#everyone form an orderly queue...

[sophsun1]

Supernatural – 2.07: The Usual Suspects

[here2bbtstrash]

i would like to thank all of you babes who follow me for not being ugly and homophobic in my ask box this week and every week (or at least being fucking silent if you are lmaooooo)

i’m so happy to have this little safe space porn corner where i can be as gay as i want!!! i really don’t take it for granted. i hope you all feel safe in this space to be whoever you are too 😘💜

[tiptoelightlypastmymind]

I THOUGHT IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN YOU BUT I WASN'T 100% SURE SO I DIDN'T WANT TO SEND A CONFUSING MESSAGE

also yes hello i have missed you <3 been a wild ride these past many years (six years ago i think it was i lost internet for over a year and a half? time flies) but things have been on the right track for me for several years now :D i hope you can be saying the same!! someday still i hope to visit MA so i can say hello in person!

[invarietas]

in comparison to the pristine prince of corporate greed, the mysterious stranger is simultaneously greater (in stature), and lesser (in dress). surely it would be a source of comedy if any other mortal were around. indeed-- there SHOULD be a certain turk ever-present. yet...

nothing.

ardyn looks down to this frosted blonde wrapped elegantly in layers of white with an expression better befitting that of an amused fox; the other's bright garb opposing his own rather haphazard disaster of colours and uneven layers.

"ooh, a rarity to hear one in power admit to a lack of it~." the immortal smiles, the expression taking a temporary note of chagrin as he corrects himself- "at least in certain aspects~. though- do forgive my rudeness; i never got your name~."

he crosses his arms over his chest, briefly looking the other up and down. he can't help but offer a shrug at the statement, like it was a dumb thing to hear. "sure. we all have our weaknesses." despite how much reginald shinra had tried, rufus was still prone to moments of weakness. or maybe he was just more human.

[scoobydoomistakes]

Sometimes, I'll look at the frames I saved and think "oh boy, won't that be an amusing gif"…

…and then make it...

…and think "oh boy, I've just unleashed an unspeakable horror"

Everyone about to make an "eye-roll" pun, form an orderly queue to the left. "Keeping my eye on you" goes on the right.

[gabessquishytum]

Hob letting a whole bachelor party use his hole one after the other until the cum was dripping down his legs, you say? I could absolutely see that as Desire’s bachelor party.

Because they’re trying to be good for their fiancée, maybe they checked with Unity beforehand for permission to join in, or they’re content to simply sit back and enjoy the show, but either way they do insist that all the attendees have a turn. This includes their stick-up-his-ass brother Dream, who in their humble opinion desperately needs to cut loose and get his dick wet.

And while Hob could just be a sex worker Desire hired for the night, what I think would be even funnier is if Hob was one of Desire’s slutty friends, who eagerly said yes barely before Desire had finished sharing their idea.

And better yet, what if this was also Desire’s crazy idea to introduce Hob and Dream, in the hope that they’d hit it off? It’s a win-win scenario; either they’d have a wild sexy bachelor party, or they’d have a wild sexy bachelor party and give their brother a peace offering in the form of a sexy boyfriend and an amazing meet-cute story (I mean, who wouldn’t want to be able to say “I met my boyfriend when I and several other people used him as a cumdump at my sibling’s bachelor party”?) 😁

-🪽anon

SCREAMING about this. I really like the idea of Hob just being insane and horny. Maybe it's even his idea to be a cumdump in honour of Desire's upcoming union. Desire is just like "oh absolutely you know me SO well. also i want you to meet someone 👀" they don't tell Hob anything more than that. It's going to be the best party EVER.

Of course once the party starts (they're in a hotel suite, Desire and their friends, Unity is there too, and a few of the Endless siblings - Destiny opted out and Delirium is busy on the balcony yelling at people down in the street) there are shots, and probably an assortment of party drugs, and everyone is in the mood. So Hob gets on the bed on all fours, and Desire tells everybody to form an orderly queue. They want everyone to participate - consider it a wedding gift! Especially you Dream.

And because they're Desire's friends, nearly everyone pushes and shoves go get a turn with Hob. Dream ends up quite far down the line, and he's not really feeling it... who wants to have an orgy with various siblings in the same room? But then he gets a proper look at Hob and suddenly he wants. Desperately.

Hob is already dripping. He grins at Dream hazily, slurs something that might be "You're pretty". He looks absolutely blissful like there's nowhere he'd rather be than here, on Dream’s cock, overflowing with so much cum he can't move without leaking. For Dream, it's like love at first sight. This is the man he wants to spend his life with. He thinks he might actually be going insane.

It's a night that no one will forget. With the cumdump complete, pictures taken and Hob duly praised for being such a good slut, Dream takes him to clean up. And they fuck again in the shower, where Hob loops his arms around Dream’s neck and refuses to let go. Desire is feeling very smug indeed with their matchmaking, even though Unity scolds them for setting Dream up with a deranged slut.

When Dream and that deranged slut get married 3 years later, Unity has to admit - she was wrong. Those weirdos are totally meant to be together!

[fake-married-my-dead-fiance]

Too many assassins ruined the soup!

Everyone who wants to kill Wang Lin needs to form an orderly queue

[roxyco-deliverygirl]

I wanna unlock the roxy dating route so I have to date everyone else first. Please form an orderly queue so I can use you date you to reach roxy :)

[dailymanners]

A queue is nothing more than a waiting line. Key word: waiting. Then why is it so hard for some people to wait their turn?

The word queue is French in origin, and it is also one of the most commonly misspelled words in English, right up there with etiquette and dessert (or is it desert?). It's a word more used by the Brits than by Americans, who say "in line" (or "on line," for New Yorkers). Some cultures are much more amenable to forming orderly lines than others (the ones who don't will not be mentioned here). But cutting into the queue or the line is frowned on everywhere.

So why is it that some people can't resist cutting in line? Is it possible that they have more of a sense of entitlement than others, and that what they have to do is more important than those who are waiting their turn. People who are waiting in line correctly almost always notice when anyone cuts in line (especially in this country, where it is truly frowned on), though they may be too polite to say anything. They may not be too polite to take a photo or a video of the miscreants, though, so if you are one of them, be aware that you might end up on YouTube or Facebook as a scofflaw.

Here are some tips that make standing in line easier for everyone:

• Queue early. If you hate standing in line, practice being early to events, especially those that you know will be crowded, such as Disneyland, a museum exhibition, or a movie premiere. And get to the airport a little before your airline advises.

• Wait your turn. Don't even think about cutting in line. You will leave a group of disgruntled, not to say angry, people behind you, and bad karma ahead of you. An exception here is if you know you will miss something very important, such as a airline connection, by waiting in line. In case of this kind of emergency, explain to people ahead of you in line what your problem is, and ask them if you can go ahead of them. Even better, contact an airline assistant and ask them to take you to the head of the line. They will do so if you will miss your connection otherwise.

• Offer your place in line to someone who needs it more. If you're standing in a grocery line with a full basket of purchases and the person behind you has just a few, offer to trade places! This is a simple act of kindness that costs nothing but a few minutes of your time. And whenever possible, offer to let older people, pregnant women, disabled people, and parents/caregivers with babies or young children go ahead of you.

• Children. If you suspect you will have to wait in line with your children, tell them ahead of time that will probably have to do so and that they will need to practice patience. It's never too early to teach children how to behave in public. But also bring something to keep them occupied, such as a book.

[fromtraveldiaries]

Notes from the land of the rising sun

If you think the Paris subway is a marvel, wait until you step into Tokyo's intricate underground labyrinth. The Japanese subway system is an experience that best reflects the essence of Japanese culture and efficiency.

The first thing you notice when you step into a Tokyo subway station are the orderly queues - on the escalators, at ticket counters, at entry and exit gates, and while boarding trains. The Japanese have transformed queuing into a well-organized and methodical art form, much unlike the Indians for who queueing is a rather abstract and a largely inscrutable exercise. This queue discipline extends beyond transportation to restaurants, take-away counters, and billing counters, where you find patrons patiently waiting their turn for service.

Another striking feature of Tokyo's subways is the pervasive silence. Compared to the prattle on the Paris metro or the pandemonium on the Indian metros, the Japanese subway is a quiet sanctuary. The Japanese are a quiet people who keep to themselves during public transit, their animated conversations are reserved for meal times. Food, often accompanied by drinks, is a more communal experience that's filled with lively discussions and noisy chatter. On buses, trains, and the subway, one finds commuters reading novels, manga, news, diaries, or watching anime or otherwise engaged on their phones. This quietude carries onto the roads, streets, and other public places. There's no honking and people talk in whispers in most places, except of course in eateries. Most Japanese folks like to go out with their friends and colleagues or have social gatherings in eateries. They love to take their time during such meals, which are almost always accompanied by drinks. The conversations are loud, full of banter and laughter.

