#chess themed bs

[ven0moir]

Quick analysis as I work on my 'Supernatural Byler post'

I've been knee-deep in Vecna's plan analysis and how MikeWill figures into it going into s5 and I wanted to share this small detail.

Mike said to Will "We're friends. We're friends." Because he interpreted this whole interaction as romantic on Will's side once Will asked "What about us?"

So when Will said ...

And Mike responded ....

He thought Will was implying 'You're not interested in US'

He got defensive again when Will mentioned the letters to Eleven???And then he wound down when Will said 'We used to be BEST FRIENDS'

That's IH for ya.

Will asking this ... it's like he saw right through Mike's bs omfg.

Taking into account the themes of this season, it almost feels like during the s3 and s4 gap, Mike and Will were ... playing chess??? Both of them trying to subtly get closer without overstepping in case the other didn't feel the same way and it was all in their head ...?

What in the world happened during those two phone calls they had?? Did Mike 'make his move' during one of those phone calls and he was expecting Will's action next, but a) Will never called him and b) Will's painting WAS Will's action, but then it all got screwed up when Mike thought Will was painting for a girl??

Maybe Will thought they had some unspoken agreement that Mike would be the one initiating phone calls, so he figured making a painting would be his 'action'.

Ensue miscommunication chaos, it was bound to happen.

[findafight]

here is the spotify link to Robin and Steve's Epic Platonic Soulmate Mixtape (vol.1) I'm going to say they made this version in the early spring of 1985. fic link

track list and explanations under the cut!!

Side A--the queer side

Total Eclipse of the Heart by Bonnie Tyler: I'm gonna take a wild guess and say y'all know why this is here

Rainbow Connection by Kermit: also self explanatory. and a bop. AND about rainbows. what more could you want?

Bangkok/One Night in Bangkok by Murray Head (Original Chess Recording version): 1) a banger. 2) from a whole musical written by the Bs of ABBA 3) Steve likes to listen to musical while vacuuming his pool :) 4) queer vibes. "the queens we use would not excite you" "i get my kicks above the waistline, sunshine" also to note they DID probably shave off the first minute of instrumental, but not all of it. I used this version and not the radio edit because in my heart of hearts I believe Steve picked up the Chess concept album in the fall of 1984, vibed with it, (I've answered an ask about stobin and the musical chess where I talk more) and that's the version he has.

Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy by Queen: tbh always sounded gay to me, and it's such a fun song, I think they'd vibe with it and agreed it's a silly little nod to steve's previous rep.

Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard by Paul Simon: GAY GAY VERY GAY SONG "it's against the law...what their mama saw/it was against the law" HMM also it's catchy and has so much potential to be an angsty queer ballad too. (also Robin's dad is 100% a Simon and Garfunkle stan that's just. a fact to me.)

I'm Coiming Out by Diana Ross: iconic song claimed by the gays. for the obvious reasons. bit on the nose but this is for THEM.

Sunshine (Go Away Today) by Jonathan Edwards: About not letting someone control your life. It's catchy and heartfelt, dreams about the future. Steve's Vecna Song for me.

You Can't Hurry Love by The Supremes: stobin are losers in the love department, and it's a great and hopeful song about not rushing into things. The Supremes Version because Robin is influenced by her former Hippie parents, and Steve by his Aunt Evelyn and her love of 50's and 60's music. They have appreciation for the Oldie Goldies.

Lady Marmalade by LaBelle: Disco baby. I also feel this was a song for us queer folk. maybe because I'm queer and I like it. it's great, and robin loves hearing women sing about having sex.

Holding Out for a Hero by Bonnie Tyler: throwback to the first song on the mixtape Steve gave Robin at the very beginning! now with the Upside Down between them it means more too. it's also SO FUN to belt in the car. frantic and with a good beat. I don't think I need to justify this one haha

Believe it or Not (theme from Greatest American Hero) by Joey Scarbury: Robin LOVES this stupid show about a cringe fail teacher with his cringe fail life getting a super suit from aliens and then losing the instruction manual. It just feels like a show she'd like even though it's so silly. The theme song is actually great tho. I think it'd really tickle the part of Robin that feels overly average and a bit trapped in Hawkins, but feels those confines lessen when she's with Steve and getting to feel like there's more out there for her. Personally, I first heard it on cassette of top 100 tv themes (along with MASH, Law and Order, Hawaii Five-oh, Andy Griffith etc) sitting in a booster seat in the front seat of my family's motor home on a long summer road trip in the early 2000's, as my dad drove and told me what show each song was from. (Steve buddy I understand your dream so much ok. There's nothing quite like being a kid and going on a roadtrip with your family. magical.)

Side B--The Besties side

You're My Best Friend by Queen: Love song for your best friend me thinks yes :)

Stuck With You by Huey Lewis and the News: the only anachronistic song on the playlist, but I couldn't NOT put it on. lavender marriage stobin REAL. They're stuck with each other :) also look at Steve. He is a guy who listens to Huey Lewis. We know this. He heard this song a year before it came out and was like robin :') it's us....I'm stuck with you...I'm so Happy about it :))

Stoned Soul Picnic by The 5th Dimension: Robin's parents are former hippies. This song is fantastic. Pure vibes. Steve and Robin are going to get rescue cats that are bonded together and name them Sassafras and Moonshine for this song.

Video Killed the Radio Star by The Buggles: Bop and a half. Sing along song.

Both Sides Now by Judy Collins: 1)gorgeous song originally by Joni Mitchel but this version is a bit faster 2) Robin's former Hippie parents influencing her taste strike AGAIN 3) she tries to convince Steve it's about being "queer like him" and he doesn't buy it but "I've looked at love from both sides now/.../I really don't know love at all" and "Oh, but now old friends they're acting strange/ And they shake their heads and they tell me that I've changed/ Well something's lost, but something's gained" hit different for him

Only the Good Die Young by Billy Joel: I chose this billy joel song because it's 1) catchy as all hell 2) about having sex 3) mentions dying and stobin are like We didn't die!! hell yeah! Steve's a pianist and tbh he loves billy joel. who doesn't. it was between this one and piano man i guess, tho i love many Billy Joel songs that are "deeper cuts" ha. and "I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints/the sinners are much more fun" line is like. what are they gonna do. not be an emotional queer teen about it?

Raspberry Beret by Prince: it's catchy, and whilst originally I had put La La Love You By Don McLean here, I like this one better. Robin is definitely a Prince fan. and a beret fan. happy coincidink. and its a fun song! about loosing your virginity to a hot girl in a barn!

Indiana Wants Me by R. Dean Taylor: okay originally I'll admit I put this on the masterplaylist because. obviously post-s4 Eddie running away angst song even if it's more folk-rock than metal. I think Steve and Robin would listen to it and really vibe with wanting to go home but not being able to. even if it's not literally. also they live in Indiana and like. you've gotta respect a song about where you live. ALSO the cop sounds in it. so good.

Born in the USA by Bruce Springsteen: a song? about being disillusioned with the American dream after seeing the institutional failures of the government??? very Steve. the whole album is great, and I know I've reblogged a post about Steve and the album (My Hometown hits different). It's angry, frustrated, passionate. Being queer in a small town where the government covers up it's human experimentation and alternate dimensions probably makes you feel a lot of things. All with the veneer of Americana.

Where Do You Go To (My Lovely) by Peter Starstedt: purely self indulgent of me. I adore this song. I think Steve heard it, and thought of Robin. The remembering, the deep knowledge of another person, the longing. When he told Robin that it's a song he always associates with her she tears up a bit, because it's so tender and loving, and a bit silly. Like. Steve knows she'll be amazing and can't comprehend anyone not seeing it. It's sooo tender.

Thank You for Being a Friend by Andrew Gold: Golden Girls didn't air their first episode until fall 1985, and obviously when it does Stobin are loyal viewers, (Steve is in love with Bea Arthur. as is right) but this song came out in the 70's. It's fun and cute and catchy! They love each other and are so, incomprehensibly grateful that they found each other.

[deusvervewrites]

”Anyone can be a hero if they reach out their hand”

Now that I think about it, AfO (original owner of the name Shigaraki, which roughly translates to ‘hand of death’) almost fits as a perfect foil to this theme, because he’s been involved in, what, three separate villains’ backstories now? As “this person needed saving, but the heroes weren’t there, so he selfishly reached out his hand and dragged them down to villainy for his own gain.” And I feel if that was emphasized more, as opposed to “we need to punch this guy,” and BS chess megamaster-isms, then he’d be an incredible object lesson on why hero society needs to focus on saving everyone, and just not try to pick and choose only the innocent victims who “deserve” it.

The League kind of does this because of how may of them have bee totally fucked over by a failure of those in power to act in the best interests of the people, and a failure of their families to treat them with the respect and compassion they deserve.

It would be nice if this was more emphasized as a thing before literally the most recent chapter having Shigaraki finally settle on wanting to be rid of the house that abused him. Well, him and Dabi, Dabi is pulling his weight here.

[whoronoa]

There is so much to say about this bc one: hot and also the lore.

Both Minho and Seungmin are notorious for messing with time. We have two time gods (hero’s villains idc where using gods because the theme of the song being so similar to Olympus) playing a game of chess with a literal town !!!!!

Like literally gods playing with mortals for fun bs why not. Look how smug Lee know is. Like pls god(s) keep me out of whatever his plan is

Stray Kids < ATE > UNVEIL : TRACK "MOUNTAINS"

[anendoandfriendo]

It's more fragments of ideas right now but:

[Insert a whole backstory with BS/BD where they got into heroism when they were young because, as far as they knew at the time, there would be some kind of protection from being dragged either back to their hometown or an insane asylum, yknow, if they proved themselves "worthy" enough.

Queue back to present day and, oh, THAT would be why these two have the worst Protestant Work Ethic vibes ever under a shell of stoicism. With bonus points for way too much emphasis on physical evidence because what the hell does intuition ever do when you need to play 5D chess with even other good guys? The difference between good and evil is in the paperwork and nothing more.]

Uhhh they just let their stalker fans do their work for them and believe for some godforaken reason it's easier to hide under the rumor they're simply Gay for each other and not a plural semi-shut-in who probably needed a fucking vacation last year.

Anyways, the TTRPG we're playing in is absolutely more dystopian, and we've been using the opportunity to grapple with some rather heavy themes when it comes to plurmisia in a way we've only seen Kat Zhang's ya series The Hybrid Chronicles do in a way we actually like.

"They sounds like antihero but not qui —" yes that's exactly our point. They're fuckin' Double Negative, they're gonna fuckin' invert EVERYTHING as we so please.

"Writ somethi —" noooo we're way too anxious for that right now. We would like to at LEAST either figure out if we can continue the TTRPG or not/get training for our own job??? You know??? The one offline and is a real thing with tangible effects??? For our own sanity??? before we start thinking about any of that.

Uhhh — *laughs like an annoying schoolgirl* — excuse us please while we just...wdk, stare at a wall while we eat our lunch and hope we don't get more weird bullshit in our head.

[rebeccadumaurier]

thoughts on bungou stray dogs season 5

woo, that was a fun binge-watch! ok, my (not spoiler free) thoughts:

this was a good season, really really good. i'm really impressed by asagiri's ability to keep us guessing and to play off old story patterns while also developing new ones—characterization's very consistent but also keeps developing in fresh and interesting directions. pacing's less wack than s3 (where fyodor appeared in like 3 episodes), the plot develops at a solid pace, the themes are really interesting

this was the gayest season i have seen so far and i've been letting this stupid show queerbait me for 6 years now, so that's saying something. fukichi and fukuzawa simultaneously have the energy of messily divorced exes, pining repressed best friends, and happily married couple all at once. if i was mori i'd be jealous (but it's mori so he's not, though i do appreciate mori/fukuzawa as a foil to fukichi/fukuzawa).

i'm not really the biggest fan of raising the stakes continuously overall, like i really don't think media needs to go like season 1. save my friend season 2. save my home season 3. save the world or some shit, it's fine to have similar magnitude of stakes throughout. but it's cool that asagiri's got the ambition to tackle some lofty questions—in particular i think nikolai's own struggle to determine his free will compared to fukichi's desire to strip free will from humanity in exchange for world peace is interesting.

i have never been particularly taken by fyodor, or fyodor's relationship with dazai, or fyodor's relationship with nikolai. but this season has finally caused me to cave and admit he's great. he's hilarious, he's a great foil to dazai (their weird 4D chess frenemyship is excellent, i understand why people ship them now), his dialogue is top tier and i fucking lost it when he faked having a split personality to the character with split hair because he (rightly) figured sigma would fall for it. like yes DRAG HIM

speaking of split haired characters, i miss Q, who had a lot of potential to add some more chaos to the mix and who i generally want to see more of (his fucked up gender energy and his being a lovehatechild of dazai and chuuya is so entertaining)

i'm...actually a bit disappointed that dazai did not actually let chuuya die, although i do like the direction asagiri took—in "double black," we saw chuuya place his trust in dazai, and it paid off. this time around, dazai placed his trust in chuuya—literally let him put a loaded gun to his head!!—and it paid off (and also chuuya got his revenge for dazai taking too long to nullify corruption last time, you know he had fun with those extra bullets).

