPA and a rank of No. 1 in his class of 275, Bryce has volunteered extensively with the Salvation Army and collected shoes for the homeless; he helps unload trucks and stock shelves at the food bank at his church. A National Merit semifinalist, he also has the distinction of having scored the first perfect ACT score of 36 in Greenwood High School history. "I've honestly been a good test-taker," he said. "The first time I took it, I got a 34. After that, I got the test back and I worked on whatever I missed. After a few more tries, I got a 36." Bryce was still deciding on which university to attend when we spoke to him, but he definitely plans to study science. The subject has always interested him, he said. "I'm planning on majoring in biology and then specializing after that," he said.

IMANI GOSSERAND Age: 16 Hometown: Rogers HIGH SCHOOL: ROGERS HIGH SCHOOL Parents: James and Hyesun Gosserand

College plans: University of Southern California, Harvey Mudd College or Columbia University, computer science or environmental science

Imani Gosserand has a journal in which she organizes the many moving parts of her life — competitive gymnastics, AP classes, computer science, Young Democrats, volunteering — into lists. Personal stuff is in there, too: bucket lists, remembrances. The journal combines the creative and the organized; it is problem-solving with an artful flare, which is how Imani operates. "I really like being able to create something of my own," she said of computer science. At a camp at Stanford University, in California, her team won the competition to program a car. Imani, not surprisingly, is good at math: She learned multiplication at age 4 and went on to skip two grades. Imani thinks schoolwork is fun. "We had a huge packet of homework problems we had to do over one of our breaks," she said. "And no one else was excited about it except for me. I was like 'Oh, I'm so excited to do all these problems!' " She brings that enthusiasm for problem-solving to bigger issues, as well. "I feel like there are so many opportunities for me because our world relies on technology, so I think I could go into any field," she said. She's excited to explore and see where she can help. "I want to meet people from around the world and hear different perspectives."

C.J. FOWLER Age: 18 Hometown: Little Rock High School: Central High School Parents: Bobbi and Dustin McDaniel and Chris and Kim Fowler College plans: Yale University

C.J. Fowler has long been around Democratic politics. His stepfather is former Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel. But C.J. said he decided to become more politically involved himself after he came out as gay. "The situation that I'm in is not great," he said. "People are not always accepting. But it's on me if I want to try to change that and make it better for the people who come after me. I have to make sure that my community and all marginalized communities have a seat at the table, because far too often a bunch of old gray white guys are making policies that hurt everyone else." The student body president of Central High, C.J. said he's tried to move the student council, a glorified dance committee, toward advocacy and activism for students throughout the district, whose future is being decided by those "people sitting in dark rooms." He said students too often get left out of the conversation about the district "because we're too young to have opinions. But we're not; we're living it every day." C.J. has been a fixture at Little Rock School District public comment periods. Though he can't point to any policy victories, he said at least LRSD Superintendent Mike Poore knows who he is and that he disagrees with him. C.J., who is also the executive director of Young Democrats of Arkansas, sees the backlash against President Trump as encouraging. "We're realizing that, if we're going to go all in for progressive values, we need to go all in." Rather than join the chorus of progressives in the Northeast after he finishes at Yale, C.J. says he wants to come back to Arkansas and possibly continue in politics. He admires state Sen. Joyce Elliott (D-Little Rock) and says he hopes if he ever holds office that he can follow her example.

SOPHIE PRICE Age: 18 Hometown: Fort Smith High School: Southside High Parents: Claire Price and Scott Price College plans: Vanderbilt University, political science

"Growing up, I would always argue with everybody," Sophie Price said. Sometimes it was just to play devil's advocate, but mostly, it was because Sophie wants to find the capital-t Truth. Some of this digging for truth is class: seven AP course just this year and 12 during her time in high school. But, some of it is also talking with people, discussing issues. "The best way to improve your argument is to hear the counters, to hear the other side," Sophie said, and often she is willing to be convinced. She wants to do the right thing; she believes in justice. Which is why after college at Vanderbilt on a full scholarship, she wants to field arguments as a judge. "My whole life I've followed this ideal that you have to do what's right," Sophie said. "I want to be a judge so I can kind of decide that." Vanderbilt was the only school to which Sophie applied. She knew it was the right one for her. She arrived in Nashville on a rainy day in January, but through the gloom, she knew. "Something about the beautiful campus and the intelligent people and these varying perspectives just sold me immediately," she said. In a few months she was back at Vanderbilt for a camp where she studied law, and it cemented the deal. "There was something so exhilarating about being able to have this case and have the facts and kind of create your own narrative and really advocate for someone that drew me in," she said. Watch out, because "everything I do, I want to give it a 120 percent," Sophie said.

2017 Arkansas Times Academic All-Star Team