At every station, you also have a helpdesk that actually works. We used these at many stations and were very impressed by the service we got. While returning from Kanazawa to Tokyo, our Shinkansen (bullet train) developed a snag. We were informed on board about this by the railway staff. They dropped us off at Nagano, where more railway staff were waiting to assist us. They put us on a train to Matsumoto, where more staff were waiting to help. We were put on a train to Shiojiri, where another set of helpful staff put us on a slow Azusa train to Shinjuku. During the whole time, everyone was apologetic and insisted that we collect our refund for the Shinkansen from the Shinjuku station. We had booked our tickets through Klook, so weren't really sure if we were eligible for a refund and how and when (if at all), we would get any refund. To our surprise, the lady at the helpdesk counter gave us an almost complete refund in cash, no questions asked. She said that they had been informed of the Shinkansen glitch and were expecting passengers such as us to alight at Shinjuku. She also profusely apologized for the inconvenience. At how many Indian stations can you expect this service?

In contrast to India's metro stations, where photography is 'strictly prohibited', one is free to click away in Japanese subways. We didn't find a single place where photography wasn't allowed or one had to pay extra charges just to click.

Respect for individuals is on display everywhere and in everyone. Courteous gestures greet one at every turn and we were quite surprised to find people bowing to us even for trivial interactions. We also learnt to bow in return with gratitude. Starting from clearly designated 'foreign friendly taxis' to courteous strangers going out of their way to assist you, you feel truly welcomed in Japan. You also feel as if you are a celebrity when you step into an eatery, for as you step in, the staff, including the chefs and the kitchen staff, boisterously greet you with a loud shout. Google what this means and you'll see what I mean.

At restaurants, you are invariably served ice cold water with ice cubes in long tumblers. This is the way of life even in cold winters. You can, however, also order warm/hot sake that really fires you up on wintry nights. While Tokyo offers a plethora of culinary delights, vegetarians might feel the need to seek out specific eateries. The cuisine draws heavily on raw food, mostly seafood, with minimal oil and spices. This is where the super helpful convenience stores like 7-11 and Family Mart offer a variety of options, including liquor. Japanese convenience stores have more variety of liquor than one finds in the regular wine shops back home.

That the Japanese are punctual is well known, but their service levels are at a different level altogether. At Kanazawa, we requested for a taxi at the hotel reception which was on the first floor. The receptionist made a call to a local cab company and informed that a taxi would arrive in three minutes. True to their word, by the time we descended the stairs and reached the ground floor, the taxi was already waiting for us. In both Kyoto and Tokyo, we noticed many shops displaying merchandise outside their doors and well out of their sight. In several grocers' vegetables were left unattended with price boards. People leave their umbrellas outside when entering shops. We also observed most households leaving their stuff outside at night.

Despite the absence of dustbins, Tokyo remains remarkably clean. Littering is a rare sight, thanks to the civic sense instilled in its residents. Further, there's no expectation of a tip for any service that you hire. Taxis and restaurants return you the exact change and you are expected to pocket your change before leaving. In fact, tipping might be considered offensive in many places. Should you run out of coins, there are machines installed in most public places that take your notes and provide you with coins. To help you tender exact change, these machines are also installed in all buses. By the way, the Japanese bus drivers are smartly dressed, polite, and greet you when you pay and get off. Compare that with the Indian buses and our drivers.

An ubiquitous presence throughout Japan are the vending machines. The offer everything, from beverages to snacks, and refreshments to souvenirs. Game arcades are also quite popular, lined up in most tourist locations. We spent a fortune on the vending machines, collecting souvenirs that are quite cheap but of exquisite quality. Tokyo, Kyoto, and Kanazawa are filled with rows and rows of these vending machines stretching on for blocks altogether.

Tokyo is unbelievably busy at all times of the day and night. The trains are always filled and the stations are always crowded. Folks are either going to work or returning from work at all hours. Whether the well-groomed crowd of Ginza, the diverse crowd of Shibuya, the aloof funky of Shinjuku or the dignified crowd of Monzennakacho, the residents of each district have their own way to go about their lives. School kids, even when returning late, show impeccable discipline, immersed in their phones, reading manga, playing games, or watching anime. There were many places in the US and in France where we felt unsafe during our travels. The less said about India, the better. In comparison, we never felt unsafe throughout our visit in Japan, not even for a moment.

This trip to Japan has been a revealation to say the least. From the land of the rising sun, arigato gozaimas.

[ivory--raven]

day 26, Apocalypse! During Armageddon (or not).

Demons milling around, restless. Armageddon.

“Encourage the troops, Dagon,” says Beelzebub. They’re all waiting. Why are they still waiting? Why is it taking so bloody long? Beelzebub’s nails have jagged edges painted black where they’re gripping the front of their jacket like it’s a shield. 

Dagon looks around. “Right. Listen up!” She’s got to say something to them all. She’s ready to be fighting, ready to be done. “Any moment now, we’ll be leaving Hell, and we’ll be going up against an army of angels!” They really ought to know that bit. She hopes they do. Some of these demons haven’t left Hell since they first arrived.

When they first arrived. That’s the anger they need to tap into to fight. “Now all of you were angels once, and we fought in the glorious revolution! And we lost. But that was then. We have had thousands of years to get tougher!”

“Tougher!” calls out the crowd.

“Smarter!”

“Smarter!” they repeat.

“And more dangerous!”

It’s working. The troops are getting riled up. “I want you to repeat after me,” says Dagon. “Tougher!”

“Tougher!”

“Smarter!”

“Smarter!”

Dagon lifts a fist into the air. “And-”

“Something’s happening,” snaps Beelzebub. “Something’s wrong.”

Beelzebub goes to deal with the problem, and Dagon is left alone with the troops. “Any moment now,” she says to console them. “Lord Beelzebub will return for the battle.”

“Kill all the angels!” cries a demon in the crowd. There are enthusiastic whoops of agreement. Dagon shifts. Not all the angels. Not Michael. These soldiers, worse than the scum of the Earth, they couldn’t kill Michael if they tried.

When Beelzebub reappears, it’s not at Dagon’s side to lead the troops. They shove their way through the assembled demons. “He’s going up to talk to him,” they say, “the Antichrist - is - refusing.”

Refusing. How can he refuse? He’s the Antichrist. Starting Armageddon is why he exists at all. They’ve all been waiting for this for years. Dagon has been waiting for this for years. Preparing.

“The demon Crowley is there,” Beelzebub adds. “He’s betrayed us.”

“His angel too?”

Beelzebub twitches. “He’s Gabriel’s problem. Crowley is ours.”

“Damn it.” Dagon waves a hand to attract attention. “Right! You lot!”

The demons’ muttering quiets down. They’re all looking at Dagon and Beelzebub. Satan fucking help them. Except he can’t.

“Our Lord Satan is on Earth,” Dagon announces, because that doesn’t sound too bad to start with - they’re going to be crucified.

Beelzebub stiffens, jerks. Their shoulder bumps Dagon’s, but they catch themself. They can’t. Not in front of the troops. Not in front of everyone.

“He says no,” they hiss, and there is so much pain colouring their voice. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.

“No Armageddon?”

“No,” agrees Beelzebub.

Fuck. Right. “There’s been a change of plans!” yells Dagon. “Armageddon will not be happening today! The traitor responsible has been identified and will be punished!”

While the crowd is still reeling in shock, they slice their way through with a blade, carving a pathway with discorporated demons. Ten thousand demons. Ten thousand demons about to realize Armageddon is cancelled. Armageddon has been cancelled.

Pure terror runs through Dagon’s veins.

Disarming the Heavenly Host is surprisingly easy. Gabriel returns from Earth and explains what’s going on, and Michael gives the order. Every platoon lays down their weapons and stands, restless and confused.

“Aren’t we going to war?” they say.

“Aren’t we going to fight evil?” they say.

Questions are bad, they can’t have questions in Heaven. Especially not now, when the fabric of the universe is vulnerable. How can this be right? Is this how the demons felt, before they Fell?

“Anyone who would like to complain, you will form an orderly queue.”

There will be no war. No apocalypse. Heaven is disarming, and presumably Hell is too. Angels are generally obedient, demons… are demons obedient?