i really enjoy that asagiri shows time and time again just how much these two trust each other, but at the same time, i think their relationship could actually be stress tested more—like, i genuinely wanted to see dazai placed into a real "pick chuuya or the ADA" situation! i want to see dazai and chuuya actually on opposite sides, not in truces or working together or whatnot, and i suspect that this will happen in the show's last arc—it's eventually going to circle back to ADA vs. PM, just like the beginning. TL:DR; i'm an insane dazai/chuuya shipper and the chokehold they have on me is so humiliating that i just don't talk about it 99% of the time. if i loved you less i would be able to talk about it more.

although i did 100% call him being OK with killing chuuya as BS, because there is no goddamn way dazai's last words to chuuya would ever be as mild and cliche as "we didn't really get along, but sometimes we understood each other." that man has been practicing dramatic monologues in his head daily for the last seven years. when he does deliver that monologue it's going to fucking SERVE

speaking of being taken in by fyodor: fine fine I GET THE DAZAI/CHUUYA X FYODOR/NIKOLAI PARALLELS NOW OKAY. not that i denied them before but we were really getting bashed over the head with it in the prison break episodes. being queerbaited by this show is better than a lot of actual media gay couples but it still hurts like a bitch.

i continue to want to wring atsushi's neck lol. akutagawa has never really been my fave or anything, but his character development is clearly progressing much faster (and i really really respect it) and our narrator still can't fucking form an opinion without one of his friends to guide him!! kyouka and lucy please ditch him and date each other instead. the lack of kyouka in this season was CRIMINAL.

i kind of ship kenji and tetchou now...i know the show is pushing tetchou and jouno but jouno is just so fucking MEAN and tetchou deserves someone who doesn't judge him for his quirks okay :(

tachihara biggest glow up of any character since the beginning of this show. the character development i didnt know i wanted

this season did a lot more work to humanize the hunting dogs (esp. the non-tachihara ones) and i enjoyed that a lot. teruko's role in the finale, killing the man she loved most because fukuzawa couldn't, absolutely murdered me. i think it's such a good step in her character arc as she has to figure out who she wants to be without him. also i appreciate that she's a badass female character who isn't a weirdly sexualized girlboss and is also a weirdo

aya and bram is truly one of the most bizarre pairs in this show and there are a lot of bizarre pairs, so that's saying something. i legitimately feel like asagiri picked some names out of a hat or spun a wheel for this or something. but i am excited for bram to figure out what he wants after spending forever being enslaved to others, and hope that this involves listening to the radio all day with a 10-year-old girl. the way children are portrayed in BSD as these incredibly vulnerable and impressionable people worthy of love and protection sincerely fucks me up so bad

loose ends: where is the help me note from? i assumed dazai wrote it, but i doubt it, and i also doubt he just left sigma to die. we still don't know what fyodor's ability is, which makes me nervous, since he is ALLEGEDLY dead. i wonder if it's nikolai's (frankly he does legitimately seem like the type to have split personality issues). i'm worried the antidote isn't an actual antidote, and we obviously haven't seen the end of nikolai. there's an actually comical amount of power in bram's hands now. mori's been fairly quiet this season, and there's no way he didn't plan a way for himself to benefit from the carnage. that man is a vulture, he exploits starving orphans off the street! and he sent in chuuya to save the ADA's ass twice and let akutagawa disappear for 2+ weeks! this man was just negotiating to have yosano join the mafia, you can't tell me he didn't get something for himself out of this.

honestly i kind of just want this shit with the hunting dogs and the decay of angels to end and to stop worrying about world domination so we can go back to the ADA battling yokohama's villain of the week, like man the tension has just been building nonstop. give the ADA a coffee break. 😭😭

ranpo fans are truly getting their time lately huh. we are winninggggg

[changelingvixen]

Some chess themed world stuff, IDK, incoherent and unfinished

“Tithes for the king! Tithes for the king! The Holy Duty calls!”

The crier was not the Bishop herself of course, this was just a sub-priest, one of the many strata beneath the Holy Lady herself, two steps from martyrdom for the royal family’s sake. No, the Bishop Herself was only seen on the holiest of days. This was just a tithe calling.

This was not the slums proper. This was the entrance to the slums where the merely poor lived, not the cursed or fallen. Every face was fully human, largely clean and sentient. The houses were crammed together, cheap stone falling apart, but the stench was merely rotten vegetables, smoke and muck, the normal scent of background life. These people were accepted, if not welcomed, in the eyes of the White Queen.

A young woman, face so full of innocence it struck the Knight in her chest for a moment, opened her mouth, made to step forward. Something about her demeanor – her softness – her beauty, brown eyes and hair and skin – made the Knight bite her lip, and instead pass her her own token, a White Rose. The woman’s eyes widened, and she gazed up at the Knight, who smiled.

“To the guard at 9,” she said. “He will bring you to me.”

A night with the Knight was worth nowhere near as much as with the king, in repayment, but on the other hand the pleasure was plentiful. It was no Holy Duty, but it was joyful, and there was still monetary compensation. The woman’s ragged dress would be replaced with a finer one and she would eat well for a year or two.

The compensation for offering one’s self as tithe in the Holy Duty was high, but only given, of course, if the tithe survived.

The Knight realised a moment later the woman would probably not have been chosen, anyway. The current vogue in theological circles was that the tithe should match the king’s own looks – or, at least, as more honest courtiers would say – his apparent complexion. Even that was fraught with its issues, for who else but the royal line had that pearlescent hair? Silver eyes, at least, were common enough, as was that strange angular cut of bone and jaw the Royal Line had possessed before its degeneration, and indeed, the three chosen tithes matched that physical profile well enough. They all had the same expression – determined, desperate, afraid. They always did.

If they survived they were Compelled never to speak of what the Holy Duty comprised. They had their lives and most of their limbs and wealth beyond imagining and besides, what good would it do them? If the king died without issue, they would all die, for the face of the White Queen herself would have turned from them for good.

The Knight knew what happened. The Knight had seen the times the king preferred animals to women and what came of them.  These women were not the sort to survive. She turned her face from them.

The Queen was watching from her balcony, she knew. From the top of the panopticon she could see the whole city as she stood alone, her veil blowing like a pennant behind her. She could feel her eyes, even from here. Beautiful, bored, limpid. She would creep up behind the Knight after day-long banquets when the old speeches from the old retainers were over and whisper into her ear,

“Tell me your name, Knight. Be mine. Take me from here.”

And the Knight would smile without meaning at the Queen’s pale face, taut with lust and fear, and whisper, “I am the Knight, madam.”

“I will tell you mine,” the Queen would press. “I will make you mine. I will give you myself. None but he has touched me.” She flinched as she said it. The Knight knew the Queen was protected when her breeding days were allotted but even so, it was a horror. A Holy Duty and a hell.

“Sleep well, madam,” the Knight would say, her hands carefully behind her back, and bow, and leave. Her words were as familiar as the Rote Of The Light or The Chiding Of The Seven Bells, heard after every seventh course, the Pawn’s intonation solemn, the meaning long forgotten but the rite of its recitation inescapable, unimaginable to change. Perhaps it was the loss of meaning that was causing their decline, the Knight thought. But perhaps not.

She never knew if the Rook was listening. Sometimes he would flit out of sight in the corner of her eye. Who knew to whom the Rook paid allegiance? He alone in the Court spoke to his opposite, for who could punish or fathom a Rook? He would not find his entrails wound around the castle buttresses for speaking to the Black Rook – they had their own place, the Rooks, between the two lands, where they met and whispered and who knew what?

The Knight closed her eyes, thinking that, somewhere, there was a Black Knight, perhaps doing this self-same act, trailing the long passages of her castle, training in her martial arts, listening and waiting, the endless waiting for the war to begin again, when the Ladies Above spoke it so, when their game began again. Except the Black Knight’s kingdom wasn’t dying.  

 ---

 The library was quiet and heavy-aired, tall lonely pillars and endless dark bookcases sweeping into the domed ceilings. The velvet carpets were heavy with must. Neat square tables were empty, the chairs pushed up to the edges. The marble fountain, carved nymphs and flowers in diamond and moonstone, sprayed its dancing drops in silence. Dusty light hit motes in the air.

The Bishop locked the heavy stone door behind her to prevent another entering – as if they would. Still. Better to be safe. She tucked the key away in some inner pocket of her robe.

Welcome, said the spirit of the library to the Bishop. It has been so long. I am so lonely. I know a thousand lives, I know wisdom and lies beyond imagining, but I am alone. So hungry.

The air around the Bishop throbbed hot, warming her emaciated cheeks.

Beautiful, the spirit whispered. The Bishop gently pushed the air away. It fluttered like old pages, musty and papery.

“No,” she said. It didn’t recede, it edged under her robe, stroking her legs, edging from ankle to calf to knee and pausing.

A thousand thousand years. I need companionship.

The Bishop strode up to a shelf, running a languid bone-thin finger along a book’s spine. The spirit groaned softly. Everything else was absolutely still.

“People are afraid of that which they don’t know or believe they do know,” said the Bishop. She enjoyed a conversation, and it was true, the library had been closed for endless years. Time flowed differently in the presence of so many books. Perhaps, to the library, it had been a thousand years. Close to, frondy moss was growing through the ancient oak of the bookcases, curling around the section markers, glowing faintly.

If you run, I shall chase you, said the spirit. My corridors are labyrinths to you. I am the maze and the monster. Just a night, one day and one night with you. Do not leave me. I will allow you safe passage then. To what you seek. I could trap and keep you else. Hold you close to me forever. But where is the joy in that? Its tone was becoming desperate. Give me this honour and kindness. Soothe my pain. I have been alone for so long.

“I am a holy woman,” the Bishop said, her cheeks flushing as the warm air grasped at her again, twining around her limbs. “I belong to the White Queen, the Lady Above.”

Belong to me, for one day and one night, madam Bishop, the library breathed. Your Lady will forgive. I am so alone. You may have all my wisdom and my words. Any written tale. Tell me your desires and salve mine. Bathe in my fountain, lay yourself down for me. How I ache. I will write your answers upon your skin and bones if you give yourself to me.

“My Lady will guide me free,” said the Bishop, “If I need her to. I seek a treatise.”

The library was silent. The Bishop cocked her head. Somewhere, woodworm gnawed through a shelf, the sound scratchy in her ears.

The Bishop took a step forward.

 ---

  The Knight knew a woman in the Old Market. She traded as a fortune teller but to those who knew, she was a true mystic.

The Old Market was crammed edge to edge with stalls of a thousand different kinds, reeking with the scents of greasy street food, sweat, incense, smoke and metal. Rickety houses and shops boughed over the street like branches; detritus crunched under her feet as people jostled and gossiped and pickpocketed each other. Things jibbered in cages. Scrappy children shrieked and shoved, clutching a penny for a sweet or a firelighter. The Knight strode through the masses, sloughing them in her wake, even with a hood over her face to disguise herself, bereft of chain mail and ruff and veil and sword. Traders shouted their wares – the usual, from the bizarre to the useless to the lifesaving. One briefly caught her eye, leering at her.

“Syrup of sight, pretty lady? Guaranteed to show you the truth in any man’s face. Just right for your master or your lover…”

She turned away.

“Afraid of the truth?” jeered the salesman, waving a bottle, but she wanted more than snake oil.

Behind a fraying, jewelled curtain at the quieter end of the street, the woman sat. Her garish handwritten sales sign promised love and magic and other lies, and young women dared each other to spend a coin and enter the tent, but the Knight knew, unlike most of the other magic on offer, this woman could be convinced to speak true.  

“I seek guidance, madam,” she told the curtain, which twitched.

“Enter,” said the voice within, and the Knight pushed the curtain aside, ignoring the awed whispering of the young women behind her.

The hunched old woman straightened up on seeing the Knight, and with no apparent change, her face was younger. “Ah,” she said, smiling faintly. “Madam Knight.” She fingered the deck of cards before her. “You seek something?”

“Of course,” said the Knight. She seated herself on the rickety stool opposite the woman, and pulled a pouch of gold from her cloak, passing it over with respect. The woman did not open it but simply secreted it away under her bench. “The Black Knight. Who is she?”

The mystic showed no reaction to the question, despite its heresy. “You know her by her deeds. Soldier and handmaiden. Black guardian. Palfreywoman waiting in the wings. Your own face in the mirror, Knight. Yourself in reverse. What you see in the dark. Do you seek the truth or a comforting lie?”

The Knight knew the respect was returned in that she asked. For her customers she would mostly decide for them what they received. “The truth.”

The woman passed the cards through her hands, shuffling, turning. Her dark eyes stared into nothing. The Knight breathed in the scent of patchouli and blood. At length the mystic flipped them.

“The Bloody Shrike. The Liar’s Tongue. Distant Winds Calling. The Blade That Bites True, trine with the Dark Servant. And the Light Servant in combination. Why, I believe she wishes to meet you, too.” She raised her pits of eyes to the Knight. “She is a traitor and a killer, and she believes herself right. Perhaps you have a lot in common. I wonder what I would see if I drew for you.” She laughed thinly.

“Similar, perhaps,” said the Knight, mildly. She wondered herself, for a moment. “Have you ever drawn for your own amusement perhaps? Of the Court?”

The mystic laughed. “What makes you think I wish to know of any of you? What I need to know, I already do. I am just a conduit to fools and hunters. What good would it do me, to know of you?”