Will demons listen when Beelzebub (and Dagon, will it be Dagon’s job to insist?) tell them there will be no war?

Michael really doesn’t know.

[huggingtentacles]

What is your stance on blues and yellows that try to form an orderly queue to fight an invader. That's how I try and fight whenever I get summoned because it is more fun than everyone press buttons at the invader.

I like when people give me a break like that but those kinda situations rarely end as well as they start. I will be always mistrustful and I won't bow in those kinds of situations because almost nobody respects the duel.

I cook the phantom too hard, they heal, the host calculates that it's easier to just swarm me now? I get ganked.

I hit the host on accident? I get ganked.

I kill the blue a little too fast? Ganked.

They don't like my weapon? They don't like that I heal? They don't like that I don't bow? Ganked.

My "favourite" is when I do accept an honourable duel with one of the phantoms, I get low on hp, and the host is like "it would be very easy to just throw some shit at her!" and they do and it kills me.

Or when the phantom is pretty hard to beat, I spend 4 of my heals fighting him. I calculate in my head that the host is pretty bad I could kill him without getting hit, so I waste my resources and play aggressively for fun, and then a blue comes in and I die because I just ran out of my limited resources. Or even if I kill the blue the host just gets another one when I'm fighting the previous one and all of them want to win so bad they need to gank me right now even if the host is just standing around waiting for the turn.

I appreciate those situations but they're rare and I don't trust anyone to respect the duel anymore. Too many "duels" ended in my immediate death the moment I made myself vulnerable.

[noodyl-blasstal]

okay perhaps: build a bear receipt, Mortified, perhaps to literal death, annnnnnd Barry :3

Did this get slightly out of hand? Who could say (me, it did.)

From this prompt list.

-

Barry knew what Build a Bear was, well, conceptually. You went in, you spent an obscene amount of money, you came out with a creature - possibly one wearing sunglasses and a tutu. It hadn’t been a thing when Barry was a kid, not one his Mum could afford anyway. But now he was stood in one, overwhelmed, confused, and being pressured to make decisions quickly.

The type was easy, Beary Bluejeans had to be a bear. Tick tick, done. Or, it should have been done, but there were 18 different kinds of bear to choose from and no clear parameters for selection. Every single one of them was a sad deflated puddle of fluff, and sure, Barry could relate, but he also knew there had to be a right answer. Gifts were a test. Probably. Well, Barry thought they were a test, and he had never met a test he couldn’t worry extensively about. Lup probably wouldn’t mind, this was just a small gesture, a little joke between friends. She called him Bear, he was going to get her a bear with his signature jeans. Casual, fun, no one’s harbouring any massive crushes and may or may not be in love with anyone else. Lup saw him as a friend and that was fine. All good! What was not all good, was the crowd of children building up around him. He was finding this hard enough without kids bashing into his legs, all sharp elbows and whirling rucksack attacks. 

After intense deliberation he decided on a soft medium-brown teddy the shelf proclaimed was ‘vintage.’ Barry could relate, he was vintage too. The modern bears had intensely large eyes or fur that didn’t feel as nice under his fingers - this guy though, this little soft puddle could be him, could be Lup’s, he could be Lup’s… Another kid slammed their elbow into his knee and Barry staggered. How much did he actually need to be here? He could leave, he could put Beary down and go, Lup would never know, no one would know, he didn’t make any promises about doing this. ‘Man Incapable of Purchasing Bear’ would only be a headline in his brain. It might be nice to have a fun new failure to torture himself about at 2am when he couldn’t sleep? Something funky fresh to add to the flagellation rotation. Even as he entertained the thought he knew he wouldn’t do it. The gesture was good, the joke was good, it would make Lup laugh, he loved to make Lup laugh, it was worth some bruising. 

Barry finally escaped from the scrum round the toy pelts? Skins? It all sounded bad. He needed to stop thinking about it in taxidermy terms, but this sure was a skin without the meat. Build a Bear was taxidermy for babies and no one could tell him any different. At least he knew the next step, they probably weren’t working with armature, so it’d be stuffing. He had definitely walked past some kind of woolly slushy machine on the way in so he tried to retrace his steps. Did the shop actually need to be this big and this full of people? Maybe they should do adult-only hours where everyone could just pick their bears in silence and form orderly queues and not run into anyone else actually.

“Excuse me!” Someone tapped lightly on his shoulder.

“Sorry, was I supposed to pay over there? I didn’t realise, I thought I did it at the end.” He couldn’t call Lup to bail him out if he got arrested. He couldn’t ruin the surprise… also she’d want pictures, his mug shot would be on t-shirts, mugs, pyjama sets, pillows, he’d never ever live it down. “I’ll pay now here, let me just grab...” Barry nearly dropped Beary as he fumbled for his wallet, but he couldn’t afford to get arrested right now. The stakes were high.

“Oh, you’re not in any trouble Sir! You forgot to get a sound and you can’t forget your new friend’s heart!” She smiled so big that Barry didn’t dare ask what most of the words meant. 

“Ah, uh, okay… uh, where do I…?”

“I’ll show you, come with me! I’m Lydia.” Barry tried not to acknowledge the look on her face which clearly telegraphed This Idiot Can’t Bear.

“It’s fine, you can just, uh, point me in the right direction, I just need the stuffing and I should, ah, be fine.” Barry was going to expire on the spot and emerge a terrifying spectre, no one could grab him and make him keep doing bears if he was incorporeal. Lup probably wouldn’t mind, she’d probably think it was rad to be friends with a death spectre… in fact, Barry was fairly sure he remembered her saying something about it being cool to bang a ghost… huh… nope! He couldn’t follow that thought anywhere right now, because apparently he had to think about what sound Beary was going to make and also there was a heart and fuck fuck fuck. Lydia had definitely been explaining. Barry nodded enthusiastically, not wanting her to realise he’d been ignoring her, this wasn’t her fault and she had a job to do.

“Great, it’s 20 seconds. If you head to the bathroom it’ll be a bit quieter.” She shoved a contraption and Barry and nodded encouragingly. “Just speak clearly into it, and remember, 20 seconds. Once you’re done, come back and we’ll start the ceremony.” 

“Ceremony? I… wh…” She cut Barry off with a gentle shove towards the bathrooms. There probably wasn’t any point in arguing, he’d already agreed so apparently he was recording a message… a message for Lup. That was fine. He could do that.

Barry couldn’t do that.

Barry was seven practice recordings deep.

Barry was never going to leave the bathroom, he lived here now. If he didn’t record the message then it couldn’t be bad, that was just science. Flawless hypothesis.

He’d already tried something casual. “Hey Lup, it’s me, Beary. I think you’re Beary wonderful.” Bad. Awful. Terrible. D-, she’s never speaking to him again. Funny: “Bear with me, voice message loading…” also bad. Heartfelt… he couldn’t even think about what he’d said, he’d been rambling long after the 20 seconds were done. The bear noises had been fun, roaring in a toilet was a strange experience and Barry usually loved strange experiences, but this was absolutely not it. “Will you Beary me?” was great on the pun front, terrible on the we’re-just-friends-I’m-definitely-not-in-love-with-you side of things. Ghost noises almost won the day until he considered her accidentally rolling on it in the night and waking up spooked. The time he dropped the recorder and swore a lot while trying to pick it up was probably the best of the bunch.

Eventually he settled on Arrane Ben-Vlieaun, or, “the magic cow song” as Lup insisted. He found a corner next to the sink which seemed to have relatively reasonable acoustics and rumbled the first bit out “Cur dty vainney, cur dty vainney, choud's mish ta goaill arrane. Lhig yn curn nish goll harrish, lesh dty vainney my vooaveen.” There. That was probably fine. Lup sometimes got him to sing it when she was struggling to sleep, it made sense to pre-load it in Beary. He definitely didn’t have time for any more attempts, he was surprised Lydia hadn’t already burst through the wall like a terrifyingly peppy terminator.

She zeroed in on him when he emerged. “There you are! I thought you’d gotten lost, are you ready?” 

Barry hesitated, maybe he could try one more time… he pulled his hand back as Lydia reached out for the device. No, eight was enough, it had to be enough. The cow song was fine. He nodded and handed over the recording majigger. Lydia smiled even wider, Barry debated counting her teeth, she definitely had too many.

“Fantastic!” Lydia said, then set off towards the fluff box. Barry followed, there was no way off the ride at this point, he may as well keep his arms and legs inside the car. “Okay, so this is very important, we’re going to perform the heart ceremony.” 

Barry is fairly sure this is going to be different to the type of heart ceremonies in his books at home… probably? There definitely weren’t any ceremonial knives on display. “Okay?”

“You’re going to develop your special bond with your new friend…?” Lydia paused and looked at Barry expectantly.

“Beary.” 

“Beary. Huh…”

“He’s called Beary Bluejeans.” Barry added, thinking that might make her stop doing the squinchy face at him. It didn’t.

“That’s… super!” She said after a long pause. “So, we’re going to make sure you and Beary build a special bond and you always look after him and love him forever and ever.”

“It’s okay, we can just do the stuffing, that’s fine, I uh, I don’t need to, you know, do the uh, the bonding thing.” 

Lydia gave him a hard look. “We don’t send the bears home with just anyone, we need to know you’re going to look after Beary Bluejeans.”

Barry wasn’t sure he’d felt fear like this before… did he actually like Lup enough to go through with this? Was he scared enough of Lydia to do whatever she said? “What do I have to do?” He’d die for Lup, multiple times if necessary, and he was fairly sure Lydia would put him in the ground without a second thought - still smiling - if she felt he wouldn’t be a competent guardian for Beary.

Lydia solemnly handed him a small plastic heart. “This is Beary Bluejeans’ heart. We’re going to establish your bond now. Are you ready?”

Barry waited for further instruction.

“Are. You. Ready?” He wasn’t sure a polite tone had ever felt so much like knives.

“Yeah, uh, yes Lydia.”

Her smile was back. “Fantastic, take Beary’s heart and rub it on your toes so he’s totally awesome.” 

“I’m… what?”

“Rub it on your toes so he’s totally awesome.” Lydia repeated, then mimed the action. Barry looked longingly towards the exit, it wasn’t that far, he could probably just drop Beary’s floppy corpse and run. “Sir, on your toes, so he’s toe-tally awesome.” 

Barry bent over and ignored the rice crispies and milk noises his back made in protest. He swiped the plastic across his shoe.

“Now rub it on your cheeks so Beary gives warm smiles.” Barry didn’t think it was particularly hygienic to rub something on his toes and then his face, but who was he to fly in the face of the experts? He rubbed the heart quickly on his cheek.

“Rub it on your hip so he’s hip and cool.”

Barry was at least 90% Lydia was messing with him by this point. Barry wasn’t hip, he wasn’t cool, and he certainly wasn’t funky fresh. If Taako was here Barry could probably scoop up some of his vibes, but Barry certainly wasn’t a reliable coolness supply. Beary was going to get Barry’s clicky hip, lose all the street cred he’d earned in his short life, and say goodbye to his fuzzy charisma.

“Nearly there! Rub it on your arms so Beary always gives good hugs.”

Barry promised himself he was never going to return to Build a Bear, this was hell, Lydia was the devil. He swished the heart near his arm.

“Like you mean it, Sir. You want him to give good hugs don’t you?” Lydia sing songed, loudly enough for the line behind him to hear.

Barry quickly rubbed the heart more forcefully across both arms.

“Now spin around to make him magical!” Barry was not going to spin around, he was going to think heavy thoughts and let himself sink into the floor. He wouldn’t have to exist in this room or any room ever again, he wouldn’t have to spin around with a stupid anatomically inaccurate heart, or deal with the line of children who were probably staring and laughing at him right now. Floor Barry, Flarry, he’d never have let this happen. “Don’t you want Beary to be magical, Barry?” No. He wanted Beary to be finished so he could leave. But Lup, Lup would probably want Beary to be magical… fine. Fine! Barry was going to spin around. He shuffled in a begrudging circle.

“And lastly, make a big wish!”

Barry wished this was over. That he was at home. That he hadn’t decided to get Lup this stupid bear. He wished he was brave enough to tell her he’d been in love with her for the last 8 years and probably would be for the rest of his life. But none of these wishes seemed like something he should wrap up in Beary. Barry considered for a moment, then wished, and wished hard that Lup would like him. Beary… obviously. The wish would know who he meant, it didn’t matter how he phrased it.

“So lastly, I need you to promise to always care for Beary, and seal the magic promise with a kiss.” Lydia was dead behind the eyes, Barry could tell, no one could be this chipper, not for the 6 years her badge said she’d worked there.

“Okay.” Said Barry. There was an excruciating pause. Lydia looked at him expectantly. Was he supposed to say more? Were there proper words? “I promise to, uh, to, take care of you Beary?” 

“Are you asking, or telling?” Lydia said sweetly.

“I promise to always take care of you Beary.” Please let this be over.

“Now kiss his heart.”

This definitely wasn’t hygienic, not with all the rubbing and spinning. Barry decided to keep those concerns to himself. Lydia finally seemed satisfied, and instructed him on the foot pedal that would help him add the fluff to Beary.

They stuffed, fluffed, stopped for hug tests, and decided on the appropriate firmness. Barry could feel the heat in his face, but at least no one he knew was here to see it. Taako would never let him life this down. But it was fine, he was a 50 year old guy cuddle testing a bear which occasionally sang about milk at him in his own gravelly hum when he pressed the voice chip by accident and that was fine. Twenty entire seconds of excruciating singing while he waited for it to shut up and Lydia pretended not to be laughing about it. He was totally fine. 

Lydia deftly stitched up the hole in Beary and handed him back. “Now I’m going to shoo you off to the grooming station so you can get Beary all fluffed and puffed and ready for snuggles. Have a wonderful day now!” Her relief was palpable.

Barry fled as soon as Lydia dismissed him, maybe he could skip the grooming, he didn’t really need to do that, surely? Beary seemed fine.

“Over here Sir! I’m Edward and I’m here to help you get your new friend looking their very best.”

Barry couldn’t outrun him, Edward was at least 30 years younger than him and looked like he’d be able to tackle Barry before he could make it three steps. “Okay.” His voice cracked. Maybe this was hell? Barry couldn’t leave, there would always be another step and another smiling assistant to help him.

Edward pointed at a large fake bath which swarmed with children. “You can give your new friend a bath and then we’ll dry them off and get them combed nicely for you.”

“Jeans!” Barry refused, he absolutely refused to pretend to bathe Beary surrounded by children who were no doubt just as sharp of elbow as the first group.

“I’m… I’m sorry Sir?” Edward looked nonplussed, but Barry refused to get suckered into this one. Next they’d tell him he could get custom smells.

“I.. uh, thanks Edward, but Beary’s good, he doesn’t need a bath, see! Super soft. He just needs some jeans please, then I’d like to check out. Thank you very much for your help.” There, he was doing it, Barry was a guy who could say what he wanted.

“Oh, sure, no problem, the clothes are over here!” Edward grinned easily and indicated a towering wall of options. “Have a great day, you can register Beary there when you’re done.” He pointed at a large bank of computer terminals. Of course, of course there were more steps.

“Then I can leave?”

Edward frowned. “I’m sorry.”

“I can pay and go, when I’ve done the computers bit?”

“Yeah?” Edward raised an eyebrow at Barry as if he was being insane, then remembered he wasn’t allowed to do that. “I mean, yes Sir, of course, the tills are just on the other side of the computer terminals.”

Barry grabbed the first denim he saw, shoved Beary into them at speed, tapped Captain Professor Dr. Beary Bluejeans esq.’s details into the computer terminals and finally, finally, smelled freedom. Beary was safely ensconced in his ‘house’ (which Barry was apparently allowed to colour in), Barry was handed a birth certificate, rinsed for more money than he anticipated, and finally allowed to leave. He blinked groggily as he emerged into the daylight. Barry was never ever ever returning to that cursed shop. Even for Lup. He could have sworn he’d lost years of his life wandering around that maze and trying to complete all the stupid tasks.

_________

Barry left the box on the doorstep, rang the bell, and fled. This was how friends delivered gifts, it was fine, in fact, Lup didn’t even have to know it was from him. His phone rang, Lup’s ringtone dragged his hand to his pocket before he’d even thought about it. 

“Hey Barold, what’s in the goth box? I love the paint job, flame decal door is going right onto my Lup’s Dreamhouse wishlist.”

“I… uh.” Said Barry, intelligently.

“I can see you fleeing down the street, wanna turn round, Bluejeans? Not that the view is bad from here. Wink.”

Barry wheezed down the phone, turned, turned back, and debated throwing himself into a bush. If she couldn’t see him she couldn’t tease him, right?

“Okay… You continue rotating, my guy. Lup’s cracking into goth house of wonder to see what you got me.”