“None at all,” said the Knight, rising. “I thank you for your time.”

“Enjoy your night with the little maiden,” said the mystic. “Do not think of those who were taken.”

“I don’t,” said the Knight. She inclined her head, and pushed the curtain aside to leave.

 ---

 “When,” said the Knight to the Rook, “Is Carnival in the city next?”

The Rook didn’t look up. “Here or there?” He nudged a piece across the playing mat and flipped the rotating board around. His opponent’s eyes narrowed as he reached for the dice. To even be allowed play a game of complexity and chance against the Rook was an honour, and the Rook seemed to genuinely enjoy games. The nobleman couldn’t hear the Knight’s question, or even see her presence. The Rook only ever played opponents on the other side of a one-way mirrored screen, the board rotating endlessly between turns. In his ascetic game chamber, the Rook and the Knight were alone. She watched the nobleman’s face with interest. He seemed intelligent, and although he probably wouldn’t win, perhaps there would be a challenge there for the Rook.

“For interest’s sake,” said the Knight, “Both.”

“Here, the seventh day of Golden Season. There, the nineteenth of Bronze.” The Rook never explained how he knew when Carnival was arriving, here or there. The Rook never explained very much at all.

The noble’s hand hovered over a piece, and drew back. He bit his lip. There were no particular stakes this time – the reward was the game and the honour of playing - but who liked to lose?

“Thank you,” said the Knight, and bowed, because whatever else he was, the Rook was powerful and nominally on her side, at least. His hooded eyes blinked slowly and he looked up at her at last. The guttering candle in its wall bracket threw strange shadows on his dark face.

“I serve only the world,” said the Rook, expressionlessly. “I shall watch your movements well.”

What strange investiture passed from Rook to Rook, she wondered. What secret service did he provide beyond the laying out of time and the seasons, advice, sentencing, learning, teaching? Was he closer to the White Lady than even the Bishop, or furthest of all?

The nobleman’s hand moved like a snake and the board spun. The Rook tilted his head, truly birdlike. The Knight did not enjoy games, although she thought she could see the Rook’s likely move. Only at the last moment did he change from her guess to a different, subtler play, and she wondered again what went through that mind. The board spun again. The noble frowned.

“Good day, Madam Knight,” said the Rook, and she bowed again, understanding, and left.

[rubykgrant]

(Ah, one of my favorite things; Grif and Simmons cuddling~)

"Are you really gonna keep doing all that nerd stuff until you pass out?" Grif asked. Simmons didn't respond. He just kept clicking away, doing whatever kind of calculations he'd been busy with for the last 4 hours. "Simmons? SIMMONS!"

"I'm... almost... done..." finally came the lagging reply.

"No, you aren't, but you need to stop. C'mon, I bet if it was Wash or Carolina trying to stay awake and work like this, you'd come up with some statistic about how sleep loss causes you to forget the order of the Alphabet, and something-something circadian rhythm, REM brain activity, something-something. Time to rest," Grif tried to coax Simmons over, away from the glowing screen, to where he had settled in the corner.

This transport ship really wasn't meant for long voyages, and thus didn't have established places for passengers to sleep, so everybody was just making their own little "nests". Simmons was practically living in this room, with the console for navigation and various archives of charts, which meant Grif was going to be here too. That was just how it works.

"If YOU want to sleep, go ahead..." Simmons mumbled.

"That's where you're wrong, Simmons. You've totally ruined that for me. I used to be able to just pass out on a dime-"

"Pfff, BS, you still can. I've seen you willfully go unconscious. Like you've got a light-switch in your brain. It might even be a mutant power. You could be an X-Man, Grif..." Simmons snorted, and his blank expression finally broke to show a sleepy smirk.

"OK, maybe when I don't wanna deal with some stupid little boring chore, sure, I can just drop for a nap. But when it comes to real, genuine, relaxing sleep? Man, that's been spoiled. I need CUDDLES. I need some dang AFFECTION," Grif started to get a little bit theatrical, like he's been so very neglected. "Are you really going to leave me over here, all by my lonesome, cold and unloved?"

At last, Simmons turned his face away from the console, and looked at Grif; he was giving Simmons the most hammed-up, over the top pathetic face possible. Simmons broke into laughter, slid down from his chair to the floor, and crawled over to Grif. Victory!

"And you call ME manipulative," Simmons said, curving himself around Grif, almost immediately feeling cozy and comfortable.

"Ah, but I use my powers for GOOD!" Grif told him. It really WAS Simmons' fault, too; Grif used to be better at being aloof, not expecting much in terms of tender treatment, and very little practice when it came to sharing that with others... then Simmons went and loved him enough to make his pessimism and indifference melt.

"See, you ARE an X-Man..."

"And you're a nerd," Grif ran a hand fondly over Simmons' forehead, pushing back some stray hairs.

"Yes. We've established that," Simmons yawned, and snuggled closer. "I love you, Grif..."

"Love you, too..." Grif lifts Simmons up, just slightly, pressing his mouth to the little spot in the middle of Simmons' eyebrows. For a moment, the clean chemical smell of the ship is drowned out by the familiar smell of the shampoo Simmons likes to use... the last time he showered was when they'd been on Earth, before getting another big Call To Adventure that they just HAD to answer because their lives were stupid and crazy like that.

The day before the happy little bubble burst, Girf and Simmons had gone out on a casual date, having lunch at a place that made really good sandwiches, getting smoothies afterwards, finally visiting a bookshop that also sold games and collectables. Simmons found a chess set he really liked, it had an ancient Greek theme, all the pieces were carved into different shapes of pillars/statues/vases, and painted so they looked old. They bought it and took it home, planning on showing it to the others the next day, Simmons eager to show off all his strategies. They both took a shower together that evening, had dinner, and- before getting the chance to go to bed, suddenly there was another crisis, and it just had to be their problem. So off they went, into the armor again, into space again, and now they were here.

Ha-ha, "why are we here", over and over.

Oh, well. Grif can deal with being here, and doing what they need to do.

Right now, he's got the familiar weight of Simmons resting against him, he feels Simmons nuzzle into his shoulder, and he smells "home" in Simmons' hair, and moments like this are when Grif is most satisfied being this big, because it means he can hold as much of Simmons as possible, it makes him feel solid, strong, and soft all at once, and when their chests press together, Grif feels the thud of his donated heart beat against the humming rhythm of the cyborg prosthetic inside of Simmons' chest, and that' all pretty good. It's a pretty good reason to be here.

GRIMMONS NATION RISE UP

[originally posted august 2023]

[rotationalsymmetry]

Not trying to make anyone feel bad by sharing that last post, again, getting JKR canceled would not be sufficient to gain trans rights/widespread social acceptance and it is not necessary for gaining trans rights. It is one fight, but it’s y’know ok to treat it strategically and (shifting metaphors slightly) not act like you’re playing chess and that’s the other side’s king, or like you’re playing capture the flag and the Harry Potter series is the flag. Rowling is just not that central.

(This may be more obvious to people who have been around for longer? The world was more transphobic in the 90’s and 00’s and Rowlings wasn’t actively spewing transphobic bs back them, so clearly she’s not like the one source of all transphobia here.)

And creating tumblr walled gardens where everybody mutually pledges to not mention HP except to criticize it and not interact with the fandom etc is a thing you can do I guess, but I’m not sure what it does other than make a bunch of basically decent people really irritated for no reason. When you could be answering your well-meaning aunt’s clueless questions about puberty blockers instead y’know. Or calling bookstores, libraries, or your local school board and saying you don’t approve of HP themed events on trans rights grounds. Or promoting works of fiction by trans people and their allies. Etc.

I wouldn’t mind it if it was this chill “I just see red these days when I hear anything positive about Rowlings or the series, so I’m setting up my social media experience to not have to” but that’s never actually how it’s framed.

Like the discourse keeps cycling around “ok don’t buy her stuff but fanfic is ok” vs “no, no fandom, nothing at all” and just, why?

My sense of trans rights is founded on the idea that people get to do whatever they want with their bodies and their lives, that’s not compatible with policing what other people talk about on their own social media sites.

[itsclydebitches]

RWBY Recaps: Volume 8 “Refuge”

Happy Saturday, everyone! Welcome to week two of… fourteen? Is that how many episodes we’ve got this Volume? Man, we’re going to be here for a while.

There’s a ton to unpack in “Refuge,” but as promised I want to delve into the opening first. Given the scattered, symbolic nature of our intro I think it’s easiest to just chuck out observations in list form. I’ll segue back into cohesive recapping in a moment.

So, what have we got?

The glitching between a happy, whole Atlas and the burning wreckage we’re now dealing with. That works well given both Atlas’ tech-focus culture and the ways that tech has led to some of our biggest tragedies (hijacked army, framing Penny, etc.)

Ruby looks scared and is standing behind the rest of her team, separated from them by the title. I’m not really feeling that theme so far though, given Yang’s incredibly weak challenge, Ruby’s immediate forgiveness (during her talk with Penny), and the fact that she’s still working with half the team who vocally support her, particularly Nora. Unless something drastic changes, the idea of Ruby being the outsider here is silly.

We get shots of the girls with their past selves superimposed over their bodies and weapons. I like the message here—they carry those versions of themselves with them—just not how it’s contrasted with Ironwood’s image of an earlier Atlas now burning. So that’s all he is now? Everyone gets to embody their growth except for him? His past is erased to focus solely on our current predicament? I’m not picking up any redemption flags here…

Robyn’s hand reaches down towards Clover’s badge, which then circles to show off the Ace Ops. The final image contrasts an angry Harriet with a defeated Qrow. At least, I hope they’re contrasts. It’s going to read as absurd if they somehow end up working together after Qrow helped get her leader killed.

This morphs into Qrow alone who sits, devastated, until Robyn offers him a hand up and they both smile. I’m not a fan of this symbolism after the prison scene we got this episode. It’s like Qrow might have thought about his choices until Robyn’s anger reminded him that, oh yeah, he can be angry at Ironwood instead. These two teaming up, when their last team-up led to a death, is worrisome to say the least.

We get our horrifying image of Salem looming over Oscar as he clutches his head. The group’s weapons fall. This makes sense given this episode’s kidnapping and the team’s sheer inability to do anything to stop it.

Jaune stands determined—also makes sense with his trend of giving “pep talks”—while Ren and Nora stand apart, facing opposite directions. Nora looks back though.

Paralleling them are Winter and Weiss who also face opposite directions. This is becoming a common visual theme: Harriet and Qrow, Nora and Ren, Winter and Weiss. Here though, Weiss looks determinedly ahead while Winter stares down at her feet, unsure. Ugh, I just know they’re going to have her betray Ironwood too.

We get a brief glimpse of Whitley and Willow, not a whole lot to go on. Then we see Salem turning her chess pieces into grimm—literally changing the game—while Ironwood’s white pieces are turned to dust. I could make a quip about how white is supposed to go first, but the initial move was made thousands of years before Ironwood existed and thus he never stood a chance, certainly not when his own allies are actively working against him… but I won’t lol

Watts is smiling at a terminal while at his back Pietro works at his. More opposites. Pietro’s reflection looks to Penny even as his body continues to work, his heart contrasting his head. Penny, in turn, looks upset as her reflection flinches at something off screen and the glass cracks. Watts hacking her, perhaps?

We see the new teams as a cherry blossom (I think?) floats across the screen. It melts in Ren’s hand while escaping Nora’s. Honestly, I’m not sure what to make of that just yet.

Ruby and Yang share a look—undermining their supposed conflict this volume. Couldn’t we have gotten sister unity over the last three years instead?—and a fight against grimm starts up. It freezes as Cinder walks through it, hopefully implying that the group’s attention is on the wrong threat. While they concern themselves with low-level grimm, Salem and her allies are walking free and wreaking havoc.

Then Cinder screams and clutches her grimm arm as things go up in flames. I hope that’s not a death flag given that we’ve teased her death twice already and we only just got a glimpse at her backstory. Also, I think it’s worth mentioning here that there’s a “Summer is the Hound” theory gaining traction which, frankly, I think is 100% unsubstantiated. It’s a fun crack theory, but not something I’m inclined to take seriously until we get some actual evidence behind it. There is, however, potential evidence for people becoming grimm in general: Salem falling into the pool and Cinder receiving that arm. That’s not much though. So while I’m far from convinced that the Hound was once human—let alone that it was Summer—there is something to the theory that Salem may be able to control Cinder via her arm like she controls other grimm. After all, she knew Cinder was alive despite everyone else thinking she’d perished. They seem to have some sort of connection that hasn’t been explained yet and now that Cinder has willingly walked back into Salem’s clutches, she may not be able to walk out.

There are shots of all our other villains, the Lamp and the Staff reflected in Salem’s eyes, and Jinn’s blue smoke, perhaps suggesting that we’ll see her again, or the entity residing in the Staff (if they exist).

Atlas glitches back to normal—a false victory?—before the ice breaks and Team RWBY falls into the darkness below. Volume 3 vibes all around. There’s light above them emanating from the Staff, but as Ruby reaches for it grimm arms circle and pull her deeper. I hope this means that the group will suffer the defeat we need to keep Salem as a legitimate threat, but we had very similar imagery back in Volume 6 and they made it out of that situation just fine, so.