“I… I, well, you see… It’s… er.”

“Barold… Barry…” Lup gasped for breath. “Barry, why… why is this bear wearing hot pants?”

“Yes.” Said Barry. Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe if he explained? She didn’t understand how much he needed to escape by the trouser selection stage.

“The bear is wearing denim hotpants.”

“They’re blue jeans.”

“My guy, they are blue jorts.”

“He’s called Beary.”

“Beary Bluejorts?” Lup cackled so hard he had to move the phone away from his ear. He moved it back just in time to hear “I love him.”

[slowlyhardgoatee]

You there. Get over here.

Yeah, I’m talking to you, boy, don’t act like you didn’t know. C’mere a minute. I’ve been watching you, boy, while you’ve been on this beach. You’ve been staring at every big daddy bear in sight, haven’t you, boy? Don’t lie. You’re tenting your swim shorts right now.

So, you like big, fat old men. I don’t know what you’re shaking your head for. That wasn’t a question. And again, a lie. You like lying, don’t you, boy? Yes. Good. That’s the first honest thing you’ve said.

Since you like lying so much, we’re gonna play a game. The game is called ‘two truths and a lie’. Here’s how it works. I’m gonna say three statements, which are about you. Two are true, one isn’t. If you guess correctly which one is a lie, you’ll get a reward. If you don’t, you’ll get a punishment.

Statement one: you’re on the lookout for a big, stocky or fat old bear, that’s why you’re here.

Statement two: you’re a total bottom.

Statement three: your biggest fantasy is getting publicly fucked by a fat old man while he verbally humiliates you and everyone else watches.

Which is the lie? Statement three? Incorrect. I watched your cock get harder and harder as I said that statement. In fact, all three of those statements are true, isn’t that right, boy? Yeah.

Well, I said you’d get a punishment if you got it wrong. Now, the fact is, the reward and punishment are the same. I’m gonna be publicly fucking you up the arse, right here on this beach. The only difference is, because you got it wrong, I won’t be using any condoms or lube when I rape you, boy.

That’s right, slut. You’ll be taking every inch of my sixty-eight-year-old cock up that faggot cunt, raw. How old are you? Nineteen? Good. I’ll make sure to loudly refer to that age gap as people start watching us fuck. I bet you’re a virgin, and all, am I right? Yeah? Fuck, this just gets better and better.

On your hands and knees, boy. You can’t deny you’ve been after my cock. I’ve watched you basically fucking drooling over my bulge. And now you’ll have it up your twat where it belongs, boy.

Yeah, get them fucking shorts off, slut. Bend over for Sir. Good boy. You ready to get fucked while there’s people watching? Yeah? There’s a good crowd gathering already, boy. Ready for my pensioner’s cock? Yeah? Fucking fifty year age gap between us, boy, and I’m about to fucking stuff your cunt full of my meat. You want it? Yeah? You want Sir’s fat cock up there, boy? Raw? What’s that - you don’t give a fuck who sees? Good lad. Me neither. All these people are gonna watch me rape my load up your virgin arse, boy. Get ready… now sit on it.

Fuck yeah, take it, you slut. Nice and fucking deep. Kiss goodbye to your virginity, faggot. Yeah, that’s you just had your fucking cherry popped by a fat old bear in public. Hold still for my fucking seed, cunt boy. Here it comes… yeah… yeah… FUUUUUCCK yeah, you slut, take it raw, you dirty fucking faggot boy. Fuck. Climb off me, boy. Clamp that cunt closed. You’re keeping my cream inside you for as long as I say. Now get on your knees and lick my fat fucking cock clean. Thaaat’s the fucking stuff, good lad.

Oh, you didn’t cum? I could give a fuck. Don’t even think about touching yourself, boy. You’re lucky I haven’t passed your arse around every big hairy fat old man on this beach. Hmmm. In fact, that’s not a bad idea. Yeah. Right, back on your hands and knees, back arched and I want you loudly begging to be a public cum dump. Form an orderly queue, fellas! This faggot’s here for public use. Overweight, over-sixties hairy old men only. Don’t worry about condoms or lube - I certainly didn’t. Rape his nineteen-year-old cunt raw. As far as he’s concerned, the fatter, the hairier and the bigger the age gap, the better. I’m charging a fiver a rape, two for the price of one, and we’ll be here all week. Nut up his arse as often as you want. That’s what he’s fucking here for, isn’t that right, faggot? Yeah. ‘Yes, Sir’. Good boy. Here comes your first client, boy. Get that fucking back arched like the slag you are.

[bestworstcase]

I also have to disagree with your common take on the huntsman academies as fully flawed. Huntsman allow for a high concentration of combat prowess and flexibility, at a nominally lower cost of manpower, resources, and overall risk. The alternative is large standing armies, which require a far higher amount of manpower, weapons, and risk. The upside of armies is a wider spread of power, but it is at greater risk of defeat in detail. This is what lead to the city state layout we see in rwby. I see the implementation of huntsman was to encourage and support expansion. Local militia have no hope of countering the more distinct Grimm threats.

i’ve briefly summarized my logistical reasoning on this topic a few times before, but here we go:

#1: population

grimm are the dominant form of life on remnant and their presence is the single most significant restriction on the habitability of any given territory, hence the scarcity of major population centers. a generous estimate puts the total number of urban areas in the world at around ten; this requires assuming that patch has town of significant size somewhere on the basis of it being able to support a primary combat school, although this does not align with its portrayal in the show and its geographic proximity to vale make it plausible for the student body to be largely commuters; discounting patch, there are nine urban areas in the world: atlas, mantle, mistral, argus, kuchinashi, kuo kuana, vacuo, coquina, and vale.

i say urban areas rather than cities because it is unlikely that all of these settlements are of a size that we would think of as a city in the real world: the total global population is counted in millions and the entire population of two major cities (atlas + mantle) numbers in the thousands and is successfully evacuated, by magical means but on foot, within what seems to be less than twenty minutes(!).

but as per usual animation is a medium that i find annoyingly vague so we are going to do math now 💜

to calculate the total combined population of atlas and mantle we are first going to make some necessary assumptions:

1 - some amount of time is skipped before cinder enters the portal space. (necessary for reasons discussed shortly.)

2 - the layout of the portal structure is perfectly numerically regular (this is necessary because the organic shapes of the paths and the camera work makes it impossible to count the portals with acceptable accuracy.)

3 - the apparent number of entrances inside the portal space is equal to the actual number of gateways physically present in the cities.

4 - nobody flees backwards when cinder attacks and people still in the cities continue to enter the portals at a steady pace throughout the fight until both cities are fully evacuated. (this is unrealistic—crowds are not this rational, many people would instinctively bolt for the nearest exit, and queues of evacuees entering the portal would be pushed back and start to panic. but it makes the math cleaner to pretend otherwise and we can just treat our answer as a high ceiling.)

5 - the actual evacuation is far larger and more orderly than it appears to be due to the logistical difficulty involved in animating masses of people.

first we need to figure out how long it takes to get every evacuee into the portal space. evacuees begin to enter the portal space around the 3:30 mark in 8.13 and continue, excluding 5:15-10:45 (flashback), until scene cuts away at 13:45. at this point we get a glimpse of about a dozen people running for a portal in the streets of mantle; the dense, orderly evacuation from the mantle crater and atlas subways is over by this point and only the stragglers who stuck it out in their homes remain, so we’ll say the large, high-efficiency guided evacuation got everyone through the portals in (rounding up a tad here) about five minutes and stragglers continued to pour in at about a sixth* of the rate for the remainder of the evacuation. scenes inside the portal with refugees visible entering in the background resume at 2:45-3:45, 4:45-5:45, and 7:05 in 8.14; by around 8:30 there are no longer people running down the paths, making the straggler phase about three and a half minutes and the entire evacuation less than ten minutes long. because this is a hilariously nonsensical amount of time to coordinate an evacuation with a few hundred people, let alone thousands, we’ll say that the guided evacuation took a while, maybe half an hour or so to get organized and had been properly ongoing for about five minutes before cinder interrupted, for a total of ten minutes for the main and thirteen and a half minutes of stragglers.

*an amount i’m coming to by way of the guided evacuation bringing people through in groups of as many across as will comfortably fit—about eight—versus the stragglers coming through one or two at a time. the guided evacuation as shown is NOT this efficient, but see assumption #5.

next, we’ll presume that 75% of the portals were concentrated in the crater and the atlas subway to accommodate the very high volume of people sheltering there and the remaining 25% distributed evenly across both cities to cast the widest possible net for stragglers. the portals in the dedicated evacuation zones are utilized with maximum efficiency, let’s say eight people (walking abreast) per portal every two seconds for 10 minutes; the straggler portals admit two people every three seconds for 18.5 minutes.

the last thing we need is the number of portals. assuming the portal structure is numerically regular makes this pretty simple: the exit platform sits at the nexus of twelve major arteries, each artery splits into three branches, and each branch ends in a node with three entrances. there are 108 portals in total; 81 lead to evacuation zones, 27 are for stragglers.

so, using these estimates: the kids and the happy huntresses are able to evacuate 2,400 people per portal, 194,400 total within 10 minutes of sending the first rows through, meanwhile about 14,580 people evacuate themselves (540 per portal) in the 13.5 minutes after the word spreads enough to get people moving steadily toward the straggler portals. this gives us a high ceiling for the combined population of the two cities of about 209,000 rounded to the nearest thousand. if you want to leave out the ‘bonus time’ we added to be generous, that figure drops to roughly 106,000. i think the two hundred thousand figure fits pretty well with the small geographic footprint and high density of the two cities and the more conservative hundred thousand feels like a reasonable floor for the same; as a matter of personal taste i would chop about 15% off the ceiling to account for inefficiencies and call it 182,000 or so. i don’t think you can reasonably go much higher than two hundred thousand, because the evacuation is on a *very* tight schedule as the city falls and already winding down when cinder attacks; that the steady trickles of stragglers in the background of the fight slowly thin out and then stop with plenty of time to spare demonstrates that the evacuation is completed successfully. it’s possible that some people refused to leave (this is a common difficulty in real evacuations) but this would have been a very small minority given the immediate direness of the situation; and since the free cities almost certainly survived (salem approaches atlas from the west—note position of the sunrise upon her arrival—and the free cities are all well east of atlas) i’d imagine those who had the means to do so fled as soon as the grimm were gone, although this assumes ironwood wouldn’t also shoot down the personal vehicles of atlesian citizens if they tried to leave. there’s just not a lot of logistical wiggle room for more people. so, atlas and mantle together had a population somewhere in the range of one to two hundred thousand people.

in real world terms that is pretty small. there are 80+ cities in the world with more than five million people living in them. a municipality with a population of one hundred or even two hundred thousand is not significant at all—but on remnant atlas and mantle together represent one of the four largest population centers in the world, and atlas is a sovereign city-state and a notable economic and military power on the global stage. vale and mistral might be more populous because they’re much older and more environmentally hospitable, but both of them are considerably less dense than mantle and mistral in particular doesn’t seem to have a footprint much larger than mantle does, so they’re probably within the same order of magnitude: three to five hundred people, maybe. kuchinashi and argus are likely on the lower end of our estimates for mantle and atlas or a bit smaller. kuo kuana rather sprawls but is not urbanized at all, although it does have (both visually and in the sense that the characters comment on it) a markedly higher population density than is normal for remnant; it might be up there with vale mistral. vacuo is small but cramped and coquina seems to be a modest town moreso than a city.

i could see an argument for vale breaking the threshold of one million people—i think it’s a stretch, but the city has by far the largest geographic footprint, most of it seems to be moderately urbanized with a very dense urban center, and the population was large enough to support a heavily urbanized client city prior to mountain glenn’s decimation. but half a million or so seems more reasonable to me, in scale with the other major cities.

anyway, the point i’m coming to is this: the global population is in millions. i tend to think somewhere in the four to nine million range but not five, because if it were two or three or five million i feel it’s more natural in english to say two million or three million or five million vs millions? YMMV. 10+ million seems implausible based on the size of the major cities. we’ll go with four for the purpose of this discussion, to be conservative. so, four million people live on the planet. lets say, highballing a bit, that:

- vale’s population is 500,000

- mistral’s is 300,000

- kuo kuana’s is 250,000

- atlas/mantle, argus, and kuchinachi’s are 200,000

- vacuo’s is 100,000

- and coquina’s is 50,000.

in total, that gives us about 1.5M people living within the four kingdoms and 1.8M altogether living in the four kingdoms plus menagerie.

do you see where i’m going with this?

if the world’s population is multiple millions, and if the approximate math on atlas/mantle’s evacuation checks out congruously with the cities as depicted and with cinder pegging the population as “thousands”—which it does—and if we eyeball the population figures for the other major cities based on their visual characteristics as they compare to atlas/mantle, and if we interpret the “millions” figure given in 7.13 to mean any number greater than three, we are mathematically forced to conclude that the MAJORITY of remnant’s population live outside the five unitary states, in small independent settlements or as nomads.

now up until about, oh, two months ago i would have said here that this back of napkin stuff is way too granular to base analysis off of (although it IS fun for fanfic purposes) because the intention does seem to be a lot of desolate wilderness beyond the fortified walls of the major population centers—

and then arrowfell dropped the bomb (TO ME. no one else cares about this but it is a bomb TO ME) that there are free cities on solitas. SOLITAS! the inhospitable frozen wasteland of the polar north has multiple independent settlements scattered across the plains east of the mountains and thriving with negligible economic reliance on atlas, although essen does presumably import grain from argus given the otherwise inexplicable presence of a windmill. the oodles of nomadic desert people in the CFVY novels were one thing—if there’s a desert in a fantasy story there will be nomads living in it, it’s not unexpected for there to be nomads in vacuo—but there are VILLAGES on the SOLITAN ICE SHEETS.

—so i am no longer taking it as a given that the apparent majority of the world’s population living outside of the kingdoms is a side effect of the writing team not being me-levels of unhinged about this sort of thing. you don’t put a constellation of functional little independent polities in one of the harshest environment on the planet if you don’t intend to convey that people live in a hell of a lot more places than the minuscule number of unitary states might otherwise suggest, and in light of arrowfell, the village blacksmith in 4.1 who shrugs at the collapse of the CCTS network and the mayor who treats the weeks-long harassment of a powerful grimm like a troublesome irritant feel rather more salient than they did before. irrespective of whether it is meant to be a majority, a significant portion of the millions of people living on remnant live in the nominal “wilderness” outside the major population centers.

#2: the scope of the grimm threat

now the reason i’m being so particular about the distribution of remnant’s population is this: the huntsmen are an institution of the four kingdoms. individual huntsmen certainly can and do take contracts beyond the jurisdiction of the four kingdoms, but for people living in remote areas there is the obvious logistical problem that 1. huntsmen contracts are handled entirely through digital job boards within the CCTS network, and 2. CCTS coverage outside of the kingdoms is canonically poor even before beacon tower falls. unreliable network access means unreliable access to the huntsmen institution, resulting in situations like the one shown in 4.1: small villages weathering multiple attacks by grimm for weeks without hiring a huntsman to deal with the problem because they don��t have the means to post a contract to the CCTS network. the fall of beacon makes this problem worse, but the village in 4.1 (which isn’t even remote, it’s a few days travel on foot from a large town) is stated to have had minimal reception even before beacon tower went down. there are also regions like the vacuan desert, where harsh weather causes frequent, unpredictable network blackouts.

outside the kingdoms, larger towns (like shion) might contract one or two huntsmen on a permanent basis, and settlers like the brunswicks can bring hired huntsmen with them when they leave the urban center. but even a town as large as kuroyuri did not have a resident huntsman (li ren was a hunter, like of animals) and the norm for small settlements seems to be that they mostly deal with grimm by themselves, huntsmen being available only when they happen to pass through.

now, bearing that in mind: small and remote settlements actually seem to fare pretty well against the grimm under normal circumstances. in 5.5 oscar, a fourteen year old farm boy with no prior combat training, rather dismissively says he’s dealt “the occasional small grimm” as a way of illustrating his lack of combat experience. in the rural parts of the world, it’s SO ORDINARY for a young teenager to have killed a grimm here and there that it’s not culturally perceived as really “fighting.” the mayor in 4.1 is similarly casual about his village fending off the persistent harassment of a dangerous grimm for “weeks” before RNJR came along. and in arrowfell, when a megoliath attacks essen village, the villagers stay calm and keep their distance from it… and it just kind of mills around in the deserted area instead of going on a rampage. like the villagers in 4.1, the people of essen are cognizant of the possibility that they might need to evacuate if the situation escalates, but they don’t panic. they don’t even treat the presence of an enormous grimm in the village center like an emergency.

and that’s a little strange, isn’t it? everything we’re told about life outside the kingdoms, filtered through the perspectives of huntsmen characters, would suggest that small villages are the MOST vulnerable to the grimm—but what we’re *shown* is that villagers have a cautious but fairly casual outlook on the grimm, and surviving an “attack” by grimm too large to beat might even be as simple as calmly retreating from the immediate area to monitor the situation until the grimm goes away. at minimum, it is clear that calmly, slowly putting distance between yourself and a grimm is a relatively effective way to escape. the lack of martial power in small villages doesn’t seem to make these settlements more vulnerable so much as it fosters a very different attitude towards grimm and a very different survival strategy than that of the urban areas.

what IS extremely dangerous—and this has been demonstrated over and over again—is onslaught by very large numbers of grimm. that is something even the fortified, well-defended cities struggle deal with; the city of mountain glenn was overwhelmed and collapsed so catastrophically that vale sealed it off and left the survivors to their fate, vale is completely overrun during the battle of beacon and has to be slowly reclaimed over a period of days/weeks, and whole sectors of mantle become uninhabitable after grimm invade the city en masse and ironwood withdraws his forces. lone grimm, even packs of grimm, don’t wipe out established settlements. hordes do.

so.

here’s where this gets interesting.

why do grimm hordes happen?