“Happy Ever After” glitches into “Happy? Never Again.” Which isn’t ominous or anything. We finally end on the classic RWBY image of Crescent Rose buried in the snow underneath the shattered moon.

On the whole I think the opening is strong and I like a lot of the symbolism in it, though I do question how much will actually end up being relevant to the story. My only gripes are that there are too many different styles going on—it feels like three or four different Volume openings slammed together—and the fact that it also feels overly long. I don’t think it’s actually any longer than our Volume 7 opening, but it seems that way to me, perhaps because of those varying styles breaking things up.

So that’s what we’ll be watching for the next twelve weeks! Let’s move onto the actual episode.

We open on the image of Clover’s bloody badge in Qrow hand, the same one we got in the trailer. I theorized last recap that we’d be getting the rest of our trailer/promo material this week and I was almost entirely correct in that. This moment, retrieving the bikes, fighting off the grimm, Watts getting hit, Oscar carried away… all we’re missing are some eye closeups and Nora powering up her hammer. As said, it makes me nervous for what the rest of the Volume holds. I can’t decide whether the footage wasn’t ready to be included in promo materials that early, or if RT is just determined not to give us any information past the first two episodes…

Regardless, this is supposed to be a moment of grief and all I could focus on was Qrow’s hand. Specifically, the lack of detail in it. On the whole, I’ve been very happy with the engine upgrade and I quite like RWBY’s animation now, but a closeup here draws too much attention to how, sometimes, they’re just not animating their characters in a way that looks natural. Where is Qrow’s wrist? Why is his palm perfectly smooth? Stylistically that’s usually fine, but when given the chance to stare at it you realize how odd it looks. 

Says the woman whose own drawing skills suck but, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But we’re talking about the important bits in this episode! Out of frame Robyn is heard yelling, “This is your fault. You realize that, don’t you?” We’re meant to think that she’s telling Qrow this, especially with how he’s bent guiltily over the badge, until we cut to reveal Jacques right next to them.

I wish Robyn was saying all that to Qrow. It would mean that she was ignoring her own responsibility in Clover’s death, but at least it would have started an arc where Qrow has to grapple with what he did. Not the awful moment that’s coming up.

Before that though, Jacques claims that he’s the “victim” here who was “duped.” His hands may not be clean, but “at least I’m not a murderer.” Look, I’m not here to absolve Jacques of anything. The guy is an absolute shit stain on the Remnant world. However, he’s right in his overall point even if his words are BS. Meaning, Jacques is not a victim and he is a murderer, but he is not the one responsible for Clover’s death. Robyn has plenty of things to be furious at him for, but this is not one of them. Ironically, here we have Jacques functioning as the kind of villain the show wants Ironwood to be. He is a murderer because the company he runs exploits faunus and forces them to work in dangerous conditions (see: the death of Ilia’s parents). He is culpable because he a) had control over these conditions and b) has full knowledge of their flaws. He’s a racist who cares more about money than lives. His informed choices then led directly to deaths. Ironwood? Not anywhere near the same thing. Overlooking the “Omg Salem is here and I have to do something about it” context, he did not try to arrest Robyn. He did not force Qrow to resist arrest, or Robyn to get involved, or Qrow to break Clover’s aura, or Tyrian to stab him in the chest. Ironwood had no control or knowledge of these events, so he is not responsible for Clover’s death in the way that Jacques is responsible for the faunus’. RWBY is giving the right arc to the wrong character.

Robyn then insists that Qrow didn’t kill anyone. He didn’t strike the blow, but he certainly helped! Look, Qrow is one of my favorites, but I’m not about to claim that he didn’t have a hand in getting his friend killed. I seriously can’t believe the show is ignoring this.

We then segue into some, uh, questionable dialogue choices. Jacques is a ��snake with a mustache”? Sorry, I can’t take Robyn seriously at the best of times, but definitely not when she’s tossing out laugh worthy insults like that. Nevertheless, this “snake with a mustache” is guilty because he “helped that man tear us all apart.” That man being Watts.

…why are they all in what amounts to the same cell with barriers dividing them? I suppose we could make the argument that they’re being held in some secret facility, given that they’re in this dark, garage-esque space with no lights and no other prisoners. Some sort of maximum security setup that... doesn’t have any other inmates and no additional security? Hmm. Then again, the power is supposed to be out and I don’t really trust RWBY’s ability to craft consistent backgrounds. I feel like they’re packed together merely because that’s plot convenient, not because it makes any sense in world.

Watts looks pretty comfortable in there though and Jacques is likewise full of confidence. He says that by now Whitley will have already called their lawyers to get him out. Now, non-imprisoned people know that the apocalypse is currently underway, as Joanna will later put it. No one is lawyer-ing at the moment, but it will be crucial to see whether Whitley is trying to get Jacques out despite the chaos. How faithful is he to his abuser? Can Willow start undermining Jacques’ influence now that they’re alone?

Jacque’s confidence thoroughly pisses Robyn off and she screams, punching the barrier between them. Keep this in mind for a second. 

A moment later two guards show up to take Watts somewhere and… oh no. Please don’t tell me Ironwood is going to team up with him now that Penny has written him off? I know the guy has (presumably) already killed someone, and he must assume he’s killed Oscar, so we’re definitely in full villain territory despite the stupidity of it… but please don’t start working with Salem’s henchmen too. You know what? I’m not going to assume the worst until I actually see it. RWBY gives me enough nonsense as it is lol.

What I really want to talk about is that hit. 

I’m somewhat concerned by a lot of the fandom’s reaction to this moment in comparison to another. Who remembers Volume 6? That scene when Qrow punched Ozpin directly into a tree? Now, I’m not keeping track of who says what when—this is a generalized reaction—but I saw a lot of posts defending that action. There were numerous justifications for the punch, but the three big ones were: 1. These characters are fighters and they’re used to it, 2. These characters have aura so it’s not that bad, and 3. Ozpin totally deserved it. Now, the problems here are that 1a. I don’t think punching someone when they’re crying on their knees is justified, whether they’re a fighter or not, 1b. Qrow was likewise punching Oscar, a totally innocent kid, 2. We had established earlier that Oscar was having trouble remembering to activate his aura and didn’t seem to have it active then (no ripple effect, he’s rubbing his jaw afterwards), and 3. Ozpin’s crimes are, as explored on this blog, not nearly the horrific actions that the story and fandom would like to paint them as. The point is that despite all this, lots and lots of fans said it was totally okay to punch Ozpin&Oscar. What’s the big deal? they asked. Now, lots and lots of fans—mostly when the trailer first dropped—say it’s not okay to punch Watts. Despite the fact that he’s also a fighter. Despite the fact that his aura has broken. Despite the fact that he’s not currently a threat (seated on the bed/Ozpin on his knees). Despite the fact that he’s responsible for helping Salem try to take over the world. If we were to make a case for who deserves to get hit, Watts is a WAY stronger candidate in my opinion, yet he’s the one who a lot of fans are scrambling to defend. Why? I assume it’s because hitting him feeds into the generalized police state/dictator theme Ironwood has been thrown into. It helps villainize Ironwood for fans to go, “Poor Watts. He’s done horrific things but no one deserves to face police brutality.” I agree. The only problem is that a lot of those same fans seem to have gone, “Ozpin can get over it. He deserved to be hit! I would have done a whole lot worse to him…” So is the difference only that one attacker is a military professional and the other is… a huntsmen professional who soon after that scene starts working for the military? Yeah. The show continually ignores that the group aren’t the rogue heroes they pretend to be. They worked under Ironwood for weeks, if not months.

The show isn’t clear about its morals and neither are the fans, with both changing tactics whenever it helps blame the character they already don’t like. When Robyn punches the barrier, do we really think she wouldn’t have hit Jacques if given the chance? Why would it be heroic for her to hit the Evil Man but it’s not okay for the grunt minor character to hit the other Evil Man? These morals don’t change just because you like Robyn and don’t like Ironwood. 

Jumping ahead for a moment, we get another example of this hypocrisy with Joanna. A reporter is informing the people that the military seems to have stopped evacuations and there is an unheard number of grimm hanging out overhead, both things that are objective facts. He’s reporting as he should, sticking to what’s known and provable, and thus is, notably, not some lackey of Ironwood’s who is hastily presented as evil. Yet Joanna treats him like he is. She snatches the microphone from him and, when he starts to protest, threatens him with her weapon. After she’s done hijacking the feed, she shoves him on her way out.

Look at how scared this guy is. These are our heroes? This back and forth doesn’t work. Prior to his random killing spree, Ironwood took his fear and frustration out on some furniture, yet the show acted as if he was hurting real people. The mere possibility that he might use violence and intimidation to achieve heroic goals—getting Amity up/escaping Salem—was enough to label him as an antagonist because the understanding was that you can’t act like that no matter what your intentions are. Yet our current heroes can use as much violence and intimidation as they want to achieve their own heroic goal of warning the people? Do we think the story will encourage us to be critical of the group if they start beating up a bunch of Atlas goons to reach the access point? Of course not. And it’s that flip-flopping that’s the problem. Your heroes have to function differently than the villains in order for them to be heroes. Under that logic, our heroes haven’t acted like heroes since mid-Volume 6 and it’s getting harder and harder to watch.

Especially when we take the scene before this into account. Yup, we’ve still got Qrow gunning for Ironwood. Robyn bemoans the fact that they can’t do anything, to which Qrow replies, “We can do something. We can kill the man who put us here.” I… feel like I shouldn’t start repeating myself given how long this recap is—we’ll be here for forever lol—BUT I hope everyone reading this understands precisely how little this makes sense. How god awful a choice it is. I mean c’mon. Robyn attacked Clover unprovoked, Qrow teamed up with Tyrian, he broke Clover’s aura, Tyrian murdered him, Salem is here, and now he’s sitting in a cell with Watts and Jacques… but Ironwood is the guy he wants to kill? REALLY, QROW? THAT’S WHO YOU’RE GOING TO GO AFTER? I really can’t with this show sometimes. RWBY, put your clown makeup on.

We get a cut to Ironwood’s image just so there’s no confusion about who Qrow wants to help kill next and Joanna threatens that reporter who, you know, is also a citizen in need of help and protection… Her “General Ironwood has abandoned you, but we have not” sounds absolutely ridiculous when we just watched her intimidating this guy to get what she wants. ‘You can trust us! Unless we randomly decide we don’t like you.’ I have other things to say about Yang calling out that racist woman later on, but she gets props for helping her regardless. Honestly, I don’t get that sense from the cast very often: that they’d help you even if they don’t agree with you. They certainly didn’t offer that to Ozpin, Ironwood, or the Ace Ops.

There’s a very long shot of a scared toddler staring out the window, just to hammer home how young and innocent Mantle is. Seriously, pay attention to our imagery: Mantle is scared children in homes, cute children fist-bumping Jaune, family photos lost in the street, a stuffed toy run over by hoverbikes. It’s meant to evoke a general sense of domesticity and, again, innocence. Meanwhile, Atlas is only shown via Ironwood and Jacques, the villains. Where are the families living up in the sky? The children? The humanizing details? Our racist woman is an outlier who is quickly silenced by Yang. The rest of Mantle is characterized as victims: scared women, worried fathers, the faunus huddling together in the slums, even another racist who, while an asshole, is supposed to have a point about things like the embargo. Which is all true. These characters are all of these things, it’s just that they’re not unique in this. All this exists above too—from those families, to the faunus slave labor, to the beloved objects that remind you of someone’s worth—but they’re ignored to provide a simplistic look at Atlas as the villain. 

Throughout this entire episode the group tosses out snide remarks about how “They” don’t care about you and it’s just… they who? The other thousands of innocents who have nothing to do with Ironwood? The hundreds of Mantle citizens you already evacuated? The redeemable people like Winter and Whitley? The group fights alongside a Schnee who was one of the most vocal racists a year and a half ago, yet writes off the entirety of Atlas as the bad guys. What a mess.

As Joanna’s voiceover finishes, we cut to Yang’s group going after Pietro’s tech. I already covered this scene in our promo material, but to summarize here: horrible tone. Absolutely nonsensical given the situation. Salem is here and Yang is giggling over bikes. In fact, the tone is off for most of the episode (our end being the wonderful exception): Yang’s joy ride, antics with the Mantle citizens, Blake poking fun at Weiss, the tube scene… none of it fits the context of the series’ big bad here to kill everyone. Arguments along the lines of, “But it can’t be doom and gloom all the time” or “This is a brilliant parallel to Volume 3 with happy times heralding tragedy” don’t erase the fact that our cast isn’t taking this threat seriously. Last week Weiss’ “We’re never going to sleep again” moment worked because it’s humor in the context of how bad everything is. All of this? It’s just the group goofing off despite supposedly being in mortal danger. This?

This doesn’t read well. I’d argue this scene is even worse in context due to lines like “The others are definitely missing out.” In our promo material I assumed that the group just split for the sake of splitting and they were, in fact, just missing out on something cool. But we’ve since learned that they split due to a fundamental disagreement about how to help people, a split Ruby compared to Salem’s plans, a split that Yang started! Why is she now acting like their separation is a funny “missing out” moment? It’s like if half your friend group decided to go to the movies while the other half went to a party with an unexpectedly good DJ. The movie-goers are people who are “missing out,” not the group who went off to take over a military base and everyone left angry.