1 - mountain glenn: merlot industries deliberately lured grimm to the city in steadily increasing numbers until the perimeter defenses failed and the populace retreated underground; the final disaster occurred when an explosion (implied by grimm eclipse to have been deliberate sabotage orchestrated by merlot) breached a subterranean nest of grimm, who flooded into the city.

2 - vale: cinder coordinated multiple terroristic attacks and orchestrated the brutal murder of a child during an internationally televised sporting event, then capped it off with a speech blaming it all on the governments of the four kingdoms. the resulting mass hysteria drew grimm to the city like moths to flame, overwhelming the perimeter defenses.

3 - mantle: after months of escalating social unrest, political assassinations, and a shocking election disappointment, watts turned off the heat in mantle. the resulting mass hysteria drew grimm to the city like moths to flame and the already-crumbling, long-neglected perimeter defenses made it impossible to push the grimm back again as vale did.

4 - atlas: salem brought a literal army of grimm to lay siege to atlas and then sacked the city.

5 - shion: the branwen bandits sacked the town and ran; grimm followed and picked off the panicking survivors. note the state of the town itself (scorched buildings, smoldering ruins) suggest that most of the destruction is the result of the raiders setting the town ablaze and it is unclear how much was even left when the grimm arrived.

4 - oniyuri and kuroyuri: an extremely old, strong, and intelligent grimm attacked, and the resulting mass hysteria drew other grimm en masse. (the nuckelavee keeps trophies from its victims in its den; it appears to be both sapient and actively malicious.)

5 - the unnamed village in ruby’s V4 character short: not stated outright, but the fact that it is on fire, deserted, and most likely located within branwen territory point towards it having been raided.

7 - gossan, feldspar, and other small settlements destroyed during the events of “after the fall”: a teenage boy with a semblance he can’t fully control causes cyclical bursts of mass hysteria, which lure the grimm; this gets slowly more severe as the people come to believe that they’re cursed.

8 - crossed (destroyed) and dormir (evacuated): thornmane and his co-conspirator plant artificial grimm bait in and around the free cities and in mantle and atlas, which pull frenzied grimm into the area after activation and lead to unusually high grimm activity in the region until they’re discovered and destroyed.

10 - vacuo: the crown stages a coup and marches an army on shade academy; in this case the grimm actually end up helping the situation, because the attacking force has augmented auras and the grimm target them to the exclusion of everyone else and are fairly easily driven back when the delicious glowing snacks are gone.

11 - brunswick farms: bartleby purposefully lured the apathy into the tunnels underneath the farm and then bricked up the wall to trap them there without telling anybody, because he wanted to cut costs by firing the huntsman he had on contract.

12 - an unknown number of settlements destroyed during the great war: A GLOBAL WAR RAGED ACROSS THE SANITE COUNTRYSIDE FOR TEN YEARS between sacking of forts and farms by warring forces, the likelihood of desperate displaced people resorting to banditry to survive, and grimm swarming from battlefield to battlefield one has to wonder if there were any small towns left in the contested territories by the time the war ended.

13 - kuchinashi and outlying communities: two criminal organizations start a vicious gang war over a magic amulet that gives its wearer the power to command any and all grimm in the immediate vicinity. grimm under the command of the amulet and grimm drawn in by the chaos of the gang war wreak havoc on the surrounding countryside.

see the pattern here? there are exceptions, but the huge majority of grimm hordes form as a direct consequence of mass violence or sabotage committed by people. war, banditry, terroristic attacks, state violence, persecution—these are the causal forces behind grimm hordes. it’s just not something grimm do on their own.

[sidebar: if the huntsmen were intended to support settlement and expansion after the great war they failed catastrophically: mountain glenn was one of two major expansion attempts originating from the four kingdoms after the war, and its collapse is widely known as vale’s greatest failure; meanwhile atlas originated as a remarkably successful expansion of mantle, slowly mutated into a fascist stratocracy, and then collapsed within a few decades of ozpin & co. deciding to elevate it as a symbol of the prosperity and peace brought about by the post-war order. meanwhile the faunus fought a war to earn civil rights in the kingdoms, got shoved onto a small and mostly-inhospitable island and told to shut up, and built kuo kuana into a city-state comparable in size to the four kingdoms, which—well, let’s talk about kuo kuana!]

kuo kuana has neither a huntsman academy nor a combat school. menagerie does not participate in the huntsmen institution nor keep a standing military, and does not appear to even rely on a perimeter wall to keep the grimm out. in 5.10 the chieftan’s house is burned down by a cultish extremist sect of a civil organization in a shocking public spectacle and there is not so much as a peep from the grimm. if this incident did trigger a grimm horde and it was successfully stopped at the perimeter, then menagerie’s grimm management strategy is unequivocally the most effective in the world, far better than the militarized approach taken by the four kingdoms. if this incident did not trigger a grimm horde, it is almost certainly because the residents of kuo kuana did not panic and banded together as a community to tackle the problem head-on, and that suggests that the small village strategy for dealing with grimm by coexisting with them is more effective than the militarized huntsman system, even at national scale.

either way i don’t know how to interpret the conspicuous absence of grimm problems in menagerie other than by concluding that fortifications, soldiers, and a specialized warrior class are not the only or best way to handle the grimm threat. and with the extensive evidence that hordes form mostly in response to mass violence or exploitation, the only logical conclusion is that the single most effective way to mitigate the existential threat of the grimm is to deal with the societal problems that foster bigotry, crime, and extremism—and conversely that a system that allows systemic injustices to remain entrenched is inherently counterproductive to the goal of keeping people safe from the grimm.

you don’t, in short, need a large standing army or even a local militia to keep the grimm at bay if you build a society that is functional, equitable, and peaceful.

#3: the huntsmen system

but high-level structural approaches aside, the four kingdoms are not equitable or peaceful societies and in the case of atlas/mantle and vacuo they cannot even truly be called functional, hence the need for warriors to fend off the grimm. even within this context, the huntsmen system is rife with inefficiencies and logistical problems.

number one: there are a lot of grimm, perhaps one and a half million people within the kingdoms alone, and about… oh, one or two thousand active huntsmen in the entire world. yes it’s math time again:

“after the fall” (which, being a novel, is not limited by the constraints of animation vis-a-vis crowd size) confirms the size of a class at beacon to be forty students in total (twenty tokens to initiate ten teams of four). this matches the numbers shown during the initiation in volume one, so we can assume it’s consistent from year to year. beacon is a four-year academy; if it admits new students once per year like a real university, its total student body is 160.

it is unlikely that the other three academies are of significantly different size, except haven, because mistral encompasses three major population centers (argus, mistral city, and kuchinashi) together exceeding vale in population. so we’ll say that haven is double the size of beacon while shade and atlas are of comparable size. if we assume that every single student who enrolls at an academy survives, passes the licensing exam, and becomes a professional huntsman or huntress after graduating, then a total of two hundred new academy-trained huntsmen are licensed each year. now, it’s possible to take the exam without attending an academy, so we’ll add another fifty to represent people who trained privately and were able to pass the exam, for a total of 250 new huntsmen becoming active each year.