Keep in mind that Ozpin is also back. Every fun times scene with Oscar in it has the added problem of Ozpin hanging back, not saying anything, not acknowledged, still a secret.

The other issue I brought up weeks back was the lack of grimm. Why are the streets deserted? Shouldn’t the army be overrunning the city? Well, turns out that there’s no army because… Salem just hasn’t bothered to send it into the city yet? When Jaune and Ren take out the low-level grimm Oscar asks if they’ve “already pushed this far in,” to which Yang replies, “No, I think those are from last night.” A few minutes later, last night’s grimm change to new non-Salem grimm as Oscar observes, “It’s the negativity. Salem’s forces aren’t moving in, but it’s enough to attract the stragglers.” Later still, Joanna asks, “…grimm are circling out there. What are they waiting for?” GOOD QUESTION. We don’t know, but it’s real convenient, isn’t it? RWBY redeems itself a bit at the end of this episode with that Hound grimm, but I’m still calling it out for having Salem hold off long enough for the group to evacuate pretty much all of Mantle and infiltrate the base. That’s real nice of her. As the characters keep pointing out, it would be a staggeringly different situation if they were overrun with grimm right now, huh? Kind of like the situation Ironwood (rightfully) assumed they’d be dealing with.

Again, I’m so glad our Big Bad is kind enough to let the heroes do everything they need to before lifting a finger to attack them.

RWBY seems to be setting up a, “See! There was always time to evacuate the city!” accusation even though no one could have known that and it makes zero logical sense. Salem brings an army with her so she can not use the army against Atlas? Right…

This all segues directly into our other promo scene. My initial comments still stand: the tone doesn’t work, the lack of urgency doesn’t work (Jaune playing with the kid, Oscar politely knocking on doors), the low-level grimm are not a threat, that shield is useless against anything not driven by plot convenience, and it’s weird for Jaune to be yelling, “Heads up!” when there’s no one in front of him. As said, this moment really doesn’t sit well given everything that’s going on. I had hoped that it would read better when seen in the episode itself, but that’s sadly not the case.  

After Ren one-shots the grimm Jaune suggests that they use his amplified semblance to get everyone to the crater safely. Ren seems less than pleased about this, but agrees. Right now, it’s easy to say that he’s in a bad mood because Nora is mad at him, but what about the Volume before? Where’s this underlying tension coming from? I can come up with lots of theories, but at some point the show needs to confirm something. The longer we go not explaining what’s wrong with Ren, the less faith I have that it will make sense when we get it.

We see the racist woman upset that they have to go live with the “animals in the slums” rather than going up to Atlas. As said, I like that Yang helps her despite clearly hating the woman, I also think her criticism holds up well (ignoring the simplified ‘They abandoned you’ narrative). The only thing that bugs me is RWBY continually presenting racism as a problem to throw a band-aid on and then pat yourself on the back for ‘solving.’ Racist drunk says shit? Toss him in the trash! Racist woman says shit? Remind her that her survival depends on you! It’s not that these responses aren’t earned, but that we’re given them instead of an actual arc that tackles the complexities of this issue. I mean, Blake has abandoned the White Fang and we’ve barely mentioned the faunus slave labor in Atlas. When they head to the dust facility it’s conveniently run by bots instead of faunus. Can you imagine if Weiss Schnee walked into a group of exploited minorities, hoping to use them to access a military base? But of course, there’s nothing like that. RWBY ignores the actual issues for these simple solutions. Heroes just attack/threaten racists and then it all goes away. Yay.

The other problem with this scene is that we learn the crater is the slums. Um… what? Hold on, Joanna made it sound like it’s a separate place, potentially inhabited by grimm, yet it’s the same area Oscar was in last episode? How is that area warmer? This makes no sense to me.

Also, ha, the crater below Atlas apparently houses all the “animals” that Team RWBYJNR is very protective of. I’m waiting for them to do something that messes with the Staff—Ruby reaching for it in the opening—Atlas crashes down on a whole city of exploited minorities, and then Ironwood is blamed for it somehow. Can’t wait for that episode.

So the group starts making their way there and hark! An Ozpin! I’m always thrilled to hear him, even if he’s treated just terribly by the show. Oscar is at the back of the group and comments that “It should not be this hard just getting people to cooperate.” Except… they are cooperating? Oscar, you are watching them cooperate right in front of you. That one woman might grumble a bit, but she hasn’t made a move or said a word about not doing what you say. Where did this complaint come from? Another example of RWBY insisting something is there when it simply isn’t. More importantly, Ozpin responds:

“And yet, it’s becoming something I’m increasingly concerned about.”

“You know, I really don’t need your additional comments right now.”

Then why did you comment out loud, Oscar? What, do you normally talk to yourself like that? You were clearly speaking to Ozpin! Don’t criticize him for responding. I hate traps like that.

Ozpin immediately says that Oscar has every right to be upset and apologizes for leaving… it’s not apologizing for his entire existence like I wrote on the bingo board, but it’s close. Who’s surprised that Ozpin is the first to offer (another) apology? Not me. Oscar corrects him with, “I’m upset you came back!”

Okay. Here’s the thing. I like the idea of Oscar rejecting Ozpin both because he’s taken over his life and because Oscar has suffered horribly due to Ozpin’s presence (punched, slammed into walls, kidnapping attempts, etc.) That makes sense, it’s actually morally complex, and it’s great groundwork for character growth. The only problem is… this came out of nowhere. Oscar was shown accepting this new life when he left the farm. Then again when he insisted on fighting Hazel. Then again all the times he’s been told he’s acting like Ozpin and seems to accept that just fine. He’s clearly pleased with this new badass self he’s got going on—he even says as much—yet doesn’t want to acknowledge Ozpin as the catalyst for all this positive change. Okay, that’s something we could still work through, but what about the group? Fans are already theorizing that this is why Oscar is keeping Ozpin a secret, because he’s scared of how the group will react, punishing him to get at Ozpin again, and though he 100% has reasons for thinking that will happen, Oscar hasn’t shown that fear before now. Qrow punches him? Bonding moment with Ruby. Jaune attacks him? I made you all dinner. They all smile over his inevitable death/disappearance? He smiles back. Yang is the most scream-y? Happy to have her using him as an armrest. The group continually ignores him and treats him with suspicion? Not a peep of protest. It’s horrifying that Oscar accepted how the group previously treated him, but he did accept it. Where did this fear come from if we haven’t seen it in response to the harm done towards him? Just as importantly, can’t we have an arc where Oscar is mad at the team some too? I’ll admit that the general premise of blaming Ozpin makes sense for the traumatized fourteen-year old, but after two years of blaming Ozpin for everything… aren’t we sick of this? His team has actively hurt him, outside of Ozpin’s ability to prevent, yet Ozpin is the one who takes all the heat for their behavior. “I felt like I was actually part of the team” should lead to the realization of, “Hey, Yang shouldn’t yell at both of us for things outside of our control” not, “Hey, you should stay away forever because others have decided they don’t like you.”

All of this following Ozpin saving Oscar’s life in the airship. Then saving his life again after Ironwood shot him. Our heroes are real grateful, huh. I hate that RWBY is taking another fave and doing them dirty, though I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. 

Ozpin also mentions his magic—would be nice if Oscar brought that up with the team!—and that he is now “recollecting my longest held memories.” He…is? When? Don’t you think that’s something important to show us? We keep being told that “the merge” is occurring but not shown what that actually means. Seriously, when did Oscar get slammed with that many memories??

Please just use the aura machine and give Ozpin a robot body. RT doesn’t have the chops for writing this situation.

As they continue on towards the crater Ren snaps at Jaune about not needing a “pep talk.” Jaune looks annoyed at the attitude which, fair. It says a lot about the writing the last few years that Jaune is the character I’m least frustrated with lol. Likely because they haven’t had him do anything lately which, given that he’s not one of the title characters and our cast is bloated enough as it is, I’m still totally fine with.

Ozpin concludes the scene with, “We need to find a way to work together. Not just the two of us, all of us” with the camera panning up to look at Atlas. I’m glad someone isn’t ready to throw Ironwood under the bus. Given how the group reacted to him sparing Lionheart’s name though, I don’t think they’ll follow Ozpin in his forgiveness. If anything, I expect this perspective to just be more hate fuel.  

We move to Ruby’s group which now includes May. Woohoo! She still hasn’t gotten half the screen time as Joanna, but I’m really glad she’s here. In fact, between a useful semblance and that adorable courtesy, I love her already. Despite, you know, helping the team break into the base and all that. Everyone has their flaws lol.  

She also frames the Amity plan as getting the world “talking again.” Why is everything presented like a fun romp rather than avoiding death via Salem? Absolutely terrible tone this episode.

The group hilariously waltzes past a sign labeled AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY and enters the dust facility with the bots I mentioned earlier. This I do like. My hypothetical scenario incorporating the racism issue aside, I like that Weiss is using her knowledge and connections to further the mission, rather than something conveniently dropping into the group’s lap. Like Amity suddenly being ready for launch…So yeah, it makes sense that Weiss would know of a potential way in.  

Sending someone up through the tubes though? Ehhh… I know they have aura and everything—and that Zwei was once mailed—but are we sure this is safe?? Doesn’t matter because Nora sends Weiss through with a misplaced button press. Good thing that was the tube heading to the base. Too bad Weiss is heading to a guarded military base alone. It should have been May going first with her semblance activated, but no. Chuck this onto the ever increasing ‘Bad Tone’ pile. There should not be giggles over Weiss being in that level of danger, especially with everything else going on. Ruby’s expression is the only one on point.

Before Weiss is yeeted off though, Penny and Ruby have a talk wherein Ruby lies her ass off. Penny says, “I do not like it when friends fight” and when Ruby starts talking about Yang she corrects her, revealing that she’s actually thinking about Winter and Ironwood. “They were our friends.”

I was ready to sing Penny’s praises and really, she still gets credit for being the only one who has acknowledged this, but her opinion is (once again) overridden by Ruby’s. Penny goes, “but then the Ace Ops attacked you” which Ruby doesn’t bother to correct. How would Penny know otherwise? The only information she has about that battle is what Ruby has told her, but Ruby is lying via omission here. The Ace Ops never attacked her. They very explicitly refused to start a fight. Ruby attacked them. Then when Penny is upset that Ironwood said “people were going to die because of me,” Ruby takes her by the shoulders and angrily insists, “That was a lie and he was only saying it to hurt you.”

Ruby… you’re the one lying. You know damn well Ironwood didn’t just say that to hurt Penny. Oh yeah, the general trying to keep a kingdom alive from an immortal witch is preoccupied with hurting Penny’s feelings for no reason other than being evil. That makes sense. More importantly, Ironwood is right. Look, I’m by no means blaming Penny for anything. She fought off Cinder, took the power when there was no other choice, and has now gotten caught up in Ruby’s plans which include incredibly misleading information that Penny has no reason to question. She’s doing her best and deserves that hug. But that doesn’t mean she lacks responsibility here. Ironwood needs Penny to evacuate. Penny—listening to Ruby—won’t help him. Ergo, if something happens to the people up in Atlas Penny will be partly responsible. If I have the key to a door with lots of people trapped behind it as a fire rages, and I refuse to open that door, I have indeed allowed a lot of people to die. As Penny says, she didn’t want this responsibility… but she has it. She has to deal with it. Too bad she’s with Ruby who encourages her to ignore it instead, insisting that nothing bad that happens after their choices could in any way be connected to them. Kind of like Qrow ignoring his own actions against Clover.

Because that’s the takeaway from this scene. Penny had empathy for their friends and then Ruby talked her out of it. She never even acknowledges that those were indeed seven friends that she betrayed. That’s horrible.

What happened to Ruby? I used to love this girl.

Continuing our tone issue, Nora is watching this show like her favorite soap is on. Okay then.

Weiss goes up the tube and then we cut to Fiona saying that… the Mantle police are helping them evacuate? So the military is bad, but the police are good? I need to stop trying to make sense of RWBY’s allegory.

When Yang and the others return Fiona makes an innocent comment about being worried about how they’d fare without the rest of their team. Yang is pissed.

Ah, so we’re back to her giving allies attitude for random observations. Remember the anger at Marrow for suggesting she and Blake try different team-ups? Now here Yang is, in a different team-up, doing quite well. Funny how we never acknowledge who first suggested that. Now, Fiona reveals a totally logical worry that losing four fighters might make a difference when fending off grimm, but Yang is poised to be angry at everyone, about everything, all the time. Which I get is something that a lot of fans like. I’ve already seen a couple of posts praising RT for letting Robyn and Yang be angry without consequences because women often can’t do that and, fair. That is indeed one way to read it. My problem is that their anger is actually irrational, not just called as much because we women are ~emotional~. Their anger isn’t justified: Robyn because she had a significant hand in all this nonsense (that she’s ignoring) and Yang because it’s clear Fiona means no harm here. This is anger that needs to be called out, not ignored because yay women expressing emotion. That kind of defense is reserved for a woman’s justified anger that needs to be expressed without criticism, especially in a narrative that tries to undermine her perspective. But what has Fiona done to Yang? Nothing. More importantly, the show has yet to teach Yang a better coping mechanism than lashing out at people, be it with her fists, words, or angry glares. Yang has been through the ringer and it makes sense that she’s angry, but that doesn’t mean she gets a lifelong pass to treat those around her badly. 

Anyway, Joanna says they have a lot of people to keep warm even though the crater was supposed to be warmer? And they’re stealing dust? So what are they using it for it not heat? We’re not seeing any difference here and frankly all the civilians should be dead by now. Or at least entering hypothermia. (Give me that conflict: how do you keep people safe when they’re not all conveniently up for walking all the way to the slums?) Joanna also says that they’re trying to get the “Old mine shafts into a livable condition” which would take how long exactly? In fact, I’d say our timeline is already wonky. We’ve watched Yang hide the Ace Ops last Volume, fly to Winter and Penny, find the Happy Huntresses, wait around for Oscar to show up, ran off on her own at some point to scout, went to get bikes, evacuated all those people to the (far away) slums, then went back out to fight off the grimm. That had to have taken up a good chunk of the night, though it’s impossible to tell the time with Atlas’ snowy sky. I’m leaning towards a bingo mark though…

The faunus who I thought was a badger or something is… a bear I guess? He has a bear-like paw, but his nails seem too long… I honestly don’t know. But he’s Fiona’s uncle! Cute. She's off to deal with a fight that’s starting while the group goes to fight more grimm. Finally, the episode gets good.

The teamwork to take out the dragon grimm was nice, always glad to see it, but the real fight starts when two more grunts show up and then immediately run away. What could have scared them off?

The Hound. (I’m sorry, all I can think of is Game of Thrones when I write that, but it seems to be the name the fandom is adopting, so…) Remember how I said it was unlikely to be a threat on its own? I WAS WRONG. Holy shit this thing is terrifying. It snatches Oscar and in some wonderfully quick animation absolutely obliterates the kid. Oscar is thrown around like a chew toy, desperately trying to rabbit kick at this thing and it does [checks notes] absolutely nothing. I’d normally say something about our farm boy always getting the shit kicked out of him, but this scene was too good for my salt.

Then it changes shape, growing arms, and starts using Oscar as a shield. Yang can’t pull back in time and is snagged by her head, the Hound tossing her into the wall hard enough to break the stone. She’s still conscious though and warns the others about its strategy.

“But grimm aren’t that smart,” Jaune says. Maybe if you kids (Fiona keeps calling them kids) had stayed in school you would have learned that grimm get smarter with age! Oobleck knew that. Or, just as likely, this is a special Salem grimm. Hard to say at this point.

The point though is that the group is helpless in the face of this monster. I do want to emphasize this. I’ve seen a few people criticizing them for not doing enough to save Oscar and it’s like, what did you want them to do? Yang tried to attack and the grimm nearly had her hitting Oscar instead. Ren tried to attack and the grimm changed so fast his weapon was useless. Factor in that morphing—which the group has never seen before—the horror of Oscar hanging there limp, and the general fighter response of, ‘I can’t just keep attacking head on because that thing might kill me,’ and you realize the group was screwed from the start. They can’t stand up against this thing, not without a good strategy anyway, which there’s no time to think up. For the first time in years, ever since Tyrian, Salem actually made the right, villainous call.

Ren screams, “Give him back!”—which was just lovely in an angsty way—and the grimm creepily cuddles Oscar against his chest. Then he responds, “No.” Yeah, they’ve never seen that before either. Can you blame them for their shock? I’m impressed that they were on their bikes just seconds later, managing to keep the grimm in sight. That speaks to their combat experience. Not the ability to power through a situation where they’re clearly outmatched, but their ability to pick themselves back up and try again.

... Ah, so that’s why Pietro was oh so randomly making them bikes. The plot needed a way for them to keep up with a flying grimm. Got it.

My takeaway? RT should be writing horror. They’re far better at it. The animation, sound effects, voice acting, the grimm’s speech and protective instincts, that splatter of goo on Oscar’s cheek… 

... stellar all around. Like the Apathy, this is the best I think RWBY has been since the lore episode of Volume 6. Granted, action sequences like this aren’t required to grapple with any of the messy morals and character consistency of other scenes, but still. If RWBY had just given me a lighthearted ‘Girls fight cartoon monsters’ show or a horror fueled ‘Girls fight monster abominations’ show, I’d have been happy. This? This is the only redeeming part of the episode. And it’s indeed one hell of a redemption. Look at this thing!

I’m not going to say it erases all the bad we got—it doesn’t—or that it likewise erases problems like Salem not using the rest of her army, but it’s a notable step in the right direction. This grimm is a threat. This grimm is a mountain the cast has to overcome. If this is the minion its master should be Everest. I still think this Volume is going down the tubes fast (it’s going the way of Weiss lol), but if it can give me more scenes like this? It might not be a total loss.

Last thing to acknowledge: What about Ozpin? I’ll admit it doesn’t look good. Given how fast he takes control he should have been able to override Oscar’s will and at least fight back a little with that spectacular magic we saw during the finale. So why didn’t he? I hope we get an in-world explanation: it happened so fast even Ozpin couldn’t do anything (shaky, but I’ll take it in a pinch), now that the merge is farther along he can no longer take control—something. Because I can easily imagine how quickly the fandom, and even the cast, will turn on him for not playing deus ex machina here. In reality, I think Ozpin didn’t take control simply because the plot needed him not to. The writers needed Oscar kidnapped so any potential out from that is conveniently forgotten… which is another knock against their writing, despite how great the scene otherwise was. The point is to take all these potential pushbacks and find a satisfying way to circumvent them, not pretend they don’t exist. RT can still save themselves here by providing that explanation later, so I hope they’re smart enough to do that. Ozpin has been blamed for everything at this point. His own kidnapping doesn’t need to be added to the list.

Also, still no word on Schrödinger's councilman. We’ve got to wait another week to see whether he’s dead or not.

Finally, let’s update the bingo card!

I’m crossing off “Ruby gives an ‘inspiring’ speech built on ignoring facts she doesn’t like” for that conversation with Penny. Yeah, it’s a speech to her alone about her worth, but Ruby mischaracterized the situation so badly I’m mad at her lol

I never thought the story would straight up just not have the grimm army attacking, so I think I’ll hold off on “Army of grimm conveniently doesn’t kill any civilians” until we see if/when it gets involved.

I’ll likewise hold off on the timeline slot until we see how bad things get…

Maria is on thin ice given that we have no idea what she’s supposedly doing while the group is off on their missions. Stay tuned.

Today we’re crossing off “Deadly cold conveniently doesn’t kill any civilians.” They should all be dropping like flies by now.

A friend pointed out that Cinder’s Cinderella flashback counts as an “Overly obvious fairy tale allusion.” In fact, I talked about how much of a shorthand that is, so that’s getting a mark.

From last week I’ve also decided to include Amity for “Retconning previous lore.” Now that the group is fully underway with their plan it reads as even more egregious that we were told it wasn’t ready.

I’ll hold off on Ozpin’s space for a while. See if he apologizes to the whole group and, if so, exactly what for.

“Oscar is finally kidnapped”—check!

Well, that’s a whole lot of headway this week. Can’t wait to see where the next episode takes us... Here’s hoping we spend a lot of time with that Hound. MVP of the episode.

Until next time! 💜

[Ko-Fi]

[rachelbethhines]

Tangled Salt Marathon - Short Cuts

So the reviews for Rapunzel’s Return are taking longer then expected and due to real life complications I’ve now fallen behind in my intended schedule. So in order to catch up, I’ll be doing a series of rapid-fire mini reviews of all the official shorts that the series released in addition to the usual reviews. 

Summary: Ten shorts were released throughout the three seasons of the show detailing Rapunzel’s misadventures in Corona. 

 Check Mate

Pascal tries to get Max to play chess with him, but the horse is too busy with guard duty to play. Pascal’s antics wind up causing a fire and Max must save him. 

This short, plus the later Unicorn-y short, and the episode Pascal’s Story pretty much confirms that chess is pascal’s favorite game. Shame that’s the only idiosyncrasy that the series gives besides being the conscious of the group that sometimes gives the other characters guilty looks.  

I said it before and I’ll say again, the animal sidekicks in the franchise don’t have enough personality to carry whole episodes by themselves, but shorts like this are ok and where things like this should have stayed.   

Prison Bake

Attila recounts how he used his baking skills to break his fellow pub thugs out of prison back before they met Rapunzel. 

This just raises so many questions. Why were they arrested? What was their punishment besides jail? Why weren’t they just re-arrested later after escaping? If they were all wanted criminals before meeting Raps then why did they try to call the guards during the movie to collect the reward money on Eugene’s head? Do we really think “crack-down on crime” Frederic would pardon them before Rapunzel’s return? How do we know they weren’t just framed given how shitty Corona’s legal system is? 

Like I just need a tiny bit more context show. Two to three minutes isn’t really long enough to set up conflicts. These shorts should have been more like five or six minutes really. 

Also Ludwig the Castle Cook is also just wasted. They built a model for him and hired a VA and everything and all he does is appear in this one short and nothing else. Like I think he makes a non-speaking cameo in The Alchemist Returns or something, but that’s it. It’s a clear mismanagement of resources.  

Make Me Smile

Rapunzel tries unsuccessfully to make Old Lady Crowley smile, but it’s not until she holds an honest conversation with the woman does she find a solution. 

This is best short out of the bunch, and not just cause it stars the great Pat Carol either. 

This is how Rapunzel should have been handled in the main series proper. Which is why I screen-grabbed this whole convo. It’s perfect. 

Rapunzel spent 18 years lock in a tower. Of course she doesn’t understand different perspectives from her own cause her development has been stunted. She’s compassionate but lacks empathy. So she has a hard time connecting with others, but once she slows down an actually takes the time to listen to people she is capable of learning. 

We needed more of this; just on a larger scale. Have Raps make mistakes, have people be annoyed with her or right angry when she messes up, and then have her learn. 

Why the series thought it was a good idea to have everyone kiss her royal arse instead while she dug in her heels and consendinly took charge of everything even while still screwing up, I’ll never know. 

Hare Peace

Feldspar asks Rapunzel to take care of his “precious”. Rapunzel thinks he means a pet rabbit, and is run ragged trying to keep up with it, but it turns out he was talking about his prized cabbage instead. 

These shorts overall work a lot better than the main show. They know what they are and don’t try to be anything else. Therefore they deliver what is promised competently. They’re nothing amazing nor groundbreaking and in truth I wouldn’t want a whole series of them, but I get the feeling this is what the head executives at Disney were expecting when they signed off on the show and not whatever mess the main series turned out to be. 

Night Bite

Rapunzel, Eugene, and the animals are out camping for the night and Max gets irritated by all the bugs. 

What doesn’t work so well is the placement of some of the shorts. This particular short aired during season two and indeed that would make sense given that they are camping out here. Which why would they do that if they were still in Corona... 

Yet some of the later shorts, which also aired during season two, clearly do take place in Corona debunking that theory. Just some context would be nice show, that’s all. 

Also this short is meh.. not bad, not, good, just there.  

Hiccup Fever

Rapunzel gets the hiccups and everyone in Corona seems to have advice on how to get rid of them, but only Eugene has the solution. 

I’d argue that this is the funniest of the shorts. I legit laughed out loud at some points which is rare. 

However it does sadly prove on thing. 

Rapunzel was always a shit girlfriend, even before season three. 

Being a douche to your boyfriend isn’t funny show. 

Snowball

Rapunzel and Pascal plan to have some fun in the snow and things go awry.   

So where and when is this exactly?

Unlike the other shorts, the context and setting for this one is paramount to whether or not Rapunzel is a simply lazy or a an outright dick. 

For you see, Rapunzel had never been outside in the show before Queen for a Day. Ergo, this can only take place during the latter half of season one or during season two. 

Now season two makes a lot of sense. They’re at some cabin in the woods that was never mentioned are seen on screen before and this did air during season two anyways. If that is the case then Raps just avoiding her planned road trip like always. 

However, the last short and the next two also aired during season two and all of those do take place in Corona during season one and even the wiki states that they were all meant to take place during season one in original concept. 

Yet if that is the case then Rapunzel is ignoring Varian right now and playing around in the thing that almost killed him... 

Oh and that still doesn’t explain where this cabin is. Is it the mountain retreat that the King and Queen were going to spend their anniversary at? 

What’s really mind boggling though is that they made this short in order to reuse the character models from Queen for a Day in order to save money, but then went and built this whole set that’s never seen outside of this short. 

Like seriously who was on charge of the budget decisions in the series? 

Hairdon't

Rapunzel offers to cut Eugene’s hair but then messes it up. She spends all day trying to stop Eugene from seeing his new do, but turns out the hairstyle becomes a hit with the Corona townspeople. 

Rapunzel seriously lucked out here and it borderlines on the main series style levels of BS. She asks Eugene not to get upset before he sees what she’s done and, guess what, he is rightly upset. 

Honestly the series needed to let Eugene get angry at Rapunzel for stuff. That’s what happens in relationships, you will make your partner mad at times and that’s ok. It’s all about how both of you handle that. 

We never get to see how Eugene and Rapunzel would handle a real ordinary conflict and not just magic/ex girlfriend shenanigans that don't end with them putting off talking about it. 