being a huntsman is a dangerous, difficult job. we have yet to meet an active huntsman or huntress older than maybe forty; the ones older than that are retired, working as teachers, or dead. also, at least three dozen huntsmen in mistral died or vanished during missions over a period of about 10 weeks without raising any red flags—lionheart does not seem to be under scrutiny by the council or anything like that, so while these casualty rates are definitely higher than normal, they’re probably not higher than can be accounted for by an uptick in grimm activity after the fall of beacon.

based on this, we’ll say the average career of a huntsman from being licensed at 21 to retirement is about twenty years. during the ten week period of assassinations in mistral, salem’s agents kill 3-4 huntsmen per week, which is higher than normal but not extremely so, so we’ll lump career-ending injuries in with deaths and treat three casualties per week as the global average, abnormal in a small region but within the range of what might be expected as a cluster of bad luck based on how often huntsmen die or retire early due to disability worldwide. that means we lose about 156 huntsmen every year, and the profession has a net annual gain of 94. with an average career length of twenty years, total number of huntsmen in the world should fluctuate a bit but hover somewhere around 1,900; and this is with the optimistic assumption that no students ever die or drop out or fail the licensing exam, which we know is not actually the case.

even without accounting for corruption within the profession and the reality that many huntsmen engage in criminal activities and may have their licenses revoked for such, this system mathematically does not work. there are not enough huntsmen to put a meaningful dent in the grimm population. there are not enough huntsmen to effectively secure even just the major cities of the four kingdoms, let alone outlying communities responsible for vitally necessary agricultural and industrial production (which reasonably should be the first priority, so it is a problem in and of itself that most huntsmen aren’t spending their times defending farms, fishing boats, mills, and mines), LET ALONE the other 2+ million people who don’t live in the four kingdoms. even if we get patently absurd and pretend that NO huntsmen die and ALL 250 new huntsmen licensed per year serve exactly twenty years before retirement, we get a total of five thousand active huntsmen in the entire world.

that is not enough.

number two: once licensed, huntsmen exist above the law with virtually no regulatory oversight.

huntsmen can have their licenses suspended for egregious criminality or reckless incompetence (this is the backstory of an NPC in the grimm campaign and happens to the two huntsmen who smash up a bank in vale in “roman holiday”) but many huntsmen engage in corrupt or outright criminal activities without consequence. criminal huntsmen are the main antagonists of arrowfell and the CFVY novels and appear as major and minor foes throughout the grimm campaign, dee and dudley solicit bribes from passengers with the implied threat that they won’t protect people who don’t pay them with zero consequences besides being told to knock it off by qrow, and while raven‘s license has presumably been suspended she is also proof that suspension of a license amounts to little more than an ineffective slap on the wrist. also, the huntsmen in roman holiday are suspended by the vale huntsmen guild—so the regulatory authority here is other huntsmen, which makes even this nominal level of oversight vulnerable to institutional corruption.

all of this is by design, because ozma feared that making huntsmen subordinate to national governments would foster division and conflict and his solution was to make the elite warrior class “free to choose who they work for, as well as what kind of work they will do, through the use of mission boards” i.e. they are autonomous mercenaries with the authority to act as law enforcement within the kingdoms.

beyond the obvious and frequent corruption of the huntsmen themselves, it is shown that the nearly absolute freedom and privileges afforded to huntsmen has led to huntsmen having a reputation as people who can go anywhere and do whatever they want. the profession attracts both people with noble intentions and people who covet the social and political power wielded by huntsmen—the bertilak celadons and bram thornmanes of the world.

and in atlas, where students of atlas academy are subject to intense military indoctrination, militarized huntsmen (the ace-ops) effectively serve as “attack dogs” on behalf of the increasingly fascist state.

number three: even among huntsmen who do truly believe in and strive to live up to the ideal of what huntsmen are supposed to be, the system used to distribute huntsmen services is both inefficient and inequitable.

huntsmen are, as noted, government-sanctioned mercenaries. it’s a job. they need money to live, they reasonably cannot offer their services for free even if they wanted to.

people in need of huntsmen post contracts to a digital job board, and huntsmen claim these as they please. informal and illicit arrangements can obviously be made by other means but the only official channel through which a huntsman’s services can be acquired is the job board.

what this means in practice is that the huntsmen institution serves the needs of people and organizations who can afford to pay well for very dangerous work and who have, as discussed, reliable access to the CCTS network. if you do not have money, the huntsmen are not for you. if you live somewhere with poor or inconsistent reception, the huntsmen are not for you. if you desperately need help but the contract you posted four weeks ago doesn’t look interesting to any of the few dozen huntsmen active in your area and it’s just been languishing there unanswered, the huntsmen are not for you. if you live in a densely populated region and there are thousands of open contracts on the board and only a hundred huntsmen, the huntsmen are probably not going to be for you for months if they get to you at all. if a huntsman takes your contract and then decides you’re a bad client and tells all their colleagues never to take a contract from you because you complained when they dumped the contents of your entire cargo hold into the sea, the huntsmen are not for you.

the only way to make this system even remotely functional and fair in its stated purpose of protecting everybody from the grimm would be to operate it as a government agency, assign huntsmen to every region proportionally to the population and average grimm activity, and fund it with taxes and make it free to the public. but even that can only work if you have a lot more huntsmen—and assuming the tiny size of the academies isn’t simply a matter of intense exclusivity*, it’s probable that there just aren’t enough willing and able people to establish a warrior class much larger than the couple thousand that exists in reality.

[*which is possible, because the actual point of the institution is for the huntsmen academies to act as impenetrable fortresses in which to secure the relics, and a smaller, tightly-knit student body is easier to mold for this purpose.]

#4: what’s the alternative?

besides the obvious answer of modeling the four kingdoms’ grimm management strategy on whatever kuo kuana is doing because it clearly works better?

large standing armies are indeed a far worse solution than the huntsmen: more cumbersome, more expensive, more resource-intensive, and as demonstrated by the test of the atlesian military against salem’s grimm in volume eight, markedly less effective at actually killing grimm than your average huntsman, because the grimm cannot be countered well by the standard toolkit of an infantry unit and bombing doesn’t accomplish much more than thinning them out. also, deploying armies to fight roaming monsters is a logistical nightmare i don’t even want to think about.

no, if the social conditions required to adopt a low-conflict management strategy are not present i think the most viable option is robust self-defense training as a mandatory component of public education. releasing a person’s aura is as simple as having an experienced practitioner guide them in a meditative exercise and you can kill the average grimm by stabbing it with a pitchfork. there is absolutely no reason not to teach the general public how to protect themselves if they encounter a grimm. keep the huntsman around to deal with unusual threats or situations that require professional expertise—but for god’s sake reform them into a government agency with strong oversight and set up legal and material protections for civilians harmed by corrupt abuses of power—and invest in making sure that crossing paths with a grimm or two is not an automatic death sentence for the average civilian, make legal provisions for everyone to carry arms within reason (historical regulations restricting the size of swords that could be worn within the walls of a city are sort of a fun concept to play with here, for fanfic purposes), and don’t criminalize self-defense against the grimm holy fuck.

i grew up in bear country. i know how to minimize the possibility of encountering a bear in the wilderness and what to do to maximize my chance of surviving in the event that i am attacked by one, and also i have taken classes in gun safety even though i have never and will never own a gun, because gun safety was a mandatory part of the public school curriculum. everyone on remnant lives in grimm country; everyone on remnant should know how to keep themselves safe from the grimm, and the answer should not be “hope a huntsman is close enough to hear you scream and get there before you’re dead.”

not everyone can be a huntsman. MOST PEOPLE cannot reach the physical peak the huntsmen are expected to maintain. but everyone has aura and presumably most people could learn basic defensive techniques if they were trained to do so, and most people can learn to swing a sword or shoot a gun and be a responsible weapons-owner, and everyone can learn how to cope with fear and distress, everyone can be taught emotional techniques for staying calm during a crisis situation, and everyone can drill emergency responses like “quickly and safely vacate the park if a grimm crawls out of the river” to reduce the kind of mass hysteria that triggers grimm swarming behavior.

also grimm studies is canonically pseudoscience but any grimm management strategy worth its salt really ought to be committed to intensive scientific study of the grimm to figure out 1. why they prey on people, what physiological need drives them to do that, 2. if anything can be done to address this need in a way that eliminates the necessity of violence between people and grimm, and if not, 3. develop better understandings of how grimm work so that existing strategies for dealing with them can be made better.

[here2bbtstrash]

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no words......... wtf. i am truly jungshook. thank u all 🥺 i'll try to come back to say something more profound later..... for now: forehead kisses for everyone who wants one pls form an orderly queue 😘💜