Even their best episodes in season two still are over conflicts that don’t have any immediate impact on their lives and are mostly hypotheticals to them, like kids or how other people should approach dating. And of course by season three Eugene is just reduced to a doormat. 

Unicorn-y

Rapunzel tries to help Vladimir find his missing prized unicorn figurine in this spoof of old detective movies. Turns out Max and Pascal had found it and were using it to play chess. 

Ok, first off, Eugene has the patience of a saint and deserves so much better than Raps and her bullcrap here. Same goes for Lance who is tied up as well during this scene. 

But also this is another short that needed to be more than three mins long. The “mystery” is over before it even starts and the film noir parody only barely has time register in the viewer’s mind and then it’s over with. 

Shorty’s Theme Song Takeover! 

The last of the shorts aired after the show had ended as part of the Disney Channel’s on going promotional gimmick “Theme Song Takeover!” 

Shorty finds Rapunzel’s journal and sings his own version of the show’s theme song, “Wind in my Beard”. 

It’s ok. 

All of Disney’s animated shows for the 2019/2020 line up has done one and some are funnier than than this and others not so. The Shorty one is pretty middle ground but what makes it work is that Rapunzel is completely oblivious to what’s going on and only Shorty, always the anomaly of the series, can perceive the fourth wall. Thus proving he was never really human. 

As for placement, we know it’s season three cause of Rapunzel’s dress and they’re mostly likely inside the Snuggly Duckling right now. So just slot it in wherever you see fit. 

Conclusion 

That’s it for the shorts. The rest of Rapunzel’s Return should be up later this week and then hopefully I’ll be all caught up in time to cover the next episode next week. 

[sapphic-yang]

RWBY Volume 7: Chapter 11 - Gravity

Thoughts & Theories

1. So Salem killed Summer...Ooof. I’ve been thinking for awhile that the reason people don’t about Salem is that she’s be en imprisoned for a long time. And since Salem hunts Silver-Eyed Warriors and she’s at least part Grimm, it stands to reason the SEWs keep petrifying her. I’m thinking Summer tried to and failed. Kudos to CRWBY though for making these shots of Summer chilling. Last volume we saw her on this cliff bathed in dawn light, smiling and happy. Now we see...the truth? Ominous dark clouds, the grass is wilting...

2. “Ironwood no! I trusted you!” said literally no one. Just as the cowardly lion couldn’t find his courage, the tin man couldn’t find his heart. He’s willing to do anything to stop Salem, but he refuses to learn that stopping Salem from burning the world doesn’t mean anything if you do it for her. Salem loves to Divide & Conquer. So Ironwood finally flipping out is not surprising, but I love the foreshadowing form episode 8 of Cinder’s chess piece troll.

And he does get bad-ass point for getting his skin burnt off. Not enough points to stop the girls from sending this dictator plummeting to earth before the volume’s done though.

3. Ironwood mentions the ‘timeline’ like Cinder did last episode. Not sure what to make of that...perhaps just artistic mirroring, or is their another level of this scheming we haven’t gotten to yet.

4. While JNR are obviously team RWBY ride or die, I’m curious how Clover will react. He seemed shocked, and I have a feeling because of his feelings for Qrow he’s going to turn on Ironwood. The theme of the Volume is Trust Love, the other Aesops refuse to have relationships that would cause them to follow their hearts, but now Clover does.

We also don’t really see how Penny and Winter react...could this split them up? I’m thinking yes.

5. Team RWBY vs the Ace-Ops. Oh Boy. Predicting Ruby vs Harriet & Yang vs Elm.

Marrow (he looks so sad to be doing this!) would be a cool fight vs either Weiss or Blake, not sure which will fight Vine. I doubt any of the Ace-Ops will die though. Or possibly, Just a straight up Blake and Yang vs Elm and vine, while Ruby races Harriet and Marrow...lets Weiss go. If Winter’s getting those Maiden powers, Weiss should be there.

6. Ruby was so good in this episode. Defying Ironwood at every turn, I’m so proud! Her writing has really improved over the last couple volumes and this scene is the new peak.

But I’m worried bout those eyes. She had trouble activating them last episode, and now we see her breakdown causing them go haywire, just like with Pyrrha. Will she be able to rein them it when it’s time?

7. I’m kinda worried about Jaune. Yang flipped when she found out Cinder was alive, he may explode. Especially since he’s undoubtedly having Beacon flashbacks.

And BOY IS THIS SHOT FAMILIAR!

8. Winter’s going to die...I get the feeling Penny is going to leave her to confront Ironwood about his BS and Cinder will follow her right to Fria.

It’s very possible she gets the powers before Cinder gets to her. But as we saw with Raven, experience matters. Cinder’s had her powers for, what, a year? I think Winter is done for sadly.

9. Well....shit, Oscar got kidnapped for realz this time! I’m guessing Neo??

10. Bees sighting of the week: I love that Yang immediately defends Blake when everyone leaps on her about Robyn. So cute, so hot, so loving. Also, the way she flinched back when Ironwood asked if she was with him...*Adam flashbacks* much?

[phoenix-downer]

Sora and Xehanort: The True King vs. The Pretender to the Throne

Sora fighting Xehanort in Scala ad Caelum was kind of like watching a king reclaim his throne from a pretender who caused nothing but havoc in ruin in the king’s absence. Credit to @rapis-razuri​ for first making the connection and then telling me about it.

Let’s back up a bit first, though. Verum Rex, the video game featured in Toy Box, means True King in Latin.

And while yes, this is no doubt a reference to Versus XIII, I also want to consider the idea of true kings in the context of KH3. 

Sora has his first confrontation with Xehanort in Toy Box (albeit Young Xehanort). The true king (Sora) goes up against the pretender (Xehanort), and Sora doesn’t even hesitate to attack him in a sequence that shows that no, Sora is not over what Xehanort tried to do to him in DDD...

...but unfortunately Xehanort manages to grab him...

...and casts him out/banishes him, i.e. throws him into the video game where the gigas are. 

Fourth wall? What fourth wall?

But Sora fights his way out and makes his way back to his friends... much like how later in the game, he is cast out of the realm of the living... 

...and then fights his way back to his friends and rescues them.

In San Fransokyo, Sora meets Xehanort again after he finds all his friends’ hearts... except Kairi’s.

Look how hostile he is right off the bat towards him:

He just glares at him even while Xehanort... tells the truth for once and warns him what’s going to happen to him?

Sora’s not having it though and is sure to sass him:

And Xehanort’s parting words are chilling:

And then Sora goes back to the Keyblade Graveyard and... well, we all know how things went from there.

Xehanort wants power, no matter what the cost... and he’ll sacrifice whatever it takes to get it. Including Kairi.

And by the time we get to Scala ad Caelum... there’s a marked change in Sora’s interactions with him. No more sass. No more discussion. Sora doesn’t take Xehanort’s BS at all.

Seriously, almost every time he looks at Xehanort, he’s glaring at him or regarding him with the contempt and disgust he deserves. This is the man who killed the girl he loves enough to become a Heartless for - and later on in this very game actually died for! - and it hits Sora where it hurts. Like a king losing his queen when the pretender tries to take over his throne, Kairi’s loss wounds Sora deeply.

And, of course... the game of chess isn’t over if the queen’s gone - the king must be captured for that to happen - but all the same, the king’s left a lot more vulnerable without her.

But, queen at his side or not, he still has to win and beat the guy who made his friends’ lives hell and has made his life hell, too.

His eyebrows are furrowed and he has his hand on his Keyblade, ready to fight:

Xehanort is dressed in goat/ram armor for one of the battles, and goats... well, they’re associated with the devil, among other things, so the parallel is very fitting here. Sora probably felt like he was fighting Satan at this point.

Shoutout to Donald for being equally disgusted/angry with him:

The sky starting to go dark reflects Sora’s mood pretty well here:

Sora just looks at him with utter loathing and disgust, which is such a huge change from his usual friendly/cheerful demeanor:

Even when he’s looking up at him it’s with his head pulled back to make himself look as big/tall as possible. In other words, he isn’t giving Xehanort any sort of deference because he never in a million years deserves it.

Donald and Goofy are equally pissed and it really shows:

Even when Sora’s surprised/unsure about what’s going on he’s still glaring and gritting his teeth:

And when Xehanort took Sora’s light, I’m pretty sure I gasped. Not just because I really liked Rage Form in this game and love any sort of exploration of Sora’s darkness, but because...

Well, Xehanort already took Sora’s light from him. Kairi. Kairi’s his light. This moment really drives that point home. Sora’s still feeling rage and fury and grief over her death, over losing her, and that comes out all at once and boy was it satisfying to wail on Xehanort like this:

Fight darkness with darkness!

Even when he’s desperate and about to die, he’s still just furious at Xehanort and that’s reflected in his demeanor:

And finally, FINALLY, he wins. Xehanort is no longer towering over him. They’re on equal footing now. Sora has dragged him off his high horse and defeated him. Not only that, he’s actually managed to get him to collapse to the ground when before Sora had collapsed to the ground over his grief at losing his friends and then his grief at Kairi’s death. But not here. He’s the one standing over Xehanort for once. 

And he’s so tired and so done with him at this point and it was so satisfying to see someone call Xehanort out on his BS and for Xehanort to finally have to listen:

Sora demands to know what’s going to happen because he doesn’t want to hear any more lies, half-truths, or beating around the bush:

Side note: foreshadowing? 

Sora, in a way, is the World’s hope, and he is likewise lost at the end of the game, and the camera very deliberately chooses to focus on him here...

But anyway, as the scene continues, you can still really just see his contempt and disgust with Xehanort. This is the part where he basically tells Xehanort he’s not cut out to be a true leader because he thinks he can control destiny, and his contempt for Xehanort just oozes off the screen. Bonus points for them having a discussion about destiny vs. free will, where Xehanort blathers on about dictating people’s fates for them while Sora comes down hard on the side of giving people free will even if no one can really control their own destiny:

I love Sora’s line here: “A real leader knows that destiny is beyond his control... and accepts that.”

He tells it like it is, not at all afraid to mince words. Because yeah, Xehanort doesn’t deserve to rule one single bit. And in doing so Sora proves he is the one who truly deserves to rule. What do you bet he will become the eventual ruler of... something, eventually. Kingdom Hearts, maybe? 

This moment is like when the true king tells the pretender to get off his throne, an idea @rapis-razuri​ first proposed:

Yep, I’m definitely getting a “Get out of my kingdom and leave my people alone” vibe from this scene, even if Sora doesn’t know his true destiny yet. Foreshadowing? Especially when his shotlock in Second Form was called King of Hearts?

Probably. After Xehanort banished him and caused endless destruction and ruin, he’s casting Xehanort out and he’s going to make things right.

Goofy gets a moment to look disgusted, too:

And Xehanort tries to make a big show about how he’s handing over the χ-Blade because Sora did so well, blah blah blah, which... at least he acknowledges that Sora is the one who truly deserves this power?

Sora takes the χ-Blade from him:

And to Sora’s infinite credit, even though he has such a powerful weapon at his disposal, even though he could use it to summon the door and open Kingdom Hearts for himself and take full power of whatever lies beyond and be reborn as something greater than human and remake the World how he desires, if Xehanort’s reports in BBS are to be believed...

He doesn’t do that. He doesn’t want that power, and by doing so, shows he is truly worthy of it in a way that Xehanort never was or will be.

But Sora doesn’t take it for himself. He doesn’t because he despises the χ-Blade and what it represents, despises the fact that Xehanort murdered Kairi to create it, despises the fact that it was completed with her death and created by so much pain and suffering.

He could remake the World however he wishes and he chooses not to. He wants the old world back, flawed as it might be, because he wants to give people a chance. Wants to give them a choice.

And instead of trying to go it alone like Xehanort did, he calls on his friends to help him close whatever realm Xehanort opened up:

Then lifts the χ-Blade in the air...

And we get this shot. My friends are my power, indeed:

“Good riddance, I’m destroying this awful thing that represents everything I hate about what happened to Kairi plus all the crap Xehanort put my friends through, and I’m gonna do it with my bare hands.”

Must’ve been so satisfying for Sora to finally see that thing gone. In the next scene the worlds are safe, the χ-Blade is gone, and Kingdom Hearts has been sealed once more.

But even though he fought all night and it is now morning, the king isn’t through with his mission. There’s one last person he still has to save. His queen. And in sharp contrast to how he felt like he was worthless without his friends before, here he feels worthy enough to go after her alone. And he pulls it off and saves her, too.

And for my game, at least, I got this image of Sora sitting on a throne at the end. 

Sora won. He might not be king yet, but he stopped Xehanort from becoming king and restored the worlds and rescued his friends and saved Kairi, and that’s what’s important for now. The rest can happen later. Nomura does like to play the long game, after all, and he’s been drawing Sora slouching around on thrones since... KH1 days?

And... until the next KH game... we’ll just have to wait and see how this theme will be further developed...

[just-absolutely-super]

Soul Eater Episode 45 or “Continuity? I Don’t Know Her.”

You’d think the episode where Medusa--big bad chess master Medusa--would die wouldn’t be so...awful

Oh my gosh the animation here is so baaaaaaad. Like...really bad.

And I felt like there were so many errors too.

Like at the beginning...did they forget to animate Marie’s hammer onto her arm or something? Because while she’s dodging and throwing her arm at Stein it’s just her regular arm and I’m just like...bitch what good will that do?

And Soul is sitting in the Black Room...but he’s in his regular clothes. Ummmmm, he’s supposed to wear his suit. That’s the thing with his soul space...he wears his iconic suit like this has been established for over 30 fucking episodes.

He’s in it during the piano scene but still...he should have also been in it while in the Black Room, that’s so sloppy.

And speaking of the piano, they didn’t use a piano score like in the Brew Arc when Soul started to play like Bones what the fuck ONE OF THE MAIN REASONS I’M SITTING THROUGH THIS TRASH IS TO ACTUALLY HEAR MY SON’S PIANO MUSIC HELP ME OUT HERE!

AND HE STOPPED PLAYING?! SHIT SON THAT PIANO IS FUCKING IMPORTANT GET YOUR ASS BACK TO THAT BENCH!

This might just be me, but I felt like Crona’s sacrifice should have been the end of an episode...but then again that would prolong this BS so I guess I should count my blessings.

Though of course they’d be fine. We all saw it coming. Though the fact that Crona’s Black Blood effects should have went back to normal and healed them perfectly once Medusa was gone (and therefore the weird negating effects of her soul wavelength would be gone too) but I guess that’s too much to ask now is it?

Maka going into a blind rage causes the Black Room to be flooded with Black Blood and almost consumes Soul and I’m just like ??????? That doesn’t make any sense to me.

Maka's anti-demon (or magic, whatever...) wavelength is supposed to keep the Black Blood from completely infecting her. She only gets “infected” if she allows it like in her battle with Crona. I don’t see how her losing her cool like that would cause Soul to be drowned in Black Blood but whatever.

And what about the snake Crona had Marie ingest??? She never got rid of that. How is she able to use her healing wavelength on Stein, the snake is supposed to prevent that. UMMMMM HELLO? BONES? DID YOU JUST FORGET A MAJOR ASS PLOTPOINT TO STEIN’S FALL TO MADNESS??? HELLO?!?!?!

“The [technique] you inherited from your mother” OH FUCK OFF MAKA’S MOM DIDN’T CREATE SHIT

They treat Demon Hunter (istg the words”genie hunter” make me want to punch so many walls I FUCKING HATE THAT NAME) like it’s some magical cure technique thing when it’s really not. It’s just a Witch Hunter upgrade guys it’s not that deep.

Also WHERE IS MEDUSA’S SOUL????

DOES SHE NOT HAVE ONE?

SHE SHOULD

THAT BITCH OWES SOUL A GOSH DANG WITCH SOUL SO HE CAN TURN INTO A DEATH SCYTHE SINCE HE OBVIOUSLY ISN’T GONNA GET IT FROM ARACHNE

DOES BONES HAVE SOMETHING AGAINST MY SON BECAUSE I’M STARTING TO FEEL THE NEGLECT ON A PERSONAL LEVEL

And after 45 episodes we’re finally introduced to the theme of “Courage” (bravery in the dub) that is often associated with Maka. How is it introduced?

...the postcard Maka’s mother sent her...

...

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!

MAKA’S MOM IS HOW WE’RE GOING TO INTRODUCE ONE OF MAKA’S BEST CHARACTER TRAITS? THAT’S A LOAD OF BULLSHIT!

MAKA’S MOM HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS STORY WHY IS SHE SO FUCKING RELEVANT?

DO YOU KNOW WHO HELPED MAKA REALIZE HOW STRONG HER COURAGE WAS IN THE MANGA?

IT WAS SOUL

NOT HER M.I.A. MOTHER WHO DOESN’T EVEN BOTHER TO GIVE HER ONLY DAUGHTER ONE DAMN PHONE CALL BUT HER WEAPON PARTNER WHO LOVES AND TRUSTS HER AND HAS HER BEST INTERESTS AT HEART

IT WAS HIM

AND IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN HIM IN THE ANIME BUT NOOOOOOO WE HAVE TO DO THIS INSTEAD

FUCK. OFF.

[thelegendofclarke]

Once pawns reach the other side they can also be promoted to Queens:)

Hahaaa RIGHT YOU ARE ANON! I just left that part out on purpose tbh because I didn’t want to have to deal with any “yOu jUsT wAnT sAnSa tO bE qUeEn” bs lol.

But you care totally correct, as @minervacrawley also pointed out in the notes of my last post, a pawn that reaches the opposite side of the board can be promoted to any other piece of its own color except for a king. And because queens are the most powerful piece on the board, that is the most common type of promotion. Any other type of promotion is actually called an “underpromotion” which makes me laugh because it’s like throwing shade at a player’s bad life choices. So yeah, a pawn can become a queen; the lowliest player on the board can, throughout the course of the game, become the most powerful… But weirdly enough, most powerful doesn’t also mean most important. That role goes to the king. The queen may have all the power, but you literally cannot win the game with out a king. Lose your king, and you lose the game. The king piece is so important that there is literally a rule that if the enemy attacks your king (aka a “check”), you have to respond with your next move; you cannot ignore an attack on the king.

A queen is the most powerful attacking piece because she has the most mobility: she can move any number of squares vertically, horizontally or diagonally. This makes her less restricted and stronger in closed positions. But she is at her strongest when the board is open, when the enemy king is poorly defended, and/or when there are undefended opposing pieces (aka when she can “attack”). The queen also serves as a perpetual check on the opponent’s king. Opposing queens rarely ever attack each other, but they do attack the opposing king’s power; most checks in chess are carried out by the queen. So the queen has more mobility/power but less value, as the game can continue without her. A queenless king will be left incredibly vulnerable, but he is still the most valuable piece without whom the game ceases. As a result, the queen uses a great deal of power to protect her own king from attacks by the opposing side. Even though the king is the most valuable piece, he isn’t truly a considered powerful weapon until the endgame. This is why one of the first things a lot of people are taught when learning to play chess is to not risk getting the king into the game until you can do so with out exposing him to danger (i.e. this could be a reason why Jon’s parentage might be kept on the DL until the exact right moment).

The ironic thing though is that the king alone (aka a “bare king” or “lone king”) physically cannot win a game; the best he can accomplish is a draw or a stalemate. He must have supporting players to back him up; with out them, if he is placed in check, (which he will be) there is no way to remove the threat. It’s all very “you can be the King but watch the Queen conquer.” Someone’s gotta be there to protect the king! And typically the most effective, sure fire way to protect the king and win the game involves some form of triangulation. THE LONE WOLF DIES BUT THE PACK SURVIVES!

Also, simply because I am L O V I N G the whole “Jon, Sansa, and Arya as players” theme, I am just going to leave this here…

[bigassmoody-blog]

Basic Information

Full name: Alastor Barov Moody Pronunciation: Al-us-tor Ber-ov Moody Nickname(s): No. None. Birthdate: November 5th, 1982 Age: 36 Zodiac: Scorpio Gender: Male Pronouns: He/Him Romantic orientation: Panromantic Sexual orientation: Pansexual Nationality: English Ethnicity: White British Current location: London, England Living conditions: He's lived in the same flat since after college, mostly because if it isn't broke, don't fix it. It was a good place, he could get in and out discretely, they allowed dogs, it was easy to get into and tucked into a nice little street, his neighbors were chill. Only problem? He hates elevators and the stairs weren’t an option right after he lost his leg. So he had to pick everything up and shift into something a little more accessible. He ended up buy a small little two bedroom place (complete fixer upper) and has been slowly working on it. He's relatively clean. He has house plants all over the place~

Background

Birthplace: London, England Hometown: London, England Social Class: Middle Educational achievements: BS in Criminology with a minor in music Father: Sergei Ravenia Moody Mother: Irene "Ireena" Tatyana Moody Sibling(s): Berez "Marie" Petrovna Moody Birth order: Marie is 3 years older. Pets: Luna. Previous relationships: TBD, but hmu cuz I want one Arrests: … No Prison time: Nope Occupation & Income: He’s doing alright Current occupation: Detective Inspector Dream occupation: Retirement when there's fucking world peace Past job(s): He worked at an animal shelter through college Spending habits: It comes in waves. He'll be fine, then suddenly get really invested in like… baking cookies or something and then end up buying a shit ton of cookie cutters and good pans and things like that. And then he'll get too busy for it and get back to work, until, you know, he learns about diy mechanical keyboards and tries to build himself a nice one. In debt?: Uh, not bad. He's doing alright, just paying off some medical bills still. Most valuable possession: His prosthetic leg. That'd be a bitch to replace.

Skills & Abilities

Physical strength: Above Average | Average | Below Average Speed: Above Average | Average | Below Average Intelligence: Above Average | Average | Below Average Accuracy: Above Average | Average | Below Average Agility: Above Average | Average | Below Average Stamina: Above Average | Average | Below Average Teamwork: …Hahahahhahaha Talents/hobbies: His true talent is cycling through useless hobbies. He likes adventure sports Shortcomings: I mean he's got one out of two eyes, one out of two legs, and, after the amount of concussions he's had, half of his original amount of brain cells. He's stubborn and will take risks. Languages spoken: English, French, German, some Arabic Drive?: Yes Jump-start a car?: Yes Change a flat tyre?: Yes Ride a bicycle?: Yes Swim?: Yes Play an instrument?: Yes Play chess?: No Braid hair?: No Tie a tie?: Yes Pick a lock?: Yes Cook?: Yes

Physical Appearance & Characteristics

Faceclaim: Charlie Hunnam Eye colour: Hazel Hair colour: Blond Hair type/style/length: It's usually cropped pretty short, but sometimes he gets lazy and lets it grow out. Once it starts getting in his face, it's haircut time. Glasses/contacts?: Uh, well he has a glass eye. Covers it with an eyepatch. Dominant hand: Right Height: 6'1" Weight: 88 kg/ 194 lbs Build: Broad shouldered, muscular, very defined. His legs and ass aren't as great as they used to be, so he's working on that. Exercise habits: He works out frequently with the intention of getting back to his pre-accident body. He'll hit the gym almost daily. He also has a set of exercises and special care for the leg, which he makes sure to do. Skin tone: White, but tanned from too much time in the sun Tattoos: Many. I'll be posting a reference soon, but he has a full sleeve that's all flowers. The rest of his body's covered with various nature themed tattoos. Piercings: Nah Marks/scars: Very many. He's got some on his face, deep cuts that go from his left eyebrow to his upper lip, cutting through his eye. He's also got plenty of scrapes and scars from injuries that never healed right. Got his leg, there’s that. Clothing style: He's supposed to wear a shirt and tie for work. Definitely has to keep his tattoos covered in that environment. As soon as work's over, the sleeves get rolled up, the tie's gone. Weekends, he dresses pretty casually. Jewellery: Nope, none :( Allergies: Idiots. Diet: He follows a pretty strict diet and takes it seriously. He'll count calories and watch his proteins vs carbs, etc. Physical ailments: None

Psychology

MBTI type: ENTJ Enneagram type: The Challenger Moral Alignment: Chaotic Good Temperament: Choleric Element: Earth Emotional stability: Debatable Introvert or Extrovert? Extrovert Obsession(s): Currently: dogs, pretty people, how to season cast iron skillets. Past ones: Pokemon go, candles, and the justice league comics Compulsion(s): Doing stupid shit because if it could possibly get the job done, it's worth a try Phobia(s): Enclosed or tight spaces Addiction(s): Thrills Drug use: I mean the man's got meds, that's about it Alcohol use: Yup Prone to violence?: Nah Prone to crying?: Nah Believe in love at first sight?: Yea (maybe not for him, but he believes it)

Mannerisms

Accent: Rough, he drops consonants Speech quirks: He uses the word no more times than anyone should Hobbies: He likes DIY projects and is super hands on, fucks with shit around the house often. He also has a new hobby like every month. Habits: tapping his fingers on tables, wrinkles his nose, he makes a stupid snorting half laugh noise a lot Nervous ticks: scratching his beard Drives/motivations: He has a way that he… sees the world, I guess. He wants it to be a certain way and when it doesn't, it drives him crazy. So he very much feels the need to fix that. He also really needs that antique record player back from Lucius, especially because it's most likely just collecting dust in a corner somewhere. Fears: Being alone Sense of humour?: Playful and teasing and probably a little bit mean sometimes because he doesn't know where that line is until he's crossed it Do they curse often?: Yup…

Favourites

Animal: Dog Beverage: Cold beer Book: A book of poems an ex gave him Colour: Deep green Food: Pizza Flower: Sunflowers Gem: Opal Mode of transportation: Motorcycle. He had to Uber a lot after losing his leg. It's been a while, so that shit's now modified and ready to go. Scent: Woodsy, earthy tones Sport: Dirt Biking Weather: Snow, but only if he's visiting and not in it Vacation destination: He'll always try something new and doesn’t like going to the same place twice. He's been making his way through some of the best hiking spots in the world, though.

Attitudes

Greatest dream: Climbing Everest Greatest fear: cheap beer, letting people who rely on him down Most at ease when: He's high on painkillers in the hospital after a surgery Least as ease when: A thundery night when he can't get to sleep, like there's too much energy in his body with no place to go Worst possible thing that could happen: admitting he's wrong about something Biggest achievement: his niece saying he's her favorite adult Biggest regret: trying to sand and varnish the cabinets himself, pretty sure he's ruined those